PCGamer Ion Interview - Make Dungeon/Raids Satisfying, New Battle.net Launcher

[Gadzooks]

They had the perfect badge system working in WOTLK. Why change something which was working.....

Job security. They've created a fake sense of urgency even within Blizzard that every person is needed, and more need to be hired. Pretty common in any industry. Can't fire someone for no work on their desk if they re-invent the wheel every two years.

[chiddie]

M+ is still more profitable than raiding. M+ rates should actually be nerfed. I don't know how they would do that but M+ is an infinite loot source with a guaranteed loot that exceeds the actual level you completed. Raiding needs to up the loot to 4 per 20 and also have your vault be the difficulty above to even match M+.

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If this is happening then you aren't doing appropriate level of M+. The appropriate level of M+ is the level where you see upgrades. The chance of you not getting an upgrade after 24 runs is close to 0 percent. If you are already full 213 then you won't see any upgrades at all except the vault.

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So 1 piece per week with a vault item vs 1 piece per 2 weeks and a vault item. You son of a bitch. I'm in. It takes twice as long to PvP but I'm convinced. If you're a raider then PvP is not the optimum path. Here's why.

At the beginning of the season you have 0 conquest pieces and zero raid pieces. The skill of the player determine which level his PvP and pve gear and there is a high correlation between the two. The better players get higher rankings AND raid harder content. So player skill is irrelevant to the gear they get. A bad player won't be getting H or M raid gear and won't be getting more than about 200 PvP gear.

For the end result you raid for gear and you PvP for points. You don't buy any gear from PvP until halfway through gearing because you don't want to buy gear that will drop in raids. Considering everything is an upgrade in raiding at beginning only a stupid person would gear up in PvP.

You guys are welcome and I have just proved that PvP gearing is not the optimum route for gearing.

What “guaranteed loot”? You mean the 35 anima?

Thanks for the laugh.

[Xath]

valor point farming
titan forged (heh, i know that "elitist" people dont like it but 90% of the gamers who are casual loved it, so stop being jerk about it)
token on dice
reforging stat system

give at least all of this and you will make the dungeon raiding more fun to do

they seriously should do a boss point system where after x kill you choose any item from this boss freely, it would beat the stupid rng the game is in

Valor point farming yes. Titan forge fuck no. Not hardcore and I hated tforging it meant I had to do all the bs world quests because loot could forge now I can safely ignore them. But yes we need a badge system.

[neescher]

M+ is still more profitable than raiding

In m+ you get ilvl 210, plus ONE 226 per week. If you do halfway decent raiding, you get probably 1-2 ilvl213 items per week, for way WAY easier content. Yeah, sure, after 3 months you don't need to raid any more, but in the first few weeks, the ilvl of heroic/mythic raids is always better than everything from M+, except the 1 vault item per week. Aside from the fact that raid trinkets are just better and even higher ilvl.

If this is happening then you aren't doing appropriate level of M+. The appropriate level of M+ is the level where you see upgrades. The chance of you not getting an upgrade after 24 runs is close to 0 percent. If you are already full 213 then you won't see any upgrades at all except the vault.

It's 6 weeks into the season. Many high level players have 0% chance of getting upgrades from M+, except for the vault. That's the problem when M+ is capped at a lower ilvl than *heroic* raid...

So 1 piece per week with a vault item vs 1 piece per 2 weeks and a vault item. You son of a bitch. I'm in. It takes twice as long to PvP but I'm convinced. If you're a raider then PvP is not the optimum path. Here's why.

At the beginning of the season you have 0 conquest pieces and zero raid pieces. The skill of the player determine which level his PvP and pve gear and there is a high correlation between the two. The better players get higher rankings AND raid harder content. So player skill is irrelevant to the gear they get. A bad player won't be getting H or M raid gear and won't be getting more than about 200 PvP gear.

For the end result you raid for gear and you PvP for points. You don't buy any gear from PvP until halfway through gearing because you don't want to buy gear that will drop in raids. Considering everything is an upgrade in raiding at beginning only a stupid person would gear up in PvP.

You guys are welcome and I have just proved that PvP gearing is not the optimum route for gearing.

All I know is that one of my friends who is doing only pvp has EIGHT ilvl 226 items and an average ilvl of 216, and I'm doing no pvp, only m+ and heroic raid, and I'm several ilvls lower. If my friend would be raiding/m+ *just a little bit* in addition to PvP, I'm sure he wouldn't have FIVE ilvl 197/200 items, and would probably be at >220 average item level.

Please tell me again how bad PvP is for gearing, I'm interested.

[DeusX]

In m+ you get ilvl 210, plus ONE 226 per week. If you do halfway decent raiding, you get probably 1-2 ilvl213 items per week, for way WAY easier content.

How fast people forgot how much complain was when the raid was launched on how difficult it is, that even normal raid is more difficult than a +10, and a +10 was not so common back then. This is how I remember people complaining. HC? "Fuck impossible, abilities 1shotting raiders".
And now, sure, after people farmed between 30 and 50 dungeons per week, for the past 4 weeks, HC raid became easy. How convenient.
Just as easy have become the dungeons, the majority of groups in LFD doing 11-12-13's. It's harder to get a spot as a non-meta class, but quite OK to finish.

