BfA Patch Speculation thread (8.3 and later).

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I think that was the plan but it didn't happen and yes .2 patches should have a new zone and more then world quests(World quest system in general needs looking at, its...good at what it does but...extremely finite).

[MrExcelion]

On that note, maybe they could have done something like:

8.1 - Warfront Zone 2, Allied Race Wave 2
8.1.5 - Mechagon
8.2 - Nazjatar, Brawler's Guild (more stringently tuned for season 3 ilvl with the gear catchups coming, instead of season 1 ilvl)
8.2.5 - Warfront 2.0 Zone 1, Allied Race Wave 3
8.3.0 - Ny'alotha, BFA Mage Tower
8.3.5 - Warfront 2.0 Zone 2, Allied Race Wave 4


I call it Warfront 2.0 because there's a truce after AEP, so maybe they could just reuse this "raid scenario" tech to fit the story. Like you're fighting old god minions in 8.2.5, and something lead into Dragon Isles with 8.3.5. It doesn't necessarily need to switch hands between factions, more just like the buildings on Broken Shore that went on cooldown for a bit

[rda]

On fanboys vs haters (won't use quotes here, we all know both terms are relative):

Unsurprisingly, everybody thinks they are somewhere in the middle. The thing is, everybody has a different opinion regarding where that middle is. :-) Speaking at large, it seems to me that the global averaged middle drifts towards haters because of changes in the game, and that personal middles tend to drift in the same direction as well, the longer you are playing, the more cynical you become (although not everybody gets vocal, that's true).

I personally am not going to say that I am in the middle in the global sense (in the local sense, sure, but that's redundant info as I said, everybody thinks they are in their own personal middle). I am pretty far from the middle. I am just much less vocal than I was before.

---
On why I think the game goes down (sorry for a lot of text):

It's not that the devs hate players or hate their jobs (much more than devs in other similar companies hate their jobs). In my opinion what happens is that the game loses resources. Now, bear with me for a second, I know there are some points I have to cover here.

First off, let's exclude the art, this isn't about art, I am talking solely about gamecode / design.

* I know that they said they are going to add more devs to their key games. But even if WoW is included in that - it might not be, by and large - that's a recent phenomena.

* I know that they reported having the biggest team ever in Legion. But in my opinion this was just some form of creative counting. This is an area without hard-set standards, plus over time various teams and departments reorganize. Blizzard overall are prone to presenting numbers that are somewhat deceptive and look much better than the reality - to give just one of the many examples, we had Holinka's tweets regarding Legion PVP seasons doing better than WoD on his metric of choice which nobody could check, people could either trust him or not - at the final chicken counting time all these positive vibes went straight into the trash can, Legion was much worse than WoD on numbers. In this vein, I think "biggest team ever" is just them counting towards the team what was not counted before.

* I know they completed a big dev project recently: DX12. But that's a classic picture that you get when you don't have a lot of devs and when everything is a little apathetic and without direction. When there is not much direction, the devs retreat into side projects which might not be terribly important in the long run, but are technically interesting and are guaranteed to make things somewhat better, not worse. Is DX12 a good thing? Yes, it is. Did it change much? No, it did not. Could the devs have worked on something that would have a much greater impact? Of course they could. If the designers tasked them with something useful. But they did not. Lack of direction, etc. So the devs did their side thing and had their limited success. It was not a complete waste of time, but it did nothing strategically (not denying the future-proofing for potential new features, but the future where that proofing is going to make a difference is yet to come and I know from experience that this kind of proofing should not be overestimated).

Why do I think the game is losing resources? Because I believe it is seen in the quantity / quality of what they put out. They don't put out much and it's all shallow and easy to develop. Why would they reduce resources spent on WoW? Because the focus is moving to other games, particularly mobile ones. When did this start? Since WoD. WoD started great, then there was a big visible pause with some disaster happening inside Blizzard, this resulted in patches for WoD being delayed / barren, this killed the expansion, and because of what specifically happened (patches delayed / barren) we (well, I at least) started talking about devs perhaps being moved over to other games and WoW not being the focus anymore. Everything after that - Legion and now BFA just continued this. Yes, Legion too. Even though it played reasonably well in 7.3. Compared to what we have now, anyway.

Getting back to the first bullet point, it remains to be seen whether WoW will actually get more devs and whether focus will partially return to it. 8.2 shows nothing here. But that could be planned for 9.0. Whether it is or not, I don't know, I am rather skeptical, but it might. Let's wait, I guess.

