Dragonflight Alpha - Developer Interviews
With the Alpha comes a new round of developer interviews!


Gameplay
  • Shadowlands taught the team that they need to help players avoid stuff that feels like a chore. No more daily/weekly routine or checklist, no stuff that you have to do, whether you like it or not, to stay relevant in your preferred content.
  • Play the game the way you want, do the content that you enjoy.

Dungeons and Timewalking
  • There will be four new Dragonflight dungeons and four old dungeons that make up the initial Mythic+ list. Temple of the Jade Serpent and Court of Stars are two of the ones the team is looking at right now.
  • Legion Mythic+ Timewalking was an experiment that helped to validate that changes that are being made for Dragonflight. That speicifc experiment is now over.
  • The team wants to continue to expand Timewalking, so we'll probably see BfA Timewalking at some point during Dragonflight.
  • Timewalking raids will also be added.
  • Outdoor Timewalking is something that the team talks about from time to time due to all of the scaling tech they have now.
  • The team wants to give players reasons to revisit the 18 years of content that is out there rather than spending all of your time in the newest content.

The Great Vault
  • The team is mostly happy with The Great Vault going forward. Resources are being focused on other areas that are in more dire need of tweaks, but they'll keep evolving the Great Vault going forward.

Cross-Faction and Region-Wide Gameplay
  • The Crafting Order system will likely start server wide, rather than region wide. Browsing a region wide listing would be messy and not a great experience.
  • The ability to go find someone directly in person to get something crafted will remain region wide.
  • The team is slowly moving to a more interconnected world, with the expansion of cross-realm play helping to move to a place where what realm you are on doesn't impact your ability to experience the game.
  • US and EU cross-play would be a very large technical undertaking.
  • Roughly 50% of groups formed recently that are doing instances have members of both factions in them. It hasn't eroded faction identity so far.
  • The team wants to continue to expand cross-faction play, but is cautious as it is a one way path. Once it is rolled out, they can never take it away from players.
  • Guilds are likely the next logical cross-faction step. It won't happen with the release of Dragonflight, but maybe during the expansion.

New Players
  • Updating the first few dungeons for new players to be a better experience is probably something that the team should do at some point.
  • The goal is to give Starter Edition players a taste of the content that World of Warcraft has to offer, without the need to purchase anything.
  • There's still a lot of work to do to make the game friendly for new players. New systems could use more explanations.

Misc
  • With modern Reputations, the team is looking at the rewards and determining if they can be made account wide, while still leaving room for some items that are part of your character's progression.
  • The surprise that comes from encrypted content being unlocked with the patch is nice.
  • Bringing in the team from Proletariat will help the team keep content flowing at a steady pace and to avoid long gaps between content.
  • Dragonflight is a return to Azeroth and a more grounded narrative. Cosmic themes have been part of WoW forever, with Burning Crusade or Legion having lots of it.
  • No planned changes for Allied Race unlocks in Dragonflight.
  • The team is looking into raising the 50 character slot limit.

Dragonflight Theme and Gameplay
  • Returning to a more inviting and exploration themed vibe will be nice, without an overwhelming existential threat in your face on Day 1. Those threats will appear over time but the early Mists of Pandaria feeling is what the team is going for here.
  • By the end of 10.0 you'll have a good sense of what the final boss of the expansion will be.



Talents
  • The new talent system will help to increase build diversity.
  • The current alpha talent trees are very rough numbers. Lots of tuning to be done.
  • The team wouldn't be surprised if there are some builds that don't go all the way to the bottom of the tree, but branch out in the sections more.
  • The team is talking about how to handle talents that modify an ability that they may not have taken from their class tree.
  • The team started the design process with one tree, but realized they could do a class and spec tree.
  • Allowing sharing of talent builds in game will be helpful.
  • Legion artifacts were cool because they all had different shapes and it actually worked out well.

Buffs
  • There can be too much complexity when building a group and trying to make sure you have all of the buffs.
  • It should be cool and exciting to be in a party with a Shaman and get their buffs.
  • The team is aware of the pitfalls that come with the current way party and raid buffs work.

Loot Rules
  • The team is talking about raid loot rules. Personal Loot is working well for the large majority of the game.
  • Having loot distribution being a social function makes sense and warrants further exploration and experimentation. We'll hear more about this during Dragonflight development.

Misc
  • The team wants professions to feel like pillar, just like PvP, Mythic+, and raids. There should be the same level of goals to pursue.
  • Mega dungeons are working out well, almost like a five player raid. Gives space to explore things that aren't the main plot.
  • There are some itemization tweaks to be made with mega dungeons to ensure that they are appealing.

