13.2.11

Light of Fizzle Update: Stealth Nerf Stealthily Unnerfed.

As I'm sure most of my readers have already discovered from far more reliable sources (Kurn, Ophelie), it seems that Blizzard has decided to unnerf (de-nerf? Antinerf?) Light of Dawn just as sneakily as they nerfed it before.

As others have I have confirmed that Light of Dawn is, in fact, still transferring through Beacon of Light.  It seems that this change has been reverted.  This doesn't really make a lot of sense, especially considering how quickly things were turned around.

I have a theory, however.

It's one of two things:

It's possible that Blizzard heard the outcry from the community and reversed the change.  This would mean that the WoW developers are listening to their players and as much as they are trying to balance the classes, they are willing to reverse a change that the player base can make a legitimate argument against.  In this case, the idea that this change might cause Paladins to lose a lot of their versatility may have been persuasive enough to cause Blizzard to change it back.  Or, perhaps they are just sick of all the wailing and gnashing of teeth; we paladins are a boisterous, vocal lot, after all, and are willing to rise up in armed revolt over the least little nerf.

Either way, the idea that Blizzard listens to the concerns of their player base and is responsive to their feedback is so optimistic that it almost borders on silly.  There is no way that we have things that good, is there?

The other option is that Blizzard has taken the idea of beta testing to a whole other level.  All developers will beta test new features or changes to the game before they are released to ensure that they work before they make the change.  This way they can prevent mistakes and improve quality.

I think that Blizzard, on the other hand,  is pioneering something different:  Blizzard has started beta testing patch notes.  Yes, in order to ensure that they produce the best patch notes possible, they are releasing potential changes to the notes before they release the actual notes.  By releasing a beta patch note they can see how it looks, play with the fonts and colours to ensure that their notes are the absolute best in the industry.

It's a brave new world.

3 comments:

  1. This nerf, then unnerf makes me a little nervous. I think it's safe to say that there will be a nerf incomming in the near future. I admit, I made my Paladin on the day of launch of Cata so that I could primarly be a tank healer in raids. I have played every healer except for a Paladin and I was looking forward to the new concept. I'm starting to second guess the role of the Holy Paladin and starting to look more at my ol' trustee priest sitting in his sweet ICC loots at 80.

    I've also started building my Prot gear up in case we get a really bad 'Rodney King' nerf beating...

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  2. That's a great idea, beta testing patch notes, except for the few hours the nerf was in effect.

    It really is just silly how a change like this was pushed through so quickly. So LoD is bugged so you can flashlight the second raid in Tol Barad and push 80k+ through your Beacon? Who cares?! You have to have too many things occurring at one time:
    1) A huge group of people outside your own raid standing in a pack where you can hit them with the LoD cone.
    2) Your Beacon positioned on an enemy's focus target.
    3) Enough Holy Power to cast LoD for useful healing.

    It's just hilarious that a developer thought this was so broken that they would break the (publicly stated) intended mechanic of LoD working with Beacon. It definitely made a bunch of people angry, but the more I think about it the more I believe somebody at Blizzard got chewed out this weekend.

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  3. I think it was more of a "Well, this is on my list to fix, so someone must have KNOWN what the consequences were and were ok with them" /fixbug. That's my guess. I don't see a LoD nerf in the future, though I agree that I would be OK with it not transferring at all, if it got a huge boost in healing done.

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