Design Q&A - Blue Tracker

#0 - July 20, 2009, 6:37 a.m.

Dear Crab, Sir.

I know your a busy man, but I just wanted to compile a quick thread that hopefully warrants a response from you. I'll make it brief. I tried to compile a thread filled with some questions we've had some answers on, but heard nothing about recently or would like some clarification on. This thread won't focus on any particular class but general design of the game. I think it'll be worth your time to read and hopefully you'll enlighten the community with your thoughts.

Question #1: Pure VS Hybrid DPS

I think the community as a whole understands and accepts the fact pure DPS classes need to do the most damage due to the inflexibility of their roles. My question is there is a large gap between certain hybrids and their counterparts in other specs. Currently, DK's and Feral cats compete almost, but not quite, with the pure dps classes. In no particular order, priests, moonkins, ret paladins, shamans, warriors lag significantly behind, or, at least currently in 3.1. I know you have taken steps to curb feral DPS, and you have removed some of the "Splash" damage of DK AoE, but is it your intent to bring DKs/Feral cats DOWN to the other hybrids, or bring the other hybrids UP closer to the to their kitty/death knight counterparts?

Question #2 Caster DPS VS Melee DPS in PvP:

Even the most jaded of melee classes will admit ( I hope) they are dominating in PvP, which the possible exception of frost mages. In this author's view, it is because mages have the ability, much more so then any other class, to "open the gap" and prevent the melees from making contact. I've seen from your previous responses you don't want to have every other class have warmed over or simply reprinted mage skills, and I know I personally agree with you. But I think it's fair to say a little tweaking needs to be done to the casting dps classes, specifically, to make them not want to pound their desks in frustration. I know you don't want to give everyone Frost Nova, but it seems casters, from warlocks to shadowpriests to moonkins, desperately need a way to get out of the speeding truck we call melee.

Question #3 Spellpower Plate

I'd have to say a good 80% of the people who raid WoW are really, really sick of spellpower plate dropping in raids. When SP plate drops one spec of one class can use this, which means you have 29 out of 30 disappointed specs. God forbid two pieces of spell power plate drop from the same boss. The oft-suggested and effective fix would probably have a passive talent trainable by Paladins to convert Attack Power into Spellpower. I realize this would take some rebalancing of Paladins, ensuring Holy Paladins had mana(converted from Strength?) and roughly equivalent spellpower to heal. The talents Sheath of Light and Guided by the Light would probably need to be adjusted and maybe those spots in the talent trees might be a good place, and this is just me brainstorming, to have prot paladins run a little faster (they hardly need more threat or another tanking CD, come 3.2) and give Ret paladins an interrupt that they do honestly need.

Edit: It's not so much that paladins, if this change was implemented, would be rolling on DK/Ret paladin gear, they would more be rolling on haste/Crit plate gear, which isn't optimized except for one, possibly two specs. It would just be the same plate could be used by every plate wearing class and be a possible upgrade.

Question #4: Tri Specs

Give us an inch, we'll ask for a mile. Now that we've had a taste of the sweet life of dual specs, we realize how useful it is. And, for this we thank you. But I know there are classes who would like to experiment with the last tree of their class, or perhaps build a pure pvp spec without the not-quite compromise of the guild who require their hybrids to have both specs PvE optimized for raiding. I don't really think this would totally break your raid style encounters, do you? Any word on this?

Question #5

My fifth and final question is about haste scal...just kidding. I don't I would be far wrong in saying the community as a whole would really like something to do with our achievement points. This would also make good business sense for you if you set the bar steep enough. Something unique in game, such as our names written in gold or perhaps a master ( in my case) priest class tag. Perhaps a passenger mount that flies or a 2nd hearthstone location. Something to do with our hard won achievement points I think would be a fun addition to the game.

Anyway, I hope this thread was a constructive use of forum space and you find time in your schedule to share with us what you can. Thanks for stopping by!

Ghostcrawler

#11 - July 20, 2009, 9:37 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Question #1: Pure VS Hybrid DPS

I think the community as a whole understands and accepts the fact pure DPS classes need to do the most damage due to the inflexibility of their roles. My question is there is a large gap between certain hybrids and their counterparts in other specs. Currently, DK's and Feral cats compete almost, but not quite, with the pure dps classes. In no particular order, priests, moonkins, ret paladins, shamans, warriors lag significantly behind, or, at least currently in 3.1. I know you have taken steps to curb feral DPS, and you have removed some of the "Splash" damage of DK AoE, but is it your intent to bring DKs/Feral cats DOWN to the other hybrids, or bring the other hybrids UP closer to the to their kitty/death knight counterparts?

