Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[rhorle]

I haven’t done any relevant PvE in a while but Is the certain amount of performance needed to clear content actually only achievable if every one is playing the meta build or is it actually way lower but people want to be far far above it?

DPS checks are still a thing in WoW. LFR has them lower but you can still wipe to bosses because of poor DPS. Mythic for sure has strict DPS checks (at least prior to Blizzard nerfing it to the ground in order to fill Alliance Hall of Fame). The balance between the 21 talents you can currently pick is usually not that large but it could impact a dps check for a fight. You could likely over come it with gear/skill in most cases.

It is harder to balance a dps difference between good and bad talent choices because it means good choices would always have an advantage. So the bad choices would have to be ignored for dps checks in order to provide a challenge to the good choices. Is it acceptable to make it so talents matter more in Heroic/Mythic +8? So players that want to take the leap to those things no longer can play as they did? Will the community even pick those bad talents if it means good ones give them a big advantage in that lower content? I know the answer based on how the community has reacted over the years.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

DPS checks are still a thing in WoW. LFR has them lower but you can still wipe to bosses because of poor DPS. Mythic for sure has strict DPS checks (at least prior to Blizzard nerfing it to the ground in order to fill Alliance Hall of Fame). The balance between the 21 talents you can currently pick is usually not that large but it could impact a dps check for a fight. You could likely over come it with gear/skill in most cases.

It is harder to balance a dps difference between good and bad talent choices because it means good choices would always have an advantage. So the bad choices would have to be ignored for dps checks in order to provide a challenge to the good choices. Is it acceptable to make it so talents matter more in Heroic/Mythic +8? So players that want to take the leap to those things no longer can play as they did? Will the community even pick those bad talents if it means good ones give them a big advantage in that lower content? I know the answer based on how the community has reacted over the years.

Well yea dps checks exist the question is more so are said checks so tight that a player playing better with worse talents wouldn’t be able to clear them even if they aren’t clearing them with the extra speed of the better talents. by design you wouldn’t need to ignore bad talents for dps checks you would just pass it but with less wiggle room.

Ignoring gear of course.

As far as the community goes ya a lot of people will just pick what’s ever strongest but that isn’t really relevant to the game being designed to not have “stupid builds”

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I can’t speak for mythic… but my guild has been able to get AOTC on every tier this expansion (and Nyalotha) with suboptimal builds/covenants and with people playing the “bottom tier” DPS/healers.

Even KSM was possible with the same people.

Ya my guild used to function the same way and we were able to clear the heroic when it was still the equivalent of current mythic in mop.

But since then I haven’t touched any real pve. With the way the WDR works id assume talents wouldn’t make it break a group even on mythic in relevant progress gear but I can’t say I have by knowledge on if that would be the case or not as I haven’t followed any tuning parsing ect.

[Khaza-R]

I haven’t done any relevant PvE in a while but Is the certain amount of performance needed to clear content actually only achievable if every one is playing the meta build or is it actually way lower but people want to be far far above it?

Like is mythic jailer I killable unless every one has the cookie cutter spec or is it just harder?

Reality is, anyone who is already engaging in high end content where such minor difference can matter is already theorycrafting and looking up every possible build for minor performance increases.

The players who get "trapped" by the talent system are new and novice players. However its very likely the people trapped at the same individuals might not even have interrupts or other utility spells on their action bars in the first place. So there actual effect is probably more negligible than most people realize.

I think where the new talent system will differentiate players is actually the mid tier. Players who might not optimize their talents for every encounter.

[rhorle]

Well yea dps checks exist the question is more so are said checks so tight that a player playing better with worse talents wouldn’t be able to clear them even if they aren’t clearing them with the extra speed of the better talents. by design you wouldn’t need to ignore bad talents for dps checks you would just pass it but with less wiggle room.

