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Wowhead Weekly Interview with Senior PvP Designer Brian Holinka, December 11th Hotfixes
Criado
11/12/2014 em 16:00
por
Serrinn
Wowhead Weekly Interview with Brian Holinka
Wowhead Weekly interviewed Blizzard's Senior WoW PvP Designer, Brian Holinka this week discussing all aspects of WoW PvP; Ashran, the latest arena season, gearing, Garrisons and more. Check out the video below, followed by the liveblog text summary.
Q: What do you do for Blizzard?
A: Senior game designer focused on PvP - class balance, arenas, Ashran. Also worked on the Group Finder.
Q: People are concerned about classes! What are you keeping an eye on?
A: We had hotfixes go out this morning and take a lot of things into account. Representation in ratings are important to players but we consider that one facet. We pay attention to what people are saying, and our own play experiences. We use all those to balance PvP classes. Rets and Discs are a good example - were very slightly nerfed (set bonus and silence). Those classes were doing too well and were reigned in. Under performing specs include dps shaman. Any changes we make have effect on the whole game. So many things to take into account. Decisions are made deliberately.
Q: Those minor changes aren't the only changes, right? i.e Ret Paladins.
A: Pallies are a swinging pendulum. Ratings representation doesn't tell the whole story. People do abandon characters at 2300, etc. Don't be fixated on area ladder representation as a meter of balance. The ladders are not there as a data tool to give feedback on. Tell the pvp designers how you feel when playing your characters in PvP, that's what they want to know. They combine that and the data to make different changes.
Q: Is healing too strong in PvP, especially from Hybrid classes?
A: I don't think it's a broad problem but certain specs and certain times are problematic. Also, things like blink and ice block aren't on the meters but they are like a heal - so people become fixated on the healing meter but don't look at mitigation. We have made efforts in the past few weeks to reign things in. We are still keeping an eye on it.
Q: Any plans for the future to work on the scoreboard?
A: That would be useful although it's a balance, don't want to give too much information for people to get fixated on over real data points. Is the game more fun because you can see more information? OR just looking for more ammunition for internet arguments?
Q: Is Blizzard going to be reducing % based healing and passive self heals?
A: We are looking to reign it in, second wind as an example was reigned in. The problem with passive healing is that it can get down to a number where you don't feel it but it's still inflating healing scoreboard numbers. It's okay for us to have strong things in the game, we want variation.
Q: PvP Racials - lots of Every Man complaints over time, but some players are now concerned about the new Stoneform. Reasonable concern?
A: Yes. Considering other fixes, like having it share a 30 sec cooldown with pvp trinkets. This will require a client side patch in the future. Breaking silence and then breaking something else immediately with your trinket is be a problem. Racials could be completely balanced and even and a lot of the good players are just going to pick a faction. There really could be no racials and the ladders would be 90% alliance (for example) because everyone wants to play together. We agree that some changes weren't great in beta so we rolled them back in order to keep balance. You can see lots of pvpers swapping factions because of the great variation of racials. Not buying the representation argument here. Belves remain most popular, not maybe at high level, the average players look past racials.
Q: Mana regen in Warlords has changed, most mana cooldowns are gone - how has this changed PvP and how is this going in early season?
A: Happy with dampening and it achieved it's goal. The game is holistically complicated in terms of mana regen across all forms of play - raids, arena, etc. Area environment is the dampening environment. Some comps were made to play during dampening and they probably won't do as well this season. It's harder now to game mana regen talents - it was too exploitive with procs, etc. That went overboard. Mana regen game was too compartmentalized i.e. use the spell on cooldown. The drinking game still has a lot of elements to it that require you to be smart in arena and don't require class abilities.
Q: There was a big effort to reduce CC - there are concerns about both melee mobility and keeping melee off you. Any changes?
A: We didn't do much to reign in melee mobility, and they are doing well. The response to this change was actually a buff to interrupts. We are looking at changes to interrupts. Going to see what we can do but it's being looked at. Elemental shaman, for example, are definitely hurting.
Q: Do you think the CC/CC break changes went to far/not far enough? Any future changes?
