Stop flipping tables about Dev Q&A

[Swalload]

Blizzard's business objective for the game is keeping people logged in and playing. Your personal feelings don't really enter into the calculation. If they do X and player engagement metrics rise they've done a good thing. It's as simple as that.

If your "more positive experience in game" leads to less engagement overall then they have done something wrong.

The issue is wanting Blizzard to value individual player advice over their own metrics. On any given issue during beta or after the game is implemented there will be a variety of different points of view represented. Many of these will run against the goals of the design or be directly contradictory to each other. Someone is going to feel like they weren't listened to. Game has several million players and a relatively noisy audience that rarely agrees on anything at all.

This is just simply a fact.

That's very true, this is first of all a business, if they don't try to keep players playing they're losing money and eventually it's not enough return on investment and it will hurt not only the game but the entire company. This isn't Jackson Pollocks basement, money needs to roll and if they're not making a product you think is worth it, stop helping them rolling money

[Deleted]

Well first... (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

I'm a game dev as well

It explains why you think their answers were alright.

You'll have to excuse my puny non game dev experience of playing games, but when i read :

If you feel like you win/lose or are strong/week because of how the RNG falls is very unsatisfying.

and

Random distribution of legendary items isn't a problem. There is something cool about not having the ability to choose a specific legendary from a list.

It makes me quite angry to read something that is either out of touch with reality or just plain fucking stupid.

[Swalload]

Sure, and I hope they do make it better, which to me includes getting better at listening to feedback from people who have a history of being right(not necessarily me, there's plenty of smarter people who have been giving feedback and have been ignored/told they're wrong, especially during WoD/Legion, to the point where a lot of them just gave up on it), rather than waiting for months and months with the mistake already being live before making any changes(and even then they have a tendency to make a different change than what was suggested, seemingly just to make sure it's THEIR idea they use rather than something somebody else suggested)

Yes, we shall see, in a somewhat near future. At least there was a giant step up between WoD and Legion, even people who hate Legion can agree on that, so maybe the whole thing is in the right direction, here's hoping.

[bryroo]

There wasn't much worthwhile content posted in the QnA. It's fair that people are frustrated.

[Swalload]

Well first... (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻



It explains why you think their answers were alright.

You'll have to excuse my puny non game dev experience of playing games, but when i read :


and


It makes me quite angry to read something that is either out of touch with reality or just plain fucking stupid.

Imagine if all legendaries were all utility, none of them gave you a dps advantage (besides the ilvl obviously but that's a non-issue), just funny perks that made X or Y situation just more special. Then yes it would be quite exciting to get a legendary, it would be just a new item, almost like any upgrades. It's part of playing an RPG, always been. Now the problem is that some legendaries give a giant advantage, which are necessary to be on the same level as people who also have them.
The stats on the items are not part of the RNG system. The problem here is balancing, which has been a problem in WoW for 13 years, nothing new. The way we get legendary is almost the same as normal drops, which people have been fine with for 13 years (or hate it cuz they don't like random drops, which brings the question of why the fuck are they playing this game?).

--------------------

It explains why you think their answers were alright.

I'm not sure if that was said with negativity, but yes, it does explain why. The same way a guy who knows about mechanics can talk to the guy at the garage while his wife is bored as fuck, she can complain all she wants about how long it takes to fix the car, she doesn't know how it works. In her mind it should be done in 10 minutes but that's completely irrelevant to our reality. Even if she complains and "gives feedback" to the guy, he'll do his best and no he won't pull everyone who works on other cars in the garage just to make this bitch happier.

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There wasn't much worthwhile content posted in the QnA. It's fair that people are frustrated.

I agree on that, I was expecting more diversity and less of the same "I'm sad about my legendaries" whiny """"""""""questions"""""""""" (that are in fact just tears that reached a dev).

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Nothing ironic about it. You thinking so, pretty much proves what I was trying to say.
Ion is not thinking about the interests of the individual. He and the powers that be are making a video game that people will play and will continue to play for many years.

