Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Sondrelk]

I mean about Avaloren we know there are "some heretics" on it. With Pandaria we know there are Pandaren on it and we have seen a Pandaren in WC3. For all we know, the heretics of Avaloren could be dildos flying on bat wings. We don't fucking knooow?
And while a lot of people drew the connection to Avalon, but it is, I think, a bigger stretch than assuming a place called Pandaria inhabited by Pandaren would look a lot like China. Plus since our point of reference is pretty chill and drink beer, we could assume that would be a thing.

Pandaria was also somewhat expected, even if the Pandaren were just a joke. Probably not as a full continent with several zones and what not, but more likely as another exotic island for players to find in the South Seas, along with other locations like Tel'abim, Plunder Isle, and Zandalar.

The best we can do with Avaloren is connect it with other locations. Khaz Algar of course, and the various locations mentioned in this expansion, like the rift, and the crater where Elun'ahir was located. None of which had any place in the player consciousness before this expansion, and even then it's in a book you can easily ignore, not like the Dragon Isles which was mentioned specifically by name in an actual quest in BfA.

[Echil46]

Y'all remember how when people asked for Alliance High Elves, they gave us Void Elves ? Wildhammer, we got custom paint ? Vykrul, we got Kul'tirans ? Mechagnomes we got... that ? Drakonids, we got Dracthyrs ?

Tbh, the whole Aggorand and tall dwarves thingy gives off the same vibe, as in ''y'all have been asking for playable Ogres / Mok'nathal, there you go". Which kinda fit the whole "do more with less" mentality we're accustomed to from Blizz.

[Baraden]

That's kind of a cruel take, honestly.

Given the case that someone can't attend for whatever real life reason, you're left without being able to progress or play. Guilds and devs can assume whatever they like, ideally you'd want to be able to play even if someone is missing, not be sitting for 2h or log off because of that. It's very frustrating when it happens and is such an unneeded gatekeep nowadays.

Of course fixed sizes are easier to manage, but there is design space to make stuff work whether you're 10, 20, or 17, it's just not being fully explored.

It doesn't need to be explored; heroic and normal are there for flex

Mythic is the hardest content in the game, it has the tightest tuning - it needs to be fixed content

[Nyel]

I have a feeling at least the logo will leak today or tomorrow. This is really the time when actual physical objects, i.e. promotional materials, start getting produced for the event. You can't do that the Friday before the event, if something goes wrong you are screwed. IIRC the bastion flyer for blizzcon 2019 leaked 4 days before the event.

Stuff for conventions usually gets produced / printed weeks in advance. Source: I was working for one. Unless you do everything in house (doubt) you need weeks to get all your props done. And you don’t start printing your materials just the week your event is taking place either. Honestly I find it fascinating how guarded everything in that regard is when it comes to Blizzard, especially from contractors.

[crusadernero]

Yeah and that would happen too if the raid sizes were flex, except you'd have an actual player buffer in case someone misses and wouldn't be left off without a raidnight.

Nah. I remember the flex raiding days for content that was (back then) considered difficult. You either got the correct player(s)/class or didnt go.

Mythic is supposed to be really hard and difficult. As such, the tuning is not easy to do. It would be much harder to tune if it also were on flex.

As it is now everyone knows:
- We need 20 players
- The content is this difficult.

Its predictable. Something that is needed at that level. Besides, we got N & HC for flex.

[Kiria]

Y'all remember how when people asked for Alliance High Elves, they gave us Void Elves ? Wildhammer, we got custom paint ? Vykrul, we got Kul'tirans ? Mechagnomes we got... that ? Drakonids, we got Dracthyrs ?

Tbh, the whole Aggorand and tall dwarves thingy gives off the same vibe, as in ''y'all have been asking for playable Ogres / Mok'nathal, there you go". Which kinda fit the whole "do more with less" mentality we're accustomed to from Blizz.

To be honest this was why I was leaning towards it being possibly real due to the fact Blizzz have only ever dealt in compromises when it comes to the communities wishes, it honestly wouldnt surprise me if when asked the question;

Audience; When will we get Tinkers?

Blizz will Respond with;

Blizz; You've got mechagnomes to fulfill that fantasy.

it's just the sort of compromise I wwould expect from them at this point tbh and thats not a good feeling.

