August 24 Hotfixes, Dev Interviews, Mob Scaling

[chaud]

Puzzle Lab, Popular Meta Discussion, - Value Town #181

Heroes of the Storm Patch Notes - August 22, 2018

Overwatch PTR Patch Notes, MEKA Pilots' and Mech Names, Custom Overwatch Nike Shoes

Patch 8.0.1 Hotfixes - August 24, 2018
Of special note is this hotfix: "Many Wanted: quests on the enemy continent now reward 7th Legion or Honorbound reputation", as these quests have been reset.

Azerite Powers

• Duplicative Incineration (Mage) damage reduced by 50%.
  
• Galvanizing Spark (Mage) Arcane Blast damage increase reduced by 10%.
  
• High Noon (Druid) damage reduced by 52%.
  
• Inevitable Demise (Warlock) no longer erroneously increases Drain Soul damage.
  
• Judicious Defense (Paladin) fixed an issue causing this trait to display two separate buff icons.
  
• Pressure Point (Monk) damage for Brewmaster reduced by 60%. Damage for Mistweaver reduced by 28.5%.
  
• Revolving Blades (Demon Hunter) now reduces your next Blade Dance by 3 Fury per enemy struck (was 5).
  
• Seismic Wave (Warrior) damage reduced by 58%.
  
• Shrouded Suffocation (Rogue) damage reduced by 11%. Fixed an issue that caused this trait's damage increase to fail.
  
• Swelling Streams (Shaman) healing reduced by 30%.
  
• Unbound Chaos (Demon Hunter) damage reduced by 53%

Classes

• Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Howling Blast's area damage should no longer deal damage through line of sight.
    
  • Outbreak's explosion damage should no longer deal damage through line of sight.
    
  
  
• Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
  
  • Swift Landing now works properly in Travel Form and stacks the movement speed buff with the Travel Form speed buff.
    

Dungeons

• Siege of Boralus
  
  • The waters around the Ashvane Company Docks are now infested with Blood Crazed Sharks!
    

Items

• Increased the damage dealt by Tiny Electromental in a Jar by 233%
  
• Increased the rate at which Gale-Force Striking triggers by 100%.
  
• Fixed an issue causing Darkmoon Deck: Squalls' damage over time effect not to be affected by Haste or Critical Strike rating. Haste now causes it to trigger more frequently, and the damage over time effect can now critically hit.
  
• BoE items from low level areas should again scale more appropriately when they drop from creatures.

Island Expeditions

• Island Expedition shrine effects are now limited to Island Expeditions maps.
  
• Island Expedition consumable items now have diminished effects on PvP targets.

Missions

• Falstad and Valtois now correctly improve mission success chance with all kinds of Troops.

Quests

• “Blackrock Depths” should always be available upon completion of the War Campaign and reaching exalted with 7^th Legion.
  
• “Vision of Time” should always be available upon completion of the War Campaign and reaching exalted with The Honorbound.
  
• Antitoxin will now be removed from inventory when turning in “They Want Us Alive”.
  
• Many Wanted: quests on the enemy continent now reward 7th Legion or Honorbound reputation. These quests have been reset for players who have already completed them.
  
• Part of the flight path during "Offensively Defensive” no longer goes through a tree.

World Quests

• On “Beachhead”, Vicious Albatrosses will now devour turtles in a new, more glorious way... Avert your eyes, ye of faint heart.
  
• Fixed an issue where “Strange Egg” was disappearing while fighting Vukuba.
  
• Horde Scouts for the "Running Interference" should no longer interfere so aggressively.

World

• Members of the Alliance can no longer rest at the Temple of Akunda or Vulpera Hideaway.
  
• The inn in Dreadwash now grants rest.
  
• The Netley Inn in Stormsong Valley now grants rest.

Developer Interview - Battle for Azeroth Story
Heather Newman had the opportunity to talk to Senior Designer Steve Burke and senior narrative designer Steve Danuser.

