Opioid

OK now basic economics teaches us a little something about human behavior and how people apply it to gain an advantage. This manifests in two major ways: differentiation, whereby one competitor will seek to make a 'premium' product with better service or whatever and distinguish itself that way (Mercedes, Apple Computer, &c.) This is mostly irrelevant to my question compared to the second one, which is filling a specialized niche to offer a better selection or price than a general retailer to attract people that way (Bed Bath and Beyond vs. old-style department stores, for instance.)

(WoW population models taken from wowcensus observations while it was still up, now some kind of remainder is at http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php. I don't know how recent it is, but it does take into account post-60, so its recent enough for me to make some judgments about classes as they stand today.)

My question is about the major flavor of the month "trends" (for lack of a more specific descriptor) in crying about class imbalance. Sometimes, when a class is identified as "too powerful," exactly what one predicts would happen occurs: it is flooded. When rogues (way back when) and warriors were identified as "too strong" (for whatever reason, based in fact or not) tons of people picked and played alts of those classes or rerolled. Hunters, which started the game as arguably the worst class (or tied with warlocks) jumped to the front of the pack in terms of popularity after their talent redo/later adjustments made them a viable class. On the flipside, after the expansion, warriors (being perceived as boring/stupid) went into steady decline, and priests took the biggest hit (not being the most popular class to begin with, now priests are near the bottom with paladins shooting up.)

The problem emerges when the reality doesn't match the logical prediction of a class being called "too powerful." My personal favorite and 2 years rolling with a warlock, actually, is what got me inspired to write this. The outcry over warlocks being too powerful has been arguably the longest-lasting "common knowledge" concern in the history of WOW trends (starting, albeit at low intensities, roughly around the 1.08 patch change to make Death Coil the short cooldown horror-inducing "panic button" instead of the 10-minute mediocre blast it was.) After the 2.0 talent redos, the cries against warlocks reached their apex and plateaued to this very day.

After the expansion, druids, who were supposed to be the "hybrid class" (in reality being pretty much confined to resto-spec healers for the vanilla raid game) got their tanking and later caster specs balanced to be reasonable and worthy contributions to a raid group. Alongside the rebalancing of arms/fury with warriors and the necessity of prot-heavy specs to do a decent job tanking in expansion content, druids received similar outcries from the public about being tiny instruments of furry death and about how Blizzard must be biased about making that class better and better at the expense of others. The most recent theme against druids is "Cyclone is waaay too powerful in arenas, druid on arena team = IMBA"

Now I'm not trying to incite any actual battles over whether a class is balanced or too powerful (save that sort of bullshit for the WOW boards.) My question is merely one of group behavior not matching its logical predictable outcome: given the similar trends in the past and outcries of "flavor of the month overpowered!" given to rogues/warriors/hunters, why does the population of warlocks/druids not match the hype? Given the very obvious "common knowledge" about those classes one would expect to see an influx of alts or rerolls so that the individuals complaining could reap that competitive advantage as many did before and become more powerful themselves. The reality of the situation, though, is that warlocks and druids both remain in the bottom 3 classes in terms of population to this day (not counting the paladin/shaman choices, which were each exclusive to a faction until recently and as such have not yet produced fair/stable samples for evaluation.)

I don't think anyone can argue the recent popular outcries of warlocks/druids being "too powerful," (regardless of one's opinion yes or no on the matter) and the objective data exists to show that those classes aren't trendy picks, so why does the reality not match the prediction (or precedent from previous class complaints, if you will?) Is it simply that these complaints have gathered huge amounts of steam from people not knowledgable enough to judge properly and are without any merit, or is there another factor at play in the equation in your opinion?

 

◊ Anias

Because leveling a druid/warlock through the early 1-40 game is a painful experience, and doesn't in any way match up to the hype. Both classes are quite nice at 70, that doesn't really help you motivate yourself to get one out of stv.

The "Hunter/Rogue" OP ---> Lots of hunters/rogues phenomena was more a factor of "any braindead 4 year old can level a hunter rogue" than the class's percieved power at cap.

Some classes are simply easier to level as alts than others. Hunters have pets and a straightforward autoshot + spam whatever button will do. Rogues have energy and spamming the button with the largest damage number above the opponent's head works. Warriors are similiar to rogues, you can (and people have) leveled both naked.

Warlocks are a bit more complex than that. If only b/c of spell interrupts. Druids are quite a bit more complex than that - although mostly it's because finding real druid gear is a pipe dream before the high 40, and the introduction to the class is...erm...pitifully planned at best.

 

• Vulajin

I think you may be inferring causation where there is only correlation. In my thinking, it's probably more likely that rogues and warriors were "discovered" to be "overpowered" as more and more people started rolling them.

