Will we ever character balance in WoW again?

[Tomana]

You mean like diablo 3?

Diablo III was not buggy. Sure you may disagree with the metagame, and it is your choice, but it was nowhere as buggy as, say, POE.

[snackfeat]

Diablo III was not buggy. Sure you may disagree with the metagame, and it is your choice, but it was nowhere as buggy as, say, POE.

Bullshit. It was buggy as hell in many ways, and their "release when it's ready" was bullshit as well since it released with half the promised features missing.

Not to mention that the game had console written all over it right from the start despite blizzard saying that their main goal was to make a pc game and then later see if it could work for consoles.

[The One Percent]

This game has never had class balance. You will never have class balance in a MMORPG as long as most spells and abilities function the same against players as they do against NPCs. They must be balanced separately.

[tauntor]

It occurred to me, with the release of the ability to buy level 90 characters, that it is not in Blizzard's interest to balance the game. Having a flavor of the month or overpowered class could generate millions of dollars for them.

Just think of it, Monks are overpowered in January. Everyone who does not have one goes out and buys a monk. Blizzard nerfs monks in February and super buffs hunters. Everyone goes out and buys a hunter, etc. and the process continues.

It is even more worrisome when you consider that they have specifically stated that they want to put in character specific encounters into mythic raiding. Could these just merely be used to generate extra revenue and not to make the game more interesting?

Im going to out gear your new monk 10 fold and slaughter it with my mediocre (insert class here) Fully geared character that ive been playing for months and know inside and out. People will FOTM reroll though. It just will be futile.

[SlippyCheeze]

Im going to out gear your new monk 10 fold and slaughter it with my mediocre (insert class here) Fully geared character that ive been playing for months and know inside and out. People will FOTM reroll though. It just will be futile.

I am much more entertained by the idea that the spread of damage from "lowest" to "highest" on the DPS totem pole will in some way result in FoTM rerolls stomping over anyone, ever. I mean, looking at WoL "all parses" over the last month, the difference in median DPS between the top and bottom DPS class is ~ 100k, or 30 percent of the damage. That includes people who are literally world-beating, cheezing the meters, in BiS gear from the end of the tier. The top classes also tend to show 1.5 to 2 times the standard deviation of the lower ranked classes...

That relationship is preserved pretty well going up the charts through the percentiles too, so if you consider the end-game you are talking literally thirty percent different at most. That is not a huge divergence, and something that slightly less good gear, or play, would reasonably make up. Heck, I don't even come close to half my PvE potential in a PvP situation, and I blame that squarely on skill.

[Tomana]

Bullshit. It was buggy as hell in many ways, and their "release when it's ready" was bullshit as well since it released with half the promised features missing.

Except the server problems at the start, it was not that buggy.
Also, the original question was about thinking long-term. And they did, by changing the game progressively. They didn't release Diablo 4, 5, 6 and 7 straight after like some franchises do.
On the other hand, Blizzard was always fixing the games up from an initial quite crappy version that's for sure. D2 classic was crap, SC vanilla was crap, WoW vanilla was crap. All of them required several patches and expansions to make an awesome game. But they managed that.

Not to mention that the game had console written all over it right from the start despite blizzard saying that their main goal was to make a pc game and then later see if it could work for consoles.

Oh my God, a company wants to maximize its market? Call the whambulance!

[Deleted]

No, we won't have a balanced PvP game because there's 20-30 something specs in the game.

There has NEVER been perfect balance in this game and there never will be. But Blizzard is not purposely making the game unbalanced to encourage lvl 90 boosting. They set the price at 60 bucks to AVOID mass boosting.

[dryankem]

I don't understand this logic. The long term viability is to keep as many people as possible playing/paying, even a 1 year subscription is worth about 3 times a single boost. You can see that is blizzards design (homegizing classes, points caps, rep grinds, legendary cloak, etc...), the longer you play the more they make.

Plus most people have X level 90s now anyways, I only have 3 classes sub 85 and one will be boosted in WoD. That's more toons then I realistically have time to play, hence why 3 are decently geared but the remainder get leveled and then collect dust.

Come WoD, if you want FoTM you can purchase said class, level from 90-100 and then start the gearing process. It's far from an instant FoTM, especially considering someone could save themselves $60 and just take the extra 2-4 weeks to level it themselves (in the off chance they don't already have that class at a decent level).

- - - Updated - - -

No, we won't have a balanced PvP game because there's 20-30 something specs in the game.

There has NEVER been perfect balance in this game and there never will be. But Blizzard is not purposely making the game unbalanced to encourage lvl 90 boosting. They set the price at 60 bucks to AVOID mass boosting.

^^^^ Ixuzcc hit the nail on the head.

[Verain]

It occurred to me, with the release of the ability to buy level 90 characters, that it is not in Blizzard's interest to balance the game. Having a flavor of the month or overpowered class could generate millions of dollars for them.

While Blizzard can never achieve perfect balance, and they don't just mess with things to generate money, AND a level 90 isn't the same as a geared level 100...

I still think you have a bit of a point here. I'm sure they don't intend it, but the fact is, if Blizzard generates profit from fotm, then they will ultimately do more of that because it is incentivized, even if that is never their intention (and it isn't).