Alex Afrasiabi and Patrick Dawson Interview, Moonkin Festival, Dev Interviews

New Card Reveals - Ticket Scalper, Heavy Metal!

MMO-Champion Interview with Alex Afrasiabi and Patrick Dawson
We had the opportunity to talk to Alex Afrasiabi and Patrick Dawson at BlizzCon. Our interview was before the World of Warcraft: What's Next panel, so we couldn't ask about the new content.
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
  • Mythic Raiding and Faction Imbalance
    • The team wanted to preserve the concept of server/guild Mythic raiding but also wanted cross realm mythic raiding to happen while the content was still relevant, which is why the concept of the Hall of Fame came into play.
    • The team has corrected racials over the years, but Alex acknowledged that many people gravitated towards Horde in the past because of racials. They don't believe there is a significant difference in faction racial balance today, but they are always looking at ways to solve this problem without just making the Alliance overpowered.
  • Warfronts
    • The team quickly realized that the item level of the rewards given out in Warfronts should not be obtainable by a fresh Level 120. They wanted progression to be incremental and this is why they hotfixed in a minimum item level to queue for a Warfront. They are happy with where it is at now.
    • The Warfront rewards were purposely made slightly better as an incentive for players to do Warfronts because it is new content.
    • The question the team wants to take from the Warfront launch is "Was it necessarily that Warfront rewards were too high or were world content rewards just not high enough?" The answer to this is that world content rewards were probably not high enough.
    • Alex is more interested in using Warfronts as a platform for story.
  • Water Walking Mounts
    • Adding more water walking mounts is something that has been discussed a lot by the team.
  • The War Campaign
    • The War Campaign seems shorter than the Legion campaign because the story is not over. Suramar's story ended after Legion's second patch whereas the War Campaign will span the whole expansion and evolve over time.
    • Sometimes there will be fewer quests, but if the quests given make you feel something or advance the story in a meaningful way, then the team has done their job.
    • Alex believes that quests should still help you have an understanding of what is going on in the story even if you are a player that instantly accepts quests and does them without reading the text.
  • Island Expedition Rewards
    • The team believes that the community has done well with figuring out how Island Expeditions rewards work. They did try something new with the way rewards drop but can't say it's EXACTLY how the system works. They like there to be some sort of discovery involved in the game.
  • Mythic + Dungeons
    • When there is a huge disparity between the difficulty of specific dungeons in Mythic+ the team will address it.
    • Internally, there is a talented team that runs Mythic+ dungeons and provides feedback. Sometimes things get through, but community feedback usually results in a fix.
  • Graphics
    • Multithreading for the renderer has been a long time coming and the team is excited for players to take advantage of the improved frame rates.
    • Internally, they have seen improvements of up to 50% in framerate. Player's experiences will depend on their hardware and software configuration.



Moonkin Festival Micro-Holiday on November 12
Moonkin Festival is today! Head to Moonglade and pick up Moonkin Monitoring from Makkaw.

There is a small quest line that ends with a fight against a group boss that drops Beanie Boomie. Completion of the quest line increases the number of hatchlings that are following you.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Join the celebration of all things Moonkin in Moonglade, November 12!


A new addition to Legion is what we’re calling micro-holidays. Each one is meant to make the world feel more alive without making players feel like they need to participate for big rewards—while still providing some more variety and fun.

Method Interview with Ely Cannon and Morgan Day
Method sat down with WoW devs Ely Cannon and Morgan Day to discuss Battle for Azeroth.


  • Battle of Dazar'alor
    • Boss 2 (King Grong) for Horde is Boss 3 for Alliance. Other than this, the fights happen in the same order.
    • The team may add small scenes to show the other faction raid during the events and bosses, such as seeing them fighting in the distance or Alliance players switching to the Horde perspective and seeing their own characters down with Mekkatorque from the balcony above.
    • The team wanted to justify the encounters with purpose. The reason the Alliance fights the Treasure Guardian is because it makes sense for them to break into the treasury and steal artifacts during a siege.
  • Nazjatar
    • The team poured a lot of resources and time into Nazjatar. It will be an extensively large zone with 5 different environment types that contain full questing and end game content.
  • Mechagon
    • They wanted the dungeon to launch feeling like Karazhan, meaning you know you will spend substantial time in there in a small group.
    • Eventually it will be split into 2 wings for Mythic +.
  • Mythic + Affixes
    • The season two affix Reaping will do the following:
      • Cause all trash mobs killed every 20% of the progress bar (5 times total) to raise and rush your team no matter where you are on the map.
      • They want it to feel scary and creepy. Bwonsamdi will appear and say "rise" and a blood moon will appear in the sky whenever it happens. The dungeon will also get darker.
      • If you lose the timer something interesting also happens, but they don't want to spoil it!
      • You should be able to plan around this affix because it happens at set times.
    • Necrotic will be changed to physical instead of magical to better play to the weaknesses of tanks that heal a lot.
  • Global Cooldown
    • DPS cooldowns were looked at to design them around having more impact or reason to not activate multiple at once. They also are making visual improvements to them to make them feel more epic.
    • Many mobility abilities are being taken off the GCD again.
    • Defensive abilities are still being discussed.
  • Raid Incentives
    • Raids have unique traits not found outside of the raid that do fun and exciting things.


