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Lichborne: Addressing ability bloat in death knight skills
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. Recently on Twitter, Lead systems designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street was asked what issues he'd fix if he could immediately wave a wand and make it better. One of the ones he mentioned was ability bloat. Ability bloat is the term used to describe a class needing to press too many buttons simply to perform the basic tasks expected of them in group PvE and PvP content. Ability bloat is certainly something that's been on my mind as well, so this week we'll consider the possibility of ability bloat in death knights and figure out various ways to address it. Much like how talents were pared down for Mists, I wouldn't be surprised to see abilities pared down in major ways for the next expansion, and we might as well start anticipating it.
Diminishing returns on valor instead of a cap?
Ghostcrawler tossed out a tweet last night that raised my eyebrow: @_kaedis Yes, and we have been considering designs along these lines. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) May 30, 2013 The design of valor (and the emblems before points) has been an interesting progression. We've gone from many types of emblems to a point system, and then to a system where you could do a week's worth of points in a day, and then to a system where you had weekly caps but to hit them in the most efficient way you had to log in every day, and now (likely and as to be expected) more changes in the future. What exactly theses change will be is up for debate, but diminishing returns is a popular option. As a simplified example, the way the system would work is as follows: Heroic #1 for the day: 200 valor points Heroic #2 for the day: 100 valor points Heroic #3 for the day: 66 valor points Heroic #4 for the day: 50 valor points Heroic #5 for the day: 40 valor points The idea is that after each heroic (or after some number of heroics), the amount of valor you'll get continues to decrease to the point of not making it worthwhile at all to run them. This concept could also be applied to raids and other systems that distribute any kind of currency. In the example above the rate of change is linear (200 valor/number of runs), however in practice the rate of change would likely be piecewise (the rate not determined by a function, but by set values the designers choose that are loosely based on a function), and also it'd probably have minimums so running heroics would never return virtually zero valor. It's an interesting exercise to write numbers down on paper and see what the best way to reward valor for yourself would be. For me a 1/x curve with a lower-bound limit of 33% feels about right (ie: the lowest valor you'd get for running a heroic would be 33% of normal valor). As with most things Ghostcrawler, please be aware that his insights should often be taken as an academic discussion of WoW's design. Don't try to suss out truths and what the future of WoW will hold. Instead use them as interesting bits into the minds of the designers, realizing that the final product of WoW comes from hundreds of ideas from hundreds of people.
Off-spec loot options, are you using them?
As we've mentioned before, one of the biggest changes to patch 5.3 is the ability to get off-spec loot in LFR. It has the potential to be a real game changer for players who occupy a critical non-DPS role. This means if you queue up for LFR as a tank, you'll be able to get DPS gear instead of tanking gear. And for tanks this is especially important, as they always seem to lag behind in DPS gear (while this might not help for a heroic tank having to go DPS, for everyone else it's a boon). Last night Ghostcrawler tweeted the following: Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget 5.3 loot spec. It was a common request. Right click on your name plate to change. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) May 23, 2013 Honestly, Ghostcrawler's tweet raises an eyebrow. Why did he do this? Without reading too much into what he's saying, I think it's obvious that to some extent it's because he feels not enough people are aware of it or are using it as they should be (otherwise why say something). I'm wondering if Blizzard has preliminary stats already about the number of people using off-spec loot and it's not where they want it. One of the reasons for that is it's tucked away in the menu options, somewhere that is relatively hidden from the visual crawl (where you move your view around the window/UI and look for options). Even as a veteran WoW player I occasionally forget that something is in the player menu, and I know there's been a few times when I'm suddenly surprised something's there. I hope that players are using this to their full advantage; run LFR as a tank and get DPS gear is a pretty sweet deal. What's your use of the function so far, or are you waiting until the weekend to start your LFR runs? For more of the really important things about 5.3 you might have missed, check out or post listing 'em.
