How does Dragonflight look so far, Good, bad, same as usual?

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

This expansion has nothing going for it until we get the post-launch info 2 months after launch. It is the only pivotal direction change for the trajectory of this expansion.

The base product itself offers no value to a consumer beyond the standards set in place by the past 2 expansions and now the freedom to play the game without any setbacks by its game design.

Whether people find value in that or not is up to them. I am honestly only waiting to see the post-launch information that will show up 2 months after launch as that will be the most important point surrounding Dragonflight.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Sorry to burst your bubble but beta's are typically feature complete. Especially for WoW, betas have only been number adjusting.

They changed how torghast and the maw worked abunch in the SL beta, they have never been only for number adjusting.

[FelPlague]

They changed how torghast and the maw worked abunch in the SL beta, they have never been only for number adjusting.

^^^^ This is very true, we havent even seen work orders ingame yet.

Of course we are not going to get COMPLETE overhauls, but there can be some pretty massive changes.

[Alcsaar]

Dragonflight imo looks very "par for the course". Very much what I expect from a WoW expac, which is to say: not much.

[Biglog]

DF beta has been a lot of fun and refreshing so far. Without spoiling there was 1 zone that has a somewhat disappointing story, but the others were all great. The comments about leveling being a bit slow are accurate, but that's fixable. And that's also a relative problem, it's still not difficult to get to max level in a reasonably short amount of time if you grind it out.

[Osmeric]

Everything is bad for some folks. No matter what comes out, or what is created it will all be bad no matter what.

Haters gonna hate.

WoW has failed me not because of small mistakes, but because of a design philosophy incompatible with what I would want.

Unless they change that philosophy, the product they produce will continue to fail me.

Therefore, I will not be giving this or any future expansion the benefit of the doubt until they explicitly confirm they have shifted their design philosophy.

I don't expect that to happen. I expect the game will remain dead to me. Why should I then not hate it?

The only happiness the game could give me in its current state would be from its collapse.

[FelPlague]

WoW has failed me not because of small mistakes, but because of a design philosophy incompatible with what I would want.

Unless they change that philosophy, the product they produce will continue to fail me.

Therefore, I will not be giving this or any future expansion the benefit of the doubt until they explicitly confirm they have shifted their design philosophy.

I don't expect that to happen. I expect the game will remain dead to me. Why should I then not hate it?

The only happiness the game could give me in its current state would be from its collapse.

which they literally have, multiple times for dragonflight, confirming "no more borrowed power" and "No more daily chores for power" and "No more fly gating" and "Return of talent trees."

Literally them having confirmed they have shifted their design philosophy, instead of making people log on every day to unlock things they had before like flying, or to be able to compete at the top end, you can now just play whenever, for however long you want.

although your final line pretty much sets it in stone, if you really enjoyed the game ever you would want it to succeed and would NEVER get "Hapiness from it's collapse" Really there is few if any games you should ever find happiness for failing, for even if you do not like it, to be happy others will never be able to enjoy that game again is pretty fucked.

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It was played by millions, but not for long. As all those components did not give any gearing progression. Torghast itself was great. The thing that was not great was that one of the devs thought its reward system should be "rogue like", which is outright stupid in a MMORPG. Torghast should have dropped gear, and better gear for higher difficulties you also would need for higher difficulties. Those temporary rogue like buffs should have been item effects and set bonuses. That is one of the most fundamental mechanics of an RPG. Become stronger. Master higher levels of your gameplay.

The guys that messed up Torghast, Warfronts and Islands are the reward designers, not the gameplay designers. The part that destroyed Torghast to be meaningful gameplay was gate keeping, as the devs limit gear progression to their most favourite premade group play. The part that destroyed Warfronts and Islands was the fact it only had one difficulty (on first implementation for warfronts) and only dropped a broken borrowed power currency instead gear you could use for higher difficulties of islands or warfronts.

mhm because we all know people would love torghast if they were forced to do it for gear... yeah, you are literally so disconnected from the wow community, I wonder if you really ever actually played the game, if you think peoples complaint of torghast was that it didn't drop gear, and that doing so would make people like it, and not hate it more.

