Live Developer Q&A with Game Director Ion Hazzikostas

Originally Posted by Zyrinx

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.

and people buy this bs excuse ?

its nonsense - they removed gold missions because people werent buying tokens enough

unless you are one of those naive people who belive that tokens prices are regulated by players.

Please level squish us to 50 in 9.0 ... 120 its too much

At least he didn't piss me off by saying anything stupid about Islands! Sometimes less is more!

Originally Posted by General Zanjin

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)

Forgive me if I interpret you wrongly, but it seems like your fixes just make the leveling experience shorter. After all, that's what exp heirlooms and potions do. What Ion is talking about is making it more fun, such that leveling feels like part of character development, rather than something to be suffered through.

Originally Posted by Iskariott

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.

the actual level cap is just bad for business in every aspect possible. They will do it.

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.

HAHA we have been giving you feedback your only response is no no no you dont want that, this is what you want. Trust us we what you want more than you do.... and that is more rng and more /played so our numbers look better

Originally Posted by Nymrohd

Hide the Chest slot. World of Slutmog inc.

Where's my hide pants option? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Originally Posted by Nymrohd

Hide the Chest slot. World of Slutmog inc.

Just add pants to the list already and be done with it, just so you can run around completely naked. Bonus points if you're a monk and hide your weapons aswell.

What an idiotic idea.

Originally Posted by General Zanjin

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)

level squish and speed of leveling is independent of each other, so they could do both or either.

Originally Posted by AwkwardSquirtle

Level squish gets a yes from me. Really solid point made that's often overlooked in the "levelling isn't rewarding" discussion that they can't give you 120 meaningful things. Call it elite levels, new chars are elite by default. We're elite mobs after taking down a titan.

Originally Posted by Poppincaps

Leveling would likely take the same amount of time, because each level would take longer. The benefit of the system would be 1. Potentially new players wouldn't see the level 120 cap and be intimidated and more importantly 2. You'd get either a new talent or ability every level as opposed to now where you go vast stretches of levels with nothing new to play with.

Leveling isn't rewarding as level and item level scaling mobs has gotten rid of the feeling of getting stronger until you're HC raiding or Mythic Dungeon running in the latest content patch and can start to blow stuff up again. We've never had enough abilities in the game to get something every level (vanilla had ranks for spells which were slight upgrades over previous ones and had to be bought at a trainer) and if they did squish the level cap down to 60-70 or something whilst reshuffling when abilities are delivered we'll just be stuck with regaining the same abilities again but with an even longer time between getting them. For example, we have most of our abilities that our class gets, barring talents and masteries, around level 70, after a level squish we might have them all around level 60 which would take around the same time as getting to level 100-105.

As to a level squish making the 120 grind no longer seem as daunting, I'd disagree. Since WoW has a trial up to level 20 new players are able to get a sense of how difficult it is to level up in WoW (not at all) and considering classic will be out soon and a new player is just as likely to try that as WoW, they'll be quick to find the 1-20 grind far harder and longer and know 20-60 would be just as intense. Having both retail and classic cap out at level 60 then would be far more intimidating to a new player comparing the grind between the two games. Honestly if the level 120 was such a deterrent for new players to join the game then Blizzard could just increase the trial to level 60 and lock the character upon reaching that until the player subs, it takes about 2 days to do atm anyway and would give new players the idea that they have made significant progress already.

I can't see why the level squish would be any worse than the stat squish. People will complain and whine, as usual, but in the end they'll get used to it very quickly.

I'd much rather have fewer levels that meant more, than the current system... Imagine being able to entirely skip Outland and Northrend, what a dream! Sure the 1-60 and Cata 85+ zones are still outdated and shitty AF, but perhaps it'd be possible to go MoP forward much faster anyway.

""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.""

Color me shocked, seeing as how if players don't want to login and do content, the game won't thrive. Alas, obviously the crowd of Negative Nags will continue preaching the opposite to support their feels.

