Developer Q&A with Ion Hazzikostas - Battle for Azeroth

[Nurasu]

He said the Horde being evil is a matter of perspective, not that evil in general is subjective, the nuance is: The Forsaken probably act evil, the Tauren do not, the Horde is not just the Forsaken and also some inviidual Forsaken may disagree as much with Sylvanas as many Orcs disagreed with Garrosh (but well on the other side, the Forsaken a probably more loyal to their leader).

True, but this isn't a Bioware game - we don't get to make any decisions, only play through what the Blizzard writers have laid out for us. In this expansion, that happens to be the role of the villains.

[Deleted]

Love the removal of ML, it's like a tumor being removed, feels great.

[Gum]

Been a good ride boys, 14 years is a hell of a long time.

[oathy]

I love this Q&A.

No high elves.
No GCD change being reverted
There isn't black&white in terms of which faction is evil
Personal loot stays - split raids killed.

I just love all of this. If you don't like it, leave.

Well having played through the horde scenario earlier.
It came across as pretty evil. And this is coming from a horde player since 2006
Was actually glad to get it out of the way.

Would they ever consider an alliance leader doing something on those lines?
being given the wrong advice or as we see a real life just a bad leader doing a bad thing.

[Dadwen]

"Losing things never feels good. Lessons were learned about how systems like this will work in the future."

and fucking _4_ lines below it.

"he team is trying to get classes to a good base state where each expansion can add interesting abilities that will be left behind each expansion."

what the actually F

Most of my friends left the game due to getting tired of relearning their class every expansion (I unsubbed due to the SV change to melee) what's wrong with staying the same or slowly growing (the character *hero throughout the expansions but the challenges, stories etc all change to keep it interesting)

*don't need 10 new spells every expansion and sure the hell don't need to lose however many numbers either just makes you feel weaker.

[Alayea]

Wowhead posted the high elves question as

When deciding on Allied Races, why did you choose Void Elves instead of High Elves?
Void Elves are basically High Elves. They have a slightly different backstory but if you want a tall, blonde hair elf, that's a Blood Elf. We just met Alleria and got the backstory of the Void Elf and they wanted to add a race that looked a little like the Blood Elf and Void Elves fit -- eye color isn't the same, maybe contact lens in the future.

So is it void elves are like high elves or blood elves are like high elves.

Well in Blizzard's opinion, it's probably both. :|

[Deleted]

Why would we ever make a change that people don't like or doesn't feel good? The team knows the initial reaction would be negative. At the end of the day, they want everyone to enjoy the game and it to feel good.

Translate: You think you do but you don't.

Feedback about what feels bad about your spec after the GCD changes is helpful. Asking to revert the change because it is bad isn't helpful.

Translate: Fuck you. We know everything better.

When you kill a boss, it isn't about if there is something on the corpse that you want, but if someone is going to give you that loot. It disconnects the reward from killing the boss.
You deserve the loot for killing the boss.

Translate: Fuck your guilds. We will now decide about your fun.

People in guild can reasonable share loot loot will drop like Before but only for someone for mé its better this way cause i be in guilds where Leader dont care about highest roll and just put item to friend this need to be killed... With personal everybody have equal chance drop loot

[huldu]

I'm glad they are sticking with the idea. Even if it's the worst thing ever all changes are good at the end of the day. You either adapt or you don't, simple as that. You're more than welcome to come back and complain at the launch of next expansion however.

[Notshauna]

Except no.

I don't understand how people continue to interpret "vocal minority" as majority.

I get beefs with the game and its design, even if I don't agree with said beefs. But the hyperbolic claims of majority are so TBC.

I am under no illusion that the majority of player's are tuned into the Q&A or are even aware of it, in fact I know that we represent around 5% of the player base. The thing is what they say in the Q&A is actually meaningless but the attitudes and beliefs of the dev team do matter as that shows up in their work. And the WoW team has a deep seated animosity towards their player base and it shows up whenever they decide to make a change, the player feedback is irrelevant they're going to go through with it regardless. How much longer until they do something extremely stupid and ignore feedback until it's live?

There is also the issue of expansion abilities, something that they somehow can't put two and two together. They've outright said the leading cause of players leaving the game is class changes so of course Blizzard in their infinite wisdom has came up with a system that causes classes to have integral parts of their rotation on a expansion by expansion basis.

[Interim]

What I've gotten from this interview so far: You will play the way we want you to play or not at all. Fuck you.

