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  1. #1

    Discussion with Senior Technical Game Designer Kris Zierhut

    My buddies from Vigil and I talked to Kris Zierhut at the Community Discussion area earlier today and learned a lot of information. Lets get to it. Edit - He's actually a Senior Technical Game Designer. Brain is fried. Sorry. Chadd (The guy who wrote Rawr and was hired to help with sims) was there as well, and talked to us for another half our after Kris left. Cool guys. Chadd will be there tomorrow for a bit if you want to talk about theorycrafting/next expansions stuffs.

    -Hit and Expertise removed. Hit and expertise soft caps are baseline for melee and ranged.
    -Replaced with Amplitude (crit damage), Readiness (CD Reduction), and Multistrike. Also 'rare' secondaries such as Cleave and Movement Speed. The trinkets from this tier that have the same names were basically tests - the actual stats themselves wont necessarily be as OP.
    -Vengeance changed to increase tanking abilties, rather than pure AP. He wants Tank DPS to be roughly 75% of a DPS' output.
    -DoT snapshotting removed.
    -Position requirement for abilities removed (sub rogues and ferals rejoice), Backstab removed entirely. However, there is still a 3% chance to be parried from the front so min/maxers will WANT to be behind. It just wont ruin your day anymore.
    -Gear scaling is roughly 6% of what it currently is - the itemlevel of the gear is the same, but the stats on the gear are downsized.
    -Smartheals are being dumbed down; Idea is to have target selection be a random subset of the damaged players rather than the most damaged players. This will result in a 'bell curve' of healing received where most players will receive enough heals from smart heals but a limited portion will not and will require additional triage.
    -More dynamic trinkets - such as UVLS - are an idea he likes and wants to see more RNG-centered things that make the game more fun. On the other hand, he also likes trinkets with just base stats - such as +int +crit, nothing else. He likes all the current iterations and hopes to see them all through; On-Use, ICD, and RPPM.
    -He agrees that warlocks are too OP (Affliction specifically ) and their skillcap is WAY too high with dot snapshotting. He wants to rip up the warlock changes (with the basic idea intact - i.e. the different secondary resources) and rebuild the class.



    MORE TO COME GETTING FOOD WITH GUILD
    Need to write down the ideas before i lose my brain.
    Last edited by Xyronic; 2013-11-09 at 08:15 AM.

    Armory - http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ronic/advanced
    Stream - http://www.twitch.tv/xyronic (Tues-Thurs 7:00 - 11:30 and 12:30 - 3:30 cst)

  2. #2
    Great job, thanks for the info!

    Anyone explain this in a bit more detail?
    "-Smartheals are being dumbed down; Idea is to have target selection be a random subset of the damaged players rather than the most damaged players. This will result in a 'bell curve' of healing received where most players will receive enough heals from smart heals but a limited portion will not and will require additional triage."

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Ipawnu View Post
    Great job, thanks for the info!

    Anyone explain this in a bit more detail?
    "-Smartheals are being dumbed down; Idea is to have target selection be a random subset of the damaged players rather than the most damaged players. This will result in a 'bell curve' of healing received where most players will receive enough heals from smart heals but a limited portion will not and will require additional triage."
    Lets say that you have a party, and the group is sitting at the following health values-

    1 = 90%
    2 = 80%
    3 = 70%
    4 = 60%
    5 = 50%

    In their current iteration, smartheals would simply start at the bottom and work their way up.

    However, now it will randomly select, say, three of these values. We'll go with 1, 3, and 4. As they are now, 5 would receive the most healing, but in the future, 5 may not get healed at all, requiring you to patch them up manually.

    At least that's my understanding of it.
    "Tell them only that the Lich King is dead, and that World of Warcraft died with him."

  4. #4
    What about expertise hard caps for tanks?

    Also isn't keeping a 3% parry chance another advantage to range over melee. There are fights and strats out there that require the boss to be facing the raid.

  5. #5
    Updating with info as I remember it at dinner; will add to main post web I get back from dinner.

    -alliance Passives (such as short blade specialization) are going to be reworked to be roughly 2-3% damage increases. The idea is alliance will have stronger racial Passives, while horde will have stronger actives.

