Greek Community Dev Q&A, December 13 Hotfixes, Heroes Developers Switching Teams

[Debased]

uuuh Overwatch is practically dead, chief. I'm a fan, but we have to be honest with ourselves. Fortnite may be losing momentum, but Fortnite has more players that will play it THIS MINUTE than Overwatch will have in the next 5 years combined.

Fortnite loses more players monthly than Overwatch has TOTAL players

You people have literally ZERO data to back any of this up. Are you actually going off of Twitch viewership? That would be pretty fucking hilarious if true.

[Onikaroshi]

Bitching just to bitch. I've come across MANY items that are 20-30 ilvls higher but weren't auto upgrades because of stat weights and gem slots. If you miss expertise, hit, and the plethora of other minor stats I don't know what to tell you. I always found it tedious and boring and it literally changed nothing. Now and then I sim my characters all the same.

ArP, Spirit, Mp5, and a plethora of other, far more interesting then versatility, stats. Haste caps, snapshotting, all of that that we've lost over the years that made gearing interesting. Hell, losing fucking TANKING stats for no reason, dodge, parry, defense. Hit and Exp were the least of it. And very few classes see a 20-30 ilvl increase and find it not to be an upgrade and the biggest thing is, the point he was making was that they WANT 10+ ilvl to just be a no thought upgrade.

[Debased]

ArP, Spirit, Mp5, and a plethora of other, far more interesting then versatility, stats. Haste caps, snapshotting, all of that that we've lost over the years that made gearing interesting. Hell, losing fucking TANKING stats for no reason, dodge, parry, defense. Hit and Exp were the least of it. And very few classes see a 20-30 ilvl increase and find it not to be an upgrade and the biggest thing is, the point he was making was that they WANT 10+ ilvl to just be a no thought upgrade.

I don't disagree, a lot of those stats made things more interesting, especially for tanking or random "for fun" builds. Still though most of the time good players would plug everything into a sim and go off of that, in fact it was even more necessary back then.

[Onikaroshi]

I don't disagree, a lot of those stats made things more interesting, especially for tanking or random "for fun" builds. Still though most of the time good players would plug everything into a sim and go off of that, in fact it was even more necessary back then.

It was still more fun, something like ArP, you didn't want just a little, so you'd hold off on it until you'd amass a bunch of gear with it on it and then just switch it all over and wreck things.

I'm super salty about them removing tank gear though, I tanked all through the game until they removed it all (defense was mostly ok, it was kind of like hit/exp, just a capping thing) and then tanking started to feel dull because it was just a meatshield dps that did shit for dps. They tried other things to make it interesting, but ended up scrapping every single one of the aside from AM, which isn't really that interesting.

Honestly... if they gave us back actual tanking gear, and did away with some of the RNG things like rng gemslots (which would be a boon for JC) I'd be at least satisfied

[superten]

Fixing PvP would be so incredibly easy and all it would take is to implement what Blizzard is best at... copying another game.

There is no reason at all why should not copy GW2's approach to instanced PvP.

1. All instanced PvP is level 120 (you can create a level 1 character and PvP at the top level right NOW without having to play any PvE).

2. Create a "PvP" lobby that let's players hang out in, practice skills, get used to a new (level 120) character. You can also choose your talents, trinkets, stat distribution, and gear.

3. Speaking of gear... It shouldn't matter. All gear is normalized for competitive play. Like mentioned above, you just choose an "amulet" (it can be whatever) that determines how your secondary stats are distributed. All available trinkets are accessible in a dropdown.

4. Create a robust rewards system with tons of awesome and exclusive items for PvPers.


It's almost 2019! If all I want to do is PvP, there is no reason why I shouldn't be able to PvP competitively on a new character immediately (say, if my main gets nerfed to the ground), without having to slog through 120 levels and then grinding out monotonous world quests (many of each don't even involve combat).

Holy shit dude, I drool thinking about it, Blizzard already has a pvp realm, I always thought it should be available to the public, oh you want to pvp? jump here and play ranks all day with all the gear available, done.

[Leyre]

"Paladins and Druids traditionally had raid buffs, but in the Battle for Azeroth environment, they already had plenty of utility.
The team would rather focus on the unique and strong utility that Druids and Paladins already bring rather than adding more buffs if they feel that there isn't incentive to bring these classes."

Uhu, thanks for confirming you're not going to fix my class next expansion, most likely.

"What makes one Blacksmith different from another? One can make something that the other can't."

So DO TELL what the Blacksmiths can do that others cannot! Oh wait you're not going to, are ya - aside from that they can make useless weapons and useless plate armour. Even WoD did better with this.

