Developer Q&A with Ion Hazzikostas

[Redecle]

This is really starting to look concerning about the usage of appearances in the future, we need confirmation about this. Legion is coming to an end as the story doesn't seem to be progressing that much beyond 7.3. And for what's it worth some of us have been working almost day and night to unlock this stuff and are still nowhere close to finishing.

The last 7 months i've been working on 6 characters and nothing but artifact appearances, that obviously contains doing the content in the expansion, but i haven't enjoyed doing some content, it's just all about doing what the next unlock requires. 6-7 times I don't even know how many of doing Balance of Power progress every week, worst fucking design ever. PVP hasn't been about pvp anymore, it's just what gets you the fastest prestige, cause it's the slowest thing ever. And of course the skin you want is the last tier one.

I've done the bare minimum to raid or anything really so I can get as many of them as possible on as many characters as possible. Yet I haven't even touched a single challenge yet outside my main, no time simply. And for PVP i've pretty much had to choose only one character to go beyond the first tier of unlocks cause it takes so much time to prestige.

I just completed Balance of Power on all the characters I needed it with.
Next week will be all about doing the Glory of Legion Hero and more pvp grind, i'm prestige 5 so 10 more levels to go. Intentionally i've saved the challenges for Argus and 910 gear hoping that's enough to bruteforce some of the specs that I don't play as much hence don't have the experience or skill with, but i'm not sure. Main is now 911 and cannot do the challenge yet, 80% is the best attempt of it on the best day with optimal setup and luck, he should be 915 or 920 in 7.3 so not really worried about that, it's the rest who can't be geared that high, just simply on the matter of the fact that it already takes 3 entire weekdays to do 6 toons through all LFR wings, cause that's the highest one can pretty much go, with the amount of time needed. There's no time to do guild raiding on one character cause that's a 2-3 evenings and only gets you one character high enough, when you need every toon to be that minimum 910-915. Heroic KJ, just buy the kill at some point with gold, no time to progress there. Same for RBGs, just buy 10 wins with gold.

It was already said the system was meant to encourage to be played only by one character at launch, but Blizzard should know better that people will go above and beyond it.
I already just had to cut half of my alts out of this progress on the basis of who had the best skins cause 1-1,5 year expansion simply even as a full time job is not enough time to unlock every skin that you want. At launch and after WoD I myself was expecting at least the minimum of a 2 year expansion maybe 3 or 3,5 years of Legion to do this, but it doesn't look like it.

This is a working task that doesn't even have confirmation are we doing this for nothing? I've given up my other life outside this game to unlock these things that may or may not be usable in the future, just to prevent another CM mode set setback that if you didn't unlock them now you can't use them. Would be nice to know if we spend the entire year of doing something that if it's still there or not, cause this is something some of us actually care about. Last 4 years my WoW has been transmogs, nothing more, would be nice to know with a 100% certainty not a guess of maybe at this point that i'm not spending my time for nothing.

[Dracullus]

Try doing something that should've been account wide on 12 characters and see how you feel when you're done, idiot.

Use your brain before you comment. It's a long ass chain that takes months to complete and you're bound to do it on every character as they were incapable of making it account wide which the entire community has been pretty vocal about. Nobody likes it the way it currently is.

So yes, it's insanely long.

I'm doing it on every char, start new one every two months. It's still only 9 dungeons and around 5 total raid clears (+few quests). Doable in 2-3 weeks (and you must dedicate only few hours a week for that). I give you numbers, you call me idiot - yeah, arguments are clearly on your side.

And this "vocal community" is like children than ask for more candy, eat everything and cry that there is no candy left. I like to play all chars, after I saw how apperances works, I set reachable goal - I will get only basic, recolors are impossible to get on every char - and distributed my time between different chars. I will never be burned out or have nothing to do.

[mingarrubia]

Well I'll be damned. It sounds like they are learning. Of course only time will tell if this is really so.

Oh you sweet summer child

[Deleted]

Just blame your player base if you're too incompetent and impotent to balance more than 4 classes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This as a phenomenom has been proven over and over lol

[decsis]

Or in one short sentence: "Zero fuck given about PVP!"

[Fabinas]

Well I'll be damned. It sounds like they are learning. Of course only time will tell if this is really so.

LOL. One phalanx should be cut off his fingers every time he claims "the team has learned from...". It's the only way to stop the shit flowing.

[Deleted]

LOL. One phalanx should be cut off his fingers every time he claims "the team has learned from...". It's the only way to stop the shit flowing.

I'm not claiming they are learning. I'm claiming it seems they are learning. Big difference. If I had faith in the developers i would be playing wow instead of FFXIV. But faith can be reclaimed.

[Fabinas]

I'm not claiming they are learning. I'm claiming it seems they are learning. Big difference. If I had faith in the developers i would be playing wow instead of FFXIV. But faith can be reclaimed.

Just PR shit mate. Don't even fall for the chance that they seem to be learning. They are not.

[Nevcairiel]

i don't really care about it being an even playing field. i want to get the ak quickly so i can speed up the grind more quickly. this is just more artificial timegating.

How is this in any way worse then we had before?

Instead of every player doing a research that takes 5 days, now the system just automatically increases the rank by one every week. If you join a couple weeks later, you're not behind, you automatically get to the same place that everyone else is.

The 4 hour research was solely for catch-up purposes for players that were behind the curve - which is not something that will happen to anyone in this system.
If you were at the top of the AK research curve, it always took 5 days to research.

