Shadowlands Delayed -- What should be changed?

[Thenadrys]

-Don't make it grindy, pull the ripcord if necessary
-Fix up The Maw
-Continue balancing

Right now the team is probably putting more effort into finishing up prepatch as well, since it still has some balancing woes with regards to the leveling experience. We also get a lot more time with prepatch, which I am weirdly excited about. I mean 8.3 was such a content drought. 9.01 will see me fielding an army of new alts.

[Soon-TM]

I don't think it is a balance issue.

It has "game breaking" bugs in it which Blizzard couldn't fix in the last few weeks.

To an extent, it IS a balance issue. Some classes/specs aren't doing ".01%" (as blizzbois/gurls love to put it) DPS/HPS less than others, but a freaking 50% less, in some cases. And soulbinds being generic across a lot of specs means that they effectively cannot use them as tuning knobs anymore, since nerfing a soulbind because X spec is OP with it might mean that Y spec is going to get smashed, purely as collateral damage.

[Tesshin83]

So I get into PTR and did a lot of testing.

I made a Vulpera and grabbed cooking, skinning, fishing and Leatherworking.

I started to quest in The Barrens and it was very cool experience..


However I found that the spiced bread only gave 180 hp from the cooking which is fine for the first 10 levels.

However I noticed as I got to level 20 or so that the food I could make around 100 skill points only healed for around 250. And that was way too little. Its basically worthless.

Skinning and Leatherworking was fun too. Especially the Relics of the Past. But they gave no skill ups for crafting them.

Also professions in vanilla still require 300 skill points which is quite too much as you will only spend like 15 hours or so leveling.

Thd amount of leather that has to be farmed for 300 skill in Leatherworking is quite alot. Farming those mats will almost double the leveling time.

Another problem with this is that after Northern Barrens I went to Tanaris at level 23.

However I skinned the beasts of the desert and problem came to light!

They dropped medium and heavy leather. But my skill in Leatherworking was only 60 and i still tons of more light leather.

You can easily see the problem. I now had to go back to Barrens and kill striders for 3 hours to catch up. And I needed to go to Ashenvale and fish to skill up my cooking. Another 1 there.

Also, as I quested i killed a mob on a quest in Tanaris at level 31. The mob dropped a healing potion that healed me for 68 hp! I had 3k hp in total.

So I made like 20 or so big reports during this process and later that they, they changed the release candidate to test. I knew exactly what I have done.

As I didnt notice any other player on the PTR I was probably the only one making reports.

Now this happened last week.

Yesterday I tested the Exiles Reach where I got caught up arguing about covenants to a mage. And I got to a quest to kill an elite bear. However I died 3 times as a warrior with optimal play. I killed him eventuelly by using my racial but only had 10 percent hp left.

The next quest which I could have done before the bear quest I got 3 healing potions. They could have been very useful on that bear.

So I made a couple of bug reports about this and today they decided to delay the expansion.

So to the people who are mad. I AM SORRY!

Sorry for typos I am writing this on my phone at work with one hand eating a hamburger.

[Deadwood]

I can 100% guarantee that the delay is not solely because of you.

[Gorgrock]

Seems like it probably is tho.

[Wrathson]

I can 100% guarantee that the delay is not solely because of you.

I can 100% guarantee that this post is not to be taken seriously and was ment as a joke.

If not than yeah.. What Deadwood said

[Very rare pepe]

This thread won't hide that red face of yours.

[sunxsera]

i still dont think this is going to make them change covenants. hope im wrong, but i think this is purely because they are behind on finishing systems and fixing bugs.

depends on how far it ends up being pushed back i guess. i do think it will still be this year. cant see them letting prepatch run 3 months lol

This didn`t age well, huh ?

[spalernTJ]

They should fix Holy priest.

[Doffen]

Most likely its the Maw they need to iterate and focus on.

[DonChalk]

The 50-60 leveling is pretty broken right now. Also there are just so many bugs with classes and conduits right now. Class Balancing is probably not the reason for the delay... this stuff is only really important in the so-called "heroic week" before they launch mythic and m+.

But yeah, bugs and broken leveling is 90% of the reason.

Yeah I think the leveling process and bugs at the end game were more so the reason. It's a rough ride right now and I'm glad they have time to polish it up and hopefully not crunch themselves into burnout. You can fix balance issues after a launch, you still have other things you can do in the game. If leveling is broken, people have nothing else to do and it's not a good feeling for anyone.

[Mightytasty]

Preach said that during a second round of raid testing 3 days ago, some classes were 50% ahead of others. He believes this is what led to the delay.

It’s looking like the web of covenants, soulbinds, and conduits are so impossible to tune, they have resorted to heavily nerfing everything. I believe we’ll see a total rework of at least one of these systems before launch.

[Tesshin83]

I don't want to promote Preach or anything because he usually only sees the game from his mythic raiding lense, which is ok but people assume his problems with the game relates to them.

Basically there are raid bosses they have tried to get to work but they just dont work properly so thats whats holding it up.

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Preach said that during a second round of raid testing 3 days ago, some classes were 50% ahead of others. He believes this is what led to the delay.

