Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Lorca]

I saw in the interviews that they said at least two times, two different people, that the Evoker will have the power of the 5 dragonflights, but then they only talk specifically about the blue, red, green and bronze (first two for the dps spec and the second two for the healing spec). Did they talk about the black flight power anywhere? Or is there any chance those would be unlocked later as a third spec? I don't play tanks at all, but feel bad for them getting put aside...

[Le Conceptuel]

I genuinely have to wonder how many people shilling for FF visuals and story have simply not watched much media and so consider the absolute most basic tropes to be groundbreakingly original material.

As for the expansion reveal itself, I violently don't care about Dragons and this expansion is all dragons all the time, mixed with the final stage of faction homogenization to round it off now that the Horde and Alliance expeditions are interchangable. The new race is poison for the eyes, though the class gimmick could be interesting. Past that, the talent revamp could be interesting and it's good that there's no hyped up and disposable feature like Renown or dragon covenants. I don't hate it, but I don't care about it either.

Agreed in many ways, save for one or two—for one, I think there was a very interesting story that could've been told with the Dragons if they were simply more civilized in nature, more vicious, and more cultural. I think that the idea of some generic, heretofore unknown Proto-Dragons dwelling in obscurity in the Dragon Isles who worship Galakrond was an odd idea—were it up to me, a possibly more interesting idea could've been an essentially apocalyptic Draconic cult propped up around Galakrond by survivors of the Twilight Flight and Chromatus, providing us with a good set of villains to set the story up around. Galakrond would probably be more of a "Heavy"-type villain who serves as the Darth Vader of the expansion whereas Chromatus is suggested to be the actual mastermind potentially controlling Galakrond's actions. Both could work well with some adequate personality—the animalistic yet indisputably sapient behavior of the Dragons in Dawn of the Aspects would be a very interesting personality to work with for a villain, as it would show something not strictly evil, yet unequivocally a threat. Conversely, Chromatus' personality is ill-defined, but I figure that a bit of work could help him out. Although everybody currently holds Denathrius as the standard for a villain that works, I figure that a good voice actor and writer for Chromatus could make him be a pretty interesting antagonist—a thoroughly-depraved, self-destructive supremacist sounds a little banal as a villain from the perspective of a three-dimensional approach, but with enough work it could be very interesting as a sort of equivalent to real-life villains like Heinrich Himmler.

I think the new race could've worked better if it were more explicitly actual Dragons. Of course, this would be somewhat impractical due to the scale of Drakes (which I assume would be the playable form of any kind of non-humanoid Dragon), but even then there were better ways to execute the Dracthyr. It feels like a copout that we only got two specializations instead of a potential three (and they didn't even pair them adequately!—why are the Bronze and Blues not paired, and the Greens and Reds not paired? Both are better suited for one another as arcane-based and healing-based respectively!). Even insofar as Dragons go, the idea of Chromatic-esque experimental humanoid Dragons could've worked much better as a Twilight's Hammer experiment instead of associating them with pre-corruption Neltharion. This seems far more in-character for something Nefarian would do, given he's always been the Mad Scientist archetype of Dragonkind. I could picture an army of mutated Chromatic Drakonids being far more interesting as player characters than generally-sanitized draconic humanoids who don't have much in the way of interesting lore hooks or design going for them. It seems superfluous that they even exist when we already have experimental humanoid Dragons that can use various powers from across the Dragonflights in the form of some of Nefarian's evil experiments.

You're on the mark with the talent thing, though I'm honestly suspicious it's only a superficial facade of development—it seems like some of it overlaps with preexisting systems, but it does at least have something unique going for it. No borrowed power is refreshing.

[Alanar]

Like, why don't they ad that model for the Dracthyr as a "male" model, put wings on it, and then we would have two different options to choose.

These models look wat cooler then drakthyr tho lol.

