Make sure to check out the full video for additional context, but we've summarized the important points and information below.
Lore of Midnight
What major characters not seen in the initial reveal cinematic could we see in Midnight?
Without spoiling too much, you will see Sylvanas at some point in the next expansion. Don't expect Naga to return, but we're not ruling it out. There will be some other folks, Thrall and many others.
Prey System
Can you give us a little more insight into the plans and workings of the new Prey system?
The system will span the 4 main zones of Midnight and is an opt-in system where you'll accept a contract in Silvermoon and then can be passively searching for your target while going about any of your other activities. Sometimes you'll seek out the target and other times they may ambush you.
Essentially, the system is meant to add another layer of challenge to your outside world and questing gameplay. Combine this with multiple difficulty tiers that allows players to customize how challenging they want this added layer. Current plan is highest difficulty will be something slightly below a pinnacle Delve Nemesis boss, but it's not that far off.
As a new system it will be continually evolving based on player feedback, so expect a lot of iteration.
Delves
Delves have been an incredibly successful addition to the game, how are they evolving in Midnight? Can you tell us more about our new companion Valeera Sanguinar?
The hope is that Valeera will be an improvement over Brann as they're continually iterating on the design, but should feel similar albeit with rogue themeing. Look forward to learn more about Valeera through a questline as you adventure with her.
What plans do you have for the overall difficulty and tuning of Delves? More mechanics or just harder hitting enemies?
Delves are still a relatively new feature and so they're still dialing in the tuning. They hear the feedback on things just suddenly hitting harder with difficulty jumps, but they're also not really looking at adding additional mechanics or affixes at this point either.
Tuning will likely take shape in other forms like enemy ability cooldowns, cast speed, or other different tuning axes that makes combat more intense. Move some of the more numerical scaling into these other avenues. They're considering these types of changes for Mythic+ as well, but there's nothing to announce today.
Mythic+ & Addons
Is there any focus on tuning down some of the more difficult to track incoming damage found in Mythic+ or perhaps better telegraphing? WeakAuras can almost feel mandatory when trying to counter those abilities with defensives for stops.
Throughout the War Within our philosophy on Mythic+ has been continually evolving and we're looking to continue that in MIdnight. We can definitely manually make adjustments especially taking into consideration player feedback.
We're also looking at more UI improvements especially nameplates to better call out and help players identify those particularly lethal casts or damage events. WoW at times doesn't feel like it innately gives you enough information, so players felt like they've needed to rely on Addons. Blizzard is working to improve that and provide opportunities for counterplay.
Any plans for updates to Mythic+? Solo queue?
There's no plans to implement a solo queue. The concerns still remain about random matchmaking for a system with a chance of failure being a mismatch that leads to frustration and toxicity. Ideally, they want to focus on improving the group finder so players can find others with similar goals.
Mythic+ in general is now thought of as a season over season system rather than an expansion over expansion system. The learnings and philosophy is evolving each Season rather than waiting for a new expansion to implement changes.
Raids
What's the philosophy behind raid encounter tuning in the War Within and going into Midnight and how it effects progression for non-RWF guilds?
They're trying to strike a difficult balance. Ideally, progression should be a smooth experience of players of all skill levels. You shouldn't feel like the next boss is impossible until it gets nerfed after just defeating the previous encounter. That is always the goal, but they don't always hit that goal perfectly out of the gate.
There's a lot of variance in players across a single difficulty of content like Mythic raiding, but we want to ensure that everyone has a rewarding and challenging experience. However, it can be difficult to make content that satisfies all those different players, so sometimes it's necessary to make manual adjustments as different bands of players progress that content.
Players have enjoyed a lot of the flexibility in raiding from the lower difficulties. Could we see 10-man Mythic?
With 13 classes and now 40 specs in the game, it's unbelievable hard to tune around so few players. Mechanics that split groups or being safely assume the presence of every class breaks down very quickly at smaller raid sizes.
20 is where we're likely to stay for some time.
What's the plan and philosophy behind 3 separate raids releasing for Midnight Season 1?
Idea is to offer more variety, flexibility, and freedom. There's been a pattern of having a single instance with roughly 8 bosses, so they're looking to shake things up a bit.
3 instances also offers a lot of opportunities to tell a lot more stories in different settings. With the addition of Story Mode, we can aggressively integrate the story into the raids without the concern that it won't be accessible to all players.
Dreamrift and Voidspire will be available at Season launch with March on Quel'danas coming a few weeks later after some additional story beats. Timing is not completely locked in.
Quickfire Questions
Is there going to a Season 4 of the War Within?
There will not be a Season 4 in the War Within.
Are there plans to bring back and reuse older content similar to Horrific Visions?
Philosophically, we want to utilize the full breadth of content available to us with 20 years under our belt. However, they want to be mindful of how that's introduced to players who may never have experienced that content originally.
How do you think Hero Talents have played out in the War Within? What can we expect for improvement in Midnight?
Overall they're happy with how Hero Talents worked out. The goal was always to add an extra dimension to classes without adding too much complexity. It's essentially a binary choice but they're okay with it being more simple with how complex classes and WoW can be as a whole.
