Morgan Day Interview with Warcraft Radio - Tier Acquisition, Great Vault, Season 4

Posted 2022/04/01 at 6:05 PM by Squishei

Full Interview

Following the conclusion of the Race to World First: Sepulcher of the First Ones, Athalus of Warcraft Radio sat down with recently promoted Associate Game Director Morgan Day on March 30th to discuss the Race and the conclusion of Shadowlands raiding with the upcoming Season 4. The interview covers topics regarding the content of this tier’s RWF including the impact of the lengthy race on players, mechanics breakdown, the very death crab that stalled teams for a near eternity – Halondrus the Reclaimer, issues encountered by the raiders, and many other topics. The interview is available now on the Realm Maintenance podcast through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast hubs, and can also be viewed on Warcraft Radio’s YouTube Channel.

Topics Include:

Race length
Tuning
Itemization
Season 4
Splits
Grimrail Accessibility
And more

Follow Athalus on Twitter: https://twitter.com/athalusWCR
Follow Warcraft Radio on Twitter: https://twitter.com/WarcraftRadio
Realm Maintenance on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3nh6Uz8ArJHOnfMYGYSpig
Realm Maintenance on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/realm-maintenance/id554811869

About Warcraft Radio:
Warcraft Radio is Azeroth’s FIRST live stream, bringing content, updates, and entertainment to casual and hardcore fans alike. Many of our content creators have been a part of the Warcraft Community since our origins in 2004, and their dedication to the community has never waned. We are passionate gamers who simply want to share our love of games with you through podcasts, live-streams, and original content. Our goal is to ensure that you Never Adventure Alone.

Highlights

00:00 - Intro
02:37 Changes in the design philosophy that set up Shadowlands raids to be successful
07:18 Discussion on the excessive length of the Race tier
08:24 Thoughts on the itemization and trading restrictions that pushed the teams to focus even more heavily on splits
13:20 Does that maybe change some of your philosophy going forward? Is a High difficulty fight like Halondus continuing to be a standard now in the middle of a raid? Are you happy with Halondrus’s position in the tier?
15:27 We had the final bosses go completely unlooked at and you held them back for a week. No PTR testing. They’re not even out heroic week. Are you happy with how that played out, in general? Is holding back those bosses something you are looking to do in future raids?
18:06 What does QA look like for bosses internally?
20:10 What happened with Method’s World Second Jailer kill as well as other kills that played out similarly, regarding the lack of healing on The Jailer?
23:30 Will you be doing tier sets in the future or are they just a temporary choice you’re bringing back?
25:35 Is there room for the team to reduce the RNG component for gearing, so that higher level raiders are less likely to be excluded from raids based on their initial luck?
28:27 Is the team happy with the Great Vault? Is a similar system what we are likely to be seeing going forward?
30:40 Are you happy with where the economy is situated, or is there anything you are looking at to reduce the wealth gap between wealthy players and the common player in the short and long term?
37:02 Was extending the Lords of Dread fight for a minute beyond the berserk timer to secure the kill surprising to the team?
39:57 In the last couple of expansions we have had 4 to 4 and half raids. Was it always the plan to only have 3 or did something get cut at one point? In the future is there a target number of raids in an expansion?
42:53 What are some of the changes you’ve made this expansion as a whole team to better support the Race to World First?
46:49 Based on the race that just ended, are there additional areas in which the WoW team feels the need to improve the team’s support of the Race to World First for future tiers?
47:41 Thoughts on whether the Race to World First is an Esport
49:07 Is there ever a possibility to have regions just play with each other rather than separating regions?
51:31 Will there still be the traditional four difficulties for each Season 4 raid?
52:27 What is the fate of tier sets in season 4?
53:15 Do you have a sense for how long Season 3 will last, and when Season 4 will begin?
54:16 What sets World of Warcraft Raids apart from other MMORPG raids?
57:16 The alleged death of Halondrus

The Length of the Race

They're happy with the raid, but have heard the feedback about the length of the race from guilds and will take that into consideration going forwards.

For the first time, they broke the raid in half with two pieces of tier on later bosses. Blizzard was surprised that the Race to World First guilds started with splits. They think that since many splits had to happen during Mythic week, rather than Heroic week contributed to why the tier was so long.

Tier Sets also meant that guilds were spending time doing Normal.

They also have some new tech to auto-tune content based on difficulty. This means that they can tune all of content at the same time, but can lead to a perfectly-balanced tier or an entire tier that is too easy or too hard.

Jailer Healing Bug

The Jailer healing bug was a very specific circumstance that they had trouble tracking down.

They don't want to give people an unfair advantage, so they'll probably fix it on a weekly reset with possible fixes to compensate.

Mortal Strike effects were always intended to reduce the healing.

Tier Trading

They made a change to tier trading to hopefully reduce the amount of degenerate gameplay that would need to occur for a small group of people. Instead, that just acted as another hoop which they just jumped through instead.

This is a change that they'll need to talk about more going forward and the impact that it has on the broader player base. Is a player in a normal raid guild having a worse time because Blizzard was trying to prevent some unfun gameplay for the Race to World First guilds? If so, they don't want to cause problems like that.

Tier Acquisition

It boils down to a question of viability. Having boots with the wrong secondary stat is different than having 4pc which turns on a much larger power gain.

This is something that they knew they needed to cut the long tail off of it, and if you put in this much effort or time, there's a more deterministic path for you to get that thing, which is the goal of the Creation Catalyst.

