Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Vakir]

Bard profession remains an awesome idea to me. Bring back encouraging social spaces with some power or utility rewards. Allow playing instrumental versions of 25+ years of music if not a riff on 14's Perform action entirely. Hell, bundle it with the Hearthstone tavern. These are all things that might end up being novelties but are worth a try.

[Bsirk]

I'm thinking they are going to have to add in some kind of world content before 10.0. In the recent WoW dev interview, they said they look at Seasons lasting between 6 to 8 months. Lets say that's on the 6 month side of things, maybe 7 months for Season 3. Your looking at a Q1 2023 release date for 10.0. No way Zereth Mortis lasts that long for the outdoor content.

We already know that 9.2.5 is going to have the Blood Elf quest with the attacking Scourge. That would be a good jumping off point for them to start going crazy. I'm still kind of bitter that we didn't get to save Ben from the Maw. (Bastion campaign)

[Sondrelk]

How about once you beat them back so far it opens up a warfront that everyone can join. Upon winning/losing the warfront it either takes back some of the land/progress or makes it more difficult? I want repercussions for losing. lol

Repercussions for losing is exactly what MMOs tend to do poorly sadly. WoW especially suffers heavily from years upon years of the optimization mindset that makes players feel like any inconvenience, no matter how minor or even inherent to the experience, will be thought of as the developers having a personal grudge against the players.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I disagree with Ghostcrawler's assertion that players don't rise to a challenge. They absolutely do, kicking and screaming, but they do. I work in a field that often offers challenges employees in their roles as a rule (as opposed to letting everyone sit on their laurels). Even the worst among them will rise to the challenge if given reason to invest in the task and the tools to accomplish it.

All that being said... there still needs to be content to grandma to play with. This is also something that should be prioritized. But right now? Their design appeases no one. They're catering to the players that don't want to be doing the content in the first place in the interest of convenience, efficiency and "engagement " (as a metric) rather than actual good design.

If you really do believe that, I do wholly understand the concept and I 100% hope you're right. Perhaps I'm a little too cynical about the playerbase. Still, I prefer to blame them than Blizzard for some of the design choices—companies respond to incentives, and people are giving out the wrong incentives. This isn't to say i don't think Blizzard is riddled with moral hazard, but I feel there's at least some of the blame goes to the playerbase for being apathetic or lazy.

I do generally agree, though. I would prefer a good split of "hardcore" RPG-style content (think the War Campaign in Classic, for instance) and generic dailies and dungeon runs.

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Repercussions for losing is exactly what MMOs tend to do poorly sadly. WoW especially suffers heavily from years upon years of the optimization mindset that makes players feel like any inconvenience, no matter how minor or even inherent to the experience, will be thought of as the developers having a personal grudge against the players.

That's my concern.

[Wangming]

Yes but unironically. Introducing a class to a setting in which it doesn't belong would be a terrible idea to me. A "common fantasy class" isn't sufficient to justify it. WoW isn't meant to be a "common fantasy setting". Bards don't fit.

I'd also add that it can't really sell an expansion. Unless we get an expansion that explicitly and transparently connects to it thematically, we can't have it. See: Demon Hunters for Legion, Death Knights for WotLK, Monks for MoP. I don't see any expansion in which a Bard would be the immediate and self-evident response to its themes, and consequently no expansion which would justify Bards.

Pandaria had to face the same reservations and in the end it integrated very well with the Well of Eternity, Titans, Old Gods, even provided new lore to the Wild Gods and the Tauren. Everything can be worked in.

