Molten Corgi Pet, UBRS Changes, Rob Pardo Leaves Blizzard, Stat Squish and PvP Tank Posts

Опубликовано 03.07.2014 в 12:58 oliviadgrace

Molten Corgi PetRob Pardo Announces His Departure From Blizzard

Blizzard

Every ending is a beginning and today marks a new beginning for me.

After 17 years at Blizzard, with long and careful contemplation, I have made a difficult and bittersweet but ultimately exciting decision to pursue the next chapter in my life and career.

Before I even joined Blizzard, I was already a huge fan of the company and its games. In particular, I was extremely passionate about the emerging genre of real-time strategy games. It was a dream come true when I was given the opportunity to work on StarCraft, which at the time was being created by a very small team by today’s standards. It was tremendously fulfilling to get to know everyone on the team personally and to contribute our energies toward a shared goal in such a creative and engaging environment.

Blizzard Entertainment has been simply the best place in the world to be a game designer. The best aspect of designing games at Blizzard is that the entire company is passionate about the gameplay within each and every product. From the executive team to customer service to our global offices, every single person is a player and contributes to making the best possible games. It’s for very good reason that the first credit on every Blizzard game is “Game Design by Blizzard Entertainment.”

I’m really proud of the contributions I was able to make to Blizzard’s accomplishments. From building lasting games, to supporting the growth of eSports, to extending the Warcraft world into a feature film, and of course to being able to celebrate our shared passions with the Blizzard community online and at BlizzCon.

The Blizzard community is ultimately the reason why we come to work every day and pour our souls into every world and experience we create. Blizzard’s players are the most passionate in the world and your commitment and dedication are truly awesome to behold. Creating entertainment for you has been an incredible opportunity, and I know that you will continue to grow and become even stronger as a community over the years to come. It has been so meaningful on a personal level to help create joy for all of you.

I’m looking forward to new challenges in my career, but I will always cherish the time I spent with you all and the amazing and collaborative teams at Blizzard. It was both satisfying and humbling, and it made me a better developer and a better person. I look forward to playing Blizzard games as a player for many years to come. Most important, now I have plenty of time to learn how to build a competitive Hearthstone deck.

As to what I will be doing next, I don’t have an answer for you yet . . . but I will “when it’s ready.” My priorities are to enjoy the summer with my family, play plenty of games, and think about what’s next. The game industry is such an exciting place right now with PC gaming thriving, the new consoles, mobile games, and virtual reality becoming an actual reality. It’s like having an empty quest log and going into a new zone for the first time.

In the past, I haven’t been the most avid Twitter user, but I’ll strive to do better and keep you updated there—@Rob_Pardo. Please stay in touch!

Rob

Minor Changes to Upper Blackrock SpirePerculiaBlizzard On Stat Squish and Health Numbers

Blizzard

We've been seeing a lot of feedback about the stat squish that focuses primarily on hit points. It's important to remember that we've greatly increased player health pools in comparison to damage and stat numbers. The end result is that health pools will not appear to have been "squished" by as much as everything else.

It's best to look at it in terms of the gear you're equipping. Whereas in Mists, an item might have upwards of 2,400 or so Stamina on it, that same item in Warlords would have around 100. Yes, 100 Stamina in Warlords will contribute a lot more to your overall health pool than 100 Stamina does in Mists, but that's not a number you really need to think about that often. You'll mostly just recognize that the 100 Stamina on this item is more than the 90 on the item you had before, and that means more health.

Ultimately, we feel the stat squish has been very successful in improving the feel of the game. The numbers flying by you on the screen are much smaller and easier to grasp in a hurry. It's easier to compare two items at a glance. More importantly, we were able to do it in a way that doesn't cause any damage to the 1-90 (or 90-100) leveling experience. Health pools, while smaller than Mists, haven't shrunk as much as everything else, but we think that's okay as it allows us much smoother gameplay.

Tanks in PvPWarlords of Draenor PvP Guide

Lore

Historically, tank specializations have been somewhat problematic for PvP balance. Taking a character designed to soak massive hits from raid bosses and putting them in front of other players poses some very difficult challenges. If they’re able to put out enough damage to be a threat, they become unstoppable. If not, enemy players can just ignore them. We’ve seen some limited success with tank specs as flag carriers in Rated Battlegrounds, but even that has proven problematic.

However, the class and systems changes coming in Warlords of Draenor are giving us an opportunity to try a different approach. With Vengeance gone, tanks are able to deal much more damage than previously. It’ll still be a little behind a true DPS spec, but thanks to the increased player health pools and healer changes, PvP is much less reliant on heavy burst damage. Sustained damage output can still be quite threatening.

We feel that that increase in damage will make tanks quite dangerous in PvP, but as they still need to survive those massive swings in PvE, their ability to soak damage would be too much. To that end, in an upcoming beta build, we’ll be trying out a debuff that increases tank damage taken by 25% from other players. It’s important to understand that this is not an attempt to make tank specs inviable in PvP. Quite the opposite – it’s just one part of an overall strategy that, if successful, will make tank specs a reasonable choice, even in situations where there isn’t a flag to carry or node to defend.

Our hope is that we can get tank specs to a point where they take a little less damage than other specs (but not so much less that it’s problematic), and, as a tradeoff, deal a little less damage than other specs (but not so much less that they’re not a threat). It’s definitely an experiment, and one that’s going to take a lot of iteration and testing. We may even decide to take a different approach entirely. But we think it’ll be pretty cool if it works, so we’re going to give it a try. Let us know what you think!