Developer Interview - Ion Hazzikostas

[T-34]

It was a problem tbh. What you are talking about is the exception of the rule not in general. Many progressing guild and many officers and guild masters only care for their inner circle raiders friends when it comes to loot who the hell do they think they are judging other newer players if they deserve the loot or not? everyone should have a fair and just chance to get loot if they participate into the progress and if they gave it their all when it comes to raiding and progress (being new trial player into the guild or being an officer or gm is not relevant when it comes loot, everyone should have a fair chance).

On the other hand guilds now have no reason whatsoever to bring socials/not the best players along for raids.
Before those people could "pay" for a "carry" with giving raiders priority for loot, so there was an incitement to bring them along.
Now those people are "benched" and often don't get to do the raids as their is no material gain for bringing them along.
In the 2 guilds I have been in since this new system the "wall" between the raiders and "the rabble" in the guild has become air-tight because of this.

And I don't believe for one second that "fairness" was the reason that Blizzard changed the loot system.
Blizzard simply did it because of all the tickets, fair or not, about loot. And each ticket costs Blizz money.

So to sum up: The loot system is more "fair" now, but on the other hand the good players have even less reason to carry bad players than they had before, to the detriment of the bad players.

[Jasper Kazai]

Ah, they're still trumpeting the same nonsense about master loot. I agree that personal loot should be used in pug groups - easy way to avoid any problems there. But in a guild group, let them choose. If you're in a guild where master loot gets abused, and you disagree with it - leave that guild! Simple as that. There are plenty of people who are perfectly happy with agreeing to a guild's loot rules. You shouldn't remove the entire system purely because some people have bad experiences due to assholes abusing an otherwise perfectly functional system.

[Frozen Death Knight]

As someone who still remembers the time when you could actually trade your gear drops with other people, this interview is an incredible disappointment to me. Just in the last 3 weeks alone I have had multiple instances where I either wanted to trade my own loot or was to recieve loot until Blizzard decided to step in and say "No, you can't do what you actually want! Let us tell you what is 'fair' by never allowing you to trade gear just because it is one ilvl slightly above your current gear slot". Yeah, absolute nonsense. People would have geared up faster if this one restriction was removed.

It's like the devs have never heard about BiS or stat priorities before. Seeing them micro-managing this stuff to this degree in a game genre where social interaction and cultural rules are what makes WoW an MMORPG is just sad. Not being able to trade any loot you want just makes the Personal Loot system significantly worse for gearing up than the old system ever was.

[Jasper Kazai]

Soul ash from mission table? I play everyday since launch. Got lvled up companions etc. I havent seen any sould ash mission xD Thats just bait. I havent seen any other way to obtain soul ash except regular thorgast runs. And the world questes and mission table quest rewards are just gold vendor crap nothin more. Ok maybe some conduits but mostly in 95% its just quicksell "grey" crap.

There are elite missions that reward ~250 Soul Ash. However, they've always been like 3-4 levels higher than my highest companions, and they take 1 day to complete. I've never seen it been worthwhile.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Ah, they're still trumpeting the same nonsense about master loot. I agree that personal loot should be used in pug groups - easy way to avoid any problems there. But in a guild group, let them choose. If you're in a guild where master loot gets abused, and you disagree with it - leave that guild! Simple as that. There are plenty of people who are perfectly happy with agreeing to a guild's loot rules. You shouldn't remove the entire system purely because some people have bad experiences due to assholes abusing an otherwise perfectly functional system.

My thoughts exactly. I don't mind that Personal Loot exists with the exception of the "unable to trade higher ilvl gear away" rule. Guilds having their own rules for looting is a part of the charm of playing an MMO and there are plenty of guilds out there where you don't need to chain yourself to one guild's culture for handling loot. The devs are just designing the game by the lowest common denominator, which just makes a lot of people miserable.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I would be lying when the change from the older loot system was flipped to the PL system we have today. But for the most part it has grown on me. The only time it is a little awkward is in mythic raiding. Mostly because there is pretty much the only place I am running solely with my guild and progressing on the current end game content beyond the first week or two (after that normal and heroic pretty much becomes pug affairs). But even in mythic raiding it really hasn't stopped any progression or anything. But it is going to be a lot more interesting now that it's only going to be 1-2 items per boss which will greatly reduce dupe items / dupe slots that incentivised a lot of trading of items.

