Core switch and bug fixes

[Zapcraclepop]

Any plans to fix that darned Mage trinket? http://www.wowhead.com/spell=37447 is the spell effect it gave, but it does not work.

[Exsurgo]

My earlier reply was rushed so here is a more in-depth explanation of my opinion.

I am going to step out and make a request. This may sound unorthodox, but please bear with me on this. The information I am going to present and explain will take a while to read. If you want the summary skip to the bottom.

I know most people here chose to play on a TBC server because they feel it was the best expansion Blizzard released and offers the best game experience. I concur. However, as we are a TBC server I feel this should not necessarily limit us to 2.4.3 features and changes.

I played back when the 2.4.3 patch was implemented, and while it did introduce some nice fixes and improvements, many people consider this the first patch among the long road of patches that homogenised the roles of classes within pvp and ultimately left us with the deeply flawed experience that was WOTLK pvp.

Firstly I will explain the logic around my opinion by eliciting one of the changes that was made in 2.4.3 that essentially went back upon the game and class mechanics that have been in existence since the start of TBC and vanilla.

Totem/Relic swapping now properly triggers global cooldown.

This is in my opinion a feature of 2.4.3 that should not be implemented on Smolderforge. Now some people will say that Smolderforge is a TBC retail emulation server. But the truth is it isn’t.

The reasons why are as follows:

• Latency
This server has far lower latency that any retail server ever has. This has fundamentally altered many game-play mechanics. Features of the game such as Interrupts, fake-casting and vanishing abilities all work differently than they did back in the day

• Gear
Server wide access to Sunwell and high-end pve gear has significantly altered pvp balance. On retail only the top percentage of high-end raiding players had access to this gear

• Spellpower-Scaling
Many items of Smolderforge scale far better with spell-power than they did on retail

• Item changes
Stormherald, Rod of the sun-king. These are items that the server developers (wisely) nerfed by disabling overpowered proc effects. Other items such as Warglaives were excluded altogether.
As listed above, I think we can agree that while Smolderforge does emulate the retail TBC experience, it is not and will never be an exact copy. Just like AT Wrath will never be an exact copy of 3.3.5a.




Now the problem with removing the gameplay mechanic that was/is known as Relic-twisting.

• Unnecessary
None of the classes that relic-twist are too powerful. In-fact many of these classes are already at a significant disadvantage in arena and competitive pvp. These include:
Enhancement Shamans, Retribution Paladins and Feral Druids. To a lesser degree this can be expanded to Balance Druids and Elemental Shamans. None of these classes have anywhere near decent representation in smolderforge top 100 arena teams.

• Nerfs the wrong classes
The relic-twist change will affect hybrid classes far more than dedicated healers. Resto druids, Holy Paladins and Resto Shamans will be affected far less by the change. The reason for this is that a class that only does one thing 90% of the time in pvp (heal) does not need to change relics often. A class that does dps and also needs to do supportive healing will be heavily hit by this change as it relies upon both damage and healing relics.

• Homogenisation
The change will dumb down the gameplay mechanics of hybrid classes. In 2.3-2.4 Enhancement shamans actually could perform effectively in arena. By switching between two weapons and sword and board when under-pressure, healing team-mates with offset healing equipment and relics (totems). The change will force these classes to just concentrate more on WOTLK era hurr-durr dps gameplay.

• Gear balance and scaling
Relics do not scale nearly as effectively with content and item level as wands or ranged weapons. Most relics are stuck at a max of 115 item level, where as there is a multitude of 149/154 ranged/throwing weapons and wands (sometimes with gem sockets). By allowing hybrids to gain the benefit of multiple relics, this evened out the scaling imbalances.


This change will only make arena even more dominated by Warriors/Rogues/Resto-Druids and occasional Priest/Mage/Resto shaman. All these classes will be mainly un-affected by the change. Battlegrounds will show the consequences too.


Seriously, just have a look around at prime time. 20% of the player base at times is donor S4 warriors. Another 15% is rogues. This will just get worst. I cannot even imagine trying to play a ret-paladin with the nerf to relic swapping. The already pitiful damage and healing will be nerfed even further.
I hope we can take the opportunity to keep the little bit of pre-existing balance that this server brings to TBC.


Summary

So in summary, I feel the change to relics is:

• Unnecessary as the hybrid classes that make use of this are already underpowered

• Further homogenises the game by forcing hybrids to do one thing.

• Will hurt the class balance demographics.

• Relics do not scale as well as wands and ranged weapons


On a final note, please do not say or assume I am trying to fundamentally alter the game. There is a big difference between rolling back a bad 2.4.3 feature/change than there is to directly adding or changing content.

[Dingdong]

Any plans to fix that darned Mage trinket? http://www.wowhead.com/spell=37447 is the spell effect it gave, but it does not work.

