Bad counter-argument. First, a blade of grass has very little mass at all compared to say, a person (or golem, demon, what have you). Second, if you equate a blade of grass to a person, then the sword being swung would be closer to the size of a house (that’s also being swung MUCH MUCH FASTER than any normal person could do), instead of something that could be conceivably wielded.
We’re not regular persons, though. We’re enhanced humans channeling lots of power with epic weapons dropped by gods and Titans. If we can defeat a Titan, then surely we can cleave a dozen trash mobs.
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I mean it’s not fun that Destro Locks and Unholy DKS don’t have aoe caps… Pretty cool seeing them do 50k DPS on massive pulls when other classes get capped at 10-15k. Really engaging.
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The design that they want is for certain specs to excel at true aoe (lots of targets), others at cleave (3-5 targets), others at spread cleave (2-3 targets), and others at single target.
With some overlap, of course, but basically that is the idea. The designers have said that specifically more than once (not in precisely those words, but basically that). The same concept applies to raid encounters.
The problem is that the game tends to drift towards large aoe pulls most of the time, and so the vast majority of situations tend to become either aoe or single-target (because of certain bosses).
I don’t think that the devs would disagree that it’s a genuine issue, and that specs that should theoretically excel in the mid-range rarely get a chance to shine because those situations don’t arise very often.
Anyway, that is the idea here, basically they want melee cleave to be distinct from true aoe. I don’t know if it will work out, but I’m pretty sure that is the idea, because the devs have made no secret of it.
It’s the type of thing that has seen many iterations, so there’s really no reason to see the current iteration as permanent. It’s what they are trying for now.
The AoE cap is stupid. If they want us to pull smaller then they need to make trash more challenging to deal with. You don’t see people mass-pulling the corridor in King’s Rest. You also see groups struggling with big pulls at the start of Shrine, because if you can’t kick mending rapids then you can’t kill the pull. IF your group has enough skill then you can risk some larger pulls there, but you don’t just mongo it like you do in Freehold.
So the real question is this: Do you want dungeons to be like King’s Rest and Shrine, or do you want them to be like Freehold and Waycrest? Just putting an arbitrary cap on AoE accomplishes nothing except making the game less fun. Leave AoE uncapped or soft capped at 20 (pre 9.0) and make dungeon design more challenging.
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They heard a lot of feedback 10 years ago that dungeons were too easy and they came up with Cataclysm. That worked out well for them!
You can’t do that when you’re in fresh gear. I also tried it in AQ20 last night and it sucks.
AOE cap is Blizzard basically cutting off their own leg for no reason. This is absolutely ABSURD.
The dungeon design is going to vary anyway.
Somebody higher in the thread was saying that competitive players didn’t like King’s Rest because it didn’t allow for a lot of variety in clearing trash.
But other players might like it because its baseline layout and mechanics are challenging.
The whole question of difficulty is basically moot. The dungeons are still going to be challenging. It is still going to be possible to get creative on bigger pulls some of the time.
That’s not the reason why players are objecting to this, really. It’s a nerf to aoe, that’s the main thing.
There’s also the “feel” of it, which I sort of agree with, and a soft cap might be better for certain abilities from that point of view, but if the result was a significant nerf to aoe, players would still be objecting to it for that reason.
And maybe that’s reason enough not to like it. Players obviously like the power trip that comes from doing huge numbers against large packs. But that’s different from there being no reason for the changes. They don’t want that approach to work as often as it currently does. Simple.
yeah. after the cap was implemented…
Exactly. The introduction of M+ in Legion was a huge turn for the game. Re-playable, infinitely scaling content that demands so much more out of players then any raid ever has. It opened up so much more of your characters abilities and let you be creative in ways that had never been done before.
Huge success and lots of fun. Fast forward to Shadowlands and now this stupid change. Welp, sorry guys. Better bring the right classes now.
All they’re doing is further driving classes to be ‘mandatory’ in competitive content. Yes any class can do +10’s or +15s (whatever the weekly cap is) but players will always look to higher groups for the best comps/strats. These changes are going to end up with even more players being declined from content because they arne’t playing a meta class.
This doesn’t even start on the tank issues this brings up.
And for the record, doing big pulls is infinitely more fun then doing 3-5 mob pulls.
It was due to trash being so difficult. You could speed pot down the hallway and los everything into the next room if you wanted, but trash was so difficult it wasn’t feasable. So the result was everything getting pulled the same way every time which compounded the crappiness of that place.
