"Building upon lessons learned" WoW: Dragonflight's Ion Hazzikostas and Holly Longdale on design philosophies, 10.1, Paladins, and more

WoW: Dragonflight has a pair of updates on the way - 10.0.7 and 10.1. Recently, I received a sneak preview of what sort of content is coming to the game in 10.1’s update, courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment. After the preview, and group Q&A session, I had a chance to sit down 1-on-1 with Ion Hazzikostas (Game Designer) and Holly Longdale (Executive Producer).

We had an excellent chat about the design philosophy for World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, how things have changed over the years, Retribution Paladins, the Trading Post, and much more. I learned a great deal from Ion between this and our previous chat. As a long-time World of Warcraft player, I’m incredibly excited for both 10.0.7, and 10.1.

Ion Hazzikostas and Holly Longdale of WoW: Dragonflight talk update 10.0.7 and 10.1

Q. All right. I have a feeling I'm not going to get the answer I'm looking for in the first question. But I have to try. I have to go fishing. "Embers of Neltharion" is a really interesting title for WoW 10.1. We now know that we're going down to explore Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible. With these references and mentions of Neltharion/Deathwing, what are the odds of the fallen Earth-warder coming back?

Ion Hazzikostas: I mean, Deathwing is dead. And if World of Warcraft has taught me anything, it's that once you defeat someone and you extract loot from their corpse, there's no chance they would ever come back.

Jason: Oh yeah! Never!

Q. One of the really interesting features of the WoW: Dragonflight expansion has to be the Trading Post. The ability to easily purchase missed/forgotten items, or new versions of classic items is a wonderful feature. What's the feedback been like, though? Are players satisfied, or are there changes that could be implemented to improve it?

Holly Longdale: Great question. The reason we created Trading Post was based on a healthy number of years of feedback from the community looking for, just as you said, how can we get access to, you know, either items that in some cases have been either removed from the game, not in every case, but more novelty and things to chase in a system where for us, you know we are an MMO. Content is, you know, our lifeblood as well. And tying it to content felt like the right path to go down for Trading Post.

And it's an experiment, right? And so we never know what's going to ring true for players in this one. It's doing better than we expected. And of course, you know, we have a healthy amount of delight when that happens. Is it perfect? No.

But part of this monthly cadence we're doing for Trading Post and our increased content cadence, we're really excited to be able to have the chance to start addressing feedback and looking at how well the system works and how we tune it. And look, we're even looking at the ten-day economy and all the really smart things our designers do.

So it really is. It's been really great for the team and energizing because this is a feature for everyone, regardless of your playstyle. And we're really excited about that piece of this too, because again, as part of this content cadence we are doing, we are looking more broadly, we're looking at every playstyle and seeing what we can deliver with these increased updates that we're doing throughout Dragonflight.

And part of that too is listening to the community for everything we're doing, seeing what works and really leaning into those. Another one of those is Dragonriding, for example, because players have really been enjoying it. It's given the team a chance to start leaning into that as well.

So it is this really respecting and embracing as we often have this, this relationship we have with the players in order to, you know, listen to the feedback and also see what they're actually doing in the game and marry those two together and provide solutions to the players. So it's been great, the response has been great, and we're very committed to it.

Q. On that note, what about cosmetic designs that have been lost forever - and not that I’m salty about not getting it, I’m not salty - for example, the Staff of At'iesh?

Ion Hazzikostas: I thought you were gonna say “Corrupted Ashbringer.”

Jason Parker: I don’t give a s**t about that sword! [Laughs] I want the Jaffar staff!

Ion Hazzikostas: I’m sorry, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I think that is unlikely. I think it's unlikely that legendary weapons are going to be the sort of thing that find their way onto the Trading Post. Anything is possible, but I will say it is quite unlikely.

Q. The roadmap suggests "Holiday Updates" are coming to WoW, and this is something particularly exciting to me. Will these changes make the holiday events more approachable, when it comes to the time required to complete them?

Ion Hazzikostas: Yeah, I think, I mean, certainly, as for updating them, we want to keep in mind it's just accessibility and friendliness. These are rotating events though, that do come back. So, I think part of the premise also is, you know, if you miss it or you get five of the six sub-achievements, it's done well. 6-1 is your only goal for next year unless we updated it and added some more stuff to chase.

