Preach Developer Interview with Ion Hazzikostas - Patch 9.1

[Dismayxz]

I've missed half the conversation, just wanted to say that sims are a pretty poor represenation of actual performance in the game, especially so in Shadowlands. And it's been how many expansions and they still haven't got presets for more relevant up to date combat situations. I honestly think sims are pretty bad at this point, good for helping with gear decisions granted.

I think if you wanna look at numbers you just have to look at logs and comb through them. Of course even that's hard because of all the situational factors (power infusion, when was Bloodlust used, how long did the fight last, who was cheesing), but it's a lot better than using Simcraft with its completely out of context and occasionally just flawed incorrect models.

^^^^^^^^^^^

This.

[FelPlague]

I think if you wanna look at numbers you just have to look at logs and comb through them. Of course even that's hard because of all the situational factors (power infusion, when was Bloodlust used, how long did the fight last, who was cheesing), but it's a lot better than using Simcraft with its completely out of context and occasionally just flawed incorrect models.

I love how backwards you have this.

Sims are literally MADE to be better for just pure numbers, while logs are better for seeing inpractice.
but when you are trying to see "how much gear actually does for you" sims are way fucking better. Logs are simply better for comparing WHAT may be better for you, not by how much, or how much in reality.

[Frozenbro]

I've missed half the conversation, just wanted to say that sims are a pretty poor represenation of actual performance in the game

Ofc, they are done using a specific profile and in patchwerk scenarios, they show you exactly what it means, and the sim in that post shows that, we dont see this in reality cause the skill gap between players exist, which means that Ion was right on that point, but people just try to defend what cant be defended xd

[arkanon]

I love how backwards you have this.

Sims are literally MADE to be better for just pure numbers, while logs are better for seeing inpractice.
but when you are trying to see "how much gear actually does for you" sims are way fucking better. Logs are simply better for comparing WHAT may be better for you, not by how much, or how much in reality.

This we can agree on - as soon as you move into any "real life" environment, there are far too many variables to give an accurate measure.

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Ofc, they are done using a specific profile and in patchwerk scenarios, they show you exactly what it means, and the sim in that post shows that, we dont see this in reality cause the skill gap between players exist, which means that Ion was right on that point, but people just try to defend what cant be defended xd

Yup - the fact the gap might be much larger in practice is EXACTLY his point.

[d00dles]

I just want to paste the Ion quote from the interview that I found most interesting, its something that likely has to do with next expansion:

What we will be looking to carry forward, as always, are things like branching narrative paths, feeling like you can have your own personalized experience and choosing among different abilities but in a different form and not in the way that covenant abilities were presented in particularly.

(Timestamp: 1h16m10s)

I hope this means a shift of focus from unnecessary convoluted systems, aka borrowed power, to giving players more meaningful choices that don't end up getting removed at the end of the expansion.

Perhaps they are looking to introduce new spells with each expansion again but in a way that wont make classes feel over-bloated? I'm interested to see how they could do something like that.

[Frozenbro]

Yup - the fact the gap might be much larger in practice is EXACTLY his point.

Thing is people try to discredit sims by saying they dont do X, when sims do exactly what they are meant to, show you the average dps of a profile in a specific scenario, usually patchwerk, and they do work for that, people literally use top gear for every piece they get.

That aside, its funny how people claim that the power gap "via ilvl" is insane, when actually its the same as always xd and to try to prove their point they throw scenarios where stuff that has more impact than plain ilvl come into play, its just nonsense, i disagree with Ion in a ton of stuff, but i agree with him on the "its not 20 ilvl, its the skill gap" thing, thats all.

[Dismayxz]

Ofc, they are done using a specific profile and in patchwerk scenarios, they show you exactly what it means, and the sim in that post shows that, we dont see this in reality cause the skill gap between players exist, which means that Ion was right on that point, but people just try to defend what cant be defended xd

They are both practically right and.. wrong. It does accurately portray the gap very well and the single target patchwerk scenario is probably one of the better profiles you can use for, as Felplague said, raw numbers and weighing the impact of gear. Since usually, you can pretty safely assume that for raiding purposes, single-target is going to be your go-to scenario in most cases as even some trash fights eventually will have some sort of priority of targets you are going to cleave off of, etc. so on so forth.

