Steve was hired back in 2015. He worked on WoW for almost 10 years, this wasnt DEI hiring, it was putting someone in charge of writing that shouldnt have been in charge. Period. Hes just a bad writer. While he did have a team behind him, he was the end all be all of the story decisions.
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I told the truth so hard your only response is emotional vomit. Glad the truth hurts you so bad.
So your actual answer is leave a bug, an unintended coding error in becauseā¦reasons. As if anyone needed anymore proof of your lack of sincerity or relevant thought on the topic at hand.
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This dude was in the warlock forum saying how warlock was never bad, and its good right now, he lives in his own bubble
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Gotta be real with you all, āDEI hireā is just a scape goat, a thought terminating cliche. Itās designed to give you a single big bad enemy you can focus your energy on, and one that completely ignores the terrible decisions of executives in favor of blaming some low level hire who had nothing to do with it.
Real problems with blizzard can be traced back to them losing too much money on Starcraft Ghost development and needing to go public. While a private company can pride itself on taking a financial hit to make a better product, a public company is legally required to maximize profit even if that would provide a worse user experience.
While it is true that companies often put the wrong person in the wrong position, this has happened since the beginning of time, and continues to happen even though many companies have removed all their DEI framework. Not even taking into account that the vast majority of companies that were claiming to use DEI werenāt implementing it effectively and even if they did most employees simply ignored the DEI events, meaning there was effectively no DEI in those places, they were just using it as a new buzzword to attract more investors.
Iām sorry but Iām a bit passionate about this, my GF heads up the DEI committee at our local biomedical research center and it is NOTHING like what the internet would lead you to believe. It has NOTHING to do with who gets hired, instead it is about a series of workshops teaching people about other peopleās culture, background, and advantages and disadvantages. DEI is not about hiring someone in a wheelchair to be a mail delivery carrier, and everything to do with making sure there are enough wheelchair ramps for the office job that can be done equally well by someone in a wheelchair. That said she is constantly having to fend off attacks from people who watch one video on the internet and claim to know āwhat she is really doingā better than she does.
There are tones of problems with the gaming industry, but these āone size fits allā solutions are not it friends, lets drop the buzzwords and just stick to finding and addressing the actual issues.
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People have put out their mission statements with DEI in that they were ignoring qualified individuals to hire checkboxes. I havent seen Blizzard say any of that. They just laid off a lot of GMās and community managers, the old guard quit or were fired and that brought in people like Steve which was a white guy that was just bad at his job. Overall the story was just garbage and wasnt Warcraft, it turned into Feelcraft. Yeah, people will die in war, but that wasnt the case in like Dragonflight. Tyrande just retired and everyone was all huggy feely.
Also, what does learning about other peoples culture have anything to do about biomedical research? How does it helpā¦ at all? Its completely useless in biomedical research. How would my family last name changing because of a bank robbery back in the great depression help the research? Who cares? Its not important to me so it shouldnt be important to anyone else. Just like when I go install someones flooring the customer doesnt care at all about my culture, they care about me doing their flooring properly and getting a good final product. Thats all that matters when money is involved.
A lot of the issues with the game stem from the playerbase. The story is secondary to things like the arms race with addons and im looking forward to the absolute complete destruction of things like DBM, Hekili, damage meters, CD trackers and all that other stuff. That might even mean Warcraft logs would die because that would most likely have stuff to do with the combat log which they are looking to lock addons out of. If thats the case, good get rid of that toxic atmosphere creating garbage. The majority of people dont use it for a personal growth and instead use it to boost their ego or discriminate against others and attempt to shut down conversations that arent going their way. Bye bye addons. This will show who are good players and who had addons playing for them.
This will mean however that things have to get more simple through not only class development but also encounter development.
The playerbase also asks for a lot of stuff that is detrimental to the class. 400% increase on Howling Blast baseline damage would completely change how you play the spec regardless of what the damn tooltips say due to them not accounting for enemy armor which reduces physical damage by roughly 30%. Making BoS baseline and completely change how it works doesnt solve any of the issues that plague Frost like KM rank 2 creating this gulf in Obliterate damage, Shattering doing the same thing for Frost Strike. Rime should be the way it is so that Masterfrost never shows its ugly head ever again. Most everything about Frost is AoE as well which strips ST damage. Its the same issue that multi dotting had. If dots are strong for ST then they are world ending when you multi dot. If you balance them for multi dotting then ST suffers. Its the exact same concept. Get rid of some of this stuff. Get rid of cleaving Strikes entirely, get rid of Shattered Frost and there is a whole hell of a lot more that I would change or axe as well. Start at a good baseline and build off of it.
