World of Warcraft: Current Year

Chris · Jul 16, 2022

We know what is going to happen.

Levelling will be "go to camp, get quests from 2 NPCs, do quests and find followup in camp, go to new camp" x100. It will be tolerable because you'll be experimenting with the new talents. Dragon Reps with the covenant tech will be good. Dragonriding will be fun.

Endgame will be the same battlegrounds with OP Evokers, a boring raid and toxic dungeon speedrunning - then content drought. Story will be SJW shit.

It's going to be 1 month of content, maybe 2 depending on how well they do the endgame. The people trapped in the maze will then start to slowly go insane again as they stretch out the 2nd month of content over a whole year, or repeat the first month on alts.

Fucker · Jul 16, 2022

Chris said:
We know what is going to happen.

Levelling will be "go to camp, get quests from 2 NPCs, do quests and find followup in camp, go to new camp" x100. It will be tolerable because you'll be experimenting with the new talents. Dragon Reps with the covenant tech will be good. Dragonriding will be fun.

Endgame will be the same battlegrounds with OP Evokers, a boring raid and toxic dungeon speedrunning - then content drought. Story will be SJW shit.

It's going to be 1 month of content, maybe 2 depending on how well they do the endgame. The people trapped in the maze will then start to slowly go insane again as they stretch out the 2nd month of content over a whole year, or repeat the first month on alts.

They aren't new talents. They are what we have now, but in a different wrapper...and you have to be L70 to have the same talents as what you have now at L60. It is even worse than borrowed power because it is regifted power. Some people are hailing this as a welcome change that will allow for more builds, but as always there will only ever be one viable build per spec.

Dragon flight is meh. If I wanted to play a flight sim, there are far better ones out there.

The change to crafting is a joke. One streamer says it gives more depth, but all it does is introduce a grind to an already boring chore.

Kuro · Jul 16, 2022

It's gonna be different this time, he promised to only beat me weekly instead of daily

Malakriss · Jul 16, 2022

As someone who hasn't played since Legion this all looks dumb. By the time this comes out plenty of other games will be releasing I encourage you not to give money to this company.

Daidraco · Jul 16, 2022

I gave a twitch prime membership to some random low count streamer to do shit for me. I think the grinds are staring us right in the face and they just arent fully implemented yet. That streamer

Neranja posted almost seemed to put it together at the end of his video.

Dragon Riding for example, has a talent tree that gives you more gems to use so you can push your Dragon higher and higher. TBC Arcatraz ring a bell with its basic flying requirement? How much will we have to grind out to get to all the gem slots needed to reach that? Is it only going to need, say 4 and this will be a recurring theme through the entire expansion? With more and more gems? All I can say here as far as Travel goes - they better increase flight path speed to 950% cause after a some time, everyone is going to hate having to play the dragon mini game just to do one fucking thing.

Crafting Talent Tree, he touched on it at the end of the video but didnt really go into it much. Probably cause I cant even figure out how they are going to fuck us over here, either. A low quality potion, is it not going to be good enough to do a min/max skip in Mythic+? But how much influence is the crafting tree really going to have on what we can and cannot do? Cause right now, you can play around with it and see all the different ways the system can be time gated.

Point Im trying to reach is, Blizzard has, as far as I can remember anyways, never implemented something that took a lot of time and work to make and did not find a way to FORCE you to have to use it. Torghast, Covenants, Warfronts, Island Expeditions, Legion Legendaries, Garrison, etc. etc. They seem to be doing it this way in DF because its not as obvious at first glance. You'll just find yourself leveling up in the system passively and .. maybe thats a good thing? But I bet its going to feel awful for the people that min/max or the general population that wants to min/max.

I care, but I dont care, about talent trees and classes. Its how its always been with WoW and I dont see this expansion being any different. The first thing you have to ask yourself is "why isnt every tree out?" Cause theyre still working on them, obviously. So what does that say about the trees that are out? That the guy/team thats designing them thought that they were "good enough." Wait, so the class that is struggling with content right now was "good enough?" Will we see them revisit the trees after everything is done? We can hope so, but I wouldnt count on it.

