Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Cheezits]

The problem right now is that most stuff *can* be done via addons again, fucking boss "weakauras" are back just via northern sky tools instead and you can do most plater manipulating stuff again ....

I mean even wowhead just posted about the issue rn haha.

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https://www.wowhead.com/news/addons-...izzards-379870

I wonder if this is part of the radio silence on beta. Like they are going to announce a nuking of the new addons or (much less likely) a delay in release to deal with it.

[Lady Atia]

I wonder if this is part of the radio silence on beta. Like they are going to announce a nuking of the new addons or (much less likely) a delay in release to deal with it.

Or, worse, they just pull the ripcord 'cause clearly people will always find a way around it (which already happened with private weakauras anyways).

Whatever they do, it's a shitshow - either wasted dev time and the destruction of most specs for nothing, or (which I would prefer) another nuke against addons which would make people angry aswell simply because we are only a week away from pre-patch.

[Cheezits]

Whatever they do, it's a shitshow - either wasted dev time and the destruction of most specs for nothing, or (which I would prefer) another nuke against addons which would make people angry aswell simply because we are only a week away from pre-patch.

The spec pruning serves a purpose outside of addon changes. Quite a few were streamlined in great ways and healers needed to be simplified to get people to play them.

[Lady Atia]

The spec pruning serves a purpose outside of addon changes. Quite a few were streamlined in great ways and healers needed to be simplified to get people to play them.

Na, just forcing everyone to use the same raid frames (and even the field that way and tune around that) would have been better than fucking up my poor mistweaver spec. Making damage less spikey and healing slower (and less stressful) is a goal they had since like Dragonflight, and that's good but again, you didn't have to rip healer specs in order to do that. The class reworks were mostly done to compensate for the addon changes, which is like ..... almost nullyfied already, with only weakauras itself being the victim of these changes.

I was looking forward to "easier to learn, as hard to master, but without the addon bullshit" but sadly it seems like that isn't happening anymore. Instead we have "dumbed down, but you still need outside addons". Both pvp and high end pve would have been so much better without computational addon shit ...

[GeometryWizard]

I don't know how reliable they are since we know Blizzard has leaked info to top players before but at the start of the year Towelliee and AutomaticJak both said they expect addons to basically still exist by the time Midnight launches and they settled for killing WAs. I think the radio silence is them waffling internally about what to do but all we've seen is more and more restrictions lifted and I doubt they're going to rush back in the other direction they're probably afraid of another covenants ripcord moment

For new players I don't even know what audience they're trying to attract. WoW's advertising now is all just cozycore housing or a smirking purple elf. Only more mature and darker fantasy is really in vogue with the younger generations right now while WoW has been racing towards trying to get the game rated E for Everyone and any new player is jumping right into Dragonflight which really kicked off the direction. Dragon Age is probably the closest example of something fantasy that was way more popular 15 years ago and darker than Warcraft ever was but really softened things with Veilguard and lost a lot of interest as a result. My hot take is that their main focus for new players seems to be trying to make the game palatable and safe for their existing older players to play with their very young children and they're hoping that parents will get their kids hooked at age 4 or 5 and eventually make them their own accounts

[Cheezits]

For new players I don't even know what audience they're trying to attract.

I'm thinking older players with disposable income (hence sub model still existing) seeking escapism. Probably the right call all things considered socially.

[micwini]

And this is a masterclass of why half measures never work.
People will always find a way around things, no matter how strict the restictions are.

Even if you could only change your UI cosmetically, someone would still find a way to design a UI in the shape of boss tactics/reminders.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I think this entire Addons thing if the Blue Post manifests that they are backtracking implies again they can be walked over with any decision they make because they are deathly afraid that their community will eat them for lunch.

I honestly am just unsure why we're suddenly back to a "We need KPI" environment akin to the BFA era. It just feels so singleminded from the development side with all these decisions that they needed to get casuals and non World of Warcraft players into the door.

Especially when you consider the IP they have and yet their refusal to utilize it for any purpose of gaining more consumers but again, Warcraft is a bad IP or something ya de ya da.

[Cheezits]

I think this entire Addons thing if the Blue Post manifests that they are backtracking implies again they can be walked over with any decision they make because they are deathly afraid that their community will eat them for lunch.

"WoW Devs can be bullied into anything" was established in BFA and then Shadowlands, that ship has long sailed.

[Avikur]

They would be better making their decision and sticking with it, see how it goes, and if necessary ease up on restrictions in the future.

[Jolly Roger]

The vibe I get from the class cuts is that they think the game is not able to continue with the current combat as there is either a perception or data showing that casuals do not enjoy WoW combat outside of the easiest and dumbest classes (Ret, Guardian, BM). Or it's able to continue, but not worth it, so in order to justify continued development of WoW and its many classes they have to try and get new players any way they can. Even at the expense of old players.

