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BlizzCon 2015: Legion Q&A Recap

by - 8 years ago

In our continuing detailed recap of all things Legion at BlizzCon 2015, we look at the open Q&A panel with game director Tom Chilton; lead game designers Ion Hazzikostas, Jay Wilson, Luis Barriga, and Matt Gross; art direction Chris Robinson; and creative director Alex Afrasiabi.

Some of the biggest things that stood out to me were the Karazhan dungeon, what many are referring to as “omni-speccing” (no more multi-spec limitations), the PvP gear explanations, Demon Hunter cross-faction chat, and Robinson’s update on Class Accessories.

Below, we’ve organized their responses by topic and bolded key ideas.

Lore & Story

  • Alleria and Turalyon will “change the way we view WoW [and] up the game a bit”
  • Bolvar Fordragon will make a cameo in Legion on the Frozen Throne, and they are talking about using him more after the expansion
  • Sargeras’ Tomb is only a monument right now and does not contain a God’s remains–this “may change”
  • Dalaran is protected over the Broken Isles by something important and relevant to the story, which Afrasiabi says “is big” (in importance)
  • Legion across all timelines: the issue brought up late in Warlords of Draenor will see much more attention in Legion, although the team is still “ironing it out” on some level–this includes Archimonde
  • Karazhan will have a 5-man instance in a future Legion patch, and it will be a very important and relevant place during the expansion
  • Tirisfal Glades will be revisited in Legion as an Artifact quest area–we will see what’s underneath it, and they seemed to say that it is related to the Old Gods
  • Wrathion will be in Legion, particularly in Highmountain where his father, Nelfarion, has his lair; he will also look very different from when we last saw him in Mists of Pandaria
  • More lore attention will be given to Tauren and Worgen; Gnomes will “probably” get something
  • Gilneans who fled the kingdom after players did (through the Worgen intro) will be part of Legion‘s story, as well as Greymane
  • Final expansion boss will be seen throughout Legion‘s story (presumably including leveling content)
  • Expansion will have most voice acting of any content ever done, as every group has specific aggro lines (as well as others) for more immersion
  • Other new story-telling tools will be seen throughout Legion
  • Alternate universe (AU) heroes, like Yrel, will not be in Legion launch, but they may use them again in the future

Social and Guild Features

  • Team would like to do multi-guild membership, although it will not be in Legion‘s launch
  • Team would like to increase connectivity of cross-server guilds, but it will not come with Legion‘s launch
  • Team will work toward new guild features (seemed to imply at sometime soon–opinion)
  • Legion Challenge Dungeons (with the Challenger’s Keystone) will not allow random matchmaking/queuing–you must form groups yourself

Game Systems

  • Removing Multistrike/keeping Versatility:
    • Multistrike worked as a second form of Critical Strike
    • Some classes have no fantasy for how Multistrike works
    • Multistrike had to be hardcoded to work like Critical Strike in most of the above cases
    • Versatility stays because it’s simple, works with every class, and also has defensive applications with some abilities
  • “Omni-spec”: players will now be able to switch between all of their specs and are no longer limited to dual-spec
  • All classes will have a default spec in case one is not chosen for any reason
  • One more character slot will be available to everyone in Legion (believe it’s per server)
  • Cosmetic class quests: team is interested in and focused on class content this expansion with the Artifact quests and system; they liked how the “green fire” Warlock quest turned out and may do similar things in the future
  • Challenger’s Keystones/Challenge Dungeons
    • Will not be able to queue for them; must form group manually
    • All Keystones in same region (NA, EU, etc.) have the same Affix each week to discourage server hopping for a particular Affix
    • Artifact power level will be based solely on you
    • Keystone will act as a commodity because they only expire when used–therefore, players will be searching for people with Artifacts because of the loot they yield if the team is successful
  • Transmogrification
    • Biggest offender of bag/bank space
    • Goal of new transmog system to get as much stuff you’re not actually using out of your bags and banks as possible
  • Scenarios
    • Tech continues to be used in game in different ways (like for the Garrosh quest in Warlords Nagrand)
    • Usually used to seamlessly place a player in a controlled “instance” area for purposes of quests
    • Will continue to be used in outdoor content to seamlessly place single players and small parties in Scenarios
    • Broken Shore pre-expansion event will be a 40-man Scenario (half Horde, half Alliance)
    • For now, will not be doing queued Scenarios like in Mists of Pandaria
  • Mob tapping
    • Will be more freeing in Legion
    • Will allow mob tapping lists of 4 or so players
    • Quest bosses, world bosses, and similar adversaries will continue to use open tapping
  • Reforging will not return
  • Alt catch-up systems
    • Team likes alts and continues to add catch-up systems for things like gearing (Timeless Isle and Tanaan) and legendary quests
    • Their vision of alts is that we play them for their own worth, not play them only to funnel gear and mats into a main character (although that is fine to some degree)
    • They’re avoiding more account-wide things like Reputation because it removes progression from characters
    • They would like things to be a bit faster on alts if you’ve done them before

