What Shadowlands Should Have Been (IMO)

[NineSpine]

As someone who has worked in game design, I thought it would be fun to break down what I see as the problems with SL and how I think the expansion should have been handled. I'm going to avoid my general criticisms of broader trans-expansion systems like my issues with M+ and the number of raid difficulties. This is strictly my opinion on shadowlands-specific content and systems, and how I would have leveraged them differently to make a better game.

Covenants

They just don't deliver on the promise of making players feel distinct. Sure, some of the abilities are cool, but the Sanctums are fairly bland and feel like a mash of poorly associated systems. These systems are not necessarily individually bad, but I think that there is a context that exposes an underlying problem with the game, and that context is to imagine if these same systems were advancements of existing systems rather than entirely new things. I'll run through them, with the idea in mind that covenants just shouldn't exist as a choice players make.

Renown

Put simply: Why isn't this just the new reputation system? Reputation has barely changed in many, many years. Renown, with its more granular bonuses in addition to the usual vendor-purchased unlocks, is a lot more interesting than reputation. It could have replaced the reputation system entirely with the following design:

1. Renown works largely as it does now in terms of having lots of granular points of advancement combined with vendor unlocks at certain breakpoints.
2. Renown is advanced through reputation instead of the current advancement system, something along the lines of one renown per 1000 rep.
3. At certain points in the track, a quest or dungeon or something like that would have to be completed to advance the track. While at this breakpoint, rep could still be acquired and banked for advancement after the breakpoint.
4. Every reputation in SL would work like this.
5. Every patch, the max renown for every faction would increase with new rewards.

Soulbinds

First of all, these are very bland and just shouldn't exist. However, the conduits could be leveraged into a more interesting system. What I would do is the following:

1. Certain gear slots would have conduit slots, such as a weapon allowing you to socket one conduit into it.
2. Conduits would unlock largely as they do now.
3. You would visit some kind of kiosk to socket known conduits into your gear.

OR

1. The conduit effects are just plain intrinsic features of gear and adapt based on class and spec.
2. No randomness!

Legendaries

It's super weird to have players go to an NPC to craft legendaries when players themselves have crafting professions. He should be TEACHING crafters to make these legendaries, not making them for us.

1. There should be a component the crafter brings and a component the "receiver" of the legendary brings.
2. They should be crafted in such a way that they can't be sold on the AH.

Sanctums

This will probably be controversial, but I think this was a good opportunity for guilds to make a decision. I think sanctums should have been guild housing for the expansion. I know there's a lot of friction here (what if I want a different sanctum than my guildmaster) but I think that it would be beneficial to the game to allow guilds to make decisions like this that impact players, especially when the decisions would ultimately be as low impact as this.

1. Through some mechanism, your guild chooses a sanctum as their primary sanctum for the guild.
2. The guild builds up guild reputation with that sanctum to unlock cosmetic enhancements for the sanctum, and convenience boosts like portals. Perhaps even personal cosmetics (like mounts), although that is touchier.
3. Guild achievements could be expanded based on this system to make some sanctum improvements based on guild accomplishments.

Covenant Activities

I'm referring to the special activities for each covenant. These should have just been available to everyone who wants to do them. Not a lot to say beyond that.

Covenant Abilities

As stated before, I don't think soulbinds should exist. BFA already had a form of customization that worked. It was Essences. While the system could use some finagling, and obviously shouldn't be tied to the necklace anymore, I think the system should have stuck around. WoW is sorely lacking long term trans-expansion horizontal progression, such as unlocking more abilities. The essence system would have worked great for the covenant abiliites.

1. Keep the Essence system, possibly expand it to allow two majors and three minors, and obviously nix azerite or any other grinding unlocks on it.
2. Add new essences that you obtain and upgrade through covenant renown. These would be the covenant abilities we have now.
3. Let us keep the essences. Expand the system expansion over expansion. This is how you expand character abilities without bloat.

Anima

This is junk. Get rid of it. It's unnecessary. Everything it is used to unlock could better be done by folding it into the renown system.

That's all I have right now. Proceed to flame me and tell me I don't know what I am talking about. I expect nothing less.

[arkanon]

Soulbinds

First of all, these are very bland and just shouldn't exist.


