Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Zankai27]

i hate this with a burning passion because i dont like acting like i believe that leak for a second

but microclasses COULD be the base for the next 4 classes
so instead of adding a new class every other expansion just add a spec to each micro class every expansion until they are complete

Not a bad way to think about it; like I said, getting the groundwork for the classes out and giving people something hype and building them up. They wouldn’t need to bother with other classes in the future and just add to those.

I think the tier set argument is moot; the 4 1-spec classes would just share a token and they’d already be prepared for the art if they wanted to do this idea.

[Jokubas]

Why not just add them as a 4 spec then, ya know? It’d be so much easier on them to implement and easier on players to utilize.

I get where you're coming from and it's definitely a weak spot of the leak, but I'm going to keep playing devil's advocate for a bit.

My first thought is: because of the flavor.

When it comes to the class skins, half of them are pretty obvious. Dark Ranger and Nightmare Druid are basically just "corrupting" their base class. For Necromancer, while its lore is distinct from Warlocks, the spec breakdown of Caster/DoT/Minion Master is perfect for Necromancers, so it's simply a matter of reflavoring already perfect mechanics.

Tinker, on the other hand, doesn't fit mechanically or flavorfully on top of any existing class.

Chronomancer could be mage, but mages are highly associated with the Blue Dragonflight, and a dragon expansion would probably want to keep those flavors more distinct.

Dragon Knight could be Warrior, but then it would sort of feel like Warrior has a choice between three boring mundane specs and a cool magical dragon spec. The whole point of Warrior is to be self-empowered.

This also gives each Dragonflight their own class:
Green - Druid
Blue - Mage
Black - Shaman?
Red - Dragon Knight (or Priest?)
Bronze - Chronomancer

Then, of course, there's the cynical explanation. Why were Lightforged Draenei an Allied Race instead of just new customization for Draenei? I mean, even Blizzard themselves seemed to be asking that sort of question starting in Shadowlands, so it wouldn't be beyond them to make a weird choice like this.

[Villager720]

Most armours are actually already shared across types so their work on individual looks wouldnt increase that much at all.

Sure for leveling and such, I get it.
But with tier sets back, every patch/season you’d need to create a new tinker, dragonknight, minstrel, and chronomancer set. That’s literally 33% more armor sets for them to design - and that from the company who wormed their way out of even bothering to do 12 for the last two expansions. They have only been giving us 4 sets total for years now.

[Le Conceptuel]

Why wouldn't they? I know it's 99.9% chance Dragonflight is the expansion but you all do this thing where you start getting really certain of something for no reason.

Because if it's not World of Warcraft, there's no reasonable excuse to sell it in three tiers as per the ranking that is used exclusively for WoW expansions, and has never been used for anything else? Add to that how a mobile game probably couldn't be feasibly preordered, anyway—they're all about microstransactions in the moment, it would be very unprofitable, I think.

[Villager720]

Ugh, Actual cringe.

Care to elaborate?

[Zankai27]

Sure for leveling and such, I get it.
But with tier sets back, every patch/season you’d need to create a new tinker, dragonknight, minstrel, and chronomancer set. That’s literally 33% more armor sets for them to design - and that from the company who wormed their way out of even bothering to do 12 for the last two expansions.

Right, but this is them looking at a future where they won’t need Activision-level crunch and the current head of company is telling them to “do whatever they can to make it good”

So I can see them thinking about this as a good investment in hype and the future and to be honest, with the amount of art they’ve created for other expansions in the past, creating 12 extra tier sets over an expansion (probably at the expense of some non-tier armor) isn’t that unreasonable

It’s definitely a big ask, but the shocking nature of it kind of adds to the hype if it happens

[Ersula]

Leveling as a healer won’t matter if the class is designed with soloing in mind. A class without a DPS spec to fall back on is something we’ve never had, so if they actually tried it they’d obviously design it with greater solo potential in mind.

That's what the devs *say* but as it exists in game right now? Leveling in a healing spec is pretty miserable.

"Microclasses" make way less sense than my proposed "elective specs" system. Where they let you just add a new spec onto your character's existing specs. Tinker, Bard, etc could just be specs you add onto your class. Mouseover for nameplates might show others "Tinker Mage" & "Tinker Death Knight" but you know they generally do the same things.

Because if it's not World of Warcraft, there's no reasonable excuse to sell it in three tiers as per the ranking that is used exclusively for WoW expansions, and has never been used for anything else? Add to that how a mobile game probably couldn't be feasibly preordered, anyway—they're all about microstransactions in the moment, it would be very unprofitable, I think.

