Exclusive Developer Interview With Countdown to Classic - Season of Discovery

Classic Posted 15 days ago by Archimtiros

Countdown To Classic PodcastBlackrock Mountain

Blackrock Eruption is exactly the lightweight, 15-25 minute event they wanted for PvE, though they're most pleased with the flavor aspect.

On the PvP side, the bigger servers still retain good population balance, but the players don't always go to the same areas, resulting in some imbalance. They'll probably make additional adjustments to honor and such, though BRM will probably remain a bloodbath!

While the total population is equal, the area you are in at that specific time might not be. There are so many variables you will rarely see a perfectly fair balance from moment to moment, but on a certain level, all fights on PvP servers are unfair fights.

They could turn off PvP entirely in BRM, but that wouldn't solve the issue. BRM is a unique place in WoW, one of the largest centers of both 5-player and raid content, so they figure PvP there is going to happen anyway. One major improvement they made was the central graveyard since running from Thorium Point made it a lot more miserable. They quickly realized that wasn't enough, and so quickly added the bloodless buff from Bloodmoon, though they could probably continue to do more.

Emphasizing inside the mountain vs outside was a matter of wanting players to be able to complete their bonus outdoor objectives. There was a time in Phase 2 when it wasn't even possible to get inside the mountain from Thorium Point, and they wanted players to have more relative safety outside. They want players to be able to do the content they want to do, and while there are some obstacles to that on PvP servers, they want to try to separate the PvE and PvP elements to reduce disruption.

Phase 2 had a major split between Gnomeregon for PvE and Stranglethorn for PvP, and maybe they made a mistake by centralizing the PvP hub so close to PvE in Phase 4, but they're learning, and trying new things, and doing their best to fix issues as they come across them. The experience is invaluable though, and will help inform their decisions in future phases.

Molten Core

The developers ask themselves "Who is this content for and how do we accommodate the broad spectrum of players in SoD?" Whether talking about classic or modern WoW, there's a large variety of players and skill levels, and players are also far more familiar with Molten Core than they were with Blackfathom Deeps or Sunken Temple, so one of the design goals of Heat Levels was to accommodate people who want a familiar experience as well as those who want a new challenge.

So how do you stay true to the players who want to replay the MC they know, and players who want a new bleeding edge system? Classic doesn't have explicit difficulty modes with a UI to select them, so the Heat system was created to let players choose their difficulty, progressing from start to finish.

They want Heat Level 1 to be extremely approachable there's some measure of expected DPS, but they try to be generous in terms of what the average player of the average group will bring. They don't want people wiping; if you've gone through the trouble of running dungeons for some pre-bis gear and putting a group together, that was the experience of the original Molten Core - it's not meant to be stressful, just get some loot and have fun. One thing to remember is they don't have a PTR, which is great for retaining surprise but means they might miss the mark in some areas. At a glance, Garr and Geddon are probably way too hard than they should be for Heat Level 1, and Ragnaros might be too. They're looking at ways to tone that down so that Heat Level 1 ends up where they want it to be.

Player feedback is almost split down the middle between wanting the next section of content to be harder or easier, the approach for Molten Core was solid in allowing them to tune for each of those desires. Some areas in Heat 1 & 2 are probably a bit too hard and need adjustments, but there's no universal call for easier or harder.

There are a lot of Season of Mastery mechanics returning in Molten Core, which is not necessarily a bad thing as not everyone participated in it, to begin with. If there's a good mechanic that people liked from Season of Mastery and fits in... why not reuse it? There are still new mechanics in higher Heat levels and mechanics who did not return from Season of Mastery as well.

Classes

Molten Core has some melee unfriendly mechanics which are reflected in logs, which is kind of ok, but something they'll continue to look at. They want a few weeks of Molten Core to give players time to get gear and learn the encounters before they make drastic changes.

Aggrend is not sure if he agrees with the idea that SoD has been dominated by a melee meta. There might be a Rogue or Survival meta, but not exclusively melee. Some classes could come up, but they're also taking more care in their tuning of bosses this time around. There were some outright mistakes in Sunken Temple, but Molten Core has been much more careful and deliberate in considering what they expect of an average group without world buffs. A meta group is by no means necessary.

