Thought on "The State of the Game" and Lore's response.

[Deleted]

Sadly I think part of the problem is blizzard responding to feedback in ways that just haven't worked out and led us to a point in the game where the gameplay isn't fun. I think most players would take a little class imbalance if it meant that all classes were fun to play again.

WoTLK: "Game is too bursty all the time, give us more cooldowns so we can skillfully use cooldowns to get kills"
MoP: "Game is too dependent on cooldowns, remove all these cooldowns so we can skillfully line up CC to get kills"
WoD: "Game has too much CC, remove all this CC that was used to stop all the cooldowns that were used to skillfully get kills"
And here we are...

At this point just remove all the abilities and we will run around auto-attacking eachother until someone wins...at least it will be balanced right?

I agreed, I don't need a level playing field just a fighting chance. Its kinda dull though to charge overpower mortalstrike siegebreaker execute oh hes dead. I understand that thats the vanilla warrior pvp experience too, but they could only do it then what every 6 mins? meanwhile my hunters getting wrecked by casino shadow preists everytime they win the pvp lottery and put 3 back to back mindblasts and a couple of ms into me inside 6 secs, every stunlocking feral druid whose got his/her cds all wired together in a swifty macro, every balance druid whose pvped with it for more then one expac gives me a good kicking and thats before we get to some of the literally unkitable melee classes.

Then we get to read the forums full of nerf hunter threads, cos they are the last ranged class a melee player can't kill if they dont know what they are doing. The response will undoubtly be hunters being nerfed when what actually needs to happen if some of the other ranged need help. I think a big part of the problem is the majority of the community doesnt understand the game and floods blizz with junk feedback.

[threads]

And of course:

While a multi-rank 1 Gladiator might like having a few niche abilities they only use in specific circumstances, an entry-level PvP'er could be turned off by having to learn so much about other classes they've never played.

There're just so many problems with this.

This sums up why the pruning was a failure and left most classes with little depth and feel shitty to play now.

[Dadwen]

Number one reason I'm unsubbed right now is IMO the pruning was crap, in the past if I was bored of the current content I would play alts, loved leveling em though BG's but after the hack job on the pruning a lot of them were downright dull to play.

[DarthMonk79]

Here's what I hate... why pvp in a RPG/PVE game keeps effecting my character in the PVE world. Make it so there's a total difference then in PVP/PVE. I'm getting tired of massive changes to all my characters because of a aspect of the game that isn't the main aspect of the game. PVE/Raiding/Dungeons is what WoW is, PVP was the red-headed stepchild that has somehow stuck around and keeps messing with the rest of the game.

[Jasc]

don't understand pruning hate. pruning seems bad right now because we have classes that aren't pruned enough, so certain classes seem massively gimped and "unfun"

What blizzard wants to put to an end with Rogue bars with every targeted cooldown in macro triplicate for arena targets, to take addons and having a very expensive mouse and keyboard as far out of the metagame as possible

I'm fine with this goal. They just half-assed it and we get to eat the consequences.

[Omaski]

Blizz was trying to go more to a "bring the player, not the class" but some classes/specs are still on the outside looking in while others who were considered to be gutted are still wanted in rated pvp.

[Deleted]

he (the pr drone called Lore) completly and intentionally avoided actually commenting on the most important stuff (the problem of burst dmg or no dmg because of cds)

[Omaski]

I agreed, I don't need a level playing field just a fighting chance. Its kinda dull though to charge overpower mortalstrike siegebreaker execute oh hes dead. I understand that thats the vanilla warrior pvp experience too, but they could only do it then what every 6 mins? meanwhile my hunters getting wrecked by casino shadow preists everytime they win the pvp lottery and put 3 back to back mindblasts and a couple of ms into me inside 6 secs, every stunlocking feral druid whose got his/her cds all wired together in a swifty macro, every balance druid whose pvped with it for more then one expac gives me a good kicking and thats before we get to some of the literally unkitable melee classes.

Then we get to read the forums full of nerf hunter threads, cos they are the last ranged class a melee player can't kill if they dont know what they are doing. The response will undoubtly be hunters being nerfed when what actually needs to happen if some of the other ranged need help. I think a big part of the problem is the majority of the community doesnt understand the game and floods blizz with junk feedback.

