BfA Patch Speculation thread (8.3 and later).

[Queen of Hamsters]

How much news do you want them to give us? Full class changes every day? They've been releasing plenty of news, raid tests, M+ testing, etc. There hasn't been a lack of news, Classic has just been more dominant from non-Blizzard sources

All things that we know are coming, it's not "news" per sé.
Classic = a re-release of content that's been unavailable unless you partake in private servers, people are anxious to learn what it'll be about and naturally, it's big news.

Come back when it's time for the next expansion reveal and such.

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So this isn’t true at all, at least not fully. You can complete mythic at a cutting edge level with 2-3 carries. Do you think the world 1500 guilds clearing Jaina after she got obliterated by nerfs are an entire guild of good players? They aren’t. Hell a guild on my server practically 19 manned Jaina pre-nerf, so you don’t need this amazing coordinated team of 20. You can have some slackers and still win. That isn’t my problem though I’m just pointing this out. This isn’t to say mythic is easy either, it isn’t.

As for mythic, it’s very unrewarding. The only thing I’d personally want or suggest is a seasonal reward for both cutting edge players and the +15 or +20 all dungeon mythic+ achievement. This provides something that’s actually unique to killing the bosses early on. Right now, everything from mythic is farmable after 2, 3 or 5 years. The seasonal reward can be anything from a title to a mount to a transmog, as long as it’s just something unique to those players putting in all that effort. Obviously if you aren’t a CE player or a high level m+ player you probably wouldn’t want these rewards added because you couldn’t get them and that’s fine but not a fair argument. Pvp has a seasonal tabard, Mount, transmog and title, I think it’s fair to give pve at least 1 seasonal cosmetic item.

Yes, the challenge is 100% addicting and very fun but that doesn’t mean mythic is rewarding, it doesn’t have anything to do with the reward structure at all so saying “do it for the challenge or don’t do it” is a bit ridiculous to me.

For the record I don’t think lfr should be removed. Id prefer if it was never added but since it is it should definitely stay. I don’t think having 4 raid difficulties is the worst thing either. Raiding in general has gotten so much harder over the years it’d be dumb to assume mythic being the only difficulty available would help the game, it would kill it if anything. There may be other solutions that don’t involve 4 raid difficulties but I can’t think of any off the top of my head.

As opposed to Classic raids where 15 average players could carry 25. Just sayin'. Guilds that have killed it carrying a few (usual number is 2) is one thing, carrying 2 players when it's still progress? No.

As for the rewards, it's still a hell of a lot more rewarding both to conquer and in what it gives the character than LFR. I use LFR to gear alts for old content runs, not to feel that I've beat the fights.

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True RPG......You can't do all the design decisions most RPgs have when you add to a MMO and let alone I haven't seen people describe what mechanics that is. Doing a lot of raid prep isn't RPG esque. That seems to be more of Raiding culture if anything(It's not bad but it isn't some big RPG thing).

They just claim the term to try and jab at the game. It's an MMORPG for a fact, regardless of what arbitrary features some individual suffering from ex-partner syndrome feels.

I'm sure every game belonging to a genre has people falling out of love with it and trying to rationalize it with "it moved away from being a TRUE RPG/FPS/ARPG/RTS/MOBA" ad nauseam.

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Are we still in the 8.2+ speculation thread ?

It's been slow af with any actual news.
Probably on its last breath since 8.2 will be coming out, so either renaming the thread or making a new one will follow.

[Taeldorian]

All things that we know are coming, it's not "news" per sé.
Classic = a re-release of content that's been unavailable unless you partake in private servers, people are anxious to learn what it'll be about and naturally, it's big news.

Come back when it's time for the next expansion reveal and such.

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As opposed to Classic raids where 15 average players could carry 25. Just sayin'. Guilds that have killed it carrying a few (usual number is 2) is one thing, carrying 2 players when it's still progress? No.

As for the rewards, it's still a hell of a lot more rewarding both to conquer and in what it gives the character than LFR. I use LFR to gear alts for old content runs, not to feel that I've beat the fights.