I guarantee Diablo Immortal will have multiple paid launch packages when they finally announce a formal release date. Doesn't mean its not f2p: It just means this is how they literally sell every game they make now.

[Le Conceptuel]

Care to elaborate?

Admittedly, I don't want to commit a fallacy by assuming people's intentions, but I think it might just be that people are kind of desperate to see the class they want since any class inherently carries an opportunity cost—if one class is picked, every other class option is flushed down the toilet until later (which is reasonably ~4 years, a very long time to wait!). It's a sympathetic concern, and it's probably what has people defending that leak even though the dates alone debunk it, much less anything else about it—it essentially says that the answer to "what's the new class??" is "yes", so everybody's happy.

What's not being considered is that it's only a half-measure, so ultimately people would probably end up disappointed and the general utility of the new class would be dramatically diminished. It would be more satisfying in the short-term, but each class is worth less in the long-term, so it only works when you consider the very release of the expansion before the single-specialization gameplay starts to become grating, as well as the inevitable costs. It's a very tempting opportunity to begin with, but it becomes immediately obvious upon further observation and consideration that multiple single-specialization classes are terrible ideas. Class skins have grown on me, and I was initially suspicious at first, but a lot of Shadowlands has featured the addition of things I never thought Blizzard would do – like cross-faction play, for instance – so I wouldn't discount those, however.

[Jokubas]

i hate this with a burning passion because i dont like acting like i believe that leak for a second

but microclasses COULD be the base for the next 4 classes
so instead of adding a new class every other expansion just add a spec to each micro class every expansion until they are complete

I'm humoring it because Dragonflight on its own, unfortunately, doesn't really give us anything new to talk about. Expecting a dragon expansion was already the primary assumption for the past few months. ;P

Although, it would be awkward if it turns out this Dragonflight website data was intended to be an April Fool's Joke because everyone was assuming a dragon expansion, but they backed out of the joke without removing the reference, only to now reinforce that assumption.

[Le Conceptuel]

Right, but this is them looking at a future where they won’t need Activision-level crunch and the current head of company is telling them to “do whatever they can to make it good”

So I can see them thinking about this as a good investment in hype and the future and to be honest, with the amount of art they’ve created for other expansions in the past, creating 12 extra tier sets over an expansion (probably at the expense of some non-tier armor) isn’t that unreasonable

It’s definitely a big ask, but the shocking nature of it kind of adds to the hype if it happens

I don't know—I think some people would be very disappointed and just think of it as a half-measure. That, and it's bad for player retention, even beyond the resource crunch. Maybe the resources would be worth it—the gradual loss of investment by players, immediately demanding far more resources to develop specializations for the new classes, at that, would not. I think that the issue is that it won't do much but give people something to play around with for a month before they drop the expansion. Even long-awaited things like Demon Hunters couldn't keep people's interest forever, and I think that less specializations for a class is far more dangerous than less in the way of classes.

Classes should be about depth, not quantity—I think there's plenty of options to add a lot of new options without worrying about resources in a way that is far more fulfilling, like class skins. We already saw that Allied Races were a better way of making quantity over quality work because they were something which made sense to not have much more in the way of additions. Plus, they're less gameplay-altering than a class. One overpowered race or two isn't nearly as dangerous as having to balance four new specializations for less payoff than balancing three.

[Revamp Man]

Except they abandon things after 1 xpac so quickly, such as allied races. I also doubt they'd create entirely new classes just to get so little mileage from them. Come up with their utility abilities, buffs, generic abilities across all specs, just for them to have one spec that uses them. That's just such an inefficient use of development time lol.

And there is no way blizz, who is clearly constrained on resources, would do that.

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Why would a mobile game have a pre-order? It's obviously going to be a f2p p2w model not a p2p model lol.

like i said i dont like lending any kind of legitimacy to it but if this happened that would be the best way for it to work

no need to create more class story after 10.0
no need to add more to weapons or armor after 10.0
just get the majority of the work out of the way for the future

[Le Conceptuel]

I'm humoring it because Dragonflight on its own, unfortunately, doesn't really give us anything new to talk about. Expecting a dragon expansion was already the primary assumption for the past few months. ;P

Although, it would be awkward if it turns out this Dragonflight website data was intended to be an April Fool's Joke because everyone was assuming a dragon expansion, but they backed out of the joke without removing the reference, only to now reinforce that assumption.

