Preach Developer Interview with Ion Hazzikostas - Patch 9.1

[Tsarez]

Well gear is always going to be a big factor, Preach was just arguing it had a larger factor than in the past. Confirming that isn't something you can easily prove but people in this thread have already made up their minds one way or another.

Being good enough for Mythic is more about just learning and understanding the fights, it's not a skill you can learn in heroic. I started raiding in this expansion in January after 4 years off and I think was around 213 when we killed Shriekwing Mythic, with a few pugs in group (guild didn't have a mythic roster then, and had no prior plans to raid mythic), but most of my gear came from M+ and I've been ilvl226 for a good while, not doing any content other than logging in once a week 2 hours of raiding. A lot of guilds are at this point or have stopped entirely.

This I realized already. I'm not new to MMOs, I come from FF and BDO where your gearing paths are either extremely branched out, but you also have many a source to acquire gear, or there is a very set path to gear that you can aim towards with ease, but then the upgrades are what is taking time and it's a matter of luck and grind (season server gear systems). It is rare that players end up sitting on the same gear and itemlevel for 6+ months and I'm not sure how much of it can be attributed to Corona and the fact WoW Devs had to work from home. I guess they're behind schedule for new content?

Getting gear is easy, you can do M+ and get up to 220 via valor and a 226 vault. If you want to move forward you have to take some inititive here and do what you must (ask for help?) to get geared. You said you get 50-90 parses but the 225 hunter gets grey but does more dps, that doesn't make sense unless you're talking about Ilvl bracket, by which point the comparison is kinda meaningless because higher ilvl bracket is where all the good players currently are. You can literally have a 99% parse on heroic and in the same guild on Mythic end up with green or grey parses just due to a scuffed strategy or execution, or because you were cheesing on Heroic and on Mythic you don't cheese because you need to kill the boss. Your parses are closely tied to the entire performance of your raid, at least for most classes on most bosses.

I have cleared up to M+12 by pulling my own weight, meaning in groups of similar item level to mine. But the M+15 is actually hard. So hard in fact that I couldn't time any +15 yet. As I said, I am still barely learning the game and not achieving a performance of veterans is okay for me. But I always thought that the benefit of this game over others is the raiding system and I find it somewhat weird that my gearing progression needs to come from the M+ content. But it is what it is.

Regarding the parses, yes. I've looked at item level parses because it strikes me as more fair to compare myself to others of similar gear, rather than the overall parses where people with better gear will obviously pull higher numbers. Is that wrong?

If your guild is progressing on 5/10 a lot of guilds at this point are just extending the lock anyway and gearing via M+ and I think it's a hard sell to bring an inexperienced 213 hunter to Mythic Artificer/Lady. You either need to just get in M+ and gear fast or set your sights on the next tier.
Considering that Season 2 will only take a few more weeks to arrive I'm wondering how much effort I should be putting into gearing up for Mythic NC. By the time I am finished I assume season 2 will render my efforts pointless.

Thanks for taking your time to answer. My responses are inline

[erifwodahs]

This guy is a part of the game=s downfall.
It is fun how they consider "new features" for Torghast as something actually new... it is the same shit. More trash mobs in a trash mobs tower.
More borrowed power systems.

They should get the hint from all the people playing on Classic... we want WoW to be WoW, not some modern quick match making crap.

They took the hint in loot drops - didn't work.
Added old spells, lol at that.
Match Making crap is for low end of the content and even then it's better than my current classic experience of not running a single dungeon in 30 levels because you can't find more than 3 people on "medium" realm who want to do any dungeons.

[deenman]

LOL at the white knights simps, defending Shittylands and Ion on this craptastic expansion.

I waana see WoW go back to MoP type design. Eliminate all "systems" like Artifact, Azerite, Covenants, Netherlight Crucibles, Necklaces, Essences, Corruption, Soulbinds, Anima, Conduits, Soul Ash, etc...

None of the above should be in WoW.

