The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Murlocos]

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

It's hard to really say with how different every expansion's development ends up. Ion said the heavy patch support for Legion ended up negatively impacting BfA, which I can definitely believe given how much of 8.0's systems had issues that felt like they should have been identified early in internal testing. MoP had a gigantic content drought at the end, Wrath reused an entire raid (technically two), etc. One expansion's success can lead to the next's failure and vice versa, like WoD getting dropped early to pump up Legion.

Content staggering and the trading post is how they address it now. Even if we had a total drought after 10.2.5, no 10.2.6 or 10.2.7 until 11.0, they'd still have more people subbing to get the trading post every month than without it. Even if they fill the bar after a few hours and don't log in again, Blizzard sees their $15 which is the bottom line.

[Reive]

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.


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.

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.


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.

1) fair but i still wouldn't count them as full new dungeons. half at the best
2)leeka, the owner of drustvar, not long ago reported the numbers. partecipation was higher in sl. also, in sl the devs didn't hardcap the mmr, which is the biggest offender in making df pvp unappealing
3)by saying that soulbinds don't count as their own thing you're indirectly shitting on hero talents lol
4) i'd also like to see more variety. in general, for me 1 good feature is better than 100 recycled low effort events

[Varodoc]

It's hard to really say with how different every expansion's development ends up. Ion said the heavy patch support for Legion ended up negatively impacting BfA, which I can definitely believe given how much of 8.0's systems had issues that felt like they should have been identified early in internal testing. MoP had a gigantic content drought at the end, Wrath reused an entire raid (technically two), etc. One expansion's success can lead to the next's failure and vice versa, like WoD getting dropped early to pump up Legion.

Content staggering and the trading post is how they address it now. Even if we had a total drought after 10.2.5, no 10.2.6 or 10.2.7 until 11.0, they'd still have more people subbing to get the trading post every month than without it. Even if they fill the bar after a few hours and don't log in again, Blizzard sees their $15 which is the bottom line.

Emerald Nightmare in Legion was filler and didn't even have a raid tier associated with it.

Uldir in BfA had a tier set but was clearly filler from a story perspective. I raided Uldir on Alliance and I had no clue why I was even there in the first place. That right there, that's proof that Uldir was filler.

Legion and BfA basically had only 3 raids that mattered from either a story or gameplay perspective.

This is why just numbers alone are deceptive. You look at Legion and you see 5 raids, but one of those raids is literal filler and the other doesn't have an armour set tied to it and is just an irrelevant side-story.

[doledippers]

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

ah yes, i was hoping you'd mention the unique characters. idk if you knew this, but DF isnt even over yet. and s1 was literally TWICE as long as we are into season 3 of DF right now. but good try! and even if that were true, its hilarious to say its a "win". Even if shadowlands had more unique characters, the total runs were way less, WHICH MEANS PEOPLE DIDNT LIKE IT ENOUGH TO KEEP PLAYING. good try!

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).

goalposts moved, also source?

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

we dont know how much DF sold. you dont know, and i dont know. So, besides that fact that copies sold is a stupid metric (do you wanna say DF is better than legion because it sold more copies?), we have no way to verify what you are saying is true.

you are not only LYING about the data, you are misrepresenting it, moving goalposts, and making baseless claims using data that does not exist. Classic wow doomerism, if it helps you sleep at night i guess! the rest of us will be enjoying the game while you can sulk

[Dracullus]

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

Shift to from "entry raid + 3 tiers" to "3 tiers + fated" is consequence of major chunk of playerbase switchting to M+ or open world (in future delves) as main PVE content. hence resources from lost raid are shifted for example to making 2nd big patch zone.

In the past raid was pinnacle of PVE endgame, now it's one of pillars. You sound like they pulling resources from DF while we have strongest patch support in history.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

1) fair but i still wouldn't count them as full new dungeons. half at the best

sure I’d agree with that, though it still makes DF ahead.

2)leeka, the owner of drustvar, not long ago reported the numbers. partecipation was higher in sl. also, in sl the devs didn't hardcap the mmr, which is the biggest offender in making df pvp unappealing

ya without actual numbers and some sort of accounting of SS the owner of some site saying things are lower means nothing.

It’s just Lfr again where people said it was killing raiding because guild clear and log numbers were down, and then blizzard said more people were raidig them ever and the majority jus did Lfr.

3)by saying that soulbinds don't count as their own thing you're indirectly shitting on hero talents lol

I mean I’d say hero talents are just part of general class design to ya, beyond that I can’t say I have any strong feelings on them one way or another.

[Reive]

ah yes, i was hoping you'd mention the unique characters. idk if you knew this, but DF isnt even over yet. and s1 was literally TWICE as long as we are into season 3 of DF right now. but good try! and even if that were true, its hilarious to say its a "win". Even if shadowlands had more unique characters, the total runs were way less, WHICH MEANS PEOPLE DIDNT LIKE IT ENOUGH TO KEEP PLAYING. good try!



goalposts moved, also source?



we dont know how much DF sold. you dont know, and i dont know. So, besides that fact that copies sold is a stupid metric (do you wanna say DF is better than legion because it sold more copies?), we have no way to verify what you are saying is true.

you are not only LYING about the data, you are misrepresenting it, moving goalposts, and making baseless claims using data that does not exist. Classic wow doomerism, if it helps you sleep at night i guess! the rest of us will be enjoying the game while you can sulk

1) seasons have a diminishing return: the longer they go the less players they get. s3 isn't going to gain many new players. it could go on for 5 more months and the result would be the same
2) unique characters count more than the number of runs in establishing the number of players.
3) goalpost moved? nope s1 of sl was way bigger than s1 of dragonflight. source? the site you just used
4) blizzard likes to brag. they didn't say anything about the number of copies sold by df, and that's pretty telling.

