Developer Interview - Ion Hazzikostas, Lunar Festival 2019

[oldgeezer]

Azerite armor is not good.
And if you're trying to appease the non 1%, what do they get to do that's "fun"?
World Quests?

We're at the point where everything is about getting a big number and not doing things simply because they're fun.

Mage tower, Chromie's death were fun.
What's BfA got?

What's it got? It depends who you're asking; it's entirely subjective isn't it?.

I'm the filthiest casual there is, and I'm enjoying slowly levelling allied race alts and running WQs. I don't do any group content other than warfronts. And I'm having a blast. Ask someone else and they'll undoubtedly give you a different answer.

[Trumpcat]

I disagree with just about every line regarding their design choices. Not because I know better than the devs, but because I don't find the game design in BfA fun. Also what he says is that towards 8.2 the expansion will be in a better shape? Maybe at 8.3 it will be actually fun to play? Perhaps the way it should have released? So we have to play(pay)/skip two thirds of the expansion because for the final part it will be better.
Also with no words of new Warfronts does that mean they realized they failed designing that feature and just drop it?

Either way, yes I do love the game, but I feel completely unexcited about this design direction. 20 people of my guild unsubbed, we were 35ish active. There are tons of threads and discussions around the Internet about different BfA features, I haven't seen a single one where anyone argues things are great. The only thing that's great in BfA is the art, not even the lore because it's ridden with gigantic plot holes and obviously written by people who have zero idea about military strategy. If nothing changes for the better I'm out as well.

[riptal]

Throughout Burning Crusade, guilds complained bitterly about having to go back and get people attuned and do content that was irrelevant to them. These hurdles made it harder to recruit and get into raiding.

I prefer to go back and make people attuned than giving easy purple to make people instant raiders. At least we can practice in older content and feels a real sens of progression. Even if you have to do it multiple time on different characters. Today it's so easy to find a group with all the Tools we have, so why not bringing back some attunements? At least peeople have to accomplish something before… TBC was in another time, it was hard to find a group back then, it's not the case today!

[Grimalkin of Old]

That was hilarious.

[Ophenia]

Maybe it will come in the future. Possibly a few weeks. Not sure yet about this but why not. The team is open to do something. They're looking to do stuff.

I didn't watch the video but damn this summary is frightening. What do they know, exactly ?

[Ardourdan]

1. Apply game design to the classes instead of the factions. Players today care less about their faction than they do about their class.
2. Remove Azerite gear. Removing tier gear was a terrible decision. For a lot of raiders it is an enormous satisfaction to obtain tier gear as a reward for the gruelling effort put into raiding.

[Sigxy]

The vast majority of the playerbase are the casuals. They are also the easiest to cater for. Building a game that only appeals to the one-percenters makes no sense whatsoever.

I'm not saying the one-percenters should be the only focus - just look at WotLK. It focused on the core of the game but it was still open to several ways to play it. However it has to be more narrow than it is now because it's clearly not working out for them like this.

Too many things to do, too many that feels 'meh'.

[Tomana]

Professions

• There is lots of room for improvement

NO S**T, Sherlock!!!

[deadman1]

I hope you realize that you are the exact type of person he is talking about...you're angry to the point that you aren't even listening. When he says there are flaws in the system and they are continuing to make big changes to the system, that certainly does not say that he thinks it is doing well. Open your fucking ears. It is one thing to disagree with someone, but you are contributing nothing to helping solve the problems if you aren't even capable of listening.

I doubt you are a reasonable person, given your post history, so this will probably just fall on deaf ears. Feel free to call me a Blizzard shill or whatever other buzzword people are using.

"moderator" You're supposed to be the middleman not the super polarizing opinionated flamebaiting person.

Are you a shill? Who knows, but I can tell you they aren't fixing anything, and people like you giving them pass after pass are enabling them.

You are exactly the problem he pointed out. Just angered and spouting nonsense instead of tryin to find a middle ground.

[IMG]snip[/IMG]

"The internet is a place that has become a bit more polarized, and it's become more about getting anger out there and less about finding common ground."

Wonder who this comment could apply to...

He is talking about reality. You know the way that bubbles of 'me' the internet creates. The self sustaining bubbles of one view over another with little deference for the middle where the reality is.

So many people in this thread repeating the same line of BS "You're the exact type of person Ion is talking about."

Ion is trying to deflect criticism by painting all his dissenters as angry and irrational. Every time you repeat his little spiel you are enabling more of these BS excuses and BS design choices.

[korijenkins]

"The team wants everyone to be as happy as possible"

This right here is the issue. The focus shifted from making a good MMORPG to making people happy. The game became heavily casualized and a total joke. All the depth is gone. All the RPG elements are gone. Not only is the game as shallow as a puddle in the Sahara, but the guide websites like Wowhead and MMO-Champ make it even moreso.

[Dystemper]

I hope you realize that you are the exact type of person he is talking about...you're angry to the point that you aren't even listening. When he says there are flaws in the system and they are continuing to make big changes to the system, that certainly does not say that he thinks it is doing well. Open your fucking ears. It is one thing to disagree with someone, but you are contributing nothing to helping solve the problems if you aren't even capable of listening.

I doubt you are a reasonable person, given your post history, so this will probably just fall on deaf ears. Feel free to call me a Blizzard shill or whatever other buzzword people are using.

They dont listen to the feed back. There have been thousands of pages of feedback given during Alpha and beta and Ion dismissed them and ignored them. Its been that way since WOD. All the shit changes that have driven away players have been on them. And he continues on with his lawyer speak and passive aggressive blaming the player base because of their fuck ups and poor game design. What dont you get that they are not interested in solving the problems that they create?

