The answer, you so blindly overlooked, is the nerfs to the dungeons with the last patch.
A lot of players are deeply dissatisfied with the fact that the dungeons were nerfed because it essentially reset the season and did nothing to address the exodia debacle.
All they did was make players re-push score and invalidate any previous progress.
It’s funny how ready you are to overlook all the evidence that contradicts your increasingly ridiculous hot takes.
Please stop being such an elitist dbag. You’re acting like casuals are ruining this game when the blame rests squarely on the design choices made by the team running this clown show.
They were told in Legion beta that random lego acquisition was bad and they should add a deterministic mechanism.
They ignored it, like they ignore so much useful feedback because they have this insane notion that they know better and then they end up sheepishly correcting their mistakes, usually by too little too late.
Covenants NEVER had to make to live the way they did. You know what the reality was:
“You thought you didn’t want to be committed to a covenant because it was in direct conflict with the state of the game or the way players engaged with it…and it turns out you didn’t.”
“You think you do, but…oh ya, you do.”
How many times is this going to happen before Blizzard stops believing their own nonsense?
Because of their incompetence/arrogance the game constantly finds itself in a position where it has to throw the baby out with the bath water. Instead of listening and addressing the issues around their their latests fads they let them linger to the point the community is throwing it’s hands up in the air and simply wants it all to be gone ASAP even though there are often good qualities in the mix.
As a result we get these massive pendulum swings in underlying philosophies that are jaring and these new designs face the same demise as their predecessors via incompetence, arrogance and neglect.
I mean, you can point where in my post that I said Blizzard doesn’t make mistakes. That isn’t what I’m saying. My point is that they are necessarily inhibited by their production cycle. Once they’ve created content for us to consume, it’s at a delayed release and we kind of just have to take whatever it was they gave us with whatever bandaids they’re willing to slap on. Legiondary acquisition was totally a bad move, but we didn’t really have a precedent for this yet, thus no feedback. This is why Blizzard never did it the same way again. You can see this reflected in the acquisition of SL legendary patterns.
Blizzard makes terrible moves. I don’t even disagree with this, and my post didn’t either.
I agree with you that they paint themselves into a corner with their production cycle. They so often release content that’s two or three iterations away from where it needs to be.
Ion told us (lied to deflect) that they had a rip chord in place for covenants and everyone told them to pull it. Most everyone with a youtube channel or an opinion agreed.
We even told them we’d wait while they fixed. Of course they’re a heartless money-making mechanism at this point, so they wouldn’t have delayed even if God himself told them to.
But to suggest that there’s no coherent, actionable feedback is a massive disservice to the thousands of honest, earnest players who gave quality, accurate feedback that Blizzardly simply chose to ignore. I can only believe it’s because they think they know better.
Imagine thinking these guys, the guys who completely dumpstered two of the biggest IPs in the industry, Diablo and Overwatch, have half a clue. Imagine…
I’m definitely not saying this either. These are also pretty obvious cases where they’ve, for all intents and purposes, messed up. These are fringe cases, though. This is hardly a norm. If we take Legiondaries and Covenants, these are obviously extremes. For every post or ounce of feedback for these that’s wholly constructive and valuably critical, I can show you thousands of posts about things that don’t matter from people who have zero business critiquing systems. My point is that collectively we suck at giving feedback. There are those of us who give excellent feedback, but that’s few and far between, relative to the body of players that make up the game’s population.
Like I said, I don’t really disagree with you that these are bad, but saying the developers don’t have a clue is pretty disingenuous. What’s your excuse for when they get it right? Surely, they have a clue at some point.
I’ve been doing this WAY too long to accept that they’ve only done this a few times. They’ve done it OVER and OVER and OVER.
Look at fragments of crests.
We’ve told them over and over that we don’t want currencies for currencies and it’s taken them yet ANOTHER expansion to get it through their thick skulls.
We’ve told them not to fill our bags with endless nonsense for years. I can appreciate the argument that a tangible item adds a certain RP weight to the proceeding, but this isn’t that.
This is terrible system design that is simply there to bridge the gap between something and nothing. From the top down the system fails and is propped up by pathetic conceits like this in the name of content.
