9.0 General Discussion

[Gorsameth]

So if we assume the expansion is actually delayed in excess of 4 weeks, does anyone think we are looking at more additions and reasonable class changes with the extra time?
I feel like Blizzard could probably do all the tuning and bugfixing in 3 weeks tops if that was all they wanted.

additions, no.
Class balance (not redesigns) yes

[Sondrelk]

theres a few quests in the venthyr that is directly connected but i think they are going to give us 6 weeks of prepatch and launch raid early january which gives 4 weeks of no raid so renown 12 so you wont be getting too far in the covenant system

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the tuning is more complicated this time because of how they have the covenants set up

honestly all im expecting is tuning and bug fixes. Covenants wont change.....dont matter

I have not checked the Venthyr covenant specifically, bit it seemed to me that it was set up with the assumption that Kael'thas was available on the raid finder at least, seems like a bit of a shame to ruin the flow of quests because the quests take place beyond a raid you cannot enter.


Tuning if important if course, but 5 weeks or whatever seems excessive unless we are looking at redesigns of some of the abilities.
Changing the acquisition of conduits might warrant such a long delay, though I guess we just have to wait and see.

Personally I will never stop holding out for some level of MM redesign.

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Not total redesigns or anything, but things like changing a talent here and there, or removing, adding or changing core abilities that impact your rotation.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I have not checked the Venthyr covenant specifically, bit it seemed to me that it was set up with the assumption that Kael'thas was available on the raid finder at least, seems like a bit of a shame to ruin the flow of quests because the quests take place beyond a raid you cannot enter.


Tuning if important if course, but 5 weeks or whatever seems excessive unless we are looking at redesigns of some of the abilities.
Changing the acquisition of conduits might warrant such a long delay, though I guess we just have to wait and see.

Personally I will never stop holding out for some level of MM redesign.

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Not total redesigns or anything, but things like changing a talent here and there, or removing, adding or changing core abilities that impact your rotation.

If there's any change I'd suggest that doesn't mess with anything rotationally it would be "Take damage" "Gain rage" for more then just Prot wars

[TomatoBisque]

If there's any change I'd suggest that doesn't mess with anything rotationally it would be "Take damage" "Gain rage" for more then just Prot wars

I don't think this would have a positive effect on gameplay

Warrior DPS would have to be balanced around getting some amount of Rage from taking damage, which would make them shit in fights where they aren't taking as much damage (not being targeted by mechanics, a fight with not as much raid damage, or just a lower difficulty fight), and in turn make them overpowered in fights with a lot of raid damage (ie end raid bosses on Mythic)

Would be even more extreme since Warriors often excel on fights where Execute is important, and those are generally important because the raid damage eventually becomes unhealable (think G'huun), so they are double dipping there (especially Arms, whose Execute DPS is held back by Rage gains)

It would also encourage Warriors to stand in fire to do more damage

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I don't think this would have a positive effect on gameplay

Warrior DPS would have to be balanced around getting some amount of Rage from taking damage, which would make them shit in fights where they aren't taking as much damage (not being targeted by mechanics, a fight with not as much raid damage, or just a lower difficulty fight), and in turn make them overpowered in fights with a lot of raid damage (ie end raid bosses on Mythic)

Would be even more extreme since Warriors often excel on fights where Execute is important, and those are generally important because the raid damage eventually becomes unhealable (think G'huun), so they are double dipping there (especially Arms, whose Execute DPS is held back by Rage gains)

It would also encourage Warriors to stand in fire to do more damage

I never really cared for execute(Or rather finisher moves but thats me). Its sorta why the Venthyr isn't for me even more outside of aesthetic. I made the rage suggestion only to avoid low rage points and less down time. I understand if it sorta made players just want to take damage but I don't think that was really something Blizz cared too much about. I'm just not too thrilled with the way rage gains are(I mean auto attacks are probably not something most people are focused on). I'm digressing though.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

On a delay related note, the new WoW travelling companion book was just delayed from October 20th to November 24th.

Seems like a pretty big coincidence unless Blizzard wants the book to launch one week before the raid, and they intend to launch SL the first week of December. Seems about right.

I guess if they release it then the raid won't open until the New year. Though then again, it does seem like some of the covenant storylines are partially taking place after the raid, so that might make it difficult.

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https://www.wowhead.com/news=318309/...yed-to-novembe

That also puts them right in the window around the FF14 patch so sounds about right. Book it.

[Toybox]

I never really cared for execute(Or rather finisher moves but thats me). Its sorta why the Venthyr isn't for me even more outside of aesthetic. I made the rage suggestion only to avoid low rage points and less down time. I understand if it sorta made players just want to take damage but I don't think that was really something Blizz cared too much about. I'm just not too thrilled with the way rage gains are(I mean auto attacks are probably not something most people are focused on). I'm digressing though.

