Amonra

I think most of the casual players that the OP is referring to probably don't much care about this level of mechanical detail. The ingame tooltips on the spells, items and abilities provide them with all of the information they want. From that they can make their own crude (or realistically not that crude) comparison on which is best.

It doesn't give them the whole picture, but to be honest they probably don't want to know the whole picture. Windfury giving 20% chance for an extra hit is plenty of information and is easy to understand. If the tooltip said that the ability also had a 3 second internal cooldown, their reaction would probably be "What the hell is an internal cooldown?". And even if they found out what it was they wouldn't really have any means of working out how much impact it would have on their dps.

Left to their own devices, the chance of them finding out about this undocumented feature by themselves is about the same as the chance of them caring about it.


It reminds me of when I played Diablo 2. When I first picked up the game, I played through it a couple of times with different characters. All the information I had was the ingame tooltips and I based my skill and item selection around those as best I could. I enjoyed the game enormously.

A good while later I came back to the game and did lots of reading around abilities, items, classes, undocumented features and the various little tricks. I then made a powerful character (a whirlwind barb back when they were really good) and played through again. I again enjoyed the replay a great deal.

Was my character far more powerful the second time around? Absolutely. Did I enjoy the game far more? Not really, was much the same both times. The satisfaction of dominating the game was balanced by the loss of that magical mystery factor.

 

Anaea

I'm probably exactly the kind of player Malan is talking about. I would disagree with the original premise (Blizz needs to be more proactive about making sure players read info, and use "push" tools like in-game mail) but I couldn't agree more with the idea (I think) he eventually got around to (Blizz needs to make sure complete/advanced and accurate information is out there *somewhere* so players can access this; corollary, the information available to players in-game needs to be accurate).

This is the niche that I've found our guild leadership (and our interested members) playing. For better or for worse, guilds are the support structures for players in the game. At least in my own experience, we have become the information gatherers - referencing the official website, forums, this forum, bluetracker, etc. - and bringing back the tidbits that our members will want to know and perhaps don't know they want to know. I don't think this is Blizzard's job, nor should it be.

They could make it easier on us, that's for sure. I've been repeatedly impressed by the EU forums' MVPs. I can't see why that kind of information gathering doesn't take place on a more official level. At which point, I have no problem with us taking responsibility for getting that information out to our respective communities.

Addendum:

To Amonra's point, I'd say that's only partially true. My friends and guildies are grateful when we provide this kind of information (pre-release patch notes are among the most popular front page articles we post). They care, but the trick is in the extent to which they care. They aren't going to troll this board or to crack open their combat logs (hell, I wouldn't do the latter) to find that kind of thing out. But I'd say you're underestimating how much people do in fact appreciate information about how to improve themselves.

 

Cromfel

It seems that the Blizzards current communication methods are falling apart. We saw how Paladins reacted after the long waited 2.3 patch information compared to the information pieces that were dropped here and there prior to the patch notes. Similiar pattern can be seen now at US Shaman forums, Excessive spam.

Why this happens? Is Blizzard digging their own grave with the lack of communication between devs and players? This kind of spam attacks are only possible because playerbase is forced to extreme measures just to receive face2face communication. They are afraid of something artificial that may come from open communication, yet dont see the amount of problems that are caused with the lack of communication.

.:. Retribution Paladin Hideout .:. http://cromfel.battlefield.fi/

 

Malan

Well the spamming of the forums is a product of several misconceptions on the players part. One is that they believe that this 'protesting' is somehow their democratic right to a lack of CM posts, which they also view as their god given right. Second is that they believe that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Neither of these are true of course, the infamous 'shaman forum uprising' back around the class review (or whenever it was) is a good illustration of this. Rampant forum spamming, and all that came out of it was forum account bannings and Blizz moved on with business as usual.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Cromfel

But why have we come to the point where masses feel that its the only way to get heard and understood? I perfectly understand the misconception what was created with Paladin threat reduction spam and announced changes, they got connected even if they had no relation. Blizzard had said they are thinking about threat reduction for Paladins. Why did they not give specific information, why didnt they tell about the planned changes?

They directly created the situation what makes it look like the spam rewarded the additions, when in reality it wasnt the case. Would the open communication have saved them from this headache, or would it have caused more problems? I dont personally understand the horror what they seem to have against more direct approach on what they are planning on classes, how they see each class perform etc. Ofcourse there is the "We dont want to tell you how to play" but is that valid when considering just design directions and performance issues?

.:. Retribution Paladin Hideout .:. http://cromfel.battlefield.fi/

 

Malan

I wouldn't say the forum spam is anything new, its been around as long as I've been playing the game. As for the Paladin thing, I must admit that I'm not aware of the situation you're speaking of. Can you give a rundown?