Just tried it, and it works

[Henhouse]

@Exsurgo based on your arguments, it makes sense so we'll revert that change when it goes live.

[Amgseret]

Exsurgo, nice post but I think you overrate the effects of the change a lot. Looking how players on SF play, I would be surprised if more than 20% knew what relic twisting is and even 1% using it.
So while you made good points how its a bad change...it unlikely will make any change at all.

[Peekaboo]

I don't mean to doom that thread like countless others, but speaking of dumbed down gameplay and picking that class choice which relies on autoattack procs is just too much (I'm not even mentioning the complexity of the totally nerfed and utterly weak feral spec!).
Great that you want to cast other stuff aswell out of boredom, but switching totems doesn't prevent you from being mana starved after 3 casts.
Yes, Blizzard actually managed to homogenise classes from the start. It has been that way since the beginning of its journey. You really want a summary of class roles from classic WoW?

Nice shot with that wall of text approach, but in the end it's still just a fix to please a single guy, is that really necessary?
Most notably when most of these points brought up are flawed, bringing up latency is just a joke right? Why didn't French people dominate the arena if it were such an issue? Those useless terrible e-sport attempts? 8-10ms, and I'm sorry to break it, it wasn't a joke because of optimal latency.
Gear? You're not playing Feral are you? Just asking, because if you do, this discussion is completely unnecessary.
Spellpower-Scaling is a bug, which I hope gets banished with the core switch...
And Item-Changes are present because of bugged proc chances aswell... again, a bug, not a feature.

Fixing a bug being unnecessary is your opinion. It's still a bug which gets fixed, regardless how unnecessary it is, and if it's not an issue anyway, as you've mentioned for yourself, I don't see why said bug shouldn't get fixed to begin with.
What does it actually nerf? Reads more as if you want a specialzed role to be more versatile, even if it's minor... it's completely unnecessary (pun intended), more so when you can stack different Totems/Relics/Librams at once, even if the GCD gets implemented people would still play those classes, and here is the interesting part, not because they want to have a challenge.
Homogenisation? Seriously? Because binding more gear is an excuse to class diversion? Again, it always was like that from that start, 2.4.3 didn't start anything in that regard (although Ghostcrawler has a hand to dumb down the game as a whole).

Just stick with that GCD imo, it makes life easier, just because you can sit back and say it's Blizzard's fault, can't get easier than that, most notably when people come up with bug reports which actually would be valid...

Other than that, I'm looking forward to the core switch. (if it fixes the spell damage scaling on items, I'm totally happy and stuff, whatever that means)

[ZatYo]

Totems fix? I've been waiting for 4 years, toughness too
Fear fix too, breaks like x3 easier than it should

[Exsurgo]

I don't mean to doom that thread like countless others, but speaking of dumbed down gameplay and picking that class choice which relies on autoattack procs is just too much (I'm not even mentioning the complexity of the totally nerfed and utterly weak feral spec!).
Great that you want to cast other stuff aswell out of boredom, but switching totems doesn't prevent you from being mana starved after 3 casts.

What are you saying here. The mechanic gives a small boost to these hybrid classes. A small but welcome boost. A Ret palladin gains +34 crusader strike damage to boost an already weak ability. It helps. A feral with the lifebloom libram can pull of some semi-decent healing before going oom. Enhancement shamans have AP shock and Windfury relics.

"but speaking of dumbed down gameplay and picking that class choice which relies on autoattack procs"

And I suppose a rogue is so much more skilled. Relic twisting helps every ability except auto-attacks. And while retribution damage dealing is simplified, party-wide cleansing, b-o-p-ing and managing freedom is more than a warrior or rogue has to think about.

Gear? You're not playing Feral are you? Just asking, because if you do, this discussion is completely unnecessary.

I play all three druid specs, two shaman specs, 2 paladin specs, war and rogue. And hunter. Where are you going with this?

Yes, Blizzard actually managed to homogenise classes from the start. It has been that way since the beginning of its journey. You really want a summary of class roles from classic WoW?

I bet I have more experience in classic wow that you. While min-max gameplay has always been homogenised into fotm specs for end-game raiding, pvp and general gameplay certainly was not. And guess what?
Smolderforge is a fun server. Not everyone want's to play a min-max dps/healer spec. Classes like restokin/dreamstate/offensive disc can dual-purpose just fine. Other hybrids can certainly try.

Nice shot with that wall of text approach, but in the end it's still just a fix to please a single guy, is that really necessary?

"Single guy" Not really. Plenty of people use relic twisting macros. In many ways it is the sign of a player that knows and understands how to play his class. I am all for players being able to differentiate their game-play from the masses.