Because the current 21 talent choices are relatively balanced. Blizzard has already said that there will be "bad choices" in the new talent system and not everything will be viable. So there will be encounters that have their minimum output set higher then those non-viable builds. If feel like you are defining bad as "not simmed highest". For example if "good" choices give you 5k dps and a "bad choice" gives you 1k dps how is an encounter expected to be balanced for both parties? The extra 4k dps would offer a huge advantage if the encounter is tuned to make the 1k choice viable. Wouldn't that 4k less dps player be a liability in group content?

We've also seen in the past the communities reaction to high skill play styles. It was one of the reasons why Blizzard changed the demonology warlock metamorphosis rotations. Because it required high skill and the players that weren't as skilled didn't have a good outcome with the spec that guides/sims etc indicated was how things had to be played.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Reality is, anyone who is already engaging in high end content where such minor difference can matter is already theorycrafting and looking up every possible build for minor performance increases.

The players who get "trapped" by the talent system are new and novice players. However its very likely the people trapped at the same individuals might not even have interrupts or other utility spells on their action bars in the first place. So there actual effect is probably more negligible than most people realize.

I think where the new talent system will differentiate players is actually the mid tier. Players who might not optimize their talents for every encounter.

Ya id expect any real High end players to already be jumping through all the needed hoops if they are already commenting to mythic raiding.

[boyzma]

Right. The illusion of choice. LFR also shouldn't a place for people to use low dps, heals, or surviability specs. It already suffers from people slacking off as it is that it shouldn't be encouraged by game design.

Why does how other people play bother you so much? Damn.....let them do what they want. They aren't playing to make YOU happy, they're playing to have fun. Just get off it and worry about yourself.

[rhorle]

I think where the new talent system will differentiate players is actually the mid tier. Players who might not optimize their talents for every encounter.

The problem is that what is good for high end players trickles down to all the other tiers. Look at covenants for example how it the community felt the need to pick what was best for their class rather then what "fantasy" they liked best. Would a non-meta convenant still perform well? Certainly. But it was still something that felt like a requirement to even those players that didn't need to min/max for the content they were doing.

I feel like most people when discussing talent traps ignores this aspect of the community that has played out the same way for years. Could it change for Dragonflight? Sure but how likely is that change?

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Why does how other people play bother you so much? Damn.....let them do what they want. They aren't playing to make YOU happy, they're playing to have fun. Just get off it and worry about yourself.

The primary focus of WoW end-game content is group play. The performance of others has an impact on group play even if you want to ignore it. Is it a big deal if a person is happy with being sub-par because of their choices? No. They can play how they want to play. It is silly to ignore how their presence and choices will impact group content though.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Because the current 21 talent choices are relatively balanced. Blizzard has already said that there will be "bad choices" in the new talent system and not everything will be viable. So there will be encounters that have their minimum output set higher then those non-viable builds. If feel like you are defining bad as "not simmed highest". For example if "good" choices give you 5k dps and a "bad choice" gives you 1k dps how is an encounter expected to be balanced for both parties? The extra 4k dps would offer a huge advantage if the encounter is tuned to make the 1k choice viable. Wouldn't that 4k less dps player be a liability in group content?

We've also seen in the past the communities reaction to high skill play styles. It was one of the reasons why Blizzard changed the demonology warlock metamorphosis rotations. Because it required high skill and the players that weren't as skilled didn't have a good outcome with the spec that guides/sims etc indicated was how things had to be played.

I would say “bad” is not Simming highest ya, if something can’t even get pass something like a dps check it’s not bad it’s unplayable for that king of content.

As far as encounter design goes I’d say you wouldn’t try and balance it for most players you’d try to make it so the 1k player can clear the fight if they well(but not perfect) and the 5k player just has an Easier time (assuming they can’t bring talent closer inline), the community would obviously gravitate towards the easier issue like they always do but that would still leave the “stupid builds” functioning for those who can get enough out of them to clear the content with an added challenge.