Personally, I think the expansion needs to be pushed back. We already know they dont push out content quick enough to keep people on the leash anymore, and.. whats on the table so far seems barren as fuck for a game thats suppose to release in 5 months.

Bubbles · Jul 16, 2022

with the past 3 or 4 expansions what's been in the alpha/beta is gonna be in a release basically as is. Internally they have already set all the systems in stone and they're gonna do jack shit to change anything unless it's gamebreaking in a way that allows players to skip time gating etc. And there will be time gating, 100%, they don't have any real content with out it. I can't wait Bellular videos 6 months into the exp titled "Dragonflight. What went wrong?" and "What Blizzard needs to change to save WoW" you know, his usual repertoire

Mountain Biker · Jul 16, 2022

People actually think that Blizzard can have two years of new content in an expansion? I was sick of WoW shortly after original TBC came out and I haven't been able to play for more than a month or two at a time since then. There's just no way to create that much content that would be new to someone who has played MMOs for years.

Vanilla WoW was far and away the greatest gaming experience I've ever had but that's because it was all new to me. That magic will never come back for me, in any game, ever, sadly.

Neranja · Jul 16, 2022

Daidraco said:
But I bet its going to feel awful for the people that min/max or the general population that wants to min/max.

My opinion on this is: The people that really want to min/max are the top 1%. The ones that see mythic raiding as a challenge, and would be OK if M+ only gave titles and mounts and recolors of existing gear, with no stats benefits whatsoever.

Everything two steps below that audience is forced into min/maxing by peer pressure, or else they will have trouble finding a M+8 group, or won't get invited into a normal mode raid.

Hot take: It's not the borrowed power systems every expansion that are evil--it's the repeated required daily grind to power them up, or else you risk falling behind. Blizzard has been repeatedly asked to make those dailies into a weekly quota, or make harder weekly quests so you can grind them out on the weekend when you have time.

Foggy · Jul 16, 2022

Daidraco said:
I gave a twitch prime membership to some random low count streamer to do shit for me. I think the grinds are staring us right in the face and they just arent fully implemented yet. That streamer Neranja posted almost seemed to put it together at the end of his video.

Dragon Riding for example, has a talent tree that gives you more gems to use so you can push your Dragon higher and higher. TBC Arcatraz ring a bell with its basic flying requirement? How much will we have to grind out to get to all the gem slots needed to reach that? Is it only going to need, say 4 and this will be a recurring theme through the entire expansion? With more and more gems? All I can say here as far as Travel goes - they better increase flight path speed to 950% cause after a some time, everyone is going to hate having to play the dragon mini game just to do one fucking thing.

Crafting Talent Tree, he touched on it at the end of the video but didnt really go into it much. Probably cause I cant even figure out how they are going to fuck us over here, either. A low quality potion, is it not going to be good enough to do a min/max skip in Mythic+? But how much influence is the crafting tree really going to have on what we can and cannot do? Cause right now, you can play around with it and see all the different ways the system can be time gated.

Point Im trying to reach is, Blizzard has, as far as I can remember anyways, never implemented something that took a lot of time and work to make and did not find a way to FORCE you to have to use it. Torghast, Covenants, Warfronts, Island Expeditions, Legion Legendaries, Garrison, etc. etc. They seem to be doing it this way in DF because its not as obvious at first glance. You'll just find yourself leveling up in the system passively and .. maybe thats a good thing? But I bet its going to feel awful for the people that min/max or the general population that wants to min/max.

I care, but I dont care, about talent trees and classes. Its how its always been with WoW and I dont see this expansion being any different. The first thing you have to ask yourself is "why isnt every tree out?" Cause theyre still working on them, obviously. So what does that say about the trees that are out? That the guy/team thats designing them thought that they were "good enough." Wait, so the class that is struggling with content right now was "good enough?" Will we see them revisit the trees after everything is done? We can hope so, but I wouldnt count on it.

