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

[Dracullus]

I mean, raid is the content that lasts the longest without being artificially inflated, along with M+. People genuinely like to raid, and Mythic raiders have been raiding with no real rewards for the last two seasons now.

Would anyone do storms or whatever if there wasn't an achievement behind it for killing 200 mobs?

I repeat, depend from who you ask. World content is content raider what even look at and completionist will farm until he got everything. Obviously many, many parts of world are short live, but that's the catch - they are many.

Of course very often difficulty (or rather lack of it) of world content is something where game has a lot to improve on, that's what we are hoping to find in delves - flexible dificulty that award better stuff for bigger challenge.

[Makorus]

I repeat, depend from who you ask. World content is content raider what even look at and completionist will farm until he got everything. Obviously many, many parts of world are short live, but that's the catch - they are many.

Of course very often difficulty (or rather lack of it) of world content is something where game has a lot to improve on, that's what we are hoping to find in delves - flexible dificulty that award better stuff for bigger challenge.

But that's the issue, world content is inherently not good content because if it wasn't for the rewards, no one would do it. Would you do a Hunt if there wasn't a satchel? Would you do the Keep raid if there wasn't anything to gain? Have you done a Keep since you got the achievements and the max renown?

Torghast was the first big and good step in the right direction, but the playerbase screwed the pooch by not voicing their complaints properly and making it seem like Torghast was the problem when it was the rewards.

Raids and M+, you could remove the rewards (and once again, Mythic Raiding has no real rewards outside of some trinkets for some classes because gearing through M+ is just so much better), and people would still do it, because people genuinely enjoy the act of raiding itself.

[Dracullus]

But that's the issue, world content is inherently not good content because if it wasn't for the rewards, no one would do it.

Oh yeah, everyone would raid and M+ without rewards xD.

And to be more precise - beating raid boss (once) and trying to get highest M+/PVP score among your friends or region ARE rewards for competivive people. But farming that for sake of just playing this content? No one would fucking do it.

[Nymrohd]

They now launch patches with a bevy of open world stuff to do, following the trend that loads of WoW players are more casual collectors than sweaty raiders.

I mean the moment you go for "Sweaty raiders" you make your bias obvious. Number of encounters matters far more for people who raid normal or heroic than for people who raid Mythic (the vast majority of which spend most of the season in progression anyway).
And I am not even someone who mostly raids, I do all content. I found the bevy of open world stuff very low quality. Jesus multiple things they've added months ago still have bugs. I'm an avid collector and I feel their collections are just too bloated. Far too many reskins.

What they need is to get people back and that requires much better marketing hooks. I don't think TWW has that. The people like us who are playing will buy it because we know WoW is playing well at the moment. But TWW just did not have anything that would make you come back to check it out imo. Unknown locations for a plot someone who isn't playing probably doesn't know, no new class, a race no one asked for. The big thing that might get people back probably is warbands and Hero Talents (and people who will come back because they think they'll be able to play like Sylvanas will be sorely disappointed).

[Makorus]

Oh yeah, everyone would raid and M+ without rewards xD.

Oh no, not everyone, of course not, but I still think a good chunk of people raid/do M+ not because of the reward but because they enjoy doing it. You are aware there are people pushing keys that are higher than 20? You are aware that there are people who Mythic raid and don't get CE? What rewards do they get, exactly? Every raider who takes the game halfway seriously has been max ilvl since Week 3, so they clearly aren't doing it for the gear.

Meanwhile, would anyone do any DF World Content if there weren't achievements requiring you to grind it?

[Nymrohd]

Are we at the pretend raids that become dead content almost immediately are something to look forward to part of the release cycle? You see, I can play this game too, pretending stuff I don't like doesn't exist.

Part of the problem is, patch zones go dead much faster than they did before. And I don't know why. Zaralek went dead way too fast.

[Makorus]

Part of the problem is, patch zones go dead much faster than they did before. And I don't know why. Zaralek went dead way too fast.

I think a big issue is because everything in all the new zones is on a timer, so the only time people would go to Zaralek is when Researchers was up (and that was a shitty event so no one ever went at all).

[Dracullus]

Oh no, not everyone, of course not, but I still think a good chunk of people raid/do M+ not because of the reward but because they enjoy doing it. You are aware there are people pushing keys that are higher than 20? You are aware that there are people who Mythic raid and don't get CE? What rewards do they get, exactly? Every raider who takes the game halfway seriously has been max ilvl since Week 3, so they clearly aren't doing it for the gear.

Meanwhile, would anyone do any DF World Content if there weren't achievements requiring you to grind it?

