Patch 5.3 Dev Interview
Today we are taking a look at an interview over on WoWInsider with Ghostcrawler.
Future
- The unannounced feature is on schedule for patch 5.4.
- The new event in the Barrens is an experiment and another way to get players back out into the world, which we will see more of in Patch 5.4.
- Appearing offline on Battle.net is still in the works.
- Eventually all of the professions will have some sort of catch up mechanism.
- The game could use some sort of reward for leveling now that the new talent system doesn't provide a talent point as often.
Dungeons and Raids
- 25 player raiding feels more epic than 10 player raiding, as well as allowing you to bring in friends or newer players without as big of an impact on the raid.
- 25 player raids can fall back to a 10 player raid size if they begin to fall apart, while 10 player raids will just disband if they start losing people.
- Back during Molten Core there wasn't much going on in raids, making fights simpler and character optimization wasn't as big as it is now. Now fights have more mechanics to go with the new tools and more sophisticated players.
- LFR has to make some of the mechanics more forgiving, otherwise most groups would not be able to progress or the failures would fall onto the backs of the healers. Reducing player damage through debuffs from standing in the fire can be done to punish players, rather than applying damage to them and punishing the healers.
Dungeons
- Raids have a longer lifespan than dungeons because you can only run them once per week. Dungeons can be run multiple times per day, so players get tired of them much faster.
- The team is growing to the point where in the future it may be possible to offer both a nice raid like Throne of Thunder and a dungeon or two in the same patch.
- Players generally expect new architecture, art, and mechanics in dungeons, which makes them much more time consuming to create than scenarios.
Patch 5.3 Changes
- The XP requirement reduction in Patch 5.3 was done to make alt leveling faster, as it felt like it slowed down when you hit Jade Forest.
- Losing battlegrounds or arenas repeatedly to get gear so that you could be competitive in PvP wasn't fun.
Misc
- Adding caps to things like Valor Points or Charms is a challenge, because you have to strike a balance between stopping people from playing ridiculous amounts to earn them and other players that would never be able to compete. Players see a cap and feel that it is mandatory to reach it, even though that is not what was intended. WoW is a game, not a job, so players should not have to feel like they have to be constantly playing to stay competitive.
- Patch 5.3 isn't expected to increase subscriber levels very much, as that is generally what expansions and larger patches do.
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
PvE Gear in PvP
So yes, we do feel that PvP gear should be the best for PvP, but we don't mind some cross-over as long as it doesn't break the experience of the game. With some rather loose mathematics it has been shown in this thread how some tier 15/14 set bonuses can offer varying damage min/maxing options for PvP, however as Brian points out, that is not the only thing that you need for PvP. These differing options for gearing aren't really a bad thing as they offer additional gear options and play styles that are in no way a clearly better, or an upgrade for PvP. The reason that they are not clearly better or an upgrade is because of the bonus resilience/PvP power prvoided by them and also the reasons listed by Brian.
Do understand though that we are listening to your feedback and keeping an eye out for any gear that we feel may need tweaking. If we find some PvE gear that is clearly outperforming PvP gear in instanced PvP, we will investigate it and take action if it's deemed necessary.
40s less CD on Dark Soul vs 10% more Damage (that also comes with the T14) .... yeah, no competition between T14 and PvP Set bonus.
You are ignoring the other bonuses that come from using the PvP set and just focusing on the "Changes x skill in y way." descriptions. You also lose out on almost 7.5% passive damage increase through PvP power, which is pretty big and the Twilight Ward change from the 2-piece PvP gear is pretty powerful survivability bonus as well. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Casting While Moving
Its fun being part of that 10% not being able to cast while moving.
I might be wrong here but I got the impression from last time I checked top rated teams, that there was a very high representation of shadow priests in 3v3. Even though this was before the nerf to Void Shift, so we’ll see how things go from here.
What I meant to say is if SP representation was already high in s13 without them being able to run and cast at the same time, it would probably have been op if they could. Plus you have quite a few instant damage dealing abilities, shields, heals and CC. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Heroic Scenario Loot
The developers didn't want these items (Heroic Scenario item level 516 loot) to be best in slot. They would like to see them replaced by more powerful items (even if those items are of the same ilevel).
Yeah it's quite silly that none of the scenario items have any sockets, Especially the helm.
These items have random enchantments, and there are some technical limitations to have random stats plus sockets on them. The developers definitely agree that the helms might be particularly unattractive without a meta socket. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
Since no talent system overhaul, any word on LOWERING the amount of buttons next cycle? How about more glyphs in lieu of...?
Would love to prune more buttons. It will cause many tears though if old favorites go away. (Source)
Plans to fix feral gear scaling? We always start strong early expansion and tapered off. SR buff in 5.3 is a bandaid at best.
