beta-ptr-spoilers

[rain cave]

so I have to use LoS cheesing and kiting to survive

[deep pawn]

So I don't know how Blizzard changes that gearing curve.

[sullen dawn]

That stuff is annoying but it can sorted in iteration

[deep pawn]

unless they make lower keys much more rewarding

[sullen dawn]

That's why delves should keep going difficulty and gear wise after that

[rain cave]

add more reactive mechanics to the delves to justify the difficulty instead of just making it a wall you slam against

[sullen dawn]

All the way up to the highest difficulty and ilvl reward

[deep pawn]

that doesn't solve the issue of getting people into the dungeons at easier starting points

[rain cave]

web bolt directional thing that CC's you instead of just a damaging spell for example

[sullen dawn]

Yeh but I don't care about that

And I suggested you can't do +7 u until you've done +6, and can't do +6 until you've done +5

But really m+ is irrelevant to me since delves came

If they did that people couldnt just jump into +7 in a dungeon, they'd have to do it 6 times first

[deep pawn]

that seems worse

making people do 64 dungeons before they can do +10s

[sullen dawn]

At least they can't jump straight in haha

And it would be non linear, like you could do a certain dungeon on +10 after 8 dungeons

I guess they could do the delve way and not make it dungeon specific

So you could do all +10s after clearing each prior difficulty on any dungeon once

[ember blaze]

no thats dumb. You're also forgetting keys are a lottery.

[sullen dawn]

It probably makes sense to make it dungeon agnostic as I just commented above

[ember blaze]

You got full 603 gear and if lucky, heroic tier gear before the season was even out

[sullen dawn]

So do any key on +4 now you can do any key on +5

But no skipping

[ember blaze]

and what if I +3 the key?

[rain cave]

only ifyou had coffer keys :p

[ember blaze]

pretty sure I had 20 keys for when bountifuls unlocked

[rain cave]

tf

[ember blaze]

i was literally decked out INSTANTLY in champ gear

[rain cave]

in the early weeks I had like, 3?

from the weeklies and such

[ember blaze]

delves were incredibly easy loot during first week despite all the casuals crying about how hard it was

[rain cave]

depends on the class/spec

and the delve

[sullen dawn]

Up to devs to decide, could go either way. Personally I'd give better rewards and m+ score but still require they key above to do

[ember blaze]

there was only one delve i struggled with which required me to burn down the last boss and ignore its mechanics

[sullen dawn]

No more keys jumping more than +1 level

Id be healthier for the majority of the playerbase the climbs slightly slower in the early keys imo

Helps solves starting at +7, and more people learning mechanics in parity

Rather than some people speeding ahead and others getting "locked out of season"

[ember blaze]

nobody is getting locked out of the season

the only thing youre doing is making the experience more annoying than it needs to be

[rain cave]

tbf the 603 gear was only obtainable if you could do tier 8 delves

and from the way their damage scales, lower ilvls basically get stat checked out of them

[sullen dawn]

I'm being dramatic, but if you start a little late or don't progress as quick it's way harder to keep up and get into keys

[ember blaze]

the problem here is casuals unable to jump into +7 right away and struggling with dungeons because the jump is big

[rain cave]

like if you're a fresh 80 good luck doing a tier8 lmao

[sullen dawn]

Yes and I what I suggested helps combat that

[ember blaze]

and their only option like ion said is from delves straight to +7

[sullen dawn]

So they shouldn't be able to start at 7

[ember blaze]

i think the problem is delve loot being too rewarding

[sullen dawn]

They should have to climb

[sullen dawn]

No fuck that

[ember blaze]

casuals should have to climb*

I dont need my hand held one key level until a +10 lol

[sullen dawn]

Delves needs MORE rewarding loot

[ember blaze]

the problem is YOU casuals unable to jump straight into higher key levels and having no progression

[sullen dawn]

You might not, but a large majority of the player base would benefit

[ember blaze]

you should go from delves and be perfectly fine starting at a +2

[sullen dawn]

Game shouldnt be designed for top % of players

[ember blaze]

again, its the rewards making it worse for everyone

you create all these problems because delve loot is too good

[sullen dawn]

Also, some people want delves to be as rewarding as m+ (me included)

I wanna exclusively do delves and get the best loot, and get to really high, difficult tiers

[ember blaze]

its rewarding considering it invalidates several key levels

[sullen dawn]

It's a new end game pillar, not a casual mode

[sullen dawn]

Id rather m+ be invalidated than delves. But what I suggested is a compromise, it means each pillar has its own ladder to work through

[ember blaze]

but people clearly didnt like that since there are a LOT of complaints about m+ wall

[sullen dawn]

You can't just skip/change over

[deep pawn]

M+ is harder than the raid this season

[sullen dawn]

From m+ players

[ember blaze]

you want a core part of the game that millions of ppl play? ok

[sullen dawn]

No I don't want that, id just choose that if it was between that and shitty delves

[deep pawn]

I think they made dungeons too hard regardless

[ember blaze]

from the people who struggle to even clear a 10. The people who relied on the lowest key level for mythic loot

which used to be a 15 and was very trivial to do

but it's a lot harder this time around

Actually it was lower than that wasnt it for mythic crests?

