I would of joined earlier then 2020 but the packages were lack luster after the original kickstarters/summer backer plans.. They don't want my 1k for Leader of Men
I'm surprised this hasn't been locked yet. OP has an obvious issue with Blizzard and wants to vent, which is understandable, but this is only tangentially related to Ashes of Creation, and I fail to see how any further discussion here would be constructive.
I'm surprised this hasn't been locked yet. OP has an obvious issue with Blizzard and wants to vent, which is understandable, but this is only tangentially related to Ashes of Creation, and I fail to see how any further discussion here would be constructive.
They tend to generally only close threads that are actively anti-productive, rather than just unproductive.
This forum here does have a number of posters that have a habit of taking a thread that is somewhat unproductive, running in a different direction with it and turning it in to something either entertaining or productive.
I'm surprised this hasn't been locked yet. OP has an obvious issue with Blizzard and wants to vent, which is understandable, but this is only tangentially related to Ashes of Creation, and I fail to see how any further discussion here would be constructive.
They tend to generally only close threads that are actively anti-productive, rather than just unproductive.
This forum here does have a number of posters that have a habit of taking a thread that is somewhat unproductive, running in a different direction with it and turning it in to something either entertaining or productive.
Even a thread like this can bring about worthwhile discussion, so as long as it's not against the rules, it won't be closed.
Well was giving more thought to the Orignal post and......
Well hiring a Prior Blizzard Employee might be tabboo for the company might cause some concern which is sad to say about such a great game.
Another thing I want to mention is most of what the Original post had to say is about PvP game balance..... which have posted a lotabout. First let me say that PvE in WoW is not so bad it is PvP game balance that is an issue.
In my experience after many hours of play and studying classes found out that classes were unbalanced and figured out how to balance them but....as it turns out that process would take all the fun factor out of class so classes would have to be kind of remade not just nerfed. Maybe Blizzard not willing to take such drastic measures.
Really think that class PvP balance is very difficult for MMOs because of wide array of builds and choices plus players find way to use abilities that work not as intended. Right now Im playing league of legends and find that in some cases you end up winning cause your champions just happens to have one ability. Some champions are placed in the category of just broken. People make videos of it and sometimes they do get nerfed but all Riot can do is the best they can. But what I am trying to say is In a Pure pvp game you have more game balance but still have issues so even more problematic for MMO with so many items and builds and abilities.
But would have to agree that Blizzard could improve much in this particular area.
If Intrepid feels someone has the passion, skills, and mindset to follow the vision of the game then previously working at one of the most successful game companies on the planet shouldn't be considered an immediate disqualifier.
I would imagine it would be no different than any other job. "Oh so you worked on all those things!? That's great, now here is what we are working on here and how you can help".
If a developer is good at what they do, why would you not hire them? Who cares where they worked before? They will be following the Intrepid design philosophy, so how are they different from the other Intrepid developers?
Most of the time developers are also just people who do their job and follow orders from the people who decide to implement something. I think as long as the person is capable and shows that it can follow the design and mindset of ashes, it will be fine.
All of these lovely folks above have shared some great feedback on this matter that I totally echo - Intrepid is comprised of a team of developers who bring their expertise and background from a variety of MMOs, some of which you may have loved and others of which you may have strong feelings about
Some of the most important things to our team are your previous game development experience, and your passion for what Ashes of Creation can be - and sometimes you can learn even more from perceived "failure" in your career than you can from success. Every experience is a learning opportunity waiting to happen!
As others have noted, when we're all working towards the common goal of bringing Ashes of Creation to life with the vision that has already been formed, we've definitely got our journey laid out for us!
Cool story bro but you never know, they might be very talented, only shackled by a game that is limited by design, designed by the designers before them. Something that they cannot do anything about even if they are really good at game design.
I think it's a safer bet just not to hire from blizzards class design team specifically after seeing them spend two months completely ignoring the state of pvp It has been extremely frustrating to deal with and one of two things is happening to cause it. One, the bigwigs are making a tiny skeleton man crew keep all of wow afloat giving them little to no time to spend on actual substance for class design or to even play their own game. Or two, the designers are so incompetently ignorant that they really believe everything's fine and would declare that they are "proud" of shadowlands pvp balance.
The issue is that we cannot tell which of these is going on due to NDA. Meaning you are absolutely taking a risk when hiring them. So my vote is dont hire them, but yeah like people have said before this is all intrepids decision at the end of the day.
If Intrepid feels someone has the passion, skills, and mindset to follow the vision of the game then previously working at one of the most successful game companies on the planet shouldn't be considered an immediate disqualifier.
I would imagine it would be no different than any other job. "Oh so you worked on all those things!? That's great, now here is what we are working on here and how you can help".
If a developer is good at what they do, why would you not hire them? Who cares where they worked before? They will be following the Intrepid design philosophy, so how are they different from the other Intrepid developers?
Most of the time developers are also just people who do their job and follow orders from the people who decide to implement something. I think as long as the person is capable and shows that it can follow the design and mindset of ashes, it will be fine.
All of these lovely folks above have shared some great feedback on this matter that I totally echo - Intrepid is comprised of a team of developers who bring their expertise and background from a variety of MMOs, some of which you may have loved and others of which you may have strong feelings about
Some of the most important things to our team are your previous game development experience, and your passion for what Ashes of Creation can be - and sometimes you can learn even more from perceived "failure" in your career than you can from success. Every experience is a learning opportunity waiting to happen!
