Is 1.12 an AQ and Naxx patch only?

[Fateweaver-misha (Fateweaver)]

It’s going to be exactly like someone starting in the last quarter of the game

Except for no honor system, limited raids, no dire maul …

[Caelle-exodar (Caelle)]

Yeah frankly no one is really going to have the exact same experience, which is what Blizzard tried to tell everyone from the get go. Those that started later will be closer to their norm though, especially a year or so in.

[Minnette-kargath]

They already said this is just supposed to be a museum piece. Put it out and done at the latest stage. Nothing more. It’s just supposed to show people what the game looked like at the start vs what it looks like now.

Why do people defend Blizzard doing the minimum needed to get Classic Live? I don’t understand why people wouldn’t want and expect the very best from any game company. A well made version that truly represents Vanilla will do far better then a hastily built version that doesn’t represent what people remember about Vanilla.

[Caelle-exodar (Caelle)]

Problem is that depending on when you started will change what you remember about Vanilla. In that case who is correct? I didn’t start til around AQ, so if it was a version before that it wouldn’t represent what I remember about Vanilla. Then you compound it with 8 million individuals and which is the correct version?

I woukd have loved to start from the beginning and rolled through because I didn’t get to see alot of that early stuff, but I also understand why they are doing whst they are doing.

A lot of the bugs and exploits had been fixed by 1.12. Class reworks and balance was done. Some of the technical problems had been worked out.

Then you get into the fact that we don’t know what they have data wise ( we’ve been led to believe they only have bits and pieces from prior patches) and people were already complaining that 2 years was taking too long.

They made decisions factoring in all of those things. It is what it is at this point.

[Eloraell-moon-guard]

And now they get the chance!

[Urskrah-zuljin]

Where did you get that idea?

@Kaivax

Along the way, we’ve seen many questions asking if we’re also retracing the steps of incremental changes to individual items and their stats that may have occurred throughout original WoW. Such a plan could be called “progressive itemization.”

Here’s an example of progressive itemization. The Tier 2 warrior Helm of Wrath originally had Spirit and Agility on it, as well as critical strike chance. In Patch 1.5.0, the helm’s stat budget was changed to Stamina, Strength, and Defense, along with elemental resistances. Then in Patch 1.7.0, the amount of Defense on the helm was reduced. In Patch 1.8.0, the 5-piece set bonus that included the helm was fixed to work with Whirlwind, and in 1.9.0, it got a better look with an art update.

WoW Classic will only include that last version of the item, as it existed in our reference version: 1.12.

We ARE getting progressive drops, though.

@Kaivax

Developers have scoured through vendor lists and treasure tables for items that were added in patches, and then attached them to the staged content unlock plan. This means that if a new item was originally added to a dungeon boss’s loot table with Ahn’Qiraj, you shouldn’t expect it to appear in WoW Classic until Phase 5, which is the phase that contains Ahn’Qiraj content.

@Branardol-moon-guard

It’s the “catchup” items that were more powerful, which will not come until later phases.

R10 PvP gear. It was reitemized in 1.11 to be better than MC and BWL gear. I’m pretty sure that version will be available from the start.

[Eloraell-moon-guard]

By the time CP6 comes out…

[Branardol-moon-guard (Branardol)]

@Urskrah-zuljin

R10 PvP gear. It was reitemized in 1.11 to be better than MC and BWL gear. I’m pretty sure that version will be available from the start.

PvP gear doesn’t come out until phase 2

@Bornakk

Here’s what the PvP content looks like mapped to the phases we recently posted about:

Phase 1 (WoW Classic Launch)

• You can PvP one another in the world, but there is no tracking, and no formal rewards for doing so.

Phase 2

• Honor System (including Dishonorable Kills)
• PvP Rank Rewards

[Urskrah-zuljin]

It’s not immediately a problem then, at least. That’s still before BWL even comes out, though.

[Karrick-shuhalo]

This really isn’t a Vanilla experience in my view,

it really isn’t, but i don’t see blizz devs rolling out the patches as they occurred. they have addressed their reasons. you can’t go back anyways. i don’t even remember 1.12 but i bet hunters aren’t wearing intellect gear.

[Fateweaver-misha (Fateweaver)]

By the time CP6 comes out…

Which is when?

[Apropos-frostmourne (Apropos)]

It’s not immediately a problem then, at least. That’s still before BWL even comes out, though.

Tier 2 is still superior to rank 10 for pretty much every class in the game. The classes that don’t use tier gear aren’t going to be using many rank 10 items anyway.

Rank 14 is going to take at least 3.5-4 months to obtain for ~5 people on a single server.

BWL will be fully cleared the same week it gets released because people will have full MC gear and proper consumables/enchants.

Rank 13 gear is a side-grade for most casters and rank 14 weapons are only a minor upgrade for most players who aren’t orc axe spec’d fury warriors.

DPS doesn’t matter if you’re already full clearing raids in the first week. The only time dps matters is for AQ gear check fights and most raiding guilds which aren’t full of undergeared casuals who have poor raid attendance won’t have any problem having the necessary dps even without full BWL geared players.

People like to doom and gloom about PvP gear but honestly it’s so much easier just to get raid gear and still be competitive.

The only people who actually benefit from PvP gear is hybrids who want to dps and fury warriors, but horde warriors are threat capped on bosses anyway and trash clearing has never been a problem for anyone.

[Urskrah-zuljin]

Yeah, don’t get me wrong. I’m excited to get the good version of the Ban’thok Sash in BRD instead of having to keep the bad one in my bank for a future patch.

