"The crowd chooses you" counter - Fix it or remove it.

07/10/2013 18:28Posted by Arahàn

I completely agree. Something needs to happen!

It will happen, and we intend for it to happen very soon.
The later we fix this, the higher the chance of causing long term effects on the current season.

The Crowd Chose You is definitely not working as we hoped it would, and we’re sorry for the problems that this has already caused.
Meanwhile I would just like to ask everyone for a little bit more patience, as we want to do this fast, but we also want to do it right this time around.

As an update to this, a recent post on the US forums by Lore elaborates on our plans for "The Crowd Chose You" buff:

Lore:

With Patch 5.4, we added a mechanic called "The Crowd Chose You" to Arena gameplay. This mechanic was added to suit two primary goals: keep the game from dragging on too long, and make sure matches always end with one team declared the winner. However, we wanted something that wouldn’t make players feel they needed to change how they played the game. Unfortunately, the implementation of The Crowd Chose You that went live with Patch 5.4 is not filling that last requirement.

So, we’re going to take a different approach. In an upcoming hotfix, we’ll be removing The Crowd Chose You entirely, and replacing it with a new mechanic called Dampening. If a match should last for 10 minutes, all players in the Arena will begin to receive a stacking debuff that reduces healing done by 1% every 10 seconds. This will continue until one team is eventually able to claim the victory. In the extremely unlikely event that neither team has won after 20 minutes, the match will end in a draw.

We feel that this mechanic will have a much smaller impact on playstyle, team composition, and decision making than The Crowd Chose You, and thus result in more fun and exciting matches. We’re currently testing the hotfix internally, and will provide an update when it goes live.

We hope that you feel, like us, that this change will be a great improvement upon "The Crowd Chose You" buff and we look forward to hearing your feedback.

10/10/2013 08:48Posted by Tyrinia

How will this effect Warriors and Warlocks? and other dps classes which have some sort of shield or similar damange migration ability, and how about damage reducing ability's like Hand of Sacrifice?

Self-healing, shielding as well as other abilities and spells like Necrotic Strikes absorption effectiveness will also be weakened by Dampening, it will not just affect healing.

At first, as a pure healer, this seems very bad. And very bias towards dps and hybrids.

We don't think that this change will diminish the value of healers or make them less desirable than they already are. Matches that lack healers, or even matches where only one team has a healer rarely last long enough for Dampening to kick in.

The tactic would to be, to have a triple dps combo with powerful enough offhealing, cc's/esacpe abliltys to avoid the majority of the fight for 10 mins, and the just pop all damage cd's and kill off a dps, while the healer is just watching.

That's a legitimate concern, however Dampening will hit the triple DPS team just as hard, if not harder than the opposing team, because their off-healing is already fairly weak and will just get weaker making a double DPS/healer team able to take them out as well. The main point to be made here is that this will affect both teams at an equal rate, so no individual team should be able to gain a greater advantage from it than the other.

Do remember that this feature is still under development and changes may occur to it, so please let us know what you think. :)

10/10/2013 12:04Posted by Myrmillo

Does that mean that priests who relay on shileds will be incarnation of god itself in arena?

As was mentioned earlier in the thread, shields will also have their effectiveness reduced by Dampening. So things such as "Power Word: Shield" should not give any particular classes an advantage.

10/10/2013 12:14Posted by Karetus

Lame, once again we're back to where we started where disc priests can decide to be a douche and take the game to a draw even when their teammate is dead.. great

Why do you feel that Disc priests are going to be so strong? If it's because you think absorbs will not be included, please see my comment above.

10/10/2013 09:13Posted by Rutjake

Will it affect the health return component of mage food (and bandages)?

That's actually a really good question that I will endeavor to find an answer for.

10/10/2013 11:10Posted by Ayano

Well, the new design is certainly better than what we have now at least. Thoguh personally I think it should start affecting damage instead rather than healing.

So you feel it would be better for damage to increase by X% per Y seconds instead of reducing healing? Can you give a little more information as to why you think this would work better than the current Dampening effect?

10/10/2013 12:40Posted by Ishayu

I'm still extremely worried about Blood DK's. They can easily survive for the first 15 minutes or so and then, with a 25% healing debuff, spam NS with all their cooldowns up and try to finish the healer. This strategy may turn out to be so efficient that Blood DK's are still going to be a huge problem here.

This change isn't intended to address Blood DK's in 2's and we also don't want to be designing the way the Arena system works around an individual spec. We agree that double Blood DK's in Arena are too strong at the moment and we're looking into some other changes in that regard.

10/10/2013 13:01Posted by Evelin

Also, while you're here, I'd like to ask why it was decided that Necrotic Strike should be affected by the healing debuff? It means a DK will effectively lose his prime damage component over time.

Because the absorption effect of Necrotic strike effectively becomes more and more powerful as healing gets reduced. This would mean that teams which have this mechanic at their disposal would be at a great advantage once Dampening starts to kick in. The damage component of Necrotic Strike remains the same, however.

10/10/2013 13:09Posted by Ephreaym

How would Polymorph work in conjunction with Dampening?

Another great question that I will look into.

10/10/2013 13:09Posted by Ephreaym

What about teams that will save their major damage cooldowns for after the 10 minute mark?

At that point of the match, you're in just as much danger as the other team. Not only that, it's a gradual increase and not a sudden one; this means that the 10 minute mark is still the same as the 5 minute mark.

10/10/2013 13:09Posted by Ephreaym

How will this effect Anti-Magic Shell? Does it go away once 1 damage is taken?

Absorption effects are affected in the same manner as healing in regards to Dampening. So it should absorb 1% less every 10 seconds after the 10 minute mark.

