QnA /spit on us by blizzard

[Bewarê-frostmane]

It is true what you have said but i would bet if our current Designers would have a decent previous Rating/Knowledge of PvP then we wouldn’t be there where we are right now

They’ve actually hired a few r1s in the past iirc, haven’t they? Don’t remember the name(s) though.

[Jinsk-kazzak (Jinsk)]

I remember back in Cata they called few r1’s to work with them or something.

WoD too i think?
But even R1’s are bias…

Look at someone, who i wont name, who one of its mages its named locksham… everytime he can he bashes locks for being good lol.

Like he is a cool dude, i love his casting… but has that annoying bias.

I dont think he was one of the called back in the day though.

[Cutîepie-outland (Cutîepie)]

I mean if Blizzard would want to hire me as R1 Player i would instantly accept it.

The Chance working for Blizzard at this point would drastically improve your living situations for many people.

So I don’t know it might be they declined or it was a Lie/rumor, but if they would do that i believe that many R1 Players would have accepted this spot

[Bewarê-frostmane]

I mean if Blizzard would want to hire me as R1 Player i would instantly accept it.

The Chance working for Blizzard at this point would drastically improve your living situations for many people.

So I don’t know it might be they declined or it was a Lie/rumor, but if they would do that i believe that many R1 Players would have accepted this spot

That’s not really what I was referring to though. I mean that they’ve already got “pro gamers” under their wing, yet what they spit out is what you see, year after year.

This is quite not true in game industry at all and it doesn’t work like that.
Games are not designed by the best at playing them, even the best games are usually designed by the best designers not by the best gamers. Actually most developers are average gamers at skill.
To design a good game requires much much more than being good at playing it, actually being among the best at playing it is not a requirement at all.
There are plenty examples for that in the gaming industry and not only, in all areas of life, not always the best at executing a process are the ones that have designed/created the process.

The ability to design PvP in a game, is not determined by experience. It’s determined by the ability to hypothesize and the ability to analyze testing, even when things wouldn’t be mentioned in the feedback.
I remember reading an article way, way back, about a game designer who went over two primary ways to design rated PvP, regardless of the game itself.

One way was to only listen to feedback from the higher rated players and use their input, because they have tested the gameplay to its very limit. One of the downsides to this is that higher rated players will by its very nature always be a minority, so the ability to make sure their feedback can translate into valuable changes even for the lower stratums is key for this.
The other way was to listen to the lower rated players, the majority, and aim to make it the most enjoyable for them. One of the downsides to this is that it simplifies the gameplay, so the ability to make even simple things fun is key to this.

There were other downsides and aspects he went over as well, I just don’t remember them. But those key points stuck with me.

[Almostholy-outland (Almostholy)]

TBH… the questions were or staged or very stupid idk…

No chest transmog for zandalari?? and this one was not the most ridiculous one…

[Jito-turalyon (Jito)]

https ://clips .twitch .tv/CrispySoftDragonflyTF2John

The clip seems taken a bit out of context.

Anyway, here’s the context of the clip:

What they’re basically talking about is the importance of specific feedback, because that’s easier to quickly address than that which is more vague. And the commonly used phrase of “Fix PvP!” is an example of extremely vague feedback.

Just above someone linked a thread about how PvP in BfA is crap, but the feedback therein hasn’t really been addressed, because it’s extremely vague and undefined.

On the other hand, after the introduction of the Maledict trinket players had some immediate, specific feedback regarding it, and certain changes they wanted to see. And shortly after Blizzard addressed some of that feedback by implementing a few changes to the trinket.

So specific feedback is always better as far as Blizzard doing something about it. That’s basically all they’re saying.

[Bewarê-frostmane]

What they’re basically talking about is the importance of specific feedback, because that’s easier to quickly address than that which is more vague. And the commonly used phrase of “Fix PvP!” is an example of extremely vague feedback.

This is how you do a link with a timecode. This STILL doesn’t change the fact that they used indinstinctive PvP feedback as an example to mock and then they showed that in their minds that to “fix PvP” is equally as ludicrous.

Doesn’t matter how you sugarcoat it, Jito.

inb4 Jito pops his head in to say hi, it is just their inability to analyze indistinct criticism. Which is also indicative of how they’ve become further and further disconnected from players.

Except they are the professionals and are paid. We are customers and laymen, and are paying for their “live service”. It is NEVER the customer’s responsibility to write essays just to explain what is wrong, that is not how quality assurance and customer service works. If necessary, it is their jobs to interact with the people complaining in a way that gets them to the information they want, but to dismiss “everything” as just pure noise and then mock customers openly are things people get fired for all the time.

