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Blizzard's Actions to Support the Black Community, Colleagues, and Partners 

by
Lumy
Published on 2020-06-19 09:23 PM

Blizzard's Actions to Support the Black Community, Colleagues, and Partners
J. Allen Brack, the president of Blizzard Entertainment, has published an article in which he shares more about their actions to support the Black Community, Colleagues, and Partners.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Blizzard community,

Our world has a long history of racism. Humans create groups, and then create divisions between groups unlike themselves. Ironic how we need each other as social creatures, yet we developed the practice to ‘other’ humans who at first glance don’t look like what we see in the mirror.

I have made it a personal obligation to educate myself about trauma others endure, and to work to change those experiences for them. Many within Blizzard come from a place of strong purpose, with a will to do in order to help society.

Last year at BlizzCon, I made a commitment for Blizzard to do better. We pride ourselves on learning and growing, and doing something now that reflects our company and community values. I also said that our actions would matter more than our words—we have been publicly silent until now because action is the important part.

Let me be clear: Blizzard stands in solidarity with those fighting against racism, because racism is as dangerous as any pandemic for those affected. We stand with those fighting against social and institutional structures that promote inequality among people of color.

Last week, AB announced donations to the Equal Justice Initiative, the United Negro College Fund, and the Management Leaders of Tomorrow (MLT) to fight systemic racial inequality. At Blizzard, we are working on initiatives for our community and our workplace.

In our games: For many years, we’ve had teams working with A.I. and machine learning to reduce toxicity and hate speech, as well as to help improve the overall gaming experience. Since January 1 this year, we’ve banned over 30,000 accounts for these reasons, as well as issued more than three million total hours of player suspensions. These penalties have notably improved our game environments: over the last two years, we’ve seen a 43% reduction in poor behavior reports, and a 59% reduction in the re-offense rate. And while this is progress, we’ve identified other places where we can use this technology and have more work to continue to do toward this effort.

In our relationships: We are also reviewing our partnerships to identify opportunities to support Black-owned and diverse businesses, and to amplify the voices of Black content creators and influencers.

Juneteenth: Today at Blizzard, we are observing Juneteenth with the goal of encouraging employees to take the time to be educated. We hosted a virtual session with a leader in our home city of Irvine, California, so employees can learn more about implicit bias, implications for law and policy, and how they can get involved in local efforts to drive change. We have also provided a list of resources to help coworkers self-educate, and shared ways to get involved in advocacy.

Ongoing: We are stronger with more diverse views and experiences. We are committed to being a more equitable workplace, including how and where we recruit, our HR practices, and employee support. We will also put an ongoing employee education program into place. This program will include more training and education (with the materials purchased from Black and minority-owned businesses), and Blizzard-wide town halls with experts on allyship, advocacy, and racism.

All of this work will continue to make Blizzard better, and play some small part in a larger, positive shift.

To our Black community, colleagues, and partners, Blizzard stands with you.

Black lives matter, today and always.

- J. Allen Brack, president of Blizzard Entertainment
320 Comments

Shadowlands - Maldraxxus Zone Preview 

by
Stoy
Published on 2020-06-18 03:20 PM

Shadowlands - Maldraxxus Zone Preview
Today we are taking a look at the zone of Maldraxxus in Shadowlands.








Maldraxxus Achievements

NamePoints
Adventurer of MaldraxxusComplete the following special encounters in Maldraxxus.
 10
Blade of the PrimusComplete the Maldraxxus storylines listed below.
 10
Crypt CoutureCollect every customization for the Necrotic Acolyte disguise in Maldraxxus.
 10
Explore MaldraxxusExplore Maldraxxus, revealing the covered areas of the world map.
 10
Maldraxxus MasteredComplete all of the Maldraxxus objectives listed below.
 10
Nine AfterlivesFind and pet all of the kittens in Maldraxxus.
 10
Sojourner of MaldraxxusComplete the optional Maldraxxus storylines listed below.
 10
Tour of Duty: MaldraxxusEarn 1000 honor in Maldraxxus while in War Mode.
 10
Treasures of MaldraxxusDiscover the hidden treasures of Maldraxxus.
 10
37 Comments

June 17 Hotfixes - Auction House Throttle Reduction 

Published on 2020-06-18 02:19 AM

Actions Taken to Address Exploitative Gameplay

Shadowlands Alpha - Build 34821

June 17 Hotfixes - Auction House Throttle Reduction
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Auction House
  • Significantly relaxed the throttle on all Auction House operations except canceling auctions.

