Why can't Blizzard balance?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Blizzard also has a tendency(I love you guys at Blizz but sometimes you baffle me) to overnerf things, not just classes. They just seem to go "NERF THIS HARD!!!!" Where usually most of the time they don't need to give such a big nerf.

[Alvorea]

They can balance, it's really not a question if they are capable of doing that -- they clearly are. Blizzard just loves the "Perfect Imbalance" way of design, making some classes way better than others in a certain area. Sometimes even better in ALL areas, which is even worse. We shall see if Blizzard actually keeps through with that in the balance pass.

This is their way of keeping the game fresh and player base cycling through classes. It is working as intended.

[Anbokr]

One name. Celetalon

I'm surpised that guy hasn't been fired.

Yeah, Celestalon is the guy that defended WoD launch Arms as "fun" and "nostalgic" for some vanilla players. Ion did too but Celestalon was particularly snarky during beta and was clearly the one behind it.

For those that don't know, vanilla arms was universally panned by everyone and their mother because it involved keeping rend up (lasted ~20s) and pressing mortal strike off cooldown every 5-6s. The rest of the time you just auto attacked. Despite months of feedback and requests on beta, and months post-launch of feedback and criticism this guy had the gall to confront every complaint with "THERE IS A VOCAL MINORITY THAT HAS TOLD US IT'S REALLY FUN AND THEY LIKE SIMPLE AND VANILLA !!!" This is the guy who tweaks rotations for classes and has a had in balance lmao.

[ChickenChaser]

This guy doesn't get what you need for buffs/nerfs you need data......
Dungeons started and tanks were doing too much damage. 10% nerf to tank damage to balance.

Week 1 of heroic raids now monday we will get the damage fix. Like this guy just wants everything to be 450k dps single target warriors.... and raid bosses dying in 3 seconds.. They know the average dps that classes should be based off HP for raids... the classes above that will be brought down. and ones below that will be brought up.

and Potions will be nerfed by 100% back to what they were before.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Because you are not able to understand what balance means.
There are more variables than can ever be controlled.
Even if every single DPS did the EXACT same number standstill, there are difficulties that a lot more than simple balance.

[Puzzony]

A lot of people keep rerolling with FOTM classes changing, and that gives more subbed time income for Blizz. Go figure.

[darklogrus]

A lot of people keep rerolling with FOTM classes changing, and that gives more subbed time income for Blizz. Go figure.

Not really because other players just say "the hell with this" and leave for 2/3 of the expansion.

That's a very expensive and time consuming approach to balancing. Of course everyone can just change numbers in small increments but it sounds like you'd basically be guessing rather than having a clue what you're doing. Interactions between spells and abilities can become so complex that changing just one ability's damage by 10% could cause another ability to change damage as well, resulting in a bigger than 10% increase/decrease.

I guarantee that you couldn't do it without breaking the game a few times first.

You also have that fact that not every class is OP for every encounter. Some are stronger than others depending on the mechanics of the fight.

Balancing effects every little thing the player does in this game, to say its not important or isn't worth the time is a stupid argument.

[A dot Ham]

All they ever seem to do is focus on nerfing an overpowered class to the bottom. Why can they never balance? Why do they focus on the weirdest thing and end up making things worse? Just do loads of tiny little updates. Just do it, for crying out loud. Take Fury spells and up the damage by 10%. Not enough? Too much? Change it. Same with sub. Point things near the bottom to the middle. Point things near the top to the middle. Keep an eye on it. I know I'm going to get responses like, 'if you think it's so easy then you do it.' I probably could. Everyone could. I know how to increase or decrease a number in small increments. The balancing in WoW is shocking.

On balance going back to homogenization:
So it's good that a spec is never used because it's not good at anything? Classes can still be different if they all do around the same damage. It's about how they do that damage, utility and the flavor of the class fantasy. Even if that wasn't the case I'd rather have homogenization than my main spec be useless.

People hated the homogenization of utilities and flavor, not of dps.

Unbalanced utility meant you still had reasons to bring X over Y. If dps is unbalanced, then you don't have a reason to bring X anymore. Frost is always worse than fire, fury does less damage and takes more damage than arms. There is no reason to take these classes.

What's wrong with Team Fortress 2? Sure it's way easier to balance but it's a good example of classes being good at their own different things but all still being useful.

But if you go back to utility you go back to bring the class, not the player. An ideology that existed before Ghostcraw...

Hold up I'm all for class/spec utility.

[darklogrus]

When did I say it wasn't important?

Really if it isn't worth the time or the budget then is not really that important.

[Tijuana]

Some of you are expecting the same dps, on every encounter, for every class and spec, disregarding varied levels of gear, artifact power, and skill. You not only want the end game BiS to be balanced, but every step of every journey on the way.

To achieve what you expect, you would have to get rid of gear, and institute a super long GCD like FF. No thanks.

