Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Daily Blues
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Apr 20th 2010 at 4:00AM
The Daily Blues, in which Ghostcrawler is chatty as hell about healing.
Table of Contents
Ghostcrawler
It's probably more accurate to say that the haste will lower the duration until you earn a whole additional tick, at which point the duration will go back up again (but with more damage / healing because of that extra tick). Getting more haste will never be a bad thing, but there will be break points where haste is more valuable than others. You should also never want to cancel the spell early.
This is definitely one of those cases where we'll have to see how it feels, but it is more intuitive when you're actually casting spells in the game than it might sound on paper.
This is definitely one of those cases where we'll have to see how it feels, but it is more intuitive when you're actually casting spells in the game than it might sound on paper.
Paladin healing in Cataclysm
Q u o t e:
The goal is, indeed, to make you viable raid healers. That can be accomplished without neutering your single-target healing (and without making you the gods of all raid healing).
Yep. Healing Hands is one of the ways we want to let paladins raid heal and it might even be the dominant way. We want to give them a group heal that isn't Circle of Healing or Chain Heal, because we've already done those spells and we want to do something new here.
What we want to avoid: "Well, we don't have our paladin tonight to heal the tank, so let's call the raid."
What we also want to avoid: "Well, we have too many paladins and they can't raid heal, so let's replace one with an undergeared alt."
There are extremes of course. All things being equal, we'd rather you not stack too many of any one spec. We just don't want to make it impossible to heal a raid if your group of friends just happens to have a lot of Holy paladins.
On Heroic LeapPosting here to avoid the inevitable "They locked threads about Heroic Leap!"
We change our minds sometimes, like about letting Charge work in combat for example. :)
In fact, one of the reasons we changed our minds about Heroic Leap (and Camo, and Trap Launcher) were so many players that were sad about seeing those abilities not make it in LK.
We change our minds sometimes, like about letting Charge work in combat for example. :)
In fact, one of the reasons we changed our minds about Heroic Leap (and Camo, and Trap Launcher) were so many players that were sad about seeing those abilities not make it in LK.
More on paladin healingThere are a lot of strange assumptions in this thread.
Our goal is for paladins to be able to raid heal. Don't look at the designs for spells that none of you have even been able to try and conclude those mechanics can't possibly allow you to raid heal and therefore our goal can't possibly be met and will therefore be abandoned. It's fine to raise concerns -- that's one of the reasons we announce stuff like this early -- but some of you are trying to get a spell buffed that you haven't even cast yet.
I will say our vision for the AE spell though is not that the paladin runs around constantly, but that you position yourself where you can do the most good. Sometimes that will be back with the healers. Sometimes that might be in the melee. Sometimes you'll have to spread out and your group healing won't be as efficient (in the same way a shaman's group healing isn't as good in the same scenario).
Tranquility is on a very long cooldown. It is not the way druids AE heal. We want to shift it from 5-person group to raid because we'd like to do that with every spell. Having to organize players by arbitrary group is a strange concept since it doesn't actually manifest itself in the real world (in the way distance from you on the battlefield does).
We aren't going to give paladins anything resembling Circle of Healing. One (or two) of those spells in the game is plenty.
Spirit will be a good stat to stack but only to a point. Once you can heal say a six minute boss fight without going out of mana, then any additional Spirit is pretty much wasted. At that point stats like crit start to look pretty attractive because they increase your spell's throughput without increasing the mana cost. Maybe you'll be able to heal someone with one cast, allowing you to swap over and heal another player. In today's healing environment, where a lot of that excess healing will be wasted overhealing, getting a huge crit on a spell isn't nearly as valuable.
We'll have to see how raid healing goes. We might be okay with the tendency for groups to still assign paladins to tank healing because they are particularly good at it. What we want to avoid are those cases where a group feels like they can't possibly keep tanks alive because they lack a paladin or they can't possibly keep groups alive because they have too many paladins.
We'd like to change PoH too. The challenge there is making it not feel like CoH.
Yes, I agree that having high mana regeneration will allow you to use inefficient spells more often. I was reacting against some of the player saying they would just stack Spirit and nothing else because Spirit also allows you to cast big heals or fast heals more often. A hasted Flash of Light is still going to be pretty good in many situations, as is a Flash of Light that crits for a big amount. The numbers should be such that all stats are valuable, not that the guides say "Stack Spirit and all other stats are garbage."
Our goal is for paladins to be able to raid heal. Don't look at the designs for spells that none of you have even been able to try and conclude those mechanics can't possibly allow you to raid heal and therefore our goal can't possibly be met and will therefore be abandoned. It's fine to raise concerns -- that's one of the reasons we announce stuff like this early -- but some of you are trying to get a spell buffed that you haven't even cast yet.
I will say our vision for the AE spell though is not that the paladin runs around constantly, but that you position yourself where you can do the most good. Sometimes that will be back with the healers. Sometimes that might be in the melee. Sometimes you'll have to spread out and your group healing won't be as efficient (in the same way a shaman's group healing isn't as good in the same scenario).
Tranquility is on a very long cooldown. It is not the way druids AE heal. We want to shift it from 5-person group to raid because we'd like to do that with every spell. Having to organize players by arbitrary group is a strange concept since it doesn't actually manifest itself in the real world (in the way distance from you on the battlefield does).