Also this āarmor bugāā¦ if people arent bothered to explain it so that it can be tested then its going to be ignored. Just saying there is an armor bug does nothing. It looks like an excuse to me, so explain it or just go back to your rogue because im definitely not going to character hop to try to figure out what in the world you are talking about and neither is Blizzard or anyone else. So what is the bug?
The company hasnāt been focused on quality programming for a long time. That being said the problems went through the roof after the lawsuits. Story and overall game quality in the toilet. Government incentives for DEI hires exist, and itās far more than a series of workshops. Itās tax breaks, funding for startups etc.
Perhaps you have a better explanation as to why the quality of the programming has gone down old friend? Also if the people hired arenāt the issue, what is?
This is actually correct ,which is why the US gov is trying-correctly- to outlaw DEI under the Civil Rights Act.
If all there was to it was what you described Tsalera then it wouldnāt be on the table for a national ban vis a vie the law. Since youāre close to the situation Iāll understand if you donāt agree.
That being said, try reading āWoke Inc.ā by Vivek Ramaswamy, he talks about how corporate uses these weird social policies to virtue signal and get tax breaks and funding. To summarize he names most of the big financial houses that provide loans for companies like blizzard to start/finish projects having to jump through a series of hiring hoops and workplace practices that have nothing to do with the actual employment to even get the loans.
āAge of Entitlementā by Chirstopher Caldwell, āThe Parasitic Mindā by Gad Sadd, āBlack Rednecks and White Liberalsā by Thomas Sowell all paint a similar picture.
Youāre smart, did it ever occur to you to ask yourself the question I just did upon reading your post " why would a biotech company need a DEI department?"
I honestly canāt think of one. Doesnāt mean there is no reason I just canāt see it.
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I have respect for you ArbitĆ©r, and I donāt think we will be changing each otherās minds, which is a big part of why I try and keep political discussions off of the DK forums, as it draws lines in the sand which have nothing to do with our opinions on DK.
That said I do want to comment on a couple of points. āDEI hireā is a thought terminating cliche, what I mean by that is itās a phrase people use to end the conversation when there is still more information to be gleaned. Like saying that Blizzard crashed because of DEI hires means we can stop talking about the subject entirely, because itās āsolvedā so we donāt need to look into the specifics of who made what choice that lead to what result, we can just brush all the complexity under the rug of āDEI hireā, which means we wonāt address the real issues and they will continue to happen.
Second, the fact the last two replies donāt understand why a biomedical research center would need a DEI department really draws a stark contrast between what people think DEI is and what DEI actually is in practice. The reason is obvious, medical research pulls in students from all around the world, some of these students become full time employees. If you have someone running around making fun of someone elseās culture the person being made fun of wonāt feel safe. This means they will be less productive, less likely to speak up when they see something wrong and more likely to quit, which is a loss of talent and productivity for the company either way. Companies like this want world class talent, they donāt care where you are from, just that you are the best of the best and if bigotry gets in the way of this then they will try and solve it.
As for hiring the āGold Standardā of DEI is a process called blind resume review. The concept is extremely simple, you review resumes without knowing the name or gender of the person whoās resume you are reviewing. This means you review it based entirely on education and experience as written, without knowing if the person you are reviewing is named āSteveā or āJasmineā. Now this is the gold standard and the world is a large place, so I expect that at least one company did it differently, probably multiple, and they could have even done it incorrectly or in a discriminatory fashion. This creates an issue where what many people call DEI is actually a company failing to implement DEI correctly.
Alas, my final point, I myself am a Minority and Iāve had lots of difficulty finding work earlier in my life, no one would take a chance with me despite the fact Iāve been programming since I was a child in the 90s. I got my foot in the door due to a social outreach program trying to recruit people of my minority, and I immediately took off and kicked @$$. Within two years I had completely automated my original job and was now looking at how to improve other areas. Due to this experience I now have a resume that can get me hired through the traditional channels, but when I do I still have co-workers, (usually people with far less experience than me) who claim Iām a DEI hire and do their best to make my work life as difficult as possible in hopes they can get rid of me. This is why my bias leads me to assume that anyone using the term DEI is just trying to be an @$$hole and doesnāt actually know what they are talking about. Too many bigots using the term as a derogatory short hand for minorities has jaded me.
To make a long story short this is why I would prefer to keep political buzzwords out of the discussion, I would much rather we just continue to agree on DK topics we agree on and argue on DK topics we disagree with and keep the political divides out of it. As a minority my existence is politicized and I would like these forums to be an escape from that if possible 
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Because the good people have left for a multitude of reasons. GMās being canned, people leaving because of the horrible work environment where they were sleeping at the office, the push to AI moderation, or some of them just being garbage people. Or people just wanted to move on. Did Blizzard look to hire people? Yes, but a lot of people were just promoted up the line.