As others have noted, when we're all working towards the common goal of bringing Ashes of Creation to life with the vision that has already been formed, we've definitely got our journey laid out for us!
Well I get what you are saying but lets look at what WoW Devs Actually DID[b][/b] And you can decide if WoW Devs are smart or not.
Hunter Class WoW Mist of Pandaria. There was a problem with hunters landing traps. Because it had a travel time. Trap did not actaully proc until it landed and after it landed it took a while for it to proc. There was a 2 second arming time and later changed one second arming time. so it could be dodged easily since every one could see the a very fine arch that denoted the travel path of the trap so you could actually tell were the trap was cast.
So what the devs did is increase the area of effect of the trap so if you take a persons that has long arms and happens to be tall and have them spread out there arm sso that they are parallel to the deck then you have your new trap radias. Actually little bigger than that. First of all I do not think I could even get any of the devs at Ashes of Creation to do this. Because I am sure the devs at Ashes recognize traps as a skill shot and if you increase the radius of the trap it defeats the purpose. You really do not even have to Aim any more and becomes a boring skill.
I want to make a very interesting point it was not a person a it was the Dev Team at Blizz.
Now as a Game Designers you have to be aware of ratios. dps ot health ratios and up and down time ratios.
Really simple thing actually. An up time ratio for example is if you have a buff that last ten seconds and cool down is thirty seconds, that is a 10 to 30 ratio or 1/3 or buff can be kept up 33 percent of the time. This also applis to CC Real simple stuff here. Super simple.....
This is what WoW did. Base cool down for traps was 30 seconds but Survival hunters had 24 second trap it was a passive ability. But WoW Devs never bother to update thier tool tip and the tool tip said Survival hunters get a 50 percent cooldown reduction on there traps. No biggy just change tool tip. But this is not what WoW did.
There were lots of hunters tha compained about it and WoW listened. The tool tip did say that Survival hunters get 50% cool down reduction.
So this is what happened Survival hunter trap was already at 24 cd not 30 so they cut that in half to 12 seconds(by the way this happened at the same time trap radius increased). Now hunters at that time had a Freezing trap that puts you in block of ice for 8 seconds. Now lets look at that ratio you have a 8 to 12 ratio between cool down and up time of cc. 8/12 or 2/3 or 66%. Now 12 times five is 60 so you could cast this abilty five times in one minute. Or cc one player for 40 seconds per minute. And if you were smart and started of with a trap right of the bat at second 1 then cast a trap at seconds 12, 24, 36, 48, and 60 that is actual yep six traps in one min. So for first min of an arena you could CC a player 48 seconds out of 60. Notice that that 12 minus 8 is 4 which is also the amount of time the enemy player had in betwenn traps to play. So if you are playing againts a hunter In MOP you get ccced for 8 seconds play for 4 seconds then get CCed for another 8 seconds. I mean hunters are going to be hitting those traps all the time with the increased radius.
Now rest of post is more opinion. But if you are Working for the most successful MMO in the world and you have a Dev Team that does not understand Ratios as they relate to class design .....Should they not get Fired
Let me share my personal experience with this. My class was Over Powered. All I had to do is spam one abiltiy with a huge raidius that did ont even have to aim. Really it was all i had to do so I just went aruond spamming one ability winning Arenas just because I could spam on ability. Sad thing is I beat teams that were actually more skilled than me (after pvping so much you can just gage other palyers skill pretty easily) cause I know how to spam.
Now at first I was like well It is my turn be OP class was kind of broken last Expansion. But after a while like ten months (amount of time it Took WoW to Fix this). It got kind of old and I wasnot using my full array of abilities cause just spaming one button So my game play actually got worst but because game mechanics were broken I was winning more. Lost a lot of the fun factor.
Now the the hunter in Cata was a little broken had blind spot .. no self heal and not to well suited for arenas to the point that PvPers would in general not want to play with hunters in arenas. But lets just say Cata hunter was slightly challenged in PvP which made things a little more challenging. So in that Era of WoW ( in Cata) I would actually beat Warriors and Dks which was exteremely difficult to do but could be done if you were willing to put the time in to get the skills. The feeling of beating a Warrior or Dk in PvP an icredible experience cause I Knew I had just accomplished something not to many hunters could do. So my ego was a little big. I was beating the odds so to speak. Went from that to spaming one ability and getting wins that I knew I did not deserve.
I could easily make tem more posts like this some of them about mage and pally cause those are the classes that I played. I was a multiclasser and say that this was a classwide problem. I want to Emphasize it is the Dev team at Blizz that does things like this. The guys in charge of Class Design and PvP game balnce. This does not include the blunders that they make in other areas. I just do not see how a game design professional TEAM could make this type of mistakes.
I do not want to be a troll so I will just sugar coat it. The dev team at WoW that is in charge of class design and game balance is very unimpressive might as well go with someone that is impressive or at least acceptable.
Plus there are other things like nerfing classes behind the scenes thinking no one will notice but I will just leave it with this one example of not less than 10 examples. Never ends too. I do not even play that game any more but sometimes I go and look at the patch notes and sure enough still making class design mistakes. So still umimpressive.
