Developer Q&A - Ion Hazzikostas

[Deleted]

It only works if you devote yourself to a "correct" spec.

My raid team had people "dedicated" to specs that are unwanted in mythic Uldir so their "advantage" was to go warm the bench, or reroll to a different class.

- - - Updated - - -

Only if you put that timeplayed is put into a fotm class / spec though.

In a game where you can change specs, such restrictions are bullshit. It's unbelievable that we went in one expansion we went from "Yeah if you want to switch spec your gear is adapting" to "You want to switch specs ? Fuck you and farm another set of Azerite armor or pay gold to change traits".

[Warning]

Ion, for the love of all that is holy on Earth, please just STOP judging about what is fun or not for the players. You, along with the rest of the dev team are NOT players, you might (for some of you), play the game, but you don't have the player POV. People want to queue to do Warfronts with their entire guild ? Leave them, who the heck are you to say that it's not fun for them ? What does it change anyway ? Warfronts are not dynamic and there is no impact to literally rolling on them appart the fact that it makes them shorted (what is, to be honest, a liberation, because they suck). Being an asshole like you are now is what has driven the game in this current state in the first place, holy christ I'm so fed up with that prick.

You for real? They're the development team on a video game... it's literally their job to create stuff they think is fun for players.

[Marrilaife]

It's unbelievable that we went in one expansion we went from "Yeah if you want to switch spec your gear is adapting"

Well this part isn't true, at least wasn't true in Legion. Artifact wasn't adapting, you had to put separate relics and AP into it, and it was at the expense of your main artifact. Also legendaries were a problem for 3/4 of the expansion you wouldn't have your offspec ones because you were still grinding mainspec ones (unless extremely lucky), not even mentioning early Legion with the 4 leggo softcap you couldn't dream of having offspec ones, you probably didn't even have correct maiinspec ones.

[ejpaints]

“There has to be some kind of restriction on how you can get Azerite armor, so it can't just have a chance to drop from every Mythic+.
Most people only do one or two Mythic+ dungeons each week.”

I only run 1-2 a week BECAUSE I can’t get azerite gear from them.

“The team has moved away from raids being the only/best endgame PvE content. There are plenty of people that are enjoying Mythic+ dungeons.“

I find this ironic following the previous statement. But, I would run them more if I could actually get azerite gear since myself & almost half my raid team have yet to see any azerite pieces yet we are scrapping duplicates of everything else.

[Deleted]

You for real? They're the development team on a video game... it's literally their job to create stuff they think is fun for players.

Use your brain for a second instead of reacting like a mongrel. A dev will never have a neutral POV about the game even if he's playing, he will always see the commercial success of the game before it's fun, Ion is the best proof of that, he's playing the game and still makes crap decisions which are not in phrase with what players want and expect.

[kamuimac]

In a game where you can change specs, such restrictions are bullshit. It's unbelievable that we went in one expansion we went from "Yeah if you want to switch spec your gear is adapting" to "You want to switch specs ? Fuck you and farm another set of Azerite armor or pay gold to change traits".

there is a verysimple answear to this

time to remove mythic raiding so those problems dissapear

[mitre27]

I hate that devs are putting so little effort into raid loot now, mythic+ gets boring fast.

[Deleted]

Well this part isn't true, at least wasn't true in Legion. Artifact wasn't adapting, you had to put separate relics and AP into it, and it was at the expense of your main artifact. Also legendaries were a problem for 3/4 of the expansion you wouldn't have your offspec ones because you were still grinding mainspec ones (unless extremely lucky), not even mentioning early Legion with the 4 leggo softcap you couldn't dream of having offspec ones, you probably didn't even have correct maiinspec ones.

Dude, why are you talking about the artifacts ? I'm speaking about the set pieces that swapped, be real.

[Ryaths]

Ion is an absolute disaster. He avoids any kind of direct answer. Absolute sham of a "Game Director".

[Kanariya]

In a game where you can change specs, such restrictions are bullshit. It's unbelievable that we went in one expansion we went from "Yeah if you want to switch spec your gear is adapting" to "You want to switch specs ? Fuck you and farm another set of Azerite armor or pay gold to change traits".

What expansion was that? In Legion it was "You want to switch specs? Fuck you and spend another six weeks farming up AP and relics for your other Artifact just to get anywhere near to where your main artifact is, and you cannot pay gold to transfer any AP from your main wep. You have to grind. If you run without your golden traits, your spec will not perform even 50% within your main spec."

No one off-spec'd at all for the first chunk of Legion because of Artifacts. It took them quite a while to fix that.

It's like you actually forgot that little important tidbit.

