Bad news for new Mage arena gear
by Dan O'Halloran 
Jun 15th 2007 at 8:00PM
With the release of the Arena Season 2 gear on the public test realm yesterday the number crunchers went to town. What they quickly found was not good news for Mages. It appears that the +INT on the new Mage armor is actually less than the Season 1 gear even though it costs more to purchase.But wait, you say, this is the test realm, surely it can be tweaked before it goes live. Blizzard responded that the gear is being looked at, but if any changes were made to its stats, it wouldn't be in time for the content patch. The mage gear is going live in its current state.
When it comes to numbers, I'm easily confused, but in this case my confusion stems from this: why put things on the test server if you can't tweak it based on feedback before it goes live? I mean...isn't that the point of a test server? Can someone with a great understanding of the Testing process enlighten me?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Anon Jun 15th 2007 8:05PM
It's called blizzard, I'll show you later
someone Jun 15th 2007 8:05PM
I'll enlighten you, blizzard is a bunch of people who treat there customers like dirt and never does anything that makes sense, ever.
Anon Jun 15th 2007 8:07PM
I know I probably shouldn't be saying this, but blizzard doesn't know what they're doing anymore. At first it was the benefit of the doubt, I'm sure they will fix the game eventually, but here I am 2 years later feeling a little bit empty everytime I see the
latest patch notes.
Savok Jun 15th 2007 8:16PM
Seems a day doesn't go by where I don't regret ditching my mage. This gives me a sort of sick pleasure actually, considering every team I've ever been in, the mage has always caused the most problems.
And I see even Blizzard has stopped treating Test like it's supposed to be. It's like MMOG Betas now, no one actually looks for bugs or does their "job", they just want a free game before anyone else.
Gurei Jun 16th 2007 1:17AM
well,your logic isnt logic to the BRAINLES MONKEYZ THAT BLIZZ HAS FOR WORKERS.
brett Jun 15th 2007 9:16PM
I'm not exactly sure how their testing process works. I understand that changing underlying mechanics and deep functions at this point would be unwise unless they were truly gamebreaking. However a simple matter of itemization like this should be a fairly low impact change no matter how you slice it.
Blizzard if you are going to put up a test realm to test your changes, the least you could do is actually fix some of the very minor bugs like this one. I understand the concept of codefreezes and bug queues, but to basicly give the finger to a whole class like this. Well it's a PR nightmare.
You should be bubbling changes like this up to the top of the queue since it is both low impact and highly visable. If this change in itemization is not as low impact as it would seem at first blush I've got to ask your software architects what they were smoking.
Pzychotix Jun 15th 2007 9:22PM
Changing itemization is hardly a software engineer's problem. The test realm has always been for checking for bugs and game-breaking glitches, not "Oh, I don't like this change, my oh my! Change it!". It's not a beta to iron out every tiny little thing. It's a stress test.
Get over yourselves.
Pzychotix Jun 15th 2007 9:24PM
Oh and I like how everyone here just jumped on the bandwagon and didn't even realize the other upgrades made to the gear. Go read it for yourselves, instead of just whining at Blizzard every chance you get.
someone Jun 15th 2007 10:32PM
"Oh and I like how everyone here just jumped on the bandwagon and didn't even realize the other upgrades made to the gear"
What you mean the armor 950? yea cause I know how much mages love to tank, good thing blizzard gave them all those snaring effects.
ErsatzPotato Jun 16th 2007 12:22AM
"fix some of the very minor bugs like this one. I understand the concept of codefreezes and bug queues, but to basicly give the finger to a whole class like this. Well it's a PR nightmare."
A) It is not a bug.
B) It is most definitely not a PR nightmare.
C) It is more evidence the test realms have, as others have noted, become PR devices as much as anything else. Problematic.
A little worried about the expectation that each seasons' arena awards be upgrades. That puts enormous pressure on PVE itemization. Blizzard is well aware of this, of course, which means you can use it to eyeball item budgets for future raid content (and, I suspect, new rare BOE world drops and crafting BOP as well).
Given the short length of seasons, it also means there will be delays on new seasons--bet gold on it--and no doubt plans for quick pve content additions too. I'd also bet gold on that not coming as quickly as they plan.
Rambling, sorry. Fun to pick through the changes and additions from a game design perspective rather than a playing one. There are good reasons for some of Blizzard's most idiotic choices.
Rod Oracheski Jun 16th 2007 12:50AM
"The test realm has always been for checking for bugs and game-breaking glitches, not "Oh, I don't like this change, my oh my! Change it!". It's not a beta to iron out every tiny little thing. It's a stress test."
Uh...the PTR is for testing not only the gameplay mechanics for bugs, but also the CONTENT itself. Are encounters too hard? Is the new gear/spell/talent overpowered or underpowered?
Pointing out poor itemization upgrades is EXACTLY what it's for.
Get over yourself.
Ispide Jun 16th 2007 1:39AM
Priest (healing set) Arena Season2 gear seems cool
The overall armor improvement is very nice, and also new PvP rewards healing oriented are very cool indeed.
