Forum post of the day: Moving moments
by Amanda Dean 
Jul 10th 2008 at 2:45AM
Since its inception World of Warcraft has been an evolving game. Someone who played only shortly after release would hardly recognize the game now. Blizzard has always welcomed feedback, but some changes have elicited more feedback than others. In a thread entitled "Epic moments in WoW QQ history," Gatsukaa chronicled some of the most upsetting events that have occurred in the evolution of our game:
WoW is first released. Hunter and warlock pets could be one-shot. Hunter dps was pretty lackluster. Soulstones gave you rez sickness (I think). No soulshards from PvP. The first emo whiners in WoW were born: Hunters and Warlocks. World of Roguecraft video is released showing how a rogue in crap gear could wtfpwn people while warlocks were so gimp. Result is that warlocks went on to get buffed in nearly every patch as they were on their way to god-hood. No more world of roguecraft videos. Hunters saw substantial improvements as well, but weren't made into demigods.
Moment 2:
Mages with both Talisman of Ephemeral Power and Zandalarian Hero Charm could stack the trinkets' on-use effects to drastically increase spell damage. Coupled with Arcane Power and PoM Pyro, such mages could one shot almost anyone. Massive QQ on the forums ensues. Result is that trinkets no longer stack such on-use effects (one exception was a glitch that allowed Hex Shrunken Head and Skull of Gul'dan to stack, but that was later fixed).
Moment 3:
Before Burning Crusade, the best PvP gear was PvE gear. Raiders in tier 2 and tier 3 gear ruled the Battlegrounds. Massive QQ from casuals ensued. Result was resilience and arena gear without any rating requirement for the first few seasons in TBC.
Moment 4:
TBC is released. About a month later as most people hit 70 and begin running level 70 five mans and heroic dungeons, it becomes apparent that druids are one of the best tanks if not THE best tanks for 5 mans. Massive warrior QQ ensues. Result is that druid tanking is drastically nerfed..
Moment 5:
Alterac Valley is redesigned. Suddenly, Horde are winning on average 80% of AV games on most servers based on forum estimates. Massive alliance QQ ensues.
Moment 6:
Blizzard toys with the idea of nerfing lifetap on the PTR. Before the nerf is even implemented on the PTR, massive warlock QQ ensues. Result is that the change is never implemented on the PTR and thus never got patched into the actual game.
Now yes, this thread could be seen as a troll on the forums. When you take a step back, though, it's actually kind of fascinating to look at where we've been. These are examples of Blizzard taking action on common complaints. There have been plenty of other events that have caused a stir, but we've since learned to live with.
I remember when cross-realm battlegrounds first started. By the way players were complaining you would have thought it was the end of the world... of Warcraft, or at least PvP. I was a little miffed at first, and there are still man problems, mostly on a social level. But I remember hour-long WSG queues prior to the shift. I'd go to dinner and ask one of my guildies to call my cell phone if the queue popped. I don't miss that.
Think of all the incidents when they've implemented player requests. We have flying mounts now, though they are admittedly limited. Horde got Paladins, and
What did Gatsukaa miss in her list of player demanded changes?
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Buffs, Forums, Forum Post of the Day
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Thundersmall Jul 10th 2008 3:01AM
There are brobably thousands of more requests..
The big issue is that they often react on the QQ of a class or what ever the issue is and "fix" it.
Instead of go in and fix the problem.
An really good example is AV.
They totally destroyed the battleground with reinforcements. And other things made to it.
They should have taken a step back, and thought why does this not work when all are lvl 70 and just rush to the general instead of completing quests at the same time as PvP etc etc...
Most of the stuff is PvP related since a NPC never can complain about a "demigod" defeat the NPC in 1 or 2shots..
Memzer Jul 10th 2008 3:07AM
Agreed. When was the last time you saw Lokholar or Ivus summoned?
SgtBaker Jul 10th 2008 3:45AM
It's really sad how they completely ruined AV with the changes. Now it's just zerg galore, noone even bothers to cap towers anymore. If the game isn't over in 10 minutes people start whining "stop defending we need to lose quickly" ...
