Preach Developer Interview with Ion Hazzikostas - Patch 9.1

[Utrrabbit]

Err.. how exactly does SL do shit for casual players then?

The Anima grind is waaaayy too high and character progression stops at around ilvl 200 or so.

Keep in mind m+ is not casual friendly, nor is trying to get into raid pugs.

Anima is 100% cosmetic. You literally have 0 reason to care about it outside of that.

You can jump in to mythic0 with a group at 150ilvl easily.

Mythic+ is not that hard ether by 200ilvl you should be 2 chesting 10s.

You can time 5-8 by 180ilvl.

If you can not. It is an issue of you being bad.

[Alroxas]

WTF does it means? You can play in Torghast as you want but if you won`t do it as WE want from you....you gonna fail?

Not fail, just unable to unlock the next (higher) level of Torghast. A stupid idea IMO as it will force players to approach "Torghast" in a certain way to unlock the next higher tier.

Then again, it also depends on how difficult it is to achieve the gems/stars rating to go up a difficulty.

[Zyrinx]

Literally zero of that sounds fun (I realize this is subjective). Yikes. I think 9.1 is gonna go over like a lead balloon.

Ion to non raid/m+ players: eh idk, maybe later. Go do Torghast over and over for no reason.

[NotTrolling]

Low point.

This xpac literally has more players than the last 4xpacs.

My guid has gotten 200 new members in the last month. Returning players.

[Alroxas]

cataclysm professions where very strong throughout the expansion.

Well the combat perks for professions which also "forced" players to pick up engineering because the on-use stat buff was incredibly strong when macro'd with your DPS cooldowns.

But the actual crafted items produced? Meh...

[rrayy]

I wished they would make Torghast accumulative rather than doing it weekly especially on alts so you get soul ash from the last time you did it with the weekly cap in mind. So I'm not forced to have to do choreghast.

So you want the rewards from Torghast, but don't want to run it. I guesds they should mail you BiS gear then too huh?

[Frozenbeef]

Sounds boring as hell...

[Jahaga]

Patch 9.1 is the first content developed completely from work at home.

*eye roll* The excuse for not releasing any content after launch for six months and counting.

It is almost impossible to accommodate the playstyle of being perfectly optimal in every situation. There is a distinction between optimal and viable.

Not impossible, remove the energy required to switch conduits and it literally makes this possible. You're punished if you enjoy doing Mythic+ dungeons, raid, and PvP because you can't swap to the appropriate conduits. Bad design.

Legion was the most successful of this system largely because it was new to players.

Wrong. It was successful because players wanted talent trees similar to the original iteration and they finally got something close enough.

There has always been some sort of borrowed power in the game (tier sets) that you eventually leave behind, but there has to be a balance.

This is absurdly incorrect. The same talent offered in a Legion artifact weapon carried over to Azeroth gear in BFA is an example of borrowed power. The concept of tier sets was carried over from expansion to expansion, however, they do not retain the same set bonuses. Hence why nobody wants to see borrowed powers, but a majority of people want tier sets back.

If there is such a big gap between players 20 item levels apart, it is more likely a skill issue.

Wow. Just wow. He just has no idea what he's talking about.

There is nothing exactly like the mage tower in the near term, but the team loves it and wants to include something like it in the future.

I hoped Torghast would replace the Mage Tower, but Torghast just plain sucks. I haven't done Torghast in well over 2 months because it isn't fun and there's no reason to keep doing it.

[GnomeEU]

Have to see if the new raid motivates me to play again. Doubt it tho.

I want more solo content: Flex mythic raid. Solo queue for rated pvp modes etc.

After 3 disbanded mythic raids and dozens of rbg groups I came to the conclusion that
Endgame is begging groups to invite you, which is not fun.

[Sanguinerd]

Anima is 100% cosmetic. You literally have 0 reason to care about it outside of that.

You can jump in to mythic0 with a group at 150ilvl easily.

Mythic+ is not that hard ether by 200ilvl you should be 2 chesting 10s.

