Developer Q&A - Lead Encounter Designer Morgan Day

[Allenseiei]

The excuse that 20 man being forced so they can tune things properly is a complete joke. Looking at the past 4 raids they are failing badly and to me that excuse is no longer valid. I had way more fun raiding in a 10 man setting then I ever have and ever will in a 20 man.

From which eco chamber did you come out from? Raid tunning has been the best ever in WoW these last two expansions.

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The main reason given by Blizzard why it was set on 20 was they could't develop encounters because of the PLAYER BUFFS at that time, 20 was perfect for that.
A few months later they removed almost all buffs and therefore all reasons for a fixed 20 encounter they told themselves.

Just make it flexible after 2 months when world firsts are given and when absolutely no-one gives a s##t about it anymore and smaller heroic guilds can do some mythic bosses for the fun of it.

No, the reason 10 man was removed is because it limits encounter design. It limits the type of bosses they can do because they can't expect you to have every class in your raid group. Apart from the obvious thing that you could never balance 10 and 25 man.

[snackfeat]

i have 1 question for the blizzard devs

why cant we have flame leviathan, gun ship, and malygos fights back!?
the first bosses of raids are allways made to be very easy, and so are vehicle fights, why cant we have a vehicle fight in the first 1/4 of a raid, every other raid or so? i miss them so much...

You are probably the only one who wants that shit.

[Lobstarrr]

The item level rewarded from Nethershard gear won't be changing in Patch 7.2.5.

But does this mean the base ilvl of relinquished gear won't be going up or that the stuff you buy can't titanforge beyond 925?

[Shihao]

The only problem with a fixed 20-man raid size is that it punishes the people that want a challenge but can't guarantee 100% attendance. My raid group is formed of a bunch of friends that have jobs and kids, so almost every raid someone can't come for some reason. The ony way out is to recruit more than we need and bench people or have a 20-man group and just not raid when someone can't play. Both options sucks.

Flex raiding was the best thing Blizz ever made for people like us, but I don't know what's the % of players in that situation to know if it's still viable to cut these kind of peaple from Mythic jus for a easier time tuning bosses. Blizz should have this info and apparenly it's still not enough people, so fixed 20-man is still here.

[Army Dreamer]

Seems like everything is working well for Blizzard. Does it work well for players?

[Usagi Senshi]

You are probably the only one who wants that shit.

Nope, I found the vehicle fights to be pretty damn fun and a very nice departure from the usual smack the boss shit.

[snackfeat]

Nope, I found the vehicle fights to be pretty damn fun and a very nice departure from the usual smack the boss shit.

Looking at your amory, it's safe to say that your opinion does not matter.

[Aliven]

Looking at your amory, it's safe to say that your opinion does not matter.

Its safe to say that you cant acknowledge facts.

[snackfeat]

Its safe to say that you cant acknowledge facts.

The only fact here is that they stopped making vehicle fights, and for a good reason.

[off3nc3]

Seems like everything is working well for Blizzard. Does it work well for players?

They don't care about the players , hence the "we are still doing it our way you kids stop complaining about no PvP, MORE AP GRINDS and extra layers of RNG this expansion".

All in all if they don't bump up the ilvl rewards from world content im gonna laugh out loud. This expansion is one big PvE cringe fest that consists only of raids and the tiresome mythic + . Depressing.

[FelPlague]

You are probably the only one who wants that shit.

ive seen atleast 5 others so far in here, and i know another 20-30 who do from my multiple guilds

[whinx]

"The first raid of an expansion is an exception to normal raid design, as it could be a player's first raid ever."

This dev team seems to underestimate the community's intelligence/memory. This looks like an excuse to explain why Emerald Nightmare was undertuned. If you remember Cataclysm's first tier, it was really hard, maybe harder, maybe easier than Firelands, but definetly comparable. The difficulty difference between Emerald Nightmare and Trial of Valor or Nighthold is just too great.

Regarding the Mythic raiding size being 20 players, I'm fine with that. I really enjoy how this model works and I agree it would be impossible to tune if it was flex. And yes, my guild had problems with the recruiting boss, but I still think the raid size is perfect atm. It's just something we need to deal with.

Other than that, for the next expansion, the gear item level system (including Warforged/Titanforged) needs to change. I don't think it's ok to be able to get a 925 item from a low Mythic +/LFR. I don't think it's ok to clear a Heroic raid and be able to get a higher item level than a Mythic raid drops. I think this for three big reasons:

1-> The grind becomes endless for some raiders until the boss is down. You can say that you don't need to be 915 to kill Gul'dan and I agree with that. But as long as you have the possibility to farm and make things easier through progression, your guild might consider you a slacker if you don't, and we all have families and work to do. In the past we had that old BiS list and it worked pretty well, the bosses even took longer to be killed.

