List of xpack "no no" rules

[Zenfoldor]

I read this as a fun thought experiment and wrote up a few:

1. Make hub nagivation as frictionless as possible, especially when it comes to mounted interactions and griefing behavior.

2. Never release an xpak without at least one selling point being some sort of new content(NOT a simple numerical change) that will persist beyond the life of the xpak.

3. Less is more, storywise. The more specific and lengthy the writing is, the smaller the world becomes. Build lore not narratives for MMOs, and let the players role-play who they are in this world.

4. Keep arbitrary non-gold currencies used for character progression to under 4.

5. Time gating should be used sparingly and only as needed.

6. Players shouldn't be expected to run external addons and programs in order to compete in the game.

7. The game should always strive to become more educational and friendly for new and returning players. The game should try to offer more tutorial/training/suggestion content which players can reference or be guided towards as needed.

8. Where players are made to compete for resources, there should always be a larger gameplay element relying on that competition, beyond "competing for resources is fun."

9. Large content gaps should be avoided.

10. Probably my most specific opinion that may still work as a generality. Tentpole activity metas should always have some overlap and always some unique space. It doesn't feel good to have to pvp to pve. However, it does also not feel good to perfect one area of the game and have to start fresh in others. Rising tide should rise all boats, but to be "good" at pvp you should have to pvp and vice versa. This should also apply to similar tentpole activities, such as mythic+ and raiding.

...and edit to add one more:

11. Gear should feel unique, relevant, and rewarding. Generic or procedural gear generation may be easier, but it removes novelty and fomo from the game's reward system, and reduces incentivization.

[cocomen2]

No more PVP only talents! -> all talents,skills work everywhere but with some adjustments in pvp, pvp effects described into its description.


PVE and PVP has their own loadouts, meaning that once you enter pvp regime only pvp items boosting yours stats while all PVE items do not apply any affect as if they not exist.

PVE equipment items work only in PVE, if you have no PVE gear, then your charcter gets only 30% stats from PVP gear if you wear it in PVE.
PVP equipment items work only in PVP, if you have no PVP gear, then your charcter gets only 30% stats from PVE gear if you wear it in PVP.
So basically you wear two sets of equipment all the time, 1 for PVE and 2nd for PVP, if player has no other equipment than one set that he wears for his main occupatioon, then its stats reduced by 70% in activity it not belongs.




Example pvp adjustments :
1) if skill does damage equal to 20% hp of enemy player, in pve it would count hp% of caster instead of target.
2)CC duariation of powerful control abilities reduced in PVP.
3)Bonus damage taken by target from all debuff sources on target can't be more than 50%, in pvp.

[Chain Chungus]

druid was always in the top most popular classes,and for most of its life you couldnt see gear in any spec lol

If dracthyr were compared to druids, it would be their visage form that is naked, since that is the transformation form. Druids can see their armor when not transformed, just like the dracthyr should be able to do when they aren't transformed into their visage form.

[deenman]

If dracthyr were compared to druids, it would be their visage form that is naked, since that is the transformation form. Druids can see their armor when not transformed, just like the dracthyr should be able to do when they aren't transformed into their visage form.

huh?so you cant see armor even in the normal form?

[MrLachyG]

Rule 5: Never use duplicate rewards. It's just so terrible to see 50% rewards being duplicates instead of upgrades.

this is the first rule of yours I agree with. It is a real kick in the teeth to do 8 mythic 15's, or clear the raid and open your GV to see 2 items you have already. no bonus stats, no sockets, the exact same.

[Shaqthefat]

the need for 3rd party is 100% a failure of the devs

they improved over the years for sure,but its just a drop in the ocean

It isn't a failure when the game was designed with the intentional use of addons in mind.

[WowIsDead64]

this is the first rule of yours I agree with. It is a real kick in the teeth to do 8 mythic 15's, or clear the raid and open your GV to see 2 items you have already. no bonus stats, no sockets, the exact same.

Not because duplicates are bad, but because devs abuse them, so players need some anti-duplicate protection to have guarantee, that devs wouldn't do it. Old loot was 100% random and at least it was fair. It was about "Higher chance of upgrade at the beginning, but higher chance of duplicate at the end". Current AI loot gives you duplicates all the way. For example ZM story line. Yeah, there are 3 kinds of every item. May some players need different ones. But for me first thing I really need - is item level to beat mobs.

I just hate, when devs are "cheating". Because every game is about "You play right way - you win, you pay wrong way - you lose". But when game is intentionally designed around always losing, because some players use guides to always win - I lose interest. Because it's no longer game. I can't "play" with it.

[deenman]

It isn't a failure when the game was designed with the intentional use of addons in mind.

well yeah,its the same mentality at bethesda,why bother making a complete product,just let addons/mods fix stuff or complete the game

[Shaqthefat]

well yeah,its the same mentality at bethesda,why bother making a complete product,just let addons/mods fix stuff or complete the game

Mods for games like minecraft and skyrim are the only reasons those games remain popular. They make a complete game, then add the ability to addons and mods to allow players to further customize the game to their exact liking. Modding (not necessarily addons) keep games alive no matter how complete the product was.

[WowIsDead64]

Rule 6: Never force PVP in PVE and vise versa.

