Developer Interview - Ion Hazzikostas, Lunar Festival 2019

[Weeps]

The emotions comment is a cop-out. There are a myriad of videos, especially the essay one that breaks down the issues perfectly. You even have Beluar talking about how out of touch it feels.

If you try to make a game for everyone, ie. this broad audience that keeps getting mentioned -- you wind up making a game for no one.

It's simple: stop trying to appease everyone and get back to the philosophy that made WoW great. Just look at the trend. As soon as you started with this accessibility philosophy towards the end of WotK, people started to drop off. Put back systems that allow player control, stop making things so complicated on how to obtain gear and let the desire come from seeing other powerful players. The fact that people can be as strong as a mythic raider by doing anything outside of raiding / achievement the most difficult content is extremely egregious.

You nailed it. I came to comment but you said it better than I could’ve.

It is an outrageous cop out.

“Gosh, ppl mad! Too emotional!”
BfA sucks that’s why people are angry. Take that, Ion, and improve the game.

Heelsvsbabyface made a very calm critique as well. Asmongold swears but he wasn’t out of control and all these vloggers made salient points like they were in the meeting room.

[exochaft]

Justice/Valor was complained about CONSTANTLY back then for being 'gear for casuals' and boring because there was no excitement in gear anymore.

It was a great way to supplement your gear with a currency progression system, especially in the cases of bad luck. I remember several instances where I'd go an entire raid tier w/o getting upgrades in certain slots to drop in raids, but vendors offered a method to get a piece of gear.

If anything, all the statements made by Ion in interviews recently point to a common theme: Blizz is adamantly against people getting end-game gear that isn't from instanced content, and I think that mentality is holding the game back. Professions like Tailoring, Leatherworking, and Blacksmithing would be the easiest and most logical vehicle for upgrading gear or crafting gear that is competitive with instance drops, but they're all but irrelevant right now. Every counter-argument I've heard from Ion comes from the extreme where no one would agree, like you can't have these crafting professions make relevant gear for raiding because we don't want you to craft all your gear and never need to raid... yeah, we know, no one is asking for that. Even if they did, so what? The current gearing mentality is that everyone can get to mythic raider ilvls, it's just a matter of time, and allowing crafting to make mythic raider level gearing for the player is just a matter of adjusting the time it takes to gather the mats.

I'm really concerned that Blizz has become hyper-focused on mythic raiding being the end-all content for WoW with nothing on equal footing and one-dimensional end-game in general, and that's not going to make most of the customer base happy considering how small the mythic raiding community really is. Even when I was hardcore mythic raiding, I still thought it was rather stupid that armor crafting professions were so irrelevant and that there was only one path to BiS or comparable gearing as the game has aged. You could honestly just take out all the professions in the game, and there would be almost zero impact on the game.

[MasterHamster]

One of the challenges with WoW is that there are very diverse audiences and play styles. When players accuse the team of being out of touch, it isn't that they don't understand players concerns, or what they'd like the game to be. The team has to keep in mind the other half dozen groups of players that want the game to be different things, often opposing things.

Or, try to choose your overall demographic? It's actually okay not to please everyone, since you CAN'T. WoW doesn't even know what it's trying to be right now.
Stop trying to satisfy both drop-in-and-win ARPG and RPG players, because it isn't working. You can't keep the ARPG players happy and the RPG players clears everything too quickly due to your overarching FAST, EASY AND ACCESSIBLE > all design-paradigm.

WoW has always been accessible, no doubt about that, but it didn't try to be several genres at once. BFA is like an aberration that tries to be a grindy MMORPG and a Diablo 3 season at the same time.

IT. DOESN'T. WORK.

[Leadsop]

They should add back in Embossing/Armor upgrades like in WOTLK to fix some of the worthlessness of professions. As a Leatherworker, I could always make some Armor Kits or Embossments when I was low on cash.

[Pacster]

Ye because people are clearly not irrationally mad right now.

