Shh...Blizzard band-aids cause its easier

#0 - May 6, 2009, 5:20 p.m.

Lets be honest. I have seen some pretty crazy posts about "ideas" and "recommendations" for how to "fix" different classes and specs.

But seriously? Do you really think Blizzard is going to spend valuable company time and resources trying to build some new complex talent for warlocks, or any other class that needs a hard look for pvp viability?

This is not to bash Blizzard. In fact, I am defending Blizzard.

When damage dealers make suggestions for "fixes" can we please keep in mind that Blizzard undoutedly takes into account how difficult and time consuming these "fixes" can be to make, no matter how good of an idea it is?

This is why blizzard band-aids (yes I'm using this as a verb). Why fundamentally redesign warlocks
with crazy new talents when they could just try some band-aids first to see if they work? This explains the new voidwalker sacrifice, deathcoil, and many other recent "tweaks" to classes. They band-aid and band-aid until they realize they need to fundamentally redesign something.

So, in review, just cause a class or a spec needs a fundamental redesign doesn't mean Blizzard will do it for quite a while until they have exhausted pretty much ALL band-aids. Suggestions for Blizzard "fixes" would be much more viable if we all remembered this. Suggestions on which band-aid to use next might get a bite.

Ghostcrawler

#7 - May 6, 2009, 6 p.m.

In both game design and software development, simple changes are usually superior. Complicated changes require more testing, can introduce more bugs, and can have unintended consequences that often aren't seen for months down the road. The simplicity of a change can't trump all other considerations, but it often figures prominently.

In my experience, "band aid" gets thrown around as a pejorative term when a player had a pet idea of how they thought something should work and is disappointed when we don't implement that solution. These are often, but not always, the same folks who argue that X needs to be totally redesigned or "Blizzard doesn't know what it wants to do with my class."

I think sometimes players might also mistakenly conclude from a simple fix that we didn't spend much time exploring the problem or that their problems aren't worth us taking much time out of our busy day.

Simple changes that are potentially confusing or clearly temporary are not ideal. (I'll use the Exorcism change as an example here with hopes of not derailing the thread.). But at the same time, they do allow us to make a change quickly without having a problem drag on.