Sad day...I must battle GC'S HYPOCRISY again!

#0 - May 25, 2009, 3:53 a.m.

GC, you and I have had some brawls on these forums before, always when things were really bad. I have come back in an attempt to shed some light towards your most recent voyage into public PvP communications, regarding "burst".

First off, bravo to you, my friend, for constructing such a clever strategy regarding your response to "burst" arguments. Saying that you don't agree that the "vast majority" of the WoW community thinks burst is a problem right now is brilliant. You know as well as anyone that such a stance cannot be DISPROVEN by the playerbase, unlike previous stances that were attacked with hard data.

For example, we can toss statistics at you to illustrate melee's stranglehold on 2v2 and 3v3 DPS roles currently. That's easy enough to do, and you cannot deny them. However, how do we statistically or empirically present data to you to reflect the common opinion of the WoW pvp community?

This feels like some hypocrisy, to me:

1.) You deny that the "vast majority" of the WoW community believes burst to be a problem

2.) You ban/delete/lock threads with the repeating theme of arguing against your stance regarding burst, and claim it is to prevent spam.

How are we to reflect the "vast majority" of opinions when an overriding negative theme is censored by moderators?

I understand your intention to consolidate ideas/threads, so let's run with that a second, shall we?:

-- Consider the post regarding "burst" that you blue flagged earlier today. It's already going on 16+ "CONSOLIDATED" pages. Have you attempted to compare how many posts within that very thread are saying burst IS a problem compared to those claiming it is fine? What is the ratio like? Crunch some numbers, GC!

What I also dislike is you sarcastically remark about the "cool kids" opinion (normally I do appreciate your humor, just not this time). I'm going to guess that you mean "cool kids" as people currently successful at arenas. Well, as you can see on AJ there are already quite a few Gladiators completely ripping you, your opinions, and your stance on S6 pvp apart. Here's 3 threads:

http://www.arenajunkies.com/showthread.php?t=87448 (14 posts by almost all Gladiators)

http://www.arenajunkies.com/showthread.php?t=87489 (45 posts by almost all Gladiators)

http://www.arenajunkies.com/showthread.php?t=87653 (56 posts by almost all Gladiators)

The first 2 of those threads was locked. I'm assuming the reason being is that they were not seen as productive. It is truly a sad day when AJ moderators recognize that Gladiators coming together and saying "WHAT THE HELL GC, YOU ARE WRONG. WE DO NOT AGREE" over and over is a waste of bandwidth in regards to productivity.

Sure you can say such simple disagreement posts aren't productive because they do not offer suggestions. Well, WAIT A SECOND GC. You are not even willing to acknowledge that the majority of the WoW population believes there is a PROBLEM.

Dude, last time I checked the Scientific Method has PROBLEM RECOGNITION ahead of Hypothesis creation, doesn't it? What good is proposing solutions when you are actively and publicly denying the problem?

----------------- Fun Facts by Plops ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GC's other stance is that burst was bad in S5 but they somehow curbed it for S6. What significant changes did they make in S5 that "curbed all problematic burst?"

1.) Slammed Survival, Affliction, Arcane, and Blood specs with a sledgehammer and knocked them straight to gimp status.

-- Survival and affliction weren't even good burst compared to most DPS specs. Arcane and Blood had far from top representation amongst DPS specs at the time.

2.) Um...........that it?

--------------- End of Fun Facts by Plops ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why not look instead at WoW's population in TBC and WotLK, and compare the % difference. Then look at overall arena participation figures from TBC to WotLK.

When you begin theorycrafting as to why WoW's population could have maintained (or even rose) from TBC to WotLK but arena participation significantly DROPPED, maybe you might start to look into complaints about "burst" in a new light. It's not the entire problem by far, but it's a significant part of it, STILL in season 6.

Ghostcrawler

#114 - May 25, 2009, 9:16 p.m.

Well, I must admit that Plops' threads are always entertaining. I say that without mocking -- I'm pretty sure he is trying to be. :)

Q u o t e:
For example, we can toss statistics at you to illustrate melee's stranglehold on 2v2 and 3v3 DPS roles currently.

We have said we think certain melee classes are too good in 2s and 3s right now. "Certain melee classes are too good in 2s and 3s right now" does not equal "burst is too high." Let's try and be precise. When players go around posting "burst is too high" then you get a lot of less-informed players also chanting "burst is too high," when I really think that doesn't contribute much to the discussion.

Q u o t e:
This feels like some hypocrisy, to me:

1.) You deny that the "vast majority" of the WoW community believes burst to be a problem

2.) You ban/delete/lock threads with the repeating theme of arguing against your stance regarding burst, and claim it is to prevent spam.

Those aren't really "hypocrisy" though. I have no idea what the "vast majority" of the wow community believes, and neither does anyone posting on these forums who claims to. As I say below though, it's irrelevant anyway.