A: Our goal was "Players want to play their characters more often" not "Gut all CC." We reduced CC and CC Breaks but didn't necessarily accomplish the goal. What are having a real effect and which CC breaks are really a problem? These changes are more patch changes.
Q: Ashran - is Ashran having growing pains?
A: We knew on beta that everyone was geared up and didn't have to do anything but fight. Now we're live, how did that play out? We are not happy with where Ashran is out right now - want to improve: Pathing, etc, on NPCs aren't working great - we also had issues with Faction balance in Ashran. Being solved by faction matching and forced parity. This solved one problem and created another (long queues) - breaking up parings because the faction balance problem is essentially solved. Maybe will relink servers in Ashran for population issues. Bigger servers will still have issues. Looking for new solutions to the queue issues.
Q: Any chance to have an estimated queue time for Ashran?
A: Yes, that was a flub on our part and we are trying to get that in and we're going to make that better.
Q: Can we queue without having to walk in?
A: Original vision was not run into Ashran and get a queue. We thought you'd just be running in. Problem was faction balance/server population problems so now we needed a bouncer. We didn't want queing to be a thing, we wanted it to feel like a zone in the world. Once we fix the pairings issue this may be a better solution to the queue issue.
Q: How about automatically joining a raid group?
A: We're still okay with how it is. If you're in a raid automatically, people who don't want to be in the raid will be in the raid. Most zones in the world don't work that way and our vision was to have it be like a zone. Possibly if you get close to the action we could have an auto-raid join.
Q: Challenges of Ashran: How can we get more people involved and how can we get the game to explain what's happening in the zone?
A: The events work when people get into them. It hasn't worked out as an organic adventuring-ish area but we're trying to fix that. For example, making bonus objectives daily instead of one time. Also there is a bug where the bonus objectives don't show on the map - this may also get people to the outer edges. Also thinking of adding a quest to introduce you to all the buffs around the zone. Didn't want people to be hand held but also didn't lead anyone to the outer areas. Some of these things are lost on people and they are looking to improve the experience.
Q: Map pings for quests would help, improved timers? People don't understand what they are being told.
A: Definitely things like the server messages are good (like when Captain joins) but the other issue is - do we want 100 people going to the events? Maybe people don't know about them but also maybe the right amount of people DO know. We are concerned about 200 people running around the zone together.
Q: If people want to do bonus objectives we can't get over the bridge! How do we get there!
A: Actually there are alternate entrances and exits - we didn't communicate this well and they need to be more obvious. But we also need to be careful that attackers aren't coming in those ways.
Q: Center lane gets more visibility when there's the Apexis daily for Ashran - complaints like low frame rates, tree boss running back and forth messing up visuals, hard to loot the Artifact Fragments. Any center lane tweaks being planned?
A: We wanted the old AV style but we didn't want that to be all Ashran was about. With the daily? You dont' want to be in the center lane. Go farm NPCs near the opposing faction area since they drop double. We can fix this for sure in quest texts, etc. We added the NPCs for variety. Just players aren't super interesting, we like the NPCs because they are supposed to show up on occasion. But it turns out they are always there.
Q: Speaking of Fangral! People think they are too strong - specifically Fanral > Kronus?
A: We are tuning them. They used to use the on tap technology - now they spawn with HP suitable to the faction population of the zone. Their health is variable. It's cool that they have different kits but that always makes people complain that there's an imbalance.
Q: Base/NPC strength?
A: If you lose on your side of the field, your captain spawn limit resets. A natural rubberbanding mechanic - should make it easier to push out of your zone. It's tough to design something for 230+ people and it's hard to test it. If something is an epic tug of war battle sometimes it won't be clear or easy. At times there will be a hard push out of your base and you are stronger there.
Q: Changes to PvP gearing in WOD? How do you feel about randomness added to high level Conquest pieces? Happy? Any changes?
A: We will have to talk about if we want to continue this. Hard to change now since season is happening. We made some of those decisions in a bubble - chance at items is fun! But it ended up being random (winning Colliseum, killing Ashran boss) - perhaps we will look at solutions to tone this down in the future. It's always important to give rewards for this but collectively someone can win the lottery and someone else can lose. 10 million playing this game? 1 guy will win all the loot, every day, statistics!
