Concerns with WoTLK shamans.

#0 - Sept. 9, 2008, 7:37 p.m.

Ive been watching WoTLK news every day for the past month, ive seen changes in rogues, warriors, and every other class, yet when it comes to shamans, i see nerfs, and an extreme lack of communication between us and the devs on the WoTLK forums.
I constantly see Ghostcrawler posting on the forums asking for feedback, asking what we (not shamans, the classes he controls) want, ect.
But all we get from Koraa is one line answers, such as
"What, specifically do you have issue with? "
then, when people answer with TONS of constructive ideas (along with most of the posts on the forums itself) we get absolutly no answers, or answers to a post that dont really have anything to do with the subject at hand.
Also, patch 3.0 is almost here, yet many of our talents are broken, or just plain dont work well (IE the water shield charge consumed on crit).
I, and many other people, are starting to think you dont really mind leaving our class on the back burner, let it go to crap, its been like that since TBC was released, every patch came with a nerf to the shaman, even if it came with a buff as well. And now during the beta, the "Unintentional" nerf to TS, windfury being completely broken, spirit link not working, we have NO communication from devs.
The WoTLK forums for shamans havnt seen a blue post in 4 days, thats 4 days of constructive posts lost for reasons beyond me.
We NEED communicaton for our class to work out, and just like when we were supposed to get our class review that never happened, there is no communication between us and the dev team at blizzard, which needs to be fixed.

Though i very much expect to be flamed, and not have a blue even respond to my post, i still hope that the "Polish" were supposed to recieve can atleast fix some of the things that obviously dont work, but as much as i am optimistic, ive been playing for around 3 years now, and so far blizzard doesnt exactally have a stellar track record with shamans.

Rant ended.

Nethaera

#10 - Sept. 9, 2008, 8:15 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Ive been watching WoTLK news every day for the past month, ive seen changes in rogues, warriors, and every other class, yet when it comes to shamans, i see nerfs, and an extreme lack of communication between us and the devs on the WoTLK forums.
I constantly see Ghostcrawler posting on the forums asking for feedback, asking what we (not shamans, the classes he controls) want, ect.
But all we get from Koraa is one line answers, such as
"What, specifically do you have issue with? "
then, when people answer with TONS of constructive ideas (along with most of the posts on the forums itself) we get absolutly no answers, or answers to a post that dont really have anything to do with the subject at hand.
Also, patch 3.0 is almost here, yet many of our talents are broken, or just plain dont work well (IE the water shield charge consumed on crit).
I, and many other people, are starting to think you dont really mind leaving our class on the back burner, let it go to crap, its been like that since TBC was released, every patch came with a nerf to the shaman, even if it came with a buff as well. And now during the beta, the "Unintentional" nerf to TS, windfury being completely broken, spirit link not working, we have NO communication from devs.
The WoTLK forums for shamans havnt seen a blue post in 4 days, thats 4 days of constructive posts lost for reasons beyond me.
We NEED communicaton for our class to work out, and just like when we were supposed to get our class review that never happened, there is no communication between us and the dev team at blizzard, which needs to be fixed.

Though i very much expect to be flamed, and not have a blue even respond to my post, i still hope that the "Polish" were supposed to recieve can atleast fix some of the things that obviously dont work, but as much as i am optimistic, ive been playing for around 3 years now, and so far blizzard doesnt exactally have a stellar track record with shamans.

Rant ended.

In the latest notes we have up in the beta, we note that all classes are having their trees get a balancing pass on them. While I know you are looking for specific answers to feedback, that's not always the most productive use of developer time. They are asking for the feedback so they can take a good look at concerns and then work on solutions if they feel the concerns are warranted. You are more likely to see the changes occur rather than hear about them directly ( depending on the time they have for specific conversation.)

I know this can be frustrating when you are hoping for more, but at this point, the development team is working very hard on many things including balancing touches and changes. Keep in mind, at some point here, we have to get to a 'finalization' stage so that we can move on into live and that includes addressing any bugs as well.

Nethaera

#13 - Sept. 9, 2008, 8:24 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Thanks for the post neth, this helps ease my pain a little bit ;)

I'm glad I can help at least a little.

Nethaera

#50 - Sept. 9, 2008, 9:25 p.m.

Q u o t e:
I have to agree with Aliciah, you guys did burn the Shaman community badly and I don't blame any of them for getting mad and posting their opinions of Blizzard.

People being angry or upset is understandable if they believe they aren't getting their due. However, as always, forum violations are not an appropriate way to let us know of your concerns.

We've commented on what happened in the past before. There's not much more we can say about that unless we want to rehash old discussions which aren't productive to current development.

In the end, no matter what happens, someone will not be completely pleased with the changes that are made or content with how things end up. There is no possible way we can make everyone happy as much as we might like to.

Nethaera

#105 - Sept. 9, 2008, 11:01 p.m.

Q u o t e:
LOL Neth is over at the beta forums now locking posts...

Now that's the kinda attention shaman are used to receiving from blizz

The beta forums are meant to be used for constructive feedback and discussion about the ongoing beta test. Anything that is not constructive or productive will be removed or closed. An explanation has been given for the closed threads. As I stated previously, it's understandable that people want specific Developer feedback and responses, however, the time the Developers take to respond is time away from their other tasks. They will respond to what they can when they have the time to do so. Making demands for their response isn't productive.

Nethaera

#117 - Sept. 9, 2008, 11:19 p.m.

Q u o t e:
What the majority of shamans want is communication. I know the Devs are busy, but the shaman CM at present appears to be confusing the word “Communication” with “Communism” and is having a difficult time with the concept. If players of a certain class keep seeing pages and pages of work being done on other classes and the CMs of those classes actively participating in the forums, and then get nothing but “the Bird” from their own CM, what are they supposed to think?

To be honest, it really does feel like Bliz, with their current approach, are telling enhance shammies that if we want to melee and do dps, we should just reroll a DK.

There are no class CMs and those that have been posting on the Beta forums (aside from the normal contingent of Community Managers) are developers that have been trying to find time to answer what they can. Unfortunately, there is no way to ensure that everyone gets an equal amount of posts and I assure you, the Development Team as a whole is very busy and currently very engaged in hands-on development work that takes them away from posting more at current. Should they find the time or feel it's appropriate, they will post when they can.

No one is giving anyone "the bird" here, that's a bit overly dramatic. The developers are not required to post, but choose to do so as they can and have been very active in watching the feedback on the forums. Not getting responses does not equate to no one listening or not caring.

I could spend more time in this thread trying to reassure people, however, I can see that we're reaching the end of anything really constructive in this thread. We absolutely appreciate all of the constructive posts on the beta forums and will likewise look forward to continued constructive feedback when we get into the PTR testing as well.

Nethaera

#260 - Sept. 10, 2008, 10:04 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Hey Neth, where did you get your sig? Is it from a book? Sounds familiar....

BTW Raymond Fiest is an awesome author. You may enjoy him.

It's original (my own), though I won't say that there aren't particular authors that have influenced my own personal style.