I mean sure it’s more rewarding than lfr but all the rewards can be obtained solo in the next expansion or even with a team of 4-5 friends. If you’re an lfr player you can just que for lfr, see the raid and then get all the mounts/transmog later from mythic. I’m talking about rewards for cutting edge/mythic+ 15, beyond an achievement there’s nothing. Pvp has a pretty good system of rewards, maybe a bit too much but they’ve got a seasonal mount, tabard, title and transmog. That’s a lot to work for, I think it’d benefit pve to have something similar.

And yes, classic raids were way more casual friendly. Bad players could easily get accepted into raids because people needed to fill their group. You could carry half the raid as long as they pushed a button or two. Plenty of guilds nowadays still carry people during progress, it happens plenty around the world 1000-1500 level of mythic, it’s just not nearly as many getting carried as back in the day. Same shit happened in Wrath, if you couldn’t fill to 25 but had 21-22 you’d just grab whoever you could.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I mean sure it’s more rewarding than lfr but all the rewards can be obtained solo in the next expansion or even with a team of 4-5 friends. If you’re an lfr player you can just que for lfr, see the raid and then get all the mounts/transmog later from mythic. I’m talking about rewards for cutting edge/mythic+ 15, beyond an achievement there’s nothing. Pvp has a pretty good system of rewards, maybe a bit too much but they’ve got a seasonal mount, tabard, title and transmog. That’s a lot to work for, I think it’d benefit pve to have something similar.

But that's just it.
Some people are happy to wait and get the things when they're trivial, when everyone can get them.
Others are, evidently, driven enough to do the content whilst current, whilst it requires something more. The rewards are one reason, the prestige/experience is another. Some rewards are even limited time only now with titles, and I'm sure soon enough, mounts.

And that's fine. It's also fine that there's a kindergarten mode, where players see the raids but put no actual effort into it, giving them some max level progression and making sure enough people see the assets to justify the development resources put into raiding. People on these forums can proclaim that "it isn't rewarding enough!" all the way to the moon and back, yet organized raiding remains. Clearly, people care enough to pursue the content beyond the difficulty tailored for the very bottom of the crowd in terms of drive. Mythic raiding is made for the 1%, and clearly it's been a pull ever since MoP's end.

It reminds me, during MoP there were people busy moaning about CM's "not being rewarding enough to motivate them", yet others were busy doing the dungeons, some of us with every.single.class. And we got the rewards, and the players moaning instead of doing, went without.

[FlubberPuddy]

True RPG......You can't do all the design decisions most RPgs have when you add to a MMO and let alone I haven't seen people describe what mechanics that is. Doing a lot of raid prep isn't RPG esque. That seems to be more of Raiding culture if anything(It's not bad but it isn't some big RPG thing).

I mean "RPG" has kinda lost its meaning when games like GTA are described as an RPG simply because "you play a role".

I think "True RPG" refers to the set classes (aka roles) and then manipulating stats/abilities/gear etc of that character into something individualized to you (or copy pasted from another). So in essence, deep character customization.

Take the new Assassin's Creed games for instance (playing through the series right now), before AC Origins and Odyssey, the previous games were defined as stealth/action/adventure games, but not RPG. Because they didn't include "RPG mechanics" before the ones in 2017 and 2018. Well it can be argued Unity and Syndicate included some "stats" and such, but not to the extent of letting you pick talent points and such as in the 17/18 releases.

So that's how I see a "True RPG" , but everyone has been starting to have their own definition. But survival games have the whole "gather resources" bit, that's not unique to RPGs, going on adventures/quests happens in many action and adventure games as well - not unique to RPGs, and tons of games have you playing "roles" such as Uncharted series, etc.

But often the conventional "RPG" label is put when there's deep character customization. Like I don't see people conventionally recommending Sims when someone asks for an RPG game, since it's a "simulation game".

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Sorry for long response on a small comment. I just love that topic of discussion, "what makes a game an RPG?". Would love to hear more on the subject from others.

[Taeldorian]

But that's just it.
Some people are happy to wait and get the things when they're trivial, when everyone can get them.
Others are, evidently, driven enough to do the content whilst current, whilst it requires something more. The rewards are one reason, the prestige/experience is another. Some rewards are even limited time only now with titles, and I'm sure soon enough, mounts.

