Warcraft Movie Logo and Weapons, Weapon Enchant Transmog, Ashran, Iron Skyreaver Sale

Greetings everyone! This is my first post on the forum as a blue poster. I’m Chris Kaleiki, a Game Designer on World of Warcraft. I work specifically on Ashran with some guy you may know -- Brian Holinka. I previously worked on class design, notably the design of the Monk.

The feedback you guys are giving is fantastic! Well appreciated. I wanted to respond.

Wall of text inc --

I have feedback on the “Horde and Alliance Hubs” (aka the staging areas)
The Horde and Alliance staging areas are still being worked on by the world team. As for Ashran the world PvP zone, they have very little relevance. You may see some random PvP skirmishes there in the same way you see skirmishes in any Horde or Alliance capital, but they’re not meant to be part of the overall world pvp zone. While we do want your feedback on those areas, the PvP team’s involvement is pretty minimal so I suggest directing them towards the general discussions in this forum rather than this specific discussion.

I feel the size of Ashran is too small.
During Ashran’s early development we debated whether the zone should be larger, but we ultimately landed on its current size after concluding that if the zone were too big your chances of running into the opposite faction in your day to day excursions would be quite low. We want there to be a feeling that you’re sharing a limited resource with the opposing faction, and you have to fight over that resource. The bigger the zone, the less the opposite faction’s presence matters, and the less tension and ultimately the less world PvP will transpire.

That said, it could be possible that the zone could still stand to be larger. And if more players spill out into the side areas to where it gets too cramped, we may have to make changes. Keep in mind we also want to build onto Ashran in patch content.

What is the philosophy behind Ashran?
Ashran is a new type of PvP design. While it does have the spirit of old Alterac Valley, it’s not supposed to be purely an objective based map. Our goal here was to create situations in where players would engage in world PvP. These situations primarily are the outskirts areas, off the midlane.

In beta it is understandable that players are not reward driven. But on live, we expect players to be driven by getting honor and other rewards for their characters. The PvE on Ashran will be the most rewarding in that regard. The idea is that Horde and Alliance will be fighting over completing the side objectives and spawning and that will create interesting PvP situations (especially since you can loot other players currency). Even within the current incarnation of Ashran on beta I’ve experienced small unexpected fights in the outskirts areas.

We feel we’ve delivered on objective based win condition content through battlegrounds, but we haven’t delivered in giving players a sandbox environment where they can experience PvP similar to that of which you may have experienced before battlegrounds were created. We’re trying to do that with Ashran.

One of my most memorable moments of world pvp before battlegrounds were introduced into WoW was when my guildmates were farming for the frostsaber mount in Winterspring. They were being ganked by a Horde guild over and over, so some of our guildies went to help them out. The Horde guild responded by sending more of their guildmates. Then other random guilds joined in. Eventually, there were so many players in that area we crashed the server.

The spirit of that experience is what we’re trying to go for in a zone like Ashran.

What’s the deal with the middle lane?
The middle lane serves as a centerpiece of Ashran. It’s similar to that of Alterac Valley: a push/pull tug-of-war battle. While the road of glory isn’t exactly world PvP, this type of PvP is appealing to a number of players so we decided to include it in Ashran. It’s also nice to know that there is almost always going to be some battle going on there.

The middle lane wont’ really be very rewarding in terms of honor or currency. And we intentionally don’t have a way to “win Ashran.” Storming the enemy base and killing their commander will give you some reward and an achievement, but it’s not the main focus of the zone. If your time in Ashran is within the middle lane and storming the enemy base, you’re mostly doing that for the intrinsic fun of it.

What is the main objective?
We envision that most players will be coming to Ashran to farm honor and rewards. You’ll do that by killing creatures and participating in the side events. Along the way you’ll find items that boost your characters power (such as the class books, scrolls, wands etc.) and we hope you’ll get some PvP fights.
There is no objective like “cap and hold these points, run this flag, kill this guy” like our other objective based maps. We’ve found that more objective heavy maps lead to more predictable gameplay, which lead to less interesting unexpected PvP fights… which defines the idea of “world pvp.”

