Pig & Whistle Tales - A World of Warcraft Podcast

Shaping WoW: Player Feedback, Class Balance, and the Evolution of World of Warcraft

• Gabriel • Season 4 • Episode 52

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Can player feedback truly shape the course of an MMORPG? Join us in the cozy ambiance of Stormwind's Pig and Whistle Inn as we dissect the latest "War Within" expansion for World of Warcraft. This episode, we shine a light on the community's concerns and Blizzard's responses, highlighting how player voices have influenced the game's evolution. From making the game more alt-friendly to the monumental return of WoW Classic, we discuss the delicate balance Blizzard maintains between listening to the community and filtering out mere complaints. We explore the impracticality of addressing every forum post and the importance of meaningful engagement in the game's development.

Ever wondered why class balance feels like a rollercoaster ride? We tackle this head-on, focusing on the complexities and frustrations of class balancing, especially from the perspective of a returning player. Reflecting on expansions from Warlords of Draenor to War Within, we delve into how balance patches can drastically alter gameplay and class performance. Using Retribution Paladins as a case study, we illustrate the ongoing struggle between passive and active damage sources, and how Blizzard's efforts to maintain balance often meet with mixed reactions. Tune in for an insightful look into the intricate world of World of Warcraft's class dynamics and Blizzard's relentless pursuit of balance.

Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!

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Speaker 1:

Thank you, hello and welcome to the Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth. As always here at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind, I go through a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft. I grab a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this midweek episode. We'll be going over a few of the forum posts and be looking at sort of what people are hating right now and people's kind of concerns about the war within, as well as some other stupid stuff that is uh said on these forums. Now this one might be a bit shorter. I don't really know. It very much depends on how long these forum posts go on for and how much I want to discuss. It's purely because I am really not doing great at the moment. So I'm really sorry in advance and beforehand, but I'll try and do my best to keep it going for you guys. But if it's a bit shorter, I do apologise and hopefully the next episode will be the usual longer sort of 30 minute ones that we want to achieve each and every week. So what we're going to start with is utterly disappointed for one more time. Ok, now this guy seems like a very cheery fella and we'll get started with what he says Well, blizzard have proven again for one more time that bad habits never change. It's like politics. We must take for granted that. And then he lists these three things. We'll never be heard, even if we prove mathematically that you're mistaken. We have been heard with many topics before. The biggest one that I can remember being heard about is being alt friendly. In shadowlands, the game was not alt friendly at all and they started to make adjustments to that at the end of shadowlands going into dragonflight, and it has happened with the war within as well, with the warband xp boost, the gearing systems and stuff like that. So we have been heard. Um. There are many other things that we've been heard about, but you might not necessarily see them implemented and be like, okay, this is like the biggest one that you know you guys have been discussing, so we've rectified it for you. And I mean the biggest one actually ever is wow classic. People wanted wow classic um back in 2016, 17, 18 and it got announced and it was released in 2019 and you know well, classic to this moment is currently in a stage of cataclysm where not a lot of people are playing it actively and sort of raid logging because it's in a stalemate. So you see how that's gotten like to us already now. Obviously, you can argue that Cataclysm isn't everyone's favorite expansion, but everything happens and people slowly get bored of it. I think classic was a great idea. I think classic era, having them servers, is a fantastic idea as well. I think it's amazing that that is still somewhat alive to this day.

Speaker 1:

But we are heard throughout the community. Um, obviously, smaller things don't get picked up on as much. We'll never get a reply to our topics, even if they are polite and within your rules and regulations. Yes, because simply stating, I go through all of the forums and within like two hours span, there's probably 10, 15, 20, 10 to 20, I'd say, forum posts within a certain section, that's general world of warcraft. Yeah, you have about 50 different sections, I would say. So you're telling me that they should reply to every single one of these, even though some of them are a bit ridiculous, like this one. Why would they reply to it? Because you're complaining, all right, that's all you're going to be doing. You're going to be complaining. I haven't even read this and I know that all of it is going to be just bitching and complaining. So they're not going to reply to it, are they? It is what it is going to be just bitching and complaining. So they're not going to reply to it, are they? It is what it is.

Speaker 1:

The third one you never intend to make the classes balanced and you seem to have constant hate for some classes, like Retribution Paladins. Okay, I guess you guys know what class this guy plays now. So Retribution Paladins got a massive overhaul in season one of Dragonflight. They were one of the best classes in the game. Okay, I'm talking from a PvP standpoint. Pve no idea. Pve is a completely different game to PvP. But I went back um, actually this was yesterday.

