Should Blizz delay Shadowland launch to make sure it starts in a good state?

[Malix Farwin]

That poll is extremely biased with the obvious answer the OP wants you to gravitate towards is yes. I choose No for a multitude or reasons and not a single one was because "I want new content ASAP ".

We can match pros and cons to delaying the xpac or not as well:

Pros to releasing next month:
Helps retention from a really bad xpac
More time at this point will at best see marginal improvement
Able to see problems in a live environment instead of a beta one with limited playerbase
More content(i guess ill use your excuse here too)

Cons to releasing next month:
Might miss some small things they could of caught in a beta environment

Its ready when its ready can sometimes be long or sometimes short. If its ready i do not see any reason to delay it and from what ive seen to support this:

They've got class design locked down the best they can in a beta environment
They only have tuning left(which doesnt take long at all)
The zones are done
The content is made and complete
The systems are what they wanted and complete

So objectively speaking what would delaying it actually do for the game? If it releases with problem(which it most certainly will) how would an extended Beta have fixed them.

the problem with BFA was that feedback was ignored because of the time schedule and in that case i would of absolutely agreed with you but since they taken things away and have allowed more time this time around with Shadowlands as well as listening to feedback i feel they actually have pushed it back quite a bit(getting a oct release instead of an august release.)

[draugril]

Of course.

But the days of, "When it's ready," are long since passed for Blizzard.

[Winfernal]

This is not a biased poll, at all

[dcc626]

Of course.

But the days of, "When it's ready," are long since passed for Blizzard.

yup. the playerbase is entirely more patient than blizzard...

[draugril]

yup. the playerbase is entirely more patient than blizzard...

The demands of the playerbase and the investors used to come second to an actual quality product.

[matrix123mko]

The only delay I would expect.

My Zandalari will be complete with an amazing beard.

Bearded Zandalari would be golden.

[pinkz]

imo, warcraft shadowlands will not be delayed.

ATVI has information we do NOT have access to, like the number of players not subscribed waiting on the sidelines for shadowlands prepatch, or expac going live. my other guess is the world in a pandemic has changed the dynamics of gaming. the days of releasing games, into Q4 holiday season may be a thing of the past, many gaming companies have been moving away from this model, for years now. attacking ATVI for doing this as a money move is true, but is disingenuous at the same time.

the conspiracy group will say. ATVI is just doing it for Q3 results, and they are right, however forget when blizzard was under another company, TBC was released in Jan and would affect Q1, saying they are rushing it is a over reach as well since past WOW expacs also have released in Q3.

memories fade wearing rose tinted goggles don't remember all the stuff that had to be fixed for weeks and months after a expac launch. many forget when on beta/ptr players brought up problems, abilities, imbalances, that would go live and not get fixed the entire expac.

[TheTaurenChieftain]

Sure, now people that do not constantly feel the urge to complain and have Ion fired are addicts, incapable of rational thought. Dayum.

Being positive about anything is wrong in this forum, I know that much, but this is next level.

I even said that there are some features I really like. This is an exaggeration. There are a lot of features I really like: New customization options, removing of rep requirements of allied races, specc indepemendent transmog options, adding PVP vendors etc.. I can also name a lot of other features.

But this doesn't make me blind that the majority of features are just redesigns of BFA without any innovation at all. I can see all the good things the game has to offer. But I am not blind to the rest. I don't really care about balance at all. But even without the balancing part Covenants seem to be very low-effort to me. Torghast looks nice at the moment. But I can see it getting boring pretty quick.

But maybe I am also not the target audience of this game anymore. I am not into M+ for example and I have the feeling M+ was a major focus for BFA. I simply can't play the same dungeons again and again and again with different difficulties. I had the most fun in BFA farming old content and transmogs (not the main content of BFA).

I was always positive about this game. But BFA was a nail in the coffin for me. And Shadowlands continues the same trend as in BFA. I reactivated my account again and I got bored and burned out with the game pretty fast. I don't know how some of you could play BFA continuesly the whole time.

Shadowlands also has a lot of system where I have to ask: "Why are they even there?" I don't understand this really. Some of these systems are not fun and only increase play time. But they are not really fun in the end.

[Kuja]

I wouldn't mind even if it's unbalanced or a bugfestival. I'd take that over having to spend an another minute in BFA. And I love to switch between characters, so wouldn't affect me if my main is bottoming meters due to bad class balance.

But I would hate to pick the wrong covenant.

[Vorality]

I really doubt there is any need to encourage anyone to complain more. The complaints haven't stopped for a day ever since the bloody announcement at Blizzcon. Every part of the game has been cried over repeatedly, it's nothing but noise by now. It would be better to complain less and with more reason and quality instead.
And again, just because you and your equals think they know how the game is supposed to be, does not mean that your opinion is a fact. You can demand changes, but Blizzard has no obligation to implement them if they do not agree with them.

