wow No Mythic+ or Solo Queue Matchmaking, 9.1 and BCC Won't Release at the Same Time, Mythic+ Score System Details and More: Ion Hazzikostas Douyu Streamer Interview

[Staff 1,488]

 

Game Director Ion Hazzikostas talked to Neo aka LingHunFuSu, a frequent collaborator of Starym's and Raider.IO's on the Race to World First, over on Douyu (the Chinese streaming platform Twitch equivalent). There were many topics covered and we'll get into the highlights, but you can watch the whole thing here, as there are English subtitles and you can (sort of) hear what Ion is saying in the background of the translation as well.

First things first, the release dates of 9.1 and the Burning Crusade Classic are "very unlikely" to come at the same time, and Blizzard will try to avoid overlap as much as they can.

Blizzard would like to have some sort of high-end recognition for Mythic+, the same way PvP has with Gladiator titles and the like, with the 9.1 Mythic+ rating system being a big step in that direction.

It's very strongly indicated that there will be no Mythic+ matchmaking or PvP solo queue in the future. Ion doesn't directly say no to the question, but instead discusses how the current Group Finder needs to be improved with better and more search options, like whether someone just wants to finish a key, specific dungeon selection, group composition preference etc. 

Some details on the new Mythic+ score system: base score per dungeon according to the key level completed + a small bonus if you completed it significantly faster; total score is a product of all the dungeons you've completed; separate bonus score for completing dungeons on Fortified and Tyrannical weeks, since it's different skillsets and they don't want to see people skipping one of them, so they will both influence the scoring.

There are no plans to make Covenants easier to switch between, however they will be focusing on the issue when two different specs of the same class have different optimal Covenant abilities, right now wanting to hear more player feedback. 

And some quick smaller headlines from the interview:

• Melle are in a worse position right now and they will try to address that via encounter design and class mechanics.
• Better balance in Mythic+ affixes, specifically Storming and Spiteful in Season 2.
• The Domination seasonal affix isn't ready yet, there are 3 prototypes that are being tested and they'll pick the best one of those. 
• No plans but they might take a look at allowing players to swithc secondary affixes on legendaries or get a partial refund on them. 
• They are not happy with the backup Stygia reward from the Great Vault if you don't get anything you want and will work on that.
• 9.1 will bring many catchup mechanisms for both alts, returning and new players.

Huge thanks to Neo/LingHunFuSu for the interview and make sure to check the whole thing out here! 

[Wildwitch 108]

I'm an altoholic and they don't listen. Catch-up for alts is NOT what we want. Who wants to do the same world quests on 20 plus alts? They need to do SOMETHING for alts...isn't that what these creativity job involve?

Not everyone is geared enough to do Mythic +. (Too many elitist jerks and I won't PAY to PLAY a dungeon!) Not everyone is interested in PVP!

WE ARE BORED!!!!

[ResoWho 68]

3 hours ago, Wildwitch said:

I'm an altoholic and they don't listen. Catch-up for alts is NOT what we want. Who wants to do the same world quests on 20 plus alts? They need to do SOMETHING for alts...isn't that what these creativity job involve?

Not everyone is geared enough to do Mythic +. (Too many elitist jerks and I won't PAY to PLAY a dungeon!) Not everyone is interested in PVP!

WE ARE BORED!!!!

im curious, what would you want for your alts besides WQ, dungeon and normal storyline questing and a combination of dungeon and WQ or dungeon and storyline questing? i also heared you can reach max lvl by doing pet battles. 

im only able to play 2 chars (got 3 on 60 overall) while the 2nd one always stays behind, im wondering how you get 20+ chars up to date or do you just max level them and then start a new one? or do you play them on an RP realm for RP content?

since you talked about so many alts i assume you are talking about lower m+ keys? are people in lower keys now also nuts so that they denie twinks in a low key even if the twink is fully m+0 equipted?

also 20+ alts is in my opinion a niche playerbase but i could be wrong since some people got more time due to corona 

Edited April 27, 2021 by ResoWho

[Teufel 331]

Unrelated, but "Wizzard" and "BBC" are a little concerning for an article name typos.

[hayduke 0]

What if you could reroll your vault 1 time for free (stygia option replacement)? Then you could reroll as many times as you want but each time you reroll it drops the ilevel by 3? 