Gone are the epic 7 hour AV battles that would rage from one side to another, you'd complete PvE objectives and you'd have some fun fights along the way - and mostly you would have to co-op with rest of the 40 people because otherwise nothing would happen.
Hate the AV we have now.
ThorinII Jul 10th 2008 10:01AM
/agree
BitterCupOJoe Jul 10th 2008 11:03AM
I actually love the AV we have now. I played the old AV once, and I thought it was probably the least fun I'd had in WoW, short of getting ganked and corpse camped. I'd ever tired. "Hey, everyone, let's get stuck in bottlenecks for the next 2 hours! Yay!"
The new one moves at a decent clip, rewards teamwork, gives a good amount of honor for the time it takes, and, and this one is key, almost never bogs down. In WSG, there's the horrible "same 2 people have the flags for 15 minutes" crap, even with the new debuffs. In AB and EotS, it's usually obvious, very quickly, which side is going to win. The rest of the match is just running down the clock, getting HKs (or getting farmed), and getting irritated at your own team for failing to defend/attack appropriately or skillfully. In addition, time spent in a losing non-AV game is time wasted, with almost no honor and one mark for 20-30 minutes of play.
AV as it stands now is, hands down, the best bg in the game, both for hardcore players and casuals alike. There's always something potentially useful to do, and turtles, while they do happen, are easily broken. It's possible to come from behind, but getting ahead early is rewarded. And, yes, there's really only one or two good strategies (either everyone zerg, or 30 zerg, 10 hold towers long enough to slow enemies), but that's true of the others as well.
Algorithm Jul 10th 2008 11:17AM
I'm sorry, but 7-8 hour AVs sucked. I don't know why there is this faction of people complaining that they went away.
Sitting in Alterac Valley moving 30 feet back and forth for hours is *not* fun to me. I look back on it with a degree of nostalgia, I admit. But, I can ALSO admit that the new AV is superior and complements the other battlegrounds more.
7 hour AVs were tedious and repetitive. I'm sure you're going to say "it's epic" or "it meant something," but I just don't see it that way. To me, it was like neverending tic-tac-toe.
7 hours? That's longer than most raiding guilds raid a night. That's more time than many "hardcore" players play a day.
Bobsaget Jul 10th 2008 12:02PM
It doesnt even mention the most recent. Hunters were supposed to get a new anti druid buff, Insta Fear Beast. And then the QQ raged all over the druid forums. The night of the patch the decision was made to leave it the way it is. They still havent changed the tooltip back.
Tyler Jul 10th 2008 3:11AM
The other day. Caused us to lose embarrassingly.
Grock Jul 10th 2008 3:13AM
"Result is that warlocks went on to get buffed in nearly every patch as they were on their way to god-hood."
And also had fear, the one thing that results in 90% of QQs against warlocks, nerfed in nearly every patch. Off the top of my head, the only buffs I can think of were the horror effect on Death Coil, and shards from pvp.
Lerxst Jul 10th 2008 7:47AM
How, pray tell, has fear been nerfed?
I cannot count the number of times my attempts to kill a warlock have gone as follows: Death Coil, Fear, dot, dot, dot, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Fear, Shadow Bolt, etc... dead.
The whole time I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off, the Warlock's pet is also wailing on me. Usually it's a Fel Hunter, so even should I (by some act of Gawd) survive the encounter, all my buffs are gone.
Rarely, if ever, does the Fear break prematurely. I've even had other players wailing on me while I'm Feared. Even if it does break, by the time I get back to him, he's already got his next Fear ready to go, or Howl of Terror, or Death Coil's ready to fire again.
But please, for the love of all that's holy, don't even look at my polymorphed target the wrong way. Even dirty looks and harsh language can break that bugger.
jtrain Jul 10th 2008 8:25AM
It's more a case where other classes have been given methods to nullify the effects of fear, rather than fear itself being nerfed. Everyone has a PvP trinket, and most classes can either break fear or avoid it completely with an ability (bestial wrath, beserker rage, etc.).
