Re:Totems; Helping you help us help you

#0 - Jan. 16, 2009, 12:10 p.m.

Lots of good discussion starting on page 5. I'm not going to include improvements to individual totems as that's not really what GC asked. (except for the answer to the question of elemental aoe)

I'm going to let the question stand, even though GC's post answered it. I.e. by spending a solid 10 minutes specifically not answering it, either everything is still on the table, or nothing is still on the table. Unfortunately, probably the latter.

What I am getting at is it would be extremely helpful to know what you and the dev team would dismiss outright. If this was stated a little more clearly in the beginning of the post, I'm guessing the count would be halved, or at least a little more focused. I realize saying yes to any of the ideas at this point is impossible, but I'm hoping you can give us a no/maybe list so we know where to focus our discussions as a community.

I'll list the major ones that seem the most likely:

1. Calling your totems to you
2. Increasing their health
3. Combining totem functionality to reduce number of totems
4. Removing GCD from totems with possibly steeper mana costs(obviously OP without penalty)
5. Causing totems to follow you as wolves or (my personal fav.) mini pet-ish ragnaros/murmur/ele spirits
6. A totem pole with all totems inside it and able to drop on one GCD
7. Unique names for totems to end the pet macros once and for all(there is still an exploit apparently)
8. Increased range
9. Ability to place("throw") totems like a blizzard or hurricane.
10. Possible repercussions to destroying totems
11. Placing certain totems that buff on the shaman, while keeping other more powerful totems on ground.
12. Earthquake totem, like magma totem, identical or possibly combining with earthbind. does not stack(gotta think of our enh buddies too!)

I'll edit this list as people remind me what ideas I missed, but these seem to be the top thoughts. A maybe/no to these would help us help you, and we could focus on the maybe's and drop the no's.

Streamlined to get to the point, seeing as everyone replying thus far has completely missed it. Its not the suggestions, but the QUESTION that is important in this post.

*edited the title- Nethaera

Ghostcrawler

#13 - Jan. 16, 2009, 5:32 p.m.

Since there is already a thread on totems themselves, I won't comment on them here, but on the nature of the thread itself.

Players like to post.

It would be really helpful for many of us if poster #50 saw that posters #1-49 had summed things up really well and said "Yep, I agree" or even refrained from posting at all.

But that is an unrealistic expectation. It is sad but true that many players who feel their opinions are important enough to post in a 20-page thread do not give other players the courtesy of even reading the previous 20 pages. But locking the threads quickly only really punishes the people who don't check forums all day long.

WoW has a large, opinionated and vocal community. We really haven't come up yet with an efficient way to communicate back and forth without severely squelching the information flow. (For example, I get a lot out of seeing players riff off of each other's ideas or even disagree).

There are a lot of good ideas in the totem thread. There are some terrible ones too, and many players can tell the difference. Some ideas are going to be controversial with players loving or hating them passionately. That is going to happen. We can't please everyone all the time, and in the end we need to make the decisions we think are right for the game, not just give players everything they ask for.

Ghostcrawler

#136 - Jan. 17, 2009, 8:38 p.m.

Q u o t e:
All I was responding to was the fact that he sounded surprised and almost disappointed that we would have so much to say. I don't think ANYONE has the patience to read through all of that info, let alone everyone who wanted to post.

Probably overreacted, but that response really really bothered me. Like he was dissapointed we ruined our one chance at giving feedback since noone bothered to read everything that was said before them. Look at every other feeback thread. Same exact kind of responses, no "you shouldn't post like this" from anyone at Blizzard.

i understand how much time it takes to read all of that. I just personally think it is rude when players ignore each other. The forums are here for communication. Being so eager to put in your own thoughts while disregarding those of others strikes me as a little selfish. Maybe they said something really good that you agree with. Maybe they said something really ridiculous that you want to counter. We would much rather participate in a conversation than a list, if that makes sense.

