Dragonflight Alpha - Developer Interviews

[oplawlz]

one thing I'm worried about is if they're going to force us to do the story to level like they do the first time you level in shadowlands. that felt like an utter chore. being able to go back on an alt and choose to go where I want and do world quests, assist the covenants and so forth to level was way better. They need to just stick to that.

Imo they just need to stop with the unskippable dialogue. Let the people who want to keep moving along instead of making us listen to largely unlikeable npcs yammer about whatever terrible lore the writers came up with to justify us killing monsters.

[Cheezits]

Reading these interviews is like hitting my head on a wall over and over. They really are out of touch and do not listen.

The ONE thing most people can agree that everyone mostly wants is MORE CUSTOMIZATION. I mean, I don't care, but a lot of people do, so what does he say "NONE OF THAT" to?

Customization is the new "Flying". It triggers Ion.

They chose to make a new race instead of fat elves, new hairstyles, etc. At the current moment you can't have both in a patch.

[bullseyed]

They didn't say there wouldn't be dailies, just that it wouldn't be required to do them to progress your character. I suspect we'll see lots of rep stuff that's nice to have but unusable in instances to keep those so inclined happy.

We already had that in 9.2. Didn't go well.

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Well, considering people talk all the time about how much they LOVED Legion, the biggest chore grind of every xpac so far, I can see where they are coming from with this statement.

People loved classic, TBC classic and soon WotLK classic as well, which are all filled with grinds and chores.

It is incredibly obvious that "chores" are universally desirable content, but are demeaned by various "streamers", many of whom are attempting to sabotage WoW for other games like FF.

[Maljinwo]

Character Customization
No additional character customization for old races is coming with Dragonflight release. The focus is on the Dracthyr and raising the bar.

I thought they were proud about shadowlands making it easier to do customization?
Hopefully they don't ignore the other races

Still loads of work to be done

[Rageonit]

This implies that every player is equally productive on every class, which simply isn't the case.

As a result of imbalance, certain classes and combinations are MORE LIKELY to produce a case where the given amalgamation of skill, comp, and all other factors involved in a group passing a goal.

You say "but that's about it" as if it is a matter of small significance, but it isn't. It is the ONLY case in which performance actually matters. There is a long scale stretching from the set of variables at which a group succeeds at one end, and a group fails at the other end, an an extremely small subset in the very center where the actual kill occurs. The more balanced all classes are, the wider that central subset becomes. Put in simpler terms, better class balance allows more players to complete the content playing the class they actually enjoy, rather than the one that is overperforming.

I don't disagree with any of that and I'm not coming from a position that class balance is irrelevant. That being said, I also don't believe striving for perfect balance is inherently good for an RPG game (and in extreme cases - which often leads to homogenization of the classes - it's actually bad). You are right that the more balanced classes are, the wider that central subset becomes - but you can achieve the same thing by balancing the encounter itself (which affects ALL classes at the same time, not just the ones you try to buff or nerf or whatever). I think it's no secret that the harsher the tuning, the more pronounced are the issues of class disbalance. Imagine the scenery of M+ if the highest you could push was 15. Allowing to push ad infinitum is, again, exacerbating the problem.

I don't believe success in an RPG game should come from skill and skill alone; for that, you can play games that are balanced by design (read: every player is given the exact same skill set, and overall performance is 100% skill dependable). I believe than in an RPG game, you can bring more just because you're this class or that class. Thing is, it doesn't work in an environemnt where a perfect (or near perfect) comp is a condition of success (or having this utility or that utility etc. etc.). And that's how Blizzard balances the game. And I do understand why, because it's not difficult to see. The wider the central subset is, the easier it is for the best of the best to trivialize the game - and for some reason Blizzard doesn't want that to happen.

So while I believe Blizzard is, philosophically speaking, right in the fact that they did not invent the arms race between players and classes, they sure as hell encouraged the players to do it for them. After all, in today's environment, I'm not even sure if you'd be able to "beat" the game without tools like DPS meters or sims.

[BeepBoo]

People loved classic, TBC classic and soon WotLK classic as well, which are all filled with grinds and chores.

WOTLK has precisely 0 chores once you get to level cap and start raiding. Once you're on the raid train, you can raid log. WOTLK was my favorite xpac BECAUSE it was the most firendly raid-logging one where you could stay on-par, power wise.

It is incredibly obvious that "chores" are universally desirable content, but are demeaned by various "streamers", many of whom are attempting to sabotage WoW for other games like FF.

Chores are garbage. I want to log on, raid, get 99% parses (because I have the skill to do so) and log off, then repeat next week, ad-nauseum.

[cuafpr]

Tanking - yeah I gave up when my guild went poof and I did some PUGs ... just nope. Also when tanks started doing "DPS" it sucked. give tanks TPS if you must have some numbers, and have our DPS be next to nothing in groups. I got so tired of needing more DPS gear, I want to tank not DPS, I want to control a boss's movement, adds, and the flow of the fight, and manage some CD's not worried about a max DPS rotation. Heck IMO tanks shouldn't even have a rotation.

Cross faction stuff just makes me sad as a long-time Warcraft person going back to the start of Orcs and Humans.... If I join a guild again guess I'll have to make sure it's Alliance only and stays that way... I don't want a horde in my groups/guild.

[Rageonit]

Incorrect. There was no tuning that excluded any spec from participating in mythic raid. You could clear mythic with a full raid of balance druids if you were good at mechanics.

