Zifna

Hope the mods are okay with me tossing in a thread for this... The 2.4 thread has gotten a bit bloated and it does seem like Blizzard is planning to put some discussionworthy items into their Blizzcasts.

Transcript and audio for Discussion #2 are here: BlizzCast Episode 2: Interviews with Chris Metzen, Geoff Goodman, Andy Chambers and Tom Chilton

I found the following segment particularly interesting:

It's easy to see how they'll do this with Ret Paladins since they have a definite model to work towards (dps warriors, who use the same gear class and also do melee damage), and we've seen the (admittedly somewhat dissatisfactory) efforts to make Enhancement Shaman/Hunter gear.

It seems like many specs will continue to need their own gear, though. Resto/Balance Druids, Holy Pallies, Elemental Shaman... Maybe I'm missing a step though. Other than Ret Pallies/Warriors and Enh Shaman/Hunters, I'm not sure where they can minimize gear needs without massive changes.


Another segment that was very encouraging to me was this one:

It's nice to see that they recognize this element as something that makes their game significantly less fun. There's no doubt that most players recognize that, but it's always appeared to me that Blizzard didn't entirely share this philosophy... but here's evidence that they do see it as a problem. Nice to know!

 

Grizlor

They need to just make Strength give 2AP for rogues and 2RAP for hunters and be done with it.

 

• Chicken

While not WoW related, that seems a pretty big hint on that Blizzard is considering making another Diablo game.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

PSGarak

They've been making Feral DPS itemization more like rogue itemization as well. Cats and Enh shamans still prefer STR over AP, unlike rogues and hunters, but the difference is still small enough that they can share itemization without too much downside, and get true itemization on their set pieces. Enh shamans still differ from hunters in other significant ways, like crit vs agi vs AP balancing, but the AP vs STR is similar.

I don't know if there's much they can do as far as healer gear. At best they could do mostly cloth for priests and druids, and mail for pallies and shamans, since those pairs of healers split nicely by SPT vs MP/5, but that doesn't solve spell crit for paladins, and people don't like downgrading armor type. A similar problem and imperfect solution is apparent for elemental shamans and boomkin.
Another possible solution, that they sort of alluded to before they released the official heal->dmg numbers, was that the healer and magic dps specs could share loot. They could add extra damage to a healing item on top of the free damage, to make it go both ways, albeit at the cost of not being as well-balanced for either class. It allows hybrids to be much more fluid in their roles, ie a damage class can spot-heal much more easily, but that also requires game design such that it's not superfluous.

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novasphere

I always secretly hoped that Blizzard would just make some sweeping changes with armor types and change what class wears which type of armor. Things would be much simpler if Shamans and Druids wore mail, with Hunters and Rogues wearing leather.

 

Valen

Quote'ing this part as I think this is one of the most important aspect of the interview, considering that 1) people are sick of useless dagger drops and 2) Alot of rogues look forward to this:


That's really nice that they admit that a problem exists. I just wonder why they let such a problem exist for so long when they know that "daggers are such a big part of the kit".

 

• Shabadu

Along these lines, give warriors and shamans and paladins 1ap per agility.

 

Xantcha

With the recent (?) HoTW change, AGI is superior to STR point vs point in almost all gear sets a druid can run.

 

RunsWithScissors

That was true before the hotw change

 

PSGarak

I was comparing STR to AP, not to AGI. Rogues make good use of a spread of AGI and AP. A cat druid would see a marginal upgrade to have that AP replaced by STR, because of blessing of kings, and the 3% stats talent (natural perfection?). You are right that AGI>STR, which brings them into line with rogues more. I'm unsure on scaling/preferences for crit rating, and I know that rogues want and can use more hit than druids, but the point is the classes are more in agreement, and therefore share gear better, than before the HotW change.

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Vaccine

I think this is a good thing. It was brought up in the 2.4 thread about MP5 being downgraded and spirit being upped in its place for all casters as a bad thing but the smaller itemisation trends that need to be filled the better as I see it. Especially with the whole recent problem of the RNG system and unwanted loot.

I could agree with the change to make shaman/druid gear the same and hunter/rogue gear the same. It would solve a lot of issues. But the rebalancing of armour classes would likely prove too big a problem for Blizzard. A better solution may be an Enhancement shaman buff to make Agility and AP more attractive than strength so they could share hunter gear with no issues, similar to the HotW change to make Rogue gear better for Ferals.

 

• mutagen

Well there's always the obvious solution of dropping a and you get to go visit the Keeper of Healing Artifacts who offers you a choice of Cloth with Spirit, Leather with Spirit, Mail with mp5 or Plate with Spell Crit.