[rhorle]

As far as encounter design goes I’d say you wouldn’t try and balance it for most players you’d try to make it so the 1k player can clear the fight if they well(but not perfect) and the 5k player just has an Easier time (assuming they can’t bring talent closer inline), the community would obviously gravitate towards the easier issue like they always do but that would still leave the “stupid builds” functioning for those who can get enough out of them to clear the content with an added challenge.

If that 1k player always has to be included in the dps checks then normal, heroic, and mythic will be drastically easier for the 5k players. You don't see that as unbalanced and a problem? We sometimes see gaps like this for classes and we already know that guilds usually take less of those classes or specs. Why would that change for the new talent system? I think you are drastically under estimating what output differences will do for encounters. The 4k difference was just an example but viable and non-viable choices could be drastically higher.

Would it be nice if Blizzard, or any game developer, could make every single talent combination in their games viable and within the same margin of error for output? Sure. But that never happens and Blizzard has already acknowledged that it won't happen with this new system.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

If that 1k player always has to be included in the dps checks then normal, heroic, and mythic will be drastically easier for the 5k players. You don't see that as unbalanced and a problem? We sometimes see gaps like this for classes and we already know that guilds usually take less of those classes or specs. Why would that change for the new talent system? I think you are drastically under estimating what output differences will do for encounters. The 4k difference was just an example but viable and non-viable choices could be drastically higher.

Would it be nice if Blizzard, or any game developer, could make every single talent combination in their games viable and within the same margin of error for output? Sure. But that never happens and Blizzard has already acknowledged that it won't happen with this new system.

For the most part no I wouldn't think the 5k player having a easier time would be much of a problem because as you said we have had such and larger gap's between classes in the past (and likely currently) and Id find it doubtful that blizzard then (and now) designed fights to be unclearable if you brought said classes so doing the same within a couple of classes doesn't seem like much of a stretch design wise.

and ya guilds will usually will stack classes/specs that preform better and id say it's totally fine for each group to make those calls on rather they would have have the best output they can get or rather member's would like a harder go of it for something they like more.

[Catastrophy349]

This conversation has turned quite bland.

[Ferlion]

Let’s have a healthy conversation/speculation session:

Answer one or both of these questions:

1). What is something you “hope” we get or is better explained during the Alpha/Beta cycle of Dragonflight?

2). What are you “most” worried about for Dragonflight?

I’ll start.

1). I would like to know/see a deeper explanation of what Dragonriding entails (blog post similar to Profession one or some gameplay ASAP).

2). That Dragonflight will be too similar to WoD in terms of content to do outside of the norm. (Personally, I don’t see this happening based on what “I” have read/seen. However, I know it’s a large concern for many folks)

Open World group content being the new "torghast/ 3 player groups" this expansion for the hope.

For the fear, I'm afraid they are going to try and rewrite all the lore because they just think the can do better than the old team, sort of like what they did with Shadowlands.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Part of said old team was a creeper so....... I dunno I think they'll be fine.

I really want that “new team” that is supposed to be working on outdoor content to have some really fun stuff for us. As for lore, I don’t want them to ignore what happened in the Shadowlands completely. There should be “some” references; however, I really want the story of the Dragon Isles to be grounded in rich storytelling and a feeling of adventure.

If theres any Old God stuff I hope they still keep them around I like them. That is if they are relevant but try to be a bit more long term(Yes I know people might get tired of Old God purple tentacle monsters but I enjoy them, bite me.

[Catastrophy349]

Open World group content being the new "torghast/ 3 player groups" this expansion for the hope.

For the fear, I'm afraid they are going to try and rewrite all the lore because they just think the can do better than the old team, sort of like what they did with Shadowlands.

I really want that “new team” that is supposed to be working on outdoor content to have some really fun stuff for us. As for lore, I don’t want them to ignore what happened in the Shadowlands completely. There should be “some” references; however, I really want the story of the Dragon Isles to be grounded in rich storytelling and a feeling of adventure.

