Are Blizzard bad at balancing?

[Kaver]

What evidence are you basing your assumption that Blizzard are "probably pretty good at balancing" on? It's not evidence that is publicly available, clearly.

No, I have no evidence. It’s just my guess that the Blizzard devs are not completely incompetent. I’m guessing that the game would be pretty balanced of they stopped creating all these layers of power systems.

[facefist]

People come very quickly to the conclusion that they are bad, but what if it is intended?

Players of some classes are used to being bottom of the pack - and they haven't changed their class yet. Those classes are played less than those that are constantly good. So why would they take the risk of angering the larger population by buffing the minority? Esp. Since that minority is kinda used to their situation.

What evidence are you basing your assumption that Blizzard are "probably pretty good at balancing" on? It's not evidence that is publicly available, clearly.

This whole discussion is pretty much about subjective views so no one can really post evidence to prove that their opinion is the correct one. Someone thinks classes should be exactly the same, someone thinks that they should be within 5% etc.

Not to mention the discussions whether power should be tied to complexity. For example people QQ shit tons about DH's because they can deal good damage easily, even though they are not even in top 3 m+ dpses at high level. It's just that they wreck in among average/bad players. So is it balanced if someone presses two buttons to deal the same damage that someone doing a complex rotation does?

[Ragingheadache]

I have no doubt that Blizzard devs are compentent. The issue is that they clearly have their favourite classes & specs that tend to shine when stats scale, whilst on the other hand, the red-headed step kids are left with the crumbs. As such, any notion of "balance" is meaningless however that doesn't seem to annoy the top 1% who thrive off this favouritism.

[Delekii]

People come very quickly to the conclusion that they are bad, but what if it is intended?

Players of some classes are used to being bottom of the pack - and they haven't changed their class yet. Those classes are played less than those that are constantly good. So why would they take the risk of angering the larger population by buffing the minority? Esp. Since that minority is kinda used to their situation.


This whole discussion is pretty much about subjective views so no one can really post evidence to prove that their opinion is the correct one. Someone thinks classes should be exactly the same, someone thinks that they should be within 5% etc.

Not to mention the discussions whether power should be tied to complexity. For example people QQ shit tons about DH's because they can deal good damage easily, even though they are not even in top 3 m+ dpses at high level. It's just that they wreck in among average/bad players. So is it balanced if someone presses two buttons to deal the same damage that someone doing a complex rotation does?

Of course there is subjectivity, but there is also a reasonability test. Furthermore, if you claim to think that Blizzard are basically ok at balancing then you should be able to say why that is the way you feel, which means that you have somewhat of an understanding of what your position is, and can show that the game currently fits this paradigm.

For example, I think that Blizzard is bloody awful at balancing. I think that all classes and specs should perform in all content at a level whereby they aren't intrinsically so comparatively weak that they will develop a reputation for being so bad that cannot be overturned even with an expansion of patching. I think that at the END of BFA, we shouldn't still be seeing an _average_ performance difference between the highest and lowest parsing specs in M+, for example, of (much) more than 50%. I don't think this is ok, and I don't think it can simply be explained away by "good players just play the strongest specs". The differences are too large for that.

I would hope and expect that anyone who thinks that Blizzard are probably ok at balancing should be able to explain to me how that belief is justified given the information available that any reasonable person should see as evidence to the contrary.

No, I have no evidence. It’s just my guess that the Blizzard devs are not completely incompetent. I’m guessing that the game would be pretty balanced of they stopped creating all these layers of power systems.

Well, I hope they aren't completely incompetent too. But I certainly don't believe it. It's not evidenced by any point in the game's history, including periods before and after the introduction of multiple layered power structures on top of the base.

In fact, the inclusion of these systems goes some way to proving that they don't understand the basis for their inability to balance either.

[jediknight12]

balancing is damn near not possible unless game has 1 class and same ability.