If anything, this makes it far easier for alts and people coming back later. Hit level 110 and be immediately at current max AK, do one world quest and have Concordance unlocked from the huge multiplier. Alts could possibly buy catch-up tomes now, but returning players could not.

If you saw the 4 hour research time on your characters, you probably were not all that active of a player, and the automatic catch-up should benefit you even more.

[Calaim]

I've already thrown in the towel for this game in regard to RNG loot and per-spec AP grinds. These systems could have been handles so much better but Blizz doubled- and tripled-down on these godawful mechanics. Raiding was fun but the feeling that I was doing myself and my raid a disservice by playing another spec that wasn't as high as my main spec, or not having the right legos or having a gearset that wasn't as titan/warforged really turned me off to the entire idea of continuing this game. Sub time has run out and I've finally uninstalled all Blizzard games from my computer because I feel every one of them follows the same slot machine reward system for one my day's worth of play. I'm finally free...

[Alvito]

For them to not have a solid answer about what will happen to artifact appearances post legion at this point in the expansion is rather curious imho.

I'm not saying it 100% suggest they're planning to carry the system forward but it makes me wonder.

They have gone back and forth on people being able to acquire skins down the line. They have been very clear on the fact they do not want to and do not plan to have artifact weapons continue after Legion.

[Fappy]

At minimum it sounds like I need to do the Guardian and Feral skill challenges (keep wiping at 5% on Kruul). Druid forms are kind of more important than weapon skins, imo. It's gonna feel especially shitty for Feral and Guardian mains that skipped this expansion.

[Mhyroth]

Let's fix things people wanted to see fixed since the BETA.
Let's fix it after a year of the Live game to show the community/playerbase we "do" something.

[Svad1287]

Unlocking skins, in later expacs, wtf? - We have worked for those fucking skins, spent countless hours and days, doing Withered Army scenario, farming hundreads of mobs, spent days without end, waiting for the goddamn blob to spawn in WPL, Fuck blizzard and fuck their dev's who thinks this is a "really good idea".

[Deleted]

Split Raids
- Sharing loot lockouts across difficulties would have a big negative impact.

READ: "We WANT people to waste time by doing split raids cause of our super fun and enganging Titanforge-RNG-System. This has totally nothing to do with Blizzard trying to prolong the game by wasting peoples time (and Money!), who are foolishly chasing that ONE last item they desperately want"...what a joke.

[arcaneshot]

Unlocking skins, in later expacs, wtf? - We have worked for those fucking skins, spent countless hours and days, doing Withered Army scenario, farming hundreads of mobs, spent days without end, waiting for the goddamn blob to spawn in WPL, Fuck blizzard and fuck their dev's who thinks this is a "really good idea".

Somehow you think getting the Corrupted Ashbringer is going to be 'easier' in later expansions? Or that you can overgear the RNG of the Withered Army Training chest?

Your time investment is hardly changing in those since most of those hidden appearances are not actually tied to your gear level.

Split Raids
- Sharing loot lockouts across difficulties would have a big negative impact.

READ: "We WANT people to waste time by doing split raids cause of our super fun and enganging Titanforge-RNG-System. This has totally nothing to do with Blizzard trying to prolong the game by wasting peoples time (and Money!), who are foolishly chasing that ONE last item they desperately want"...what a joke.

Don't be stupid. This would kill everyone who runs both Normal and Heroic mode in the same week.

[Svad1287]

Read it all. Challenge Skins and +15 Mythic skins will not be obtainable. Only the others.

I don't see an issue with hidden ones and the others being obtainable personally.

I read it as "those who already unlocked the skins in Legion, will not be able to *unlock* those they have, only in later xpacs, where they fit the theme, the m15+ and challenge ones, will be unlockable in the next xpac, if you alrdy did them"?

[Decisive The Hallowed]

The team isn't satisfied with just letting you keep the Artifact Appearances you have unlocked during Legion, as you feel like you have to rush and unlock all the appearances before the expansion is over.

So...what? Does that mean unlocking our Artifact Appearance mean nothing after Legion? Do we not keep our appearances at all? Seems almost pointless at all then going through all the trouble knowing these appearances we are working towards will be usless after Legion...

[Svad1287]

So...what? Does that mean unlocking our Artifact Appearance mean nothing after Legion? Do we not keep our appearances at all? Seems almost pointless at all then going through all the trouble knowing these appearances we are working towards will be usless after Legion...

As I understand it, we will be able to unlock, those we alrdy unlocked, when and if and xpac theme, fits the theme of said skins, so in theory, we could be waiting for 3-4 xpacs, before getting the skins, we unlocked in Legion, which is why I am fucking furious right now, with those fuckheads, going back on what they said, earlier in Leion, during a Q&A.

[clevin]

Mythic Kil'jaeden was overtuned. They made it a little too hard, but that allowed them to nerf it. Hundreds of hours of testing took place internally.
This tier increased healing requirements across the board by increasing raid damage, but they went a little bit too far.
The internal testing team was better than anticipated on this fight and has been getting better over the years, so when they increased everything by a percentage to make it challenging for the top guilds that was a little bit too much.

Really? Are they arguing that their internal test team is WF level? Better than Method etc? And if they tested for hundred of hours how did they mistune the fight so badly??

The team learned a lot from how Patch 7.2 unfolded. Day 1 it felt like there wasn't a lot to do after the intro.

SO tired of this line. I knew that 7.2 felt bad the first day I played it - it was dead obvious that there wasn't a lot you could do. How the hell did they not get this internally/