Dragonflight Prelaunch Interview Recaps

[Stoy]

Dragonflight Prelaunch Interview Recaps
Several outlets conducted Dragonflight interviews with the World of Warcraft developers. Here are quick recaps of new information from each one.

SoulSoBreezy Interview with Professions Developer Eric Holmberg-Weidler

• You can look forward to something cool with Archeology in the future.
• The main reason archeology isn't there at launch is because they wanted to focus on the primary professions with the refresh.
• A separate team added a bunch of awesome world content for both Cooking and Fishing.
• The team doesn't have any specific plans for more Glyph spell customizations because the goal is to make spell animations well recognized, especially in PvP.
• There will definitely be more rare cosmetic crafting recipes in the future.
• The idea with Dragonflight is to have professions be a major gear source without forcing players to pick a certain profession. Crafting orders allow for this without making items BoE and causing gold to be a major influence on gearing up.
• The Engine of Innovation will be used to create Sparks of Ingenuity that are used for crafting gear. You will get more quests to unlock more Sparks as the Season progresses.
• Acquiring the items to fuel the Engine will function in a similar manner to obtaining Legion legendaries, with bad luck protection in place the longer you go without obtaining one.
• To be able to craft a piece of higher item level gear, you need to get drops from content that is equivalent.
• You are guaranteed to get a crafting reagent from a raid or mythic + run.
• Crafted gear will not be eligible for the Catalyst of Inspiration because it can upgraded and changed a lot. They don't want players to feel like they need to convert the gear early and lose out on upgrading it further.
• Players get one rare Primal Infusion crafting reagent for reaching max renown with each reputation in Dragonflight. You get another one for killing Raszageth for the first time. This is 5 pieces of heroic item level gear for players who only focus on casual content over the course of Season 1.
• The general idea is to keep upgrading profession gear into a new season while also offering new recipes.
• The team is still trying to figure out if they should add new gathering reagents every season.
• You will eventually get everything from a specialization over the course of an expansion, but it takes a lot of time.
• Players that enter the expansion late can still pick a specialization and be able to craft a good portion of useful things if you focus on a niche.
• The team wants to add crafting orders for old expansion recipes as well.
• You can fill a public crafting order without digging into your daily limit if the crafting order is within two hours (time not certain) of expiring.
• Public orders are not region wide because the team wants to see how they work out on live servers.

Raider.io Interview with Ion Hazzikostas

• The goal for Vault of the Incarnates difficulty is to make it just difficult enough that it still feels like a huge and exciting moment for Race to World First, but also not have to nerf it 20 times over the course of the season for slower raid groups.
• Releasing all raid difficulties at once will offer layer of strategy if gearing vs. progression. Some guilds will elect to tackle mythic right away while others will gear up first.
• Changing the European daily reset time has nothing to do with the Race to World First. It was changed to place servers coming up around the time of the reset.
• There are no plans for a global raid release in Dragonflight.
• Fated raids will most likely become a thing at the end of each expansion as a way to revisit the content in a new way while waiting for the next expansion.
• WHEN cross-faction guilds release, the Hall of Fame will become faction-agnostic.
• On the lower end it will be a harder for a lot of players to get the same quality of gear that was accessible through Mythic + in previous expansions as they want the challenge between raiding and Mythic + to be similar.
• The team is going to listen to feedback about the change in Mythic + Vault reward scaling, but the hope is that it will give players new goals to strive for.
• The goal is to keep offering more unique rewards for Mythic +.
• For now, the team unofficially draws a line at Mists of Pandaria for dungeons to be added to Mythic +. They will make changes as needed, but older expansion dungeons would need a lot more work.
• The goal is to implement small changes that make life better for players with the idea that they will be expanded and iterated on down the line.
• Ion wants to stress that the entire team is extremely passionate about the game, and the most hurtful community feedback is seeing some claim that they don't care.

Maximum Interview with Morgan Day

• The team decided to shift their approach in delivering the Alpha/Beta in order to better focus their testing.
• There has been a philosophy shift in design that better focuses on being friendly to player time.
• Morgan says adding too much incentive to the vault, such as ways to add tertiary stats with the tokens, would make players feel like they have to maximize the vault every week to stay relevant.
• Building on this, he offers the suggestion that maybe adding catch-up mechanics to the vault, such as being able to loot multiple items from your vault if you are behind.
• The team designs Mythic+ vault progression to be in-line with raid vault progression, not as much PvP.
• The team still wants raiding to be the main method for earning tier sets early in a season. Raiding competition is generally at the front of a season where Mythic+ and Pvp push is further into the season.
• The team will definitely iterate a lot on Talent trees throughout the expansion.
• Choosing between important utility or damage (such as Solar Beam on Balance Druid) is something the team will look into and address.
• 10 slots is where the team landed on for talent loadouts, but they could add the ability to have more overtime.
• The team has been exploring the identity for seasonal affixes in Dragonflight, and have settled around adding more group coordination.
• The team recognizes that patch cadence of Shadowlands left a lot to be desired, but their plans for future patch content have evolved quite a bit based on this feedback.
• The team has been experimenting with making cooldown buffs worth triggering a global cooldown, specifically with giving Arcane mages Arcane Surge over Arcane Power. They are curious if this design could be a solution to the problem created with the GCD and macro issues from BFA.
• The team doesn't balance specific class spells against each other (uses Ice Block and Divine Protection as an example, same function, different outcomes)