0
Options
NagashMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
The devs are not to blame its the company and leadership that makes 98% of the mistakes
The dead do not squabble as this land’s rulers do. The dead have no desires, petty jealousies or ambitions. A world of the dead is a world at peace
Now rest of post is more opinion. But if you are Working for the most successful MMO in the world and you have a Dev Team that does not understand Ratios as they relate to class design .....Should they not get Fired
No, they shouldn't.
Game developers should be paying attention to metrics that the game studio want them to pay attention to. Not metrics that players look at.
Hunters have been second class for a while in WoW - I don't even play the game and I know this. It may well be that in order to balance out the fact that they have been rubbish for a while, Blizzard decided to make them fantastic in one aspect of the game for a while (my understanding is that they still aren't great on raids).
If this is the case, that is balance. It isn't balanced right now, it is a form of balance over time - which is a perfectly viable form of game balance.
You don't know if this is the case, and as such have exactly zero place to make comments such as the above.
Rather than developers not paying attention to metrics that players have come up with getting fired, what should happen is players that ask for developers to be fired should themselves be barred from ever playing any MMO's again.
Now rest of post is more opinion. But if you are Working for the most successful MMO in the world and you have a Dev Team that does not understand Ratios as they relate to class design .....Should they not get Fired
No, they shouldn't.
Game developers should be paying attention to metrics that the game studio want them to pay attention to. Not metrics that players look at.
Hunters have been second class for a while in WoW - I don't even play the game and I know this. It may well be that in order to balance out the fact that they have been rubbish for a while, Blizzard decided to make them fantastic in one aspect of the game for a while (my understanding is that they still aren't great on raids).
If this is the case, that is balance. It isn't balanced right now, it is a form of balance over time - which is a perfectly viable form of game balance.
You don't know if this is the case, and as such have exactly zero place to make comments such as the above.
Rather than developers not paying attention to metrics that players have come up with getting fired, what should happen is players that ask for developers to be fired should themselves be barred from ever playing any MMO's again.
Now rest of post is more opinion. But if you are Working for the most successful MMO in the world and you have a Dev Team that does not understand Ratios as they relate to class design .....Should they not get Fired
No, they shouldn't.
Game developers should be paying attention to metrics that the game studio want them to pay attention to. Not metrics that players look at.
Hunters have been second class for a while in WoW - I don't even play the game and I know this. It may well be that in order to balance out the fact that they have been rubbish for a while, Blizzard decided to make them fantastic in one aspect of the game for a while (my understanding is that they still aren't great on raids).
If this is the case, that is balance. It isn't balanced right now, it is a form of balance over time - which is a perfectly viable form of game balance.
You don't know if this is the case, and as such have exactly zero place to make comments such as the above.
Rather than developers not paying attention to metrics that players have come up with getting fired, what should happen is players that ask for developers to be fired should themselves be barred from ever playing any MMO's again.
Not sure were you coming from. These guys break classes. Difference between game balance and breaking a class. What type of metric is there that tells a developer Hey you just broke a class???
The answer to that is ratios.
I did not come up with any metrics I did not come up with any thing stating facts of how the hunter class worked for a while.
It just the way it was. Hunters could at one time cc a player 66% percent just from one ability freezing trap.
Not counting other CC so number is even higher. Plus hunters had other traps besides freezing trap.Do not see how giving any class that much CC is a smart.
You come across like Im coming up with metrics and Im not....well WoW agreed with me and after a while it got nerfed. I fell like you missed the part about a class being able to cc you 66 percent of the time is just is huge design mistake. And just to be clear that is just for one ability.
Hunters been second class for a while now...not talking about hunters being second class talking about hunters being Over Powered to the point that it broke the class. Which was true Cause WoW nerfed those elements.
So your CEO of a game company and you say do not fire the game developers that break classes that should know better but instead bann the player that thought of the idea of them getting fired. WoW breaks classes all the time. Not talking about game balance.
I could sit here tell you excatly how they broke the Frost Mage class with a post of factual game mechanics but you would just call that a metric??.
Just for insight For a long time even after nerfs mage was at the top of the pvp ladder not sure if that is still true. And the Metric as you called it that the players came up with is Sheep (cc with no cooldown)
And the Metric that WoW came up with well Sheep can be interupted. I am not making this stuff up this is pretty much common knowledge.
The Metric that game developers do not understand is........Sheep being interuptable is actually a buff see it eats CC that would normally be used to interupt the healer. So actually Mages want you to waste their interupt on them. Really should be put on cool down. I actually played mage and just common knowledge for pvp mages to hit the sheep button every 8 seconds for the most part some exceptions same concept as I just stated about hunters having to much cc.
Now which Metric do you agree with the one that WoW came up with or the metric that the players came up with. (yes I know I am misusing the word Metric) Now the Metric that WoW used is obviosuly flawed they just do not understand PvP in general.
Not sure why you even used the word Metrics. Cause i was using percentages??? to show hunters had to much cc??
As far your last statement sounds really personal.
The Metric that game developers do not understand is........Sheep being interuptable is actually a buff see it eats CC that would normally be used to interupt the healer.
Ok, so, you clearly don't understand the word "metric", and this has lead to you writing out a post that makes no sense.
A metric is a standard of measurement. The win ratio of a sports team is an obvious metric that most people around the world would be able to understand.
If you work in logistics, then delivery time would be a metric you care about.
If you are in support, your average handling time would be a metric you care about.
