I expected Balance Changes for Season 4

[Nuba]

I don't know why, even after season 2 and 3's complete fiasco, I still expected Blizzard to release balance changes for season 4.

Right now, at least in the US (haven't checked EU) almost 70% of the teams that achieved rank 1 titles were exactly Rogue+Mage+Paladin, with the other 30%s~ being composed of 1/3 RMD, RMPriest, and 20% the rest.

Like what is even wrong with Blizzard at this point

Healer representation on the Gladiator bracket is 90% Druids and Paladins, 5% shamans, 4% Disc priests, 1% MW monks (but those got buffed, thank god) and 0% holy priests

Not to mention the utter and extreme dominance of Rogue+Mage in every single tier bracket except the lowest of ratings (which I don't have access to ladder data so I can only speculate rogue/mage doesnt exist there)

Despite all this, and despite being yet another season I am likely to skip due to "#NoChanges", I don't know why I still expected changes to happen

Did blizzard really fired everyone?

[Mozu]

Pvp has always taken a backseat to pve in this game. With the layoff of a lot of their staff, it's only natural that pvp has the least amount of changes in a game that is already suffering from lack of changes.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Pvp has always taken a backseat to pve in this game. With the layoff of a lot of their staff, it's only natural that pvp has the least amount of changes in a game that is already suffering from lack of changes.

When exactly did they lay off a lot of there staff?

[CrawlFromThePit]

I don't know why, even after season 2 and 3's complete fiasco, I still expected Blizzard to release balance changes for season 4.

Right now, at least in the US (haven't checked EU) almost 70% of the teams that achieved rank 1 titles were exactly Rogue+Mage+Paladin, with the other 30%s~ being composed of 1/3 RMD, RMPriest, and 20% the rest.

Like what is even wrong with Blizzard at this point

Healer representation on the Gladiator bracket is almost 90% Druids and Paladins, 5% shamans, 4% Disc priests, 1% MW monks (but those got buffed, thank god) and 0% holy priests

Not to mention the utter and extreme dominance of Rogue+Mage in every single tier bracket except the lowest of ratings (which I don't have access to ladder data so I can only speculate rogue/mage doesnt exist there)

Despite all this, and despite being yet another season I am likely to skip due to "#NoChanges", I don't know why I still expected changes to happen

Did blizzard really fired everyone?

There's 3 ways to balance rogues.
1. Literally remove utility skills. The ton of people who play rogues EXCLUSIVELY for PvP would call the cops.
2. Give everyone else equivalent utility, they would mean giving some classes like 5 new skills. Way too much design time involved and it could create the same situation but with another class instead.
3. Nerf rogue dps proportional to their utility, that means a skill that does 50k in PvE would do about 7k in PvP. Too big a difference is unacceptable from a design standpoint on top of Blizzard already not liking the idea of having different numbers between PvE and PvP.

[Amariw]

Balance is really bad, but its just one of many glaringly bad pvp design that they didn't change for the entire expac. The best way to gear pvp is from pve, completely removing the tried and true incentive for battlegrounds since practically every expansions since tbc.

Class pvp design isnt just bad tuning, some classes simply don't "work" in pvp. Affliction warlocks are at a point they spend more time of an arena match at full shard, unable to get past endless interrupts, than they do without. Past expansions from mop up to legion had some inefficent but instant way to spend shards exactly to prevent this, this one doesn't.

Pvp rewards are random (which is annoying as all hell but astoundingly its the least debilitating issue here) and based on rating, meaning the ones who actually need an even playing field, those who don't yet have complete pvp mastery of their class, are left behind by design (unless they realise the system is shit and just do m+10).

Beside class design, which tends to require actual good work to do well, all of those issues could have been avoided simply by adhering to lessons learned since rated pvp was invented in wow.But in a way, shit class design is partly the result of designing classes based around artifacts in Legion and scraping it just to have a brand new rental power system with azerite (and apparently Covenants in Shadowlands next).

All of this comes down to lack of knowledge about wow design history, successes and failures. Thats deeply discouraging for the future of the game, you can't really build something great if you keep relearning with a new team each wave of expansions. Pvp is just the greatest casualty.

[CrawlFromThePit]

When exactly did they lay off a lot of there staff?

Articles about that are from february, so almost a year ago.

[Ticj]

back in MoP blizzard at least made an effort to balance PvP somewhat. It is very obvious that they just dont give a shit anymore.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Articles about that are from february, so almost a year ago.

