Developer Q&A with Ion Hazzikostas - Battle for Azeroth

[Ithili]

"If you are a Resto druid healing a dungeon and your tank is almost dead, and you are almost dead, and you have fire under your feet, you need to heal your tank, you need to move out of the fire, Swiftmend is on cooldown. You either use Regrowth on the tank while you stand in fire, or move out of the fire and throw a Rejuv on the tank. Maybe you Wild Charge out of the fire and then heal the tank. If everything is on the GCD, that is a decision you have to make. A skilled player can make the right call based on the situation and encounter. If Wild Charge isn't on the GCD, you can just get out of the fire and heal the tank. This makes the difference between two player's skill more about their reaction time. Should WoW be about reaction time or making the right decision."

This the dumbest argument I've seen in a long time. Having a GCD on emergency skills removes skill, removes choice and make people feel powerless when something bad happens.

A good example for this is Imonar. If a DD gets stuned by a Mine while crossing the Bridge, because he wasn´t paying enough attention, or just was busy with avoiding the big Fireballs and you as a Resto Druid want to use IB to save him before he gets hit by another Mine or a big Fireball. Additionally you see he is not in range. So now you want to use Displacer Beast and then INSTANT IB the DD before he gets killed by another ability. Today it is totally possible to do that. But with the GCD change it isnt, because you have to wait 1.5 sec. Where is the Skillfactor, if you have only 1 real choice in such a Situation? There isnt a better "decision making". With this change you just guarantee, that one of the 2 involved players WILL die.(referring to the Expample of Ion now). Dont heal -> Tank dies. Dont move -> you die. You cant plan every step in every fight, so that you wont come in a situation like this. Too much rng.
Imo movement abilities and interrupt abilities such as Kick and Blink should be off the GCD.
To have DMG CDs on GCD is totally fine, IF you havent too much of them. The current state of Fwarri is just awful and there should be done something against it.

[Deleted]

No, I quoted him and I can see his point I can also see the endpoint. This is the benefit of seeing the whole picture compared to seeing the next step. You clearly see the next step in which this is a good change. I see the whole poicture at once in which this is an immensely bad choice.

Right now you disagree with me, which I've come to expect people to do, once you see the end results you'll agree with me. It might be six months down the road however you'll reach the same conclusiob at some point, at which your ego will conveniently forget me since "I told you so" fits badly into the selfassertive and proactive narrative.

This would be a tad less pathetic if you actually came up with an argument you know

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Except that isn't what I said at all, that is only your white knight version of me saying "I need a break from mmorp's, and I think I should try something new when I come back"

I don't like the direction WoW has been going, and I don't like most of the changes, but I guess I should just keep playing the game right, keep saying how awesome it is even when I don't think it is?

"Think I am going to take a long hiatus from mmorpgs and when I come back, I'll try FF14.

WoW isn't my kind of game anymore I suppose."

No thats literally what you wrote...

[Alkizon]

You think you do, but you don't - now and on retail too
The same behavior all time long.

Warlock was right all this time, I shouldn't put any effort in current problems. "Don't be afraid, I'm not going to participate in it. I don't even need to worry, they won't require any my help for final failure, because they go there with straight and confident step. No you, no your loony shaggy colleague on idea can help it. It's already predetermined. You can't fight with fate. Put up with it" - and I thought it was just because of character's image. Well, the only last hope is that classic team aren't under influence of this one.

"We like this and we like that, this is good and this is bad" - only cheap talk and no any logic in behavior; unintelligible excuses. "This will out and this will stay, and doesn't matter that both has the same good/bad nature to the game, we just haven't enough time to prepear for more veiled answers, but you'll eat this anyway, because you so love us and you can't live without". Splendid, it's look like I just got a lot more free time.

[Deleted]

There was a choice before, you dislike one of them so you ignore it, let's the tank die and get out of the fire or save the tank and get out of the fire. With this change you can only hope that the tank has a free GCD to save themselves while you get out of the fire and otherwise do nothing. I'm a Prot Warrior and in most cases I have no GCD available.