Personally, I think the expansion needs to be pushed back. We already know they dont push out content quick enough to keep people on the leash anymore, and.. whats on the table so far seems barren as fuck for a game thats suppose to release in 5 months.

They are already revisiting the released trees, and their comments about coming changes shows they are actually listening to feedback on them. Not all trees are created equal so you are at the mercy of the talent of the dev working on your class. Rogue hit the lottery.

Neranja · Jul 16, 2022

Daidraco · Jul 16, 2022

Neranja said:
My opinion on this is: The people that really want to min/max are the top 1%. The ones that see mythic raiding as a challenge, and would be OK if M+ only gave titles and mounts and recolors of existing gear, with no stats benefits whatsoever.

Everything two steps below that audience is forced into min/maxing by peer pressure, or else they will have trouble finding a M+8 group, or won't get invited into a normal mode raid.

Hot take: It's not the borrowed power systems every expansion that are evil--it's the repeated required daily grind to power them up, or else you risk falling behind. Blizzard has been repeatedly asked to make those dailies into a weekly quota, or make harder weekly quests so you can grind them out on the weekend when you have time.

If anything, I think it should be the exact opposite of your opinion of what min/maxxers want. Mythic raiding, and Mythic+ past 15 should be purely cosmetic with achievements. It'll flatten the landscape tremendously because outside of titles, transmog has effectively killed the "Sit in Orgrimmar and let people admire your gear". Raider.IO Is probably one of the most toxic, most disruptive tools Ive seen fully supported by an MMO, too. God forbid they limit tools to where people would have to make friends and talk to each other in order to do content. You know, the social interaction that makes an MMO fun? Sort of like if Retard Johnny and Method Man Steve could do Heroic Raids together again because they just dont care about that ugly ass suit of gear?

Weeklies may be better suited for those of us that have been playing this game for the last 20 years, but its still just a required hoop to jump through to force you to log in. It's just a way to not only keep you logging in, but also time gate whatever the reward theyre dangling at the end. If some sperg wants to play 20 hours a day and finish every bit of content in the first week - let the fucker have at it. Thats not the average player base. People are most likely going to stop playing the expansion, good or bad after a couple months anyways. So just let people sperg out.

Foggy said:
They are already revisiting the released trees, and their comments about coming changes shows they are actually listening to feedback on them. Not all trees are created equal so you are at the mercy of the talent of the dev working on your class. Rogue hit the lottery.

"Fool me once..." Just another thing that we're going to have to wait and see. Im going to talk about the things I like and dont like all the way up to the end. But man do they have a long ways to go before I'd even think about buying it and I wouldnt even be using my own cash. It would be BlizzBucks.

Chris · Jul 16, 2022

Mountain Biker said:
People actually think that Blizzard can have two years of new content in an expansion? I was sick of WoW shortly after original TBC came out and I haven't been able to play for more than a month or two at a time since then. There's just no way to create that much content that would be new to someone who has played MMOs for years.

Vanilla WoW was far and away the greatest gaming experience I've ever had but that's because it was all new to me. That magic will never come back for me, in any game, ever, sadly.

Played Elden Ring yet? It had that magic for a lot of people.

Rogosh · Jul 16, 2022

The new mage set looks like a monk should wear it, no shoes and no robe. lol.

Neranja · Jul 16, 2022

Daidraco said:
If anything, I think it should be the exact opposite of your opinion of what min/maxxers want. Mythic raiding, and Mythic+ past 15 should be purely cosmetic with achievements.

I don't know if I made myself clear enough, but this is what the true min/maxers want: mounts, transmogs, achievements, but no direct power gain (speak: item level, or things like warforging/titanforging).
Max from Liquid had a discussion about it with Asmongold, and the sentiment was basically that power gains through Mythic just attracts the lootwhores.

Daidraco said:
God forbid they limit tools to where people would have to make friends and talk to each other in order to do content. You know, the social interaction that makes an MMO fun? Sort of like if Retard Johnny and Method Man Steve could do Heroic Raids together again because they just dont care about that ugly ass suit of gear?

