DK: Correlation is not Causation

#0 - March 8, 2009, 7:56 a.m.

Or: Why the synchronicity of calls for nerfs and the actual nerfs doesn't mean one caused the other:

If any part of the game is overpowered, people will notice. They will test it, talk about it, do the math and theorycraft on it, propose changes to bring it in line. Some will QQ about it.

At the same time, the devs have access to information from their own servers that demonstrates whether this is actually the case. They may already be aware of the imbalance, or the above may draw their attention to it. Either way, they have access to data which shows whether this is really happening or not.

So:

* Tankspot has posts about tanking imbalances

does not automatically mean:

* Tankspot got death knights nerfed

Now, if you're pissed off at Xav or Ciderhelm or any of the other people involved (at least one of whom plays a death knight tank) for coming up with data that shows DKs are outperforming other tanks, that's your thing. And if you're upset that DKs got hit with a huge stack of nerfs, that's completely understandable. But the one did not cause the other.

Also: QQ is not always wrong. It's not always right, but it's not always wrong. QQ doesn't lead to nerfs, it's more like a warning that something is amiss. A lot of QQ is baseless, and people get angry because they're not the best, or another class dared beat them in arena, or they're not #1 on the damage meter, or the healing meter. But sometimes people have a legitimate problem and they express it poorly. But odds are good that if someone QQs about your class doing too well, and you get nerfed, it's probably not because of the QQ. Rather, the QQ and the nerf had the same cause: You really were overpowered.

Edited for slight wording issues and wtf was with all those inserted <br>s?

Ghostcrawler

#31 - March 8, 2009, 7:17 p.m.

A good post by Ashleigh.

It isn't our policy to share our internal test numbers, though we often share the results. The WoW community has a habit of trying to nitpick how we arrived at a decision instead of the decision itself, and we would much rather you focus on the latter.

As I recently posted in the damage forum, it is interesting to see so many "You didn't listen to the community's feedback" posts mixed in there with the "you listened to the community's feedback" posts.

QQ is often misplaced. I will be the first to admit it. Sometimes it exists for a reason though, so we try and least figure out why the poster felt the need to complain. You can't say that the community is wrong 100% of the time it complains about something, and you can't say the community has a perfect track record either. For that reason, we tend to pay attention to what the community is saying, but we use that as only one data point and we run our own tests and have our own discussions to see if we agree.

Logical arguments carry more weight than QQ and logical arguments backed up by numbers carry even more weight. But we still have to take those numbers with a grain of salt for reasons that are probably obvious (errors, incorrect assumptions or selfish agendas being the biggest risk).