I explained, beating hard content is also reward. But only for competitive people. Maybe it's hard to understand, but not everyone is competitive, in that world Dark Souls would be more popular than GTA.

But how it's relevant to discussion anyway? World content is not relevant because... people wouldnt farm it without rewards? Well guess that, it has rewards and many, many people play WoW without touching raids/M+/PVP. Hence Blizzard switching to current model where they add more world content, but you don't get initial raid with shorter lifespan.

Part of the problem is, patch zones go dead much faster than they did before. And I don't know why. Zaralek went dead way too fast.

Zaralek was dead on arrival cause it had pretty bad design - it was really non-solo friendly for content that should be mostly for solo players. Especially with rares, requiring group, spawning instantly, having pretty shit loot, bad rng for cosmetics and bi-weekly lockout, zone looked completely dead all the time. Only sniffing scenarios were pretty fun. Also, casual gearing moved pretty fast to Time Rifts just few weeks later.

Compare it for example to how popular Forbidden Reach was when it was current content.

[Cheezits]

Besides revealing aspects of future patchs, such as additional ARs or zone ideas, is a content creator event for TWW alpha really necessary? What's there to cover about launch that Blizzcon didn't?

[Marlamin]

Besides revealing aspects of future patchs, such as additional ARs or zone ideas, is a content creator event for TWW alpha really necessary? What's there to cover about launch that Blizzcon didn't?

I guess we'll find out, but I'm going to guess they're getting early access to whatever is available for testing when it opens up. We didn't get that at BlizzCon after all.

[Nymrohd]

I think a big issue is because everything in all the new zones is on a timer, so the only time people would go to Zaralek is when Researchers was up (and that was a shitty event so no one ever went at all).

I am not sure that's all there is to it. I remember staying for months on the MoP zones (ToT and TI) and they were always busy. Argus was certainly always busy (not that it mattered, we were so strong almost any spec could still take down things solo).

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Zaralek was dead on arrival cause it had pretty bad design - it was really non-solo friendly for content that should be mostly for solo players. Especially with rares, requiring group, spawning instantly, having pretty shit loot, bad rng for cosmetics and bi-weekly lockout, zone looked completely dead all the time. Only sniffing scenarios were pretty fun. Also, casual gearing moved pretty fast to Time Rifts just few weeks later.

Compare it for example to how popular Forbidden Reach was when it was current content.

Sure but Forbidden Reach was also current content for only six weeks and it was ludicrously rewarding for casuals when it came to gear ilvl.

[Dracullus]

Sure but Forbidden Reach was also current content for only six weeks and it was ludicrously rewarding for casuals when it came to gear ilvl.

If Zaralek would be that popular at least 2-3 weeks we wouldn't have this conversation. It was really dead after people finished campaign. And nothing stopped Blizzard with Zaralek being rewarding too with just giving slightly better account-wide gear.

[Raetary]

Part of the problem is, patch zones go dead much faster than they did before. And I don't know why. Zaralek went dead way too fast.

I felt like it was a case of overrewarding.
You were done with the rep pretty quickly and the zone basically showered you with good gear that you really didn't need to spend much time in there.

ED had mostly the same issues.

[Nymrohd]

If Zaralek would be that popular at least 2-3 weeks we wouldn't have this conversation. It was really dead after people finished campaign. And nothing stopped Blizzard with Zaralek being rewarding too with just giving slightly better account-wide gear.

Think is, ED did not do that much better. Oh sure there are enough people to get Superbloom and flowers done on reset day but you struggle to find anyone for the big rares. Thankfully they also made weaker rares as well. There is a clear balance when it comes to rewards that they have not figured out yet. I'll agree that Account-wide might be the answer; however much they insist on people having to play their alts, if players can grind stuff for their alts on their main, they always seem to do it; personally I just find it very enjoyable to be able to gear up my alt that way.

And perhaps they need to reconsider how fast someone should be expected to cap reputations. I remember no lifing Nazjatar and Mechagon when they came out and getting flight in an extraordinarily short time. Dream Wardens and Loamm both got done way too fast. I think they need to have the gameplay rewards early on and then have much longer tracks with just cosmetics.

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I explained, beating hard content is also reward. But only for competitive people. Maybe it's hard to understand, but not everyone is competitive, in that world Dark Souls would be more popular than GTA.

I think there are many levels of "hard". People want to be challenged but only up to a specific level. There are plenty of people who do lower difficulty raid and dungeon content because that is the challenge level that is right for them and as long as they do feel a challenge, it is rewarding. It is problematic that there is almost no challenge in the open world and it's not like this is unique to WoW.

