GC created Lock and Hunter arena concern post

I read all of these threads, especially the ones I started.

We're not sure we will do threads like that in the future. Once they grow so long, players stop reading them and just want to post their own ideas. While that is somewhat valuable, the thread ceases to be a discussion at that point because there is no back and forth among the players.

I also feel those threads set up the unrealistic expectation among players that they were going to see their ideas implemented in the game. We might try them again at some point but we also might experiment with other forms of communication.

Q u o t e:
In order to stop threads growing so long, you could you know, give feedback :)

In my experience, that makes the threads grow longer. Blue posts tend to attract other posts, not all of them quality. When in the past I have attempted to explain why we likely wouldn't implement a particular design, players understandably want to explore the idea further, ask follow-up questions, or argue.

The root of the problem is that many hundred of you are attempting to have a conversation with me. The math just doesn't work for something like that. While I attempt to spend time in these forums every day, I am just never going to able to have the level of conversation on every issue that some players clearly want. If I make a response in one out of every 50 or 100 posts, that is probably a good day.

Q u o t e:
How can you read all threads, but *ESPECIALLY* the ones you start? :P

I read those first. :)

Q u o t e:
Hell GC could make a sticky topic where he posts the answers to the most common FAQ's. It may help with some of the QQfest known as DD forums.

We might do something like that, to be honest. My strategy has been to try and answer some questions every day, but players can get bent if they feel like the questions most important to them are not the ones I choose.

Dear hunters, Fury warriors, locks, mages and everyone else who feels like you are being ignored. You are not. I just can't reply to every thread nor even every issue.

Q u o t e:
it more of the fact it gave us hope you where actually gonna do something. But once it hit live and nothing was changed expect two curse where merged to one. After all that feed back, the first couple pages were exactly that feed back. once it went live it became what players wanted to see, because it felt like you came, you read, than you said oh @!** it wait until later to deal with Locks.... im sorry im just giving you our perspective please no ban.

You are entitled to your perspective. From ours, we have a lot of ideas about where we want to go with your class. We did make a lot of changes in 3.09 and 3.1 and more are on the way. I can respect that we didn't make the changes YOU would have made, or that the changes we made were not sufficient in your mind to solve the problems you percieve. That's cool. There is a lot of subjectivity in this biz, and other people in our position might have done things differently.

There were definitely players (and people in our offices) who felt we over-buffed locks in a couple of cases, and for those we had to do some quick nerfs. Other solutions are more long term. We still have a shard plan, but we're not going to talk about it for some time (maybe Blizzcon), because the community can be so sensitive about "broken promises" when we advertise something and don't deliver.

Some players understand what design iteration is and appreciate a glimpse behind the blue curtain. Others get freaked out or otherwise feel discriminated against when things we talk about don't immediately go into the game. Because of that, we have to play our cards a little closer to the chest than we might ideally want to. I try to do what I can.

Q u o t e:
At this point we would take any thread and any issue. Just a nod of some sort to the poor performance of Fury in PVE.

But this is *exactly* the problem. For you, all it takes is a Fury PvE answer. For a lot of folks in this thread, it's lock and hunters in PvP. Elemental shamans are concerned about damage and Balance druids about PvP. Any way you break it down, there are too many issues, each of which viewed as *the* most important if it happens to involve your class.

We can't answer them all. It could be a full time job for me and it still wouldn't be sufficient. I wish there was some way to convince the posting community of that. We try to answer *some* of the posts, but that just ends up stoking the furnace. All of the "if we just keep bumping, we'll get a reply" posts are disheartening. The alternative is going to be *less* blue presence in these forums, not more.

We're going to continue to explore new ways to communicate with interested players, but it is unlikely to be a blue tag in every thread.

Q u o t e:
You are lying when you say there are just some issues you don't get around to answering, or more generally you are being time constrained. This is not subjective at all, it is fact: The time it must have taken to produce you last response could have just as easily been spent answering the handful of questions within this thread.