We aren't going to give paladins anything resembling Circle of Healing. One (or two) of those spells in the game is plenty.
Spirit will be a good stat to stack but only to a point. Once you can heal say a six minute boss fight without going out of mana, then any additional Spirit is pretty much wasted. At that point stats like crit start to look pretty attractive because they increase your spell's throughput without increasing the mana cost. Maybe you'll be able to heal someone with one cast, allowing you to swap over and heal another player. In today's healing environment, where a lot of that excess healing will be wasted overhealing, getting a huge crit on a spell isn't nearly as valuable.
We'll have to see how raid healing goes. We might be okay with the tendency for groups to still assign paladins to tank healing because they are particularly good at it. What we want to avoid are those cases where a group feels like they can't possibly keep tanks alive because they lack a paladin or they can't possibly keep groups alive because they have too many paladins.
Q u o t e:
Does this mean there will be changes made to Prayer of Healing?
We'd like to change PoH too. The challenge there is making it not feel like CoH.
Q u o t e:
You seem to be operating under contradictory premises here, GC. On one hand, you're saying "mana will matter for healers in Cataclysm." On the other, you're saying "Players will only want Spirit to a certain point." Players will want spirit until mana becomes trivial, which would violate that first premise. Even if a player has just enough to heal that six minute fight, more spirit will allow a higher HPS because it will allow the use of more spells that are inefficient. While you can argue "crit increases HPS too," more spirit increases HPS in a way that's completely controllable by the player.
Yes, I agree that having high mana regeneration will allow you to use inefficient spells more often. I was reacting against some of the player saying they would just stack Spirit and nothing else because Spirit also allows you to cast big heals or fast heals more often. A hasted Flash of Light is still going to be pretty good in many situations, as is a Flash of Light that crits for a big amount. The numbers should be such that all stats are valuable, not that the guides say "Stack Spirit and all other stats are garbage."
Yet more on paladin healing
Q u o t e:
Just to clarify: We may be perfectly effectual and good at either raid or tank healing, but the PERCEPTION is what is important here. Perception of a class does matter. And if everyone perceives Paladin healers as being technically weaker than all other healers, it's going to be tough justifying using them in raids.
I agree that perception is a big deal. As I said in another thread recently, WoW players just really hate the thought of another player telling them they're wrong (or even worse than that, the dreaded "sub optimally"). :)
Q u o t e:
Basically blizzard doesn't want Holy Paladins to have a clear cut position in a raid when it comes to healing but they don't want to give us the tools necessary to actually be interchangeable with druids/priests/shama ns.
We never said this. In fact we pretty regularly try and encourage you not to challenge our goals on the basis of specific mechanics or spells. ("X is a bad spell for Y, therefore clearly Blizzard has given up on their notion that we can do Y.")
We are trying to further banish the notion that you need X to raid, where X is anything other than "a good player." If you were earning your raid spot because nobody else had the powers that your class had, I would try to improve your personal contribution or find another group.
Q u o t e:
1) If Paladins lose their current standing as OP tank healers then they need to be reliable raid healers
2) To be a reliable raid healer we need to be able to raid heal in multiple situations
3) HH is not set up in such a way as to allow Paladins to heal in multiple situations
I would say it thusly:
1) If Paladins lose their current standing as OP tank healers then they need to be reliable raid healers
2) To be a reliable raid healers, we need to be reliable raid healers.
I don't think your point 2 and 3 follow from point 1.
Q u o t e:
Unless one of the Holy talents is 'you can now cast HH on any target <or on your beacon target> and increases the range by 10/20 yards and the healing done by 5/10%' then HH is just a hindrance for holy paladins.
Cast times, ranges and mana costs are technically a hindrance too, but healers seem to do okay anyway.
Again, it's fine to raise concerns. It's a bit premature to pronounce a spell dead on arrival, let alone an entire goal (specifically that paladins can raid heal better).
Q u o t e:
You should quote the whole entry GC -- if you read the 3 points and the rest of the entry, then it makes sense.
I did. I just don't buy the argument that if there are any limitations on the spell that it's therefore underpowered and likely useless.
On Tranquility
Q u o t e:
I think "Tranquility will be raid wide" is a different sentence completely unrelated to the Tree of Life stuff.
He meant this. Tranquility will always be raid wide, just because the concept of a "group" within the raid is kind of a strange one. What does that group refer to in the game? It's not distance for example. We'd like to do this with every spell.
On raid-wide heals
Q u o t e:
PoH has to be a tricky one to make raid-wide. If PoH became a smart raid-wide heal, then priests get a poor man's Chain Heal in addition to CoH/PoM, which might make priests trump all other healers for raid healing.
Right. I mentioned this in another thread today, but you have a few broad options: either PoH heals the 5 most injured folks (in which case it's a lot like Circle) or it heals the whole raid (in which case it's likely overpowered or not useful enough) or it has a longer cooldown to compensate for the previous (in which case it's a lot like Divine Hymn) or it heals the target and the 4 closest targets (in which case it's like old CoH).
On downranking and cast timers
Q u o t e:
I don't want to play a game situation where I sit back and wait, pausing for 2-5 seconds at a time before i take an action.