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Besides revealing aspects of future patchs, such as additional ARs or zone ideas, is a content creator event for TWW alpha really necessary? What's there to cover about launch that Blizzcon didn't?

They could show a few things from the dungeons. We only have the names. And maybe they surprise us with dynamic ground mounts.

[Dracullus]

Think is, ED did not do that much better. Oh sure there are enough people to get Superbloom and flowers done on reset day but you struggle to find anyone for the big rares. Thankfully they also made weaker rares as well. There is a clear balance when it comes to rewards that they have not figured out yet. I'll agree that Account-wide might be the answer; however much they insist on people having to play their alts, if players can grind stuff for their alts on their main, they always seem to do it; personally I just find it very enjoyable to be able to gear up my alt that way.

ED is way better, of course not big rares that are still useless, but when I was playing it there was also ton of people flying around. Now probably not, but you know it's 5 months later.

And we know TWW is following account-wide route and not only for world stuff, it's literally whole point of warbound gear.

[Hyrja]

Its probably gonna be the same as with DF. Content creators can privately play the alpha 1-2 days in advance to make videos etc. Then wednesday/thursday the embargo lifts and they can release everything they made and the alpha launches a few hours later.

[Nymrohd]

ED is way better, of course not big rares that are still useless, but when I was playing it there was also ton of people flying around. Now probably not, but you know it's 5 months later.

And we know TWW is following account-wide route and not only for world stuff, it's literally whole point of warbound gear.

I think it's also kind of weird that Zaralek and ED did not have some big meta-achievement rewarding a mount. The ED achievement was too easy and the Zaralek achievement was too hard but only gave a title. Imo they messed up adding all the good rewards this late with A World Awoken, they'd have kept a lot more people doing the zones if they had mount rewards (and in ED's case, if they had added more/harder achievements to it). Maybe the fact that Cooling the Research Field was not in World Awoken is for the best though.

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Its probably gonna be the same as with DF. Content creators can privately play the alpha 1-2 days in advance to make videos etc. Then wednesday/thursday the embargo lifts and they can release everything they made and the alpha launches a few hours later.

Easier to get the content out that way than them doing some proper blogs sadly

[Marlamin]

Easier to get the content out that way than them doing some proper blogs sadly

It is arguably slightly more helpful because they effectively get free playtesters who will make video reports with feedback on it and the content creators get free content.

[Nymrohd]

It is arguably slightly more helpful because they effectively get free playtesters who will make video reports with feedback on it and the content creators get free content.

I guess. I just prefer reading to watching creators pad 5 minutes of information with 20 minutes of random shit and ads.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Islands Expeditions was what I most enjoyed in BFA (competing against an enemy team to rapidly harvest resources from an island), so I am pleasantly surprised that it has somewhat returned in the form of Plunderstorm. You have even more teams to fight against, and the closing storm wall makes the gameplay more fast paced (whereas in island expeditions, it was too easy to try to run around the outskirts of the island avoiding the enemy team). The simplified abilities are also fun. I like the charge up dash and the leap. I only have two complaints: 1. there is only one map, whereas Island Expeditions provided a plethora of locales to visit. And 2. you're not playing you're own character. You have to create a different character for Plunderstorm, and you can't transmog him or augment him with toys or elixirs or engineering toys. So it feels strange, incogruent with WoW as an MMO.

I sincerely hope that is the case and Midnight is gonna blow us ALL away. But TWW in it's current state is so pathetic.

For min. €49,99 you get:
- Dynamic Flight is Dragonriding for everything. It isn't new, should be a patch.
- Warbonds aren't new content, it's just QoL features. Nothing you can really "play".
- Hero Talents will be just color skins for spells or smth.
- Earthen are reskin of Dwarves.

+ Delves is the only "new feature". And even that sounds like smaller Torghast or something.
+ New continent (only 4 new zones)

How everyone is okay with this is beyond me.

On the other hand, there is Dawntrail for FFXIV (€34,99):
+ 2 completely new jobs (classes) and 1 limited job.
+ Female Hrothgar - you don't even need to buy Dawntrail for this
+ Graphical Update - you don't even need to buy Dawntrail for this
+ New continent (5 new zones)
+ Cosmic Exploration

The War Within expac is just a paid season patch. Change my mind.

All three current MMOs (WoW, FF14, and GW2) are years into decline, with new expansions providing less content compared to old expansions. With FF14 you used to get three full jobs (not 2, not 2 and a half jobs. Three full jobs) per expac, and Diadem/Eureka/Bozja, and a separate trial questline. With GW2, we used to get a new class and 9 elite specs per expansion and a raid and multi-layered, polished meta event maps and a guild hall and a new WvW map. And you have already touched on WoW.