GhostCrawler said:

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Q u o t e:
I'm willing to entertain almost any kind of discussion on class abilities, relationships, talents and class balance. There are some things that are very core to the game though, and the relationship of PvP to PvE is one of them. There is almost no chance you are going to convince us to change that philosophy. If you want to post about it anyway armed with that information, go right ahead.

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GhostCrawler, if you would be so kind, could you explain Blizzard's core philosophy as it relates to the relationship between PvP and PvE? I think it would go a long way towards improving discussion here on the forums.

I look forward to your reply, and thank you greatly for your consideration.

I think that it is just that both are important to different players and they are theoretically unwilling to break one to fix another.

But, in the past we have seen resto druids being kept OP in PvP to not break them in PvE and rets kept UP in PvE to not break PvP.

They are trying to keep everyone happy, but they don't necessarily succeed all the time.

I think as soon as we get rated BGs things might improve. Being able to get the top PvP gear without having to worry about arena will allow us to go back to having BGs and PvE balanced, which are the most popular parts of the game. And arena relegated to being a side show.

At the moment arena is far too important in affecting balance as it is the only source of the top PvP gear, but a lot less people arena than BG or PvE. At the moment the tail seems to be wagging the dog. Rated BGs will allow better balance.

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Q u o t e:
I think that it is just that both are important to different players and they are theoretically unwilling to break one to fix another.

But, in the past we have seen resto druids being kept OP in PvP to not break them in PvE and rets kept UP in PvE to not break PvP.

They are trying to keep everyone happy, but they don't necessarily succeed all the time.

I think as soon as we get rated BGs things might improve. Being able to get the top PvP gear without having to worry about arena will allow us to go back to having BGs and PvE balanced, which are the most popular parts of the game. And arena relegated to being a side show.

At the moment arena is far too important in affecting balance as it is the only source of the top PvP gear, but a lot less people arena than BG or PvE. At the moment the tail seems to be wagging the dog. Rated BGs will allow better balance.

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Actually Rated BG's don't allow for Better balance, they allow for a greater imbalance to occur becuase of class diversity, and larger groups of People.

You may think it is more balanced but in fact it is quite out of whack you just don't notice imbalances as much unless they are completely out of whack. Such as a few classes in early wrath. This is the problem with Arena Class balance is put under a microscope and you get to see every little problem with the game.

But yes i agree PvP in this game should be much better if BG's become the focal point of PvP again and Arena becomes the side show for Epeen strokers. Howev

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Q u o t e:
I think that it is just that both are important to different players and they are theoretically unwilling to break one to fix another.

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That's only part of it. Part of it is what GC has simply explained as follows (paraphrasing, as I'm not in the mood to dig up the link): "Because it's one game."

Here's how I interpret that:

WoW is a role-playing game. One of the hallmarks of an RPG, especially a good RPG, is an immersive game world, an imaginary or virtual place in which the player is comfortable putting himself into the headspace of his character. This holds true all the way back to the old pencil-and-paper, dice-based games from which WoW evolved.

An extremely important part of making a world immersive is that the world make sense. You lay some ground rules that are different from the real world (magic works, there are dragons, people can be resurrected, a single stab wound won't kill a hero, etc.) Once you've set up those ground rules, the way the world works must follow logically from those rules. Some people will argue that this is only the case in Sci-Fi, and that in Fantasy, anything goes, but the school of thought I prefer doesn't make such a distinction; good Fantasy follows these principles.

The product of making things follow logically from the ground rules you've set up is that your world is internally consistent; it makes sense. This makes it a comfortable place for the player to spend his time.

Separating the rulesets of PvE and PvP throws a wrench into the gears of internal consistency. Suddenly, when you attack a person in the game, things work differently depending on an outside-the-game factor -- the question of whether it's a human or a machine controlling the target.

There is no way such a difference can follow logically from the ground rules of the game world; there's no logical in-game explanation for it. It doesn't make sense. The world becomes less immersive, which reduces the quality of the game.

