Ghostcrawler Interview

[Netherspark]

So it wasn't a fake. They are really considering a supporter.

No they're not considering a support role. Ghostcrawler's responses there have been translated from english to chinese and again to english and his meaning has been completely lost the process.

He was asked if there were to be a 4th role, what would it be? And he said "we had support roles in the past and it didn't work out so we probably wouldn't do it again".

He cleared this up on Twitter:

The Question was would we ever do a fourth role. I said unlikely. Then the Question was if we had to a do a 4th, what would it be.

I said we sort of had a support role in the past so it would make sense. (Still pretty unlikely though.)

[Deleted]

I'd like some form of item squish or at least reduction of numbers. I'm more interested in the supporter-role idea. Wonder how they would implement it and how you would level one. Will the supporter-role take over the various short-term buffs the players has now? For example, will the supporter role person cast Power Infusion on members of the raid (and thus remove it from the Priest class) or do damage reduction buffs on tanks (instead of the tanks doing it themselves?). Will they be able to (off)heal? or even offtank?

[Sengiratolom]

Why wouldn't I wanna do 1million dps? Don't you wanna do 1million dps? I just cant understand the mentality of the people who are pro squish. The first time they floated this idea i was shocked at the popular support it seems to have. To me its ending the game.

Highest burst i had on my enh shaman was 1m157k dps (lasted for 10sec and declined after) with ilvl 530 ish and bad juju hc tf (2/2)+rep trinket+2 dancing steels+pot+banner+stormlash+hero up on a pul (fire ele popped 1.5sec pre pull, pot +wolves 0.2sec before, unleash+flameshock running in, EM+ascendance after the first stormstrike). My glyphed fire ele alone managed to do 11.5m dmg in its uptime. Note that this was with a regular hc and a tf normal weapon (both double upped). That pull wasn't the only 1m+ start i had with valor+bad juju hc tf (2/2) and i was producing 900k-1.1m starts on pretty much all the lei shen pulls with that gear and hero.

That burst was during a lei shen hc progress pull when we still used hero on pull rather then saving it for p3, right now, without hero, ilvl 548 with 2 hc tf (2/2) weapons and with a hc rentaki (2/2) my pull- burst is 600k-900k on lei shen hc (proc/crit dependant), because the agi isn't frontloaded as it was with the valor trinket and we obviously dont hero on pull anymore. Resulting in the fire ele only doing like 7-8m on pull rather then 10m+. But rentaki gives higher average dps, no point reverting back (even tho i'd love to get a similar pull in with my current gear, would be fun to see 1.3m ish dps on pull).
The only way i see a firemage surpass that is with the spellstolen buff from an add and cleaving said add, but ye enh right now is in a stage where the all out burst on the pull can reach ridiculous numbers, the dps drops down for 1.5min, then a moderate burst with EM, to go mental 1.5min after that when all cds align again.

Show me a 1.3m (with current gear the 1m157k had easyly been a 1.3m with double frontloaded procs)+ single target, non gimmick pull of a non enh, and i stand corrected.

Quoting myself, 1m dps burst has been done. With how the game is developing we'd end up having 2.5m-3m hp @ the same stage next xpac, with 1.5m dps being normal, while those and 6m or more bursts do sound like you are getting more powerful, it also turns the game in a huge number madness.

[OrcsRLame]

I do not know of any other game that has the crazy high numbers Blizzard has for dps, health pools and the stats on gear. At a certain point it goes so high it loses any meaning and becomes more confusing them anything else.

Side Note for El Plastico: MMO champ is not the best source to find out what players are thinking. It's a small segment of the player population. It's hard to know the popularity of anything in game due to the fact a vast majority do not visit any social site and discuss what they like/dis like.

Not for me. The numbers could get into the vigintillions and they'd still have meaning to me. "This piece of gear has 6 octovigintillion strength, 8 octovigintillion stam, 3 octovigintillion crit and 3 octovigintillion haste. Can you believe that 5 expansions ago gear only had like 2 trivigintillion stam on it? Numbers are too big, we need an item squish."

