Imagine democracy in WoW!!

[Glorious Leader]

Could work so long as it was a restricted democracy.

Cutting edge or ahead of the curve and challenger and up.

Trasmog could be a free vote but just like the hidden forums on the official forums I wouldn't want votes for class or gameplay balance to be open to everyone.

Yes of course. Can't have the bads giving an opinion.

[Crimson Spears]

Yes of course. Can't have the bads giving an opinion.

It hurts everyone to even the bads. They are so bad they can't actually vocalize their wants internally. They only know what they believe they want and once they have it much like when heroic dungeons were nerfed they discard what they get as having no value.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

It could work, but you'd need to structure the voting so that people don't just see a poll, skim through the options, click to vote in 2 seconds, and the move on.

Runescape has ingame polling booths, where the devs will put up "Should we implement X?" with a binary yes or no answer. 95% of the time, the playerbase always vote "yes" just off of that, without going to the forums and reading the threads discussing the implications of X. So was to the detriment of Runescape, and lo and behold, the bad things that people in the discussion threads feared came about, but they couldn't do anything about it because they were an informed minority while the majority of people who voted didn't know WTF they were voting for.

I think in order for voting to work, you would need to have a link that redirects you to a forum discussion topic, and only after you have read a significant portion of the thread should you be allowed to vote.

[Shaetha]

Could work so long as it was a restricted democracy.

Cutting edge or ahead of the curve and challenger and up.

Trasmog could be a free vote but just like the hidden forums on the official forums I wouldn't want votes for class or gameplay balance to be open to everyone.

And this is the exact reason this is a bad idea. Got it in one.

Making a game only for a small group of people is a good way to go out of business. People won't adapt. They'll just quit.

[Alroxas]

If you think seriously about that we only have 3 very different types of "class" (DPS, Healers, Tanks) and yet ... each one with a well-defined function and therefore easy to balance.

However, it hasn't been easy to balance. Let's look at just tanks: At high levels of M+, Demon Hunters are way in the lead. If balancing was easy, then all tanks should be equally represented but that's not the case. Meanwhile back in Legion, it was Death Knights tanks that were in the lead.

If we look over at DPS, the top spots changes so much from each patch because balancing is difficult and encounter designs can favor one spec over another within the course of just 1 expansion.

Adding more classes just makes this even more difficult as you then need to consider that added class to the mix of everything else.

Simple as that.

Nothing is ever that simple. In fact, every new "class" that has been added to the game were broken and overpowered until changes brought them in line. Just look at how good Brewmaster Monk's stagger works in previous/current expansions (especially when they also had "original" Guard).

I said that the votes that Blizzard should take seriously would be those of "players who play enough" to be taken seriously.

Fine then, using this new metric: Whom are the players who play enough? Let's just look at M+ design/concept approval: Who gets to weigh in? Those that get KSC? KSE? KSM? Let's move to raiding next, who gets to weigh in? Those that only do LFR, or those that do up to Normal? Or do we include Heroic raiders? How many Mythic raiders get consideration for their input? Do the musing/feedback of R2WF raiders get ignored (since they are such a small population)? Where do you draw the line? 10 hours a week played in WoW? 20 hours? 40 hours?

Your opinion about xmogs is very similar to your opinion about new classes. For some reason you believe that Blizzard is unable to make nice Xmogs because there is, idk, a kind of impossible algorithm or "Da vinci code" that they would have to go over for this to happen.

No it's not an impossible algorithm but it does take a LOT of time. Just consider 1 tier set (back when we had tier armor): You need to create 12 different looks (one for each class) with 4 variations (one for each difficulty of raid: LFR, Normal, Heroic, Mythic). That's 48 armor sets, but you're not done there: Now you have to adjust 28 armor sets so that they functionally look ok across all the races in WoW. We're not just talking scaling the shoulder piece size but also where it sits on the shoulder between an Orc, a Tauren, a Goblin, a Gnome, etc etc. And consider this: with allied races, there's even more racial considerations to make for just 1 armor set.

