@ Blizzard - GC quote and balance.
by Aw | 25/03/2009 23:21:20 Let me start by saying this is not a QQ about warriors or nerf this. Just pointing out with this massive GC quote that something is obviously wrong. I would love people to refute this.
Now for the break down. Part 1. You say that you like how one class has 3 trees that do the same thing and "lets a class keep it's role while trying other specs." Two arguments to this which you have in the same post said. Dual spec erases this uniqueness and other specs doing things not common in their tree has been happening for a while. Moonkin healing in arena's, vanilla wow Arms warriors tanking, Holy paladins tanking murlocs, Feral druids doing DPS and tanking. This is not original just something that you guys got carried away with. Part 2. You say that the previous Protection trees were not huge a success. I can see where you are coming from with that but NOW you want to make specs AND glyphs mandatory to compete. Seems very hypocritical or that you have forgotten about fights needing specific talents or even that you have balanced the game around specific builds of a class making glyph slots not really something customizable but mandatory for various specs. Part 3. Here is where you mention Dual Spec. Yeah I've been the prot warrior dpsing on a boss. Yeah it sucks. Will dual spec change it? Not on fights like Kael where I need to OT Telonicus. Not on fights like KT where I need to grab a bug. Not on a lot of fights. Keep your dual spec garbage IMO. [ Post edited by Aw ] ●█〓██▄▄▄▄▄▄ ▄▅██████▅▄▃▂ ██████████ ◥⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲◤ It took you 3 months to level to 80 from 70. You have been rewarded for this feat with the title "Stupid !*%@ing Casual". |
by Ghostcrawler | 26/03/2009 00:13:34 Aw, of course you're welcome to disagree with me. I'm just trying to understand if you think that design for DKs is fundamentally flawed or if you just think it's unfair. (Also, let's be adults and leave the "donkey" junk to Barrens chat.)
You named examples where we are already accomplish this, and that's good. For a time, warriors could tank with a 31/5/15 build (I think I am remembering those numbers correctly). Later, they were pretty much confined to the Prot tree, plus Cruelty and a couple of other talents. Was one way better than the other? We're not sure, but we're trying to explore the tank who is more broad than deep a little more. If we love the way it turns out, we might retrofit the other tank classes. (As I said in the original post: might.)
"Mandatory glyphs" is a tough nut to crack. If we nerf them to make them feel weaker, then players might say their only glyph options are a bunch of junk. If we make them good, then they feel mandatory. If you feel there are glyphs you want but can't justify because others are too good, please bring those up and we will look at them.
You can tank the KT bugs just fine without a tank spec. Now there will be fights where you do need multiple true tanks, but dual-spec actually helps us there. Otherwise we are essentially asking guilds to clear the whole instance with 4 tanks or swap out some dps for tanks on those few fights. It would be nice if the person swapping in and out were the same person (via dual spec). I also predict there will be plenty of MTs who have tanking specs for both of their specs. So can you explain why they are "garbage?" Do you not like the concept or do you feel it doesn't solve the problem (of tank dps being low)? It is certainly a lot higher than it used to be in BC. To others, yeah I know the post is a little trollish and some of you will be frustrated that I responded here. But sometimes players are being negative because they feel ignored, and sometimes it may not take much to turn them around and get them excited about the game again. Once in awhile it pays to figure that out. I won't be able to respond to every post like this, but maybe responding to a few can serve as examples that we still care about the opinions of players who disagree with or discount us. |
by Ghostcrawler | 26/03/2009 05:31:23
We will not be balancing around the existence of dual-spec. The example I used was a case we already have -- multiple tank fights, then single tank fights, then multiple tank fights. We didn't design that around dual-spec. We assumed you'd probably have an OT who tried to do dps on Saph. Dual-spec gives them a way to do better dps. This is one of the reasons though that we think it's important to keep pure dps slightly elevated. Mostly, though, dual-spec is a convenience factor. You can already run back to town and respec in the middle of a raid, and plenty of people did that already (and hated it).
This is something we struggled with a lot. I fear loot may get more complicated with a dual-spec system. You'll have players arguing that their current spec isn't their main spec or whatever. I'm sure the community will adapt, but it is a concern. I predict dual-spec is going to change the game in ways nobody is quite anticipating yet.
We struggled with this a lot, but ultimately we do let players respec at will even today and just charge them for it. Plenty of Resto druids healed raids and then went Feral to do quests the rest of the week. Plenty of mages raid as Fire and PvP as Frost. We just thought in this case that the talent system got in the way of players enjoying the game rather than rewarding them for making good but hard choices. Commiting to being sub-optimal for parts of the game you enjoy was just a drag. I expect some players may not use dual-spec at all, and that's cool. Others will change once a week and others may change multiple times a night. We wanted the system to be flexible. We didn't want it to allow players to not have to commit to talent builds though, which is why we limit you to 2 specs and not as many as you want. |
by Ghostcrawler | 27/03/2009 19:03:22
Because we think they are fun. :) If we could make fights with 1 healer or 1 dps fun, we would be doing it. The possibility of a fight that requires no healing and is just a dps check might be interesting.
Yes. I'll hit this point again below, but it just depends on the encounter. Sometimes you can switch roles mid fight and sometimes the adds hit so hard that you need to dps as a tank until they appear.
Yes, this is definitely the kind of thing that falls under my general prediction of "This feature is going to play the game in ways that none of us may be anticipating now." Some guilds charge DKP but offer a discount for off-spec pieces. That gets much more complicated now.
The Lexicon is dead as a feature. You can swap glyphs whenever you want once 3.1 ships through dual-spec or just by applying a new glyph.
Well, for starters when we do our internal testing, we won’t take advantage of it. For another, if a designer came up with an idea that involved or invited a lot of spec swapping, we’d say no. We will also watch exactly how much raiders swap specs. We’ll keep an eye on it.
Again, players can do that already. If the fight is too challenging, then you will see tanks porting home to respec or just stepping out for another dps. Dual-spec won’t suddenly make those situations trivial. They may make them slightly more convenient.
It just depends on the adds. Some require a tank-spec’d tank in tank gear. Others might require you to swap out a few pieces of gear. Others can be tanked by any plate weare. Others can just be zerged down without being tanked at all. If your dps or healing are really high you can often slide closer to the right side of that continuum. Take Lurker Below as an example. On your earlier attempts you probably have multiple tanks doing crappy dps or just standing around waiting for the naga adds. Once you're geared up, you might be able to have some dps warriors or paladins handle the adds. When you out-gear the instance you can probably just dps it all down with a single tank on the boss. [ Post edited by Ghostcrawler ] |
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