Anima

This is junk. Get rid of it. It's unnecessary.

So your "solution" is just to remove a bunch of stuff you dont like, with a few minor tweaks to existing systems...An interesting perspective....

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

That's all I have right now. Proceed to flame me and tell me I don't know what I am talking about. I expect nothing less.

If that's all you expected then why even make this thread?

[Ashenhoof]

Sounds terrible, thanks

[NineSpine]

So your "solution" is just to remove a bunch of stuff you dont like, with a few minor tweaks to existing systems...An interesting perspective....

Yes, my solution is to take out things I think are bad and make other things I think are good even better. Crazy, I know.

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Sounds terrible, thanks

You're welcome.

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If that's all you expected then why even make this thread?

I had fun writing it.

[arkanon]

Yes, my solution is to take out things I think are bad and make other things I think are good even better. Crazy, I know.

Is that why you also want the holy trinity removed? Have you considered trying GW2? I think it might be more up your alley.

[Djuntas]

Is that why you also want the holy trinity removed? Have you considered trying GW2? I think it might be more up your alley.

Ah yes, the typical argument, just because somebody dislike parts of something they should just not partake in any way. OP has some ideas thats kinda broad, but its still some things to consider - Not like SL is perfect judging from other threads made last few weeks...

[NineSpine]

Is that why you also want the holy trinity removed? Have you considered trying GW2? I think it might be more up your alley.

While I do want the trinity removed, I tried to keep this to SL. I’ve played GW2. It’s good. I think WoW could learn valuable lessons from it for world content, especially for pvp.

[AngerFork]

Fellow game dev here who has worked in all aspects of the process (design, development, QA, build/release on Steam, bug fixes, etc). Some interesting ideas here, definitely a different take on how the covenant system would work. Going to look at this step by step and give my thoughts on your ideas vs. theirs, giving my own other options where needed.

Renown

Put simply: Why isn't this just the new reputation system? Reputation has barely changed in many, many years. Renown, with its more granular bonuses in addition to the usual vendor-purchased unlocks, is a lot more interesting than reputation. It could have replaced the reputation system entirely with the following design:

1. Renown works largely as it does now in terms of having lots of granular points of advancement combined with vendor unlocks at certain breakpoints.
2. Renown is advanced through reputation instead of the current advancement system, something along the lines of one renown per 1000 rep.
3. At certain points in the track, a quest or dungeon or something like that would have to be completed to advance the track. While at this breakpoint, rep could still be acquired and banked for advancement after the breakpoint.
4. Every reputation in SL would work like this.
5. Every patch, the max renown for every faction would increase with new rewards.

Reputation definitely could use a facelift at this point. We've largely had the same system since Vanilla with very few changes, many of which Blizz went back on. I do tend to disagree on using rep and a value worth of rep to increase renown as that to some extent that just becomes the same rep system in a different form, just in 40 levels as opposed to 5. Perhaps this could work with some sort of capping system that grows, similar to how Conquest grows week after week to get to the new cap. This would also go a long way towards fixing the weird extra reps we have in SL currently. I might also make this account-wide specific to each covenant, so that you are only forced to do each covenant campaign once.

Soulbinds

First of all, these are very bland and just shouldn't exist. However, the conduits could be leveraged into a more interesting system. What I would do is the following:

1. Certain gear slots would have conduit slots, such as a weapon allowing you to socket one conduit into it.
2. Conduits would unlock largely as they do now.
3. You would visit some kind of kiosk to socket known conduits into your gear.

OR

1. The conduit effects are just plain intrinsic features of gear and adapt based on class and spec.
2. No randomness!

Completely disagree. Soulbinds are IMO a great way to subtly customize your character in a way that fits that character's playstyle. There are best/worst options which should definitely be mitigated, but changing soulbinds and having different ones for my specs makes the system feel like a talent tree I'm earning at max level. Putting it on gear I feel would take us back to the issues that Azerite had, where a piece 20 levels higher is a downgrade because it doesn't have the specific slot I want and/or doesn't match up the same way.

Legendaries

It's super weird to have players go to an NPC to craft legendaries when players themselves have crafting professions. He should be TEACHING crafters to make these legendaries, not making them for us.