The thing is, stat weights aren't static in every situation, they change depending on the situation, depending on the specc, etc. so on so forth again. The given situation, throughout a well-developed fight, will fluctuate and change. You could have a last boss fight that involves and favors and requires a diverse mix of different required damage profiles. Take Denathrius for example. Phase 1 damage is entirely 'irrelevant' - moreso in the sense, that you are looking to (ideally) push at a certain time perhaps. Any excess single target is, at this point, worthless in the moment. Thus you may perhaps stop, damage falls off. Not gonna be a thing the sim takes into account, even less the precise timing of this. The adds are also largely considered moreso just the parse chasing machine, easy to dispose of all things considered. Then you got P2 and however you wanna tackle that phase. You get the general idea. Trying to mathematically, down to 100% accuracy nail an easy fight, much less a more complex one is downright impossible via Sims. That's where critical thinking comes in. That's where analyzing logs comes in. That's where the player that just sims a lot and calls it a day is separated from the crowd that does both or primarily relies on their own intuition, skill and log analyzation. And in those scenarios, the gap between the 200 and 220 widens as extensively as people lament, to the point where even the gap of equally geared players can widen by a pretty drastic margin.

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Thing is people try to discredit sims by saying they dont do X, when sims do exactly what they are meant to, show you the average dps of a profile in a specific scenario, usually patchwerk, and they do work for that, people literally use top gear for every piece they get.

That aside, its funny how people claim that the power gap "via ilvl" is insane, when actually its the same as always xd and to try to prove their point they throw scenarios where stuff that has more impact than plain ilvl come into play, its just nonsense, i disagree with Ion in a ton of stuff, but i agree with him on the "its not 20 ilvl, its the skill gap" thing, thats all.

Don't think people downright discredit them. They get their credit where it is due. But at a certain level, they become pretty much irrelevant compared to just learning to read logs. If you do the sims often enough, especially in the vacuum of single target and actually pay attention to what it tells you, you can even get develop a good intuition for what the sim is going to tell you on your next batch of iterations, especially for Top Gear and just cutting short the differences between equal item level pieces of gear. I've not touched sims for months now and when I do, guess what, the decision I made on the fly usually lines up with what the sim ends up telling me.

In short, it's just a good tool to look to when you are not sure about a gear decision and very easy to divert players to, because guess what. No single guide writer, class discord mod or staff member is going to sit down and detail every single fight, every single situation you may be in over a given tier on a guide to the point where you just read it, do it and succeed. With how little people pay attention in there anyways, you'd have to send these guys into a mental hospital after the first week of doing so. It's easier to say "Sim yourself" and let them figure out the rest, the logs etc., for themselves as they go.

[Bigbazz]

I love how backwards you have this.

Sims are literally MADE to be better for just pure numbers, while logs are better for seeing inpractice.
but when you are trying to see "how much gear actually does for you" sims are way fucking better. Logs are simply better for comparing WHAT may be better for you, not by how much, or how much in reality.

The sims are not an accurate representation of ingame performance, they are bad. And a 5 minute simulation of a boss from 2006 with no modern parallels using slightly wonky sim models is not a representation of class performance in a game when you're having an argument about how gear affects class performance in a game.

It's mindblowing that people still worship simcraft when even world first guilds are openly memeing about it. You don't have to take my word for it, take theirs. Wasn't so long ago people were running Deathmaker as Fury because it was "the best on single target according to simcraft" until one "simcraft update" later where that was no longer the case.

Edit : So like I said, if you want to look at class performance then look at logs and take the time to do so thoroughly, using simcraft for this kinda discussion is just a joke.

Ofc, they are done using a specific profile and in patchwerk scenarios, they show you exactly what it means, and the sim in that post shows that, we dont see this in reality cause the skill gap between players exist, which means that Ion was right on that point, but people just try to defend what cant be defended xd

Skill makes a huge difference of course, but using Simcraft is just a waste of time. Just look at their single target nathria class comparison sims and compare it to reality. And if you use a Patchwerk you're eliminating all the niches that allow classes to perform, and it's often those niches that matter the most, and some of those niches are disproportionately affected by gear.

Take Fury Warrior for example, notice how strong it is on AOE? Well Anger Management scales with gear, in a static environment like Simcraft that's not going to show up much, but it makes a huge difference if you're in a dungeon and you can get Recklessness up 5 seconds earlier and that just happens to line up with you doing more damage on a trash pack.. Simcraft does not account for stuff like this, breakpoints that have huge situational value but less value over a sustained continuous combat.

