Does the people on the forums have any real understanding on how classes are actually balanced in the game? And why do most think they know which class should be buffed and which needs to be nerfed? Based on what numbers that you’re using as your source? Third party sources that uses the game API and that actually doesn’t calculate the whole thing of what is required to make the decision to balance which class and even with your feedback some feedback are based of off nothing but complain about their class being crap or not. Blizzard has the actual data and numbers that many third party sources don’t have access too. Blizzard already have explained that many class balancing changes are based off of data they have accumulated and feedback gathered to make these decisions.
Subcreation does the statistical analysis based on player data, the website is pretty good. I felt that it accurately represented my in-game experiences every patch I’ve used it. I used to use warcraftlogs primarily but it’s more complicated now with augmentation evoker (and their adorable hps theft… sorry resto druids).
Players have access to a LOT of data. Damn near all of it, and certainly all of it when it comes to combat performance. And the gap between top performers and bottom performers is so huge that it’s not really rocket science to see who is struggling and who is just blatantly too strong.
That being said, no, no one understands how Blizzard balances the classes, because most of the time when they make changes they target the weirdest nonsensical elements of the class, regardless of if they are overpowered, underpowered or middle of the pack.
It is possible that the people posting about how Blizzard should balance the classes do have some technical knowledge, but I don’t think they have experience in the field.
I can tell you right now that unless you have the thing with the hood open right in front of you and are intimately familiar with how the math model is structured, you don’t know anything. You could have all of the mathematical background, game design background, programming background, but none of that changes the fact that you don’t even know what you are looking at.
I work in game math on games that are generally orders of magnitude simpler than the math behind the WoW classes. If I gave one of my colleagues a mathematical model of one of my projects, I would have to explain all of the guts to them from start to finish for them to have any idea how to steer the math model in an intended direction without breaking 100 new things, because it is not their design.
The idea that someone can look at a game
as complicated as WoW, as a player, and give a prescription on how to balance the classes without even knowing the mathematical structure of anything going on in the software is basically just nuts.
It’s not that the things people say are always so absurd. I can understand why they think what they are proposing would work. If I think it is a thoughtful idea, I will explain why it will not work as best I can (though I generally won’t “argue back”).
This is all very, very, very complicated, and none of us have any idea what’s going on under the hood.
All I can say is that the complexity we can observe granted by all of the various factors in class performance makes me think the game is pretty much as balanced as one can hope for it to be. There isn’t a way to get universal class balance at all levels of play because character progression is not linear.
Don’t be silly, wall of text. It’s based on whichever spec the complainer is playing at the time, not any objective figures.
Meanwhile, the developers insist that all of the data is wrong, and that they know better ‘just because’.
The only data players have access to is end result data. That doesn’t show anyone how to do anything or how to fix anything.
Knowing the fuel efficiency of Voyager II doesn’t mean I can waltz into Nasa and show them all how to improve it. I just know the fuel efficiency they ended up with.
Nobody is trying to tell the developers HOW to do their jobs, simply that they’re a problem. Meanwhile, the developers have their fingers stuck in their ears and are screaming NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH.
Top level players have a way better idea how to balance than Blizzard. Considering they literally create the meta in the first place
Just look at Dev right now, tell me with a straight face that’s a real spec
Oh, well perhaps we are talking about two different phenomena. I am speaking of threads I see where people really are suggesting technical methods to balance the classes, like “why doesn’t Blizzard just do it like this?”
I see the threads you are talking about too, much more commonly. I just never viewed them as a problem and didn’t think that’s what the OP was talking about.
I suppose all that truly matters is results.
What people actually use and actually do and the results they can see. You should balance around what results players can see and infer from the tools they have available.
If every M+ team brings an Aug, then that tells you that the playerbase REALLY values that spec and it is performing higher than it likely should compared to everyone else.
Exodia was a good example of this, and it didn’t matter if Blizzard internally thought that their tools “ACTUALLY” proved that Prot Warriors were a stronger tank, the community disagreed with them and the way it was played it didn’t turn out that way.
Now… is that how the devs balance? Sure doesn’t feel that way. Feels more like they swing specs reallly wildly to promote class swapping and money transactions and leave giant problems alone until they have to slap things like 50% buffs onto spells.
But that begs the question, are the devs TRYING for balance, or is there another goal in mind?
totally agree , players suggestions are so subjective. they take their class, read wowhead and go nuts. meanwhile you can “win”/complete the game with every class . it is the mentality of “i have to min max everything to make it work” that is the problem , not the mathematical balance perse. I always joke , what if blizzard had only one class with one ability would people still complain ?
It’s sad just how much work forums or players will do to theorize class balance when Blizzard wouldn’t even put that much effort into it.