[sullen dawn]

+10 is the old +20, not +15 I believe

Regardless, the solution can't be nerfing delve rewards

[ember blaze]

yeah farming mythic crests was very easy before

[sullen dawn]

That will kill the new endgame pillar

[ember blaze]

so casuals who benefitted more off that got upset

not the 1% as you claim

because the wall to get mythic loot got harder

[sullen dawn]

I never said 1%

[ember blaze]

top players whatever

[sullen dawn]

And that's not the part I have issue with. I'm fine with some difficulty nerfs to higher keys

[ember blaze]

but ppl want progression from keys

[sullen dawn]

I just don't want delve loot nerfed

[ember blaze]

and they cant have that if delves invalidate it all

[sullen dawn]

There needs to be top end delve progression too though

[ember blaze]

delves are not as engaging as dungeons are

[sullen dawn]

They are to some, especially if we had higher difficulties

[ember blaze]

and they also guarantee loot

[sullen dawn]

There was no point them adding delves if they aren't gonna be treated as seriously as raiding and m+

This is basically the old raider VS m+ debate all over again. Raiders hated m+ giving strong loot initially

[ember blaze]

delves will never be as serious as raid or m+

[sullen dawn]

M+ players need to accept delves have a place

Disagree, they need to be. They were announced/positioned as a core endgame pillar alongside those two

Not as a "casual mode"

[ember blaze]

yeah but i dont see how the content/combat inside them will ever match group content

[sullen dawn]

Thats just a lack of imagination

[ember blaze]

should a delve reward me the same loot as killing mythic ansurek

[deep pawn]

If you could get hero gear from +4s and myth vaults from +8, like how it worked in previous seasons there's progression again

[sullen dawn]

If it's like a delve +25 sure, and it's insanely difficult

[deep pawn]

Blizzard nerfed m+ loot cause raiders cried

[ember blaze]

blizzard wants you to raid anyways

[sullen dawn]

Raiding isn't as important as it used to be

[ember blaze]

broken trinkets and other loot

[deep pawn]

But they still haven't made mythic lockouts make sense

[ember blaze]

being locked into one is silly

[upper pasture]

I think delves capping out at hero gear is fine? I don’t see the problem with that and all the trinkets are poorly optimized anyways so you’ll get those but you’ll want better ones from raid/m+

[sullen dawn]

And delves should give weekly myth gear at a new super hard tier

[deep pawn]

They just need to go back to season 4 reward structure

Champ m0 loot, hero early on, and myth vaults at +6 or +8

[ember blaze]

some trinkets in there are very strong

like the candle one

[upper pasture]

Some sure but they aren’t beating out same itmlvl for raid ones.

[deep pawn]

Raiders cried about s4 m+ loot being too good though

[sullen dawn]

If they do that need to speed up hero gear acquisition in delves otherwise m+ will invalidate it

[ember blaze]

they do, well except for the broken ones

but this might be an aug thing so ignore me

[sullen dawn]

Honestly, they should just sperate the progression pillars. M+ gear doesn't work in raids, delve gear doesn't work in m+

[deep pawn]

I'd still do delves on alts for champ loot cause 100% drop and solo

[sullen dawn]

It all works in open world

[upper pasture]

Yes and anyone min-maxing like that is already raiding and optimizing their gear the person who runs only delves likely doesn’t gaf

[sullen dawn]

Yeh but I don't want it to be an alt backup thing, I want it to be an on par endgame progression system for mains

[ember blaze]

does someone only wanting to run delves care about mythic gear

[sullen dawn]

I do, but that's because I want super difficult delves to push

[ember blaze]

trivialized in a 5 man 💀

[sullen dawn]

Yes. Not in s1 because there was no where to use it

[deep pawn]

Blizzard is likely very hesitant on that cause it is solo content. Hell blizzard thought dungeons we're too rewarding in DF

[sullen dawn]

Delves can be done 5 man

[ember blaze]

yes thats what i mean

[sullen dawn]

That was a flaw with s1 yes

Needs to be fixed

[ember blaze]

trivialize the "hard" delve content in 5 mans 💀

[sullen dawn]

That was bad design yes, but it's the first iteration

[ember blaze]

and how do you make it hard in solo content. Everything will just one shot you if u up the levels\

this is what I mean by delves never being as serious as group content

[sullen dawn]

There are ways, heavy avoidance based mechanics like we've seen. One shots are ok if theyre telegraphed

[sullen dawn]

But it's possible

[ember blaze]

Like if we take the mage tower. At least for the healer challenge, ure forced to CC/interrupt shit and heal otherwise u just die

But at some point you cant really make that any harder

[sullen dawn]

It just requires creative encounter design

[ember blaze]

so you hit a wall there

[deep pawn]

I'm gonna stick with my opinion, go back to s4 m+ rewards and the issue largely fixes itself

[sullen dawn]

They were an early example of what can be done for hard solo content. There is tonnes of design space still to be explored

[sullen dawn]

And increase delve rewards and raise tier cap

[ember blaze]

or take zekvir ?? dicculty

u add a bunch of avoidable mechanics from the? level and up its HP

[deep pawn]

I think I'm okay with not being able to grind hero track from delves but I don't know.

[ember blaze]

how much more can you do past that?

[sullen dawn]

You add "raid type" mechanics

[ember blaze]

u up the hp more and it just becomes a boring slog

[deep pawn]

Blizzard basically sees delves into keys as a natural progression

[ember blaze]

they did.

