by Magistrate - 9 years ago     show comments

Lead Game Designer Ion “@Watcher” Hazzikostas sat down for a short interview. The interview mostly discusses raid design philosophy, including the benefits of flexible raid modes, the decision to make Mythic a static 20-man run, and some other things along the way. We’ve summarized the interview below.

Flexible Raid Mode

• Flexible raids have been a tremendous success since 5.4.
• Because of this, the team wanted to make flexible mode the default for how raiding worked, with Mythic as an exception.
• Mythic is the exception to flex because they want to tune it to perfection in terms of difficulty (so it’s static 20-man).
• Flexible raiding solves many play obstacles:
  • Raid leaders don’t have to make players sit or scrounge together pugs nearly as often.
  • When everyone suddenly wants to play new content, less cutting needs to be made since a smaller raid group can be scaled up.
  • If players need to leave early, the raid is dragging on longer than expected, etc., larger raid groups can be scaled down.
  • From a player standpoint, there’s less commitment getting into raiding because they don’t have to be there every night so that the raid can happen.

Mythic Raid Size and Difficulty

• The decision to make the Mythic raid size a 20-man was a 2-step process.
  • They had to decide whether they would keep two raid sizes (10 and 25) or consolidate them.
    • Consolidating raid sizes would let them produce a more streamlined experience and difficulty from encounter to encounter.
  • They had to decide what player size would have the least negative impact on existing raid groups/guilds.
    • The team knew removing one raid size would impact raiding guilds and teams, as they would have to cut or add players or mix with another guild.
    • A 20-man meets in the middle of 10-man groups and 25-man groups, so it was fair to both and would only require adding or removing 5 players instead of more.
    • With a 20-man, they can still safely assume at least 1 character of each class is represented, although it is unlikely that they would go down the road of requiring certain niche class mechanics again.

Raid Leader Loot Options and Personal Loot

• Personal loot helps avoid pickup drama with random players and strangers (which has become more common with 6.0’s new group finder).
• Personal loot is usually a better option for social groups or those that prefer easier difficulty and/or more flexibility.
• The team wanted to give players the ability to pick loot modes that fit their playstyle.
• Haizzokostas personally prefers being able to pass on loot and trade loot with other group members.

World of Warcraft Movie

• Some wonder how the movie will tie back into the game.
• Hazzikostas believes that the roots of the franchise’s story will be more out there and obvious, so the team can then lead their storytelling “in those directions with a more solid foundation.”

(Source: BlizzPro, BlizzCon 2014, Ion “@Watcher” Hazzikostas)