Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Raetary]

It sounds cool but I wouldn't like it personally. I already get annoyed just switching between Cat and Night Elf when I'm playing a Resto Druid. I was never a fan of the hectic form swapping you have to do to play "optimally", and it's also why Druid will always be my least favorite class to play.

This wouldn't be an issue if its a single drakonid form that changes color/appearance based on your spec.
It would essentially be a toggle the same way Shadowform is.

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What's more likely than a toggled form, is something akin to old Voidform where you build up your resources and then get transformed/transform yourself into a Drakonid.

[Izalla]

I think 5 specs is too many personally. I would combine them into just 3:

Black = Tank
Green & Red = Healer
Blue & Bronze = DPS

The problem is, Green feels thematically very similar to Restoration Druids and Blue is basically just Frost/Arcane Mages.

Bronze, Red, and Black are the dragonflights with the most potential for unique abilities. Incidentally these are also the ones they based Heroes on in HotS (with Chromie, Alexstrasza, and Deathwing), but that's besides the point.

Careful, you're in dangerous waters right now and could accidentally throw us into a 50 page overdone argument

[Das Thora]

Time for my pre-expansion announcement round of What I Want/What I'll Get: the game where I predict what we'll get in this expansion & compare those predictions to what I actually want to see.

Looks fun!

Theme
What I Want: Lightbound and K'aresh (OR Lordaeron/Quel'thalas)
What I'll Get: Dragons & the Dragon Isles and maybe Lordaeron + Quel'thalas

New Races
What I Want: Both corrupted and uncorrupted arakkoa, and ethereals
What I'll Get: Drakonid or some 'half dragon' race like EQ2 has

New Class
What I Want: Hemomancer with a healer spec so I can be an edgy healer, or second place; Bard
What I'll Get: A 3-spec dragonsworn class

Endgame Loop
What I Want: Basically Legion
What I'll Get: Basically Shadowlands

New Features
What I Want: Some sort of long-term multiplayer survival island you can return to and resume surviving in. Another try at rogue-likes and at warfronts (except warfronts against lore enemies, not the other faction). A better version of Island Expeditions crossed with Argus invasion points. Zone invasions like in Legion but around the world. RPG-style advancement systems. Turn-based JRPG style mini-game dungeons (basically an evolved version of pet battles dungeons).
What I'll Get: Nothing that's really new probably.

[draugril]

And yet, they never learn. Or well, maybe they do and new people just end up making the same mistake next hype thread.

A stray thought - might those unaccounted for customization options be able to be used for Demon Hunter-like cosmetics?

[AngerFork]

What I Want: Some sort of long-term multiplayer survival island you can return to and resume surviving in. Another try at rogue-likes and at warfronts (except warfronts against lore enemies, not the other faction). A better version of Island Expeditions crossed with Argus invasion points. Zone invasions like in Legion but around the world. RPG-style advancement systems. Turn-based JRPG style mini-game dungeons (basically an evolved version of pet battles dungeons).

This survival island idea sounds really cool. I'd love to see that in game.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I think that this is just me really high on copium, but the new class could be a dragon class related with 5 specs, one for each main dragonflight

While that could be an expansion selling gimmik, the reality is that it would be quite hard to pull off and cause alot of issues. It would be way easier to create 3-4 normal specs and pick and choose different aspects of each flight. That way you don't have to fully commit to one singular theme (quite hard for bronze and green flight imho), but you can still incorporate the more interesting elements of the flight into the spec.

For example a healing spec could be comprised of red, green and bronze.
A tank spec could be build upon black, red and bronze.
A caster spec could be build around blue red and green.
A melee spec around black, green and blue (only way I see the blue flight not being just mages is them being used as battle mages here).

... or something like that.
Bronze for example would mostly give slows, speed ups and shields for example.
The red flight would provide magical fire dps and healing.
The black would provide earth/physcial magic, fire, defense, etc.
The blue flight would be for cold and more abstract magic effects.
The greens would give.. dunno tbh, some CC maybe and (spritual) healing I guess.