Actually they could combine this with existing reputations to offer a little more variety. Say the Lower City Healing Artifact Vendor offers items with a focus on raw throughput stats while the Cenarion Expedition vendor offers more mana regen based gear for the various classes. Tanks would have their separate Threat / Avoidance / Stamina sets to pick out. DPS would have various class / spec specific goodies to choose from as well.

This just brings back the token based drops debate and the ever present random number generator issues though. How exciting will it be to see healers picking up last season's PVP gear while your tanks are still waiting on more tokens so they can pick up the threat set to clear faster?

 

Prinsesa

On the topic of "shared drops":

Part of the problem with shared drops is the armor class - both Moonkin and Shaman are spell casters who are looking for stats pretty much the same way Priests, Mages and Warlocks are (up to a certain extent).

However, they need to make exclusive drops for them just because they don't wear cloth.

How do you get around this problem? Tokenize all the slots that use an armor class definition. They're already doing this for T6: Helm, Shoulders, Chest, Bracers, Gloves, Belt, Pants and Boots are the 8 slots that are defined as having an armor class.

If these are tokenized, it doesn't matter how specialized the stats are: Plate with spell crit for Holydins, Mail with MP5 for Resto Shaman, Leather with SPI for Resto Druids and Cloth with SPI for Holy Priests.

And what of the other slots? Necklaces, Cloaks, Rings and Trinkets can all be made "general". INT, STA, healing and MP5 for a healing neck: It's not strictly optimal, but anyone will take it.

STA, Dodge rating, Defense rating and even Expertise rating for your tank cloaks - spell damage for the Pallytank? He gets it from his set pieces. STR for the Warrior? Set pieces. AGI for the Bear Druid? Set pieces.

Of course, you'd still get a lot of "loot clutter" in pre-raid dungeons where there aren't any set pieces yet, but since those can be reset instantly and run multiple times a day, the issue isn't nearly as pressing as getting [Tome of the Lightbringer] from Shahraz for the 11th week in a row.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Skiace

This would still leave Enhancement shaman with the problem of mp/5 and int being all over hunter loot. (Not to mention the enhance sets, but that's a separate issue.) Most of the time I compare a piece of hunter loot and rogue loot for upgrades, the difference is a loss of dps stats on the mail due to int and/or mp/5. An increase to the value of agi would not make hunter mail more attractive to enhance shaman than rogue leather.

 

◊ Kyth

That might mean good news for crit affecting dots down the road, since crit is a big part of caster itemization.

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Mideci

On the top of "respeccing"...

It's high time they recognize that people both want and arguably "need" to do this all the time and are looking at making easier.

I would hope they'd go all the way to a "talent stable" where you can visit the trainer and switch between 2-3 specs with the click of a button. I'd like this to be costless for the switch -- as would many who do it regularly, but I think there are reasonable compromises to getting there.

(1) The specs in the stable would incur costs to change, using the same system currently in place with decay over time.
(2) The right to have a talent stable could have a cost. Especially without a new mount in WoW: Lich King, a 500-1000g gold hit per character for this is not out of the question at all

But otherwise, the "penalty" should merely be visiting the trainer to change the spec, much like hunters have to visit a stable master to change pets. I hope Blizzard sees why this would enhance game play and can find a bulk bill a tolerable compromise to endless back-and-forth spec-ing. Again, detailed re-specing carrying a cost would still be tolerable.

 

Aerevyn

I wonder, is the problem in creating the items for each class and spec (if it is then it seems like laziness on their part) or is the problem simply not wanting to inflate boss loot tables to the point where a specific drop is extremely unlikely (which makes sense)?

I like their solution currently on the PTR where many items are exchangable for an item of same armour type but different spec orientation (i.e. spell dmg & crit mail armour being exchangable along with 1 sunmote for a healing & mp5 mail armour). This seems to be an elegant solution (and very similar to the tier gear system).

The current problem is that with 27 specs (9 classes x 3 talent trees) the itemisation is too broad to cover. If you check my armoury and look at my chest, you'll see where I suffer most! 5 Months of farming Hydross and 3 Kael kills aren't enough apparently to warrant a good replacement (Hydross hasn't dropped in all this time, I've been outbid on the only Hero on Kael). As a Survival Hunter I suffer from itemisation issues (helooooo agility cloak/neck past Kael???). If they could limit drops from bosses to 1 per class and some weapons and have a vendor elsewhere who (with some additional mats) will provide the other-spec alternatives then it seems like problem solved.

I present this idea/solution because, all-truth-be-told I don't trust Blizz's ability to create viable items to cover multiple specs. It was said a while ago by a blue source (I forget who now) that none of the Devs play the hunter class so the chances of Survival hunters (we're a relatively rare breed) being well catered for are slim. I expect other specs for other classes are similarly in jeopardy of being left in the cold as far as ideal itemisation is concerned.

