It sucks not being able to make plans two nights a week for
three months or four months because you know you're locked
in. And especially when you're on
the bench, it sucks because you're like, I'm, I'm literally
just sitting here. Well, I could walk and watch the
VOD after the fact. Victory for the Forsaken.
For Lauderon. For the Karen tour for.
Pandaria. For calendar to the.
Burning region for Gilnaeus or has not died, for the Lich King,
for the Sindori, for the Alliance, for the Horn, for
Azeroth. Hello and welcome to another
episode of For Azeroth. I am one of your hosts the
Truvial Manny AKA Manny and I am joined by two lovely Co hosts.
First introducing, Sorry, I'm just about to introduce you
first Sean. Sorry, first introducing.
Well, I guess I just said Sean. So hello first introducing Sean
on the lovely East Coast. How are you?
How are is the World of Warcraft treating you this week?
Now World of Warcraft treated me good Manny.
I got a Mythic Gaze of the Almsir out of my Warriors vault
on NA, which is huge because I'm a tank, which means the chances
of me getting one from the raid is slim to none because
literally everybody wants 1. I think there's like 3 specs
that don't want one. It's a very, very popular
trinket. But I pulled it on my vault.
It was a big week for the gays. We got one for me, we got one
for my friend Nick who plays in our AOTC team to get a heroic 1,
and I think one of our healers got one of our her vault too.
Yeah, huge week. So it's been going good.
And that's a really good Paladins prog like Blinded
Vanguard. And then that got nerfed, which
means the damage check will be slightly easier, so we'll
probably kill that this week there.
You go, there you go. I Congrats to you, Congrats to
Nick and Congrats to everybody. You got something good out of
their vault. I know a lot of people call it
the weekly disappointment, but I thought I find that especially
this early in this season, there's just so many wins in
there. It's so good.
Especially when it's the gays.
Yeah, yeah. That's the biggest win I've
always. I was the only.
It's a great, like it honestly is a really good trinket because
it, it's, it's so powerful for everybody.
It's like 50% ahead of my next best trinket.
The only issue is how loud it is.
If we could just find some way to turn the volume down in the
gaze just a little bit, then that would be perfect.
Yep. OK, we're going to get
cancelled. I'm going to switch to a much.
I'm going to talk about something in my fault that I
think is a lot easier. I managed to get a box out of my
vault, so we got the puzzle box there.
Super happy about that myth track as well.
It does take about two minutes to like actually get that box
going, but oh baby, you get going when you once it's done.
So I'm happy about my unlock. Lex, how are you and how's your
fault? I'm dropping out of the show.
As of now, you will never hear my voice again.
I'm good, Manny. I'm doing well.
We finally got into heroic, which is very exciting,
starting, starting to do our little, our little.
And then we thought that we could go directly to chimeras.
We were like, Oh yeah, whatever. We just got to heroic.
Everyone says that's so easy. Yeah.
So we are going to be doing voice fire like good little
babies. After an hour and a half of
hitting that and being like, perhaps we need a little more
gear. Can I ask what your Do you know
what your team's average item level is?
I want to say in the two 60s. So it might be that we need a
little more paying attention. It's possible that we really
need is a little bit more, you know, doing our jobs.
But we'll say it's gear. There's this one Demon Hunter
who keeps like, you know, running in front of the tank and
like flipping and eye beaming everything before the tank gets
there and then being like why did I die?
I only tanked the big ad for a long time.
What an idiot. Anyway.
Don't you play Demon Hunter in your right?
Team who doesn't play Demon Hunter?
Sean. I think everyone plays Demon
Hunter in their souls. I just went and I just had to go
look it up because I'm just like, I wonder what the item
level is. Because like, yeah, I think that
if you're, let's say Sean's team, that was like pushing
through how many different like mythic zeros and getting their
item level up and everything. And then like making sure that
not only is that like I'd level there, but probably had like a
better selection of gear than like your team or my team that
was probably still had some veteran pieces and such.
So I could definitely see that it makes a difference.
I know with 'cause I'm rating with two teams, this this tier
one team walked right into it. We're like, OK, yeah, let's do
heroic. So we did normal and then we did
heroic because of course that trinket is so good that even
getting a normal version of it outstrips a lot of the stuff at
the higher end level. So that was good.
Another team that I went with did not did not perform as well.
And I think it specifically is about like the focus of the team
and the gear it is. It's definitely not easier than
the first. I'd say 3 bosses easily in. 4th
fire. We do also had a lot of shake
UPS over the last year. I think I've mentioned a couple
times that we are training a new tank and that, you know, this is
a really hard tier to be a new tank, right?
Like you lost it. It went from like tank means you
wait until it says loud in your ears, Tom swap and then you Tom
swap and then you're good, which, and that's another
implication. I know, and I, I, I tried
tanking it is I'm not very good at it.
So like very, very fair, not trying to be made of tanks.
But all of a sudden it became significantly more complex and a
lot of these bosses are very like tank heavy.
So I think we, we are aware of the fact that this is a tough
time for everyone. You know, a lot we're, we're all
kind of relearning our classes and how we engage with it and,
and you know, how we play our roles.
And we also have somebody who's coming into a role that was
always challenging, is now particularly challenging and
that he hasn't done on a tier that seems very like I'm just
looking from the outside, seems particularly tank heavy in
general. So we are aware that we are
going to be going through things a little slower and that's OK
because we're having fun. If they if your new tank gets
through this tier and at the end of it, they don't want to quit
being a tank, the next tier for them is going to be it's like
they're basically training with weights on this tier and next
tier. It's going to feel like they're
sprinting through a field. It's it is you're like there is
a lot more responsibilities on tanks in some of these fights.
The like Blind Vanguard, for example, the Dragons, the Double
Dragons fight that also very, very important.
And even Alaria, Crown of the Cosmos, a lot of tank
responsibility there. And Bella Ren as well, a lot of
tank responsibility. So it it is 100% a lot.
I would not want to be this. I would not want this to be my
first tier as a new tank. I would like that would be an
awful time, yeah. Cutting your teeth on one of the
most. Challenging tears.
When we were discussing potential tanks, I said, like, I
wasn't like, itching for tank, but if we were in a pinch, I
would be happy to take up the the tank mantle.
And then I started watching this, too.
And I'm like, you know what? I think the Gillies should do
it. I think we shouldn't have more
than one officer in a certain, you know, coveted role.
That's what I think is going on anyway.
Ask someone else. Yeah.
And I heard you use that excuse and I bought it.
I was like, oh, OK, yeah, that makes that if that falls not
knowing Lex was playing 40 chest, OK.
To be fair, I do actually in general believe that like that
was my biggest argument is I think especially the tank, which
is such a like hyper, like there's only two, right?
Like even healer, if you get 4, you can have swings.
And so I think it's both the like I in a, in an AOTC relaxed
kill team. I do think that ideally we
should leave at least one tank roll open for guilty so that
everyone gets a chance to play roles they really, really want.
OK. Well, I guess all the best lies
include a bit of truth. So let's get into the news.
First little bit of news that we have is 12 point O .5 is going
to be coming out next week and that includes a lot of content,
including gear that is both goes all the way up to hero gear.
When you when you do this content, and this is all like a
lot of outdoor content through that.
So this is dealing with the fallout after the raid.
We've got now these void assaults and void strikes.
And this is outdoor content that will show up in different
places. As you do more of the smaller
events, it'll build up to the bigger events.
If you recall the Fyric assaults from Dragonflight, it's similar
to that, where you do small things, it builds up the bar,
and then you'll do the big, the big thing accumulating with a
world boss. On top of that, we also have
instance content, which are the ritual sites.
And these ritual sites are kind of like delves with the twist.
They're delves mixed with horrific visions and in which
you get different affixes that will change the experience and
you can change them much like it with the the horrific visions
how you could get the different mass and use those to get like
different things. This will add in challenges.
So there are a bunch of different levels.
The first 3 levels are pretty much open and then the last two,
level 4 and level 5 you are required to put in some of these
challenges, but you get to choose what challenges they are
that's not random per week like they were in with the horrific
visions. And all of this will give you
currency, will work through a renowned track like everything
these days, and will allow you to buy not only up to heroic
level gear, but also trans transmog that is recolored Tier
2 and void versions of the blood elf gear as well.