Edited April 27, 2021 by hayduke
spelling error

[Ragingwolf 310]

Well if anything I think the Anima increase rewards they introduced should be account wide not character based when unlocking the tiers of your given Covenant Sanctum.  That way if people wish not to go 'full throttle' with alts can upgrade the Covenant Gear at a faster rate to the ilvl of 197+ instead of being gated with Renown and have gear options locked down to doing Normal Dungeons or via World Quests while leveling.  Another option which could help is allowing the Dungeon Queue allow Mythic 0's (not keystones) this can allow players to start learning Mythic difficulties compared to that of Heroic mechanics instead of trying to put a group together and traveling from point A to point B for said Dungeon.  (just food for thought)

I would offer higher Anima rewards in Torghast along with other rewards instead of mundane Soul Ash grinding.  Along with removing restrictions on Renown once you peek past level 30.  And possibly have a Vendor that sells the lowest base Conduits for either Anima or Honor.  Having some of the Beginner Conduits as rewards for World Quest is not beneficial for the player since the player may only wish to stick with one spec of a given class and may need to wait on either a new rotation of World Quests with a specific Conduit to be available or hope RNG is in favor during a Dungeon/Raid grind.

[Migol 433]

 

• Quote

  Melle are in a worse position right now and they will try to address that via encounter design and class mechanics.

  ...Have we been here before?   I feel like we've been here before.

[Manbearpig 28]

1 hour ago, Teufel said:

Unrelated, but "Wizzard" and "BBC" are a little concerning for an article name typos.

Where does it say "Wizzard" ? Plus, it says BCC, some people have dirtier minds than IV has typos. 😉

[Teufel 331]

Just now, Manbearpig said:

Where does it say "Wizzard" ? Plus, it says BCC, some people have dirtier minds than IV has typos. 😉

Was in the latest Diablo thread but is fixed now.

[Reno2171 24]

Mythic+ should stay in the group finder. That said, there's no reason M0 shouldn't be in dungeon-finder.

[Wildwitch 108]

5 hours ago, ResoWho said:

im curious, what would you want for your alts besides WQ, dungeon and normal storyline questing and a combination of dungeon and WQ or dungeon and storyline questing? i also heared you can reach max lvl by doing pet battles. 

im only able to play 2 chars (got 3 on 60 overall) while the 2nd one always stays behind, im wondering how you get 20+ chars up to date or do you just max level them and then start a new one? or do you play them on an RP realm for RP content?

since you talked about so many alts i assume you are talking about lower m+ keys? are people in lower keys now also nuts so that they denie twinks in a low key even if the twink is fully m+0 equipted?

also 20+ alts is in my opinion a niche playerbase but i could be wrong since some people got more time due to corona 

In answer...

#1. How about DIFFERENT quests or DIFFERENT objectives for Alts.

#2. YOU (personally) can only play 2 characters. That is YOU. Not ME. We are all individuals in this world.

#3. I don't have "twinks" because that is a PVPer term. Yes - you are denied or kicked out of groups because of elitist jerks.

#4. 20+ alts is NOT a niche. That is your opinion and that is wrong. There are many of us who have been demanding the player cap of 50 be removed...for a LOOOOOOONG time. Again - your opinion is wrong.

Many of us have many alts because we actually enjoy leveling. Many of us would rather hop onto an RPG and level an alt - rather than do drugs or alcohol to escape reality. Many of us are stuck at home for many reasons that are NOT Covid related. Many of us have spoken up and been judged. Many of us will continue to speak up because we love this game and love the escapism.

Thanks.

 

[Mishmish 65]

Seperate scores for tyranical and fortified weeks is actually pretty smart. Will motivate people to appreciate tyra weeks and not just fortified "push weeks". I do hope KSM will stay just timing all 15s though cuzz i want my mount without waiting for different weeks ^^

[Laragon 269]

44 minutes ago, Wildwitch said:

In answer...

#1. How about DIFFERENT quests or DIFFERENT objectives for Alts.

#2. YOU (personally) can only play 2 characters. That is YOU. Not ME. We are all individuals in this world.

#3. I don't have "twinks" because that is a PVPer term. Yes - you are denied or kicked out of groups because of elitist jerks.

