Recently, Tom Chilton, Lead Game designer for WoW, gave an interview for ArenaJunkies, thankfully, MMO-Champion has given an overview for us to
- Steps are being taken to balance healers, especially Shaman, in PvP. This is being done incrementally to avoid a knee jerk reaction and going too far in one direction. Moving totems back into the schools of magic was one of the changes to bring them more in line.
- Discipline Priests and Monks will be buffed somewhat to bring them up to par. We should expect to see those changes on the Patch 5.2 PTR soon.
- War Games will be possible Cross realm at some point in the future when time allows for the change.
- It may be possible to ban one arena map in the future, similar to the map banning in random battlegrounds.
- Part of the reason Tol'vir was added was to increase the chance of getting the Nagrand style map. It also is nice to have a change of scenery rather than just getting Nagrand more often.
- Burst damage is still too high, making healing too high as well. Once burst comes down, the healing can be decreased as well.
- One of the goals for WoW as an esport is to make it easier to watch. Part of this will be accomplished by making it easier for addon authors to create nice tournament UIs.
- The DotA style battleground is still on hold, waiting for new tech to be worked on.
- MMR works pretty well for matching people up, but preventing the exploits that have popped up is difficult when keeping the system balanced for all levels of players. Blizzard will keep watching for exploits and taking appropriate action.
- WoW was never built from the ground up to be an easy to watch and perfectly balanced eSport, so the improvements that can be made are limited. That being said, Blizzard wants to keep improving things as much as possible.
- When asked about arena balance: Burst is too high, non burst damage is too low, there are some disparities between the different healers with Shaman / Paladin being good, Druids being okay, and Discipline Priests and Monks lagging a little bit, and the amount of offensive instant cast crowd control being used.
- Blizzard likes the player run tournaments and is evaluating what they can or should do to support them.
- PvP Power worked out really well, with players able to use their PvP gear in PvE. Using PvE gear to start PvPing isn't working quite as well, as it was intended to be able to take raid gear and start PvPing without feeling like you were very fragile and dying very quickly.
- Blizzard likes when the PvP and PvE part of the game operate the same, but is willing to make them work differently to make the game work better.
Trinket Burst Damage Adjustments Instead of addressing the strong classes
I just want to point out that this is only one step in a process. We will continue to assess classes and individual abilities and make adjustments as necessary. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Trinket Burst Damage Adjustments Seems a buff for frost dk's, and if human they can align proc with on use and PoF...
You could say the same for several classes where this will help them to align their trinkets with their damaging abilities more often. However smaller burst every 60 seconds is a lot easier to survive than a much larger burst every two minutes.
The same goes for players that play human, they could take two of these trinkets and cycle them every 30 seconds with their burst abilities. Do not forget though, if a human wants to take advantage of these changed on-use trinkets will need to take two of them and give up the not-nerfed proc trinket.
The idea is good, but what gona happen with the proc trinkets?
I just answered that above for you. At this time we have no plans to be nerfing the proc trinkets, but this may change in the future.
But, an idea would be to increase resilience on the "tweaked" trinkets by; I don't know, maybe 20-25% to make them more attractive compared to PvE trinkets etc.!
We're fairly certain that it's unlikely for players to start using PvE trinkets because they would suffer a significant loss in PvP power and resilience. Do understand that we will be keeping a very close eye on the situation when this hotfix goes live and, if necessary, make the appropriate adjustments where we see they're required. This doesn't mean that the change we make would be to increase the resilience on trinkets like you suggested above, however if we do plan to make further adjustments we will let you know about them. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Updating Old Content I often wondered why blizzard doesn't take advantage of the content people loved. Sure, new content and raids are fun but how much time would it really take to upgrade Kara to current gear levels.
I mean why in gods name wouldn't you do things like this, the Ony upgrade was great but even now its outdated by two expansions. The scarlet monastery was good but you didn't even have to redesign the dungeon, just leave them as they were.
Can you imagine if Apple decided to completely change the Iphone every release? Sure a few things are changed on each version but the core design, style, and functionality are all there and people still flock to get the latest version. Why is that, its because they have a good thing going.
