Blizzard Developers on Designing Tier Sets for Patch 9.2 - Goals, Power, Acquisition
Blizzard developers Scariizard and Skald have given a behind-the-scenes look on designing Tier Sets for Patch 9.2 in the Community Council forums. They give their thoughts on what the goals of Tier Sets should be, the power of a Tier Set, acquisition and much much more!
Blizzard Hey! These are all really good questions, and I’ll do my best to answer them in a way that’s hopefully transparent enough to provide some insight and not so vague as to be frustrating.A few disclaimers & some context before I start to set the stage: I was only personally responsible for a fraction of the set bonus / acquisition initiative (Rogue/DK/Part of Warlock w/ Frozzo), so I’m going to try to center on my experiences to open the door for my other teammates to engage with their own perspectives on this. ’What does the team feel the ultimate goal of a tier set is?' Approaching Tier Sets or Class Sets was interesting because there’s so much history associated with them that caused a lot of perception & expectation for us to manage heading into the project — namely, how do we make good on those implicit promises without players feeling let down by their return without creating unrealistic design goals for ourselves to stack up against.
This whole post is gonna get real philosophical btw, so sorry/you’re welcome lmao. Tier Sets have always been powerful upgrades to your character, but the idea that they’ve significantly changed your gameplay or enhanced your fantasy is more of a modern idea as far as WoW’s lifetime is concerned.
Even going back to the Wrath & Cataclysm eras, the design of some Tier Sets were clearly adhering to a different expectation than players have today. It’s absolutely true that some instances of raw stats additions like.
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