Ask-the-Devs
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Encrypted Text: If you could ask one rogue question
Every week or two, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Scott Helfand (@sveltekumquat) will be your shadow on this treacherous journey; try not to keep your back turned for too long, and make sure your valuables are stashed somewhere safe. The BlizzCon 2013 schedule was released last week, and I spied with my ninja eye one notable omission: For the first time in several years, there will be no open Q-and-A session or discussion panel devoted to talking about WoW's classes. In fact, the only Q-and-A session apparently scheduled for BlizzCon expressly forbids class-specific questions. Well, ain't that a Shiv in the pants. On the plus side, this means I don't have to take the fall for the fact that we're about to snap a streak of three consecutive BlizzCons in which WoW Insider's resident rogue columnist boldly strode up to a microphone during a Q-and-A and asked the game designers a question about our class. (Chase Christian asked the devs in 2011 how they planned to keep rogues distinct from monks (they have); in 2010 about whether rogues would ever be able to wield something other than a dagger in their off-hand (they now do -- if they're in combat spec); and in 2009 about whether Vanish would ever be fixed (believe me, today's Vanish issues ain't nothing compared to yesteryear's). On the minus side: What are we going to do with ourselves during BlizzCon if we can't spend our time becoming progressively more frustrated during the course of an hourlong Q-and-A session, watching the minutes tick inexorably by, never to return, as players of blatantly inferior classes take up the panel's precious time with their clearly inconsequential questions? I'll tell you what we're gonna do: We'll create our own Q-and-A panel -- well, minus the A's, at least for now. We've got a decent audience here, right? We've got a comment section, no? Let's do this.
Ask the Devs PvP changes now up
Not too long ago it was announced that there would be an Ask the Devs dedicated to the patch 5.3 PTR changes. Now, it's here. If you're dying to know exactly how all these changes are going to play out, this is the Q&A for you. Some highlights: At patch 5.3, gear will simply be capped. During patch 5.4 the plan is for the cap to go up so that new gear will have a purpose in PvP. They are still considering ways to calculate the cap (one possibility being a cap based on the average of your gear rather than a flat cap). Elite PvP gear is intended to be a cosmetic difference. The goal is not to prevent PvE gear in PvP - would be simple to do just that, but rather to make it so players who are in full Conquest gear don't feel forced to run PvE for trinkets and other off pieces. Resilience changes are based around the idea that resilience was too necessary to have any chance in PvP - this way, you can gear to overcome it. PvP power on Conquest gear will mean a PvP geared player will have an edge on all but fully heroic geared PvE players in World PvP, and will be fairly even against them. World PvP is inherently less fair than structured PvP, part of its charm. They will be discussing other PvP rewards down the road now that Elite gear is cosmetic, other PvP rewards that aren't just gear. So for all that plus a lot more, go give the Ask the Devs PvP edition a read. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Ask The Developers: PvP changes on the PTR
A wild post has appeared on the EU forums, detailing the ground rules for an upcoming "Ask the Developers" opportunity relating to the PvP changes on the patch 5.3 PTR. It's currently locked, but on April 9th the thread will go live for 48 hours, during which time players are encouraged to post all of their PvP-related questions and to vote on their favorites. Don't ignore the voting option, because Blizz will be prioritizing their responses by popularity, and the questions with the most votes are the most likely to be answered. There are also some ground rules for how the thread will work that are typical for "Ask the Dev" designated posts, and shouldn't be anything new for forum veterans. If you're planning on participating in the post, it's worth reading over them so your questions have the best chance of being taken seriously. So far it looks like this Q&A opportunity is only available to those with EU forum access, but we'll keep our eyes peeled for any similar posts appearing on the North American forum. You can find the full blue post behind the cut.
Developer Q&A with Wowjuju
Blizzard Community Manager Zarhym emailed WoW Insider yesterday to give us a heads up about a lengthy developer Q&A which was published over at Wowjuju. This is a hugely in-depth interview, so let's dive right in with our synopsis. Classes A couple of questions came up regarding the Monk ability, Zen Pilgrimage. This ability allows monks to travel to the Peak of Serenity in Pandaria, and on re-use, returns the player to their previous location. Death Knights, understandably, were asking for the same to apply to their Death Gate, which takes them to the Ebon Hold, and unceremoniously abandons them there. Monks, conversely, were bemoaning the confusing effect of the ability if they don't use it a second time, and hearthstone back instead. The devs said that both concerns were reasonable, and that they would look into rectifying the issues. WoW Insider thinks that Monks are missing a trick with what could essentially be a second hearthstone! Hunters queried whether the increase in available pets might lead to more stable space, which, to the consternation of sentimental beast masters everywhere, was met with a resounding "No." There was also some discussion of the hunter ability Scatter Shot being dodgeable, while a rogue Blind wasn't. Rogues and hunters work very differently, rogues are reliant on expertise and positioning to avoid being dodged or parried on a plethora of other abilities, so the devs didn't really feel this was a valid comparison.
