PCGamer Ion Interview - Make Dungeon/Raids Satisfying, New Battle.net Launcher

[mbit]

I can tell from Shadowlands that they are listening whether you refuse to notice it or not. They removed titanforging and brought back pvp vendors, and made legendaries with 0 rng like legion. There can be improvement to this system for sure regarding feeling rewarded for each activity you do rather than just waiting for the chest at reset, but hopefully they take this feedback for next patch. To say they haven't listened at all is just not fair.

Weekly chest? RNG additional stats & gem slots. Secondary lower loot base drop rates means same result and titanforging - nolive moar if you want to see your target gear drop. People hated massive RNG with Gear. You still have high RNG with Gear.

The one really smart thing they did was make pvp gear upgradeable with rating so longterm progress exists for people climbing. Simultaneously they completely screwed up again with skulker&that endboss trinket massively.

[Osmeric]

I want Ion's boss to learn from a past mistake.

[RoKPaNda]

Just bring back the badge system, its that easy

Badges were such a garbage system but now that we're back to plain loot and not nearly enough of it, sure why not?

[msmollymillions]

I can tell from Shadowlands that they are listening whether you refuse to notice it or not. They removed titanforging and brought back pvp vendors, and made legendaries with 0 rng like legion. There can be improvement to this system for sure regarding feeling rewarded for each activity you do rather than just waiting for the chest at reset, but hopefully they take this feedback for next patch. To say they haven't listened at all is just not fair.

These aren't the PvP vendors most PvPers, both casual and hardcore were looking for though. We wanted a single set of Honor gear and Conquest gear with a PvP stat. Instead we only got the vendors back, but with a starting ilvl and end point that has a gap of 68 ilvl between them. At best the most casual PvP player is forever stuck 26 ilvl behind on most slots, and 33 on the weapon slot.

On top of unbalanced specs, covenants, and conduits we've got a PvP gearing system where the gap between casual and high rated players is larger than it's ever been. Even if you go back to TBC, Wrath era the gear was maybe 10-15 ilvl from the Honor set to conquest...and you were only locked out of maybe 3 slots due to rating. It got even better in later expansions when rating was removed from all PvP gear and the biggest difference between the casual and hardcore was how fast you earned the full set. In MoP and WoD specifically PvP gear was both the best gear for PvP and available to everyone no matter how good or bad you were at the game. The only place the upgrade system works for is PvE, in PvP it just causes the game to be more unbalanced.

Ion likes his gatekeeping though and wants casual players to know their place. That or Activision wants to keep pushing token sales and further drive more and more players to the grey market of carries.

[grandgato]

Shadowlands - Do more, earn less.

[djprada]

They had the perfect badge system working in WOTLK. Why change something which was working.....

[Zka]

Loot not rewarding enough? You shouldn't have whined WF/TF out of existence.

[ThiagoTorres]

Badges were such a garbage system but now that we're back to plain loot and not nearly enough of it, sure why not?

No it wasnt.. badges worked perfectly fine in wrath.. almost never saw someone complaning about it and they got removed for no reason

[mbit]

Instead we only got the vendors back, but with a starting ilvl and end point that has a gap of 68 ilvl between them.

A 1400 player wont play vs 2400 so the effective geargap is way smaller unless you consider boosting glad players. Whats insane is the honor grind just for a starter set. Couldn't even prepare for the upgrade 5 to 7 this week playing active before - cap is barely enough for half a set. People saying game is alt friendly were straight up lying. If you dont nolive you end up behind.

[ONCHEhap]

I can tell from Shadowlands that they are listening whether you refuse to notice it or not. They removed titanforging and brought back pvp vendors, and made legendaries with 0 rng like legion. There can be improvement to this system for sure regarding feeling rewarded for each activity you do rather than just waiting for the chest at reset, but hopefully they take this feedback for next patch. To say they haven't listened at all is just not fair.

Haven't you read the news?

[Current expansion] is the worst expansion ever made,[previous expansion] is still bad but we're warming up to it,and [expansion before the previous] was literally peak WoW

Also WoW is literally dead btw

[Geckoo]

In my opinion, both BfA and SL loot systems have the same problem: lack of player control.

That's why if the PvP gearing system works so well, then it should be adapted for PvE (probably without a vendor), just the concept of how conquest works and how gear can be upgraded depending on how far you got it's exactly what the game needs. That way even if you don't get lucky with loot from a M+ or a raid boss, you will still get something that will work towards an upgrade.

[RoKPaNda]

No it wasnt.. badges worked perfectly fine in wrath.. almost never saw someone complaning about it and they got removed for no reason

Well that simply isn't true. People were complaining about badges since they were first implemented and they complained about every single iteration of badges all the way to the points for ilevel valor in MoP. There's a reason why the system changed dramatically in each expansion and from patch to patch, because the feedback they were receiving about it was overwhelmingly negative. The community romanticizing it now is just pure unadulterated nostalgia.

