Fixing "intentional" bugs that were neglected in WotLK

[xxhummusgodx]

https://www.warmane.com/bugtracker/report/102561
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...sing-earthbind
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...arthbind-Totem

So, the context here is that Earthbind Totem's pulses will miss/resist even when hit capped and spell penetration capped for the appropriate target. This was apparently bugged back during retail as well, and something Blizzard clearly weren't aware of, otherwise they would have fixed it.

Why does the dev team strive to replicate bugs that were present during WotLK even though they are blatantly obvious to be bugs because of Blizzard's unknowing rather than an intentional feature, instead of recognising how backwards and ignorant it is (my personal opinion) to keep it that way instead of fixing the bug as Blizzard surely would have back in the day had they known about it?

As the bug report reply by Bigpwn states, fire totems scale with master hit chance, which is true. What's the reason for earth totems not working the same way? Is there any answer that can be given to this question besides explaining some fundamentalist idea that everything should be as it was in WotLK, good or bad, regardless of how practical it may or may not be?

I'm ranting, but I'm also seriously wondering why you wouldn't just fix bugs like this, as I'm sure this is not the only one. With WotLK classic on the horizon and Blizzard clearly not giving a damn about leaving in old 'quirky' bugs even if it annoys the hell out of the community because that's 'just the way it was', shouldn't it be in the private server's best interest to provide a more consistent and quality of life experience than Blizzard, considering that there's a realistic chance of WotLK private servers completely dying in the wake of the release of the game that they have been offering players all these years while Blizzard have stubbornly refused to? It just makes no sense to me to keep something like this in the game when it's clearly #1 NOT an intentional feature and indeed not a bug, (and easy to fix) because (#2) Fire totems already scale perfectly with hit chance and spell penetration...

Please consider letting people reply to this thread with their opinions before closing it.

[SilverFlash]

https://www.warmane.com/bugtracker/report/102561
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...sing-earthbind
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...arthbind-Totem

So, the context here is that Earthbind Totem's pulses will miss/resist even when hit capped and spell penetration capped for the appropriate target. This was apparently bugged back during retail as well, and something Blizzard clearly weren't aware of, otherwise they would have fixed it.

Why does the dev team strive to replicate bugs that were present during WotLK even though they are blatantly obvious to be bugs because of Blizzard's unknowing rather than an intentional feature, instead of recognising how backwards and ignorant it is (my personal opinion) to keep it that way instead of fixing the bug as Blizzard surely would have back in the day had they known about it?

As the bug report reply by Bigpwn states, fire totems scale with master hit chance, which is true. What's the reason for earth totems not working the same way? Is there any answer that can be given to this question besides explaining some fundamentalist idea that everything should be as it was in WotLK, good or bad, regardless of how practical it may or may not be?

I'm ranting, but I'm also seriously wondering why you wouldn't just fix bugs like this, as I'm sure this is not the only one. With WotLK classic on the horizon and Blizzard clearly not giving a damn about leaving in old 'quirky' bugs even if it annoys the hell out of the community because that's 'just the way it was', shouldn't it be in the private server's best interest to provide a more consistent and quality of life experience than Blizzard, considering that there's a realistic chance of WotLK private servers completely dying in the wake of the release of the game that they have been offering players all these years while Blizzard have stubbornly refused to? It just makes no sense to me to keep something like this in the game when it's clearly #1 NOT an intentional feature and indeed not a bug, (and easy to fix) because (#2) Fire totems already scale perfectly with hit chance and spell penetration...

Please consider letting people reply to this thread with their opinions before closing it.

That's a slippery slope. Should they fix Heroic Strike/Cleave removing the auto attack dual wield hit penalty for warriors then(if it's actually working like that here,i haven't tested it)? It's clearly not intended,blizzard was aware of the issue at least towards the end of wrath,yet they only fixed that in cata with the reworks on warrior mechanics. It was there in vanilla and in tbc as well,as well as their classic versions.
Fixing the lack of aura recheck of some spells(at the very least Molten Armor with t9) that worked that way on retail was already controversial,so i assume it's more of a headache than it's worth.

What's the reason for earth totems not working the same way?

