Really worried about the balance for the release

In Development Undermine(d) PTR Discussion
1

Really worried about the balance for the release. I’d like to remind you that WoW is not a free-to-play game. We pay a subscription fee and have the right to expect a stable game (without weekly balancing) and a functional game (with a minimum of bugs).
There have been a large number of PTR weeks to balance the game. And right now there’s still a huge disparity between specs.

A good example is the 60% gap between Pack Leader BM and Dark Ranger BM. Not to mention the gap with other classes.

There’s also a lot of imbalance among Healers. And the Disco priest will be dominant as much for his HPS as for his Massdispel.

There’s still a lot of work to do. And releasing the patch as it is will be disrespectful to the players.

8 Likes
2

While I do agree there is a large gap for some. There aren’t enough players on the PTR to allow for accurate tuning normally.

3

when you buy a car, do you go every 15 days to the garage for a recall?

2 Likes
4

and yet the recall and warranty systems are in place for a reason. its almost like they expect things to go wrong.

5

They shouldn’t be relying on PTR for quality control. They should have their own testers. PTR should be just a bonus to catch things that inadvertently slip their quality control.

I understand that players are creative and there could be certain interactions that developers and testers haven’t thought of that comes in as a surprise when a minor version goes live, but barring that blizzard has decades of experience building and testing, and they know the math used behind the scenes.

In short, there is no excuse to release a game in an half baked state. I agree with the OP, we are paying a subscription and investing our time, we deserve better.

8 Likes
6

Even after tuning is done it wont be done.
That doesn’t mean balancing shouldn’t be attempted, I don’t believe balancing has been attempted for the PTR. A couple tuning adjustments have been made, but as you know it is not yet balanced. I do feel expecting a game as complicated as wow to be and remain exceptionally balanced is kind of a pipe dream. If they can get balancing close enough to stop balancing for a patch’s duration, that would be nice as folks like me are not pleased with feeling like we should reroll from most tuning passes.

7

I don’t agree with that. This game is complex, it’s true. But a lot of very bad choices on blizzard’s part have greatly accentuated the balancing problem.

The talent tree added to dragonflight, coupled with the emergence of augmentation, and on top of that hero talent. Makes the task very difficult. But they reap what they sow.

When you see the design errors of some spells. Take Basilisk collar from the BM hunter, for example. It was obvious that this talent was going to mess up the spec in season 1. It was reported on the season 1 PTR. And nothing, the BM was almost unplayable in M+ for 3/4 of the season and was broken in raid for half the season.

But in any case, the game is 20 years old, these aren’t beginners. (Well, I’m not in the studio, and judging by the mistakes made, you’d think there were only trainees). I don’t know if this is the cost of the Bobby era, but it’s sad to see.

Translated with DeepL (free version)

8

I agree. Blizzard should have all classes properly balanced on day one of patch release.

We are paying a subscription fee.

9

remember pre wrath ret

10

What is good spec balancing or design for a spec for you may vary wildly from my opinion and also from anyones opinion.

Blizzard need only satisfy their own balancing and design goals and we all can buy or not buy the game or at least reroll to what we believe to be designed or tuned well.