[Aggressive]

There are elite missions that reward ~250 Soul Ash. However, they've always been like 3-4 levels higher than my highest companions, and they take 1 day to complete. I've never seen it been worthwhile.

Since Shadowlands launch and getting the Mission Table, I have had the Soul Ash quest pop up like 4 times. Every time I have done it, it has FAILED. Now my companions are one of them at level 24, another at 24, two of them are 23, one is at 18, and I got Meatball this past weekend and he is lvl 8. The mission still Fails. When the mission is over most of my companions are Dead. To put them back to full health costs around 1,660 anima. So honestly the quest is just a way for you to keep farming anima cause the cost of healing them is too high. So yeah the quest is completely useless as hell. In my opinion it is just a way to keep you in the game longer farming anima to heal your companions.


EDIT.....Even if you wait to do the quest when your companions get higher, it is still useless to do. Even if one of my companions get a level then the Soul Ash quest goes up a level. So not only is it ridiculous hard, the anima cost to heal your companions is too high as well.

[shimargh]

Old raids might be a little harder at max level now, but part of that is from your stats going down as you level. Things should get better as you get more gear and Soulbinds. Eventually your player power will exceed what it was at the end of the last expansion.

I don't know what to think about this considering that they intended to not let us use the SL powers outside SL -or was soulbinds out of that decission?.-

[Velshin]

On the other hand guilds now have no reason whatsoever to bring socials/not the best players along for raids.
Before those people could "pay" for a "carry" with giving raiders priority for loot, so there was an incitement to bring them along.
Now those people are "benched" and often don't get to do the raids as their is no material gain for bringing them along.
In the 2 guilds I have been in since this new system the "wall" between the raiders and "the rabble" in the guild has become air-tight because of this.

And I don't believe for one second that "fairness" was the reason that Blizzard changed the loot system.
Blizzard simply did it because of all the tickets, fair or not, about loot. And each ticket costs Blizz money.

So to sum up: The loot system is more "fair" now, but on the other hand the good players have even less reason to carry bad players than they had before, to the detriment of the bad players.

The question is why are you carrying bad people? and who said anything about trial = bad players?

I never said that I was talking about the problem of being a trial (even if you are legendary player performance wise) there are some guilds who never give loot to trials just for the fact of being rank trial and being new to the guild not based on their performance as a players. That is the problem that I am talking about.

[Easo]

I laughed about the old raids. Legion is supposed to have the legacy raid damage buff, gear should not matter if you dish out dps in the millions.

[T-34]

The question is why are you carrying bad people? and who said anything about trial = bad players?

I never said that I was talking about the problem of being a trial (even if you are legendary player performance wise) there are some guilds who never give loot to trials just for the fact of being rank trial and being new to the guild not based on their performance as a players. That is the problem that I am talking about.

A trial is a "bad" player because his abilities aren't proven yet.
And I wrote that you had a reason to invite non-raiders/socials to your runs before as the these players could "pay" for the run by increasing the raid size = more loot. The non-raiders got to see and learn the bosses on a higher difficulty and the raiders got more loot. An exchange of mutual benefit.
Today there is no reason whatsoever to have non-raiders/socials in your raids as they only make the raid more difficult, but don't give you more loot.

I know that many have the point of view that you have and it has its merit, but I still think that Blizzard only cares about that it doesn't have to deal with loot dispute tickets anymore.

[Utrrabbit]

I wouldn't - the rest of it is so boring and dull I'd rather watch paint dry. I've been playing since Classic and I've never felt more like "why am I doing this and why should I care what happens" than I have with this expansion.

Your opinion, and it is wrong. Lots to do daily on multiple toons. Im on my 5th tank atm getting them to 60 for my guilds raids. Saying it is dull just shows a lack of knowledge.

