Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Sondrelk]

Think about how Legion would have been if Order halls and Artifacts didn't exist. Would it still have been a decent expansion? Sure. Would it have lost a large chunk of content? Yep. So Dragonflight does have some gaps in content to fill. Dragon Riding could fill that depending on how much the flesh the system out.

But what Order Hall/Artifact specific content did Legion truly offer beyond endgame questing? BfA had the same amount, if not more content than Legion at max level in that regard with the Faction War questline.

Seems to me like a false comparision, because while yes the game would have been lesser if we took out that content and didnt replace it with anything the game has clearly shown itself to have that content as a baseline, just with a different coat of paint each expansion. In Legion it was the Order Halls, in BfA it was the Faction War, and in SL it was the Covenant campaigns.

[Nyel]

But what Order Hall/Artifact specific content did Legion truly offer beyond endgame questing? BfA had the same amount, if not more content than Legion at max level in that regard with the Faction War questline.

Seems to me like a false comparision, because while yes the game would have been lesser if we took out that content and didnt replace it with anything the game has clearly shown itself to have that content as a baseline, just with a different coat of paint each expansion. In Legion it was the Order Halls, in BfA it was the Faction War, and in SL it was the Covenant campaigns.

Legion had 12 storylines, BfA 2 and Shadowlands 4. I think that's a huge difference, even if some might argue that the quality of the Covenant storylines might have been better than the class storylines in Legion.

In BfA it was terrible because playing more than one character sucked in every possible way. In Shadowlands at least characters with different Covenants made sense, in Legion you could play anything and get new content to experience (to a certain extent).

[rhorle]

Seems to me like a false comparision, because while yes the game would have been lesser if we took out that content and didnt replace it with anything the game has clearly shown itself to have that content as a baseline, just with a different coat of paint each expansion. In Legion it was the Order Halls, in BfA it was the Faction War, and in SL it was the Covenant campaigns.

So it is a false comparison even though you state the game would be lesser if that content is removed. So it isn't a false comparison at all and you are just being contrary to be contrary. Lmao. If we remove Order Halls, War Campaign, and Covenants from the game then there is clearly a gap from their removal, right? So that means in Dragonflight which has none of those things there is a gap that it will need to be filled, right?

As for BfA the War Campaign was only loosely part of Azerite system. Where as Order halls and Covenants had a stronger relationship to the borrowed power of the expansion.

[Makabreska]

Legion had 12 storylines, BfA 2 and Shadowlands 4. I think that's a huge difference, even if some might argue that the quality of the Covenant storylines might have been better than the class storylines in Legion.

This is really a quality over quantity thing here. So what that we had 12 stories in legion if they were short, crappy and had little to zero influence over the story, like monks brewing yet another booze, or hunters dealing with some new felstalker type?

[rhorle]

This is really a quality over quantity thing here. So what that we had 12 stories in legion if they were short, crappy and had little to zero influence over the story, like monks brewing yet another booze, or hunters dealing with some new felstalker type?

Which means there is still 12 stories worth of content that would be missing if they were removed right? Also the stories from each Order Hall were not just throw away stories. They had a big impact on the over all story told including some, like the shadow priest blade or Lightforged Dreadlord, that have carried on to future expansions. Even the Warlock artifact quest has the player stopping the Legion Invasion from happening by stealing the Staff of Sargeras. If that staff wasn't stolen Gul'dan could have opened and powered portals to every Legion world. With out that artifact the invasion was drastically slowed.

[Sondrelk]

Legion had 12 storylines, BfA 2 and Shadowlands 4. I think that's a huge difference, even if some might argue that the quality of the Covenant storylines might have been better than the class storylines in Legion.

In BfA it was terrible because playing more than one character sucked in every possible way. In Shadowlands at least characters with different Covenants made sense, in Legion you could play anything and get new content to experience (to a certain extent).

Quality does matter in this instance. Most of the Order Hall questlines were copy-pasted stuff like "Do 10 follower missions", or "Gather 100 macguffins by doing World Quests".

The questlines in Legion were extremely thinly spread, and as we saw in 7.2 ended up being a detriment to the patch as a whole.

