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

[Darkarath]

I have hope in Midnight. I keep thinking that we will get a LOT of content in this expansion. More than DF and maybe even more than Legion, regardless of it being a two patch expansion.

My main concern, as always, is story, narrative and character development.

Other than that, I fully support Blizzard's evergreen approach.

We might get less features, but relevant and game changing ones. At least since DF, Blizzard's bets have been astounding successes: Skyriding, Trading Post, Delves? Especially the last two, which IMO are the most important features created for WoW since Mythic +. And now we are getting the best Housing system ever created for an MMO, which will be another huge success.

I have my doubts about the Prey system, but if it is a previous and safe step towards the unlimited potential that World Tiers would bring, I welcome it.

[Nymrohd]

Midnight is definitely going to be an odd one. Though I am going to reserve judgment on trashing the expansion as stillborn until I have a better idea how it's going to pan out long term.

As it stands it seems like it will struggle on the gameplay side from the drastic overhaul of classes and the Add-on extinction event.
While simultaneously struggling on the narrative front from very clearly being the confluence of TWW, the cozy underground expansion. And The World Soul Saga, the epic trilogy.

Legion also had massive issues at launch that were only really ignored because it was better compared to WoD. And the massive hit of nostalgia.

In short: we probably need to get into at least 12.0.5 before we can really decide whether the issues in Midnight are minor stumbling blocks, or massive oversights.

I think fanservice is different than nostalgia. Legion had fanservice. They brought back over a thousand NPCs from past expansions and gave questlines, however small, to well over a hundred of them. And it had extremely high value collectibles with artifacts, solid mounts and some amazing mogs (though seriously, why did we have to wait for Remix for the damn HM eagles???) and tied them behind gameplay

I think Season 1 of Midnight will be a gameplay apocalypse and I am unsure they will be able to recover in time for season 2. They clearly had to abandon S3 of TWW when it came to developers with many specs having long lists of significant bugs. Where Legion profited from the influx of Diablo 3 devs, devs that had made a game with imo addictive, fast paced ARPG gameplay, Midnight gets the Diablo 4 devs who made a clunky, sluggish game with bad progression systems that often feels like a chore.

[allegrian]

Because they abandoned WoD for Legion so they had a lot more time to work on it.

It's not like TWW has had much content after undermine.

[Nymrohd]

It's not like TWW has had much content after undermine.

Well that is two thirds of TWW though. Undermine was excellent and Season 1 got the Anniversary event that very much beefed it up.

[zeir]

So any idea what the new mode set in duskwood teased during the summer is going to be? Thought they would pair it with halloween but alas. Like an unanounced 11.2.7 feature maybe? Wtf blizz.

[allegrian]

So any idea what the new mode set in duskwood teased during the summer is going to be? Thought they would pair it with halloween but alas. Like an unanounced 11.2.7 feature maybe? Wtf blizz.

Probably canned.

[zeir]

Aint no way, the parrot must know something he isnt telling us.

[Scyth]

Midnight is the most I've been hyped up for an expansion since Legion tbh. My favourite class is finally getting a 3rd spec and my favourite race is getting a revamped city + more story. Hard not to be excited about that.

As for the Duskwood event, surely it's going to be a part of the anniversary event no?

[Khaza-R]

I don't think anything pointed to the Duskwood event coming out this year? It was literally just "oh hey we wanted to share we're working on this cool thing and we'll elaborate more later this year".

[extasy]

Midnight is definitely going to be an odd one. Though I am going to reserve judgment on trashing the expansion as stillborn until I have a better idea how it's going to pan out long term.

As it stands it seems like it will struggle on the gameplay side from the drastic overhaul of classes and the Add-on extinction event.
While simultaneously struggling on the narrative front from very clearly being the confluence of TWW, the cozy underground expansion. And The World Soul Saga, the epic trilogy.

Legion also had massive issues at launch that were only really ignored because it was better compared to WoD. And the massive hit of nostalgia.

