Vanion.eu Q&A with Ion Hazzikostas - Negativity, Itemization, Rise of Azshara Plans

Blizzard Posted 2019/01/27 at 9:08 PM by Archimtiros

Greek Community last monthHighlightsIt's no secret that the current mood of the community is not the best, and as a fansite we've seen negative comments about almost every aspect of the game. Why do you think it has gotten so extreme since the release of Battle for Azeroth?recent Q&AOne of the bigger community complaints is with end-game itemization; on the one hand there needs to be catch up mechanics for new players and alts, on the other it feels like there are no advantages for intense day to day players. Why so much change between early expansion itemization and today's?Why aren't there more currencies and vendors for gear, similar to buying Azerite?If you could change two or three things prior to Battle for Azeroth release, what would they be?There are a lot of new and interesting raid mechanics in Battle of Dazar'alor, what's your favorite fight in the new raid?What can you tell us about the smaller Crucible of Storms raid, can we expect it to open with patch 8.1.5, and what can we expect out of the rewards since it's not a higher raid tier?Faction Assaults combined with War Mode are really fun, and prior to 8.1, War Mode wasn't very fun. There are still issues like sharding, not being able to filter Looking for Group by War Mode, or summon friends who are/not in War Mode. Any further plans to improve the system?Legion focused on class identity, order halls, legendaries, artifacts, and many players were pretty happy about it. There's little like it in Battle for Azeroth, a lack of the identity and character development. Why did you decide to change this between Legion and Battle for Azeroth?From Warlords to Legion, a lot of talent trees changed from utility rows based on player preference to throughput rows with fewer utility. How has that worked out as a design decision and is it something you'd consider revisiting?Speaking of talents, why were so many baseline abilities and passives made into talents?Can you tell us more about Mechagon in patch 8.2, is it a new mega-dungeon, or zone, or what can we do there?Can we talk about Mechagnomes and allied races?At BlizzCon it sounded like Nazjatar will include something new every day, could you give us some examples?Treasure chests and rares in Battle for Azeroth are boring and not really rare as they were in previous expansions. Will there be any more "real" rares in the future that will be more exciting?Are we going to see something like the class-specific solo challenges from the Mage Tower again in the future?Heroic Warfronts were announced at BlizzCon for 8.2, can you tell us more about the differences? Warfronts are an interesting concept, but too easy and straightforward to be fun, we don't think it's even possible to lose!Will there be a new Warfront in Patch 8.2?What about the Barrens Warfront speculation?Any further plans for crafting? We've never heard a player say World of Warcraft has a good crafting system. It's kind of boring and useless without many perks or rare recipes.Zone design in Kul Tiras and Zandalar is beautiful, but traveling back to the old zones feels like a completely different game. Arathi and Darkshore overhauls were nice, can we get more?

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Comment by MoonstakerWhat a joke. So because some guilds were salty having ADHS for not getting into the current raid #$%^ the game forever am i right? Also he dodged the question how it is insulting to expect players to give a !@#$ about gear when they gonna get auto drip feeded gear for nonperforming regardless.
There is other %^&* in those this then your turbo only raiding gameplay ionComment by OphionReally? Then leave in touch on the fact that they give Alliance free gear and made it horde turn off for mode in order to level or do any kind of progression? Everywhere you land as horde you instantly die.Really? Then leave in touch on the fact that they give Alliance free gear and made it horde turn off for mode in order to level or do any kind of progression? Everywhere you land as horde you instantly die.Comment by lankybritTo Ion:

People were happier in Legion because of gold from the mission table. Simply up the rewards to 500g or so from the BFA table and people will like the expansion a lot more.

Crafting absolutely sucks since you gave it three tiers and so many mats to craft single items. You need to go back to the Cata way of crafting to find a way to revive crafting.

Of course. IMHO.Comment by FixiI appreciate the forthright nature of this comment. Re-doing old zones *is* nice, but not at the expense of new content. Comment by DarkAvatarTo Ion's response saying that pleasing everyone is their greatest challenge - If you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one.Comment by MsWeatherwax"The playerbase is too diverse" is such a freaking cop-out.
There's such a thing as STATISTICS for crying out loud. Get all the complaints, compile those to see which ones have more backing, and fix THOSE. It's not freaking rocket science.Comment by JoshmaulNow imagine having to do that every time you got a new person on your raid team, and having to do it for alts.
You can't simultaneously complain that the game has no grinds and is too easy, then complain when they put one in.

