wow Forbes Interview with Game Director Ion Hazzikostas: Part One

[Stan 5,240]

Forbes sat down with Game Director Ion Hazzikostas in an interview to talk about Mythic+ gear swapping, Azerite armor, and Mythic cross-realm raiding. The second installment of the two-part interview about what players should and/or should not be grinding before BfA goes live will be available tomorrow.

Ion recently held a live Q/A to answer fan questions about Battle for Azeroth and you can find all highlights here.

Interview Highlights

• Gear swapping in Mythic+ dungeons will not be possible in Battle for Azeroth. It's consistent with their philosophy on changing talents on mid-run, or having a single battle resurrection for the entire dungeon (added in Patch 7.3.5). Swapping gear would lead to players min-maxing trash pulls or different boss phases and they don't want that to be the "right solution" to Mythic Keystone runs. The change should only affect the vocal minority of players.
• Azerite armor can't warforge/titanforge. The only sources of Azerite armor, once you get past running Normal/Heroic dungeons, are not infinitely repeatable: 
  • You can get Azerite armor from the emissary chest (not from ordinary world quests)
  • the weekly PvP chest, or the Conquest system (but not at the end of a match)
  • the weekly Mythic chest (but it can't be found in chests at the end of your Mythic+ run).
• Item level will be a clear upgrade indicator.
• Cathedral of Eternal Night was really hard, but they don't think the same about Seat of the Triumvirate.
• Affixes have worked pretty well so far and no major changes are planned for BfA.
• Legion dungeons were designed in a vacuum and the new (Mythic+) system got layered on top of that. In BfA, they're aware of it as they go.
• Cross-realm Mythic raiding will be enabled once 100 Alliance and 100 Horde guilds defeat G'huun on Mythic difficulty. They added global achievements (Feats of Strength) for that and you won't need to wait until the release of next tier to be able to do raids on Mythic with players from different realms.
• The new "Communities" feature all about convenience and they don't want to compete with Discord.
  • The one thing that Discord can't do is let you right click invite someone to your party from it.

You can read the full interview on Forbes.

[Hypersonic 119]

4 hours ago, Stan said:

 

Edited June 26, 2018 by Hypersonic

[Hypersonic 119]

4 hours ago, Stan said:

having a single battle resurrection for the entire dungeon (added in Patch 7.3.5)

What?! It looks I miss something.

4 hours ago, Stan said:

Cathedral of Eternal Night was really hard, but they don't think the same about Seat of the Triumvirate.

I think CoEN was absolutely not hard and really fun, one of my favorite dungeon in Legion but SotT.. that have issues, really hard to carry mechanism with some classes.
 

 

 

Edited June 26, 2018 by Hypersonic

[Lawrenz 105]

I was so surprised when i got to know that you are able to swap gear and legendaries mid-run in Myth+ dungeons. Since talents swaps were disabled, i took it for granted that this was forbidden as well.

I am really happy that they change this now, because i am a fan of the idea, that you have to prepare for the upcoming dungeon as a whole and decide where to specialise into. An besides that, it's just dumb as well to watch (for example in myth+ invitationals), since they swap their gear on the go in order to minmax (which, as a viewer, is not intuitive to follow as well). I am excited to see how they are talking about talent AND gear choices in future invitationals.

[Allseye 96]

4 hours ago, Lawrenz said:

I was so surprised when i got to know that you are able to swap gear and legendaries mid-run in Myth+ dungeons. Since talents swaps were disabled, i took it for granted that this was forbidden as well.

I am really happy that they change this now, because i am a fan of the idea, that you have to prepare for the upcoming dungeon as a whole and decide where to specialise into. An besides that, it's just dumb as well to watch (for example in myth+ invitationals), since they swap their gear on the go in order to minmax (which, as a viewer, is not intuitive to follow as well). I am excited to see how they are talking about talent AND gear choices in future invitationals.

