Live Developer Q&A with Game Director Ion Hazzikostas
Ion Hazzikostas is sitting down for another question and answer session on Battle for Azeroth!


  • RNG
    • There are a lot more viable loot acquisitions in the game outside of raiding than in the past.
    • The team is working on tech to make the mythic + cache at the end of the week less random.
    • The team is actively trying to figure out how to lessen moments that feel bad without making everything a vendor.
  • Gear Reset and Catch Up
    • The team has experimented with many different ranges for item level increase between raid tiers and have found the current 15 item levels is the minimum that they can do to make the jump from tier to tier feel relevant.
  • Fun and Enjoyment
    • The team has no incentive to create content that is not fun just to pad subscription numbers.
    • People tend to fixate on the Activitision investor lingo but this is not what the team focuses on when creating content.
    • The team values how engaged the community is and how often they are logging in to do content. They want to create content based on feedback and community response.
    • There are many different play styles and ways people enjoy the game. What works for some people doesn't always work for others.
  • PvP Rewards
    • Conquest rewards are not as high of an item level as raids and other harder content because it is a participation award just for engaging in PvP.
    • Playing at higher levels of PvP offers more relevant rewards comparable to other harder content.
  • Stat Importance
    • Starting in Legion, the ratio of stats on gear shifted more to primary stats as you progress further into the end game.
    • The team doesn't want secondary stats to be perfectly equal for classes so there is some decision making and enjoyment from seeing good stats on gear, but they want the gaps between secondary stat importance to be narrow.
  • Portal Removal Feedback
    • A Caverns of Time portal is being added to the portal hubs in the next update.
    • A UI update in the next update will add pathfinding directions to quests that take place on other continents.
  • Transmog
    • The ability to hide the chest slot will be added in the next update.
    • A long term project is to loosen some restrictions over time so players can have more self expression.
  • Character Customization
    • The team wants to increase customization options such as eye color in the near future.
    • A height option is more complicated and most likely not happening.
  • Allied Races
    • There are no new Allied Races in Rise of Azshara.
    • The team is listening to community feedback for what people want to play and will announce Allied races where it makes sense with the story.
    • There could be the ability to repeat Allied Race quests in the future.
  • Leveling
    • Leveling needs help. 120 is a big number and giving a reward at every level would be overwhelming and impractical.
    • The team has heavily discussed a level squish lately. They want community feedback on if losing levels would feel bad even if they could give more valuable rewards at every level in the leveling process.
  • Classic and Old Design Philosophies
    • The team wants to put the emphasis of community back into WoW.
    • With that said, they also don't want to make people feel like they can't play without other people.
  • Role Playing Servers in Classic
    • There will be a role playing server option in Classic.
  • Guilds and Communities
    • Certain guild features were lost in the transition of integrating communities into the Battle.net platform. The team is working and listening to feedback to bring back what is missed most.
  • Two Sides to Every Tale Achievement
    • The team thought it would be a cool reward for people who saw both narratives. It isn't necessarily starting a trend to play both factions.
  • Gold
    • The team did not like what Warlords and Legion did to the economy and tried to pull back in BfA. They have reintroduced gold rewards after some changes in the beginning of the expansion such as the emissary rewards.
    • The team wants repair and consumable costs to be easily done through normal game play.
    • Selling runs for gold has been going on since the game launched. It is much healthier for it to happen with in game currency over sketchy methods.
    • The team doesn't want the advertising of selling runs to dominate channels and group finder and have taken steps to try and stop it, but there is no way to stop it completely.
  • Demon Hunter Server Restrictions
    • No plans to remove the restrictions in BfA, but most likely in the future as they did with Death Knights.
  • Raid Composition
    • The team is pretty happy with the encounter designs in Battle for Dazar'alor.
    • Ideally there will be some fights that are more friendly to ranged and in turn some that are friendlier to melee.
    • Outliers are usually changed such as Mythrax and Mythic Fetid Devourer.
  • Reputation in Dungeons
    • It is unlikely that reputation will be awarded for just doing dungeons because it is mostly tied to the outdoor content. They don't want chaining dungeons to be the most practical method of obtaining reputation.
    • In the past they had reputation in dungeons because of the limited amount of dailies. With world quests, there are more ways to earn rep now.
  • Thal'kiel and Demonology Warlocks
    • Other Legion artifact personalities could return in the future. Hati was an outlier because it was a beloved companion specific to hunters.
    • Xal'atath was an interesting character and the team wanted to dive into her story more which is why she has returned.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Live Developer Q&A with Game Director Ion Hazzikostas started by Stoy View original post
Comments 273 Comments
  1. eduwneso's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by vashe9 View Post
    Its 20 plants per potions but you get at least 5 plants per spawn... it doesnt change almost anything, I farm 2h/week of 3 raiding nights and I prepot + use a pot every single pull/wipe... Are you even playing this game ?! With alchemist procs and "super procs" with the new item, I got 85+ potions from 35 pots material I farmed in less than 1 hours... b*tch please

