Battle for Azeroth Q&A with Ion Hazzikostas (Game Director) - January 24

[Vrakthris]

For the full video, click the link below.

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

For your convenience 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.

Development Insights

• What do you consider the biggest design challenges WoW is facing in the long term, from a development point of view?

Allied Races

• Any specifics for the release timeframe on Kul Tirans and Zandalari?

PvP / War Mode

Rewards in War Mode

• Can you explain the rationale behind Alliance getting the opportunity for ilvl 400 gear this week and likely every week for engaging in World PvP?

• Seeing as the War Mode bonus has been an unwavering 30% for the Alliance, does the team consider this to be a failure at balancing?

Server Stability / Latency

• I’ve greatly enjoyed the 30% bonus as Alliance for War Mode and almost never take it off. There’s a lot of excitement when battles organically occur. However, the server lag is almost unbearable. Is anything being done about server stability?

PvP Vendor

• Can PvP please get some sort of vendor? It feels like we’re forced to PVE in order to PVP, due to how important stats are again and how bad PVP drops are.

Quality of Life

War Resource transfer for alts

• Can we get a way to transfer War Resources from our main to our alts, like we had in Legion?

Upgrading Gear

• Can we get a Valour Point-like system which we can use to upgrade gear? I understand the arguement for TF but I’ve now went 7 weeks with no upgrade as unless it TF it’s useless (for the whole raid not just myself). Really demoralising system.

Character Slots

• With Kul Tiras, Zandalari, and possibly more Allied Races coming to Azeroth, would you consider just letting us have all our character slots on a single realm?

Items

Heart of Azeroth

• Can we get more information about the direction you’re taking the Heart of Azeroth and the systems that will be in place for 8.2 and beyond?

Item Scaling Progression

• What’s the reasoning behind the huge jump in power level between tiers? Wouldn’t 370 Normal/385 Heroic/400 Mythic make more sense than the absurdity now?

Titan Residuum

• Are there any plans to further curb Titan Residuum funneling? It’s still fairly easy for organized guilds to run single armor type raids and stockpile tons of Residuum for next season.

Transmogrification Options

• The transmog in BFA leaves a lot to be desired. When are you bringing back class-specific sets? One set for each armor type is not enough.

Dungeons, Raids & Scenarios

Mythic+ Rewards

When are Mythic+ seasons going to give rewards other than a hidden achievement? Pandaria and Warlords had some nice Challenge Mode rewards. BfA has nothing cool like that.

Mythic+ Required class mechanics

Are there any plans on how to address the problem that some class mechanics are pretty much mandatory for high-level keystones (e.g. Rogue shrouds)? Why are there no crafting items that have the same effect, like with Bloodlust drums?

Mythic+ Leaver Penalty

Will there ever be a way to punish players that abandon keystone runs midway? It’s frustrating when pugs frequently apply then bail during the progression of the key wanting a free carry.

Classes

Global Cooldowns

• What conversations have been held about the GCD change? Are you generally happy with how it’s played out?

Class Roles in group content

• As a healer main I find myself feeling forced into a DPS spec more and more even in a group content (Islands, Warfronts). Are you trying to get away from the holy trinity design? Can healers get higher DPS in PVE?

Major Class Change

• Are there any major class changes in the works for 8.1.5?