I'm not encouraging anyone to complain anymore, again, those are words out of you, not me. As I stated in one of my post...I just don't want the community to get complacent. Blizzard seems to be listening this time around compared to the past, but we can't just think this is the way they're going to be from here on out - we need to keep pushing and giving proper feedback. The changes we're demanding aren't something that can really be argued. Is it so hard to not want your class to have upwards of a 25% difference from someone that is playing the same class as you, but chose a different covenant or conduit - regardless of skill differences?

As for implementing things in the last months of the expansion. You are completely misunderstading this part, they are removing restrictions at the end of the expansion to increase fun and allow for some crazy stuff to happen, when it does not matter anymore. Like how my DK can now run around with nearly 200% Haste and a friend playing Fire Mage can deal 300k+ dps on a big bull. It's not that they "realize too late that everything the players say is right", it's the equivalent of throwing out the rules and allowing the players to have fun in the months until the real content happens.

I don't think I'm misunderstanding their implementations to things at the end of the expansion at all - not even in the slightest. They've done, for the most part, exactly what the community asked for throughout the whole expansion (Purchasable legendaries in Legion, now purchasable corruptions in BfA) at the end of the expansion. These currencies and systems they implemented to allow this should've been done from the beginning, but Blizzard failed to realize that. If what you said were to be true, then we would have no corruption rotation, corruption costs significantly reduced or removed completely, same with azerite essences and a more farmable way for corruption resistance. That would be the end of the expansion "go have fun" set up. We don't have that. Not even close. Unless you started a character 2-3 months ago, you MIGHT be able to play that character to compete with others that have been going for a while as of today. I really feel like you need to look at the game away from a PvE point of view. Blizzard doesn't just open everything up and toss away the key for the sake of people having fun. They have PvP and PvE tournaments to run for all these months before the release of something new. They definitely do not throw away the rules and let the players have fun...and there's no indication of that being there intention for the reasons I stated above.

1) Compare Legions Artifact Power System to BFAs for starters. Legions first few month were hell to have alts or even an offspec, since none of the Artifact Power was shared and there was no catch-up for alts. In BFA we had a shared collection of AP + immediatedly implemented catch up for alts.

2) Legion legendaries were a pain to get and you could get so horrendously fragged by RNG it was disgusting. Now we get to craft Legendaries, not random ones, but the ones we want.

Just two examples of clear improvements.

Your two examples, like I stated in my previous post, are both things they learned at the end of the Legion expansion. They're doing the smart thing and carrying it over to the next expansion is all. However, they repeated the same course in BfA, which is why people have their concerns for Shadowlands. Yes, they made it easier for artifact power catch up on alts in BfA. But they implemented a new system - azerite essences. They screwed this up, and only in our final patch did they make these account wide. Then they followed it up with random corruption - a system where a lucky player would be 20%+ stronger than the next player based on LUCK alone. They would fix this at a later time due to the community outrage. We're now seeing this yet again with covenants and conduits - we'll see how they handle it this time.

PvPers need to stop crying over the fact that they have to play the main game to be efficient. PvP is a mini-game in a PvE focussed game. Just like PvEers had to grind through honor to get Blood of the Enemy, you will have to grind through PvE, because that is what the game is about. PvPers have no right to special treatment and the best loot in the game for free just because they "only wanna do arenas".

I agree with you that people should play all aspects of the game to be the most sufficient, but to think they're asking for special treatment is absurd. PvP vendors is something we had for several expansions and those expansions were subjectively better to the majority of players at those times. The goal for an MMO is to create multiple avenues to have fun. When Blizzard took away PvP vendors, they took away the reason to farm BGs entirely. Arena is only played by a small few now for rating pushes only. PvP was an extremely large part of the game for a long time. Blizzard's choices is what turned it into a near mini-game.

And the tuning is happening as we speak. Like there was a blue post about it yesterday...

I didn't see any tuning blue posts yesterday. We had some class changes, but again, these are things they are implementing, not tuning. These are two completely different things. 30 days away from release.

Classes also close the skill gap between players, Gear does too. Or are you telling me that the removal of "borrowed power" will make it feel better that a Hunter with a 3-Button rotation is doing as much or more DPS then a UH DK with 7-8 Buttons?

Blizzard has actually flat out stated that there are classes that are easier to play by design (DH for example). It's not a mistake, Blizzard wants people to be having fun, so they are not punishing people for being less skilled to the extend that those people can not be taken in higher level content. The truely good players are still stronger then the rest, borrowed power or not.

