Developer Q&A with Ion Hazzikostas - Battle for Azeroth

[silverdragon234]

Finally we can put this god awful High Elf discussion to rest. Blood Elves = High Elves and that's that. Phew. I'm glad there's someone at Blizzard who still has the cojones to stand up to increasingly vocal plague spreaders among the players. You people have gotten your way for years and now things are finally changing for the better. There's the door and take your subs with you, Ion just made it clear you're not wanted.

1: There are no doors.

2: The discussion is endless.

[kamuimac]

They know exactly what they are doing, they just lied to you about why they are doing it. By getting rid of master loot you can now normally distribute the ilvl of a raid. This is a definition required in stats that allows you to do all sorts of things, in the case of wow this allows you to set a HPS/DPS boss fight requirement that can only be achieved by a certain ilvl raid. Once you have done that you can then turn some nobs to decide exactly how long it should take for a raid of x members to achieve that ilvl. In effect, you can now time gate raid bosses with incredible precision, so long as you are quick to nerf/buff classes that would be stacked for the encounter. Even the variance from warforging/titanforging can be accounted for. You will only get an unexpected result 0.3% of the time with normalized data

You could not do this with master looting, because with master looting you can create outliers by giving your best player the best gear that drops, and throw in alt runs and such it just becomes impossible.

Now, I suspect this because of activisions history (blizzard is dead in all but name, and has been for quite some time) and the fact that their explination on why is so rife with obvious logical problems. It doesn't address the fact that anyone who joins a guild with a "trial phase" benifits as soon as they are not in the trial phase and someone else is, it doesn't address the fact that if you don't like trial phases all you have to do is find a guild without them or MAKE YOUR OWN. But at the end of the day I am not in the building so I don't actually know why they did it, but the fact of the matter is what I explained above will absolutely be possible now regardless of why they decided to.

TLDR:
It is my opinion they are making this change to time gate raids with better accuracy, and the excuse they gave you is straight up bullshit.

and what would be more acceptable ?

if they said openly " you people go waaay to crazy and serious about the game that even shittiest guilds copy paste models from world first guilds: of loot council , of alts runs to gear up mains , of analizing logs to crazy degree, of stacking classes for world 3000 guilds etc etc - so stop doin it because you are breaking game" would you listen to them ? ofc not.

shit like this was not as crazy common even 4-5 years ago - you people brought that on yourself - they had to take action

[Requiem94]

Actually, Tyrande is not a bitch so stop calling her that. That does not make the void elves part of the Alliance because of that. I wanted the Nighborne into the Alliance since September 2016, and they dare put the Void Elves in the Allieance in the Nightborne's stead? That makes absolutely no sense, and Liadrin showed the Nightborne no sympathy whatsoever because she's a big bitch to them.

you're right tyrande isnt a bitch. She's a total cunt at this point.

[silverdragon234]

you're right tyrande isnt a bitch. She's a total cunt at this point.

Not anymore. Liadrin is precisely THAT! The Nightborne have no place in the Horde any longer.

[Zabatakis]

and what would be more acceptable ?

if they said openly " you people go waaay to crazy and serious about the game that even shittiest guilds copy paste models from world first guilds: of loot council , of alts runs to gear up mains , of analizing logs to crazy degree, of stacking classes for world 3000 guilds etc etc - so stop doin it because you are breaking game" would you listen to them ? ofc not.

shit like this was not as crazy common even 4-5 years ago - you people brought that on yourself - they had to take action

I am for the change personally. As a loot master this lifts an incredible burden off me to be "fair" in a world where that definition is very subjective. I won't miss wondering if I made the wrong choice when I doll out that phat titanforge loot, or the copious amounts of time running my various metrics to decide who gets it in the first place. That said, I dislike the deceit behind it. I dislike the hubris of the company, ignoring swaths of feedback during alpha and beta every expansion after MoP because they know whats best, just to go ahead and make those changes 6-7 months in when they realize maybe the players actually do know what sucks in a class/game. Dismissing any opposing voice as "a loud minority, people displeased are more likely to speak up" but never bothering to do a sample survey to actually see for sure.

But I will ride it out for at least another go round. I mean, its that or age of conan (lol).

[McNeil]

I knew a shitstorm would occur with this Q&A. I'm looking at BFA as the least hyped expansion so far, and its getting more negative reception than WoD got so far.

[Pickynerd]

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".

So my WAAAH post triggered you to post a WAAAH post about my WAAAAAH post?

Gotcha...

[Zabatakis]

So my WAAAH post triggered you to post a WAAAH post about my WAAAAAH post?

Gotcha...

So WAAAAH works just like WAAAGH! in that its a compounding entity? I see great opportunity for profit ahead. Or at least lots of dead gobo's.

[THEORACLE64]

I already did.

