Alex Afrasiabi and Patrick Dawson Interview, Moonkin Festival, Dev Interviews

[Titans]

'•The team liked giving classes time to shine in Uldir that didn't necessarily involve damage, such as mobile classes in the G'huun fight. They then realized that people just stacked Warlocks for it, and kind of negated the original intent, though Warlocks got to shine!''

Well yeah, that's the inherent issue with the 'strengths and weaknesses' class design. Making encounters that only certain specs are good at will mean you stack that spec. If they are trying to avoid class stacking they are not addressing the root cause, which is gutting most specs' toolkits.

[MasterDinadan]

They should just give us water walking on all our mounts (where allowed) if we’ve unlocked water strider.
More mount variety is always a good thing. Having to use an ugly mount because it’s mechanically better sucks.
And if we’re riding a flying mount in a no-fly zone but have water walking, have the mount play flight animation while water walking so it’s flying just above the surface of the water. Would be a huge improvement and nice way to show off our flying mounts while we wait for the real thing.

[Kralljin]

It is important that classes have strengths where they shine, but also weaknesses.

I can't read this drivel anymore, literally anytime class balance is brought this freaking line comes up.

So then, when will actions follow?
When will those classes / specs without significant strengths receive those?
When will those classes / specs without significant weaknesses get nerfed?

Those stupid question regarding class stacking / class balance continue to come up because we cannot find this philosophy is not reflected in the game.

The team liked giving classes time to shine in Uldir that didn't necessarily involve damage, such as mobile classes in the G'huun fight. They then realized that people just stacked Warlocks for it, and kind of negated the original intent, though Warlocks got to shine!

Oh my, mobile classes being favored, what's their next idea, an Encounter where immunity cooldowns are quite strong? Maybe we even need to soak stuff?

[Nyres]

i seriously hate what they've done with M+ this expac, adding the affix at +2 makes the lower runs longer and more of a PITA for those of us who found fun in casually doing lower keys in legion. Then between Infested and the upcoming Reaping affix makes me say screw it to even try a +10 anymore since all it does is just make things more annoying. Also with that Necrotic change its like they're personally out to get DKs.

[Brubear]

I think they should either give all flying mounts the ability to hover on water (maybe only allow it once you've unlocked a water-walking mount as an achievement flag or something?) or at least let certain flying mounts do it. For example, the fact that the new Flying Dutchman mount can't float on water is silly to me.

[Appelgren]

LuL. This whole beta of azerite has been a moonlit festival.

[TyrannicalPuppy]

Alex is more interested in using Warfronts as a platform for story.

Well, he's failing pretty bloody miserably.

[ctrlaltwalsh]

It is important that classes have strengths where they shine, but also weaknesses.

This is a good idea in concept.

• All Classes have Strengths
• All Classes have Weaknesses

Okay Fine.

BUT: Strengths cannot be DPS, as all DPS needs to be somewhat balanced in a Patchwerk fight.

SO: Strengths can be things like

• Mobility (Has a DPS Impact on most fights via Uptime.)
• Damage Reduction/Immunity/Shields (Has a DPS impact on most fights again via Uptime.)

INCONSISTENCY:

Some abilities are balanced and fair. For example lets look at Shadow’s Dispersion.
• Disperse into pure shadow energy, reducing all damage taken by 60% for 6 sec, but you are unable to attack or cast spells. (2 Min Cooldown)
And compare it to Paladin’s Bubble
The shadow priest gains damage reduction, in exchange they cannot do damage.

Some abilities are just better.
• Grants immunity to all damage and harmful effects for 8 sec. (5 Min Cooldown)
Not only does it grant immunity, but it does it for longer (8 vs 6 seconds) and the paladin continues to deal full damage.
The Paladin is immune to a mechanic, this can be used to soak important boss damage abilities, or often is it just used to stay on the boss through a mechanic melee DPS need to move out of.

Some of you will say “But ctrlaltwalsh! Divine Shield has a 5 minute cooldown! The priest get's to use their ability 5 times for the Paladin's 2” and to that I say:
• First: Sure, if the boss fight is 6 minutes then yeah they get it 3 times, but guess what - If the boss fight is 3m30s then they both use it once.

• Second: So what? Even if the fight is 4m59s the paladin is getting additional DPS uptime by using the cooldown, the shadow priest is not getting that DPS uptime at all as they are not able to cast while using it.

The same argument can be made for an absolute TON of abilities in the game, where one classes ability is flat out better than another. Now I understand that the differences make the game, but what I don’t understand is that these abilities don’t seem to be taken into account for balance purposes. If the shadow priest is losing 8 seconds on a 3-minute fight then their baseline DPS should be higher.

