Holinka's Report Card

[Krixooks]

If it wasn't for the Base Resilience I would give him a B+ or A-.

Agreed.
Overall I think he is doing a good job with a few bumps in the road, stampede overlook, base resil WPvP shambles.

One thing I've not heard anyone talking about is the problem with Gladiator-level players hogging all the top ranks with their billions of alts (many of the same class). It can't be solved by making ranks account-wide because people will just use different accounts... what to do...

[tonicsargeras]

PVP is pretty awful right now, which is a shame because it felt great in Cataclysm.

That's not to say it's Holinka's fault - he has been trying to fix it since MOP started but it seems like the PVE side of the game constrained PVP development too much in this expansion. Rapid ilvl inflation, absurd damage/healing scaling, the new talent system contributing heavily to the CC arms race, too many new cooldowns added for each class led to crazy burst cooldown stacking... these were decisions that (I hope) Holinka had no say in.

[Jibberjabber]

Ghostcrawler was the only thing good about the game. Holinka ruining it all. PvP in alpha is so bad it broke the servers for almost a week.

[Terahertz]

I was kind of set between B and C. Baseline PvP resil was a really stupid choice IMO but Holinka did manage to get rid of some of competitive PvPer's worst nightmares: PvE gear in PvP. Then again, seeing the current state of PvP and how extremely messy and chaotic it is... ehh..

Then again, I still have high hopes for him. Seeing some of the changes made in WoD overall seem really cool. Removal of baseline PvP resil, presumably increased healthpools, distinction between PvE and PvP gear in both instanced AND open world PvP as well as removal of battle fatigue is awesome.

Agreed.
Overall I think he is doing a good job with a few bumps in the road, stampede overlook, base resil WPvP shambles.

One thing I've not heard anyone talking about is the problem with Gladiator-level players hogging all the top ranks with their billions of alts (many of the same class). It can't be solved by making ranks account-wide because people will just use different accounts... what to do...

I agree. Seeing 5 variants of "ubergladqtlol, ubrgladqtlol, ubergledqtlol" for example is annoying as fuck. Making rating account wide would be really bad because people play other classes as well and playing at 2800 rating a beastcleave and then suddenly logging onto your mage for example you won't be able to beat any games ever.

[mtr]

I have no idea what Holinka's actual responsibilities are besides twitter. Can't say if he's better than ghostcrawler at that. I guess he at least can spell "rogues" correctly. Although the skirmish bullying ( "You better play the ever loving crap out of them now that they're in game" ) sounded quite rediculous with all the sub losses and general disappointment in the game among pvp players.

Also, the two classes I play are not enjoyable anymore, and couple other classes make the pvp terrible for everyone, so I guess there's that.

[Gumboy]

Frankly I have never had less fun in pvp then I am right now. The game is instants, burst, and cc(mostly instant) spam. Combined with weird issues like certain maps still being incredibly broken for certain classes, even with the new ladders and stairs and such, it just makes certain imbalances even more pronounced.


Also a personal pet peeve? Seems like there are way to many stealth classes now, and any match with a rogue in it is no fun for anyone, including the rogue. Running around trying to get restealths constantly is lame as hell gameplay.

- - - Updated - - -

Also: Why is warlock gateway usable in arena but void shift is not? Gateway is 10 kertrillion times more op.

[MrKnubbles]

Its better without ghostcrawler for sure but that doesnt mean its optimal.

I can't think of a single game changing difference since he left. A single person has a lot less of an impact than you think. They work as a team. He was simply the face of one team.

In my opinion, PvP is in a pretty bad state. I can't stand to play it because it's all about spamming CC which everybody now has a lot of. I do like the changes coming to gear stats between PvE/PvP though.

[Deleted]

I think he's doing bad because I'm still dying way too fast.

[Snuggli]

Overall I think he's done a fantastic job for PvP. Compare the current state of balance now to the ends of previous expansions and it's insane. There is no gimmicky PvE gear, no triple DPS comps, no random 100-0 1shots and almost everything in the game has some form of counter or outplay. There is still some glaring issues with PvP and the strength of a handful of comps is obviously an issue, but overall the game is in a pretty good spot. I voted B in the poll because there is still a lot of work to be done but I don't believe it's Holinkas fault, PvP is still a subsection of the PvE game and he probably gets a lot of resistance from other development teams.

I've got high hopes for Warlords PvP where Holinka can start with effectively a brand new slate. Also got Skirmishes returning and a lot of CD stacking being removed.

[morislayer]

Almost all three of those things you listed are being solved.

1. Item level bloat: Everybody's item levels will be closer, and PvP gear will be naturally higher in an instanced PvP, or world PvP setting.
2. Battleground gear disparities have been given a solution by adding an easy to obtain set of gear at Tier 1, then Honor gear is where the gap is bridged, at being 15 item levels higher at Tier 2 and finally Conquest at Tier 3, 15 item levels higher again. 30 item levels over 3 sets vs. 28 item levels over 2 sets. You decide which is a better design.
3. It's clear that a lot of crowd control's being removed from the game, but I'm not sure how many stuns have been removed. I know for one thing that you can no longer take Stormbolt with Shockwave, and Charge is no longer a baseline stun so that stops Warriors from feeling like a stun-locking Rogue.

