Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Fiercelord]

I wonder if Dragonflight will have hints about other stuff happening on Azeroth for 11.0. I don't think Shadowlands had any for DF except Ysera's presence, but it meant nothing. There were hints about it in BfA. If Shadowlands has hints, then it would be the Void attack in Bastion and Light/Naaru presence in Revendreth.

While many people prefer stuff on Azeroth, I would personally like to visit K'aresh - presumably destroyed homeworld of the Ethereals. Knowing Blizzard, they can always make uncorrupted parts like they did on Argus. Ethereals are such a cool looking race that people have been asking for years among Ogres, Arakkoa and others. The only issue is that I'm not sure what major feature would come after Dragonflight's new race and class. Shadowlands' feature was old race customization. Don't think another class would be on the developers' list (Altough Ethereals would be nice Tinkers - I am not fan of them anyway). Would be perfect to introduce a proper race added to Alliance (recruited by Void Elves) while a long requested Horde race such as Ogres would be nice for Horde. I hope we get hints about 11.0 in Dragonflight. We still don't know what's happening with Xal'atath and Azshara. Some people have a theory that maybe they will make Xalatath the one who tricks Nozdormu into changing to Infinite aspect.

[Lady Atia]

You don't need more to make a villain good. We are not asking them to write prize winning fiction. Just to get a villain who is easy to hate, has clear motives, is thematically cool and is tied with decent content.

To be fair, it was quite obvious for me from the start that Zooval was an anti-hero who would want to rewrite the cosmos for the greater good. Sylvanas basically states as much during the early cinematics with Anduin. I don't want to hate villains, I want villains that have a reason to be villains. "They are just eviiiil" is boring. Zooval post Sanctum was thematically cool designed, and Torghast would have been decent if they wouldn't have forced us to go to the shitty version of it twice a week. Both the Gauntled and the Twisting Corridors were super fun to do.

[Wangming]

This is what I have suggested before.

Dungeons should have a clear linear path through the bosses. The trash across that path should largely be designed to not be skippable. The linear clear of the dungeon should not award a full clear though, not by a decent margin.
Beyond the linear path, dungeons should look organic, like proper spaces of whatever type they are (Temples, cities, cave systems) with a multitude of side rooms. Side rooms can contain more trash packs or even mini bosses. To get 100% you inevitably have to clear at least some side rooms. What you clear would depend on your group and the affixes for the week.

Second, they really need to remove fortified and tyrannical imo. Just make a weaker version of Tyrannical an affix.

Beyond that, the biggest concern over the speed is repeated cooldown usage. If the timer was not tight, people would wait for cooldowns. That is the argument used and it absolutely makes sense.

So what if cooldowns functioned different in M+? What if cooldowns over 1min did not reset automatically but rather reset on a system that worked with dungeon progress?

See, this is what I dislike about the direction of FFXIV when it comes to dungeons. They even made it so trash mobs don't even drop EXP. You only get exp from bosses. Plus, they don't drop anything either. You get loot from chests along the way, and the bosses. In regular dungeons there is zero incentive to fight mobs. Thank god for deep dungeons. I understand this is the new trend and they get a lot more popular for following it, but i still hate it with a passion.

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To be fair, it was quite obvious for me from the start that Zooval was an anti-hero who would want to rewrite the cosmos for the greater good. Sylvanas basically states as much during the early cinematics with Anduin.

Good for him. Problem is, he never bothered to tell his plan to anyone. He is like the Tsaritsa in Genshin Impact who probably has a good reason to gather the powers of all the other archons, but she goes about it by destabilizing their nations and attacking them. At least Sargeras tried to talk to the other Titans. They simply hated his plan.

Also, it is hard to be a cool anti-hero when you have the most uninspired cliché visual design and TM villain deep voice.

There's a reason Illidan managed to pull off the cool anti-hero stuff. He looked cool, he had a normal but badass voice and an iconic weapon that would be useless IRL, but looks mega cool.