The the other two things that are coming with 12 point O .5 is
the decor hunt, which is this like pretty light themed in in
sorry, rather like joyous, not light as in the force of light
and dark, but joyous themed little team hunt where people
will hide as different decor around this instance version of
Silverman, and then other people will go hunting for for them,
trying to discover them and kick them out.
This is again, I think it seems pretty good.
I actually think they made it a little too complicated because
there are tech trees to your hunting and to your hiding,
which is which is kind of annoying.
I almost wish they made it kind of like Team Fortress where it's
like you picked the class and that was what abilities you had.
And then and then it didn't go any deeper than that.
But yeah, there's a little bit of a tech tree.
There's of course cosmetic rewards that are in there as
well. And then the last thing is this
underwater diving off the coast of Zulaman, which is the one
that in my mind interested me least just because I've, I got I
still have terror from every underwater zone ever.
I don't think wow does underwater that well, but it,
it, it's again, another thing with tech tree with the ability
to go underwater, go and gather as much as you can.
And as you work through that tech tree, you'll be able to
gather more, go further, get get more and of course, get more
rewards. But there's a lot of I don't
want to call it pure single player because the Decor Hunt is
a technically PvP thing, but this is a lot more of short bite
size content to go through in the open world or in small
instances. Separate from that, of course,
we've got the new Void Crucible and Forge, which is this
season's version of Turbo Boost. You will be able to like upgrade
your items to new levels further along in the track and you will
also be able to get. I don't want to call this a
bonus roll. We had said that last time when
we were initially. Discussing this, it's called
bonus loot. OK, bonus loot.
You're guaranteed to get bonus loot when you redeem these.
Redeem these. But as we had in the
conversation a couple episodes back, it's not you're not
guaranteed to get exactly the item you want.
It will, it may be that you get on the first try, but you will
never get a repeated drop. So eventually you will get the
piece that you're after. So what do you guys think of
like all the stuff coming for 12 point O 5?
Is there any of the like activities that seem to excite
you? Let's start with you, Lex.
Yeah, it's a great time to be a solo player.
You were right. This is all very solo or single
player friendly. I think for example, with the
decor hunt or the decor duels. That is the type of thing that I
mean, without having played it, I want to be super clear.
I really genuinely thought this is something the World of
Warcraft team invented when they revealed it on their, you know,
the little video. So I don't know, I don't
understand how you're going to have a tech tree for this.
I'm I'm going to be learning all this on the fly.
Like, are you not just pretending to be a little thing
and you go in a corner and hope that nobody thinks like everyone
thinks there's a broom there anyway?
But my, my completely going in blind interpretation is that
this is the type of thing that's very easy to keep for solo.
We have to have a lot of stress. So I am very excited about that.
I'm very excited as a solo player.
I have been feeling a little frustrated just because they're
like having some trouble motivating myself to log in
because now that I'm all at like maxed out champ will not Max
out, but I'm maxing out my champion year and I'm pushing
hero gear. It's hard for me to feel super
motivated to like do my delves and do my prey because I'm like,
yeah, like I got some currency, but that's kind of it.
Like I don't really need any more of this gear.
So having an opportunity to get hero gear, I think is going to
make it a lot easier for me to want to be getting on and
wanting to be doing these these these activities and will mean
that I can continue to gear up as a solo player.
Right. I was sort of at the point where
I was like, OK, am I do I have to start thinking seriously
about doing more mythic plus because I don't want to drag
down my team and all that. But if I can buy hero gear, then
I can have another season without any mythic plus.
We'll see if that actually happens, but I'm I'm really
excited. This seems like a lot of fun.
You're right that a lot of this does seem very delve adjacent or
heroic vision adjacent to have horrific vision adjacent, excuse
me, which I was having a lot of fun with.
So I'm I'm high. I think it's gonna be really
good. OK.
All right. Sean, what about you?
Any of this interests you where you're at?
Well. I will 100% be farming decor
duels because they put all of the absolute best trans mob on
the planet in that. In that system it's all of the
silver moon city guard weapons and Shields.
So pull arms one handed swords, war glaves, all the stuff that
the guards wear and the Shields. The guards have the city shield
guard. So I have no choice.
I have to play decor duel whether I want to or not.
So I will doing that. The obviously I'm going to
engage with the the quote UN quote turbo boost.
I don't have a choice because we got a gear up.
I actually feel weird like gearing was slowed down a lot
this expansion compared to where it was in the war within to the
point that like at this same point in the war within, I was
maxed out. I all of my items that I was
wearing were maxed upgrade and turbo boost hit and then it was
just convert all of my crests and then upgrade the new pieces.
Well, I am not maxed out now because they slowed down
gearing. So we're going to get all this
new these new tracks on this gear in turbo boost, but we're
not going to be able to Max them out right away.
So they've slowed down the gearing, which means it's going
to take a bit longer to to hit hit Max item level, which means
that keeps you playing for longer into the season.
We're seeing record numbers of Mythic Plus being done since
midnight Season 1 launched like when our third week of over
1,000,000 keys completed, which has never happened before.
And maybe it's because people are still here.
But yeah, I, I do that. I do want everybody who's
listening. If you're excited about the
turbo boost and the bonus loot, which is a huge, huge advantage
to for upgrading alts or mains, make sure you're doing your void
Forge day weekly quests in Void storm because you have to do a
quest every week where you get 3 things from delves, rage or
mythic plus bosses and give them to Decimus and then he he picks
it up. Right now it's at 5.
You have to have done it five times.
You can do them all in the same day, but you only get a drop at
the end boss of a dungeon Delvor from a raid boss.
So make sure you're you're up to speed with that.
You're definitely not going to want to be trying to unlock that
next week when you want to be grabbing your bonus loop.
But yeah, 12.5 is coming. A lot of like, like said, a lot
of stuff for for solo players, a lot of stuff for gearing up
alts. If you were somebody who's
working the gear alts or to finish off mains that aren't
rocked out in in full hero gear and hopefully it's accessible.
I don't know what the like there's.
I suspect you can't just farm to your heart's content and get
hero gear from the assaults. My guess is there's some sort of
artificial cap on it, whether it's a currency you have to get
or something. It's a currency and the fact
that it's purchased also makes me think it's it's going to be a
pretty low cap. Because if you could just go in
and farm and just buy whatever hero pieces you were missing to
Max out your entire character like that would be.
I mean, first of all, it'd be absurdly overpowered.
You can't do that anything else. So yeah, my guess is it's going
to be like you're going to get a couple pieces of loot out of it.
Yeah, but yeah. Could still be fun.
I've watched some videos from Mr. GM on them.
They look like fun stuff if you're into that.
Are we calling them the rituals? Are we calling them horrific
delves? Or are we calling them Delve
visions? What combination of the word are
we? Because we had horrific delves
already in the War Within SO. Sorry, I honestly, I feel like
Dells need to go first because they are so much like the
midnight delves, like the affix and stuff.
I was just like, is this something they're testing to put
into like delves going forward? Because I don't think that's
bad. I actually think that have
having like played through it and and done done the stuff on
the PTR, I think it's pretty cool.
I think that it is an expansion of delves that I really do like
because the way that you get the like various challenges.
Are are different things that you would do in or outside of
the rituals, which makes it feel like a much more integrated end
game sort of system and itself nerves itself.
So like week 1 you'll need to complete a challenge, a level
4-1 or level 5 and then Week 2 it'll go down a level.
It's like, OK, now you'll need to complete the level, the Level
3 or level 4 with whatever criteria it is.
And so more people will be able to unlock it.
That'll let you push in further because like at level 4, you
have to have a minimum of challenges unlocked and active,
and then to do the level 5, you need to have another bunch of
challenges active, unlocked. And then of course, there's an
achievement for like having every challenge active and
completing at the highest level. So that could easily go into
delves and be switched around each season and just add to like
fun things that people want to do with delves.
