Right now Dragonflight is the most boring expansion ever.

[crusadernero]

Well, WoD looked awesome and that was... Bad.

I'd say its better to just wait and see how 10.0 will be. That said - dunno what people expect. We will get new zones, quests, dungeons, raids, gear, mounts, pets. After that? Probably some cool new features(like the flying thing).

After all that, what do people really expect?

[Yunravel]

No you don't. This is the most fucked up stupid thing I have ever heard. Huge player power is LITERALLY whar got the game in the situarion it is. Fuck no.

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1. Total skill tree revamp (extremely excited)
2. Total profession revamp (extremely excited)
3. Going to the Dragon Isle
4. Learning more about Dragon lore
5. Murozond or Galakrond as the big bad.
6. A return to the world being important.

Saying it has nothing to be excited for is just fucking stupid.

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Blood Mallet has done the math and with the new talent system if each spec is like druid and dk. Than every spec has about 2.8 million combonations. Now most of those will be bad, and that is fine. It is all about choice. It is a good thing.

Its by far the less exciting expansion ever man. And on top of that the cost for preorder is even higher than it used to and rewards are lacklusters as fuck.

Dracthyr looks terribles, the worst case scenario between a dragonsworn class and a real dragon race. A shitty furry mutant, talent tree brings nothing news, no rows of new spells, no reworks. Armors are still 2D painted.

The only thing that could be interesting is dragon riding. Thats all.

[Flurryfang]

Well it is atleast one of the least hyped expansions i would say.

Like the big features are a new class/race combo, reinventing flying with dragon flying and revamped talents..... Its not really a lot :I Like, there is very little in this that talks about gameplay. There are no announced new systems, new interactions or new content in generel. Its all just visual, fluff or revamp of something that was broken.

While they turned out bad, stuff like Garrisons and island expeditions hyped up WoD and BFA. The artifacts made most people excited for Legion and the covenants were atleast interesting enough to make SL an expansion worth trying out.

Im not quite sure what is interesting about Dragonflight, if i just want to play my rogue and not dive into Evoker. What is actually gonna be new and interesting when i level through Dragonflight and explore the dragon isles?

[Biomega]

I never said that they would all be viable. I said it is a great that the players have choice. If only 1% of choices are viable than that is still 28000 viable combonations. That is still fucking amazing.

If .05% is viable than that is 1400 viable combonations for each spec. That is fantastic.

There will not be 1,400 viable combinations.

There'll probably be 1.2 or so talent "builds" on average across all classes for a given content (i.e. raid vs. dungeon vs. pvp). Some specs will have two different options that will end up a couple of % different in performance. Most will have exactly one build that's competitive, with a bit of wriggle room with non-performance stuff. Much like they have now.

That's EXACTLY what I mean by this being dishonest, by the way. It's like saying "Destro Warlocks have 3 different talent builds for raids right now!" because you could take Demon Skin, Dark Pact, or Burning Rush in your third row but leave the actual performance talents the same. It's technically correct, but also COMPLETELY FUCKING WORTHLESS AND MISLEADING and totally beside the actual point.

Also: you clearly didn't even think about your own argument for even 2 seconds, because if you thought they'd ship a WoW expansion where people have 1,400 different and actually viable talent builds to choose from you're deluded beyond repair. Even Path of Spreadsheet doesn't come close to doing that, let alone the RPG for Dummies that WoW has always been.

[Flurryfang]

Well, WoD looked awesome and that was... Bad.

WoD might have looked awesome and turned out bad, but the good expansions of WoW have looked good at the start aswell and yet turned out great

[klaps_05]

Even if it is boring, this is what ppl wanted. No systems and no real complexity. Just log in and do raid/pvp/m+.

[Biomega]

Even if it is boring, this is what ppl wanted. No systems and no real complexity. Just log in and do raid/pvp/m+.

The sad truth is, if it really was that, that'd probably be fine for a lot of people.

But I'm betting it won't be. They won't have it enshrined in "systems" the way they have over the last couple expansions, but I'd be EXTREMELY surprised if they just left us without a contrived mechanical reason to log on and repeat maintenance tasks all the time.

They are extremely hostile to the raid logging mentality, because people who raid log are also more likely to be people who cancel their sub after progression and take a break until the next tier.

[Orwell7]

OK do we want more "features" like Island Exps, Scenarios (???), Warfronts or Torghast?

Give us more dungeons, more raids -> more bosses, and don't EVER spend development time on features that only sound good, but plays awful.

[Kaykay]

With more bugs than not too?

