Page 6 of 7 FirstFirst ...
4
5
6
7
LastLast
  1. #101
    Deleted
    Fushio, this is where my mind is split too, since I don't exactly have a clue yet how rated battlegrounds will work yet, nor if Blizzard will change anything about the ress timers.
    Personally I believe that the small scale battles will have a huge effect on the match outcome, hence I think it's a good thing that external profession made tools wont be useable in rated battlegrounds. However I could very likely be wrong, which is why I understand your point of view, and why you believe that rated battlegrounds should be treated differently than arenas.

  2. #102
    Catering to the Arena players. This sucks,

  3. #103
    Deleted
    Fushio effectively explains to us why these items cannot be allowed in competitive battlegrounds.

    Why you ask?

    Because different classes have different strengths and weaknesses. Having a sprint ability sacrifices another ability, e.g. a druid clears snares when shapeshifting, while a shamans Ghost Wolf prevents snares from lowering his movement below 100%. Paladins have Hand of Freedom, and one of the specs now also have a small sprint ability. A good team can chose to combine the paladins Hand of Freedom on another players sprint ability, cleverly utilizing and meshing class abilities to achieve goals.

    Now imagine everyone is having these abilities. If homogenization is truly what you want, then you wont have a problem with this, but if you want to maintain a balanced, competitive gameplay with focus on teamplay, you will understand why these changes are necessary.

    And please pay attention to the fact that the slacky gameplay you encounter in todays battlegrounds isn't remotely close to the level you will find in rated battlegrounds. Things are gonna change into several small arena matches, with different brackets playing even and uneven showdown matches all over the battlefield. It's not gonna be todays slaughter, mass grouping and farming you see today.

  4. #104
    Quote Originally Posted by Funkthepunk View Post
    Fushio, this is where my mind is split too, since I don't exactly have a clue yet how rated battlegrounds will work yet, nor if Blizzard will change anything about the ress timers.
    Personally I believe that the small scale battles will have a huge effect on the match outcome, hence I think it's a good thing that external profession made tools wont be useable in rated battlegrounds. However I could very likely be wrong, which is why I understand your point of view, and why you believe that rated battlegrounds should be treated differently than arenas.
    Small scale battles? Really? I think that is highly connected to which BG you are fighting in. In WSG the composition of your team will be as important if not more important than in arena. Objectives can play out differently. Either they reduce the importance of class composition or they increase the importance of it. You should know this. BG's have been affected by arena too much. Look at AV. Look at the flag debuff in WSG. Purely associated with resilience and healers, that debuff. In part it has been a good thing, but arenas have had one horrible effect on PvP'ers. We've been taken out of the actual game. We used to have PvP factions, etc. Professions are a part of the game and as someone said: fail to prepare and you earn your loss (at least in regard to FAP's). I do however recognize that FAP would need to be nerfed by at least 2/3rds.

    The worst effect of balancing things around arena (deathmatch) is the effect it might have on PvE and game content. To me, Professions are becomming increasingly the same, increasingly boring to pick. Engineering kind of stood out a bit, but for the most part they are pretty similar (moar stats plz). The second evil is the way PvP'ers distance themselves from everyone but their arena team members. Deathmatch based combat in WoW is basicly bad for rating purposes. No offense. When you then throw objectives into the mix you can either go to the better or the worse depending on which BG. In the case of WSG, I'd claim the worse! It will be even more class reliant. I will laugh my ass off when the day comes that shifting could get a cooldown of 6 seconds, because someone can't reapply hamstering, infected wounds or charge. In arena there was less space for letting some classes having unique abilities that were difficult to counter. In rated BG's there is more room for this. Because the effect of these abilities will differenciate in importance depending on the situation and the BG far more than in a standard deathmatch. (aka: the maps have much more to say and a class can be strong in one while weak in another. Nerfs based on performance in one BG related to a unique skill could have bad consequences in other BG's.)

    I wonder how it will play out. But you can't really say that you should treat a deatmatch the same as a objective based environment. The ironic thing is that with the removal of 25 man BG's we will be moving far closer towards arenas in term of class composition again. That is obvious to anyone who's done BG's and know simple math. The less the numbers the more important the classes chosen. Which means that we might see even further homogenization of classes. Despite the focus going towards BG's.

    Despite this, yes, BG's should be treated different. BG's are a massive theme about the conflict of the Horde and the Alliance. It is game content on a scale that outweights arena. Which is why Blizzard decided it was healthy to focus on it again. The theme is warfare, and in warfare you use the tools you have. Be it rocketboots or not. They are annoying abilities but easily balanced. They could have been, Blizzard decides not to. This has nothing to do with arena representing what is right, but everything to do with Blizzard being too lazy to balance out professions in a proper way.