But I will say this: if 9.0 does not show those increases in focus / development power, no future expansions will. WoW is already about 40% of Blizzard revenues, if I remember correctly (might be mistaken). 2019 and 2020 will likely see new games for mobile released. And maybe some of these games will fail, but probably not all will, and some will be successful. Since WoW with BFA is not growing, it is reducing, this will reduce the share of revenues for WoW further. And after that percentage crosses some threshold - say, 10% - well, anything is possible. F2P or whatnot.

---
Let's end on a positive note. I am going to play 8.2 for at least some time because of flying and Mechagon. I find the infinite grind in Mechagon appealing. I'll see what it is, maybe I won't like it in the end, but if it is varied enough, I might be slowly grinding things there for a couple of months having low-key fun. Not enough fun to log in every evening, perhaps, but still something.

And this year we'll have Blizzcon, likely with an expansion reveal. Looking forward to that.

[rda]

^^ Looks like it might be two good grinds then. :-) (I thought Benthic items were in both zones.)

[Alga]

On that note, maybe they could have done something like:

8.1 - Warfront Zone 2, Allied Race Wave 2
8.1.5 - Mechagon
8.2 - Nazjatar, Brawler's Guild (more stringently tuned for season 3 ilvl with the gear catchups coming, instead of season 1 ilvl)
8.2.5 - Warfront 2.0 Zone 1, Allied Race Wave 3
8.3.0 - Ny'alotha, BFA Mage Tower
8.3.5 - Warfront 2.0 Zone 2, Allied Race Wave 4


I call it Warfront 2.0 because there's a truce after AEP, so maybe they could just reuse this "raid scenario" tech to fit the story. Like you're fighting old god minions in 8.2.5, and something lead into Dragon Isles with 8.3.5. It doesn't necessarily need to switch hands between factions, more just like the buildings on Broken Shore that went on cooldown for a bit

Besides the 8.3.5 Warfront and maybe Ny'alotha as zone, I would agree. x.5 Patches seem to be bigger in this expansion and we now nothing besides new Modells for Worgen and Goblins in the case of 8.2.5. Another mini Raid would be cool sure, but maybe better for 8.3.5 so a Warfront seems very likely, even If I would love more dungeons in BFA generally, but this could be the case of 8.3

[Rae888]

Part of me wonders if that was the original plan but it got pushed to 8.2 very early in development, since 8.2 now has Nazjatar + Mechagon.

I'm almost certain that the original plan was to do Mechagon in 8.1 and to release Mechagnomes as the 8.1.5 allied race alongside Maghar orcs, back when Zandalari were coming in 8.0 with Dark Irons. Then they decided to do Kul Tirans and the whole schedule got mixed up.

[Alga]

Also the earliest version of Mechagon was found in February 2018 during the Beta, alongside the Map that hinted the Dazar'alor Raid

[Chickat]

On fanboys vs haters (won't use quotes here, we all know both terms are relative):

Unsurprisingly, everybody thinks they are somewhere in the middle. The thing is, everybody has a different opinion regarding where that middle is. :-) Speaking at large, it seems to me that the global averaged middle drifts towards haters because of changes in the game, and that personal middles tend to drift in the same direction as well, the longer you are playing, the more cynical you become (although not everybody gets vocal, that's true).

I personally am not going to say that I am in the middle in the global sense (in the local sense, sure, but that's redundant info as I said, everybody thinks they are in their own personal middle). I am pretty far from the middle. I am just much less vocal than I was before.

---
On why I think the game goes down (sorry for a lot of text):

It's not that the devs hate players or hate their jobs (much more than devs in other similar companies hate their jobs). In my opinion what happens is that the game loses resources. Now, bear with me for a second, I know there are some points I have to cover here.

First off, let's exclude the art, this isn't about art, I am talking solely about gamecode / design.

* I know that they said they are going to add more devs to their key games. But even if WoW is included in that - it might not be, by and large - that's a recent phenomena.

* I know that they reported having the biggest team ever in Legion. But in my opinion this was just some form of creative counting. This is an area without hard-set standards, plus over time various teams and departments reorganize. Blizzard overall are prone to presenting numbers that are somewhat deceptive and look much better than the reality - to give just one of the many examples, we had Holinka's tweets regarding Legion PVP seasons doing better than WoD on his metric of choice which nobody could check, people could either trust him or not - at the final chicken counting time all these positive vibes went straight into the trash can, Legion was much worse than WoD on numbers. In this vein, I think "biggest team ever" is just them counting towards the team what was not counted before.