Nuke it from space, it's the only way to be sure.

huh...with ideas like this,its amazing how wod saw wow's greatest population drop,meanwile legion and sl hit record high's in sales and populairty,weird

[erifwodahs]

I found a guild to raid Heroic with. They already do Mythic, but won't take me because my gear doesn't produce the needed DPS. But according to my parses, I am somewhere between 50-90 on any given fight. Considering I'm basically still learning this game I find that okay. The other hunter who sometimes joins us either dicks around in Heroic, or is just terrible. Despite being Mythic geared with 225+ item level, his parses are gray. Always. He still does more net damage than I do.

iLvl pareses are somewhat inaccurate, it's ok to see if you are doing something wrong, but it doesn't show you a good picture is in lower gear you get more - low skilled players, which inflates your standing.
Grey ilvl parses on high ilvl might mean that your raid is just slow, because if you have high ilvl but your raid is just full of alts, you will have considerably slower runs and also at high ilvl you are competing against people who have invested a lot into their char so it's kinda like "bad premier league player is still better than good town league football player"
Doesn't mean that low gear player is not better player than high ilvl, but in ilvl parses you are mostly competing against at this point in expansion while other guy has to compete against mains.

[deenman]

His game? you're fucking delusional. The people who made this game are no longer with blizzard. The current Person who owns this game is Activision, the person who is in charge of World of Warcraft is Ion dickhead. He's the person who is making all the decisions in-game so yes he's at fault?. Why are more players active in classic than retail?. Is this bullshit?, log in retail go find anyone out in the retail world other than Orobus, it's Covid in Shadowlands right now. The devs make decisions without reaching out to the majority of the community. The only way things are going to change is if Activision implements a system where whenever the Dev's decision to "talk to themselves and make decisions" the community has a voting system to shut their stupid ideas down. This puts them in the open and exposes them to explain their stupidity rather than promote ignorance.

there is zero chance classic has more players,not because retail is better,but simply because its more casual freidnly

also this comparison you make is just silly,ofc people are in oribos,its the main city,and ofc the world can end up feeling more filled in classic,theres only 2 damn contitnents,you dont que for dungeons so you are out in the world more,lvling also takes longer,also there is far less to do in classic so ofc more people just hand around in sw

[erifwodahs]

LOL at the white knights simps, defending Shittylands and Ion on this craptastic expansion.

I waana see WoW go back to MoP type design. Eliminate all "systems" like Artifact, Azerite, Covenants, Netherlight Crucibles, Necklaces, Essences, Corruption, Soulbinds, Anima, Conduits, Soul Ash, etc...

None of the above should be in WoW.

Nuke it from space, it's the only way to be sure.

Lol, I would rather go back to Legion, it was the best expansion for a lot of people, even those who played since early wow.

[Tarba]

20% dps increase from the start of normal to the end of heroic is low.
maybe you should get yourself checked out.

cause i danm well know someone who is fully final bosses of heroic geared, should be 20% stronger then someone in only the basic normal first few bosses gear.

No it's not low. 1/5 more dps and survability just because of ilvel is not low at all.
I don't know about shadowland but in previous expansions good skill was only needed in mythic raids. And it was often "stable raid group" >>> skill == gear.
Heroic raids are pretty simple.

[erifwodahs]

Why are more players active in classic than retail?. Is this bullshit?, log in retail go find anyone out in the retail world other than Orobus, it's Covid in Shadowlands right now.

Oh, that's why in classic I haven't been able to do any dungeons PRIME TIME since I started? Whole time I leveled in Crossroads I saw 3 people, felt more like low pop private server. Plenty people in Org afking for WBFs. Plenty of people in world in SL and I don't need to wait 3 hours in town looking for a healer to do damn WC.

[Feral Druid ist Op]

Anyone that wants a good laugh, go check out the wowhead post.

A bunch of morons posting shit like "uh big bad ion is wrong cuz my 200 ilvl mage is doing 1.5k (lol so fucking bad) and 226 mages are doing like 8k!!! Gear bad! Blizz bad!"

