Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Makabreska]

But sales numbers don't indicate anything of importance for us as the playerbase.

Well, increased sales tell us that people are always eager to come back.

[Arafal]

Well, increased sales tell us that people are always eager to come back.

I'd say it just means the marketing team did a fine job selling the expansion to people.

[Cynical Asshole]

"DF has nothing, why should I buy it?"

Buddy! Buddy! It's the same game you played for 17 years, just with new skins, new classes, etc.

You do PVE to work with players. You do PVP to work against players.
You do content and gear up.

Like...what else do you expect from this game? If you expect it to turn into a different game, maybe play a different game.

[Dracullus]

To us they mean absolutely jackshit and have no bearing on the quality of the expansion.

Of course not, especially in the long run. It's complety uknown how well DF will be supported. But we were discussing hype around game, all I said that sales number is way better measure than complains from people that are never satisfied.

And there won't be any reliable measurement of expansion quality beside your personal one. 'General public' will love expac on launch, complety hate somewhere around .1 or .2, then just accept it after last major patch.

[Nymrohd]

Personally I'm fairly excited about the talent changes. I've had a blast fooling around with them on PTR, my main definitely is the type of spec (tankadin) that will easily make use of MANY builds and I'm even exciting to check if this talent system allows for some broken soloing old content (the potential really is there for tankadins with substantial single target from shield spam and sizable absorbs).
I really appreciate the rotation for M+. I know this might be an uncommon view but I love to tank, enjoy M+ but have real trouble learning 8+ routes at the start of each season. The fact that I can practice and learn the pulls for four of those dungeons at my leisure so only four will need to be learned on a challenging setting (and by the second season I will have ample time to figure out the other four plus the new rotational ones) really makes me excited for M+.
And I am excited for crafting. I probably won't need much of the gear (though I am VERY sure everyone will be wearing two pieces of crafted gear at all times)

As for there not being anything new when it comes to world content; my understanding from the Renown datamining is that there are multiple events tied to each faction plus the Elemental Invasions and a bit of grinding on the side (and many people enjoy grinding mobs especially if there is some challenge to it).

The one thing I am NOT excited for is the story. The Malfurion thing is downright depressing and I am hoping they will not go through with it, the story seems extremely formulaic (empower the five McGuffins! again! that you never heard before!) and my trust on the writers is non-existent.

[Nyel]

I believe that DF will have the best post expansion launch content of any expansion. Why? I do not know, I might be reading too much between the lines in the interviews made to Blizzard, but I think that they will really surprise us in this regard.

This is based on what exactly? I mean the beta doesn't support this at all. This is the hopetimism many here had around Dragonflight, but as of now it's based on basically nothing. Where does this sentiment come from?

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I just listed a very specific open world content being added beside dragonriding. The elemental invasions. It even has unique high quality transmog rewards for every armor type.

The reputations being improved with the Renown system as well, with added benefits of making it easier for alts to get the later profession related rewards, which mostly fixes the issue some players have had with profession progression gated behind reputations.

Zones are significantly larger, which changes the feel of content being consumed in said zones.

And of course professions are being given a lift in terms of importance, which ties more into the open world gameplay. The fact that the professions give armor that is higher quality in terms of ilvl and appearance also means that said open world gameplay will have a more distinct progression.

All of what you listed is just an improvement of already existing stuff and not new. I don't want to degrade that per se, but it definitely is not a new approach or innovative new max level content, which was the thing a lot of players in this thread expected before we got to see what really is there. Again, because a lot of peopel just seem to overlook when I write that: Blizzard improving the base game systems is mandatory and good. That was never in question.

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How do the new talent trees not drastically alter gameplay lol?

How do they? Most specs still function and play exactly the same as before.

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"if you arent interested in the new class , ALL THERE IS, IS THE ENTIRE REST OF THE GAME"

interesting point

Feature vs. content discussion. Read the initial post I replied to and you should understand my answer.

[Lahis]

It is true that Dragonflight lacks thw flashy new boxquote feature like Warfronts, Island expedition, Torghast or covenants, and instead of that focuses on rebuilding and strenghtening the foundations with profession and talent revamps.

And given how much people disliked all of those mentioned on features, and the abysmal state of professions and borrowed power systems, I'd say DF priorities haev been chosen right.

[Nyel]

I'd say it just means the marketing team did a fine job selling the expansion to people.

This. And nothing else. An expansion can sell 3.5 million in 24h and still completely tank after the initial hype. We don't know and that's why these 24 hour sales do not matter at all.

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And given how much people disliked all of those mentioned on features, and the abysmal state of professions and borrowed power systems, I'd say DF priorities haev been chosen right.

That wasn't the initial argument though.

[Sondrelk]

All of what you listed is just an improvement of already existing stuff and not new. I don't want to degrade that per se, but it definitely is not a new approach or innovative new max level content, which was the thing a lot of players in this thread expected.

And Torghat was just an improvement on Island Expeditions, which were only an improvement on Scenarios, which were only an improvement on doing all quests in the regular instances open world.

