Ion & Co. at it again

[Arainie]

let's get one thing straight: WE pay your greedy AF company to create content that WE must enjoy. If the community wants more Arthas, then give them the hell more Arthas.

Oh yes! Brilliant idea, the community is always right! If they listened to the loudest portion of those paying their "greedy asses", this is what would happen.

Released in 2022 - WoW: Fortnight!

No, really. The community is a cesspool of conflicting opinions, don't listen to us.

[Greengrim]

Jesus everytime one interview with Ion pops up, there are sudden 10 hate threads created...

I wonder why...

That is completely different. You are locking those slots with Azerite that can be interchanged. Tier sets were basically the piece of gear you wore in that slot and forgot all other pieces that didn't have tier stats on them. So it made pieces that didn't contribute to the tier set worthless and not even worth considering for majority of the classes. Azerite pieces could be used regardless since they all gave bonuses of some kind.

I believe azerites are the exact same thing as set items. Once you get your hands on thy one you need, you forget about equipping anything else ever again in that slot, despite the fact that the azerite piece can potentially offer different bonuses. The unused bonuses are pratically non-existent as they are inferior and never used.
Honestly the one and only upside I can see in azerite gear is the fact they can be rerolled and adjusted for other specs, but then again, this perk becomes too expensive after you use it a couple of times, which still forces you to settle specific pieces for each spec and just stick with them, rather than having the flexibility to reroll the same ones over and over when you're swapping.

So you want a dumb stat like resilience? Depending on your class it was either worthless or amazing in PvP. It even spilled over to PvE to were some classes would favor resilience. PvP spilling into PvE is perfectly fine since the entire game is PvE based and PvP is a side thing. Making a side thing required for the main focus of the game, however isn't. In this case it'd be like requiring pet battles to perform max damage in PvE.

I never mentioned anything about resilience or bringing it back. I just believe PvP players should not be forced into PvE in order to obtain decent gear for PvP. It's kinda like that Socially Awkward Penguin meme. It's illogical.
And I could agree with your statement about PvE being the main thing in WoW if we were discussing Classic. But modern WoW actually has a quite healthy PvP pool. Of course corruption have screwed that up a bit recently, but still, PvP is very popular and a well populated part of WoW.

Azerite armour didn’t lock slots until you got your BIS which if all the complaints were any thing to go by wasn’t the easiest thing to do and the clock was added in the last patch not when they were making the choice to step away from sets so that leaves what? One slot filled compared to the 6 from tier sets from wanting a 4 and 2 set? If they really wanted to move to slot fluidity then it’s a no brainer choice even though they might have messed up the execution a bit.

Pvp stars not coming back is a fine change with out Titan forging as long as you can get mythic+/raid quaility gear from pvping and they give you a choice in stars and a reasonable climb up to the gear though lower ranked items on the vender. That way if you want to do mythic+ and go into pvp you can but if you want to just pvp and put more time into it it’s a viable gearing choice.

There is no “we” when your trying to talk about a massive split player base with huge vocal minority’s, if there was one unified voice on what the players wanted then they could listen to it but there isn’t.

So you're saying it takes a few swaps in your azerite slot before you get your bis azerite and forget about it? You mean, the exact same way of how set items used to function? Get item from this difficulty, then get it from the other one, and forget about it.

I wounldn't qualify getting PvP gear from PvE as "normal". And you're wrong, PvP does not net same quality as PvE gear, as various trinkets and other specific items are far more superior, and thus, force PvP players into PvE. As I said, that's not fair, and I don't believe that's how it should be. PvP players should have PvP gear for doing PvP, and that gear should be viable for PvP content (and the respective vice versa).

And yeah, to you and @Everybody else touching on this one: I was aware some of you would pull the "there's no we when there's more more than one opinion" card, but it just so happens I'm quite actively reading the forum and have my own (personal of course) observations. So if you'd like - make the experiment. Post a poll and we can talk again in a week.

It's not,
You pay -> They create content.
It's,
They create content -> You pay.

Yes and no. People need to like what they pay for, in order to continue paying for it. And Blizzard is perfectly aware of that, otherwise they wouldn't be coming out with lamb's eyes on stage and explaining how they hear the community and blablablah (practically apologizing). They are perfectly aware that they keep spewing fuck ups after fuck ups. They are perfectly aware that the current fully corporate company is still alive only because of the good name the real Blizzard accumulated for itself.

