At the very least, if we're going to say we have given solo
players end game content, that end game content cannot be at
the level that multi like group players begin, You know what I'm
saying? It's not that's not end game
content, that's mid game content like that's beginning of the
game content. 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 Horde, for Azeroth.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of For Azeroth.
I am one of your hosts, the true villain, Manny, or just Manny.
And I am joined by Lex. Lex, how are you doing?
Good, Manny, I'm popping right along.
We got to Gaslo on normal, my raid team did last week, which
is very exciting, very fun. And then Gaslo is more
complicated. So we did the entire raid normal
blind and then Gaslo. A little RAID normal.
Yeah, we didn't do like enforced blindness, which is what we
like. Historically when we've done
blind bosses, it's been like, you cannot tell us anything you
saw in Race to World First. You cannot do any.
Like you can't look at anything that's not we're going to be
fully blind. Because we weren't really
expecting to do normal blind. And it was more of like on the
1st pull of the first boss, we were like, let's just go for it,
let's just see what happens. And then we kind of continued
zooming through and just realized we were having a good
time. We didn't do enforced blindness.
So somebody could be like, oh, I think I remember Liquid doing
XYZ Strat. So we did have some guidance
there, but it was really fun. And we think that's probably
going to be our move in the future is doing normal blind and
then watching videos and getting prepped before heroic.
And to be fair, my team also does prepping a little bit
differently. So we kind of realized that
nobody was actually prepping before bosses.
So what we do know, well we were like, let's just lean into it.
So now before bosses, we just take a like 5 minute break and
everyone watches a video. And then we all know we watched
the same video. Everyone watched a video because
we gave them a time to do it. And then we come back and we
talked about it and it has worked so much better.
Like when we were telling people like, Yep, make sure you study,
do the strats, watch the videos, use the videos we expect you to
watch. We would spend so much time
explaining Strat and nobody would get it and it would just
like nobody was doing the work or at least half the team wasn't
doing the work. And once we kind of stopped
trying to fight that and trying to make it a big deal, like you
guys didn't watch the videos, you didn't prep, you clearly
don't know what's going on. And instead just kind of leaned
into it and allowed the, you know, learning the bosses to
happen during raid time. We started moving so much faster
and people were having more fun. OK, I mean that there's a
question about like what do you do when people aren't reading
the strats? Like it's, it's something that
comes up more in the the more casual teams, people who will
like literally raid log period, no prep whatsoever when going
way back in time to like for Azeroth, maybe in and around the
100th episode, one thing that we did in our raid group was that
we would explain the strats, but the strats were based on, you
know what these are. So we wouldn't explain what it
did. We just explained what we would
do with it. And then we would pull and there
would be no explaining what does what does that do?
It was just a OK, so tanks, tanks stack on the tanks for the
the blast. Make sure you taunt afterwards.
We're going to drop the the bombs off to here.
Three people, three people in each of the things only only
Joss is going to take it to the consoles and and then it's like,
OK, if you know the fight for for Galliwicks, that makes
sense. If you don't, you're utterly
lost and we are not going to explain explain it to you.
And then with the enforcement, it would be for like, let's say
gearing and enchanting and stuff.
We'd be like, OK, make gearing enchant you.
You can do it during break. Otherwise, just do it after the
raid. We're not stopping in between
the poles and we never had to like drop somebody, but there
would be times where we'd be like, they'd be like, hey,
where's the invite? Like, oh, I thought you were
taking the time to jam an enchant because you didn't do
that last time, right? And it'd be like notice.
And then it's like, hey, like, don't make me inspect you before
you join again. And, and I guess we were just
more hard line with that. But like once we did that, we
just started pulling. Like it was just like everybody
knew to show up before before and have that, that sort of
stuff. And everybody's went through.
And I think there's friction in both ways.
If you push that, the people who are like, I just genuinely don't
have the time for that or I generally don't want to do that
sort of stuff, They're going to drop off.
If you go my way. If you go your way, I can see
the frustration of the people who are like, I want to do the
homework. I want to get all this stuff
ready. Getting annoyed when it's like I
have to sit there and watch a video that I've already watched
like two or three times or I've seen like how many different
strategies. And that's when I think the
worst thing I've that I hate in raids is when the non raid lead
knows better and starts like chiming in and oh, oh, that's
what I that's the stuff I want to shut down real quick.
It's like you're not the raid lead.
If you've got any kind of advice or suggestions, feel free to
propose those when we ask for it or at the end of the night.
But like, yeah, it's very strange.
It depends on where where things are going.
But your team is one night a week you guys go through and and
raid. So it's already very much geared
to like, like, hey, we're just here to have fun and socialize
and get through this content as we get through it, right?
And it's Week 2 as well. Yeah, we, we heavily prioritize
community. The point of our raid is that we
are there to I mean, the point of the raid is to raid
obviously, and nobody has fun. If no like if we make no
progress, right, we still want to continue moving forward, but
we are there because we want to play together as a community and
we want to have fun together. I want to say probably like over
half of the raid team has is have kids of some kind.
We all the the the point of Timbermont Tavern is that we are
all busy adults who want to play video games together and we want
to balance both the fact that like respecting the time that
people put in so that Ray doesn't feel like a huge
terrible slog to the people who worked really hard and also
respecting the fact that we are adults in this is a video game,
which to be fair, is not remotely disrespectful.
Like I, I don't mean that snarkily towards the people who
are like, yeah, this is a video game that I work really hard in
and that I care deeply about and I do a ton of Labor to make it
so that I'm the successful and the joy of the game is that we
are driving. But you know, it's, it's a lot
for the people who are like, Oh yeah, like I really can't do
significantly more than raid logging because I have kids and
like I, we have single parents in the raid and we have people
like, with dealing with really big life stuff.
And we have, we have people just with like, you know, reasons
that they just don't want to do any more than raid log.
Most of us early in the season especially, we do push a lot
more gearing and things like that.
But you things happen and and life happens and and do we do I
we do talk about that conflict a lot because we do also have some
really high level raters in the team.
And we want to make sure that they don't get bored and that
they aren't feeling disrespected and they aren't feeling like the
time they're putting into M Plus and rating on their own and, you
know, prepping and doing everything feels forgotten.
But what I think we've mostly found at this point is that the
people there are certainly some people who have left the team
because they were like, listen, I just want to keep pushing.
And that's fair, right? We're not for everyone.
We're a, you know, a small team. We're there for, like, the
people who want to be there should be there.
The people who aren't there, like, we love to have you in the
community however we can. But the people who stay with the
team are there because they genuinely want to be with the
team and they're OK taking a few extra days and they're OK, you
know, pushing heroic on their own time if they would like to
push. And then playing with us during,
you know, during the the time that we do play.
Because the point to them is also that they want to come and
hang out with the group and they want to have fun with us and
they would rather move slowly with Timbermont Tavern then move
quickly with another Guild. And we've also had some people
leave and come back, which we like.