We literally had threads complaining that blizz had the xmas sale up, you know the one we have every year. "Evil blizzard, better fire ion".

Wasn't it more about them sticking a "Buy NOW cause soon we gonna get rid of that stuff because we don't have enough room in our VIRTUAL store!!!!"-sign to it?

[natpick]

JEsus fucking Christ Ion needs to be fired ASAP. The devs are way out of touch. And this dip shit still thinks Azerite is doing well.

im fed up with saying the same thing dude,soon as he goes the game will improve,ion is not the only problem with wow but he sure is one.

[beelgers]

"It's important that progression and gear matter, but the team wants the game to remain accessible to people who are joining later or coming back. It's not just in the interest of those players, but everyone in a guild.
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.
Patch 8.1 introduced catch-up mechanisms that were intended to get players ready for Battle of Dazar'alor. This initially felt like the game was giving you too much compared the current raid (Uldir)."

The problem is, we didn't need to fix the problems of TBC. Gear progression was okay up from Wrath up until near the end of MoP. Using TBC as your gauge for why loot is now raining from the sky all of a sudden isn't reasonable. The issues of TBC were largely fixed.

- - - Updated - - -

They should add back in Embossing/Armor upgrades like in WOTLK to fix some of the worthlessness of professions. As a Leatherworker, I could always make some Armor Kits or Embossments when I was low on cash.

Yeah... again they tried to fix something (profession balance) and made things even worse. I'll take having to enchant, gem, extra socket, etc. all my gear again to make professions relevant. They made them irrelevant and then can't figure out how to fix that. How about just making them relevant like they used to be?

[Toppy]

"It's important that progression and gear matter, but the team wants the game to remain accessible to people who are joining later or coming back. It's not just in the interest of those players, but everyone in a guild.
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.
Patch 8.1 introduced catch-up mechanisms that were intended to get players ready for Battle of Dazar'alor. This initially felt like the game was giving you too much compared the current raid (Uldir)."

The problem is, we didn't need to fix the problems of TBC. Gear progression was okay up from Wrath up until near the end of MoP. Using TBC as your gauge for why loot is now raining from the sky all of a sudden isn't reasonable. The issues of TBC were largely fixed.

- - - Updated - - -



Yeah... again they tried to fix something (profession balance) and made things even worse. I'll take having to enchant, gem, extra socket, etc. all my gear again to make professions relevant. They made them irrelevant and then can't figure out how to fix that. How about just making them relevant like they used to be?

Something to keep in mind, most of the dev team was changed from MoP -> WoD. And the new dev team has had a very clear and constant dislike of everything that came before them. Anything prior to WoD they will not go back to because they refuse to admit anything before they took control worked. So we wont get justice/valor back, we wont get what made crafting useful a back. We won't get reforging etc... Unless they get rid of a quiet a lot of the new dev team, nothing will be righted.

[deadman1]

Ye because people are clearly not irrationally mad right now.

We literally had threads complaining that blizz had the xmas sale up, you know the one we have every year. "Evil blizzard, better fire ion".

Irrationally? No. Mad? Yes, and rightfully so.

Everyone I disagree with must be a paid shill.

Welcome to gaming communities in 2019 .

Quote me saying that. Oh nevermind, just hard strawman.

Love how you both did the Cute.
"Why are you upset" "super inflammatory comment and condecending emotes."

[Fiacla]

Quote me saying that. Oh nevermind, just hard strawman.

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

Are you a shill?

Alright then.

[Redroniksre]

Irrationally? No. Mad? Yes, and rightfully so.

I think people have a right to be mad about the current state, but he is not completely wrong. Hell look at the subreddit, any single bug that makes it through people act like it is the end of the world. Honestly at this point nothing they do will fix this. They could fix every problem of BFAs but this community holds a grudge, and so long as Ion is there people will complain.

[Dystemper]

im fed up with saying the same thing dude,soon as he goes the game will improve,ion is not the only problem with wow but he sure is one.

