Live Developer Q&A with Game Director Ion Hazzikostas

[Sencha]

One guy with a wool hat, one guy with a short sleeve shirt.

[eduwneso]

shrine portal is more important as cavern of time.

no words on 8.2 azerith changes?

oh oh this is not good for bfa..

I think they want us first to look it at the PTR, mark my words, there will be another Q&A no long after 8.2 hits PTR

[CptEgo]

Dude you are white knighting a shitty game from a shitty company the game has fallen from grace it used to be great now it's just shit and its devs are shit face it no one cares about your shilling it.

I do find it hilarious how the team doesnt make content thats not fun and padding for subscription numbers when thats exactly what it is and why so many people have quit this hot pile of garbage and moved on.

What a load of bullshit. Please tell me what other MMOS offer even a fraction of what this game does. Or perhaps one of those shitty micro-transaction games is more to your liking.

[vashe9]

Dude you are white knighting a shitty game from a shitty company the game has fallen from grace it used to be great now it's just shit and its devs are shit face it no one cares about your shilling it.

I do find it hilarious how the team doesnt make content thats not fun and padding for subscription numbers when thats exactly what it is and why so many people have quit this hot pile of garbage and moved on.

I'm enjoying current wow... I got bored in wotlk a lot more quickly outside of raids (no mm+, nothing to really farm, just a few boring dailies)... :/

I still see plenty of players in game but well... believe what you want :/ it's true there are less players than before but blame Apex, Fortnite and other shitty "BR" games that are trendy. And mobas too

[paragraphgorilla]

75 is the base, with WM is +10% (or is it the WQ weekly buff ?) and elite quests reward more... and its not neutral to exalted, its honored -> exalted if you do the quests... Seriously people !!!! Stop saying BS it's annoying. And with invasions is even faster now (+ 5 WQ)

I'm not WK anything, you're just plain liars. I dont get it, people seems to think vanilla was the best game ever, DO YOU EVEN WINTERSPRING REPUTATION ??? I grinded thousands of furbolgs for WEEKS !!

Is that you, LORE?

[eduwneso]

Oh, so that's why a single fucking stupid potion requires 20 herbs to make and, depending on server, costs anywhere between 200 and 500 gold. Unless their definition of 'normal gameplay' is 'farming herbs for 6 hours per week' or 'raiding for 1 hour and never using more than 5 pots per week', something isn't fucking adding up.

It's fucking ridiculous how a single raid night costs at least 10k these days - which is a very generously low number, 20k is probably way closer to reality with 40 300g pots per night, a bunch of flasks, food, repairs and maybe even runes/vantus. Add that up to 3 raids a week and you're looking at 50k+every single week. I fail to see how pathetic 2k gold emissaries twice a week, 5k gold paragon caches every other week and the super awesome 60g worldquests are supposed to cover that, like, at fucking all.

It's getting close to impossible to sustain raid nights without offering sellruns. They should've reduced the cost of pots by like 75% 6 months ago - they should've never got rid of fucking prolonged power potions in the first place. But I totally get it, giving people 2k gold every once in a while totally makes up for pots requiring 20 motherfucking herbs, totally sustainable through normal gameplay.

I feel you, I want to use potions but it's expensive as fuck, I'm losing some DPS but for now only food and elixirs. Legion was perfect for the Pre-pots, easy to make and used by every class, if it's to cheap maybe put in a little more to the system of legion, but it was very good for raiding.

[cuafpr]

"Character levels" is not something that exists in the lore. The lore would be completely unchanged, level squish or no level squish.

Did/do you think the "item level squish" also needed a "lore explanation"?

while "levels" might not exist the power gained in leveling does... taking my 120 down to a 20 is just wrong imo. And yes I was/am against the stats squishes and world scaling.

IMO they missed the best chance to do a squish and explain with legion to -> BFA ... maybe they can do it again BFA -> next expac and some sort of story behind it but i doubt it, and figure they will just do it :/

[nyc81991]

"The team has heavily discussed a level squish lately. They want community feedback on if losing levels would feel bad even if they could give more valuable rewards at every level in the leveling process."

If they do a "level squish" I'm done with WoW...

[Alkizon]

RNG
There are a lot more viable loot acquisitions in the game outside of raiding than in the past.
The team is working on tech to make the mythic + cache at the end of the week less random.
The team is actively trying to figure out how to lessen moments that feel bad without making everything a vendor.

We noticed, but just who asked you to do it? Never "more" means better, it should be "enough", but not more, well since this boundary has been crossed long ago, so... draw conclusions. "Less random" doesn't mean "not random", so nothing changes here too. "Without making everything a vendor" - using determinant loot table without dungeons have some kind of "old world drop", scaling to spec/lvl/ilvl and t/w-forge $hit, like it always was before. Say no to loot-boxes! What? I begin to suspect that friends' conclusions about game tokens aren't just a logical warm-up/brain's training, but very much fair statements.
~

Gear Reset and Catch Up
The team has experimented with many different ranges for item level increase between raid tiers and have found the current 15 item levels is the minimum that they can do to make the jump from tier to tier feel relevant.