We love to see it when they come back.
And we also those of you who don't leave and who leave and
leave, we also love and are cheering you guys on.
Like you guys are doing incredible things.
And we're so proud of you and we're so impressed with
everything that everything that comes out of the team and in a
million different ways. So we love our team and we also
love our community as a whole. And I think that it's important
that people are able to play the game.
They want to play the game. OK, So then overall, how are you
liking the Undermine patch so far?
You've had, we're now in our third, sorry, third week of the
patch, second week of raiding, right?
What are, what's your overall impressions thus far?
How's it landed versus like I guess your first impressions?
I love the raid, I'm having a ton of fun.
I think it's cute, I think it's exciting.
I think all of the characters are unique while also cohesive.
I think the mechanics are all reasonable.
There's no boss that I feel like is this is just such a like
terrible slog and it's just so tough.
But also I don't feel like any of the bosses are just like face
roll ignore everything, who cares?
Like everything. I think at least on I mean
normal is tuned pretty well and makes sense and it's reasonable
and fair. I have been having a, I have
kind of opposite issues right now with Mythic like M Plus and
with Delves where I feel like delves are under tuned to the
point when, and I've complained about this on this podcast
before, that I feel like I finished what I like.
I finished delves really early and that was a little bit
frustrating for me. M Plus, I've been having a lot
of trouble so far and part of that because I'm a new tank,
part of that because it's early in the season so nobody really
noticed the mechanics. Part of that is because I
started on operation Floodgate, which if you haven't started
Mythic and plus yet, don't start on operation floodgate.
It's hard. That took us, I think close to
two hours. It was a really, really rough
like it was a like the type of mythic where I logged off and I
was like, am I not capable of tanking?
Like is this something I should just never try again?
Like I am I just bad. So so far I haven't really like
I. I've had fun in M plus because
I've been with my friends, but realistically if I didn't have
to do any M Plus this season I probably wouldn't be heartfrog
man. The story hasn't necessarily
hooked me on a deep level. I actually haven't even finished
the main storyline. Well, then Nope, Nope.
I, I refuse. Like, OK, yeah.
That's Vali. That's super.
Valiant. I think that.
I think that it's fine to say that in the initial part you
don't feel incredibly hooked, but how far are you into it
though? I got to the Kaja mines, the
Kaja coast. OK, so you're only part way.
So has Galliwick's needed convincing?
Like where it's like there's a pause where it's like, I got to
convince Gaslow. Sorry Gaslow, I got to convince.
OK, so you're part way through like the first week stuff.
Yeah, right. Yeah, I think that it's
basically broken into three parts, so not going into
spoilers. There is Part 1 where it's like,
what the Hell's going on? How did Galliwick's wrestle
everything and take over? And then the second part is
like, OK, let's fight back, right?
That leads into the raid, and then there's an epilogue after
the raid. I think that the main emotional
thrust is in Part 2. OK, right.
And then yeah. And then the epilogue is more
funny stuff, but also like a good epilogue with one part
that's really tear jerking and everybody knows when I that's
played it what I'm talking about.
So like I would say it, it's definitely something to you
should continue through. And if you got some time to play
good, be like, OK, I'm going to hammer down that story.
Absolutely. I think I will say not to bring
up a hot topic on the friends or other podcast.
I do think part of it is that we didn't have a heroic week.
And so doing the story right now, every time I log in and I
try to go through the story, there's a part voice in the back
of my head. It's like usually getting dove
keys. You should be doing it and plus
you should be doing this, you should be doing that, you should
be gearing. Why aren't you gearing right
now? You're doing the story and
that's a waste of time and it's taking you've been playing for
an hour and you haven't done anything but the story.
You could be, and this is probably the only hour you're
playing today and you're not gearing at all.
You're not gearing at all before bed.
You're just going to do the story.
And I think if we had that protected time where it felt
more like this is the time that I can really play through the
story. I mean, to be fair, might not be
the point that, you know, if I wanted to play through the
story, I'd set aside the time. I'm not.
I think there's reasons that we wouldn't have a heroic week.
But I think if we did have a heroic week, I would have played
through the story. I I, I do want to say to the
listeners that points Lex is reacting to my facial
expressions. So I, I will my face said
actually Lex and so she reacted to it.
So I will say actually, Alex, heroic rate doesn't affect you
or I because heroic Greek only stops mythic raid from being a
factor. And because you haven't been
doing much mythic plus, the effect on mythic plus is also is
also addressed. So like.
When when we say heroic week, are we not talking about a week
where you can only do heroic dungeons?
No heroic rate. It's normal raid, heroic raid
Mythic is locked out. Mythic plus will usually have
you like you get your keys and stuff, but there's a cap on end
of dungeon rewards. And so like for all intents and
purposes, well, it's just a part of the game that doesn't affect
you. You're not jumping into mythic
rating and so. What I want is I want what
happened with the new expansion. I want there to be like a week
where you can't. I think about even more than a
week, but there I want there to be time.
Yeah, we're all I do with. There's nothing you can do
except heroic dungeons and the story and mess around and gather
herbs and have a good time. That's what I want.
When because the thing to be fed.
You're right, you're right. But I'm being ridiculous by
saying, well, you know, if there was a heroic week, if there was
this protected time, I would have done it when Meanwhile I've
done like 4 delves all together. So it's not like I'm actually
doing other things, but The thing is, The thing is.
Well, I know you're lying there. That's a hyperbole, because you
already reached the 8. So in order to get from rank 3
and beat that to get to the 8, you'd have to do at least five.
That's true. That's true.
But those don't those, those do
count. I'm sorry.
Those are you doing? No, you're hyperbole for
somebody who's going to be pedantic and like, no, I love
that and and be like, oh, Lexus play.
He's like, no, no, no. Tell me out.
She's she's. She's going a little.
Overboard. All right, she's.
Going, I love this. But The thing is what happens is
I think about what I could do. I'm like, I could go in and play
the story and I'm like, Oh my God.
But I what I shouldn't be doing is I should be doing mythics.
I should be doing doves. I should be doing this, I should
be doing that. And then I feel guilty and then
I don't log in at all and nobody's happy, which is
Blizzard's fault and not mine. OK, I I do want to swing back
around to that because there's a topic there, but yeah,
unfortunately we would get discerned.
Flitzer just needs to hire you a therapist, period.
Everyone needs. Therapy.
You'd be able to apply for therapy through Blizzard.
Yeah, but like I do wish that there was additional story
content because now I'm all the way all the way through and I
could have been done the first week because the the first week
that there was no raid available, just that initial
introductory week, which which you're asking to have that
extended. Yes.
You couldn't go into the raid. Yeah, not for sure.
You couldn't go into the raid. You could do delves.