Live video interview with Ghostcrawler and Brian Holinka
Today starting at 3pm Eastern time, Blizzard Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, and Senior PvP Designer Brian Holinka will be interviewed live on video over at Gamebreaker.tv. You can watch the stream above, where they will discuss upcoming PvP and PvE changes in patch 5.3, with Gamebreaker's Gary Gannon, and WoW Insider's Olivia Grace. If you miss the live interview above, it will be replaced by the stream recording once it is uploaded, and you can also watch it on Gamebreaker's site. WoW Insider's Anne Stickney also interviewed Ghostcrawler, talking about patch 5.3, from a more PvE-focused angle. And If that isn't enough patch 5.3 information you can check out all WoW insider's patch 5.3 coverage, as well as our write-up of Convert To Raid's earlier interview with Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas. The fansite interviews are coming in thick and fast, with patch 5.3 launching tomorrow in the US and Wednesday in the EU.
Patch 5.3 and more with Ghostcrawler
In case you hadn't heard the news, patch 5.3 is set to hit live servers tomorrow. While 5.3 doesn't include a new raid, there are a host of different new activities, including four new scenarios, heroic scenarios, a ton of pet battle changes, and of course the advancement of Mists of Pandaria's storyline as the heat ramps up between Alliance, Horde, and an outlier faction of Horde rebels. It's back to the Barrens again -- and this time, Crossroads isn't the area of contention. But on top of all of the new content comes a ton of different class and content changes as well. We sat down to chat with Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street about patch 5.3's changes, as well as some upcoming changes for patch 5.4, response to subscription losses, Vengeance changes, that big unannounced feature we've all been dying to hear more about, and much more.
Ghostcrawler on Vengeance and patch 5.4
Yes, patch 5.3 isn't even out yet, and we're already looking towards patch 5.4. Thanks to Ghostcrawler, we have this to think about for the future, namely that Vengeance is getting capped at a significantly lower threshold in raids in the future. If you remember back at August of last year, Vengeance saw some significant changes that increased how fast it could ramp up in raids and also gave it a far larger maximum potential. It's been adjusted over time, but in general what GC said back last August has held true -- tank DPS in raiding really did go up. To the point where on some pulls it's not unusual to see tanks leading the DPS, sometimes by extremely large numbers. Since this is a big change that will drastically lower tank damage output (25-man tanks with their 600,000 or more health buffed will lose roughly 300,000 AP on fights where Vengeance was capping at 100% of their health) I'm not surprise it won't be coming in 5.3 -- I am a little surprised it's happening at all, because we all knew Vengeance and tank damage would do exactly what it has done when it was changed. Still, I wait to observe if it has much practical difference since aside from AoE tanking where a multitude of hits can roll in a short window of time (that 20 second ramp up period) and the tanks can make effective use of all that AP I'm not sure it will matter. 5-mans and scenarios were not mentioned, so for now I'm assuming this is only for the raids mentioned.
Why raiders and multiboxers are overestimated
Recently, Blizzard Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street tweeted the following: Two things that the forum posting / tweeting community tend to overestimate: number of multiboxers, number of players interested in raiding. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) May 11, 2013 This was something of a surprising tweet. Now, of course, there are several subjective notions in there, but it merits some discussion nonetheless. Firstly, what is considered the forum posting or tweeting community? It seems that this would simply be those who regularly contribute to either of those venues, putting it simply, and indeed those with whom he is in regular contact. Do you consider yourself part of either community? And why does that community overestimate the number of people raiding or multiboxing, if they do at all? Confirmation Bias Confirmation bias is a cognitive science term, that describes a human tendency to search for, remember or interpret information in such a way that it confirms one's own preconceptions. A fine example of this is the "everybody thinks X" idea, which crops up a lot. If you believe that, for example, frost mages don't have enough burst, you might seek out other opinions that support your own, and partly ignore the clamoring crowd who assert that frost mage burst is out of control. Confirmation bias is particularly prevalent on the internet, where it's almost always possible to find another opinion that supports your own.
