BlizzCon Interview, Increased Mythic Keystone Rewards, Nov 8 Hotfixes, Q&A, Reinhardt

PTR Patch 2.4.3 Datamined and Patchnotes

Miniature Warfare is This Week's Brawl!

BlizzCon 2016 - Chris Robinson and John Hight Interview
Chris Robinson and John Hight sat down with us at BlizzCon to talk about Legion!


New Caster Animations
  • New caster animations are still in the works and the team is trying to figure out if they can use weapons for some of the animations.

Legendary Items
  • "Will we see new legendary items in Patch 7.2?" - "Not per se. We do have legendaries that you haven't seen yet. Yes, you will discover things in Patch 7.2 that you haven't seen yet. As to whether or not you are going to find them before 7.2 drops, can't answer that."
  • Patch 7.1 increased the chance that you will receive a legendary item if you don't already have one.
  • Legendary items are special and when you receive one it gives you a story to tell.

Class Mounts
  • Color variants exist for the class mounts right now, so they may eventually show up if the team finds a place for them.
  • Class mounts will only be usable on a character of that class.
  • The team knows that getting the fantasy for each class mount right is very important.
  • They talked to all of the artists on the team that would be working on the mounts and assigned the mounts to the artists that actually play that class. The artist was given the task of creating a class mount.
  • The artists came up with concepts and came back to the team for discussion and iteration. All of the artists that did the concepts built the models and did the texturing.
  • It wasn't someone unfamiliar with the class doing the work, but someone that was very passionate about it.
  • Leveraging passion is something that the art team tries to do as much as possible.
  • It is very clear when you are doing a piece of art if the artist was behind it from a passion perspective.
  • Artists usually find a reason to be passionate about something they are working on, even if it isn't for their class or something they really enjoy they will go and dig into the lore and find what resonates with them and use that as their passion.
  • If someone isn't feeling the art they are working on, they won't be forced to work on it, someone else can do it. This typically happens with tier armor sets that are very specific to classes rather than a raid or theme.

Skeleton Reuse
  • The Gronnling Mount skeleton has been reused way too much.
  • It probably drives the team crazier than anyone else, as they want to do so much but have very limited time when it comes to animation.
  • Animation is one of the most impacted areas when a new model is introduced.
  • The team has to spend hundreds of hours to do all of the movement required for a new set of animations.
  • With all of the costumes and transformations added to the game, they have to make sure those have animations so that things look right when you are transformed.
  • The team has more characters that they want to introduce than they have time to animate from an original skeleton perspective.
  • Sometimes they can reuse the skeleton and just do a new set of base animations to give it a more unique feel.
  • Is it cooler to have something that is in and wouldn't have been done in the first place with a reused skeleton or just not do it at all?

3D Armor Pieces
  • The new 3D armor pieces will probably be expanded to other item sets beyond tier sets in the future. If they do a guard set for a new race in the game they can try to give it to players as a reward. These new models also allow the team to do non symmetrical armor sets. Shoulders can be asymmetrical as they are different models, but anything on the body had to be mirrored exactly before this.

Mounts
  • There are no plans to add more waterwalking mounts, as in Patch 7.2 you will be able to fly again and the Water Strider won't be the only mount many people use anymore.

Weather
  • The team is talking about how they could add weather that has a gameplay impact in the world, similar to the new battleground brawl.
  • They could make environments that are very windy, causing you to be pushed a little bit by the wind or having to walk slower against the wind.
  • The problem with that is players that go AFK are slowly pushed across the area.
  • The team will continue to talk about how they can do it, as it adds more immersion to the environment.

World Detail
  • The team recently introduced height based fog. Previously the fog was a sphere around you, so any direction you looked in the fog was equal. Now the team can actually fill a basin with fog when you are looking down from up high in Highmountain.
  • The detail on buildings far off in the distance is removed by using lower detail models, allowing you to see things farther in the distance.
  • The team also did some significant memory optimizations in the base client for Legion, freeing up some resources.

