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

[MoanaLisa]

https://twitter.com/_johnyang/status/720010999898771457

He's not the only one that moved over.

Yeah, that's one.

That hardly justifies saying that WoW is being developed by the former D3 team. Which frankly is a endlessly stupid thing to say.

A team that numbers well into the hundreds and I'm guessing that no one is going to be able to come up with more than maybe two or three.

[xanzul]

Ofcourse i know they still use it for those other things. But look at the ptr of 7.1.5. It wasnt really for a new raid or other major stuff. It was a balancing patch more or less they said.

And did they? If you look at todays news post all i can think of is "what the hell did they do last 2 months then?? They launched a new build every week and now this? They should have used todays numbers in the ptr and then test it. All the new builds are useless if at launch they come up with +50 or -50

It is almost as if this is how iterative development works.

[TheFirstOnes]

I don't give a shit about balancing or not. As long as I beat gul'dans shit, i'm fine.

Also, here's the point of a PTR:

To test content early, to make blizzard waste less time...

[xanzul]

Except that reasoning would stand if and only if classes brought something else to groups other than raw tanking/healing/DPS output, as it was the case in vanilla/TBC. In legion classes are defined by their raw output, in this design you only make classes clunky or overpowered if you don't balance things by providing relevant utility.

Once again blizzard only understood 50 % of the feedback the players provided.

Oh Blizzard understood it perfectly fine the issue is with players who don't understand Blizzard's game design intent no matter how many times it is explained to them.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Who cares? As long as the specs function for mythic nighthold, does it matter?

[xanzul]

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.

God forbid anyone disagree with you haters.

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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

Only on this forum will people claim game design changes is done purely for profit. You people are really fucking unbelievable you know that?

[clevin]

its allmost like the ptr and beta re not for fucking balancing, and they are actually for fucking idk... testing the game and find bugs?

Badly balanced spells ARE a bug.

[cFortyfive]

God forbid anyone disagree with you haters.

Yeah pointing out that balancing isn't blizzard's forte is obviously pure hate. Those cucks everywhere.

[xanzul]

Please, don't be a naive child. Blizzard is a multibillion dollar company with dozens of years of experience in game development. Of course they can achieve full balance... but what good it will get them? Basically, with this pseudobalance rollercoaster, they force idiots to fotm reroll over and over and over and over again - giving blizzard their sub moneys, while other idiots whine about nerfs (or demand nerfs) on various internet media, giving Blizzard free advertising. Win+win for Blizzard.

So when Blizzard is hesitant to make game design changes they are greedy and when they do make game design changes they are still greedy. Get the fuck out of here.​

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12+ years of developing classes and specs and somehow they get worse and worse at it, it's actually so bad that i (casual mythic runner) can tell LONG before things even get released how BAD it is going to be.. yet people who do this for a living cannot see it. It's actually amazing how blind they are.. it's almost as if not one single person at Blizzard even plays the game or does arenas etc... there is NO excuse for that level of blindness to the facts.

They aren't blind they just simply don't agree with the changes players want or even how those changes are implemented.

[FelPlague]

Badly balanced spells ARE a bug.

lololololl... mhm

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God forbid anyone disagree with you haters.

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Only on this forum will people claim game design changes is done purely for profit. You people are really fucking unbelievable you know that?

welcome to the world where people think the world is flat, and nasa and go pro are trying to make us think the world is round, and weve gone to space, so that they can make millions

[xanzul]

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.

Blizzard has already explained repeatedly that the kind of class balance data they are looking for isn't available in large enough quantities on the PTR which is why it is necessary to see how they play out on live.

[clevin]

lololololl... mhm

I see you are up to your usual impeccable logic.

But yeah, incorrect spell coefficients would be considered a bug in virtually any software dev shop.

[xanzul]

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".

Balance issues have existed since launch.

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Blizzard do not the same resources anymore and their most qualified designers left.

Any proof of this? No? Then sit down and shut the fuck up.

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I see you are up to your usual impeccable logic.

But yeah, incorrect spell coefficients would be considered a bug in virtually any software dev shop.

What is logical in claiming balance issues are bugs? Redefining the meaning of words to suit your agenda is the best way to make sure none of your feedback is ever seen by Blizzard or taken seriously.

[ehxy]

The PTR is 90% to test and find game breaking bugs. Balance? LOL they don't listen to gamers on design balance.

[shonist]

i found the balance coming next week the best in history.

[Lightbull]

Did you expect Blizzard to completely balance the game through a single build? Especially in a game like WoW, where it's most beneficial to make things absolutely perfect across all 24 DPS specs?

Balance is unobtainable in any online game, so the numbers are constantly in need of tuning.

Also don't try to tell me that Legion balance is the worst ever. At least this expansion they made the effort to balance every DPS class.

[FelPlague]

I see you are up to your usual impeccable logic.

But yeah, incorrect spell coefficients would be considered a bug in virtually any software dev shop.

so 1 weapon being weaker then another is a bug too, cause one is weaker then the other!

[Traveler Voltin]

If that was the case, they wouldn't of removed the greater blessing nonsense for Paladins. They do listen, it's probably a much more complex reason why class balance is what it is today.

hunters have been giving feedback since alpha that has been ignored.
a lot of classes have.

[Deleted]

The few times I've tried PTR, it has lookd roughly like the following:

- 50% of the players do nothing but duel, duel, duel and duel non-stop
- 40% of the players "try out new classes" of which they have absolutely no clue of
- 10% of the players are trying to do things properly, but all serious raid attempts get fucked by the rest 90%

And this is the "info" Blizzard works with.

[Jastall]

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.



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.

How is not doing things like Everquest and FFXI killing the genre when WoW was, and still is, magnitudes more popular than either of these games?

On-topic, at this point only a few outliers remain; hunters and 2/3 mage specs are too weak, Spriests are too strong. Looks like the hotfix will address these issues to a degree, then we go from there.

I do believe Legion's balance actually wasn't as bad as people say (in PvE). The only xpack where I remember PvE being remotely balanced is Mists, and even then it also had its outliers too.

Of course, balancing would probably be made easier if Blizzard didn't insist on re-inventing the wheel and redesigning every spec every xpack.