Dragonflight, the next expansion for World of Warcraft, is coming soon. In preparation, MeinMMO spoke with the developers. In the interview, you will learn more about the talent trees, the new interface, and class balancing.
Dragonflight brings several new features and even a completely new class: the Evoker, which is closely tied to the new race of Dracthyr. Just before release, there are still some questions about the new features.
We spoke with Brian Holinka and Crash Reed about the new expansion. Holinka is the Lead Combat Systems Designer for World of Warcraft and is responsible for topics like balancing and the new talent trees in Dragonflight.
Reed is the Lead UX Designer of the game and has significantly contributed to the new interface options of Dragonflight and the interface of additional features like the new professions and talent trees.
Dragonflight will be released on November 29, 2022, but you can already prepare for many new content with the Pre-Patch 10.0. Here’s the trailer for the release announcement:
“In a way, you even get new abilities”
MeinMMO: Let’s start with the UI. The redesign looks great, but it was really necessary. Some of the addons that you’ve rendered obsolete required quite a bit of memory. How exactly did you consider performance in the new UI?
Crash Reed: Since I’m not an engineer/programmer, I can’t go into detail about performance. But I can explain what our goal was.
You mentioned that the new UI replaces certain addons. Our goal was not really to replace addons. It was mainly about bringing more customization options for players—especially with accessibility in mind. Players with special needs and those who want to play in a certain way now have the possibility directly in the game.
MeinMMO: Some players complained that you are taking away abilities they previously had. And some of those abilities now seem like a mandatory choice in the new talents. How will you prevent such feelings when Dragonflight releases?
Brian Holinka: The talent tree is a reinvention of how players construct their class in World of Warcraft. Previously, you leveled up and earned a new ability at a certain level. You knew what you were getting.
We thought, instead of locking abilities down, it might be more exciting to say: “Here’s a talent point. Choose which ability you get.” Since you do this from level 10 to level 70, we packed many abilities into the talent trees.
Especially early in the trees, at the top, you will select many basic abilities for your class. While testing, we found that these early abilities are very accessible. Many abilities you are familiar with will still be available to you.
What’s cool now, especially in the class trees, is that you can now get abilities that actually belong to other specializations. A good example is the Seal of Flame for demon hunters. That was something that destruction demon hunters didn’t have. Now they can choose that. In a way, you are even getting new abilities. The talent trees allow for players to have abilities they did not have before.
In the previous system, where we constantly gave you abilities, we had to control the amount of abilities. Your action bar is only so big, and cognitive load can be greater when more buttons land on the action bar. That’s why we always had to regulate how many abilities we give you so as not to be overwhelming.
The talent trees allow us to bring back abilities that disappeared from the game. You can choose multiple covenant abilities. In Shadowlands, only one was permitted; now you can choose two, and in some cases even three. It’s more about choice and not so much about us taking things away or giving them to you. Now players are at the buffet, and we don’t say, “This is what you get!” I think if players are very attached to an ability, they can still have it.
To answer the second part of your question about how we avoid mandatory choices: I think there’s a lot going on in the gaming landscape. Influencers, guide writers, a very strong ecosystem around the game where players share their thoughts on the right choice.
There are many players who seek and find that information. If they find many options, they wonder, “What is the right choice? Let me find that one person I trust to make the decision and see what they think.” That’s a good way for influencers and players to exchange ideas about these choices.
What we will see is that people’s opinions are going to be very diverse. Different from what we think. What one person sees as mandatory, a high-level player might make a different choice. I’ve seen this many times, even in the old system.
Maybe that creates surprises. It gives people the opportunity to defy the trend and make a new, different, interesting choice.
MeinMMO: As a player, I have to say that I find the talent trees really great so far. With the Evoker, I had so many ways to customize my playstyle without really sacrificing much performance. But some players, especially paladins and shamans, have complained that a good part of their power is in the class tree—not so much in the specialization tree. Others, like warlocks, have most of their power in the specializations. Why are the trees so different?
Brian Holinka: Classes are very different. We are building on over 16 years of World of Warcraft. Over the years, classes have developed in different directions. They have different resource models or types of utility.
We take pride in the fact that many classes and specializations feel different. But when we tackled this new project of the talent trees, we found that certain classes, like paladins, share resources and cooldowns across all three specializations, here, Holy Power and Vengeance. Therefore, we could incorporate some options for more strength into the class tree.
Then you have warlocks. They are also a good example. All their cooldowns are different. They gain and spend their soul shards at different rates. If we were to put specific things into the class tree, they would behave very differently across each specialization. […]
They don’t have much in common in terms of power. But they have much in common in terms of utility. Their curses, healthstones, portals—there is more commonality there. That played into all of this. All classes play differently. And we had different designers who could express their creativity with their talents.
