Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Fahrad Wagner]

? So the spells will just stop working in instanced content like War Mode or something? That does not sound fun.

Only the offensive spells yes, or they go for the Holy Paladins way

[Hypester]

I don't disagree. It's just the popular perception of that time.

To multiple above:

I'm not against a single spec class at all. I just think people misunderstand just how much goes into the base of a class vs. one spec. Four one spec classes require more effort than one class with four specs by several orders of magnitude. ESPECIALLY the amount to put into something like Minstrel with new weapons. You think new casting animations were an ordeal? To the point where Warlocks weren't ready for a bit? You think DHs didn't have enough glaive models? Hooo boy.

BFA and SL both had no new class animations, so that’s 4 years to work on it. And they even added musical animations in both those expansions.

[Nymrohd]

They all sound more like class skins to me than actual individual one-spec classes, but eh, anything could happen. I don't think they'd bloat the classes tab like they did the races one though

I like the idea of class skins. But I think ultimately it is far to problematic. Blizzard changes classes in new xpacs quite aggressively. Spells and talents disappear. It would require quite some effort to reskin full classes into different things because really, 1:1 reskins of abilities are not that easy. And class skins would mean they have to do that for both the class and its reskins.

[Fahrad Wagner]

I like the idea of class skins. But I think ultimately it is far to problematic. Blizzard changes classes in new xpacs quite aggressively. Spells and talents disappear. It would require quite some effort to reskin full classes into different things because really, 1:1 reskins of abilities are not that easy. And class skins would mean they have to do that for both the class and its reskins.

Not all abilities need a rework to make it work, only some essential ones And they could do it gradually, like they did for race customisation options

[Nymrohd]

I don't disagree. It's just the popular perception of that time.

To multiple above:

I'm not against a single spec class at all. I just think people misunderstand just how much goes into the base of a class vs. one spec. Four one spec classes require more effort than one class with four specs by several orders of magnitude. ESPECIALLY the amount to put into something like Minstrel with new weapons. You think new casting animations were an ordeal? To the point where Warlocks weren't ready for a bit? You think DHs didn't have enough glaive models? Hooo boy.

Yeah the Minstrel would need so many unique models and new animations it'd be insane. For a class with a single healer spec that has no actual support in lore.

[Raetary]

Except if they tune it to be only healer or DPS in a PVP / PVE environment, only allowing the offensive utilitary spells for questing

Eh... a better idea would be to add outdoor content specific buffs instead.
Like, while in a healing spec you get a 'You deal 20% more damage to NPCs' buff while outdoors or something, which is removed once you enter an instance.

[Nymrohd]

Not all abilities need a rework to make it work, only some essential ones And they could do it gradually, like they did for race customisation options

So wait, I reskin to a Necromancer but some of my abilities are still fel and demons? I can only stay in my chosen skin if I pick specific talents and spells?

[Hypester]

Yeah the Minstrel would need so many unique models and new animations it'd be insane. For a class with a single healer spec that has no actual support in lore.

People still think lore matters for selling points after Vulpera?

[Fahrad Wagner]

Eh... a better idea would be to add content specific tuning instead.
Like, while in a healing spec you get a 'You deal 20% more damage to NPCs' buff while outdoors or something, which is removed once you enter an instance.

That could work too if tuned properly! Although that might make the class a little too OP in uninstanced content

So wait, I reskin to a Necromancer but some of my abilities are still fel and demons? I can only stay in my chosen skin if I pick specific talents and spells?

Think about it like the mage polymorph: you keep the basic spell, and you gain variants of it which are cosmetic only. OFC for Necromancers you'd have to dive deeper and make pets undead instead of demons and such, but they could still be easily implementable options

[Nymrohd]

Also, Holy Paladins already do more than enough damage to solo just fine. Imagining a healer that’s designed as only a healer class won’t have some strong solo capability is just silly.

In fact, they could even give them an early talent to sacrifice some healing for DPS capability. (And allow them to queue as DPS, like Gladiator)

That kind of thing would work just fine.



War Mode is hardly balanced content and they’re going to be much more concerned about competitive mode balancing anyway. I wouldn’t worry about it.

Besides we don’t know what the existing classes will get yet either.

I play a paladin. Sure you can level as holy. It does enough damage. It's still too slow. Many level as prot because the ST might be crap but you never die and if the area allows rounding up your targets to AoE them you can actually push better numbers than most dps can (mostly because they would not even survive that number of mobs). Holy doesn't have any comparable advantage. If you mess up you can still stay alive but it will take you far too long to get out of the mess.
You could do it with a stance and/or talent.

[Zankai27]

I don't disagree. It's just the popular perception of that time.

To multiple above:

I'm not against a single spec class at all. I just think people misunderstand just how much goes into the base of a class vs. one spec. Four one spec classes require more effort than one class with four specs by several orders of magnitude. ESPECIALLY the amount to put into something like Minstrel with new weapons. You think new casting animations were an ordeal? To the point where Warlocks weren't ready for a bit? You think DHs didn't have enough glaive models? Hooo boy.

You’re absolutely right, but based on the leak, this (and the class skins) IS the new class content.

They put together a new class with the first new weapon type ever, and 36 unique artifacts with 6 skins each with recolors for Legion on top of everything else.

If we aren’t doing something that intensive this time and they put all their art and time into the new classes and class skins, I can see it. It’s also always possible they try to get instruments to work and they get relegated to a visual feature of some of the skills rather than an actual weapon.

