Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Yet the world is a part of the endgame. You complete quests, world quests and dailies there. More importantly though you now also gather treasures that are usually placed in areas not easily accessible from the ground.

Flying doesn't open up a new and interesting avenue to tackle these small challenges, it removes them. And the only reason I can see is because some players don't want to play that part of the game.


When I say knowledge of the world I mean small things. Knowing what mobs are safe to run straight past and which are more likely to daze you. How absorb shields prevent dazing, how paths are designed to be safe to run on and knowledge on how to navigate past obstacles, where vantage points are, the best places to use a glider, areas that might be simple shortcuts.

All these small moments of organic gameplay are made moot when flying is added because it takes all these small things and instead gives you the ability to skip all of it at no cost or inconvenience.

The example I always use is one where you have a quest or somesuch that requires you to kill a mob at the top of a tower. There are mobs around and inside the tower however, meaning you then have a choice.
You could go straight in from the bottom fighting all the mobs.
Maybe you have stealth so instead you just stealth past all the mobs.
Maybe you see a vantage point close by and realize you could use a glider to get there, or better yet you play a DH so you can use glide for free.
Maybe you have engineering items that let you drop threat, or play a nelf or even just a hunter with feign death.
Maybe you have an item like Avianas feather or Twigi Treats so you can bypass the challenges that way.

However with flying the simple solution is the same no matter what. Mount up and fly straight up. No decision making, no resource loss, no need for knowledge of game mechanics. Just use the ultimate solution to the problem because why wouldn't you.


Changing flying could at the very least make it an option not immediately useful just anywhere, allowing it to shine as a long distance movement option instead of the ability to bypass gameplay just because.

But none of this relates to the gameplay which people have interest in, as these destinations are what the players are after in the first place. Just because some endgame content takes place in the world at large doesn't mean they need to suffer the same inconveniences as they initially did. The first time you go through a zone, there's a sense of awe and wonder at seeing a place you have never seen before. The twentieth time you go through it for the sake of a world quest, you're going to want to do the world quest and enjoy the reward and the process (at least in theory) rather than focus on the landscape you've seen twenty times before. Going through it just becomes an inconvenience rather than anything interesting.

Furthermore, you're continuing to fail to understand that any new mechanics in flight would likely constitute inconvenience in general rather than any new, interesting mechanics. What would you propose for new flight mechanics to make them interesting? Gliding around? Having to manually ensure your mount stays in the air? Unless you're proposing an entirely new set of content in the sky (which would further get tiresome and somewhat defeat the point of flying, even if I could see it being fairly interesting in theory), I don't really know exactly how flying could be made interesting through new mechanics.

Theoretically, I could see there being some interest in, say, dodging anti-air weaponry, but even then that would get tiresome when the only interest you have is getting to the Mythic+ raid on time.

[Yarathir]

I wish Blizzard would also add the 9.0 Maw weapons to Torghast or Korthia. I really want that 2h sword more than I want the raid sword.

[Tiradon]

I wish Blizzard would also add the 9.0 Maw weapons to Torghast or Korthia. I really want that 2h sword more than I want the raid sword.

Yeah would be pretty good motivation to spend some more time there...

[Sondrelk]

But none of this relates to the gameplay which people have interest in, as these destinations are what the players are after in the first place. Just because some endgame content takes place in the world at large doesn't mean they need to suffer the same inconveniences as they initially did. The first time you go through a zone, there's a sense of awe and wonder at seeing a place you have never seen before. The twentieth time you go through it for the sake of a world quest, you're going to want to do the world quest and enjoy the reward and the process (at least in theory) rather than focus on the landscape you've seen twenty times before. Going through it just becomes an inconvenience rather than anything interesting.

Furthermore, you're continuing to fail to understand that any new mechanics in flight would likely constitute inconvenience in general rather than any new, interesting mechanics. What would you propose for new flight mechanics to make them interesting? Gliding around? Having to manually ensure your mount stays in the air? Unless you're proposing an entirely new set of content in the sky (which would further get tiresome and somewhat defeat the point of flying, even if I could see it being fairly interesting in theory), I don't really know exactly how flying could be made interesting through new mechanics.