1. There should be a component the crafter brings and a component the "receiver" of the legendary brings.
2. They should be crafted in such a way that they can't be sold on the AH.

It does feel like it would fit better with the Runecrafter as is for him to be teaching us rather than just making the legendaries for us. I'd still keep the crafting portion of the legendary as an AH item, it's too good for the player economy to take that out. At that point though, we're really not all that different from what we have now, just going to an NPC rather than learning it ourselves. I suppose you could perhaps slap the legendary effect onto the base item at a forge in Oribos or your sanctum, so it's not such an out of the way location to make them.

Sanctums

This will probably be controversial, but I think this was a good opportunity for guilds to make a decision. I think sanctums should have been guild housing for the expansion. I know there's a lot of friction here (what if I want a different sanctum than my guildmaster) but I think that it would be beneficial to the game to allow guilds to make decisions like this that impact players, especially when the decisions would ultimately be as low impact as this.

1. Through some mechanism, your guild chooses a sanctum as their primary sanctum for the guild.
2. The guild builds up guild reputation with that sanctum to unlock cosmetic enhancements for the sanctum, and convenience boosts like portals. Perhaps even personal cosmetics (like mounts), although that is touchier.
3. Guild achievements could be expanded based on this system to make some sanctum improvements based on guild accomplishments.

Interesting. I like the initial thought behind this, but I feel that this would lead to a lot of weird player moments. What if I like the Night Fae aesthetic, but my guild leader is super into the Kyrian? At that point, I'm not allowed to choose the sanctum I like, I'm forced to follow whatever my guild leader wants. Plus, with this being the guild housing solution as you've proposed, we run into a weird issue after this expansion where we're constantly going back to a spot that may well in lore be closed. I'd far rather have our guild/player housing be something that is always open in lore...Stormwind/Orgrimmar perhaps, or maybe all capital cities, or perhaps we have our own Vindicaar-style guild ships.

Covenant Activities

I'm referring to the special activities for each covenant. These should have just been available to everyone who wants to do them. Not a lot to say beyond that.

You'd lose a lot of the story-telling behind each of those activities if you just unlocked them for everyone. Each does great at subtly showing an element of how that covenant operates, from seeing the political side of the Venthyr to seeing the full life cycle of a wildseed in Ardenweald. Plus having this specific to each covenant gives it more of a feel that it can be done when you get to it rather than feeling like you have to do it all right now. I see no reason to open this up to all covenants all the time.

Covenant Abilities

As stated before, I don't think soulbinds should exist. BFA already had a form of customization that worked. It was Essences. While the system could use some finagling, and obviously shouldn't be tied to the necklace anymore, I think the system should have stuck around. WoW is sorely lacking long term trans-expansion horizontal progression, such as unlocking more abilities. The essence system would have worked great for the covenant abiliites.

1. Keep the Essence system, possibly expand it to allow two majors and three minors, and obviously nix azerite or any other grinding unlocks on it.
2. Add new essences that you obtain and upgrade through covenant renown. These would be the covenant abilities we have now.
3. Let us keep the essences. Expand the system expansion over expansion. This is how you expand character abilities without bloat.

Essences had a major problem for anyone that had alts. Specifically, you had to unlock each essence on each character. This meant that anyone playing more than one character had to continuously unlock the essences on each character, and sometimes the best raiding ones would be hidden behind PvP. We're also talking about a ton of extra abilities here that aren't directly related to your class, which in turn will not feel as special.

Personally, I'd like to see them open up all of the covenant abilities for any class to everyone who plays that class, but make it so that you have a small bit of work to do to earn it. It would be easy enough to make an Ardenweald quest chain to unlock Convoke the Spirits that the Kyrian could do, giving a story reason behind the spell swap and the spell itself.

Anima

This is junk. Get rid of it. It's unnecessary. Everything it is used to unlock could better be done by folding it into the renown system.

Anima needs a rebalancing at the very least, the loop is way too restrictive right now. I'm not sure that getting rid of it is the answer though given how crucial it currently is to the Shadowlands endgame loop. How ideally would you see an average day in Shadowlands without anima to collect?