Most ppl dont realize that there are some OP caster/ranged classes and some OP Melee classes. yeah rogues ferals and warriors to a lesser extent are unkitable. but what about rets enhance and ww? hunters boomies and good frost mages kite them all day. just like, on the other hand, locks spriests and ele shams cant get a melee off them no matter how hard they tried.

it goes both ways dont think that its only ranged or only melee getting the short end of the stick.

[Kagthul]

Here's what I hate... why pvp in a RPG/PVE game keeps effecting my character in the PVE world. Make it so there's a total difference then in PVP/PVE. I'm getting tired of massive changes to all my characters because of a aspect of the game that isn't the main aspect of the game. PVE/Raiding/Dungeons is what WoW is, PVP was the red-headed stepchild that has somehow stuck around and keeps messing with the rest of the game.

PvP was meant to be an integral part of the game from the very first Alpha and Beta tests - i know, i was in the original beta from the first wave of invites. Dev's talked about it constantly.

And then when you consider that outside of LFR, the number of people who participate in meaningful endgame PvE is sub 25%, and the number of people who participate in PvP regularly (an average of a BG a day) and get end-game rewards is over twice that...

PvE is the red-headed stepchild screwing everything up. So unpopular and unwanted that Blizzard has to co ntinue to nerf it and shove it down everyone's throat (via LFR, so easy you can sleep through it) because so few people care and no one was participating in this activity they were wasting their time building for the 10%ers.

[EDGrenade]

glad i was part of the 2.9 million but was hoping for some positive changes in 6.2, guess those are not happening

[Professor Expert]

Regarding pruning: we actually see a lot of conflicting feedback here, even in this thread. Players want their CC effects back (even niche ones like Scare Beast), but feel that the game has too much CC. Or they want burst damage toned down, but want us to give back abilities that contribute to burst (such as Colossus Smash for Fury).

Scare Beast is actually an example of a good CC because it's fairly limited in what it can effect. Perhaps if more CCs were not "global" and only worked on certain classes or when certain conditions were present, the CC in general would not feel excessive. The main problem with CC is instant CC with shorter than 1 min cooldowns. The main offenders here:

- Hunters
- Warriors
- DKs
- Paladins
- Rogues
- Mages
- Druids

Looking at a single class it may not seem problematic to give each of them a stun, but the game is played in groups and when basically every class has an instant short-CD stun, they will use it and use it often. This is annoying and skill-less. The opportunity cost for using a powerful CC should be high. If you want to shut down another player entirely while fully retaining your ability to play, there needs to be a heavy trade off. Something like this, where each second the player is stunned or CC'd with a "loss of control" ability, they gain a damage/healing buff of 2% per second that stacks each time they are hit with a CC and lasts for 10 seconds and has a cap of like 50%.

Example:
- You are stunned for 6 seconds and eat the full duration. After the stun wears off, you have a 10 sec buff for 12% damage/healing boost.
- You are stunned for 6 seconds, trinket after 2 seconds, then get feared for 8 seconds. You were CC'd for 10 sec so after the fear wears off you get a 20% damage boost for 10 sec.

What this does is allows CCs to continue as they are, but if you use your CC carelessly (i.e. spam it because it's off CD or because you can) you will put yourself in a compromising position after the CC wears off. By making CCs so "risky" to use, players would be less apt to use them unless they are fairly certain they can finish you off before the CC runs out.

For example, this thread makes the argument that, due to pruning, players don't have enough options to respond to something another player is doing, which leads to predictable gameplay. It also makes the argument that classes have too many defensive cooldowns, too much mobility, too many CC breaks, and too many interrupts. Don't those two arguments contradict each other? If not, why don't they? Honest question; if I'm just missing something here, I want to know about it.

All players do not need to have a response to every situation. The inequities and imbalances among classes and specs are what make teamwork required to be effective, and classes are a lot less effective individually...but no class should feel completely worthless without teammate around either.

