Warlords of Draenor Developer Interviews, April 14 Hotfixes, Blue Tweets, Wowcraft

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Warlords of Draenor - Developer Interviews
There were a few developer interviews recently, so today we are taking a look at an interview from BlizzPro with Holinka, Kris Zierhut, and Steve Burke.

Level 90 Boost and Proving Grounds

• You won't be able to queue for Heroic Dungeons or LFR until you have a certain level of Proving Ground achievements.
• In a patch after release, Proving Grounds will be made to do a better job of telling you what you are doing wrong, rather than just being a test.
• Players that don't have Proving Ground achievements will still be able to go into normal dungeons.

Questing

• The Jade Forest quests had a very clear story, but it also had a lot of side quests that could bog you down.
• In Warlords of Draenor, your map will show you where to go to continue the main storyline, along with the locations of bonus objectives.
• The bonus objectives no longer have any story text that go with them, just a list of objectives. Now when there is quest text, you will know that it is really worth reading.

Garrisons

• After rescuing members of the Frostwolf Clan in the Warlords intro quest experience, Durotan will give you a plot of land. This is where you start building your garrison.
• After you complete their quests, some questgivers will be available for you to recruit as a follower for your garrison.
• You will be redirected to your garrison frequently throughout the leveling experience, as it is integrated into the zones and leveling experience. Every time you go back, you will see familiar faces from your questlines.
• Garrisons offer lots of hard choices that give you nice rewards, such as the buildings you choose for your limited plots. Buildings and followers aren't a permanent choice though, so if you change your mind you can change things out.
• As you go out and adventure in the world and irritate the enemies in Draenor, they will attack your garrison. You and your followers will need to fend off these attacks.

Ashran

• Ashran will have a big central battle that is pushing towards the other faction's base.
• Around the outer edges of Ashran you can find some rares and other things similar to Timeless Isle, with greater rewards to be found on the opposite faction's side of the zone.

Misc

• There are a lot of advantages to having a realm community, so there aren't any plans to allow players to join guilds on any realm.
• When you log in to Warlords of Draenor, you should be able to play with your friends. Allowing cross realm raiding and the changes to raid locks are one way the team is working towards this goal.
• The team is still talking about a good reward system for completing older content with scaling, but there aren't any announcements for now. The Level 90 boost allows you to play with your friends without needing to level through the older dungeons now, making it less urgent.

Patch 5.4.7 Hotfixes - April 14

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

• Siege of Orgrimmar: Blackfuse Bombling should no longer be incorrectly awarded from the Spoils of Pandaria encounter.
• Icecrown Citadel: Resolved an issue that could prevent players from being able to loot The Lich King if NPCs dealt fatal damage to him.
• The Eye: Added additional safeguards to the Kael'thas Sunstrider encounter to address issues that could cause him to sometimes not grant loot if he's defeated too quickly.

Achievements

• Insane in the Membrane: Resolved an issue where Exalted status with the various Steamwheedle Cartel factions, as well as Honored status with the Bloodsail Buccaneers faction, were not properly being credited if those reputations subsequently decreased. Players should now be able to earn this achievement if they have ever brought those five reputations to the required levels.

Blue Tweets

Classes
Is there any difference for "melee range" for EnhShaman vs FeralDruid? Just my misperception? Shaman seems to hit from farther.
Nope. Same range. (Celestalon)

Wait, so if you have 100% uptime on your dot until the mob dies u never get the partial ticks?
You get the duration of it. Partial ticks are the 'remainder'. It's like saying you get 6.2 ticks per cast. If you just... (Celestalon)
...cast it once, you get 6 ticks and a 0.2 partial tick. If you chain 9 of them together, you get 55 ticks and a 0.8 partial (Celestalon)
or did I misread and the duration per cast just keeps increasing by the partial amount with ticks always at fixed intervals?
Duration per cast remains fixed; doesn't change with haste. That's the point. (Celestalon)
ok I think the part I was not getting was this extra damage is handled on refresh of the dot. Correct? Thank you for the replies
The extra damage is a constant thing. Haste makes your DoTs tick faster, but doesn't change their duration. (Celestalon)
And with enough clip-chaining will 'partial' ticks ever become an extra 'full' normal tick, or are they...
Perhaps this will help: don't think of DoTs as doing X ticks. Think of them ticking at Y rate for X sec. (Celestalon)

will channels have partial ticks too? (sorry if that got asked before)
No; channels get shorter with haste, just as before. Channels are more like cast times with partial credit. (Celestalon)