The fact is you don't have an answer we want to hear, and it's financially prudent to stick with a twist on the ol' addage of "when you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all". From your side it's perfectly reasonable and rational to do this, it's just from a customer perspective this is not very respectful.

If you've been around here very long, you'll know that I have no problem with telling players something they don't want to hear. When we disagree, I let you know.

As to your other point, answering your couple of questions might satisfy you (though there is always the chance they will not and will spur you to ask additional questions). However, it won't satisfy all of the other classes and in fact you are likely to see "Blizzard only answers hunter and lock threads, amirite?" posts. On the other hand, if I post something like "Hey, guys, it will never, ever, ever be the case that I come in here and address every thread in the forum," then perhaps it might trickle down to all of those folks whose posts consist of "The OP made a really good post. Surely we'll get a blue response now!"

As I say often: Make intelligent posts. We will read them. If we agree with you, we'll discuss the problem and we might come up with a solution. The lack of a blue post does *not* mean that we didn't read it, don't agree with it, or aren't doing anything about it. Perhaps I need to make that my sig.

Q u o t e:
I don't think the majority here are looking for direct answers to every question but I can take 20 minutes a day and see what the major issues are and definately right a post that requires no response on what is being done. There are people that play this game that manage and have very important roles in thier own lives and to see thier hobby not being fun for them, well, yes, they will get upset and expect something out of it. After all, they do pay for it.

I suspect that the list of what you think is important would not correspond to what many players think is important. We run into that fairly often. Nevertheless, we are going to investigate some other ways to handle questions and try to get this forum a little more back towards discussion.

Q u o t e:
Do that, and lots of the "QQ why aren't you fixing this" post will dwindle. There will still be some of course, but most of us will at least know, "hey, its being looked at" or "Working as intended"

We have made more changes faster over the last couple of patches that at any time in WoW's history. I don't think that's the issue. Players just don't have much tolerance for an imbalance which affects their character, which is completely understandable. That doesn't mean all of the "bump for blue" posts actually accomplish anything.

Q u o t e:
Where is the line drawn between "Feedback" and "Suggestions." Because if you go through my post history, most of what I post are in that blurry part of that line. I want to contribute, because I love this game, but I want to know that my posts are getting seen by the right people and taken seriously.

Because these role forums are more directed towards class design, mechanics, and balance, we're fairly tolerant of suggestions here. If you want to pitch entirely new features or say new classes or dungeons, then the suggestion forum might be more appropriate. If you think a new healing spell would "fix" paladins for you or if you think there is a new kind of demon that would create some really interesting gameplay for warlocks, then that's totally fine to post in these forums. Just understand that the role forums lean a little more towards the crunch than the fluff -- your demon needs a role it's trying to fill and not just because you think it would look cool if you want to get much discussion going.

Edit: quotes fixed.

Q u o t e:
I know you said that you read all the threads, but if you see an idea that looks interesting do you discuss it with your team and consider implementing it?

Absolutely. Players have been around these forums for long can point to examples. We have to be a little bit careful though for a number of reasons. It is unfortunately common in this industry for someone to claim you stole their idea. This makes it pretty hard to comment on specific ideas sometimes, though we still manage to do it some anyway.

Q u o t e:
To put this succinctly for Ghostcrawler, players are often more interested in knowing WHY things are implemented.

Those are the kinds of questions we prefer to answer. They are more interesting to a broader range of players (often more than just the affected class). They are the kind of thing you can't get from patchnotes or fansites. They help to direct the discussions better.

We need to get these forums pushed more in that direction. There are too many threads that are just the equivalent of "Does blue realize our dps is low and when are they going to buff us?" That isn't a philosophical question. At best they might want reassurance that we understand the problem (news flash: we almost always understand the problem). At worst they just want to pick a fight.

Q u o t e:
Reinstate and direct the importance back to class forums hire individual Class CM's to represent each class and provide Weekly reports back to Developers of outstanding class issues which need to be addressed and focused on.

