Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Makorus]

A thing I just thought of, is the need for meaningful basic world content, for people who just want to kick back with fishing, herbalism etc.

Maybe a Renown faction you gain rep with exclusively by catching fish and stuff.

I'd like to spend time doing content like that, in zones such as Azure Span. But atm it just doesn't feel worthwhile.

I know it's a bit counterintuitive to ask for goals and challenges for what is meant to be a very chill activity. But I think there's room for a nice balance there.

After the Legion fishing factions: No thank you.

[Annihilas]

See I don't need Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin or really, most of the Battlegrounds in game. The concept of the Gulch exists in Ashenvale; not the exact map but the idea of it. Same with Arathi. But Alterac Valley actually has lore, it is the home of the Frostwolf, it has Frost Troll villages and significant Titan ruins (that have never been explored) with a Dwarven presence. So these areas need some representation in the world map.

As for AU ideas, I think they could make an amazing evergreen feature for solo or small groups (scenario) that is located in the Caverns of Time and sends us to a variety of locations in time, using existing assets. Gameplay could be like Torghast with some excuse to add rogue like elements than you'd use existing locations to build important times in Azeroth lore and send us there to preserve the timeline. We can come with several dozen moments if we just think through it. Excellent way to add cosmetics and it could work on a rotation like Islands.

Yes exactly, I think someone had a reddit post about the CoT idea?

[Makorus]

Optional, of course.

I mean, most of the content in the game is optional.

Problem is, there's not much you can do with Fishing or Herbalism or whatever that's not "Fish up 1000 doodads!" which is just incredibly boring (and I get that fishing is inherently boring, but that's even worse).

[Santandame]

I mean, most of the content in the game is optional.

Problem is, there's not much you can do with Fishing or Herbalism or whatever that's not "Fish up 1000 doodads!" which is just incredibly boring (and I get that fishing is inherently boring, but that's even worse).

Don’t see an issue with it being added; as said it’s optional so you wouldn’t have to do it. If something so minuscule with minimal effort could be added then I don’t see why it would be an issue. Some people would get something out of it and I remember plenty of people doing the Legion fishing content.

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I definitely respect your feelings on it. It's not for everyone. But neither is Mythic raiding or rated PvP.

I have a feeling there are more people interested in immersive casual content than there are those who want to push their limits in raids, but that's just a hunch. Either way, there's room enough for both.

There’s no downside to adding it. Not wanting something you don’t want in game that would remain completely optional is just an odd take.

[Makorus]

My problem is not them adding it: My problem is with the way Fishing works, it's just not engaging content.

Did anyone actually enjoy farming Margoss or the Fisherfriends of the Isles achievement? Fishing up 3550 items, sitting in the same spot because they only spawn in this one specific place?

I have no issues with the adding "casual content" (no need to turn this into a "buh people dont like raiding !" lmao).

The issues is that, same with Archaelogy, Fishing is in dire need of a complete make-over. Right now it's literally "Press F -> Press F when there is a sound". There's nothing you can do with it in terms of content other than "Catch x amount of fish!"

Any other MMO has actually engaging fishing. GW2s Fishing is really fun, has different choices in terms of lures and baits, which actually affect what fish you get, and Fishing is actually useful in the game unlike WoWs fishing which is... just never relevant? You fish to fish. In DF, the only reason to fish is to get the upgrades for the spear, which are completely useless.

Dragonflight added things like Spearfishing which makes it more interactive, and it's a good start.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Vindicaar is from the latin root vindicta ("vengeance", as in vindictive), like Vindicators. The Vindicaar is the ship they built after being attacked on Azeroth, finally deciding to stop running, take a stand and strike back against the Legion.

Xenedar is from the greek root xenos ("stranger", "alien", as in xenophobia), because it's a Light ship (per A Thousand Years of War) designed for long voyages through the Twisting Nether, an alien realm. This was changed from its original intended name Benedar, an straight use of bene ("good", as in beneficial) because it is the ship of the Army of Light, the supposedly holy and benevolent force.

As I am not illiterate and recognize extremely common root words of the english language, you are by no means required to clarify these meanings to me.

