World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King Breaking News for the Weekend – Nov. 3rd

This is massive. There’s a lot of PVP news as well as developmental work going on in Wrath of the Lich King being reported. Some major game changes too, the list is pretty long so just check for the colors and scroll through for keynote you’re interested in.

• Red: PVP
• Green: PVE
• Yellow: General

Patch 3.0.3 release date
The plan is to release 3.0.3 before Lich King goes live. I think you can imagine the problems we’d have if that didn’t happen. It’s possible there will be some kind of last minute mega bug that stops us in our tracks, but I don’t know of one at the moment. (src)

Class balancing and Arenas in WotLK
We’ve handled class balance adjustments differently over the course of the game. We used to do the big passes where every patch was someone’s turn to get overhauled. On the plus side, players really looked forward to these and it did build a lot of excitement. On the down side, we felt like we needed to tweak classes that in our estimate didn’t really need a lot of tweaking. It also took so long to get back to the earlier reviewed classes again that new balance problems had crept up.

We didn’t make a lot of changes during BC. In part the whole concept of Arenas was new to us and we didn’t want to suddenly nerf someone massively in the middle of a season. We also changed some specs quite a bit, really getting specs like Prot paladin and Shadow priest into raids for the first time. We knew it would take some time for players to adjust. You always have to be careful making adjustments. Even if we did nothing, the game would change over time because the community would figure out new rotations, new ways to use gear, and new responses in PvP. It’s hard sometimes to predict when we really need to intervene or when players will just adapt.

I will say that we realize the Arena design, while overall a positive experience, has put class balance under a powerful microscope, and we’re not sure that’s in the best interest of the game. We also made some pretty dramatic changes to classes as well as combat mechanics, so when problems arise, we do need to be able to respond to them.

I do think you will see classes adjusted more frequently than occured in the past. There will be a lot of tweaking shortly after LK ships, but still substantial changes even beyond that. Some will be us responding to the state of the game and some will just be new things we want to try or new solutions to old problems or just things we can finally get around to taking a look at. (src)

Raiding in WotLK
I think it’s too early to say. We just haven’t gotten to that content yet. Everything that follows beyond this point is just my random brain dumping and not our official stance:

• Raiding is easy at the moment. Even Naxx will be pretty easy. Part of that is because we thought Karazhan, Gruul and Magtheridon were too steep a jump in difficulty from the heroics. Part of that is because most of the Naxx encounters are well-understood.
• You will not be able to AE tank and AE burn down every encounter in Lich King like we’re all doing now in Hyjal and Sunwell.
• Very few players experienced Sunwell pre-nerf.
• On the other hand, those that did were generally very complimentary of the encounters. Despite the difficulty, people had fun.
• No matter how difficult we make content, very hardcore groups will probably still finish it quickly. In other words, we can’t make “insanely difficult” the barrier that keeps a boss alive for months.
• It’s probably okay if some content is only seen by a few players. It just amps up the epic quotient of those fights. Everyone knew who Ragnaros was, even if they hadn’t been able to beat him.
• Obviously the preceeding is a very slippery slope and it’s easy to make content too difficult or too easy.
• Part of the reason Sunwell was difficult was it mandated raid stacking. The buff / debuff system has changed so much that we don’t anticipate that happening again the same way.
• We really like optional objectives that let skilled groups really test their mettle (and then show off about it). I’m talking about things like the 45-min Baron run, ZA bear run, and Chamber of the Aspects with all drakes up. Does this mean Arthas will be doable by many groups but the uber mode to beat him will be 10x as hard and offer better loot? We’re just not there yet. (src)

Additional items in the currency frame
We wanted to evaluate the new feature before we converted everything over. Consider, for example, that there is no way to ever delete currency. Once those items go in, they are going to be there forever, even if you consider them irrelevant junk. Now we could choose to add a means to delete currency — that’s what I mean by evaluating the feature. (src)

Free Character Moves – 10/28 to 11/4 (Update)
The following set of Free Character Moves realms have been taken down ahead of time due to transfer goals being met. We will continue to watch all of the realms and make further transfers available as needed.

• Source B (PvE) – Zul’jin, Area 52, Medivh, Thrall, Doomhammer
• Destination B (PvE) – Terokkar (src)

PvP – Crowd Control spell reduced to 10 seconds
We made a pass to get all of the CC or movement impairing effects down to the standard 10 sec duration in PvP. There are still a few exceptions. Sorry I didn’t pre-announce that one. I don’t always know when something is going out the door. (src)

Mortal Strike debuff
The Mortal Strike debuff is a tricky one. We do realize how potent it is in Arenas and we have used it on occasion to give classes or specs a good role in Arenas. But then recently we stopped and asked ourself where we were going with MS. If Ret and Enhancement and Feral and whoever ends up with MS, what’s the point really? Shouldn’t we just start you in Arenas with healing at 50% and be done with it? This is a topic we’re thinking a lot about. (src)

200% damage spell crits talents
We don’t think 200% spell crits need to be baseline for most classes. They make some really good talents and if we pulled those away, you might be left with less interesting talents to choose.

