9.X Patches & 10.0 Speculation Thread

[cantrip]

Again, you don't speak for the players, so saying "focus on what players want" means nothing, since each player wants something different.

I actually want the devs to listen to their players. Currently, they listen only to players which agree to the developers agenda. The "community council" is nothing but a PR joke. I want the devs to listen to the majorites, and not to a few minorities only. And there are, not just premade raids or mythic+ players and hardcore casual dull world quest players as Blizzard seems to believe.

And other stuff you said is confusing af. Systems that matter? So Covenants or tier sets do not matter?

Systems that matter: (in general systems that work past the expac they were created for)
Item - Character progression (not just power, but also transmogs)
Cosmetics
Crafting
Dungeons
Raids
Questing
Battlegrounds
Arena
World PVP

a new dungeon or raid or battleground or arena will be played years after an expac was introduced. Items stay relevent to be transmogs. World pvp is an evergreen, if done correctly. Cosmetics are added for the whole lifetime of a char. Crafting should a be ramping up system rather than split into expacs making them worthless as it is now.

Systems that do not matter: (in general systems that add rewards only for one expac lifecycle)
Anima power
Legendary power
Corruption
Bone dust
<insert any borrowed power currency here>
Renown
The 123. reincarnation of a talent tree for your necklace which only exists for one expac
the 143. reincaration of bonuses that only exist for one expac

Blizzard focuses way to much on the last while addition to the first relevant systems would enrich the game for its lifetime. And all those borrowed power systems are not even fun, nor rewarding enough, nor any kind of useful once the expac they were created for is over. Based on that blizzard should get rid of this waste of development resources and focus on adding content to the systems that matter and prevail.

20 dungeons at start of an expac are more worth than "Anima time sink 23", 10 level regions are more worth than "Necklace legendary time sink #31 which loses its power at end of the expac". New battlegrounds are worth more than "Renown tree filled with time sinks"..

[Dracullus]

Guys, guys!
I've got his leak from an inside WoW dev.
Hold on to your butts, this is a big one.
"In the next couple of months, we're gonna see 10.0 leaks".

It already started. Hopefully Blizzard won't wait too long with reveal after patch, otherwise next few months will be insufferable.

So you do not want systems that matter, rewards outside of raids, dungeons and pvp, fun open world content, fair pvp, a good crafting system and a focus on what players want rather than what a single dev or the devs want?

Bunch of empty words. What is system that matter? Something that will grow and grow with every expac? No I don't want this. And if it ends, you say it doesn't matter. xD

Rest is Asmon style "critique" - devs don't care, they just need make game good, it's so easy.

[cantrip]

Bunch of empty words. What is system that matter?

See my post before this one.

Rest is Asmon style "critique" - devs don't care, they just need make game good, it's so easy.

It would be really easy once the developers would focus on core systems that prevail rather than inventing new ones which just do not live longer than an expac.

[Makabreska]

Systems that matter: (in general systems that work past the expac they were created for)
Item - Character progression (not just power, but also transmogs)
Cosmetics
Crafting
Dungeons
Raids
Questing
Battlegrounds
Arena
World PVP

a new dungeon or raid or battleground or arena will be played years after an expac was introduced. Items stay relevent to be transmogs. World pvp is an evergreen, if done correctly. Cosmetics are added for the whole lifetime of a char. Crafting should a be ramping up system rather than split into expacs making them worthless as it is now.

So like, first you say there should be no raid focus, but then you bring raids as a "good system"? And Blizz is already doing stuff you listed:
- you got raids each patch and sometimes dungeons
- new quests in new zones
- new arenas/sometimes BG's
- crapton of new cosmetics

And you want crafting to go back to how it was, where you was forced to level it through every past expansion if you wanted to reach max lvl? No thanks.

[Dracullus]

See my post before this one..

I did, it's a mess. So you call every piece of content a system? Some currency too? Cosmetics matter and anima that is currency for cosmetics don't? xD

Beside battlegrounds and more world pvp goals (which of course could see more attention) we get rest content that "matter" every patch. It's not like you would got extra dungeon if character progression become barebone level&gear. Expac systems mostly take time from team working on balance (that's why I'm oppose any choices in this systems).

Btw, practically gear from raids&dungeons is dead too after expac is over (especially rings/neck that don't even have transmog value). How they "matter" and progression system that is over after expac is done - don't?