We did our best to review them as a group and ensure that we stay consistent, but everyone also put their own stamp on it. That’s important in a creative environment. And it’s my job to ensure that we remain consistent, that we are a team, and that everything is in balance.
Overpowered specs are “a big concern”
MeinMMO: Would you encourage the comeback of certain “off-specs” or hybrid classes like healing tanks or tanking healers? Back in Wrath of the Lich King, for example, I played a mix of healer and off tank because it was easier. Do you think something like that will become more powerful or useful now?
Brian Holinka: I love to tell the story of how I tried to play a Shockadin. I don’t know if you remember that.
MeinMMO: Sure! I’m currently playing one in Wrath.
Brian Holinka: Cool! But doesn’t it feel great to play something ‘different’ even if it’s not optimal? I thought it was cool to express yourself in that way. But then there’s also the question of viability. Why don’t we make something like that useful?
Your tank example is good. There are two things going on. First, we have the situation where players define their roles for the activities we have in the game. Am I a healer, a tank? These roles are much clearer today than in Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King. Players now have much more clarity about their class.
On the other hand, you have groups where a player says, “Hey, I’m going to try tanking this as a Holy Paladin.” That’s cool, but if we let that be useful or even stronger than the protection specialization, we are sending players a pretty strange message about what is the tanking and what is the healing specialization.
It’s all about clarity of purpose. Sure, the talent trees allow people to make a choice or try something cool when they have a group and want to do something awesome. But then we have this large mass of gamers that we need to provide with more clarity about what their specialization is actually meant for.
We could also talk to the developers about WotLK Classic:
MeinMMO: To delve a bit deeper: You’re not worried that such off-specs will become too strong in things like PvP and arenas?
Brian Holinka: That is actually a big concern. Especially protection paladins have been a challenge for our PvP players and designers for quite some time. That’s a specialization with many cooldowns that allow them to survive, and they are decent off-healers.
We would not let something like that go unchecked for long. If that creates too large an imbalance in strength, we would address it.
“We are talking about talents as ‘the biggest hits’ since Legion”
MeinMMO: I would like to talk about the design decisions. You just mentioned the talent system from before. Why did you decide to create something completely new instead of just taking what you had before?
Brian Holinka: I will let Crash talk about the interface; I will briefly touch on why we didn’t go back to the old system. In the old system, you felt like your class and allocated points within the trees. Maybe you put a few more in Retribution to say, “I am a Retribution Paladin.”
But you never made that one choice; you kind of made 40. That hasn’t been true for quite a while. I think since Cataclysm, you make this choice much more explicitly. Players are now used to being able to say that they are that kind of Paladin. I don’t think we could take that away again.
So we thought there’s an opportunity to do that differently, in a cool and modern way, especially based on all the things that have been in the game over the years. We are talking about talents as “the biggest hits” from everything since Legion: Azerite traits, covenant abilities, artifact weapons … we’ve taken many of these things and incorporated them into the talent trees.
It’s more about breadth rather than strictly going in three directions. We are offering something new and cool. You are currently playing Wrath of the Lich King Classic. The talent trees are there for you. But what is something we can do differently, a new direction we can take so that players can look forward to a new experience rather than just bringing back old things?
Crash Reed: From the UI standpoint: Brian’s team and our UI designer Jeff Liu had a meeting and considered how to advance this UI. Some of the ideas came from the fact that we wanted the character and specialization to feel very important, big, and impressive.
Because that is what you choose where you start. That moved away from what we previously did with our talent trees that were just selection boxes. We wanted to rely more on this big, important stuff and ensure that it is felt.
Since many of your choices are now in these talent trees, they needed to be bigger to fit everything in. Thus, we had to ensure everything is there without becoming overwhelming. We put time into loadouts so that players can share them.
One of the major initiatives from the UI side is customization. Players should be able to express themselves in the way they feel. You see that in the UI overhaul, but also in the talents. Having multiple loadouts, sharing them, and being able to switch spontaneously.
I personally play a lot of Mythic+ and a lot of PvP, and those are entirely different specs. The ability to just press a button and switch feels great. I have many different specs, and when I have friends who are just starting, I press a button, and I can provide them with a build they can try out.
The UI approach was to keep everything very tailored and fresh.
MeinMMO: You also worked on the UI for the crafting UI, right? The last time I looked at it, it was somewhat opaque to see what I can choose or when I get talents. Did you simplify that?
Crash Reed: We are working hard to renew the system and make it as easy as possible for players to understand. It’s a massive change for the professions based on what they currently are. Taking player feedback and addressing where they are confused is our main focus.
We discuss these things as often as we can. When it all goes live and you start using the system, we will continue to work on it until it reaches the point where everyone is satisfied. But it was a big overhaul of the system; there is a lot happening. We hope everyone will enjoy it.
