Arms Legion Discussion

[Deleted]

Another week with double arms being unplayable at the raid test

[Artunias]

Really invokes confidence when they ignore us and bugs that were reported months ago haven't been fixed. Especially one as big as you can't have two arms Warriors CS work.

Good game.

[Breccia]

Sadly, feedback that is given is usually short and direct "this is what we're changing and why we think it's a concern/here's why it should reassure you". The part that's left out is why they don't want to do things that the community suggests. Because they never "shoot down" ideas, the same ideas are repeated, over and over again, which if they aren't inclined to take the first time, will probably fall on deaf ears.

The problem is, they did shoot down ideas. I'll give a very specific personal example: Block Value.

As the big change was the loss of Shield Block Value was steamrolling towards us, I was not a fan, and expressed this often. I made a point in the forums, a few times actually, that having block go fully proportional in value wasn't going to work very well. The example I used was "If a bunny hits me for 5 damage, and I block it with a Titansteel Shield, I don't think I should take 3 of it". Ghostcrawler himself responded, defending the change that would come to pass with a line like "trivializing low-level content is not something we're concerned with".

I accepted this at the time. Of course, rather a lot's changed since then.
a) DKs came out with "shield block value" in their absorb shields and ruled the tanking roost, soling the crap out of everything.
b) Warriors got Shield Barrier the very next level. So, yeah.
c) Ghostcrawler would respond to another of my posts, about Shield Barrier being basically better in every situation, and this time he agreed with me.
d) Warrior tanks are about to lose a ton of defense against low-level attacks, again, coming full circle.

But my point still is, they still defended it. They explained why. They listened to my feedback and still said no. I respect that. Then Celestalon came along and basically said "Fuck Arms for a whole expansion" and people wonder why we're upset.

They could tell us they'll consider it. They could tell us they have considered it, but like something better. They could even tell us it doesn't fit the class fantasy, laughable as that excuse is. They need to say something, anything, to prove we're not shouting into the wind. Because with seemingly random changes and obvious unfixed bugs and not a blue word on the subject, I would be just as likely to believe our class is being designed by die rolls over them listening to us, because there's equal evidence of both at this point.

[Exotath]

If a few of you beta testers don't mind posting in Lore's ability pruning thread about the lack of defensives for arms in legion it would be much appreciated by those of us who can't. Loss of impending victory/enraged regen and DBTS replacing d-stance for example.... or spell reflect and intervene.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20743094425#1

Since ya know... they can't seem to read the feedback posted in the legion class forums.

edit: Thank you Artunias

[Archimtiros]

The problem is, they did shoot down ideas. I'll give a very specific personal example: Block Value.

Sometimes, but very rarely, and generally only after they've made their decision and finalized changes for a given patch or expansion. Rarely do we get any kind of back and forth on ideas or feedback during the developmental process. 90% of the blueposts are "reassurance" posts, which do nothing more than make promises or detail changes that we could read from the datamining.

[Artunias]

If a few of you beta testers don't mind posting in Lore's ability pruning thread about the lack of defensives for arms in legion it would be much appreciated by those of us who can't. Loss of impending victory/enraged regen and DBTS replacing d-stance for example.... or spell reflect and intervene.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20743094425#1

Since ya know... they can't seem to read the feedback posted in the legion class forums.

edit: Thank you Artunias

Now if only we could get a little discussion going for the actual design of the specs...

[Caargon]

However, the points about communication is well founded. They are a relatively big company, and even though the class development team is small, it'd be easier for them to appoint people to establish dialogue between the players and developers. It's actually been suggested time and again, and unfortunately, they just don't want to.

To be fair I wouldn't want my job to be talking to us either.

[Artunias]

To be fair I wouldn't want my job to be talking to us either.

The testers have all been very courteous in the beginning. Hell in WoD we were pretty easy to talk to until right up to release and we all realized this shit is actually going live isn't it?

Feedback is still pretty courteous going on 5.5 months now of Legion, with the occasional salt, but they aren't helping themselves out by STILL not talking.

[Bleaklord]

Wasn't arms one of the last warrior specs released? I'm sure they'll be doing another pass on it soon, especially once they actually do the balance tests in pvp and realize arms has NOTHING mechanically. The drought in feedback is probably because it simply isn't priority right now, and won't be until they're ready, and I think that's fine...for now...But once they actually go for balancing, if they don't start listening to feedback, they're going to have some major problems because it's an absolute shell of a class in terms of functionality.

