Developer Q&A - Matt Goss: Legion Itemization

[ls-]

If that is their stance then they should limit boss fights ( normal/hc or mythic ) to a push one button and stand still, because without addons killing some of them is kinda like winning the lottery.

Well, that's the reason why they've been limiting addons in raid/combat environments since late Vanilla / TBC launch

If things go too far, they gut/restrict API, if this approach is impossible, they just don't use feature in question in later expansions (reforging case).

[Darkynhalvos]

What they said in the Q&A did happen-- once you reforged one item you ended up reforging EVERYTHING.

That was only because of hit and expertise caps.
If they re-introduced reforging now, you'd only need to do the one item, not everything.

[markos82]

That was only because of hit and expertise caps.
If they re-introduced reforging now, you'd only need to do the one item, not everything.

Yeah but thats why they added mass milling, why they are now adding option to take all mail from mailbox ( after 12 years ), and so on. Some addons are there to show blizzard that people that are not on they pay list have more brain and common sense what this game needs in order to help people. Not to give them unfair advantage just a little bit of help.

BEcause of that i think the reason they told us why they removed reforging is BS, It has to do with playing more in order to get perfect gear combo while with reforge you could just drops stats you dont need and go for stats you do need. Less time playing in farming dungeons and so on...

[Jonuts]

Reforging also meant an interruption to your raid, as you had to go and reforge an item.

Like this can't be implemented on a mount. Not only that, but it was only a major issue because hit and expertise caps were extremely important, meaning you had to constantly reforge nearly all your gear. Reforging would be a fucking godsend right now without that shit making a hot mess of it.

The team likes dungeon trinkets being useful.

Not gonna lie. The team can go eat a bag of dicks. All my BiS raid trinkets are...dungeon trinkets. Fuck you team. Fuck you. I suppose this wouldn't be a problem if I was actually excited to run Halls of Valor on Mythic + until my eyes bleed every time the ilvl cap from Mythic + goes up, but I'm not. I'm really, *really* not.

[mishiko]

So basically they had an interview where they just basically reiterated over and over "We like what we've done. Thanks, we're not changing anything. We're awesome."

Except, *everyone* who plays your game disagrees with you. Jesus Effin Christ.

[Deleted]

next xpac notes:

Secondary stats removed.

Sounds drastic but i'd support this. That would mean ilvl upgrade = equip it no matter what. I can't think of one single benefit secondary stats on gear adds to the game. They should do simple spec specific secondary stats templates players cannot influence directly. i'm so fed up with constantly circling around the question if an item is and upgrade or not, meeting must have breaks points etc.

[Goldenboy1]

Back in WOD when mythic dungeons were released, I was adamantly against it. Players were being rewarded with high ilv gear for little effort. The end result was inflated ilvs resulting in unskilled players with little experience being picked over veterans due to a slight ilv difference. Currently gear does not equal skill, a general sense for performance, or even progression. The current warforged/titanforged mechanics ruined character progression. An item from helping Grandma Tauren kill off some grubs is sometimes better than an item received after defeating the Corrupted Bear God Ursoc. In Emerald Nightmare the expansion was new and this was not a massive issue. However, look at Mythic Nighthold. The gear being dropped is competing with ToV, dungeon, WQ, and Emerald Nightmare gear due to this system. Additionally, upgrades have been largely marginalized to the point where seven or eight players receiving gear upgrades did little to help the transition from progression to farm.

Reforging was not a godsend system in the past. However, currently reforging will be an excellent solution to secondary issues. An item of superior level, which is supposed to be indicative of power, may be worse due to the stats on the item. With reforging players can now select from a range of items dropped from high end content while preserving their secondary stats. Secondary stats are exactly as the name suggests, secondary. Gearing should not be focused on a secondary item component.

The relic system is a failed design. The drops translate to three "weapon" drops. This concept is not too awful since relics drop from more bosses than weapons did in the past. The main issue is that there are BIS relics, not a BIS weapon. Sometimes, a raid does not even have your BIS relic which leads players to selecting relics from old content which is toxic to a progression based MMO.

Overall old content needs to return to its "old" status. Players should not be carrying over titanforged items recieved months ago in place of new items from the most difficult content. Dungeons were designed to be a gate way to low end raiding in order to provide players with some items to start raiding. The order for progression, gear included, was max level- dungeons- Lfr- normal raiding- heroic raiding- mythic raiding. Once you hit mythic raiding you only had heroic trinkets or tier pieces that carried over until they were replaced. Now in Legion at that mythic level you still use dungeon items, normal items, heroic items, and now even world quest items.

[Kaedis]

If they're normalised many people (majority?) won't be able to acquire them at all. W/o normalisation bad players will eventually be able to use gear to compensate for their lack of skill, otherwise they won't be able to get it at all.