[huth]

To be fair, it was quite obvious for me from the start that Zooval was an anti-hero who would want to rewrite the cosmos for the greater good. Sylvanas basically states as much during the early cinematics with Anduin. I don't want to hate villains, I want villains that have a reason to be villains. "They are just eviiiil" is boring. Zooval post Sanctum was thematically cool designed, and Torghast would have been decent if they wouldn't have forced us to go to the shitty version of it twice a week. Both the Gauntled and the Twisting Corridors were super fun to do.

I'm not really getting the Anti-Hero angle here. Sure, he thought he had good reasons for what he was doing, but so do all evil people. But there's plenty of room for him to simply be wrong about it, and the way he went about it was most definitely that of the Villain, not of the Anti-Hero.

[Lady Atia]

See, this is what I dislike about the direction of FFXIV when it comes to dungeons. They even made it so trash mobs don't even drop EXP. You only get exp from bosses. Plus, they don't drop anything either. You get loot from chests along the way, and the bosses. In regular dungeons there is zero incentive to fight mobs. Thank god for deep dungeons. I understand this is the new trend and they get a lot more popular for following it, but i still hate it with a passion.

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Good for him. Problem is, he never bothered to tell his plan to anyone. He is like the Tsaritsa in Genshin Impact who probably has a good reason to gather the powers of all the other archons, but she goes about it by destabilizing their nations and attacking them. At least Sargeras tried to talk to the other Titans. They simply hated his plan.

Also, it is hard to be a cool anti-hero when you have the most uninspired cliché visual design and TM villain deep voice.

There's a reason Illidan managed to pull off the cool anti-hero stuff. He looked cool, he had a normal but badass voice and an iconic weapon that would be useless IRL, but looks mega cool.

It seems like he did talk to the other Eternal Ones, but they just said nope. Also I love the First Arbiters Gavel!

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I'm not really getting the Anti-Hero angle here. Sure, he thought he had good reasons for what he was doing, but so do all evil people. But there's plenty of room for him to simply be wrong about it, and the way he went about it was most definitely that of the Villain, not of the Anti-Hero.

Well to be fair, he was a constructed robot who's main directive was to judge every mortal soul in the cosmos. Is it that far fetched that he thinks it's his quest to judge everyone else and unite them under his guide so everyone can survive what is to come?

Btw I agree that the build up was lacklustre, I'm just saying that his basic premise is actually quite cool, they just would need to write it down chronicle style (and should have done it BEFORE the release of Shadowlands ...).

[Wangming]

It seems like he did talk to the other Eternal Ones, but they just said nope.

Did he? That's the first time I've heard of that. Granted that doesn't help much. I'm aware that I may be moving the goalposts here, but let's be honest? How many times have they already used the: "I told them my very good plan but the Titans, the Pantheon, Uther, Malfurion....etc did not listen" idea?

[Raetary]

This is an extremely narrow mindset. The amount of zones means nothing.

There is no mindset, i was just pointing out the zone numbers because people were talking about it.

I couldn't care less about zone numbers, they are just arbitrary hence why i pointed out mop more than the others.

[Nymrohd]

See, this is what I dislike about the direction of FFXIV when it comes to dungeons. They even made it so trash mobs don't even drop EXP. You only get exp from bosses. Plus, they don't drop anything either. You get loot from chests along the way, and the bosses. In regular dungeons there is zero incentive to fight mobs. Thank god for deep dungeons. I understand this is the new trend and they get a lot more popular for following it, but i still hate it with a passion.

That's a problem I have with M+ in general. I want to loot things, not find everything in a chest at the end. Especially with crafting becoming important again, trash and bosses across the dungeon should drop more than gold, greys and greens. Rare recipes and unique reagents could be found in the trash, some of them in side rooms even. And if they cannot add them to M+, then add them to base Mythic.

Honestly I'd love it if they tried two different tracks for Dungeons. One could be the speed run version that M+ and then a second version could be a Challenge Mode but with no timer, just really sharply tuned. The first one would keep working with keys and infinite runs per week while the second could have a weekly lockout and require you to fully explore the dungeon (by adding side objectives) and drop loot normally.

