Notes on recent and balance changes in general

[conkrete]

Extending a branch here: some specs/classes are clearly much better than others. A 4% to 8% difference would be no big deal. However, anywhere from 10% to 30% (and beyond) difference in outcomes is asinine to me.

I'll just go ahead and assume that these differences are intentional for reasons that one might suspect, because the sample size is massive and the differences are as clear as water.

The game should assume that the player only plays one class and one spec, that would be beneficial for several reasons one may think. Elaborating, maybe the player likes to play Affliction let's say, but Destruction is exceptional. There are drastic differences between the two that now I'm being forced to play something that I may not enjoy. The same can be said about BM -> Survival, Enhancement -> Elemental, Balance -> Feral, etc. You get the point.

Not only is the gameplay different but the overall game experience and how the community treats X player may vary immensely. Player X is having to wait 20 mins to get invited for M+, or not invited at all, while Y gets invited instantly - anecdotal, but my childhood Holy Priest friend literally quit because Shaman was meta and he had a hard time joining m+ groups in 9.0. He hasn't returned. One of the reasons players hold old content dearly to their hearts, but I rarely see mentioned or at all, is the fact that some played the game with multiple IRL friends in the past, so your experiences in game had value. You could talk about it outside of the game. Now, sure I killed Halondrus but I have no one to share it with. It's like having an awesome stamp collection that no one cares about. These things matter.

Conclusion, I know this is an old topic, but Devs need to realize what's at stake here.

[Biomega]

Of course they make mistakes and are sometimes slow to react, but it's also a bit of an impossible puzzle.

Between raid, dungeon, and pvp, balancing everything to within a few % of each other is nigh-on impossible. There's too many moving parts, too many variables involved. Some things scale like shit, others take off like rockets; some things bomb in single target but are OP in AoE. And so on. Getting it all to fit together so that everyone is satisfied is FAR more complicated than the randos crying "lmao just buff everything by 20% what's the matter with you Blizz" would like to believe.

One of the prime examples is Shadow Priest. It's a class that historically bounced between useless and overpowered probably more than any other spec - not because Blizzard hates Shadow Priests (because who doesn't), but because the mechanics of the class simply put it into a position where it can so very easily go wrong. Making the spec competitive on single-target without making it completely insane on cleave is tricky enough; also making it work in dungeons is almost impossible with tuning alone. The class would need a fundamental redesign first.

I'm not saying they got it all down as best as they could - far from it. But tuning can only do so much in a world of interlocking and interconnected systems that get a scaling reset every few months. They backed themselves into a corner here; we'll have to see if the new talent system in DF helps them get themselves out of it.

[Goatfish]

One of the prime examples is Shadow Priest. It's a class that historically bounced between useless and overpowered probably more than any other spec - not because Blizzard hates Shadow Priests (because who doesn't), but because the mechanics of the class simply put it into a position where it can so very easily go wrong. Making the spec competitive on single-target without making it completely insane on cleave is tricky enough; also making it work in dungeons is almost impossible with tuning alone. The class would need a fundamental redesign first.

This is true of several other specs. Windwalkers have had weird scaling issues for a while and it's pretty hard to balance them to be competitive single target without making their aoe bonkers. We've had a lot of playing with target caps recently too so it should be expected that aoe especially is going to be getting tuned for a while. Balance is real messy right now in general though, especially for M+.

I don't really buy the pvp argument. I've long advocated for complete pvp reform, it should be treated almost like its own game and most of the tools are in place to do it that way.

[Biomega]

I've long advocated for complete pvp reform, it should be treated almost like its own game and most of the tools are in place to do it that way.

I've been advocating this as well, for years. But Blizzard is adamantly against it. They want everyone to be able to just jump into any form of content with minimal difference in how they play. Which is a pipe dream on the best of days, and a complete nightmare on the worst.

But it's what they want for mass appeal.

[conkrete]

Of course they make mistakes and are sometimes slow to react, but it's also a bit of an impossible puzzle.

Between raid, dungeon, and pvp, balancing everything to within a few % of each other is nigh-on impossible. There's too many moving parts, too many variables involved. Some things scale like shit, others take off like rockets; some things bomb in single target but are OP in AoE. And so on. Getting it all to fit together so that everyone is satisfied is FAR more complicated than the randos crying "lmao just buff everything by 20% what's the matter with you Blizz" would like to believe.

One of the prime examples is Shadow Priest. It's a class that historically bounced between useless and overpowered probably more than any other spec - not because Blizzard hates Shadow Priests (because who doesn't), but because the mechanics of the class simply put it into a position where it can so very easily go wrong. Making the spec competitive on single-target without making it completely insane on cleave is tricky enough; also making it work in dungeons is almost impossible with tuning alone. The class would need a fundamental redesign first.

I'm not saying they got it all down as best as they could - far from it. But tuning can only do so much in a world of interlocking and interconnected systems that get a scaling reset every few months. They backed themselves into a corner here; we'll have to see if the new talent system in DF helps them get themselves out of it.

