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. NtflxnChill's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Thetruth1400 View Post
    Vanilla WoW isn't today's WoW. Back then we didn't have WoD and Legion handing out gold on a table for NPCs to do for you.

    That has absolutely nothing to do with today's people being gold capped; having a single character, let along multiple characters gold capped wasn't really a thing back in Vanilla.
    Yes it was.
  1. Elyiandris's Avatar
    Nothing about 8.2? So disappointing...
  1. In Ogres We Trust's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Poppincaps View Post
    You do realize people were buying Mythic Jaina mounts of gold cap? There are players with multiple gold capped characters even. There have always been people who have had a ridiculous amount of gold.

    Also Lore was a guide writer for Tankspot which was the primary guide channel way before Fatboss existed. Ion is currently 6/9 Mythic. Like you can say that they're out of touch, and maybe they are, but they're definitely not lying to you about their experiences.
    Gating is fine... enhanced RNG isn't.
  1. Kemsa's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by McNeil View Post
    I wonder how a leveling squish can work with the leveling boost. Because of this I'm not expecting them to change leveling any time soon.
    ooooh baby i know a lot of people who would have pay 60 dollars to a full insta 60 on Vanilla haahhahaha. Let just give the team time to figure it out what lvls are the ones that matter, personally i would said 70-80 its the level cap, the best levels, 80 to be very accurated with WoTLK, those where the best max lvls.

    The rest makes sense, Blizzard experimented with a lot of things this expa, some of them dont work others are good and the ones that need fixing are now or are going to be reworked (AKA 8.2 collar) so yeah not bad Q&A.

    The allied race one its obvious derp, vulpera and mechagnomes are coming on 8.2.5 just like Zandalari and Kultirans, i bet it will come out on november after Blizzcon.
  1. Jasper Kazai's Avatar
    Hiding the chest slot? That's... interesting. Probably the one slot I'd have guessed that they wouldn't let you hide before others.
    I'm all for stat squishes. Hell, go ahead and do another one. I think smaller damage numbers are better. But a level squish? That's stupid. There's no point.
  1. Amaterasu65's Avatar
    Nothing of importance as it seems. As expected.
  1. Wewlad's Avatar
    "We want to emphasize community, but still allow people to play WoW as if it were a single-player RPG."

    Basically, Blizzard's main problem here: they won't stop trying to please everyone (and pleasing hardly anyone as a result).

    Maybe they'll finally learn that ditching the core, consistent audience they built from the ground-up to target flakes who come and go on a whim wasn't the best direction for WoW.
  1. Archmage Alodi's Avatar
    That was boring!
  1. Lorgar Aurelian's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Eleccybubb View Post
    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.

    Yeah gotta keep people on that sub hook with emissaries and 75 rep world quests....

    Disgraceful.
    Disgraceful? What are they disgracing rep worked the same way in classic tbc mop wod legion, hell even some of the wrath reps worked that way.
  1. Traveler Voltin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by zox2 View Post
    why though? (I'm really asking)
    besides taking forever to gain a level? a level squish to me basically means they have given up and dont really want to try to fix it.
    there are better way to fix it(scaling was a good start) the 300% exp potions should have stayed and made slightly easier to get. There should be way more Heirlooms that give exp(every piece should give exp in my opinion)
  1. MiiiMiii's Avatar
    "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."

    Good luck making people socialize without being forced to. It's been working great since Wrath.

    I am waiting paciently for the concrete changes they will do. Let me guess, they will give transmog gear for completing activities with people in your same "community" channel.
  1. RangerDaz's Avatar
    So they want to kill worthy gold missions definitively.

    And then they wonder why people are more insatisfied in BFA than in Legion.
  1. Irefusetodie's Avatar
    No vod? /10char
  1. Tyron's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by RangerDaz View Post
    So they want to kill gold missions definitively.

    And then they wonder why people are more insatisfied in BFA than in Legion.
    And good riddance, that is hardly the reason people are unsatisfied with BFA. Gold missions were a complete joke in WoD and Legion and fucked up good the economy.
  1. Iskariott's Avatar
    i would say yes to level squish if it would shorten the time required to get to max lvl. i want to do max lvl content. leveling isnt the fun experience. also as you rush through everything (not because you are so fast but because you want to be as fast as possible) you cant enjoy it anyhow. i have a 100 monk now with 16 hours play time (probably no perfect leveling route) and still 20 levels to go. if i feel like getting a heritage armor again - and i am probably not always going to play monk - it will just take much longer. with 8 allied races and about 18-22 hours to get from 20 to 110 it is just too massive.
  1. Zyrinx's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by RangerDaz View Post
    So they want to kill gold missions definitively.

    And then they wonder why people are more insatisfied in BFA than in Legion.
    Yeah the trouble is the price of "Stuff" in BFA is based on people having farmed WoD/Legion for gold (5M longboi, 333K frogs). If you didn't, or you weren't around... well you're screwed. Kinda sucks.

    Personally I did farm those, but I'm still sitting on my gold because eventually, I think those goldsinks will be cheaper and/or more appealing. And if I'm wrong, oh well, I can always go back.
  1. Nasuuna's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Jasper Kazai View Post
    Hiding the chest slot? That's... interesting. Probably the one slot I'd have guessed that they wouldn't let you hide before others.
    I'm all for stat squishes. Hell, go ahead and do another one. I think smaller damage numbers are better. But a level squish? That's stupid. There's no point.
    shirts will finally be useful!
  1. Sanguinerd's Avatar
    Hide chest option! finally
  1. Zequill's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by NtflxnChill View Post
    Yes it was.
    The first gold capped character was in 2008, late TBC https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/e...aft-gold-limit

    The link talk about an US that got it earlier but I didn't find the source. Still, none during vanilla.
  1. Eleccybubb's Avatar
    Man.

    Imagine getting excited over a "hide chest" option rather than telling them the actual issues with the game.

    How sad....

    No wonder these Q and As are a sham when irrelevant and pointless requests/questions like that get through.

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