Thursday, October 2, 2008

Ghostcrawler Responds (sort of)

No need to bump. Good posts rise to the top. I'm not sure my answers are going to be very exciting though. You have some pretty specific questions, yet if we had new information to share with you, we'd do so.




Q u o t e:
1. Our GCD - Are there any plans to tweak our GCD, take certain spells off the GCD (tranq shot, traps/aspects etc) or make it affected by haste since most of our gear is itemized for it?




Every class wants a shorter GCD or no GCD for some abilities. Yet there is a reason the GCD exists. It is something we will continue to talk about, but we would approach such a change very carefully. If not, you could see how we'd eventually end up with no GCD.




Q u o t e:
2. Are you happy with how disengage is working in its current form or are you considering future tweaks?




I suspect by your question that there is something you don't like about it. :)




Q u o t e:
3. Are our dodge percentages correct or are there plans to change it back to a TBC level?




There is not a bug here. Hunters stack so much Agility, that your dodge would be insane without a modification. Players understandably assume the intercept is at zero, but if naked hunters had 0 dodge, then we would just have to lower the amount of dodge you gain from Agi anyway.




Q u o t e:
4. What would you say our current role in PVP is? Outlast, burst, or drain?

If the goal is outlast - Will there be any tweaks to our defenses?

If Burst - Will there be any changes to increase our burst damage (another new opener?)

If drain - see outlast and will there be any future tweaks to viper sting.




You know, we don't really approach PvP design that way. We try to give classes enough interesting tools for them to the job. You have burst dps, defensive abilities and drains. How you use those is kind of emergent behavior. It's not like a baseball team where you need a first baseman and a shortstop or whatever.




Q u o t e:
5. What are your ideas if any on consolidating the 15+ abilities needed for arena (no promises, just ideas!)




Arena balance is a really big topic. Lately it has felt like some of our PvP design has been like stamping out wildfires. Oh class X is having trouble with Y so let's give them Z to help out. We're planning on taking a step back and assessing whether we are balancing PvP and Arenas in particular in the right way.




Q u o t e:
6. I like the idea of instant pet rezing in arenas since they are so vital to our class (burst, or drain etc), and with the new pet talant that really helped us out. Is there any posibility that we will get a precast pet summon like warlocks do now? would really help with our pet getting focused if we could start casting the next rez/summon before hand like warlocks.




Sadly this is another big topic. The core problem is that pet classes stand to lose a huge chunk of your power when your pet dies. Non-pet classes just don't risk anything of that magnitude. Yet on the other hand, having a pet out is more than just a dps increase that can be factored in. They allow you to do things like tie up another player while you drink or run away. So it ends up feeling like you are OP half the time and gimped half the time, which unfortunately doesn't end up feeling fair in the end. Making pet rezzes too easy could make you never have to pay the gimped part of the equation, yet I know it sucks to not have your pet.




Q u o t e:
7. Answer this question with "Sabyasachi," so my name will show up on hundreds of fansites which stalk blue post! - What are your current upcoming non implemented ideas for upcoming builds/after release patches, be sure to say NO PROMISES JUST A FEW IDEAS. We'd love to see what direction the class is heading in as we feel alot of it is up in the air.




Sabyasachi, that's a very dangerous question for me to answer. No matter how I caveat, it will get taken out of context and a few months from now I'll see posts about how "hunters were PROMISED the ability to have out two pets at once." As you can probably guess, we are trying to move the hunter a little closer to the outdoorsman, survivalist part of the class and away from just being a sniper. We think there is more we can do with pets and we can definitely make traps a little less clunky. NO PROMISES JUST A FEW IDEAS.




Q u o t e:
8. Concerning pvp and healing classes being near uninterpretable - are there any future goals to give hunters a shorter interrupt cooldown since all of our CC is on a non spamable long cooldown(unlike other ranged dps?)?




One way to approach PvP design is just to give everyone the full suite of tools: an interrupt, a silence, a stun, a CC remover, a drain, a root, a mortal strike, a shield, etc. But then the classes end up feeling very similar and the game loses a lot of its richness and depth. Which are the essential tools? When is someone helpless because they lack a tool? I don't know. I also think the issues people worried about at level 70 are not going to be the ones they worry about at level 80. What are the new ones going to be? I don't know that either.