Shifting Perspectives: Why active shifting isn't the solution for druids
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or requests for something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com or on Twitter @murmursofadruid. So on Wednesday, there was this small little thing that you may have heard about called a little live Q&A with the devs about classes and systems in WoW. While there were a few mentionings of things in the near future, most of the night's focus rested on the next expansion rising over the horizon. Highly understandable. There are a wide variety of changes coming in the next expansion for all of the classes, and I don't think that druids can claim to have a monopoly on the biggest ones. The latest direction that Blizzard wants to steer druids, however, is certainly an odd one, and it may not be all that it's cut out for. After BlizzCon, I spent some time talking about the released talents and the design considerations that came along with it. I also spent a spot of time guesting (is guest a verb now?) on Team Waffle Cast along with Arielle and Lissanna, when we talked about the druidic future. In the live chat, I fear that my suspicions were confirmed. Join me for a trip to the future that will never be.
Shifting Perspectives: Developer Q&A touches on resto druid issues
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This week, we turn our attention the most recent developer Q&A ... and we all know what happened the last time we did that. I spent the weekend being a trifle distracted (and then heartbroken) by the Women's World Cup, but at least we can feel good about the winner. Oh, and for all those of you who utilize musk deer glands in your health regimen, please remember to check them for steroids, in much the same fashion that one would check flour for boll weevils and rice grains for moths in one's pantry. This has been a public service announcement by your friendly local World of Warcraft blog, which takes an interest in this matter because a commenter once accused it of fomenting unrest in North Korea. What the hell is this column supposed to be about? Oh, right. Anyway, the final developer Q&A was published this past Friday, and within it were a few nuggets of interest to restoration druids. We didn't get any questions that specifically dealt with our spec, so I am not required to Hulk out over the lack of answers that Blizzard has traditionally provided to such questions, so let's spend today being happy and relatively sane.
Ask the Devs Round 11 answers your healing questions
Ask the Devs Round 11 focuses on healer and healer-related topics, as Blizzard wraps up this format of questions and answers. Blizzard gave some long and detailed answers for healers this time around, ranging from topics about the nature of the changed healing game in Cataclysm to the choices healers must make in terms of which heal to use in 5-man content versus raid content. The devs also made an interesting remark about a radical new type of healing class that could appear in a later expansion -- a radically different type of healer that might bring back players who have become burned out on the role. As a raider, I think the best answer came for the question about raid healing being hard for healers and why it sometimes feels like damage is unhealable. The devs commented that raids are not meant to be unhealable, and in most circumstances when the fight seems unhealable, players might be taking the wrong approach to the mechanics. Translated: It might not always be the healer's fault. Check out all of the questions and answers after the jump.
Ask The Devs: Healing answers coming Friday
The healer edition of the ill-fated Ask The Devs series has been taking quite a bit longer than previous editions of the series. The healers among us took notice of that and hit the forums to find just what the heck was taking so long! Late last week, Blizzard's Nethaera explained that the answers were delayed due to the devs' being preoccupied with other obligations. Today, community manager Kaivax announced that the answers would be released Friday of this week. Ask The Devs 11 Healing Answers Coming Friday We will be posting a new sticky thread with the answers to thirteen of your most popular questions (on the subject of healing) on Friday, July 15th at 9AM PDT. source That may the simplest, most straightforward blue post we've seen in nearly seven years of World of Warcraft. No qualifiers, no "Soon," and no wordplay. High-five, Kaivax. You may be my new favorite.
Ask the Devs 10: DPS answers revealed
The ill-fated Ask the Devs series continues to limp forward, this time fielding a number of questions on the topic of "damage dealing." The development team chose to answer 12 queries dealing with issues specific to DPS classes, from DPS warrior/DK threat, to shadow priests' ramp up ability, to the devs' basic philosophy for deciding when a buff or nerf to a DPS ability is needed. Enhancement shaman get a lot of a love in particular -- three enhance-specific questions were answered. The full Q&A is available on the EU and US forums -- and, of course, right here at WoW Insider just after the break.
Ask the Devs scrapped, new Q&A coming soon
Ask the Devs, Blizzard's question and answer series with the developers from topics ranging from tanking, raiding, guild advancement, and more, will be coming to an end after the final role-oriented feature on healing. Criticism for Ask the Devs was occasionally harsh. Players submitted questions and then voted on which questions would be answered by the developers. Blizzard acknowledged that this system did not work as they had intended and will most likely be changing the format to meet the needs of the question and answer format. Bashiok took to the forums to discuss why Ask the Devs hadn't panned out for Blizzard the way they would have liked. Much like many of the arguments against the format, Bashiok agreed that the popularity-based scheduled Q&A system was not something that provided the developers with the best questions, nor the best questions that had salient answers. In this tricky business of game design, sometimes asking the right question is more important then the answer you get. Bashiok assures the community that something new is in the works and up his sleeves, and I eagerly await the new and improved Q&A format. Hit the jump for Bashiok's full post on the Ask the Devs feature.
