Can the elusive balance in MMOs ever be achieved, or is it a mythical beast we're all chasing in vain? Today, we unravel the threads of dissatisfaction weaving through the World of Warcraft community, tackling the Season of Discovery's sandbox mode and its testing process. The leveling journey and endgame disparity has sparked intense debate. Is the nostalgia of Classic WoW's leveling enough to sustain subscription numbers? We don't shy away from the adjustments that Blizzard faces, stirring the pot with frequent changes, and questioning if striving for balance is just a fool's errand.
Shifting our focus to the PvP arena, where Demon Hunters are currently unstoppable forces in the Dragonflight expansion, we dissect the implications of their dominance. The statistics are staggering and the cries for balance are loud, yet Blizzard's silence is louder. We address the frustration with the lack of communication, urging for transparency that's crucial in keeping the PvP community alive and kicking. Join us on this critical journey through Azeroth as we lay out the challenges and triumphs of World of Warcraft's evolving landscape.
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
yet Buffalo, sparrows, asparagus, cpees, rawio, balanced Fishes. Hello and welcome to the Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth. As always here at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind, I go for a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft. Take one bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this midweek episode. We'll be looking at the forums and we're going to be looking at what exactly are people complaining about, essentially on Season of Discovery as well as PvP, and be going over some of the Demon Hunter stuff is the best way to put it, some of the Demon Hunter topics. But let's get into Season of Discovery first.
Speaker 1:
So this is the first post Unsubbed from Season of Ult DADS untested disaster. Firstly, they didn't test it because they wanted the rooms to be special and for people to explore and have fun. I've said similar before in early Phase 1. Once again, blizzard has done nothing to address the core issues, making SOD a bore fest, though Phase 2 became still even faster than Phase 1. With no light at the end of the tunnel, except for another phase in 3-4 months that is likely just another rinse and repeat. Okay well, season of Discovery is not meant to be a new WoW experience. It's not meant to take over Classic or Retail. Firstly, it is meant to be kind of a sandbox mode, but let's hear what they have to say. Currently, sitting on two level 40s both raid logging because what else is there to do Really want me to level more Ult. This level gating and phasing is a huge failure. If you're going to make the phases this long, why should I continue to sub?
Speaker 1:
Okay, so what a lot of people say about Classic WoW is the whole point of Classic WoW is the leveling journey. It's not the end game. The end game is reserved for Retail really. So in Retail you want to level as quickly as you can and then hit max level and do PvP PvE where you have Mythix, battlepets, raiding. You have Rated Battlegrounds, rated Threes, solo Shuffle. That's what the end game is in Retail, whereas in Classic it is just raiding. There is nothing more to it. You can PvP in Stranglethrong Vale and stuff, because I see a lot of people who do that. I do see a lot of people who do the Blood Moon stuff in Stranglethrong Vale and I think it's really cool, but that's the whole point of Classic.
Speaker 1:
Classic has always been about leveling and the journey through leveling rather than the end game content, going to get trolls on this thread again telling me to go outside, etc. But once again, you will discover this shortly too. In fact, I think a huge portion of the player base has already discovered this, because phase 2 is evidently a lot more dead when looking at numbers in the game locations, compared to phase 1. Three to four more months of this phase what a joke. It wasn't really that long, was it? I think phase 1 was like a couple months. I'll need to check on that actually, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't that long.
Speaker 1:
Also, why are there constant nerf, slash, buffs, slash, stealth changes? Every few days this guy is complaining about balancing changes in the game. This must be the only guy in World of Warcraft who complains about balance changes. That's crazy. Can Blizz Dev team not really balance things like old WoW Dev team used to do? It's almost like every few days this dev team throws a dart on a board and then randomises a number to tweak abilities by then change it again the next week after some community members cry enough about X. Stop changing things if you have no clue what you're doing.