As for an expansion that is based around it? If you look at Bards as storytellers and not musicians (Shakespeare was called a Bard after all) you could have an expansion focusing on history and legends. Like those in the fairy tails book that got released recently. Admittedly the past of Azeroth is pretty well detailed already, but there is room for more. There always is.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

How about once you beat them back so far it opens up a warfront that everyone can join. Upon winning/losing the warfront it either takes back some of the land/progress or makes it more difficult? I want repercussions for losing. lol

I think that if there were consequences for Warfronts, players would've liked them more. I frankly would've preferred if they just used a Wintergrasp-esque PvP experience instead of an instanced set of mind-numbingly easy mob rolling, since I always really liked Wintergrasp conceptually. I think that if it were based on Tol Barad or Wintergrasp, the whole concept would've been very much accepted and liked.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Agreed. I could see Bards as being an interesting subset of a "Dashing Swashbuckler" archetype, but this is the type of Bard people seem to be leaning towards. I'm all for a Bard who may have one or two enchanted instruments and is mainly a sort of Jack Sparrow archetype (this could work as a Rogue specialization, actually), but I think the idea of a purely-musical, buff-based Bard is a terrible idea. I also think that we'll never get a class that doesn't have an explicit and transparent connection to an expansion theme.

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Agreed. Your idea seems interesting.

Buff-based would never happen. Maybe DPS with some Buffs, which is basically the area that 14's Bard has slotted into. But definitely not purely buff-based.

I more say D&D Meme Bard though more for the fact that everyone thinks D&D Bards are just a caricature now of Glam Rockers, and I fear thematically they'll look like that, or like a the ETC (see the Wrath April Fools Joke).

Instead of something that could actually be interesting.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Pandaria had to face the same reservations and in the end it integrated very well with the Well of Eternity, Titans, Old Gods, even provided new lore to the Wild Gods and the Tauren. Everything can be worked in.

As for an expansion that is based around it? If you look at Bards as storytellers and not musicians (Shakespeare was called a Bard after all) you could have an expansion focusing on history and legends. Like those in the fairy tails book that got released recently. Admittedly the past of Azeroth is pretty well detailed already, but there is room for more. There always is.

I don't see that making sense. The connection is too vague—a Timewalker class, for instance, would be better to advertise a history-based expansion. As for the matter of the MoP lore, that's different. That's an entire expansion theme, not a class—it was incongruous with some of the setting, but had some basis in lore and was generally compatible with it. Conversely, a class has never come out that isn't entirely thematically-compatible with an expansion. Keep in mind new classes are mostly used as the central focus of new expansions, so they have to be something very coherent and consistent with the expansion.

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Buff-based would never happen. Maybe DPS with some Buffs, which is basically the area that 14's Bard has slotted into. But definitely not purely buff-based.

I more say D&D Meme Bard though more for the fact that everyone thinks D&D Bards are just a caricature now of Glam Rockers, and I fear thematically they'll look like that, or like a the ETC (see the Wrath April Fools Joke).

Instead of something that could actually be interesting.

I could see Bards being a Rogue tanking specialization in the form of the aforementioned Dashing Swashbuckler archetype. They'd focus on agility, trickery, and a few buffs based on some kind of enchanted instruments they've "legally procured" some time ago.

[Nymrohd]

Is the daily grind worthy of the pedestal it has been placed upon?

It absolutely is not. But when Blizzard designs around FOMO, you cannot blame the community.

[Ersula]

Yes but unironically. Introducing a class to a setting in which it doesn't belong would be a terrible idea to me. A "common fantasy class" isn't sufficient to justify it. WoW isn't meant to be a "common fantasy setting". Bards don't fit.

I'm going to ignore the sheer amount of stuff straight-up cribbed from Forgotten Realms in Warcraft, and point out that they simply need to give their bards the "warcraft" treatment and- wait they already did:





This argument both gets a "this is too fantasy" and "this isn't fantasy enough" but I'd point out that these people cancel each other out.

[Nymrohd]

Not at all. If it were up to me, I'd go for this idea wholeheartedly. However, Blizzard has to keep in mind that most players tend to prefer something mindless, which is very problematic for players like me.

