I didn’t say it was a nonfactor, but you seem to pretend like it is a primary factor. GCD doesn’t magically solve all latency related issues. Did you not run quartz with /stopcasting macros?
It only benefits those player with slow internet. If you are on a fast internet, prepare to be disappointed. IDK why people would push for the old spell batch.
The secret is I actually have slow internet.
Nah. Never needed to. Then again, I never had any desire to min/max so hard I would want to. I have no desire to push for World First progression or highest level of difficulty in retail, such as Mythic raids, and I don’t like pvp since Wrath, which are the only real reasons for tryharding to that extent.
With spell batching, landing the spell first can be important because the actual window of how much time you’ll have before the next batch is unknown. Whoever lands the spell first still has an advantage.
Spell batching just includes the chance for a twitch counter by the other player. It being better or worse is subjective, but there is more room for twitch gameplay with spell batching because of the limited window that you get to react in.
Spell batching increases the change of an oops mutual polymorph too. A twitch counter only nullifies the initial twitch advantage, so I think it lessens the twitch influence. The alternative is just the initial twitch advantage.
Here’s the way I see it, batching offers a second chance and makes the initial twitch less final.
No batching:
Player one gets the twitch advantage and gets the opener, the end.
Batching:
Player 1 gets the twitch advantage
Player 2 has a shot of making up for the fact they missed the initial twitch round with an accidental making it in the spell batch, or getting a twitch counter which nullifies the twitch advantage
Except you are factually wrong with everything you said. As confirmed by Kevin (actual classic dev). Not to mention that on the beta even interrupting early is causing wierd behaviour.
If you interrupt a spell within the time of the spell cast it should always execute regardless of spell batching or anything else and this historically was the behaviour. The backend was coded to enforce this notion as well.
So your misguided opinion and nonsensical feelcraft that if “a spell is 85-90% done it is through” is not in line with the reality of the actual game design and true gameplay in any iteration of the game.
It’s authentic to Classic and the game was literally balanced around it.
I think you only have the first part of that correct, it is indeed authentic to classic; however, I think at the time this version of spell batching was actually a technical limitation and not an intended feature they did balance work around. Though I would love to see them do another DEV WaterCooler post and have it focus on this topic to provide further clarification and insight.
Miscommunications as usual. Text is not always my friend.
The point I was making is the DMZ has no ports blocked. Youre absolutely correct you’re very open on the internet if using the DMZ. I specfically pointed that out, at least I remember doing so. Maybe I didnt.
Yes, I have the read the blue post, and it does not state at any point that spell-batching of this nature was something they intended in 2004 and that they balanced around it. Only that they have scaled back how, and how often the server processes the batches in classic to have a more 2004 feel. The fact that they stated:
Makes it sounds like this was more of a technical limitation on the hardware of 2004 and since with computers and servers becoming more powerful and faster they have been able to tighten this up to the point where we are players have almost no clue its still there on the backend and not a design decision that they balanced around. Since to me, this reads more of code/process refactoring and not a change in design/balance philosophy.
Again though I would love for the Devs to confirm this and go deeper into how the batching system currently works and how it is different/the same as it was in 2004.
For whatever reason spell batching was a thing in Vanilla, it became part of the game play. Spell batching is what makes double crit shatters possible for a mage. I suppose other classes have their own uses for the mechanic. So, in the interest of preserving authentic per period gameplay, Blizzard is giving us a modern day emulation.
Works fine as far as I am concerned.
It was completely a technical limitation, and there is no balancing around batching… slower batching just means you are more likely to encounter bugged interactions randomly.
Also to everyone who says it helps slower internet users it actually does the opposite…
If you have 50ms lag you have more time to land your reaction into the same batch than someone would if they had more lag.
No. Double crit shatters don’t rely on spell batching. Most things people say about spell batching is BS.
I’'m tired. Someone else can argue with you honey.
Not much of an arguement. You said something that is not true.
If I said spell batching make you fly would any one be obligated to argue with me?
If someone just flat out lies as their arguement then all I can do is say thats not true.
I mean it seems to me that they did in fact balance around spell batching.
Short primer on spell batching,
As spells hit the server, they are batched (grouped) and then executed. None of the spells in the same batch influence one another. They are all processed based on the conditions that existed at the time the batch was released.
This is why a Mage’s shatter combo can work. A Mage with shatter means any spell they cast against a frozen target has a much higher than normal crit chance. In principal, a damage spell will break the freeze. But if the Mage can get two damage spells to proc in the same batch, both can take advantage of the target’s frozen state.
If you played on private servers, you may have seen the complaints that surfaced from time to time that a Mage couldn’t get a shatter combo to actually work. This is because private servers never got spell batching right - and many didn’t even bother to try.
There is a myth that Mages have circulated forever (since spell batching was such a mystery) that a shatter combo had something to do with sneaking in an Ice Lance damage at nearly the same time as a Frost Bolt hit - and some kind of latency or other poorly understood magic let both damage spells take advantage of the frozen state. This is correct in a way, the timing was important. But it wasn’t really a mystery . . . it was spell batching.
A mage can shatter combo pretty much any spells, but the short nature of a batch means at least one of them is going to have to be instant. But you can do a Fireball / Arcane Explosion shatter combo if you want to, as example. The most frequent combo in Vanilla, if I recall correctly, was Frostbolt / Cone of Cold because they were both relatively high damage spells in the frost mage’s kit.
Correct and one of the common misconceptions about spell batching is that you can influence where your particular spell will lie in a batch. You can’t, as the batches are entirely server side and completely invisible to the players. Which is why you can perform the same sequence of actions repetitively and get different results.
Where the spell lies in a batch is of no consequence. Yes, they are executed in sequence, but the conditions under which they execute are always the conditions at the start of the batch. Then all the plusses and minuses are tallied and you end up with the conditions at batch end.
A good player understands spell batching and plays the odds - hoping at times to get a counter to land in the same batch as what they try to counter. It is odds playing - like a good poker player. To ignore the fact that batching is going on is to give up an edge.
A frost mage hopes to pull off a shatter combo - because they do more damage. But if their spells land in different batches, that’s the breaks.