[EU] - Maintenance and Servers Upgrade
Quote from: Wryxian (Source)
The second and final stage of modifications for the realms we listed in the original post has now been completed successfully. These realms are now live and open for play.
As we mentioned, later this afternoon we will be posting up a feedback thread to gather your thoughts and feedback following the changes we have implemented. Thanks everyone.
Blue posts
Quote from Blizzard staff
Players limit in Wintergrasp in 3.2
There are simply too many people who are affected by the Wintergrasp lag for us to leave the issue as it stands. A change is necessary to make the Wintergrasp playable by those who truly want to participate in it. We feel that this is the best choice that we have available to us currently and that this will improve the overall quality of the experience Wintergrap players will have.
[...] The issue is a complicated one, but as soon as we're able to support the number of players that are involved in Wintergrasp without debilitaiting latency, we fully intend to make the zone function as it was originally intended. (Source)
Phasing and revisiting the old world
We have our own thoughts on what to do with the phasing technology and how to accommodate the ever-increasing number of MMOs making their way on to the market. Phasing is not actually instancing - you exist on the same world as other players, only obfuscated from their view, just as they are invisible to you.
As for updating the "Old World", we've touched on this in the past. It's simply not something we can just patch in, as it would require far too much development time to revisit this older content. It's something we may think about doing in time. (Source)
Battlegrounds in 3.3 and at Blizzcon
I will agree that we need to focus more on BGs. And to be fair we are in this very next patch, and there will be more announcements at Blizzcon. (Source)
PvP balance in Battlegrounds
However, to play devil's advocate, PvP balance issues manifest themselves a lot more sharply in Arena than in BGs. I don't think it's appropriate to spend 75% of our PvP time on BGs because 75% of the players are there (I made those numbers up). Things like diminishing returns on crowd control or dispel protection are just a lot less of a big deal in most BG encounters because there are more breaks in the fighting, you're fighting different people, and the strategy has more going on than just killing the other guy. I love BGs - don't get me wrong. But they tend to be more sensitive to say map issues than class issues. (Though again, because I know it will be taken out of context if I don't caveat it, class issues can definitely affect BGs.) (Source)
Arena vs. Raiding
It's not a very strong argument to say you don't like something and therefore we should remove or downplay it when it should be pretty clear that thousands of players do like it. Fewer players participate in Arena than raiding, but that shouldn't surprise anyone because we made a concerted effort in LK to get a lot more players into raiding, and it worked. I'm not sure it's a good idea to try and push a lot of players into Arena. We would like to get a lot more players into PvP, but I suspect many of them would have more fun in Battlegrounds. Arena isn't for everyone, and it doesn't need to be. Some players really enjoy it and we understand why. If you want to participate in these role forums however, you aren't going to be able to just dismiss PvP (or PvE) concerns just because that play style doesn't interest you. (Source)
Paladin
Retribution dps in 3.2
We do want to make sure Ret's PvE dps is high enough for those players without great weapons (on which the spec is perhaps too dependent). We want overall for your dps in 3.2 to be higher than in 3.1 in equivalent situations and gear. We think it will be, but we'll keep an eye on it. So far most of the posts I've seen on the subject seem overly concerned with the ramping issue. (Source)
Reasons behind the changes to Retribution
We needed to nerf Ret pretty hard for PvP reasons. Some of you just aren't going to accept that change was needed, and I suspect it would take several long threads to convince you otherwise, so I'm not going to spend a great deal of effort in this thread trying to do so. I know it is frustrating that we have had to nerf Ret so many times this expansion. It is frustrating for us too. We keep trying to not overdo it and we keep underdoing it.
We did make the changes with some longer-term changes in mind to get Ret to be less about huge upfront attacks that will hopefully give Ret players some more intersting options with regard to Seals and special attacks. We're not there yet, but we have changed paladins dramatically for LK and it's going to take some time.
[...] We did make a lot of changes to the Seal and Judgement system for LK, and we're really happy with those changes overall. Like any big set of changes, they have taken a lot of iteration to complete the design. If you don't buy that, just look at the amount of change the DK class endures every patch. There are some problems we still have to solve for Ret (make sure Seal choice feels meaningful, find a niche for Crusader Strike, give low-level paladins something to do besides autoattack, etc.) but there are problems we still have to solve for all the specs in the game. (Source)
Balancing PvP and its consequences on PvE
PvP balancing affects PvE balancing all the time. The opposite happens too. My comments were more about how it's pretty futile to say "I don't care about PvP, so you should just make changes that affect PvE and not care about the consequences."
