The Holy Grail of Twinking?!

[Kore nametooshort]

Straight from the Blizzard Live Q&A​

[quote name= 'Blizzard live Q&A']Q: How will low level balance be fixed in Mists of Pandaria.Right now you can one shot a lot of npcs or players at low levels.[/quote]​

A: We plan to put some additional careful effort into balancing low level combat for MoP.

As some of you have probably noticed, it was announced in the Blizzard Live Q&A yesterday that low levels will be balanced in MoP. This is just about the most monumental piece of news the site has received in a long while, probably since the Cataclysm beta.​

If Blizzard carry through this promise of balance then both our community and gameplay will be revitalised. The question is, should we believe them? You have every right to be sceptical - Blizzard has many times over the last expansion repeated claims of caring for low levels (I can count at least six cases) but never have they carried through with balancing, in fact I would go so far as to say that every patch from 4.0.1 onwards (with the exception of 4.0.3) has made low level balance even worse! So once again... should we believe them?​

I believe that despite the past disappointments, this time we can - or at least have better hopes for it. An expansion always marks a new start for things and Blizzard seems keen, or at least should be with all the competition, to get things extra polished for the next round.​

With a promise this explicit, more so than any of the others, we can keep our hopes up for something good. Though for the time being, let us sit tight and cross our fingers!​

Come on Blizzard!! Please dont screw up!!​

Click here to view the article

 

[iaccidentallytwink]

Sounds like another CR to me.

 

[Eliot]

I'm not going to get my hopes up yet, however it does look promising!

 

[Brov]

Well so far all the "kiteable" classes are getting a huge buff, fury wars,enh shammies, ret pallies. All of them will have some great ToT, whether its a 5 sec root or 30% speed increase.

 

[Pizza]

I believe them. They're losing too many subscribers to not carry through with what they say.

 

[oknob]

I believe them. They're losing too many subscribers to not carry through with what they say.

i would think that too if i didnt see their plans for s11

 

[notoriousthf]

"“Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” - John 20:25

 

[Grabco]

@notor ^interesting quote. I echo most of the other posts on this topic. I think that adressing the important damage issues at low levels and throughout the leveling process will help the player base prepare for more challenging fights.

 

[Tinkerton]

"TBC wil fix it"

"WotLK will fix it"

"Cata will fix it"



and now



"MoP wil fix it".



It won't, because the current Dev team is pre-occupied with raiding and has almost no interest on their own in low-level content.



This means Raiding yields the biggest rewards, yet while that would mean that it should be the most challenging content (as they tried to acomplish, to their deteriment , in Cata) to make that justifiable, they also have to make sure it's 'accessible' enough to warrant this pre-occupation as far as investors are concerned - the 'tightrope' the Devs have to walk.



(that same Q&A also said that the idea of baseline Resi is that Raid-geared people should be 'competitive' in Bg's; 1 Valor to 1 Conquest - 'ofc' not the other way round - apparently wasn't enough)



So only by lucky coincidence early PvP will be better, not by design, as their (in)actions have already shown more than enough, it isn't as if the issues with early level PvP aren't glaringly obvious and people haven't already spelled them out time and again.



Sorry if I sound bitter, but as long as GC can get paid to do his raiding hobby, things won't change.

 

[shanker]

i don't believe they will do anything.



they make statements that classes shouldn't be able to totally obliterate other class and have done slight to extreme nerfs to ret-pals, DK's and rogues while never touching certain classes like mages. even when a mage is supposedly nerfed they are buffed.

such as 15% damage reduction while in deepfreeze (which has a CD) and got a 15% damage increase to frostbolt which negated the nerf.



there was a TON of complaints in Wotlk concerning mages/priests in 2's arena during the relentless season....and after. blizz's answer: not only would they no longer 1 vs 1, they would now no longer balance 2 vs 2. they removed 2's from buying gear...etc etc. and 2's ranking only affected achieves. they claimed they would focus on balancing 3's, 5's and soon upcoming RBG's.



in doing so, they have made many class/specs not only op 1 vs 1, 1 vs2, and in some cases 1 vs 3. i'm talkng 85's... not twinks here. it affects 10 man RBGs at 85, a team with one more priest, res-sham, or mage than the other team shows the imbalance.



