Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Nightmare Queen]

3 factions honestly is a trend in PvP gaming these days.

I guess balance-wise devs like it because you can't get into a trench war if there's a third group that can come in and fuck things up.

But in practice there's always just that one faction that never wins because they have the reputation of being underplayed.





Also lol 400 years. Just call it Warcraft 40k.

ESO has three factions, and it seems to balance them pretty well. Oh... the game has any race, any faction stuff.

I think 20 would be the minimum of time they could do for a timeskip, if it ever happens

[Makabreska]

ESO has three factions, and it seems to balance them pretty well. Oh... the game has any race, any faction stuff.

I think 20 would be the minimum of time they could do for a timeskip, if it ever happens

WoW started with two factions. Imagine current PvE scene when third faction arrives. Enough people would have to move to it so it can have a heathy player base, but if it happens, current factions suffer, guilds are getting broken etc.

[Sondrelk]

I'm jumping in here without reading all 230+ pages of this thread, so maybe this has already been brought up. But you know what I'd like to see? Bring back the damn artifact weapons. No, really, it was a perfect set up for future content and they passed on it. Every new expansion just adds in another 10+ appearances for every weapon, whatever the new system or macguffin they come up with could be built right into it. Like:
"Shit, Champion, you blew your artifact load making that sword stop doing whatever in the fuck it was doing."
*flashy titan machine crap goes here*
"Champion! Your artifact weapon! It can now absorb Azerite instead of artifact power!"
And then:
"Maw Walker, your flashy weapon can't use it's planet blood powers cause you're not there anymore, duh."
*flashy first ones crap goes here*
"Amazing, Maw Walker! Your weapon can now absorb Anima!"

Is it stupid? Yes, it goddamn is, but it also frees up dev time to making everything the hell else not suck.

They would also need to change and retune the abilities each time a new expansion changes a spec in a larger way.
10 appearances for each weapon is nice in theory, but multiplied by 32 you quickly realize why this number is too high, especially considering 11 other classes likely would not be able to mog it without changing the transmog rules.
You would need to either delete all progress on the weapon traits to keep parity, thereby inviting complaints of erasing hard work, or keep progress and listen to complaints of being too harsh or obtuse for new players.

It wouldn't really free up Dev time, I don't really get that argument. We already have weapons that doesn't require an extra system on top, and which can gi e variety in not just effects but also appearance.


And sure, the lore explanation would be easy, but artifacts were kind of a lore black hole when it came to immersion anyways. Ad-hoc explanations of replica Ashbrjngers might be a fun joke in the RP community, but it really doesn't make it less egregious, nor does it lessen the effects of a legendary weapon being made irrelevant.


What I could see though is taking the good parts of artifact weapons and simply placing it in a different system. Maybe something as simple as an add-on or even replacement for the current talent system.

[Cosmic Janitor]

WoW started with two factions. Imagine current PvE scene when third faction arrives. Enough people would have to move to it so it can have a heathy player base, but if it happens, current factions suffer, guilds are getting broken etc.

II don't see a way to implement that in current WoW at all, unless it would be something on a covenant level and we abandon the alliance and horde concept entirely in favor of a completely new faction divide.

The only game where that properly worked was DaoC iirc and usually it was just cited that it worked because the two underdog factions could band together and make the majority faction submit that way. But that requires a rather strict divide with a permanently shifting/dynamic world state that is mainly influenced by PvP battles.

In WoW the external force of PvE would just lead to runaway effects again. In general the concept can only work if the factions A (largest faction), B (smaller) and C (smaller) follow something like A < B+C, but A >> B >= C. Once A > B+C the self-balancing nature would cease to function. Especially since WoW focuses on instanced gameplay with matchmaking I don't see that working too well, since individual battle grounds would always be filled anyway with the exception of the fringe ones. Unless Blizzard wants to go back to month long Arathi maches or open world ashran that kills their server tech, this just wouldn't work at all.

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And sure, the lore explanation would be easy, but artifacts were kind of a lore black hole when it came to immersion anyways. Ad-hoc explanations of replica Ashbrjngers might be a fun joke in the RP community, but it really doesn't make it less egregious, nor does it lessen the effects of a legendary weapon being made irrelevant.

Every single (themepark) MMORPG requires from you that you selectively pretend that other people, respawning and resetting does not exist. That is pretty much the implicit contract if you want any kind of immersion in such games. Every kind of unique boss weapon would otherwise violate your immersion and making everything of note hard-exclusive is not possible if you aim to make any money with your game.

[huth]

"Overcity" lel.

Three factions system has an obvious problem - you divide player base even more. They would have to allow cross-faction PvE.

Bigger issue is the entire game was designed around two factions. This isn't the kind of decision you make at this point in design. Merging the factions would probably be easier than splitting them up further.

[Chickat]

They need to bench Ion first, with him WoW will never change. Thanks Ion, you did your part and share, No bad feelings, but you are too set in your ways, which bore the hell outta players.

