Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[JDBlou]

nah, I think its much more likely she get she's the expansions Bolvar / Khadgar / Magni

Hopefully she'll actually do something unlike Bolvar who seems to have attended many online delegation classes while he sat on the frozen throne.

[Izalla]

Nothing to concede, my dude. I'm personally excited for Kalecgos to stop looking like his polygon count maxes out at 12.

Wait, a Kalec model on par with BfA Wrathion's?

*sweats*

[Val the Moofia Boss]

... Why did it have to be dragons?

There needs to be a really interesting twist for me to care. The gameplay is trash. The story is trash. The only thing WoW has going for it at this point are its aesthetics. Warcraft dragons are incredibly vanilla. Gimme those time travelling cyborg dragons powered by the souls of demons. At the very very least, there needs to be a playable dragon race/class.

On the upside, I guess maybe Wrathion is going to be the star of the show this time? Or maybe it's Kalec. At least we're not going to get yet another Warcraft 3 left over advertised on the box this time. It's been 20 years since WoW launched and yet hardly any WoW original characters get the spotlight. The most we got was Garrosh and Anduin as prominent faction leaders in prior expansions, but not the box art main.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Well Blizzard fucked it up again. And probably on purpose but I feel like I say that every time they do this.

And oh hey every leak thus far was fake, what a surprise.



Honestly Dragonflight fills me with a certain sense of dread. Maybe it's because it feels so much like Shadowlands as a name. Maybe it's the fact putting the spotlight on the Dragonflights reminds me of an idea I had ages ago that "the next covenants will be picking a dragonflight to join." And that makes me fear that Blizz in fact learned nothing from SL and is going to just release "SL but with Dragons."

[Izalla]

Yeah, they should definitely experiment more with armors sets and not pigeonhole themselves into these tiny thematic boxes. That's not to say totally disregard the class aesthetic, but innovate and build upon it.



Glad you like my idea. I would love something like what you listed with the bones and wood for Shaman too. It captures the "natural" aesthetic, but in a more spiritual sense than hunter. Bones harken back to shamanic reverence for the spirits of ancestors and nature.

The heritage sets and other things also kind of throw the "plate has to look like plate" and "mail has to look like mail" idea out the window since anyone can transmog to their heritage set regardless of their actual armour type.

And thank you =)

- - - Updated - - -

Well Blizzard fucked it up again. And probably on purpose but I feel like I say that every time they do this.

And oh hey every leak thus far was fake, what a surprise.



Honestly Dragonflight fills me with a certain sense of dread. Maybe it's because it feels so much like Shadowlands as a name. Maybe it's the fact putting the spotlight on the Dragonflights reminds me of an idea I had ages ago that "the next covenants will be picking a dragonflight to join." And that makes me fear that Blizz in fact learned nothing from SL and is going to just release "SL but with Dragons."

Same, dude.

[Catastrophy349]

Well Blizzard fucked it up again. And probably on purpose but I feel like I say that every time they do this.

And oh hey every leak thus far was fake, what a surprise.



Honestly Dragonflight fills me with a certain sense of dread. Maybe it's because it feels so much like Shadowlands as a name. Maybe it's the fact putting the spotlight on the Dragonflights reminds me of an idea I had ages ago that "the next covenants will be picking a dragonflight to join." And that makes me fear that Blizz in fact learned nothing from SL and is going to just release "SL but with Dragons."

I don't think the idea of Covenants were bad. The implementation and parameters behind them were awful. If we had Covenant like "dragonflights" but they did not have playerpower associated to them OR we could freely choose between them from the start, it would be rather cool.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I don't think the idea of Covenants were bad. The implementation and parameters behind them were awful. If we had Covenant like "dragonflights" but they did not have playerpower associated to them OR we could freely choose between them from the start, it would be rather cool.

Covenant Abilities were and always will be bad. Conduits were and always will be bad.

If they do do "Join a Dragonflight" and tie anything power-wise to it, be it a skill tree, or an artifact, or special armor traits, it will always be bad.

[Golang]

Literally nothing wrong with doing the flights as covenants as long as they don't have the abilities tied to them. In fact Id go so far as to say that if they hadn't decided to tie the covenants to power it would be one of the absolute best systems they've come up with.

That's the big if though, are they willing to risk having something that big be purely cosmetic or not. Guess we're gonna find out.

Tieing it to power wasn't the problem. I love the covenant system the way it is currently. HOWEVER not letting you switch covenants freely killed it for most people.

Hell even the time gated story wouldn't have been too bad this xpac if we were able to switch covenants and progress the story of all of the covenants at the same time.