[sullen dawn]

That require really good timing

[ember blaze]

now what

you add 30 more?

up the hp anotehr 165m hp?

[sullen dawn]

Yes but we've only seen a small example of how "right" they can be

[ember blaze]

now im hitting a wall for 10 minutes

[sullen dawn]

Works for raiding

[ember blaze]

and im bored

[sullen dawn]

You mean like raiding?

[ember blaze]

do you raid?

[sullen dawn]

Up until DF yes I mythic raised

I'm not this expansion

[ember blaze]

cause raiding is far more engaging than that

[sullen dawn]

And delves can be

It doesn't take much to understand they've barely scratched the surface with delves

You can scale down raid dynamics and create a 1-5 player challenge at comparable difficulty

[ember blaze]

im going to make an assumption here that delves and the targeted demographic doesnt want what youre suggesting

because A LOT of people did not like the difficulty level delves had on week 1.

[sullen dawn]

That could be true. It's not how it was announced, and I certainly don't fit in that demographic

I want hard ass content

[ember blaze]

while good players had no issue clearing all delves at 580 gear

most players could not do it and wanted far easier content

[sullen dawn]

Most fun I've had in wow in years was first week of tww delves

It was soooooooo fun

[ember blaze]

you but like you said, you want to balance around the majority

and the majority did not like difficult delves

[deep pawn]

Week 1 delves were too worlds. You either had op Brann or it was hell

[sullen dawn]

And they should, I'm just saying it should scale up

[deep pawn]

I honestly had an easier time early on with bugged Brann.

[sullen dawn]

Everything should be balanced around the majority, but there should be optional high end scaling

That should be true of all modes imo

[ember blaze]

yeah ppl who figured out to just let him solo had an easier time

but u could also just manage it by pulling slower

[sullen dawn]

That's my philosophy anyway

[ember blaze]

those same players will want to engage on those higher levels im sure

[deep pawn]

I just think make it so you go from+8 delves to +4 keys would work great

[ember blaze]

specially if it offers loot

and if the content is advertised to be catered to them, then they will expect to be able to clear it

[sullen dawn]

You could say the same for mythic raiding or m+10/15

[sullen dawn]

It wasn't advertised that way

It was as advertised as a new end game pillar for people who wanna play solo mostly

Linked to the open world

[ember blaze]

yes thats why mythic crests got nerfed down a level

[sullen dawn]

And still the large majority of people can't mythic raid

Or do high end keys

So I don't see why it's ok to have high end scaling there but not delves

[ember blaze]

in the case of keys youre only chasing score

[sullen dawn]

They give mythic loot too

Delves don't

[ember blaze]

yeah but high end keys dont

they even made lower keys easier by adding the buff affix

and u can get mythic gear by doing 8s now

[sullen dawn]

Weekly chest does

Besides I'm not asking for "infinite scaling" for delves

Just up tier 20 ish I guess, with weekly mythic gear in vault

[ember blaze]

my guess is something like that will just become another group content

[sullen dawn]

Numbers can vary I guess, but basing it on current scaling, probs 18-20

[sullen dawn]

They need to figure out how to make it balanced across all sizes. either that or limit it to 3 people

But I think it's fine if groups do it, as long as solo is fine as an option

I enjoyed duo a lot too

Too easy tho

[deep pawn]

haha

well that ends some of the fun

https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/1200830.jpg

so either housing is in 11.2.7 or prepatch is EARLY

Regardless I bet that's when preorders drop

[dense plover]

still hope we get legion timewalking

[deep pawn]

I mean MoP remix went into prepatch

Legion Remix could be just a one month thing this time with rapidly accelerated rewards

[dense plover]

i hope not

legion is very cool

[clear apex]

Ion pretty much confirmed with out saying "yes" to legion in an interview.

He pointed out the green bar

This interview

https://youtu.be/lHb1Qjpoxfw?si=YeZreoPEIR-bHuuO

[pulsar minnow]

Weird map texture behind the logo there

Wonder if that’s just a generic wow map or a hint of the Quel Thalas map design

[clear apex]

The same texture is behind the triangle

[pulsar minnow]

Yeah it’s just more visible now

[clear apex]

But you're def right, looks like a map piece

[rain cave]

Preorder bonus

[deep pawn]

that would make it part of 11.2.7

which I don't know

unless they can import it just from beta

this isn't like adding Void Elves and Lightforged

[dense plover]

depends on when they add the backend

[dense plover]

well it COULD also be TBC

but i dont see them doing any of the really old-looking expacs

or anything that has a classic version thats active

[novel zodiac]

tbzzz

[deep pawn]

I do suppose it's possible they do the back end in 11.2.7, but I wouldn't be totally shocked at a January prepatch

Especially if 11.2 somehow sneaks its way to July

https://www.buffed.de/World-of-Warcraft-Spiel-42971/News/wow-the-war-within-season-2-mythisch-plus-dungeons-1459668/

German interview apparently got Ion to reveal the other two legacy dungeons

[novel zodiac]

Mechagon again?

[deep pawn]

apparently

Workshop and Theater of Pain

buffed.de is usually a generally good source right?