It's got it's like, obviously Dells have their under coin and
that currency this one has it's it's currency that you're going
and buying all those Cos cosmetics.
And I think that this it just feels like stuff that maybe they
wanted to put into Dells at the beginning of the expansion, but
didn't quite make it in time for the release.
So, so if this is soft test and people like it, I'd love to see
it continue because I I do enjoy it.
It does really feel like they are leaning very heavily into
single player content. I I know that I say this like
every single time, like, oh, it's so fun to be a single
player right now, but it's like to be fair to a kind of absurd
degree, right? Like they gave us a new single
player game mode, dirt with midnight and then at the .05
they're giving us two more, I guess one OK, one of them is
like open world, but they're giving us up an open world.
And I mean, again, you can group if you want to, but it, it just
feels so like they are giving us single players a lot of gifts,
which I I appreciate. I do wonder how like a if that's
going to continue and B, you know, I've said for a while, I'd
love it if, you know, delves could push harder and if I could
gear fully to raid with single player content.
And I'm curious if the this trend is going to continue to
the point that we will be getting more and more single
player gearing abilities and single player opportunities
moving forward or if this is kind of like midnight.
They're being really nice to us. And then as it goes forward,
they can be like, turns out we don't want you to only play
alone. Sometimes you have to do a
couple keys. I I think that there is
obviously the chance for them to do that and they're obviously
testing the waters, but like it, it's Blizzard, it's the wow team
that metronome seems to swing like very hard at times.
So even if it is looking good and going this direction right
now, I I don't think that's true necessarily true for the future.
And this is content that you can do by yourself or with like up
to four people just like Delve. So it is like it is one hundred
100% that modular content. I am curious as you 2 are not as
scared of grouping and doing keys as me.
How like how does it feel to the be seeing so much solo content
come out? Like are you guys feeling a
little ignored right now? Or I mean, it sounds like keys
are doing really well, so maybe we're all happy and living our
little dreams. I don't feel ignored I the game.
They've got what, 6,000,007 million players in the game who
all enjoy it in different ways and for different reasons.
You know when they they're bringing back their seemingly re
injecting some pet battling coming up?
I don't that doesn't bother me. The solo content stuff it it
doesn't I don't feel ignored. I actually feel like a lot of
the time the solo content for me is a good avenue for gearing and
alt. So it's like, yeah, it's solo
content that that people are playing alone and they're
getting geared up for it for their mains.
It's great. But for me, I can use it as a as
a gear injection for alts if it's if it's good.
But no, I don't feel ignored. Mythic Plus is is in probably
the best spot it's been. I don't want to say that Mythic
Plus is in a really good spot. There are still some some pretty
glaring holes that would I would like to see fixed, but it's it's
in a decent spot. It's fun, keys are enjoyable for
the most part and the raid is fun to play so.
So like I always find this game is fun with more people.
So like, while I do enjoy doing some of the solo content, like
I'm never going to do a prey in a group.
Like no, I'm, I'm grabbing those traps, I'm going to do the
thing. I'm, I'm going through it as
fast as possible. That's just because like for me,
prey is a tool or chore in order to get to what I enjoy.
And so I don't want to spend time on that activity.
I want to use that activity to get the stuff that I enjoy in
terms of where I'm at with delves, where I'm at with like
having played the rituals, I enjoy those.
So like I could play that with a friend, with a group.
I could imagine if there was like a bunch of people that are
like, hey, do you want to join us?
Sure. Is it so enjoyable that I would
do it past the point where the rewards benefit me is is a
question. And that's something that would
shift based on like my mood and time and everything.
But the fact that like it's a question, I think that's a good
place for the this content to be.
Yeah. And like as you said, it's great
for people who are a little bit more intimidated by group
content to be able to do it alone.
And I don't particularly want to take that away from anybody.
So good on that and as well with that said, there's also.
Been I blame housing for all of our my problems like a normal
person, not not these new ritual sites.
Now all the, all the times you're forced to deal with your
your housing and that's. Right, all of this player power
tied behind these 20 WAR bound heroic crests.
Unbelievable. And the fact that it crashed the
cost of runes. I told you guys that the runes
were going to be the the real spoiler and they ended up not
being account bound and dropping that price so low, but I think
that's a general benefit to the game.
I think ruins were at way too expensive in previous
expansions, so generally good. If you ask me how I'm supposed
to get room ruins in game other than that quest, I would not be
able to answer that question. I don't I.
Q as a tank, Q as a healer into group content or do professions.
Oh yeah, so. That that now I understand why I
wouldn't know because there's the two things I don't do.
All right, all right, all right, just hit the auction house.
I think they're like. 600 gold per per.
My team can just have great parses.
Good for. You all right?
With that said, let's jump into something a little bit more of
the high end of the spectrum because today Blizzard has
announced flex mythic coming in the next raid in 12 point O .7.
That is the R&R RAID, the what's it called, the seeds.
I. Unfortunately Sporefall.
Thank you. So Sporefall is going to have
flexible mythic rating which means you can bring in anywhere
between 15 and 25 people. This is being hailed as great
for some groups and the end times for other groups.
What have like this is breaking. This was basically just
announced in an interview between Limit, sorry, rather
Liquid Max and the the 2 developers talking about the
race to world first and going back and talking about that.
So Sean, what are your thoughts on this?
Is this, is this something that you think will be positive,
Negative. How does it affect your team?
I think so. Overall, I think this is a huge
positive for the community, for the player base.
I think it's really, really positive for AOTC teams that
have 15 to 25 players on their roster who want to try Mythic
and maybe the rest of the team doesn't.
So now you don't need to have a full 20 man roster so you can
try it out. I think it's really good for
groups. Of friends who were like.
Hey, we're a friend group that does keys and stuff together and
there's fifteen of us and we would like to try and do the
raid. I think it's good for that.
I think there are some guilds that are bored like early mythic
guilds or even maybe like late CE guilds that struggle like
mightily with the roster boss and you know if they drop below
20, well then we can't raid tonight.
So now this gives them some flexibility and I do want to be
clear. This is just right now announced
for sporefall, the one boss raid coming in 12 point O .7.
So I think it's good for those. I would love to see it extended
to all tiers but unlocking after Hall of Fame closes.
So have the 20 man mythic lockout required for Hall of
Fame. That's the 1st 200 teams to
clear the raid and then once Hall of Fame ends and then
activate flex mythic rating for everyone else so that they can
they can get a chance to experience it.
This purely benefits those teams because those teams aren't
entering mythic probably before the Hall of Fame closes anyway.
Or maybe they're doing with a little bit of roster swap.
But I think I, I think this this should be active all the time
with that caveat of turning it on after Hall of Fame closes.
You can't turn it on before Hall of Fame closes because then it's
like, we'll did a 15 that critter with 15 man, is that the
intent? Like is it easier at 15?
Is it easier at 25? You're going to have too much
tuning. Lock 20 till Hall of Fame
closes, then open it up for everybody else.
It lets teams get that over their foot wet and mythic.
And this is also. So all of those reasons are
positive, but there's also a massive chance for this to be a
problem if you're on a team where everybody doesn't get
along so well. Now, if there's 15 people who
do, and you know, now maybe that team splinters.
If there's a team that has 20 and they can't stand five of
those people or they have 22, but they're like, you know what?
I don't really like four or five of these guys.
Well, now we don't need to have them because we can just 15 man
it. I think that's going to cause
those problems. So maybe be a nice person, be
kind to your guildies. Yeah, like you're calling these.
Problems and I'm like good, like yeah, congratulations, you don't
have to carry the toxic people that like are there and you and
you deal with them just because you don't want to deal with the
rape boss like I'm I'm sorry if you are that person, this is not
a wow problem. Address your life choices.
Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point.
But it also could be like if you're on a team and there's,
you know, 12 really close friends on the team, you know, I
could see some teams splintering over it.
If you're the third tank on a team and you're like, I really
want to play and now I only need to be on the roster with 15 as
opposed to a roster with more. So maybe I don't know.
I, I overall, I think it's a net positive.
I think it's there is the potential that you see some
shake up. I think guilds that are in the
higher end aren't going to be impacted by it.
