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

[cFortyfive]

The lowest classes on that log are undertuned in my, (and blizzards opinion, as they just got a big buff) so that log wont look like that in a week from now(then again, NH is out next week so it does not really matter). I said that after the hotfixes it does not look that bad, maybe i didnt formulate myself correctly.
The only outlier that is not nerfed in that graph is retri paladins, alltho i will say that assasination rogues are hard to judge, might be the bug people abused or general overtuning. With the bottom nerfed however, its gonna be closer, then again, set bonuses could jumple everything up.

Well maybe they are able to even hit their very generous goal after the hotfixes - still they haven't this tier and they haven't at the very moment and that doesn't even account for factors outside of pure damage balancing.
Assassination just is/was that good - there are logs with that damage with legitimate uses of vendetta. I really don't see much of a reason to whitewash the results.

[Sylreick]

PTR serves more than just as a balancing pass. It works out kinks that might appear with mechanics being implemented. It works with new systems that may be introduced. It tests potential ideas they might have for new content. It also works as a way to lessen the bugs that may appear from implementing that may occur client-side.

Balancing is also a never ending feat. It can and will always be occurring as new data is provided to Blizz. Whinging about these changes does nothing.

[Violetti]

They changed the specs in mechanics on ptr and used large numbers of data of raids that are getting downed anyway to balance

I dont the see a problem here

[ComputerNerd]

Ask a simple question.
If that is what we get with the PTR, what would we have without it.
Something worse.

There are too many scenarios and too many classes and specs now.
True balance I would say is impossible in a class based game.
And you get further away from that the more options you have.

36 specs across 12 classes.
2,187 talent combinations, assuming just traditional talents and not including PvP talents.
Different encounter formats, Single target, AoE, Spread Multi-target, etc.
Multiple Secondary Stats.

And that is just some of the considerations.

Actually look at what people are expecting blizzard to balance.

There is never going to be balance.
All blizzard can do at this point is to try and deal with the outliers, by some arbitrary definition of what is or isn't too far ahead or behind.
Which will be a never-ending task.
And players will often have their own definition of what is or isn't too much, a different one from blizzard.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Ask a simple question.
If that is what we get with the PTR, what would we have without it.
Something worse.

There are too many scenarios and too many classes and specs now.
True balance I would say is impossible in a class based game.
And you get further away from that the more options you have.

36 specs across 12 classes.
2,187 talent combinations, assuming just traditional talents and not including PvP talents.
Different encounter formats, Single target, AoE, Spread Multi-target, etc.
Multiple Secondary Stats.

Actually look at what people are expecting blizzard to balance.

There is never going to be balance.
All blizzard can do at this point is to try and deal with the outliers, by some arbitrary definition of what is or isn't too far ahead or behind.
Which will be a never-ending task.

Com'on now.. we got at least... 200 people on these forums that do that shit in there sleep. (sarcasm)

[Deleted]

i agree completely, how is it possible to see such huge changes less then a week after a patch launches? nobody is expecting them to get it perfect but huge changes of 20% or more mere days after launch just makes me think they just use some excel sheets to balance the game and don't have actual play testing/bot testing.

[DarthMonk79]

Honestly its where I miss the old raids and old classes... it used to be that there wasn't anywhere close to balance but because classes brought different things to a raid that they were all welcome. Now even though we have 12 classes its probably closer to 5-6 as there's at least 2 classes that do the same exact thing. It then becomes a numbers game, which one does the most dps. I mean as a example... lets say MM hunters did the highest dps numbers, Prot Paladins were the best tanks and druids were the number one healer at single target and AOE. So the real competitive guilds would then go say 2 prot paladins, 4 druids and 9 hunters in their raid. Why... because those are the best and everybody is all about being the best and not just enjoying the game. Where as probably Vanilla thru Wrath each class was unique and brought its own thing to the raid. You wanted 2 different tanks because some tanks were better at soaking big damage, others were better at grabbing mobs, you wanted different healers because some were better single target, aoe and buffs, etc. You wanted different dps for the perks, buffs, cc's and such that they brought. It wasn't always about numbers. You could take the warlock for their cookies even if they did less dps than the hunter, you could take the priest because they did leaps and bounds above the druid on single target heals.
The point being that there shouldn't be balance. There should be uniqueness. Yes you want those high end dps as your big damage dealers but you want the support classes too... the old spriest that healed thru damage, the ret paladins for their blessings and aura's. I mean paladins weren't big damage dealers for the longest time if I remember right but they were still wanted for the different aura's and blessings and judgements they used. I remember doing BT with 4 paladins between the healer, dps and tank. So there were 4 aura's going.. the devotion, retribution, light and resistance ones. (can't remember the old school healer one)
Now though because there's very little unique about classes and its mostly just a zerg down the boss fighting system people just go for that top dps class. The game has gone from unique and fun to people believing they are "forced" to play a specific class or a specific spec.... I mean where's the fun in that. Some of it is blizzards problem but once again a big part of it goes to the community as well. People are all about what is the easiest way to kill this raid boss, not what do my guild members like to play as and how can we work with that. I mean I'm sorry but someone should not be forced to play a specific class or spec just to raid. People are forgetting it is a game most of all, something to have fun in and people to have fun with. Not telling someone, sorry I know you love to play your BM hunter but the only way you are raiding with us is you have to play MM or Mage. It should be more like.. cool we have a BM hunter that really knows and loves playing his class. This guys been in our guild for X number of years. We'll miss a little dps (which is the other problem... its all about min/max... like OMG this class/spec does 10k more than this class/spec, etc. I mean I'm sorry but if you can't figure your way around 10k, the problem isn't the person doing 10k less dps.) I mean unless the difference between spec's is over 100k its not a big number, its a drop in the pond that can be picked up by someone else. Raiding is supposed to be challenging, but way too many people want things to be stupid easy. Another example would be the premades.. you get those crazy people doing a normal mythic wanting everybody to be 860+.... I'm sorry but unless I'm helping a guildie or a friend why would I do a regular mythic at that item level? Stuff like dungeons/raids are supposed to be a challenge, not a cake walk. I'm not supposed to enter a dungeon and 10min later be done with it. Its a event that takes a team of heroes.... aka, something the individual or common man couldn't do. Dungeons used to take forever, regardless of your gear, yet now again everything is zerg, zerg, zerg and then people turn around and complain about nothing to do or nothing new.... I'm sorry but who's fault is it that they decided to zerg through everything? I mean did they read all the quests or just follow where the arrow or glowing item went. Did you explore every inch of a zone, maybe only play a few hours a day or split it between alts? NOPE.... most get the game new and zerg through everything and after 8-12+ hours have hit max level and then start complaining. You'd look at their quest log, maps and achievements for a zone and its mostly blank, yet they complain that there was nothing to do, why are we doing this, etc....