Fear only works when the opponents ability/trinket is on cooldown, or you're lucky enough to get the drop on someone. If Warlock's don't get your feared right off the bat, the fight is usually over very quickly. Lock's don't have any other viable escape mechanism, such as ice block or a pally bubble.
kabshiel Jul 10th 2008 10:43AM
Fear was nerfed in patches 1.2 (chance to break on damage), 1.3 (higher mana cost), 1.4 (seduction put on same diminishing returns), 1.10 (keep target when feared), 1.11 (fear breaks more easily on direct damage, less easily on DoTs), and 2.2 (fear duration reduced).
This is only direct changes to the skill, not counting the incidental nerfs from changes to trinkets or other class skills that affect fear.
Heilig Jul 10th 2008 11:10AM
Seduction put on same diminishing returns - Not a fear nerf
Keep targets when feared - Only applies to mobs that FEAR YOU, not when you fear them, never applied to PvP - Not a fear nerf
Fear Breaks more easily on DD, less easily on DoT's - Fear BUFF so warlocks are less likely to break their own fear with DoT's, only other classes jumping on the feared target
Fear duration decreased - Along with every other CC, and only in PvP - not ONLY a fear nerf
QQ more warlocks, you still have the only cc in the game that isn't guaranteed to break on any sort of damage and the mob isn't completely immune.
darian Jul 10th 2008 11:42AM
I find your arguments disingenuous Heilig.
We can word your first point equally as "Fear put on same diminishing returns - Not a seduction nerf". You're using semantics to ignore the fact that *both* were nerfed.
Also, *now* most PvP Warlocks use DoTs primarily, but when Blizzard made fear more susceptible to break on DDs rather than DoTs Destruction was the popular PvP spec. (See also the Seduction/Fear nerf)
Now that CCs are limited to 8 seconds initially, one might also call those nice six second stuns Rogues and Paladins drop CCs that don't break on damage.
Let's also not forget that fear is the least stable of any CC. When used in both PvP and PvE, the randomness of where the target runs can be extremely frustrating.
There are points you can make against the fear nerf QQ, but you don't have to ignore context to make them.
Yossarian Jul 10th 2008 12:00PM
Oh c'mon. I thought we were done with the whole warlocks are gods thing. Locks have been nerfed every patch almost for the last year. Fear is broken all the time, either through trinkets or class skills. On top of that, it's returns are hugely diminishing. On top of that, more and more classes are gettings skills that wipe dots. And on top of that, death coil has a 2 minute cd.
Ikarus Jul 10th 2008 12:50PM
Its kinda off funny. Whenever i fight a lock it feels like im feared the whole time. But, when im on my lock it seems like fear is ALWAYS breaking early. It's obviously about perception. Being feared for just a few seconds seems like and eternity in PvP if you're on the receiving end.
Squishy Jul 10th 2008 12:56PM
hey Heilig,
Obviously you've never been stunlocked by a rogue if you think locks are the only ones with godlike CC.
Verit Jul 10th 2008 6:45PM
I play a warlock in pvp - on the supply side of fear I see it break all the time early, or its trinketed out of - or one of a million other ways to get out of fear early.
On the flip side when I'm feared (yes it happens) it seems to last the full ten seconds.
NIck (Mal'ganis-H) Jul 10th 2008 3:26AM
ummm yeah there is no bottle neck @ frostwolf keep... jump the fence avoid all the NPCs and cap RH. GG allies still have the advantage in AV.
Deusmortis Jul 10th 2008 3:33AM
Season 1:
In a world without much resilience, Paladin/Warrior dominates the 2v2 universe. Everyone who is not a paladin or warrior complains. Blizz "balances" the comp by hitting paladins with 3 substantial nerfs. Druids take their place. Kalgan is still rocking his new season weapon in week 1.
Later in Season 1:
Warlocks and Shadow Priests figure out that dots bypass resilience, and another super comp is born. Massive QQ leads to resilience applying to dots. Shadow priests disappear from arena. Locks are still viable in all brackets.
I suppose the lesson is this: Don't play the support half of a 2v2 team. Druids: You have been warned.