Leveling a rogue or warrior is probably easier for most people than leveling a druid or warlock, so it's not surprising if those classes are highly played regardless of "overpowered-ness" considerations.

 

mek

I'd agree that the popularity of classes is largely based (in casualland) on their sub-20 experience. Some classes motor through 10-20 with incredible ease (rogues and hunters are both do stupid dps, twoshotting even cons etcetera) while some classes are not only slow and annoying but play completely differently because they don't have key talents or spells. Druids without cat form (this is particularly agonizing), priests without significant points in shadow, and warlocks without succubus, fel concentration, etcetera, level strangely and probably irritate more casual players.

Healing-oriented classes often seduce group-oriented casual players into doing silly things like speccing deep holy at low levels. A good way tol make your leveling experience completely miserable for zero gain, as a half-asleep shadow priest can heal any old world instance by themselves. DPS classes obviously don't face this problem, a rogue or hunter could level to 70 without using talent points fairly easily.

Sure, a warlock with imp out can fear kite and own stuff, but that sort of complicated tactic is not exactly newbie territory. 99% of newb warlocks are slowly burning down single mobs with their voidwalker out, slow steady and extremely boring.

 

Ghando

I think Shamans are also a deceptive class. It's a weak PvP class at 70 (though solid in raiding/groups) but the perception of Shamans by the general populace has always been affected by the Shaman levelling experience. Shamans (Enhance specced) absolutely CRUSH everything up through lvl 50+, and while they slow down considerably after that many casual players won't take them that far anyway.

 

Goreshot

There is also the issue of information. The vast majority of new players have little-to-none of the information you speak of at hand when they make their gaming choices. And, by the time they reach any level of working knowledge that would lead them to start forming class balance/mechanics opinions, the majority of those players won't take the time to reroll. Or, they don't have the time to reroll and level that character to 70 anytime soon (i.e. they'll quit the game entirely before hitting 70 on their new character).

"User is a tremendous douchenozzel"
-Actual EJ Forums feedback concerning Goreshot.

 

◊ Kyth

New players, of course -- although many are influenced by their friends. That said, all the non-raiders I know have many alts, even if none are at level cap, and I think this is what the thread was referring to: people who reroll due to what class they perceive beats theirs, or that they hear (Barrens chat anyone?) is overpowered.

 

Rheyah

There's also the PvP issue. Some people simply do not understand how or why they get killed. The perfect example is the druid who shifts endlessly to try and get out of Judgement of Justice. Now in some cases it can be seen quite easily. Warlocks, simply put, have absolutely everything they need to utterly tater a paladin. It is luck on fear resists that keeps me alive against a lock. But some people will read forums and develop complexes. They'll see "wait, other people are dying against this class" and jump on the bandwagon. From the perspective of their class, everything with that class looks peachy keen.

So they roll that.

 

Neckface

I've thought about the problem of class balance exactly this way (and also the issue of faction balance) and it has occurred to me that the missing component is a market balancing force in the form of feedback. In a real market as suppliers rush to fill market opportunities the margin advantage of the niche diminishes until equilibrium is reached. However, "equilibrium" in WoW == official buffs/nerfs of the classes, which is roughly analogous to waiting for government regulators to balance markets. I.e., overdue and ineffective.

What if class/faction powers were somehow dependent on relative populations? For example, the AP multiplier for rogue finishers was linked to relative rogue population, either globally or server-by-server. (You would want it to be real-time, that is based on current log-ins instead of unused toons, and weighted by level, to prevent people from creating tons of level 1 alts of their most hated classes in order to weaken them.)

The nice thing about this solution is that even if the designers got the mechanics "wrong" the marketplace would both demonstrate that and account for it. Again looking at my rogue AP example, if the designers overcompensated with the multiplier the result would be that the rogue population would end up intentionally low. But since the population is now decreased the mechanics would balance out and the class would be fine, and the imbalance would also be immediately apparent to the designers, who could then start nudging up the multiplier. They could even announce their intention to do so on a staged basis, i.e. a little bit each month, to allow the market to invest intelligently.

 

Opioid

Druid is painful until cat form, I'll give you that one, but I disagree completely about warlocks. Warlocks, even in my original experience opening winter of WoW, are the easiest things to level I've ever come across in an MMO (or maybe it just gives that impression, but still.) I didn't know any complicated Fear/CoR tricks originally, either. Its just being a strong nuker with good pets and fear that makes for a tough class.

To show the proof in the puddin', warlocks are the only class I've tolerated enough to roll two characters to max level (60 and then 70.) I've done one warrior and, given that experience, definitely don't ever want to do that again =P.

