Templates: success / failure

[rda]

Legion season 1 is over so let's discuss one of the key changes they did - PVP templates.

They were supposed to make PVP easier to balance, which in turn should have provided that better balance. So, did balance get better? I don't think so. And here is what I suggest is part of the reason.

The big thing about templates that perhaps few in Blizzard realized at the time is that they are too coarse a tool to matter. Using PVP templates to help balance is similar to this:

(we have a village with thirty-three houses)

A: A picture on my wall is too low. It looks like it fell down. Please fix?
Blizzard: Sure.
<Blizzard reach for the big lever and uplift the whole house a meter or so>
A: Erm... thanks... now the door is too high, how do I exit?
B: WTF????!!! I can't see anything in my windows now, A's house is too high.
...

Right now Blizzard are in the phase where they are making these endless changes which tirelessly try to find the ideal sweet spot between specs that doesn't even exist. It's precisely because things are out of balance that it doesn't exist, trying to find it is futile, it is not there. I predict that as time goes on they will realize that templates are NOT only not a substitute for real balancing, they don't even help. They might be useful for a quick and very temporary fix and that's about it. The percentage changes will get lower and lower, then they will disappear, and in the next expansion they might get rid of templates altogether - and maybe a year or so later someone will say in the interview that, indeed, templates were a wrong place to spend resources on, they didn't really help.

But maybe I am missing something, maybe templates are good?

Did they work, did they fail, is it too early to say? Vote.

[Nolifer]

It is a failure from the player perspective, perhaps not from the game development perspective.

Templates hide the initial imbalance of the classes, which without templates would be far more obvious, it makes it possible to boost/limit the effectiveness of a class/specialization simply by tweaking it's output numbers in PvP, without having any effect on PvE whatsoever. For a game developer I imagine it's quite an effect tool, you get to influence balance just as effectively (if not more) than earlier balance changes where consideration for both PvE and PvP had to accounted for.

As a player however, it's obvious that the Template system is deteriorating PvP as the underlining mechanics of classes are far more important, perhaps now more than ever after the pruning. It isn't a sign of proper balance when losing so much utility makes your class on of the weaker ones but this initial weakness is off-set by a ridiculous stat modifier in your template, it just means you are constantly going to be changing the stats of classes while never really dealing with the actual issues of balance.

There is more than the Template system though, the entire separation of PvP/PvE was a huge mistake, there is a lot more to it.

[Milocow]

failure
/10char

[Nerovar]

I think it is a failure mostly because it takes away depth from the game. In my opinion the fun about World Of Warcraft PvP (or MMO PvP in general) was always the fact that you don't simply play your class (like champions in Mobas for example) but your own character. This means that you also have to plan your character not only when it comes to talents (again even Mobas like League of Legends have talent trees + runes) but it's also about choosing the correct gear, getting more of the stat that has the most benefits (the peak was of course MoP with reforging etc.) and really playing the way you want to play (sometimes even ignoring the fact that it isn't the most viable option).

This was also reflected in specializations like Windwalker or Frost DK who basically had two completely different play styles with different stat priorities, talents etc. It added so much flavour to the game and at the same time gave you something to work on. You could always optimize your character to a certain point and when you were done you could do the same thing for your other specializations. I know many players who feel the same way about this. I think it's a shame that this component was removed from PvP because it was as much a part of the game as the actual gameplay inside arenas/battlegrounds. Now that they've taken it away it feels like you're simply playing a template (or a nameless specimen of the class you chose) which is completely separated from the rest of the game.

A few months into Legion all I do is farm artifact power and queue for BGs / arena from time to time. Gear, enchants or even stats don't play an actual role except when it comes to open PvP (which is also completely lackluster). I got to ~2,1k rating last season when I realised that there's no real appeal for me as a "casual" player (because I'm not a professional whose goal it is to reach 3k rating) and I simply stopped playing rated arena at that point. I think Blizzard has lost the way. To me it feels like they're only catering to either
a) completely new players
or
b) "professional players"
There's no middle ground anymore.

[Deleted]

Failure. MMOs are about immersion in a seamless world, this stupid separation of PvP and PvE destroys that vision.

They should try harder instead, achievieng a somewhat acceptable balance level cannot be that hard.

[Wow]

They are a massive failure because you have a massive failure tuning them. If that wasn't the case it maybe a massive success.

Assassination rogue's were fdk strong at the start of legion so they nerfed all three rogue specs agi 60%, nerfed there hp, and nerfed defenses, nerfed there snares, nerfed defenses again. Mean while fdk what happens for s2 they get a 10% hp nerf when they already had 20% bonus hp over others which means they still have more hp than most and that's all that happens lol wat? This isn't about buffing rogue's it's about the clear bias on the tuning team letting fdk's stay full retard while gutting a whole class.

This is what's wrong with the templates there are clear bias happening rather than proper tuning happening this was just one example of their failures.