And that's fine. It's also fine that there's a kindergarten mode, where players see the raids but put no actual effort into it, giving them some max level progression and making sure enough people see the assets to justify the development resources put into raiding. People on these forums can proclaim that "it isn't rewarding enough!" all the way to the moon and back, yet organized raiding remains. Clearly, people care enough to pursue the content beyond the difficulty tailored for the very bottom of the crowd in terms of drive. Mythic raiding is made for the 1%, and clearly it's been a pull ever since MoP's end.

It reminds me, during MoP there were people busy moaning about CM's "not being rewarding enough to motivate them", yet others were busy doing the dungeons, some of us with every.single.class. And we got the rewards, and the players moaning instead of doing, went without.

Yeah I don’t advocate for the removal of lfr so make sure you aren’t lumping me up with those posters. I don’t care if there’s a tourist mode or whatever you wanna call it.

MoP CMs are a perfect example of seasonal content. The season was the entire expansion but that’s fine too. Rewards that become unique are, imo, a fantastic motivator for a lot of players. MoP CMs, WoD CMs and the mage tower are all great examples of this. This is basically what I’m asking for but for cutting edge and mythic+. That doesn’t mean there can’t be unique rewards for casuals either though akin to the mage tower.

Also, there’s no time limited title from raiding. The only time limited thing raiding ever gets is 1 AoTC Mount from the last (?) raid of the expansion. I think this is great and wanna see a bit more of it for raiding. I’m driven to pursue cutting edge due to the challenge but being rewarded for that challenge would be cool too. It’s not like I’m demanding this or anything I just think it’d be cool to see.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Yeah I don’t advocate for the removal of lfr so make sure you aren’t lumping me up with those posters. I don’t care if there’s a tourist mode or whatever you wanna call it.

MoP CMs are a perfect example of seasonal content. The season was the entire expansion but that’s fine too. Rewards that become unique are, imo, a fantastic motivator for a lot of players. MoP CMs, WoD CMs and the mage tower are all great examples of this. This is basically what I’m asking for but for cutting edge and mythic+. That doesn’t mean there can’t be unique rewards for casuals either though akin to the mage tower.

Also, there’s no time limited title from raiding. The only time limited thing raiding ever gets is 1 AoTC Mount from the last (?) raid of the expansion. I think this is great and wanna see a bit more of it for raiding. I’m driven to pursue cutting edge due to the challenge but being rewarded for that challenge would be cool too. It’s not like I’m demanding this or anything I just think it’d be cool to see.

Nono, not lumping you with them, never would!

There is however limited-time rewards, the titles you can only get if you're part of the first 100 guilds (of your faction or total, I forget) to kill the boss.
In the end, many don't give a toss about neither titles nor mounts. If they can be motivated to run the content anyway, there's no reason why people caring about long-term collections can't. Beating the content when it's still current has been a perfect motivator for 15 years. No reason why that shouldn't remain, and I'm not sure that LFR tourists pretending to be Mythic raiders "if only" (not you, others in the thread) have the best grasp on raiding issues to begin with.

They even tried making LFR LESS rewarding than it already was during WoD as they made the LFR versions give shitty gear sets (not recolors of tier). The end result wasn't more Mythic raiders, but rather fewer players partaking in max level instanced content, period.

[Kallisto]

No discussing with a person delusional enough to believe that Mythic Jaina is the same content as LFR Jaina, really.
Why didn't the first 100 people that killed her on LFR get the FOS title?? Unfair!

Which is funny because in the past people would rally around how lack of difficulty levels meant lack of content provided. Now people are acting like super easy mode is same content as something that the only similarity is the model.

[Taeldorian]

Nono, not lumping you with them, never would!

There is however limited-time rewards, the titles you can only get if you're part of the first 100 guilds (of your faction or total, I forget) to kill the boss.
In the end, many don't give a toss about neither titles nor mounts. If they can be motivated to run the content anyway, there's no reason why people caring about long-term collections can't. Beating the content when it's still current has been a perfect motivator for 15 years. No reason why that shouldn't remain, and I'm not sure that LFR tourists pretending to be Mythic raiders "if only" (not you, others in the thread) have the best grasp on raiding issues to begin with.

