Frostmourne SIII | Suggestions regarding future design

Greetings Frostmourne community,

We would like to hear from you! As you could have seen and played, we have implemented a variety of different ideas for Frostmourne SII, and now we are currently in the ideation phase for the season three and therefore we would like to hear from all of the community in terms of what you would enjoy in the next season.

Warmane encourages you think of the box, and observe no limitations in what we we could feature next! As a general rule, we usually stay away from content that would appear "too custom" or "funserver x255" but we also encourage all ideas, even if we may not consider an idea for being too custom, it is possible we can consider an adjusted version of it.

We look forward to hearing your suggestions! All feedback will be considered seriously.

Kind regards,
Warmane

More incentive to do timewalk if this happens again, it was mentioned in some other thread that the timewalk raids are meant as a catchup, yet their difficulty is scaled quite high for catchup content? On the other hand, whoever raids the main raid in the content there is little reason to go in to the timewalk raids as the loot is not usable. Heroic modes for bosses & tribute runs for the timewalk raids such as speedrunning the raid, like stratholme style timer for black temple for example where after a certain time after the first boss dies, a timer starts for an extra loot chest which could contain higher-end items for its tier. Or just some activatable that makes the encounter harder for an extra piece of loot that is of the higher-end of ilvl for the content.

Hi all,

first-able I want to thank you for your job, I would start by reflecting Frostmourne-S2 opinions:

1) Timewalking Raid
ZA was the best time-walking content ever you made here since special extra loot, so I suggest making some bonus loots + fragments and shards could be available, we do have not enough time to collect it.
Loot could be adjusted by each season, eg. I liked Karazhan but by the time it was boring, now would be nice to go it again but, there is no interesting loot for people, so difficulty could be adjusted by some mob or companion within loot.

Timewalking dungeons, add some interesting loot from 10m raids (weapons/trinkets).

2) Timewalking content
Isle of Quel'danas and Scepter quests was extremely unbalanced, server population wasn't so big we had time to finish it.
Scepter quests, mobs have levels close to 80, but quests are still not adjusted, it is harder to donate low-level items than common 80level drops, you have to go to MC and BWL which weren't adjusted so it is a weird step backward.
Same on Isle, drop from mobs wasn't updated, even it was hard to kill.

3) Support
a lot of missing assistance and missing/delayed information, GM didn't exist, just some auto-reply those pings pong us to inactive bug tracker or forum without result or deleting our posts.

4) Unbalanced sides
on next F3 half of the alliance's people are planning to migrate from alliance to horde, mainly due to brake advantage of alliance in PVP (many multi boxers of the horde in WG).
So I suggest making the racials changes selectable independent of a race when the character reaches 80level.
Multiboxers could be prohibited in WG only or allowed only once per day, I plan to go horde next season, so it will remove my advantage, but I don't think it is fun for regular people to free win.

5) Store
It is BlackBox for us, players when new items appear, so I suggest that characters those killed boss once on its difficulty at least can buy an item from store dropping from this boss. So basically it will be not exactly paid to win, you can obtain the item faster, but you have to kill it before at least so it is a nice fix of some RNG.

6) Extra account features
By this I mean you can buy a service for an account that will cost 10-30(or free) coins (I could imagine it could be helpful to more support the server by an extra service) and it will make:
a) Gathering profession
To avoid more alts, when we can have more professions on one character, so it could be paid service to have for 30coins an extra profession slot for the main profession (gathering[mining/skinning/herbalism] professions without bonuses at least).
b) Bound to account
Some things could be bound to account as mounts, companions, emblems(this could be actually pretty nice so more healers and tanks in RDF since they can share emblems cross-account).
c) refund unused characters, a character that is the highest level(80lvl for WotLK) could be deleted and the player will receive 10% of trade price, so If I made some char for a profession I don't need to hold it anymore and can get for naked character 3 coins as a bonus for some next buy on store/trade.

Bests!

Same as last season, just change timewalking to different raids for change of scenery. If faction imbalance is an issue have voluntary free changes followed by forced changes. Idk … but offering cross faction racial changes may be only way to balance factions.

