Well if they don’t see it, that’s fine as well. Ideally they do see it, and contrary to the statement that they don’t read the forums I’m pretty sure they do. The difference is most of the time due to company policy, they do not respond to it. This is fine.
This thread isn’t something I created to induce change. But on the same token, Alpha and Beta Testing is a period when you are supposed to pay attention to what feedback is offered, and listen to your customer’s concerns. Otherwise is there even a point to open testing; beyond glorified P.R.? Blizzard’s Quality Assurance team can handle that matter in such a scenario.
So if this thread isn’t for the Developers benefit, then who is it for? I’ll tell you who it’s for. It’s for the people who should of mattered the most.Namely the people who are playing the game and digesting the content through a class that has not gotten any feedback, attention or input; not for X days, but so far for four years. Those people deserve to know what they are getting into before making a time investment on the class, especially if the Developers do in fact elect not to respond to the community.
Speaking for myself, I know I’d rather play a class that had regular communications with the people designing the class and had it’s concerns addressed in a timely fashion. I’d also prefer to play a class that seems to have it’s problems and pratfalls resolved in a timely manner, and rarely if ever is handicapped by an onerous playstyle; that most of the paying customers hate.
I didn’t say they don’t read the forums, I said they don’t read this class subforum. I have, in the past, seen dev feedback in other forums. They frequently respond in the General Discussions forum. I have contributed to Beta feedback before and had my concern specifically addressed by a dev in a dedicated Beta subforum. But I have never seen a single dev response here. Who knows, maybe I’m wrong. The evidence isn’t good.
And I will repeat from above, I am NOT happy about that. I wish they would read feedback and I wish they would respond to it much, much more often than they do. And I wish they did balancing more often. However I am stating my expectations, not my wishes.
I guess the point I’m making is that if they have bothered to click on the general forums in the past and replied there, then one would hope that any employee that actually is working on developing X or Y class; will think to maybe even once a year check in on the forum they set up for the discussion of said class.
If they don’t?
…Well. I’m not sure what the purpose of a Class Forum is then, or why we’re wasting our breath.
The same day as the alpha class feedback threads were posted. Before they were given all the feedback. It is certainly plausible that a rework has been slated since then. Whether or not it HAS is another story entirely.
I could definitely see them still doing things like removing voidform since there’s a lot of feedback about it and it doesn’t seem like it’s that difficult of a change. Remove VF and related talents, buff base abilities to compensate. Not sure how much dev time it would take to re-implement shadow orbs/plague, I imagine the code is still in a repository so they wouldn’t have to do it from scratch.
Their loss.
I participated in the Legion Beta, and the PTR experience was abysmal and I quit the game on my other account. When I came back to live, I enjoyed Legion enough to keep playing.
After that I swore never to do PTR again, and I literally have zero interest in the dev forum. If they really cared, and really wanted to know, they would have a look at the class forum, because thats where we talk to eachother, unlike the detached reality of the ID forum, which I have zero interest in.
I hope youre right, i really do, but I have seen no evidence that blizz will do it.
We are wasting our breath, because we enjoy being priests and discussing things with other priests (collegiality?); but I for one am, after all these years, under no illusions that blizz really cares what i think or do or say.
I’m going to copy-paste my response to this from another thread:
"This is a common misconception that “Borrowed power” is inherently bad, and that the ‘simple’ solution is to just not have borrowed power.
The problem though, is that we already went through that. You get homogenization and spell bloating because you’re just adding onto the base kit without taking anything away each expansion.
“So then don’t add anything to the kit, classes should be complete right off the bat!”
How do you determine when a class is “complete”?
How do you get people to agree to your assessment?
If you think things are bad now, the sheer firestorm that would crop up from players not getting ANYTHING in the next expansion outside of simple numerical balance adjustments would completely dwarf anything we’re experiencing now.
How do you design new encounters and monsters when classes and specs don’t change, since you can’t change anything without running into the same homogenization/bloating issue?
The entire reason why we have ‘borrowed power’ systems is because it gives you something new each expansion while ensuring that class strength/weaknesses/diversity remain in-tact. To be frank, borrowed power isn’t a perfect system, it has trade-offs, just like before we started having borrowed power. But there’s no perfect solution."
I absolutly agree with every word you said however what we are complaining about is not the implementation of borrowed power but rather that it become a crutch for the spec to lean on and is required.
tell me one shadow priest who is not running chorus of insanity right now. You see its not a choice its a requirement.
When was peak homoginization for you? Cata? MoP? Wod?
I played those expacs and aside from most specs having interrupts, i am not remembering much in the way of egregious homogenizing.
Spell bloat is one thing, but with tactful pruning and rejigging of talents/passives that is overcome.
Borrowed power IS inherently bad as it stands right now. It was kinda bad in legion but hidden under the guise of a psuedo-new talent system. In BFA it’s a joke, essentially all of the specs strength comes from azerite and corruption. Then when shadow is too strong on encounters or pvp, blizz nerfs the base non-borrowed power first (ie. sw:p and vt damage). Then it becomes even worse and more dependent on “borrowed powers”.
I’ve given up hope that they intend to fix this class. Just another expansion of putting bandaids on a broken bone.
I played a priest since BC and I slogged through bfa, hoping they’d fix the core issues if void form, long ramp up, and limited mobility, but just like during the release of BFA, they had given an unfinished spec that arrived late into the real game (with place holders for talents to boot) and claimed ‘this is fine’.
I’m not holding my breath and I’ll just pick death knight or something since they sound like the favored class of the expansion. I recommend, for your own peace of mind: main a new class. By all means talk about it ofc, but I’ve given up expecting blizzard ever checks priest discussion forums now.
While I disagree personally that shadow has mobility problems, I’m still utterly dumbfounded that one of the only changes made to shadow priest in Shadowlands somehow made mobility worse, and is now a genuinely big issue going forward…
I just can’t believe they won’t fix it. It doesn’t make any sense becasue they have acknowledged that the spec is in a very horrible state but it was to late into BFA to make any drastic changes and then ALpha comes and they LITERALLY make no changes other than 2 things
Gut SW:D horrible and miserably
voidbolt rank 2 which to me means I’m welded to the ground. as if voidform mechanic wasn’t enough to force me to stay stationary.
how can they recognize and state that the spec is horrible but can’t change it because its to late in the expansion and then turn around and change nothing about it when alpha comes up.
As it stands right now I’ll be going back to my hpal. Even with holy power they are looking pretty good. Plus they’re keeping glimmer, part of which made them so good
(On that note why do some classes get the gear that made them so good follow them into shadowlands while other classes are left in the dust)
Are you talking about chorus? because when the Devs made vodiform they didn’t intend for it to only be valuable after you leave it. they wanted the game style to be around staying longer in vodifrom but due to chorus being absurd combined with auspicious spirit they decided rather than to nerf the trait to nerf the spec itself and now you can’t stay longer in it.
this is why a lot of people are losing faith in the devs it seems they don’t know what they want from the class. the way they set it is os you would want to stay longer in vodiform but then they go and nerf it so you can’t stay that long in vodiform.
The core identity of the mechanic is muddied. Doi want to stay longer in voidform? and why would I do that if all the value I get from it is only when I’m outside of it?