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So it is a false comparison even though you state the game would be lesser if that content is removed. So it isn't a false comparison at all and you are just being contrary to be contrary. Lmao. If we remove Order Halls, War Campaign, and Covenants from the game then there is clearly a gap from their removal, right? So that means in Dragonflight which has none of those things there is a gap that it will need to be filled, right?

As for BfA the War Campaign was only loosely part of Azerite system. Where as Order halls and Covenants had a stronger relationship to the borrowed power of the expansion.

All you are missing is the coat of paint, not the actual substance. Imagine if someone argued that Dragonflight would have less raids because we have not seen Sanctum of Domination being carried over? The entire argument is absurd when the substance is only very loosely tied to the actual name, and is instead about what you are actually doing.

We didnt lose the Order Hall stuff in BfA, SL, and almost certainly not in DF, because the substance of that was a hub with themed endgame questlines.

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Which means there is still 12 stories worth of content that would be missing if they were removed right? Also the stories from each Order Hall were not just throw away stories. They had a big impact on the over all story told including some, like the shadow priest blade or Lightforged Dreadlord, that have carried on to future expansions. Even the Warlock artifact quest has the player stopping the Legion Invasion from happening by stealing the Staff of Sargeras. If that staff wasn't stolen Gul'dan could have opened and powered portals to every Legion world. With out that artifact the invasion was drastically slowed.

Don't sit here and pretend like the number actually holds much meaning. I would much rather take what we had in SL where we had 4 good, meaty campaigns over what we had in Legion with 8-10 anemic campaigns with maybe one or two decent ones. The fact that you have only a third as many campaigns means nothing when the quality of the 4 more than makes up for the lack of theoretically distinct order hall questlines.

[Nyel]

This is really a quality over quantity thing here. So what that we had 12 stories in legion if they were short, crappy and had little to zero influence over the story, like monks brewing yet another booze, or hunters dealing with some new felstalker type?

I mean it's still 12 original stories vs. just 2 or 4. Even if they might have had less of a quality / amount of things to do, it was different. I enjoyed the Covenant storylines itself, but the faction war questline in BfA in my opinion was terrible.

Order Hall quests just added a ton of flavor to the overall approach of "class/spec matters" in Legion and it was just a huge success. Covenants itself were a really good idea and quite complex, but they made the same mistake that they make everytime by ignoring player feedback until the first or second content patch hits.

[rhorle]

All you are missing is the coat of paint, not the actual substance. Imagine if someone argued that Dragonflight would have less raids because we have not seen Sanctum of Domination being carried over? The entire argument is absurd when the substance is only very loosely tied to the actual name, and is instead about what you are actually doing. We didnt lose the Order Hall stuff in BfA, SL, and almost certainly not in DF, because the substance of that was a hub with themed endgame questlines.

It is nothing like saying there will be no raid because we haven't seen a raid talked about. Talk about being dishonest. They have already told us that there will be no borrowed power system which automatically means there will be no support systems in place for that borrowed power as well. That means we know what we are not going to get and we know the impact that will have on other systems.

Do you honestly think that we still would have got the Order Halls with out Artifacts? The substance was not just a hub with end-game activities because the substance directly revolved around Artifacts and Covenants. You are saying because we will get end-game activities like Korthia or Zerith Mortis that it also means we will be getting the same as Covenants or Order Halls. That is silly because the two are on entirely different levels of content provided.

So once again we already know what Dragonflight won't have which means there is a gap in content provided that needs to be filled by Blizzard with other content. Something you keep saying you agree with but also keep arguing against. Lmao.

[Sondrelk]

It is nothing like saying there will be no raid because we haven't seen a raid talked about. Talk about being dishonest. They have already told us that there will be no borrowed power system which automatically means there will be no support systems in place for that borrowed power as well. That means we know what we are not going to get and we know the impact that will have on other systems.

Do you honestly think that we still would have got the Order Halls with out Artifacts? The substance was not just a hub with end-game activities because the substance directly revolved around Artifacts and Covenants. You are saying because we will get end-game activities like Korthia or Zerith Mortis that it also means we will be getting the same as Covenants or Order Halls. That is silly because the two are on entirely different levels of content provided.

