Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Reive]

That's just wrong, considering PVP has had its first major change in a decade (solo queue RBG) solely because of the success of SS.

i'm a main pvper. pvp is fucking dead in dragonflight. 30 mins qs for solo shuffle as dps, no rewards for healers, capped mmr and no tuning/communication took a huge shit on pvp this expansion. many pvpers are either playing other games or are turning into m+ players lol

[doledippers]

as i said, the quicker pace is just smoke in the eyes: most patches in dragonflight had little to no content

you're also conveniently leaving out all of the content in Dragonflight, which again is why people are rightly accusing you of being dishonest. Talent tree revamp, profession revamp, dragonriding races, the trading post, the zskera vaults, sniffenseeking, an entirely new spec mid expansion, the outdoor events (which ARE content even if you dont like them), the complete gear overhaul, the love is in the air revamp, etc etc etc...

this whole thing boils down to you being incapable of separating your personal dislike from the reality of the situation. Nobody is saying you have to like it, but don't project your opinions as reality and try to find some boogeyman as the culprit when it's nothing more than you not personally liking it

[Lorgar Aurelian]

1) dragonflight zones are indeed bigger but they also have a lot of negative space and emptyness

they also have more quest then SL zones making them both bigger and more content filled.

2) the events in dragonflight are low effort and boring. most of them are the usual fill the bar event. at least torghast was unique

I can’t say I care if something is unique or not, Torghast was unique at launch but it also sucked and every update it got was more of the same mostly just copy pasting floors and mobs.

So still equal id say.

3) 8 og dungeons vs 8 og dungeons + 1 megadungeon for both. sl also had bigger raids

both SL and DF had 8 competent new dungeons and then a patch mega dungeon, DF then reworked two more dungeons from cata, making it bigger then Sl.

And ya Sl had more raid stuff I said that from the start, it’s like the only thing it had more of.

4) pvp in shadowlands was better and the partecipation way higher. ss wasn't the huge success people expected it to be

Ha no. Sl pvp was awful and by in large hated by the community.

And as far as I’m aware there is no way to track actual “participation” so I’d bet it’s just people looking at 2’s 3’s and Rbg’s being down and ignoring that people don’t need to do them any more with SS just like people said raiding started to die when LFR was added and blizzard aid something like 70% of people just did LFR exclusively.

5) sl had covenants, mission table, revamped levelling, etc.

covenants are taken into account in the quest list, mission table isn’t content, so that just leaves levelling which I would say is a fair point.

6) as i said, the quicker pace is just smoke in the eyes: most patches in dragonflight had little to no content

the patch numbers don’t matter the timing does and in a similar time frame DF put out more content rather said content was in a big X.2 patch or a small X.2.5 patch.

[Reive]

none of this is true. The "available metrics" show quite the opposite. season 3 of DF in mythic+ specifically is the single most popular season by total runs since BFA. And where are you getting that the general consensus is that it's "meh"? I've seen, again, quite the opposite. On MMOC, for example, it polled on average about the same rating as MoP and Legion did in their respective "final report card" polls.

1) nothing beats s1 of shadowlands in terms of partecipation
2) the number of m+ runs is highly influenced by the alt friendliness of dragonflight. there are less unique characters in dragonflight compared to sl
3) where i'm getting the consensus? get out of mmochampion and you'll see

you're also conveniently leaving out all of the content in Dragonflight, which again is why people are rightly accusing you of being dishonest. Talent tree revamp, profession revamp, dragonriding races, the trading post, the zskera vaults, sniffenseeking, an entirely new spec mid expansion, the outdoor events (which ARE content even if you dont like them), the complete gear overhaul, the love is in the air revamp, etc etc etc...

this whole thing boils down to you being incapable of separating your personal dislike from the reality of the situation. Nobody is saying you have to like it, but don't project your opinions as reality and try to find some boogeyman as the culprit when it's nothing more than you not personally liking it

yes, all content with no depth which is the biggest issue with this expansion

[Lorgar Aurelian]

thats fair, im moreso arguing that it's another tally in the "things to do" box for DF. I can't speak for everyone, but i go out of my way to complete the log ASAP, and that usually involves a couple hours of extra activities i wouldn't otherwise do each month. So while minor i do think it's a positive in that regard

That’s true ya it does point you to do more if you aren’t filling it out through passive play, I know I’ve personally been hoping on to clear it each month when other wise I’m not playing retail at the moment just Sod.