Definently a big skill issue with this community and glad Ion told bads to git gud.

i mean i progressed M Lady with my 203ilvl mage week1 and did about 3,4k-4k dps with 200 conduits and renown 11 "git gud" as ions said yes lol

- - - Updated - - -

His game? you're fucking delusional. The people who made this game are no longer with blizzard. The current Person who owns this game is Activision, the person who is in charge of World of Warcraft is Ion dickhead. He's the person who is making all the decisions in-game so yes he's at fault?. Why are more players active in classic than retail?. Is this bullshit?, log in retail go find anyone out in the retail world other than Orobus, it's Covid in Shadowlands right now. The devs make decisions without reaching out to the majority of the community. The only way things are going to change is if Activision implements a system where whenever the Dev's decision to "talk to themselves and make decisions" the community has a voting system to shut their stupid ideas down. This puts them in the open and exposes them to explain their stupidity rather than promote ignorance.

You may check your facts my son, Jhon hight (the classic guy) is in charge of the game not Ion lol BAD lawlayer Ion is just a Game Direcktor, Jhon is a Executive Producer and Vice President of WoW (Ions Boss/higherUp).

[Hibiki]

I actually hate Preach. What a pathetic meta slave. This entire interview is a case study in how completely out of touch the developers and their elitist butt buddies are.

This game is dying and it's evident because they give no fucks in developing for casuals. Kevin Jordan put it best, this is a game for 'chasers" who chase the top 1%. There's no room for anyone else.

+1 I wonder where are some equivalent of horrific visions in SL. That was best casual / solo content since 2004 y.

[Tsarez]

iLvl pareses are somewhat inaccurate, it's ok to see if you are doing something wrong, but it doesn't show you a good picture is in lower gear you get more - low skilled players, which inflates your standing.
Grey ilvl parses on high ilvl might mean that your raid is just slow, because if you have high ilvl but your raid is just full of alts, you will have considerably slower runs and also at high ilvl you are competing against people who have invested a lot into their char so it's kinda like "bad premier league player is still better than good town league football player"
Doesn't mean that low gear player is not better player than high ilvl, but in ilvl parses you are mostly competing against at this point in expansion while other guy has to compete against mains.

Ah, got it. Thanks. The Warcraftlogs system is not extremely intuitive, but thanks to what you said the parsing makes a whole lot of more sense now.

Regarding differences in damage purely based on gear, I do come to the same simming results as the others. 1 item level difference equals ~1% increase in DPS on a stationary single boss fight.

[erifwodahs]

Ah, got it. Thanks. The Warcraftlogs system is not extremely intuitive, but thanks to what you said the parsing makes a whole lot of more sense now.

Regarding differences in damage purely based on gear, I do come to the same simming results as the others. 1 item level difference equals ~1% increase in DPS on a stationary single boss fight.

Yeah, logs are a good tool, but you have to know how to "read it", it still is a good indicator to have purple/orange ilvl parses at low ilvl - you are doing everything correctly, but there is more to that than just being "godlike".
And 1% dps increase has to come from same stats, so if you have 226 bis stats boots, and your 200 is bad stats/no socket - it will result in greater increase. There are a lot of intricacies in comparing gear "fairly" - fight times, buffs, conduits and so on. That's why having higher ilvl sometimes is a dps decrease (trinkets are extreme example, or some bad secondary stat combination on item 3ilvl higher than current one) and it used to be way bigger than SL, in Legion a 15ilvl lower item could have easy been an upgrade.

[Osperand]

Yes... that's how the video game works...

You also have 210 alts of non trash players pulling more dps than full 226 "waited on the vault for weeks" dumpsters who gray parse.

If you have the skill you get better gear. If you have the skill you play with better people. If you have the skill you do more damage.

Pretty simple really. So when people with garbage stats, low ilvl and no clue how to play their class complain, I just laugh and tell them they are trash because killing a boss in 8 minutes when players are killing it in 3 is a pretty big deal.

The worst thing to happen to the game is people with your attitude. Calling people trash and feeling superior just encourages toxic behaviour in the community. I have played with literally hundreds of newbies and i am always happy to help them if they want it/need it. This game died when it became too easy to change your character, when toxic behaviour resulted in you not getting in groups and other people avoiding you there were repercussions. Now everything is fast, join a random group in a few clicks, act like an ass and you may be kicked but not all the time which does nothing to stop people like you.