Basically, a metric is, by it's actual technical definition, a way to accurately measure something.
Sheep being interruptable is not a metric.
The amount of time mages cause other players to be sheep is a metric. The percentage of casts of sheep that get interrupted is a metric, but the fact that it can be interrupted is straight up not a metric.
Players create their own metrics in order to try and make sense of the games systems. Ratios of buffs (which is the metric I was referring to above) is one such metric.
However, as I said in my above post, the metrics that players use are not the same as the metrics that the developers user - and players don't have access to the information that the developers derive their metrics from.
Metrics developers use are things like the amount of time players actually spend CC'd. The amount of players that are playing each class/build. These are metrics that actually mean something - as opposed to ratios.
The other thing developers will do is basically ignore metrics if they know players are missing something. The developers may well make a class that seems initially very powerful, but has a specific weakness that players can exploit. Until that weakness is found, developers won't really pay too much attention to how well that class is doing. I'm not saying that is the case in WoW right now (It has happened in the past though). What I am saying is that you can't say that is not the case right now, and as such you are in no position to comment on class balance.
As far your last statement sounds really personal.
It wasn't as personal as calling for someone to be fired, which is what you did.
That is *NEVER* ok, even if it is someone from a different game.
2
Options
mrwafflesMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
When I was younger I hated WoW players. Literally taking any opportunity to bring it up, complain about it, and then go right back to it. Now I just feel like they need a support group to bring this stuff up in and not push their issues off on other game communities.
You can't really blame individuals for WoW's decline, I'm sure the designers are very good at their job and they are just doing the best they can. You can blame the management and directors all you want, but it's not the fault of the staff.
You can't really blame individuals for WoW's decline, I'm sure the designers are very good at their job and they are just doing the best they can. You can blame the management and directors all you want, but it's not the fault of the staff.
My issue with this take is that you dont see any pushback from the employees to change the status quo for themselves. Take the blitzchung incident for example. Plenty of them went and protested blizzard because they were against it. But do you hear any of that for their own livelihoods to improve?
Do we honestly think they are so afraid to lose their jobs at blizzard that they will put up with everything that is going on? I honestly cant tell, and most of us cant tell either. That's the issue. There are so many examples of simple solutions to the current game that could be put put in a hotfix yet it's been nearly 2 months and things have not been getting addressed in pvp and only barely in pve.
You cannot blame everything on the higher ups when we cant have all the inside knowledge. The developers can just as easily be at fault and that's why I would be worried about hiring them.
My issue with this take is that you dont see any pushback from the employees to change the status quo for themselves. Take the blitzchung incident for example. Plenty of them went and protested blizzard because they were against it. But do you hear any of that for their own livelihoods to improve?
Do we honestly think they are so afraid to lose their jobs at blizzard that they will put up with everything that is going on? I honestly cant tell, and most of us cant tell either. That's the issue. There are so many examples of simple solutions to the current game that could be put put in a hotfix yet it's been nearly 2 months and things have not been getting addressed in pvp and only barely in pve.
You cannot blame everything on the higher ups when we cant have all the inside knowledge. The developers can just as easily be at fault and that's why I would be worried about hiring them.
Designers usually do not call the shots in big companies, they are just implementing what the directors decide to do. They might have some input in that decision (team meetings etc), but ultimately they will just work on the nitty gritty and not the big picture. The problem in WoW is the general direction of the game, and not the design of smaller elements. I would argue that the designers are obviously doing an incredible job given the current direction of the game. Please do not confuse whether they agree with the complete direction of the game with enjoying their job. The two are not mutually exclusive. A designer is a professional. Do you think artists immediately quit their job if they disagree with the art direction of a game?
My issue with this take is that you dont see any pushback from the employees to change the status quo for themselves. Take the blitzchung incident for example. Plenty of them went and protested blizzard because they were against it. But do you hear any of that for their own livelihoods to improve?
Do we honestly think they are so afraid to lose their jobs at blizzard that they will put up with everything that is going on? I honestly cant tell, and most of us cant tell either. That's the issue. There are so many examples of simple solutions to the current game that could be put put in a hotfix yet it's been nearly 2 months and things have not been getting addressed in pvp and only barely in pve.
You cannot blame everything on the higher ups when we cant have all the inside knowledge. The developers can just as easily be at fault and that's why I would be worried about hiring them.
Designers usually do not call the shots in big companies, they are just implementing what the directors decide to do. They might have some input in that decision (team meetings etc), but ultimately they will just work on the nitty gritty and not the big picture. The problem in WoW is the general direction of the game, and not the design of smaller elements. I would argue that the designers are obviously doing an incredible job given the current direction of the game. Please do not confuse whether they agree with the complete direction of the game with enjoying their job. The two are not mutually exclusive. A designer is a professional. Do you think artists immediately quit their job if they disagree with the art direction of a game?
Yes but there are fundamental issues at the very teeny tiny level that could easily be fixed with hotfixes that are just not being addressed. If you asked the class designers if they were "proud" of the classes they are working on and they said yes I would immediately cancel my sub with WoW. It is not in a good place balance wise for pvp and the class that I play, warlock, feels abandoned. There is a clear difference between the art of the game, which is smashing it, and the class or gameplay designers of the game who I feel have not even played shadowlands themselves in any meaningful way.