Creation Catalyst
  • The team was overall happy with the Creation Catalyst. It allowed for alts and catch-up, but also bad luck protection.
  • The potential changes for Creation Catalyst might be timing related.
  • The team is looking at more deterministic ways to make progress towards your goals.

PvP Gear
  • Profession gear for PvP is something that was in previous expansions and worked fairly well.
  • PvP item level was added back in Shadowlands.
  • With Dragonflight each tier of gear might have the PvP item level pegged at the top of the band for that tier of gear. Upgrading will impact the PvE item level of the PvP gear. You'll still want to upgrade it so it's useful in the outdoor world, but when you go to PvP there will be a more even playing field.




Character Customization
  • No additional character customization for old races is coming with Dragonflight release. The focus is on the Dracthyr and raising the bar.
  • When the team first added the Pandaren, they were higher quality than other races. Not too long after the team looked to raise the bar on the other races to catch up.
  • You can choose body type and voice independently and that is something the team is working on expanding.
  • The game should be as inclusive as possible.

Professions
  • The very best crafted gear will be BoP.
  • You can use work orders to have another player make a powerful item for you.
  • Crafted gear will be subject to tuning if a unique bonus somehow makes it better than gear a tier above it. No Darkmoon Cards situation.
  • The best gear will come from raids, dungeons, PvP, or crafted with components from those activities.

World Content
  • There will be perks, conveniences, cosmetics, and reasonably powerful items from world content.
  • Nothing specific in the Mage Tower style is planned for launch. Future patches could bring other types of content.

Talents
  • The primary focus of the combat team is responding to feedback on the talent trees.
  • In the first talent pass, there will be a bunch of experiments and trying to add some cool hooks to different classes and specs.
  • The team doesn't want to go too far, like late BC when everyone had a buff and building a raid group was like tetris.
  • There should be at least 6-8 talent loadouts that you can save. People should feel like they have enough.
  • It isn't clear if the ability to import, export, and share builds will be ready at launch, but it's something the team would like to do.

Raids
  • The team is exploring the return of Personal Loot for raid bosses.
  • You might end up with a Hunter bow, even if your group has no Hunter.
  • The team wants to move away from borrowed power progression, but there is value in a raid group making progress every week even if there isn't any new loot for them.

Mythic+
  • Shado Pan Monastery won't be one of the launch dungeons, but could appear during the course of Dragonflight.
  • The team is super open to making changes to the flow of dungeons, pacing, and mechanics, especially for dungeons that never had Mythic+.
  • Tyrannical and Fortified will be sticking around.
  • There is a new seasonal affix coming.
  • The team is looking to simplify the seasonal affixes a bit.
  • When the dungeon pool was static, the seasonal affix helped change up your routing. Now that there are new dungeons, you don't need your routing changed.

Dragonriding
  • Most of the races will be Bronze, Silver and Gold, with some achievements to earn.
  • At max level there are a couple multiplayer races that people can start together. They start every so often and you can race against each other.
  • Internally the team is talking about more competitive structured races or events.

Leveling
  • Leveling time should be a little longer than Shadowlands, but not too much longer.
  • The team wants to offer more freedom as you level.
  • Shadowlands had a linear sequence in each zone.
  • Dragonflight should have a few key pillars in each zone and a lot more room to explore as you level.



Wowhead also summarized a group interview, with no video available. Be sure to read the full interview for additional context.


Talents
  • There are two games going on in a raid: Beating the boss and scoring high on the DPS meters. Blizzard didn't build the DPS meter game, so how much focus should they put on designing around it.
  • The question of how best to use Power Infusion in both of those games is a question that helps create an interesting group dynamic.
  • The community does some of the design for the DPS game. Log sites ignore padding the meters with AoE on useless adds because the community feels that it is unhealthy behavior.
  • Blizzard wants to design for the cooperative game of beating the boss and leave it to the community to figure out how to determine who is the best person is on an individual fight.

Dragonflight Timelines
  • The team is comfortable with the target of release by the end of the year. That's the appropriate amount of time between expansions.
  • Dragonflight has had a full development cycle and alpha testing will be more focused than previous expansions.
  • Previous expansions started alpha much earlier and content was slower to be released.
  • Dragonflight alpha will be more focused, as all the zones are ready for testing now and will be rolled out in the coming weeks.
  • The zones, talent trees, and dungeons will roll out in the next month and a half and then Beta will begin.
  • In an ideal world, the team would do no external testing and everyone would get to experience the expansion for the first time together.
  • The team is limiting what is open for testing more than in the past to focus testing and populate the world in a way that is closer to what players will experience on the live servers.
  • Forbidden Reach and the Dracthyr starting experience should be coming next week.