Items and Rewards
  • Heart of Azeroth
    • Acquiring Rustbolt Resistance, Ankoan/Unshackled, Rajani, and Uldum Accord Paragon caches now increases your chance to receive the Rank 4 Essences associated with those reputations.
    • The achievements Azerite Admiral, Expert Expeditioner, and Expedition Leader now increase your chance to receive Rank 4 of the Worldvein Resonance Essence from Island Expeditions.

WoW Classic
  • Resolved an issue with Mind Control between teams of the same faction in War Games.
9 Comments

Actions Taken to Address Exploitative Gameplay, Torghast Update, Silithus Stress Test 

by
Stoy
Published on 2020-06-17 11:19 PM

Shadowlands Alpha - Build 34821

Actions Taken to Address Exploitative Gameplay
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We’ve recently completed a round of actions against players who were found to be cheating in World of Warcraft.

We rarely communicate publicly about this, because we’ve found that describing our sources and methods can make it easier for malicious actors to work around them, but we feel that it’s worthwhile to expand on the subject today, as many players have recently asked us for more details.

Including today’s actions, over the last month in the Americas, Oceania, and Europe regions, we’ve closed or suspended over 74,000 WoW accounts that were found to be in violation of our End-User License Agreement. The majority of these were found to be using gameplay automation tools, typically to farm resources or kill enemies much more efficiently than legitimate players can.

While today’s suspensions were applied in a batch (often referred to as a “banwave”), it is a top priority for us to identify accounts that are botting and remove them. Our team works around the clock, every day of the week, and many of the suspensions and account closures over the last few months have gone out in the middle of the night, or on weekends.

Like you, we play World of Warcraft. We understand what it’s like to spot a player in-game who appears to be botting. We always want to eliminate the botting player, if it can be proved that they are indeed cheating. And that raises a big difficulty in addressing this issue – we have to prove to ourselves that the accused player is not a person who’s actually controlling a character with their hands on a keyboard.

We use powerful systems to determine if the suspected player is using an identifiable cheat, and our heuristics (which we do not outline publicly) are constantly improving and evolving. But when we examine a suspect and these measurements aren’t out of line, we have to manually gather evidence against the accused player, which can be very time consuming and complex. It’s worthwhile though, because we never want to take action against a legitimate player.
Yes, there have been cases where a legitimate player appeared (to another player) to be botting. In those cases, where a legitimate player is reported and then cleared of wrongdoing, it can be very frustrating to the reporting player to again see what they think is a bot. We’ve also seen examples where the reported player was caught exploiting the game, and was removed from the game, and then quickly returned to doing the same thing on a new account with the same character name. That’s an infuriating sight for the players who initially reported it. We greatly appreciate your reports, and we understand how you feel about this.

We’re ultimately working to unravel a challenging circumstance. Real money trading drives third parties to put an enormous amount of effort into circumventing our detection systems. As much as this is a very high priority for us, it is the only priority for profit-driven botting organizations. The bans we issue are simply a cost of doing business for them.

We’re working on further improvements to every part of the game that might address cheating issues more swiftly and completely, and we’ll continue to let you know as those next steps are taken.

Thank you very much for your feedback on these issues, and thank you for your reports!

Torghast, Tower of the Damned Updates
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
  • The magnitude of the Tower Sentinel’s slowing effect is now greatly reduced when far away from the Sentinel.
  • A number of classes have received new Anima and/or updated Powers.
  • This week’s build includes numerous bug fixes and small tweaks.

Reminder - Silithus Stress Test Tomorrow - Thursday, June 18
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Please join us tomorrow, June 18, on the WoW Classic PTR for a stress test. We’ll turn our attention to Silithus on the PTR at about 2:00 p.m. PDT, and the stress test will begin at 3:00 p.m. PDT (6:00 p.m. EDT).