The solution is to do changes on a very frequency basis to reflect current meta like other games have been able to do. The meta in WoW is beyond toxic.

[Biomega]

The solution is to do changes on a very frequency basis to reflect current meta like other games have been able to do. The meta in WoW is beyond toxic.

Doesn't quite work the same way in WoW because of progress persistence.

It's easy to just switch things up in a game like LoL or whatever because you can play a new hero anytime you like - it doesn't require you to level one from scratch and gear to a useful level over the course of WEEKS.

Imagine doing that and then boom next change hits and all your work was for nothing. That's not something that you can do in WoW.

[conkrete]

Doesn't quite work the same way in WoW because of progress persistence.

It's easy to just switch things up in a game like LoL or whatever because you can play a new hero anytime you like - it doesn't require you to level one from scratch and gear to a useful level over the course of WEEKS.

Imagine doing that and then boom next change hits and all your work was for nothing. That's not something that you can do in WoW.

To a certain extent you could, strong and weak specs can be identified within a few weeks into a patch. Adjust it. It's unacceptable to go months on end unaddressed.

Additionally, I'm sure they have the best simming tools to accurately predict these things into the future. Just tweak them around.

[Biomega]

I'm sure they have the best simming tools to accurately predict these things into the future. Just tweak them around.

If only it was that easy. If "just do sims and predict what'll happen" was enough to balance things, we wouldn't have this mess in the first place.

The reality is that they can't really do testing to the same extent that the live game provides. It's just not feasible. There's always something people come up with, or some perception in the community that shifts things, or whatever other distorting factor they couldn't realistically foresee. Heck they changed some mechanics on raid fights as people were doing them this tier.

WoW has a long lead time on development iterations, and huge inertia when it comes to changes. I'm not saying they're already doing the best they can (clearly not, they could improve substantially) but there just isn't a magic fix in the vein of "just do balance passes every few weeks" like it's been suggested. That doesn't work for this game.

[conkrete]

If only it was that easy. If "just do sims and predict what'll happen" was enough to balance things, we wouldn't have this mess in the first place.

The reality is that they can't really do testing to the same extent that the live game provides. It's just not feasible. There's always something people come up with, or some perception in the community that shifts things, or whatever other distorting factor they couldn't realistically foresee. Heck they changed some mechanics on raid fights as people were doing them this tier.

WoW has a long lead time on development iterations, and huge inertia when it comes to changes. I'm not saying they're already doing the best they can (clearly not, they could improve substantially) but there just isn't a magic fix in the vein of "just do balance passes every few weeks" like it's been suggested. That doesn't work for this game.

Mate, if raidbots is that accurate, I'm sure they have the engineers to build the tools to calculate these things. And if they don't, who's to blame here? As a software engineer myself, they should. At least on single target scenarios with X or Y buffs. Even on single target you have right now one spec doing 22k and another 17k...

Now, like you pointed out, and especially when you have so many factors, things might happen along the way. But, that doesn't excuse the fact that Boomkin was completely broken in 9.0 for months... If tweaking the hell out of that is "just not feasible," then nothing is, we can accept the game as it is, quit discussing it and move on.

[Kuntantee]

Of course they make mistakes and are sometimes slow to react, but it's also a bit of an impossible puzzle.

They make mistakes all the time and slow all the time. Stop justifying incompetence.

[Skildar]

The community will always exxagerate the smallest differences of damage output from two specs regardless of their utility, etc.
It's blizzard responsibility to educate as best they can, but if you have websites such as wowhead and icyveins that pushes people to follow tierlists for mm+ and raids then what can they do?

Blizzard used to be very reactive to balancing issues but they slowed down a bit as they've explained it because it didn't gove a chance to build some meta or even for some players to try different builds on a spec and discover some still unknown strenghts.

It's all a matter of your objectives in the game, if you're looking to break the limits ( i.e. doing mm+28 ), then you have to expect that not all specs can perform the best.

In pvp environment you will find specs with high and some with low skill floor making it seem that some of these are broken, etc.

When I'm looking at charts on warcraftlogs I seldom see some specs that are completely at the bottom in every type of content or every type of combat situation. Very few suffered from the case of the wondwalker and it's quite frustrating that they first balancing done during 9.2 didn't resolve the situation

[conkrete]

They make mistakes all the time and slow all the time. Stop justifying incompetence.

This is what I never get, the types that stay on these forums defending Blizzard 24/7 on undeniably unjustifiable things. I'll never understand it.

Well, at least he's not attacking anyone. Some people here just flat attack people for suggesting new things.

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The community will always exxagerate the smallest differences of damage output from two specs regardless of their utility, etc.
It's blizzard responsibility to educate as best they can, but if you have websites such as wowhead and icyveins that pushes people to follow tierlists for mm+ and raids then what can they do?

Blizzard used to be very reactive to balancing issues but they slowed down a bit as they've explained it because it didn't gove a chance to build some meta or even for some players to try different builds on a spec and discover some still unknown strenghts.

