Blizzard talks about Azerite issues

[Teph]

As long as there are unplayable traits like High Noon all their number balancing does nothing. Also the difference between some generic proc traits is still insane.. .

[Trend]

They're financially invested, not emotionally. There's no place for emotions in big business. Clearly the system is baked into expansion and it would be a lot of effort (and money) to replace it with another system. That's why if enough people don't stop subbing they won't change shit.

If you don't believe they're passionate (emotional) about their product then you don't know any good developers. It's a myth that individual people working for big money business somehow lose their souls. You would be a shit employee if all you were motivated by was the money.

[WskyDK]

The biggest issue is that you can’t target azerite pieces past 340. Not even specific pieces for specific traits (which they addressed), but azerite at all.

In theory, a person could end up with two pieces of 340 azerite gear for the entire expansion (it’s been mentioned there’s bad luck protection, but a person could still get 1 slot repeatedly even with the BLP kicking in).

[huth]

If you don't believe they're passionate (emotional) about their product then you don't know any good developers. It's a myth that individual people working for big money business somehow lose their souls. You would be a shit employee if all you were motivated by was the money.

But that's on top of the financial investment, not in place of it.

Not to mention that they simply don't have enough time to concoct a replacement. BfA has been in development before Legion even released, a new system wouldn't be ready until 9.0 at earliest anyway.

- - - Updated - - -

The biggest issue is that you can’t target azerite pieces past 340. Not even specific pieces for specific traits (which they addressed), but azerite at all.

In theory, a person could end up with two pieces of 340 azerite gear for the entire expansion (it’s been mentioned there’s bad luck protection, but a person could still get 1 slot repeatedly even with the BLP kicking in).

They're going to raise the iLvl of WQ and Dungeon drops over the expansion. Even the world's most unlucky player will eventually get something over 340.

[Gasparde]

Classic Blizzard. Twisting words, trying to sound overly smart, ignoring the problem, using an argument in one answer and ignoring the same reasoning in another. You think you do but you don't, we know best what you want, if you dislike the current system we'll make sure to make it even worse in the future.

No clue how a company can be so disjointed from what their players actually want.

The Azerite system is having the exact same problem that legendaries had. And Blizzard are just as, if not even more ignorant about it. Because the system works how they want it to and what the playerbase thinks is utterly unimportant.

Just like legendaries Azerite is trying to balance utility vs throughput. Just like in Legion, that didn't work till the very end. They'll try to bring the utility crap in line by adding a bunch of passive whateverness to it and call it a day.

They're oblivious to the fact that people still wanted specific items even after trying so hard to bring them all in line. Trying so hard and still miserably failing.

Now we're having legendaries in 3 slots with all their downsides and none of their upsides. And as there is more uproar about it than ever before... we actually find out that this is exactly was Blizzard has been working towards for the last 3 years. This system, in all it's awful shittiness, is exactly what Blizzard wants.

The fact that we don't want it, are very vocal about it and they're still pushing it down our throat is what's sad and pathetic about it. They don't not know what our problems are, they just don't care. It's not that they can't come up with creative solutions to the issues we're bringing up, they just don't want to. They don't care about what any of us says at all because their bank account indicates that they don't have to anyway.

[Trend]

But that's on top of the financial investment, not in place of it.

I'm 100% sure you don't know any good developers well enough to know what motivates them. Blizzard is a company, not a person. This meme about how 'Blizzard' only cares about money or cares more about money is foolish enough without trying to pretend that every developer working there is just part of some hive mind. They are individual people who are very passionate about their product like every other good developer in the world.

[funf]

I think they still don't see that the problem isn't only the 1st ring of Azerite trait, but the others too.
There are pieces where the 1st traits can be good, but the rest is just garbage...

[Deleted]

Almost everything in that Lore post is facepalm worthy. Cant believe that they actually think that way... Anyone in there has any common sense or is capable of logical thinking at all?
They think balance is the issue... yes, im looking forward to see how they will balance it all. Make stat weights identical for all classes and specs? Some traits are aoe only(fists of fury hitting 4+ to give you buff etc) and some are generic stats(agi, haste, crit)... and same pieces are used by multiple specs and classes, so generic traits will always have different impact on different specs/classes.
Now if they made 1 generic + 3 spec specific traits, then there might be better, but still would be ST vs AoE. So when i change spec, let me pick trait for that spec, and remember it. So i can just activate different spec and azerite pieces change and i get the one i picked for that spec.

They think changing is too easy, and might make it harder and more expensive???? Are we supposed to have 2 bags full of azerite gear on us at all times? Or use subpar traits because they are more generic for all specs and situations? And how are we supposed to get that gear? Once a week chance to get it... or not? They obviously are very disconnected from their game and dont understand those that play it at all. Yea, im sure that everyone will suddenly abandon all the min/max and go for subpar but generic shit...

