Forbes Interview with Ion Hazzikostas on Rise of Azshara, Faction Imbalance, Crucible Difficulty

Blizzard Posted 2019/04/11 at 12:13 PM by perculia

Forbes released an interview

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Crucible DifficultyUu'natJaina

So there isn't a gimme introductory boss, especially with a two boss raid. I would say the first of the two bosses is somewhere around the range of a mid to late tier Battle of Dazar'alor encounter, think like a Rastakhan or Mekkatorque. And then the final is boss is hard. It's end boss level, like a Jaina. Not necessarily harder than Jaina, but comparable to Jaina in challenge.

FlyingBFA

I think the biggest concern for us is probably actually the implications for War Mode. That's something we're continuing to discuss. And there are toys that will let you dismount, or restrict flight. We may end up wanting to play with those rules a little bit, in terms of, what are restrictions on flying if you have recently been in combat in War Mode, let's say. Trying to navigate a middle ground where it's not prohibitively punishing in a way that makes you turn off War Mode because it's a nuisance.

War Mode

War Mode participation overall has remained healthy and in fact it's increased over the last couple months.

Against Overwhelming OddsFaction Balancelopsided progress on Hall of Fame Dazar'alor

It's a problem we acknowledge, and something that we consider to be a problem that we need to work on. We don't have any solution to announce right now, but it's something we actively discuss. I think in terms of the balance of racials, in terms of what each faction is capable of, I think there's a good argument actually that tools like Shadowmeld are actually optimal for Mythic Plus.
The challenge is also we're not looking to encourage mass amounts of faction migration. It's more, how can we build a healthier high-end Mythic Plus scene, or a healthier high-end raid scene on the Alliance side, among the Alliance population.
But there is ample critical mass to support healthy communities on the Alliance side. It's more a matter of encouraging the formation and encouraging more people to dip their toe into those types of activities, so that there are more people to play with.

The Alliance-Horde divide is something that's integral to Warcraft. It's integral to the franchise, to the world, integral to World of Warcraft.

Azerite

That's a direct response to feedback we've heard from the start, about the feeling of progression or lack thereof: the frustration from needing to re-earn specific powers. And in general just the idea of lacking agency over pursuing options, customizing one's character, seeking out desirable rewards and earning them and working towards them.

Comment by treessassinI'll believe Blizzard cares about Alliance imbalance when 90% of their devs stop being blatantly Horde biased and dumping stuff like a bucket of horses into the Alliance rewards for BFA.

Devs in 8.0/8.1
Let's give the Horde an intricate branching narrative, a bunch of cool new mounts, and bonus story quests!

What does the Alliance get?

Literally nothing!

Devs in 8.1.5
Why don't people do more people do high-end content on Alliance?Comment by SgtGrumblesIon did reiterate that the faction divide was integral to WoW as well.Comment by Sahharabalance of factions = kill racials that influence in the gameComment by DarkAviatorWould really be nice to be able to group up with other faction players at least for world stuff. I still remember doing a questline in icecrown with my alt tauren shaman. Since it was a bit difficult, it was nice meeting an alliance druid, who also had some issues. So we helped each other kill mobs, most of the time killing double the necessary amount because the mobe always counted only for one of us. At the end, it was not possible to kill the last mob in the questline, because I literally couldn't heal the druid. Which is stupid, especially on a PvE server with PVP off.