Preheat Evoker Interview with Sr. Game Designer Graham Berger

• Hover is a defining feature of the Evoker.
• Devastation Mastery comes from the idea that they need to be good at fighting large dragons.
• Evokers may need to wait a second before attacking to let the tank establish threat because their mastery allows a lot of initial threat.
• Exploring a new mid-range niche is part of the Evoker's unique role. If it is too much of an issue they might increase it, but having a shorter range is part of the fantasy of being a dragon in the thick of the fight.
• The intended strengths of Preservation is burst healing, especially on clumped allies. They also have higher mobility. Preparation is also key to mastering the healing class.
• Devastation also excels at clumped AOE damage and mobility.
• The team is happy with where empowered spells are, but will fix any bugs of course.
• Echo is designed to be used for a few targets while Emerald Blossom is best used for many targets.
• Looking forward, the raid designers will take the mid-range class into consideration with raid encounters. Evokers are considered ranged for mechanics.
• The team wants Evokers to do competitive damage as a DPS, but they are a hybrid class and gain the necessary utility because of it.
• No plans at the moment to add a ton more customization for the Dracthyr, but they love adding new customization to the races in general.

Wowhead Interview with Morgan Day

• The talent trees are always a work in progress.
• The team feels that major talent adjustments would best be saved for new seasons.
• The 40% health and creature damage increase was added to stop the feeling of health bars being very rubber-bandy. The team is still addressing any side effects found from the changes.
• Ultimately, the developers prefer that healers spend a majority of their time healing. They keep an eye on healer damage, but focus on how much they are bringing to their groups total contribution.
• Threat still plays an important part in the game, but the team recognizes that tanks have a lot to manage and don't want it to become too much of an issue. They will assess it patch over patch.
• The team added many class buffs in Dragonflight and walked it back a bit. They are happy where they landed, but are open to feedback.
• The team wanted class buffs to be class specific and not unique to a certain spec, which is why they might have stepped back on a few.
• Bloodlust was added to Evokers because the ratio of classes that brought it has diminished over time with new classes being added.
• No immediate plans to change certain abilities still having half a GCD. They want to iterate on abilities, however, to make them feel worthwhile to trigger the GCD.
• No plans currently to add more armor pieces showing on Evoker's dragon form.
• No plans currently to add unique tier tints for Mythic+, but it's a good idea.

[gd8]

The team doesn't have any specific plans for more Glyph spell customizations because the goal is to make spell animations well recognized, especially in PvP.

Ffs just disable them in pvp then? This is just lazy

[Rendark]

Ffs just disable them in pvp then? This is just lazy

Dude that would take a little more money and we can't have that.

[chiddie]

* To be able to craft a piece of higher item level gear, you need to get drops from content that is equivalent.

Totally RIP activity for me, then. Good to know so that i won't waste time on professions. I fear that, despite their proclamations, there will be - again - nothing for open world players.

[stoffe]

What so they want M+ to be almost as hard as riding or?

On the lower end it will be a harder for a lot of players to get the same quality of gear that was accessible through Mythic + in previous expansions as they want the challenge between raiding and Mythic + to be similar.

[GMZohar1]

"The Engine of Innovation will be used to create Sparks of Ingenuity that are used for crafting gear. You will get more quests to unlock more Sparks as the Season progresses."

You want professions to be meaningful in gearing but you are timegating it? lol...

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

It genuinely feels like they want to dry out every casual from this game and just keep the remaining players who either pay for boosts or can actually keep up with seasonal goals and the Vault.

It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Lets' see how it plays out.

They really need a better content strategy than "Raid Tier, 1x Megadungeon, 2x Timeless Isle Rehash" over this two year cycle to salvage it.

[Relapses]

What so they want M+ to be almost as hard as riding or?

Tuning is going to make 15s feel like 18s of previous expansions. 20s will feel like 22/23s. So if you haven't consistently been pushing this high (ie, stopping at 15 because that's where the rewards stopped scaled) then M+ will be a less lucrative source of "the best" gear. If you're consistently pushing then this just means that you'll scale even higher than you did in previous expansions but it will come at the cost of the dungeons themselves being more challenging.

A common criticism in the past is that because +15s were "so easy," M+ players could essentially become just as powerful as their raiding compatriots by completing weekly 15s and never actually stepping outside of their comfort zone. It remains to be seen if this change equalizes the skill threshold between raiding and M+ but I surmise M+ will remain more popular by virtue of simply being a helluva lot more accessible.

[Celement]

It genuinely feels like they want to dry out every casual from this game and just keep the remaining players who either pay for boosts or can actually keep up with seasonal goals and the Vault.

It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Lets' see how it plays out.

They really need a better content strategy than "Raid Tier, 1x Megadungeon, 2x Timeless Isle Rehash" over this two year cycle to salvage it.

I mean... look this isn't aimed at you but just what you are representing in general .