Evoker
  • When sitting down to add a new class, the team has to figure out what will make it feel fresh and different, rather than just a reskin of an existing class.
  • Adding a class is a huge and impactful change that requires a compelling fantasy and unique gameplay to be successful.
  • Early in Dragonflight development, the team wanted to give players the chance to feel like a Dragon with a class and race that fights like no one else in the game.
  • In Draconic form you'll only see shoulders and key pieces like belt buckles for most gear. Tier sets that are custom made will have more to see.
  • Evokers don't have a tank spec because it doesn't fit the fantasy of breath weapons, wings, and mobility.

Character Customization
  • Bringing the new level of character customization to existing races will be a huge undertaking, but something the team would like to do.
  • You should be able to feel connected to your character and able to express yourself in the world.

Tanks
  • The team would love to see more people tanking and talks about it often.
  • Tanks learn at the expense of the group, as they can't just hang back and follow along while learning.
  • Hopefully rotating the dungeon pool will help reduce the barrier to entry that comes with the knowledge required later in the season.
  • The team wants tanks to feel rewarded and appreciated for being responsible for the group's survival and leading.

Raid Loot
  • Dragonflight raid bosses will drop several pieces of loot and let you roll, pass, or trade those items.
  • Dungeon loot will remain on the current system.

Professions
  • Players get a new giant Reagents bag for profession items.
  • With all of the new profession changes, the team didn't want to clutter up inventory even more, so they just added a new bag for all the profession things.
  • The profession bag isn't limitless in size, but it'll be big. Bag space shouldn't be a meaningful constraint on picking stuff up, herbing, or gathering.

Dragonriding
  • Dragonriding unlocks will be account wide
  • Dragonriding was built as an expansion specific system, but if the feedback is great and people want it going forward, that is possible.
  • The Dragon Isles was built with Dragonriding in mind, adding more negative space between areas of interest and creating a more open world.
  • Azure Span is the largest single zone in WoW's history
  • There are more restrictions on Dragonriding than flying, but you can learn to master it to reduce the friction that exists at an early level.
  • By the middle of the expansion, Dragonriding should feel as convenient as flying. Players that are comfortable with the system may find it all around better once they are upgraded.

Story
  • The team wants to tell a more nuanced story with shades of grey, and not just create mindless monster races.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Dragonflight Alpha - Developer Interviews started by chaud View original post
Comments 112 Comments
  1. Cheezits's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kiwijello View Post
    Reading these interviews is like hitting my head on a wall over and over. They really are out of touch and do not listen.

    The ONE thing most people can agree that everyone mostly wants is MORE CUSTOMIZATION. I mean, I don't care, but a lot of people do, so what does he say "NONE OF THAT" to?

    Customization is the new "Flying". It triggers Ion.
    They chose to make a new race instead of fat elves, new hairstyles, etc. At the current moment you can't have both in a patch.
  1. bullseyed's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by oplawlz View Post
    They didn't say there wouldn't be dailies, just that it wouldn't be required to do them to progress your character. I suspect we'll see lots of rep stuff that's nice to have but unusable in instances to keep those so inclined happy.
    We already had that in 9.2. Didn't go well.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Eapoe View Post
    Well, considering people talk all the time about how much they LOVED Legion, the biggest chore grind of every xpac so far, I can see where they are coming from with this statement.
    People loved classic, TBC classic and soon WotLK classic as well, which are all filled with grinds and chores.

    It is incredibly obvious that "chores" are universally desirable content, but are demeaned by various "streamers", many of whom are attempting to sabotage WoW for other games like FF.
  1. Maljinwo's Avatar
    Character Customization
    No additional character customization for old races is coming with Dragonflight release. The focus is on the Dracthyr and raising the bar.
    I thought they were proud about shadowlands making it easier to do customization?
    Hopefully they don't ignore the other races

    Still loads of work to be done
  1. Rageonit's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Delekii View Post
    This implies that every player is equally productive on every class, which simply isn't the case.

    As a result of imbalance, certain classes and combinations are MORE LIKELY to produce a case where the given amalgamation of skill, comp, and all other factors involved in a group passing a goal.

