Developer Interview - Ion Hazzikostas

[Tesshin83]

"small fires"

people are leaving the game left and right because pvers have 0 way of progressing their chars outside of raiding/vault - but everything is ok

called it back then calling it now - its WoD 2.0 catered only to raiders - because there is 0 point in doing anything then raid atm .

What? You have renown, covenant sanctum stuff, mythic+, pvp, alts leveling, achievement hunting, profession grinding, torghast, maw farming... The list goes on and on.

[Revamp Man]

They are the ones who get the feedback. They know this better than your anecdotal personal experience.

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Wrong. They are quite balanced as you add the soulbinds to the mix.

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Oh believe me. People should trust Blizzard a lot more handing out loot than you. I would say with 99% confidence that you have a lot more subjective feelings into handing out loot, than Blizzard have, which will distort your ability to hand out loot in an objective manner.

ive seen some of the feedback they get.
You can look at the forums and find maybe 1/10 raid groups had someone complain about loot and most of the time they got debunked from players from that group coming in and pointing out "hey youre lying here is what happened"

I do not trust blizzard especially when they had it to where i couldnt trade a staff i got from a boss to my buddy that needed it in palace because i didnt have a higher ilvl staff in my bags since my MS would DW. This was just fixed in SL but we had that issue for 2 years and they justified it by saying "we dont want people pressured out of loot" I want to be in control of my loot. I want to be able to change loot spec and trade it and not get told "hey its 1ilvl higher than your current gear so you cant trade it even though its a downgrade for you and a big upgrade for your buddy"

remove the ilvl restriction entirely or make it to how it was in legion because at least then players were able to see if they were in a masterloot group.

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"small fires"

people are leaving the game left and right because pvers have 0 way of progressing their chars outside of raiding/vault - but everything is ok

called it back then calling it now - its WoD 2.0 catered only to raiders - because there is 0 point in doing anything then raid atm .

pvp gear
m+ gear
you have to do things like callings for those extra conduits

if you see only raid and die then you have some serious issues and i wanna see why people think players are leaving the game left and right lol

[TheLucky1]

Hmm yeah, as expected of mmoc members a lot of differentiated and thought out comments of the matter at hand.

[schwarzkopf]

I don't understand, just incorporate a version of RC Loot Council into the game.

Doesn't solve the problem, just transfers it.

Right now - they could at least allow master looter for items that are tradeable to avoid all the mess and time spent assigning items that can be traded.

[RoKPaNda]

Gearing feels like shit this expansion but other than that it's a great expansion so far.

[pewpmeiser]

Uhhh, no Ion. Covenants aren't balanced. There is a clear optimal choice, and in the case of my monk it's above a 1% difference.

Disappointed he doesn't even acknowledge players have wanted flight whistle back for a while now

Not really my dude. Covenants are fine.

[Grimalkin of Old]

That's cool and all, but when are we going to talk about the terrain design?

[Redroniksre]

So players can then start whining that they are forced to run it? Oh wait, some already are.

This is the sad part. I really like Torghast but once you have your legendary there is really no point except to upgrade. Blizzard is really pushing the big three but i dont think they intend to encourage solo play anymore. Without Titanforging or Visions there is nothing for solo players until next patch

[aeuhe4yxzhds]

"eventually your player power will exceed what it used to be in the end of the last expansion...." .

Sorry, fail to see the logic where I leveled 10 levels only to be weaker than I used to be on old content. Just fix this please.

This right here it makes NO sense at all that we are weaker then before..like seriously how the f do they even think this makes sense

None of you have actually played the game? Or any earlier expansions?

Leveling up reduces the effectiveness of your items.

Holy hell, do you two not know how the game works?

that "masterloot caused problems especially for trials" is BS and you know it Ion
Trials got plenty of loot from farm content just because Timmy lost the BiS trinket from a progression boss where he was in 5% of the pulls and died 30 seconds into the fight to Chad the officer who has been there every night and always performs well doesnt mean theres a problem.

What about every time randoms are invited to guild runs and loot is not distributed to them? Also trails usually do not get items, even if everyone has them and instead is disenchanted or given to alts/off spec

It is extremely clear that it did, in fact, cause problems. Stop fucking lying.

[Eggroll]

You've read one Ion Hazzikostas interview, you've read them all. Just update the talking points and that's it.

We're happy with that, we're happy with this yadda yadda..

Well, at least tier sets are coming back.

And I'd like the camera distance restriction removed pretty please, thank you.

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That's cool and all, but when are we going to talk about the terrain design?

Yeah, terrible, absolutely made to antagonize the player. I loathe it,

[Segus1992]

Buffing alliance racials isn't right answer?

Like nerfing dwarf racial instantly ONE top guild faction changed?

Ion is full of BS. I could bet he has orc or troll skin-coloured adult toys..


Covenants and current loot system are success? We know he does not play game but come on!

Ah yes, the "correct answer" is to abuse your playerbase and make one faction objectively stronger to make people pay for a faction change. Great idea. Sure would shine a great light on Blizzard as a company.