So once again we already know what Dragonflight won't have which means there is a gap in content provided that needs to be filled by Blizzard with other content. Something you keep saying you agree with but also keep arguing against. Lmao.

Covenants themselves prove you didnt need the artifacts to have the same substance, just some tangible difference in what you got out of it, which itself is not disproven to be in DF, just loosely argued not to be based on the lack of secondary infinite gearing, which was also absent from SL without issue.

Yes, we are likely not getting any secondary or tertiary gearing gained from general gameplay and used in instanced content like raids, but that only puts it loosely around the same place as Zereth Mortis, which did have secondary and tertiary gearing and power gain, just not directly tied to the raid. It's abundantly clear that when Blizzard and the players talks about the vague concept of Borrowed Power, that they actually mean instanced PvE/PvP power gains outside strict gear, which isnt in Dragonflight, but as I said, only in the same way it isnt in 9.2, which has large amounts of secondary and tertiary power gains.

And you say that there is a gap in content that needs to be filled, but this presupposes that the valid metric is distinct number of activities, not quality of existing ones. In your mind a third form of PvE instanced gearing would be far more desirable than substantial improvements to existing ones, even if thsi hypothetical third PvE instance is barely worth mentioning outside it's mere existence.

[Nyel]

Covenants themselves prove you didnt need the artifacts to have the same substance, just some tangible difference in what you got out of it, which itself is not disproven to be in DF, just loosely argued not to be based on the lack of secondary infinite gearing, which was also absent from SL without issue.

Yes, we are likely not getting any secondary or tertiary gearing gained from general gameplay and used in instanced content like raids, but that only puts it loosely around the same place as Zereth Mortis, which did have secondary and tertiary gearing and power gain, just not directly tied to the raid. It's abundantly clear that when Blizzard and the players talks about the vague concept of Borrowed Power, that they actually mean instanced PvE/PvP power gains outside strict gear, which isnt in Dragonflight, but as I said, only in the same way it isnt in 9.2, which has large amounts of secondary and tertiary power gains.

And you say that there is a gap in content that needs to be filled, but this presupposes that the valid metric is distinct number of activities, not quality of existing ones. In your mind a third form of PvE instanced gearing would be far more desirable than substantial improvements to existing ones, even if thsi hypothetical third PvE instance is barely worth mentioning outside it's mere existence.

But it is? Covenants needed all their underlying systems to make sense. And there have been a ton of systems, Soulbinds, Conduits, the Covenant skills (class + flavor) - without that Covenants really would have been just factions you grind reputation for.

We get nothing like that in Dragonflight as we already know. They can certainly blow up Dragonriding to be something similar, but I have no idea how that would work when it's just restricted flying yet again.

Two huge parts of content are - as of now - not part of Dragonflight: borrowed power and its attached systems plus some kind of instanced content. The abscence of both is huge and open world content won't be able to counter all that simply because of replayability for open world content is - outside of world quests and "events" (Legion invasions) - very limited.

I have no idea how they could improve the open world content or mythic+ to make up for the lack of the stuff they just completely remove instead of reworking it to work eventually. Based on what we know now, Dragonflight will have a very limited amount of content activities and they won't be as diverse as in Legion, BfA or Shadowlands. That's what we already know.

Sure, they could have this or that in store for us what they haven't told us yet (how often did that happen, be honest), but then its their fault again by leaving us in complete limbo when it comes to that. I mean the endgame zone must be really SPECTACULAR in all kind of ways to make us forget all the stuff they just didn't bother to put into the expansion.

[rhorle]

Covenants themselves prove you didnt need the artifacts to have the same substance, just some tangible difference in what you got out of it, which itself is not disproven to be in DF, just loosely argued not to be based on the lack of secondary infinite gearing, which was also absent from SL without issue.