Check out all of the details here.

Thank you!
34 Comments

Shadowlands Class Changes June 17 - Warlock and Warrior 

by
Lumy
Published on 2020-06-17 11:17 PM

Shadowlands Class Changes - Warlock
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Updated June 17

For Warlock, we’re focused on improving talent choices for Destruction and Demonology, as well as adding rewards for leveling up. In particular, we’d like there to be more viable builds for these specs to experiment with. This led to changes for the highly popular talents Demonic Consumption and Grimoire of Supremacy. Please continue posting your feedback on these changes in this thread. Thank you!

Warlock
  • Demonic Gateway no longer despawns when the caster dies. When the gateway is close to despawning, it begins dissolving out of view to warn the caster and allies that they may wish to replace it.
    • Developers’ notes: We’ve heard feedback that the routine of replacing your Demonic Gateway for each boss attempt can be tedious to the point of irritating. We’ve made a change that allows the gateway to persist through death and we’ll be listening for feedback on this change.

Affliction Warlock
  • Unstable Affliction reverted to Limit 1. Spell coefficient reverted to its previous amount.
    • Developers’ notes: Even without picking talents like Siphon Life and Phantom Singularity, Affliction was unable to keep up with their dots being active on more than 3 targets. Unstable Affliction should now be used on your priority target, which causes Malefic Rapture to do increased damage to that target.

Talents
  • Haunt now applies Shadow Embrace.

PvP Talents
  • Soulshatter grants Soul Shards equal to the number of targets hit, instead of Haste.
  • Malignant Affliction is a new PvP talent. Unstable Affliction is no longer limited to 1 target, but deals 10% less damage. If your Unstable Affliction is dispelled, you instantly gain 15% haste for 10s.
    • Developers’ notes: With Unstable Affliction now at limit 1, we want to provide an avenue for a Warlock to be able to protect their dots on multiple targets, particularly in battlegrounds.

Destruction Warlock
  • Summon Infernal (Rank 2) is learned at level 52. Infernal Awakening deals 150% increased damage on impact.
  • Havoc (Rank 2) is learned at level 54. Havoc duration is increased by 2 sec.
  • Rain of Fire (Rank 2) is learned at level 56. Rain of Fire damage is increased by 30%.

Talents

Level 15 Row
  • Soulfire is now a 4 second cast. Damage increased from 100% spell power to 300% spell power. 1 minute cooldown. Causes your next Incinerate to be instant cast and generates 1 Soul Shard.
    • Developers’ notes: This spell hadn’t found a niche as an additional short cast time spell. It returns to a 4-second cast time, serving as a pre-pull opener spell to kick-start your damage.

Level 25 Row
  • Shadowburn is now a 1 shard spender. Damage increased to 130% spell power (was 60%), with a 12-second cooldown. Has 50% increased critical strike chance on low health targets, and generates 1 Soul Shard if the target dies within 5 seconds.
    • Developers’ notes: Shadowburn as a generator was not exciting enough. Shadowburn now provides an alternative way to spend shards, especially while on the move, and also adds burst damage in an execute window, similar to its historic design.
  • Internal Combustion consumes up to 7 seconds of your Immolate (was 5 seconds).

Level 35 Row
  • Cataclysm damage decreased to 180% spell power (was 200% spell power).

Level 45 Row
  • Grimoire of Supremacy renamed Rain of Chaos. While your initial Infernal is active, every Soul Shard you spend has a 15% chance to summon an additional Infernal that lasts 10 seconds.
    • Developers’ notes: Grimoire of Supremacy was too integral to Destruction’s damage output, even without Vision of Perfection. It also created unhealthy gameplay in PvP. We want this talent to remain powerful and exciting, so instead of ramping Chaos Bolt damage, Warlocks can try to maximize the amounts of Infernals spawned. The goal is to provide the same fun gameplay, without being too reliant on getting a very high modifier on your Chaos Bolt.
  • Roaring Blaze redesigned, now causes the target to take 30% increased Fire damage from the Warlock for 6 seconds.
    • Developers’ notes: This does not affect Chaos Bolt – only pure Fire damage spells. We want to try opening up other talent builds that can work with your Fire spells.

