what design philosophy do warmane developers follow lately?

Hey,

I am asking this, because the handling of recent changes has made me unsure what version of the game we are aiming towards:
- an exact copy of the original 3.3.5
- an exact copy of blizzards re-release of wrath
- a seperate version which takes the best from both worlds and bases itself on what's perceived best for the game ?

There are clear cases of it not being an exact copy of the original, and I would call basically all of them upgrades (obviously features like transmog and soloque but even balance changes like mages not being able to keep extra crit from t9 molten armor after unequipping it etc.)

There are also clear cases of it not being an exact copy of blizzard's re-relrease, where I also consider warmane's current version better than blizzards (most notably the implementation of new glyphs, changed item levels, dk pets being ridiculously op etc)

this would make me conclude that the past 15years of being on the top of handling this version of the game, arguably above blizzard, makes warmane confident enough in design choices to go based off what makes sense, and what's good for the game, but then lately there were a lot of non-sensical changes just for the sake of copying how things work(ed) on blizzard.
Examples: green ooze on professor afking when its target uses certain abilities. rogue poison damage being reduced, despite rogues already doing mediocre damage for a specc that offers no support outside of tots. Boomie 2set uptime being halved, badly reducing their damage, despite being on the low end of damage already. Demo warlock no longer proccing soulfire when their spell brings the target under 35%, but only if the target already was below 35%, again nerfing a specc, which was already struggling in damage. Teleporting out of a dungeon and back inside cannot be done instantly but gives a 10second window of "cannot do that yet". trinkets going on their full icd after being re-equipped instead of 30secs (not that recent but the first such example I can think of). And I am sure I forget things.

all of those changes: why are they happening? who are they for? I dont know a single person who likes any of them, and I truly do not see how they make the game better.
I am all for fixing bugs and abuses, but I do not see the point of reducing quality of life or nerfing underperforming speccs or introducing blizz-like bugs, espacially not if warmane has in many cases gone against what's blizzlike in order to make the game more fun and balanced.

Sorry if this reads as if I am ungrateful, I really appreciate the effort that's being put into the game, I would just like to hear better reasons than "because it was like that in 3.3.5" to justify randomly worsening the game after a decade+, while there a hundreds of things intentionally not working like in 3.3.5 or current blizzard, simply because its better the way it is right now on warmane

They kept melee weaving bugged for hunters, so it's possible that the staff reverses the OoC change.

and now add spell crits not proccing deep wounds to the list of things that go against 3.3.5a, for the sake of copying wotlk classic, while dismissing the report to reverse OoC change, with the reason of it being changed to work like in 3.3.5a

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Originally Posted by Allylilith

I am all for fixing bugs and abuses, but I do not see the point of reducing quality of life or nerfing underperforming speccs or introducing blizz-like bugs, espacially not if warmane has in many cases gone against what's blizzlike in order to make the game more fun and balanced.

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I'm not posting to answer your question. This is just pointing out a major flaw in what you're saying and nothing else. You're creating a distinction that doesn't exist: if you don't like and agree it's a bug, if you like and disagree it's "reducing quality of life" and whatnot. If something bugged or working wrong is fixed, it's a fix for a bug, whether or not you liked whatever "quality of life" or unintentional "buff" you saw in it.

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Originally Posted by Obnoxious

I'm not posting to answer your question. This is just pointing out a major flaw in what you're saying and nothing else. You're creating a distinction that doesn't exist: if you don't like and agree it's a bug, if you like and disagree it's "reducing quality of life" and whatnot. If something bugged or working wrong is fixed, it's a fix for a bug, whether or not you liked whatever "quality of life" or unintentional "buff" you saw in it.

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I mean, how can one bug report be instantly dismissed with the reasoning of it being according to 3.3.5, not taking game balance into account whatsoever, while other changes go against 3.3.5 for the sake of balance?

How is green ooze being afk on pp not a bug?
How is having to wait 10seconds after teleporting out of a dungeon to be able to teleport back in, not an unnecessary quality of life reduction?

if that distinction wouldnt exist, warmane would be an exact copy of 3.3.5 or wotlk classic, but it isnt, so decisions are clearly taken based on the distinctions you claim to not exist.

I think most people would have much prefered an answer to my question. I understand that its a hard question to answer, but it's also one that you guys are hard faced with, with the introduction of wotlk classic.
Whether I ask it or not, you guys need to find an answer for it in order to have a basis to fix the game. All I am asking for is transparency, so that we know what's being aimed for. right now there are people opening bug reports to have things work like 3.3.5, to have it work like wotlk classic or to have it work in a way they like. I find no consistency in what reports are going through and which get dismissed.

so, please, be more transparent and tell your community what version of the game you want.