You can time 5-8 by 180ilvl.

If you can not. It is an issue of you being bad.

A casual player has every reason to care about cosmetics... and the costs are way too high.

Also being bad or not is irrelevant, fact is mythic+ is not really what casual players do.

So again, what does SL offer for casual players? So far it's only taken things away.

[Utrrabbit]

Doubt all you want. Funny how people have said wow has been dying since TBC, mainly fools. But it's subs are the single highest out of every game on the market. The people who say wow is dying are well stupid.

[Utrrabbit]

A casual player has every reason to care about cosmetics... and the costs are way too high.

Also being bad or not is irrelevant, fact is mythic+ is not really what casual players do.

So again, what does SL offer for casual players?

Mythic+ is literally the single most casual way to gear. Period.

Also anima is fine. If you are casual you should not care how long getting cosmetic looming gear is. If you care about that. You are lying about being casual.

[Gaidax]

This dude has no idea what he's talking about.

I mean, there is certainly a decent gap between 200 and 226, but 213 and 226? Nyah...

I too was a bit surprised about preach talking about gear gap, it's really not THAT huge as he tried to say.

Average non-weapon item going from 213 to 226 is what 0.3-0.5% more simmed DPS? And weapon would be 2-3%. Gap between Heroic geared and Mythic player DPS-wise is what, 10%? That's hardly mythic players doing "times the DPS" of Heroic, unless that "times" is *1.1.

Hard sell to claim gear gap is so insane here, so I'm with Ion on this - git gud.

[Spike`]

"Making world quests take longer was a design choice to switch time spent doing world quests vs travel time. Previous expansions players spent way more time traveling between quests over doing them."

I loled, what we have now is more time in world quests and more time in travel time (with removal of flight whistle)

So much bullshit all around, never change Ion

[Sanguinerd]

Mythic+ is literally the single most casual way to gear. Period.

Also anima is fine. If you are casual you should not care how long getting cosmetic looming gear is. If you care about that. You are lying about being casual.

Ok then..

[NotTrolling]

Doubt all you want. Funny how people have said wow has been dying since TBC, mainly fools. But it's subs are the single highest out of every game on the market. The people who say wow is dying are well stupid.

[Utrrabbit]

Maybe, just maybe, some players don't like repeating same short dungeon, which can be done on average in 30 minutes, 20 times with added artificial difficulty and would like something else to do?

You are not alone. Today's developers don't understand that either and are focused only on raiding/m+ community. Ion even said in interview that 20 item level difference is a skill issue.

Then they wonder why people leave WoW en masse.

Leaving wow en masse. Another fool who thinks wow is dying LOL. More new players have started playing SL than the last 4xpacs.

Ive seen servers packed with thousands of players. People who say wow is dying are morons.

- - - Updated - - -

Ok then..

It is the truth.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

While I already love running Torghast I gotta say all these changes sound great. More challenging, always rewarding, scoring system, talent tree with perks and upgrades for future runs, and the option to be quick or slow and efficient all sound great. I just wish they'd open Torghast up for Threads of Fate leveling. I would level so many alts.

[Goron24]

Power level from item rating has not changed even since Wrath. 1 item level is basically the equivalent of 1%.
If there is such a big gap between players 20 item levels apart, it is more likely a skill issue.

Not even remotely true, 20 item level increase overall is a 100% DPS increase this expansion.

Also he just completely ignored PVP cuz its basically dead now.

[Alroxas]

Not impossible, remove the energy required to switch conduits and it literally makes this possible. You're punished if you enjoy doing Mythic+ dungeons, raid, and PvP because you can't swap to the appropriate conduits. Bad design.

At the same time it's also bad design to allow players to flip conduits on a per boss basis. Just take M+ as a case study: Once started, you can't easily swap out talents or gear unless you also want to take the time to step out of the dungeon and then rezone in.

The limitations on switching conduits within the same soulbind should be less of an issue moving forward as the soulbind trees are expanded in 9.1.