[Lightforged]

I think there should be friction when changing specs. Otherwise what is a spec? If I can swap between feral and guardian between fights then I'm no longer a guardian druid I'm a feral druid with alternating toolkits. It goes back to the fantasy of WoW and it's the little things that need to stay. Also, some gold is a very minor price to pay, literally. I think people wanting an easier spec swap are a little bit entitled. Maintaining multiple specs is a privilege that you work for, not a right. I think we should not be jack-of-all-trades.

As for the whole system, I think people are confusing issues. Traits per se are not bad as a system. Yes they are unbalanced and some suck. But the system of having extra effects on a piece of gear is good. The problem is obtaining them - that it is so irregular and random and difficult. One solution (credit to Taliesin and Evitel) is to make mythic+ drop the same slots but without azerite traits and for trait gear to only drop in raids. Alternatively, and what I prefer, is that mythic+ and raids and whatever else (warfronts? islands?) give a token which you can accumulate to buy the piece you want. You can adjust the acquisition rates to make raiding better for it or however. Problem solved imho.

For everyone else complaining can we suggest some fixes please?

Any system that lets you accrue currency from spammable content will make people feel like they are forced to run that content again and again and again to earn the currency in the fastest way possible. That is not fun or enjoyable. So if you introduced a currency to the game, it would likely have to be in the M+ chest and not a dungeon drop to be a limiter on the amount of repeatable content people would feel forced to play.

they're just throwing shit at a wall with azerite gear at this point to see what sticks.

What a shambles

Not really.

What they are basically doing is telling you the inner rings don't really matter. They are basically normalizing the inner rings and then abandoning them as meaningful bits of the game. The outer ring is all that really matters.

In a game where you can change specs, such restrictions are bullshit. It's unbelievable that we went in one expansion we went from "Yeah if you want to switch spec your gear is adapting" to "You want to switch specs ? Fuck you and farm another set of Azerite armor or pay gold to change traits".

Legion was also the expansion where if you wanted to switch specs they told you to go farm millions of Artifact Power to level up your off spec's weapon.

Ion, for the love of all that is holy on Earth, please just STOP judging about what is fun or not for the players. You, along with the rest of the dev team are NOT players, you might (for some of you), play the game, but you don't have the player POV. People want to queue to do Warfronts with their entire guild ? Leave them, who the heck are you to say that it's not fun for them ? What does it change anyway ? Warfronts are not dynamic and there is no impact to literally rolling on them appart the fact that it makes them shorted (what is, to be honest, a liberation, because they suck). Being an asshole like you are now is what has driven the game in this current state in the first place, holy christ I'm so fed up with that prick.

Pretty sure waiting 15 minutes would be a pretty bad/poor experience. Like how you can't skip all the dialog in old raids. You just si there, doing nothing for minutes at a time. Plus, he said they were contemplating making a raid friendly version of Warfronts, which would be awesome. So calm down, jeez.

Players: This sucks, can you change it?
Ion: {ten minute rambling mansplaination about the COMPLETELY OBVIOUS ramifications of implementing obnoxious restrictions}

WE. DON'T. CARE. Stop treating these Q&As as an excuse to patronize us like we're your two year old son. If you're not going to improve the object of the complaint, then don't waste an eighth of the presentation "addressing" it.

He was not patronizing or "mansplaning". He was just stating Blizzard's design goals and design intentions. If you don't want to listen to that, just read the MMO Champion synopsis.

Well wish Ion could see my death log from Vectis where I died after using all my stacks of active mitigation, guardian of ancient kings after I ran out of mitigation, then ardent defender, healthstone, self heal on cd, and another charge of active mitigation, and still died. But no worries, from next week I'm gonna be replaced with brewmaster alt of a guildie. My "ultility" comes down to joining as a 3rd tank for Zul so I can bubble / bop off the blood stacks. Except that, I bring nothing. At least DKs usually have some fight where grips are useful (Zek'voz, Zul, Mythrax). Every other tank can just be replaced by another brewmaster.

But let's keep musing over tank "utility" or how much "skill" you need to manage your active mitigation while brewmaster doesn't need anything of those and survives everything much better.

Oh, and btw monk also brings physical debuff that is mandatory, and ring of peace that is really strong on several bosses. They also have great mobility, for example transcendence helps a lot to nullify the knockback from fetid devourer. Absolutely ridiculous a class with best survivability has also so much utility.

Look at guardian druid and see how their population dropped off when their utility was gutted (stampeding roar cooldown increased by removing the talent, rage of the sleeper as an anti-cc ability gone etc.)

Like, he literally said they will fix the numbers and buff the low end tanks and, potentially, nerf the high end tanks. The stuff about utility is important as it helps clarify where Blizzard would like the tanks to eventually be - each possessing unique strengths and weaknesses.

[duster2]

Really dislike the idea that ppl have to have multiple sets of gear or reforge to play another spec. It's Blizzard's job to make all specs competitive. That's why we have the talent trees for single target dps or aoe dmg. Hybrid classes are not competitive ANYWAY right now cause they can not do the same variety of content as efficently as the pure classes.

