Because clearly the discussions happening are not enough. So at its core WOW is software. With data being transmitted back and forth from client to server. All of this data would for certain be logged someplace in one of the server databases and could easily. Assuming they are using a relational database for their storage let’s put this out there
Substitute table and column and db names as needed please
Select (match_length) from (sever_table) where (match_length) < .5. Assuming we are looking for 5 second matches
Now this is the simplest of queries that even a first year IS student would be running with no previous knowledge of relational database or really anything. And one would have to assume that we could do this for all pvp matches for a weeks time and the result set SHOULD be pretty small. But that would be if things were actually balanced properly. My gut tellsme that we would have a decent set of results.from this query and from those matches we could easily join I to the match_players table to see who was in that match. As could then hit the player_details table to determine what class and specs were in that match. With very VERY simple sql commands.
From this record set we could also add a count to the killing_blow column and connect that to the spec that did the killing blow and have a very nice dataset that we could even then pass to our BI teams to have this visualized in graph form for the decision makers to quickly see what class and specs are clearly not tuned or balanced properly. This creating stories in your boards to address the problems and hot fix as soon as possible because it’s not a player problem it’s a development problem. We can’t blame a customer for poor code QA.
Now this is of a software company at it’s core…so now I wonder if they have not done such a simple query yet to find the definitive proof of what actually NEEDS to be fix. And I know that sometimes there are customers or project leaders that really have a gut feeling and are loud enough to get attention and sometimes those stories get prioritized in sprints…but that is a problem that is a problem that can easily be corrected with producing the data.
Now before I have the other players with development backgrounds jump in and question such a simple query, we could also include in the where clause a join to determine all plates ilevels to make sure we would restricting out result set down to just those fully geared. But the joins would be minimal and we could probably accomplish this with maybe 5 tables joined.
Easy peasy stuff for entry level interns to do and the visualization in any of the standard industry tools could be done in a few hours max.
So…how are we this far into a competitive player season built by a million or billion dollar software company, still have specs kill players in an arena in a matter of seconds after the match starts?
If you don’t have the resources to gather the data, I would be happy to volunteer my 20 plus years of software development to assist in making sure that decisions made are based on data and not feelings. But something has to be done. Because you provide a.peoduct to a customer and there are clear quality concerns with the product. Yet you don’t address them? You are also publicly traded and need to show value to your share holders…but the more you ignore the customers concerns, the more revenue you risk. Because people will stop. People who played and were loyal for a long time will stop coming for your product. And the shareholders aren’t going to care at that point because you can not provide them the value they need. It may take years but it will happen. This is not a complex astro physics problem. It’s business 101 and software development 101 and agile 101.
I get all business are tight right now and IT had been hit really hard over the past 8 months. But that was because of COVID and the need for better remote systems for employees. You are building a game. And the developers out there looking for jobs are plentiful. Spend the extra money for a few more to make sure you deliver the best product possible to your customers! It’s good business!