In short: we probably need to get into at least 12.0.5 before we can really decide whether the issues in Midnight are minor stumbling blocks, or massive oversights.

For me its complete opposite, most classes (specs) i play are even better in midnight. Add-on Extinction is the biggest W blizz can get and Story i have yet to see cus i dont do that stuff on alpha-beta.

[Sondrelk]

For me its complete opposite, most classes (specs) i play are even better in midnight. Add-on Extinction is the biggest W blizz can get and Story i have yet to see cus i dont do that stuff on alpha-beta.

It have faith it will be great for the game. I do very much dislike all the addons. But it is going to be a big change, and the devs will likely need a good while of testing to get the new classes and encounters to find their footing again.

[allegrian]

For me its complete opposite, most classes (specs) i play are even better in midnight. Add-on Extinction is the biggest W blizz can get and Story i have yet to see cus i dont do that stuff on alpha-beta.

Which classes would you say are better and why? Did you play alpha yourself?

[Holdodlig]

Midnight's big feature is a last moment redesign of the fundamentals of Warcraft gameplay more extensive than any previous redesign yet by the developers' own admission decided upon and enacted far into expansion development (quite possibly AFTER the expansion reveal)
It is quite possibly the greatest gamble in Warcraft development and I expect the first season of Midnight to be worse than Legion's by a wide margin yet without the massive fanservice that allowed so much to be forgiven and with only Housing to fall back to.
And while Housing seems robust and I believe a plurality will be favourable towards it, it is not a feature that offers core gameplay like World Quests and Mythic+ were

I wouldn't compare Midnight to Legion, but instead to WoD. WoD brought to WoW a big ability pruning, a personal space for players, made professions easier and made us went back to iconic BC places.

[allegrian]

Midnight is the most I've been hyped up for an expansion since Legion tbh. My favourite class is finally getting a 3rd spec and my favourite race is getting a revamped city + more story. Hard not to be excited about that.

As for the Duskwood event, surely it's going to be a part of the anniversary event no?

I'm glad midnight looks like your dream expansion. Mine would be a titan expansion with gnomes, dwarves, ulduar and the new Tinker class.

I've been in TLT waiting room mode since last blizzcon.

After that, my next dream expansions would be NE northern kalimdor revamp midnight style, with elune stuff, and then alliance EK revamp (Stormwind + IF).

Finally, an arathi continent expansion with the vibes from hallowfall would be hype as well.

[Cheezits]

I prefer the simple classes (DH, Hunter, Paladin) so I have zero issue with button trimming, if anything it may make me play classes like Sub Rogue without using OBR. I feel bad for the people who loved all the buttons but it's a personal win.

[Darkarath]

I prefer the simple classes (DH, Hunter, Paladin) so I have zero issue with button trimming, if anything it may make me play classes like Sub Rogue without using OBR. I feel bad for the people who loved all the buttons but it's a personal win.

Absolutely.

They have to find a way to keep buttons at bay. There is a problem with this approach, though, it doesn't fit at all with the current talent system, with 100 passive modifiers. Especially with the addition of Hero Talents, which make the whole system kind of ridiculous and really unwelcoming and complicated for new players.

Guess that their plan always was to make this version of the talents survive until whatever comes after TLT no matter in what state it gets there (which they're doing fine for the moment).

A return to the MoP talent system would be the best approach IMO, although then we'll have again the problem of having many levels without gaining anything.

[allegrian]

Absolutely.

They have to find a way to keep buttons at bay. There is a problem with this approach, though, it doesn't fit at all with the current talent system, with 100 passive modifiers. Especially with the addition of Hero Talents, which make the whole system kind of ridiculous and really unwelcoming and complicated for new players.

Guess that their plan always was to make this version of the talents survive until whatever comes after TLT no matter in what state it gets there (which they're doing fine for the moment).

A return to the MoP talent system would be the best approach IMO, although then we'll have again the problem of having many levels without gaining anything.