[Shedaar]

I didn't assume anything. I told you what you should do. Why don't you resub just so you can make sure you still hate it? I mean, after all, you're still taking time out of your busy day to whine about the game on fan forums even though you've already quit.

Thank you for your advice
I don't "hate" the game
It's called passion and honest interest for the game to perform well

[Sunslayer]

WoW is impossible to balance when it comes to specs; there will always be a top dps spec and a bottom dps spec; which not only varies by raid boss, where some fights favour melee and some favour range but now also varies by M+ dungeons.

Nah. Its always the same specs on the bottom...always. Not saying you can't find outliers here or there but its pretty much the same specs that suck at raiding every expac.
And many times some specs suck at everything. How do you get balance that wrong? And then leave it like that for long periods of time?

[Relapses]

Thank you for your advice
I don't "hate" the game
It's called passion and honest interest for the game to perform well

Ah right, as evidenced by your desire to prove to other people how other MMOs are superior to WoW.

[Dixa]

Are Blizzard bad at balancing? Probably not. The WoW devs are most likely very competent. However what they do suck at is keeping things simple (which is probably not the devs fault). Look at what they needed to balance in most of BFA:

- specs (abilities, stats etc.)
- talents (and pvp talents)
- azerite traits
- essences

This is already an insane task to balance especially considering they have to balance it all for 3 different pieces of content. Raiding, PVP and M+. However, on top of this they decide to add the Corruption gear to the mix which just makes balancing 10 times harder than it already was. At this point I start to think that Blizzard are into some hardcore S&M. They definitely enjoy pain.

In Shadowlands it seems to get even worse. Blizzard will have to balance:

- specs (abilities, stats etc.)
- talents (and pvp talents)
- covenant abilities
- soul binds
- conduits
- legendaries

This seems completely insane to me. And they probably will add some type of gear system along the way. Nobody is going to be able to balance all these systems on top of each other. Especially not considering that much of the new stuff is class locked so they need to make it work for multiple specs simultaneously. Good luck Blizzard. I hope you don’t get stressed out.

Question: Do we, the players, even need all these systems? Considering how much dev time goes into them and how many problems they create in the game.

the fallacy here is assuming it's possible to balance a MUD/mmorpg with diverse classes and systems. Looking at the raid dps charts from the beta testing, the top parses for each of the dps classes are extremely close. I have never seen it that close before. There will always be a top and a bottom in such things. The best you can hope for is to limit the spread

for pvp so long as the system is designed around rock, paper, scissors it is statistically impossible for you to win every conceivable fight. the problem there is that there are people engaged in pvp that do not have the emotional maturity to handle not having easy wins all the time, and they tend to be the most vocal (mcconnel).

I started playing these games back in 1992. If you like and enjoy online roleplaying games with many other players with a diverse class system that also uses the holy trinity or the holy trinity + support, while keeping pve engaging and allowing for pvp combat AND both systems being a vertical way to increase player power - it is simply impossible to have actual balance. There is not a single mmorpg that has ever release that has ever achieved this.

what you can say however is that at least it's not the dumpsterfire that vanilla after the warrior revamp/current classic is.

[Kumorii]

I wouldn't say so no. There are outliers but considering scope of the game and other games they make compared to the overall market I'd say they are decent/good.

[Kaver]

the fallacy here is assuming it's possible to balance a MUD/mmorpg with diverse classes and systems. Looking at the raid dps charts from the beta testing, the top parses for each of the dps classes are extremely close. I have never seen it that close before. There will always be a top and a bottom in such things. The best you can hope for is to limit the spread

for pvp so long as the system is designed around rock, paper, scissors it is statistically impossible for you to win every conceivable fight. the problem there is that there are people engaged in pvp that do not have the emotional maturity to handle not having easy wins all the time, and they tend to be the most vocal (mcconnel).