It fails because it doesn’t present a natural flow. It doesn’t support the way players engage with the systems, it mandates. It doesn’t offer rewards for doing content, it establishes the value of the content and often times it severely degrades any real potential it might have.
Torghast is a prime example. In essence it was fun. Getting super OP with morphed class abilities was actually a hoot. But they completely destroyed all the fun by making it mandatory, but not just mandatory, you had to earn currency just to do it, you had to progress at THEIR pace, not yours and it sucked every ounce of fun out it.
I don’t have the energy to present it to you, but the amount of positive feedback Torghast in beta was instantly replaced by resentment and disappointment when they renegged on the endless floors and slapped on all the multi-layered currency nonsense. They had plenty of time to change.
The examples are so abundant I can no longer find the good faith you are expressing. I appreciate your measured responses. I have no personal issue with your communication and I respect your opinion.
I have seen this time and time again and I simply cannot dismiss it as a mistake anymore. I can now only attribute it to stubborn ignorance.
I’m content to agree to disagree. Also, I can show you some things wrong in your post, if you want. I’m trying to be good faith to both you and Blizzard. By the way, we’re on a WoW forum talking about WoW systems. The conversation should stick to WoW, even if we mention Blizzard. When I say, “Blizzard,” I’m specifically referring to the team that works on WoW because it rolls off of the tongue better. So, I don’t want vague appeals to other disasters. (I.E. Overwatch, Diablo IV, etc…)
They agree and are fixing this in 10.2
They implemented a sell all junk button, at least. There’s a clue.
This hasn’t been demonstrated. We can be here all day and you’ll have a small collection of controversies.
The idea that affixes aren’t supposed to entice you to play is absolutely ludicrous. The entire purpose of affixes is to offer variation in a way that makes you feel like doing the same dungeon that you’ve been doing 30, 50, 60 times. If an affix is not actually enticing you to engage with the dungeon with the feel that you’re excited for this week since it’s a different experience to last week, then yeah the design has failed so hard that it literally doesn’t belong in a game.
To put it another way - the point of affixes isn’t to make you go into a dungeon with the feeling of having one hand tied behind your back, next week you’re blindfolded, and every time you’re sitting there hating what garbage you have to deal with. Like if you’re actually saying it’s always been like that, then you’re literally explaining why the design is stupid.
I don’t even get how anyone can say words like this and not get it. Like - this is the stupid sort of logic that leads to “Well, the Maw is like hell, and it should make you feel like you don’t want to be in there”. Great - wonder why that doesn’t work in an entertainment product. It’s a damn mystery. Only the most genious (spelling deliberate) of philosophers could comprehend such arcane concepts.
Huhhhhh?
What do you mean they gave it so much attention between 10.0 and 10.1? They went into 10.0 talking about how they wanted to retire a couple of annoying affixes, especially one that felt like it was mostly a burden/target on healers, as well as change an annoying affix that everyone hated (Explosive).
Their PTR concept was to have 3 different versions of Explosive. One of which featured a mechanic that’s most consistently handled by the healer of any group. We came out of 10.1 feeling lucky that we only have 2 different version of the same design concept as Explosive. What attention are we talking about there? It’s hard to believe that even one person spent more than 10 or 15 minutes on affix design between 10.0 and 10.1.
And if people still don’t get the point about how lazy design has unintended effects - let’s take some obvious stuff that’s coming up. Mass Dispel is being changed with a significantly higher cooldown. Clearly, this is in response to Shadow this current season.
Bursting as an affix used to be undispellable. One of the reasons it was made dispellable is because of specs, like Disc Priest. Disc is more reliant compared to other healers on having mobs they need to hit, but an affix like Bursting when it gets out of control is because mobs have died. Allowing Disc to Mass Dispel in response to a 5-stack, which a different healer would have an easier time healing through, was meant to equalise things and not screw them out.
Do you think Blizzard is aware of this? Do you think they made the change knowing these effects? Do you think Blizzard has an idea of how to compensate a spec like Disc in return for this change affecting them at the expense of a different spec? Do you think Bursting was even designed with any of this in mind?
I just disagree. It’s never been my experience that a mechanic begs me to play the game. You can act like that’s crazy logic, but it’s just as valid as the opposite. I did try to frame as subjective too.