Wow has never had issues with its art team, they are even hailed as the group that carried the entire expansion of BFA and if Shadowlands does not get fixed up its on a fast track to do the same there too. The issues are on a game design level and that is the LAST thing I would want to risk waltzing into ashes of creation.
My issue with this take is that you dont see any pushback from the employees to change the status quo for themselves. Take the blitzchung incident for example. Plenty of them went and protested blizzard because they were against it. But do you hear any of that for their own livelihoods to improve?
Do we honestly think they are so afraid to lose their jobs at blizzard that they will put up with everything that is going on? I honestly cant tell, and most of us cant tell either. That's the issue. There are so many examples of simple solutions to the current game that could be put put in a hotfix yet it's been nearly 2 months and things have not been getting addressed in pvp and only barely in pve.
You cannot blame everything on the higher ups when we cant have all the inside knowledge. The developers can just as easily be at fault and that's why I would be worried about hiring them.
Designers usually do not call the shots in big companies, they are just implementing what the directors decide to do. They might have some input in that decision (team meetings etc), but ultimately they will just work on the nitty gritty and not the big picture. The problem in WoW is the general direction of the game, and not the design of smaller elements. I would argue that the designers are obviously doing an incredible job given the current direction of the game. Please do not confuse whether they agree with the complete direction of the game with enjoying their job. The two are not mutually exclusive. A designer is a professional. Do you think artists immediately quit their job if they disagree with the art direction of a game?
Yes but there are fundamental issues at the very teeny tiny level that could easily be fixed with hotfixes that are just not being addressed. If you asked the class designers if they were "proud" of the classes they are working on and they said yes I would immediately cancel my sub with WoW. It is not in a good place balance wise for pvp and the class that I play, warlock, feels abandoned. There is a clear difference between the art of the game, which is smashing it, and the class or gameplay designers of the game who I feel have not even played shadowlands themselves in any meaningful way.
Wow has never had issues with its art team, they are even hailed as the group that carried the entire expansion of BFA and if Shadowlands does not get fixed up its on a fast track to do the same there too. The issues are on a game design level and that is the LAST thing I would want to risk waltzing into ashes of creation.
The biggest issue w/ WoW's PvP is that you can't make balance changes w/o also screwing w/ PvE. Disc Priest could really use a kick for M+ but it would make them laughably broken in PvP so we're left w/ classes feeling a little less full.
To kinda prove my point, Warlock is currently one of the strongest classes in Raid.
If I said something that you disagree w/ feel free to say so here.
My issue with this take is that you dont see any pushback from the employees to change the status quo for themselves. Take the blitzchung incident for example. Plenty of them went and protested blizzard because they were against it. But do you hear any of that for their own livelihoods to improve?
Do we honestly think they are so afraid to lose their jobs at blizzard that they will put up with everything that is going on? I honestly cant tell, and most of us cant tell either. That's the issue. There are so many examples of simple solutions to the current game that could be put put in a hotfix yet it's been nearly 2 months and things have not been getting addressed in pvp and only barely in pve.
You cannot blame everything on the higher ups when we cant have all the inside knowledge. The developers can just as easily be at fault and that's why I would be worried about hiring them.
Designers usually do not call the shots in big companies, they are just implementing what the directors decide to do. They might have some input in that decision (team meetings etc), but ultimately they will just work on the nitty gritty and not the big picture. The problem in WoW is the general direction of the game, and not the design of smaller elements. I would argue that the designers are obviously doing an incredible job given the current direction of the game. Please do not confuse whether they agree with the complete direction of the game with enjoying their job. The two are not mutually exclusive. A designer is a professional. Do you think artists immediately quit their job if they disagree with the art direction of a game?
Yes but there are fundamental issues at the very teeny tiny level that could easily be fixed with hotfixes that are just not being addressed. If you asked the class designers if they were "proud" of the classes they are working on and they said yes I would immediately cancel my sub with WoW. It is not in a good place balance wise for pvp and the class that I play, warlock, feels abandoned. There is a clear difference between the art of the game, which is smashing it, and the class or gameplay designers of the game who I feel have not even played shadowlands themselves in any meaningful way.
Wow has never had issues with its art team, they are even hailed as the group that carried the entire expansion of BFA and if Shadowlands does not get fixed up its on a fast track to do the same there too. The issues are on a game design level and that is the LAST thing I would want to risk waltzing into ashes of creation.
The biggest issue w/ WoW's PvP is that you can't make balance changes w/o also screwing w/ PvE. Disc Priest could really use a kick for M+ but it would make them laughably broken in PvP so we're left w/ classes feeling a little less full.
To kinda prove my point, Warlock is currently one of the strongest classes in Raid.
Your point is not proven because only affliction warlock is "strong" but it feels HORRIBLE to play. It extremely convoluted and clunky. Those people parsing high are some of the best players in the world and require an addon to keep track of all the 12-18 second debuffs. There are many issues that have been pointed out since beta but have seen no changes for the better.
Of course it is your opinion, but it is a pretty crappy opinion, sorry. Like, just because you didn't like their previous game they are not allowed to work on a new project? That's complete nonsense, frankly. I would totally get it if you were on the inside and you knew who worked on what and you knew who the bad apples are, but you are not, so implying that they are all bad at their job is taking it too far.
If you asked the class designers if they were "proud" of the classes they are working on and they said yes I would immediately cancel my sub with WoW
Unless they were drunk and somewhere very private, with no one pointing a camera near them, I'd expect anyone to say they were.