I'm going to sound a bit like a broken record, so forgive me, but when we are working on updates to the game, we're looking at what works well for the ongoing development of it. Sometimes that means taking a look at previous content and updating, and sometimes it means leaving it as it is. Overall though, it's about where we want to take things next, what fits into the larger scheme of development, what can we devote resources to comfortably and still deliver the best possible experience we can in a reasonably solid time frame.
There are a lot of things that people keep bringing up that they'd like to see again, or revisit in a new and fresh way. We're not unaware of this. But, at the same time, we have to keep asking ourselves, "Does it make sense and if it does make sense, does it make sense right now?" In contrast, there are those detractors who are often upset when we do go back and refresh content. In some cases it's because they're new enough that they haven't seen it yet, in others it's because they feel we should leave well enough alone, and to others yet who feel that it's a development "cop out" and a mere recycling effort. That's not to say that these things aren't possibilities "someday", but what seems simple to you may not be quite so simple as all that.
An example of updating things on a very large scale, is Cataclysm. There was so much work done from the starting quests to the environments to the very flight paths, but to those who didn't go through the refreshed content, it was a "waste" of time. We also then had what many felt was far too little at the upper end of content for them. So, despite best efforts to refresh a significant amount of content, not everyone was pleased with it once the immediate blush was off the rose. What we must fight against is time, nostalgia, "What do I get to do/take part in?", or even "where's my challenge?" So, no, it's not as easy as that. In a perfect world, maybe it would be. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Class Forums and Blue Posts Do blue posters avoid class forums? If so - why?
The main reason that we don't make responses in the class forum is because if we post in the forum of class A, then classes B through K will start complaining about favoritism or something similar. While we may not post in threads on the class forums, we do pay attention to the opinions and feedback presented there.
And where are we supposed to turn in order to get the "official" Blizzard PoV on, for example, major nerfs to a certain spec?
These forums are designed and built in order for players to give their feedback and opinions about the current state of our games or even upcoming changes so that it can be relayed to the developers. They are not for the purpose of having a direct line of communication and discussion with blue posters. If we have some information that we can provide, we will post it, but you should not be actively searching for this as the forums are for you as the players to bring up and discuss topics.
Do we really have to post immature, whiny post in order to get attention?
Definitely not. As said above, if we have information on a given topic of discussion we will provide it. We are also more inclined to do this with more well written and presented threads rather than ranty or "whiny" posts.
you're on EU forums enough said. Blizzard doesn't care about you, they don't want your opinion, the blue post always say the same thing. It is always sad for us to see these types of comments because it is something that is simply so far from the truth, it is unreal. The European community team work tirelessly to forward on and present your feelings, feedback and opinions on to the developers. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Questing Your ridiculously gated rep AND VP system for gear cost me one of my raid leaders and you a sub. Just an FYI.
players quit for a variety of reasons. We're sad when they do, but can't be held hostage to "change X or I quit." (Source) No Greg, but if a lot of peple quit for a reason and a lot of us dont quit but dont enjoy it, then somthg is wrong
of course. That's why hearing feedback is so important to us. In fact, it's more useful than threats. (Source) If your reaction and filtering of feedback wasn't so slow compared to other games, you wouldn't get threats.
A poor justification I'm afraid. Good arguments win arguments, not threats of consequences. (Source)
I dont understand why rep grind has to be one way. Let questers do dailies, raiders do dungeons and pvpers pvp...
We want players out in the world. We don't think WoW will have enough legs as an instance only game. Convenient != best design. (Source)
Mate, don't let the "rep tabard" brigade get you down. We're better off shedding instance only players from the playerbase.
Well, we don't want to shed anyone. Concern is that instance-only is convenient short term but causes loss of interest in the long. (Source)
Making dailies a requirement for rep seems like a VERY poor way to get people out of cities and make the world feel populated.
What do you want to do out in the world? (Source)
For the love of god don't buckle to the "we are forced to do dailies" minority. Don't change a thing!!!
it's just a question of volume. 12 quests a day isn't bad with some optionals. Doing GL and Klaxxi every day felt like a lot. (Source)
Well I'll just try asking again tomorrow, I realize you're busy. If you see this tweet, check my profile for the initial ?
we've heard a lot of feedback on dailies, and we'll likely try some tweaks to keep players out in the world but address concerns. (Source)
For 5.1 can we have a short term (20min?) LFR buff that simulates the rep tabards for the last rep we did dailies with today?