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"small fires"

people are leaving the game left and right because pvers have 0 way of progressing their chars outside of raiding/vault - but everything is ok

called it back then calling it now - its WoD 2.0 catered only to raiders - because there is 0 point in doing anything then raid atm .

No they are not. Do not lie. More people are playing now than ever before. Also who cares what you dirty pvpers do. You do not need to touch pve. You can get all your loot from pvp, plus extra gear from the vault.

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The dungeon damage difference between my Prot Pala and Prot War is pretty significant, but the tradeoff is definitely in ST where it seems to all balance out. I'm not sure how they bring Prot Pala in line without capping abilities (which feels like absolute shit) or nerfing DT (which means I'm just going Ven'thyr).

I do not understand this line of thinking anyways. AH is amazing for dungeons even more so than DT for pure dmg and healing. I can easily hit over 12k dps on a mytic 10 killing trash, with around 4k HPS. Single target ive hit around 3k to 4k dps. I highly doubt DT hits those numbers. The only thing DT has for it is the basic mass interrupt, which if your group is good. Is not even important.

[Revamp Man]

None of you have actually played the game? Or any earlier expansions?

Leveling up reduces the effectiveness of your items.

Holy hell, do you two not know how the game works?




What about every time randoms are invited to guild runs and loot is not distributed to them? Also trails usually do not get items, even if everyone has them and instead is disenchanted or given to alts/off spec

It is extremely clear that it did, in fact, cause problems. Stop fucking lying.

no guild worth their progression will disenchant gear over giving it to trials outside of 1/10,000 cespool guilds and you know it. Im not lying i got gear as a trial and we had a trial gain their 4pc and BiS trinket in a clear once. randoms getting invited to a guild run at least in legion could see it was in masterloot and choose to stay or not so stop acting like they were defenseless little children being taken advantage of by the big bad guild groups

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The remove of master loot and introduction of personal loot, is the single best thing has ever happened to wow.

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Professions have been shit for years, and they will continue to be.

personally i disagree because it has led to more dead loot over the course of bfa and even SL

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It was a problem tbh. What you are talking about is the exception of the rule not in general. Many progressing guild and many officers and guild masters only care for their inner circle raiders friends when it comes to loot who the hell do they think they are judging other newer players if they deserve the loot or not? everyone should have a fair and just chance to get loot if they participate into the progress and if they gave it their all when it comes to raiding and progress (being new trial player into the guild or being an officer or gm is not relevant when it comes loot, everyone should have a fair chance).

if you were in for a boss taht gave you this one item that is just absolutely magic for your spec and youve gone through farm raids on the lower difficulty and never gotten it and youve been putting in 100% effort and 100% attendance then you get to the boss on progression and after 45 wipes where you have constantly performed extra tasks and top performance only to see the item drop and jimmy the trial who died in phase 1 to an avoidable mechanic and its been 3 pulls with them and they get it because rng....would you be ok with that??

[Sorrior]

I mean i don't see why not, every other MMO does it that way. Punishing people for playing solo basically gives people no reason to play unless friends are on. Not to mention if Twisting Corridors is as hard as they are saying (requiring higher end gear) then solo players will be restricted from their one piece of content.

And wow used to woth vp/jp. I could do dailies and get decent gear just slower

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I laughed about the old raids. Legion is supposed to have the legacy raid damage buff, gear should not matter if you dish out dps in the millions.

Seriously why don't they just buff this or work on scaling.

[czarek]

There are elite missions that reward ~250 Soul Ash. However, they've always been like 3-4 levels higher than my highest companions, and they take 1 day to complete. I've never seen it been worthwhile.

I heard about but my elite mission are mostly like 155ilvl useless item. Never seen soul ash.

[Lei]

This right here it makes NO sense at all that we are weaker then before..like seriously how the f do they even think this makes sense

I really really really really hope that this isn't testing the waters for not having levels at all in the next expansion. The mobs hps is all over the place throughout the leveling (with hreads of fate at least). If you start to level an alt now after settling down on your main at max level, and after the level squish and everything, it will be weird. It is to me at least.

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"small fires"

people are leaving the game left and right because pvers have 0 way of progressing their chars outside of raiding/vault - but everything is ok

called it back then calling it now - its WoD 2.0 catered only to raiders - because there is 0 point in doing anything then raid atm .