Wowhead Interview with Ion Hazzikostas and Chris Robinson
Wowhead sat down with Ion Hazzikostas and Chris Robinson for some new information!


  • Heritage Armor
    • In regards to the Tauren Heritage Armor, the giant totem on the back is actually the cloak slot.
    • There could be more Heritage sets in the future outside of the ones being created for both the Allied races and older races.
    • The current armor worn by a lot of the Night Elf NPCs is not planned as the Night Elf Heritage Armor, but player feedback could cause designs reminiscent of it.
  • Night Elves
    • The events of the Darkshore quests in 8.1 are setting up future lore and stories for the Night Elves.
    • The Night Elf glaive is currently restricted to Demon Hunters, but a weapon will that silhouette may become available to other classes down the line.
  • Rise of Azshara
    • Blizzard thought it was important to capture the vibe of being underwater while not constantly being underwater.
    • They don't have finalized travel gameplay mechanics for Nazjatar, but it may involve waterfalls and currents.
    • The patch name "Rise of Azshara" is not just a turn of phrase.
  • Darkmoon Faire
    • The Darkmoon roller coaster is a first person POV simulator.
    • The coaster was a passion project from one of the artists. It wasn't initially planned for the faire.
  • Character Customization
    • Glowing eyes for female Worgen are planned.
    • The team is happy that the perma-scowl is gone from the female Worgen model, but still want to iterate further on facial customization for the Worgen.
    • There are no plans currently for straight-backed undead.
    • Adding different undead races to the lineup depends on where the story goes and whether or not they should just be standard members of the Horde or playable characters.
  • Battleground Visual Updates
    • They currently have no plans to update Alterac Valley like they are doing to Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin. These two are much smaller and are part of the rotation for rated play.
  • Allied Races
    • The character slot limit per server will increase with each Allied Race added to the game.
    • The 50 character cap per account will not increase as of now.
  • Mechagon
    • Goblins see Mechagon as a way to salvage and create new lucrative inventions.

WoWChakra and 4Fansites Interview with Morgan Day & Shani Edwards
WoWChakra and 4Fansites sat down with Morgan Day and Shani Edwards to discuss Battle for Azeroth and its future.


  • Azshara's Eternal Throne
    • The team is aware of the challenges an underwater fight presents, but think this raid is a time where they have to create a fight like this.
    • The team looked at the Horde quest that took place underwater for inspiration.
    • The raid designers want to try to create new fights that they have never done yet and this is the perfect opportunity.
  • Story
    • Thrall could possibly make a return in the future, but the team doesn't want to spoil too much.
    • They admit that the Horde got more quests and context for the Uldir raid, but the Alliance might get more intimate context for The Crucible of Storms and Mechagon because they take place in their zones. They are also the ones taking the fight to the Horde in The Battle for Dazar'alor.
  • Allied Races
    • Allied races will be added as they make sense in the story.
    • There are more coming, but the team isn't ready to announce anymore at this time.
  • Warfronts
    • There are currently no new Warfronts after Darkshore to announce at this time, but that is not to say that new ones are not coming.
  • Azerite Armor
    • The team has heard and agree with the feedback that having to unlock the same traits over and over is not fun and plan to use address this. They don't have any specifics to share at the moment, however.
  • Class Stacking
    • It is important that classes have strengths where they shine, but also weaknesses. In the instance of stacking Subtlety Rogues for Zul, the team admits that the raid designers could have simply had damage shields on the adds to deter this in Mythic difficulty, which is something that they have done for the robot adds in the Mekkatorque fight in Dazar'alor.
    • The team liked giving classes time to shine in Uldir that didn't necessarily involve damage, such as mobile classes in the G'huun fight. They then realized that people just stacked Warlocks for it, and kind of negated the original intent, though Warlocks got to shine!
This article was originally published in forum thread: Alex Afrasiabi and Patrick Dawson Interview, Moonkin Festival, Dev Interviews started by chaud View original post
Published on 2018-11-12 07:41 PM
61 Comments
Comments 61 Comments
  1. MasterDinadan's Avatar
    They should just give us water walking on all our mounts (where allowed) if we’ve unlocked water strider.
    More mount variety is always a good thing. Having to use an ugly mount because it’s mechanically better sucks.
    And if we’re riding a flying mount in a no-fly zone but have water walking, have the mount play flight animation while water walking so it’s flying just above the surface of the water. Would be a huge improvement and nice way to show off our flying mounts while we wait for the real thing.
  1. Kralljin's Avatar
    It is important that classes have strengths where they shine, but also weaknesses.
    I can't read this drivel anymore, literally anytime class balance is brought this freaking line comes up.