It’s looking like the web of covenants, soulbinds, and conduits are so impossible to tune, they have resorted to heavily nerfing everything. I believe we’ll see a total rework of at least one of these systems before launch.

Well if only there are only 1 or 2 people in the raid which is affected, then thats pretty good looking at the entire picture.

[Rusken]

I don't honestly see them changing much. Having been on the Beta for a couple months now the biggest issue is really that just about everything is broken in some way. People have been asking for them to change Covenants to purely cosmetic choices since they were announced to be meaningful semi-permanent choices and they haven't budged on that at all. (Nor should they, IMO)

If they use this delay for nothing but bug fixes I think it will be fine to release by mid-late November. If they start making big system changes now the delay would need to be until March for them to re-balance everything and make the game playable.

[Clozer]

Preach said that during a second round of raid testing 3 days ago, some classes were 50% ahead of others. He believes this is what led to the delay.

It’s looking like the web of covenants, soulbinds, and conduits are so impossible to tune, they have resorted to heavily nerfing everything. I believe we’ll see a total rework of at least one of these systems before launch.

So just like BFA right now? I mean that was never an issue for blizzard.

[VinceVega]

Wow, didn't take long to get to the 'complaining about my vacation' post.

Seriously people, don't take vacation for a video game. You're not a child, and this isn't what you should be using your vacation hours on. If you are, you are objectively a child.

Instead, maybe take the time to properly respond to the content of the OP.


Edit: If you are legally of childhood age in your country, then I'm sorry. You should take this opportunity as a lesson to make better life choices.

Who are you to tell me what to do with my vacation days?

[xanzul]

Dead game is dead. Never in a million years thought I would ever make a post like this. It is amazing what a year away from the game does for perspective.

[Onikaroshi]

Wow, didn't take long to get to the 'complaining about my vacation' post.

Seriously people, don't take vacation for a video game. You're not a child, and this isn't what you should be using your vacation hours on. If you are, you are objectively a child.

Instead, maybe take the time to properly respond to the content of the OP.


Edit: If you are legally of childhood age in your country, then I'm sorry. You should take this opportunity as a lesson to make better life choices.

What? Taking off time for a hobby makes you a child? People can take time off for whatever they want. Be that fishing, underwater basket weaving or even, gasp, playing a game.

I took it off as did my wife, it's family time for us. Luckily though we work jobs that we can reschedule

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Who are you to tell me what to do with my vacation days?

It's like people who say "you spend too much time playing games" and the spend 50 hrs a week watching tv

[letssee]

Another armchair developer giving yourself credit for something you don't deserve at all...is that the validation you truly seek? Hm.

But yeah delays are a good thing, the gaming industry has been releasing half finished games for most of this generation, we've just seen Blizzard release a half finished project with BFA, so hopefully with more time given SL can truly succeed and not repeat the same mistakes

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Your logic is flawed, the core of the game remains the same so saying that is saying it was always "shit" to you, which to that end why the hell are you here?

exactly, retail has been shit for along time, im here cuz im a fan of what wow used to be

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Its good core game if it can piss off the right people.

lol... ur entitled to ur opinion

[FuxieDK]

Shadowlands got further delayed to everyone's shock into late Q4.

To the WoW community,

I wanted to let you know that we’re delaying the release of Shadowlands to later this year—and while we’re still in the process of determining the right new date to launch, we felt it was important to let you know about this change in plans as soon as we could. This was an incredibly difficult decision for the team, as we’re as eager to get the expansion into your hands as you are to play it—but ultimately, we feel it’s the right decision for the game—and for our players.

Over the past several months of testing, we’ve made significant progress iterating on and polishing the core features and gameplay of Shadowlands. We’re at a point where the zones, the campaign, the level-up questing experience, and the story we have to tell are essentially ready to share. We’re excited by the Covenants at the heart of the expansion, and it’s been a thrill to see Torghast take shape into a fun new kind of WoW experience, thanks in no small part to your input.

However, as everything started coming together and we’ve been listening to and building upon your feedback, it’s become clear we need a little more time for additional polish, and to balance and iterate on some interlocking pieces—particularly those related to the endgame. Shadowlands is one of the most intricate expansions we’ve yet created, and while we’ve made great progress, the challenge of tuning the endgame was compounded by the team having to work from home.

Blizzard has a commitment to quality. We believe Shadowlands will be something special, and we’ve heard from many of you who feel the same. We need this extra time to ensure that Shadowlands lives up to its full potential.

In the meantime, we’re excited to announce that beginning October 13 we will be releasing the Shadowlands pre-patch, which lays a lot of the groundwork for the expansion and includes our revamped character leveling, new-player experience on Exile’s Reach, and a host of new character customization options. And once we get closer to Shadowlands’ release, you’ll be called upon to defend Azeroth against a resurgence of the Scourge during our pre-launch event.

Thanks for your support and passion, and for your continued help and feedback as we head toward the finish line.

We’ll see you in the Shadowlands soon,

John Hight, Executive Producer of World of Warcraft

What should be changed and what should be added to make the game better?

On the bright side, they now have time to remove Torghast completely, before launch...

Also, maybe I'm blind, but I see no mention of "late Q4"... It could simply be a two week delay, as I read it.