You dont have to try, and this was going on during Biden. People were suing these companies under the Civil Rights Act and were winning these civil lawsuits. They openly said āwe arent going to hire x demographic and are only going to hire these check boxesā. Easy wins under that act stating that you cannot discriminate based on race, religion, sex or national origin.
The thing is you dont have any evidence of DEI hiring practices for Blizzard or you should show it. You would be like āx person was hired for y position and they cant perform z jobā. But you dont have that.
Vivek would bring someā¦ you knowā¦ actual evidence. You havent brought anything concrete. Just a linking of a bunch of random stuff like a conspiracy theorist.
There isnt one, biomedical research doesnt need a ālearn each others cultureā department.
But seriously, where is the evidence of DEI hiring practices other than āthere was a same sex romance in Ohnāahran Plains therefore DEIā?
You shouldnt.
The writing sucked which is why they fired a white guy to bring back a white guyā¦ sure sounds like DEI, they have been having a battle with addons, they have had suggestions from the playerbase which complains about their own suggestions when implemented. There is literally no out for Blizzard, its a catch 22 scenario. They are damned no matter what they do I dont like those kinds of scenario. If you put people in a situation there is no out then people just dig in their heels and they dont budge. Especially with a playerbase that calls them cowards for not doing something.
These forums do not have any nuance. You should know this by now. When you say you are against something, like 2h frost for example, they say you are anti-2h in every aspect of the game. You can tell they arent saying im anti-DW even though I am against DW for both Blood and Unholy, im also against DW for Arms warriors even though they did have access and the option to do it.
Its always a binary. If you arent left, you are far right, if you dont play the game then you know nothing about it because āreading doesnt existā, if you are against this suggestion then it must mean you are against all fun because I think my suggestion would be āfunā.
These people are just toxic and if its not jumping on me, its jumping on each other. They are the reason why these forums are 90% dead. Its the same 4-5 people driving off everyone else.
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No, it means we examine or they should examine what the problems are and address them. Itās not just in WoW either. Itās also not the sole reason these titles are in trouble, corporate malpractice has quite a bit to do with it.
As a customer I have an issue with this in particular because I also play other blizzard games (Diablo Series) and Iāve watched D4 also go into the dumpster because of some of these practices.
Now to be fair D3 was poorly recieved and that had zip zero zilch to do with DEI. Both games had extreme problems at launch, for different reasons. Iām fine with nuance, which is why I asked if you could think of some other reason weāve been dealing with this armor bug for over 6 years now.
Using the hyperbole of āsafeā is a bit much, coming from the perspective of someone who loves boxing as a hobby and because of a formerly rough life style has had three people try and stab him to death with over 1000 other violent encounters.
My other issue is that it seems a genuine excuse for race baiters to make money off of what amounts to a lack of good manners or professionalism in an industry. Iām also going to point out that were you in any of the countries that the people you are talking about are from you would be afforded no such protection. This is where Gad Saadās book comes in.
You are however made aware of the race of the person.
Lousy experience, but I care about meritocracy and meritocracy only. Which I think you understand. Good for you for sticking with it brother! That being said, since Iāve been a child Iāve been driving and handling heavy machinery. No one would hire me based on that experience. The conversation point there isnāt race itās the backwards ideals of employers large writ that suggests one needs to have 3-5 years exp for an entry level position. Esp if there arenāt any real workplace hazards to worry about.
What you pointed out is also why Iām against ācorporate welfareā- if businesses choose to engage in bad policy there should be a consequence for that, ultimately going out of business. Corporate welfare protects businesses from this and that is wrong. If companies want to engage in bad practice they should be able to be punished by the market.
At this point (with the company and what Iāve experienced in WoW/D4) Iād have to say that I canāt agree though I wish I could because fundamentally youāre correct-politics shouldnāt be here. Problem is we didnāt bring them in; the company did. Now we get to deal with the results as customers. Which Iām voicing my feed back on.
All that being said, how do we get the company to acknowledge the bug, and then fix the bug? Genuine question, back on topic. Iām almost out of ideas, Iāve gotten success being loud in the past but this is something different.
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I think we are seeing as close to eye to eye as we can hope to on a topic this heated. We can keep going back and forth over specifics but I donāt think that will get us anywhere so Iām primed to get back on topic!
Iāve actually worked in QA quite a bit, so what we want is an objective, repeatable test that produces the same results every time. An example would be showing screenshots or videos of like a player with a weapon with minimal varience (maybe a low level grey or maybe just unarmed) attacking different players and seeing how much their armor reduces each of the attacks. If we could show that a warrior takes 10 damage while a dk takes 12 (with the same armor value!) that would be hard proof. especially if blizzard could reproduce the same situation in house and get the same result.
The second part is after collecting the evidence is getting blizzard to notice it. This would be a combination of using the forums, using social media, and also trying to get it in front of influencers. When it comes to the forums we should be using the bug report forum and the death knight forum, and trying to keep the message as efficient and actionable as possible.
