WoW Developer Reddit AMA Roundup

Earlier this week the developers had an AMA over on reddit, here’s a roundup of the questions and answers:

• When are the new Heirlooms going to be available?
  • We are currently planning to have this system ready for patch 6.1.0.
• Do you agree that the Shaman class has lost much of it’s identity over the years?
  • Probably the biggest blow to shaman identity came in Wrath (2008) when most buffs were changed to raidwide and were generally standardized among classes as a result. There was certainly something cool about bringing unique buffs like Windfury, and having a large number of those buffs that you could call uniquely your own. But it was quite a bit less cool being the Fury warrior who was only a viable endgame raid DPS with a shaman in your party, or being the raid leader playing party Tetris and cycling Bloodlusts through the melee group, or the elemental shaman who didn’t get a raid spot because the spec’s damage output was mediocre and they were only worthwhile if there was an open spot in the warlock/warlock/warlock/spriest group. I don’t think returning to that would be the answer.

    So, yes, the shaman is no longer a buff-bot. What, then, is the shaman identity? We do see totems as remaining a large part of that identity, and tried in Mists to remove passive buff totems and refocus them as more concentrated and intense effects that do something powerful in the short-term — Capacitor, Tremor, Grounding, Healing Tide, etc. (not going to argue that Searing fits into this model or is particularly sexy, though). I’d be curious to hear (from you, from everyone) what it is about the shaman class that most resonates (or resonated, in the event that you’ve lost that lovin’ feeling) with you.

• Do you feel that Shaman-balance should take the form of number tweaking, or is the sudden outcry for an all-out rework justified?
  • We’ve already made some numbers tweaks, and we’ll make some more as needed. There’s no question that Enhance and especially Elemental were weak during the initial days of Warlords, but at this point we’re seeing both specs performing very solidly in dungeons as well as a range of encounters in Highmaul. We’ll of course continue to watch balance as gear and strategies evolve, and watch PvP representation and success as the arena/RBG season really gets underway. In the short term, I would not expect a drastic overhaul. Drastic overhauls of classes are something we do rarely, and then almost exclusively with expansions and not patches. There are plenty of shaman out there who are having fun who don’t want to log in to find their class completely changed overnight. But that doesn’t that there isn’t room for improvement. A number of the points above regarding talents are very valid, and there’s definitely room for more differentiation through that avenue. And the Call/Persistence/Projection row is terrible.
• What would you like to tell Shamans who feel like second class Druids?
  • Druids are cats/bears/turkeys/trees; you are mail-clad warriors of the elements. Have faith, and try to focus feedback in a constructive way that focuses on specific areas of discontent. We’re listening.
• On class quests:
  • For sure – the green fire questline was a great experience. We do want to do more of this in the future, especially in a way that highlights and reinforces class identity, and are actively working on some cool stuff along these lines.
• Any update on class accessories? 🙂
  • The idea is still alive! We actually just had a meeting about this a few weeks ago. It’s not on the table for Warlords, but we are certainly discussing it for a future expansion.
• Are there any plans for Moonkin remodels, bear remodels and warlock pet remodels? (Looking at you Felguard.)
  • We hear you – primary focus for Warlords was on the main player models, but this is definitely something we want to do.
• Can you guys explain the logic behind versatility, given this? It seems to be simple a +betterer stat, and feels neither interesting or fun.
  • Yeah I’m not sure that we actually accomplished that goal TBH. We’re trying to strike a balance between the goal above and also the goal that we have enough variety in items, but I think we wound up with more secondary stats than we really need. This will be something we continue to refine in the future.
• Are the already released new character models still being tweaked and worked on?
  • We are planning to make some additional updates and tweaks to the new character models, yes.
• Does this include new customisation options? Because I’d love to see Mag’har/Blackrock/Dragonmaw/Laughing Skull skins for player Orc characters.
  • Chris Robinson (our Art Director) has mentioned that he’d love to see stuff like that as well, there’s just a lot of higher-priority projects that need the art team’s attention first.
• How well do you think the charge system works for spells, verses the more traditional cooldown, and are you planning on converting any more spells to be charge based?
  • We’re pretty happy with that system. The major advantage of that system is the way it allows for more open-ended decisionmaking in spell use that doesn’t penalize a player for not using an ability the instant it comes off cooldown. It also lets you deliberately plan ahead and pool usage. I’m not sure we’d want to extend it to ALL abilities, but for abilities that commonly run into the two issues I just outlined, it can really improve usability without needing to add additional mechanics.
• Are there any plans to better integrate garrisons across a player’s account, or perhaps even just realm/faction?
  • We are going to try and find ways to make Garrisons easier on alts through the patch cycle.
• It seems that some professions, especially gathering, are unable to earn money due to very high supply on the AH as a result of garrison gathering.
  • Definitely agree we need more things players can use core gathering materials for. In retrospect, we would have liked for there to have been more crafted items that use those materials without requiring the time-gated resources, so this problem is something we’re hoping to address going forward.
• Do you guys plan on improving upon garrisons every patch e.g more buildings, more plots, extra interactions (similar to invasions) and more customization (faction guards) to prevent the garrisons from becoming stale?
  • We plan to add some form of Garrison content in every patch, we want to keep it fresh too.