I quit after a few months, got my curve and will not sub again until a month before next expansion, if at all, as this community has gone to the dogs. And that, more than anything else, has put me off playing wow. Too much toxicity from people who should know better.

[Tsarez]

Yeah, logs are a good tool, but you have to know how to "read it", it still is a good indicator to have purple/orange ilvl parses at low ilvl - you are doing everything correctly, but there is more to that than just being "godlike".
And 1% dps increase has to come from same stats, so if you have 226 bis stats boots, and your 200 is bad stats/no socket - it will result in greater increase. There are a lot of intricacies in comparing gear "fairly" - fight times, buffs, conduits and so on. That's why having higher ilvl sometimes is a dps decrease (trinkets are extreme example, or some bad secondary stat combination on item 3ilvl higher than current one) and it used to be way bigger than SL, in Legion a 15ilvl lower item could have easy been an upgrade.

Maybe the question should be if an entirely new system could help solve this. Move away from the purely dmg driven thought, more to a situational gearing system. Bosses with lots of movement requirements could require you to equip gear that gives lots of movement increase. Bosses that do lots of AE dmg, require you to equip AE reducing equipment, and so on.

I am just throwing ideas, but surely if the aim is to innovate then moving away from the traditional DPS/HPS approach is what's needed.

[erifwodahs]

Maybe the question should be if an entirely new system could help solve this. Move away from the purely dmg driven thought, more to a situational gearing system. Bosses with lots of movement requirements could require you to equip gear that gives lots of movement increase. Bosses that do lots of AE dmg, require you to equip AE reducing equipment, and so on.

I am just throwing ideas, but surely if the aim is to innovate then moving away from the traditional DPS/HPS approach is what's needed.

I would agree with that, but WoW community is too big for it's own good. Anything like that always upsets someone. I for one, loved corruption gear after vendors, it was broken and you could do crazy stuff with it - absolutely crazy, but it upset a lot of people, which I can understand in some cases.

[Beuargh]

"Making world quests take longer was a design choice to switch time spent doing world quests vs travel time. Previous expansions players spent way more time traveling between quests over doing them."

of course making world quests take longer was the best solution!!! reducing the travel time was such a stupid thing to think about.... so now the travel time is still a pain, quests takes more time and the reward are still shit! what a great way to make that content more enjoyable... great job blizzard the end goal was never that clear

[Fiacla]

- - - Updated - - -



fake hair? its real hair my dude... do you even follow preach? he had a procedure done so he could finally stop being bald...

- - - Updated - - -

No I don't follow e-grifters all that much, sorry .

"Real" or fake, my point still stands, it looks horrendous.

[FelPlague]

No I don't follow e-grifters all that much, sorry .

"Real" or fake, my point still stands, it looks horrendous.

1. e-grifters? what the fuck is that even suppose to mean
2. yeah if you look at a persons chest after they had heart surgery, im sure that bloody wound wont look great either. it takes time for stuff to set in...
3. you really making fun of a dude for being bald and doing something about it? like holy fuck, i hope you remember this in a couple years when your hairline starts retreating. cause getting male pattern baldness is literally a coin flip.

[Fiacla]

1. e-grifters? what the fuck is that even suppose to mean
2. yeah if you look at a persons chest after they had heart surgery, im sure that bloody wound wont look great either. it takes time for stuff to set in...
3. you really making fun of a dude for being bald and doing something about it? like holy fuck, i hope you remember this in a couple years when your hairline starts retreating. cause getting male pattern baldness is literally a coin flip.

No need to be so defensive , sorry if I insulted someone you idolise.

I'm bald irl btw, just not insecure about it.

[Soikona]

1. e-grifters? what the fuck is that even suppose to mean
2. yeah if you look at a persons chest after they had heart surgery, im sure that bloody wound wont look great either. it takes time for stuff to set in...
3. you really making fun of a dude for being bald and doing something about it? like holy fuck, i hope you remember this in a couple years when your hairline starts retreating. cause getting male pattern baldness is literally a coin flip.

Didn’t know you had such a thing for the bald guys.