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

[Woggmer]

Meh. All I took from this is that they recognized what SL failed to do, and that they're doing these sagas so that said failures won't happen again. Sagas are a great way of properly building up cosmic storylines as well imo.

I think from Legion to Shadowlands was supposed to be considered a "saga" or rather the Sylvanas Saga. It could've 'worked' if they hadn't done this plotline before with Garrosh back in MoP and WoD. Right down to the fact that the War Crimes novel wanted to paint Garrosh as the next Arthas. But that's just the plot... I can't defend the bad gameplay choices they went with for BFA and SL.

Now, they actually give us insight that yes, these next expansions are part of a bundle of stories to be paired together. They've thought ahead about these... Which is why TWW has a lot riding on it, because as much as people are amped about Midnight and dealing with the Void and going back to Quel'thalas, TWW's success will have a factor in all this as well.

[FelPlague]

Season 4 so far:
Return of Dinar system, possibly just 1?
BG Blitz rating systems, maybe 10.2.7?
Fated returning without weekly cycling?
Open World gear more meaningful Ilvl?

I bet we'll get something unannounced?

There is something, what that is we don't know but something.

Also love the signature.

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I don't know if I misremembered it, but I think at the time Azerite armor was initially supposed to be on every armor slot, not just head, shoulder, and chest... but someone must've thought it would made the game too complex to work with especially given the reaction everyone had at Blizzcon when they tried to explain how Azerite Armor worked.

So it probably would've had a lot more going into it.. that's just my theory about it, but we'll never know.

Nah it was theorized by players it would expand to more slots, but blizz never said such, it was always just the 3 parts.

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That graph doesn't make much sense to me. Not in the sense that BFA has a low point compared to Shadowlands, but that Shadowlands has a higher launch than Legion and BFA... almost on par with WoW Classic's launch. In a sequel expansion that came after it made Sylvanas super unpopular, shits on the story and gameplay.

It could just be pandemic, but I don't recall a lot of people being super hyped about Shadowlands when it launched. Especially with people warning Blizzard that covenants weren't ready and that they still needed to fine tune a lot of things wrong with them.

Shadowlands was boosted by classic... That's why.

[Woggmer]

Shadowlands was boosted by classic... That's why.

I don't buy that, it would mean that a bunch of people had to pay for Shadowlands and jump from Classic back into retail to play the new expansion. Nobody would want to jump back into retail when they can just stick to Classic.

The problem with this graph is that it shows all the players that have ever subscribed to WoW... but it doesn't explain how much of the numbers are playing Classic vs Retail. And even then, Classic launched MONTHS before Shadowlands officially dropped.

[Ersula]

https://www.inven.co.kr/webzine/news...94262&site=wow

gdc presentation for those interested. it's in korean so you probably have to use google translate

"Dangerous but not too dark" is funny as a key component of the story considering the most common plot convention in wow is genocide. I guess that's in comparison to Warhammer 40k who's only plot convention is genocide.

[Jastall]

Yup, pretty much. Like, the boost from Classic would baseline elevate all subs from that point on by some amount; so the fact that BfA's lowest which is before Classic is lower than SL's doesn't mean much. Or that that DF did NOT have China subs and TWW will. There is just so many effects and especially the addition of Classic complicates everything. But what is important is that the subs never seem to dip much below WoD's lowest point at 5 mil and DF is probably much higher than that.

I'd say the one thing the graph does is dispel any doom and gloom. The game remains extremely active so Blizzard is likely planning a third decade for it. Anyone who starts with WoW is dying can just look at the numbers.

Personally I thought that was crystal clear come Blizzcon 2023. The show was almost entirely about WoW getting a hardcore game mode, a Classic version of a fairly controversial expansion that nevertheless Blizz thinks will be worth the time, and oh yeah entire 3 expansions announced at once by WoW's most popular ambassador to the playerbase. You don't do all that if you don't have faith in the product's health in the medium-long term.