Theoretically, I could see there being some interest in, say, dodging anti-air weaponry, but even then that would get tiresome when the only interest you have is getting to the Mythic+ raid on time.

The thing is that this is a game though, playing it at all is an inconvenience, that is the point, overcoming it leads to gratification for players.

I also disagree with your notion that flying should be added because the zones lose their luster. The solution to that problem should be to not go there again.
World Quests and Dailies might be infinite, but they are not necessarily meant ot be done indefinitely, there is a point where doing them becomes pointless and players should be free to stop doing them, adding flying after that just seems like it is meant to appease those that don't care to the detriment of those that do.

And yes, I am sugfgesting making flying more inconvenient, because currently flying is simply too good. There is no content that Blizzard can design that would actually be made better by flying. The closest we have are areas like Storm Peaks that were designed in such a way that flying was necessary, but that didn't make flying better.
A revamp of flying could allow flying to actually be an option capable of being balanced around content, because currently all flying does is make all the ground based challenges moot as flying over them unhindered is such a dominant option that you would have to actively limit yourself to not use it.


I have said before, and I stand by that flying in WoW is fun in the same way playing Garry's mod by yourself is. Sure you can have tiny momentary bursts of fun when you first get your hands on it, but you are not getting challenged in any way that actually makes the player feel gratification from overcoming a challenge.
Playing GTA 5 and flying a jet between buildings is fun because there is a tangible risk of failure, as well as a level of skill needed. Try a similar thing in WoW and it is about as satisfying as eating a stale piece of bread.

Making something challenging is at the heart of playing games, and ass it stands flying in WoW is simply removing a challenge and not substituting it with anything. And when there is no challenge there is no room for growth. Flying in WoW peaked as soon as it launched because there simply isnt any other place for it to grow as a mechanic.
Had it been momentum based then you could have zones with more ledges and updrafts. If it was based on stamina then you could have ways of strengthening it or replenishing it midair. If it was based on eveb rudimentary understanding of inertai and takeoff then zones that allowed flying could actually be designed to allow flying in ways that doesnt make ground mounts obsolete as anything but mounts for areas where flying is simply not allowed.


Besdies, consider for a moment this. Seeing as Flying is antithetical to world design and at least a large chunk of those that care about open world content don't want flying, we are unlikely to ever go back to TBC- MoP where flying was available instantly.
Wouldnt you rather have a version of flying that could coexist with the current game? Actually allowing flying to be available from the beginning? Or is the noclip flight too important to your enjoyment of the game?

And surely you have played other games that have flight? Wouldnt you rather have a form of flying that actually has enough gameplay to allow a sense of accomplishment and fun?

- - - Updated - - -

Just to further elaborate on what I mean by making a zone better with a different form of flying.

Zones like Suramar are not made better by for instance a momentum based for of flying since it is flat and doesn't have areas that allow realistic takeoff points. At best it would be fun to parachute in after flying above.
Highmountain meanwhile would be made better by a more involved form of flying, since it is comprised of so many large cliffs mountains and valleys. Jumping down from the highest mountain gaining momentum and trying to skillfully land on a different mountain is a challenge that works both as a self imposed challenge, as well as a potential game challenge, like for instance as part of a quest or something.

When you look at flying now consider simply how little room there is for gameplay. Being able to move freely in all three dimensions is good if you want to reach a specific point, but terrible if you want to create a challenge around it.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

If you want the expansion to end, making it end a patch shorter won't speed anything up, if anything the same people that want it to end will moan about no content. Watching this thread progress. I don't think people know what they want.

[huth]

If you want the expansion to end, making it end a patch shorter won't speed anything up, if anything the same people that want it to end will moan about no content. Watching this thread progress. I don't think people know what they want.

I think the bigger issue is that they refuse to acknowledge what the price for their desires is and insist on holding on to the belief that dropping 9.3 will somehow make 10.0 happen faster.