    You say "but that's about it" as if it is a matter of small significance, but it isn't. It is the ONLY case in which performance actually matters. There is a long scale stretching from the set of variables at which a group succeeds at one end, and a group fails at the other end, an an extremely small subset in the very center where the actual kill occurs. The more balanced all classes are, the wider that central subset becomes. Put in simpler terms, better class balance allows more players to complete the content playing the class they actually enjoy, rather than the one that is overperforming.
    I don't disagree with any of that and I'm not coming from a position that class balance is irrelevant. That being said, I also don't believe striving for perfect balance is inherently good for an RPG game (and in extreme cases - which often leads to homogenization of the classes - it's actually bad). You are right that the more balanced classes are, the wider that central subset becomes - but you can achieve the same thing by balancing the encounter itself (which affects ALL classes at the same time, not just the ones you try to buff or nerf or whatever). I think it's no secret that the harsher the tuning, the more pronounced are the issues of class disbalance. Imagine the scenery of M+ if the highest you could push was 15. Allowing to push ad infinitum is, again, exacerbating the problem.

    I don't believe success in an RPG game should come from skill and skill alone; for that, you can play games that are balanced by design (read: every player is given the exact same skill set, and overall performance is 100% skill dependable). I believe than in an RPG game, you can bring more just because you're this class or that class. Thing is, it doesn't work in an environemnt where a perfect (or near perfect) comp is a condition of success (or having this utility or that utility etc. etc.). And that's how Blizzard balances the game. And I do understand why, because it's not difficult to see. The wider the central subset is, the easier it is for the best of the best to trivialize the game - and for some reason Blizzard doesn't want that to happen.

    So while I believe Blizzard is, philosophically speaking, right in the fact that they did not invent the arms race between players and classes, they sure as hell encouraged the players to do it for them. After all, in today's environment, I'm not even sure if you'd be able to "beat" the game without tools like DPS meters or sims.
  1. BeepBoo's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by bullseyed View Post
    People loved classic, TBC classic and soon WotLK classic as well, which are all filled with grinds and chores.
    WOTLK has precisely 0 chores once you get to level cap and start raiding. Once you're on the raid train, you can raid log. WOTLK was my favorite xpac BECAUSE it was the most firendly raid-logging one where you could stay on-par, power wise.

    It is incredibly obvious that "chores" are universally desirable content, but are demeaned by various "streamers", many of whom are attempting to sabotage WoW for other games like FF.
    Chores are garbage. I want to log on, raid, get 99% parses (because I have the skill to do so) and log off, then repeat next week, ad-nauseum.
  1. cuafpr's Avatar
    Tanking - yeah I gave up when my guild went poof and I did some PUGs ... just nope. Also when tanks started doing "DPS" it sucked. give tanks TPS if you must have some numbers, and have our DPS be next to nothing in groups. I got so tired of needing more DPS gear, I want to tank not DPS, I want to control a boss's movement, adds, and the flow of the fight, and manage some CD's not worried about a max DPS rotation. Heck IMO tanks shouldn't even have a rotation.

    Cross faction stuff just makes me sad as a long-time Warcraft person going back to the start of Orcs and Humans.... If I join a guild again guess I'll have to make sure it's Alliance only and stays that way... I don't want a horde in my groups/guild.
  1. Rageonit's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by bullseyed View Post
    Incorrect. There was no tuning that excluded any spec from participating in mythic raid. You could clear mythic with a full raid of balance druids if you were good at mechanics.
    That might be right if you look at the top, top percentile of players. I don't think you should - they are not "normal people", so to speak.
    Games should not be designed for the top percentile of players; I think Sepulcher was a great examply why. So yes, at the extreme end everything is possible - but I don't think the "extreme end" should be the focal point of discussion about game accessibility.
    That's not to say every player should be able to kill a mythic boss, no; but if the number of players being able to kill those bosses drops rapidly from expansion to expansion, it says something too.
  1. Sentynel's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zardi View Post
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    Tanks
    • The team would love to see more people tanking and talks about it often.
    Yet they intentionally miss on the opportunity to make "dragon tanks"
    Having more tank specs doesn't mean more tank players.
  1. oplawlz's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by bullseyed View Post
    We already had that in 9.2. Didn't go well.
    First, people are disgusted with the expansion. This has nothing to do with reward dynamics.

    Second, what exactly is your obviously personal issue with this concept? If doing chores is fun to you they're still there to do. For the people who don't want to do them there is no compulsion to do so. Seems like a pretty solid win/win.
  1. oldgeezer's Avatar
    By the middle of the expansion, Dragonriding should feel as convenient as flying. Players that are comfortable with the system may find it all around better once they are upgraded.
    I can't wait to ditch flappy dragon as quickly as possible. Sounds awful.
  1. Kumorii's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by oplawlz View Post
    They didn't say there wouldn't be dailies, just that it wouldn't be required to do them to progress your character. I suspect we'll see lots of rep stuff that's nice to have but unusable in instances to keep those so inclined happy.
    When the entire game is built around slowly progressing your character through dailies or weeklies, how will they solve that?
    weekly raids and weekly m+ and weekly pvp is the way to progress your character currently if you want to maximize the amount of progress.
    hell, even weekly / dailie quests for currencies is also the way to progress your character.