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Diogo

I think he is referring to the original incarnation of the patch, where the paladins received no threat reduction, and the subsequent reaction in the forums to that, with the new threat reduction talent (and, after, the further refining of the talent so that ret pallies can tank).

And I agree with him: the blizzard forums are an absolute wasteland because of stuff like that. I.e., when you couple very little explanation or insight for certain changes with a few examples of "forum revolts" that people thought had worked, it's obvious we will end up with the current state of US blizzard forums, where people only log in to make inflammatory posts.

And there are other examples of that: the quickly reversed changes to tailor sets and the hotfix to help druids come to mind. The changes were probably the result of internal testing and such, but when they happen concurrently with forum activity, and without communication before or after the event, people feel like it* "works."


*forum protests/trolling

 

MeltingFaces

Don't forget the pally S3 arena gear change!. I wouldn't term the changes as results of whining, its just a poor implementation on blizz's part in the first place and when they didn't communicate properly people had to find a way to make things happen.

If some of us seriously think that proper communication and constructive posts will always get blizzard's attention think again. Priest forums are maybe a good example where people have posted several constructive posts right from Day one about so many lackluster talents and racials.. and tell me how long it took for blizz to even acknowledge them nevertheless do anything about it.

-edit spelling

 

Malan

Blizzard doesn't need to acknowledge anything though. They've made it quite clear that the CMs read damn near everything. Maybe they need a little icon that says "A CM has seen this thread" or something, but I doubt that would change the current behavior that occurs when someone sees a blue post in a thread. And it probably wouldn't eliminate all the whining of "my constructive thread hasn't had a blue post acknowledging my brilliance and giving direct developer feedback."

This all sort of feeds back to my original argument in this thread that the forums are a half assed solution for information flow.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Volrath50

I occasionally play Magic: the Gathering, and one of the things I enjoy most about that game is the website that Wizards has set up for communicating with the player base. Specifically, Mark Rosewater's weekly column, and the other developer column, whose author changes every once in a while. The amount of insight that those have given to what would otherwise seem to be arbitrary and odd decisions has been enormous, at least for me, as well as giving very interesting insight into the game's design and development.

It'd be great if Blizzard would have a similar site with a weekly, or at least monthly column or two by a developer and/or designer. I think that would go a long way to improving communication and giving people knowledge into how internal decisions are actually made, rather than guessing that forum revolts and server crashing parties work.

 

Diogo

They don't need to acknowledge anything, specially with the frequency that people expect, but I think they should at least acknowledge big changes that are still under heavy testing, and maybe say something with regards to their intention. Obviously there will be cases when one of the changes they are testing will be reversed due to testing. Saying why they tried that change out, and why they went back on it, would make it so that people don't think forum trolling is getting them somewhere.

Too many times now we've seen changes proposed and reversed without any sort of reasoning or feedback which has led people to believe that that sort of thing (trolling, server invasions, etc) works.

 

Malan

I would definitely agree with Volrath Clearly the forums and one-to-many interaction between devs and player base is not going to work. A weekly or monthly column that really laid out was going on would be great. Those war plans (or whatever they were called) were at least a half assed attempt at doing this, but there were only two of them I think, and they read as though they were written by a CM who was just summarizing patch notes.

Diogo - lets say that the CMs started posting the 'why' of a change. "Diminishing returns on interrupts are being implemented because of XYZ," do you think the forums are going to behave any differently? My gut feeling is that they'd be flooded with "that's just the company line" or "stop lying to us you sellout" posts. The official forums are a mob and they act with a mob mentality. There's no reasoning with that group of players.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Grogzor

What doesn't help with the WoW forums is there presence of Anonymity. A guy posts on his level 3 mage alt and says something that is to direct a response and then you get the next 3 pages arguing with the guy because a lot of people by their very nature are argumentative. I think that Blizzard could clean up a lot of their forums if they just let you be able to see the alts of anyone who posts.

Second, the squeaky wheels do in fact get the grease. If something is brought up more and more, the CM's just won't omit that from their reportings to the developers. They will make another mention of it. "It seems that shaman are still upset they don't have a form of CC" week after week as long as its a hot topic among the shaman community.

But when it comes time for me to remove your wings, and you, you must try to fly...

Click Here to see what makes me tic(k).

What Are You Going to Roll for Warhammer Online?

 

Vaagren

I agree, "Forum Alt's" are probably the number one reason I do not usually as a rule read the WoW forums, usually I stick to forums such as this, and lucky for me I read the patch notes.