Q: Why was warforged added to honour gear?
A: Happy with that decision. Really seemed to only be an issue for a week and now conquest is available and honour isn't the best gear so we're set. Sometimes you feel lucky and that's good. Same with warforged honor gear. What was important is that everyone gets to a level playing field eventually, that's why it's not on Conquest gear. Fairness and balance are important but sometimes those things smash fun. MOP maybe made that a little boring - gear paths and you could always determine what was going to happen. But sometimes the game experience wasn't very interesting. "Do BG Get Currency Go to Vendor" got a little dull. Only thing maybe is that they have been pretty generous. The gear has been flowing! Hard to test gearing in Beta cause it's all on vendors but we were almost too generous here. Hard to go from generous to stingy though so enjoy the season!
Q: What about gating non-set pvp gear pieces behind the Ashran faction?
A: We'll see about how this works out in the future. When an item drops we want you to be excited not have to grind rep in order to wear it. They were trying to add variety to the gearing experience but we aren't sure this was the right way to do it. We do want there to be a variety of ways to get pvp gear and going forward we're going to look for more cool ways to do it. We tried to use the rep to do that but the queues made that problem much worse. Rep gains were buffed though. First focus is getting people access.
Q: Some disparities between honour trinkets and conquest trinkets - HP trinkets are better sometimes? Intended?
A: It's a bug, there was a pass done on trinkets to correct budgeting - some trinkets ended up being effected and some were not. This will be remedied and need to correct all the wrong trinkets.
This has begin to happen today (Friday):
Q: Non-gear PvP rewards? Like titles/toys? Anything you'll be adding?
A: We'd like to we just need to find the right ideas and we should make this more of a priority.
Q: Changes to PvP set bonuses today but some people still feel that sets are imbalanced - any future plans?
A: We are looking but please give us feedback! Thinking about changing set bonuses every season - might see all new set bonuses next season! Variety! Definitely not done making changes but we don't want things to trickle in every 3 days. They are watching current changes.
There have already been hotfixes to address issues with Set Bonuses, and more will likely follow:
Q: Gladiator's Sanctum - too good?
A: Yeah, everyone who had that building had all sorts of gear and gold. Was a super generous building, that's why it was nerfed.
Q: Good idea to have conquest gear in an arena that can be gamed by groups (The Coliseum)?
A: There's a limited opportunity to go in there so hopefully that makes you not like to collude and get gear for one person. Now we're trying to get it so it only starts with more people in there. Also some bug complaints about loot stealing in there. Trying to fix these bugs. The Coliseum is very new so there are snags that need to be cleaned up.
The second place loot theft issue has been remedied:
Q: Any chance to make it so you can only solo queue Coliseum?
A: Something to consider, also things to be done on the back end.
Q: Any chance Mythic PvE gear can be scaled down more in PvP?
A: Mythic gear can't be any better - we possibly went too far in MOP with making PvE gear SO BAD in PvP. As a result, people were upset about how garbage their gear was in BGs, etc. That didn't feel good. Certainly we want PvP to be the best gear for PvP. PvP gear is the best but of course there will be people who min-max (for example) 10 versatility on 1 PvE item. We are not offended if a piece of gear is arguably the best piece. What we are concerned about game breaking PvE items in PvP. Trinkets and weapons are the big problem. But if you take any trinket that's not a pvp trinket you take 15% more damage.
Q: Gladiator Mounts - can they be account wide? Like PvE stuff?
A: Yes we can have this conversation - generally the reason is that when those mounts were created, it was like getting a legendary - tied to that character, makes that character amazing. It's something that may be revisited. But that's one of those things we could never go back from.
December 11th Hotfixes
Our PvP interview covered some topics that received hotfixes later today! There are also notable hotfixes to some professions and Garrison buildings, which we've noted in our guides:
Warlords of Draenor Alchemy
Warlords of Draenor Jewelcrafting
Draenor Outposts
Rygarius
Garrisons, Followers, and Outposts
Garrison Buildings
Inn
:
Inn
quests can now be completed on the spot without returning back to the Garrison.