[doledippers]

1) seasons have a diminishing return: the longer they go the less players they get. s3 isn't going to gain many new players. it could go on for 5 more months and the result would be the same
2) unique characters count more than the number of runs in establishing the number of players.
3) goalpost moved? nope s1 of sl was way bigger than s1 of dragonflight. source? the site you just used
4) blizzard likes to brag. they didn't say anything about the number of copies sold by df, and that's pretty telling.

1). the data suggests otherwise for season 3, strong retention. the week over week gain would have it surpassing s1 of SL in every metric
2). which again DF still wins in accounting for the same length of time, see point 1. The people playing are enjoying the game more than in SL, which is why you don't see a pathetic total number of runs despite this all important unique character number you keep lying to yourself about
3). correct, goalposts moved, still waiting on a source. a breakdown of the s1-s3 numbers for both expansions would be great. You can refer to my post above for guidelines on how to properly site numbers and do a detailed breakdown
4). so you dont know, understood.

loving this

these wow doomers are so desperate to validate their feelings that they have to lie about the available information in order to do so. Like i said, the people actually playing the game (the number of which is higher than in shadowlands ) are enjoying it, feel free to cancel that sub if you havn't already. its clear you have a chip on your shoulder for some reason

[Zardas]

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.

9.1 sure was pretty bad, but 6.1 was definitely way worst. At least 9.1 had a pretty decent raid, and the removal of the non-sensical pet battle limit.

As for the zone, I'd say that Hotgar's landing + the argent tournament was worst.

[doledippers]

9.1 sure was pretty bad, but 6.1 was definitely way worst. At least 9.1 had a pretty decent raid, and the removal of the non-sensical pet battle limit.

As for the zone, I'd say that Hotgar's landing + the argent tournament was worst.

i guess it depends on how you look at it. you could make an argument either way. 6.1 was basically not even a patch, while 9.1 actively harmed the game in many ways with shards of domination, archives rep grind, etc.

either way i dont think id have a problem saying that your picks for the worst are correct, they definitely were utter trash

[Super Dickmann]

I have seen a 9.1 shill. My experience in this fandom is now complete. I can retire happy.

[doledippers]

I have seen a 9.1 shill. My experience in this fandom is now complete. I can retire happy.

kneejerk contrarianism is a helluva drug

[Valysar]

Didn't realize there were only 2 weeks in March...

...oh wait, there aren't.

They usually announce the patches 2 weeks in advance right?

[Zardas]

i guess it depends on how you look at it. you could make an argument either way. 6.1 was basically not even a patch, while 9.1 actively harmed the game in many ways with shards of domination, archives rep grind, etc.

Now that I think about it, it's kinda crazy that we now get 10 times the amount of content in a x.x.x patch than some x.x patches back in the day.

either way i dont think id have a problem saying that your picks for the worst are correct, they definitely were utter trash

Yeah, it's definitely a debate about which trashcan is the smelliest.

[doledippers]

Now that I think about it, it's kinda crazy that we now get 10 times the amount of content in a x.x.x patch than some x.x patches back in the day.

yeah when you take a step back, and even compare it to something as recent as shadowlands, its pretty wild. 9.1.5 was mostly just changes to covenant swapping, with some class tuning and minor customizations. whereas 10.1.5 was a whole ass mega dungeon and an entirely new spec. I'm loving the direction they've gone with the game since DF

[Nymrohd]

They can hide the content of the patch if they want but they should still announce when it comes. If the entire point is to keep it secret then it should be equally important to get everyone to log on patch day before everyone knows everything about what they were hiding.

[doledippers]

seems like next week is gonna be the time for an announcement. regardless of when it comes out from this point, it being announced next week only makes sense. they said its coming in march, and release dates are typically 2 weeks out. next tuesday will be 2 weeks away from the last tuesday in the month so, hype?

[allegrian]

I think revamped ulduar will be a zone, or more than one. Remember that ulduar used to be as big as a continent.

[doledippers]

hmm, max is talking about 10.2.6 again on his stream. he said that he and other creators know what it is, so prob NDA (not surprising). He said he thinks it's worth keeping it secret, and that people will be "so hyped" when they find out what it is, and he thinks its gonna be insane. Basically doubling down on how sick he thinks its gonna be.

obviously not much info there, but the hype is def building for me again

[Makabreska]

hmm, max is talking about 10.2.6 again on his stream. he said that he and other creators know what it is, so prob NDA (not surprising). He said he thinks it's worth keeping it secret, and that people will be "so hyped" when they find out what it is, and he thinks its gonna be insane. Basically doubling down on how sick he thinks its gonna be.

obviously not much info there, but the hype is def building for me again

Well, I believe Max much more than all the other clickbaiters.