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

[Chickat]

Assuming Hero Talents are going to stay after TWW, it is highely unlikely that we will actually see 4th specs, and given the precedent with rogue/warlock tanks and mage healer in SoD with a simple rune (revamp for the glyph system perhaps?), seems more plausible then betting on 4th specs, that are a bit at odds with hero talents later on.

Yeah wtf are they going to do with Hero talents in future expansions anyways? They cant just keep stacking new systems on top.

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I really hope this means we'll start getting clothing physics outside of belts and weapons. And not only that, but more varied robes, cloaks, and all that kinda stuff.

That would be really cool. Probably wouldn't happen in time for TWW though. I think they are just now starting to use AI for stuff like that.

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That is assuming Hero Talents will stay rigid after TWW. Ignoring the balancing nightmare, there could be additional Hero Talents in MN or TLT. Or the new specs get "added" to existing trees.
And runes like in SoD would run into the same problem, turning one spec with two specific Hero Talent trees into a different role.

Overall, entirely new specs make more sense, but will of course take time, and may be delayed if we get a new class in 12.0 or 13.0

Could they get by with only adding 3-6 specs per expansion? Thats nearly as much work as a new class. I cant see them adding 13 specs in one expansion. Its just not feasible imo. It would be even more work than Artifacts in Legion.

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Hero Talents are likely going to stay around for the entire trilogy. After the trilogy we will probably see yet another redesign of the class system and I assume elements of everything they'd have built up till then will remain.

Id like to see the 2 tree system continue but having the class based skills like a MoP tree. There is so much useless fluff in the class tree. Its the spec trees that are fun.

IMO a level squish after TLT from 100 back to 50. Every level you get a talent point for the class tree and every 5 from 20-50 you get a class point that is like the MoP tree. I think that would be more interesting and easy to read for newer players anyways.

[Redsmith]

I expect them to rework the race system at some point. I wouldn't mind some of these allied races being merged back in. The Dwarf/Dark Iron, Tauren/Highmountain, Orc/Maghar style allied races could really just be unlockable barber shop options. Give the merged race the option to choose either racial.

[Chickat]

I still hope Hero Talents are gonna stay horizontal rather than vertical.

Add new ones, but leave the old ones the same. Makes the most sense, and there is no power bloat. That's how Guild Wars 2 does it, essentially.

I think it would make more sense to turn them into class skins with 0 power after TWW or The World Soul Saga. It would be impossible to keep adding player power class skins forever. Eventually blizzard would be balancing like 15 classes with 3-4 specs each and 5-8 class skins per class. Wouldnt work.

[PenguinChan]

Yeah wtf are they going to do with Hero talents in future expansions anyways? They cant just keep stacking new systems on top.

My assumption is that going forward, the main talent tree will (mostly) be untouched and kept up-to-date with future balance changes, while they evolve and develop the heroic talents as time goes on. So you have three systems: Base Class + Specialization + Build customization. At least, that's how I see it going forward, it makes the most sense. Bring back Glyph style customization in the form of evolved hero archetypes and push the power fantasy with clear and defined alterations.

That would be really cool. Probably wouldn't happen in time for TWW though. I think they are just now starting to use AI for stuff like that

Probably not, or at least nothing that's in development currently. We may see cash shop appearances with future tech as a showcase, or unique rewards for the last patch / pre-order of the expansion after TWW.

Could they get by with only adding 3-6 specs per expansion? Thats nearly as much work as a new class. I cant see them adding 13 specs in one expansion. Its just not feasible imo. It would be even more work than Artifacts in Legion.

They have two big teams working on the major patches, cosmetics and expansion, and a (relatively) smaller third working on the future expansions. It's always possible for them to slapdash shit together and test it more for another expansion launch. No reason to conflate TOO much into one expansion as then it'll be feature bloat, even if you push it out. Not as bad as adding literally nothing in a new expansion though, beyond a gear reset and story continuation.

[Merryck]

I think it would make more sense to turn them into class skins with 0 power after TWW or The World Soul Saga. It would be impossible to keep adding player power class skins forever. Eventually blizzard would be balancing like 15 classes with 3-4 specs each and 5-8 class skins per class. Wouldnt work.

Yeah ... they should've just been cosmetics from the beginning. Not very "evergreen."

[Chickat]

one more thing to look forward to about Alpha is actually getting more concrete info on how Warbands and the removal of the "Unlock Restrictions" for transmogs will work.

I have a feeling Warbands will eventually turn into more than just account wide stuff. I could see them adding Swotr style followers for world and solo instanced content and using your own alts for that would be fun.

[Ersula]

They just posted a blog article about the Cata prepatch release date (April 30th). I really hope that's not it for the day.

Warlords of Draenor classic is going to last 5 months. At this rate, Classic might catch up with retail by 14.0 ...then they can start the cycle over again.

Edit: Let's theorycraft this. If length of classic expansions correspond to their original popularity:
TBC Classic - (June 2021) 15 months
Wrath Classic - (September 2022) 20 months
Cata Classic - (May 2024) 11 months
MoP Classic - (April 2025) 10 months
WoD Classic - (Feb 2026) 6 months
Legion Classic - (August 2026) 10 months
BFA Classic - (June 2027) 5 months
Shadowlands - (January 2028) Classic - 6 months
Dragonflight Classic - (September 2028) 8 months
TWW Classic - (May 2029)

[Chickat]

holy shit lmao cata is gonna be only like 7 months long not counting the end of expansion 'drought', thats wild jesus

Progressing through the final raid is not a drought. Anything more than 6 months is. Cata is going to be a year long.

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Another step closer

Are we at the point now where it could launch this week without much issue on their part?

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Catching up to retail could be most elegant way to end "rerun" classic. Cause otherwise what they can do? Leave it on random patch to rot forever? Close and delete people's characters?

Most likely they will either start over, or run a few forever servers of the most popular eras while having a SoD like one always running.

So 10 years from now we have Vanilla, Wrath, MoP, Legion servers running. SoD something running. Retail running.

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They could simply extend SoD to other expacs. That should have an appeal.

SoD WoD would be the best. Give us the WoD we were promised.

[Marlamin]

Are we at the point now where it could launch this week without much issue on their part?

If they have a stable build, yep

[doledippers]

whatre we doing man wheres the news

[Ersula]

They could simply extend SoD to other expacs. That should have an appeal.

I bet that is part of the toss-up they are currently mulling at Blizzard. Do they extend SoD into other expansions, or do they just create new level 60 phases until they think of a good premise for a new season. I'm honestly surprised they didn't announce Cata Classic wasn't coming with the cancelled Abyssial Maw raid. I don't think any of the No-changes people were even asking for Cata.

Then for the Sod team they have to ask themselves, most of the new abilities added to SoD become baseline so it becomes a dilemma to make it different enough from Expansion era realms. Either way, I expect subsequent seasons to use Discovery's established phases with new gameplay mechanics added on top of what's already there.

whatre we doing man wheres the news

No "this week in wow" post is actually more ominous. They might even just give us a "Alpha & 10.2.7 on ptr tomorrow" post. I don't see a "Thursday...Alpha stats, Friday...March of the Tadpoles" post happening.

Yeah wtf are they going to do with Hero talents in future expansions anyways? They cant just keep stacking new systems on top.

I expect, since they already range between 2 and 4 per class, they might just add new ones when they think of a fun new gimmick. If people really hate it they'll redesign it but I expect the current plan is for this version of character progression to extend into the next saga. They already said a level squish is coming in 14.0 so i'll be 1 - 60 again, but even that works better with the current system: In 14.0 You'll get one class talent, one spec talent, then one of each, alternating while leveling then Hero talents for the last 10 levels, just like in TWW.

[doledippers]

No "this week in wow" post is actually more ominous. They might even just give us a "Alpha & 10.2.7 on ptr tomorrow" post. I don't see a "Thursday...Alpha stats, Friday...March of the Tadpoles" post happening.

yeah thats what i mean, i dont understand the decision to not post it.

[Ersula]

I think it would make more sense to turn them into class skins with 0 power after TWW or The World Soul Saga. It would be impossible to keep adding player power class skins forever. Eventually blizzard would be balancing like 15 classes with 3-4 specs each and 5-8 class skins per class. Wouldnt work.

I don't think that would be so cumbersome. It becomes a balancing nightmare when you add new talents to it, but per this system, that doesn't happen. These are whole, and purportedly stay that way indefinitely. If they add a new Hero tree & it's too powerful or not powerful enough they can just buff it with a flat percentage they do with specs now.

[Chickat]

I don't think that would be so cumbersome. It becomes a balancing nightmare when you add new talents to it, but per this system, that doesn't happen. These are whole, and purportedly stay that way indefinitely. If they add a new Hero tree & it's too powerful or not powerful enough they can just buff it with a flat percentage they do with specs now.

I guess that makes sense. I was thinking you would double down on another hero tree for some reason.

[Makorus]

I think it would make more sense to turn them into class skins with 0 power after TWW or The World Soul Saga. It would be impossible to keep adding player power class skins forever. Eventually blizzard would be balancing like 15 classes with 3-4 specs each and 5-8 class skins per class. Wouldnt work.

Sure, but that only happens because Blizzard decides to drastically redesign the majority of specs every expansion for some reason.

We generally (outside of a few outliers) have class balance sitting at a very good level right now. So realistically, they don't have to touch balance at all, outside of tier sets.

The "Blizzard struggles with balance" is kind of a self-made issue because they insist that players just can't play the game if the class stays the same between two expansions, resulting in extreme changes every expansion and having to rebalance every class.

Well, Hero Talents solve that. You just need to balance that talent set, and that's it.

So for Midnight, if they decide to add more Hero Talents, they don't need to rebalance every single talent tree in the game, nor do they need to rebalance the TWW Hero Talents, all they need to balance are the Midnight Hero Talents so they are in line with the older ones.

Once again: Dark Ranger would stay exactly the same between TWW and Midnight. It's just in addition, you can pick Void Hunter, so you would have to pick between 3 rather than 2 hero talents.

Any balancing issues stem from Blizzard trying to reinvent the wheel every expansion.

[Auxis]

Wishful thinking, but I'm wondering if they have no actual news/promos this week but will just drop 10.2.7 ptr on us at random and be like "Have fun!".

Obviously I'd love to have the News post but that would be a lovely compromise.

Incase you can't tell, this lack of News post is killing me..

[Worldshaper]

Wishful thinking, but I'm wondering if they have no actual news/promos this week but will just drop 10.2.7 ptr on us at random and be like "Have fun!".

Obviously I'd love to have the News post but that would be a lovely compromise.

Incase you can't tell, this lack of News post is killing me..

They're definitely posting articles this week, as there are several up already on the news site. It's just the TWIW post that was skipped, as far as I can tell.

So definitely possible they release something today or tomorrow about 10.2.7.

[Jaggler]

Sure, but that only happens because Blizzard decides to drastically redesign the majority of specs every expansion for some reason.

We generally (outside of a few outliers) have class balance sitting at a very good level right now. So realistically, they don't have to touch balance at all, outside of tier sets.

The "Blizzard struggles with balance" is kind of a self-made issue because they insist that players just can't play the game if the class stays the same between two expansions, resulting in extreme changes every expansion and having to rebalance every class.

Well, Hero Talents solve that. You just need to balance that talent set, and that's it.

So for Midnight, if they decide to add more Hero Talents, they don't need to rebalance every single talent tree in the game, nor do they need to rebalance the TWW Hero Talents, all they need to balance are the Midnight Hero Talents so they are in line with the older ones.

Once again: Dark Ranger would stay exactly the same between TWW and Midnight. It's just in addition, you can pick Void Hunter, so you would have to pick between 3 rather than 2 hero talents.

Any balancing issues stem from Blizzard trying to reinvent the wheel every expansion.

Tbh balancing in Amirdrassil is really good. If you look at the DPS charts, it's almost a straight line (with the exception of sub and Aug)

[Nymrohd]

Tbh balancing in Amirdrassil is really good. If you look at the DPS charts, it's almost a straight line (with the exception of sub and Aug)

While this is very much true, there are several specs (not many though imo) that clearly need some work and I would hope that with TWW they see some significant changes.

[Jaggler]

While this is very much true, there are several specs (not many though imo) that clearly need some work and I would hope that with TWW they see some significant changes.

oh absolutely, i agree.