wow Blue Posts Roundup: September 23rd

[Stan 4,713]

The latest round of blue posts covers Protection Warrior changes in Patch 8.1, mysteries surrounding the Dreadwake mount promotion, and more.

WoW Team Communication

The communication between Blizzard and the community hasn't been the best, but they're working on improvements.

Blizzard (Source)

Gonna get flamed by the hate, but here we go:

I've really been noticing lately all the blue/green posts, and really appreciate the AMA, Live Stream, upcoming PTR. This is what we've been asking for, and it's being delivered. Communication is ramped up, and feels a bit like the old days. Keep it coming blues/greens! And i actually think the few troll posts are funny fyi. 

Say what you want about the xpac, but there are ALOT of us who are having fun. Can't wait for the PTR. 

Flame on bros...

Appreciate the kudos but I'll be honest, It's not near what we want it to be at. Lore talked on it in the AMA but long story short, we want to do more. 

I don't want to talk any of it up on what we're discussing internally in this area as I'd rather we just do it. Actions speak far louder right? Communication and participation on our side flat out hasn't been the best, and we want to change that.

The community will be spending so much time deciphering my dance moves

This would probably appease a weird section of the secret finding groups.

6-Month Subscription Mount

The Dreadwake mount can be obtained by subscribing to the game for 6 months. The promotion was planned for a while now and it's not Blizzard's response to "dropping subs" as many players assume.

Blizzard (Source)

Month after BFA and arguably the worst release of an expansion in Blizzards 14 year history. 

Almost all twitch and youtube supporters of blizzard are firing away at how the game is failing. 

supreme lack of communication from Blizzard, no real changes on the horizon. 

Patch 8.1 already hitting PTR soon. 

And now..... Blizzard is pairing a cool new Mount with 6 months of subs. 

Basically saying hey, if you want this mount, we're not going to put it into the store like our other store mounts, we're going to force you to buy 6 months of subs before our financial quarter end to help make this expansion not look like the piece of garbage that it is. 

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

what a joke

bfa has officially gone down the tube and is losing people astronomically if these are the tactics they are resorting to. 

BFA was the Fastest Day 1 selling expansion, and I bet my testiies that it is also the fastest expansion of people unsubbing in the history of wow.

edit: six months of subs....

Or... maybe we've been planning to have this mount promotion for quite a while now, I don't know maybe lets say the last 8 or 9 months. Possibly longer ...but what do I know, I only work on the team that promotes and publishes things like this and apparently this mount means our game is dead. I guess someone forgot to tell all of us this was the case.

You don't honestly think we scrambled to put this together at this last minute do you? Also where is the line for tin foil hats when you enter GD? I missed out on mine.

I do think that there's maybe a conversation about water striders and boats floating on water that needs to happen though.

You know... we said the same thing when we got on ours this morning! I think someone shouted out "My ship is taking on water!". Said person is also dressed like a pirate today, so it made it that much better.

You lie, or maybe you don't. But the tables sure don't look good for this specific time to be releasing something to attract subs. Actions speak much louder than words.

This kind of promotion doesn't attract new subs. It's more of a reward for existing and an offer for those that might want to swap to a 6 month as it is cheaper. It's just adding additional value to that. 

If you just want the mount that's fine, like we stated in the blog announcing this, it will be on the store eventually. ?

I think the 6-month sub requirement attached is what seems suspicious. Maybe this mount was planned for this pirate day for months, but I'd wager that the decision to add it to a 6-month sub was a more recent decision based on something else.

It wasn't a recent decision. You can see that from when the shop banner was data-mined months ago and posted by fansites. Kind of a clue its been in the works for a while if you look into that stuff ? 

I get why people would think that though, but businesses as big as Blizzard don't just operate like people would like to think they do. Things like this take a lot of time and go through a lot of departments to finally be in front of you guys.

Hrm, the "ShopGametimeBundle"

You are no longer Snowfox, you are now Linkfox.

For those asking for the link backing up what I said, here you go.

I don't care for the mount.

That's fair.

Your one mount that took 8 months to develop

That's not what I said.

I didn't care for the promotion of the other one, to watch a dumb stream.

Some people aren't into streams and that's okay. We try our best to mirror everything as much as possible so those who aren't into that can still see it through their preferred channels.

I'll buy your stuff if you actually make it interesting and fun

Even as an employee I agree with you, to each person that definition is different. Me personally before I was an employee I always had a 6 month sub because it was just cheaper so to me the mount is just a bonus. It's not something your paying for but rather an extra "thank you". I get what you're saying overall though.

To be honest, they're actually paying YOU a few dollars to get the mount.

^ This is honestly more likely the case with these kinds of promotions.

Apparently, you won't receive The Dreadwake mount after directly converting 6 WoW Tokens into game time. You must claim the tokens for balance first and buy the correct bundle from the shop.

Blizzard (Source)

So, if i use 6 tokens for game time will i get the mount? as always, blizz is quite confusing when they worded the offer. Thanks in advance.

Hey guys,

I just wanted to confirm that you would NOT get the Dreadwake mount if you convert your WoW Tokens into game time directly.

