Developer Q&A - Matt Goss: Legion Itemization

[Deleted]

Haha i like the part with
Titanforged and Warforged , im the onlyone in the guild with only 1 char. and i do NH HC with guild alts but getting a 920 or 925 ilvl titanf.from normal when i spam every week full clear NhHc and the best item i got is a 895 wf. Means this game is to fuking RNG and u want to make us to sleep in game. Like u do with short patches. Ffs i'm tired of this game .

[yoeljavao]

This Q&A is getting more viewers than PVP one, is that weird or what

Of course.... more pvers than pvpers.

[Deleted]

This whole letting players use 2piece and 4piece at the same time is really dangerous and could REALLY push people into impossible situations to perform at their best. For instance, the Holy priest T19 2piece is stupid good. And it synergizes immensely with both T20 2piece and 4piece. I can easily imagine having all these equipped becomes absolutely MANDATORY to perform at the highest level. This pushes us away from ALOT of legendaries, and it would mean that you are forced to find legendaries that don't take up tier slots, which might be difficult for some who don't have these, and it also completely destroys our ability to pick and choose the legendaries we enjoy. I LOVE my Cloak legendary, but I could potentially feel forced to unequip it and insteas use Prydaz and Sephuz. I bet there can arise similar situations for other specs aswell.

[caervek]

Trying to explain reforging to Blizzard is like trying to explain art to a robot, it has a functional understanding of what it is but cannot comprehend why it exists or what it's for.

[Katoneo]

• It's actually an amazing solution the the current problem because it means the more stats are more globally more valuable, because you can always have at least some of your 'best' stat on a piece of gear.
• No it didn't. The issue you're talking about is hit/expertise/haste/crit caps and soft caps. Moreover, what is the relation to the problem of something that is a large item level upgrade (untradeable) being a performance downgrade?
• No it didn't. Actually never. If it did, how is that any different from getting an upgrade today that requires gems/enchants, or grabbing items out of the bank? This is just another excuse that doesn't address the issue.

• This would be true if warforge was a small bonus, such as 4 ilvl, and Titanforging was a slightly better bonus, such as 8 ilvl. Allowing an item to Titanforge to literally double the base stats is just absurd.
• There is still little-to-no chance of getting an upgrade. What this has actually created is that people who do not massively out-gear Normal/Heroic raids are quickly unable to join groups because the people who are running them for the low chance of item upgrades are not interested in 'carrying' appropriately geared players. Also, running with higher-geared party members increases the chance of them not needing an upgrade and sharing it.
• It is not happening more than it should. It simply shouldn't be so required. And it is required.
• Look above. It is required. I get 0 upgrades from M+ without a titanforge. I get 0 upgrades from Heroic NH without a Warforge. Most mythic raiders get 0 upgrades from Mythic raid without a Warforge. Am I supposed to just run a higher difficulty of +15 to get better gear?

I actually kind of feel bad for ToddMatt. He obviously doesn't play or understand the game, but he was hired to perform some job at Blizzard, so he took it. I just wish that they'd check their ego at the door and spend some time looking at feedback instead of repeatedly spewing their uninformed excuses and destroying the game that they were hired to maintain.

I couldn't agree more. Right now there is no incentive to play on higher difficulty. As a mythic raider and loot distributer I often find myself disenchanting our loot from mythic raids because they are worse than what we did get by farming HC. They really should cap WF/TF to be max on par with higher difficulty (i.e. normal items ilvl can not be higher than HC items, etc.).

[Zaltius]

The itemization is pretty poor this time around... So I hope they are true to their word when it comes to these changes in 7.2. Especially the part of secondary stats. I play mainly a Demonology warlock and right now, everythign I get has Versatility or Mastery. Which means that if I could afford it, swapping out my 880+ non-haste stuff for crafted 865 with Haste would increase my dps (according to simcraft and AMR). That's 15+ iL difference. From where I'm standing, that's not good design..

But I do hope they change it so that the personal challenges become normalized. It's not really challenging if you can simply outgear it. Bring back the good "old" challenge modes while you are at it.

[Explicit Teemo Nudes]

Reforging also meant an interruption to your raid, as you had to go and reforge an item.