Art
Is there going to be an update to the race dances? Aka. longer and smoother?
not longer, but with new rigging and animation clean up - dances should feel smoother. (artofcgrobinson)

You mean model? That is pretty much certain. There will be winged arakkoa, which already necessitates new one
new Arakkoa model for sure, not definite on Kaliri - it's on wish list right now. (artofcgrobinson)

Warlords of Draenor Stats
Wait...does Multistrike not trigger on SEF hits? Like you would do it, but your clones wouldn't?
Your SEF clones can multistrike, independently from you. (Celestalon)
So we have 3x chance to multistrike, but for 1/3rd the damage. Evens out in long run.
Well, they're separate units. You could Blackout Kick, which your clone would mimic, and it may multistrike for clone, but not you. (Celestalon)
Okay: Clarify please: 5.4: SEF clones multistrike or not? (I understand they will in 6.0)
I don't believe they do, but should be easy for you to test. (Celestalon)

Do you think making Mulistrike a tank stat is going to be a problem? 25 people rolling on the same BIS Ring, Neck, Cloak =/= fun
There won't be 25 people rolling on the same Ring, Neck, or Cloak. Tanks want Bonus Armor and Healers want Spirit, for example. (Celestalon)

Your assumptions are wrong. It's not that skewed. Budget-wise, 0.3% Crit = 1.0% Multistrike. (Celestalon)
Also, while PvE/PvP crit 200/150 crit multi 160/130 balance w/ each other, PvP they devalue vs haste or readiness, no?
You're misunderstanding the PvP vs PvE difference of Multistrike. Same average, more consistent, in PvP. (Celestalon)
Well you'd know better than me so I'll take your word for it Any news on if/how Multistrike will interact with Healing??
It will, just as with damage. (Celestalon)

Can an ele shaman's overload trigger a multistrike? Can a multistrike trigger an overload?
Yes. No. (Celestalon)
Do multistrikes get a visual spell animation like overloads do? Would be fun to be a lightning bolt machine gun
Yep. (Celestalon)

can multistrikes crit? and would getting A fireball crit followed by a Fireball Multistrike Crit proc Pyroblast!...?
Yes. No. (Celestalon)

Thanks for the answer. So would death strike MS trigger the effects twice?
Nope. (Celestalon)

How does multistrike appear in the combat log? As "Multistrike" or the spell that triggered it?
As the spell that triggered it:You Fireball Murloc for 100.You Fireball Murloc for 30. (Multistrike) (Celestalon)
How does multistrike interact with talents/passives that proc off abilities? Lava Surge, FDCL, Spell Reflected stuff?
Ones that can trigger from multistrikes will call it out specifically. (Celestalon)
Deathstrike won't heal twice off of MS? So what is the benefit to a blood dk? Seems bad.
There are other (better) benefits. It's not bad. (Celestalon)

PvE
Curious if devs feel WoW has become too difficult to play at endgame for the average player? A need to do "homework" to play.
We don't think so. No matter what we do, perfect performance will require extra effort. Takes less than before to do 90%. (Celestalon)

If healing won't be more difficult, how will more cast time on more heal not be more difficult. Like Thok HC?
Thok wouldn't exist in its current form. We design encounters to fit players' toolsets. (WatcherDev)

Does "no more dynamic difficulty swapping" mean no skipping mythic bosses by dropping down to heroic?
Yes, each difficulty will be a self-contained experience. But with less linear layouts, you can choose somewhat. (WatcherDev)
Depending on raid layout, understood. Still loot only once per lockout per boss at the Heroic/Mythic level?
Yeah, loot once per lockout. Heroic and Mythic are separate lockouts; Mythic is a fixed ID like Heroic is today. (WatcherDev)

flex N/H going live at WoD or 6.0? Roster realigns suddenly places us at needing to test how some ppl's PC can handle 20 man.
6.0. There will be a few weeks of 20-player Mythic SoO (along with flexible N/H) before Draenor unlocks. (WatcherDev)
You guys are fully retuning all of the current-tier raids to be compatible with class changes in 6.0? (Or only heroic/mythic?)
Siege of Orgrimmar, all difficulties. Prior zones aren't changing in structure or tuning, but they're trivialized by gear. (WatcherDev)

No loot from bosses in 8 weeks.. Hope you won't call me a liar after 10+. Is this your idea of loot progression in WoD?
No loot at all, or just not the specific items you need? We do have plans to limit the impact of bad luck streaks like that. (WatcherDev)