[Radaney]

What about people without a crafting profession. They just can't have a legendary?

[Seranthor]

As someone who has worked in game design,

Proof of concept would go miles toward showing Blizzard how to do it better. Maybe this is what the folks need to see.

[AngerFork]

Proof of concept would go miles toward showing Blizzard how to do it better. Maybe this is what the folks need to see.

Agreed, especially as a lot of these ideas felt very disconnected and disparate from the rest of the system. I'm having a hard time seeing what the actual endgame loop is with his system if anima is gone, renown is what we're replacing rep with, and sanctums are now guild halls. This feels like throwing out a lot of the current endgame and making it so none of the rest is linked up at all, just separate features with no real incentive to work towards completion.

[Ielenia]

Legendaries

It's super weird to have players go to an NPC to craft legendaries when players themselves have crafting professions. He should be TEACHING crafters to make these legendaries, not making them for us.

1. There should be a component the crafter brings and a component the "receiver" of the legendary brings.
2. They should be crafted in such a way that they can't be sold on the AH.

The problem to your "solution" is that whoever doesn't have jewelcrafting, tailoring, leatherworking or blacksmithing as their profession, will end up without legendaries. So, basically, unlearn alchemy, inscription, engineering and enchanting and learn one of the first four.

You replaced a minor issue with a major issue.

[NineSpine]

The problem to your "solution" is that whoever doesn't have jewelcrafting, tailoring, leatherworking or blacksmithing as their profession, will end up without legendaries. So, basically, unlearn alchemy, inscription, engineering and enchanting and learn one of the first four.

You replaced a minor issue with a major issue.

I said that players can make them for each other.

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What about people without a crafting profession. They just can't have a legendary?

See above.

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Fellow game dev here who has worked in all aspects of the process (design, development, QA, build/release on Steam, bug fixes, etc). Some interesting ideas here, definitely a different take on how the covenant system would work. Going to look at this step by step and give my thoughts on your ideas vs. theirs, giving my own other options where needed.


Reputation definitely could use a facelift at this point. We've largely had the same system since Vanilla with very few changes, many of which Blizz went back on. I do tend to disagree on using rep and a value worth of rep to increase renown as that to some extent that just becomes the same rep system in a different form, just in 40 levels as opposed to 5. Perhaps this could work with some sort of capping system that grows, similar to how Conquest grows week after week to get to the new cap. This would also go a long way towards fixing the weird extra reps we have in SL currently. I might also make this account-wide specific to each covenant, so that you are only forced to do each covenant campaign once.

Thanks for taking the time!

I think my argument here is that renown just should be the new rep system. I don't like weekly hard caps on things like this. Soft caps can be ok, and soft caps can be much more easily implemented with a granular progression, such as 1000 reputation, rather than the single renown level you get from one quest at the moment. I also strongly disagree with the idea of making these account-wide, but I also disagree with that in general. Character progression should be character progression, and if it's not going to be fun to do on another character then there is a broader issue with the moment-to-moment design of the gameplay.

Completely disagree. Soulbinds are IMO a great way to subtly customize your character in a way that fits that character's playstyle. There are best/worst options which should definitely be mitigated, but changing soulbinds and having different ones for my specs makes the system feel like a talent tree I'm earning at max level. Putting it on gear I feel would take us back to the issues that Azerite had, where a piece 20 levels higher is a downgrade because it doesn't have the specific slot I want and/or doesn't match up the same way.

I don't think there is anything wrong with higher ilvl gear being a downgrade in some cases, because the flip side of that is that you felt great getting the old item that is effectively overpowered for its ilvl. I think this whole attitude that ilvl is king and higher ilvl should be better all the time is a big problem. It makes gear feel like vessels for an arbitrary number, a stick with uniform stats, rather than a tangible piece of equipment that your character is equipping for a purpose.

This is also why I specify NO RANDOMNESS, because I would only want these effects on gear to the extent that it can be planned for it and designed around it. Making people farm one weapon until they get the conduit they like on it would be very bad.

As far as soulbinds go, I just don't think they are necessary. As I say later, the essence system provider a much more interesting and expandable way to allow for further customization. Anything that's fun in a soulbind could be made into an essence.