Or you could just finish the raid and go reforge after it is done. If people are so obsessed that they need to go reforge an item as soon as they get it, let that be their choice.
Stop babysitting people!
You could also just add an engineering/blacksmithing item with charges that let you reforge while out in the field.

No mention of the extremely poorly designed profession and reputation items...

[urw]

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Unstable Arcanocrystal
This trinket was over budget and nerfed once already.
The team is very cautious about taking an item that people think is really good and making it so bad that people don't want to use it anymore. Doing so punishes people that have the trinket already.
Someone who wanted the trinket, gets it, and it gets nerfed the next day would also be sad.

This is so bull... what about paladins and convergence of fait? Oh right, this is only for one class so it's ok to nerf it once some ppl got it . But then what about Draught and warriors, still using it and a trinket on 3rd position on dps meters for them, WHY!?

[Supercool]

No it didn't. The issue you're talking about is hit/expertise/haste/crit caps and soft caps.

Yep, and most of those things are gone from the game for good.

Said it before but Reforging always got blamed for creating problems that it simply didn't. Reforging wasn't a pain. Trying to hit your caps was a pain. Reforging made doing it easier and more convenient. In a world without Reforging it was still necessary to use third-party sites to calculate your caps because caps were the problem, not Reforging.

Blizz thinks we're idiots and that if they repeat a lie enough times we'll believe it.

[Trollhammer]

The itemization is pretty poor this time around... So I hope they are true to their word when it comes to these changes in 7.2. Especially the part of secondary stats. I play mainly a Demonology warlock and right now, everythign I get has Versatility or Mastery. Which means that if I could afford it, swapping out my 880+ non-haste stuff for crafted 865 with Haste would increase my dps (according to simcraft and AMR). That's 15+ iL difference. From where I'm standing, that's not good design..

Feral is the oppsite Everything has haste Need Mastery/crit/vers..

[SkyTides]

I'd love to have more boss or location-themed armour from dungeons and raids (really hoped for more mantid/arakkoa styled stuff back then) There's only so many variants of 'mage' etc

[Gatsbybutters]

I know blizzard deflects more than fox in smash Bros, but some of these excuses... "the players are dumb so we can't give them too much at once" "rare item drops are new, we've only been at this for like 14 years QQ" "some of our systems and ideas aren't liked by everyone, so we increased the rewards because that's what people want".
How the hell do people get mad at pugs being noobs WHEN THE PEOPLE MAKING THE GAME ARE NOOBS.

[TheRevenantHero]

• It's actually an amazing solution the the current problem because it means the more stats are more globally more valuable, because you can always have at least some of your 'best' stat on a piece of gear.
• No it didn't. The issue you're talking about is hit/expertise/haste/crit caps and soft caps. Moreover, what is the relation to the problem of something that is a large item level upgrade (untradeable) being a performance downgrade?
• No it didn't. Actually never. If it did, how is that any different from getting an upgrade today that requires gems/enchants, or grabbing items out of the bank? This is just another excuse that doesn't address the issue.

• This would be true if warforge was a small bonus, such as 4 ilvl, and Titanforging was a slightly better bonus, such as 8 ilvl. Allowing an item to Titanforge to literally double the base stats is just absurd.
• There is still little-to-no chance of getting an upgrade. What this has actually created is that people who do not massively out-gear Normal/Heroic raids are quickly unable to join groups because the people who are running them for the low chance of item upgrades are not interested in 'carrying' appropriately geared players. Also, running with higher-geared party members increases the chance of them not needing an upgrade and sharing it.
• It is not happening more than it should. It simply shouldn't be so required. And it is required.
• Look above. It is required. I get 0 upgrades from M+ without a titanforge. I get 0 upgrades from Heroic NH without a Warforge. Most mythic raiders get 0 upgrades from Mythic raid without a Warforge. Am I supposed to just run a higher difficulty of +15 to get better gear?

I actually kind of feel bad for ToddMatt. He obviously doesn't play or understand the game, but he was hired to perform some job at Blizzard, so he took it. I just wish that they'd check their ego at the door and spend some time looking at feedback instead of repeatedly spewing their uninformed excuses and destroying the game that they were hired to maintain.