I started playing these games back in 1992. If you like and enjoy online roleplaying games with many other players with a diverse class system that also uses the holy trinity or the holy trinity + support, while keeping pve engaging and allowing for pvp combat AND both systems being a vertical way to increase player power - it is simply impossible to have actual balance. There is not a single mmorpg that has ever release that has ever achieved this.

what you can say however is that at least it's not the dumpsterfire that vanilla after the warrior revamp/current classic is.

But adding system on top of system on top of system on top of... doesn't make it easier for them

[Shedaar]

Ah right, as evidenced by your desire to prove to other people how other MMOs are superior to WoW.

Oh, then you need to learn how to read with understanding coz I never said other MMO's are superior to WoW - they aren't
I don't think anything in the upcoming years can best it if I'm being honest, which is even more worrying to the MMORPG market unfortunately

[arkanon]

Question: Do we, the players, even need all these systems? Considering how much dev time goes into them and how many problems they create in the game.

Blizzard have argued that more systems = more nobs to turn = easier to tune. I disagree, but im not a game dev. My opinion is for this to be true, more and more of our power needs to come from sources outside our core class abilities.

To answer your question, no, i dont believe we need ANY of these additional systems. My favorite time in the game, as far as character power goes, is back when things were very linear and straight forward. You chose your talents, and then worked your way through tiers getting better and better gear until you had either reached your skill cap, or had bis. Even after multiple difficulties per tier were introduced, i new i could stay in my lane and get the best normal mode gear i could, and then supplement it with the odd piece of heroic as we progressed through heroic. I knew without a doubt that any duplicate item i got from heroic would 100% be a straight upgrade to the normal version - no corruptions, traits, wf/tf - a straight upgrade.

Granted, this was before M+ complicated things, but that is still the period of the game i enjoyed the most, and i dont think that is unrelated to the gearing / progression systems.

- - - Updated - - -

Nah. Its always the same specs on the bottom...always. Not saying you can't find outliers here or there but its pretty much the same specs that suck at raiding every expac.
And many times some specs suck at everything. How do you get balance that wrong? And then leave it like that for long periods of time?

Which specs consistently suck for raiding?

[Kralljin]

Blizzard have argued that more systems = more nobs to turn = easier to tune.

I don't know, i would have supported this argument back when they were far more constricted in terms of design limitations, couldn't just easily buff / nerf a baseline spell because it was also used by some other spec, such as Shadow bolt for Warlock in TBC / Wotlk.

Nowadays, they can easily tune up something like Lightning Bolt for Elemental / Enhance without affecting the other or they can just slap a 5% Aura buff on a spec and call it.
They don't even have to watch out for PvP because no one cares about PvP anymore they have PvP modifiers for it.

However, instead of just using those tools, they also have to now take Conduits, Legendaries, Covenant abilities and potentially soulbinds into account.

If Blizzard now decides to buff Lightning Bolt for Enhance because they feel like Enhance needs a little push, instead of just [buffing Enhance] it potentially creates the massive domino effect where an entirely different build becomes viable, which only works if you have specific talents, legendaries & Conduits.

Having tuning knobs is good, but from what we've seen in the last two expansions is that those additional tuning knobs can have significant unintended side effects because they synergize with each other.

I remember how they buffed the Azerite Trait Igneous Potential shortly before BoD mythic by 150% for Elemental, you went from almost pure Lightning Bolt spammer to Flame shock multi dotting, lava burst spamming maniac overnight.
And those very same devs have the audacity to pull the "we don't want to confuse the players" card on occassion.

My opinion is quite frankly: With the modern tools we have now (Auras, spells separated by specs, PvP modifiers, etc..) and a simpler game without any of those systems atop of systems, it would be easier to balance.

[TigTone]

Hopefully in the future AI could help balance classes and keep each unique.

[arkanon]

I don't know, i would have supported this argument back when they were far more constricted in terms of design limitations, couldn't just easily buff / nerf a baseline spell because it was also used by some other spec, such as Shadow bolt for Warlock in TBC / Wotlk.