    So then, when will actions follow?
    When will those classes / specs without significant strengths receive those?
    When will those classes / specs without significant weaknesses get nerfed?

    Those stupid question regarding class stacking / class balance continue to come up because we cannot find this philosophy is not reflected in the game.

    The team liked giving classes time to shine in Uldir that didn't necessarily involve damage, such as mobile classes in the G'huun fight. They then realized that people just stacked Warlocks for it, and kind of negated the original intent, though Warlocks got to shine!
    Oh my, mobile classes being favored, what's their next idea, an Encounter where immunity cooldowns are quite strong? Maybe we even need to soak stuff?
  1. Nyres's Avatar
    i seriously hate what they've done with M+ this expac, adding the affix at +2 makes the lower runs longer and more of a PITA for those of us who found fun in casually doing lower keys in legion. Then between Infested and the upcoming Reaping affix makes me say screw it to even try a +10 anymore since all it does is just make things more annoying. Also with that Necrotic change its like they're personally out to get DKs.
  1. Brubear's Avatar
    I think they should either give all flying mounts the ability to hover on water (maybe only allow it once you've unlocked a water-walking mount as an achievement flag or something?) or at least let certain flying mounts do it. For example, the fact that the new Flying Dutchman mount can't float on water is silly to me.
  1. Appelgren's Avatar
    LuL. This whole beta of azerite has been a moonlit festival.
  1. TyrannicalPuppy's Avatar
    Alex is more interested in using Warfronts as a platform for story.
    Well, he's failing pretty bloody miserably.
  1. ctrlaltwalsh's Avatar
    It is important that classes have strengths where they shine, but also weaknesses.
    This is a good idea in concept.

    • All Classes have Strengths
    • All Classes have Weaknesses

    Okay Fine.

    BUT: Strengths cannot be DPS, as all DPS needs to be somewhat balanced in a Patchwerk fight.

    SO: Strengths can be things like

    • Mobility (Has a DPS Impact on most fights via Uptime.)
    • Damage Reduction/Immunity/Shields (Has a DPS impact on most fights again via Uptime.)

    INCONSISTENCY:

    Some abilities are balanced and fair. For example lets look at Shadow’s Dispersion.
    • Disperse into pure shadow energy, reducing all damage taken by 60% for 6 sec, but you are unable to attack or cast spells. (2 Min Cooldown)
    And compare it to Paladin’s Bubble
    The shadow priest gains damage reduction, in exchange they cannot do damage.

    Some abilities are just better.
    • Grants immunity to all damage and harmful effects for 8 sec. (5 Min Cooldown)
    Not only does it grant immunity, but it does it for longer (8 vs 6 seconds) and the paladin continues to deal full damage.
    The Paladin is immune to a mechanic, this can be used to soak important boss damage abilities, or often is it just used to stay on the boss through a mechanic melee DPS need to move out of.

    Some of you will say “But ctrlaltwalsh! Divine Shield has a 5 minute cooldown! The priest get's to use their ability 5 times for the Paladin's 2” and to that I say:
    • First: Sure, if the boss fight is 6 minutes then yeah they get it 3 times, but guess what - If the boss fight is 3m30s then they both use it once.

    • Second: So what? Even if the fight is 4m59s the paladin is getting additional DPS uptime by using the cooldown, the shadow priest is not getting that DPS uptime at all as they are not able to cast while using it.

    The same argument can be made for an absolute TON of abilities in the game, where one classes ability is flat out better than another. Now I understand that the differences make the game, but what I don’t understand is that these abilities don’t seem to be taken into account for balance purposes. If the shadow priest is losing 8 seconds on a 3-minute fight then their baseline DPS should be higher.

    TLDR:
    Mobility/DR/Immune/Shield cooldowns effect DPS, these should be taken into account for the spec’s baseline DPS and classes that don’t have these should be better, when they aren’t needed. (As rare as that is)

    Edit: I'd love to see a list of your specs Strengths and weaknesses, Everyone give me 2 Strengths, and 2 Weaknesses.