• It was cool to write different stories for each faction, really taking the gloves off and letting the factions go to war.
• Kul Tiras and Zandalar had very distinct stories. The War Campaign lets you see both sides of the world, but from different perspectives.
• In Stormsong, the Horde come in and assault a city. This was a last minute plan, as before the team had different content implemented there that they played through and didn't feel like it was what they really wanted.
• The Horde and Alliance have different internal struggles and conflict is only going to intensify as we go forward.
• Upon looking at PvP death maps, the team realized that some of the hotspots were where players came out of a cinematic and were vulnerable to attack. They made some changes to mitigate this.
• The team wanted the pre-expansion events to feel real and have real consequences, with a lasting impact on the world. It wasn't just another conflict that flared up for a while and went away.
• The team has made more of an effort during the previous few expansions to have all of the storytelling mechanisms tied into gameplay.
• Long sequences of talking, exposition, explaining, character interaction are not what WoW is best at. The Three Sisters comic was a lot of listening to dialogue, which fit a comic better than in game.
• A lot of the character animations were made back when the cinematics camera was farther away from characters, but that doesn't hold up as well today with close up shots. The team will continue to improve this going forward.

How World of Warcraft Was Made: The Inside Story of Nearly 20 Years of Development
USGamer has an article on how World of Warcraft was made, with interviews with many people that worked on WoW throughout the years.

Outdoor Mob Scaling

Well geared toons from the end of the previous expansion have always had a very easy time in the first few levels of a new expansion. The scaling isn't broken, it's how the scaling should work. The only way for this to not be an issue is to remove scaling altogether. And it's a design choice that the benefits of scaling outweigh downsides like this.
Exactly.

The way the outdoor world functions in Battle for Azeroth is exactly how Legion worked, in virtually every regard. But looking farther back, an endgame-geared character from the prior expansion having a harder and harder time killing things as they level is how WoW has worked since its very first expansion, The Burning Crusade. As you move into new content, you face progressively stronger foes. If you aren’t replacing your gear as you level because you’re already overgeared for your level, then in relative terms you're going to feel weaker against same-level enemies.

Specifically, level 110 enemies are tuned to be a fair fight for someone who just quested through Legion and hit 110 wearing items along the way (average item level of, say, 160 or so). That's essential, or fresh 110s moving into Battle for Azeroth content would run into a frustrating brick wall of difficulty. But it means that if you are level 110 wearing Argus gear and legendaries (average item level of, say, 230 or even higher), you’re massively overpowered in relative terms. Easily twice as strong as someone who just quested through Legion and did nothing else. And that’s nothing new - that's power progression, and the reward for the time spent on Argus and elsewhere strengthening your character.

But moving on, level 117 enemies are tuned to be a fair fight for someone who is wearing quest rewards from level 117 quests. The same player above in Argus gear will only recently have started to find upgrades from quests, and is actually now wearing nearly the exact same gear as the player who leveled straight through without doing Legion endgame content. This is exactly how it worked 4 years ago when someone wearing Siege of Orgrimmar gear was wrecking level 90 enemies in Frostfire or Shadowmoon at 90, and then started to have a tough time against level 97 mobs in Spires of Arak at level 97. Higher-level enemies are tougher.

Again, nothing new. The only difference is that, since Legion, one Antorus-geared player may have started in Tiragarde Sound and steamrolled it at 110, before running into resistance in Drustvar at 117, while another Antorus-geared player may have started in Drustvar and had an easy time at 110, only to find tougher enemies at 117 in Tiragarde, depending on the order in which they each chose to tackle the zones. It admittedly can feel awkward to return to a specific dungeon or a specific area and find that the enemies there have effectively grown stronger while you were away, but that is what enables flexibility in zone choice when leveling, and makes the entire world relevant at max level, a core part of what made Legion's outdoor world experience successful.