Daily "Ion said stuff I did not like" rage thread.

I don't even need to add anything, everything else is already said above.

I will touch the Arthas part though: we don't know in what capacity we may see mentions about him, but my take is that sometimes it IS better to let things go and keep them as a fond memory instead of dragging their battered corpses out and ending up butchering them. Which is basically what Ion said.

Arthas is done, he had a good run and he will forever be a part of Warcraft legacy with a wrapped story and satisfying conclusion.

Sure, Blizz might not resist in the end screeching like op "GIEF MROE ARTUZZ WE PAYS MONEYZ GODSDAMIT" and then Blizz might bait like LucasFilm or whatever other big studio with good legacy stuff lying around, trying to pull a fast one on everyone for $$ in a hamfisted way, but maybe it would be better they don't do it this time.

In this case, I guess an apology is in order? Sorry for posting my opinion on a forum whose purpose is to serve as platform for people to post their opinions.

And in regards to Arthas, yeah, I guess for you Arthas' story should not be continued. But I want more. We have different opinions, I know, strange world, right?

Out of curiosity, what are you hoping for them to do with Arthas? Turn him into a dungeon boss? Make him a raid encounter? Give him a redemption arc? Make him a soulbind? Turn him into a legendary follower for the new mission table? Honestly I feel like Arthas' story had a satisfying conclusion at the end of TFT, and he became a far less interesting character in WotLK where he just randomly showed up as a figurehead for the Scourge, maybe empowered some minion, and then walked away. I recognize your experience may be different from mine and am curious what you're hoping to see.

I've actually thought a bit about this. I'd really like to see Arthas lurking in the Shadowlands, obsessed with the idea of becoming the real and sole jailer, as he believes that's his ultimate destiny. Manipulating everybody that he can in order to have THY smith create another Frostmourne-like weapon for him. And when the time is right to strike and overthrow the jailer, thus creating big chaos and distrupting the balance of Shadowlands.

I mean, he doesn't have to get a redeption story. And I know that many don't want him to get any story at all, but the fact is: Arthas is a signature character tha many people love. Why not capitalize on that?

[wraysbury]

PvP stats are not returning. Itemization will remain like it is in Battle for Azeroth, with the inclusion of a PvP vendor to give players more choice of gear acquisition.

What irritates me the most with this is how arbitrary it is. They can't even be arsed to give a bogus explanation for doing this.

[HitRefresh]

I hope they have more integrity as storytellers to do more than fan service. If they ever say bring Arthas back because that is what the fans want, that's when they lose creative direction. I just want them to write the best story they can, not having fans tell the story for them. They shouldn't even be looking into it, just like George RR Martin isn't looking at fan fiction of his own works for ideas of where to take it. Own your fucking story. I'm not paying Blizzard to write my stupid ass idea of a good story, I'm paying them to continue doing their jobs that they are hired to do well at and I get to enjoy it with what is hopefully a good game in all aspects.

Endgame and Rise of Skywalker are a couple recent examples in my mind of too much fan service. I think that even if they did fine financially they will bring the long term effect of keeping people invested in their story. Such an incredible change between Endgame and Infinity War, it's hard to believe they were written by the same people.

[Kumorii]

Yes and no. People need to like what they pay for, in order to continue paying for it. And Blizzard is perfectly aware of that, otherwise they wouldn't be coming out with lamb's eyes on stage and explaining how they hear the community and blablablah (practically apologizing). They are perfectly aware that they keep spewing fuck ups after fuck ups. They are perfectly aware that the current fully corporate company is still alive only because of the good name the real Blizzard accumulated for itself.

Yes? Of course if you keep customers happy you earn money... no one is denying that. That's wildly different from stating that they should do what you want them to do because you pay them.

[kaminaris]

So you're saying it takes a few swaps in your azerite slot before you get your bis azerite and forget about it? You mean, the exact same way of how set items used to function? Get item from this difficulty, then get it from the other one, and forget about it.