It’s just that team is stubborn to impossible level and doesn't want to use mechanism that allowed it to be avoided in the past (again without scaling to everything, t/wf, millions of difficulties etc.), which means, that team, as a group of devs, is worthless.
~

Fun and Enjoyment
The team has no incentive to create content that is not fun just to pad subscription numbers.
People tend to fixate on the Activitision investor lingo but this is not what the team focuses on when creating content.
The team values how engaged the community is and how often they are logging in to do content. They want to create content based on feedback and community response.
There are many different play styles and ways people enjoy the game. What works for some people doesn't always work for others.

"Has no initiative", but continue with doing it, you should learn to finish The rest of what has been said is so... I don’t even know how to call it, may be - “useless”, since those who have long ceased to believe in sincerity of these your words will only laugh, and rest will pass by without even noticing (by the way, the last one is an artificial problem, contrived, organized by devs themselves, this doesn't justify any your actions at all, we remembered it only yesterday and here you are, this fake childish naive innocence again nonono)
~

PvP Rewards

As mentioned before: without proper characteristics, currency and venders (= having goal and choice), not to mention correct base class design, all this is useless air shaking.
~

Stat Importance
Starting in Legion, the ratio of stats on gear shifted more to primary stats as you progress further into the end game.
The team doesn't want secondary stats to be perfectly equal for classes so there is some decision making and enjoyment from seeing good stats on gear, but they want the gaps between secondary stat importance to be narrow.

Well, does only in Legion? It's interesting that last time (again) same as now it remains to be obvious mistake. You're simply accelerating faster and faster theme under second quote. Look carefully, don't break to death with such "statements".
~

Portal Removal Feedback | Transmog | Character Customization | Allied Races | Leveling ... Gold

bla-bla-bla, doesn't matter, since models stays same $hit without customization allowing them resemble original ones - doesn't make any help for me, again useless stuff, you don't know anything about leveling since your system doesn't provide useful stuff associated with it = so doesn't even have any sense to ponder in everything being said, and your attitude to gold is already in a sense revealed by the last link under first quote.
~

Reputation in Dungeons
It is unlikely that reputation will be awarded for just doing dungeons because it is mostly tied to the outdoor content. They don't want chaining dungeons to be the most practical method of obtaining reputation.
In the past they had reputation in dungeons because of the limited amount of dailies. With world quests, there are more ways to earn rep now.

So can you add "tokens" to reputations for endless deliver without restrictions on farm place (wherever it drops out)? (Ie, as it was normaly done always before dominance "monetization" over design) But no, of course not, there always should be time gate now!

[Eleccybubb]

Dude you are white knighting a shitty game from a shitty company the game has fallen from grace it used to be great now it's just shit and its devs are shit face it no one cares about your shilling it.

I do find it hilarious how the team doesnt make content thats not fun and padding for subscription numbers when thats exactly what it is and why so many people have quit this hot pile of garbage and moved on.

Aye. 82 or w/e rep per world quest even with WM on is crap.

Having 250 a day from a dungeon or w/e like in Mists would help. But again they gotta keep people on the sub hook for those allied races.

But yeah seems majority of WoW players have moved to FF14, ESO or just quit the genre altogether.

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It's totally not bullshit WoW "used" to be good and fun before they started all their bullcrap pruning, FFXIV is quite possibly 10 times more fun to play than current iteration of WoW, Though personally I have given up on the MMO genre much better games to play out there ie The Division 2, Devil may cry 5, hell Apex has more quality assurance than this piece of shit game.

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Quite possibly is an understatement mate. It IS one of the best MMOs on the market right now and hell I'd say MMORPG of the decade.

Shame you've given up on the genre though mate. There are still amazing games out there with great communities, dev teams that listen and games that don't try to pad their sub/player numbers with timegated/rng metrics.

[Kaver]

Only excited to see changes to the transmog system, maybe we can finally transmog legandaries or use enchants on artifact weapons. Inb4 its stupid to see everyone with thunderfury. That argument got debunked in legion when everyone was walking with Assbringer as well. Just give us freedom, it's a MMORPG. Fucking Ion.

Only outlaw rogues can tmog Thunderfury

[vashe9]

Aye. 82 or w/e rep per world quest even with WM on is crap.

Having 250 a day from a dungeon or w/e like in Mists would help. But again they gotta keep people on the sub hook for those allied races.

But yeah seems majority of WoW players have moved to FF14, ESO or just quit the genre altogether.