WoW is a fairly public entity, if a designer says they are not proud of their work on it, they are likely out of a job.
While you may think that is a good thing for them to do, unless you are going to pay their mortgage and feed their family, that isn't a fair thing to even discuss.
See, the thing people forget when talking about firing developers or what they expect from developers of games, is that those developers are earning money to live - it isn't just some hobby they do in their spare time. As with most people, they will pull the company line as much as is necessary to keep their job - and not publicly stating that you are not pround of your work is usually something you need to do to keep your job.
2
Options
mrwafflesMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Welp this thread's officially reached the mod level of "i think we're getting off topic and should all just be cool"
Comments
They tend to generally only close threads that are actively anti-productive, rather than just unproductive.
This forum here does have a number of posters that have a habit of taking a thread that is somewhat unproductive, running in a different direction with it and turning it in to something either entertaining or productive.
Even a thread like this can bring about worthwhile discussion, so as long as it's not against the rules, it won't be closed.
Well hiring a Prior Blizzard Employee might be tabboo for the company might cause some concern which is sad to say about such a great game.
Another thing I want to mention is most of what the Original post had to say is about PvP game balance..... which have posted a lotabout. First let me say that PvE in WoW is not so bad it is PvP game balance that is an issue.
In my experience after many hours of play and studying classes found out that classes were unbalanced and figured out how to balance them but....as it turns out that process would take all the fun factor out of class so classes would have to be kind of remade not just nerfed. Maybe Blizzard not willing to take such drastic measures.
Really think that class PvP balance is very difficult for MMOs because of wide array of builds and choices plus players find way to use abilities that work not as intended. Right now Im playing league of legends and find that in some cases you end up winning cause your champions just happens to have one ability. Some champions are placed in the category of just broken. People make videos of it and sometimes they do get nerfed but all Riot can do is the best they can. But what I am trying to say is In a Pure pvp game you have more game balance but still have issues so even more problematic for MMO with so many items and builds and abilities.
But would have to agree that Blizzard could improve much in this particular area.
All of these lovely folks above have shared some great feedback on this matter that I totally echo - Intrepid is comprised of a team of developers who bring their expertise and background from a variety of MMOs, some of which you may have loved and others of which you may have strong feelings about
Some of the most important things to our team are your previous game development experience, and your passion for what Ashes of Creation can be - and sometimes you can learn even more from perceived "failure" in your career than you can from success. Every experience is a learning opportunity waiting to happen!
As others have noted, when we're all working towards the common goal of bringing Ashes of Creation to life with the vision that has already been formed, we've definitely got our journey laid out for us!
The issue is that we cannot tell which of these is going on due to NDA. Meaning you are absolutely taking a risk when hiring them. So my vote is dont hire them, but yeah like people have said before this is all intrepids decision at the end of the day.
Well I get what you are saying but lets look at what WoW Devs Actually DID[b][/b] And you can decide if WoW Devs are smart or not.
Hunter Class WoW Mist of Pandaria. There was a problem with hunters landing traps. Because it had a travel time. Trap did not actaully proc until it landed and after it landed it took a while for it to proc. There was a 2 second arming time and later changed one second arming time. so it could be dodged easily since every one could see the a very fine arch that denoted the travel path of the trap so you could actually tell were the trap was cast.
So what the devs did is increase the area of effect of the trap so if you take a persons that has long arms and happens to be tall and have them spread out there arm sso that they are parallel to the deck then you have your new trap radias. Actually little bigger than that. First of all I do not think I could even get any of the devs at Ashes of Creation to do this. Because I am sure the devs at Ashes recognize traps as a skill shot and if you increase the radius of the trap it defeats the purpose. You really do not even have to Aim any more and becomes a boring skill.
I want to make a very interesting point it was not a person a it was the Dev Team at Blizz.
Now as a Game Designers you have to be aware of ratios. dps ot health ratios and up and down time ratios.
Really simple thing actually. An up time ratio for example is if you have a buff that last ten seconds and cool down is thirty seconds, that is a 10 to 30 ratio or 1/3 or buff can be kept up 33 percent of the time. This also applis to CC Real simple stuff here. Super simple.....
This is what WoW did. Base cool down for traps was 30 seconds but Survival hunters had 24 second trap it was a passive ability. But WoW Devs never bother to update thier tool tip and the tool tip said Survival hunters get a 50 percent cooldown reduction on there traps. No biggy just change tool tip. But this is not what WoW did.
There were lots of hunters tha compained about it and WoW listened. The tool tip did say that Survival hunters get 50% cool down reduction.
So this is what happened Survival hunter trap was already at 24 cd not 30 so they cut that in half to 12 seconds(by the way this happened at the same time trap radius increased). Now hunters at that time had a Freezing trap that puts you in block of ice for 8 seconds. Now lets look at that ratio you have a 8 to 12 ratio between cool down and up time of cc. 8/12 or 2/3 or 66%. Now 12 times five is 60 so you could cast this abilty five times in one minute. Or cc one player for 40 seconds per minute. And if you were smart and started of with a trap right of the bat at second 1 then cast a trap at seconds 12, 24, 36, 48, and 60 that is actual yep six traps in one min. So for first min of an arena you could CC a player 48 seconds out of 60.