There was there was the ability for you to do the story and
concentrate on the story. But Sean has said it himself
that the story has no purpose for him because there's no power
behind it. Unlike in previous expansions
where it was like, oh, I need to unlock my ability to have a
second legendary like we had back in in Zeroth Mortis or I
need to like work my way through the Rep for this to unlock
various stones and stuff like like we had in Shadow Lands.
There's always been some competitive power that was with
the story. And so you could do the story
and be like, I've got to do it. And now that's gone.
So now, yeah, Sean didn't touch the story after after that, I
only did the story because I love the lore and I went through
that and I went and collected the collected all the little
storybooks so that about like ancient goblins and like what
the deal was that like got different people in.
But yes, that's time that I could be putting towards Mythic
plus that's time I could be putting towards Dells.
So I get what you're saying there in terms of my take.
I had alluded to this before and I was like, I actually am really
worried about the about this. The entire patch I was worried
would be just a Side Story. It's like Carmen San Diego, she
she's in Italy this week. And like, so we're going around
Italy and now there's this henchman of hers and we got to
stop the henchman, but we don't catch Carmen San Diego and the
henchman's ugly forgettable. And that's what I worried
Galliwicks would be. He would be this forgettable
henchman that just got in, got introduced and removed in the
same in the same patch. Again, we're not talking story
spoilers, but they did surprise me.
And so I'm I'm happy about that. The theming of the raid, the
city, the enjoyable nature of this patch with like the jazz,
the sweet jazz music, the slot machine slot machine boss, the
the goblinness of it all. He's really well done.
They managed to get that goblin zaniness, but allowed to have
heart. None of it seems orderly
slapstick like. I think the the most like OU
goblins was when Gaslo like puts like a million explosives at the
door of the Galaggio and you jump behind the the rock or
whatever fortification it was to avoid the explosion when you
blow up the door to get in. The rest of it feels like a
story of people with a goblin twist.
And I loved, I love that for it in terms of the daily things
that you can do collecting scrap the, the various rares that show
up and everybody like drives around for them, the drive
system itself, all of those sort of dailies.
I think they're OK. But I, I think that now that
we're at a point where that's not mandatory, I kind of wish
that they would throw story elements into it.
I want my like, I feel like story can be its reward.
It's going to be a big thing for me recurring guys now that
people aren't forced to do this as a as a power element and like
rush through it. They can they can slow it down
and let us get rewarded with like these story story elements
and go dive deeper into the world.
I love the side quests that are in the zone.
There is the one where the apartment landlord is absolutely
horrible and you end up like being the hero of like that
apartment complex there. There's like the wedding thing
and going around and like finding the perfect wedding
guests and stuff. There's a lot of small little
side stories, local stories, which I think are great.
And I just would like some of that to be in the main
reputation stuff. I'd like to know more about the
various cartels other than, yeah, we're the yellow goblins.
We're the red goblins that joined the horde.
We're the purple goblins that have eye patches and say, yar,
sometimes we're the green goblins that like, run around to
the sludge. Like, I think that I'd like for
them to have taken those characters because there's like
Gilma and all of those different characters that they introduce.
I just, I wanted more. I've wanted more.
And I think they could have put that time in.
Yeah, Yeah. But the raid, the raid I have
played through normal, enjoyed normal.
Like I like the the concepts and stuff, like I said.
But there's a big question about the balancing.
And I know Sean is going to go nuts on this when he comes back.
And I should say for the listeners, please give a little
check in with poor Sean. He he's not feeling well and so
couldn't make it the episode to today.
I hope to have him back soon. But if you if you have any way
of reaching out to him, just wish him well and a quick
recovery. But yeah, there are content
creators that are saying that this is the worst raid ever.
There are content like literally worst raid ever.
They they ruined it with their bad tuning.
There was a liquid member who just went off about the tuning
and such. And even Sean last week was
saying like, oh, they need the heroic week so they can get this
additional tuning and and so forth.
And I have to say, race the world first problem mostly.
So obviously by the time I even step into mythic, there'll be
multiple waves of tuning that have gone through that have
already gone through at the time of this recording and more will
will be coming through. What do you think, Lex?
Do you think that they they need to like push the push to have
more tuning, get that heroic weekend stuff like you were
saying last week? Or what's your feeling this week
now that the race is officially over?
So I'm not big race world first girlie, so I don't really know.
I'm going to make a very uninformed statement, and I'm
going to say it pretty intensely because of who I am as a person.
So I'm probably wrong. The same way that I thought
Heroic week meant that I got a week where I could only do
heroic dungeons. I agree that like, yeah, like on
the one hand, we shouldn't be catering to the top point O 1%
of Raiders. That shouldn't be our number one
priority. The priority should be the
majority of players. That said, those really top
ranks, they're the people who like, you know, the World of
Warcraft is their job. And I think that there's
something to respect there. Like I I think that the team
should have and the team does have respect for the, you know,
race world first and the really high level Raiders.
So yeah, there's going to be tuning issues.
And frankly, even if they had more time, they probably would
like tuning issues are just going to happen.
You can't really they can't do the race world first before they
do the race world first, right? They're going to find things in
the moment. That said, 100 pulls on a final
but last name wasn't it 99 if you if.
You need to know the exact numbers right?
World first kill on on Galliwicks was by liquid and
they did 100 pulls exactly. That's pretty cool.
We love that. Echo will 2nd 49 pulls, method
will 3rd 104 pulls. Like like, yeah, it's like
Liquid got it first so their 100 kills is setting the bar, Liquid
getting a second but doing it at half the amount of pulls feels
impressive. Getting their third and then
having the most pulls of everyone even though you've had
all the other ones have had days ahead of you to like bat their
head and like forge that path and you really are fully going
to full in their footsteps. It feels bad.
It also feels bad that the race was over before Method even got
to the final boss. Like they were still against
Mugsy when like the kill when the kill came in and hey, we've
crowned first place. But like they are according to
according to some, they're like just one or two tears away from
really being in contention. Yeah.
And so. Well, meth used to be one of the
like meth. Basically my understanding of
the NA race world first teams is that it was good.
Yeah, method is EU. Yeah, so.
What am I thinking of? I will say.
Like a a schism of where like one of the groups got
accusations and so like half of them broke off and became liquid
and the other half stayed on. I swear to God that was.
Method that that was method. They are an EU team and so yes,
they were several issues that came up with method, with their
leadership, with their HR, with like particular members of their
rating team. And many of the method Raiders
left the left the team and started up Echo.
So Echo is just Method Raiders under a different banner for
the. That might be too reductive, but
for the most part that's true. Has has.
OK I'm going to sound so stupid. Has the top NA team always been
named Liquid? I swear to God that was changed
so they. Used to be known as limit.
They got bought by liquid and so they became like liquid limit
and then they just dropped limit after a while and so now they're
just liquid. OK, I think that I kind of got
wires crossed where like when method was falling apart.
I think that might have been around first.
I'm not a race world first girlie, so that's why these
wires got crossed very easily. Anyway, so now I'm caught up.
