Shadowlands Delayed -- What should be changed?

[swashbuckle]

I know this won't happen but what I would like to see is the conduit system completely removed and have them focus on class design instead of buffs that every character gets from borrowed power

[Trumpcat]

Shadowlands got further delayed to everyone's shock into late Q4.

To the WoW community,

I wanted to let you know that we’re delaying the release of Shadowlands to later this year—and while we’re still in the process of determining the right new date to launch, we felt it was important to let you know about this change in plans as soon as we could. This was an incredibly difficult decision for the team, as we’re as eager to get the expansion into your hands as you are to play it—but ultimately, we feel it’s the right decision for the game—and for our players.

Over the past several months of testing, we’ve made significant progress iterating on and polishing the core features and gameplay of Shadowlands. We’re at a point where the zones, the campaign, the level-up questing experience, and the story we have to tell are essentially ready to share. We’re excited by the Covenants at the heart of the expansion, and it’s been a thrill to see Torghast take shape into a fun new kind of WoW experience, thanks in no small part to your input.

However, as everything started coming together and we’ve been listening to and building upon your feedback, it’s become clear we need a little more time for additional polish, and to balance and iterate on some interlocking pieces—particularly those related to the endgame. Shadowlands is one of the most intricate expansions we’ve yet created, and while we’ve made great progress, the challenge of tuning the endgame was compounded by the team having to work from home.

Blizzard has a commitment to quality. We believe Shadowlands will be something special, and we’ve heard from many of you who feel the same. We need this extra time to ensure that Shadowlands lives up to its full potential.

In the meantime, we’re excited to announce that beginning October 13 we will be releasing the Shadowlands pre-patch, which lays a lot of the groundwork for the expansion and includes our revamped character leveling, new-player experience on Exile’s Reach, and a host of new character customization options. And once we get closer to Shadowlands’ release, you’ll be called upon to defend Azeroth against a resurgence of the Scourge during our pre-launch event.

Thanks for your support and passion, and for your continued help and feedback as we head toward the finish line.

We’ll see you in the Shadowlands soon,

John Hight, Executive Producer of World of Warcraft

What should be changed and what should be added to make the game better? Please avoid posting story-spoilers as this thread focuses on the other aspects of the expansion.



For me this is what I would have changed:

Major:
Easier and less punishing to swap covenants
Covenants made a more so a RPG/lore and cosmetic choice than PvE/PvP gameplay choice.
Certain and least-favored abilities like bloated abilities such as hunter's mark removed. Cool looking spells that people want to use but are stuck as a talent [ex. Arcane Supernova, Fire Meteor, Breath of Sindragosa, etc] made baseline and replaced with better talents.
Influence talents so that we aren't all stuck with the best builds and have builds we can choose from to play.
Update spell animations that are very old. [Ex. Holy Paladin, Resto Druid, Guardian Druid, etc.].
Certain specs still need to be reworked further and/or fixed... Survival Hunter, Guardian/Feral Druid, WW, Elemental/Enh, Arcane Mage, etc]
Fix the bugs. Level 1's in SL can use BFA gear and ROFL'stomp mobs. There's also several bugs in BFA that haven't been fixed where you can collide with doodads and be DC'd.
Remove more RNG in the game. It's unhealthy for the game.


Minor:
More customizations that can be added quickly with photoshop [Hair colors, eye colors, skin colors, etc]
Add a bit more flair to the login screen. I'm sure at least one of Sindragosa's brood still exists *hint hint*
Update character's models who are important to the story [Lillian, Rokhan, Ji, Aysa, etc]

Agreed with everything except the major expansion feature: Covenants should be a gameplay choice besides cosmetics.
I treat it treat is as an advanced talent tree/prestige levels/endgame char development.

+ White hair for Velf pls.

[Nite92]

I don't want to know about the covenant balance. I think that this is a thing players just have to figrue out. Blizzard should't HAVE to balance everything perfectly, it should only be consistent. E.g., Venthyr stays the best for priest throughout the xpac.

What i really hate is the maw. Holy crap, I just got the beta, and zone this big with no mount is just abysmal. It doesn't even matter that you can unlock one single mount to run there. But that could very well be unobtainable, or as hard as some mage tower challenges, depending on the tuning.