[Lorca]

Why not just make a drake! Wrathion's drake model was not large, we could easily have had a drake that is as tall as a tauren or zandalari troll and not have any issue with walking through doors (if anything given it would not be mounted it'd be even easier). Drake would also have had breath, talons, wing buffets, tail sweeps. It's just such a missed opportunity. Sure other games don't let you play dragons but that's because dragons in other games are too damn powerful. A young drake in WoW is not at all more powerful than a level 50-60 character of a different class.

Well, I agree with all of that haha, so what else can I say... they could have make it the size of a big mount and... voilà! I wouldn't mind having to stay out of the AH

As @Teriz has been pointing out for a long time, I would have gone the route of taking Alex model of HoTS (which is a lot of fun to play imho) and implemented that as class.

[Le Conceptuel]

Why not just make a drake! Wrathion's drake model was not large, we could easily have had a drake that is as tall as a tauren or zandalari troll and not have any issue with walking through doors (if anything given it would not be mounted it'd be even easier). Drake would also have had breath, talons, wing buffets, tail sweeps. It's just such a missed opportunity. Sure other games don't let you play dragons but that's because dragons in other games are too damn powerful. A young drake in WoW is not at all more powerful than a level 50-60 character of a different class.

I generally agree. Drakes are about the size of Humans vertically. I would be concerned about the horizontal scale, though—that admittedly could make hitboxes awkward with AOEs and make them sitting ducks in PvP. Still, it's not that much worse as a transformation proc than metamorphosed Demon Hunters, and I haven't heard much in the way of complaints about those. We don't have many races that are longer than others to take as a reference, so the challenges of a horizontally-advantaged class is not something we can adequately determine without a proof of concept.

Obviously, this shouldn't have been the form you're in most of the time—@Teriz had a very good idea for it originally, but I do think that one thing I would do would be to simply make them all Black Dragons or Bronze Dragons. Both represent ground generally not covered by WoW and could host three specializations.

[Nyel]

People are really expecting allied races for the pre order still? Come on, they would have announced that right with the expansion as it would have been the biggest feature of the entire expansion. They didn’t lose a word on it.

[Le Conceptuel]

they could have make it the size of a big mount and... voilà!

It wouldn't even have to be that big. Drake mounts are actually fairly small. I think about the size of a Tauren could work.

[Raetary]

Maybe if we are loud enough we can make them add a Drakonid AR.

- - - Updated - - -

They don't look that different from Dracthyr anyway, and seem to be able to wear armor.

[horizon nowhere]

Like, why don't they ad that model for the Dracthyr as a "male" model, put wings on it, and then we would have two different options to choose.

The model there is a slap to the face of players after what we were shown

[Alanar]

People are really expecting allied races for the pre order still? Come on, they would have announced that right with the expansion as it would have been the biggest feature of the entire expansion. They didn’t lose a word on it.

Yea.. it got mentioned again by redshirtguy as well.

Idk about it all, I meab it would surely peak my interest more, but i gave up already.

[Nymrohd]

True, but those aren't exactly memorable.

Yeah 5.1 had the gorgeous gryphon and wyvern which were great rewards. Still using the wyvern on some horde alts.

[Wangming]

As said, I want to avoid addressing any of it I haven't seen because it's just not my cup of tea. Watching some videos online I think one of my main problem with that kind of storytelling is kind of the inverse of WoW. WoW tells a dubious story with as few words as possible, whereas FF tells a story that again, I'm going to take at its word has all the depth advertised in as many words as possible, gameplay be damned.

ESO is generally not my cup of tea, but SWTOR was great despite an incredibly generic premise on the story front with the Imp. Agent story still being my favorite MMO story with a vibe I've not found anywhere else. It ranks past some singleplayer RPGs where that's concerned.
.

I think you mostly hit the nail. Like yes WoW has some great storylines in zones. Sometimes even over multiple zones like the Onyixia attunement or the Missing Diplomat. But in the long run it falls apart due to Danuser magic. ESO has good stories per expansion but their main selling point is how customizable they are. You don't have to buy every expansion and their order is up to you. This effectively prevents them to tell a story lasting more than one expansion. As for SWTOR, as someone who has played it for many many years...the story used to be amazing. And I still think the way they tell the story beasts FFXIV (All the voice acting and player choices...etc). But we are getting less and less story with each release and now that class stories are over, non force users feel like second rate citizens.