Dragonriding is "only" an improvement on flying, but it's also a pretty massive improvement that makes that feature infinitely better.

The new talents are "only" an improvement on the old talents. But it's also a needed update that gives the players far more leeway in how to customize your spec.

Gradual improvements is how WoW gets better. Acting like they don't count is just disingenous.

[Nyel]

Seems like he is back to diminishing expansion with his "DF has nothing". How do these people operate, anyway? He and the likes of him post and discuss normally (or stay silent), then suddenly they go into "DF has nothing/will fail lol", making shit up as they go. "Dragonriding is useless and stolen from Guild Wars", "Evokers aren't content", "new talents wont change a thing" etc. Mood swingy af.

I just replied to another comment. That's all I did before y'all jumped on me and tried to downplay any criticism. By the way:

1. Dragonriding is stolen from Guild Wars 2 (fact).
2. Evokers aren't content, they're a feature (fact).

[Sondrelk]

It is true that Dragonflight lacks thw flashy new boxquote feature like Warfronts, Island expedition, Torghast or covenants, and instead of that focuses on rebuilding and strenghtening the foundations with profession and talent revamps.

And given how much people disliked all of those mentioned on features, and the abysmal state of professions and borrowed power systems, I'd say DF priorities haev been chosen right.

Dragonriding I would argue is that feature.
It massively improves on the awful older version of flying into something that can actually foster gameplay.

And yeah, not a box feature, but focusing on what players unquestionably want rather than take massive risks in terms of instances content gameplay is a massive improvement.

[Nyel]

Gradual improvements is how WoW gets better. Acting like they don't count is just disingenous.

How often do I have to repeat myself? I am not discounting that. I'm just saying improving old stuff doesn't replace the need for new stuff. Improvement should always be part of the game, that's mandatory and expected for a dinosaur that still charges $13 a month. That's the least they could do.

I mean I said I am excited for DF because of Evoker and the setting. Yet I'm somehow a hater or whatever because I voice valid criticism regarding the features of the game and Blizzard's lazy "less is more" approach of game design.

[Darkarath]

This is based on what exactly? I mean the beta doesn't support this at all. This is the hopetimism many here had around Dragonflight, but as of now it's based on basically nothing. Where does this sentiment come from?

This sentiment comes from:

1- Common sense. I guess that they know that if DF fails WoW is done for good. So they might want to support it at least at Legion levels.

2- Competition. Many good games out there, MMOs or not, if they want people playing WoW they have to improve how they support it. Its embarrasing how bad their content cadence is when compared with FFXIV. And most important, an MMO about LoL is coming and I bet that they are pretty scared because Riot is playing its cards very well.

3- Proletariat acquisition to support WoW exclusively.

4- Ion statements:

"We are looking into smaller, more frequent patches in Dragonflight".

"We’ve been working with Proletariat for a couple of months even though the acquisition was just finalized really recently. This is an investment in trying to give our players what they want and deserve: more content, fewer gaps in between, while maintaining a high level of quality and also making sure that we’re able to attend to the health of our team and give people breaks and downtime.

And so it’s really exciting to have all the folks from Proletariat coming on board, including a lot of real MMO veterans, folks who worked on games that predated World of Warcraft, in some cases, I was playing 20 years ago. It’s super exciting to have this infusion of talent and really there’s a lot of integration to do. Adding 100 people and merging studios and all of that is not something that happens without friction or happens overnight, but it’s been great so far. They are awesome humans and we all couldn’t be more excited to have them with us, and can’t be more excited what that’s going to mean for players of WoW in the future."

5- Mike Ybarra stating: "Proletariat is a perfect fit to help Blizzard in its mission to deliver high-quality content to our players on a more consistent basis."

6- WoW Executive Producer John Hight stating: "As you probably are aware, folks in World of Warcraft have a voracious appetite for content, and what we've seen over the last year is that we need to increase the amount of content that we can create, and the frequency with which we' re putting it in the hands of our players. That's one of the things that made this decision easy for us to start working with Proletariat, as they have a large remote work force."

I know that all the statements above do not necessarily mean anything, but giving WoW's current situation I am hopeful.

[Makabreska]

I just replied to another comment. That's all I did before y'all jumped on me and tried to downplay any criticism. By the way:

1. Dragonriding is stolen from Guild Wars 2 (fact).
2. Evokers aren't content, they're a feature (fact).

Must be nice to be so sure of facts, it really creates ground for discussion (also LOL at "stealing" DR). Your "criticism" is dishonestly disregarding every new feature DF has. Don't play a victim here.

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How often do I have to repeat myself? I am not discounting that. I'm just saying improving old stuff doesn't replace the need for new stuff. Improvement should always be part of the game, that's mandatory and expected for a dinosaur that still charges $13 a month. That's the least they could do.

I mean I said I am excited for DF because of Evoker and the setting. Yet I'm somehow a hater or whatever because I voice valid criticism regarding the features of the game and Blizzard's lazy "less is more" approach of game design.