Most notably when most of these points brought up are flawed, bringing up latency is just a joke right? Why didn't French people dominate the arena if it were such an issue? Those useless terrible e-sport attempts? 8-10ms, and I'm sorry to break it, it wasn't a joke because of optimal latency.

You fail to grasp the meaning of this point. Firstly Ultra Low latency was never achievable, even in France. You could not get <75 latency. Blizzard's servers could not cope. Sometimes slightly higher latency can actually be an advantage. Fake-casting is an example in which this is clearly the case. Test it if you must.

Why did WOTLK Arena-tournament realm actually introduce a small amount of extra latency? They did because players complained that ~15 latency made the game unnatural.

Fixing a bug being unnecessary is your opinion. It's still a bug which gets fixed, regardless how unnecessary it is, and if it's not an issue anyway, as you've mentioned for yourself, I don't see why said bug shouldn't get fixed to begin with.

It is not a bug. It is a long-standing game-play mechanic that has been in the game since classic wow. So do not label this as a bug. It is a game-play feature.

What does it actually nerf? Reads more as if you want a specialzed role to be more versatile, even if it's minor... it's completely unnecessary (pun intended), more so when you can stack different Totems/Relics/Librams at once, even if the GCD gets implemented people would still play those classes, and here is the interesting part, not because they want to have a challenge.

Because pre-2.4.3 those specialized roles were more versatile. Why introduce a feature that actually directly dumbs down game-play. Have you actually looked at Shaman totem quality. Most of them are item level 100 or less. Any Shaman in his right mind would take a Sunwell ranged weapon with 175 arp and other juicy stats rather than the occasional proc and static damage increase if they could.

Homogenisation? Seriously? Because binding more gear is an excuse to class diversion? Again, it always was like that from that start, 2.4.3 didn't start anything in that regard (although Ghostcrawler has a hand to dumb down the game as a whole).

No. It really was. After nerfing relics in 2.4.3 the next step was they nerfed weapon swapping. This meant that hybrid classes with a lot of cc such as balance/feral druids/rets etc could no longer macro spell pen/hit weapons to actually make sure their cc lands on pvp targets. Same with off-healing. Surely you can see the pattern of changes reducing the variety of game-play?

Just stick with that GCD imo, it makes life easier, just because you can sit back and say it's Blizzard's fault, can't get easier than that, most notably when people come up with bug reports which actually would be valid...

Yes. Blizzards fault. This server is not Blizzards. This server runs of emulation software that has been in development since 2007 (if not earlier). Henhouse can do what he want's in the pursuit of the ideal 2.4.3 server. Blizzard has no mandate here.

I don't mean to doom that thread like countless others

I clearly stated in my thread that I was not suggesting that the relic change was the doom of hybrid classes. And at no-point did I do any scaremongering. I clearly stated the facts around the case with my opinions added into the mix. Thw whole point of my post was to show that I consider the relic twisting change to be unnecessary. Why add something unnecessary (or even damaging) into the game?

Exsurgo, nice post but I think you overrate the effects of the change a lot. Looking how players on SF play, I would be surprised if more than 20% knew what relic twisting is and even 1% using it.
So while you made good points how its a bad change...it unlikely will make any change at all.

I do agree on the point you make, but I think you have your numbers wrong. It would guess it is more like 10% of players who actually understand hybrids and use relic-swapping :) But then this demographic can probably be applied to all players of every class. Still, I care more about the 10% than the 90% that can't be bothered to understand and maximise their class.

[Peekaboo]

Yeah, why even have bugs on a fun server, let's all smoke some fine crack and do whatever the fuck we want, and if it's deemed fun by a random guy let's make it a feature.
Seriously, there are other ways to prove how good you are, like farming HK... just because WoW is that much of a game to prove skill.
And if it doesn't work, just roll again.

OMG he must be god, he's switching items!

But seriously. Someone who doesn't share you opinion automatically has to opt in to a classic WoW experience competition, not to forget the skill measure class check because of the avatar? Whatever... I'm sorry for wasting my time.

[Exsurgo]

Yeah, why even have bugs on a fun server, let's all smoke some fine crack and do whatever the fuck we want, and if it's deemed fun by a random guy let's make it a feature.

You do know we are all random here?
Also as I said before it is not a bug. It is a big feature of TBC, just not one from 2.4.3

not to forget the skill measure class check because of the avatar? Whatever... I'm sorry for wasting my time.

I only used a rogue as an example due to your avatar, but I was by no means insinuating that you played rogue or that rogue is unusually easy to play. And you are not wasting your time. Forums are for discussions. If think that it is good you are expressing your views, even if on this matter they are different from mine.

In the end of the day when Henhouse makes decisions on this server, he will use his own problem solving and critical thinking. It can't hurt for him to have the opinions of others as a reference if he feels the need to get opinions on the game/server from outside the development team.