I like Ion, but I do think at least some of the management needs to step down or move on to a new project. Ion was a great lead encounter designer. Make him that again. I would rather have someone like Muffins leading the game. Gameplay first, numbers second kind of person.

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Do you think 10.0 will bring in either new specs for classes or a new class?

New specs being Necromancer for DK etc or a new class like Tinker?

If they did go down the route where they would add 1 additional spec for all classes that would break into a talent tree system what other specs could we have for what classes?

I think they have to add a new class for 10.0.

IM hoping they do a world revamp with more modern graphics in EK and Kalimdor. Every zone is at least up to Pandaria's quality. New class. 1-2 new races. Dragon Isles continent with 5 zones. One for each flight.

[Bloomer]

If the final raid of this expansion isn't the long-awaited "Cosby Suite" raid then I am going to stay unsubbed.

[SunspotAnims]

I'm starting to feel like some 10.0 speculation is going to be a given. At this point, I'd be surprised if they didn't loosen a lot of faction restrictions in the near future. Frankly, I think the best thing to do with factions at this point is to keep them as they are but allow for cross-faction grouping, guilds, chatting, etc. Thematically, it can be pretty reasonably justified as the Alliance and Horde's peace-minded leaders wanting to encourage friendly interactions at a small scale, even if the factions are still officially enemies.

I'd love a world revamp, and I think it is on the table, but I'm not convinced that it's a given at this point. Even then, I think people have different ideas for what they want out of such a revamp. Personally, I want a revamp that future-proofs Azeroth. The only future-proofing Cata did was make flying work in EK and Kalimdor, otherwise most of the revamp became dated within two expansions. The second time around, I want Kalimdor and EK to be built to last, not to be abandoned by 11.0. This probably means adding new forms of gameplay to the revamped zones and including evergreen progression/rewards.

In general, I think we can all agree that making features that are meant to last for only an expansion or patch has become really bad for the game's health. I'd love to see old content tied into endgame. There are so many beloved dungeons and raids and zones (not to mention features like MoP scenarios, Brawler's Guild, Warfronts, etc.) that shouldn't be left behind. WoW is sitting on nearly 20 years of content and I'd be disappointed if the devs refused to make 95% of it relevant in some way. Expanding timewalking into an official endgame system feels like a no-brainer at this point, but also adding world-focused gameplay like Death Stranding-style treks or globetrotting monster and/or treasure hunting quests could be really cool ways to keep old zones relevant.

[Gaidax]

I'm starting to feel like some 10.0 speculation is going to be a given. At this point, I'd be surprised if they didn't loosen a lot of faction restrictions in the near future. Frankly, I think the best thing to do with factions at this point is to keep them as they are but allow for cross-faction grouping, guilds, chatting, etc. Thematically, it can be pretty reasonably justified as the Alliance and Horde's peace-minded leaders wanting to encourage friendly interactions at a small scale, even if the factions are still officially enemies.

The issue is that it is a one way ticket forever.

Once you do this, you can no longer undo this and a lot of Warcraft core stories really depend on Horde being Horde and Alliance being Alliance and not some big happy family with different colored T-shirts.

Now one could say that Blizz practically sets everything up for that eventually to happen - cross faction groups and even guilds, but I see it as nothing less than a nuclear option, "break glass in case of emergency", and I'm not quite convinced WoW is there yet.

Also World Revamp is often requested, but it is absolutely not required at all for miracle expansion to happen like Legion after WoD. Legion did not revamp the world, it introduced new areas and it was a great expansion because it had so much great new ideas and content to do for casual players, which is where the real sub meat is.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I don't see the whole cross faction thing happening on a broader scale. At most it will be battle tag limited, because that is the one where there is no issue if they'd take it back (or were forced to not take it back). Guilds on the other hand I don't see happening, let alone matchmaking.

From personal experience I think there are about 40% people that actually live the pathetic faction divide on horde and 20-30% on alliance as part of their persona, at the best of times thats 30% of the playerbase that would be against a hard merge or permanently open cross-faction-play. There would be riots over this, even if you can already queue for battle grounds as a merc. At most 10.0 might give us very limited ways to invite people we have in bnet as friends or something like that for dungeons/raids, but I doubt you could even form a permanent arena team with them, let alone join a guild. People have shown to be way too immature and Blizzard did their part for almost 2 decades to rile up people who believe in these identities. A company that only let's you spam emotes in heartstone will probably realize what kind of shit show they'd open themselves up to if they just let both factions clash like that.

While Blizzard is fond of systems and there are such that would make this quite interesting, their focus in that regards is more towards elongating non-content and less about making friction points work.

[Fahrad Wagner]

I like Ion, but I do think at least some of the management needs to step down or move on to a new project. Ion was a great lead encounter designer. Make him that again. I would rather have someone like Muffins leading the game. Gameplay first, numbers second kind of person.

