"It's just alpha!".

[matrix123mko]

Alpha is supposed to be testing phase. It doesn't need to work perfectly.

[Temp name]

Blizzard just deflecting. They had enough feedback, they choose not to do anything. Funny how bugs were still active at launch, even after people reported them.

The only bugs I've reported that were fixed were truly gamebreaking ones, like during BfA alpha, if you pressed a button that wasn't on a standard English keyboard (so æøå for instance) your hotkeys stopped working until you relogged.

That was a fun week.

[taishar68]

Look, BFA was, overall, not a great expansion. Islands and warfronts were very meh, leveling alts feels like it takes forever, and Classic pulled away many thousands of players, even if only for a few weeks, which heightened the sense of disassociation between patch cycles.

That said, based on my comprehension of the subjects discussed in these forums, I don't see as many apologists and fanboys as some would assume; the reality is that whenever someone doesn't strongly criticize Blizzard, preferably in a snarky, aggressive tone, their posts are derided or ignored.

What we rarely see, here or in the official forums, is constructive criticism, even if it is negative. I understand it to a point; people are bored or frustrated, so they don't necessarily care about being civil, or they can't lay out a detailed criticism of why something is bad, but they know they don't like something.

So yes, some people will defend with "it's still alpha", but perhaps if the starting discussion is more detailed and specific, then perhaps the responses will be as well.

Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

[yamix]

When your game loops are built around grinding it's hard to incentivize people to test thoroughly in an environment where they will keep nothing. It can also be difficult to evaluate your own work objectively because you know how it was designed and have done it to the point of boredom. They probably don't get enough feedback to know what's real and what's not (although I think they can do a lot better at evaluating designs more often prior to Beta....)

[sam86]

Numbers feedback in alpha is 100% useless. The feedback needs to be about the system itself and the overall feel of it. Numbers can be tuned systems can't be redesigned.

i love legion, and i followed it closely, so i remember clearly everyone literally warn blizz of artifact AP grind and blizz said wait for live
and guess what? it is literally (back then at least) the WORST grind in entire wow history according to math, so no even numbers need to be checked, blizz didn't even fix artifact grind to a good state until 7.2 (7.3 they went full easy mode)

[Monster Hunter]

Blizzard has said earlier that not enough people give feedback from ptr/beta to act on.
It's an annoying situation of guessing whether the people not giving feedback are happy with the stuff or indifferent.

People gave feedback. En mass about how bad the gcd changes were, how the class's feel boring without artifact.

I was there, we filled out the tickets, filled the forum with these complaints. Mass Videos were made on the subject.

Nothing changed, we were famously told Azerite would fix it and the worst classes like shamman would get major changes in 8.1 only for 8.1 to arrive and us get told "we don't make major changes mid expac"

Surly people remember that shit show.
Any way point is, the testers do give feedback, alot of it, but it's up to blizz to action it.

[Nero Duskwind]

Prepare yourselves for another round of Blizzard apologists doing what they do best - performing breathtaking mental gymnastics to defend their dark masters.

I for one can't wait for the alpha to be released. It will be quite interesting to observe, will the shitshow repeat itself exactly like the last time?

Given the string of fuckups over the last year+ and ESPECIALLY given the spectacular shit show that Warcraft 3 Reforged became, I'd wager it's grown increasingly difficult for even the most fervent of Blizzard's supporters to come to their defense.

[sam86]

What we rarely see, here or in the official forums, is constructive criticism, even if it is negative. I understand it to a point; people are bored or frustrated, so they don't necessarily care about being civil, or they can't lay out a detailed criticism of why something is bad, but they know they don't like something.

but it still get ignored, check early BFA how best shamans in world tried to talk to blizz and got ignored, and as result they left the game since they gave up
I don't play shaman and no idea if their class is fixed, but tbh, of all classes in wow, i feel shaman is getting the worst treatment
yet ppl still defended blizz, heck ppl still def blizz class design even they flat out admit they f8cked up really hard in BFA with pruning, blizz says it is wrong yet ppl still defend it (or claim blizz is right and should stick to it)

[Nite92]

Prepare yourselves for another round of Blizzard apologists doing what they do best - performing breathtaking mental gymnastics to defend their dark masters.