I just think for Arms, one melee hit should be enough rage to allow a Mortal Strike. Having it come up just short even when talented for extra rage on auto attacks just makes the class feel a LOT slower than it should. I get that Fury is the fast spec, but just asking for an extra couple of rage per auto isn't suddenly going to turn Arms into a high APM spec either.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I very much doubt we will see major changes to the direction or any noticable additions. I think Blizzard will have to redesign soulbinds though. They just excasserbate the balancing issue by being not only multiple paramters instead of being one, this set of parameters also affects all 12 classes, no matter the individual classes' current state. Even if Blizzard can reign in covenant abilitites (which they can't), there is simply no way that they can make 10% crit equal for a class that scales extremely well with it and one that doesn't at all. Besides that obvious issue, most of their time will be spent trying to finish the questing and other stuff. I've run into alot of phasing issues so far, for release this would be extremely annoying.

I aslo get the feeling they had to delay partially because they didn't finish all the rendered cutscenes. I think my count is at 7 or 8 missing cutscenes by now, and I haven't even properly started questing in Maldraxxus yet. If this goes on then they have an unprecedented number of cutscenes (at least I assume them to be cut scenes, otherwise they haven't even finished the lame ingame camera rides).

My friends also mirrored my opinion so far that the start of SL is kinda meh. The maw is eerily reminiscent of the first antorus zone and not particularily interesting. Walking through the vast open nothingness is kinda annoying as well. Many of my friends already hit a motivational low during the beginning. They usually peak up during Bastion a bit but then get another downer with Maldraxxus. I'm not sure if the idea to force everyone through all zones was that wise, especially in the order they came up with. This time I wouldn't be surprised if some people actually get turned off before they even reach max level. I can easily see each of the zones being a quite the turn off for someone.

[Eurhetemec]

If they're the kind of person who isn't in for the long haul they're much more likely to weigh their choice of which game to toss their 60 smacks into. And when its WoW vs any of these other big name games, many of which a person might want all of... while having a limited amount of money... I can easily see them choosing one of the others vs the one with the subscription and massive time investment required.

That's one of the biggest issues with MMO's, you tend to need to play them to the exclusion of other games.

I don't think that's how super-casual players like you're describing think, though. I say that with several super-casual WoW-playing friends, including my brother. They may well pick up WoW's expansion at the same time as one of these other games, because they're not the same thing to them. WoW is this thing they keep coming back to, so they feel safe buying expansions for it, and they've never really discounted, so there's no particular point in waiting (unless you're going to wait all the way to the next expansion).

Also, you say "massive time investment", but it's not true. You yourself said they play the starting stuff and then quit. You said that. It's true. And that doesn't require a massive time investment. They'll play through that stuff at a few hours/week, then quit. They may well only play like 40 or 60 hours in an expansion or whatever, maybe even less.

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I My friends also mirrored my opinion so far that the start of SL is kinda meh. The maw is eerily reminiscent of the first antorus zone and not particularily interesting. Walking through the vast open nothingness is kinda annoying as well. Many of my friends already hit a motivational low during the beginning. They usually peak up during Bastion a bit but then get another downer with Maldraxxus. I'm not sure if the idea to force everyone through all zones was that wise, especially in the order they came up with. This time I wouldn't be surprised if some people actually get turned off before they even reach max level. I can easily see each of the zones being a quite the turn off for someone.

Yeah this is an interesting point and I think it's something Blizzard don't get, and I'm not sure any MMO designers have EVER managed to understand (at least Western ones - I think Eastern ones might). If you make depressing, creepy, scary zones, and you FORCE people to play through them, you lose some percentage of players, especially when they can't just choose to go do something else. This is especially true if the zones are also kinda boring in appearance.

Whereas if you make a bunch of beautiful, over-the-top, glamorous zones, whilst you may get mocked a bit, people completely freakin' love it. This pattern happens over and over in MMOs. Upbeat, flashy, pretty zones, or occasionally gothic-in-a-fun-way zones are really popular, and "just pretty" zones are quite popular, and depressing/scary zones, whilst people may have positive things to say about them design-wise, people don't actually want to play there. It's okay to have dungeons like that, and areas of zones like that, but not entire, lengthy, mandatory zones.

And as I was saying, I don't think any Western MMO designers understand this. It's weird, because in early MMOs, there were few of these "boring and creepy-looking" zones. But as time went on, they got more and more common, and I think it's because people like the idea of them, but then when you look at places people actually intentionally quest in? It's very rarely those zones. People finish them and never look back. Sure, a few might, but they're the exceptions. How many people will voluntarily level in Shadowmoon Valley if they could level in Nagrand, for example? There'll be a few, but not many.

Given they seem to have, with this expansion, included both undead-hell, vampire-hell, and double-hell as zones (so variants of hell are 3/5 of the playable zones), I think they may have really overdone it here. I imagine they intend to add at least 2 zones over the course of the expansion, which will probably not be variants of hell, but it's a bit late by then.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I don't really think people hate desolate looking zones like the Maw and Antorus as much as you two say. Most people hated just how hard to navigate it not the general theme.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I don't really think people hate desolate looking zones like the Maw and Antorus as much as you two say. Most people hated just how hard to navigate it not the general theme.

Difficult to navigate is why I hate most zones made in Legion/BFA. If you're gonna build zones like that, give us flight right off the bat. Or make glide native to all classes.

[TheFirstOnes]

I...

