SO MANY DUNGEONS in Dragonflight

[NineSpine]

Right, so you are complaining about something that has been in the game since Wrath, where new content invalidates old content and near enough no gear carries over.

Cool.

I'm not complaining. I'm pointing out the difference, because there is one. If I say something blue is not red, I'm not "complaining" about it. I'm stating a fact.

[Makorus]

I'm not complaining. I'm pointing out the difference, because there is one. If I say something blue is not red, I'm not "complaining" about it. I'm stating a fact.

Sorry, thought you were the guy who complained about WoW having seasons.

[NineSpine]

Ok, I see the distinction you're making, but I don't think it's a significant one and I don't think most people are viewing the terms the same way you are, otherwise there wouldn't be so many people using the terms interchangeably.

Since at least ToC, every new content patch has brought new catchup mechanics with it. People made the argument, at the time, that catchup mechanics would destroy old content, even from the same expansion, and they were right, to an extent. But this has been the status quo since ToC. Every new Tier brings new catchup mechanics which make older content, essentially, defunct.

I actually think Season 4 of SL brought us closer to the old way of things than we've been in a LONG time. Fated raids makes the first two raids current content? Amazing, that's a wonderful thing, especially at the end of an expansion. But I still don't think that's a season, the way you are defining the word. In the end, I think your definition is too strict and you will have constant arguments over what is and isn't a season while missing the actual point of people's discussion.

As I said, there's a lot of grey area and caveats. These aren't two 100% distinct, absolutely different things. However, the seasonal design paradigm, as it exists across gaming, is primarily associated with a reset-oriented mindset, and that goes all the way back to at least Diablo 2. It means something. "Season" is not just a modern term for new content. It is a term that means things are being reset in some way.

I'm not saying that it's a bad idea. I'm just pointing out that it is meaningfully distinct and it is not the only way to do things.

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Sorry, thought you were the guy who complained about WoW having seasons.

Fair.

I certainly personally miss the days of added content being about "more" than about "reset, focus on new", but I think there is value in the more focused seasonal model. I think WoW's implementation of it is specifically problematic though. The seasons are too long, the raids are too gigantic, and too little changes outside of the raids. if the are going to do seasonal as they have been, I'd like to see them adopt a model that is closer to Destiny 2, where the seasons are shorter, very focused, and rigidly scheduled.

[munkeyinorbit]

A tier refers to raids. It's completly different gear. Seasons refer to mythic plus. The same thing every patch with seasonal flavour. They are all (usually} tied to a patch. We've had PvE seasons since legion.

[bullseyed]

While changing up the dungeons a bit is nice in some ways... it doesn't really make a ton of sense. The reason given was to give new players / returning players equal footing at the start of a season, so that people who played the previous season don't have an advantage of mastering the dungeon.

But instead you're giving people who played the dungeon in M+ before an advantage. Which is likely a larger gap of time and therefore a bigger advantage.

It also means itemization is going to vary between seasons, unless you can change half the pieces into tier sets still. Some specs or classes will benefit arbitrarily from that. As well as trinkets, where one trinket in S1 might still be BIS in S2. They're committing to nerfing those, but, adding more stuff like that to deal with just seems bad.

They probably should take one loot table and reshuffle it between seasons across dungeons. Who cares if the item lore doesn't match up.

[Oneirophobia]

They probably should take one loot table and reshuffle it between seasons across dungeons. Who cares if the item lore doesn't match up.

I love the idea of random loot tables, especially since that would fix some issues like certain specs only wanting to do one specific dungeon because the others simply don't give them anything worth while other than contributing to their weekly box/vault/whatever. However, I can guarantee the folks who bitch non-stop about having to "re-grind" the same trinkets over and over again will be out in arms to protest no longer being able to re-grind their same trinket.

[Lolites]

It's not the same. Seasons functionally reset progression for everyone, bringing everyone to a new floor. Releasing new content is just releasing new content. When seasons change, the rewards from existing content changes in order to facilitate the progression reset. Simply releasing new content does not do that.