Professions

The team knew Tier 0.5 would be a big focus of content in this Phase, and ultimately they would have liked to do more with professions, but the danger is in trying to chase the desire to make every profession entirely equal each patch, which isn't always feasible.

They'd like to continue to do more with professions similar to the first few Phases, maybe even see what the Shadowy Figure is doing since they haven't been seen in a while either.

Demonfall Canyon

You can make the most interesting dungeon and amazing encounters, but if the rewards aren't exciting, players just might not run it! Demonfall might not be as popular as UBRS or other Tier 0 drop locations, but it gets more activity than Dire Maul, and the team does think some interesting utility items may become more valuable down the road.

It didn't get promoted much, which is something they struggle with a lot in Season of Discovery. What do they keep secret, and what do they hype, where is that line? Demonfall probably flew under the radar for exactly that reason, and it's something they'll probably have a whole retrospective on whether that's a good or a bad thing.

Originally part of one of the content designer rune acquisitions for Priest, it was born from an idea where he wanted to utilize that section of Ashenvale and had all these cool enemies to put in there so... why not just make it a dungeon? They got paper designs out in just a few days and three encounter designers to build the thing in about two weeks, which gave the team a lot of confidence in what we're capable of doing very quickly.

The team teased at BlizzCon that there would be more dungeon content, and they wanted to do a new raid as well. There's going to be new content coming next patch that players have seen only elements for. There's also a questline they can start now that they'll only finish the next phase, hopefully leading into a larger encounter space.

Lightning Round

Not sure about the idea that Alliance and Horde tanks take different amounts of damage, but they'll look into it.

They want to make some of the earlier runes easier to acquire, specifically shared discoveries like the Dark Riders. There are a few unique storylines for each class that they want to keep, so they probably won't reach the point of a level 1 rune vendor, but they intend to make runes that require instances and other players easier. Might not come in a hotfix, but aiming for big improvements in the next patch.

Everything has been discovered. Though there are a few little hidden nuggets and references, there are no overarching surprises still waiting to be found.

Nothing specific at the moment, but they realize Arathi Basin and Warsong Gulch have been disincentivized and want to ameliorate that sooner rather than later.

What's Next for Classic?

Season of Discovery isn't Classic+. One of the things that they like about it as a seasonal format is that it allows them to try things that might not work that well - not that they're deliberately trying to do things that don't work, but it lets them push boundaries and figuring out what doesn't work is almost as important as what does. Sometimes players get frustrated because they want something different, but it's all something that they're trying to learn from and build forward on in the future.

Short answer, Season of Discovery is about as extreme in terms of the changes to Vanilla that we'll probably ever see, and when thinking about what to do next, they're probably going to pull back a little bit, but that's a little vague and even they are still thinking about it.

A fresh Vanilla reset is something they talk about constantly and would also like to do at some point.

Comment by baitcommentrelease fresh already joshComment by OlomanoloMC Melee being unfriendly is one thing, but having bosses that spin like a Beyblade doesn't exactly make it easy for the cats.

