Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Nymrohd]

NOOOO! We don't want nor need borrowed power. What you want is exactly that. Eww.

Gear is enough "progression" for max level.

Is that a royal "we" or are you speaking for a silent majority?

[Makorus]

I mean, I feel like GW2 already kinda fixed this whole conundrum with Masteries. WoW should really look at something like that.

[Nymrohd]

I think it DF it will be just connected to dragon riding. In early expansion to travel more efficient, in second part to show off your dragon. Hopefully it's like artifact weapon, but more customizations.

I'm not enemy of borrowed power if done right (account wide, you don't get overwhelmed by 5 menus you must keep track before raid, it's always relevant after expansion for expansion continent and timewalking etc.), but this is so hated concept right now we just need one "clean" expansion or at least patch.

Community in WoW have 0 trust in devs and total trust for wannabe dev from youtube/twtich, so sadly things works that way, people must burn their fingers just like with "loot must matter".

The forums community might. I very much doubt the forum community is representative of the majority of the playerbase. Heck the forum community is not in any way unified. Individual borrowed power systems are not problematic. The problem was either in having multiple of them at once or having one that was endless to grind. A system like e.g. essences would work just fine if it was alone. Heck artifact power worked fine, it was only truly a problem because of the community's tryhard mentality, not because the tuning necessitated the endless grind.

[Nyel]

I had this idea. What if the "borrowed power" was actually talent points. You could grind 5-10 additional talent points by hitting different targets throughout the xpac. Next xpac, if you have gained the talent points, when you get to those levels you gain nothing (but you also lose nothing). MEanwhile new players/alts will get those talents points by leveling. So you are not getting borrowed power, rather you get early access

I am talking about something like exactly this. Or there are more talents that you can unlock at max level. Not just that one singular bottom talent, but more than that. Maybe a quite small talent tree that's specific for max level progression. When the next expansion comes, so max level talent trees are mixed into the usual one and we get a new max level talent tree etc. It's just insane to think that character progression stops exactly at the point when it becomes the most relevant (aka max level).

@Nyel You ARE advocating for borrowed power. You want power progression different than gear after max level. What you expect from people to do when 11.0 will launch? Grind all these max level stuff?

No, I'm not advocating for borrowed power. I'm adovacting for class progression that does not stop the second you reach max level.

[Lady Atia]

Is that a royal "we" or are you speaking for a silent majority?

Maybe .... both?

[Nyel]

Sadly, no one besides a few people liked stuff like island expeditions or torghast, and while I enjoyed them stuff like visions can stay away from the game for good if you ask me. Same goes for any kind of "expansion wide borrowed power". It's fine if we "only" have to level and gear up, that's why the game has alts afterall. And as Dracullus said, tier sets will handle the "change your spec during an expansion" issue.

And with fated raids at the end of an expansion you will have atleast 3 or more different tier set builds for your spec, which is actually quite awesome and diablo like, especially if they manage to balance them for different niches.

Tier sets are super limited and super one dimensional though. When everything relies on gear, in 99% of the cases the item with the highest item level will always be the better option (especially when talking about gear from different tiers).

And while I agree that expeditions & co. were not universally liked, there was at least something for max level to do besides the usual stuff. They just completely cut that content in Dragonflight.

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I mean, I feel like GW2 already kinda fixed this whole conundrum with Masteries. WoW should really look at something like that.

Guild Wars 2, Elder Scrolls Online, heck even Lord of the Rings Online did that. Yet WoW refuses to achieve something similar and I have no idea why.

[Lady Atia]

Tier sets are super limited and super one dimensional though. When everything relies on gear, in 99% of the cases the item with the highest item level will always be the better option (especially when talking about gear from different tiers).

And while I agree that expeditions & co. were not universally liked, there was at least something for max level to do besides the usual stuff. They just completely cut that content in Dragonflight.

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Guild Wars 2, Elder Scrolls Online, heck even Lord of the Rings Online did that. Yet WoW refuses to achieve something similar and I have no idea why.

Not if they design the game with a fated raid season in mind from the beginning. So imagine 3 smaller seasons, lets say 5-6 months and one bigger fated raid season with 7 months at the end. First season could give you a tier set that gives you more mobility, season 2 one that enhances your aoe while the 3rd would give you a set that increases your single target. Once the fated season comes out you will be able to use all three builds for different situations, or even mix and match them cause all three fated raids drop the same item level.

[Nymrohd]

Not if they design the game with a fated raid season in mind from the beginning. So imagine 3 smaller seasons, lets say 5-6 months and one bigger fated raid season with 7 months at the end. First season could give you a tier set that gives you more mobility, season 2 one that enhances your aoe while the 3rd would give you a set that increases your single target. Once the fated season comes out you will be able to use all three builds for different situations, or even mix and match them cause all three fated raids drop the same item level.