[doledippers]

1) nothing beats s1 of shadowlands in terms of partecipation
2) the number of m+ runs is highly influenced by the alt friendliness of dragonflight. there are less unique characters in dragonflight compared to sl
3) where i'm getting the consensus? get out of mmochampion and you'll see



yes, all content with no depth which is the biggest issue with this expansion

1) this is still not true, DF S3 is outpacing S1 of SL
2) not only do you have no way of knowing this, you're acting like alt friendliness is a bad thing
3) MMOC is the most negative place about this expansion, unless you count asmongolds chat. Does not surprise me if you're a frequent visitor there.
4) again, incapable of separating your subjective view from the reality

pure wow doomerism at its finest, complete lack of objectivity coupled with literal lies. love it

[Lorgar Aurelian]

i'm a main pvper. pvp is fucking dead in dragonflight. 30 mins qs for solo shuffle as dps, no rewards for healers, capped mmr and no tuning/communication took a huge shit on pvp this expansion. many pvpers are either playing other games or are turning into m+ players lol

As another main pvper I’d say the same for Sl but with it also having less ways to play without Ss and soon solo Rbgs and just replacing SS ques with pugging for Rbg or arenas which was painfully long as a healer and I wouldn’t want to imagine doing it as a dps.

[Ersula]

they also have more quest then SL zones making them both bigger and more content filled.

This isn't true. Overall number of quests is about the same if you take out the "you hit a reputation threshold press complete quest to receive reward" quests that are essentiall just spam. DF zones are beautiful but empty.

both SL and DF had 8 competent new dungeons and then a patch mega dungeon, DF then reworked two more dungeons from cata, making it bigger then Sl.

Why are you counting giving old dungeons the mythic+ treatment at all? This is like counting moving the classic game into the retail launcher counts as new content.

[doledippers]

This isn't true. Overall number of quests is about the same if you take out the "you hit a reputation threshold press complete quest to receive reward" quests that are essentiall just spam. DF zones are beautiful but empty.Why are you counting giving old dungeons the mythic+ treatment at all? This is like counting moving the classic game into the retail launcher counts as new content.

if you read what he wrote he actually already accounted for those reputation threshhold quests.

A more accurate quest count would be something like 2118, still counting duplicate campaign quest for Sl and 2399 for Df taking out renown turn in quest.

as for the mythic+ dungeons, a lot of them are still new content. A lot of them have been overhauled, and a number of them never had a mythic+ incarnation of them. Considering mythic+ is one of the most engaged in modes, it's silly to say this doesn't count as content. It's like saying that challenge modes weren't content because the dungeons already existed. simply silly

- - - Updated - - -

the patch zones were better which is also true

just to add, saying korthia is better than not only the DF patch zones, but better than ANY patch zone, is bait. 9.1 is widely regarded as the worst patch in history, and korthia the worst patch zone in history.

[Reive]

1) this is still not true, DF S3 is outpacing S1 of SL
2) not only do you have no way of knowing this, you're acting like alt friendliness is a bad thing
3) MMOC is the most negative place about this expansion, unless you count asmongolds chat. Does not surprise me if you're a frequent visitor there.
4) again, incapable of separating your subjective view from the reality

pure wow doomerism at its finest, complete lack of objectivity coupled with literal lies. love it

1) df is not outpacing sl, especially s1 lol
2) do you know there are sites that track number of raid kills, unique m+ characters, runs, arena games etc? sl was bigger than df. also, i didn't say that alt friendliness is bad. i just said that the number of runs was influenced by that
3) there are other places that are worse than mmo champion in terms of negativity. also, the apathy towards the game can easily be seen by the way players engage (not engage) with the game

they also have more quest then SL zones making them both bigger and more content filled.

I can’t say I care if something is unique or not, Torghast was unique at launch but it also sucked and every update it got was more of the same mostly just copy pasting floors and mobs.