    Omg mmo-c forums are worse than ever...
    Yes I'm playing this game, where I have other professions and not alchemy, neither the time to farm gold. Prepots where better in legion and gold was easier to get and that's a fact, so for me, it's more difficult to buy prepots for my 8 hours a week of raiding, since apart from raiding and doing some M+ I don't spend much time in WoW because I have more things I want to do.
  1. klaps_05's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by paragraphgorilla View Post
    Is that you, LORE?
    Nah, if that guy was Lore he would just repeat what he quoted and then ignore others on twitter.
  1. therealbowser's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by vashe9 View Post
    No one and I say NO ONE has a sub to only get exalted to play allied races. AR are just reskin of existing races it's a "nice" bonus but its no way something that keeps you playing... If not then you're just ultra casual even more casual than the average casual player...
    Just here to call you out on this ignorant, moronic nonsense.

    First of all, while I have kept my sub active, I was playing extremely actively for the first month of the game exclusively to max out 7th Legion to unlock Dark Iron Dwarves. (I was probably one of the first ~50 players to unlock Dark Iron dwarves on my server.)

    After unlocking the race, I went down to barely logging in at all until Uldir, and even then I was playing pretty inactively. It wasn't until we started closing in on Zandalari trolls and Kul Tirans that I got active again to do the same thing for my Horde character with Zandalari Empire for a month (less grindy since there's only one zone as opposed to three, and I would have done the same for Kul Tirans but I was already exalted with Proudmoore).

    I guarantee I wasn't the only person doing this.

    And then we go into heritage armor. Not every set appeals to everyone, but some of the armor (looking at Kul Tirans in particular) is very badass, and I literally leveled a Kul Tiran from 20-110 just to get the armor on my main, whom I race changed. And it was worth it TBH. I did the same for Lightforged Draenei (albeit far more casually), and I may eventually do the same for Dark Iron dwarves. I dunno if Elec even brought this up, but it's another thing keeping people subbed, for sure.

    "They are just a reskin of other races hurdur" just shows that you are incredibly ignorant and have awful taste. But that's okay. I don't want to judge too harshly, some people prefer vanilla and that's technically okay. However, you trying to shit on people for liking new races is a complete joke, lol.

    First of all,Dark Iron Dwarves are one of the most requested races in WoW's history (up there with High elves which are never going to happen), and personally I was ecstatic to unlock them since I fully intended to race change to this amazing group of bad ass dwarves on my main.

    Second of all, void elves and nightborne are more than 'reskins'. They are literally giving a form of blood elves to the Alliance, and an enhanced form of night elves to the Horde.

    Lastly, Zandalari and especially Kul Tirans (who have entirely unique animations) are not even remotely close to being 'reskins'; I hope I don't have to elaborate on that part further.

    I want to emphasize also the fact that you acknowledge that you know you are wrong but try to shield yourself with your little shit comment "lolol they must be super casual if they don't play the way I do" is adorable. Why do you even play this game?

