Question, does each class have a specific developer? It would be nice to know that Demon Hunters have a Developer that mains one that we can fire off questions to. How can Blizzard make class defining changes to us and not really have someone who plays that class all the time. It really seems to me that they are making knee jerk changes to us and none of it make any sense. It would be nice if they would put out a mission statement of sorts on what/where they see us Demon Hunters fit in.
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If DH has a dedicated class dev, then he’s smoking some serious crap right now. Havoc was mostly fine and it got screwed into the ground, and vengeance’s major problems didn’t get touched.
From what I’m reading, DH is a total charlie foxtrot for SL.
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It really does seem like there are 3 different people trying to push their desired changes with absolutely no communication.
When you look at how Blizz is hardcore pushing Momentum onto us, Cycle of Hatred, Essence Break and the Chaos Theory legendary, it’s really not coherent design my any means.
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I get this too, on multiple specs.
Sometimes, we have something that makes some sense, but could be more refined, then next build is incoherent.
Communication within the team needs improvement, that’s for sure!
I would say it’s probably sigma since he is the only lead dev to ever comment on demon hunter changes back in like 8.2
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How does the newest class not have a definitive lead dev? What.
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At this point who even knows DH doesnt seem to be the only dumpster fire of a class currently.
Its more hillarious that they are making them so bad.
Covenants lol.
Ledgendaries lol.
Class changes for SL lol.
Seems like they dont like subs much , all this feedback being completely ignored across multiple classes, shame really.
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I don’t understand how they avoid the communities feedback! Somebody has to read these ideas and at least consider them right? Let us assume Blizzard tells their employees not to read the forums on the job… some of them have to go home, curious of what people have posted on the forums, no? Come in the next day and make suggestions based off of what they’ve read, at least in part?
If I ran a company, or occupied a position of power capable of influencing it’s direction, I would do what I could to make it more successful and please those who use my service. Maybe I’m dumb? I don’t know anymore.
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Yeah its bizzare.
They seem to think more people will just fotm reroll and dont care for the players who only want to play the spec they enjoy or their subs.
Youd think after years of dropping subs like flys they would be more open to feedback, classic cant float their income forever.
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That’s why they are remaking Burning Crusade right?
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Short answer, no. They’ve said several times in the past that they don’t, or at least no longer, have dedicated “class developers”, and that the entire team tends to communally work on all of the classes.
Unfortunately, that particular team setup does leave classes without a dedicated advocate and subject matter expert for their specific class needs.
Personally, I’m starting to wish Blizz would do something like what CCP does in EVE Online, where they have a counsel of players, elected yearly by in-game vote available to all players of the game (segregated by region, but EVE really only has 2 servers, China and Not-China). These elected players, called the CSM (Counsel of Stellar Management), are one of the most important feedback channels CCP has for engaging player feedback, and the CSM is typically made up of a rather diverse group of players from many different areas and gameplay preferences in the game.
CCP regularly holds meetings with these players, floating ideas they are considering and changes they have pending and getting feedback on them, so they iterate or sometimes even completely scrap/start over on those ideas, sort of like a player-elected focus group. Since they implemented the CSM, the quality of changes has drastically improved, as has the transparency of the development process.
Starting to think we need something like that in WoW. Have a dedicated representative for each class (and you could only vote for the class representative for whichever toon you choose to do the voting on that year), plus a block of essentially free-for-all positions intended to represent gameplay segments (hardcore raiding, casual raiding, M+, arena, RBGs, world PvP, open-world content, collecting, etc) rather than specific classes. Maybe 20 people total (12 class representatives plus 8 general/gameplay representatives).
I honestly think we’d end up with a much better game design overall given that, and probably more money in Blizzard’s pocket, despite not designing exclusively for shareholder metrics anymore, simply due to player retention.
But that would require the dev team to admit that they don’t know everything and that players very often understand this game better than they do.
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It’d be nice if they’d at least acknowledge that they are aware of the players’ opinions. Maybe if they’d even peruse these class forums or took any kind of player feedback, we wouldn’t get crap like the current state of Havoc in SL beta, RtB on outlaw, loss of being able to choose pet specs for hunters, loss of lots of weapon choices for many classes, etc…
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It’s not even a Blizzard thing, it’s a WOW thing that they don’t want to listen to player feedback. Hearthstone, another Blizzard game, holds summits with top streamers and people of the community before they release content to get these players ideas on how the content feels.
I think the interview/discussion Preach had with Ion was a step in the right direction (even if it showed how out of touch they actually are with the player base). It’s just shocking how behind they are with communicating with their players compared to other games.
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Ya, but the unfortunate thing is, specifically because of how that interview went, with Ion being pushed and given hard questions and arguments, and Preach at points asking questions that more or less openly mocked Ion and the dev squad (https://clips.twitch.tv/CarefulCrepuscularReindeerWholeWheat), I have a feeling that’ll be the last time Preach is ever given an interview. If anything, I think the hit to Ion’s pride from this one might be enough that they clam up even harder, and reject community feedback even more.
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yeah, I am really, really upset. I have no idea how to even express this to the Blizzard team. They are ruining this class with ill thought out talents, legendaries and covenant abilities that have no integration to making playing this class a good experience anymore.
Look at the other classes and their legendaries , changes and abilities for shadowlands and it will send you into either a depression or a rage, or both.
BLIZZARD, YOU NEED TO READ THE DEMON HUNTER FORUMS AND TAKE SOME FEEDBACK AND SUGGESTIONS INSTEAD OF LISTENING TO ALL THE OTHER CLASSES EXCEPT US PLEASE
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No kidding, man. That interview just showed how prideful and stubborn the devs are. Most of the time it was Ion basically saying “we know it’s bad, but we’re going to do it anyway”.
It’s funny how they received enormous pushback from the playerbase ever since the idea of permanent power choices was implemented and they still insist in it.
To be fair this not only a DH issue as there are other specs that are being just as neglected as we are. Shadow Priests come to mind, even if they finally caved in and gave them Devouring Plague back, but it was given so reluctantly that it barely does anything. Voidform was fun at first, but it has a lot more detriments than benefits and should be removed.
To be fair, they dug in their heels and did the same thing about Azerite armor being permanently slotted, and it wasn’t until like 2/3rds through the Beta, iirc, when they finally added the respec dude for it, and locked it behind an uncapped geometric-series cost profile.
Granted, they didn’t add Azerite armor until rather later in the development process (well into the Beta, iirc) in BfA, but still, it fits the dev’s MO to dig in their heels and tell players they’re wrong (“you think you do, but you don’t”) for months (or years, see Classic), before maybe caving and implementing a halfway solution that still slightly misses the mark of what the players really wanted (see excessive farming requirements to get cross-account Essences, and now Corruption).
I know, but Azerite was more of a “permanent” idea, like they had already committed to the system, even if it was a garbage system. Covenants being permanent choices and class design are a lot more flexible in a lot of ways, but they still outright refuse to listen to player feedback on how bad it actually is.
First Blood and Fracture should be baseline with absolutely no room for discussion. Demonic is another great contender and should also be baseline, but not to the extent of the other two I mentioned previously.
The absolute majority of our legendaries should be redesigned too. It’s just ridiculous that we’re given these severely underwhelming and underpowered legendaries that absolutely do NOT feel like legendaries at all.
Speaking of, did you see Niteshlin’s post in the other thread about the Throw Glaive leggo?
I think the Devs are smoking crack. DH without borrowed power feels like half a class, and nerfing the classes toolkit just feels like you’re beating a dead horse.
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