I’m not sure what you want me to say. They allocated resources due to the negative reactions to players from 10.0. This is probably more than we ever would’ve gotten in the middle of an expansion. They pruned and preened affixes to be more palatable and they are, for the most part. They aren’t the same as 10.0, this is just true.
I’m in the same boat. I have two tools to deal with bursting when trash isn’t around, and one of them is usually needed before that happens. The other is just a longer cd mass dispel. I don’t think this decision is out of touch because because mass dispel in its current form blows every other option out of the water. Bursting is also just as much up to the dps as it is the healer.
I’m fine to engage with you, but you’re being very condescending. Frankly, I’m tired of people approaching me with bad attitudes.
Well, no, it’s not “just as valid as the opposite” because there’s clear markers of good design in a game. The purpose of a game is to entertain, and any addition to a video game needs to be evaluated on that merit. You shouldn’t be able to type sentences like this without massive alarm bells going off.
Secondly, if it’s never been your experience that a mechanic begs you to play the game, I can’t really comment on what your experience actually is. I can certainly point to plenty of mechanics that made me excited over the game’s history. I enjoyed Blackheart the Inciter doing Incite Chaos, because it was fun and crazy, even thought it was a mechanic that made me do nothing but watch. Prince Malzahar’s Enfeeble as a Shadow Priest. Practically everything on Gruul. Leotheras’ Inner Demons. Teron Gorefiend’s ghost vehicle thingy. Flame tanking on Illidan. Even the autoattack profiles on Morogrim Tidewalker and Illidan and so on as a Pally tank. The fire added on Firefighter. Necrotic Plague and Shambler tanking. Expose Weakness or whatever on Anub’s adds which added a cool dimension to block, combined with keeping health low for Insect Swarm. Driving on Rhyolith. Flying on Alysrazor. The extra phase mechanic on Ragnaros on Heroic. Essence of the Red on Sinestra. All the extra mechanics Nefarian added on the Heroic fights in Blackwing Descent, and the way he was used to transform the fight instead of just “Here’s more mechanic”. The dance on WIll of the Emperors. Tiles on Stone Guard. Attenuation on Zor’lok. Gara’jal jumping around and empowering bosses on Council in ToT. Kicking Turtles on Tortos. Mutations on Primordius. Literally every mechanic on both Twin Consorts (now Twin Empyreans), as well as Lei Shen on Heroic. The version of Ra-den that players did (although the fight itself was poorly designed in the sense that half the mechanics players never even engaged with). Basically every mechanic in Blackfuse pre-zerg. Nitrogg’s ammo and cannons. Every mechanic on Rukhran. The Saboteur guy in Gate of the Setting Sun. Finding the odd one out on reworked Jandice Barov. The beam on Corla, and the in-out dunking on Karsh Steenbender in BRC. Mario in Deadmines. Murozond’s Rewind Time. Lightning Charge on Siamat. Everything about Ozruk. Zul’Aman as a raid, and as a dungeon. Zul’jin in general. Hex Lord Malacrass taking on mechanics from classes in the raid. Volazj’s Insanity in Ahn’kahet. Moorabi’s transformation. Every boss in Pit of Saron. Telestra’s Mirror Images. Every boss in Utgarde Pinnacle. Murmur. Just about all the trash as well as the timer in Shattered Halls. Stance of the Mountain. Hyrja’s Light-Lightning switches. Cordana Felsong’s Creeping Doom + Elune’s Light thingy. Yazma. Football kicking in Motherlode. Sporecaller’s shrooms. Valyri’s barrel management. Both So’azmi and So’leah’s mechanics. Xav the Unfallen’s duelling. Mordretha’s mechanics the entire fight. Multi-Sided Strike on Jadefire Masters. Swinging on ropes on Vanessa Vancleef. Just about every mechanic on Argus. Stamping Presses on Hanz and Franz. Gurtogg Bloodboil, just every mechanic. Finger of Doom.
Like - that’s not even an exhaustive list there. That’s just me starting to reminisce on mechanics I enjoyed, and being unable to stop. All of those had me feeling like I wanted to do them, only feeling disappointment that I was limited by lockouts preventing me from doing them more than once a week/day. Which I guess is eventually where alts came in.
It’s not really a coincidence that none of them is an affix, or an affix-like mechanic.
