Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[FelPlague]

Are we getting a build today?

wednesday.

[huth]

Worthless? They altered the playstyle as much as the new talent trees do, if not more lol. And as I said, if they would have done them right, they could have been a thing to stay for years, an alternative progression system. Addind a few nodes each content patch and adding a complete new region or layout with each expansion.

They didn't really "alter" playstyles since they were the same for every user of the spec. Expanded may work, but playstyles didn't vary between users of a spec much.

The new talent trees at least theoretically allow for actual variation since you can never have all talents. In practice, the vast majority will likely use pre-built setups, switching by situation if they have half a clue.

[Dracullus]

Remember that new talents are not only for endgame, but leveling as well. Even if some lower talents are 'mandatory' because you must spend points on them at some point, they still exist to bring back this feeling of geting new point to spend every level.

[Makabreska]

Worthless? They altered the playstyle as much as the new talent trees do, if not more lol. And as I said, if they would have done them right, they could have been a thing to stay for years, an alternative progression system. Addind a few nodes each content patch and adding a complete new region or layout with each expansion.

No, they did not alter play style more than DF talents. Most of the talents were flat dmg increase and every spec at the end of Season 1 had all talents taken, so there was zero variety. Meanwhile, new talents have choices AND combine powers from 3 + expansions in a way we never had before. Not sure what's your fascination with Artifacts here, when it was a literally "fill it up and forget" thing.

[Makorus]

Because it feels nice to fill stuff up.

A lot of people will stop playing the game because they think they hated filling stuff up, but secretly, that was the only reason they played the game.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Worthless? They altered the playstyle as much as the new talent trees do, if not more lol. And as I said, if they would have done them right, they could have been a thing to stay for years, an alternative progression system. Addind a few nodes each content patch and adding a complete new region or layout with each expansion.

They didn't alter the playstyle at all they were the core playstyle and there was no variation in them once you filled out the tree, they were functionally no different then you just getting a couple of ability's or passives while lvling like in wod but instead you had to grind for a week or two at max.

and just adding a couple of crappy nodes that you need to grind for like they did in legion patches is awful design.

[Reive]

The rpg side of artifacts was good. In terms of actual gameplay? They were dogshit. They didn't alter the playstyle of a class, just made it playable. Many classes straight up didn't work without certain traits

[Revamp Man]

ZM had no gearing progression, as you do not need gear to play ZM. Progression would be if you needed gear from ZM to play a higher level of ZM content. You can play ZM literally in greens and need no gear to master or even play it.

Once again, it is not about gear for the sake of gear, but about getting gear to play higher levels of your gameplay. Gear needs a use. Welfare epics have no use.

Gear in ZM had multiple levels unlocked by playing ZM
The more gear you had the more enemies you could defeat yourself

But please tell me how a system that does the same as instanced group gear progression isn't gear progression because you don't like it

[Nymrohd]

Because it feels nice to fill stuff up.

A lot of people will stop playing the game because they think they hated filling stuff up, but secretly, that was the only reason they played the game.

Pretty much. A lot of people want to be told what to do and giving clear daily tasks achieves that

[8bithamster]

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).

And gw2 stole it from other games....

[Nymrohd]

Gear in ZM had multiple levels unlocked by playing ZM
The more gear you had the more enemies you could defeat yourself

But please tell me how a system that does the same as instanced group gear progression isn't gear progression because you don't like it

Zereth Mortis' gear system was solid, it's only issue was that you could grind it out too fast/it had a low cap.

[Nyel]

Meanwhile, new talents have choices AND combine powers from 3 + expansions in a way we never had before. Not sure what's your fascination with Artifacts here, when it was a literally "fill it up and forget" thing.

A little imagination on your side would help greatly here. Artifacts back in Legion had exactly what was available back then. Talent trees right now are filled with things from Legion, BfA and Shadowlands. For sure the upcoming talent trees are more complex, because there is three times the stuff they can fill it with. That's why I said if they would have build up on that system and planned it for the future, it would be exactly like the talent trees we get in Dragonflight.

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They didn't alter the playstyle at all they were the core playstyle and there was no variation in them once you filled out the tree, they were functionally no different then you just getting a couple of ability's or passives while lvling like in wod but instead you had to grind for a week or two at max.

and just adding a couple of crappy nodes that you need to grind for like they did in legion patches is awful design.

Oh, so they are like the new talent trees? Uhm, interesting. I give you that there are more builds available with the new talent trees, but that's solely due to them containing stuff from 3+ expansions.

How do you think they'll expand the talent tree in the expansion after DF? Ah right, by adding a couple of crappy nodes at the bottom that you need to grind (aka level) for to access them.

- - - Updated - - -

Who cares if Dragonriding was taken from GW2...