    /end of debate

    Professions are as external as the gear your wear. Your character design. It is not irrelevant if you choose hit or crit at one point. Nor should it be so. It should however be possible to pick between professions without feeling gimped since you did not pick engineering. Hence the mature solution would be to tweak the professions. As I have stated before. Professions, class skills, itemization are all factors in your character's performance. What possible reasonable argument can there be for leaving profession out of the factor? None. Nor is that what Blizzard is trying, but they are trying to get away without putting in an effort in it by simply homogenizing professions towards pure stats. And make that the relevant effect in PvP for all professions. It's a bit boring, and not in consistence with the ideology of professions such as Alchemy (FAP, mana potions, etc.) and Engineering. Balance is effecting content a bit too much then, seeing as this game never has been and never will be remotely balanced.

    Summary: Blizzard is slowly killing the unique traits of professions (the fucking reason for having them in the first place) for the sake of PvP balance? That is a loss of content. That is not good. Not when the very idea of a profession like engineering is to be creative, to use gadgets, to be more "on use" oriented. It reeks of boredom. I personally find rocket boots to be one of the more balanced, yet unique profession abilities currently in-game. It also scales with skill in terms of knowing how to use it. That will be a small loss of fun content in PvP for me.

    We're playing rock, paper, siccors. Blizzard wants it to be more focused on our hands and hide our leering faces behind big screens, to take away creative trickery.

    Maybe things would end up differently if professions weren't another way of stacking stats..
    Last edited by Atelniar; 2010-11-13 at 03:16 AM.
    There is common sense and ignorance. Choose one and accept the consequences.

  5. #105
    Old God Swizzle's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Washington, D.C.
    Posts
    10,445
    Let me ask everyone a question: which arena season would you say was the most balanced?
    BfA Beta Time

  6. #106
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Swizzle View Post
    Let me ask everyone a question: which arena season would you say was the most balanced?
    At least we can agree that the LEAST balanced season were s5 were rocket boots and various potions and the like were useable.

  7. #107
    Old God Swizzle's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Washington, D.C.
    Posts
    10,445
    Quote Originally Posted by Berkan View Post
    At least we can agree that the LEAST balanced season were s5 were rocket boots and various potions and the like were useable.
    You could use engineering perks in TBC, they were all just actual items and not enchants. Basically, if anyone says s1-s5 was more balanced than s6-s8, then they can't complain about engineering in rated BGs.
    BfA Beta Time

  8. #108
    The biggest reason for later seasons being more (read: more specs being viable) "balanced" lies within class philosophy and the dedication that was put into that tbh. At least that's my view on it.

    This goes for both TBC and Wrath. Professions have a minimal effect. It's called min/maxing your character.

    And one of the more balanced seasons I can remember must be in TBC I think. When arena was past the initial surge of players wanting to get free epics, yet still at the height of its popularity. Which was in s2-s4? First season is usually the worst.

    Also: rocketboots wasn't the reason s5 was imbalanced.. not imo.
    Last edited by Atelniar; 2010-11-14 at 04:00 AM.
    There is common sense and ignorance. Choose one and accept the consequences.

  9. #109
    Quote Originally Posted by fushio View Post
    As opposed to other professions, engineering does not give passive bonuses that are always active, it give tools, skills that must be used and managed. If you choose engineering over other professions, you are giving up stat bonuses the other profession provide in exchange for these tools, and even then, you must use your head to make them useful, as opposed to other profs "equip and forget" stats. As you say, there is no reason to only make one profession viable, but is also true that there is no reason to make a specific profession non-viable, just because its perk does not works in the same way as the other professions do.

    My point in the other post was that each tool engineering provides (and the two potions) is a (bad) duplicate or a very limited variation of a tool already provided by a class or race, and not in any way an advantage exclusive to engineers (or people that are willing to farm consumables for pvp).

