Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[micwini]

Maybe they'll grow a new World Tree in EK, like how in the original pre-dev days they intended to have one in Quel'thalas

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Dra..._Modan_map.jpg

- - - Updated - - -



Okay, well let's do better than Blizzard and not present ideas that rely on them continuing to do this.

- - - Updated - - -

Thank you and that looks amazing with the images and stuff!

- - - Updated - - -

isn't memes the whole point?

I play to win.

[Nymrohd]

Isle of Thunder was the first time since I started playing in early 2009 that I actually kept up with my dailies every single day and enjoyed doing so. I didn't commit to anything like that again until the start of BFA when I made sure I hit exalted with the vulpera ASAP in case they released them as a race haha

There was so much flavour on the island. The scenarios at the different levels of advancement were excellent (and I've done them on multiple characters since) there was a decent amount of exploration, content had several levels and MoP made sure that most of the rares had some mechanic that actually mattered. I don't think the exact mix has been successfully replicated since.

[Sondrelk]

Nothing, as it should be. There shouldn't need to be a balance when a character is written off or killed. That's fucking terrible storytelling. That's how we get garbage like Vol'jin getting killed off.

You do need some balance though, otherwise you might end up with blatantly unfair stuff like only goblins being supposed to get a mount in Cata.

Also I feel like Vol'jin died because the writers wanted Sylvanas to get front and center.
A better example would probably be Alliance attacking Undercity after Teldrassil, which would have been much better as the midpoint of BfA instead of Dazar'alor.

[Syegfryed]

The Classes wouldnt end up this bad if Blizzard didnt intentionally butcher them starting from WoD and going specifically into Legion with their horrible Spec focus.

This was so true, after MOP classes went to shit, they cut so much abilities and start to trim the classes with the lame excuse of "class fantasy". Ironic how the class fantasy got ruined when they tried to work with it, is like a reverse midas touch.

I believe half of the game enjoyment is cut if the class you play don't feel good, so, no matter how good or bad the content is, if your class isn't as good as used to be will let players with a bad taste.

I remember early days i could spend an entire day just running random BGs, because all the classes i played felt good, i even level up to the max just doing that with two classes, but after MOP the class enjoyment decreased exponentially . I hate with all my guts to do the same random bgs in BfA or Legion.

Legion was also a hell to do world PVP, with tanks one shot everyone with absurd damage, and they never did anything to address it, how i miss MOP...

[JDBlou]

Nothing, as it should be. There shouldn't need to be a balance when a character is written off or killed. That's fucking terrible storytelling. That's how we get garbage like Vol'jin getting killed off.

Agreed, when you make faction storytelling transactional, everyone loses.

[KayRule]

Yeah, in my opinion Isle of Thunder, Timeless Isle, Nazjatar and Mechagon are the peak of end-game content design. Nazjatar to a lesser extent, but it coming out WITH Mechagon and giving player two endgame island options to choose from was one of the best design decisions they ever made.

[Nymrohd]

It's not really the playerbase when the game gives you no incentives to actually not rush to the endgame. There is nothing to do before that. So yes, it is very much a game issue. On your topic of Classic, yes you are correct, but that's mostly because Classic was actually really bad but an even worse playerbase back in the day made it look like this amazing thing

I'd say that since Legion the exact opposite is true; you HAVE an incentive to rush to endgame. Every world quest cycle lost is progression you cannot recover. God forbid you take more than three days, then you are even losing an emissary.
Endgame is so packed with FOMO daily content that it's really no surprise people rush. Doesn't help that the rewards for doing the story are miniscule; loremaster is not even needed for flight anymore and story rep rewards are pitiful so as to lengthen the rep grind (when they used to be substantial)

[Syegfryed]

Nothing, as it should be. There shouldn't need to be a balance when a character is written off or killed. That's fucking terrible storytelling. That's how we get garbage like Vol'jin getting killed off.

But thats the point, it only happens if the alliance lost something, but mind you, this trend only started with "recent" wow, after wod.

What im talking most is balance like we had in cata, mirrored quests, so everyone can get the content with their view, like When Horde did quests with Nazgrin the alliance would do the same with Taylor.

The world geopolitics still is a good point cause its one of the reasons the races are there, to keep the other in check, Forsaken serving as foothold in EK and night elves as foothold in Kalindor, if the elves leave for EK the alliance would be basically losing the continent and that isn't interesting for warfare conflicts that will exist in the future.

[Nymrohd]

This was so true, after MOP classes went to shit, they cut so much abilities and start to trim the classes with the lame excuse of "class fantasy". Ironic how the class fantasy got ruined when they tried to work with it, is like a reverse midas touch.