• Whats the go with Alchemy? Why does it have no transmutes anymore, no upgradeable class items etc etc.
  • We are working on some Alchemy updates, more info should be coming along soon.
• Why does the amount of Missions decrease substantially when all the active followers are level 100?
  • We were hoping not to have a bunch of irrelevant missions spamming up your mission list. We didn’t plan well enough for the fact that those missions aren’t really irrelevant when the salvage yard is OP. It’s definitely an issue we talk about here, but solutions are complex and can have a lot of ripple-effect consequences on the rest of the system/game.
• Is there a chance that we could have an option to stop moving background in certain dungeons/raids? Grimrail Depot causes 2 of my guildmates to have motion sickness when we are doing the second and third bosses, and it doesn’t help when that instance is needed for the legendary ring quest.
  • Ugh, sorry to hear that. =[ Not sure that we have a quick/easy solution for that, but we’ll take into consideration.
• Are there plans to expand the garrison further than level 3? The phase where the garrison is seems to be a little bit big for what they are.
  • There are plans to do more with garrison building progression in patch 6.2. Details at a future date since we’re still fairly early working on 6.2.
• How long does it take to create, test and ship out a raid instance at this point in time? I remember watching the 10 year anniversary and hearing that Molten Core took a week to create is something interesting to hear.
  • Making a raid zone nowadays is a huge endeavor that touches virtually all parts of the team in some form. From start to finish, Throne of Thunder or Siege of Orgrimmar each took 6-7 months to go from a 2D layout and a general concept to a playable, tested, tuning, and polished experience. (Spoilers: We’re working on the next big raid zone right now.)
• Is it intended that my friends are unable to use the portals in my spirit lodge or see my archaeology trophy room in my town hall?
  • Not intended, will be fixed in 6.1.
• It seems like recently taxis have been eating pets, elementals, and demons.
  • This is a bug, and we’re working on a fix in the near future.
• Why is the loot table on level 3 salvage crates so damn big?
  • A common misconception is that large tables necessarily mean more randomness, or that items are competing with each other. There are lots of ways of constructing treasure tables to avoid this. After many reports from players concerned with seemingly poor yield of follower rewards from Level 3 salvage crates, we took a really thorough look through the data and tested extensively to make 100% sure we weren’t missing something.

    A level 3 salvage crate actually gives you a guaranteed direct pull from the level 2 salvage loot table, PLUS additional chances to get transmog, legacy, or current items for your character to use or sell. The loot table is large to offer tons of variety, and there are definitely some jackpot items in there (Everburning Candle says hi), but it’s not coming at the expense of the core follower items or resources you got from level 1 and level 2.

• Thoughts on having race-specific garrison buildings?
  • We actually really love this idea, but in reality, it’s not something that’s really feasible for us to do. We have 13 races in the game and making unique buildings for all of them is just not in the cards. Instead, we tried to pick and choose specific buildings that could play to individual races character. (Tauren Leatherworking, Gnomish Workship, etc.)

    The art resources for this definitely come directly at the expense of other new content like dungeons or raids. So, while we all totally 100% agree this would be awesome, and we’d likely steer more in that direction if we could, it’s not likely for the WoD garrisons. If we were to do an updated version of garrisons in a future expansion, it’s much more likely (and would probably be an important goal for us).

• When will Kronos be fixed in Ashran?
  • We’re working on it! We tried some new things with the AI for NPCs in Ashran’s center road. Unfortunately, a lot of those techniques haven’t stood up to large player counts. We’ve been hotfixing them and simplifying their AI. Before, they would try to navigate to whatever capture point was active. Now, they’ll just get pissed and head straight for the enemy base attacking any enemy they come in contact with.

    Generally, we acknowledge Ashran has both design problems and technical ones (queueing). We’re continuing to work to fix them.