It's not going to affect them, but guilds in that mid range
will be able to not have to sit people for Prague boss, which is
nice. So instead of if your roster is
normally 25, you're not going to have to sit 5 people.
You're not going to have to make those hard choices and I think
it's exceptionally good for a like high end AOTC teams.
I'm thinking of face or Forged on EU.
They get they're going to have AOTC lock down this week before
the .5 patch and then they typically do some mythic, but
they don't have a full roster of 20 who want to do mythic.
So they always end up bringing in pugs.
Well, now they don't have to Now they can just bring who they
want to bring who wants to come. It's really, really good for
those teams, teams like you know them and I think dayglo would be
another team that would fall under that category.
So I'm. I I think it's a huge.
Positive I I just hope it stays beyond sporefall.
There were a lot of reasons to my.
Team after dipping our toes in Mythic, decide it wasn't for us.
So to be fair, I think this probably is not going to affect
us because I think we probably are still not going to do
Mythic. But I do remember one of the
biggest challenges moving from AOTC to Mythic was the fact that
we really did not want to pug. And what that meant is that we
had to recruit up to a point that some people be sitting
every night, which as an AOTC team is not a thing you do
right. If you sit, it's either, you
know, potentially because somebody's really it's a big
deal to sit somebody. And so to be like, hey, we
especially, you know, as a Guild of primarily parents and you
know, like adults, we need you to block this time.
And like you can't schedule anything else, right?
You can't be like, hey, I'm going to, you know, go out with
my wife. I'm not.
I'm going to, you know, have a game night with my friends.
This has to be time that you hold sacred.
But we're going to tell you, you know, whenever, like maybe the
night before when we figured out who's calling out that night,
whether or not you're even on. So you might just be bored for
that night. That felt really, really
terrible to us. And I know for mythic teams
that's kind of normal, but that was one of the things that we
liked the least. Normal, but does suck.
Yeah, it it sucks not being able to make plans two nights a week
for three months or four months because you know, you're locked
in. And especially when you're on
the bench, it sucks because you're like, I'm, I'm literally
just sitting here. I could walk and watch the VOD
after the fact, right? Right, right.
And and so I think I understand why you kind of do need,
especially for the Hall of Fame, you do need a level of this is a
thing that like it is going to be at this number.
You guys can't gamify this. You have to just do it at the
point that we're telling you to do it.
But I think I, I think that's a great idea, Sean, of it gets the
Hall of Fame. Once that's through and
everyone's playing for the sake of playing and not playing for
the competition of who gets the 1st, play with whatever team you
have. Yeah, I know.
One of my teams, soon as they saw this lead was just like,
Yep, we're going in and it's been a it's been an issue for my
team where we want to jump in there and some people are not
wanting to as well, just like you were saying, Lex, and and so
we have to figure out how we're going to do this or have people
benched and all of that. So I agree it does empower some
people other than The Who gets claimed as as the the top of the
the pile and race the world first, are there any other
reasons that you feel it shouldn't be a day one release?
Because it feels a lot like the conversation is similar to how
people are like well, why isn't story mode out?
Why is LFR gated is so long? And like a lot of the times it's
like well to allow normal teams to complete it together, to
allow heroic teams to complete together and so forth.
Like are there any other reasons other than the like who gets the
crown definitively I think. It's it's going to.
Be a tuning nightmare. I fully expect that this
launches and the tuning is all over the place.
It's easier to present a solidified product if you know
you're only tuning it for 20 players.
You, the devs, know what to expect, so there's not as big a
a concern there. And I absolutely think you want
to protect the sanctity of the Hall of Fame.
You don't want the Hall of Fame to ever come in question of, you
know, the top 200 teams with this team only did it with 15
players. This team did it with 25
players. It was easier if you brought 18
and the team that figured that out first brought 18.
You don't want to have to deal with any of that.
I think, I think locking, locking it to Hall of Fame and
we used to lock cross realm mythic to Hall of Fame as well.
You used to have to be on the same server and then once Smith
Hall of Fame closed, it's opened up cross server for mythic.
This was for a couple of years. So I, I think that's important
the, the tuning and I, I do think it's important to protect
the, the sanctity of the Hall of Fame because it, it does matter.
Like people put in a lot of effort.
They, they, they go to a lot of trouble to make sure that
they're on teams that can do that.
And it's, you know, it's a, it's a badge of honor for a Guild.
If it's not an individual honor, it's, it goes to your Guild.
So if you leave a Guild, you lose your title for Hall of
Fame, it stays with the Guild. Yeah.
And I think that's important for the game.
It's it's important to have carrots for people and rewards
for for achieving. It used to be that until.
The Hall of Fame was filled. You weren't allowed to do Cross
realm, right? It used to be that particular
achievements were given to or like feats of strength were
given to realm first kill, kills of like particular bosses and so
forth, and that has all been done away with to allow for
cross realm play. Where do you find a tipping
point is to go from one to the other?
My guess is when the player. Base was dumpstered and that
there wasn't enough people to justify keeping realm first and
they needed to open it up to cross realm to keep braiding
alive otherwise it would have died off because people were too
spread across realms. Like you can't give a realm
first title. I'm on Stonewall, but it's
partnered with Mayev Shuhala. It's partnered with six
different yeah the battle groups.
So how do you give a realm first title when the Guild is on
Stonewall and there is just no Guild on Mayev that died?
Like would we get the one for all of them?
So I imagine it was just a logistics thing.
Yeah. Yeah, and that doesn't I.
Mean that's the battle groups don't really have names that
doesn't feel that's like a faceless, you know, so I I
imagine that and then just that the fact that they were forced
to merge realms together, you know.
Not really a point, but I do. Think the battle groups do have
names, but I think the fact that we don't know them is kind of
telling as well. OK.
And then the next question I would have of course is do you
feel? Like.
Mythic rating is in troubled because they are inventing this
like you wouldn't go to such a drastic thing that hits tuning
that changes the very nature that you have to like balance
against Hall of Fame. If mythic rating didn't need the
help, do you find if you think that well, you work with Raider
IO. So you see you see these
numbers. Does mythic rating need this
help? Yeah, I think mithic grading
needs the. Help for sure.
I think it's more Blizzard having foresight to look ahead
and seeing where Mythic grading was at and where it's headed,
especially now in the new world we live in and getting ahead of
it and saying we're going to need to bolster this roster.
We, we've said it for a long time, you know, the rest of the
world first. There's only so many players on
those rosters because they just keep trading back and forth.
There's just no new blood coming in.
In order to get new people in, you have to entice them in.
And that means finding a way to, to entice people in from heroic
guilds. There are absolutely people on
heroic guilds that could play in Hall of Fame guilds, mythic, if
they had the, the time and, or the inclination.
And this is just, it's opening that doorway to them and saying,
hey, and it's also something the community's been asking for for
a very, very long time. So yeah, I think, but.
IA Blizzard has those numbers. They can they.
I guarantee they've looked and seen where rating is, how many
kills, how many clears we have of bosses going forward.
And you know, that's almost without a doubt that they've
they're seeing the writing on the wall.
And maybe they've been listening to podcasts and streamers and
Twitter and everybody saying, hey, listen, if you're going to
change raids this way, it's not fun for a lot of us.
And they're saying, OK, well, we'll bring in new people that
do find it fun, hopefully. Are you still on your?
Way out next to it here is that what that is the solution that
you're does the battery of a go flex or not you're done I mean
I. Have made my.
I think I made my stance pretty clear.
I need to see some level of I need.
To I I got to see. I need to see the result.
I I want to. I don't just want to be told
things, I want to see those things in action and hopefully
we do. I don't think we did this to
here but. Lex, As for you.
With the roster boss, as you were calling it, somewhat
defeated or cowed, is this something that would more likely
allow your team to like dive into it?
Yeah, so I said. At the beginning of this that I
don't think this would actually change whether or not my team
would do mythic and the past like 45 seconds I've been in a
conversation with the officers. OK, if you're on my team, this
is not me making an announcement.
To be very, very clear, Lex is not saying whatever Taverns
going to do. We were having a conversation
about mythic that I did not think would happen again.