Also the fact that we don't have a post in the blizzard forum listing all the pvp only and template changes speaks volumes about how horrible the pvp team is.

[Trematode]

It's a success because they are balancing WoW much more frequent now then before.

At least now we don't have to wait for a new patch (7.1 to 7.2 in 6 months) to see balance changes like past expansions.

If there was no stat template changes then the same classes that were facerolling at the start (Leather classes) would be owning all through the season til the new patch came out. I'm glad they came up with these stat templates even thou there is more work to be done with them but at least they are actually tweaking classes weekly during the season.

Balancing is one of the hardest things to do in WoW but to actually try to balance and work on it more frequently and to show the player base that they are trying, that to me is a success.

[God Save The King]

Success.

I rarely see a change to a PvE mechanic due to PvP, which, after over a decade, is a breath of fresh air.

[Wow]

It's a success because they are balancing WoW much more frequent now then before.

At least now we don't have to wait for a new patch (7.1 to 7.2 in 6 months) to see balance changes like past expansions.

Yes we get horrible balancing now rather than waiting nice... I would be great if the actual tuning was good but it isn't.

[bio347]

Templates are a huge success for me, because as someone who doesn't PvP a ton I am still able to participate and contribute. There was nothing fun about trying to do BGs for fun in past expansions and just being completely helpless against people in PvP gear.

[Wow]

Templates are a huge success for me, because as someone who doesn't PvP a ton I am still able to participate and contribute. There was nothing fun about trying to do BGs for fun in past expansions and just being completely helpless against people in PvP gear.

That's more about the ilvl scaling than the templates themselves. I think many here are confusing the 2.

[Kyzr]

I think they're a failure, but recoverable.

The main thing that sucks about templates is that I feel like I'm playing Holinka's idea of what my character should be, and not what I've built my character to be. Not in an RP way, but it completely breaks immersion. Using Balance as an example:

Mastery is maybe my worst stat? Definitely not better than Haste. My character stats nearly completely flip around backwards from what I want. So worse than just my dmg #s being different (higher, actually), but because of the change to Haste it feels different. It doesn't feel like my character.

So, when you look at the stat totals, it's something like 3500 per secondary stat. This is the template, and it's created completely ignoring my personal choices. If you want to limit the maximum potential stats I can have, that's fine. But it should be based on my choices. So if 40% of my total tally of crit/haste/mastery/versa is in Haste, then make my template reflect that, like: (3500x4)*0.4 = 5600. So whatever 5600 Haste translates to, that's what my character gets in his template.

Make the template reflect my personal gear/choices, and then PvP gets a lot of it's flavor back. Still have a lot of work to do on utility skills, but this would be a good start.

[Tyrannica]

Obviously, a failure in incompetent hands.

- - - Updated - - -

Templates are a huge success for me, because as someone who doesn't PvP a ton I am still able to participate and contribute. There was nothing fun about trying to do BGs for fun in past expansions and just being completely helpless against people in PvP gear.

Because it was hard to get pvp gear even if you just played it casually....

- - - Updated - - -

They are a massive failure because you have a massive failure tuning them. If that wasn't the case it maybe a massive success.

Assassination rogue's were fdk strong at the start of legion so they nerfed all three rogue specs agi 60%, nerfed there hp, and nerfed defenses, nerfed there snares, nerfed defenses again. Mean while fdk what happens for s2 they get a 10% hp nerf when they already had 20% bonus hp over others which means they still have more hp than most and that's all that happens lol wat? This isn't about buffing rogue's it's about the clear bias on the tuning team letting fdk's stay full retard while gutting a whole class.

This is what's wrong with the templates there are clear bias happening rather than proper tuning happening this was just one example of their failures.

Also the fact that we don't have a post in the blizzard forum listing all the pvp only and template changes speaks volumes about how horrible the pvp team is.

These could be my words. The tuning team of the pvp templates(holinka is directly responsible and not the class designer this time around, no excuses) are not even trying to balance the specs out.

In my opinion TBC balance is the way to go, you try to balance classes instead of specs. So the result is a brutal only 1 spec of a class is dominating pvp. However since the devs have a real problem with focusing on pvp balance for ALL specs this makes it somewhat easier. It worked in the past and i prefere rather just be limited to 1 useful spec for each class than in extremes all 3 specs beeing gutted. The rogue is really the best example. Started out strong and was gutted by pvp templates in all 3 specs. Its just too hilarious, because some dominating hybrid classes are still dominating and had not as many and hard nerfs.

Can't really trust that template team, so this tool is simply annoying and should get pruned finally. PvP gear and stats is still the way to go and allows acceptable balance in wpvp, too for those that actually care about it.

[bio347]

Because it was hard to get pvp gear even if you just played it casually....

