Closed Beta and PTR Hotfixes, Load Testing Underway, New and Changed Set Item Bonuses

State of the Meta, Weekend Tournaments, Hearthstone Legends Week 7

New Game Job Listing - Lead Producer
An interesting job listing was added earlier this week for a Lead Producer to work on a new game. This game is apparently also using a small team, just like Hearthstone did, as the listing mentions following in the footsteps of the small and nimble game team.

According to his most recent tweet, it looks like Michael Booth is also on this team. He was lead on Left 4 Dead and worked on Counter-Strike, but started at Blizzard in May and is currently Game Director.



Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Free Character Migrations
Firstly, I appreciate your efforts to remain constructive while clearly feeling frustrated by the topic.

This time around, we opened up FCMs to the minority factions as well, so they can move away from realms with queues if they want to, as you suggested. The main reason for FCMs right now is to relieve queues, so it makes sense to allow as many people to move as possible.

Previously, we tried to help with faction balance on realms with queues by only offering FCMs to players on the dominant faction. To help with faction balance on the destination realms too, these FCMs would generally place people on a realm where they would now be in the minority faction. This wasn't working. So, to make FCMs appeal to more people, in some cases we're now opening FCMs between realms with similar faction balance, e.g. from a horde-dominant realm to another horde-dominant realm.

We're keeping tabs on the situation, people still may not take the offer, but we'll see how it goes. As I said, our current main goal is to reduce queues so people can actually play.

There's a lot going on at the moment, what with Connected Realms happening. Populations and faction balances are fluctuating across the board. Right now, our focus is making sure as many people as possible can get online to play without having to queue. However, when things have settled, we hope to be in a position to help with other factors. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Revive Pet Hotfix
I'm seeing the Revive Pet hotfix active on my Hunter. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
PvP
Really? Getting rid of factions is the only solution to imbalanced pvp realms I can think of.
Arenas and BGs already ignore realms and the world PvP zone in Warlords will use a partial connected realm solution. (Source)

S12 community outcry "FFS LOWER PVP BURST!" A: "Okay we'll buff PvPower on all weapons", and you still wonder why we hate you?
I don't wonder. I just don't take people who hate other people because of a *video game* very seriously. (Source)
Ok "hate" might be a strong word here, however those kind of nonsense decisions are the reason why people are happy you quit.
If we hadn't buffed PvP power on weapons, people would have used PvE weapons. The DPS would have been there anyway. (Source)
That's why the PvP community suggested to buff resilience accordingly, you didn't listen and subs were cancelled, go figure...
Players can make stronger arguments by just arguing fun, which will resonate more with the devs you're presumably trying to reach (Source)
You can't admit those mistakes and that's another big reason why PvPers dislike you. Whatever, you finally left, take care man
We admit PvP mistakes all the time, which is why we constantly change the way gear and resilience work and are again for 6.0. (Source)
We're in pretty close contact with many great PvP players. They may not agree with every call we make but they know we hear them, (Source)
But your original argument IIRC was that we didn't listen to PvP players, which just isn't true. (Source)
Nothing has bene done about RMD and WMD. People want quick changes if something is broken. PvE gets hotfixes.
So does PvP, though to be fair, it is easier to test and predict the result of PvE changes. PvP ultimately needs to be played. (Source)

Spirit on Items
if spirit is limited to non-armour pieces, won't it cripple healers early on before they get those (somewhat rare) items?
Base regen will be higher. (Source)

Spirit is a buffer. More of it helps those who have no understanding of mana efficiency.
That is the intent for sure. Some healers grab Spirit the way a rogue would grab Agility, which detracts from it being a choice. (Source)
so as a DK I can us all my Items for Tank and DPS, since Tank also uses Haste/Crit. But Elesham still need Healgear?
Tanks also need bonus armor and trinkets that proc on damage taken. The difference should be about the same as swapping to heal. (Source)

You probably already considered this, but having Spirit "replace" Intellect as a primary stat might work?
We like Spirit being a choice though. Agility can never really be a choice. More Agi is always better. (Source)

But why do this back and forth stuff? Spirit is important. Now it's not as important. Ok, now it's important again.
We have often had a problem where regen is too tough in blues and too easy in endgame epics. MoP was a big improvement though. (Source)
The problem with spirit is that it's a quality of life stat at the expense of a through-put stat.
We disagree. It's not quality of life -- it's how many expensive spells you can afford to cast. (Source)

Why exactly do healers get their own stat, but you refuse to make dps-only items? (short of certain proc trinks)
Largely because there are a lot more DPS players, both in a group and across the population as a whole. (Source)

Spirit is always important to healers. We're not changing that philosophy. Important and maxxed out aren't the same thing though. (Source)

Having hit on a healer set is a wasted stat. I'd even buy having your worst secondary stat on every piece might be a waste. (Source)

Dark Legacy Comics - #419
DLC #419 has been released!