He directs the game so he has a massive role. I am sure those above him say something like, Keep the players playing longer. So instead of creating actual fun content he does exactly what they say, but fails at it. He was ok as a raid developer but they need someone with more creativity then what he has as Director

[Kourvith]

I couldn't help but hear all bullet points being read by a fake, overly enthusiast voice, trying to minimize negative facts with an overly positive mood.

[oathy]

This guy's ability to spout BS is at max level now.

Again his lawyer training serving him so well.
STILL defending Azerite when they know its been a total failure.
Ion will never accept anything is a total failure, IMHO Its the main reason they need a new lead.

[CSINada]

"The team cares deeply about the state of the game. They are visiting all of the different venues where players provide feedback and talk about the game and read all of the comments."

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.... after reading this one i didnt take the rest seriously, just a crap of PR bullshit trying to stop the bleeding.

[Turbopower]

What about to make the feral cat spec playable again?

[Ungeir]

I see they still won't let him admit that there's a skeleton crew working on the game, and that's why Allied races haven't been released yet (not finished), why even minor and promised class changes don't happen (not enough bandwidth), why they admit problems but don't fix them (not enough bandwidth), why there's no proper end-game world content (not enough bandwidth), why the dungeons are boring trash-fests, etc.

I know WoW isn't something they consider worthy of future investment, but they're greatly underdelivering even when it comes to keeping it at status quo. With this kind of neglect, the game is going to die much sooner than it should.

[splatomat]

Feedback comes from a place of emotion.

That's true, but it's dismissive to stop there. It also comes from a place of experience, observation, and reason.

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.

This is an incredibly tone-deaf statement, given the fact that the expansion has been based on and pushing polarized conflict, and especially when one of the main characters involved in that conflict is a dev-favorite who also happens to be a genocidal maniac.

I would *love* to see how Ion explains how the current WoW story "finds common ground" between the members of the player base. They've created a narrative where the Sylvanas Rabid Fanboiz hate the Saurfang Loyalists and hate the Anduin Fans and hate anybody who rightfully calls out the monstrous actions happening. Hate hate hate hate, that's all the narrative right now has produced.

The current storyline has DIRECTLY CONTRIBUTED to the polarization of the game's player base. Avoiding that plain and easy fact is pathetic, to be honest.

People would realm hop in Tanaan Jungle to find rares rather than moving around to find what's up.

Yeah, it turns out people don't like waiting 4 hours to kill a rare that dies in 30 seconds in order to get oil they need for the latest iteration of a mission table.

The Barrens Warfront was an early prototype and isn't currently planned.

Yikes. That's all I can say about that.

The team is looking to improve crafting professions.

And yet they seem to fail continually? Here's some EZ tips that will improve professions dramatically: Let profession make craftable leveling gear that helps people fill out slots, in case they choose to level in an alternate fashion. Let professions make mounts that DONT REQUIRE GRINDING THROUGH MYTHIC DUNGEONS OR RAIDS. It should be a REWARD for getting profession capped that uses ENTIRELY GATHERED MATERIALS, not another punishment/chore. Let professions make STARTER EPICS so that a well-stocked and prepared crafter with alts could kit out a new level-capped character with gear that will make transitioning into raids/mythics easier. STOP MAKING PROFESSION MATERIALS SOULBOUND. JUST STOP. JUST STOP. EFFING STOP IT RIGHT NOW. Account bound? Fine. Soulbound? No, you don't stop at Go, you dont collect $200 - you go directly to jail.

JFC these people.

[TheEaterofSouls]

After reading these comments and comparing them to other platforms, MMOchamp is clearly the most bitter and salty of the WoW communities. I don't know what's up with you guys.

[oland138]

How about make it so guilds have to progress through uldir no matter what. Have profession recipes and mats drop from Uldir so people in that guild can craft for members. Have the crafted gear bind to guild and require a certain reputation level with the guild to use.

This way older tiers can remain relevant to guilds/players who never cleared it in the first place, and maintain a sense of progression.