BfA Patch Speculation thread (8.3 and later).

[Chickat]

I think by 10.0 we will get another offworld expansion. If not 9.0, 10.0 for sure.

[DeicideUH]

I think by 10.0 we will get another offworld expansion. If not 9.0, 10.0 for sure.

I have an old theory that, intended or unintended, WoW expansions come in circles. The cycles loosely behave like this:

Season 1 ("Spring") - Exploration and wonder. Expanding the world.
Season 2 ("Summer") - New worlds to explore. New concepts and cosmic threats.
Season 3 ("Autumn") - Vanquishing a great foe. An known old and powerful enemy returns and must be defeated.
Season 4 ("Winter") - Changing the world: you close the cycle by transforming the world we know so it can begin anew.

In that regard, we had two cycles so far. The first cycle was:

Vanilla - Exploration and wonder (exploring the main continents of Azeroth)
TBC - New worlds to explore (Outland, Burning Legion, Light/Shadow concepts expanded)
WotLK - Vanquishing a great foe (Scourge)
Cataclysm - Changing the world. (Deathwing causes the Cataclysm, faction war changing political borders, world revamp)

Then we entered the second cycle:

MoP - Exploration and wonder (exploring a new continent in Azeroth, introducing new foes, expanding Old God lore, concluding the faction war)
WoD - New worlds to explore (Draenor, introduces the concept of alternative timelines, more Burning Legion, Shadow concept further expanded in the Void as we know it now)
Legion - Vanquishing a great foe (Burning Legion, of course)
BfA - Changing the world. (A new faction war further changing political borders, capital cities being destroyed, we may get a faction status quo change at the end)

If that holds true, then I surmise the next cycle will be something like:

9.0 - Exploration and wonder (either new continent or a new world revamp, this time based on renewing the world instead destroying it)
10.0 - New worlds to explore (We will go to another world, maybe K'aresh, or dimension/plane, like Shadowlands. There will be a new expansion of cosmic lore)
11.0 - Vanquishing a great foe (Probably someone we already met but will have grown into a big threat by then.)
12.0 - Changing the world. (No idea. Faction war 3.0? A new Cataclysm-like event? Light/Void conflict finally explored?)

[rda]

OK.

Thought about what I would want from 9.0 that they can reasonably do and that they themselves would like to do because it is relatively easy and produces relatively a lot of "reasons to log in":

1. Incremental work on specs. Some above remarked that "fixing specs" is not specific, so here is a clear target: as many actives and as much interplay between abilities (if I press A that puts a debuff onto the target and if I then press B before the debuff falls off, I get increased damage - this counts as one instance of interplay) with as much variability as there was in MoP. We won't get there in a single expansion, and we *don't need* to get there in a single expansion, it is better if we go there in small steps, but we should be moving there. After we get there, we should move slightly higher and increase *choices* for interplay potential by having more choices of spells, etc - we'll discuss this closer there, there is a ton that could be made to make the game interesting and refreshing every single expansion.

This item is absolutely required, fail it and nothing else matters, the game is dead, nobody does it, just some diehards raid and sit tired on the forums defending it weakly and me and some others wander in old zones trying to get last pets / mounts before finally saying goodbye.

2. Cross-faction groups for all PVE. I'd have included PVP as well, but PVP is dead and will stay dead, there's too much they should fix and revert in order for it to become not dead, so I won't even go there. PVP is irrelevant, became irrelevant in Legion, stays irrelevant in BFA, will stay irrelevant in the next expansion. Alas.

3. Housing. Personal house with furniture and other collectibles. Professions crafting items for houses. Perhaps a new profession which uses lumber to craft items for houses (and maybe something else for players, but just as an aside) and perhaps a new gathering profession for getting that lumber.

4. Solo mode for mythic+. You don't want solo queue because you don't like or cannot do picks / bans or because you kept saying no to it and it became ingrained, whatever, do a solo mode then. Give healer / tank / DPS companions, tune the fights on level 0 so that they are completely doable by a bronze healer / tank / DPS (remember what that is?) with an NPC, then increase the numbers for levels 1-2-3-4-etc. No brainer.

This is it. I had multiple variants for 3, which is my "the new thing" item, but housing is, I think, the best fit.

And, sorry, but I have to say it: no world revamp and no level squish. Not just as a "I don't really see the appeal", but "I want them to NOT do it". Because that's a lot of work for little in return. Content should never be removed / big adjustments before max-level aren't worth it = no world revamp. Psychological differences between level 130 and 60 aren't enough to justify a lot of work = no level squish.

