Battle for Azeroth Q&A with Ion Hazzikostas (Game Director) - December 14

[Vrakthris]

For the full video, click the link below.

Watch the Live Q&A VoD with Ion Hazzikostas Here! - WoW

We have taken the Dev Q & A video and listed each player question so you can jump straight to it by clicking on the question listed.

Communication

Undocumented Changes

• You promised us better communication. Why were so many changes undocumented in 8.1? (i.e. profession requirements on crafted gear, multitude of mythic plus mob changes)

• Could you possibly add rationale for changes to patch notes and/or hotfixes? This would be a huge step in communication and would help the community see things through your eyes.

Addon Change

• The recent patch 8.1, broke the popular addon CrossRP which gave players an opt-in means to communicate in-game across faction barriers. Was this intentional and if not, can it please be fixed?

Dungeons, Raids & Scenarios

Mythic Keystones

• Wondering why the change to deleting M+ keys. Seemed like a great QoL change made in BFA only to be removed quickly after implementation. What was the reason behind the change?

Mythic+ Pick Up Groups

• Are there any steps being taken to improve the M+ pug experience? Currently dungeons are extremely grueling and punishing for the casual player. It feels like without voice chat and coordination groups just fall apart.

Dungeon Changes

• Why were dungeon changes not in patch notes, and why were ones made to increase challenge and change strategy without addressing pain points of other dungeons?

Release schedule

• Why do we have to wait until the opening of the Battle for Dazar’Alor for the new M+ season to open? And in the same boat why do we have to wait an extra month for the new Azerite traits to be available?

Island Expeditions

• In 8.1 we will be able to acquire some rewards from island expeditions with currency, but this doesn’t include the items that were available before 8.1. Will the previous items be added to the vendor at some point?

Items

Titan Residuum

• It’d be nice to have a source of Titan Residuum that isn’t finite. I know you don’t want us farming it but cant you make the end of dungeons at least have a chance to drop some? Or shards of it. It’d be nice on zero azerite drop raid weeks.

• How do you plan on handling the transition from Season 1 to Season 2 regarding Titan Residium?

Heart of Azeroth

• Any plans making the “Heart of Azeroth” more relevant/engaging? During Legion we had weapons to look at and actually use, be it just for a new attack. Many players didn’t hide the artifact skins via xmog, they liked them. Why must the HoA feel so bland?

Rewards

• Do you plan on increasing gear reward item levels of warfronts and world quests as time goes on? A little disappointed that the new warfront still rewards 840 with the new raid coming out. Decreases incentive to do them. Shouldn’t the gear scale up with new content?

• Can we expect any form of Legendaries throughout BFA e.g. MoP cloaks, WoD rings?

Warfronts

Rotation

• Can we get warfront rotation to speed up a bit? Once a month to participate in a particular warfront is kind of lame?

PvP

War Mode

• As a Horde player on a Horde dominant server I will never see the 30% War Mode bonus. This is a problem.

Vicious Saddles

• It was previously mentioned by Ythisens back in September that new ways to obtain Vicious Saddles were being worked on for 8.1, what are they?

Class

• Are you satisfied with the state of class design as a whole? The community seems to have a negative opinion on this topic lately.

Alternate Characters/Casual Play

Catch up Mechanics

• The purpose of AK is to reduce the gap between players who play a lot and those who do not. With AK on hold for 6 weeks, there will be a massive gap going into next tier that won’t be easily closed for several weeks. What are your plans to prevent this in lieu of AK?

Transmogrification

What’s the status on uncoupling Artifact pairs for transmog? I really want to mog shield and sword separately on my prot pally.