Bla bla bla "for the overall health" sure it sounds like a good argument, in reality people will get frustrated over their own powerlesness if they have played WoW for long, new players are unable to tell the difference, they'll just feel bad for being unable to do anything.

Thats not really a choice, thats just the difference between being decent(its not a hard choice) and really bad. Now there is actually a choice

To further explain. Its like saying you have a choice of not pressing your dps button or pressing it.

[Micronetic]

Jesus Christ when is this guy going to be fired? /facepalm

Is he going to be the new Holinka?

[Pickynerd]

This would be a tad less pathetic if you actually came up with an argument you know

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"Think I am going to take a long hiatus from mmorpgs and when I come back, I'll try FF14.

WoW isn't my kind of game anymore I suppose."

No thats literally what you wrote...

Yeah try something different, I don't think wow is the game for me anymore.

I didn't say "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA fuck this shit game"

[Deleted]

Stop complaining and whining like a bunch of SJWs and start actually deciding for yourself. The game needs to evolve in order to survive, whether you like it or not. Now you as individuals need to decide of you will keep playing. If you do not like it then pull out your sub and move on. Your life encompasses more than just one game no matter the amount of time you have already invested. So vote with your wallets. You people are an embarrassment to the community.

[Deleted]

Think he did an excellent job of defending the gcd thing. Feel free to argument against it. You know. Instead of just “it’s bad mkay?”

Yeah, like I did on Alpha; so:

1.) The speed, it slows it down, argue whatever you like, but that's a fact and with time, like everything, even games should get faster and faster, not slower.
2.) Like he said, how should Warrior play now? Use the CDs in a row and waste them or waste them with time (by using one CD 2 times instead of 4 during a fight for example)
3.)Pressing 3-5 buttons for extra added damage is no fun at all and it can complicate the encounter by being to focused on your CDs, now i know people will say 'get better argg', but raids aren't what they were back 10 years ago, they are a lot more reactive, like they should be, and adding extra CD management is not needed.
4.) More buttons/ more shortcuts. May not seem like a big deal, but when you use a lot of skills adding those 4 buttons instead of 1 can be a big deal, it is for me, I already have 22 shortcuts on my Demon Hunter, which is a class with not as many 'active skills' per se and yet I still have as many.
5.) This is clearly being made because of PvP, like he said. So why not just reduce the 'output' of those CDs in PvP and leave PvE out of it?

Reasons that he listed have no basis whatsoever. All he said was that this change lets us strategize more ... really now, with how fast the game is your mind is already working on it full time, which brings me back to my first point - slowing the game down because reasons (PvP).

I don't argue against GCD because it's cool to argue, man if they remove all my damage CDs I would be happy because I would have one thing less to worry about, but making me play this CD juggling game while I should be focused on encounter sounds like no fun to me at all, I already play a Fury Warrior where you're constantly watching your enrage, adding 4 more CDs to it seems very unnecessary to me.

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Stop complaining and whining like a bunch of SJWs and start actually deciding for yourself. The game needs to evolve in order to survive, whether you like it or not. Now you as individuals need to decide of you will keep playing. If you do not like it then pull out your sub and move on. Your life encompasses more than just one game no matter the amount of time you have already invested. So vote with your wallets. You people are an embarrassment to the community.

Problem is that change is devolution. This was a thing in games 10-15 years ago when the games were slower.

[Elestia]

Very resolute response. The logic is there which is what I'm happy about, although Ion's resto druid example was obscenely specific, coupled with the fact that literally zero resto druids actually take wild charge.

Are macros lazy and reactionary? No I don't think so. Are they often necessary? Yes definitely because they often make sense AT the gameplay level. Recklessness doesn't deal damage, pairing it with an attack of your choice through a macro doesn't harm decision making. If anything, it feels far far shittier to hit recklessness and have that be the wrong decision, rather than squeezing in an extra execute. Same for from DK. It makes sense to use obliteration when pillar of frost is up and pair it with a frost attack in a macro to start your first oblit proc. In this instance, it feels shitty to feel like uptime is lost -- Where before you might easily get 3 oblits in, now you get two.