Bugs used to be the spice that makes the game fun. Like going out of bounds in a zone, climbing on top of a building in a nofly zone, or npcs spawning instantly.

So long as you dont get stuck unable to progress further, bugs aren't that bad.

[Utrrabbit]

There will not be 1,400 viable combinations.

There'll probably be 1.2 or so talent "builds" on average across all classes for a given content (i.e. raid vs. dungeon vs. pvp). Some specs will have two different options that will end up a couple of % different in performance. Most will have exactly one build that's competitive, with a bit of wriggle room with non-performance stuff. Much like they have now.

That's EXACTLY what I mean by this being dishonest, by the way. It's like saying "Destro Warlocks have 3 different talent builds for raids right now!" because you could take Demon Skin, Dark Pact, or Burning Rush in your third row but leave the actual performance talents the same. It's technically correct, but also COMPLETELY FUCKING WORTHLESS AND MISLEADING and totally beside the actual point.

Also: you clearly didn't even think about your own argument for even 2 seconds, because if you thought they'd ship a WoW expansion where people have 1,400 different and actually viable talent builds to choose from you're deluded beyond repair. Even Path of Spreadsheet doesn't come close to doing that, let alone the RPG for Dummies that WoW has always been.

THEY LITERALLY said in an interview that this time around they are going to be given players as much freedom and choice as is possible. Mathematically 1400 is the lowest possible arangement of viable builds not the the "meta".

You seem to not fully grasp the difference between viable and meta. Btw the meta ONLY matters to the WF top 5 guilds. Every other guild it will not matter. The community especially on mmoc seem to think they are better than they actually are.

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Its by far the less exciting expansion ever man. And on top of that the cost for preorder is even higher than it used to and rewards are lacklusters as fuck.

Dracthyr looks terribles, the worst case scenario between a dragonsworn class and a real dragon race. A shitty furry mutant, talent tree brings nothing news, no rows of new spells, no reworks. Armors are still 2D painted.

The only thing that could be interesting is dragon riding. Thats all.

Drakthyr look amazing what are you talking about? I love wows art style and so do millions of others. 99% or my guild want to roll them cause they like the look, this is just fact. Armour also looks great in wow. I hate how it looks in FF14, makes me want to puke.

[Biomega]

THEY LITERALLY said in an interview that this time around they are going to be given players as much freedom and choice as is possible. Mathematically 1400 is the lowest possible arangement of viable builds not the the "meta".

You seem to not fully grasp the difference between viable and meta.

Oh, I grasp it just fine.

What you don't seem to grasp is that this distinction is IMPORTANT, and to pretend it isn't and that you can use technicalities to pretend there are more options than there REALLY are is EXACTLY why I said - from the start - that this is a disingenuous argument made in bad faith.

You want us to believe that currently, raiding Destro locks have 3 specs, just because there's an irrelevant, non-performance talent row that you can pick 3 options from. That's a technicality that overlooks the actual essence of what people mean by "spec" or "build"; more than that, it does so INTENTIONALLY (since clearly you know it's a technicality).

But yeah, keep parroting the PR talk of how DF gives us 2.8 million options to spec our character.

[Myradin]

The big fear though is that it's all an illusion.

The idea of distinct "builds" is probably mostly a fantasy - at least for the vast majority of classes. It'll likely be the same across the board, with 3-5 talents that could go either way depending on either utility or fight demands (probably largely AoE vs. ST). But probably very little actual, substantial difference in the sense of rotational changes or playstyle differences, at least for most specs.

We don't know for sure yet of course, but from what we've seen and heard so far that outcome seems the most likely. Happy to be proved wrong, of course.

Talent trees in wow will always be an illusion. The few fun alternative specs in the old system people like to point out were often mediocre at best, and usually nerfed into oblivion when they turned out to be viable.

The playerbase will theorycraft the best playstyle and everyone will be expected to adhere to it. We literally just saw that with Covenants.

Thats why people defended the Mop-SL talent trees. Yes, they were still illusion of choice too, but there was less pointless steps.

[Yarathir]

I love how the lack of systems is treated as a feature. No. A showering of systems is undoubtedly a good way to make the game feel shit to play, but an absence of them isn't in itself a feature. The point is that they should use the time they would spend on creating MAU treadmill systems to make new content. Right now, you guys just got gaslit into getting less content because "well at least it means no systems." Outplayed.

[Biomega]

Talent trees in wow will always be an illusion. The few fun alternative specs in the old system people like to point out were often mediocre at best, and usually nerfed into oblivion when they turned out to be viable.