[proper palm]

I realy want Helya dj on M+ pull

[hazy kettle]

👀

Lemme check, I speak ze german, I zall confirm

Can confirm, Ion asked whether he's allowed to spill the tea and then spilled the tea

[pulsar minnow]

So Motherlode, Theatre of Pain, and Mechagon Workshop. Thats neat. I dont hate any of those dungeons tbh

[deep pawn]

Workshop isn't my favorite of the 2 but I bet Junkyard would remove all the buffs if it returned again

[proper palm]

Ooooh me to

[deep pawn]

There's no way they do an August 11.2 if Prepatch is in January right?

July feels too close if s2 is in March

[pulsar minnow]

looks like early summer to me

june or so

[deep pawn]

yeah, but our current speculation for 11.1 is Feb 25th which would make season 2 start in March

Late June would be just 3.5 months later

So either the ptr is just straight up wrong about when Plunderstorm and Timeways starts or s1 is gonna be the longest season by far.

[ember blaze]

more annoying boss fights

same with trash

oh yeah, unless they get rid of squirrel tech, you got priests just MC controllling squirrels 24/7

[pulsar minnow]

i mean when is the turbulent timeways event? it doesnt need to be at the start of the patch does it?

[deep pawn]

I believe PTR has it going from like 1/21 to 2/24

[pulsar minnow]

hm so maybe early feb we'll get patch, and then get 11.2 in early august, and then prepatch in jan or so

[deep pawn]

I'm hoping the ptr is just wrong on the timeways event

[deep pawn]

last timeways was a way to keep people logging in at the very end of a season

[deep pawn]

Regardless, I'm excited for the potential of a ptr in a few weeks, though they may just wait for January if season launch truly isn't until March.

[iron hare]

Mecgagon makes so much sense

[hazy kettle]

Indeed it do. 👀

[sullen dawn]

@ember blaze seems like delve rewards will not be nerfed, but also for the near future won't go beyond hero gear

https://www.wowhead.com/news/comeback-kids-interview-on-11-1-delve-rewards-mythic-pain-points-11-1-ptr-timing-350857?utm_source=discord-webhook

But not disqualifying rewards going beyond hero in the future

"we'll see what the future holds"

[sullen dawn]

Ion Hazzikostas said:
[...]more details as this hits the Test Realm towards the end of the year[...]

PTR in dec

[tropic trail]

Oh they gonna fix the delves nice 😂

[sullen dawn]

They didn't say anything about "fixing delves" unless you mean Brann tank spec?

Which is mostly just relevant for healers

[rain cave]

perhaps there's just a way to upgrade gear from delves?

like an item that moves a gear piece up a reward track and resets its upgrade progress

so instead of dropping higher ilvl gear

you build it up

[sullen dawn]

I don't think they're changing delve gearing at all for now

From what he said

[silent urchin]

there's almost certainly going to be some tweaks, but not some expansion into myth gear

[sullen dawn]

I'm glad they're not nerfing delve gear

[silent urchin]

But also planning to make lower level M+ more rewarding, which I assume means more gear and/or crests

[sullen dawn]

Maybe myth in the future, but there's no point if they don't add harder/more delve tiers

But it's not for now anyway. I'm just glad no gear nerfs

Buffing m+ gear at lower tiers was the better choice

[ember blaze]

i wonder how much healing tank brann is gonna require 🤔 otherwise that just makes delves 100x easier

basically sleep through them

[dense plover]

finally got an answer on why brann is sticking around too "There's a lot of design challenges behind swapping companions every tier. Now, Brann will be the War Within companion and there will be a new one in Midnight"

i hope this means that instead of reseting the seasonal track and losing those rewards, theyll just extend it maybe?

[rain cave]

vereesa delve companion?

[dense plover]

but also this makes sense - way too much work to make actually significantly different companions each patch and have them be significant to the story really

[silent urchin]

they said they'll keep his xp, dunno about seasonal track itself

but they could just throw that on a vendor

[ember blaze]

is brann significant to the story?

[dense plover]

yeah i guess they could stick them behind undercoin

[dense plover]

kinda?

[ember blaze]

you could replace him with a murloc and i wouldnt know the difference

[dense plover]

he plays a small role so far, but i suspect as more titan stuff comes up, that role will increase

[rain cave]

he's the uncle in the story both literally as well as vibes

[ember blaze]

he getting replaced leading up to the titan expac 💀

[dense plover]

"There is no rostrum, but you can swap the color and handling characteristics." - this is disappointing regarding DRIVE

i was hoping it would be somewhat customizable

[ember blaze]

legion remix confirmed

[rain cave]

maybe they'll make the delve companions swappable by then

[dense plover]

they really screwed themselves introducing that system because they dont want to focus too hard on this

[rain cave]

but who knwows

[dense plover]

where?

[rain cave]

I mean it could be a setup for midnight if there's no flying initially

[dense plover]

they acknowledged its fel green

[rain cave]

dynamic ground mount hawk tuah striders

[dense plover]

that could also be TBC

also not necessarily remix

could be something else too

if they remix legion, i have to imagine they bring back the weapons instead of the cloak

[ember blaze]

which is the better setup for an elf expac

[dense plover]

oh for sure

especially since thalyssra is likely to play a role

[ember blaze]

unlikely they bring back mage tower appearances? 🙊

[rain cave]

I hope they do

[tropic trail]

Dudes check this out 😂

This is classy new Ferrari ok 👌

This is perfection!