Welp, just not gonna get more expansions until these things are fixed as I only need retail for RP anyway. If I want end-game content? Classic will handle that and at least there, there's proper class fantasy!

The only BS i know that can do stuff that others BS cant its fucking Eorlund Gray-Mane from Skyrim and thats because the Skyforge, lel

[Cheeb]

You people have literally ZERO data to back any of this up. Are you actually going off of Twitch viewership? That would be pretty fucking hilarious if true.

Fortnite has roughly 80 million monthly players. OW has roughly 40 million monthly players. These numbers are reported by their respective companies, so take that as you will.


.

[Deleted]

Personal Loot is here to stay, so let's talk about how we can improve it rather than rolling it back to Master Loot.

Best decision ever

[Steelangel]

Fortnite has roughly 80 million monthly players. OW has roughly 40 million monthly players. These numbers are reported by their respective companies, so take that as you will.

Fortnite is also free.

[klepp0906]

-It's very rare to actually go a meaningful amount of time into a raid tier without getting the items that you want-

oh you mean like.. the whole tier almost being over? cause i still havent gotten the mother mace, nor the zekvoz 2h, nor the fetid trinket.

cause personal loot is fun they tell me!

[Nebron]

In terms of spread of content I think BfA is in a pretty good place. There's everything from WQs to those playing for 15 minutes per night, right up to Mythic/+ content for those taking it more seriously, with something for everyone in-between. There's no shortage of stuff to do in game, no matter your skill or time constraints. This is good. Narrowing the game down so that it only appeals to the 5%, or less, is not the way forward. Jeff Vogel, who knows a thing or two about game design, wrote a blog about it.

I'm not really thinking about narrowing it to the 5% or less. I would like to do thing that require some thinking and using social skills. Whatever you are going to do that requires group, Group Finder will do it for you. Like, the best example is DF added back in WotLK. I'm not saying it's bad they added that tool, but you can't deny it's taking something away from the game.

We came to the place in WoW, where so many things have been traded for something else. For me it's excitment of raiding. Many people would say I'm wrong about it, but I really think LFR took the magic away. Everyone knows it's just a AFK-fest, even Ion admitted it yestarday saying that this is a difficulty that is not about progression or social aspect of the game. So if it's not about two cores values that made WoW so epic game, what's LFR about? I don't know a person, who has no time to raid normals, like even once a week?

You say there are variety of things to do. Let's pick up one of the main features - Warfronts. Did it like, 4-5 times? The biggest issue is that it's prearranged to be won. There is no way to lose is - only if you have a team full of AFKers? When I did it for the first time I couldn't believe how stupid this system is, seriously. Never seen such boring thing in WoW tbh.

Even the story feels like it's been written in 5 minutes before implementations. It. Is. Horrible. No matter what Sylvanas do now, it's bad.
If she's just crazy - that would be the worst scenario.
If she is possesed by any entitiy, especially an Old God - meh. Everyone would have known it.
If she would have her redemption story - that would be a great disappointment.

Writting stories is not the best thing Blizz has done in the last couple of years. I'm not sure, if instead of all those "mindblowing" twists and plots, I'd like more a villian created throught the expansion, and killed at the very end, just like a Lich King or Deathwing. At least back then I knew who I'm fighting. Now it maight be the Archimonde with a retconned story. Not to mention all the Argus, spaceship and Titan bullshit It all felt like it was written by a teenager. And that bad Illidans story-arc. Just. Wow.

I mean, there were many before me discussing the expansion. But don't you really feel, it's not about quantity, but quality. And the latter is missing... like a lot? It all feels flat, unrewarding and not really well-thought. You know, I never cared about people leaving the game, but you can't say people leave because it's a conspiracy or something. People wouldn't give up playing this game just to fit some drama theory made on forums. People quit massively - and yeah, I have no data to prove. But I had a nearly full list of active players; now it's like 1/3 of all those players?

I'm just saying it, because I still play, and I'm freaking worringabout this game's future :/

[oldgeezer]

<stuff>

Alright, you covered a lot of ground there, so I'll respond to some of those points. A lot of it is subjective, of course. I personally have no interest in raiding, or any group content beyond a warfront or heroic dungeon. I'll run a LFR wing on my main when it opens to see the design of the place, then I'm done - I can generally get better gear through other (essentially solo) means. It's great that you like to raid, but it's not for me. If there's transmogs in a raid or dungeon I want I'll wait an expansion or two then revisit; that's fine, I'm not in a rush.

I agree with you that BfA is poorly written. Frankly, it's dull. Maybe Legion was a hard act to follow, who knows. But, I enjoy being out in the world, I enjoy the environments, and I enjoy levelling alts. So, it keeps me subbed. And I still see plenty of people out in the world. But I guess people just get bored too, and move on. That's fine; it's always been that way. Is it any worse now than it has been previously?