Talking about some ideas. So long as someone can't finish rep in one weekend by chain running, we're open to it. (Source)
Classes So many classes and specs are overpowered right now, why won't you apply hotfixes rather than waiting months for patch 5.1?
We can't hotfix everything and it's frustrating for players to constantly suspect ninja nerfs. We hotfix egregious stuff. (Source)
Do you think it's still possible to add new class in the game without too much redundancy ?
I hope so. (Source)
Alot of people were complaining about "Stampede". Not the Bestial Wrath ability. Critical mistake on your end
We nerfed Bestial Wrath and Avatar. We're regretting offensive abilities that prevent CC. Encourages tunneling and burst. (Source)
talent system is awesome btw. Way better than anything before.
We agree. A few talents aren't quite there but the system is much better IMO. I see players changing talents for the first time. (Source)
As a rouge i have problems getting a clean opner in arena and duel because of the amount of aoe effects in the game. toughts?
TBH, it kind of bugs me personally that AEs are so efficient at breaking stealth. Would be a huge change to revert though. (Source)
Ever thought of smaller patch changes? Like changing an ability dmg in 5% increments a week instead of 25% all at once?
One risk of small changes is players don't notice. Flashy changes can sometimes get players to try a class / talent / strat. (Source)
Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Any word on healing mushrooms? They are pretty useless but have so much potential.Agree they aren't there yet, but we want them to be sutiational, and not used on cooldown. (Source) Any chance for some 5.1 love? Thank you for responding to my first tweet ever!
Maybe not for 5.1. We want to make sure there's time for players to try out any changes. It's on our radar though. (Source)
Did static mana pools really gave you the freedom you needed to design better enocunters? Are we balanced?
The problem with +Int providing infinite mana didn't manifest until later tiers. Still like the change though. (Source)
And of course, would love to hear how you feel healers compare for PvE and how Mistweavers have played out.
Pretty happy with healer balance overall. MW were too good in 5.0. Raiders discovering Disc now and we have to keep an eye on it. (Source)
Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
In your eyes are Shockadins a legitimate form of Raid DPS, or is that unintentional or unwelcome? Not even sure if its viable.Holy isn't a dps spec. We tried to provide some support for players who like it, but it will likely stay a niche. (Source)
Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
I really like to know what you guys think about Holy and Disc priests perfomance in PvP. Not many people want them.Most teams just want Resto shaman. We think we'll see more priests in 5.1. (Source)
Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Nobody uses Tricks of the Trade anymore in Raids. You found a way to make that useless too! Get a dev 4 rogues. ur useless.Quick poll of the raiders in my office, and they all use Tricks of the Trade. Small sample size is small. (Source)
playing devil's advocate a little, if the 5.1 changes don't 'fix' rogues, will further changes happen immediately or in 5.2?
Depends on the degree. If I say "immediately" though, then I'll just hear about how I broke promises, so I can't say. (Source)
serious question, does blizzard have numbers on how many people have taken versatility as a talent? I'm betting its VERY low.
We do, and it is low. We're looking at all unpopular and too popular talents and considering changes. (Source)
Saying Cold Blooded made us not care about crit as a stat is terrible logic since crit is now our worst stat by a long shot.
Last I looked, crit was behind haste and mastery for Combat, but not by much, and even better for the other two. (Source)
Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
I'm just a wee bit :O at the totem nerfs. What's the thinking behind it? Will Tremor still break fear? Don't like this change!We thought they were too hard to counter. Have a lot of utility (not just group buffs) in 5.0 and you just have to endure them (Source)
Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
with "bring player, not class" policy, why did you implement Stormlash and Skull banner?They are very minor DPS increases. You don't need them. (Source)
Ever had a thought about warrior's shockwave? Every 20 seconds for an AoE stun and damage seems a bit much versus rogue KS.
It's something we looked at, but we nerfed warriors a lot for PvP and we don't want to overdo it. Not all are taking SW yet. (Source)
Do you not think it's a little unfair that Fury has never been good in Arena? Other specs had their time to shine except Fury.
