Doom and Gloom

[Druiddroid]

Personally, if Blizzard puts a level requirement for the fishing Hat and Boots (and possibly the AGM) I will definitely abandon WoW altogether.

that sucks. i hope you come back.

Fishing Gear and AGM has always been the hallmark of a good twink.

Sure, you can buy yourself your Shadowfang, your Nethercleft, your Assassin's blade, etc.

But getting the fishing items requires personal effort.

Getting them is in itself one of the best achievements for us.

Take that away from me and it is like I was mugged in plain daylight by the people I pay to play.

well, you're paying for their services. they didn't necessarily mug you, they just took away their stuff from you.



i understand if you don't like their services, you can just cut the deal with them. that's fine. that's how it works.

Blizzard could have simply added XP to BGs and that would have been a swift end to twinking.

Instead, they try the "salami" tactics: slice away a few things at a time in the hope people don't stampede out of the game.

How dumb do they think we are ?

well, you're presuming they are using this 'salami' tactic. i don't know if it's true or not, and i doubt you have any evidence besides blizzard's timing on the nerfs.



there are other explainations on why blizzard is taking away things one at a time. i guess my best alternate explaination would be that the coding for stuff has been figured out, but it takes a bit of work to shift it from professions to enchants to gear, etc. they have taken away stuff one at a time because they are slowly learning the curve of what coding is required to change the items.

 

[Mother Goose]

Just wanted to point of if you really don't think Blizzard doesn't have the coders to figure out said code 4 years ago if they wanted then you're kidding yourself. If they wanted to do it at anytime they could, its most certainly not that they are just now figuring out a code workaround/fix for this stuff.

 

[Rayekk]

Just wanted to point of if you really don't think Blizzard doesn't have the coders to figure out said code 4 years ago if they wanted then you're kidding yourself. If they wanted to do it at anytime they could, its most certainly not that they are just now figuring out a code workaround/fix for this stuff.

With all due respect, unless you work at the Blizzard campus, how do you know how they operate? Like any business, I'm sure they have lots of management levels and employee turnover, hotfix and minor patching done without accurate recording, and occasionally the inept employee that may have mistakenly mislaid/inserted code where it wasn’t meant and forgot about it….



They may have quite a large profit margin, but they’re still human. And if they had everything worked out before hand, wouldn’t the fixes, patches and unfinished/unused areas not exist?

 

[Mother Goose]

Eh you missed the entire point. If they wanted to fix any of these things in the past, they could have. I'm pointing out that if you think they just finally figured out how to fix this stuff that's a silly a notion. It's more likely they now wanted to address the unbalnace situation in lower levels, not that they couldn't have done it 3 years ago.



You're most certainly right about lazy coders/sloppy coders putting in errors etc lol



Another way to look at it is that in the past, they've always had more endgame content they wanted to add and no time/people to spare to put on something they felt at that time as minor.., this could signify that the endgame ideas are running a bit dry so it's time to spread out the coders and focus on some stuff we've put on the backburner but really needs some addressing.

 

[Ramune]

Blizzard really is just pointing the game in a really stupid direction. they started it when they raised the level cap to 70 and made Bc dungeons obsolete. for some reason they feel that they need to continue releasing new content while making old content obsolete, thus pushing people to reach the level cap in order to do the same 1% of the game that blizzard actually cares about anymore, lvl 80 raids/arena. people repeatedly grind them every day and older content gets ignored and forgotten. it's really no surprise that they're nerfing librams and enchants, because for some stupid reason, blizz just loves making 99% of their game unplayable. damned if i know why but it's how they operate.

 

[Druiddroid]

Eh you missed the entire point. If they wanted to fix any of these things in the past, they could have. I'm pointing out that if you think they just finally figured out how to fix this stuff that's a silly a notion. It's more likely they now wanted to address the unbalnace situation in lower levels, not that they couldn't have done it 3 years ago.

how do you know?



sure, i'll agree if they were more urgent in the past, they possibly could've figured out how to do it earlier. but to be able to just figure it out.. like.. "*poof* it's there!" is unlikely. some really simple stuff on the outside might be really complicated on the inside.

 

[Boris_amj]

/sigh



I want to give special thanks to Druiddroi.

It's good to have someone who is able to step back a little bit and challenge your perspective on things (No, I'm not being sarcastic).

In general, I think the people in this forum help each other a lot in that sense



But enough of the self-patting-in-the-back.



On topic.



I am a web developer.

I work mostly in .NET and legacy VB6 stuff.