We do think it’s a problem that some specs don’t have access to those talents though. (src)

Achievement Known Issue: A Simple Re-Quest
There is currently an issue with “A Simple Re-Quest”. The achievement has a bug that will sometimes cause it to reset if you enter a Cross-Realm Battleground. We have a fix in place for this that will go live with patch 3.0.3 (soon). In the meantime, if you absolutely want this achievement, the best thing to do is to not enter a BG while working on it. Many apologies. (src)

Achievement – Fish Caught
Currently, 1000 fish is the extend of the achievement. But we can definitely add more in a patch. (src)

51-Points talents
I think there is some truth there. In most cases they were trying to fill a niche, and depending on the spec, that niche might be very small. Some of the mechanics are unusual just because we wanted something players hadn’t already seen a thousand times in the game.

If there is anything we could do differently, I think that some of the talents are too weighted towards PvP or in some cases PvE. It’s hard to make an ability that can do both well without being OP, but if it can only do one, then players only focused on one aspect of the game end up not liking it. (src)

New class forums
I think there is a lot of QQ at the moment, but I also think players are getting used to the idea of a new forum and figuring out how it’s going to work.

Usually what happens is the players who say uninformed or dare I say dumb things get ignored or shouted down. Eventually, it’s still our hope that we can foster some intelligent discussion about the things that are working and not working in the current class balance.

That is going to take some e.g. mages posting on warrior concerns, and the warriors getting comfortable with that happening.

There is a lot of bad behavior to unlearn, but I remain optimistic. The tanking and healing forums are already off to a good start, in part because those specs are typically not trying to kill each other in PvP settings, in part because they aren’t competing quite as much for raid spots, and in part because there are just more specs that do dps. (src)

Dungeon Itemization
There are still pieces which are more appropriate for one class or spec than another. Some of the changes we made, such as spell power, will blur the lines slightly more. Our goal with that was more to help say an undergeared paladin get healing gear or an undergeared warlock be able to benefit from the “healing” cloth rather than just sharding it.

I’ve played a priest enough (I’ve played every class) to know that it can be frustrating when a paladin wants to roll on a piece of cloth, but most of the time the raid leaders I have run with tend to let the cloth-wearers get first dibs. I agree that there is a big social aspect to loot distribution. To some extent, that is by design. (src)

Gold Transfer Limit Increased

In preparation for the upcoming launch of Wrath of the Lich King, we will be increasing the gold limit for paid character transfers from 10,000 to 20,000 gold. Players who wish to transfer a level-70 (or higher) character carrying up to 20,000 gold will be able to do so starting Tuesday, November 4, after weekly scheduled maintenance is completed.

Please keep in mind that all other transfer-eligibility requirements, restrictions, and policies remain the same. The new gold limit also applies to free character moves (when offered). For more information, please visit our Paid Character Transfer FAQ (http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=20558&categoryId=2317&parentCategoryId=&pageNumber=1) (src)

Glyphs to remove knockback effects on some abilities
We are considering glyphs that will allow players to remove the knockback from Typhoon, Thunderstorm and Blast Wave in return for some other benefit, such as more damage or a cooldown reduction. You could then use these glyphs when raiding and not make the tanks mad. (src)

Developers decision making process
We do very extensive testing on all aspects of combat balance. Remember, as a large company we have access to testing capabilities far beyond that of the average player. As developers of the game, we also have access to a large number of tools that we don’t make public.

I mention Patchwerk a lot because raiders understand that he is a fight where most of the raid takes no damage and there are no adds or movement issues. It is a very straight-forward fight. “Patchwerk” is shorthand for a tank and spank fight. But he is not a test case for every possible encounter in the game, nor do we use him as such.

The designers are generally very good at playing a variety of classes. You pretty much have to be to get hired here. We also spend a lot more time with the game than many players are capable of doing, and can look up numbers or gather data that most players have to estimate or guess at. All of this experience probably puts us in the upper percentiles of player skill. Nevertheless, we don’t pretend to be the best players in the world in all aspects of WoW, nor do I think that is necessary to do our jobs. We do employ experts on all classes in both PvE and PvP and as a reality check to our own testing, we are also in contact with expert players of the classes throughout the world. We also read this forum and others just to make sure players are experiencing the same thing we’re seeing.

I think sometimes there is a misperception from players that we read the forums all day and when we see someone saying “X is too good” we nerf it and when “Y is too bad” we buff it. Forum feedback, while very helpful, is but a small percentage of our actual testing paradigm. (So is personal experience of that matter.)

We do make mistakes sometimes, whether because of an undetected bug, or players falling into different spell rotations or gear that we predict, or a number of other reasons. But you generally don’t need to worry that e.g. we forgot to test say paladins on non-undead targets. (src)

Class forums staying along with new forums
We have decided that the class forums will stay along with the new role-based forums. To be clear, the primary purpose of the class forums will be for players to present information to other players. The developers will not have a large presence there except to moderate. If you want to discuss class balance, this is the place.

