Warlock WoD Beta test - General chat

[Baconeggcheese]

So we're not supposed to have a hard to master, engaging spec

"Easy to learn, hard to master"

I feel like you missed something.

[Nerraw]

Affliction wasn't hard to learn before. Keep up dots, do shadow bolt, Haunt on CD. You'd do passable damage, which is something I assume is something every spec should do when people are nailing down the basics. The "hard to master" part came from timing Haunt and dot refreshes, and multi-target.

[Crisius]

"Easy to learn.. oh, already mastered"

I feel like this better suits the majority of specs come Warlords.

[Baconeggcheese]

I feel like this better suits the majority of specs come Warlords.

That'll come with 10 years of experience having already learned how to finesse your way through most classes mechanics.

new players on the other hand...

[evertonbelmontt]

That'll come with 10 years of experience having already learned how to finesse your way through most classes mechanics.

new players on the other hand...

I agree with this.

I've been on a regular raid guild where there's normal players, like the majority of servers. And OHMYGOD, some of them are BAD. There's like a shaman on that guild that couldn't play and move at the same time. Whenever he tried to heal someone while moving chance he would mess up increased a lot.

And that's a tale from a SHAMAN, that can do almost everything while moving, and it's a long time player.

This isn't an issue with new players, because players that are bad will be bad, but whenever a spec becomes too complicated for them (new and old alike), Blizzard already noticed that the majority of players choose to drop it, roll other class/spec or just stop playing.

[Nighthaven-]

I agree with this.

I've been on a regular raid guild where there's normal players, like the majority of servers. And OHMYGOD, some of them are BAD. There's like a shaman on that guild that couldn't play and move at the same time. Whenever he tried to heal someone while moving chance he would mess up increased a lot.

And that's a tale from a SHAMAN, that can do almost everything while moving, and it's a long time player.

This isn't an issue with new players, because players that are bad will be bad, but whenever a spec becomes too complicated for them (new and old alike), Blizzard already noticed that the majority of players choose to drop it, roll other class/spec or just stop playing.

- Do you still want these 'unqualified' people to shape 'your' world?
(nerf this or that, change this or that - adjust this or that - whether it's by directly by them or the developer pre- changes the product for these people; is irrelevant)

Most people did choose what to play the game for what it was then, not what it has become.


If you make a product for stupid people, you will have stupid users of it.

"insert fancy quote that I can't remember origins from that fits here"


Take first-hand/ official/ primary game forums for example.
- The reason for sh*t posting by literally dumb people, is because of ACCESSIBILITY.

Accessibility = Ease of use.
Easy specs = for dumb people.
Huntards = term exists for a reason

The only main/ primary/ official forums I haven't seen which haven't be flooded by stupidity 'posts' by the masses of all genres of games are:
"Real time strategy games that are that hard where 'idiots' really cannot enjoy themselves if they do not grasp the core game"

[Jessicka]

"Easy to learn, hard to master"

I feel like you missed something.

Well I'm talking about the changes to Drain Soul, Haunt and Pandemic. In no way were those hard to learn, but they did add room, tools, and flexibility to allow depth to master and in the process improvement in engagement with the spec.

[Xorn]

One thing I think is important to keep in mind is the psychological concept of cognitive load. The human mind can only keep track of so many things at once before things start to get dropped from our working memory. Some people are better at keeping track of multiple things than others (and it's not strictly tied to intelligence, btw), but everyone has an upper threshold where the brain literally cannot keep up with all the information being thrown at it.

Therefore, the more complex an individual rotation is (ie, the more things you have to constantly be tracking) the more likely it is that you're going to srew it up when thrown into a fight involving several simultaneous mechanics. Therefore, in order for Blizzard to create more complicated encounters, it quite literally would NEED to simplify class rotations in order for players to properly execute the mechanics while still keeping up their healing/dps rotation. Either that, or some of the mechanics would need to be more forgiving and/or trivial.