[Nyel]

It will one way or another come sooner and happen faster, people that keep on insisting that no 9.3 doesn't mean a sooner 10.0 are just deliberately negative because we need 9.3 in their opinion (guess what, we don't). This really hasn't much to do with development process, but with scheduling / timing.

With 9.3 there is a 0.1% chance that the next expansion will launch in 2022. For that to happen they have to shorten the final tier during a pandemic where their development process has been considerably slowed down - so that's not going to happen. With no 9.3 there is a real chance that the next expansion is indeed launching in 2022.

The existence of 9.3 and 10.0 coming in 2022 doesn't add up. The non-existence of 9.3 and 10.0 therefore coming in 2022 does. With no 9.3 they just have to be back on their usual schedule to give us 10.0 in Q4/22, which isn't unlikely. If they release 9.1 in July, 9.2 in January and 10.0 in November we pretty much would have a normal expansion rollout from 9.1 on.

[huth]

It will one way or another come sooner and happen faster, people that keep on insisting that no 9.3 doesn't mean a sooner 10.0 are just deliberately negative because we need 9.3 in their opinion (guess what, we don't). This really hasn't much to do with development process, but with scheduling / timing.

With 9.3 there is a 0.1% chance that the next expansion will launch in 2022. For that to happen they have to shorten the final tier during a pandemic where their development process has been considerably slowed down - so that's not going to happen. With no 9.3 there is a real chance that the next expansion is indeed launching in 2022.

If that's the case, there's a 0.1% chance of the expansion launching in 2022, 9.3 or not. 10.0 is already in the works. It's already delayed. 9.3 is irrelevant to that, not having a 9.3 simply means the drought will be longer.

[Nyel]

If that's the case, there's a 0.1% chance of the expansion launching in 2022, 9.3 or not. 10.0 is already in the works. It's already delayed. 9.3 is irrelevant to that, not having a 9.3 simply means the drought will be longer.

How can 9.3 be irrelevant to that? You think all the developers that work / would work on 9.3 just do nothing for 10.0? It's silly to think that the manpower they can spare by not having 9.3 isn't positively affecting the development of 10.0.

Do you think Legion would have launched back in August 2016 when WoD had gotten a 6.3 patch half a year after 6.2? They had no 6.3 to accelerate and focus work on Legion. The same can easily apply to 9.3 and the next expansion right now. And they could have made this decision even before Shadowlands' launch because they knew they'd be late with everything. A delay for 10.0 means we assume there ever were plans to have 9.3, a thing we simply have no insight on. Maybe 9.3 was never planned and Shadowlands was always going to end with the 9.2(.5) patch and everything besides the wait for 9.1 is pretty much as usual.

[Revamp Man]

Obviously 8.3 isn’t happening
Sorry
I mean 9.3
It’s just when the same discussion happens again you kinda get the numbers mixed up

[Dracullus]

"We NEED 9.3" is same bullshit as "we NEED expansion in 2022". It's that hard to understand?

1. Argument for first - we had WoD. And this time it would be even hidden better, since CN will last longer than Highmaul + BRF combined, and we will have extra patch after SoD.

2. Argument for second - we had expansions that lasted more than 25 months, MoP and BfA to be specific. Gap between expansions is relevant, not year. Not even month - we had expansions coming in January, August, September, November - every time launch was financial success.

[Edward Wu]

You gotta wonder why they even bothered to make Torghast gameplay spec-specific when the entire point of the mode is that you experiment way beyond your character's usual strengths? They had to have noticed that the specializations being tightly designed for normal gameplay outside of Torghast would result in the obvious repetitiveness of the game mode and make people bored.

What they should have done is had your character go in completely spec-less, and build up your abilities and anima powers both from a pool consistently of the entirety of your class. So you go in, start with 0 abilities on your hotbar, pick 3-5 abilities to start with and a couple anima powers to amp them up, and go from there. Just imagine the combinations you could come up with and build around from stuff that was conventionally useless together.