We don't want that either, and in the absence of a five second rule, it won't help you that much anyway. Instead, we want you to choose whether you use your GCD on a moderate heal, a huge heal or a fast heal. Today almost every GCD is spent on the fast heal because someone will die if you don't do that and your mana regeneration supports that play style.
Q u o t e:
Right, so we don't spend that 2-5 seconds waiting to start to cast, we spend it watching a slow efficient cast bar waiting to decide to cancel the cast if it's not needed. Fantastic!
Waiting is waiting, whether it's between casts or for the cast. At least when we wait between casts we can be mobile.
So you're arguing that anything with a reasonably long cast bar is either not fun or useless?
Q u o t e:
Cataclysm is basically just adding downranking back in. Moderate heal, Huge heal, Fast heal. Exactly the same model that many used when downranking was available. Quite funny, really. They removed downranking for whatever reason, and now it's just being added back in but with different spell names for the different ranks.
That's exactly what we're doing. If you've read many of my posts though, you'd know that whatever reason =
1) Downranking is the kind of thing you'd only learn from reading forums or having someone teach you. It's very non-intuitive.
2) Downranking allowed players to game the coefficients on lower ranked spells. Not only were they saving mana for smaller heals, but the heals actually weren't much smaller because the coefficient mattered more with a certain level of +healing than the flat points.
Critical healing and holy paladin mastery
Q u o t e:
My issue is with our Mastery stat (our third throughput option) being functionally tied to an already existing stat such that it will be hard to separate them should the need arise.
Q u o t e:
It doesn't refute the argument that having a mastery so closely tied to the stat crit will reduce the number of choices when it comes to paladin gearing.
I'm not sure I understand the logic here. Having larger crits makes crit chance attractive on gear, but I don't think the reverse is true. You won't be at a disadvantage if you have high crit and low mastery because you will just crit more often. You won't be at a disadvantage if you have low crit and high mastery because when you do crit, your heals will be larger. Crit and mastery do complement each other well and I can understand why it might be a problem if haste and Spirit weren't attractive stats so you were pigeon-holed into just crit + mastery gear, but those should both be very good stats.
(I'm ignoring the effects of Illumination, overhealing and the (specious) argument that "crit is inherently bad because it's RNG" to keep things simple, so let me know if any of those is key to understanding this.)
Q u o t e:
If at any point in the expansion crit is a poor stat for paladins, they have no third stat to retreat to.
I agree with this, but that's like saying that if at any point in the expansion Holy damage is a poor damage source for Retribution, they would have no other spell damage source to focus on. If paladins don't care about crit, then we have a problem. It doesn't matter at that point that they care more about crit than other healers. Disc priests care less about crit than they might because of Power Word: Shield, but that doesn't mean crit won't improve their healing.
So if you're arguing the flaw is that there is a risk to the paladin if crit isn't valuable, then I guess I see that. If you're arguing there is just an inherent flaw no matter what, then I'm not following you.
Q u o t e:
Well do you think there is a problem now? I would take more comfort in your words if critical strike hadn't been nerfed mid expansion and then our final tier of gear was itemized with crit on every piece.
I think there is a problem now because more throughput (in terms of bigger heals because of crits) is wasted on overhealing. Paladins rarely have trouble healing a single target to full. Their problem is not having enough GCDs to bring up everyone before the next round of damage happens again. That won't be the case in Cataclysm hopefully.
Q u o t e:
If I give it +1% crit chance its now a 125.5 average heal, if I give it +1% crit size instead, it will be a... 125.5 average heal.
They *feel* like the same stat. So if I'm look at gear with +Crit, +Mastery, it just looks like +A lot of Crit. If I see gear with +Crit, and + Haste, it looks like +Crit/Haste, if I see gear with +Mastery and +Haste, it looks like +Crit/Haste.
I can understand that argument to a point. At the same time, if you integrate things over a long time then most of our stats make you better at healing over time. I think you'd feel pretty differently is you swapped from say 1000 mastery rating to 1000 crit rating.
Q u o t e:
Increasing crit and mastery will be more effective than increasing either alone
I agree with that, and I further agree that it makes them both highly desirable. As long as it doesn't make other stats very undesirable then I don't see the fundamental flaw here.
Q u o t e:
If I were to rephrase the issue, I would say that what we need to watch for is a specific combination of secondary stats becoming mathematically superior to the point where we stack that gear at the expense of all else. As has been evident repeatedly throughout WotLK, one secondary stat combo or another tends to trump the rest. This is a highly numbers-dependent evaluation, however. While it is absolutely worth flagging, I don't think we can say yet whether it's a major issue.
Yeah, I agree with that. For a number of reasons (that I've gone into before), we allowed some stats to become much more valuable than competing stats that also occur on your gear. We're really trying to prevent this in Cataclysm. We're making changes including, but not limited to, letting hots and dots crit, asking healers to care about mana regen, getting rid of group buffs that improve hit, keeping combat rating from getting inflated, etc.
Warrior AoE TankingSome of you seem to be confusing intensity with diversity. It's easy to imagine a world where a class has one AE tool that works phenomenally well and a different class that has several AE tools, none of which actually allow them to tank worth a hoot. There seems to be some kind of logic train (wreck?) here that because some classes got abilities that might be useful when AE tanking that we are wrong / changed our minds / lying about how often you will be AE tanking in Cataclysm.
