SpartySmallwood Interview with Morgan Day - Lead Encounter Designer

Posted 2018/04/08 at 3:12 PM by Anshlun

Sparty SmallwoodHighlightsPvE Design

The number of tiers in Battle for Azeroth will depend on what makes sense to the story, Legion you had the Pillars of Creation and Nightborne storyline, which lead to the possibility to close Tomb of Sargeras and finally to Argus. Battle for Azeroth's first raid will be Uldir, a Titan facility in Zuldazar where the Titans experimented in how to remove the Old Gods without destroying the host (Azeroth).

Mythic+ rewards will likely stay the same for Battle for Azeroth, including the end of the week rewards based on your best Mythic+ ran.

War Campaign is the Battle for Azeroth version of the Class Order Hall Campaign in Legion. The War Campaign will send you into the enemy continent to complete tasks and skirmishes against the opposing faction.

Blizzard likes when trinkets interact with players' abilities, but interactions like Draught of Souls, that was better than legendaries for some and useless for others were too much, are problems with personal loot that they are trying to figure out as even though it's a downgrade for you, you are unable to trade it

Usually, class stacking situations, like Tomb of Soakgeras and Coven of Shivarra are a result of lack of communication between the encounter design team. For instance, Coven of Shivarra could've had only three Machinations of Aman'Thul, which healed up faster to give more importance to single target burst to that fight.

Islands and Warfronts

Controlling Warfronts will change the zones they are located at, in favor of your faction. The amount of time you control a Warfront is based on the speed the enemy faction can gather the resources required to attack.

There will be plenty different ways to contribute to Warfronts, including professions, so every player, from hardcore to casual, can assist their faction even if they are not into PvP or PvE.

The main feature of Island Adventures is diversity. Every time you get into one, it should feel different, either by having a different team, with a different strategy against yours, or landing in a different position, or encountering different natives, among many other options.

Islands took many lessons learned with Scenarios, in what worked and didn't work as far as 3-player content goes.

As far as rewards, Islands will obviously reward Azerite, but, as long-term rewards, the team still hasn't figured out what it will be, for both Islands and Warfronts.

While there are enemy NPCs for many different classes like Shaman or Druid, you might run into enemies that don't exactly have a class, like Gazlowe, which can cast stuff like Flamethrower.

Islands' maps will have a fog of war that will limit your vision, so you won't be able to see everything on the island at once and will need to explore. After a timer, there will be an "Azerite Detector" mechanic turning on, which will show everything holding Azerite on the map, including enemies.

Currently there are only four modes planned for Islands: Normal, Heroic, Mythic and PvP. There isn't a plan for a Mythic+ difficulty for Islands at launch, but maybe for the future if Islands prove successful.

Advanced AI NPCs can jump. This feature was implemented in order to make the Advanced NPCs look more like players. They also jump at a different frequency depending on the NPC. For instance, Druids and Night Elves might be a little more bouncy than other classes or races.

Islands are supposed to last 15-30 minutes. Those times with get shorter the more you do them as you will learn what objectives are worth more Azerite and how to better work out with your team.

Full InterviewWatch Live from Pax East 2018 with special guest Morgan Day de SpartySmallwood at www.twitch.tv

Comment by 68docI'm just going to redo my comment because after watching the video I understood what they were talking about (speed reader problems). Good change they're working on. Glad they realized it's a problem even though it should've been changed years ago.Comment by AlakeiThancanPretty good new infos ! Especially this

a Titan facility in Zuldazar where the Titans experimented in how to remove the Old Gods without destroying the host (Azeroth).The more and more they talk about keeping the loot system personal, and now they're saying we can't trade loot even if it's a downgrade for us, the more and more I'm NOT liking. If I don't need anything then let me trade it to someone on my team who does. With this "no trading allowed" BS it could take until the start of the next tier before someone got their BiS trinket or other piece of gear.

Not being able to trade is a bit too far.Comment by omedon666The more and more they talk about keeping the loot system personal, and now they're saying we can't trade loot even if it's a downgrade for us, the more and more I'm NOT liking. If I don't need anything then let me trade it to someone on my team who does. With this "no trading allowed" BS it could take until the start of the next tier before someone got their BiS trinket or other piece of gear.

Not being able to trade is a bit too far.Comment by 68docThe more and more they talk about keeping the loot system personal, and now they're saying we can't trade loot even if it's a downgrade for us, the more and more I'm NOT liking. If I don't need anything then let me trade it to someone on my team who does. With this "no trading allowed" BS it could take until the start of the next tier before someone got their BiS trinket or other piece of gear.

