Dragonflight Prelaunch Interview Recaps

[chiddie]

This royal "we" you're referring to here is quite a broad statement. You may not want it but I have seen plenty of players unironically claim that single player progression gearing systems up to Mythic level gear are the key to WoW's success... Blizzard apparently just hates the idea of having billions of players and therefore they won't do it.

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Hybrid tax died in Cata. I think they're just using the word to refer to the fact that they can easily off-heal much like most of the other hybrid classes you mentioned.

OW is tied with single player progression, that’s for sure.

I don’t understand why Blizzard continues to stay mid road giving the illusion that ow has a “meaning” gear wise while it clearly practically doesn’t.

But it’s ok, I will just complete the storylines as usual and then quit. I won’t spend time on professions only to craft gear for others or in doing again the same world quests that give +1 ilvl every Pope’s death.

I sometimes wish the game would require a party even to login, so I just can quit forever without regrets.

[Fabled]

To this day, it still escapes me why "open world players" want high end mythic raid gear be rewarded from doing daily quests or crafting without ever stepping in any high competitive environment. When their trivial content doesn't get rewarded with something equivalent to raid gear they go around running in circles crying foul.

Like, wtf? Your rewards are lore, pets, mounts, transmogs, and that kind of shit which is what you allegedly play for. Stop being a retard asking for raid-equivalent gear just so you can pose around doing nothing with it. I wish any of these people could even realise how dumbtarded they sound everytime they try to make a case for "deserving" better gear.

Because people also like seeing numbers go up. Isn't a hard concept. No need for the name calling.

[Celement]

Because people also like seeing numbers go up. Isn't a hard concept. No need for the name calling.

Kinda is... these people advocate for destroying the casual mid game because they have a desire to see numbers go higher.

They are wholly a destructive force and damage the game by existing.

[Fabled]

Kinda is... these people advocate for destroying the casual mid game because they have a desire to see numbers go higher.

They are wholly a destructive force and damage the game by existing.

Them getting any kind of gear isn't going to rain on your raiding/mythic + parade.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Them getting any kind of gear isn't going to rain on your raiding/mythic + parade.

Yes it does, other people having fun and being rewarded means they can't have fun.

Don't question their irrational hatred of other people experiencing the game differently.

[GrandpasDryGums]

To this day, it still escapes me why "open world players" want high end mythic raid gear be rewarded from doing daily quests or crafting without ever stepping in any high competitive environment. When their trivial content doesn't get rewarded with something equivalent to raid gear they go around running in circles crying foul.

Like, wtf? Your rewards are lore, pets, mounts, transmogs, and that kind of shit which is what you allegedly play for. Stop being a retard asking for raid-equivalent gear just so you can pose around doing nothing with it. I wish any of these people could even realize how dumbtarded they sound every time they try to make a case for "deserving" better gear.

As someone who played both hardcore and casual, I agree with what you said there, and love the way you stated your case. I created this account just to give you applause for your post.

The untold argument the casuals never will admit is - they want the same gear for never doing the same level of content and that their solo content is never going to be on the same complexity level, same coordination level, and same time level that a raid requires. Every argument they have falls flat.

"I fish for 9 hours a day, every day, and I want the same helm you have!"
no, and also, go outside, and also, your inability to be personable in an MMORPG is your fault. You've done nothing of substance, take a hike.

[Sialina]

The idea we want free mythic gear is ridiculous. We simply want challenging content in ow with a proper progression path and rewards.

I’m not interested in mounts, pets, mogs, toys or whatever, I simply want my char to constantly be more powerful without having to do M+, PvP or raids and without reaching the cap 1 month after any season starts, landing 900 ilvls below the actual max ilvl.

Blizzard could even lock the ow gear to ow only, preventing somehow it to be used in M+ or raids or PvP, I don’t care about that, but we really need something in ow that allows us to be - in ow - as powerful as the triad players IF we put enough effort into that path.

I won’t spend time -snip- doing again the same world quests that give +1 ilvl every Pope’s death.

I don't want to be rude, but this sounds exactly like you want mythic gear, without putting too much time in.