I absolutely wish we got something like War Mode that was not for PvP but rather for challenging world content. You elect into it; mobs suddenly become more intelligent, deal more damage, use abilities more frequently. You get to pick 3-4 talents from a unique pool, with a focus on propping up spec weaknesses on soloing; more utility for everyone, more defense for dps, more damage for tanks and healers. Maybe slightly better rewards.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I absolutely wish we got something like War Mode that was not for PvP but rather for challenging world content. You elect into it; mobs suddenly become more intelligent, deal more damage, use abilities more frequently. You get to pick 3-4 talents from a unique pool, with a focus on propping up spec weaknesses on soloing; more utility for everyone, more defense for dps, more damage for tanks and healers. Maybe slightly better rewards.

That would be excellent, frankly. "RPG Mode" is something I'm all for, and that generally sounds like a very fascinating idea that would help to reconcile the Classic and Retail crowds.

[ATZenith]

Any new leaks since the title and poster?

[Sondrelk]

I think that if there were consequences for Warfronts, players would've liked them more. I frankly would've preferred if they just used a Wintergrasp-esque PvP experience instead of an instanced set of mind-numbingly easy mob rolling, since I always really liked Wintergrasp conceptually. I think that if it were based on Tol Barad or Wintergrasp, the whole concept would've been very much accepted and liked.

The main problen they had with Warfronts I found, was that it was a 30-man experience, and a matchmaking one at that. And it just so happens that every player you add makes it feel just that bit more awful to lose as the greater game is out of your control.
So in the end we got what is essentially easymode zergfest to properly balance out the feeling that each individual player doesn't contribute a ton to the overall experience, and that it therefore follows that it would be unfair to have a game fail because of that.

Make Warfronts a 5-man premade queue experience and I think it could have worked brilliantly. Not just because each individual player would have had a greater impact, but you could have made it much more difficult.

[Nymrohd]

I disagree with Ghostcrawler's assertion that players don't rise to a challenge. They absolutely do, kicking and screaming, but they do. I work in a field that often offers challenges employees in their roles as a rule (as opposed to letting everyone sit on their laurels). Even the worst among them will rise to the challenge if given reason to invest in the task and the tools to accomplish it.

All that being said... there still needs to be content to grandma to play with. This is also something that should be prioritized. But right now? Their design appeases no one. They're catering to the players that don't want to be doing the content in the first place in the interest of convenience, efficiency and "engagement " (as a metric) rather than actual good design.

yeah maybe the problem with Cataclysm was not that Heroics were challenging but rather that there was almost nothing else to do. Really the only max level grind was maybe Tol Barad rep for the trinket?

[Kiivar86]

Any new leaks since the title and poster?

A couple of supposed "leaks" for the opening cinematic, just descriptions though, one from 4chan, one from here.

That's about it, I believe.

[Nymrohd]

That would be excellent, frankly. "RPG Mode" is something I'm all for, and that generally sounds like a very fascinating idea that would help to reconcile the Classic and Retail crowds.

Should have been added in WoD and called SAVAGE MODE. In caps.

[Catastrophy349]

14 days dance. /dance 14 days

[AOL Instant Messenger]

The main problen they had with Warfronts I found, was that it was a 30-man experience, and a matchmaking one at that. And it just so happens that every player you add makes it feel just that bit more awful to lose as the greater game is out of your control.
So in the end we got what is essentially easymode zergfest to properly balance out the feeling that each individual player doesn't contribute a ton to the overall experience, and that it therefore follows that it would be unfair to have a game fail because of that.

Make Warfronts a 5-man premade queue experience and I think it could have worked brilliantly. Not just because each individual player would have had a greater impact, but you could have made it much more difficult.

That's a very fine idea and I like it relative to the idea of Warfronts we got, but I'd honestly just prefer if Warfronts were a Tol Barad-esque experience mixing PvE and Open-World PvP. Everybody liked Wintergrasp and I think it would've been very well-received.

[draugril]

That would be excellent, frankly. "RPG Mode" is something I'm all for, and that generally sounds like a very fascinating idea that would help to reconcile the Classic and Retail crowds.

I would like to see WoW's take on FFXIV's Bozja. I think they could knock that general concept out of the part.