This is a consequence of Blizzard trying to "esport" the MMO genre. In Vanilla 5 to 10 good players could carry people through MC and BWL (Naxx maybe not so much, the rep grind for the keys alone was too much for most casuals), and we had "catchup and alternate" raids like AQ20 and ZG. This all stopped with hard enrage timers, dps checks and wipe mechanics. Suddenly you couldn't bring your friends to the raid anymore, because your friends sucked at playing their class.

It's not that hard raids and dungeons are bad in itself, a lot of people welcome the challenge--it's just that those raids replaced all the raid content, which made them inaccessible to the more casual players. Now those players frequent LFR, which suddenly is a lot harder than even heroic, because there is no social accountability, so a lot of players just AFK there to be carried.

I have a feeling of déjà vu. We may have had this exact discussion already.

Daidraco · Jul 16, 2022

BDO taking a turn at shitting on "Dracthyr," I assume. Does look good.

Cybsled · Jul 16, 2022

Looks like a dragoon mixed with a dragon lol

Considering how damned old WoW is, graphically they're about as good as they can be without an actual huge overall/reboot. I will say that the customization options for the dragon race in WoW seems to be robust (for WoW anyways), considering how lackluster most of the racial customization has been in the past.

bolok · Jul 16, 2022

Cybsled said:
Looks like a dragoon mixed with a dragon lol

Considering how damned old WoW is, graphically they're about as good as they can be without an actual huge overall/reboot. I will say that the customization options for the dragon race in WoW seems to be robust (for WoW anyways), considering how lackluster most of the racial customization has been in the past.

Part of the reason they have so many spine, bump, general geometry options on the dragon form is because barely any actual armor will show on that form. I think they said it was basically shoulders (because of course) and the weird geometry belt things they do. If they actually had to make a form that worked with all the existing models- they would be just as bare bones as the current ones.
See also the very limted options for the humanoid form- which is the only way you'll see most of yer glam outfit.

Daidraco · Jul 16, 2022

bolok said:
Part of the reason they have so many spine, bump, general geometry options on the dragon form is because barely any actual armor will show on that form. I think they said it was basically shoulders (because of course) and the weird geometry belt things they do. If they actually had to make a from that worked with all the existing models- they would be just as bare bones as the current ones.

You choose the armor at creation, or the barbershop. The armor that a regular character wears is only visible on the non transformed version. Thats why limiting them to just the skinny femboys annoys people so much. Its not that they cant do big bad's, its that they wont.

I saw this and thought it was real. I dont even play Tauren and was going to be mad/depressed about this.

Warrior Set

Monk Set

Death Knight

Warrior looks "okay" but Im not impressed by any of them and probably not ever going to seek them out for collections if I do play again.

Chris · Jul 16, 2022

Rogosh said:
The new mage set looks like a monk should wear it, no shoes and no robe. lol.

It's funny how they have multiple interviews and promos talking about how much effort they put into the silhouettes being identifiable for this and the last (even worse) set.

bolok · Jul 16, 2022

Neranja said:
I don't know if I made myself clear enough, but this is what the true min/maxers want: mounts, transmogs, achievements, but no direct power gain (speak: item level, or things like warforging/titanforging).
Max from Liquid had a discussion about it with Asmongold, and the sentiment was basically that power gains through Mythic just attracts the lootwhores.

This is a consequence of Blizzard trying to "esport" the MMO genre. In Vanilla 5 to 10 good players could carry people through MC and BWL (Naxx maybe not so much, the rep grind for the keys alone was too much for most casuals), and we had "catchup and alternate" raids like AQ20 and ZG. This all stopped with hard enrage timers, dps checks and wipe mechanics. Suddenly you couldn't bring your friends to the raid anymore, because your friends sucked at playing their class.

It's not that hard raids and dungeons are bad in itself, a lot of people welcome the challenge--it's just that those raids replaced all the raid content, which made them inaccessible to the more casual players. Now those players frequent LFR, which suddenly is a lot harder than even heroic, because there is no social accountability, so a lot of players just AFK there to be carried.

