Blizzard talks about Azerite issues

[fishoa]

Few things I'd like to comment on here.

First off, thanks for putting this thread together. Even if phrases like "Worst Itemization in WoW's History" are a bit hyperbolic (seriously, I can't be the only one who remembers farming level 30 dungeons for AQ40 resistance gear), you've summarized a lot of the discussions we've been seeing around the community very well. It really helps us clarify exactly what we need to be focusing on.

I'll speak to each of your points as best as I can:

Regarding targeting specific traits: I think we've said this a few times now, but just to reiterate, we believe that's merely a symptom of the imbalance between traits. Ideally, the gap between them isn't so large that you feel it would be hugely beneficial to grind out the perfect set.

The point about traits being "useless and uninteresting" is interesting considering that you also make the point of "every gear change requires simming." These two points are kind of at odds with each other. The way to solve the simming issue would be to make the traits more simplistic in nature. Similarly, making traits with more outside-the-box designs leads to more complicated questions of "is this better or not," which in turn encourages more simming. Either way, it's an interesting challenge, and one we're taking to mind as we move forward with traits in future updates.

I think we agree that re-farming traits doesn't feel great. I don't have a solve for that issue to share today, and to be completely transparent it may be something we simply have to accept as a downside to the system for other reasons. But we agree it can be a bit of a downer.

I mentioned the imbalance between traits before, but just to expand on that: that's why we've focused so much effort into tuning Azerite traits over the past few weeks. With this most recent round of tuning, we think we've gotten most of the really egregious outliers dialed in, but please let us know if there are any you still feel are so good that they're worth huge sacrifices in terms of item level.

As to the point about reforging costs: these costs get so high because we want the behavior you're describing -- reforging constantly depending on what you're doing -- to be unsustainable. Our intention is that you either build out multiple sets of gear for different situations, or you lean towards traits that work in a variety of roles (even if they're maybe not the absolute best for each in particular). We added the reforging system to help ease cases like, for example, a DPS who suddenly finds themselves needing to transition to being their guild's main tank, not as a means for constantly re-adjusting traits like a second set of talent points. Maybe the current system isn't achieving that, but if it isn't, we're likely to become MORE restrictive on reforging, not less.

And finally, regarding the tuning passes: like I mentioned, we think we've got most of the major outliers dialed in to an acceptable level at this point. There's likely to still be some adjustments here and there, but we don't believe we're going to need another big wave of Azerite trait tuning like you've seen over the last few weeks. To put it another way: if one trait is far and away the best compared to every other option, sure, we should probably do something about that, but we don't expect that to take the form of a widespread tuning pass going forward.

Also, to Ion's comment about new traits being introduced: he was referring to new traits on new gear added in new content, with higher item level, that replaces your old gear entirely. We're not planning to add in new traits to existing items, so don't worry about holding onto old Azerite pieces just in case their traits change.

Source: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/...0102?page=2#24

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Thoughts on this?

I think this cements what we've all been thinking about: they're doubling down on Azerite. HF

[Video Games]

I mean, even if it does suck, they cant just remove it. The whole expansion was designed around it.

[vsb]

That's correct. I though about farming 340 items with a specific trait, but now with nerfs they are worthless and I'm sticking to my 385 items, they are good enough. BfA is awesome.

[Bigbazz]

They are basically saying they realise it's shit but it's too late now so deal with it and they will scrap it for the next expansion, meanwhile don't forget to keep your subscription so you can keep farming different azerite sets for multiple specs/situations and to account for when they nerf your current traits.

[Grable]

Blizz is so out of touch with their playerbase. I can't believe they actually wrote that response.

[Icoblablubb]

azerite will be shit throughout BfA i fear ... i mean gosh the azerite hotfixes are just ... such high % changes + nerfing the good traits instead of bringing the shit ones up 95% are attack to gain x stat and with the next raid and new traits it won't change anything they will release traits not being tested while atleast the current ones where tested on Beta even though Blizz ignored all the feedback. even if they can somehow balance the numbers its still shit because azerite is supposed to be a replacement for set+artefact+legendary and right now no trait can replace even 1 of these things

[Tradu]

So much bullshit in that post. They don't want us to reforge our items, but also don't give us enough azerite to have separate pieces for each spec. They even admit that this is a problem with the system, but that we just have to deal with it.
They clearly don't understand what people mean with "boring and uninteresting" if they think it's a question of "do I need to sim to tell which is stronger or not", rather than "10 slightly different flavors of 'do X damage to your target'".
Them needing weeks of large scale trait tuning on live is just unacceptable, honestly. They had at least half a year of beta (although not all of it had azerite in it, which is a pretty big fuckup on their part considering they clearly don't know how to balance it), with lots of math presented to them which showed the exact things they're trying to fix now.
Hopefully they learn their lesson for next expansion that they shouldn't be adding new shit if they can't manage to get it at least halfway balanced before live.

[Th3Scourge]

Source: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/...0102?page=2#24

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Thoughts on this?

I think this cements what we've all been thinking about: they're doubling down on Azerite. HF

The point about traits being "useless and uninteresting" is interesting considering that you also make the point of "every gear change requires simming." These two points are kind of at odds with each other. The way to solve the simming issue would be to make the traits more simplistic in nature. Similarly, making traits with more outside-the-box designs leads to more complicated questions of "is this better or not," which in turn encourages more simming. Either way, it's an interesting challenge, and one we're taking to mind as we move forward with traits in future updates.

This is where I feel the disconnect is occurring between the devs and the community. They see complexity as difficulty where the community see complexity as depth.

We don't want basic passive and near-passive traits because they add no depth to gameplay and might as well not exist. The devs don't want more than basic passives and near-passive traits because they believe it adds too much difficulty to gameplay and choices (or lack of).

