Shadowlands has major problems up ahead

[PaladinBash]

Nice analysis. Nobody cares about your opinion.

Indeed.

"I'm just a casual" then talks about sims, 'how bad Covenant choices are' and other nonsense only try-hards talk about. Uh huh.

[CalamityHeart]

I am okay with player power being reduced because corrouptions is borrowed power. I am not okay with BlizZard going on the PTR and boosting everyones damage via scaling for old legacy content like what happened recently.

If you need scaling tech to cover up that classes and levels don't mean anything that is a big problem for a MMORPG like WoW. Power in WoW used to come from gear itself, levels and classes. Taking away power from classes and the whole point of having a leveling system is why scaling is anti MMORPG in design principles.

...What? Am I missing something here? Scaling everyone's damage in legacy content is exactly how it worked before and how it should be working come Shadowlands as well. I thought your problem earlier with this issue was that the bad scaling made legacy bosses too difficult. Do you want legacy bosses to be difficult? I don't. Old content is meaningless except for the gold and tmog, and should stay meaningless and stupidly simple and fast to clear.

So far there are many issues with the PTR that have yet to be addressed and we are looking at prepatch releasing soon. Biggest one being the changes to mount equipment. I want to believe that legacy loot is just disabled on the PTR but I have seen many "stealth" nerfs making to the live client many times before. A good example is the removal of portals.

The removal of portals was bullshit. But that was just a reduction in the quality of life, and not really a huge one. I'd have liked if the Pandaria portal went directly to the Vale and not the Jade Forest, and there are a few instances during Legion where the Dalaran basement portals that should temporarily open to take you closer to your Artifiact and class hall objectives, don't open, leading to a much longer journey than it should be. But those are my only qualms about portals, really. Legacy loot is a bigger deal than a couple of loading screens. I simply cannot imagine that Blizzard will just handwave this without a word. That's my stance, plain and simple. I'm just gonna wait.

AoE cap is pretty big deal and in fact will be a factor when it comes to which covenant people choose. Unless a covenant offers amazing single target potential the AoE cap is going to drive a lot of game play decisions in WoW once it is in place. I can't stress enough how game changing the hard AoE cap will be and it will go down like a lead balloon like the GCD changes of BFA. The GCD changes of BFA are still so bad they are still trying to undo the damage it has done with classes in this new beta when it was forced into the previous beta with little thought regarding class design. The new AoE hard cap like the GCD have been forced in without thinking about class design, the future content and older legacy content. Just because they have a vision for the game doesn't mean they can give up their responsibility to fix the game once they break it.

Just for posterity, I went and looked up how this hard AoE cap was going to affect my main spec, Demonology. It doesn't. Not so much as it applies to how I build demo, that is. Only one ability, a talent, is getting hard-capped for my spec. As for covenant abilities with AoE mechanics, only six, counting Soul Rot, which has a mechanic that turns a single-target ability temporarily into a multi-target ability, have target caps. The rest are either soft-capped at 20, the standard AoE cap that has existed for a while, or are uncapped.

So, yeah, I still super do not give a fuck about what this'll do to legacy content for me. And I guess I don't give a fuck about it as it pertains to relevant content, either. Lucky me. But still, even for classes that have some abilities hard-capped at five, it's basically a numbers change. A nerf. It's putting a tighter lid on the maximum amount of damage that players can do to huge globs of enemies with certain abilities, which for some specs was SIGNIFICANTLY needed. It's making massive mob pulls challenging and risky in group situations, instead of something you just do because there's literally no reason not to. It'll potentially change how groups go about doing those bigger pulls, but conceptually, it doesn't directly shake up how players play their class, like the GCD changes did.

Outside of dungeons, raids, and legacy content, when I'm out on my own, I am not typically fighting more than five things at a time anyway.

As the old WoW design showed there is a way to make borrowed power and character growth work which is pruning every other expansion not pruning hard in less than two years time. What is WoW building towards for character growth? Character growth has stopped with WoD and the story hasn't really progressed that much either. A MMORPG where the story doesn't really progress and character growth doesn't progress starts to stop being called a MMORPG.. What is this monstrosity they are trying to twist WoW into?

This is a lot of words to say basically nothing. I've already given my opinion on what WoW has become in terms of character growth. A process where I consider my character on an expansion-by-expansion basis based on the systems of that expansion. I'm fine with that. Others aren't. I think the only thing we can do here is agree to disagree. How you feel about the story is more of a you problem. Wasn't a fan of BFA. But I still feel like the story's moving, even if it hasn't always moved in a way I liked.

Zone design is very, very bad for the upcoming expansion. Not only is the terrain seen content by the current devs but the lack of flight paths in bastion alone is a big red flag. And bastion is the intro experience for all players into the new expansion. If that is the first impression for many players it will leave a great bitterness toward the entire expansion. I am calling this right now because it is clear as day that without any flight whistles this may be a very, very worse experience than most people realize. And yes the zones are tiny but I guess people will have to try it out themselves!

I cannot have an opinion on this until I actually experience the zones. I don't see why they wouldn't end up giving us a flight whistle, though.

I don't need people to jump on the doom and gloom train. Like Battle for Abilities it took one month in for people to realize what that expansion was about. This expansion? Much sooner than one month because at level cap the content is basically M+, raiding or PVP. For players that enjoy those aspects that is a good thing that less chores are required in the new expansion. But for players that liked questing they are going to be sorely disappointed because it is going to resemble a lot more of WoD end game design. Not necessarily raid or die but pretty close to it.

I don't know much about world questing, but I have heard that it's different from previous iterations. Closer to Legion invasion larger quest chains, rather than a peppering of little vignettes across the zones like BFA and regular Legion world quests. Color me interested, regardless. I still need to see for myself how it works out and how I'll feel about it.