While I caught the root word of Vindicaar, I actually didn't catch that Xenedar was drawing from "xeno" because that draws from a descriptive word as opposed to implying a course of action. Regardless, "fairly meaningless" was a miscommunication: my sentiment would've been better communicated with "unthemed" or "disjointed". My central sentiment is that maintaining a Biblical naming scheme would be better than affixing a prefix loosely connected to some general quality of the vessel.

[Pheraz]

Something tells me that they will bring back warfronts but not a vs h but against the villain faction that comes next
SL didn't have enough casual solo content except that tower... DF has basically nothing except races, which are extremely nice but still it's not really much
If it's connected to islands I guess those IEs are also returning. Maybe they rebrand it to some other names

[Well Done Steak]

This is an old fan concept but it's what I would expect if 11.0 took place in karesh with a light vs void theme.

https://thetwofoldlight.wordpress.com/

Karesh has so much potential

[Sondrelk]

Something tells me that they will bring back warfronts but not a vs h but against the villain faction that comes next
SL didn't have enough casual solo content except that tower... DF has basically nothing except races, which are extremely nice but still it's not really much
If it's connected to islands I guess those IEs are also returning. Maybe they rebrand it to some other names

I have to disagree. Unless you mean content very specifically designed to be done solo then Dragonflight has plenty of open world activites.

[Dracullus]

Just realized, if 11.0 is revamp at least for Kalimdor and Amirdrassil will be important place there, automatically it makes 10.2 and defense of tree more important and interesting. Kinda opposite effect that 9.0 annoucement had on N'zoth patch.

[Ebonn]

Who knows. Are the Dimensional ships combat vessels? Who even made them? The Draenei can clearly replicate them. I'd assume they would be supposed to hide after X'era decided to dispatch her core to Azeroth.

They are not originally intended to be combat vessels but I believe that’s a matter of giving it weapons or not. Their main purpose is to traverse the Twisting Nether instantaneously, like an encased portal, as opposed to just traveling through space. They were originally designed and made by the Naaru. The Vindicaar is built by Draenei, though, while the Exodar was originally another satellite to Tempest Keep.

[Dracullus]

why ? in fact it could do just the opposite

Imagine new raid that doesn't drop better items, but must compete with all other content. People would simply care only about content that gives bis items.

Even if we assume that by some miracle people stop chasing bis items and explore content, it still would lead to spreading whole playerbase over enourmous amount of content. That's why in season we focus on 8-10 dungeons and 8-10 raid bosses.

And there is one part of game with horizontal approach - cosmetics/achievements. Blizzard could rework them as single player content, so you must do some mechanics to get transmog/mount you want, but people already get used to easy farming after 15 years, so it would be just like removing old flying in older continents.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

changing the progression curve from vertical to horizontal for the next expansion would definitely be perfect

You can play GW2 and ESO right now!

[Woggmer]

Something tells me that they will bring back warfronts but not a vs h but against the villain faction that comes next
SL didn't have enough casual solo content except that tower... DF has basically nothing except races, which are extremely nice but still it's not really much
If it's connected to islands I guess those IEs are also returning. Maybe they rebrand it to some other names

I don't think they'll do Warfronts again... Not because of the whole faction war aspect, but because of the gameplay.

It's boring as a PvE game and easy even if you get do the Heroic version of it (the only difference being that you need 20 other players that is even remotely interested in it)

Warfronts would work better as a PvP Game-Mode with PvE elements. Would it go on for a while? Maybe, but it is a lot more engaging than what we got. Kinda like Isle of Conquest but instead of the players being the army itself trying to push down a lane.. you have to actually manage a squad of NPCs to help take down towers like Classic Warcraft fashion (or even League of Legends style).

And as it stands, Blizz kinda puts PvP in the back-burner so I don't see something like that coming in a while.

[Nymrohd]

I don't think they'll do Warfronts again... Not because of the whole faction war aspect, but because of the gameplay.

It's boring as a PvE game and easy even if you get do the Heroic version of it (the only difference being that you need 20 other players that is even remotely interested in it)

Warfronts would work better as a PvP Game-Mode with PvE elements. Would it go on for a while? Maybe, but it is a lot more engaging than what we got. Kinda like Isle of Conquest but instead of the players being the army itself trying to push down a lane.. you have to actually manage a squad of NPCs to help take down towers like Classic Warcraft fashion (or even League of Legends style).