But you know, with as much data as we have to draw upon, there's, as we get insight into which achievements or which objectives are not getting completed at the expected rates. And so that lets us turn some knobs. For example, look at holidays. We recently made some adjustments to the famous “Love is in the Air” mount and how that drops and hopefully freed some people from the shackles of having to run out of 37 alts a day. Not that anyone would ever do that.

So, it's like those are the sorts of things to keep updating and make sure that even some older designs from back in the day are still staying in step with what players are looking for in the game today.

Q. Coming back to WoW 10.1, a new raid will certainly be a welcome thing for many players, but raiding isn't the only thing keeping people logging into the game. What are some of the features coming with the new zone or changes to existing zones that are coming with this patch that players should be on the lookout for?

Ion Hazzikostas: Yeah. Ultimately, I mean, both of these coming updates are an extension of the broad design philosophies that created Dragonflight. With its array of activities, it really asks players to choose what they want to do with their time each time they log in and gives them those options.

And I think we've never had more or richer outdoor content, solo content at any point in World of Warcraft’s history. I think we're continuing to move into The Forbidden Reach, with cool world events and activities as well as the Vault that players can delve into or do a little bit of a treasure runs to see what they get on their own.

And then, of course, in Embers of Neltharion, in Zaralek, there are countless World Events as well as for Fiyrakk attacking back in the four original zones. They're building upon lessons learned for public events like making soup like everyone's been doing for the last few months and applying more of a combat-oriented, perhaps slightly more serious take on that general framework.

I think we just want to keep building upon lessons learned, hearing from players what they're enjoying, what they're gravitating towards. Refining it, giving them more of it. And so I think while I'm super excited for the raids, for Aberrus coming in the upcoming update, I think actually, you know, there's a whole lot more and I think it is only a small piece of the array of content that awaits players in Embers of Neltharion.

Q. In the previous WoW Q&A, we learned about the snail racing with the Niffen (Mole people), for example. Is that going is has that been decided? It's going to be like a world event like the Soup or is it just like an optional mini-game that players could just do whenever they're feeling like it?

Ion Hazzikostas: So, actually, with regards to Snail Racing, I'm not 100% sure on the detail. I know the team considered a couple different options. I honestly don't know off the top of my head which one they landed on. I think philosophically we want to offer a range of options in both categories, right?

The things that are always there for you to do on your own time, when they’re up, go check them out, like the races or public events that you know, you see that thing pop up on your map and you know that you're about to have a multiplayer experience.

You should head there if that's what you're looking for. And everyone to, you know, draw like moths to a flame. It's going to be bustling around trying to get stuff done, whether it's fighting off the minions of Fiyrakk or making some soup.

Holly Longdale: I love the Niffen.

Jason Parker: They’re so great. They’re so great!

Q. 10.1 is also granting the final three races access to the Monk class in WoW - Lightforged Draenei, Goblins, and Worgen. What kept these races back until now? Was there any particular discussion that led to this decision? Is that sort of a new design philosophy, to give players the ability to play virtually anything, regardless of what race or starting area they wind up in?

Ion Hazzikostas: Honestly, it represents a philosophical shift, I think, in how we're approaching races,class, and their interactions and the premise there. This is not too different from how other properties like D&D have tackled the same questions. For most of our races and classes, there isn't a clear-cut reason why just because you were born, you know, with, as a werewolf essentially or whatever else, you can't ever learn this set of skills.

There are a handful of exceptions, I think, although it's hard to imagine anything but a Dracthyr ever being an Invoker because you literally need claws and to be able to breathe fire and no matter how fierce a Gnome you are, that's probably too tall an order, so to speak, for any Gnome. But for the others, we are kind of going down the list and approaching it from a perspective, not of “why - who can be this?,” but is there a really compelling reason why they can't be?

And in some cases, yes, there is work required to make it happen. If we're talking about certain classes that have shapeshift forms or other assets associated with them, like Shaman totems, we just need to get all of those made. But that's the general direction in which we're headed. I think it is likely that we will see more race/class combos continue to unlock in time. And that's great for our smaller updates that we have coming later in the year.