[Exotath]

Wasn't arms one of the last warrior specs released? I'm sure they'll be doing another pass on it soon, especially once they actually do the balance tests in pvp and realize arms has NOTHING mechanically. The drought in feedback is probably because it simply isn't priority right now, and won't be until they're ready, and I think that's fine...for now...But once they actually go for balancing, if they don't start listening to feedback, they're going to have some major problems because it's an absolute shell of a class in terms of functionality.

It showed up on alpha like 7 builds ago. Safe to say it has been there a good portion of the overall testing.

[Celarent]

As the big change was the loss of Shield Block Value was steamrolling towards us, I was not a fan, and expressed this often. I made a point in the forums, a few times actually, that having block go fully proportional in value wasn't going to work very well. The example I used was "If a bunny hits me for 5 damage, and I block it with a Titansteel Shield, I don't think I should take 3 of it". Ghostcrawler himself responded, defending the change that would come to pass with a line like "trivializing low-level content is not something we're concerned with".

I remember this.

Look, if a creative team has made definitive statements and needs to transition to other work, longer intervals or unanswered questions are expected. But this is a beta. Players are essentially partners in the means-testing of design and stakeholders in the final product. More so this beta with the number of quantitatively dedicated and knowledgeable players by way of progression.

I keep bumping against this — I don't know if Blizzard employees or game designers in general think there's no creative design profession outside of theirs, but in fact there are many, and those in them have time to both design and communicate, not least because communication is essential to success.

- - - Updated - - -

If a few of you beta testers don't mind posting in Lore's ability pruning thread about the lack of defensives for arms in legion it would be much appreciated by those of us who can't. Loss of impending victory/enraged regen and DBTS replacing d-stance for example.... or spell reflect and intervene.

This is a good example of disconnection from prior lack of dialog. I think almost all of us could agree that once you separate the guys who'll complain about whatever button among 15 they logged in to push, everyone else has a similar point where they say, "Yeah, okay — I have far fewer utility buttons but I feel like all of these are special to a warrior, and cover my concerns as a competitive player." And until that point is reached, the design isn't right.

[Artunias]

Wasn't arms one of the last warrior specs released? I'm sure they'll be doing another pass on it soon, especially once they actually do the balance tests in pvp and realize arms has NOTHING mechanically. The drought in feedback is probably because it simply isn't priority right now, and won't be until they're ready, and I think that's fine...for now...But once they actually go for balancing, if they don't start listening to feedback, they're going to have some major problems because it's an absolute shell of a class in terms of functionality.

Brave words, I have heard them before.

Like in the beginning of WoD Beta, and you can see nothing got changed there lol.

[Bigbazz]

What scares me is if we get to balancing and it's still the same design unchanged. Balancing won't be done until after launch if WOD is an example. When they removed CS from Fury, leaving Fury really poor at level 100 but then they nerfed it hard because it was strong at level 90, even though many of us were saying it was already weak at level 100 before they decided to nerf it..

Sometimes I think Blizzard are blind, I will never forget how terribly balanced and weak Fury was at WOD launch in spite of all the feedback we provided telling them it would happen well before it went live.

[regularspecial]

The simplest solution is just that: simple. Someone should be the link between the developers and the community giving feedback. It doesn't take any specialized position, just someone who can communicate with each side and keep track of what's going on, a CM could do it, one of their internal testers could do it, hell even an MVP-type player could do it as long as they have a reoccurring dialogue with the developer. Just someone who can say "yes to this, no to that, we'll look into it".

Whatever their faults, Blizzard is a good company and a great developer, they just get in their own way.

Why do you think this hasn't occurred yet?

Granted, a quick trip to trade chat/the official forums paints an ugly picture for anyone having to relay information between the two groups.

I suppose blizzard is playing it safe? Again, the official forums aren't exactly the nicest/logical place. The company isn't ran by total idiots; I'm sure they've considered this as it is pretty damn simple.

As much as that stinks to be the case, I'm not sure I 100% disagree with their stance. Obviously extremes like the radio silence (save Cele retweeing people saying they loved WS) we got in WoD should be avoided.

But I think most everyone could appreciate at least an update about what the hell they are working on throughout the week, but Blizzard's position is unique compared to other guys making games. I may be over dramatizing it a bit but I can understand the hesitance with putting out any remotely official statement; plans for a spec could change in a week, and suddenly people who didn't even get to play the previous iteration are upset it's being changed.