Our goals are that you won't be spending as much of your tanking time AE tanking in Cataclysm as you did in Lich King. A second goal is that when you are AE tanking, you should use different abilities than when you are single-target tanking. A third goal is that when you are AE tanking, you should use more than one (or maybe two) abilities. None of those seem contradictory.
If you want to challenge our goals as being unrealistic or dumb, then feel free. But we're seeing a lot of this inductive (specific to general) logic where a player tries to poke a hole in one ability and use that to mean our goals can't possibly be met.
Try one of these arguments instead:
1) I disagree with Blizzard putting more emphasis on crowd control and single-target damage.
2) I agree or am ambivalent about that goal, but I don't see how we'll get there because of X reason.
3) I agree or am ambivalent about that goal, but I don't see how Y ability will help realize that goal.
Q u o t e:
I choose #2
I already said why, but to reiterate:
X reason=We don't have tools beyond thunderclap, shockwave and cleave. And cleave is no longer off the global, which is a nerf to our aoe capability. How is this being addressed?
We could increase the damage of Thunder Clap and Shockwave if we needed to. I'm not convinced we'll need to, particularly in a world with the Vengeance concept. Warrior AE threat was generally fine in Naxxramas. It only started to slip in later tiers, and in comparison to (some) other tanks.
Q u o t e:
Also #3, how does Heroic Leap help realize that goal? It seems far too limited and situational to be of much use beyond an occasional pulling tactic when the stars align and mobs are close together & stunnable.
Not every new spell is there to help realize those goals. If we wanted to give warriors a new AE ability, we'd give them something either spammable or persistent. We're just not sure they need a new tool in that space. Any balance issue can be solved with number tweaking of existing tools.
Q u o t e:
i am ambivalent about that goal, but i dont see every fight in cataclysm never featuring staggered adds that will need to be tanked. i dont see how giving warriors nothing to fill in this hole in their design will improve their gameplay in those situations.
There will almost certainly be staggered adds sometimes. It won't be every encounter. In those situations you'll need to use your full tool box to handle them. Maybe you need to save Thunder Clap for a few seconds. Maybe the rogue and hunter help pull the adds to you. Maybe you Devastate and tab. Maybe you blow Challenging Shout. Maybe you blow Intimidating Shout until Thunder Clap has finished its cooldown. If we wanted you to always have an answer for every single add situation, then Thunder Clap would have no cooldown. That would make tanking easier for sure. Is making tanking easier really more fun? At what point is it so easy that you're just standing there getting beat on?
Q u o t e:
The problem is that your preview simply didn't provide enough information to instill confidence that warriors aren't going to be dealing with the same issues aoe tanking that we have now.
I don't think warriors have any AE issues now, except for two: some classes have to do less work to AE tank, and the threat generation doesn't scale with gear as well as it needs to. Again, we don't want to make tanking just hitting one button or a macro. It's not a matter of giving you an ability for any conceivable situation you might find yourself in. It's only a problem if you're horribly broken in those situations and I don't really think warriors are there. As I've said before, we like how warriors AE tank. It generally works. It didn't work when Tclap had a 4 target limit.
Do you really struggle for example in 5-player heroics? Did you struggle in Naxx? Did you wipe a lot on Ony whelps when a warrior tanked them?
Q u o t e:
Not everyone has to be exactly as good at everything as everyone else. Its ok for certain classes to have a bit more difficulty with something than another.
The warrior AoE model doesn't lend itself to staggered adds (well, it might, depending on cleave). But that is ok.
With some savvy skill use, and a minimum of support from the raid, the warrior can manage anyway.
Do they never design encounters where gap closers are helpful, because it would be unfair to the non-warriors/druids? I make use of charge, intercept, and intervene in raids quite a bit.
The gaps between thunderclap and shockwave aren't that difficult to deal with. I don't feel there is much reason to try to plug those gaps.
Yeah, this is kind of our feeling.
Q u o t e:
However, all of your comments suggest that the reason we won't be AE tanking is because we won't be able to take the damage, rather than not having the opportunity to AE tank. I distinctly remember the exact same logic used before WoTLK came out: "Players should be able to hold agro on the mobs, we want the real threat to be the mobs killing the tank"
Maybe I'm misremembering something, but the goal going into LK was that warriors should be able to AE tank rather than every group using paladins for trash, and that casters should be able to use their AE spells, otherwise what are they there for? We succeeded in both of those, but a little too well on the latter to the extent that anything with more than 1 mob became a job for Blizzard / Hurricane / Mind Sear, etc.
In Cataclysm, there will be more threat to the tank of dying if you try to just AE tank every pull. Likewise, AE damage won't be quite as awesome so that single targeting things will probably be a better strategy when there are say 3-5 adds. If it's a dozen twilight whelps, then sure, AE away.
Q u o t e:
This is an odd comment. The answer is No, but not because the warrior was sufficient. It's because the mobs happened to do so little damage that the DPS were able to tank them (or you had another tank with you).