[munkeyinorbit]

In m+ you get ilvl 210, plus ONE 226 per week. If you do halfway decent raiding, you get probably 1-2 ilvl213 items per week, for way WAY easier content. Yeah, sure, after 3 months you don't need to raid any more, but in the first few weeks, the ilvl of heroic/mythic raids is always better than everything from M+, except the 1 vault item per week. Aside from the fact that raid trinkets are just better and even higher ilvl.



It's 6 weeks into the season. Many high level players have 0% chance of getting upgrades from M+, except for the vault. That's the problem when M+ is capped at a lower ilvl than *heroic* raid...




All I know is that one of my friends who is doing only pvp has EIGHT ilvl 226 items and an average ilvl of 216, and I'm doing no pvp, only m+ and heroic raid, and I'm several ilvls lower. If my friend would be raiding/m+ *just a little bit* in addition to PvP, I'm sure he wouldn't have FIVE ilvl 197/200 items, and would probably be at >220 average item level.

Please tell me again how bad PvP is for gearing, I'm interested.

In M+ you get infinite drops. Full 210 in a week plus a 226. You don't get 226 in raiding unless you are doing mythic. On average it takes a player 9 weeks to fully gear to 213 in heroic raiding including the vault. In the same time you will have up to 9 pieces of 226 just by doing an easy m+. Proof that M+ is more profitable.

Thinking a M+ player deserves to have heroic raid gear let alone mythic raid gear at all is laughable. This point about players not needing gear after 6 weeks of mythic + reinforces my point of mythic + being more rewarding than raiding. Thank you.

Read again. PvP for the points and PvE for the gear. It's a very simple concept that was spelled out for the less educated people.

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What “guaranteed loot”? You mean the 35 anima?

Thanks for the laugh.

There is this new system where if you complete 1 m+ dungeon you are guaranteed loot that is usually a full tier above the loot available in the dungeon. I welcome new players and I recommend you go to wowhead.com because they are full of guides that are helpful for new players. For starters type in the word "vault" in to the search at the top of the page and you will find info about how to get the guaranteed loot from endgame activities.

You are welcome, new guy.

[neescher]

How fast people forgot how much complain was when the raid was launched on how difficult it is, that even normal raid is more difficult than a +10, and a +10 was not so common back then. This is how I remember people complaining. HC? "Fuck impossible, abilities 1shotting raiders".
And now, sure, after people farmed between 30 and 50 dungeons per week, for the past 4 weeks, HC raid became easy. How convenient.
Just as easy have become the dungeons, the majority of groups in LFD doing 11-12-13's. It's harder to get a spot as a non-meta class, but quite OK to finish.

HC raid was hard in the beginning, but so were +15s. Are you really saying that HC raiding is harder than +15? Please...

[munkeyinorbit]

When PVP is a better way to gear than PVE it's time to admit your system is broken.

PVP: do matches, earn points, buy gear when you get enough currency

PVE: do dungeons, pray to RNG gods you get a drop, and the drop you want specifically

Have a look at one of my past posts in this thread. I have proven that PvP is not the best way to gear if you raid. PvP for points, PvE for gear.

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HC raid was hard in the beginning, but so were +15s. Are you really saying that HC raiding is harder than +15? Please...

Well it is. 15s are a joke and you should be rewarded with 210 from the vault. It is a simple fact that there were tears everywhere when the raid was released. The best guild in the world even rage quit in release day. There were no tears for 15s.

[neescher]

In M+ you get infinite drops. Full 210 in a week plus a 226. You don't get 226 in raiding unless you are doing mythic. On average it takes a player 9 weeks to fully gear to 213 in heroic raiding including the vault.

9 weeks to fully gear 213 *including* vault? Are you high? You need to gear 14 slots, minus 1 for legendary, minus 9 from vault. Are you really claiming that you only get 4 items from bosses in 9 weeks?

Sure thing.

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Well it is. 15s are a joke and you should be rewarded with 210 from the vault. It is a simple fact that there were tears everywhere when the raid was released. The best guild in the world even rage quit in release day. There were no tears for 15s.

15s might or might not be a joke, but HC raid is still objectively easier. I proved that. (by your logic, simply posting on mmo-c comments is "proof", so there you go)

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The best guild in the world even rage quit in release day. There were no tears for 15s.

To follow up on that, which guild exactly rage quit HC Nathria??

[Nobleshield]

I always find Ion's interviews funny because he keeps seeming to miss the point and keeps saying how "the team" is doing X or Y, when X or Y has been shown not to work. Maybe you need a new team that understands an MMORPG and doesn't try to turn it into Diablo, and one that stops trying to follow through with their shit ideas and actually learns what people want.

[Alkizon]

When it comes to PvP itemization specifically, they're really happy with how that's playing out.

