AoE Changes in Shadowlands, Shadowlands Developer Interview - Ion Hazzikostas

[Tatakau]

Mission table, that pretty much means I won't be playing.... again.

[Thelyron]

>In situations where a target cap doesn’t make sense, we’re adding a new kind of damage falloff that causes the damage done to each target to be reduced gradually as the number of targets increases.

Interesting mandela effect situation. They already did this in MoP.

[Relapses]

Anyway, it might not be for the reasons alone, but they and MANY more all have something to do with it.

Can you at least accept the very real possibility that if they had changed nothing that more people would have quit? No. Of course not. That would require you to acknowledge that you don't actually have any idea why people quit the game. (Because you don't.)

[Laqweeta]

Can you at least accept the very real possibility that if they had changed nothing that more people would have quit? No. Of course not. That would require you to acknowledge that you don't actually have any idea why people quit the game. (Because you don't.)

More people? I don’t know about that. I’m certain people would’ve quit regardless because that’s normal, what’s not normal is 10m sub loss. Blizzard use to be known for its polish and charm, now it’s known to be on par with EA as far as shadiness goes.

[Relapses]

More people? I don’t know about that. I’m certain people would’ve quit regardless because that’s normal, what’s not normal is 10m sub loss. Blizzard use to be known for its polish and charm, now it’s known to be on par with EA as far as shadiness goes.

What's not normal is that you're so obsessed with the reasons people quit that you completely ignore the other half the equation: People who come back to the game. And believe it or not, this does happen... regardless of how awful you might think it is. And a lot of these features that you hate so much are directly responsible for people coming back. It's why arguments that focus on the reasons people quit WoW are inherently stupid -- we don't know why people quit so people like you just look at the numbers and say, "WELL IT'S GOTTA BE {X FEATURE} CUZ I DIDN'T LIKE IT AND I ASKED MY WHOLE FRIENDSLIST AND THEY AGREE SO I CAN'T POSSIBLY BE WRONG." In reality, it's a far more complicated situation and even though you may not like the current direction of the game, there's absolutely nothing to indicate that the whole reason we're still here talking about WoW fifteen years after it released is because they do cater to the correct portions of their playerbase.

But hey, what do I know? I'm just a sheep.

[Laqweeta]

What's not normal is that you're so obsessed with the reasons people quit that you completely ignore the other half the equation: People who come back to the game. And believe it or not, this does happen... regardless of how awful you might think it is. And a lot of these features that you hate so much are directly responsible for people coming back. It's why arguments that focus on the reasons people quit WoW are inherently stupid -- we don't know why people quit so people like you just look at the numbers and say, "WELL IT'S GOTTA BE {X FEATURE} CUZ I DIDN'T LIKE IT AND I ASKED MY WHOLE FRIENDSLIST AND THEY AGREE SO I CAN'T POSSIBLY BE WRONG." In reality, it's a far more complicated situation and even though you may not like the current direction of the game, there's absolutely nothing to indicate that the whole reason we're still here talking about WoW fifteen years after it released is because they do cater to the correct portions of their playerbase.

But hey, what do I know? I'm just a sheep.

You know absolutely nothing. Blizzard ignoring thousands of replies on BfA’s feedback forum. Why? They let the changes go through because they’re fucking idiots. They of all people are directly responsible for sub loss instead of listening to their paying customers ya fucking sheep

[Odrareg]

You're trying too hard on a forum that is not relevant. People complaining here have no idea of how SL will play out and that's stupid; then again you have 8.3 dailies being purposefully spread in the map to increase travel time by 5mins which helps the reports to investors or activision.
Also, people quit because they get bored of stuff and have a family or a more important job than killing the lich king in their teens. This game is too complex to attract enough new players. Yet streamlining it down with pruning etc has been one of its worst choices. It's a paradox that cannot be solved. Maybe we will see what happens when they release tbc and wotlk, but it won't go back to 12mil subs. The game is old. No king rules forever and the competition in the gaming industry is too strong.

Wow can make it to 2030 with a wow 2 in VR or Unreal engine or whatever they want to use, but until then you have to live with a grinding game that is still pretty enjoyable (sometimes, especially if you drop infinite stars and someone else doesn't)

[Kendros]

Have fun now im M+ dhs. Well deserved.