New timewalking Raids - as mentioned above, before everyone out geared ZA, the first couple weeks of ZA were really fun. If you guys could introduce more time-sensitive timewalking raids, possibly in t7 and t8, (e.g. customizing specific older raids that made sense to include timers), that would be awesome.

oh, yea and start it an early lot of ppl can't wait, since a lot of ppl getting bored since nothing new on the current server.

meaning start it 2 weeks before the current season ends, so more time to prepare.

Hi and thanks for confirming another Season of Frostmourne! Looking forward to it.

I know some people are against the shop, but as a progressive and competitive guild we would like to see the loot-table beeing more updated than in Season 2.

I've heard you guys saying it's automatic, which it cannot be since you dropped all TOGC 25 loot for both alliance and horde at the same time, its not automatically updated, its manually.

Would be cool with maybe some classic time-walking this time. for example: Molten core 25 man, drops Naxx25 loot ( buffed ofcourse, dont make it easy )

Since OS25 trinkets are nearly BIS until the TOC patch, maybe make the world boss Kazzak drop Malygos / OS25 loot?

Twist it around, make it interesting and more people will be joining, im sure of it.

//Jedborg

I enjoyed the Time-walking raids mainly for two things, the gear obviously but also the variety of having other raids then just wotlk. My suggestion would be to add new and different Timewalking dungeons for each tier. There are still a bunch left to choose from such as Gruul, Hyal and so on. The timewalking experience i enjoyed the most was by far ZA, purely based on the concept where you run a timed run and be rewarded with decent loot, as opposed to Karazhan during naxx content, it was also not as time consuming. A suggestion would be to have this type of timewalking raids for S3 as well (i.e. timed runs like ZA)

Another more specific suggestion for Naxx tier (OS, EOE, NAXX) would be to add Magtheridon's Lair and make it drop OS and/or EOE25 loot.

I would also suggest to be a bit more transparent when it comes to loottables in Timewalking raids. In sunwell for instance I still don't really know which boss drops what, and what they don't drop. If there is information about this, it should be a bit more accessible if thats the case.

Another thing that could use a bit more transparency is the store, when and what you can buy based on loot drops etc. Right now it feels like you just put it up randomly whenever it suits you guys, although I know you say it will be added once enough loot has been dropped. I would imagine you get alot of requests/ppl asking when stuff is about to drop, so this would be a good idea in terms of lowering incoming tickets to Warmae support.

Thanks!

Hi, I've played thru all of S1 and S2 with the majority of my time spent organising raids, across multiple guilds and pugs. Have done about 95% of all lockouts, double or single and completed all the content and their re-tunes/hot-fixes.
I just wanted to say that there are a lot of things that have been done well on the Frostmourne seasonal realm and a lot of improvements have been made going into S2. Keep it up!
I've followed a lot of forum posts throughout the couple years and write these points trying to keep in mind the desire of staff as well as players.
There are a few more personal preferences which I will avoid talking about since it is almost always a pointless endeavour/circular argument of "Person A likes this, but Person B doesn't".
Most of the points will be about what I think are the most common complaints I've seen in-game or in forums, as well as pain points from guild leader perspective.

1) Lockout frequency

Unbuffed loot in shortened time frame made split runs virtually necessary if you want to push buffed week 1 content on t8/t9/t10 heroic modes.
In tier 9 many guilds went without key items like trinkets, regalias, capes, end boss hc weapons going into ICC 0 buff.
Shop was used by almost every serious guild that wanted to push Day 1.
Pug community on server virtually died in t10 until buff released.
Suggestion: Slightly buff loot drop, at least in Tier 9 (current only 8? lockouts of TOGC-25).
Suggestion: Enable few HC item drops in Timewalking raids if you would like players to "earn" the items. Mechanics are subjective, however I really prefer timed gauntlet mechanic.