That might be right if you look at the top, top percentile of players. I don't think you should - they are not "normal people", so to speak.
Games should not be designed for the top percentile of players; I think Sepulcher was a great examply why. So yes, at the extreme end everything is possible - but I don't think the "extreme end" should be the focal point of discussion about game accessibility.
That's not to say every player should be able to kill a mythic boss, no; but if the number of players being able to kill those bosses drops rapidly from expansion to expansion, it says something too.

[Sentynel]

Tanks

• The team would love to see more people tanking and talks about it often.

Yet they intentionally miss on the opportunity to make "dragon tanks"

Having more tank specs doesn't mean more tank players.

[oplawlz]

We already had that in 9.2. Didn't go well.

First, people are disgusted with the expansion. This has nothing to do with reward dynamics.

Second, what exactly is your obviously personal issue with this concept? If doing chores is fun to you they're still there to do. For the people who don't want to do them there is no compulsion to do so. Seems like a pretty solid win/win.

[oldgeezer]

By the middle of the expansion, Dragonriding should feel as convenient as flying. Players that are comfortable with the system may find it all around better once they are upgraded.

I can't wait to ditch flappy dragon as quickly as possible. Sounds awful.

[Kumorii]

They didn't say there wouldn't be dailies, just that it wouldn't be required to do them to progress your character. I suspect we'll see lots of rep stuff that's nice to have but unusable in instances to keep those so inclined happy.

When the entire game is built around slowly progressing your character through dailies or weeklies, how will they solve that?
weekly raids and weekly m+ and weekly pvp is the way to progress your character currently if you want to maximize the amount of progress.
hell, even weekly / dailie quests for currencies is also the way to progress your character.

Progressing your character through loot is over and done quite quickly, to progress further you need to wait for time gates.

[Logwyn]

"Dragonriding was built as an expansion specific system" More one and done content typical Blizzard MO!

[Rawrajishxc]

Having more tank specs doesn't mean more tank players.

It never hurts though. I know tons of people wanted a Black Dragon aspect for tanking, which let's be real they could have done but for whatever reason didn't.

[JSoup]

A sixth slot crafting bag sounds neat, but I wonder if it wouldn't just be better to expand the reagent bank tab. As in, make it like the normal bank tabs where bags can be added to expand storage.

[kamuimac]

" By the middle of the expansion, Dragonriding should feel as convenient as flying. Players that are comfortable with the system may find it all around better once they are upgraded."

this is most improtant part of the interview

we can safely assume that the dragon-gliding streamers test now is not the gliding we will get on launch only around mid of expansion

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Hell HALF of the games classes can currently tank wtf more do you people need? Lol

they can - but untill tanking is made significantly easier and "safer" you will never have more tank . why play tank and put 5 times more effort when you can just play dps and whine about getting declines in groups.

look at this week as best example - fortified + ragiing means half of tanks swpaing to their offspec because f... certain affixes combos.

[Rageonit]

this is most improtant part of the interview
we can safely assume that the dragon-gliding streamers test now is not the gliding we will get on launch only around mid of expansion

No, you can't.
1. dragon gliding in it's current form is needed for questing;
2. Ion already explained in other interviews that THIS from people are testing right now is the basic form - it will be further enhanced thorough the expansion with something akin to "a talent tree" (his words).

[Chilela]

Evokers don't have a tank spec because it doesn't fit the fantasy of breath weapons, wings, and mobility.

[Laughs in BrM Monk/Veng DH]

Dragonriding was built as an expansion specific system, but if the feedback is great and people want it going forward, that is possible.

The fact that it wasn't intended to be an evergreen feature from the start is concerning.

[Eapoe]

We already had that in 9.2. Didn't go well.

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People loved classic, TBC classic and soon WotLK classic as well, which are all filled with grinds and chores.

It is incredibly obvious that "chores" are universally desirable content, but are demeaned by various "streamers", many of whom are attempting to sabotage WoW for other games like FF.

But yet the person I replied to stated that it took Blizz 18 years to realize ppl don’t like that content.
There’s also plenty of people who refer to Torghast as Choreghast, and don’t like doing it.
Personally, I hate chores in games. I’ve said it for years, and in multiple threads, but when I log in to play it should be because I want to, not because I have to. If I want to log in and do a few world quests here and there for some small rewards in gold or xmog/pets/mounts, or hunt some rare creatures for the same chances, I should want to do those things. Not log in to complete as many as possible in my personal time to gain power so I can stay relevant and not hold my guild of friends back.

[Dorothyjean]

Well, welcome to the World of Mythic Plus and once again totally ignoring raids that aren't Mythic. I used to raid with 3 guilds all at a Heroic level and with a 4th guild on the off day and 90% of the people are all geared primarily from M+ but for people who just raid Heroic we're screwed. Outside of just finishing the Heroic raid as a guild there is almost zero point to do it anymore outside of the achievement and hangin' out with friends when you can just slide into each others DMs "Ohh you too would like to do a +15 that is much easier to do than the heroic raid... and we get a nice phat 278 item that we normally would never get".

I'd like to thanks Blizzard for once again totally ignoring this problem even though there have been a gazillion, length threads about this on the WoW Forums... but hey, who gives a crap right... everyone is doing M+ so just focus on that M+ content amirite!

Sad.