I have a feeling of déjà vu. We may have had this exact discussion already.

Are you referring to both mythic raiding and M+ as the generic mythic above? There's like levels of min maxers at play here too. I'm sure there are SOME min/maxers that would be just fine with cosmetic rewards. But on the other hand there is 100% a contingent of people who feel if they don't get a tangible power reward for doing the hardest content- it just is not worth doing. Admittedly the worlds first crew has a niche of a niche take- but they aren't wrong. If it's a purely a mercenary transaction- the cost/benefit of doing Mythic stops making sense without power gains to start the next patch. Completely outside of the sponsorship or winnings from whatever for coming in first.

Max had a convo with his stream yesterday discussing the interview thing with Ion where he discussed game 1 and game 2. The context was about PI. Ion's post below

I understand it’s controversial, but at the same time, some of this gets back to the earlier discussion of party and raid buffs, and our philosophy there with adding new ones. It is a cooperative MMO, where in the design space of “I can make my comrades, my allies stronger!” it seems like a viable support type role that should exist in an RPG setting. Internally, it’s interesting, the team has coined this problem. There are two games being played in a raid group. There is game 1, which is the game that we built, which is beat the raid boss, clear the dungeon in the time limit. Then there’s game 2, which players have largely created for themselves, which is win DPS meters, beat my performance from last week, get a purple parse, get a gold parse, whatever else. We don’t create that game. But many people are playing it, and it is almost the primary motivation for them. A question is, how sensitive should we be to that? How much should we be designing around that?

Because yes, certainly, if we were making a game, and the point of the game was maximize your score, maximize this number, it would be problematic to introduce elements into the game that are very random or skew outcomes one way or another. But that’s also not the game that we have made. We have created a cooperative game that presents these challenges to be overcome. And so something in that environment like Power Infusion is a really interesting decision in a range of raid settings. Maybe on farm you sell it to the person with the best burst window, but when you’re learning an encounter for the first time, it’s more “what are the moments in the fight that are most challenging for us? Do we need to burst down this wave of adds before this next thing happens and who should we PI? Should we PI a healer because we need a throughput burst to make it through this thing? DPS isn’t an issue, we’re just trying to survive but we don’t want to add a healer?” It’s those sorts of decisions that are interesting group dynamics that we would hate to take away.

And game 2, so to speak, is also one where the rules in other places are shaped by the community. Like everyone at this point thinks nothing of the fact that log sites completely ignore padding. You can maximize your number by just damaging a bunch of extraneous adds in a fight that don’t really serve the interest of the group. And doing that will make you have the biggest number and win meters, and the community has collectively decided this is unhealthy, we’re not going to count or reward that behavior, just because you’re multi-dotting all these adds that will die on their own…we’re not going to count this damage at all. And that shapes player behavior there. To some extent, we want to focus on designing for the so-called game 1, and making that the best experience possible, and leave to the community and log sites and others to figure out the rules for how they want to determine who the best hunter is, who the best mage is etc. on this fight.

The context was theoretically about PI, but Max, while I think he came close just did not make the breakthrough, and his self selecting stream audience certainly didn't. PI is just a scapegoat, the meta gaming, min-max autists are ultimately not healthy to design for and certainly shouldn't be listened to. The wow cash cow is now, more than ever, ultra casuals who splurge on store mounts- and farm old content for dress up.
This is actually the one of the most hopeful bits:

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World of Warcraft: Current Year

Chris

Potato del Grande

Fucker

Log Wizard

Kuro

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider

Malakriss

Golden Baronet of the Realm

Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm

Bubbles

2022 Asshat Award Winner

Mountain Biker

Trakanon Raider

Neranja

Foggy

Ahn'Qiraj Raider

Neranja

Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm

Chris

Potato del Grande

Rogosh

Lord Nagafen Raider

Neranja

Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm

Cybsled

Avatar of War Slayer

bolok

Trakanon Raider

Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm

Chris

Potato del Grande

bolok

Trakanon Raider