You are more than welcome to prefer one model to the other, but being hung up on pretending they are the same thing is just weird.

i wasnt stating my preference, i was stating fact, wow LITERALY had seasons in TBC, even in name, its not opinion, its well known fact, if you deny that you are just ignoring history...
were they 100% tied to pve too? well, no, just about 90-95, as some of the items could be used in next seasons, which is possible now too, but "next" season always meant new raid, new ilvl cap, new sockets (not sure if always) and so on...

[NineSpine]

i wasnt stating my preference, i was stating fact, wow LITERALY had seasons in TBC, even in name, its not opinion, its well known fact, if you deny that you are just ignoring history...
were they 100% tied to pve too? well, no, just about 90-95, as some of the items could be used in next seasons, which is possible now too, but "next" season always meant new raid, new ilvl cap, new sockets (not sure if always) and so on...

There were arena seasons in TBC. That’s not the same as all pve and pvp content being rooted in a seasonal model. You wouldn’t make me explain such a dumb and obvious thing if you were at all interested in an honest discussion.

[Koollan]

There were arena seasons in TBC. That’s not the same as all pve and pvp content being rooted in a seasonal model. You wouldn’t make me explain such a dumb and obvious thing if you were at all interested in an honest discussion.

I will say that tiers are pretty objectively under the seasonal model. Even PvE has had seasons since Vanilla.

[NineSpine]

I will say that tiers are pretty objectively under the seasonal model. Even PvE has had seasons since Vanilla.

The definition of "season" is not "new content comes out".

There is a meaningful difference between a season, which is when the floor gets raised in order to deprecate old content or otherwise reset players in some way, and simply releasing new content. These are not the same thing. There is a reason that classic calls them "phases" and not "seasons".

[Koollan]

The definition of "season" is not "new content comes out".

There is a meaningful difference between a season, which is when the floor gets raised in order to deprecate old content or otherwise reset players in some way, and simply releasing new content. These are not the same thing. There is a reason that classic calls them "phases" and not "seasons".

... When new content comes out with new gear, that... depreciates old content. I genuinely don't understand where you're coming from with this. Could you explain a little more clearly?

[Seasz]

people like you should be shot. this is the worst argument ever. Blizz could do 2 dungeons every content patch if they wanted to. Its not a problem resource-wise. The problem is, they dont want to/care. And "people" like yourself give them ammunition even. Fucking jesus!

What is this

[klaps_05]

Start should just be 8 new dungeons which are designed well enough and sprinkled with diverse affixes to make replayability good. Stuff like old m+ should just be added to timewalking, not the main slate. No one is excited for a 3rd season of Court of stars.

[unbound]

They aren't adding content. They are adding a difficulty slider / gimmicks to existing dungeons.

Looks to be the same lazy 4 dungeons for leveling and 4 more at max level.

As for M+, it was entertaining initially, but it just encourages burnout. I really despise the whole "Go Go Go!" attitude of this approach. If they are going to do a difficulty slider, at least don't put it on a timer.

[Koollan]

Start should just be 8 new dungeons which are designed well enough and sprinkled with diverse affixes to make replayability good. Stuff like old m+ should just be added to timewalking, not the main slate. No one is excited for a 3rd season of Court of stars.

Honestly, I highly disagree. I'd be happy if only 2 of the new dungeons were m+ and the rest were old content. Or, perhaps we should let all of those dungeons rot and never be used again instead? I think that sounds like a good idea.

Also, CoS is an extremely strong dungeon. In my eyes, anyway. All of Legion's dungeons were incredible, minus one or two lesser ones.

[Chilela]

... When new content comes out with new gear, that... depreciates old content. I genuinely don't understand where you're coming from with this. Could you explain a little more clearly?