Covenants were still built around the borrowed power and existed to support that borrowed power. Blizzard has said they are moving away from Borrowed Power for Dragonflight which means there will not be any systems built to support a borrowed power. All you are doing is creating increasingly silly arguments for a gap that exists because of Blizzard stating what content will not exist. You even said the gap exists if that content is removed. Lmao.

Of course Blizzard can create something to fill that gap. That is the point though that a gap exists to be filled because borrowed power and everything it interacts with will not exist to drive creation of content.

[Sondrelk]

Covenants were still built around the borrowed power and existed to support that borrowed power. Blizzard has said they are moving away from Borrowed Power for Dragonflight which means there will not be any systems built to support a borrowed power. All you are doing is creating increasingly silly arguments for a gap that exists because of Blizzard stating what content will not exist. You even said the gap exists if that content is removed. Lmao.

Of course Blizzard can create something to fill that gap. That is the point though that a gap exists to be filled because borrowed power and everything it interacts with will not exist to drive creation of content.

I have to disagree with that? What exactly would be missing that is crucial to Covenants if you remove the active abilities and soulbinds? You would still have the solid core of cosmetic rewards, questlines, zone upgrades, and unique minigame.
The fact that the developers have already stated what I thought obvious since the beginning of SL, that being the covenants being better as reputations 2.0, shows that the borrowed power is not inherent to the endgame hubs at all, but instead linked to it solely by aesthetic rather than necessity.

And yes, there will be a gap, but what I don't get is your insistence that this gap can only be filled by a distinct something, rather than the increased quality and depth of the surrounding systems.

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But it is? Covenants needed all their underlying systems to make sense. And there have been a ton of systems, Soulbinds, Conduits, the Covenant skills (class + flavor) - without that Covenants really would have been just factions you grind reputation for.

We get nothing like that in Dragonflight as we already know. They can certainly blow up Dragonriding to be something similar, but I have no idea how that would work when it's just restricted flying yet again.

Two huge parts of content are - as of now - not part of Dragonflight: borrowed power and its attached systems plus some kind of instanced content. The abscence of both is huge and open world content won't be able to counter all that simply because of replayability for open world content is - outside of world quests and "events" (Legion invasions) - very limited.

I have no idea how they could improve the open world content or mythic+ to make up for the lack of the stuff they just completely remove instead of reworking it to work eventually. Based on what we know now, Dragonflight will have a very limited amount of content activities and they won't be as diverse as in Legion, BfA or Shadowlands. That's what we already know.

Sure, they could have this or that in store for us what they haven't told us yet (how often did that happen, be honest), but then its their fault again by leaving us in complete limbo when it comes to that. I mean the endgame zone must be really SPECTACULAR in all kind of ways to make us forget all the stuff they just didn't bother to put into the expansion.

Covenants most definitely didnt need borrowed power. In that case I would rather argue that borrowed power needed covenants more than anything. As I stated above, you would have still had an extremely solid core of open world and cosmetic stuff that hold up covenants perfectly well on their own in the case of borrowed power being removed.

And again, what kind of content attached to borrowed power are we missing out on when it's removed? Is gathering anima suddenly not content solely because it doesnt have an attached infinite power grind, as indeed is the case in 9.2 and arguably even the entirety of SL?

[Khaza-R]

I mean it's still 12 original stories vs. just 2 or 4. Even if they might have had less of a quality / amount of things to do, it was different. I enjoyed the Covenant storylines itself, but the faction war questline in BfA in my opinion was terrible.

Order Hall quests just added a ton of flavor to the overall approach of "class/spec matters" in Legion and it was just a huge success. Covenants itself were a really good idea and quite complex, but they made the same mistake that they make everytime by ignoring player feedback until the first or second content patch hits.

I think Legion put the effort in the right places. Everything it added felt very integral and like it was always supposed to be there even after the borrowed power was removed. Even expansions later I still look forward to going through Legion content on a class I might have missed.

I really can't say the same for BfA or Shadowlands.

With BfA, I think they hoped it would give players an incentive to play both factions. Ironically it would of been the perfect time to introduce cross-faction to double-down on that. But in reality, it seems most players don't want to divide their efforts between the factions and so a massive chunk of content and story was missed for a lot players.