The defensive CDs that reduce damage by a percentage are fine; the ones that cause the player to be immune need to go. Iceblock, deterrence, divine shield or bubbles that cannot be dispelled and absorb asinine amounts of damage like what locks and monks have. Priests shields need to absorb less or have a longer CD. Shields should not be "always up", they should be a measure used at the right time to survive a little longer - not to provide effective immunity to damage.

The overall problem is not finding balance - balance is not what we need. We need outliers reigned in, so that imbalances exist but no single class ends up with an ability or set of abilities that gives then a general and excessive advantage.

Just be aware that if you feel like you're missing another CC or defensive ability, you're essentially asking for us to put more of those in the game.

Not true; I'm asking for them to be altered. As an enhancement shaman, I like the idea of my stun totem having a non-guaranteed chance to work...but it should be changed so that it has the suction effect of ursol's vortex and that attacking the totem causes it to immediately detonate. Instant hex should exist for enhancement shaman.

At least in my opinion, the difficult part in that example is recognizing that Spell Reflect is active and quickly casting something unimportant. Mind Soothe made an obvious choice, when it was available. Now that it isn't, you have to think about the potential repercussions of whatever spell you cast being reflected. Doesn't that actually add more skill to dealing with Spell Reflect? Again, honest question.

Spell Reflect has a short CD and costs the warrior nothing to use; it's a fairly skill-less ability that most warriors spam whenever it's off CD without using it tactically as they did in the past when it had a longer CD. The act of negating spell reflect by hitting it with a weak spell, i.e. mages using ice lance, isn't particularly skillful play - and why should it be? Because as I just explained, spell reflect itself as it is now is a skill-less ability.

What would be more skillful is extending the CD and possibly the duration of spell reflect, so that the caster will not know when the warrior will use it...this forcing the caster to be a little more careful about what they do. If you know the warrior is going to have spell reflect up every 20-25 sec or so, it's predictable and boring, as are any abilities that get pressed simply because they're up.

Now, having said all of that, let me try to get one final point across: we agree that PvP in WoD is not the best it could be. We think we made a lot of great changes, and we've seen a lot more people trying out PvP in this season, but there were certainly a few missteps. Perhaps more importantly, there were some very valuable lessons learned for the future.

Nobody is expecting perfection and I'll agree that PvP in general isn't terrible aside from a few offending classes...but ashran was a lot more than a "misstep".

I, as an enhancement shaman, do not know why earth shock was taken away from me... Pruning should have been limited to redundant/situational/boring abilities; earth shock was the hardest-hitting direct damage shock spell that applied a damage debuff and we should have it. You're not making elemental more uniquely flavored by taking something away from enhancement, nor are you making enhancement more skillful by removing a core ability like earth shock.

I also resent the removal of weapon imbues; maybe I was in the minority here, but I did switch them around based on the situation. I liked being able to swap windfury for rockbiter then unleash for 40% damage reduction - can't do that no more. The lack of frostbrand as option for pvp is also idiotic - it need to be baseline for enhancement not a glyph...or just bring back weapon imbues. It was fine when the set bonus of pvp armor allowed flametongue to slow enemies but frostbrand being able to slow enemies to 70% with UE was even better.

Similar changes were made to a lot of classes and there were more misses than hits with the whole pruning initiative...but if we are going to focus on one thing for pvp, it should be that which I outlined in the first part of this response - make CCs more expensive/risky to the user.

- - - Updated - - -

PvP was meant to be an integral part of the game from the very first Alpha and Beta tests - i know, i was in the original beta from the first wave of invites. Dev's talked about it constantly.

And then when you consider that outside of LFR, the number of people who participate in meaningful endgame PvE is sub 25%, and the number of people who participate in PvP regularly (an average of a BG a day) and get end-game rewards is over twice that...

PvE is the red-headed stepchild screwing everything up. So unpopular and unwanted that Blizzard has to co ntinue to nerf it and shove it down everyone's throat (via LFR, so easy you can sleep through it) because so few people care and no one was participating in this activity they were wasting their time building for the 10%ers.

I generally enjoy leveling, but what I dislike about endgame pve is that it's so gated and restrictive. You HAVE TO raid to experience it, and the experience is generally lackluster. You don't feel really accomplished being 1 of 40 and all you're really doing is running a gear treadmill.