i mentioned this before.....blizzards gestapo censorship tactics. example: i was watching 5 threads that were complaining about mages at 85 and they were different in varied terms. 3 were deleted as duplicate threads, 1 thread was locked and refered to the remaining, last thread was locked at first as unproductive and later deleted. not going to fix anything using such tactics.



they did a blue post response to low level balance at CATA start, basically acknowledged the lower level problem. did a song and dance of how they need to work from the top down or all their work at lower levels would be undone. they never fixed 85's, they continue to make changes based on PVE and false info feed to them off the PTR's, etc. without reguards to the effects on PVP.



they did a blue post just within the last 2-3 months concerning low level PVP (guess from feedback experienced in leveling BGs?)

and they acknowledged there too that they know it's a mess and don't know where to start.



the loss in subs, this shows in their reactions: free to play to 20 with no time limit, and now offering D-3, a mount, to get players to lock down for one year.



MOP is a ways off. many players are already upset about the talent changes, they are being told it is all subject to change and nothing is final. they said that in Wotlk too when it came to EMFH and pre-WOF nerfs, etc. they never listened all went thru. imo....what u see now will pretty much go thru. blizzard was warned that DKs and ret-pals were too powerful in beta....they let it go live and it took them 1 year to bring them down

 

[yasueh]

Lying sacks of shit.



How many times are they going to put it off until the next expansion? Say they care? Say that no-one should be one-shotting at any level?



They should be fixing problems here and now, in the next patch. Not peddling yet more hopium, and making more empty promises for the next expansion.



Instead 4.3 is going to make low level PvP far worse, thanks to a major buff to the most ridiculously OP class, hunters, and all because Blizzard's so called 'developers' are far too lazy and/or incompetent to make changes that are required for endgame arena balance, only affect endgame arena balance.

 

[Kore nametooshort]

If you would like to see all the the Blizzard responses where they have mentioned low levels then check out this thread, You will see that none of them say "We will balance them by this time scale", In this CoverItLive, they have said that it will be fixed by MoP, so that's something to hope for. I understand your resentment to it taking this long however.



http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2463327228

 

[Lithogen]

It won't ever be fixed. Blizz likes to put blanket responses to unique situations. Not to mention Blizz continues to view twinking and low level BG's as a "niche playstyle." They're willfully ignorant to the amount of revenue that twinking can generate. It's almost as if they turn their noses up and say "Nope, end game is where it's at." then comment when the amount of complaints stack high enough to warrant some attention.



The original developers of the game are no longer involved in a "hands on" aspect. Some of the staff is actually gone. Others are resigned to more of an oversight role in the development process, not being able to decide what gets implemented or tossed into the idea basket for later use.



Blizzard knows what's going on, but in typical fashion, they're ignoring it in hopes that they can make the game eek through another expansion without having to do too much correcting for their stupidity the year(s) before.



I often wonder if the developers are just lazy and not willing to put forth the effort needed to make something right. If they lack foresight and can't see things coming down the road at a later date, or if they believe their own bullshit about how it'll be fixed in the end and their way is the best way.

 

[Tinkerton]

Kore, I respect you but the thing is that (in)actions speak louder than words, and what I tried to say was that they ALWAYS market the next Expansion as the 'cure for all your ails' ie the stuff they don't really want to deal with.



That's right: not really want to deal with.



If you e.g. compare the pacing and frequency of Heroic Raid fixes (content only very few people see while it's still 'relevant') and how the history of WoW is best described as making things easier for Raiders no matter the consequences for the rest of the game, to the attention they bring to other aspects of the game, the assertion that they truly care is frankly unsustainable.



Wow 'worked' before Cata because while e.g. WotLK already exemplified 'rush to cap and Raid', the old content their marketting department knows still was the most attractive to newcomers/the 'world' the devs by accident created was still there, and the raiding game had become so accessible that while people were rushed to 80 they could also participate in said Raiding wheel.