We typically only worry about gear scaling if you tie at the start and then fall 5 to 10% behind at the end of a tier. (Source)
It was a bigger problem say in BC where coefficients wouldn't get touched for many patches. These days we reevaluate every tier. (Source)
Thoughts on tank swap mechanics? Nef/Morchok H was fun, taunting after every x debuffs on nearly every boss is not.
Really tough to solve. Tanks told us they didn't like the cleave soaking (Lan'athel) either, yet not every fight is gonna have adds. (Source)
Its not fully representative but, queue's seem to indicate the proportion of tanks/healers to dps isn't great.
I think it is also more likely for tanks or healers to have groups of friends since they are designed to work as part of a group. (Source)
By which I mean tanks and healers have less need for random matchmaking. (Source)
The new talent design actually sucks. Dont know a single person that likes it personally.
That surprises me. While it's not universal praise of course, the overwhelming majority of feedback is positive. (Source)
Why so much focus on making every hybrid spec viable for PVP AND PVE, while not the same for pures? I dream of SV PVP/MM PVE!
Every spec is the ideal, but we focus a lot on roles too. A mage probably minds changing spec less than a Shadow priest does. (Source)
and there were other avenues available to tone down festerblight, such as tweaking Ebon Plaguebringer.
The UM change wasn't for Festerblight. We think Tricks fixed that. It was because Unholy DPS was higher than we wanted it. (Source)
Or more specifically, the UM originally was for FB. Then we reverted it. Then we added it back for a different reason. (Source)
Are you satisfied with the mobility hunters have since 5.1, or do you see either Fox or Sniper Training coming back?
No immediate plans for either. (Source)
How is Stampede NOT a flavor-fitting ability? I think hunters would rise up en-masse if Stampede disappeared.
We added Stampede because, like Titan's Grip, players* asked for it for years. (* = Not every player of course.) (Source)
And Blink Strikes is already simming as a loss over Crows. You've already nerfed that tier into oblivion, please don't do more
But in general we want passives to be lower DPS than actives since they ask much less of the player. (Source)
For a spec like MM that's behind enough to be 'bad,' wasn't mastery created for tuning to turn 5% delta into something closer?
The passives were created for that. If we buff mastery it can make you stack or avoid that stat depending on how we do it. (Source)
burst is out of control had a fire mage frostjaw to a cs to dead which is just wrong. From full to dead. This is not balanced.
About 5 posts above someone says Fire is not longer viable. Can you guys work it out and report back to me? (Source)
Greg, something is wrong with Evocation. 10% of the times the whole Evo still won't get the buff. Can you check it?
Yes, there is something wrong with Evo not giving its buff consistently. It's not a simple fix but we are working on it. (Source)
Why are Holy Chakras not considered a stance?
In what sense? With different action bars? We have discussed that implementation. Better / worse? (Source)
spriests, I can see the void shift nerf fine. the mass dispel is just too much, cant you guys bake it in for shadow as well?
The point was to nerf Shadow. Their damage, survivability and utility are all high. Hard for other specs to compete (PvP). (Source)
Re: Disc Borrowed Time change: Nerfs are ok, but why remove a fun mechanic that allows good players to set themselves apart?
If it was just a tough thing to do that rewarded skillful play, that would be fine, but it was like a secret trick you had to know. (Source)
why was voidshift removed from PvP? Good spell with a very long cooldown. I don't see the issue considering some better ...
It's not about the ability - it's the package. Shadow had great damage, survivability and utility in PvP. (Source)
I still don't understand how VE has a target cap at all. I thought it just converted DPS to HPS and split it amongst the raid
If it had no target cap, the healing per player would be so small that you wouldn't notice it or so large that it would be OP. (Source)
shaman enh damage seems to be where it should be now on ptr. we still have a glyph problem. couple of em should be baked in.
It's really hard with glyphs to hit that sweet spot between "mandatory / should be baked in" and "don't care about." (Source)
resto shaman mastery is very useless, why is it still a thing?!?
Uh... in what venue? It's a pretty good mastery.... (Source)
GC Warlocks are more than capable of tanking MoP heroics now, any chance warlocks will be to Queue as a tank?
No. They aren't a tank spec. If you want to tank with your friends, go for it. (Source)
Warrior is the only class that cannot get below 1,5 sec global cooldown. It hurts a lot when you log back from alts
Our main concern there is historically warriors are very sensitive to empty GCDs. At times you could even +HS off the GCD. (Source)
Going to a 1 sec GCD for warriors might elicit feedback that their rotation is too slow and they need more abilities to use. (Source)
Youre too concerned about too much rage. My hunter is drowning in Energy. Encourage rage pooling instead & adjust dmg
Rage pooling is cool. Treating the class as GCD limited and ignoring the resource completely is not. (Source)
Fan Art Creation
We often post different WoW fan art, but this time we are taking a look at how a nice piece of fan art was created.
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