17
18:56
WoW Interview
Another Five Years of Warcraft interview, this time from WarCry.
- We wanted WoW to be a Blizzard quality game, with the Blizzard polish, and the Blizzard experience. We wanted to get away from the psychology in the gamer world, which was "Oh, it's an MMO, it's always gonna be buggy and problematic for a while."
- We gave very simple choices, and there wasn't any of this "Is my guy five pounds overweight? Are his eyes sea blue or sky blue?" Don't get me wrong, that sort of thing is cool, but we made a very simple UI and character creator, and that's one of the main things that helped people gravitate to the game.
- Where I think the worry is, is people who are wondering if we're talking about "Hey, do you want to buy the level 80 epic sword for $5?" We're absolutely not talking about doing that.
- We all like to play console games, and would like to play a Blizzard console game someday, but we haven't been able to do that right. StarCraft: Ghost was kind of the latest console attempt that Blizzard made, and it didn't feel like the game was where it needed to be.
- Even though things would be better with new (character) models, we'd probably spark a lot of player outrage. So we've talked about giving players a choice between the classic models or the new ones, but it might not be something we want to take on at the same time as we remake Azeroth.
- So we're not talking about it in terms of WoW 2, but the WoW we always wished we had.
via WarCry
Blue Posts
On Sartharion +3, cutting-edge guilds who normally tank with a warrior would (perhaps somewhat begrudgingly) use a DK to tank instead because the benefit was so massive. The same thing happened on Vezax where good guilds replaced their warrior tanks with DKs. Death knights were overpowered at the time.
We are not seeing the kind of massive swapping one class of tank for another in ToC or the preliminary Icecrown testing. It's just not happening. If paladins or druids are too good or warriors or death knights aren't good enough, we're just not seeing them getting used for those fights to anywhere near the extent that DKs replaced other tanks on the encounters mentioned above.
As just one example (and I wouldn't put too much weight behind this), the number of paladin tanks used to test Icecrown on the PTR has been almost imperceptibly low. It's possible there were actually none this weekend, or else the numbers were so small that we missed them. Sure these are not the hard mode encounters generally being tested, and you can come up with your own explanations for differences between how players might approach PTR and "real" raiding. But these are the kind of lopsided datasets we have to deal with when we're looking at who is using what tank and how that relates to success.
I'm not talking about balancing around representation, as players often mistakenly claim. I am asking the question that I have asked before: if one or two of the tank classes have such a superior and unequivocal advantage in making a fight easier, why aren't more guilds using them, especially given the evidence that they have swapped tanks on previous encounters? I understand individuals of you may state it has happened to your guild. That's fine, but understand you are in a small minority. Overall, it's just not happening.
One conclusion you can draw (though certainly not the only one) is that whatever differences in survivability there appear to be "on paper," just don't make a significant difference in the actual fights, or at least not enough of a difference that guilds feel compelled to switch or are held back by not switching.
As an aside: there are some specific fights where the specific mechanics lead guilds to tend to use one tank over another, say a druid to tank Thorim hard or a shield-using tank on adds for Anub hard. Most players aren't as concerned about these one-off encounters because it feels like such an encounter-specific problem and doesn't feel like anyone's job as guild main tank is in jeopardy. (Individuals of you may feel differently of course.)
I know there are lot of threads on this topic right now. I avoided many of the ones that are doing a good job discussing numbers because I didn't want to derail them.
No, I totally agree that the distinction may be subtle or even subjective. The way I would describe it is that druids are good on Thorim because of Unbalancing Strike, and not just because "druids are better tanks." If every, or even many, bosses had Thorim's attacks, then druids might be perceived as too good overall. (And they may be, but not because of their lack of reliance on defense.)
To use a contrived example, if there was a boss that could be beaten by anyone but more easily defeated by Spell Reflect, you might see a lot of grumbling about how good warriors were tanking that particular fight, but you wouldn't I expect see a lot of folks arguing that warriors were too good across the board. That case has less to do with say EH or cooldowns and more to do with a specific mechanic of that fight. But as I said, it's subjective. If the druid was so good on Thorim that you felt gimped without a druid and felt like you had to recruit one, then it would cross the line and doubtless that line would be at different positions for different folks.
