Avr + avre questions for blizz

Q u o t e:
tldr: How can blizz justify taking the time to break something when they don't seem to have the time to fix the bugs that have been around for years. It gets worse when you consider they are about to release yet another expansion.

The question is a bit too generalized to really formulate a response you might consider helpful. In truth, many bugs and gameplay issues are addressed every single patch. We have a full internal system for documenting and prioritizing bugs within the game, as well as milestones for when they need to be addressed.

The issue with your question is that a lot of bugs to which you're probably referring relate to gameplay. The functionality fix to prevent third party addons like AVR from working the way they currently do is deployed by our user interface developers. They are responsible for all UI changes and fixing UI bugs. The structure of our quality assurance and development teams is more complicated than it seems you recognize, so there isn't really a clear answer to such a blanket question like, "how do you intentionally break stuff before fixing other stuff that shouldn't be broken?"

Q u o t e:
Yet somehow that is more important than fixing the bugs that people experience numerous times each day. Well I got my answer, they are two separate teams. So yeah, it doesn't matter. I just hope that maybe with the new expansion blizz can devote some of it's ui people to fixing bugs. They seem to be much more efficient.

It's a lot more than two separate teams. There are content teams which include everything from encounter design to quest design. There are systems teams which include things like UI, class and items design. There are several development leads with several employees reporting to each of them. Each of these teams of employees are very busy working on their specialty. It's not as easy as pulling the UI lead and his team over to focus on gameplay bugs. That's not their specialty and they're not going to be able to address those bugs appropriately, not to mention the fact that it means UI features and fixes would fall behind.

In addition to the many developers we have sectioned off into specific specialties for creating, fixing and improving content, we have teams of producers managing projects for each of the development teams to ensure appropriate priorities are placed on every task that comes through the pipeline. Believe me, a lot of tasks come through the pipeline and all of these guys are working very long hours these days.

The functionality of AVR is much more impacting on gameplay than some of the bugs you mentioned as examples earlier. Sure, some of the bugs you listed can be very frustrating when encountered, but the majority of players tend not to encounter those bugs on a regular basis. For instance, getting stuck in a wall when feared really sucks, however, it's extremely rare. It's also extremely difficult to implement an absolute fix so that it never happens again. That one specific example of a bug might actually be hundreds of smaller bugs which fit into the category of a larger bug you happen to notice. Random fear pathing maybe the cause, but the bug might actually exist solely within extremely specific portions of terrain in numerous places throughout the world. Sometimes it's difficult to even reproduce a good number of the bugs reported. Our quality assurance teams work tirelessly to try and verify every bug which gets documented, but some are so quirky we might not be able to replicate the specific situation which caused it to happen.

A bug that affects maybe 100 people a month, even if it's a bug which causes the game to crash under very specific conditions, will be considered a lower priority than fixing something which allows third-party addons to trivialize raid encounters way more than we would like for tens of thousands of players a week.

Q u o t e:


The other part to this, is while bugs can be a pain in the ass to track down and find, breaking AVR should have been a relatively quick and easy fix, even if the whole UI team was one person.

This is correct. There are at least seven guys on the UI team that I can think of off the top of my head, plus a producer or two to track and prioritize their work.

The size and scope of this game, and the amount of time and number of staff members it takes to maintain and improve it go beyond what a lot of people can fathom.

Q u o t e:
My question is has anyone from blizzard that is working to destroy this or had the say in to destroy this accually progressed to the top level of ICC , IE heroic 25 LK?

Yes.

Q u o t e:


While not using premade characters with superGM buffs ?

The creators of this game play it too. News at 11!

Q u o t e:


Funny then how bugs like the one on Cthun or other countless endwing boss's seem to magically slip by the watchfull eyes of the blizzard employs who play this game.

You're using a frustrating bait-and-switch tactic. You were complaining that the AVR mod is being broken in the next patch and asking if the people working here who want it broken even participate in endgame raiding. I said "yes." Now you're arguing this mustn't be possible because bugs (like one three years ago) got past internal testing before a specific encounter went live.

Totally different topic dude.

Q u o t e:


The point im trying to make here is, For you to break a mod becuase a select group of people complain about how easy and how it shouldnt be allowed it is without using the mod on these endwing boss's in heroic mode themselves and seeing the usefull information they put out is rediculus. High end raiders qqing about it makeing it to easy for other guilds to kill boss's is absurd, iv seen first hand a entire guild freshly equiped with this mod and still wipe to people getting hit by goo and other things. The addon isnt gona make the raider, the raider makes the raider. This addon just puts out information that should have been available to have been made visible long ago. Wit the exception of rangefinder we have no real way to judge distances except with guessing and using a class to gain min distance or max distance and then call it out. The ability to do a john madden in the game in the enviroment is amazing and like i said should have been brought in long ago to a further extent than that of smoke flares and Moonbeams.

We're breaking it because we didn't intend for addons to be able to use the 3D space to automate spacial relations for players. It comes a little closer to "do everything and go everywhere this mod tells you" than anything like it before. The decision wasn't made because there were complaints about it. The decision was made because we don't like that functionality.

With all of the complaints about the game being too easy, I'd expect endgame raiders like yourself to respect the fact that we don't want addon authors visually telling you exactly where to be and when at all times.

If you think some sort of spacial recognition feature should be incorporated into the default user interface, it's worth noting on our Suggestions forum.

Q u o t e:
I Understand now how you dont want it to draw on the 3d environment , But instead of breaking it or shutting it down, couldnt you work out a medium with the Dev to where the addon can be used but change the way things are displayed through the addon? Saying you dont like addons that tell you were to move and when to move and how to move is pretty much counter to all the hundreds of addons that exist that tell you these things, from bossmods that tell you when you should move becuase somthing is happening on you to Power Aura mods and such that tell you when you have somthing on you. The only time that i think that addons played up to your standards was durring MC and BWL days becuase people just hadnt develed to much into the LUA codeing.

Just to be clear, there's a difference between a mod telling you what needs to happen versus showing you. AVR takes the pitch, yaw and roll (if you will) of your character to visually represent where you need to be and when. That's very distinct compared to a tool like DBM playing a "run away little girl" sound file when you're in a danger spot. It's not visually showing you in the 3D game space where to run to get out of danger.