Dragonflight Roadmap Update, Patch 10.1 Developer Interviews

[chaud]

Patch 10.1 - Dragonflight Roadmap Update
Blizzard has updated the roadmap for World of Warcraft this year. You can see the old one here. Changes include:

• Patch 10.1
  
  • Added zone name and raid name
  • Fryakk Assaults added
  • Niffen Renown and Rewards added
  • New Dragonriding Drake added
• Patch 10.2
  
  • Story content added
  • New open world challenges added
  • New renown track and activities added

Patch 10.1 Developer Interviews
Lots of people had the chance to do interviews for Patch 10.1 and we've recapped them for you below:

Dratnos's Interview

Classes

• Shadow Priest is getting a bit of a rework in Patch 10.1.
• There are other significant class changes coming in Patch 10.1.
• A new season affords the opportunity to make more significant class changes, such as moving talents around in the tree.

Mythic+ Dungeons

• Adding Vortex Pinnacle was an opportunity to see how far back they could go when adding new dungeons. Is Cataclysm too far? How much work had to be done to bring it up to par with today's gameplay expectations?
• The team has done older dungeons in the past and doesn't want a repeat of Shadowmoon Burial Grounds where there is one outlier in terms of the challenge.

Story

• The team considered how antagonists played out in previous expansions and wanted to set the table with multiple antagonists that could play out in a less predictable way than before.

Zones

• Zaralek Cavern should feel additive, not replacing the existing outdoor world.
• The outdoor world has it's own progression track, which gives people who don't want to do group content a progression system.

Items

• The new item upgrade system should be easier to understand. Base currency is Flight Stones, which you'll get from lots of activities.
• There are also crests, like Shadowflame crests. These will be a high water mark of the content you've done. Do higher Mythic+ and get a higher tier of item upgrades.
• The tier sets are visually evocative of tier sets from previous expansions, as we are heading into Neltharion's facility, which came before Blackwing Lair.
• The team is being careful with set bonuses, they don't want to be in a place where once you have your 4pc set bonus, there is only one viable talent build.
• The team was happy with how the rare rings played out in Vault of the Incarnates, as well as the other rare items. They give you an opportunity to be excited about an item and impacts your Great Vault choices.
• Having granular tiers of rewards as you progress through the raid worked out well. End bosses and wing bosses are more difficult, so you get slightly more powerful rewards.

Misc

• There are no plans to expand the existing Renown tracks.

Gamespot

• The Primal Incarnates will remain a major threat going forward, and that much of the remainder of Dragonflight's core storyline will revolve around understanding their goals and how to stop them.
• Players will learn some of the secrets that led to the Earth Warder's corruption by the Old Gods and his descent into madness
• The team wants to make sure players who have real-life or other out-of-game bonds with folks on the opposite faction can play with them.
• The team doesn't want to make complete unity the default experience or tear down Alliance and Horde as entities in Warcraft.
• There are no plans right now, but the next logical cross-faction step would be making it so members of opposing factions could team up in the open world, but that comes with lots of technical and logistical challenges.
• There are no plans for cross-faction matchmaking for dungeons or Looking For Raid anytime soon.
• Some of the baseline complexity of Dragonflight's dungeons were a couple of notches higher than really makes for a healthy Mythic+ ecosystem.
• The Ret Paladin rework was an exceptional circumstance and players should not expect it to happen again in future Dragonflight patches

sportskeeda

• Deathwing is dead. And if World of Warcraft has taught Ion anything, it's that once you defeat someone and you extract loot from their corpse, there's no chance they would ever come back.
• It's unlikely that legendary weapons are going to be the sort of thing that find their way onto the Trading Post
• It is likely that we will see more race/class combos continue to unlock in the future, which is great content for smaller updates later in the year.
• Undead Paladins and Goblin Druids should technically be possible, but you to have some world integrity from a narrative perspective. There needs to be story to build up to them.
• There are three tiers of balance changes: Numerical balancing, fixing mechanical weaknesses, and changing how a spec works.
• Usually large balance changes would happen with an expansion, but Ret Paladin got a more substantial rework because waiting for the next expansion was too long.
• This kind of rework is very disruptive and not something the team did lightly.
• There are people who play WoW as their lifestyle game and people that dip in and out, and the game should be welcoming to both types of players. Patch sizes, content types, and more will all take both groups into consideration.
• Dragonflight gave players more agency and options. Play the content you want, with less content that feels mandatory.
• If you log in and feel like you have to do something that you don't enjoy, what's the point?