I thought that we might have been like kind of like hard.
We tried it, we didn't like it. No thank you.
So, yeah, maybe actually, which I think I I think would be fun.
I, you know, I it it does feel like mythic is such a wall of,
you know, you're either an AOTC team or you're a mythic team.
And our team has been the type of team that hits AOTC usually
like with months to spare and then takes a break, which I kind
of like I, you know, I, I do think for me personally, having,
I don't want to play world. This is bad as a podcast.
So it's on a World of Warcraft podcast, but I don't want to
play World of Warcraft every single day for years in a row,
right? Like I want breaks.
I want some time that I get to, you know, play other games,
watch TV, hang out with my dog, read books, right.
And so I like having those solid break times, but a few months,
sometimes a little long, right? But you know, what are we going
to do, right? Are we going to push Bithik and
deal with the sits and the complications And, you know,
what happens if we don't have enough people Like that feels
kind of bad. Or are we just going to run AOTC
again and again and again and again and again until I want to
like throw my computer out the window every time I hear a voice
line. So I think having something that
you can sort of play at without getting fully in, I think
actually would make Mythic feel like something that we could, we
could try, right? We could experiment with it and
see how it goes. Timber much happened with the
complete one. 80 What a huge announcement from Lex here live
on the show, speaking for all the officers.
It's like one of your officers is watching us right now.
And they were like, hey, we gotta tell Lex to stop telling
people we're not doing this. Yeah, that's exactly that's.
Exactly what? Happened.
And certainly not that I would, in the middle of a podcast
episode, copy in an article into Officer chat and be like, what
do we think about this? Because that would make me a bad
podcast host. So no, it was definitely the
first. Yeah.
Actually, like I don't need to listen to what Sean's.
Going to say he's going to say a lot of gobbledygook.
He's going to say this is great for mythic Raiders and I don't
care about those people. Let me do my doubts every week.
They're so mean. Well.
Moving on from the toxic Mythic Raiders to the toxic Mythic Plus
players, we have a adjustment or rather announcement of things
for Mythic Plus. So Sean, do you want to cover
this one? Yeah.
For sure so. I don't have the article in
front of me, but I'm going to give you the TLDR that means too
long. Didn't read.
For those of you who don't know what TLDR means, and there could
be some of you I don't know. Starting in 12 point 0.5 this
season there will be two new carrots for mythic plus players.
The first happens at the score of 3400.
So Blizzard has identified that. You know what, we recognize that
between all twelves timed, which is your first level for
resilient or and removal of South of FX's or all 10s which
is portals and maximum Volt slot.
There's not a lot of reason for players to push if they're not
getting title. Title is the .1% and the gap
between all twelves time to .1% is huge.
So you see a lot of people hit that twelves or hit 3K because
it's kind of a personal goal and stop there.
Blizzard wants to improve that. They want to give us a reason to
do more. They want to reward those people
who do already push their limits beyond to see and they want to
try and incentivize others to get into it.
So now starting at 3400 IO, which is all sixteens in time
with A1 star time, obviously this number fluctuates.
If you're 2 starring, if you're 2 chesting fifteens, then you
have to do less sixteens, yadda yadda.
But it's all sixteens across the board.
Gives you 3400 and you will get a saddle very similar to the
vicious saddles that you get from PvP.
And this saddle will be able to purchase from a selection of
mounts from the KSM and KSL pool and potentially others we don't
know. It just says it specifically
mentions KSM and KSL mounts and how the saddle will let you
purchase previous ones that you didn't get.
It doesn't mention anything else now.
I think a lot of people are hoping for other things.
One thing I've seen suggested is any dungeon mounts, any mouse
that drop in a dungeon that was part of a mythic plus pool.
Having these available for purchase would be cool, but yes,
we don't know yet. We'll find out Tuesday
presumably when we see what the options are.
But you get a saddle that you can use to buy that.
If it's like the PvP saddles, you can bank it and hold it for
another season. You don't have to spend it that
season. That's how the PvP saddles work.
Again, we don't know for sure if this will work that way, but
potential add a little by amount.
If you've already got all of the KSM and KSL mounts and those are
the only ones on the list, I guess you just get a cool mount
for hitting 3400. I don't know.
Again, did you say that they're going to?
Be adding new mounts to the pool so it.
It mentions it, yeah. So if, if you, I'll read it word
for word because I think a lot of people are misreading it.
Go for it. So.
It says Keystone. Myth will launch with a 3400
rating requirement, but we do not expect that threshold to
remain. Oh sorry, above, further above
upon 30. Upon reaching 3400 Mythic Plus
rating, players will earn a time slot Saddle, earned once per War
Band per season. This item can be bought can be
brought to Lindormi and Silver Moon or the Time Waves, where it
can be exchanged for a mount of your choice from a curated
selection. This is the important part.
This includes Keystone Master and Keystone Legend mounts from
previous seasons, as well as all new mounts being added to the
pool. That to me reads as all new
Keystone Master and Keystone Legend mounts which you would
have already earned by getting to 3400.
So you're well. I, I I think that it it's
supposed to be read as as well as all new mounts, as in like
entirely new mounts will be added to this pool.
I do not. I do.
Not read it that way at all. The first one would imply.
A long term like. The the only reason the way that
the first. One would make sense would be if
they're confirming with this that this is staying on forever
and so all new mounts are going to be added in the future.
Yeah, so they are. They did say.
This is staying forever. Oh, did they?
They do say that this Yeah, this is going to launch with a 3400
rating requirement. But we don't expect that to
remain fixed forever. Evolve season to season.
We're going to want the achievement to represent a
similar level of difficulty each season.
Beyond that, we may adjust the rating requirement future
seasons. OK, that actually, so never
mind. I can't read.
Yeah. So I I.
AM the The reason I want to bring this up is because the
next thing they announced is Umbrell Champion which is a new
1% reward. So we currently have the reward
for the .1% which is the title. This is a percent for the top 1%
of mythic plus players and they will get a mount.
I think people are reading this as that mount being purchasable
by getting 3400. Oh sure.
And, and because that mount will almost certainly not be in that
pool. It shouldn't be because that
mount is for getting a score that is considerably higher than
3400. Is there a word for the top 1%?
Of the plus ratings and also every single person who gets a
34, yeah, Who gets 3400, yeah. Unless unless it gets added to
the like if the season 1 umbrell champion mount gets added to the
season 2 pool. So you didn't get it in season 1
but you can buy it in season 2 I don't think.
Just like you can't buy the Glad mounts with Vicious saddles, I
don't think you're going to be able to buy the Umbrel Champion
mounts with the Keystone Myth saddles.
So this sentence, this includes Keystone Master and Keystone
Legend mounts from previous seasons, as well as all new
mounts being added to the pool, is extremely vague and as it is
written it is only mentioning KSM and KSL mounts and doesn't
indicate any other mounts from other sources.
So if you don't have all the KSM and KSL mounts, this is great,
you can earn start to earn them. But if you do I I don't know
what this gives you. I think that that is.
A small amount of players and continuing to get smaller.
This is me. I have every single KSLKSM mount
that has ever been released. I read it the same way you do
Sean. It as all the new mounts right?
Not all new mounts that are that are being created specifically
for this. The specific new mount is akin
to Gladiator that you can get for being in that top 1%.
That is a high level of prestige that you won't be able to get in
the future through through other means, much to some people's
chagrin. I know that will be something to
complain about. And for those, the comparison to
PvP is pretty good. The people who get saddles,
there's no new mounts that you can get with saddles.
It's going back through the backlog and picking out mounts
that you've missed. So I think that's equivalent.
I think that is. Like it's clearly the president.
Is there so I I think that is fine.
Obviously, personally I would love to get a new mount, but I
have to point to the fact that you can only get 1 saddle per
season per account. And if they added in a new
mount, you would be doing yourself a disservice by going
backwards because you would always be infinitely behind.
So that that seems like such a bad situation to put a player
base in. And that's another knock against
this being some unique mount that is only accessible with
these saddles. Yeah, I'm.