Now I'm caught up, I figured out so OK, but like I I, I don't
know, I and then to be I want to be so clear.
I'm never going to get Gallyworks on down on mythics.
So like still I mean fewer pullers that I would.
Need I'm going to tell you you're wrong because we're going
to go back and we're going to get you that mount the truth.
One day, yeah. We're going to go back and
didn't like 2 man it. We're going to be good.
Oh, yeah. But I so I don't, I don't think
I don't not to say the thing that I say every single podcast.
I think the lizard should be spending more time on
expansions. I think that we should have more
time between patches. I don't think that we need to be
pushing the way that we're pushing.
I think that that like I I would rather a priority, the priority
being things come out pretty close to perfect, then things
come out soon. I understand that might not be a
popular opinion and that a lot of people like the fact that the
content is driving and to be fair, they're doing a really
good like overwhelmingly they're doing a good job of it.
I just a humans can't keep up this time, right?
Like the old Blizzard team wasn't putting out information
slower because they were lazy and like to spend work hours
eating pies, right? Like, they were putting out
patches slower because they needed that time to do the work.
And the idea that we can just permanently be like, well, no,
we're actually going to cut, you know, months off of development
time after laying off. I mean, I guess the World
Warcraft team wasn't hit too hard by layoffs.
But like, after putting these people through an emotional
ringer and it's going to be fine.
We're not going to see any repercussions of that.
I think is frankly disrespectful of the old team and like the
historic team, and I might, maybe I'm wrong, maybe this is
going to age really badly, but I do feel like every patch and
every expansion, I'm like, oh, that could have been fixed with
another month in the pot. And I just wish they'd do that.
But I know that money is money. There's, there's definitely
limiting returns on like how much time an internal team
spends on something. Obviously things are, nothing's
ever going to be perfect, but yes, sometimes some more time
will allow them to refine things.
But I also think that when we're in a world where in the
day-to-day of World Warcraft is something you can walk away
from, they need to give you reasons to come back to the game
more frequently. That's fair.
So like, that's why we get these patches of the 1.51.7 patch
because there's a reason to return.
Oh, something news coming. Let me check out Wow.
When you have people blowing through the raid in two weeks,
12 days, well then these guys are in farm mode for the next
little bit, selling, selling carries for the next little bit
afterwards and the race starts up again when the new when the
new patch comes out. And not even the 11.5, which we
think is going to be in time for Easter or no, Yeah, I think it's
in time for Easter or it's in May anyways.
We don't have a confirmed affirm date, but it should be sometime
soon, right? Yeah, like that doesn't do
anything for people who are rating.
That doesn't do anything for people who are doing their delve
journey. That doesn't do anything for
people whose entire journey is doing keystones.
The PvP is going to get shaken up if they do big balance tuning
like one point, sorry, rather eleven O 5 had big balance
changing so that shook up PVPA lot, but it was still the same
season. Your rating was still carrying
over. I think that May with like a
three tier sort of thing and they're rushing to get out the
next expansion. Obviously midnight.
We're already getting looked at the housing system.
We already know that we're going to get the big reveal this
summer, which is only a couple of sorry, a couple half a year
away because we're now in March. That's likely going to be in
August. Don't scare me like that, Manny.
Things can't come out that fast. I have things to do with my
life. I'm.
Happy, right. So like the, the speed of
content is a lot faster. And yes, I would prefer that we
would get meteor releases in the small patches and, and have
things teased out a little bit longer.
But everybody before this, I was complaining about, oh, Blizzard
and your time gating. Well, now you're getting it.
Now you're getting it fast. And nobody's complaining about
time gating. And I, I know it's a Venn
diagram. Not everybody who's complaining
about time gating is the same people who are complaining about
it not being balanced on day one.
But like, I don't think that you could ever expect them to do
everything. And my bias is that, yeah, the
race to world first teams are going to go all going to go
balance and test it for for me. And when I get to there I'll be
fine just like all the EU guys are like thanks NA for beta
testing every patch that comes out and.
To be super clear, I am primarily concerned about the
human issue of how fast things are moving up Blizzard and I am
using issues that come up with a patch to kind of make a business
argument for why they should slow down.
Because I under like, I, I don't think that anyone cares.
I mean, like people do care, but I think that like the people
looking at the numbers are not going to be like, oh, but it'll
make our employees sad. And maybe it doesn't.
Maybe the employees are fine. I don't believe it.
Again, I really I don't because I to argue.
That they they're unionized Lex and they're adults.
When they start complaining about crunches and such, then I
will be 100% in line in line with you.
But we haven't heard any devs start being like this schedule
is is is ridiculous. You would hear it at least a
little bit on socials, right? I think that that has been the
issue with the gaming industry for a while though, right?
Like, it's not like it's a new issue that like people feel
like, well, we're doing something cool and it's worth
it. So we got to kind of suck it up.
But but like, crunch has never been overly sorry.
That's not true. Blizzard.
Blizzard has had its issues with crunch, especially since it's it
likes to hire passionate people to then come in and work for
less than mark market value and stuff.
And that's like, but that's like an entire entire side.
The the thing about it is that the team has never been quiet,
or at least the entirety of the team has never been quiet when
it's come to those sort of issues.
Like there's how many walk outs when there needed to be walk
outs. There were petitions to get like
the CEO fired when they when they felt it was necessary.
There was complaints about stacked ranking in the with the
customer. Sorry, the employee reviews.
So like I just, if this was a persistent issue that was
affecting the the lively the lives of the employees, I think
we would see it more. And what has been told to us
public is that they brought on a large number of developers and
even before that they were separating the team into stages.
So you have the team that's concepting things, you have the
team that is building out the like the stages of the patches.
And then you have a live team that's bringing in all these
other things. So none of those teams are like
pushed on all of the work. They're just they're, they're,
it's a far more of an assembly line that we're getting with
patches. But I would, I think what I
would love for you to do is if you could look for something
that kind of points towards confirming or validating your
concerns more. And I, I would love to sort of
like do like a, a more of a deeper dive into it in into a
future episode. But like I just, I feel like
until we get the concerns like voice, like we're, we're, we're
almost mothering at that point. Do you really think that anyone
is going to come out in a time when Blizzard is consistently
doing pretty intensive layoffs and say I'm unhappy with my job
right now? Like I.
I, I think, I think that there that that would quiet many
people, but it would never quiet at all people.
It would never quiet. Everyone.
And I think that even when I felt that Blizzard was like
Blizzard as a corporation was at its worst with like a, a person
that I would characterize as vindictive leading them, they
they weren't able to, to sort of not even they weren't able to do
that. They had so many people in the
organization that were were supporting, even if even if it
wasn't like loud, like it was quite.
About for what, like a decade after the issue?
Like, I, I don't know, maybe I mean, neither of us have
anything. Like I, I guess you feel that
you have something more to back your, your side, but like we're,
we're both kind of talking in hypotheticals.
