10.0 Predictions/Discussion

[Chops]

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

we dont disagree!

I'm of the opinion that for the first couple months of an expansion, players should still be leveling to cap. It should be an accomplishment, not an expectation, to get a character to max level. If I understand the generalized complaints of The Community, its that they dont feel like progression is meaningful or engaging and as basic as it is... leveling is a very powerful indicator of progression. It should be a larger portion of the game.

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.

See, this is illustrative of the actual larger problem because....

I think a huge issue is theyre giving the community TOO MUCH of what they want! Instead of having an unwavering view of the game they want to create, we're getting a game designed by the worst possible committee... the players. They should tell us all to stfu and actually make a game that THEY want to play.

This was early Blizzards strongest trait (and the trait of the best indie studios)... they were gamers designing the games that they'd enjoy. They built it, they released it, fuck us if we didnt like it.

 

[Dragpz]

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

True, multiplayer mob tagging, bonus objectives/world quests were both "inspired" by GW2, but this is a blatant rip-off. Those are concepts that are being stolen, but this is a FULL animation/flight system that is directly ripped off. There is quite a difference here

I think a huge issue is theyre giving the community TOO MUCH of what they want! Instead of having an unwavering view of the game they want to create, we're getting a game designed by the worst possible committee... the players. They should tell us all to stfu and actually make a game that THEY want to play.

This was early Blizzards strongest trait (and the trait of the best indie studios)... they were gamers designing the games that they'd enjoy. They built it, they released it, fuck us if we didnt like it.

Yea, considering how large the audience is and how large the Blizz team is, I can see how you feel that way. Players asked for Player housing, we got garrisons, players think flying killed world pvp/world exploration, we got pathfinder, players thought the leveling experience didn't feel meaningful, so they nerfed heirlooms and lengthened the leveling process (which was later reverted). The main issue here is that "early Blizzard" no longer exists, who knows if the developers even play their own game (with the exception of Ian). Players never asked for Mission/Command/Covenant tables, players never asked for a Pathfinder grind for every new zone, never asked for alt-unfriendly endgame progression systems, etc. These were all decisions some dev somewhere made. What the solution here is, idk, maybe some way to better filter player feedback, maybe with a poll like Runescape does

 

[orcgazmatron]

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

That's Ion, all the way. He's solely responsible for the dismal world content & stagnation of professions, so gluttonously favoring his precious instanced content.

Mounts from GW2

Man... forget about fancy mounts! I want a Mount Racing Mini-Game with 2 modes.
1st: like Mario-Kart, with wild jumps & speed boosts & stinkers from other players.
2nd: A violent PvP race like old school Road Rash!

.... but instead: "Hey everybody! Here's 'World of Warcraft: SPYRO!'
& here's your new omni-class: Lizard Faries " ;D

 

[toskosa]

leveling is a very powerful indicator of progression. It should be a larger portion of the game.

Also keep in mind wow is the only game I play where lvling makes you weaker instead of stronger, until you hit max and can once again start getting stronger. Like I lvled a shamn to 35 recently just to grab some shaman xmogs from tbc for my twinks and it feels shit going from topping ppl in a single heal to having to spam heals to keep up in jsut random content. This is with a toon that has full loom enchanted and ready to go. All my slots filled with gear that is at or near my current lvl ( cata vendor gear is lvl 32 for example in my non loom slots)

Idk what they should do on that issue, maybe reduce the amount of secondaries you lose while lvling? because its kinda feel terrible tbh.

 

[Selaya]

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

eh, idt that'll do anything. its either pointless (those crafteds are useless) or maximum annoying (those crafteds arent useless), and idt there'll be many who'd give a fuck about it in a non-negative way. either make something require professions or just use the fucking ah. that's not the problem, boes have existed since the dawn of time, crafted boes have existed since the dawn of time, the ah has existed since the dawn of time. no1 ever complained.

That's Ion, all the way. He's solely responsible for the dismal world content & stagnation of professions, so gluttonously favoring his precious instanced content.

[ ... ]

i mean, wow being a game revolving around instanced content ... that's not wrong. however, you don't have to disregard everything else (or, if you do please just delete it altogether instead of this fucking charade)
i understand that it's a balancing act but yea

 

[Chops]

Players asked for Player housing, we got garrisons, players think flying killed world pvp/world exploration, we got pathfinder, players thought the leveling experience didn't feel meaningful, so they nerfed heirlooms and lengthened the leveling process (which was later reverted). The main issue here is that "early Blizzard" no longer exists, who knows if the developers even play their own game (with the exception of Ian). Players never asked for Mission/Command/Covenant tables, players never asked for a Pathfinder grind for every new zone, never asked for alt-unfriendly endgame progression systems, etc.

