Developer Q&A with Ion Hazzikostas

[getupkid55]

So we are raiding for a new type AP? lol

How you compare the azurite gear bonuses to AP is beyond me... it is far more comparable to the Artifact Traits, Legendaries, and Tier Bonuses that it is replacing. And thankfully so!

The new "AP" system is passive and is not specific to raiding at all.

[Chib]

I'm going to be honest in says the more they talk about BfA the more I go 'meh' inside. They really need to start talking this up cause it feels like the downer expansions after the high that Legion was. It feels a bit like what Cata was after the high that was WotLK, we for me that is anyway.

[The Oblivion]

TRAITS guys TRAITS, as in things that add things to your character, like the exact things that Set bonuses used to do. You're not "raiding for ap" you're raiding to get a raid only bonus.

so you think blizzard will pull off making every single raid trait the best? if not, then its a moot point. set bonuses were always 100% the choice. BiS traits will very likely not come from the raid with their balancing. look at trinkets for the first half of this expac.

ill bet money right now, there will be specs where NONE of the raid traits are selected.

[getupkid55]

If you want to look like the class you play... use outdated models.

Brilliant!

So you must be transmogged to Legion tier then, yes?

[thatmikeguy]

so you think blizzard will pull off making every single raid trait the best? if not, then its a moot point. set bonuses were always 100% the choice. BiS traits will very likely not come from the raid with their balancing. look at trinkets for the first half of this expac.

ill bet money right now, there will be specs where NONE of the raid traits are selected.

Also at the END of the raid. All this sounds terrible!

[Onikaroshi]

so you think blizzard will pull off making every single raid trait the best? if not, then its a moot point. set bonuses were always 100% the choice. BiS traits will very likely not come from the raid with their balancing. look at trinkets for the first half of this expac.

ill bet money right now, there will be specs where NONE of the raid traits are selected.

Sets are not always 100% the best, plenty of times over the course have sets been so useless that people don't use a 4p, sometimes even a 2p.

And it's all in balancing, yes. Trinkets were wonky in the beginning, now though, raids give the best.

We don't even know what any of these traits will BE yet, so other than there is raid exclusive ones we have no info. I was the first to complain about the set removal, but that this is exactly what I suggested.

[getupkid55]

so you think blizzard will pull off making every single raid trait the best? if not, then its a moot point. set bonuses were always 100% the choice. BiS traits will very likely not come from the raid with their balancing. look at trinkets for the first half of this expac.

ill bet money right now, there will be specs where NONE of the raid traits are selected.

What are you even arguing?

You basically just said "blizzard is really good at making tier bonuses, but there's no way they can just put those tier bonuses into a different system."

You are giving everyone here cancer.

[The Oblivion]

What are you even arguing?

You basically just said "blizzard is really good at making tier bonuses, but there's no way they can just put those tier bonuses into a different system."

You are giving everyone here cancer.

no, you just have reading problems. set bonuses were good because the only option was to use them or not. The new traits will have to compete with non raid verisions. Its like taking all the traits in your artifact and spreading them out, locking 1 behind a raid. The chance of the raid one being the best, with blizzards known balancing abilities, is low. You can reference trinkets, talent rows, and legiondaries for this. There WILL be a BiS set up, if it doesnt come from the raid, then it doesnt fill what set bonuses did.

[getupkid55]

The new traits will have to compete with non raid verisions.

They are not trying to "balance" the traits to try and make them equal. They are going to make the raid traits CLEARLY better. That is not a hard thing to do.

You are also ignoring the fact that it is guaranteed to be BiS item level from raids because they dont titanforge.

[Deleted]

You guys may have missed

There will also be properties on the Heart of Azeroth slots that can only be found in a raid.

But basically, worded better, he said there would be traits and combos ONLY found in raids.

They'll need to be very powerful to ensure guilds go to the effort of putting raids together and keep people turning up, because it's much easier to grind mythic +

Smaller groups, shorter runs, and you can repeat them just by finding people with keys.

As to titanforging, they'll never get rid of it because it's an incredibly cheap carrot to keep numbers of hours played up without actually doing anything at all. As is mythic + really, all they do is crank up the difficulty dial on what are otherwise absolutely unchanged dungeons.

I don;t go with abandoning tier sets either. Tier sets were always a visible trophy with a power reward that told everyone "yeah, I've done raids"

The fact that you can cobble together tier sets using LFR is a lame excuse and it wouldn't be viable at all without, yep, titanforging. Th eobvious answer is to increase th epower levels of tier sets based on raid difficulty and remove them from LFR. But that conflicts with the "everyone should be able to get a pass" philosophy that is designed to retain subs by telling casuals they can have darn near everything in the game.

There's a bit of a "we honestly don't like people having to grind dead content" in a game that is designed to encourage that going on here. I mean jeez, these were the devs who just brought in that dumbass thing where you can wear 4+2 mixed tier sets to get three bonuses even though it was blindingly obvious that it would encourage people to grind dead raids for titanforged tier pieces (which was the whole idea, of course - mor ehour splayed for zero outlay) as well as introducing a whole heap of new class balanc eissues since tier armour very often has a strong 2 bonus counterbalanced with a shitty 4 bonus (or vice versa).

[duveen]

Today, you often get your tier set bonuses within the first few weeks of a new tier. Once you have it, you are locked into those armor pieces.
Currently you can have tier slots and legendary items locking you in for most slots, making them not available for customization and choice.

They say this as if it wasn't completely foreseeable...

[Deleted]

So you must be transmogged to Legion tier then, yes?

Did the link in my signature give it away?
Yes i do; cause most of the older sets look either like wearing a dress (not armor) and having paper rolled up around arms and leggs.