But the goal is not "tank maintains aggro no matter what." The goal is the tank can control the situation enough for you to complete the content.
Your other arguments were that other tanks can AE better than warriors, which I agreed was a problem. That doesn't mean warriors need a new ability to fill the gaps though.
Q u o t e:
I'm sorry ghostcrawler, but the parts I underlined are ridiculous; many warriors reading it will shudder instinctively. You cannot save thunderclap on staggered adds or the initial wave is going to run rampant; we have to use it to get them on us so we can use shockwave (we almost never can use just shockwave because of it's wonky direction/range). On pretty much any aoe encounter in a raid, challenging shout=I just grabbed the boss in addition to the adds I wanted, or I just grabbed the other tank's adds too and now have waaaayyyyy to much stuff on me.
Then all you're saying here is "tanking is too hard," aren't you? Imagine the warrior was the only tank in the game. Would you be making these same claims? In an absolute sense, is AE tanking too hard? Or is it only relative to say paladins and druids (which again, might be a problem, but the solution isn't to make warrior AE tanking trivial)?
Q u o t e:
Asking for another AoE tool is just like asking TC to not have a cooldown from GC's PoV
Bingo.
I'm trying to separate a few different arguments here:
1) The paladin can tank better than I can.
2) I need another tool to tank.
3) AE tanking is too challenging.
All three are kind of getting munged up in this thread.
Q u o t e:
1) The Paladin and Bears (and possibly DKs) can all AoE tank better than I can.
2) I don't need another tool to tank; assuming other tank's AoE threat is being significantly nerfed (though the class previews seem to indicate the opposite is true).
3) AE tanking is not too challenging.
This was definitely my assumption. Some posters here seem to be arguing that AE tanking is too challenging and just needs to be made easier.
Q u o t e:
3) AE tanking is not challenging in certain circumstances, unless you look at it relative to the other tanking classes.
Then adding new tanking tools is probably not the right solution to that problem.
Q u o t e:
Don't you see GC that the above list IS the reason why this thread is playing out the way it is. As long as #1 is true, as far as aoe tanking goes, then some warrior tanks will agree with #2 and #3. If a paladin has to expend as much effort to aoe tank as a warrior then #2 is removed from the equation and number #3 becomes a separate debate (one that the designers of the game are at the discretion of setting the bar for).
I understand that is why it's playing out, but from the perspective of a designer trying to fix problems with the game, it doesn't help to have issues that are so conflated. If nerfing paladin AE tanking threat or buffing warrior AE tanking threat fixes the problem, then great. It AE tanking is too challenging for warriors even in that world, then we need to consider other options.
Other
Zarhym -- Worgen females
Q u o t e:
Seriously, how can you release female versions of the Goblin, and not the female version of the Worgen?
Because we're not ready to release a female worgen model yet...
The answer has been right in front of you this whole time! Logistics!
Slorkuz -- Best Cataclysm BG classHmm, I'd say it's a little bit early to start predicting 'best and worst' classes for Cataclysm just yet, but perhaps it could be cool to talk a little bit about what class changes (that have been announced so far) that you are looking forward to the most?
On a sidenote, Terogaxu hits the nail pretty spot on with his statement about playing what you enjoy the most being the "best" class for you!
On a sidenote, Terogaxu hits the nail pretty spot on with his statement about playing what you enjoy the most being the "best" class for you!
AncilornThis post is immensely well written and very worthy of some responses, so here goes...
We here at Blizzard Entertainment are here to provide entertainment. It's in our name, and it's what we do. We hope we do it quite well! The feedback we receive shows we're doing an ok job of it. :)
Q u o t e:
The main issue, and to my mind the most prominent and worrying, is the recent addition of "pay to use" mounts and pets: the celestial mount, the pet LK, and so on. Now I fully support paying for addons, the monthly fee and the game itself. The amount of work that has gone into the game itself, the post-addon content (usually the large patches), and the cost of maintaining such a game and the servers account for the conventional costs charged. However, to add a fee for exclusive digital content I definitely do not agree with. Yes charging for server changes, race and, character changes I can appreciate as a way to regulate what should be a rare, yet occasionally helpful, change. However "in game content", in my opinion, should be paid for exclusively in game. We all know of the "free to play" MMORPGs, making their money from selling gold, armour or similar character boosts – this seems uncomfortably close to blizzard's digital store. Yes, nothing sold is going to change your character's performance, but it should not cost cold, hard cash to get any in-game item. A "cool" item should be regulated by in game accomplishments, be it downing a boss on hard mode, a rare drop, PvP accomplishments, or even a stupidly long and pointless quest only a minority would attempt. Real-world money seems to add a level of segregation, and begins to remove the "anything that is possible in-game can be done by anyone" aspect. The same is true of the KT pet, and any other in-game item only available through the blizzard store.
It's clear that players enjoy (find entertainment from) gaining aesthetic items, such as the mount or the pets, by both earning them in-game and through an on-line purchase. If they deem the purchase of a vanity item like this valuable to them, then we'll provide them. Some of you feel it absurd that someone would want to purchase an item that serves no purpose other than to look great, and that's fine - we understand that - and we're in no way making them mandatory. They offer no in-game benefit other than simply looking nice. :) If you're one of those who dislike the idea of these items, then having one run past you or stood beside you shouldn't impact your game play in any way, you can just 'tut' and move on should you so wish, or just ignore them. They're enjoying their new riding experience (in the case of the mount) and you're there with an extra 20 bucks in your pocket. Each to their own really. One thing is certain, we want to avoid selling something that offers a direct advantage in-game, and we will continue to ensure this is the case.
