Tom Chilton Interview, WoWkemon Addon, Blue Posts, Blue Tweets, TCG Art

Poll: Which Follower Accompanies You?, Blue Posts, Demon Hunter Cosplay

Developer Interviews
Today's interview is with Tom Chilton (Lead Game Designer) on ArenaJunkies. A summary of the main points is below, but listening to the full interview is worth it if you want to hear the full answers!


  • Steps are being taken to balance healers, especially Shaman, in PvP. This is being done incrementally to avoid a knee jerk reaction and going too far in one direction. Moving totems back into the schools of magic was one of the changes to bring them more in line.
  • Discipline Priests and Monks will be buffed somewhat to bring them up to par. We should expect to see those changes on the Patch 5.2 PTR soon.
  • War Games will be possible Cross realm at some point in the future when time allows for the change.
  • It may be possible to ban one arena map in the future, similar to the map banning in random battlegrounds.
  • Part of the reason Tol'vir was added was to increase the chance of getting the Nagrand style map. It also is nice to have a change of scenery rather than just getting Nagrand more often.
  • Burst damage is still too high, making healing too high as well. Once burst comes down, the healing can be decreased as well.
  • One of the goals for WoW as an esport is to make it easier to watch. Part of this will be accomplished by making it easier for addon authors to create nice tournament UIs.
  • The DotA style battleground is still on hold, waiting for new tech to be worked on.
  • MMR works pretty well for matching people up, but preventing the exploits that have popped up is difficult when keeping the system balanced for all levels of players. Blizzard will keep watching for exploits and taking appropriate action.
  • WoW was never built from the ground up to be an easy to watch and perfectly balanced eSport, so the improvements that can be made are limited. That being said, Blizzard wants to keep improving things as much as possible.
  • When asked about arena balance: Burst is too high, non burst damage is too low, there are some disparities between the different healers with Shaman / Paladin being good, Druids being okay, and Discipline Priests and Monks lagging a little bit, and the amount of offensive instant cast crowd control being used.
  • Blizzard likes the player run tournaments and is evaluating what they can or should do to support them.
  • PvP Power worked out really well, with players able to use their PvP gear in PvE. Using PvE gear to start PvPing isn't working quite as well, as it was intended to be able to take raid gear and start PvPing without feeling like you were very fragile and dying very quickly.
  • Blizzard likes when the PvP and PvE part of the game operate the same, but is willing to make them work differently to make the game work better.

WoWkemon Addon
Today we are taking a quick look at the WoWkemon addon. It replaces the normal pet battle interface with one that will be familiar to anyone that has played Pokémon before. You can see what it looks like in the video or screenshots below. Another nice addon to use with it is Pet Battle Pokemon Mod, which will add some of the classic Pokémon music to pet battles.





Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Trinket Burst Damage Adjustments
Instead of addressing the strong classes
I just want to point out that this is only one step in a process. We will continue to assess classes and individual abilities and make adjustments as necessary. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Trinket Burst Damage Adjustments
Seems a buff for frost dk's, and if human they can align proc with on use and PoF...
You could say the same for several classes where this will help them to align their trinkets with their damaging abilities more often. However smaller burst every 60 seconds is a lot easier to survive than a much larger burst every two minutes.

The same goes for players that play human, they could take two of these trinkets and cycle them every 30 seconds with their burst abilities. Do not forget though, if a human wants to take advantage of these changed on-use trinkets will need to take two of them and give up the not-nerfed proc trinket.

The idea is good, but what gona happen with the proc trinkets?
I just answered that above for you. At this time we have no plans to be nerfing the proc trinkets, but this may change in the future.

But, an idea would be to increase resilience on the "tweaked" trinkets by; I don't know, maybe 20-25% to make them more attractive compared to PvE trinkets etc.!
We're fairly certain that it's unlikely for players to start using PvE trinkets because they would suffer a significant loss in PvP power and resilience. Do understand that we will be keeping a very close eye on the situation when this hotfix goes live and, if necessary, make the appropriate adjustments where we see they're required. This doesn't mean that the change we make would be to increase the resilience on trinkets like you suggested above, however if we do plan to make further adjustments we will let you know about them. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Updating Old Content
I often wondered why blizzard doesn't take advantage of the content people loved. Sure, new content and raids are fun but how much time would it really take to upgrade Kara to current gear levels.

I mean why in gods name wouldn't you do things like this, the Ony upgrade was great but even now its outdated by two expansions. The scarlet monastery was good but you didn't even have to redesign the dungeon, just leave them as they were.