Sure FFXIV is no Dreamfall or Kotor 2 or Bloodlines but when measured against other MMOs it really is fucking great. Sure some people meme it way too hard, but maintaining a story that is at worst decent for over ten years with minimal contradictions really is an achievement.

[Le Conceptuel]

Now I think of it, I also thing that the Infinite Dragonflight would've made a far better box villain—I frankly think they have always been one of the more morally-interesting factions in WoW. From a deontological perspective, some of their moral acts are actually quite benevolent. The events they've tried to stop – the Culling of Stratholme, the opening of the Dark Portal, and other things like that – are terrible events which caused extreme destruction. However, each action also would've had unforeseen, terrible consequences. This underlying theme of wanting to do good yet lacking the wisdom or foresight to properly execute their plans without horrible consequences would create an excellent moral environment in which the players would heavily sympathize with the Infinite Dragonflight whilst also understanding that the outcomes of anything they do would be horrible. Comparing the wise yet dispassionate utilitarianism of the Bronze Dragonflight to the emotional, misguided deontological morality of the Infinites would create a very great story that could be very interesting.

I also think that they'd have made a far more interesting villain than, say, Sylvanas for a character that really ought to be redeemed—everything about them is sympathetic. Although they are unequivocally villains, they are also the kinds of villains that could lead to a very fulfilling and satisfying redemption story. Their good intentions make them a fascinating and sympathetic group that honestly deserves more screentime. Of course, I don't trust the current writers not to reduce them to cackling villains who inevitably go insane when the overarching villain of the week gets their paws on them, but nevertheless it would be interesting. In connection with the idea of an actual playable Dragon, redeemed Infinites – although a poor choice for an initial class option because they're so unique and seem absurd, deviating too much from a traditional fantasy concept of some kind – could be an interesting "class skin"-type concept where a Bronze Dragon character could go rogue and promptly return to the fold after realizing that everything the Infinites do has unforeseeable consequences, only narrowly preventing something terrible and losing the trust of their compatriots in the first place. I don't think WoW has ever done a good "Prodigal Son"-type plot, so that would be very cool and interesting to me.

[Wangming]

I saw in the interviews that they said at least two times, two different people, that the Evoker will have the power of the 5 dragonflights, but then they only talk specifically about the blue, red, green and bronze (first two for the dps spec and the second two for the healing spec). Did they talk about the black flight power anywhere? Or is there any chance those would be unlocked later as a third spec? I don't play tanks at all, but feel bad for them getting put aside...

I don't cause all three previous classes had a tanking spec and we have had only one healing spec added till evoker and no ranged spec. As for black power....technically all of it is black power as dracthyr are said to be the experiments of Neltharion.

[Super Dickmann]

Yeah 5.1 had the gorgeous gryphon and wyvern which were great rewards. Still using the wyvern on some horde alts.

It's been almost 10 years and it's still not out as a pet either for whatever reason. At least I can have the platonic idea of a frog hopping with me I guess.

@Wangming

MMO stories are always graded on a curve. I like a lot of WoW, but as a cohesive, continuing story it's a laughing stock that's only gotten worse about it as every expansion adds more and more parts that collapse stuff that came before. I liked SWTOR, but exclusively the base game, as Eternal Empire essentially reset the setting. Final Fantasy managing to cohere for its entire timespan with the biblical amount of text that it's in it is a selling point all on its own storywise.

@Le Conceptuel

With how much they were ragging on about this being a 'return to high fantasy', while I agree with you entirely about Infinite Dragons they'd want to start with something as basic as possible after where Shadowlands ended up. I'm one of the people who actually really enjoyed a lot of what Shadowlands was playing with conceptually, even if it was an unfinished mess in execution, so I can't say Explosion of Dragons is remotely my cup of tea, but 'Dragons there, go there to see dragons' is something everyone can understand.