----

Looks like we have catch up gear already implemented, wowhead reports treasures/quest/rares are 249 (I hope rares has fixed loot table like in 9.1) and very expensive vendor for 246 to fill gaps. No upgrade, no account-wide tokens. Why they just don't copy good systems, I don't know.

[Hitei]

what 10.0 will not be about
- rewards outside of raids, dungeons and pvp that matter for character progression

20 dungeons at start of an expac are more worth than "Anima time sink 23", 10 level regions are more worth than "Necklace legendary time sink #31 which loses its power at end of the expac". New battlegrounds are worth more than "Renown tree filled with time sinks"..

"Blizzard should add things that aren't raids, dungeons or pvp for character progression! Also, Blizzard should stop adding things that are character progression and just add raids, dungeons and pvp, they are worth more!"

Yeah, can't imagine why your feedback isn't given much weight.

"The majority" are the exact reason you have split expansion profession systems. If you want to be listened to, you should at least understand basic development processes enough to realize that removing the effortless anima time sink doesn't somehow magically resolve into 10 more regions and 20 dungeons. It frees up UI team members and systems designers, whose biggest job is... making those light content systems, and who do not make dungeons, or battlegrounds, or leveling regions.

You say that you want non-group (dungeon, raid, pvp) content that provides progression or cosmetics but then in the same post somehow claim that legendaries don't matter, and that renown, the thing that unlocks a bunch of cosmetics, attached to covenants a thing that unlocks even more cosmetics, doesn't matter. So which is it? Do you want cosmetics or are they pointless? Do you want just dungeons and battlegrounds or is just adding dungeons and battlegrounds dumb and the wrong choice? Do you like things like Islands, a system that rewards shit tons of cosmetics and vanity items, or do you think that's a dumb system because it was only directly relevant to power progression in BfA?

If you want Blizzard to listen to you:
1) Make up your mind instead of just directly contradicting yourself, let alone what other players want.
2) Actually tell them what you want instead of "Add fun stuff", the most entirely subjective, meaningless request possible.

[cantrip]

So like, first you say there should be no raid focus, but then you bring raids as a "good system"? And Blizz is already doing stuff you listed:
- you got raids each patch and sometimes dungeons
- new quests in new zones
- new arenas/sometimes BG's
- crapton of new cosmetics

Yeah, well, raids should not be the only source for the story, as they are currently. No content should be mandatory for anyone, you know? Players would chose their path and would get a great experience with a story that ends, and is not just there to create a starting narrative. Questing should have an own story, Raids should have own stories. Dungeons should have own stories. The big problem currently is that raids, and only raids, tell the end story. Give the best gear. Other than raids, you never get the best rewards for your gameplay.

Beside that, there was no single new BG in Shadowlands. There was an arena. But considering how many players play skirmishes, it is an utter joke to only add one arena as new content, while the devs focus on trash system #39 ("renown", "anima", call it whatever you like) to implement time gating to keep players playing for months without adding any kind of compelling gameplay for them..

My point is, when blizzard plans to add a new system, it should simply stay. Forever. And new content should be added in coming up expacs. Torghast and Warfronts should not end in the expac, they should stay in game and be expanded upon. And should have been part of existing systems that matter, because in the end warfronts would be a neat permanent addition if done right, featuring PVE group content in the open world. And Thorgast could simply become a special dungeon.

And the cosmetics? Who needs horse mount #27? Who needs slightly different colored same hat as you find in a former expac? Those should be way more unique and less common.

And new quests? The world quests are dull beyond belief. Not repetetive at all, yet players who focus on quests have to repeat them over and over. Why doesnt blizzard solve questing in a way you can re-play a questing region on different difficulties which tells a narrative in endgame which offers rewards based on your current item level and difficulty rather than adding dull "collect 20x or kill 21y" quests which neither tell any story nor do reward anything useful other than borrowed currency power?

The whole solo player experience is designed for stupid people who cannot even master a small challenge, while most players want engaging gameplay. They either create premade group content or dead stupid hardcore casual content no smart person ever would play for longer than a month... which results in millions leaving the game short after relase.

And you want crafting to go back to how it was, where you was forced to level it through every past expansion if you wanted to reach max lvl? No thanks.