Notice that that 12 minus 8 is 4 which is also the amount of time the enemy player had in betwenn traps to play. So if you are playing againts a hunter In MOP you get ccced for 8 seconds play for 4 seconds then get CCed for another 8 seconds. I mean hunters are going to be hitting those traps all the time with the increased radius.
Now rest of post is more opinion. But if you are Working for the most successful MMO in the world and you have a Dev Team that does not understand Ratios as they relate to class design .....Should they not get Fired
Let me share my personal experience with this. My class was Over Powered. All I had to do is spam one abiltiy with a huge raidius that did ont even have to aim. Really it was all i had to do so I just went aruond spamming one ability winning Arenas just because I could spam on ability. Sad thing is I beat teams that were actually more skilled than me (after pvping so much you can just gage other palyers skill pretty easily) cause I know how to spam.
Now at first I was like well It is my turn be OP class was kind of broken last Expansion. But after a while like ten months (amount of time it Took WoW to Fix this). It got kind of old and I wasnot using my full array of abilities cause just spaming one button So my game play actually got worst but because game mechanics were broken I was winning more. Lost a lot of the fun factor.
Now the the hunter in Cata was a little broken had blind spot .. no self heal and not to well suited for arenas to the point that PvPers would in general not want to play with hunters in arenas. But lets just say Cata hunter was slightly challenged in PvP which made things a little more challenging. So in that Era of WoW ( in Cata) I would actually beat Warriors and Dks which was exteremely difficult to do but could be done if you were willing to put the time in to get the skills. The feeling of beating a Warrior or Dk in PvP an icredible experience cause I Knew I had just accomplished something not to many hunters could do. So my ego was a little big. I was beating the odds so to speak. Went from that to spaming one ability and getting wins that I knew I did not deserve.
I could easily make tem more posts like this some of them about mage and pally cause those are the classes that I played. I was a multiclasser and say that this was a classwide problem. I want to Emphasize it is the Dev team at Blizz that does things like this. The guys in charge of Class Design and PvP game balnce. This does not include the blunders that they make in other areas. I just do not see how a game design professional TEAM could make this type of mistakes.
I do not want to be a troll so I will just sugar coat it. The dev team at WoW that is in charge of class design and game balance is very unimpressive might as well go with someone that is impressive or at least acceptable.
Plus there are other things like nerfing classes behind the scenes thinking no one will notice but I will just leave it with this one example of not less than 10 examples. Never ends too. I do not even play that game any more but sometimes I go and look at the patch notes and sure enough still making class design mistakes. So still umimpressive.
Game developers should be paying attention to metrics that the game studio want them to pay attention to. Not metrics that players look at.
Hunters have been second class for a while in WoW - I don't even play the game and I know this. It may well be that in order to balance out the fact that they have been rubbish for a while, Blizzard decided to make them fantastic in one aspect of the game for a while (my understanding is that they still aren't great on raids).
If this is the case, that is balance. It isn't balanced right now, it is a form of balance over time - which is a perfectly viable form of game balance.
You don't know if this is the case, and as such have exactly zero place to make comments such as the above.
Rather than developers not paying attention to metrics that players have come up with getting fired, what should happen is players that ask for developers to be fired should themselves be barred from ever playing any MMO's again.
MM hunters are slamming it in all content.
Not sure were you coming from. These guys break classes. Difference between game balance and breaking a class. What type of metric is there that tells a developer Hey you just broke a class???
The answer to that is ratios.
I did not come up with any metrics I did not come up with any thing stating facts of how the hunter class worked for a while.
It just the way it was. Hunters could at one time cc a player 66% percent just from one ability freezing trap.
Not counting other CC so number is even higher. Plus hunters had other traps besides freezing trap.Do not see how giving any class that much CC is a smart.
You come across like Im coming up with metrics and Im not....well WoW agreed with me and after a while it got nerfed. I fell like you missed the part about a class being able to cc you 66 percent of the time is just is huge design mistake. And just to be clear that is just for one ability.
Hunters been second class for a while now...not talking about hunters being second class talking about hunters being Over Powered to the point that it broke the class. Which was true Cause WoW nerfed those elements.
So your CEO of a game company and you say do not fire the game developers that break classes that should know better but instead bann the player that thought of the idea of them getting fired. WoW breaks classes all the time. Not talking about game balance.
I could sit here tell you excatly how they broke the Frost Mage class with a post of factual game mechanics but you would just call that a metric??.
Just for insight For a long time even after nerfs mage was at the top of the pvp ladder not sure if that is still true. And the Metric as you called it that the players came up with is Sheep (cc with no cooldown)
And the Metric that WoW came up with well Sheep can be interupted. I am not making this stuff up this is pretty much common knowledge.
The Metric that game developers do not understand is........Sheep being interuptable is actually a buff see it eats CC that would normally be used to interupt the healer. So actually Mages want you to waste their interupt on them. Really should be put on cool down. I actually played mage and just common knowledge for pvp mages to hit the sheep button every 8 seconds for the most part some exceptions same concept as I just stated about hunters having to much cc.
Now which Metric do you agree with the one that WoW came up with or the metric that the players came up with. (yes I know I am misusing the word Metric) Now the Metric that WoW used is obviosuly flawed they just do not understand PvP in general.
Not sure why you even used the word Metrics. Cause i was using percentages??? to show hunters had to much cc??
