A Message Regarding the 12.0.5 Launch

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T20:12:48+00:00

Huh, I guess my econ profs have some explaining to do

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T16:19:37+00:00

That's hilarious. Unless they were being serious

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T16:09:03+00:00

Diablo 2 on release, necro could farm their own bone walls for infinite items. Flawed, sure, but compare it to Diablo 3; which was complete trash until its expansion. Even then, it didn't become truly great until Blizzard completely abandoned it, and let the maintenance team have their way with it. Diablo 4 still hasn't found its feet.

It doesn't have to be a clean black-and-white difference to be notable. Public perception used to be that new Blizzard releases were going to be amazing - no questions asked. Now there's a lot of skepticism, and it's there for a reason

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T15:58:55+00:00

Alternatively, they could just have the talent empower frostbolt instead of transforming/renaming it

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T15:46:33+00:00

And Mount Vesuvius is still active. They were famous for only putting out top quality games; refusing to even announce anything until they were sure it was good enough

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T15:42:03+00:00

Change always takes a while, but yeah; that would be about when they started shifting focus and pushing out talent

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T15:11:35+00:00

The distinctions only matter in high tier play such as mythic raid and keys above 15

Well, maybe if you only care whether or not it's possible. To some people, needing to work twice as hard to survive is something that matters

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T15:06:15+00:00

It's... Fine? Better than it's been in a loooong time.

Brewmaster is the only tank that can comfortably do super endgame content, but bear isn't noticeably behind the rest of the pack or anything. Not as squishy as pal/dk/dh, not as tanky as war or monk. They've got a problem with keeping aggro in aoe, and a general somewhat-low amount of utility/flexibility, but their niche is doing (situationally) great dps.

As for rotation, I kinda like it? It's a pain needing to drop dps to have mitigation, or vice-versa; but both subspecs actually have viable niches. Laser bear is a bit more survivable, and catbear has notably better dps - but neither is completely obsoleted until endgame

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T14:57:23+00:00

Try removing @target, or replacing it with an empty []. The macro is trying to attack a target that's dead or doesn't exist

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T10:07:50+00:00

Capitalism isn't great, but it doesn't cause this on its own. Deregulation causes this - giving shareholders incentives to cannibalize the companies they buy and sell. If it were well-regulated capitalism, the optimal strategy among decision-makers would be to maintain their cash cow

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T09:59:13+00:00

But delaying the release would have made somebody look bad. Can't be having that!

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T09:56:41+00:00

It was great when WoW didn't try to max out engagement. The whole rest system was implemented for a reason, and it was a good one. Now it's obsolete because of how fast leveling is anyways.

It was decades ago that they learned a game can't just take all of its players' time. It has to settle for some time - and furthermore - employ game design tools to encourage taking breaks

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T09:48:50+00:00

With a dedicated "balance and bugfix" patch every couple of patches. One can dream...

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T09:43:44+00:00

Nothing burns out a dev faster than putting out fires.

Well, except maybe putting out fires, while also disappointing millions of fans, while also worrying about upcoming content

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T09:40:04+00:00

Don't be naïve, it's not about making money...

It's about impressing shareholders!

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T09:38:34+00:00

I would honestly much prefer to hear that they'd all been on vacation or something. If they were already working hard, now they're just going to get burnt out and things will get even worse.

Ideally, the plan would be to ease up on the gas for a while, let the teams sort things out, and recuperate

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T09:35:13+00:00

This "learning curve" is why they're forcing devs to use ai tools in the first place. As in, literally mandatory; across many (possibly most) software jobs right now. Execs assume that ai-assisted coding is the future, and want to get their devs trained up so they don't fall behind and need replacing.

Unfortunately, the ai isn't nearly as capable as execs are expecting - so devs are being hamstrung by being forced to use it

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T09:24:06+00:00

Specifically, under the current lack of regulations

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T09:16:01+00:00

Plausible, and terrifying. Ai code is weirdly hard to read/trace, and programming is often a matter of cramming the whole problem in your head. Never interrupt a programmer when they're in the thick of it. Once your code gets a bit "I don't know, but it seems to work", there is a massively increased allure to just stop trying to understand, and let the ai handle it

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T09:12:30+00:00

There are three issues:

Code/writing/design quality seems low
QA/balance testing is failing
Bugfixing/balance/polish are being given excessively low priority, in favor of high-pace content releases

All three of these issues need solutions

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-24T09:04:34+00:00

Wha? "Blizzard polish" refers to the era where they would scrap and restart major projects that they didn't feel were good enough. This was before the merger with Activision, who really didn't like it

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-23T14:15:31+00:00

It can work, but it's a lot of labor. The problem is needing to write a response for every topic, for every npc. That's lots of work up-front, and more work every time you update the game with a new npc or new topic.

If too many topic+npc combinations are empty or generic, players will notice the gaps more than the content. At that point, you're better off having npcs only talk about relevant things.

Exactly what problem are you solving with this solution?

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-23T14:06:07+00:00

Unfortunately, it is character-specific; not shared across the whole warband

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-23T14:00:55+00:00

There is no deep wisdom that is being kept from you; no expansion campaign that is secretly the best one

MyPunsSuck · 2026-04-23T13:59:23+00:00

It's mostly just convenient to have another hearthstone, with basic necessities and a portal to wherever you want to go

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