-10%, +20%, why the random whole numbers?

Q u o t e:
Do you not as a development team have accurate good solid data with which to make changes around? i would expect that you are able to get accurate numbers of what the DPS potential of different specs/gear combo's are and make the necessary minor adjustments. Lately it seems that the changes are very far reaching, and very impulsive.

There is a whole science of setting retail prices. You see cars for sale for $22,920.00, which is supposed to make you think that the price is fair because so much research went into it to come with that $920 part. I suppose we could have more bonuses that are like +17.5% so that they feel more precise and therefore reassuring. Largely we pick "pretty" numbers because they make pretty tooltips and are easier to understand. The reason it doesn't matter whethere it is +15% or +17.5% is what Affix says below.

Q u o t e:
Different fights are different, and damage is rarely too high by an exact amount. A class might be doing 20% too much damage on some fights, 10% on others, and they pick a 15% nerf. It isn't random, but some aspects of damage dealing are, so whole numbers are okay, and significantly more understandable.

Yes. I try to point out how silly it is to say “My dps is 4500” or even worse “My class’ dps is 4500.” But players love to do it. :)

Q u o t e:
Blizzard really has any significant source of internal testing. That would cost a lot of money just to have people play the game for them and tell them whats going on. Thats why they use the PTR so heavily. It gives them infinite testing resources at little cost to themselves. Its also probably why they dont often understand the impact of many of the changes they are making till after they are made.

We use the PTR as a reality check on our internal numbers. Take a raid boss fight for example. Once someone here has beaten Hodir twenty times, the value of their feedback, particularly for balance, diminishes. Players have different mods installed than we do. People have different lag. Casting a wide net is useful in testing. Do not assume that you know everything that goes on here just because we occasionally give you glimpses. :)

Q u o t e:
There is a good chance that the 10% value will be changed before Icecrown. Blizzard really is just taking 'shots in the dark' so to speak. They have a general idea of how changes will play out but they dont have the resources or the time to fully test and understand how they will influence the game from a multitude of different perspectives. They need, and therefore use the player base to do that for them..

Blizzard is a succesful company, so we have a lot of resources at our disposal. When we choose not to say hire 20 more class designers, it is not because we can't afford them, but because we think growing a team too quickly without fully integrating them into our design philosophy will be bad for the game.

It is pretty common to see this line of reasoning on the forums: I don’t think my dps is too high. Blizzard nerfed my dps. Therefore, I must conclude they are either uninformed, sloppy, insane or out to get me. We really don’t expect players to give us the benefit of the doubt. (I didn’t when I was on the other side.) But I am pointing out how very many forum posts are essentially this line of thinking restated in various ways. More helpful posts try to demonstrate how the changes don’t work or why they cause other problems. Simply saying “The changes were poorly conceived” is usually something we just hear as “Don’t nerf me, bro,” though to be fair, usually stated less eloquently than the quoted text.

Q u o t e:
Beast Mastery as an example. Hunters told you throughout the entire process that the nerfs would kill the spec for PvE. You disagreed. You were wrong.

Hunters told us throughout the entire LK process that we had not done enough to prop them up in PvP. We disagreed. They were wrong. It works both ways. The community is right a lot, but you're not going to convince us the community is always right. It would take you about 60 seconds to find 20 posts in these forums with ideas that most of the community would agree are ill-conceived.

We are going to design the game the way we think is best for the game. That strategy has been pretty effective for the past four years or so. We welcome your feedback, but you shouldn't expect we are going to make the changes you ask for.

Q u o t e:
Also, numbers are unbiased, sure. choosing which numbers to point to is where bias comes from.

My favorite quote about PTR parses goes something like:

"According to this parse, rogues are 400 dps higher than rogues. Surely something needs to be done about rogues, and rogues."

:)

Interpreting data is hard. I mean that sincerely. It is particularly challenging when you want the outcome to end up a certain way or you are arguing a point in which you have a big investment (i.e. your character).

Q u o t e:
Also: player numbers are usually the most biased numbers I've ever seen. Players have an agenda, Blizzard does not.

True. However, we do have an agenda, which is to make the game fun, and balance is a big part of that for a lot of players. When your class is too powerful, that's fun for you, but not so much for everyone else. I think a lot of forum posters don't think about this concept enough. That is why they come to the conclusion that if we don't see eye-to-eye with them they interpret that as our being ignorant, lazy, sloppy or out to get them.

Q u o t e:
Second, if they implemented even one tenth of the suggestions that players gave, you'd be complaining so much more about ret paladins than you could possibly imagine because they'd have 15 gap closers, an aura of silence with a 100 yard range and probably laser beams that shoot from their eyes. 99% of the suggestions are dismissed for a reason. Most of the suggestions I read on the boards are EXTREMELY short sighted or downright overpowered.

Right. The difference is that a given player might see their own idea as brilliant and all those other ideas as ill-conceived. Yet, we are supposed to understand that their idea works. Alternatively, they just want feedback on why we don't like their idea or how to improve on it. I can understand that motivation; it is essentially how we do our jobs at work. But we just don't have the bandwidth to have that level of conversation with everyone in the forums, and really that's not the goal of the forums.

Q u o t e:
Thank you Captain Dev Defender for coming to the rescue. The point being made is there is no reason to put 10% nerf on TG when there are other, better ways to go about reducing damage. The nerf was done in a hamfisted way that most feel was deliberately designed to offend and anger the warrior community.

I.e. the designers are ignorant (there were better ways), sloppy and lazy (hamfisted), and out to get a particular class (deliberately designed to offend and anger). All in this poster's opinion of course. :)

Q u o t e:
So was Hitler. So was Stalin. Dictators are always able to do what they want and force others to live with it. Until the devs admit to themselves that they don't know how the game actually plays and start testing the solutions the community offers this game will never be balanced. Instead of taking the sensible suggestions and implementing them they try to create new outlandish abilities that only imbalance the game further, then take months and years of tooling to balance everything else around. Skillmantle. This new UA debuff that they almost gave to ret paladins as well, shattering throw, etc.

Hi. I like to insult the developers because I don't like being nerfed and I like to make inappropriate references to politically-charged historical figures. Therefore I'm going to be taking a small break from the forums.

Q u o t e:
The point is that they're giving us things we don't need and never asked for, instead of fixing underlying issues with the class.

"We never asked for" is always a red flag for me. ITT WoW should be like a burger joint, and when I ask for mustard on my burger, I get mustard on my burger. :)