This is... half the story

Player think flying killed world pvp and exploration, but players also asked for flying! So rather than removing a system that they have repeatedly (to this day and even during the launch of TBC classic) admitted was a huge mistake, they went for half measures. You got pathfinding.

Players thought leveling wasnt meaningful anymore but it was players that asked them to speed up leveling in the first place. How do you have a meaningful leveling process while also being alt friendly? Like... thats an impossible ask. You gotta pick one. Or you end up with... this.

Players never specifically asked for mission tables and borrowed power systems but they have explicitly been clamoring for progression that wasnt gear based... which is entirely fair. You gotta go beyond gear and levels if you want a game without an established end to remain compelling. Just look at D3. That shit sucks. Its literally just forever leveling on a gear treadmill.

But yea, thats what I mean when I said it was "design by committee". This is how game design goes to hell.

 

[Ivo]

Even though levels are mostly irrelevant right now, they can't just remove them. The whole game is built around that.

 

[Magrain]

Probably another shoehorned grindy system like the rest of its previous expansions.
Just going to play the 1st weeks of the release then forget it exists. Another fever dream to wake up from for the past 7+ years now.
(Edit: Unless Chaos Bolt becomes insta cast.)

 

[Nutsmite]

Unless Chaos Bolt becomes insta cast.

yeah I don't see how this can go wrong

 

[Bakedaflol]

From today's FAQ Bluepost:
' When do talents become available?

• The talent system becomes available at level 10 when you choose your Specialization for your class. For the Evoker, because they are starting at a higher level, the talent tree will be made available at some point during their starting experience.

How many talent points do you get, and how do you get them?

• Talent points are obtained by gaining character levels. You gain one point every level, alternating between a talent point for your class tree, and your spec tree. In the pre-patch, at level 60, you will have a total of 51 talent points to spend, with 26 in your class, and 25 in your spec tree. When you reach the maximum level of 70 in Dragonflight, you will have 61 total talent points to spend, with 31 in your class tree and 30 in your spec tree. '
  
  
  https://www.wowhead.com/news/wow-dr...q1SS-_rsfpwucMW_5ypWLH-iklla-u4q_6UgCRBzJuMj4
  
  - There's alot more so check out the link! It is worth a read. Added the first part, since it's very relevant to us 20 bois.
  Looking forward to alfa stage, where we'll be able to peruse through gamefile-leaks as they become more public.

 

[Purj]

From today's FAQ Bluepost:
' When do talents become available?

• The talent system becomes available at level 10 when you choose your Specialization for your class. For the Evoker, because they are starting at a higher level, the talent tree will be made available at some point during their starting experience.

How many talent points do you get, and how do you get them?

• Talent points are obtained by gaining character levels. You gain one point every level, alternating between a talent point for your class tree, and your spec tree. In the pre-patch, at level 60, you will have a total of 51 talent points to spend, with 26 in your class, and 25 in your spec tree. When you reach the maximum level of 70 in Dragonflight, you will have 61 total talent points to spend, with 31 in your class tree and 30 in your spec tree. '
  
  
  https://www.wowhead.com/news/wow-dr...q1SS-_rsfpwucMW_5ypWLH-iklla-u4q_6UgCRBzJuMj4
  
  - There's alot more so check out the link! It is worth a read. Added the first part, since it's very relevant to us 20 bois.
  Looking forward to alfa stage, where we'll be able to peruse through gamefile-leaks as they become more public.

So probably 6 class and 5 spec points at 20.

 

[Ivo]

This brings hope that some hunter abilities might get put in the talent trees and either won't be obtainable at 20 or there will be a choice between 2 good spells. I just hope we get some cool spells at 20 so it doesn't feel like a lvl 10 twink or some crap.

 

[Bakedaflol]

This brings hope that some hunter abilities might get put in the talent trees and either won't be obtainable at 20 or there will be a choice between 2 good spells. I just hope we get some cool spells at 20 so it doesn't feel like a lvl 10 twink or some crap.

I was adressing this myself on a Chops video!
In terms of pure power, alot of the reason hunters are so OP is that they dont have spell ranks, like other classes.