* I know they completed a big dev project recently: DX12. But that's a classic picture that you get when you don't have a lot of devs and when everything is a little apathetic and without direction. When there is not much direction, the devs retreat into side projects which might not be terribly important in the long run, but are technically interesting and are guaranteed to make things somewhat better, not worse. Is DX12 a good thing? Yes, it is. Did it change much? No, it did not. Could the devs have worked on something that would have a much greater impact? Of course they could. If the designers tasked them with something useful. But they did not. Lack of direction, etc. So the devs did their side thing and had their limited success. It was not a complete waste of time, but it did nothing strategically (not denying the future-proofing for potential new features, but the future where that proofing is going to make a difference is yet to come and I know from experience that this kind of proofing should not be overestimated).

Why do I think the game is losing resources? Because I believe it is seen in the quantity / quality of what they put out. They don't put out much and it's all shallow and easy to develop. Why would they reduce resources spent on WoW? Because the focus is moving to other games, particularly mobile ones. When did this start? Since WoD. WoD started great, then there was a big visible pause with some disaster happening inside Blizzard, this resulted in patches for WoD being delayed / barren, this killed the expansion, and because of what specifically happened (patches delayed / barren) we (well, I at least) started talking about devs perhaps being moved over to other games and WoW not being the focus anymore. Everything after that - Legion and now BFA just continued this. Yes, Legion too. Even though it played reasonably well in 7.3. Compared to what we have now, anyway.

Getting back to the first bullet point, it remains to be seen whether WoW will actually get more devs and whether focus will partially return to it. 8.2 shows nothing here. But that could be planned for 9.0. Whether it is or not, I don't know, I am rather skeptical, but it might. Let's wait, I guess.

But I will say this: if 9.0 does not show those increases in focus / development power, no future expansions will. WoW is already about 40% of Blizzard revenues, if I remember correctly (might be mistaken). 2019 and 2020 will likely see new games for mobile released. And maybe some of these games will fail, but probably not all will, and some will be successful. Since WoW with BFA is not growing, it is reducing, this will reduce the share of revenues for WoW further. And after that percentage crosses some threshold - say, 10% - well, anything is possible. F2P or whatnot.

---
Let's end on a positive note. I am going to play 8.2 for at least some time because of flying and Mechagon. I find the infinite grind in Mechagon appealing. I'll see what it is, maybe I won't like it in the end, but if it is varied enough, I might be slowly grinding things there for a couple of months having low-key fun. Not enough fun to log in every evening, perhaps, but still something.

And this year we'll have Blizzcon, likely with an expansion reveal. Looking forward to that.

I agree with most of what you said. I do think 8.2 is an improvement to even 7.3 and especially 7.2/all 8.0 patches so far. It's just not as ”magically new" as they led us to believe. I too am waiting on 9.0. we may even start to see some changes in 8.3 buy I'm not holding my breath. I think 8.2 wow is better in world content overall but fails almost everywhere else. Classes function but are bland. Ap grind is significantly better but I'd argue still not as good as artifacts. The real loss here is the lack of legendaries. I didn't mind doing emmisarys in legion because I had a chance to get something cool. I don't think they were perfect but I'd argue having them is better than not having them. I do prefer the timeless isle like gearing system though. I really like having currency to grind and sure rewards to work to. The armor pieces even have set stats so you know what you are getting. Very little rng. Very positive about that.

- - - Updated - - -

Sorry about the wall of text. I'm on my phone at work.

[Chickat]

Benthic items come from currency. You can get the currency from world quests, the pvp event as well as rares in Nazjatar.

- - - Updated - - -


At the same time though, the armor having set stats limits what stats you can get. Some have multiple options, I wish everything had at least two options so you could get combinations of all four stats.

I still think that's better than it being random though tbh.

[EbaumsTipster]

8.3 is a stepping stone to Nzoth, who is 9.0s big bad.

What makes it less filler is that Sylvanas will be dealt with somehow.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Whilst I don't see the issue in Naga architecture looking like Naga Architecture, I believe they could've used assets from Vash'jir (just HD spruced up) rather than Azsuna. That way it would've looked more akin to having been underwater for thousands of years. I love the vast ruins in Vashj.