Model Updates
  • The team looks at a lot of old models, such as the Death Knight's ghoul model and considers if it helps to push the story to update the model.
  • The team tries to update models that can be an overall fidelity win for the game.
  • The Death Knight ghoul is a good example, as once it is updated, the new model will appear everywhere in the world where there are ghouls. The likelyhood of that happening is higher than something that is a model just used by one class or in one place in the game.
  • There aren't any plans to update skyboxes in older zones right now. The team tries to utilize the existing world in ways that make sense for the storytelling.
  • The invasions allowed players to go back and see some zones that new players may have never experienced before.
  • The team would love to go back and update these skyboxes and it could be done while maintaining the familiarity of the old skybox.
  • They never want to change the world in a way that makes the player feel like they can no longer connect with the world they remember.
  • In Patch 7.2 the team is going to update many different demon models, including some of the new ones created for Legion.
  • The team wants to do more for shapeshifting and different forms, but it is a smaller subsection of the player base that plays that one class or spec. Spending a lot of time on that model means that a lot of time is being spent on something that not a lot of people are going to get to enjoy. The things that the majority of the playerbase will be able to experience come first, then smaller things.
  • There are no plans right now to do more Druid forms in the immediate future, but it is something that will always continue to think about and do as often as possible.
  • Varian's sword changed color on the Patch 7.1 loading screen to match the in game cinematic.

Alts
  • Flying should make the game a little more alt friendly.
  • Artifact Knowledge continuing to scale should also help to make powering up your Artifact on an alt faster.

Social Queuing
  • Social Queuing in Patch 7.1 is a little bit of an experiment.
  • The team wants to continue to add more social improvements, but they have to be careful to make sure they aren't obnoxious.
  • If you are in a huge social guild or have lots of friends, do you want to hear about every single person joining a queue?
  • The team also doesn't want to clutter the UI with a bunch of checkboxes for fine tuning a feature.
  • The team wants to reduce any of the friction preventing you from playing with friends.
  • You might log in and miss joining a queue with your friend by a few minutes or have a friend that doesn't want to drop the queue they have been in for a long time to play with you.

Holidays
  • The Hallows End hats were not transmoggable because the team wants to encourage people to experience the holidays when they are live.
  • If you could transmog all of your gear year round it would discourage interacting with the holiday when it happens.

Class Changes
  • The team has been watching how the class updates for Legion went and in Patch 7.1.5 they will be making some significant changes.
  • Some of the talents that everyone is taking are going to be baked into the class.
  • Things that people aren't using will be buffed or removed.
  • These changes are all in the form of tuning and polishing, ensuring you have some interesting choices to make.

World Quests
  • There will be a lot more world quests coming in the future.
  • The team is still tweaking the interface, making sure it is easy to read and you understand what you are going to get.
  • The itemization system can change up the item or item level of rewards so that you never feel like you have a quest that you never want to do anymore because it isn't rewarding.
  • Rewards will continue to remain relevant as patches are released, with the increase of item levels or additional rewards.

Micro-Holidays
  • A micro-holiday to honor fallen faction leaders is a good idea, maybe we will see it in the future.
  • Micro-holidays take less development time than the older holidays.
  • Right now the team is building some new systems for the micro-holidays, which is adding some development time, but these systems can be reused for the other holidays.
  • It is a small team that works on these, usually creating them out of passion.
  • The team is mostly using existing art assets, so they aren't creating a lot of new art.

Misc
  • There aren't any big updates for Order Halls in terms of art planned for Legion.
  • Argus is coming in a Legion patch.
  • Sub-races are still absolutely something the team is always thinking about doing.


Xavius Dropping Shoulders
Users on Reddit noted that Xavius finally started dropping his shoulders today!





Increased Mythic Keystone Rewards
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
With the release of the Trial of Valor raid instance, we’re increasing the rewards from Mythic Keystone dungeons, to keep them in line with the increased difficulty (and rewards) from the new raid. We’d like to take a moment to clarify what those changes are and when they’ll be applied.

Beginning this week, with the opening of Trial of Valor, the end-of-run chests for completing a Keystone dungeon at level 11 or higher will now give loot with a base item level of 870, up from the previous base of 865 for completing a level 10.

Additionally, if you are able to clear a Keystone dungeon at difficulty 12 or higher, your Order Hall cache for next week will contain loot with a base item level of 885. Note that this change does not apply to the cache you can open this week, which still has its base item level capped at 880 if you were able to complete a level 10 Keystone dungeon last week.

Of course, keep in mind that these rewards still have a chance to roll Warforged or Titanforged; the item levels listed above are merely the guaranteed minimum you will receive.