TLDR:
Mobility/DR/Immune/Shield cooldowns effect DPS, these should be taken into account for the spec’s baseline DPS and classes that don’t have these should be better, when they aren’t needed. (As rare as that is)

Edit: I'd love to see a list of your specs Strengths and weaknesses, Everyone give me 2 Strengths, and 2 Weaknesses.

Demon Hunter - Vengeance:
STRENGTH: Extreme Mobility, Amazing Utility
WEAKNESSES: Mediocre vs Magic Damage, Active Mitigation mediocre.

[Stormykitten]

I hope they address whyever Azshara would raise the city if that is what she does; I mean, what gain does that give her? Seems like it gives her enemies a chance to defeat her.

[Onikaroshi]

Raids have unique traits not found outside of the raid that do fun and exciting things.

The developers must have a really weird idea of what is "fun and exciting". So far there's about zero reason to raid anything but Mythic, so if you don't like 20 man raids or M+ your end game is shot

[Telwar]

i knew it! azshara is raising nazjatar from the seafloor!! so happy they took this route. she'll seem even more menacing than she already does. they're doing her very well, as long as she escapes in the raid and doesn't die i'll be very happy with her treatment in game.

Hrm.

It'd be a neat little old G.I. Joe comic nod if they had the Alliance and Horde bomb locations on Nazjatar that triggered a massive earthquake that raised it from the ocean floor.

You could even have a battleground for claiming Nazjatar from the other side before they can get "official recognition!"

(I'm sorry, I'm a fan of the original G.I. Joe comics, I'll get my coat...)

[azkhane]

that reaping affix will be nerfed to the ground if the enemies raise back with their abilities, hp,damage as they are alive, also they will agro any non pulled enemies, and i am SURE those mf will trigger INSANE explosive spawn .... and bursting and bolstering pff that shit can't be

[Culex]

These "interviews" are a complete waste of time, they are just blowing smoke up peoples asses and they just eat it up.

[

[The One Percent]

Why would the queen of a race of underwater creatures raise up their main city for no reason, sacrificing their advantage of being better swimmers than their enemies?

[Debased]

The developers must have a really weird idea of what is "fun and exciting". So far there's about zero reason to raid anything but Mythic, so if you don't like 20 man raids or M+ your end game is shot

Heroic is fine, I don't know what you're talking about. It drops 370 loot just like M10+. Except it's easier (with one or two exceptions), well unless you're stacking a faceroll comp for keys.

[Kathranis]

Strength vs weakness class design is miles better than homogenization, IMO. They can probably edge closer to the middle, but I don't know if players really want to go back to every class being able to do everything.

[Deleted]

What is the point of these interviews? They don't asking the real questions and devs don't give any answers... I wish I have that much time to talk about nothing and get paid...

[Onikaroshi]

Heroic is fine, I don't know what you're talking about. It drops 370 loot just like M10+. Except it's easier (with one or two exceptions), well unless you're stacking a faceroll comp for keys.

much easier to get a group of 5 together over a group of 20+, and +10s really aren't hard AT ALL (I just can't stand M+ as a whole), plus the gear is better (better itemized, better traits, etc.) and now with the new vendor only applying to M+, raiding is basically dead for gear (Before I quit we raided for like 4 weeks and I got ONE upgrade, M+ was upgrades every week at min). It's stupid, they should be separate entirely.

And it still doesn't change the fact that what they said is a joke, there's nothing "interesting" about raid only traits, they're just as passive and trash as the normal ones.

[Kithelle]

They need to stop saying this, it's a blatant lie. What they did to spriests, ele and enhanc shaman is proof they have no idea what they are talking about.

Just like when they say racials are balanced...it's another lie...Horde has obvious advantages. They're so out of touch sometimes it isn't even funny...

[HuxNeva]

... stacking Subtlety Rogues for Zul, the team admits that the raid designers could have simply had damage shields on the adds to deter this in Mythic difficulty.

... mobile classes in the G'huun fight. They then realized that people just stacked Warlocks for it, and kind of negated the original intent, though Warlocks got to shine

This shows to me that encounter designers do not have the right mindset when it comes to thinking about how players approach a fight. They seem to reason from just the intent of mechanics and never change their perspective to 'how can this be circumvented'.

While I do in concept appreciate the class differentiation with specialty strengths and trade-off weaknesses, they must realize that in modern WoW this translates into alt stables so that every player can pick the optimal 'tool' from its kit per fight as required.