Of course, most people don't knows numbers past the trillions, so I can see how having health pools that are only 8 digits away from your maximum is kind of scary.

[lavaalamp]

Look if they fix the scaling, it was like you never got up to 500k with 520-540ilvl hp unbuffed you were always at say 50k with 520-540ilvl. you're not nerfed of your "Power" at all. hopefully with this item squish it won't affect Solo'ing old content if they do it correctly. so you'll always be gaining power, just with smaller numbers. it's like Hitting 300,000 to mob with 30,000,000hp so they have 29,700,000hp left. but with the ilvl squish you'll hit say, 30,000 to a mob with 3,000,000 bring it down to 2,970,000hp. it's merely cutting out a 0(s). and having High numbers calculating on say a weak Cpu can cause Skips in frame rates. so in turn it improves performance and it doesn't "nerf" you at all. it's very simple to understand

[SL1200]

Big numbers don't scare me. I can read and comprehend them without an issue.

[Deleted]

It's offering options to players as a convenience (at least at this point), which I have no problem with.

Personally, I don't give a shit what Rob Pardo says, and the reality is that not every exec is going to tow the company line.

It would also be "convenient" to pay £15 and catch my alts up to 550 ilvl ready for next tier so I don't have to coin for thunderforged gear week after week just to be disappointed... but i'd be disgusted if that ever happened, they say it will never happen now (2013) but just because it will "never" happen in 2013, doesn't mean that in 2016 they won't change their minds.

And what is it about the squish that people don't get :S

You are not weaker, RELATIVELY speaking. However, my Arcane shot crits for 300k with full procs on the 5.4 PTR, so next expansion when it only crits for 14,520, I will FEEL weaker, because in the past it did more damage - it's psychological but it's still there

(I'm fine with the squish, just trying to explain it for the people that don't get why some have a problem)

[PuppetShowJustice]

Maybe they will put Big Numbers in the cash shop for people who simply can't accept the squish.

(I'm kidding, don't flip out)

[Netherspark]

I wonder how far "convenience" will go... how long before you can just buy everything that isn't a stat increase?

They say they want to sell Lesser Charms to people who can't be bothered to gather them. There are many things that people need to farm and earn that grant no direct power increase, so what's to stop them doing the same with anything else for "convenience"? Who's to say you'll never be able to buy the following:

Reputation?
Currencies like Timeless Coin etc?
Valor Points?
Teleports and summons?
Rare mount and pet drops like Ashes of A'lar?
Instant lv90s?
Profession leveling?
Profession materials?
Profession recipes?

[Pua]

I read the pro squish arguments all the time, none of them are compelling to me, or make me want a squish.

Unfortunately, your opinion isn't necessarily relevant to anyone other than you; there are more legitimate arguments for the item squish than there are against it.

You, personally, might not like the idea. That's fine.

That doesn't mean it's not good game design to go ahead with something that will be better for the game itself.

The item squish will.

You're going to have to start accepting that, I'm afraid.

- - - Updated - - -

I wonder how far "convenience" will go... how long before you can just buy everything that isn't a stat increase?

They say they want to sell Lesser Charms to people who can't be bothered to gather them. There are many things that people need to farm and earn that grant no direct power increase, so what's to stop them doing the same with anything else for "convenience"? Who's to say you'll never be able to buy the following:

Reputation?
Currencies like Timeless Coin etc?
Valor Points?
Teleports and summons?
Rare mount and pet drops like Ashes of A'lar?
Instant lv90s?
Profession leveling?
Profession materials?
Profession recipes?

Ultimately, I think that's why we won't see the charms sold in Europe or North America; it's a slippery slope. In Asia, with the F2P market as it is, time sinks that you're paying for are simply not viable anymore, particularly when that time investment could end up netting you absolutely nothing.

Which in the case of these coins, is what the outcome frequently is.

[SL1200]

Unfortunately, your opinion isn't necessarily relevant to anyone other than you; there are more legitimate arguments for the item squish than there are against it.

You, personally, might not like the idea. That's fine.

That doesn't mean it's not good game design to go ahead with something that will be better for the game itself.

The item squish will.

You're going to have to start accepting that, I'm afraid.