Obviously, they cannot adhere perfectly to the principle; the game is too complex, and at times, they have to compromise. But compromise should be a measure of last resort.

That's what I think GC means when he says it's all the same game. If I'm radically wrong, then GC, I apologize.

PvP is beyond laughable. Stop it.

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Q u o t e:


Internal consistency for belief in the game world is part of it. Just keeping complexity down is another part of it. We don't want to see every spell or talent have two tooltips and players having to keep all of that straight. It just feels like two games with one art set at that point, which isn't what we're going for.

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thank goodness... i feel like every talent these days says "causes x for x seconds, but also passively impacts these 3 spells for 5% if its this spell, 10% of this spell and extends to duration by 6 seconds of the 3rd".

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Q u o t e:
thank goodness... i feel like every talent these days says "causes x for x seconds, but also passively impacts these 3 spells for 5% if its this spell, 10% of this spell and extends to duration by 6 seconds of the 3rd".

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Good news! You'll be seeing more of those types of talents in Cataclysm.

Which I like. I'm not a huge fan of 'increases your damage by 1%' talents.

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Q u o t e:


Internal consistency for belief in the game world is part of it. Just keeping complexity down is another part of it. We don't want to see every spell or talent have two tooltips and players having to keep all of that straight. It just feels like two games with one art set at that point, which isn't what we're going for.

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I think BGs do a good job of maintaing the feel of the game. I have objectives, it is alliance vs horde, and it has the same feel as world PvP. Arenas on the other hand teleport me to magic la la land where I fight it out in an empty building. The coliseum did a better job of creating an arena that feels like part of the game world. Arenas are a place where you could make a fair number of improvements either through in game text (explain why we are fighting in the middle of no where), or new art.

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Q u o t e:


Internal consistency for belief in the game world is part of it. Just keeping complexity down is another part of it. We don't want to see every spell or talent have two tooltips and players having to keep all of that straight. It just feels like two games with one art set at that point, which isn't what we're going for.

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Given the number of current spells/abilities that use two different rulesets it would seem that eventually two rulesets will be the easier path than the jumbled some do and some don't method.

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Q u o t e:


Internal consistency for belief in the game world is part of it. Just keeping complexity down is another part of it. We don't want to see every spell or talent have two tooltips and players having to keep all of that straight. It just feels like two games with one art set at that point, which isn't what we're going for.

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Saying that the internals of the game don't support what players are asking for is one thing.

However, it already *feels* like two different games. For example, a frost mage is not designed to excel in PVE. A fire mage, OTOH, is the practical choice for nearly all PVE situations. So, to play my mage in PVE it's fire all the way. But when playing PVP, gotta switch to frost because fire is simply not viable in that environment.

There is nothing wrong with this, but it does *feel* like I'm playing two different games.

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Q u o t e:

Good news! You'll be seeing more of those types of talents in Cataclysm.

Which I like. I'm not a huge fan of 'increases your damage by 1%' talents.

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im all against the 5 stacks of talent points each giving 1% crit found in almost every single DPS tree, it is clear that the original design was taken from Diablo and doesnt fit the modern WoW mold.


But at the same time, do i really want to have to read my talent over 6 times to understand every spell that it is going to impact? The Feral tree is easily the greatest offender since its a tanking AND DPS tree all in one.

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Q u o t e:

Good news! You'll be seeing more of those types of talents in Cataclysm.

Which I like. I'm not a huge fan of 'increases your damage by 1%' talents.

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False. They specifically said at Blizzcon they want to do away with the complicated talents.

Remember, they are doing away with the simple buff talents while we still keep the same number of talent points. This means that the super complicated talents that effect multiple skills will most likely be split into separate talents.

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Saying that the internals of the game don't support what players are asking for is one thing.

However, tt already *feels* like two different games. For example, a frost mage is not designed to excel in PVE. A fire mage, OTOH, is the practical choice for nearly all situations. So, to play my mage in PVE it's fire all the way. But when playing PVP, gotta switch to frost because fire is simply not viable in that environment.

There is nothing wrong with this, but it does *feel* like I'm playing two different games.

