So what's the plan for Hunters?

#0 - Jan. 28, 2009, 9:07 p.m.

So GC, the hunter's ride so far in WOTLK has been pretty outrageous.

We were told that hybrid DPS should ideally be 95% of that of a pure class with some variance based on specific fight mechanics. Pures said this sucked and was not enough of a margin to justify not having other roles of significance besides DPS. You ignored these complaints.

Initially hunters had a spec that allows us our fair share (10%) of the top arena rankings by class - not too shabby - considering this is a 400% increase over the previous 4 seasons. That spec also gave us tremendous raid DPS for the first 2 or 3 weeks of WOTLK when nobody had any gear, including the hunters.

That spec was immediately targeted for nerfs and you announced that this was the case.

You said hunter AOE was too strong, yet you nerfed the hell out of hunter AOE and gave Rogues an even stronger AOE - all this feels like is that you just robbed Peter to pay Paul. You left shadow priest AOE alone (absurd as it is) and either buffed all other AOE until it surpassed hunter AOE... or left the AOE that already surpassed hunter AOE in the unnerfed form alone. Yet hunter AOE was too strong.

Hunters said "Wait a minute, look over the raid reporting tools we have with DATA (since you said you like data too) that showed that as everyone else geared up, hunters were right in the mix consistently, neither overperforming or underperforming in comparison with the top 4 classes for DPS. Hunters also said "HOLD ON A MINUTE, for the first time in the game's history, hunters have had their fair share of arena success - no more no less".

Yet, you continued with the nerfs.

Hunters said "Look, hunters are EXTREMELY buff reliant, and scale poorly (by comparison to other classes) with gear by virtue of the fact that raid buffed, in relatively ungeared situations (early WOTLK) hunters blew the doors off of other classes, but as gear caught up, hunter DPS fell RIGHT in line with other classes. Hunters said "Look, if our gear scaling is this terrible, expect us to fall even further behind when Ulduar comes out and everyone gears up and benefits from the better gear and same raid buffs.

You continued with the nerfs.

We showed you hundreds of data reports using "in game" situations - RAIDS - on both WWS and Wowmeteronline showing hunters neither under nor overperforming. The theorycrafters who, for 3 years have made rock solid and 95%+ accurate spreadsheets predicting hunter damage and performance told you that the nerfs were extreme and that hunter DPS as a whole would suffer well beyond what you seemed to think it would.

Yet you continued with the nerfs.

You told us that there's some sort of skill gap with those who can't perform. You tell us that the theorycrafting is just that, and not to be trusted, you tell us that the WWS and WMO reports are not to be believed because they are uncontrolled situations (despite hundreds of data reports which help to normalize and/or cancel the effects of so much variance and show EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAID YOU RELIED ON - TRENDS).

We told you "Hey, just fix the bugged Call of the Wild deal and fix the stupid Eyes of the Beast glyph combo deal and see how it pans out before taking these other catastrophic nerfs forward.

You ignored us.

And you took the nerfs live.

EXTREMELY shortly thereafter you tell us: "Oops, we made a mistake and nerfed BM too hard BUT Survival may be too strong."

(contiued in next post due to post character length restrictions)

Ghostcrawler

#52 - Jan. 30, 2009, 12:48 a.m.

Since several players posted that they liked the questions, I'll answer them. However I find the whole tone to really be argumentative. It feels like you are more interested in picking a fight than in how I will actually answer. But we'll see....

Q u o t e:
1) You're telling us that the theory crafters were in fact, correct when they showed the ways hunter DPS would be effected by the nerfs. You should learn to trust them GC, they seem to know Blizzard math pretty damn well, and in the past, considering the number of times Blizzard representatives have been wrong about math and been shown so by the theorycrafters, you need to start considering that it's possible that we know as much about the mechanics of our class as you do, if not more.

The theorycrafters are right a lot and they are wrong sometimes too. (The theorycrafters also sometimes make incorrect assumptions about our goals.) Hunters predicted they were going to be awful in PvP in LK, and I don't think that is shaping up to be the case. Retadins made long posts (with numbers) about how bad they were nerfed. The trick is knowing when to listen to players and when not to. It is rarely simple. Our game design process is never going to be: the community hands us numbers and we make changes. It is absolutely valuable input but it is just one tool, not the whole process.

We appreciate community feedback. Let me make that absolutely clear. That is why I am out here on these forums every day. But this is not an open source project. I don't mean for this to sound harsh, but we're ultimately not asking you to sit down and design the game with us. I promise though we will listen, even when we disagree or choose to go a different way.

Q u o t e:
2) You're telling us that you really don't care about the data (that you keep telling us you like) that showed undeniably that Hunters were not out of line compared to other DPS classes.

That's not really a question, but we do like to get numbers. Many of the arguments that hunter dps is currently too low are arrived at by comparing hunter dps to classes whose dps is too high.

Q u o t e:
3) You're telling us that despite the fact that even though Survival is the highest DPS spec for hunters right now and despite the fact that it still does not do as much DPS as the old BM build, that you think it's too much DPS. The data shows GC that hunters are not "consistently" at the top since the changes nor were they consistently at the top BEFORE the changes. Yes, they're about 10% lower than they used to be while other classes are as high or higher than they used to be (Mages, Warriors, DKs).

We like the damage numbers coming out of Marks hunters. That is our target right now. Your feedback would be better directed (assuming you want it to make a difference) suggesting how to get BM and SV closer to that target.