Old Content

  • There are no plans to update Draenei or Blood Elf starting zones
  • There are no plans to adjust “bad luck” for getting highly sought old content drops (like mounts, gear, etc.)
  • There are no plans for classic realms
    • Would require using both older game versions and the corresponding servers and hardware from the time, as they were designed to work together
    • Would include all the old bugs and problems from whatever point is chosen
    • Would require resources and staff to maintain and get working, which would detract from producing more content for current game
  • There are no plans to make old world materials relevant again–however it is done, it would have to be well thought out to be enjoyable and not another tedious experience

PvP

  • There will be no new battlegrounds as the focus is on the new PvP honor system
  • PvP gear
    • Will come from strongboxes and weekly quests
    • Will be equivalent in power and difficulty to obtain as gear from the open world, dungeons, and raids
    • Will be based on arena and battleground rating
    • Will not be PvP gear as we’ve known it, with specialized stats or a scaling iLevel, as the focus is on making PvP about player skill and abilities and not gear

Pre-Expansion Event

  • Details
    • Called Broken Shore event
    • Will include a 40-man Scenario that uses half Horde players and half Alliance players
    • Will also include Burning Legion Constructs landing in zones throughout the rest of Azeroth that spawn legions (lol) of demons to combat
  • Burning Legion invasions might strike starting areas, as well

Artifacts

  • Can upgrade and claim multiple Artifacts per character (for your specs)
  • There are catch-up mechanisms in place for multiple specs–will help with players who take a break during Legion or join later on
  • Relics
    • Drop from all kinds of content and are socketed into your Artifact
    • Increase your stats like weapon drops always have
    • Will be specific for specs–have to choose which one to insert into which Artifact
  • After Legion, the team is uncertain what will become of the Artifacts we collect and the ability trees they have
  • Artifacts are just for Legion for now–in the future, they may move back to weapon drops
  • Players will be locked into a specific weapon type for their class/spec, but can transmog over the Artifacts

Class Order Halls

  • All races will be represented in each class hall
  • Players will not be able to chat freely cross-faction in Class Order Halls

Raids

  • Legion will launch with two big raids in the first tier
  • In future Legion patches, they may break up the traditional “one huge raid for a content patch” formula into two smaller raids (of equal content value) for more choice and variation in raiding, although they will still fit together as a larger tier
  • They may or may not add smaller raids (see above bullet)
  • Less linear layouts and shortcut unlocks help with reducing wasting time in raids
  • Mythic flexing is not planned
    • The hardcore audience for Mythic raiding will probably focus on cutting/benching players according to what numbers are most effective for a given fight
    • Tuning for 20 players “makes more sense now” with 12 classes as fights can split the team up while expecting certain player abilities/mechanics to be represented
    • Alternate Mythic raid sizes and Mythic flexing probably would not solve issues getting raid teams together as whatever team size you recruit for (say, 15) will naturally still be missing a couple players, probably just as often (Hazzikostas recounts switching from 40-mans to 25-mans, having raid team woes disappear for a little bit, and then returning later)
    • Raid recruitment and turnout is largely a challenge of managing people, leadership, and running a guild
    • Raid team issues could be partially solved by offering more social and guild systems, like multi-guild membership, cross-server guilds, and the like

Other

  • Demon Hunters will be able to chat cross-faction with their demonic dialect in Legion–they will test it in beta and see how it goes
  • Class Accessories
    • Still interested in doing them and will return to them in the future
    • Created concept art and some models, but then Artifacts were announced and they had to work on those instead
    • Artifacts kind of do what Accessories would have done
    • After the Artifacts are out and done, they will go back to each class and see how they can further show and explore each class’ fantasy through Accessories (in a way not already covered by Artifacts)
  • The team thinks about and wants to address destruction from Cataclysm (such as in Stormwind), but they need the time to do it while developing new expansions and content
  • If you pre-purchase the physical Collector’s Edition of Legion, you can contact customer support to have them digitally pre-load the expansion
  • Dance Studio is a feature the team would love to do but they need to find the time to allow for extensive animations for all the dances on all the races (and probably other challenges)
  • No more classes will get additional combat roles (Tanking, Healing, etc.) right now–the class revamp is focused on maximizing core fantasy for classes, not mixing them up
  • New UI improvements, like select boxes, radio buttons, and more, are coming in Legion
  • Weapon trail effects and other melee effects are being added in Legion to make melee combat more visual

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Seth Harkins

PC gamer and lover of (most) things Blizzard. In his off time, he writes bad fan fiction, tends to his growing number of house plants, and enjoys a love-hate relationship with two cats.


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