Blizzard hates shamans,that's a well known fact.

[xxhummusgodx]

You really can't be serious with that comparison? An unintended bug that increases Fury Warrior DPS by thousands (compared to 2H Arms) with no similar mechanic anywhere in the Warrior class or even the game as a whole isn't at all the same as Earth Totems not scaling with hit while keeping in mind that Fire Totems at the same time scale perfectly with hit. The inconsistency between one school of Totems scaling properly and the other not scaling properly because of an unintended bug isn't at all the same and has nothing to do with 'Next melee' attacks capping white swings in the offhand.

Also, I'm obviously not a dev, but your comparison is also completely ignoring the difference in difficulty of a fix that would add master stat scaling to Earth Totems (just as devs have done previously to Fire Totems which are notoriously bugged on Wrath private servers since the beginning of their existence) to a fix that would change the entire mechanic of Next melee attacks is just even more silly. You can't compare those two things at all. Not only would it be practically impossible to change the Next melee mechanic, but think of the meaning it would have, it would have a massively significant effect, changing the entire PvE metagame, whereas allowing Earthbind Totem to scale with hit would do just that and only that. It would allow Shamans to hit their Earthbind Totem when they're hit capped. How is that even remotely the same thing? I think I've edited this like three times now because I can't wrap my head around how you came up with that example.

Fire Totems already have hit scaling, I assume a fix is as simple as giving Earth Totems the same properties in terms of hit and spell penetration. I don't even want to imagine how much chaos it would entail to try and fix the Next melee attack bug. I appreciate the reply, but at least put a little more thought into it.

EDIT: It's very likely that Blizzard removed Next melee attacks entirely from the game in Cataclysm because they didn't know how to go about fixing that bug without messing up all types of mechanics for melee attacks. It's obviously much easier to replace Next melee with an instant attack that's not on the GCD. Am I asking for Rune Strike and Heroic Strike and Cleave to become instant attacks? No, I'm asking for one or two Earth Totems to scale properly with the Shaman's hit and spell penetration, the exact same fix that has previously been applied to Fire Totems, not only on Warmane, but also on countless other Wrath private servers.

[SilverFlash]

You really can't be serious with that comparison? An unintended bug that increases Fury Warrior DPS by thousands (compared to 2H Arms) with no similar mechanic anywhere in the Warrior class or even the game as a whole isn't at all the same as Earth Totems not scaling with hit while keeping in mind that Fire Totems at the same time scale perfectly with hit. The inconsistency between one school of Totems scaling properly and the other not scaling properly because of an unintended bug isn't at all the same and has nothing to do with 'Next melee' attacks capping white swings in the offhand.

Also, I'm obviously not a dev, but your comparison is also completely ignoring the difference in difficulty of a fix that would add master stat scaling to Earth Totems (just as devs have done previously to Fire Totems which are notoriously bugged on Wrath private servers since the beginning of their existence) to a fix that would change the entire mechanic of Next melee attacks is just even more silly. You can't compare those two things at all. Not only would it be practically impossible to change the Next melee mechanic, but think of the meaning it would have, it would have a massively significant effect, changing the entire PvE metagame, whereas allowing Earthbind Totem to scale with hit would do just that and only that. It would allow Shamans to hit their Earthbind Totem when they're hit capped. How is that even remotely the same thing? I think I've edited this like three times now because I can't wrap my head around how you came up with that example.

Fire Totems already have hit scaling, I assume a fix is as simple as giving Earth Totems the same properties in terms of hit and spell penetration. I don't even want to imagine how much chaos it would entail to try and fix the Next melee attack bug. I appreciate the reply, but at least put a little more thought into it.

EDIT: It's very likely that Blizzard removed Next melee attacks entirely from the game in Cataclysm because they didn't know how to go about fixing that bug without messing up all types of mechanics for melee attacks. It's obviously much easier to replace Next melee with an instant attack that's not on the GCD. Am I asking for Rune Strike and Heroic Strike and Cleave to become instant attacks? No, I'm asking for one or two Earth Totems to scale properly with the Shaman's hit and spell penetration, the exact same fix that has previously been applied to Fire Totems, not only on Warmane, but also on countless other Wrath private servers.