Yeah, the new philosophy looks weird with DF talents, which were created because back then POE was king and dethroned diablo temporarily, and PoE has that kind of talent tree, nothing like the one in diablo 3 which is the one wow took in MoP.

I think history is repeating itself and we will circle back to MoP talents. I mean, current talents are mostly bloat and both new players and veterans just copy whatever they find in their guide. It's impossible to keep up with that much information if you try to play more than one class and it looks like hell to maintain for devs.

Hero talents are an extra layer of bloat and they could just be normal talents or built in in the class for the most part.

And who cares about having levels without gaining anything when the true game is the endgame? (and has been for + 10 years). With the ammount of turbo leveling events and boosts, not even new players are actually spending much time leveling.

[Nymrohd]

Yeah, the new philosophy looks weird with DF talents, which were created because back then POE was king and dethroned diablo temporarily, and PoE has that kind of talent tree, nothing like the one in diablo 3 which is the one wow took in MoP.

I think history is repeating itself and we will circle back to MoP talents. I mean, current talents are mostly bloat and both new players and veterans just copy whatever they find in their guide. It's impossible to keep up with that much information if you try to play more than one class and it looks like hell to maintain for devs.

Hero talents are an extra layer of bloat and they could just be normal talents or built in in the class for the most part.

And who cares about having levels without gaining anything when the true game is the endgame? (and has been for + 10 years). With the ammount of turbo leveling events and boosts, not even new players are actually spending much time leveling.

They took two expansions to manage and make the class trees interesting and now they are replacing half the talents with passive bloat +% to spell talents straight from Vanilla. Because the new paradigm does not need these talent trees and we'd probably be better off back with MoP trees.

[Darkarath]

Yeah, the new philosophy looks weird with DF talents, which were created because back then POE was king and dethroned diablo temporarily, and PoE has that kind of talent tree, nothing like the one in diablo 3 which is the one wow took in MoP.

I think history is repeating itself and we will circle back to MoP talents. I mean, current talents are mostly bloat and both new players and veterans just copy whatever they find in their guide. It's impossible to keep up with that much information if you try to play more than one class and it looks like hell to maintain for devs.

Hero talents are an extra layer of bloat and they could just be normal talents or built in in the class for the most part.

And who cares about having levels without gaining anything when the true game is the endgame? (and has been for + 10 years). With the ammount of turbo leveling events and boosts, not even new players are actually spending much time leveling.

I honestly don't think that there is a point in leveling in WoW anymore.

The problem is to create a substitute for such system that keeps a feeling of progression, because gear is clearly not enough in that regard.

They took two expansions to manage and make the class trees interesting and now they are replacing half the talents with passive bloat +% to spell talents straight from Vanilla. Because the new paradigm does not need these talent trees and we'd probably be better off back with MoP trees.

Exactly.

Back when they introduced MoP talents the problem was that most talents were passive and that spending a talent point in +3 % intellect wasn't exciting.

We have returned to that point big time.

[Enrif]

Absolutely.

They have to find a way to keep buttons at bay. There is a problem with this approach, though, it doesn't fit at all with the current talent system, with 100 passive modifiers. Especially with the addition of Hero Talents, which make the whole system kind of ridiculous and really unwelcoming and complicated for new players.

Guess that their plan always was to make this version of the talents survive until whatever comes after TLT no matter in what state it gets there (which they're doing fine for the moment).

A return to the MoP talent system would be the best approach IMO, although then we'll have again the problem of having many levels without gaining anything.

i agree that the current talent trees are too big for more simplified classes. But i don't think we have to return to MOP as the solution.

We could trim down the trees, and instead of single point nodes, each node can have multiple points put into it to enhance the effect. Basically the vanilla talent trees.

This would a lot less complex, and people could still play around with variables, like how many point in a talent are worth it.

Or looking at Apex Talents. making every node a apex talent (not necessary 4 points though). This could cut down each talent tree substantially.