Patch 7.1 Hotfixes - November 8
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Classes

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
  • Bursting Shot should no longer hit enemies far above or below the player when used with Magnetized Blasting Cap Launcher.

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
  • The Holy Priest artifact trait Say Your Prayers should now function correctly, and gives Prayer of a Mending a 6% chance per rank to not consume a count when it jumps.

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
  • Wild Imps summoned by Improved Dreadstalkers will now properly, continuously cast Fel Bolt.

Dungeons
  • Completing a Mythic Keystone dungeon on level 11 or higher will now reward base item level 870 loot at the end of the run (was 865).

Pet Battles
  • Players will no longer lose their Celestial Invitation upon starting the quest "A Celestial Invitation."

PvP
  • Additional vendor food and drink items have been re-enabled for use in battlegrounds and Ashran.
  • The Patron of War achievement should once again show properly.

Battlegrounds
  • Artifact Power rewards for the losing side have been increased.

Quests
  • The quest rewards from "Soul Prism of the Illidari" and "The Once and Future Lord of Shadows", now have a base 870 item level.
  • Resolved an issue where “WANTED: Nameless King” and “WANTED: Kiranys Duskwhisper” would sometimes not grant quest credit.
  • Rockback Gnashers are no longer despawned by “Neltharion’s Lair: Mother of Stone”.
  • When using the Leave Vehicle button during “The Day that Deathwing Came: The Real Story”, the player is returned to their normal size.
  • The Fal'dorei Silkwitch in the “Building an Army” Withered Scenario should now more reliably open the door to the next room when it dies.
  • Resolved an issue in which “WANTED: Dreadbog” and “DANGER: Ealdis” would not properly grant the World Quest if the quest NPCs were near each other.
  • Resolved an issue in which “WANTED: Warbringer Mox'na” and “DANGER: Stormfeather” would not properly grant the World Quest if the quest NPCs were near each other.
  • Archaeology: Highborne Archaeology Fragments can now be looted for the quest "Explosive Results".

Travel
  • (IN TESTING) Underwater-only mounts now move faster.

Post-BlizzCon Q&A - Submit Your Questions
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Join us live on Twitch Friday, November 11, at 11:00 a.m. PST, as we sit down with Ion Hazzikostas for our next live developer Q&A. You can tune in live at: Twitch.tv/Warcraft.

Now that BlizzCon 2016 has concluded, we'd love to answer as many questions as possible about the upcoming content we announced during the event. Feel free to submit any questions about Patch 7.1.5 or 7.2 by posting in this forum thread or via Twitter using the hashtag #LegionQA.

As a reminder, we would like to keep the questions short so we can get to as many of them as possible, so please keep your questions to 40 words or less. Thanks, and we hope to see you Friday at 11:00 a.m. PST!

BlizzCon 2016 Cosplay - Reinhardt
Reinhardt made an appearance in front of us at the opening ceremony!

This article was originally published in forum thread: BlizzCon Interview, Increased Mythic Keystone Rewards, Nov 8 Hotfixes, Q&A, Reinhardt started by chaud View original post
Published on 2016-11-09 10:04 PM
71 Comments
Comments 71 Comments
  1. The Boomking's Avatar
    That's a shame to hear about Druid forms, I'm still hoping we might one day get color variations for our Boomkin model, something cat and bear have had since Wrath.
  1. Mythruss's Avatar
    "Argus is coming in a Legion patch." So it will be 7.3/7.4 and not an xpac. A whole planet in a patch? Here's hoping.
  1. Arvandor's Avatar
    Flying should make the game a little more alt friendly.

    this statement sounds great..

    but only for the first minute.. after this its sounds as a dump excuse!
  1. Quass's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Mythruss View Post
    "Argus is coming in a Legion patch." So it will be 7.3/7.4 and not an xpac. A whole planet in a patch? Here's hoping.
    What I think will happen is that we'll get a zone on Argus (e.g. a big island) for the patch. We could build a stronghold there, claim territory and explore the planet further in the next expansion.
  1. dumkin's Avatar
    Patch 7.1 increased the chance that you will receive a legendary item if you don't already have one.
    5/7 into mythic, and I still dont have one.................
  1. Nevcairiel's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Quass View Post
    What I think will happen is that we'll get a zone on Argus (e.g. a big island) for the patch. We could build a stronghold there, claim territory and explore the planet further in the next expansion.
    I could see it as a two-part deal as we had in the past. 7.3 offer the first zone with a lot of story questing, maybe a dungeon and a world boss or two, and build a beachhead on Argus. 7.4 then add a second zone right at the heart of the legion with the raid.