DK and Feral dps should both be lower in 3.2 compared to 3.1. A few other specs received slight buffs, but overall we're pretty happy with the PvE dps balance. You have to look at a lot of different boss fights and break the data down in different and relatively complex ways before you can really stack rank damage done with any kind of authority. As soon as we add a new boss, it's all going to change anyway. Nobody's dps seems so low that it's a liability to bring them. The few damage-oriented specs that are low in PvE have alternative specs in other trees that work out fine. It's always going to be the kind of thing we tweak a lot -- it's a process not a destination.

Q u o t e:
Question #2 Caster DPS VS Melee DPS in PvP:

Even the most jaded of melee classes will admit ( I hope) they are dominating in PvP, which the possible exception of frost mages. In this author's view, it is because mages have the ability, much more so then any other class, to "open the gap" and prevent the melees from making contact. I've seen from your previous responses you don't want to have every other class have warmed over or simply reprinted mage skills, and I know I personally agree with you. But I think it's fair to say a little tweaking needs to be done to the casting dps classes, specifically, to make them not want to pound their desks in frustration. I know you don't want to give everyone Frost Nova, but it seems casters, from warlocks to shadowpriests to moonkins, desperately need a way to get out of the speeding truck we call melee.

This is a really large topic that's beyond the scope of a brief answer here. In general I think the "melee owns casters" mantra is too simplistic. As you point out, Frost mages generally do well in 3s and Enhancement shamans are not generally feared to the degree rogues and DKS might be, so you already have to caveat it a lot.

Q u o t e:
Question #3 Spellpower Plate

I'd have to say a good 80% of the people who raid WoW are really, really sick of spellpower plate dropping in raids. When SP plate drops one spec of one class can use this, which means you have 29 out of 30 disappointed specs. God forbid two pieces of spell power plate drop from the same boss. The oft-suggested and effective fix would probably have a passive talent trainable by Paladins to convert Attack Power into Spellpower. I realize this would take some rebalancing of Paladins, ensuring Holy Paladins had mana(converted from Strength?) and roughly equivalent spellpower to heal. The talents Sheath of Light and Guided by the Light would probably need to be adjusted and maybe those spots in the talent trees might be a good place, and this is just me brainstorming, to have prot paladins run a little faster (they hardly need more threat or another tanking CD, come 3.2) and give Ret paladins an interrupt that they do honestly need.

We would like to get rid of spellpower plate, but we don't have a great system yet to make loot work without it. We want Holy paladins to wear plate and we don't want them to be great at say damage or tanking without having to swap gear.

Ghostcrawler

#12 - July 20, 2009, 9:37 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Question #4: Tri Specs

Give us an inch, we'll ask for a mile. Now that we've had a taste of the sweet life of dual specs, we realize how useful it is. And, for this we thank you. But I know there are classes who would like to experiment with the last tree of their class, or perhaps build a pure pvp spec without the not-quite compromise of the guild who require their hybrids to have both specs PvE optimized for raiding. I don't really think this would totally break your raid style encounters, do you? Any word on this?

Talent spec is still supposed to be meaningful. We don't want characters to be swapping through talent specs the way they do gear sets in Equipment Manager or your favorite mod. The Dual-spec feature was intended to make it easier to flip between two commonly-used specs. It wasn't supposed to make spec not a commitment. It will be a long time, if ever, before we take this to more than 2 specs.

Q u o t e:
Question #5

My fifth and final question is about haste scal...just kidding. I don't I would be far wrong in saying the community as a whole would really like something to do with our achievement points. This would also make good business sense for you if you set the bar steep enough. Something unique in game, such as our names written in gold or perhaps a master ( in my case) priest class tag. Perhaps a passenger mount that flies or a 2nd hearthstone location. Something to do with our hard won achievement points I think would be a fun addition to the game.

Achievements are not intended to improve player power. They are supposed to be a totally optional path to achievement. Even though they don't improve player power, they are still enormously popular, so we don't think we need to do anything to make them more enticing. Other games may use their achievements as a form of character progression, but we think we've got that covered already with things like character level, gear progression, reputations, etc. The 310% speed mounts were an exception, but they've also been an extremely controversial and problematic exception and I'm not sure we'd handle that the same way if we could do it all again.

We will continue to explore "vanity" or "prestige" rewards that don't inflate character power. We still wouldn't require you to spend points as a form of currency though. Generally, except for tweaks we make to the system, achievement points should only go up.