Warcraft Radio Interview with Ion Hazzikostas

Warcraft Radio Interview with Ion Hazzikostas
Warcraft Radio sat down for an exclusive interview with Ion Hazzikostas about the recent Ny'alotha race to world first. Here is a recap of the interview. Be sure to watch the full video for all of the context and additional information!


  • Race to World First
    • It was really exciting to see a North American guild come out on top for the first time in awhile.
    • The team monitored the race in real time and fixed issues as fast as possible.
    • The Ra-den pre-immunity issue was hotfixed immediately so that immunity class stacking wasn't encouraged on the fight to bypass mechanics. The difference between this and the respawn issue was that Limit hadn't killed Ra-den yet.
    • The mythic race has shed light on bugs in mythic raids a lot faster than in the past.
    • There is a bit of a trade off in that the team wants to keep final boss mythic encounters somewhat exciting and secret which results in them not being tested by a large variety of guilds or situations.
    • Most mythic encounter strategies end up a little different than the team intended.
    • The issue that caused the team to despawn N'Zoth wasn't necessarily a bug, but a workaround that needed tuning so that the damage wasn't healable, forcing players into the portal.
    • The team wants to avoid excessive randomness in encounters that continually cause wipes.
    • The intended mechanic for 25% was a safety mechanism to spawn the gateway at 25% if phase 2 was initially skipped by dpsing the boss down to 25% without going in the portal for phase 2 yet, but the bug was that it was doing it EVEN IF phase 2 was completed.
    • Carapace was a little easier than intended, and in retrospect the damage requirements of phase 1 was too low.
    • In the past, these bugs only affected a small group of people, but now that they are public the team is learning how to improve communication and fix issues.
    • There are no plans to have mythic raids open simultaneously between NA and EU. They don't want the raid opening at bad times or having to delay opening, and most of the race comes down to learning and conquering the fight first.
  • Corruption System
    • Overall the team is happy with how corruption turned out, but there are still tuning issues. They like the choices and trade-offs that it brings to fights.
    • There are multiple tiers of each corruption so that you can wear more pieces of gear with good corruption without having excessive corruption negatives attached.
    • Corruption is an 8.3 system and is NOT the future of WoW.
  • Ny'alotha Encounters
    • The ball mechanic in the Xanesh encounter is the team trying to develop new ideas in raids that haven't been seen before.
    • Ion likes the Wrathion encounter, especially as a first fight, because it creates spectacle while also having some interesting mechanics.
    • Ion also likes the Carapace fight, particularly because he likes the idea of fighting your way into N'Zoth.
    • Sometimes datamined abilities in the encounter don't make the final cut but remain in the files as they iterate on fights even prior to PTR testing.
    • Queen Azshara originally had an extra phase with unique adds that didn't make the final cut.
    • Ion believes N'Zoth lives up to the standards of previous final boss encounters.
  • Future Mythic Encounters
    • The team is working on making sure bugs are solved before the race starts while also improving communication so that they fix these bugs faster when they pop up.
    • Final bosses of raids will likely still not be tested on the PTR for mythic to keep the surprise.
    • The team is happy with the 6 months between raid tiers as it's a good balance to allow people to make it to the end of the raid that have slower progression.
  • Battle for Azeroth Ending
    • There are definitely already hints building up to the future of the story.
    • Ion talks about the disappointment some felt for N'Zoth's end, but at the end of the day we are the heroes of the story and we will always defeat villains and make way for new villains to enter.
    • The team wanted the final cinematic of the expansion to focus on you as the hero and your efforts to build up your Heart of Azeroth being important to victory.
  • Shadowlands
    • There is a lot more to talk about with Shadowlands in the NEAR FUTURE.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Warcraft Radio Interview with Ion Hazzikostas started by Stoy View original post
Published on 2020-02-12 06:56 PM
123 Comments
Comments 123 Comments
  1. psyquest's Avatar
    The only good thing he said: "Corruption is an 8.3 system and is NOT the future of WoW."

    Dunno where he gets his feedback, corruption is RNG shit, 3 weeks and most of my guildies didnt get a single top 3...
  1. Lurker1's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by psyquest View Post
    The only good thing he said: "Corruption is an 8.3 system and is NOT the future of WoW."

    Dunno where he gets his feedback, corruption is RNG shit, 3 weeks and most of my guildies didnt get a single top 3...
    I agree i can finally leave this mmorpg for a new one soon feels good man!
  1. Onikaroshi's Avatar
    Love how there's already an 8 page discussion with a better write-up in the raid forum... mmo is so slow sometimes.
  1. Erous's Avatar
    Obviously a biased interview. Nobody felt the need to ask why EU didn't get 16 hours of maintenance and downtime during the race, but the US did?
  1. Onikaroshi's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by psyquest View Post
    The only good thing he said: "Corruption is an 8.3 system and is NOT the future of WoW."