Covenants were forever ruined by bad design decisions. At no point has a covenant felt integral to my character's identity. Its more like a group of misfits I've forced to help and who bribe me with nice rewards. I think ultimately shifting the focus to Covenant identity was a bad decision since the PC has no real stake in these organizations. I don't think anyone feels like a Venthyr or a Kyrian, because well, you aren't one at the end of the day. You're just a temporary helper.

[Nymrohd]

But what Order Hall/Artifact specific content did Legion truly offer beyond endgame questing? BfA had the same amount, if not more content than Legion at max level in that regard with the Faction War questline.

Seems to me like a false comparision, because while yes the game would have been lesser if we took out that content and didnt replace it with anything the game has clearly shown itself to have that content as a baseline, just with a different coat of paint each expansion. In Legion it was the Order Halls, in BfA it was the Faction War, and in SL it was the Covenant campaigns.

Yes but alts.

[Nyel]

And again, what kind of content attached to borrowed power are we missing out on when it's removed? Is gathering anima suddenly not content solely because it doesnt have an attached infinite power grind, as indeed is the case in 9.2 and arguably even the entirety of SL?

We miss everything that was about character / class progression that was tied to borrowed power. That ain't coming back. Stuff like anima etc. isn't necessarily part of borrowed power, but they have neither announced nor talked about "side activities" like this yet so I don't know why you assume that there will be stuff like this not being part of a separate progression system but the open world. Can it be? Sure. But at the end of the day it's still less activities and less diverse content in Dragonflight by not having these systems. And I think that was the point of the discussion?

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I think Legion put the effort in the right places. Everything it added felt very integral and like it was always supposed to be there even after the borrowed power was removed. Even expansions later I still look forward to going through Legion content on a class I might have missed.

I really can't say the same for BfA or Shadowlands.

With BfA, I think they hoped it would give players an incentive to play both factions. Ironically it would of been the perfect time to introduce cross-faction to double-down on that. But in reality, it seems most players don't want to divide their efforts between the factions and so a massive chunk of content and story was missed for a lot players.

Covenants were forever ruined by bad design decisions. At no point has a covenant felt integral to my character's identity. Its more like a group of misfits I've forced to help and who bribe me with nice rewards. I think ultimately shifting the focus to Covenant identity was a bad decision since the PC has no real stake in these organizations. I don't think anyone feels like a Venthyr or a Kyrian, because well, you aren't one at the end of the day. You're just a temporary helper.

Yeah, the entire Order Hall + Artifacts + Class revamps was designed in a way they never achieved to replicate later on, which is sad. But that's how good these systems relying on each other were, not necessarily from a technical pov but for immersion and player interaction.

Covenants are not too far off from that if we're honest, but everything in BfA in that regard was terrible. Covenants just needed more adjustments, maybe less focus on class specific skills, but overall more restrictions, aka you cannot switch Covenants at all or not as easy as they made it. But this only would have worked without Covenant-specific abilities which would have been fine. They really should just have made the four Covenant class skills the bottom talent row and called it a day and nobody would have complained.

[Lady Atia]

We miss everything that was about character / class progression that was tied to borrowed power. That ain't coming back. Stuff like anima etc. isn't necessarily part of borrowed power, but they have neither announced nor talked about "side activities" like this yet so I don't know why you assume that there will be stuff like this not being part of a separate progression system but the open world. Can it be? Sure. But at the end of the day it's still less activities and less diverse content in Dragonflight by not having these systems. And I think that was the point of the discussion?

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Yeah, the entire Order Hall + Artifacts + Class revamps was designed in a way they never achieved to replicate later on, which is sad. But that's how good these systems relying on each other were, not necessarily from a technical pov but for immersion and player interaction.

Covenants are not too far off from that if we're honest, but everything in BfA in that regard was terrible. Covenants just needed more adjustments, maybe less focus on class specific skills, but overall more restrictions, aka you cannot switch Covenants at all or not as easy as they made it. But this only would have worked without Covenant-specific abilities which would have been fine. They really should just have made the four Covenant class skills the bottom talent row and called it a day and nobody would have complained.