[Hitei]

Did he? That's the first time I've heard of that.

Literally how?

[Lady Atia]

Did he? That's the first time I've heard of that. Granted that doesn't help much. I'm aware that I may be moving the goalposts here, but let's be honest? How many times have they already used the: "I told them my very good plan but the Titans, the Pantheon, Uther, Malfurion....etc did not listen" idea?

However, at some point, Zovaal came to believe that the designs of the First Ones were flawed[25] and that the divided cosmos they had created would not be able to survive an unknown threat that he foresaw coming in the future.[12] He believed that the Eternal Ones' sigils were keys to forbidden knowledge locked within Zereth Mortis' Sepulcher of the First Ones[6][13] that he could use to destroy the reality he saw as flawed[12] and replace it with a new, united reality where all would serve him.[25] When his siblings rebuked his heresy, he tried to claim their sigils by force.[13]

Kyrestia herself states it in a quest:
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Voices_of_the_Eternal

[huth]

Well to be fair, he was a constructed robot who's main directive was to judge every mortal soul in the cosmos. Is it that far fetched that he thinks it's his quest to judge everyone else and unite them under his guide so everyone can survive what is to come?

Btw I agree that the build up was lacklustre, I'm just saying that his basic premise is actually quite cool, they just would need to write it down chronicle style (and should have done it BEFORE the release of Shadowlands ...).

Oh, he certainly should have been presented better. But it doesn't really change that what we did get presented with was overtly a villain. He's not simply bad at being good, he's actively pursuing evil paths to his goal.

[Lady Atia]

Oh, he certainly should have been presented better. But it doesn't really change that what we did get presented with was overtly a villain. He's not simply bad at being good, he's actively pursuing evil paths to his goal.

Yeah but only because it won't matter once he resets the universe. Atleast that's Sylvanas' PoV on it in the new book. It doesn't matter if you have to damn all night elf souls to the Maw if you can just rewrite it later anyways.

[huth]

That's a problem I have with M+ in general. I want to loot things, not find everything in a chest at the end. Especially with crafting becoming important again, trash and bosses across the dungeon should drop more than gold, greys and greens. Rare recipes and unique reagents could be found in the trash, some of them in side rooms even. And if they cannot add them to M+, then add them to base Mythic.

Honestly I'd love it if they tried two different tracks for Dungeons. One could be the speed run version that M+ and then a second version could be a Challenge Mode but with no timer, just really sharply tuned. The first one would keep working with keys and infinite runs per week while the second could have a weekly lockout and require you to fully explore the dungeon (by adding side objectives) and drop loot normally.

It occurs to me that you're just describing Mythic there. What keeps M+ challenging is the scaling nature. Any fixed difficulty will eventually get outgeared. You also can't tune a 5 man to sharply, or you end up requiring a specific group setup.

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Yeah but only because it won't matter once he resets the universe. Atleast that's Sylvanas' PoV on it in the new book. It doesn't matter if you have to damn all night elf souls to the Maw if you can just rewrite it later anyways.

It still matters to whether he's an anti-hero or villain. For that matter, even Sylvanas had to come to terms with the fact that he deceived her.

[Lady Atia]

It occurs to me that you're just describing Mythic there. What keeps M+ challenging is the scaling nature. Any fixed difficulty will eventually get outgeared. You also can't tune a 5 man to sharply, or you end up requiring a specific group setup.

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It still matters to whether he's an anti-hero or villain. For that matter, even Sylvanas had to come to terms with the fact that he deceived her.

I'm not sure. Was Thanos really a villain if it turns out that the Celestials will just destroy more people in the universe if they hatch, hence his way to reduce the birthrate of new Celestials? But I get your point.

[Nymrohd]

It occurs to me that you're just describing Mythic there. What keeps M+ challenging is the scaling nature. Any fixed difficulty will eventually get outgeared. You also can't tune a 5 man to sharply, or you end up requiring a specific group setup.