This means not only a lot of work from art designers but also coders/programmers. And then because Blizzard isn't a "small indie company", any work that gets done also needs approval from supervisors to managers and how many more layers of management already at Blizzard.

Overall a single tier set could easily take months to complete from concept design to introduction into live game.

Why do you think Blizzard went from Tier Sets down to Armor sets? Armor sets (which we had in BFA) reduced it down from 48 Armor Sets to 16 Armor sets (4 for each armor type: cloth, leather, mail and plate. Multiplied by 4 (for each difficulty of raid: LFR, Normal, Heroic, Mythic).

Even now in Shadowlands, we still don't have tier sets (maybe in 9.2?) which indicates that it's taking a lot of time to just make 1 tier set.

[Magical Mudcrab]

Could work so long as it was a restricted democracy.

Cutting edge or ahead of the curve and challenger and up.

Trasmog could be a free vote but just like the hidden forums on the official forums I wouldn't want votes for class or gameplay balance to be open to everyone.

Yes, because we definitely want to alienate any and all casual players from being able to participate in voting. The only way restrictions work is when polling for specific types of content, which has started to be done in OSRS due to spite voting. Gameplay and content changes would need to be voted on by the entire playerbase as it affects the entire playerbase, with tuning being pushed through as a form of integrity/balance change without player feedback.

[Crimson Spears]

Yes, because we definitely want to alienate any and all casual players from being able to participate in voting. The only way restrictions work is when polling for specific types of content, which has started to be done in OSRS due to spite voting. Gameplay and content changes would need to be voted on by the entire playerbase as it affects the entire playerbase, with tuning being pushed through as a form of integrity/balance change without player feedback.

It doesn't effect the entire playerbase though now does it? Do non raiders and rated pvpers understand what their conduits do much less how to properly deploy them beyond a default build?

Sometimes its best to leave things to the titans.

[Magical Mudcrab]

It doesn't effect the entire playerbase though now does it? Do non raiders and rated pvpers understand what their conduits do much less how to properly deploy them beyond a default build?

Sometimes its best to leave things to the titans.

Again, tuning would need to be pushed in by Blizzard as integrity/balance changes and would not include the playerbase. Virtually anything else, such as gameplay changes or new PvP maps, will need to be run by all players as it affects all of them. The only changes that should exclude parts of the playerbase is when spite voting is a concern or if it only relates to a specific niche in the community.

[Better]

Sounds like a great way to have classes get massive nerfs due to player perception, rather than actually being OP. "This class is doing better than me in random BGs, clearly they are massively overpowered in all content, 30% nerf plz!"

[Crimson Spears]

Again, tuning would need to be pushed in by Blizzard as integrity/balance changes and would not include the playerbase. Virtually anything else, such as gameplay changes or new PvP maps, will need to be run by all players as it affects all of them. The only changes that should exclude parts of the playerbase is when spite voting is a concern or if it only relates to a specific niche in the community.

How does it effect the entire playerbase? Its been a decade and random bgs players can't really understand maps like netherstorm.

[Fantazma]

However, it hasn't been easy to balance. Let's look at just tanks: At high levels of M+, Demon Hunters are way in the lead. If balancing was easy, then all tanks should be equally represented but that's not the case. Meanwhile back in Legion, it was Death Knights tanks that were in the lead.

If we look over at DPS, the top spots changes so much from each patch because balancing is difficult and encounter designs can favor one spec over another within the course of just 1 expansion.

Adding more classes just makes this even more difficult as you then need to consider that added class to the mix of everything else.



Nothing is ever that simple. In fact, every new "class" that has been added to the game were broken and overpowered until changes brought them in line. Just look at how good Brewmaster Monk's stagger works in previous/current expansions (especially when they also had "original" Guard).




