Is constant changing of classes and talents really improvement or not?

[Horseface]

Sometimes I remember Wotlk times. There was some changes "here" and "there", but there wasnt as major changes to classes every big patch as there is now. The game was fairly balanced and you could expect your class to stay about the same through the expansion. In Cataclysm and especially now in MoP it seems that every single patch they're making some radical changes and people have to relearn their class just to relearn it again when new patch comes. Who else is tired of this constant changing of spells and abilities? Im atleast.. in wotlk my warlock wasnt the best and wasnt the worst, but there was certain stability that you didnt need to relearn your class after every patch and that I kind of liked, even when my class didnt do as good damage as mages at lower gear level I kind of was satisfied with my class. I think I was more like just enjoying the game because when ur class stayed about same you got used to it and then you could enjoy the game more because you were used to all your class' abilities. Who ever is in charge with these system changes (I dont know who is) but he should really calm down a bit with these changes.

[Mosotti]

Yeah, right, I remember the hunter. Survival was the king, MM was close, and BM was a piece of shit, usable only for soloing

The changes exist because it's extremely difficult to balance all those classes with all those specs, and not only for PvE, but then come the PvP whiners with their complaints. The only solution I see is to completely separate the spells for those, then you don't give a shit about changing a spell because of PvE reasons, because you won't create god know what kind of imba arena comp, creating more rage in the PvP area. I have no idea why the fuck they don't do that.

[Kiqjaq]

The only solution I see is to completely separate the spells for those, then you don't give a shit about changing a spell because of PvE reasons, because you won't create god know what kind of imba arena comp, creating more rage in the PvP area. I have no idea why the fuck they don't do that.

Because, as Ghost Crawler said, it's not the panacea that people think it is.
Even when they wholly separate a spell between PVP and PVE, as they did with Deep Freeze in cata, there were people whining about getting nuked to death in 1 deep.

They have all the levers they need to balance the game for both, but the one constant of game design is that players are smarter than any dev can imagine. They designed a rotation for Arms Warrior, and people got annoyed at how punishing it could be. The devs insisted we were simply trying too hard to min/max, but in the end they had to give Warrior a slight nerf because players were "too good at the rotation". Something similar is happening with Arcane. Players found Scorch and found a way around the limits of the class to do more dps than they ought to, and now the devs had to take away our toys because we wouldn't play nice.

That's the constant battle for game design--giving players fun toys but not letting them run amok--and there's a balance to be struck between pulling the rug out from under players on a weekly basis versus simply leaving imbalances in the game for the sake of stability. If they wanted, they could feasibly make the game significantly more balanced by making minute changes on a weekly basis to get rid of slight imbalances. But players have time and again shown that they hate that much more than they hate slight imbalances, and so Blizzard historically steps in when things are out of hand, and adjusts during major patches.

They're doing so a bit more frequently lately, what with the cries of imbalance from all corners, and threads like this are the collateral damage.
I really quite dislike getting my class pulled from under me all the time. Poor Arms Warriors, I'm glad I jumped that ship and the Mage ship and went for my DK, which has remained strong, playable, and nearly untouched for all of MoP thus far.

[Turkey One]

I've always wondered why they don't tune spells down vs players alll of the time there are burst issues instead of playing the buff/nerf circle game trying to keep pve happy while nerfing the burst in pvp. Seems like that would have less of a chance of breaking the opposite style of play. It doesn't even have to function completely differently so people aren't confused just not hit/heal as hard in pvp they already do this somewhat with healing

[Summer]

Well, as a mage I have to say it seems like this is how it goes: the devs come up with an idea of how the specs should play. Then people come up with ways to do way more dps on live than they figured, either using a different rotation (arcane and stack camping) or just because of ridiculous scaling like fire mages. Then we get nerfed and buffed and changed all the time as they try to force us into the "intended" playstyle. And I surely don't enjoy not knowing which spec I'll be playing a few months from now, which a permanent situation for us it seems...

Change is good so we don't get bored with always doing the same thing, but not when it's nonstop.

[grumpyoldman]

Because, as Ghost Crawler said, it's not the panacea that people think it is.
Even when they wholly separate a spell between PVP and PVE, as they did with Deep Freeze in cata, there were people whining about getting nuked to death in 1 deep.

They have all the levers they need to balance the game for both, but the one constant of game design is that players are smarter than any dev can imagine. They designed a rotation for Arms Warrior, and people got annoyed at how punishing it could be. The devs insisted we were simply trying too hard to min/max, but in the end they had to give Warrior a slight nerf because players were "too good at the rotation". Something similar is happening with Arcane. Players found Scorch and found a way around the limits of the class to do more dps than they ought to, and now the devs had to take away our toys because we wouldn't play nice.

That's the constant battle for game design--giving players fun toys but not letting them run amok--and there's a balance to be struck between pulling the rug out from under players on a weekly basis versus simply leaving imbalances in the game for the sake of stability. If they wanted, they could feasibly make the game significantly more balanced by making minute changes on a weekly basis to get rid of slight imbalances. But players have time and again shown that they hate that much more than they hate slight imbalances, and so Blizzard historically steps in when things are out of hand, and adjusts during major patches.

They're doing so a bit more frequently lately, what with the cries of imbalance from all corners, and threads like this are the collateral damage.
I really quite dislike getting my class pulled from under me all the time. Poor Arms Warriors, I'm glad I jumped that ship and the Mage ship and went for my DK, which has remained strong, playable, and nearly untouched for all of MoP thus far.

Someone smart