You end up requiring a specific group for M+ over 20 as well tbh. At some point the meta becomes extremely limited. 1 tank/1 healer and maybe 4-6 dps are viable everyone else need not apply. And yeah I am describing a version of Mythic that stays challenging. Could be because it locks ilvl and has strong scaling. Honestly I want a dungeon version of raids

[Santandame]

Curious. Is there a map or anything equivalent out there that shows an actual size comparison of the continents in game?

Or anyone knowledgeable on the matter know which of the added continents in TBC onwards are the biggest going to smallest?

I'm just very curious about the Dragon Isles and how big the zones will be.

[Nymrohd]

Well the fact that he sought the sigils because he perceived a threat was not known until the Zovaal kill cinematic. Up until then it was because he wanted to remake the cosmos as he saw fit. And truth be told given the forbidden nature of Zereth Mortis, it's a question of how you even could know what was in there and if it even would give him the means to do as he wanted. HOW did he know? The lore is inconsistent about it. No one has been in ZM yet everyone seems to know about the Sepulcher existing. It never adds up.

As for why he rebelled the idea is he thought it was "unfair". And honestly, I just don't agree. I don't agree it is unfair to be asked to give up your previous experience in order to be an objective and unbiased psychopomp. You can always choose not to ascend and just spend eternity in paradise.
And this thing about people being divided from their loved ones; we see so much mobility between the realms. The only reason it doesn't exist early on is the anima drought having shut down most infrastructure. People seem to travel around all the time. And we don't even know where most of the people are; there obviously are other realms.

Honestly the fair thing is for existence to end when it actually ends. You die, that's it. No one promised you immortality. The entire premise is just entitlement. What entitles Sylvanas to eternal bliss with her loved ones? What entitles anyone to that? This is just thoughtless individualists writing moral philosophical dictates about a normative afterlife.

[Santandame]

so Envoker wasnt seen as tanky but the possibility of a melee spec exists....yes please give me melee then i will play it

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so deathwing was hinted at in TBC??

as for things being teased we did get a bunch of storylines teased in bfa

Yes, he was actually. Blades Edge Mountains and more importantly, Sinestra appearing in the Netherwing area and outright mentioning Deathwing and that he has plans set in motion for the not so distant future.

[Nymrohd]

Curious. Is there a map or anything equivalent out there that shows an actual size comparison of the continents in game?

Or anyone knowledgeable on the matter know which of the added continents in TBC onwards are the biggest going to smallest?

I'm just very curious about the Dragon Isles and how big the zones will be.

Yeah has been posted numerous times. Northrend has by a decent margin the largest land area added out of all expansions. And DF will be larger than that still so it will be the largest expansion in area.

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I'm not sure. Was Thanos really a villain if it turns out that the Celestials will just destroy more people in the universe if they hatch, hence his way to reduce the birthrate of new Celestials? But I get your point.

Well humanity largely creates legal systems that adher to deontology, not teleology. Killing people is bad. The greater good is no excuse for murder.

[JDBlou]

I'm not sure. Was Thanos really a villain if it turns out that the Celestials will just destroy more people in the universe if they hatch, hence his way to reduce the birthrate of new Celestials? But I get your point.

Unless they retcon Thanos' knowledge of Celestials (I mean they easily could with Eros being his brother and all), as it stands MCUThanos only approached the issue the way he did because of overpopulation causing scarcity. The problem with Thanos' solution is that it's inherently callous, and completely flawed. Sure he resolved the ecological devastation, but societies across the universe were completely devastated. The same can be said of Zovaal's hypothetical plan, uniting the forces against some greater threat is a noble goal. It ceases to be the right course of action when he decides he's the only one fit to unite them and decides progress his goal in the cruelest ways possible. The difference between Zovaal and Thanos is that Thanos' motivation is clearly laid out, and that is the massive failing of the writing team. The Jailer is just more forgettable "Only I can save us from what is to come" tripe.