So still equal id say.

both SL and DF had 8 competent new dungeons and then a patch mega dungeon, DF then reworked two more dungeons from cata, making it bigger then Sl.

And ya Sl had more raid stuff I said that from the start, it’s like the only thing it had more of.

Ha no. Sl pvp was awful and by in large hated by the community.

And as far as I’m aware there is no way to track actual “participation” so I’d bet it’s just people looking at 2’s 3’s and Rbg’s being down and ignoring that people don’t need to do them any more with SS just like people said raiding started to die when LFR was added and blizzard aid something like 70% of people just did LFR exclusively.



covenants are taken into account in the quest list, mission table isn’t content, so that just leaves levelling which I would say is a fair point.

the patch numbers don’t matter the timing does and in a similar time frame DF put out more content rather said content was in a big X.2 patch or a small X.2.5 patch.

1) twisting corridors sucked, but the jailer's gauntlet was fun imo
2)they didn't create new assets for those dungeons, they mostly did some tuning and some mob positioning
3)partecipation was still higher. but the real problem with pvp in dragonflight is the utter lack of care the devs have towards pvp
4) covenants were way more than questlines tho. they had unique questlines, armors, events, abilities and passive "talents" (soulbinds)
5) both are bad imo. i'd rather have a slower patch cadence (not of shadowlands levels) but also more meaningful content

[Makabreska]

just to add, saying korthia is better than not only the DF patch zones, but better than ANY patch zone, is bait. 9.1 is widely regarded as the worst patch in history, and korthia the worst patch zone in history.

Oh, you know. He saw all those players grinding it for Shards and instantly assumed it was better.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

This isn't true. Overall number of quests is about the same if you take out the "you hit a reputation threshold press complete quest to receive reward" quests that are essentiall just spam. DF zones are beautiful but empty.

I literally just posted both expans quest counts both with and without renown turn in quest.

DF is ahead of SL but a good amount in both.

Why are you counting giving old dungeons the mythic+ treatment at all? This is like counting moving the classic game into the retail launcher counts as new content.

new mobs and new mechanics make them new content.

They aren’t on par with a fully new dungeon with new art as wel gut they are still new content.

[Reive]

just to add, saying korthia is better than not only the DF patch zones, but better than ANY patch zone, is bait. 9.1 is widely regarded as the worst patch in history, and korthia the worst patch zone in history.

this is not the first time you misread what i wrote. where did i say that korthia was better than every other patch zone? i said korthia was better than zaralek and that sl had better patch zones than df which is imo true: zereth mortis>emerald dream>korthia>=zaralek

[Ersula]

if you read what he wrote he actually already accounted for those reputation threshhold quests.

He didn't though. If you actually take away rep & profession turn ins from the count Shadowlands has 2900, and Dragonflight has 2600 not "way more."

[doledippers]

1) df is not outpacing sl, especially s1 lol
2) do you know there are sites that track number of raid kills, unique m+ characters, runs, arena games etc? sl was bigger than df. also, i didn't say that alt friendliness is bad. i just said that the number of runs was influenced by that
3) there are other places that are worse than mmo champion in terms of negativity. also, the apathy towards the game can easily be seen by the way players engage (not engage) with the game

right, ok. since you insist on ignoring the reality of the situation (or are lying), heres some hard data.

1). S1 of dragonflight had better retention and better numbers than shadowlands season 1


2). raider.io tracks unique characters, not alts. it doesn't account for alts. and either way, you are still wrong. at the bottom right of the graph, it lists unique characters logged in mythic+ that season.

shadowlands season 3: https://raider.io/mythic-plus-rankin...rboards-strict 4,062,058 unique characters
shadowlands season 2: https://raider.io/mythic-plus-rankin...rboards-strict 3,830,458 unique characters
shadowlands season 1: https://raider.io/mythic-plus-rankin...rboards-strict 7,762,555 unique characters
----
dragonflight season 3: https://raider.io/mythic-plus-rankin...rboards-strict 5,318,399 unique characters
dragonflight season 2: https://raider.io/mythic-plus-rankin...rboards-strict 2,304,944 unique characters
dragonflight season 1: https://raider.io/mythic-plus-rankin...rboards-strict 6,528,822 unique characters
---

lets compare total runs for dragonflight.


as mentioned above, season 1 of dragonflight was more popular in terms of total runs than shadowlands season 1 was, and as i also showed, shadowlands season 1 was the most popular season in that expansion. Here in the graph above you can see that dragonflight season 3 is the most popular mythic+ season in terms of total runs.

