Shadowlands PvP Dev Interview with Brian Holinka

[Locruid]

Off-healers should not be able to shut down a kill window while a healer is locked down. This is something that they want to address.


Then wtf is the point of off healing? I love the fact I might be a feral Druid and as my healer is headed to oblivion, I can burn ALL my juice to prevent it.

[Kalisandra]

Off-healers should not be able to shut down a kill window while a healer is locked down. This is something that they want to address.

Okay, fine. However, if that's the case, why are classes without off-healing capabilities allowed to shut down kill windows? Rogues with their CC+Stuns, Druids with their very strong 'root' effect, and so on can all shut down a kill opportunity. Why is that okay but shutting one down via off-healing not okay? Using CC and other control to shut the enemy down requires that you keep your CC for that, using off-healing requires you keep your resources available for that purpose as well, so there's a balance there.

If off-healing is too good as this, fine, nerf it a little. However, I suspect you could make a good case for nerfing some control-heavy spec too. Oh, and off-healing as a way of shutting down a kill opportunity by healing through it suffers from dampening, and control does not, so off-healing as with healers has a natural counter in arena.

The average time frame of 3's shoot to be 3 to 5 minutes.

That's about the time each of the first seven bosses in Nathria take to kill. It's also two, maybe three burst windows for most classes, which says that kill attempts aren't being shut down that often. Making kill attempts hard to shut down is going to lower the skill level because it's not hard to set up a kill attempt with most specs.

I wish Ion, et. al. luck in trying to trim back burst, as WoW's history shows that such attempts generally fail. The only way that will actually work is to remove a great many burst cooldowns from the game, and tame those that remain. Over the years they've become more common (just about everyone has one, and that's not how it used to be) and stronger.

[Wangming]

Off-healers should not be able to shut down a kill window while a healer is locked down. This is something that they want to address.


Then wtf is the point of off healing? I love the fact I might be a feral Druid and as my healer is headed to oblivion, I can burn ALL my juice to prevent it.

I think the idea is that you should be able to give the healer more time to arrive but you shouldn't negate the thing on your own.

[willtron]

I'll never understand how PvE players come into a thread about PvP specific issues and say shit like "Arena should never have been implemented! PvP was a mistake! WoW is a PvE game!!!"

Because for a very long time, 3s balance was one of their keystones of balance. Which is stupid because such a small relative % of the playerbase actualy plays 3s to any meaningful level.

[Huntermyth]

yet another '' we see the problem but don't have a solution '' crap.

fuckin twats.

[Nerovar]

Because for a very long time, 3s balance was one of their keystones of balance. Which is stupid because such a small relative % of the playerbase actualy plays 3s to any meaningful level.

What would you have WoW PvP be balanced around then? Random battlegrounds because most players engage with that content?

[Dejiko]

"Arena compositions is the main issue with having solo queues. It would be really unfair for players with the same rating to queue into a good comp vs a bad one."
Am i just dumb or does this just make no sense.
If soloQ and teamQ are two different ladders and soloQ doesn`t allow grouping, who you get put with as a team is just random.
Yeah sometimes it will work out in your favor, other times it won`t but that`s the nature of it being random, you take the
human decision out of it and work with what you got.

The idea behind it is to support a more casual approach to the content, i have no idea why they dislike the concept so much when it`s present
in all their other games.

[justandulas]

What would you have WoW PvP be balanced around then? Random battlegrounds because most players engage with that content?

1v1. Match up every class 1v1 at the highest level, simulate it as much as possible, and then balance around that. Team balance will never be fixed, it's an impossible task, and far easier to balance the actual classes 1 to 1 rather than viewing them as components of a PVP team and allowing certain classes to be OP forever vs others who aren't, because of how they perform in 3 and 5's.

1v1. that's the key to balance. if classes can be balanced 1v1, then 3v3 will also be perfectly balanced as a result of solo balancing acts of the classes.

That said, i have absolutely zero faith in this current wow team to be able to balance 1v1 at all anyway. They'd just either homogenize everyone, or neuter the OP classes to the point they aren't fun... rather than brainstorm up new abilities features and talents for the shortcoming classes to catch up.

I'd rather have a pvp world where everyone is grossly OP, rather than them pre-selecting who is or isn't pre patch based on some garbage balancing act that they haven't once ever mastered in 15 years

[archelos91]

1v1. Match up every class 1v1 at the highest level, simulate it as much as possible, and then balance around that. Team balance will never be fixed, it's an impossible task, and far easier to balance the actual classes 1 to 1 rather than viewing them as components of a PVP team and allowing certain classes to be OP forever vs others who aren't, because of how they perform in 3 and 5's.

1v1. that's the key to balance. if classes can be balanced 1v1, then 3v3 will also be perfectly balanced as a result of solo balancing acts of the classes.

That said, i have absolutely zero faith in this current wow team to be able to balance 1v1 at all anyway. They'd just either homogenize everyone, or neuter the OP classes to the point they aren't fun... rather than brainstorm up new abilities features and talents for the shortcoming classes to catch up.