I think the crafting will be pretty neat, a good way for the more casual crowd to earn gold in a more straight forward way that they could then spend on BoEs, a slightly roundabout way but it will make you more powerful for sure.

[Walkerbo]

Because this community has a tendency to take things that practically nobody cares about and use Blizzard's inaction as "evidence" that they "don't care." Truth is, a game with as many players and moving parts is inevitably going to have pieces that aren't as important as others. Blizzard's refusal to stop everything and focus on {insert perceived community problem here} isn't direct evidence of them not caring but simply caring more about the kind of stuff which broadly impacts more end users directly.

In the WoW Live Developer Q&A w/ Ion Hazzikostas - August 23rd 2018 Ion said that they were looking for further feedback, he even stated: “let us know what problems you are having and we do what we can to solve those problems”.
So it is not the community that is blowing things out of control, it is just asking Ion to follow through on his commitment.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...ntrols/1139575

[Relapses]

In the WoW Live Developer Q&A w/ Ion Hazzikostas - August 23rd 2018 Ion said that they were looking for further feedback, he even stated: “let us know what problems you are having and we do what we can to solve those problems”.
So it is not the community that is blowing things out of control, it is just asking Ion to follow through on his commitment.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...ntrols/1139575

You could use that quote against Blizzard for literally anything they do or don't do.

Here's an analogy: If WoW is a sinking ship then Blizzard should not be criticized for attempting to stop the ship from sinking by first addressing the massive portholes currently inundating the ship with water. You're asking them why they haven't changed a flickering light bulb in the spare Men's bathroom on the 4th floor of the economy suites. Even though you might use that bathroom every day and it annoys you to no end, the bigger problem is, y'know, the fact that the ship is sinking.

They might get around to fixing this problem eventually but using a vague promise of action from Ion isn't going to force them into action nor is it really useful in doing much other than pointing out the obvious. If I'd wager a guess, the more likely scenario is that Blizzard doesn't think this problem is important enough to even warrant a fix. (Do guilds really actually need granular control?) It'd be nice if they'd come out and just tell you guys that's the case -- I agree there -- but sometimes the lack of an answer is the answer. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Celement]

Them getting any kind of gear isn't going to rain on your raiding/mythic + parade.

It creates a group that outgears the content their skill level puts them at. Having someone hop into a ten who has no business there causes a lot of frustration.

The reason we had gear score and now raider io is this very reason. You can't just look at mythic raids and world quests and not consider everything else...

[PenguinChan]

It creates a group that outgears the content their skill level puts them at. Having someone hop into a ten who has no business there causes a lot of frustration.

The reason we had gear score and now raider io is this very reason. You can't just look at mythic raids and world quests and not consider everything else...

Could also just put a unique modifier to Overworld gear that lowers the ilvl back down to its base power when doing instanced content. Problem immediately solved - they can’t do higher content without a good enough base ilvl like any progression path in raiding / dungeons.

[Celement]

Could also just put a unique modifier to Overworld gear that lowers the ilvl back down to its base power when doing instanced content. Problem immediately solved - they can’t do higher content without a good enough base ilvl like any progression path in raiding / dungeons.

Nah they hate that. Tried it with ZM and they raged that their bonuses "only" let them do early mythic gear levels of dmg to mobs.

Its honestly best to just tell'em to fuck off. It's a greedy group of self serving individuals who will never be happy. Even if they got their wish and got full mythic raid bis from world mobs they would whine that it takes to long to grind or quit instantly from boredom once they have it.

Even entertaining this group of people is giving them to much.

[TracyM]

Imo the ideal would be something like MoP Valor, with a weekly cap that rolls forward if someone starts late that awards gear between Normal and Heroic raiding for ALL SLOTS (no gatekeeping trinkets/weapons) over the course of 3-4 months for every slot to complete; every activity rewarding valor, some in tiny amounts but still if you want to do 200 PvP pet battles per week, that should be a choice, even better if once you cap on one character you get double gains on alts for the week. Imo the way conquest did it in BfA was perfect; 8 weeks of normal gear then 14-16 weeks of Heroic gear giving you constant progression throughout a tier. No need to invent a new system for every patch, just have the unique content from that current patch be the best way to grind your valor (like MoP did with Timeless Isle quest giving you about a third of the weekly Valor).