Q u o t e:
QFT. The original thread should be edited to reflect common suggestions to prevent redundancies in further posts.

I have been active in forums long enough to predict that that would not really slow down the number of posts. Players just like to post.

Q u o t e:
"Yes, it would be great if threads were more concise or if people read previous ideas before posting the same ones over again. But realistically we can't expect that because not everyone can devote the time to read every thread and even still people have their opinions that they feel "MUST BE HEARD" and so we don't stifle them."

Well said.

Q u o t e:
You could do an entire thesis on how instant self gratification (posting without reading, new threads when some already exist) dilutes information on the interwebs.

The problem is that people see a thread as a popularity contest. If you have your own, your opinion must be worth more. If it has a lot of posts, the ideas with the most consistency obviously wins. All of this ties into how a lack of patience or fear that "my voice won't be heard" is a result of a demand for instant gratification.

I can see the source of all of this. I am scared my voice won't be heard too, I really am - I don't want the chronically confused to decide what direction my class is going. However, I just have to think that when a change goes through that I disagreed with that the people upstairs knew what they were doing. They have whats best for the game in mind and may not make changes based on popular vote.

Forums are not democracy. There is no voting. Casting a ballot during a round table discussion just clutters the floor with paper.

Really well said.

Q u o t e:
Um.... can we get the other thread opened back up?

Seems we still have some opinions on the subject, but no place to voice them...

I’m not sure. Is something new going to come out of reply #3000 that hasn’t been covered by reply #1500? I’m not at all trying to squelch information. I am just wondering if there is a point, particularly if the enormity of the thread stops players from reading it. If we just wanted players to communicate directly with us and ignore other players, we would create an email address to fire off suggestions to the dev team.

Q u o t e:
How long does it take you?

It takes me many hours every day, usually on my own time. I understand the level of commitment needed to keep up with the forums. As of yet, however, we have not come up with a better way.

Ghostcrawler

#137 - Jan. 17, 2009, 8:39 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Instead of opening the old thread back up (which is already well past the point of repetitive), it'd be nice if GC instead opened up a new thread with his own summary of issues already read (like the OP's) and asked "what's missing" rather than leaving the discussion open-ended.

We will probably do something like that eventually. First I want to discuss some ideas with the rest of the team. We have to be careful not to create the illusion that this is an open-source design in which the players are voting on how to change totems. We do greatly appreciate the feedback and it helps us to make informed decisions. But I am certain, 100% certain, that we will see more than a few posts in the next few weeks or months that said “I had so many great ideas – why didn’t you use them?”

Q u o t e:
As to ideas on what could be done to improve the filtering system for the benefit of both the developers and the other players... you're probably already looking into things like this, but finding a way to better harness the ability of the community to moderate itself is likely to be the only way you're going to be able to deal with the numerical imbalance between the player base on one side and the developers on the other. Slashdot may have its problems with the quality of its editorial oversight, but their comment moderation systems does mean that most comments that make it to +5 Insightful, +5 Interesting or +5 Funny are exactly as advertised. From what little I've seen of it, a tool like Google Moderator seems to do a reasonable job of letting a community decide which questions they would most like answered.

Yeah that is very cool stuff.

Q u o t e:
Maybe if these things didn't happen we wouldn't feel like we HAVE TO MAKE AS MUCH NOISE AS POSSIBLE.

Players may think that helps their case. It does not.

Q u o t e:
GC, you got at least 1000 individual shaman (that's giving 500 post slots for second posts, which is way high estimate) to reply to your totem post in less than 24 hours.

Most of those posts were 4-5 paragraphs long.

Can you see how starved for attention our class is? :P

I suspect I would get that on any class thread that I started. No offense to the shamans, but I would never use post length or frequency of much of an indicator of anything other than WoW having a large community that understandably likes to give feedback. :) We appreciate the feedback, though. It is always very helpful and I mean that sincerely.