Good. Less whinies in game the better.

[Chaosweaver]

Remember release Cataclysm heroic dungeons? All the whiners bitched about harder dungeons, then they cried their eyes out when they got harder dungeons and Blizzard had to nerf them all down so the whiners can actually pug them. Blizzard has listened to the whiny minority way WAY too much over the years and are now standing up for what they believe is better for the game.

The GCD change is going to be forgotten about in no more than a month into the new expansion.

On the high elves thing, for fuck sake guys we already have 4 playable Elf races in the game, can we stop asking for any more Elves? Get over it already, you are all crying like spoiled children over everything these days.

[oathy]

I knew a shitstorm would occur with this Q&A. I'm looking at BFA as the least hyped expansion so far, and its getting more negative reception than WoD got so far.

totally, WOD encountered some pretty stark feedback and at the time everyone was told "its beta things will change"
when the expansion launched everything reported in Beta remained and we all know the rest. 18 months down the line
they finally accepted things could have gone better.

If they are going down the route all this negative feedback will fizzle out when the Expansion launches,
personally i can see that being a huge misjudgment. WOW hasnt got the same hold on people it once did
add into the mix the insane price of WOW Tokens.

[silverdragon234]

Lore wise make 0 sense they are part of the alliance, no with the Night Elves there.

Even if you dont like it. For Tyrant they Nightborns are cowards that hide under a shield and keep there diction on magic and dindt help during the War of the Ancient.

Are you sure you should say that? I never wanted the Void Elves in the Alliance and Anduin was supposed to throw a fit about them.

[Kaleesh]

So this seems to be the "Fuck you" interview, eh?

You think you want transmog/fun-based GCDs/proper Horde fantasy/Alliance elves, but you don't. And at the same time we're going to lie bald-faced about the impact of Artifact Traits on classes, too.

[Altariell]

Blood Elves are basically High Elves. Slightly different eye color and backstory, but if you want to be a light skinned elf, that is basically a Blood Elf. Giving that to the Alliance would blur the line between factions. What about Pandas? Clearly as a player I can't tell between Alliance and Horde ones.

All they had to do was give void elves a slightly more peach-like skin tone and this wouldn't have blown up. Instead they're being hypocritical tards.

I agree!!!

I don't know why this persecution with High Elves! let the players be happy

[Volitar]

Fuck you Blizzard and your carebear loot system bullshit.

[Sorshen]

This interview is more like a 'fuck you, we do what we want' even if the feedback is massively negative. It's well in their right, but haven't they learned from WoD's mistakes by now?
GCD, Azerite power and Personal Loot are shaping up to be probably more frustrating than the legendaries at the start of Legion.

[Deleted]

Every time Blizzard open their mouth about BfA it gets more and more negative, the changes they’re making are fecking idiotic.

It all just screams “we know it fecking sucks and you hate it but we’ve committed now, it’s too late to go back”

I’ve never been this disinterested in a WoW expansion, after playing the alpha it’s a complete mess.

Even something basic like tier sets getting removed pisses me off, they’re cutting corners left right and centre.

[Monkeywan]

Goodbye wow, On the day I download the monthly fee, and the value of the game, because in addition to pay per month you pay for the game, I come back to play. If you decide, monthly, or buy the game, do not give both.

[Sylfaine]

The reactions on these changes illustrate why game designers are game designers and players aren't. These changes are needed for a better game.

Funny enough, because sometimes game designer forget to be player and its for the worse.

[AmazonDruid]

HAHAHAHAHA.

Superior magic? We have both Blood Elves and Nightborne, your statement is just dreadfuly wrong, lmao.

Technology? The Horde has pretty much everything the Alliance has? We also have nukes and our chemical tech is way more advanced. The Alliance could probably do those too, sure, but they won't. We will.

1. Highborne Night Elves from Dire Maul. Highbornes are precursors of Nightborn, Quel'thalas elves and nagas. Void elves are a race of elves that would go futher recklessly for more power and they got it.

2. Technology, really. Deeprun train shows how advance is the alliance (Gnomes) in transportation methods. PLUS we have the VINDICAR with the Draenei and LF Draenei Technology, nothing cam compare to that. OH DARK IRON dwarfs can pop from the underground wherever they want. Imagine if they would build a net of tunnels under the horde cities and make them engulfed by flames and earth.

3. The only thing horde is better than alliance is having chemical and biological weapon. Which btw Trump doesn't like.

4. Alliance Leaders are better than horde. Everyone knows Illidan would have burned Sylvanas the fu** away if he didn't have choose to stay behind to give tickles to a titan. They just removed Illidan from the big picture because horde would have lost badly trying to burn Telldrassil. BOLVAR is still alliance btw and Raised King Anduin in the abscence of Varyan. We all know what Bolvar is able to do after WotLK.