The bigger topic is whether it's fair to players (or reasonable to balance) to have 34 viable 3v3 Arena specs. (Source)
Classes On a related note: Do you still feel that number changes are preferable over mechanical changes for all specs during an XP?
Ya. More players quit because of constant class changes than quit because of balance concerns. Hard to believe maybe but true. (Source)
But GC in all fairness we have other classes standing up for us, its not us shamans vs the world
Also "my warrior alt agrees with my shaman main." See the problem? That's not the same as an actual discussion with back and forth from both sides. Players never agree 100% with anything. (Source) Yo GC, try and show some respect to your playerbase /cast Busshock
I respect our players a great deal or I wouldn't make such an effort to do this. That does not mean game design is up for a vote. (Source)
Why the huge nerf to glyphs in MoP? They seem, well, underwhelming. #wow
They were a DPS increase before, but not an interesting one. Most players picked the highest DPS glyph and never changed them. (Source)
Do you think abilities such as Destro Rain of Fire or Halo should break Rogue's stealth? And if so why? It's too easy to break
I would love to see only Flare and a few others break stealth, but that's a potentially destabilizing change. (Source)
Have you ever considered changing a spec from a pure dps class to a tank/heal spec?
yes, but I don't think every one of those pure players would like that (& you can't just say they can ignore the new roles). (Source) With druids now having 4 specs to choose from, wouldn't it be possible to add them¬ remove any specific spec?
Druids have always been hybrids though. Maybe a rogue doesn't want to have to be considered a tank. (Source) I dont think most people would have to consider it. I assume if your in a raid you have a designated tank.
Not that simple. If you have a tank as a class might be less room for DPS of same class. Also has gear, DPS, dual spec implications. (Source)
some classes/specs does not bring anything useful generally, hunters rogues come to mind these problems -continued
We don't like balancing around awesome raid utility - just shifts the problem to who has strongest utility. (Source)
Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
¨What do you think of DK survival in pvp? I quit mine because I realized in premop patch that we were going to be easy targetIf you can get a DK to blow all def cooldowns, then they're easier to kill, but you still have Blood Presence. (Source)
Why is Blood getting nerfed PvP wise? We have no mobility what so ever.. we are easily kited.WTF. Compensate for the nerf?
We don't like invulnerable tanks in PvP even if they are slow. Blood had too much self-healing in PvP. (Source)
Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
I'm not sure why you just don't throw a 1 min CD on Healing Shrooms and scale them properly and be done with it at this point.that might get druids to use them, but that makes them like a lot of other spells and the game needs more variety not less. (Source) why not have mushroom healing to be increased based on a proc you receive by using another spell, like regrowth, etc
potentially. Want to be a little careful not to add too many RNG procs though. (Source)
How long are we going to have to wait to see shifting out of snares removed?
Not on our radar ATM. We don't want to nerf every counter in PvP, just the ones that feel super frustrating. (Source)
Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Is there a possible warlock-style redesign for hunters in future? New talents seem to cause button bloat and spread dps thin.We don't think hunters need a massive revamp (beyond range and ammo changes they already have). They do have too many buttons. (Source)
Regarding hunters, why is BW, a skill untouched for years suddenly OP? Also 5.1 changes nothing regarding MM being weak in pvp
We don't think defenses used offensively makes good gameplay. They tend to get blown immediately not strategically. (Source)
Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Any chance Mages could get rune of power castable on the move?Don't want it to be a buff you just hit on cooldown. Agree it needs a little work. (Source) Any word on IW or Invocation?
Invocation works for Arcane, but feels too maintenancy for others. IW is a bigger topic. (Source)
Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Hey GC with the change in 5.1 making totems act as spells was it intended to nerf all specs or just resto ?it was intended as a nerf to totems. Now that they do things (not just buffs) they were hard to counter. (Source)
Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
How's the banner experiment working out? Have you guys contemplated any other cool banner style abilities for warriors?honestly, not sure yet. Still like the concept. Not sure if it's delivering on the fantasy. (Source)
PvP When you or one of the blizzard staff mentioned the 30% healing nerf in Battlegrounds, I hope you mean hybrids only.
Nope. We suspect healing overall is too potent once burst is toned down. You shouldn't need to 100% CC a healer to score a kill. (Source)
Make PvP abilities a mod to PvE abilities = PvP changes isolated. Add PvP Stance for equipment/glyphs, fallback to PvE gear.
