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Blizzard Co-Leader Mike Ybarra Streaming, Comments on AoE Cap and Offers to Play FF14

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We have some more news from the new Blizzard co-leader, as Mike Ybarra has actually been streaming lately and got some +20ies done, offered up some opinions on certain game mechanics and even suggested to play WoW's biggest competitor, Final Fantasy 14 with Complexity-Limit's GM Max!

We already knew Ybarra was an avid and pretty serious WoW player, but now he's sharing some of that with the community as he streamed a gameplay session yesterday and also mentions he will be doing Q&As in future streams. First off we have this interesting little detail, as he (very quickly) comments on the AoE cap in one of the Mythic+ runs (as spotted by RoundFriend8529).

He actually took a look at chat before saying it, so it might just be one of those "please say uncap AoE" chat moments, so perhaps there's not that much to read into the clip. But just in case he really does dislike the cap, despite him not being directly involved in the actual hands-on development of WoW, having the boss of the entire company disliking a feature that a lot of the community also isn't a fan of might add some more weight to it. But it's certainly not a definitive "AoE cap is gone soon" type thing, so don't get your hopes up too much.

Then we have this really cool offer to play Final Fantasy 14 with current world no.2 WoW guild Complexity-Limit GM Max, in response to Max's comments on not wanting to spoil the FF14 raids for himself:

And finally, if you want to check out the Blizzard co-lead's entire stream, where he goes through not only some +20ies, but also some Diablo 2: Resurrected beta action, here's the full thing. D2R starts at 23:31, but we skipped to the first +20 directly below:


While this may not seem too spectacular or impressive to some, it really is very nice to see the new co-leader of Blizzard actually playing some games, and on a pretty high level as well, not to mention the offer to play FF14! Hopefully we'll see more of Ybarra's stream in the future, with the mentioned Q&A sessions, as it really might bring Blizzard closer to the community (although that first Q&A might be a little rough, presumably).

Also, he will be streaming Diablo 2: Resurrected and Death's Door sometime today.

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The cap needs to be removed, it's ruined the fun for so many players to a point where a lot have left WoW because their favorite specs are not 'optimal' in pugs.

 

It'd be some amazingly good news to come out of Blizz and such a nice change for the community!

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While this doesn't mean the AoE cap is going in any way, I think most everyone hates it. It is so damn unintuitive. I should be able to see my spells and figure out what they do. Find a better way to balance Mythic+ away from mega pulls.

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9 hours ago, Unholyknight said:

Thank God no more AOE cap. Why the heck my AOE can only hit 5-6 mobs while some others hit unlimited in the area?

No one has unlimited aoe... it's always capped, except for dots or weak abilities like Shockwave. The rest are 20softcap, Quadratic growth (very minimal) or the one rare case of Flame patch.

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7 hours ago, vuttplug said:

No one has unlimited aoe... it's always capped, except for dots or weak abilities like Shockwave. The rest are 20softcap, Quadratic growth (very minimal) or the one rare case of Flame patch.

Pretty sure epidemic is uncapped.

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