[Wangming]

OK.

Thought about what I would want from 9.0 that they can reasonably do and that they themselves would like to do because it is relatively easy and produces relatively a lot of "reasons to log in":

1. Incremental work on specs. Some above remarked that "fixing specs" is not specific, so here is a clear target: as many actives and as much interplay between abilities (if I press A that puts a debuff onto the target and if I then press B before the debuff falls off, I get increased damage - this counts as one instance of interplay) with as much variability as there was in MoP. We won't get there in a single expansion, and we *don't need* to get there in a single expansion, it is better if we go there in small steps, but we should be moving there. After we get there, we should move slightly higher and increase *choices* for interplay potential by having more choices of spells, etc - we'll discuss this closer there, there is a ton that could be made to make the game interesting and refreshing every single expansion.


And, sorry, but I have to say it: no world revamp and no level squish. Not just as a "I don't really see the appeal", but "I want them to NOT do it". Because that's a lot of work for little in return. Content should never be removed / big adjustments before max-level aren't worth it = no world revamp. Psychological differences between level 130 and 60 aren't enough to justify a lot of work = no level squish.

Absolutely agree on number 1. Absolutely disagree on the last. The leveling is fucked up beyond repair. I want it ALL redone. Even the freaking Broken Isles, to give a continued storyline you can experience. without weird timeline jumps and gaps.

[Directionalk9]

On the level squish front, is it really the right fix to leveling? Feels like a band-aid for something that requires surgery. However just finished leveling a toon, and it took so damn long that I’m not fussed to play for a while, so personally something needs to be done, but squishing doesn’t feel like the correct answer.

[rda]

Absolutely agree on number 1. Absolutely disagree on the last. The leveling is fucked up beyond repair. I want it ALL redone. Even the freaking Broken Isles, to give a continued storyline you can experience. without weird timeline jumps and gaps.

What do you want from redoing leveling? Asking seriously. Redo the story? That's a hell of a lot of work. And it's going to come at the cost of less gameplay on max-level. Do you want to increase the proportion of time you are spending leveling vs on max-level? That could work, but if that has to be the selling poing of the expansion, well, we are looking at astronomically more effort.

[MrExcelion]

On the level squish front, is it really the right fix to leveling? Feels like a band-aid for something that requires surgery

I think a lot of people feel this way. It's a change mainly for optics, as they'll just adjust the XP as needed anyway. The other reason they're doing this is they want to give players talents at levelup more often. All optics to me, but I understand that people have complained about the talent thing for like forever.

I really don't think they're going to do something as ballsy as reworking the stories in these old zones for a cohesive flow with the timelines.

...What they might do, however is put in some tidbits of the endgame story in each zone as it relates to Dragon Isles, and adding some occasional leveling events that pop up in the zones. They could even make it so you can level by just following that questline which will send you to a lot of the old world zones, and you can do other legacy stuff while there (dunno if that really works with the pacing though). Or maybe just doing that expansion-themed specific questline or event for the zone will give you an XP buff for awhile. Said events and questlines might just get removed and replaced with new ones relating to the current xpac so I wouldn't expect anything too major

I think the zone events are more likely and easily more interchangeable for future xpacs than questlines. Just have to change some assets and objectives. Said events would spawn once an hour or two and aim to give people a break from the legacy questlines. Like right now if we kill the Naga commanders on Naz then people get that Unstable Manapearl buff. Basically they could be reusing the concept of the Naz zone events for old zone world events for leveling for 9.0

So if I had to put money down I'm guessing it'll just be zone events and of course the squish itself for optics and consistent talents upon leveling up. Not much more to the feature than that.

Not saying that's particularly what I'd want or be excited about, just making predictions

[rda]

On the level squish front, is it really the right fix to leveling? Feels like a band-aid for something that requires surgery. However just finished leveling a toon, and it took so damn long that I’m not fussed to play for a while, so personally something needs to be done, but squishing doesn’t feel like the correct answer.

In my opinion, they should just reduce time to level - either by decreasing the XP required per level, or, preferably, by increasing the +XP% from heirlooms. Make the +XP% go up to 300% or so, make people re-grind heirlooms into new ones, if needed, and it's a win on leveling, some gameplay on max-level, and it takes miniscule time to do and vet - unlike the squish.

