Patch 9.1.5 Content Update Preview

Sensational changes.

Was expecting (more like hoping) for the inclusion of Legion dungeons into the M+ pool, and this seems like a test drive for such a feature, which would be amazing. Just that 1 week every 3 months isn't that frequent, but i assume they need to test it out first.

I already liked Shadowlands, but these changes will make me enjoy it even more. The free covenant switching in itself is already great!

hey look it's all the things people asked for before shadowlands came out.

Originally Posted by Kiwijello

"We should have heeded community feedback and taken a different direction a year ago"

You knew this a year ago but you have such contempt for the playerbase that you simply didn't do it. What you REALLY wanted was to see if you could get away with NOT doing it. That was the real rub here.

You should be heeding community feedback ALWAYS. An entire year can be a disaster. But I guess you just figured that out.

Not what they said at all. They a;lspo don't have contempt for the player base either. Not caving to your every demand does not = they have contempt for you. But players have to stick to their narratives I guess.

Oh look, they oh so predictably are caving to what people had been screaming at them since beta about why locking people into a Covenant was shit. I would be surprised, if I hadn't been seeing this same damn cycle from them since the MoP beta in which they ignored the majority of feedback initially then later implemented solutions when it became obvious that some systems were shit and people had told them as much during beta and even gave them specific solutions to implement to solve the shit part of a system.

If they didn't do predictable shit like deliberately delaying critical changes to core systems until after people spent a year playing through said shitty systems on live, I would probably still be playing WoW. I just can't can't be bothered to play a game where they have an abundance of constructive critical feedback that they completely disregard until player discontent grows so high that they then proceed to finally change the parts of the system that people could tell were shit at a glance.

I wouldn't be surprised if we see the return of 10man Mythic raiding at some point, though obviously it won't make much of a difference for literally every guild that was killed for 20-man Mythic raids.

Originally Posted by Acidbaron

''While we hope many players will be pleased at the increased accessibility and freedom for experimentation these changes will permit, we know that you might be wondering why we didn’t make adjustments like these sooner. After all, a large portion of the community has been vocal about wanting to see changes along these lines since mid-2020, when Shadowlands was still in Beta.

When it comes to the limitations on Covenant-switching, millions of players experienced Shadowlands for the first time through the lens of their Covenant of choice, and that would have not been possible had the choice carried less weight from the outset. Nevertheless, after the conclusion of the Chains of Domination campaign, the Covenants are united against the Jailer, and revisiting player feedback in that context has led us to re-evaluate our approach. In terms of the day-to-day player experience, the advantages of a rigid division between Covenants have diminished since Shadowlands launched, while the downsides (feeling disadvantaged in certain types of content, or having to choose between mechanical advantages and aesthetics) have only grown. That balance of factors no longer justifies the original limitations on Covenant-switching, so in 9.1.5 we’re looking to provide a way to circumvent them.''

I am sorry but the release could have done without this explanation what is fairly weak and to claim it was held back for so long out of -lore related issues- is not in the slightest believable. It is actually rather insulting, instead of merely admitting to bad design.

So all of these things currently going on, none of that is impacting these changes? yes that is completely believable and honest.

You are right. The covenants were never not united at max level. Insinuating anything else is utterly asinine. At best there were minor misgivings between bastion and maldraxxus, but that was the full extend of any kind of conflict.

I actually appreciate these changes, if only because people have been asking for this for months. It will make the game far more enjoyable and alt friendly, something which will benefit hardcore players in particular but also the wider playerbase more generally.

I hope that blizzard will heed community feedback more actively going forward. It would be great if this mentality could be applied to future testing cycles.

Also feels like a victory for many of the content creators that have reported on the lawsuit, dwindling player numbers, needed changes, etc.

They still need to be putting out way more content if they want to justify charging for subs and expansions though. The game is anemic. Existing content now has greater longevity but additional dungeons, raids, battlegrounds (!!) all need to rolling out more frequently. And I personally feel that they need to iterate on their endgame offering so that there’s something other than these types of content available to players. What happened to legion questchains, mage tower, hell - even horrific visions (that actually awarded gear), etc…

Originally Posted by Berri

I actually appreciate these changes, if only because people have been asking for this for months. It will make the game far more enjoyable and alt friendly, something which will benefit hardcore players in particular but also the wider playerbase more generally.

I hope that blizzard will heed community feedback more actively going forward. It would be great if this mentality could be applied to future testing cycles.

It won't. This shit happened with the MoP beta and class feedback, the WoD beta and class feedback, the Legion beta and feedback about legendaries, I have no clue what they ignored with the BfA beta because by then I was fed up with the cycle of Blizzard ignoring positive critical feedback on major system issues for extended periods of time.