[Clbull]

I still believe that Chains of Domination will probably be the final Shadowlands update. Previous patches have come out within a 3 - 6 month cycle with the X.1 patch generally being around 60 - 90 days from launch. This is the longest gap we've had between X.0 and X.1 which is fast approaching the 8 month mark as of writing. This massive delay tells me that something is seriously up within the Warcraft dev team.

The cynic inside me worries that Activision are micromanaging Blizzard far more than previously thought. They probably see content patches as an unnecessary expense because they don't drive more sales, and if they had their way, WoW expansions would be shat out annually and for a full $60 price tag, with each new content update being bundled as $20 DLC.

Wouldn't be surprised one bit if Shadowlands were wrapped up and outright shelved after Chains of Domination, either to focus on the next expansion or to focus on adding new content to Classic.

And before you tell me that Blizz won't be stupid enough to do that, do you remember Warlords of Draenor at all? That abomination of an expansion that concluded 6 months into launch with just 3 raids? That $50 scam that Blizzard left to rot for fifteen months before pushing out Legion? WoD had serious potential and Blizzard had pathlogically lied about their intentions to support the expansion until they turned around and said "Nah, we have no plans to support the game with any further updates."

[Varodoc]

I'll be so mad if 9.1 is the last patch, not because I like Shadowlands, but because I hate Shadowlands and its entire story. If Shadowlands ended at 9.1, then the Janitor and the "Generic 4 deities with 0 backstory who won't be relevant ever again", oops Eternal Ones, would be featured in the next expansion too, so 10.0 would be ruined as well.

The ideal world would be 9.2 as the last patch.

[Dracullus]

You gotta wonder why they even bothered to make Torghast gameplay spec-specific when the entire point of the mode is that you experiment way beyond your character's usual strengths? They had to have noticed that the specializations being tightly designed for normal gameplay outside of Torghast would result in the obvious repetitiveness of the game mode and make people bored.

What they should have done is had your character go in completely spec-less, and build up your abilities and anima powers both from a pool consistently of the entirety of your class. So you go in, start with 0 abilities on your hotbar, pick 3-5 abilities to start with and a couple anima powers to amp them up, and go from there. Just imagine the combinations you could come up with and build around from stuff that was conventionally useless together.

Overall I think Torghast (by this name I mean all this type of content) need 4 major things:

1) More crazy powers, more playing around with them. Something like your idea, but of course it should be tested, it could be good idea only on paper.

2) Completely excluded from power systems. Torghast should you give nothing but cosmetics, achievements, titles, mounts etc. Or some completely new type of award. Of course it doesn't mean is scalable - your gear and power matters.

3) More diverse environment. Also it's mistake making it same theme as current patch/raid.

4) No easy mode, but of course it can't be as hardcore as Mage Tower before Tomb opened, since there is heavy RNG factor.

Imo they really should at least try to do version like that during 9.2 (9.3?). Torghast has potential, but if we won't see changes, it will be thrown to failure box with garrison, warfronts and islands.

I'll be so mad if 9.1 is the last patch, not because I like Shadowlands, but because I hate Shadowlands and its entire story. If Shadowlands ended at 9.1, then the Janitor and the "Generic 4 deities with 0 backstory who won't be relevant ever again", oops Eternal Ones, would be featured in the next expansion too, so 10.0 would be ruined as well.

The ideal world would be 9.2 as the last patch.

9.2 is already confirmed.

[Sondrelk]

You gotta wonder why they even bothered to make Torghast gameplay spec-specific when the entire point of the mode is that you experiment way beyond your character's usual strengths? They had to have noticed that the specializations being tightly designed for normal gameplay outside of Torghast would result in the obvious repetitiveness of the game mode and make people bored.

What they should have done is had your character go in completely spec-less, and build up your abilities and anima powers both from a pool consistently of the entirety of your class. So you go in, start with 0 abilities on your hotbar, pick 3-5 abilities to start with and a couple anima powers to amp them up, and go from there. Just imagine the combinations you could come up with and build around from stuff that was conventionally useless together.

