WoW Remix: Mists of Pandaria has proved popular with players, allowing them to go back and experience the beloved expansion at an accelerated cadence. Unfortunately, it has come with a major issue that is marring the overall experience of many.
WoW Remix includes level scaling that allows players to complete activities together, even if they are at vastly different stages of their leveling journey. This is a great idea in theory, but the execution has left many unhappy.
Players at Level 65 and above have often found the game to be immensely punishing, with many dying to trash mobs in the open world. At the same time, low-level characters have been able to breeze through, particularly when benefiting from the Cloak of Infinite Potential hand-me-down buff and extra items in the Neck, Ring and Trinket slots.
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Blizzard has begun to address this incrementally, largely by making individual encounters less difficult for everyone. Hotfixes that have just rolled out on the live server have continued this trend, with the full list of changes as follows:
- Righteous Frenzy can no longer be cast on non-party members.
- In the Throne of Thunder Dark Animus encounter, the increased damage and attack speed by Anima Golems casting Acceleration Link has been reduced to 100% per stack (was 250%).
- In the Throne of Thunder Iron Qon encounter, Storm Cloud should no longer deal extreme damage to players.
- In A Brewing Storm, Viletongue Skirmishers’ Viletongue Sting now reduces healing by 60% (was 90%).
- Fixed a bug that unintentionally added additional enemy health for highly geared players against Heroic raid bosses.
- Developers’ notes: In combination with previous recent hotfixes, this should result in health and damage versus Heroic raid bosses being as intended for players of higher and lower item levels, so that players of mixed item levels can have a better experience playing together. Overall, players with higher item levels should do greater damage and have greater survivability.
These changes should go some way to addressing major concerns in flagship activities, but there is still plenty of balancing to do in the open world. With more than 75 days left for the event to run, Blizzard has plenty of time for further implementations.