No talent overhaul likely
If you're interested in WoW design and discussion, but don't yet follow twitter, you might want to reconsider. A lot of the developers are regularly active there. For example, yesterday our own Adam Holisky had a nice little chat with Ghostcrawler, Bashiok, and some other folks about WoW's talent design, and wondering if there was another big overhaul being considered for the next major expansion. The answer, bluntly, is no. Blizzard seems content with the current system. @bashiok @djtyrant @adamholisky The *current* talent design feels pretty solid to us. We'll iterate but no overhaul plans. #famouslastwords - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) May 9, 2013 Player Mihaly Ducz replied that three choices every fifteen levels feels kind of thin, but I have to admit that I kind of agree with Bashiok's response on that one: there are already plenty of spells and abilities in the game; I am perfectly content to have fewer of them, or at least more passive options so I don't have to agonize over how to redo my bars again. How about you? Are you content with the current talent system? What might you like to see changed or modified in the future?
Developer Q&A transcript
This evening's Developer Chat has concluded, and while there were no earth-shattering announcements hidden within, the chat certainly had its interesting moments. Among the topics of discussion were: The Alliance's role after the siege of Orgimmar Balancing classes in PvP The continuation of reputation-based questlines The possible return of world events The state of Skyclaw and Pierre Class quests ... and more! You can check out the transcript below the cut. Participating developers were Dave Kosak (Fargo), Ion Hazzikostas (Watcher), Brian Holinka (Desvin), Cory Stockton (Mumper), and Greg Street (Ghostcrawler).
Ghostcrawler on the lessons learned in Mists
Long-term WoW Insider readers will likely remember the post-Cataclysm dissection where the developers discussed the mistakes they had made and how they planned to rectify them for future expansions. Well, a twitter user has asked Blizzard Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street the same question, for Mists of Pandaria, and Ghostcrawler had the following to say in reply: @stephenreis123 Hmm. I'd say two things off the top of my head. 1) We wanted to offer options but didn't offer *enough* options (e.g. GL). - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) April 24, 2013 @stephenreis123 2) As many difficulty levels as we offered, it wasn't enough. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) April 24, 2013 @stephenreis123 I said 2, but also we didn't do a good job of providing direction at L90. Also wish we had added some dungeons in maybe 5.3. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) April 24, 2013 Firstly, one of the great things about Ghostcrawler is how readily he owns up to the team's mistakes here. There's no shame in getting things wrong, but maintaining that you're infallible is both irritating and generally untrue.
Gearing Context: "... don't obsess unnecessarily over marginal iLevel improvements."
Ghostcrawler tweeted the following: We don't make fights that are target dummies. Nerfing numbers means you can afford more mistakes on the mechanics. (source) As I said, if improving gear is fun for you, that's great. Just don't obsess unnecessarily over marginal ilevel improvements. (source) Truer words have never been spoken. There's an attitude amongst WoW players, one that I've fallen into the trap of many many times during the past eight years, of having to get the absolute best gear. My brain is made in such a way that even if there is an item that's five iLevels higher than what I've got, I must have it, or else I'm a failure. That's pretty messed up. No wait, that's really messed up.
Totem Talk: Restoration life post healing buff
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how. Shaman healing always seems tenuous whenever the second tier of raiding hits in an expansion. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we suck by any stretch of the imagination, but any tier that has a lot of movement mechanics and a lot less stationary heals we generally have to work that much harder. Now, things have definitely gotten easier over the years for us, but they could always get better right? So that was when Greg Street, otherwise known as your friendly neighborhood Ghostcrawler and lead systems designer for Blizzard Entertainment, made a tweet that had restoration shaman around the globe cheering, despite them being perhaps a bit confused as to where this came from. So what lead up to this buff? What impact has it had on our healing in the Throne of Thunder? Has it improved our quality of healing life since the hot fix went live?