In Vanilla, when a new raid came out, it didn't all but invalidate earlier raids. Just because Naxx more or less had the best gear available, didn't necessarily mean that the gear in MC was completely useless. Players still had to catch up on gear if they wanted to raid cutting edge content, and while some pieces were deprecated to some degree, it wasn't anywhere near the degree where there effectively became zero reasons to run the previous raid tier in more modern versions of WoW, with very few pieces/RNGforging being exceptions. This was also the case to a lesser extent in TBC as well, in no small part due to the elaborate attunement system the expansion brought with it. I'd say WotLK was when they really started to deprecate previous tiers through easy gear catchup, and the more modern concept of "seasons" more or less came to fruition.

[NineSpine]

Or better yet, have a preferred list similar to battlegrounds. If you have a preferred expansion to do content from them just check that you would like that to be in your rotation. Then have a verification that your group mates also agree.

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They for all intents and purposes the same thing. Especially from BC on, normally a new tier of raids, a pvp season, and m+ have coincided.

M+ wasn't even added until 10 years after BC.

Season and "new content" are not the same thing.

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... When new content comes out with new gear, that... depreciates old content. I genuinely don't understand where you're coming from with this. Could you explain a little more clearly?

Do you think that the way TBC worked was that during the Sunwell patch, if you started the game right then, you hit max level, immediately got the gear to go into Sunwell, and then just did Sunwell? Or do you think you had to go do the old raids to gear up?

[Relapses]

Seasons were always a thing, they were just called tiers instead.
Wish they still called them that honestly.

You can have a season in the middle of a Tier. This season is a great example of that. Seasons allow the devs to introduce potentially new content without having to couple it with a raid instance or a new set of gear.

[Ersula]

"New content releases" and "seasons" are not the same thing.

If you want to nitpick this point, what is the problem? Changing the Mythic+ rotation corresponding to the PvP season isn't hurting anything. It certainly isn't taking anything away.

[Alkizon]

As I understand it, person understands by "seasons" just "resetting ilvl of existing drop/rewards" with no direct changes to already released content (yes, probably small portion of new content is also added, although usually without it - just stupid, unjustified reset). While for PvP this isn't of fundamental importance (PvP doesn't imply sequential completion of quests, obtaining lore/story and quests from dungeons and other such miscellaneous things, it’s just that gladitors got their titles, and since PvE people stopped on progress so were issued new portion of content with already better gear/higher ilvl, then in order to compensate for this - level of PvP gear rises... which means new season) and seasons (as reset) are quite appropriate there, then "development" for PvE is much more significant and organization of progress should be different than banal "seasonal scaling". This isn't the same thing, people on the forum earlier were not shy and called it exactly what it is - devs' laziness and tricking stuff.

But all this is just old question, it will rest on my rejection of current instance and raid design (organization of multiple difficulties), direct criticism of presentation of content in form of M+, continued wild growth of ilvl, item scaling in general, mob scaling, quest organization and world progress itself...

Alkizon
I understand that all current development decisions are made to delay progress process, but not to provide more content, only make it cheaper to develop and maintain, still with most wealth outcome, but now we are talking more about spherical in vacuum hardworking and responsible devs, aren't we?

So litirally:
1) season like raising ceiling and floor for PvP is placeable (it's not drop);
2) /same stuff/ inappropriate for PvE, you need just smaller jumps in ilvl, but only ceiling and in no case it should be floor;
3) if necessary and desired, you can "expand" (length/depth) instances or open world, insert pieces that will contain more complex content and bosses with new trigers or behind doors and portals or everything of that, that weren't open before/didn't work due to (lack of) some events/lack of necessary items to enter/some part of terrain was inactive, so it was passed easer before new content and so on... but, I repeat, in no case it should be literal change of drop already introduced into the game, no scaling, no floor raising

Do you want me to tell you how it was done before in the easiest way? Badges! New pieces of equipment were added every "season". They helped people, who're passing through same old instances, "keep new floor bar", but old instances remained actual at the same time and with same requirements. Yes, it wasn't fast, but everything worked as expected. So, those people who just started play got opportunity to simultaneously still receive initial gear and save up for stuff closer to last "soft floor", with proper activity and/or luck (and maybe even help) in 1/2 months, they will be almost completely ready to get acquainted with "new season", just when excitement of pioneers subsides - no scaling and resets, I'm happy