Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Nyel]

This post will probably upset some people, but I hope no one is delusional enough to think 9.1.5 can compete with Endwalker. WoW will continue bleeding subs until at the very earliest 9.2, and that's only if the patch brings actual fundamental change to the game design.

So far, they have only catered to the people who still stuck with Shadowlands but didn't enjoy it quite as much as they wanted to. They haven't even begun catering to the millions who quit since launch of the expansion who found SL to be completely unpalatable.

I really don’t think Blizzard is in the state to compete with any of its MMORPG competitors right now, especially not with Final Fantasy XIV. Why try when you only can lose this time? 9.2 might launch right next to End of Dragons in Q1/22, but that’s about it. 9.1.5 has zero content, therefore it’s not meant to bring anyone back, just to keep players that are still left playing.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I know some people are not gonna like this post, but around this time in every other expansion, we would be having leaks dropping everywhere, left and right.

Also, nothing but radio silence about Blizzconline. I wonder if we're going to have one after all...

I'm sad. I'm starting to think that things aren't going to get back to normal anytime soon. I mean, it's been three months already since the exodus begun and two months since the drama started, but it feels like we're still at day one.

It's 25 September already, time is flying, Q4 is already here.

We are still in a pandemic, and a wfh like world. Things are different. The sky isn't falling.

[Raetary]

Endwalker FFXIV November 23rd...

Which is also a tuesday, and 2 weeks before legion timewalking
I really hope Blizzard isn't dumb enough to consider pushing the patch parallel to the FF release in their current state.

[Dracullus]

Which is also a tuesday, and 2 weeks before legion timewalking
I really hope Blizzard isn't dumb enough to consider pushing the patch parallel to the FF release in their current state.

First let's see if FF14 expansion will be actually big deal. So far we had people trying FF14 free period as FOTM game, it's not WoW situation where people are cought up and waiting year for next expac. Imo New World release will be bigger deal even if hype will be short lived.

Personally I hope 9.1.5 will be on 19th October and time around FF14 will be 9.2 reveal + PTR. 9.1.5 on FF14 week would take some people who play both games, but still even Legion M+ and Mage Tower are not interesting enough to make you resub.

Also don't treat this dates from PTR seriously. Member how we all jumped on dates in SL Beta that didn't fit both for original and delayed release dates? Beside Legion on patch release will be both on schedule with other timewalking and separate two week event on launch of patch.

[Kereberus]

Too bad FFXIV is only worth it for the MSQ and then just unsubbing.

[Cherry123]

9.1.5 zero content and wait 2 months for it?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Something to hold over for 9.2 but people here may never change.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Which is also a tuesday, and 2 weeks before legion timewalking
I really hope Blizzard isn't dumb enough to consider pushing the patch parallel to the FF release in their current state.

Oh they're dumb enough.

But surely they won't delay 9.2 by waiting that long to launch a minor patch, right? Surely their November drop will just be the 9.2 reveal, right?


RIGHT!?

[Dracullus]

Oh they're dumb enough.

But surely they won't delay 9.2 by waiting that long to launch a minor patch, right? Surely their November drop will just be the 9.2 reveal, right?


RIGHT!?

Why you say it would be dumb from their POV? Obviously it won't make MMO community to say "screw this new expac thing, let's farm alts and Mage Tower in WoW". But many people who play both WoW and FF14 (and like WoW little more) would obviously pick limited time event in WoW than expac in FF14 that can wait. So it would take some hype from FF expac, it's not black&white situation.

And I repeat - it isn't something I would want, just don't get why it would be "dumb" for them.

[Raetary]

The patch is not gonna launch with legion timewalking active, so there is no incentive to log on for patch week.
And no sane person, that plays both games, is seriously gonna pick a lousy minor patch to grind covenant cosmetics, over an expansion worth of content in Endwalker.

The whole point of parallel releases is fighting for attention and forcing players to decide where they spend their money, but that does not work when one product is an objectively worse option.

[Dracullus]

The patch is not gonna launch with legion timewalking active, so there is no incentive to log on for patch week.
And no sane person, that plays both games, is seriously gonna pick a lousy minor patch to grind covenant cosmetics, over an expansion worth of content in Endwalker.

The whole point of parallel releases is fighting for attention and forcing players to decide where they spend their money, but that does not work when one product is an objectively worse option.

1. It is launching with Legion timewalking. And it will last first 2 weeks before it will fall into usual schedule with other expacs.