Spiritual Guidance: Discipline and holy priest stat weights and gear in tier 15
WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore is a discipline priest by reputation, but still enjoys melting faces as shadow and bugging her raid to click the Lightwell as holy. A while back Spiritual Guidance looked at the various upgrade options for priests in patch 5.2. Today we'll be discussing which of those upgrades you want to take, depending on whether you're a discipline or holy (the weighty topic of shadow will be covered next week). Discipline priests in particular saw some big changes with the release of patch 5.2 and will want to adjust their strategy for selecting new gear from here on. Since we're already talking about disc, let's start there. Most of you probably know the basics. When gearing, don't take intellect downgrades and be sure to mostly select gear with spirit on it for mana regeneration. How much spirit do you want? There's no hard, set number to aim for; the goal is to find an amount that allows you to get through most encounters without running out of mana too early. This will be different for everyone so just go with what feels comfortable, remembering that you can always supplement a shortage of spirit with consumables (food and flasks) for fights that are more stressful on your mana pool than most others. (Rememeber that it's not necessary to gear for that one tough fight, and then be running surplus mana the rest of the time.) With that said, let's look at what has really changed: secondary stats.
Patch 5.3 PTR: Ghostcrawler clarifies Tri-Spec
I think WoW Insider was sufficiently cautious when we posted about the datamined tri-spec feature, saying, and I quote: This is the PTR, and stuff can be datamined that never actually makes it to live Even if it does get tested on the PTR, it doesn't necessarily follow that it will be implemented Sometimes stuff gets put in the files just to mess with us. And today, from Ghostcrawler's tweets, it looks like we were right to be cautious. He said the following this morning: @nathanjaworski Just an experiment. You can datamine a lot that may not come to pass anytime soon (e.g. Defense of the Alehouse). - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) March 28, 2013 So it seems like those who took this as confirmed may have been hasty! It seems reasonable that it's an experiment, rather than a confirmed element coming into WoW. There was a healthy discussion around this, and the fear of excessive homogeneity associated with it, and it's definitely not a decision that should be made lightly. Are you disappointed? We're not sure that we are. It'd be nice to have a third spec for your main spec, offspec and PvP spec, but would you really use it to its full potential? Do people really want to carry three sets of gear in their bags? Do note that this doesn't mean it's definitely not in, either. What are you hoping for?
Tanks to have some hope of getting DPS gear in LFR
Ghostcrawler tweeted an interesting reply today concerning the ability of tanks to get DPS gear through LFR: @jkoviack We hope to provide a better option next patch or two. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) March 18, 2013 This is a major problem for tanks -- they're not able to gear up effectively in LFR for anything other than tanking. And with the daily-centric approach to MoP this leaves those that choose the best spec to be left on the side of using blues and whatever other scraps of gear they can get. For people who raid normal/heroic modes all the time it's not a huge issue thanks to getting off-spec gear, but it's still a problem. Hopefully this option Ghostcrawler is speaking of applies to all off-spec gear, but we don't want to speak for him. Of course as with everything you hear on Twitter and everywhere else about future WoW stuff, take it with a grain of salt. Things can and do change, features get pushed back and discarded for whatever reason. And just because Ghostcrawler and his team want to do something, it doesn't mean they'll be able to do something. Don't go nuts if it doesn't happen -- but keep in mind something might happen. Keep your fingers crossed with me.
Call to Auction talks economy and professions with the devs
The Call to Auction podcast, which features our own Basil "Euripides" Berntsen, recently had the opportunity to send a big batch of questions about WoW's auction house, economy, and professions to developers Greg Street and He-Rim Woo. The devs gave out some great info, some highlights of which include: There are no plans for a sweeping auction house redesign Due to the popularity of the cooking and blacksmithing catch-up mechanisms, similar mechanisms for herbalism and mining might be on the way The Guardian Cub experiment was just that, and it's unlikely there'll be another item like it Splitting items off of a stack in the auction house is also unlikely going forward It's possible that buy orders will be implemented for high-cost items like Mechano-Hogs, unlikely for stuff like flasks and enchants The mailbox as the AH delivery system doesn't feel quite right and may eventually change You can read the full interview on the Consortium forums.