Nowadays, they can easily tune up something like Lightning Bolt for Elemental / Enhance without affecting the other or they can just slap a 5% Aura buff on a spec and call it.
They don't even have to watch out for PvP because no one cares about PvP anymore they have PvP modifiers for it.

However, instead of just using those tools, they also have to now take Conduits, Legendaries, Covenant abilities and potentially soulbinds into account.

If Blizzard now decides to buff Lightning Bolt for Enhance because they feel like Enhance needs a little push, instead of just [buffing Enhance] it potentially creates the massive domino effect where an entirely different build becomes viable, which only works if you have specific talents, legendaries & Conduits.

Having tuning knobs is good, but from what we've seen in the last two expansions is that those additional tuning knobs can have significant unintended side effects because they synergize with each other.

I remember how they buffed the Azerite Trait Igneous Potential for Elemental shortly before BoD mythic by 150% for Elemental, you went from almost pure Lightning Bolt spammer to Flame shock multi dotting, lava burst spamming maniac overnight.
And those very same devs have the audacity to pull the "we don't want to confuse the players" card on occassion.

My opinion is quite frankly: With the modern tools we have now (Auras, spells separated by specs, PvP modifiers, etc..) and a simpler game without any of those systems atop of systems, it would be easier to balance.

Yeah i agree - and although i like having these added features and systems interact with my core rotation and abilities, as you said, it creates a double edged sword. relatively simple buffs/nerfs can have unforeseen results when. This can be impacted further by their 'unpruning' resulting in unexpected abilities becoming extremely powerful for an offspec, eg frostbolt becoming a major ability in the fire mage roation (just an example)

I remember a lego for hunters that refunded focus every time a trap landed, and so throwing useless traps at bosses became a core part of the rotation. It was fucking weird throwing freezing traps at a raid boss, but hey, it gave me those sweet focus regens.

[mrhUK]

They're notoriously bad at balancing.

[Redroniksre]

But adding system on top of system on top of system on top of... doesn't make it easier for them

It definitely does not, but at the same time the playerbase needs systems like this. If it was just more dungeons and raids the game would die quicker than anything, those just aren't sellers anymore. People mainly come for new systems, hell i remember when Shadowlands was announced with the lackluster trailer, people were already spamming the forums with "That's it?"

[Relapses]

Oh, then you need to learn how to read with understanding coz I never said other MMO's are superior to WoW - they aren't
I don't think anything in the upcoming years can best it if I'm being honest, which is even more worrying to the MMORPG market unfortunately

I don't quite understand what there is that I'm "not understanding." You're an ex-WoW player, by your own admission...but you spend your day on a fan run forum for the game trying to tell other people about what you think would be best for the game. Maybe you're hoping a lone WoW developer stumbles upon your ramblings and decides to design the entire game around what you think is best? I mean, that'd be pretty cool wouldn't it?

[goldlock]

It definitely does not, but at the same time the playerbase needs systems like this. If it was just more dungeons and raids the game would die quicker than anything, those just aren't sellers anymore. People mainly come for new systems, hell i remember when Shadowlands was announced with the lackluster trailer, people were already spamming the forums with "That's it?"

What if your wrong?

What if all of these added on systems don't help the game and the crowd they attracted vanish quickly once they consume what little instant gratification there is to be had?

I keep seeing this trumpeted that WoW needs to keep a broad audience but I haven't ever really seen that be successful... In mop it was the horrible scenarios so awful and uninteresting that it had a queue time up to ten minutes before they over rewarded it with heroic scenarios... We had the garrison that overrewarded players to the point they never left. We had AP and rng leggoes that where seen as the worst aspect of a good expansion...

We have islands and warfronts that are openly mocked for how trivial and uninteresting they are. I stand in a field of dead alternative content and yet dungeons and raids still stand reigning supreme over all other content.

It might just be time to go back to what worked rather then trying to reinvent the wheel and hamstringing everything else in the attempt.