9.0 General Discussion

[Dracullus]

I'd say Asmongold and Towelliee are rather great at the game tbh. Both of them support what Shadowlands is doing rn, though Asmongold's much more skeptical on it, and rightfully so, considering what we got in BFA..

I know Towellie raids current Mythic, but what exactly Asmongold do to earn this 'great at the game' title? All I see is complaining about game, doing some strange activities in Garrison and watching Bellurar videos. I think Pilav pointed in some old video that Asmon always want "more challenging content", but don't even touch what is in table right now.

Covenant Abilities. But, I'll wait until I actually see wtf they do in Beta.

I can see only two scenarious how this will go.

1) Blizzard REALLY screw up balance on Beta and just gives us way to use other abilities. Imo most elegant solution would be just way to swap covenant inside raid/dungeon/arena/battleground. Something similar to "mercenary mode" in PVP.

2) It will be more or less balanced (~5%). No, it's not like Blizzard always screw balance - for example 7.1.5 Nighthold was pretty well balanced. Of course I don't mean "!00% BALANCED".

Since SL will be less grindy, cutting edge players will make 4x more characters. Heroic/M+15 players pick something with good spells and won't care about covenants after that, but of course there will be "MAGE VENTHYR ONLY" tryhards in group finder. Casuals will enjoy vampire parties.

[FlubberPuddy]

I know Towellie raids current Mythic, but what exactly Asmongold do to earn this 'great at the game' title? All I see is complaining about game, doing some strange activities in Garrison and watching Bellurar videos. I think Pilav pointed in some old video that Asmon always want "more challenging content", but don't even touch what is in table right now.

You do know that before he started streaming in his current state, he was doing the highest level content in the game on par with Sodapoppin and Preach and others?

He just didn't like the state of the game in its current form in BFA so he hasn't cared as much to raid. Even back when he started streaming in the early days around 2-3k viewers he was streaming his mythic legion raid guild attempts.

But to be honest that was something not a lot of the general mass of his viewers would've been interested in. Once he started doing special events like the tmog/mount-offs/achieve-alongs etc and just generally being a great conversationalist his viewership gained tons.

I think one of the first times he had a big viewership jump was when I think one of the legion raids (ToS) or Antorus, or beginning early BFA raids (Uldir/Dazar'alor) right at release he formed a group of randos to take it down on Heroic. It felt like a good viewer event and I remember his viewership jumped up to like 10k around then.

@infinitemeridian is right when he says most of the general playerbase doesn't give a crap about balance. In Legion when pvp was the most balanced it ever was, a lot of players hated that shit (and don't give say it's because the templates sucked, it was still the most balanced pvp there ever was - players just hated it because it wasn't fun that their gear didn't matter).

Also most of Asmon's viewers don't play WoW and watch him for him, and thus since he knows that he does the fun shit in the game that appeals to the majority, not what the top 1-5% are doing. That doesn't mean he doesn't know about what's good for balance at the top end, he's a constant proponent of not locking gameplay abilities behind the covenants.

[Dracullus]

All this blue post info and test server gives me hope for Monday Beta.

You do know that before he started streaming in his current state, he was doing the highest level content in the game on par with Sodapoppin and Preach and others?

He just didn't like the state of the game in its current form in BFA so he hasn't cared as much to raid. Even back when he started streaming in the early days around 2-3k viewers he was streaming his mythic legion raid guild attempts.

I don't bash guy, I just don't think we should call someone "great at at the game" when last time he played something really difficult was like 4-5 years ago. Not to mention that he advocated for Vanilla style "hard leveling" "no lfr" "meaningful rewards"... then proceed to get carried and skip everything that Classic had to offer. So it's not like he seeks challenge.

[huth]

a heroic raider

Is part of a small minority of players and does not contradict the claim being made. That's kinda the point being made. Most people aren't heroic+ raiders or equivalent M+/PvP players.

[huth]

another person who is not capable of reading

Yes. You.

Heroic raiders aren't "most players". All high-end players combined aren't "most players". Most players don't care, and most players weren't one-shotting Emerald Nightmare.

You're the dishonest one in this discussion.

[FlubberPuddy]

I don't bash guy, I just don't think we should call someone "great at at the game" when last time he played something really difficult was like 4-5 years ago. Not to mention that he advocated for Vanilla style "hard leveling" "no lfr" "meaningful rewards"... then proceed to get carried and skip everything that Classic had to offer. So it's not like he seeks challenge.

Vanilla style "hard leveling" also didn't involve getting constant ganks by people who knew your location because of streaming (saying don't stream it then would be a dumb argument), something all streamers came to regret when they decided to roll on pvp servers and which eventually killed most of the scene for Classic WoW as not many stream it now due to that earlier behavior.

[Chickat]

What would you want it to be then? Seems to me that a slight improvement on the 8.3 system is the ideal. Yes it is similar to WoD dailies, but they had other problems than it being a simple bar to fill, and the 8.3 assaults had more to do than just killing stuff mindlessly.

Honestly, emissaries never made much sense anyways, and always ended up where you picked the 4 easiest ones, usually the ones to kill a rare.