As far as I can see, all Items in the game belong to the same class. I.e., they all have the same properties and methods. Changing the item level or stats does not seem to involve a lot of programming, but rather the database parameters associated with said items (emphasis on "seem").



So, all Blizzard has to worry about is whether a change in some items would "unbalance" the game for some others.

At level 19, we can already see that some of the big exploit enchants are actually making no difference. For example, I have seen a rogue with the +55 Stam on legs, but his health remains around 2k.



Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that changing item/stats is merely a balancing exercise, not a complicated programming one. That's why the PTR is there, to check those changes.



And I share Ramune's feelings too. Blizzard seems to concentrate too much on end game: "If you're not 80 you don't count".



I know, I know.

/Step back

/Breathe deeply

/Relax



Done.

 

[Druiddroid]

As far as I can see, all Items in the game belong to the same class. I.e., they all have the same properties and methods. Changing the item level or stats does not seem to involve a lot of programming, but rather the database parameters associated with said items (emphasis on "seem").

i don't know anything about what goes on with the programming.



i do know that the new changes to items look different. before, you could change the enchant level and stats, but not who could wear the enchants or leg kits. it was all reliant on the item level. now it's based on the character level. as for how difficult or different this coding is, who knows.

At level 19, we can already see that some of the big exploit enchants are actually making no difference. For example, I have seen a rogue with the +55 Stam on legs, but his health remains around 2k.

but what's his AP?



what i really hate about the current WoW is you can have someone that literally stacks AP with their gear, and then they just slap a shoulder enchant and 55 stam leg kit and they have enormous hits as well as over 1k health.

And I share Ramune's feelings too. Blizzard seems to concentrate too much on end game: "If you're not 80 you don't count".

again, they have always been that way. they're out to make money. the vast majority of their players are people either leveling to 80 or at level 80.

 

[Unstablle]

Blizzard really is just pointing the game in a really stupid direction. they started it when they raised the level cap to 70 and made Bc dungeons obsolete. for some reason they feel that they need to continue releasing new content while making old content obsolete, thus pushing people to reach the level cap in order to do the same 1% of the game that blizzard actually cares about anymore, lvl 80 raids/arena. people repeatedly grind them every day and older content gets ignored and forgotten. it's really no surprise that they're nerfing librams and enchants, because for some stupid reason, blizz just loves making 99% of their game unplayable. damned if i know why but it's how they operate.

qft

10 chars ftl

 

[Druiddroid]

qft

10 chars ftl

.

.

they're out to make money

 

[Zuty]

Blizzard really is just pointing the game in a really stupid direction. they started it when they raised the level cap to 70 and made Bc dungeons obsolete. for some reason they feel that they need to continue releasing new content while making old content obsolete, thus pushing people to reach the level cap in order to do the same 1% of the game that blizzard actually cares about anymore, lvl 80 raids/arena. people repeatedly grind them every day and older content gets ignored and forgotten. it's really no surprise that they're nerfing librams and enchants, because for some stupid reason, blizz just loves making 99% of their game unplayable. damned if i know why but it's how they operate.

Well this all became obvious when endgame epics from Vanilla WoW were traded in for the first green you saw in outlands. The jump in stats was beyond ridiculous.



Blizz was to slow on the TBC expansion (probably why they wanted people to trade in their Naxx tier for greens) but even so, the stats on the gear were outrageous for fresh 60s. If Blizz had scaled the stats on TBC gear correctly (same goes for WotLK) and slightly scaled down the instance (to be on par with the lowered stats) It would make old instances (BWL, Ony, MC) still difficult while the new instances and bosses are still a challenge.



I understand Blizz wants to advance the storyline and I see nothing wrong with that. I originally played WoW because I loved the storyline. But the stats from Vanilla WoW to TBC went from like 20 stam (with maybe another stat) on a pair of legs to 55 stam. (with lots of other stats) And the kits alone were insane, the only pre-TBC legs that had even close to 40 stam were the Dreadnaught Legplates from Naxx.



Does this look right to you? A green quest item that ANYONE can grab at level 58 almost outranks an epic tier helm from Naxx. Something about that doesn't seem right at all.



That's my one big nitpick with WoW.



~Zuty

 

[Druiddroid]

blizzard made outland greens better because they wanted more people to play the game (and it worked)

 

[Zuty]

They could have done that with out the huge leap in stats.