[Nebron]

Alright, you covered a lot of ground there, so I'll respond to some of those points. A lot of it is subjective, of course. I personally have no interest in raiding, or any group content beyond a warfront or heroic dungeon. I'll run a LFR wing on my main when it opens to see the design of the place, then I'm done - I can generally get better gear through other (essentially solo) means. It's great that you like to raid, but it's not for me. If there's transmogs in a raid or dungeon I want I'll wait an expansion or two then revisit; that's fine, I'm not in a rush.

I agree with you that BfA is poorly written. Frankly, it's dull. Maybe Legion was a hard act to follow, who knows. But, I enjoy being out in the world, I enjoy the environments, and I enjoy levelling alts. So, it keeps me subbed. And I still see plenty of people out in the world. But I guess people just get bored too, and move on. That's fine; it's always been that way. Is it any worse now than it has been previously?

I think it is worse. I started playing back in the BC as a total noob. But i remember how exciting it was to discover the history of Northrend races and especially the Lich King. From that point it seems clear to me they didn't plan the story well, and what we see today is the result.

I think they try to make the story more "flowing". Well, they actually said that I think. There would be nothing wrong about; I'd even said it'd be amazing (and Garrosh had a huge potential to be a great character. Yet, the constant retcons to the story kills it. Same thing happens when they interweave too many characters with the same role with each other and the mess comes out of this: to be more precise - in 8.0/ 8.1 we have a questline with Talanji, Rokhan and Spirit of Vol'jin. We travel from one Master of Death to another - Helya, Eyir, Lich King, Bwonsamdi, Old Gods - there are really too many of them, and it makes the story really flat and senseless.

That's about story. But I must admit - the overall climate and music in BfA is absolutely outstanding. Zones are really beautiful and this is what saddens me even more - so much effort has been put by artists to make it great, but it somehow doesn't work for me.

Thank you for the talk mate, it's been a pleasure

[Deleted]

ArP, Spirit, Mp5, and a plethora of other, far more interesting then versatility, stats. Haste caps, snapshotting, all of that that we've lost over the years that made gearing interesting. Hell, losing fucking TANKING stats for no reason, dodge, parry, defense. Hit and Exp were the least of it. And very few classes see a 20-30 ilvl increase and find it not to be an upgrade and the biggest thing is, the point he was making was that they WANT 10+ ilvl to just be a no thought upgrade.

Indeed. Lets not forget weapons specs, loved those. And old windfury totem that gave melee chance for extra attack, that was amazing, because it really felt good when you got one.

[Sigxy]

The only BS i know that can do stuff that others BS cant its fucking Eorlund Gray-Mane from Skyrim and thats because the Skyforge, lel

Sounds about right!

At least vanilla had variations. But had to be pruned because... professions can't be fun.
First your pick: "Armoursmithing" or "Weaponsmithing". And if you pick the latter, you can choose either Sword, Mace or Axe focus of your choice. So in the end, 4 choices of what you want to focus on.

[Yunaqt]

------snip-------

[Alkizon]

The team would like to have space in the game for sustained pressure, with DoT classes wearing down the healers, giving a burst class a chance to jump in and get the kill. Weakness in one area should be made up with strengths in another. If you are less mobile, you should be harder to kill. If you have high mobility, you should probably go down more easily if people are able to focus on you.
The team would rather focus on increasing strengths rather than mitigating weaknesses. Always bolstering weaknesses makes everyone more average at everything.

You don't say however, you forget that “old” balance was in weaknesses vs strengths (you didn't have opportunity to have only second = disbalance, so having both is equally matter) what makes second paragraph wrong and excess.

The team views a Mythic+ dungeon like a single boss encounter, which is why you can't change talents or respec in the middle of the dungeon. Choices are more interesting when you are weighing the entire range of situations that the dungeon is going to offer.

As already mentioned, what team wants or doesn't want is their problem, so if they don’t want players to change items sets on fly, they need to be more original, not stiffer, because dungeons must work under same conditions as open world - for example, if this is "single boss encounter", then characters always need to be in battle (since this is only mechanism in the game that prohibits such behavior), BUT then it won't be "those dungeons" they should be, rather there will be survival challenge (so game world logic leaves them here, and "competitive" logic takes the wheel).

Your gameplay should be more important than having the right gear swapping macros set up.

As response action for you: You can't break rules by your "desires", seniors developers, otherwise you going to repeat your numerous mistakes. Or you goes with rules, or you goes with sin. Gameplay isn't rule itself, but just result of many game components including “semantic/reasoning”, but “no ability to change clothes” fairly conflicts with the last, don't you find?