- - - Updated - - -



Ultimately, I think that's why we won't see the charms sold in Europe or North America; it's a slippery slope. In Asia, with the F2P market as it is, time sinks that you're paying for are simply not viable anymore, particularly when that time investment could end up netting you absolutely nothing.

Which in the case of these coins, is what the outcome frequently is.

I don't have to accept anything. I can quit the game, but before that I'm going to bitch about it on forums, and hope they change their minds.

[Tilie]

Item squish is enough to bring me back. I love the vibe of smaller stats on gear. Makes me happy.

[SL1200]

Item squish is enough to bring me back. I love the vibe of smaller stats on gear. Makes me happy.

Yeh you'll be back for a month and quit again. I've been a solid subscriber since i picked up the game in 2006, I have been subed every month since, and will continue until they put this horrible idea on their servers.

[Deja Thoris]

I don't have to accept anything. I can quit the game, but before that I'm going to bitch about it on forums, and hope they change their minds.

That's right, deny it to the death!

[Deleted]

People say a "number is just a number" until they learn how much harder it can be for an older processor to crunch large numbers.

For a processor it makes absolutely nada difference if you calculate

2 + 3

or

29382392 + 1290319

. Even an 80486 (check when that one came out if you don't know what it is) could do millions of *floating* point operations a second, not to mention integer calculations.

The only difference this could possibly make is when you are crossing the threshold from 32 to 64 bits (at about 4 billion), and *even* then you are simply doubling the amount of operations you have to do. Which virtually has no effect on you, because the only time this matters is when you are talking about unit health. So your WoW client has to spend 2 operations instead of 1 when updating/storing the health value on a mob, and when you click a mob and look at the health. How many mobs are on the screen? And now consider we are talking about processors being able to do millions of operations per second (yes, even the 80486, and your CPU is faster than that).


This isn't an "old processor" issue.
They might have to rewrite their server software / the WoW client to deal with 64 bit ints, so it's a question of manpower, but it's not like a CPU from 2001 suddenly explodes and melts down the moment you throw 1000 64 bit integers at it...

[ComputerNerd]

Except for the part where lesser charms turn into loot tokens that turn into gear. Look Ma, I just paid $$ for an item. You can even make an argument that you're paying real money to gamble for items in game. If you look at it from a certain point of view...

The conversion which is limited by a weekly quest and by a number that very few would not hit by normal play.
You paid money to speed up what most players manage perfectly fine.
You did not pay for gear in any form.

The squish issue is more on interpretation.
How exactly do we judge how much of an upgrade an item is, since we cannot realistically look at the numbers and gauge the difference between them at the levels we are going to be seeing soon.
Squishing and making differences in stats easier to "eyeball" is not a bad thing.

[Lethey Alexandros]

Note how he said new class type and not a new class. Seems to me they are thinking of adding that fourth spec to some classes.

But adding a whole new role and game type...it's a big undertaking. In fact it probably means a big rejigging of those classes as abilities are reassigned and rebalanced.

A roundabout way of pruning some clutter?

Note how he said class type and not spec type. Might wanna put the tinfoil hat away for the moment.

[Jko]

muy interasante

[Aquamonkey]

Don't focus on soloing old stuff. We'd rather get feedback on the squish itself, not other ramifications that we can solve. (Source)

Will an item level squish affect our ability to solo older content? If it doesn't, I have no problem with it.
The goal is it will not affect your ability to solo older content. (Source)

[Tharkkun]

If anything we can learn Rob Pardo's view on the Blizzard item-shop

Rob Pardo has criticized micro-transactions in MMOGs, saying the increasingly prevalent payment system is unfair to gamers in subscription-based games like World of Warcraft

So the item-shop is unfair in a game like WoW, according to one of Blizzard's own. Hopefully all the apologists and defenders of the cash shop will see the light now.

Don't you dare apologize for taking a 5 year old quote either. The market for MMO's obviously has not changed at all since 2008. Free to play and micro transactions are non existent. *rolls eyes*

Offering cosmetic items is different than a micro transaction game. Please apologize to the community on failing to educate yourself on the difference between the two.