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Quite possibly is an understatement mate. It IS one of the best MMOs on the market right now and hell I'd say MMORPG of the decade.

Shame you've given up on the genre though mate. There are still amazing games out there with great communities, dev teams that listen and games that don't try to pad their sub/player numbers with timegated/rng metrics.

LOL So for you FF14 has more subs than wow ? What are you smoking, I want the same. But ffs, most people who've played at least 1 month after release are exalted in every BFA faction reputation (yes people who want BOTH factions exalted would need to play more...)

No one and I say NO ONE has a sub to only get exalted to play allied races. AR are just reskin of existing races it's a "nice" bonus but its no way something that keeps you playing... If not then you're just ultra casual even more casual than the average casual player...

I've played FF14 for a few months and all the grindy things are WORSE, the WQ are even more boring than wow WQ, and you can even do dungeons with bots instead of players...

I still fail to understand what you "loose" wwith a simple level squish. Content from older expansions always becomes obsolete, thats how wow has always been. If you don't like it then why did you still play this game after BC ? BC "destoyed" vanilla content.

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I feel you, I want to use potions but it's expensive as fuck, I'm losing some DPS but for now only food and elixirs. Legion was perfect for the Pre-pots, easy to make and used by every class, if it's to cheap maybe put in a little more to the system of legion, but it was very good for raiding.

Its 20 plants per potions but you get at least 5 plants per spawn... it doesnt change almost anything, I farm 2h/week of 3 raiding nights and I prepot + use a pot every single pull/wipe... Are you even playing this game ?! With alchemist procs and "super procs" with the new item, I got 85+ potions from 35 pots material I farmed in less than 1 hours... b*tch please

Omg mmo-c forums are worse than ever...

[rogoth]

LOL So for you FF14 has more subs than wow ? What are you smoking, I want the same. But ffs, most people who've played at least 1 month after release are exalted in every BFA faction reputation (yes people who want BOTH factions exalted would need to play more...)

No one and I say NO ONE has a sub to only get exalted to play allied races. AR are just reskin of existing races it's a "nice" bonus but its no way something that keeps you playing... If not then you're just ultra casual even more casual than the average casual player...

I've played FF14 for a few months and all the grindy things are WORSE, the WQ are even more boring than wow WQ, and you can even do dungeons with bots instead of players...

I still fail to understand what you "loose" wwith a simple level squish. Content from older expansions always becomes obsolete, thats how wow has always been. If you don't like it then why did you still play this game after BC ? BC "destoyed" vanilla content.

i have played since expansion launch and have still yet to hit exhalted with the tortollans, wanna know why, i despise most of their WQ's, the only ones i can stand are the match game and make loh go, which are rare to show up.

[Eleccybubb]

Why vendors are bad idea I do not get it.
I remember farming dungeons to get some loot that would help me to get into raiding.
They were not BiS but they were good enough to give you enough boost and ilvls.

Because players being in any sort of control of gearing is bad according to Blizzard.

And it doesn't help the people defending the game are telling them that this RNG fiasco is ok.

Vendors are fine. There is no downside to them. Partly why I prefer FF14. Yes gearing is way more straight forward but there's no godawful crap like Titanforging or relying on heavy RNG.

Hell they literally have systems in place to prevent RNG. Each time you clear a Savage raid wing you get a token which is weekly. Once you get 4-8 of these tokens you can get an armor piece ranging from accessories or chest pieces or w/e. Basically bad luck protection. And hell if you get what you need from the raid within those 4-8 weeks you can then instead spend those on an alt job.

As for currency it's basically the same as Justice and Valor was. One uncapped currency that goes upto 2k and another capped one at 450 per week (soon to be 900) that goes upto 2k.

I agree FF14 gearing is a lot more simple and can appear boring but that's why I like it. I'm not at the mercy of RNG or Titanforging for the most part. Hell crap like Titanforging doesn't even exist in this game because the devs know it's a stupid idea.

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i have played since expansion launch and have still yet to hit exhalted with the tortollans, wanna know why, i despise most of their WQ's, the only ones i can stand are the match game and make loh go, which are rare to show up.

I didn't think they could go one worse than Kirin Tor tbh.... but they did.

[Mrbleedinggums]

If they want to remove some RNG for the unwanted items, why not have something similar to their Azerite vendor but with pieces.

You want a helm you want, but you cannot get it to drop from boss X. You end up getting helms you don't want on a different boss or lower ilvl helms you dont need. You end up getting 4-6 helms saved up. Go to this one ethereal that can take all the unwanted gear you have and forge a special orb/coin/item.
Every helm that goes into this specific orb increases the chance I get a helm from the boss after I kill it until it's 100%. Anything past 100% increases the chance it is warforged or even titanforged so that nothing is wasted.