The flaws are just opinions. On paper, very few of them are things that need to be fixed. The community just needs to adjust.

Right now, the biggest flaw is people complaining and then misquoting people correcting them.
Ironic.

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That's actually a pretty solid comparison.
The gamble RNG is what is keeping this game alive though. People don't seem to understand that.
You can act like idiots all you want, but titanforging, legendaries, and AP keep people playing. Many of them do it begrudgingly, but they are playing and that is healthy for the game.

Ion is right to dismiss those who disagree, because they are being selfish and only want things as easy and fast as possible.
This does not provide cohesion with the community.

Lots of truth in there.

[Cwimge]

Spoken like a legit blizz white knight "ion does nothing wrong" fanboy.

[Swalload]

Spoken like a legit blizz white knight "ion does nothing wrong" fanboy.

Spoken like a true ignorant who hasn't read anything posted here.

[Kagthul]

Stay wrong, stay stupid, refuse to learn, stay ignorant, pollute the community, accomplish nothing.

If you would go inform yourself you would see that what I said makes sense. You're literally just someone who doesn't want to better himself for anything at all and feels offended by the first person who says something against your wrong and biased belief.

That being said, I completely agree that Ion is a bad communicator and what he says is corporate as fuck. But what you're looking for is career suicide and straight up franchise destruction, he can't just say "yup, what we made sucks ass". You wouldn't do that either if you were in his shoes. Because you would love your job and the people you work with, you know mistakes were made but no one gains anything by saying it out loud publicly.
And even if he does, what next?

"Yeah the class balancing is messed up and the overpowered legendaries are a pain in the ass in all of this. So what we're gonna do, since you guys ask for it, is work on more class balancing right now and modify the legendaries so they're more on equal."

Would that make you happy? He admits what was wrong and offers a solution. Sounds great, right?

Now let's see what is not said:
Making people work on more balancing for classes and items right now most likely mean pulling people away from their work on the next xpack, obviously lowering its quality. But whiny bitches will get the balancing they want sooner. How much sooner? That task will take probably another 4 months, and some other things will be wrong and they'll readjust for another 2 months. In the end there will be like 4 months left to enjoy this new balancing before the next xpack (which wont be as good as it should be cuz less work has been done on it since people asked for changes NOW). And even then, there's good chances that this new balancing wont be perfect, people will still complain even if it's better, someone's spec is still 1% less than his neighbor and he's jealous as fuck and cant be mature about it so he makes a forum post about it.

So to SHOW that they listen to feedback you want them to cripple the next xpack in a futile attempt to balance stuff that makes people happy so they can enjoy a slightly better version of Legion for the last few months that are the most meaningless part of the xpack's duration?

This is how it works in the gaming industry and the return on investment is definitely not worth it. And no, he doesn't have to say "we hear you but we can't make changes right now" cuz then people would ask WHY CAN'T YOU CHANGE IT NAAAAAAAOOO!?!?! And the only acceptable answer would be to reveal what they are doing instead on the next xpack which is not announced so he can't talk about it.
Because. That's. How. It. Works.

Appeal to Authority much?

[Swalload]

Appeal to Authority much?

Looks like people are learning a new word today.

[Raziella]

Blizzard's business objective for the game is keeping people logged in and playing. Your personal feelings don't really enter into the calculation. If they do X and player engagement metrics rise they've done a good thing. It's as simple as that.

If your "more positive experience in game" leads to less engagement overall then they have done something wrong.

The issue is wanting Blizzard to value individual player advice over their own metrics. On any given issue during beta or after the game is implemented there will be a variety of different points of view represented. Many of these will run against the goals of the design or be directly contradictory to each other. Someone is going to feel like they weren't listened to. Game has several million players and a relatively noisy audience that rarely agrees on anything at all.

This is just simply a fact.

Their objective USED to be to keep more people subscribed, and has only recently changed to keeping less players playing longer. Which makes less sense, as more subs = more money, but more hours logged doesn't equate to the same thing.
It's just something they're feeding to their stockholders, to keep their share prices high because they're meeting some arbitrary goals they gave them.