[Bragamond-sylvanas (Bragamond)]

Jitto is here, was about time…
Really, what more specific do they want for simple tuning, than: ww damage is too high for all the tools they have. Or - uhdk has too much self healing. Or remove mana burn from DH (for example, just a quick run through forums can point you to those things).
Do they want us to provide them with calc formulas and algorithms how to balance specs that have obvious with a naked eye problems?
What are they there for then?
If they can’t analyze, structure and implement their customer’s feedback they are incompetent.
If the feedback is lacking (which it is not) then they should make the needed steps to gather it in a way they need.
Even if the feedback is absolutely poor the last thing they should do is mock their customer base.
People get fired for less than this and Activision is not in an exactly pink spot at the moment to afford making themselves fools and the next most hated thing after EA in the gaming world.

[Moistmeatbal-frostmane (Moistmeatbal)]

honestly just seemed like a tounge in cheek joke how no matter what they do people will always complain about something in PvP needing fixing .

[Bewarê-frostmane]

and Activision is not in an exactly pink spot at the moment to afford making themselves fools

Actually they reported “record earnings” last quarterly report iirc. At the same time they’ve reported a drop in “player engagement” and player count across their games. You may ask how that is done, but it’s fairly simple: They started milking more. They started to manipulate players into being milked more. So they accept the drop in player count and focus on the “whales”, the ones left playing who will feel compelled to spend more on average on the game than the many players in the past.
All at the cost of quality though.

honestly just seemed like a tounge in cheek joke how no matter what they do people will always complain about something in PvP needing fixing .

I’ve mentioned possible ways in past threads for how to deal with indistinct feedback, EVEN when you assume that “noise” is a constant and can’t ever be helped completely. But it’s when that amount increases that patterns and timings starts to emerge and should rightfully be looked into, it’s not the responsibility of customers to provide essays explaining just what is wrong.
Especially when most people in the world aren’t capable of grasping bigger pictures than what “slaps them in the face” so to speak.

That illustration at the end is meant to show how people on average don’t bother figuring out underlying causes or what possible cascade effects might look like, and only care about what is bothering them in the most direct and immediate ways.

(Also, what the heck is a “tongue in cheek joke”?)

[Bragamond-sylvanas (Bragamond)]

That’s what I mean exactly. The bean counters look at the earnings, but the most important picture for them is playtime and player engagement. That’s huge because it shows the trend and where to company is headed. Activision is not in a pink spot exactly because of that. Investors and shareholders will rip them apart if the trend continues and will start abandon ship.
In the financial world at high lvl, where a lot of investment is done on future predictions what happens to Activision is a bad sign.

[Jito-turalyon (Jito)]

Jitto is here, was about time…
Really, what more specific do they want for simple tuning, than: ww damage is too high for all the tools they have. Or - uhdk has too much self healing. Or remove mana burn from DH (for example, just a quick run through forums can point you to those things).

But Blizzard constantly does PvP balance changes based on feedback. Every 1-3 weeks I’d say. We’ve just had a patch 1½ weeks ago. It can’t really go much faster than this between decision-making, implementation, testing, and applying it to the servers. I mean, the weekly maintenance is weekly, so there’s always going to be a delay of a few weeks between the feedback given on the forums and the balance changes being implemented (outside of emergency fixes of course).

[Bragamond-sylvanas (Bragamond)]

Correct me if I am wrong about the time, but wasn’t this the 2nd (or 3rd?) week (after patch) without PvP fixes. That is not counting even the basically non-existent PvP patches in the big patch itself (nerfing just demon armor can’t be an excuse).
And after the fiasco with the Q&A it looks like lots of ppl are completely losing faith they are actually doing anything at all or planning to do anything.

[Jito-turalyon (Jito)]

Correct me if I am wrong about the time, but wasn’t this the 2nd (or 3rd?) week (after patch) without PvP fixes.

Yes, but again, that’s what the timetable looks like. If your expectation is that PvP balance patches should be pushed out every single week – even when close to the release of a content patch – then you’re probably setting your expectations too high.

That’s just how it is. Not because they’re not listening to feedback, but because they can’t implement it that fast.

[Bragamond-sylvanas (Bragamond)]

We used to have pvp fixes more often.
But I am fine (and am sure most ppl are too) with them taking more time if they need it, to fix/change/balance something.
That’s totally fine, except if it wasn’t dragging for weeks and weeks on and alienating the player base and on top of that them showing such arrogant neglect for PvP in the Q&A instead of shedding some light or just saying in the patch notes pvp section something like: “We are working on some balancing, it just takes time, so we won’t have pvp fixes this week, stay tuned”.

[Bewarê-frostmane]

We used to have pvp fixes more often.
But I am fine (and am sure most ppl are too) with them taking more time if they need it, to fix/change/balance something.
That’s totally fine, except if it wasn’t dragging for weeks and weeks on and alienating the player base and on top of that them showing such arrogant neglect for PvP in the Q&A instead of shedding some light or just saying in the patch notes pvp section something like: “We are working on some balancing, it just takes time, so we won’t have pvp fixes this week, stay tuned”.