I've been playing this game since 2005ish, with breaks in between, and I've never seen Blizzard adequately addressing balance. Enhancement doing +22K to a 16K BM hunter at the highest (pushing it to the limit) is no "small difference." And that's my point.

I won't name the game because it is irrelevant, but what they do it minor tweaks on a (even sometimes) bi-weekly basis. Like 3% here and 3% there, most balanced game I've ever played. Sometimes I saw the dev engage frequently on reddit, and no bs at some point it was so frequent, you could feel the community's respect for him.

It creates an environment in which you're only judged as a player, not on which char you're playing. Sure, some minor imbalances are inevitable but nothing game breaking or broken.

[Skildar]

I've been playing this game since 2005ish, with breaks in between, and I've never seen Blizzard adequately addressing balance. Enhancement doing +22K to a 16K BM hunter at the highest (pushing it to the limit) is no "small difference." And that's my point.

Where are you seeing these figures?

For the regular updates I don't know if you remember BC and WotLK eras but we used to have some blues exchanging regularly on forums about how to balance each classes. Ghostcrawler was amongst these guys, and the community hated them because it felt like they were not really heard.

The thing is that with a community this broad and tools like warcraftlogs that most of the people use in a way that distort the right figures, we end up with broad disappointment over most of the decisions. (I recall seeing a video of Limits GM doing an analysis in Nathria over what buff havoc DH qhould have gotten and him reading logs on Sludgefist completely ignoring the fact that the boss takes 100% more damages during some small windows... so even top dogs are bad at reading logs)

I would very much like them to get there balancing right and more often but in the past this have played against them. But I'm with you and I would hate in the future that my spec feels like garbage or that it just feels that I can't compete without seeing any changes made for more than a month

[conkrete]

Where are you seeing these figures?

It's not that hard, Skolex on Warcraftlogs. And sure, it may vary on some fights, but that is objectively a single target fight. And Scripe, for example, said he benched one of the best players simply because of the class he was playing. Again, he didn't bench the player, he benched the class.

For the regular updates I don't know if you remember BC and WotLK eras but we used to have some blues exchanging regularly on forums about how to balance each classes. Ghostcrawler was amongst these guys, and the community hated them because it felt like they were not really heard.

Ghostcrawler didn't often make sense. It was known; I benefited from it. My class was OP from TBC all the way to 3.1.

[Skildar]

Ghostcrawler didn't often make sense. It was known; I benefited from it. My class was OP from TBC all the way to 3.1.

yeah I remember once where he said that frost mages are a bit too strong and next balance patch : icelance +5% damages

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It's not that hard, Skolex on Warcraftlogs. And sure, it may vary on some fights, but that is objectively a single target fight.

I'm looking at this graph : https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...y=4&dataset=75

There is a notable difference but nothing that resembles what you've described :/

[conkrete]

I'm looking at this graph : https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...y=4&dataset=75

There is a notable difference but nothing that resembles what you've described :/

The slightly above average people are not playing their optimally, some may not even have 4 set or both legendaries equipped and maxed.

Reason why I look at people pushing their specs to the max

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/ra...t&difficulty=4

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/ra...y&difficulty=4

Note, I chose Enh and BM, but could've been Demo and Arms which does even less than BM. It doesn't matter to my overarching point. Guess what I actually play both Warlock and Enhancement Shaman, not that it matters...

[Trumpcat]

By now I think the drastic balance issues are intentional and dictated by whatever collection of metrics and formulas they use for it. If players without any of the developer tools and insight can sim a spec and see how vastly better it is then play it and see it is indeed vastly better then the developers can do so much more.

[Amariw]

I've been advocating this as well, for years. But Blizzard is adamantly against it. They want everyone to be able to just jump into any form of content with minimal difference in how they play. Which is a pipe dream on the best of days, and a complete nightmare on the worst.

But it's what they want for mass appeal.

There's more to it then accessibility. If your abilities are too radically different between pvp and pve, you're not really playing the same class/specc anymore. With affliction i know i use my dots to do damage in both modes. The exact spells i emphasize on might be different due to factors like interrupts and less ability to setup in pvp, but they're still the same spells.

Pvp tuning is already completely seperate from pve, as it should be, and Honor talents give radically altered passive/active effects when tuning alone isn't enough. I don't know what you're advocating for, but more then this sounds like you'd be playing two different classes when switching pvp/e, and that doesn't sound as fun.

[Skildar]

The slightly above average people are not playing their optimally, some may not even have 4 set or legendaries equipped.

Reason why I look at people pushing their specs to the max

That's not slightly above the average that's people at the 75% percentile, which usually represents what you can deliver by playing at your best while handling some mechanics that will slightly hinder your output. I've found it to be a realistic view on what you can expect a good player to deliver.

Whereas looking at the top of the top, you will find people that abuse some mechanics to boost their figures (let it be cheese mechanics, cumulation of trinket effects, priest IP, etc.). You will seldom find something realistic there and often confusing.

[Nymrohd]

They need clear levers that allow them to tune each progression stream separately. It could be done with talents next xpac if the talent builds for each playstyle are divergent enough.