2) Timewalking

Karazhan - quickly became a Prince speedrun within first few lockouts, and hence, a chore. Died pretty early.
Suggestion: Perhaps increase ilvl of drops and then consider a timewalking raid with fewer drops instead such as Gruul or Magtheridon?
Black Temple - good.
ZA - awesome. This was almost perfect in my opinion, fast and straightforward clear to get good toc-25-nm tier items and really the only timewalking raid that felt like it was intended to "catch up" players.
NB: I strongly believe ZA's success was its short duration, its timed gauntlet (which appealed to players seeking challenge for greater rewards), appropriate ilvl drops + having that carrot on a stick that is mount & trinkets that kept people running it non stop virtually until end of tier and even into t10. It also was a great way for guilds to gear up bench players, alts, that kept raids strong going into t10 and increased the strength of average server pugs.
SWP - good.
Regarding difficulty: some advocate for harder timewalking mechanics. If you think about purpose of timewalking, it was intended as a gear catch up due to loss of double lockout. However if most guilds are forced to run timewalking + normal wotlk raids in 1 week with similar difficulty in both, there is an argument for: what is the difference between that and double lockout?
Suggestion: Should timewalking be kept at a "puggable" difficulty or shorter length for those guilds who solely want to focus on wotlk content 1x a week and have their members pug the timewalking raids?

3) Release Timeline

This is a touchy one, but basically the only thing that I think devolved going from S1 to S2 was:
Suggestion: Please do not release ICC during Christmas weeks.
While Hardcore guilds will not be affected by this, most semi-hc guilds and lower will.
It's not like people play this server to farm t10 for more than 3 months before next fresh anyway, and I know strict 1 year cycle matters to admins.
Hence, extending t9 for a couple weeks past New Year, could kill 2, or maybe 3, birds in one stone -
more opportunity for t9 drops,
as well as guilds not breaking in half over player absences on tier 10 release,
plus a shorter time for tier 10 until next fresh.

Other more controversial/liberal suggestions:

4) Faction imbalance

Suggestion: enable cross-faction dungeons, raids, BGs.
It's pretty clear that next season anyone wanting to do PvE content will not be alliance, I think I can speak for most guilds here that the recruitment situation on alliance side was dismal and was definitely one main contributing factor to alliance guild disbands.

Other misc suggestions:
Val'anyr fragments dropping in t9/t10 timewalking
Legendary fragments 2h soulbound but tradeable in raid to prevent accidental ninja looting
Fix algalon 25m tank swap despawn bug
Fix PvE ladder updating for 10m, 10m heroic, 25m, 25m hardmode, 25m heroic modes.

Please keep in mind this is just one perspective on some things.
These are just suggestions, they do not include all the the things that were done well in S2.
I really enjoyed the majority S2 had to offer, truthfully. Thanks!

A feature I would like to see in S3 is mythic+ kind of dungeons

All through the season, catching up was boring as you need to grind the current tier content. Most of the time this is impossible to do in a reasonable amount of time. My suggestion is to make either a third option in the rdf or some arena-like NPC like with the battle royale event that allows people to increase the difficulty of the dungeon they will join but for a reward(for example another 2 emblems of the current tier.). Characters might even get mythic+ key/skill level that allows them to queue with people around the same progress in mythic+ dungeons.

1. Crossfaction RDF/raids/guilds to solve faction imbalance in PVE and make cores healthier. Also make it have no effect in the world, only in instances, to keep world PVP and roleplay intact

2. Dont release ICC on christmas/new years

3. Compensation nerfs to Kologarn. When he was custom tuned, his latest bug fixes weren't in place, and he clearly went over the top with them. He was a problem even for some raiding guilds, imagine next season when everyone is in naxx gear instead of ulduar gear.

4. Releasing the loot tables for each boss in the timewalking raid

5. Removing multiboxers from wintergrasp

Hi, I played both seasons and have played on lots of guilds good ones and guilds with new people to the game, from getting Realm first for LoD to a guild that needed 30% to kill LKnm, i heard from the top to the bottom what people think about this season and i will give my suggestion with that in mind.