    Clearly Argus is a huge world, but its also entirely legion at this point. Who would give us quests there to fill an entire expansion? All alliance/horde NPCs that already got there before us? Seems a bit underwhelming. There is no "friendly" natives there to interact with, like we had everywhere else. It would be almost like Icecrown everywhere - an odd camp of our own faction here and there, but mostly just entirely enemy controlled.
  1. DTJames's Avatar
    No one asking about Worgen models?
  1. Stormspark's Avatar
    What happened with the Chris Robinson interview? It has some of the worst sound quality I've ever heard. You can barely hear what they're saying.
  1. Valadicio's Avatar
    My story... PVP bracers on a PVE toon on a PVE server...
  1. mmoc653b863d86's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nevcairiel View Post
    I could see it as a two-part deal as we had in the past. 7.3 offer the first zone with a lot of story questing, maybe a dungeon and a world boss or two, and build a beachhead on Argus. 7.4 then add a second zone right at the heart of the legion with the raid.

    Clearly Argus is a huge world, but its also entirely legion at this point. Who would give us quests there to fill an entire expansion? All alliance/horde NPCs that already got there before us? Seems a bit underwhelming. There is no "friendly" natives there to interact with, like we had everywhere else. It would be almost like Icecrown everywhere - an odd camp of our own faction here and there, but mostly just entirely enemy controlled.
    Theoretically The Army of the Light with Turalyon and Aleria should be there - they prob have some strongholds; also knowing Blizzard there will prb be a couple of 'Rebel'/Resistance factions.

    Though I'm thinking we'll get done with Argus in 7.3 or a potential 7.4
  1. GSN's Avatar
    Still no update on existing character models. Would be nice if they could fix them and give them some love before they start to think about sub races.
  1. Zagnaphein's Avatar
    They said when we meet Turalyon and Alleria it will change how we see WoW forever! Apparently something cool is there..

    Argus will be explored in LEGION forget it beeing on an expansion the Legion threat was told to be explored fully in this expansion.. Stop wanting a full Argus expansion.. The way the Emerald Nightmare was treated was awesome i hope they do argus also. There is no need for Huge or full expansions for some areas just good storytelling
  1. kornek21's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by GSN View Post
    Still no update on existing character models. Would be nice if they could fix them and give them some love before they start to think about sub races.

    Are you serious or just trolling? existing character models were updated in WoD, if you played before WoD you would've known this...
  1. Redblade's Avatar
    Legendary items are special and when you receive one it gives you a story to tell.
    How absolutely shit it was and how disappointed you were...

    Seriously how can Blizzard not see that the current system has a much higher potential to disappoint the player than "giving them a story to tell"? Assuming they mean a positive experience.
  1. transparent's Avatar
    So D3 PTR is loaded, hopefully this means that 7.1.5 PTR is not far off.
  1. Kalx's Avatar
    If you could transmog all of your gear year round it would discourage interacting with the holiday when it happens.
    this makes zero sense, since you can transmog stuff like the shank, tankard o' terror and horseman helmet and sword
  1. reverendball's Avatar
    Says the artist is very passionate about making the class mount

    mage fucktard makes a goddamn fucking frisbee

    sack that asshole pls
  1. davidcryix's Avatar
    Going to Argus should be treated like going to the Death Star in STAR WARS. Han, Luke, & co saw some interesting parts. No reason to get bogged down with traveling through a moon sized space station just like there's no reason to have to travel across an entire world of Argus. Lets get into some cool landscapes and facilities and then get out. Maybe we go back some day and see more, maybe we never do. Sounds more fun to me than the devs having to waste time building an ecology and towns and figuring out what goes where and all that.
  1. Stormykitten's Avatar
    Like the base model of the DH mount, however - why is there random armour pieces on it? In my eyes, DH literally focus on unencumbrance. I would have loved some mystic tattoos or something instead, as wards.
  1. shyguybman's Avatar
    I think they lost their "passion" on the warrior mount...
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