The playerbase will theorycraft the best playstyle and everyone will be expected to adhere to it. We literally just saw that with Covenants.

Thats why people defended the Mop-SL talent trees. Yes, they were still illusion of choice too, but there was less pointless steps.

Agreed.

But I don't think it's impossible to pull of meaningful talent trees. You just have to be real clear about what you want - top-down design, not bottom-up. Their current approach is basically "hey look here's the abilities we already have, so let's take some of them and just sprinkle them around a tree so you can pick what to take" - which as you rightly said is pretty much doomed from the start.

Instead, they should design in ways that create meaning based on what people are actually USING stuff for. First, spin off PvP - that's never going to be balanced unless you separate it from PvE. Give the PvP folks their own talent tree, make it the only tree to work in instanced PvP, and let people choose whether to use the PvP or PvE tree in War Mode.

Next, make it only performance vs. performance, and utility vs. utility. Mixing them up is a recipe for disaster, because either the utility is effectively mandatory, or it'll be skipped in favor of performance; neither is a good and meaningful choice. So instead of choosing between throughput and interrupt, for example you'd choose between, say, 3 interrupts: melee range, shorter CD; long range, longer CD; or 2 charges. There's no clear winner, because there's too many variables. And whichever choice you make, it actually affects how you play.

For the throughput choices, it'd be complicated and require a lot of work - but there's possible payoff pairs that work much the same way. A damage cooldown, for example: maybe you can get a bit of damage on 1min; or medium on 3min; or a really big one on 5min. And of course the model that we have in some instances, but aren't exploiting enough: a simpler rotation that's slightly less damage, or a more complex rotation that's slightly more. Used sparingly, of course. Other tradeoffs could e.g. be instant cast vs. cast time, the trusted AoE vs. ST (but more intelligently than "use only in Aoe" vs. "use only in ST"; something like 75% ST + 25% AoE vs. 50/50 vs. 25/75 or whatever).

That would require a lot of redesign for classes, but it's doable. It'd create MEANING in making choices, rather than being pigeon-holed or super obvious. And the more subjective factors the better, so it's more difficult to math out an optimization because it varies with personal style - you know, exactly what a talent system SHOULD allow you to do, customize to your liking and preference.

But I'm not a designer. And I can dream without regard for budget.

[Soikona]

Do we know anything about the numbers yet?
Without that it's impossible to say that X will be superior to Y and yes most cases you can't get exactly what you have right now but can I ask you a few questions about your frost DK?
Does it currently have a ghoul and connected abilities?
Is there a build in the current talent system that makes 2h play differently from dw?
Is there a build that you can make currently that is completely aoe?

I get that it's weird for them to take your class right now and tell you to rebuild it without seeing it as some false choice but in reality it means trimming fat for a change in playstyle.

The possibility of my interrupt being skippable for a dps increase or the chance to have triple chi torpedo with serpent kick is an exciting thought after having no changes in play since legion

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There's actually some choice in most if not all of the trees

Also you realize flying will probably require using the dragon flying feature at some point and you can use the copter for areas that dragon flying won't be used. This is exactly the same as every expansion since WoD only this time we get limited flight

It’s not the exact same, and you know it’s not. It was the happiest WoW day for me when we got mount equipment so I didn’t have to use water strider. You under estimate how important mount choice is, and forcing people onto dragons is not a good thing.

[Yarathir]

Talent trees in wow will always be an illusion. The few fun alternative specs in the old system people like to point out were often mediocre at best, and usually nerfed into oblivion when they turned out to be viable.

The playerbase will theorycraft the best playstyle and everyone will be expected to adhere to it. We literally just saw that with Covenants.

Thats why people defended the Mop-SL talent trees. Yes, they were still illusion of choice too, but there was less pointless steps.

Talent trees in general are just an illusion. You make xyz amount of abilities for a class, then give them a few baseline and lock the rest behind talent trees and specs and pretend that you're being given options when in reality you're just being restricted.

Yes, I'm ruining "the magic" of gaming with that, but I don't much enjoy being told it's raining when I'm being pissed on. Talent trees aren't exciting to me.

[Cyi]

How to spot someone who never tried the old system.

I played the old system. This is the same, just expanded out more. It will still be just the same cookie cutter builds for certain content.

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How to spot someone who never tried the old system.

THEY LITERALLY said in an interview that this time around they are going to be given players as much freedom and choice as is possible. Mathematically 1400 is the lowest possible arangement of viable builds not the the "meta".