WoW has always given away far to powerful of gear for free. Even now you are getting 5 heroic raid ilv pieces for lfr and rep.

Casual is fine but you have to respect the difficulty curve

[Biglog]

We'll see on the new archaeology and cooking/fishing content coming later. With a lot of the pre-DF questline focused specifically on the journey to the Dragon Isles sounding like an archeology expedition, it's something that should be somewhat relevant in-game. It shouldn't be mandatory content, and I also get that it's not a flashy expansion selling point, but it would feel silly if we go there and archeology isn't touched.

[Valcrist09]

To no surprise their design around loot and end game is still garbage. They still don’t understand the biggest issue with shadowlands was the fact end game loot and time vs reward was dog shit and so far it sounds like they still are delusional on end game .. again until they get this worlds first cater the hardcore out of there heads end game drop off is still going to be a problem I expect DF will have a massive decline at end game

[Lucrece]

Ffs just disable them in pvp then? This is just lazy

Your problem is you take them seriously at their word.

They're just being insincere shitheads who don't want to make new animations.

Warlock just went live with Soulfire having a mage's greater pyroblast pvp talent placeholder animation.

I repeat, warlock went live with a placeholder mage animation for the 4th expansion in a row.

These people will remain lazy until a company comes out with a MMO that does threaten to take them out of the market.

[Stickiler]

Your problem is you take them seriously at their word.

They're just being insincere shitheads who don't want to make new animations.

Warlock just went live with Soulfire having a mage's greater pyroblast pvp talent placeholder animation.

I repeat, warlock went live with a placeholder mage animation for the 4th expansion in a row.

These people will remain lazy until a company comes out with a MMO that does threaten to take them out of the market.

You realise that if the animation goes live, it's no longer a placeholder animation, right? It's just the animation for the spell. Especially if it makes it through 4 expansions.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Honestly a lot of the same reasons for why we don't have Spell FX glyphs is the same reason Transmog has restriction based on Armor Types. They could've just added the Toggle for Transmog and have it always off in PVP environments for other armor types. But, its the same story with that too.

[Walkerbo]

Raider.io Interview with Ion Hazzikostas

Ion wants to stress that the entire team is extremely passionate about the game, and the most hurtful community feedback is seeing some claim that they don't care.

This is a joke, Ion does not care about guilds at all.
We know this as there is currently a 5000+ thread in the general forum requesting that Ion follow through on his August 23rd 2018 commitment to return granular guild controls.

How does a thread that was started in July 2018 amas more than 5000 posts asking for Ion to keep his word fit into his claim that they really do care?

[chiddie]

I mean... look this isn't aimed at you but just what you are representing in general .

WoW has always given away far to powerful of gear for free. Even now you are getting 5 heroic raid ilv pieces for lfr and rep.

Casual is fine but you have to respect the difficulty curve

Casuals don't ask free top tier gear, they ask fair and constant gear progression outside the 3 pillars.

If Blizzard is not able (and it's clearly not since the game is 18 years old and we are still here writing the SAME things) to create open world content with a decent curve difficulty->reward, it's not casuals fault.

But luckily enough, D4 does not seem too far away.

[Biomega]

Awesome to hear that after constantly messing with PvE balance, PvP now also messes with cosmetics and fun. I love that I can't have cool things because maybe somehow somewhere someone might not immediately recognize that a Lightning Bolt is a Lightning Bolt because it's red instead of blue.

A+ design choices here.

[Soeroah]

"The team is still trying to figure out if they should add new gathering reagents every season."

Let me help, no

[Fullmetal89]

I remember they said something about adding content for people who don't like to do mythic+ or raids but don't want to feel left behind. I guess that was thrown out the window, especially with the confirmation that the crafting reagents will be from dungeon/raid content. Also, no questions about a third spec for Evokers? Everyone on my server says the same exact thing: "Why the heck don't they have a tanking spec?" Pretty meh, interviews. I'm hoping for the best, but we will see. At least borrowed powers are gone and that is the best thing to come out of this expansion.

- - - Updated - - -

Casual is fine but you have to respect the difficulty curve

You are assuming people who want to get gear outside of raiding/mythic+ are lazy or can't handle those difficulties. Personally, I think raiding in its current state is a massive unfun timesink. I have raided many times over the years, and it just doesn't hit the same anymore. I would feel incentivized to raid higher difficulties again if they brought back the old Valor/Justice system. The solution to this problem has been here since Wrath. Blizzard simply prefers to waste your time.

It's also a complete failure of design and a betrayal of the original game. Classic WoW had players spend 90% of their time in the world, exploring and doing meaningful content outside of an instance. This all died at the end of Wrath and it has been an absolute detriment to the game.

[banelocky]

,,No plans currently to add more armor pieces showing on Evoker's dragon form. ,,
This is very disappointing. Didn't they say that at least the tier sets for evoker would be visible in both forms? It's definitely a lot less exciting to collect a new transmog set if it's not visible in the main combat form.
I mean they made new races before and had to figure out how each and every armor piece from the history of the game would look on them but now it's a problem to have ONE set per season visible on the new race? Seems really lazy if you ask me.