Ghostcrawler and Daxxarri talk classes in patch 5.2
With the advent of patch 5.2, World of Warcraft Lead Systems Designer Greg Street "Ghostcrawler" and Community Manager Daxxarri have been posting a series of class overviews and changes. Part one went up on Tuesday, covering death knights, druids, and hunters. Part two was posted Wednesday evening and covers mages, paladins, and priests. Part three, on rogues, shaman, and warlocks, went up yesterday evening, and part four, covering warriors and monks, was posted earlier today. For many classes, most of the changes involve PvP balancing as well as trying to improve a number of talents in some way to make them more useful and thus more attractive to players, at least situationally. If you're curious about either the philosophy of class balance design or just want to know what happened to your class this patch, make sure to check it out. What I love about these posts is that little glimpse of insight they provide into the thought process that goes into balancing the class mechanics in a game like World of Warcraft. I'll be honest, I'm glad I'm not one of the people involved in that job. To me it seems like an endless headache to try and make sure all classes are different enough to feel unique, but similar enough such that a raid or dungeon group isn't punished for lacking one indispensable class, and I wouldn't have the patience for it. But I certainly admire and respect those who do!
Ghostcrawler and Daxxari present Patch 5.2 Class Reviews
If you're wondering how your class has changed in patch 5.2, Blizzard's Ghostcrawler and Daxxari have joined forces to give you details on exactly that. This installment covers Death Knights, Druids and Hunters, so it's working alphabetically in case you're wondering where your class is. While the patch notes serve to give you the details on the changes, this series of posts exists to give you the motivation and reasoning behind the changes to the classes. Why did they buff this or nerf that? The motivations towards each change are explained in detail, letting you get a sense of just what's going on for you in patch 5.2. Ghostcrawler and Daxxari - Patch 5.2 Class Review Part 1 In terms of talent adjustments, while we're still happy overall with the Mists of Pandaria talent overhaul, we do recognize that there were some talents that weren't tuned as well as they could be or just weren't attractive. That's not to say that all talents should be all things to all players all the time; some talents are situationally quite attractive, and we're happy with those. On the other hand, others just never see much use and we would rather provide players real options for each talent tier. source Part one is up now, so keep an eye peeled to the official site for more.
What will the mystery feature be?
Back in January, Ghostcrawler teased us all with the possibility of a new, as yet unannounced new feature coming at some point in Mists of Pandaria. Now, with the recent spate of Dev interviews before patch 5.2's release, it's come up again. With this tantalizing hint that the new feature will come out with the last patch of the expansion and it will provide new content for players, we're left to speculate. What is this feature? The first thing that comes to mind is, for me anyway, the long-awaited Proving Grounds concept. The idea of content that solo players can use to hone and demonstrate their skills interests me greatly. But how would it have a lot of new content for players? How is it going to be implemented? And that's even assuming it is Proving Grounds at all. Since we're speculating, why not speculate more? Here's a few ideas for what the feature could be, all of them pretty much based entirely on what I'd like it to be. One thing seems clear to me, that being that this new feature won't be something like tri-spec, based on the emphasis on new content for players. As cool as it might be to be able to switch between all three of your class specializations, that's not content.
Changes coming for fishing and leatherworking ... but not in patch 5.2
When asked on Twitter whether any changes were on the horizon for grind-tastic professions fishing and leatherworking, everyone's favorite crustacean (Ghostcrawler, not Sebastian) replied: @timparrish Odds are high, but not for 5.2. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) February 13, 2013 While we already saw the number of catches required to max out fishing halved in patch 4.3, the profession is still heavy on the tedium. And, as someone currently trying to level leatherworking, it's probably best that I not get started ranting about how much leather farming (or buying) that needs to be done to get to max level. Whether either of these professions will see a quick level up option like cooking has and blacksmithing is getting in patch 5.2, we can definitely hope. Regardless, knowing that revamping these professions is on Blizzard's agenda is heartening.