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I think they have to add a new class for 10.0.

IM hoping they do a world revamp with more modern graphics in EK and Kalimdor. Every zone is at least up to Pandaria's quality. New class. 1-2 new races. Dragon Isles continent with 5 zones. One for each flight.

As usual: preach. Muffinus is my favourite and I think he would do a great job leading WoW's development. That being said, I don't hate Ion either.

I'm hoping for a world revamp + new sub-continent such as the Dragon Isles, not expecting a new class just yet nor new races, but I'd love more customisations for all existing ones and some kind of "homogeneity" between the number of choices you've got for each race. Some of them have way more customisations than others, and I think all races and allied races should be treated equally.

Anyway, here's to hoping for a glorified high-quality Azeroth!

[Makabreska]

I would really curb down 10.0 scope expectations, with corona and current drama obstructing work hard.

[Sarethion]

not expecting a new class just yet nor new races

Given that WoW's in quite a lot of trouble right now, I think it's pretty much guaranteed that we'll get something big, at least from a marketing point of view. Sadly, I don't expect any actual innovation when it comes to systems or content, because I don't believe the current team has enough creativity in them. I also don't think a world revamp will happen, because it's just too much work, especially with COVID.

That leaves us with two options - either a new class or some long awaited races, like Ogres or Naga. If I were a betting man, I'd say the former is more likely, given how many questions about a new class they got with Shadowlands.

[rrayy]

So... someone in a WoW RP Discord I'm in posted this, what do you guys think? I know that a 400 year timeskip may be highly unlikely though

It's all not going to happen.

[Raetary]

With the corona push backs, the current shitstorm and Blizzards inability to think things through, i really doubt we are gonna get something particularly grand.

[huth]

The issue is that it is a one way ticket forever.

Once you do this, you can no longer undo this and a lot of Warcraft core stories really depend on Horde being Horde and Alliance being Alliance and not some big happy family with different colored T-shirts.

Bullshit. In lore, they've been cooperating repeatedly, even when they were technically at war. They've not always done it well, but they do band together when the situation demands it. The hard faction barrier is the unrealistic part. There's also several neutral organisations, some of which are even mandatory for certain classes.

The PCs are supposed to be independent agents anyway. It makes little sense to restrict them in this way.

Nuclear option would be to dissolve the factions entirely. That's a completely different beast. This only asks for allowing them to group together, which is actually what the lore suggests should be the situation to begin with. Horde and Alliance where never so at odds that they wouldn't even consider cooperation. You're being highly dishonest here.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I like Ion, but I do think at least some of the management needs to step down or move on to a new project. Ion was a great lead encounter designer. Make him that again. I would rather have someone like Muffins leading the game. Gameplay first, numbers second kind of person.

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I think they have to add a new class for 10.0.

IM hoping they do a world revamp with more modern graphics in EK and Kalimdor. Every zone is at least up to Pandaria's quality. New class. 1-2 new races. Dragon Isles continent with 5 zones. One for each flight.

I wasn't sure about Muffinus leading the game, still am not, I'm paranoid every public-facing dev at this point is implicated.

But I will say he had one tweet after this broke where he called out that the game needs to step up its anti-toxicity mechanics. Maybe a day late and a plan short, but any dev that singles out that WoW's community is a cess pool that it turns out perfectly reflected its dev team gets my vote of confidence.

Ion, however, I think needs to move to a new project entirely. Raids are fine without him, and he clearly has ideas about how this game should play that don't mesh with WoW. Shuffle him over to Diablo 4 IMO, I think his rotational philosophy would work well there.

[Ardourdan]

It is definitely time for WoW 2.0

[AngerFork]

Do you think 10.0 will bring in either new specs for classes or a new class?

New specs being Necromancer for DK etc or a new class like Tinker?

If they did go down the route where they would add 1 additional spec for all classes that would break into a talent tree system what other specs could we have for what classes?

I feel it's likely that we'll get both a new class & perhaps new races as well. After all the PR issues with Shadowlands, I think Blizz knows that 10.0 needs a win both in quality & in marketing. Hearing about a new class & new races tends to generate at least short term excitement for the game.

I doubt it'll be new specs though. That would either involve 12 new specs to balance/create or having some classes specifically skipped which may not feel good for those players. A new class will likely generate more press interest & be less work overall.

[Makabreska]

I feel it's likely that we'll get both a new class & perhaps new races as well. After all the PR issues with Shadowlands, I think Blizz knows that 10.0 needs a win both in quality & in marketing. Hearing about a new class & new races tends to generate at least short term excitement for the game.

I doubt it'll be new specs though. That would either involve 12 new specs to balance/create or having some classes specifically skipped which may not feel good for those players. A new class will likely generate more press interest & be less work overall.

Again, hard to do quality when corona and scandals fucks up your team. They have big problems pushing a standard content patch, let alone a quality expansion.