This generic "they're really happy" every time causes me involuntary burst of laughter (sometimes nervous), because this phrase, usually to midle or even at the end of expansion, is often reborn into something equivalent of "how wrong we were, but we learn from our mistakes" *facepalm*

For the record: there is nothing to be happy about it

And about that:

Balance remains an ongoing focus

I mean, yeah, something something, but problem here remains same literally - they ditched base, supplied remaining lumps with totally inappropriate bells and whistles, so now they have no even just a moral right to remember something of this nature until foundation is being restored, otherwise Big Bad "Wolf" will come, well, you know how it works, even if some semblance of equilibrium is achieved, which, however, is unlikely, it will be blown away by another unworthy addition. We already talked about something like this here.

ps. When I see stuff like (Legendary Effect) or "Covenants/Soulbind/Conduit" or (PvP Talent) in change~balance logs it only makes me even more firm in my position.

[chiddie]

In M+ you get infinite drops. Full 210 in a week plus a 226. You don't get 226 in raiding unless you are doing mythic. On average it takes a player 9 weeks to fully gear to 213 in heroic raiding including the vault. In the same time you will have up to 9 pieces of 226 just by doing an easy m+. Proof that M+ is more profitable.

Thinking a M+ player deserves to have heroic raid gear let alone mythic raid gear at all is laughable. This point about players not needing gear after 6 weeks of mythic + reinforces my point of mythic + being more rewarding than raiding. Thank you.

Read again. PvP for the points and PvE for the gear. It's a very simple concept that was spelled out for the less educated people.

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There is this new system where if you complete 1 m+ dungeon you are guaranteed loot that is usually a full tier above the loot available in the dungeon. I welcome new players and I recommend you go to wowhead.com because they are full of guides that are helpful for new players. For starters type in the word "vault" in to the search at the top of the page and you will find info about how to get the guaranteed loot from endgame activities.

You are welcome, new guy.

Sorry, I won’t feed the troll. You mistyped consciously to have the answer me and many others gave.

There’s NO guaranteed loot for completing M+, there is ONE guaranteed piece per week from the Vault. This is a complete different thing. Now, you can be lucky, do 5 M+ and exit them with 5 pieces or you can be unlucky, do 15 of them and exit with zero loot apart from the 35 anima.

Nice try though, keep up the good work my little friend.

[Argorwal]

Does it make sense to you that the best way to play arena without playing pve is to not play the game for several months so the fixed conquest cap goes high enough to buy full conquest gear? Because until then playing pve for gear is the meta.

Conquest has always had a cap?

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When PVP is a better way to gear than PVE it's time to admit your system is broken.

PVP: do matches, earn points, buy gear when you get enough currency

PVE: do dungeons, pray to RNG gods you get a drop, and the drop you want specifically

Sounds like PvP gearing from vanilla-WoD.

And badge gear was catchup trash for alts outside of 1-3 items per raid, which capped below the hardest difficulty.

[mbit]

Conquest has always had a cap?

Consider the full picture.
Honor gear used to be better than pve gear outside a few pieces(mostly trinkets). Shadowlands design makes general pve gear vastly better than honour gear because its literally same stats +20 ilvl. This is why full conquest matters now and didnt as much before.

[hyphnos]

So with daily questing having no rewards, callings give empty bags of gold, torghast rewards absolutely nothing, anima redirection rewards nothing, command table rewards nothing, queen's conservatory (or whatever other covenants have) rewards nothing and they think the problem is with Dungeons/Raids rewards?

In Ion's and the other devs minds problems worth dealing with in wow have to do with dungeons/raids and to a lesser extent pvp for high end players, which is why we always circle back to the crap we have now. Except now it's made worse by their constant fiddling with everything because they can pretend to allow "progress" with level and ilvl and just have the world scale most of it away by turning dials behind the scenes.

[rrayy]

I always find Ion's interviews funny because he keeps seeming to miss the point and keeps saying how "the team" is doing X or Y, when X or Y has been shown not to work. Maybe you need a new team that understands an MMORPG and doesn't try to turn it into Diablo, and one that stops trying to follow through with their shit ideas and actually learns what people want.

You thinking X or Y doesn't work doesn't make it fact that is doesn't. You revolve it around your opinion of how you think it should work and declare anything that doesn't fit what you think as not working even though it works perfectly fine for others.

[Traveler Voltin]

why is a lawyer in charge of WoW again?

[Aerisot]

Listening does not = caving to your every demand. Listening means they merely hear what everyone has to say and use it as part of the decision making process. You thinking something is awful does not mean it actually is as other players and devs disagree with you.

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People need to stop equating listening with "Give me everything I want" because that isn't what listening is. Listening is merely hearing all the feedback and choosing the course of action that they think pleases the most people. Caving to message board demands will never lead to pleasing the most people.

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This is player entitlement at it's worst. you did not earn loot. You earned a chance at getting loot. BIG difference. IF it instantly gave you loot, you would run each dungeon once and never again. What you want is TERRIBLE design.

I disagree, Everyone has been saying how horrible the conduit system is for months on the beta, and months on live, and the fact that you still CAN NOT change conduits with a tome is beyond stupid, and makes duel speccing actually harder to do, since you have to leave, change your conduits and then get resummoned back.