Bajheera Interview with Brian Holinka

[Xeenith]

I think it's meant to make pvp items less interesting for top level pve players, since they'll need much work to make them usefull for pve
while pvp players will get full usefulness of the items right away

[Vandren]

I am rather surprised they don't want to try with stat templates again, at least in unrated PvP, as it would solve all the problems with gear discrepancy with one swoop. Then again it's Holinka show and mediocrity is that man's middle name.

At least the upgrade system for the PvP side is dying in a particularly painful fire. Assuming that is the case though.

[DechCJC]

What…? Why isn’t PvP gear a higher ilvl in war mode still? I thought the whole point was for PvP players to feel like they weren’t ever outclassed by PvE geared players, yet it’s ok for PvE trinkets to be viable?

Legitimately the first bit of disappointing news I’ve heard for the xpac, what an absurd change.

[Vandren]

What…? Why isn’t PvP gear a higher ilvl in war mode still? I thought the whole point was for PvP players to feel like they weren’t ever outclassed by PvE geared players, yet it’s ok for PvE trinkets to be viable?

Legitimately the first bit of disappointing news I’ve heard for the xpac, what an absurd change.

Indeed. When PvE impinges on PvP, Blizzard do not bat an eyelid and is even encouraged in some cases. When the reverse happens, alarm klaxons sound off in Blizzard HQ and it's all hands to the pump to emergency patch PvP rewards to oblivion. The ridiculous double standard is over a decade old and not going away anytime soon, it would seem.

[ImpalerEU]

I hope they keep the system generally as it is at the moment for gearing in PvE and PvP.

[Magenugget]

Good to see them returning to systems that worked perfectly fine in the past. Maybe they did actually learn, but it's too early to tell.

[ClownPrincess]

"The plan for Dragonflight is for the additional PvP item level to not work in the outdoor world. You will still be able to upgrade the PVE item level of PvP gear through conquest though."

That's super unhelpful and vague. Does it means it doesn't work against mobs (which would be fair enough), or that it also doesn't work against players? (Which would be bullshit and a departure from the current system and WoD' system).

What about warode? Would it work against other players in war mode? If not, what's the point of war mode if it's once again going to be dominated by PvE players just because they have better gear?

Can't they bloody explain things fully instead of throwing out these kind of half assed, unhelpful statements?

[VoidSeeker199X]

Random battlegrounds will continue to have the faction divide.

What's the point of the cross faction feature then? I don't want to be waiting 30+ minutes to get into a random bg.

[Sharein]

The only thing they need to do is reducing the damage output of all classes, and separate BGs and arenas.

[RamGuy]

To be frank, I don't PvP at all. And I suppose PvP gear in the open world is pretty redundant with War Mode being a thing, so those who don't care about world PvP won't even be available for PvP players to interact with. But as long as War Mode continues to give PvE benefits such as bonuses towards world quests etc. Blizzard is obviously trying to give players incentive to keep War Mode on regardless of whether you are into PvP or not. Shouldn't PvP geared players be stronger than pretty much any PvE player in these scenarios? Why shouldn't a top geared PvP player have a decent power advantage even when facing off with a mythic RAID geared player? If not, why keep PvP gear a thing at all. Just remove PvP stats and keep it all the same across PvP and PvE and make PvP and PvE about equal in terms of efficiency for getting good gear. Sure this sounds like a rather dull solution, but what's the point of having dedicated PvP gear if players that dedicate themselves to PvP will still not have any major advantage when they face off with dedicated PvE players in the open world? It's like you have one person being excellent in Baseball (PvP), the other excellent in Football (PvE) and somehow when they both compete agents each other in a baseball match the football player somehow is fully competitive regardless.

I fully understand the desire to have dedicated PvP gear and progression. But what's the point if it doesn't really give you much of an advantage in a world PvP scenario because the PvP gear isn't allowed to scale great compared to PvE gear.

