Sharding was kinda understandable. Better and easier solution than mass server migrations.
LFR tho, I think even Blizz regrets that.
Iâm not suggesting either was a good option. Sharding has its own big bad of issues.
I donât think thatâs the case. Remember, CMs are human and form their own opinions. Whether or not they agree with the change, despite understanding exactly why it was changed, really doesnât matter. During my time at BlizzCon, I was lucky enough to run into a few devs â the game they want to produce isnât necessarily the one they put out. And because I donât want to speak for Blizzard⌠letâs just leave it at this: The people who make the game what it is are very good at what they do, but no one is perfect and game development is extremely challenging.
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I think the CMâs last statement on communication was great. Made me laugh out loud for a while.
Something like "we know communication could be stronger and weâre going to have an internal discussion about that.
Maybe if they had more EXTERNAL discussions, communication wouldnât be so bad.
And get paid to push certain messages, even if they know its crap =)
Of course. Money and time are not infinite.
self evidentâŚ
Sorry, disagree. CMs are the customer support call center for WoW. They are the only people we really get to discuss with, on the rare occasion they actually engage on a non-meme topic. They have a guide book that is what, 80 pages? on what they can and cannot say.
Everything they post, regardless of personal opinion, is run thru numerous filters. In other words, they will tell us what they are TOLD to tell us, and very little else.
They keep saying this, yet communication keeps getting worse. Its opposite world
The reason Blizzard got rid of master looter was because raiders were abusing the system. They were running multiple split raids and feeding all the loot to their main raiders.
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Unlike players, CMs donât have the luxury of being wrong or incorrect. Like many companies, they need to make absolutely sure their information is correct. That means emails need to be sent. That takes time. And the discussions evolve VERY quickly.
I enjoy community engagement and Iâm far more liberal with my posts. MVPs do ping CMs about popular topics and they absolutely read them. They bring those discussions to internal meetings.
While Iâll probably never find the post⌠there was a communication post made by⌠Lore, I think⌠stating that a Blizzard post in a thread almost anyways shuts down the discussion. Itâs not something players normally think about, but itâs a very real risk Devs and CMs take when they enter a topic.
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I would kill to go back to the days when people formed their own opinions instead of parroting some random Youtuber or Twitch streamer.
BfA has problems, for sure, but we are still in the launch patch FFS. Iâm very cautiously optimistic for 8.1.
Multithreading alone has got me hyped.
Theyâre definitely not CS.
With regards to proceduresâŚI mean, Iâve talked to them about this. I wonât go into details, but this is essentially true (as it is for every company).
The people you really want a discussion with are Devs. But honestly, your specâs theorycrafters and experts are, by far, the best people to talk to. Iâve never had a bad discussion with a class developer, but thereâs a lot of discussions behind the scenes we will never be a part of â sucks, but such is the workflow.
Thatâs because Blizzard comes in and makes definitive statements, and never asks for or responds to feedback. They donât engage in a back and forth over merits of a position.
When the one group with total control says something definitive, itâs hard to challenge them.
Especially since there are tons of white knights who then shove that definitive statement down the throats of anyone who disagrees.
They are employees, of course they have different rule sets.
No offense, but roughly 2/3 of the MVPs that post are detrimental to the community. Not you, but yaâŚ
Devs enter a topic?? In the last 8 years this has happened what, 10 times maybe? And no, the cesspool of Twitter doesnât count.
Rogues are getting pruned again in 8.1. Canât make this crap up. That is the current Dev teams philosophy on class design. Numbers tuning canât fix that.
I can personally claim that Blizzard takes player feedback seriously. Itâs not player-facing, but good discussions breed good feedback with leads to the âbetterâ changes more often.
Honestly, thereâs really only a handful of people who merit a super in-depth discussion with class developers. Developers ask very, very specific questions and they will challenge your answer by asking for specifics. At BlizzCon, for example, I bugged a couple of them about giving Ursolâs Vortex to Balance Druid. Sparing you the details, they are genuinely interested in these types of discussions, but honestly, they donât have time.
Obviously. GGG does this all the time. Blizzard does not. GGGâs game is growing, Blizzardâs are not.
Really? They can unprune abilities? They bring back legendary effects? They can bring in PvP vendors? They can hold the Dev team accountable for their broken promise of shaman fixes in 8.1?
self evident
With all the threads about pruning over the last 3 expansions, I do not believe this.
And that is why people are leaving. They arenât taking the time to engage with the players as partners. We are just their ATM.
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Iâm probably one of the harshest critics of Blizzard. But Iâm also very harsh against the community (in general). Honestly, most players have no clue what theyâre talking about. I absolutely agree with Ionâs statement of âPlayers donât know what they wantâ because⌠honestly⌠they donât know how to convey feedback properly. (And this is where I step in â I try to probe for more details, and this is often seem as challenging their feedback. Makes me look like a dick, but oh well.)
Letâs use an example from BFA Beta. Moonkin thread got a Dev post. Before the post, players were offering very good feedback. After the post, that thread was flooded with off-topic posts like âwhen are you fixing [spec]?â And itâs those sort of posts are derail a thread.
Before, the thread was ideal for getting targeted feedback because every post was on-topic. After their post, now they have to sift through the off-topic spam to get to the same information. This takes a ton of effort and time. (The new forums will help with this, but itâs always going to be an issue. This is that risk they take.)
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If that was true, BfA would never have launched in the state it did. The feedback was overwhelmingly negative, and they made no adjustments to account for it at all.
And bad discussions or a lack of discussions breeds bad feedback. Which means that the ever increasing hostility and lack of good feedback on the boards could be directly addressed by increasing the amount of good discussions.
Indeed, they have made this all too obvious. We know they donât deign to think us worthy of offering feedback. So people just leave instead.
All of your customers are worth listening to. Not just Method and other Mythic runners.
I will happily provide a specific, point by point breakdown of every single issue I have in the game, going in-depth as to why certain mechanics, systems, or points of writing are good or bad, offering specific details and pointing out elements of game design, game theory, or writing style. Any time theyâd like to hear them.
This is self evident from how they didnât even have the time to finish what they already had designed when they released BfA in the state it was in. Though, maybe if they werenât scrapping every system and rebuilding the game from scratch all the time, they would have more time to engage in feedback.
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âYou think you do, but you donâtâ
âDonât you guys have fones?â
Do not doubt this at all. This beta cycle, I didnât test. Wanted to see the content with fresh eyes, but that sounds pretty typical. Could always lock the beta forums to testers only, set up different ToS and then start deleting posts that are off topic.
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Forgot one
âWe have many of our best developers now working on new mobile titlesâ
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