None of them sound sound strong enough to make a whole spec alone though, especially with full fire casters (2 at that) already existing, same for nature healing via the greens, which is just a restoration druid. The blues are practically just arcane/frost mages already. I guess the only ones that could be strong enough on their own with some stretching would maybe be the bronze and blacks and the later only because earth magic is massively underutilized (but better explored in another shaman spec tbh). You'd also need to kinda define some basic shared mechanics to give the class an overall cohesive feeling and just each having a themed breath is probably a bit too weak.

Edit: Eh, ecarp beat me to it.

[Sondrelk]

This survival island idea sounds really cool. I'd love to see that in game.

Island expeditions 2.0 with the Torghast system of scaling group and roguelike upgrades.
New chunk of recolored old gear and mounts.
A few unique rewards.

Then have that, but with no incentive to go there for any reason beyond story and cosmetics and I would be set for a long while.

[Nightshade711]

This wouldn't be an issue if its a single drakonid form that changes color/appearance based on your spec.
It would essentially be a toggle the same way Shadowform is.

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What's more likely than a toggled form, is something akin to old Voidform where you build up your resources and then get transformed/transform yourself into a Drakonid.

This would be much better than just turning into a dragon in my opinion because turning into a dragon would be underwhelming because blizzard wouldn’t let us turn into full size dragons/drakes for the mechanical issues alone.

Then there could be glyphs to keep your normal appearance when in the form except with some effects not all too dissimilar to Wrathion’s trinket wings in Nyalotha or the rogue legendary.

[Buliwyf the Omen]

This would be much better than just turning into a dragon in my opinion.
Then there could be glyphs to keep your normal appearance when in the form except with some effects not all too dissimilar to Wrathion’s trinket wings in Nyalotha or the rogue legendary.

Im kinda having Nefarius in my head, the Classic fight version. You blast the enemy with your dark magic first to build up your dragon form and then you flap into the frontline.

The problem is this sounds too cool to be true, although its nothing but Demonology Warlock.

[draugril]

The issue I have with an in-combat transformation is my desire to be in a draconic form while out of combat.

[Wangming]

Looks fun!

Theme
What I Want: Lightbound and K'aresh (OR Lordaeron/Quel'thalas)
What I'll Get: Dragons & the Dragon Isles and maybe Lordaeron + Quel'thalas

New Races
What I Want: Both corrupted and uncorrupted arakkoa, and ethereals
What I'll Get: Drakonid or some 'half dragon' race like EQ2 has

New Class
What I Want: Hemomancer with a healer spec so I can be an edgy healer, or second place; Bard
What I'll Get: A 3-spec dragonsworn class

Endgame Loop
What I Want: Basically Legion
What I'll Get: Basically Shadowlands

New Features
What I Want: Some sort of long-term multiplayer survival island you can return to and resume surviving in. Another try at rogue-likes and at warfronts (except warfronts against lore enemies, not the other faction). A better version of Island Expeditions crossed with Argus invasion points. Zone invasions like in Legion but around the world. RPG-style advancement systems. Turn-based JRPG style mini-game dungeons (basically an evolved version of pet battles dungeons).
What I'll Get: Nothing that's really new probably.

Count me in!


Theme
What I Want: Denathrius and San'layin (OR Azshara and underwater shenanigans)
What I'll Get: Dragons & the Dragon Isles
New Races
What I Want: Darkfallen, Naga, Yaungol, Broken, Arakkoa or Botani
What I'll Get: Dracthir that lets you play out all your dragon fantasies (except being strong)

New Class
What I Want: Dark Ranger, Bard or anything that would be considered unique in the current MMO scene
What I'll Get: Some Dragon Knight with only melee specs

Main Characters
What I Want: The Greymanes, the Stormstouts, Nazgrim, Vanessa
What I'll Get: Bane, Thrall, Malfurion, Alexstrasza

New Features
What I Want: Evergreen side content outside of the endgame loop
What I'll Get: New dungeons, New Raids, new AP to grind[/QUOTE]

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The issue I have with an in-combat transformation is my desire to be in a draconic form while out of combat.