It’s definitely not something that is going to ruin having official Vanilla WoW servers for me, but I want everything to be as appropriate as possible so that launch goes off without a hitch.

[Gorwarth-khazgoroth (Gorwarth)]

The only time dps matters is for AQ gear check fights and most raiding guilds which aren’t full of undergeared casuals who have poor raid attendance won’t have any problem having the necessary dps even without full BWL geared players.

Uhh… more dps = quicker clear times and also opens up some brute force strategies. To say “it doesn’t matter” is to reduce raiding to a simple pass/fail metric, which is a pretty narrow view. There are subtly and nuances.

[Fujin-dalaran (Fujin)]

They are in beta huh… sounds like the perfect time to make some tuning changes such that the original difficulty curve is preserved and not completely trivialised by a final patch release.

Think about doing emerald nightmare with the equivalent fully unlocked 7.3.5 artefact weapons.

“The original difficulty curve” I played all through Vanilla in a pretty successful raiding guild. I’m genuinely curious as to what you believe the original difficulty curve was. I find it hard to believe that anyone who played and raided in Vanilla would believe that 1.12 completely trivialized World of Warcraft.
The important thing here is that it still feels like Vanilla. Mechanically Vanilla was not difficult ever. They would have to go beyond just rolling out patches as they were released in Vanilla to create something that would challenge players.
We have so many tools and resources out our disposal now that even if you’ve never played World of warcraft or any MMO, you could pick up Classic today for the first time and be a better all around player than the majority of raiders in Vanilla regardless of the patch.
Vanilla isn’t about difficulty or skill. It’s about the time investment, the journey, the sense of community and social interactions…There are many things along these lines that can be added. That sense of “difficulty” had very little to do with mechanics or what patch you played and more to do with us as players back then.

[Gorwarth-khazgoroth (Gorwarth)]

I am going to preface this by saying Pservers may have gotten some balance/values wrong and fuzzy memory of vanilla distorted by 15 years are significant factors which is why I want to see testing to ensure balance.

I find it hard to believe that anyone who played and raided in Vanilla would believe that 1.12 completely trivialized World of Warcraft.

Well I got the General PVP rank and was in a raid guild, so I spent some time in vanilla too. Anything prior to the end of AQ and Naxx was trvial in 1.12 with a good group, mostly because of gear but also because of talent revamps cause power creep.

I’m genuinely curious as to what you believe the original difficulty curve was.

Not being able to brute force fights without absurd min/max & class stacking… for example on Lucifron if enough of the raid consistently get the curse\magic debuff healers should go oom and raid wipe (on progression, on farm not so much), you should also not be able to ignore guards and burn down lucifron (before talent revamps this was not really feasible). Similarly Ragnaros should not be able to be killed prior to the submerge phase unless you are balls to the wall class stacked, full consumables and even they it should be touch and go. With 1.12 values a lot of raids on pservers seem to burn him down prior to submerge on the first kill (granted world buffs are a large part of the blame here which are not consistent on live).

The important thing here is that it still feels like Vanilla. Mechanically Vanilla was not difficult ever.

WOW was my first MMO, I sucked at it. I have 15 years of experience in it, I think it is difficulty to anyone without that experience, we take for granted the vast knowledge we have built up. That said compared to today, I agree the mechanics are simple, its the logistics that is the challenge.

They would have to go beyond just rolling out patches as they were released in Vanilla to create something that would challenge players.

For veterans and well co-ordinated groups I want it to be the cakewalk it is but I still want sloppy playstyle to be punishing and for MC-BWL not to be “LFR” level of difficulty because of 1.12 talents. Its possible I might be overreacting because of Pserver experience compared to my live experience but I want it tested just the same.

[Fujin-dalaran (Fujin)]

prior to the end of AQ and Naxx was trvial in 1.12 with a good group , mostly because of gear

You hit the nail on the head right here as to why content prior to AQ and Naxx by 1.12 felt trivial. Gear and experience, these 2 things were the biggest factors to previous raid tiers being pretty easy at that point.
A lot of these scenarios you mentioned were not common place in 1.12 vanilla outside experienced coordinated and geared raiding guilds (my guild really didn’t even do MC at this point). 1.12 talents certainly didn’t create “LFR” level of difficulty, I’m sure you’re exaggerating but I honestly believe people truly believe this.
Private servers (not really mentioning values) have been up and running for years. These people have been raiding the same content over and over. It really wouldn’t matter what patch they were playing on, you’d see some pretty outrageous things happening. There’s no way anyone could convince me that if WoW had released at the 1.12 build that people fresh into the game would be rolling through the content “LFR” style simply due to the talent revamps and tuning.
Absurd min/max & class stacking are common place in World of Warcraft these days, it’s pretty much the gaming culture we have now. Most people will do a quick google search and will know everything they need to know about what’s the best classes/spec/gear/strategies. This will be even more so with Classic as these things have been thoroughly perfected and researched due to Private Servers.
The raids will be a cakewalk regardless of the patch they were released and as was true back then the real challenge will be getting there.

[Gorwarth-khazgoroth (Gorwarth)]

I am fine with experienced groups steam rolling the content. What I do not want to see is sloppy groups or brute force strats working e.g Ragnaros wear greens/fresh 60s ignore FR gear and Zerg him down prior to sons, come on he is an iconic boss, the very first End of tier big bad in wows history.

I want testing to prove or show it’s not this way, because if an 8.0 instant attack buff lasted this long who knows what else is in?

1.12 threat and talents are power creep.