Especially when something you say can come back and bite you in the...

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Q u o t e:
The Thunder Clap portion of Heroic Leap was the subject of much derision on this very forum. If you liked it, you should have stuck up for it then. It's gone now.

That sounds harsh, which isn't my intention, but it is really, really common on these forums to see a concerted effort among some players to say "Change X" and then when we do, other players come out of the woodwork to say "But we liked X!" I can't suggest a great solution to that except to pay attention to the kinds of discussions that are happening, and chime in if you disagree with something strongly. -Ghostcrawler

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This one, for instance, was Ghostcrawler's response to some warrior complaints over in the Damage Dealing forum. Maybe we weren't supposed to see that, but I did.

Hey, Ghostcrawler: Please take note this forum is chock full of healers disagreeing (strongly!) with your vision of healing in Cataclysm. Sure there are a few Blizzard-can-do-no-wrong fanboys who think it's all just peachy keen, but open your eyes man. You are marching stubbornly against a tide of discontent.

The road you have us on right now leads directly to a return to the vanilla days of guilds ordering players to heal or not get to raid. In vanilla, I was ordered to heal and I hated it. Then healing became fun in TBC and I loved it. Then healing became spammy in WotLK and I tolerated it. Now healing is going to be awful in Cataclysm and I think I speak for many when I say I'll simply refuse to do it. Is that part of your vision, too?

That sounds harsh, which isn't my intention, but it is really, really common on these forums to see a concerted effort among players to say "Don't do this!" and you turn a deaf ear. I'm just taking your advice and chiming in when I disagree with something strongly. But are you listening this time?

The problem with arguments like this is you are vociferously claiming your dislike for something while disregarding the feedback of all the people who do like it. The healing changes were announced a long time ago, and there have been many discussions since then. It should be clear to you that there are a lot of healers who didn't enjoy the LK style of healing and are looking forward to more thinking and less spamming.

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Q u o t e:
Then why ask for the feedback at all? He comes to us and says "what do you think" and we say "we think it pretty much stinks." His reaction to this is all of "suck it up." Why not just tell us "here's how it's gonna be, suck it up" in the first place and save the time?

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This doesn't actually happen though. What you really are trying to say is "I think it stinks, and some of my friends or people whose posts I like to read agree with me." There are very few design issues that are nearly universally deplored by the player base, even if you only count the vocal minority that takes time to post.

We understand some healers are concerned or dislike the mana change. We know plenty of others who like it. Some of them are posting in this thread. Nor are these forums the only avenue of communication with the player base. As with all our decisions, we listen for feedback and evaluate the feedback and make adjustments as necessary. If a few dozen (or a few hundred) players don't like something, that alone is not sufficient reason to change it. Sometimes the players can't see the big picture. Sometimes they are whipping themselves into a frenzy over the perception of something that is worse than it is. Sometimes they just flat out disagree with the design direction. If we still think the change makes the game more fun overall (not for them necessarily, but overall) then it is still the right decision.

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Q u o t e:
They have no problem with you not liking the general design goal for healing. What they don't want is, "Blizzard hates healers! Blizzard is ignoring the playerbase because I and some other people don't like something, but they haven't reversed it yet!"

If you like analogies, think about a workplace. You, or you and quite a few people, can suggest to the CEO that the company go in an entirely different direction. A good CEO will accept your input, but in all likelihood, the company is not going to do a 180. Still, they may be able to accommodate some of your wishes. Is the CEO ignoring you and being condescending just because your feedback didn't effect major changes to the direction of the company?

If the new direction was actually unanimously or near unanimously despised, they wouldn't go through with it. You get the "condescending and aloof" responses because of threads like these, that focus on the developers and their decision making process and not the game.

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This was very well said.

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Q u o t e:
They decided we are going north because of feedback from multiple sources and because of things they saw happening in the game. The game isn't designed by a democracy of players.

People complaing about spamming spells, about pulsing damage auras, and tanks being global-ed. This is the direction the devs went to fix it.

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As was this.

We didn't wake up one day and decide to beat up healers. We reacted to feedback that we heard consistently through the end of Lich King. Now that we've decided to change it, it's not too surprising that the other side is now speaking out, but that doesn't make the original concerns that a lot of players had invalid.

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Q u o t e:
I would tread lightly the forums have become so draconian speaking your mind will get you silenced. Do not disagree to loudly or you will be banned.
edit: for content. I dont think its stress so much as he even said there was backlash last time they tried to fix it and they caved. He even said that this time they were going full steam ahead no matter the consequences. Trying to change their minds at this point in the game is pretty pointless.

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A simple look around these forums suggests that your draconian description rings a little hollow. Posters don't get banned for disagreeing with us. I'd submit well more than half of posts typically do. Posters get banned for being asshats.

We want dungeons to be challenging. Not brutal, but challenging. Yes, trying to get us to change our minds on that is going to take some pretty spectacular debate skills on your part given just how much feedback we've received on it over the past year or so. But you can try to explain to us what it is about more challenging 5-player dungeons that threatens you, or what you dislike, and we can try to accommodate you. For example, the dungeons aren't going to be four hour trash-clearing fests like Heroic Shadow Labyrinth. Likewise, we're not going to ask healers to sit on their hands for long stretches of time for fear of wasting mana, because everyone has an efficient spell they can use when nobody is in imminent danger. On the other hand, if you just hate the idea of healers having a resource at all, well that goes against the design of the game.

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Q u o t e:

I would tread lightly the forums have become so draconian speaking your mind will get you silenced. Do not disagree to loudly or you will be banned.


Please. You can speak your mind just fine. But you need to do so as an adult would in polite company.

Q u o t e:
I dont think its stress so much as he even said there was backlash last time they tried to fix it and they caved. He even said that this time they were going full steam ahead no matter the consequences. Trying to change their minds at this point in the game is pretty pointless.


As has been said many a time, a valid argument will influence them. What they have also said with respect to Cataclysm healing is that they won't back off of making changes only because of forum outcry. Or in other words an argument like this:

"My heals are all too expensive, and I can't keep people alive regardless of how poorly they play"

Has no influence. But an argument like this:

"I find that I have no reason to use spell X, because it is covered by spell Y and Z, and situation X for which spell X was designed never occurs"

If you can't create argument B (and express it without calling the developers names) then you honestly shouldn't be posting about mechanics and class balance in the first place.

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Another good post.

(OMG! GOATCALLER ONLY AGREES WITH PEOPLE WHO AGREES WITH HIM!)

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Q u o t e:
Then give us an actual statistical break down of posts in favor of "healer spam" vs threads against "healer spam"? This would definitely give a more accurate picture of what the direction of healing "should become" vs "is perceived to become". I don't really mind what the direction of healing really needs to be, but you should most definitely keep it inline of what the majority of your player base wants.

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Trying to turn number of posts into a poll or vote isn't sensible. A tiny minority of our players post. There are many ways to abuse such a system by digitally stuffing the ballot box. Besides, since we aren't actually turning over development of the game to the community, we are far more interested in the strength of the argument than in the number of yays or nays.