You don't forget about it. That is absolutely amazing how ignorant people can be regarding azerite gear.
Tier sets stayed forever the same regardless of:
Spec, talents, aoe/st, pvp/pve - everything

Azerite gear is sometimes swapped (or reforged) depending on (it depends on class but you can see on warcraftlogs that even on first page of each class you will find diversity in azerite trait choices):
-spec
-talents
-aoe/st
-pvp/pve

do you understand why tier sets were inferior? Good, now:

Tier sets were only avaiable from ONE boss in raid tier.
Azerite is available from raids - at least 2 per slot
M+ cache vendor - two options again = random cheaper, specific more expensive
PVP

I wounldn't qualify getting PvP gear from PvE as "normal". And you're wrong, PvP does not net same quality as PvE gear, as various trinkets and other specific items are far more superior, and thus, force PvP players into PvE. As I said, that's not fair, and I don't believe that's how it should be. PvP players should have PvP gear for doing PvP, and that gear should be viable for PvP content (and the respective vice versa).

You are wrong, pvp players are not forced into anywhere. Blizzard should only ensure that there are no broken raid trinkets that absolutely destroys in pvp and that's it.
PvP gear is absolutely viable in PvP, check ladders.
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/ch...neissk%C3%ADll
This dude has only 2 pieces from raid (that's why I said it's stupid to have broken trinkets in raid and the only thing blizzard should fix) and has 3000 arena rating
M+/Visions and scenarios should be fine for pvp players as it doesn't really require huge time investment nor godlike pve skills

And yeah, to you and @Everybody else touching on this one: I was aware some of you would pull the "there's no we when there's more more than one opinion" card, but it just so happens I'm quite actively reading the forum and have my own (personal of course) observations. So if you'd like - make the experiment. Post a poll and we can talk again in a week.

Poll is absolutely meaningless because you will only get vocal minority opinions here.

[Hellobolis]

Tier sets were only avaiable from ONE boss in raid tier.
Azerite is available from raids - at least 2 per slot
M+ cache vendor - two options again = random cheaper, specific more expensive
PVP

you forget an important thing: during masterlooter times tier was a guaranteed drop.

i feel like it was way faster to get 4set than it was to get 3 high ilvl azerite pieces, let alone the ones you want.

[kaminaris]

you forget an important thing: during masterlooter times tier was a guaranteed drop.

i feel like it was way faster to get 4set than it was to get 3 high ilvl azerite pieces, let alone the ones you want.

I highly doubt it, you forgot one thing:
- To assemble azerite heroic gear you need one week.
- To assemble heroic 4 set you needed 3-6 weeks.

- To have mythic level tier set you had to first be able to clear to that boss and kill it.
- To have mythic level azerite gear you need to get it from 3 first bosses and/or buy specific/gamble from vendor

With azerite you just do one m+ a week for 4-6 weeks and straight up buy mythic quality piece.
Or gamble (chance is 1/6 = 16% to get specific one or 33% to get decent one) for faster but uncertain piece.

You didn't raid? No tier sets for you suck it.

[Raisei]

Just finished reading the bullets from Ion's latest interview, and man I gotta say, besides the usual "we have no clue what we're doing, but we want to do this and that" stuff, I'm specifically dissapointed to read the 3 following things:

• Set bonuses are one of the reasons they pulled back on tier sets originally. They limited item diversity because certain slots were locked to tier sets.

What? Set items locking slots away? Hello BFA neck, cloack, helm, shoulder, chest?! I mean, sure you exchange a few azerites till you cash in on that specific one which nets you most power, but it was the same with set items as well, as there was mutliple ilvl iterations of each item.

The Devs obviously understood the problem better then you.
This was exactly the reason why people did not like set bonusses, yes. It forced them in many cases to wear much lower ilvl pieces then what they had in the bag because the set bonus had to be used. In some cases this even meant using set pieces from the previous tier. The Heart and Cloak do not cause this problem because their ilvl and stats are higher then any gear we can find, you will never get anything better.
The Azerite pieces admittedly cause this issue too though it is mitigated by not having secondary stats, it is not perfect, but better.

• PvP stats are not returning. Itemization will remain like it is in Battle for Azeroth, with the inclusion of a PvP vendor to give players more choice of gear acquisition.

Why? Why force PvP players, who exclusively enjoy PvP, into farming PvE? Why allow PvE players to gain PvP power through NOT playing PvP? To me, this honestly is neither fair, nor logical. PvP players should have stronger PvP gear, and vice versa.

Adding a specific PvP stat would make BGs and other things incredibly frustrating when you just start out. Everyone and their granny will stomp you into the ground because they have that PVP stat and you do not. After 5 such BGs unless you are really really dedicated, you will never set a foot in there again.
As for forcing you to do PvE. Tough luck.
PvP is just a side-gig in this game. It is expected of you to play other aspects of it too. And Vice Versa I can tell you that PvErs did not enjoy playing the punching bag for PvPers for dozens of BGs to obtain their BiS Essence. We did it anyway, because we wanted to get the extra power it gives.

