Dev Watercooler -- Critical Hits (And Misses)

[paloalto]

Do you have any idea how long it takes for simple napkin ideas to turn into an idea that is put into the game?

Poor guy

[Rioo]

Once again just a bunch of bullshit.

"This game is broken beyond recognition and we know why, but instead of doing anything we'll wait until the next expansion which won't be out for 2-3 years. But hey, at least we're talking about it".

[Gerti]

I love how Ghostcrawler mock whiners

"This was back when all the designers presumably played rogues instead of mages, which according to the forums is what we all play now (which makes our dungeon testing interesting, I gotta tell you.)"

[Phaidrae]

Healers do not like randomness. Crits are random. I would rather every heal heal for 25% more than 25% of heals heal for 100% more.

This is the same reason procs that don't regenerate mana aren't fun for healers. They add a level to the game that healers don't want, that we don't have any control over--the thing healers want is control.

This is the exact opposite of what good healers want. We want MORE control, not less.

Heh, I couldn't agree more on the control part. They need to seriously sit back and re-evaluate how badly they've fucked up healing. Honestly. I love it that (at times) I can put a full set of HoTs on someone (main toon is a healy druid) and then spam Nourish or Healing Touch and essentially watch the tanks health NOT MOVE and watch my mana bar drain like a leaky faucet.

I enjoy the fact that they made healing a more "on your toes" role...but there are so many instances I've run across where healing is just so ineffective that it's mind-boggling.

[Freese]

These Dev Watercoolers and "Ask the Devs!" stuff are so open-ended and vague that it's obvious they are just doing it to keep the interest of those who don't really already know this in the first place. They don't say anything ground breaking and they don't share anything new that a decent player could think of himself. They try to show their knowledge of the game by mentioning that they know where Boomkins and SPriests get their passive damage from, but aside from that, there was nothing worthwhile reading in this post. Waste of time, just trying to make it seem like the developers haven't abandoned this game, which, the A team has.

No. Maybe it doesn't pertain to YOU per se, but it does concern other people who play the game.

[vizzle]

If they spent as much time actually implementing changes and experimenting with numbers as they do jacking off at the watercooler we'd have an amazing game again.

[Rennadrel]

Ghostcrawler is an idiot. Class homogenization has been the design method since Wrath came out, and it's now to the point where classes are so close to being similar the only difference is ability names and one or two spells that other classes have. This is especially true for melee classes, feral druids and rogues have always used the same resource systems and similar styles of combat techniques, in fact there isn't much that really separates rogues from cat druids aside from a couple of abilities, and more of the fact that feral druids can shape shift and cast healing spells. Plate classes are worse though, Retribution is basically a lousy cop out to what the original design of Retribution was in Burning Crusade and again a redesign in Wrath, personally I feels more unique now, it's still requires far too much micro managing and while I don't think it should be a complete face roll spec, other classes should get the same treatment otherwise change Ret back to the way it was in 3.0. Most classes don't really have anything unique about them and most can gear in a similar way, unlike in Burning Crusade when Protection Paladins used spell power swords to tank and intellect was used by both Enhance Shamans and Retribution Paladins :P

[Schizoide]

I am not saying that GC's blogs are bad because they are not a litany of specific class changes a la class notes. It's because everything he writes is completely predictable, devoid of any controversy whatsoever, and essentially meaningless as far as advancing our understanding of where they want the game to go. The whole thing reeks of consulting a publicist, under the auspices of a blog.

Really? I had no idea they were considering setting healing crits to 200% or increasing the mortal strike debuff in 4.1. How did you know about that stuff?

[loop not defined]

This game is broken beyond recognition...

This comment is an example of why I tend to avoid WoW forums these days. Rampant lack of perspective, although I think the word "lack" is a huge understatement.

---------- Post added 2011-04-19 at 10:53 AM ----------

If they spent as much time actually implementing changes and experimenting with numbers as they do jacking off at the watercooler we'd have an amazing game again.

Because player opinions shouldn't ever be factored into game design, right? The Dev Watercooler blogs are more about getting people focused on topics Blizzard wants input on.