Yeah, crafting should create items which are useful at and point of the leveling process and thruout of it. Crafting should be leveled as you level up a character. Crafting should have a progress and the items you should craft should stay useful. Also, crafting should not just be "collect 10x and kill 20y", but it should be a whole career including tasks and finding patterns in the open world. You should have to actively level your crafting skill with usefull rewards, and not just do it for the sake of getting to a level.

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I did, it's a mess. So you call every piece of content a system? Some currency too? Cosmetics matter and anima that is currency for cosmetics don't? xD

I call systems that matter systems that matter. Dungeons are pve small group scale content, Raids are pve large scale group content, battlegrounds are large scale group pvp content and arenas are small scale group pvp content, infact all those systems i listed are unique systems that should be the bread and butter of every new expac created.

Beside battlegrounds and more world pvp goals (which of course could see more attention) we get rest content that "matter" every patch.

No, as "every patch" nowadays focuses on expac specific borrowed power systems nowadays, but not on the extension of core systems. Rather than adding 30 new "Renown" levels with stupid rewards that do not matter blizzard should have added a new questing region which tells a unique narrative. Instead players get some simple region with stupid world quests which tell no ongoing narrative.

It's not like you would got extra dungeon if character progression become barebone level&gear. Expac systems mostly take time from team working on balance (that's why I'm oppose any choices in this systems).

Every good patch should contain a new dungeon, a new raid, a new questing region, a new battleground, a new arena and core content that matters. Rather than "Renown push up to level 9340".

Btw, practically gear from raids&dungeons is dead too after expac is over (especially rings/neck that don't even have transmog value). How they "matter" and progression system that is over after expac is done - don't?

No, it is not dead, as it is used for transmogs. Solo players solo raids and dungeons for transmogs. Beside rings and necks. But as you might have noticed, dungeons and raids do not only drop those.

[Sondrelk]

What you are suggesting is that all content should be relevant to some extent, which is absolutely a valid demand to make given how the games irrelevant content far outstrips any amount of content a single expansion can realistically add.

However, this is an issue inherent to not just expansions, but patches. And it is this way because players want new content regularly, so we got that. Then they wanted to play said content without having to play everything else as well, so we got that. Then as time went on players wanted each new piece of content to feel slightly different from previous ones in some regard, hence things like tier sets.

Combine all this together and you get a version of the game that abandons old content quickly, leaving just the cosmetics remaining.


What you are demanding is some kind of system that lets us reuse old content in a way that makes it fun, which is not as simple as just having it give good gear. If that is all it did then every single raid drop would need to be rebalanced, and gearing up would be as simple as getting the same pieces of gear each time.

If we are to circumvent that issue then we need some kind of system like Timewalking.
And that point however you need to consider why experimenting on systems in important. It's insane to expect any Dev from hitting a bullseye on the first attempt every time, and for tertiary systems like Timewalking it needs to be developed as a side project alongside the main systems like raid and story.


Everyone wants to play the perfect game, but making that takes time, even more so when players are not even agreed on what the perfect game is.
For some the perfect version of WoW would be 10 10boss raids each expansion, for others it's maybe just 2 and way more story.
Some players want deeply involved open world combat that gives opportunities for clever useage of abilities, some just want to fly over it and go straight to the important bit so they can be done with the chores for each day.


It will never be as simple as just demanding the developers just make a good game, because first you need to clearly define what a good game is, and make a case for why WoW should be one this.

Even stuff that most players agree on doesn't work this way. Of course everyone wants completely unique and amazing cosmetics from everything, but the developers don't have infinite time and manpower. If "horse with armor" #37 is the best they can do for obscure rare #168 then that is already better than nothing.
Of course many players would have preferred that it gave s completely unique mount to showcase their brilliance, but this will never be realistic in regards to game Dev time.

[Makabreska]

Yeah, well, raids should not be the only source for the story, as they are currently. No content should be mandatory for anyone, you know? Players would chose their path and would get a great experience with a story that ends, and is not just there to create a starting narrative. Questing should have an own story, Raids should have own stories. Dungeons should have own stories. The big problem currently is that raids, and only raids, tell the end story. Give the best gear. Other than raids, you never get the best rewards for your gameplay.