The pre-Legion design, applied to Battle for Azeroth Horde content, might have gone like this: Zuldazar and Atal’dazar could be 110-114 content, Vol’dun and Temple of Sethraliss 113-117, and Nazmir and Underrot 116-120. That would likely have felt better in terms of rationalizing increasing world difficulty as you level, but it would have come at the expense of a more linear leveling experience, after which those zones would be largely irrelevant at endgame. We feel that the upsides of having the outdoor world continue to be relevant, and be a place where we can tell ongoing War Campaign stories and stage other content, for the months to come, are worth that increased awkwardness while leveling.

Finally, looking at the max-level experience, players are already objectively much stronger than they were at 110 in Legion. We’re starting to see random pickup groups going back and doing Mythic Antorus with ilvl ~330 level 120 characters, for achievements and transmog, and an ilvl 330 PUG kills Mythic Argus the Unmaker in about 5 minutes. Top raid guilds were doing it in ~9 minutes at 110 just a few weeks ago. There's no special scaling or legacy buff involved: People are simply stronger now than they were a month ago, when fighting the same old foes.

At max level, everything you do to upgrade your gear and the power of your Heart of Azeroth will make your experience playing the game relatively easier. We’ve seen no data whatsoever to support claims that a fresh 120 has an easier time with any content, outdoors or otherwise, than one who has improved their gear through doing dungeons and world quests and the like. A player in ilvl 330 gear is killing world quest foes more than 40% faster than someone who just hit 120 at ilvl 280, while having a much larger health pool (and, again, enemy damage output isn't scaling up at all). That relative strength will continue to increase over the weeks to come with every additional bit of gear and additional Azerite powers acquired.

Philosophically, we completely agree that progression is an essential part of an RPG experience. Rewards need to mean something, and their impact needs to be felt when playing the game. To the extent that we compromise that value in some places, it's never done lightly, and is always in service of a what we view as a greater benefit elsewhere (in this case, the ability to choose a non-linear path through zones while leveling, and having the entirety of the new world remaining relevant at 120, instead of just small pieces of it).

[Venziir]

"The Horde and Alliance have different internal struggles and conflict is only going to intensify as we go forward." - There is absolutely zero internal struggle within the Alliance.

[Steelcryo]

"The Horde and Alliance have different internal struggles and conflict is only going to intensify as we go forward." - There is absolutely zero internal struggle within the Alliance.

I think the implication is the whole Jaina storyline is the alliances struggle. Trying to get Ashvane out, Katherine to listen and Jaina saved so Kul'tiras will join the alliance

[Justpassing]

"The Horde and Alliance have different internal struggles and conflict is only going to intensify as we go forward." - There is absolutely zero internal struggle within the Alliance.

They'll make one up, probably.

[Venziir]

I think the implication is the whole Jaina storyline is the alliances struggle. Trying to get Ashvane out, Katherine to listen and Jaina saved so Kul'tiras will join the alliance

But the struggles of one person doesn't equal internal struggles of an entire faction.

[Strakha]

"The Horde and Alliance have different internal struggles and conflict is only going to intensify as we go forward." - There is absolutely zero internal struggle within the Alliance.

it seems like the burning of teldrassil should have been more of a climax to the conflict rather than the initial action.

where do they go from here? blow up all teh capital- cities? kill all the leaders? THE END OF THE WORLD OF WARCRAFT??

[cerberus1838]

What is Blizzard actually thinking with the balancing of these Azerite Traits and how they're supposed to impact our overall rotations and playstyle?
High Noon on Balance was one of the stupidest traits, especially because it was one of their best single target ones. It just involved us spamming sunfire like idiots, but we still have one which involves spamming moonfire. They really aren't inventive, i'd hope that as the expansion progresses they at least get somewhat more interesting. It feels like class design has taken a solid step backward from Legion.

[kamuimac]

what a wall of usless text

gameplay during leveling and past leveling feel like shit and no amount of PR bs will change those facts.

remove idiotic scaling that nobody wants besides greedy managers in blizz to boost MAU numbers by slowing players down

game feel like utter shit with scaling tied to itlv .