[evertonbelmontt]

@Nighthaven

If it was my world, I'd give thought into it. It's too late to try and change things now, even Ghostcrawler admited that WoW is for casuals.
Blizzard policy on this matter is that:

"We can change the dificulties to fit our playerbase and give hard choices/challenge to the ones up to it, with Mythic or High level PVP, proving grounds endless, etc. But class/leveling/garrisons and lots of other things is to be easy to learn." IMO.

Honestly, I don't think they are wrong. WoW is a game to be played with friends. I'm a very good warlock and I like the challenge, but I know, by experience, that i'm minority. And by logic, it's the majority of subs that keeps WoW running. We need those 'unqualified' people.


Edit: @Xorn

I actually like your post a lot. That is what I'm trying to say here @Blizz's policy. They rather focus the challenge on encounters/mechanics and dificulties than complicating specs. And IMO they're right, because majority will just go slowly on content from flex to normal to hc to mythic, until they stagnate or complete it.

[Brusalk]

One thing I think is important to keep in mind is the psychological concept of cognitive load. The human mind can only keep track of so many things at once before things start to get dropped from our working memory. Some people are better at keeping track of multiple things than others (and it's not strictly tied to intelligence, btw), but everyone has an upper threshold where the brain literally cannot keep up with all the information being thrown at it.

Therefore, the more complex an individual rotation is (ie, the more things you have to constantly be tracking) the more likely it is that you're going to srew it up when thrown into a fight involving several simultaneous mechanics. Therefore, in order for Blizzard to create more complicated encounters, it quite literally would NEED to simplify class rotations in order for players to properly execute the mechanics while still keeping up their healing/dps rotation. Either that, or some of the mechanics would need to be more forgiving and/or trivial.

In my opinion the key problem is that EVERY spec in the game is being drastically reduced for the purposes of increasing encounter complexity. That leaves those who do have high mental faculties without any spec that is able to push the limits of what they can handle, which is what some people want to play.

I enjoy Demo because it is one of the few specs which still have a lot of buttons to press and are mechanically difficult to play properly.
I enjoy Destro for the ambiguous and often fuzzy decisions that need to be weighed and made.

Some people enjoy having extremely tough, mechanical rotations/priority systems and they enjoy performing well despite those difficulties. When every spec is getting major mechanics cut, it can leave those people feeling like the spec they used to enjoy is a shadow of what it once was and they lose some (or potentially all) of what they enjoyed about the spec.

(I speak here from personal experience both of my play and friends who played mechanically difficult specs at one point in the past. Shadow in Cata had extremely fun and well thought out mechanics which were difficult but felt very rewarding. I also had a guildie who played Feral DPS in Ulduar which was and probably still is considered one of the hardest specs to play mechanically in the game. We both loved playing our specs because they were difficult and it felt rewarding to accomplish the rotation successfully and pull great numbers.)

[Jahrern]

Ok, so im new to this thread, and havent read much of it, and im not gonna either. But here's my 2 cent on how i feel Demonology is, and the level 100 talents.

First off, the level 100 talents.
How much do i hate them? ALOT! Let me explain.
Demonic servitude: So, this is a talent probably ALOT of people got exited about, but the execution isn't the greatest. Sure, they look badass, but they dont have anything interesting to give your arsenal of fuckoffery (yes, thats a word i just invented, deal with it:P) Face it, we all love our trusted Felguard, but none of us wanna resummon him in order to give people the proper spanking with our bladestorm. They are probably a more fun option for the other specs, but i LOVE demo, and i wanna play demo, so this is where im coming from.

Cataclysm: This talent is actually their best work in the level 100 talnt section, but sadly its usefulness is mediocre at best. Its gonna be awesome for add fights, but they dont really exist on every fight. Sadly hardly any of them really when you think about it.