Honestly Idk. Maybe my hatred of 8.3 is souring the idea of world quests like 8.3. We probably dont have a complete picture yet, because it said you could do dailys too which i do love. I think what im most worried about is that you will only get to go to that one zone a day and then there will be no other world content to do. In Legion and BFA you could do the emmisary but also had dozens of other world quests you could do in the other zones. We need more info.

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I do hope that gear acquisition is more 8.2 and less 8.3. I dont like getting a random piece of unforgettable gear. I want to be able to reliably do content for a currency and buy gear. Catch up gear that is.

[gunner_recall]

WoW's like an Anime now with all the Power Level talk. Our characters are basically gods now too. I mean, we've killed a world-destroying dragon, the damn Lich King, an Old God (wait no, several Old Gods), stopped the Legion and now we're going to the Afterlife to defeat WoW's version of the the Devil lol

Can my characters have a Stand now too if it is? /s

This isn't even my final form

[Valysar]

"Beta" is up for me, it's been updated it seems, I can test the Venthyr covenants

[Edward Wu]

Anyone who wants a reset to Vanilla-style threat levels and questing should probably stop hoping now after that "anything short of Titan power level isn't a threat anymore" comment. Like fucking yikes. Our characters are now DBZ level?

[Raetary]

"Beta" is up for me, it's been updated it seems, I can test the Venthyr covenants

I thought beta doesn't start until next week?

[MadamSerenity]

I thought beta doesn't start until next week?

He is meaning that the build on the private event server is now on Alpha.

[Chickat]

Last resort = patch 9.3.

Give them some credit. 9.1.5 for sure.

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Its more probable that people just like to hate on Blizzard, thats just how MMO-Champion works regardless of what Blizz said about villains needing to be Titanesque powerful. People want "stakes" as in something notable to be worth paying attention. While I'm more flexible, the community seems to be more stingy.

Yeah, I'm fine with end bosses being as powerful as Azshara/Kiljaeden/Lich King/Thunder King. Those seem like threats that we can deal with on our own without outside help. No titans/keepers/dragons to help us. Just us and our weapons. IM also fine with the way we killed Nzoth overall. I think the reason most people were unhappy is because it was so sudden. If he had been built up like Arthas in his own expansion it would have been much more satisfying.

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WoW's like an Anime now with all the Power Level talk. Our characters are basically gods now too. I mean, we've killed a world-destroying dragon, the damn Lich King, an Old God (wait no, several Old Gods), stopped the Legion and now we're going to the Afterlife to defeat WoW's version of the the Devil lol

Can my characters have a Stand now too if it is? /s

Kinda feels like our characters are Lich King tier alone now. When we kill Nzoth we have the heart, some stong characters and an army of Lich Kings to take him down.

[Yarathir]

I need to ask.

Has anybody asked Blizzard whether they ever intend to implement names with apostrophes (for Trolls, Draenei, etc.) and surnames into the game yet? If even just on RP servers exclusively?

[Makabreska]

Power levels is something that can't be really explained lore/story wise. We can't explain how after defeating Argus we struggled with a pirate on a giant parrot that shits on us, or how we still keep falling under fear/MC mechanics.

[LemonDemonGirl]

I need to ask.

Has anybody asked Blizzard whether they ever intend to implement names with apostrophes (for Trolls, Draenei, etc.) and surnames into the game yet? If even just on RP servers exclusively?

I don't think so, haven't see anything on the forums for it yet.
Last names would be good too

[Yarathir]

I don't think so, haven't see anything on the forums for it yet.
Last names would be good too

Hmh! It seems like one of those things Blizzard would consider if somebody just asked them straight up/directly, but nobody ever considers it.

[Sondrelk]

Power levels is something that can't be really explained lore/story wise. We can't explain how after defeating Argus we struggled with a pirate on a giant parrot that shits on us, or how we still keep falling under fear/MC mechanics.

Sure it can. When we fought Argus we were empowered with a strengthened artifact, as well as being empowered by the entire pantheon.
When we fought the single parrot we didn't really have much more than regular weapons, and were also not really empowered in any way.

All that is required to lower the threat level is depowering us after a final boss and then not reintroduce a powerful artifact that we are empowered by.

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Hmh! It seems like one of those things Blizzard would consider if somebody just asked them straight up/directly, but nobody ever considers it.

Last names is difficult because Total RP already has that functionality for those who want it, and adding it might be more hassle than it is worth, especially when you consider all the players who are used to just a single name, or more likely nickname. Going from that to a name and last name might be a bit jarring.

[Makabreska]

Sure it can. When we fought Argus we were empowered with a strengthened artifact, as well as being empowered by the entire pantheon.
When we fought the single parrot we didn't really have much more than regular weapons, and were also not really empowered in any way.

All that is required to lower the threat level is depowering us after a final boss and then not reintroduce a powerful artifact that we are empowered by.

And yet we killed the rest of the BL's most powerful w/o Pantheon. In BfA we had Heart, and throughout most of WoW history we didn't rely on some powerful artifact or outside help until final boss.

[Atticon]

There's a part of me that thinks Blizzard is actively trying to break WoW's hardcore community and the theorycrafting/min-maxing mindset with Shadowlands' systems design.
Makes me wonder what the raid tuning is going to be like: tuning everything so hard that the top 1% have no choice but to fully commit and jump through all those hoops presented to them, or tune them so low that it ultimately doesn't even matter anymore.