If 90% care about performance wouldnt 90% just be warlocks or balance druids since they are top specs?
If 90% care about performance wouldnt 90% just be warlocks or balance druids since they are top specs?
A good question, OP. I'm not sure what numbers Blizzard sees, or have seen in prev expansions, but they never seem to manage expectations.
See, balance is only a problem is it's either too big difference, or balancing happens rarely.
Blizzard nails these two things: they let godlike specs define the meta (and we are not talking about 5-10%, I leveled a mage and did 5.2k overall in a +14, geared in 205, r1 legendary, no pvp trinkets, and it's almost numbingly easy to "nail" your combustion), AND their balance patches always come late.
Another viewpoint: the CONTENT is too hard, and therefore players optimize THEIR OWN playtime. They want to challenge themselves for better rewards, GIVEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES. It's absolutely a game design 101 fault that Blizzard cannot get the risk/reward ratio balanced.
Just imagine if the "content" players are pursuing, were easier:
+10 giving access to 226
Mythic raids are cosmetics only, but you get 226 GV items by killing M raid bosses, nothing else.
(pvp gearing is another story)
This way players can have fun with all their shit, can ACTUALLY try out new legendary/talent combos, the game becomes much more friendly. Oh and give us mythic 5-mans WITHOUT time limits, where the tuning is batshit, you need to hard cc, maybe wait for BL for bosses, etc.
Grand Crusader Belloc <-- 6608 Endless Tank Proving Grounds score! (
Dragonslayer Kooqu
I think the argument is this: there are very few real min/maxers but a lot more people who blindly follow the guide. Yes they want to do max damage, but they have no clue why the thing a guide says does the most damage. They just follow it, they don't even know how to sim themselves. And even players who sim themselves mostly have no clue why exactly an ability that sims the highest sims the highest.
Basically semantics. You seem to think guide readers are min/maxers, the guy you quoted (and me too) not. I think a min/maxers understands the underlying mechanics.
This is a signature of an ailing giant, boundless in pride, wit and strength.
Yet also as humble as health and humor permit.
Furthermore, I consider that Carthage Slam must be destroyed.
In the cases where the most powerful is not the most thematic, it is still the most powerful that is most popular. You can eliminate the ones where they overlap because they are irrelevant. There are no examples of a more thematic covenant being weaker and more popular.
- - - Updated - - -
If they were not min/maxing to some extent, they wouldn't need a guide - they would choose what they like best and that isn't happening.
Some of it is a FLAGRANT balance issue though. Take hunters for example, all the other covenants are DRASTICALLY inferior like to the point its a significant detriment. I've decided to forsake leveling my hunter because I have ZERO interest in making yet another night fae
Cool. Another thread where someone thinks what the "majority" of the player base does. It's amazing how many people in the gaming community doesn't understand the definition of majority.
As Blizzard once said (because they would know), the majority of the player base never makes it to max level. So, it's hard to believe that the "majority" min/max.
Bold statement to say proven.
I was a Death's Demise.
Those were the good old days.
no. think about this. legion took away pvp vendors. people complained. bfa didn't add them back. people complained. shadowlands finally added them back after 4 years. the current management team are in denial that they obviously don't know what people want. so i would expect at least 3 more years of denial before anything meaningful happens.
also, valor. people begged for a bad luck protection system. blizz gave them an upgrade system that still relies on heavy rng. blizz don't listen to what we want. at best, they hear us and twist it for what they want.
- - - Updated - - -
thematics are up to personal preference which makes your entire argument a moot point since different people enjoy different types of art and such. while one person wants a war based dk with necrolords, another wants a spirit dk with bastion.
In order to discuss this subject you need to understand more than just "numbers".
1- Even if 80% of the player base does the min/max it means that there is actually 20% of the player base who does not. Stating that those 20% are stupid and that we should remove mechanics because only 20% does something different means you couldn't care less for minorities, which in this case it can't really be consider a minority (1/5 is still quite a big percentage). Even if only 5% of the player base choose something different, that would, in theory, be enough to maintain it.
2- By always going with the "mob" perspective of game design means that you can alter the numbers but not the reality. With this i mean, if you continue to always make mechanics based on what the majority wants, the "minority" will leave, and what remains of the "population" all think the same to a point where every player thinks and wants the exact same thing. A good game design is exactly the opposite, you should expand your game mechanics in order to attract more different thinkers.
3- Covenants specifically is a bad example. Most people choose what guides say just because the power difference is just to big and the effort to change it later is gigantic which leads to people reading a lot about that subject before choosing. Would i like to try out different covenants? Well, yes... but would i like to level another covenant with that character? No. So just stick with what works.
4- Even if you go down the path and state that talents are easy to change but still 80% chooses the same, that's mainly because given the options your game style doesn't change. Within each row you have 3 talents, which in the majority of the cases is a row composed by similar possibilities which do NOT change how you play. Its just a button to press within X amount of seconds but maintains everything else about your game style the same. The difference is that one talent give you 10% damage another gives 1%. And that's why most people choose the same talent.
5- Last point, some people would like to actually play or try different things, but with the current players on ANY game its almost impossible. You choose a subpar talent? You're already a 'nub' that doesn't know the game. You can even get kicked from m+ or not allowed to raid because you didn't went with the optimal talents. And that's not a problem with blizzard or any game development company, but, a problem with today's players. Someone here mentioned that if we lower the difficulty of the game this wouldn't happen, which, there are plenty of games in the world which contradicts that. Even if the game was easier we would still have this nagging.
This is a never ending problem, which i doubt any company will solve. This can clearly be seen if you compare single player games with multiplayer. Normally in a single player you go crazy with choices and you don't really read guides or opinions, you just go with whatever you want, but in a multiplayer, where the acceptance and respect of other players are in game, you always tend to go with "the best".
I'm pretty sure that if right now Blizzard would find a way to NOT BE ABLE to inspect a player and see what talents / covenant / any type of power customization he's using that the 80% of the player base choosing the same would greatly shrink.
My Prot Warrior is Necrolord.
I went from being "lul Necro War meme" to "This is potentially meta due to the 400 mastery for your DPS in M+".
If you're not the meta covenant, apparently you may end up being it or getting buffed to solid levels.
My Arcane Mage is also Necrolord - and that is getting buffed too.
---
My main is a Night Fae Shadow Priest
Was viewed early on as "Why did you go Night Fae?" from pugs and then M+ teams started bringing Shadow Priest as a solid dps to pair with fire mage.
Suddenly I became a potential meta pick in the public's view(when paired with Fire).
Then the Mastery stat got properly simmed and suddenly Night Fae's value goes up even more.
---
As an extra thought.
I don't believe the "majority are min/maxers".
So much as - the community has created this weird belief that viability = min/maxing.
The majority want to be -viable-, but the community has created this lie that viability = min/maxing.
Last edited by Sixnalia; 2021-03-13 at 01:42 AM.