I'm fine with classes closing skill gap. The most important thing that should decide the difference between two players is skill - it's that simple. The next thing that decides the difference between two players is the class they're playing. These two things should be very closely related though, with some crossover. Counters should 100% exist in an MMO, that's fine. My reasoning for borrowed power is as follows: A rogue or a DH, for example, will do 30%....thirty percent...of their overall damage by auto attacking. This closes the skill gap between players of the SAME class. If a player is able to auto attack and do 30% of their overall damage, while another player that is highly skilled and 30% of their damage is still coming from that same source, there's an issue there. Both players are doing their best overall damaging "ability", but the skill gap between them can be far or narrow. It doesn't make sense. We're now seeing this again in Shadowlands. We'll take two players that have absolutely no clue what they're doing - for arguments sake. Player A chooses X covenant with Y conduits and Z legendary. Player B chooses E covenant with F conduits G legendary. Player A, though by NO choice of outsmarting or being better than Player B is doing 20% more than them. This EXISTS in Shadowlands currently. This happened in Legion with legendary luck. This happened in BfA with corruptions. This will happen in Shadowlands unless they miraculously balance the game they've failed to balance for a very long time now. Just look at destro locks...look at the forums...they've gone untouched for a whole expansion. With just one legendary on a marksman hunter, you're able to press THREE buttons and one shot someone, and one shot a whole 3 man team if they're stacked. Take away that legendary and it's a balanced class. This shouldn't exist, but it does, and is one of MANY examples we have in beta currently - far more unbalanced than any other beta to date.

As I pointed out above, the community is preaching about everything, every day for over a year. There is not a single piece of news about SLs that has not been ripped apart by someone.
Blizzard has been adopting the things they agree with and made changes. They just do not agree with all of the nonsense that gets produced by the self-appointed masters of game-design we have on this forum and thank the Old Gods for that.

People just like to think they are uniquely qualified and should be heard above all others and when it does not happen they throw tantrums. That is all there is to this.

I agree that there are some people who think they are uniquely qualified and can be wrong, however, I think it's extremely important if the overall stance from the community of certain subjects are bad, then changes should highly considered.

[ArkantosChampion]

Ofc they need to delay sl, cuz this game is so unbalanced atm on beta

[Harbour]

No, they should not. Concept of SL content is pretty shitty. It cant be balanced, it cant be enriched in any healthy way. What is the point of prolonging the current expansion if SL wont turn into masterpiece anyway?

So yeah, i want to get rid of BFA taste in my mouth and get new content to explore.

[kaintk]

ACTIVISION, their evil master will not allow them to delay

[Calabera]

Should they? Yes, absolutely.

Can they? No, they are no longer free to develop at their own. They have investors directly involved and KPIs to meet. The development team has very little room for deviation and Ion rules with a "you will like it, you don't know it yet" approach.

This game will launch in worse state than BFA. The fact they have a patch to follow pre-patch should be indication enough of what's to come.

Covenant systems with too many variations, making it impossible to balance. The locking of off-specs to a less than ideal Covenant, in some cases worse available choice, that alone will make some people complain until the expansion is over.

They could very well develop a 4 boss raid, give it a home in Icecrown Citadel and keep us busy with it until Q2 next year, buying enough time to fix some of these issues.

[subsidalos]

Yes we obviously want the game to be the best it possibly can be on launch but...

Activision Blizzard
Does not
Fucking care.

So what's the point of this poll?

[Demolished]

I do remember BFA launch. To me it was smooth as silk and this Beta has been far more smooth than any other beta at this point. So, no it was not better than Beta is at this point.

I leveled to max level 12 times over the course of the 4 months leading up to BfA's launch.
We literally haven't been able to level to max level once through questing in the last month in Shadowlands. What game are you playing.

[Angrie]

What gets me with WoW is that it typically has maybe 8 patches over the course of a 2 year expansion. Like 3 content patches and 5 hotfix patches.

Compared to a game like League of Legends, they have 26 patches in a year. Every 2 weeks, there's a new patch.

For a game that isn't balanced, Blizzard should have a patch at least once a month to address little things. Aura buffs/nerfs i can't imagine are a difficult tuning peg to utilize.

Feral Druids have been the meme spec of BfA, they could have easily turned the aura knob and at least put their damage at a respectable place while maintaining the PvP Aura. Nope.
Shadow Priests, needed help in Uldir, instead of fixing the SPEC they helped their gearing, what is that?
Warriors were the dominate tank because of their damage. It took them ages to do something about it, and it's still not good.
Outlaw rogues, DHs, being the premier DPS for all of the expansion, simple twist of the aura and this M+ meta could have been more diverse. Nope.
Corruptions broke Fire Mages to a level we've never seen before, could have tightened up the aura to account for it, nope, why do anything, that requires work.

It really makes me question what anyone at blizzard does on the day to day. Is everyone in the building dedicated to creating graphics and art? They could have an intern balance this game better than the current system and they wouldn't have to pay them!

It's really sad, but it's 2020 after all, everything is sad.

[m4xc4v413r4]

Mmmm. I don't think so. If you don't care about it being really balanced and just want the new stuff to play that is a perfectly valid opinion.

It is biased, it's 3 negative choices, that's not how opinions are, just because I don't think they should delay it that doesn't mean I don't care.
Unlike you I understand that what you see on the beta you have access to is already months old content, multiple patches behind of what they have internally. So how exactly do you know what state the game is in or what needs to be changed?

[sephrinx]

Yes. 100% absolutely. There is no chance in hell that Shadowlands will be finished, let alone tested and balanced by the time it launches.

[Essem]

It will never be 100% balanced for all types of situations or content unless they just make everything and everyone a template character where everything is the same and homogenized. A few weeks delay wont change anything.