Ask the Devs Round 9 mitigates your tanking questions
Ask the Devs is back for Round 9, which deals with the most awesome role in WoW ever -- tanking. Of course, coming from a tank, that might be a bit biased -- but deal with it, healers and DPSers. I've got creatures to keep from punching you in your squishy little faces. Of note this time around is Blizzard's tough time dealing with tanks wanting threat stats (hit and expertise) and the current struggle with making it work. Currently, in cutting-edge content, threat stats are pretty good for initial aggro, but over time, Vengeance does its job admirably and keeps bosses on tanks with relative ease. I think that design decision is hitting the sweet spot, but it begs the question of why even have the threat stats in the first place? Blizzard also discussed the mastery bonuses for each tank. The devs feel that death knights and druids are doing pretty well, all things considered, and that paladins and warriors have a similar problem in "capping" mastery, but that paladins are more susceptible to problems. There is still the sentiment in the community that Blizzard needs to add its own visual threat meters or some type of aggro status, but there is a reluctance on Blizzard's part to clutter up its own default UI -- understandable, but this may potentially be a part of Blizzard's forthcoming (but not discussed) "how to tank" solution. Buried in this discussion, however, was a little tidbit about patch 4.3. Blizzard states that the design for the patch 4.2 legendary, Dragonwrath, has wide appeal to a number of staff-wielding ranged DPS classes. However, it then mentions the "patch 4.3 legendary" and its more narrow appeal. Will we be seeing a tanking legendary in the near future, or potentially another healer item? We do know for sure that it will not be as widespread, class-wise, as Dragonwrath, so we can only sit back and assume. What is interesting, though, is that patch 4.3 also looks to be a raid tier and not a patch 4.1-style dungeon content update. Could patch 4.3 be bringing us the War of the Ancients raid that we have been eagerly anticipating, especially with the return of Nozdormu and his crazy time antics? Only time (heh) will tell. Also, don't expect a new tanking class any time soon. Hit the jump for the full question and answer session.
Ask the Devs Round 8 answers your Firelands questions
The Ask the Devs question and answer series continues with Round 8, where Blizzard devs answered user-submitted questions about patch 4.2's raid content, the Firelands. Players are anxiously awaiting the next tier of raid content, and Blizzard has had a lot to answer for due to the changing nature of patches in the months to come. Blizzard answers some pretty good questions this time around and even addresses the melee DPS problem in many of the tier 11 raid fights. Some answers are a bit cryptic, however. When discussing the planned Abyssal Maw dungeon (we thought it would be a 5-man, but apparently, raid fights would have taken place there as well), Blizzard says that it believes that the Neptulon story is wrapped up fine with Throne of the Tides but doesn't make mention of the Abyssal Maw dungeons making a return. They only mention "for now," so hopefully the complete Neptulon story will be told in the depths of Vashj'ir. Another interesting point that the devs make is that they don't really understand the complaint that some aspects of the raid game are too easy, when they look at the number of people who have completed the 25-man heroic encounters in relation to the normal content modes. Also, the devs wanted to stress that they were not trying to turn 25-man raiding guilds into 10-man raiding guilds and actively tried to make the 10- and 25-man versions of encounters similar in order to stress that point. I am very excited for a new Lady Vashj bridge in the Firelands, though. WoW always has the coolest bridges. Read the full Q&A after the jump.
Ask the Devs round 6 Guild Advancement Q&A now up
Ask the Devs has landed again with Blizzard answering questions about Guild Advancement. Round 6 of this long-running Cataclysm feature on the official site has gathered a variety of questions from folks about the new guild systems and how they're working so far, as well as what they'll be doing in the future. I was particularly interested in the following excerpt. Q: Leveling guild speed varies depending on the amount of players. Have you considered tweaking the system so that guilds with fewer members get more experience per player and bigger guilds get less to even it out? Are there plans to allow smaller guilds to level their guild faster? – 信蜂 火星小喵喵 [Taiwan], Sergan [Latin America], Jardar [Europe, German], Паладиа [Europe, Russian], Amasisa [Europe, Spanish], Shory, 부너맨/노대현혹, Meltdown, 치킨아고마워/유진님 [Korea] A: Guild Challenges coming in patch 4.1 are designed to help address this issue. Obviously we already enforce a cap on the amount of XP that can be gained per day to keep the disparity from being too large, but it's clear that smaller guilds still need some help. We'll monitor the impact of Guild Challenges and see if any further changes need to be made. source The rest of the entire Q&A session is after the break.