10/10/2013 13:09Posted by Ephreaym

How would this change effect a DoT cleave, especially in combination with a Gateway. I can see teams kiting for a long amount with almost no risks/downsides.

Can you elaborate further on how you see this style of comp changing its play style to adapt to the new system?

If anyone else sees an issue with this system where particular classes or compositions will change their gameplay to take advantage of this system, please let us know.

10/10/2013 13:48Posted by Johnmatríx

And if necrotic is affected, how about mortal strike effects?

Mortal Strike effects are percentage based, while Necrotic Strike is based off of the Death Knights Attack Power. While Mortal Strike effects scale along with the heals because they are based on percentage, the healing shield effect from Necrotic Strike would get exponentially stronger the more Dampening kicks in. This is the reason that Necrotic Strikes healing shield is getting reduced at the same rate as healing, but Mortal Strike effects are not.

10/10/2013 19:20Posted by Tmina

How about u fix the queues for starters, then think about unnecessary things?

While this may seem unnecessary to you, many players are very frustrated by the current "The Crowd Chose You" system and would like to see a change soon. Not to worry as we're well aware of player complaints of increased queue times and this is something that we're investigating. Check the main thread on this topic here for when more information appears: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/8380918087

11/10/2013 08:06Posted by Drmehico

when all healing is reduced by 100% it will be useless.

Healing will never reach the point where it is decreased by 100%, the highest the Dampening effect will get is ~60%.

Now as promised here are the answers to the questions that I mentioned I would look into answers for:

10/10/2013 12:33Posted by Nakatoir

Will it affect the health return component of mage food (and bandages)?

That's actually a really good question that I will endeavor to find an answer for.

Mage food is unaffected by Dampening. Do remember though that finding time to drink and eat in Arena can be difficult and keeping your opponent in combat to prevent this is one of the subtle nuances of Arena combat that is easily neglected. As long as you pay attention to your opponent and ensure they remain in combat, you should be able to prevent them from eating to regenerate health.

10/10/2013 13:35Posted by Nakatoir

How would Polymorph work in conjunction with Dampening?

Another great question that I will look into.

Polymorph is also unaffected by Dampening.

A good way to tell if something Is going to be affected by Dampening is to see what is changed by Battle Fatigue, as both work on essentially the same rules. So if it's affected by Battle Fatigue, it's also affected by Dampening.

As a heads up to those that have raised concerns for the Dampening effect in regards to the affect it will have on Necrotic Strike and double Rogue; we're going to be taking another look at the way in which Necrotic Strike's healing absorb is affected by Dampening. We get that the absorb is the bulk of the ability's "damage", but there is still some concern that it would be too strong. We're also currently discussing the concerns that have been raised for double Rogue.

14/10/2013 11:59Posted by Fusdoraks

What about reflective shield? The glyph is supposed to reflect 70% of the damage absorbed. Since dampening should affect healing/absorb only, would it reflect the correct amount of damage?

The damage that's reflected won't change, it will still reflect 70% of the damage that's absorbed. The only difference is that the shield will reflect less overall damage due to the amount that can be absorbed being decreased.

Quick update: several of you have expressed a concern about stealth teams staying hidden until late in the game, when Dampening starts to stack. This would require them to grab Shadow Sight orbs as much as possible, which would be tricky but is actually possible (particularly with mechanics like Vanish).

We're not totally sure it would be a problem, as it would require quite a bit of skill and more than a little luck to pull off, but we do see the concern and want to avoid promoting that sort of behavior. So, when the Dampening change goes in, we'll also be changing the Shadow Sight debuff to prevent the player who picks up the orb from using stealth mechanics while it's active. That will also include abilities like Vanish or Shadowmeld.

Giving a heads up about the upcoming change to replace The Crowd Choose You with Dampening. Testing for the hotfix has completed and it’s currently scheduled to go live after with tomorrow's rolling restarts.

There's a known issue with the tooltip that will be corrected in an upcoming client-side patch. The description should read “Healing effects received reduced by X%”. This applies to all heals and absorbs. It does not affect the healing absorb of Necrotic Strike.

In addition to that, there is a hotfix that's currently undergoing testing (not ready yet) that will cause players picking up a Shadow Sight orb to receive a Faerie Fire effect.

5.4 Hotfixes: October 21

Battlegrounds and Arenas

Arenas

• The Crowd Chose You has been removed and replaced with a debuff called Dampening.
• For Arena matches that last more than 10 minutes, all players in the Arena will begin to receive Dampening.
• Dampening is a stacking debuff applied to all players in the Arena every 10 seconds.
• Each stack of Dampening reduces all healing and damage absorption by 1%.
• If neither team has won after 20 minutes, the Arena match will end in a draw.
• Necrotic Strike's healing absorption is not affected by Dampening.

We’re paying very close attention to Dampening, we understand that sparing Necrotic Strike seems like a controversial decision but we don’t really think it should be considered so; Necrotic Strike's mechanics are also very often misunderstood, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Like I said, we’re monitoring this very closely, and even though we’re confident in the outcome of this latest change, things might still change.

We agree that matches where one team decides they can’t win (usually because they’ve lost a player), and thus decides to play defensively in an attempt to force a tie, don’t really make for fun gameplay. In fact, one of our original goals for 5.4 with The Crowd Chose You was to eliminate that sort of behavior. We’d much prefer matches to end with a winner whenever possible through fair play.

To that end, we’ll be applying a hotfix that will add one small tie-breaker. After the hotfix, if a match should last for the full 20 minutes, the team with the most players left standing will be awarded the victory. If both teams have an equal number of players alive, the match will still end in a draw (as it does currently).

We feel that this will continue to encourage players to try to defeat the other team, while discouraging them from dragging the game out hoping for a tie, without any other major impact on player behavior. We’ll give an update to the official hotfix blog when this hotfix goes live.