#4. 20+ alts is NOT a niche. That is your opinion and that is wrong. There are many of us who have been demanding the player cap of 50 be removed...for a LOOOOOOONG time. Again - your opinion is wrong.

Many of us have many alts because we actually enjoy leveling. Many of us would rather hop onto an RPG and level an alt - rather than do drugs or alcohol to escape reality. Many of us are stuck at home for many reasons that are NOT Covid related. Many of us have spoken up and been judged. Many of us will continue to speak up because we love this game and love the escapism.

Thanks.

 

For one, this was incredibly hostile for next to no reason. The "rudest" thing he did was say you're an exception to the normal, which at 20+ you are.

1 - ZERO chance, you want an entire extra expansion?!

2-4 are just random hostility... and that's not even touching the whole rant after those about "this is better than us doing drugs" which is at best a false equivalency... as if there is literally nothing else people do with their time.

Even with just looking at games for "escapism" there's literally millions of other games people can play with their time while balancing WoW and keeping on pace. If you want wow to be able to consume every single waking moment of your game time (or time awake) then you are ABSOLUTELY in the minority. There's nothing wrong with being in a minority, but that's just the statistical facts.

[Brightamethyst 104]

40 minutes ago, Laragon said:

1 - ZERO chance, you want an entire extra expansion?!

That's not the issue here. Historically there have always been at least some options in terms of leveling. Do I go to Westfall or Loch Modan? Do I do Zangarmarsh or skip straight to Terrokar? Sholazar, or stay in Zul'Drak, etc. And even even within that, do I quest at outpost A or outpost B? You could level a lot of characters, all with different questing experiences.

Blizz has spent a lot of years streamlining the quest flow but SL has taken it to an extreme. You're stuck doing the exact same things in the exact same order every time. No one is expecting an entire second expansion full of quests. People just want the full spread they expected in the first place.

 

[ResoWho 68]

2 hours ago, Wildwitch said:

In answer...

#1. How about DIFFERENT quests or DIFFERENT objectives for Alts.

#2. YOU (personally) can only play 2 characters. That is YOU. Not ME. We are all individuals in this world.

#3. I don't have "twinks" because that is a PVPer term. Yes - you are denied or kicked out of groups because of elitist jerks.

#4. 20+ alts is NOT a niche. That is your opinion and that is wrong. There are many of us who have been demanding the player cap of 50 be removed...for a LOOOOOOONG time. Again - your opinion is wrong.

Many of us have many alts because we actually enjoy leveling. Many of us would rather hop onto an RPG and level an alt - rather than do drugs or alcohol to escape reality. Many of us are stuck at home for many reasons that are NOT Covid related. Many of us have spoken up and been judged. Many of us will continue to speak up because we love this game and love the escapism.

Thanks.

 

thx for your answer but it seems like you got offended, that wasnt intended. i was just curious, as i also said at the beginning.

i like to say something to some answers. i hope it doesnt offend you in any way and in my previous comment those are my thoughts, my opinions and my personal experiance, i havent said anything about that there shouldnt be any other opinions or preferences besides mine also ive never said others would be wrong. so i hope you also accept other opinions and experience.

#1 yeah that would be cool, im stuck with 3 chars at around lvl 50-52 cause i found it boring to lvl the same way ive done before but i dont think that this would happen since it isnt attractive for blizzard to hire people to create basically another story line. (especially after they got rid of so many employees lately)

#2 i never said anyone shouldnt play more then 2 characters. also it isnt really about the number, i was just curious what you are doing with all those alts. while this is a personal question you have any right to not answer to this and im sorry if that was to personal.

#3 im sorry if the term twink bothered you. in my country or at least everyone im playing with and anyone ive seen from my country who talked about alts calls them twink and im playing mostly m+, just forced to play pvp for the trinket. until today i didnt even know that it was a pvp term originally. also i think in the UK they call alts toons, at least ive read that once or twice when in grp with random people.

#4 as i said in my opinion which is based on my experiance it looks to me like a niche. i also said that i could be wrong and im open to learn. i believe you if you say its not a niche since i havent done any research and you said about yourself that you are an altoholic so you got a better knowelage on that topic. still 20+ sounds a lot to me.

to get to your last point, i think many people use video games to escape from reality, sure some play them for the competition but even that is escaping from reality. also im not a native english speaker so i might not find the right words all the time