Speaker 1:

As of recording, I went back through my VODs on Twitch and one of my very first, like arena vods, is at the start of, uh, dragonflight season or at the end of dragonflight season one, and at the start of it it's only like a couple hours of odd. But we did arenas and at the start it was six games back to back with a retribution paladin. Okay, how crazy is that? That shouldn't be. That isn't healthy for the game at all. But you say that you know they're not good. So what do you mean? Because retribution paladins are also getting a sort of talent rework in 11.0.5.

Speaker 1:

So they are constantly looking at changing the balance of the game. And the thing is, it's an mmo. Nothing will ever be balanced, everything will be. There's something that is better than something else, and that's because they have to use different spells for certain classes, for certain specs and stuff, and it's tough to balance something. So balance cyclone, for example, a six second ccd, where they can't be healed, they can't be damaged, and you know, they just sort of sit there like doing nothing. Balance that with a hammer of justice, where the person is stunned but the stun is dispellable.

Speaker 1:

Now don't get me wrong. Cyclone is dispellable with mass dispel, but you know, for simplicity's sake, uh, they are stunned, but they can be damaged and can be healed. How do you balance them? Two things, okay. Now the obvious answer is you make Cyclone a stun. Okay, then what? Then? Suddenly, cyclone's a six second stun and Hammer of Justice is a five second stun, which is great. But Hammer of Justice is a 30 second cooldown. Cyclone has no cooldown. So again, how do you balance it? So eventually you're going to get to a point where every spell is the exact same. So Cyclone is now a 5 second stun with a 30 second cooldown. Same with Hammer of Justice. But what about Stormbolt? Stormbolt's only a 3 second stun with like a 30 second cooldown. Okay, so now Hammer of Justice and Cyclone are 3 seconds with a 30 second cooldown. You see where I'm going with this.

Speaker 1:

Every ability will be the exact same ability, but just a different name. And look so you can't balance it. It's almost impossible to do and it's ridiculous to even think that you can balance an MMO. The best version of MMOs are constant balance patches coming out that change the meta of the game. Now the meta could be it's all melee dominated, it's all caster dominating. That's fine for like a month or so, but you have to constantly change it because otherwise it will get stale, it will get, people will get pissed off and people will leave. So if you're changing it constantly and someone else's class is now the best class in the game, they have their month of enjoyment, that kind of thing. Now it's not going to be fun getting nerfed, but at the same time you can still understand why you're getting nerfed, that kind of deal, and that's why Retribution Paladins did get nerfed.

Speaker 1:

They were very good, they were unkillable, they were so strong like they were hitting me for a third of my health when they got their rework and I was fully conquest geared and all of that, but they were hitting me with one ability like for a third of my health. How is that fair is? Is that a thing that shouldn't be a thing, right, um, but yeah, anyways, let's carry on. You remind me why I quit the game eight years ago. He, he quit eight years ago and he's having a complaint about something that's recent. That makes no sense. Um, and what a great mistake I made when I started at the end of dragonflight, only because a friend told me that Retribution Paladin was decent. Yes, at the end of Dragonflight they were still decent, but Season 1 of Dragonflight they were the best class in the game. They easily were Not S tier but near A.

Speaker 1:

But yet again, you wanted to ruin even a thing you fixed. They didn't fix paladins. Well, they did. Actually, they were in a fixed state when you joined. They were in a broken state when you weren't playing the game. So you're not going to comment on that, are you?

Speaker 1:

Now let me get one thing straight People who care about what tier their class is in, like, need to sort out their heads in some way because, yes, it's fun being a top tier class. It always will be all right. You're doing the most damage, you're doing the most healing, cc, whatever you might be doing or using your class for. But you play wow for the fantasy of it. Okay, I play boomkin because I enjoy the class, I love the class fantasy of it, I love the treants, I love the nature spells, I love the like Elune stuff, I love Fury of Elune, full Moons, you know all of that stuff. I don't care if I'm S tier or if I'm F tier okay. Now recently I'm sort of around a B tier, maybe A tier okay, which is nice. I like that. Towards the end of Dragonflight I was a very much S tier class in terms of PvP. Again, I really enjoyed that. But historically Boomkin has been very bad, like in expansions. It historically has not had the greatest track record. But I don't care about that. I enjoy playing the game and the class as it is because I just enjoy the class itself.