I can accept that the challenge of finding and gearing new tanks can affect individual guilds. Overall I am suspicious that it accounts for the fact that very few guilds use paladin or druid MTs on progression attempts. It is arguing that guilds might desperately want druid or paladin tanks because everyone knows they make the fight easier, but they just can't find any. Yet when DKs made the fights easier everyone managed to find those. I have a hunch that if we made a fight in which stacking Blacksmithing BM hunters with Nether Ray pets conveyed a significant advantage that we would see Nether Rays coming out of the woodwork. Players typically find a way when it matters.
We totally get that many long-term guilds still use warrior tanks because they always have. We did see many of those guilds switch to DKs for certain fights though. They by and large are not doing that now. Why not?
Most bosses are tanked by warriors. Most hard mode bosses are tanked by warriors. Nearly all server first boss kills are done with warrior main tanks. Paladin tanks are so rare that it sometimes doesn't even feel fair to compare the data.
However, we do know that sometimes those warriors will step aside because another class conveys enough of an advantage that they must feel it's worth it. This was true of say Sartharion and Vezax. It is not true in ToC on anything remotely of that scale. We don't think it will be true of Icecrown based on testing so far. If it becomes a problem -- if we think that raid groups with warrior or DK tanks (or even druid or paladins) are struggling more than other groups -- then we'll do something about it.
Honestly, the only thing I want to know is why the DK cool downs still have resource costs. For the life of me, I can't figure it out.
Slightly off topic, but you contribute a lot to these boards so I'll answer it. The original intent was that DKs press different buttons when tanking than when doing dps. Warriors definitely do that -- few Arms or Fury warriors incorporate Revenge or Shield Slam and then Shockwave and Devastate are talented. We needed abilities for a DK to use that sacrificed dps for survivability. (The alternative is you don't need a tank spec at all and can do as much dps while tanking as when not tanking, modulo gear.)
Given the realities of tapping for runes and the like, I don't think the reality ended up where we wanted it. It would be closer to the design if DKs dropped say one Blood Strike for a defensive cooldown while dps DKs did not. That would be a tough change to implement at this stage with all sorts of negative ramifications. However just taking the costs off with the intent of putting them on again in the future would be unpopular with players. We'll make unpopular calls when we think they are worth it. I'm not sure this is.
I agree that Anub is a difficult fight to discuss because of its mechanics, but if you try hard enough you can find justification for why every boss (other than Patchwerk maybe) is a gimmick and shouldn't count. However let me also throw out that a lot of guilds recognize that the hard part of the Anub fight isn't Anub at all, but managing the adds. They choose to send the player who is either their best-skilled or best-geared or just their traditional MT to do the hard job. That player is most often a warrior.
I agree that druids are very common to tank Anub himself. However so far it is not the case that the druid just ends up as the new MT for the guild. Most often the druid just takes that one fight, just as druids often take hard mode Thorim. Yogg 0 is a popular paladin fight, probably because a million things spawn quickly to beat on the tank at once, requiring both strong threat generation and survival against multiple adds. However once again, this trend (if it's even that) has not led to the paladin tanking the rest of Ulduar hard modes.
I might even concede that every fight if you break it down enough might slightly favor one class over another. As long as it isn't always the same tank and as long as it doesn't lead to guilds who "picked the wrong MT" being roadblocked, we don't think it's a problem. We have no evidence that picking a warrior MT puts you in that category, while we have a lot of evidence that correlates warriors tanking with success.
We are not seeing the kind of massive swapping one class of tank for another in ToC or the preliminary Icecrown testing. It's just not happening. If paladins or druids are too good or warriors or death knights aren't good enough, we're just not seeing them getting used for those fights to anywhere near the extent that DKs replaced other tanks on the encounters mentioned above.
As just one example (and I wouldn't put too much weight behind this), the number of paladin tanks used to test Icecrown on the PTR has been almost imperceptibly low. It's possible there were actually none this weekend, or else the numbers were so small that we missed them. Sure these are not the hard mode encounters generally being tested, and you can come up with your own explanations for differences between how players might approach PTR and "real" raiding. But these are the kind of lopsided datasets we have to deal with when we're looking at who is using what tank and how that relates to success.
