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Also, I don't believe in human rights. I believe in power, and the exercise of that power by the powerful. Anything else is a lie, vain hypocrisy. I mention this because it points out how worthless discussing about discussing about discussing is. Get to the point already.

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But player feedback absolutely leads us to change things in the game.

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Not addressing the specific examples prevents us from pointing out flaws in the reasoning you used. Whether I can come up with a different example that fits your reasoning begs the question of whether that reasoning leads to acceptable results enough times to be useful analytically.

Here, your example illustrates a different problem with the "forum mindset," which is that things can be considered in isolation. While it may be true that "not all that is new is overpowered," or that "not all that is old should be sacrosanct," that doesn't mean that we can sequester abilities to analyze them, either. For example, we don't know that rogues would have the reputation as "the anti-caster class" if they didn't have mind numbing poison -- they might still be powerful or even OP, but for all we know they would be known as the anti-hunter class (rogues are the only class to have abilities that specifically counter a single class, for example). Part of the reason they are "anti-caster" is because of mind-numbing poison.

In fact, we might imagine that many rogues would insist that rogues didn't have enough to deal with casters in our hypothetical world. They might say, "our attacks don't generate enough pushback to delay casting, and we don't mitigate spell damage aside from the 4 seconds that CloS is up. Blinks and teleports clear our snares, and put casters out of our range, and they can damage us from out of LoS, if they are a DoT using class. They tend to rely on short casts and instants, and with the prevalence of haste gear (and the inequitable treatment of melee haste versus spell haste), we have a hard time landing interrupts in short windows due to latency. Rogues NEED SOME WAY to slow casting speed so we have a chance to land kick. Perhaps through a poison that slows casting speed. This would be balanced because rogues can only have two poisons on their weapons anyway."

Now, I'm not saying I agree with what I just wrote, but c whut I did thar? Maybe rogues *wouldn't* be laughed off the forums if they never had mind-numbing poison and suggested getting it. We don't have a time machine.

Rather than encourage the type of thinking that leads to cherry-picking abilities and analyzing them, we should encourage looking at the total package that each class brings more often.

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I am sure there are some mischevious players out there attempting to mislead us in order to get buffs. But honestly I don't think there are that many. I think more often the players are misinformed. It's hard to know the mechanics of every class and keep up with the state of their current bugs and issues. Trust me. For example, very often I see dps specs comparing their raid dps to a spec that is at the top of the charts because it is broken and being fixed. Or they are comparing their dps to a theoretical maximum dps generated by a spreadsheet and conveninently forgetting that those are perfect situations assuming near perfect timing and skill.

The way I like to describe it is we need player feedback in order to make informed decisions. That does not mean the forums are for making those decisions. That does not mean that players get to design the game. That does not mean that Blizzard is going to use your suggestion. But player feedback absolutely leads us to change things in the game. There are plenty of examples of this occuring. It's a subtle distinction and not all people get it.

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In my opinion, the biggest problem is that we cant just get a neutral balance. PVP and PVE are two different things. It will never stop being a problem until they stop trying to make the two the same. I dont think its not that the devs dont know what they are doing, its that what they are trying to do cant be done.

Its like trying to fit the circle in the square, no matter how hard you try, they just dont fit together.

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It's true, for all our complaining, balancing 30 characters is well outside the scope of any designer. The only game that even came close was Super Turbo, and it had definite winners and losers.

The key is more options. This creates even more imbalances, and it also creates even more possiblities for countering those imbalances. It's also more fun, because it's a process of discovery. This is why I keep arguing for a seperate pvp customization set that stacks on top of existing talents and gearing.

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First, that you can take any reasonably-powerful ability in the game, pretend it was not currently implemented, then propose it on the WoW forums, and there would be an uproar. For example, Shatter. If Mages didn't have Shatter, and you proposed "Mages, that are already extremely mobile, have high-critting nukes and multiple snares, should be able to nearly guarantee critical strikes on targets that already can't move", you would be laughed off the forums. Why? In practice Mages using Shatter isn't making the class overpowered. It's a mindset that anything that isn't extremely minor and isn't currently in the game must be overpowered.

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The way I like to describe it is we need player feedback in order to make informed decisions. That does not mean the forums are for making those decisions. That does not mean that players get to design the game. That does not mean that Blizzard is going to use your suggestion. But player feedback absolutely leads us to change things in the game. There are plenty of examples of this occuring. It's a subtle distinction and not all people get it.

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I remember thinking this when Shockwave was added.

If, pre-WotLK when everyone was tossing out ideas some prot warrior had said "We should get an unlimited target aoe stun on a short cooldown that also deals a lot of damage" the forums would have exploded in their mad rush to shoot him down. But hey, it's in and nobody cares, turns out it's fine.

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Who wants old AV? (I know there's tons of people out there who do, except they're pretty quiet. sux)

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Most people would probably say that the biggest problem is the inherent bias of the participants.

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The latter is an example of an ad hominem circumstantial fallacy (see http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/circumstantial-ad-hominem.html) and is wrong in every way it's possible for a statement to be wrong. Arguments must be addressed at their face value, not by looking at the class, gear, or Arena ratings of the person posting them. Every time some idiot calls a poster "biased" I throw up a little in my mouth.

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