Check out the full interview on Psybear's YouTube, or our summary below.
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Interview Summary
Intro
Ion Hazikostas has been a Game Director on World of Warcraft for almost 10 years.
Paul Kubit started in Q&A, and on his first day, he wrote a bug for the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj that wasn't actually a bug. He has recently been working as a Game Director on WoW!
The Venomous Abyss
Because Heroic gives Myth track loot in your Vault, the team can tune Heroic to be more of a challenge.
That has caused some problems for guilds who normally steamroll Heroic.
Recently, it's been hard to justify Heroic tuning for raids when you can compare the effort in defeating a Heroic raid boss to running a mid-level Mythic+ and getting the same or better loot.
There's room for a bit more of a challenge there now.
Patch Cadence
They're able to release content quickly because they have a plan for Patch 12.1.5, 12.2, and well beyond that.
Working on multiple things at a time is a huge part of how they can release patches quickly.
During Shadowlands, there was a 7-month gap between launching Shadowlands and the 9.1 patch. That's a huge, unacceptable content drought.
BlizzCon
It'll be a good BlizzCon for Warcraft fans.
A lot of announcements will be coming for Modern WoW at BlizzCon. They'll talk about 12.1.7. 12.2 and maybe even beyond that.
12.1.5 will already be out on the PTR by then.
Power Systems
Artifact Power was a universal system that was a requirement to engage in, which was open-ended. There were pros and cons, and eventually the cons began to outweigh the pros for many players.
The progressive raid buff is a bit of a band-aid due to a flaw in the itemization. Itemization is so front-loaded due to spamable Mythic+, more sources of loot than ever, the Catalyst, etc.
Raid groups eventually plateau a third of the way into the season. Historically, gearing was slower and was complemented by other systems, and so in week 12, your group was stronger than in week 6. Right now, by the middle of the season, gearing is mostly done, and players aren't getting stronger week over week.
This is why they need to go in and nerf things, which they do for mechanical reasons, but this is unpredictable versus a raid buff schedule which is easier to understand.
Ideally, gear progression would be able to cover that.
They would often make one-off borrowed power items such as Cyrce's Circlet, and these often had a lot of overhead around them. They instead made the Omnium Folio, a form of Borrowed Power that can offer universal rewards for the whole expansion.
There will be additional content later on in Midnight that continues to provide further advancements in the Folio.
Class Tuning
There is nothing better than data from actual players fighting actual raid bosses or Mythic+ dungeons.
Balancing is an ongoing process.
Players should feel empowered to play what they want to play.
They tend to nerf more at the beginning of the Season and buff more at the end of a Season to bring in outliers.
Mythic+ Spec Diversity
What they've done for something like Bloodlust is spread it out across enough classes so you don't feel like you're locked into a specific class.
They talk about comp diversity a lot. That's one of the ways they measure balance. Mythic+ is not just about raw DPS; it's about a complete package.
The goal is to have representation be as diverse as possible because that translates to players' experiences.
They are considering, not for this Season, changing some of the end-of-season leaderboards to be spec-based, rather than Global.
They are hoping this would encourage pushing goals for a class that you want to play, but also show that more than just the specs from the top teams in the World can play at that level.
A possible downside is that players may feel pressured to switch specs as a result of that, in a way that might be negative.
Class Design
One of the central ideas behind a new class is "What is the Fantasy?"
Before they get into builder/spender, reactive, rotation, etc, they ask what they can do to deliver a powerful fantasy.
The earliest concepts of Demon Hunter had Eye Beam, Double Jump, Glide, and making sure those work.
When people are coming back to the game, or first trying to pick a class, the choice is driven by fantasy.
Voting
A challenge with voting for broad systems is that there are players with very diverse playstyles.
Putting something broad to a vote could lead to a faction of players dominating the vote.
When it comes to Mythic+ voting, the audience is Mythic+ players.
They've moved away from polls, but they may go back to them.
Raid
They want players to instantly understand from the presentation of mechanics what they're supposed to do.
Ion plugs the addon disarmament as it opened the door for them to do some simple-to-communicate raid mechanics that would otherwise have been trivialized, such as adding numbers to 4.
It gives the design team space to play in again, as small puzzles or interactions would previously have been automated by addons.
Mythic+
Nothing specific to announce about changes to Mythic+ for the future.
They want interest and depth, but without randomness that is going to get in the way of skill-based progression.
They're happy with the shift away from rotating affixes, and impactful affixes at the low end.
Some of the original affixes in Legion were designed specifically to encourage or force spec diversity. It was frustrating in the long term for many players, but while removing them has provided a more streamlined experience, it has left some gaps.