This is exactly it. We HAD a great system for both 'casuals' and 'elites'. It takes casuals weeks to get each piece of gear that Heroic raiders get at a much fater pace, and months to get Mythic gear (if that - maybe Mythic is out of bounds).

Tie it to dungeons and make LFG useful again. The worst thing about M+ was locking progress against ANOTHER system that requires pre-mades after several expansions where LFG was perfectly viable. There are a lot of really, really toxic things about M+, but that's the worst, because it enables toxicity to pervade the system.

In no way does this give 'casuals' equivalent access to gear. Serious raiders get gear far more quickly and without grinding, but open-world players get gear over time and have a clear progression path (which keeps them playing, which also keeps them buying and selling things on the AH and so forth).

From a gear standpoint, I was 'done' months ago with ZM. No possibility of any gear improvement. Aside from enjoying getting some of the rare drops in the area, what's keeping me playing? And if I'm still playing, shouldn't there be a reasonable chance of getting gear that heroic raiders will have had for MONTHS?

If you want to keep a more SL-style system, allow LFG to open up Great Vault slots (slowly!!!) and have LFR open Heroic Great Vault slots, not LFR. But that's not as good - gear acquisition is both more random and less time-gated (which 'elites' seem to want).

And, for heaven's sake, make the weekly quest of 'run 5 dungeons, get a Great Vault drop' LFG and not M/M+. 'Here, do this toxic thing and you can get a piece of gear that you'll probably get from doing the toxic thing ANYWAY?' Wow, that's a GREAT incentive right there!

[Fullmetal89]

Its honestly best to just tell'em to fuck off. It's a greedy group of self serving individuals who will never be happy.

The irony of this post is palpable. Seems to me like the ones that always bark the loudest against the thought of Justice points or some kind of progression outside mythic/raids are people like you.

[Celement]

The irony of this post is palpable. Seems to me like the ones that always bark the loudest against the thought of Justice points or some kind of progression outside mythic/raids are people like you.

I mean you went to quote a sentence. I'm sorry but we cant fuck up normal and heroic or 5-15 mythic plus because you wanna feel special.

[chiddie]

I don't want to be rude, but this sounds exactly like you want mythic gear, without putting too much time in.

I think the crafting will be pretty neat, a good way for the more casual crowd to earn gold in a more straight forward way that they could then spend on BoEs, a slightly roundabout way but it will make you more powerful for sure.

It’s not about time. I didn’t mention time. When I did M+ I played 5 hours a week and I got to +15 gear in two months.

I spent way more hours in ZM and I landed 40 ilvls away from max level.

The problem is that ow offers zero challenges and thus zero meaningful rewards. This destroys casual gaming (casual in term of CONTENT, not in term of time spent) and it’s a precise choice from Blizzard. There’s basically nothing preventing Blizzard from creating challenging ow content, they are simply not interested in that.

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Nah they hate that. Tried it with ZM and they raged that their bonuses "only" let them do early mythic gear levels of dmg to mobs.

Its honestly best to just tell'em to fuck off. It's a greedy group of self serving individuals who will never be happy. Even if they got their wish and got full mythic raid bis from world mobs they would whine that it takes to long to grind or quit instantly from boredom once they have it.

Even entertaining this group of people is giving them to much.

No, they didn’t try with ZM. ZM gear stopped at 252 while max level was well above 290.

And the “bonuses” were far worse than having a 290 ilvl without them.

Now that I’m getting around 270 ilvl due to Uldaman loot, I smash ZM mobs without bonuses way faster than with the 250 gear with some bonuses.

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I mean you went to quote a sentence. I'm sorry but we cant fuck up normal and heroic or 5-15 mythic plus because you wanna feel special.

If you make ow gear not working in anything above M0, nothing will be fucked up. Since a similar thing is done when we do timewalking dungeons, it’s surely technically feasible.

[Segus1992]

"The team will definitely iterate a lot on Talent trees throughout the expansion."