[Tesshin83]

Based on beta feedback it can be saved though if they pull the rip cord IMVHO.

They can save covenants and the expansion if they just listen to players.

Players want the permanent choice and the current vision of covenants. Stop assuming what you and your favorite youtuber is what every body else.

- - - Updated - - -

Same scriptet opinion following what the mmo-c trend currently is I see.

There will be scaling issues because the overhaul is so massive.

And no, they should keep the covenant system as it is currently. The community has been asking for hard choices for years.

Borrowed power has existed since vanilla and its the better option of adding more and more talents and abilities just to get it pruned later.

[Nachtigal]

Oh hey nobody has ever done the whole, "Nobody cares about your opinion," bit ever in history. You truly are an original spirit. I tip my fedora to you, good sir!

Well I certainly hope you don’t think you’re original with whatever the hell that was...

I gave a compliment to the op on their analysis in good faith, the rest can be taken with a grain of salt. What’s amusing to me is how triggered the few of you have been over this. I mean really, just let it go lmao.

[Davaca]

Stop assuming what you and your favorite youtuber is what every body else.

I mean, just watching the amount of upvotes some of those videos have you can see it's not a minority either. Maybe they don't represent "everybody", but they sure represent A LOT of people.

[A Chozo]

I mean, just watching the amount of upvotes some of those videos have you can see it's not a minority either. Maybe they don't represent "everybody", but they sure represent A LOT of people.

It isn't a lot, and upvotes =/= completely sharing an opinion. That's no way in hell to gauge a population.

Hell, Preach's interview with Ion had like 30 000 viewers at one point. Assuming that 20 000 of those dislike Covenants, it's still a drop in the sea of WoW's population. If every single one of those players unsubbed it wouldn't make a dent, and that small chip could be compensated by a equally hypothetical amount of players who will stay subbed / playing thanks to the design direction.

[Davaca]

It isn't a lot, and upvotes =/= completely sharing an opinion. That's no way in hell to gauge a population.

Hell, Preach's interview with Ion had like 30 000 viewers at one point. Assuming that 20 000 of those dislike Covenants, it's still a drop in the sea of WoW's population. If every single one of those players unsubbed it wouldn't make a dent, and that small chip could be compensated by a equally hypothetical amount of players who will stay subbed / playing thanks to the design direction.

I'm not saying that an upvote = support on a 1:1 basis. But when someone is voicing their opinion and get thousands of people liking it, you can easily infer that at least a lot of people is behind that idea. There's no way of precisely measuring exactly how many people like or dislike how Covenants work, but Youtubers DO represent A LOT of people, even if we can't get exact numbers.

Your second argument is irrelevant. The fact that one aspect of the game is considered horrible by someone, doesn't mean that person will just unsubscribe. It will just make the general experience of the game worse for that person. And maybe in the worst cases they'll unsubscribe.

We can voice our criticism towards one element of bad game design without people like you assuming we are trashing the whole game.

[Biggles Worth]

Despite all the glaring problems, this expansion looks very bland.

[Mafic]

...What? Am I missing something here? Scaling everyone's damage in legacy content is exactly how it worked before and how it should be working come Shadowlands as well. I thought your problem earlier with this issue was that the bad scaling made legacy bosses too difficult. Do you want legacy bosses to be difficult? I don't. Old content is meaningless except for the gold and tmog, and should stay meaningless and stupidly simple and fast to clear.




The removal of portals was bullshit. But that was just a reduction in the quality of life, and not really a huge one. I'd have liked if the Pandaria portal went directly to the Vale and not the Jade Forest, and there are a few instances during Legion where the Dalaran basement portals that should temporarily open to take you closer to your Artifiact and class hall objectives, don't open, leading to a much longer journey than it should be. But those are my only qualms about portals, really. Legacy loot is a bigger deal than a couple of loading screens. I simply cannot imagine that Blizzard will just handwave this without a word. That's my stance, plain and simple. I'm just gonna wait.



Just for posterity, I went and looked up how this hard AoE cap was going to affect my main spec, Demonology. It doesn't. Not so much as it applies to how I build demo, that is. Only one ability, a talent, is getting hard-capped for my spec. As for covenant abilities with AoE mechanics, only six, counting Soul Rot, which has a mechanic that turns a single-target ability temporarily into a multi-target ability, have target caps. The rest are either soft-capped at 20, the standard AoE cap that has existed for a while, or are uncapped.

So, yeah, I still super do not give a fuck about what this'll do to legacy content for me. And I guess I don't give a fuck about it as it pertains to relevant content, either. Lucky me. But still, even for classes that have some abilities hard-capped at five, it's basically a numbers change. A nerf. It's putting a tighter lid on the maximum amount of damage that players can do to huge globs of enemies with certain abilities, which for some specs was SIGNIFICANTLY needed. It's making massive mob pulls challenging and risky in group situations, instead of something you just do because there's literally no reason not to. It'll potentially change how groups go about doing those bigger pulls, but conceptually, it doesn't directly shake up how players play their class, like the GCD changes did.

Outside of dungeons, raids, and legacy content, when I'm out on my own, I am not typically fighting more than five things at a time anyway.



This is a lot of words to say basically nothing. I've already given my opinion on what WoW has become in terms of character growth. A process where I consider my character on an expansion-by-expansion basis based on the systems of that expansion. I'm fine with that. Others aren't. I think the only thing we can do here is agree to disagree. How you feel about the story is more of a you problem. Wasn't a fan of BFA. But I still feel like the story's moving, even if it hasn't always moved in a way I liked.




I cannot have an opinion on this until I actually experience the zones. I don't see why they wouldn't end up giving us a flight whistle, though.