    Maybe I forgot to completely explain myself in my previous post, so I will elaborate it now:

    In arenas there is a limitation to certain abilities and objects. This limitation is based in the nature of arenas, short combats between two team of players with few members. In these high-pressure environment, certain advantages provided by abilities and items become hard to balance, mainly because that extra power, extra health or extra speed could be the difference between survival and death. And in arena, death is game over.
    In BGs, death is less a penalty than a hindrance. You die, and 30 seconds after that (or less) you will return to the match. Any advantage your slayer gained with the use of items, tinkers of whatever cooldown he or she blowed will be probably be in CD the next time he or she needs it. That is the nature of the game.
    In summary, even while I must admit that these tools give an advantage in a small scale combat, in a BG, were victory is achieved by objectives, and individual combat prowess and personal win ratio is much less important, the advantage provided by items and tinkers decreases greatly, and, in the same way, so do the reasons to ban their use. This is my reason to oppose to the application of arena restrictions to rated BGs.
    And this is researched from Cata perspective? Cogwheels are going to give excellent passive increases. Several eng items will still be usable. See pyro rocket in wotlk. Let engineers use all of their items and they basically have some of the best talents from almost every class in Cata. Extra interrupt, 20k damage shield, invisibility, sprint, off the gcd damage, slow fall, mc. Pretty sure that's not really fair but if they decide to allow it all top teams will be full of engineers.

  10. #110
    Old God Swizzle's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Washington, D.C.
    Posts
    10,445
    Quote Originally Posted by Atelniar View Post
    The biggest reason for later seasons being more (read: more specs being viable) "balanced" lies within class philosophy and the dedication that was put into that tbh. At least that's my view on it.

    This goes for both TBC and Wrath. Professions have a minimal effect. It's called min/maxing your character.

    And one of the more balanced seasons I can remember must be in TBC I think. When arena was past the initial surge of players wanting to get free epics, yet still at the height of its popularity. Which was in s2-s4? First season is usually the worst.

    Also: rocketboots wasn't the reason s5 was imbalanced.. not imo.
    It wasn't, but it did lead to some frustration on the part of people without them since they would, especially on BEM, let you avoid death and everything. In a death match type game, yes, I can see them causing issues (not as much as my much loved Nigh Invulnerability Belt, but still).

    The reason they were changed from items to enchants is, and I kid you not, that Blizzard didn't like their epics that they worked sooooooooooo hard to design and itemize being ignored for more favorable BLUE (yes, engieering items were blue back in the day) quality items.

    For me, the tail end of s3 and the pre-4 piece/4piece period of s4 were the most balanced arena seasons. Everything before and after was just a cleave fest.
    BfA Beta Time

  11. #111
    Quote Originally Posted by Berkan View Post
    Fushio effectively explains to us why these items cannot be allowed in competitive battlegrounds.

    Why you ask?

    Because different classes have different strengths and weaknesses. Having a sprint ability sacrifices another ability, e.g. a druid clears snares when shapeshifting, while a shamans Ghost Wolf prevents snares from lowering his movement below 100%. Paladins have Hand of Freedom, and one of the specs now also have a small sprint ability. A good team can chose to combine the paladins Hand of Freedom on another players sprint ability, cleverly utilizing and meshing class abilities to achieve goals.

    Now imagine everyone is having these abilities. If homogenization is truly what you want, then you wont have a problem with this, but if you want to maintain a balanced, competitive gameplay with focus on teamplay, you will understand why these changes are necessary.

    And please pay attention to the fact that the slacky gameplay you encounter in todays battlegrounds isn't remotely close to the level you will find in rated battlegrounds. Things are gonna change into several small arena matches, with different brackets playing even and uneven showdown matches all over the battlefield. It's not gonna be todays slaughter, mass grouping and farming you see today.
    My objective was to explain that you can easily create a team where at least half of their members have an equivalent or improved version of ability each discussed tinker or items provides, only combining the existent classes and races, and still maintain abalance in your team. Items and tinkers do not add nothing new to the scene, nor they change this fact. And if you talk about homogenization, i can say it is way worse than that if you are forced to use certain classes over anothers because they perform worse, o do not have the require tools. Items and tinkers do not replace these abiliites, because, as I have noted several times, are suportive tools, very poor substitutes of original skills, and their usefulness (and the number of times they can be used) is much more limited, in the best of cases.