This system was designed to create more freedom in gearing outside of tier set bonuses and has spectacularly backfired at this stage. Why they didn't just add more items (we used to have 8 in some tiers) to a tier set so a set bonus can come from rings, belts, etc.

[americandavey]

Some previous tier set bonuses sucked too. Problem is most of the traits do suck for specs, most of the second traits being a low heal while stun, etc. or the shield every 30 seconds. Oh you got a high ilvl piece dont worry you need 8+ more HoA levels to unlock. Its a dumb system which isnt going anywhere til the next expansion.

[Deleted]

Did he really say (in other words) "When you feel sims are needed, shit can't be that unteresting!" ?? What is this "logic"? People HAVE TO sim because they have no idea which item is better over another. I hate this pseudo smartass you could also see it like this "argumentation" that make valid arguments look actually not that valid. Lore obviously learned his lawyer lessions.

What we need are less "(unknown) Chance to increase your main stat for a while" traits and more *interesting* things like "Chance to summon Echo of Sargeras out of oblivion to cleave all enemies around to hell for a total damage of X proccing approx. 3 times per minute".

[Bigbazz]

This is where I feel the disconnect is occurring between the devs and the community. They see complexity as difficulty where the community see complexity as depth.

We don't want basic passive and near-passive traits because they add no depth to gameplay and might as well not exist. The devs don't want more than basic passives and near-passive traits because they believe it adds too much difficulty to gameplay and choices (or lack of).

This system was designed to create more freedom in gearing outside of tier set bonuses and has spectacularly backfired at this stage. Why they didn't just add more items (we used to have 8 in some tiers) to a tier set so a set bonus can come from rings, belts, etc.

The bit I don't understand with this is that they clearly don't want players to feel the need to sim items, yet they have designed lots of "chance" procs where the player isn't made aware of what that chance is. They have created a situation where a player has to sim because they have 200000 variations of the same "chance to do damage" procs and "chance to give you xxx stat".

They ignore feedback and approach the situation with a "we know better" attitude to everything while contradicting themselves on design.

[Archmage Alodi]

So basically they said it is what it is , take it or leave it...
I lost all hope for bfa now , 8.1 isn't going to fix anything either.

[Raicky]

I like the part where they failed to address the problem of the gear sources. The only reliable way to farm azerite gear is raiding. This isn't a problem in and of itself, but it sucks donkey balls when the rest of your gear is 370+ from doing mythic+. But you're basically fucked when it comes to azerite gear because some genius decided that azerite gear shouldn't drop from m+.

They don't like reforging, and want us to have multiple sets. But they've made the gear so rare people are having trouble getting one decent set. This design philosophy is so bass-ackwards it makes my brain hurt. They are so fucking out of touch with the player base its laughable.

[frogbound]

I simmed the first 2 weeks. Every piece of loot and then I had to update my pawn strings.
I realized every single item will shift which secondary stat is gonna be best next. The only constant was Strength sitting comfortably at 8.x while every secondary stat was around 1.4.
At this moment of realization I gave up and decided to uninstall Pawn. I haven't simmed once since then.
I just equip whatever item has the highest ilvl as long as it has Strength on it.
I am just as competitive dps wise as everyone else.
It didn't make a huge difference.

I use the same logic on Azerite pieces. I check bloodmallet to see which trait is potentially the best on the high ilvl azerite trait I got and specc into it.

Done.

No worries, no hassle, no respeccing needed.

I currently have both 370 chests from Uldir, 355 Uldir Shoulders and one 370 Uldir head.

Can't and won't complain.

[killwithpwr]

Tha whole post is a sham, and even though i like Lore (usually... He has his moments), this whole post just goes to show how crap this system really is.

Their logic is flawed in more ways than one and its getting absurd.

[cface]

Azerite is such bullshit, but better then legendary farming that completely burned me out when it was hard to get. Now I just equip the highest ilvl, since I am not doing mythic raids, it doesn't really matter, and m+ at this stage is more of doing the right thing, and not worry about doing 300 less dps.

But set bonus is much better, and was always actually fun to get regardless if it was a little upgrade, or massive.

[trm90]

That was depressing to read. I feel like the problem of reforging is blown out of proportion (stop scrapping shit all the time people) but the devs are WAY too stubborn.

Man, what the fuck happened to this game? Feels like the raid/dungeon/art teams are the only people who can keep WoW alive, but all the other class/system designers aren't even trying. We need younger designers who actually no-life WoW to replace said designers, people who are more in touch with what makes the game play better.

[Trend]

Thoughts on this?

I think this cements what we've all been thinking about: they're doubling down on Azerite. HF

I agree with you completely. They are emotionally invested in what was obviously a poor decision and they can't move on. I don't disagree with everything in the post, but there is a lot that is just dumb. Azerite traits are either going to be boring or people are going to want to target them. They seem to want to ignore this fact and pretend that it is no problem that targeting these pieces is immensely frustrating. The unwillingness to admit the obvious is of great concern to me.

[Leih]

That was depressing to read. I feel like the problem of reforging is blown out of proportion (stop scrapping shit all the time people) but the devs are WAY too stubborn.

I'm not sure it's stubbornness entirely... I don't think there's any possibility they don't realise the system is a bit of a bust. But it's kind of baked into the expansion and not something they can just hotfix out of the game. I guess they're just hoping people will come around to it and get used to it over time.

I have a feeling this is going to be a Cata/WoD situation where they cut this expac short because the systems just aren't working, and push on to something new for next time :/

[Grable]

They are emotionally invested in what was obviously a poor decision and they can't move on.

They're financially invested, not emotionally. There's no place for emotions in big business. Clearly the system is baked into expansion and it would be a lot of effort (and money) to replace it with another system. That's why if enough people don't stop subbing they won't change shit.