I don't know much about world questing, but I have heard that it's different from previous iterations. Closer to Legion invasion larger quest chains, rather than a peppering of little vignettes across the zones like BFA and regular Legion world quests. Color me interested, regardless. I still need to see for myself how it works out and how I'll feel about it.

Actually I don't want scaling at all. But if they are going to do scaling they should do it correctly and not forced in a lazy manner. There is no need for scaling when there are levels and gear ilevels in a MMORPG like WoW. Scaling is just hiding that character growth is being lost and not gained with levels. So to answer your question yes I want the scaling gone completely. Right now it isn't fast to clear old content because of AoE hard cap and inconsistent scaling. Even in the instances where you are doing more damage due to scaling the damage of NPCs is off as they hit hard which defies the idea of older content being easier due to scaling. It simply isn't and frankly they botched the last scaling of older content in patch 7.3.5.

The portal removal was huge for players doing old content because it really took away a central hub and requires extra steps now to reach your destination. Quality of life features end up having massive ramifications if the void is not filled properly. As we will see in the upcoming expansion as an example where there is a possibility of no flight whistles. No flight whistles and gated flying under an unknown time table is not a good combo and another huge QoL features. I would argue flying is mandatory with the way the current zones are designed.

As for legacy loot...well I would like to think it works but time is running out. Sure, they can flip a switch and all is well but why not flip the switch on the PTR for testing? If legacy loot is bugged then it needs to be tested and the gear that is being squished needs to be also tested to make sure the stat allocations are correct, gold values are correct, etc. Can't test it on the live client...well maybe that is exactly what is going to happen but that is not good.

AoE hard cap doesn't make pulls challenging based on systemlands beta. Actually it makes it worse because now less classes are able to perform as a result of the AoE hard cap. As for AoE hard cap in legacy content it is very noticeable if you are surrounded by swarms of NPCs and is simply broken while shattering the immersion factor of playing a MMORPG. You will see it in action for yourself once it hits live servers but it is way worse than GCD changes of BFA.

This isn't diminishing returns of AoE but literally hard capping AoE in general and frankly slowing down the game when GCD already accomplishes this is not good. When Final Fantasy has faster and smoother combat despite having a GCD then that to me indicates WoW is going in the wrong direction.

There is no such thing as expansion to expansion character growth in a MMORPG if it is removed at the end of the expansion. That is the polar opposite of MMORPG character growth. When your levels don't mean anything due to scaling that is anti MMORPG. When the abilities you have been using for two years are erased that is anti MMORPG. When you haven't gained a baseline talent or ability since WoD and MoP era that isn't character growth. That is maintenance mode and spinning your wheels.

Gear even though is considered borrowed power still has value beyond the expansion that the gear comes from. Gear is used by those leveling through older content, used by professions (eg enchanting), used to help bridge the gap into the new expansion.

When corruption is deleted and essences are not allowed into systemlands that is a problematic. With BFA they at least allowed legendaries to be used for BFA levelin but the loss of power as you leveled in BFA was still noticeable. They can squish levels all they want but as long as scaling exists and borrowed power being a huge chunk of player power the game will continue to suffer.

And the world quest system in the upcoming expansion is like chore like but tedious and time consuming as a result. It reminds me of WoD dailies in that they were time consuming but not really rewarding.

- - - Updated - - -

Players want the permanent choice and the current vision of covenants. Stop assuming what you and your favorite youtuber is what every body else.

- - - Updated - - -

Same scriptet opinion following what the mmo-c trend currently is I see.

There will be scaling issues because the overhaul is so massive.

And no, they should keep the covenant system as it is currently. The community has been asking for hard choices for years.

Borrowed power has existed since vanilla and its the better option of adding more and more talents and abilities just to get it pruned later.

The player base was talking about changes to covenants before youtubers started piggy backing on the idea of pulling the ripcord. Sometimes the players are ahead of the curve compared to youtubers. Plus youtubers that cover WoW will put out videos that contradict their views of an expansion in a short time period. A good example of this is when most youtubers were not saying good things about BFA. However, within one month of launch of BFA these same youtubers were hyping up warfronts LMAO.

As for scaling it is a cancer in WoW and doesn't belong in a MMORPG. Yes it is a massive undertaking but BlizZard is responsible for fixing the game once they break it because they have a desire to squish levels. Squished levels are not going to attract new players like most people think because endgame of the upcoming expansion is a victim of massive systems bloat that will overwhelm even veteran WoW players IMVHO.

Covenants don't force a hard choice like races or class selections and frankly a rental borrowed power can never force a hard choice which I find laughable to be honest.

[ClassicPeon]

I'm not saying that an upvote = support on a 1:1 basis. But when someone is voicing their opinion and get thousands of people liking it, you can easily infer that at least a lot of people is behind that idea. There's no way of precisely measuring exactly how many people like or dislike how Covenants work, but Youtubers DO represent A LOT of people, even if we can't get exact numbers.

Your second argument is irrelevant. The fact that one aspect of the game is considered horrible by someone, doesn't mean that person will just unsubscribe. It will just make the general experience of the game worse for that person. And maybe in the worst cases they'll unsubscribe.

We can voice our criticism towards one element of bad game design without people like you assuming we are trashing the whole game.

THe problem with infering stuff out of these things is that the community is devided into segments who do different things. There is a possibility that the youtube/twitch segment just overwhelmingly dislike covenants. Or that their opinion is slightly sqewed against covenants because their favorite streamer tells them its bad.

[kaminaris]

THe problem with infering stuff out of these things is that the community is devided into segments who do different things. There is a possibility that the youtube/twitch segment just overwhelmingly dislike covenants. Or that their opinion is slightly sqewed against covenants because their favorite streamer tells them its bad.

One thing is that people liking videos not necessairly means they dislike covenants.
Second thing is some portion of those are sheeps.
Third vast majority of wow players dont watch wow related videos, dont watch wow streamers and dont go to forums.