    Demon Hunter - Vengeance:
    STRENGTH: Extreme Mobility, Amazing Utility
    WEAKNESSES: Mediocre vs Magic Damage, Active Mitigation mediocre.
  1. Stormykitten's Avatar
    I hope they address whyever Azshara would raise the city if that is what she does; I mean, what gain does that give her? Seems like it gives her enemies a chance to defeat her.
  1. Onikaroshi's Avatar
    Raids have unique traits not found outside of the raid that do fun and exciting things.
    The developers must have a really weird idea of what is "fun and exciting". So far there's about zero reason to raid anything but Mythic, so if you don't like 20 man raids or M+ your end game is shot
  1. Telwar's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ilyiana View Post
    i knew it! azshara is raising nazjatar from the seafloor!! so happy they took this route. she'll seem even more menacing than she already does. they're doing her very well, as long as she escapes in the raid and doesn't die i'll be very happy with her treatment in game.
    Hrm.

    It'd be a neat little old G.I. Joe comic nod if they had the Alliance and Horde bomb locations on Nazjatar that triggered a massive earthquake that raised it from the ocean floor.

    You could even have a battleground for claiming Nazjatar from the other side before they can get "official recognition!"

    (I'm sorry, I'm a fan of the original G.I. Joe comics, I'll get my coat...)
  1. azkhane's Avatar
    that reaping affix will be nerfed to the ground if the enemies raise back with their abilities, hp,damage as they are alive, also they will agro any non pulled enemies, and i am SURE those mf will trigger INSANE explosive spawn .... and bursting and bolstering pff that shit can't be
  1. Culex's Avatar
    These "interviews" are a complete waste of time, they are just blowing smoke up peoples asses and they just eat it up.

    [
  1. The One Percent's Avatar
    Why would the queen of a race of underwater creatures raise up their main city for no reason, sacrificing their advantage of being better swimmers than their enemies?
  1. Debased's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Onikaroshi View Post
    The developers must have a really weird idea of what is "fun and exciting". So far there's about zero reason to raid anything but Mythic, so if you don't like 20 man raids or M+ your end game is shot
    Heroic is fine, I don't know what you're talking about. It drops 370 loot just like M10+. Except it's easier (with one or two exceptions), well unless you're stacking a faceroll comp for keys.
  1. Kathranis's Avatar
    Strength vs weakness class design is miles better than homogenization, IMO. They can probably edge closer to the middle, but I don't know if players really want to go back to every class being able to do everything.
  1. mmocfd328e0b6e's Avatar
    What is the point of these interviews? They don't asking the real questions and devs don't give any answers... I wish I have that much time to talk about nothing and get paid...
  1. Onikaroshi's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Debased View Post
    Heroic is fine, I don't know what you're talking about. It drops 370 loot just like M10+. Except it's easier (with one or two exceptions), well unless you're stacking a faceroll comp for keys.
    much easier to get a group of 5 together over a group of 20+, and +10s really aren't hard AT ALL (I just can't stand M+ as a whole), plus the gear is better (better itemized, better traits, etc.) and now with the new vendor only applying to M+, raiding is basically dead for gear (Before I quit we raided for like 4 weeks and I got ONE upgrade, M+ was upgrades every week at min). It's stupid, they should be separate entirely.

    And it still doesn't change the fact that what they said is a joke, there's nothing "interesting" about raid only traits, they're just as passive and trash as the normal ones.
  1. Kithelle's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by MakeMeLaugh View Post
    They need to stop saying this, it's a blatant lie. What they did to spriests, ele and enhanc shaman is proof they have no idea what they are talking about.

    Just like when they say racials are balanced...it's another lie...Horde has obvious advantages. They're so out of touch sometimes it isn't even funny...
  1. HuxNeva's Avatar
    ... stacking Subtlety Rogues for Zul, the team admits that the raid designers could have simply had damage shields on the adds to deter this in Mythic difficulty.

    ... mobile classes in the G'huun fight. They then realized that people just stacked Warlocks for it, and kind of negated the original intent, though Warlocks got to shine
    This shows to me that encounter designers do not have the right mindset when it comes to thinking about how players approach a fight. They seem to reason from just the intent of mechanics and never change their perspective to 'how can this be circumvented'.

    While I do in concept appreciate the class differentiation with specialty strengths and trade-off weaknesses, they must realize that in modern WoW this translates into alt stables so that every player can pick the optimal 'tool' from its kit per fight as required.
  1. krl's Avatar
    Internally, there is a talented team that runs Mythic+ dungeons and provides feedback. Sometimes things get through, but community feedback usually results in a fix.
    No. Just no. This is a blatant lie. Some affixes completely broke some bosses recently such as explosives, they cannot have been tested. That's impossible.

    "Sometimes things get through" ??? Is that a joke ? The dungeons could not be completed at all...
Page 2 of 4 FirstFirst
1
2
3
4
LastLast

Site Navigation

Social Media

Services

My Account

Support

Advertise

Resources

Terms of Service

Privacy Policy

Our Communities

© 2023 Magic Find, Inc. All rights reserved.