Polygon

• Engineers have done lots of work to undo old assumptions that there would never be game terrain below or above other terrain.
• The work on underground area support will likely pay off in future patches and expansions.

PCGamesn

• The Niffen society is built around scent trails and the scent of home.
• Players will go Sniffen Seeking with a Niffen buddy to go find caverns that you can’t reach without burrowing with your Niffen friend.
• There’s also some puzzle gameplay to reach whatever the treasures might be in that place, or fight the enemies in that place

esportsmag
This interview was translated, so we can't be certain of the accuracy.

• It will be possible to trade between the Alliance and the Horde if the two players are part of the same guild.

SoulSoBreezy

• Zaralek will be loading while you fly through the tunnel. No loading screen, just a background load.
• No plans for any guild enhancements right now beyond adding cross-faction support.
• There are some profession related things you'll run across in the new content, but the team isn't ready to talk about them just yet.
• No changes to existing Renown tracks.
• Kalecgos won't be super available for Zaralek, he's investigating why the Blue Dragonflight didn't return in greater numbers. He'll call for help when he needs it.
• Anything that you earned that works in the Dragon Isles should work in Zaralek as well.
• The team heard player feedback about the unlock speed for caps and the Revival Catalyst. Nothing to announce right now.
• Primal Storm events aren't going anywhere.
• There's a Dragonriding ability in the Forbidden Reach that is like an air brake, you can come to a stop. If you do that while going really fast, you'll get a Vigor point back.
• In Zaralek Cavern there are some glyphs, one will modify the Groundskimming glyph behavior, allowing you to change how fast you regain Vigor.
• Class resources like Arcane Charges, Holy Power, and Combo Points will get a visual overhaul in the UI.
• The XP bar is getting a visual overhaul and you'll be able to move it.
• Some of the cursors will be updated to be higher resolution as well.
• The smaller updates between seasons allow the team to add some prologue for the new season's content.
• The prologue will be encrypted until release so that everyone can play it at once. It won't be too long, as the team wants everyone to be able to experience it.
• The team continues to work on encryption so that everyone can experience something for the first time, at the same time.
• Nothing to announce today for Brawler's Guild, but it is one of the highly requested features.

MrGM



Free Level 60 Boost for Inactive Players
We got a report of free boosts being offered to players that have been inactive for a long time. It appears the boost offer is valid from today through March 12th.

[Count Zero]

"The work on underground area support will likely pay off in future patches and expansions" wen azjol-nerub zone

[Cheezits]

"The work on underground area support will likely pay off in future patches and expansions" wen azjol-nerub zone

Undermine too.

[Laqweeta]

They're so desparate for players as made evident by the "free Evoker" and free 60 character boost. It's comical.

Reap what you sow, should've listened to your players when you had the chance <3

[kamuimac]

another rushed seasons. which means they will be as boring and bland as S1.

DF is dead. just give up on it and alreayd now work on 11.0

[Zulggun]

another rushed seasons. which means they will be as boring and bland as S1.

DF is dead. just give up on it and alreayd now work on 11.0

Lol, what's rushed about it?

[Puri]

It will be possible to trade between the Alliance and the Horde if the two players are part of the same guild.

Just to point out the implication (because that would not be the trading that you already can do when you are in an instance group): Both faction guilds.

[Ardourdan]

"The team was happy with how the rare rings played out in Vault of the Incarnates, as well as the other rare items. They give you an opportunity to be excited about an item and impacts your Great Vault choices."

Except its rubbish when you've never been offered a ring or the trinket!