Cue SL and people immediately point out that locking people into a Covenant is going to be a terrible system feature, and predicting that eventually they're going to let players freely switch but only after they've sufficiently pissed off enough of their playerbase with the terrible implementation of the system.

It absolutely is contempt for their playerbase, and players eventually get fed up with it and quit. I don't know that anything can make me return to WoW at this point because of how asininely stubborn their dev team is when it comes to sticking to terrible systems. Trying to convince me that I'll eventually like the taste of dirt if I just keep eating it for 6 months is just stupid, but Blizzard continues to use this method to attempt to convince people that bad ideas are actually good.

It always makes me mad how there will be dozens of people on these threads who feel the need to come in and type out "too little too late" or "I already quit not coming back". If you have quit, please for the love of god, move on. Stop posting here, stop checking these forums every fifteen minutes for the newest wow bashing thread, and move on.

On topic, conduit energy literally means nothing to me, covenant swapping is cool, might use on a few characters or when I fully finish a covenant/armor type to get full unlocks easier. Maw intro skip is nothing to me, you get a level for 30 minutes of quests, never made me mad.

The covenant campaign skip on alts is huge, I am quite tired of doing them, will love that. Being able to do torghast to level and get renown(? not sure if I read that right) will be huge, and since I dont think you can get renown while leveling elsewhere quite the incentive to level via that method.

Remote anima turn in is cool, though I manage my bags so was never really an issue. Timewalking M+ with legion could be awesome, meh or crap, will have too see.

Lastly the fact they are touching talents, conduits and covenant abilities could be interesting, I know some classes have amazing conduits(mage) while others have some pretty meh ones (ele shaman). Covenant abilities are a lot better with the 9.0.5 and 9.1 changes/legos, think only a few are bad outliers, though would be nice to see all of them reach viable even if not quote "best".

Originally Posted by FelPlague

they never said "there is no ripcord" they literally said "we have the ripcord, and we dont want to pull it, but if we really need to we will, we want to try this first and see if it ends up good, if not we will pull it" they literally said that from the very start.

Your reading comprehension is great. Yes, that was my point and the point of those I was quoting. They did say they had one and then they lied by walking it back and saying they could not. Blizzard did even worse by actively obfuscating this fact. First they had said that things were in place to be able to do this, which was obvious to anyone with braincells with or without them confirming it.

But later, they walked that back, stating the ripcord wasn't made and it was, in fact, going to detrimental to the system. There's a post gone now because it's from Beta forums, so it can't be linked, but to summarize it: "We can't do it because it would give players more ability to enjoy the game without extra steps that are lucrative for MAU numbers 'unravel the entire system' and there's certain Legendaries and Conduits that only come from certain Covenants and we can't have those be obtainable through one Covenant and have it change to a different one if you swapped - it's just soooo haaaaard guys. : ((((( "

If you must, the first video I could find that has the post quoted in its entirety is available here. I want to avoid embedding it because it gives views to a hack that rhymes with Smellular.

So in short, yes. We know. There was a ripcord. Anyone with a brain could see it was possible before Blizzard even confirmed there was one. They lied and said there wasn't and that it would totally unravel a very intricate (read: bullshit) system that everyone saw right through, but it turns out they could've easily done it to begin with and their voice otherwise was pure lipservice in the name of extending out playtime artificially, which is all any of these systems are.

It's fine, though. Creepy sex predators like you need to shill for other creepy sex predators. No one should ever forget what you did.

Originally Posted by bledgor

It always makes me mad how there will be dozens of people on these threads who feel the need to come in and type out "too little too late" or "I already quit not coming back". If you have quit, please for the love of god, move on. Stop posting here, stop checking these forums every fifteen minutes for the newest wow bashing thread, and move on.

Absolutely not. The entire tone of the community and the overall mood of everyone involved needs to be miserable. Nobody should be allowed to accept this after everything that happened, both on a development level and a corporate culture level. Anyone with braincells should stay mad and until absolutely everything that's a problem is permanently upended, the culture should be encouraged to be hostile to Blizzard.

This is about completely changing their philosophy. Just like taking too long to add Wakening Essences and just like how long the nonsense with HoA Essences and Corruptions took to partially fix, there's nothing stopping them from making 10.0 systems that have the same problem.

They should be treated as actively hostile to players and any integrity until they prove otherwise.