Let's see how many people bother with the fated raid season in the first place.

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Guild Wars 2, Elder Scrolls Online, heck even Lord of the Rings Online did that. Yet WoW refuses to achieve something similar and I have no idea why.

To be fair, that they do it doesn't mean it's done well. ESO's champion points are horrible. Their only saving grace is that they are account wide. If you dared bring a new account into ESO it would take hundreds of hours of grinding to get to a decent enough level to be able to do dungeons. Probably would clock more than a thousand to be competitive.

[Dracullus]

No, I'm not advocating for borrowed power. I'm adovacting for class progression that does not stop the second you reach max level.

So you want max progression system that won't go away in 10.0. So what for 11.0, new power progression system? You will call devs lazy if they won't invent new one. What after that?

That is just stupid, even in perfect world where everything is account wide new players will be screwed and devs would have to constantly think about old systems while designing new content.

Guild Wars 2, Elder Scrolls Online, heck even Lord of the Rings Online did that. Yet WoW refuses to achieve something similar and I have no idea why.

Oh yeah, all 3 praised for their amazing power progression design. xD

[8bithamster]

Tier sets are super limited and super one dimensional though. When everything relies on gear, in 99% of the cases the item with the highest item level will always be the better option (especially when talking about gear from different tiers).

And while I agree that expeditions & co. were not universally liked, there was at least something for max level to do besides the usual stuff. They just completely cut that content in Dragonflight.

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Guild Wars 2, Elder Scrolls Online, heck even Lord of the Rings Online did that. Yet WoW refuses to achieve something similar and I have no idea why.

No no. Gw2 was the first ever with that. And more complex flying, and the levelling system etc. The fans will say that gw2 did everything first.

[Makabreska]

No, I'm not advocating for borrowed power. I'm adovacting for class progression that does not stop the second you reach max level.

So you want a progression that gives power and carries on to next patch and then expansion?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

No no. Gw2 was the first ever with that. And more complex flying, and the levelling system etc. The fans will say that gw2 did everything first.

And Blizzard is copying it and such. I'm not gonna accuse it though cause some gameplay features come from somewhere originally.


OT: I'm fine with no borrowed power since it seems to take away from class design(my perception of it not necessarily the law of the land and don't misread this haters).

[manypillars]

I don't know why people are all over GW2's mounts and post-cap 'progression'. They basically add a new spec that everyone must complete the story and then grind to access and use, and every must do this because it's usually the meta spec. Then you have to engage with the nesting doll crafting system to make your new meta weapon and reforge all your ascended gear to the new expansion meta stats (or just swap your legendary gear). Didn't get your metas done when it was current but need a skill from the last expansion? Fuck you, because old maps are empty and the zone meta-events you needed to grind routinely fail if they even start at all. It's not that exciting. Certainly no more so than 10 more levels and gear grinding. The end game boils down to who is the prettiest princess/who has the most obnoxious infusion effects. There's a reason people call it 'fashion wars'.

I like the gryphon, but why in the world would I pay $40-$50 for an expansion plus a $15/mo maintenance fee to be able to grind and use uglier dragons in WoW when GW2's gryphon is just there any time I'm in the mood to play with it? I like the completely free form flying in WoW quite a bit too. Taking stuff from GW2 isn't necessarily bad, but it doesn't make WoW any more attractive to play.

[Dracullus]

I don't know why people are all over GW2's mounts and post-cap 'progression'. They basically add a new spec that everyone must complete the story and then grind to access and use, and every must do this because it's usually the meta spec. Then you have to engage with the nesting doll crafting system to make your new meta weapon and reforge all your ascended gear to the new expansion meta stats (or just swap your legendary gear). Didn't get your metas done when it was current but need a skill from the last expansion? Fuck you, because old maps are empty and the zone meta-events you needed to grind routinely fail if they even start at all. It's not that exciting. Certainly no more so than 10 more levels and gear grinding. The end game boils down to who is the prettiest princess/who has the most obnoxious infusion effects. There's a reason people call it 'fashion wars'.

I like the gryphon, but why in the world would I pay $40-$50 for an expansion plus a $15/mo maintenance fee to be able to grind and use uglier dragons in WoW when GW2's gryphon is just there any time I'm in the mood to play with it? I like the completely free form flying in WoW quite a bit too. Taking stuff from GW2 isn't necessarily bad, but it doesn't make WoW any more attractive to play.

I have controversial theory that people buy new WoW expansions because they like to play WoW in general and just want new content. New stuff like new type of content, class, race etc. are nice, but they are like spice, not meat of new expac.

[Nymrohd]

I have controversial theory that people buy new WoW expansions because they like to play WoW in general and just want new content. New stuff like new type of content, class, race etc. are nice, but they are like spice, not meat of new expac.

