Did Blizzard lie about how difficult it is for them to identify talent specs?

[Deleted]

This is something I have been thinking about ever since LFR came out.

On multiple occasions the game DOES effectively check your spec.

I'll give some examples:

Ultraxion shards.
The game determins with 100% accuracy if you are a healer. Shards can not be picked up by DPS speced Shamans, Druids, Priests or Paladins.

The achievement "Moon Guard" in the End of Time instance.
Instead of checking for the healer by role the game checks the specs of all group members to determine who is a healer. If someone in a healing spec gets hit you fail the achievement (even if they are not the healer rolewise).
(Sidenote: The obvious trick to do this achievement is to use the dualspec of your healer and then do the gauntlet without a healer.)

The confusing part for me is if they specifically have 2 mechanics to determine what spec you are in 4.3 then why did they not implement them in the loot system?
Did they simply not have enough time? Or did they not think it was necessary?

I mean it's obvious why they didn't convert the LFD loot system to LFR standards since that would have required a retagging of all dungeon drops which in the end was probably not necessary.

[sleepingforest]

They're able to identify tanks for the buff on Ultraxion, not sure why they cannot identify dps/heals for LFR.

[Deleted]

They can identify that you are healer priest gnome with a red hat because you are healer priest gnome with a red hat.

They may have problem with the LOOTING SUB-ROUTINES.

Don't make aggressive claims when you are clueless about programming.

(that is not to say that may not have it easy for them but there is no evidence to that)

---------- Post added 2012-01-03 at 06:04 PM ----------

PS. If you had any intention to be rational, you'd have an "I don't know" answer.

[Deleted]

They can identify that you are healer priest gnome with a red hat because you are healer priest gnome with a red hat.

They may have problem with the LOOTING SUB-ROUTINES.

Don't make aggressive claims when you are clueless about programming.

(that is not to say that may not have it easy for them but there is no evidence to that)

---------- Post added 2012-01-03 at 06:04 PM ----------

PS. If you had any intention to be rational, you'd have an "I don't know" answer.

Well I guess I did forget about that option. Sadly you cannot edit polls or I woudl include it.
No (Other reason) and Yes (Other reason) seemed fine to me.

I would also view looting subroutines as a technical limitation (for the time being) then.

While it is nice that you assume that I am clueless about programming this is the same card the Blizz CMs pull out constantly these days so I will discard it.


Still I am curious how they could implement a new variable (your role; DPS, Tank, Healer) into the looting subroutine and not add the much more sensible variable of spec.

[Kardone]

They never said that they couldn't detect specs. Obviously ultraxion and many other fights prove that.

What they did say is that their LOOT SYSTEM could not detect specs in the need/greed functionality.

[Blackmist]

While it's possible to fix it, I think they're having a great deal of trouble with the underlying codebase. Many old projects get this. You want a new feature in a new project, fine. You want one in a 10 year old project (and I'll be surprised if the oldest parts of WoW aren't at least that old), and you're entering a world of pain. Things change over time, such that testing can no longer test everything, comments are no longer accurate and code rot sets in.

They've shoved LFR in quickly IMO. The loot rules are the same as they are anywhere else, which is why they shoved in the Class Restrictions. It's why two items can drop, and a person can roll and win both. Even if there's only one other person rolling for it. That happened to me and I'm not bitter at all... ¬_¬

I don't think they've got an enormous amount of actual developers working on WoW any more. Those that are are fully working on MoP and any code they've changed for that can't just be shoehorned into the current release.

[Deleted]

They never said that they couldn't detect specs. Obviously ultraxion and many other fights prove that.

What they did say is that their LOOT SYSTEM could not detect specs in the need/greed functionality.

But that exactly is the issue.

I'll reiterate since it seems to be unclear:

- You take the old loot system "Need before Greed".
- You add a new variable that you can scan for.
(They chose "role".)
- You make the "Need before Greed +" System.

So now if their game can easily check what spec you are when you enter combat (and frequently does).
Why can the loot system not do it?

[Nosonia]

They can identify that you are healer priest gnome with a red hat because you are healer priest gnome with a red hat.

They may have problem with the LOOTING SUB-ROUTINES.

Don't make aggressive claims when you are clueless about programming.

(that is not to say that may not have it easy for them but there is no evidence to that)

---------- Post added 2012-01-03 at 06:04 PM ----------

PS. If you had any intention to be rational, you'd have an "I don't know" answer.

Sorry, from a programming perspective, you're wrong.

The system has a class which handles detecting your spec. That class is called on fights such as Ultraxion to determine tanks, dps and healers. Since the class already exists to check the spec and it works in a 25 man raiding environment, there is no reason it cannot be passed onto the looting module.

The only reason it wouldn't be allowed, is if something in the class which detects your spec is blocking another system from checking it. I can't really see any other reason why it wouldn't/couldn't be tied together.

Another case may be the fact that the rolling module or class is 7 years old, where the role checking class is more recent, and perhaps be completely incompatible with each other or written in different languages, even still, seems like it still shouldn't be a problem with some minor tweaking.

The issue is that 'Role Checking' is a very important thing in WoW now due to LFD and LFR. It allows them to be more creative with boss abilities by only targeting certain roles with certain abilities, and it clears up loot disputes.

With how big of an issue the present loot issue is, the minor amount of tweaking needed to link the roll class with the role check class seems like an 'acceptable use of resources'

[armone]

Sorry, from a programming perspective, you're wrong.

