World of Warcraft Blueposts: Über “Fragt die Entwickler”, Todesritter als Tanks und Quest-Gestaltung

Blizzard hat sich mal wieder in einer Menge blauen Lettern zu aktuellen Themen geäußert, die die WoW-Community bewegt.



Bashiok: „‘Fragt die Entwickler‘-Kolumne wird eingestellt.“
Im amerikanischen WoW-Forum wurden Stimmen laut, dass die Serie „Fragt die Entwickler“ sinnlos sei. Es würden Fragen aus der Community gewählt, die entweder veraltet sind, bei denen eine Beantwortung irrelevant wäre oder gar Themen in Fragerunden angeschnitten, die überhaupt nicht zur jeweils angepeilten Sachlage passen. Ja es wurde gar davon gesprochen, dass diese Kolumne eine Beleidigung sei, da jede Möglichkeit zur kritischen Hinterfragung aufgrund des Formats und des Stils der Kolumne unterbunden wird. Bashiok hat sich nun zu Wort gemeldet und der Community in dem Punkt Recht gegeben, dass die Kolumne nicht funktioniert. Er sei davon überzeugt, dass egal wie diese Art von „Frage-und-Antwort-Runden“ konzipiert seien, die Community nie restlos zufrieden sein würde. Zwar wurde sich bei Blizzard häufig die Frage gestellt, warum die Kolumne in der Art und Weise nicht funktioniert, doch da es zu keinem eindeutigen Schluss gekommen ist, wird „Fragt die Entwickler“ nach dem nächsten Beitrag eingestellt. Da es jedoch das Ziel ist, die Interaktion mit den Entwicklern für die Community zu erleichtern und einen direkten Draht für Fragen und Äußerungen von Gedanken zu bieten, wird die Kolumne früher oder später einen Nachfolger in neuem Format erhalten.

Zarhym: „Todesritter – Schwer zu beherrschender, aber sehr geeigneteer Tank.“
An den letzten Eintrag der „Fragt die Entwickler“-Kolumne zum Thema Tanken angelehnt, wurden einige Beschwerden aufgrund des Balancings der Todesritter als Tankklasse laut. Viele Spieler sehen diese Klasse als minderbemittelten Tank an, da das zugrunde liegende Skillsystem den Spieler bereits bei kleinen Fehlern unwahrscheinlich abstraft, dessen Beherrschung aber leider nur wenig entlohnt. Zahrym nahm sich dieser Äußerungen in gleich mehreren Posts an, in denen er klarstellte, dass Todesritter gerade deshalb einen großen Vorteil im Tank-Metier genießen, da diese eine Menge Kontrolle über ihre Überlebensfähigkeit hätten. Das Zauberwort ist hier die Fähigkeit „Todesstoß“. Wer richtig mit diesem Skill umgeht, kann eine Menge Schaden mildern und muss sich weniger um das erzeugen von Bedrohung kümmern, als andere Tankklassen. Da dieser Spielstil durchaus anfällig dafür ist, falsch gehandhabt zu werden, wäre sie sicherlich nicht für jedermann geeignet. Doch mit richtigem Timing ließe sich auch hier gute Ergebnisse als Tank erzielen. Außerdem nimmt er es als gegeben, dass Todesritter die Qual der Wahl zwischen „Todesstoß“ und möglichen Debuffs nicht zu schätzen wissen, da doch gerade dies ein essentieller Punkt des Spielsystems sei. Der Spieler muss möglichst viel Freiraum bei der Gestaltung seiner Klasse haben, auch wenn damit mögliche Fehlerquellen eröffnet werden.