I can understand the no flying in new content, but no mount? Come on.

[Echo of Soul]

They just have to finish balancing the classes and it should be fine.

[Aurosh]

There will be changes. But probably no time for bigger overhauls. They will have more time to polish and balance things.

Don't expect covenants switching or stuff like that. In the few weeks they just gotta do bug fixing and balancing, there's no time for "system overhauls".

- - - Updated - - -

I don't want to know about the covenant balance. I think that this is a thing players just have to figrue out. Blizzard should't HAVE to balance everything perfectly, it should only be consistent. E.g., Venthyr stays the best for priest throughout the xpac.

What i really hate is the maw. Holy crap, I just got the beta, and zone this big with no mount is just abysmal. It doesn't even matter that you can unlock one single mount to run there. But that could very well be unobtainable, or as hard as some mage tower challenges, depending on the tuning.

I can understand the no flying in new content, but no mount? Come on.

Well you wont be staying one covenant all of xpac. They clearly stated that they want some balance and if a covenant for whatever reason dominates they will balance stuff and people will be switching.

It's also fine because switching covenants is easy. It just cannot be done more than once a week. The one thinkg they should look at is if soulbinds cannot be spec specific. So every spec can have the same soulbinds minus spec conduits.

[Sekurm]

Q3 2020: July 1 - September 30 Q4 2020: October 1 - December 31

announcing a Release date before the end of Q3 to bump up the revenue and preorders, then drop the delay right after the quarter ends. The extra bump in revenue gets Q3 looking good.

Scummy Move if you ask me. seems planned

[Momster]

Honestly mad props to Blizz for this.

Anything's better than a BFA 2.0, and the prepatch carries a lot of what's most exciting about SL for me!

[erifwodahs]

Seriously people, don't take vacation for a video game. You're not a child, and this isn't what you should be using your vacation hours on. If you are, you are objectively a child.

Welcome to 2020. Where have I traveled last year? 4 different countries. This year? fucking nowhere. There are millions of people who have no reason to use their holidays as that will lock them inside their home. I can't travel to my home country as it will lock me in for two weeks there and two weeks when I get back..

Can you tell me where you use your vacation hours on? Certainly not on character development as calling people "children" over their choice of vacation is very... childish... so you are as mature as 12 yo kids calling other people "kids". And saying that "objectively", does not seem that you know what that means.
Projecting your "maturity" on others is very infantile, does not matter how rich your vocabulary is.

[HitPoint]

People are just speculating as to why the delay, but none really no for sure..

Many know if they've played the beta, which I have. The leveling isn't quite right you hit 58-59 by the time you finish doing all side/main quests. Some of the covenants are still broken/not changed yet (like the pally changes, they're still not up yet). The MAW is bearbones, a central end-game area and it literally has NOTHING.

[Momster]

Dead game is dead. Never in a million years thought I would ever make a post like this. It is amazing what a year away from the game does for perspective.

Nice meme bud.

[Tesshin83]

I know this won't happen but what I would like to see is the conduit system completely removed and have them focus on class design instead of buffs that every character gets from borrowed power

I see this critisism all the time and my conclusion is that its basically parroting as it holds no water.

Borrowed power is the best solution as the ltger alternative have failed.

- - - Updated - - -

Many know if they've played the beta, which I have. The leveling isn't quite right you hit 58-59 by the time you finish doing all side/main quests. Some of the covenants are still broken/not changed yet (like the pally changes, they're still not up yet). The MAW is bearbones, a central end-game area and it literally has NOTHING.

Maybe the whole point of the maw is that its supposed to be a barren wasteland which os dangerous, scary and not much to do. And then it evolves over time.

Your premise is that it should be like Mechagon. Thats not a rule they must follow. We dont know their intention of the zone.

[Malefic]

I will preface this by saying it’s possible that the delay is simply due to the large amount of bugs and balancing that is required, the line “…iterate on some interlocking pieces – particularly those related to the endgame” from the announcement leads me to believe there is some core system issues they want to resolve/improve however. Here are 4 examples of systems that I think need improvements for Shadowlands to look better, and even though I believe in #PullTheRipcord, none of my suggestions involve that.