I hope I am wrong.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

Y'all remember how when people asked for Alliance High Elves, they gave us Void Elves ? Wildhammer, we got custom paint ? Vykrul, we got Kul'tirans ? Mechagnomes we got... that ? Drakonids, we got Dracthyrs ?

Tbh, the whole Aggorand and tall dwarves thingy gives off the same vibe, as in ''y'all have been asking for playable Ogres / Mok'nathal, there you go". Which kinda fit the whole "do more with less" mentality we're accustomed to from Blizz.

It will probably end up like that if the 4 image leak will be true.

Blizz just wants to be original and will make infinite loops around something that was requested for years until they come out with some asspull that isn't even close at all to what x community group asked about and hoped for.

[Sondrelk]

I think you are really missing the fact that flex sized mythic raiding would make it much more of a logistical nightmare than it currently is. There would be an optimal comp between 10 and 25 or 30 players on every boss which means that mythic guilds need to increase their roster even more AND that on some fights where 10 players is the easiest way, 2/3rds of the guild would sit on the bench. And not only that, class stacking would become a lot worse. And before you say thats just a tuning thing, yes that would be technically true.

But it also disregards how incredibly difficult it would be to even remotely ensure similar difficulty on different sizes while not even mentioning the fact that some mechanics just wouldnt even work. Like for example Echo P3, any involved interrupt/CC rotation on 10 man, Sylvanas P3, Jailer Blood of Azeroth etc etc etc.

And to add one last point, CE guilds have a large enough roster to handle one or even a few "real life reasons". Ive lead a CE guilds for years now and out of our hundreds and hundreds of raid nights i think we had to cancel 3? Its not as big of an issue as you make it out to be

I want to add on here that even if flex raiding worked perfectly, and 10 man groups of any composition worked fine on every Mythic boss, that doesn't change that from my experience, most Mythic guilds fail because it only takes one cancelled raid to start spiralling out of control.

Far too many guilds have ambitions of Mythic raiding. Naively thinking that just because they have 20-25 good players who join 9/10 raid nights, that the jump from HC to Mythic will be easy.
Someone will get bored and take a break. Someone will have life happen unexpectedly and have to sit out a night. And suddenly you have a raid of 15 players that want to raid mythic, 4 people that only join out of pity, and one person who maybe joins an hour in.

Going from 20 to 10 players wouldn't change this. It would just make more guilds think they have what it takes and inevitably fail.

[Azalar]

Because it didn't work.

You're just listing your grievances without any consideration for why things are the way they are. Yes, it could be done differently. No, it probably wouldn't be a good idea.

- - - Updated - - -

To have an actual buffer, you have more than 20 people. Flex mythic would simply mean that the buffer size is different for every boss, not that you'd suddenly have a buffer when before you didn't. If you don't have a buffer, that's a problem with your raid group, not Mythic design.

It could be a good idea if done well (I'm not saying I have the magic formula to make it work either, that would be pretentious).

I understand these issues, but they are all related to encounter design. Would it be hard to achieve a minimally balanced boss that worked for most sizes between 10 and 20? For sure, but I'm quite certain it's not impossible. Maybe a first step to do so would be to begin balancing for a median of 15 players.

And yeah, it is a grievance because it's frustrating and most of us have experienced it at some point. It would seem like I'm venting but I really am not. Neither I'm trying to be offensive against any of you x)

And to add one last point, CE guilds have a large enough roster to handle one or even a few "real life reasons". Ive lead a CE guilds for years now and out of our hundreds and hundreds of raid nights i think we had to cancel 3? Its not as big of an issue as you make it out to be

Because that's not usually an issue in the more hardcore guilds because you're filtering for hardcore players.

[Delever]

I mean about Avaloren we know there are "some heretics" on it. With Pandaria we know there are Pandaren on it and we have seen a Pandaren in WC3. For all we know, the heretics of Avaloren could be dildos flying on bat wings. We don't fucking knooow?
And while a lot of people drew the connection to Avalon, but it is, I think, a bigger stretch than assuming a place called Pandaria inhabited by Pandaren would look a lot like China. Plus since our point of reference is pretty chill and drink beer, we could assume that would be a thing.