And since most spell ranks(hidden and visible) are likely to be folded into the talent trees, we might see the hunter power-level come down closer to other classes. I'm Not saying they won't be OP, because their tooltip will probably allow that anyways. YET We might see them knocked down a peg in terms of power-scaling.

Unless I was right all along, and Blizzard keeps spell-ranking away from hunters deliberately, to keep them as the 'Noob-friendly leveling class' since old times.
The same way they've kept jerking off Paladins since Vanilla

 

[Nutsmite]

So probably 6 class and 5 spec points at 20.

Best outcome for twinks would be if blizzard made more impactful talents at start of the tree and at the end, and middle would be filled with cookie-cutter passives. It makes sence to have most powerful spells at the highest lvl, and most of core abilities at the start, and blizz themselves said that the first talents would matter, at least that's what I understood

 

[Bakedaflol]

So probably 6 class and 5 spec points at 20.

• You must obtain talents in the top row of a tree first. Then, after obtaining all ranks in any talent, you may spend points in subsequent talents in the tree (indicated by an arrow). If a talent has multiple arrows leading to it, you may obtain it after fully buying at least one of the prerequisites.
• Your class tree may grant you 1 or 2 starting talents automatically before you have to start spending points, based on what specialization you are. These do not cost any talent points and are free.
• Certain rows don’t allow to you progress beyond them until you have spent a certain number of points in talents you have access to.
  
  - Then there is this of course. So probably 6/5 on top of that

 

[Ivo]

Judging from the sample talent page shown on the reveal(which is heavily WIP still) it seems the basic abilities are on the top rows

The abilities that require an X amount of points seem to be the single nodes on the side(nature's swiftness). Resto gets rejuvenation and swiftmend from the class tree without spending points thus being able to dive deeper in the resto part of the class tree than others at low levels. The spec trees gives lifebloom, effloressence, dispel and ironbark early which even though it's still WIP speaks well for the overall idea. Balance spec most likely gets starfire and sunfire baseline and can chose to either go deeper or spend points in rejuvenation and swiftmend as well which is pretty cool for hybrids. Also it's worth noting that the majority of upper row nodes are squares which means active abilities that require only 1 point.
[doublepost=1650542707,1650541279][/doublepost]Also it seems that the whole 5th row(the one with the single node to the side) won't be available before you had spent a few points.

 

[Chops]

Again, this is aaaaaaaall speculation and I think some of you are reading a little too much into an obvious mock-up.

That said, the interview makes it sound like we can expect to get a handful of abilities at ten when we choose a spec and I would bet these very closely resemble the spec specific abilities we currently get (IE when you select Arms at ten, thats when you currently get Mortal Strike and Deep Wounds). We then likely will get enough points in the class tree to pick up one more ability (I'm gonna assume 6 points, 5 for a pre-requisite and then the 6th for a 1 point wonder) and 5 points for the spec tree to probably make an ability stronger.

Interesting that they said you'd get free abilities in your class tree based on your spec, which leads me to believe that the class trees various paths will be largely suggested by your spec (I see 3 different "starting" paths in the druid mock up that mostly correspond to feral/guardian, balance, resto) so we might get to choose to either go deeper down that suggested path or swing over to grab the starter abilities of another one.

That gives me very high hopes that "sub specs" are gonna be a thing! How very very exciting!

 

[Kirise]

Speaking of reading too much into things...

"There will be new some new abilities to Dragonflight, as well as returning Artifact traits, set bonuses, legendary effects..." (emphasis mine)

Set bonuses? Now, the rational thing to think here is that Blizzard is simply going to put old set bonuses on new gear. But oooohhh, wouldn't it be interesting if Blizzard reactivated old set bonuses now that stats on Dragonflight endgame gear would make it unlikely for those set bonuses to interfere with Blizzard's gear progression plans?

 

[Chops]

Speaking of reading too much into things...

"There will be new some new abilities to Dragonflight, as well as returning Artifact traits, set bonuses, legendary effects..." (emphasis mine)

Set bonuses? Now, the rational thing to think here is that Blizzard is simply going to put old set bonuses on new gear. But oooohhh, wouldn't it be interesting if Blizzard reactivated old set bonuses now that stats on Dragonflight endgame gear would make it unlikely for those set bonuses to interfere with Blizzard's gear progression plans?

welp, there goes my hope for a relatively chill xpac launch

 

[Ivo]

When SL gets into chromie there will obviously be some bugged items.