Blizzard needs to do 2 things; keep the content coming at a steady pace unlike Shadowlands, and calm down on overburdening the playerbase with systems like they did in BfA. If they do that, the game is going to truck on for quite a long time yet. WoW fans want to be given reasons to play WoW, even if forum chatter might indicate otherwise. And Classic has already proven itself a gold mine of fairly low-investment sub revenue for what is probably a couple decades to come at this point.

[Jolly Roger]

I love the graph
Not just because it shows that WoW in one form or another is doing well

Bellular in all his knowledge decided to guess numbers and slap them on and it has caused ppl immense joy and anger

[ImTheMizAwesome]

Trading post is pretty much a thing that gets my sub every month or every two months, usually i just resub in the middle of the month so i can get 2 months of trading post stuff with one pay.

If there was no trading post i probably wouldn't be resubbed for many months.

[Explicit Teemo Nudes]

Not to disagree, but isn't that just Island Expeditions but on a bigger map? I don't know about Suramar though, the city part of the zone makes it too dense to work with. Highmountain or Azsuna would work better.

Even places like the Barrens, Valley of Four Winds, Stormsong Valley, Uldum, or even Westfall could work.

Then you could say the same thing about the PvP version of Plunderstorm, since PvP Island Expeditions was, and is, a thing.
I think it's different. In PvE IE you didn't really compete against anyone except lousy AI. You didn't have to be smart about how you did things; you could just run around and AoE mobs.

You could also apply your logic to anything in this game. We have leveled before, so let's just scrap that. We have had dungeons and raids before, so let's just scrap that. We have had expansions before, so let's not do that. Abilities, mog, spells and abilities, mounts, etc with everything in the game.

PvE Plunderstorms could be an improved and more complex version of IE.

[Nymrohd]

Blizzard needs to do 2 things; keep the content coming at a steady pace unlike Shadowlands, and calm down on overburdening the playerbase with systems like they did in BfA. If they do that, the game is going to truck on for quite a long time yet. WoW fans want to be given reasons to play WoW, even if forum chatter might indicate otherwise. And Classic has already proven itself a gold mine of fairly low-investment sub revenue for what is probably a couple decades to come at this point.

My viewpoint is that yes, overburdening the playerbase with systems is bad. But ONE system would have been fine. Legion power creep did not come from the Artifact Weapon; it came from Artifact Weapon PLUS the expansion on the system in 7.2 PLUS the Netherlight Crucible PLUS the Legendary system. BfA did not just have Azerite Gear it also had Essences and Corruptions. I think one or maybe two would be fine, it's 3 and 4 that are a problem; with SL we did have just one but switching even after the ripcord still was complicated and not something you could do just by changing talents.
I think we will still get bloat regardless. The talent tree system in DF is probably the best part of the expac and the best talent system we have had yet but in quite a few cases it is bloated. I don't think any monk would mind if their spec could work with a few buttons less. What will three layers of Hero Talent and similar systems do to it? Will every ability have an average of 10-12 talent interactions with multiple possible procs on them? I don't think Blizzard has found any solution to infinite talent growth other than to occasionally prune or reset everything. If the borrowed power systems were just smaller they wouldn't have been that much of a problem. Until they find a way to do horizontal progression that is palatable, they are just delaying the inevitable.

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PvE Plunderstorms could be an improved and more complex version of IE.

Eh, PVE Island Expeditions on a bigger map is something we are already getting almost every expansion. It's called overworld content, it's basically sandbox zones. Any one of the better designed expansion zones in particular is awash with rares and events. The idea here is to suddenly stop playing our characters and drop the warcraft gameplay for something very simplified?

[Darkarath]

I think that Plunderstorm is perfect the way it is. It has to be mainly a PvP thing. But they can do it with a new map, new powers, and of course new rewards.

The combat system of Plunderstorm, though, they better fucking expand it to other PvP systems. First as a weekly brawl, and just keep going if the answer of the community is positive.

Regarding PvE, I do not think that the combat system would work that well, but definitively they could take many ideas from Plunderstorm. Mainly a parallel progression in which every character start from zero and you gain and level new skills. Basically a Torghast with different rewards every season but without classes. A true roguelike, just create the built that you like and have fun.