I'm not talking about balancing around representation, as players often mistakenly claim. I am asking the question that I have asked before: if one or two of the tank classes have such a superior and unequivocal advantage in making a fight easier, why aren't more guilds using them, especially given the evidence that they have swapped tanks on previous encounters? I understand individuals of you may state it has happened to your guild. That's fine, but understand you are in a small minority. Overall, it's just not happening.
One conclusion you can draw (though certainly not the only one) is that whatever differences in survivability there appear to be "on paper," just don't make a significant difference in the actual fights, or at least not enough of a difference that guilds feel compelled to switch or are held back by not switching.
As an aside: there are some specific fights where the specific mechanics lead guilds to tend to use one tank over another, say a druid to tank Thorim hard or a shield-using tank on adds for Anub hard. Most players aren't as concerned about these one-off encounters because it feels like such an encounter-specific problem and doesn't feel like anyone's job as guild main tank is in jeopardy. (Individuals of you may feel differently of course.)
I know there are lot of threads on this topic right now. I avoided many of the ones that are doing a good job discussing numbers because I didn't want to derail them.
No, I totally agree that the distinction may be subtle or even subjective. The way I would describe it is that druids are good on Thorim because of Unbalancing Strike, and not just because "druids are better tanks." If every, or even many, bosses had Thorim's attacks, then druids might be perceived as too good overall. (And they may be, but not because of their lack of reliance on defense.)
To use a contrived example, if there was a boss that could be beaten by anyone but more easily defeated by Spell Reflect, you might see a lot of grumbling about how good warriors were tanking that particular fight, but you wouldn't I expect see a lot of folks arguing that warriors were too good across the board. That case has less to do with say EH or cooldowns and more to do with a specific mechanic of that fight. But as I said, it's subjective. If the druid was so good on Thorim that you felt gimped without a druid and felt like you had to recruit one, then it would cross the line and doubtless that line would be at different positions for different folks.
I can accept that the challenge of finding and gearing new tanks can affect individual guilds. Overall I am suspicious that it accounts for the fact that very few guilds use paladin or druid MTs on progression attempts. It is arguing that guilds might desperately want druid or paladin tanks because everyone knows they make the fight easier, but they just can't find any. Yet when DKs made the fights easier everyone managed to find those. I have a hunch that if we made a fight in which stacking Blacksmithing BM hunters with Nether Ray pets conveyed a significant advantage that we would see Nether Rays coming out of the woodwork. Players typically find a way when it matters.
We totally get that many long-term guilds still use warrior tanks because they always have. We did see many of those guilds switch to DKs for certain fights though. They by and large are not doing that now. Why not?
Most bosses are tanked by warriors. Most hard mode bosses are tanked by warriors. Nearly all server first boss kills are done with warrior main tanks. Paladin tanks are so rare that it sometimes doesn't even feel fair to compare the data.
However, we do know that sometimes those warriors will step aside because another class conveys enough of an advantage that they must feel it's worth it. This was true of say Sartharion and Vezax. It is not true in ToC on anything remotely of that scale. We don't think it will be true of Icecrown based on testing so far. If it becomes a problem -- if we think that raid groups with warrior or DK tanks (or even druid or paladins) are struggling more than other groups -- then we'll do something about it.
Honestly, the only thing I want to know is why the DK cool downs still have resource costs. For the life of me, I can't figure it out.
Slightly off topic, but you contribute a lot to these boards so I'll answer it. The original intent was that DKs press different buttons when tanking than when doing dps. Warriors definitely do that -- few Arms or Fury warriors incorporate Revenge or Shield Slam and then Shockwave and Devastate are talented. We needed abilities for a DK to use that sacrificed dps for survivability. (The alternative is you don't need a tank spec at all and can do as much dps while tanking as when not tanking, modulo gear.)
Given the realities of tapping for runes and the like, I don't think the reality ended up where we wanted it. It would be closer to the design if DKs dropped say one Blood Strike for a defensive cooldown while dps DKs did not. That would be a tough change to implement at this stage with all sorts of negative ramifications. However just taking the costs off with the intent of putting them on again in the future would be unpopular with players. We'll make unpopular calls when we think they are worth it. I'm not sure this is.