People wearing Naxx gear would have eventually traded in their gear for probably the first instance or so, but the first green you see? That's just poor planning. More people were going to play the game anyway, cutting back on the stats or not. New players wouldn't have to do MC, BWL, or Naxx, but that shouldn't mean that people who put all the work into doing those instances should now be on par with the new players who just got rolling.



~Zuty

 

[Yesintheface]

/sigh

So, all Blizzard has to worry about is whether a change in some items would "unbalance" the game for some others.

And whether any change, even a database change, has unintended consequences on a rather large system with millions of daily users.



It's not as simple as "make change to DB, decide if balanced, push to live".



And you're making a huge assumption that no code changes are necessary. Very unlikely.



Here's a list of simple considerations they had to undergo when they decided to change the use of the shoulder, leg and libram buffs:



1) Who is using them now?

2) Why are they using them?

3) Does that use fit the way we want the game to behave?

4) When we put this change in place, how do we handle those who already have these items?

5) Ok, we decided to put a level restriction on the the buffs on lower level items. Do we put the level restriction on the item itself or handle it some other way?

6) We'll put the level restriction on the buff itself not the item, do we need to modify the behavior of buffs on items?

7) Yes we do, we'll render the buff inactive for certain levels and give a visual notification to the player on the item.

8) Now, how do we track the specific buffs that will have these restrictions?

9) What is the full list of buffs that need these restrictions?



Etc, etc. All of the above takes discussion, design, implementation, QA and debugging.



They have a lot more to worry about than just balance when they do any change.

 

[Druiddroid]

They could have done that with out the huge leap in stats.



People wearing Naxx gear would have eventually traded in their gear for probably the first instance or so, but the first green you see? That's just poor planning. More people were going to play the game anyway, cutting back on the stats or not. New players wouldn't have to do MC, BWL, or Naxx, but that shouldn't mean that people who put all the work into doing those instances should now be on par with the new players who just got rolling.



~Zuty

most people leveled their 60s and seemed content with the regearing. not too many people actually got mad about the gear changes.



/shrug, to each their own.

 

[Boris_amj]

And you're making a huge assumption that no code changes are necessary. Very unlikely.

I think I did put the obligatory caveat in my comments: (emphasis on "seem")

I was over-simplifying, I guess.



However, none of the 9 points you mention actually involve programming, which is all I said.

Etc, etc. All of the above takes discussion, design, implementation, QA and debugging.

Believe me when I tell you I know all about the development cycle. I do work in a sofware house as a Systems Analyst.

Not trying to be funny or antagonistic. Just that in this case you're trying to teach your grandmother to cook eggs

 

[Yesintheface]

Wow, yes they do Mr. Boris. I'm rather stunned.



I think maybe you need to follow these steps:



1) boil water.

2) put eggs in water.

3) set timer for 2 minutes.

4) remove eggs when timer expires.

5) place eggs in cold water for one minute.



Let's not toss around geek cred mmk? I've been around the block a lil.

 

[Druiddroid]

I think I did put the obligatory caveat in my comments: (emphasis on "seem")

I was over-simplifying, I guess.



However, none of the 9 points you mention actually involve programming, which is all I said.

well, yesintheface definately brings up a good point. aside from the coding that is required, you also need to plan everything. that requires a lot of time and consideration.



again, i don't know much about coding, and maybe it is easy to change the items, but there are many other factors as well.

 

[Boris_amj]

@Yesintheface

Sorry I stunned you.

I wasn't geek-cred-tossing at all, and definitely wasn't suggesting you hadn't gone around the block a fair number of times.



Are you saying you work in software development yourself, by the way ?



Seems you didn't spot the tongue-in-cheek aspect of my comment.



But I think you're the sort of person that needs to be right, so I'll apologise for any ego-trampling I may have done.

 

[Yesintheface]

Are you saying you work in software development yourself, by the way ?

Yes.

Seems you didn't spot the tongue-in-cheek aspect of my comment.

It looked more like you were pulling up a soapbox saying, "I'm a dev, I know, it's not that hard." Au contraire. Every push Blizzard does to live is hard. That's not giving them a cop out, but it's the truth.

But I think you're the sort of person that needs to be right, so I'll apologise for any ego-trampling I may have done.

Um, what? We're disagreeing. I'm also trying not to drag this thread down into complete geekdom (probably failed) by not going into extreme details about the specific work a change like this would probably take.



The audience Blizzard has to deal with is unique. It's ginormous and, by an large, more devoted and opinionated about the game than they are about the government employed by the country in which they live. An audience that gnashes and wails given 30 minutes of downtime during peak hours.



Any change to the system isn't simple at all.