Leader can change loot option in combat when boss is low hp in order to take the loot to himself. Plans to stop this behavior?
Yes. (WatcherDev)

I get that, just thought old content would be added to the new system.
Old raids were built around the other system; not a trivial conversion, and the time is better spent on new content. (WatcherDev)

Why is that? Also, I've noticed old lockouts don't always work the new way, such as Kara. Intended?
That's how raid lockouts have worked literally since Molten Core. "Flexible" lockouts added in Cata, for Normal mode. (WatcherDev)
And the "Why" was more "why not include heroic in the new awesomeness?" Like, what made you (the team) hold back?
Flexible locks permit loot abuse by organized groups. System makes it easier to PUG, but that's not the audience MoP Heroic raids. (WatcherDev)

Any chance on revisiting KT in Tempest Keep? Perma-cc is pretty annoying. KT never heard of DR
There are mechanics in the fight to help with that. The goal isn't to make old fights trivial to solo; just doable. (WatcherDev)

What will happen to the CM teleport spells after they're removed?
Like other rewards, players who earned those teleport spells will retain them. (WatcherDev)

Why are realm first CM titles character specific instead of account-wide?
Because they reflect a skilled accomplishment with a specific class; same reason Gladiator titles aren't account-wide. (WatcherDev)

PvP
1. We'll keep an eye on the number of CC breaks in the game throughout beta. The widespread complaint was too much crowd control. (holinka)
If no one is dying because crowd control is ineffective, it's an issue. Often those breaks support a specific class kit. (holinka)
2. RBG cap is higher than arena cap. Source of major complaint and we aren't really happy with that system from a readability angle (holinka)
There are few things in the game as complicated as rating and conquest cap calculations. Should be simpler. (holinka)
3. Not really sure about what you mean by tremor totem + totem reset. Call of the Elements? (holinka)

ever thought about an underwater BG?
I think it would be awful and don't ever plan on making one. Floating combat is not fun. (holinka)
What if the game focuses on it? Aren't spaceship games (e.g. Wing Commander) basically floating combat?
But you're forced to always be moving forward. I do think those games suffer from everyone flying around in circles though. (holinka)
Well, many of them allow you to full-stop, but point taken. Sense of scale/movement/strategy is tricky in wide open 3D.
I think the average player can get very disoriented in a space game. It's helpful to have a horizon line. (holinka)

Wouldn't pvp be better if all the addons were disabled? I feel kind of cheated for not using them. Some maybe don't know them.
It depends on perspective but macros and addons have value. It's a way to tinker with your setup and improve performance. (holinka)

About Ashran, due to the limited players of RP-PVP servers, will we see people from PVP servers too? Please, don't want empty zone.
Possibly. We'll try to avoid it if possible. We'll see what the numbers look like. (holinka)

if eu has majority of players pvping as ally and the new nerf to horde and buffs to ally wont it mean horde are a dying breed n pvp
I doubt it. Globally the Horde is overrepresented. High end arena players just tend to all pick one side to be together. (holinka)

PvPers would most likely sacrafice a bit of lore for quicker same-faction BGs.
Just to be abundantly clear, same faction BGs is not on the table. (holinka)

What about allowing free, or half off, transfers from Horde to Alliance (only) to help the imbalance and queue times?
it's something we're exploring. It is A LOT more complicated than you'd think. (holinka)

Hey! Will it be possible to use [Alliance/Horde Battle Standard] in the new PvP zone Ashran?
There will be an Ashran specific version (holinka)

Professions
Any chance Spirits of Harmony ever become BoA or BoE? Don't see what the harm would be in making it so in 6.0.
No harm in 6.0? I agree. Maybe even a little earlier. (hwoome)

Reputation / Questing
Has to be TRULY different though, like leveling thru PvP vs LFD vs questing. Remember lesson from Golden Lotus dailies!
5.1-5.4 let us try out various things, 5.1 had great story unlock, 5.2 had epic treasure/raid fit, 5.4 gameplay/items (Muffinus)

World
And try to make rare mobs really rare, please. On TI, mainly, they are like the grass/ruppes on Zelda games.
Rarer mob can have higher drop chance, but less chance of you seeing it. What's ideal for you levelling/endgame? (Muffinus)

