I think about WoW too much, I'm going to vent some of these thoughts in this convenient little spot.
The Death Knight Problem
Posted 03/15/08 at 8:07 AM by ebbv
So as I've got about 30 minutes until my ride gets here to take me to the airport, I thought I'd use that time to address a problem most of you have probably realized, but it seems that maybe Blizzard hasn't really fully considered. It's the Death Knight Problem.
Let:
T = The % of the player population that is Tanks
H = The % of the player population that is Healers
D = The % of the player population that is DPS
N = The % of the player population that will reroll to Death Knights
The problem lies here; I don't think anyone would argue that H is too high right now. In particular my experience leveling to 70 very quickly was that finding a Healer was the trickiest part. Not that the Healing in non-heroic 5-mans is particularly hard, but just finding someone who was willing and able to heal. But what was worse was finding capable and dedicated healers once we hit 70 and started in on Heroics and KZ.
For WotLK it is going to be N worse than it was in BC. Because N of the population is going to reroll DK, H will be lowered. T and D will go up, but H will go down. The dilemma here is the more attractive the DK is, N increases and the situation becomes worse. The DK will not start at level 1 but at something closer to 60? N goes up. The DK unlocking quest will be easy and not require leveling to 80 on another character first? N goes up.
The solution here is to release a Healing Heroic Class at the same time. This is what Blizzard really needs to do to avoid this problem, but it doesn't seem so far like they're going to do it. The Archdruid was talked about as though it will be patched in after release potentially. Releasing a Healing Heroic Class would help to balance out this Death Knight effect, though I doubt it would see equal levels of rerolls.
Now I don't want to give the wrong impression here, this is not an End of Days scenario. We have certainly seen the healer population low in the past, and we'll all be fine and struggle through I'm sure. But in my mind this is a situation that can be avoided and thus should be avoided. But it looks like it won't be.
I'm also certain that things will balance out over the long term, that some people will find that they don't particularly enjoy the DK and go back to their old mains, and that some amount of DPS will reroll to healers. I'm most concerned about the timeframe of leveling to 80 and to start in on the level 80 instance content, where this effect will be most pronounced. This is a point at which a lot of people will decide whether WotLK is a good thing or bad thing, and whether they want to keep playing or cancel their accounts. Again, not to give a doom and gloom scenario, I have no delusions about a mass exodus from WoW simply due to a lack of healers, but it is something to be considered.
Let:
T = The % of the player population that is Tanks
H = The % of the player population that is Healers
D = The % of the player population that is DPS
N = The % of the player population that will reroll to Death Knights
The problem lies here; I don't think anyone would argue that H is too high right now. In particular my experience leveling to 70 very quickly was that finding a Healer was the trickiest part. Not that the Healing in non-heroic 5-mans is particularly hard, but just finding someone who was willing and able to heal. But what was worse was finding capable and dedicated healers once we hit 70 and started in on Heroics and KZ.
For WotLK it is going to be N worse than it was in BC. Because N of the population is going to reroll DK, H will be lowered. T and D will go up, but H will go down. The dilemma here is the more attractive the DK is, N increases and the situation becomes worse. The DK will not start at level 1 but at something closer to 60? N goes up. The DK unlocking quest will be easy and not require leveling to 80 on another character first? N goes up.
The solution here is to release a Healing Heroic Class at the same time. This is what Blizzard really needs to do to avoid this problem, but it doesn't seem so far like they're going to do it. The Archdruid was talked about as though it will be patched in after release potentially. Releasing a Healing Heroic Class would help to balance out this Death Knight effect, though I doubt it would see equal levels of rerolls.
Now I don't want to give the wrong impression here, this is not an End of Days scenario. We have certainly seen the healer population low in the past, and we'll all be fine and struggle through I'm sure. But in my mind this is a situation that can be avoided and thus should be avoided. But it looks like it won't be.
I'm also certain that things will balance out over the long term, that some people will find that they don't particularly enjoy the DK and go back to their old mains, and that some amount of DPS will reroll to healers. I'm most concerned about the timeframe of leveling to 80 and to start in on the level 80 instance content, where this effect will be most pronounced. This is a point at which a lot of people will decide whether WotLK is a good thing or bad thing, and whether they want to keep playing or cancel their accounts. Again, not to give a doom and gloom scenario, I have no delusions about a mass exodus from WoW simply due to a lack of healers, but it is something to be considered.
Total Comments 4
Comments
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I don't think healing is the primary issue that the new class introduces.