• Arthas is obviously SOMEWHERE in the Shadowlands, but they want to be respectful with the character. We will learn more about him and his true nature, but we most likely won't be adventuring or interacting much with him.

Say that again please, YOU don't want to whatnow?! Ion, I respect you for all your contributions to WoW, and the fact you have devoted such a bit part of your entire life to this game. You are obviously not doing it primarily for the money, but let's get one thing straight: WE pay your greedy AF company to create content that WE must enjoy. If the community wants more Arthas, then give them the hell more Arthas. What's the problem with that? His character's integrity? Illidan was pissed upon when nobody asked for him. Why not give us Arthas, now that we want him? And yeah, I know some of you out there will be like "NOOOOO" but I guarantee you if it's put through a vote, the majority of the community will want Arthas back.

If the Devs would cave to any demand the community makes of them then Sylvanas would now be the god queen of the universe. Things need to make sense. You don't just pull a character out whenever you want a cool scene and then have him fade in the background again. That is bad storytelling.
Arthas will make a return, that is clear, but having the ex-Lich King as your companion and run next to you in WQs similar to the Legion Companions would just be silly.

[Gaidax]

And in regards to Arthas, yeah, I guess for you Arthas' story should not be continued. But I want more. We have different opinions, I know, strange world, right?

a. Apology accepted, you may go now.
b. Don't use "we" if you don't want a backlash. Apparently from this thread there is no "we".

You are obviously not doing it primarily for the money, but let's get one thing straight: WE pay your greedy AF company to create content that WE must enjoy. If the community wants more Arthas, then give them the hell more Arthas.

[Dracullus]

Jesus everytime one interview with Ion pops up, there are sudden 10 hate threads created...

..and it's never from people that watched interview, just from mmochamp/wowhead bullet points.

[Flalia4]

They removed tier set bonuses because of Mythic+, period. And I agree with leaving Arthas alone, I don't want that character to be butchered.

You sound extremely entitled

I feel like we saw with Nazjatar that having item effects only work in the current raid would be a good solution for tier sets. Make it so that the tier set from raids gives you a boost in raids. I'd like them do that and add tier sets for mythic plus and PVP. This way you will get the best gear for the content you like by doing the content you like. I don't think this would be difficult or unwanted.

[kappalol]

I dont care about Arthas. I want more lich king (RIP) not Arthas.

[Hellobolis]

I highly doubt it, you forgot one thing:
- To assemble azerite heroic gear you need one week.
- To assemble heroic 4 set you needed 3-6 weeks.

- To have mythic level tier set you had to first be able to clear to that boss and kill it.
- To have mythic level azerite gear you need to get it from 3 first bosses and/or buy specific/gamble from vendor

With azerite you just do one m+ a week for 4-6 weeks and straight up buy mythic quality piece.
Or gamble (chance is 1/6 = 16% to get specific one or 33% to get decent one) for faster but uncertain piece.

You didn't raid? No tier sets for you suck it.

nice exaggerating :P.

but yeah the practical gist of it is: 2-6 weeks to get 4 set and then upgrade ilvl as you are able vs 6+ weeks to get 3 azerite pieces with a guarantee they won't be the ones you want. set was just faster (and azerite was obv designed to take longer).

no raid = no tier also wasn't universally true. and if they do bring them back they will guaranteed put in a currency and/or make m+/pvp sets.

[Gaidax]

Endgame and Rise of Skywalker are a couple recent examples in my mind of too much fan service. I think that even if they did fine financially they will bring the long term effect of keeping people invested in their story. Such an incredible change between Endgame and Infinity War, it's hard to believe they were written by the same people.

That's my problem exactly with this whole Arthas thing.

They might end up opening up a story that got a decent closure and fucking it up in the process. Maybe some hints or tidbits of additional insight into Arthas would be okay-ish (but inevitably would have other bunch of threads spawning about how "we" are sick of retcons and BS like that you get every time Blizzard does something". If they go further than that - it's a risk of making a pigsty of it all.

It is exactly Rise of Skywalker situation where shit was like "why u do this???" with them dragging out battered corpses to kill them some more.

[Snowfunk]

Another forrest fire of a bait/bash/garbage thread. What are the mods even doing?