Level 50 Row
  • Channel Demonfire primary target damage increased by 10%.

Demonology Warlock
  • Summon Demonic Tyrant (Rank 2) is learned at level 52: Now generates 5 Soul Shards when cast.
  • Call Dreadstalkers (Rank 2) is learned at level 54. Call Dreadstalkers cast time is reduced by 0.5s, and they gain a Pursuit spell to close the gap when their target is greater than 10 yards away.
  • Wild Imps now spawn more immediately after Hand of Guldan, and 2-3 imps spawn in faster succession. In addition, if they path fail, they now teleport to the Warlock.
    • Developers’ notes: This should both improve quality of life and help prevent purposely getting your imp stuck somewhere to prevent them from casting.
  • Wild Imps Rank 2 is learned at level 56. Imp energy cost on Fel Firebolt decreased by 20%.
    • Developers’ notes: As a result, they can cast one additional Fel Firebolt before despawning.

Talents
  • Demonic Consumption no longer sacrifices imps. Now instead drains 15% health of all active demons, empowering itself based on HP consumed.
    • Developers’ notes: This is a fusion between modern Demonic Consumption and Thalkiel’s Consumption from Legion. The goal is to give the Warlock more incentive to care about summoning other demons, and to allow for Implosion and Power Siphon to have their unique flavor be sacrificing imps.
  • Power Siphon now also adds 30% damage to your next 2 casts Demonbolt.
  • Nether Portal demons summoned attack power increased by 21%.
  • Demonic Calling reduces shard cost of Call Dreadstalkers by 2.
  • Inner Demons random demons summoned attack power increased by 21%.

Shadowlands Class Changes - Warrior
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Updated June 17

Hello to all of the seasoned soldiers, raging barbarians, and ironclad commanders of Azeroth! The newest Shadowlands Alpha build has a number of changes for Warriors, primarily focused on talents. We’re happy with the playstyle of each spec, and our philosophy for core abilities is generally “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. That said, there are a number of talents in each tree that could use some love. Some were underutilized in Battle for Azeroth (eg., Collateral Damage for Arms, and Inner Rage for Fury) and haven’t seen changes yet, or their first set of changes in Shadowlands haven’t quite hit the mark (Frothing Berserker for Fury). We’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on the new and updated talents!

We’d like to call out that Arms’ Mastery and Deep Wounds have been redesigned. We heard your feedback that Deep Wounds’ overwhelming contribution to the damage breakdown felt unrewarding, and we agree. The new design will be a much smaller proportion of Arms’ direct damage, and should reward skillful target selection more than the previous version.

Single-Minded Fury has returned to Fury Warriors, with an updated design. This means that Fury Warriors can now receive one-handed weapons as item drops, though that may not be implemented in this build.

For Protection, a major topic of discussion has been the status of the Unstoppable Force build that exists in Battle for Azeroth. There are a lot of individual effects contributing to the build: talents, Azerite Traits, and Essences. The core components, however, are the Anger Management and Unstoppable Force talents, which can still be taken together in Shadowlands. In Battle for Azeroth, the multiplicative nature of the other effects is so powerful that Unstoppable Force overshadows any other setup or playstyle. We’d like to leave Protection in a more conservative position until the rest of their potential toolkit is known - additional Rage generation, cooldown reduction, etc. from Conduits and/or Legendaries may quickly have an outsized impact on the strength of Unstoppable Force. We hear your feedback that the playstyle is extremely fun! The intention isn’t to remove it completely, and we’ll be keeping a close eye on how things shape up in the next few months in order to revisit and tweak things before the game launches. Thank you for your patience and ongoing feedback - it’s extremely valuable to us.