My fear is that they're moving more and more into preying on people who either play at a high level, or are susceptible to the types of gambling that they're introducing more and more into their game, instead of creating a truly enjoyable experience.
Mobile games do this almost exclusively, and they're not the sort of "role model" I want to see WoW adopting.
Unless you'd call RNG, pay to play, and gatcha games a "good" experience.

[Gasparde]

Starting a thread with 'I know things, but I can't exactly tell you what I know, so you just gotta believe me' are pretty worthless - especially in conjunction with basically 'you think you know what you want, but you don't'.

Blizzard dudes are doing exactly that. No one believes them. Random internet stranger comes along, claims the same thing. Guess what's gonna fucking happen.

But that doesn't change anything about the constantly brought up issues of the game: The legendary system is shit. It's always been shit. And since they said they're fine with it, it's always gonna be shit. I don't care what makes them think it's not shit, or what hinders them from actually not making it shit - they've made it shit in the first place, it's their fault. So either make it not shit or deal with the fact that I, a person who has no clue about game development, is going to complain about it at every given opportunity - just like they've refused to do anything about it since the moment they revealed it to a public audience.

[RoKPaNda]

Casuals whining about legendaries I guess. I mean even if you're fairly casual you should still have several legendaries if not every legendary for one spec at this point. Sometimes I wonder if the people whining even play this game.

[Deleted]

y should paying customers care about game development? thats y they r customers, cuz they dont want to develop a game, but to have fun, hm?
and if a game "dev" cant deliver fun, the customers will let him know.

btw - those claims on the intentions and opinions of the "majority", aka the non-vocal part of the community DEMANDS an update to statistics knowledge /STFU:
a sample size of 1238 (like Bourdieu used for his studies) is representative for billions (its called Gesetze der großen Zahlen, Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie). so the median of this allegedly vocal minority represents a not so minor part of the community... so pls stop projecting ur (trollish) power fantasies on 5-6 digit opinions on flying, pvp, legendarys and rng-mania (btw since Alpha) etc.

btw again: missing knowledge in basic stochastic is evidence for not being a "game dev", since no code without it

[Swalload]

Starting a thread with 'I know things, but I can't exactly tell you what I know, so you just gotta believe me' are pretty worthless - especially in conjunction with basically 'you think you know what you want, but you don't'.

Blizzard dudes are doing exactly that. No one believes them. Random internet stranger comes along, claims the same thing. Guess what's gonna fucking happen.

But that doesn't change anything about the constantly brought up issues of the game: The legendary system is shit. It's always been shit. And since they said they're fine with it, it's always gonna be shit. I don't care what makes them think it's not shit, or what hinders them from actually not making it shit - they've made it shit in the first place, it's their fault. So either make it not shit or deal with the fact that I, a person who has no clue about game development, is going to complain about it at every given opportunity - just like they've refused to do anything about it since the moment they revealed it to a public audience.

So your solution to the problem is keep all the legendaries like they are and let people choose which one they want at a specific time, to everybody has their BiS at the same time and all other legendaries were made for nothing?

That doesn't solve the problem, because the problem is not the system it's the items themselves. That's why he said the system is fine and that why he explained it by saying that if all legendaries were utility only then everything would be okay. He basically said (in different words) that the legendary item designs were shit.

But you hear what you want to hear, and if I made a post exactly like about a different subject and coincidentally taking your side, you wouldn't complain about it. You're just another offended person who refuse to learn and believe that anyone who bring facts that goes against your opinions is out of make your life miserable.

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y should paying customers care about game development? thats y they r customers, cuz they dont want to develop a game, but to have fun, hm?
and if a game "dev" cant deliver fun, the customers will let him know.

btw - those claims on the intentions and opinions of the "majority", aka the non-vocal part of the community DEMANDS an update to statistics knowledge /STFU:
a sample size of 1238 (like Bourdieu used for his studies) is representative for billions (its called Gesetze der großen Zahlen, Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie). so the median of this allegedly vocal minority represents a not so minor part of the community... so pls stop projecting ur (trollish) power fantasies on 5-6 digit opinions on flying, pvp, legendarys and rng-mania (btw since Alpha) etc.

btw again: missing knowledge in basic stochastic is evidence for not being a "game dev", since no code without it

If players are here to have fun they can easily stop playing a game they don't like and only complain about, plenty of other fun games out there to spend time on.