[Catastrophy349]

Covenant Abilities were and always will be bad. Conduits were and always will be bad.

If they do do "Join a Dragonflight" and tie anything power-wise to it, be it a skill tree, or an artifact, or special armor traits, it will always be bad.

I probably didn't elaborate enough on what I meant by Covenants being "good". I meant the concept. Not the soulbinds, conduits, abilities. Those were awful. I simply meant the choice to pick a Covenant to align with, the campaign, the aesthetic, theme, lore, etc. If Dragonflights were simply like Class Order Halls with a campaign, cosmetics, etc., that would be fun.

[Vakir]

The big problem to me isn't even that those systems were awful. It's not even that they tried and failed.

It's that they were so transparently bad and everyone told them they were awful for over a year. And they did it anyway and rolled the same systems back as a hail Mary at the EXACT FUCKING TIME we said they would. Many people still defended it and "wait and see" backed the whole thing because they're simple and turned it into a min-maxer vs. them situation when it was bad for everyone.

They'll do it again unless everyone votes with their wallet. Watch it happen.

[Adoxe]

Thank god this leak didn't happen on April 1st, we would be having Bolvar type arguments all over again for a month.

[JDBlou]

I probably didn't elaborate enough on what I meant by Covenants being "good". I meant the concept. Not the soulbinds, conduits, abilities. Those were awful. I simply meant the choice to pick a Covenant to align with, the campaign, the aesthetic, theme, lore, etc. If Dragonflights were simply like Class Order Halls with a campaign, cosmetics, etc., that would be fun.

I feel that this cosmetic only thing aligns with the mentality they've brought into 9.1.5 and 9.2 and likely the future. I'll be incredibly disappointed if there are dragonflight covenants tied to power.

[Padwarle]

Thank god this leak didn't happen on April 1st, we would be having Bolvar type arguments all over again for a month.

The Bolvar, you mean.

[Golang]

To me personally I didn't mind them at any point even without the easy swapping I think a lot of the issue was Blizzard underestimating just how much of the playervase min/maxes but also I fully acknowledge that I have a very unpopular opinion about SL and that power being tied to it is one of the biggest complaints from what Ive seen so I think purely cosmetic cov/flights would be the best bet

Preventing swapping was the complaint I read a lot about. If there is no barrier to swapping then who cares what the new powers are tied to. Any1 complaining at that point is just complaining to complain.

[Vakir]

Preventing swapping was the complaint I read a lot about. If there is no barrier to swapping then who cares what the new powers are tied to. Any1 complaining at that point is just complaining to complain.

At that point they shouldn't even bother tying it to the system in the first place. Just make it a dual-talent row. They lied and said the "grand design" prevented it but we know it's bullshit now. The only thing that doesn't easily swap is being able to bind a Covenant specific conduit to the Forge when you're on a different one.

Going back to Oribos to talk to the NPC is just a talent with extra steps, Rick!

[leviathonlx]

Personally I love borrowed power/actually liked AP and am personally afraid of the next expansion being a 'classic' expansion like WotLK. That type of gameplay was fine 14 years ago but I want more from my games now days. Though I do agree that said borrowed power system shouldn't have things that hurt the players ability to enjoy the game such as being too spec based like artifacts or be like how covenants initially were.

[Catastrophy349]

I understand the hate for borrowed power systems; however, I think they can also add flavor to each expansion, too. Alternatively, it feels bad to begin feeling powerful each expansion going from X.0 to X.2/3 patch only to leave all of it behind, start fresh, and do it all over again in another expansion. I wouldn't mind keeping some borrowed powers, bringing them to the following expansion and simply innovating them to fit the new theme/aesthetic.

[Adoxe]

The Bolvar, you mean.

Oops, yeah my bad...sorry. I can't believe I dishonored The Bolvar like that.

[KainneAbsolute]

Lore videos

MoP - The Burdens of Shao Hao
WoD - Lords of War
Legion - Harbingers
BFA - Warbringers
SL - Afterlives
DF - Dragonflights? each dragonflight leader talking?

[Catastrophy349]

I understand the hate for borrowed power systems; however, I think they can also add flavor to each expansion, too. Alternatively, it feels bad to begin feeling powerful each expansion going from X.0 to X.2/3 patch only to leave all of it behind, start fresh, and do it all over again in another expansion. I wouldn't mind keeping some borrowed powers, bringing them to the following expansion and simply innovating them to fit the new theme/aesthetic.

I don't think just adding new Dungeons/Raids/PvP BGs or arenas is enough in 2022. People will get extremely bored and quit. There has to be some form of further progression outside of this content.