[aeuhe4yxzhds]

i looted a 350 boe, it increased my ilevel, it increased mobs health, i was going to sell it. During my time out doing WQs and a dungeon here and there for a few hours i had to spend more time killing things thanks to an item i was going to sell.

Great job blizzard

[crusadernero]

what a wall of usless text

gameplay during leveling and past leveling feel like shit and no amount of PR bs will change those facts.

remove idiotic scaling that nobody wants besides greedy managers in blizz to boost MAU numbers by slowing players down

game feel like utter shit with scaling tied to itlv .

I dont know.. I feel that my character is stronger now and kills enemies quicker than he did as a fresh 120, and we are soon two weeks into the xpac..

[Thelyron]

I think that for some people "it works exactly like it did in legion" isn't much of an argument as they also disliked it in legion.

[Flaks]

Regardless of anything else, leveling progression needs a massive rework. I’d recommend starting with integrating pvp talents into the basic talent tree and giving talents every 10 levels. Also a paragon type system where by each level you get to put a certain amount of points into secondary stats.

[Quaade]

Are the devs utter idiots?

The problem has never been lvl 117 mobs. The problem is that the moment you go from 119 to 120 the difficulty curve rises to a point where the quests needs better gear than they reward which IS insane.

[Vargur]

what a wall of usless text

gameplay during leveling and past leveling feel like shit and no amount of PR bs will change those facts.

remove idiotic scaling that nobody wants besides greedy managers in blizz to boost MAU numbers by slowing players down

game feel like utter shit with scaling tied to itlv .

Exactly. Remove outdoor scaling, I did not ask for it, I do not like it, I do not want it.
And also, make flying great again and immediate at maximum level.

- - - Updated - - -

i looted a 350 boe, it increased my ilevel, it increased mobs health, i was going to sell it. During my time out doing WQs and a dungeon here and there for a few hours i had to spend more time killing things thanks to an item i was going to sell.

Great job blizzard

That's truly horrible. Why does it not go by equipped ilvl?

[GreenJesus]

Exactly. Remove outdoor scaling, I did not ask for it, I do not like it, I do not want it.
And also, make flying great again and immediate at maximum level.

- - - Updated - - -



That's truly horrible. Why does it not go by equipped ilvl?

THey don't do equipped item level anymore, because there was an exploit in Legion where just taking a ring off and keeping it in your inventory made you stronger due to the scaling. So they just made it so the items in your bags count for the scaling so you would have to take the extra step of going to your bank.

[Nikkaszal]

Exactly. Remove outdoor scaling, I did not ask for it, I do not like it, I do not want it.
And also, make flying great again and immediate at maximum level.

- - - Updated - - -



That's truly horrible. Why does it not go by equipped ilvl?

Remove it because you don't want it? Why? What's so special about your opinion?

I like outdoor scaling, because I like actually fighting mobs instead of just killing them with a tag and moving on. Keeps the world relevant, esp as we're only in week 2. As time goes on and power increases exponentially, this scaling will drop off. Remember that your top geared toons in Argus were smashing mobs down much faster than your average ones.

Scaling works on ilvl bagged and not equipped, because people were removing low-impact items like neck/rings/trinkets to abuse the scaling system.

And no, flying right now is a shit idea. Turns the game into a drop-in, tag mob, complete quest, drop out affair.

[Arvandor]

no single word from the bfa pre-patch in the big inside story!

ion you know that the burning of teldrassil was a mistake but no single word?

all other pre-patches have a own article in this inside story!

you can this dark moment erase from history but we all remember this forever!

[Syegfryed]

"The Horde and Alliance have different internal struggles and conflict is only going to intensify as we go forward." - There is absolutely zero internal struggle within the Alliance.

exactly

they have different internal struggles

one have too much the other do not have none

thats the difference, smart devs LUL

[Dystemper]

Ion needs to be fired . This is the biggest fuck up of a expansion I have ever seen

[splatomat]

"This was a last minute plan"

Yeah, we can tell.