What blizzard needs to do is clean up the forums, tell us why they do the things they do, and alltogether communicate to the entire player base. Yes, there is a large group of casual gamers, but they deserve to know if their class is being changed, without going on an information hunt.

If blizzard can clean up the forums then perhaps maybe some more intelligent discussion will occur.

 

Tyrn

To stay with the original post, I disagree that Blizzard should be attempting to makes the reason behind changes blatantly obvious. The reason is because people will still miss it and still make a fuss about it. If your serious about your class, you will read through the lines of the patch notes and see the truth of things behind the reasoning.

For example, the Resilience effect on dots. Judging by the public reactions, you'd think its the end of the world for warlocks, but when you take into effect the damage spread, in addition to the gear changing lockdown, it was more of a buff for them.

I would like to see Blizzard address longstanding issues (vanish bug, Feral range?) and reasoning why they have not gotten around to them, but I don't think they must be painting every reason behind every change left and right. They aren't obligated to.

http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/8412/tar2fv0.jpg

 

Malan

That's not a reason, that's your expectation of the outcome.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Harmonics

I think that it is pretty bizarre for people to be arguing against Malan in this instance. Haven't you guys ever pugged an instance? Didn't you wish SeproithWarrior wasn't spamming rend? Or (christ the WFT > GoA is getting cliche) That the shaman would fucking give you some windfury? Or maybe letting your druid tank know they he doesn't have to keep that lacerate stack up?


What part of your brain has to not work to make you think that having your team play better is a bad thing?

I'll agree that blizzard should not attempt to provide the level of information that these forums try to. (oh EJ forums you are pretty neat most times) Things like spreadsheets and haste rating mechanics scare the hell out of most people. But they really should have much more in game information. It's dumb that when I decided to reroll, I had to come here and start reading about what the hell my talents actually did at level 10.

.

 

Malan

That's all I was originally arguing for. Just provide the ground truth. If a trinket only has a 0.05% chance of procs, then frigging display that so that JoeDumbass can make informed decisions about it. The stance that people should be required to test things like proc rates is just silly, as is the stance that "nobody would read any of it."

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Kretschmer

I think there are a few areas that could see improvement:

-A compendium of values. For example, a chart of +hit against a mob your level, level+1, etc. It doesn't have to be complete, just give us enough to connect the dots. Remember when no one could figure out what weapon skill did, and we got conflicting blue responses? Blizzard doesn't need to cram information down the throats of uninterested players, but having critical information available someplace would be nice for the truly interested.

-Weekly informational threads. There seems to be a huge disconnect between the CM team/players and the developers. The latter are seen either at random or when a huge ruckus is made about something. Yes, I understand that they're busy putting cool things in the game, but there's certainly time for improvement. Even a two-hour internal teleconference every week that discussed top forum issues could straighten quite a few things out. Those rare "state of your class" posts could be replaced with frequent, lighter answers. I.e.

Druids:
Potions and procs in forms: There are no plans to add theis in the near future.
OOC Rez: We have no comment at this time.
Tauren Cat Form: We're proud of our 2.3 changes and have no further plans for improvement.
etc

Put these updates in a read-only thread, and add a post every week. Even this slight amount of feedback could ward off a large portion of the inanity and pleas for comment. Figuring out the top issues in a given area is as easy as skimming for 15 minutes a day, and formulating responses on issues already decided should be quick, too.

Right now it's a crapshoot. The best way to get a "blue" post is to start a thread on favorite noncombat pets or spookiest place; game mechanic/intent questions are answered completely at random. The 40-page thread on a topic might be overlooked for the Engrish babbling half a page down. It's amazing how much information could be gleaned at Blizzcon when the queries actually got to the devs; let's try and make such insights more common.

 

• Playered

On the note of keeping players informed

Three cheers for information, lets hope there are no delays which will cause the the ignorant prepubescent children to spew forth their vomit ensuring less communication than normal via the WoW boards.

 

Ngita

Once again with the latest round of changes to shamans the perception has arisen that spam works and the idiots have taken over the Blizzard Paladin forums. It doesnt matter if Blizzard were evaluating this all along the changes were only perceived to happen once the forums were spammed. Consequently the idiots are currently ruining the paladin forums trying to get something now that is probably going to be evaluated for 2.4.

 

Ninjerk

I snipped some things out, because I like what appears to be the "meat" of your post. You've touched on something that's been on my mind for quite some time now, and I think the "CM/players" disconnect warrants a thread of its own. However, I think it's another discussion for another thread.

