1. #64681
    Quote Originally Posted by spleen1015 View Post
    Class tuning is something I have always wondered about. I'm sure most of it goes above my head and I would be unable to tackle it, but I still think it can be better.

    I have built a real time data streaming process. The technology behind this process had six 'nobs and levers' that could be adjusted to make the process work more efficiently. We studied data volumes and were able to tune the process to work most efficiently within 4 windows based on data volumes. It took a few months, but it was done.

    It is all just numbers. Lost of complex algorithms, but just numbers. Numbers can be tweaked. They should be able to modify things to improve balance. There are great tools built by the community. Surely they have better or could use the same to help.

    I believe from a budgetary POV, they don't dedicate the resources to balancing. I don't think class balance is a full time job for anyone. It is just a small step in their development process.
    I am sure Blizzard commits an absolutely massive amount of time to balancing actually. The problem is that WoW has become so focused on perfect balance, and the classes need widly different things to be good, enough so that the best they can do in most cases is tune that aura they added in Legion that simply changes how much damage is done.

    You have to consider for instance not just the numerical values, but also things like how some classes are more bursty, some classes being more dependent on stats, certain fights being better for classes and how some raids might have more of that kind of fight.
    Combine all these factors together and you end up with some classes being poorly tuned. Now Blizzard could always just tune the flat % knob more often, but I think the playerbase would react far more negatively to that than anything.
    The world revamp dream will never die!

  2. #64682
    Titan Grimbold21's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by zantheus1993 View Post

    there are multiple instances of the devs posting on the forums saying things like "top end players are the problem because they figure out the best talents and then discords and website tell players what the best choice is and it becomes socially acceptable to choose the best choice only"
    I don't necessarily agree or understand how this is framed as a wrong thing. Were there no sources of information we'd all be living in ignorance and playing builds that wouldn't be as effective.
    So how is having sources informing us on not only what are the best talents, but also what's wrong with the others a bad thing? Because it highlights flaws in class design?

  3. #64683
    Quote Originally Posted by Grimbold21 View Post
    I don't necessarily agree or understand how this is framed as a wrong thing. Were there no sources of information we'd all be living in ignorance and playing builds that wouldn't be as effective.
    So how is having sources informing us on not only what are the best talents, but also what's wrong with the others a bad thing? Because it highlights flaws in class design?
    The idea is probably more that the theorycrafting often leads to the community parroting the same idea of a class being useless when that only applies to the draconian standards set by the world first community.
    Noone benefits from an endless stream of "my class sux, please fix". Especially not when the problem is just numerical. Theorycrafting detracts from the discussion on how the class plays, or what talents work as part of the class by taking up all the space in the public forum in a sense. The devs have repeatedly stated that when a large chunk of the feedback in non-constructive they simply need to tune it out, which leads to some salient parts being ignored in the confusion.

    Consider for a moment that you are a dev tasked with reading feedback on a class and 80% of the threads are titled something like "Warrior sucks balls", or "Hunter devs are incompetent". Would you want to read those? Or would you simply assume they are non-constructive and move on to something that seems like it has a point?
    It is likely that those first threads has SOME good feedback, but it likely isnt worth skimming through when most of the posts are talking about how they are on the bottom of meters instead of talking about actual problems with the class.

    - - - Updated - - -

    To maybe clarify a bit further.

    The problem is actually theorycrafters themselves. The problem is that most of hte playerbase cannot give contructive feedback to save their lives, instead parroting whatever problem that resonates the loudest, and class tuning is a really easy scapegoat, especially when theorycrafting is so readily available and minmaxing is expected in nearly all facets of gameplay due to the lack of meaningful choices.
    The world revamp dream will never die!

  4. #64684
    Titan Grimbold21's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sondrelk View Post
    The idea is probably more that the theorycrafting often leads to the community parroting the same idea of a class being useless when that only applies to the draconian standards set by the world first community.
    Noone benefits from an endless stream of "my class sux, please fix". Especially not when the problem is just numerical. Theorycrafting detracts from the discussion on how the class plays, or what talents work as part of the class by taking up all the space in the public forum in a sense. The devs have repeatedly stated that when a large chunk of the feedback in non-constructive they simply need to tune it out, which leads to some salient parts being ignored in the confusion.

    Consider for a moment that you are a dev tasked with reading feedback on a class and 80% of the threads are titled something like "Warrior sucks balls", or "Hunter devs are incompetent". Would you want to read those? Or would you simply assume they are non-constructive and move on to something that seems like it has a point?
    It is likely that those first threads has SOME good feedback, but it likely isnt worth skimming through when most of the posts are talking about how they are on the bottom of meters instead of talking about actual problems with the class.