And as it stands, Blizz kinda puts PvP in the back-burner so I don't see something like that coming in a while.

Honestly Warfronts suffered from lack of iterations. I am certain there is a compelling and challenging game mode that requires multiple optimizations behind that gameplay mode. Focus more on forcing defense and making good use of buffs and units and then require at least a couple of players optimized for doing resource runs and you have something very different from a standard raid. Then tune the bosses at the level of a heroic raid.
And it could be used not just for faction vs faction PvE but could have been used for PvE enemy factions as well.

[Sondrelk]

Honestly Warfronts suffered from lack of iterations. I am certain there is a compelling and challenging game mode that requires multiple optimizations behind that gameplay mode. Focus more on forcing defense and making good use of buffs and units and then require at least a couple of players optimized for doing resource runs and you have something very different from a standard raid. Then tune the bosses at the level of a heroic raid.
And it could be used not just for faction vs faction PvE but could have been used for PvE enemy factions as well.

Warfronts suffered from being designed for a full group of randoms. Design it for 5 people and tune it for a premade group and I think it would have worked much better.

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I don't think they'll do Warfronts again... Not because of the whole faction war aspect, but because of the gameplay.

It's boring as a PvE game and easy even if you get do the Heroic version of it (the only difference being that you need 20 other players that is even remotely interested in it)

Warfronts would work better as a PvP Game-Mode with PvE elements. Would it go on for a while? Maybe, but it is a lot more engaging than what we got. Kinda like Isle of Conquest but instead of the players being the army itself trying to push down a lane.. you have to actually manage a squad of NPCs to help take down towers like Classic Warcraft fashion (or even League of Legends style).

And as it stands, Blizz kinda puts PvP in the back-burner so I don't see something like that coming in a while.

If it was tuned around 5 people in a premade group (probably with an LFR variant for casuals), I think it could have worked. More focus on NPC management, and heavier focus on letting the waves of allies do the hard lifting.

[Makabreska]

Warfronts suffered from being designed for a full group of randoms. Design it for 5 people and tune it for a premade group and I think it would have worked much better.

They were supposed to be big battles. 5 man would not cut it.

[Skildar]

Warfronts suffered from being designed for a full group of randoms. Design it for 5 people and tune it for a premade group and I think it would have worked much better.

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If it was tuned around 5 people in a premade group (probably with an LFR variant for casuals), I think it could have worked. More focus on NPC management, and heavier focus on letting the waves of allies do the hard lifting.

I'm with you. Strategy aspect would have been far better as a 3-5 man experience. You would have been able to customize a lot better where you put resources and what objectives you play with the feeling of being impactful in the game. Which was one of the biggest failure of warfronts

[Sondrelk]

They were supposed to be big battles. 5 man would not cut it.

The big battles should be because of a large amount of NPC allies, not 30 people idly killing everything in a doomstack.
Big battles sure, but also evoking the feel of an RTS or MOBA where you play the hero unit. And those games don't have a habit of 30 hero units. Armies are built slowly with a focus on small elite units to start with, and ending with large amounts of weaker units crushing everything.

Instead of 30 players with 2 NPCs each. What is wrong with 5 players with 5, or even 10 NPCs each?

[lanerios]

I don’t think it’s a problem, the people involved are going to look for any optimization so that they have something to do and if it doesn’t interest some, well, they’re going to do something else

Yea, let's leave the assumptions to people with the data ok? Them being Blizzard. Not some randoms on a random forum

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The big battles should be because of a large amount of NPC allies, not 30 people idly killing everything in a doomstack.
Big battles sure, but also evoking the feel of an RTS or MOBA where you play the hero unit. And those games don't have a habit of 30 hero units. Armies are built slowly with a focus on small elite units to start with, and ending with large amounts of weaker units crushing everything.

Instead of 30 players with 2 NPCs each. What is wrong with 5 players with 5, or even 10 NPCs each?

Exactly this. Warfronts pretty much died due to the way they were made.

1.) The focus on LFR difficulty or even lower (you need to be able to complete it with a group where only 4 overgeared people do something(who barely join because see 3.))
2.) Forcing the group to do random objectives, instead of letting players do their own thing and contribute (for example, there was a huge priority to certain areas over others.)
3.) The rewards being lackluster.