The way it stands right now, I do not know what to report as a bug, and what is intentional. For example toc and togc sharing an id seems like an extremely obvious bug, as it did not work like that in the original game, and even 2 trinkets of hc and normal can be equipped at the same time. This does however seem to be considered a feature? for some reason? Because it always worked like the original and then it got changed out of the blue, but was noted in the changelog as if this was an intented change.
Nobody has any idea what can be reported and what not, only leading to a lot of "junk-reports" for you too. Everybody seems to report whatever they feel like, and it seems arbitrary to me which changes go through and which dont.
Some guy a year ago reported that he wants an offhand swing delay at the start of the fight, because blizzard apparently did this in wotlk classic, and now every warrior ragestarves when swapping a target. havent met a single person who likes that change. why do it?
9 months ago another guy reported that glyph of holy light shouldnt always heal 10% (as the tooltip extremely clearly states and it did forever) but it should in some cases count the effective healing rather than overhealing. without any evidence or reasoning whatsoever except him copy pasting wotlk classic combat log info into his report, this change went through and glyph of holy light is now worse. This doesnt cost hpals their spot as best healer, but it still remains a major decision based on the words of one random guy claiming that things work different on wotlk classic.
The halls of stone door is opening and closing at least once a year, the first 2 bosses being a requirement for the dungeon has switched at least 4 times since I started playing here, is this caused by people counter-reporting eachother and it getting "fixed" from one stage into another? The most recent state is the door being open, but you being unable to talk to brann to start the event, which is the most non-sensical version I have seen so far. that example by itself irrelevant, but perfectly illustrates how this lack of a target leads to "fixes" making the game objectively worse
Then all these random nerfs to classes I dont even play (because they already werent performing well) on top of these things are highly frustrating, espacially since a big part of the playerbase plays this game solely to compete for logs, where a 5% dps nerf completely kills any reason to continue playing that specc, as pre-nerf numbers are impossible to reach, on top of the classes losing their purpose of being invited.

I do not know what to do. should I go report that toc and togc share an id, while they shouldnt which is easily provable, and pray that its read by a developer who wants everything to be like 3.3.5 and fix it back again? without an aim, these kind of "bug fixes" will either worsen the game or make us run in circles. why not focus on the few actual bugs that still exist on the server, like hunter stables bugging out, people sometimes dropping into textures, warlock summon sometimes not working into instances, twin valkyrs in togc losing double hp sometimes and the likes?
Should I report that cooldowns dont reset when we kill a boss? because half the reports that go through recently base themselves on blizzard classic mechanics and logs.
Should I report udk pets not scaling 4000%better because thats how blizzard broke them?
We are just in serious need of a vision and transparency and possibly communication within your team to agree on what direction to take the game into, in case a lack of unison from within warmane is the reason for the community being confused

I hope this doesnt come over the wrong way, I am just concerned how the future will look like, if these things remain unadressed, and I want warmane to remain as great as it is and has been for the past decade

I dont think that warmane doing their own thing is necessarily bad. In many ways warmane is simply better than 3.3.5 and also the blizzard re-release, but yes, seeing things randomly get changed without real consistency, sometimes to comply to bad 3.3.5 balance, sometimes to introduce bad wotlk classic "features" and sometimes their own custom things, is very confusing. Why not consistently do whats best for the game balance? or at least consistently follow one of the 2 game versions.
Please share the real reasons for changes, dont randomly swap around "because 3.3.5" "because wotlk classic" "because people want it", so that people can help improve the game with valid reports, instead of throwing everything at you and hope that something sticks, or that the 11th time reporting something finally gets it changed (as the one guy who kept reporting OoC proccs for literally half a decade until one dev decided to change it randomly now)

Why do we have to choose between 3.3.5a or WOTLK Classic or whatever?

Wouldn't it be simpler and best to collectively decide by OURSELVES on what the best solution/change would be?

Obviously not everything from 15 years ago will be or is the best option always. Blizzard confirmed that themselves by doing a lot of custom changes themselves on WOTLK Classic. But even WOTLK Classic had a lot of it's own problems (the list is too big to mention). The point I am trying to make is, why do we have to copy something, that even the "creators" themselves are not confident in?

Is it really impossible that something we had here could be better than what was in 3.3.5a or WOTLK Classic?

Logically speaking, wouldn't it be best to consider different options and even be transparent and ask the community's opinion on some sensitive topics (like changing/nerfing classes)?

Because, in the end of the day, those changes are being done for us, thousands of people get affected by them, therefore I would like to believe that what we have to say as a community also matters and that we are also heard. But sadly, those recent class changes prove absolutely the opposite. But not only that there is a lack of transparency, but there is not even a good way to provide a feedback. Bunch of reports that tried to do so got immediately Dismissed, people literally had no time to Upvote or write a Comment, immediate shut down, couldn't even speak up.

I've sent a Private Message to a couple of moderators on the Forum, because previously I've been told this is the intended way to reach out to the staff and I got ignored on both. What do we do in that case, just stay silent and accept what we are given? Does Warmane not get bothered if a change they have made bothers the community? Because so far I haven't heard of anyone being happy about the class changes that have been implemented?

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Originally Posted by Allylilith

I think most people would have much prefered an answer to my question.

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Perhaps, but this isn't something I can answer just with my own words alone. You're asking about a server-wide philosophy and that's something I can relay an answer I get, but not just casually make one of my own.

