More about Learning & My Soapbox

So, everyone saw the news yesterday and like a lot of people, I am wearing a frown. While I can definitely say I will miss the destructive power of Volley, and I'm not sold that the changes to Steady Shot will really be all that much in the long run. The deciding factor here will be in how the new numbers scale with our AP and such. As far as the rest of the changes, I really am not all that worried about them. After looking over things in game and the overall numbers, losing 10% on Steady Shot can by returned through the Steady Shot Glyph, as long as you keep a sting on your opponent. This isn't such a bad deal as many of the stings, while situational, can be used. I know that some people will say this is a good use of mana, but the alternative is a loss of DPS in Steady Shot.

Personally, after having watched what Blizz has been doing in patches from the fall prior to the release of BC to now, I feel like Blizz, while being to kind to those who scream everyone else is OP, has the right intent at heart with most of their changes. I know they don't always get it right but hey, no one is perfect and when you have a group of people that are not perfect it can be interesting to say the least. Still though, while this changes things some for hunters I really don't see the numbers stacking up to be a major nerf. Losing a handful of points in damage is not really something to sweat. Now if they had said a 50% reduction on Steady Shot, I would have a problem as this would mean that this shot is no longer very efficient.

From reading peoples responses to this as well as take a further look into what the potential impact will be for me live in game, I can say that I concur with the sentiment of Loronar at 35 Years Out in that Blizz should not have released WotLK if they were not fully ready and had tested as well as possible all the aspects that were questionable. This unfortunately seems to be what a standard with Blizz. Rush things so the players don't get too bored and take the attitdue we'll fix it later. This is infuriating as a player in that we will see something and think this is what the new changes should be only to learn that is not what Blizz had intended from the bery beginning. To me this runs a bigger risk of alienating players than not having enough new content to keep people from becoming bored. But lets be realistic here as well and look at this in the scope of a broader picture.

When I began playing in the summer of 2006, the original Naxx had apparently just recently been released. I remember vividly back then that on my server, there were very few people or guilds that were in Naxx. The rest of the level 60 players, which to me seemed like a whole lot, mainly did the regular instance runs and Onyxia and worked diligently at their rep grinds in Winterspring, Silithus and the Plagelands. That fall there was a major change in the pre-BC patch that had a huge impact on a lot of players and talent builds. In many ways it totally elimated some talent tree builds from the game totally, especially for Rogues (whom we all know have been getting the short end of the stick for a long time now.) Burning Crusades released in the winter of 2007 and things really began to change from there. There was a diferrence though, in that many of the changes were attempts to fix issues that came up that Blizz had never intended to be in the game in the first place.

The confusion and anger this caused has been felt by all I feel, and this was made even greater with Blizz shifted focus towards PVP combat. All in all, the impression that I have gotten is that Blizz is sitting on a fence of sorts with the game and it direction, and BC only revealed to the players how deeply that indecision is at Blizz HQ. Over the course of the last two years, Blizz has seemed to balance some things and left other areas broken. Very little has happened in a positive way as far as class and talent changes go. There have been bright spots for most every class, these just haven't been very many or very often.

Lich King and it's pre-releaes patch have given the game a lot of positives. More than we've seen in a long time. But I have to agree wit Loronar in that Blizz should have taken the extra time to ensure that most of the issues were closer to where they wanted them to be in the first place before everything went live. Again, the impact here is greater than the WoW players getting bored. I know that a lot of people on our server were diligently working towards getting to Sunwell. BT had never been farmed so much on our server as it was that summer and early fall. But when Blizz announced that WotLK was going to Release on the November date that ended almost all raiding on our server. Why?

The principle reason why is that the players focus changed. Unlike the fall before the release of BC, people were not bored. The Outlands still provided everyone with a lot to do. Between dailies, rep grinding for great gear and flying mounts, to developing casual guilds into guilds capable of making it into Sunwell and the Arenas. There is more than enough for everyone to be involved in the game. Realistically I think Blizz could have easily waited until Feb of 09 or even maybe as late as May of 09 and not lost very many players to other games. Now though, Blizz may be in the crucible again of losing players over major changes because they didn't have all their ducks in a row when the game went live. If trade and general chat channels are a good way to measure the pulse of the players in the game, then Blizz should have noticed that most players had no intetions of ever leaving this game just because other games were coming out.

People have tried Conan and Warhammer, but most of the regular WoW players came back before the release date of LK anyways. Both games are good in their own right, but neither offers the total experience that WoW does. And this should be something that Blizz is aware of, as it gives Blizz a lot of room to be patient and to get things right from the get go. I really dislike reactionary actions and the release of LK so early I feel was reactionary to the release of so many other MMO type games this last summer and fall. Now Blizz is going to pay for this to some degree.

Sorry for the rant, but one of the major strenghts of this game is it's availability for solo PVE play, and I would like to see more from Blizz in this area. PVP, Instances and raids are great and making them more accesible to the regular player base is also a good thing. But there also needs to be greater focus on the stories in the game as well as a recognition that each class is different and this should be more apparent. Making the game more homogenized isn't the answer. Ensuring that each class is unique and interesting should be the answer as well as ensuring that people "need" the other classes and other players to complete the harder content.

Ideally I would like to see this game approach a medium where each class is significant in their own right. Rogues should be the masters of stealth and sneak attacks. Mages should be the masters of explosive power and warriors shouldn't have to worry about their longevity battling the masses and so on. Every class should have a strengh that they are the absolute best at and a weakness that can only be minimized by grouping with other people and classes. Some class v class match ups should be bad match ups. For example, warriors should be able to easily and quickly dispatch a mage or priest, but by the same token these classes should have a quick and dirty answer if those warriors don't play smart. A warrior that allows a mage to keep them at range should be burned down with a couple of spells, and a mage that allows a warrior to get to close should be cut down with a hit or two in duels. This only makes sense in a way regarding PVP.

Finishing up, I'd like to say, the upcoming changes are unfortunate but they are not seriously game breaking or class breaking changes. And in this respect we should be a little grateful to Blizz.

@Brajana:
Steady Shot is faster, no doubt. But having a mana pool of barely 5800 doesn't really make spamming Steady Shot feel better. I find that if I am in an area where I am moving through mobs rapidly, like around Camp Winterhoof and Skorn, I am keeping Viper up the whole time instead of keeping AotB up. Not that this caused any real problems, it just meant that I was still moving fairly slow. I'm still playing with it, so I'll keep you up to date.

Zulu