Maximum Interview with Ion Hazzikostas

[Yakut]

People in later seasons are even less likely to tank because the WoW community has this tendency to "solve" dungeons and if you aren't pulling exactly what the "most optimal" route is players will flame you. When it's brand new dungeons every season this is less likely to happen meaning that tanking is more accessible.

This. 100% this. I go with a group I found 9 months ago and love doing keys with. We may not always have the optimal route going in for the first few times, but we always figure it out.

For our group, it is as much about the route as the people you're going with; If you know each other's capabilities, you know what to skip, what you can cheese, and what you must always do.

[paxen]

No one is going to play M+ if they have to learn new dungeons every season. For the love of god please don't do this. You think even a single person is going to try out tanking if they also have to learn the dungeons? This will completely kill the mode.

Season 4 has 6 new dungeons and it has been a banger. Looking forward to Dragonflight!

The exact thing you used as a reason people wouldn't want to do new dungeons every season is one of the benefits of switching it up like this. People in later seasons are even less likely to tank because the WoW community has this tendency to "solve" dungeons and if you aren't pulling exactly what the "most optimal" route is players will flame you. When it's brand new dungeons every season this is less likely to happen meaning that tanking is more accessible.

Yeah, I'm exactly there. I ran season 1/2/3 as dps, towards the end of s3 I got tired of having to look for pugs as dps and decided to reroll. It was a much lower barrier to entry to do that with new dungeons than it was to run even dungeons I knew well as dps, because I was nervous about tripping up on pulls and counts and stuff in a way I wasn't when it was fresh dungeons.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

No one is going to play M+ if they have to learn new dungeons every season. For the love of god please don't do this. You think even a single person is going to try out tanking if they also have to learn the dungeons? This will completely kill the mode.

Yeah I really think it's the opposite, it's so much easier to be a tank when people are all learning the new dungeons vs have 2 years of calcified knowledge on exact routes and stuff!

[Mamut]

No one is going to play M+ if they have to learn new dungeons every season. For the love of god please don't do this. You think even a single person is going to try out tanking if they also have to learn the dungeons? This will completely kill the mode.

I think its the opposite. I skipped almost whole SL and basically Im afraid of joining M+ because I have no idea about routes and pulls. With rotating dungeons I can join in even after break because people are not used to them yet.
And what I see is that the new dungeons are pretty popular in S4 so why people would not want to run new ones in DF?

[ClassicPeon]

THe only thing that really interested me here was the very short talk about normal/heroic gear being obsolete atm. because of mythic+.

I dont dislike m+ - the overall problem is the vault giving much higher ilvl from m+ then it does from hc raiding. The vault is just overall a problem imo.

[Berkilak]

The exact thing you used as a reason people wouldn't want to do new dungeons every season is one of the benefits of switching it up like this. People in later seasons are even less likely to tank because the WoW community has this tendency to "solve" dungeons and if you aren't pulling exactly what the "most optimal" route is players will flame you. When it's brand new dungeons every season this is less likely to happen meaning that tanking is more accessible.

I completely agree with this.

[Biglog]

Although the original post has a positive spin, the stats on #'s of players doing normal/heroic raiding and the # of wow guilds doing them are at a rock-bottom low. So it's a little disconcerting to hear Blizzard say everything is going great. There really have been 2 major negative changes in S4 that Blizzard has it's head in the sand on. The first is the new weekly fated raid rotation so guilds have to do a different raid every week instead of focusing on progressing through 1. A lot of raiders simply don't want to do that this late in SL and stopped showing up. The second was the awful AH change, which nerfed gold earning playing the AH into the ground. That affected all players not just raiders, but that greatly reduced earning gold via the AH either to support higher level raiding or just for something to do in-between raids. I guess if #'s way down = big success, they did amazing.

[Duese]

>The team wants to make gear between Mythic Plus, Raiding, and PvP more unique from one another.

This is the exact opposite of what should be happening. Doing this will ensure that there is an even bigger divide between the different types of content.

Normal and Heroic guilds are gearing through M+ because the gear coming out of Normal and Heroic is garbage in comparison to the effort for these guilds. It's easier and more fun to run m+ than it is to slog through learning boss encounters where you don't get much gear at the end of the day.

At the end of the day, Ion's comment gets translated to "we are going to try to force you to raid".

>Season 2 will have the other 4 dungeons and 4 other dungeons from prior expansions.

This comes across as completely laziness on the part of the developers. They can put the effort into making a new raid every patch but they can't be bothered to make new dungeons but instead need to cycle through them and regurgitate old ones? M+ is one of the defining aspects of the game right now and is probably the one piece of content holding it together. I can't grasp why they would not put more effort into it, or at least put the same effort into it that they do raiding.