[Scaleface]

Can confirm!
@Scaleface
Thank you for very interesting and challenging information!

Thank You too I am off for a while, have a "good loot and stable connection"

[Nymrohd]

I don't cause all three previous classes had a tanking spec and we have had only one healing spec added till evoker and no ranged spec. As for black power....technically all of it is black power as dracthyr are said to be the experiments of Neltharion.

I'll say this. I am a Main Tank and have been a Main Tank since Wrath (was a healer before). Most tank players are more tied to the role than to the class. While I am not switching from Paladin I will still play tank on alt nights with any of the other classes and I know many tanks who have one of each or at least have a couple of alts with a decently geared tank spec.
I think many tanks would absolutely give any new class with a tank spec a chance. The tanking playstyle is so specific and involved that it ends up being more important than your class. At the end of the day it is far easier for a tank who knows the encounters to switch to a different class and perform at a good level than it is for a dps because tank specs tend to not be as complex (because we have to deal with encounter mechanics at a deeper level particularly in M+).
On the other hand, I doubt a new class would get new people to roll tanks.

[Super Dickmann]

Thank You too I am off for a while, have a "good loot and stable connection"

I doubted you and will be condemned to eat crow and shill tinkers because of it. Godspeed and here's to 11.0.

[Nymrohd]

Now I think of it, I also thing that the Infinite Dragonflight would've made a far better box villain—I frankly think they have always been one of the more morally-interesting factions in WoW. From a deontological perspective, some of their moral acts are actually quite benevolent. The events they've tried to stop – the Culling of Stratholme, the opening of the Dark Portal, and other things like that – are terrible events which caused extreme destruction. However, each action also would've had unforeseen, terrible consequences. This underlying theme of wanting to do good yet lacking the wisdom or foresight to properly execute their plans without horrible consequences would create an excellent moral environment in which the players would heavily sympathize with the Infinite Dragonflight whilst also understanding that the outcomes of anything they do would be horrible. Comparing the wise yet dispassionate utilitarianism of the Bronze Dragonflight to the emotional, misguided deontological morality of the Infinites would create a very great story that could be very interesting.

I also think that they'd have made a far more interesting villain than, say, Sylvanas for a character that really ought to be redeemed—everything about them is sympathetic. Although they are unequivocally villains, they are also the kinds of villains that could lead to a very fulfilling and satisfying redemption story. Their good intentions make them a fascinating and sympathetic group that honestly deserves more screentime. Of course, I don't trust the current writers not to reduce them to cackling villains who inevitably go insane when the overarching villain of the week gets their paws on them, but nevertheless it would be interesting. In connection with the idea of an actual playable Dragon, redeemed Infinites – although a poor choice for an initial class option because they're so unique and seem absurd, deviating too much from a traditional fantasy concept of some kind – could be an interesting "class skin"-type concept where a Bronze Dragon character could go rogue and promptly return to the fold after realizing that everything the Infinites do has unforeseeable consequences, only narrowly preventing something terrible and losing the trust of their compatriots in the first place. I don't think WoW has ever done a good "Prodigal Son"-type plot, so that would be very cool and interesting to me.

I honestly never even understood the intentions of the Infinite. I think it would be interesting seeing them SUCCEED at changing events at point A so we could then see if they would also intervene at the new Point B of doom created and then keep intervening (which would be the deontological approach). But the way they are presented as nefarious makes you wonder if they are changing the events at point A to help the world or if they are doing it to help themselves (or due to loyalty to Murozond).

[Dracullus]

Same could be said for DH to be honest.

Because it's almost the same as DH, I don't get why most people don't see it. On paper Belf/Nelfs could be Demon Hunters, in practice it wasn't same as your regular Belf/Nelf with all that horns, blindfolds and tatoos. Funny enough, Dragon race also look a bit like Belf in humanoid form.

Even when we talk about specs, I doubt it was "let's think what Dragon class could do", but more "ok, DH had melee/tank, so we are gonna do range/heal this time".