Like it's either maintenance mode or simpler (dumber) combat. Or they just drop support for several classes with lower player numbers which would be an interesting turn of events.

nah they are just raising the skill floor so the new players dont fall for easy traps
this will lead to good players feeling less pressure when they perform and the mid players to feel better about it OR feel like they are being dumbed down because the illusion of skill is being lifted and they are seeing the only difference between them and lfr timmy is that timmy does what the procs would suggest instead of using a WA pack to tell him to bank the proc

[Nymrohd]

Anyone knows if this is available Cloudy With a Chance of Infernals? I tried and didn't really find anything

[Super Dickmann]

Backtracking as much as possible on class and addon changes before launch is their wisest choice. It was a shit decision from Day 1, taking the wheels off a completely fine working DF and TWW gameplay model that needed no major alterations.

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"WoW Devs can be bullied into anything" was established in BFA and then Shadowlands, that ship has long sailed.

It's also a good thing. Most of all on story, where they don't know their ass from a hole in the ground, but routinely on gameplay. The reason the game still has the numbers it does is because they caved after SL.

[Avikur]

Backtracking as much as possible on class and addon changes before launch is their wisest choice. It was a shit decision from Day 1, taking the wheels off a completely fine working DF and TWW gameplay model that needed no major alterations.

No chance of that happening. They have designed encounters around this new philosophy, if they revert all addon changes the fights will become trivial. And there is no way they roll back class changes, some (not all) have been well received, and it's a week to go before pre patch, no time to make meaningful changes, just bug fixes and tuning

[Super Dickmann]

No chance of that happening. They have designed encounters around this new philosophy, if they revert all addon changes the fights will become trivial. And there is no way they roll back class changes, some (not all) have been well received, and it's a week to go before pre patch, no time to make meaningful changes, just bug fixes and tuning

Partly true, launch encounters will be worse due to inexperience with this environment. Longer term, Blizzard backtracking, per Cata heroics, azerite armors, soulbinds and so on takes place in rounds. They double down at the start while dragging bad ideas behind the shed. WAs will likely to stay mostly dead, but UI restrictions will be continually loosened.

[Avikur]

Partly true, launch encounters will be worse due to inexperience with this environment. Longer term, Blizzard backtracking, per Cata heroics, azerite armors, soulbinds and so on takes place in rounds. They double down at the start while dragging bad ideas behind the shed. WAs will likely to stay mostly dead, but UI restrictions will be continually loosened.

I agree, if they do revert changes it would be with 12.1 for the next season, then they design the new encounters around having addons again. I personally think they'll keep loosening addon restrictions until it's as good as undone but without ever saying it.

[Reive]

>addon nuking and class pruning advertised as big "features" of the new expansion
>wasted 3 months of beta on these half assed changes
>1 week before the prepatch we're back where we started

Blizzard is champion of incompetence and this new expansion is cursed as fuck

[Raetary]

I really don't know if we will get faction exclusive races again. Outside of the Allied Races, the last time we got faction specific races was Cataclysm.

Which i honestly despise.

Just because cross-faction gameplay now exists, and the factions aren't actively threatening to kill each other anymore in the narrative, should not mean that their presence in the world is non-existent outside of random banter between individual characters.

Neutral Amani were mentioned earlier, then promptly and pointlessly justified cause "eVEryONes heLPinG theM!", but the factions are larger alliances and organizations.
Just because the Alliance is present and is helping resolve conflict, does not mean that the Alliance wants them to join, or better yet, that the Amani have any interest in joining them.
Same applies to the Horde.

And unlike the Dracthyr, Earthen and Haranir, who have been completely removed from the world stage up until just now, with the latter 2 not even having faction-specific subfactions, the Amani have ongoing history with both factions and should act accordingly.

But then again, that requires for anyone to actually give a shit, so w/e.

[Cheezits]

They aren't going to revert class changes because they are for LFR hero smoothbrains (target audience for Midnight), only tweak them if they are dogshit like Fire, and I can't see them walking back on WeakAuras. They will just continue to design simpler raid bosses.

I've only heard huge complaints for Fire and Frost Mage, am I missing any others? Everyone's swearing up and down that Tanks/Heals feel better.

[Makabreska]

They aren't going to revert class changes because they are for LFR hero smoothbrains (target audience for Midnight), only tweak them if they are dogshit like Fire, and I can't see them walking back on WeakAuras. They will just continue to design simpler raid bosses.

I've only heard huge complaints for Fire and Frost Mage, am I missing any others? Everyone's swearing up and down that Tanks/Heals feel better.

I (almost) only heard good things about frost. Fire got panned in Alpha, but also improved.

And they aren't reverting class changes, because combat addons are donezo. Not because of "LFR hero smoothbrains". Like, are we hating on casual players again?