[middling]

That's exactly what they are saying. Which is an aweful idea. They are basically going to create 1/3 as many armor sets per tier now instead lol.

actually they are making MORE overall, they are making one set per FACTION and they said there are a lot of factions

so a red plate set for the red tribe, a blue plate set for the blue tribe, etc

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WTS is that question?
"The team would like to hear from players that are actively using 50 characters."

They cannot make an SQL/Oracle macro in their database to get the exact numbers for this? OMG...

I think they have this data already they are just wanting someone to prove them wrong.

As in, someone that has 50 level 110 characters.

50 ACTIVE characters, meaning actively playing for what they think is important. A bank alt doesnt count, an AH alt doesnt count, etc

[Softbottom]

actually they are making MORE overall, they are making one set per FACTION and they said there are a lot of factions

so a red plate set for the red tribe, a blue plate set for the blue tribe, etc

The real question though is what quality will the sets be if they create more? Is it just going to be a dozen shitty leveling plate sets? or will they be tier quality artwork? I think this is what is bugging me about it. I'd rather have 3 sets of Tier quality art than 12 sets of dungeon quality art.

[middling]

Looking more and more like a filler expansion.

This feels exactly like Cata all over again, a cobbled together mess of revamping the old world.

They think Vanilla can just appease the wow community for a while giving them another 6 months.

Cata was terrible in my opinion.

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The real question though is what quality will the sets be if they create more? Is it just going to be a dozen shitty leveling plate sets? or will they be tier quality artwork? I think this is what is bugging me about it. I'd rather have 3 sets of Tier quality art than 12 sets of dungeon quality art.

right, I think it will just be a lot of recolor crap. Nothing amazing to get excited about.
I fully meant, a "red" one and a "blue" one/

[Softbottom]

This feels exactly like Cata all over again, a cobbled together mess of revamping the old world.

They think Vanilla can just appease the wow community for a while giving them another 6 months.

Cata was terrible in my opinion.

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right, I think it will just be a lot of recolor crap. Nothing amazing to get excited about.
I fully meant, a "red" one and a "blue" one/

Yea like if it's modeled on how the PVP sets are; Same armor diff colors. That will be complete and utter shit.

[Deleted]

no they do not. You are also ignoring the fact that it is guaranteed to be BiS item level from raids because they dont titanforge.

The point he's making is that unless the traits compete with mythic+ available ones, there's less incentive to raid because mythic+ pieces will be much easier to obtain; dungeons are so much smaller and faster to run through, you only need a grou pof five, and you can endlessly repeat them so long as you can find someone with a key, which is exactly what guilds will do, they will just swap out keyholders and rerun the same + until the desired item drops.

Moreover, given the way M+ operates, it's hard to see how they are going to avoid high key levels competing with raid items, unless they apply special rules to Azerite items. I'm talkign about base ilevel here. Mythic 10 drops ilevel 915...and so does heroic sargeras.

And mythic 10 was a damn sight easier than heroic sargeras was, to start out. The most powerful and unqiue gear items were....tier sets. Becaus eof the set bonuses.

[middling]

The point he's making is that unless the traits compete with mythic+ available ones, there's less incentive to raid because mythic+ pieces will be much easier to obtain; dungeons are so much smaller and faster to run through, you only need a grou pof five, and you can endlessly repeat them so long as you can find someone with a key, which is exactly what guilds will do, they will just swap out keyholders and rerun the same + until the desired item drops.

Moreover, given the way M+ operates, it's hard to see how they are going to avoid high key levels competing with raid items, unless they apply special rules to Azerite items. I'm talkign about base ilevel here. Mythic 10 drops ilevel 915...and so does heroic sargeras.

And mythic 10 was a damn sight easier than heroic sargeras was, to start out. The most powerful and unqiue gear items were....tier sets. Becaus eof the set bonuses.

One thing I have not heard ANYONE talk about yet, is what if they rip out the rewards from M+, which is entirely possible knowing blizzard.


conversation at Blizz HQ
We made these raids that nobody is running.
Why not?
They are running Mythic + for better gear
Well then take away the gear from Mythic +
Great Idea

Patch notes: The drop rates of items in Mythic + is now reduced due to the low attendance of raids.

[Onikaroshi]

One thing I have not heard ANYONE talk about yet, is what if they rip out the rewards from M+, which is entirely possible knowing blizzard.


conversation at Blizz HQ
We made these raids that nobody is running.
Why not?
They are running Mythic + for better gear
Well then take away the gear from Mythic +
Great Idea

Patch notes: The drop rates of items in Mythic + is now reduced due to the low attendance of raids.

M+ is their baby, its their new esport thing, they're definitely not going to wreck it.

[Twilight Cultist]

They really prune everything right. Now TierSets. Whats next, remove different speccs or classes and just have one Mail, Plate, Cloth, Leather Class? It just sucks that classes are not seperated by one of each other and all will look the same based on armor type... so a DK looks like a Pala and vica versa? Wtf... that is just wrong. Warlock and mages look the same and Priest will look the same too? That is so stupid. Just remove Sets overall and lets all wear ONE armor for every type. So WoW devs have even less to work on, right?

"They really prune everything right. Now TierSets." What Ion was saying is that they will be outputting the same amount of armor sets, but the theme won't be tied to classes specifically. He mentioned the fact that all of the gear in Emerald Nightmare were just recolors of the tier pieces that would drop in Nighthold. With this new approach, it would be similar to if Emerald Nightmare, Trial of Valor and Nighthold had their own (Raid Tier Quality) armor sets that weren't tied to specific classes. In that instance, there would still be multiple armor sets per Armor Type, but they wouldn't be themed around a specific class.