WoW is a PvP and PvE game. We're not asking you to participate equally in both. We are asking you that if you want to participate in class mechanics and balance discussion that you not just dismiss one or the other as irrelevant.
I'm also not saying that if your PvE damage sucks because of a PvP change that we're okay with that.
Backing up, a lot of PvP players have become really frustrated trying to handle high burst damage from a class that can turn around and remove a lot of the crowd control used to counter them and even prevent a lot of incoming damage. They're talking about you (and sometimes DKs). Unless we're willing to go in and take apart the defense mechanics (which to be fair, some players have advocated), we have to reduce the burst damage. A stacking dot is a great way to reward sustained damage at the expense of burst.
However, as we have said, the goal was not to nerf Ret in PvE. Ret paladins may have been slightly behind in Ulduar, at least until they got very good weapons. We think the Seal changes will elevate Ret's sustained PvE damage over where it is on Live. If we're wrong, we have knobs to turn, such as increasing the amount of the dot or ways to apply it. We understand many players are concerned about short fights or fights where you have to retarget. To be fair, a lot of classes have the same problems. If anything, we are adding more ramp up time to more classes as a way of toning down PvP burst. The Feral druid who has to peel off of Hodir at 4 cps in order to free an NPC is going to be pretty frustrated too. Deciding when it's worth it to do so or when you're better off not changing targets is one of those skills that makes you better or worse at the game.
Movement fights are a slightly different issue. We make you move in PvE because it's a challange. You're not supposed to be able to trivially overcome it.
It's also not fair to characterize all of the Ret changes as for PvP only. As one example, we have struggled with the damage recoil on Seal of Blood for some time. Players didn't seem to particularly like it. It felt like a liability in PvE and it didn't add a balance offset to the abilitiy in PvP. So we removed the mechanic. (Source)
More...
Quote from: Wryxian (Source)
The second and final stage of modifications for the realms we listed in the original post has now been completed successfully. These realms are now live and open for play.
As we mentioned, later this afternoon we will be posting up a feedback thread to gather your thoughts and feedback following the changes we have implemented. Thanks everyone.
Blue posts
Quote from Blizzard staff
Players limit in Wintergrasp in 3.2
There are simply too many people who are affected by the Wintergrasp lag for us to leave the issue as it stands. A change is necessary to make the Wintergrasp playable by those who truly want to participate in it. We feel that this is the best choice that we have available to us currently and that this will improve the overall quality of the experience Wintergrap players will have.
[...] The issue is a complicated one, but as soon as we're able to support the number of players that are involved in Wintergrasp without debilitaiting latency, we fully intend to make the zone function as it was originally intended. (Source)
Phasing and revisiting the old world
We have our own thoughts on what to do with the phasing technology and how to accommodate the ever-increasing number of MMOs making their way on to the market. Phasing is not actually instancing - you exist on the same world as other players, only obfuscated from their view, just as they are invisible to you.