I for one can't wait for the alpha to be released. It will be quite interesting to observe, will the shitshow repeat itself exactly like the last time?

Guys, prepare yourselves for people who hate themselves so much, that they play this game they hate to suffer. But they also kinda seek attention, so they have to post this self-harming process on these forums.

[sam86]

Surly people remember that shit show.

i remember shaman shit show, it is the worst

[Monster Hunter]

The only bugs I've reported that were fixed were truly gamebreaking ones, like during BfA alpha, if you pressed a button that wasn't on a standard English keyboard (so æøå for instance) your hotkeys stopped working until you relogged.

That was a fun week.

It's clear there only interested in bugs from apha and beta

Any feedback on design gets ignored or handwaved. There not interested in reports about the gcd change feeling terrible or Azerite being horrible to grind or islands arn't fun, warfront is dull, classes are dull.

Once the game goes to alpha nowadays the design is set and the devs will stubournly refuse to move on that possibly believing the masses will love it where the testers didn't or some reason.

*shrug*

[Nite92]

Can u blame him?

Didt people bring damning feedback on Azerite gear on day 1, but Blizzard still went through with it.

Covenants and their spells tied to em will 100% be a shitshow as they will not be balanced and its bad if they are and are NOT buffed/nerfed.

Most people actually said that this needs improvement, and Blizzard will and should fix it. They couldn't deliver on that. What should we do now? Hang them?

I got a wild suggestion, unsub, check back for shadowlands and if you like it, play it, and if not, DON'T.

- - - Updated - - -

I mean say what you will about a 1 post account but he's fucking right. Blizzard fanboys always scream "it's alpha it's for bug testing nothing's finalized"

and what's this...it made it to release? Who could have possibly predicted that, as if blizzard has some sort of track record or something

Some track record for having the best selling MMO? Yeah I agree on that.

[Thelxi]

The blind Blizzard fandom has been on the decline for years now. Even the staunchest fans have started to doubt themselves at this point. I wouldn't worry too much lol.

[taishar68]

When your game loops are built around grinding it's hard to incentivize people to test thoroughly in an environment where they will keep nothing. It can also be difficult to evaluate your own work objectively because you know how it was designed and have done it to the point of boredom. They probably don't get enough feedback to know what's real and what's not (although I think they can do a lot better at evaluating designs more often prior to Beta....)

And, let's be real...we don't really know the inner workings of the process, but...if we went to a restaurant to taste test the food and gave feedback like "it's too spicy, or, the salad wasn't fresh", and then went back after opening and found the same issues, it would be obvious that our feedback was ignored. From my personal experience, I can say that at first, the azerite stuff wasn't bad; it was cool when you got upgrades to see the new affixes and play around with them...now, at expansions end, of course it feels different. But islands were boring to me in alpha, and that has never changed. I do not recall testing warfronts in alpha or beta, tbh, but I didn't like them all that much either.

On the surface, Covenants seem to have issues, but for me, the "locked in" part doesn't matter. We're still going to experience all of them and choose one moving forward, and none of these cooldown abilities will matter all that much, unless you are a bleeding edge player. If you are that player, I am sorry for you, but we'll have to at least try out this stuff before saying it sucks for everyone.

That said...there doesn't seem to be a lot of meat in terms of system changes. What we need, imo, is content and lots of it. Give us a lot of stuff to do, and a lot of other issues are less magnified. Legion should be the template; when you leveled in Legion there was always something to do, and for a long time after max as well.

[Aucald]

This thread didn't start out on a great foot, and doesn't seem to be going anywhere constructive or civil. Closing this.