Lylirra: „Quests für jede Art von Spieler attraktiv gestalten.“
Das Thema Questgestaltung ist weiterhin in aller Munde – Sollen Quests wirklich interessant, aber gleichzeitig auch leicht sein, damit Spieler möglichst schnell ins Endgame finden? Lylirra sieht eine klare Antwort hier als schwierig an. Schließlich sollen alle Arten von Spielern mit den Inhalten angesprochen werden, weshalb der Level-Prozess nicht unnötig verkompliziert werden sollte. Allerdings weiß Blizzard auch, dass es viele gibt, die das Questen sehr genießen, und ebenfalls ihren Spaß in der World of WarCraft finden müssen. Dabei ist es dann wichtig, die Quests abwechslungsreich zu gestalten und weniger dem typischen „gehe-in-Instanz-‚B‘-und-töte-Mob-‚C‘“-Schema folgen zu lassen. Lylirra gibt zu, dass beim Variieren der Quest-Erfahrung noch ein wenig Nachholbedarf herrscht, doch mit Patch 4.2 und den neuen täglichen Quests der Feuerlande hier wieder viel abseits der typischen „sammle dies…“ und „töte das…“-Schemata geboten wird.

Hier wieder die Original-Postings:

Quest Design
I’m reading that as you want quests to be interesting but easy and fast to get people to endgame.
Yes and no. When designing quests, it’s important for us to keep in mind all the different kinds of players that’ll play through them and what their interests might be. For example, some World of Warcraft players just want to get to max level as quickly as they can. That’s a totally valid style of play, so we try to make sure that quests don’t arbitrarily complicate or impede the leveling process.

That’s just one thing we consider, though. We know that there are a lot of players who absolutely love questing — quest chains, daily quests, low level quests, all of it. (Loremasters, represent! \o/) And we absolutely want to appeal to that group of players, too. With respect to the OP’s suggestions, our concern is that, if we implement quests that are too challenging or too similar to dungeon content, then we risk forcing players into roles and types of gameplay that they may not appreciate. Not everyone likes running dungeons or feeling pressured by having to learn encounter mechanics, so overloading quest content with those kind of scenarios may not be the best course of action.

Could we do more to vary up the kinds of quests you play through, though? Sure. We feel that we can still provide a streamlined, straightforward questing experience without always relying on the simple “collect this,” “kill that,” “okay, now kill that again, and then be a good sport and collect a variety of gross things from their corpses” objectives that everyone has come to love. Those kinds of quests certainly have their place and will likely remain a staple in World of Warcraft, but we’re trying some new things with the 4.2 daily areas that we hope players will enjoy, and want to continue that trend with future content, as well.

Ask the Devs
I’m not going to bother getting into the specifics of what was answered or why or any fansite articles bashing the process; it’s been covered many times before.

But, at the core, I think we agree it’s not working. While we could (and do) lament over the reasons why a scheduled Q&A based on question popularity doesn’t sit well with people, the bottom line is it can’t go on as it is.

We don’t expect people will ever be completely happy with any Q&A. Regardless of how they’re conducted we’ll never get to every question, so there are always going to be complaints that we didn’t answer the right ones. But Ask the Devs is different. While there are certainly arguments that answers didn’t say the right things, or didn’t give a firm answer on how a problem would be resolved, the process just doesn’t work because of the format.

We’ve spent a lot of time discussing why it doesn’t work, and while that’s interesting to us, the bottom line is that once we’ve finished the role Q&A’s with healers, we will be ending the Ask the Dev series.

Our goal with Ask the Devs was always to increase interaction with the developers, to provide a direct conduit to their thoughts and process. We’re in the planning stages for a new Q&A process that will replace Ask the Devs, and while we’re absolutely certain people will continue to be upset we didn’t answer every question, we think it will overall be a far more successful approach.

Death Knight
Tanking and Survavibility
DKs have a lot of control over their survivability. While the other tank classes spend a lot of button clicks on generating threat, DKs can regularly hit Death Strike, which heals them. This puts a very powerful tool in the hands of the player. Played well, you can mitigate a lot of incoming damage and even choose when it is important to mitigate that damage. But you also have the possibility of playing poorly. It probably isn’t the kind of play style that is going to appeal to everyone.

You can look at the recent discussion about the paladin Holy Shield as a microcosm of this debate. Some players wanted more control over their survivability, and the new Holy Shield provides that. But it is more work to control an active button and there is a larger penalty for doing it badly. Death Strike is like Holy Shield on steroids in this regard. There are good and bad times to use Holy Shield. There are definitely good and bad times to use Death Strike. We see some DKs attempting to hit Death Strike as much as they possibly can, and then getting frustrated when they can’t squeeze more Death Strikes into the rotation. What they are perhaps missing is that the timing of when they Death Strike is very important. Used optimally, it’s a powerful reactive tool.