Otoh, Would having someone to talk to us do much of anything? Like you said, most of the times they respond its in the vein of "this is changing, why it'll change and why you shouldn't worry"; Yea, some suggestions make it through, but how many are outside the realm of QoL improvements?

At the end of the day, I think all parties involved are part of this mess; the community will continue to make the same suggestion, despite it being torn up builds ago, but we've got no idea of that because Blizzard is of the opinion that loose lips sink ships.

Someone just telling us "yes" and "no" is such a minor thing, but it'd go a long way in making the entire process more efficient; a good suggestion getting a concrete no would suck, but we'll at least know to abandon that cause, and if that no came with an "oh, but this is what we want to do" we could at least do something productive.

[Rorke]

Arms is fine. Every class is losing a lot of Defensive abilities. DK's basically lost 90% of their self healing.

At the end of the day, I'm not worried. They're always going to make this class good in PvP.

[Archimtiros]

Why do you think this hasn't occurred yet?

Granted, a quick trip to trade chat/the official forums paints an ugly picture for anyone having to relay information between the two groups.

I suppose blizzard is playing it safe? Again, the official forums aren't exactly the nicest/logical place. The company isn't ran by total idiots; I'm sure they've considered this as it is pretty damn simple.

I know it hasn't occured. The last time they had such a feature was with class CMs in 2005, which imploded in hilarious fashion because their CM team at the time was new and less professional than it is today. In fact, the last time this suggestion was made (about a year ago) they pointed to that instance as an example of why they don't want to do it again, despite the fact that it was 11 years ago, and a lot has changed since then.

And I didnt say it was run by idiots, please don't put words in my mouth. I said they get in their own way, which is neither insulting nor meant to paint them in a negative light. It's simply a byproduct of the way they do business.

But I think most everyone could appreciate at least an update about what the hell they are working on throughout the week, but Blizzard's position is unique compared to other guys making games. I may be over dramatizing it a bit but I can understand the hesitance with putting out any remotely official statement; plans for a spec could change in a week, and suddenly people who didn't even get to play the previous iteration are upset it's being changed.

Otoh, Would having someone to talk to us do much of anything? Like you said, most of the times they respond its in the vein of "this is changing, why it'll change and why you shouldn't worry"; Yea, some suggestions make it through, but how many are outside the realm of QoL improvements?

Like I said before, the key to it would be that we would have someone to say "yes we've heard this suggestion and are working on it/accepting it/rejecting it" so that feedback wouldn't just repeat itself. At this point, we've not had a Warrior change in 3 builds, which means all of the alpha posters are simply copy/pasting what they wrote in the prior builds, even though it's quite possible that feedback has been taken under advisement already one way or another. On top of that, we still have suggestions coming in that were made months ago, which are likely no longer relevant either way. A liaison would be able to filter that information so that it doesn't A) waste the developers time reading the same information over again, and B) communicate to the players that the information has been absorbed, so that they don't waste everyone's time writing it again.

[regularspecial]

I'm not sure what made you think I was putting words in your mouth.

I was more of trying to reinforce the point that it is a really simple thing to do, but the lack of such a system being in place is somewhat justified. Perhaps what happened 11 years ago is pretty silly to bring up, but I don't think enough has changed to make putting such a thing together an easy feat.

At least I really hope there's more to it than someone dropping the ball a decade ago and now everyone being afraid to try it again.

[Archimtiros]

I'm not sure what made you think I was putting words in your mouth.

I was more of trying to reinforce the point that it is a really simple thing to do, but the lack of such a system being in place is somewhat justified. Perhaps what happened 11 years ago is pretty silly to bring up, but I don't think enough has changed to make putting such a thing together an easy feat.

At least I really hope there's more to it than someone dropping the ball a decade ago and now everyone being afraid to try it again.

I'm assuming you don't know what happened 11 years ago, so this conversation is pointless. Suffice to say the CMs at the time operated under different rules and were less professional than they are now, after which saw an overhaul on the way they do things. That means yes, enough has changed.

[Rorke]

They better not give Arms any self healing. They should just work with making Defensive Stance good. I like the idea of Arms being able to take burst damage but relies on a healer for healing. Fury can be the sustained damage healbot that's good in duels, I really don't care.

[Vojka]

I think a small amount of leech would work for arms, I think just a trickling of self-healing works for them, similar to old school second wind (a small hot when stunned) or blood craze (small hot when you were crit), wasn't really over the top but was just enough to give you a little bit of an edge, so I think leech would fulfill the same role.