So...basically they know the new talent trees are still a giant mess and they know they're going to have to constantly keep fixing it.

"The team has been experimenting with making cooldown buffs worth triggering a global cooldown"

No, not this bullshit again. People hate CDs being on the GCD because it feels fucking awful to hit a CD and have to immediately wait to do anything else.

Of course they know it's a mess. Is this a "gotcha" to you?

Arcane Surge feels great, which is the example they used. If they can manage that with other CDs then I'm down. As long as they don't try to force it where it doesn't feel good.

[Fullmetal89]

I mean you went to quote a sentence. I'm sorry but we cant fuck up normal and heroic or 5-15 mythic plus because you wanna feel special.

I don't think you understand what some of us are asking for? I would just want the return of Justice/Valor points like we had in Wrath. This caused zero problems and as usual the only people that complained about it were hardcore raiders that called it welfare gear. Even thought it benefited them the most, since it would help them pad piece of gear that didn't drop for them. You can tune it so that the currency drops at much lower rates outside the instanced content and people will still want to raid through normal/heroic/mythic. On another note, I think they should just get rid of LFR, especially with the current version being group loot now, and just go back the flex difficulty and get rid of normal all together. There are too many layers of progression for each tier and often times doing normal feels pointless when you can just out gear it with Mythic+ gear. Maybe the changes to item level in Mythic+ will relieve this issue.

tl;dr a catchup currency won't break the game and has been done before.

[Celement]

I don't think you understand what some of us are asking for? I would just want the return of Justice/Valor points like we had in Wrath. This caused zero problems and as usual the only people that complained about it were hardcore raiders that called it welfare gear. Even thought it benefited them the most, since it would help them pad piece of gear that didn't drop for them. You can tune it so that the currency drops at much lower rates outside the instanced content and people will still want to raid through normal/heroic/mythic. On another note, I think they should just get rid of LFR, especially with the current version being group loot now, and just go back the flex difficulty and get rid of normal all together. There are too many layers of progression for each tier and often times doing normal feels pointless when you can just out gear it with Mythic+ gear. Maybe the changes to item level in Mythic+ will relieve this issue.

tl;dr a catchup currency won't break the game and has been done before.

I get it... it's just the game isn't wrath anymore. There are now difficulties for everyone and that means we can't just dish out the second best rewards like we used to without fucking up half the game.

You would need to remove lfr and normal or heroic alongside most of dungeon progression for it to not be an issue.

[Relapses]

This is exactly it. We HAD a great system for both 'casuals' and 'elites'. It takes casuals weeks to get each piece of gear that Heroic raiders get at a much fater pace, and months to get Mythic gear (if that - maybe Mythic is out of bounds).

Tie it to dungeons and make LFG useful again. The worst thing about M+ was locking progress against ANOTHER system that requires pre-mades after several expansions where LFG was perfectly viable. There are a lot of really, really toxic things about M+, but that's the worst, because it enables toxicity to pervade the system.

In no way does this give 'casuals' equivalent access to gear. Serious raiders get gear far more quickly and without grinding, but open-world players get gear over time and have a clear progression path (which keeps them playing, which also keeps them buying and selling things on the AH and so forth).

From a gear standpoint, I was 'done' months ago with ZM. No possibility of any gear improvement. Aside from enjoying getting some of the rare drops in the area, what's keeping me playing? And if I'm still playing, shouldn't there be a reasonable chance of getting gear that heroic raiders will have had for MONTHS?

If you want to keep a more SL-style system, allow LFG to open up Great Vault slots (slowly!!!) and have LFR open Heroic Great Vault slots, not LFR. But that's not as good - gear acquisition is both more random and less time-gated (which 'elites' seem to want).

And, for heaven's sake, make the weekly quest of 'run 5 dungeons, get a Great Vault drop' LFG and not M/M+. 'Here, do this toxic thing and you can get a piece of gear that you'll probably get from doing the toxic thing ANYWAY?' Wow, that's a GREAT incentive right there!

M0s and low M+ is easier than Heroic dungeons, why are you so terrified of having to run with a group?