But like, I would argue that the lawsuit proves that Blizzard can
cover things up for a really long time, right?
Do you feel like you knew that that was going to come out
before the lawsuit came out? Like, do you feel like you would
have heard whispers that that was going on a Blizzard?
I don't think, yeah, you know, that that is a good point.
I, I would say that is a good point.
But I, I think that you still hear things, even if it, you
don't, if you realize it's that pervasive, you still hear a
couple of things. You can still hear about like,
oh, BlizzCon and like, oh, something happened at BlizzCon,
or like, this is horrible that this has happened at that
BlizzCon. You still still have some of
those things. And I guess that kind of segues
into the announcement about, no, I was going to say the obvious
word for BlizzCon coming back because we're talking about like
all the bad things. But we talked about that last
week. We did.
You know what I want, I want to give us a couple seconds to talk
about, although I know we've been very chatty for a very long
time, is maybe how was the Toronto Creators event?
Not, sorry, not the Toronto's Creators event.
How was the Toronto 30th anniversary?
Yeah, OK, So I went to the Toronto Warcraft 30th
anniversary event. It was nice.
I thought that it was. It was nice.
It was a very intimate thing because like they had a space,
the entire space of the rec room would hold like 1200 people, but
they had only cordoned off a part of it for about 300 people,
which includes staff and the dignitaries.
Anyways, you know what kind of events I usually go to anyways,
like the end of the faces and everything.
And so it was sort of like just a social.
It wasn't like police con. There were no announcements.
There were no like games on on hand for you to test or
anything. It the events included, of
course, like a bit of a speech by Holly Longdale, who is
Canadian. For those of you who don't know,
Tina Wang was there and Brendan Sewell, who is from Hearthstone.
Tina Wang is one of the senior artists, right?
And just talking about like, oh, like Warcraft has been going 30
years and it's great and we're looking forward to like doing
more stuff, but no big announcements.
There was a, a cosplay sort of showcase where there's people
dressed up as all the like, mostly the different dragon
aspects felt very Dragonflight. Then they gave like if they gave
out mocktails and just got to chat and everything.
There was like a little book that you could sign gift gift
box or is a gift bag really that had a couple of things like I
think same as the London event had that same gift bag.
And so like what I found was the real fun of that event was
meeting people. Like it is great to be in a
place where like, you know, everybody shares a common
interest and that you got to like talk with people.
So like it was just the conversations that I had,
whether it was Towley and his love of like calling everything
clickbait or sorry, that was Slute.
That was Slute. Slute called everything
clickbait. I'm just like, no, you're
warping the, the entire term of it.
Or like meeting ABBA Don, who's a streamer that like I've talked
to her a couple of times and actually meeting, meeting people
in person. That was, I think that's what
really made the, the event. But I think BlizzCon is a
different animal. It is just like a bigger, badder
beasts of an event. Yeah, well, I'm really hoping to
be at the Boston event, although we won't know until we have
tickets. So hopefully I'll see people
there and we'll have fun. We'll chat.
I have big dreams of bringing a lapel Mike and maybe doing some
small interviews, but TBD if that actually happens.
But I'm still that that sounds so lovely, just having that time
to talk to people. Like, as much as I do agree that
it sounds like BlizzCon is an entirely different beast and the
energy is completely different, I do think that part of the joy
was just being in a space where everybody loves the same thing
you love. Right.
I remember one of the just the happiest moments for me at
BlizzCon was just looking around and watching everyone play
Rumble because Rumble and jump come out at BlizzCon and being
like, Oh my God, I got early access.
I, I was doing beta testing and just feeling like we're all the
same. Like we're all just, but I was
also playing Rumble. Like, we're all just having a
good time. We're playing our fun little
games. And we're just, we're here for
the joy and the happiness and, and to support this game that we
all love. Yeah.
So I'm glad you're able to have a little bit of that experience.
The Boston one, I think it's going to be really good.
It's like happening right alongside packs.
So like if you can get out the boss, if you can get those
tickets, do do so. Again, these tickets sell fast.
So if you are looking to get tickets, be ready with that
refresh button to try and get it because the Toronto one went in
like about a minute. I'm not sure if it was under a
minute or over a minute, but it was about a minute that that
they sold out my friend and I, my friend gave me a heads up.
It was like, oh, they're going on sound like right, right, let
me go. I got tickets.
He didn't. So luckily I brought him along
and that was good. Anyways, let's swing it back to
the I the game itself. Let's talk about Delves because
there's been yet again more balancing with Delves.
Bran has received a number of of buffs, so they have decided to
sort of roll back a couple of the nurse that they gave him.
Remember that he knocked his health down by 20%.
Well, now it's back up 10%. The big one that they did is
that all versions of Brand, whether he's tank, heal or DPS
now take 50% reduced damage from AOE.
And I think that's a big one in terms of survivability for all
brands. And they fixed a a bug where
healer Brand, his damage taken was not being reduced as
expected. So healer Brand was especially
frail and they fixed a bug with that on top of the 50% reduction
going back to tank man, he now receives 13% reduced damage
overall. Remember, they increases damage
taken by 60%. Well, now they've backed it off
a little bit from that. He now also receives 5% reduced
damage while using his shotgun. That's great for AOE thing
because the shotgun is great for that spread damage and now he
takes less damage when he's using that.
They have put in a special internal cooldown for his like
stacking weapon as sorry stacking damage buff for a lot
of the hot like effects. So it's not just hot like, you
know, riptide or soothing soothing mist, but it's also
things that you where he would get like relatively frequent
healing. Like when you use pennants on a
on a discipline priest. It's not actually a hot because
it's damage events that then translate to healing, but
because it's happening so constantly, they are treating it
like a hot for this. So now I believe it's about 5
seconds where he won't gain additional stack of the the
damage buff when you're when you're using these abilities,
but you can still stack this up. Keep enrolling in combat, keep
those stacks going. He it stacks up to like 360%
damage. So it's still quite a big damage
buff. And now that he doesn't like get
like two shots as quickly Brand, I think tank Brand is in a much
better position. And that's not even including
the fact that like last week, when this wasn't happening, I
jumped on my shaman, went over to heel spec with like garbage
trinkets that were like things that I could find, hobbled
around A11 delve and still got through it.
And that was like item Level 3, sorry, rather 612 or 613.
So not, not anything high. I'm leveled, not skilled with it
because I haven't done for a bit and now it's even better.
So I think should be good. Yeah, I do.
I will say I complain a lot about Delves being underpowered
this tier and I will probably can.
I mean at this point they're just going to be under tap power
at all tier. So I'll complain about it all
tier. That said, I do think that it
should be fair, right? Like, if I, as a tanky DPS,
could go in and kind of only half pay attention to my poles
and not do my rotation and still get through pretty cleanly, then
a healer at a similar item level should be able to do the exact
same. So yeah, I like the fact that
they're putting things back up and they're making it so that
healing in Delves remains that's viable.