I just simply hope it’s for two persons mount, I see back seat just brilliant

[ember blaze]

i want Elisande back 🙊

maybe she teleported to our winning timeline

[dense plover]

possible for recolors

no chance they do the originals

new recolors is definitely possible

just like they might do recolors of the class hall sets

though i hope if theyre doing legion remix, they axe the table missions (just make the quests available) and again, bring back the weapons in some form - maybe turning the threads into a power bar that you can spend instead of it being as passive and adding a few active abilities and using the socket slots?

idk

[rain cave]

why not originals?

I don't think they're contractually obligated, there wasn't any monetary thing behind them

and they did it with tier 3 sets

[clear apex]

Maybe I'll finally get my fox mount

[deep pawn]

Because the t3 sets were always available on the bmah when they decided some things like challenge mode rewards would be time limited.

Expanding t3 again only hurt the people who could drop gold on them

[sullen dawn]

They confirmed resetting, new track

Brann progress stays though

[dense plover]

wonder where the rewards will go

[deep pawn]

Undercoin gear should be buffed to veteran

[upper pasture]

maybe we will see brann get 10 levels added every major patch so his level will get to 80 at the end of TWW

[deep pawn]

I imagine the seasonal progress reward will just be removed.

[sullen dawn]

I think they're gonna make similar tracks for m+ and raiding in s3. 11.2 has "Seasonal Rewards Update" in the list of things

[sullen dawn]

That or cost extra under coins

[deep pawn]

The track just unlocked the cheap customization items right?

And then the ability to buy 3 keys a week?

[sullen dawn]

Yeh I have no problem with them making the originals available again

[sullen dawn]

Yeh, pseudo "battlepass" (the free kind)

Season long cosmetic progression is cool though

[deep pawn]

They could just move the mount customization to 2500 coins each on Finley

[sullen dawn]

Unless you're pushing high end most "progress" is front loaded in the season

[upper pasture]

2500 is sorta cheap considering you can very easily earn 1500 a week by doing a single delve

[sullen dawn]

So having those tracks across all modes would give alternative things to work towards

[deep pawn]

If they're resetting progress on the bar they have to add some new rewards.

[sullen dawn]

They will

Prolly goblin stuff

[deep pawn]

Just unlocking the wue gear and keys over won't be that exciting

[sullen dawn]

I'm sure it'll be new stuff

Otherwise there's 0 point

[deep pawn]

Also, so glad they're going the route of lowering m+ reward vs nerfing delves. I'm gonna wager delve participation is nuts.

[sullen dawn]

Me too

Ruining delves was never the answer

[deep pawn]

+4s dropping hero loot, +6 myth crests, and +8 for myth vaults would absolutely be what I'd do

[sullen dawn]

I know he said delve gear wouldn't get higher in s2 but in s3 id like to see a high end tier give myth vault too

It can be slower than m+

[deep pawn]

+11 delves in a lot of ways are harder, but that's cause of deaths meaning you can lose all rewards, the hp sponge enemies, and the high chance of random one shots

[sullen dawn]

Sure, just might need to up it a couple tiers to give myth gear

Not sure where sweet spot is

[rain cave]

yeah but they were available on bmah, something that came in MoP not wrath.

and they said they wouldn't do classic, and other things

I personally see no harm in bringing back unobtainable appearances, just make them gettable somehow

can literally be extremely rare and hard to get

like bmah stuff

[deep pawn]

I fully support in letting cm gold sets and mage tower weapons being available again

[ember blaze]

idc about gold goblins

people dropping millions of gold on shit are always full of millions of gold, idgaf

[deep pawn]

And Blizzard didn't either even if they made the mats for t3 sorta expensive to mollify them.

[sullen dawn]

Same

[warm topaz]

what do you think about Legion remix

i wonder what are they going to do wth artifact weapons

an with AP in general

could be a really cool experiment

maybe it won't work exactly as Pandaria Remix

[silent urchin]

I assume the weapons will be the cloak equivalent

Wouldn't surprise me if they tone down the power grind somewhat

[warm topaz]

but would you bring back all the abilities?

that would be cool

i don't think so

[silent urchin]

probably difficult

a lot of them won't work with current talents

[warm topaz]

there are talents that don't exist anymore

and the quest to obtain them?

what about order halls?

i have so many questions lol

Dalaran doesn't exist anymore, does it on remix?

[rain cave]

they could just give us a bunch of effects related to artifacts

instead of the raw artifact ability back

[silent urchin]

legion dalaran is still there in retail, why wouldn't it still exist

[rain cave]

like ashbringer, we already have wake of ashes. But maybe you can socket something into your ashbringer that makes it stronger, or makes increase X stat, or maybe you can get procs of a free wake of ashes

[rain cave]

it would just be like pandaria remix imo

[warm topaz]

but, lore wise it's destroyed right?

[rain cave]

well yeah but pandaria remix took place DURING pandaria timewise

[warm topaz]

oh yeah, that makes sense, bronze dragonflight

[rain cave]

the remix characters were sent back to mists of pandaria to re-experience it

[warm topaz]

i didn't remember that

[rain cave]

so I imagine it would be the same here. And they spin it line "lets go back and see what happened during legion because it's relevant to the plot in normal retail"

xalatath is an artifact, alleria's bow and alleria are in legion, ashbringers crystal might be relevant to beledar, anduins whole modern arc starts there, the naga are there, there's some elune stuff in the background

sargeras's sword ofc, and locus walker

legion remix just seems like a perfect event to run to get newer players caught up on the story things happening atm

[warm topaz]

they could add some lore there, don't you think?

something with Xal

[rain cave]

I mean, maybe. But they didn't in MoP remix

I'd rather they just use it to be a fun event with a narrative framing that expands on the lore reason for it

[warm topaz]

It would be great if xal's dagger had new voice lines.

