wow Live Developer Q&A Roundup: March 21st

[Stan 5,240]

Game Director Ion Hazzikostas today answered your Battle for Azeroth questions and here are the highlights! The WoW dev team is internally discussing a level squish and no Allied Races are planned for Patch 8.2.

Q&A Highlights

• They're not ready to talk about Rise of Azshara just yet, but the big info dump is coming very soon.
• They are working on ways to lessen the RNG of the Weekly Mythic Cache.
• In the past, they've experimented with different ilvl gaps and found that 15 item level gaps between difficulties work best for rewards to feal meaningful.
• The WoW development team has no incentive to make something that makes people spend more time in the short term, but isn't fun and it's burning them out, that's a terrible design. All they want to do is to make a game that is as engaging and fun as possible.
• Secondary stats are more important than primary stats in some instances and that's a problem they're trying to address.
• They're going to add a Caverns of Time portal in the next content update to Portal Rooms.
• There's a UI improvement in the works that will help players with path finding when the quest takes place on a different continent.
• The "Hide Chest" function is coming in the next content update. The team is also working to loosen transmog restrictions and make them more consistent across the board.
• They want to increase character customization, but not at the level of sliders. Adding eye color options is a possibility, but the way how the engine derives data from the game and how characters are built does not allow for simple height adjustments.
• Allied Races serve as a tool of deepening their storytelling and they're excited to add new ones where it make sense. Rise of Azshara is not going to have a new set of Allied Races.
• Repeatable Allied Race unlock questlines are a cool suggestion, they're going to discuss it with the dev team.
• 120 is a very large number when it comes to levels. It would be too overwhelming and not fun to reward players for each earned level. They're internally discussing a level squish, to make levels feel meaningful again.
• WoW Classic will have a dedicated RP realm. RPPVP is not planned right now.
• From a technical perspective, they shifted the infrastructure for how groups are built from Guilds to Communities (something that is consistent and tied in to the Battle.net platform more broadly). They've lost some things in the transition. They've readded the ability to have guild ranks that couldn't speak in chat.
• Two Sides to Every Tale was added to recognize two very distinct narratives in Battle for Azeroth, it's not a beginning trend of playing both factions. It's very similar to Double Agent.
• Legion was an awkward place for the game's economy. After BfA launched, they increased Gold gain from various sources to help players support repairs. Guilds can earn Gold by selling BoE items and they also want motivate Gold collectors by adding sinks.
• There are no plans to remove the Demon Hunter realm restriction in Battle for Azeroth.
• Reputations are tied to outdoor content. They don't plan to make dungeons award reputation.
• Hati was a beloved companion specific to Hunters so they brought him back. Thal'kiel may also return in the future, but they have nothing specific to announce at this time.

Click here to watch the VOD.

[Dejo93 1,023]

Az from HeelvsBabyface did the best reaction to this. Seriously, get rid of Ion Blizz. No one likes him

[Lampanelli 75]

7 hours ago, Stan said:

Allied Races serve as a tool of deepening their storytelling and they're excited to add new ones where it make sense. Rise of Azshara is not going to have a new set of Allied Races.

This right here really isn't dismissive of us actually getting allied races eventually. Allied races will most likely show up in the .5 patches like the Zandalari and Kul'Tiran ones to add content in the small patches, not the main ones, so of course they aren't gonna be there for 8.2. It's more likely to come in 8.2.5.

[Tupi 30]

Quote

The "Hide Chest" function is coming in the next content update. The team is also working to loosen transmog restrictions and make them more consistent across the board.

I've been wanting white and grey items since the get go. I much prefer the look of the tired, beaten down 'warrior' on the battlefield than all the glam.

Quote

120 is a very large number when it comes to levels. It would be too overwhelming and not fun to reward players for each earned level. They're internally discussing a level squish, to make levels feel meaningful again.

I was saying this during WoD. 101+ just seemed like it was going to be silly and that there should be a level squish as well as the then talked about ilvl squish.  Maybe get rid of clvls and make it all about the ilvls. Start each expac at 0 ilvl and have abilities unlock at ilvl benchmarks. Orrrr, maybe we get on with WoW 2.0

[jinsu2301 273]

2 minutes ago, Tupi said:

Maybe get rid of clvls and make it all about the ilvls.

I wholeheartedly disagree with this. Leveling needs to be more meaningful, not patched out. It's an essential part of any RPG.

But I do agree with a level squish. It doesn't matter that it only takes 50 hours to get to 120 (compared to the hundreds of hours it took in vanilla to get to 60). It's just too big a number and it scares people off.

[Valhalen 1,484]

17 hours ago, Stan said:

• The team is also working to loosen transmog restrictions and make them more consistent across the board.
• They want to increase character customization, but not at the level of sliders. Adding eye color options is a possibility, but the way how the engine derives data from the game and how characters are built does not allow for simple height adjustments.

Yes, yes! Please let us transmog Grey Items, or even hide all slots. If I want to be a naked Gnome while having full stats from my gear, I should be able to do so!

Height adjustments would be amazing indeed, but I highly doubt the engine can handle such thing.

[Tupi 30]

10 hours ago, jinsu2301 said:

I wholeheartedly disagree with this. Leveling needs to be more meaningful, not patched out. It's an essential part of any RPG.

But I do agree with a level squish. It doesn't matter that it only takes 50 hours to get to 120 (compared to the hundreds of hours it took in vanilla to get to 60). It's just too big a number and it scares people off.

i did say 'maybe'. I don't really play any other mmorpg's. I know Neverwinter is just about to go to a max level of 80 with their next expac.

I think there is just something more that can be done besides squishing every 4 years...it's starting to feel like hamsters on a wheel.

I mean, think about it, we spend what? a week max gaining 10 levels every 2 years (and just 5 for the 2 before the last 3 expacs) and then the rest of that 2 years totally focused on ilvl. (yes, we all have alts but that's still just a week or so gaining clvls for each alt)

I hear you that 'leveling/levels' is an important concept for rpg's but obviously each expac is more about ilvl than clvl after the first week.

[AlienVacation 1]

Well we have a potion to grow taller.... Hmmmm. Sounds pretty darn easy to me. Make the potion "permanent"? THAT wont break anybodies engines ? I would also like to be able to transmog all armor types again, like cloth for cloth but allow a warrior or hunter to do it. WHY NOT? And more new sexy armor. We got 1.1 million people in Black Mageweave pants... If you can run in a bra then add some cool hoodies cloth or something.... Yes, a hoody armor! Maybe customize the guild tabards symbols collection some more with cool things, like I'm sure "Coke" would love to have their logo in game HOLA... I would pay gold for THAT. Even if it was just a shirt ? Sorry my 'shop skills are bad                            

[jinsu2301 273]

On 3/24/2019 at 10:43 PM, AlienVacation said:

Well we have a potion to grow taller.... Hmmmm. Sounds pretty darn easy to me.

Any enlarging or shrinking effects currently in the game simply scale the entire model, which is completely different to scaling or morphing parts of a model through sliders. The WoW engine is ancient at this point, and large chunks would need to be completely rewritten to allow for such things.