Piss off with your rose-tinted bs.Comment by GrimoraI noticed the bloody GCD change for the first day, now I don't notice it.
Most people giving "feedback" are vocal minorities and the followers of youtubers who's brand is "WOW IS DEAD LETS MAKE FUN OF IT".
BfA is fine. It's not better than Legion, and that's where the "giant problem" is. It's hard to top defeating the Burning Legion, unless you want every patch to be destroying an Old God, on patch day, with a new patch every month, until there's no story left if the game.
It's really like people WANT the game to die. And that's sad.Comment by MightylinkHe's still living in a bubble "oh the negativity is normal, every game has this" no they don't, go to any other forums like eso or warframe and you see a much happier playerbase, its because your game is really bad right now dude!Comment by WillowwhispTypical lawyer talk, can't ever get a straight answer out of him.
It is not polarized negativity, it's your inability to process any constructive critisism or any feedback
Also it seems Watcher is confused where is a objective or subjective feedback
NO one asked for GCD and NO one think it was a good change
I never understood this about Blizzard (post MoP i would say) where they make apparently bad calls and stick to them, refusing to acknowledge that was an obvious mistake like GCD
What is wrong with accepting that you've made a mistake, fix or revert it and move on?
When you say "I made a mistake" it will only show your human side, because the only side i can see of Blizzard now is of greedy and arrogant company that try makes out of players, mindless payersComment by wolfrunner86Really? Then leave in touch on the fact that they give Alliance free gear and made it horde turn off for mode in order to level or do any kind of progression? Everywhere you land as horde you instantly die.Comment by NebronOkay, point by point:

As far as I can agree, that some people mindlessly copy others negative opinions, there is a lot of a constructive criticism to which they rarely refer. Yet, the extreme opinions aren't a product of some conspiracies. It is just how players feels. Without a number we can easily say, that servers feel quite empty. Just to be honest. Yet, I still play, because I have some fun doing the content. I don't want to be misunderstood, but the biggest Blizzard's problem is that they treat every opinion equally; and they shoudn't.

It's good they want to make sure, that returning players have some catch-up mechanincs, but Heart of Azeoth doesn't help there. Nor giving away some high-end content for doing absolutely nothing.

Currencies - the best way to provide gear through a variety of activities. Why it has been abadoned? I have simply no idea. Justice and Valor points, or WotLK's emblems did a great job.

If he could change 2 or 3 things - I bet he would love to say he would change the entire xpac, but he can't. That's it.

I definitely agree there are some fancy and cool mechanics in the raid. Nothing to add.

Good to have raids like Crucible of Storms, just like Trial of Valor.

War Mode might have been a great tool, but there is hardly any use of that, so they need to give players extreme rewards for that, disbalancing the game simultaneously. I always thought it would be much better, if we fought for the control over some zones (just like Wintergrasp or something like that, but in the greater extent) instead of those meaningless Warfronts. Wasted potential - once again.

Story > gamplay. And that's the result. Although I am a huge geek when it comes to storytelling, gamplay is ALWAYS first. I can play a game with a good mechanics without a proper story, but not the other way around.

I agree it's not good to have 30-40+ abilities in the spellbook, since there is a point, when you don't even bother about using some ability. But it shouldn't work the other way neither. I am quite happy about this topic.

Once again, good to have a Karazhan 2.0 in that expansion.

Allied races. The worst decision EVER made. Nobody wanted quasi-races, rehashed models or anything like that. It all started from that cool idea of having more customization options. But nope, they decided it would be cool, if they swamp us with thousands of allied races. In 5 years (if WoW would be alive), we will have over 20 races. Not really fan of that, since it will drag away the genuine hype about getting a brand-new race. Irreversible addition. Such a bad decision.

Mage Tower was a huge success. You know why? Because Challenge Modes were a huge success, and Mythic+ didn't really fill that gap. People want the rewards, especially the unique, prestigious, cosmetic ones. It gives them incentive to play. "It's something they'd love to do again in the future, but don't want it to become formulaic with every expansion". YES, BE FORMULAIC. Give players what they really want!.

Warfronts are all bad. This is a huge mistake. While Island Expeditions have a lot of potential to be improved in the future, Warfronts were such a loss of resources... No Heroic/ Mythic mode can change it. He even admitted himself, that it's and LFR encounter. That hurts when they have a clear idea, that LFR is a trash, Warfront is a trash, and they keep it in the game. I am happy with the idea, that they will get rid of Warfronts next expansion.

