Developer Interview - Ion Hazzikostas, Lunar Festival 2019

[Zelliaind]

Do what most of the fan base has already done guys: Go to another game.

ESO, FFXIV, and even SWTOR to some extent. Do these games have problems too? Obviously, but their communities are better, the people are nicer, and it at least appears that their development teams and directors give a shit about the game and the people that play them.

World of Warcraft is dead or dying and at this point I'm skeptical if anything can be done to turn it around. I don't think they can drag themselves out of the hole that they dug for themselves that is BfA. I'd love to be proven wrong but I think they've shot themselves in the foot this go around.

Personally, I'm done being passionate about a game that clearly is going down the shitter. I'm happy that others are still enjoying the content and the game as a whole but most of us are (or "were" in my case) angry about the changes because we care(d) about the game itself. Personally for myself, I'm apathetic to everything now and am enjoying other worlds and content in other games and platforms.

Au revoir, World of Warcraft. It was a good 13 years.

[khazmodan]

Not that i agree with them but here this is why.

Travis Day: "When we sold everything including Tier sets with badges or points it felt bad so obviously the whole system is bad, so now we make everything RNG based and we don't understand why most people have left the game...DURRRRRRRRRR."

[Gadzooks]

the notion that players only response are emotional is absurd, community have generated tones and tones of on-point feedback with very specific solutions, various solutions that all but very few have been ignored or rejected. Ion is literally saying "we are the victims here", players are those who don't want to find "common ground" this is disingenuous and outright malicious lie.

It's hilarious to me. They've been going on and on about "conversations" with players, then just ignore feedback and do what they want. There IS NO COMMON GROUND, because the Devs, starting with ION, have not CREATED ANY. He's just using more buzz words and word salads to justify his and his team's decisions, and blaming the reaction on the players.

You can't decree things from your Ivory Tower, ignore feedback, not talk to anyone, and go radio silent for weeks on end, and complain about "common ground".

If Brack does anything, the minimum should be tell Ion "No more interviews or Q&As", and find someone in their company who can speak to the public and not insult them like this, and put their foot in their mouth every time. Ion is doing a disservice to his game, and his company, with these obnoxiously blowhardy observations.

"Feedback comes from a place of emotion.". Gee, YA THINK, Ion? I'm so glad you finally learned what emotions are. Grats.

[Captain Busybody]

New systems are introduced to the game that aren't popular -> Accuse the players (customers) of being too emotionally unstable, and intellectually inept to understand the new systems.
"Feedback comes from a place of emotion."

I guess it works out for everybody! Eventually the dumb-dumbs will come to love the new systems over time, and the development team will continue to be righteous in all things games development related. We live in a perfect world.

Sarcasm aside, I'm glad I'm not a paying customer of this game. It's nice to keep up with the updates, but it looks like I should continue to steer clear of WoW. Bahaha! See you in a few weeks, MMOchampion!

[oathy]

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.

Seriously wish there was a like button.
agree everything you wrote

[AxellSlade]

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.

orly

/10char

[darkwarrior42]

When you have to state outright that your team cares about the game, whether or not you are telling the truth, something is very wrong.

[Gadzooks]

Travis Day: "When we sold everything including Tier sets with badges or points it felt bad so obviously the whole system is bad, so now we make everything RNG based and we don't understand why most people have left the game...DURRRRRRRRRR."

I watched part of that, and while I think he makes some good, interesting points, I can't help remembering he made similar design decisions in D3 while on that team, that are on par with BfA, especially crafting. I won't make a blog post, but his work on the D3 team wasn't without some massive errors in design decisions, either.

[Toppy]

I watched part of that, and while I think he makes some good, interesting points, I can't help remembering he made similar design decisions in D3 while on that team, that are on par with BfA, especially crafting. I won't make a blog post, but his work on the D3 team wasn't without some massive errors in design decisions, either.

You're supposed to learn from your mistakes, and they're making the same ones from Legion and more while never admitting they're mistakes.

[oathy]

You're supposed to learn from your mistakes, and they're making the same ones from Legion and more while never admitting they're mistakes.

Yep. He seems to be taking the Azerite failure really personal.
still expecting the neck to basically be a rework of the legion weapons with talent tree.
fact heal blink is back with Fire mages already, suspect most of the removed legion stuff will return.

I was always "meh" about Ion, but then he made the comments about the Beta forum feedback
which sadly wasnt the last time he came across as totally detached. No people on all the beta forums gave amazing detailed posts
and nearly every issue currently facing the game they knew about. Ion basically said it was hard to get detailed feedback
when hundreds of people are telling them Azerite just isnt working and then he wonders why people are angry?

[Logwyn]

"-If you can get crafted gear that is better than raid gear, you don't really need to raid. If crafted gear is weaker than raid gear, then it is useless."
"-Historically BoP items from dungeons and raids have been used."

Point #1- So? Do you mean that raiding is solely for getting better gear and nothing else? You mean that people that like to craft and crafting can't get the best gear?! They HAVE to raid?
Point #2- No shit Sherlock. That's always been the source for the best gear.

Honestly, WOW professions have always been a joke. They would be better just to roll them all into one crafting Profession and one gathering profession. Let everyone do both. That's how bad crafting is right now.

[Drusin]

That's always been the source for the best gear.

I'm not in the loop anymore because I don't raid but I've heard M+ trinkets are better than raid trinkets.

There was something cool about finding a rare and being excited about it.