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those who know Binary and those who don't."

 

Prinsesa

As much as I want free respecs, this is the part that hurts. It's fine and dandy now when we're able to break down a spec's potential down to the second decimal point, but when a new patch/expansion comes out that introduces dozens of new abilities/items/balance changes, having such a high cost associated with respecs greatly discourages experimentation.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Darkrenown

I think you misunderstand him. You'd pay your 1000g or whatever to unlock your 2nd tree one time only, after that you can change between your 2 trees for free. If you needed to try a new spec or just wanted to change you could respec either tree for a cost similar to what it currently costs to respec.

 

Chir

Not only that but from the pod-cast itself "We are happy with some spec's not being viable" - at the end of the day the game dilutes the idea of having a single spec and is more happy with a model based on experimentation or "Right spec for the job".

As alluring as 500-1000gp per tab is.... I would rather have that base functionality with no penalization. This is a game after all right "fun" is something they should aim for.

Groucho Marx - "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana"

 

Valen

On topic of mp5 and spirit, maybe it's time to eliminate MP5 all together? If they introduce spirit regeneration for all healers and make hunters/enhancement/retribution regen based on a secondary stat, then there wouldn't be a need to mp5 to exist, would it?

Same goes for Attack power giving stats like STR and AGI. They both should give 1 AP each for every class. Make STR also increase armor penteration by a moderate amount to make it an interesting stat as well. That way they can just remove armor penteration from the gear.

Truth is, there are too many item stats available in the game at the moment. It doesn't make items any more interesting; It just makes the game more complex. What makes items more interesting aren't the static stats but the unique effects, like the one we have on MH hunter shoulders; or everyone remembers felstriker and how popular a 45 dps dagger was.

 

Zifna

This was something I was sort of thinking myself... but to a certain extent I feel that mp5/spirit give classes different feels. Druids and Priests benefit a ton from a mid-combat pause that allows them to get a few ticks of "real" regen and, depending on gear level/situation, might hold off from casting to get out of the 5 second rule. To Shaman and (I would guess) Paladins, the 5 second rule in many ways doesn't exist. There is such a minimal difference to being in or out of it that it just doesn't matter at all.

In the same way, that makes Priests and Druids somewhat harder to take out of a fight. Burn all their mana so they can't do anything--they'll do nothing for a little bit and come back in with a fair share of resources. A Shaman will likely just stay at 0, casting heals when they are able.

It's in many ways just a flavor thing though, so it really depends on how important Blizzard feels flavor is.

 

ZeroWashu

I think Blizzard's problem with item drops is that for the quest portion of the game there are too many times where no reward is applicable to your class. If anything I was always under the idea that a better system would be to target individual trees within each class. In such an example your quest rewards are tailored towards the three trees of your class... someone else doing the same quests sees items for them.

Now granted that type of system would require more work in building items but this goes on the assumption they have some valid means of "pricing" items.

 

frber

Nah quest rewards are for the most part useful to all classes (if for no other reason because you need stuff to vendor for gold). Its more likely they just don't want every boss to have to drop 40+ items so every spec can have something potentially useful.

However the whole making different classes/spec use similar type of gear is seriously great. I really dislike having to carry around multiple gear sets. Playing a warrior personally its kind of bad. Would hope they do away with at least a fair bit of the difference between tank and DPS stats as well. Like using agility instead of dodge rating more often for tank gear; and change the strength-to-block value conversion and mostly get rid of block value on gear. Many other changes likely as well; but something lihe that would probably be the easiest way to make protection warriors able to solo farm without having to gather a second set of gear; just like apperently they wanted holy specced priests to be able to farm decently in their healing gear.

Wish they'd push multiple talent builds and free (or easier) respeccing to the live servers lots faster than the expansion though. It is kind of a huge improvement to the games fun-factor. Likely bigger than the whole Sunwell Isle stuff. The quests will likely get old fast just like the Skettis and Netherwing stuff did.

 

Chir

People have not touched on the subject of the potential new Battleground Queue system, I was pleasantly surprised when it was being discussed as it was something a few friends and I had argued about before.

Does this leave open the gates for some serious whining though? Currently factions/players like to cut & slice over which BG favors who - additional BG's could lead us down the road of multiple maps favoring different factions, potentially sucking up developer resources and spreading them thin trying to work out kinks across a wide range of maps.

ON the other side this could hopefully allow players to try new tactics on new maps....

I currently think that some people could benefit greatly from allowing themselves to have new idea's on what to do - hopefully building up a better pvp skill set on the whole.

Groucho Marx - "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana"