10.0 Predictions/Discussion

Ammonite said:

Like ilvl 44 Valentine's day necklaces?

Click to expand...

It's just a neck that gives.. what, +5% extra stats?
It's not a 278 chestpeice or weapon... or both.

Chops said:

The responsibility ultimately lies with the End User. But admitting that would require accepting a level of personal responsibility very few twinks seem to understand or are willing to accept.

Click to expand...

Agreed. While it's our collective joy to stomp each other's guts out, it's also our responsibility to do so with respect to fairness.

Nutsmite said:

I am honestly happy that the trailer was kinda shitty, and I was hoping it would be. Think about it, whenever blizzard made amazing trailer the expac itself was shit (WoD, BFA, SL). But think about MoP, literally nobody was hyped about it, there were no expectations, so it had great potential to turn out to be fun, and it did. Legion imo had one of the weakest trailers and people loved it aswell. I think SL mostly became such a dissappointment because the trailer for it was purely amazing and with a plot twist nobody expected (shattering the helmet). But what do we have here? Bunch of dragons just flying around. They can now suprise us with fun stuff

Click to expand...

The cinematic was fucking amazing idk what you’re talking about.

Winterly said:

The cinematic was fucking amazing idk what you’re talking about.

Click to expand...

My issue is that the first half of it I was like "I have no idea what am I even looking at", and it was pretty predictible from the second half (where the Stoney falls, at that point I knew there's gonna be a dragon that catches him since all the leaks before reveal). Sure it looked amazing and detailed, from the visual point of view it was awesome. But it wasn't that much great from the story telling point of view, at least in comparison to other trailers

I was super-hyped for the talent redesign when they announced it, but I'm slowly becoming less hyped. Just now, I decided to look at what talents I was playing on my chars (Feral, Assass, Windwalker, Enh, DH) and compare them to the talent tree in TBC. I assumed either 10 or 11 points in the TBC tree. Man, those first few talents are lame. Maybe, Blizzard has learned a thing or two since TBC talents and will release a tree that doesn't suck, but it feels real lame on my Enh taking +5% mana, +5% crit on melee, and if I crit on melee next shock cost 60% less mana. Feral and Assass talents sucked on a similar level.

The talents I have selected on retail for those characters, all feel like they change gameplay (with the exception of WW). Lunar Inspiration, Blindside, Ele Blast and Felblade all feel important to the character. And the Feral, DH, Enh and WW all have other 1st-row talents a person could make a case for.

I'm excited for the potential to shake up the meta and try new things, but I'm super concerned we're going to get more of this "Spend 3 points to get +15% crit on some ability" or a "flat 1% increase per point in crit/mana/whatever".

Fingers crossed new talents don't suck

I am fully expecting them to be broken af ( either incredibly banal, vastly OP, some combination of the two, or just wholly unsatisfying ) during alpha & into beta. As the testers & top 1% Mythic raidtards bleat on about how bad they are, Blizz ( as they are want to do ) will insist on keeping them as they are, ignoring all our feedback as per usual.
They will prove beyond contestation to be broken af upon launch & will stay that way until 10.2.5 -10.3, where after they will be only moderately acceptable until they are completely overhauled by 11.0.

Time for a history lesson!

In vanilla-wotlk there were no specializations as we know them today. Classes had all spells available with only a few being obtained through talents. This means the only way to "specialize" in something was to go down the respective talent tree. A frost mage is only a frost mage because it has the talents that buff frost spells and synergies between them. Since spells were the same for every spec, talents like https://classic.wowhead.com/spell=11151/piercing-ice existed to define "specs". Otherwise a frost mage could've used Fireball as a main spell for example.

With the release of Cata specializations were added to the game, so talent trees got pruned a little.

The big change came with MoP when talents were completely redesigned and became what we know today. Specializations became a core feature and talents like "increase damage by 2%" became irrelevant. There were still class abilities which got built into specs in later expansions.

Currently all of our core spells are available only to the current specialization. This removes the need of minor talents like the ones we had in WotLK. Don't expect the old talent trees to come back. Core mechanics are already baseline and damage tweaks are done through spec auras like https://www.wowhead.com/spell=137049/arms-warrior.

And most importantly, Blizzard said the new talents will be a mix of many iconic powers we've had through the years. On the example balance tree you can see Convoke being the final row as well as Flourish being final choice in resto. I expect to see things like Latent Poison for survival, Glaive Tempest and Demonic for DH, Dissonant Echoes for sp and so on. Artifact powers, azerite powers, conduits, covenant abilities and legendary effects are some of the things I expect. They said iconic spells will be there.

A crafting detail I neglected to highlight: crafters can make soulbound gear for others. This means crafters won't have as much of a secondary market with which to compete for Dragonflight gear. To understand the implications of this, imagine WoW suddenly removing enchanting scrolls, forcing you to visit an enchanter directly. Sure, the work order system will essentially function like time-locked scrolls, but that's the point -- this change turns back the clock on WoW profession power by emphasizing the seller.

I'm starting to see a pattern here. Profession shifts to remove some of the commoditization of sellers, a new flying system that will incidentally remove some of the commoditization of travel, a revamped talent system that will incidentally remove a little of the commoditization of class design, and UI updates to change how most players experience the game? To be sure, these are ultimately small changes. But small changes stick better and longer than large changes.

Something's afoot at Blizzard. And I like it.

Kirise said:

A crafting detail I neglected to highlight: crafters can make soulbound gear for others. This means crafters won't have as much of a secondary market with which to compete for Dragonflight gear. To understand the implications of this, imagine WoW suddenly removing enchanting scrolls, forcing you to visit an enchanter directly. Sure, the work order system will essentially function like time-locked scrolls, but that's the point -- this change turns back the clock on WoW profession power by emphasizing the seller.

I'm starting to see a pattern here. Profession shifts to remove some of the commoditization of sellers, a new flying system that will incidentally remove some of the commoditization of travel, a revamped talent system that will incidentally remove a little of the commoditization of class design, and UI updates to change how most players experience the game? To be sure, these are ultimately small changes. But small changes stick better and longer than large changes.

Something's afoot at Blizzard. And I like it.

Click to expand...

Keep in mind that the talent revamp isn't a small change by any means. It's not just the extra icons in the talent panel, it's the end of borrowed powers that we see ever since Legion while also reusing the ones that defined the spec at the time.

When you think about it, there was a major 'source of power' in every expansion except WoD. TBC introduced gems, WotLK introduced glyphs, Cata - specs, MoP - talent revamp, Legion and BFA - AP, SL - covenants and legendaries. It's just that the last 3 expansions had features that were forgotten after the next one was released, some were even a one-patch thing(corruptions ). This is what caused the community's disappointment and blizz are finally realizing that.

What the new talent system does is something that none of the previous expansions did - it combines previous powers into a single 'source of power'. Even though I haven't seen it complete, I think this is the right direction.

Kirise said:

A crafting detail I neglected to highlight: crafters can make soulbound gear for others. This means crafters won't have as much of a secondary market with which to compete for Dragonflight gear. To understand the implications of this, imagine WoW suddenly removing enchanting scrolls, forcing you to visit an enchanter directly. Sure, the work order system will essentially function like time-locked scrolls, but that's the point -- this change turns back the clock on WoW profession power by emphasizing the seller.

I'm starting to see a pattern here. Profession shifts to remove some of the commoditization of sellers, a new flying system that will incidentally remove some of the commoditization of travel, a revamped talent system that will incidentally remove a little of the commoditization of class design, and UI updates to change how most players experience the game? To be sure, these are ultimately small changes. But small changes stick better and longer than large changes.

Something's afoot at Blizzard. And I like it.

Click to expand...

got everything ass-backwards. these arent the things that kill(ed) wow.

They stated that you get a talent point every lvl and from the looks of it we start getting the class specific ones at lvl 1 so 20 for class and 10 for spec? pretty interested to see how it plays out personally. Also this how X ruined wow I have been seeing these since 2007 and here we all are still playing it lol.

I wouldn't mind if f2p could trade and party with other f2p that would be a fun wish come true.

Selaya said:

got everything ass-backwards. these arent the things that kill(ed) wow.

Click to expand...

What is then?

contempt for any content besides endgame and mythic raiding, for a good part

That's how it works when the game gets long. I don't like it but there's no way to keep old content relevant when there's 16 years of it. Imagine being a new player having to know all of the old world

Selaya said:

got everything ass-backwards. these arent the things that kill(ed) wow.

Click to expand...

toskosa said:

Also this how X ruined wow I have been seeing these since 2007 and here we all are still playing it lol.

Click to expand...

To an extent, I think the discussion around "what killed WoW" or "how do we fix WoW" is the wrong framing. WoW, society, gamers and the internet all fundamentally changed in ways that arent reversible. WoW isnt "broken" and in need of fixing. WoW isn't "dead" and in need of reviving.

This is just what WoW is now. And more broadly, its just what MMOs are and even more broadly this is what gaming is. The face of gaming and the expectations of gamers are changing and WoW has adjusted (often poorly) to that. If it was just about "Revert to form and you'll go back to being the most popular game in the world!" then well... Classic would be a bit more popular.

WoW is the same age that Everquest was when WOD released. And WoW has become what Everquest is... a game played predominately by die-hards buoyed along by social momentum, the occasional returning player looking for a nostalgia trip and a handful of true-believers who really love the property, often irrespective of the current quality of the content.

And regardless of what they say, Blizzard knows that. And theyre trying to "give the community what it wants" and the community wants bite-sized, easily accessible slices of content that provide a sense of progression without a massive time investment. Very few people want to stand in Stormwind repeatedly typing "LF2M SM have tank" for 3 hours and then have to spend another 45 minutes getting there only to wipe because the hunter cant wait for sunders, yadda yadda yadda. That age of gaming has passed. And the players demanded that it pass.

If we *must* talk about the nebulous concept of "what killed WoW" then we need to start with, well, us. At least the Royal "Us" of the player base at large.

If you ask 1000 people what they really think is wrong with WoW sure you are going to probably get the same stupid blanket answers as you hear from every Asmongold video "borrowed power", "bad casual progression" or "gate keeping".

The truth is that if you had those 1000 people write an essay you would have 1000 different game concepts. Nobody knows what they want until they get the new flavor of ice-cream, shove it into their fat bloated face, then giggle-fart because it agreed with their brain on some subconscious level.

toskosa said:

Also this how X ruined wow I have been seeing these since 2007 and here we all are still playing it lol.

Click to expand...

There it is. As cynical as we enjoy being, people banged that gong for neigh on two decades.

Ivo said:

Keep in mind that the talent revamp isn't a small change by any means. It's not just the extra icons in the talent panel, it's the end of borrowed powers that we see ever since Legion while also reusing the ones that defined the spec at the time.

When you think about it, there was a major 'source of power' in every expansion except WoD. TBC introduced gems, WotLK introduced glyphs, Cata - specs, MoP - talent revamp, Legion and BFA - AP, SL - covenants and legendaries. It's just that the last 3 expansions had features that were forgotten after the next one was released, some were even a one-patch thing(corruptions ). This is what caused the community's disappointment and blizz are finally realizing that.

What the new talent system does is something that none of the previous expansions did - it combines previous powers into a single 'source of power'. Even though I haven't seen it complete, I think this is the right direction.

Click to expand...

While I disagree with the end of borrowed powers, the sources of power throughout different expansions, and the idea of a single source of power, I suspect my disagreements would be largely semantic. I share your optimism with the direction the talent revamp takes.

Making a game better requires knowing what to take away, not just what to add. I don't think a lot of what we see will add much to 20s or other twink brackets, but I'm cautiously optimistic that Blizzard might prune the game better than they have in the past, which could make a far greater impact.

Chops said:

To an extent, I think the discussion around "what killed WoW" or "how do we fix WoW" is the wrong framing. WoW, society, gamers and the internet all fundamentally changed in ways that arent reversible. WoW isnt "broken" and in need of fixing. WoW isn't "dead" and in need of reviving.

This is just what WoW is now. And more broadly, its just what MMOs are and even more broadly this is what gaming is. The face of gaming and the expectations of gamers are changing and WoW has adjusted (often poorly) to that. If it was just about "Revert to form and you'll go back to being the most popular game in the world!" then well... Classic would be a bit more popular.

WoW is the same age that Everquest was when WOD released. And WoW has become what Everquest is... a game played predominately by die-hards buoyed along by social momentum, the occasional returning player looking for a nostalgia trip and a handful of true-believers who really love the property, often irrespective of the current quality of the content.

And regardless of what they say, Blizzard knows that. And theyre trying to "give the community what it wants" and the community wants bite-sized, easily accessible slices of content that provide a sense of progression without a massive time investment. Very few people want to stand in Stormwind repeatedly typing "LF2M SM have tank" for 3 hours and then have to spend another 45 minutes getting there only to wipe because the hunter cant wait for sunders, yadda yadda yadda. That age of gaming has passed. And the players demanded that it pass.

If we *must* talk about the nebulous concept of "what killed WoW" then we need to start with, well, us. At least the Royal "Us" of the player base at large.

Click to expand...

true too, but theres no denying that the recentmost expansions have all been focused on the endgame to the extent where they might've just deleted levels altogether

Selaya said:

contempt for any content besides endgame and mythic raiding, for a good part

Click to expand...

Agreed. And what's sad is that it's taken at least 2-3 expansion cycles to realize their in-house ideas for the game are trash, and now resort to stealing actual good systems from other successful games (Mounts from GW2 and crafting from FF14). Which is ironic, in a sense, because people used to copy WoW all the time (FF14 and lots of WoW Clones)

Obviously everyone will have their "Why WoW died" reason, but I would definitely say their refusal to give the audience what they want (Void Elves instead of High elves, etc.) coupled with their intense disregard for player time (Alt-unfriendly progression, AP grind, Allied race exalted rep, pathfinder for every zone, etc.) hasn't done them any favors in the eyes of the community.

At the end of the day, age will be the WoW killer. WoW will be milked for at least 20-30 more years, and at that point, it would be highly unlikely that they would ever have to release WoW 2.0 or even revamp the 40 years and billions of lines of defunct code due to lack of interest from the community

Dragpz said:

Mounts from GW2

Click to expand...

this is something I wanted in wow ever since I played gw2, and I don't see how taking fun mechanics from other games is a bad thing from the game. And if you payed attention you would notice how many things blizzard copied from gw2, especially in WoD

Chops said:

They stated in the reveal that you'd start with multiple points "to get you started"

Now obviously, this is early on and all subject to change but I wouldnt be shocked to see us get anywhere from 10-20 points

Click to expand...

Yeah I heard that too ...I just know how blizzard is. And we're basically pond scum to them. High doubts