Dungeons and questing all have stories, they are simply a part of a bigger narrative of the zone. You want them all to be disjointed? You do one story during questing, then jump to local dungeon and it's suddenly something different? And why raids being a culmination is a problem? They provide the most epic experience in the game and were always THE end game, and nowadays literally anyone can do them.

My point is, when blizzard plans to add a new system, it should simply stay. Forever. And new content should be added in coming up expacs. Torghast and Warfronts should not end in the expac, they should stay in game and be expanded upon. And should have been part of existing systems that matter, because in the end warfronts would be a neat permanent addition if done right, featuring PVE group content in the open world. And Thorgast could simply become a special dungeon.

Sooooo at this point you would like to have relevant old ungeons, raids, Isles, Warfronts, multiple invasions etc? Do you realize how huge effort and mess it would be to keep them all relevant? Of course you don't

And the cosmetics? Who needs horse mount #27? Who needs slightly different colored same hat as you find in a former expac? Those should be way more unique and less common.

I wasn't talking about mounts. Each patch you get a crapton of gear for transmog, either from group content or solo play. Not sure how you don't see it.

And new quests? The world quests are dull beyond belief. Not repetetive at all, yet players who focus on quests have to repeat them over and over. Why doesnt blizzard solve questing in a way you can re-play a questing region on different difficulties which tells a narrative in endgame which offers rewards based on your current item level and difficulty rather than adding dull "collect 20x or kill 21y" quests which neither tell any story nor do reward anything useful other than borrowed currency power?

You know you also get a story quest lines in new zones? And you want peeps to get high ilvl gear just from questing? Please. And scaling off of ilvl? So it's either scaling too well, and will overshadow group PvE gear, or scales too little, which makes it useless. Not to mention that "collect 20x or kill 21y" are a staple design everywhere, and re-playing leveling wont make them go away.

The whole solo player experience is designed for stupid people who cannot even master a small challenge, while most players want engaging gameplay. They either create premade group content or dead stupid hardcore casual content no smart person ever would play for longer than a month... which results in millions leaving the game short after relase.

AGAIN, you do not speak for the players. Blizz tried in the past with difficult content, and it failed. You want challenging leveling? Oh ye, I can see how it would work so well when majority of player base (who is casual btw) would struggle with simply reaching max lvl. Currently you have PvE of scaling difficulty, so it's something for everyone. And Blizz still does suff like Mage towers.

Yeah, crafting should create items which are useful at and point of the leveling process and thruout of it. Crafting should be leveled as you level up a character. Crafting should have a progress and the items you should craft should stay useful. Also, crafting should not just be "collect 10x and kill 20y", but it should be a whole career including tasks and finding patterns in the open world. You should have to actively level your crafting skill with usefull rewards, and not just do it for the sake of getting to a level.

Again, that would make people use a shit ton of craftables from past expansions. It just seems that your vision of the game is a one big bloated mess with insanely steep end game curve where you have to grind past expansion stuff to be relevant.

[cantrip]

"Blizzard should add things that aren't raids, dungeons or pvp for character progression! Also, Blizzard should stop adding things that are character progression and just add raids, dungeons and pvp, they are worth more!"

Yeah, can't imagine why your feedback isn't given much weight.

Well, all i said was that Raids and dungeons should not be the only source for character progression in endgame, as they are now. Or is there any ongoing character progresion you get from world questing? In the end all components should allow drops for BIS gear for the gameplay they are played. Beside having gameplay that is fun. And i do not see any fun in current world quest implementations. And battlegrounds do not even have remotely as much novelty as dungeons or raids have. Rather contrary, new battlegrounds are rare. New arenas are rare. A focus on any on those components is wrong, it should be a balanced approach where every of these componentes receives updates, and where every of these componentes give its players an ongoing progression with items rather than with borrowed power without any other use.

"The majority" are the exact reason you have split expansion profession systems.

No. Which majority actually asked for that?

If you want to be listened to, you should at least understand basic development processes enough to realize that removing the effortless anima time sink doesn't somehow magically resolve into 10 more regions and 20 dungeons.

You know, even one dungeon more would be better than <insert time sink currency here>. Even one battleground more would be better than "Renown level 60-90". Even one raid more would be better than "Necklace new talent x for this expac only". And every region with a narrative told would be better than "world quest region x with dull quests".