[Freese]

Once again just a bunch of bullshit.

"This game is broken beyond recognition and we know why, but instead of doing anything we'll wait until the next expansion which won't be out for 2-3 years. But hey, at least we're talking about it".

Add this to another list of statements I've heard over the past six years now. Moving along....

[Dacomp89]

Three quick points --

1. You don't know anything about how I think about anything, so as far as I'm concerned, this is just troll bait.

2. The fact that you keep insisting that I'm "concerned with superficial changes" means that you have essentially zero comprehension of the criticism I'm making.

3. "If you don't like it, ignore it" is a patently-misused conversation-destroyer misused in the context in which you're using it. This is a valid argument when it comes to censorship by an institution of political power. But to claim as you are that readers/watchers of a piece of media have no right to criticize it is patently absurd.

I can derive from your posts how you think, that is the essence of how a discussion works. What you say is based on what you think, unless of course you are simply trolling? Am I the one falling for troll bait? This is my first post on this topic so I don't know what you're talking about. You might want to read his point #3, "No whining about the choice of topics we cover." Just because you don't find his posts interesting doesn't mean no one else will, or are you so arrogant as to think that? Pray tell, what issue would you like him to cover? And would you be satisfied with just his thoughts on the matter, which he clearly states is as far as his blog will go, or would you demand to see him provide concrete changes with a timeline on when they will be implemented into the game? You clearly desire more than he is willing to provide and he has no obligation to provide inside details on WoW development, as clearly individuals less wise than yourself would greatly misconstrue them as facts and promises. With your great insight surely you can understand the predicament he is in? And yet you demand more. Of course you are free to do so, I hope you have fun in your exercise in futility.

[Sarevokcz]

This is the dev watercooler. It's supposed to give players a window on what the devs are talking about this week, not <<nerfs/buffs to your class>>.

I've been enjoying these watercoolers and blog posts a great deal. They're a huge improvement over the total lack of communication we had before.

Yeah, well, when all I get from these posts is usual "We completely overlooked this issue in in beta and before 4.0.6, but it was totally intentional!" Are they trying to tell me that enha shaman is supposed to scale that bad with 2 out of 3 noncap secondary stats?

It's the same as the 10vs25 blog...

[Azrile]

You find what he talks about meaningless because you do not think about the game as deeply as he does. You are concerned with superficial changes, he is concerned with how the whole game interacts in itself. If you do not think his watercooler blog is useful then ignore it, he doesn't do it for you, he does it to provide some insight into how a game is run and developed.

If poisons crit for 200% damage and mutilate gets nerfed by 10%..... is the game more fun?
If enchance get 200% crit LBs and stormstrike is nerfed by 10%.... is the game more fun?

The fact is, 5 minutes after they make these changes, nothing really matters. They will then have to spend a month trying to rebalance everything to deal with the increased damage of these new 200% crits. But in the end, is the game more fun?

They spend far to much time talking and thinking about these ´deep´issues and are not adding enough FUN things to the game. These issues are not ´deep, they are negligible issues.

I think GC is too caught up in spreadsheets and needs to step back like the original designers and constantly ask ´does this make the game more fun?´ 200% crit poisons and 10% nerf to mutilate does not make the game more fun, no matter how ´deep´it s.

[Amerika]

Why are they considering buffing MS? That's just stupid. If they want to buff MS to help counter healing that means every comp would need MS again or else they would be relegated to a weaker status than they are now. Not to mention some of the strongest classes right now are warriors, hunters and rogues...all with MS.

The odd thing is I don't think healing is that OP. I play RBG's and arena at high ratings and people die quickly in 3's and 5's and it really doesn't take that long to kill a flag carrier in RBG's despite almost every team running 4 healers (3 of them on D with the FC + a dps, rest on O typically but not always). Sometimes we have to wait for one stack of the vulnerability debuff on the FC if they are running a heavy D but that doesn't take very long to get up.

Sometimes I don't think Blizzard plays the same game we do. And if they think buffing MS is going to fix a non-existent problem then I really don't think they are paying much attention.