This one is something where we can agree to disagree, I think. Achievements are not always something that fit the dictionary definition of an 'achievement' - such as 'Grouping with X players through the LFD tool' - but we stuck with the name 'Achievements' over 'Achievements and other notable things that aren't really achievements but an indication of what a character has done in their time'. The former rolls of the tongue much better. ;-) Ok, so I'm sure there are shorter ways to say that, but Achievements are what they're called in the various gaming platforms, and it's what people can relate to.
Q u o t e:
Achievements. Like marmite, some people are in love, some people have a burning hatred, but we can all agree they are here to stay. While I am in the latter group, I am also able to recognise that they are beneficial to WoW as a game, and a lot of people take great pleasure in, well, achievement whoring. However, I believe achievements should be as the name suggests; something notable you have achieved. Be it a milestone in honourable kills, a hard mode boss kill, something "pointless" to the less achievement focused of us (such as collecting a number of mounts/tabards/pets, raising an obscure rep, the list can go on). However, what I do not recognise as a worthy achievement is "earning any variety of emblem", or "grouping with 10 random players". I mean honestly, is getting boosted through a dungeon really something you've achieved? Using the normal tool to run a few dungeons, is that an achievement? It feels a little like getting an achievement for "washing the dishes". Why not add "used jump" or "turned left" to the achievement list. If it's supposed to help players learn the WoW world, where's my achievement for "been reported for leeching AV" and "trolled 5 noobs on trade"? Keep achievements as something meaningful in the game, giving me a cookie and a clap for picking my nose feels insulting.
Ads are something that are often seen as a point of controversy. We're always reviewing how ads should be handled within the forums.
Q u o t e:
A minor point, advertising on the WoW website. Seriously? While the type of adverts have seemed to improve from the "random unrelated blatant-sellout-for-revenue" adverts to the "could-possibly-be-convinced-blizzard-is-helping-a-small-WoW-related-company-in-an-altruistic-manner" (wow am I glad I don't have to say that) type of adverts, the fact that it's still a support website for our well funded game being exploited for revenue troubles me. While it is a large step (possibly a leap) away from in-game advertising, it is still wrong for the same reasons. As with the first issue, it reeks of tackiness and unprofessionalism. The image that comes to mind is of a car manufacturer sticking adverts over the interior of my brand new car.
This sentence alone is impacting enough. :) Feedback, however large or small, positive or negative, targeted or otherwise, is valuable stuff, and we love it. Thanks!
Q u o t e:
Anyway, despite the rant, I am still happy with the direction WoW has taken in WoTLK. I could write just as long a post thanking the developers (and perhaps less recognised contributors) for combining such skill and passion in creating a wonderful game. However, that may have to come another day.
Filed under: News items, The Daily Blues
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Rob Apr 20th 2010 11:43AM
There is one mount you can buy from the online store. There are, what, 100 mounts you can obtain in-game through some sort of effort (bgs, various grinds).
I wouldn't say the sky is falling.
Hal Apr 20th 2010 11:50AM
Rob, no one is saying the sky is falling. Well, okay, maybe some people are, but I'm not. What I am saying, however, is that there's a legitimate concern that this could become a pattern moving forward: Cool new mounts/pets are purchased, re-colored old models are the things you get in-game.
And I'm saying this because it would be reassuring to have Blizzard address this concern.
MusedMoose Apr 20th 2010 7:42AM
I've realized something about the sparkly horse mounts, and Ancilorn's post helped me put it into words. Here goes:
They're not impressive. Graphically, yes; it's clear that Blizz's graphics people put a lot of work into them and they look very, very nice. But when I see someone with one, I just kind of shrug. It's not like a mount, like the Netherdrake or similar, that shows someone really dedicated themselves to a long rep grind and now has the mount to show it. It's not like the Engineering mounts, which show that someone was willing to both put in the time to level the profession and to gain the very costly materials. It's not even like a title, like "the Kingslayer" or "the Immortal", that shows someone put in the work required for that.
It's just like any other mount, really, just more expensive. And this puts me firmly in the "meh" category. *shrug*
dbuzzzy Apr 20th 2010 9:48AM
"It's clear that players enjoy (find entertainment from) gaining aesthetic items, such as the mount or the pets, by both earning them in-game and through an on-line purchase."
It actually isn't clear to me that players enjoy buying items that are exclusive to an on-line store. How can they possibly validate this claim when players have no choice over how they collect the item?
Players may actually hate gaining these items through the on-line store, but because it is the only way for them to get this "cool new mount" they do it. I won't dispute that players enjoy gaining the item, but he is saying they enjoy doing it through the store. There is no way to prove that when the items are exclusive to the store.