Furthermore, these are just my opinions. I've spent a lot of time with the content on beta over many months, but I accept that I play the game differently to everyone else.

Renown – Renown is a currency you earn each week, earning 2 of, each renown you earn will unlock something. Increased iLvl of World Quest rewards, a new Soulbind, a new row on Soulbinds, a Mount, many other things, the full list of rewards can be found here: https://www.wowhead.com/guides/kyria...ds-shadowlands (I’ve used Kyrian as an example, but the rewards are the same for over covenants just each one is tailored to that covenant).

One of the major issues with Renown is it creates a situation where you covenant choice does not pay off when you make it. Ignoring power, we’re looking at a situation where players may choose a covenant for a reason that they can’t explore within that covenant for several weeks, for example Path of Ascension which you can’t fully progress until Week 18. From a power perspective (even though I’m aware many players hate the idea of players making choices for power) there’s a situation that’s arisen where being in 1 covenant is better on Day 1 due to the availability of Soulbinds, then there is a point where being in another covenant is better because of another Soulbind unlocking, and then another. We have a situation where even without tuning or changing any numerical values which covenant you want to be in changes for many classes over the 20-week period of Renown unlocks, some of these jumps in DPS are notable too.

I think Renown and the way it interacts with Soulbinds specifically needs to be looked at and addressed, with a focus on all 3 Soulbinds of each covenant being treated as 1 instance of reward, rather than staggered progression of Soulbinds. A replacement for these rewards could be Maw based stuff (I touch on it later on).

Mythic+ - With the removal of Warforging and Titanforging, Mythic+ has been left in an interesting position. It cannot award heroic iLvl or better loot otherwise it will diminish raid progression and enabling trading early on – something Blizzard don’t want. Furthermore, the replay ability and accessibility of Mythic+ means it should be less rewarding than Heroic raiding. Not because of any difficulty reasons, but simply because with raiding you get 1 opportunity at each boss each week, with Mythic+ nothing stops me from running the same dungeon 5 or 10 times a day attempting to get that piece of loot I need.

Mythic+ is going to have severe struggles with being viewed as an alternative to end-game raiding, whilst it will still be able to be as geared as raiders due to the Grand Vault, you’re now looking at months to get gear that some raiders will get in a few weeks. No amount of extra farming of Mythic+ will enable players to get higher iLvl gear.

I think Mythic+ loot needs addressing, and I think it’s time some loot that dropped from Mythic+ started having Mythic+ based benefits. The covenant perks for each of the dungeons are a cool thematic and idea, I would like to see them baked in to gear that specifically drops from Mythic+. A trinket that enables you to interact with an element of the dungeon and increase your damage in that dungeon for example. There are a ton of things Blizzard could do, but the thing they can’t do is increased the iLvl reward. I would like to see Blizzard consider adding sets to Mythic+ that give dungeon benefits or utilize thematic slots such as rings + trinkets to get some flavour/benefits to specific dungeons.

PvP – Specifically, World PvP. PvP scaling in general needs to go. Many of us have seen the Rextroy videos and whilst those are one player spending large amounts of time taking advantage of the system to the point most scenarios won’t present themselves in the real world, PvP scaling is simply a flawed idea in an MMO where character progression is important. Furthermore, it was shown improving your gear in some instances lowered your healing or damage.

In a world where you’re building a character and progressing it, ultimately that progression should be meaningful. PvP Scaling was a band-aid fix to a problem of mass player power scaling over the course of an expansion. With that said, if your character is level 58 in questing greens you absolutely should get crushed by the level 60 in raid gear. Especially in a world where players have the opportunity to completely remove themselves from being PvP eligible.

The desire to push your character to it’s limits and fill out it’s slots with very strong gear diminishes with this consistent Season/reset approach Blizzard keep implementing. Where the ceiling and floor are raised every tier to the point that if you miss an entire tier you can still log on and be at the same spot as players that played that entire tier within a week.

I would like to see PvP scaling removed simply put. Your gear and character progression should matter and PvP scaling removes the sense of progression, and in some cases as it was proven over BfA actually makes progressing your character something where your character is weaker.