This is funny,because there are servers out there where hs/cleave doesn't allow you to ignore the hit for dual wielding. Funnily enough,the lack of the bug is a bug in itself,and also,do not make the mistake of comparing what was possible with retail coding vs what is possible with the emulation on private servers. And blizzard only came to know of the existence of this bug towards the end of wrath,so cataclysm reworks were already in development by that time. Likewise,outside of some ptr data,molten armor was never actually fixed on live until cata to recheck stats without recasting,most likely because why bother with that and any potential extra bugs when they were planning to overhaul systems anyways.

I'm comparing them because both would be custom fixes. Just like fixing the Karazhan skip would be a custom change. It's not about the weight of the change,it's about changing things to work differently than they did back then. Why play wrath when you don't like how wrath handled things? Many players play wrath for the wrath experience,however flawed it may be. And while "fixing" earthbind wouldn't shake the pve meta,it would obviously have an impact on pvp,however minor it would be.

And i have to ask you this - what makes you think that the earth totems were/are bugged? Just because fire totems work in a specific way? Fire totems are offensive utililty,they're meant to scale to avoid being useless - after all,who would waste mana and gcd on ~50 dps?. Should warmane "fix" hunter traps to scale with spell pen? After all,they're "supposed" to work with it but never did,right? This is why i said applying custom fixes is a slippery slope,you custom fix one thing and then you have more and more players who will want things changed their "supposed" way,after all,if they've done it for X,why couldn't they do it for Y,Z?

For all we know,it could've been intentional,an oversight or just simply shamans got the short end of the stick,like always.

[Thaime]

That's a slippery slope. Should they fix Heroic Strike/Cleave removing the auto attack dual wield hit penalty for warriors then(if it's actually working like that here,i haven't tested it)?

why would that ever be considered a bug? dual wield hit penalty only applies to auto attacks, not special abilities
if you really consider this a bug then you would need to add that same penalty to abilities like stormstrike lava lash mutilate etc, since they're used by dual wield specs aswell

And i have to ask you this - what makes you think that the earth totems were/are bugged?Just because fire totems work in a specific way?

both are totems, both use spells, there's no reason for them to work differently
as for hunter traps they're objects, not totems, guardians or pets and I'm pretty sure objects can't inherit stats (do objects even have stats in the first place?)

[SilverFlash]

why would that ever be considered a bug? dual wield hit penalty only applies to auto attacks, not special abilities
if you really consider this a bug then you would need to add that same penalty to abilities like stormstrike lava lash mutilate etc, since they're used by dual wield specs aswell

Because while HS/Cleave is queued,warriors don't use the dual wield hitcap,they use the single wield hitcap due to the bug(iirc they even only use the main hand expertise,so if they have less than 26 on their offhand,they still won't get dodges on offhand hits either).

Thus they land more hits than intended.
Enhancement shamans and rogues do not have active abilities that work on the next melee hit,so they can't beneft from this.
Frost dks probably would,but it's rare they get a Rune Strike proc,as that requires a dodge or parry to happen beforehand,which won't really happen in a raid unless they're tanking.

both are totems, both use spells, there's no reason for them to work differently
as for hunter traps they're objects, not totems, guardians or pets and I'm pretty sure objects can't inherit stats (do objects even have stats in the first place?)

Explosive Trap scales with ranged ap as an example. However,traps do not benefit from spellpen.
And then there's SW:P for priests and Corruption for warlocks,which should behave the same way when refreshed for all intents and purposes but they don't.