I think there is a terrible inconsistency in where and when information is given, and most of the information is left to testing and/or speculation. I hate to bring it up, but the latest post by Eyonix concerning Elemental shaman that I've seen states that the spell damage coefficient on one or more of their spells is being increased by x%. Another poster assumes that the cast time/3.5 x 100% has been modified to cast time/some new value x 100%, and I truly can't think of a good reason why the people who are supposedly in charge (of the flow of information if not the game) are so vague and unpredictable. What do gain by hiding or ignoring information that has an effect on gameplay? What do they stand to lose by clarifying a change with hard numbers?

Excuse me if my quote tags don't work here:
How would that clean anything up? Instead of someone saying, "wow u noe all that at level 3? i dint noe levl 3s cold do arean" you could expect posts about "o ur resto, so stfu."

What they should do is treat the forums as any reasonable forum community is treated: with active moderators. If I start typing in all lower-case and make a thread about whether I should use a staff or 1h+shield here, guess what happens? I get to take a break from posting for awhile.

I know 40 pages is hyperbole, but if Nethaera, instead of "encouraging" player to stop making "/signed" posts, started making people take longer than a 60 second break in between making a useless post and furiously mashing together a post about why their spec is broken I truly think it would go a long way in making the forums "safe." Forget just Nethaera, if the "children" weren't allowed to run amok in their "playpen" pulling pigtails, punching, biting, and "Well my dad says Bill Clinton is going to hell" the CMs, at least, might actually find the class forums a worthwhile place to find discussion once in a while.

I suppose the problem, ultimately, is paying enough moderators to delete/ban/lock the appropriate amount of useless posting to discourage the "mob" from acting like fools (not to mention that they've been left to their own devices for so long).

 

Jaxtrasi

I think there's a notable difference in practice (if not in principle) between those tidbits of missing information which affect important choices (gear and talent spec, really) and those which affect only peak behaviour.

Since Windfury is the preferred example, I'll use that. Shaman X has a bunch of Arena points. He's not in the best of teams (in fact he might even be on my team) and so he doesn't have very many, so he saves up and buys a special Season 2 offhand. Thinking about flurry procs and with fond memories of the [Black Grasp of the Destroyer] he picks the 1.5 speed fist weapon. He notices to his surprise that his dps has gone down (by comparison to the 2.7 blue axe he was using before by complete coincidence), and goes away to research it. With horror he learns about Windfury mechanics and how he has just spent the fruits of his two months labour on a downgrade. Time to look for a new offhand...

Shaman X also has a ten-man guild with a solid melee group with good buff synergy. He uses Grace of Air because it buffs him, the druid and the hunter as well, whereas Windfury only buffs the warrior tank and the rogue. Overperforming warlock Y ponders how the warrior MT can improve his threat and goes away to look up mechanics. He returns saying "WF > GoA nubs!!" and the shaman dutifully switches totems on future attempts.

The second case is analogous to hunter shot rotations, warriors learning to spam heroic strike, and other changes you can make to your play to "up your game". The first case is an example of an intelligent decision based on a long period of resource accumulation being unacceptably incorrect. I strongly contend that while there is a lot of debate and disagreement on the second sort of problem, there should be no misinformation within the game which can result in the first sort.

 

KinetiK

The blue tracker is helpful of course but even there you get inundated with Blue spam and the nuggets of interest occasionally slip through my fingers. I think what I want isn't so much the "Game Master's Guide" as the "Dungeon Master's Guide". Having WoW's 'one true path' explicity described wouldn't be fun but neither is discovering that you've spent those hard fought for arena points on the wrong OH weapon.

The discussion of shamans in this resurrected thread particularily pertinent to my new shaman's situation. I had no idea how to play one 'properly' or what to even do with talents or what benefits +1 strength would confer so I started looking for basic information. Unsurprisingly there's little information within EJ's forums for levelling 1-20 so I went to the source. There was literally nothing on the Blizzard website that was useful for me and the Shaman forums weren't particularily useful either for levelling with few stickied threads and those mostly concentrating on information at the level cap. I don't fumble around so much to learn the limits of the shaman, others have already done that, I just want to apply their knowledge and assist my levelling process. Granted, a lot of the information I was looking for will be exposed to me as I level my new toon but that's not good enough.

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before. - Dwight Eisenhower

 

Malan

Blue tracker doesn't give you info though. It doesn't have an entry that says "Hey shaman, here's all the *real* info you need to know". Its impossible to search through, the topics rarely match the information inside, and probably 80% of the blue posts are responses to "whats you're favorite XYZ" threads. The websites that track CM posts are only relevant to people that peruse them on a regular basis or are using them as citations. Beyond that, 2 years from now they're worthless, just like reading through CM posts from a year ago are worthless because they're no longer relevant to the current state of the game.

It all just boils down to Blizzard needing to expose more information within the game.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06