Speaker 1:

Now people need to realize it's not about oh my god, my class is awful so I'm going to stop playing. It's absolutely ridiculous. He carries on and here I ask why? Why do you keep disregarding all of your paying customers. He's not a paying customer. Um, I'm not talking about the ones that say, oh, I can not one-shot healers in pvp. Fix it please.

Speaker 1:

Firstly, you don't ever go for a healer in pvp. Well, I say ever. You don't usually go after a healer in pvp, not unless you're a melee cleave trying to run down a resto shaman or something along them lines. But you're meant to cc the healer. I think that's uh, his, you know 1k mentality probably. Um, or damn you blizzard, why can't? Uh, why, damn you blizzard, why can't? Why I can't always be top of dps charts? I think that's just a uh missay there.

Speaker 1:

But the ones that prove it to you that their classes are not competitive and raids prefer other classes and prove their point based on logs and class metrics, but still you don't care and you do your things based on no logic at all. Okay, they do go off the stats. So if you look back towards Shadowlands Shadowlands, I think Destro Locks were very, very strong in PvE because all they did was sit there and press Rain of Fire. They nerfed this playstyle and have tried to branch out into other playstyles of it, and Destro Lock isn't as strong anymore. It's still in a decent place for PvE. Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 1:

I think if you're looking at in terms of balance, you're looking at the most balanced sort of patches ever in Dragonflight and in the War Within, because, historically, let's go all the way back to Classic when you were playing, apparently because you quit this game eight years ago, 2016,. So I have no sort of timescale on when you were playing, apparently because you quit this game eight years ago, 2016, so I have no sort of time scale on when you were playing. But let's say, you played back in 2004. You played a mage. Okay, you are s tier for everything pve, pvp, whatever. Let's say, you played a balanced druid. You are like dog shit tier in pve and pvp. Okay, now don't get me wrong. Pvp, you can one-shot things with starfire if you have the gear, but you are awful. You are not the best tier class in the game, but people enjoyed it still because they enjoyed the class. It's not about this s tier stuff and you say, oh my god, like it's not balanced. It's never been balanced, it never will be balanced.

Speaker 1:

So where's your argument for it not being balanced eight years ago, nine years ago, ten years ago, when you were playing? There isn't, because now that you've come back after eight years, by the way, I don't even know what expansion that was. Oh god, eight years was Legion. Yeah, 2016 is when Legion came out and he stopped playing before Legion. Okay, so he was Warlords of Draenor. Oh my god. This guy has not played Legion, not played. Bfa, not played, not played. Legion, not played, bfa, not played. Oh my God, what is it? Shadowlands, dragonflight, and now he's come back the War Within. He's missed about three whole expansions, four most expansions. It's ridiculous.

Speaker 1:

You can't have these things when you've not seen the state of the balancing that is within the game, and this is constantly throughout its past as well. It has never been balanced. It will never be balanced. People need to accept this. But the balance will change with patches. Classes will get stronger or weaker. Therefore, they're not dominating as much. You will never balance a mmo. People need to realize this. Classes might be good, might be bad, but you just need to enjoy your class, okay, yes, some things might be annoying. Yes, I am so depressed that dks can root me for 10 years, grip me 20 times back, but I know that they'll get nerfed. I know that they will. Eventually, something will happen and they'll get nerfed. Now I know that there's ways that I can play around this as well in PvP, but it is one of them things. You just have to accept it.

Speaker 1:

Some things change in a video game and the fact that you're complaining about balance. Now, when you were playing in Wall of the Draenor, in Mists of Pandaria, cataclysm, there were stuff that were broken. Back then I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say that he played wall of the drain or missa pandaria let's say these are the two expansions. He played missa pandaria, arms warriors and priests were just at one point, super, super s tier. Okay, arms warriors, especially at one point they were just skyrocketing through the roof. I bet he never complained at that time. I bet if he played a warrior he would never have complained. One of them things. Because the thing is with a retribution, paladin, who's your best mate? A warrior you queue like ret warrior in pvp. Sadly, he's not going to be complaining about that sort of, you know, broken state of Warrior or whatever is he. It's all very much dependent on the person and who they're playing like, or their class, essentially, rather than just enjoy your class as it is. Okay. Now he carries on.

