Developer Q&A with Ion Hazzikostas - Battle for Azeroth

The problem for me, with how the Horde is portrayed, is that they are -heavily- loaded with ethically and morally questionable actions. I don't believe the Horde is evil, but there is so much more in the Horde's history that can back-up the idea that they are evil for someone who wants to view them that way. The Alliance simply just doesn't have this at the moment.

Yes the Alliance have questionable actions in their past. Yes the Alliance can sometimes go a little too far, but everything is padded with 'They didn't know this' or 'The Horde did this, so it was just a reaction'. It's far more easy to excuse the actions of the Alliance than the Horde, especially with Horde leaders swinging between radically evil actions and extremely altruistic actions (Their character, history and personality be damned).

The problem, right now, that most Horde players who aren't crying about winning or losing, but simply about the Horde YET AGAIN being the aggressor, the unethical, the genocidal, the cruel, the destructive is that it's us YET AGAIN. The Alliance could stand to benefit, story wise, from actually taking an aggressive step and adding some grey into their character and having some internal conflict that leaves their leadership questionable and their ultimate goal hazy.

But Blizzard doesn't seem capable of doing this. The only thing we have, telling us the factions are morally grey and that they are equally good or bad, is you Ion and other devs saying so in interviews. Put it in the game. Not in a book, not in an anecdotal piece in Chronicles.

Put it in the game. Put the Alliances crimes in the game. And make them bigger than 'That one time one twat killed four people in a kind of shitty way.'

Originally Posted by Sails

Without trying to champion that shite excuse. The fact they've not done another netrual race may suggest they regret pandaren set up and hence not done it since.

They admitted that very thing several months ago. So, you're effectively quite right.

I have...many concerns. Need to gather my thoughts.

However, I do encourage everyone to watch the Q&A instead of just reading the summary notes. It's difficult to get the full context from the notes alone.

Originally Posted by Mirn

The problem for me, with how the Horde is portrayed, is that they are -heavily- loaded with ethically and morally questionable actions. I don't believe the Horde is evil, but there is so much more in the Horde's history that can back-up the idea that they are evil for someone who wants to view them that way. The Alliance simply just doesn't have this at the moment.

Yes the Alliance have questionable actions in their past. Yes the Alliance can sometimes go a little too far, but everything is padded with 'They didn't know this' or 'The Horde did this, so it was just a reaction'. It's far more easy to excuse the actions of the Alliance than the Horde, especially with Horde leaders swinging between radically evil actions and extremely altruistic actions (Their character, history and personality be damned).

The problem, right now, that most Horde players who aren't crying about winning or losing, but simply about the Horde YET AGAIN being the aggressor, the unethical, the genocidal, the cruel, the destructive is that it's us YET AGAIN. The Alliance could stand to benefit, story wise, from actually taking an aggressive step and adding some grey into their character and having some internal conflict that leaves their leadership questionable and their ultimate goal hazy.

But Blizzard doesn't seem capable of doing this. The only thing we have, telling us the factions are morally grey and that they are equally good or bad, is you Ion and other devs saying so in interviews. Put in the game. Not in a book, not in an anecdotal piece in Chronicles.

Put it in the game. Put the Alliances crimes in the game. And make them bigger than 'That one time one twat killed four people in a kind of shitty way.'

bro the horde is pure evil in bfa. i dont like it i play horde but it isnt as simple as ion telling me that genocide is "actually kind of a gray area if you think about it". the lore is dead. ion has killed it with his two bald hands.

idk if the answer is even to make the alliance do bad stuff. then we just drag both factions down. what bfa needs is to be completely rewritten by someone who actually cares even slightly about wow.

Originally Posted by Jervaise

Less rewarding for those who distribute it.

This, in mid to long term, will move the focus away from loot towards performance in mythic raiding.

The only thing that's gonna be missed is the loot drama. Contrary to common belief, drama in guilds helped with immersion and alternate reality feeling.

what are you talking about?
perfomance doesnt matter, since no matter how well you perform you have the same chance as anyone for loot.
this is basically discourages you from giving 110% because no matter how good you are, you're only as valuable as the worst performing member, who may have literally just joined the guild, and will leave right after he gets a random loot.

I've never in my life been a master looter, and yet this change makes me feel utterly punished for playing the game right.
this isnt less rewarding for those "who distribute it" this is less rewarding for anyone who was carrying their guilds.

this stands against literally everyting a guild should be about.