You seem to not fully grasp the difference between viable and meta. Btw the meta ONLY matters to the WF top 5 guilds. Every other guild it will not matter. The community especially on mmoc seem to think they are better than they actually are.

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Drakthyr look amazing what are you talking about? I love wows art style and so do millions of others. 99% or my guild want to roll them cause they like the look, this is just fact. Armour also looks great in wow. I hate how it looks in FF14, makes me want to puke.

There will not be 1400 viable builds, not a chance in hell. Sure if you are out questing and want to use some janky non-performing talents, great, but if you want to actually progress you are going to need certain tools. Blizzard has died on this sword before, of player choice, but in the end most people just go to sites like this or icy veins or some other source and dump in the standard builds for their play style. I mean I play a feral druid, if I don't have certain abilities the spec is not playable.

I find them ugly as hell, like a flying clown. I get what and who they are tying to appease, but they are way over the top with it.

[Aydinx2]

They have fallen a long way since Legion. This is not even an expansion, its more of a patch.

Outside of a new class and new zones / raids.

Dragonriding? lame AF
New talent system = Just old system brought back.
Profession updates = should of been done a LONG TIME AGO. profession have been mostly horrible for several years.
Lack of new dungeons have them rotating M+ with old dungeons.

Gonna be a shit show!

Literally none of these are true, with the exception of the Profession update which you somehow count as a negative because it wasn't soon enough for your tastes. Weird complaint.

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I played the old system. This is the same, just expanded out more. It will still be just the same cookie cutter builds for certain content.

You're not special for remembering old talents. And cookie cutter builds are literally always a thing, as they are now.
At least with the DF system you can have 2 people play the same class/spec and still have different talents because you already have enough interrupts or other abilities.

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Right now, you guys just got gaslit into getting less content because "well at least it means no systems." Outplayed.

"Fewer systems is actually bad because you're getting less bad stuff" Literally worst take I've ever seen when it comes to WoW.
You're putting quantity over quality and have tricked yourself into thinking this makes you some kind of galaxy brain.

[Flurryfang]

OK do we want more "features" like Island Exps, Scenarios (???), Warfronts or Torghast?

Give us more dungeons, more raids -> more bosses, and don't EVER spend development time on features that only sound good, but plays awful.

Island expeditions were fun, so was scenarios and warfronts. The content itself was no bad, so if we could get all those for Dragonflight, i would welcome them with open arms.

The problem have always been the heavy dependency the expansions had on those features, which those features just could not hold up to. Like, scenarios were fun little mini-dungeons to do with your friends and could have been a fun experience filled with cosmetics. The same with island expeditions, they could have focused on a smaller team experience and just make some fun content.

But no, these features had to part of the core of the game and have powerful rewards tied to them. That was the problem. I rarely heard people complain about Island expeditions being bad content, just that it was foolish that you kinda had to do them. If they had been completly optional and maybe had its own system of progression with cosmetics and so on, it would have likely been a loveable feature.

So yeah, we kinda need more features. Just features that aren't set too many expectations to and being forced to carry an expansion.

[Kimekaro]

Guess I will break it down, since I am sure most posters are just rage wankers as well and haven't tried to be thoughtful to you;

- A third, and well-deserved, spec for the Demon Hunter (Ranged).
What would this spec be? A Spell caster? Warlock. Play one if you enjoy that style of spell casting. If you just want the double jump and float then you are not really following along.

- The Tinker class.
Engineer craft. What do you think the Tinker class would be, exactly?

- The class (or new spec for the Hunter) Dark Ranger.
The cosmetic stuff is coming and/or now out. Play a spec that uses Sylvanas abilitys (it's literally just Dark Arrow that people have been wanting this for anyway)

- Make the Order Class Hall useful again with unique quests for your class and unique rewards for your class like new xmogs, new unique class mounts and new skills.
This will be the only thing I have an actual personal opinion on, rather than simple statements of facts; Order halls were interesting but don't really have a place in the game world outside of where they were. It would take a lot of redesign of the main cities and isn't really worth it since WoW isnt about YOU, its about the various story NPCs. Unfortunately, Blizz forgot this part and tried to halfass it.

- Fully unlink PVP activities from PVE. (SL's renown for pure PVP players was a disaster).
I choose to ignore this one.

- Being able to fly like it was in TBC. (Without having to sell your soul to anyone).
Being able to fly in tBC was a CHORE. a Massive one because of the gold requirement. I played it. It was also common for larger guilds to fund players gold investment. Just doing some quests is far easier and less time heavy.