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This is the sad part. I really like Torghast but once you have your legendary there is really no point except to upgrade. Blizzard is really pushing the big three but i dont think they intend to encourage solo play anymore. Without Titanforging or Visions there is nothing for solo players until next patch

I agree Torghast should have more rewards than just Soul Ash, though I definitely don't think it should be power rewards, or at least comparable power rewards to actual MMO content. People who play completely solo should never be comparable to people who don't, in an MMO.

[Master Factician]

Buffing alliance racials isn't right answer?

Like nerfing dwarf racial instantly ONE top guild faction changed?

Ion is full of BS. I could bet he has orc or troll skin-coloured adult toys..


Covenants and current loot system are success? We know he does not play game but come on!

Ion is currently 10/10 Normal and 7/10 Heroic with an ilvl of 189. I think that qualifies as "playing the game."

[AcidX]

1.) Why not removing all the racials and choosing a race by style?

2.) You cant trust him. You cant believe a single word that comes out of his mouth. This guy is a total liar when it comes to World of Warcraft. I really hate him what he did in BfA back then. All he wanted was his Ny'alotha-Raid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEINk89xM6s

[LordVargK]

"small fires"

people are leaving the game left and right because pvers have 0 way of progressing their chars outside of raiding/vault - but everything is ok

called it back then calling it now - its WoD 2.0 catered only to raiders - because there is 0 point in doing anything then raid atm .

I mean, some people don't play for gear but just for fun... Gear is a tool to achive fun, not the other way around. And SL offers great fun without the reliance on gear.

[Quaade]

"Being able to trade off damage for survivability is an interesting choice."

This is the dumbest statement ever when it only applies to ONE tank. Everyone else does their damage to increase their survivability. There's no trade-off for ANYONE except Prot Warriors. Which makes them an infinitely unviable choice.

[ashblond]

that "masterloot caused problems especially for trials" is BS and you know it Ion
Trials got plenty of loot from farm content just because Timmy lost the BiS trinket from a progression boss where he was in 5% of the pulls and died 30 seconds into the fight to Chad the officer who has been there every night and always performs well doesnt mean theres a problem.

The remove of master loot and introduction of personal loot, is the single best thing has ever happened to wow.

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Forgot professions. Most are dog poo. Prolly why they didnt talk about it

Professions have been shit for years, and they will continue to be.

[Velshin]

that "masterloot caused problems especially for trials" is BS and you know it Ion
Trials got plenty of loot from farm content just because Timmy lost the BiS trinket from a progression boss where he was in 5% of the pulls and died 30 seconds into the fight to Chad the officer who has been there every night and always performs well doesnt mean theres a problem.

It was a problem tbh. What you are talking about is the exception of the rule not in general. Many progressing guild and many officers and guild masters only care for their inner circle raiders friends when it comes to loot who the hell do they think they are judging other newer players if they deserve the loot or not? everyone should have a fair and just chance to get loot if they participate into the progress and if they gave it their all when it comes to raiding and progress (being new trial player into the guild or being an officer or gm is not relevant when it comes loot, everyone should have a fair chance).

[Redroniksre]

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I agree Torghast should have more rewards than just Soul Ash, though I definitely don't think it should be power rewards, or at least comparable power rewards to actual MMO content. People who play completely solo should never be comparable to people who don't, in an MMO.

I mean i don't see why not, every other MMO does it that way. Punishing people for playing solo basically gives people no reason to play unless friends are on. Not to mention if Twisting Corridors is as hard as they are saying (requiring higher end gear) then solo players will be restricted from their one piece of content.

[czarek]

Soul ash from mission table? I play everyday since launch. Got lvled up companions etc. I havent seen any sould ash mission xD Thats just bait. I havent seen any other way to obtain soul ash except regular thorgast runs. And the world questes and mission table quest rewards are just gold vendor crap nothin more. Ok maybe some conduits but mostly in 95% its just quicksell "grey" crap.

[T-34]

It was a problem tbh. What you are talking about is the exception of the rule not in general. Many progressing guild and many officers and guild masters only care for their inner circle raiders friends when it comes to loot who the hell do they think they are judging other newer players if they deserve the loot or not? everyone should have a fair and just chance to get loot if they participate into the progress and if they gave it their all when it comes to raiding and progress (being new trial player into the guild or being an officer or gm is not relevant when it comes loot, everyone should have a fair chance).

On the other hand guilds now have no reason whatsoever to bring socials/not the best players along for raids.
Before those people could "pay" for a "carry" with giving raiders priority for loot, so there was an incitement to bring them along.
Now those people are "benched" and often don't get to do the raids as their is no material gain for bringing them along.
In the 2 guilds I have been in since this new system the "wall" between the raiders and "the rabble" in the guild has become air-tight because of this.

And I don't believe for one second that "fairness" was the reason that Blizzard changed the loot system.
Blizzard simply did it because of all the tickets, fair or not, about loot. And each ticket costs Blizz money.

So to sum up: The loot system is more "fair" now, but on the other hand the good players have even less reason to carry bad players than they had before, to the detriment of the bad players.