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Ok, thatās a place to start. So we need only physical damage dealing specs (Outlaw, WW, Warrior) hitting into a DK then another plate wearer to show the variance.
If you want an outlaw rogue for testing you can have mine, I know where the grey weps are for sale. Just lmk. I have no other phys only damage specs available, but perhaps some other community members will help out.
Most DK streamers areā¦well low quality so probably not a lot of help there unless Mes speaks up.
Edit-just checked my schedule Iām available to test Wed May 28th anytime after 8 pm EST, btag is jay#1401
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I unfortunately donāt have a warrior, and my paladin is still level 70 :(, I am willing to help out if someone wants to test this or compare against warrior/paladin that are 80.
Regardless I decided to look into this and try and figure out what is going on, and honestly I have no idea, itās very confusing.
When I enter into PvP combat, my ilvl increases but my armor value actually decreases, I donāt know when blizzard made this change, I would assume it was either in SL or DF as those are the two expansions I didnāt really play. I checked this on my Paladin as well and her armor also decreased when entering PvP, even though she is low level with no PvP gear. I was not able to figure out the formula for the decrease because I lack data.
I also stumbled across this old (2021) article from Rextroy talking about a change that happened in shadowlands that effectively buffs physical damage as players gear up. I cannot confirm if this is still the case, as this is all new to me, but looking around I do still see my armor mitigation change based on who I have targeted and what their ilvl is.
https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/62087-armor-and-block-pvp-scaling-system-how-gear-makes-us-weaker/I have not found anything specific to DK yet, but what I have found is both enough to cause us problems and is more than enough to merit looking into this more, as there are so many moving parts itās hard to get my head around it. Just physical damage mitigation decreasing as both players level up is enough to put us at a disadvantage vs Warriors and WW monks, as so much of our damage is shadow, frost, or shadowfrost.
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Iām away from my PC but there is a feature in PvP that reduces character armor values across-the-board, 10% or something like that.
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Did some more testing and indeed my geared DK has a lower physical mitigation against someone of the same ilvl than my undergear DK vs someone of their ilvl. This is not to say that getting more gear is worse, as my undergeared DK still takes more damage than my geared DK, itās instead saying that as players level up armor increases will lag behind and physical damage will get stronger.
Also my DKs and Paladin lose armor when entering PvP combat, but my DH actually gains armor, it all seems quite strange. More research needed.
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Ye found part of it, actual notes arenāt coming up, yet.
AI summy from the search prompt āblizzard reduces plate armor in pvpā
I was wrong,the reduction is 30% for plate, cloth gains 35% armor. Not sure about leather but they must gain as well.
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Your post lost all value with this nonsense.
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LMAO thanks for the 2 copper bud, but weāve moved way on.
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Found the official notes for this change:
I think the leather armor increase Iām seeing is probably just due to the PvP ilvl on my gear increasing.
This armor change though is insane, for example if you look at the Warmongers gear on a Vendor then the Armor amounts for a chest piece are:
Chest:
Cloth 2470
Leather 4241
Mail 6225
Plate 9408
If we apply those PvP changes those numbers turn into:
Cloth 3334.5
Leather 4241
Mail 6225
Plate 6585.6
Basically plate and mail are the same armor type now, and cloth is only marginally behind leather.
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Yeah the numbers are a bit of a dogs breakfast, if Iām right about the armor bug being active for dk our values for damage taken should be way more than other plate wearers from physical sources.
Iām not sure if it would be reflected on the character sheet.
The presence of such a bug would make playing into anything that can reduce armor further that much more overwhelming, which is why Warrior stands out among melee for gibbing DK.
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So if you guys are ok with me adding my 2 cents I try to keep politics out of Forums for games. But when a company cares more about a picture in a game in a zone that no one really sits and stays in for a long time and changes the picture over fixing bugs with their classes this is an issue. Imo this is where it started and Blizzard went over board with their virtue signaling. Where my issue is with their hires is at the game director. Imo he has kept one of my favorite classes down because its not in the direction he wants the game to go.
Now that I have said this. Warriors in general arenāt just a DK issue Shamans have issues with warriors so do other classes. The pretext of warriors I carry 1-2 weapons and or a shield I do Damage or take for ever to kill with my shield. IMO its class balance that is the problem. A class that has 2 charges has plate like DK and paladins but can do so much more damage and have sustainability. VS dk who has a plate that has a pull the target to you and our only sustainability is a attack that heals a small portion of our health with in 5 seconds of taking the hit also it has diminishing returns. That is the issue.
Personally when it comes to pvp I think wow is cooked and better balance is needed either bring other classes like dkās shamans up to warrior damage as fast as warriors can get it out or drop every class to the lowest damaging class in pvp. But this is just my 2 cents.