Celestalon seeks advice on class balance

[Selky]

Not even relevant, recent class balance issues like Feral and Hunter have nothing to do with under-representation. Celestalon won't get any pity from me.

[ZehGeek]

Got a source on that? I'm not doubting you, I'm just curious to read exactly what they said.

Was in 7.1 live Q&A I do believe. Ion was on and had admitted they shoulda listened to,try feedback on Beta and said "Better late then never"

[lotj]

So basically what he's saying is every feral sucks dick and if they buff them a bit (fucking roflmao at tier bonuses) then every "A" player will go feral and they will be insanely overpowered, okay. Got it.

Also that every single good feral jumped to Moonkin the second 7.1.5 dropped and that's why feral parses badly.

... in an xpac that makes it fairly painful to change specs.

... and in a patch where all ferals thought we were actually getting buffed.

[Valech]

I wonder if I am subject to some kind of elaborate next level trolling. Clearly, all of you guys know, that Celestalon didn´t really ask for help but wanted to portray the difficulties of balancing from a developer´s point of view. Right guys? You all are aware? Right? Guys?

[SL1200]

There he go, blaming players for balance issues. The players don't design the classes. And he should't be blaming us for switching the better preforming specs when the role is specifically called DPS. If there is a spec or class preforming 5% better the only logical thing to do is switch. The only reason not to switch is emotional attachment.

[Valech]

There he go, blaming players for balance issues. The players don't design the classes. And he should't be blaming us for switching the better preforming specs when the role is specifically called DPS. If there is a spec or class preforming 5% better the only logical thing to do is switch. The only reason not to switch is emotional attachment.

And, you know, niches. And utility. DPS isn´t the only criteria for the viability of a specc. Also, there is a thing called skill. Some classes require more. Some less. Some people are able to grasp the concept of certain class better. You are talking about logic like dps is the only thing of importance and everyone has the same level of skill and understands all classes equally good. If that was the case, why do not even world top 3 guilds run with 2 best tank, 4 best healer, 14 best dps? They have variety in all roles. For a reason.

[Sliske]

How about focusing on inter-class balance , first?

Absolutely laughable that hes focusing his efforts on making sure all 3 mage specs for example are completely equal, when theres entire classes that underperform relative to mages.

Your priorities, Celestalon, speak for themselves. The fact that you ask this question to your twitter follows, the guys you have been ignoring since you got the position, speaks for itself.

Absolute clown.

[shoegazing]

see pvp as a perfect example , tons of high rated players give feedback constantly, but they only listen to the mass scrubs and release no data about why they do what they do

god this is so accurate it hurts

see e.g. ability pruning of many CCs because less experienced players that aren't the best aren't using Focus interrupt macros to stop polymorph and cyclone, aren't communicating with their teammates "you have to kick next cast", aren't using their grounding totem or spell reflect very fluently, or don't understand positioning in PvP so they go into a 40v40 and push up 15 yards past the frontline into the middle of the enemy zerg and don't understand that they are painting a giant bullseye on their own head so they go on the forums to complain "I died 100-0 in a million stuns, please fix this"

Legion PvP is what happens when Blizzard listens to those players above everyone else

[Sliske]

How about he just reads the fucking Official forums (PTR, Class, etc) instead of asking on Twitter.

No point making a Twitter account to shame that stupid asshole because you'll just get ignored, banned, etc.

Blizzard likes the 140 character constraints that twitter has. It basically leaves no room for you to give context without making a half dozen tweets at least. If theres no context, Blizzard will dismiss you immediately. You also can't link possible solutions. If you don't link possible solutions, Blizzard labels it whining and dismisses it.

Like with trying to give feedback to any mega corperation, you have to fight your way through the meat grinder, in this case its twitter. If you actually manage to punch and kick your way through the meat grinder (I tried it. Took 8 days of consecutive spamming every 5 hours to get a response), you'll be greeted with a "we'll look into it" and no further contact, or a block.

I ran a little experiment early Legion - a time I thought Blizzard activity would be pretty high.