And the argument about simming... just wow. Are they really so stupid to not understand even that?

And last thing he said, new traits with new gear with higher ilvl that will replace old ones... Are they sure about that? Probably same as 385 raid trinkets being "better" than 340 WQ or m0 ones? We know how that turned out...

This is really the case of... everyone thinks they are delusional and/or incompetent, but then they open their mouth and remove all doubt about it.

[Deleted]

Yeah basically they won't make traits interesting because the usual BS excuse of "simplicity" that Blizzard loves to use for every game nowadays because casuals are the equivalent of brain-dead in their minds. Thats why this game is so dull nowadays, they make everything streamlined and basic to not "confuse" anyone, thus resulting into a hollow game with no fun, no customisation, just boring predictable stuff

[Coldkil]

I mean, even if it does suck, they cant just remove it. The whole expansion was designed around it.

Basically this sums everything up - they know that this design has shortages but they cannot simply scrap it. They won't be a thing anymore next xpack.

Going in deep details about Azerite system:

- the system itself on paper is good. However the implementation suffers from the fact there's great unbalance between traits (solvable) and that there's no realy way to farm them (excluding static drops from raid bosses and M0). More on this next points.

- ideally you want all traits balanced, but then they won't matter anymore and everyone would flock onto passive ones because they simply becaus ethere's no room for error. So you want active one be slightly more powerful to reward the increased effort but then everyone want to farm specific traits with no actual reliable way to do so.

- m+ are just exacerbating the issue more and more. Some Azerite powers are way stronger than raid ones (which you actually want one just because of the stacking mainstat buff that bruteforces everything over time), especially stacking ones. But then you can only farm 340 items since m+ don't drop them directly, and you need to get the favor of RNG to drop them from the weekly cache; while there's bad luck protection you don't know which piece you're getting making all the effort wasted.


What i don't get about Azerite is why Blizzard didn't just make powers drop as "relics" you put into three/four slots on the neck. Once you've got a relic, it's yours - no more need to search for it. You can respec them without bringing around 9 pieces of gear. They will scale based on HoA level, so they're no more tied to m+ and RNG. They drop from specific bosses so you can hunt them directly. And most important, if nerfs/buffs happen, you can hunt a missing power to replace or chances are you have it already.

The biggest error with Azerite was having it tied with specific gear pieces. They wanted to remove sets, but they actually made sets in a different way.

EDIT: to be even more specific, it could use a slightly tweaked Azerite ui. 3 slots on outer ring, 3 slots on mid ring, 3 slots on inner ring and they can scrap the +5 ilvl ppower sinc it's as minor as it can be. You'll have the 3 tier relics and can slot any combination of them into the sockets. DONE. Powers can stay exactly the same and will work exactly the same (some even if slotted won't stack, the ones that are not for your current spec will become inactive and can be replaced).

[Deleted]

They don't even touch the main and biggest problem about azerite pieces: Availability.

This is the biggest problem, I'm not sure why Blizzard made it so that once you get 340 piece you can only replace it with either a normal, heroic, mythic version of the raid and your 2 weekly caches. That's 5 chances per week, when the bosses on mythic hit so hard that the 100+ stamina makes a huge difference (for any role). Not to mention why is there only one pair of leather shoulders in Uldir?

What needs to be done is to make them drop from mythic plus dungeons but cap it at say 370 ilvl (on a 10).

[huth]

I'm 100% sure you don't know any good developers well enough to know what motivates them. Blizzard is a company, not a person. This meme about how 'Blizzard' only cares about money or cares more about money is foolish enough without trying to pretend that every developer working there is just part of some hive mind. They are individual people who are very passionate about their product like every other good developer in the world.

Yes, Blizzard is a company. As such, they aren't just likely, but legally obligated to think about money.

Not sure where you got the idea that they can only care about a single issue, particularly since i specified they consider at least 2 angles.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I'm not sure it's stubbornness entirely... I don't think there's any possibility they don't realise the system is a bit of a bust. But it's kind of baked into the expansion and not something they can just hotfix out of the game. I guess they're just hoping people will come around to it and get used to it over time.

I have a feeling this is going to be a Cata/WoD situation where they cut this expac short because the systems just aren't working, and push on to something new for next time :/

The system was DoA in alpha/beta. They introduced it extremely late, probably because they realized that the system does not properly work and meets none of their stated goals (excluding their actual goals like "perpetual grinding" = "more MAU") and it was met overwhelmingly negative by testers, but it was already too late: Previously they ignored all class development in hopes that Azerite will fix it and then started to do some last minute class overhauls when it became apparent that Azerite won't do shit, besides causing problems. It was too late at that point and they had already tailored half the systems of the expansions around that. Heck it was an itegral part of the story as well and one of the only 2 new major features was purely justified exclusively because Azerite exists in the first place; Island Expeditions.