In this case you would need to claim the tokens for balance first and then buy the correct bundle from our shop, here:
https://eu.shop.battle.net/en-gb/product/world-of-warcraft-mount-dreadwake-gametime-bundle

Hope this helps!

Protection Warrior in Patch 8.1

Buffs are coming for Protection Warriors. Class balance is a "sore spot" right now. They haven't decided yet what form those changes will take (patch vs. hotfix).

Blizzard (Source)

Shamans got a blue; Here's to hoping Warriors get one.

I won't make a massive OP, there's been tomes written on how broken prot was since earliest stages of BfA beta. It's common knowledge that warriors make up for under 5% of all tank representation after 2 weeks of Uldir, in ALL types of content;

They're weak, they lack a niche, their kit has been massively hurt by the GCD change, and they need a lot of love to become viable. Like. Without exaggeration, it's easier to heal a shadow priest who pulls aggro in a dungeon, than a prot warrior in that same dungeon...

Blizzard? Are you doing this one class at a time, or can prots hope for some love as well? Cause it honestly feels really bad when the most iconic tank in the game is just so far behind it's not even worth using any more...

I can’t speak to any plans for the patch, but I do know that we’re planning to make some tuning adjustments sometime in the next few weeks which should include some defensive buffs for Protection Warriors.

Just curious but why can't you speak to any plans for the patch? You explained the tooltips for the proposed ele shaman changes, but can't speak about warriors? Or is it that there is nothing changing in the patch for warriors?

Few reasons. Partially because I'm not a class designer, so I don't make those decisions. But also because the class team themselves haven't decided yet. We agree Prot Warriors need love, but aren't 100% decided on exactly what form those changes will take, which also means we don't know if it'll need to be in a patch or not. The Elemental changes require a patch, otherwise we'd just hotfix them in.

Regarding this upcoming tuning pass, I wouldn't expect it to be something that solves every Prot Warrior grievance, but it should hopefully help while we look into potential further adjustments.

Hate to say it (and hate to nail it to you Lore) but class imbalance is very very bad right now. I think most of us don't want classes that are OP or overtuned-- but we would like to see them fluid enough and competitive enough that we can feel comfortable that our individual investment will ensure us a spot and a chance at current WoW content.

Class balance is definitely a sore spot right now, both in community feedback and our own internal discussions. We're working on it. It's a delicate thing; we want to solve the issue of players feeling like their class is undesired, but we also want to avoid the opposite issue where everyone feels like they need to reroll to whatever the new hotness is every few weeks (side note, that's part of why we do tuning adjustments in batches rather than every few days, to give things a little time to stabilize before the next round).

I'd also like to submit the argument that, while class balance certainly isn't perfect right now, it's also the beginning of an expansion, which is *always* a bit shaky for class balance. There are absolutely outliers on either side of the spectrum, with some buffs and most likely some nerfs incoming, but aside from those few cases, our data (based on hundreds of thousands of boss kills, arena matches, etc) is showing that class balance isn't that far out of whack from how things were at the start of Legion, or Warlords, or Mists, etc.

But like I said, we're working on it, and will have more to share soon.

 

[dartbodman 64]

57 minutes ago, Stan said:

Communication and participation on our side flat out hasn't been the best, and we want to change that. 

You know a good way to start on that would be a statement, any statement, about the insanely broken PTR build that was pushed the other day. Like I get PTR isn't always going to work but damn, you just push it out and then as far as anyone can tell Blizzard doesn't even know it was pushed out.

[Vorguz 33]

Wow, so much flame and hate. Sadly there is only a few people doing some constructive criticism or at least some criticism without flame. This is exactly the reason why I dont visit the forums anymore.

[jinsu2301 273]

2 hours ago, Vorguz said:

This is exactly the reason why I dont visit the forums anymore.

Well, that and the fact that it takes 5 years to load a page.

[Prophet001 398]

12 hours ago, Vorguz said:

Wow, so much flame and hate. Sadly there is only a few people doing some constructive criticism or at least some criticism without flame. This is exactly the reason why I dont visit the forums anymore.

Good on Ythisens rippin that fool about the dreadwake.

Tired of these perpetual whiners.

[Rhondis 148]

1 hour ago, Prophet001 said:

Good on Ythisens rippin that fool about the dreadwake.

Tired of these perpetual whiners.

It's rather annoying huh? I really wish people would stop complaining and bring forth valuable criticism or just quit WoW.

[maggie 4]

It has been none stop Whining since day 4 of BFA.  The guys moaning need to hush up or stop playing..  All we see in chat is constant bitching and moaning..   they hate the Game they hate Warfronts, they hate PVP they hate PVE. the hate the AH. you name it they hate it . yet there they are in chat and playing the game everyday.. albeit sitting on tradechat.. 

 

I think Blizzard have done a fabulous job. takes me all my time to file emails away let alone programme games as sophisticated as wow. great story. and great Expan.. 

 

Only thing I was disappointed in was Loot from the Rares.. squishy eyeballs and other such trash was disappointing to say the least... not like it costs you to add loot instead of eyeballs.... 

 

                                    Thanks 

Edited September 25, 2018 by maggie