If it works like Worgen, that is a non-issue.

[Alanar]

I guess an unpopular opinion, but idg a flying fuck about dragon shapeshift forms were everybody is super hyped for.

Or 5 kyrian colored wings in 5 flavors.. like hoe is this cool.in anyway?

[Izalla]

Looks fun!

Theme
What I Want: Lightbound and K'aresh (OR Lordaeron/Quel'thalas)
What I'll Get: Dragons & the Dragon Isles and maybe Lordaeron + Quel'thalas

New Races
What I Want: Both corrupted and uncorrupted arakkoa, and ethereals
What I'll Get: Drakonid or some 'half dragon' race like EQ2 has

New Class
What I Want: Hemomancer with a healer spec so I can be an edgy healer, or second place; Bard
What I'll Get: A 3-spec dragonsworn class

Endgame Loop
What I Want: Basically Legion
What I'll Get: Basically Shadowlands

New Features
What I Want: Some sort of long-term multiplayer survival island you can return to and resume surviving in. Another try at rogue-likes and at warfronts (except warfronts against lore enemies, not the other faction). A better version of Island Expeditions crossed with Argus invasion points. Zone invasions like in Legion but around the world. RPG-style advancement systems. Turn-based JRPG style mini-game dungeons (basically an evolved version of pet battles dungeons).
What I'll Get: Nothing that's really new probably.

Oh I wanna join in! (my "what I'll get"s are pessimistic worst case scenarios in some cases but still what I think is most likely)

Theme
What I Want: An Azeroth focused expansion that is dialed back in threat levels and involves progressing the stories of our races and allies and enemies with a mixture of dragon focus thrown in since we already know that is going to be a thing. Guerilla warfare threats, conflicts from within, political nonsense that causes issues we have to solve (Genn can't let go of his hatred of the forsaken). Can't just raid this town and kill the troublemakers because we have to actually root out the problem and find out who the troublemakers are. Are they justified in their grievances? Maybe. But we can't allow tensions to turn into wars and destroy what peace we have managed to scrap together because Bob and Joe don't care about the overall good of the world and just want to kill each other over their own issues.
What I'll Get: Chromatus or Galakrond being a huge focus that is too much of an emergency to focus on smaller, character driven stories throughout the expansion.

New Races
What I Want: I'm fine with beastly drakonids but things like ogres and whatnot would be better as they are already technically part of our factions.
What I'll Get: Nothing or some kind of beastly dragon people

New Class
What I Want: Tinkers =(
What I'll Get: Something that fits better into the expac like a Dragonsworn of some kind which is fine but doesn't excite me the way an established but missing class fantasy does.

Endgame Loop
What I Want: Heroic dungeons to be reworked to be queue-able hardmodes rather than a useless step between normal max level and mythic+. Cata launch and ZA/ZG style where you can definitely fail and have to properly handle trash and aren't completely forgotten about and overshadowed by the more competitive and speed based mythic+ system. Award valor for current patch and justice for previous patch which can be used to slowly work up to buying normal level raid gear which can even more slowly be upgraded to heroic level raid gear toward the end of a tier's livetime if you stick with capping each week. Raids can reward enough valor that raiders don't feel compelled to do non-raid content if they don't want to to reach the weekly cap, and mythics can have whatever solution mythic players feel would work best. A creation catalyst type thing that allows you to use tokens dropped in mythic only to slowly convert mythic+ gear into tier as well?
What I'll Get: More mythic+ focus and other end game design that makes me feel left out.