I do think that's unlikely—Blizzard's April Fools jokes are always very on-the-nose. They never do things this subtle.

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That's what the devs *say* but as it exists in game right now? Leveling in a healing spec is pretty miserable.

"Microclasses" make way less sense than my proposed "elective specs" system. Where they let you just add a new spec onto your character's existing specs. Tinker, Bard, etc could just be specs you add onto your class. Mouseover for nameplates might show others "Tinker Mage" & "Tinker Death Knight" but you know they generally do the same things.

I don't know. That also feels like a half-measure—it would just mean that you'd have your main class overshadow the secondary class. It would simply feel superfluous and unsatisfying. Plus, there'd also be issue of gearing. I think all it would do is garner a response like Void Elves did—people frustrated they couldn't get the entirety of a thing. I'd frankly be disappointed if a class I wanted came out only as a potential adjacent to a preexisting class which would distill and overshadow it.

I guarantee Diablo Immortal will have multiple paid launch packages when they finally announce a formal release date. Doesn't mean its not f2p: It just means this is how they literally sell every game they make now.

But that still doesn't make sense. Why would they do it in the exact same format as WoW? Wouldn't they have many more layers of prepurchase options for a mobile title like this? This stinks of nonsense finance, I think.

[Jokubas]

I do think that's unlikely—Blizzard's April Fools jokes are always very on-the-nose. They never do things this subtle.

Oh yeah, I don't mean that how things turned out was an intended April Fool's Joke. I mean the possibility that at one point they had intended to make a full joke about a Dragon Expansion, but decided against it, only to have accidentally left references to it.

Admittedly, I don't want to commit a fallacy by assuming people's intentions, but I think it might just be that people are kind of desperate to see the class they want since any class inherently carries an opportunity cost—if one class is picked, every other class option is flushed down the toilet until later (which is reasonably ~4 years, a very long time to wait!).

This has been a big thing for me for a long time. I don't know if it's because I was younger or I found the game more fun or what, but I don't remember noticing it as much when the game was new. Nowadays, however, I'm very much aware that any feature we don't get now is a feature that's going to take at least another two years to get, and probably more.

It's part of the reason I say that disappointment is distinct from expectations. I don't need to expect, from a leak or anywhere else, that we'll get ogres (for instance) to be disappointed when we don't, because when we don't I know it'll be another batch of years before there's even a chance at it. Every once and awhile we get something that happens mid-expansion, but it's very rare.

[AngerFork]

When I see this thing about Microclasses, I find myself looking at these in a similar fashion to Allied Races. A lot of the base for Allied Races were spin-off races that didn't need extra things like a full starting zone or different skeletons, so Blizz was able to give us 10 of them over the course of an expansion rather than four. If we were to have something along the lines of an "allied class" or the like (which is what I suspect this would be), I'm not entirely sure what all they could cut off to make it work. Single spec for sure, but otherwise they'll still need to be balanced & have their own assortment of moves. Probably wouldn't be a class that would do much in Legion, they'd likely skip Artifacts for this. If they are sharing moves with another class (which is where you could cut some of it off), it might as well be something more like a bonus spec rather than a class. But of the options listed, none really fit the current classes unless they are stretched a bit.

Still though, if we are getting microclasses, I suspect it'll feel a lot more like the Allied Race version of classes than what a new class has been in the past, whatever that would even be.

[Le Conceptuel]

Oh yeah, I don't mean that how things turned out was an intended April Fool's Joke. I mean the possibility that at one point they had intended to make a full joke about a Dragon Expansion, but decided against it, only to have accidentally left references to it.

That's wholly possible, though even then I'd be surprised if they went as subtle as calling it something like "Dragonflight" and trying to seriously portray it as an expansion until the punchline hits. I'd expect something more comical right on the spot, unless perhaps the content was more on-the-nose.

This has been a big thing for me for a long time. I don't know if it's because I was younger or I found the game more fun or what, but I don't remember noticing it as much when the game was new. Nowadays, however, I'm very much aware that any feature we don't get now is a feature that's going to take at least another two years to get, and probably more.

It's part of the reason I say that disappointment is distinct from expectations. I don't need to expect, from a leak or anywhere else, that we'll get ogres (for instance) to be disappointed when we don't, because when we don't I know it'll be another batch of years before there's even a chance at it. The best hope I ever had was with Allied Races, since they were planned to come out in patches, but that whole thing got strange fast.