[The Cheat]

Well I certainly hope you don’t think you’re original with whatever the hell that was...

I gave a compliment to the op on their analysis in good faith, the rest can be taken with a grain of salt. What’s amusing to me is how triggered the few of you have been over this. I mean really, just let it go lmao.

To be fair, if your compliment was meant to be in good faith then it didn't come across that way. Since the sentences ran back-to-back it read to me as "cool story bro, no one cares". /shrug

[CalamityHeart]

Actually I don't want scaling at all. But if they are going to do scaling they should do it correctly and not forced in a lazy manner. There is no need for scaling when there are levels and gear ilevels in a MMORPG like WoW. Scaling is just hiding that character growth is being lost and not gained with levels. So to answer your question yes I want the scaling gone completely. Right now it isn't fast to clear old content because of AoE hard cap and inconsistent scaling. Even in the instances where you are doing more damage due to scaling the damage of NPCs is off as they hit hard which defies the idea of older content being easier due to scaling. It simply isn't and frankly they botched the last scaling of older content in patch 7.3.5.

So I was missing something. I'm talking about player numbers being scaled significantly higher than old world content once they've significantly outleveled it. So an ability that does 60k damage in BFA instead does closer to 3 million damage when you're in WoD content and below. That's what I thought you were talking about when you were saying stuff about legacy bosses. Now it sounds like you're just talking about the leveling experience, which is not necessarily legacy, as current content also scales. I'm also fine with that kind of scaling, because ultimately, while it sacrifices some of the "fun" of suddenly being much stronger than everything around you after a certain point, in doing so, it makes experiencing the story of the zones while leveling a smoother experience. Now that everything remains roughly the same strength as you while you're doing old content, you no longer run into the issue of having to suddenly stop what you're doing in one zone because it's greyed out on experience and find some way to navigate your way across the continent to clumsily plop yourself into the story of another zone, at least not until you have to move expansions, which is an issue that's also getting resolved come Shadowlands with Chromie Time. I'm fine with the concept of world scaling. If there are instances of bad scaling, I'll file a report on it when I see it. But I've leveled over 12 characters to 120, and I can count on one hand the number of times that scaling issues with monsters in the world have ever inhibited me from leveling smoothly.

The portal removal was huge for players doing old content because it really took away a central hub and requires extra steps now to reach your destination. Quality of life features end up having massive ramifications if the void is not filled properly. As we will see in the upcoming expansion as an example where there is a possibility of no flight whistles. No flight whistles and gated flying under an unknown time table is not a good combo and another huge QoL features. I would argue flying is mandatory with the way the current zones are designed.

You're exaggerating. There aren't that many extra steps. All it did was make it so that instead of every major city being a broken and limited, but still expansive central hub to other expansion worlds, it slimmed it down so that Stormwind is the central hub to everywhere else, and the only expansion that's afforded more options in portaling is the most current one. Instead of having the option to get to WotLK Dalaran through either Pandaria or Stormwind, now you must go through Stormwind. Exodar? Either Stormwind or Boralus (I think -- it might just be Boralus, actually.) The only "massive ramifications" to the removal of portals, besides the ones that I've already acknowledged, is at most an extra loading screen in most cases. I reiterate: the removal of portals was bullshit. But it wasn't the end of the world. There were no massive ramifications. You're making a mountain out of an admittedly shitty molehill.

No flight whistles in Shadowlands would be weird, though. Especially with what I'm reading about certain world quests. Even if the zones were compact and navigable, which I'm hearing they might not be, it doesn't quite make sense for there not to be one. I'm still not worried about flying. Pattern holds, we'll have the actual achievement to unlock flying in 9.2. So it's not worth worrying about until then, as far as I'm concerned.

As for legacy loot...well I would like to think it works but time is running out. Sure, they can flip a switch and all is well but why not flip the switch on the PTR for testing? If legacy loot is bugged then it needs to be tested and the gear that is being squished needs to be also tested to make sure the stat allocations are correct, gold values are correct, etc. Can't test it on the live client...well maybe that is exactly what is going to happen but that is not good.

This is the last time I'm quoting anything involving this topic. I'm not doing this panic dance on legacy loot rules and whether or not they should/shouldn't be enabled on the PTR/Beta and why. I'm just going to wait and see.

AoE hard cap doesn't make pulls challenging based on systemlands beta. Actually it makes it worse because now less classes are able to perform as a result of the AoE hard cap.

Yep. That's the idea, my dude. Chain-pulling an army of mobs for zero downside in current content is no longer an attractive option. Classes and specs who relished in that explosive AoE potential and trivialized trash pull encounters that should have realistically been more difficult to manage? Cut down to size, unable to perform as explosively as they used to. That's the point. There's no "They think they're doing this, but what they're actually doing is this!" Several AoE abilities are getting nerfed in Shadowlands. It's that simple.

As for AoE hard cap in legacy content it is very noticeable if you are surrounded by swarms of NPCs and is simply broken while shattering the immersion factor of playing a MMORPG. You will see it in action for yourself once it hits live servers but it is way worse than GCD changes of BFA.

Here's a fun fact: did you know that even after these AoE changes go live, almost every single spec in the game will have access to at least one uncapped or soft-capped AoE attack through just their baseline abilities or talents? So do you want to know what you can do in legacy raids when you're surrounded by a giant swarm of mobs and a couple of your abilities are hard-capped? You can use one of your other abilities that's not hard-capped. That's what I'm gonna do during the few times that I'm surrounded by a million enemies in old raids. Those soft-capped abilities will probably be generally weak and not useful in current content, necessarily. But in old raids, when they're scaled to fuck-you numbers? I think they'll do the job.