2. I say it's not black&white and you people always do that. Some people play both WoW and FF14, some only one game, there are also people who mainly play WoW, but play FF14 if there's nothing to do in WoW. This kind of people would be interested more in 9.1.5 or 9.2 PTR over FF14 expac.

Not to mention there are always WoW players who will hear about FF14 first time around expac release and will try it if there will be nothing new on WoW around that time.

But it isn't a rule Blizzard always release something around launches like that. On New World launch all they have is new TBC season.. which not many people cares about.

[huth]

The patch is not gonna launch with legion timewalking active, so there is no incentive to log on for patch week.

They literally told us that there will be an out of schedule 2 week Legion TW event on patch release so people can see the new stuff immediately.

[Seasz]

I'm still convinced that Torghast is the mirror image / Shadowlands version of Icecrown Citadel. It would be a shame if they don't do anything with this:

They already did in p1 of Sylvanas fight.

[Sondrelk]

They literally told us that there will be an out of schedule 2 week Legion TW event on patch release so people can see the new stuff immediately.

Still, that could be interpreted in several ways. Could mean the obvious with the event taking place literally right as the patch releases, or also likely being that we have to wait a week or two before the rotation actually begins. Both are equally as useful for players that want to give the Timewalking stuff a go right away.

[Alanar]

Oh, it's clear why - you don't earn them. Artifact would be pretty pointless as well if everyone get free point every week. Personally I would prefer if you had to earn them like in Legion, but with whole system account wide.

I agree, in fact I liked the Artifact system! The system made you care, because it would eventually make the weapon stronger and most importantly you used it all the time. It kept me engaged and wanting to play, which is HUGE in a game like this when it literally requires you to do activities to earn stuff on a daily basis. The pretty big extra talent tree was very cool throughout the first few patches.

I mean sure, it would feel better if we earn the actual items, the intro and later weekly quests for every artifact really helped in the sense you realy wanted to do them for your next upgrade. The system we have right now just feel meaningless.. even in 9.0 it never really felt I needed the covenant or I could really dive into their culture, things just feel very limited to what you can actually do there. Everything is optional and therefor don't matter, which is the worst outcome of it just being optional. People just end up doing the same old, raids and mythic+ and even for cosmetics options nothing really jumps out imo.

I can rattle on, but I had hoped for a bit more depth and not so much spread out in pointless currencies and system that simply don't feel rewarding at all. You start to not care which is a shame. Also yes on done once, account wide for the rest. The intro experience priio new fate was just.. killing it for me.

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Removing gear drops from M+ wouldnt hurt it if they replaced the gear drops with cosmetics. Xmogs, enchants, mounts, titles, etc. M+ is designed to be competitive. Has been from the start. Past a certain point, the rewards should no longer be player power. Same as pvp.

I do think mythic + is a good place to work with a system like reknown. The higher level you get would be equal to reknown for example and you get rewarded per lvl. The problem we would get tho is that we would be left with just raids for gear. Which doesn't seem to be what the community wants tho.

[Sondrelk]

I dunno about the artifact system. It's true that it was more exciting than the Azerite system or Soulbind system in being exciting to upgrade, but the issue then is that you quickly run into burnout when upgrades are so good players feel compelled to grind content they dislike to service the content they do like.

It is definitely true that Artifact power was far more enjoyable to get in Legion than Anima is in SL, but that doesn't mean the grind in Legion was good.

[Recovery]

I agree, in fact I liked the Artifact system! The system made you care, because it would eventually make the weapon stronger and most importantly you used it all the time. It kept me engaged and wanting to play, which is HUGE in a game like this when it literally requires you to do activities to earn stuff on a daily basis. The pretty big extra talent tree was very cool throughout the first few patches.

I mean sure, it would feel better if we earn the actual items, the intro and later weekly quests for every artifact really helped in the sense you realy wanted to do them for your next upgrade. The system we have right now just feel meaningless.. even in 9.0 it never really felt I needed the covenant or I could really dive into their culture, things just feel very limited to what you can actually do there. Everything is optional and therefor don't matter, which is the worst outcome of it just being optional. People just end up doing the same old, raids and mythic+ and even for cosmetics options nothing really jumps out imo.

I can rattle on, but I had hoped for a bit more depth and not so much spread out in pointless currencies and system that simply don't feel rewarding at all. You start to not care which is a shame. Also yes on done once, account wide for the rest. The intro experience priio new fate was just.. killing it for me.

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I do think mythic + is a good place to work with a system like reknown. The higher level you get would be equal to reknown for example and you get rewarded per lvl. The problem we would get tho is that we would be left with just raids for gear. Which doesn't seem to be what the community wants tho.

