Live Q&A VoD with Ion Hazzikostas

Community General Discussion
67

I know this is 3 days old at this point, and who knows if you guys will check this thread again, but here are my thoughts.

I liked the joking around, I felt like Ion was more comfortable in this one. I also liked the friendly banter.

I thought the answers Ion gave and the questions asked were very good, I think people are upset that they didn’t hear what they wanted to hear, but the answers were still very good. I noticed the complaint threads didn’t really pop up as much this time around, so I think a lot of people probably agree with me. Even this thread is a bit mixed, and it’s naturally going to be a focal point for peoples frustrations.

Keep up the great work, stay positive and I look forward to the next one.

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68

There were complaint threads. Just most of them were targeting the PvP Vendor response and got 404’d.

69

You want Horde players who have no interest in wpvp to turn WM off, then you over incentivize Alliance players who have no interest in wpvp to turn it on. What sense does that make?

70

“feel good” moments = sense of pride and accomplishment…sometimes i think some of these guys just hope that we have a short memory span… :slight_smile:

71

For the valor point question at 15:50.

Does it really matter if some things are not immediate upgrades? Say we have a manual upgrade system with valor points. If it takes (let’s suppose) a month to get the valor badges necessary to upgrade an item to +40 item levels, you can only maxed 4 or 5 items by the time the next raid comes.

The player will also care more about those items s/he farmed to max Titanforge so seeing it pay off by having gear a little ahead of what drops in the content you’re doing sounds like something satisfying to me. People want to care about gear.

72

Yeah, the first two weeks people were pretty vocal about it on the PTR forums. It seemed to effect new installs only, but a few people eventually did say that may not be entirely correct.

They tried twitter and tickets only to be directed to the forums where people are just being ignored. This doesn’t bode well for… anything. People want to help test things. People want WoW to be less of a beta experience, but at this rate it seems like it’s easier to just go live with things and muddle through whatever happens.

I’m guessing if it’ll ever work it’s going to be after a Tuesday maintenance. It’s been so poorly handled by them not even addressing it for three weeks, that I think most people having this problem have already given up though.

For Reference:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/no-realms-available/68503
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/no-realms-available-cumulative-thread/70401/80
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/why-is-no-realms-available-still-not-fixed/76828/9
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/realms-unavailable/69898
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/wow51900309-no-realms-available/70889
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/error-wow51900309/74617

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73

What about the players who want to participate in wpvp, but don’t because of the different population sizes?

The goal is to bring more Alliance into the battle. When it’s more fair overall, the wpvp folks who are there for the WM bonus only (and not for wpvp) will start to leave. As that happens, the WM bonuses will be reduced further and be made equal again.

74

That’s all good and well, but going with a “solution” to adress a problem that will inherently recreate the same issue seems doomed to fail.

I’d also like to more transparency in terms of statistics. As an example, if you say there are 4 Horde for every 1 Alliance player in WM then yeah, that would seem pretty bad. But if only 3 of those 4 are actively engaing in wpvp then that would chane my perception.

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75

Make this a different video than the Q&A please, if you do it. Josh already talks too much by repeating things, trying to say a name 10 times when we can read it on the screen, and acting like the viewer doesn’t understand what Ion just said. If he were to actually discuss things, then how many questions would be answered? Even fewer, by a long shot.

76

I get the idea but it is a bad idea. For some reason this current Dev team is determined to force people to play the game the way they want us to play it. Why can’t they create content and allow the people paying them every month to choose how they want to play? If they wanted more participation from all sides in WM then both factions should have a 30% increase. The goal for WM should be to make it appealing to all WoW players. The more people on WM the better. Why would we want to weed people out? This game makes no sense at all anymore. The game is being micro-managed into the ground.

2 Likes
77

Hands Ion a laundry list of things to do:
-Fix warmode such that the only bonuses are pvp instead of pve +30% azerite and Op gear.
-Make island expeditions less annoying to do and add some fun into them.
-Tone down on the excessive rng on everything.
-Make azerite a less annoying and weaksauce system.
-Make classes more fluid and fun to play.
-Nerf all the gates on everything, especially flight.

Throws two copper coins into the twisting nether.

3 Likes
78

You risk making War Mode feel mandatory at that point. Perception that is mandatory would be really bad because it would feel like Blizzard is forcing you into War Mode, or you’d be left behind.

79

Or you could have let things play out a bit longer after releasing assualts. The first week was a freaking blast. People were flocking to them and there were huge battles happening all the time. Now you flipped the scales and its not fun.