Indeed. Every expansion we don't get Ethereals or Nerubians is another period of disappointment for me. Still, I think I have enough interest in the setting to find something interesting in every expansion—the only thing that would really disappoint me, I think, about the expansion would be if the class is only Dragonsworn and not something like an actual Dragon.

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When I see this thing about Microclasses, I find myself looking at these in a similar fashion to Allied Races. A lot of the base for Allied Races were spin-off races that didn't need extra things like a full starting zone or different skeletons, so Blizz was able to give us 10 of them over the course of an expansion rather than four. If we were to have something along the lines of an "allied class" or the like (which is what I suspect this would be), I'm not entirely sure what all they could cut off to make it work. Single spec for sure, but otherwise they'll still need to be balanced & have their own assortment of moves. If they are sharing moves with another class (which is where you could cut some of it off), it might as well be something more like a bonus spec rather than a class. But of the options listed, none really fit the current classes unless they are stretched a bit.

Still though, if we are getting microclasses, I suspect it'll feel a lot more like the Allied Race version of classes than what a new class has been in the past, whatever that would even be.

I could see a Prestige Class system work—a questline and reputation to unlock a total reskin of a class. It seems like they'd not want to add all those class skins as perfectly-accessible right off the bat unless they've really learned from BfA. I was thinking a fourth specialization could be interesting, but I don't know if adding several new specializations to balance would be a good idea, so I think it would make the most sense if it were just a total reskin of a class or at least a single specialization.

For instance, think of the Green Fire questline, but on a larger scale and more like Allied Races. Once you reach the end, you do a final quest leading to the unlocking of your new skin and changing your character until you reverse it if you so choose. For instance, let's take a Warlock who wants to follow the Necromancer class quest. They start their questline following around some evil Necromancer and ultimately stealing all of his belongings after they murder him because power-hungry Warlock brain wants power. Afterwards, their specializations all get reskinned and renamed and their plate now says they're a Necromancer. They can replace all their pets with Undead of various types and their spells are reflavored. If it's only one specialization, then they'd just stay as slightly-reflavored Affliction Warlocks changed only where necessary, whereas the more high-effort and probably better option is that all of their specializations are changed to some extent. Destruction's spells are all reflavored as Frost Spells (i.e. Rain of Fire becomes frozen meteorites or shards or even becomes physically-identical to Frost Mages' Blizzard spell, though I think that would be a bit lazy), Affliction's spells are all reflavored as green, plague-y spells, and Demonology's summons are all various kinds of Undead and Demonbolt is replaced with something frost-themed instead.

Similarly, a Hunter does a questline with Velanora and when they complete it, they get a final quest to turn their main character into a Dark Ranger unless reversed. Marksmanship is reflavored and all of the attacks now cause Shadow damage, Beast Mastery has all their abilities turn more explicitly undead-themed and they may even be able to tame non-animal (i.e. Humanoid) undead, and Survival gets more shadow-themed attacks and some of their traps might be slightly changed around.

Your Mage gets a distress call from the Bronze Dragonflight—the Infinites are doing something vague but unequivocally evil! It falls only to you, a mentally-unstable looter, to go commit murder on the Infinites. Eventually, the Bronze Dragonflight is so simultaneously impressed with you, grateful to you for saving them, and horrified by your depravity that they agree to grant you the powers of time-travel. You remain functionally the same, but all of your Fire spells are reskinned as Sand-based, all of your Arcane spells now have a bronze color scheme and runes, and your Frost spells are themed after the Infinites and your Water Elemental is now a Sand Elemental. You have become a Chronomancer, and your plate reflects this.

I was also thinking that in some cases, a transmog could substitute a whole new class skin—Wardens, I think, are similar enough to Rogues that a Warden-themed armor set and one of those cool circular glaives (transmogrified as one weapon even though you'd apply it naturally to two) could be enough to make a Rogue feel like a Warden.

[Rae888]

Still though, if we are getting microclasses, I suspect it'll feel a lot more like the Allied Race version of classes than what a new class has been in the past, whatever that would even be.

I agree with this. If we were getting micro-classes, they would have to come with some fundamental changes to our presumptions of what goes into a class... both from the developer side in terms of art and balancing, and from the player side in terms of the relationship between individual characters and the account. I don't know what that all would look like, but it's interesting to think about.

[therumblings]

Assuming it's real, I don't even think Blizzard would want to market these "micro classes" as being micro classes. DH had 2 specs, they would just market it as a brand new class with only one spec, but multiple new classes to compensate. Still firmly in the camp that the leak is fake.