    - - - Updated - - -

    To maybe clarify a bit further.

    The problem is actually theorycrafters themselves. The problem is that most of hte playerbase cannot give contructive feedback to save their lives, instead parroting whatever problem that resonates the loudest, and class tuning is a really easy scapegoat, especially when theorycrafting is so readily available and minmaxing is expected in nearly all facets of gameplay due to the lack of meaningful choices.
    But those sorts of threads are not theorycrafting, they may be partially (mis)informed by such voices, but they are not. They are, however, the most crude form of feedback that exists in the absence of well formulated theorycrafting.

    Let's consider this: call these community voices Opinion Leaders. What would be the state of class design in their absence? Not only that, but what kind of behavioral changes would this allow for Blizzard?

    Don't get me wrong, I agree with the premise that a lot of players are just parroting these opinion leaders. I do it as well, but I at least go in and experience the class to see if I go through the problems being pointed out.

    So when Shaman community leaders are saying our survivability and self-healing is crap, that Wolves are in a shameful state in comparison to how they used to be in MoP or WoD, or that having Fire Nova as a talent in the same row as Hailstorm is useless especially when taking into account that Fire Nova is downright useless without a Flame shock spread mechanic... sure, writing posts on the official forums in such fashion might be non-constructive, but it's just a reflection of frustration because we've had these things in an acceptable state before, but now they've been re-added in a poor state that us - the masses - can't help but go "what the hell are you doing?" Nonetheless I agree and "parrot" such simple premises.

  5. #64685
    Quote Originally Posted by Sondrelk View Post
    The idea is probably more that the theorycrafting often leads to the community parroting the same idea of a class being useless when that only applies to the draconian standards set by the world first community.
    Noone benefits from an endless stream of "my class sux, please fix". Especially not when the problem is just numerical. Theorycrafting detracts from the discussion on how the class plays, or what talents work as part of the class by taking up all the space in the public forum in a sense. The devs have repeatedly stated that when a large chunk of the feedback in non-constructive they simply need to tune it out, which leads to some salient parts being ignored in the confusion.

    Consider for a moment that you are a dev tasked with reading feedback on a class and 80% of the threads are titled something like "Warrior sucks balls", or "Hunter devs are incompetent". Would you want to read those? Or would you simply assume they are non-constructive and move on to something that seems like it has a point?
    It is likely that those first threads has SOME good feedback, but it likely isnt worth skimming through when most of the posts are talking about how they are on the bottom of meters instead of talking about actual problems with the class.

    - - - Updated - - -

    To maybe clarify a bit further.

    The problem is actually theorycrafters themselves. The problem is that most of hte playerbase cannot give contructive feedback to save their lives, instead parroting whatever problem that resonates the loudest, and class tuning is a really easy scapegoat, especially when theorycrafting is so readily available and minmaxing is expected in nearly all facets of gameplay due to the lack of meaningful choices.
    Its almost as if they are thousands of people with absolutely no experience or aptitude in feedback and beta testing.
    Having to sift through 99.9% garbage is what will always happen when you outsource testing to the public.

    Also I have seen of plenty of long, well thought out and articulated posts not talking about numbers and theorycraft but about playstyle and feel for a class being bad that have gone completely ignored with a spec feeling like complete garbage as a result.
    If people put their own free time and energy into providing feedback that gets ignored, they are going to get frustrated and stop giving feedback and all your left with it the yapping masses.
    It ignores such insignificant forces as time, entropy, and death

  6. #64686
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    I think many people are just tired of constant drama. Just look (for example) at Preach channel and ask yourself: was there ever period in last 10 years where game was just, you know, fine?

    Because judging from these videos there is always huge problem that will murder game in few months if devs won't change (or rather revert back). There are videos from MoP era where Preach say that raiding scene is dying..

    Also, good changes get no appreciation. During Legion titanforging was 'world ending problem', I remember comments that Blizzard need just revert this change and WoW will be 'fixed'. They did. No one cares, people are busy whining about Covenants.

    It's just example, cause other creators are even bigger drama queens. And my point isn't that these critique is invalid, I just don't think they are big deals that will destroy whole game and don't deserve this constant 'world is ending' narrative.

  7. #64687
    Quote Originally Posted by Dracullus View Post
    I think many people are just tired of constant drama. Just look (for example) at Preach channel and ask yourself: was there ever period in last 10 years where game was just, you know, fine?