80

This is fair. Still, they needed to drive interest – there’s an argument to be made that Alliance participation would be low on those assaults. The bonus should be seen like an injection (I guess?).

Still, your point is fair.

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81

I very much prefer to be able to earn a currency and be able to buy the gear that I want instead of it all being controlled by RNG. Not all gear has to be controlled by RNG. It’s great for dungeons and raids where it makes sense but not all over the game.

82

One thing that I strongly feel that the dev team is missing in WoW right now is class design and how bad it feels to play now compared to previous expansions. I myself would definitely prefer MoP class design even WoD over what we have had since Legion launched.

Lovely Mr. Ion Hazzikostas (I still love you very much, you really do a great job and I can tell how much you love the game!) has stated numerous times that they don’t want to make classes feel the same but the huge problem that I believe that he is missing is the fact that when the big pruning happened, this REALLY took away spells that made classes and even specs feel much different than all the others. I believe that they are trying to tackle the solution the absolute wrong way.

Honestly, class design is just so bland. I have been a huge altoholic for years and I’ve always been able to tell the difference and even feel it with each and every rotation but now I feel like I’m doing the exact same thing over and over again and my honest absolute feedback to this would be:

Return class design exactly to what it was in MoP.

I know this isn’t exactly feasible but we have lost way too many abilities and niche feels to all classes/specs because of this. This coupled with the really bad decision of the GCD change for BfA makes things feel absolutely just really slow and worse. Like… Are the devs trying to slow down game play to make it more methodical? I mean… The reason I’ve played WoW for so long is because I hate slow and methodical combat. I prefer fast paced combat.

This is why I used to love Hunters so much and have created way too many of them. Hunters used to be my absolute favorite class to play but back in Legion their GCD got increased from 1 second up to 1.5 seconds and also added a much slower game play style. It’s just really really bad… Don’t try to fix something that isn’t broken… Oh yeah. DK’s used to have a 1 second GCD as well but that was increased in Legion too.

In my opinion, I would be absolutely addicted to WoW right now if class design was better. I know I would be because back in MoP all I ever did was run LFR on alts to gear them up to do normal/heroic raids later on and play around on the timeless isle. I did that over a year and I remember very specifically that I only got bored the last week of MoP because I was just waiting for WoD to launch. No kidding either.

I never got bored once and now I have a hard time logging in. I don’t hate WoW. I LOVE this game and I have for many many years. I just want it to be fun again.

When it comes to raiding I do not feel like I accomplish very much after killing a boss simply because the skill cap has been lowered so much that I feel like I’m just pressing buttons to press them then the boss dies. The satisfaction of being a good player that killed a boss has been diminished for me cause class design is so uninteresting and unfun to play.

It has been stated by devs multiple times that a huge reason for the pruning was the fact that there were just too many abilities to bind. Okay but I used to be a new player once upon a time and I knew and understood that I would have to find a way to bind all my abilities if I wanted to be a better player so I DID… Abilities shouldn’t have ever been removed for the sake of action bars being too full. Yes I used to be a noob once and it took me a while to get all my abilities situated but once I did I felt like I was able to conquer the world and once I was able to master all the classes and specs I felt like an absolute GOD.

My guildies (Most which have left and no I’m not just saying it for dramatic effect) know me to be an absolute badazz because I could bring any class or spec that I wanted to any raid that I wanted because I was just that good. Yet another way that I was able to feel awesome while playing WoW. This feeling has been taken away from me too. All thanks to the mass pruning

83

Really dislike the PvP gear reward design.

They took away PvP template that was introduced in Legion because they know that we want to customize our stats.

And then they went on and implement RNG loot with RNG stats and RNG traits so that we can’t customize our stats.

I don’t get it.

84

i was having a similiar thought the other night after watching the Q&A.

blizz love to hamfist things instead of actually thinking about a system before implementation. and by the time it hits the PTR its usually already too late. we have seen this for 3-4 xpacks now and that doesnt look to change anytime soon.

what i dont get is why they dont just marry systems together instead of doing one or another.

Cant have players having control of there gearing, because no casino moment = apparently boring.
Cant have players only have casino RNG with absolutely 0 control over there player progression = players leave due to massive strings of badluck.

instead of what blizz did in BC, and what they do now they should of just combined both damn systems.