[AngerFork]

I could see a Prestige Class system work—a questline and reputation to unlock a total reskin of a class. It seems like they'd not want to add all those class skins as perfectly-accessible right off the bat unless they've really learned from BfA. I was thinking a fourth specialization could be interesting, but I don't know if adding several new specializations to balance would be a good idea, so I think it would make the most sense if it were just a total reskin of a class or at least a single specialization.

For instance, think of the Green Fire questline, but on a larger scale and more like Allied Races. Once you reach the end, you do a final quest leading to the unlocking of your new skin and changing your character until you reverse it if you so choose. For instance, let's take a Warlock who wants to follow the Necromancer class quest. They start their questline following around some evil Necromancer and ultimately stealing all of his belongings after they murder him because power-hungry Warlock brain wants power. Afterwards, their specializations all get reskinned and renamed and their plate now says they're a Necromancer. They can replace all their pets with Undead of various types and their spells are reflavored. If it's only one specialization, then they'd just stay as slightly-reflavored Affliction Warlocks changed only where necessary, whereas the more high-effort and probably better option is that all of their specializations are changed to some extent. Destruction's spells are all reflavored as Frost Spells (i.e. Rain of Fire becomes frozen meteorites or shards or even becomes physically-identical to Frost Mages' Blizzard spell, though I think that would be a bit lazy), Affliction's spells are all reflavored as green, plague-y spells, and Demonology's summons are all various kinds of Undead and Demonbolt is replaced with something frost-themed instead.

Similarly, a Hunter does a questline with Velanora and when they complete it, they get a final quest to turn their main character into a Dark Ranger unless reversed. Marksmanship is reflavored and all of the attacks now cause Shadow damage, Beast Mastery has all their abilities turn more explicitly undead-themed and they may even be able to tame non-animal (i.e. Humanoid) undead, and Survival gets more shadow-themed attacks and some of their traps might be slightly changed around.

Your Mage gets a distress call from the Bronze Dragonflight—the Infinites are doing something vague but unequivocally evil! It falls only to you, a mentally-unstable looter, to go commit murder on the Infinites. Eventually, the Bronze Dragonflight is so simultaneously impressed with you, grateful to you for saving them, and horrified by your depravity that they agree to grant you the powers of time-travel. You remain functionally the same, but all of your Fire spells are reskinned as Sand-based, all of your Arcane spells now have a bronze color scheme and runes, and your Frost spells are themed after the Infinites and your Water Elemental is now a Sand Elemental. You have become a Chronomancer, and your plate reflects this.

I was also thinking that in some cases, a transmog could substitute a whole new class skin—Wardens, I think, are similar enough to Rogues that a Warden-themed armor set and one of those cool circular glaives (transmogrified as one weapon even though you'd apply it naturally to two) could be enough to make a Rogue feel like a Warden.

A prestige system could be interesting. It would give a good way to earn up to unlocking the class, meaning you could build up to the class you want rather than having to start from scratch as you had to with Allied Races. The main worry I have with stuff like that is that it would seemingly not change up a ton of gameplay; instead it would seem to mostly be a graphical change. There would be no discernable difference between a Marksman & a Dark Ranger aside from spell names & cosmetics. Though on that same note, the Warlock Green Fire quest did make my Warlock feel fairly new for a bit, so it might be worth it just to see the new effects.

[Le Conceptuel]

Assuming it's real, I don't even think Blizzard would want to market these "micro classes" as being micro classes. DH had 2 specs, they would just market it as a brand new class with only one spec, but multiple new classes to compensate. Still firmly in the camp that the leak is fake.

Agreed. Whole thing smells of fish.

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A prestige system could be interesting. It would give a good way to earn up to unlocking the class, meaning you could build up to the class you want rather than having to start from scratch as you had to with Allied Races. The main worry I have with stuff like that is that it would seemingly not change up a ton of gameplay; instead it would seem to mostly be a graphical change. There would be no discernable difference between a Marksman & a Dark Ranger aside from spell names & cosmetics. Though on that same note, the Warlock Green Fire quest did make my Warlock feel fairly new for a bit, so it might be worth it just to see the new effects.

I do see that, but I figure the sheer cosmetic change may be enough, and I do think it would also spare a lot of the balancing that would need to exist around new specializations and the opportunity cost of a new class.

[therumblings]

Agreed. Whole thing smells of fish.

I don't mean to ruin anybody's fun with speculating, but the entire thing feels like BS. HOWEVER... I will say, Tinkers being potentially added into a Dragon expansion will make @Teriz very happy, which would be fun to see.