Like, I'm almost positive that this is only going to give you
the option to buy previous KSM and KSL mounts if you don't have
them. But I would like for it to also
include any mounts from dungeons that were part of the the the
keystone of the mythic plus pool for those of us who already have
all the KSM and KSL mounts. So for example, the stone vault
mount that is a rare drop in stone vault.
Stone vault was a mythic plus dungeon.
If that was purchasable with one of these saddles, I think that
would be nice. Not all dungeon mounts, just
dungeons that were part of a mythic plus pool.
Understood. Yeah.
I think that would make it would give it an option for people who
either have every KSMKSL mount that they would like or just
flat out have them all. There's just not that many.
It only goes. Back to the last season of BFA,
the KSM mounts, that's the first one that appeared from that
point. So if you have everything from
then forward like you've got them all, it's not not a ton,
it's like less than a dozen mounts.
Yeah, I forgot that. Mythic Plus was so new when I
was looking at that list of the mounts available.
Like there's no way. But yeah, it's, it's really,
it's really a, a fairly small group, yeah.
I do find it. Strange that it is a curated
list that that's not available. Not all of them are available
and you just go and pick. I'd like to know the reasoning
behind that, but that's not something that's explained in
the article, no. So we'll find out Tuesday.
So we we could be completely wrong.
They could launch this and it could be old Mop challenge
mounts, challenge mode maps like it could be, you know, it could
be any. I hope it's that AOTC mount that
everybody pissed blood over when they thought it was going to
show up in Mop. Remix that wolf you.
Remember the one from? Yeah, I hope it's that one.
I hope it's that one and that chicken that everybody likes.
No, that's got. To be that itself, it's got to
be like the Twitch drop. To end all Twitch drops, you can
go to the to. EBay and see how.
Much those those mounts are going for right now.
But overall, I think this is a positive.
I think this is a good thing for the Mythic Plus community.
I think it's good to reward players who push themselves
already, and I think it's nice to give a carrot to potentially
move some people off of. You know, I'm timing all
twelves, but I don't think I'll get title, so I'm just going to
stop here. I think it's good to give that
incentive to get them to push harder.
I like this. It interests me, but it really
puts into perspective like my burnout.
I don't like if I were to continue rating on 2 characters
doing like 16 plus mythic, mythic plus a week, all that all
that stuff. And I know there are people who
do it with like way more characters than me, but with
like my available time and, and what I want to engage with, it's
too much. And so like, I like systems.
That are deeper that. Allow you to explore them as
much as you want rather than being done with a system so
quickly that my. Logical alternative is.
To do it all over again on another character.
I like that I could go further into mythic rating more easily.
I like that I can go further into Mythic Plus with one
character and make that character my own.
I like that professions actually have some depth, and I'm not
done with them by sitting down with a guide one afternoon and
buying out enough to like Max it out.
And I'm glad that the depth of these game systems is being
explored because this season, having like, stretched myself
more widely than I have before, like.
I get it, Sean. Like I like pray because I get
in, get out and don't have to deal with it.
It's a checklist to me. And I like when Lex is like, Oh
yeah, go through spelunking into caves and stuff.
And I get that, that interest. I want that joy, but like I.
Don't want to spend? More than 5 minutes on a prey
when I want to when I also need to be checking off the The Dells
off the list and then checking off the mythic plus off the
list. I don't want to push past what
gets me the maximum gear out of my vault when I've.
Got to do that on. The next 2-3 other tunes and I
find. I don't know.
Like I, I'm sure people enjoy this and they like that
checklist. I am a mount collector and
that's very much a checklist sort of activity of like there
are definitely mount that I absolutely love and treasure
more than anything else, but there are a ton of mounts that I
pick up just to like in see number go up and I.
Don't like that so much? Of this game is becoming number
go up to me it's. Robbing the joy.
Like if I miss a night because I'm hanging out with my with my
friend for her birthday and my friends from the state, I can't
miss. I can't do a raid night because.
Family or whatever other. Commitments and that puts me
behind I get frustrated that whatever I need to do takes me
five extra minutes like that's just a point of like irritation
and. Like maybe it's just.
Like because I I have had burnout like I had vaults that
were full on every slot for every week up until last week
where I didn't do a single mythic plus on one character and
on both characters and I missed half my rating on another
character. I went from 10 hours of rating
in a week to like. I think I got. 5:00-ish Yeah, I
did matchy make 5:00-ish because this pure burnout and I.
And while I know there are. Players that enjoy that level of
play and like being able to like get that breath and width of
play. It's it's not me and I'm.
Glad that they like that they are putting things out out for
me and it's nothing to do with the characters.
I love how Warlock is playing right now.
I love how. I generally love how shaman.
'S playing. I wish the single single target
was like a bit better and like a bunch of classes that seem like
a lot of fun are out there. I think that the they've done it
well. I just am looking for stuff that
rewards a single character more, even if it's just story.
I don't know what what's what's. Your take on that, Lex?
Yeah, my take is I do not gear. More than one character.
At a time and I also. Don't really do mythic plus and
it's a great way to live. Maybe I'm bad at the game but
I'm having a grand old time. Although I should say I did say
this at the beginning but like I also I I enjoy playing delves
and pray when I'm doing it but once I hit full champ gear I.
Sit down at night. And I'm like, I, I mean like, I
could, I guess go do a couple bells.
But it yeah, I, I, I think. There is some.
Degree to which World of Warcraft has a little bit of the
giving a kid a sticker for coloring problem, right Where if
you are very used to, oh, I'm doing this thing, it's really
fun for me and I get a reward when I do it and I get a reward
and then you stop getting the reward.
Yeah, why would you do it right? Like, I mean, yeah, because it's
fun, sure, whatever. But like I.
I was getting a sticker right? And like, I mean, yeah, I used
to color, but like, if I'm not going to get the sticker, I
could go do something else, right?
And I, I, I frankly, I'm, I'm very impressed with the people
who do the, you know, super fun game modes just for the sake of
fun, because it's a fun game. And I think that's kind of
supposed to be the point. But yeah, I, I, I would hope
that that. Is the point of games like I, I
look, I. Look at world of.
Warcraft and it's very like something you said at the
earlier on in the podcast, you said your team likes rating and
getting some time off so you can do other things.
And I love that time when the game like I do enjoy when the
game doesn't have things that make me want to play.
Like I've already complained about how like they will do the
turbo boost thing and you'll have to come back because you've
got to get the gear to to get up and I play.
Played. Blueprints and I love that game.
No man, that was like such such a thing.
And I play other games when I'm not playing World of Warcraft.
Like I love playing Magic the Gathering which isn't going to
get me any item level anytime soon.
And I I think. That like while the speed of
the. Patches and such.
Is good for people who want to remain engaged I think that they
need to diversify the rewards that they're giving so people
who want to step away can't step away without the guilt of
compromising their team or pulling your team back.
I forget how exactly you said it, Lex.
Right I. I I'm not sure.
I just, I don't know what it is because like I do feel that they
should reward, they should give people additional power so they
can push through those like bosses that they were getting a
roadblock on. But like maybe just put it back
to like the what are we the crystals in Narobar Palace that
like gave you no get out get. Out.
No, you don't like that. What hell screams are you
thinking of? Are you thinking of?
Sanctum of domination. The fucking no no, no no no
Narobar. Palace you would every couple of
weeks you get enough crystals to give yourself a 3% damage boost
and stuff. Oh yeah, you had to collect.
See I don't like that either because you have to collect them
off the bosses so you still have to play every week.
OK, they dropped off the. Bosses I think.
The way they did it, I mean, the renowned track is again the same
thing. You got to play every week.
Yeah, I think this new system is probably good because it's 1% a
week and I assume it just turns on.
I don't think you have to do anything.
OK, yeah, if they're going to do a a power boost like that to to
resolve the issue you're talking about, I don't, I don't think it
needs to be. I think it just needs to happen
automatically. I think making it be something
that you have to have played the game to get defeats the purpose.
If if we're worried about Burnham, we're worried about
people not being miserable, not wanting to play, forcing them to
have to play to get a 3% buff. And then so you take a week off,
you show up to raid, now you don't have the buff and
everybody else does. But that's yeah, I that was what
how that wasn't no, but you had to kill the bosses to collect
the thing. So teams were doing clears
before raid nights to get the buff so they would have it for
their raid nights. So I guess.