Just finished reading the bullets from Ion's latest interview, and man I gotta say, besides the usual "we have no clue what we're doing, but we want to do this and that" stuff, I'm specifically dissapointed to read the 3 following things:

• Set bonuses are one of the reasons they pulled back on tier sets originally. They limited item diversity because certain slots were locked to tier sets.

What? Set items locking slots away? Hello BFA neck, cloack, helm, shoulder, chest?! I mean, sure you exchange a few azerites till you cash in on that specific one which nets you most power, but it was the same with set items as well, as there was mutliple ilvl iterations of each item.

• PvP stats are not returning. Itemization will remain like it is in Battle for Azeroth, with the inclusion of a PvP vendor to give players more choice of gear acquisition.

Why? Why force PvP players, who exclusively enjoy PvP, into farming PvE? Why allow PvE players to gain PvP power through NOT playing PvP? To me, this honestly is neither fair, nor logical. PvP players should have stronger PvP gear, and vice versa.

• Arthas is obviously SOMEWHERE in the Shadowlands, but they want to be respectful with the character. We will learn more about him and his true nature, but we most likely won't be adventuring or interacting much with him.

Say that again please, YOU don't want to whatnow?! Ion, I respect you for all your contributions to WoW, and the fact you have devoted such a bit part of your entire life to this game. You are obviously not doing it primarily for the money, but let's get one thing straight: WE pay your greedy AF company to create content that WE must enjoy. If the community wants more Arthas, then give them the hell more Arthas. What's the problem with that? His character's integrity? Illidan was pissed upon when nobody asked for him. Why not give us Arthas, now that we want him? And yeah, I know some of you out there will be like "NOOOOO" but I guarantee you if it's put through a vote, the majority of the community will want Arthas back.

Anyways, they aren't wrong. Sets are very constricting, no doubt about that. They make gear balancing a mess. And bringing up single slot super gear is just an awful comparison.

Forced to farm PvE for PvP? Could you remind me what you are forced to farm in PvE? And you want that garbage resiliance back? Yeah, you're on your own there brother.

Can only hope they let Arthas rest.

[Brostin]

• Set bonuses are one of the reasons they pulled back on tier sets originally. They limited item diversity because certain slots were locked to tier sets.

This is just Blizzard speak for we aren't very good at balancing set bonuses so we removed them. Saying it was item diversity is disingenuous, it's well established that per tier the bonuses either fall into must have or so lacklustre that players just take the non set pieces due to superior itemisation. So to claim it locked out slots isn't really true when there were tiers when players didn't want the tier pieces, other than for cosmetics.

For anyone that thinks this is a new thing also, I still remember discussing best in slot raiding SSC in TBC and people were opting for non tier there.

At that point it just becomes: which piece of gear is the best for a specific slot. Whether that's tier, azerite pieces, or just "standard" gear. I wouldn't try and claim that a ring and trinket slot are locked off if there was a 2 piece set for it. Plus don't those still exist and have exactly the same implied issue just to a lesser scale?

[Kolvarg]

Say that again please, YOU don't want to whatnow?! Ion, I respect you for all your contributions to WoW, and the fact you have devoted such a bit part of your entire life to this game. You are obviously not doing it primarily for the money, but let's get one thing straight: WE pay your greedy AF company to create content that WE must enjoy. If the community wants more Arthas, then give them the hell more Arthas. What's the problem with that? His character's integrity? Illidan was pissed upon when nobody asked for him. Why not give us Arthas, now that we want him? And yeah, I know some of you out there will be like "NOOOOO" but I guarantee you if it's put through a vote, the majority of the community will want Arthas back.

Unless you are investing in Blizzard stock, you don't pay them anything more than to be able to play their games. Buying their games or paying a WoW subscription entitles you to be able to play. That's all. You're not paying them to create content, and much less to choose what content is created.

Dial down the entitlement a bit.

And I highly doubt the majority of the community wants Arthas back. If anything the majority doesn't even care.

[HailToTheKing]

Fuck Arthas, leave his story arc as it is, I don't want another fucking redemption story.

Wouldn't need to be a redemption arc. Just him being the lesser of the two evils.

[TorAndre]

I am very happy the developers are often resistant to listen to "feedback".

And no I don't want to see Arthas standing behind a fruitstand in the middle of Oribos. Arthas story is one of the most tragic and epic in all fiction. Let it be.