Originally Posted by Mirn

The problem for me, with how the Horde is portrayed, is that they are -heavily- loaded with ethically and morally questionable actions. I don't believe the Horde is evil, but there is so much more in the Horde's history that can back-up the idea that they are evil for someone who wants to view them that way. The Alliance simply just doesn't have this at the moment.

Yes the Alliance have questionable actions in their past. Yes the Alliance can sometimes go a little too far, but everything is padded with 'They didn't know this' or 'The Horde did this, so it was just a reaction'. It's far more easy to excuse the actions of the Alliance than the Horde, especially with Horde leaders swinging between radically evil actions and extremely altruistic actions (Their character, history and personality be damned).

The problem, right now, that most Horde players who aren't crying about winning or losing, but simply about the Horde YET AGAIN being the aggressor, the unethical, the genocidal, the cruel, the destructive is that it's us YET AGAIN. The Alliance could stand to benefit, story wise, from actually taking an aggressive step and adding some grey into their character and having some internal conflict that leaves their leadership questionable and their ultimate goal hazy.

But Blizzard doesn't seem capable of doing this. The only thing we have, telling us the factions are morally grey and that they are equally good or bad, is you Ion and other devs saying so in interviews. Put it in the game. Not in a book, not in an anecdotal piece in Chronicles.

Put it in the game. Put the Alliances crimes in the game. And make them bigger than 'That one time one twat killed four people in a kind of shitty way.'

"Sir, who are they?"

"It doesn't matter. Our orders are to eliminate the Horde target at all cost. No witnesses"

- proceeds to fire cannons at an unidentified vessel in the open seas, not caring who, what or how many are on it

"In the future the larger outdoor PvP zones could fit in the larger battleground queue, such as Wintergrasp!"
SWEET! I have fond memories of Wintergrasp during WotLK, would be great to play it again with lots of players. Wintergrasp atm is dead and almost impossible to do its achievements.

I'd rather Horde just be evil outright. Grey is a fine place to be but it becomes pretty tedious when thats all everyone is, it's also next to impossible to make things a balanced grey. I mean, be real, the Alliance is the faction with the Draenei on it, they aren't evil.

A huge part of designing a game, especially (if not the most affected genre) MMORPGs, is that you cannot simply let designs that can on the short-term be seen as a benefit to playerpower is the way to design the game. Or be even dumber and design it like a democracy, letting the loudest, most shortsighted options that manage to garner more support than the alternative become the chosen path. Abilities off the GCD is beneficial to players, that does not necessarily mean it's the best design. You being able to instantly heal yourself for half your health when moving is beneficial, but it does not necessarily mean it's the best way to design your class' survivability.


Like many other areas of the game, GCDs had snowballed, and not a moment too soon is it time to roll back to sane levels. WoW isn't an Action RPG 3rd person version of Diablo 3. At least I miss the anticipation of popping CDs, trinkets and potions and getting ready to unload sick damage on the boss. The slight delay was part of why it made my character feel powerful in those moments. Getting hit by an oh-shit level of damage as you can not 0.05 seconds later pop a 50% heal is part of why falling to low health used to feel like you were risking death, not because you happened to blink in that exact moment and lagged 0.1 second on your reaction time.


Blizzard has made many mistakes, like letting leveling get completely broken, letting non-premade content become insultingly easy in bare minimum gear (still a huge issue), but letting combat lose all it's impact is a big one. Sometimes it feels like I have to look for a screen-shake addon to remind myself my character is actually obliterating everything in his path. Ya'll shouting about Blizzard ignoring feedback, or how awful this change is, have surely spent more time bitching about this change parroting what other people has said about it, than it'll take before you're used to it once BFA is released.

Originally Posted by Casomir

"In the future the larger outdoor PvP zones could fit in the larger battleground queue, such as Wintergrasp!"
SWEET! I have fond memories of Wintergrasp during WotLK, would be great to play it again with lots of players. Wintergrasp atm is dead and almost impossible to do its achievements.

This is super cool, except didn't they already do this or try to with Wintergrasp and Tol Barad in the past, like MoP I believe? Nobody queued for them because they lacked rewards. So hopefully large BGs have an incentive!

When you kill a boss, it isn't about if there is something on the corpse that you want, but if someone is going to give you that loot. It disconnects the reward from killing the boss.
It's not called Personal Loot anymore, it's just Loot. This is how loot works in the entire game.

What a pretentious bellend.