Speaker 1:
I'm going to address this with one simple thing. You're telling me that's balanced. You're telling me a mage against a warrior with no outside influence no, like pots, no like three action potions or anything, is balanced. You're telling me that a druid a feral druid and a mage is balanced. You're telling me that a warrior and a rogue is balanced. Well, that one's probably more balanced than most. But you know, the dev team was shit at balancing back in 2004. And I say shit, they were balancing, but you can't ever balance an MMO. You can tweak numbers and if things are oppressive you just tone them down a bit or tweak everything else up a bit, but you can never balance an MMO perfectly. People can't get this concept in their skulls. It's crazy to think Like it's absolutely mind boggling. He should be grateful he's getting some fucking like balance changes. Dragonflight hasn't seen that for a few months Now. The reason Dragonflight hasn't seen that and I'll go over this like later on but is because there is AWC and MDIs currently going on, which is the competition's four world of Warcraft. You don't want to be balance changing like mid tournaments, essentially because it feels bad for the player base or not the player base, but the players who are competing in these tournaments. Yeah, this is the first guy that I've ever seen complain about balance changes. It's crazy About SOD in general. Yeah, this is not Classic Plus or what most people wanted from a Classic Plus Almost no new quest chains, lore discoveries, new zones or areas.
Speaker 1:
Think in a more gait, olden gait, unfinished quest chains from vanilla, etc. Instead, this SOD team copy and paste retail abilities and throws it in the world and calls it content, without ever balancing it. Not to mention, almost all the classes have the same quest chains for getting runes. You really couldn't at least make the rune acquiring methods unique for classes? Look about the bare bones effort into farming your customer sub times. You're lazy. Okay, I think the ones that people share are the ones where you need the reputation from, from the like crates, the one there's a couple later on where you go to the same NPC. But I think that's at the end of like the quest chains. But the biggest point that I want to argue here is you know new zones and areas. They are or new zones, areas and what was it? Copy and paste retail abilities. But firstly let's start with the areas.
Speaker 1:
Oldham Gate If you want to go do Oldham, go to Cataclysm. You know, go do Cataclysm when it comes out. Or go to retail and go level in Oldham. You know it's there for you. I get that you want different quests for it and like new quests in the old world, and I think that they will eventually get around to it at max level.
Speaker 1:
But the thing is like Oldham is at the bottom of T'narris and that is level 50 elites that are outside the Oldham Gate. Now what this means is being like level 40, being maximum level. Right now you probably can't do that. So if they are going to introduce Oldham quests, then surely they would introduce them when level 50 is the max level or level 60. Not when you're level 40 and can't even do the quests. You don't even know if they're in the game yet, to be honest with you, the quest might not even be showing up. That's the thing Now. I think that they will eventually get around to this. But there has been communication from them saying about the raid size and stuff and they are looking internally about shortening or squishing the raids from 40 to 20 man and some things are easier, like molten core, but black wing, lair and uncourage, you know stuff like that is going to be a bit tougher. So I would imagine a lot of their focus isn't on that and I would imagine that a lot of the things that they're putting their stuff into is what's for the next phase, which is level 50 and a raid that we don't know and underscores raid? I think it's going to be Scarlet Monastery. I would love it to be Scarlet Monastery, but I don't think that it will be. It's probably Mara, maybe Probably Marauden, yeah, something like that.
Speaker 1:
As for the copy and paste retail abilities a Monkelye, don't see it in the game, do you Like? I don't. What about the beast mastery thing, you know, which makes your pets a taunt, and actual taunt and increase the focus. Regen, I don't see it in there. Living Flame I don't see it in there.
Speaker 1:
For mages, healing mages, like regeneration, I don't see that. For mages, you know, there's so many abilities that aren't copy and pasted. It's unreal to think that all they're doing is copy and pasting. Yes, obviously they're going to be taken from, they're going to be inspired by other, like pieces of or other spells, but it's not copied and pasted. I'm afraid it really isn't. Some of them are Icy Veins, living Bomb you know, some of them are, don't get me wrong, but so many of them aren't. Shaman, tanking like the cone, like lava shock or whatever it is. You know, that's not from retail at all, that's a completely unique ability, like there's so many different things, but people just want to get on their case as much as they can.
Speaker 1:
Why are the testers for this failure of a game mode? Anyways, I'm subbed this disaster maybe return at level 60, should things look different and there's more to do. Until then, I hope Blizzard takes some action and fixes the train wreck, that season of dad slash ults which is killing WoW numbers overall. Would you rather it not be alt friendly? And then suddenly you've still got nothing else to do in season of discovery. But no, that won't work, because then suddenly you'll be like, oh, there's nothing to do in season of discovery and levelling so slow. And then it's like, okay, well, what do you want them to do? They will add new raids eventually. But the thing is with raids, people will get bored of them. People will eventually go oh well, I'm just going to raid log now, you know. And it's like, oh great, okay, what do you want them to do? Add a new raid every like week? It's not possible. It's physically not possible. It's crazy that some people think this way. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not an advocate for Blizzard. I do think that they could do a couple things better, but season of discovery is quite well maintained and the way that it's been done is quite good in my honest opinion, and I think it's actually relatively living up to what it should be in my honest opinion. So it is what it is, but this guy clearly is not enjoying it Now.