To compensate damage loss in the main rotation:
Solution A: Extend offensive buff durations to compensate uptime (still would feel clunky).
Solution B: Take them off the GCD so they can be paired with an ability on the GCD for Gameplay and uptime reasons.

Honestly I don't understand where the decision making example fits in when you're talking about damage and attack abilities. When does needing to choose to hit a cooldown or choosing to hit damage actually occur that this would necessitate splitting said abilities such that they cannot be paired? It only occurs when a boss is about to die. 1-2 Executes versus 1 or maybe even 0. Frost Strike and an Obliterate crit versus one frost strike. Templar's Verdict and a Crusader Strike (buffed) versus one Templar's Verdict.

Putting damage buffs on the GCD is a nerf to literally the last sequence of attacks and 1 gcd less uptime under that buff (unless they extend durations) and has nothing to do demonstratively with making some kind of do-or-die skill based decision in any way.

Let's run this scenario:
Boss has 10k hp left. You hit the recklessness, team kills boss, before you can execute, -1GCD only, but feels terrible.
Alternatively: Boss has 10k hp left. You hit recklessness. Boss gets hit for 7k by your team. You sqeeze in the execute for 7k next gcd. Deals 3k. Cool you got lucky enough to walk away with a normal execute worth of damage instead of nothing. Still effectively -1GCD!
Continuing to iterate. Boss has 10k hp left. You being wise to BfA's schemes forgo the recklessness and hit execute: it crits 7k, team kills boss; it hits normal for 2.5k. You clean up with 500 more damage. 3k-7k versus 0-3k.

You can keep iterating this out and you'll favor recklessness very quickly. The fact that a decision will only matter at extremely low hp and very few CDs is itself indicative of what a ridiculously extreme change this actually is. Because this change IS NOT for the reason Ion is saying it is. It cannot fathom-ably be for some kind of deep gameplay skill relying on optimal decisionmaking. There's nothing to be gained in decision making by separating it from an attack unless you're speaking in the extreme. For any of the many non-damaging attacks. He even said it himself but in reverse: Blood Bath has a damage component so it has to be on the GCD.

There you go, option C: Build in a damage component to non-damage buffs so people didn't have to macro this shit in the first place. If blizzard doesn't want a macro requirement, do the work for people.

These abilities have always been OFF of the gcd BECAUSE TWOFOLD: they deal no damage on their own working for the freedom of pairing it with an attack that makes sense And 2.) Facilitating their use, ensuring they are always a reward and not a punishment. The attentive warrior SHOULD get at least 1 buffed execute instead of 1 unbuffed.

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Think he did an excellent job of defending the gcd thing. Feel free to argument against it. You know. Instead of just “it’s bad mkay?”

No, his example of the resto Druid was pretty scripted. It doesn't explain DPS buffs being on the GCD, just movement abilities in an absurd hypothetical scenario. And yet, many movement abilities are being restored to be back off the GCD.

That, and who the fuq takes wild charge?

[silverdragon234]

Bah! I'd rather make a pure high elf than a blood elf, 'cause the Horde is no faction for the Blood elves.

[Elestia]

Yeah, like I did on Alpha; so:

1.) The speed, it slows it down, argue whatever you like, but that's a fact and with time, like everything, even games should get faster and faster, not slower.
2.) Like he said, how should Warrior play now? Use the CDs in a row and waste them or waste them with time (by using one CD 2 times instead of 4 during a fight for example)
3.)Pressing 3-5 buttons for extra added damage is no fun at all and it can complicate the encounter by being to focused on your CDs, now i know people will say 'get better argg', but raids aren't what they were back 10 years ago, they are a lot more reactive, like they should be, and adding extra CD management is not needed.
4.) More buttons/ more shortcuts. May not seem like a big deal, but when you use a lot of skills adding those 4 buttons instead of 1 can be a big deal, it is for me, I already have 22 shortcuts on my Demon Hunter, which is a class with not as many 'active skills' per se and yet I still have as many.
5.) This is clearly being made because of PvP, like he said. So why not just reduce the 'output' of those CDs in PvP and leave PvE out of it?