I mean, like I haven't done it. So and and also we've talked
extensively about how like nothing like if if you're trying
to balance to this many classes with this many different skill
sets, nothing is going to be equal, right?
There are going to be some Demon Hunter is going to be
particularly powerful in Delves because we're particularly high,
highly tanky and we are particularly high in self heels,
right. So I'm always going to have an
easier time in Delves. That's.
Go for it. One thing I will say, even if
you were a Demon Hunter, the trio of hobgovins, you know
those ones that charge nasty, those things were nasty.
They decided to nerf that by like kicking one of the trio off
the team. So now it's only two.
I'm in love. Like when I, when I saw those
guys, I like that was like the OK, this is going to be the
challenge. And it was like Dunlock burn one
down and I can handle 2 now they start off as two from the get
go. I'm I'm, I'm enjoying it.
Oh yeah, that's a good change. Those again, I think that things
should be consistent through throughout delves, throughout
different delves, throughout different classes and delves.
So like that, that was tough, right?
It was a little bit weird that it's like, I can do the end boss
and only pay like 10% attention, but I get to this like mid
level, like just trying to upgrade my Ruby in cash and all
of a sudden it's complicated, like what is going on here?
So yeah, I, I, I agree that's a good change.
We like that. We were down to just two.
The other one went first, as Blizzard said.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like to be fair,
as much as I complain about how I want elves to be harder.
It is. Kind of fun I will admit that I
can go in and spend 15 minutes just I beaming things down and
call it a day and get some good gear.
You know I, I would like more single player challenge to
continue through longer in the season, but I it's not that I'm
not enjoying delves, right it's not that I'm not having fun
doing delves. It's just that I want more.
I don't want to be at the apex of Delves at this point.
I I didn't want to be at the apex of the delves last week,
right? I wanted that to give me more
that I could do throughout the season.
Yeah, yeah. So if any Blizzard devs are
listening, like, yeah, throw, throw in those those challenge
modes, we'd we'd love to see them.
The challenge mode with the third guy comes back and he's
like, oh I, I've been swimming and now I've got the swimmer
pod. Man's a triangle.
Yeah, yeah, but no, I'm, I'm glad for the I'm glad for these
changes for those who need it. I don't think that this there's
they're much smaller changes. They're nowhere near the 60%
change. They are very targeted.
The AOE, the AOE damage I think was Brand's real weakness.
The fact that like Brand was going down and getting stunned
and and I was still just like, all right, fine, I'll I'll just
roll up the gloves. I'll do it myself.
Thanos snap a couple of creatures and go.
I do think that delves could need stuff, but my mileage
varies from other people. So yeah, they've got the numbers
and they're making the tuning. Yeah, we're popping along now.
Here's what I think. Here's what I think I just said.
I think that things should be equal among tears or like among
within delves. Everyone should be the same.
I think it should be the same with different sections of delve
I think, or not not delve different sections of the game.
So I think that if we're going to say that I can reach tier 8
delves in one sitting, I should also be able to what?
What's the mythic plus version like?
What would hit at the same gear level as an ear?
Like not recommended gear because the recommended gear for
delves is busted, but what drops a 539?
I want to say 8639. Yeah, yeah, 639 at the end of a
dungeon. Good question.
I think you're looking at A7 like, you know what, Let me just
quickly pull up a little chart here because they were the
Fisher's Guide that had all of that.
And so if you want a 639 from a Mythic Plus, you are looking at
2 plus three. 3 + 4 also gives you at the end of the dungeon
639. Yeah.
So it's real quick to get that level in Mythic Plus.
I guess realistically my issue is the same issue I've had with
delves the entire time, which is that I don't think they're
actual end game, right? And they're not, they're not
meant. I understand that you're going
to then respond with yes, Elizabeth said.
They are not like that. They cap at a much lower level
than group and game content. But I think that we have not
achieved single player end game content.
And I think that they need to do that.
And I don't really believe any of the arguments they've given
me for why they can't give me single player end game content
that. Well is it the rewards that make
it single player end game content?
Well, I mean, first of all, there's the amount, but also,
yeah, I I think that I should, I, I think that I there's for me
to say that we have achieved single player end game content.
I should be able to get essentially like equally geared
doing delves as I would doing mythic plus right?
Like I should. Be or like a mythic raid.
Yeah, sure. Wow.
And it should be equal level of challenge.
But I think that I, I, I, I have not heard an argument that
genuinely convinces me yet of why they can't tune single
player content to difficulty levels.
That would mean that you could have viable like true end game,
the way that you have mythic rate, the way that you have high
level mythic Plus. I have not heard a real argument
that I, I fully believe. And maybe it's just I don't buy
any of the good arguments, right?
OK, so let me let me run past a what I feel is a good argument
and see if you you believe it. Let's assume that there are an
unlimited number of Lexus in the world.
OK, there are equal amount of Lexus that are playing Demon
Hunter and Priest, which means that you can cover every role
between tank, healer, range, DPS, melee DPS.
OK, in a delve, single player delve failure or success is
binary. Lex messes up, she fails, Lex
succeeds, she wins. In a raid, mythic raid, which is
20 Lex, one Lex fails, does that mean she wipes the raid and
that's equal difficulty or half the Lexus fail?
All but one Lex fails and they could still make it through the
the the failure. Just the failure line with no
other context is just wildly different between the two, the
two formats, right? You fail a mechanic in a delve
and let's say it one shots you because that's the level of of
the hit, right? That's that's going to wipe your
team if you do. If one person fails a mechanic
and gets one shot in a mythic raid, that isn't the end of the
world, right? Well, so first of all, I would
say that they equal that out with Simon.
I'm making a couple points. The first thing they they, they
could, they have not. This is not well balanced in
Delve. I think that what they would
need to do is they would need to give a higher fail state, right?
They would need to make it much harder, for example, to be a
tank and a delve, make it much and make make I probably fewer
lives at the end of a delve, and make it easier to die in a delve
because I I would actually kind of argue the opposite, which is
that a delve is at this point virtually unfailable like.
I I did not argue it one way. I just said if both are equal
chance of fail fail state, you have 20 chances in one versus
binary in the other. I guess I'm kind of struggling
with the issue like then then you you balance it out at race
you make. What's the equal difficulty in
that? Like assuming that you can make
both of them equal, how many people have to fail in a raid to
equal one person dying and and and failing in the delve?
Well, how many people have to die in a mythic plus equal dying
and failing in a raid? Do you Would you?
I don't know that I'd argue that those are inherently 1 to one.
I I, I, I guess I'm just not understanding.
Like, is it? Are you saying that the issue is
that it's too? Like one would be too easy and
the other would be too hard? I just think that like it if you
have, you don't know how much can fail between one or the
other. That's the answer to that in my
mind is that there is no correct answer, right?
