Blizzard Interview with Icy Veins, Raider.IO and Wowhead - Interrupt Trackers, Visual Clarity, Addons

Posted 6 hr 21 min ago by Squishei

This interview was a joint effort between Wowhead, Icy Veins and Raider.IO. Please check out their content as well!

Andrew De Sousa, Lead Encounter Designer

Taylor Sanders, Lead Encounter Designer

Wowhead Questions

Wowhead

Given the inclusion of at least one council fight and the rising amount of low target cleave in the recent raids, are you happy with the shift in raid design moving away from more single target encounters? Is the design direction of classes something that is considered when looking at the encounter style of an upcoming raid?

They always consider class balance and work closely with them.

They always want to make sure there is a variety of encounters and challenges across the entire PvE season.

There's a lot of focus on the back end of the raid, as well as high end Mythic+ to make sure there is a variety there in DPS and Healing profiles

Just because this tier has a little more multi-target and 2 target cleave, but it's not necessarily a shift for the game as a whole; sometimes it's where the creatures take the encounters

They want to make sure there is a good variety of challenges each Season, so every class has their own encounter to shine.

Wowhead

One of the points of feedback from testing was the overwhelming amount of trash in the raid. Have you made any changes to that since testing, or can players expect about that amount on live, which includes the blood channeling mechanic.

They're always making changes to things on the PTR.

There's still raid trash, but what they're been trying to do more in raids, is more non-standard gameplay, such as the Frogger hallway or the BWL trap room.

There's a few different places in the Venomous Abyss which are more unique.

Wowhead

Looking back at encounters like Mythic L'ura, where third-party tools became almost expected to manage the Memory Game, what lessons did the team take forward into designing Atal'Utek? Can we expect to see more mechanics use information asymmetry in the future?

There's still a lot of things to iterate on with regards to additional tools and addons. One of the major goals is if you're returning or a new player, you shouldn't feel obligated to have a large package of addons just to function.

The other goal is computation addons. There was a few that high end Mythic players still felt obligated to get in the 12.0 raids.

Starting with 12.1 addons can no longer access their information, and they have separated out what addons can access. They're hoping that computation addons can fully be put to rest.

We definitely can see more information asymmetry stuff mechanics in the future. They're experimenting with it in a few ways. They're going to keep experimenting and listening to feedback.

Wowhead

We’ve seen an increase in Midnight on pure “knowledge checks” on bosses, where you need to know how to do this mechanic, or else you and/or your group dies For example, soaking the 4 beams on the last boss of Altar of Fangs, or the 2nd boss of Altar of Fangs. Is this intentional, and are you okay with a group wiping due to a one player not knowing the mechanic in a 5 man dungeon?

This is co-op PvE at the end of the day.

There is often one thing that you need to know on this boss in order to defeat it, and it's on them as encounter designers to make sure signaling that you're failing.

Another technique is something like on Kasreth in Nexus Point where the beams change color to indicate you should do something with it.

If there's a single core mechanic they want you to learn, that's part of the mastery of WoW.

Wowhead

Are there any mechanics in Season 2 that you feel like you couldn’t have done with computational addons?

One of the examples is on the Entombed Sentinels, as they have given excessive visual effects for this mechanic as in the past they would just assume that players would have an addon for it which forces them to design towards that at the most competitive levels.

This puts a number of debuffs over your head, and you need to find your matching player. This is something that would be offloaded to computation expansions in previous expansions, but they can now rely on players to solve that in a more emergent, dynamic way.

In Mythic+, not directly driven by it but it definitely helped, but it contributed to them updating line and cone visuals.

Full SummaryLessons from Split Raid Tier

They really wanted to follow the story, and that's something that drove them to the split raid tier.

One of the positives that they saw from that was the separation of raid content, and for players that had little time, they could still go in and still see a lot of success.

The Dreamrift's loot definitely helped, but they saw a lot of pugs get a bite size of raiding into their week.

This is why they have 2 raids this tier, and they're hoping that the Tidebound Grotto will help fill that same gap.