And the whole damn game is built around those situational niches now, you can't base anything on Patchwerk even if the sims were a good representation in a vaccuum, and they're far from perfect.

[Frozenbro]

Don't think people downright discredit them. They get their credit where it is due. But at a certain level, they become pretty much irrelevant compared to just learning to read logs. If you do the sims often enough, especially in the vacuum of single target and actually pay attention to what it tells you, you can even get develop a good intuition for what the sim is going to tell you on your next batch of iterations, especially for Top Gear and just cutting short the differences between equal item level pieces of gear. I've not touched sims for months now and when I do, guess what, the decision I made on the fly usually lines up with what the sim ends up telling me.

Yeah i agree, logs are the better representation basically always, but people still run top gear to compare the gain from gear, assuming the profile is up to date and the APL is configured correctly, which isnt always the case, and this is when people say that sims are trash and useless, and i agree here, sims are useless when the profile used is wrong and the APL isnt optimized, but when this isnt the case, you can run topgear on your character and it will be safe most of the time, then you can go in depth through logs to optimize cd usage on a specific fight and what not, theres just a ton of factors in play.

That said, its why i agree with Ion on his take, people arent doing over 20% damage thanks to 20 ilvl difference alone, a lot of stuff come into play, and its baffling how people forget this, considering how impactful covenants are in increasing this 20% to dumb numbers, proper usage of first strike in m+ is a prime example of why "its not 20 ilvl difference, its skill gap" is true.

[Caerrona]

The sims are not an accurate representation of ingame performance, they are bad. And a 5 minute simulation of a boss from 2006 with no modern parallels using slightly wonky sim models is not a representation of class performance in a game when you're having an argument about how gear affects class performance in a game.

It's mindblowing that people still worship simcraft when even world first guilds are openly memeing about it. You don't have to take my word for it, take theirs. Wasn't so long ago people were running Deathmaker as Fury because it was "the best on single target according to simcraft" until one "simcraft update" later where that was no longer the case.

Edit : So like I said, if you want to look at class performance then look at logs and take the time to do so thoroughly, using simcraft for this kinda discussion is just a joke.

You know.... you are agreeing with them right? You are just mad for the sake of being mad.

Sims are the perfect way to show what GEAR does to damage.

Sims are NOT for shit like rng in a 2 minute fight, getting 7 movement mechanics in a row as an arcane mage, pure skill, phasing bosses at certain times/bosses go immune. More shit i can't think of atm.

Sims show that GEAR is about 1% per ilvl. So GEAR is not an issue when talking about roughly geared toons. Seriously go look at warcraft logs. Every single class will have multiple people at the same ilvl + - 50% dps. The average player in this game is dogshit, complete trash at the game. They blame gear, when in fact its skill.

[munkeyinorbit]

That was completely fine, back then. Now it feels weird to me after Legion and BFA.



M+ is not casual imo, maybe in difficulty (at lower levels) but hell my entire guild avoids it like the plague because its just not fun nor are the pugs you're often stuck with.

And I like dungeons just not continuously for months. But views simply differ there.

You are getting confused between "stuff I don't like" with casual. You have control of the group. You know that you can kick people and start again right? You do not have to continue on with the dungeon. Working with other people is not hard core content as well. It is a skill that 6 year olds learn. Nothing you have said has proven that doing easy mythic plus is hard core. If you avoid it and cannot get past ilvl 200 then that is on you. If you ignore casual game play to gear yourself then why are you even here?

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I don't have a problem with it either. Helps a ton that I got an alt raid I can join and have KSM. I wonder if those things were not quickly and easily available for me that if that would be the case. See it isn't about me getting much of anything. I will outpace most gearing options. It is more about a larger part of the playerbase.

If the large part off the player base refuses to do such easy content then they will refuse to do the other content. Casuals actually play the game. WQers dont. If given options outside of group gameplay, this will make it that grouped play will be harder to do. It will be the actual death of grouped gameplay. So no. Those liars that call themselves casuals who don't actually play the game deserve nothing.

[Bigbazz]

You know.... you are agreeing with them right? You are just mad for the sake of being mad.

Sims are the perfect way to show what GEAR does to damage.