Originally Posted by Sinured

at this point i dont know whats funnier, people who develope this game,
people who play it solo (most of mmo champ)
or people defending this.

people who dont even play but come every day to forum to make few threads throwing shit about every aspect of the game are definitely funiest

"players feel that the WoW content they most enjoy is locked behind experiences that aren’t nearly as appealing to them"

Sorry Blizzard, but it seems a case of "too little, too late". You allready made me burning out after doing the same sh17 on 5 different characters, and after finishing your requirements so I can finally play arena, I've realised that for a SOLO player that wants to play Arena, you have to be at peace that more then half of your gaming time will be spent in that awfull LFG TOOL, searching for 2s hours and hours.

You still haven't learned that introducing a system like covenant levels it is prob ok for one time, but when you just make it look like an artificial roller coaster ... damn that felt bad. I've only played ~2h of 9.1 even tough I had my sub active for another month, I've haven't touched WoW since 1st July.

Seems it is time to let WoW transform in a "seasonal experience" with multiple servers that run every XPAC on rotation. I'm sure that people will play it, just like we still play Diablo 3 seasons after 8 years of its release.

Originally Posted by Bakis

go back to making the game challenging outside M+ & M raids.

cant go back to something that never existed...

Originally Posted by FelPlague

I do love how we have had countless threads over the past months and even weeks saying "just pull the fucking ripcord already and save this shit"
and yet now they do we are met with "too little too late" So what do we actually want? Did we want this or not? cause saying "too little too late" implies you dont care, which then whats the point?

It means it's still too little course correction at this point. If they did all this at launch or a month in, a lot of people could have suffered through the rest of the issues. At this point though the new expansion Honeymoon phase is over so it'll take more to entice people back.

Originally Posted by rrayy

Not what they said at all. They a;lspo don't have contempt for the player base either. Not caving to your every demand does not = they have contempt for you. But players have to stick to their narratives I guess.

I have never demanded anything from them, only been VERY disappointed by what they keep presenting. There is a huge difference. If I was going to make any demand it's that you whiteknights get banned from forums so we can express dissatisfaction with bad game design without getting "corrected".

If you like the game and the current state, good for you. See how that I works? I wish you well even though our opinions differ.

"Once you’ve reached a high Renown threshold, you will thereafter be able to freely switch among any of the four Covenants without cooldown or restriction, as well as use cosmetic rewards that you have earned from one covenant even if you are currently a member of a different one. Both the Covenant switching and the use of cosmetic rewards will also apply to alts once the Renown threshold is reached on one character.
Conduit Energy is being removed - Conduits will be freely swappable without restriction."

Would look at that, they finally did it , it just took a massive lawsuit and the player base to dip to unbelieve low numbers

well boys shadowlands has left the beta

Originally Posted by Lolites

people who dont even play but come every day to forum to make few threads throwing shit about every aspect of the game are definitely funiest

People who are upset with the game and want it to be better but actually want to hold them accountable have just as much validity to what they say as the whales that stay in the toxic and abusive cycle without question.

People are pissed, but they're pissed because they want to see a better game with better developer response. Junkie Blizzard doesn't get to move back home because they have 30 days sober after hitting bottom. We want to see over a year with consistency.

Until then, expect community response to stay hostile with glee. They shouldn't be allowed to drag this out because they got a content-light apology patch in, and you shouldn't be allowed to just say things are fine either.

At this point, I just don't even care anymore. These changes would've been nice a year ago or at most 9 months ago when SL launched. But, they weren't. All of these changes come now out of desperation to bring back lost players to at least log in so their MAU count goes up. After you login, well its back to Blizzness where the game goes back on auto pilot with no more updates to anything until 9.2 or 10.0. Which means class/faction imbalances, boosting, and any other sort of headaches that players deal with every single SECOND of time that they're logged in, will be left alone for MONTHS, until their next "GOTCHA MAU COUNT" update. Remember, you only have to login once a quarter to be counted as an MAU and guess what starts next month; a new quarter. Go figure. Coincidental timing, right? (sarcasm).

If you're still helplessly addicted to WoW then this is really hype news but the reality is that a month after the patch, they hype will be gone and you'll go back to feeling the exact same about it then as you do now- which is that it sucks. This patch is nothing more than an MAU boost for 4th quarter.

So many good and positive changes here. Happy to see that Blizzard now are willing and able to make the necessary changes. I hope they manage to keep this mindset going forward, of actually taking customer/beta tester feedback to heart.

but that classic F R E S H

Originally Posted by kaelhoel

So many good and positive changes here. Happy to see that Blizzard now are willing and able to make the necessary changes. I hope they manage to keep this mindset going forward, of actually taking customer/beta tester feedback to heart.

I'm not fully convinced that this wasn't their plan from the start, to be honest. Theres so many changes that its hard to believe this wasn't preplanned months ago. I.E. before SL even launched.