9.0 General Discussion

[HailArthas]

This is better than Christmas.

[Sondrelk]

It just seems like that when we see how feature-less or badly received all of them were (Cataclysm, WoD, BfA).

To me it always seemed like Blizzard experiments too much and tries to be ambitious, then they pander to Nostalgia with the expansion after.

Just as good an explanation as any i would say.

[Exhuman]

We are 10 months away from 9.0 right?

[Niwes]

They don’t have to have the same background. It’s a class that has four forms and abilities it can use to change between them regardless of spec. Reflavor bear and cat as shredder, give each available race its own look, etc.

holy shit i need that dope that you smoked

[Wildmoon]

The thing is Blizzard needs to stop prioritizing xpac's gimmicks instead of enhancing core features that will last.

[Eurhetemec]

4th spec or class skins is not totally baseless. We datamined a 4th weapon for Death Knights which could lead to a 4th spec for them. Thats the biggest reason why for this speculation.

Ahhhh that is interesting. 4th specs would be both cool and fucking pain-in-the-arse for Blizzard to manage.

Why are class skins not baseless?

[Nyel]

We are 10 months away from 9.0 right?

Most likely, yes. August - November seems like a plausible release window.

[Shadochi]

I think Legion had such a better system for a lot of stuff, BFA just feels like Legion lite, but just a tad worse.

Hey now, let's not forget the fact that Legion had way more RNG and actual timegating (wait next reset for next story chapter... to bring Khadgar nethershards) than BfA.

[Zexaniro]

Guys, what races do you think will be able to be Tinker??.

all of them, they'll be as available as monks were

[Nyel]

Didn’t we get the trademark in 2017 at this time already? Or maybe it really isn’t Shadowlands and we haven’t found the right one yet?

[Tanthalason]

Anyone who expects Diablo 4 in 2020 - adjust your expectations.

From D3 announcement to launch it took 4 years.

If they’d release Diablo 4 in 2020 they would have announced it last Blizzcon.

The earliest release date for D4 is 2021.

It was rumored they were going to announce it last year then pulled the plug for some reason.

[Sondrelk]

I feel like they make one great expansion and they know it was great. They try to expand on it, the systems they expand upon becomes stale and boring really fast so for the next expansion they will do something new. Just look at MoP, it had some instanced gardening daily hub thing going on and in WoD they made it a Garrison, that broke the game. For BFA they kept the idea of progressing an item for class benefits, m+, wqs etc. And many people are bored to death of basically playing a version of Legion that is worse. And now i assume they are going to do something drastically different, and perhaps in 2 years time, they announce something based on that again... Rinse repeat.

I would almost argue the opposite. The expansion that are considered bad are hte ones with the most revolutionary systems.

Cata had the world revamp, a massive undertaking.
WoD had the garrisons, a massive undertaking and risk.
BfA had island expeditions and Warfronts, 2 completely new versions of instanced content.

All 3 have in common that their amazing new features did not pan out well possibly because they became too ambitious, after which they scale it back, focus on core systems and/or pander to nostalgia.

[Tanthalason]

9.0 will likely hit a few weeks to a month before expac launches. But I digress lol.

[Kumorii]

I feel like they make one great expansion and they know it was great. They try to expand on it, the systems they expand upon becomes stale and boring really fast so for the next expansion they will do something new. Just look at MoP, it had some instanced gardening daily hub thing going on and in WoD they made it a Garrison, that broke the game. For BFA they kept the idea of progressing an item for class benefits, m+, wqs etc. And many people are bored to death of basically playing a version of Legion that is worse. And now i assume they are going to do something drastically different, and perhaps in 2 years time, they announce something based on that again... Rinse repeat.

That coupled with if an expansion gets received badly the next one will look better than it in contrast even if the difference ain't huge. Since that expansion will be received better the next after that will have bigger shoes to fill and surpass to not be seen as mediocre or bad, etc etc.

[Eurhetemec]

The thing is Blizzard needs to stop prioritizing xpac's gimmicks instead of enhancing core features that will last.

I have to admit I definitely agree here. I think the biggest issue I've had with the last three expansions, all of which had their charm (albeit WoD didn't have very much), was the intense focus on a gimmick which was cool that expansion and literally forgotten the next. I know it's hard for Blizzard to come up with permanent stuff, but I do think they need to accept that this is a hard thing but a necessary one and move away from the gimmicks - I mean, they can still have them, but we need for than that.

[Ragnarocket]

I think some of this talk about the Legion system and then immediately swapping to the BfA system is legit. Honestly by the time Legion was done a lot of the issues that people had with the Legendary system and talents had sort of been figured out. The biggest problem is Blizzard deciding literally EVERY expansion that they need a completely new system.

I know bringing up FF14 is a sticky subject but really that game just works on refining the classes every expansion. With Stormblood each class got a unique resource system added that admittedly was clunky at first (as a Paladin main I used Oath Gauge on like...one thing) but they've refined in with Shadowbringers instead of just getting rid of it. Now my Dark Knight (not playing Paladin this year) feels quite good in terms of using his Blood resources effectively and balancing my MP costs and my Blood Gauge is a fun little minigame.

Blizzard needs to just figure out something that works and refine it. Stop trying to come up with the newest, shiniest thing each expansion that gets rid of all the learning from the previous expansion.

- - - Updated - - -

I have to admit I definitely agree here. I think the biggest issue I've had with the last three expansions, all of which had their charm (albeit WoD didn't have very much), was the intense focus on a gimmick which was cool that expansion and literally forgotten the next. I know it's hard for Blizzard to come up with permanent stuff, but I do think they need to accept that this is a hard thing but a necessary one and move away from the gimmicks - I mean, they can still have them, but we need for than that.

Exactly this.

[Zexaniro]

um, class halls and legendary weapons were more 'revolutionary' to gameplay than island expeditions and warfronts lol

[Nyel]

It was rumored they were going to announce it last year then pulled the plug for some reason.

Yeah which basically proves my point. No Diablo 4 in 2020.

[Edlarel]

Guys, what races do you think will be able to be Tinker??.

I could see available races being: goblin, gnome, draenei, orc, dwarf, blood elf, maghar, and dark iron. If anything, take away orc and dark iron, using maghar opposite draenei (assuming factions remain).

[Shadochi]

The RNG factor of Legion was gone in the first tier for players where it actually mattered, 7.2 was timegated though and that was a shame, but 7.2 also gave us the mage tower and class mounts so it's forgiven

7.1 story was also timegated. And the base suramar story was "timegated" (repgated) in the same way people claimed Nazjatar was timegated.

And I don't know who the players that actually mater are, but I remember a lot of talk about people just leveling a new character of the same class because all their legendaries with bad luck prot were shit. It wasn't until the 7.2 RNG vendor that targeting legendaries became a bit easier, and then later you could buy a legendary