I think it might be nice, though, if AoE abilities in general were uncapped in legacy content. That might be something worth suggesting or asking Blizzard about if you're one of the few specs that don't have access to an uncapped ability. But even in that case, another option is to just, uh... not surround yourself with every mob in the instance? If you run around blasting a pack at a time, it'll hardly make any difference, and if you're worried about stopping every few seconds to loot, don't. Everything of use will just go to your mailbox anyway, so you don't need to worry about it if you don't want to.

There is no such thing as expansion to expansion character growth in a MMORPG if it is removed at the end of the expansion.

Sure there is. It's simple. You start growing at the start of an expansion. You stop growing at the end of one. When the next expansion begins, all the growth from last expansion is behind you, systems and all. And you start over, thinking about your growth from the start of the new expansion again, with the new systems. It's a series of hills and cliffs, instead of a steady incline or a flat plateau. I'm fine with that. You're not. We are not going to agree on this. And so this, as well, is the last time I'm quoting you on this particular topic of borrowed power.

[Tylanthia]

You're exaggerating. There aren't that many extra steps. All it did was make it so that instead of every major city being a broken and limited, but still expansive central hub to other expansion worlds, it slimmed it down so that Stormwind is the central hub to everywhere else, and the only expansion that's afforded more options in portaling is the most current one. Instead of having the option to get to WotLK Dalaran through either Pandaria or Stormwind, now you must go through Stormwind. Exodar? Either Stormwind or Boralus (I think -- it might just be Boralus, actually.) The only "massive ramifications" to the removal of portals, besides the ones that I've already acknowledged, is at most an extra loading screen in most cases. I reiterate: the removal of portals was bullshit. But it wasn't the end of the world. There were no massive ramifications. You're making a mountain out of an admittedly shitty molehill.

I guess I don't see why players can't pick their favorite home city and make a base there. Why does everyone have to be clustered in org or Stormwind? Other mmos, like ff14, allow you to go to w/e city you want for stuff and it's fine--the world still feels populated. I never liked Orgrimmar as a city and I'd much rather be based in Silvermoon, Dalaran, or Shrine, but I don't have that option. I put removing the portals as a "no fun allowed" change. And unlike most changes it doesn't even have anything to do with high end balance (like the potion changes in Shadowlands). It just makes traveling more tedious.

On a side note, loading screens can be a major issue. Not everyone has the best PC and I know for me sometimes they can take several minutes to load (especially Dalaran's and Org's for me).

[CalamityHeart]

I guess I don't see why players can't pick their favorite home city and make a base there. Why does everyone have to be clustered in org or Stormwind? Other mmos, like ff14, allow you to go to w/e city you want for stuff and it's fine--the world still feels populated. I never liked Orgrimmar as a city and I'd much rather be based in Silvermoon, Dalaran, or Shrine, but I don't have that option. I put removing the portals as a "no fun allowed" change. And unlike most changes it doesn't even have anything to do with high end balance (like the potion changes in Shadowlands). It just makes traveling more tedious.

On a side note, loading screens can be a major issue. Not everyone has the best PC and I know for me sometimes they can take several minutes to load (especially Dalaran's and Org's for me).

Yeah. As I said. It was a bullshit change to portals, and I resonate with just about everything you're saying. Were it my decision, I would also have every hub have a portal to go everywhere. Why Blizzard doesn't? *shrug* Maybe they know something I don't. But as much as I disliked the portal change, I'm not willing to say in good faith that the quality of life reduction with their removal was "huge".

But PC issues? If you take several minutes to load anywhere, that's a major computer problem, not a major game problem.. My laptop is almost as budget as it gets for modern machines, and on Ultra, it doesn't take me more than fifteen seconds to load into huge and intensive areas like say Legion Dalaran or Stormwind. All I can really say is that's unfortunate.

[Frolk]

Players want the permanent choice and the current vision of covenants. Stop assuming what you and your favorite youtuber is what every body else.

Who wants permanent choices that can fuck em up later cause Blizzard is terrible at balance?

I also tend to ask, what content do u do ingame? It helps me paint a better picture of who wants what for the game.

[Mafic]

So I was missing something. I'm talking about player numbers being scaled significantly higher than old world content once they've significantly outleveled it. So an ability that does 60k damage in BFA instead does closer to 3 million damage when you're in WoD content and below. That's what I thought you were talking about when you were saying stuff about legacy bosses. Now it sounds like you're just talking about the leveling experience, which is not necessarily legacy, as current content also scales. I'm also fine with that kind of scaling, because ultimately, while it sacrifices some of the "fun" of suddenly being much stronger than everything around you after a certain point, in doing so, it makes experiencing the story of the zones while leveling a smoother experience. Now that everything remains roughly the same strength as you while you're doing old content, you no longer run into the issue of having to suddenly stop what you're doing in one zone because it's greyed out on experience and find some way to navigate your way across the continent to clumsily plop yourself into the story of another zone, at least not until you have to move expansions, which is an issue that's also getting resolved come Shadowlands with Chromie Time. I'm fine with the concept of world scaling. If there are instances of bad scaling, I'll file a report on it when I see it. But I've leveled over 12 characters to 120, and I can count on one hand the number of times that scaling issues with monsters in the world have ever inhibited me from leveling smoothly.



You're exaggerating. There aren't that many extra steps. All it did was make it so that instead of every major city being a broken and limited, but still expansive central hub to other expansion worlds, it slimmed it down so that Stormwind is the central hub to everywhere else, and the only expansion that's afforded more options in portaling is the most current one. Instead of having the option to get to WotLK Dalaran through either Pandaria or Stormwind, now you must go through Stormwind. Exodar? Either Stormwind or Boralus (I think -- it might just be Boralus, actually.) The only "massive ramifications" to the removal of portals, besides the ones that I've already acknowledged, is at most an extra loading screen in most cases. I reiterate: the removal of portals was bullshit. But it wasn't the end of the world. There were no massive ramifications. You're making a mountain out of an admittedly shitty molehill.