Not being able to trade is a bit too far.Comment by omedon666The more and more they talk about keeping the loot system personal, and now they're saying we can't trade loot even if it's a downgrade for us, the more and more I'm NOT liking. If I don't need anything then let me trade it to someone on my team who does. With this "no trading allowed" BS it could take until the start of the next tier before someone got their BiS trinket or other piece of gear.

Not being able to trade is a bit too far.Comment by mothieThe more and more they talk about keeping the loot system personal, and now they're saying we can't trade loot even if it's a downgrade for us, the more and more I'm NOT liking. If I don't need anything then let me trade it to someone on my team who does. With this "no trading allowed" BS it could take until the start of the next tier before someone got their BiS trinket or other piece of gear.

Not being able to trade is a bit too far.Comment by 68docThe more and more they talk about keeping the loot system personal, and now they're saying we can't trade loot even if it's a downgrade for us, the more and more I'm NOT liking. If I don't need anything then let me trade it to someone on my team who does. With this "no trading allowed" BS it could take until the start of the next tier before someone got their BiS trinket or other piece of gear.

Not being able to trade is a bit too far.Comment by omedon666The more and more they talk about keeping the loot system personal, and now they're saying we can't trade loot even if it's a downgrade for us, the more and more I'm NOT liking. If I don't need anything then let me trade it to someone on my team who does. With this "no trading allowed" BS it could take until the start of the next tier before someone got their BiS trinket or other piece of gear.

Not being able to trade is a bit too far.Comment by NathasilThe more and more they talk about keeping the loot system personal, and now they're saying we can't trade loot even if it's a downgrade for us, the more and more I'm NOT liking. If I don't need anything then let me trade it to someone on my team who does. With this "no trading allowed" BS it could take until the start of the next tier before someone got their BiS trinket or other piece of gear.

Not being able to trade is a bit too far.Comment by Swordart21SO they made LFR for who knows what reason for sure not for learning mechancis so now they made islands for same purpose thinking....This guys already were using personal loot so they forced that ^&*! on proper guild thinking nice form of social interaction to NONe MMORPG BTWComment by AlakeiThancanLove the people saying "Uuuh LFR noobs begging for loot is SOOOO annoying"....

Why do you think they come to LFR? Most of the time to gear up an alt. Refusing to give loot that's useless to you is just being a jerk.Comment by vegeta0585That dude redirected every question to a pre-determined already answered one that they clearly had scripts on. Ugh.

And 15 minutes for islands is too short, 30 is fine, with 45-hour on mythic. However if gearing goes like Legion, we'll be doing them in 5-10 mins easily.Comment by xragusxWell, the grammar of articles is improving? I didn't feel the overwhelming urge to find this exact interview on MMO-champ, which often times isn't there. Thank you.Comment by Sielinth
And 15 minutes for islands is too short, 30 is fine, with 45-hour on mythic. However if gearing goes like Legion, we'll be doing them in 5-10 mins easily.Comment by JaceDraccusSO they made LFR for who knows what reason for sure not for learning mechancis so now they made islands for same purpose thinking....This guys already were using personal loot so they forced that ^&*! on proper guild thinking nice form of social interaction to NONe MMORPG BTWComment by jaq1010SO they made LFR for who knows what reason for sure not for learning mechancis so now they made islands for same purpose thinking....This guys already were using personal loot so they forced that ^&*! on proper guild thinking nice form of social interaction to NONe MMORPG BTWComment by Mafia1882Love the people saying "Uuuh LFR noobs begging for loot is SOOOO annoying"....

Why do you think they come to LFR? Most of the time to gear up an alt. Refusing to give loot that's useless to you is just being a jerk.Comment by FaelystiriLove the people saying "Uuuh LFR noobs begging for loot is SOOOO annoying"....

Why do you think they come to LFR? Most of the time to gear up an alt. Refusing to give loot that's useless to you is just being a jerk.Comment by HildericI still don't care about island expeditions. It sounds like battling for Outland PvP objectives but without the PvP (Which already was unfun).Comment by JaceDraccusSO they made LFR for who knows what reason for sure not for learning mechancis so now they made islands for same purpose thinking....This guys already were using personal loot so they forced that ^&*! on proper guild thinking nice form of social interaction to NONe MMORPG BTW