One thing we have discussed is giving players more control over whether they make this decision (trading higher risk for higher return) or not. In many driving games for example you have the choice of an automatic or manual transmission. Many players choose the automatic, suspecting that they are probably not going to be as fast as a player who is awesome at managing their clutch, but it means they never have to mess with the clutch and can still win plenty of races. On the other hand, imagine that the player who plays the manual perfectly is performing at 100% and the player who performs the manual poorly is performing at 25%. Choosing an automatic transmission for 75% performance may be perfectly acceptable. You give up a little theoretical performance in return for having less going on. Tanking can often have a lot going on. Maybe there is a talent choice that lets DKs have a more powerful Death Strike in return for weaker passive mitigation. Some players would take that talent, and some might only take it for some encounters.

Related, we understand that some DKs don’t like having to make the decision about whether to Death Strike or whether to apply tanking debuffs. That’s really the tension that’s supposed to be at the heart of any resource system — I have a limited allotment of X, so at this moment do I want to use X on this one ability or on a separate ability? Again, a possible solution is to put the choice of which play style to use in the hands of the player. We could offer a talent or glyph (or something) that lowers the cooldown of Outbreak for instance, without turning Blood DKs into a spec that can play optimally by pushing nothing but Death Strike. It’s something we’ll consider.

(Assuming Blood is the manual transmission, and the other three classes are automatic)


Amazing DKs aren’t 25% better than Amazing Paladins/Warriors/Druids, so what is the point of a system that is incredibly punishing and only slightly rewarding?

The 25%, 75% and 100% percentiles weren’t meant to be taken literally. If a DK feels like he or she has to work much harder than other tanks to achieve about the same amount of survivability, then that feels bad (and to be fair, we had this exact problem with paladin tanks being too easy to play well in the previous expansion). On the other hand, if a DK played well completely trumps all other tanks, then the very best guilds for whom the skill cap isn’t an issue, will just use DK tanks. We see a pretty good spread of DK tanks among both great raiding guilds and all raiding guilds for that matter, so we don’t think the numbers are so far off that groups are either flocking to or avoiding DK tanks.

World of Warcraft Blueposts: Über PvP-Inhalte, Feedback seitens Blizzard, dem „Level-1-79-Grind“ und permanente Gifte

Von Blizzard gibt es wieder einige Blueposts zu Themen, die der WoW-Gemeinde zurzeit auf dem Herzen liegen.

So hat sich Nethaera zu der Frage geäußert, warum keine neuen Schlachtfelder oder gar Arenen in mit den neuen Patches eingeführt werden. Hierbei ist vor allen Dingen das Ausdünnen der Warteschlangen für die jeweiligen Events ein großer Punkt, da man verhindern möchte, dass Wartezeiten in die Länge gezogen werden. Außerdem wird erwähnt, dass die Arena Ring der Ehre mit Patch 4.2 wieder eingeführt wird und ein neues Wargames Interface implementiert wird, das es erleichtern soll, andere Gruppen von Spielern in Schlachtfeldern und Arenen herauszufordern.

Auch hat sich Nethaera über das Feedback Blizzards gegenüber der Community geäußert und versucht entstandene Wogen zu glätten. Blizzard wird weiterhin die Kommunikation mit der WoW-Gemeinde aufrecht erhalten, da sie Spiel und Community sehr ernst nehmen. Es wird versucht, zu so vielen Anliegen Stellung zu nehmen, wie eben irgendwie möglich. Dass auch hierbei die Ressourcen begrenzt sind, ist klar. Doch bestmögliche Unterstützung und Rückmeldung wird weiter angestrebt. Konstruktives Feedback ist immer willkommen, auch wenn nicht auf den Fuß eine Rückmeldung erfolgt.