That would be fun, but I don't think it would be necessarily work in WoW.

Part of the point in Torghast is that you go in with the gear you have. Not to mention that your idea would require players to learn a new set of mechanics for each riun potentially.

[Wangming]

If you want the expansion to end, making it end a patch shorter won't speed anything up, if anything the same people that want it to end will moan about no content. Watching this thread progress. I don't think people know what they want.

Well there is the usual schedule. 6 months between patches and 10 months after final patch. As a lot of raiders will tell you a 6 month wait is optimal because raid tiers need that much before they get boring. Less than that and it is rushed. It is why MoP had more frequent patches but not all of them had raids. To keep this schedule up.

Now then. With no delays it looks like:

9.1 -six month wait-9.2-six month wait-9.3 -ten month wait-10.0

or

9.1 - six month wait- 9.2 - ten month wait - 10.0

So yes I think it really is preferrable to not have a 9.3

[Tiradon]

I still believe that Chains of Domination will probably be the final Shadowlands update. Previous patches have come out within a 3 - 6 month cycle with the X.1 patch generally being around 60 - 90 days from launch. This is the longest gap we've had between X.0 and X.1 which is fast approaching the 8 month mark as of writing. This massive delay tells me that something is seriously up within the Warcraft dev team.

The cynic inside me worries that Activision are micromanaging Blizzard far more than previously thought. They probably see content patches as an unnecessary expense because they don't drive more sales, and if they had their way, WoW expansions would be shat out annually and for a full $60 price tag, with each new content update being bundled as $20 DLC.

Wouldn't be surprised one bit if Shadowlands were wrapped up and outright shelved after Chains of Domination, either to focus on the next expansion or to focus on adding new content to Classic.

And before you tell me that Blizz won't be stupid enough to do that, do you remember Warlords of Draenor at all? That abomination of an expansion that concluded 6 months into launch with just 3 raids? That $50 scam that Blizzard left to rot for fifteen months before pushing out Legion? WoD had serious potential and Blizzard had pathlogically lied about their intentions to support the expansion until they turned around and said "Nah, we have no plans to support the game with any further updates."

I get where you come from, but with Blizzcon delayed and honestly it seems Blizzard is very very behind on their schedule for this expansion doesn't make me believe they will do a Legion.

[Wangming]

I still believe that Chains of Domination will probably be the final Shadowlands update. Previous patches have come out within a 3 - 6 month cycle with the X.1 patch generally being around 60 - 90 days from launch. This is the longest gap we've had between X.0 and X.1 which is fast approaching the 8 month mark as of writing. This massive delay tells me that something is seriously up within the Warcraft dev team.

The cynic inside me worries that Activision are micromanaging Blizzard far more than previously thought. They probably see content patches as an unnecessary expense because they don't drive more sales, and if they had their way, WoW expansions would be shat out annually and for a full $60 price tag, with each new content update being bundled as $20 DLC.

Wouldn't be surprised one bit if Shadowlands were wrapped up and outright shelved after Chains of Domination, either to focus on the next expansion or to focus on adding new content to Classic.

And before you tell me that Blizz won't be stupid enough to do that, do you remember Warlords of Draenor at all? That abomination of an expansion that concluded 6 months into launch with just 3 raids? That $50 scam that Blizzard left to rot for fifteen months before pushing out Legion? WoD had serious potential and Blizzard had pathlogically lied about their intentions to support the expansion until they turned around and said "Nah, we have no plans to support the game with any further updates."

I wouldn't go that far. The Janitor story has to end. Or will it be like Garrosh who died midway into WoD? Not seeing it. I think we will get a 9.2 to wrap things up. Unless we get a Gamescom reveal they wil not scrap 9.2. The next online BlizzCon will be next year. Way too late if there is no patch between it and 9.1

[Makabreska]

Are we going from "there is no 9.3" to "there is no 9.2" now?