All character development stops once you hit level cap and that's a bad thing, because RPGs are fundamentally about character development. At level cap, all players should be able to pursue quests that grant them unique new abilities OR enhance existing abilities. These quests should only be doable for a limited duration, so not all players end up with the same thing even though they all have the equal opportunity to get it. These quests should be non-instanced and largely solo-able, with a few group events thrown in...but not raids.

Raids and raiding would be better if they were presented as open world events rather than instanced, and they should unfold over the course of the expansion...i.e. in Cata, the attack on deathwing would mean a constant struggle over the course of weeks that all players could participate in, and he would die exactly once near the end of the expac. In the interim, players could acquire both new abilities, enhanced abilities AND gear by doing quests themselves. The quests could easily be tuned to throttle the rate at which players acquire gear and said abilities.

[Gourmandise]

Spell Reflect has a short CD and costs the warrior nothing to use; it's a fairly skill-less ability that most warriors spam whenever it's off CD without using it tactically as they did in the past when it had a longer CD. The act of negating spell reflect by hitting it with a weak spell, i.e. mages using ice lance, isn't particularly skillful play - and why should it be? Because as I just explained, spell reflect itself as it is now is a skill-less ability.

Good point!

[Knolan]

Honestly, save from mage team (and resto druids, at some extense), I am fine with CC in the game.

Those two classes are particularly problematic because they have too much free time, too many DRs or fairly low penalty for just spamming CC.

In the case of the druid, once the target is with full hots he hardly has to cast a spell to keep healing and has a lot of space to cast clones. He also has NS + HT that will heal the target by a huge lot, which means he can overstand in the CC casting if the wants to play more offensive.

Mages have a load of their damage comming from nova and their damage from frost bolt is pretty bad, thus they can simply spam polly and hard switch with novas to put a shitload of pressure, and even get a kill. Mages also have the longest duration spammable CC gained for free (the only other spammable 8s CC in the game is mesmerise, from the warlock succubus pet), have access to CC in two different schools (seriously, who thought this was a good idea and that it would be fine in WoD settings), and access to five different DRs, plus an interrupt.

[Kagthul]

Mages have a load of their damage comming from nova and their damage from frost bolt is pretty bad, thus they can simply spam polly and hard switch with novas to put a shitload of pressure, and even get a kill. Mages also have the longest duration spammable CC gained for free (the only other spammable 8s CC in the game is mesmerise, from the warlock succubus pet), have access to CC in two different schools (seriously, who thought this was a good idea and that it would be fine in WoD settings), and access to five different DRs, plus an interrupt.

Mesmerize is on a 30sec cooldown, last i checked. In fact, having come back from when it was "spammable", i haven't used the Succubus/Shivara since i found out it was on a cooldown during the WoD prepatch.

Re: the italicized - yeah, that's complete and total horseshit, btw. Caster class that gets almost all of its damage from instants ALSO has a way to make sure you dont even get to play while they kill you.

[Knolan]

Mesmerize is on a 30sec cooldown, last i checked. In fact, having come back from when it was "spammable", i haven't used the Succubus/Shivara since i found out it was on a cooldown during the WoD prepatch.

Re: the italicized - yeah, that's complete and total horseshit, btw. Caster class that gets almost all of its damage from instants ALSO has a way to make sure you dont even get to play while they kill you.

Just checked wowhead and you are right, I stand corrected. So polly is the only spammable 8s spammable CC in the game now.

[Professor Expert]

Just checked wowhead and you are right, I stand corrected. So polly is the only spammable 8s spammable CC in the game now.

Pretty sure locks' fear has no CD.

[solarfallz]

Pretty sure locks' fear has no CD.

And it doesn't last 8 seconds.

[Kagthul]

And it doesn't last 8 seconds.

yerp. 6/3/1

[Professor Expert]

And it doesn't last 8 seconds.

It used to...oh well. Who cares? It usually breaks before full duration anyway.

[Mundayz]

I would have liked to see something done to assist Disc priests. He mentioned 3 comps which really aren't "top tier" or even middle of the road. The comps listed would much rather have a holy pally or druid. Even a shaman in most cases.

But that's just one of the parts that rubbed me weird.