That being said, since they won't likely change shit now, tweaks to the color palette could improve things. Gameplay will still be the focus in terms of deciding if the patch is good or not.

8.3 is a stepping stone to Nzoth, who is 9.0s big bad.

What makes it less filler is that Sylvanas will be dealt with somehow.

It literally not being filler makes it not filler at all.

People can't just arbitrarily assign filler status to whatever they don't care about. Not even WoD was filler, despite its story being so all over the place and jumpy.

[rda]

What makes it less filler is that Sylvanas will be dealt with somehow.

Alternative 1: the Alliance kill her. I like it, but I'd be surprised if that's what happens, that's way too active for the usual Alliance writing.
Alternative 2: the Horde kill her. Like, Thrall. Might happen. The Horde cleaned themselves bla bla bla brave new world.
Alternative 3: both the Alliance and the Horde kill her. Yep, possibly.
Alternative 4: she gets banished or whatever. Sure, why not.
Alternative 5: she becomes good. Tries to help us kill someone else in the end, but fails, dies and that redeems her. Mmmm, not sure how realistic this is.
Alternative 6: she escapes. Sylvanas fans would celebrate like no tomorrow, so why not.
Alternative 7: she effing WINS. LOL. Hardly possible, but would have been fun.

[Jekyll]

I think Sylvanas will play a part in trying to destroy the red dragon flight because they represent life.

She is the enemy of life and Alexstrasza is the Aspect of Life.

[Vyomesh2]

I think Sylvanas will play a part in trying to destroy the red dragon flight because they represent life.

She is the enemy of life and Alexstrasza is the Aspect of Life.

She isn't really the "enemy of life"
One dying Night Elf claiming she made LIFE her enemy doesnt make it a theme. There's 0 reason to go to war with the reds.

[DeicideUH]

She isn't really the "enemy of life"

Are you sure? It has been a recurring theme.
Anduin also said she's warring against life itself when you warn him of Xal'atath's disappearance after Crucible of Storms.
Three Sisters comic shows the void warning Alleria that Sylvanas "serves the true enemy", and Sylvanas at the end says everyone "will serve death... they will serve me."
Even death entities like Bwonsambi and Lich King talk about Sylvanas "threatens the balance" [of life and death].

While I don't think she will move against the reds, her theme as "the enemy of life" has been fairly consistent so far.

[Queen of Hamsters]

She isn't really the "enemy of life"
One dying Night Elf claiming she made LIFE her enemy doesnt make it a theme. There's 0 reason to go to war with the reds.

Her reaction in Arathi Highlands tells a different story. That was really my turning point in terms of rooting for her.
I don't think she'll war against the dragon aspect, but she's clearly not fond of life, not even for her own kind to HAVE a life in Undeath with family and friends.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

If she turns into the Goddess of Death....


Well that wouldn't be shocking(As in NO WAY NOT POSSIBLE NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO111111111111).

[DeicideUH]

Someone put Sylvanas in the Warchief's seat. She did not do it herself. It could be Helya. She has a bargain with her and Helya placing her in a position of power means that when she comes calling, Sylvanas will have far more to offer than she would before.

That's my bet as well. Helya killed Vol'jin and used him (or his corpse) to nominate Sylvanas in power while some other entity brought Vol'jin back.
All the war is just a distraction while Helya and Sylvanas work their real plans. Sylvanas is slowly becoming more powerful in death magic over the course of BfA, and her endgame is to just kill everyone (including Azeroth itself) and turn the world into a realm of undeath.

Meanwhile, N'Zoth senses the danger and is pulling his own strings, as Sylvanas' ultimate defeat will signify his own freedom.

I think the final patch will be a free-for-all between Sylvanas/Helya, N'Zoth/Void, Alliance and Horde. Thus, "the battle for Azeroth".

[Yarathir]

Her reaction in Arathi Highlands tells a different story. That was really my turning point in terms of rooting for her.
I don't think she'll war against the dragon aspect, but she's clearly not fond of life, not even for her own kind to HAVE a life in Undeath with family and friends.

Didn't she call life a curse and hope a disease fairly recently?

[DeicideUH]

She made the deal with Helya AFTER she was already warchief, so I doubt that. I don't even think we will see Helya again any time soon (although if I remember correctly some island expedition quest pointed towards her).

Helya mays have done it on her own, because she knew she could convince Sylvanas into their pact.