Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Sondrelk]

They do, thankfully (about time, I loved the expansion as it was happening, so better late than never). But I dunno if people would react well to it nowadays. Its the hindsight thing.

Every expansion ever has been met with heavy criticism when it was current, and it's all for equally dumb or valid reasons. It's only once the expansion is over and everyone is stuck in the next one that they start loving whatever was current two or more years ago.

Legion is probably the only one to really escape most of this, simply by virute of WoD being completely godawful, but even with that there were many players who hated how much time you had to put into Legion to be fully effective at endgame, as compared to WoD being almost completely devoid of non-raid power buffs.

[Berkilak]

Ooooh, 5 claw packs to show off?

That's a funny way to spell "pairs of dragon wings"!

[Kiivar86]

Every expansion ever has been met with heavy criticism when it was current, and it's all for equally dumb or valid reasons. It's only once the expansion is over and everyone is stuck in the next one that they start loving whatever was current two or more years ago.

Legion is probably the only one to really escape most of this, simply by virute of WoD being completely godawful, but even with that there were many players who hated how much time you had to put into Legion to be fully effective at endgame, as compared to WoD being almost completely devoid of non-raid power buffs.

True.

Also I'm one of those who isn't much a fan of Legion. It had some good parts but most the launch zones didn't interest me (only Suramar), not all the class order halls were my thing (Mage hall was great, though), and I hated being stuck with fist weapons on my monk for the whole damn expansion (I have such an extensive catalog of transmog, and to be stuck with fucking fists. Though that's been rectified now). And Argus just a patch...another disappointment.

Still better than WoD though yeah. But WoD and Legion both are the only two expansions that have ever actually got me to unsub.

[Nymrohd]

We haven't had class specific content since Legion.

Arguably the addition of a class entails the class itself and some introductory experience that explains the context of the class.

Also, I'm not seeing these as issues. People are always asking for more content. Well, there you go.

Azerite had spec-specific traits. Soulbinds have spec-specific conduits and the covenants also come with the class specific abilities. This patch brought back tier which is also spec specific.

[Murlocos]

It's important to note the atmosphere and state of the community in 2022 is a lot different than it was in 2011. The reception to MoP was also heavily colored by the reaction to pandaren themselves and not just the exploration focus. I think it's a shame that they spoiled the ending before the beta even launched to keep players interested, I believe it would have been more intriguing to watch the story play out without knowing it was leading to Siege of Orgrimmar.

Blizzard generally operates on a pendulum when it comes to feedback, swinging from one extreme to the other, but my worry is that the writing team seems set on a specific storyline they enjoy but is widely disliked outside of Blizzard. Battle for Azeroth was clearly a narrative misfire, and Shadowlands chose to double down on a lot of the narrative issues with that expansion. I think a lot of players were already exhausted with the tone and premise before it even launched. They seem receptive to feedback to some of the innards of that storyline but are ironclad on the overall direction. This leads to a lose-lose situation where the story is marching in a direction that many players dislike, but the characters and events within are subject to such change it feels like nothing is planned out and being made up on the fly to such a degree there's no point in getting invested. The writers seem way too invested in getting players to speculate and ask questions, but the answers to those questions aren't satisfactory.

Cynically, the Jailer's closing line makes me think the writers feel the need to constantly distract players with some kind of ever-increasing threat or else they'll lose interest in the plot.

[Zankai27]

I really hope the new class will be a cloth armor wearing spell caster

I’ll be kind of upset if we get yet another one that isn’t mail before a new mail. They were going to make DH mail and realized it didn’t make any sense with established lore. And wanted them to be able to use like, rogue aesthetics and the Cursed Vision

If this “Evoker” or whatever it’s called is at all dragon-themed, or if it’s something else that’s dragon themed, mail is the perfect option. Dragonscale armor is always mail. Give us a third source of mail armor that might actually have good theming for once ffs

That and if it’s a dragon class, shaman gear might actually work well for it

[Grimbold21]

Azerite had spec-specific traits. Soulbinds have spec-specific conduits and the covenants also come with the class specific abilities. This patch brought back tier which is also spec specific.