[Nymrohd]

I think that Plunderstorm is perfect the way it is. It has to be mainly a PvP thing. But they can do it with a new map, new powers, and of course new rewards.

The combat system of Plunderstorm, though, they better fucking expand it to other PvP systems. First as a weekly brawl, and just keep going if the answer of the community is positive.

Regarding PvE, I do not think that the combat system would work that well, but definitively they could take many ideas from Plunderstorm. Mainly a parallel progression in which every character start from zero and you gain and level new skills. Basically a Torghast with different rewards every season but without classes. A true roguelike, just create the built that you like and have fun.

I mean you are asking for a new game that uses Warcraft Assets. That's all it is.

[Explicit Teemo Nudes]

My viewpoint is that yes, overburdening the playerbase with systems is bad. But ONE system would have been fine. Legion power creep did not come from the Artifact Weapon; it came from Artifact Weapon PLUS the expansion on the system in 7.2 PLUS the Netherlight Crucible PLUS the Legendary system. BfA did not just have Azerite Gear it also had Essences and Corruptions. I think one or maybe two would be fine, it's 3 and 4 that are a problem; with SL we did have just one but switching even after the ripcord still was complicated and not something you could do just by changing talents.
I think we will still get bloat regardless. The talent tree system in DF is probably the best part of the expac and the best talent system we have had yet but in quite a few cases it is bloated. I don't think any monk would mind if their spec could work with a few buttons less. What will three layers of Hero Talent and similar systems do to it? Will every ability have an average of 10-12 talent interactions with multiple possible procs on them? I don't think Blizzard has found any solution to infinite talent growth other than to occasionally prune or reset everything. If the borrowed power systems were just smaller they wouldn't have been that much of a problem. Until they find a way to do horizontal progression that is palatable, they are just delaying the inevitable.

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Eh, PVE Island Expeditions on a bigger map is something we are already getting almost every expansion. It's called overworld content, it's basically sandbox zones. Any one of the better designed expansion zones in particular is awash with rares and events. The idea here is to suddenly stop playing our characters and drop the warcraft gameplay for something very simplified?

1) They could let us use copies of our current WoW-characters instead of anonymous characters like in Plunderstorm.
2) The whole point, the whole idea, of this is to give us PvE versions of Plunderstorm. You and others that have replied to my idea argue that we already have my idea in other parts of the game - but the same could be said for PvP Plunderstorms! And since we 100% will be getting more Plunderstorm/Plunderstorm rewards tracks in the future, I simply want Blizzard to give us PvE versions. After all, Blizzard is the one that has driven away most of the PvP community that existed in vanilla and earlier expansions, so no one can seriously Pikachu Face people when they are let down of a new PvP mode.

[Darkarath]

I mean you are asking for a new game that uses Warcraft Assets. That's all it is.

New mode. Just as Plunderstorm.

Rewards are transferred to the main game. Although it could be included in Retail just as Torghast was, I do not see the problem.

WoW needs a parallel progression not tied to player power.

[Cherry123]

Hopefully they will announce a release date for the TWW alpha next week.

[Jastall]

My viewpoint is that yes, overburdening the playerbase with systems is bad. But ONE system would have been fine. Legion power creep did not come from the Artifact Weapon; it came from Artifact Weapon PLUS the expansion on the system in 7.2 PLUS the Netherlight Crucible PLUS the Legendary system. BfA did not just have Azerite Gear it also had Essences and Corruptions. I think one or maybe two would be fine, it's 3 and 4 that are a problem; with SL we did have just one but switching even after the ripcord still was complicated and not something you could do just by changing talents.
I think we will still get bloat regardless. The talent tree system in DF is probably the best part of the expac and the best talent system we have had yet but in quite a few cases it is bloated. I don't think any monk would mind if their spec could work with a few buttons less. What will three layers of Hero Talent and similar systems do to it? Will every ability have an average of 10-12 talent interactions with multiple possible procs on them? I don't think Blizzard has found any solution to infinite talent growth other than to occasionally prune or reset everything. If the borrowed power systems were just smaller they wouldn't have been that much of a problem. Until they find a way to do horizontal progression that is palatable, they are just delaying the inevitable.