I agree with your "naked" point about warriors. I've been able to level hunters, warlocks and warriors essentially AFK in the early levels. I disagree that rogues are in that same class, though. I have to pay a lot of attention to level a rogue or I will die because they are so weak. I think rogues are a whole magnitude more difficult to level (everything relative, of course, nothing in WoW is "hard.")

I think warlocks have the distinct advantage of being the most go-go-go class after warriors and rogues (who don't depend on mana.) You don't have to drink water with a lock pre-40 if you don't want to, life tap and bandage can sustain you well enough (affliction helps a lot with always being ready to go but is by no means mandatory in facilitating that.)

You can essentially level so easily with a lock it could be botted, too, though, after some talent points - Sic pet with insta-taunt, Curse of Agony, Corruption (once instant no interrupts,) autowand. In fact, thats what I still do rep grinding when I want to shut my brain off. From very early on its an effective method of killing mobs within a level of the warlock.

 

Tunch

That would wreak havoc on the raid-game in terms of guild class composition. Any rogue-heavy guild, for instance, would be crushed if the rogue "market" ever became flooded. At least, if your suggestion had any real noticable bearing on the game. And if it didn't, its useless and moot anyway.

 

Opioid

My conclusions hold true if the census is adjusted for strictly 70s (warlocks move up a couple points, but are still down in the doldrums with druids even then) which we can presume to be fairly "well-informed" players in the sense that they are not completely ignorant and have some sense of battlegrounds/instance runs and know what is what (too optimistic? You tell me =)

 

Savos

I have a strong suspicion that any of the "nerf x" posts exist because they came across someone that had a strong gameplay sense to go with quick reactions. Always responding the correct way to attacks and defenses and such and not panicing and doing something stupid.

If someone uses their class with a high degree of understanding against someone that isn't as well versed it become comical almost. But when you get capable players on both sides the real class balance issues become apparent, eg warlocks and druids less desirable in 5v5 arena matches despite their "overpowerdness" in 1v1 and 2v2 encounters.

So people say this on WoW forums and contribute to the "general knowledge" of x being too good and thus people begin to reroll to x and during the course of leveling figure out what they did and realize that they were just countered properly instead of just having their target stand there without moving.

 

Arcos

This again references an earlier point that has always puzzled me: the large numeric difference between the number of hunters versus the number of warlocks. Both are pet classes, both do their own damage from range with their pets (usually) tanking for them, but, despite a reputation (right or wrong) for being overpowered, warlocks remain on the lower part of the population scale, while hunters are far more popular.

One theory I had was that the early availability of a speed increase (aspect of the cheeta at level 20) helps the most causal of players, while the (nearly) free warlock mount comes so much later that these players have already abandoned the class.

Or perhaps the answer has even less to do with gameplay, and can be attributed simply to a greater psychological satisfaction of blasting away with a rifle or bow, compared to the manipulation of eldrich forces. Or of course, perhaps deep down there simply are many players that are ultimately put off the be sinister (and I use the word loosely for anything in WoW) overtones of the warlock class.

I also think we can't really put too much stock in people knowing much about the true mechanics of the game versus the psychological aspects. In the days back in BWL, how many of us saw rogues that were desperate for Bloodfang shoulders, despite Nightslayer being better?

 

◊ Lactose

Do you honestly believe that the whole (Legolas / Drizzt) - especially for Alliance with elves - has nothing to do with more Hunters than Warlocks?
How the classes are perceived mean a lot, although the fundamentals might be very similar.

Look, Lactose, we'd rather you didn't eradicate the whole human race.
- Sam & Max

 

BeeLz

In my opinion warlocks are just really boring to level, and I know a lot of people who share that opinion. Over half of the players in my old guild leveled a mage, although we only had 3 or 4 people with a warlock alt.
I tried to level a warlock once but didn't get further than level 35, I guess for people who are new to the game it's even worse.

 

Arko

When the BC beta was in its end stage, there was an unprecedented imbalance favoring bear druids above protection warriors. I don't know if you had seen how bad it was, but: They took less damage on a crush than the warrior on a block, they had more life than a warrior with last stand activated and they did the same dps as any dps class while tanking while warrior rage generation was nerfed into oblivion just a month before BC.

As I intended to level 60-70 as a protection warrior to be able to tank instances while leveling up, I was really pissed. I also hoped to be MT for our guild in the long run. I considered my alternatives:

*swallow it
*reroll druid
*respec fury
*quit

I chose "swallow it". I was right. Druids were nerfed hard, really hard just before BC went life and again about one month or so after release. Warriors were buffed with thunder clap in def stance and more rage. The situation is now somewhat balanced again.