I'd rather have a pvp world where everyone is grossly OP, rather than them pre-selecting who is or isn't pre patch based on some garbage balancing act that they haven't once ever mastered in 15 years

Well this is wrong, when certain classes synergize with each other better how does balancing for 1v1 fix 3v3? lol

[justandulas]

Well this is wrong, when certain classes synergize with each other better how does balancing for 1v1 fix 3v3? lol

Because if everyone is a match 1v1 on paper, it’s easier to find the outliers and either nerf the OP ones or buff the shortcomers up with new abilities

You can’t identify the individual weaknesses as easily in a group environmental because others are there to fill the gaps.

1v1 balance is the key to balanced pvp and every credible pvp game backs that up

[froschhure]

And hazzicostas decides pve? Good lord

[Doffen]

And hazzicostas decides pve? Good lord

Lol'd

/10giggles

[exsanguinate]

Mythic plus caused massive balancing problems in pve and pvp.

[Wuusah]

Because if everyone is a match 1v1 on paper, it’s easier to find the outliers and either nerf the OP ones or buff the shortcomers up with new abilities

You can’t identify the individual weaknesses as easily in a group environmental because others are there to fill the gaps.

1v1 balance is the key to balanced pvp and every credible pvp game backs that up

It really isn’t. That’s stupid. 1v1 wins the class with the strongest self healing. A warrior will pretty much never win 1v1 against a WW monk. If it gets desperate the monk can start kiting and heal himself back to full.

It’s the same with stuff like brawlers guild. Some classes are just very strong in solo content and have it easy. Others have it more difficult but start getting really strong when they have someone to watch their back.

1v1 balance for team PvP is stupid and shows that you don’t understand the game at all.

[Queendom]

Solo Queue
Arena compositions is the main issue with having solo queues. It would be really unfair for players with the same rating to queue into a good comp vs a bad one.
Solo queue is something that could be tried out in the brawl system first.
They understand that some people just want to arena and skirmishes don't do it for some people.
Letting players browse groups while listed is one of the solutions to find groups faster.
They are not dismissing that it is a problem and are genuinely looking for solutions.

So this is what they have been doing for 15 years now? "Looking for solutions"? Does it really take 15 years of "looking" to implement a ranked solo queue for Arenas and BGs like any other game has? Do the same thing as Starcraft/HotS/Dota/Valorant/whatever, just do it already.

[Clozer]

Mythic plus caused massive balancing problems in pve and pvp.

True. Remember the good ol' days where PvP/PvE was balanced? Yeah, me neither.

[TheLucky1]

Because if everyone is a match 1v1 on paper, it’s easier to find the outliers and either nerf the OP ones or buff the shortcomers up with new abilities

You can’t identify the individual weaknesses as easily in a group environmental because others are there to fill the gaps.

1v1 balance is the key to balanced pvp and every credible pvp game backs that up

Hahaha, league says hello, adcs are king in teamfights but get dumpstered in 1v1, i wonder how that's balanced there?

The takes of some people here are fucking hilarious.

- - - Updated - - -

World of Warcraft has been a PvE game first and foremost. Battlegrounds weren't included at launch. Arena, as you stated, wasn't added until TBC (which Blizzard years later admitted had been a mistake). And what you get when trying to balance what was mainly an afterthought (PvP) with the original intent (PvE) is a Frankenstein of a game design. How many times over the years have players complained about PvE being affected by PvP balancing and vice versa, let alone gear acquisition? @willtron is correct.

Now if PvP had been designed alongside the PvE aspect when World of Warcraft was first being worked on, maybe the outcome would be different. Or perhaps not. Guess we'll never know.

So we should just ditch Arena format because it hasn't been a big scene for 16 years and only 14?
As for balancing: that's exactly where PvP gear, trinkets and PvP talents come in (besides all the under the hud multipliers), nothing of that stuff influences PvE content.

[Pufflesmash]

1v1. Match up every class 1v1 at the highest level, simulate it as much as possible, and then balance around that. Team balance will never be fixed, it's an impossible task, and far easier to balance the actual classes 1 to 1 rather than viewing them as components of a PVP team and allowing certain classes to be OP forever vs others who aren't, because of how they perform in 3 and 5's.

1v1. that's the key to balance. if classes can be balanced 1v1, then 3v3 will also be perfectly balanced as a result of solo balancing acts of the classes.

That said, i have absolutely zero faith in this current wow team to be able to balance 1v1 at all anyway. They'd just either homogenize everyone, or neuter the OP classes to the point they aren't fun... rather than brainstorm up new abilities features and talents for the shortcoming classes to catch up.

I'd rather have a pvp world where everyone is grossly OP, rather than them pre-selecting who is or isn't pre patch based on some garbage balancing act that they haven't once ever mastered in 15 years

Jesus, lmao. You even managed to squeeze in an "absolutely zero faith" for a true MMO-champ experience. I love these threads.

[exsanguinate]

True. Remember the good ol' days where PvP/PvE was balanced? Yeah, me neither.

I do 101010

[Toppy]

True. Remember the good ol' days where PvP/PvE was balanced? Yeah, me neither.

It was substantially more balanced prior to Mythic+. Mind you, I don't think this is the fault of mythic+, more so that the current dev team came into power around when mythic+ was made a thing. Remember, they took over in WoD. And balance has gotten notably worse with each subsequent expansion.