The Wrath of the Lich King, War Chief's call and stuff where
it's automatic and here's an extra 5%, here's an extra 5%
sort of thing. Maybe we.
Launched the bosses. I have a hot take.
This is a hot take. It's a it's a spicy take.
If you're a fan of the race world first, you're going to
hate me. Send that hate mail to bit dot
LY slash faz discord. OK, good.
I know what you're about to. Talk about and I, I like, I
almost didn't talk about on the show, but I'd love to.
I'd love for you to give your take, I think.
The raid tier needs to launch tuned for the Hall of Fame, not
tuned for the race to world first and then dialed back,
which is what we do now. Right now we, well what we do
now is release it, panic Buffett till the race is over, wait for
method to kill the bosses and then dial it back.
And that I mean it happened this year.
We saw instant dollars who was in 9th place jump to 5th place
because the tuning they did on Lura was so egregious that they
leapfrogged 5 other teams from the EU that were progging it
ahead of them who just didn't get the the nerf in time because
it happens on Wednesday for them.
So they leapfrogged a bunch of teams that they were behind on
prog on like they were, they were not in kill range and then
the nerve happened and they killed it in four poles, I think
it was. I think I think it's time for
the race to roll first, to stop being as degenerate as it is to
stop having 20 characters run infinite splits.
I think you release the raid tuned in the state that you
wanted to be for the Hall of Fame.
So for that top 200 slots and if the race clears it in three days
and they don't have to do 40 days of splits or 40, 40 hours
of splits, great. And then you leave that tuning
as is till the hall closes. You put it where it needs to be
for the Hall of Fame, leave it till the hall closes.
And then give us set dates. Tell us On this date we're going
to we're going to nerf these bosses.
Let us know ahead of time like they did with with class tuning.
I don't think, I think, I think. We got to stop doing.
These baby steps and I think we have to stop catering to the
race to world first. And I know people don't want to
hear that because they're like, oh, the race is the biggest
advertisement for the game and it's the spectacle and it brings
everybody in. And if it wasn't for the race,
nobody would ever experience Warcraft or discover it and play
it. But that's not that's just not
true. And I mean, we're looking right.
We're seeing it in real time right now.
Teams who are being affected by these nerves that are happening,
who are losing spots on the leaderboard that they thought
they were going to get because nerves happen different at
different times for different regions.
And, you know, and then we run into teams that are hitting
walls and they can't do anything.
They can't raid at all because the boss is tuned for three
guilts. Anyway, that's what I think.
Yeah, you, I, I've actually. Never in the wild heard the
argument that like, the race pulls people into World of
Warcraft. So it's possible that I'm, you
know, getting angry off of like telephoned information, but that
I'm like half the World of Warcraft players that I know
don't watch the race, right? Like I I actually OK actually
no, I'm not going to be snarky and me I am genuinely curious.
I genuinely and openly would love to hear either in our
comments or at bit dot LY slash fast discord if you or someone
you are like close with got into World of Warcraft through
watching the race and had no World of Warcraft experience.
Like it was 100% just, oh, I discovered this one cool thing
and now I'm interested in World of Warcraft.
And also how you felt when you learned what World of Warcraft
looks like when it's not being played by the top.
Top .001% what it's at what the game's actually.
Like and look to be. Fair.
I don't have. Anything near a horse in this
race because I'm not playing remotely at the content where
I'm feeling these shockwave, right?
I'm here for the snack. I'm here for the funny little
tongue, right? I, I believe you guys as the
people who do feel the shockwaves that this is a
problem. Do I have a single hair of a
horse in this race? Surely not.
So, you know, I feel like that's a weird.
Argument Lex. I feel like that's a weird
argument. Like there we've had on this
show conversations of like how many devs actually race at a
like at like a cutting edge level, at a Hall of Fame level,
Definitely not in the race the world first level, right.
And how can those devs really talk about about this?
Like, obviously they they build this race even though they're
not on the race the world first teams.
So they have some sort of input in on that, probably an outsized
input that any guy on any of our mics.
And there's a question of like, do you need to be actively
participating in it? Do you need to have that horse
in the race to talk about it with any kind of confidence?
And I don't think that that is true because like, especially in
this particular argument where it's like if you have a friend
who joins your Guild because they're like, oh, I'm just
getting into it. And I felt I saw like Echo and
all those guys playing. I was like, this is a cool game.
And they joined Timbermar Tavern.
Well, that's this conversation affecting you, but more than
that, right. And, and maybe this is part of
part of my burnout. I think that people are going to
defend what they want. And a lot of these arguments are
going to be done, especially at the the show, Like you're both
intelligent people. I would have invited you onto
the show if you if you were stupid.
And if you think you're stupid, you're just misinformed.
And so we're going to defend the arguments well because we can
think of angles and we can think of ways to defend our positions,
which makes it harder for us to shift positions.
But with this setup, if somebody is doing well and gets against
the wall because of tuning, whether that is the initial
tuning that happens right after the race to world first or
tuning that happens 2 weeks later, they're going to feel off
put. And if we put it at a particular
particular angle where we say, hey, it's now four weeks after
the raid has been opened up and that's where it where we're
going to do the adjustments that might split part of the Hall of
Fame. And therefore Sean, Sean would
like that. But if we do buy the Hall of
Fame, there might be a Guild that is like 102nd or whatever
just outside the Hall of Fame cause like it, you know, like
the Hall of Fame fills 100 and then you have that week to get
in. Do you think I'm in the Hall of
Fame, Manny? No, Sean, you.
Are actually no, I apologize, sorry tech Yeah, OK.
Yeah, we did. We did get chimeras.
So the Hall of Fame Raider. Here trying to defend his that
doesn't really. Count, But yeah, anyway, no, in
the chimeras you are defending your.
Position for your personal stake, Sean?
Yeah, 'cause I even forgot about that till you're like, do you
think it was like, actually, yeah, you are for that?
No, I wasn't thinking of you as the Hall of Fame Raider.
Sean. I see.
Give you as Sean presenting an opinion.
Gotcha. OK, cool, cool, cool.
OK 'cause I'm not, I don't want, I am not.
I wish I was at that skill level.
I'm I'm nowhere near there. Perhaps you are.
Maybe the rest of the gills. Holding you back?
I don't know. I've never raided those guys
anyways. We have.
Like. A set up where it's going to be.
Arbitrary the how tough this race is versus how tough the
next race is versus how tough last race is, is based on a
number of different things in tuning as well as well as class
balance set up. As well as like when these guys
discover certain things as well as do they have add on authors
on staff or not that will affect the rate at which these gills
progress. And so if the changes come in on
a calendar date or based on a number of teams hitting a
particular benchmark, there are going to be teams that are going
to feel shorthand the short stick from from those.
And so regardless of what they do, I'm not arguing for one way
or another. I think that the biggest thing
that I would take away from Sean's argument is that they are
commutative and they're forward about it.
So if they're saying, hey, we're going to do changes every week
and. We're not sure which bosses.
Are going to be hit, but the bosses that seem to be causing
the most trouble are going to be hit every week.
I think that might be OK because the nuance of it doesn't feel as
bad as when a huge wave of changes come in and then you
really feel robbed if it's incremental, you're like, hey,
let's get it in this week because we know next week there
are going to be changes and might be this boss that feels
like if it's more more scheduled, more frequent than
that, that feels like natural progression that wouldn't create
such a hard break of like, well, top three teams are in everybody
else. Congratulations, now you can do
your race. Yeah.
I mean I. Think the other thing that would
help a lot is if they stopped regional roll outs, right?
Because I feel like half of the reason this is an issue is just
because it's coming to people at different times.
Like even with she's example of like, Oh well, you know like one
person the the issue of the nurse they hit at such a time
that one person is able to go from 9th to 5th, that just
simply would not happen. I mean, it might have because
there's still like time zones and sleep schedules and stuff,
but if everything dropped at the same time, and again, I'm not an
engineer, I don't understand why that would be complicated.