    While I play FFXIV and you are blowing up and exaggerating everything in your post about it, there is some small hint of truth in what you are saying in that FFXIV not having a bigger population than WoW, however, I don't think Elec was saying that FFXIV has more players than WoW, simply a ton of WoW players have definitely moved onto FFXIV or quit the genre entirely which is 100% true.

    By the way, FFXIV doesn't have world quests. They have FATEs, which are used almost exclusively for leveling up. I wish they would have endgame FATEs with similar rewards to WoW, that would actually be very healthy for the game as it lacks strong single player endgame content right now (IMO), but that's a discussion for another thread and definitely not one I would enjoy having with you.

    I just needed to correct you on that, as you don't seem to have hardly any idea about how FFXIV plays, and appear to be going entirely off of second hand information.
  1. cface's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaira View Post
    It's totally not bullshit WoW "used" to be good and fun before they started all their bullcrap pruning, FFXIV is quite possibly 10 times more fun to play than current iteration of WoW, Though personally I have given up on the MMO genre much better games to play out there ie The Division 2, Devil may cry 5, hell Apex has more quality assurance than this piece of shit game.
    [off-topic]
    I just can't get past FFXIV horrible UI. It looks absolute dogshit compared to wows even standard UI. Isn't there a lot of restrictions on what addon can do in these games compared to wow?
    If it weren't for the amazing UI/addon community in wow, and what is allowed, I would have stopped many expansions ago.

    Also the developer talk is as usual horrible. These interviews should have a theme, so that customization is it's own theme, and m+/raiding/classes its own.
  1. therealbowser's Avatar
    On topic, I'm disappointed that Blizzard is basically dodging the topic for allied races, and especially disappointed to hear no allied races are planned for Azshara. I want to plan ahead so I don't have to blow money (i.e., gold for WoW tokens) on race changes later if they have some cool races coming up in the near future.

    I was fully expecting junker gnomes and vulpera, and if we don't get those, I'll be pretty disappointed (mainly in the former, as those steampunk gnomes look awesome to me). If those were the last allied races of BFA, I'd be okay with that. Then again, if Kul Tirans and Zandalari were, I'd be okay with that, too. I just want to know for certain.
  1. Eleccybubb's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by cface View Post
    [off-topic]
    I just can't get past FFXIV horrible UI. It looks absolute dogshit compared to wows even standard UI. Isn't there a lot of restrictions on what addon can do in these games compared to wow?
    If it weren't for the amazing UI/addon community in wow, and what is allowed, I would have stopped many expansions ago.

    Also the developer talk is as usual horrible. These interviews should have a theme, so that customization is it's own theme, and m+/raiding/classes its own.
    See least you gave some honest/actual criticism of it.

    Most people go "lol weeb game". So thank you at least.
  1. Nazjir's Avatar
    So I have two opinions I take away from this. 1 leaves me with a good feeling, the other is quite bad.

    Level Squish = Great Idea
    Continuing the RnG = Catastrophic

    I think the level squish is a great idea. For the people that have a huge issue with it, please realize 120 is just a number. The pace at which you level doesn't change, nothing at all changes really except the number. Condensing 120 to 60 has so many advantages that would make leveling feel so much more satisfying, and the only downside is players will complain that their number is lower. With half as many levels, each level will actually MEAN something, and you can FEEL your character getting stronger. Imagine each 1-2 levels you learn a new spell, or learn a new passive that you can actually see makes a difference while leveling. Right now, there are points where you'll go over 10 levels without any changes to your playstyle! There is a reason leveling feels dull, and I think the primary reason is you don't feel the progression. I think making this change will make waaaaay more people happy than it'll make people mad, and it will be way more satisfying to new players to the game leveling for the first time. I love the fact they are considering making this a reality

