World of Warcraft Updates
Tue, 08/25/2009 - 21:30 — Administrator
Quote from Blizzard staff
Stats simplification
What we were finding is that in many cases things had just become so complicated that players were not making intelligent decisions based on their knowledge of how various stats benefited them. That sounds like what you wanted to have happened, but it really wasn't. Instead players would pull up a BiS list, or plug the item into a spreadsheet. If the answer was "upgrade" they equipped the item. We could pretty much just give the items a name and art and make all the stats not displayed.
If you were one of those players who picked up a piece and understood how armor pen vs. attack power benefited you or whether defense was still worth collecting after you had hit crit immunity, then you were in the minority. Hopefully we can get back to a system where eyeballing an item's stats has some chance of being right. (Source)
Guild Leveling System
Guild advancement is based on the performance of the top 20 producers within the guild. If you have a small guild of 20 (or less), then every person's contributions will count.
[...] If you have some down days, it's not going to affect the guild progress adversely. If you have great days, you'll be up at the top. Keep in mind, this is a great way to not penalize large guilds for having a lot of members and it's also a great way for small guilds to not feel as if they need to mass recruit to keep up with the larger guilds both. (Source)
No new classes for Draeneis
We didn't set out to slight the draenei. As I said on the first panel, we just didn't think any of the missing classes fit them.
[...] While we picked some race/class combinations that were on the edgier side of things, that does not give credence to all potential race/class combinations. Draenei have a very well-rounded complement of class selections as it is, and none of the remaining classes are where we want to take the story at this time. (Source)
Terrain changes in old zones
The terrain is not guaranteed to change in every zone, many zones are likely going to stay the same terrain-wise but the questing will get the clean up. (Source)
Reforging
It's too early to go into a lot of detail on the new features, but the basic idea here was to make an undesirable drop possibly more desirable. It still shouldn't compete with gear that is actually itemized for you.
As an example, letting someone turn stamina into a dps stat is something we'd be unlikely to do (or at least impose a lot of restrictions) since that lets you turn an undesirable stat for most characters into something good.
Think of reforging more as a consolation prize or as a way to work around things like hit caps, and not the kind of thing that clever players are going to be able to use to vastly min max their character power. (Source)
Leveling easier in low level zones after the revamp
Yes, there are technically fewer brand new zones and fewer levels to level up through - but - in return for this there is a much cleaner leveling experience from start to finish and many other things. Think of it like this, would you rather have this cleaner leveling system, the guild leveling system, and the new path of the titans max-level progression system or more zones/dungeons to level up through?
We want to hear your thoughts on things especially since we are doing something very different this expansion, but if things don't become constructive the thread will be locked.
Cleaner leveling system? Are you referring to how the zones are being redone (i.e. Lordaeron zone level revamp)?
Yes. The new system will avoid requiring you to run back and forth between continents to find the right quests to do. Instead there will be a natural flow all the way through.
Also, are you guys going to increase the speed of leveling again, or is that remaining constant?
Hard to say, just making the system flow better will probably speed it up, but I am not sure that the actual number of experience points needed will change.
And with that in mind, lets say I roll an undead. What incentive do we have to explore say, Kalimdor? If I am a newbie starting out, and I can do everything by skipping along zone to zone in sight of the Undercity, doesn't that kinda kill the whole "big world" feel?
This goes into the "your choice" category. Would you prefer to hit all the zones in Eastern Kingdoms like Arathi Highlands and both of the Plaguelands or swing over to see what has happened in Stonetalon Mountains and Desolace? You can enjoy one area with one character and then hit the others on another too. We like the idea of giving players more options.
Druid
Treants
Treants do fine damage, but it's not terribly exciting. It's nothing that couldn't be accomplished by a spell that just did damage instead. The water elemental (less so the other elementals) and the shaman wolves are more interesting temp pets. (Source)
Paladin
Tauren Paladin Mount
Tauren would certainly look strange on an armored charger, wouldn't they? We're keeping this in mind. You'll see.