We don't ban, delete or lock threads that disagree with us. I think this forum would have about two threads if that was the case. Because players like to launch new threads so vigorously though, we sometimes lock some of them if we think the same topic is being started over and over at the expense of other topics which are still important to some players.

Q u o t e:
What I also dislike is you sarcastically remark about the "cool kids" opinion (normally I do appreciate your humor, just not this time). I'm going to guess that you mean "cool kids" as people currently successful at arenas. Well, as you can see on AJ there are already quite a few Gladiators completely ripping you, your opinions, and your stance on S6 pvp apart. Here's 3 threads:

We read AJ. So do many WoW players who are interested in Arenas. You don't need to cross link the threads here. I still don't believe burst is out of control like it was early last season. Many players agree with me, but they tend to get shouted down by the folks who are equating "burst is too high" with "I get beat sometimes" or "Arena isn't perfectly balanced yet."

Q u o t e:
Dude, last time I checked the Scientific Method has PROBLEM RECOGNITION ahead of Hypothesis creation, doesn't it? What good is proposing solutions when you are actively and publicly denying the problem?

If you really want to invoke the scientific method (which I'm not sure is the best way to design games anyway), the "problem" you are talking about is really asking a question. In this case you would say "We want to understand if burst dps is too dominant in Arena matches." Then you form a hypothesis, which might be "Burst damage is too high." Then you attempt to disprove that hypothesis. That's not a very testable hypothesis though, which is why I would leave that process for testing something more objective.

Q u o t e:
Well, Plops makes a good point here. These forums are referred to as a "community," but it is taboo to refer to any silent majority. Polls are heavily censored, the only people who can create a poll are the blues and generally are about "safe" topics.

GC does ask us to consolidate posts, but then dismisses the "consolidated" posts as QQ. See the Warlock Arena Thread and GC's subsequent posts dismissing it as a collection of "joiners" who don't believe there's a problem, they just want to be heard and seen.

There are mixed messages being sent out. Players do want to be heard, but are under the constraints of a backwards and frustrating system to speak out in. This isn't the first "HEY GC WTF" thread I've ever seen, and it won't be the last.

So then GC ran with the "vast majority" approach so he can't be proven wrong.

Actually, what I am invariably trying to say with "vast majority" comments is that it is silly to try and invoke some kind of "most WoW players feel this way" as any kind of logical argument. 1) You have no idea what most WoW player feel. 2) You have no way to conduct a reasonably scientific assesment of such -- forum polls won't cut it. 3) Typically when we see "vast majority" arguments, they are immediately followed by players who disagree -- but those players are typically considered bads whose opinions don't count. 4) You don't need to invoke a majority anyway. We don't design by vote, and a single player is capable of making a compelling argument. Go for quality not quantity.

Ghostcrawler

#115 - May 25, 2009, 9:16 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Intentional deceitful better suits what you describe. I can say this without fear of ban because he's at home sleeping and wont ever read this. I doubt he actually read the "vast majority" of the forums anyway.

Prepare for meaningless multi-syllabic drivel. Of which none directly or indirectly answers anything referred to in this thread. Also, for fun, pay attention to how his future wording in posts changes.

I like to come onto Blizzard's own forums and insult them because I think that makes them more likely to take me seriously! Or something.

Q u o t e:
The funny thing is that GC always lays the burden of proof at our feet. And when we bring it, hes never convinced.

The burden of proof certainly isn't at our feet. You're wrong about our never being convinced though. I suspect you just want us to do what you want more than we do.

Q u o t e:
GC, despite the hundreds of posts and parses detailing the issue, refuses to acknowledge it. Again, not exactly new or unexpected. Rather, its par for his course.

My job here is not to flit from post to post "acknowledging" things. If you've made a compelling argument, then you've done your job. You don't need me to post somewhere to make it true.

I will again admit a bit of surprise that so many players seem more interested in discussing the process of making design changes than they actually are in discussing the WoW classes. You'd think this was a game design theory forum at times.

Q u o t e:
The vast majority of the WoW community does not post on these forums. The vast majority of the WoW community does not post on any forum. Nobody anywhere at all is speaking for the vast majority of the WoW community.

Any attempt to use the number of threads spawned on a topic as evidence to draw conclusions from is ultimately going to run up against the fact that a dozen people with some free time on their hands can elevate an issue to an arbitrary number of posts you want.

Yep. Quality >> quantity.

Ghostcrawler

#155 - May 25, 2009, 10:52 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Losing because 2 dps is hitting someone at the same time is a really really bad game design.

How many people should it take hitting you at the same time? And is that with or without healing?

It's a legit question. I'm trying to get at what you all think is reasonable so we can see if we even agree on the goal.