Battle for Azeroth Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Deleted]

Holy Priest feels fantastic and after all the kvetching I've done about other classes, it feels good to say that something plays well.

[Valysar]

We can't right click on a WQ to search a group anymore... lol
The disappearance of WQGF is fine but this ?

[Katchii]

Spare me, please. I know what I am talking about here, I am just shortening things in order not to write a page-long essay. You are right that resources aren't infinite, and yes, of course, there are priorities, but we are not talking about something abstract, we are talking about a specific thing: balancing specs, and this area has been changing.

When it is said that whenever they release a pre-patch for a new expansion, the specs are balanced for the new max-level, what is exactly meant by that? It is meant that the numeric coefficients on spells are computed according to average expected stats and spell structure at the new max-level, not the old max-level. In prior times old max-level and new max-level were wildly different because characters were getting new spells / spell modifiers. This changed, we are now getting nothing. There are a few other factors involved, most of them changed as well, in the same direction. So while, yes, it is still true that balancing for the old max-level is different than balancing for the new max-level, the difference has been decreasing heavily and the additional effort involved in providing some tuning for the old max-level in addition to the supposedly thorough completed tuning for the new max-level has been disappearing. Yet what we see on the sheet is one completely broken spec (how did this get through tuning for any level? huh?) and the rest of the sheet being 2x in spread from high to low (way too big accounting for all possible error margins).

Here's the reality: they did not do anything except the basic number tuning. They kept talking about that number tuning and were saying that "this will happen on the PTR, that's what PTR is for" and then it basically didn't happen, they did a shoddy job and completed it in what seems like 20 minutes.

Now, I am not saying that lack of balance for the old max-level is so damn important or unusual. We always had this problem yes, and many other things are more important, yes. Agree. I am saying two things. First, that this was always Blizzard producing bad quality while telling stupid stories about resource management (which nobody should care about, but the fanboys care). And second, that this is somehow even worse in BFA than it was before because BFA stopped adding abilities during leveling yet their supposedly completed tuning for the new max-level produced such a stupid picture for the old max-level despite the specs being the same.

/Damn, ended up writing a page-long essay.

Why should nobody care about resource management? It's a real thing, that all businesses have to work with and explains a LOT of why businesses make the decisions they do. Ignoring it, or willfully pretending it isn't a thing, is ludicrous.

I never said it's currently balanced for max level, I just said the current game play is not balanced... I don't know exactly why, but I do know Blizzard made the decision to leave the balancing the way it is for now. If the balancing is this fucked up at 120, you'll have a point, but as of right now it's just the pre-patch...and every single pre-patch has been the same.

[rda]

Why should nobody care about resource management?

Because when you are selling a service, nobody else but you are responsible for your decisions. You do it badly, you get the blame. You do it well, you get the praise. Simple. Saying "accept subpar service because my resources aren't infinite and I planned them in such a way that service is subpar" will get you laughed at, deservedly.

[Deleted]

Soooo, I had about 7 hours on the Monk XP buff. I kept extending it so I could go on a leveling spree, and it got purged from my character. That's so goddamn low Blizz. wtf

[Izalla]

apparently, my holy artifacts 910/915 relics have ,after the squish, a lower item lvl then my 890/900 shadow relics.

That's the first thing I noticed on beta when character copy was enabled! I figured it was a mistake and would get fixed but I guess not. Don't think it was holy ones I was looking at either, mighta been life because it was my druid.

[Makabreska]

Whats with shadows? Why can't I lower them below fair?

Latest victim of 8.0- Kael'thas

[rda]

Whats with shadows? Why can't I lower them below fair?

Welcome to the pre-patch. (This is one of the changes that gets people irritated. Not sure why they did it. Maybe there is a good reason, maybe there isn't, we'll soon know.)

[EbaumsTipster]

So was the once a week Dungeon xp buff thing a bug or reverted? It sounds a little too much to be intentional (I could understand it being daily, not weekly).

[Syegfryed]

Welcome to the pre-patch. (This is one of the changes that gets people irritated. Not sure why they did it. Maybe there is a good reason, maybe there isn't, we'll soon know.)

blizzard knows the right way, we don't

[rda]

I wonder what they are going to talk about in tomorrow's Q&A.

[Broken Fox]

I wonder what they are going to talk about in tomorrow's Q&A.

High Elves

[EbaumsTipster]

I wonder what they are going to talk about in tomorrow's Q&A.

Transmog, prepatch, artifacts are in fact going away! A bunch of useless questions but I'm expecting at least one actual reveal.

[Syegfryed]

oh, it will be a Q&A tomorrow? they are becoming so useless lately i though they would stop doing

can't wait for a dozen of questions about already answered subjects like M+, artifact and other irrlevant things

And of cOurse mOrAlY gRaY

[Marlamin]

What warrior might that be? I might have run into you on AD, I do quite a bit of PvP there on different toons :P

Marlamin (please don't gank me)

[FlubberPuddy]

What's the music name that plays during BFA Login screen?? It's the same one used in the Warbringers teaser!

- - - Updated - - -

oh, it will be a Q&A tomorrow? they are becoming so useless lately i though they would stop doing

can't wait for a dozen of questions about already answered subjects like M+, artifact and other irrlevant things

And of cOurse mOrAlY gRaY

Even when I don't always agree with Ion, it's nice to have the pretty frequent Q/As. It's nice hearing the explanations to some of their decisions, even if they may not always make sense.

[Katchii]

Because when you are selling a service, nobody else but you are responsible for your decisions. You do it badly, you get the blame. You do it well, you get the praise. Simple. Saying "accept subpar service because my resources aren't infinite and I planned them in such a way that service is subpar" will get you laughed at, deservedly.

I absolutely agree with you on this, but you're still willfully just brushing it aside. If the quality of the product WAS lacking I'd 100% agree with you on this regarding WoW, but I don't find the quality of the product to be lacking (outside of the fiasco of the patch implementation yesterday). You're trying to leverage the current class balance as a measure of product quality. That's not a reasonable metric. Class balance has ALWAYS sucked during pre-patch for a variety of reasons, but it's not because the quality of the game is down/bad.

How exactly does pre-patch class balance directly reflect product quality?

[Makabreska]

BTW, Battle Chest is gone. All you need to play up to Legion is subscription.

[Shampro]

I just noticed that Orgrimmar was updated throughly outside the gates.

[rda]

How exactly does pre-patch class balance directly reflect product quality?

I think we are about to go in circles, I answered this already. First, pre-patch class balance always mattered somewhat and Blizzard consistently making a terrible job on it was always bad, even though it would have been worse if they delivered there in exchange for flunking something more important. Second, in the case of BFA class balance at 110 is pretty close to class balance at 120 given that specs don't change. All in my opinion.