wow Spell Variance in Shadowlands

[Stan 5,240]

Blizzard is bringing back spell variance in Shadowlands, which means that most non-periodic abilities will have a small amount of variance (about 5%) on the damage or healing of each individual use.

(Source)

In an upcoming build, most non-periodic abilities on all classes will have a small amount of variance on the damage or healing of each individual use.

This was standard behavior in WoW for many years (and has its roots in familiar mechanics from many RPGs), but recently was lost as a side effect of some under-the-hood mechanical changes. We’re restoring this behavior now to bring back the small bit of texture, and avoid the result where using the same spell repeatedly results in exactly the same 3- or 4-digit number every time.

We’re keeping the amount of variance small (5% currently), so that the impact on total performance, over the course of a combat with many events, is negligible.

What do you think about the change? Do you consider 5% negligible? Let us know in the comments!

[KDF 26]

Well, that's a misleading question. 5% variance on individual casts is entirely different than 5% difference in performance vs other players. 

I'm fine with it. I like that the dev team is looking at ways to reintroduce RPG elements that have been lost over time. This could add a little flavor without affecting much over time or even over 1 long fight. 

And I say that as one who generally hates rng driven combat. (One reason for my choice of class/spec is to avoid combat driven by random procs as much as possible.)

[Yojiro 30]

As someone who always has terrible luck I hate things like this, I don't see what the problem is with having performance actually based on well.... player performance. 

Blizzard (and people) like to throw around the RPG argument whenever something is hard to back up logically but it's important to remember that the main reason RPGs have had variance on things like abilities is because they were traditionally tabletop games where variance came from dice rolls (or other similar means), when transitioning over to computers this was copied over since games had very limited player control, WoW on the other hand has freeform player movement where the dice roll variance should have been replaced with what those rolls are supposed to represent: player input.

You could make the argument that crit chance has the same problem though.

 

Also keep in mind, just like how you are having this 5% variance so is everyone else, theoretically if one player is very lucky and another one is very unlucky the gap between those will be much higher than just 5%

[Mugendai 48]

I think something like 1% would be fine, i think the point here is just not to have the exact same number every time.

But having 10% difference with someone who got lucky, when you got unlucky, I think is absolutely terrible.

[KDF 26]

That's not how math works, though. Over the course of a dungeon or long fight, the chance of a meaningful performance difference is negligible. (Not that I'm for things like twilight dev randomly throwing in an extra 40% or not on specific fights, but that's a whole other level where it has become very problematic.)

This is going to come down, though, to a basic divide between people who want a purely determinative action game and those who value an immersive, complex world in which not everything is built around facilitating competitive performance. The realism of the fantasy, so to speak, is enhanced by the fact that not every cast or blade swipe has identical results. A certain level of unpredictability is inherent in the world. Simulating that isn't necessarily bad. 

Part of the magic of WoW, named right in the title, that makes it different from most action games, is that it is the creation of a whole world to get lost in, not just a series of fights to excel at. I think that the dev team, thanks in part to the success of classic, is recognizing that much of that magic has been lost over time and are exploring ways to find it again.

[Mugendai 48]

2 minutes ago, KDF said:

rely determinative action game and those who value an immersive, complex world in which not everything is built around facilitating competitive performance. The realism of the fantasy, so to speak, is enhanced by the fact that not every cast or blade swipe has identical results. A certain level of unpredictability is inherent in the world. Simulating that isn't necessarily bad. 

 

That's why in my post I said that they should put something like 1% and not 5%. If the point is just to have different numbers, they don't need to have such a big increase. 5% of dps in a fight if you got really unlucky can be the difference between a win or a lose.

[Zalto 2]

Whyyyyy blizz, stop it please.....  There is no reason to do this now, i want to feel the error when i press a wrong spell not to have it randomly be better than the other time i did it perfectly it just feels so bad, and for the love of god either remove the covenant abilities or make them a talent row

Edited August 9, 2020 by Zalto

[durdyenglish 298]

48 minutes ago, Mugendai said:

I think something like 1% would be fine, i think the point here is just not to have the exact same number every time.

But having 10% difference with someone who got lucky, when you got unlucky, I think is absolutely terrible.

I don't believe this scenario will be possible.

[durdyenglish 298]

45 minutes ago, KDF said:

That's not how math works, though. Over the course of a dungeon or long fight, the chance of a meaningful performance difference is negligible. (Not that I'm for things like twilight dev randomly throwing in an extra 40% or not on specific fights, but that's a whole other level where it has become very problematic.)

This is going to come down, though, to a basic divide between people who want a purely determinative action game and those who value an immersive, complex world in which not everything is built around facilitating competitive performance. The realism of the fantasy, so to speak, is enhanced by the fact that not every cast or blade swipe has identical results. A certain level of unpredictability is inherent in the world. Simulating that isn't necessarily bad. 

Part of the magic of WoW, named right in the title, that makes it different from most action games, is that it is the creation of a whole world to get lost in, not just a series of fights to excel at. I think that the dev team, thanks in part to the success of classic, is recognizing that much of that magic has been lost over time and are exploring ways to find it again.

I could not agree more. I was just saying in another post that it appears some players want a level of homogenization on par with the modern FPS experience, essentially reducing the game down to predetermined load-outs with marginal individual customization.

I don't want to play Battlefield, I want to play World of Warcraft. I want my character to be my avatar in a world where success is measured by survival, not by analytics that exists only to us as the user. Is the damage meter fun? Sure. Do I think it's a metric disproportionately relied on the gauge how successful any one player is in a given encounter? Absolutely.

How much damage did the player take? How many interrupts did they have? How many bad *filtered* damage windows did they execute that got lost in the shuffle because of mandatory down time in the fight?

I am really excited for the return of these RPG elements in Shadowlands.

 

[Badadada 184]

Cool, will the new values be generated on a normal or uniform distribution basis?

[KDF 26]

 

36 minutes ago, Badadada said:

Cool, will the new values be generated on a normal or uniform distribution basis?

That's a really good question. I would hope normal, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were linear. 

[OldGromm 1]

RPGs are about choices, not randomness in player performance. If I wanted rng to determine whether I win or lose, I would play X-com. It's stuff like this that will make people choose a covenant based on best performance instead of what seems to be the best cosmetic choice and/or interesting spell variance.

[KDF 26]

For reference, I ran some sims. (Actually doing the math would take a modicum of effort.)  

My Ny'alotha logs show me doing several hundred attacks (incl. melee) per kill. So, assuming a linear distribution and 5% variance over 500 attacks, I ran a million iterations and measured to overall effect.  

An overall difference in performance from the norm of >1%, a limit some have suggested might be acceptable, occurred exactly ZERO times. A performance difference of >0.5% occurred only 0.0114% of the time.  If the distribution is normal instead of linear, it would be even less.  

Yeah, I don't think this is anything to get upset about.  The effect of overall performance is negligible.  

[Syridian 14]

15 hours ago, OldGromm said:

RPGs are about choices, not randomness in player performance. If I wanted rng to determine whether I win or lose, I would play X-com. It's stuff like this that will make people choose a covenant based on best performance instead of what seems to be the best cosmetic choice and/or interesting spell variance.

 

So for you, crit chance was just something that happened to other people or?