It does feel like it would fit better with the Runecrafter as is for him to be teaching us rather than just making the legendaries for us. I'd still keep the crafting portion of the legendary as an AH item, it's too good for the player economy to take that out. At that point though, we're really not all that different from what we have now, just going to an NPC rather than learning it ourselves. I suppose you could perhaps slap the legendary effect onto the base item at a forge in Oribos or your sanctum, so it's not such an out of the way location to make them.

I'd like the crafter to bring the materials and learn how to use the memories, and then the recipient bring the memory, and then we open up a window similar to the trade window where both players input their materials and the crafter creates the legendary for the recipient.

Interesting. I like the initial thought behind this, but I feel that this would lead to a lot of weird player moments. What if I like the Night Fae aesthetic, but my guild leader is super into the Kyrian? At that point, I'm not allowed to choose the sanctum I like, I'm forced to follow whatever my guild leader wants. Plus, with this being the guild housing solution as you've proposed, we run into a weird issue after this expansion where we're constantly going back to a spot that may well in lore be closed. I'd far rather have our guild/player housing be something that is always open in lore...Stormwind/Orgrimmar perhaps, or maybe all capital cities, or perhaps we have our own Vindicaar-style guild ships.

I think both what I said and what you are saying can both happen: The main home base and then an expansion base. The guild system desperately needs substantive upgrades and tie-ins with current content like this. I think the friction of "I hoped my guild would choose a different sanctum" is worth the feeling of tangibility that this choice would give your guild.

You'd lose a lot of the story-telling behind each of those activities if you just unlocked them for everyone. Each does great at subtly showing an element of how that covenant operates, from seeing the political side of the Venthyr to seeing the full life cycle of a wildseed in Ardenweald. Plus having this specific to each covenant gives it more of a feel that it can be done when you get to it rather than feeling like you have to do it all right now. I see no reason to open this up to all covenants all the time.

To be clear: All of my ideas are based on the notion that players shouldn't be joining covenants at all. That's why I say these features can be unlocked.

Essences had a major problem for anyone that had alts. Specifically, you had to unlock each essence on each character. This meant that anyone playing more than one character had to continuously unlock the essences on each character, and sometimes the best raiding ones would be hidden behind PvP. We're also talking about a ton of extra abilities here that aren't directly related to your class, which in turn will not feel as special.

Obviously, locking essences behind content people don't want to do is problematic. I don't endorse that. I do think having to make progress on a character is valuable, and account-wide unlocks of everything are bad for the game. It reduces the feeling of investment in your character. I think we are too quick to assume that friction is bad and friction needs to go away, and this is a general problem in AAA game design.

On net, a system where characters can unlock horizontal progression as they play, and that progression is locked to a limited number of slots for the new options, is the best solution to the issue of players disliking bloat and disliking borrowed power. I'd even say a system like this should replace the existing talent system entirely. Every expansion, I should be unlocking lots of new options for my character, options that are forever.

Ultimately, what I am proposing is something like replacing all customization with a more detailed version of the glyph system, where we can unlock new options and abilities every expansion and add them to our library, and then carry that library forward to the next expansion. Rather than giving us elaborate new customization systems, like soulbinds, just give us fun new ways to unlock more talents/essences/glyphs/whatever you want to call them.

Personally, I'd like to see them open up all of the covenant abilities for any class to everyone who plays that class, but make it so that you have a small bit of work to do to earn it. It would be easy enough to make an Ardenweald quest chain to unlock Convoke the Spirits that the Kyrian could do, giving a story reason behind the spell swap and the spell itself.

Since under my ideas you'd be earning renown with every faction, every "covenant", this could all be built into those tracks.

Anima needs a rebalancing at the very least, the loop is way too restrictive right now. I'm not sure that getting rid of it is the answer though given how crucial it currently is to the Shadowlands endgame loop. How ideally would you see an average day in Shadowlands without anima to collect?

I'd fold all of this into the renown/reputation system. I imagine a loop where you log in and say "Which renown do I want to work on?" and then you go to that zone and do activities to earn rep related to that faction, ultimately advancing your renown track. Every day there could be a "calling" for each faction, a bonus activity that rewards big hunk of rep, but I generally like the idea that if I want to earn necrolords rep by running dungeons I can and if I want to earn necrolords rep by wearing their tabard in pvp I can and if I want to earn necrolords rep by working on their weekly activity I can and if I want to necrolords rep by doing WQs I can, etc..

