Blizzard Just Answered the Biggest 12.0.5 Questions Players Had

Content Creators Taliesin & Evitel sat-down with Associate Game Director Paul Kubit at Blizzard HQ to talk about Patch 12.0.5. They dove into split raid designs, the ending of the campaign, Amani customization, Keystone Myth achievements, tuning, decor duels, and more!

The Rollout of Patch 12.0.5

The launch of Patch 12.0.5 released with numerous bugs, which led to Blizzard apologizing for the state of the patch. Kubit said that Blizzard has heard from the players that the number of bugs was unacceptable. They’ve fixed most of the large issues identified by the community, and are working to “pave (the potholes) over so that we don’t fall into them again.”

He mentioned most bugs Blizzard quickly identified how they happened and fixed them, but others require time to figure out. They look at everything in order to see how fewer bugs can escape. The example he gave was the Voidcore bonus roll bug, which got missed because of the difference between Blizzard’s test environment and live servers.

Raids and Gearing Progression

Kubit said they’re open to doing a multi-raid tier again if the story and setting make sense. He recognizes that timegating a raid, for example, is a touchy subject and could seem arbitrary, so they want to make sure the payoff is there for players without harming progression. March of Quel’danas was supposed to release a week later than it did to tell more of the story, but after feedback they realized the pacing would be off.

Gearing progression is a little quicker than they had expected this season, but not a whole lot. At the highest end, gearing isn’t much faster, but players on the lower and middle end are reaching those milestones quicker. These mid-season patches are where Blizzard wants systems like the Voidforge for those who are motivated by gear, but to also have more content, like housing, for players who aren’t motivated by gear, or, are equally motivated by collections and decorations.

The intention for Mythic Flex Difficulty coming in Patch 12.0.7 is to allow raid groups who don’t have the flexibility to field a 20-man roster to try mythic raiding. Players who finish heroic raids have been asking for some harder content that’s less restrictive. Blizzard is looking for feedback with the Sporefall raid and will go from there.

The Reunification of the Elves

The reunification of the Elves sparked some major backlash from players, and Kubit acknowledged some of those concerns. He said the campaign is meant to show we’ve crossed a threshold where they’re okay working together, with the epilogue showing where some of the tensions still lie. While the campaign can’t highlight all the nuances, that’s where side quests and interactions around Azeroth come into play. The campaign is meant to show “a lot of the big moves and shakes.”

Amani Troll Customization

Kubit said they’ll keep listening to feedback, but players shouldn’t hold their breath for anything super soon.

His full quote is below:

“We’ll keep listening to feedback. I wouldn’t hold your breath for anytime super soon. But yeah, this was sort of an opportunity for us to play with a customization that we don’t really do in quest rewards or in achievement rewards. We haven’t done a lot of this. I mean, you can point to some of the things with the Man’ari skin for the Draenei, but that was also its own specific quest line which was focused on this. This was more on like a well, what’s a cool thing we can do for completing the Zul’Aman? And we haven’t really said like well customizations for a particular race in the game is something that could be unlocked.”

Myth Keystone Achievement and Rewards

Blizzard is being cautious with rewards for difficult achievements like Keystone Myth because it’s a double-edged sword. They don’t want to lock unique items like mounts behind achievements because they don’t want it to feel unobtainable for collectors, but they saw it as an opportunity for players to earn legacy mounts that aren’t available anymore. They aren’t locking themselves into this approach for future seasons though.

Tuning

Blizzard is still working on tuning, and acknowledges that Brewmaster is outperforming other tanks. They are hoping to give all tanks light touches to bring them closer together in a non-disruptive way. They judge success on certain benchmarks such as: can players complete +10 keys on their specs and in their roles? Can they achieve keystone legend and keystone myth?

Decor Duels

Decor Duels was a project where they wanted to design a game mode that didn’t have anything to do with ongoing narrative. Adding an activity like Prop Hunt, especially where they added a bunch of new decors, made a lot of sense. They’ve seen players having fun with it.