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  Exorcism can no longer be used on players |
04/21/09 02:33:32 PM
Patch 3.1.1
Ghostcrawler
<Lead Systems Designer> |
We made a change in the 3.1.1 patch to prevent Exorcism from
being used on players. We didn't announce this change
ahead of time because we were trying to get the tooltip changed
at the same time to reduce confusion. We still plan on getting
the tooltip updated ASAP. Exorcism's use in PvE has not
changed at this time.
Going with a "not on players" solution is not ideal
and we will be re-designing how the ability works in a future
patch (the plan is sooner rather than later). We don't
like for PvE and PvP mechanics to work differently when we can
avoid it. We also don't like for a major damaging ability
to be excluded from the PvP game. However, we thought this had
become a balance issue serious enough to address at this
time.
We shifted around paladin damage for 3.1 trying to increase
sustained damage while reducing burst damage. Unfortunately,
the Exorcism change did the opposite. Instead of stealing a GCD
from a paladin, it actually gave them an extra one. A
Retribution paladin could use Exorcism to cause damage while
closing to melee and then be ready to go with their melee
damage attacks. (Exorcism of course is not limited to Ret
paladins either.) We changed the way paladins do damage for
Lich King, so while it is unfortunate (and we accept full
blame), it also isn't too surprising that it is taking
some effort to get their damage in the right place.
In the same patch where we remove the "not on
players" limitation for Exorcism, we are going to change
the way paladins do damage so that their normal combat moves
have more depth to them instead of just using abilities every
time they finish their cooldown. This should make causing
damage as a paladin more interesting and also less bursty.
While we have some ideas on how to accomplish that, if you have
suggestions or your own ideas about how this could work, this
would be a good time to share them. (As examples of abilities
you don't just use whenever their cooldown has finished,
you might look at Conflagrate, Brain Freeze, Rip, Overpower or
Arcane Blast.) We do request that you don't fill the
forums with posts of limited content or insight about how you
don't like to be nerfed. Nobody does.
It is always a judgment call about when a fix (a buff or a
nerf) can't wait. Some things we can't change
easily in hotfixes or small patches, and some things we
consider too risky for technical reasons or for their potential
effects on the game.
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04/21/09 04:00:51 PM
Patch 3.1.1
Ghostcrawler
<Lead Systems Designer> |
Q u o t e:
Come on... so instead of letting us know ahead of time, you
wanted to get the tooltip changed first? What kind of excuse
is that? We don't want excuses. All we ask for is some heads
up so the community can discuss before the change goes
through.
Q u o t e:
I am upset by this stealth fix. Pulling a tooltip rewrite as
your excuse is obviously a coverup. Everyone here knows you
guys don't fix tooltip's promptly and it wouldn't stop you
from informing of a change publiclly till after the
release.
I think my mentioning the tooltip confused some people, so I'll
try again.
WoW is released in many languages around the world. We consider
ourselves a global company, so when we make a text change, we
get it localized to all our regions. Getting good translations,
even on short tooltips, does take some amount of time for a
turn-around, especially when you consider the constraints time
changes place on cross-continental work.
Death Strike's tooltip is currently invalid, but because it
generally still does what it's supposed to do (heal) and isn't
a huge nerf to what it was before, it won't cause a lot of
confusion. (I'm not talking specifically about you guys --
anyone who frequents the forums stays a lot more informed than
the average player.) Changing Exorcism without changing the
tooltip is going to cause confusion. Players may think it's a
bug when the button just doesn't work. They may think the game
is broken. That is possibly worse than an overpowered ability
(possibly).
We weren't sure if we were going to get the tooltip done in
time, so we weren't sure exactly when we were going to make the
Exorcism change. We figured it wasn't worth it to announce "At
some point in the future, we are going to change this spell."
That ends up just being more confusing (Why aren't you making
the change now? When are you going to make it? How exactly will
it work?) We sometimes discuss long term plans, such as my
reference to making paladins less cooldown-limited, but
announcing "nerf soon(tm)" causes more harm than good. We ended
up getting the change in at the last minute and unfortunately
without the tooltip. I made a post as soon as I could.
We don't consider this a stealth nerf. A stealth nerf is
generally making a change and not telling anyone and seeing if
the players can figure it out. There is no way the players
weren't going to figure this out. We made a post as soon as we
could, within hours of the patch going out. Anyone who has been
reading these forums for long knows that I'm not afraid to tell
players things they don't want to hear (when we think the
change is necessary). Fear of forum rage would never discourage
us from giving you information we think you need.
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