(Source)
Draeinei Paladin Mount
We're thinking about this, too. (Source)
Rogue
Daggers
We drop daggers in raids. The only people who are super interested in them are Assassination rogues, but they have fallen behind Combat. We might boost Assassination without buffing its burst. Probably not through a new talent. (Source)
What we were finding is that in many cases things had just become so complicated that players were not making intelligent decisions based on their knowledge of how various stats benefited them. That sounds like what you wanted to have happened, but it really wasn't. Instead players would pull up a BiS list, or plug the item into a spreadsheet. If the answer was "upgrade" they equipped the item. We could pretty much just give the items a name and art and make all the stats not displayed.
If you were one of those players who picked up a piece and understood how armor pen vs. attack power benefited you or whether defense was still worth collecting after you had hit crit immunity, then you were in the minority. Hopefully we can get back to a system where eyeballing an item's stats has some chance of being right. (Source)
Guild Leveling System
Guild advancement is based on the performance of the top 20 producers within the guild. If you have a small guild of 20 (or less), then every person's contributions will count.
[...] If you have some down days, it's not going to affect the guild progress adversely. If you have great days, you'll be up at the top. Keep in mind, this is a great way to not penalize large guilds for having a lot of members and it's also a great way for small guilds to not feel as if they need to mass recruit to keep up with the larger guilds both. (Source)
No new classes for Draeneis
We didn't set out to slight the draenei. As I said on the first panel, we just didn't think any of the missing classes fit them.
[...] While we picked some race/class combinations that were on the edgier side of things, that does not give credence to all potential race/class combinations. Draenei have a very well-rounded complement of class selections as it is, and none of the remaining classes are where we want to take the story at this time. (Source)
Terrain changes in old zones
The terrain is not guaranteed to change in every zone, many zones are likely going to stay the same terrain-wise but the questing will get the clean up. (Source)
Reforging
It's too early to go into a lot of detail on the new features, but the basic idea here was to make an undesirable drop possibly more desirable. It still shouldn't compete with gear that is actually itemized for you.
As an example, letting someone turn stamina into a dps stat is something we'd be unlikely to do (or at least impose a lot of restrictions) since that lets you turn an undesirable stat for most characters into something good.
Think of reforging more as a consolation prize or as a way to work around things like hit caps, and not the kind of thing that clever players are going to be able to use to vastly min max their character power. (Source)
Leveling easier in low level zones after the revamp
Yes, there are technically fewer brand new zones and fewer levels to level up through - but - in return for this there is a much cleaner leveling experience from start to finish and many other things. Think of it like this, would you rather have this cleaner leveling system, the guild leveling system, and the new path of the titans max-level progression system or more zones/dungeons to level up through?
We want to hear your thoughts on things especially since we are doing something very different this expansion, but if things don't become constructive the thread will be locked.
Cleaner leveling system? Are you referring to how the zones are being redone (i.e. Lordaeron zone level revamp)?
Yes. The new system will avoid requiring you to run back and forth between continents to find the right quests to do. Instead there will be a natural flow all the way through.
Also, are you guys going to increase the speed of leveling again, or is that remaining constant?
Hard to say, just making the system flow better will probably speed it up, but I am not sure that the actual number of experience points needed will change.
And with that in mind, lets say I roll an undead. What incentive do we have to explore say, Kalimdor? If I am a newbie starting out, and I can do everything by skipping along zone to zone in sight of the Undercity, doesn't that kinda kill the whole "big world" feel?
This goes into the "your choice" category. Would you prefer to hit all the zones in Eastern Kingdoms like Arathi Highlands and both of the Plaguelands or swing over to see what has happened in Stonetalon Mountains and Desolace? You can enjoy one area with one character and then hit the others on another too. We like the idea of giving players more options.
Druid Treants
Treants do fine damage, but it's not terribly exciting. It's nothing that couldn't be accomplished by a spell that just did damage instead. The water elemental (less so the other elementals) and the shaman wolves are more interesting temp pets. (Source)
Paladin Tauren Paladin Mount
Tauren would certainly look strange on an armored charger, wouldn't they? We're keeping this in mind. You'll see.