[Grimmy17]

I really want that “new team” that is supposed to be working on outdoor content to have some really fun stuff for us. As for lore, I don’t want them to ignore what happened in the Shadowlands completely. There should be “some” references; however, I really want the story of the Dragon Isles to be grounded in rich storytelling and a feeling of adventure.

Agreed - Although, and this is just my opinion, I find the entire Night Elf storyline exceptionally bland. The fact that it's now spanned two expansions is exhausting, so if the patch cadence dictates that we immerse ourselves in that for 4-6 months whilst they pick a new planting spot I'll be annoyed. Other than that, they could literally slap a heinous storyline with some cool dragons and I'll be happy as anything.

Dragons are life!

[Kiria]

And what, other than Wailing Arrow, is Dark Ranger about it?

Wailing Arrow, death Chakrams and Ghostly windrunner arrrows seems pretty cool and enough for me..

Look I get it and not everyones happy with the new talents so they feel the need to go around shitting on everyones parade because they don't see it their way, so I'm gonna say what I said to another person, you don't like it, don't play it simple as that...

Too bloody hot in this country atm...

[zeir]

The best open world content shadowlands had was Rift Farming, it was in fact way better than torghast (as spammable smaller group content for power).
1. was open world.
2. you could grind it all in 1 go for sockets
3. depending on your group composition/power levels there were different routes you could take.
4. warmode affected it, you were competing not only against the other faction but your own for the mobs/best farming spots.
5. made engi somewhat relevant.
6. dying actually had meaning adding stakes to the run.

[Skildar]

I've been fiddling with the death knight talent trees and it really feels slow to build a good gameplay. I would almost wish that they would do a level squish and give 1 point in class tree and 1 point in spec tree at every level. I don't care if the max level is 30, 40 or 70 but I do care that it takes my character to reach level 30 - 35 before I start enjoying the gameplay of my character... This design is really bad. I hope they manage to change this before it goes live.

One of the easiest way out of this for them with their current tech is to just give reduce max level of the characters to 50 with current level 60 being changed to 40.
Up until you reach level 30 instead of 1, you gain 2 points every level (one for each tree) then you gain only 1 as currently designed. Meaning that you still gain 61 points of talent but accelerate the progression at the start so that you can enjoy a deeper gameplay faster

[rhorle]

One of the easiest way out of this for them with their current tech is to just give reduce max level of the characters to 50 with current level 60 being changed to 40.Up until you reach level 30 instead of 1, you gain 2 points every level (one for each tree) then you gain only 1 as currently designed. Meaning that you still gain 61 points of talent but accelerate the progression at the start so that you can enjoy a deeper gameplay faster

A constant level squish would seem to defeat one of the stated goals for going back to this style of talents. Which was to carry borrowed power systems forward to the next expansions. Instead of them being stand alone systems they are added as talents. It stops some of the unique flavor added by borrowed power. I'm not sure if it is worth it yet but at least new things will carry over even if a lot of borrowed power ended up becoming baseline anyways.

It would be interesting to have an artifact we power up that enhances the last talent row that is themed off of that expansion. A hybrid borrowed power.

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The developers plan to show all talent trees to players in overview articles before the start of alpha testing.

So we should be getting 2-3 previews M, T, W, and Th if the the rumored start date is true.

[Catastrophy349]

A constant level squish would seem to defeat one of the stated goals for going back to this style of talents. Which was to carry borrowed power systems forward to the next expansions. Instead of them being stand alone systems they are added as talents. It stops some of the unique flavor added by borrowed power. I'm not sure if it is worth it yet but at least new things will carry over even if a lot of borrowed power ended up becoming baseline anyways.

It would be interesting to have an artifact we power up that enhances the last talent row that is themed off of that expansion. A hybrid borrowed power.

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So we should be getting 2-3 previews M, T, W, and Th if the the rumored start date is true.

It's 100% true, with a secret Alpha for content creators on T/W.