Communication, a problem and a request

#1 - Aug. 25, 2012, 2:19 a.m.

While this is not a qq thread, it is a criticism, one that I hope leads to changes in future betas.

We, the testers and players, (most of us anyway) completely understand how much work you devs are doing. We continue playing because we appreciate you and the work you do. We enjoy most of the changes and many times we realize months later the things we ask for are wrong.

Also, we have noticed that you have been listening to us. We have seen changes in things like BoA mounts that are exactly what we asked for.

But there are some things that just have us stumped. My main for years has been feral druid, and I play a lock pretty avidly as well. Frankly, the changes to SR are mostly incomprehensible. We have filled pages about our complaints and unrewarded and unnecessary complexity that seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

Now, we do NOT expect you to respond to us all the time, it would be impossible and exhausting, but there does need to be some communication into class design goals, especially when the community begins to reach consensus in our feedback.

SR for druids, along with the bizarre HT weaving we're forced to do now, along with the glaring problems of mana regen and just slightly too much simplicity of destro locks (caused in large part because of mana regen) are two examples of where just an ounce of feedback could go a long way.

A single post on a feral thread that said "we're aware of your frustrations, but we really believe this is the best course for the class" would go a long way towards keeping a happy community while literally asking for 15 seconds of time. If you can give us a reason that's even better, but if you can't, just let us know you see our problem but believe the dev team is right on this one.

And again, you don't have to do this to every thread, but we all know that the Feral thread and lock threads detailing the problems which plague the classes are exhausting and, for the most part, in agreement over the problems. Locks have come a long way, the remaining problems are just that, remaining, whereas the feral community has seen only a single blue post but is faced with baffling changes.

I know we're asking a little bit more of you all when you're already so taxed, but you will see results in community happiness (though lets be honest, some people will always be mad about something) :)

On a closing note in reference to the feral rotation, this link is a fabulous discussion of how the added complexity in warlocks from wrath to cata caused warlocks to virtually disappear outside of hardcore players, and I think it's very applicable to feral in MoP (I say this as someone who quit playing his lock in cata, and has picked it up again recently because of the streamlining that is happening in MoP to the lock class and the desire to quit feral after seeing the unnecessary complexity coming to the rotation).

http://cynwise.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/warlock-complexity-and-the-magic-number/

tl;dr? You don't need to respond to every thread in the forums, but when the community is in agreement that there are large problems with a class or spec, communication will ensure happy players, even if all you can communicate is that the community is wrong.

Ghostcrawler

Game Designer

#3 - Aug. 25, 2012, 7:38 p.m.

A single post on a feral thread that said "we're aware of your frustrations, but we really believe this is the best course for the class" would go a long way towards keeping a happy community while literally asking for 15 seconds of time. If you can give us a reason that's even better, but if you can't, just let us know you see our problem but believe the dev team is right on this one.

I actually disagree with this, but we'll see what happens. Usually when we say we disagree with a change for which players are arguing passionately, our comments don't usually resolve anything. They throw fuel on the fire and players can get more worked up because now they see a glimmer of hope that if we're communicating on the topic, that they now have a glimmer of hope to get us to change our minds.

We regretted what Savage Roar became in Cataclysm. We know that the depth of the Feral rotation was something that attracted a lot of players to that spec, and we feel like we removed too much of that by de-emphasizing Savage Roar to such an extent. Yes, Savage Roar takes some attention and skill to manage. The effectiveness for which you do so is one of the things that separates great cats from merely good ones. Furthermore, if you screw up Savage Roar completely, the penalty just isn't that dire.

Now I chose that word "depth" on purpose. We don't believe in needless complexity for its own sake. We greatly respect Cynwise, but when you read what he or she is talking about, a lot of it comes from warlocks having these extra buttons that weren't really intended for their rotation but that players understandably try to jam in there because it will theoretically improve their DPS. Part of the Mists overhaul of what specs and talents mean is not to give specs buttons that they really don't need and aren't intended for them. In 5.0, Destruction warlocks don't have Corruption to mess with.

That's not the case with Ferals. It would be if you were trying to use say Faerie Fire or even Maul rotationaly. The Feral rotation we designed is pretty much what Feral players are actually using. Yes, the rotation would be easier if you could spend every combo point on Rip without having to worry about also maintaining Savage Roar. The rotation would also be easier if we removed Rake and just let you always Mangle instead of Shred. We think that's too much simplification though.

In our minds, the Lich King Feral rotation was too complex. We think we made it too simple in Cataclysm. The change is intended to strike a balance between the two.