2-> Sometimes it's frustrating to see people who don't do Mythic raids or high Mythic + having more gear than those raiders that are putting a great effort to progress with their guilds. They have to be a lot more commited and people who play WoW casually still have the possibility to have a lot more gear just because of luck/free time.

3-> Time between tiers need to be higher. Tomb of Sargeras is coming out and many good guilds have killed Gul'dan just a month ago. They could use a break. I really liked that we had long breaks between tiers in the past.

These are only my opinions and I know most of you won't agree with me, but I really think that the game would be better if Blizzard solved these problems.

[Malfecto]

The irony of their statement on 20 man fixed to this guy after the loss of 3 people collapses their raid... I must be tuned into a different reality.

[ColbaneX]

Uh...did they just say Blackhand was a short fight???

[Usagi Senshi]

Looking at your amory, it's safe to say that your opinion does not matter.

Wow, that's first time I've been armory insulted! Grats guy!

Your opinion means dick all too, guy!

[Hellshout]

If you need as much as 10 people, and your entire server is recruiting, I'm sure there is another guild in the same situation ... so, work together, instead of against each other?

Heck thats the biggest problem, people keep saying they can't get a 20 man roster up because of recruitment issues, but one of the reasons for that is that everyone clings to their guild, and therefor too many guilds are competing for a limited pool of people. If you are in desperate need of people, find another guild with the same problem, and merge.

Any raid size would eventually have that problem. Reduce it to 15, and give it another expansion or so, and the same problem happens again. It would be a temporary band-aid at best. For encounter design the 20 man seems to work quite nicely.

True, I like the bigger size encounters, mostly because it makes room for error. And yes, we're in the works with another guild for merging, but it's harder said than done, each has their own history, their own ways of raiding etc. It's like getting married at first sight, most of the times it ends in divorce

[Aliven]

The only fact here is that they stopped making vehicle fights, and for a good reason.

They stopped doing it. Rest is assumption.

[Deleted]

I was a long term raider and long term GM. Played this game since classic and i think the problem is not that there is only a 20 man mythic. The problem here is and i said that before the expansion: Going back to 20 from 10/25.

Many guilds had there social sturcture for 10mans and it is mostly always easier to reduce your roster instead of expanding it. So you can argue that the mistake was back in Cata where they introduced 10 /25 as equal modes. My thought was always the way back will be hard as fuck when the small 10 man guilds were formed.

But looking at 10man raiding now it was way more popular vs 25 so maybe they made a second mistake in raid size in WoD. Maybe after the mistake to split raids in Cata they should have settled for the more popular raid size or do 15 man

It will take a lot of time to get people back to 20 man and forgot about 10man.

btw: burned out mythic raider has nothing to do with raid size it is more the grind + raiding 3-4 days a week. Many raiders pre Legion logged in after work raided logged off. No way you can do that in legion.
btw2: the ones you say all noobs should fuck off etc. consider that you not might have a "World of Warcraft" if you "pro" guys dont give blizzard enough money :P

[xact4]

Holy shit, it's completely apparent who here has played during vanilla/tbc and who started after wrath... the game drew in the most amount of players when the game had content that not everyone was able to see. Having extra phases and mythic specific story lines is perfectly fine, it's not alienating anyone, it's rewarding those who actually put the effort in. As stated it's 100% fine to either A)put in the effort or B) pull up YouTube. When the game was in it's finest state only what 10% or less of the player base raided? Those crying that this makes new players not want to play have no idea what it's like to actually want to try at something and get a reward. When the sense of true progression and advancment is lost that is where the game starts leaking subs.

Your post is full of bad comparisons and bad assumptions. First of all the game drew in the most amount of players back then because it was new... no one was doing what WoW was doing quite so well. "10% or less of the player base raided..." That's because the other 90% who had never even heard of an MMO before WoW either had no idea how to get into it, no way to get into it, no idea what it was, or just pvp'd.

Stories were not told through raids the same way they are now. Now entire expansions are funneled into the raids in coherent ways vanilla/tbc neeeeever accomplished.

So anyways... remove the stick from thine posterior and take off the rose colored glasses.

[Tupolew519]

finaly kil'jaeden.