Blizzard is absolutely terrible at balancing: point of a PTR?

[Deleted]

Nighthold testing has been going on since beta and it was supposed to be a release raid - mentioning it now as an excuse is just sad.

Ok Mr Trump. I guess it's Sad! then.
You seem to think I'm defending Blizzard. I'm not.

And they did Nighthold testing during the latest PTR drive, so no matter how much you want to "fake news"-it, you won't get around it.

But sure, It's Sad!.

[Deleted]

I think they've tried, interrupts, external tank CD's, longer heal CDs etc etc.
But that "relevant utilty" thing isn't entirely trivial to implement.

It's still raw output Cd's (more tank/healing/DPS etc) and those aren't utility spells. As for interrupts they were in the game since the beginning and aren't enough to carry an utility based gameplay.

Sure - creating more "fun and relevant" utility skills would be awesome. But I don't think they can rid of the fact that everyone is there to do DPS.

They perfectly can (see everquest or FFXI as an example, those aren't perfect but it give a decent idea) but they don't do it and it's the reason the MMORPG genre is dying.

As another example, when a guy in your raid had to kite a strider on vashj, that was an utility based gameplay.

[cFortyfive]

Ok Mr Trump. I guess it's Sad! then.
You seem to think I'm defending Blizzard. I'm not..

Well I suppose if that's the tone you prefer - you are awfully triggered by some criticism Mr fanboy Sjw. A lot of the ptr encounter testing was just reiteration and in the end minor changes of content that had nothing to do with the patch release.

[Deleted]

What the fuck were they doing with hunters.

But you have to admit, seeing all the teens fly into full emo-mode on the Hunter discord has been incredibly entertaining and completely worth the nerfs.

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Well I suppose if that's the tone you prefer - you are awfully triggered by some criticism Mr fanboy Sjw. A lot of the ptr encounter testing was just reiteration and in the end minor changes.

Lol triggered. Not at all. Keep trying though.

[Deleted]

And I don't think that's even a goal - they want the classes to have different strengths and weaknesses. Or well, we do - because that's been our feedback to the devs. We don't want everything to feel the same and be "dumbed down". So they don't.

I believe they probably have some sort of %-variation in mind when they balance numbers (maybe 15%?) but I'd be very surprised if they were gunning for 0% variation. Can't see how that would be fun either.

They aim for around 10% (old blue post source, cba to dig it up). Not because they want variation, but because it is the expected margin you can balance so many classes and sub-systems with.

People that think they are varying % output just to make people ride rollercoasters need to seriously read their own statement, then read it again, and then pause, mull it over, and then hopefully come to the conclusion that it is an exceptionally shitty logic to explain balance.

Moving on. World of Warcraft is a huge game, many abilities and different synergistic effects between items and their stats and w/e. Wanting to create different and interesting classes and effects add to the difficulty of keeping classes within the variation. Not to say that player skill level and behavior is hard to test for before you have a huge live crowd doing it for you, players will ALWAYS surprise developers, and go to lengths they never could imagine, that goes for almost any video game.

If blizzard wants a certain class over others, it would be because of what you mentioned, strength and weaknesses, like a melee class with low utility bringing 10% more dps than a ranged utility class, but i will agree they are failing at that exact point.
But to your point, i dont see how it would be no fun if a 0% margin balance was achieved (with utility in mind). As long as the character you play is fun, interesting and competitively viable in all content, then is not that the dream? You can even reliably compare yourself to others, and know that skill was the reason you went 95th percentile, and not because of a recent hotfix that put you 10% ahead of everyone.

[Eazy]

But you have to admit, seeing all the teens fly into full emo-mode on the Hunter discord has been incredibly entertaining and completely worth the nerfs.

Not going to lie, I kinda laughed. Especially this:

And this:

[cFortyfive]

Lol triggered. Not at all. Keep trying though.

Sure fanboy.

They aim for around 10% (old blue post source, cba to dig it up). Not because they want variation, but because it is the expected margin you can balance so many classes and sub-systems with.

Did they even hit that target once in recent times ? well or ever of course.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

"Blizzard is terrible at everything" is what they should rename MMO Champion. It is all anyone on this thing seems to want to discuss anymore on this site.

[Deleted]

Sure fanboy.

Did they even hit that target once in recent times ? well or ever of course.

Well to be fair, with the new hunter hotfix, if we exclude how obviously broken shadowpriest is, and probably still will be, i think they somewhat are´close.



Afflic warloock is about 88 points and MM is about 73. With the recent hotfix hunters overall might move to around 77 score and afflic might move to around 77 also with the 10% malefic.
Spriests also getting some big nerfs, but i really cant predict that class.

So i think people paint a worse picture of balancing than the actual. Even if i know this is only a 1 week range pic.

[Wild]

So a billion dollar company that has been running the top MMO for over 12 years isnt capable of balancing classes? Are u really that naive?
Everything blizzard does has its purpose. And what lies behind every purpose of a billion dollar company? U are right, its the billions of dollars!