You say that you want non-group (dungeon, raid, pvp) content that provides progression or cosmetics but then in the same post somehow claim that legendaries don't matter, and that renown, the thing that unlocks a bunch of cosmetics, attached to covenants a thing that unlocks even more cosmetics, doesn't matter.

I tell you that the focus on raids and dungeons as only endgame progression is wrong. The game has way more different player playstyles than it offers. The hardcore casual that wants stupid world quests is as much a minority as the endgame raider who plays in a guild with premade groups. Yet, blizzard cateres everything to these two. They cannot believe there is a large majority that does not want stupidly dumb world quests, and they do not believe that anyone outside of that group is no premade group player which sees endgame raids as nice to have but not the only endgame gameplay. While there actually are as many as left shadowlands short after relase. Which are around 80% of the players which initially bought the expac.

[Sondrelk]

And every raid should contain a new dungeon, raid, questing zone, arena etc.?
Why not just demand that each new patch introduces a new allied race and 30+ unique mounts for good measure?
And don't forget the playable races we already have. Each latch should have a 30+ minutes questline for each playable race each patch just to give that important plot update for each one. It's so easy to make after all.

[Makabreska]

I tell you that the focus on raids and dungeons as only endgame progression is wrong. The game has way more different player playstyles than it offers. The hardcore casual that wants stupid world quests is as much a majority as the endgame raider who plays in a guild with premade groups. Yet, blizzard cateres everything to these two. They cannot believe there is a large majority that does not want stupidly dumb world quests, and they do not believe that anyone outside of that group is no preade group player. While there actually are as many as left shadowlands short after relase. Which are around 80% of the players which initially bought the expac.

You keep making numbers up. Proof of your claims please. Hard proof, not just "it's common logic".

[cantrip]

Dungeons and questing all have stories, they are simply a part of a bigger narrative of the zone. You want them all to be disjointed?
You do one story during questing, then jump to local dungeon and it's suddenly something different? And why raids being a culmination is a problem? They provide the most epic experience in the game and were always THE end game, and nowadays literally anyone can do them.

I want raids to tell the raids story. I want the open world to tell a story of the world we play in. I want dungeons to tell the dungeons story. And yes, they should be disjointed. Illidan should not have died in a raid seen by a few thousands only. Illidan should have been the final encounter of the quest region, as millions of players played questing content and only a few ever played raids. That was before blizzard forced everyone into their dead dull version of raids called LFR which is neither rewarding nor compelling but just a raped degenerated version of the raiding game. Actually blizzard did a sacrilege here, trying to make raiding popular at all costs, while raiding never was and never should have been the main focus of the development team. It should just have been one component of many, and not force every single player out there to join a group made with matchmaking filled with randoms you never meet again. This, and only this, is the biggest mistake blizzard ever did. Instead of that, there should have been dedicated content for dedicated players. For a quest player, questing should have told a story that is relevant to the main lore and world development. For a raider, raids should have told a story that is relevant to the raid and the gameplay in the raid. Same for dungeons.

Forcing everyone into raids lead to what WoW is nowadays. A shadow of itself. Remember classic, when the raid was about Ragnaros, which had (close to no) connection to the world content. The raids those days had closed narratives and the world itself told no other stories than the questing regions. This should have been the path, and not forcing every player into every component. And yes, this still could be repaired in an upcoming expac.

Sooooo at this point you would like to have relevant old ungeons, raids, Isles, Warfronts, multiple invasions etc? Do you realize how huge effort and mess it would be to keep them all relevant? Of course you don't

Well, as more the devs would know a component would stay relevent, as more effort they would put into creating unique components, and not the trash we get for expacs nowadays, which do not surive a new major update of the game. Instead of 10 new trash systems that expire we probably could have 2 new systems that matter.

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You keep making numbers up. Proof of your claims please. Hard proof, not just "it's common logic".

Check wowprogress for raid participation numbers. Check statistics for raids from MMO-C from older days. Check benched me (with dot between benched and me) to see mythic+ participation and you encounter that mythic+ players are about 380.000 nowadays down from 1.5 mio at the start of the expac. Which is around 11% of the number of players which bought Shadowlands (around 13 Mio from inofficial statements).