[Twiztedterry]

It's unbelievable that we went in one expansion we went from "Yeah if you want to switch spec your gear is adapting" to "You want to switch specs ? Fuck you and farm another set of Azerite armor or pay gold to change traits".

Dude, why are you talking about the artifacts ? I'm speaking about the set pieces that swapped, be real.

Does it matter what you were talking about? The end result is the same.

Legion = Set Pieces adapted, 1x Artifacts and 2x Legendaries didn't

BFA = 3x Azerite Pieces don't adapt.


The end result is the same, with the huge difference that switching Azerite Pieces doesn't force you to farm your artifact power all over again, and they're also much easier to acquire than legendaries.

As Ian stated, It's actually a LOT easier to switch specs in BFA than it was in Legion, even if you keep multiple sets of azerite gear. If you think you'll need to switch specs often, that's why they have non-spec specific azerite traits, take them and you don't have to respec azerite each time you switch.

[Ganksinatra]

"The community will decide which world first matters"

I am not a world first fan. Never have been. I think in this game, with no real "death tax". It's not really skill that gets you the world first (there definitely is some skill involved, don't get me wrong), rather your ability to sit and die over and over and over again for 18+ hours a day for a week. So I say this with all due respect:

This is not gonna work for the people who are fans of the world first race. You will forever have people claiming that one side's boss was harder than the other's, or some such silliness.

I do really like the Azerite Armor changes, though.

[Deleted]

wtb classic sooner plz

[Warning]

Use your brain for a second instead of reacting like a mongrel. A dev will never have a neutral POV about the game even if he's playing, he will always see the commercial success of the game before it's fun, Ion is the best proof of that, he's playing the game and still makes crap decisions which are not in phrase with what players want and expect.

You failed to read my post and this reaction is as poorly thought out as your initial comment. They designed the entire game trying to make it fun, AKA they are judging what's fun for players all the time. The fact that loads of people are playing it and they are pretty much the biggest name in the industry means they are largely successful and correct in their judgment as well. The uninformed thoughts of "Pobutati the random from the forums" are irrelevant and wrong.

[Marrilaife]

Dude, why are you talking about the artifacts ? I'm speaking about the set pieces that swapped, be real.

This guy gets it:

What expansion was that? In Legion it was "You want to switch specs? Fuck you and spend another six weeks farming up AP and relics for your other Artifact just to get anywhere near to where your main artifact is, and you cannot pay gold to transfer any AP from your main wep. You have to grind. If you run without your golden traits, your spec will not perform even 50% within your main spec."

No one off-spec'd at all for the first chunk of Legion because of Artifacts. It took them quite a while to fix that.

It's like you actually forgot that little important tidbit.

Azerite is a replacement of artifacts, that's why we grind AP for the traits. Saying "but the tier sets swapped" while forgetting artifacts and legendaries is only presenting 1 side of the coin.

Like, he literally said they will fix the numbers and buff the low end tanks and, potentially, nerf the high end tanks. The stuff about utility is important as it helps clarify where Blizzard would like the tanks to eventually be - each possessing unique strengths and weaknesses.

He said "it was bad in the past the tank could die despite correct play by just getting burst down" - hello why past tense, this is happening all over mythic Uldir again. My blood DK can easily die from normal melee hits on Zek'voz every time I move the boss between rings. Yes, I am using my cds on the "combo", and yes I die at different moments when no combo is happening.

And the stuff about utility is bullshit, best survivable tanks have also the most useful utility in raids atm, it's not even either or.

And even if they buff warriors and druids that doesn't change the fact paladins and demon hunters are still unwanted in mythic raiding, they're only used in m+ (and they're still significantly behind dks).

[Ungeir]

They're out of ideas.

I assure you they're not out of ideas. Game designers, good as well as bad, want to make things. New systems, change systems, new content, etc. This is not happening - why? They don't have the programmers, who are probably busy on other projects. Can they admit this? Of course not. So we get weird excuses and deflections.

[Marrilaife]

"The community will decide which world first matters"

The horde one ofc, because there's no serious alliance guild left. Atm in top 20 there's 3 alliance guilds, 1 chinese, 1 australian and 1 russian. And there was 4 days disparity between Method and the chinese guild. Not much of a race anyway.

Btw currently the Uldir leaderboard as of this moment has 71 horde guilds and 11 alliance.
#balancedlikethewarmode

[Demeia]

"There is value to having a bit of friction when it comes to changing specs." - If by "value" he means "annoying as shit." then yes.

Ion is so weird about this. He just really, really wants people to stick to one spec even though a) a lot of people do and probably don't care whether they are "rewarded" for it, and b) a lot of people don't and find the things they do to make it difficult extremely frustrating. Especially since those things are often changing based on raid need and not just (as I do) because one spec is more efficient for the fight.