We make abilities work differently as a later sort, but I for one don't want to have to earn two different rule sets. (Source) greg making two rule sets is the only way to fix the PVE vs PVP issue. have you not learned that yet?
Disagree. Also even if true, perfect balance gains us nothing if a bunch of players leave because the rules are inscrutable. (Source)
A flightless Tol Barad-type zone is essential for world pvp. Do you regret not making one for MoP or plan to make one?
We had done those zones 2 expansions in a row so felt it was time to let it rest a bit, but I bet we try them again in the future. (Source)
Why are the PvP achievements so limited? No 2,4k in 2v2. No 1k arenas won? 5k arenas won? Hot Hot Hot streak? #possibilities
We'd like to add more but we need to make sure they don't encourage strange behavior. Ach farming in PvP can get silly fast. (Source)
I believe an open mind is more important than a title, experience after that. Sadly, even glads can be very biased.
People who like to eat don't always make good cooks. That doesn't mean they can't tell you what they like to eat. (Source) Do you take advice from a master chef or some guy who just happens to enjoy food?
Both. (Source)
So why nerf all specs? Reducing the benefit of mastery in PvP would fix resto, but ele isn't even viable pre-nerfs.
We don't think it's all about the healing, and Resto PvE healing is fine. We think totems are too good. (Source) people will stop complaining about resto pvp nerfs if you nerf frost bomb/ warrior cd stacking/ resto drood control
There are mage and warrior nerfs in 5.1. Keeping an eye on Cyclone for now. (Source)
I'm not giving up on skirmish arenas, never, ever. You know we want it. inb4 block :<
We aren't either - it's just not going to be super soon. (Source)
Everyone agrees with him/her. This upgrade gear thing is going to make people quit the game. PvP is dying.
claiming to speak for everyone always makes me suspicious. (Source) well, not everyone but the majority i think. btw, i would love to have that pvp forum on the US.
just make good arguments and don't worry about invoking a huge crowd to agree with you. It's not a vote anyway. (Source)
Misc MoP was meant to get people out in the world, PvP was supposed to be king this xpac. Why nerf guild perk Quick and the Dead?
dying is supposed to have some penalty. Since you have unlimited lives, downtime is the main one. (Source)
You ruined the joke just like you ruined Age of Empires and WoW... Changes no one asked for - Rpg home city. Homogenic empires and Clunky/Bad combat. Quite similar to WoW now
.you don't get good games by just giving people what they ask for. Game design isn't just polling. (Source) Look at League of Legends Mr. Street, I'm sure it'd love to beg to differ.
we're friends with all those guys. Pretty sure they don't turn over design to their community either. (Source)
What happened to balance/bug fix patches (eg 4.0.6)? It's frustrating to wait for next content patch to see much desired fixes
We don't characterize patches that way. There are big patches (new raid tier / PvP season) and smaller ones. 5.1 is the latter. (Source)
But there is something to be said about testing your games.
we do test our games. We have a huge QA department and we invite players to try out betas and PTRs. (Source)
just curious... do you collaborate w/ the other blizzard games, or does everyone stay in their own game areas?
We collaborate a fair amount. Great to get outside opinions and see how others solve problems. Several temp or perma moves too. (Source)
Regarding items that aren't intended to ever go into the game (i.e. heroic raid trash), why are they made? Just curious.
if we change loot tables late, then we already have the items ready. (Source)
... what to listen to, consciuously or not. You reap the results of that (horrible PVP, constant whines).
I read the role and PvP forums regularly. Feedback is always valuable. It just doesn't always result in immediate change. (Source)
You need to listen to the people who play this game even more than the ones who created it.
We do listen to them. We just don't let them order up game changes on their own. That would be interesting though. (Source)
Is there anywhere we can beg an audience with The GC with a longer character limit?
I'd love to in a theoretical sense, but there are too many of you and one of me. (Source)
And for a special note, take a look at this video of the Death Knight Mionelol solo killing Madness of Deathwing!! I remind you, that it took 10 of us, mostly level 90's, to finally down him, so I'd say this is a huge accomplishment, good work Mionelol!
Thats it for today, look forward to further updates!
-Wayne
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