    Quote Originally Posted by rtjason View Post
    And this is researched from Cata perspective? Cogwheels are going to give excellent passive increases. Several eng items will still be usable. See pyro rocket in wotlk. Let engineers use all of their items and they basically have some of the best talents from almost every class in Cata. Extra interrupt, 20k damage shield, invisibility, sprint, off the gcd damage, slow fall, mc. Pretty sure that's not really fair but if they decide to allow it all top teams will be full of engineers.
    Several facts about the new (and some of the old) tinkers:
    -The cogwheels are NOT stat enhancement. They only work with the engineering googles, and they allow you to customize the secondary stats of the googles (the googles have not defaul secondary stats, and no "normal" gem slots other than the meta gem slot). In adition, no one of the helms, nor the cogwheels, sport resilience. They are pve pieces, not pvp.
    -The "extra interrupt" is not a targeted attack, is a targeted area attack. You activate it and must place the targeting grid (a really small one, by the way) at your target's feet. Then wait for the projectile to reach his target in time for an interrupt (has a small travel time, like silencing shot). Here is a video.
    -The shield is not 20k, is 16k-19k. Considering the amounts of HP players will be sporting at 85 in pvp gear, the amount absorbed will be rather small. The effect do not scale with stats, and the cooldown is 5 minutes. And read this thread first post about possible malfunctions.
    -The invisibility is usable only out of combat, and have a (low) chance to fail. When it fails, you see the world as when you gain an invisibility effect, but you are still visible(info from wowhead users comments). 5 minutes cooldown.
    -Off GCD damage: 4320 to 5280 nature damage every 2 minutes. Useful for adding a bit of dps in a pve fight, but against players, with cata HP pools and resilience...hardly noticeable.
    -The MC tinker : CD of 10 minutes. Can back fire of several forms:from a simple fail to having you become the targets pet, and also, some times, you and the target became stunned for 10 seconds before it works (or malfunction) (info from wowhead users comments). Pet classes must dismiss their pets before hand or it will not work at all.
    -Slow fall and sprint pros and cons were discussed in previous posts.

    Also:
    -The shield, the mc tinker and the invisibility one are all belt tinkers now. You can wear one only of them. Having multiple belts in the bags does not work, they all share a CD.
    -Belt enchant and boot enchants (the nitro boost is the only one for now) share a CD. You use a belt tinker and put the boots and a 5-10 minutes CD, you use the boots and put the belt tinker you are currently using in a 3 minutes CD.

    Engineering is not as easy and powerful and some may think, requires some brain to use, and you must be willing to take risks. Take that in account please.

    .....

    After replying to those posts, I think it is necessary to note a difference between battlefields and arenas.
    Arenas are all about a fair fight, where both teams start on equal terms, have access to some information about their opponents before hand, and victory is determined by the last team standing rule. Once you die, you die. Is all about pure competition,finesse and skill, and the restrictions imposed by its rules are a necessary evil to preserve that spirit of competition and the equality between opponents.
    In battlegrounds, fight is not fair. You can expect that there will be a rogue waiting for you to be in low health and without cooldowns to ambush you. You cannot expect a lone defender to remain alone for long. You cannot even expect your opponent to stay dead when you kill him. Strength in numbers, no lone heroes, is the law. You are gonna be in disadvantage many, many times. You are gonna die many, many times. And everyone will use every type of advantage they can get, and expect the same from theyr opponents. That's is the philosophy behind battlegrounds.
    They are way too different games to put the two under the same rules.
    Last edited by fushio; 2010-11-14 at 11:57 AM. Reason: Typos

  12. #112
    They should allow it imo :/.

  13. #113
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by fushio View Post
    That's is the philosophy behind battlegrounds.
    You said what needs to be said here again. Battlegrounds philosophy.

    However these are Rated. Rated means competitive, and competitive requires equal footing, fairness and less FOTM.
    This is a game, not a real war.

  14. #114
    Bah i always loved bubble-rocketboots to get away in battlegrounds.
    "Seeping crest of turbidity, arrogant vessel of lunacy.
    Boil forth and deny, grow numb and flicker, disrupting sleep.
    Crawling queen of iron, eternally self-destructing doll of mud.
    Unite, repulse. Fill with soil and know your own powerlessness."


    Primera - Elemental Shaman - <Vedo La Gente Morta> - Pozzo dell'Eternità IT

  15. #115
    You could use engineering perks in TBC, they were all just actual items and not enchants. Basically, if anyone says s1-s5 was more balanced than s6-s8, then they can't complain about engineering in rated BGs.
    No one in his/her right mind will say that though. While the TBC seasons where probably the most exciting, since arena was new, they were imbalanced as fuck, and only a Paladin, hunter or DK would try to argue that S5 was the most balanced season.

    Personally I think S7 was the most balanced season.

    Also Fushio is clearly wrong. Just because a pot/perk allows you to gain something another class has doesn't mean its fine. A prot Warrior flag carrier using a free action potion isn't fine just because Shamans in ghostwolf are immune to slows aswell and Druids can shift out of it.

  16. #116
    Quote Originally Posted by Berkan View Post
    You said what needs to be said here again. Battlegrounds philosophy.