Fine then, using this new metric: Whom are the players who play enough? Let's just look at M+ design/concept approval: Who gets to weigh in? Those that get KSC? KSE? KSM? Let's move to raiding next, who gets to weigh in? Those that only do LFR, or those that do up to Normal? Or do we include Heroic raiders? How many Mythic raiders get consideration for their input? Do the musing/feedback of R2WF raiders get ignored (since they are such a small population)? Where do you draw the line? 10 hours a week played in WoW? 20 hours? 40 hours?



No it's not an impossible algorithm but it does take a LOT of time. Just consider 1 tier set (back when we had tier armor): You need to create 12 different looks (one for each class) with 4 variations (one for each difficulty of raid: LFR, Normal, Heroic, Mythic). That's 48 armor sets, but you're not done there: Now you have to adjust 28 armor sets so that they functionally look ok across all the races in WoW. We're not just talking scaling the shoulder piece size but also where it sits on the shoulder between an Orc, a Tauren, a Goblin, a Gnome, etc etc. And consider this: with allied races, there's even more racial considerations to make for just 1 armor set.

This means not only a lot of work from art designers but also coders/programmers. And then because Blizzard isn't a "small indie company", any work that gets done also needs approval from supervisors to managers and how many more layers of management already at Blizzard.

Overall a single tier set could easily take months to complete from concept design to introduction into live game.

Why do you think Blizzard went from Tier Sets down to Armor sets? Armor sets (which we had in BFA) reduced it down from 48 Armor Sets to 16 Armor sets (4 for each armor type: cloth, leather, mail and plate. Multiplied by 4 (for each difficulty of raid: LFR, Normal, Heroic, Mythic).

Even now in Shadowlands, we still don't have tier sets (maybe in 9.2?) which indicates that it's taking a lot of time to just make 1 tier set.

Dude, everything you said just makes me think of these questions: Are the FFXIV Devs from another planet ??
FFXIV has 18 class (jobs) and a few days ago they announced one more: The Reaper.



I don't know what kind of "satan pact" FFXIV devs have but every day that game steals players from the wow. Is it because in FFXIV listening to the players and giving us new classes and new xmogs is something ... simple?

[anon5123]

I mean, OSRS works by allowing players to vote for changes. It's not a terrible idea.

[Xorzor]

Absolutely not!

Democracy doesn't work in the real world, nor should it infect a video-game world. And before you say it, I realize that systems like communism also don't work.

[Le Conceptuel]

Absolutely not!

Democracy doesn't work in the real world, nor should it infect a video-game world. And before you say it, I realize that systems like communism also don't work.

What systems do you think would work?

[Xorzor]

What systems do you think would work?

<BLEEP> if I know. No matter what is in place, people will always whinge and moan about their precious freedoms being oppressed.

Give them a little freedom, and they whine for more.
Give them too much freedom, and they abuse it to no end.

[Le Conceptuel]

<BLEEP> if I know. No matter what is in place, people will always whinge and moan about their precious freedoms being oppressed.

Give them a little freedom, and they whine for more.
Give them too much freedom, and they abuse it to no end.

Not wholly going to disagree, but it seems like you have the wrong idea. All you'd do by proposing the alternative is allowing us the worst of both worlds - entitled idiots with too much freedom and people restricted and driven to violence by having too little of it.

[Alroxas]

Dude, everything you said just makes me think of these questions: Are the FFXIV Devs from another planet ??
FFXIV has 18 class (jobs) and a few days ago they announced one more: The Reaper.
I don't know what kind of "satan pact" FFXIV devs have but every day that game steals players from the wow. Is it because in FFXIV listening to the players and giving us new classes and new xmogs is something ... simple?

FFXIV is not a good comparison. For instance, in FF you can be any job. You can have 1 toon that can switch from being a white mage to a black mage to a ninja to a dark knight to dancer.

The concept of class balance is less important because at any time, a player can take their 1 toon and switch. You can't do that in WoW. You have a warrior... Guess what, you're a warrior. If tomorrow Blizzard decides to nerf warrior (or buff Demon Hunter), too bad... You're still a warrior.


Unless you want to go play Ascension but that's beyond the scope of this topic/thread.