As you advance the renown track for each faction, you unlock quests and bonuses similar to how you do now, but you'd also unlock more "essences" for customization. This all could be folded into the numerous renown tracks you'd be actively working through, which would also all advance every patch.

[Raven]

I feel the Legendaries crafting way they picked was the right way, if they let us craft legendarys from normal professions they need to add it for the rest of the expansions or else people would go crazy, this way they can easily remove legendary crafting if they find a better and more fun way to do it.

[NineSpine]

I feel the Legendaries crafting way they picked was the right way, if they let us craft legendarys from normal professions they need to add it for the rest of the expansions or else people would go crazy, this way they can easily remove legendary crafting if they find a better and more fun way to do it.

Old recipes already become defunct every expansion. I don't think this is any different than saying "If they give us artifact weapons they have to do it every expansion". They don't.

[Ielenia]

I said that players can make them for each other.

Then what is the problem of selling it in the AH? Not everyone wants to do nothing but stay in Oribos shouting in trade chat "WTS warrior legendary!"

Not to mention that in your system, we wouldn't just have to get the legendary affixes for our class, but also the legendary affixes for EVERY class. Otherwise a warrior would only be able to make legendaries for another warrior. So if I wanted to get my legendary on a ring for my warrior, I'd have to fine a warrior with jewelcrafting. Or if I wanted the legendary on the cape, I'd have to find a warrior with tailoring.

[NineSpine]

Then what is the problem of selling it in the AH? Not everyone wants to do nothing but stay in Oribos shouting in trade chat "WTS warrior legendary!"

Not to mention that in your system, we wouldn't just have to get the legendary affixes for our class, but also the legendary affixes for EVERY class. Otherwise a warrior would only be able to make legendaries for another warrior. So if I wanted to get my legendary on a ring for my warrior, I'd have to fine a warrior with jewelcrafting. Or if I wanted the legendary on the cape, I'd have to find a warrior with tailoring.

No, I'm saying the crafter should be taught to make the legendaries and the recipient should provide the memory.

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And I just fundamentally disagree with the idea that players having to interact in an MMO is some insane affront to players that needs to be avoided in all cases.

[Ielenia]

[QUOTE=NineSpine;52973070]No, I'm saying the crafter should be taught to make the legendaries and the recipient should provide the memory.[quote]
So the memory would be a consumable? So if I would have to run the dungeon/torghast/raid to get the legendary again if I wanted to craft a new one or upgrade the one I have?

And I just fundamentally disagree with the idea that players having to interact in an MMO is some insane affront to players that needs to be avoided in all cases.

So you think forcing interaction is a good thing, considering you said that legendaries wouldn't be able to be sold in the auction house?

I mean, as a warrior engineer, I depend on others to craft the legendary base, and at the moment, I have three options: ask in guild, ask in trade chat, or buy one in the auction house. In your system, the latter option is removed, which also just so happen to be the quickest option. Not everyone wants to spend up to an hour (if not more) in Oribos shouting "LF blacksmith with rank 3 chest legendary!"

[NineSpine]

[QUOTE=Ielenia;52973092][QUOTE=NineSpine;52973070]No, I'm saying the crafter should be taught to make the legendaries and the recipient should provide the memory.

So the memory would be a consumable? So if I would have to run the dungeon/torghast/raid to get the legendary again if I wanted to craft a new one or upgrade the one I have?


So you think forcing interaction is a good thing, considering you said that legendaries wouldn't be able to be sold in the auction house?

I mean, as a warrior engineer, I depend on others to craft the legendary base, and at the moment, I have three options: ask in guild, ask in trade chat, or buy one in the auction house. In your system, the latter option is removed, which also just so happen to be the quickest option. Not everyone wants to spend up to an hour (if not more) in Oribos shouting "LF blacksmith with rank 3 chest legendary!"

It seems like you are really fishing for criticisms and excuses to be outraged and aren't very interested in discussing my ideas so I'm going to disengage.