Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Cheezits]

So, question about Dragonriding I'm unsure about, as I have not played GW2 or have much experience with it.

I'm concerned that it will boil down to people all going to the same path and jumping off to gain max verticality, which seems needed to optimize gravity-based flight. Is that how it works in GW2?

[Arafal]

I want an instanced dragon riding pvp mode, with unique maps where you compete in a FFA against 20 other players.

[Nymrohd]

I want an instanced dragon riding pvp mode, with unique maps where you compete in a FFA against 20 other players.

Honestly while I don't see that, a world event dragon riding race where you fly all over the Dragon Isles might be fun.

[towelliee]

I mean this is going to be what is going to meltdown the community if they've restricted it completely or not.

100% people need to chill on the idea that Alpha will be fully loaded. IT WILL NOT. Usually we get like 1 zone, and probably test some sort of feature to focus on. Dragon riding, Professions, maybe a dungeon? Please for the love of god set your content expectations way lower.

[therumblings]

I'm only expecting Dracthyr Evoker to be playable kinda like DH during the first Legion alpha build. It definitely wont be everything all at once.

[infinitemeridian]

The recent announcement for account-wide cosmic flux has me worried about DF and that Blizz STILL can't resist putting in these arbitrary barriers for alts and just playing the game. Why is sending flux to alts at a loss? Why isn't it 1:1? Better yet, why do I even have to send it? Why can't I just log on and have a pool of resources I can tap into across all characters? Destiny does this and it's way WAY better. It adds nothing to the game to keep these currencies locked to a character or that you have to pay a "tax" to send them across characters.

It's not fun, it's not interesting, and it's pretty worrying that even if they're adding the option (which should have been there from day 1 mind you), all this talk of account-wide everything in DF won't go nearly as far as it should because they just can't help themselves falling into these same trappings we've had since WoD (and arguably the game's inception).

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I forgot what expansion it was but they did start out slow and release the content expansion on the alpha(Then beta w/e).

[Catastrophy349]

I forgot what expansion it was but they did start out slow and release the content expansion on the alpha(Then beta w/e).

For Shadowlands Alpha, we got Bastion and a few classes at Level 50 to test initially. Then, more classes became available for testing over time and, eventually, more zones.

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? Where did you gather that?

That’s exactly what they are. Blizzard said, in many interviews, that you would be able to have ALL 4 Dragons (opposed to only 1 covenant at a time in SL). Then, you could go to a “Dragonriding NPC” in each zone to customize the way your dragon looks (so basically each dragon is a covenant and you have cosmetics).

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100% people need to chill on the idea that Alpha will be fully loaded. IT WILL NOT. Usually we get like 1 zone, and probably test some sort of feature to focus on. Dragon riding, Professions, maybe a dungeon? Please for the love of god set your content expectations way lower.

Exactly. It’s Alpha. They are 100% going to target test small amounts, then increase as we progress Alpha into Beta. Anyone expecting the entire expansion on Alpha next week is delusional. Also, anyone expecting to judge the entirety of Dragonflight based on a single build of Alpha next week to decide (is this expansion ready for 2022 or is it being rushed) is also delusional.

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Furthermore, there will be a progression system for Dragonriding to increase its “power” or “skill level” on the Dragon Isles. This is why Dragonriding is Covenants 2.0 (talent tree, cosmetics, etc.) without the player power attached.

[Nymrohd]

The recent announcement for account-wide cosmic flux has me worried about DF and that Blizz STILL can't resist putting in these arbitrary barriers for alts and just playing the game. Why is sending flux to alts at a loss? Why isn't it 1:1? Better yet, why do I even have to send it? Why can't I just log on and have a pool of resources I can tap into across all characters? Destiny does this and it's way WAY better. It adds nothing to the game to keep these currencies locked to a character or that you have to pay a "tax" to send them across characters.

It's not fun, it's not interesting, and it's pretty worrying that even if they're adding the option (which should have been there from day 1 mind you), all this talk of account-wide everything in DF won't go nearly as far as it should because they just can't help themselves falling into these same trappings we've had since WoD (and arguably the game's inception).

I am unsure that they can do account wide currency. It may well be there is a coding limitation.

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Exactly. It’s Alpha. They are 100% going to target test small amounts, then increase as we progress Alpha into Beta. Anyone expecting the entire expansion on Alpha next week is delusional. Also, anyone expecting to judge the entirety of Dragonflight based on a single build of Alpha next week to decide (is this expansion ready for 2022 or is it being rushed) is also delusional.

The entire expansion will not be on the build we might get next week. But what will probably be there in its entirety is the Dragon Isles and the different instances, ready to check in a sandbox.

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I forgot what expansion it was but they did start out slow and release the content expansion on the alpha(Then beta w/e).

All of them?

[Catastrophy349]

I am unsure that they can do account wide currency. It may well be there is a coding limitation.

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The entire expansion will not be on the build we might get next week. But what will probably be there in its entirety is the Dragon Isles and the different instances, ready to check in a sandbox.

While that would be EPIC, previous expansion Alphas have shown that we get one zone at a time.

[Nymrohd]

While that would be EPIC, previous expansion Alphas have shown that we get one zone at a time.

