New Ion interview on class balance, bugs, GCDs, island expeditions and Azerite gear

[Pinksocking]

Fire this guy.
I'm so tired of his lawyer bullshit.
His vision for the game is terrible.

i agree

keep him working on raid content and nothing else

[Jinzuru]

WDM model based income model right there.

I'm sorry, I wasn't able to find definition of that model, could you please explain it, or give a link to read myself?

[lummiuster]

The GCD and Haste issues and most of my characters rotations feeling like they're stuck in mud, or in slow motion. Is my main issue with BfA and why it sucks.

All my characters feel generic and boring now.

and everyone said wait till your level 120 wait till you get some gear, it all smooths out and gets better. No it doesn't, my guys are i360 and they feel just as crappy as it did it level 111.

Fix that, and I'll stay.

Wait till you get to il460, Im sure it will be wayyy smoother. I believe they designed the class to play well from min 120il to max 120il. Like in all other expansions.

[andrewjoy]

" We are happy with warmode"


Does he even play the game ? This is how it works. All of the horde have war mode on , all of the alliance have war mode off. No PvP ever happens. The PvP and PvE server system was far better. If your on a PvP server you know what to expect, if you dont like it go play on a PvE server.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

The game pretty much started its decline when WoW merged with Activision. That merger took place in July 2008 and WotLK released that November, so the merger couldn't have influenced the game that was most likely in development for years before the merger.

After that point though, the influence of being a company that answers to stock holders and not consumers has clearly been seen since that point. Blizzard is no longer a company that cares about the consumers first, they're one that cares about their stocks first, placating the customers second, and actually caring about the customers as their last priority. If they can give some generic canned response or more "This isn't really a promise" promises that things will get better later on and that retains even a few customers (profit) they can show their stock holders, that's what they'll do.

That doesn’t make any sense. Cata came out with way more invested into it then wrath with the whole world reworked dungeons that wernt a face roll ect. There was no switch from customers to shareholders in cata. There has been no switch away from players other then Mabye in wod mop and legion both still had a ton of work go into them.

[spalernTJ]

Interesting you suggest that. A lot of the reasons BfA gets hate FFXIV has as well. People hate that specs have 40 or less APM, people say the gcd changes slowed things down even more and FFXIV has both. FFXIVs end game feels much weaker as well.

I’ve tried both. I really don’t think someone who hates BfA would enjoy FFXIV at least not currently. Maybe they would for different reasons but it feels a lot slower and the end game just isn’t that good imo.

I dunno, I feel like there's a lot more depth to the gameplay of FF XIV's classes. I've personally been enjoying it a lot more than WoW, I have a lot more abilities to use and consider, buffs & debuffs, and the end game, while I'm not there yet, and have only tried certain bosses on hard difficulty, I just got much more enjoyment out of it.

As for the slow pace and long GCD, I think it is utilized pretty well. You have classes like the Bard, which is essentially a hunter, where your main, filler roation isn't much more than keeping 2 dots up, and use 3 other abilities in a combo, and yes, with the 2,5 sec GCD. But then you have also have 3 songs (30 sec Buffs with different effects) And about 5 other abilities that are not on the GCD at all. So you often have much more to click on at the same time, than you do in WoW right now, while considering your next move.

Then you have class fantasy, which is done to utter perfection in Final Fantasy, through gameplay, visuals and effects. The bard plays instruments when he buffs / Debuffs, he makes fancy movement and jumps when using fancy arrow abilities. The Samurai uses actual moves and motions you would expect from a samurai, from simple strikes to flashy motions, heck, they even have the cliché where your char sheaths the blade, hunches down, channels for 2 seconds before unleashing a finish move.

Slow? Maybe, but it feels good.

[Varitok]

They'll never admit fault. Appearances matter, and they've created a business model that can sustain the game indefinitely. Sell the expansion, get 2-4 months of subscriptions out of most of those people during the span of that expansion, and you've made enough money to stay profitable and do the whole thing over again.

We keep coming back and asking for more of it, so why would they do anything differently?

Because when they made good games, They were making billions a year on subs alone.

- - - Updated - - -

Have fun with whatever game/other stuff you do - if you quit. Please don't make a forum thread about quitting though, nobody cares.

Anyway, reading this thread makes me cringe. The salt. The annoyed people. For the love of God - just quit. Stop complaining. Nobody is forcing you to keep playing. It's illogical to keep doing something you don't enjoy. It's borderline insanity.

"Stop giving valid complaints about a game!" If people like you were more widespread you'd never get anything fixed. You're the one making the cringe post here my man.

- - - Updated - - -

Devs usually don't play the games they work on, the main reason why they are clueless to what is actually good and bad for it.

That is an issue. If you go watch Lores streams, he barely ever plays WoW. Which is understandable but it creates a disconnect between reality and perception.

[Redwyrm]

So glad I held off on buying BfA to see what it would be like after a couple of months. I unsubbed right before Antorus dropped, as I had gotten everything I wanted at that point and was just mount farming.