[Hellspawn]

On the level squish front, is it really the right fix to leveling? Feels like a band-aid for something that requires surgery. However just finished leveling a toon, and it took so damn long that I’m not fussed to play for a while, so personally something needs to be done, but squishing doesn’t feel like the correct answer.

Level squish alone will archive nothing. So it will be most likely come with other things like... more rewarding level up (one talent per level, or some extrinsic rewards and so on) ... and maybe even a rework of the zones you will level up in.
So imagine they rework EK & Kalimdor and you get to max level in these new zones from 1 to the squished 60. And with current systems they can make the old zones relevant. With scaling, random events random rares, dailies, world quest they could make all zones relevant for the endgame and beyond that for mount/pet/archivement hunter.
While at the same time its nice for new players to have a leveling experience that is more coherent, a story that does not make sudden jumps and zones that have 10 years plus of graphical fidelity difference.
Reworking the level experience would be mainly for new players and lesser for old players but we also have a lot of systems in place now that the endgame could profit from it and with it old players.

[spleen1015]

There needs to be a level squish and a world revamp.

We are all looking at this from the perspective of a player that has been playing for a long time. Imagine being a new player for a second. The leveling experience is terrible for someone that hasn't done it before. That's what Blizzard needs to think about. They need to keep adding new players.

[rda]

There needs to be a level squish and a world revamp.

We are all looking at this from the perspective of a player that has been playing for a long time. Imagine being a new player for a second. The leveling experience is terrible for someone that hasn't done it before. That's what Blizzard needs to think about. They need to keep adding new players.

WoW have been killing leveling for years. One of the consequences of that is that whatever new players the game still gets, they don't care about leveling. Everything tells them that the game starts at max level. So, the first and most important thing they are concerned with is how to get to that max level where it all starts as soon as possible.

Further, WoW devs realized a long time ago that their relentless concentration on max level gameplay could backfire in making it daunting for new players. They created several answers to that problem. Previously, we had RAF with triple leveling speed and a friend who would be boosting you. Lately, we started having bundled character boosts. For a new player, the latter kind of solves the problem - their first character starts not from level 1, but from level 110. It would be interesting to look into how much time is passed for new accounts between the time they create their first character and the time they go and use the boost - I would imagine the average would be something like a few days.

So, whatever changes to leveling are done, they are not going to change the dynamic for new players. New players have bundled character boosts.

Arguing for changes to leveling because that will make the experience for new players better is misguided, new players won't feel it and they aren't interested in it. The way the game is designed, they won't. And if you are asking to change the way the game is designed, to make it less about max level and more about leveling, then fine, but that's a different thing entirely. We aren't talking about changes to leveling then, we are talking about something else.

[spleen1015]

Opinions. Everyone has one and most of them stink.

You have yours and I have mine.

I would like to see a level squish and a world revamp. It would revitalize the game and give me something new to do.

[Wangming]

What do you want from redoing leveling? Asking seriously. Redo the story? That's a hell of a lot of work. And it's going to come at the cost of less gameplay on max-level. Do you want to increase the proportion of time you are spending leveling vs on max-level? That could work, but if that has to be the selling poing of the expansion, well, we are looking at astronomically more effort.

Well duh. We need astronomically large ammount of effort to undo all the bad decisions piled on top of each other.

[MrExcelion]

The level squish will definitely try to appeal to new players in some fashion, whether it just being an optics change because 130 levels seems offputting, or whatever it may be that's more significant. Whether or not that will succeed in bringing in new players is another matter, but as a company there's employees tasked with coming up with new initiatives (guest passes, removing the battle chest, the creation of the community feature and other social tools, bnet launcher game time, 50% off bfa sales, free copy of wow with warcraft movie, recruit a friend program update, level boost with xpac purchase, etc). As long as they keep putting initiatives out then their superiors will be satisfied on that front. I certainly see the leveling squish as one of those initiatives, at least partly, but we'll see how in-depth they decide to go with it.

[rda]

Opinions. Everyone has one and most of them stink.

You have yours and I have mine.

I would like to see a level squish and a world revamp. It would revitalize the game and give me something new to do.

I just don't understand how the squish will improve the game for new players. I am not saying you cannot have your opinion, it's just that you think it will bring new players and from what I understand new players are NOT interested in leveling, they are interested in getting to max-level as fast as possible on their first char, and this is addressed by bundled character boosts.

