Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Nyel]

Because we never had those things all together in one expansion when balance actually mattered. And you'd be very wrong with "stuff we already have now", it's only stuff we had at some point in the last three expansions.

So there's actually quite a lot of tuning needed.

No, it's not. Balance Druid has three "old" talents brought back and one completely new one. The rest is in the game right at this moment. There are 34 talents in the Balance tree of which four are not recent as of now. And it's not like it matters much anyway. It's the same for the other specs. The amount of old or completely new talents is negligible.

Tuning in Shadowlands where there were several progression systems was so much more than the small amount of tuning these talent trees require. Just look at them. We don't have a dedicated borrowed power system at max level. Tuning for Dragonflight will be one of their easiest jobs by how shallow the talent trees are in their respective design.

A system that was build on Talents -> Covenant skills -> Soulbinds / Conduits -> Legendaries required tons of tuning because of the dependencies of all the stuff. In Dragonflight none of this exists anymore. It's most likely the easiest time for the combat team since WoD, because all Legion, BfA and Shadowlands had way more complex and intricate systems to tune and balance.

[Nymrohd]

Because we never had those things all together in one expansion when balance actually mattered. And you'd be very wrong with "stuff we already have now", it's only stuff we had at some point in the last three expansions.

So there's actually quite a lot of tuning needed and your memory is crap.

It's not even just tuning. There are potential interactions between formerly mutually exclusive talents that can end up very, very bugged. Those can only be tested on beta to be fair.
Or I don't know, they can hire Rextroy.

[Nyel]

It's not even just tuning. There are potential interactions between formerly mutually exclusive talents that can end up very, very bugged. Those can only be tested on beta to be fair.
Or I don't know, they can hire Rextroy.

Can you give me one example that could potentially cause chaos that would require so much tuning? Because I don't see any. They already covered this by having the "choose-between-two-options" talents like New Moon / Fury of Elune or Incarnation / Invoke (so that you cannot stack cooldowns and create a window of massive burst or immortality or whatever). That's always the route they can take and that doesn't need testing anyway. So any potential "catastrophic" talent combination can be rendered useless by exactly doing that. And that boils down to just shuffling talents around.

[infinitemeridian]

I think Diablo 4 should be next. It would both built on and counter Diablo Immortal to do a reveal soon.

Overwatch 2 has an event on the 17th.

[Hitei]

Can you give me one example that could potentially cause chaos that would require so much tuning? Because I don't see any.

Every resto druid in pvp can now take an on command 40% sprint for shifting in and out of cat or travel form. They can also now take the permanent 15% movement speed increase from feral's affinity, and the 5yd range increase from balance affinity and the 6% total damage decrease from guardian's. The mini commanding shout in bear from found in conduits, and CD beacon of light talent they had in WoD.

Blood Death Knights can now take Will of the Necropolis, Anti-Magic Barrier and Mark of the Blood (their entire 35 talent row) at the same time. They can also take Wraith Walk, Grip of the Dead and Tightening Grasp (their entire 40 talent row) at the same time. In fact, as it stands, most classes will be able to spec into multiple talents or every talent from talent rows in the new system, including final tier talents.

Choice nodes existing doesn't prevent wild combinations when it doesn't matter if you pick Avalanche or Frozen Pulse, because you can still also pick either one AND Frostscythe.

Your assessment of this system shows a great degree of ignorance of the intricacies of tuning and balance, as well as a lack of understanding of how the new system works. It doesn't matter that the effects aren't new when the combinations available are things that have never been possible before outside of very specific tiers in torghast runs.

When your frost DK can now go Obliteration AND Breath of Sindragosa in one build, you have a huge amount of tuning ahead of you and the constant threat of absolutely wild combinations that, despite being the same talents as before, were previously totally impossible. When every spec has such wild combinations now available, you have as much or more tuning ahead of you as balancing a bunch of options (conduits, legendaries, covenant abilities) that are just adding a very self-contained additional damage output that you can buff or nerf without worrying about how suddenly a totally different build is rendered useless.


When the rogue tree is available and you realize that rogues will in all likelihood have grappling hook AND shadowstep AND probably acrobatic strikes and hit and run (causing Burst of Speed flashbacks), or that Arcane mages will probably be able to chose between Incanter's Flow and Rune of Power and then ALSO bring Focus Magic to a group.

You are going to realize that the same items in an entirely different selection process is not "lel a visual change"

[huth]

No, it's not. Balance Druid has three "old" talents brought back and one completely new one.

