Preach Developer Interview with Ion Hazzikostas - Patch 9.1

[Stardrift]

Yeah but it keeps those dungeons relevant from expansion launch to the Nth content patch of the expansion. Consider the alternative, dungeons reward up to mythic+0 gear and don't get refreshed as new patch come out (see WotLK, Cata, MoP, WoD dungeons).

By the time you get to the X.2 or X.3 patch of an expansion, the "catch-up" gear for new players would be better than the crap you can get from dungeons. Basically negating all that dungeon content as irrelevant for the "current" content.

By having M+ and gearing from M+ that increases with every season, yeah it's a repeat to go get IQD for the nth time in the expansion BUT at the same time, it provides something more to do than just log in, raid, then log out, wait for weekly reset (which is a gross oversimplification).

M+ absolutely does bring a lot more to the table, but like I stated above, it also dampens raid progression. There's just not much incentive to go get AOTC other than an achievement/mount/title that a good amount of people pay for anyways.

There's got to be a way to synergize the two forms of endgame content. As of right now, raiding offers nothing in comparison. So instead of waiting once a week for a few months to progress through a raid, you're gonna come to a halt and ditch the moment you get your one or two BIS items.

[Tiwack]

So I remember being perfectly happy to farm MC in Vanilla to get T1 and feel like a badass for having killed Nefarian once (lol). And I'd inspect all the players with AQ40/Naxx gear and be envious, but still happy overall with the game. Now people can't even tolerate a number being higher, let alone lower players generally not having access to cool looking gear in Vanilla, whereas now even if you're in quest greens you can look pretty cool thanks to old content and transmog. And yes, I remember being mad that the Tauren hunter in T2 could easily beat me in PVP, but that wasn't THE reason that I quit back then.

Is this just an overall cultural shift in both WoW and IRL that people whine for equality rather than saying, "Yes, that is a nice Mercedes, and I am just thankful for what I have" or am I some sort of weirdo for having had these attitudes back then, let alone now?

Competition fosters envy and jealousy, what do you expect? lol
Remember this is the first tier off of the big number squish, comparing things to 'back in my day' is dismissive and unhelpful to the discussion.

[Stardrift]

This is a idiotic suggestion. I just got into another discussion with someone else earlier about reducing the iLvL of covenant gear. Like WTF are you and that other guy smoking to give suggestions about reducing iLvL gear. As if this shitty expansion isn't hard enough to gear a toon with.

Living up to the username I see.

You're way up there, while I'm down here. Meet me in the middle okay?

I just want raiding to be more rewarding than it is right now.

[FelPlague]

World Quests fucking blow in Shittylands, it's like clocking into a factory job. Time to get to work. And they drop useless crap.

No flight whistle. Ugh.

Still needing to travel through Oribos to get between each zone is ridiculous.

Covenants are stupid and useless.
Soulbinds and the stuff is dumb
Anima is stupid
Soul Ash another grind

These stupid game systems need to fucking go and never return.

Bored-ghast a fucking sad tedious joke waste of time, that for some reason doesn't drop gear rewards.


Man I miss MoP style expansion.

Yeah fuck bored-ghast not dropping gear!
man i remember mop where challenge modes and scenarios totally dropped gear!
oh wait.
Almost fucking like not literally every single thing in the game needs to drop loot.
or is your next complaint gunna be you cant get mythic geared through pet battles?

[Barzotti]

I just want raiding to be more rewarding than it is right now.

I don't get your point. After the fixes, the raiding loot drops are the same than in previous expansions (minus the bonus rolls, but the vault has been added for a weekly guaranteed loot). The best loot comes from raiding and the last two bosses. Raiding is still the most efficient way to gear up a character (pvp and M+ have very strong diminishing returns). Having alternate paths of gearing doesn't diminish raiding in itself and doesn't take away what raiding offers. The M+ loot is scarce, has a lower ilvl than heroic gear from raiding, the odds of getting the desired item in a M+ run are pretty slim and the vault is limited to one item per week.

[Sunderella]

It always disturbs me why in a game based around waiting in queues for instanced content, nobody ever asks when are we going to get a revamped LFG tool that is less limited and lets you enjoy the rest of the game while waiting for queues.

[Gaidax]

M+ absolutely does bring a lot more to the table, but like I stated above, it also dampens raid progression. There's just not much incentive to go get AOTC other than an achievement/mount/title that a good amount of people pay for anyways.

There's got to be a way to synergize the two forms of endgame content. As of right now, raiding offers nothing in comparison. So instead of waiting once a week for a few months to progress through a raid, you're gonna come to a halt and ditch the moment you get your one or two BIS items.

Eh... to each their own.

IMO, M+ is a great addition to the game, clearly a successful mode. But then WoW raiding in itself is pretty awesome, it is a big part of what keeps people playing WoW - the best raiding experience of any popular MMO and the social guild aspect with it, which is also pretty big.

I really don't think there is any need to unite or separate these modes - they are good as they are.

[Nite92]

It always disturbs me why in a game based around waiting in queues for instanced content, nobody ever asks when are we going to get a revamped LFG tool that is less limited and lets you enjoy the rest of the game while waiting for queues.