The Maw – The maw had purpose early on in Shadowlands, it was used to farm currency to improve your Torghast runs as well as gain access to Torghast. During development this requirement for access was removed, and the currency was also added as a reward to Torghast itself. Meaning other than your weekly quests, you didn’t have much reason to go to the Maw. You basically went to the Maw, to go to Torghast.

Recently sockets were added to the vendor with this currency, as well as what appears to be an alternative method of upgrading and acquiring conduits, or potentially a catch-up system. This now gives the Maw purpose, but it’s nothing meaningful. Your Maw experience is to now go there every day, spend the 45 minutes ish it will take you to trigger the Jailer Level 5, obtain as much of this currency as possible and then leave. It’s a monotonous grind at best.

Furthermore, the currency required to obtain those is the currency that competes with you upgrading your Torghast runs. Meaning you’re put in to a situation of choosing to upgrade ‘Fun’ or upgrade ‘Power’, a situation I don’t think Blizzard should put players in.

I would like to see the Maw given more purpose and being fleshed out – Torghast upgrades should be obtained in a different way to socket/conduit upgrades currency wise. I don’t have suggestions for how the Maw could be improved, but it needs to be. Currently it feels way to barren and little to do and the only time you spend in there is a tedious miniature grind until the game forces you to leave again. I think adding Maw based benefits to Renown in replacement of some of the Soulbind stuff is an interesting idea.

[Balrog]

Replace J Allen Brack with Mike Moirhaine.

[Raisei]

Agreed with everything except the major expansion feature: Covenants should be a gameplay choice besides cosmetics.
I treat it treat is as an advanced talent tree/prestige levels/endgame char development.

+ White hair for Velf pls.

Agreed on both counts (especially White Hair Velfs), but since they make such a big step and actually delay, the Covenant system will very likely see heavy reworks.
Probably they will cave to all the whining about it being a (semi-)permanent choice and just make it a seperate Talent tree, switchable in a rest zone or with a book as normal.

Anyway, as for what should be changed:

1) Give Death Knights some way of putting up mitigation/heal outside of melee range (that does not require to first hit Lichborn and then shoot Death Coils at yourself). When Paladins had that problem it got fixed why not for us?

2) Change or Remove the Necrotic affix. It is a pain to deal with as a DK Tank, our survivability depends a lot more on healing then any other Tank and we are not great at kiting Mobs because of the low mobility. Yes, we can deal with it through slows, but it is still a pain. Plus, as pointed out in 1) we can't use our active mitigation while running away.

3) Nerf Monks. Okay, more joking here, but it is quite annoying that Monks are the best Tanks for 2 Expansions in a row already and it looks like we are going into a 3rd. When Warriors were great at the end of Legion they were hit with a nerf bat that would make Sargeras tremble. When DKs were great mid-Uldir they were robbed of nearly all mitigation, where is the decisive nerf for Monks?

[Arainie]

They're just going to fix bugs and ensure everything is actually working, maybe do some late balancing once we're closer to the new release date. If you sincerely believe they're going to "pull the ripcord" or any of the other things certain streamers toss around I'm fairly sure you're in for a rude awakening.

[MoanaLisa]

They won't be changing anything. They'll be finishing what they still have to do.

I don't find any of this terribly surprising. I always imagined that when it came down to do 'crunch' that having people working from home wasn't going to work out.

But it's ridiculous to think that because they're delaying things by a few weeks they're open to making any major changes.

[select20]

Sucks real bad. I do want the release to be right and work, but when personal time off where I work is requested 4-6 weeks ahead of time, I now have 8 days off I can't take back.

Its hard not to be frustrated not necessarily only at Blizzard, but at the situation and all variables as a whole.

[Moromiro]

remove rapid fire tbh

Yes. Its ugly and doesent fit in

[Zka]

Lol, people always push their own agenda no matter what. You can be sure they are only going to be bugfixing and balancing. No reworks of any kind. There is no time.

[mojusk]

lol@you thinking that YOUR post is the reason they delayed SL.

maybe not his post alone, but his post added to the pile to make it big enough for blizz to do this.

im glad blizz did it. but lets not get our hopes too high, it doesnt mean that everone will get everything they want now.