But if it was no longer like, Oh well, E use a, you know, few
days behind or even the day behind that would.
Fit so without going into engineering.
Because I am not an engineer either, I still hold one second.
I thought we were all in. I thought.
We had to. Why did you require a PhD for me
to be on this show? I had to fake APHD to get on
here. You mean to tell me you guys are
nowadays engineer? Well, I mean you can get a P.
HD in something other than engineering?
No, it's the only PhD available. Actually, that's it.
You can only get a P. HD that's.
What the the, it, it's. That's why the vaccines are.
Engineering in Latin. That's why the vaccines.
Are all so messed up. It's all by.
They're all designed by structural engineers.
You go but. What I was going to say is that.
Even if you take. Out the technical limitations
and tomorrow snap a finger and every region is on, let's say
even the same servers. So like region regions no longer
exist. They all get reset at the same
time. You still have the issue of what
time servers reset in the middle of limits raid day in the middle
of echoes raid day and and that would cause an issue.
And that's already something that when the hot fixes come
because the hot fixes don't respect regional resets there.
There's already people being like, oh, they're favouring X or
Y team based on when they they send the hot fix already.
So it would just, I think it would just shift the the
argument and then cost them a bunch of money just to shift the
argument. That's why until like it becomes
cheap enough and the pros and the cons outweigh, like outweigh
it, and it's not a argument about even race, the world first
or Hall of Fame catering to the elites or catering to the
casuals, whatever that it makes sense on that level, then yeah,
go for it. But until then, yeah, I don't
care. In my defense, I'm either.
On record or have thought really hard while we were having other
conversations that they should not they shouldn't touch
anything at least during race war first.
I think until Hall of Fame close makes more sense but I unless it
is literally like we are at 2000 polls and we're not going to get
this boss down and everyone is stuck on the same wall.
I personally vote or like a game breaking like everything I I
think they just let it run it's course and afterwards they learn
their lessons and they tune differently in the next one.
I because I just the amount that people.
Everything. Yeah, You know.
Oh, it was a reset during their poll and Oh well, you know, like
you're right. Anytime they do any tuning
during the race, at least if not through Hall of Fame, someone is
going to feel that it was a personal affront and that is the
reason why they did not win, right?
Everything can be twisted and to some degree maybe that means you
just let it roll off your back. But I I thought for a while that
they should just, not just just. Plug and go.
And if that means that you need to get your team, you know, your
devs, spending more time running mythic tests.
Sweet pay more QA that. Sounds great.
I'm happy about that. That's a win all around.
That's so so I, yeah, I, I, I, I think.
Regardless of anything else, I think they should.
Stop tuning in the middle of the race.
I think that has I I've never once seen them tune in the
middle of the race and everyone's like, that was so
good Blizzard, thank you so much.
We are happy. Nobody's upset.
We're all having a great time. That was such a win across the
board. I.
Definitely have. Seen where it's like, thank God
that that was impossible. How could you let it go live
like that as several conversations?
What the hell were you guys thinking when you tune that?
Of course it couldn't go live like that.
Do you guys even test your boss's sort of rhetoric
constantly like it? Obviously there's there's a
complaint for everything. There's a Twitter post for
everything. People are.
People are going to be people. I think that the Hall of Fame is
a wider range of skill than we're giving it credit in this
conversation. I think that the people getting
like top 20 Hall of Fame versus the people who are, is it a
Horde and Alliance still? No, it's just top 200.
Teams. That's that's what I thought.
The people getting like in, yeah, it is under the wire.
It is a massive. Skill gap, like it's, it's a
huge skill gap, like the difference between Liquid and
Echo and the 10th place team is like Jeff Bezos to the guy that
owns your corner store. It's it's a massive difference
in skill. Most of the guys who are 10th.
Are significantly better people. Yeah, they're definitely more.
Moral they wouldn't make. Weak oars against the wishes of
the game until somebody else did it.
That's right. So.
Episode from from #1 to #200 is a huge skill gap.
That's why I think, I think it should be.
I think the raid should release tuned for number 200 and
everybody else just clears it faster.
They're taking breaks anyway and they're going to run the raid on
repeat anyway afterwards. I don't think it's a problem if
the race to world first is 6 days instead of 10 days.
I don't think that's a problem. You know, it's a problem for
those teams because they lose sponsorship money.
But I don't care about that. I don't think it would.
Even be 6 days, I think that if it's tuned for that's good 200 I
think you're looking at a 2 day race.
I think that's good. They.
Because then they don't have to do 20 splits, they don't have to
level 20 killers, which Max is on record as saying has caused
burn. But see, they won't.
If a team like Instant Dollars goes in there without doing it
and is blasting towards the end boss, they're going to kill it
without having done that. Then they'll immediately swap in
and that's what I think you just make it easier.
Then teams don't have to do as many splits.
They don't have to have as many characters levelled.
It becomes more exciting. It becomes an actual Sprint
instead of what it is now. I don't know.
I just, I, I, I don't like I now what you mentioned, if it was
regular communication of, hey, we're doing this on this, we're
doing this, you know, get ready for it.
But we had tuning happen this week to the life blind Vanguard
that wasn't ever announced. It got found through data
mining. Their health was all nerf, which
is a pretty significant nerf because you were currently
having to run like really degenerate DPS comps.
You didn't have to, but it made the fight significantly easier
to run them. And so the health was nerfed of
all three of them and it just was never announced.
So even if they were like, hey, because they told us going into
the race and this was really good, they said you're on March
17th, March 24th, April 2nd and April 7th or whatever the dates
were. Your April, March 2030 first and
then April 7th, you're getting tuning for classes on those
dates. If they release the raid and say
On this date you're getting tuning for these bosses this
date, you're getting like, tell us something because the current
state is, I don't know. I just, I don't, I'm tired of it
being tuned for the top three guilds.
And people are going to come with the argument of it's not
just the top three guilds. 300,000 people watched.
Yeah, well those 300,000 people would watch on Thursday instead
of Monday if the race was easy. Yeah, frankly, I feel like, I
mean. Not to say everything is would
be it, it should be about me. But I mean, one reason I don't
watch the race is because like, how are we going to watch like
however many weeks? No.
And then we, I don't know. I yeah, if if the race was, you
know, two to three day affair, I'd be much more likely to and
especially the people who really don't want to watch mythic
splits or heroic splits or whatever because they don't
understand World of Warcraft because apparently it's drawn a
new people. I genuinely on ironically, like
I would be really excited to hear if there are people who are
like, yeah, I found this on twitch.
So please, I'm not even kidding. Go hang out, find us on bit dot
LY fast discord and say Lex you're a moron and I'll know
what it means. Will eat my hat if anybody comes
in and says I had never played Warcraft before.
I had no family members who told me to play Warcraft before I
watched their. I stumbled upon the race on
Twitch and it excited me so much that I bought Warcraft and
played it and also started listening to a Warcraft podcast.
There's another. Little dividing factor here as
to why they might not. I, I mean, I'm, I'm just going
to say. Sean, that Sean is not going to
honor that. Please.
Like that. There's no, there is no way that
I could in good faith think that that is verifiable.
And I don't want Sean eating a cat.
But if it did happen to you, we do wanna hear it.
Yeah. OK.
I'm gonna think you're. Lying.
I'm going to. Think you're a liar, but I want
you. To Oh, I watched this and I kept
receipt from when I watched this and then I bought the game and I
can't receive from when I bought the game.
And then I started listening to the podcast and I I could show
you when I started downloading the episode.
Such a. Ridiculous pathway into the
game. I can't imagine it existing.
I'll believe you. I'll believe you.
If you come to bit dot LY flash faster and you can lie to me
about anything. You guys, I believe so many
things. The lies told to Lex do not.
Reflect your who anyways. But yeah, I I think that there's
a lot that they can do to improve just general rating.
I think that yes, if they don't challenge the top teams at the
highest level and just make it make it something that is that
something that they blast through, I don't think that the
general community is losing much at all.
So I agree with you on that Sean, but like Lex is saying,
let us know what you think. Until next time, though, may all
your hits be crits.