This isn't additional content.

This is the illusion of new content. It's old talent trees repackaged into "new" and temporary systems. Nothing new is being added. It's the same thing with a different coat of paint.

[Izalla]

They do, thankfully (about time, I loved the expansion as it was happening, so better late than never). But I dunno if people would react well to it nowadays. Its the hindsight thing.

After hating Zovaal and realising Mists not having a clear big bad at the start was not a bad thing, people SHOULD be fine with it. Whether they use their brains to put two and two together or not is another question.

[Hypester]

Blizzard generally operates on a pendulum when it comes to feedback, swinging from one extreme to the other, but my worry is that the writing team seems set on a specific storyline they enjoy but is widely disliked outside of Blizzard. Battle for Azeroth was clearly a narrative misfire, and Shadowlands chose to double down on a lot of the narrative issues with that expansion. I think a lot of players were already exhausted with the tone and premise before it even launched. They seem receptive to feedback to some of the innards of that storyline but are ironclad on the overall direction. This leads to a lose-lose situation where the story is marching in a direction that many players dislike, but the characters and events within are subject to such change it feels like nothing is planned out and being made up on the fly to such a degree there's no point in getting invested. The writers seem way too invested in getting players to speculate and ask questions, but the answers to those questions aren't satisfactory.

There’s nothing they could have done with SL except for not make it and extend the postBFA drought for two years. The expansion solely exists to get rid of Sylvanas, Anduin and MAYBE make a new world tree for Nelves. Otherwise it’s just filler while they worked on 10.0... hence why NO Azeroth stories continue until 9.2.5. And the lack of Azeroth is one of the biggest story issues.

You can go right from BFA to 10.0 with an NPC mentioning “the Banshee is repenting and our King has gone missing”. That’s it. Also Thrall got his powers back,

Maybe they should’ve just said “we need more time to make this big expansion with cross faction and a revamp etc please understand this smaller one” but it would’ve been financial suicide.

[Berkilak]

This isn't additional content.

This is the illusion of new content. It's old talent trees repackaged into "new" and temporary systems. Nothing new is being added. It's the same thing with a different coat of paint.

I think it goes a bit deeper than a new coat of paint.

This is more akin to Blizzard building an entirely new fence every two years just because they want to change the colour. I wish this were just a new coat of paint.

[8bithamster]

Seriously, after reading the usual suspects fan drivel about how X is completely certain to happen in way Y...

am I the only one who would just like for a "dragonsworn" (or whatever the name of the implementation is, if it ever happens) to just be blessed by the aspects and not a dragon themselves?

[Hypester]

Seriously, after reading the usual suspects fan drivel about how X is completely certain to happen in way Y...

am I the only one who would just like for a "dragonsworn" (or whatever the name of the implementation is, if it ever happens) to just be blessed by the aspects and not a dragon themselves?

Why not just have it as a class that dragonkin and other races can use? Win win.

[Futhark]

I'd like it if our dragonsworn start out looking like normal playable races, then manifest more and more drakonid features as we level, slowly becoming bulkier. Would look horrifying on goblins and the like, though, if they got taller as a result.

At the very least, the travel form should be a whelp as you level. At max level it changes to a drake!

[Teriz]

Seriously, after reading the usual suspects fan drivel about how X is completely certain to happen in way Y...

am I the only one who would just like for a "dragonsworn" (or whatever the name of the implementation is, if it ever happens) to just be blessed by the aspects and not a dragon themselves?

If its simply blessed by the aspects, what makes it any different than another spellcaster?

Dragon shapeshifting gives the class an edge and a level of differentiation that makes it unique and profoundly Blizzard.

Why not just have it as a class that dragonkin and other races can use? Win win.

Well considering that dragons can take on the form of any humanoid, that shouldn't be a problem.