That said, since content is already the most unrewarding that it's been in about a decade, might as well bring back badges to give the playerbase something new (old) to complain about.

[Unholyground]

Oh you mean solutions like have bosses drop badges, kind of a solution that blizzard already came up with more than 10 years ago and just ditched it for no reason.

- - - Updated - - -

Well that simply isn't true. People were complaining about badges since they were first implemented and they complained about every single iteration of badges all the way to the points for ilevel valor in MoP. There's a reason why the system changed dramatically in each expansion and from patch to patch, because the feedback they were receiving about it was overwhelmingly negative. The community romanticizing it now is just pure unadulterated nostalgia.

That said, since content is already the most unrewarding that it's been in about a decade, might as well bring back badges to give the playerbase something new (old) to complain about.

The badges would work fine it's the vendors they need to change it's pretty simple the loot that you can buy from vendors should scale based on the highest mythic dungeon you've completed and that solves all these stupid issues and then you just have a base level for heroics.

[shafaraz]

The loot system need a RNG proof system.
Something like 'if you didnt get a loot by killing the boss, it drop a currency instead', with at least 5 of those you can buy loot from a vendor somewhere inside the raid.

I believe this is what badge as justice used to be.

[Aggressive]

Well that simply isn't true. People were complaining about badges since they were first implemented and they complained about every single iteration of badges all the way to the points for ilevel valor in MoP. There's a reason why the system changed dramatically in each expansion and from patch to patch, because the feedback they were receiving about it was overwhelmingly negative. The community romanticizing it now is just pure unadulterated nostalgia.

That said, since content is already the most unrewarding that it's been in about a decade, might as well bring back badges to give the playerbase something new (old) to complain about.

Ha. Joke is on you. People still complain anyways. Hell I am one of them. When I see something fucked up, I point it out. The way the loot is done in raid is screwed up. 3 pieces for a damn 20 man raid is dumb as hell. Going two weeks of raid and not getting a single piece of loot is just NOT fun. Not even a little bit. And then to throw salt in the wounds with 35 anima is just plain evil and wrong on sooooo many levels. The loot system in raids was just fine with 5 pieces of gear.

[Glorious Leader]

No it wasnt.. badges worked perfectly fine in wrath.. almost never saw someone complaning about it and they got removed for no reason

Well it was removed for a reason just not a particularly good one or at least it was a case of developer priorities overriding player experience.

[tomten]

is ion and his management team just a bunch of pure idiots?!

"Ion thinks they can do more to make the experience of running dungeons and raids feel more satisfying when you don't get a specific item you were hoping for."

JUST GIVE US THE LOOT WE EARNED! if we go in to a 4 boss dungeon and only get 1 or 2 pieces, that isn't proper distribution. it should be one piece of loot PER BOSS that is given at the end (and no, i don't mean one piece per boss for each person). and raise the amount of loot from raids from 3 pieces per 20 people back to 5 pieces per 20 people. it's so freaking simple! STOP TRYING TO REMAKE THE WHEEL EVERY FREAKING TIME!

Nah, they shouldn't and I'm very happy they wont.... 4 pieces of loot per dungeon? Almost guaranteed to get something every single dungeon.... Its bad for the game.
Be happy if you get 1 loot every other dungeon. That would be in severe cases 1 item per 90 minutes spent... You gotta be serious entitled if you want and think you'll get more lol....
Same with raids, 3 is a pretty good spot... I want to meet you in the middle with 4 because i did not get loot from 17 bosses but then I remember I got 3 boes and made 1.2 million gold so it balances out.

- - - Updated - - -

The loot system need a RNG proof system.
Something like 'if you didnt get a loot by killing the boss, it drop a currency instead', with at least 5 of those you can buy loot from a vendor somewhere inside the raid.

I believe this is what badge as justice used to be.

Or just use the bad luck protection from coins. Can't remember exactly but you were pretty much guaranteed to get something if you've failed past 7 or 8 rolls.
I still dont think you should always get something just for doing a raid or dungeon. Its horrible and one of the biggest reasons I came back after 5 years, was the nerfed loot drops.

[Mendzia]

The only thing i want to see in new launcher... is to hide dogshit Activision games and H OMEGALUL TS.

[cparle87]

Ion's interviews always crack me up, especially when he talks about listening to the community.

If that was true, Conduits wouldn't be so awful.

I love the ego of forum posters who arrogantly believe they embody or represent the community. Every registered poster put together on this forum is less than 1% of the community.

[Argorwal]

They had the perfect badge system working in WOTLK. Why change something which was working.....

Because it sucked?

If the badge system from Wrath was here now you could get 2-4 pieces of 213 gear after 4 months of farming badges every day.

Another 4-5 slots of 200 gear and the rest 184 gear after months of badge grinding.