    The other take away is they seem to be 100% onboard with continuing RNG progression, as well as doubling down on how easy the gearing process is. Alot of people seem to think the raiders that have a problem with how easy gearing is now a days are upset due to elitism. I can assure you, this is not the case. The issue is for many is that we grew up to love this game early on largely due to a 'culture' that's been missing for some time now. The culture was built largely on the foundation of 'pride' in one's character. It didn't matter what level of content you did, but as you played the game and went from horribly bad to decent to good, your gear would be a reflection of your growth. Your gear was your badge of honor, your pride displayed. You would look up to someone with a full set from a raid in Stormwind and think, man that guy's really something, I wanna be like him one day. But gear was only the visible pride of a raider. There were millions of players that took their pride from other things. I still remember to this day the #1 enchanter on our server, who all of my guildies went to for their needs. He'd always had everything, and was always available when we needed him. He had never done a raid in his life, hardly did dungeons, but his pride was on his craft, and he loved the game because of the reputation he built for himself. There were similar players to him with different professions. There were mount collectors back then who wowed everyone in major cities with the sheer number of mounts they had. People had their 'thing' in the game that they were truly proud of. As a raider myself, gear was my pride. It was every raiders pride, for the first 4 or 5 expansions of this game. Sadly though, it seems Blizzard has lost touch with the culture it's game was founded upon. They have fostered an environment where gear should be the focus of every player. Gear is no longer 'earned' like it once was. Gear is an 'entitlement' now. A large amount of players truly believe they deserve a reward for paying a subscription, and only paying a subscription. They truly believe that doing a world quest in 5 minutes should earn you the same piece a gear a normal raider spends 6 to 9 hours a week to obtain. Raiders have no pride to put on display anymore. I think the worst group suffering from this are normal and heroic raiders, because they have no way to display their pride nowadays. The hours and hours they devote to killing bosses every week will earn them the same reward as someone that traced a circle on the ground for a turtle lady. People that have no use for such gear, other than to kill the same mobs for WQs everyday 1 second faster, walk around with the same gear that player devoted part of his life to earn. It's not just gear either. There are no enchanter masters on my server. There's no jewelcrafter everyone knows and respects on US-Illidan. There is no badass that's known for running around Boralus on the sickest mounts in the game. There is no pride we can display anymore. There are 2 groups nowadays. Those of us who long for the old days, and those of us who feel entitled to rewards we truly have no use for. I don't see how this sort of system can last 5 more years. Without pride, we're truly just doing the same exact thing, one tier to the next, one expansion to the next. We will burnout, and when we do, I don't know what will happen to the game.

    Blizzard, please listen. Sometimes you have to do what's best for the game, not just the loudest minority of your base. Take things away from us, I'm begging you, if you know it will help reignite the culture that made this game great. You may have some people that log on for 2 hours a week complain that they cannot get the same piece a heroic raider gets from doing the war campaign. You may have Mythic + runners complain they can no longer farm a 10 to be more geared than a heroic progression raider. You may have people that want to spend 1 hour a week on professions complaining that making the best items is too complicated or time consuming. But what you will have in time Blizzard, is a culture. A culture built on pride, where your players can log into their character, 'see' what they've accomplished, and nod in approval.
  1. Leaf4Prez's Avatar
    Uh yes! Level squish please!
  1. Unholyground's Avatar
    I just wish they would put boss specific loot back as a starter and have group wide gear that drops on top of your chance for personal loot. WoW is losing its magic because they keep removing things like that from the game. Also a vendor would be nice, rng has its place, but its place is now everywhere with very little control.
  1. Daan's Avatar
    No words about current class balance and upcoming tweaks...
  1. wolvenfuere's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Musta View Post
    Please level squish us to 50 in 9.0 ... 120 its too much
    There simply is no point for a level squish this late in the games life-- if it even makes it to 9.0. One more expansion left, if lucky and actiblizz doesn't drive the rest of the playerbase against them.
  1. Ielenia's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by cuafpr View Post
    while "levels" might not exist the power gained in leveling does...
    "Leveling" does not exist. One does gain experience as they grow old, of course, but it's not "experience" in the sense of "leveling". You don't become a "level 2 vendor" after vending a few items.

    Levels, and the required "experience" to reach the next levels, are completely arbitrary numbers, and not representative of the pace of growth and learning one character goes throughout their life.

    taking my 120 down to a 20 is just wrong imo.
    You're just making numbers up here as Blizzard never mentioned "removing 100 levels" or any number to squish, at all.