Sims are NOT for shit like rng in a 2 minute fight, getting 7 movement mechanics in a row as an arcane mage, pure skill, phasing bosses at certain times/bosses go immune. More shit i can't think of atm.

Sims show that GEAR is about 1% per ilvl. So GEAR is not an issue when talking about roughly geared toons. Seriously go look at warcraft logs. Every single class will have multiple people at the same ilvl + - 50% dps. The average player in this game is dogshit, complete trash at the game. They blame gear, when in fact its skill.

I'm not agreeing with anything. I dont even have a stance on the topic, I have no idea what the conclusion is. I do know that the conclusion is not found with simcraft though. Please go back and read the second part of my post about Fury Warriors and the situational value of Anger Management scaling. I'm of the opinion that simcraft is not an accurate representation of ingame performance, an even worse comparison of class relative performance and a useless tool when it comes to encounter specific optimisation.

Simcraft has its uses, evaluating real world performance gains of gear is not one of them. There are endless logs you can use to come to a much better conclusion.

[MidnyteTV]

I really want to empathize with this man but he makes it so hard. Give the players what they want for gods sake

He needs to go. He can't keep making a game for himself.

[Nite92]

20% power for a whole fucking 20 ilvls is not at all "a huge gap"
20 ilvls is literally the difference between start of normal, and end of heroic, and you for fucking sure should be doing 20% more damage at end of heroic you were doing at start of normal.

The thing is, that is not true. My hunter with 217 ilvl sims for 5040, a 225 hunter from rio, sims for 5900. That is 17% for 8 ilvl, more than double the amount of what Ion said.

[Caerrona]

I'm not agreeing with anything. I dont even have a stance on the topic, I have no idea what the conclusion is. I do know that the conclusion is not found with simcraft though. Please go back and read the second part of my post about Fury Warriors and the situational value of Anger Management scaling. I'm of the opinion that simcraft is not an accurate representation of ingame performance, an even worse comparison of class relative performance and a useless tool when it comes to encounter specific optimisation.

Simcraft has its uses, evaluating real world performance gains of gear is not one of them. There are endless logs you can use to come to a much better conclusion.

That is literally the fucking point.... people complain about gear... when its not. This is a discussion about gear.

Simcraft does a perfectly fine job when comparing A to B. Not A + b and c to X + y and z.

The point was preach said gear makes you multiple times stronger. It's not "just" gear. Different encounters, rng, skill all play a factor. So the kids crying about gear are just bad.

[muto]

Remove conduit energy. There’s no reason people should be punished for wanting to play the game optimally. It’s also stupid that you have to wait more than a week to fill out your conduits if you change covenants.

[Caerrona]

The thing is, that is not true. My hunter with 217 ilvl sims for 5040, a 225 hunter from rio, sims for 5900. That is 17% for 8 ilvl, more than double the amount of what Ion said.

Do you the exact same gear, exactly the same named gear with same cov and soulbinds and conduits?

Im going to go with that hunter is much better than you and has the proper gear and kit set than you do. Which falls into "skill issue".

[Klingers]

Ion seriously has no fucking idea how to make a game.

His systems bloat is boring (and frustrating). His design choices are boring. His gameplay loops are boring.

WoW is currently stuffed full of uncompelling grinds and chores with no satisfying dynamic gameplay outside of the same stuff we've been doing for 17 years. Everyone I know has either quit or raidlogs now.

[Th3Scourge]

Don't worry guys, 10.0 will fix it

[Thestrawman]

I'm not agreeing with anything. I dont even have a stance on the topic, I have no idea what the conclusion is. I do know that the conclusion is not found with simcraft though. Please go back and read the second part of my post about Fury Warriors and the situational value of Anger Management scaling. I'm of the opinion that simcraft is not an accurate representation of ingame performance, an even worse comparison of class relative performance and a useless tool when it comes to encounter specific optimisation.

Simcraft has its uses, evaluating real world performance gains of gear is not one of them. There are endless logs you can use to come to a much better conclusion.

Maybe you should know those things before walking into a "debate". That way you won't look like such an idiot. No one but you cares about "real world gains", the testing was how much does a point of ilvl equate to dps. And the best way to test that is through a sim.

To put it simply we're seeing if 2+2=4 and you're bitching that addition can't be used because you hate math.