Paladins and Druids traditionally had raid buffs, but in the Battle for Azeroth environment, they already had plenty of utility.
The team would rather focus on the unique and strong utility that Druids and Paladins already bring rather than adding more buffs if they feel that there isn't incentive to bring these classes.

It's not important (and this applies especially strong for BfA), only class fantasy alone is important (but not spec).

Warforging and Titanforging add some level of interest to repeated clears of a raid.

They don't and especially regarding raids (+/+(+/+/+))

Most players aren't feeling forced to go back and clear lower difficulties anymore. In Legion, set pieces were a reason to go back to try and get upgrades, but the game has moved away from tier sets.

Yeah, well, in a sense, especially considering that players aren't, in principle, motivated to go "higher", which means it conflicts with previous statement, and therefore these all are just confusing words.

It's up to players to choose where to spend their time, and what is most rewarding. You are better off doing Mythic+ than going back to lower raid difficulties for a slim chance at an upgrade.

Or may be any raids at all? LFR for story and it's enough? (+(+/+/+))

Overall, the team is happy with how Personal Loot is working out so far.

Translation: degree of dissatisfaction doesn't exceed permissible (forcibly overestimated especially in this expansion) norms.

The benefits to removing personal loot are three things:

bla bla bla... This is a crutch, which benefits nothing. This isn't because previous system was bad, but because you brought it to a damaged state (but you even didn’t bother with try to camouflage enough) to find a reason to drop it (same was with talents, wasn't it? (+/+(+/+/+/+))), and problems aren't in loot distribution at all, but globally in itemization system (speaker licked/congratulated himself for their development in previous section).

Personal Loot is here to stay, so let's talk about how we can improve it rather than rolling it back to Master Loot.

No, no, no, you won't get off just so easy, don't even try

Battle for Azeroth Ranked PvP has worked out well so far, as there is a clear progression system.

Do you at least yourself believe that? ...especially regarding PvP "progression" (won't be superfluous to understand what you put into this concept (+(+/+)))

The team is focused on improving the social tools in the game to make it easier for players to join groups of like minded folks. This also is a more social experience, which is something the team tries to emphasize whenever possible as an MMO.

Repair your game - fantasy and gameplay, and leave communication to people. You have already done enough damage here for "doing stuff instead of players". This is game, and experiments you better leave to psychologists and a sociologists. You're not those (not even close (+/+ (+/+/+))).

The difficulty structure that the team has settled on is the right one for World of Warcraft.

No it's not next!

If you never get the thing you want, that would be frustrating, maybe some bad luck protection would help.

Or maybe it's better to treat it, instead of just giving a crutch, with parting words "Everything alright, you'll going to limp forward somehow, we believe in you!"?

ps. However, what is there to be surprised, everything is as usual.

[ElDoorO]

Yup,instead we're just much harsher with trials and it's way harder for them to get a guild,since we don't want to give loot to people who won't stay

A trial is an investment.They show what they can do,and in return we help them up.If they're good enough,they stay and can get their loot

Now even a trash tier trial can come in,get loot without putting any effort in,leave,effectively wasting the time of the guild and robbing them of their loot.

It has no benefits whatsoever,the only people who were using ML were people ML was made for,and PL was already forced in pug groups since early Legion so that's not an argument either
It does nothing to help pugs,and it hurts guilds

It lets people know to avoid your guild like the plague.
Further, if you aren't willing to trade items you don't need to someone who needs it -- that speaks more on your lack of character than the trials and speaks as to why going to PL was needed.

It helps guilds because it doesn't allow toxic RL's to funnel gear in a selfish way. Plus, on the whole, guilds that run the harder content outgear those that don't. So you can't deny, on any level, that it's "hurting" guilds since pretty much no "normal" guild outgears a "mythic" guild.

[ONCHEhap]

It lets people know to avoid your guild like the plague.
Further, if you aren't willing to trade items you don't need to someone who needs it -- that speaks more on your lack of character than the trials and speaks as to why going to PL was needed.

It helps guilds because it doesn't allow toxic RL's to funnel gear in a selfish way. Plus, on the whole, guilds that run the harder content outgear those that don't. So you can't deny, on any level, that it's "hurting" guilds since pretty much no "normal" guild outgears a "mythic" guild.

litterally every guild in the top 1500 *has* to act that way

litterally every guild that wants to clear content *has* to act that way

litterally every guild that doesn't want hoppers to use them and leave right away *has* to act that way


Besides,the "toxic RL abusing ML" is a myth,it happens in about one guild out of 75 at most,because people in guilds using ML actually care about progressing,it's an empty excuse used by people who never worked for their loot and can't stand that it goes to someone that genuinely helps the guild