Originally Posted by RoKPaNda

But which section of the playerbase do you listen to? They're listening to the majority of their playerbase. At no point should they make decisions that impact the entire game around the sub-5% of us that raid Mythic. Most of our feedback involves fucking up the game for everyone else. That's not healthy. They ARE listening to what everyone else wants, we already have the best shit.

Like the loot change, I don't even like Ion but he's right. We exploit the shit out of recruits. You can see posts in this very forum from people who SHARD GEAR before giving it to recruits. That's fucked up, I've always thought that's fucked up. Being a recruit in most Mythic guilds is an awful experience, you put in the work and you get nothing for it. Loot distribution causes drama. Again, on this very forum look at all the stories of guilds disbanding over loot.

this is much bigger issue then just recruits - in many loot systems like dkp/epgp etc people were exploited for years since it were always weeks before they were getting loot.

people who blindly tie this only to loot council are delusional.

it will be a very good change for guilds even if they dont see it now .

now people will see only benefits in joining raids with guilds.

Originally Posted by shaunika123

what are you talking about?
perfomance doesnt matter, since no matter how well you perform you have the same chance as anyone for loot.
this is basically discourages you from giving 110% because no matter how good you are, you're only as valuable as the worst performing member, who may have literally just joined the guild, and will leave right after he gets a random loot.

I've never in my life been a master looter, and yet this change makes me feel utterly punished for playing the game right.
this isnt less rewarding for those "who distribute it" this is less rewarding for anyone who was carrying their guilds.

this stands against literally everyting a guild should be about.

I don't think you have raided enough to understand this. A guild leader doesn't care what your personal motivation to raid is. If you think you can just idle and get loot in my raid, then you are wrong.

Things will move towards performance - as in, the reward for playing good, showing up and dedication will be raid spots - not loot.

Thus a random trial can no longer create drama over loot - they will only want to be a part of the kill.
No more faking being friendly and honorable until stealing a legendary and gquit at 4 in the morning.


You will join a guild for a spot in a raid. Not for loot. This is fucking amazing news.

The entire point of guild discussion will be - who gets the spot!

The split run killing is just even better for the entire raiding community.

How many hours a day you can spend in raiding is no longer that important.

Originally Posted by Al Gorefiend

This is super cool, except didn't they already do this or try to with Wintergrasp and Tol Barad in the past, like MoP I believe? Nobody queued for them because they lacked rewards. So hopefully large BGs have an incentive!

i wonder if it also opens potential for making world bosses in those relevant once again - with extra chance of pvp gear

Originally Posted by Angosia

Loot drops, whether master loot OR personal loot, are by definition random. What is not random is the additional component on top of that with master loot: Arbitrary human generated rules on who does or does not deserve loot after that RNG is determined.

except it's not arbitrary, since a computer can literally tell youwho will benefit more from the item down to the last dps point.

So, your argument is that the minority of players (anywhere from 1-5%{depending on whose numbers you use}) should dictate what the other 95-99% use?

what am I dictating? if the remaining 95% wants to use personal loot, then let them use it, I'm against taking away options, not dictating who should play what, that's literally the opposite of what I'm saying.

remove master loot for anything that isnt mythic raids for all I care. but dont punish us for the crimes of others.

BLIZZARD is dictating what I should use.

I haven't seen a mythic guild as yet that has said "O.M.G. I can't adapt to this". I've seen individuals who blast on the forums, but never see that in game.

again with the fucking adaptation.

just because you can adapt to something, doesnt make it good.

if you lost both your legs you'd adapt wouldnt you? but you'd still rather have your legs back. even if someone said "this will be good for you in the long term"

Where and what circumstance does this cause actual harm? No convincing arguments are made in range of the developers as yet (even those relayed by community managers). Eh, what use does it do to blast folks on a forum where your arguments carry little to no value to the folks making the decision? *shrug*

where loot doesnt feel rewarding and just anymore?

if anyone can get the same as me in the raid, why should I try to outperform them? why not just be the one getting carried and still get equal loot?
what motivation do I have to play my ass off, if I'M not being rewarded for it?

blizzard is slowly but surely taking away every form of individual achievement in this game.

and even looking aside the fact that some deserve more loot than others.

even if all 20 players were equally deserving.

you'll still end up with tons of wasted loot due to suboptimal trinkets, wrong itemization, and even if the loot isnt wasted, it'll be not optimal most of the time.

like think about it, you get an item that's not that good for you but it's still a small upgrade, but it's a huge upgrade for someone else
and then another item for the same slot drops that's your bis piece, so you equip it. and bam you just wasted a loot that you didnt want, and took it from someone who did.

why is this good? nobody's happy in that scenario.