If they took gear drops from mythic + then there would no longer be a need for such dramatic increases in ilvl between raid difficulties. Think about it. IF mythic 0 offered for example, 200 ilvl (could be the same as LFR). Then normal raid could drop 213, heroic 226, mythic 239. It was this way in the past, ya know.

Farm heroic dungeons, use normal raid and justice / valor vendors to gear after that. move on to heroic. There are honestly 2 raid difficulties that are usless. LFR and NORMAL.

Wow would be just fine with gearing sources for PVE only coming from heroic / mythic) dungeon, world quests, and raid.

Give PVE heroes some prestigious and heroic cosmetic options to work toward.

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If you remove gear from m+ you pretty much just kill it for all people that no longer want to engage with the fixed raiding schedule, which is quite alot of people. I certainly know my m+ crew would just stop playing wow at all, since half of us don't raid at all anymore.

Here's an idea. Remove the need for gear from mythic plus. Make it a test of skill rather than a test of gear. Dont increase mob HP and damage. Change mechanics. Make Mythic plus require skill.

Then, your group wont need the gear it drops. OR do you only play for shiny oversaturated purple titled pieces of gear?

Just replace those pretty purple item names to sick titles, sick mounts, sick transmogs, etc.. That you can ONLY get from being the best of the best at mythic plus. This is so simple.

[Raetary]

If they ever want to return to some artifact-esque system, borrowed or not, i hope they do it via class relics.

Just so we can have a personalized system again.

Gameplay aside, one reason why the artifacts were so well received was due to how personal they were.

Artifacts were those big, flashy, customizable weapons, with lots of story and personality. (literally, for some weapons).
The game made it very clear that those weren't just "some" weapons, they were 'our' weapons and 'our' power, that grew and changed alongside us while also allowing us to customize them, making us form an attachment to them.

Azerite failed miserably in that regard.
It was an invisible necklace that barely did anything until 8.2.
Didn't help that it was 'literal' borrowed power and not just in-concept, with absolutely no personality other than Magnis constant screeching about snorting azerite.

The covenant system is the traumatized child of the 2.
Its very cosmetic and has some personality, but suffers just as much from it so obviously being 'borrowed' and bound to go away.
Most of the Soulbinds aren't tied to any actual character making them feel like glorified stack sticks (which... they are, but they could've not felt as such)
And because they had to distribute player power between the covenants, a lot of players just pick whatever icy-veins tells them to instead of going for the one that actually interests them visually/storywise and just never ends up caring for them due to that.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Here's an idea. Remove the need for gear from mythic plus. Make it a test of skill rather than a test of gear. Dont increase mob HP and damage. Change mechanics. Make Mythic plus require skill.

No that would make Mythic+ participation just drop absolutely. This is a loot based game, removing the loot isn't going to help..at all. Its one thing to have the gear item level to cap to a certain Mythic+ level its another to just remove the gear from the M+ dungeons.

[Dracullus]

I dunno about the artifact system. It's true that it was more exciting than the Azerite system or Soulbind system in being exciting to upgrade, but the issue then is that you quickly run into burnout when upgrades are so good players feel compelled to grind content they dislike to service the content they do like.

It is definitely true that Artifact power was far more enjoyable to get in Legion than Anima is in SL, but that doesn't mean the grind in Legion was good.

Still situation when tryhards (cause AK exist, no one had to farm AP 24/7) throw themself into Maw of Souls situation + normal people can do varied content to upgrade their character is better than situation from 9.0: comfortable life for tryhards + casual people completing their weekly progression in two hours. Cause tryhards always have 1000 other stuff to complain about (even completely minor thing like conduit energy was made into major problem) and casuals will just quit.

Of course situation is far better in S2, Renown takes little more effort, Torghast (although far from perfect) is better and you can make from it casual progression path, Korthia gear is great both as catch up and casual progression path, M+ is easier for people who want to participate. But first impression is always most important.

Also it's true that we cared more about weapon traits than soulbinds traits, but they felt connected to weapon. You don't give a shit about most of your soulbinds, even if covenant spells + soulbinds + conduit are almost the same (mechanically) as artifact active trait + passive traits + relics.

If they ever want to return to some artifact-esque system, borrowed or not, i hope they do it via class relics.

Problem is, community will react REEEEEEE to any mention of borrowed power. Even if no one invented yet different solution for never ending progression game like WoW.

In 10.0 their will either somehow hide next "borrowed power" or move problem to future expansions when cut will be needed.