I mean from the fact that there is a massive surge of subs every new xpac that recedes just as much after a couple of months we can extrapolate that the most popular content in WoW is the new zones and storylines. People do that, try the dungeons a few times (probably on Heroic), maybe check the raid in LFR then logout until the next xpac with maybe checking for a month during patches but not staying for long and not all at once like with an xpac release.

Most people just don't like repeating the same content ad naseum in different difficulties, slowly grinding for gear, waiting for timegated stories. They treat the game like a CRPG with a social aspect and once the content for that dries out and depends on grind to get you anywhere (or it's only a few hours of gameplay every 4-6 months), they are gone.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I mean from the fact that there is a massive surge of subs every new xpac that recedes just as much after a couple of months we can extrapolate that the most popular content in WoW is the new zones and storylines. People do that, try the dungeons a few times (probably on Heroic), maybe check the raid in LFR then logout until the next xpac with maybe checking for a month during patches but not staying for long and not all at once like with an xpac release.

Most people just don't like repeating the same content ad naseum in different difficulties, slowly grinding for gear, waiting for timegated stories. They treat the game like a CRPG with a social aspect and once the content for that dries out and depends on grind to get you anywhere (or it's only a few hours of gameplay every 4-6 months), they are gone.

Thats quite an assumption treating so many people that have the same specific beef.

Sorry what did they copy? And if you say the flight, just don't. GW2 copied it from countless other games.

Sorry, I was saying there's gonna be complaints of "BLIZZ COPIED111111111111111 x mechanic. THEY ARE UNORIGINAL1111111111"

[8bithamster]

And Blizzard is copying it and such. I'm not gonna accuse it though cause some gameplay features come from somewhere originally.


OT: I'm fine with no borrowed power since it seems to take away from class design(my perception of it not necessarily the law of the land and don't misread this haters).

Sorry what did they copy? And if you say the flight, just don't. GW2 copied it from countless other games.

[rhorle]

Borrowed power always felt like a scapegoat. People had issues with the game but didn't know what so they latched onto borrowed power as the root cause since it required them to play the game. It always existed in some form as well since stats and stuff would reset to new values each expansion. If they didn't play the game they felt like they would fall behind even if being behind didn't really matter. With out those things though it really does get boring because you quickly run out of things to do. It is a good thing for players that like to play alts but a bad thing for those that do not.

Dragonflight will be interesting though because they still do technically have a borrowed power system in the form of Dragon Riding. Reputations/Renown rewards could fall under that category as well but depends on if it is just the same rewards gated in a new way. Borrowed power is I think a great concept for any game because it removes bloat from the equation. You can do whatever you want with the system because it won't go to the next expansion and you don't need to worry about future balance if things "reset". The mission table is a good example of something that should always be carried over. It can reset each expansion with out much impact on function and it provided a nice near-passive boost to things. Though the shadowlands battle rework was terrible.

[manypillars]

Most people just don't like repeating the same content ad naseum in different difficulties, slowly grinding for gear, waiting for timegated stories. They treat the game like a CRPG with a social aspect and once the content for that dries out and depends on grind to get you anywhere (or it's only a few hours of gameplay every 4-6 months), they are gone.

ArenaNet doesn't have the solution either.

Do it again until it's perfect to get mastery points or do it again harder while standing on one foot while singing the Hokey Pokey to get gear? It doesn't help Blizzard that it ended up giving the choice of esports or actually grinding in hell.

[Nymrohd]

ArenaNet doesn't have the solution either.

Do it again until it's perfect to get mastery points or do it again harder while standing on one foot while singing the Hokey Pokey to get gear? It doesn't help Blizzard that it ended up giving the choice of esports or actually grinding in hell.

Never said it does, that was someone else. my only comment on other max level progression systems was on ESO and how bad that is.

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Thats quite an assumption treating so many people that have the same specific beef.

But the patterns exists. Over ten million buy each xpac. Yet multiple expacs retained at most 2 million. What is the difference in what is offered between an expac release and patches? A wealth of one-time content, most of which is story. Plus the chance to experience multiple instances. The playstyle of a casual at an expansion launch is slow leveling and exploring of the new content. The playstyle of the more dedicated fanbase is grinding; either by doing the same instances dozens if not hundreds of times or by doing the same dailies, world quests and rares.

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Sorry what did they copy? And if you say the flight, just don't. GW2 copied it from countless other games.

I really wonder with the community here some times. Have they only played WoW and the few more popular MMOs? Or just WoW and have seen other games in streams?
Dragonriding is just flight simulation gameplay. I logged hundreds of hours in Pilotwings before anyone even dreamed of a Warcraft MMO.

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And they indeed made a Diablo 4 announcement! All hail the Necromancer!