As for updating the "Old World", we've touched on this in the past. It's simply not something we can just patch in, as it would require far too much development time to revisit this older content. It's something we may think about doing in time. (Source)
Battlegrounds in 3.3 and at Blizzcon
I will agree that we need to focus more on BGs. And to be fair we are in this very next patch, and there will be more announcements at Blizzcon. (Source)
PvP balance in Battlegrounds
However, to play devil's advocate, PvP balance issues manifest themselves a lot more sharply in Arena than in BGs. I don't think it's appropriate to spend 75% of our PvP time on BGs because 75% of the players are there (I made those numbers up). Things like diminishing returns on crowd control or dispel protection are just a lot less of a big deal in most BG encounters because there are more breaks in the fighting, you're fighting different people, and the strategy has more going on than just killing the other guy. I love BGs - don't get me wrong. But they tend to be more sensitive to say map issues than class issues. (Though again, because I know it will be taken out of context if I don't caveat it, class issues can definitely affect BGs.) (Source)
Arena vs. Raiding
It's not a very strong argument to say you don't like something and therefore we should remove or downplay it when it should be pretty clear that thousands of players do like it. Fewer players participate in Arena than raiding, but that shouldn't surprise anyone because we made a concerted effort in LK to get a lot more players into raiding, and it worked. I'm not sure it's a good idea to try and push a lot of players into Arena. We would like to get a lot more players into PvP, but I suspect many of them would have more fun in Battlegrounds. Arena isn't for everyone, and it doesn't need to be. Some players really enjoy it and we understand why. If you want to participate in these role forums however, you aren't going to be able to just dismiss PvP (or PvE) concerns just because that play style doesn't interest you. (Source)
Retribution dps in 3.2
We do want to make sure Ret's PvE dps is high enough for those players without great weapons (on which the spec is perhaps too dependent). We want overall for your dps in 3.2 to be higher than in 3.1 in equivalent situations and gear. We think it will be, but we'll keep an eye on it. So far most of the posts I've seen on the subject seem overly concerned with the ramping issue. (Source)
Reasons behind the changes to Retribution
We needed to nerf Ret pretty hard for PvP reasons. Some of you just aren't going to accept that change was needed, and I suspect it would take several long threads to convince you otherwise, so I'm not going to spend a great deal of effort in this thread trying to do so. I know it is frustrating that we have had to nerf Ret so many times this expansion. It is frustrating for us too. We keep trying to not overdo it and we keep underdoing it.
We did make the changes with some longer-term changes in mind to get Ret to be less about huge upfront attacks that will hopefully give Ret players some more intersting options with regard to Seals and special attacks. We're not there yet, but we have changed paladins dramatically for LK and it's going to take some time.
[...] We did make a lot of changes to the Seal and Judgement system for LK, and we're really happy with those changes overall. Like any big set of changes, they have taken a lot of iteration to complete the design. If you don't buy that, just look at the amount of change the DK class endures every patch. There are some problems we still have to solve for Ret (make sure Seal choice feels meaningful, find a niche for Crusader Strike, give low-level paladins something to do besides autoattack, etc.) but there are problems we still have to solve for all the specs in the game. (Source)
Balancing PvP and its consequences on PvE
PvP balancing affects PvE balancing all the time. The opposite happens too. My comments were more about how it's pretty futile to say "I don't care about PvP, so you should just make changes that affect PvE and not care about the consequences."
WoW is a PvP and PvE game. We're not asking you to participate equally in both. We are asking you that if you want to participate in class mechanics and balance discussion that you not just dismiss one or the other as irrelevant.
I'm also not saying that if your PvE damage sucks because of a PvP change that we're okay with that.
Backing up, a lot of PvP players have become really frustrated trying to handle high burst damage from a class that can turn around and remove a lot of the crowd control used to counter them and even prevent a lot of incoming damage. They're talking about you (and sometimes DKs). Unless we're willing to go in and take apart the defense mechanics (which to be fair, some players have advocated), we have to reduce the burst damage. A stacking dot is a great way to reward sustained damage at the expense of burst.
However, as we have said, the goal was not to nerf Ret in PvE. Ret paladins may have been slightly behind in Ulduar, at least until they got very good weapons. We think the Seal changes will elevate Ret's sustained PvE damage over where it is on Live. If we're wrong, we have knobs to turn, such as increasing the amount of the dot or ways to apply it. We understand many players are concerned about short fights or fights where you have to retarget. To be fair, a lot of classes have the same problems. If anything, we are adding more ramp up time to more classes as a way of toning down PvP burst. The Feral druid who has to peel off of Hodir at 4 cps in order to free an NPC is going to be pretty frustrated too. Deciding when it's worth it to do so or when you're better off not changing targets is one of those skills that makes you better or worse at the game.
Movement fights are a slightly different issue. We make you move in PvE because it's a challange. You're not supposed to be able to trivially overcome it.
It's also not fair to characterize all of the Ret changes as for PvP only. As one example, we have struggled with the damage recoil on Seal of Blood for some time. Players didn't seem to particularly like it. It felt like a liability in PvE and it didn't add a balance offset to the abilitiy in PvP. So we removed the mechanic. (Source)
More...