Before giving my suggestions i have something to say about timewalking:
The problem with timewalking was that it felt like a chore for my guild. When we got the items we were happy because we didn't have to keep running it, instead of being happy because we got the item we would say "Finally we dont have to come here anymore".
That's for a good guild where my main char was, but on my alts in way more "casual" guilds it was just painful, like 2:30hs+ clearing/wiping to BT trash, having to use one raid day at something that no one wanted to do instead of going to uld to progress something that is way more ejoyable.
I am against timewalking, i dont think that anything that gives u relieve because you dont have to do it anymore is good for the realm, I would remove it and give x2 loot, BUT if we need a way to give more loot to the players what i would do:

Realm launch:
Announce that the war efford will come 1 month after so people can save/farm mats.
1 week after Realm launch:
-Naxxramas
-OS
-EoE
1 or 2 weeks after:
-Magtheridon's Lair
-Gruul's Lair
This are fast raids, with almost no trash. Make them drop good (atleast decent and not useless) items from naxx/os0d/malygos, naxx is easy so make this ones challenging but with good rewards. This should not be a catchup for this patch but for ulduar. Everyone would appreciate that you give us the loot tables from this bosses and more if it is in advance.
-War efford, maybe tune it a bit for the hardest materials, make alliance and horde contribute to the same pool.
Make rep farm obtainable only trough silithid carapace, maybe make them drop more items like pots/flasks, so we have more people interested in farming spots and we have more WPvP, and make the farming spots a free for all zone if the factions ar too unbalanced.

Then releace 3.1 with no timewalking.
-ULDUAR with more loot, 50% or more for NM and 2 HM items for HM difficulty, for algalon... maybe 50% too.
Let players enjoy this raid, make alts and be able to gear them. I would have loved making more chars to do the same encounters but with a different playstyle but with BT i did not had the time to make an alt.

You will have all the previous raids+timewalking to catch up.
Top guilds will make split runs for valanyr frags/gearing alts and casual guilds will have more time to progress HMs.

Releace 3.2:
-Onyxia lair
-ToC, maybe 1 extra item per boss for TOGC.
-Zul Aman, but dont let people cheese the time pulling trash with kilrog eye or summoning a hunter.
Maybe tune the bosses with more dmg and more frecuent mechanics, it was good but it got really easy afther the first time.

Releace 3.3.5:
-ICC
Please dont do it on holydays...
If no one gets RF after a month start releacing % buff, 5% every 2 weeks, but not for LK.
After RF keep releacing more % every 2 weeks.
Tune sfs drops so casual guilds can get 1 legendary with enough time use it before realm restart, this is not icecrown, please buff the drop rates.
-Ruby sanc 1.5 to 2 months after ICC.

Now For faction balance:
My suggestion is to let players pick their race racials depending on the CLASS they are playing, so you dont have a paladin with troll/orc or a shaman with human racial.
On top of that give alliance some perks like more proffesions xp, lvl xp, because i know that a lot of people will preffer to play horde even with those extra buffs.
If this is not enought make pve cross faction.

I dont know anything about pvp so i cant coment on that.

Then... getting only 1 DC HC with 2 splitsruns in TOGC was not good :/. I think kung two got 0 with 2 split runs too...
Maybe just too unlucky.

Hope the suggestions help, would love to have a better season.

Should take suggestions from the season of mastery classic (som) and tbc classic from Blizzard itself which are :
- Bosses drop loot 1-2 more items per bosses in SoM, 1 more set token in tbc classic, the set token from older seasons (for example server is at icc, u can trade toc set token for pvp season 7 sets to allow pve players to join the arena scene easier, this is added in tbc classic too)
- Arena points flushes increased by 20-30% to allow everyone to be fully geared before the next season (added in tbc classic)
- At the pvp end of season, they divide the price of items by 2, and remove the arena rating requirement so everyone is able to get their pvp weapons/shoulders for next season (this is added in tbc classic)
Should think about reducing the arena rating requirements on all items too, blizzard use way lower rating requirement (max 2050) and have a leaderboard that is way above warmane (teams going to 2.9-3k in 3s, here max 2k~ so items are impossible to be purchased at the vendor by 99-100% of the player base (this could be used for icecrown-lordaeron as well since some pvp items are impossible to get)
- They also nerf the raid content 1 month before next raid release to allow everyone to clear the content and be able to get gear (this is added in tbc classic
- Honor farm got also increased in tbc classic, maybe can increase it a bit for the wintergrasp losing side ?
- Raids cross-faction (being able to /invite anyone), this isn't a som or tbc feature but it will be in 9.2.5 of shadowlands (retail), could help guilds to not constantly disband

Hey, just wanna start with saying thanks for creating this thread, glad to know you care about what the community has to say. Enjoyed my time on previous seasons and looking forward for FM3.