    Dunno where he gets his feedback, corruption is RNG shit, 3 weeks and most of my guildies didnt get a single top 3...
    Corruption is awesome /shrug, but to each their own.
  1. Beefhammer's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Lurker1 View Post
    I agree i can finally leave this mmorpg for a new one soon feels good man!
    Lol. You can finally. As I'd you were being forced to play WoW.
  1. Paviginger's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by psyquest View Post
    The only good thing he said: "Corruption is an 8.3 system and is NOT the future of WoW."

    Dunno where he gets his feedback, corruption is RNG shit, 3 weeks and most of my guildies didnt get a single top 3...
    i got a 445 ring w/ infinite stars on it my first run thru normal Nyalotha - it does at least 10% of my dmg on EVERY FIGHT... 75 corruption. I won the RNG game for the first time ever, i feel you
  1. Lurker1's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Beefhammer View Post
    Lol. You can finally. As I'd you were being forced to play WoW.
    The only things keeping me around was forges and tier gear so yeah i can finally go away soon feels great man!
  1. Beefhammer's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Lurker1 View Post
    The only things keeping me around was forges and tier gear so yeah i can finally go away soon feels great man!
    Again, you could have left at any point.
  1. Varitok's Avatar
    "Ion talks about the disappointment some felt for N'Zoth's end, but at the end of the day we are the heroes of the story and we will always defeat villains and make way for new villains to enter."

    Probably the worst takeaway from this interview. It completely ruins any potential storylines and various potential endings in favour of Scooby Doo level monster of the week expansions where us meddling kids always win 100% of the time. So disappointed with that.
  1. Paviginger's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Varitok View Post
    "Ion talks about the disappointment some felt for N'Zoth's end, but at the end of the day we are the heroes of the story and we will always defeat villains and make way for new villains to enter."

    Probably the worst takeaway from this interview. It completely ruins any potential storylines and various potential endings in favour of Scooby Doo level monster of the week expansions where us meddling kids always win 100% of the time. So disappointed with that.
    ive learned to appreciate lore regardless of in game

    nzoth coulda ported us to corrupted cities around azeroth like in visions (woulda been a cool tie in to the visions) where we had to kill corrupted leaders or something to weaken him, just like the yogg fight. That fight seemed cooler to me then nzoth, and how many xpacs ago was it?
  1. Vakna's Avatar
    Not only does he think N'zoth lived up to the standards of previous end bosses, but he also things the final cinematic was fine?

    What kind of shit do they have them smoking in California?
  1. Pandragon's Avatar
    Corruption is an 8.3 system and is NOT the future of WoW.
    I really really hate that they are in this mind set. I don't want a new "system" every freaking patch/expansion. I want something that can be built upon. I want it to feel like it's actually part of the game and not just "here, let this distract you for a few months"
  1. Megitsune's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Pandragon View Post
    I really really hate that they are in this mind set. I don't want a new "system" every freaking patch/expansion. I want something that can be built upon. I want it to feel like it's actually part of the game and not just "here, let this distract you for a few months"
    I agree with you that there should something that sticks and can be built upon, but I'm very glad it's not corruption because that system is awful.
  1. thilicen's Avatar
    If they are happy with the lottery system that is corruption they can honestly go fuck themselves.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Paviginger View Post
    i got a 445 ring w/ infinite stars on it my first run thru normal Nyalotha - it does at least 10% of my dmg on EVERY FIGHT... 75 corruption. I won the RNG game for the first time ever, i feel you
    And on the other hand people are getting benched because it's not dropping for them. This system is miraculously shitty, even for Blizzard's standards these later years.
  1. spalernTJ's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Paviginger View Post
    ive learned to appreciate lore regardless of in game

    nzoth coulda ported us to corrupted cities around azeroth like in visions (woulda been a cool tie in to the visions) where we had to kill corrupted leaders or something to weaken him, just like the yogg fight. That fight seemed cooler to me then nzoth, and how many xpacs ago was it?
    N'zoth could have done so much. My ideal concept for the fight would be three phases. Starting the fight against N'zoth for phase 1. Phase 2 would split the groups and make each group fight corrupted images of the others. Once all images are defeated, everyone would be corrupted and "Lose." With the idea being that N'zoth played the group against itself and tricking them into destroying each other, playing into the "schemer" mindset of N'zoth, but ultimately saved by Brann, MOTHER and the Heart of Azeroth to continue the fight and end it.
  1. Softbottom's Avatar
    Overall the team is happy with how corruption turned out, but there are still tuning issues. They like the choices and trade-offs that it brings to fights.

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
  1. Easo's Avatar
    Is that why the ending cinematic is still unlisted? Or why it is disliked into oblivion? Tell me, Ion, do you think you cannot do no wrong?
  1. Laqweeta's Avatar
    God I hate that piece of fucking shit.
  1. Acidbaron's Avatar
    I do think Ion delivered good work for what he set out to achieve and i think he still believes he does, but is he with his focus on raiding and background the best person in charge to lead WoW forward?

    Perhaps a new breath of fresh air is needed from outside of Blizzard to offer new perspectives, the last expansion simply felt that everything was build around eventually to start raiding and MMO's that are more diverse seem to attract people longer.

    Shadowlands seems to offer something more geared towards solo progression but i am holding off pre-ordering till the "honey moon" phase dies off.
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