Most of features from past expansions failed and annoyed people. So Blizz is going back to the roots to refine core mechanics, and I saw plenty players being glad with this approach. But apparently now it is a lazy game design.

[Shakzor]

Most of features from past expansions failed and annoyed people. So Blizz is going back to the roots to refine core mechanics, and I saw plenty players being glad with this approach. But apparently now it is a lazy game design.

I'm in the camp "thank god for no ap grinds", but they just cannot win.
They do stuff it's wrong and when they don't do something or change it, it's wrong aswell.
Look at mission tables. They were big in WoD and people didn't like it (and mostly offloaded it to addons) and then they became optional and people still bitched and moaned.
People complained about AP Grinds, now they do away and "omg, they lazy and no new content!" comes to light

[Nymrohd]

I'm in the camp "thank god for no ap grinds", but they just cannot win.
They do stuff it's wrong and when they don't do something or change it, it's wrong aswell.
Look at mission tables. They were big in WoD and people didn't like it (and mostly offloaded it to addons) and then they became optional and people still bitched and moaned.
People complained about AP Grinds, now they do away and "omg, they lazy and no new content!" comes to light

People are not a mass. Different people have different opinions. If after all these years Blizzard still doesn't have a competent feedback process that is on them, not on the community

[Caiphon]

I just replied to another comment. That's all I did before y'all jumped on me and tried to downplay any criticism. By the way:

1. Dragonriding is stolen from Guild Wars 2 (fact).
2. Evokers aren't content, they're a feature (fact).

Why not go all the way and claim classic WoW stole questing and raiding from Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot? There are many, many features that gaming companies 'borrow' off each other and that's completely legit as long as it's fun and doesn't infringe on copyright. League of Legends is completely based off a user-created mod of Warcraft 3, didn't stop it from becoming immensely popular.

And in a game where pretty much everyone has alts all over the place I'd say evokers do count as content. Also applies to pvp environments as you'll be fighting against them so it's kinda like a new mob or boss.

[Nyel]

But apparently now it is a lazy game design.

Because it is? It's the same Apple does with new iPhones and why people joke about 'em. There's nothing wrong with improving what you already have, but don't make that your "feature" and sell it as a new, fresh, innovative thing.

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Why not go all the way and claim classic WoW stole questing and raiding from Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot? There are many, many features that gaming companies 'borrow' off each other and that's completely legit as long as it's fun and doesn't infringe on copyright. League of Legends is completely based off a user-created mod of Warcraft 3, didn't stop it from becoming immensely popular.

And in a game where pretty much everyone has alts all over the place I'd say evokers do count as content. Also applies to pvp environments as you'll be fighting against them so it's kinda like a new mob or boss.

I think using general game design (aka Blizzard "stealing" the questing and raiding from Everquest) and blatantly ripping off very distinctive and special features (like GW2 flying) is a difference.

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I'm in the camp "thank god for no ap grinds", but they just cannot win.
They do stuff it's wrong and when they don't do something or change it, it's wrong aswell.
Look at mission tables. They were big in WoD and people didn't like it (and mostly offloaded it to addons) and then they became optional and people still bitched and moaned.
People complained about AP Grinds, now they do away and "omg, they lazy and no new content!" comes to light

The problem here is Blizzard's "all or nothing" approach. There is no middle ground for them. Overdose of daily quests - no daily quests. Overdose of borrowed power / AP grind - no borrowed power / AP grind. Overdose of features - no / barely any features.

If they would, after all these years, find a middle ground in their game design, people would definitely complain less. But they seem incapable of doing that and I don't know why.

[Dracullus]

People are not a mass. Different people have different opinions. If after all these years Blizzard still doesn't have a competent feedback process that is on them, not on the community

They literally listen to feedback and put smaller changes in patches, bigger in expansions. I put long list just from memory what positive changes SL made, especially in 9.0. Aaaand everyone ignored it and get back to bitching how Blizzard doesn't listen.

And only tiny fraction of feedback is useful. There are people that bitch about borrowed power and removing AP like system on same breath, there are people that complains about things that were fixed years ago (or fixed and reverted cause feedback turned out to be wrong), there is completely random noise that has nothing to do with reality (once I saw quit video where dude argued that... he HAS to farm Anima).

[Arkura]

Because it is? It's the same Apple does with new iPhones and why people joke about 'em. There's nothing wrong with improving what you already have, but don't make that your "feature" and sell it as a new, fresh, innovative thing.

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I think using general game design (aka Blizzard "stealing" the questing and raiding from Everquest) and blatantly ripping off very distinctive and special features (like GW2 flying) is a difference.

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The problem here is Blizzard's "all or nothing" approach. There is no middle ground for them. Overdose of daily quests - no daily quests. Overdose of borrowed power / AP grind - no borrowed power / AP grind. Overdose of features - no / barely any features.

If they would, after all these years, find a middle ground in their game design, people would definitely complain less. But they seem incapable of doing that and I don't know why.

If you have a solution to that peoblem then by all means share it. Its not an easy task to undertake.