[Talby]

Who's to say what's a good idea and a bad idea? A bunch of angry WoW players on forums like this is hardly indicative of what the playerbase at large might want. Every argument that says Blizzard "listens to the wrong section of the playerbase" seems to support the absolutely horrendous idea of game development via democracy.

I'm not arguing what a bunch of "angry wow players on forums" are saying so please don't put words in my mouth. This is objectively bad because it ruins open word and legacy content which they have made clear due to previous changes that they want it to be soloable without much hassle. Adding an AOE cap to almost every spec severely hinders that.

If they want to stop and/or slow down the aoe spam in current content then do that for current content aka M+ pvp and raids. They are going to get a lot of angry casual players when they realize their transmog/pet/etc runs are severely hampered by the AOE cap. I only log onto retail to support my classic sub and there's most definitely a lot of similar ppl that this is going to alienate. I'm not ok with my spec (ret) having to spend 20+ seconds aoeing shit in old raids that literally get one shot by an unmodified divine storm when it would take me the gcd worth to wake of ashe divine storm before the changes.

Like, I understand that people pushing high M+ are annoyed at the meta atm but you are the minority. The vast majority will be negatively affected if this is a blanket nerf to aoe. Make it an M+ only thing and literally everyone comes out on top, I don't understand why anyone would suggest otherwise???


Edit: and to note I used to do cutting edge/current high rated content until nighthold where I had some personal shit happen. I won't get into but it's not like I'm some super casual pleb.

[Relapses]

You know absolutely nothing. Blizzard ignoring thousands of replies on BfA’s feedback forum. Why? They let the changes go through because they’re fucking idiots. They of all people are directly responsible for sub loss instead of listening to their paying customers ya fucking sheep

And what would have happened if you guys got your way? BfA would have been delayed for months while the developers try to figure out an alternative to Azerite gear. And meanwhile, the same cynical dickbags that gave Blizzard infinite shit for releasing Azerite gear would instead be giving them shit for going over on development time. Look, I get it. You're upset that Azerite gear existed in the first place. That's fine. But Blizzard as a developer is not beholden solely to its playerbase for all feedback. Sometimes developers have to make mistakes to figure out the best path forward. And for what it's worth, I think they've largely received the message that many of BfA's systems were poorly received so very few of them are sticking around in SL. Further than that, you have the developers really trying to put themselves out there to show they are listening to feedback to make the game better.

The sad thing is because of your bitter cynicism, you (and many who think like you do -- of which there's no shortage on this website) won't see any of that. You'll just keep framing everything as "Blizzard does what they want and listens to the wrong part of the playerbase." In that sense, I don't blame Blizzard for doing this. You want the game to be developed solely around what you think it is best for the game -- and you're arrogant enough to believe that you know better than they do. And for what it's worth, I'm also sorry even entertaining the idea that Blizzard's sole intention isn't to make people hate their game is enough to upset you to the point that you flat out call me names.

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Like, people keep talking about how this is gonna balance m+. BALANCE IT FOR M+ ONLY THEN YOU'RE RUINING IT FOR EVERYONE ELSE! WE HAVE THE TECH WITH PVP SHIT I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY THIS IS SO HARD???

Jesus dude, you're this upset because your fucking transmog run might take 2 minutes instead of 30 seconds? I mean. Okay. I guess I understand. I'm sorry?

[Soeroah]

Mission table, that pretty much means I won't be playing.... again.

Did you skip BfA purely for this reason? Because I haven't touched the Mission Table in a year and all I've missed out on is pet charms.

If anything I'm hoping it will be MORE useful this expansion. It's not like it has been mandatory at all in BfA, but there's got to be a middle ground between 0.5% of an AP grind bar or a world quest's worth of Pet Charms versus a thousand gold a day.

[Laqweeta]

And what would have happened if you guys got your way? BfA would have been delayed for months while the developers try to figure out an alternative to Azerite gear. And meanwhile, the same cynical dickbags that gave Blizzard infinite shit for releasing Azerite gear would instead be giving them shit for going over on development time. Look, I get it. You're upset that Azerite gear existed in the first place. That's fine. But Blizzard as a developer is not beholden solely to its playerbase for all feedback. Sometimes developers have to make mistakes to figure out the best path forward. And for what it's worth, I think they've largely received the message that many of BfA's systems were poorly received so very few of them are sticking around in SL. Further than that, you have the developers really trying to put themselves out there to show they are listening to feedback to make the game better.