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Check wowprogress for raid participation numbers. Check statistics for raids from MMO-C from older days. Check benched me (with dot between benched and me) to see mythic+ participation and you encounter that mythic+ players are about 380.000 nowadays down from 1.5 mio at the start of the expac. Which is around 11% of the number of players which bought Shadowlands (around 13 Mio from inofficial statements).

That isn't legit statistic websites. MMO-Champion barely has the total amount of players. MMO-Champion is a minority of % of the playerbase. And yes Wowprogress isn't a legit stat either.

[Marlamin]

Been working on looking at things again these last two days, haven't found much (except for a small connection that might be posted later) but all these fake leaks are fueling the amount of effort I put into these kind of puzzles. Guess they're good for something after all!

[Black Rider]

Been working on looking at things again these last two days, haven't found much (except for a small connection that might be posted later) but all these fake leaks are fueling the amount of effort I put into these kind of puzzles. Guess they're good for something after all!

What's that small connection?

[Dragonsworn 4 Lyfe]

10.0: Rage of the Dragons

New continent: Dragon isles
2 max level zones expanded through patches with leveling zones being zidormii old zones including
Hyjal
Dragonblight
Caverns of Time
Twilight Highlands


Threats include
Nightmare dragons
Return of galakrond
Infinite dragons
Return of chromatus

New class: Dragonsworn
4 specs
Trained by Wrathion as a vanguard to replace the weakened aspects the intro takes place throughout multiple points in time from Cata to SL where you meet the “Hero” throughout it

Black dragon abilities as a base
4 flight abilities for specs
Blue/red are ranged and melee
Green is healer
Bronze is tank

New pledge system is used to give players a feeling of artifact weapons as they level with generic bonuses every other level and class specific every 5

Level cap 70 with a long awaited talent row

[Sondrelk]

I still can't see why Blizzard would undo the main benefit of squishing the number of levels back to 60 by immediately making the new max level 70 the next expansion. Especially since this would logically mean new players would need to go through Shadowlands content to get to max level after hitting level 50.
Seems to me like the easier way to go forward is to place Shadowlands content into the same Chromie time framework as the other expansions, and then make the next expansions levelling the same 50-60 we had In this expansion.

[Ersula]

I still can't see why Blizzard would undo the main benefit of squishing the number of levels back to 60 by immediately making the new max level 70 the next expansion. Especially since this would logically mean new players would need to go through Shadowlands content to get to max level after hitting level 50.
Seems to me like the easier way to go forward is to place Shadowlands content into the same Chromie time framework as the other expansions, and then make the next expansions levelling the same 50-60 we had In this expansion.

a.) having the re-squish the levels every ten years is probably the plan. Ten years is a lot of time. Or perhaps they realize they don't need to do 10 levels every expansion. A new expansion could just be level 60 to 61 & it wouldn't be any different.
b.) you're forgetting the *detect your personal journey & tailor the quest to it* part of Bastion. Shadowlands was based on you have doing timewalking before it.
c.) they might change their minds after getting feedback but clearly Danuser is super proud of BFA & Shadowlands & they were super-amped to force new players to play through both before whatever comes in 10.0. I would have said typically the consequences of the previous expansion sets up the premise of the next expansion, but that doesn't seem to be the case for 10.0

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10.0: Rage of the Dragons

While I'm all for a dragon class, who's humanoid form can be any race of your choosing: Why does everyone suggest it would be named some new dragon term, like "Dragonsworn" or "Dragon Knight." Wouldn't the class name be an already existing term, like "Dragonflight" or "Dragon Aspect"

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Wait I just rewatched this and I really can't find anything that says that Lordaeron city has been rebuilt, am I missing something? Or are you talking about the Tirisfal Glades as a whole? AFAIK, the eastern part including Deathkneel and Calson State was never damaged in the alliance siege or by the blight, so they have remained forsaken holdings all along.

canonically nobody actually lived in the city or the undercity. They lived in Brill.

[Makabreska]

a.)While I'm all for a dragon class, who's humanoid form can be any race of your choosing: Why does everyone suggest it would be named some new dragon term, like "Dragonsworn" or "Dragon Knight." Wouldn't the class name be an already existing term, like "Dragonflight" or "Dragon Aspect"

No, because these names already mean something different. Dragonflight is a general term for all dragon kind of certain color and Aspects are their leaders. It's kinda obvious.