There is like there are mechanics that will one shot one
shot you in a raid and you fail and it'll cause a immediate raid
wipe, right? Which means that you that any
one out of 20 people can cause entire raid to wipe, right?
And that mythic difficulty personal responsibility can be
at that level. In a delve, it's always personal
responsibility. You die, you die Brand is never
going to carry you through it right?
In terms of the, the balance in a 20 person raid, they can
assume that you have certain things like Mythic Galliwick's,
the the gate doesn't come down. You need somebody who can
actually jump over. So you have to give it to an
evoker. You have to give it to a Demon
Hunter that you jump over the gap because anybody else is just
going to fall and they won't be able to do it.
So they can assume that in a 20 person raid at mythic level,
somebody's going to be able to bring one of those classes that
can do that or even a warlock that can gate it, but then they
can't get back. So they'd have to use their
circle. It's like there's like you could
use different things in a in a pinch, right?
That kind of balance can't be done in a delve because even if
you scale it to five people, you can't guarantee that somebody
has has an ability, right? Same thing with the the damage
that they're having now. They're having such an issue
making it challenging for somebody who's a geared tank to
go through delves because they also need the damage not to
scale so far that the mage isn't going to get one shot or some
other cloth wearing class that can't take take the hits.
I just think the tuning can never be as exact as on a mythic
raid and therefore the difficulty cannot be as dialed
in. And in an episode where we were
just talking about them having such difficulties balancing the
raid right, asking them to do that with a mythic plus just
seems so far gone. So I kind of feel like I, I, I
feel like what I think was the slip of the tongue there
actually kind of makes my like, I, I, I think that that's an
argument that people bake and I think that it's kind of
inherently washed out by the fact that mythic plus exists,
right. And in mythic plus, there are a
significantly higher number of potential combinations of
classes that are going through then will ever the the the the
numbers of ways that you can combine five classes in World of
Warcraft is I don't I can't do the math, but it's probably in
the thousands. I don't know.
I can't do the math, But I know
that that like that change, like that sort of exponential
combination is I went to high school.
I didn't, I haven't thought about that in a while, but they
balance it right. And yeah, and and there's always
times that it's like, yeah, like it's so much better to bring a
shaman. So it's so much easier to get
into. And plus a shaman or like this
season just really sucks if you're a warlock.
I don't know if that's true. I pulled a class out of my butt
but like. There Yeah, there are always
balancing issues and there's always a meta, but clearly the
Blizzard team knows how to balance events, how to balance
and plus specifically so that you can take a group of five.
Yeah, like like you said in in raid, you can be like, well,
it's 20 people, you're going to have somebody who can jump, but
you can't do that in M plus. So it's not that Blizzard needs
the capability to assume that certain percent like, you know,
you're always going to have people who have certain skills
to to do to create content. They're capable of creating
content where they're like, well, what are we, you know, how
are we going to balance this in case they don't have somebody
who can do a magic dispel, but we want to have a magic debuff
in like what what's the how? How are we going to manage that?
It's not just that. It's like, well, for this
dungeon we exclusively have to do like, we just assume that you
have a priest or you're all going to die.
Yes, no, right. Like I mean like magic buff
aside because all healers get rid of magic, but like let's
say. OK, well then I picked the wrong
one. Disease, let's say you say
poison. Yeah.
Disease or disease or something that required a specific kind of
dispel. Yes and no, because you will
find that above certain key levels, certain classes no
longer become viable. And what they do is that they
don't have the reward scale infinitely, just like Mythic
Plus scales infinitely. They cap the rewards so that if
you are doing a 12, you get the best rewards.
But people go on and they do 18/19/20, right?
Like they're going to almost double where the rewards cap
out. And regardless of all that you
do, the best rewards come once a week in the vault.
The lower rewards, the lower rewards are like capped lower
because mythic plus rewards faster.
And that's been like the largest argument that we've had many
times on this show and many times throughout the community
is Mythic pluses don't offer the same logistical complexity and
difficulty that raids do, right? And often what you'll find is
that many of the the same things that they would do in a raid
where it's like, OK, this raid requires you to have a death
knight or some sort of sort of thing that doesn't get forced
movement so that you can do this.
Or this one requires that you use immunity like they did it in
so gears or that sort of thing in order to really push through
this, this fight in in mythic Plus they still have some of
those things where it's like, OK, you now need to leave the
group. Like let's say dark flame craft
last boss and dark flame craft, you get a circle around you.
You now need to leave the group and go out into into the
darkness to so that you don't fear the entire group.
And if and if one person doesn't do that well, then everybody
gets feared, it's likely to lead her wipe at a high enough level.
Right, which is something similar that they can do in a
raid where it's like a bunch you get get circles.
You can't stand on top of somebody else.
They do that all the time. Like in the carnage fight, the
Colosseum of carnage. It's like, OK, here's circles
around you spread out so you don't hit your your fellows
right. They can't do that in delves
because they're not guaranteed to have fellows.
Your everything has to be sort of a personal thing.
Yes, sometimes Bran will cleanse for you.
So hey, you don't need to have that that curse because Bran
will sometimes curse for you. But then you need to support
brand, you need to use a defensive for yourself and they
don't put as they don't put tank Busters in there because you're
not guaranteed to have a tank. So there's a lot of different
things that they can use to make a more exacting difficulty that
they that they're literally restrained from using in delves.
But again, but again, there's there's also huge differences in
what you can do in an M plus versus the rain.
But they have end game content for both of them right?
Like yeah, but you said the end game is because you can get the
best gear and I'm showing that mythic plus takes a step down
because it's difficulty is wait. Does mythic plus not offer the
same level of gear that raid does?
Like like top level mythic plus? What?
What is the the raid difference? The gear difference between top
level like mythic raid gear and M plus like before you hit the
challenge mode. So at the end, at the end of a
raid, you will get 662, I believe gear and I'm I'd have to
go 678 on the very rare 678 gear.
OK, at other at other places it's 672.
OK in a mythic plus the end of a vault will give you 655 and then
sorry the end of a dungeon 6:55 and then in a vault you will get
662 which you can then start going like OK let me upgrade
this but it's slower because you start at that lower thing and
have to upgrade. So they already offset it a bit.
OK, So I would accept the delves mainly.
Yeah, like it does not have to be like exactly.
I, I, I, I I didn't realize that.
So maybe I'm a little bit, but 10 item levels is different than
I guess 20. Are you serious?
Is it really? So the delve is 649 at in the
vault at 6:39 in in there but their heroic track so they will
cap. Oh man I hate when I do this cap
at 665 S The stuff that you get out of a delve in your vault
right on the hero track you can get up to.
Is it on the hero track? Oh God, Delves.
Wait, is it 655? No.
It's going to be champ track. No, it's going to be hero track.
I'm right, I'm right. It's hero track.
There's only a 20 item level difference, but less than less
than a 20 item level difference between.
If you do it AM 2 and it's like it's in an M10.
Is the top level mythic? I don't do top level anything.