You’re getting “triggered” by him right now, you know? (At least that’s what he calls it.)
Have you noticed how you’ve gone from talking about the general state of things into only talking about their weekly/monthly/whatever updates, which is irrelevant in the big scheme of things? It’s because he led you there. You got manipulated by him.

[Jito-turalyon (Jito)]

We used to have pvp fixes more often.

We definitely didn’t.
In Vanilla, TBC, and WotLK, hotfix balance changes didn’t exist. The balance changes players got were those that came with the patches, usually every 3 months.
Blizzard started applying hotfix balance changes back in Cata, but on a very limited scale and mostly focused on bug fixes.
Ever since then Blizzard have consistently used hotfixes more actively as a way of applying balance changes, to the degree where the patches themselves are now almost void of anything except tooltip updates – because everything just gets adjusted through hotfixes.

That’s totally fine, except if it wasn’t dragging for weeks and weeks on and alienating the player base and on top of that them showing such arrogant neglect for PvP in the Q&A

But it is hardly dragging on for weeks and weeks. Since the last round of PvP balance hotfixes they’ve had 2 available timeslots where the servers were down for maintenance where they could have pushed some out. They didn’t (probably because they were focusing on the imminent patch release). If we don’t see any changes in the coming 2-3 weeks, then we can start talking about neglect and lack of speed. But as it is now, they can’t really do it much faster than what they are.

As far as the Q&A goes, then I feel as if they address PvP consistently and often. I think this Q&A marks the 7th(?) time PvP gear and vendors are talked about. And the comment shown in the clip is meant to be light-hearted. Ion and Josh say lots of things throughout the stream that make fun of something or themselves. Take it as the casual banter that it is, rather than a personal offense to the PvP community which it isn’t.

[Bragamond-sylvanas (Bragamond)]

Nah I can talk in parallel for both things, I suppose we all can. Usually when it’s about software it always goes up and down when discussing software delivery schedules and grand picture of the said software
But thank you for the reminder we won’t let it slip that easily.

[Bewarê-frostmane]

As far as the Q&A goes, then I feel as if they address PvP consistently and often.

Yeah sure, if that is the only thing you look at. When you take into account circumstances such as the general state of PvP at the times it’s brought up, the severity and the amount of problems at the times, and so on, then it paints a very different picture when the actual “addressing” means they answer a question that doesn’t really deal with any of that severity or the amount of different problems, but instead something trivial. But sure, even though it’s trivial, they are still technically “addressing” PvP.
Oh right, and don’t forget when they provide something called “non-answers”, which is a must-have in the arsenal of politics. But yeah sure, despite using things like “non-answers” at times, they are still technically addressing PvP. Can’t deny that.

And the comment shown in the clip is meant to be light-hearted. Ion and Josh say lots of things throughout the stream that make fun of something or themselves. Take it as the casual banter that it is, rather than a personal offense to the PvP community which it isn’t.

You eerily resembled Fox News right there. That’s one of their typical excuses when someone on the right makes a “verbal slip”, you know? Just sayin’.

Now, in case people missed it, the manipulation techniques displayed by Jito in full force in this thread is to 1. divert the topic to something “on the side” that’s loosely related and end up switching the topic to something else, and 2. to present his shill evaluation by excluding the negative aspects (very similar to Fox News vs. CNN, although both of them can take it too far) and primarily, if not only, highlighting the positives, however small or irrelevant they may be. These are techniques very commonly used when trying to alter the perception of something.

These are manipulation techniques. You can read about them in books covering this stuff. (I only know titles of such books in my native language.)

Personally, I find it hilarious and sad at the same time when it actually shows results.

Now, the reason I used American media outlets as comparisons, is because they are infamous for their partisan rhetorics back and forth, and they both accomplish such a difference by “tweaking” things quite a lot, and highlighting things that benefits their narratives while downplaying/excluding whatever that does not.
One might also question why I explained all of this, but the reason is simple: It’s just tiresome to see topics get derailed just because one person tries to “trigger” people. (Which is what he calls it.)
And also to increase awareness of it so it’ll become less effective.

So don’t forget, the thread is about that QnA disgrace and their history of poor communication!

[Bragamond-sylvanas (Bragamond)]

Remind me again which year are we, why bring TBC, we are talking 2019 when a lot of things are changed.
The market is different, the demographics is different, the whole game status is different.
Even their philosophy is different.
Their whole product is in a different state (and not better at that). Fix releases schedule from 10+ years ago is totally irrelevant in the present.
Or, if they are guided by that, only shows even more how disconnected they are from reality.
For one, and let’s get back to the topic at hand, they would never allow themselves such an attitude back then, like they showed in the Q&A.