[exochaft]

I'm kind of curious how people are going to take the lack of a seasonal affix in S2, but I imagine it'll be split between those that are tired of annoying affixes and those that want to shake things up. I honestly feel that the result of no seasonal affix isn't that adding new dungeons every season is enough to spice things up, but rather it's harder to come up with a new seasonal affix every season as well as adapting legacy dungeons for new seasonal affixes.

On that note, Vortex Pinnacle in the M+ rotation is probably going to make lives miserable. I could easily see how some affixes would just make your life miserable in that dungeon, especially when many of the bosses and trash alike are very positionally intensive (whether that means getting mobs out of the magic redirecting zones or having to stand in very specific spots for innate mechanics). I'm expecting some massive damage nerfs on mechanics in Vortex Pinnacle as well... likely after the dungeon goes live unfortunately.

[Utrrabbit]

They're so desparate for players as made evident by the "free Evoker" and free 60 character boost. It's comical.

Reap what you sow, should've listened to your players when you had the chance <3

DF is actually doing really well. So try acting less like a brat.

- - - Updated - - -

Lol, what's rushed about it?

Rushed? They have been working on 10.1 monthe before DF lauched. You know nothing.

[Eosia]

Still want to know when regular flight will be enabled in DI

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Still want to know when regular flight will be enabled in DI

Probably never, as Dragonriding was designed as the main feature for getting around in the Dragon Isles. Not sure why they would enable regular flying at all.

[Doombringer]

They're so desparate for players as made evident by the "free Evoker" and free 60 character boost. It's comical.

Reap what you sow, should've listened to your players when you had the chance <3

They'll win back players if they keep making good decisions. Invariably, someone who left in a prior expansion will dip in again at some point. Either that person is directly enticed or one of their friends are, and they work on them to bring them back.

And honestly... yeah, we get it, they screw up the game they deserve to take a hit. But when they make efforts with good design and story, they deserve success as well.

I personally am a fan of the Blizzard of old, it's what I grew up on. And I love WoW. If Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft were my teen years, WoW was my 20+ years. I didn't like what the devs did with some of BfA and most of Shadowlands, but I also wasn't a fan of Cataclysm or most of WoD. Highs and lows. I really didn't like what became of the company under Activision's leadership, and there are still issues there as we've seen. BUT ... at the end of the day, if the game is good and true to what I loved once, I will sub and play it. 99% of the devs working on the game are good people doing their jobs. Mike Ybarra seems to be a shithead and Bobby Kotick DEFINITELY is... but karma will get them eventually.

[pinkz]

Probably never, as Dragonriding was designed as the main feature for getting around in the Dragon Isles. Not sure why they would enable regular flying at all.

Danuser and IOH have said it would come

Flying and Dragon Riding

At launch, in the first or second zone, you'll gain the trust of a Dragon companion and you'll be able to call it in the Dragon Isles. It's not too experienced in flying at the start and has limited Stamina, but as your Bond grows will allow you to loosen those restrictions. Long term, flying with your regular mounts is still the plan. It should feel good from the start, and should only get better from there.

https://www.wowhead.com/news/dragonf...danuser-326869

more on it

https://www.wowhead.com/news/full-fl...nflight-326874

[Mojo03]

Looking unshockingly banal and completely deprived of any novelty

They're clearly on auto pilot still

Guess I'll see what they do with 10.2, though its looking like the same thing from the road map

[Sentynel]

Still want to know when regular flight will be enabled in DI

Why would you limit yourself?

830% > 310%

[Eosia]

Why would you limit yourself?

830% > 310%

Because it's easier for mining and herbing.

[Sentynel]

Because it's easier for mining and herbing.

Lol, nah its not. Its way easier and faster with dragonriding.

[Laqweeta]

DF is actually doing really well. So try acting less like a brat.

- - - Updated - - -



Rushed? They have been working on 10.1 monthe before DF lauched. You know nothing.

Oh it is? K lol - They've pushed the agenda HARD with "free" Evokers and now this.

Additionally, it wasn't a best seller.

You stay inept to how it really is, that's fine.

[Tiwack]

Some1 jokingly suggested Vortex Pinnacle for m+ and they actually went with it? Hahaha