Please reconsider your timeline for tier releases. On FM1 and FM2, Ulduar got released on mid-July and on FM2, ICC got released on mid-December, the two months of the year where most people have the opportuity to go on vaccation or spend more time with family and friends, which might not be possible other times of the year due to work. I've seen guilds on FM1 and FM2 struggle with progression or even disband just due to the fact of the timing of the raid release itself. As someone who will manage a guild for FM3, it is quite disheartening knowing that the challenge with progression won't be the bosses themselves but actually getting a full roster. What if Ulduar got released 1 month later in mid-August instead? I know this means that Naxx will be prolonged with 1 month and won't go down with most people, but having played on FM1, FM2 and will be on FM3, I would happily consider this alternative. Same for ICC with a release in mid-January.

Also, this season my guild only got 1 DC HC, 2 Reign HC and 0 Solace HC while having 2 splitruns in TOGC weekly in T9 since the start of November. Having heard similiar from other guilds makes one suspicious of trinkets having less droprate. We did splitruns in order to get everyone trinkets for T10 but that backfired quite heavily. Would love for the effort put into gearing guild members actually be rewarding for FM3.

Hope this will help, see you all next season!

Hello, I have experience playing both Season 1 and Season 2 of frostmourne. I primarily do PvE but I also do BGs all the time. I have obtained multiple realm firsts from raids to professions on these two servers and overall I enjoyed S2 of frostmourne a lot. I would make a few changes though and these are related to:

Timewalking
Timewalking was an excellent feature and continuing with that idea the first tier of timewalking (Karazhan) was very underwhelming. Black Temple was very enjoyable and provided good loot for both mains and alts; ZA was the same; (did not have any XP doing the last tier of Timewalking during ICC). ZA providing 10man loot worked because that gear was competitive and for some classes had BiS or near BiS items. This includes the 25man trinkets that were dropping from making the 4 chest timer. Karazhan, although a fun raid, it provided no incentive to come back. Naxx 10 gear is very underwhelming and is not worth the time to do Karazhan for such worthless items. Therefore, my suggestion would be to either a) change the loot in Karazhan (or if the timewalking raid is changed whatever the raid is) to drop 25man Naxx gear and/or OS and EoE loot. Additionally, cosmetics in timewalking could be another source of enjoyment for people. ZA had the mount so maybe add other mounts to these raids, a guaranteed scroll of deception for transmog for defeating the final boss of the timewalking raid, tier 3 items for xmog, or other fun cosmetic ideas.

Racial Swap

This may seem a bit to custom and I get that, however, faction balance has always been an issue on 3.3.5. Providing players the ability to change their racials to another race that can be that class would have the ability to fix the heavy faction imbalance that occurs.

Cross-Faction raids/dungeons
Some others have mentioned cross-faction raiding as well and that would compliment my previous idea of racial swap. I have raided on both seasons of Frostmourne and countless other servers and the number 1 guild killer is when the roster starts to lose players 1 by 1 and it becomes increasingly difficult to fill that spot. This feature is not all too "custom" nowadays. In retail, blizzard has allowed cross-faction for players in both dungeons and raids. Since this is a private server we don't have the privilege of hundreds of thousands of players to choose from and for the health of the community cross-faction would be a benefit.

Timeline schedule
Ulduar and ICC are the pinnacles of raiding in wrath for a majority of people. My suggestion is thus reduce the amount of time tier 7 and tier 9 are available while buffing the amount of drops that occur on each boss so people are still able to effectively gear during this time. Then use that extra time to extend tier 8 and 10. If the time naxx/togc are out is reduced however the amount of drops per boss has to be increased. Having to do multiple split runs per week for naxx and togc was pretty rough.