Q. For so long, I can’t tell you how long I wanted to play an Undead Paladin in WoW. It’s, it’s what I wanted. There are so many choices now. On that note, is it the new design philosophy/goal to ultimately have players be able to play virtually anything, regardless of what race they pick?

Ion Hazzikostas: I think we still want to consider that we're moving in that broader direction. At the same time, other factors to keep in mind require you to have some world integrity from a narrative perspective. It certainly should be possible for Forsaken to be a Paladin. It just as you know, people who played in Legion, people in the Paladin Order Hall may remember like, “Wait a minute, that looks like a Dreadlord! That's a Nathrezim, it is a Paladin. What's the deal?”

But like, there's a story there. We need to make sure there is a story. I think it would undermine our shared world's fiction if we just suddenly had, you know, Undead wielders of the light popping up left and right and didn’t say anything about it. So, for some combinations, it's not just a question of do they need shapeshift art to support what they're doing. It's how do we actually build up to this? How do we make it make sense as something that they are now going to be able to do?

There are other things that fall into that category. I think like Goblin Druid or whatever is another example where it's like, technically it should be possible for a goblin to forsake the environmentally destructive ways of their culture and make a pilgrimage to Moonglade and atone. But like we can't, we have to do that somehow, we can't just say. Yeah, you can be a Goblin Druid, no problem. Because that would understandably be odd given what people know about both Druidism and Goblins.

Jason Parker: There would be a lot of work to go into that, for sure.

Holly Longdale: I think the quest does need to be “It’s a tall order,” though.

[All laugh]

Ion Hazzikostas: I’ll jot that one down.

Q. I have to say, I'm glad to see that WoW's Paladins are getting a rework in 10.7. They did not feel especially strong unless they were incredibly well-geared, and there were other frustrations about the class. Are there other base classes that you are perhaps looking at that are underwhelming/performing poorly at the moment?

Ion Hazzikostas: Not to the extent of Ret Paladins. No, I think I would say that there's three tiers of class change we consider. There's numerical balancing, which we want to do with a hotfix you want to do on a regular basis. We want to make sure that, you know, that just feels like an evolving landscape. If you're feeling like you're lagging behind and everyone's telling you, "Why are you playing that spec? That spec is trash," don't worry, we got you. We're going to fix it.

Alternately, if you're envying the person who seems like the flavor of the month and thinking about rerolling again, pause. What's going to reign them in a bit? Then I think the next tier is mechanical weaknesses. If a spec or class really struggles when it comes to mobility or takes too long to ramp up to achieve their potential, that makes them feel just too limited or ineffective in situations that come up frequently.

Those are the sorts of things we'll look at in our content updates. You know, maybe we tweak a tablet, we add something new, we, you know, shore up a weakness or address those concerns there.

Then, I think finally there's the like, wow, this spec has a number of issues where it's not just a single talent that's going to fix it. There are things about how the spec flows as a whole about their identity, whatever else. Usually, we would address those in an expansion. And I think Paladin is an example of a group where we did that with the talent rework, and you know, kind of doing the talent system as a whole in Dragonflight.

But as we continue to listen to the community and really engage with their concerns about the spec, we realized like there was enough, there was a significant amount to be done there and it was far enough off where we wanted it to be that waiting until the next expansion didn't feel like the right move. And thus, enter 10.0.7.

That said, we don't take that lightly at all. As exciting as it is for a ton of Ret players who are looking for, you know, improvements, a bunch of new toys, it's also very disruptive and there is no lack of people who will come back to the game, all the politics and log in and be like, “What happened to my class? Where did those buttons go? Do I have to relearn how to play the game before I can jump back into checking out The Forbidden Reach, checking out, you know, going to Zaralek. And so, it's not something we're likely to do with other specializations going forward. That was kind of a special case.

Q. Are there any Ret Paladin ability changes/additions that really stood out to you, or the WoW dev team?

Ion Hazzikostas: I mean, I think, you know, one of the things that has historically hindered Ret Paladins is perceived mobility and their lack of mobility. And I think, you know, for a while that was considered like it is one of their weaknesses to make up for their other strengths in other areas.