This definitely is an incredible amount of effort, but they’ve hardly iterated on classes that aren’t Demonology Warlocks in two expansions, so they’ve gotta have something brewing and this would absolutely make headlines they want.

[Hypester]

The biggest sticking point for the leak imo is the complete lack of Nelves, Horde and Kalimdor when we know their story is continuing. It could be “Kalimdor gets updated in a later patch” but after the World Tree 2 and updated Kalimdor maps I’m not sure.

[Vakir]

BFA and SL both had no new class animations, so that’s 4 years to work on it. And they even added musical animations in both those expansions.

Warlocks came with BFA.

It's also an extremely narrow way of looking at how a dev pipeline works - approximately 4 years not working on one thing means working on SOMETHING else. Not necessarily resources invested in the very same thing in that time frame.

Legion added a ton of new melee animations, but casting didn't make it until 7.3. It wasn't ready from the start. And moreover, it was expanding mostly on existing concepts rather than building new ideas from scratch.

Those music animations? They make sense for ambient NPCs or toys, but are they robust enough alone for a class identity alone?

But then we get into icons for 4 classes, making each mechanically distinct, new effects for every single ability, having to make distinct talent rows for each...

It's about as much work as implementing 3-4 classes even if there isn't any different specialization.

Maybe it'll happen. But I would venture the guess that doing it all at once would mean at least a handful of features being frustratingly half baked.

Also worth noting that Blizzard's philosophy, even with the new blood, tends to be to implement conservatively and then iterate. I can see them doing 1-2 and seeing how it goes from there. Dropping 4 suddenly on a huge risk?

Easy counterpoint to this would be Allied Races but let's be real. A lot of the structure was already in there for race customizations along those lines. Allied Races just added new VO and racials and tacked on time gating while removing unique starting areas.

[Nymrohd]

People still think lore matters for selling points after Vulpera?

What's wrong with Vulpera? We got a fairly large area in Zandalar, it needed a variety of races there. WoW is full of anthropomorphic animals usually tied to some Ancient (there was even a fox ancient killed in the War of the Ancients). Their lore was not problematic. The way they had the Alliance go full warcrimes on them was a weird choice but it helped make clear why they'd join the Horde.

Now players can be very problematic when they play Vulpera sure. But vastly less problematic than people playing gnomes in Goldshire like child prostitutes

[Fahrad Wagner]

The biggest sticking point for the leak imo is the complete lack of Nelves, Horde and Kalimdor when we know their story is continuing. It could be “Kalimdor gets updated in a later patch” but after the World Tree 2 and updated Kalimdor maps I’m not sure.

If they're revamping northern EK, the rest of the world will be coming after that. I really don't see them doing 1/4 of the old world and then be like "ok that's it", not when the other zones are so rich and full of potential (and pre-established lore)

[Hypester]

If they're revamping northern EK, the rest of the world will be coming after that. I really don't see them doing 1/4 of the old world and then be like "ok that's it", not when the other zones are so rich and full of potential (and pre-established lore)

It makes sense to do it in multiple patches or expansions (Yrel is not in launch if the text leak is right, so North Kalimdor could be next) but Blizz is usually not forthcoming about patch plans and it will anger a lot of people is they don’t confirm at the start

[LalaGamer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QcJ...annel=Manacrew
min 8:30 new Tirisfal glades 9.2.5 ??

[Zankai27]

I can see Kalimdor getting basic updates now, maybe even fixing Darkshore before the expac launches, but none of the 10.0 launch content dealing with that.

If we take the DF leak at face value we have what, Quel’Thalas and Northern Lordaeron, Balor (which I think is supposed to be around EK in lore?), Undermine which is it’s own thing, and the Dragon Isles, which are their own thing. Am I forgetting any?

Can see Kalimdor coming up in patches, and thus not being super relevant/known by the leaker.

And honestly, Quel’Thalas updates are so widely requested I can see why they’d do that (and Northern Lordaeron with it) but not do as much for Kalimdor yet.

[Vakir]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QcJ...annel=Manacrew
min 8:30 new Tirisfal glades 9.2.5 ??

We've known about it. It's an encrypted map with an encrypted Calia.

It could just as easily be a starting zone for a hypothetical Light undead allied race or something. Though Lordaeron being a huge part of DF seems evident.

[TheAceofHearth]

Microclasses make a lot of sense tbh, but I think “Microclasses” is bad framing. They’re just 1-spec classes; like if DH didn’t come with Vengeance and was just DPS. I don’t feel like people would’ve complained that much.

They’re not going to call them micro classes, they’ll just be classes. I think it makes sense from the POV of “they want to give people more flavors to play (Dragons, Tinkers, Music, Time Healer) without forcing extra roles into classes they don’t feel need them.”

It’s also an incredible selling point if they phone SL in to advertise 4 fucking classes* with DF.

It’s like, imagine they had 4 ideas but not a cohesive singular class idea with them all together.

And it gives them opportunity to iterate down the line if it strikes them (DPS Dragon Knight, DPS Chronomancer, etc.) but I think as far as leaks, this one continues to feel exactly like the kind of all-in attempt to win everyone back I would expect. It covers a lot of bases, is light on systems and is full of cool sounding stuff.

The problem is that if you level a minstrel(healer) and your friend levels a chronomancer(healer), or both of you are either of one of the classes, you can't queue up for dungeon finder, unless the system is also revamped and the roles are agnostics.