No flight whistles in Shadowlands would be weird, though. Especially with what I'm reading about certain world quests. Even if the zones were compact and navigable, which I'm hearing they might not be, it doesn't quite make sense for there not to be one. I'm still not worried about flying. Pattern holds, we'll have the actual achievement to unlock flying in 9.2. So it's not worth worrying about until then, as far as I'm concerned.



This is the last time I'm quoting anything involving this topic. I'm not doing this panic dance on legacy loot rules and whether or not they should/shouldn't be enabled on the PTR/Beta and why. I'm just going to wait and see.



Yep. That's the idea, my dude. Chain-pulling an army of mobs for zero downside in current content is no longer an attractive option. Classes and specs who relished in that explosive AoE potential and trivialized trash pull encounters that should have realistically been more difficult to manage? Cut down to size, unable to perform as explosively as they used to. That's the point. There's no "They think they're doing this, but what they're actually doing is this!" Several AoE abilities are getting nerfed in Shadowlands. It's that simple.



Here's a fun fact: did you know that even after these AoE changes go live, almost every single spec in the game will have access to at least one uncapped or soft-capped AoE attack through just their baseline abilities or talents? So do you want to know what you can do in legacy raids when you're surrounded by a giant swarm of mobs and a couple of your abilities are hard-capped? You can use one of your other abilities that's not hard-capped. That's what I'm gonna do during the few times that I'm surrounded by a million enemies in old raids. Those soft-capped abilities will probably be generally weak and not useful in current content, necessarily. But in old raids, when they're scaled to fuck-you numbers? I think they'll do the job.

I think it might be nice, though, if AoE abilities in general were uncapped in legacy content. That might be something worth suggesting or asking Blizzard about if you're one of the few specs that don't have access to an uncapped ability. But even in that case, another option is to just, uh... not surround yourself with every mob in the instance? If you run around blasting a pack at a time, it'll hardly make any difference, and if you're worried about stopping every few seconds to loot, don't. Everything of use will just go to your mailbox anyway, so you don't need to worry about it if you don't want to.



Sure there is. It's simple. You start growing at the start of an expansion. You stop growing at the end of one. When the next expansion begins, all the growth from last expansion is behind you, systems and all. And you start over, thinking about your growth from the start of the new expansion again, with the new systems. It's a series of hills and cliffs, instead of a steady incline or a flat plateau. I'm fine with that. You're not. We are not going to agree on this. And so this, as well, is the last time I'm quoting you on this particular topic of borrowed power.

Scaling is so bad that it was created as solution to a problem that never existed for most players. If we think about it logically before the catastrophic changes in patch 7.3.5 the leveling experience was perfectly fine. After patch 7.3.5 you have situations in WoD where some NPCs are tuned incorrectly out in the world due to scaling. Also currently on the PTR the scaling out in the world and also in raids is off not only in terms of player power but also NPCs themselves with some fall over too easy while others are HP sponges. Furthermore, the scaling changes done in patch 7.3.5 failed so badly that they are now resorting to a fix with chromie time. But even chromie time is going to be a failure in that you will not be able to finish the respective stories of each expansion before hitting level 50. Hitting level 50 means you are automatically kicked off chromie time and with no way to finish the story progression of the expansion of your choosing.

So lets back track why scaling was put in place in the world. According to BlizZard's faulty argument was they wanted players to experience the story and quests of the zones and expansions. And yet even with the shoddy scaling in place that never happened as players still did not finish the stories in the respective expansions in a satisfactory fashion. So, the genesis of chromie time came to fruition to be a band aid on top of the original band aid. Or, you can think of chromie time as a band aid side by side with the older band aid of scaling. And yet even with chromie time you still can not finish the story arc of the expansion of your choosing because of how it is designed. That makes BlizZard 0 for 2 while leaving the crummy scaling changes. Meanwhile players who want to see their power grow with levels are left feeling unsatisfied. Meanwhile, the leveling experience due to scaling devalues progression in content and also forces players to seek out optimal gear by skipping expansions. In the past without scaling that was true to a degree regarding seeking out optimal leveling gear. However, it is worse on the PTR in that BFA gear has best stat allocations by far which is very lazy by BlizZard standards. And not even scaling can hide that type of blunder.

Moving on it is not an exaggeration when the removal of portals from Dalaran was a big step back in that the portals in shrines were also removed. So, the loss of portals in both hubs impacted players doing old content throughout older expansions. Forcing players back into Stormwind/Orgrimmar is a poor choice for a central hub because of two big reasons. First, the reasons why portals were added to shrine in MoP was BlizZard wanted players to move away from hanging around Stormwind/Orgrrimmar like they did during Cata. Second, with the game increasing in size with each new expansoin there was a need to have multiple portals spread out and not concentrated in one central hub. This is why this philosophy of adding multiple portals to new expansion hubs continued with Dalaran and Ashran respectively after MoP and shrines. But with BFA the devs decided to go against the wisdom of the older devs decisions to strategically place multiple ports in diverse hubs for a growing game. But going back to the Cata model of having Orgrimmar/Stormwind as central hubs just reintroduces old problems again for no reason. The fact that in systemlands you are not going to be visiting Orgrimmar/Stormwind much undermines the entire point of moving the portals back to a central hub.

Flight whistle is intergral with how systemland zones are designed because of vertical lift in some zones and also because of hard to reach areas or having to navigate back out due to numerous elites. What BlizZard fails to realize is that in classic that there was multiple ways to avoid elites out in the world of vanilla zones. But in systemlands they expect players to fight their way to a quest objective and back like an action RPG aka diablo. So, yes the lack of a flight whistle will be noticeable if they choose not to have one for zones that are very claustrophobic in systemlands.