The old saying literally goes "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and WoW did exactly that looool

I'm actually happy they did this. Now GW2 isn't the only MMO with an actual fun mount system anymore lol

I'm not disagreeing with you on this. Luckily they took the best system and copied it in that case. The main complaint was that it's a blatant rip off where they put 0 imagination and creativity into, not that the system is bad.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

My concern about Dragonriding is that it seems that you control the direction the dragon flies by aiming your camera. The camera seems to always be behind the dragon. Part of what made flying in GW2 so cool was that you could control the mount by holding V to dive and X to ascend, but you could move your mouse around and see your mount diving at different angles, and it flowed so smoothly. If you can only precisely control your dragon by aiming the camera then that's going to feel meh.

[huth]

A little imagination on your side would help greatly here. Artifacts back in Legion had exactly what was available back then. Talent trees right now are filled with things from Legion, BfA and Shadowlands. For sure the upcoming talent trees are more complex, because there is three times the stuff they can fill it with. That's why I said if they would have build up on that system and planned it for the future, it would be exactly like the talent trees we get in Dragonflight.

No, it wouldn't. The design intent behind them is different. With Artifacts, you were always supposed to be able to fill them out eventually. With the talent trees, you're not meant to be able to.

[Nymrohd]

It's not the skyscale. It's not Griffon riding. It's Dragonriding.

Hey if it's successful we can hope it will also be gryphon riding! Rather not ride a griffon though, they are fairly small dogs

[Kiria]

Not only is that argument ironic, it's also laughable.

You do realise he's not wrong and Blizz have already stated there will a be a process to turn normal gear into tier pieces again so Tier pieces are much easier to get than grinding out millions of xp/ap for a small boost in power.

[Nymrohd]

You do realise he's not wrong and Blizz have already stated there will a be a process to turn normal gear into tier pieces again so Tier pieces are much easier to get than grinding out millions of xp/ap for a small boost in power.

Which is a very new change. From Vanilla till Legion when we had tier sets, they have always been borrowed power, accessible only through raids and through RNG, substantial gains in power that were only there for patch, so substantial that they often had to be nerfed in the following patch and even then in Legion so many specs used TWO tier sets at once. Heck BfA sort of kept the concept with the raids having unique Azerite traits on their gear that were very powerful and were borrowed power upon borrowed power.

I will keep on saying, the problem was not borrowed power it was how it was acquired/restrictions on top of it/multiple systems at once. The three expansions that had max level progression systems outside gear all had multiple instances of the problems above. Instead of throwing away a concept that was never really tested in a simple format, we could actually try a more simple version of it for once.

[Lady Atia]

Which is a very new change. From Vanilla till Legion when we had tier sets, they have always been borrowed power, accessible only through raids and through RNG, substantial gains in power that were only there for patch, so substantial that they often had to be nerfed in the following patch and even then in Legion so many specs used TWO tier sets at once. Heck BfA sort of kept the concept with the raids having unique Azerite traits on their gear that were very powerful and were borrowed power upon borrowed power.

I will keep on saying, the problem was not borrowed power it was how it was acquired/restrictions on top of it/multiple systems at once. The three expansions that had max level progression systems outside gear all had multiple instances of the problems above. Instead of throwing away a concept that was never really tested in a simple format, we could actually try a more simple version of it for once.

No, the big problem of borrowed power was that you farmed something that got tossed away the next expansion without giving you anything. Again, atleast with tier sets / gear you keep the transmog, which wasn't the case for artifact power / azerite stuff / soulbinds. All in all, your precious borrowed power was just a big waste of time that made people play less alts than they would have liked to because the barrier of entry was too big. Horrible design, and I hope we will never get it again.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Oh, so they are like the new talent trees? Uhm, interesting. I give you that there are more builds available with the new talent trees, but that's solely due to them containing stuff from 3+ expansions.

How do you think they'll expand the talent tree in the expansion after DF? Ah right, by adding a couple of crappy nodes at the bottom that you need to grind (aka level) for to access them.

No they weren’t like new talents as talents give you choice and let you change them and effect your playstyle when you do so and artifacts never did that they were just the core class design locked behind a grind with no variety at all.

And with any luck when they expand the talent trees they will add in talents that actually give new play styles and choices you can mix and match something artifacts never did.

[hulkgor]

You do realise he's not wrong and Blizz have already stated there will a be a process to turn normal gear into tier pieces again so Tier pieces are much easier to get than grinding out millions of xp/ap for a small boost in power.

Erm, and how exactly is that -not- a borrowed power, where at the end of its shelve life duration, you have it removed? Is it ease of obtainability the issue? Aren't legendaries right now much easier to obtain than even set items from catalyst creator, despite their gold cost? Isn't that 'better' in his argument?

But sure, let's just keep cherry picking and being ignorant about it.

Borrowed Powers are great. They just shouldn't have infinite grinds (with minimal gains) attached to them like Legion Artifact weapon or BFA Neck had. Every other one is great, be it Corruptions, Azerite Powers, Essences, Covenants, etc. Bring them on, just make them a non-concern for Alts (make them account wide, win).