The sad thing is because of your bitter cynicism, you (and many who think like you do -- of which there's no shortage on this website) won't see any of that. You'll just keep framing everything as "Blizzard does what they want and listens to the wrong part of the playerbase." In that sense, I don't blame Blizzard for doing this. You want the game to be developed solely around what you think it is best for the game -- and you're arrogant enough to believe that you know better than they do. And for what it's worth, I'm also sorry even entertaining the idea that Blizzard's sole intention isn't to make people hate their game is enough to upset you to the point that you flat out call me names.

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Jesus dude, you're this upset because your fucking transmog run might take 2 minutes instead of 30 seconds? I mean. Okay. I guess I understand. I'm sorry?

I get what you’re saying. It’s just hard for me to trust this company when they say “we like how corruption turned out” to then say a few months later “we didn’t tune it properly”

Like when are they going to learn? Why aren’t they listening to pretty huge issues? Covenants being one of them. I’ve seen very few people agree with it so far, while all I see are people disagreeing with it and begging Blizzard to change it.

[Tesshin83]

Jesus christ this sounds like a dog shit expansion.

Best thing so far is that the expansion seems to scare off the right people.

[Cathbadh]

AoE Target Cap
The 5 target AoE cap on some spells aims to restore some niches that used to exist.
Back in the day, cleave was distinct from AoE. Some melee would be outstanding at cleave, which was different than AoE such as Arcane Explosion.
AoE target caps were removed in pursuit of simplification.
The right answer now is rounding up everything and AoEing it all down. That's super fun and a cool solution, but shouldn't be the solution to every problem.
The team wants to add more depth so that AoE everything isn't always the right answer. Players will adapt to having more than one right answer.

So if cleave is uncapped but AoE is capped, does that mean ranged players no longer have to worry about being invited to M+ ever again? Or is some melee cleave considered AoE? If this is the case I guess all of the rogues and demon hunters who were so underrepresented in M+ will have it easier /s

[Stormgnoef]

should be fun to see dh in sl after they lose the azerite trait for beam dmg.Its the one that adds so much aoe.They can also go with route like theyt did ww monks and fist doing far less dmg to secondary targets

[Beefkow]

Holy shit, warforged and titanforge is gone!

Now if you wanted the best loot, you had to do high content!

Bye casuals!

[oldgeezer]

Holy shit, warforged and titanforge is gone!

Now if you wanted the best loot, you had to do high content!

Bye casuals!

Why would casuals care about 'high loot'? That makes no sense.

[Sammonoske]

The team is going to reduce the amount of loot that drops in Shadowlands raids.

As if M+ doesn't reward enough loot as it is. Fuck this game, seriously. I don't want to have to run them till the end of time to fill in all the gaps that raids aren't filling and hope that broken bonus rolls actually work.

[Gasparde]

Id honestly be perfectly fine with these AoE changes... if it wasn't for Blizzard being utter shit when it comes to balancing.

Specs having niches is fine and dandy, nifty idea, can totally work out. But it never has.
Sometimes you just have a bunch of specs being really shit at something, but really good at something else. Sometimes you have a bunch of specs being pretty good at everything, but not top at anything. And alongside those you have specs that are just good at everything, even exceeding at certain things but without being bad at anything.
Add to that cases of entire tiers going by without the need for certain niches. Like, have fun with your AoE niche god Elemental Shaman in a tier where the only relevant AoE boss is Skorpyron.

Niches don't work if there are specs without niches. If only some classes have the downside of sucking at certain things then these classes will simply be left behind - because why play something that's only viable like 50% of the time. Niches also don't work if your very specific niche... isn't really relevant like... ever.

So yea, go ahead with your niches, it's probably not gonna work out for the same reasons it hasn't worked out in the past. Because Blizzard suck at balancing and they can't be arsed to change things more than like once every 6 months (where they'll do awesome things like 3% buffs to the worst performing and most underrepresented specs in the game).

[Nachturnal]

Why would casuals care about 'high loot'? That makes no sense.

Just sounds like someone who really needs to feel more special than other players. Casual players are just that. Casual. They play the game more reasons besides high endgame. Very excited that the rng on rng with a slice of rng is being removed though. Casual or not, it's just not a fun system.