I agree with you but avaloren is slowly being built up to something that we ll wanna go for some reason. Heretics being on avaloren is already a more enticing reason than "oh pandas live there" which is what we knew about Pandaria prior to mop.
The lore that lead us to Pandaria was built up over wotlk and cata with garosh being raised to warchief status but Pandaria was just used as the setting for the expansion and had nothing to do with the events leading up to it. The same thing could have worked literally in any unknown landmass on azeroth.
The point I m trying to make is that regardless of what teriz tries to pull from his ass, we didn't know shit about Pandaria other than that it was the home of the pandaren and a few random references to it were not the build up for the expansion as none of them had anything to do with the reason we went there. If anything, just the heretics being mentioned is more of a reason to tie the story to avaloren than a quote from a kid npc in vanilla describing the pandaren.

[Neoplanet]

Pandaria was also somewhat expected, even if the Pandaren were just a joke. Probably not as a full continent with several zones and what not, but more likely as another exotic island for players to find in the South Seas, along with other locations like Tel'abim, Plunder Isle, and Zandalar.

The best we can do with Avaloren is connect it with other locations. Khaz Algar of course, and the various locations mentioned in this expansion, like the rift, and the crater where Elun'ahir was located. None of which had any place in the player consciousness before this expansion, and even then it's in a book you can easily ignore, not like the Dragon Isles which was mentioned specifically by name in an actual quest in BfA.

Because of this i belive khaz alggar/avaloren can be the expansion after 11.0 , and for now we get a world revamp
They need more time to prepare the idea of a region we dont know , and use the revamp as a preparation to we get to khaz algar seens a lógic ideia , adding proves in the world a land far away exists
The algarian stormrider can be one of the proves , a mount rarely seen in EK/kalindor because they need to survive the storm between this continents and khaz algar to get here

[Hitei]

Because of this i belive khaz alggar/avaloren can be the expansion after 11.0 , and for now we get a world revamp
They need more time to prepare the idea of a region we dont know , and use the revamp as a preparation to we get to khaz algar seens a lógic ideia , adding proves in the world a land far away exists
The algarian stormrider can be one of the proves , a mount rarely seen in EK/kalindor because they need to survive the storm between this continents and khaz algar to get here

If they wanted a mount to tease future content, they'd just add the stormrider to some loot table or put it on the shop or in the trading post. Not make it a preorder mount.

[Yus atath]

Keep thread about next expac speculation.

People here go constantly off-topic since the first page, sadly.

[Makorus]

Do people forget that 10.2 is not the last patch?

[Ersula]

People here go constantly off-topic since the first page, sadly.

Because technically anything related to the game is also related to speculation on the future of said game.

[Makorus]

Because of this i belive khaz alggar/avaloren can be the expansion after 11.0 , and for now we get a world revamp
They need more time to prepare the idea of a region we dont know , and use the revamp as a preparation to we get to khaz algar seens a lógic ideia , adding proves in the world a land far away exists
The algarian stormrider can be one of the proves , a mount rarely seen in EK/kalindor because they need to survive the storm between this continents and khaz algar to get here

They are not gonna make the preorder mount of the next expansion unrelated to that expansion, but the one after.

[Teriz]

Please enlighten us oh great one. What did we know about Pandaria before going? We had Chen stormstout in WC3. Joking references to it from random npcs and tft. There was no serious lore that we knew about Pandaria.

We knew it was a land full of Panda people, and culturally and aesthetically they were similar to East Asia. Additionally, we knew that they had a fighting style similar to Drunken Style Kung fu, and they were quite adept at making brews. Finally we knew that some Pandaren liked to wander the world and share their knowledge with other peoples.

That’s way more than what we know about Avaloren. That story was more about Odyn than that location.

[Holdodlig]

We'll probably have the November Trading post showcase today which might just contain some items related to either Blizzcon, the WoW Bday or ... the month of November. Wonder if we'll have a full mog this time ?

[Delever]

I would like to add here that I ve seen a few people complaining about dragon riding being a major feature in the new expansion.
I don't think dragon riding will be advertised as a major feature but rather that it will now expand to everything. It is definitely here to stay alongside regular flying and it is honestly probably one of the best features we ve gotten in a while so I don't know why anyone would like for this to be retired after dragonflight. It will probably not be called dragoriding anymore but something else like stormriding or dynamic flying etc.

[Sondrelk]

Do people forget that 10.2 is not the last patch?

That isn't going to change what we know currently about Avaloren/Khaz Algar.
Adding more context in 10.2.5 and 10.2.7 wouldn't feel like they are adding context in preparation, it would feel like they are retroactively justifying it.