The CMs do that already. My knowledge of languages other than English is sadly limited, but we are still kept up to date on all of the forums around the world. The WoW team is large, and a great many of those guys read these forums. That is why I try and preach that you don't need a blue post to know we've seen your feedback. We've seen it.

The problem with what Vux is saying is that threads are rarely just good or bad. It's really typical to see a legitimately good original post that perhaps gets made hours before I read it. In the meantime, players have glommed onto it, complimenting the OP and getting angrier and angrier that the thread hasn't won a coveted blue response. So it's a thread that started out good and went bad. Do you lock that one and punish the OP for the flies that came to his feast? The time-consuming approach is to clean up the thread by deleting and banning all the junk. We do have moderators who spend their time doing that. I think you'd rather me be reading threads though.

Really terrible threads I just ignore. Really good ones I read but often hesitate to respond to for fear of turning it bad.

Making forum moderation posts certainly isn't what I'd prefer to be doing. But if one of mine ends up preventing some useless posts in the future, then it will ultimately end up saving me time. We can only hope that someday all the players figure out how we'd like for these forums to be and save us all much time (and eye-rolling). I know many of you are pessimistic about the chance of that ever happening. Believe me, I understand. But you have to be a bit of a hopeless optimist to want this gig in the first place.

Q u o t e:
The problem here GC is that you keep dismissing even the quality posts and objective and logical opinions about class ballance. That's why threads get angry. People don't like to be treated the way you treat your community.

They are never dismissed. Your expectation seems to be that quality, objective, logical posts will translate into game design changes. That's what I originally meant with the infamous "this is not a deli" post. We aren't asking you or expecting to you to tell us how your class should play and then we serve it up. If we agree with your assesments, we might very well make changes. But you have to allow us to disagree without that requiring the epic posting spree that it sometimes feels like it requires.

Q u o t e:
If you want people to calm down you have to follow your own advice and post something constructive.

I exhibit remarkable restraint given the way some players feel like they are entitled to behave here. The gin helps.

Q u o t e:
Give us your numbers.
Show us how you justify current Hunter condition and what makes you think that we are fine.
And most of all: Please start acting to fix problems and show us that you are actually doing someting because most players are under the impression that you just don't give a damn.

We don't provide our numbers. That's our policy. We want you to focus on the game and not how we design the game. Those are two very different things.

We make changes to the game all the time. Your post implies that we did not make the changes you would have made had you been in our shoes. That is going to happen.

You also use "most players" haphazardly. Never, even confuse the posting population for the population of WoW. As the famous saying goes, trying to gauge the health of the game by the forums is like trying to figure out the health of a population by touring a hospital. This is where the people with grievances aggregate.

Q u o t e:
I think the developer team might just be a little too scared of player backlash.

The dude just above you said that we tell the community they are wrong too often. I suspect what is actually going on here is that a little bit of information isn’t sufficient. You want a lot. That isn’t unreasonable but it’s not practical.

Q u o t e:
Sword spec is bad. It has been bad for a long time. There have been numerous posts since 3.1 as more of us went to Arms to try and find a semi competitive DPS Spec. 2-3 posts each and every day. Most with ideas on how to bring Sword (and mace to a certain extent) close to Poleax spec. As far as we know this issue isn't even on the radar.

I could name 50 or 60 problems with the game of that caliber. They aren’t huge problems. They don’t approach the level of a class that is not competitive in Arena brackets. They are things we’d like to fix and eventually we will. But the list of things we would like to fix in WoW is very long and if we addressed them all before we shipped a patch you’d probably get one every 3 or 4 years. (And no, just quickly hiring up more people doesn’t improve that situation.)

Q u o t e:
He never addresses the issue that warlocks have been pathetically weak against melee for years. He never announces that there is a plan to fix it, or they would ever consider a plan.

What I hear: “GC never addresses MY issue. Why can’t he see how important MY issue is?”

Q u o t e:
I think this guy is on to something. A 10 minute vid per week with every class/spec included and if that isnt enough, maybe bump it to 15-20. Would that be too much time out of your week?