Cause the rewards from it were so good it was REQUIRED to do, and yet people hated it for that, so adding gear would not make it better, it would make it worse, as people would feel even more forced to do it.

[Osmeric]

which they literally have, multiple times for dragonflight, confirming "no more borrowed power" and "No more daily chores for power" and "No more fly gating" and "Return of talent trees."

I didn't mean *any* change in design philosophy, and particularly not little "deck chair rearrangement" changes like those. None of those are changes that matter to me. So, f&@k them and their game.

And yeah, "Torghast, but with gear" would also be bad. Not sure where cantrip is getting that from.

[FelPlague]

I didn't mean *any* change in design philosophy, and particularly not little "deck chair rearrangement" changes like those. None of those are changes that matter to me. So, f&@k them and their game.

And yeah, "Torghast, but with gear" would also be bad. Not sure where cantrip is getting that from.

Removing borrowed power, something that has plagued the game for more then half a decade
giving us back our talent trees, something we have demanded but blizz said would be a bad idea for 12 years now.
flying just available literally day 1, something blizz also has said "nope we know better then you" for 9 years.
Daily "Must log in and do this to keep up" having plagued our day to day lives for 7 years now.

all of these things are design decisions blizzard made 6-12 years ago, and have stuck to, and yet finally are admitting they are wrong, and are being undone.

[Osmeric]

Removing borrowed power, something that has plagued the game for more then half a decade
giving us back our talent trees, something we have demanded but blizz said would be a bad idea for 12 years now.
flying just available literally day 1, something blizz also has said "nope we know better then you" for 9 years.
Daily "Must log in and do this to keep up" having plagued our day to day lives for 7 years now.

all of these things are design decisions blizzard made 6-12 years ago, and have stuck to, and yet finally are admitting they are wrong, and are being undone.

Yes. And they are not the design decisions that have driven me away from the game. I was ok in Legion. I was even ok in BfA. SL? It nearly instantly drove me off.

That Blizzard is going to lengths to fix peripheral issues that, at least from my perspective, don't matter at all, tells me they are never going to fix the issues that killed the game for me. So, I'm done. I'm here just to hopefully watch the game continue to crater (or not.)

[FelPlague]

Yes. And they are not the design decisions that have driven me away from the game. I was ok in Legion. I was even ok in BfA. SL? It nearly instantly drove me off.

That Blizzard is going to lengths to fix peripheral issues that, at least from my perspective, don't matter at all, tells me they are never going to fix the issues that killed the game for me. So, I'm done. I'm here just to hopefully watch the game continue to crater (or not.)

What issue was it in shadowlands that you had?
I can't even think of something in shadowlands that was bad that has since been walked back.

[Ielenia]

I just finished the starting experience for dracthyr, and I'm not too thrilled with it. You don't get Soar from the get-go, and even then it still has that long 5-minute CD (even though this is technically the Dragon Isles) or any movement-increasing buffs at all during it, and some questing areas are rather far from the quest givers to just go on foot, so the back-and-forth, while not the majority of the starting zone experience, did bug me a little and brought me out of the experience for a moment or two.

At least in Legion, for the demon hunter starting experience, they gave you a mount early on to speed things up a little.

Also, when I was starting my dracthyr, there was a small bug in the quest that had you train the Fire Breath skill three times, it didn't show the optional objective to use the stones that would reset your Fire Breath CD, so I just kept waiting the 30-seconds every time.

The Soar ability is also a bit clunky, IMO. Like, if, while flying, you tilt upwards even by just one single degree above horizontal, you start losing speed quite fast. Too fast, IMO.