Originally Posted by Sangris

Just add pants to the list already and be done with it, just so you can run around completely naked. Bonus points if you're a monk and hide your weapons aswell.

What an idiotic idea.

I think you mean great idea. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Originally Posted by Fleugen

In both Legion and BFA, the total rep you can earn per day has been MAJORLY reduced. (in 3 dailies in Wrath, MoP, or otherwise, the average rep per day was, at minimum, 750 rep - That was generally in 3-4 quests as opposed to the 10 world quests it would now take to get the same amount.)

In WoD, there were no dailies for rep. Only rep grinds. As opposed to a limited 750 rep per day in 3 dailies, you had to kill 750 mobs in a specific area for rep, which was much slower.

Dailies didn't even exist at all until BC, and not as actual daily HUBS until Wrath.

So no, you can't claim it's been the same since Classic.

You may notice the word daily doesn’t show up in my post even a single time.

The core way to get some rep in all of the expans I listed was out door content rather that be daily’s or grinding and the total rep gained per day hasn’t stayed the same across expans. Yes legion and bfa gives you less daily rep but with the boxes being put in they also made it easier to gain rep with out having to do over 10 daily’s a day like in mop or just sit around grinding mobs.

So yes outdoor content has been a constant for all of wow baring cata.

Originally Posted by Musta

Please level squish us to 50 in 9.0 ... 120 its too much

The level squish isn't about time or effort, it's about feedback. After all, 120 is just a number; mathematically it doesn't really matter if you got from 1 to 120 in 5 days or 1 to 400 in 5 days.

What Ion is talking about is the devaluation of the experience of going up one level. Going up a level should feel better than just having your health and mana topped off; your character should feel more capable. It's easier to make each level meaningful in 50 steps than it is in 120.

Originally Posted by Tyron

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.

Gold farming especially in missions was one reason why people stayed subbed in WOD and Legion.

Originally Posted by Kushana

The level squish isn't about time or effort, it's about feedback. After all, 120 is just a number; mathematically it doesn't really matter if you got from 1 to 120 in 5 days or 1 to 400 in 5 days.

What Ion is talking about is the devaluation of the experience of going up one level. Going up a level should feel better than just having your health and mana topped off; your character should feel more capable. It's easier to make each level meaningful in 50 steps than it is in 120.

Yes, im talking about the same thing. |Right now level is just stagnation and frustation. Also is a great barrier for new players and cause distress between the playerbase because their levels feels without any meaning. It has to be done.

Originally Posted by The Stormbringer

I think you mean great idea. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I like the way your mind works. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Appreciate the lenny!

Originally Posted by Kushana

The level squish isn't about time or effort, it's about feedback. After all, 120 is just a number; mathematically it doesn't really matter if you got from 1 to 120 in 5 days or 1 to 400 in 5 days.

What Ion is talking about is the devaluation of the experience of going up one level. Going up a level should feel better than just having your health and mana topped off; your character should feel more capable. It's easier to make each level meaningful in 50 steps than it is in 120.

Agreed. I was against it at first, but the idea of getting things when leveling up again is pretty tempting. The only thing I'd want to make sure they don't do is remove MORE abilities so they can do this and have you 'earn them back' with the next level up bracket.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by RushRush

I like the way your mind works. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Appreciate the lenny!

You're most welcome! You can always go to www.lennyfaces.net for all your various lenny needs.

-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.

These seem exclusive to one another. Maybe not in a vacuum, but players coming out of WoD and Legion have literal millions stashed away. It's still causing a major disruption between how much you can earn right now and how much the stuff actually costs on the AH. Runes early on are 600g a piece, even if you'd get 3 gold emissaries in a week and your treasure map gave the 5k mission, you'd still be out of gold in less than 20 pulls.

When will they realize you can't just take away the income if the gold is still in people's pockets?

Classic's going to be more interesting with RP-PVE servers around. I can see some nice 1-2 year levelling projects in the pipeline.