Inn
: The achievement,
Fique um pouco e escute
now only requires the character to complete 10 of the 20
Estalagem
quests (down from all 20).
Outposts
Note: The following changes to Outposts will take effect with next week's scheduled maintenance.
Reduced the cost for changing Garrison Outpost buildings in
Nagrand
to 500 gold.
Reduced the cost for changing Garrison Outpost buildings in
Gorgrond
,
Talador
, and
Agulhas de Arak
to 5,000 gold.
Changing Garrison Outpost buildings should now grant access to the building-specific questline for that zone, including building-specific follower(s).
Additional information on changes to Outposts can be found in the forum thread titled:
Upcoming Garrison Outpost Hotfixes
.
Garrison Missions
It is now possible to continue to receive Level 95-99 missions even when all Followers are level 100.
Classes
Cavaleiro da Morte
Armor Sets
PvP 4-piece set bonus for Blood Death Knights should no longer be incorrectly applied to other pets or guardians.
Druida
Balance
now deals 33% less damage in PvP combat.
Armor Sets
Tier-16 set bonuses no longer work for level 100 Feral Druids.
PvP 2-piece set bonus for Balance Druids can now only trigger once every 15 seconds.
PvP 4-piece set bonus for Guardian Druids should no longer be incorrectly applied to other pets or guardians.
Monge
Armor Sets
PvP 2-piece set bonus for Brewmaster and Windwalker Monks should now correctly reduce the Energy cost of
Palma do Tigre
.
PvP 2-piece set bonus for Mistweaver Monks should no longer incorrectly apply its effect to both the casting Monk and target at the same time.
PvP 4-piece set bonus for Brewmaster Monks should no longer be incorrectly applied to other pets or guardians.
Paladino
Armor Sets
Tier-16 set bonuses no longer work for level 100 Holy Paladins.
PvP 2-piece set bonus for Retribution Paladins now reduces the duration of all incoming crowd control effects by 25% (down from 50%).
PvP 4-piece set bonus for Protection Paladins should no longer be incorrectly applied to other pets or guardians.
Sacerdote
General
Silêncio
(Discipline) now prevents the target from casting spells for 2 seconds (down from 5 seconds). There is no change to the ability for Shadow Priests.
Armor Sets
Tier-16 set bonuses no longer work for level 100 Holy Priests.
Ladino
Talents
Resolved an issue where Death from Above could sometimes incorrectly be granting multiple combo points in conjunction with
Malevolência
.
Xamã
General
Lobo Fantasma
modified by
no longer provides a movement speed increase while indoors.
Estouro de Lava
(Elemental, Restoration) now deals 33% more damage in PvP combat.
Armor Sets
PvP 2-piece set bonus for Enhancement Shaman now reduces the duration of all incoming crowd control effects by 25% (down from 50%).
Bruxo
Affliction
Ocaso
should no longer fail to trigger if the most recent target of Corruption dies.
Destruction
Seta do Caos
now deals 33% more damage in PvP combat.
Guerreiro
Protection
Escudada
modified by
now only dispels 1 magical effect while the
Guerreiro
is in
Vanguarda
.
Armor Sets
PvP 4-piece set bonus now generates 3 Rage for every 1% health lost (up from 1 Rage per 1%).
Quests
Serra Fogofrio
As crônicas de gelo e chamas
: Players can no longer accept this quest if
O lar dos Lobo do Gelo
is already in their quest log.
Mudanças no ar
:
Olin Courumbra
should now return if he despawns for any reason.
Creatures and NPCs
Vale da Lua Negra
Falassombra Niir
should now always be attackable.
Dungeons, Raids, and Scenarios
Raids
Malho Imponente
Frondísporo
: Elements of the encounter should now still be visible from further away.
Twin Ogron: Pol's Arcane Ogron forms should now correctly use
Carga Arcana
based on the direction they're facing.