Now for my number one complaint,
Demonbolt: OMG, here we go! This talent, oh how i hate thee. The reason we play Demonogy is because we think Metamorphosis is awesome, and that its the greates thing evar! So, in Blizzard's recent douchebagery, they are basically stripping every ranged from whatever movement they once had. First they took our awesome KJC away from us, but we rejoiced thinking Demo and Meta would give us atleast some movement, RIGHT? NO! Here's Blizzard giving us the middle finger, and it spells out DEMONBOLT in the mists behind it. Demonbolt is their effort to keep us stationary even in meta, and ruining the awesomeness that is Meta. Instead we are in meta casting Demonbolts for a few seconds. Thats fun right? NO, wrong again! Lets face it, this is the talent we're basically looking at right now in order to do the most damage.

So that's my 2 cents on Warlock and Demo on the Beta. I really do hope they start changing things up soon, cause im not happy. Not to mention that life tap gives us so little mana in comparison to live aswell.

[evertonbelmontt]

In my opinion the key problem is that EVERY spec in the game is being drastically reduced for the purposes of increasing encounter complexity.

I agree with the rest of your post, but this part needed a quote =p

As a pure DPS, I think Blizzard would make a mistake by not letting us have more depth in at least one spec.
Also, I like being challenged but I also like getting rewarded for it. There's two ways to reward players that go with a more complex spec:
"Fun/Engagement and Extra DPS for higher performance."

I don't even know if the second option is on the table anymore, with the "bring the player, not the class".

But as a hybrid, I can see how they are trying to simplify things, if that option is still available.

[Zevoa]

Some people enjoy having extremely tough, mechanical rotations/priority systems and they enjoy performing well despite those difficulties. When every spec is getting major mechanics cut, it can leave those people feeling like the spec they used to enjoy is a shadow of what it once was and they lose some (or potentially all) of what they enjoyed about the spec.

This. So much.

[Roujeaux]

Just glanced over the Archaeology artifacts in the latest beta build for WoD, and came to the realization that more thought and detail is being put into those than in a great deal of the class mechanic changes. I don't....know....quite how I feel about that.

[bio347]

Yes, the team that's responsible for writing all of the yellow fluff text on items is definitely the same team that's responsible for class balance.

[6kle]

I think this expansion is built to attract new players by making things simple. Maybe they are stripping things to release this on consoles. I mean, they see subs are going downhill and want to stop that. I can imagine some Bobby Kotick wanting to see more money come in and consoles can do that. Of course with a gamepad you can only have a few buttons to press and that's where we are heading with every class.
You saw some old key people leaving Blizzard/WoW. I was thinking back then if it was a coincidence, did they want new challenges or is the game going to change dramatically and they didn't want to be a part of it.

I don't really think it's likely this will be released on consoles but it's clear they are removing a ton of abilities and depth. It must be to get new players because the old ones are hating it.

[Nerraw]

You can do things to make the experience attractice to new players AND keep complexity for the veterans. Blizzard just don't seem able to find a middle road with anything.

[Shamran]

We're not concerned damage-wise. [...]

I haven't been fortunate enough to obtain a beta key of my own, but I've read countless posts on this forum claiming that Warlocks were not only gimped in terms of mechanics, but also left at mid-pack in terms of damage. Is this no longer the case? If not, could anyone comment on whether or not it applies to all three specs, please?

[Nerraw]

I haven't been fortunate enough to obtain a beta key of my own, but I've read countless posts on this forum claiming that Warlocks were not only gimped in terms of mechanics, but also left at mid-pack in terms of damage. Is this no longer the case? If not, could anyone comment on whether or not it applies to all three specs, please?

Tuning is always the very last part to happen. And if something shows up to be severely skewered when the patch goes live, it's something they can hotfix. Mechanics are much more set in stone and will only be changed in major patches or expansions.

[Crisius]

Destro and affli are mid-low single-target with demonology pulling ahead as the highest single-target ranged DPS (until Demonbolt is nerfed).