It’s not a problem of time commitment. It’s just very lopsided communication. It gives you answers you want (maybe) but it doesn’t provide us with the feedback we are looking for in the way forum discussions do.

Q u o t e:
GC creates a warlock, takes him / her into battle. Here are his findings.

I have a warlock. If I told you I went out and killed stuff and did Arenas and didn’t see a problem then what have we really accomplished? Are you really going to say “Oh, okay then. Thanks for looking?” If not, then what’s the point? It's a false exercise because you are only counting on one possible outcome.

Q u o t e:
Perhaps you guys could open dialogue to players who has simply played the class for several years ,privately.

We do.

Q u o t e:
"Blue posts tend to attract other posts, not all of them quality. When in the past I have attempted to explain why we likely wouldn't implement a particular design, players understandably want to explore the idea further, ask follow-up questions, or argue."

This is called feedback, and its not always bad, its just furthering the discussion.

Players like me appreciate your ideas and dialogue, but we are naturally going to use a medium such as a forum to express our displeasure with a proposed change, or explain how we will be adversely affected by it.

Totally. There is nothing wrong with the feedback. The problem arises like this: “I made a good post and GC didn’t bother to post in it. He must not care about my issues.” So then I post. If I post “Read it” then I get “That’s it? You couldn’t comment on whether you agree?” So if I agree, then I get “Well, what are you going to do about it?” If I disagree, then I get “Why won’t he come back and explain why he doesn’t think it’s an issue?” Really the end of the road is not satisfying for a lot our posters unless the end of the road leads to “And here is how we are going to buff you.” We need to be able to have a conversation where I am not expected to make multiple posts per thread a day or this experiment is a failed one.

Q u o t e:
A description of what we should be looking forward to would potentially reduce that, just make sure to surround it with the proper disclaimers like "This is not slated to be in for several months, minimum 3.2, but probably not even then. Maybe by the end of the year, but no guarantees." At the very least, you'd get some heated feedback about whether it sounds like it might be fun, useful, or different or not.

It’s just not that simple in practice. :( I make those disclaimers in all my posts. That doesn’t do much to stop the “Broken promises” and “lies” threads. My point here is not just to QQ. My point is that the negative reaction to our not delivering something is so strong that we have learned not to pre-announce things too much. Want to read something funny? Go to any of our press releases, such as this Blizzcon one. http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/090505.html and scroll down to “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements”. That is the world we live in. Sad but true.

Q u o t e:
Yea, it's going to very difficult for Blizzard to convince the players who have been playing this game for so long to be patient and have faith in the 'new' system I'm afraid. Most of us have seen the time involved and the outcome of such endeavors.

Okay. This is what I file into the general heading of “We don’t believe you.” Blizzard: We have an ambitious new shard plan. Players: We don’t believe you. Conversation ends.

Q u o t e:
Warlock Arena Issues – 184 Pages – 3403 Posts – 178280 Views = Nether Protection reduced to 30% damage reduction, down from 60%. And Sacrifice (Voidwalker) redesigned

I think this may just be a sig, but it totally illustrates the problem – the sense of entitlement if you will. “If we post enough about something, then they must change it.” You should NEVER approach any conversation in these forums with the expectation it will be changed. If it helps, imagine you are typing up your feedback and mailing it. You don’t realistically expect a response, but you still thought your feedback was valuable enough to send. It’s the culture of the internet, and perhaps my accessibility, which has led to our current state where players feel that if they argue passionately enough for something that they will get it and are shocked and disappointed when that doesn’t happen.

We will continue to work to make the game better, but we are going to be the ones who define what that is. Blizzard has a responsibility to make the best games we can make. Part of that process involves listening to our players. It does not mean getting them to design the game for us. Customers choose whether they like a product or not. They rarely design the product themselves.

P.S. I know there are players reading this frustrated that it is a waste of pixels that could be answering their class issues instead. As I said above, sometimes speaking to the broader forum community is more imporant. I've learned a little about the expectations of some people looking to post here and perhaps that can let us evolve more satisfying ways to communicate. The gin helps.