TBC saw the introduction of a number of new hybrid specs for classes that were typically healers prior to the expansion. The rise of the elemental shamans, prot paladins, enhancement shamans, shadowpriests, and (to a lesser extent) feral druids decreased the pool of existing healers much more than the introduction of one new class is going to. There's a number of ways to correct for a decreased number of existing healers: • You can increase the throughput of existing healers spells (ie ramp up the amount of healing from spells like circle of healing and chainheal). • You can create new talents in the existing hybrid classes trees that add healing and damage efficiency (e.g. moonglow or dreamstate in the balance tree for druids can easily be ported over to an elemental shaman's tree). If you make hybrids "adequate" 5 man healers, then you partially solve the problem. As long as the talents aren't purely for healing, people will take them. • You can increase the amount of healing provided by existing abilities like vampiric embrace, judgement of light, bloodthirst, and leader of the pack. I think the two biggest problems with the new class are: 1) You're displacing existing classes/roles in the game today. Feral druids are a dps/tank hybrid and so are arms/fury warriors to some extent. How does this new class compare in terms of tanking ability, buffs/debuffs, and dps output? If you go too far in one direction, you've either created an unnecessary new class or completely replaced an existing class. 2) The introduction of a new class doesn't guarantee that you have increased the number of tanks in the game. Your players have to want to tank. Rather than making the existing classes/builds more enticing to play or fixing their problems, Blizzard just created a new class. Tanking is largely a selfless task. If you're doing it right, you're making the rest of your raid look good. If you make tanking as a deathknight too easy or effective, then you run the risk of completely marginalizing non-dps spec builds like prot paladins or prot warriors. If you make it too hard, then no one will want to do it. |
Posted 03/15/08 at 2:00 PM by Fellwraith
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You make valid points and I agree with you for the most part.
But regarding hybrid roles decreasing healer count, I have to disagree. In general Hybrid roles are good enough to heal 5-mans. Particularly Elemental Shaman, Oomkins and Shadowpriests. We often had off-spec people healing the normal 5-mans on the way to 70. This ceased to be adequate for KZ and Heroics, however, we needed healing specced healers at that point. Those 2 facts combined together are why I think the Death Knight will be such a problem in this regard. It takes healers who -- even if they went to another spec -- would be able to heal those 5-mans, and makes them totally unable to do so. And it takes away the option to spec back to healing at 80, even just temporarily. I definitely agree with your point about Blizzard failing to make tanking more appealing to Warriors, Druids and Paladins and simply tossing a new class at the role. Tanking and healing both need to be reworked to be more enjoyable. But that's a whole different topic. Thanks for the thoughtful response. |
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Posted 03/15/08 at 4:48 PM by ebbv
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One of the possibilities you've cited - improving the value of incidental healing, a la Improved Leader of the Pack, Vampiric Embrace, etc. - concerns me, because I think it deviates away from the model that WoW uses.
It's no secret that Blizzard has begun initial development of a next-generation MMO, presumably to shore up their neglected Diablo universe. In the Diablo games, there were no 'healers' - players managed their own health/mana via a combination of potions and 'leeches', which allowed them to be individually sustainable. Arguably, requiring specific synergies between multiple classes and players in WoW might mean that arriving at a similar point of infinite self-sustainability (or in this case, group sustainability) is allowable, but is that a real 'solution'? It addresses the end-state goal of your concern, which is the inability for player X to complete objective Y if a reasonable ratio of healers to <other> cannot be maintained, but it also invalidates healing and its role in the game. Improving the attractiveness of healing, making it more challenging/interactive/intuitive, or even simply providing the players who elect to roll healers with more adequate means to analyze their contributions (built-in healing meters? built-in UI functions to allow for the parsing of healing, overhealing, heal/second, heal/mana, etc.?), seems like a much more valid way of approaching the situation. You cannot prevent N players from electing to dabble in the new 'Hero' class. Focusing on shoring up the weaknesses of the game with respects to healing and its function would be a much better way of addressing this concern. |
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Posted 03/17/08 at 6:41 AM by Vectivus
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I think the devs has addressed the healing issue by making the pre-heroic instances very easy.
Raiding and heroics addresses the healing issue by raid spots. In addition, DKs have a bit of healing tools (more if the are deep Blood) to help their healer out. |
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Posted 10/04/08 at 7:22 PM by frmorrison
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Recent Blog Entries by ebbv
- Gristle (07/22/08)
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