Mythic. If you do a mythic 10 you will
get the best in your vault. That'll get you a 662 in your
vault. OK, that's the highest reward
you can get out of a vault from a mythic.
Plus that difference between what you get out of a vault for
the top tier delve. 649 to 52 right?
That's a 13 item level difference.
So but but no I'm talking I'm I'm I'm just surprised I don't
do top level mythic so I didn't even realize how small of an
item level change this is. So it's only a 20 item level
change if you do an M2 and an M10AM I tripping out?
So a mythic 2 gets you the 39 and the mythic 10 getting you 55
is I guess. I'm not not not nothing, but
it's much slower than I thought it was.
Right. Plus it's on a different upgrade
track there at that point, right?
That's true. Yeah.
So I I guess maybe it's more so that mythic plus isn't as strong
as I thought it was and I just assumed that mythic plus is
strong because all of my besties who like spend all their time
playing are super geared after mythic plus.
Again, like it's easier for you to get like and there's also the
organizational challenge. It's easier for you to get 5
people together and go do Mythic Plus than it is for you to get
20 people together and do a Mythic raid and 20 people at
that level versus 5 people at that same level if they were
equivalent. It's just a completely different
organizational hurdle to jump through.
Oh yeah, yeah. And I mean, like, to be fair,
I'm not arguing the delves. I, I'm not arguing the delves
should be infinitely scalable. I'm also not arguing the delves
should like, I, I would be more than happy if they made it so
the delves could continue on longer.
And this like there was more levels and more gear that you
were getting out of them at higher levels and you were able
to push further in delves. But also like I, I think, I
think 5 lives is far too much. And I think first of all, I
think the kid things will have to kill you more and I want that
to happen. And I also think I, I want to
fail adults. I would like adults to feel
failable. At the higher levels, I think as
you start going into 9/10/11, I believe you start with less
lives. I think it's like 5 lives at 8
and like at 11 you start with like 3 lives and you might be
able to gain a life once you get to the mid.
No, you do get it. Gain a life through it.
You can gain a life when you get to the midpoint or something
like that. Yeah, exactly right.
I I, I will say I'm not like it's, I don't, if I'm not
getting anything out of something, I'm probably not
gonna do it in World of Warcraft or unless like sometimes I'll do
like story stuff just for the story of the story.
But like, I'm probably not gonna do challenge motels because
like, yeah, like I could, but like I.
Could offer cosmetic. It doesn't need to be power
though. It doesn't need to be power cuz
soon as you put power people get really bent out of shape.
Yeah, but it's not end game content if it doesn't offer and
like, like the and again, I, I, I hear you that maybe the the
differences aren't quite as big as I thought, but I think I
think being like, oh, no, you single, like solo players, you
guys. Yeah, you're not going to get
like gear out of it, but you can keep doing it to higher levels.
Like, yeah, girl, we played alone anyway.
Like we were used to not getting gear out of this.
Like that's going to help me. But like, look at Mythic Plus,
how many people will push way beyond the point where they're
getting gear, right? Because they are like, they want
to challenge themselves, they want a title, they want to
mount, they want portals, have power.
But like all the other stuff is so cosmetic, right?
I'm not anti challenge mode for the people who want challenge
mode. I'm arguing the tell like like
that single play, like solo players should be able to push
for gear and benefits for longer, right?
That it shouldn't be like, well, you get challenge mode like,
yeah, like we're not going to give you gear.
You're not going to get anything out of it, but you could do it.
You have challenge modes, right? Like I, I, I hear you that
that's like I, I, I, I'm not saying that we should do away
with challenge modes and delves because I don't do them.
I'm arguing for higher levels of delves that do include gearing
and do include power and, and give me more to do as a solo
player for a longer period of time.
And then they can go into challenge modes that I won't do,
you know? OK, I was thinking that you
would do your eights or elevens or whatever they say the cap is
for gear so that you could then push through the challenge modes
and get your like cosmetics and titles and stuff in the
challenge modes where it's like, OK, I'm going to farm out my
like elevens and get it and get all those upgrades and get my my
6 out of 6 heroic gear set up so that now I can push through and
do gold, gold heroic mode and get like my title.
Hey, this was actually worth it of Alcatraz or whatever.
But like, yeah, like if if your cap is once I don't get any
power out of it. It's not it's not something that
I'm going to be put out to do. I think that's fine.
And I think that's sort of what the game has been heading
towards for a while, ever since they're like, hey, you don't
need to do the story because we're not going to put power
into it. We're not going to put some new
system into every patch that you need to like work through.
The galaggio rewards thing that's in the raid is purely
through rating because in a, in a prior incarnation of the game
that would have been through doing all the stuff in, in the
undermine. So you'd be like, I've got to
work on my my renowned track so that I get all this power in the
raid. So I think what you're saying is
healthy, especially since we began this episode with the oh,
but I could be delving. I could be doing mythic plus, I
could be doing all of this stuff.
The fact that the delves aren't pushing you to go all the way to
14 because you could be getting power in that conceit sounds
healthy. But then why do those people who
play with groups get power higher?
This is my argument. I if I only want to play for
power, I should be able to get at least like roughly in the
same ballpark as the people who only want to play for power in
five player content or I I guess to be fair, there isn't really a
a challenge mode in rating, but like I.
This is a challenge mode. Right.
Well, no, but you, you get rewards for Mythic Manny the and
like I, I will say one thing that I'm learning through this
conversation is I think that my sense of how skewed Delves were
versus mythic plus is perhaps off.
I do think it's skewed, especially because Delves cap
out at about the level where mythic plus begins, since it
sounds like Delves cap out at about two.
And that's like technically M0 exists, but by and large, that's
where mythic plus starts. But I we'll accept the argument
that to some extent I'm being unreasonable about how behind
solo players are. I just think that solo players
should be low. Like if, if at the very least,
if we're going to say we have given solo players end game
content, that end game content cannot be at the level that
multi like group players begin. You know what I'm saying?
It's not. That's not end game content,
that's mid game content like that beginning of the game
content. Like, OK, like for for people
pursuing power, I can see that that construction of it.
And I would also say that like your impression of mythic plus
is not out of thin air. It is because in season 1, the
stuff that you were getting out of of end of end of dungeon,
sorry, rather end of dungeon 7 was about where you would end up
with delves. And so people were jumping from
Delves right in the sevens and that was causing an issue.
So they've clearly made that shift so that people aren't
going from delves right into the middle of of mythic plus.
And I could, I could see why that is suddenly like jarring,
jarring for you. But I'd like to list, I'd like
to hear from the listeners, where do you think Delves should
fit, both in terms of the rewards you should get from it
and also the difficulty that it should land?
Do you think Season 2 is underpowered?
Do you think that it should go further?
Do you think that it should be closer to Season 1?
And again, let us know. Join the discord at bit dot LY
slash fast discord. And until next week, guys, may
all your hits be quits.