Speaker 1:
The next one is about DHS. Dhs has run rampant in Dragonflight at the moment for a few months now, and here's a few stats on them that I think a lot of people would like to hear Again. I do think that balance changes will come along, but I think they'll be next week at the very minimum, purely because the Mythic Dungeon Invitational, its finals, are this week. Awc, which is the PvP stuff, just finished the week that just went by, so the PvE stuff will be this week and I think that we'll get balance changes after that. I hope that I see a giant list of balance changes after the MDI has finished, but in the meantime, here are some stats about Demian Hunters.
Speaker 1:
They are the least likely to be killed. First of all, the DPS specs in the game and near equal with some healers. Now, to put this into perspective very rarely is a healer targeted and killed in an arena setting like actually run down killed. You always pick a target at the start really, and kind of adjust throughout, but usually it's a DPS. It's never owned. Let's run at this disc plate like Priest against a Shadow Play comp which is Shadow Priest and Warlock, because then you have two cast a DPS just railing on you and it's like, oh great, well, we're dead. So yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:
They are the second highest average DPS ranks across a match. I mean that's, yep, to be expected, the most represented spec of all cutoffs, including healers. They are the most represented spec of all cutoffs. That's insane. They are the second highest win percent of all specs. The only one is higher, which is pretty good because Demian Hunter is the most played spec, meaning they are played like a lot and still having a highest percent. So technically there's ten augmentation of ochres, eight of them wins, so you've got eighty percent, whereas if you have 1,000 demon hunters and 799 of them win and 201 of them don't, then you've got a seventy nine point nine percent win rate rather than eighty percent. So if that makes any more sense, but there aren't a lot of augmentation of ochres, hence why their win rates quite high. And yeah, it's absolutely crazy.
Speaker 1:
This person goes on to say this spec is an abomination. You can do so much wrong and yet win because they're passive tankiness and high sustained damage. With little to no effort. They have some of the best defensives in game go immune, self, heal a bunch, protect your team, remove your healer from CC, omni directional dodge via blur, immune to the most big attacks via short cooldown. This single spec is literally killing participation and interest in the game. If you let this continue to fester without any communication, without any meaningful changes, you'll have effectively killed PVP in this game. At long term, the people leaving won't come back. Pvp is in the edge of a death spiral and literally no communication whatsoever is mind-boggling. We are aware of the outliers and PVP and we currently testing some adjustments We'll be sharing with the coming weeks. It's literally that easy and this is kind of what he but I Do agree.
Speaker 1:
I think that Us just not having any changes is fine for people who understand that they probably will do them after the ornaments, so a wc and mythic dungeons. But a lot of people don't follow the MDI or a wc, so they don't know that these are happening and just think that there are no balance changes. Blizzard can put a Post saying, yep, we know that it's running rampant, we Do have changes ready, but we are going to put them after the mythic dungeons and a wc. That's all they need to put. That way, the player base is like oh okay, that's good to know. Thank you for letting us know, and we understand why you're doing it now, but we have had no communication. We don't even know if we're going to get balance changes. I'm assuming we will after the mythic dungeons, but I could be wrong, which would be really, really bad for the game. Like games health in PVP, essentially but they need to communicate more.
Speaker 1:
The guy who was complaining about season of discovery Like they. They communicate what they're doing, which is really amazing. All I want is a simple post as well, saying look, we're going to, we have some Changes ready, but we are not going to post them until the tournaments are over, so that the participants aren't, you know, having to change mid run and you get the best experience watching the mythic dungeons and arenas. You know that kind of deal and it's simple. It's as simple as that, but sadly, we've heard nothing and can only hope, which is the bad thing. But that is where I will leave it for this episode. Thank you very much for listening. As always, do check out the socials down below constant stuff happening over there. But thank you all very much once again, and go with that friend, oh.