[Cacodaemon]

One suggestion that might bear some weight; have crits for your main role at 200%, and other crits at 150%. For example, an Elemental Shaman would toss offensive spells with 200% crit effect, but healing at 150% crit effect. For a Restoration Shaman, those would reverse; healing would have a 200% crit effect, and damage spells would have 150% crit effect.

Essentially, DPS abilities would crit at 200% for DPS-focused specs. Healing abilities would crit at 200% for healing-focused specs. A healer's DPS abilities would crit at 150%, and a DPSer's healing abilities would crit at 150%.

This sort of change would reinforce distinction of roles, but remove some (seemingly) unnecessary artifacts of the original design.

[Schizoide]

They aren't negligible, they're concrete design concerns. The end effect on experienced players is minimal, you're right about that, but setting all crits to 200% makes the game easier to balance, gear easier to itemize, and gameplay more intuitive and thus newbie-friendly.

Not every change is buff/nerf <<your class here>> or content changes. Deeper mechanics changes matter, and some of us find that sort of thing interesting. If you don't, that's fine.

[Snes]

People seem to be on either extreme here:
-Total Blizzard fanboys, tirelessly devoted to defending and praising each and every change Blizzard makes, including reversions. Usually any form of negative criticism towards Blizzard sets them off on a self-righteous tyrade.
or
-Nonsensical flamers that moan about every potential change, especially when it comes to cosmetic items.

OT; the fact that he tries to convince us that the game isn't becoming homogenized is utterly ridiculous. Oh well, all empires fall eventually, let's hope WoW's dev team become less arrogant and learn from their decisions when it does.

[Asatru]

I love how Ghostcrawler mock whiners

"This was back when all the designers presumably played rogues instead of mages, which according to the forums is what we all play now (which makes our dungeon testing interesting, I gotta tell you.)"

But that's no denial!!!

[Tinykong]

More pvp balancing that is detracting from the real issue plaguing the game (lack of content and "quality of life issues.")

When is Blizzard going to just realize that it's time to make PVP and PVE two completely separate game styles, with different gear and talent trees? As it stands, competitive PVP is all about finding whatever the current spec, item, ability, class or gear that can be used to create some sort of competitive advantage, and exploiting it. Blizzard constantly spends huge amounts of times designing, and redesigning, and retuning the game to work around these "exploits." DPS is too high, let's bump resilience. Now healing is too easy, let's nerf that. Now mortal strike is too effective, let's nerf that. Warrior charge is too powerful, buff escapes. Too many escapes, buff Rogue stuns.

Meanwhile, PVE players are having to endure the constant pendulum swing of class balancing for raiding and grouping. The only way it's going to end is to make the two gameplay choices distinctly separate. And the argument about people being confused is moot: if you want to be competitive in PVP, you can't just roll into an arena as a fresh 85 with quest greens and blues and expect to get a high rating. You have to research your class composition, create/grind a pvp gear set from crafted/BGs, and learn the ins and outs of all the specs in the game and how to counter them. With all that much research and prep going into it already, what's one more talent tree per class?

Every class can dps, only some can heal. With only one "pvp" spec per class, healing/dmg could be tightly controlled through mechanics that would have absolutely no effect on any other facet of the game. That spec would only be viable in a pvp setting, introduce it as the "third" spec that everyone is clamoring for, and be done with it. When you zone into an arena or BG, that spec is activated by default, and since there is already a break between pve/pvp gear (resilience) you could make it non-viable to wear pve gear to pvp and pvp gear to pve. Don't like raiders having access to PVP weapons? Resilience reduces your main stat by 10% in your PVE spec. Same goes for PVE gear in PVP situations, each item slot that isn't PVP itemized reduces your dmg/healing output in PVP spec by some percentage.

[Deleted]

Nooo... having heals be 200% just makes things even more unpredictable than it already is. Healers can't make up a run of bad streak of non-crits in a fight like a dps can. If you get unlucky with crits and the tank dies, then you get to do the encounter over again. If this happens to the dps, then there is still a good chance they can make up lost ground.

Although the thought of more healing for your mana is nice I have to agree with you on the grounds thats its unpredictable and can also lead to over healing making it a lottery.