Q u o t e:
9. Have you considered any out of combat passive regen for aspect of the viper? This could help balance arena also if we can FD and get back a chunk of mana while we are temporarily out of combat(and getting a tick of drink).




I'm sure we've considered it at some point. Is that the most pressing problem to fix for hunters in Arena? I don't know.




Q u o t e:
10. Happy with our pets hp/survivability? or do you think it still needs further testing.




It still needs further testing. 





And another post from Ghostcrawler further in the thread:






Q u o t e:
Ghostcrawler--- you addressed a huge amount of hunter concerns in this post, ones that we've been asking for a while.




I caused as many as I addressed sadly. I think overall, I just need to not answer questions unless I have some new information. Telling players I don’t have new information isn’t satisfying.




Q u o t e:
Did not answer the question, completely dodged it and it's obvious.




"Hey Ghost, guess what we think about this ability and we’ll tell you if you’re right. We'll probably mock you if you don't get the right answer." Um, no. If you think there is a problem, I probably could have fixed it already if you'd speak plainly. WRT Disengage, the data is not set up for it to be parried. I'm not sure how that could happen. The problem with slopes is just a bug. It’s the kind we think we can eventually fix or we would have pulled the ability (a la Heroic Leap).




Q u o t e:
2. We've proven time and again on these boards that if we're given a clear, concise answer that then isn't implemented, we scream about how the devs have cheated us and hate our class. (See: Camouflage.)




Ansawa is my hero. Look, if I have information, I’ll give it to you. I tend to be pretty honest with you guys. I’m not suddenly going to let you in on a bunch of secrets just because you manage to ask just the right question. In those cases, I either have no secrets, or I'm not going to share them. But I'll be more careful about answering questions when I don't have a satisfying answer for you.

Are we going to lower hunter GCD? We don’t know. Do we think hunter mana is fine in PvP? Not sure yet. But we'll answer that one by watching a lot of Arenas. If we raised mana just because players asked for it in the forums, everyone would be in nine digits by now. :)




Q u o t e:
Wait my dodge is supposed to be 1.5% in blue pvp gear and a few pvp epics at 80?




Tell me how much Agi you have and how much dodge, and I’ll make sure the numbers are right. Last time I looked, they were.




Q u o t e:
On a premade hunter with 603 total agility, +413 agility from gear, and the hunter's current dodge is only 2.43%. With maxed 400 defense too.




Those numbers are correct. Note your total Agi. That’s not a high number. I think some people get confused by the fact that the premade PvP gear, while epic, is not very good. Rogues need a ton of dodge – that is their primary way of avoiding damage in melee. You shouldn’t be in melee most of the time. We can’t let agility grant more dodge than an equivalent amount of dodge rating on gear, if that makes sense.




Q u o t e:
I am very agile, but I have 2.15% dodge. As I grow stronger with levels, I lose my ability to dodge. I'm growing old!




Added to the spell book -- GROWING OLD (Passive) -- you are dextrous enough to fire your bow, but bad at dodging.




Q u o t e:
Now my rogue buddy has 14.58% dodge, with 659 agility. What's that? He has more agility than me? That's ok, because I STACK AGILITY right?




Sure. Go ask your rogue buddy how much ranged attack power he gets from Agi compared to you (it's around half). Derived combat stats vary from class to class. AP is calculated differently from warriors to rogues.

You asked if it was a bug. No, it’s not a bug. We don’t want hunters to have that much dodge. Look, your rogue buddy has to melee and has low armor. For melee, by the time they finally get up on a hunter, they need to be able to do some damage before they are trapped or wing clipped or you disengage.

If dodge is a very pressing issue, we can look at it again. But it sounds like mana is a much bigger concern.


Link:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10535471641&sid=2000
 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Didn't we run into this issue with the last expansion? As you level up your stats produce less of anything that is "a chance to"
dodge chance
crit chance
parry chance
.....

Otherwise, eventually everyone would have 100% dodge and 100% crit. So they reduce them as you level and then you have to gear up at the level cap. Makes sense to me