But as the game has evolved and more and more specializations just have a baseline level of mobility that often encounters those situations, assume it felt like more of a hindrance than like, texture. And so I think, you know, exploring different types of Heroic Leap-type abilities that Ret might end up having at the end of the day was just like a really cool space to get into.

And I think that more than any one button that does damage, it's those, you know, flashy abilities that move you across the battlefield that I think really stand out as visceral.

Q. I do want to sort of go back to WoW's design philosophy - what has ultimately changed in shifting design philosophies over the past few expansions?

Ion Hazikostas: Ultimately, I mean, it's the design philosophy, it's content delivery philosophy. And I think it's trying to meet the wide range of player types where they're at and make sure that we're keeping everybody happy, listening to what they want more of. That's when I say player types, that's everything from Raiders to dungeon-focused players. But also people with different amounts of playtime.

Also, people who are playing WoW as their main game, is their lifestyle game versus those who have an ongoing relationship with the game, but recognize that they're going to dip in and out and wanted to make, you know, we want to make sure it feels welcoming for them when they do return. And so I think having more tools in our tool toolkit to cover all of those player types is essential.

That's not just content types, but it's also having small patches and big patches and medium-sized ones and, you know, being able to lay out the roadmap that we did at the end of 2020 to we could say, if you're joining us for Dragonflight, you're not just joining us for this journey through these four zones in this particular bit of content. You're signing up for this adventure.

And this is going to carry you through all of these things and beyond. And I think that, like, that is how we approach it as a team. If you can't make these all the people all the time, but our goal is to come as close to it as we possibly can, and we can do it with any one piece of content, but with a wide enough spread of different things at different times, different places, we think we can get pretty darn close.

Q. Nearly everyone I've spoken to has said that Dragonflight really reignited their love of WoW, or it has had the best launch to date. As a long-time player, I tend to agree. Were there any lessons or mistakes from previous expansions that the WoW team looked at as things that "had" to be changed/improved in Dragonflight?

Ion Hazzikostas: I think it was less about the mechanics of the launch. Although, we do get better there every time we have an amazing live operations team that is great at test runs, dry runs and beta environments and like. But deploying tech to let a zillion players hit or start the new expansion at the same time of that experience, I think the biggest lessons learned and applied weren't just the philosophy underlying the content as a whole and what we were offering players when they arrived.

And I think, you have one of the biggest changes from Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands, moving into Dragonflight was the amount of agency that we gave players. The amount of trust, as I would describe it. Rather than saying, "Hey, these activities give rewards that are mandatory, and basically we're going to expect everyone to do them. And if you don't do them, your character is going to suffer as a result.

And instead, just say, look, if you don't want to do it, don't do it. Our job is to make it as exciting as possible and as compelling as possible. And we really hope you do it. And you think we can enjoy it if you do. But here's a wide range of options. Pick what you like, and every day when you log in, ask yourself what do you feel like doing something today you're going to enjoy. Because if you're not enjoying the time you're spending with us, then what's any of the point of this?

Q. While I am glad to see Human & Orc Heritage Armor coming to the game, I have to ask - what led to these two races being the last to get their cosmetics?

Ion Hazzikostas: Honestly, it's a bunch of factors. At times, it has to do with what current stories we were telling and what kind of fit in another situation. In other cases, it's like there were actually a lot of things close to that iconic look available from other sources in our game. Tons of the time, we would say “This is Alliance armor, this is Horde armor, this is from whether it's for BFA, War Fronts, from garrisons back in the day,” whatever else.

It would lead a lot into that core Stormwind, Lion Crest fantasy, or the Orc Grunt fantasy that was like just central to Horde and Alliance. So, I think it wasn't an appearance the players were lacking for.

It was cool to do and we're happy to do it to finally, you know, get there and continue to go down the list of Heritage Armor for people to have. But some of the earlier ones, I think, were really giving people something much different, quite different from the options already existing in the game in a way that Human and Orc wasn’t lacking.

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight’s next update is 10.0.7, which releases on March 22, 2023, after scheduled maintenance. 10.1 is the next major update, which is titled “Fires of Neltharion,” and does not have an official release date as of yet.