Even if they are referring to that they hired more devs so if any thing it would been a boon on pvp dev.

[Nuba]

Even if they are referring to that they hired more devs so if any thing it would been a boon on pvp dev.

I heard on youtube (bellular and other gaming news I follow) that Blizzard fired almost their entire QA deparment, so they don't test anything or get any feedback. Blizzard designers don't read forums or player feedback so the only thing they do is make a new ability or a new BG and move on to the new zone/abillity/mode

[Kralljin]

There's 3 ways to balance rogues.
1. Literally remove utility skills. The ton of people who play rogues EXCLUSIVELY for PvP would call the cops.
2. Give everyone else equivalent utility, they would mean giving some classes like 5 new skills. Way too much design time involved and it could create the same situation but with another class instead.
3. Nerf rogue dps proportional to their utility, that means a skill that does 50k in PvE would do about 7k in PvP. Too big a difference is unacceptable from a design standpoint on top of Blizzard already not liking the idea of having different numbers between PvE and PvP.

You know, there would be a fourth way: Give this class an actual weakness.

But the issue is, on top of their high damage and control, you have to deal with:
Vanish
Evasion (if you're Melee)
Cloak of Shadows (if you're caster)
30% Feint reduction / Cheat death

Lastly, rogues have the same Hp as anyone else, so you have to chew through the same amount of health as on anyone else.
Rogue should be just a glass cannon, but they have far too many defensive cd's on top of their control.

You have the same shit in a lot of moba games, where assassin / rogue like characters are super nasty on their own but just roll over once they're caught out of position or face heavy burst.

Even if they are referring to that they hired more devs so if any thing it would been a boon on pvp dev.

Developers that develop new content that you can sell, not necessarily to balance existing content.

[CrawlFromThePit]

I heard on youtube (bellular and other gaming news I follow) that Blizzard fired almost their entire QA deparment, so they don't test anything or get any feedback. Blizzard designers don't read forums or player feedback so the only thing they do is make a new ability or a new BG and move on to the new zone/abillity/mode

Activision as a whole is now using third party QA in other countries (places like india and Romania have QA companies that provide the service for much cheaper). The idea that they don't test anything is actually wrong. That being said, using third party QA comes with the problem that most of QA and dev working together is all about communication, with the time difference and not so perfect english from these testers it makes solving issues more complicated. Having a solid team of QA on site is a gigantic help and I think that is currently lacking but assuming they don't test anything is just silly.

- - - Updated - - -

You know, there would be a fourth way: Give this class an actual weakness.

But the issue is, on top of their high damage and control, you have to deal with:
Vanish
Evasion (if you're Melee)
Cloak of Shadows (if you're caster)
30% Feint reduction / Cheat death

Lastly, rogues have the same Hp as anyone else, so you have to chew through the same amount of health as on anyone else.
Rogue should be just a glass cannon, but they have far too many defensive cd's on top of their control.

You have the same shit in a lot of moba games, where assassin / rogue like characters are super nasty on their own but just roll over once they're caught out of position or face heavy burst.

Well yeah that's what I meant by remove some utility. Mostly fucking cloak of shadow, that shit is retarded. I remember very clearly when they got that and insantly became gods forever. Seriously who though of giving them a skill that makes vanish never fail? The ENTIRE POINT of vanish is for other players to cancel that coward piece of shit skill, it's not to give the cowards more options to be coward. Fuck that shit, fight like a man, bitch.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I heard on youtube (bellular and other gaming news I follow) that Blizzard fired almost their entire QA deparment, so they don't test anything or get any feedback. Blizzard designers don't read forums or player feedback so the only thing they do is make a new ability or a new BG and move on to the new zone/abillity/mode

you shouldn't listen to youtubers looking to make money off of your gullibility. you can see here who they fired, as you can see they still have a ton of testers page 37-40.

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/401389...zsTyPm8t95vdMf

- - - Updated - - -

Developers that develop new content that you can sell, not necessarily to balance existing content.

fair point though we don't really have any way to know what pvp devs do what task.

[msdos]

They love nerfing the crap out of Unholy though.

[birdynumnum]

whoever they put in charge of PVP clearly isnt a PVP player... which is a problem in it self

[Tyrannica]

My solution would be rather soloque arena for DD spec only, because not only its more satisfying to test your own skill outside of a team comp, but obviously this can be better balanced, too.