[Murlocos]

There’s nothing they could have done with SL except for not make it and extend the postBFA drought for two years. The expansion solely exists to get rid of Sylvanas, Anduin and MAYBE make a new world tree for Nelves. Otherwise it’s just filler while they worked on 10.0... hence why NO Azeroth stories continue until 9.2.5. And the lack of Azeroth is one of the biggest story issues.

You can go right from BFA to 10.0 with an NPC mentioning “the Banshee is repenting and our King has gone missing”. That’s it. Also Thrall got his powers back,

Maybe they should’ve just said “we need more time to make this big expansion with cross faction and a revamp etc please understand this smaller one” but it would’ve been financial suicide.

That's the whole issue in my eyes, that SL needs to exist because BfA failed to resolve anything it was going for that it needed a whole sequel to it. You can compare it to WoD, another filler story where largely nothing important happens aside from causing a massive headache when thinking about how the setting works. They didn't need alt Gul'dan to justify jumping from MoP straight to Legion. BfA doesn't have that luxury because the entire expansion is hinged around the Sylvanas/faction war A plot with a throwaway Old Gods B plot.

MoP's connection to WoD is silly because MoP neatly resolves its faction war and Old God storylines by making them one and the same in the final patch, everything after that is something else entirely. They could have written BfA in a way that it resolved what it introduces, but they chose for it to be an anti-climax and kicked the football to the next expansion. I'm as relieved as anyone else to be done with it, but it doesn't inspire confidence that the current team will do a 180 on all the mistakes they made with a cleaner slate.

[Nightshade711]

If its simply blessed by the aspects, what makes it any different than another spellcaster?

Dragon shapeshifting gives the class an edge and a level of differentiation that makes it unique and profoundly Blizzard.

Turning into a dragon doesn’t make sense for the player character.

Not to mention it especially wouldn’t make sense if we got a dragonkin-based race (Like Drakonid/Dragonman, or something similar)
Why would a dragon want to disguise itself as one of its servants/foot soldiers. Or disguise itself as a mortal who was empowered by the dragonflights to turn into a Drakonid.

[Dioporco]

[IMG][/IMG]

I mean, if an independent team has the creativity to (re)imagine new classes, I don't see why the official company couldn't do the same.

Because they spend their time cube crawling and making shop mounts

[Raxxus]

I’ll be kind of upset if we get yet another one that isn’t mail before a new mail. They were going to make DH mail and realized it didn’t make any sense with established lore. And wanted them to be able to use like, rogue aesthetics and the Cursed Vision

If this “Evoker” or whatever it’s called is at all dragon-themed, or if it’s something else that’s dragon themed, mail is the perfect option. Dragonscale armor is always mail. Give us a third source of mail armor that might actually have good theming for once ffs

That and if it’s a dragon class, shaman gear might actually work well for it

I've felt for a while they should just combine leather and mail into Medium, cloth light and plate heavy

[Teriz]

Turning into a dragon doesn’t make sense for the player character.

Yet turning into a Demon, Undead, Elemental, Colossus, and a Beast does?

Not to mention it especially wouldn’t make sense if we got a dragonkin-based race (Like Drakonid/Dragonman, or something similar)
Why would a dragon want to disguise itself as one of its servants/foot soldiers. Or disguise itself as a mortal who was empowered by the dragonflights to turn into a Drakonid.

Personal choice. Just like Dragons choosing to look like Goblins when Goblins have been traditional servants of dragons.

[Revamp Man]

Seriously, after reading the usual suspects fan drivel about how X is completely certain to happen in way Y...

am I the only one who would just like for a "dragonsworn" (or whatever the name of the implementation is, if it ever happens) to just be blessed by the aspects and not a dragon themselves?

I mean that’s what dragonsworn are
Draconic power rangers

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Yet turning into a Demon, Undead, Elemental, Colossus, and a Beast does?



Personal choice. Just like Dragons choosing to look like Goblins when Goblins have been traditional servants of dragons.

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