[rain cave]

maybe she will tbf

but I reckon they'll try keep legion lore untouched for remix

because it could be perceived as retcon

[warm topaz]

yep

[deep pawn]

my personal guess is Legion Remix won't be nearly as long

[rain cave]

I do wonder if the characters wstart at 10 again

and how they'll tackle the issues with raids

could they perhaps start at a higher level (20?) then have the raids be more endgame focused as opposed to being open to levelling players as much

like keep lfr sure

[deep pawn]

I think levelling raids was the biggest success of MoP Remix

it'd just be EN to start vs Palace.

[rain cave]

but wasn't there the issue with the scaling?

once you got to higher levels some mechanics would just oneshot you as the underleveled systems stopped applying to you

[deep pawn]

only if you weren't keeping up with your gear

they had largely fixed scaling by the middle part

[ember blaze]

no

[glass flicker]

I hope we get the shoeduck as a pet.

Yes, I know the shoeduck is not for sale.

I want it, anyway.

[lone mantle]

Yes, please.

[austere gazelle]

I want the Kirin Tor not to rebuild Dalaran but to completely invest and possess Karazhan and make it their turf

[tropic trail]

They should make both.

They could look like in Warcraft movie. Completely new design.

[hazy kettle]

[upper pasture]

Neon lights exist on wow right? Like I feel like the potential for tier sets with neon lights attached in some fashion would be neat for goblin raid

[clear apex]

Pretty sure they do

Can't wait to see how awful they make hunter set

[rain cave]

Tinker theme

Could be cool

[deep pawn]

Icy veins made an article about when Plunderstorm comes back but I can't find a blue post about it. Are they just going off the ptr calendar?

[silent urchin]

Probably

[deep pawn]

That's not a date

So yeah, icy veins extrapolating

[sleek solar]

Yep

Apparently I did not write a message, I wanted to say that thats the only info we got

[glass flicker]

Bom got a blue name, now. :o

[thin warren]

it's a new color for the premium peeps apparently 😮

[tropic trail]

Haha 😂

[sleek solar]

Haha yes

[silent urchin]

https://www.wowhead.com/item=54218/landros-gift-box
https://www.wowhead.com/ptr/item=235378/landros-loot-box

🤔 Lotta people probably gonna get mad

[deep pawn]

hmm

[silent urchin]

Not much to go on really, could be from anywhere and give anything, but seems likely it's a new source for old TCG stuff

might be BMAH or something

[deep pawn]

given how rare the mounts are it'd be a sick gold sink on the bmah

[deep pawn]

Holy cow, people are still advocating for removing flying for most of an expansion

I don't care how fast they make dynamic ground mounts it's a non starter to remove flying from expansion launches

[glass flicker]

I'd be up for no flying!

Ground mounts are pretty insignificant outside of instances.

[deep pawn]

The game suffered the most during the war on flying.

It's literally a lost battle that I don't think the devs should even entertain.

[silent urchin]

I don't think I could stand it for longer than just the campaign, really

[deep pawn]

The mere verticality the level designers like would make even the fastest ground mount system incredibly unpopular

[glass flicker]

If the D.R.I.V.E. system allows for dynamic puzzles, I'd prefer it to flying and Skyriding.

[silent urchin]

I'm ok with siren isle cause that's tiny and they give you tons of options

[glass flicker]

I'd love to jump up a ramp with a lot of speed to get a hidden chest.

[deep pawn]

Puzzles like that are not that popular.

[glass flicker]

Or a jumping puzzle where you have to build enough speed to jump from a pillar to another.

[deep pawn]

People whined about the zereth mortis puzzles

[glass flicker]

Which Zereth Mortis puzzles? :o

[deep pawn]

It's literally a waste of time to make that a focus of outdoor content.

I'll go back to WoD

No one really cared about puzzles, they did them if they had to, but the popular consensus was they were more frustrating than enjoyable

[glass flicker]

I don't know. Everyone seems to love Skyriding races.

A drag race system would be interesting.

Also, I hope they update the main capitals (Stormwind and Orgrimmar) and make them bigger, so we can actually drive around.

I don't know if it's just me, but they feel small with so much movement speed.

[deep pawn]

Skyriding Races are still probably pretty niche across the entire playerbase. They're just easy enough to create with a dedicated playerbase. I'm not against ground mounts being better, but removing flying mounts to force players to engage that way outside of something like Undermine would fall so flat.

[uncut vault]

I think having it during the initial leveling experience is worth considering

it strikes a best of both worlds to allow the chance for the ground to be properly experienced narratively without defining the endgame world loop

just having it as a reward for completing the leveling campaign is an easy way to make it something that isn't really locked behind anything beyond doing the xpac's baseline introduction story

and then subsequent alts can fly to their heart's content

[deep pawn]

It'd have to be something along the lines of immediately as soon as you finish the msq, but even then I disagree about it being better. I don't think you improve TWW or Dragonflight by forcing people to be grounded.