They know that there's many player discussions asking for the Creation Catalyst, so it's something they're keeping an eye on and talking about timing.

Great Vault

The goal with the Great Vault is you should always feel excited on Tuesday.

Even if you don't get the item that you hoping for, you should get something cool anyways which led them to bolster the options on the currency vendor.

Overall they're happy with the increased agency, but want to make sure that the excitement is paid off.

Legendary Crafting

Early on in Shadowlands, they wanted to make sure that players who wanted to try things out with Legendaries had a low Barrier to entry. This was achieved by having relatively cheap Rank 1 base items, but if you wanted to increase the item level, you would need to pay more.

Through the expansion, they may have missed the mark on raising that floor. Maybe you should be able to craft a Normal mode Legendary for cheap and try things out. They want to avoid the feeling of "I need to upgrade my legendary to even feel like it's at the minimum bar for the patch".

Season 4

Seasons generally land between a 6 - 8 month timeframe and is a starting point for their conversation, but ultimately Season 4 release will depend on the timing of the next update.

They're excited to experiment with some older content that still holds up and has just been graduated out of.

Exact raid difficulties are still being decided, but definitely more than one.

They want Tier sets to be part of the itemization, but a lot is still to be determined.

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Comment by Stonephazer"With Shadowlands, 3 raids was always the plan"

Bull$%^&. Just like Danuser's "always planned as a drama in three acts" is bull#$%^. It's very obvious to any person that paid the leastest bit of attention to the expansion as it went on and is not dumb as a rock that an entire patch worth of content was cut. That's why 9.1 took as long as it took and ended up being stale with hardly any polished content.

But they'll never admit that their plans for the expansion and general workflow were heavily affected, whether it was the pandemic or the lawsuit or whatever reason.Comment by TOMRUSI don't agree with everything they said about Great Vault. It sucks so bad...

Requirements for additional loot choices should be removed completely. It should always offer multiple choices no matter how much content you did prior week.
It should have duplicate protection and also use smart loot generation (like it should only offer items that are real upgrades).Comment by DreadfuryDKI don't agree with everything they said about Great Vault. It sucks so bad...Comment by PerrycoxWhy would that be a joke? This is the first time anything close to that has ever happened.Comment by EridianPandaria was cut too, it’s alright man . Cool off a bit, all we can do is look forward to the next expansion.Comment by LeviathonI don't agree with everything they said about Great Vault. It sucks so bad...Comment by WchrAnd what you had before the Great Vault was the M+ box which had exactly one random piece of loot instead of a choice of three.Comment by ZarikelHow to fix the great vault in 1 easy step

3rd vault option in a row allows you to target the item you want. Or at least the slotComment by ZarikelI don't agree with everything they said about Great Vault. It sucks so bad...

Requirements for additional loot choices should be removed completely. It should always offer multiple choices no matter how much content you did prior week.
It should have duplicate protection and also use smart loot generation (like it should only offer items that are real upgrades).Comment by plexisbetterMortal Strike effects were always intended to reduce the healing.Comment by MurzacBlizzard was surprised that the Race to World First guilds started with splits. Comment by IcetyAnd what you had before the Great Vault was the M+ box which had exactly one random piece of loot instead of a choice of three.Comment by Wchr...Comment by rxmnt
The diff is how power upgrade from vault is scaled. In BFA you had 475 ilvl from chest and 465 from dungs. In today's ilvl it will be 278 from vault and 272 from dungs. Comment by couchpotato2013Blizzard was surprised that the Race to World First guilds started with splits. Comment by SatyrosI don't agree with everything they said about Great Vault. It sucks so bad...

Requirements for additional loot choices should be removed completely. It should always offer multiple choices no matter how much content you did prior week.
It should have duplicate protection and also use smart loot generation (like it should only offer items that are real upgrades).Comment by sweetdandelieI am so sorry, but I do not agree that there were 3 raids planned. There is a severe change from Halondrus/Anduin and the last three bosses. It makes little sense to have bosses setup that way. Anduin and Halondrus feel like end bosses.

And WHY OH WHY are we rehashing old content? It isn't fun. It isn't fun at all. Adding new gear and putting affixes into raid is it for me. I won't be doing it. I get you have to wait until Microsoft acquires you, but geez...this is a new low.Comment by decrakas"It should always offer multiple choices no matter how much content you did prior week."
"
Yes, do one m+15 and get same options as someone do more. There should always be difference between 1 hour or 5 hour time investment

"But, It should have duplicate protection"< 100% agree, getting same cloak 2 weeks in row, what you have higher ilvl equipped from vault.. is bull$%^&Comment by Arkthugal"With Shadowlands, 3 raids was always the plan"

Bull$%^&. Just like Danuser's "always planned as a drama in three acts" is bull#$%^. It's very obvious to any person that paid the leastest bit of attention to the expansion as it went on and is not dumb as a rock that an entire patch worth of content was cut. That's why 9.1 took as long as it took and ended up being stale with hardly any polished content.

But they'll never admit that their plans for the expansion and general workflow were heavily affected, whether it was the pandemic or the lawsuit or whatever reason.Comment by ArkthugalI am so sorry, but I do not agree that there were 3 raids planned. There is a severe change from Halondrus/Anduin and the last three bosses. It makes little sense to have bosses setup that way. Anduin and Halondrus feel like end bosses.

And WHY OH WHY are we rehashing old content? It isn't fun. It isn't fun at all. Adding new gear and putting affixes into raid is it for me. I won't be doing it. I get you have to wait until Microsoft acquires you, but geez...this is a new low.

12 3