Lylirra äußerte sich außerdem im Forum über das „mühsame Leveln von Stufe 1-79“. Er selber sieht diesen großen Spielabschnitt nicht als Grind an, da er selber viel Spaß innerhalb dieser Zonen hat und haben wird. Allerdings wird Blizzard versuchen, durch das Implementieren von dynamischeren Mechaniken in den Quest-Ablauf zukünftiger Inhalte für Abwechslung und mehr Spaß auf eben jenen Stufen zu sorgen. Doch natürlich darf dieser Punkt nicht so starke Gewichtung erhalten, dass das Erschaffen neuer Inhalte in den Hintergrund tritt.

Zu dem Thema der permanenten Gifte für Schurken hat sich Daxxarri erneut zu Wort gemeldet. Seiner Aussage kann man entnehmen, dass Schurken einen gewissen Grad an Aufmerksamkeit in ihr Spiel einfließen lassen müssen, um Unannehmlichkeiten, wie plötzlich auslaufende und nicht mehr im Inventar vorhandene Gifte während eines Raids oder Dungeons, zu verhindern. Warum Jäger jetzt Munition nicht mehr mit sich führen müssen, Schurken aber ihre toxischen Utensilien schon, rechtfertigt er damit, dass Jäger ohne Pfeile oder Kugeln auf einen Großteil ihrer Fähigkeiten nicht mehr zugreifen können, die Gifte für Schurken allerdings nichts weiter als gute Buffs sind und auch ohne dem normalen Spielstil folgen können. Außerdem wäre die Munition für Jäger kein interessanter Gameplay-Aspekt, wohingegen die richtige Wahl der Gifte ein durchaus interessanter Aspekt des Spielstils eines Schurken ist.

Hier die Originalpostings:


Adding more PvP content
We’ve actually touched on this topic in the past. In general, while we could add more Battlegrounds and Arenas we risk thinning out the queue for all Battlegrounds and Arenas. We’re not against the idea of adding more, but it’s a matter of deciding the how and the when of doing so.

We could compare the content between PvP and PvE, but it’s not exactly an equal comparison given that the styles of play are different as are the end goals.

Just as an FYI, we are putting the Ring of Valor back in again in 4.2, which (while not new) will at least add back in a bit more variety to Arena queue.

Also of note, we are implementing a new War Games interface (which you can see on the PTR) which should make it easier for people to play skirmish type matches against people either in the Battlegrounds or Arenas.

War Games
We’ve actually had the War Games in since last December. The only issue was that it required that you knew it existed and used the right game commands to get it rolling. We’ve now shined it up and added a great new easy to use interface into the patch so that you can start challenging other groups. Just keep in mind, there’s no rewards available (including HKs) for taking part in these, but they can be very fun. It’s also a great way to hold your own in-game event if you wanted. (Remember when people would meet up at Gurubashi?)

Feedback and changes to the community
No, I don’t. I just think that people have concerns (of which we’re aware of) and we’re doing what we can to address what we can as we go.

As for having someone else speak, we’ve been talking and will continue to talk. Just recently Dave Kosak gave some insight on the new quest hubs. (On the blog.) Greg Street continues to share his own insights there as well. No matter your personal thoughts or feelings about what they have to say, they care deeply for the game and community.

While some may have concerns over whether their questions in the Q&As are being answered or not, we are talking there as well. We’re here in the forums responding to what we can.

It’s true we don’t have infinite resources and that’s been true since day one of World of Warcraft. That hasn’t changed. I see it come up time and time again that the “good” devs have moved to the new project, but that too isn’t true in the way people think it is and is insulting and dismissive to the guys (and gals) who have been on the team for years. The people working on World of Warcraft are people who have been here for years or are still being guided by those who have been here for years. The people who “left” WoW haven’t really left either. They are here at the studio lending their ears and thoughts to those still working on World of Warcraft. They haven’t washed their hands of the game and the company hasn’t washed their hands either.

We know we aren’t always going to agree on a direction. We know we can make mistakes or not anticipate every possible outcome, but there is no way I’m going to tell you that we don’t care, or that the developers don’t care or that we are insular from the concerns being voiced.