Can you imagine if Apple decided to completely change the Iphone every release? Sure a few things are changed on each version but the core design, style, and functionality are all there and people still flock to get the latest version. Why is that, its because they have a good thing going.
I'm going to sound a bit like a broken record, so forgive me, but when we are working on updates to the game, we're looking at what works well for the ongoing development of it. Sometimes that means taking a look at previous content and updating, and sometimes it means leaving it as it is. Overall though, it's about where we want to take things next, what fits into the larger scheme of development, what can we devote resources to comfortably and still deliver the best possible experience we can in a reasonably solid time frame.

There are a lot of things that people keep bringing up that they'd like to see again, or revisit in a new and fresh way. We're not unaware of this. But, at the same time, we have to keep asking ourselves, "Does it make sense and if it does make sense, does it make sense right now?" In contrast, there are those detractors who are often upset when we do go back and refresh content. In some cases it's because they're new enough that they haven't seen it yet, in others it's because they feel we should leave well enough alone, and to others yet who feel that it's a development "cop out" and a mere recycling effort. That's not to say that these things aren't possibilities "someday", but what seems simple to you may not be quite so simple as all that.

An example of updating things on a very large scale, is Cataclysm. There was so much work done from the starting quests to the environments to the very flight paths, but to those who didn't go through the refreshed content, it was a "waste" of time. We also then had what many felt was far too little at the upper end of content for them. So, despite best efforts to refresh a significant amount of content, not everyone was pleased with it once the immediate blush was off the rose. What we must fight against is time, nostalgia, "What do I get to do/take part in?", or even "where's my challenge?" So, no, it's not as easy as that. In a perfect world, maybe it would be. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Class Forums and Blue Posts
Do blue posters avoid class forums? If so - why?
The main reason that we don't make responses in the class forum is because if we post in the forum of class A, then classes B through K will start complaining about favoritism or something similar. While we may not post in threads on the class forums, we do pay attention to the opinions and feedback presented there.

And where are we supposed to turn in order to get the "official" Blizzard PoV on, for example, major nerfs to a certain spec?
These forums are designed and built in order for players to give their feedback and opinions about the current state of our games or even upcoming changes so that it can be relayed to the developers. They are not for the purpose of having a direct line of communication and discussion with blue posters. If we have some information that we can provide, we will post it, but you should not be actively searching for this as the forums are for you as the players to bring up and discuss topics.

Do we really have to post immature, whiny post in order to get attention?
Definitely not. As said above, if we have information on a given topic of discussion we will provide it. We are also more inclined to do this with more well written and presented threads rather than ranty or "whiny" posts.

you're on EU forums enough said. Blizzard doesn't care about you, they don't want your opinion, the blue post always say the same thing. It is always sad for us to see these types of comments because it is something that is simply so far from the truth, it is unreal. The European community team work tirelessly to forward on and present your feelings, feedback and opinions on to the developers. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Questing
Your ridiculously gated rep AND VP system for gear cost me one of my raid leaders and you a sub. Just an FYI.
players quit for a variety of reasons. We're sad when they do, but can't be held hostage to "change X or I quit." (Source)
No Greg, but if a lot of peple quit for a reason and a lot of us dont quit but dont enjoy it, then somthg is wrong
of course. That's why hearing feedback is so important to us. In fact, it's more useful than threats. (Source)
If your reaction and filtering of feedback wasn't so slow compared to other games, you wouldn't get threats.
A poor justification I'm afraid. Good arguments win arguments, not threats of consequences. (Source)

I dont understand why rep grind has to be one way. Let questers do dailies, raiders do dungeons and pvpers pvp...
We want players out in the world. We don't think WoW will have enough legs as an instance only game. Convenient != best design. (Source)

Mate, don't let the "rep tabard" brigade get you down. We're better off shedding instance only players from the playerbase.
Well, we don't want to shed anyone. Concern is that instance-only is convenient short term but causes loss of interest in the long. (Source)

Making dailies a requirement for rep seems like a VERY poor way to get people out of cities and make the world feel populated.
What do you want to do out in the world? (Source)

For the love of god don't buckle to the "we are forced to do dailies" minority. Don't change a thing!!!
it's just a question of volume. 12 quests a day isn't bad with some optionals. Doing GL and Klaxxi every day felt like a lot. (Source)

Well I'll just try asking again tomorrow, I realize you're busy. If you see this tweet, check my profile for the initial ?
we've heard a lot of feedback on dailies, and we'll likely try some tweaks to keep players out in the world but address concerns. (Source)