Just the spriest needs some attention in this regard, that got nerfed for no reasion, feels bad when its the only dd spec of the priest class, should make this more like classic spriest and melt faces when on your own.

- - - Updated - - -

whoever they put in charge of PVP clearly isnt a PVP player... which is a problem in it self

There is probably nobody in charge for pvp.

[Zyky]

I don't know why, even after season 2 and 3's complete fiasco, I still expected Blizzard to release balance changes for season 4.

Right now, at least in the US (haven't checked EU) almost 70% of the teams that achieved rank 1 titles were exactly Rogue+Mage+Paladin, with the other 30%s~ being composed of 1/3 RMD, RMPriest, and 20% the rest.

Like what is even wrong with Blizzard at this point

Healer representation on the Gladiator bracket is almost 90% Druids and Paladins, 5% shamans, 4% Disc priests, 1% MW monks (but those got buffed, thank god) and 0% holy priests

Not to mention the utter and extreme dominance of Rogue+Mage in every single tier bracket except the lowest of ratings (which I don't have access to ladder data so I can only speculate rogue/mage doesnt exist there)

Despite all this, and despite being yet another season I am likely to skip due to "#NoChanges", I don't know why I still expected changes to happen

Did blizzard really fired everyone?

They haven't done serious patch day balance in a while now. Numbers will be adjusted the week Mythic raids release like they have since Emerald Nightmare.

[Tyrannica]

Activision as a whole is now using third party QA in other countries (places like india and Romania have QA companies that provide the service for much cheaper). The idea that they don't test anything is actually wrong. That being said, using third party QA comes with the problem that most of QA and dev working together is all about communication, with the time difference and not so perfect english from these testers it makes solving issues more complicated. Having a solid team of QA on site is a gigantic help and I think that is currently lacking but assuming they don't test anything is just silly.

- - - Updated - - -



Well yeah that's what I meant by remove some utility. Mostly fucking cloak of shadow, that shit is retarded. I remember very clearly when they got that and insantly became gods forever. Seriously who though of giving them a skill that makes vanish never fail? The ENTIRE POINT of vanish is for other players to cancel that coward piece of shit skill, it's not to give the cowards more options to be coward. Fuck that shit, fight like a man, bitch.

If you think thats so broken, then most rogues would play dwarf/dark iron, for basicly a second CoS, when it comes to a save vanish, but thats clearly not the case. its their high total synergy with other classes.

[DemonDays]

I don't know why, even after season 2 and 3's complete fiasco, I still expected Blizzard to release balance changes for season 4.

Right now, at least in the US (haven't checked EU) almost 70% of the teams that achieved rank 1 titles were exactly Rogue+Mage+Paladin, with the other 30%s~ being composed of 1/3 RMD, RMPriest, and 20% the rest.

Like what is even wrong with Blizzard at this point

Healer representation on the Gladiator bracket is almost 90% Druids and Paladins, 5% shamans, 4% Disc priests, 1% MW monks (but those got buffed, thank god) and 0% holy priests

Not to mention the utter and extreme dominance of Rogue+Mage in every single tier bracket except the lowest of ratings (which I don't have access to ladder data so I can only speculate rogue/mage doesnt exist there)

Despite all this, and despite being yet another season I am likely to skip due to "#NoChanges", I don't know why I still expected changes to happen

Did blizzard really fired everyone?

You expected too much then.

The amount of class changes performed over the course of this whole expansion is less than some hotfixes in other expansions.

[Revamp Man]

Articles about that are from february, so almost a year ago.

You mean the 0 devs and the 800 CM staff

[CrawlFromThePit]

You mean the 0 devs and the 800 CM staff

It's said mostly CM staff, there's still devs that got cut.

- - - Updated - - -

If you think thats so broken, then most rogues would play dwarf/dark iron, for basicly a second CoS, when it comes to a save vanish, but thats clearly not the case. its their high total synergy with other classes.

Cloak of shadow cooldown is already microscopic enough, no need for dwarf racial. Cloak of shadow if not deleted should have a 3 day cooldown cuz right now these fucking pussies in WPvP will attack you and are always allowed to escape from the fight anything THEY DECIDE and sit in their shitty perma invisibility (it's not stealth, stealth can be seen when paying attention like SC2 Ghosts) and just jerk off until all cooldowns come back and try again. Literally the most coward gameplay in any MMO on earth. They should open with their sissy stun, and just fight until they win or die. Period.

Blizzard designing a class that makes people believe this is a respectable way of playing, fucking pathetic.