If you want to discuss optimal dps rotations, try and decide on a talent spec, or ask someone what gear you should be using at level 70, class forums work great for that. If you start a long thread in the class forums about how your class is the weakest on in the game or how you can’t beat mages in PvP, those threads will probably get locked or deleted. Those discussions belong here where you will have to contend with other players who just might disagree (as well as the blues). (src)

Reasons behind the changes to forums
We’re still evaluating what we like and don’t like about the new structure. We did think it was time to change the forums though. It was becoming clear even players didn’t hold the content on them in high regard. There is definitely a benefit in having players communicate with each other, particularly on broad topics and particularly on issues of class balance. We had way, way too many (even on the beta forums) threads that turned into pity parties about who was the worst class.

I don’t think uninformed players of other classes will need to chime in on topics of no interest or concern to them (such as how to maximize warlock dps) any more than they do now. On the other hand, players do stand to learn something about other classes. We don’t think there was anything magical about the way the forums were structured before. There are dozens of other ways you could set them up. It’s the quality of the individual threads that ultimately matters.

WoW is several years old and just as with the game itself, we don’t want the forums to stagnate. (src)

Healer Boredom
One of the things we hear a lot from disaffected healers is they felt like they were playing the UI and not the game. Healers are notorious for standing in fires or whatever because they aren’t even looking at the battlefield much of the time.

Here are some random thoughts on the issue:

If everyone threw larger heals more rarely (and damage input matched) you could look away from the UI more often. We can’t just increase healing range without also increasing the range at which the boss can hit you.
Nameplates (if refined) could have a lot of potential for combining UI with the game wold more effectively.
Integrating things into the base WoW UI such as out-of-range indicators, better debuff indicators, or heals from other about to land on a target might make healers be less dependent on mobs. (src)

Tanking too easy in its current state
I do agree that everything is easier right now at 70. But keep in mind these 3 things coming up at 80:

– Bosses have more armor. That is going to affect the threat generation, particularly of warriors and bears.
– A lot of groups are AE tanking and burning down groups. It’s fun, but at higher levels the risk you’re going to take is that those groups kill you.
– Threat is easy to manage now, and not too bad in Naxx. Naxx was designed to be more of an introduction to raiding. It won’t stay that easy. I wouldn’t expect a lot of Void Walker-style competitions to stay on top of threat meters compared to other tanks, but you might have to worry about the dps’rs catching up to you at some point. (src)

DPS Balance in PvE
Pure classes should be able to out dps hybrid classes by a small margin. However, hybrid classes should be able to be a lot closer than they were in BC, and depending on the skill, gear and encounter involved, will sometimes beat the pure dps classes.

For purposes of this discussion, pure = mage, warlock, hunter, rogue. These are the classes that cannot spec into healing or tanking roles. I don’t want to get too far down into what that margin should be, because then players return with a WWS parse saying “See, the mage beat me. You said we would be competitive.”

I’m not saying the difference is only 1%, but even if it was, just look at how many players get freaked out about something that could increase or decrease their sustained dps by 1%. If your group doesn’t notice a difference when it runs with all hybrids, then chances are you have e.g. awesome shamans and really cruddy mages. That’s cool. If you can still kill the boss, you’re golden. (src)

Post expansion PvP balance
I’m not going to promise that we will automatically buff any class that can’t obtain X arena rating in the first season. That takes all of the onus off of the community and makes the assumption that strategies and tactics never evolve, which they do. But we will make balance changes for PvP purposes after LK ships. Absolutely. (src)

The logic behind the revamp of Hybrid classes
Our logic worked out like this:

1) Buffs are breaking the game. There are many examples you could insert here, but here are a few:
– Ret paladins can’t get into the melee group because of all the buffers in there.
– Stacking shamans for Bloodlust rotations.
– Stacking Shadow Priests so mana conservation would be irrelevant.
– Mages getting shut out of raids, in part because it was better to bring yet another lock to benefit from Curse of Shadows.
2) We decided to consolidate buffs such that similar ones would not stack, but we extended the effects to raid wide.
3) Thus, in a 25-player raid, you need far fewer than 25 players to get the buffs you need, allowing you to fill those remaining slots with who you want.
4) Without the benefits of those buffs, those remaining slots would most likely just go to pure dps classes. Shamans, for example, might go from 5 per raid to 1 (or 1 death knight instead).
5) So we buffed hybrid dps a lot.
6) But we knew at the other extreme that pure dps classes risked getting shut out of raids if hybrids could do their damage.
7) So we made sure the pure classes could still do superior dps given similar skill and gear. We wanted you to risk having lower dps if you brought all hybrids.

We don’t go into a lot of detail about how much higher or lower certain classes should be, because we noticed that players respond to this by posting WWS parses that shows their class in the #10 spot and get all bent out of shape about it (and totally ignoring the bit about equal gear or skill).

The net result is that hybrid dps is much higher, but not as high as pure classes. If you are an awesome hybrid player, then you will sometimes top the damage meters depending on your gear, skill and the specific encounter. But you probably won’t do it as much as a rogue, mage, warlock or hunter (again depending on their skill).

I know the edge here sometimes seems fuzzy. It is. WoW’s combat system is pretty complicated and hard and fast rules can only get you so far. But that is the basic model in very simple terms. (src)