As far your last statement sounds really personal.
Ok, so, you clearly don't understand the word "metric", and this has lead to you writing out a post that makes no sense.
A metric is a standard of measurement. The win ratio of a sports team is an obvious metric that most people around the world would be able to understand.
If you work in logistics, then delivery time would be a metric you care about.
If you are in support, your average handling time would be a metric you care about.
Basically, a metric is, by it's actual technical definition, a way to accurately measure something.
Sheep being interruptable is not a metric.
The amount of time mages cause other players to be sheep is a metric. The percentage of casts of sheep that get interrupted is a metric, but the fact that it can be interrupted is straight up not a metric.
Players create their own metrics in order to try and make sense of the games systems. Ratios of buffs (which is the metric I was referring to above) is one such metric.
However, as I said in my above post, the metrics that players use are not the same as the metrics that the developers user - and players don't have access to the information that the developers derive their metrics from.
Metrics developers use are things like the amount of time players actually spend CC'd. The amount of players that are playing each class/build. These are metrics that actually mean something - as opposed to ratios.
The other thing developers will do is basically ignore metrics if they know players are missing something. The developers may well make a class that seems initially very powerful, but has a specific weakness that players can exploit. Until that weakness is found, developers won't really pay too much attention to how well that class is doing. I'm not saying that is the case in WoW right now (It has happened in the past though). What I am saying is that you can't say that is not the case right now, and as such you are in no position to comment on class balance.
It wasn't as personal as calling for someone to be fired, which is what you did.
That is *NEVER* ok, even if it is someone from a different game.
For all of you out there Computer Gaming Addicts Anonymous is a thing and the first step is admitting you got a problem.
My issue with this take is that you dont see any pushback from the employees to change the status quo for themselves. Take the blitzchung incident for example. Plenty of them went and protested blizzard because they were against it. But do you hear any of that for their own livelihoods to improve?
Do we honestly think they are so afraid to lose their jobs at blizzard that they will put up with everything that is going on? I honestly cant tell, and most of us cant tell either. That's the issue. There are so many examples of simple solutions to the current game that could be put put in a hotfix yet it's been nearly 2 months and things have not been getting addressed in pvp and only barely in pve.
You cannot blame everything on the higher ups when we cant have all the inside knowledge. The developers can just as easily be at fault and that's why I would be worried about hiring them.
Designers usually do not call the shots in big companies, they are just implementing what the directors decide to do. They might have some input in that decision (team meetings etc), but ultimately they will just work on the nitty gritty and not the big picture. The problem in WoW is the general direction of the game, and not the design of smaller elements. I would argue that the designers are obviously doing an incredible job given the current direction of the game. Please do not confuse whether they agree with the complete direction of the game with enjoying their job. The two are not mutually exclusive. A designer is a professional. Do you think artists immediately quit their job if they disagree with the art direction of a game?
Yes but there are fundamental issues at the very teeny tiny level that could easily be fixed with hotfixes that are just not being addressed. If you asked the class designers if they were "proud" of the classes they are working on and they said yes I would immediately cancel my sub with WoW. It is not in a good place balance wise for pvp and the class that I play, warlock, feels abandoned. There is a clear difference between the art of the game, which is smashing it, and the class or gameplay designers of the game who I feel have not even played shadowlands themselves in any meaningful way.
Wow has never had issues with its art team, they are even hailed as the group that carried the entire expansion of BFA and if Shadowlands does not get fixed up its on a fast track to do the same there too. The issues are on a game design level and that is the LAST thing I would want to risk waltzing into ashes of creation.
The biggest issue w/ WoW's PvP is that you can't make balance changes w/o also screwing w/ PvE. Disc Priest could really use a kick for M+ but it would make them laughably broken in PvP so we're left w/ classes feeling a little less full.
To kinda prove my point, Warlock is currently one of the strongest classes in Raid.
Your point is not proven because only affliction warlock is "strong" but it feels HORRIBLE to play. It extremely convoluted and clunky. Those people parsing high are some of the best players in the world and require an addon to keep track of all the 12-18 second debuffs. There are many issues that have been pointed out since beta but have seen no changes for the better.
But unless you are backing the game with more money than Steven, I will say that Steven and his employees have the final say on who gets hired.
Never said I had that power. It is my opinion.
Of course it is your opinion, but it is a pretty crappy opinion, sorry. Like, just because you didn't like their previous game they are not allowed to work on a new project? That's complete nonsense, frankly. I would totally get it if you were on the inside and you knew who worked on what and you knew who the bad apples are, but you are not, so implying that they are all bad at their job is taking it too far.
WoW is a fairly public entity, if a designer says they are not proud of their work on it, they are likely out of a job.
While you may think that is a good thing for them to do, unless you are going to pay their mortgage and feed their family, that isn't a fair thing to even discuss.
See, the thing people forget when talking about firing developers or what they expect from developers of games, is that those developers are earning money to live - it isn't just some hobby they do in their spare time. As with most people, they will pull the company line as much as is necessary to keep their job - and not publicly stating that you are not pround of your work is usually something you need to do to keep your job.
Welp this thread's officially reached the mod level of "i think we're getting off topic and should all just be cool"
The thread is about WoW developers and the OP not wanting them working on Ashes.
We are still talking about WoW developers and why you cant automatically assume all developers that worked on one game are bad.
Seems fairly on point to me.