Flying part 1 of BFA was found on the beta and we knew all the requirement in May of 2018 many months before the launch of BFA. Now, comparing to the new expansion there is no info regarding flying part 1 of sysemlands and expansion is launching in less than 2 months. It is definitely not an apples to apples comparison. I would argue the fact that there is no part 1 flying info so far that is closer to WoD. WoD launched with no info regarding how flying would be unlocked.

if you can't test it in beta or see the achievement progress that is a hard sell to say it is guaranteed to be there on live. One month to go but from my experience if no part 1 of flying for systemlands isn't known by launch that is not a good omen at all and covers the same ground that WoD did at the start of the expansion.

Legacy loot due to the squish needs to be tested because the gear is being squished and you can think everything will be swell at launch but it has to be tested. If it is disabled on the PTR how can legacy loot be tested due to the squish? That is right for the readers following at home it can not be tested. So, having the live client players test it out I think is fundamentally wrong and very dicey situation to let it hit the live client in such a state.

Chain pulling is still happening in systemlands beta but people are just changing how they are chain pulling. The days of needing Rogues or Mages for CC are long gone. Also, this heavy handed nerf of AoE hard cap gimps lower level content far more than systemlands end game. Doing timewalking will be brutal with these changes and frankly punshing the majority of players because the 1% of playres were pushing M+ with timers doesn't make sense to me. Collectively punishment of the majority of WoW players for the 1% of players chain pulling seems like taking a truck wheel to squish a grape.

The AoE changes are going to impact classes so badly that the meta isn't going to change that much but will only further reinforce the meta. Before the middle of the pack specs could at least perform and now they are being cut down, so now it is just meta or go home. Personally I don't care about metas that much, but if the meta leads to more nerfs down the line then that starts to impact a casual player like me. And right now we are seeing that if casters like Demo are nerfed hard then we can clearly blame the AoE hard cap for forcing such a poor direction in the game overall.

I honestly don't see why capping AoE in legacy content should even be a thing because BlizZard keep contradicting themselves. They made leveling easier for older content in systemlands to consume less time but then and turn around and make raids and dungeons in legacy content take longer? Why? Also what about player choice and for players that want to level using dungeons? Why punish such players in such a way? Just because leveling is faster doesn't mean you take away player agency if a player enjoys leveling with friends or their guilds using dungeons. And furthermore, dungeons and raids in legacy content are integral to understanding the respective stories of an expansion anyways.

Growth in a MMORPG must continue and hold for it to be real growth. Only gear resets are what should happen from one expansion to another. When your levels start to mean nothing then there is no reason for levels. When you stop adding talents and new abilities then it really undermines any reason to have levels.

The level squish is sold by BlizZArd for an attempt to attract new players. But in reality the level squish in systemlands is done to hide that from level 90 and onwards there has been no character growth for several years which is why there is no level 130 in systemlands.

The squish is a big gamble in that BlizZard is assuming that players will be okay with losing levels while having scaling in place. But scaling like we have seen with BFa PVP is poor in that it robs player agency. Player agency to know what damage you are done, what damage you are taking and what your character progression is relative to your peers and enemy combatants. If the game rules are not consistent with what you see on your screen versus what your opponent sees that is immersion breaking. When you gain gear and put gem slots you should not be punished by losing damage and survivability due to hidden scaling.

Game rules have to be consistent, transparent and easy to understand. When all three of these tests fail to hold true it doesn't matter if you are casual or hardcore because it undermines the entire point of a MMORPG like WoW. Scaling is a great cancer in WoW.

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I guess I don't see why players can't pick their favorite home city and make a base there. Why does everyone have to be clustered in org or Stormwind? Other mmos, like ff14, allow you to go to w/e city you want for stuff and it's fine--the world still feels populated. I never liked Orgrimmar as a city and I'd much rather be based in Silvermoon, Dalaran, or Shrine, but I don't have that option. I put removing the portals as a "no fun allowed" change. And unlike most changes it doesn't even have anything to do with high end balance (like the potion changes in Shadowlands). It just makes traveling more tedious.

On a side note, loading screens can be a major issue. Not everyone has the best PC and I know for me sometimes they can take several minutes to load (especially Dalaran's and Org's for me).

We have the ability to bind our hearths to an inn of our choosing in WoW. When taking away multiple portal hubs and concentrating them back to a central hub like Orgrimmar/Stormwind that is short sighted.

In older games the reason why you had central hubs was for player interactions like forming groups, selling/buying goods, crafters crafting, enchanters enchanting gear or even lock picking. But that era of Evequest and older WoW are long gone.

Battle for Abilities was the most instanced heavy expansion in the history of WoW. BlizZard designed an expansion where they expect you to spend most of your time in instanced content between raids, dungeons, M+, warfronts and island expeditions.

If most players are taking part in instanced content then there is not enough players to populate the world or even a central hub like Stormwing/orgrimmar.

BlizZard designed WoW to be instance heavy more than a decade ago so they can't suddenly force in changes trying to re-populate the game world to make it feel alive. It is so bad that you have NPCs running around going through the new portal rooms just to make them looks populated and active.

Ironically enough before the removal of the portals to new Dalaran and shrines the older zones were also more populated but now are dead zones. BlizZard is their own worst enemy when it comes to devaluing their own content whether current or old legacy.

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Who wants permanent choices that can fuck em up later cause Blizzard is terrible at balance?

I also tend to ask, what content do u do ingame? It helps me paint a better picture of who wants what for the game.

A rental isn't an interesting choice but you are right that it is not a meaningful choice if BlizZard can do a hot fix within minutes that completely invalidates that meaningful choice.

[Echo of Soul]

Howdy, My name is Mafic and I am a super casual player of WoW. I like to craft hexweave bags, do some BGs or do some normal questing content. Spare time I do transmog farming or whatever I think this is fun.

