Content Droughts vs burnout from too many changes too quickly

[Kokolums]

A lot of forum posters are talking about how content must be released faster. However, Blizzard clearly worries about the other end of things as well.

I found an old Dev Watercooler posted by Ghostcrawler where he discusses how too many changes too quickly can be detrimental to the game:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/343...hange-9-8-2011

You even have to strike a balance in how many changes you make. On the one extreme, if you don’t change anything, then the game feels stale and players understandably get frustrated that long-standing bugs or game problems aren’t addressed. On the other extreme, too much change can produce what we often call the “roller coaster effect,” where the game design feels unstable and players, particularly those who play the game more sporadically, can’t keep up. I wanted to discuss today some of our philosophy on change, how much is too much, and when we think a change is necessary.

We try to gather a lot of voluntary information from players -- when they are cancelling their subscription, for example -- about why they feel the way they do. Over time, we have seen concerns about class balance decrease and concerns about frequent game changes increase. Clearly there is a risk that we can change things too much and drive players away. The roller coaster effect of too many changes can be wearying to the community, even if each individual change is made with a noble goal. We have to balance the goal of providing fixes when we think they are warranted with the whiplash or fatigue that can come from players feeling like they constantly have to relearn how the game works. We debate constantly whether a change needs to be made immediately or whether we can sit on a problem for an extended period of time.

When players talk about being on a design roller coaster, this is often what they mean. Last week, Arcane was the spec to play. Before that, maybe it was Frost. Next week, who knows what it will be. We’ve absolutely screwed this up before, where we thought we were creating more parity between say hunter or warrior or DK specs, but the actual result was that it made players feel like they needed to respec. Given enough time, we can get pretty close on our balance tuning, but hotfixes and often even patch changes can’t always benefit from sufficient testing.

We generally save up a lot of design changes for expansions. We know even this is too much for some players who don’t want to have to relearn their character’s rotation, let alone how glyphs work or what the new PvE difficulty philosophy is. However, we feel like we ultimately have to fix the problems we perceive in the game design if we want to keep players playing the game. In this case, we think some reasonable amount of change for change’s sake is desirable.

We’d love to see discussion on this issue, though. How much change is good? When can a problem chill for a few months as opposed to needing immediate attention? How much risk should we undertake to bring small, quality of life changes? Are we on the right track? Insane? Is this just more propaganda from the Ghostcrawler Throne of Lies?

[clevin]

He's talking gameplay and design changes not content. Class changes, mechanics, stats, etc. Blizzard can't possibly deliver content so fast that people can't consume it aside from those folks who insist on doing all of the content on 10 alts (getting gold CM on all alts, etc).

[Feali]

2011... design decisions have certainly changed since then... and not for the better...

[Aeluron Lightsong]

2011... design decisions have certainly changed since then... and not for the better...

Depends on your point of view.

[Kokolums]

2011... design decisions have certainly changed since then... and not for the better...

I haven't seen any dev comment since 2011 that concerns about frequent game changes have abated. In fact, they could have gotten more frequent. No interviewer has asked about that issue.

[Eon Drache]

He's talking gameplay and design changes not content. Class changes, mechanics, stats, etc. Blizzard can't possibly deliver content so fast that people can't consume it aside from those folks who insist on doing all of the content on 10 alts (getting gold CM on all alts, etc).

Did you know that Ulduar actually had that problem? The world first of Alone in the darkness happened less than a month away from the release of the next raid tier. Not a lot of people got to experience the full of Ulduar before Trial of the Crusader was released.

[Feali]

Did you know that Ulduar actually had that problem? The world first of Alone in the darkness happened less than a month away from the release of the next raid tier. Not a lot of people got to experience the full of Ulduar before Trial of the Crusader was released.

Which was a good thing. What motivation do you have now to visit older raids from the same expansion?

[clevin]

Did you know that Ulduar actually had that problem? The world first of Alone in the darkness happened less than a month away from the release of the next raid tier. Not a lot of people got to experience the full of Ulduar before Trial of the Crusader was released.

Yes, I do - I was raiding at that point and was in Ulduar. But in general, it's not a problem. And in any event, GC's post is NOT about content speed, its about design and gameplay changes.

[Deleted]

Did you know that Ulduar actually had that problem? The world first of Alone in the darkness happened less than a month away from the release of the next raid tier. Not a lot of people got to experience the full of Ulduar before Trial of the Crusader was released.

I take that over finishing content in a week that that should last for months.

[Rhine101]

I hate to be that guy , but anything said by Blizz so long ago is kinda moot now. Has like no impact.

[Kokolums]

I hate to be that guy , but anything said by Blizz so long ago is kinda moot now. Has like no impact.

I don't see why that assertion should be a given. The Ulduar problem was real. They released content too fast in Wrath. Raiders felt they didn't get to fully experience Ulduar before Argent Tournament came out, which was considered a poor raid. I think that definitely still has an impact. They don't want a repeat of Ulduar.

[TheWindWalker]

I don't see why that assertion should be a given. The Ulduar problem was real. They released content too fast in Wrath. Raiders felt they didn't get to fully experience Ulduar before Argent Tournament came out, which was considered a poor raid. I think that definitely still has an impact. They don't want a repeat of Ulduar.

There's no dangerous of that, obviously. They space out the same tier by months at this point and give us over a year of doing the last raid with little reason to do anything else. Which, ya know, also started in a very special raid that came just a little while after Ulduar and Trial.

[Eon Drache]

I take that over finishing content in a week that that should last for months.

if you "Go through content in a week that should last months" then you're playing far too much.

[Felrane]

if you "Go through content in a week that should last months" then you're playing far too much.

You could say that blizzard isn't making content that will lasts for months. That and apex grinding isn't fun for anyone.

[Dhrizzle]

You could say that blizzard isn't making content that will lasts for months. That and apex grinding isn't fun for anyone.

Speak for yourself, now that I'm doing 3-4 Apexis zones a day I'm having a great time :-)