I’ve just 3 questions…
a) why we have 18 intellect less than old gladiator set ? -18 int is a lot… and we are not a mana efficient class for sure
b) pvp honor bracers : why the socket bonus is +2 spell dmg and for example the plate healing one get +2 resilience ?
c) and why the hell still this stupid bonus on gloves :)
Don’t understand this …
./ Ispide
./ http://www.rupture.com/characters/EU/Stormscale/Ispide
Jason Jun 16th 2007 3:57AM
Software development and testing is a lengthy, complicated process. While one would think that it's not a complex procedure to change item values like this, doing so would require the dev team to recycle the entire patch through the entire development and testing phase. If the case is that they plan on pushing it Tuesday, or even a week from Tuesday, it's very likely that they don't have time to do so.
However, what is possible is for them to assemble a bunch of fixes like this and produce a small patch that won't go to the PTR and would take a week or two to compile, test and push.
To everyone mindlessly bashing Blizzard, go learn something about software development before you rant and rave about something you're completely ignorant of.
dafire Jun 16th 2007 5:34AM
the problem is the patch is already done.. if they change something they have to rebuild the patch.
rebuilding the patch means they have to redo it for us, for eu, for german client, for spanish client, for taiwan client and whatever locals exists.
then all those patches have to go through qa again.
when they find a problem on the testserver now they have to decide if it's worth delaying the patch another week...
what do you think .. is changing the mage stats worth another week of delay ? I don't think someone will get the mage armor in the next 2 weeks so personally I wouldn't even care as a mage.
Ropax Jun 16th 2007 6:15AM
One thing that Blizzard is known for is their methodical approach to class balance. If this is really a problem that they haven't foreseen, I'm sure that they'll fix it.
Pass the Kool-aid.
altwave Jun 16th 2007 8:39AM
The original blog post should be about the more important issue at hand: all the new cloth arena sets have itemization points spent in buffed armor. Mages, priests, and locks gained almost 1000 armor points, and other stats took a hit. (for instance, int going down).
Everyone whined that warriors were overpowered in arenas. Everyone whined that people in raid gear were starting to get wins. This is blizzard's answer, whether you like it or not.
RG-Rhodin Jun 16th 2007 12:56PM
One of the posters here made a good point. Why should arena season 2 gear be better? Different maybe. Think of Superbowl. Each year the winning teams get X dollars, goodies bags, rings, a new car I think to boot. Losers get less, but not bad. The money does not change that much.
So, if the arena season 2 loot is different, then cool. I don't see why it MUST be better each time, or even different. Sure, eventually a lot of arena folks will have similar gear. But that is the case now. I'd rather see rewards change or increase at the top tier.
And the fact they made the lower gear cheaper this time is disappointing. A lot of folks (not me) spent their points on that gear at the full price. I wouldn't be too happy.
And lastly, I think - where does it end? Arena is area ; it isn't harder or easier, unless of course the teams change. So this year things are better by 2%, then next year 2% etc. Eventually, imbalance occurs and things look like the giveaway dungeons of the D&D era. Think of it as a movie - do more explosions make it better? Maybe. maybe not.
I wish they would have more status stuff, like special bags, versions of the same item, for folks that like fashions, unusual pets, or even small buff items that work only in instances or in 5 man groups (non-arena). Add some dimension. Heck, let the folks who win arena and pool arena points be the only ones who can build a guildhouse. There's an idea.
Rod Oracheski Jun 16th 2007 2:05PM
They have made massive changes to patches on the PTR before, and for balance reasons - not bugs. Acting like it's unheard of doesn't make it unheard of.
Shadowisp Jun 16th 2007 9:32PM
In most MMOs Public Testing is not about users opinions, its about pressure testing bugs. To find things the crack team of internal testers can not find.
Usually the objective is to find game breaking exploits that someone could think of, or game breaking errors.
When it comes to Game Balance, Itemisation and Player Suggestions... they all need to be reported to the design teams, then reviewed... blah blah blah, lengthy discussions.
By the time they get reviewed the patch is probably already behind schedule due to Bug Fixing and is rolled out, issues of major concern are usually tabled for next patch.
ie Swift Flight Form, every druid during the BC Beta and all the druids who just got the Spell Preview from the Official Site asked about this/suggest this/complained... they only got around to it in PTR 2.1
Its all about the time. What can be done quick to a PTR and what has to be skipped till next time.
Blizz really needs to work on thier PTR procedures anyway. BC Beta was delayed so much that they cut content to make it out quicker, 2.1 took for ages in PTR testing which was a laugh since most of 2.1 content was suppose to be in BC release.
john Jun 19th 2007 5:24PM
I think it's amaizing that so many of you have such bad things to say about Blizzard and how horrible of a job they're doing at what they do. keeping in mind they have made many of the worlds most successful and entertaining PC games ever. what you may want to take into consideration is that:
A) this is a game. if you can't enjoy it as a game and you need to rant and rave like children over something so stupid then maybe you should join a rehab group and get off the war crack.
B) if blizzard is doing such a "shitty job" and their staff are all "brainless monkeys" then why don't u stop giving your support (stop playing) since it makes you so angry and wow is such bad quality of a game.
C) if you think you know everything... then why don't you go get a degree like all of the "stupid" blizzard employees have and do a better job? (not saying you don't have an education or a job) but stop telling them how to do theirs...
all in all... yes... there are always going to be people like all of you complainers out there who don't know how to express themselves in any other way than to bash blizzard... so enjoy, and at the end of your lives i hope that you still feel that wow was important enough to you to take all the time to nit pick it apart the way you do now.
cheers!