Nothing I saw from BfA's reveal enticed me. The story seemed lackluster and a retread. Great, Alliance and Horde are fighting again. But, this time it's FOR REAL. Beyond the plot I didn't see anything mechanics wise that piqued my interest either. The only thing I was interested in vaguely was the opportunity to play as a Zandalari Troll. But that by itself is not worth the price of admission and subscription.

There was always something in the previous expansions that drew me in and hooked me. Not this time. Which is sad, because I love the world they have created and I have spent countless hours since Vanilla playing in it.

Maybe I just got tired of chasing the carrot. Or the Skinner Box in BfA is broke.

[Leodric]

It just makes me smile when I see the whole community is in agreement on how bad this expansion is at the moment. I love WOW but this was a disaster, azerite armor killed my enjoyment. I'm not gear hunting for a trait out of a cache once a week. I've played the game over 12 years, I'll play more when they fix their mess.

I'm sorry too but Ion needs to go, don't ever get the impression he understands the regular gamer and his QAs are God awful. He's long winded and deflects all criticism, always trying to put a spin on something.

Oh yea I forgot he worked in litigation, so now all the above makes sense.

You described perfectly why they would want to keep Ion as a speaker though. Blizzard knows exactly what they are doing and how to avoid questions. I guess everyone knows already what Blizzards shitck is regarding BFA and all these changes. It's not about quality anymore or player enjoyment, it's about keeping the super casuals as long supped as possible.

[Zyrinx]

What'd he actually say about Islands? Ye gods I hate myself for doing it, but I've been playing a lot of them as levelling 'content' to try to get my toons to max, so if/when this BfA nightmare ends I won't be behind.

Are they altering that reward structure?

[Zyrinx]

I dunno, I feel like there's a lot more depth to the gameplay of FF XIV's classes. I've personally been enjoying it a lot more than WoW, I have a lot more abilities to use and consider, buffs & debuffs, and the end game, while I'm not there yet, and have only tried certain bosses on hard difficulty, I just got much more enjoyment out of it.

As for the slow pace and long GCD, I think it is utilized pretty well. You have classes like the Bard, which is essentially a hunter, where your main, filler roation isn't much more than keeping 2 dots up, and use 3 other abilities in a combo, and yes, with the 2,5 sec GCD. But then you have also have 3 songs (30 sec Buffs with different effects) And about 5 other abilities that are not on the GCD at all. So you often have much more to click on at the same time, than you do in WoW right now, while considering your next move.

Then you have class fantasy, which is done to utter perfection in Final Fantasy, through gameplay, visuals and effects. The bard plays instruments when he buffs / Debuffs, he makes fancy movement and jumps when using fancy arrow abilities. The Samurai uses actual moves and motions you would expect from a samurai, from simple strikes to flashy motions, heck, they even have the cliché where your char sheaths the blade, hunches down, channels for 2 seconds before unleashing a finish move.

Slow? Maybe, but it feels good.

Is this game (FF XIV) free to play? Is there a sub fee or anything? Your Bard description sounds freaking awesome.

[Deleted]

there are only 2 possible options for Ion.
Either he actually doesnt know that the problems are actual problems
or
he knows about them but cant do anything about it (for whatever reasons, business etc..)
both are sad

[Zyrinx]

I think a lot of people were interested in the Allied Races. The current design of implementing them is poorly done though.


Imagine if Death Knights or Monks (yes I know it was a class, NOT a race) class was implemented the same way? You had to take a class to max level, hit Exalted on certain reps, a number of World achievements and so forth before you could even create that class then had to do it all over again to make it viable for the expansion.

Careful now, I've pointed that out in multiple threads and got white knighted. "Work for it".

[Daveon]

Blizzard had the chance to admit they fucked up long ago and they didn't. They can't go back now, especially not for a magazine like forbes.

Note: This interview isn't for Forbes Magazine, it's for the blog section of the Forbes web site. Note next to the author's name: "Opinions expressed by Forbes contributors are their own." Just want to clear that up, since I see people quoting the Forbes blog area (which practically anyone get on to with a little effort) as if it's some golden standard of journalism.

[monteiro]

Not giving a fuck about feedback must be some sort of talent, and Ion is a Picasso on it.

[andrewjoy]

Devs usually don't play the games they work on, the main reason why they are clueless to what is actually good and bad for it.

That is true, the FF14 devs how no idea how healers work, they design around healers not DPSing but the whole community know a healer who does not DPS is a bad healer. I dont blame Yoshi P tho , he is usualy just getting pissed and doing AMAs :P.

[stross01]

Ion just gets greasier with every passing day.

He not only dodged every question, he just started talking about something completely unrelated, like not only was he not asked the question, but that the problem the question related to didn't exist at all.

[Archmage Alodi]

Good to know for sure what type of answers can we expect tonight.

[Accendor]

For those that are seeking a new MMO to try out; I highly suggest Final Fantasy XIV.

Yeah, that will make the people who are already going crazy over the GCD changes in WoW much happier

[Nerovar]

Q:"Why were shadow priests and shamans released unfinished" A:"Classes are never finished so it's okay "
I can't read the whole thing. Shit makes me furious.