Speaker 1:

I started wow again. I played another mmo, I won't mention the name. That was very similar to wow, but the dps classes were perfectly balanced and it was like a three month mmo, although the end game content was kind of bad and I was wondering how the hell a three month mMO has a better balance between classes than a 20-year one. Okay, if you don't want to say the MMO, you cannot be comparing the two. Okay, because I can say I can say this all right, I played like. This is an example. I played the best MMO ever. Okay, it was perfectly balanced, the end game was really good, the PVP was really good and it reminded me of WoW because the end game was very, very good as well. The PVP was very good and WoW is very balanced as well. I'm not going to name the MMO, but it was exactly like WoW and it was perfect.

Speaker 1:

Like, how does that help an argument at all? It doesn't, because you're just thinking that I'm chatting absolute, like nonsense. Because you're not giving anyone any sort of comparable, uh evidence to suggest that this mmo was very good. You're not giving any evidence to suggest why it was perfectly balanced. You're giving no info and you could have just easily made that up. It's absolutely ridiculous and ludicrous.

Speaker 1:

And this person coming back after eight years and played it for one season, a season that didn't get many patch updates, by the way, because they were working on the War Within and stuff, which is fair enough. Season four of Dragonflight was very scarce in terms of balance updates, I will give it that, and that's where it fell down quite a lot, but I'm hoping that they'll make it up in the war, within which I think that they are doing so far as there have been multiple balance changes already. Really really good, really happy with that. But yeah, it's absolutely ridiculous. You can't come back after eight years, play one of the longest sort of patches ever with no real class tuning and say, yep, it's not balanced ridiculous, it's absolutely stupid.

Speaker 1:

And to finish my wall of text, you decided to nerf dawnlight although we were not an s tier or a tier class. Please boost templar verdict judgment and blade of justice damage to counterbalance the dawnlight nerf to boost our single target. That is bad for a retribution paladin to be wanted class in raids again. Okay, firstly, retribution paladins. Yes, it is boring single target. I will give it that it is a very boring single target, but in pvp they've historically been single target like damage dealers and still are their templars. Verdict use it. Um gives you divine arbiter, proc. Gives you divine storm, proc. Gives you the dawn light proc as well, stuff like that.

Speaker 1:

All of this is passive. They want to nerf passive damage. Okay, passive damage is and shouldn't be in the game. In my honest opinion. If you look at fury warriors right now, a lot of their damage, or I say a lot about eight percent of their damage is coming from slayer's Take. This Slayer's Take has a random chance. When you hit them with melee to proc Slayer's Take and just deal damage, how is that okay? That shouldn't be okay. That's like my Moonfire randomly proccing, just a big hit, like 8% of my damage For Moonkins, if you have Sunfire and Moonfire on them when they tick, they have a chance of calling down a Shooting Star.

Speaker 1:

Okay, the Shooting Star gives Astral Power that's its main objective and does a tiny bit of damage. Now, the Shooting Star, I would say, does 1% to 2% of my damage in total. What if upped that by six or seven percent? What if it does eight percent of my damage? All of a sudden? Suddenly, my dot damage is really good is is that a thing? Should that be a thing? Should passive damage like that be a thing? No, it shouldn't it should.

Speaker 1:

Passive things should be for rage generation or astral generation, or energy regen or fury generation, runic power. You know all of that stuff, the stuff that allows you to press your abilities. I don't think, personally, it should be ones that do damage. Um, that's my own opinion and obviously people can have different opinions on that. But, like, yes, stuff needs to get nerfed. If you look at the damage Dawnlight was doing in comparison to everything else Paladins were doing, then you'll realise that it's like 17% of your damage or whatever it might be. Like it's in the high sort of teens and early 20s sort of damage, whereas everything else is in the like 10%, 9%, 8%. You know that sort of thing and it shouldn't be like that.

Speaker 1:

If you look at Aflac's right now, I think Aflac is a very good example of what a class should be. Now, don't get me wrong, they are still doing a ludicrous amount of damage, more than they should be. But if you look at the distribution of damage and how it's dealt, that's what I would want from a DPS. So you've got a lot of damage from your corruption, unstable affliction, your shadow bolts, your malefic rapture, your curse of agony. You know you've got all of these doing anywhere between five to 10 percent of your damage, between five to ten percent of your damage.