Ion is a fucking cancer to this game . The current management of activision is a fucking Cancer to this game. They dont give 2 shits .
BTW as a "moderator" you arre doing a fucking shit job. I understand that this is probably your only avenue of feeling relevant and having some self worth and that is coming to a end when Fandom gets rid of these forums. That has to be a really hard thing to come to terms with Mr. "I would let Anduin Ravish me." If you dont want to be a Blizzard shill, then stop shilling for them.

[Logwyn]

He is talking about reality. You know the way that bubbles of 'me' the internet creates. The self sustaining bubbles of one view over another with little deference for the middle where the reality is.

The issue with the statement is that it's becoming "more polarizing". He's wrong its always been this way. Nothing is changed. The online and the internet has always been very polarizing. There are just more and more people getting "online" so it makes it seem its worse....but its always been that way.

[TickTickTick]

You could copy paste these answers to the last 5 interviews and nothing would change. I look forward to seeing these answers in the next five interviews, too.

[riptal]

I'm not saying the one-percenters should be the only focus - just look at WotLK. It focused on the core of the game but it was still open to several ways to play it. However it has to be more narrow than it is now because it's clearly not working out for them like this.

Too many things to do, too many that feels 'meh'.

WotLK was the beginning of Wow easy mode loot fest as it is today. Don't get me wrong WotLK was good story Wise but for the rest, was known as the beginning of the downfall of Wow!

[Dystemper]

"moderator" You're supposed to be the middleman not the super polarizing opinionated flamebaiting person.

Are you a shill? Who knows, but I can tell you they aren't fixing anything, and people like you giving them pass after pass are enabling them.









So many people in this thread repeating the same line of BS "You're the exact type of person Ion is talking about."

Ion is trying to deflect criticism by painting all his dissenters as angry and irrational. Every time you repeat his little spiel you are enabling more of these BS excuses and BS design choices.

These peop0le allso ignore the fact that there was countless feedback given before BFA went live and Ion and his crew ignored it all. They knew BFA was going to be garbage when it was announced. All the stupid fucking design changes that have been made that have driven off the vast majority of the player base has been hand waived away by Ion and his apologists as being the fault of the player base

[Boricha]

I like a lot of what was said in this interview. I hope they do get the game back on the right track by the end of BFA or the next expansion.

I did have some nitpicks though:

The team is happy with the system in terms of the customization it allows, but the progression of unlocking those traits was a mismatch with that customization system.

I can see this in pvp, although many of the utility traits used in the arena tourney were busted OP. But outside of that, the traits are too dull to have interesting customization.

The team has pulled away from talents that gave classes utility in an area that was traditionally weak for them. Someone has to be very mobile, someone has to be less mobile.

I kinda disagree with this mentality. MoP was the expansion where every class was good at everything, and I loved it. I think it had the most compelling class design to date.

The goal of Nazjatar is to learn from all of the past outdoor zones and improve upon them.

Timeless Isle was the peak of world content for me. I hope they finally build off it with a new outdoor zone.

The team was happy with how the Mage Tower worked out and would love to do it again in the future. They don't want to make it part of the expansion formula, it needs to fit the story and world.

TBH I love solo challenges, and I would like to see some form of Mage Towers worked into the expansion formula.

No new Warfront is planned for Rise of Azshara.

This made me laugh. But I'm glad no more work is being put into Warfronts. They're fundamentally flawed and need to be brought back to the drawing board. Slapping a heroic mode on the current ones and moving on is fine with me.

[kamuimac]

i love how he basicly said :

"stop whining we dont give any fucks "

[hyphnos]

The team can probably do more towards having more guaranteed progression through currencies for Raid and Dungeon content. Conquest provides this gear track on the PvP side.

Oh I know I have an idea.

Let's make this currency called "Justice Points". Basically you can buy let's say gear that will help with Mythic Dungeons/maybe a bit of Normal raiding. It caps at 2000.

And let's make another one called "Valor Points". Basically with this you can buy raid equivalent gear. However it should have a cap of 450 per week with a total cap of 2000.

They'll have to call it something else and introduce it as a new and exciting feature in a future expac.

The only thing certain with these devs is that they absolutely will not look back at the mass of data and experiments they've done over the years, find something that worked well and put it back in the game or keep it in the game.

Every problem they "solve" every expac has been "solved" a dozen times in a dozen ways in the past and some of those solutions were actually well received, but they can't be assed to learn from the past and just design over and over, eventually repeating themselves with new names and new gibberish navelgazing as to how hard they "thought" about some bullshit "problem" that didn't exist until they made into one.

[huldu]

"The team cares deeply about the state of the game." Right. When I see a statement like that from a company like Blizzard I know they're full of it. It's over and they know it, they're just milking what's left of the game for as long as they can. I'm sure the game will be FINE for many years to come but let's just be honest here wow is nowhere near where it used to be thanks to the "directions" the company has taken over the years. I'm not looking back with rose-tinted glasses on the past because I know the game has always had issues but I'm talking more about the LACK of players, the insane drop of players throughout THIS expansion by itself.

They really have have no idea what they're doing at this point and they're trying to please *everyone* while making the most ridiculous decisions regarding the game, classes, abilities and the worst of all... azerite junk.

[Fiacla]

"moderator" You're supposed to be the middleman not the super polarizing opinionated flamebaiting person.

Are you a shill? Who knows, but I can tell you they aren't fixing anything, and people like you giving them pass after pass are enabling them.









So many people in this thread repeating the same line of BS "You're the exact type of person Ion is talking about."

Ion is trying to deflect criticism by painting all his dissenters as angry and irrational. Every time you repeat his little spiel you are enabling more of these BS excuses and BS design choices.

Everyone I disagree with must be a paid shill.

Welcome to gaming communities in 2019 .