    And yes I was/am against the stats squishes and world scaling.
    That was not my question. I asked if you believe the "item squish" also requires a lore explanation.

    IMO they missed the best chance to do a squish and explain with legion to -> BFA ... maybe they can do it again BFA -> next expac and some sort of story behind it but i doubt it, and figure they will just do it :/
    There is absolutely no need for "lore explanation" for something that does not exist in the lore. We don't need a "lore explanation" for why the game's maintenance happens on Tuesdays. We don't need a "lore explanation" UI changes.
  1. cuafpr's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ielenia View Post
    "Leveling" does not exist. One does gain experience as they grow old, of course, but it's not "experience" in the sense of "leveling". You don't become a "level 2 vendor" after vending a few items.

    Levels, and the required "experience" to reach the next levels, are completely arbitrary numbers, and not representative of the pace of growth and learning one character goes throughout their life.


    You're just making numbers up here as Blizzard never mentioned "removing 100 levels" or any number to squish, at all.


    That was not my question. I asked if you believe the "item squish" also requires a lore explanation.


    There is absolutely no need for "lore explanation" for something that does not exist in the lore. We don't need a "lore explanation" for why the game's maintenance happens on Tuesdays. We don't need a "lore explanation" UI changes.
    best thing about opinions they can be different, you don't think it matters i do. I think it takes away from the game to just do a squish (and yes i randomly chose numbers never said other wise...) UI doesn't impact my perception of my characters strength levels do.
  1. ashblond's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Daan View Post
    No words about current class balance and upcoming tweaks...
    Blizzard: We are happy with the class balance in game right now. But a new pet will be added in Battle.net soon.
  1. Ielenia's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by cuafpr View Post
    best thing about opinions they can be different, you don't think it matters i do. I think it takes away from the game to just do a squish (and yes i randomly chose numbers never said other wise...) UI doesn't impact my perception of my characters strength levels do.
    Except you're espousing the idea that changes of gameplay/UI elements, like character levels, affects/is affected by the lore, which is just objectively false. If Blizzard did a level squish tomorrow, and the max level was reduced from 120 to, say, 60, my character would not be any less "experienced" in the lore (as in, life experiences) than it was prior to the level squish. Just like your character did not become any weaker, in the lore, when the stat squish happened, or when the level scaling was introduced.
  1. The Dwarf's Avatar
    Ion must play a hunter because he's really good at kiting.
  1. GUZ's Avatar
    Gold
    The team did not like what Warlords and Legion did to the economy and tried to pull back in BfA. They have reintroduced gold rewards after some changes in the beginning of the expansion such as the emissary rewards.

    Yup thanks for that 250 gold for a mission and a 5 million gold mount I’ll never get.
  1. Nerevar's Avatar
    Leveling needs help. 120 is a big number and giving a reward at every level would be overwhelming and impractical.
    WTF? No, it would be exactly the opposite. Leveling to 120 with the amount of rewards we have now is overwhelmingly boring.
  1. Optio82's Avatar
    And once again the Elephant in the room is not even mentioned --- there are currently several different versions of WOW going on ---- there are those playing on the dead servers with pops of less than 5,000 people and then there are those playing on the 10 or so servers that actually have a healthy pop size.

    That is unacceptable. They need to fix that. The advantages of being on a low pop server have been dead for years. Hunters cannot go tame a rare pet anymore without being shard'd in with 25 other hunters doing the same thing. Only the disadvantages remain -- like 900 gold for one Agi pre-pot. And it makes guild recruiting almost impossible if you want to raid Mythic. And PVP servers are pointless at this point.

    "We lost the tech know how on merging servers" yeah right. BS

    You want people to pay money to get off the dead servers you've allowed to happen is more like it. And stop recommending new players join the multitude of dead low pop servers, its bad for the game.
  1. papajohn4's Avatar
    They don't want chaining dungeons to be the most practical method of obtaining reputation.
    The team dont want this and the team dont want that... thats why in the end the team will be the only ones play wow. Get out of your bubble, you are making a game for gamers, you are not running a farm sinulator...

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