New Features
What I Want: Revamp to at least the Lordaeron continent and parts of Northern Kalimdor. Something like a mix of warfronts and scenarios that can be done more often than warfronts and connect to relevant parts of the story, resulting in changes to the zone depending on the outcome your realm/region ends up with (like the horde and alliance back and forth zone control). Professions reworked where they are actually useful (gems and enchants anyone?) and aren't such a horrendous and expensive slog to level only to find out you wasted all those mats to get here and can only make a couple pieces of BoP gear. Make recipes drop from the world, the raids, the dungeons, vendors, make the products you create be tradeable and sellable and worth making and buying. More questlines where you can raise or bond with mounts and maybe even a mount naming system. Maybe you can level your mount friendship/level so that it has different attributes (less chance to be dismounted vs slight speed increase vs ability to doublejump and other interesting things I would need to think longer about). Racial stories to be a continued focus here and there throughout bigger main stories with cosmetic rewards for following these optional threads to their conclusions. Also world objectives where you can turn in randomly dropped items or currencies that progress things in specific ways (turn in enough black dragon scales and trigger this zone buff, or turn in enough red dragon scales and trigger that zone buff, something that isn't a huge deal for power where people are compelled to do it all day but something to make the world more alive and interesting). And throw in the pvp areas to be captured for those who enjoy that because pvp will always be a thing whether the factions exist or not (can make each area have a small scale conflict like worgen squabbling with undead, nelves disputing with orcs, things that are very much still going to be happening on a smaller scale than faction war because old hatreds run deep on the personal level).
What I'll Get: Choose your dragonflight covenant and most stories are new things tied to the Dragon Isles with no real focus on making the world at large feel relevant and alive.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I guess an unpopular opinion, but idg a flying fuck about dragon shapeshift forms were everybody is super hyped for.

Or 5 kyrian colored wings in 5 flavors.. like hoe is this cool.in anyway?

It's as interesting as vampire stuff, so not at all.

[Izalla]

I guess an unpopular opinion, but idg a flying fuck about dragon shapeshift forms were everybody is super hyped for.

Or 5 kyrian colored wings in 5 flavors.. like hoe is this cool.in anyway?

I'm not really interested in it either but if they make a new class I will be happy to try it out and see if it is fun. It's just not something on my personal wish list or anything that speaks to me really, and I don't look at any of the available races and go "man why can't I be an orc dragon?" the way I look at other races and go "man why can't I be an X Y?"

[ercarp]

I'd be more than happy if the new class was just a mail-wearing copy-paste of Dragoons from FFXIV.

[Marlamin]

A stray thought - might those unaccounted for customization options be able to be used for Demon Hunter-like cosmetics?

Sure -- any sort of customization could be in those gaps. It could also end up being something that'll never see the light of day. Who knows?

[Nightshade711]

Theme
What I Want: Dragons & Dragon Isles. (Murozond storyline getting wrapped up here too)
What I'll Get: Dragons & the Dragon Isles

New Races
What I Want:Drakonids with a second body type that’s skinnier like Dragonmen with a second form that’s one of the mortal races that we can customize separately. (To emulate what the dragons do)
Or some other monstrous dragon-themed race.
Two body types. (One like Drakonids, the other skinnier like Cata Dragonmen)
What I'll Get: Overly sexualized draconic elves.

New Class
What I Want: Tinker or Dragonsworn w/ magic melee DPS whose purpose in PvP is to counter spellcasters. (No dragon transformation)
What I'll Get: No new class, or some dragonsworn class with no dragon transformation.

Main Characters
What I Want: Murozond/Nozdormu, Kalecgos & the Azuna dragons & Kirin Tor, Sabellianz
What I'll Get: Bane, Thrall, Malfurion, Alexstrasza, Anduin, Sylvanas.

New Features
What I Want: Dragonflight covenants that’re just for cosmetics & story. Some open world progression & pocopoc type system.
What I'll Get: Borrowed power that misses the mark again trying to rekindle what Artifacts had. Devs refuse to change negative thing players want changed until later patches.

[Buliwyf the Omen]

I'd be more than happy if the new class was just a mail-wearing copy-paste of Dragoons from FFXIV.

Isnt that literally just a bomb-less and poison-less Survival Hunter with no Pet?

[Cosmic Janitor]

I'd be more than happy if the new class was just a mail-wearing copy-paste of Dragoons from FFXIV.

While it may be a decent template for a dragonknight class or something like that, at the end of the day it's another melee class. It would be nice of we'd get a ranged class for a change (instead of losing them).