    Because judging from these videos there is always huge problem that will murder game in few months if devs won't change (or rather revert back). There are videos from MoP era where Preach say that raiding scene is dying..

    Also, good changes get no appreciation. During Legion titanforging was 'world ending problem', I remember comments that Blizzard need just revert this change and WoW will be 'fixed'. They did. No one cares, people are busy whining about Covenants.

    It's just example, cause other creators are even bigger drama queens. And my point isn't that these critique is invalid, I just don't think they are big deals that will destroy whole game and don't deserve this constant 'world is ending' narrative.
    negative content spreads better then positive content, this is simply a fact. Same with youtube, the algorithm favours negative content.
    So the content creators get more exposure and make more money when they produce negative content.

    It doesn't matter if the game is fine or not, they will put out negative content regardless because $$.
    It ignores such insignificant forces as time, entropy, and death

  8. #64688
    Quote Originally Posted by Grimbold21 View Post
    Let's consider this: call these community voices Opinion Leaders. What would be the state of class design in their absence? Not only that, but what kind of behavioral changes would this allow for Blizzard?
    Probably some more relaxed communication guidelines, because making discussion harder is about all that kind of person does.

  9. #64689
    This thread here has some folks shilling pretty hard for Blizzard. I don't understand this, as there's enough proof from BfA and Shadowlands beta on how Blizzard blatantly ignores feedback or simply doesn't care about it.

    To give you a concrete example on this: Elemental Shaman talents - in the first row we have this useless skill called "Statis Discharge" that requires Lightning Shield to be active on you. In the third row we have Earth Shield. As a Shaman you can only have one elemental shield active on you, so you cannot have Lightning Shield and Earth Shield on you at the same time. What does this mean in the end? One talent is actively preventing you from using another talent. This has been pointed out for long enough now and guess what: this crap still made it to live in the pre patch.

    I'm not trying to defend theorycrafters here, I think dissecting every skill and talent and rotation for another 0.02% increase of DPS / healing is ridiculous and absurd, but the issue is not about those people. It's about Blizzard ignoring almost all feedback they get on class design. Class design in BfA has been sh*t. Class design in Shadowlands is barely better and besides Shadow Priest - a rework that undoubtly improved the spec and was well done - they haven't done anything meaningful to most classes and specs. Bad specs are still bad with bad talents and bad gameplay, several complaints from even Legion have still not been adressed (Holy Paladin mastery, Restoration Shaman having no ST cooldown for Mythic+, Survival being severely undertuned for two expansions now etc.).

    They're condescending attitude towards community feedback, even for the most elaborate and well-thought posts about class / spec design, is shameful, because they fail in this aspect since BfA beta, in some cases even before. There is no excuse for this and there's no argument to sugarcoat or vindicate Blizzard's poor work on classes for this upcoming expansion.
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  10. #64690
    Elemental Lord Makabreska's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nyel View Post
    This thread here has some folks shilling pretty hard for Blizzard. I don't understand this, as there's enough proof from BfA and Shadowlands beta on how Blizzard blatantly ignores feedback or simply doesn't care about it.
    There has also been enough proof in SL beta that Blizz actually listens to feedback. But hey, it's not like it was presented here over and over again, but it all fell on deaf ears, because it's convenient to ignore it by notorious haters.
    Last edited by Makabreska; 2020-10-18 at 11:02 AM.
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  11. #64691
    Quote Originally Posted by Makabreska View Post
    There has also been enough proof in SL beta that Blizz actually listens to feedback. But hey, it's not like it was presented here over and over again, but it all fell on deaf ears, because it's convenient to ignore it.
    They listen to feedback when the outrage is big enough, e.g. with Covenant abilities only being usable in the Shadowlands etc.

    There are enough things that are fundamentally wrong or broken and Blizzard isn't even adressing them. They're doing a poor job, even if they eventually acknowledge some feedback.
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  12. #64692
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nyel View Post
    They listen to feedback when the outrage is big enough, e.g. with Covenant abilities only being usable in the Shadowlands etc.

    There are enough things that are fundamentally wrong or broken and Blizzard isn't even adressing them. They're doing a poor job, even if they eventually acknowledge some feedback.
    There was no outrage that Feral CD was crap, that Subs Shadow Vault was problematic to use, that Enh Hailstorm play style was the only decent one, that Balance had no DoTs interaction. Feedback response between BfA and SL is night and day. But hey, if people want to ignore all of that, they will. You do you.
    Sometimes, the light of the moon is a key to other spaces. I've found a place where, for a night or two, the streets curve in unfamiliar ways. If I walk here, I might find insight, or I might be touched by madness.