Originally Posted by Jervaise

You will join a guild for a spot in a raid. Not for loot. This is fucking amazing news.

People will still join for loot. Now they can simply guild hop to another one instead of going through any trial. All you have to do is give them a chance and once they have the boss kill and RNG gives them something they are gone. You are a stepping stone and nothing more.

Originally Posted by RangerDaz

He deliberately omitted the existance of the Silver Covenant and everything they made in the past. So it was a clearly biased comment, because he clearly wanted to make people calm down for now.

I understand that launching High Elves right after Void Elves isn't very good for the franchise. But he needs to do some more research about the lore of his own game, because he clearly didn't speak as if he dominates the lore of the game.

And, as he already said, never say never. Everything is open in the future. So, this is the story for BfA: Void Elves vs. Blood Elves. Makes sense.

Devs knowing something about the Lore...

that´s something which don´t go well together

Originally Posted by shaunika123

except it's not arbitrary, since a computer can literally tell youwho will benefit more from the item down to the last dps point.



what am I dictating? if the remaining 95% wants to use personal loot, then let them use it, I'm against taking away options, not dictating who should play what, that's literally the opposite of what I'm saying.

remove master loot for anything that isnt mythic raids for all I care. but dont punish us for the crimes of others.

BLIZZARD is dictating what I should use.



again with the fucking adaptation.

just because you can adapt to something, doesnt make it good.

if you lost both your legs you'd adapt wouldnt you? but you'd still rather have your legs back. even if someone said "this will be good for you in the long term"




where loot doesnt feel rewarding and just anymore?

if anyone can get the same as me in the raid, why should I try to outperform them? why not just be the one getting carried and still get equal loot?
what motivation do I have to play my ass off, if I'M not being rewarded for it?

blizzard is slowly but surely taking away every form of individual achievement in this game.

and even looking aside the fact that some deserve more loot than others.

even if all 20 players were equally deserving.

you'll still end up with tons of wasted loot due to suboptimal trinkets, wrong itemization, and even if the loot isnt wasted, it'll be not optimal most of the time.

like think about it, you get an item that's not that good for you but it's still a small upgrade, but it's a huge upgrade for someone else
and then another item for the same slot drops that's your bis piece, so you equip it. and bam you just wasted a loot that you didnt want, and took it from someone who did.

why is this good? nobody's happy in that scenario.

A good raider tries to outperform the world, let alone others in the guild.

This change makes things clearer - the difference between a good raider and a loot monkey.

Those who wants to be a part of the kill will push their asses off. Not those who dream of loot day and night.

I am raiding since vanilla. Been guild leader, loot master and all.

Raided top 100 world for several years.

Still raiding mythic, however only 2 days a week due to work and Ph.D studies.

I don't want anyone who gives 2 seconds of thought about loot in the guild I raid in. This is not always the case. However, it will be for any guild anytime from this point on.

Loot has always been something that comes in time.

Originally Posted by Angosia

I agree. But, as with all change, change scares people. "This is the way it has always been done" vs "It could be better" There will always be people who eschew change, regardless of how good or bad it is. Just as there will always be people who avoid tradition, regardless of how good or bad it is. That's people. Sometimes, you do have to drag them kicking and screaming into something that is actually better for them in order for them to appreciate it later on. (Think a 5 year old who won't eat their veggies, only to later enjoy it as a teenager or adult.)

It's just how people are. Even if they would like to believe otherwise.

- - - Updated - - -



If people used that system, and I know for sure the abusive guilds (which outnumber the non-abusive ones) don't, that would be a completely different argument. Sorry, your snowflake guild is getting swept away in the Blizzard decision? (ooh, a pun) But, it's still better for the game at large even if not a very tiny minority.



You don't like it, but that doesn't make it invalid. See what I did there?

I'm not including your hyperbole based argument because it is silly, extreme, and not remotely relevant. Try again with something closer to context and we can talk about that.

its a fundamentally terrible idea that removes an entire level of play and complexity from the game and neuters the potential of communities to form around raiding. all in the name of making sure edge cases of "non-fun" outcomes cant possibly happen even though mmo players have somehow managed to survive them since even before wow existed

its very telling about you that you are so desperate to rationalize every terrible decision blizzard is making here. in the end you will feel like a fool but it will be too late. its already too late for all of us. ion has us now.

So they didn't actually want feedback if the GCD should stay or not, it was staying eitherway. Useless giving feedback like always.