Dev Responds to Brewmaster Feedback

This is in reference to the alpha wowforum on brewmaster feedbackI have a quick synopsis...um...a forum spoiler?: For weeks, Brewmasters have been complaining about the playstyle and viability of brewmasters. On page 1, Celestalon began to respond to that feedback, basically saying they like how it looks.The testers (and I) were very disappointed. One poster said it made him tear up a bit, and I'm going to admit: I kinda did the same. On page 2, Celestalon began to make some claims that brewmaster was quite strong (even using the word "virtually unkillable"). He tried to steer the testers to rethink how they are making decisions with the class. On page 3, responding to more outcry, he gave a bit more explanation of what makes the class strong.Following this was one of the more interesting reads I've seen. The testers go on and on about how've they've cleared 13/13 Mythic yadda yadda yadda, they know how to play their class, etc. Lots of claims that Celestalon and the dev team don't know what they're talking about or are not playing the same build...Then, on page 6 the magic happened. Celestalon actually posted an icy-veins style tutorial on how to play the spec. The fact that he did so tells me a lot about the dev team. The fact that he would ultimately be somewhat right, tells me a lot about the arrogance of some players.What it told me about the dev team: clearly, they had designed brewmaster to play a certain way. They assumed testers would figure this out...they did not. I don't necessarily blame them, but the fact remained. With so much blowback, they finally just threw up their hands and said, just tell them what to do and we won't have to redesign everything...because it works! So...they did! Also, it shows they have no problem talking down to people in somewhat rude ways...What it told me about testers: A lot of them are very good, but there is a hubris around how they treat the alpha. They see themselves as the problem fixers. They see it as: Blizz screwed up, so I'll help them fix it. They also know that things have been screwed up in the past, but didn't get fixed. The problem with this mentality (and you can see it with the streamers) is that they don't have an open-mind towards design changes. This is a problem because design change is a pretty big part of every expansion. It's also a problem because it reveals a breakdown of trust between the elite player community and the developers, which is and has been harmful for the health of the game.To finish the story, pages 6-11 had about four different posts. There was the 'how dare you tell us how to play posts.' There was the 'ok tried it, it doesn't work.' There was the 'o....this does work, but there was no way we would have guessed it.' Finally, there was the '(glosses over that this works) here's a bunch of other problems, the biggest of which is the whole orbs thing.'Finally, on page 12, the team made their response. They agreed some of it was not intuitive (but now that they explained it, they knew people would easily disseminate the info) and announced key changes to the orbs and reintroduced expel harm. These were both changes called on several times during feedback.I bring this up with some takeaways in mind: -Despite how you feel, the dev team does read the feedback. They may disagree with it, and they could be wrong, but they do read it.-The dev team gets frustrated when players don't see things the way they do and hopes that time will bring people around. So immediate responses are not always the most appropriate...I guess...not sure why they couldn't have just said this all in the class preview.-Testers should have a little more faith in the dev team. I can understand why they wouldn't, but before explaining something is wrong, make sure it is wrong.-Communication from the dev team is absolutely essential. When testers are unified in their opinion, there needs to be a response. Even if the dev team is wrong, they need to communicate what they're thinking and what they're trying to do. Perhaps, they could do this in a less insulting manner than Cestelon did and they need not go into as much depth as the guide he provided, but the fact remains.tl;dr Devs told testers what to do and then listened to the community...lessons learned?