Exactly right. Shame it wasnt this way from the beginning. This can be analogues that should b eapplied to many areas of life these days. Millenials just dont seem to get it.

[Interim]

Seems silly to me that you play an mmorpg and the last sentence is so entitled that i could literary be a meme, so kudos

If you want a chery on top also say "you dont pay my sub you dont tell me that i cant wear cloth as a hunter"

to be fair, the game can hardly be considered an mmo at all anymore. with the queues. instancing. isntant travel. moba/arcade gameplay, scaling, auto loot distribution, and the list goes on...

[Toppy]

I suppose there is that aspect. Change is often desired but not often accepted. Everyone has their own view about what is or isn't good. With various factions of player groups having competing views on what is good or bad for the game, there will never be consensus. Ever.

That is particularly a strange position for which a development team must design. How do you please all of the people all of the time? From the last couple or few decades of gaming, I've never once seen 100% agreement on any feature or change in a game. Maybe there shouldn't be either. Having differing views opens opportunity for improvement. If we all agreed all of the time, the game would never truly be innovative.

Thats a flippant way of ignoring problems though. For Legion and BfA there has been near universal disdain for certain design decisions. Such as the legendaries or the pruning. Likewise many specs there is an overwhelming agreement that shit is wrong.

Yes at times its hard to tell what is what.

But other times its blatantly obvious.

[yinyatto]

Hey guys, Ion must be in the Twilight's hammer cult cus he is certainly bring about the hour of twilight am i right. xD

[Deleted]

Hey guys, Ion must be in the Twilight's hammer cult cus he is certainly bring about the hour of twilight am i right. xD

Hehe Kinda funny

[RoKPaNda]

And who pays for the game do you think?
Treat your customers properly and with respect (and listen to their feedback). That's how long-standing companies are still going strong to this day and have a returning customer base who come for the quality they enjoy and are willing to pay for.

But which section of the playerbase do you listen to? They're listening to the majority of their playerbase. At no point should they make decisions that impact the entire game around the sub-5% of us that raid Mythic. Most of our feedback involves fucking up the game for everyone else. That's not healthy. They ARE listening to what everyone else wants, we already have the best shit.

Like the loot change, I don't even like Ion but he's right. We exploit the shit out of recruits. You can see posts in this very forum from people who SHARD GEAR before giving it to recruits. That's fucked up, I've always thought that's fucked up. Being a recruit in most Mythic guilds is an awful experience, you put in the work and you get nothing for it. Loot distribution causes drama. Again, on this very forum look at all the stories of guilds disbanding over loot.

[glowpipe]

Most of my friends left the game due to getting tired of relearning their class every expansion (I unsubbed due to the SV change to melee) what's wrong with staying the same or slowly growing (the character *hero throughout the expansions but the challenges, stories etc all change to keep it interesting)

*don't need 10 new spells every expansion and sure the hell don't need to lose however many numbers either just makes you feel weaker.

thats not actually the issue here tho. I am also glad that we don't have a plethora of spells. But that the devs are so far out and manage to contradict themselves this bad.

[Sevyvia]

So... having not seen the Q&A nor had the time available to watch it back, can someone clarify what's in the post regarding open world PvP? They're still refusing to apply templates to it and just going with "the mythic geared raider is just going to mow you down, suck it up"?

[Harbour]

If you are happy with the pacing and rotation of your class in Legion, the team isn't looking to significantly change that in Battle for Azeroth.

*Looking at Holy Paladin turning into shit on Beta*
Really, Ion? Fuck you, moron.

[Raziella]

go play a moba, instant teleport to a map. Have fun

Explain to me exactly how running to a raid, and waiting for others to do so, creates a worthwhile or compelling experience.

[baskev]

lol i hating him more and more...

Blood Elves are basically High Elves. Slightly different eye color and backstory, but if you want to be a light skinned elf, that is basically a Blood Elf. Giving that to the Alliance would blur the line between factions.
There aren't a ton of High Elves out there in WoW.
If you are Alliance any want to be an elf, the Horde is there for you.

Enough video's why they are not.

But lets break it down shale we:
Slightly different eye color and backstory <> Nightfallen vs night elves. 2 tauren spieces...
Alliance would blur the line between factions <> Yeah and panda's worked out crappy...oohh wait they did not.
There aren't a ton of High Elves out there in WoW <> same could be said for void elves. Hell likely there are more high elves as void void elves.
If you are Alliance any want to be an elf, the Horde is there for you <> so better said: screw you. you are not getting anything cool. Horde is getting all the cool races, and all their wishes.