Q u o t e:
4) You're telling us that all of us who think of the Hunter class as a DPS class are wrong because you're telling us that you have some other plan - because if you're telling us that Survival is currently TOO STRONG despite being weaker than a NUMBER of other classes in DPS, then you're telling us that we have some other role besides DPS. Because how else can a DPS class be a DPS class if they don't have competitive DPS?

You are a dps class. You should be up there with mages, locks and rogues... *all things being equal.* Things are rarely equal. A very talented and well-geared Retadin or Boomkin might beat you. Even though we can disagree on which hunter spec is the easiest to play, the class as a whole is not easy to play, at least not at the expert level.

But I suspect what you are really getting at is that certain classes are doing more damage than you consistently. We know. Those classes know it too and they can probably guess what is about to happen. Then there will be many posts like this from them. :)

Ghostcrawler

#53 - Jan. 30, 2009, 12:48 a.m.

Q u o t e:
5) You're telling us that hunters do not deserve a 10% representation in arenas either because you are continuing to ignore the fact that you nerfed the only spec that gave hunters better than a 2% or so arena representation in the history of the game.

There are some balance problems in Arena at the moment, absolutely. However, if you look at hunter participation, it is growing every week. You can find plenty of players posting right now today that they think hunters are too good in Arena. Our ultimate goal is for every spec to have equal Arena representation. Clearly that is a very lofty goal and we aren't going to get there overnight for say Prot paladins or Fire mages.

Q u o t e:
6) You're telling us that you have some sort of numbers on your end that we don't see that contradicts what we've predicted and seen in practice and are asking us to take that on faith despite a long history of the players being correct in predicting the impact of your [Blizzard's] actions. You're asking us to take you on FAITH GC before the virtual ink is even dry on the apology you made for ignoring us for 2 months and calling our predictions wrong. You'll understand I hope, that we're not really prepared to take you on faith anymore. Would you take yourself on faith if you were playing a hunter for the 4 years of this game's history right now? Would you? Honestly?

I'm not sure what you're asking for here. We design the game. You can choose to trust us or not to trust us. Ultimately though your degree of faith in us really has no impact on the game itself. If you don't like our decisions, you can tell us and I promise we'll listen. We may (and very often will) decide not to make any changes based on your feedback. But we will make informed decisions.

Ghostcrawler

#93 - Jan. 30, 2009, 4:45 a.m.

Q u o t e:
GC, I think what most people are trying to get a grasp of is what your goals are for hunters - in the past Kalgan I think mentioned that x or y ability didn't fit into the model or feel of the hunter class - the problem is that we've seen so many changes I don't think many of us are aware what the goal is for the class to be, so we're after some sort of indicator of where you'd like to take us so we can give feedback and suggestions that are within the design contexts you'd like to see.

Yeah, like a few people pointed out, that is a very broad question and one that every class or spec likes to ask often. There isn't some kind of secret plan for hunters. We aren't trying to change your role or fundamental mechanics... at least for the next few months. :)

When we have announcements to make about your class, you won't be able to miss them.

We want hunters to be succesful. Whether or not you are happy with your dps and utilities, I hope you can agree that we have spent a lot of effort in the last several patches on your class.

Ghostcrawler

#170 - Jan. 30, 2009, 6:04 p.m.

Q u o t e:
OK first off GC, thank you for the response. My apologies if you felt I was being "argumentative", but I am speaking from a point of frustration and I hope you will understand that. That said, my real "question" with this thread was: "What is your plan for hunters?" Which I elaborated on and which you generally answered.

Okay, cool. It’s nice to know you actually were interested in the answers. I don’t at all mind if players get frustrated. Just try not to overdo the negativity, insults, ranting or sense of entitlement (and I am speaking to everyone here). That can and will turn off other players and drive them away from these forums, which is about the worst thing that can happen.

Q u o t e:
I *THINK* you mean that our role is going to stay the same (DPS class) and that our fundamental mechanics will likely change, but any clarification you can offer here would be great.

Yes, your role will not change. We have some long-term plans for mechanics but it is way too early to talk about them. Blizzcon maybe.

Q u o t e:
"Nerf them down and build them back up slowly, being super cautious not to let them be overpowered for even a little bit."

While the process for other classes has been:

"Buff the hell out of them and nerf them back slowly if needed, it doesn't matter if they're overpowerd for a while."

I suspect many players would say this about their class, regardless of the class. :)

We don’t treat classes like children, making sure everyone has the same number of cookies. I see players sometimes listing patch notes as “Their class got 41 buffs while ours only got 12” which is a silly thing to say on so many levels. We buff when we need to buff and nerf when we need to nerf. We don’t dwell on how often or what magnitude those changes are. We are more concerned about balance than fairness, if that makes sense (note to self: you will almost certainly be clarifying that statement for months to come). When we don’t make a change that we want to, it is almost certainly because there is a technical or design limitation preventing it. Players may perceive that as “it doesn’t matter if they’re overpowered for awhile.”

One more thing I would like to add is that there is no concept of “hunters do X dps.” You can generate numbers on a target dummy, or numbers on Patchwerk, or numbers for Naxx, or numbers for Naxx bosses. All of those are numbers are likely to be different, and that is something we want. We want every encounter to be different. We want some classes to so better on some fights than others. It’s more interesting that way than if every encounter in the game always produced the same classes in the same stack rank. A big disconnect between the community and the developers is that we don’t accept dps as an absolute number. It is relative and it is nebulous. The community with its spreadsheets and target dummies more often views it as an absolute.