Garrisons
I noticed a "Dance Studio" on a picture of the garrison UI. Care to shed some light on its purpose? Moral?
Just the UI guys having a little fun Not to say that there won't be dancing with your troops... (Muffinus)

How mandatory will garrisons be? They do NOT interest me at all. I'm starting to worry they won't be optional content.
Do you consider the farm mandatory? Why or why not? (Muffinus)
Doesn't garrison have something to do with professions? Sounds more mandatory than farm's cooking items.
What elements of your professions are a "must do" for you? Does that change over the course of the expac? (Muffinus)

Can we rearrange buildings after we built it for garrisons?
Yep, this was in the Blizzcon Q+A (Muffinus)

Wowcraft - Episode 2: Quest for Tooth
The second episode of Wowcraft takes a look at collection quests.

[moveth]

I couldnt imagine going 8 full weeks with no loot from bosses o.O sounds like a lie, honestly.

[Deleted]

I couldnt imagine going 8 full weeks with no loot from bosses o.O sounds like a lie, honestly.

When your only upgrades are heroic warforged it's not that unusual.

[Korrah]

I couldnt imagine going 8 full weeks with no loot from bosses o.O sounds like a lie, honestly.

What ? ._.

[MrExcelion]

"You won't be able to queue for Heroic Dungeons or LFR until you have a certain level of Proving Ground achievements."

Haven't watched the interview, but this was a miscommunication. PG is just for Heroic Dungeons, not LFR. Watcher recently reiterated this over twitter (can get the source if needed)

[Zergin8r]

I couldnt imagine going 8 full weeks with no loot from bosses o.O sounds like a lie, honestly.

I did Naxx from the 2nd week of Wrath til Ulduar and never saw a piece of gear on my main... I got a few pieces on alt runs though.

[Zka]

Haven't watched the interview, but this was a miscommunication. PG is just for Heroic Dungeons, not LFR. Watcher recently reiterated this over twitter (can get the source if needed)

Okay, but this is a new interview, isn't it? Maybe they changed their minds (I really hope they did).

[Penguintamer]

"You won't be able to queue for Heroic Dungeons or LFR until you have a certain level of Proving Ground achievements."

Haven't watched the interview, but this was a miscommunication. PG is just for Heroic Dungeons, not LFR. Watcher recently reiterated this over twitter (can get the source if needed)

Wow I was hoping that would be the opposite. People in LFR are fucking retards compared to people in heroic dungeons, and they literally never improve as the tier goes on. Heroic Dungeons at least get easier as the expansion goes on. There better be a way to queue up for proving grounds.

[Deleted]

The bonus objectives no longer have any story text that go with them, just a list of objectives. Now when there is quest text, you will know that it is really worth reading.

That is fantastic news.

[fleshfurnace]

I couldnt imagine going 8 full weeks with no loot from bosses o.O sounds like a lie, honestly.

I went 3 months doing nothing but celestials and ordos and got one pvp piece using coins every week. Hence why im taking a break until WoD because i could care less about doing the same shit over and over for another 3-5 months especially when i'm not getting anything out of it. I "could" raid but what's the point?

[Buttonmasher]

You won't be able to queue for Heroic Dungeons or LFR until you have a certain level of Proving Ground achievements.

I'm quite glad about this. It's rather maniacal that the only thing preventing some people from entering is iLvl. I have to wonder if it's character specific or account wide. I'd prefer character specific so that you can't just run in and faceroll the PG with a certain class and then shit everywhere when you go in as the #1 retard. Sure it'll be tedious to get every character through. But I personally don't care.

Players that don't have Proving Ground achievements will still be able to go into normal dungeons.

This is where I bring it into question again as to whether or not it's account-wide. Most achievements are account wide, but I suppose that doesn't mean you'll necessarily have credit to enter in Heroic Dungeons / LFR.

[Lockula]

I couldnt imagine going 8 full weeks with no loot from bosses o.O sounds like a lie, honestly.

Apparently you don't run in a 10 man group. Last piece that was an upgrade I got was heroic bracers back in mid March at the latest. Granted I have gotten the heroic immerseus cloak twice on bonus rolls.

[Gilian]

They have a nice way of looking at things.

The bonus objectives no longer have any story text that go with them, just a list of objectives. Now when there is quest text, you will know that it is really worth reading.

I will still not read quest text and I think the people who did can judge themselves what is worth reading or not.

Having only an indicator to point out it's the main story is enough for us to "know that it is really worth reading".