Ask the Devs round 6 open for your guild advancement questions
Ask the Devs has been a pretty good look into the development process and future of feature development in World of Warcraft. Round 6 is going to focus on guild advancement and, presumably, the future of the guild leveling system now that guilds are at the cap. You can submit your own guild advancement questions in the Ask the Devs thread. Currently, the only available thread is for EU players, with a US thread opening soon. I know what my question about guild advancement is: Is the guild reputation cap too low? I always feel like after I reach the cap (very quickly through raiding) that there is no reason for me to continue doing dailies or other guild reputation activities when I just don't earn any reputation. After honored or revered, can we get the cap removed, much like when guilds hit level 23, their guild experience caps are removed? Read all of WoW Insider's previous Ask the Devs coverage: Ask the Devs Round 1: Questions and Answers Ask the Devs Round 2: PvP Ask the Devs Round 3: UI and macros Ask the Devs Round 4: Weapons and armor Ask the Devs Round 5: Achievements Blizzard's full announcement after the break.
Ask the Devs round 5 achievement questions answered
Ask the Devs, Blizzard's developer community question and answer feature, continues with round 5, an in-depth look at achievements detailing the difficulty of changing achievement, making certain rewards account-wide, and whether removed content is ever going to be a part of the game again. Check out the full question and answer session after the break. Quote: Q: When will achievements finally be awarded account-wide? – Larosh (Europe [German]), Eneia & Payasos (Europe [Spanish]), Rageudder & Kellgros (Europe [English]), ??????? (Europe [Russian]), Nyn (North America/ANZ), ?????? (Korea) A: Making achievements Battle.net account-wide is something we'd like to do, but it's not a goal we could provide a current timetable for. All of the original World of Warcraft coding was done with the expectation that the data on every realm would always be independent. Now that we are trying to make as many things as possible account-wide, we're having to rebuild all of those systems. It is absolutely something we want to do, but it will take a lot of time away from other features. source
Ask the Devs Round 4: Weapons and armor questions answered
Ask the Devs, the ongoing, in-depth Q&A series focusing on specific aspects of World of Warcraft, continues with round 4 answers to your questions about weapons and armor. As in the past, the devs hand picked user questions and gave detailed answers, shedding new light on some of the design intricacies that go into creating the World of Warcraft. There are some interesting questions this time around, as always, and even some more interesting answers. Highlights include the need for more armor models, a cool idea about buying quartermaster outfits, the drop rate of the legendary shards for 10- and 25-man raiding, and an interesting fix to prevent players rolling need on items in the random dungeon finder only to throw them up on the auction house. The full Q&A is after the jump.
Addon Spotlight: From raid leader tools to Ask the Devs discussion
Each week, WoW Insider brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. Addon Spotlight is here to brighten up your day, illuminate your soul, and add to your already impressive interface folder. Welcome, friends. This week, Blizzard's Ask the Devs round 3 focused on user interface questions and answers, and after my quick addon picks for the week, I want to delve into some of my own personal analysis of those answers. I think the Ask the Devs style is a good one, and I was pleasantly surprised at their answers this time around. I think it is easy to ask softball UI questions, but we actually got some cool answers. However, we also like to spotlight addons in this column as well. Raiding is fun, right? Of course it is. Raid leading, however, is probably less fun -- herding cats and all that. I've got two quick picks for raid leaders, and then we'll jump into some Q&A.
Ask the Devs round 3 UI questions answered
Ask the Devs Round 3 questions are already answered! We've been getting some quick turnaround on the Ask the Devs questions lately, and the third batch based on user interface questions is no different. A lot of the answers are great and informative, giving us players an interesting look into the design philosophy as it pertains to addons. One question really stood out -- looks like we're going to be getting the ability to change the order of our characters on the select screen come patch 4.2!
Ask the Devs Round 2 PvP questions answered
After the first set of Ask the Devs questions were answered just last week, we've already got another set of questions and answers available. Immediately after the first set of answers went live, a call went out for PvP questions specifically for the next round. Check out the questions and answers!
Blizzard answers your questions in Ask the Devs Q&A
If you've been waiting for the answers to the Ask the Devs Q&A, your wait is over. Not only have they answered the first installment of questions, the fine folks at Blizzard have even opened a new thread for more questions you may be burning to ask. Questions this time out ranged from PvP/PvE balance issues to death knight mastery runeforges to why moonkin don't have Execute. I personally found the discussions on Outland quest flow and why Blizzard doesn't just separate PvP and PvE spells to be pretty interesting. Take a look and pose your own questions if you don't see what you wanted answered this time out.