[Theangryone]

To be frank, I don't PvP at all. And I suppose PvP gear in the open world is pretty redundant with War Mode being a thing, so those who don't care about world PvP won't even be available for PvP players to interact with. But as long as War Mode continues to give PvE benefits such as bonuses towards world quests etc. Blizzard is obviously trying to give players incentive to keep War Mode on regardless of whether you are into PvP or not. Shouldn't PvP geared players be stronger than pretty much any PvE player in these scenarios? Why shouldn't a top geared PvP player have a decent power advantage even when facing off with a mythic RAID geared player? If not, why keep PvP gear a thing at all. Just remove PvP stats and keep it all the same across PvP and PvE and make PvP and PvE about equal in terms of efficiency for getting good gear. Sure this sounds like a rather dull solution, but what's the point of having dedicated PvP gear if players that dedicate themselves to PvP will still not have any major advantage when they face off with dedicated PvE players in the open world? It's like you have one person being excellent in Baseball (PvP), the other excellent in Football (PvE) and somehow when they both compete agents each other in a baseball match the football player somehow is fully competitive regardless.

I fully understand the desire to have dedicated PvP gear and progression. But what's the point if it doesn't really give you much of an advantage in a world PvP scenario because the PvP gear isn't allowed to scale great compared to PvE gear.

Because Blizzard doesn’t care about wpvp. Wpvp is player driven content that only contributes to time played metrics. They want pvp to happen in battlegrounds, where everything has a timer now, to get as much interaction through designed content as possible. They also don’t want to make pve players mad if they get rolled in their raid gear

[shise]

I hope they keep the system generally as it is at the moment for gearing in PvE and PvP.

Except M+ shouldnt give BIS items.

- - - Updated - - -

The only thing they need to do is reducing the damage output of all classes, and separate BGs and arenas.

You can PvP with either Horde or Alliance. IF Alliance que is high, que as Horde then.

[thrill]

Just let PVP gear scale up in warmode for heaven's sake. If PVE players are that threatened by fighting people with similar ilvl to themselves, they can turn WM off.

[Deferionus]

"The class section of the new talent trees will be interesting for PvP. It might cause the player to choose between defensives or utility"

Indirectly confirms that the Classes are pruned.

Well done Blizzard, since I highly doubt you add new options to the talent tree.

Not necessarily. The modern day talent system effectively pruned warlocks. Going back to the more traditional styled talent system might result in us getting more of our complete kit back. It all depends on how they do it. If I can have death coil, instant howl of terror, siphon life, unstable affliction, curse of exhaustion, and get soul link back I will be pretty damn happy about it.

[RamGuy]

I supposed you can look at classes being pruned in the sense that you will most likely have to make the choice of how you spec your character using the more traditional and far less restrictive talent tree, which quite frankly sounds awesome. I want class identity back, having all classes being able to do pretty much anything in terms of utility makes classes feel less special and boring. With the modern traditional talent tree, it's up to each player to spec however they want. If you want the utility you should be able to achieve it, but you'll have to commit and spent the talent points accordingly.

[Rucati]

What's the point of the cross faction feature then? I don't want to be waiting 30+ minutes to get into a random bg.

The point is so you can do group content with people cross faction, they made that abundantly clear from the minute it was introduced.

Random BG queues are like 3-5 minutes, nobody is waiting 30+ minutes for a random BG, not sure what you gain by making a wild claim like that tbh.

[DechCJC]

Indeed. When PvE impinges on PvP, Blizzard do not bat an eyelid and is even encouraged in some cases. When the reverse happens, alarm klaxons sound off in Blizzard HQ and it's all hands to the pump to emergency patch PvP rewards to oblivion. The ridiculous double standard is over a decade old and not going away anytime soon, it would seem.

After watching the interview it doesn’t seem as bad as I first thought actually. It probably isn’t fair for players to instantly have mythic level gear in war mode straight off the bat now that the PvP ilvl is static and only PvE can be tweaked.

It isn’t very clear in the write up, but we’re going to be going to a WoD type system where honor gear is roughly heroic ilvl in PvP and conquest is mythic. Upgrading it increases it in the world.

As long as the pve ilvl can eventually match the best pve gear in the world, I think that’s fine.

[Sentynel]

The point is so you can do group content with people cross faction, they made that abundantly clear from the minute it was introduced.

Random BG queues are like 3-5 minutes, nobody is waiting 30+ minutes for a random BG, not sure what you gain by making a wild claim like that tbh.

EU Horde random BG is around 10-15 minutes que time, epic BG is even longer. Sometimes 30-40 minutes.

[Clozer]

Rated solo queue could come later on in Dragonflight, but it would likely only allow you to queue by yourself.


Wait, so no rated soloq with 10.0?

[dragi]

I am very disappointed, i am casual player without guild and want play random bg, with divided queues for random staff problem still same, long queues...