    Creating a PvP zone for 200+ people is a really unique challenge and the way that rewards influence behavior is pretty profound. We’re seeing a lot of different problems than what we saw on beta.

• I don’t like chaotic music in my garrison, but love wow music as a whole. Please let me put on something relaxing while mining instead of booming chaos themes.
  • We are working on a way for you to have custom music in your Garrison. Hoping to get this into patch 6.1.0. I am personally super stoked about this!
• I love the garrison system. I have heard that you are not planning on “continuing” with it in future expansions though..
  • Thanks for the kind words! In regards to Garrisons carrying forward, we need to wait and see how it plays out. We designed the system in a way that it can be left behind, but we could also choose to take certain parts or technology and carry them on to new expansions.
• Spirit as a secondary/primary stat.
  • It’s your best secondary stat as a healer, similar to what Armor is for tanks. Early on in beta, you actually could get Spirits gems/flasks/food, but we found that it undermined part of the point of consumable philosophy. We removed primary stats from gems and enchants in order to add some player choice and allow players to customize their secondary stats in a post-reforging world. If you want to try a crit-heavy build or want to stack mastery on your healer, you can use our profession system to accomplish that. But if Spirit were an option, it would clearly be the correct choice, and you’d never for a moment consider using any of those other secondary stat options. So in the interest of preserving some interesting choice, we removed Spirit and Armor food/gems/enchants and balanced healers around that change.
• Healing overall in Highmaul, even on normals (at least as a holy paladin) is hard.
  • We’re keeping a very close eye on healing overall as raiding begins. From personal experience, observation, and talking to other healers, a lot of what we’re seeing is a mix of learning new fights (and thus people in general taking large amounts of avoidable damage) and healers getting used to not panicking when someone is at 60% or 70% health. Both of those are things that should improve over time. We recognize that it’s one of the risks of a more deliberate healing pace: in Mists mistakes might have been instantly lethal due to spikier damage, while in Warlords they’re survivable in the short-term, but are bleeding healers try in the long term. If you aren’t cleaning out the stands on Kargath, or people are triggering arcane mines on Mar’gok, that might not instantly wipe you, but it’ll absolutely lead to your healers running out of gas eventually. That said, raid healing in particular tends to lend itself towards more specialization, and raid leaders may find that it makes sense to have their paladins focus a bit more on single-target healing, which is a clear niche thanks to Beacon, while other classes blanket the raid.
• Are new worgen and goblin models in the works?
  • No plans for that at the moment.
• Is there any consideration into redoing the run animation for Night Elves?
  • Yes, I believe that’s on the list of things to refine, potentially in patch 6.1. Don’t quote me on that though. =] (editor’s note: Irony in the quoting for this roundup)
• The Dwarven Bunker/War Mill transmog armor is currently Account Bound as opposed to Battle.net Account Bound. It’s pretty frustrating to not be able to send it between my accounts, especially considering how rare the Iron Horde scraps seem to be. Is this intended or an oversight?
  • That’s an oversight on our part. We will get that fixed up. Thanks!
• Any plan to get a better system for transmog? Like the D3 system so we can use the “skin” of the item without having to go and get it from the void store or bank. Maybe en ETA if there is something coming?
  • This is something we hope to do do in a future expansion. We love the idea!
• There seems to be a lot of people that have an issue with Garosh’s father being the last boss in WOD.
  • There will be a surprise, and we’re looking forward to players hearing more sometime “soon”!
• What’s the long term plan for WoW?
  • As Ion said, we don’t see an end to Wow coming anytime soon. As long as we have players that love the game, we will keep making new content for them!
• Can you comment on the changes you did to mob pathing with WoD? As a tank player I find myself annoyed by that quite often when trying to position mobs properly. They seem to react much more twitchy to my own movement than they did in MoP.
  • We actually didn’t change mob pathing directly — we made a ton of improvements to server responsiveness, which means the server (and thus, the mobs) have a more precise idea of where your character is currently standing than they have in the past. The end result is that there’s a noticeable difference in the feel of how certain mobs move around, especially for tanks. There really isn’t a quick fix for this, but it’s something on our radar for sure.
• There are a lot of spells out there that could really use some love, like Fire mage (Fireball, Pyroblast), Shadow Priest (Mind Flay, Shadow Word: Pain, and some others) and a lot of the effects for the melee classes are pretty poor, too.
  • We totally hear you guys on this. We have a team of folks working to improve the overall sound, look and feel of Wow combat in general for future expansions. More updates to come on this in the future.