Speaker 1:

There is no sort of outlier where it comes to damage wise, especially like in pvp. At the very least now, nightfall and shadow bolt procs are very, very good, don't get me wrong, um, and do need to be nerfed. All right, I've not tested the nerfs yet, um, because I'm eu, so I wouldn't have uh, played the game yet. Um, like when the affliction lock nerfs go through. But I think that it's a very good distribution of damage and I think that a lot of things should be that way, but I don't think it should be doing that much damage, if that makes sense. So the distribution if it's between 10 abilities, that's fine. They all do sort of 10 of your damage. You know that makes up 100% of your damage.

Speaker 1:

Fine, if you have something that is doing 30% of your damage, okay, we'll go really extreme here. 30 to 40% of your damage, 50% even. Okay, we'll go 50%, because I know a class that does 50% of the damage from one ability and everything else is 10%. Okay, that shouldn't be a thing. That shouldn't be a thing. That shouldn't be a thing at all.

Speaker 1:

So evokers, for example, what is it Damage? Evokers? Devastation, that's the word their damage comes from. Disintegrate, that's it. 50% of their damage. Disintegrate. They don't have much damage in fire, breath or eternity surge because these things have cooldowns. Now the disintegrate procs eternity surge you don't really want to be casting living flame because it's not useful. Um, not useful until it's procked and you know it has increased damage and you know the sort of stats or the ramping that these spells can get now. But it's absolutely ludicrous to think that one class, its damage comes from 50% of its class rather than, you know, a flock that has 10% of its damage from 10 spells. That is more balanced, in my honest opinion, than a dragon. And retribution paladin is more balanced now than what it was back in dragonfly season one, because they still have freedom that.

Speaker 1:

Do not underestimate how good freedom is right now in a expansion and an early part of the expansion, where death knights are ruling, where slows are ruling, pvp okay, chains of ice, constantly from the horseman grips, constant stuff that is keeping you locked down. Do not underestimate freedom. Do not underestimate a blessing of sanctity or sanctify sank. Blessing is sank, I'm just gonna call it sank. I've never said the actual name of it, but I know it's blessing a song, um, bubble bop, you know, just off heels with word of glory. You know, do not underestimate these things. But because you can't deal damage or kill a healer in pvp which you shouldn't be doing anyway, like jesus christ, it's absolutely ridiculous, um, that you think that your class is bad. You know what? Please do like unsubscribe, genuinely.

Speaker 1:

If you are complaining that it's unbalanced right now, then you need to look at the history of world of warcraft. It's always been unbalanced but it is in its best state that it has ever been since classic. Classic has been a shit show of unbalanced stuff, so has TBC, so has Wrath, so has Cataclysm, mists of Pandaria, warlords of Draenor, legion, bfa. Shadowlands, like Dragonflight, was decent but there were still outliers. Boomkin and Rogue were dominant for the past, like couple seasons of Dragonflight. It's absolutely crazy. At one point in Shadowlands it was double outlaw rogue at the end of shadowlands. How is that balanced? It isn't. But like it's absolutely crazy. It's an mmo. Nothing will ever be balanced, nothing. You need to get you that into your head?

Speaker 1:

Please just enjoy the classes that you play. Don't worry about this s tier, this a tier, this b. Just enjoy the classes that you play. Don't worry about this S tier, this A tier, this B tier. Enjoy the game. Enjoy the classes you play. Don't worry about playing the flavor of the month. Enjoy classes you play and you will find more happiness in the game itself. That's all I'm going to say.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I really do need to end it here. I'm dying right now, but I'm hoping that this is enlightened you guys a bit, and I would like to hope that you guys sort of take what you can from this and just enjoy playing the game rather than worrying about this. Oh my God, my class is an S tier, a tier, like this sort of elite gamer sort of stuff. You know all of that shit. Please enjoy the game Like it is a game.

Speaker 1:

At the end of the day, it needs to be enjoyed in whatever way you can. I guess some things will be frustrating, but things will change during the game, like things will get patched, things will get nerfed, buffed, etc. Just enjoy the game as it is, because it will never be the same as it was, like in a couple weeks time. Essentially all right. So, with all that being said, thank you all very much for listening. Do check out all of the socials and stuff down below. Constant stuff happening over there, as well as an etsy shop. Constant stuff is going up there right now. Please do check it out. It would be really appreciated even if you guys had to look at it. All of it is 3d printed and multiple things are being added constantly on the daily. So thank you all very much once again and go eval a friend. Goodbye all. Thank you.