I did mention in the OP about Barbarian Community Members receiving and transmitting private messages to Community Managers and the like. Something, as others have pointed out is something the company actively goes about dissuading community members from doing.
And also, as has been pointed out, it is a bit disingenuous for Free to omit from his posts about how the Barbarians got the response they did.
I don’t recommend us doing that though. For them, it was necessary not on the Barbarians behalf but on Blizzards. The disruption to the boards was right after the new forum came online. The timing was bad for Blizzard so they attempted to placate them with more communication. Not open communication but more personal communication.
It didn’t exactly have the effect of quieting the barbarian’s fervor however. Instead they continued to post on the boards necessitating that Blizzard respond with more than just communication but actual actions.
Which brings us back to the larger community being able to disrupt the boards.
Has anyone thought to seek out Free, and speak to him off the boards to ask for tips/directions?
Pretty sure he wasn’t screaming down the phone at Nev demanding Barb changes. I am sure there is a correct way to go about it, and I am pretty sure he would be happy to help out in that regard.
But if Free, who has been in this thread and decided to omit that he talked to Nev directly, were interested in “sharing his secret”, he would have without us having to drag the information out of him.
Also, exactly how would we go about this secret communication with Free? Does he just give his contact information out on the site? And what’s with this secret way of communicating with Blizzard employees anyway?
Again, if he was truly, really interested in helping us, he would have offered.
I’m sorry but the guy’s head is big enough as it is, I’m not willing to feed into his oversized, inflated ego by begging for information when he could just give it up.
Do you see that as a problem? I mean, he isn’t anything special and he definitely shouldn’t be treated as if he is.
I don’t see a need to treat him as anything special.
He might have information that helps DH’s, or maybe he doesn’t. I don’t know. But if there was a chance to get information, advice, direction, anything that could be used to benefit DH’s (or any class for that matter), I’m not sure why anyone would be against seeking it out.
Otherwise I guess it just keeps going the way it’s going for DH’s. Which seems to be working very well and making everyone very happy right?
I’m not trying to argue with you. But the point I’m making is none of that should be necessary.
We’ve been told to keep our feedback on the forums where it belongs. He went outside of that, more than likely, it was Blizzard that opened that line of communication, because in the post you replied to, I said, the timing of the disruption was bad for Blizzard.
They went outside of the rules, Blizzard that is, and probably chose Free as a spokesman of sorts for the Barbs. Point is, we don’t have the numbers to force Blizzards hand like that. And besides that, Free was probably told to keep their way of communication secret even if he didn’t have to keep the fact they were communicating secret.
You sure do assume a lot. And lob some mighty sad passive aggressive insults to boot.
I’ve been active on the Barb forums since Vanilla. I’ve written more build guides–either solo or with collaboration from forum members all over the world–than anyone else. I’ve achieved some notable in-game accomplishments, I’ve participated in every PTR since Reaper of Souls, and I’ve theorycrafted on almost every major game and Barb-related development. My threads are carefully crafted, well-written, and the most read, upvoted, and commented-upon threads.
If I have a secret, it is this: I’m present. I’m active. And I’m committed, as I have been since day one of D3, to making the Barb class and community the best it can be.
What got us the most attention? The Barb Buff Proposal that Rage and I created. Contrary to many similar proposals, we put months of work into that; we rigorously checked and re-checked the maths, tested items, and edited our ideas. Then we did it all over again, and all over again, and all over again, until you see what’s on the site–and we still had to edit it when top-ranked players in the Barb community told us that we needed a better emphasis on cross-class parity.
And contrary to many similar–often more graphically appealing–proposals, our ideas were mechanically sound; that’s why some of them were taken almost 1:1 from the proposal and implemented last patch!
As for talking to Nev, that all happened as a result of everything I listed above.
So, again, what’s my secret?
I’m present, I’m active, I collaborate, I engage my community, I promote discourse, and I put out high-quality materials.
After a while, that got noticed. I don’t have a direct phone line to Nev or the developers. I can’t make demands, dictate design, or otherwise influence what goes in the game. Whatever influence I have is–again–the result of all of the above work, and it is, at most, an open and ongoing communication between myself and Blizzard.
So, chief, maybe instead of slinging mud at me and my big ol’ head, you could try being the same for your community.
Very true. It was a long, hard road, and we had some ugly setbacks. If you were to ask me, the thing that really set us apart was that we never quit. If a patch came and we didn’t get buffs, we wrote about it–and wrote about it, and wrote about it–and we did so with build info, game mechanic details, and appeals to more than simple pathos.
That’s how we got those stickies–that and contacting the forum moderation team directly, which most anyone can do.
Sorry, but I don’t buy this argument. It doesn’t really work for Monks, does it?
In my opinion, inclusion in the meta has little to do with cohesion of community. At best, I’d remind you that correlation does not equal causation, but I don’t think there’s much to speak of; the vast majority of zDPS Barbs don’t main Barb, and they don’t spend much time in the forum.