Mythic L'ura and Addons

The other goal was removal of computation addons. There was a few that high end Mythic players still felt obligated to get in the 12.0 raids.

Starting with 12.1 addons can no longer access Blizzard's information, and they have separated out what addons can access. They're hoping that computational addons can fully be put to rest.

We definitely can see more information asymmetry stuff mechanics in the future. They're experimenting with it in a few ways. They're going to keep experimenting and listening to feedback.

Death Grip Mandatory

They try to make sure that when a class has a very transformative ability such as Gorefiend's Grasp or Death Grip, there are other ways that maybe aren't as efficient, or aren't as powerful. But there are still other ways to complete the mechanic.

They want those things to be very powerful, but there's a difference between a spell that is the best of it's form and a spell that does something super unique and cannot be replicated.

Trash in Venomous Abyss

They're always making changes to things on the PTR.

There's still raid trash, but what they're been trying to do more in raids is more non-standard gameplay, such as the Frogger hallway or the BWL trap room.

There's a few different places in the Venomous Abyss which are more unique.

No Mythic+ Trash Dungeon Journal

They've taken a big pass on simplicity on trash in Mythic+. Does everything need to have a cast bar?

When they see a bolt, they know what to expected.

They're making sure that players have enough time to deal with trash mechanics, and pairing down the complexity.

For the type of mechanic that is you get a circle with a rim, and you just need to spread out, that just enough to spread out and that's it for trash.

Lindormi's Guidance

The goal of Lindormi's Guidance was intended as the entry point of Tanks to routing.

A mapping tool is more aimed at the high end and they don't want to confuse new tanks which the system was designed for.

A mapping tool would be cool though.

Player Health / Creature Damage

They've been paying attention to PTR tests, and are doing almost weekly updates to the dungeons.

They're always looking for ways to shake up the meta.

More Council / Cleave Encounters

They always consider class balance and work closely with them.

They always want to make sure there is a variety of encounters and challenges across the entire PvE season.

There's a lot of focus on the back end of the raid, as well as high end Mythic+ to make sure there is a variety there in DPS and Healing profiles

Just because this tier has a little more multi-target and 2 target cleave, but it's not necessarily a shift for the game as a whole; sometimes it's where the creatures take the encounters

They want to make sure there is a good variety of challenges each Season, so every class has their own encounter to shine.

Raid Nerfs

There will be a similar system to the Season 1 raids that will buff players.

In buffing players vs nerfing bosses, they try to focus the powers on the players as they're the heroes of the story.

It's not a great feeling to show up to the raid and the boss is nerfed suddenly, they try to avoid that as much as possible.

For L'ura glaives that's a lot more on reaction time so they wanted to nerf those directly.

Popularity of the Mythic+ Season

They attribute the main driver to be accessibility, as players could complete 10s, and then 12s were in reach, and then 14s, and soon.

A strong dungeon pool and fun class design also contributed.

It's making Andrew nervous to watch the score for the 1% title go up every day.

Knowledge Checks

This is co-op PvE at the end of the day.

There is often one thing that you need to know on this boss in order to defeat it, and it's on them as encounter designers to make sure there's signaling that you're failing.

Another technique is something like on Kasreth in Nexus Point where the beams change color to indicate you should do something with it.

If there's a single core mechanic they want you to learn, that's part of the mastery of WoW.

Boss Arena

They want to create interesting environment rooms that create interesting challenges. For example, with Queen An'surek, she's a spider and they wanted to add verticality to make it seem like you're climbing a spire.

Ula'tek should feel similar

They always want to find ways to engage different movement utility.

Addons Changes and Communication

They wanted to cut back on some of the noise so that the things that are important can stand out.

They have a UI element where it lights up and it glows when it's important.

They added new VFX asset where it pulses on the creature that shows you that something important is happening.

They're pulling back on pulsing and coordination where reasonable.

No plans for a proper interrupt tracker right now.