"it makes zones be experienced" just falls flat after the massive negative feedback every no flying at the start expansion got on it.

[uncut vault]

both of those expansions were built around flying, so that's not really a good comparison

[uncut vault]

That's about no flying at all, not about the first leveling experience

having no flying whatsoever impacts the endgame for months on end, not just the first few days of narrative experience

[deep pawn]

I still think it'd end up unpopular.

[uncut vault]

DF and TWW both have massive swathes of land that pretty much just amount to "things you fly over on the way to the next MSQ", and the side quests all have to be huddled into the specific hubs to make sure you see them

xpacs like BfA or WoD were able to have side quests more varied and scattered about, because the leveling experience had you actually in the zone riding along

[silent urchin]

Still no realms up despite the dev notes post

[deep pawn]

Eh? TWW side quests are everywhere. There's breadcrumbs to get you towards them cause you'd never find most of them otherwise.

TWW is incredibly dense I feel.

In fact I definitely feel WoD had more pointless empty space.

[uncut vault]

TWW is better than DF at that, but the majority of the side quests are gathered near flight paths at guaranteed MSQ stops

[uncut vault]

That's definitely not true haha, especially since the zone design back then had side quests as a part of the main zone budget

base WoD has some of the densest zones in the game, due to the design philosophy of having no flying prior to the backlash

[deep pawn]

Frostfire Ridge is full of empty ice plains.

Nagrand had entire areas you visited once and never again

[uncut vault]

I mean that's... how side quests work haha

[deep pawn]

I have a lot more memories of empty useless places in WoD than I do any other recent expansion. TWW maybe you can point to the murloc beach on Dorn but other than that every other part of the region feels used to me.

[rain cave]

that's probably more of an end game experiential thing + ground mounts

since a lot of the space was for quests, but then not much open world was useful at max

that goes for a lot of pre-legion stuff tbf

the world was pretty much useless after reaching level cap before legion

[deep pawn]

WoD zones had a lot of gaps between stuff. It still felt like a lot of travel even once flying got turned on.

[uncut vault]

the entire southeast portion of Isle of Dorn is devoid of any quests at all so that's not the best example haha

it's got three hubs with no function beyond NPC placement

[deep pawn]

Eh? You mean the area that one Earthen recruits a bunch of others who felt lost and lead them to a victory? Or do you mean the southern coast more?

There's some areas that are just mountains with rares, but rares as a reward to exploration doesn't feel that bad to me, plus gatherers see them. You'd have to make zones so much flatter to make even grounded levelling work that it'd make the world feel more unnatural again.

[uncut vault]

Well that's the thing... you dont at all haha

DF and TWW can be entirely traversed on foot

they already make footpaths between all of the hubs

the spaces between them are just all set dressing

[silent urchin]

For TWW especially it feels like they made the flying decision much later than they made the maps

although I think they do want to keep things traversable on foot in general

[pulsar minnow]

Frankly I think ppl are misguided in thinking the issue with the world was “no flying.” The issue was that both ground and flying mounts were just incredibly boring. Static flying was only better than ground mounts because it was faster and allowed you to afk instead a direction instead of being bored following a road

Dragonflight fixed flying. Made it fun.

I personally don’t have a problem with being grounded again, on the condition that the mounts are actually fun to use

If drive is fun, why the hell not design the world around both

[rain cave]

it's crazy how spoiled I can get by mechanics because I've gotten to the point where the mount up time has gotten on my nerves

especially when it comes to certain things being able to be done on mount and some things not

[deep pawn]

If static flying was as fast as dynamic I'd probably never touch dynamic again myself. I do find the mechanics of it a chore more than enjoyable and I still find vigor annoying.

[rain cave]

I think the issue I have with dynamic (which is a nitpick because I do like it) is it is frustrating for small hops

e.g. if I'm doing wax farming + gathering professions

[uncut vault]

Aerial halt really just needs to last longer and give proper static mobility I think

[rain cave]

I have to keep remountaing and just do a jump to the next node

[deep pawn]

I can count the number of times I've purposefully used aerial halt on one hand

[pulsar minnow]

I use aerial halt all the time. No reason not to when you’re about to land to get a free vigor point when you need to take off again

[uncut vault]

I sure accidentally use it a lot lol

[rain cave]

I don't even remember what it's bound to for me since my muscle memory stopped at "forward, upward, whirl, vigor restore"

[deep pawn]

Granted that's still more than the bronze ability which I have never used.

[rain cave]

you can't even use the bronze one in the air so

I don't understand its purpose

[uncut vault]

you also can't use it anywhere except the Dragon isles

[pulsar minnow]

Pretty sure it’s only usable in DF

Yeah^ lol

[sullen dawn]

I personally wish there was more restrictions on flying

[rain cave]

haven't pressed it since DF so lol

[sullen dawn]

Like the weather event in 11.0.7

It'd be cool if sometimes you could fly in areas, and other times you couldn't

[rain cave]

ok but I also want them to stop putting random no mount areas in the open air

[pulsar minnow]

Flying is fun. I like it, but man I also kind of miss my ground mounts and just being able to be in the world

[sullen dawn]

And some areas didn't allow flying at all

[rain cave]

like when I accept my weeklies I always go to mount up but remember I have to walk off that platform to do so

it's such a minor thing but

[sullen dawn]

