#22 - May 4, 2009, 9:19 p.m.
Q u o t e:
And what of the classes that can't get by with small tweaks? What about the ones that have provided countless pages of feedback outlining why the spec/class is boring, broken, or shallow?
What about the classes that seemingly have no direction (at least none the players are privy to) and just see themselves being chain nerfed with no positive improvements in the areas they enjoy most?
We appreciate feedback. Players pointing out places where things feel clunky or confusing or where they aren’t having fun is good information to have so we can consider changes to address those problems. But these kind of “sky is falling” posts where a class is perceived as so horribly broken are often not very useful to us. Often it works out that the players making such posts are just looking for something very different in the class than are we (and often other players). We don’t think there is a class or spec in the game so terrible that it has to be blown up and created anew. If you are receiving chain nerfs, it is because you were too powerful not because your class is “directionless” or whatever.
Q u o t e:
Hey GC, if you're still reading this I'm curious if you devs are gonna pick up trying to improve Fire mages in PvP. One of the last things you said regarding Fire Mages was something about not being an immediate concern, especially since Mages already have a viable but by no means great spec, Frost.
Yes, Fire in PvP and Frost in PvE is still something we want to improve. We don’t think it takes a massive overhaul of the talent trees or mechanics to get there though. It isn’t as much of a priority as systems that effect entire classes, but the order in which we make changes is not governed by an extremely rigid process.
Q u o t e:
I'm pretty sure those players are just using that as a vehicle which to complain about getting nerfed. It takes some mental damage to take that long to adapt to patch changes in WoW.
I have no doubt there is a lot of that going on. But I also believe some players legitimately feel like they just need more time to really explore what a given class can do now. The game can be frustrating if you feel weak for too long, but it can also feel chaotic or random when things change too often.
Q u o t e:
fwiw, I think that promising fewer class changes is an ill-conceived plan. You need to make changes when they are needed, period. At the beginning of a patch, you should still be surveying the situation. Who is to say how many changes you should make in 3.2 or in mini patches beforehand.
Fair enough. We aren’t going to vehemently refuse to make changes when we think they are needed. My prediction is there won’t be as many, but let’s see where things stand in a few more weeks.
Q u o t e:
He was a marine biologist, not an oceanographer.
Technically I was an oceanographer. People don't always understand the difference. Oceanographers are trained in physical, chemical and geological science in addition to marine biology. That said, tsunamis were not a specialty for me. I studied ecology (which you can roughly define as how organisms interact with their environment), population genetics (ugh), benthic ecology (stuff that lives on the bottom), and toxicology (how stuff reacts to contaminant exposure). The most helpful thing I learned from that career with regard to the current one (aside from general communication skills) was statistics. In my experience, players (and some game designers) tend to over-interpret small data sets, attribute too much power to certain variables, or struggle to make sense out of large data sets or complex situations. Statistics can help manage all of that. It can be as simple as familiarity with how probability works or as complex as actually doing multivariate tests on data.