Giving existing players something new to do is understandable, I agree re-leveling new alts would be something to do. But the problem with something to do for existing players is different - in order for leveling to improve for existing players you have to do a hell of a lot, and you will have more mileage by spending less effort on max-level activities. Adding benthic gear takes way less effort than redoing even a single zone, yet it gives people means to gear alts. They are better off adding 20 things like that than redoing even a single continent, because these 20 things will keep you more engaged than spending a week redoing the revamped continent on a new alt.

So, for new players leveling squish does not matter for one reason, and for existing players it is undesirable for another reason. In my opinion. Which perhaps does not coincide with yours, but it might be useful to spell exactly on which point.

- - - Updated - - -

BTW, one more thing they are doing for new players is modified RAF. They took it off some time ago and said they are planning some changes, we will soon see them. I am not expecting anything groundbreaking, but new players are kind of covered and we see how.

[Wangming]

The level squish will definitely try to appeal to new players in some fashion, whether it just being an optics change because 130 levels seems offputting, or whatever it may be that's more significant. Whether or not that will succeed in bringing in new players is another matter, but as a company there's employees tasked with coming up with new initiatives (guest passes, removing the battle chest, the creation of the community feature and other social tools, bnet launcher game time, 50% off bfa sales, free copy of wow with warcraft movie, recruit a friend program update, level boost with xpac purchase, etc). As long as they keep putting initiatives out then their superiors will be satisfied on that front. I certainly see the leveling squish as one of those initiatives, at least partly, but we'll see how in-depth they decide to go with it.

I do wonder if a level squish will affect the trial version. Currently we can do fuck all 1-20. FFXIV let's you go to 35 out of 80. But if the level is squished to 60 I doubt Blizzard would let us do one third of the leveling completely free of charge. It would definitely make the leveling more rewarding though.

[rda]

I do wonder if a level squish will affect the trial version. Currently we can do fuck all 1-20. FFXIV let's you go to 35 out of 80. But if the level is squished to 60 I doubt Blizzard would let us do one third of the leveling completely free of charge. It would definitely make the leveling more rewarding though.

To be honest, the game is losing players so fast and they are adding shop mounts so often that we are likely moving to a completely free to play option with limitations like single-char per account with limited gold amount / limited bag space / flying speed limited to "not epic" / other limitations which will harm people relatively late after they invest a lot of time to encourage them to spend a bit more and get their comfort.

8.2 spiked for now, but the spike height is about the same as the plateau was for WoD, and it will end soon after the raid is done.

[Hellspawn]

I just don't understand how the squish will improve the game for new players. I am not saying you cannot have your opinion, it's just that you think it will bring new players and from what I understand new players are NOT interested in leveling, they are interested in getting to max-level as fast as possible on their first char, and this is addressed by bundled character boosts.

Well not every player is interested getting max level as fast as possible. Some people just like explore and see their character improve over time and just get themselves familiar at how to play the game and the class. Also there are people who never played an mmo and might not even know about the concept of endgame content.
Also, people will just drop out of your game if they have to endure a leveling experience that is not rewarding and inconsistent.
To be honest, I'm not sure if people that just want endgame and hate leveling make a healthy user base of this game. If you want instant gratification go play Fortnite.

Its also like this: If your leveling experience is bad, no one that is into that will play your game, so you are left with the people that know that your game has a good endgame and are into that.

[TheHodedOne]

I have not played the game since the last patch of Legion, looking at the content right now there is no interest for me to going back, yes the sub-races look kinda good but they are basically just skins. I´m not going to pay 15 bucks just to play a game like this anymore, that system is old and broken, I´ve playing Warframe (which is free and ofters a more reasonable progress system) and recently I tried Guild Wars 2 and it´s really good.

Looking at WoW rigth now it seems to me that is time for a new WoW game, to be honest the game looks and feels very outdated since a couple of expacs in every way.
If the game continues to be in this direction it will be free to play in less than a year.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I have not played the game since the last patch of Legion, looking at the content right now there is no interest for me to going back, yes the sub-races look kinda good but they are basically just skins. I´m not going to pay 15 bucks just to play a game like this anymore, that system is old and broken, I´ve playing Warframe (which is free and ofters a more reasonable progress system) and recently I tried Guild Wars 2 and it´s really good.

Looking at WoW rigth now it seems to me that is time for a new WoW game, to be honest the game looks and feels very outdated since a couple of expacs in every way.
If the game continues to be in this direction it will be free to play in less than a year.

Less then a year...Right.