I believe half of the game enjoyment is cut if the class you play don't feel good, so, no matter how good or bad the content is, if your class isn't as good as used to be will let players with a bad taste.

I remember early days i could spend an entire day just running random BGs, because all the classes i played felt good, i even level up to the max just doing that with two classes, but after MOP the class enjoyment decreased exponentially . I hate with all my guts to do the same random bgs in BfA or Legion.

Legion was also a hell to do world PVP, with tanks one shot everyone with absurd damage, and they never did anything to address it, how i miss MOP...

The thing is, there is a reason MoP classes felt good. They were POWERFUL. Every class could do everything. Casting while moving was also prevalent.

I absolutely loved it but the amount of hate Blizz got for "homogenizing" and the difficulty in balancing pvp when noone really had a pronounced weakness doomed the design. I'd love to return to it though. Just imagine M+ with MoP class design.

[Nymrohd]

Yeah, in my opinion Isle of Thunder, Timeless Isle, Nazjatar and Mechagon are the peak of end-game content design. Nazjatar to a lesser extent, but it coming out WITH Mechagon and giving player two endgame island options to choose from was one of the best design decisions they ever made.

Mechagon was really special with how innovative they were. If it did not look like a trashyard (which I know is what it's supposed to look but still) it would probably be my first pick. Like, imagine Mechagon mechanics but inside the city in an underground type zone (which would block it from flying and keep us on the jetpacks).

[Wangming]

Isle of Thunder was the first time since I started playing in early 2009 that I actually kept up with my dailies every single day and enjoyed doing so. I didn't commit to anything like that again until the start of BFA when I made sure I hit exalted with the vulpera ASAP in case they released them as a race haha

Ahh an actual fan of Vulpera. I remember trying them out on the PTR and their racials were broken as fuck. Also really like your new profile pic. Liked the old one too, but this is even better.

[KayRule]

But thats the point, it only happens if the alliance lost something, but mind you, this trend only started with "recent" wow, after wod.

What im talking most is balance like we had in cata, mirrored quests, so everyone can get the content with their view, like When Horde did quests with Nazgrin the alliance would do the same with Taylor.

The world geopolitics still is a good point cause its one of the reasons the races are there, to keep the other in check, Forsaken serving as foothold in EK and night elves as foothold in Kalindor, if the elves leave for EK the alliance would be basically losing the continent and that isn't interesting for warfare conflicts that will exist in the future.

I do see your point, especially with the questing. I think I just personally don't care if there are more Alliance hubs in one continent or not, but you're not necessarily wrong either. I think stuff like trying to make sure both factions have equal amount of races who can be Druids is not important and is just arbitrary at this point.

[Nymrohd]

Ahh an actual fan of Vulpera. I remember trying them out on the PTR and their racials were broken as fuck. Also really like your new profile pic. Liked the old one too, but this is even better.

I like Vulpera as well. I think Zandalar and Kul'tiras both had solid world building and everything added there had a place. Only complaints I'd have would be G'huun (why not just make it Hakkar?) and Stormsong Valley (both the Quillboar and the landlocked pirate parts were just weak).

Any hate I have for Vulpera comes from the constant UWU spam I see any time I log in my Horde alts on Argent Dawn trade which inevitably proves to be from a Vulpera character.

[AngerFork]

Also I feel like Vol'jin died because the writers wanted Sylvanas to get front and center.
A better example would probably be Alliance attacking Undercity after Teldrassil, which would have been much better as the midpoint of BfA instead of Dazar'alor.

Agreed on Vol'jin's death, but not so sure I agree on the UC attack. Story-wise, it made sense that the Alliance would be going after the person who called for the Burning of Teldrassil at her home city, which would be the Undercity. It was a logical next place to attack, even if the story itself wasn't all that logical overall.

I do think that Dazar'alor shows a great point where one faction lost someone while the other didn't & the world didn't fall apart. The Horde lost Rastakhan (though he obviously was going to die, it was just a question of when) while the Alliance didn't really suffer any sort of massive losses there aside from Jaina's ego. Blizz going for "balance" would have had Katherine Proudmoore die for reasons, but that didn't happen thankfully.

[Izalla]

They have the technology to make it an actual tree this time though. It doesn't even need to be particularly massive either. Keep Darnassus 2.0 in the canopy along with maybe a town, and then have the rest of whatever interesting stuff is needed on the ground surrounding it.

