WoW developers discussed Private Auras in The War Within
Ion Hazzikostas and Morgan Day discussed the role of Private Auras in The War Within, their goals, challenges, and future direction.
Game Director Ion Hazzikostas and Associate Game Director Morgan Day recently sat down in an exclusive interview with Wowhead. They talked about several aspects of WoW’s 10th expansion, including the role of Private Auras in The War Within.
What are Private Auras and their functions
Ion Hazzikostas shared that the goal of Private Auras is to reduce players’ dependence on addons. First introduced in Dragonflight, this feature encourages players to coordinate and communicate during encounters. By hiding specific buffs and debuffs from addons, Blizzard wants players to react and understand game mechanics on their own. This is particularly important in high-difficulty settings, where they prefer players not to rely on automated solutions from addons.
What players can expect from Private Auras in The War Within
Community feedback has shaped the development of Private Auras, helping to identify what works and what doesn’t. They are effective for immediate reaction mechanics handled by individuals or small groups. However, they pose challenges in raid-wide coordination. Players often create manual macros to communicate information to the addons to bypass Private Auras’ limitations. In such cases, the Private Auras actually doesn’t improve the player experience but complicates it.
Recognizing these issues, the team has made adjustments. For instance, removing Private Auras from complex raid mechanics like Fyrakk’s intermission. And in The War Within, players can expect a more refined version of Private Auras:
“We’ve approached War Within with a desire to refine our continued use of that tool, to steer clear of applying it in areas that we know are going to cause more annoying frustrating behavior and continue to use it in areas where we think it can allow for room for player decision making and creativity that isn’t going to delegated to addons automatically.”
— Ion Hazzikostas
Morgan Day mentioned that the developers have been reflecting on the older mechanics a lot. They also want to reclaim design space that has yet to be dominated by addons. Take modern boss fights’ swirlies, for example. Addons can’t help players avoid damage from these dodgeable ground effects. Gamers have to move out of the mechanic by themselves. Blizzard plans to enhance such challenges and intends to refine their implementation:
“That’s kind of where we start now and then try to add layers of interest on top of that. That’s something that we’re going to continue to use but refine the usage of it. Philosophically that’s a direction that we want to continue to move in.”
— Morgan Day
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What about you? What do you think about Private Auras in The War Within? We can’t wait to see your opinions in the comments!
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