The best way to go about it is a point system that converts to percent. Say normal helms give 15 points, heroic helms give 30 points, and mythic helms give 60 points. A helm that isn't your class's armor type gives 1/3rd the points (normal - 5, heroic - 10, mythic - 20) so that you can still funnel gear but it's much less effective than just giving it to the intended classes.

To fill up the orb thingie that will give me gear you need to put in the following points. Just putting in random numbers.

Normal orb - 80 points
Heroic orb - 120 points
Mythic orb - 200 points.

Say I'm a druid doing heroic and I want this heroic helm really badly. I have 3 leather helms from my heroic run, and the raid throws me 2 heroic plate helms and 2 normal cloth helms to increase my chances. I go to the ethereal dude and he gives me an orb for all the items. I get (30 + 30 + 30 + 10 + 10 + 5 + 5) 120 points which gives me a 100% chance to get a helm if I use that item after I kill a boss. I kill boss Fuckwad-that-never-drops-my-gear and the orb now starts to glow in my inventory. I use it and BOOM! 100% guaranteed drop I get the helm on that boss.

Now add in M+ gear ratings and numbers, and at the end of a mythic+ run someone can use the orb after beating a dungeon. Loot box opens up with the various helms you can win. You can ONLY PICK ONE. It has a pop up window that confirms that is the item you want and after confirming, boom you get it.



If anyone can think of a downside to my system please give criticism or concerns.

[Pua]

If anyone can think of a downside to my system please give criticism or concerns.

There are so many downsides, it's hard to know exactly where to start with them.

[Mrbleedinggums]

There are so many downsides, it's hard to know exactly where to start with them.

.____. i'll go sit in the corner then....

I figure if they're going to try to refuse to do a vendor, then at least give something where we can still get a guaranteed item. Figure since they love RNG, bake that RNG into a system where we get a "bad luck protection" system where we can save them all up and eventually get the item we want.

It also makes it so that you can't just save up all the items you want and then "Oh new raid or mythic is unlocked. Let's use them all at the start to get the end boss gear" because you have to use it on the boss you kill.

[Jowany]

If they want to remove some RNG for the unwanted items, why not have something similar to their Azerite vendor but with pieces.

You want a helm you want, but you cannot get it to drop from boss X. You end up getting helms you don't want on a different boss or lower ilvl helms you dont need. You end up getting 4-6 helms saved up. Go to this one ethereal that can take all the unwanted gear you have and forge a special orb/coin/item.
Every helm that goes into this specific orb increases the chance I get a helm from the boss after I kill it until it's 100%. Anything past 100% increases the chance it is warforged or even titanforged so that nothing is wasted.

The best way to go about it is a point system that converts to percent. Say normal helms give 15 points, heroic helms give 30 points, and mythic helms give 60 points. A helm that isn't your class's armor type gives 1/3rd the points (normal - 5, heroic - 10, mythic - 20) so that you can still funnel gear but it's much less effective than just giving it to the intended classes.

To fill up the orb thingie that will give me gear you need to put in the following points. Just putting in random numbers.

Normal orb - 80 points
Heroic orb - 120 points
Mythic orb - 200 points.

Say I'm a druid doing heroic and I want this heroic helm really badly. I have 3 leather helms from my heroic run, and the raid throws me 2 heroic plate helms and 2 normal cloth helms to increase my chances. I go to the ethereal dude and he gives me an orb for all the items. I get (30 + 30 + 30 + 10 + 10 + 5 + 5) 120 points which gives me a 100% chance to get a helm if I use that item after I kill a boss. I kill boss Fuckwad-that-never-drops-my-gear and the orb now starts to glow in my inventory. I use it and BOOM! 100% guaranteed drop I get the helm on that boss.

Now add in M+ gear ratings and numbers, and at the end of a mythic+ run someone can use the orb after beating a dungeon. Loot box opens up with the various helms you can win. You can ONLY PICK ONE. It has a pop up window that confirms that is the item you want and after confirming, boom you get it.



If anyone can think of a downside to my system please give criticism or concerns.

But they don't want you get what you want. They want you stay and try every week to get what you want with RNG low chance. There is a milion ways how loot system can work better, but they want this way and they are quite happy with it and that is the problem.

[Superdon]

The Mythic+ RNG is easy to solve. Just have the cache ONLY pick from the HIGHEST keystone you ran that week. If you ran multiple of the same skill level, you'd either need a tiebreaker of best time, keep them all in the roll, or just select on the mythic dungeon key screen. Any of the 3 would be acceptable to me. This would allow players to target a specific dungeon. You'd still have SOME RNG, but it would remove a lot of the "slot machine" aspect of the cache.

[Zyrinx]

and people buy this bs excuse ?

its nonsense - they removed gold missions because people werent buying tokens enough

unless you are one of those naive people who belive that tokens prices are regulated by players.

No no, i think you're 100% right.