Reasons that he listed have no basis whatsoever. All he said was that this change lets us strategize more ... really now, with how fast the game is your mind is already working on it full time, which brings me back to my first point - slowing the game down because reasons (PvP).

I don't argue against GCD because it's cool to argue, man if they remove all my damage CDs I would be happy because I would have one thing less to worry about, but making me play this CD juggling game while I should be focused on encounter sounds like no fun to me at all, I already play a Fury Warrior where you're constantly watching your enrage, adding 4 more CDs to it seems very unnecessary to me.

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Problem is that change is devolution. This was a thing in games 10-15 years ago when the games were slower.

Warriors have a logical progression in using CDs, it just feels stupid to chain 3-4 of them in a row. One of your points, where Ion wants us to choose 'how to play them'. Lol. There straight up isn't a choice. In PvE dps, it will always be optimal to dump them all up front. That means Charge > [Avatar] > Blood Bath > Dragon Roar > Recklessness > (Execute > Rampage) > [Trauma WW proc ]> Bloodthirst > Raging Blow > Wild Strike. Chain of 3 to 4 buffs depending upon talent, then you fight. You could skip Blood Bath and Dragon Roar, as well as Avatar too but seriously it gets extremely tiresome doing this every minute of every fight. Not only that, the clusterfuck of keeping dragonroar perfectly on CD so it's available before hitting your next recklessness.

[Deleted]

(Ex) Fury Warrior main here. You have lost me. forever. byeeeee!

[kamuimac]

People will still join for loot. Now they can simply guild hop to another one instead of going through any trial. All you have to do is give them a chance and once they have the boss kill and RNG gives them something they are gone. You are a stepping stone and nothing more.

good - now maybe guilds will stop treating their trials like shit and will actually make effort to keep them in instead making them into hostage if one day they want to get loot.

this huge backlash is showing how toxic guild enviroment has became and exackly why people dont want to join guilds.

[Deleted]

In Cataclysm you could take a portal to all of the zones and your guild could use a summon, so players could log in, teleport to the raid, and log off. Taking guild summon away was met with negative feedback, but the ease of transportation was bad for the game.

Maybe players logged in, raided and logged off because there is nothing else to do in your puny game? Then you forced them to stay a little bit longer and play walking / flying simulator.

[kamuimac]

REMOVE LFR THEN FFS

To be honest I don't mind the GCD change and I think overall longterm health of the game > everything.

BTW it's funny how Ion turned on a dime after legendaries which everyone said was bad for the game.

lol you people are simply precious

if any mode is going to go it will be mythic - and without a doubt it will be gone in 9.0

and it will be a good change just like personal loot and gcd

[Accendor]

holy shit I LOVE this Q&A !!


a whole lot of MMO-C posters just got owned with those lines

... why exactly?

[Sevyvia]

as they should? the "scaling" fiasco and arbitrary adjustments are going to be the end of this game. or at least the "rpg" part of mmorpg. what little of that is left.

Sure, as it should be, while Blizzard continues to boggle at why people don't want to do world PvP.

[caervek]

I love the way they acknowledge the GCD change being a mistake, but try to justify it by citing another mistake they never went back on, bunch of *****s

[Deleted]

I don't really mind boost runs happening. If people want to spend gold on a mount and others are willing to sell it power to them. I'm guessing this won't be an issue but what if the mount dropped for someone who already had it. Could it be traded then?

I don't mind them too. What I do mind is server channels and group finder filled with boost spam.

[Deleted]

Yeah try something different, I don't think wow is the game for me anymore.

I didn't say "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA fuck this shit game"

And my response to that post was that anyone who actually wants to do that just does it. Typing it here on the forum just comes across as "WAAAAAH".