Anyway, guys, I’m not here to tick anyone off or cause friction. I just want to emphasize that community organization is important, and that producing high-quality appeals backed by high-level community discourse is an excellent route to achieving what you want.
I’m sorry, Free for the attitude I came at you with. My sincerest apologies.
The rest of your post, is pretty great. The thing is…
DH’s don’t have the folks, because our community is smaller to put that kind of effort into something as grand as your proposal.
Sure, one or two could write something like that. But it wouldn’t have the feedback you got from within your community because we don’t have those kind of numbers.
I’ll give you that a lot of our feedback is pretty piecemeal. With some posts about specific items. Others about ways to improve builds, and what not. But a lot of our energy goes into informing new DH’s how to play the class. Or what items are needed for certain builds, that kind of stuff.
That stuff, I personally can help with. The things you suggest, I wouldn’t be able to help with at all and I believe I’m not the exception to the rule when it comes to DH players but the rule.
I believe the people that would be able to put a proposal like that together either left the class, or the game itself, ages ago.
Putting the hopes of the entire class on the few of us that still care about the class and the even fewer that could propose the kind of change that would be needed is a entirely different thing than what you folks were able to accomplish.
And I still feel, that a dying class, like ours, would still fall short of what is needed to resurrect it.
All we can do is give some ideas and hope and pray that Blizzard does the number crunching. (That’s just my opinion. I’m not saying that there aren’t folks that could do it though.)
I think all classes might have suffered this fate.
Barbs definitely had the same issue. It took a few very dedicated members to start something, and it snowballed. I believe that even people who had left the game but still popped into the forums chimed in, some of them even came back.
DH was my first even toon, and I’d love to see them get some love.
Don’t forget that there is still the new set coming, unfortunately not this season, hopefully next. And maybe this PTR will show they need some love. Love to see some MS or Impale buffs. Or maybe this will come in the patch with the new set.
That’s as good as segue into my idea about the hatred dump thing I posted earlier. I mentioned this in the thread suggesting my idea about the new set…
But I thought that the hatred dump idea would fit right in with a set with a Angel of Hope theme.
I mean, the new sets have had angelic themes and if you dump all your hatred (and possibly discipline too) then you might be left with something resembling hope or faith.
I hadn’t thought of that when I made the proposal but it did come to me a day or two later.
It was a cool thought so I thought I’d share it again.
Well, I would figure, since it would it require you to use the blood vengeance passive for the bonus to Hatred, even if you don’t use Seethe, the health globe generated by the destruction of mobs would pretty much fill your hatred, so getting spike traps and caltrops out again would come pretty quickly but even at that, the damage resistance could last maybe 5 or 10 seconds after your spike traps were set off.
I don’t really know though. If FoK got every rune, you’d also have Bladed Armor for a bit which would help.
Dh sets
Shadow: funny, needs more damage to be a rgk
Nat: funny, needs help with the stacks for keep the bonus to be a trash killer
Marauder: funny, needs a loot of help
UE: extremely funny, maybe the bonus can be apply in more skills like chakram and elemental arrow
LoD: More power for fan of knives and maybe spikes or caltrops
Zdh support: maybe a way to pull or regen hp of team, support builds is the best way for low level people to join in teams, make at least 1 build for every class
Rebuilt passives like
Steady aim
Night stalker
Brooding
Perfectionist
Sharpshooter
Singleout
Maybe a when you pick a globe you obtain +xxx% of damage or cd
If Blizzard reads this thread how about fixing the shadow DH acquiring a decent holy point shot that always has some increased impale damage with the 2.6.8 patch release? Too late for the ptr. Also consider some other simple enhancements that could help DH be more competitive. Thanks in advance.
I like my DH community friends and family <3. Can’t give up because of you.
You said it well:
@Rage Barb player
No that was shot at DH’s who are fighting for BALANCE. I don’t expect from you, Free, Meteorblade and other main Barb players on this topic to not be biased when it come to Barbs performance.
You did WAY more on defending Barb than you did on asking for DH buffs. You wanted your main to be OP and DH was not important for you.
You never asked for any nerfs… You never asked for any balance. I did not see you propose anything for DH and I don’t expect you to do so as main Barb player. All I saw is you attacking people who are asking for balance.
I for example was asking for balance. That means Buffs and Nerfs. You are offended by existence of players who ask for balance.
When Lamentation was 200%:
When I was speaking about how DH’s absence from META groups is hurting the class it was viewed as attack on Barbs… Even if discussion was on general forum about general topic. Whole topic was infested with so many Barb main players.
Can you please stop helping DH community the way you did so far???
If you really wanted DH to do better (and I know that you really don’t care that much) YOU failed as much as anyone else here.
You are calling out other people to do something that YOU never did. You did not help DH community at all.
I did more for your Barb main than you did for DH.