Daethar Apr 20th 2010 10:31AM
Exactly correct. With the amount of people going nuts for the mounts during holidays, even if they made obtaining the mount require an insanely long quest chain but be a guaranteed thing (minimal RNG), you know EVERYONE would be dropping everything else in-game to go get it.
styopa Apr 20th 2010 10:37AM
My objection to cash-for-loots is that it introduces at least the appearance of conflict-of-interest for Blizzard: certainly the mount and the pet are trivial, and only esthetic. But much of this game is ABOUT esthetics. I mean, we're not playing it in ASCII...the look of our characters, the look of the world, etc - that's what we're paying for, as much as the ability to kill big imaginary dragons to get phat loot that makes us able to kill tougher imaginary dragons. Now that they are selling esthetic 'opportunities', we have to TRUST that they will continue to allow cool-but-meaningless-stuff (dances, new hairstyles, shirts, overcloaks, different looking pets, mounts, etc.) into the game for fun, and not see them invariably as revenue streams. And frankly, as good a track record as Blizzard has, frankly nobody trusts corporations. Look at it this way...they designed a cool celestial steed. Neat! If Blizz had a firm stand against selling such items for cash, we'd have seen that as a rare mount or achievement in some later bossfight or something. For free; perhaps hard to get, perhaps impossibly rare, but free. But now it's IMPOSSIBLE for someone to get it UNLESS they pony (get it?) up the cash.
Rubitard Apr 20th 2010 11:04AM
from GC: What we want to avoid: "Well, we don't have our paladin tonight to heal the tank, so let's call the raid."
One thing the dev team at Blizz seems to forget is that the player base at large will latch on to one and only one best way of doing anything (raid healing or tanking, etc.) and shun everything else. No matter how much Blizz adjusts the classes, if Elitist Jerks posts some math stating Pally healers are a tick below Priests, then you can bet the the raiding community at large will translate that to mean, "All we have is a Pally healer? I'm out. They're not the absolute best choice possible, so it's not worth doing."
Rob Apr 20th 2010 11:47AM
I'm sure some people would do that, those who can't actually make decisions for themselves. For me, when I put together raids, my usual priority is to fill them with most people; with a second priority on filling them with optimal people. Now, I wouldn't go do a raid with 8 melee, that doesn't work. And 2 holy palys and a disc priest doesn't really work. I'm 100% certain that some people will put together guilds saying we need one of X and two of class Y. For me, I'm much more casual; i take the skilled players first then worry about raid comp second. Its important to keep in mind that there is no right approach, everyone can do something differently and still down bosses.
Leorad Apr 20th 2010 11:51AM
I'm not sure this is entirely accurate. I mean, of course the best practice/best in slot/best X/best Y part will always be hashed out by the elite players and competitors, but those people don't make up the majority of the player base.
Anecdotally, my guild (a casual raid guild), is about halfway through 10m ICC content with "sub-optimal" tank healers, melee dps specs/classes, caster spec/classes, etc. I suppose we already subscribe to "bring the player" model of Cataclysm and while we don't top the meters we rarely have trouble progressing with a reasonable amount of practice/attempts on bosses and their mechanics.
I'm getting off track. You are correct that many people will go for 9856 dps over 9853 dps, or examples just like that, but I'm not convinced that it will be a MAJORITY based on the accessibility of raiding to the casual player
p.o.pixels Apr 20th 2010 12:15PM
A lot of the complaints of Warrior vs Everyone Else tanking seems to be off of some concern about AOE tanking. What's actually more of a concern is that every other tanking class starts their tanking rotation from full.
Warriors start from a dead stop and hope to catch up.
Paladins have a full mana bar and can lay down consecrate to make sure things start on the right foot.
Druids start off with the option to drop a heal on themselves and pop into bearform with rage already in place (thereby having aggro from the heal and rage to work with).
Deathknights can lay down their aoe, and don't need to be hit a few times before using their abilities.
Warriors have one option to build rage before combat starts, but is on such a long cooldown that it isn't available again if there is a pause or more waves after the first. If a warrior is dealing with staggered mobs, you have to hope that first one hits you and you don't blow all your rage trying to keep it on you, leaving you with no way to gather the other mobs without using big cooldowns for each incoming critter. There is no static ground effect, and there is no pre-emptive ability to bring things to us that isn't on such a long cooldown that we're left unprepared for the next encounter.
It is really less about AOE or spamming and more about who is going to hit the ground running vs who is standing there slamming buttons for which they do not have rage, yet.
Quark1020 Apr 20th 2010 1:13PM
While this is true, warriors do have their charge ability. which gives them 15 rage before any talent or glyph changes. Just enough to toss a shock wave, or a thunderclap after the warrior gets a swing in or gets smacked.
Essentially, it comes down to player skill, both on the part of the warrior tank AND the players in their group. Its just that warrior tanking take a bit of practice, compared to paladins and death knights who can just toss their consecrates and DnD's without worry.
AlmtyBob Apr 20th 2010 2:10PM
My main is warrior tank, I have a decently geared DK tank, and I'm working on leveling my pally tank. I think as it stands right now warriors have the single best playstyle compared to the other tanks. As warriors we have a very large and complex (in a good way) toolbox for dealing with both threat and survivability. We actually get to make decisions! Yes, staggered pulls can be tough but I like to think that most tanks became tanks because they were looking for a bigger challenge.