We don't get questing etc. But people can usually download the client and use a third party sandbox to explore. Tools like Marlamin's will be able to drag out the terrain as well.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

100% people need to chill on the idea that Alpha will be fully loaded. IT WILL NOT. Usually we get like 1 zone, and probably test some sort of feature to focus on. Dragon riding, Professions, maybe a dungeon? Please for the love of god set your content expectations way lower.

I mean I'm talking more of a severe blackout of datamining rather than the staggered available content in testing issue though. Obviously, I think people know this rodeo enough on how this works but I think any norm breaking of the datamining will be hard for people to swallow if they intend to take it in that direction.

[Nymrohd]

I mean I'm talking more of a severe blackout of datamining rather than the staggered available content in testing issue though. Obviously, I think people know this rodeo enough on how this works but I think any norm breaking of the datamining will be hard for people to swallow if they intend to take it in that direction.

I expect the biggest change, and imo the most necessary change, will be that we won't get a massive dump of strings on day one. The biggest problem with datamining early on every expac and most patches is that we get all the strings used for the discussions of various NPCs during critical points in the stories with no context. This leads to some of the worst misunderstandings (and lately WoWHead has been feeding those misunderstandings, with headline articles that are obviously text taken out of context). It would be in their best interest to encrypt those.

And perhaps they should encrypt some models.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Also, my stance on the issue is encrypt everything and start doing specialized limited testing with exact purposes and targetted feedback periods making sure that both development team and testers are on the same page.

My only problem with this currently is the lack of information on what will be in the product and the lack of post launch content confidence. If that wasn't the case I'd be ecstatic about any full encryption environment for the game.

[Nymrohd]

Also, my stance on the issue is encrypt everything and start doing specialized limited testing with exact purposes and targetted feedback periods making sure that both development team and testers are on the same page.

My only problem with this currently is the lack of information on what will be in the product and the lack of post launch content confidence. If that wasn't the case I'd be ecstatic about any full encryption environment for the game.

You still need to test questing. There are always buggy quests during the beta and letting a quest go live bugged on release is very much a disaster, especially if it gates story progression; it has happened before and you end up with huge numbers of players stack on the same spot trying to get the quest to work. Plus they need the feedback on quest flow. If you test that, much of the story will end up leaked anyway. My point is, at least let it become available in the way it will be experienced instead of through snippets of datamined content.

[Lady Atia]

You still need to test questing. There are always buggy quests during the beta and letting a quest go live bugged on release is very much a disaster, especially if it gates story progression; it has happened before and you end up with huge numbers of players stack on the same spot trying to get the quest to work. Plus they need the feedback on quest flow. If you test that, much of the story will end up leaked anyway. My point is, at least let it become available in the way it will be experienced instead of through snippets of datamined content.

They can just disable any spoken lines aswell as the quest textes themself.

[Makorus]

You still need to test questing. There are always buggy quests during the beta and letting a quest go live bugged on release is very much a disaster, especially if it gates story progression; it has happened before and you end up with huge numbers of players stack on the same spot trying to get the quest to work. Plus they need the feedback on quest flow. If you test that, much of the story will end up leaked anyway. My point is, at least let it become available in the way it will be experienced instead of through snippets of datamined content.

You think in house testing isn't possible?

[Catastrophy349]

It would be awesome if they could do story quests internally to avoid spoilers. Of course, won't mean anything if it isn't encrypted and hidden from data-miners.

[Kiria]

IDK what's lame about the Hunter trees, I see a lot of people pining for Wild Spirits but it's such a braindead boring ability I'm sort of unsure why.

Omg thank you, finally someone who understands, I love the look of the new Talent tree to the point its actually made me debate on whether to drop hunter as my main.

[Hitei]

Exactly. It’s Alpha. They are 100% going to target test small amounts, then increase as we progress Alpha into Beta. Anyone expecting the entire expansion on Alpha next week is delusional. Also, anyone expecting to judge the entirety of Dragonflight based on a single build of Alpha next week to decide (is this expansion ready for 2022 or is it being rushed) is also delusional.

The first real minable builds are always significant, not "small amounts". What is intended to be tested is totally irrelevant for anyone besides someone testing.

It means map files for usually most of the entire continent and many dungeons (even when those zones or dungeons aren't made available). Models for a big portion of all the new mobs, animals, and creatures (as well as often dungeon mobs, and raid bosses from the first tier). Armor sets for questing, dungeon and sometimes the first tier, weapons for the same. A ton of new mounts and pets, almost certainly the entire current iteration of Evoker's kit along with Dracthyr's current customization options. The background string changes and data for a ton of systems and game aspects (currencies, titles, factions, new UI systems, etc.), preliminary names and amounts of new materials for professions along with hundreds of new recipes. It also includes a bunch of new music, even though there's often a larger music build push later on in the testing

Even when sometime isn't actually available for testing, like Torghast, Warfronts or Azerite Armor, sub-systems for those things (like a bunch of anima powers or azerite powers, or the resources involved in warfronts) are in earlier builds. Even though zone testing is often done 1-2 zones at a time, all the zones are there in the map files, even when some are in early concept stages and don't ever actually end up as real zones (Thal'dranath, Farahlon). Even when quest lines aren't enabled to play through in the build, things like dialogue are often still viewable. Even when dungeons are disabled, their map files are often still in the build, as are frequently dungeon journal encounter information.

The bulk of the X.0 patch is usually in the first real minable build. It doesn't increase, there's progressively less in following builds.