For 5.1 can we have a short term (20min?) LFR buff that simulates the rep tabards for the last rep we did dailies with today?
Talking about some ideas. So long as someone can't finish rep in one weekend by chain running, we're open to it. (Source)

Classes
So many classes and specs are overpowered right now, why won't you apply hotfixes rather than waiting months for patch 5.1?
We can't hotfix everything and it's frustrating for players to constantly suspect ninja nerfs. We hotfix egregious stuff. (Source)

Do you think it's still possible to add new class in the game without too much redundancy ?
I hope so. (Source)

Alot of people were complaining about "Stampede". Not the Bestial Wrath ability. Critical mistake on your end
We nerfed Bestial Wrath and Avatar. We're regretting offensive abilities that prevent CC. Encourages tunneling and burst. (Source)

talent system is awesome btw. Way better than anything before.
We agree. A few talents aren't quite there but the system is much better IMO. I see players changing talents for the first time. (Source)

As a rouge i have problems getting a clean opner in arena and duel because of the amount of aoe effects in the game. toughts?
TBH, it kind of bugs me personally that AEs are so efficient at breaking stealth. Would be a huge change to revert though. (Source)

Ever thought of smaller patch changes? Like changing an ability dmg in 5% increments a week instead of 25% all at once?
One risk of small changes is players don't notice. Flashy changes can sometimes get players to try a class / talent / strat. (Source)

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Any word on healing mushrooms? They are pretty useless but have so much potential.
Agree they aren't there yet, but we want them to be sutiational, and not used on cooldown. (Source)
Any chance for some 5.1 love? Thank you for responding to my first tweet ever!
Maybe not for 5.1. We want to make sure there's time for players to try out any changes. It's on our radar though. (Source)

Did static mana pools really gave you the freedom you needed to design better enocunters? Are we balanced?
The problem with +Int providing infinite mana didn't manifest until later tiers. Still like the change though. (Source)

And of course, would love to hear how you feel healers compare for PvE and how Mistweavers have played out.
Pretty happy with healer balance overall. MW were too good in 5.0. Raiders discovering Disc now and we have to keep an eye on it. (Source)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
In your eyes are Shockadins a legitimate form of Raid DPS, or is that unintentional or unwelcome? Not even sure if its viable.
Holy isn't a dps spec. We tried to provide some support for players who like it, but it will likely stay a niche. (Source)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
I really like to know what you guys think about Holy and Disc priests perfomance in PvP. Not many people want them.
Most teams just want Resto shaman. We think we'll see more priests in 5.1. (Source)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Nobody uses Tricks of the Trade anymore in Raids. You found a way to make that useless too! Get a dev 4 rogues. ur useless.
Quick poll of the raiders in my office, and they all use Tricks of the Trade. Small sample size is small. (Source)

playing devil's advocate a little, if the 5.1 changes don't 'fix' rogues, will further changes happen immediately or in 5.2?
Depends on the degree. If I say "immediately" though, then I'll just hear about how I broke promises, so I can't say. (Source)

serious question, does blizzard have numbers on how many people have taken versatility as a talent? I'm betting its VERY low.
We do, and it is low. We're looking at all unpopular and too popular talents and considering changes. (Source)

Saying Cold Blooded made us not care about crit as a stat is terrible logic since crit is now our worst stat by a long shot.
Last I looked, crit was behind haste and mastery for Combat, but not by much, and even better for the other two. (Source)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
I'm just a wee bit :O at the totem nerfs. What's the thinking behind it? Will Tremor still break fear? Don't like this change!
We thought they were too hard to counter. Have a lot of utility (not just group buffs) in 5.0 and you just have to endure them (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
with "bring player, not class" policy, why did you implement Stormlash and Skull banner?
They are very minor DPS increases. You don't need them. (Source)

Ever had a thought about warrior's shockwave? Every 20 seconds for an AoE stun and damage seems a bit much versus rogue KS.
It's something we looked at, but we nerfed warriors a lot for PvP and we don't want to overdo it. Not all are taking SW yet. (Source)

Do you not think it's a little unfair that Fury has never been good in Arena? Other specs had their time to shine except Fury.
The bigger topic is whether it's fair to players (or reasonable to balance) to have 34 viable 3v3 Arena specs. (Source)