Also, unlike how it was with the original DK experience, you get absolutely zero talent points to spend, even after you're told to finally choose a specialization mid-way through the starting experience. You're just given abilities, and only after you finally reach Stormwind/Orgrimmar, you suddenly have all talent points according to your level available for you to spend. Minus the ones that were automatically spent to give you certain abilities, like your interrupt, that is on the third row of your class tree.

On the plus side, it's nice to be vindicated on a certain topic that I discussed with in the past with a "certain someone":

[cocomen2]

Everything is bad for some folks. No matter what comes out, or what is created it will all be bad no matter what.

Haters gonna hate.

Is that self-fulfilling prophecy? since by far most people on this forum count you as "Hater"... so you saying that you not gonna stop in near future?

[ChairmanKaga]

Talent System Revamp is a waste of time because it will cease existing after 1-3 expansions

So it will last somewhere between 2-7 years, yeah what a waste.

[Revamp Man]

so it will last somewhere between 2-7 years, yeah what a waste.

stop having fun!!!!!

[Nymrohd]

So it will last somewhere between 2-7 years, yeah what a waste.

I do wonder how long they can make it last. two more expansions will undoubtedly lead us to levels of utility beyond even MoP.

[Rageonit]

I don't expect that to happen. I expect the game will remain dead to me. Why should I then not hate it?

The game is hardly dead for you; it's living rent-free in your head, because you still comment on it, while supposedly not being interested in playing it. WoW is like that girlfriend that dumped you, and while you claim she's as good as dead to you, somehow you can't stop talking about her.

[Osmeric]

The game is hardly dead for you; it's living rent-free in your head, because you still comment on it, while supposedly not being interested in playing it. WoW is like that girlfriend that dumped you, and while you claim she's as good as dead to you, somehow you can't stop talking about her.

Yes, exactly like that, I cannot deny. And yet still I hate.

[Sentynel]

Imagine having nothing instead.

Nothing > Islands, Warfronts, Torghast

Any day.

[FelPlague]

I just finished the starting experience for dracthyr, and I'm not too thrilled with it. You don't get Soar from the get-go, and even then it still has that long 5-minute CD (even though this is technically the Dragon Isles) or any movement-increasing buffs at all during it, and some questing areas are rather far from the quest givers to just go on foot, so the back-and-forth, while not the majority of the starting zone experience, did bug me a little and brought me out of the experience for a moment or two.

At least in Legion, for the demon hunter starting experience, they gave you a mount early on to speed things up a little.

Also, when I was starting my dracthyr, there was a small bug in the quest that had you train the Fire Breath skill three times, it didn't show the optional objective to use the stones that would reset your Fire Breath CD, so I just kept waiting the 30-seconds every time.

The Soar ability is also a bit clunky, IMO. Like, if, while flying, you tilt upwards even by just one single degree above horizontal, you start losing speed quite fast. Too fast, IMO.

Also, unlike how it was with the original DK experience, you get absolutely zero talent points to spend, even after you're told to finally choose a specialization mid-way through the starting experience. You're just given abilities, and only after you finally reach Stormwind/Orgrimmar, you suddenly have all talent points according to your level available for you to spend. Minus the ones that were automatically spent to give you certain abilities, like your interrupt, that is on the third row of your class tree.

On the plus side, it's nice to be vindicated on a certain topic that I discussed with in the past with a "certain someone":

"you don't get soar from the get go"
Bro what? the very second quest you get once you step outside you have soar...
"5 min cd" 4 min cd, with clickables around the area that reset it
You must be doing so much wrong, cause "lose tons of speed if you even slightly angel up" is not true.

The evoker class is very complicated, they don't want to have too much at once, they want a simple navigated experience, instead of after every quest you having to open your talent tree again, cause yeah no that is something that was never really fun about the dk starting zone, after every single quest having to open your tab again and put points in.
if they simply balanced it around you having no points, and give them all to you at the end, that is much better.

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Yes, exactly like that, I cannot deny. And yet still I hate.

so cut your addiction, leave, don't come back, if you hate it so much the only joy you can get is seeing it die, then fucking leave?