I've noticed a lot fewer groups doing activities on my realm and in the group finder.
A week ago there was a Famu raid every 5-10 mins at least, a Gieger basically all day everyday, Violet mistake, Nerissa, and so on. WQ specific rares were popping up all the time. Yesterday I spent like an hour at Manifestation of Wrath WQ and nobody did that wq. Nobody. Took me like 20 mins to find a Famu group. The buzz has definetly gone down by a lot in open areas. I announce rares that drop mounts and cosmetics and maybe 2-3 people come.
Meanwhile I meet a lot of multiboxer herbalist/miner, skinning farmers at the basition WQ area just north to Hero's rest.

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I mean, some people don't play for gear but just for fun... Gear is a tool to achive fun, not the other way around. And SL offers great fun without the reliance on gear.

I'm someone who never raided in the first patches before WoD, since resto shamans sucked usually in earlier tiers and I had my achieves to collect, I had my outdoor world to enjoy.
But then outdoor mob scaling happened, and now being in shitty crafted 151 gear is not the same experience as it was in wrath being in ilevel 187? Or something around that. So even if you play wow for funsies, as long as outdoor mob scaling is there, you pretty much gotta reach a limit where you don't want to uninstall the game every time you pull 2-3 mobs. Which is around 180 in Shadowlands, heavily depending on class. Hunters for example probably don't care. On top of that, mobs are TOTALLY inconsistent in HP and everything: Hey, heres a normal mob with 9k hp. Now here's one next to it that is not elite but has 14k hp. Or how about 23k hp still non elite?

[Velshin]

no guild worth their progression will disenchant gear over giving it to trials outside of 1/10,000 cespool guilds and you know it. Im not lying i got gear as a trial and we had a trial gain their 4pc and BiS trinket in a clear once. randoms getting invited to a guild run at least in legion could see it was in masterloot and choose to stay or not so stop acting like they were defenseless little children being taken advantage of by the big bad guild groups

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personally i disagree because it has led to more dead loot over the course of bfa and even SL

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if you were in for a boss taht gave you this one item that is just absolutely magic for your spec and youve gone through farm raids on the lower difficulty and never gotten it and youve been putting in 100% effort and 100% attendance then you get to the boss on progression and after 45 wipes where you have constantly performed extra tasks and top performance only to see the item drop and jimmy the trial who died in phase 1 to an avoidable mechanic and its been 3 pulls with them and they get it because rng....would you be ok with that??

RNG is annoying for sure but nothing more annoying than a smart ass raid leader thinking that certain players deserve more loots than others just for the fact that these players are raiders and the other ones are trials (doesnt matter the raiding performance just for the fact that player is trial rank then he loses the item by default even if he performed better than the raiders), and I saw it happens in many many many guilds really.

[Kumorii]

Soul ash from mission table? I play everyday since launch. Got lvled up companions etc. I havent seen any sould ash mission xD Thats just bait. I havent seen any other way to obtain soul ash except regular thorgast runs. And the world questes and mission table quest rewards are just gold vendor crap nothin more. Ok maybe some conduits but mostly in 95% its just quicksell "grey" crap.

Seen plenty...can't complete any of them. 10k hp and 700dmg I get nowhere close with my companions :/

[Revamp Man]

RNG is annoying for sure but nothing more annoying than a smart ass raid leader thinking that certain players deserve more loots than others just for the fact that these players are raiders and the other ones are trials (doesnt matter the raiding performance just for the fact that player is trial rank then he loses the item by default even if he performed better than the raiders), and I saw it happens in many many many guilds really.

on progression or farm??
trials get loot on farm
if trials dont get loot then they dont get stronger thus they would never get the spot

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Seen plenty...can't complete any of them. 10k hp and 700dmg I get nowhere close with my companions :/

im kyrian...i cant do shiznit with those soul ash even though the mission is level 24 and my followers are 28

[Valkaneer]

Wrong. They are quite balanced as you add the soulbinds to the mix.

LOL, no they are not. Do you even play? I can't even take that comment seriously.