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11-06-05, 08:11 PM   #34
Cairenn
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Druid

Druids in WoW came from the War 3 Druid of the Claw, Druid of the Talon, and Keepers of the Grove. Druids were on the cutting room floor at first. The lore only allowed for male night elves to become druids, and the lore director was adamant about that. Eventually the druid was such a cool class, and filled such a needed role in the balance, that the lore was changed to allow them as a player class. As a note… all night elven sentinels… or warriors… are female if they are NPCs… and all night elf druids are male. The NPCs stick to the original lore.

The biggest power of the druids is their shape shifting. It is what makes them powerful, and is the class defining feature. Druids are the only true hybrid class, and the shape shifting is what enables that. The shape shifting was the vehicle used to make them the hybrid work.

Talent system

Originally there was a simple stat customization system to allow players to differentiate each other. When you leveled, you placed your stats where you wanted.

This was not desired, as it did not provide the game style they wanted, and did not provide the feedback to the player.

Early concepts of the talent system were based on a cost system. You have XXX talents points every level… and then you spent them on various talents… each costing a different amount… it looked like the spell interface. The flat modifiers and lousy end game scaling is what nixed this method quickly

After these first two, they took a page from Diablo 2, and went with a tree style progression. A limited pool of points was also desired, as having to pick and choose… to compromise... is what would set apart the different build styles. They also wanted the talents to be mostly passive, with some “gold medal” talents which became spells scattered around.

There was a lot of iterations of these basic ideas… each getting closer and closer to the current design. They wanted to focus on flexibility and expandability. They have plans on allowing the talent trees to expand downward… continually getting deeper, but not wider. When they go from level 70 to level 80 cap (eventually they will… said so)… they will keep growing the trees downwards. For instance… at level 70… someone can do 41/20… but you will never be able to get the best talent in one line, and the 21 in another.

Originally you could not respecc. It was a one time thing, and if you messed up, then you were screwed. After a while they saw the problem with this, but kept the price high, discouraging constant respeccing.

On a PvP realm… 60s end up respecting an average of 3.6 times. On a PvE realm… 2.8 times.

Class Balance

There is a lot of ways to balance things.

Raid, Solo, Group, PvE, PvP

And the roles and abilities need to have different focuses for each. Each one needs to feel challenging to the player, and for the game play.

Players can surprise the designers on the class roles. The designers originally envisioned paladins to be front line players in a large PvE raid… swinging swords and taking blows, not staying in the back healing and cleansing. The players can adjust the balance and concept of the classes.

Future

There will be more mechanics at levels 60-70. It won’t just be a rehash of the current spells, but more powerful. The current spells and abilities will be upgraded, but new ones will be added, and improved.

There will be an increase in the racial differences. The priest class was used as an example of the different races being a class, and they want to expand on this in all of the classes.

Heroes are still be worked on. There is no details or ETA, but it is something actively being worked on, and they want to do it in the spirit of Warcraft 3. “Do it right”

In the 1.9 patch, paladins will be re evaluated. The focus of the new change is to look into three types of paladins. The healer, the damage dealer, and the protector. There will also be more agro abilities or mechanics, allowing for paladins to main tank more. The seal and judgment system is going to undergo a heavy review. The big paladin news… there will be AE blessings:
  • 15 minute duration
  • The “group” will be based on class. Cast the AE might on a warrior, all warriors in that party/raid get it if they are in range
It was not said if the 15 minute duration was for all blessings, or just the AE ones. It was not said if the AE blessings were trainable, book based, or a talent. It was not said if the Ae blessings required a reagent.

The talent review of the paladins will follow the pattern of the druid's changes. A lot of items will be consolidated, giving more choice to the player. Abilities that are mutually exclusive will be merged, like cat and bear talents where. The abilities will be more consistent in their flow.

The paladin will have more dps, at the expense of some of its obscene survivability. A talent preview will be up when they are more comfortable of the results.

Casters will be getting a lot of upgrades in the future through gear. “Spell penetration” and other proc abilities will be added to gear. The effect of +dmg to items is being looked at, to keep the damage progression in line with a rogues

Priests are the masters of agro control. No other class is able to control and remove agro as much as a priest. A warrior is good, but does not have the fine control a good priest has. Other classes won’t have the priests agro control, it’s a class defining feature.

Why are the persons abilities in MC not usable, instead of just auto attack? Mainly balance. Why should a priest be able to blow all of someone’s cool downs. As far as NPCs doing that… they have special NPC powers.
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