It would probably be a pain in the ass to travel around buuut, they could probably have a zone with different levels where you walk up a massive version of the way the first big tree you saw in the starter area was (the ramp that circles the tree up to the top) while having different areas off each huge branch with settlements built along the trunk and wild areas out in the branches. I think there is art of Teldrassil showing this exact thing in the sense that there are lights in an upward spiral along the trunk showing that is how it was supposed to look. They can make the trunk and thus the tree itself much smaller if only Teldrassil and maybe some wild areas are in the canopy and everything else just spirals down around it.

[KayRule]

Mechagon was really special with how innovative they were. If it did not look like a trashyard (which I know is what it's supposed to look but still) it would probably be my first pick. Like, imagine Mechagon mechanics but inside the city in an underground type zone (which would block it from flying and keep us on the jetpacks).

Oh I love Mechagon's mechanics. I could not care less about Mechagnomes or the islands aesthetics, but the systems were top notch. My ideal world revamp would be implementing systems like it across the world to give life and reason to visit zones again. The rotating guests, public work projects, the "Mechagon Tinkering" sub-profession, all fantastic things that I would have loved to see used more in world design. Contrasting with things like Nazjatars world events and vignettes, I felt 8.2 was the absolute height of the games design for outdoor zones, and was thoroughly disappointed in 8.3 and everything after.

- - - Updated - - -

Agreed on Vol'jin's death, but not so sure I agree on the UC attack. Story-wise, it made sense that the Alliance would be going after the person who called for the Burning of Teldrassil at her home city, which would be the Undercity. It was a logical next place to attack, even if the story itself wasn't all that logical overall.

I do think that Dazar'alor shows a great point where one faction lost someone while the other didn't & the world didn't fall apart. The Horde lost Rastakhan (though he obviously was going to die, it was just a question of when) while the Alliance didn't really suffer any sort of massive losses there aside from Jaina's ego. Blizz going for "balance" would have had Katherine Proudmoore die for reasons, but that didn't happen thankfully.

Yeah, you know what, that is a good point. I never really factored how the actual impact on the BfA major allies was not arbitrarily kept equal.

[Izalla]

If you look at this Teldrassil art, there's a road w that leads from the bottom all the way to the top of tree

pinterest.com/pin/465700417719643734/

I hope they'll add something like that, it'd be a great place for questing

Aaand that is exactly what I was referring to. I should have continued reading before replying haha

[Wangming]

Shopping for clothes is enjoyable for many people, but shopping for a new dresser or wardrobe is something people are generally significantly less enthusiastic about. Transmog is a feature you can use every second you are playing, from roleplaying to race to world first, and RBGs to farming herbs or fish. Furniture is something that sits in an isolated room you don't see unless you are actively not playing any of the main parts of the game people spend most of their time playing.

But in this case you do the same thing. Go into the dungeon and kill the boss who drops it. So it is hard to argue one is good and one is bad. They are literally the same thing.

In FFXIV you can kill a boss for item level, glamour, crafting materials, orchestrion rolls, minions, mounts or triple triad cards. But it is still one boss. Running dugneons is one piece of content. It can have many incentives, which old content in wow desperately needs, but it is still one content. Now furnishing your house with stuff crafted from boss drops and playing triple triad, that is a different kind of content. And you can discuss which is better. But by all accounts both of them have fans.

[Syegfryed]

The thing is, there is a reason MoP classes felt good. They were POWERFUL. Every class could do everything. Casting while moving was also prevalent.

I absolutely loved it but the amount of hate Blizz got for "homogenizing" and the difficulty in balancing pvp when noone really had a pronounced weakness doomed the design. I'd love to return to it though. Just imagine M+ with MoP class design.

IMO, MOP was the close the game got in being balanced, exactly because different tools were available for all classes, yet with their own playstyle, i would not go far to say every class could do everything but they had the basic mechanics made differently for each.

Either way, they just went too far and even trimmed the specs making then 3 different classes, and that was the doomed design, way harder to balance.

Game def needs another breath of fresh air in the design so the classes/specs feel good again, like what happened from cata to mop where the talent tree was change and i would be ok with not having a class so they could make the current classes better.

[AngerFork]

It would probably be a pain in the ass to travel around buuut, they could probably have a zone with different levels where you walk up a massive version of the way the first big tree you saw in the starter area was (the ramp that circles the tree up to the top) while having different areas off each huge branch with settlements built along the trunk and wild areas out in the branches. I think there is art of Teldrassil showing this exact thing in the sense that there are lights in an upward spiral along the trunk showing that is how it was supposed to look. They can make the trunk and thus the tree itself much smaller if only Teldrassil and maybe some wild areas are in the canopy and everything else just spirals down around it.

While I don't think this was your intent, I now really want to have a dungeon take place on a Teldrassil-like tree structure, fighting trash/bosses while we climb up the tree.