Gear swapping is a bit confusing, because it's more "legendary-swapping" than anything else. Trinkets is also a nice slot to swap, but sometimes they have a CD if you swap them, so there isn't a big benefit to do so. With BFA, legendaries will vanish and the need of swapping gear will decrease (or vanish to). Even if they would allow to swap your gear in BFA...i think it won't be necessary (or the benefit would be so small, 99,9% won't care).

[honeyblade 8]

Quote

The only sources of Azerite armor, once you get past running Normal/Heroic dungeons, are not infinitely repeatable: 

• You can get Azerite armor from the emissary chest (not from ordinary world quests)
• the weekly PvP chest, or the Conquest system (but not at the end of a match)
• the weekly Mythic chest (but it can't be found in chests at the end of your Mythic+ run).

I haven't been following beta very closely but does this mean that Azerite armor won't drop in Raids?

[Lawrenz 105]

37 minutes ago, Allseye said:

Gear swapping is a bit confusing, because it's more "legendary-swapping" than anything else. Trinkets is also a nice slot to swap, but sometimes they have a CD if you swap them, so there isn't a big benefit to do so. With BFA, legendaries will vanish and the need of swapping gear will decrease (or vanish to). Even if they would allow to swap your gear in BFA...i think it won't be necessary (or the benefit would be so small, 99,9% won't care).

I didnt even care to swap leggos in legion (even if i would have known, that i was able to from the get go).

But on your point of the decrease of the need of swapping gear, i have to disagree. Since they want azerite gear to replace Legendaries AND Sets, they will probably have some really cool aoe and/or singletarget effects, than sometimes even can alter how you play your specc (in regards of the skill rotation). I mean, ok, azerite gear would be easier to swap, than leggos, since they are always on the same slots, but that would have made more people feel the need to do so.

So the change is very welcome ?

[Lawrenz 105]

7 minutes ago, munchkin said:

I haven't been following beta very closely but does this mean that Azerite armor won't drop in Raids?

I guess, since they are a replace for setgear they thought it's not needed to mention, you will get them from raids. But needed to clarify all the additional sources to obtain them ?

Edited June 26, 2018 by Lawrenz

[PatrickHenry 293]

14 hours ago, Stan said:

Cathedral of Eternal Night was really hard, but they don't think the same about Seat of the Triumvirate.

No.  It was just extremely annoying with all the add pocket spawns.

[Allseye 96]

3 hours ago, Lawrenz said:

I didnt even care to swap leggos in legion (even if i would have known, that i was able to from the get go).

But on your point of the decrease of the need of swapping gear, i have to disagree. Since they want azerite gear to replace Legendaries AND Sets, they will probably have some really cool aoe and/or singletarget effects, than sometimes even can alter how you play your specc (in regards of the skill rotation). I mean, ok, azerite gear would be easier to swap, than leggos, since they are always on the same slots, but that would have made more people feel the need to do so.

So the change is very welcome ?

Yes, I agree, there would be room for gear swapping with different azerit-items (different traites) - I didn't pay attention to that. It really depends how strong the azerite-traites will be and how they scale with content / gear.

At the moment gear swapping is like using pots and bufffood. You don't have to, but it will make a difference if you do so. But I admit, the change feels welcome so you don't feel to farm multiple azerite pieces just to create a single/multitarget gear.

[jinsu2301 273]

3 hours ago, Allseye said:

At the moment gear swapping is like using pots and bufffood. You don't have to[...]

Try telling that to our GM xD

[Ancalagon 35]

11 hours ago, PatrickHenry said:

No.  It was just extremely annoying with all the add pocket spawns.

Exactly!  The add mechanics of SotT were just irritating, so it was avoided at all costs.  If it was challenging, I wouldn't have minded, but it felt poorly designed.

[Weltenfeind 40]

There's a literal bult-in gear equipment manager. It's not actually hard just pressing that button to swap your gear. Chances are, if you don't, you're not actually doing the highest of m+, and thus, it obviously doesn't concern you. I don't see why they have to take the choice away from the people that actually DO want that, though, especially considering weaknesses of the different classes where gear swapping helps solve those issues (AoE, ST, Surviability).

But god forbid an RPG has actual RPG elements.