We also want to play with T1 on Heat 3 and finally parse something. This completely superfluous content stretching was unnecessary. Just give every boss a fire aura and increase the dmg. So that you have to have skill and gear to master H3. This nonsense with the FR cap could only have been thought up by an intern. Please send him on vacation and take 10 minutes to think about how you can do it better. All H3 players are super annoyed but unfortunately still in the minority.Comment by nickedWild Strikes baseline, alliance feral tanks are actually taking 20% more dmg cause they can't take Survival of the Fittest :D.Comment by TenbladesNot asking to be crazy dps but can we not just butcher Arms dps in favor of Fury. I get it, fury is the pve dps but P3 they hit a sweet spot and P4 it has been decided to scrap all that. Feels bad, especially when we have so many fighting for the 1h weapons. It's been killed so hard it does less dps than tanks...Comment by TheInnsanityWild Strikes equivelant on Blessing of Kings PLEASE.Comment by StrangerThanMythIronfoe on Real vendor when?Comment by 1818331tauren paladins, dwarf shamans would fix faction imbalanceComment by KushenI run my own pug raids and finding tanks is still one of my biggest time consumptions. Having many fights in MC that favour three tanks in a 20man environment is too much. I even believe it should be the opposite, most fights should be one tank and two healer.Comment by EyevouYes, population is very subjective.Comment by Borga76Would still like to see Classic+ someday. But if they do it, they need to make sure that the artists involved can recreate the artstyle effectively and NOT just reuse stuff from retail (i.e., don't use the retail falling infernal + explosion effect for the Blackrock Event falling rocks).Comment by FrancoportoWhat about textures upscaled ?Comment by gamekyle4118Felstriker on real vendor when?Comment by ShailkkithWhat is Vanilla? A 2004-flavour balance between convenience and inconvenience. Balance and imbalance. A fun game with twists and turns that was very difficult to try to "solve" and offered lots of downtime to chat with new friends. Balanced games get solved overnight, and most people don't keep playing solved games.

It was a lot of the inconveniences and imbalances (between races, classes, factions, items, and the world) which made the game memorable, interesting, and a great place to make new friendships.

Overbalance is not fun. It pushes away the people looking for fun and keeps only the people who enjoy mastering a "solved" game.

Convenience does not build friendships. Hardship does.

If Classic+ is going to be Vanilla inspired and not TBC/WoTLK inspired:

The design team needs to understand the vision of the designers from Vanilla as well as what made Vanilla special. Promote a leader who understands that vision and can keep the team oriented on it and shield them from the noise of the community.

They should not base their designs around the whims and wants of the community. Doing that is exactly what led the original team away from Vanilla and into TBC, WoTLK, and later Retail. Particularly because the vocal community members who remain are the ones who enjoy playing solved games, and their wants are largely antithetical to Vanilla's design philosophy.

I personally would love a Vanilla inspired Classic+. What I see now in SOD is much more TBC and WoTLK inspired, with heavy leanings towards designing an easily solvable game: A balanced game. Because that is what the remaining community wants... or at least... They think they do; but they don't. ;)Comment by MixineWhat is Vanilla? A 2004-flavour balance between convenience and inconvenience. Balance and imbalance. A fun game with twists and turns that was very difficult to try to "solve" and offered lots of downtime to chat with new friends. Balanced games get solved overnight, and most people don't keep playing solved games.

It was a lot of the inconveniences and imbalances (between races, classes, factions, items, and the world) which made the game memorable, interesting, and a great place to make new friendships.

Overbalance is not fun. It pushes away the people looking for fun and keeps only the people who enjoy mastering a "solved" game.

Convenience does not build friendships. Hardship does.

If Classic+ is going to be Vanilla inspired and not TBC/WoTLK inspired:

The design team needs to understand the vision of the designers from Vanilla as well as what made Vanilla special. Promote a leader who understands that vision and can keep the team oriented on it and shield them from the noise of the community.

They should not base their designs around the whims and wants of the community. Doing that is exactly what led the original team away from Vanilla and into TBC, WoTLK, and later Retail. Particularly because the vocal community members who remain are the ones who enjoy playing solved games, and their wants are largely antithetical to Vanilla's design philosophy.

I personally would love a Vanilla inspired Classic+. What I see now in SOD is much more TBC and WoTLK inspired, with heavy leanings towards designing an easily solvable game: A balanced game. Because that is what the remaining community wants... or at least... They think they do; but they don't. ;)Comment by JohntheBarbariangreat interview! too bad the interviewer is an absolute @#$%^&*, prob wouldnt have seen it without this post.Comment by SnagprophetWhy did this loser get mad that you summerised his interview just like you do with everyone else without issues?Comment by antifaction"A fresh Vanilla reset is something they talk about constantly and would also like to do at some point." or continue it until TBC-SOD that as you know both expansions have a lot of system similarities. Why not?