(Source)Draeinei Paladin Mount
We're thinking about this, too. (Source)
RogueDaggers
We drop daggers in raids. The only people who are super interested in them are Assassination rogues, but they have fallen behind Combat. We might boost Assassination without buffing its burst. Probably not through a new talent. (Source)
Quote from Blizzard
Cataclysm was just announced so it will be awhile before we have systems fully decided upon for it, especially since the paid faction change service isn't even out yet. That said I wouldn't be surprised if there were some restrictions to avoid people making level 80s of the new races on day 1, nothing is set in stone though so we will have to wait and see. (Source)
Reforging
Imagine reforging could work like enchanting, where there are specific recipes that everyone knows. Example: "Converts Spirit into 50% equivalent hit rating on gloves."
I'm not saying it would work like this, but something along those lines would be pretty comparable to existing features. (Source)
Titan's Path
Philosophically, it works like this. Leveling up is fun. You get new gear constantly, and every time you ding, you get new stats, new ranks of spells and possibly new spells. You improve every single hour you play, if not more frequently.
When you hit max level, this really slows down. If you raid or PvP you might get a new item once a week if you're lucky, and aside from gear, rewards are very infrequent.
The idea behind the paths is to offer max-level character progression over time that isn't tied to gear.
The feature is much more robust than this, but at a very conceptual level imagine that at level 85 you got a new talent point every week just for logging in. The rewards are slower than during the leveling period, but they are rewards that exist independent of gear. However on the other hand, you don't feel the need to race through them (in fact you can't) if you are focused on getting to max level and they don't bloat your spellbook with as many abilities as gaining actual whole levels (though they will add a few). Over time, the actual discussions about how to build a character will likely change and evolve in interesting ways. The new point might give you a reason to log in on non-raid nights or even if you've gotten a little burned out on raiding.
The mantra is "gated, not grindy." They will require you to do something, but they are also designed with the idea that you can't kill yourself trying to blast through them as fast as possible. (Source)
Why not one slide per class at Blizzcon?
For last year's Blizzcon we did a slide per class, but that meant the amount of detail we could offer was almost trivial (and particularly annoying for hybrids). There is no way to offer as much detail as players are looking for unless we have the DK panel, etc.
[...] I'm not sure the 10 minute summary of 10 classes would have worked well. Last year for instance we had one slide on priests and only really covered Mind Sear, so all of the healing priests were like "What about us?"
The class panel has always been popular, so they started offering it twice even before I got to Blizzard. There are probably other ways to do it though. Maybe you make the class panel really long the first time and make the second one just about Q&A. You have to think that we're going to have even more information to cover (and questions to answer) once Diablo and SC have shipped so maybe it will be even harder to justify doing a class panel twice.
If we hadn't covered items, then we could have done more classes. But the item changes were just as important. We could have put items with dungeons or systems, but those were busy too. Basically, we had a ton of info to share and only 2 days.
Handling questions asked on the floor is just as tricky as handling those asked on the forums. They may not be important to you, but they could be very important to the gal or guy asking the question. It doesn't seem fair to tell some people their issues aren't worthy before they even get to ask.
I don't have any great answers for how to handle it, but as with everything we do, we'll keep striving to improve it. (Source)
Reasons behind the item stats changes in Cataclysm
I find many of these arguments to be elitist. This is not a "catering to the casuals" issue. This is an issue that even some of our most educated and math-savy players could not make gear decisions without the help of external tools. We're much less concerned about more casual players because the specific choice of upgrade will mean less for them (skill outweighs the contribution of stats for all but the absolute best players) and they often choose pieces based on things like art over stats.
I'm talking about very hardcore raiders who no longer could eyeball a piece of gear with any degree of authority. I might believe that some very few of you are so proficient with the math as to be able to eyeball the stats, but I think you are vastly overestimating the number of players who can or do. Remember, the formula to convert armor penetration into damage was so complicated that we had to take the unusual step of actually spelling out how it was calculated.
With this change will you still have to make hard choices about upgrading? Absolutely. Will there still be quasi-religious debates about which neck is best in slot for a given spec? Of course. Will you still need to understand the mechanics to make the best choice for your character? We think so. One of our overall design philosophies for WoW (and Blizzard) is to be simple but have a lot of depth. Some people mistake needless complexity for depth.
Meanwhile, we think there is a lot of benefit of getting rid of problematic stats like defense and accomplishing things like letting casters improve by focusing on throughput over mana pool. (Source)