Are being Addressed

They are not being solved, as WoD is not live and the playerbase has not determined the outcome. That's like saying Unemployment has been solved because we plan on lowering business taxes so they create more jobs.

1. I'm talking Season to season. If you get 95% top tier conquest one season and don't play for the next you are a walking HK. That's horrible design. It's a complete gear reset every 6 months. Major turnoff to new pvp'ers. Gear grind should be at most once per xpac, then your top tier gear still is viable in the next season by "squishing" down all instanced pvp.
2. Yes but there still is 30 ilvl difference which is too much. That's a tier. That's two tiers in the old school no hard mode tiers. Damage multipliers (like crit) are going to have to be reduced further or base res will be back.
3. Gonna have to wait and see. My big issue is instant casts going away coupled with burst reduced, CC reduced will be healers OOM before kills happen. Also as a healer I do not look forward to getting interrupted by every single dps class (interrupts become new CC)

[chrisfover87]

1. Baseline resil: biggest mistake EVER, PVE gears were better in world pvp, can you imagine that?
2. This new deserter debuff: totally lost interest in gearing alts. Capping alts used to be fun, but now? Nvm.
3. RBG players need more love.
4. Warlock/Shaman/Holinka

[nyc81991]

It is nice to have a person to direct PvP to. Before Holinka there was no one.

I still think there needs to be a lot more frequent changes to PvP balance than there is right now.

[pkm]

Wow has it been 2 years already? Damn.

Well i can say that baseline resilience really screwed things up. Wpvp is one of my favorites and now i cant even attempt it on a toon without SoO pve gear.

[Deleted]

I voted for "complete desaster" as Holinka does not really know how to handle people while that is a prerequisite to be a good designer. He rather answers with arrogant sarcasm to requests than to actually really care.

Also, his idea to remove resilence from gear was a bad move just to try to make PVP more accessible, which did not work at all.

[thelightthatstrays]

Well i can say that baseline resilience really screwed things up.

I know I made my opinion on this known in the poll, it really was the single biggest WTF decision that's been made in the past three seasons. It looked horrible on paper and plays out exactly that way. When I first read about it I could not for the life of me understand why they just would not remove resilience instead of the baseline malarkey they pulled.

Other changes have left me scratching my head as well, but the past two seasons have not been all that bad. I think the team is treading water at best, but at least possibly looking in the right direction.

I'd look forward to games where I don't spend so much time not being able to do anything in between preventing my enemy from doing anything.

[Flaks]

Ghost Crawler did a damn sight better than Holinka back in WotLK. And then he started changing things for the sake of change and things went down the drain. I'll wait and see what Holinka does but he's nowhere near GC's best but so far is about as bad as GC's worst.

[Deleted]

A D-, and thats only because he is at leasy trying. I wont even talk about pvp balance because even though this has been one of the worst pvp expansions i wouldnt blame it all on him they were just so many issues that have built up over previous expansions ( too much insta cc, cc chains, hybrid healing, no cast heals, ridiculous mobility etc) Im willing to give him one more chance in WOD to fix it.
What has made this expansion truly awful has been the ludicrous iilvl differences, you miss the first 4-5 weeks of a new season? have fun being irrelevant for several months. They added upgradeable pvp gear meaning you could end up 2 seasons ahead of a new player, pvp this expansion has just been so punishing to new players or alts and gear has been way too powerful and game deciding. If your new to pvp you dont go bgs, you go to dungeons for jp and do honor dailies because the gear differences mean you will be nothing more than an annoying fly waiting to be swatted by any full geared player and you will have to endure hours of pvp getting your face smashed in, its even worse in wpvp where ive lost count how many times ive been globalled by heroic pve raiders thanks to the resi change.
How they plan to fix the iilvl and gear issues in wod will determine if i bother to pvp on anything othen than my main.

[Skarssen]

Its better without ghostcrawler for sure

Maybe the PVP side, but Celestalon has been a fucking disaster for PVE. That guy doesn't have a sufficient understanding of many of the specs to be in his position.

[Deleted]

Given MOP's stats were messed up when Holinka came on the scene I don't envy what he's been forced to work with.

He's done well enough to patch things up in MOP but the real test will be Warlords pvp where he's been part of the team since the start and actively guided pvp development beyond just balancing changes and increasing resilience to combat stat inflation.

[thelightthatstrays]

Although the skirmish bullying ( "You better play the ever loving crap out of them now that they're in game" ) sounded quite rediculous with all the sub losses and general disappointment in the game among pvp players.

That's a very doucheish tweet. Street was mostly a giant jackass on the forums and even more so on twitter, the whole hype train display frankly proves they should not be doing the whole social media thing in general with the development staff, they do not have the skill set for it.

The most disturbing thing is that we are even looking at skirmishes to begin with. The removal of skirmishes was a non-event. Now putting them back is some kind of highlight? Maybe I'm wrong in thinking they are even looking in the right direction?