I love the Antoran Wastes and the Maw tho. Granted, the Antoran Wastes was a bitch to go through, but that's the point.

[Chickat]

I suppose it depends on how long they are actually planning to delay. If it is a short time just for tuning and balancing then that could be all of course, though I feel that with the delay potentially being longer than a month they should feel obligated to add content where it may be lacking, or change things that might have been changed in a later patch had it come out earlier.

To give an example I would expect Blizzard to add the 5th ring to Azerite gear from the start if they had delayed BfA by longer than a month. Not strictly new content, but something tangible that leads players to actually feel like the time was worth it.
Balancing and bugfixes are important, of course, but it isnt something that is easily noticeable, and might lead to further outrage if players feel Blizzard had them stay in BfA for nothing.

As far as new content is concerned, I think the only thing that really needs it is the Maw. Fixing a few more or the bad specs, working on tuning covenants and fixing bugs sure.

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Delay to 2021 is improbable, member about quarterly reports.

I do agree. Ive already stated this, but I'm guessing the second Tuesday in December. That gives them a week and a half to two weeks to bug fix before the holidays. Raid release second Tuesday in January.

So December 8th Shadowlands
And January 12th season start.

9.1 either all the way in May, or the second raid not until 9.1.5. Too soon to know.


Ideally what I would like is as followed.

SL December 8th.
Season 1 January 12th.
9.1 March 23rd
9.1.5 with raid May 11th
9.2 August 24th
9.2.5 season 3 October 12th
9.3 February 22nd
9.3 raid March 22nd

10.0 November 2022.


This is all assuming they still have a good portion of the team working on 9.1 and 9.2.

[Nyel]

I indeed think December 8 will be the new launch date and Season 1 starts mid January.

Not sure about 9.1 though - I don’t think they can trap players for 4 months in The Maw, as bad and horrible it is at the moment (unless they make some huge additions / changes to it until launch).

What I do think is that August releases for expansions are finally gone, I hated them. Q4 releases always felt way better for me, but that’s very subjective.
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Speaking about changes... there are still classes that have several abysmal Covenant skills that have zero interaction with the class toolkit and feel more like an obstacle than a useful addition. (Shadow) Priest, Monk, Shaman, Druid... there’s a lot work to do with Covenant skills, but I fear they won’t do it. They haven’t in the last couple of months, although it was necessary.

[Revamp Man]

I have not checked the Venthyr covenant specifically, bit it seemed to me that it was set up with the assumption that Kael'thas was available on the raid finder at least, seems like a bit of a shame to ruin the flow of quests because the quests take place beyond a raid you cannot enter.


Tuning if important if course, but 5 weeks or whatever seems excessive unless we are looking at redesigns of some of the abilities.
Changing the acquisition of conduits might warrant such a long delay, though I guess we just have to wait and see.

Personally I will never stop holding out for some level of MM redesign.

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Not total redesigns or anything, but things like changing a talent here and there, or removing, adding or changing core abilities that impact your rotation.

the campaign doesnt touch the raide for at least 2 months

[Sondrelk]

the campaign doesnt touch the raide for at least 2 months

That's good then. Should allow Blizzard to delay quite a bit in that case.

[Revamp Man]

As far as new content is concerned, I think the only thing that really needs it is the Maw. Fixing a few more or the bad specs, working on tuning covenants and fixing bugs sure.

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I do agree. Ive already stated this, but I'm guessing the second Tuesday in December. That gives them a week and a half to two weeks to bug fix before the holidays. Raid release second Tuesday in January.

So December 8th Shadowlands
And January 12th season start.

9.1 either all the way in May, or the second raid not until 9.1.5. Too soon to know.


Ideally what I would like is as followed.

SL December 8th.
Season 1 January 12th.
9.1 March 23rd
9.1.5 with raid May 11th
9.2 August 24th
9.2.5 season 3 October 12th
9.3 February 22nd
9.3 raid March 22nd

10.0 November 2022.


This is all assuming they still have a good portion of the team working on 9.1 and 9.2.

keep in min blizzcon is in early february

they wont want to have people progressing....is what i would normally say but im guessing first season starts first week of january with release on final week of november
9.1 at blizzcon with ptr hitting that day
9.1 hitting late march early april

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That's good then. Should allow Blizzard to delay quite a bit in that case.

in terms of the raid....it needs delayed because they dont know how to make some fights work

the delay will be about a month

[Tiradon]

Influence buff till end of October...

Early November wouldn’t make sense

[Nyel]

Thinking about content patches... I don't know how they could add more zones to the Shadowlands. Everything right there seems to be perfectly harmonized for the four zones and Covenants we already have, plus The Maw. No idea how they could fit another zone into the Shadowlands directly.

[therumblings]

Thinking about content patches... I don't know how they could add more zones to the Shadowlands. Everything right there seems to be perfectly harmonized for the four zones and Covenants we already have, plus The Maw. No idea how they could fit another zone into the Shadowlands directly.

I mean, the five zones are pretty generalized, but I still could see them easily adding one still. The current four themes are: Wilds, Purgatory, Paradise and War. Could easily add another generalized realm. Maybe the broker realm or a realm about magic. Could be anything, the possibilities are endless.