    Progressing your character through loot is over and done quite quickly, to progress further you need to wait for time gates.
  1. Logwyn's Avatar
    "Dragonriding was built as an expansion specific system" More one and done content typical Blizzard MO!
  1. Rawrajishxc's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sentynel View Post
    Having more tank specs doesn't mean more tank players.
    It never hurts though. I know tons of people wanted a Black Dragon aspect for tanking, which let's be real they could have done but for whatever reason didn't.
  1. JSoup's Avatar
    A sixth slot crafting bag sounds neat, but I wonder if it wouldn't just be better to expand the reagent bank tab. As in, make it like the normal bank tabs where bags can be added to expand storage.
  1. kamuimac's Avatar
    " By the middle of the expansion, Dragonriding should feel as convenient as flying. Players that are comfortable with the system may find it all around better once they are upgraded."

    this is most improtant part of the interview

    we can safely assume that the dragon-gliding streamers test now is not the gliding we will get on launch only around mid of expansion

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by matheney2k View Post
    Hell HALF of the games classes can currently tank wtf more do you people need? Lol
    they can - but untill tanking is made significantly easier and "safer" you will never have more tank . why play tank and put 5 times more effort when you can just play dps and whine about getting declines in groups.

    look at this week as best example - fortified + ragiing means half of tanks swpaing to their offspec because f... certain affixes combos.
  1. Rageonit's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by kamuimac View Post
    this is most improtant part of the interview
    we can safely assume that the dragon-gliding streamers test now is not the gliding we will get on launch only around mid of expansion
    No, you can't.
    1. dragon gliding in it's current form is needed for questing;
    2. Ion already explained in other interviews that THIS from people are testing right now is the basic form - it will be further enhanced thorough the expansion with something akin to "a talent tree" (his words).
  1. Chilela's Avatar
    Evokers don't have a tank spec because it doesn't fit the fantasy of breath weapons, wings, and mobility.
    [Laughs in BrM Monk/Veng DH]

    Dragonriding was built as an expansion specific system, but if the feedback is great and people want it going forward, that is possible.
    The fact that it wasn't intended to be an evergreen feature from the start is concerning.
  1. Eapoe's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by bullseyed View Post
    We already had that in 9.2. Didn't go well.

    - - - Updated - - -



    People loved classic, TBC classic and soon WotLK classic as well, which are all filled with grinds and chores.

    It is incredibly obvious that "chores" are universally desirable content, but are demeaned by various "streamers", many of whom are attempting to sabotage WoW for other games like FF.
    But yet the person I replied to stated that it took Blizz 18 years to realize ppl don’t like that content.
    There’s also plenty of people who refer to Torghast as Choreghast, and don’t like doing it.
    Personally, I hate chores in games. I’ve said it for years, and in multiple threads, but when I log in to play it should be because I want to, not because I have to. If I want to log in and do a few world quests here and there for some small rewards in gold or xmog/pets/mounts, or hunt some rare creatures for the same chances, I should want to do those things. Not log in to complete as many as possible in my personal time to gain power so I can stay relevant and not hold my guild of friends back.
  1. Dorothyjean's Avatar
    Well, welcome to the World of Mythic Plus and once again totally ignoring raids that aren't Mythic. I used to raid with 3 guilds all at a Heroic level and with a 4th guild on the off day and 90% of the people are all geared primarily from M+ but for people who just raid Heroic we're screwed. Outside of just finishing the Heroic raid as a guild there is almost zero point to do it anymore outside of the achievement and hangin' out with friends when you can just slide into each others DMs "Ohh you too would like to do a +15 that is much easier to do than the heroic raid... and we get a nice phat 278 item that we normally would never get".

    I'd like to thanks Blizzard for once again totally ignoring this problem even though there have been a gazillion, length threads about this on the WoW Forums... but hey, who gives a crap right... everyone is doing M+ so just focus on that M+ content amirite!

    Sad.
  1. Danuel's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Dorothyjean View Post
    Well, welcome to the World of Mythic Plus
    Yeah unfortunately is one of my main reason I no longer play WoW. Without participation in M+ you are worthless for your raiding guild. Your ilv is to low AND all BIS trinkets are from dungeons...

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