I posted a complete smear of shit on the EU forums and waited to see how fast Blizzard would ban me or close the thread. It took them 400+ hours to ban me and delete the thread. Over 2 fucking weeks.

The forums right now, are literally a void. You enter the void and shout. No one outside the void can hear you and no one inside the void cares. CM enters every now and then (seemingly of their own free will, because there is no known pattern to get a CM to respond) who will write something useless, or copy and paste something that a dev said.

We have a joke over on the EU forums. When a blue post appears outside of support forums, we all pretend like we're lost islanders, seeing outside human contact for the first time.

I actually counted a long time ago (at overwatch launch I believe) - EU has around 1-2 responses for every 20 pages of threads (18 threads per page), US has around 7 responses for every 20 pages of threads.

The forums are a fucking void. Blizzard do not give a shit what your feedback is.

The PTR and Beta exists simply to iron out bugs. The Live servers is the only feedback they take into account, and only their own numbers is taken seriously. If your grievance doesn't appear on the Blizzard stat trackers, tough shit son.

TL;DR: You have to look like an obsessive psycho and act like one just to get a generic response from Blizzard (spamming them constantly). If you some how get one, don't expect a follow up. You, a random peasant, is not worthy of communication with an esteemed noble such as Celestalon!

[SL1200]

And, you know, niches. And utility. DPS isn´t the only criteria for the viability of a specc. Also, there is a thing called skill. Some classes require more. Some less. Some people are able to grasp the concept of certain class better. You are talking about logic like dps is the only thing of importance and everyone has the same level of skill and understands all classes equally good. If that was the case, why do not even world top 3 guilds run with 2 best tank, 4 best healer, 14 best dps? They have variety in all roles. For a reason.

I personally hate having a niche. Whether it be Kiter like in wrath, misdirecter, or mobile dpser who gets picked for jobs like conveyer, or soaker on ultraxian , being given them jobs in a raid sucks. That's just my opinion. As a hunter, in the past, we've had a lot of niches. That has never felt as good or been as fun as being able to do big number dps.

[clevin]

Funny that you should post that, when you seem to completely miss his point. Spec B & C are never 30% behind spec A. That doesn't happen in modern WoW. Spec B & C might be 30% behind spec A on warcraftlogs, but that would be because the most skilled and geared players are gravitating to spec A, even if spec A is only 5% better. That is what he's saying with his tweet.

I'm using his numbers, you realize. HIS example. And as for not using WCL... 1) look at things early in the expansion before many players move specs, 2) Not all good players shift specs - look at, say heroic at the 7th percentile where you probably don't have as many hardcore min-masers and 3) Then he needs to give some other way we can and should judge specs. They're not within 5% though... if you believe they are, you're delusional.

Taken to the extreme, you realize that what he's saying is that everyone in the top specs are all the good players who care about their performance and the rest are crappy and don't.

[idunnowatdo]

I think at some point he is going to chime in and be like you see these are all the things we need to think about when making decisions. Ps I'm not saying they make he right ones but things aren't always as simple

[Valech]

I personally hate having a niche. Whether it be Kiter like in wrath, misdirecter, or mobile dpser who gets picked for jobs like conveyer, or soaker on ultraxian , being given them jobs in a raid sucks. That's just my opinion. As a hunter, in the past, we've had a lot of niches. That has never felt as good or been as fun as being able to do big number dps.

I respect your opinion but I disagree. Whenever I am given a special job in the raid it feels like a welcome change from the usual procedure.

[Dartz1979]

No more nerfing the HERO classes.

[lolpve]

Can't believe you lot think this activision clown is asking for advice LOL. They think they know best, they will still think they know best when WoW is under a million subs.

[drbatman]

bad specs arent bad, good people just dont play them. right.

how do people get paid to do this sort of 'work' id be fired so fuckin fast if i performed like most devs/cm's ect.

[Zenny]

How about focusing on inter-class balance , first?

Absolutely laughable that hes focusing his efforts on making sure all 3 mage specs for example are completely equal, when theres entire classes that underperform relative to mages.