I agree with pretty much all of this, especially the PUG raids comment. The community is extraordinarily selfish and only want people to carry them. Of course idiots will say "make your own group" but unless you're a tank or healer, it will fail. More than once I've made my own group and just sat in LFG for 1-2 hours with 2-3 dps in the group and nobody joins. Most people expect a carry or for raids to be done in 15 minutes. This game's raid scene has become absolutely atrocious.

[Deleted]

Wait, what? What the hell is the point of them, then? These challenges, and their associated tints, were sold as being for people capable of demonstrating outstanding skill with their class. If they are not normalized, all they are going to demonstrate is that the person geared up sufficiently to trivialize it. Without gear normalizing, these tints lose their prestige, with mythic raiders getting them almost immediately and non-raiders being blocked from them likely until Argus, regardless of skill (and I say this as a mythic raider myself).

Seriously, normalize these things. They don't reflect skill in the slightest if you can simply outgear them.

Even with normalising there are problems, like some classes / specs performing better in PGs than others. But without normalisation, there truly is no challenge.

There is a reason that completing the Green Fire questline for warlocks granted no title after a certain point in the timeline. And while overgearing this challenge has been there to some extent, skill was definitively important. I got the title on my warlock, with a bit of overgearing (TI items with basic item levels, some with upgrades, single pieces from SoO LFR, and probably one crafted item). A friend of mine was at about the same gear level, but he did not manage to kill the final boss before they removed the option to get the title. So, I either was practicing the fight more, or was better at playing warlock at that time, or both.

Let's see how this will turn out... my best geared character is at ilvl 884. :/

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Trying to explain reforging to Blizzard is like trying to explain art to a robot, it has a functional understanding of what it is but cannot comprehend why it exists or what it's for.

Feel the same. Blizzard does not like people customising their characters.

[BigSarge04]

RNG is the dumbest shit, I've run dungeons, heroics, and Mythics as a tank, and have got no loot in the past. How does that HELP me? It doesn't. It makes it harder for me to get better gear.

[Niwes]

what an "out of touch - we piss on you" team. horrible...

[markos82]

Are those two scrubs new to the game? Reforging took time and you have to think alot? Reforge lite, addon that when you set caps and stats in few sec can reforge your entire gear, wow... gotta love BS reasons...

[ls-]

Wait, what? What the hell is the point of them, then? These challenges, and their associated tints, were sold as being for people capable of demonstrating outstanding skill with their class. If they are not normalized, all they are going to demonstrate is that the person geared up sufficiently to trivialize it. Without gear normalizing, these tints lose their prestige, with mythic raiders getting them almost immediately and non-raiders being blocked from them likely until Argus, regardless of skill (and I say this as a mythic raider myself).

Seriously, normalize these things. They don't reflect skill in the slightest if you can simply outgear them.

If they're normalised many people (majority?) won't be able to acquire them at all. W/o normalisation bad players will eventually be able to use gear to compensate for their lack of skill, otherwise they won't be able to get it at all.

And obv they don't want to have yet another case of "Balance of Power" skin and tints. For instance, one of "challenge" tints is unlocked quite easily, you simply have to kill all dungeon bosses while using challenge skin. Others require doing rated BGs and killing KJ HC (boosters are REALLY happy about this one ). I guess they don't want acquisition of the skin being harder than acquisition of one of its tints.

Blizz designers tend to balance content that's available to everyone around lowest common denominator.

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Are those two scrubs new to the game? Reforging took time and you have to think alot? Reforge lite, addon that when you set caps and stats in few sec can reforge your entire gear, wow... gotta love BS reasons...

TBH, that's the problem (in their eyes). If a system requires addon(s) to be used properly it's a badly-designed system.

IIRC, that's one of few reasons why they removed it, they didn't like how decision making process was automated by addons. Blizzard doesn't like this kind of things in general

[Achie]

All these Q&A are retarded. Every single line I read I disagree with because of the flawed logic of these designers that are so out of touch from the player base. All these comments just say basically the same.
Legion is still in beta.

[markos82]

TBH, that's the problem (in their eyes). If a system requires addon(s) to be used properly it's a badly-designed system.

IIRC, that's one of few reasons why they removed it, they didn't like how decision making process was automated by addons. Blizzard doesn't like this kind of things in general

If that is their stance then they should limit boss fights ( normal/hc or mythic ) to a push one button and stand still, because without addons killing some of them is kinda like winning the lottery.