[Thaime]

Because while HS/Cleave is queued,warriors don't use the dual wield hitcap,they use the single wield hitcap due to the bug(iirc they even only use the main hand expertise,so if they have less than 26 on their offhand,they still won't get dodges on offhand hits either).

again that's not a bug, HS/cleave are special abilities, they're not added on top of your next main hand swing they replace it and special abilities don't get dual wield hit penalty, they're not landing more hits than intended they're using a special ability that replaces your auto attack, it's not that complicated
also the fact that they're queued doesn't change that in any way, you can cancel HS/cleave by using /stopcasting as you would any other ability with a cast, the only difference here is that its "cast time" is your swing timer

Explosive Trap scales with ranged ap as an example. However,traps do not benefit from spellpen.

then the question would be is it considered a spell or an attack, if it's the latter then it isn't supposed to take your spell pen in account even if it does deal magic damage
a good way to check that is to see if its GCD is reduced by haste, if it isn't then it's considered an attack
and you still didn't say why 2 totems, both using spells should work differently

And then there's SW:P for priests and Corruption for warlocks,which should behave the same way when refreshed for all intents and purposes but they don't.

passive and active refresh aren't the same thing, when you actively refresh a dot you simply overwrite the previous one, passive refresh such as corruption and sw:p only refresh the duration and nothing else, you don't actually apply the dot again so of course it's going to keep the stats from your initial cast

[Obnoxious]

The main question here would be: where's the official source clearly stating that it was a bug?

There's nothing on the provided links. In fact, what can be found on the links - aside people with an interest in the matter calling it a bug - is people saying they reported it as one, hence saying Blizzard "didn't know" doesn't feel accurate. Comparing to other skills also doesn't really hold water - they are other skills, which inherently makes it plausible that their mechanics could not work the same. "It doesn't make sense" is just an opinion, not a fact until backed by something official recognizing it as bugged or unintended.

While we don't need any more reason than it being how it worked on retail to keep it that way - when our aim is to replicate mechanics as close as possible to how they were originally, not "improve" on them - this whole thing is based on the assumption that it wasn't just made to work like that without anything but personal wishful thinking behind it. As it is, this is nothing more than an expectation of a custom change to make a class do something it wasn't meant to do.

[Thaime]

when our aim is to replicate mechanics as close as possible to how they were originally, not "improve" on them

on retail you could(and can still) enter wintergrasp chamber when the opposite faction was in control and yet you've added a custom script that teleports opposite faction members outside of the chamber if they try to go in
so how exactly does that make sense considering what you just said?

[Obnoxious]

Point out to me which class mechanic was tweaked by that.
We didn't change how Wintergrasp works, even assuming what you're saying is accurate, we simply removed something that was used for griefing and nothing else.

[Thaime]

Point out to me which class mechanic was tweaked by that.
We didn't change how Wintergrasp works, even assuming what you're saying is accurate, we simply removed something that was used for griefing and nothing else.

you just said mechanics, not class mechanics when you said you were trying to make it blizz like so I just took the first example of custom stuff you added that wasn't there on retail
and whether it was used for griefing doesn't matter, the point is that someone at warmane decided to add or change something that worked differently or wasn't there on retail wotlk
I guess now the real question is , do you only care about making specific things blizz like and not others because it's more convenient that way?

[Obnoxious]

If you are unable to separate different things, it's pointless to address you further.

[Thaime]

If you are unable to separate different things, it's pointless to address you further.

you didn't mention it being only about classes so it's not up to me to guess that it's what you meant

[Obnoxious]

It isn't a matter of "being only about classes." The thing with Wintergrasp (if I got what you're talking about right) isn't a game mechanic. That's akin to there being an NPC in retail notorious for falling through the ground, we fix it, and you try to use that as an example of "game mechanics" we changed.

Otherwise, we changed the "game mechanic" of a monthly subscription. Why aren't you complaining that if we keep it like retail on this Totem, you want to also be affected by the monthly fee "mechanic"?

[Thaime]

about monthly subscription that doesn't have anything to do with the game itself
you're paying for a service; being able to play the game on blizz servers, whether you pay or not doesn't change the way the game works in any way only the fact that you can play it there

That's akin to there being an NPC in retail notorious for falling through the ground, we fix it

assuming there were an NPC doing that and it never got changed on retail why would you "fix" it? you made a point of having things as close as possible to retail wotlk and now you're telling me you're "fixing" stuff based only on your own judgement and not how it actually was on retail
and yes being able to enter an area without being teleported out is part of game mechanics, regardless of what you think about people doing that for griefing it was part of the game on retail wotlk and you removed that, despite saying that you strive to make things as close as possible to how they were on retail