You asked why there is no rush to the classes that are currently overpowered? I think Blizzards history of nerfing and buffing has made a lasting impression that class balance will change sooner or later. By the time you have reached lvl 70 it may be all over. People have learned this lesson over the last two years and they act accordingly.

 

elsirad

My simple answer is that the 'market' is not perfect. As you'll recall from Econ 101, monopolies do best when there exist natural or artificial barriers to entry that make it difficult for competitors to enter the market. The "class market" has a number of barriers to entry. If someone believes that mage's are under-powered relative to locks, they can't return their 70 mage and get a 70 warlock in return in a quick and simple transaction.

The most obvious barrier is that it takes a lot of time and effort to level from 1-70. This ties into the difficulty other posters have mentioned. A class can be great at 70 and terrible to level. (And I personally hated leveling a warlock) Additionally, this is a MMO game. People have subjective opinions on the cool factor of a class, prettiness, or an attachment to a old toon which influence their decisions.

 

Arko

Not to mention attunements, reputations, trade skills. In vanilla WoW you could run a lvl 58 toon through BWL and get him a T2 set in two weeks and he was ready for Naxx. Today you will need two weeks to get reputation for the heroics where you may start your attunement quests to even enter the instance where the gear drops that you need to have for BT. The april fools joke was not really that much of an exxageration.

 

Linnet

The majority of players probably don't read forums or do much analysis, tbh. But some kinds of characters/builds just have more visceral appeal.

Hunter, rogue, and warrior types are popular in just about every game that has them (nb. extrapolating from my experience in 3 mmorpgs but that's close enough for government work). So I would say that as long as they aren't horribly weak or flawed, you would /always/ expect those three to be among the most popular overall. And probably a lot of people will just get their information third hand (a friend of a friend said that warlocks are overpowered, etc).

So I think the market analogy is nice but since the majority of the player base is not accessing the same level of info, the market response is a long way from perfect.


I agree that how classes play pre-20 has a huge effect also. Most people probably decide if they like a class or not by the time they hit level 10.

 

Opioid

This is a very good explanation, or the best so far, I think. People always play the "good" side in MMOs for some reason, and warlocks are pretty evil.

By the same token druids are pretty elfy and noble, though... and rogues, undoubtedly the second most evil class have always been super popular for some reason (if not most evil, considering things like gnome warlocks are little balls of egoism and arcane mastery for its own sake, not because they're satanic)

 

Opioid

Not trying to just be contrary for its own sake: Am I alone in thinking warlocks have the most visceral appeal in the game? Dark shadowy wizards commanding demons? Hell I rolled a warlock based on the awesome promos of the lock controlling an infernal and looking awesome (which in reality will probably never happen given the state of Enslave Demon, but the image sold me on the class from the start.)

I mean wearing tons of full plate or being the sneaky little Rebel without a Cause type and two knives is cool, but it never struck me as awesome as a demonologist master.

 

ildon

Druids are the only hybrid that have to change styles completely as they level.
1-10 nuker/kiter. 11-20 warrior. 21-X rogue.

Mostly people get confused before 10 (I didn't want to play a caster!), or bored before 20. Also, cat form is pretty crappy at first, starting with very very few abilities. And having to do quests for forms can be confusing or annoying.

As for the druid as a whole, most people at level cap can't really get around just playing a single role, much less people just learning the class at lower levels. I think a lot of people would rather the simplicity of just picking a pure class with only one or two roles to worry about.

 

Goreshot

Druids are, for lack of a better term, wussy. Very, very wussy. The majority of WoW players are young males. Hell, the majority of GAMERS are young males. Playing a character that is "in tune with nature" and wants to "cleanse the land of impurities" doesn't sound cool. It sounds lame. Sure, the class is pretty fun once you realize how it works, but by that time you're too far invested into your main character to really want to switch over.

Way, way too optimistic.

"User is a tremendous douchenozzel"
-Actual EJ Forums feedback concerning Goreshot.

 

Tzan

I think you're forgetting sex appeal and, pardon the pun, wow factor. Warriors, Rogues, and to a lesser extent Hunters are sexier than casters.

A Warrior standing around Org with massive glowing weapons inspires awe in the nonraiding/casual set. Rogues too with their glowing/dripping daggers and swords are impressive. People can try on the weapon, see the high DPS of the weapon and see themselves using it to 'pwn all'.

Caster gear lacks sex appeal. It's takes a much greater understanding of the game and game mechanics to see that X amount of +spell damage or +spell crit translates into something that's going to make you a god. And, in general, caster weapons aren't as flashy looking. (The Squid stick is funny looking, but not really sexy.) Compare Thunderfury with Atiesh.

People go for sex appeal.