TCG Art Update
Blizzard has updated the Trading Card Game art gallery to feature ten new pieces.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Tom Chilton Interview, WoWkemon Addon, Blue Posts, Blue Tweets, TCG Art started by chaud View original post
Published on 2012-12-08 10:52 AM
49 Comments
Comments 49 Comments
  1. Metallikiddd's Avatar
    gggrrrrrrrrrr for the love of god fire kalgan already!!!! he is ruining the game!!!!! his fail coding breaks everything. once he is gone GC can fix the clusterfuck kalgan created.
  1. Velshin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by TonyIommi View Post
    Yea I didn't do a single fucking ogrila daily or shatari daily primarily because they had no gear. Putting gear behind dailies is bad. I don't know how else how to simplify this concept. I don't admit I'm whining, because I don't think reasonable criticism is whining. Reputation grinding hasn't always been slow and grindy, or this slow and grindy. It has always been tied to an activity I would be doing anyway and has never felt this obnoxious. You people seem to think that everything is perfect in Blizzard land and no changes should be brooked. Just give it time, theyll bleed enough subs and we'll be back to something better in the next expansion. At least I hope we will. They may just be completely out of ideas at this point.
    Sorry to say this but if your main reason to farm dailies is for the shiny and epic gears then again sorry but the genre of an RPG is not for you...some players there (including me) do dailies to progress the story for the sake of them for the sake of storyline not because of loot or shiny because this is a role playing game it's not just numbers and stats it's also a story telling. Wearing tabard and running dungeons for a certain faction is a poor way to tell the story in game of that certain faction which is the main reason why Blizzard changed that in MoP. Also no one said Blizzard is perfect they will never be perfect...examples will be, for me personally I really didn't like the feature of flying mount in Azeroth specially at the start of Cataclysm expansion not even require to get max lvl, and so many things. Also I have one question to you if you really think rep atm is so grindy and so slow? then tell me this...what is the fun when you get everything to exalted in mere of hours per day then you get everytihng you want from all factions so fast...what is the fun of that? in fact this will breed nothing but burned out players which we see everyday stuff like " I did everything in the game atm...I'm bored blizz lazy bring more content please I feel it's like cata expansion again !! ra ra ra"

    Hope you understand what I mean now.
  1. mmocee9d117667's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Azrile View Post
    See,that is the really stupid part of your argument ´putting gear behind dailies´.. you do realize that NOBODY needs the daily rep reward gear except people who don´t raid. And if you don´t raid, then what else are you going to be doing but questing ( or pvp which gives it´s own gear). This is the point the devs have made over and over.. and that stupid people still do not understand. Rep gear is for non-raiders... if you are raiding, you are getting your gear through boss drops mainly, but then you have alternatives if you are unlucky.. those alternatives include LFR, crafting and daily reps... but those are alternatives.

    Rep gear is mainly there for people who don´t raid, don´t pvp, but still want gear progression.

    This ´daily grind´ argument is absolutely stupid. There is no reason for anyone to do more than one quest hub per day... You simply do not have the valor to buy anything. Your argument just paints yourself in a corner. You say you ´need´ rep gear... which means you don´t raid, because raiders don´t need rep gear.. and at the same time you say you don´t want to quest, and you don´t want to pvp for gear.. so what exactly do you do with your gametime? Literally, the ONLY thing you are doing is heroic dungeons?.. you want all your gametime to be for heroic dungeons to the point that doing 5-8 daily quests (15-20 mins) is just unbearable... really?

    I really want to know what you do with your game that you feel you ´need´ rep gear, but don´t have the 15 mins to do a quest hub each day? Is that your argument, that it is unfair that a person who does not raid, and does not do quests cannot get rep gear? Seriously, I do 1 rep hub (dom now), sha and terrace every week on LFR and 1 herioc per day (if CTA pops for tanks).. that is it..and I am like 490 right now. Since MoP launched, I never did more than two rep hubs in the same day. I just can´t figure out what exactly you want to do with your gametime..
    Right - Let's break this down a bit so you can see exactly how flawed your argument is.

    1. "you do realize that NOBODY needs the daily rep reward gear except people who don´t raid" I have raided constantly for 5 weeks solid approx, having a prog of MSV 6/6, HoF 6/6 and 3/4 ToES. And i still yield a off-hand (replaced my main hand not so long ago) sword from Klaxxi exalted - As an actual DPS weapon in lack of anything else. Unless you straight up DENY peoples existence, you are completely and utterly wrong.