I honestly don’t know how to respond to the shockingly low standards you’re willing to put up with. Apparently a completely pathetic “allocation of resources” is something you’re willing to lick the boot over. More than we ever would have gotten? A lot of what they did in the past WAS unacceptable, which is the entire point. After somehow already running out of ideas, affixes are still in a state where people are giving feedback like in this thread. Even if we accept that they were worse, and that those changes were improvements, the fact that people feel it’s still bad is plenty of justification to say it wasn’t good enough (assuming that’s a person’s feedback).
You’re literally explaining why affix design is a problem. Certain classes can be too weak to an affix, which is why they’re given a tool to deal with it, then that tool is taken away in response to an entirely different thing, which then makes them weak to the affix again. Are you seriously contending that Blizzard is making a deliberate choice in how Mass Dispel interacts with Bursting here? Based on what? What contention do you even have that the cooldown they’re leaving Disc and Holy with is even in the correct place, if you feel the cooldown they’ve had was “blowing every other option out of the water”?
You can twist as much as you want to get around the clear idea that Blizzard is dropping the ball here, but no matter how you twist, you’re not going to be able to escape that reality. Especially if you’re in a similar boat as MW/Fistweaver where it’s arbitrarily more annoying for you compared to most other healers for no good (or even intentional) reason.
Look, at a point, if you’re spouting ignorant things, people who are correcting you are going to seem condescending. At some point, you may have to engage with the fact that maybe it’s not just that everyone else is wrong, or w/e. Especially when you’re not actually adding any design discussion, or anything beyond vague defenses of feels that are easily refutable.
Which is even richer considering you kept going on about how people just aren’t articulating problems well enough. People are articulating them just fine; more and more, it seems like the problem is your ability to understand. And even in stuff like this, you’re not really coming up with any actual design to explain what’s supposedly good in response to the idea of these issues that are being articulated to you.
IDK, if you really have a hard time struggling with the concept that mechanics added to a subscription-based game should be fun and make you want to play the game, and are going to sit there BOTH SIDES’ing it, like maybe you should consider that you don’t understand design?
WoW was fun without every element being entertaining and it still is. There’s no way you can guarantee it’s entertaining either. This doesn’t change how I feel. I’m willing to meet you in the middle and say it’s better for the game for everything to be entertaining, at least. Is that satisfactory? I just don’t think it’s that important for mechanics that I wouldn’t even view as tertiary to the experience to be entertaining or even high quality. I have other things I want Blizzard to sink resources into, like the story. My overall view on affixes is that they’re fine, no more or less, but I’m accepting of contrary opinions. For example, those in higher keys than me that feel they can’t push because of certain weeks should be considered.
Okay, you need to stop talking like this. Firstly, this is extremely condescending. Secondly, what is this weird purity test you’re engaging in? Give me an example of a previous changes to designs that were substantially better than this. You have to give me a case, especially if you’re going to act highly about it.
I just don’t agree. I don’t have a problem with bursting. I don’t understand what’s meaningfully different between healers. You can make the argument that it’s more punishing for Fistweaver and Discipline, but that’s just that nature of class design. Not everyone is equally adept at handling all situations. If any healer is caught with their pants down on bursting, it’s probably a wipe. At the very least, you’re casting mass res after. Also, my point still stands, bursting is just as much up to the dps as it is the healer. If you try to shoulder that burden alone, you’ll get frustrated.
No, this is where I’m going to correct you. Understand the language you use. Ludicrous in an assertion is a very condescending way to address someone’s point. It doesn’t seem condescending, it is condescending.
I articulated myself better than most people in here. If you don’t understand what I’m saying, ask more clarifying questions. It doesn’t seem like you misunderstand me, we just disagree. So, no, I don’t accept that.
That isn’t my point. My point, if you read, is that Blizzard can spend time in other areas of the game rather than fix something that isn’t broken, from my perspective. I’m content with affixes. I’ve never said they were good; you’re putting expectations on me that don’t fit. My job here was to criticize people asking for them to be removed and I argued with whatever cases I felt like engaging with. I’m sorry, if you feel my arguments are lacking. I felt the same way in reverse.
Look, we just disagree. If you can’t handle that someone thinks differently to you, we should probably end the conversation.