And of course there is no Warfronts planned in 8.2, because after the huge backlash from community they had to change their plans. So the make some kind of damage control - the game is bad already, don't make it worse, and don't waste the resources in something, that players hate.

Crafting is bad. In Legion they at least tried to do something better. But "easing" professions in Battle for Azeroth made it even more useless. Don't expect crafting professions to be relevant, if there are so many sources of gear: like Warfronts :). I have seen hundreds of great ideas on how to improve professions on so many forums. Make use of it.

Take your time. Remake the world. Give it another life. Fill it with content. Good stories. Give players what they want within reason, and do what you feel right, when players demand too much. Don't look at numbers: I don't care how many players play the game. I just want the game to be the best product you can make. Take everything that brought you to success, get rid of anything that happened to be a failure. TAKE. YOUR. TIME. And give me a great game.

Comment by bruenirReally? Then leave in touch on the fact that they give Alliance free gear and made it horde turn off for mode in order to level or do any kind of progression? Everywhere you land as horde you instantly die.Comment by 4ldarisAs always BoP materials are NOT an answer, if they are struggling to see that after all those years, then there is no hope. There is like million different approaches to make professions interesting, challenging and able to create decent gear. People are buying carries for the same amount of gold they would otherwise spend for raid ilvl crafted BoE. So basically they got BoP gear or/and mats for gold, which means that keeping BoP mats is pointless and any arguments against that are invalid.

Example: You could reintroduce thistle tea like recipe. (1) Players need to obtain a recipe from old content place, possibly with some interesting quest or challenge. (2) Potion gives temporary buff/resto to certain class/classes. (3) It would be useful for casual/twink/raider/pvp but it wouldn't be absolutely necessary. (4) It could use old world mats so they wouldn't be useless anymore.

Example 2: You could even make game more interesting with some simple stupid changes like adding a possibility to some chest in loch modan to drop some endgame gems.

Just make the world worth exploring. Make the copper veins worth mining etc. I am tired of ghost iron, sky golems, %^&*load of people on single herb route in tiragarde, azerite rng, boring islands, removal of one of the best battlegrounds while keeping pointless isle of conquest, thousands of worthless currencies (I got mote of darkness and I don't even remember what is that for), BoP everywhere, not giving Alliance Vulpera race :)...Comment by RiboflavenusReally? Then leave in touch on the fact that they give Alliance free gear and made it horde turn off for mode in order to level or do any kind of progression? Everywhere you land as horde you instantly die.Comment by oland138I noticed the bloody GCD change for the first day, now I don't notice it.
Most people giving "feedback" are vocal minorities and the followers of youtubers who's brand is "WOW IS DEAD LETS MAKE FUN OF IT".
BfA is fine. It's not better than Legion, and that's where the "giant problem" is. It's hard to top defeating the Burning Legion, unless you want every patch to be destroying an Old God, on patch day, with a new patch every month, until there's no story left if the game.
It's really like people WANT the game to die. And that's sad.Comment by Kurias"The playerbase is too diverse" is such a freaking cop-out.
There's such a thing as STATISTICS for crying out loud. Get all the complaints, compile those to see which ones have more backing, and fix THOSE. It's not freaking rocket science.Comment by GullaDaPwnaSomeone mentioned that people play on faction dominated servers and so there are plenty of alliance dominated pvp servers where alliance ganged up on horde. Well except for the fact that the #1 alliance pvp server NA shares a shard with pretty much all horde dominated servers so even if your server was alliance dominated you were still overall dominated by horde.Comment by RiboflavenusRegarding war mode: I have been on a PvP server since early WotLK and turned warmode on the secone I logged on at launch. Yesterday I turned it off on all chars. 40+ alliance at Tol Dagor flight path/sum stone, 40+ alliance in every assault that cause lag and obviously makes it impossible to do the quests. And if I try to group up to fight back I'll get sharded to a shard where the tables are turned. 40+ horde vs 5 alliance. And the fact that Blizzars gives alliance a 30% bonus and their 400 ilvl quest is just insane. And when I heard the reason: to get Horde players to turn off warmode, that was it.Comment by 1491791A Mage Tower type solo challenge should be a part of every expansion in the future.

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