[Thimagryn]

People have already addressed the homogenization issues with having 'perfect balance', so we already know that.

I want to point out that there's also other factors that lead to the game never being able to be balanced. One of them is confirmation bias, where even if the game were 100% balanced and each spec was completely unique to each other; some players will perceive an imbalance (likely due to self-imposed human error) and vocalize it. This draws attention from others who also have negative experiences, which brings about a mob mentality that the class is somehow imbalanced or broken.

This isn't always the case, and sometimes classes really are broken. I'm simply saying that even in theory, if the game was completely balanced people will come up with ways to deny it, due to their own bias and unwillingness to accept their skill level.

[Vanson]

There is zero reason for the classes to have such a deviation in DPS as they do right now, of course there is going to be classes slightly better at some things than the other, but the gap should never be as large as it should be now. It's actually embarrassing if you ask me, from a PVE standpoint the classes have not been balanced much worse than they are now.

Think about it, there is no reason it should be this bad. Blizzard finally has the ability to tune classes/specs accordingly without effecting the other sides of the game (PVE/PVP) yet it's almost the worst it has ever been, look at frost DK, ret, locks, fury warriors, elemental shamans they are up to 30% worse than the top specs in certain situations. That's just completely unacceptable, and I feel as though we are going to be severely let down by this "tuning pass".

[Deleted]

Because they want imbalance. After such a long time it's kind of obvious how they are doing things. They nerf shit that needed like 5% and slam it for 20. They have been doing this since forever and after a while it has become really obvious - at least - to some people.

[Pull My Finger]

@OP, it's more just a case of you having absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

[MoanaLisa]

Why can they never balance?

OK, you're so smart. Let's see: Explain in detail how to balance a nuke class versus a multi-dot spec. Take into account procs of varying times, trinkets, and all the rest. Explain how that would work on a single boss versus a council fight.

[semiblind]

1) Rotations, and the damage/healing/etc that arise from them, are the result of many different variables to come into play.

Adjusting one, even a little bit, causes ripples across the rest of the system, even across characters. A given ability, in isolation, might be balanced perfectly. Add in the extra damage off of 'Proc X', a damage multiplier from Player 'Y', and suddenly the ability is overpowered.

So, when you adjust that ability down by 1%, it might seem balanced in that very precise scenario. But what happens when you don't have that proc available and the player buff is gone? Now the ability is underpowered!


2) The above is looking at a specific situation. Now, pull back, and see that the game has NPC enemy encounters designed for 1-25+ players, PVP, questing, etc. There is no possible way to guarantee that an ability will be perfectly balanced in all possible settings.

3) When looking at simcraft and the like, people often use the phrase "all things being equal". Alas, things are never equal. Skill, knowledge, experience, group comp, gear, encounter type, etc all factor in, probably in ways we're not even aware of.

4) There is only ever need for relative balance. I'd much rather there be unbalanced classes that all have defining characteristics that can't necessarily be balanced.

This guy doesn't get what you need for buffs/nerfs you need data......
Dungeons started and tanks were doing too much damage. 10% nerf to tank damage to balance.

Week 1 of heroic raids now monday we will get the damage fix. Like this guy just wants everything to be 450k dps single target warriors.... and raid bosses dying in 3 seconds.. They know the average dps that classes should be based off HP for raids... the classes above that will be brought down. and ones below that will be brought up.

and Potions will be nerfed by 100% back to what they were before.

And this is why the tank 10% nerf is a whole lot more than 10%.

People want parity... not homogenization. They want to be competitive with their chosen class/spec, and that shouldnt really be too much to ask for. Being competitive does not mean everyone does exactly 450k dps, its ok to have one do 460k and another do 430k, but they should both be useful... when one is doing 460k and the other is doing 200k in similar gear, then it becomes an issue.

[Radaney]

Why can't <insert every gaming company in existence> balance?

[mistahwilshire]

They can't balance because the balance pass doesn't come out until Monday/Tuesday.

Not sure I see the point of this thread.

[Tomana]

iWhy can they never balance? Why do they focus on the weirdest thing and end up making things worse?

Because if they balance, the classes they play will no longer be OP... -_-

[Deleted]

OK, you're so smart. Let's see: Explain in detail how to balance a nuke class versus a multi-dot spec. Take into account procs of varying times, trinkets, and all the rest. Explain how that would work on a single boss versus a council fight.

There are people whos jobs are to figure that out Why are you asking someone else to do it for devs whos means of income this is? In real life when you buy a phone that is not working properly do you just keep it and say nothing? do you not go back do the shop and ask for a new one or to get it fixed? What if you showed up and started to complaining and got told well how about you fix it then? this is what you are saying and to me its someone elses job to fix the product you bought from them.

At the moment class balance is so bad for some specs that they are being denied spots in raids and 5mans alike meaning they cant do the content that is out let alone complete the content that out in the game this is gone lead to a lot of people getting very frustrated and rightfully so.