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Originally Posted by Allylilith

if that distinction wouldnt exist, warmane would be an exact copy of 3.3.5 or wotlk classic, but it isnt, so decisions are clearly taken based on the distinctions you claim to not exist.

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You somehow missed the point. I'm talking about you, nothing else.

You (and now others in the thread) are fabricating a distinction based on your personal bias, namely the aforementioned "if you didn't like it and agree with it being fixed, it was a bug; if you liked it and disagree with it being fixed, it was removing quality of life." If something was working incorrectly and not according to what we want to have, it wasn't quality of life that was removed, it was exploiting a bug that is now fixed.

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Originally Posted by Jengoftw

I've sent a Private Message to a couple of moderators on the Forum, because previously I've been told this is the intended way to reach out to the staff and I got ignored on both.

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No idea who told you that or why would they tell you that, we aren't middlemen to reach out to Staff. There are certain matters we might forward to the rest of the Staff (such as a server going offline or crashing repeatedly, for example), but we aren't here to pass on messages.

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Originally Posted by Obnoxious

If something was working incorrectly and not according to what we want to have, it wasn't quality of life that was removed, it was exploiting a bug that is now fixed.

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Okay, progress, you admit that you do changes based on what you want, not necessarily on what is 3.3.5 or wotlk classic doing. Would it be possible that whoever is in charge of deciding what they do or dont want, to be a little bit more transparent and explain why certain decisions are being taken, or take community opinions into account when deciding what they want the game to be like?
Literally not a single person who has played this game the past 20 years liked getting the "a more powerful spell is already active" error. Over the past years it got put into the game more and more, "because it's according to 3.3.5". Whoever is in charges of the changes, why do they want this to be in the game?
I also want to apologize for absusing bugs, such as reapplying a debuff to a boss in a moment where it was a dps gain for myself, or teleporting out of a dungeon and back in again without waiting 15secs outside, and going to toc and togc the same week to gear my characters.
I dont know if you play on this server yourself or not, but I hope you can relate to where our frustrations are coming from

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Originally Posted by Allylilith

I dont know if you play on this server yourself or not, but I hope you can relate to where our frustrations are coming from

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Some parts I can understand, but when we get to specifics, I'd look at things being fixed to how they were meant to be as "oh well, it was good while it lasted," not expect to mob my way into having them reverted.

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Originally Posted by Obnoxious

Perhaps, but this isn't something I can answer just with my own words alone. You're asking about a server-wide philosophy and that's something I can relay an answer I get, but not just casually make one of my own.

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I also appreciate this, but do you not consider it an issue, that not even you can answer this question, despite working there since a long time? How can I or other players know? and you kind of need to know this is order to make useful bug reports, without taking a gamble on it instantly being dismissed for not conforming 3.3.5, wotlk classic or what warmane wants.

I personally think that this is an extremely important matter for every developer to be on the same page on what direction to take the game into and other staff members to be made aware what that direction is. Otherwise the left hand doesn't know what the right one does, and we as seasoned players sit here, left confused on if to play around the green ooze on pp going afk when it's target use certain abilities, or report it as a bug, as playing around it feels like blatant bug abusing after having done the fight legitimately 100 times.
Doing any kind of change on something which has been running well for a decade+ comes with a cost, which I feel like has been underestimated a lot lately by whoever took said changes. I think it would be great if a question of "why?" and "does changing this make the game better? " could be answered positively before introducing a change. Any kind of quest being fixed or npc timers/paths being fixed etc, great, but if the change doesn't achieve anything except wasting players time at the cost of even hurting immersion, or making an underperforming class worse than it was the previous 10 years, wouldn't it be nice if those changes weren't blindly applied to conform to 3.3.5, but rather reconsidered?

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Originally Posted by Obnoxious

Some parts I can understand, but when we get to specifics, I'd look at things being fixed to how they were meant to be as "oh well, it was good while it lasted," not expect to mob my way into having them reverted.

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I agree with this on things, which were double-edged, and while they were fun to me, they hurt the game balance, or immersion or another player in some way.
but if it is a universally hated change that literally 997 out of 1000 people dislike and the other 3 don't know how it was before, I dont see why a change like that being in the game is a good thing, and if it isnt, it shouldn't be in there, in my opinion. for example warlocks having their own choice when to reapply corruption is objectively better for the game, than the game taking a sometimes wrong decision for them in telling that they cannot overwrite "a more powerful spell", leading to the warlock being unable to take the correct gameplay decision

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Originally Posted by Allylilith

I also appreciate this, but do you not consider it an issue, that not even you can answer this question, despite working there since a long time?

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I didn't say I can't, I said I can't with just my words alone, and I explained why. It's not a matter of inability, it's of unwillingness to speak by myself for the server and Staff as whole, on something that isn't decided by me individually.

Rather than seeing it as "making changes", see it as "fixing bugs". If something was bugged back on retail 3.3.5a, and it's easy enough to determine it was a bug rather than a design decision, they would like to have them fixed.