I agree that Anub is a difficult fight to discuss because of its mechanics, but if you try hard enough you can find justification for why every boss (other than Patchwerk maybe) is a gimmick and shouldn't count. However let me also throw out that a lot of guilds recognize that the hard part of the Anub fight isn't Anub at all, but managing the adds. They choose to send the player who is either their best-skilled or best-geared or just their traditional MT to do the hard job. That player is most often a warrior.
I agree that druids are very common to tank Anub himself. However so far it is not the case that the druid just ends up as the new MT for the guild. Most often the druid just takes that one fight, just as druids often take hard mode Thorim. Yogg 0 is a popular paladin fight, probably because a million things spawn quickly to beat on the tank at once, requiring both strong threat generation and survival against multiple adds. However once again, this trend (if it's even that) has not led to the paladin tanking the rest of Ulduar hard modes.
I might even concede that every fight if you break it down enough might slightly favor one class over another. As long as it isn't always the same tank and as long as it doesn't lead to guilds who "picked the wrong MT" being roadblocked, we don't think it's a problem. We have no evidence that picking a warrior MT puts you in that category, while we have a lot of evidence that correlates warriors tanking with success.
Refunding talents generally isn't something we do as a courtesy. Meaning, if we had our way, we would never refund talents. We only do it when the data would get seriously jacked up by not doing so. For example, you may still have points in a talent that no longer exists or something similar.
As to why we don't like to refund talents, part of it is avoiding the expectation that regular talent refunds are something that happens often. Another part is that while it may be exciting for very active players to get a talent refund, it can actually be a major bummer for the alt you play seldomly or even the player who only logs on every few weeks. Now you feel like you have to do a lot of research and action bar management before you can even jump in and start playing again.
It's quite likely everyone will get a talent refund when the Cataclysm data changes go in (which if history holds, will actually occur before the Cataclysm box is available at retail). I wouldn't expect any before then.
As to why we don't like to refund talents, part of it is avoiding the expectation that regular talent refunds are something that happens often. Another part is that while it may be exciting for very active players to get a talent refund, it can actually be a major bummer for the alt you play seldomly or even the player who only logs on every few weeks. Now you feel like you have to do a lot of research and action bar management before you can even jump in and start playing again.
It's quite likely everyone will get a talent refund when the Cataclysm data changes go in (which if history holds, will actually occur before the Cataclysm box is available at retail). I wouldn't expect any before then.
Since our first two tests went so well, we’d like to invite everyone out again for round 3! Come join the fun on the PTR and instead of getting the PUG blues, you could end up grouped with a blue. Members of the Development Team (including the encounter designers themselves), the QA team, and the Community Team will be on the PTR to test out the new dungeon system and want you to come join in the fun.
To have a chance to group up with one of us, just queue up for a random heroic through the Dungeon tool. We will be playing both Alliance and Horde and since the Dungeon tool allows players to group cross-server, it doesn’t matter which of the two PTR realms you join from.
Join us Wednesday 11/18/09 at 4:00pm PST.
To have a chance to group up with one of us, just queue up for a random heroic through the Dungeon tool. We will be playing both Alliance and Horde and since the Dungeon tool allows players to group cross-server, it doesn’t matter which of the two PTR realms you join from.
Join us Wednesday 11/18/09 at 4:00pm PST.
Bosses in Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum, Eye of Eternity, Ulduar, Trial of the Crusader, and all Heroics will drop Emblems of Triumph. Bosses in the Icecrown Citadel 10- and 25-player dungeon will drop Emblems of Frost. Choosing the Random Heroic Dungeon option via the Dungeon Finder (new in content update 3.3) and completing whatever dungeon is selected for you will award you with two Emblems of Frost the first time you do it (this is in place of the daily Heroic dungeon quests which are being replaced with weekly raid dungeon quests). Continuing to use the Random Heroic Dungeon option within that same day to complete dungeons will award you with two Emblems of Triumph each time in addition to those dropped in the instances. The random option can also select Heroic dungeons to which you may already be saved, so you can technically do every Heroic dungeon more than once in a day by continuing to use this option.
Written by Michael 'chaud'
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