That said, I would say some goals in the map would be as a faction to maintain the mage portals, warlock gateways, and spawn Fangraal/Kronus. They all serve to help your faction be more efficient in the zone.

Why does Ashran not put you into a group/raid?
Ashran is intended to simulate any other zone in WoW. If we put you into a huge group, that would insinuate that there is some global objective to win… which there really isn’t. We want you to be able to come to Ashran in a small group as you would in any zone to collect honor and other rewards.
That said, I can certainly see the utility of having a raid group if you’re in Ashran to just do some casual PvP in the road of glory. For that, we will just leave it to players to create those groups naturally. It’s a bit anti-social to be forced into a raid group if you don’t want to be in one.

Faction balance
Balancing Horde and Alliance populations is a priority. Current on beta, there is no population enforcement. It’s something we’ll be monitoring and tweaking going forward.

Keep in mind Ashran is still in development. There are bugs, things will change, items will be put in, new side objectives added etc. We hope you’ll revisit Ashran as the builds progress in beta.

Phalanx, as a PvE Guy, one of the things I was looking forward to most was Ashran, but after messing around with it, that intrigue has worn out, I know you guys keep saying you don't want objective based gameplay, but in my opinion the best part of all of Ashran is the Minecart area at the Quarry, all the side areas should be like that, if they aren't already. I find myself there, more than the middle lane. The biggest and most glaring issue besides the lack of things to do out of the "tug-of-war" is the middle lane being what most would call a cluster.... it is not intuitive gameplay to have everyone just stack and spam, it isn't fun either, I get the tug-of-war ability, but if you want that, it needs to be matched with other things to do for people who do not want that and want Wintergrasp and Tol Borad back. As it stands Ashran feels LESS like Alterac Valley and more like Temple of Kotmogu, there is simply not enough to do around the zone (I am sure most of this can be attributed to the fact that it is beta.)
There are "PvP Events" at each of the POIs. The minecart at the quarry, there's a "cap the fires" event at the tower, and a race event at the stadium. The burial ground event isn't live yet. We're glad you like those events, and they're still work in progress. We're going to work to highlight those more in the zone, and of course they'll also have rewards.

I would reiterate that the goal of summoning Fangraal/Kronus could stand to feel more rewarding. Right now a decent tank can solo them given enough time. Perhaps something like a heal debuff aura or random target change timer in combination with a substantial damage increase would be cool to see. I want to see these guys on the field and hope that there is a raid group with me or nearby.
They're going to get beefed up for the next build, and we're going to add to their abilities and correct to their pathing as well. The idea originally was for them to patrol the outskirts areas (since we didn't want to make the midlane the focal point), but it's something that can possibly change.

Clarification on Highmaul/Foundry Boss Kill Order
Highmaul has three completely optional bosses: Brackenspore, Butcher, and Tectus can be skipped if you like (a la Ignis or Razorscale in Ulduar).

Foundry has no optional bosses, but consists of three separate wings that must be cleared to access Blackhand's Crucible (layout is more like Naxxramas). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Garrison Resources Cap
Lots of tuning still to come on resources. Mission cost, cap and general acquisition rate all examples of things that we will be updating. Feedback on this is very useful, thanks! (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Creatures

• Kurtok the Slayer's health has been reduced to be slightly less menacing to the denizens of Northshire.