What has bitten them in the ass with Cata is that they took away the old world that actually drew people in and the levelling game as a whole, in favor for faster rushing to cap, yet removed the accessibility of WotLK Raiding, meaning a lot of bored people at cap and a lot of bored people before cap.



The only improvements I see coming are a) incidental changes made because they solev issues at end-cap (I haven't lost hope on the WSG GY change being reversed for example)

changes that don't require a lot of work yet will improve the levelling game Cata took away.



For an example of b, they could lower the minimum level of outdoor Quests (and hopefully the 'Class' Quests) by 5-6 levels, which would mean that Orange/Red Quests return. This would allow people to face more challenging content (less bore), to not 'out-Grey' content all the time (less bore) and make Quest rewards more meaningfull (and hence Heirlooms less of an issue, without risking peeving off the mailbox heroes).



But sofar they are only slating to remove yet more content by 4.3 (e.g. the Alchemy Speccing Quests) so I am not keeping my hopes up, I am glad I don't give them incentives to keep screwing things up (ie I don't P2P), and glad new games prop up & more games adopt the 'pay for content you actually like' model.



(on that note, EverQuest II has gone completely Freemium)

 

[Kore nametooshort]

I utterly understand your scepticism and I am by no means guaranteeing that Blizzard will fix the low game, but this is the strongest affidavit from Blizzard promising balance, so it's some hope to hold on to.



On that note, Blizzard have been stoically ignoring me in my efforts to score an interview with a developer regarding low levels in MoP. Interpret that as you will.

 

[Lithogen]

On that note, Blizzard have been stoically ignoring me in my efforts to score an interview with a developer regarding low levels in MoP.

They really can't for a few reasons.



1.) If they did take the time to talk to someone on an individual basis, then they would get some hardcore negative PR for doing it to one and not everyone else. Blizz has a tight lip policy for not saying jack to anyone about anything until they're able to control the flow of information ie: no leaks.



2.) If they can't make a media event out of it to garner attention, or push it off as an advertisement, they won't say much.



3.) MoP and 5.0 is a groundbreaking event when considering they're release of information. When viewing Blizz's track record, this is a direct contradiction to their behavior when it comes to talking to people about future content.



I dare say it, but maybe, just maybe, the players finally have Blizz's attention (through pointing out mistakes and blatantly complaining enough) and it's got them off kilter.

 

[Kore nametooshort]

Bizzard have held interviews with gamer sites before, there is a precedent for it. Also I am not an individual, I represent a half million view/month fan site, which is slightly more notable than the average WoW player. I'm not suggesting that Blizzard ignoring me is indicative of a lack of intent to balance low levels, I don't think it could be taken either way with conviction.

 

[Tinkerton]

Not to shoot you down, but why should they talk to TI?



The promise of the dance stu...I mean, "we're planning atm ( +/- one year ahead of the expansion) to put more effort (as if less was possible) in balancing the lower-levels, carefully that is (everything that might make a certain spec for Raiding deal 0.0001% less damage would sadly upset end-game too much, we have to be careful y'know) " already has had the desired effect: making people talk about & look forward to MoP (just as with Cata etc.).



And one could argue that certain aspects of TI are a bit iffy (even though e.g. private servers are perfectly understandable, given Blizzard's destructive habits concerning content people have already paid for) and Twinking not living up to its true potential.



Also, what might make things difficult is that in a certain sense Twinking is attractive to the financial department (people willing to spend a lot of time/money on already existing content; compare to e.g Ultima Online/AO/DAoC still being subscription-based while basically just bugs get ironed out) but unattractive to people whose job it is to create new content and - more importantly - whose want it is to create new end-game/Raid content ipso facto Twinks aren't primarily interested in.

 

[Kore nametooshort]

Well I told them that A large proportion of our community is severely disenfranchised with the game atm and will likely abandon it for one of its competitors in the near future without a stronger promise. I do know that it will be unattractive to the developers in some form, but what have I got to lose from trying?

 

[lokah]

I believe them. They're losing too many subscribers to not carry through with what they say.

This, in the last 2 months i've seen many of my friends hang up there toon, just because of the flow of the game. Many of the friends i did the orginally BT WITH.