Dev Interview - Balance in Shadowlands, Beta Add-Ons, AH Dance Party

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Windows Central Shadowlands Interview with Morgan Day
Windows Central recently interviewed Morgan Day on balancing Shadowlands!


  • Conduits will be a big part of player power from Covenants aside from just the active abilities. These are spec specific as well.
  • A big part of class balance and tuning comes from making you feel like you have really distinct strengths and weaknesses. This is a big part of what makes you feel unique and like you have a place in content.
  • Part of the balance, however, is making sure that they give you the tuning knobs required to make sure that you can shore up on some of your weaknesses.
  • If there are situations where people are excluded from content due to their choice, this is where they want to make changes.
  • Your covenant choice is also integrated into some of the dungeon experiences as well. There are elements of dungeons that you can only interact with as part of a specific covenant.
    • An example given is the ability for members of the Kyrian covenant to activate automatons in the Necrotic Wake to gain party buffs.
  • Covenants are a holistic package where you might not be the most amazing at "this thing" over here, but look at all these other cools things you excel at over here!
  • Swapping into another Covenant will not be hard, but rejoining one that you left may require additional tasks to be completed. Once you do, however, you will keep the progress that you made in that covenant prior to leaving, including all of your renown and soulbinds.
  • There will be really strong Covenant catch-up mechanics from the beginning of the expansion so that you don't fall behind on alts or character swapping.
  • Renown is not a bar that you fill like with artifact power. It comes purely in levels and you will just be given a level all in one go.
  • If you fall behind on Renown, there will be additional opportunities to earn it from other content until you catch up.
  • They are adding Mythic + testing much sooner in the beta so they don't fall into the situation of early Battle for Azeroth where some affixes were super punishing in different dungeons.
  • There is a lot of thought that goes into class balance in terms of talents. Sometimes something on a row might not be super popular, but in places where the team designed it to be used, players are using it, and that's awesome. Talents that are just best in all situations might come down to tuning problems.


Upcoming Realm Connections (EU)
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker
/ Official Forums
)
In the coming days, the following realm connection will be made:
  • The Kilrogg realm will join the Hellfire realm.

We are planning more realm connections for low-population realms, and we will post further notifications like this one in the coming weeks.

Thank you!

Shadowlands Beta Add-ons
Forum user Tercio has compiled a list of links to usable add-ons for the Shadowlands Beta. Click the link below to check them out!



Auction House Dance Party - July 22
The Auction House Dance Party micro holiday is now active for the entire day! Head on over to the main auction house in either Stormwind or Orgrimmar to find it decorated for the event with a light up floor, disco balls, a d.j with exciting music, etc. Also, throughout the day random races will take over the dance floor!



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