And about flying and WPVP: As I don't care about warmode at all, I'd say they have their reward with the 10% bonus they get. So restrict flying for them until they turn it off. Would this (likely) kill WPVP? Sure, but not because people are flying with warmode on, but because they'd have warmode off, clearly showing that they don't actually want to do WPVP, but get more rewards.Comment by LostelfThe Alliance-Horde divide is something that’s integral to Warcraft. It’s integral to the franchise, to the world, integral to World of Warcraft.Comment by SeleriNot too worried about the faction divide comment. Of course he's going to say that in an expansion that revolves around the faction war. We all know it isn't true. Something has to change eventually, even if it's two new factions but you get to decide which one to join no matter your race.Comment by ZadeshikalIt's only important because they want to spread different rewards over playing the two factions so people have more gametime and stay longer doing the exact same thing really.Comment by ShryIt's only important because they want to spread different rewards over playing the two factions so people have more gametime and stay longer doing the exact same thing really.Comment by Arraya"I think there's a good argument actually that tools like Shadowmeld are actually optimal for Mythic Plus."Comment by BlueshiftThe only reason to raid is for enjoyment or tanking and healing trinkets. Mythic dungeon and PVP gear is far superior, especially for the bulk of the population that plays dps. In fact there is really no way a raider can compete with a player that acquires gear in these other areas.

If you want to inspire people to raid... give them some incentive to do so.Comment by DarkLordMagus1. Remove all racials the allow for stuns, extra damage, etc. Make racials a cosmetic effect only that is for out of combat.

2. Give alliance races the equivalent of the horde racials. Almost a mirror so any racial horde has that provides a boost to combat in PvE or PvP the same ones should also be on alliance races.

Want to fix faction imbalance? Start with thatComment by RainloverI'm sorry.... The balance is so easy...... Just let every race decide which faction they want to join in.... No matter if you are human or orc... You should get an independent choice which faction to join.... Freedom and Liberty!Comment by omedon666I'm sorry but the faction divide persisting in PVE as a non-optional barrier between players is just tribalistic and thus toxic BS. You can have the horde and the alliance and all of their affiliated races, have them start there, have them call their cities home, but stop godmoding this perpetual racism into my personal characters. It is absolutely trivial to motivate any race or class into a neutral "for the greater good" mindset in most PVE. I can see doing it within BFA as problematic as the PVE is also factionally divided, but 9.0 is a unique opportunity that I'm still not convinced they're not going to capitalize on somehow. In the meantime, insulting our intelligence with telling us how integral it is is just dumb. The player perspective is the customer perspective, and with all due respect to it being their world, our characters are our creations within their world.Comment by Foxpaw+1 to the chorus of the Alliance-Horde divide being the worst part of the game. Legion was a perfect time to get the hell over it and embrace the unity and cooperation angles but instead we resolved to doubling down on it and no one is happy. The number of ways that City of Heroes/City of Villains gradually implemented that by the end had almost entirely erased the divide between the factions and let you swap between them just by grinding a few missions was just one of the many ways it was one of the best MMOs ever and why it's remembered with such intense fondness.Comment by selkie47The potential of PvE mercenary mode was brought up and dismissed as "extremely unlikely"--mercenary mode is designed to let you queue for Battlegrounds faster, while with raiding, you are also looking for longer-term social connections.Comment by DziublaFunny how horde is dominating in every kind of content, how there is 6 to 4 imbalance in favor of max level horde to Alliance characters, and yet...Blizzard is looking at shadowmeld as the OP racial, while horde ones are perfectly fine. And they also believe that the number of players on both factions is ok, it's just that Alliance doesn't want to "form communities". That must be why whenever I open LFG on horde, no matter the hour, there are always dozens of groups for every kind of content imaginable. When I open LFG on Alliance, even during peak hours...yeah, not so much.Comment by GrabovskyOne compromise is for War Mode to disable flying in current content zones. Legion and below, war mode would let you fly; but in BfA areas, war mode only allows ground mounts. Some wpvpers love flying, like me though i main a NE druid so i can shadowmeld and fly away easily, but a lot of other wpvpers dont want flying specifically so wpvp is better. And it is better overall for wpvp to be on the ground. And now with war mode it is 100% your choice to engage in wpvp, so turn it off if you want a quick easy time, and be able to fly. Want a fun wpvp adventure, and have some time to spare, then go war mode and if its red, its dead.Comment by apedosmilThe Alliance-Horde divide is something that's integral to Warcraft. It's integral to the franchise, to the world, integral to World of Warcraft.