Like the true champs that they are, they started to bullshit their way through all the critique and ignored everyone raising the obvious shortcommings of the system.

The sad part is that they still don't acknowledge the obvious problems and aim to change them in the next iterations. No one with more than half a brain needs more Azerite traits at this point. The acquisition needs to be fixed. The m+ needs to drop one base loot and needs to have a chance for azerite, otherwise the chest is just one giant ass "dud" for many people each week. Class traits need to become the interesting choice, some of them need to be reworked completely and the boring generic ones need to be cut down, merged and removed as much as possible. Regrinding things you've already earned is not rewarding at all as well, one would think they've learned that with the prestige system in early legion as well. But as we can see they learned almost nothing. I used to think "at least we only have to grind up one artefact", but they have completely offset that little boon by making acquisition complete and utter shite again, worse than legion. So for the one step they took forward, they went 3 back. /slowclap.

[netherflame]

So here is the issue with this discussion.

On Traits
If the traits are just procs or stats, players complain they are too boring.
If they are things like the orb shoulders where you have to move around for what boils down to just an int buff, players complain its bad and not viable.
So no matter what they do players are in an uproar, unless the trait is so overpowered that it makes players feel like gods. Unfortunately this last one leads into the next problem the community has with it.

On Farming, or lack thereof
One of the biggest complaints of the legendary system last expansion was that it "forced" players to endlessly farm for hidden legendary chance. So they created a system wherein you either got these special pieces from the raid or from a possible weekly box. So blizzard got rid of the endless treadmill and gave players a treadmill that actually has an ending, players still complained.....
On this one, I think the simple solution is to scale down the ilvl of gear you can get from the weekly box but GUARANTEE 1 azurite piece and 1 other piece of gear. Its simple clean and moves everyone on their way.

On Reforging
They were pretty clear that they dont want people constantly reforging their gear and they want you to either keep copies of it or pick a general use traits. Additionally these high costs do something to combat the unbelievably rapid and unending inflation that this game has seen in recent years.

[Deleted]

Source: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/...0102?page=2#24

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Thoughts on this?

I think this cements what we've all been thinking about: they're doubling down on Azerite. HF

It just feels like they make these mistakes on purpose. And then to shine their image they say something like '' We tolerate our great community and we hear you! We will make changes based on your feedback! '' And this happens EVERY SINGLE EXPANSION,year by year...

[Niffo]

I am done. They just somewhat admit this Azerite system has flaws but no changes, just new traits. I'll see when I'll play again.

[Neoxx]

Classic Blizzard. Twisting words, trying to sound overly smart, ignoring the problem, using an argument in one answer and ignoring the same reasoning in another. You think you do but you don't, we know best what you want, if you dislike the current system we'll make sure to make it even worse in the future.

So true.


And btw isn't it funny that after all the trait tuning now EVERY SPEC uses Uldir azerite gear cause it's by far the best? I'm starting to think that this is the short term solution blizzard is throwing at us to make us think we don't need a farmable azerite gear source.

"Just make Uldir azerite traits the best for everyone so they stop complaining about azerite gear not being farmable once they got some pieces from Uldir." - some smart wow dev

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Corroc]

Not really sure why you posted that on this forum? These answers are not suprising anyone. These forums have become a huge hate group towards anyone working for blizzard. And just like in politics the people that hate dont even realise it. Its truth for them.

[Crudence]

I honestly just wish they could make the azerite traits more interesting. Most of them are superboring. Getting phoenix flames with my artifact weapon was awesome. Matching the fire head with alexstrazas fury was awesome. The hardcast pyro bracers were fun (Yes, they made it a talent and thank you for that Blizz!). I just feels like none of the azerite traits are much fun. It is mostly just some stat increase. My most fun trait as a fire mage is a 5% chance for fireball to shoot another one. And it is ok. But other than that it is just boring crap. Legendaries were much more fun. The only thing that sucked about them was how you got them. But by the end of Legion where I had most of the legendaries I had a lot of fun, having different sets for aoe and singeltarget. Having so many customizable choices for my class. It was like having extra talents put on gear pieces. I haven't checked out all classes yet, but so far I think mage and hunter has mostly boring traits. Maybe I am just unlucky with my class choices, but I don't think so.

[Azzurri]

I mean, even if it does suck, they cant just remove it. The whole expansion was designed around it.

Yea, this is the problem. There is no way they can scrap it because it's how classes and other systems are designed around and there is no way they can just remove it.

They can't just come up with a complete new system until 9.0