So the question should not be, why cant they balance the classes - the question should be, why do they want one or two classes/speccs to be OP over the others with EVERY patch they release?

Possibilities:
- maybe so people often switch classes = keeps a diversity = keeps them playing = keeps them subbed = billions of dollars

- gets people involved in the game / forums = keep people active = keeps them playing = keeps them subbed = billions of dollars

- creates discussions/QQs (such as this thread) = people stay interested = keeps them playing = keeps them subbed = billions of dollars

- so people play until next patch, when their class gets buffed again = keeps them playing = keeps them subbed = billions of dollars

- u name it

[Deleted]

But to your point, i dont see how it would be no fun if a 0% margin balance was achieved (with utility in mind). As long as the character you play is fun, interesting and competitively viable in all content, then is not that the dream? You can even reliably compare yourself to others, and know that skill was the reason you went 95th percentile, and not because of a recent hotfix that put you 10% ahead of everyone.

You make a good point. The perfect performance equilibrium shouldn't really have any effect on the "fun factor" of the character. I was thinking more like everything would be "same same" and kinda boring, but of course that wouldn't matter if the class/character was fun and engaging to play - on the contrary it would most likely be a good thing (for the reasons you stated). I stand corrected, thanks.

[cFortyfive]

So i think people paint a worse picture of balancing than the actual. Even if i know this is only a 1 week range pic.

I suppose that's partially because a lot of people who are really concerned with balance also often happen to witness first hand what's happening there.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...t=90&boss=1962
I can absolutely understand why being close to a 100k behind a spec isn't acceptable. And that's an encounter as patchwerk as it gets these days. Now maybe add what kind of class kit some classes have versus what others have and I see absolutely no reason to pretend it's actually not that bad.

[sykoex]

Maybe the goal is not 100% balance?

You're probably right. In an earlier Q&A Ion once said that they nerfed a warlock spec because they'd rather people not play it, so it doesn't seem like they're interested in having everyone do equal damage.

[Daan]

Why is there no Druid in the class tuning hotfixes??

[Deleted]

You're probably right. In an earlier Q&A Ion once said that they nerfed a warlock spec because they'd rather people not play it, so it doesn't seem like they're interested in having everyone do equal damage.

That specific example is not what I meant though
That demo warlock nerf didn't have anything to do with general class balance (directly) - it was about the complexity of that spec in comparison to the two other warlock specs.

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Why is there no Druid in the class tuning hotfixes??

Maybe because there was almost no Druid changes? As usual "they're happy about Druids".
Zzzz.

[guardian_titan]

Not many play on the PTR. Those who do either aren't currently subscribed and still want to play at max level or are testing specific content like raids. Those testing raids are often out for world or server firsts so will use whatever they can to their advantage. So if one spec does massive damage compared to another, they're less likely to say something because they can stack that class. When Blizzard rebalances, it's unlikely the total DPS pre-nerf will equal the total DPS post-nerf. Reporting the issue only makes things harder for them in the race to be first. Case in point being how often exploits in raid fights show up. When are these things reported? Usually after the group got the kill.

Meanwhile, those who enjoy the classes on the bottom likely aren't playing on the PTR much so don't notice how low they are until live. Then they have to whine and moan until Blizzard fixes it.

Only way to fix the PTR is to get more people on it who will do quality testing and aren't just out for themselves. Since most would rather focus on the live game instead of something that gets wiped every now and then and has nothing to do with their live account, the PTR is often forgotten about. If you're complaining and you weren't on the PTR testing things out yourself AND giving feedback, then you're part of the very problem you're complaining about.

[Traveler Voltin]

They dont listen to feedback.
So yes

[Deleted]

Nighthold testing has been going on since beta and it was supposed to be a release raid - mentioning it now as an excuse is just sad.

I certainly agree. In that light I also find it just hilarious what kind of kits some specs are left with.

Nighthold was NEVER a release raid. Shows how much informed you are.

[Thzz]

I rolled MM hunter this expansion just for fun.

I am having fun.

My class is at bottom of charts right now and could really care less.

I, like majority of WOW players dont raid competitively.

I think OP, like the majority MMO posters is a whiny lil beatch who is butt hurt cause now he cant post recount after every boss fight to prove he has the biggest dick and is much more comfortable posting on MMO to bitch and complain. 1-4% of WOW players care about such things. I know this true simply because I thought about it.

IF YOU ARE THAT BUTT HURT... JUST STOP PLAYING !!!!!!

[Aggrophobic]

You can't really achieve full balance with so many classes and combinations.

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Eeeeh, no. I've seen worse..

You probably have but not in a long time, this early in an expantion and it's usually fixed much faster.
Balance is a bigger issue now as well, with AP and relics making it much harder to switch specs when needed.

This is something they should have had fixes for long befor the expantion came out but they just ignored it. It's a huge mistake on their part and they probably lost a lot of players becuase of it.