We are and continue to be passionate about the game and about the community. We’re never going to give everyone their perfect answer, but that isn’t going to stop us from trying to meet and exceed expectations where we can. We aren’t beat or beaten but can understand how easy it is to buy into that idea with so many people repeating the thought. Sometimes it’s hard to be positive when you only see the negative, but the positive is still there and we refuse to lay down and go with the negative flow of thought. As any game “ages” it is so easy to forget the good and the “polish” and start picking at what you see as flaws. It’s also easy to take for granted all the things that are added in because they make so much sense. Eventually you forget that it was ever new to begin with because it feels like it was always there.

Again, we’re totally open to constructive feedback. We’re not deaf to it. We just may not react immediately or have the answer you want. It’s just not always possible to. That doesn’t mean we didn’t hear it or think about it on one level or another and it doesn’t mean that we are going to suddenly stop listening because we don’t like what someone has to say. We’re just asking that the dialogue stay open, honest, and most importantly constructive.

“Grindy” leveling and improving old content
While I wouldn’t say that leveling from 1-79 is totally “grindy” (I actually had and continue to have a lot of fun running through those zones), I can definitely see your argument. I mean, a lot of current dungeon mechanics are fun, right? They make you analyze the world around you and adapt changing scenarios, sort of like a puzzle. At first glance, having that kind of gameplay accompany you all the way from lower level quest zones to end-game dungeon content seems like it’d be amazing. But that’s just at first glance. There’s a lot to be said for keeping the leveling process as seamless and straightforward as possible.

For a lot of players, the goal of World of Warcraft is to meet some benchmark, things like leveling up, getting gear, increasing their character’s potency, and/or defeating end-game raid content. While questing may be enjoyable activity in its own right for some (like you!), there’s definitely a portion of the population where it’s really more of a means to end — a way of achieving those other goals more quickly or with greater efficiency — and that’s an important fact for us to keep in mind.

It’s not that quests aren’t important; on the contrary, they’re a critical part of the game, and we’ll continue to work towards making them even more epic and fun. It’s just that if we make quests too challenging or too complicated, especially during the leveling process, we run the risk of creating situations where players might become frustrated and feel like they’re being forced into a style of gameplay that isn’t exactly their cup of PvE.

Now, that doesn’t mean there isn’t some sort of balance that can be struck, where we’re able to create quests that evoke the fun of dungeon encounters, but never really reach that point where they become tedious or difficult (we totally hear your feedback on that). It’s a matter of appealing to as many players as possible and making sure that they’re engaged, but not overwhelmed with over-the-top challenge as they level up — which can be tricky, especially when you have such a wide variety of playstyles and opinions to consider.

Even so, incorporating more dynamic mechanics into questing and using quests as a teaching method is something we’d like to do for future content. Whether or not we should invest the time and resources into revamping existing content, though…well, that’s something that we’d have to weigh very carefully, as it would require us to focus our attention away from creating new things.

Rogue
Poison Management
If I’ve forgotten to buy enough poisons to see me through a raid or dungeon, or failed to pay attention to poison durations and seize the occasional moment to re-apply my poisons, then those are issues I can easily resolve by being slightly more mindful.

At worst, glyphed poisons apply very quickly, and it’s possible to re-apply them in a non-clutch fight if you have them in your bags. It’s not even close to ideal, but it’s possible.

Why does it make sense for Hunters to no longer have physical ammunition for their bows and guns it’s just MYSTERIOUSLY provided to them but Rogues’ poisons must be bought from a specific vendor and then applied to weapons once an hour?
Well, maybe I can shed some light on the mystery then, or at least, our thought process.

Poisons are important to the rogue class and there’s no doubt of that. There’s still little or no comparison to be made between the use of poison (which amounts to an important buff) vs. ammunition, without which the hunter class was almost totally ineffective. Running out of poisons means a performance hit, but it doesn’t mean that performance stops. Running out of ammo meant that a hunter could no longer use most class abilities or perform at anything resembling a meaningful level. It’s relatively easy to remain well stocked with a selection of poisons. It required slot after slot of inventory filled to the brim with ammo to keep a hunter running consistently.

Ultimately, ammunition wasn’t a mechanic that we felt was particularly interesting. Whereas a rogue sometimes has interesting choices to make regarding which poisons to use, the only real choice a hunter had was to use slightly more or less expensive ammo, which wasn’t much of a choice at all.