PVP implies competition and competition implies some psychological pressure. And it's very hard to draw line between fair sport and toxicity. I don't want to say, that competition is bad. But it's not for everybody. Not all players want game to put some psychological pressure on them. Even if this game is MMO. It's especially funny to see, how devs try to artificially make players less toxic, while doing nothing to limit source of this problem - competition. As I've already said, it's like giving us gun, but saying not to shoot anybody, while shooting others - is the best game strategy. Therefore - players pick PVE mode for reason. They want to protect themselves from such abuse. They want guarantees. And it's bad, when devs try to force some pseudo-PVP gameplay on them.

Don't get me wrong. Any multiplayer game has one sort of competition or another. But in PVE game competition should have following "passive" form:

[cparle87]

I'd like for any endgame "grind" (more like super stretched time gated bullshit) like torghast/maw/korthia to just not exist.
Zereth Morthis is the way forward, do that every patch.

What, praytell, does ZM do right that Korthia did wrong, besides flying? A rep to grind, rares to run across the zone when they spawn, a currency you get from almost everything to grind up. Seem pretty copy paste to me.

[WowIsDead64]

What, praytell, does ZM do right that Korthia did wrong, besides flying? A rep to grind, rares to run across the zone when they spawn, a currency you get from almost everything to grind up. Seem pretty copy paste to me.

Flying is actually big factor, because it makes location less annoying, but yeah, ZM is just copy-paste. Devs just don't understand, that not all players like "sandbox" locations. Example? I needed "Kill 10 rares" achievement to get flying there. When I completed all other achievements (that also were about stupid "Read guide on WowHead") and got to this achievement, I started to think, that for some players chasing rares must have been their favorite kind of gameplay. And I just can't force myself to start chasing and camping rares. I just don't understand, how this gameplay could be fun. For me it's just waste of time. I just don't have so much free time to ride around location, while waiting for some rare to spawn. I want to do something. Some quest, some WQ. Anything. I want to have some goal.

[Caprias]

What, praytell, does ZM do right that Korthia did wrong, besides flying? A rep to grind, rares to run across the zone when they spawn, a currency you get from almost everything to grind up. Seem pretty copy paste to me.

One had a long drawn out and on top of that RNG power grind for sockets and conduit upgrades, the other a one and done grind for the legendary.
ZM unlocks aside from the mobile game timegate BS are also a lot more fun and focused on the zone.

[facefist]

We provide feedback to Blizzard for how long? For 15 years? But they still manage to do things wrong from time to time and repeat the same mistakes again, again and again. Shouldn't we make list of xpack "no no" rules for them?

Such as:

Rule 1: Never make hubs in indoor locations

I don't think Blizzard should take any feedback from someone called WowIsDead64. It's like taking feedback on your chinese food from someone who has a sign post saying "I hate chinese food".

[Goat7]

Here is some feedback for the players.

Never pre order any game ever esp a Blizzard product.

Unless of course you want to give money to a shit hole company that is gonna give u unfinished garbage before they bail and microsoft takes over.... then i guess go for it

[RobertMugabe]

Why?

/10chars

I don't necessarily agree that they should never add indoor hubs anymore, but at the same time Oribos just sucks. Same with the Pandaria hubs (which were much worse). I would much rather see proper cities.

- - - Updated - - -

Here is some feedback for the players.

Never pre order any game ever esp a Blizzard product.

Unless of course you want to give money to a shit hole company that is gonna give u unfinished garbage before they bail and microsoft takes over.... then i guess go for it

I never preorder games, because I just don't see the point in it, except for WoW expansions. I have preordered every expansion since MoP and I was never disappointed or felt like I wasted money. I have gotten so many hours of entertainment out of every expansion that each of them was well worth their money, even WoD which was abandoned. Considering how much fun I had with WoW, buying any other game almost feels like a waste in comparison, considering how the average AAA gets played for 1-2 weeks and then you move on.

I am 100% sure that I will play Dragonflight anyways and I am sure that every person who is currently playing WoW will do the same, so if I preorder now or buy it at launch won't make any difference, except that I get 1 month of game time and a lvl60 boost NOW.

On another note, it's kinda funny how you shit so hard on Blizzard and their players by telling everyone across different threads how bad they are and all that... on a mostly WoW fan forum. See you on launch.

[pinglong]

Oribos is very poorly designed, makes me believe the leak that marketplace was the original city and Oribos was just some hub.

[Firefall]

I'd like for any endgame "grind" (more like super stretched time gated bullshit) like torghast/maw/korthia to just not exist.
Zereth Morthis is the way forward, do that every patch.

I would like for in-game continued progression to exist. Zereth Morthis was a step backwards I hope is not done every patch.

Excessive timegating isn't fun though, agreed there. I liked Legion artifact power. You were "rewarded" for keeping-up, but the most time efficient strategy was to stay a week behind, and the end result was like .5% difference in performance.

[AcidicSyn]

Ah, another opportunity for me to repeat the following:

# - Never ever ever ever cut story related content. make it skippable if you like, but NEVER cut it entirely. Even when the next expansion launches, keep all content in the damn game.

[saixilein]

No flying at launch.

No flying overall