Classes
Death Knight (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
As a blood DK main, I need to ask, Why remove Heart Strike and Rune Strike, but keep Plague Strike and Icy touch?
Because they were redundant gameplay (with Pestilence/BloodBoil and Death Coil), whereas PS/IT are not. (Celestalon)
Plus removing HS there are annoying gaps. Would love to see that brought back. Currently blood is so slow, boring
You may have missed that you should be using Pestilence (aka Blood Boil) instead of Heart Strike. No rotation diff. (Celestalon)
It's more of a flavor thing for me, I feel using a AOE attack on a single target fight is pointless.
Heart Strike and Blood Boil are in Blood's rotation, and are already AoEs. (Celestalon)

Druid (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Most notable suggestion being having 2 separate eclipse power bars for Lunar/Solar that regenerate in 2 ways
Extremely unlikely that we'd go in a direction that added significant learning complication, such as that would. (Celestalon)

Are you guys still open to change/improve the new Eclipse system to provide more control for the player and depth for the spec?
We have another change coming soon that we think will improve it a bit more. Hang tight for that. (Celestalon)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Celestalon are you serious? You seriously want our mastery to only be good during certain situations?
Tons of stats have situational strengths. And the situation where Sniper Training is good is the vast majority of time. (Celestalon)

Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Why do all energy specs have to be restricted by energy? Already 4 specs that are, why can't WW stay unique and fastpaced(fun)
...because then it's not an energy spec? Energy is pointless if it's not a limitation. (Celestalon)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
is there any chance to implement something for fury warriors like the fire mages have?
Bloodthirst fills the same role. (Celestalon)

Ooc, will the new Rend's final burst work like Living Bomb? IE - Refresh before Rend expires, still burst finish when it would?
Yes. (Celestalon)

Art
Are the new remodeled Arakkoa female? They sure have some female look.
The model is used for both male and female characters. (DonAdams)

And then I remembered that the Fem Tauren model isn't updated yet.
oooh yeh she is, we'll get an update out in the next few weeks to satiate bovine curiosity (artofcgrobinson)

I've noticed that the elbows on drakes'/dragons' wings bulge terribly during flight. Can/will this be corrected?
yeh...that's been a sore spot for a while now - hope to fix but no eta (artofcgrobinson)

Warlords of Draenor Stats
Does this imply flasks for secondaries? If so, excitement.
Yes, Warlords flasks give secondary stats: more potential choice. Primary was a no-brainer (except maybe Spi vs. Int for healers). (WatcherDev)

Reputation / Questing
Plan to have her (Yrel) own voice as well Khadgar?
Yes! VO is still being recorded and localized. (DaveKosak)

Garrisons
seriously scared about such restricted Garrison customization.
Customization is certainly cool, but as we have said, it's not the number one priority. Fun gameplay comes first.
It'll be fun to RP in with friends as well, I'm just looking out for other's concerns is all.
Have some customization options in the works: Monuments, garrison banners and racial guards to name a few. (mumper)

With the new follower AI Is it fully implemented in tier 2+ garrisons? They only patrol the garrison now, and nothing else
Nope, still very much a work in progress. Tier 3 Alliance probably furthest along so far. (mumper)

Tech
Any chance the pop-in distance can be increased for npcs?
We get asked that a lot by design. We'd like to, but it's very hard on the servers. The area the server thinks you should see is 100 yards around you most of the time. But area increases with square of distance. So an increase of 50 yards (50%) means more than 2x work on the server. So not very likely in the open world in 6.0. As we continue to improve the code maybe later. (kurtismcc)
Thats not too bad really, and makes sense r/e what I know about it. Would non-circular shapes for render distance be unfeasible?
The math is really nice for circles and squares. We use circles. Considered ellipses for when server not loaded. Other things we can try. I was originally going to investigate some for 6.0, but ran out of time. Spatial hashing and other techniques more understood than when WoW first coded. Also things like update rate scale linearly. (kurtismcc)

At the start of MoP, Chess became IMPOSSIBLE because cpu would take many moves faster than it should. Was actually caused by improving responsiveness of one of our systems, when chess was built assuming that delay. The fix was just to force the delay back into chess, but was hard to anticipate the specific problem. (pedrothedagger)

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