3). refer to the chart above. "lack of engagement" you say, as dragonflight has shown massive growth from both season 2 to season 3, and season 1 to season 3. shadowlands boasted only a slight bump from season 2 to season 3, with an otherwise gargantuan fall off from season 1 to season 2.


here are the facts

going by unique character populations, DF season 3 is still on track to top shadowlands season 1
going by total runs, dragonflight season 1 is more popular than any season in shadowlands
going by total runs, dragonflight season 3 is more popular than any season since BFA

hope this helps.

[Murlocos]

2) do you know there are sites that track number of raid kills, unique m+ characters, runs, arena games etc? sl was bigger than df. also, i didn't say that alt friendliness is bad. i just said that the number of runs was influenced by that

I think you should probably look at those numbers yourself, particularly the M+ stats.

DF S3 is currently at about 29,100,000 runs a few days into its 17th week, with a unique character count of about 5,570,000 characters.
SL S2 had about 20,531,000 runs after 34 weeks. The character count got cut off early, but it was at about 4,031,000 characters almost 25 weeks into the season.
SL S3 had about 19,923,000 runs after 22 weeks, with a unique character count of about 4,195,000 characters.

The post-launch SL patches are trounced pretty badly here in both metrics. Keep in mind that SL also required 10 runs per week to fill out your vault instead of 8.

Citing S1 isn't a boon to your argument because what follows is a swift tanking of character count and actual player engagement. It suggests that players fell off the game en masse after a massive launch. I can't buy the apathy argument when the data suggests that the people loyal to the game in 9.1 were engaging in one of its endgame pillars at record low rates.

[doledippers]

I think you should probably look at those numbers yourself, particularly the M+ stats.

--snip--

yeah, basically this. he's pulling this "data" out of his ass. look what i posted above, it shows that S3 is the most popular season by every metric since BFA.

[Cheezits]

While we're talking about subscriber retention, maybe Blizzard just decided that the numbers post-launch aren't enough to justify four-raid expansions?

[Lorgar Aurelian]

2)they didn't create new assets for those dungeons, they mostly did some tuning and some mob positioning

I don’t think they made any new art assets that’s true but art but they did add new mechanics to both trash and bosses which makes them new content, even without affix’s doing the DF versions are different then the cata ones.

3)partecipation was still higher. but the real problem with pvp in dragonflight is the utter lack of care the devs have towards pvp

again I doubt that as I don’t believe there is any way to get the full picture just like with LFR.

And SL had the same amount of “lack of care” while also having less ways to play still making it behind on
Content.

4) covenants were way more than questlines tho. they had unique questlines, armors, events, abilities and passive "talents" (soulbinds)

unique quest lines are still quest lines and are counted in the quest list I provided earlier.

Rewards aren’t content, though I believe I did already say Sl likely had more cosmetics, though other the trading post that might no longer be true now that I think about it.

The events would be fair to add I guess even if they are kinda small and rubbish.

And I’d say the “talents” were just part of class design I wouldn’t count them as there own thing.

5) both are bad imo. i'd rather have a slower patch cadence (not of shadowlands levels) but also more meaningful content

Hmm Dmm, I don’t know how I’d quantify the quality of either.

If I was still a raider I’d likely like them being more spread out for down time between raids, but as a bone raider now having the small updates to come back to is nice every once in a while.

- - - Updated - - -

He didn't though. If you actually take away rep & profession turn ins from the count Shadowlands has 2900, and Dragonflight has 2600 not "way more."

If my count is wrong link your own with citations so we can check it.

Other wise your just lying out your ass.

[Reive]

snip

so sl had more unique characters than df. it wins then

also, s1 of sl had a way higher raid and arena partecipation than s1 of df. nathria had 2 times the kills of vault (on normal, because counting heroic and mythic would be a massacre).

sl also sold at least 3.7m copies while dragonflight probably didn't even reach 3m copies sold because otherwise they would have reported the number