    More coming as we remember it- this guy spouted off information for 2 hours straight - clearly loves his job.

    Armory - http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ronic/advanced
    Stream - http://www.twitch.tv/xyronic (Tues-Thurs 7:00 - 11:30 and 12:30 - 3:30 cst)

  6. #6
    Legendary! Wrathonia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Xyronic View Post
    Updating with info as I remember it at dinner; will add to main post web I get back from dinner.

    -alliance Passives (such as short blade specialization) are going to be reworked to be roughly 2-3% damage increases. The idea is alliance will have stronger racial Passives, while horde will have stronger actives.

    More coming as we remember it- this guy spouted off information for 2 hours straight - clearly loves his job.
    Are they out of their minds? That seems like a terrible idea.

  7. #7
    Awesome info, keep it coming.

  8. #8
    This is fantastic stuff man. Please update with more info, but add it to the bottom so it's easy to refer back to the thread and see if anything has been added

    Really digging the rogue changes. Hope there's more where those came from

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Wrathonia View Post
    Are they out of their minds? That seems like a terrible idea.
    Agreed. Racials really need to go away entirely, or provide non-combat perks (underwater breathing is a good one.)

  10. #10
    GREAT info, man. We really appreciate it.
    Even though the hit/exp was a math based type skill set. I don't (honestly) feel it was a super vital system to have. Consider the struggle for say.. Fury or Rogues to deal with leveling and/or gearing appropriately.
    -"-Replaced with Amplitude (crit damage), Readiness (CD Reduction), and Multistrike. Also 'rare' secondaries such as Cleave and Movement Speed. "-
    Actually makes the game (to me) more exciting. We are talking about like.. stacking Amplitude for Fury wars and Readiness for Arms.
    Damn exciting.
    Obelodalix
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  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by ToxTheWrecker View Post
    GREAT info, man. We really appreciate it.
    Even though the hit/exp was a math based type skill set. I don't (honestly) feel it was a super vital system to have. Consider the struggle for say.. Fury or Rogues to deal with leveling and/or gearing appropriately.
    -"-Replaced with Amplitude (crit damage), Readiness (CD Reduction), and Multistrike. Also 'rare' secondaries such as Cleave and Movement Speed. "-
    Actually makes the game (to me) more exciting. We are talking about like.. stacking Amplitude for Fury wars and Readiness for Arms.
    Damn exciting.
    My biggest concern for this is balance. How do you balance 'fun' stats which have such extreme ramifications for different specs? Or is that just unfounded concern for something I think is more complicated than it really is? Not sure...

  12. #12
    The Undying Slowpoke is a Gamer's Avatar
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    Wait, was Zierhut always Lead Systems Designer?
    FFXIV - Maduin (Dynamis DC)

  13. #13
    Titan Al Gorefiend's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Xyronic View Post
    Updating with info as I remember it at dinner; will add to main post web I get back from dinner.

    -alliance Passives (such as short blade specialization) are going to be reworked to be roughly 2-3% damage increases. The idea is alliance will have stronger racial Passives, while horde will have stronger actives.

    More coming as we remember it- this guy spouted off information for 2 hours straight - clearly loves his job.
    Are they absolutely insane?

  14. #14
    Now the question is, can we still reforge or is it gone completely... should have an answer on that soon.

    Why? Well it was in the original WOD leak, so I'm expecting it to be gone.. not like it would be missed, but without hit/expertise, it's not as useful as it was.
    Karuzo | Drainlife, US-Arthas
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  15. #15
    Is Tets out here for Blizzcon?

  16. #16
    I am really guessing reforging is gone, it makes alot of sense, and there not happy with it.

  17. #17
    But...healers still find reforging an interesting thing!

  18. #18
    The Undying Slowpoke is a Gamer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zaxvriin View Post
    But...healers still find reforging an interesting thing!
    reforging will probably be for turning a primary stat into a primary stat, as opposed to secondary to secondary.
    FFXIV - Maduin (Dynamis DC)

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Zaxvriin View Post
    But...healers still find reforging an interesting thing!
    I agree playing with haste break points and spirit levels is interesting, but we all know that before it was a thing we were just fine

  20. #20
    Keep it coming!

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