They even tried making LFR LESS rewarding than it already was during WoD as they made the LFR versions give shitty gear sets (not recolors of tier). The end result wasn't more Mythic raiders, but rather fewer players partaking in max level instanced content, period.

Yeah I remember WoD lfr. I thought that was a good idea but if it didn’t turn out to be then it makes sense why it hasn’t been done again. Truthfully lfr will never and has never competed with the higher difficulties so I don’t care much. When people say “why do mythic when you can do lfr” it’s likely they’re motivated by rewards alone which is fine imo however it doesn’t really make sense either. Mythic feels like an entirely different raid most of the time if you can get there pre-nerf.

As for the titles, the problem with famed slayer is that it’s a guild wide achievement. Now that’s awesome especially for very stable top 100 guilds (we’re close-ish) however if your guild falls apart, you decide to leave and raid with friends or whatever the case is you lose that title. That’s the only problem with it otherwise I think it’d be pretty damn good and more than enough.

[Kallisto]

Thats not my opinion. Do some reaserch. Read some articles from def or watch youtube. New difficulty was never consideret as new content in gaming industry. Never.

BULLSHIT

Difficulty levels were considered different content in the 80s, 90s, 2000s and early 2010s. It was only when people were crying about LFR was where suddenly difficulty levels stopped being different content. And it was only in wow forums where people were basically in the end crying about their Epeens

[Queen of Hamsters]

Which is funny because in the past people would rally around how lack of difficulty levels meant lack of content provided. Now people are acting like super easy mode is same content as something that the only similarity is the model.

Yeah, it's quite contradictory. The narrative changes so fast one could suffer from whiplash. The chief complainers never did have a solid foundation to stand on though, only their feefees.

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Yeah I remember WoD lfr. I thought that was a good idea but if it didn’t turn out to be then it makes sense why it hasn’t been done again. Truthfully lfr will never and has never competed with the higher difficulties so I don’t care much. When people say “why do mythic when you can do lfr” it’s likely they’re motivated by rewards alone which is fine imo however it doesn’t really make sense either. Mythic feels like an entirely different raid most of the time if you can get there pre-nerf.

As for the titles, the problem with famed slayer is that it’s a guild wide achievement. Now that’s awesome especially for very stable top 100 guilds (we’re close-ish) however if your guild falls apart, you decide to leave and raid with friends or whatever the case is you lose that title. That’s the only problem with it otherwise I think it’d be pretty damn good and more than enough.

I had no idea that it was guild-specific. That's pants-on-head-moronic I have to say. It should be tied to the players partaking in the kill, even if they later on move to other places.

[DeicideUH]

I'll take a guess at patch release schedule for BfA:

8.2: June 25th is most likely.

8.2.5: News start near end of July, PTR early August, release end September/early October.

8.3: Blizzard will probably withold news for Blizzcon, PTR for after it. Release will probably be after holidays, in January 2020.

8.3.5: Comes April 2020, including preorder content for next expansion.

9.0: November 2020

What do you think?

[Alga]

I'll take a guess at patch release schedule for BfA:

8.2: June 25th is most likely.

8.2.5: News start near end of July, PTR early August, release end September/early October.

8.3: Blizzard will probably withold news for Blizzcon, PTR for after it. Release will probably be after holidays, in January 2020.

8.3.5: Comes April 2020, including preorder content for next expansion.

9.0: November 2020

What do you think?

Would kinda agree but I have something strange on the radar currently, since we just await one or two more builds before launch. They neither moved Trial of Style or added in a Season 4 Transmog Set. Season 3 of ToS predated 8.1.5, but ToS Season 4 is at the same time classic goes live.

Do you lads think they will add it while 8.2.5 PTR and patch over at this week onto live?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Early 80's and 90's(Like NES and a bit of SNES but not all) games were made to be time consuming....because well low space available to them, which sorta translated to hard although I'd call it frustrating. Early video game design could be pretty harsh and mean and well "Oh you made a mistake, GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING BITCH!"


There's a reason we moved on from that. Weather people think difficulty is content(I'm not commenting on that) different difficulty levels isn't a bad thing, it's as old as gaming itself. Also Vanilla Ragnarok is pretty dated, it's just most iconic and one of the first big raid bosses most people remember,comparatively other bosses do better.