    2."Rep gear is for non-raiders... if you are raiding, you are getting your gear through boss drops mainly, but then you have alternatives if you are unlucky.. those alternatives include LFR, crafting and daily reps... but those are alternatives." - They do not become alternatives when loot simply does not drop.
    When under the effect of an RNG system - it can become simple facts that these items from daily factions can provide to be very good for a long time.

    To my tanking set (Which i have approx 484) I still yield the Klaxxi exalted ring for example - Which still even more renders your "Raiders don't need it" point absolutely MOOT. It is a fallacy and a very poor excuse to convince anyone that this would be the case because you are simply not having the numbers nor logic to logistically support it.

    3."Rep gear is mainly there for people who don´t raid, don´t pvp, but still want gear progression." - Did you know that the Shieldwall faction added in 5.1 has the BiS trinket for warrior DPS? Seeing how all other trinkets are simply Strength haste, where of Haste is the worst stat for Warriors - Carbonic Carbuncle (a heroic trinket) was only outmatched by Lei Shi's final orders HC version - from Will of the Emperor HC. This means that not only is it FOR raiders, but it's the BEST trinket for a specific class in raiding. Rendering your point even MORE moot. At this point it's getting kind of ironic that you are even calling people out on being "stupid" - When your point has so many holes that it's a freaking swizz cheese.

    4."You simply do not have the valor to buy anything." - Let me get this straight. You need 1.5k VP for each Epic gear piece, to fully upgrade it - And even more so - you can still BUY vp gear pieces that are upgrades overall, if you do not yield the epic gear already.

    Do i even have to mention how absurdly wrong this point is by now? You are just pulling stuff out from a endless hat and saying "Haha, an argument!" - That's not how it works.

    5.Literally, the ONLY thing you are doing is heroic dungeons?.. you want all your gametime to be for heroic dungeons to the point that doing 5-8 daily quests (15-20 mins) is just unbearable... really?

    At what point do you believe that person does HC's only? Do you have any proof for this? By all means he probably did LFR as well. But putting that aside - there was not 5-8 Dailys a day that was the daily grind. In the beginning i did every single faction every single day. This surrmounted to perhaps up against 20-25 Dailys PER DAY. Any sane normal being who does not favor repetition does not ENJOY this in the long run. Enough said.
  1. Granyala's Avatar
    Rep gear is mainly there for people who don´t raid, don´t pvp, but still want gear progression.
    You're obviously incapable of comprehending the difference between "it's mandatory" and "it feels mandatory".

    Raiding is a social experience. If your Officers & Raidleads tell you that they want to see people working on their reps and getting the 489s then it becomes mandatory if you want to keep your raid spot.
    This is even more of an issue if a guild is struggling with enrage timers. (e.g.: elegon) where every bit helps.

    Hell my raidlead even wants me to use the 300 stat food once we're in heroic modes. I told him that from a mathematical PoV this is utter bullshit and wasted play time b/c no one can see the effect of 25 stats, but the didn't want to hear it. And I bet he isn't the only one thinking like that.

    The "it feels mandatory" has been acknowledged by the devs and they said it was unintentional.
  1. Fermion's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Granyala View Post
    You're obviously incapable of comprehending the difference between "it's mandatory" and "it feels mandatory".

    Raiding is a social experience. If your Officers & Raidleads tell you that they want to see people working on their reps and getting the 489s then it becomes mandatory if you want to keep your raid spot.
    If you don't want to do whatever is necessary to help your guild, regardless if it's a genuine time issue or simply "cba", then the guild is clearly not for you. That goes double if you fundamentally disagree with the guild/raid leaders, "my guild makes me" is a pretty dumb argument.
  1. Forian's Avatar
    Does anyone even realize how cheesy and dumb this WoWkemon addon is? I really hope whoever made it gets sued and has to live on the street for how stupid that addon is...
  1. Lumennon's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Forian View Post
    Does anyone even realize how cheesy and dumb this WoWkemon addon is? I really hope whoever made it gets sued and has to live on the street for how stupid that addon is...
    I'm not too fond of it, either, but it's nice to see you're not being overly dramatic about the whole thing.
  1. Metallikiddd's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Forian View Post
    Does anyone even realize how cheesy and dumb this WoWkemon addon is? I really hope whoever made it gets sued and has to live on the street for how stupid that addon is...
    chilton should be thrown out on the street for fail broken coding.
  1. Tybudd33's Avatar
    "Hey Guys, Nick here. Today @#rwerjk@$k@#j$@#f at something a bit out of...."

    WTF was that???

    BTW this had to be the most Gawd-terribad Addon ever, and for it to be on the front page........
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