But what prompted me to post this thread is that with the upcoming expansion near I have seen that it is problematic in many facets. The expansion is problematic because of the various issues I have discovered on the PTR with prepatch and also from what beta testers have told me as well as I what have read from the beta. So, here goes to what are the main major problems of Shadowlands.

Prepatch

There are three main problems I have found with prepatch of shadowlands. The first problem is the level squish is not doing as promised as the legacy content has become significantly harder because of two factors. Primarily because of the removal of corruptions/downscaline of essences. And, second because of the botched scaling. Now, in fairness BlizZArd has said they are looking at the scaling issues in legacy raids and dungeons. But! As we have seen many of the scaling issues from the last squish were not address properly and the current scaling in BFA PVP has been a trainwreck of confusion and abuse. And, this time we are going to see a level and item squish all at once to further complicate matters. So far what is happening is that because of the level squish it feels like most recent expansions are not treated as legacy content. For example if you are level 40 after the squish you are going to feel the pain just doing basic legacy raids.

Second problem which is related to the first problem is the legacy loot has been changed and there is no communication from BlizZard on this issue. Is it intended to receive only one gear drop from legacy raid bosses now? I don't know and BlizZard has been radio silent thus far. The impact this had is not only related to raw gold per hour. But also impacts those that like to transmog hunt for gear and also impacts the replay value of older content. It is nice to have something else to look forward to beyond current endgame content. Why take away that player fun?

And the third problem is related to the first two problems which is the hard cap of AoE which impacts legacy farming but also end game. It is very noticeable with BFA content in prepatch that you take longer to take down mobs and it feels all very clunky.

There are other problems with the prepatch regarding the zombie event, mount equipment being unlocked at a higher level than flying, being kicked out of chromie time once you reach level 50, etc.

I could make and entire post talking about the devaluation of gear and the raw gold heading into prepatch but I will save that for another day.

Moving on these are the main issues with shadowlands itself:

1. Covenant structure is too rigid and not congruent to the MMORPG experience. IF WoW was a single player action RPG it wouldn't matter how balanced the respective covenants are. But since WoW is a MMORPG and we do interact with players at some point it is necessary to point out that covenant locking is the not the answer. I feel that punishing those that want to play other specs or alts is not the answer because there is already a shortage of tanks and healers in WoW. There are also various issues with covenants and quests not supported by the story quest chains. So, such a rigid choice does not work or feel like a meaningful choice.

2. Borrowed power that is layered upon each other has stifled the growth of classes at their core base and many classes are incomplete. No new talent tier since WoD and no new baseline abilities since MoP. The legendaries are mostly legendaries from legion itself aka legiondaries and thus does not feel new. The argument for borrowed power was so BlizZard can do something new and experiment with each expansion. Corruption was an experiment but BlizZard did not put much effort or thinking to put into place to make it work. Betraying that principle reveals that borrowed power shenanigans is coming to a close and players are starting to figure it all out. Classes need to be whole again and I don't think the great unpruner has done enough to unprune classes. The lack of communication from the unpruner reveals a deep problem with BlizZard in that they have decided to make a game targeted at an audience that doesn't exist while ignoring their core PC MMORPG audience.

3. Game play loop of systemlands is too linear, narrow and repetitive. The world quests at level cap for the expansion are just very tedious, long and not rewarding. No flight whistles, and the zones are poorly designed with vertical lift that would make WoD zones blush. The lack of flight paths reinforces that the expansion is not that friendly to those that want to be in and out with world quests. True, a weekly cap and less world quests is a plus, but the downside is that BlizZard has designed a game where you spend more time traveling to a few tedious world quests. Also, the lack of no info for part 1 of flying is a big red flag. However, with how disconnected the zones are it is clear that there isn't a solid plan of how flying will be allowed in the upcoming expansion. The worst has to be the MAW though as not even ground mounts are allowed in there and it is required to be in there for progression which feels bad IMVHO.

4. Lack of player agency in general is something that has plagued WoW the last few expansions but is very noticeable with the upcoming expansion. At Blizzcon BlizZard said they wanted to return player agency but I don't see it that way with covenant locking, no info on part 1 of flying, torghast not being the roguelike experience as sold at blizzcon, etc.

Classes still feel bad with the GCD and it will be more noticeable with the active covenant abilities. In short there are many problems with shadowlands and time is running out.

Can they fix these issues? Sure.

But they have to start to listen to feedback from players on the PTR and beta forums. That is how BFA went down the tubes because they ignored the feedback from players and rushed BFA out.

Lets hope that does not happen with the upcoming expansion.

No you're wrong. It'll be fine.

[kaminaris]

Who wants permanent choices that can fuck em up later cause Blizzard is terrible at balance?

I also tend to ask, what content do u do ingame? It helps me paint a better picture of who wants what for the game.

Tons of people including me. If it fucks me up I will be my fault. Having no consequences at all is boring shit game.

And it's not like it can't be changed, its just expensive. Like most other fun games I've played including other MMOs and solo RPGs and even a damn shooters.

[Aggrophobic]

It isn't a lot, and upvotes =/= completely sharing an opinion. That's no way in hell to gauge a population.

Hell, Preach's interview with Ion had like 30 000 viewers at one point. Assuming that 20 000 of those dislike Covenants, it's still a drop in the sea of WoW's population. If every single one of those players unsubbed it wouldn't make a dent, and that small chip could be compensated by a equally hypothetical amount of players who will stay subbed / playing thanks to the design direction.

No one really likes covenants either though.
You either hate it or you don't care. There is litteraly zero benefits for anyone with a system like that.

Well, unless you're an egotistic manica who finds it enjuoyable when others don't have fun but the system itself adds no fun for anyone.