The team is still talking about a good reward system for completing older content with scaling, but there aren't any announcements for now. The Level 90 boost allows you to play with your friends without needing to level through the older dungeons now, making it less urgent.

How often will they use that excuse? XP nerfs are not urgent because we got level 90 boost. Making leveling fun is not urgent because we got level 90 boost.
Those leveling perks, which I assume are only going to be implemented for level 90 to 100, also shows they let the 1-90 leveling experience be for what it is... because, I am guessing, the level 90 boost allows you to play with friends and skip it anyway.

Strip that baby down more to cut costs... :/. "We remove 90% of the talents because this way it is easier to balance." "Oh, and these are also more "fun" and are "real" choices."

90-100 leveling better be really amazing.

[sicstynine]

As you go out and adventure in the world and irritate the enemies in Draenor, they will attack your garrison. You and your followers will need to fend off these attacks.

No, please no! Reminds me of the good old GTA: SA where you couldn't do shit anymore without your territory getting attacked...

[Deleted]

They have a nice way of looking at things.

"The bonus objectives no longer have any story text that go with them, just a list of objectives. Now when there is quest text, you will know that it is really worth reading."

I will still not read quest text and I think the people who did can judge themselves what is worth reading or not.

Having only an indicator to point out it's the main story is enough for us to "know that it is really worth reading".

This, 110% this.

Good fluff text was a major reason I ever took "bonus quests" and one of the things which set WoW apart from other MMO's, because they'd use the "useless" quests to make something fun and humorous. If this isn't the case anymore? Well that's quests I'll never bother to pick up.

Thank you Blizzard...

[tangers58]

Love Blizzard logic... hey we don't need to fix old content because you can just pay us to skip it now!

[Mermaid]

This, 110% this.

Good fluff text was a major reason I ever took "bonus quests" and one of the things which set WoW apart from other MMO's, because they'd use the "useless" quests to make something fun and humorous. If this isn't the case anymore? Well that's quests I'll never bother to pick up.

Thank you Blizzard...

Blizzard just seems to be getting lazier and lazier. They have a way of making their cut backs sound positive though. I'm sure all the fanbois will defend this to the death.

[MasterHamster]

Love Blizzard logic... hey we don't need to fix old content because you can just pay us to skip it now!

"fix" old content?
Considering they're talking about old raids, small wonder it's low priority.

[Terminal Lance]

Lmao'd at the wowcraft episode!

Multistrike + Mastery for Ele Shamans look promising. LB > MS > Overload > MS combos.. that's alot of electricity.

[Duridi]

"There are a lot of advantages to having a realm community, so there aren't any plans to allow players to join guilds on any realm."

As a long time player, who already have an established social circle, I am a bit disappointed by this. I do understand their reasoning, but I've ended up in a situation where this is seriously messing up my ingame social interaction.

I have created my own horde of alts on the realm where I've always had my main character. The problem is, I started playing during vanilla, and I have exactly zero stable friends left on this server. They have either quit, or transfered server. A handfull of my long time friends all changed to the same server, and joined the same guild. I created an alt on their server to better keep in touch, and eventually grew in to knowing more people in this guild. The problem is, my entire character progression is stuck on my original server(I see my alts as a part of my character progression, as they support eachother through professions and roles), alongside friends that occationally log back on, but are no longer reliable as playmates. They aren't reliable anymore, as it takes a while between each time they log on, and we rarely end up with active accounts, or just being online, at the same time anymore. Because of this, I do play a lot more with the people on the server where that tiny group of friends went. That's the only place I get social interaction, but logging on to their server, seriously halts my character progression. It feel like I am wasting my time playing the alts I have over there, which is seriously demotivating. I simply wish I could have their guildchat, while soloing on my original server, and joining the occational group with them through RealID.

Transfering everything I have already created, over to that other server, is not an option. It would cost a serious amount of money(got 10 high level characters there), and further punishment would be an ever bigger distance to those of my friends that are still there, just not as active anymore. I also have my son and my bf on my original server, aswell as my bf's best friend, which he does 50% of the solo content with. I'd basicly have to drag with me those 3 aswell, and the transfer cost of two os those, would be on my(our) economy aswell as my own 10 characters. No chance that is gonna happen.

Make new friends? New friends show up from time to time, but I am not gonna "replace" everyone I already have just because the game doesn't support my social situation. I don't know about others, but there's a limit to how many people I can have a stable and regular relationship with.

So yeah, I really wish guilds could be cross-realm aswell.