The system has a class which handles detecting your spec. That class is called on fights such as Ultraxion to determine tanks, dps and healers. Since the class already exists to check the spec and it works in a 25 man raiding environment, there is no reason it cannot be passed onto the looting module.

The only reason it wouldn't be allowed, is if something in the class which detects your spec is blocking another system from checking it. I can't really see any other reason why it wouldn't/couldn't be tied together.

Another case may be the fact that the rolling module or class is 7 years old, where the role checking class is more recent, and perhaps be completely incompatible with each other or written in different languages, even still, seems like it still shouldn't be a problem with some minor tweaking.

The issue is that 'Role Checking' is a very important thing in WoW now due to LFD and LFR. It allows them to be more creative with boss abilities by only targeting certain roles with certain abilities, and it clears up loot disputes.

With how big of an issue the present loot issue is, the minor amount of tweaking needed to link the roll class with the role check class seems like an 'acceptable use of resources'

Yeah. I don't see why Blizzard couldn't easily fix this issue.

I would also imagine that the role-checking class is one of the less complicated classes in WoW. When you pick your talent tree in Cata, you are locked into that tree for 31 points, which makes setting up a flag for checking roles extremely easy. If this were Van/BC/Wrath, then I can see it being a bit trickier, but not rocket science. . .

[Deleted]

Wow, i never thought some of you guys are experienced system architects at a huge, multinational company like Blizzard.

Oh wait, you aren't...

If you have no idea what you're talking about, just dont talk about it. Seriously, NOONE knows ANYTHING about WoW's system architecture here, so its pointless to argue about it, how easy/hard it would be to implement anything.

[Hellfury]

they can do it, but to implement it to loot would require huge QA and I think they didnt had the time for that

[Notdev]

Ultraxion, Majordomo, Sindragosa, among many others could always detect your spec. Its obviously a problem with the loot coding or Blizzard just being lazy, more likely the first.

[mitbrandir]

(Sidenote: The obvious trick to do this achievement is to use the dualspec of your healer and then do the gauntlet without a healer.)

or bring a skilled tank and people who can MD?

[vesseblah]

This is something I have been thinking about ever since LFR came out.

You should have stopped thinking about it two weeks ago when this was fixed instead of posting a QQ thread today.

Blue posts said very specifically they wanted to rush LFR into patch 4.3 and did it regardless of few bugs it still had.

[Makoblade]

Spec based detection for items is so convoluted there's absolutely no reason to expend excessive amounts of time for something so trivial.

[Wilderness]

They didn't lie about anything. They have said, and obviously have used in mechanics like Ultraxions buffs, that they can detect if you are a healer, tank, or dps. What they are apparently unable to do with the need+ system is to say that this person is not just a dps druid, but a feral dps druid or a boomkin dps druid and then apply that need+ to only agi or int items. The loot issues in LFR are from those hybrid classes that have multiple dps specs which favor different stats.

The issue is that either the game can't really tell if you are a feral or a boomkin, it just knows that when you're dps, or that they weren't able to program into the system that feral druids get the bonus on agi items but not int items, and vice versa. From everything they've said its just that they couldn't get all that done for 4.3 but that decided to push LFR out now instead of with MoP as originally planned. And despite the small issues, I'd much rather have this now then wait for MoP.

[Deleted]

I don't understand how some people claim to have experience in programming when they say they know how WoW works. I didn't say I know how it works, I said I don't know, and that's precisely the reason you can't claim they "knew they can do it" or not.

The game is a black box. Unless you reverse engineered it, which I doubt, you do not know what is 'difficult' and what is not to code. In fact, it's highly probable IT IS VERY HARD to do changes such as these. It could not be, but you never know,

[Stevoman]

I was under the impression that the shortcoming in LFR was that it can't detect what kind of gear your DPS spec needs. It's not at all hard for them to figure out if you are a tank, healer, or DPS. The problem is that it doesn't differentiate the type of DPS - strength, agility, or intellect - and as a result, a "DPS" can take any "DPS" gear they want, be it enhance shaman taking intellect mail, or a hunter taking a strength mace.

AFAIK, there's no instance in the game identifying specs to that granularity.

[Jawstrock]

it's not your spec that it doesn't detect guys, it's the items themselves that aren't flagged Ranged dps, Melee, Caster dps etc. (Or if you prefer, Str gear, Agi Gear, Int gear etc.) they only have Dps, Tank and Healer flag, and if it match you get the bonus. So most cloth is dps+healer, and thus both can get the bonus on it.

They already explained this alot.

[Deleted]

I was under the impression that the shortcoming in LFR was that it can't detect what kind of gear your DPS spec needs. It's not at all hard for them to figure out if you are a tank, healer, or DPS. The problem is that it doesn't differentiate the type of DPS - strength, agility, or intellect - and as a result, a "DPS" can take any "DPS" gear they want, be it enhance shaman taking intellect mail, or a hunter taking a strength mace.

AFAIK, there's no instance in the game identifying specs to that granularity.

They figure out if you are a healer for all combat mechanics by looking at your spec and nothing else. They have always done that even before "roles" and LFD were implemented.
They do the same thing with tanks on countless mechanics (although often they just use top threat).

Also they damn well could tell if you were a enh/ele or boomkin/feral on sindy.

Nowadays Blizz is just constantly giving excuses on why this is so hard and how that is impossible. How the NEXT content patch will be awesome etc. and they fail to deliver on all fronts.

Sure it may be that their resources are just mismanaged since behold 4.3 introduced a completely new mechanic. The awesome extra action button. That development definately was needed. (Clicking a portal to avoid dragon breath felt dated.)