[huth]

They just claim the term to try and jab at the game. It's an MMORPG for a fact, regardless of what arbitrary features some individual suffering from ex-partner syndrome feels.

I'm sure every game belonging to a genre has people falling out of love with it and trying to rationalize it with "it moved away from being a TRUE RPG/FPS/ARPG/RTS/MOBA" ad nauseam.

It's basically "No true scotsman" as applied to genres, on top of misapplied context. A computer RPG is a different thing than a tabletop, even if they both use the same basic ruleset. For starters, computer games are necessarily limited by all decisions requiring to have been pre-written.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I'll take a guess at patch release schedule for BfA:

8.2: June 25th is most likely.

8.2.5: News start near end of July, PTR early August, release end September/early October.

8.3: Blizzard will probably withold news for Blizzcon, PTR for after it. Release will probably be after holidays, in January 2020.

8.3.5: Comes April 2020, including preorder content for next expansion.

9.0: November 2020

What do you think?

Hoping you're correct.
If 8.2 and 8.3 do a good job, there's no reason to rush 9.0. They should 100% take their time, not have a repeat of 8.0.

[Nathanyel]

You sneaky you...

[shade3891]

I'll take a guess at patch release schedule for BfA:

8.2: June 25th is most likely.

8.2.5: News start near end of July, PTR early August, release end September/early October.

8.3: Blizzard will probably withold news for Blizzcon, PTR for after it. Release will probably be after holidays, in January 2020.

8.3.5: Comes April 2020, including preorder content for next expansion.

9.0: November 2020

What do you think?

Im thinking the same,

8.3 for new allied races Vulpera and Rustbolt Gnomes, and hopefully Tinker class. Is a cool thing to reveal at Blizzcon aswell.

[Nathanyel]

Seems the forum ate my reply's content because I used an emoji... Ah well, here it is plaintext:

You sneaky you...

Teehee.

-------------------

On Wednesday, I finally finished the trek to Beagle Point in Elite Dangerous, completing Distant Worlds 2 just in time.
Will probably focus on WoW again, kinda let my characters rot for a while. Not that I didn't have fun playing, I just had different priorities, including RL ones.

Warfronts are switching owners later today (EU) but last night, I only had the energy to do Ivus on a few chars, not necessarily for iLvl upgrades that shortl before 8.2, but to get appearances.
Do you think the Warfront sets will eventually be made available via an Ensemble, purchased with Honorbound/7th Legion Commendations? What about the Elite versions from the weekly/world boss? (no, they're not identical to the Elite Arena sets, different tints)

[DeicideUH]

Im thinking the same,

8.3 for new allied races Vulpera and Rustbolt Gnomes, and hopefully Tinker class. Is a cool thing to reveal at Blizzcon aswell.

I think 8.2.5 will be:

Worgen and Goblin models and heritage armor;
Vulpera and mechagnome allied races (sounds unlikely? Yes, but I think they will)
New Warfront (I guess Azuremyst)
More war campaign

8.3 will have the story conclusion and the final raid
8.3.5 will have the last allied race pair (betting on ogres/mok'nathal for Horde), some preorder bonus for 9.0

[Sondrelk]

I think 8.2.5 will be:

Worgen and Goblin models and heritage armor;
Vulpera and mechagnome allied races (sounds unlikely? Yes, but I think they will)
New Warfront (I guess Azuremyst)
More war campaign

8.3 will have the story conclusion and the final raid
8.3.5 will have the last allied race pair (betting on ogres/mok'nathal for Horde), some preorder bonus for 9.0

I am pretty sure there was an announcement saying there would be no new allied race in 8.2.5.
I mean, logically, had Mechgnomes become Alliance in 8.2.5 then Horde would not likely be allowed in Rustbolt in Mechagon anymore. If you wait until 8.3.5 then the Horde no longer has any reason to go to Mechagon, and the factions will probably be moving towards peace anyways.

If we get a second set of Allied races i think they will come in 8.3.5 with Vulpera/mechagnomes anyways, the work on them is as good as done, all that is needed is the final touchups with tabard and starting area. And quest i suppose.