I don't know about you guys but I don't get excited about rares. If a rare has a 4% chance to drop what I want from them then it's not exciting when I see them it's "I hope they drop it" and if they don't it's "I hate this" and if they do it's "I'm glad I don't have to do this anymore".

If you can get crafted gear that is better than raid gear, you don't really need to raid. If crafted gear is weaker than raid gear, then it is useless.

Make gear that has a purpose besides throughput. You could make xmog sets with models exclusive to the profession. Or gear with some kind of utility like craft speed gear. I know I'd buy craft speed gear on my scribes since it takes literally 30 minutes when you are mass crafting. I still love my Chef's hat. I would stay away from making gear that affects performance though. Don't make any CD/damage reduction gear or any <element> resist gear.

[quras]

"The team is focused on learning from mistakes that were made with systems and rewards at the start of Battle for Azeroth..."

Quite possibly the biggest BS answer I've heard in a long time. If they haven't learned some of these simple reward systems now. They never will.

[Sithalos]

I dont know whats worse, Ion and his delusional rantings that he is doing a great job, or the people that defend him

Good question. Both are equally annoying.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Just another case of people pretending that the doom, gloom, hyperbole and vile hatred is new as of BfA.

Ion's got access to actual data on player behaviour, a point from which he speaks, yet you see (often the same crowd that's been doing it for years) people pretending that they've got on good authority that the game is dead/dying (haven't heard that for a decade or anything), that the game's being made by a "skeleton crew" (last report it had a bigger crew than ever) and all sorts of wholly emotional counterpoints based entirely in how they as individuals feel slighted over some part of the game.

Just another year that ends with "ear", in other words.

I might not be very happy with the game right now, but I'd have to be a moron to pretend that it isn't bustling in all the right places all the same whenever I login.

[SinR]

Ion -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> The Game

[Thelxi]

It's easy to point the finger at the community and claim that it is divided and has conflicting interests, while conveniently leaving out the elephant in the room which is designing the game around gambling and treadmills to keep people subscribed and tethered to the game, its cash shop and Blizzard as a whole. It is also completely bullshit, since for example there is no one that would oppose PvP vendors being added back to the game; the only thing that conflicts with the vendors is the RNG reward systems of PvE.

I hope that the community is mature enough at this point to not eat up this basic propaganda anymore. They have never been lazier, greedier and bolder than they were with BfA. At least wait for truthful information before being placated.

[Rikkof]

i left the game because at one point the game become raid or die, raid mythic or die n00b, so i have left.
i now play otehr games and i feel way better, THIS GAME WILL MAKE U LSOE ON GREAT OTHER GAMES OUT THERE

- - - Updated - - -

IF I WOULD BE ION HAZZIKOSTAS, I WOULD DEVELOP THE GAME FOR CASUALS, THEY ARE MORE THAN HARDCORE PLAYERS
HARDCORE IS 0,5% FROM TOTAL WOW POPULATION, IT LOOKS LIKE THEY WILL TAIOLOR THE GAME AROUND CASUALS AND MAKE IT WAY MORE EASIER TO GET TO MAX ILEVEL
IF IS SO, I COME BACK, ALSO IF MYTHIC RAIDS STOP BEING CREATED

[Ungeir]

Just another case of people pretending that the doom, gloom, hyperbole and vile hatred is new as of BfA.

Ion's got access to actual data on player behaviour, a point from which he speaks, yet you see (often the same crowd that's been doing it for years) people pretending that they've got on good authority that the game is dead/dying (haven't heard that for a decade or anything), that the game's being made by a "skeleton crew" (last report it had a bigger crew than ever)

There are absolutely no verifiable reports on the size of the crew working on BfA and live updates. But what can be verified is that *actual* output. And we are getting: no class updates, numerous barely modified copies of Legion systems, admissions that Kul Tirans take a lot of work (they do, but if the team was the biggest ever that wouldn't be a problem), a huge disconnect between words and action when it comes to islands/warfronts/azeroth armor.

The reality is that they are having trouble delivering. That's not emotional. That's fact. Blizzard has always been a slow studio - but the current rate of production strongly hints that there simply aren't anyone working on many aspects of the game (class mechanics especially). Never before in the history of WoW have classes as a whole been left to rot for this long.

[Alkizon]

The team is focused on learning from mistakes that were made with systems and rewards at the start of Battle for Azeroth, correcting many of those in Patch 8.1.
A lot of Patch 8.1 reflects lessons learned from the launch of Battle for Azeroth.

No you didn't, you just continue repeating this every patch/expansion

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.

Proves a previous statement.

Legion focused on class identity as it was an important part of the story.

It didn't, rather "against-class", and first statement been double proven since now.

Warfronts on live currently are Raid Finder difficulty. Heroic Warfronts will be closer to a Normal experience, tuned for a group that is coordinating together. It won't be a challenge for a Mythic raid group.

Yeah! go-go-go with another thing with million difficulties, and first statement been proven third time!

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.

And you still don't know how to do it proper way.

People love the game and have a deep connection, but it's going in a direction they don't like, and that's frustrating. Feedback comes from a place of emotion.

you don't say

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

man... again! World's system and structure are important in first place, and people are supposed to do what they can do best - to adapt themselves, but if former doesn't amenable to any healthy logic and world retreats from its rules to please players, it's here where vicious circle begins.

Players have every right to focus on their own experience.

You don't know what that mean, do you?

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.

Didn't you know that you became a part of it, since began introduce support for these technologies in game interface