GC, please stop posting here

Q u o t e:
I used to look forward to blue posts, because they were rare, and either ment buff or nerf. They are now neither, so I tend to avoid the over trolled blue posts. Please only post to give us info ABOUT THE GAME not about random junk. Update us with information and not your feelings of pvp, no offence intended. Your posts spawn other posts about stuff I also don't want to hear about. I have to agree with the OP and say that it takes away from the point of the healing fourms, and makes it the GC fourms. We all know you are there now, so keep doing your thing and drop the occasional post like "We are going to change this spell by this %" not "we see your concerns blah blah blah I'm being vague and I am not giving any solid information blah blah".

I understand a number of players just want to scan a bluetracker or whatever and see the latest list of buffs and nerfs. But honestly those kinds of announcements are going to be really rare. I have also talked to enough players to know there are a lot who appreciate just being able to have a conversation with a developer, even if it's more on design goals and processes than on a list of buffs and nerfs.

I don't want it to be the GC forums either. I think posting has just been high lately because of season 5.

Q u o t e:
It humors me that you post in a topic actually named "GC, please stop posting here". I have been quoted by GC, I can now die happy... ;).

When you read as many threads as I do, you stop looking at the titles. Half of them don't give much indication of the actual topic anyway. :)

Q u o t e:
GC has indicated that he thinks the jury is still out on damage being too high, and he wants to see what happens when more players have high resilience.

Those don't sound like my exact words, but it all runs together after awhile.

I would say we are definitely worried that players are dying too fast, particularly to a handful of specs that combine high damage with high survivability. We know resilience will make a difference, but they jury is still out on whether it will make enough of a difference. Regardless, it's clear a lot of players aren't having fun, so it is something we are talking about.

Q u o t e:
We know the PvP damage of some specs is high compared to the survivability of some other classes and specs. In some cases, we know the effect of future resilience gains alone wouldn't tend to be enough, so we are currently working on revisions, with warlocks being one example.

However, as this is only 2 weeks after the start of season 5, we are still gathering data to better pinpoint the exact magnitude of changes or if such are needed in some other cases. Some broad trends are apparent already, but other details of class balance are still changing as players gain resilience and hammer out effective combos. We don't have a list of buffs, nerfs, or potential mechanic changes to announce yet but will keep you informed and involved as much as practical.

I didn't say that, but it's not bad. Maybe I can hire you as a Ghost (rimshot) writer.

Q u o t e:
You say your waiting on the people who do the most damage to replace their naxx gear with pvp gear because it will reduce their damage .......WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT

-- Right now they can kill you quickly, so they might as well have 20 health.
-- Once they can’t kill you as quickly (because you have more resilience) then their defense becomes more important. Unless you are on the legendary 3 healer comp, your side can do some damage too. If the healers survive longer, then everyone has to worry more about defense.
-- Now some players (esp. rogues) with too much innate survivability have been able to avoid PvP gear in the past, or reach the resil cap so easily that they can mix in high dps PvE gear as well. This is definitely a concern with paladins and DKs at the moment.
-- If your contention is that no amount of resilience is going to keep them from three-shotting you, then the attackers are never going to need defense because the battles will never last long enough. That is why we are trying to predict what things will be like with more resilience so we know how much we have to backfill.

Q u o t e:
This. I really don't understand the point of arguing with QQers when there are plenty of useful posts in all of these boards that go ignored.

Useful is in the eye of the beholder. While I don’t enjoy moderating, my hope is that sometimes giving people that don’t get it a little hint about the potential for these forums might eventually pay dividends.

Q u o t e:
So GC, please leave. Will a lot of people stop posting in these forums? Yes. Will a lot of people stop playing healers because your not constantly paying attention to them like a spoiled child? Yes. Will that make more "Healer Shortage" posts pop up? Probably. But at least you would be left with people who actually want to play healers, and are willing to work with what they have, instead of all the people that give up on something as soon as the weather turns sour.

I’ve seen the shaman forums, and I don’t find them quite so idyllic. Nevertheless, my job is not to stop the QQ. My job is to make the game more fun for everyone. There are plenty of forums out there if you want to discuss WoW without the intrusion of a developer. I get a lot out of these forums, believe it or not.

Q u o t e:
Yet you still ask us to wait for more resil and expect us to believe that the 100 or so more that we can semi-realistically get (it requires JC or BS prof and stacking double set bonii) will magically fix this.

What I have said is that damage will be lower with high resilience. I don't anyone argues that point -- it's mostly just math. So then the question becomes how far off we will be then (what I said in my last post).

We want Arena gear to be attractive. If we get to the point where players can survive without it, then the Arena rewards are less desirable. If we get to the point where players can hit the cap too easily, then they can mix in PvE gear and we have the raid-in-order-to-Arena problem. If we over-compensate and nobody can kill anyone, then you risk a world where the best drain teams win and there won't be a spot for classes that emphasize damage over crowd control (warlocks and shamans perhaps).

I think most players agree on what things should feel like when everyone has good gear -- something akin to the best parts of the previous seasons (and ideally with broader class representation). If you buy that, then the question is how we get there and what things should feel like in the early seasons.

Q u o t e:
If only there was some sort of... internal... testing mechanism, whereby the developers could try different... scenarios on... test characters...

There's not. We test of course, but Arenas have a lot to do with skill, split-second timing, and coordination with a team. That is very difficult to reproduce in a testing environment. You would essentially have to recruit the best Arena players in the world and have them essentially pre-play the entire Arena season to get a feel for what the season would actually play like.

We do betas and PTRs and internal testing and communicate with great players out there. All of that works pretty well for PvE and much less well for PvP. Many of the most interesting stories in the previous few Arena seasons were not things I think anyone was predicting when BC went live.

Q u o t e:
Are you an actual developer or just a troll paid to respond in blue format? Seriously. Who are you? developer is such a diverse word and really should be reserved to someone that actually contributes to the development of the game. If i screen calls for a software company at the front desk it doesn't necessarily make me a developer. Much like the term Programmer. Its earned and not a given.

We generally use "developer" to mean someone who works on the game itself, as opposed to people in other departments of Blizzard who support production of the game. Blizzard is a place where feedback is very important though, so people throughout the company still tend to have a pretty big impact on game design.

I am a game designer, and specifically I am the lead systems designer for WoW. Game designers are not artists or programmers, but we use the tools developed by the programmers and the assets created by the artists to get content into the game. Programmers make the game run, artists make it beautiful, but it is the designer's job to make it fun. (Though again, Blizzard collaborates more than many studios do and I spend a lot of time talking to programmers or artists about class, mechanics or even achievement design.) I think a lot of players mistake me for a CM because I tend to post a lot more than most WoW designers. Mostly, I just don't sleep so it lets me play WoW, work on it during the day and still have time to post. :) Game balance is one of the most controversial aspects of any multiplayer game, and I benefit from being able to engage the community directly. Systems design specifically is everything that is not level, story, quest or encounter design. My team handles everything from classes to mechanics to items to trade skills to achievements to UI design, and that includes the game balance.

I do want to stress that we are a team. We come to a consensus on every major change to the game. I put enormous faith in the team to make the right call and keep any of us individually from doing something stupid. Blizzard is in a position to be able to attract and retain the best talent available in this industry. Many of them are much better game designers than I will ever be. Mostly I try and stay out of their way. A great many of them read the forums. Everything you type is seen by silent blues. I see people reading the forums when I drop by their office. We talk about what they have read all the time. These guys care passionately about doing the right thing and making the game as good as they can. Your opinion is extremely important to them. Just keep that in mind every time you post. :)