The whole learning new dungeons debate is missing one key component. The ones they are doing aren't new dungeons. They are old dungeons and that CREATES a problem where you have people who haven't ran them before alongside people who have never stepped foot inside them. Making that even worse is that some of these dungeons were ALREADY ON M+ and so that gap of knowledge between players is even broader. You want toxicity in a game? This is how you do it.

[rrayy]

What community are you talking about here Ion? The rather irrelevant world first community or the majority of your playerbase that you repeatedly ignore despite the feedback they give you. Why even bother asking it..

Agagin, they do not in any way ignore you. Not caving to your whining is not = ignoring you. People need to stop misusing the word. It is dishonest.

[Dimmune]

Honestly, Bloodlust/Heroism is such a important combat utility along with Combat Rez. I'd argue that those should be combat tools for parties and raid teams rather than class specific buffs. They are are THAT important. Have an extra action button or something given to Raid Leads/Party Leads or you can designate someone for that responsibility. If this isn't applicable, at least remove the need for hunters pets to use Bloodlust/Heroism. It feels awful to call a pet during combat just to use a ability that essentially nerfs our damage because of said pet.

[rrayy]

Although the original post has a positive spin, the stats on #'s of players doing normal/heroic raiding and the # of wow guilds doing them are at a rock-bottom low. So it's a little disconcerting to hear Blizzard say everything is going great. There really have been 2 major negative changes in S4 that Blizzard has it's head in the sand on. The first is the new weekly fated raid rotation so guilds have to do a different raid every week instead of focusing on progressing through 1. A lot of raiders simply don't want to do that this late in SL and stopped showing up. The second was the awful AH change, which nerfed gold earning playing the AH into the ground. That affected all players not just raiders, but that greatly reduced earning gold via the AH either to support higher level raiding or just for something to do in-between raids. I guess if #'s way down = big success, they did amazing.

You are missing the point entirely about Season 4. Season 4 is not about progression. It never has been.

Also, link to the stats you are claiming,

[Oneirophobia]

Why not give a CR to a class that cannot rez at all? Like a rogue or a warrior? I feel like that would be better balance rather than giving it to a class that can insta-heal to 100% as well as rez outside of combat.

Yeah I really didn't think paladins were "hurting for groups" as people have said earlier in this thread. They're in the top 3 most played classes. A brez for the least played classes would be helpful. Rogues for sure, they're in the bottom 5 least played. Monks and Demon Hunters are down there too, but they already have unique damage amp buffs so perhaps that is a reason not to give it to one of those two.

[Rageonit]

No one is going to play M+ if they have to learn new dungeons every season

Would you really bet on that? If so, I'd be happy to bet otherwise, if the stake is high enough.

[Unlimited Power]

OMG that would be horrible!

/s

You'll be "happy" to know that Blizzard is planning for engineers to craft consumable CRs usable by anyone, as well as a reusable CR by engineers themselves, the latter even being with the usual engineering failure chance severely reduced.

In other words, through the power of engineering, basically any class will be able to CR using consumables in DF.

[hulkgor]

No one is going to play M+ if they have to learn new dungeons every season. For the love of god please don't do this. You think even a single person is going to try out tanking if they also have to learn the dungeons? This will completely kill the mode.

Precisely the opposite.

[Gurahk]

No one is going to play M+ if they have to learn new dungeons every season. For the love of god please don't do this. You think even a single person is going to try out tanking if they also have to learn the dungeons? This will completely kill the mode.

No one is going to raid if they have to learn new bosses every season.

[paxen]

engineers to craft consumable CRs usable by anyone, as well as a reusable CR by engineers themselves

Yessss, it's been a pain constantly recrafting the CR devices. Happy to just get a reusable one!

Although I will still hate to rely on it, with the 0 yard range or whatever it is

[Unforgivenn]

Ion asked that last question because of the leaked release date and the discussion raiders had about raiding during christmas a few weeks ago.
I think he kinda confirmed DF release date timeframe here.

Didnt saw that.

What is the release date?

[callipygoustp]

[*]Raiding and Social Updates[*]There is some social value in keeping Mythic lockouts as it encourages people to stick with a team instead of bailing right when something goes wrong.

Too little, too late.

• The team wants to make more and more things cross-server. They are moving in the direction of having Mythic raids potentially being cross-realm enabled earlier, but not on day one.
• Cross-server guilds are potentially on the table.
• Cross-faction guilds is something the team wants to do before the end of Dragonflight, but there is tricky coding involved that they have to solve.
• The team is looking to solve faction changes nuking your raid lockout.

If only they hand implemented these change years ago. I may still be subbed.

[SnowBlood]

All raids on the same day is fine. Heck. Give us Mythic before the others. Mostly, give us more time to enjoy the expansion before raid/M+ release. Level more than one character, take it easy.