I mean, isn't that the point of the challenge skin? That it indicators you're particularly good at your class, that you've mastered it in an above-average way? That's how they were sold.

Without gear normalization, though, the skins actually indicate that you're particularly geared, and as a result will automatically become less and less prestigious over time as power creep from new content eventually trivializes them.

Without gear normalization, you can't even call them challenge skins, because it's not based around a challenging scenario, it's based on a scenario requiring a certain amount of gear to be trivial.

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Like this can't be implemented on a mount. Not only that, but it was only a major issue because hit and expertise caps were extremely important, meaning you had to constantly reforge nearly all your gear. Reforging would be a fucking godsend right now without that shit making a hot mess of it.

Hell, I've been advocating for ages to add the reforging interface back into the same window as socketing. You shift-right-click the item, select the stat to reforge from and to, commit, done. Make the first reforge (ie. from an item that's never been reforged) free and any time (out of combat), and then make changing an item's reforging have the same requirements as changing talents: out of combat and in a rested zone or under the effects of a tome or codex. Problem solved. No NPCs needed, no issues with interrupting raids (because new items that drop can be immediately reforged while out of combat without restrictions), and puts the same restrictions on changing your reforging before every boss as exist on changing your talents before every boss.

How is this so freakin' hard?

[Deleted]

Great game , but i really HATE the RNG !
Makes you "FEEL" frustrated as hell at times .
Very bad game design .

[ls-]

I mean, isn't that the point of the challenge skin? That it indicators you're particularly good at your class, that you've mastered it in an above-average way? That's how they were sold.

Without gear normalization, though, the skins actually indicate that you're particularly geared, and as a result will automatically become less and less prestigious over time as power creep from new content eventually trivializes them.

Without gear normalization, you can't even call them challenge skins, because it's not based around a challenging scenario, it's based on a scenario requiring a certain amount of gear to be trivial.

W/ gear normalisation they'd have to undertune them, e.g. PG Silver difficulty, so majority of people would be able to complete them. So why bother?

You can't make content that's available to everyone and that's kinda supposed to be done by everyone to be really difficult, LFR is a good example of content tuning for masses. For many among its target audience not standing in fire is a challenge.

Sadly, saying something like "git gud" won't work.

[judgementofantonidas]

YAY another appearance to earn.
Great there are some steps to complete it.

Hey wait this sounds like proving grounds endless redux. Which few average players were capable of completing due to it having little relevance to the actions normally needed to operate in their class.

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RNG is the dumbest shit, I've run dungeons, heroics, and Mythics as a tank, and have got no loot in the past. How does that HELP me? It doesn't. It makes it harder for me to get better gear.

Blizzard is not about helping you. The longer you have to play the more money they make and the less stress is put on them making something new.

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• It's actually an amazing solution the the current problem because it means the more stats are more globally more valuable, because you can always have at least some of your 'best' stat on a piece of gear.
• No it didn't. The issue you're talking about is hit/expertise/haste/crit caps and soft caps. Moreover, what is the relation to the problem of something that is a large item level upgrade (untradeable) being a performance downgrade?
• No it didn't. Actually never. If it did, how is that any different from getting an upgrade today that requires gems/enchants, or grabbing items out of the bank? This is just another excuse that doesn't address the issue.

• This would be true if warforge was a small bonus, such as 4 ilvl, and Titanforging was a slightly better bonus, such as 8 ilvl. Allowing an item to Titanforge to literally double the base stats is just absurd.
• There is still little-to-no chance of getting an upgrade. What this has actually created is that people who do not massively out-gear Normal/Heroic raids are quickly unable to join groups because the people who are running them for the low chance of item upgrades are not interested in 'carrying' appropriately geared players. Also, running with higher-geared party members increases the chance of them not needing an upgrade and sharing it.
• It is not happening more than it should. It simply shouldn't be so required. And it is required.
• Look above. It is required. I get 0 upgrades from M+ without a titanforge. I get 0 upgrades from Heroic NH without a Warforge. Most mythic raiders get 0 upgrades from Mythic raid without a Warforge. Am I supposed to just run a higher difficulty of +15 to get better gear?

I actually kind of feel bad for ToddMatt. He obviously doesn't play or understand the game, but he was hired to perform some job at Blizzard, so he took it. I just wish that they'd check their ego at the door and spend some time looking at feedback instead of repeatedly spewing their uninformed excuses and destroying the game that they were hired to maintain.

have to agree with you on Lore. bring back alienna and we are golden.

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So basically they had an interview where they just basically reiterated over and over "We like what we've done. Thanks, we're not changing anything. We're awesome."

Except, *everyone* who plays your game disagrees with you. Jesus Effin Christ.

Hitting the bullshit button on "having to stop the raid to reforge". Not one piece was so vital that you need to stop the raid just to go get it reforged.