World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

I am really looking forward to the new brawl/solo Q they are trying to test out for the next patch but certain things have really been overlooked in the making sense category. I understand that blizzard looks at certain classes and specs in the game and tries the hardest to tweak the balance of certain things towards what they think the players want and with certain things like Solo shuffle they have been getting it right so far with new things coming out looking pretty good but certain things really need some addressing

First thing im really worried about is the leaving factor in solo shuffle with certain people not liking the comp they are playing and deciding it would not be worth the time to even try and leaving and while this is something that is certainly going to happen it will basically mean that team loses which would be fine if it could not be abused. I think the closest thing we have currently in the game being skirms and while certain people Q skirms all day it eventually causes you to run into the same people and while they could be on the enemy team or even your current team it could be abused. “you killed me last game enjoy ur loss” would be an example of obvious abuse that could happen where someone leaves after having lost to you causing you to lose. They will add a timer for people dropping games just like in random bgs and it will eventually just lead to leavers ruining it because of low participation from a few bad apples.

Tank positions. This is something that people obviously has major qualms about and while most of it is justified towards certain specs/classes the idea that blizzard wants tank to fill the role of healer in Solo shuffle it is probably one of the worst ideas. You have the obvious two specs that fall into the category of being the problem(Prot pally, Guardian druid) just 2 and (Brewmaster, Blood, Prot war, Vengence) 4 specs which will absolutely be punished by this for just being lumped into the same role as Prot pally and Guardian druid. Blizzard should really not decide they want to absolutely stifle the literally handful of players who decide to play those 4 specs just to "balance" out the other 2. I think it is extremely short sighted of blizzard to put a literally balance out just to slap that tiny player base in the face.

Rewards are something that people are looking forward to for the eventual inclusion of (hopefully) Solo Q with the success of Solo Shuffle and while obviously a huge potion of people will not try Solo Shuffle they need to add some rewards in regards to how great Solo Shuffle could be or it will be as dead as the Dueling Arena they introduced in BFA.

obviously this isnt all the stuff we need to address for Solo Shuffle and I will add things as I can think or hear about from people but I am really hopeful blizzard can get this right before it is stifled by incorrect thinking.

Thank you for providing feedback on Solo Shuffle. A lot of the issues you brought up are important to us as well and we know solving them is important to making this game mode fun and satisfying for all involved. Part of the reason we elected to implement this feature as a Brawl first was to discover issues like the ones you described firsthand and iterate a bit on our solutions to these problems.

With respect to people leaving early, this is certainly a big threat to Solo Shuffle’s success. Our current plan is twofold. First, if a player leaves the match early, all rounds will be resolved as if that person lost every round (even ones they’d already played). So that person will go 0-6 while the other participants will go 3-3. If the mode was rated, this would be extremely bad for the person who leaves the match early and essentially a wash for everyone else. In the case of an unrated Brawl, we don’t plan to reward anything to someone who leaves the match early. Second, we’ll be using a pretty hefty Deserter penalty that prevents people from queuing that will stack with repeat departures. The first time you leave early may be 15 minutes. Subsequent early departures within a certain timeframe (perhaps 24 hours) will increase the duration by 5 minutes. We need to provide some grace for the occassional internet disconnect, but repeatedly leaving matches is a detriment to everyone.

When it comes to Tanks in Solo Shuffle, Protection Paladins have a distinct advantage due to the potency of their off-healing. Our current plan is to have Protection Paladins only match up against other Protection Paladins, while other Tanks can square off against each other.

Finally, when it comes to Rewards, for the Brawl version of Solo Shuffle, we’re planning on making it pretty efficient when it comes to Honor. When available, Solo Shuffle should be the most efficient way to earn Honor for 9.2. Also, Solo Shuffle’s availability will be independent of the rest of the Brawls in 9.2, including its own button on the PvP pane (similar to Korrak’s Revenge).

Again, thank you for the valuable feedback on Solo Shuffle. We hope you’re excited to give it a try.