Dragonriding will be the "side activity" of Dragonflight, alongside a better focus on open world similiar to Zereth Mortis.

Covenants post-ripcord are the best out of the "class hall/garrison/whatever BFA was supposed to have" systems. But honestly, why, WHY would anyone like to restrict them even more than they already are? The original restrictions were awful enough, and I hope they learned that and will never restrict any cosmetics to "illusion of choice" going forward. We need more customization, not less. And if I want to run around with a Nightfae transmog, a Venthyr mount, a Kyrian title and a Necrolord Pepe than I should be able to.

[Nymrohd]

I actually believe world content can replace borrowed power and instanced content just fine. MoP had neither but it had a system of dailies and reputations that was perhaps TOO robust that it ended up being overwhelming. While Legion did have borrowed power, it also had Suramar.

Dragonflight is promising the largest continent since Northrend. And keep in mind that Northrend as a continent had a lot of dead space and was released back at a time when the world was not really utilized. Dragon riding and Renown mechanisms will likely gate content; I expect we will start with about half the world available, with parts slowly unlocking as dragonriding opens up areas and renown populates them with quests. By the first patch I'd expect fully double the world quests and/or dailies to be on the map than there were during Shadowlands.

Meanwhile there are other things you can do in the world. With crafting being important you can have open world "dungeon" areas, which existed in the early years of the game (Vanilla and TBC but also MoP) that are meant primarily for grinding either solo or in a group. They can invest in vignettes (rares) to transform them into actual multi-phase encounters and better integrate them into the reward structure (again mostly through the crafting system). They could try to copy things like ESO's public dungeons, large dungeons with multiple fast respawning bosses and events that are part of the world (in ESO they are instances but like with the smaller delves, there is a single instance per server for everyone).

[huth]

I actually believe world content can replace borrowed power and instanced content just fine. MoP had neither but it had a system of dailies and reputations that was perhaps TOO robust that it ended up being overwhelming.

I think the big mistake was vastly expanding dailies while at the same time removing the daily cap. People ran themself ragged because they became convinced they had to do all dailies every day.

[Nymrohd]

Dragonriding will be the "side activity" of Dragonflight, alongside a better focus on open world similiar to Zereth Mortis.

There is nothing innovative or interesting about Zereth Mortis open world content. It's the same mixture of World Quests, Dailies and Rares we've had forever together with the Mechagon system refitted for purely cosmetics. It was marginally interesting for the first few weeks when there was no flight. Many other MMOs provide far more variety when it comes to world content. It also had a moronic reward structure since you can reach a cap for rewards far too easy and any rewards gained on the way to the cap feel useless; effectively every item you gain early is useless and once you cap, which you do fast compared to how long the content should last, you get all the rewards fairly fast leaving you with no progression. It doesn't even have adequate variety or progression; the pool of world quests is shallow, there is little value in doing the dailies since they give no rep but only rewards you are overflowing with and progresing through story content barely unlocks additional material.
WoW still has nothing like Rifts invasions which allowed people to join a group automatically; when players tried to create similar functionality through addons Blizzard deemed it intrusive and removed it creating multiphase events randomly in the world. It has nothing like ESO's delves and public dungeons. It rarely makes use of larger events like we had with Quel'Danas and Isle of Thunder.

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I think the big mistake was vastly expanding dailies while at the same time removing the daily cap. People ran themself ragged because they became convinced they had to do all dailies every day.

Very much so. We got too much of a good thing. DOesn't change it was a good thing though. Especially given the significant variety (Halfhill alone had probably close to a hundred dailies given each of the friends and cooking masters had their own) and the progression (Klaxxi in particular with rescuing new Paragons at different levels and opening new dailies). MoP had something like Suramar only instead of having it in one zone, it had it in FOUR. Yes, each of the factions had less content than the Nightfallen individually but they all had content, all had progression and gave you even more visual variety.

[Cheezits]

It sounds like we are getting a return to gated reputation storylines, which is nice. I think they have confirmed that's how it will work for the Tuskarr, the Centaurs, the Explorers and the dragon city.