Your priorities, Celestalon, speak for themselves. The fact that you ask this question to your twitter follows, the guys you have been ignoring since you got the position, speaks for itself.

Absolute clown.

How about you actually look at current logs before bitching about Mages. All 3 Mage specs are in the lower 3rd of all parses, with Frost actually being the worst DPS in the game right now. Every single class in the game right now has at least 1 spec above all 3 Mage specs.

[Deleted]

He's not requesting advice and he's not saying anything shocking. Plenty of us on these boards have already raised this caveat when looking at Warcraftlogs class performance.

[Deleted]

basically we're presented with a scenario of a reluctance to act based on data, which has been deemed inconclusive/insufficient.
but there is still pressure for changes and thus changes must be made.

the data provided by user feedback only paints part of the picture and is inaccurate because of the representation of certain class specs by the community.
more skilled players are playing spec A because it has been theorized, tested and determined that spec A is the strongest spec.
meaning that the top % of players for that class will always be in spec A, leaving spec B & C with under-performing representation.
driving their actual numbers (which we do not know, and currently have to estimate theoretically through simulations (which the community is already doing)) down to roughly 85 to 90% of what they can be when played by the best.

so instead of the actual numbers of 100 for A, 80 for B and 70 for C.
we end up with what looks like 100 for A, 70 for B and 50 for C.

now, we can see that class X spec A is pretty much in the same ball park as "most other classes" meaning we only have to focus on class X.

so what would we need to make sure we get spec B & C in line with spec A.

DATA, lots of it, and it needs to be as accurate as possible.

how would we get this data?

there's a few ways to go about this.
some work faster but are also drastic while others are safer yet slower.

if we want quick and effective data we need to make spec B & C more attractive compared to spec A.
using the theoretical numbers we have for spec B & C, and some common sense, we can quickly, yet roughly, buff their theoretical numbers to 90 - 95 leaving a margin for error. which might cause their actual numbers to look more like 110 or even 120 if played by the high skilled players playing spec A at the time.
DO NOT touch A in the mean time. leave it, as it is the baseline to which we'll mirror B & C.
we pass these buffed numbers onto the community on a separate instance of the game, the PTR in this case. and let them run wild with it, generating new, more accurate data quickly.

if for some reason the PTR isn't generating enough data on class X, spec B &/or C we need to make testing class X more interesting, there's multiple ways to go about this, which include, but aren't limited to:
specifically requesting the testing of class X spec B & C through official channels.
rewarding the testing of class X spec B & C, both by players of class X spec B & C as well as participants who help the testing of Class X with other classes (group content etc.)
actually approaching the top end players of class X spec A and requesting/inviting them to help balance spec B & C. (valuing their input)

we keep tabs on this and jump right on to it the moment it seems to get out of hand and numbers actually start reaching 120 and above.
when this happens swiftly knock it down a peg to be more in line but still more powerful than A.

keep fine tuning this through a set testing period until B & C are close enough to A to be safe for full scale implementation.

that is basically my very broad 2 cent's on this theoretical scenario.

however, this in no way begins to scratch the surface of the difficulty of class balancing in WoW.

to do that, we need to look at a lot more than just DPS output of 1 class's 3 different specs.
we also need to account for:
skill floor
skill ceiling
class type
class resources
class to class output
DPS type
player preference
encounter type
encounter availability
and a myriad of other things.

data on some of these is more readily available than others but this might impact the overal data in some way.

the only thing i can say with 100% certainty is that class to class balance shouldn't be as skewed as it was/is and should be relatively easy to fix with overall buff/nerfs to output instead of specifically buffing/nerfing 1 spell, completely changing the internal structure of the effected class in the process.
fire mages hard casting flame strike on single target fights because pyro-blast was nerfed into the floor, is a severe lack of oversight on the people responsible for said nerfs/buffs.

[Baine]

celestalon can suck a dick just because ruined enhance rotation which has zero synergy

You know, even if you disagree with what his team did (they destroyed frost dk for me), there is a way to express complaint. Disagreeing does not justify shittly language like yours.