Blizzcast Discussion

Zifna · 02/28/08, 4:09 PM

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:

Bornakk: Doing good. So, we have a couple of questions for you today. The first is, regarding Retribution Paladins, we've made some recent changes to the class that were very nice and they're wondering if we're going to update the Seal or the Judgement of Command with the new model that we were following.

Tom Chilton: Absolutely. What we're trying to do, a big push that we have in the expansion, is to get different specs and different classes to use similar types of gear. What we don't want to have to do is drop different kinds of gear for every single different kind of spec in the game. Unfortunately, that has the side effect of making people feel as though a lot of loot that isn't for them drops. It's great when the item that is for your class, for your spec drops but you've got to figure that there's a whole lot of other classes and specs out there just thinking ‘another item that's not for me?'

So, what we're trying to do is make sure that the items are shared more among the different classes and specs. So, we're really looking towards moving Retribution Paladins farther towards using the same kind of itemization that warriors use and we've made a couple of changes recently in patch 2.3 that kind of go part of the way there. And really, that was just to shore up some of the immediate problems that we were having with it.

Really, we want to go further with that and make sure that across the board, all the different Seals, Judgements, and all the different paladin abilities in general kind of follow that same scheme. But that's something we'll likely be seeing the full effect of in the expansion.

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:

Bornakk: Okay, awesome.

Next question. Do you have plans to add a tab that will have one or two pre-set talent builds that you can switch to when you respec?

Tom Chilton: We definitely want to make the respec process more graceful, especially considering how much respeccing people are doing. Right now, when you respec, it unlearns all the spells that you have that are talent-specific. It takes them off your action bars, et cetera, and, then when you spec into a new spec, it doesn't fill those in for you. Something we'd like to do is have the game remember or be able to save settings with different talent specs so that you can more easily switch between them. That goes along with potentially, in the future, doing some things to ease the burden of respeccing back and forth. If you're doing kind of high-end Arenas, high-end raiding, that kind of thing. Because we do want to encourage players to be able to enjoy a variety of different elements of the game. So, we definitely want to make that whole process more graceful in general.

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 · 02/28/08, 4:26 PM

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

• Chicken · 02/28/08, 4:40 PM

As far as handling continuity, and the broad story for the Diablo franchise, I guess that we'll have to see how that takes shape.

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

PSGarak · 02/28/08, 5:27 PM

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.

novasphere · 02/28/08, 5:32 PM

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 · 02/28/08, 5:44 PM

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:

Tom Chilton: Well, I don't know that it's a Subtlety-specific problem. We definitely have plans to improve daggers in general. One of the things that was very popular before the expansion came out was the Combat-Daggers build for rogues. That was obviously a very popular kind of raiding spec. And that's kind of fallen by the wayside at this point. Another one that you could point out would be the Mutilate spec, we had issues, at first, with a lot of our mobs being immune to poison. Then obviously, in PvP, it relies more on Seal Fate to build combo points which relies on crit which is offset some by resilience.

So, in general, what we've seen is kind of a trend away from daggers for the rogue and obviously, since daggers are such a big part of the kit for rogues, we want to make sure that the dagger specs are very viable. So, we do expect to, across the board, improve the daggers for rogues in a variety of different ways, but I don't see this as just being a Subtlety problem.

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 · 02/28/08, 5:56 PM

Originally Posted by Grizlor

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

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

Xantcha · 02/28/08, 6:01 PM

Originally Posted by PSGarak

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.

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

RunsWithScissors · 02/28/08, 6:35 PM

Originally Posted by Xantcha

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

That was true before the hotw change

PSGarak · 02/28/08, 7:08 PM

Originally Posted by Xantcha

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

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.

◊ Vaccine · 02/28/08, 7:32 PM

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 · 02/28/08, 8:24 PM

Originally Posted by Zifna

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.

Well there's always the obvious solution of dropping a [Item 'healing token' not found!] 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 · 02/29/08, 4:20 AM

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.

Skiace · 02/29/08, 4:46 AM

Originally Posted by Vaccine

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.

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 · 02/29/08, 5:03 AM

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

Mideci · 02/29/08, 5:20 AM

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 · 02/29/08, 5:25 AM

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.

Prinsesa · 02/29/08, 5:57 AM

(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

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.

Darkrenown · 02/29/08, 6:51 AM

Originally Posted by 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.

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 · 02/29/08, 7:14 AM

Originally Posted by 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.

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.