[WowIsDead64]

PTR is pointless. There are quests in this game, that had been broken for ages and are still broken. Terokk Avatar still isn't despawning properly at Spires of Arak.

P.S. I've said it many times already - current Wow team is completely incompetent. They've proved it many times already.

[Lorkin]

Current WoW Development team is now the Old Diablo 3 Development team. You should NOT be surprised they are simply just too lazy to actually tweak and balance things, and slap a % modification on abilities or items. Just look at the latest Hot Fixes, everything is just a % now. GET USE TO SEEING THIS till WoW has ended.

Here's an example of many many iterations of Diablo 3 "balancing" via %'s.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/manald-heal

Secondary
Enemies stunned with Paralysis also take 13000–14000% weapon damage as Lightning.

Yeah, few patches from now we should see the %'s uptick into the hundred %'s mark. Something like, Warrior Mortal Strike Damage has been increased by 242%. So lazy.

[Justpassing]

It's not supposed to be balanced, it's supposed to be a rollercoaster.

After 10+ years you'd think people have figured that out but I guess not.

[Deleted]

Honestly its where I miss the old raids and old classes... it used to be that there wasn't anywhere close to balance but because classes brought different things to a raid that they were all welcome.

It was fucking awesome to raid as a paladin. Buff everyone every couple of minutes. Then stand at the back and try not to get in combat or die. Maybe spam Flash of Light on yourself if you were about to die. That's about it.

Anyway. I'd rather see constant change and fast tuning than the old system. I think they should make number adjustments every week

[Trapped]

I wanted to make the same thread. What the fuck were they doing with hunters. They had a few weeks/months to balance the classes. Second day of the new patch -> uhm, we're changing our minds, we're buffing hunters now.

Yeah it's pretty stupid. Its like they don't have any internal testers or simulations anymore. They throw out some ballpark numbers, let the players test it out on LIVE, and then adjust from that. Smh.

Also, ret is broken OP, and gets no nerfs.

[Revak]

If you look at it from an economic standpoint, it makes sense. They don't want the game to be (fully) balanced. The FotM rerollers keep the game populated, and they'll get bored if the meta becomes stale - thus, constant rollercoaster in the top tier DPS.

The point of the PTR also makes sense if you look at it the same way. It's not there to ensure balance, it's there to ensure hype for the upcoming patch.

Couldn't agree more.

[HumbleDuck]

Wow, atleast wait for the night hold before flaming everything and everyone for a few mistakes.

[MoanaLisa]

PTR's are for testing out stuff and only secondarily for balance. Typically not enough players for any spec perform on a PTR in a way that is really useful. Blizzard knows this and uses the PTR as a way to break things down in a rough balance. Anything with more precision requires a lot more players than ever sign up for the PTR.

[clevin]

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.

Not the point. The point is that this is the second patch. They had alpha, beta, 7.0, 7.1, and the 7.1.5 PTR to balance things. After all that, after a 2 month PTR, they then find it necessary to make some pretty drastic changes after 4 days on live?

What this says to me is that they haven't invested in QA tools to simulate things. After all, the live game just takes a lot of different builds, places them in situations and calculates outcomes. They could easily automate that - copy over a bunch of actual character profiles for each class and spec, install them in a sim, deploy changes to that server and run it.

No, it won't be perfect, but it would be closer than what they do now.

[MoanaLisa]

Current WoW Development team is now the Old Diablo 3 Development team.

No, this is not true. If you believe it is please provide names and dates of when they moved from one team to another. Keep in mind the size of the WoW team is something close to several hundred people.

[Deleted]

PTR's are for testing out stuff and only secondarily for balance. Typically not enough players for any spec perform on a PTR in a way that is really useful. Blizzard knows this and uses the PTR as a way to break things down in a rough balance. Anything with more precision requires a lot more players than ever sign up for the PTR.

what do you consider rough balance though? 10% off the mark? 20? 30? more?

[Deleted]

They do that deliberately, so people can continue to make threads on forums and speak / rage about it.

No publicity is worse than bad publicity

They do that, so they can sell more character boosts to FotM'ers. Since the introduction of Character Boosts to the Store, Blizzard has in essence no incentive to provide even a remote sense of balance, nevermind to achieve "perfect balance".

[MoanaLisa]

what do you consider rough balance though? 10% off the mark? 20? 30? more?

I think they've said in the past they like to get everyone within something like 10%-15%.