  • bring back valor.
  • cap WF to +5, and TF to +10.
  • if a piece drops and it isnt WF or TF, you can upgrade that piece up to TF level of +10 iLv from valor farming. if its WF you can upgrade it once with valor up to TF.

what this does is many things:
if a piece drops and it TFs happy days, you dont have to upgrade it. if it drops normal no upgrade, the player then can decide to upgrade it by playing other avenues of the game to upgrade the piece if they want. if the player knows that they have a chance coming up, by say progging on the boss on a higher difficulty they can not upgrade the piece and wait to upgrade the higher iLv one if they want to. if they dont want to upgrade it at all they can just not do it. this also means the gear doesnt completely invalidate the next raid difficulty up from there current progress because of the +15 iLv upswing in difficulty OR invalidate the next future raid by some stupid good luck and it TFing above the future raid tiers gear. if the players group ends up hitting a road block on a boss they can just upgrade more pieces to get over the hurdle.

having TF be so high. having 4 raid difficulties in the first place. and having external player power increases from things like the artifact, azerite neck, legendaries etcs means we scale out of control. blizz can easily fix that by severely lowering the cap on TF. it also gives blizz there * precious * MAU time from players farming emissaries and M+ for valor to upgrade there gear, meaning it gives blizz the illusion to there stockholders that players are having a great time by playing lots of the game, but it also gives player agency in progressing there gear how THEY choose to, not blizzard and RNGesus.

how nobody at blizz hasnt thought to stick both systems together is baffling.

i could write at length about the cop out answers and obvious shortsightedness coming from blizz atm where the answers are super obvious on how to fix things but they just dont seem to want to listen to feedback until its too late and the entire playerbase shrivels up. I will admit Ion was MUCH better in this Q&A than in the past, we actually got some actual answers to questions for once. and i do applaud him for that. but blizz has been taking the playerbase for a ride for a long time now and they have used up there reputation by a number of really bad systems implemented. it will take years for them to earn back the respect and there reputation by doing right by the playerbase. blizz will have to continously drop 5.2 quality level patches into the game for a couple of years to earn that back.

85

See, I would agree with you if Blizzard hasn’t already used the carrot on stick to entice players to do something they don’t want to do. How many people would do war fronts if they couldn’t get 400 ilvl gear from it, how many people would do islands if they didn’t add mounts and pets. People are forced to do content they don’t want to do or feel obligated to do it because of the carrot placed on the stick by Blizzard. Allied races, lets gate them and force them to go through content they may not want to do. That was my point of my original post. Blizzard makes everything feel mandatory. They are forcing players to play the game the way they want which has never felt like this before.

You can’t play the game and say I just want to pvp, or I just want to raid, or I just want to mythic plus. They want you to be forced to do everything or you feel like you’re missing out. If you did just one of those things the RNG would drive you nuts. I don’t like being forced to do things when I am paying them 180 dollars plus per year.

86

Allot of everything posted here and a thousand other threads can be summed up by

*Reverse all of the pruning done the last 8 years

  • Return fantasy elements back to the game

  • Return player choice

  • When new xpacs launch, dont discard earlier content and make new, build on WOW dont prune it

  • Return class fantasy, stop making all characters/classes feel, play and look the same

  • Fix class balance! Your spec/class is either worthless or is top tier

  • Remove GCD

  • Remove most RNG

  • Stop reinventing the wheel every time an xpac is released. Relearning your character, skills and rotation every xpac is not fun

  • Add back pruned stats (resillience, spirit, spell power, spell crit, attack power, weapon skills, hit chance, heal power, heal crit, etc.) This adds character diversity and build choice

  • Add back detailed patch notes, explaining every change and why. Statements like, “there have been many changes” is lazy

  • Fix guild permissions, add back what you cosolidated/removed

  • Add back ML

  • Add back the cat call whistle (when you remove these things, especially secretly, players lose faith that your listening to what players want/asking for. Really?, this is what your spending resources on?

  • Add new and expand existing systems, like professions (some want to progress this way, not via raids/mythic etc, why did you make them worthless?)

  • Add player and guild housing

  • add other features/systems that promote guilds and server communities even if it removes things like sharding

  • Return progression. I want to yell “DING” when I acquire a level because I become stronger, i.e. I get skill points to spend, my stats increase, I get a treasure box in the mail for hitting certain mile stones, I want to kill things faster with new cool spells/skills I learn

  • Stop forcing me to play an arcade game, let me play in the world as I want, add choice!

I could keep going… but here is a start… how many players need to quit or keep screaming about this stuff before you make some positive changes here?

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