Yes, it is. Also, it's 3 new talents (Blessing of An'she/Elune, Syzygy), so you can't even count. There's also changes to existing abilities and the loss of soulbinds to consider, as well as Legendaries and set bonuses. All the changes combined lead to a major change to the overall situation, so even if things were balanced previously, they don't automatically are in DF.
We'll also as usual will drop quite a bit on secondaries, leading to different dynamics. For Balance, Mastery will be considerably weaker until we can rebuild it due to the way it scales for us.

So it's mostly you not being able to think outside your tiny little box. Shallow indeed, but not the design.

[Khaza-R]

Man and I was feeling like I was being overly skeptical with the whole "breadcrumb things with one to two talent trees a week" thing.

I think people are off base expecting weekly updates with the talent trees. They pretty much said these trees are very much just prototypes. I don't see them going full throttle developing trees for every class when they don't even know if this is the format they want to use yet.

[Makabreska]

When the rogue tree is available and you realize that rogues will in all likelihood have grappling hook AND shadowstep AND probably acrobatic strikes and hit and run (causing Burst of Speed flashbacks), or that Arcane mages will probably be able to chose between Incanter's Flow and Rune of Power and then ALSO bring Focus Magic to a group.

You are going to realize that the same items in an entirely different selection process is not "lel a visual change"

Yup. Shits gonna be wild. On one hand I am excited for things like that, on the other, Blizz is asking for trouble. But overall and as it is, I like new talents.

[Dracullus]

So looks like talents blogs won't be regular weekly thing. I still expect Alpha launching ~mid July though, but that makes exact date harder to guess.

[puddypounce]

Just because they are the same design concept doesn't mean they have the same tuning. They can't just drop legendary effects as is in the tree because legendaries have different power budgets.

So yes, basically every talent needs tuning passes.

[Ersula]

I expect that too, because that’s the reason Shadowlands suffered. And as mentioned, Dragonflight has zero (!) progression on max level. There’s just nothing but gear treadmill.

Shadowlands has that. Everything else at max level is just an illusion. They're removing the facade of timegated bs.

[Dracullus]

And as mentioned, Dragonflight has zero (!) progression on max level. There’s just nothing but gear treadmill.

Wait a moment. Having to grind other types of content than you prefer and lower difficulties that you are geared for was main BfA complain. In SL they removed grind, kept systems. Then complexity of systems were main SL complain. In DF they do EXACTLY what people wanted - to keep progression simple, just level, then pick right talents for situation in single window and gear up (from multiple sources and with tier gear of course).

Doesn't mean DF has zero progression outside. We know about professions with talent trees, dragon riding and switching zone reputations to renown like system with cosmetic and gear rewards.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I'm gonna be honest, I take Dragonflight as a chance to see if Blizzard can slow down and actually do 3 major patches again while also seeing if they try a better approach to handling the community.

But yeah, I mean I think people still forget theres' a World Content Team and again here's the direct quote about that team:

World of Warcraft is also taking the overhauls to the sandbox experience from Legion and enhancing them in further Dragonflight. According to Feasel, World of Warcraft has staffed a content team whose focus is on the overworld experience. These individuals are focusing on creating fun activities to explore and discover.

Engaging rare spawns, jumping puzzles, rock climbing, and Dragonriding points of interest were some examples given, but Feasel also teased the addition of Dragon Racing. Though in the early stages of development, World of Warcraft hopes to make competitive Dragon Racing tournaments using the new Dragonriding system, taking inspiration from the Fishing Tournaments already in game.

[Kiivar86]

I think people are off base expecting weekly updates with the talent trees. They pretty much said these trees are very much just prototypes. I don't see them going full throttle developing trees for every class when they don't even know if this is the format they want to use yet.

Maybe, but I expected something at least, and we didn't get much of anything, right? (This has been a busy week at work so I don't recall at least)

[Dracullus]

I'm gonna be honest, I take Dragonflight as a chance to see if Blizzard can slow down and actually do 3 major patches again while also seeing if they try a better approach to handling the community.

But yeah, I mean I think people still forget theres' a World Content Team and again here's the direct quote about that team:

I don't think DF will have some revolution with world content. If you watch closely, with every expansion there is more and more casual stuff to do in open world. In Legion only Argus was filled with cosmetics, mostly mounts. In BfA Warfronts (zones), 8.2 and 8.3.

In SL first time every single zone has ton of stuff like this, often it's not just rare drop but some puzzle or treasure hunt. Also every covenant have some casual special piece of content.

In DF good step would be expanding casual content, give every zone at least 1-2 activities similar to Venthyr party or Kyrian arena. Also, while they sort out UI, it would be great to implement addon like HandyNotes/Rarescanner into base game. Lot of people don't even notice many casual content.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I don't think DF will have some revolution with world content. If you watch closely, with every expansion there is more and more casual stuff to do in open world. In Legion only Argus was filled with cosmetics, mostly mounts. In BfA Warfronts (zones), 8.2 and 8.3.