    However these are Rated. Rated means competitive, and competitive requires equal footing, fairness and less FOTM.
    This is a game, not a real war.
    Yet, it is a simulation of the "war" between the Horde and Alliance. Arena was not. While I see your point about fairness and equal footing, your point about less FOTM is not connected to professions at all. Large scale team play and positioning counters the "on use" items easily. Objectives either raise or lower the class composition factor depending on the number of players. FOTM will live and breathe mostly in WSG, Twilight Peaks and SotA

    As for the rest of my post, it is easily skipped and summarized in the italic paragraph beneath.

    You won't have 100% balance, not possible as long as classes are unique. The game would be boring if homogenization won through completely. Very boring. Rated BG's will have its FOTM setups as well, it's inevitable unless Blizzard will for the first time in history get a somewhat "balanced" opening season. We all know that has never happened so far, and the likelyhood of it happening now is slim. In the mix of it all these items would do nothing to balance. Since anyone serious about rated BG's would prepare for it. The reason the changes are implemented is not balance so much as a contrivancy to make it easier on less organized guilds/groups or smaller guilds/groups.

    Jewelcrafting will probably sweep the floor yet again with every other profession, as it does in arena. And if one was to look at that, one would realize that you are only picking this route because "on use" items are more effective in the hands of well prepared teams and players and would cause great grief for smaller teams. Blizzard therefore decided that "creative" items are to be replaced by stats completely in BG's as well. Make no mistake, you still want to go Engi/JC'ing. Nothing changes. JC'ing still offer the greatest variation of stats or customization. Engineering also offer some stats but in addition to this not all "on use" items will be banned completely by the looks of it.

    It is about putting a stop to those items that are simply too effective in the hands of a good team. Are we really talking about balance? Everyone has access to this if they go for PvP fully and surely a more skilled team will win either way? "On use" items are more about skill than what stats are. Because they scale with the player using it. Class/spec synergy matters in an arena environment because of the limited number of players. In a rated BG there is enough people to counter the way some of these "on use" items scale with certain classes through good positioning (yea, I'm talking football language). In movement based game, positioning is key. Arena, BG's, any real life sport. This is true, and it can not be denied. Not because I say so, but because it is a well known fact!

    Blizzard has clearly catered to 10-15 player BG's. (the more manageable mass which allows as many as possible to play rated BG's). Popularity. It's easier. It is easier to ban "on use" items to level out the playing field between PvE and PvP oriented professions/players. This is to level out the playing field between those that are dedicated and those who are not so fully dedicated. They've been doing the same in PvE for all of Wrath. In PvP it will have less effect on the state of the game than it ever did in PvE (game content really dropped in quality in dungeons, etc).

    In the end, this change is made to make rated BG's more accessable. Let's stop talking about balance, for it could have been solved by nerfing the "on use" abilities and as for Professions? Don't be daft. People will still go for Engineering/JC'ing by the looks of things right now. It will just be less grinding and farming. It's still imbalanced, professions will still be key in min/maxing. Just in a more boring way: stats.
    Last edited by Atelniar; 2010-11-14 at 09:33 PM.
    There is common sense and ignorance. Choose one and accept the consequences.

  17. #117
    Old God Swizzle's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Washington, D.C.
    Posts
    10,445
    Quote Originally Posted by Naraga View Post
    No one in his/her right mind will say that though. While the TBC seasons where probably the most exciting, since arena was new, they were imbalanced as fuck, and only a Paladin, hunter or DK would try to argue that S5 was the most balanced season.

    Personally I think S7 was the most balanced season.

    Also Fushio is clearly wrong. Just because a pot/perk allows you to gain something another class has doesn't mean its fine. A prot Warrior flag carrier using a free action potion isn't fine just because Shamans in ghostwolf are immune to slows aswell and Druids can shift out of it.
    End of S3 and pre-4 piece/4 piece S4 were the most balanced arena seasons since everyone could kill anyone else IF they outplayed them, not due to lolderp burst.

    The thing I don't get is why Parachute Cloak is overpowered when all it takes is one mage to make an entire team over powered.
    BfA Beta Time

  18. #118
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Swizzle View Post
    End of S3 and pre-4 piece/4 piece S4 were the most balanced arena seasons since everyone could kill anyone else IF they outplayed them, not due to lolderp burst.

    The thing I don't get is why Parachute Cloak is overpowered when all it takes is one mage to make an entire team over powered.
    I do believe Parachute Cloak will remain active in Rated Battlegrounds. It was never removed from arena and a slow fall is not a game breaker the same way rocket boots or mind control cap will be.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •