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

[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.

[Vakir]

The discourse on content amount will never not be funny.

Piaget was wrong. We have full ass adults who are clearly unable to fully utilize the psychological concept of conservation. Or the game equivalent of the 1/3 pounder flopping because "3 is less than 4 so clearly it must be less beef than the quarter pounder."

[Makorus]

The discourse on content amount will never not be funny.

Piaget was wrong. We have full ass adults who are clearly unable to fully utilize the psychological concept of conservation. Or the game equivalent of the 1/3 pounder flopping because "3 is less than 4 so clearly it must be less beef than the quarter pounder."

I would take a Highmaul over Naxxramas any day of the week. The fixations on numbers regardless of quality will never cease to amaze me.

[Foolicious]

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 will die on that hill that bots ruined zaralek far more than bad design has. Sure it wasn't the best, but it was a pretty standard zone with the usual problems ever since they started their philosophy of only tank players are allowed to solo elite mobs.

The real problem, which is even prevalent today, is sharding. If you didn't join a group you basically are alone with all the evoker bots farming ores and herbs.

[Ersula]

Wrath was better for raids than WoD because it had a higher number of raid instances and bosses! Duh! Legion is a worse expansion because it only has 5 zones compared to 6!

Numbers mean everything!

Well, we have to quantify it somehow & it doesn't help if you get that number wrong. Legion had at least 7 depending on how you quantify it. And even then the quality was better than dragonflight zones because they were more engaging.

[Vakir]

I would take a Highmaul over Naxxramas any day of the week. The fixations on numbers regardless of quality will never cease to amaze me.

I disagree re: Naxx40 back in the pre-1.12 days before power creep made it a lot easier, but otherwise, yes.

Even cracking open the data and looking at quest amount per expac doesn't work. Quests are often longer and multistep compared to earlier expansions. Some zones were completely irrelevant or poorly polished. Some aren't even quests and are loaded into scenarios that count as one step but are extended over a longer period of time.

Modern WoW has plenty of problems but content density isn't one of them. The opposite, it arguably doesn't respect the player's time with the amount of investment.

My favorite is "they got rid of Mists style queued Scenarios!," the things that can be 100% completed of all achievements in an afternoon with no further incentive after.

King of Bad Takes even extends this to 14 - jobs have more actions because of creeping over soon to be 5 expansions and there is a lot more story content, spectacle, and overall polish. Every job means a new job set and artifact weapon sequence. Why wouldn't we see less jobs overall and a variance on what trials/raids go where (like Ultimates)?

[Nymrohd]

I will die on that hill that bots ruined zaralek far more than bad design has. Sure it wasn't the best, but it was a pretty standard zone with the usual problems ever since they started their philosophy of only tank players are allowed to solo elite mobs.

The real problem, which is even prevalent today, is sharding. If you didn't join a group you basically are alone with all the evoker bots farming ores and herbs.

Not even tanks would want to solo those mobs. I am a tank. The mobs were no danger at all to me. But it would still take several minutes to solo them.

- - - Updated - - -

I would take a Highmaul over Naxxramas any day of the week. The fixations on numbers regardless of quality will never cease to amaze me.

That is just an unfair comparison though. Not only are you going for a very old raid, you are going for one that was so poorly implemented.

[Vakir]

That is just an unfair comparison though. Not only are you going for a very old raid, you are going for one that was so poorly implemented.

That's the point. We're talking about quality vs. quantity with regards to the comparisons to "more" past content.

[Nymrohd]

That's the point. We're talking about quality vs. quantity with regards to the comparisons to "more" past content.

We had large raids recently. You don't need to go to Naxx.

[Trazzle]

I’m surprised people are thinking there won’t be any new big features announced.

It’s not like you can’t still buy the game, it’s not like press/hype doesn’t help every quarter they’re announced in.

I’d argue that the Blizzcon announcement of TWW felt a little light on features, that there could totally be more to come.

Could just be high on hopium.

[Ersula]

That's the point. We're talking about quality vs. quantity with regards to the comparisons to "more" past content.

Fine. If you don't want quantified statements I'll put them as simply as possible:

In every aspect except writing, Shadowlands is a better expansion than Dragonflight.

Dragonflight is marginally better than BFA and the only expansion worse than BFA was WoD. I was feeling better about Dragonflight when they said there was a lot more coming in 2024 but I don't it's even appropriate to attribute a fortnite reskin & another leveling revamp to an expansion.

So when they've shown us almost nothing about TWW why should I listen to Holly & other devs making vague statements about all the cool things coming in TWW. What am I getting excited for? My own imagination?

[Dracullus]

In every aspect except writing, Shadowlands is a better expansion than Dragonflight.

Oof. That's not hot take, that's plasma take.

[Varodoc]

Fine. If you don't want quantified statements I'll put them as simply as possible:

In every aspect except writing, Shadowlands is a better expansion than Dragonflight.

Dragonflight is marginally better than BFA and the only expansion worse than BFA was WoD. I was feeling better about Dragonflight when they said there was a lot more coming in 2024 but I don't it's even appropriate to attribute a fortnite reskin & another leveling revamp to an expansion.

So when they've shown us almost nothing about TWW why should I listen to Holly & other devs making vague statements about all the cool things coming in TWW. What am I getting excited for? My own imagination?

The only reason why you people love SL and hate BfA is because of Sylvanas character arc.

Let's cut all filler pretences that it has anything to do with the gameplay.

[Makabreska]

I’m surprised people are thinking there won’t be any new big features announced.

It’s not like you can’t still buy the game, it’s not like press/hype doesn’t help every quarter they’re announced in.

I’d argue that the Blizzcon announcement of TWW felt a little light on features, that there could totally be more to come.

Could just be high on hopium.

Well, we still have to see what was that Holly tweet about MoP Remix not being "everything left". Usually, Blizz sticks to the initial reveal when it comes to big features, but past three months has been positively crazy, so who knows.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I think its best to wait for the Alpha/Beta Interviews and see if they address the concerns rather than derail a thread with subjective definitions of what constitutes content and not content. We do not know if Blizzard is operating in bad faith yet.

[Ersula]

I’m surprised people are thinking there won’t be any new big features announced.

Besides that they'd never done that before, what would be the point in not revealing all the big features at blizzcon? Besides deliberately hurting the pre-order figures.

Oof. That's not hot take, that's plasma take.

We've pretty much reduced the expansion to some sort of boogieman. The main problem was torghast and the writing but somehow that turned into Shadowlands becoming the worst expansion ever in our minds: But in actuality, now that we have post-legion subscription numbers, Shadowlands pulled in more subscribers than BFA. (Don't say it was all classic. The Shadowlands release spike was bigger than the classic release spike & BFA release spike combined.)

The only reason why you people love SL and hate BfA is because of Sylvanas character arc.

Let's cut all filler pretences that it has anything to do with the gameplay.

Because BFA didn't have a Sylvanas arc, right?

Covenants were fuched, but still a million times better than Azerite armor. That's not even a hot take.

[Nymrohd]

Besides that they'd never done that before, what would be the point in not revealing all the big features at blizzcon? Besides deliberately hurting the pre-order figures.
We've pretty much reduced the expansion to some sort of boogieman. The main problem was torghast and the writing but somehow that turned into Shadowlands becoming the worst expansion ever in our minds: But in actuality, now that we have post-legion subscription numbers, Shadowlands pulled in more subscribers than BFA. (Don't say it was all classic. The Shadowlands release spike was bigger than the classic release spike & BFA release spike combined.)

??? Girl, no. Korthia was trash. The mid-expac content drought was crazy. The covenant restrictions were beyond stupid. Half the seasonal affixes were poison and the first M+ season was really doing its best to get every tank to quit M+.
People signed up like crazy cause they got hyped by the cinematic and excited about Torghast which received glowing reviews in the alpha yet was delivered in a completely different state on live (and also had a very different reward model).

[Vakir]

So when they've shown us almost nothing about TWW why should I listen to Holly & other devs making vague statements about all the cool things coming in TWW. What am I getting excited for? My own imagination?

There's a sizeable gap between "people do a poor job understanding content density relative to perceived diminishing amounts" and "beep boop, get excited for new product and do not question."

TWW seems "fine." It's as stupid to call it a $50 patch, as some have, as it is to call it some bold and exciting new foray for WoW as a whole.

I'm just as inclined to not believe the hype about Midnight and its alleged socks-knocking features to be anticipated as I am to perceive it as probably being mid.

My point is that the actual delivery of content and the polish involves varies. SL is better in some ways. It also had trash pacing of some features (Covenant progression) and some examples where not having some of that content at all was preferable (Korthia). Nevermind the systems issues, which is more to the point - you can't judge something wholesale around the idea of how much content it shoved in your mouth without the context around how said content played, nevermind the launch status of it vs. the modern updates. SL has a lot more to work with now if you ever want to return to it only after multiple patches of iteration to make the already existing stuff way less miserable and draconian.

We're never seeing something as insane in volume as Cataclysm or even Legion with modern AAA expectations attached to a recently acquired studio scrambling through adjustments and controversy. The industry already struggles with bloating costs, now apply it to one of the most expensive genres within the GaaS umbrella on a 20 year entry.

It won't stop people from expecting a full world revamp with their every wish every 2 fucking years.

We had large raids recently. You don't need to go to Naxx.

Granted - but the other example was also half a tier. Even modern WoW raid quality is variable but 8 vs. 10 bosses doesn't always have a ton to do with it.

It's an extreme to illustrate that quantity in a side by side comparison doesn't mean anything.