Overtuned trash, no diversity, and a straight line.
Are you saying that there wasn’t a meta in BfA, and that certain specs didn’t have a big advantage over others?
Players were arguing throughout the expansion that mythic+ favored melee over everything else, because of burst aoe and interrupts, basically.
I really doubt that reducing the number of big aoe pulls is going to make the meta worse, tbh.
Part of the issue is that players know that just being salty about a nerf is not a compelling argument, so we tend to always argue there is some deeper problem, which I don’t think there really is in this case.
You just said yourself that what players did in King’s Rest had nothing to with the strength of aoe.
If there are parts of Shadowlands dungeons where the trash is non-threatening enough to do huge pulls, then players will do that.
The only thing that has changed is the raw power of aoe.
Ofcourse there was a meta in BfA, there always will be a meta. The difference is those were mostly tuning and throughput changes (aside from Brez). IE, classes that did the most damage made the meta - fire mages, hunters, and rogues at the end of the expac.
Having classes with different cleave/aoe spreads is going to pidgeon hole groups into even more specific needs which translates to lots of groups looking for specific classes to fill what their group is lacking. Meaning even less groups willing to take the random player.
There are ways to fix the melee/ranged dynamic in M+ that doesn’t pidgeonhole groups and force comps. Burst AoE was fine in faceroll keys and getting your +15 done, but what really matters in higher keys is overall damage as things live a lot longer which allows ramp classes to fully get out their damage.
This is another change that only adversely effects competitive groups. If players want to go slow and fight one pack at a time, then make friends with like minded people, form groups, and do it. You don’t need a forced AoE cap to do it.
Exactly, I pointed out that it made that dungeon boring, not engaging, and not fun. IE the point of this thread.
I’ll see your AOE cap and raise you a moronic Loot-a-rang nerf.
You’re basically saying that nerfing aoe will make creating the appropriate comp in competitive groups more demanding.
I don’t think that’s the intent, so if that ends up happening, then that’s probably good news for players who don’t like the change.
But that remains to be seen, I tend to doubt it. Blizzard has already said that they expect big pulls to still be a viable strategy, they just want it to be less common and less efficient.
Does saying something is mindless not imply that the lowest common denominator can do it easily? A bunch of groups can do it and a bunch cannot. That is indicative of a difficulty in the practice. If the lowest common denominator cannot do it then it truly is not mindless. Really I am curious about your response to this. How is it that coordination with your team and smart use of cds is mindless?
What I think this is all about is that Blizzard wants to make the gap between what is seen in the MDIs closer to what we see in irl Mythic Dungeons from non professional players. They have yet to change the rules on class selection however this is another attempt at leveling the playing field for the “lowest common denominator” you are speaking of.
Blizzard have become more aggressive in the goal of reducing the gap between skillful players/groups vs regular players. Good or bad is your choice to decide. This may also be a way for them to reduce the amount of work they have to do with balancing Mythic Plus Dungeons. Perhaps in preparation for Mythic Plus Timewalking. Of which if they came out and said this up front I am sold. However such communication is lacking and all we know is what they have said.
But it is not
Rushing to judgement is exactly what the person you’re responding to is doing. They don’t do the content, so they make a poor assumption.
Shadowlands dungeons might not be mindless. Get there first before you decide so.
You know it’s telling when everybody defending the existence of an AoE cap hasn’t done any sort of meaningful max-level content in this game before.
And some people’s idea of “fun” is “something only a tiny percentage of the playerbase can actually complete, but waste their time please daddy blizzard”.
No, it’s actually not a proper function of the devs to make the game unplayable for the overwhelming majority of players, no matter how superior it makes you feel saying that.
I do think that there will be complexities of its own. But removing a Gameplay style certainly limits the players options. Indeed the game might be more difficult now that it will be tuned for harder mobs. However I think when it comes to the general design of dungeons and raid fights this will force more players into a specific playstyle. So much that it may become repetitive and easy to do. The fun thing about massive aoe pulls is the agency the group has in selecting which part of the dungeon to focus on for it. So the changes make these dungeon runs more linear Which simplifies the strategy and the developer time in tuning it.
This is likely a limitation introduced specifically to help reduce the massive difference between pro runs and pug runs. Ideally making high mythic plus runs more mimicable by viewers.
I just cant wait until I see how the MDIs will break this and find a way around it