People just need to get over it. Blizzard sees the problem with the AoE fests and they're working on it. Warriors don't need their jobs to be easier, paladins and DKs need to make more decisions and that will happen in Cataclysm.
All this talk about healers needing to watch their mana and the rebirth of CC make me think we're going to get the best of a mix between mid-late BC and early WoTLK. I can't wait.
clundgren Apr 20th 2010 3:53PM
I seldom find that I have to struggle with not having enough rage on my prot warrior to do what I need to do at the start of fights. It happens, but about as often as I struggle with my prot paladin offspec because I have run low on mana late in fights.
Plus, I find the warrior much more fun to tank with. My key prot paladin cooldown (ardent defender) is cool but automatic; often, I wish it hadn't procced just then because I was going to be fine and really needed to save it. I prefer the much more controlled style of play on my warrior.
The paladin is easier but less flexible, IMO.
Desmentia Apr 20th 2010 2:48PM
"...anything with more than 1 mob is a job for Mind Sear."
Ghostcrawler thinks you use Mind Sear on 2 mobs.
Iser Apr 20th 2010 3:17PM
"1) Downranking is the kind of thing you'd only learn from reading forums or having someone teach you. It's very non-intuitive. "
Uhhh no, what are we morons?
gamerunknown Apr 20th 2010 11:59PM
"Ghostcrawler thinks you use Mind Sear on 2 mobs."
Well, its a joke: he's not indicating that mind searing a mob in order to only damage one other one will be more dps than dotting both and dpsing one, he's commenting on the fact that players don't have to decide when confronted with a group of mobs whether to AoE or not, they instinctively do it.
As for downranking being instinctive: perhaps I was a moron, but I started raiding in tBC with only a loose grasp of what downranking was. I played a lot more casually back then and only had indications from the forums and from trade chat what it was and had no clue what the spell coefficients were. Perhaps if you are the type to document the average heal of each rank with a set amount of spellpower you'd be able to grasp which heal was most efficient in any given scenario and have about 50 different keybindings for a single boss encounter.
Ghostcrawler also seems to downplay the effect of RNG. Yes, it makes the game more interesting, they've reiterated this point many times. It requires skill to accommodate. But attempting to accommodate it may lead to a worse gameplay mechanic than whack a mole. There are specifically two areas I'm worried about: avoidance and crit healing. If I have the luxury of tank healing as a holy priest, I try to the best of my ability to time a greater heal so that the next swing will cause a health deficit which will be large enough that a critical greater heal will fill the health pool. For some bosses a tank could get gibbed within the space of a greater heal so I don't attempt that. But if we apply this model to Cataclysm, it would be silly to use anything other than greater heal on a tank, or more likely, holy light, if the boss wont be able to kill a tank within the space of it being cast, as its simply more efficient. If a boss can kill a tank which is on full hp before a crit holy light can land, then it will be too gamey to try and use. The analogue is a rogue's Cloak of Shadows: you rely on it to work and when it doesn't, you've probably got a mess on your hands.
The only real way I can see this working is if it's something like Razuvious in Naxx: tanks need to use cooldowns during the high damage phase and healers need to use big heals, without a proliferation of healers big heals keep the tanks health stable. If you ignore the tanks for a while their health dips low and without HoTs running the boss may do 5k dps while heals do 4.5k hps. Small heals and AoE heals keep up the rest of the raid. If someone gets hit by a whammy of raid damage then fast heals might be necessary before an aura. Another good example may be a Koralon, where you could toss a HoT off on a dps standing in the fire, then if they're not on full health before the flame breath, top 'em up with a fast heal. Or quickly healing a dps to full before a decimate. Perhaps each encounter will go through phases where each heal becomes more viable, like a temporary attack speed buff on boss (fast, inefficient heals), or slower speed and harder hitting (big tank heals), or less damage in general but less damage taken by boss (actively regain mana).
gamerunknown Apr 21st 2010 12:10AM
Ah, sorry for the triple post but I wanted to elaborate on why I feel avoidance is a bad RNG stat: it penalises predictive healing. If you can assume that the next swing will bring a tank dangerously low and cast for the most efficient heal assuming you crit, if the tank dodges and you crit (say with improved crit from mastery) and you get something like 50% overheal your mana efficient spell is worse off than the fast, inefficient spell. This ties in with what the person at the beginning about being bored with spells with long cast times:
/cast holy light
*dodge*
/stopcasting
/cast holy light
*priest shield*
/stopcasting
/cast holy light
*parry*
/stopcasting
I know healing could very well be more engaging and strategic and I would looove for active mana regeneration: say shadowfiend having a 1 minute cooldown, lasting 10 seconds and working in an "eye of the beast" fashion where you have to choose a group mana regen + higher damage from sfiend vs. personal mana regen and lower damage ability. It just seems that it could go wrong and you'd have tank healers either be a god send or afk half a battle.
Renkonel Apr 21st 2010 3:09AM
I AoE tank just fine on my warrior and can only be outdone in doing so by a paladin. Druids and Dks don't even come close to my threat when it comes to AoE tanking.
As for single target tanking, no class can touch my warrior. Aside from a warrior tank I also have a DK tank and I got to say its not only soo much easier to tank on my warrior, I also put out more threat.