It wasn't trivial, no. And doing so still involved PvPing without PvP gear, which was perhaps the worst experience you could have in the game. There's no way I'm suffering through that garbage just so I can potentially have some fun by being on an even footing.

[Nerovar]

It wasn't trivial, no. And doing so still involved PvPing without PvP gear, which was perhaps the worst experience you could have in the game. There's no way I'm suffering through that garbage just so I can potentially have some fun by being on an even footing.

Come on. You could get full Honor equipment via Ashran within one day by farming artifact fragments. It really wasn't that hard. PvP isn't a mini game that was designed for PvE players that want to have some occasional fun.

[Sithalos]

Well, there are still FotM classes that take forever to get fixed, so I would call it a failure. It fails to do what it was created to do.

[Arenis]

Failure in my eyes.

• Spec capability discrepancy is still as massive as before (if not worse..)
• you have zero say in what kind of stats you want to pursue for your build (or if you want double stam trinkets for a defensive bonus)
• tanks are beyond gutted and totally useless
• healing requires a lot of effort even just to get someone from 50% to 100%
• discrepancy between what's usable in PvE and in PvP and how strong it is
• and then those fudging honor talents: Take stuff that classes often already possessed, prune them, put them in honor talents to make it seem like something new.

I'm trying so incredibly hard to actually enjoy some PvP in this game, but I'm about to give up. I've never seen PvP in such an 'un-fun' state and I think the templates contribute significantly to that. Arena lost 50% of it's playerbase for a damn reason.

/vent

[Azzurri]

The template idea is actually a good one. The problem is that it really has not been used well since the PvP Dev team seems clueless.

All they do to fix something are blanket nerfs or buffs.

[Caolela]

Well rda, there are several things at work here. One of many:

Templates made it easy for Blizz to skip having to create separate gear for PvP and PvE, along with mundane but practical things in an overhead sense like storing the pixels and stats for that doubled set of gear. Like Void Storage that deletes the gear stats forever once you drop an item in. Not to mention the artwork and modeling effort they now don't have to do.

Multiply that exponentially for PvP gear and from everything else I've seen Blizzard do the past several years, it's very much in the realm of scraping every nickle of profit or overhead reduction out of the game that they can conjure up.

We've seen the same thing with camera zoom. CRZ in cities (and massive lag) that few wanted. Lag/stuttering when zoning somewhere or at login, even during encounters. Bugs galore that go unfixed but cause wasted time and aggro. RNG on steroids and of course...flying. None of that makes your QoL any easier or quicker in WoW, it's always just the opposite.

When was the last time that say...your Hearthstone bugged out and reset soon after use instead of waiting the whole 15 minutes? That would be...never.

I don't think templates has a fucking thing to do with making it easier to balance as the primary goal, and if it does, only when this faux "balancing" just happens to coincide with the underlying expedient of max profit in any way possible.

Blizzard is certainly not going to admit to that openly while they're taking your money every month and every xpac. To the contrary, they're going to spin it as something desirable for the game or things that they're "working on".

[Noctiphobia]

People really love to complain, don't they?
The templates, together with adjusting particular skills in PvP only, in my opinion, are a success.
Of course, the values need tweaking. And to be honest, I'd like to see different templates in 2v2 and 3v3, but that's just dreaming.
For example, there are no specs that are completely useless. I'm not talking about just being worse than others (even if by a big margin), I mean specs that just had no way at all of competing.
And also, they really do release those tuning hotfixes quite often, compared to previous expansions, and specs that are massively overpowered don't stay overpowered for the entire season. Though they really did go overboard with rogues.
Also, the honor talent system is a huge success, in my opinion. Then again, some of them ruin 2v2, since some are designed to counter specific classes, and in 2v2 things like Pure of the Heart are far too strong. However, the system itself allowed them to add interesting abilities that otherwise would never get implemented (for example psyfiend, which deals % damage, has 5 hp and is susceptible to AoE effects - so no way that could be balanced in any kind of raid environment). Some pruned abilities got included as honor talents, so of course people are exaggerating that all of them are old pruned abilities (very, very few of them are).
My biggest issue is that there's no way of tracking changes to the templates and abilities - there used to be a big post which included all of them, but they removed it, and now you have to guess. And because of that, when they hotfixed windwalkers (60% damage from strike of the windlord, 85% from fists of fury), many windwalkers cried that they nerfed them into the ground, when actually they just moved some of the damage from strike of the windlord into fists of fury and I think it was an overall buff (fists of fury did 70%, and I'm not sure about strike of the windlord, but it was either 65% or 70%).
And, obviously, there's no way (besides actually going into arena) to test how much damage your skills are going to do, since there's no training dummy or anything like that which would activate both honor talents and the PvP template.

So, summing it up:
- templates and honor talents are a success
- their communication sucks
- the community overreacts
- the numbers (obviously) aren't perfect, and they're pretty conservative with the changes (though they change it much more often than they used to before templates)