Dealing with the vocal minority

You cannot please everyone. It just doesn't happen.

True. We realize that there are so many different kinds of players in World of Warcraft that no single design approach can perfectly please everyone -- just as no single position can adequately represent everyone.

Historically, those who carry reservations about a design direction are more likely to make their perspectives known on this forum. It's interesting that, in this case, there are a number of players raising their voices in favor as well. Generally this kind of thing tends to be a bit more one-sided, and it's become abundantly clear that this is a contentious issue. Players on both sides of the fence (and those standing on the fence, under it, and hovering above it) have all made valuable points. No one perspective has a monopoly on the truth though, nor does one perspective necessarily represent the "majority"; all of your ideas will continue to be considered and weighed in the balance as we move forward.

We always listen. We also take forum posts in context with the feedback and observations derived from other sources to get a broader perspective. Most of all, we want World of Warcraft to be fun and we will continue our quest to perfect that goal. Never doubt for a second that you are all an integral part of the process.

02/02/2011 5:08 PMPosted by Daxxarri

Players on both sides of the fence (and those standing on the fence, under it, and hovering above it) have all made valuable points. No one perspective has a monopoly on the truth though, nor does one perspective necessarily represent the "majority"; all of your ideas will continue to be considered and weighed in the balance as we move forward.

Thank you for stating clearly what numerous posters have been trying to say repeatedly with no effect. ;) Maybe they'll hear and hopefully comprehend it coming from one of you.

Hope springs eternal.

One thing that really stands out for me is that the people who are arguing in favor of the current paradigm bring to bear arguments such as this:

1. "Just learn to play and you'll be fine."
2. "Why should blizzard cater to bad players? Stop being bad and it's not difficult."
3. "If everyone stopped sucking then there wouldn't be a problem."

You get the idea.

Do you guys (Blizzard) actually take these as valid arguments? It strikes me as a completely unrealistic and unhelpful standpoint in the debate to assume that people are bad.

Do you have any thoughts on this?

That's a pretty heavily stacked way to ask the question, but I'll see if I can provide a satisfying answer anyway.

As is often the case, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Realistically, I recognize that a lot of the concerns that have been brought to bear address issues beyond dungeon difficulty alone, so, on that basis 'learn2play' isn't a particularly valid argument by itself, no.

Conversely, (and I think this is what those arguments are really getting at) we're coming from an expansion where, through much of its existence, whole swathes of class abilities - crowd control, certain types of heals - went virtually unused. We've gone from there to a place where if a group doesn't use crowd control, or otherwise employs reasonably good play overall, their chance of success dramatically decreases. We want to reward good gameplay, so the tuning on dungeons is less forgiving than it was. Despite that, as average gear quality and know-how increases, it is inevitable that more and more players will have easier and faster runs over all.

On the other hand, maybe things have come too far in the other direction. While we're seeing that player assembled groups have very good success, Dungeon Finder groups are having significant issues. That's something we're planning to address.

The World of Warcraft development team and Blizzard as a whole aren't composed of a single kind of player. We're players of all sorts, we suffer from the same issues (and enjoy the same triumphs) that you guys do. We’re keeping an open mind and taking into account all perspectives as we move into 4.0.6 and beyond.

Out of all of this vocal minority stuff. There are actually some provable numbers. By numbers I mean the amount of people raiding. And when you look at it, 2 months into the expansion. The numbers have dropped drastically from where Wrath was.

Early dungeons and raids in Cataclysm are tuned to be significantly more challenging than early instances in Wrath of the Lich King were, so that comes as no surprise. I’m not sure it serves as a valid basis for an argument.

02/03/2011 12:42 PMPosted by Omnibus

On the other hand, maybe things have come too far in the other direction. While we're seeing that player assembled groups have very good success, Dungeon Finder groups are having significant issues. That's something we're planning to address.

Are you basing this conclusion off of forum posts or in game data? I hope it's the latter so you get a truly accurate picture.

That's an analysis pulled from hard data. We always try to base improvements an accurate overall picture.

Forum posts are very useful for directing our attention to something we might have missed, since World of Warcraft is really, really big. They're unlikely to be the sole inspiration for a change to the game, though.