Uhhh, what? This is an MMO, and the issue is not that it has too few players. The tank to dps ratio is the issue.
If you want a single player game that is ok, but the "group forming process" is part of this game.

[Tzunami]

I actually hate Preach. What a pathetic meta slave. This entire interview is a case study in how completely out of touch the developers and their elitist butt buddies are.

This game is dying and it's evident because they give no fucks in developing for casuals. Kevin Jordan put it best, this is a game for 'chasers" who chase the top 1%. There's no room for anyone else.

I don’t think you understand how interviews work....

Questions are screened by ion’s team.
They go over beforehand what they can talk about and what they can’t. The also ask you don’t go too of topic with surprise questions. You can see this when preach starts questioning about tier sets.
Remember this is promo much like a “live” talk show, they don’t want negativity.

This is how it works in live television.
If the show is tapped we use to stop and do a second take of a question or just cut it.

From the moment a game comes out it begins to die....

It still makes a shit ton of money though.
You would have to be an idiot to think the game is currently in trouble...

[Gaidax]

It always disturbs me why in a game based around waiting in queues for instanced content, nobody ever asks when are we going to get a revamped LFG tool that is less limited and lets you enjoy the rest of the game while waiting for queues.

I really hope this home-grown RIO they pull out is a first step towards that.

It would be awesome if you could just sign yourself up to do let's say M+15 Mists and have your name listed automatically for group leaders to consider in their 15 Mists run, while you merrily do your stuff.

[Villager720]

I refuse to believe there is less travel time between world quests in Shadowlands than in Legion or BFA. For starters, I didn’t have to fly back to Dalaran to get between Azsuna and Suramar.
If that is really their “official” reasoning behind making them take longer, I’m not inclined to believe much else that Ion is saying.

[Toppy]

Yeah fuck bored-ghast not dropping gear!
man i remember mop where challenge modes and scenarios totally dropped gear!
oh wait.
Almost fucking like not literally every single thing in the game needs to drop loot.
or is your next complaint gunna be you cant get mythic geared through pet battles?

Scenarios did lead to gear, so wrong.
MoP challenge mode had cosmetic rewards, mounts, titles, and teleportation. It also wasnt a wholly seperate feature needing large sums of dev time but rather an addition to an already existing thing: dungeons.

[oldgeezer]

Yeah fuck bored-ghast not dropping gear!

Boreghast. Chop your way through a tedious amount of trash to eventually collect currency from a boss. Enjoy.

[Zorachus]

Yeah fuck bored-ghast not dropping gear!
man i remember mop where challenge modes and scenarios totally dropped gear!
oh wait.
Almost fucking like not literally every single thing in the game needs to drop loot.
or is your next complaint gunna be you cant get mythic geared through pet battles?

https://www.wowhead.com/news/mists-o...e-modes-206398

Challenge mode gave some of the best looking transmog gear. Plus some other useful stuff for the expansion.

Bored-ghast gives you jack beef nothing. And Soul Ash is dumb.

I'm just saying for running Bored-ghast and waisting your time in that useless place, you should be rewarded at least something cool. Not saying it needs to be top end gear, of course not.

[Pons]

Are we getting pathfinder/flying in 9.1? I'm not seeing any signs of it on the PTR since I last logged into it.

[Aggressive]

I think with removal of WF/TF, the whole "shopping list" of BIS is completely clear and attainable.

I beg to differ. I have a 207 dagger on my rogue that I have had for 3 months. I have farmed Mists of Tirna Scithe literally like 10 to 20 something a week and nothing. I just recently as of this past friday started to run Sanguine as well. You will forgive me if I don't agree with you on your statement at all. I also have been looking for my BiS trinkets and that shit hasn't happened either.

Also before you say anything like I don't run mythics. I run those like crazy. Usually 14 to 17. Anything higher, IMO, is just to show how big your dick is to the wow community.

[Finear]

Are we getting pathfinder/flying in 9.1? I'm not seeing any signs of it on the PTR since I last logged into it.

yes, flying is on ptr already, for good couple of days now

[vsb]

warcraftlogs, Sludgefist heroic, boomkins.

200-202 ilvl: 4192 DPS 75%, 4956 DPS 95%, 5665 DPS 99%.
209-211 ilvl: 5041 DPS 75% (+20%), 5916 DPS 95% (+19%), 6421 DPS 99% (+13%)
221-223 ilvl: 6909 DPS 75% (+37%), 7802 DPS 95% (+31%), 8319 DPS 99% (+29%)
227-229 ilvl: 8407 DPS 75% (+21%), 9149 DPS 95% (+17%), 10101 DPS 99% (+21%)

1 ilvl does NOT equal to 1% performance. It seems that Ion has no idea about his own game.

[Jastall]

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.

I think people are mainly talking about PvP, where the gap is significant I've heard (don't quote me, I hate it PvP the plague).

[Swnem]

I really like these preach interviews. Like the questions (asking the hard questions) and like the answers. The devs do understand and are tuned to the feedback.
That is good to see.