WoW Content Creator Interview with Ion Hazzikostas on Patch 10.0.7

Live Posted 2023/03/14 at 2:30 PM by Squishei

HighlightsPrimordial Stones

The Annulet and Primordial Stones, once fully upgraded, should be relevant and should be an upgrade for basically everyone. That's part of why it spans multiple item levels and has multiple effects. it should be something that's worth chasing for everyone.

The High-end players should be replacing in Season 2. if it feels like you should use this over Mythic Aberrus Rings, that's something they're going to want to remedy.

Class Balance

Happy with the direction the class balance is going with more frequently tuning classes. The goal is to keep balance evolving and have people who see themselves at the bottom of the meters and having trouble getting groups know that's not how it's going to be for the whole season. For people who are at the high end of the range, being the best for the entire season is not good, and they do want to reign in large outliers in the early weeks of the season. Towards the end of a season, they will generally hold off more because not being able to time a key or kill a boss that you previously did doesn't feel great. More active hand in early weeks for sure.

They are planning on continuing tuning in Patch 10.0.7 that will probably be balancing numbers, but at a slower rate because the season is stabilizing.

Class Race Combos

They want to make sure there are narrative reasons for races to become classes. But gameplay-wise they are trying to open up more race-class combos, after they take story for narrative continuity.

There is a high likelyhood down the line that Dracthyr can wield weapons and cast Frostbolts.

Mythic+

Over the course of the 10.1 PTR affixes will be tweaked and some might be replaced. Affixes are supposed to be make the dungeon harder. Some seasonal affixes made the dungeons easier and 10s were easier than 9s. They want the experience to be challenging but not frustrating. They want to fix things being hard to see and fix when a bad line up happens where there's no counterplay, but the goal is definitely challenge.

Cross-Faction

They're moving conservatively with regards to cross-faction stuff.

Cross-faction guilds are not really what their name implies. Logistically, they are more of the ability to join the opposite faction guild. The plan is to consolidate Horde and Alliance into one unified Hall of Fame.

PvP

Conquest boxes are likely for 10.0.7. They are looking into it.

Nothing planned for 10.0.7 to entice players back into non-solo shuffle. They're talking about it and ways that Rated PvP might evolve in the future.

Secrets

Ion seemed to indicate that 10.0.7 will probably have some hidden secrets.

Miscellaneous

Holiday Updates originally on the roadmap for 10.0.7, but some holiday updates made it into 10.0.5. Some updates may be small, some may be larger and include new mini-games, new achievements but goal is to get to update them before they get into the rotation. It's something they want to keep chipping away over the course of the year.

Patch Cadence so far so good. Time will tell, but they'll be listening, and while there might not be a raid every 2 months, there are small narratives and small updates they can do. X.5 patches can tell a story after the events of the raid and update the world. x.7 patches can help lead the story into the X.1 patches. Previously, where there wasn't a X.7 patch, there might have been a lot of prologue content that they've gotten mixed feedback on. How do players feel about it?

Amount of PTR testing varies, unexpected downside of Patch Cadence. New PTR going up as new content releases means more people doing stuff in the game and less on the PTR. They might need to organize more structured days like "Play with the Blues" to get the data they need. But they do appreciate people who play the PTR, everyone's feedback is appreciated.

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