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Eh, PVE Island Expeditions on a bigger map is something we are already getting almost every expansion. It's called overworld content, it's basically sandbox zones. Any one of the better designed expansion zones in particular is awash with rares and events. The idea here is to suddenly stop playing our characters and drop the warcraft gameplay for something very simplified?

Some amount of bloat is fine. As you said, Artifact weapons were totally fine, it's the pileup with Legendaries, AP grind and eventually the Crucible that became too much. But just Artifacts with a light AP requirement and the 7.3 Legendary rework where they're deterministic would be a nice batch of systems. The issue is losing too much stuff when going to the next expansion, which always feels terrible, and there's no way that Blizzard can just constantly give and never take. The Hero Talent system may be planned so that they add new alternate trees to give more mutually exclusive options, rather than giving players foot long trees with 120 points to spend a couple expansions from now. Maybe rotate out unpopular trees as a way of pruning without directly affecting most players.

Horizontal progression isn't something WoW will center around, I think. The grind for more power is core to the game's DNA. It's what keeps the wheel turning, what excites our little monkey brains. Blizzard is extremely aware of this and the design philosophy will not change. For them it's better to sometimes stumble with the vertical progression model than completely change the game into a horizontal progression, a change they might not even pull off and that would alienate massive swathes of the playerbase.

[Cheezits]

They said S4 will be on ptr, but when is 10.2.7 ptr? Wouldn't it be soon if it's supposed to be May?

[Nymrohd]

Horizontal progression isn't something WoW will center around, I think. The grind for more power is core to the game's DNA. It's what keeps the wheel turning, what excites our little monkey brains. Blizzard is extremely aware of this and the design philosophy will not change. For them it's better to sometimes stumble with the vertical progression model than completely change the game into a horizontal progression, a change they might not even pull off and that would alienate massive swathes of the playerbase.

I mean, what you suggested, more hero talents as choices IS horizontal progression.

[Ersula]

I mean, what you suggested, more hero talents as choices IS horizontal progression.

I predict they'll be adding Hero Talents for this Saga and the next Saga. There will be a level squish in 14.0 so the fact that its horizontal won't be as blatant. Then by the end of 16.0 it'll be 2028 and they'll have a whole new system devised.

If they had visualized the Hero Talent Trees as simply an end-of tree spec branch that you can't go halfsies into, would anyone be complaining? Because its the same thing.

[Woggmer]

Then you could say the same thing about the PvP version of Plunderstorm, since PvP Island Expeditions was, and is, a thing.
I think it's different. In PvE IE you didn't really compete against anyone except lousy AI. You didn't have to be smart about how you did things; you could just run around and AoE mobs.

You could also apply your logic to anything in this game. We have leveled before, so let's just scrap that. We have had dungeons and raids before, so let's just scrap that. We have had expansions before, so let's not do that. Abilities, mog, spells and abilities, mounts, etc with everything in the game.

PvE Plunderstorms could be an improved and more complex version of IE.

I'm not against the idea of a PvE mode, but rather... the pirate gimmick wears out fast. If it's gonna be like that with every single time they try to introduce this mode, I don't know if I'd stick with it. So I'm more of the "just make it more about the Venture Co trying to harvest Azerite" ...not make it like Seething Shore, or an exact replica of Island Expeditions.

The big issue with IE is that it had a pseudo-time limit. The moment you or your opponent fills the bar to max, then the game is over. It isn't last man standing or anything like Extraction Shooter games where you have a small bit of extra time to do stuff before you have to leave, which is why people do Mythic IEs because it meant getting more stuff while having more time.

[Dracullus]

They said S4 will be on ptr, but when is 10.2.7 ptr? Wouldn't it be soon if it's supposed to be May?

Best way to estimate 2024 roadmap is to read it backwards.

11.0.5 is last patch of year and will have anniversary stuff - obviously November patch.
2 months earlier - September 2024 for launch.
So August for pre-patch.
So June for 10.2.7.
And early May for Season 4.

Imo 10.2.7 PTR will start even before S4 launch (there will be 2 PTRs running like with 10.0.7 and 10.1), but somewhere in April.