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well that isnt inherent with how the game functions, but rather that for PVP, players choose talents and gear that favors defensive stats (stamina, resilience, damage reduction etc...)

while in PVE (unless you are a tank) you take stats that boost your throughput basically at the cost of everything else. Healers boost their healing, DPS boost their DPS.

If they were separate and had separate functions, you arent talking about taking offensive or defensive gear anymore but rather my talent that gives 5% crit vs a MOB now only gives 2% crit vs a player. Making you not only take offensive and defensive gear, but now your talents have to be balanced based on offense/defense AND how they interact with a player vs a mob.

There is another thread for both this (completely dead) subject, and also the "I don't like arena" subject, which I'm actually getting sick of. We've made the point about not liking arena. I'm convinced we made the point so well that they don't even listen to us anymore.

I would be ever so grateful if you (the forum goers) would simply accept the existence and permanence of the current pvp design, and focus your impressive attention on improving arena, so that it can be enjoyed by more types of players, while not losing any of the benefits that current players enjoy.

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Q u o t e:


Internal consistency for belief in the game world is part of it. Just keeping complexity down is another part of it. We don't want to see every spell or talent have two tooltips and players having to keep all of that straight. It just feels like two games with one art set at that point, which isn't what we're going for.

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No...just no.

You overcomplex your design by keeping one ruleset. You make unnessicary changes for either ruleset because of one or the other. You can break pve balance for the sake of pvp and vice versa. I also think you ignore the fact that you piss off a large majority of the the playerbase when you make sweeping pve changes for the sake of arena balance.

You have a few members on your team that used to play EQ. You have a very large expansion in the works thats making large revamps to game mechanics. I would suggest that you study EQ's dual ruleset and get it in line for cataclysm.

TL;DR: Your whole explanation comes off as saying "we didn't plan on having this in at launch and we are far too lazy to code it in now."

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Q u o t e:
However, it already *feels* like two different games. For example, a frost mage is not designed to excel in PVE. A fire mage, OTOH, is the practical choice for nearly all PVE situations. So, to play my mage in PVE it's fire all the way. But when playing PVP, gotta switch to frost because fire is simply not viable in that environment.

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To me, that doesn't feel like an internal consistency problem -- but then, I don't respec. There's nothing inherently inconsistent about one type of Mage just not being particularly good at one type of content. It starts to feel like an immersion problem when you actually flip between specs so you can play both types of content, because then you kind of feel like you're "retconning" your character. But that's a player choice to sacrifice immersion in exchange for the ability to play more types of content. I choose to preserve the immersion and take a pass on the content for the time being.

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Q u o t e:



well that isnt inherent with how the game functions, but rather that for PVP, players choose talents and gear that favors defensive stats (stamina, resilience, damage reduction etc...)

while in PVE (unless you are a tank) you take stats that boost your throughput basically at the cost of everything else. Healers boost their healing, DPS boost their DPS.

If they were separate and had separate functions, you arent talking about taking offensive or defensive gear anymore but rather my talent that gives 5% crit vs a MOB now only gives 2% crit vs a player. Making you not only take offensive and defensive gear, but now your talents have to be balanced based on offense/defense AND how they interact with a player vs a mob.

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While that is all true, it still *feels* like two different games right now. I don't care, I just find it silly to make a claim that what players are suggesting would compromise the experience. By having to dual spec for PVE/PVP, that compromise has already been made.

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Q u o t e:


To me, that doesn't feel like an internal consistency problem -- but then, I don't respec. There's nothing inherently inconsistent about one type of Mage just not being particularly good at one type of content. It starts to feel like an immersion problem when you actually flip between specs so you can play both types of content, because then you kind of feel like you're "retconning" your character. But that's a player choice to sacrifice immersion in exchange for the ability to play more types of content. I choose to preserve the immersion and take a pass on the content for the time being.

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That is certainly your choice, but the fact remains that frost dominates PVP and fire dominates PVE because each spec is optimized for a particular type of content. Other classes have the same issue, I just chose mages as an example.