MeinMMO: It felt good; I just had a bit of trouble finding my talents.
Crash Reed: The talents, yes. We are trying to build something like a tutorial for it so that it becomes a bit more transparent.
The professions themselves can also … get wild:
How do Evokers fit into a raid?
MeinMMO: I would like to talk a bit more about balancing. During the testing of raids and Mythic+, Evokers seemed a bit weak. Do they need a buff, or are people just playing them wrong?
Brian Holinka: Well, it’s the beta. It’s about gathering data and looking at things. We have plans for [Evokers] to bring them up a bit, so to speak. […] With a completely new class and the new talent trees, we have revamped everything regarding balance. If Evokers feel too weak, we have changes in store for them.
MeinMMO: By the way, I plan to play an Evoker, but my raid leader isn’t quite sure if he wants any in the raid because they are limited to 30 meters. What exactly is the niche that Evokers are supposed to fill?
Brian Holinka: That’s something we discuss frequently based on player feedback. There are two main reasons for our decision. We want the class to be very mobile. You have wings, you fly around, and we want you to move a lot to your teammates.
These 30 meters help because it makes you more aware of the things around you. But we also understand that, looking at classes with 40 meters, you must be better at something to compensate.
We are still working on that; we’ve heard the feedback, and it’s nuanced. We want you to participate in the fight and be really engaged, moving a lot.
MeinMMO: That’s actually exactly why I want to switch. I’m currently playing a warrior, having switched from death knight, and the mobility is just a blessing.
Brian Holinka: To briefly discuss the mobility of warriors versus death knights versus paladins: these are big, heavy plate classes. Most of the mobility with warriors—jumping, charge—are barbaric abilities.
We want that mobility to feel inherent to the classes. That’s why paladins mount up on a horse and death knights become ghosts. Their agility is more about those brief moments. You wear the heaviest armor in the game; you shouldn’t be able to move constantly and quickly.
This domain belongs … well, to the flying dragon. [he laughs] Or the monk in leather. That’s a chance for the Evoker to stand out and be really mobile.
In our special, you will find all info about the Dracthyr evokers, the new class in Dragonflight.
MeinMMO: How are you addressing the issue with the range of Evokers, especially regarding raid bosses who hit specific melee or ranged with certain abilities? What role do Evokers fit into?
Brian Holinka: We have talked about that, and that’s our relationship with the encounter team. We say: Hey, this class has only 30 meters. If they need to exceed that range, what does that mean? If ranged players want to gather at 40 meters?
We speak with the encounter team about that being the reality of this class. They can’t go to 40 meters and stand in with the pile of DPS players. So they might go to the melee and be treated as such. Those conversations can happen.
But if you only look at this class in the context of past raids, that might have contributed to [that problematic thinking]. We are working on it; we are collaborating with the team to ensure that [Evokers] are dealt with correctly.
I had a blast playing the Evoker. Here you can see some gameplay of the new class:
“We have player groups working for us”
MeinMMO: How do you even decide what needs a buff and what needs a nerf? Many players feel that you only look at the top players who do not represent the broad base.
Brian Holinka: We do a lot of things. We have internal tests; we have player groups working for us. These are high-end players who master our raids, and we look at the data from them. We have automated systems that help us examine classes. […]
We have the internal team, the developers who play themselves. The World of Warcraft team is very large, so we have very different skill levels on the team. We listen to their feedback and get their data.
And if someone sends us their log from the beta, we can take a look at that. We also have people who do that for us.
So it’s not always the top-end players we are looking at. It could be one of our developers running through a dungeon with their group and sending us their data. There’s a lot of input coming in. […]
The biggest strength of the WoW development team is how actively the developers themselves play the game, but also how diverse our play styles are. Some people are “top-tier” raiders; others just collect transmog and pets. This way, we get feedback from everyone.
MeinMMO: Will we see balance updates in Dragonflight more often than just during major updates? The destruction warlock, for example, was at the top in certain content for a while and didn’t see a significant nerf.
Brian Holinka: That is something we could have done better, yes. Survival hunters and destruction warlocks, especially in Mythic+, have taught us a good lesson.
We have a schedule. When a season starts, we evaluate a week later, then two weeks later, again two weeks later, then three weeks … While assessing how each performs, we will likely stick to a similar system regarding buffs and nerfs.
But as we said, the talent system is new, and there are so many changes that players can expect us to adjust the trees if we find certain things are too strong or even too weak. If there are talent trees that need improvement. We will do regular updates on that.
MeinMMO: Just a small note here: please don’t listen to mages.
Brian Holinka: Okay. I won’t.
MeinMMO: Thank you for the answers!
Read here our last interview with the developers of Dragonflight:
WoW developers in interview: “Dragonflight is the return to the roots of Warcraft”