Imperador Mar'gok
:
Aniquilador Goriano
s now use their abilities more consistently, using
Esmagar Armadura
every 6 seconds (instead of 5-8 seconds), and
Chute
to the
Rosto
every 20 seconds (instead of 15-30 seconds).
Imperador Mar'gok
:
Aniquilador Goriano
s now deal 15% less damage on all difficulty modes.
Dungeons
Central do Carrilcruel
O núcleo de ferro
should now correctly only be available on Heroic difficulty.
Mestre-maquinista Triscachispa
: Characters should no longer be taken out of stealth effects at the start of the encounter.
Pico da Rocha Negra Superior
Asafúria, a Indomada
:
Rasgarruína de Mão Negra
should no longer be incorrectly dropping for characters that use Strength in Personal loot mode.
PvP
Ashran
Fangraal
and
Kronus
no longer scales their health based the number of players they're fighting. Each faction guardian's health now scales based on the number of enemy players active at the time when they're summoned.
Professions
Alquimia
Based on player feedback, a number of adjustments have been made to
Alquimia
recipes. Combat potion recipes no longer requires
Óleo de Crescente
and meat/fish, and will require herbs instead. Flask recipes now use more herbs, increasing the number of herbs needed from one type of herb to two.
Poção de Agilidade Draenoriana
now requires 3
Ervígnea
and 1
Ampola de Cristal
.
Poção de Versatilidade Draenoriana
now requires 3
Erválgida
and 1
Ampola de Cristal
.
Poção de Mana Canalizado Draenoriana
now requires 3
Florestrela
and 1
Ampola de Cristal
.
Poção de Intelecto Draenoriana
now requires 3
Orquídea de Talador
and 1
Ampola de Cristal
.
Poção de Mana Draenoriana
now requires 3
Papa-mosca de Gorgrond
and 1
Ampola de Cristal
.
Poção de Força Draenoriana
now requires 3
Ponta-de-seta de Nagrand
and 1
Ampola de Cristal
.
Frasco de Agilidade Draenoriano
now requires 4
Ervígnea
, 4
Florestrela
, and 1
Ampola de Cristal
.
Frasco de Intelecto Draenoriano
now requires 4
Orquídea de Talador
, 4
Florestrela
, and 1
Ampola de Cristal
.
Frasco de Vigor Draenoriano
now requires 4
Orquídea de Talador
, 4
Ponta-de-seta de Nagrand
, and 1
Ampola de Cristal
.
Frasco de Força Draenoriano
now requires 4
Papa-mosca de Gorgrond
, 4
Ponta-de-seta de Nagrand
, and 1
Ampola de Cristal
.
Encantamento
Encantamento de Maestria - Botas
now increases Mastery by 9 (down from 11).
Marca da Rocha Negra
now triggers its effect more frequently, and can occur when the character is below 60% health (up from being below 50% health), and can also trigger from blocking an attack or absorbing damage.
Marca da Mão Despedaçada
now triggers its bleed effect less frequently.
Joalheria
Based on player feedback, a number of adjustments have been made to
Joalheria
recipes. Tier 1 gem recipes now requires more ore and less herbs. Tier 2 gem recipes will no longer requires herbs and instead require a tier 1 gem.
Taladita de Acerto Crítico
now requires 10
Minério de Ferro Verdadeiro
and 2
Ervígnea
.
Taladita de Aceleração
now requires 10
Minério da Rocha Negra
and 2
Erválgida
.
Taladita de Maestria
take 10
Minério de Ferro Verdadeiro
and 2
Florestrela
.
Taladita de Aceleração
take 10
Minério da Rocha Negra
and 2
Ponta-de-seta de Nagrand
.
Taladita de Vigor
now requires 10
Minério de Ferro Verdadeiro
and 2
Orquídea de Talador
.
Taladita de Versatilidade
now requires 10
Minério da Rocha Negra
and 2
Papa-mosca de Gorgrond
.
All Tier 2 gems now requires 50
Cristal de Taladita
, 10
Ar Mágico
, and one Tier 1 gem.
Bug Fixes
Resolved an issue where
Druida
s that performed a Character Boost would be unable to learn the
Encarnação
talent until they have completed
Selva de Tanaan
.
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