Last night was a busy night in regard to new information regarding the current state of Battle for Azeroth! Game Director Ion Hazzikostas held an AMA on reddit and answered some burning questions from the community. That’s not all though, as next Tuesday Blizzard will hold a livestream detailing what the content of patch 8.1 will entail! In addition to that a new round of hotfixes has gone out increasing the rewards from island expeditions more and changing the rules of earning PvP gear from the conquest chest.
Reddit AMA with Ion Hazzikostas
The AMA covered a whole range of issues from Azerite armor to warfronts and character progression. Below is a summary of the answers, for the full list of detailed answers check out this post that has all the answers neatly organized in a reference table!
- Blizzad is not entirely happy with how the Azerite System is playing out right now
- When you get to Heart Level 18 you will at the very least have unlocked the most powerful azerite trait ring on all items
- Effectively the reduction of amount of Azerite Power you need each week (catch up mechanic) means you’ll earn AP 30% faster.
- Tuning is currently a big part of the problem in regard to Azerite Powers
- They’ll be tuning, adding and removing Azerite Powers as needed, the current system is a foundation upon which they will continue to improve and build
- They are looking at Shamans and what their defined niches should be
- The droprate for non-azerite rewards such as mounts and pets on Island Expeditions will be greatly increased (hotfix has already gone out)
- Ion admits that they did a poor job of communicating in advance how the Warfront Rotation would work as it was different on the beta to allow for easier testing
- A whole warfront cycle should be about 3,5 weeks.
- This means 4-6 days of donating warfunds, 7 days of the warfront scenario being active with a once per cycle 370 reward and repeatable 340 rewards and finally 11-13 days of zone control to kill the boss, rares and do quests.
- Over 30000 bugs were entered and tracked over the course of BfA’s Alpha/Beta/Release and 95% of them have been fixed. When a bug occurs for the player it isn’t always simple to reproduce due to the combination of actions and events that occur. If something is not fixed in time for the release and it occurs for more players it will give blizzard the information they need to reproduce the bug(s) that weren’t solved.
- There will be a catch up mechanic to the Champions of Azeroth reputation in a future patch.
- The Paragon Reputation system will return to BfA in a future patch.
- They are aware of the disparity between Horde and Alliance mounts, this will be rectified as the expansion unfolds. In addition to that the Bee mount was confirmed!
- They are working on improving their communication towards the community.
- Next tuesday we’ll get a livestream detailing the biggest content of patch 8.1!
Hotfixes: September 14, 2018
September 14, 2018
Island Expeditions
- Substantially increased the drop rates for the various bonus rewards, such as transmog items, pets, quest starters, and mounts.
Player versus Player
- Starting next week, earning 500 Conquest in a week, regardless of the status of your weekly Rated PvP quest, will also make you eligible for a weekly PvP reward chest. It is strongly recommended that you complete a Rated PvP quest this week to ensure your eligibility for the next chest.
- Weekly Conquest rewards now display the correct item level inside PvP instances.
- All ranks of Battleborn Sigil and Warlord’s Trophy should now function as intended and are usable on any Dread Gladiator’s item of lower item level.
- Fixed a bug that made it possible to receive a lower item-level item than intended from PvP bonus rolls.
- Shaman
- Fixed a bug which caused the Shamanism versions of Bloodlust and Heroism to be unable to cast while you are the opposite faction in Rated Battlegrounds.
Join Us for a Developer Live Stream Tuesday, September 18
With Battle for Azeroth in full swing, we’re sitting down with Game Director Ion Hazzikostas to get a peek at the next upcoming content update.
Join us live Tuesday, September 18 at 20:00 CEST