In SL first time every single zone has ton of stuff like this, often it's not just rare drop but some puzzle or treasure hunt. Also every covenant have some casual special piece of content.

In DF good step would be expanding casual content, give every zone at least 1-2 activities similar to Venthyr party or Kyrian arena. Also, while they sort out UI, it would be great to implement addon like HandyNotes/Rarescanner into base game. Lot of people don't even notice many casual content.

World content does need more stuff to do but don't ask me how I'd do it cause I don't know.

[Nyel]

Wait a moment. Having to grind other types of content than you prefer and lower difficulties that you are geared for was main BfA complain. In SL they removed grind, kept systems. Then complexity of systems were main SL complain. In DF they do EXACTLY what people wanted - to keep progression simple, just level, then pick right talents for situation in single window and gear up (from multiple sources and with tier gear of course).

Doesn't mean DF has zero progression outside. We know about professions with talent trees, dragon riding and switching zone reputations to renown like system with cosmetic and gear rewards.

What I meant is some kind of character progression that's not solely about item level. We had that in every expansion since Legion. I know the issues of borrowed power systems and they've been explained a lot, but in Dragonflight we go from one extreme to another.

You character progression in Legion, BfA and Shadowlands basically started at max level and was absent during leveling. In Dragonflight it's the exact opposite, your character progression is during leveling while it comes to a complete halt at max level. And I expect this to be a major issue because there's no ongoing development of your spec / character besides getting better gear. Your class just stays exactly the same the first time you reach max level during the course of the entire expansion. After 6 years of borrowed power I am pretty sure the majority of players will not see this positively.

I'm not advocating for borrowed power, god forbig, I'm just saying that your class / spec should still evolve after max level. And in Dragonflight that's just not the case (at least not what we've been shown). They can implement something in 10.1 etc. sure, like Essences or whatever, but with the information we have now max level in Dragonflight seems to be very... boring. No solo endgame content akin to expeditions or Torghast, no class progression, nothing. Just gear treadmill.

[Dracullus]

@Nyel You ARE advocating for borrowed power. You want power progression different than gear after max level. What you expect from people to do when 11.0 will launch? Grind all these max level stuff?

Because you know, gear/item level is 'borrowed power' as well, just more natural and acceptable. And no one said our playstyle won't change whole expansion, that's job for different tier sets.

[Lady Atia]

What I meant is some kind of character progression that's not solely about item level. We had that in every expansion since Legion. I know the issues of borrowed power systems and they've been explained a lot, but in Dragonflight we go from one extreme to another.

You character progression in Legion, BfA and Shadowlands basically started at max level and was absent during leveling. In Dragonflight it's the exact opposite, your character progression is during leveling while it comes to a complete halt at max level. And I expect this to be a major issue because there's no ongoing development of your spec / character besides getting better gear. Your class just stays exactly the same the first time you reach max level during the course of the entire expansion. After 6 years of borrowed power I am pretty sure the majority of players will not see this positively.

I'm not advocating for borrowed power, god forbig, I'm just saying that your class / spec should still evolve after max level. And in Dragonflight that's just not the case (at least not what we've been shown). They can implement something in 10.1 etc. sure, like Essences or whatever, but with the information we have now max level in Dragonflight seems to be very... boring. No solo endgame content akin to expeditions or Torghast, no class progression, nothing. Just gear treadmill.

Sadly, no one besides a few people liked stuff like island expeditions or torghast, and while I enjoyed them stuff like visions can stay away from the game for good if you ask me. Same goes for any kind of "expansion wide borrowed power". It's fine if we "only" have to level and gear up, that's why the game has alts afterall. And as Dracullus said, tier sets will handle the "change your spec during an expansion" issue.

And with fated raids at the end of an expansion you will have atleast 3 or more different tier set builds for your spec, which is actually quite awesome and diablo like, especially if they manage to balance them for different niches.

[Nymrohd]

@Nyel You ARE advocating for borrowed power. You want power progression different than gear after max level. What you expect from people to do when 11.0 will launch? Grind all these max level stuff?

Because you know, gear/item level is 'borrowed power' as well, just more natural and acceptable. And no one said our playstyle won't change whole expansion, that's job for different tier sets.

I had this idea. What if the "borrowed power" was actually talent points. You could grind 5-10 additional talent points by hitting different targets throughout the xpac. Next xpac, if you have gained the talent points, when you get to those levels you gain nothing (but you also lose nothing). MEanwhile new players/alts will get those talents points by leveling. So you are not getting borrowed power, rather you get early access