Also I'd like to ask you why are you in such a hurry? What is so pressing in your life that makes you type like a dead cat under a pile of shit in a hoarder's house?

[Stormspellz]

To be fair it was one of his better Q&As even if it had the usual soft ball questions

[SirCowdog]

1. Tell us exactly how much time is required to do the changes that are asked for by the community feedbacks.
2. Also the amount of programmers, artists, game designers, level designers, testers, intergrators, DTs, etc. required to get these tasks done in the amount of time you provide in point 1.
3. Tell us what other very important tasks have to be sacrificed to get these changes done.
4. Tell us how much it will cost and what will be the return on investment.

Why is any of that relevant to Blizzard ignoring feedback? Why should players have to be master developers with in-depth knowledge of programming and design in order to recognize that it's crap when you constantly tell the devs you don't like something, then they not only dismiss it, but add MORE of it to the game?

I get that the devs have a vision. They have the metrics. They have the design degrees. And that not everything that players want is necessarily good for the game. But in this case I think that the players who are saying the game has too much RNG and not enough deterministic systems are correct. And just because Ion says he thinks everything is fine doesn't mean that it is. We have to remember that his point of view is one of a business perspective and not of a player.

If he really thinks that adding even MORE rng to the game is so damn good, and if he's holding all the cards and has all the info, then maybe it should be incumbent upon him to explaining why in a manner proportionate to that? Because players are spending a hell of a lot of time explaining why it isn't so good, only for Blizzard reps to to brush it off. And I don't think that's right.

[Aeula]

Not until they fix their game.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

[Soon-TM]

Stay wrong, stay stupid, refuse to learn, stay ignorant, pollute the community, accomplish nothing.

If you would go inform yourself you would see that what I said makes sense. You're literally just someone who doesn't want to better himself for anything at all and feels offended by the first person who says something against your wrong and biased belief.

If you are actually a game dev, I can see why the game industry sucks so much as of late. Btw, I appreciate your generous effort to illustrate the unwashed masses, but such a condescending and arrogant tone won't get you far. And your whole argument stinks of "it will cost you a raid tier", "you think you do, but you don't" and other pearls uttered by the game industry superstars. Go cuddle with them, have a beer with the blizzdrones buzzing around and last but not least, get off your high horse

Starting a thread with 'I know things, but I can't exactly tell you what I know, so you just gotta believe me' are pretty worthless - especially in conjunction with basically 'you think you know what you want, but you don't'.

Blizzard dudes are doing exactly that. No one believes them. Random internet stranger comes along, claims the same thing. Guess what's gonna fucking happen.

Also this.

[Doomchicken]

If the usual suspects on mmo champion weren't whinging they'd have to maybe consider doing something constructive with their lives and we all know that we can't have that.

[Gasparde]

So your solution to the problem is keep all the legendaries like they are and let people choose which one they want at a specific time, to everybody has their BiS at the same time and all other legendaries were made for nothing?

That doesn't solve the problem, because the problem is not the system it's the items themselves. That's why he said the system is fine and that why he explained it by saying that if all legendaries were utility only then everything would be okay. He basically said (in different words) that the legendary item designs were shit.

But you hear what you want to hear

That's what you do.

I specifically said the legendary was shit from the very first second. Everyone in their right mind could've foreseen that in a world where throughput and utility legendaries exist, everyone who didn't get a throughput legendary would be disappointed - doesn't need a game developing degree to see that one coming (and people did foresee that - but they were ignored until about 6 months into the expansion where we got the first fix for utlity legs being abysmaly bad). They've designed a shit system and I'm complaining about that. And since it's not a priority for them to fix it, I'm complaining about this major feature of the whole goddamn expansion not being a high enough priority to fix.