Missing Raid Leader and Accessibility Tools

They have nothing to share about additional tools of things that players have felt like they've lost with the Midnight addon changes.

One of the goals for all of the addon changes was to try to impact accessibility as little as possible in the earnest pursuit of removing computational addons and the effect that it's had.

They know that raid leaders and guild leaders are those who are driving large social groups together week after week.

So nothing to announce right now, but they want to continue to listen to feedback if they have ideas or tools that would be useful for the game.

Specific Mechanics without Computational Addons

In Mythic+, not directly driven by it but it definitely helped, but it contributed to them updating line and cone visuals.

Comment by ssithlI'm missing the bit on visual clarity improvements? Only seen some clips from fights, but I'm getting a lot of "Venom Green on Green" visuals..Comment by KarthusTeemoThe open bragging of restricting addons even more while also not yet bringing in the replacements is the exact reason why all of this nonsense should have never happened when it did.Comment by PixelfoxThis article is kinda awful. It's two separate overlapping summaries of the content of the interview, often using the same text in each. Many of the summaries are unclear / ambiguous.

I guess just watch the video or read the full transcript linked at the top.Comment by Setsuna665The open bragging of restricting addons even more while also not yet bringing in the replacements is the exact reason why all of this nonsense should have never happened when it did.Comment by Cromax95The open bragging of restricting addons even more while also not yet bringing in the replacements is the exact reason why all of this nonsense should have never happened when it did.Comment by KatassuPlease Blizzard, I don't care how you do it but Details! Death Recap needs to be restored to full functionality. It makes my job as a Raid Lead so much easier to know exactly what caused what in the lead up to someones death and going out of game to scour through logs and check whether we had a tool available to keep them alive ends up either wasting our time or our progress .

You gotta give Raid Leads & GMs some slack, they already carry a huge burden and the extreme restriction on addons has only made that burden larger.Comment by Probuffis this supposed to be useful or somethingComment by HareticI see "so every class has their own encounter to shine." and I hear "so we can nerf you".Comment by Setsuna665The open bragging of restricting addons even more while also not yet bringing in the replacements is the exact reason why all of this nonsense should have never happened when it did.Comment by AerogosaThe amount of spelling mistakes or just outright word duplications is astronomical. Proof read this AI mess.

We’ve seen an increase in Midnight on pure “knowledge checks” on bosses, where you need to know how to do this mechanic, or else you and/or your group dies For example, soaking the 4 beams on the last boss of Altar of Fangs, or the 2nd boss of Altar of Fangs. Is this intentional, and are you okay with a group wiping due to a one player not knowing the mechanic in a 5 man dungeon? Starting with 12.1 addons can no longer access Blizzard's information, and they have separated out what addons can access. They're hoping that computational addons can fully be put to rest.

You gotta give Raid Leads & GMs some slack, they already carry a huge burden and the extreme restriction on addons has only made that burden larger.Comment by Hellboy999"Looking back at encounters like Mythic L'ura, where third-party tools became almost expected to manage the Memory Game"

Almost? I'd like to see a single kill of mythic L'ura without people dialing in the notes they see. Has it ever happened? Even with this "crutch" this boss was still arguably the hardest boss we have ever seen. The addons parsing through the memory game isn't just expected, it is mandatory.Comment by CTEKKI'm missing the bit on visual clarity improvements? Only seen some clips from fights, but I'm getting a lot of "Venom Green on Green" visuals..Comment by PveMannoTired of addon interviews. Blizz UI bad, addons good. Stop trying.Comment by kpiaumWoWhead: "This Lu'ra and memory game thing...."

Blizzard: "Answer things that has nothing to do with the original question"Comment by KerathrasTheir straight up refusal to directly answer a simple question about the memory mechanics and their insistence on having them when players have repeatedly said and demonstrated that they can’t handle them without addons is fascinating to me. It’s like a teacher refusing to adapt his curriculum even as he sees that his students are incapable of handling the material. It’s frustrating and hilarious in equal measure.Comment by NerdEsqGive druids vine grip.