Streamer Asmongold grilled the head of World of Warcraft with some questions. The answers are exciting: Loot Master as a loot option is expected to return.
Currently, a lot of interviews regarding the upcoming expansion of World of Warcraft, Dragonflight, are taking place. In one of the latest interviews, none other than the “biggest WoW nerd ever” speaks with the WoW head Ion Hazzikostas. A rather unexpected interview that turned out to be much calmer and content-wise interesting than many had feared.
Why is this so special? Even though Asmongold is considered the biggest streamer for World of Warcraft, his opinion about the game is not always positive. He often expresses his thoughts during the stream, paired with some curses or general insults directed at the developers. Some time ago, he even turned his back on the game because the direction of game development stole his hope.
However, one should not forget that this is only one half of Asmongold’s streaming personality. Often he also has very calm videos where he analyzes reasonably and points out various criticisms or makes suggestions.
That the game director of World of Warcraft directly faces streamer Asmongold in an interview was indeed a little sensation – because no one expected that.
Loot Master is supposed to return – but there are problems
Asmongold seizes the opportunity to ask the most pressing questions for him and his community. One of them was whether the Loot Master feature would return soon. The Loot Master was a loot option where bosses left behind a certain amount of loot. The raid leader could then distribute this loot among the group and assign it to individual players. This system was common for a long time but was completely replaced by “personal loot” in Legion.
Ion Hazzikostas explained, somewhat surprisingly:
I would like to bring back the Loot Master. This is something we have thought a lot about in the last one and a half years: Things where we and the community had different views. Loot is a complicated matter.
In Legion we had group loot and personal loot at the same time. Maintaining two systems regarding loot, whether from a data processing perspective or the interface experience, was quite chaotic. […]
Back then we saw group loot and some problems with it, so we just tore it all down and built the new ‘personal loot’ system. Over the last few years, we have added more rules, added exceptions, and refined the system.
But there are many problems with it. The clarity regarding what is tradable is quite poor. The feeling of “Hey, an item has dropped. Technically it’s an item level upgrade, but I don’t need it and now I can’t give it to my friend,” feels bad.
He then explains how the loot system is used by professional guilds for maximum efficiency, putting gameplay fun in the background. This behavior is also something they want to limit and improve.
We have been building the new system for 6 years. We can’t just flip a switch and say: “Okay, now everything works like it used to.” There are certainly areas where personal loot is good and makes sense, such as in the open world – no one needs group loot there. But the core experience of “You kill a raid boss and there are 4 items in its corpse and you have to figure out how to distribute them among the group,” is something we want to bring back.
Although Hazzikostas has not mentioned a date yet – the Loot Master will likely return at least as an option in the future.
Addons are too powerful, making life difficult for developers
A second, quite interesting question revolved around interface addons. After all, with Dragonflight, the standard interface is being revised. Hazzikostas explained that they want to incorporate many functionalities of addons into the base game, but addons are simultaneously becoming an increasingly bigger problem, as they prevent developers from creating exciting mechanics.
We are trying to implement mechanics that bypass addons. […] for example, the ‘Among Us’ phase with the Lords of Terror. […] We just know we have this idea for really fun gameplay, but when an addon solves it for you – then what? We need to acknowledge the existence of addons.
However, Hazzikostas sees other problems as well, as addons have evolved significantly.
A problem we see that has increased over the last few years. Addons are no longer just purely informative but also calculating and planning. Solving the [mechanics] for you is a bizarre thing that our interface should not do.
Another example of the addon functionality problem from then to now, Hazzikostas sees with the upcoming release of “Wrath of the Lich King Classic” in the fight against Blood Queen Lana’thel.
This is a pretty simple fight. Only a few mechanics, at the level of Flickwerk. But the one iconic mechanic is that someone gets turned into a vampire and then you bite other people so you are not affected by mind control.
Back then, most people, most raid leaders just announced it. You had a rough understanding of who your best DPS were or that you should bite the healers last. You see what happens and that was fun. You had to name your friends and that could be challenging. Sometimes you wiped because the stacks went from 8 to 16 or people got confused.
I can guarantee you: When Wrath Classic is released and the Lana’thel boss is up, it will be: “Get this Weak Aura that lists the people in your raid from top to bottom in order of DPS priority. And when you become a vampire, the addon will tell you directly: Bite this person. No one has to talk, no one has to do anything.
This does not feel good. This is a problem. And sometimes it prevents us from incorporating social mechanics that would otherwise be enjoyable.
However, Hazzikostas does not yet know exactly how to limit this. They are considering restricting the functionality of some addons in raids or dungeons, for example. However, nothing has been decided yet, and the developers are aware that they need to proceed very carefully. Because many players have customized interfaces that they do not want to break. Blocking an addon function could have consequences for many smaller details.
It is a problem that WoW developers are still working on and a process that may take years.
What do you think about the return of the Loot Master? What is your opinion on interface addons and what they should be able to do?