This article was originally published in forum thread: New Game Job Listing - Lead Producer, Blue Posts, Blue Tweets, DLC #419 started by chaud View original post
Comments 46 Comments
  1. Xeraxis's Avatar
    I could be wrong and if I am I fully expect the MMO-C to point it out, but why do they not just make it so that for healers haste affects regen to get rid of the spirit issues?
  1. Mekh's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Xeraxis View Post
    I could be wrong and if I am I fully expect the MMO-C to point it out, but why do they not just make it so that for healers haste affects regen to get rid of the spirit issues?
    Probably to prevent Haste from outclassing every other secondary because it would double-dip: Cast faster AND more spells? No reason to stack anything else.
  1. Ealyssa's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by McFrotton View Post
    I have a feeling they feel they are getting back to the root with the small development team concept.
    Because small smartphone games are their roots ???

    Don't get me wrong, hearthstone is kinda fun. But if blizzard became the new Zynga I would be quite disapointed.
  1. CosmicGuitars's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ealyssa View Post
    Because small smartphone games are their roots ???

    Don't get me wrong, hearthstone is kinda fun. But if blizzard became the new Zynga I would be quite disapointed.
    Why are you automatically assuming what they're making is a 'smartphone game'?
  1. Shudder's Avatar
    They need to just suck it up and remove factions. Other mmo's have and it's much better. It's ridiculous that I can't play with friends just because they chose the loser faction. It's an outdated useless part of the game that needs to go.
  1. Dessan's Avatar
    Wonder if it's Warcraft 4... Theoretically they have most of the tools and assets already.
  1. Toyoka's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shudder View Post
    They need to just suck it up and remove factions. Other mmo's have and it's much better. It's ridiculous that I can't play with friends just because they chose the loser faction. It's an outdated useless part of the game that needs to go.
    Wildstar has factions, it's doing pretty well (considering it's being made by a chunk of the vanilla WoW team).
  1. Shudder's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Toyoka View Post
    Wildstar has factions, it's doing pretty well (considering it's being made by a chunk of the vanilla WoW team).
    Never understood why a company would want to segregate their customers. Forcing people to choose between friends. Games like Secret World and Eve Online let you play with your friends cause ya know, it's an mmo. Kind of the point.
  1. Xeraxis's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shudder View Post
    Never understood why a company would want to segregate their customers. Forcing people to choose between friends. Games like Secret World and Eve Online let you play with your friends cause ya know, it's an mmo. Kind of the point.
    If your friends invite you to play a game that has factions and you choose the faction that can't converse with your friends you're a pretty shitty friend.
  1. High Marshal Sigismund's Avatar
    Looks to be another ultra casual, quirky niche game.
  1. Psychowolf's Avatar
    I don't get that DLC comic. Why doesn't he just hearth out of the cage!?
  1. Polygons's Avatar
    They should hire Peter Molyneux :^)
  1. Shudder's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Xeraxis View Post
    If your friends invite you to play a game that has factions and you choose the faction that can't converse with your friends you're a pretty shitty friend.
    Implying all your friends play on the same faction.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Psychowolf View Post
    I don't get that DLC comic. Why doesn't he just hearth out of the cage!?
    I don't get it either, since when can you put cages on people in WoW?
  1. Hollowness's Avatar
    Starcraft: Ghost is Back !
  1. Xeraxis's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shudder View Post
    Implying all your friends play on the same faction.
    I know if only Blizzard would allow us to make more than one character.
  1. grexly75's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shudder View Post
    They need to just suck it up and remove factions. Other mmo's have and it's much better. It's ridiculous that I can't play with friends just because they chose the loser faction. It's an outdated useless part of the game that needs to go.
    Well considering that SWTOR, Rift, ESO, Aion and GW2 (I think), and many other MMO's have factions in one form or another it is not so ridiculous and since it has been that way since Vanilla WoW why change it now..

    Oh and yes as stated in the post above mine there is nothing stopping you from rolling another toon in the other faction..
  1. Pabzi's Avatar
    Really gonna miss Greg Street. Just look at him still being nice to the vocal minority who treat him like garbage <3
  1. Azrile's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Xeraxis View Post
    I could be wrong and if I am I fully expect the MMO-C to point it out, but why do they not just make it so that for healers haste affects regen to get rid of the spirit issues?
    What healer issues? That is the problem.. players are anticipating that the changes to spirit will cause issues in WoD while the devs ( and most people here) realize that they can just turn a few screws to make mana regen balanced around the new system. You are taking 1 change and applying it to what we have now.. but they can make 10 other changes along with it so that it is a seamless change.

    - - - Updated - - -

    I think their change to free character transfers is an indication that world pvp is going away... They are going to change it to where pvp will be in zones like wintergrasp, tol borad and the new pvp zone.. but things like timeless island will become sanctuary places like the argent tourney was. I think this was just them admitting that they can´t balance servers, which is nearly impossible to do.
  1. Somebody's Avatar
    It would be really cool if Blizzard went back to their roots and made a racing game. I thought the game was unique for its time but they never stemmed from the Racing genre.

    For reference:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPM_Racing

    P.S. This was their first ever game made, it boggles me why racing games aren't one of their fortes.
  1. Blur4stuff's Avatar
    ogre battle online

Site Navigation