  13. #64693
    Quote Originally Posted by Makabreska View Post
    There was no outrage that Feral CD was crap, that Subs Shadow Vault was problematic to use, that Enh Hailstorm play style was the only decent one, that Balance had no DoTs interaction. Feedback response between BfA and SL is night and day. But hey, if people want to ignore all of that, they will. You do you.
    Going from super bad in BfA to bad in Shadowlands when it comes to reacting to feedback still leaves a bad taste on class design overall.

    But sure, go on, Blizzard's doing fine in that regard.
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  14. #64694
    Elemental Lord Makabreska's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nyel View Post
    Going from super bad in BfA to bad in Shadowlands when it comes to reacting to feedback still leaves a bad taste on class design.

    But sure, go on.
    Hey man, it's not me who made a name for himself with years of hating on the game and ignoring anything that doesn't fit his agenda.
    Sometimes, the light of the moon is a key to other spaces. I've found a place where, for a night or two, the streets curve in unfamiliar ways. If I walk here, I might find insight, or I might be touched by madness.

  15. #64695
    Quote Originally Posted by Makabreska View Post
    Hey man, it's not me who made a name for himself with years of hating on the game and ignoring anything that doesn't fit his agenda.
    Hating on BfA (and guess what, it turned out exactly as bad as I said it would be), not the game. I don't see how this has anything to do with the fact that Blizzard is ignoring player feedback on the most basic things, e.g. my Shaman example above.

    But go on and try to somehow validate your opinion by nitpicking about my opinions on the game (aka BfA).
    MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again

  16. #64696
    Quote Originally Posted by Nyel View Post
    This thread here has some folks shilling pretty hard for Blizzard. I don't understand this^
    Look in the mirror. You're doing the same except with reversed signs.

  17. #64697
    Elemental Lord Makabreska's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nyel View Post
    Hating on BfA (and guess what, it turned out exactly as bad as I said it would be), not the game. I don't see how this has anything to do with the fact that Blizzard is ignoring player feedback on the most basic things, e.g. my Shaman example above.

    But go on and try to somehow validate your opinion by nitpicking about my opinions on the game (aka BfA).
    What's the point. You will just ignore and diminish every example of changes due to feedback.

    One of the highlights was you trying to prove that people were not interested in SL, and Classic BC Google search was more popular, but your own linked source proved you wrong. You are trying so hard to ruin SL (and WoW) for others.
    Last edited by Makabreska; 2020-10-18 at 11:32 AM.
    Sometimes, the light of the moon is a key to other spaces. I've found a place where, for a night or two, the streets curve in unfamiliar ways. If I walk here, I might find insight, or I might be touched by madness.

  18. #64698
    Quote Originally Posted by Nyel View Post
    This thread here has some folks shilling pretty hard for Blizzard. I don't understand this, as there's enough proof from BfA and Shadowlands beta on how Blizzard blatantly ignores feedback or simply doesn't care about it.

    To give you a concrete example on this: Elemental Shaman talents - in the first row we have this useless skill called "Statis Discharge" that requires Lightning Shield to be active on you. In the third row we have Earth Shield. As a Shaman you can only have one elemental shield active on you, so you cannot have Lightning Shield and Earth Shield on you at the same time. What does this mean in the end? One talent is actively preventing you from using another talent. This has been pointed out for long enough now and guess what: this crap still made it to live in the pre patch.
    But Earth Shield can be cast on other targets, right? So you can cast it on f.e. the tank to lend some basically passive healing.

  19. #64699
    Quote Originally Posted by Jaggler View Post
    But Earth Shield can be cast on other targets, right? So you can cast it on f.e. the tank to lend some basically passive healing.
    In a row that's about self defense / self utility? Yeah, that makes so much sense.

    But yes, you can cast it on another target, but why would I ever do this as Elemental Shaman?

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by huth View Post
    Look in the mirror. You're doing the same except with reversed signs.
    I give Blizzard credit where credit's due, e.g. visuals, art design for Shadowlands, delay of the expansion etc. But their class design and overall reaction to class / spec feedback is really bad and even the blindest person can see this. If that person wants to acknowledge it is another story though.
    MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again

  20. #64700
    Quote Originally Posted by Nyel View Post
    I give Blizzard credit where credit's due, e.g. visuals, art design for Shadowlands, delay of the expansion etc. But their class design and overall reaction to class / spec feedback is really bad and even the blindest person can see this. If that person wants to acknowledge it is another story though.
    And yet you dismiss out of hand any evidence that your claims are incorrect.

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