Arms Warrior
  • Mastery: Deep Wounds has been redesigned. Now, Mortal Strike and Bladestorm inflict Deep Wounds, dealing Bleed damage over 12 seconds and increasing the damage the enemy takes from you.*
    • Developers’ notes: Removing Execute as a Deep Wounds applicator helps keep Mortal Strike relevant sub-20% health, without relying entirely on its damage-per-Rage in comparison to Execute.
  • Mastery rating will increase the “damage the enemy takes from you” effect, rather than Deep Wounds’ damage.
    • Developers’ notes: We feel it is important for Arms to have a Bleed in their core kit, but Deep Wounds’ direct contribution to damage dealt was overwhelming.
  • Execute damage increased by 20%.
  • Mortal Strike damage reduced by 5%.
  • Ravager has been redesigned to give it more identity, and differentiation from Bladestorm. Ravager again replaces Bladestorm when talented, and inflicts Deep Wounds (reverting previous Shadowlands changes). Cooldown reduced to 45 seconds, and duration increased to 12 seconds (still reduced by Haste). Ravager now chases nearby enemies.
  • Collateral Damage has been redesigned: When your abilities damage a second target due to Sweeping Strikes, they refund 30% of their Rage cost.
    • Developers’ notes: Collateral Damage’s previous design turned out to be too niche. We want to support Sweeping Strikes in talents, and this new version should be more broadly applicable outside of strictly 2-target situations.
  • Cleave has been redesigned: Replaces Sweeping Strikes. 20 Rage. 6 second cooldown. Strikes up to 5 enemies in front of you for Physical damage, inflicting Deep Wounds. Cleave will consume your Overpower effect to deal increased damage.
    • Developers’ notes: Cleave clashed with Sweeping Strikes at lower target counts, making it feel useful primarily while SS is not active. By having it replace Sweeping Strikes when talented, Cleave can stand on its own and more dramatically affect Arms’ AoE gameplay.

Fury Warrior
  • Single-Minded Fury is back. Learned at level 14 alongside Titan’s Grip, Fury Warriors can once again use their abilities while dual-wielding one-handed weapons. While dual-wielding a pair of one-handed weapons, your damage done is increased by 8% and your movement speed is increased by 5%.
  • Recklessness now generates 40 Rage.
  • The following talents have been removed: Inner Rage, Furious Slash, Fervor of Battle, and Wrecking Ball.
  • Frenzy is a new talent: Rampage increases your Haste by 3% for 12 seconds, stacking up to 3 times. This effect is reset if you Rampage a different primary target.
  • Seethe is a new talent: Bloodthirst generates 2 more Rage, or 4 more Rage when it critically strikes your primary target.
  • Cruelty is a new talent: While Enraged, Raging Blow deals 20% more damage and has a 30% chance to instantly reset its own cooldown.
  • Frothing Berserker updated: Rampage has a 20% chance to immediately refund 40 Rage.
  • Meat Cleaver is back: Whirlwind deals 30% more damage and now affects your next 4 single-target melee attacks, instead of the next 2.
  • Onslaught now generates 15 Rage (was 10).
  • Dragon Roar cooldown reduced to 30 seconds (was 35 seconds). No longer reduces enemy movement speed. Now critically strikes for 3 times normal damage.
  • Bladestorm damage increased by 20% (Fury only).
  • Reckless Abandon updated: Recklessness generates 20 more Rage and greatly empowers Bloodthirst and Raging Blow. Bloodthirst becomes Bloodbath, dealing 100% more damage on a 3 second cooldown. Raging Blow becomes Crushing Blow, dealing 100% more damage and charging you to your target within 10 yards.
    • Developers’ notes: We’d love to hear your thoughts on how it feels using empowered Bloodthirst and Raging Blow.

Protection Warrior
  • Ravager has been updated to match the changes made to Arms’ version of the ability: 45 second cooldown, lasts 12 seconds (compressed by Haste), deals damage every 2 seconds, chases nearby enemies, and generates 10 Rage each time it deals damage.
  • Dragon Roar has been updated to match the changes made to Fury’s version of the ability: 30 second cooldown, no longer reduces enemy movement speed, critically strikes for 3 times normal damage.
  • Crackling Thunder now also increases the movement speed reduction of Thunder Clap by 10%.
  • Ignore Pain now caps at 2x value (was a cap of 1.3x value).
17 Comments

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