They can still have some places designed for flying, but more of the game should be ground only

[rain cave]

annoys me xD

[rain cave]

I mean looks liek they're doing that in undermined

and if it works maybe they'll do that in future

[sullen dawn]

Yes which is fantastic to me

[deep pawn]

I would actually quit for good if forced ground travel came back after undermine

[rain cave]

like if we get iridikrons lair as a zone, or the underground tunnels in northrend in TLT

[sullen dawn]

I don't want flying removed, i just don't think it should always be available and always be the "right" choice for traversal

[pulsar minnow]

Flying kinda removes danger from the world. Also you kind of don’t learn the world as well as you did when you were grounded. Azj Kahet really suffered by being flight enabled. Oh no! You’re revealed! Jumps into the stratosphere

[deep pawn]

No flying was the worst part of every expansion til Dragonflight for me

[rain cave]

could make those like roads windingg around

[sullen dawn]

I would double sub if I could

The world needs to be more important and difficult to traverse

[rain cave]

@deep pawn what if they did it for specific zones

[sullen dawn]

It should be the main game, not instances

[rain cave]

like in midnight for example

[sullen dawn]

Or at least a 50/50 split between open world and instances

But open world shouldn't be a mindless checklist you can just zip around through without friction

[deep pawn]

I just don't trust blizzard to make it fun. The periods of time you were grounded in legion, BfA, and Shadowlands are often seen as the worst parts of those expansions.

[pulsar minnow]

What I kinda hope for in Midnight with it hopefully having a massive city in the form of silvermoon, is ground mounts only at launch, up until we finish the first portion of the campaign in the city. Then flying enabled again. Lets us learn the city and world and then be rewarded for liberating it

[sullen dawn]

Nah early BFA when we were grounded, with war mode is the most fun I ever had in wow

[pulsar minnow]

Well- they made Skyriding…

[rain cave]

the thing is I'm trying to figure out why silvermoon would be ground mounts only

since my guess would be it's a friendly city

[sullen dawn]

Doesn't have to be silver moon

[upper pasture]

the irony here is that for years people screamed "no flying until X.1.5 or whatever" was killing the game and now we see the inverse of that.

[pulsar minnow]

I personally think silvermoon is going to have large swaths of hostile areas

The void invades, corrupts the sunwell, pushes the elves out

[sullen dawn]

I don't think they're the same people

[rain cave]

if they wanted to restrict flyign my guess would be that void forces take control of a section of quelthalas and are just shooting people down

[sullen dawn]

I've always been against flying (skyriding is fun but I'd rather it was much less prevelant)

[deep pawn]

I quit BfA for almost a year and didn't come back until after flying was enabled

[sullen dawn]

I nearly quit when it was

[upper pasture]

they tried no fly zones. no body liked them

[rain cave]

but also if quelthalas is just majorly fucked up it would be cool to have flying friendly areas like floating plots of land with ethereal stuff going on it

[sullen dawn]

I did

[rain cave]

since silvermoon and surrounding areas are pretty flat

[sullen dawn]

And many of my friends did

[rain cave]

the issue with no fly zones was they always end up being an inconvenience

[upper pasture]

i'm specifically talking about that camp in the waking shores.

[sullen dawn]

Friction is good though

[rain cave]

the djardin area in zaralke as well

not in this way

[upper pasture]

you flew over it you got shot down at 10 stacks

[rain cave]

what if there's WQ or a gathering node I want to gograb

[sullen dawn]

The purpose of the open world isn't to be as convenient as possible

[deep pawn]

Blizzard friction is usually pure annoyance

[rain cave]

yeah but there's a way to design it toby

[pulsar minnow]

We’re still not really pointing out why no flying zones are disliked. Ground mounts are boring and slow.

DRIVE says it intends to gameify ground movement, make it fun, and make it fast.

If the problems are solved, what’s the issue?

[sullen dawn]

I agree, I'm not saying they get/got it 100% right

[rain cave]

it's like how people hate in game when you leave the map and it just has a RETURN TO BATTLEFIELD countdown

it shouldn't be possible to even be in the wrong zone like that, it should be clear if they want to do something like that

[sullen dawn]

Reducing flying availability would obviously require new design choices

[rain cave]

and funnily enough the way that this ends up going is

instanced content

because if you want to clearly delineate between flyable areas and nonflyable, you have basically made an instance

[sullen dawn]

Not really at all. That's not what an instance is

[rain cave]

literally what it is lol

[sullen dawn]

No

[deep pawn]

It'd have to be faster and immune to dazing

[rain cave]

an instance is an area seperate from the main overworld with different rules, usually gated by portal/entrance of somekind to indicate said entry point

[sullen dawn]

An instance is something locked to a specific set group of players others can enter without an invite. It is not a shared experience. Yes open world has layers but they're not controllable by players

[pulsar minnow]

They already said it’s like 300% speed

Or smth

[rain cave]

if we want "no fly zones" that don't share the same open world space, those would effectively be instanced

[sullen dawn]

No it's a technical term referring to a privatizsed "instance" of an experience

[rain cave]

ehhh it's not really player dependent

like silvermoon for example

from TBC

it is a different instance

from the main overworld of eastern kingdoms

[sullen dawn]

They would simply be areas of a zone. We have a term for that. Mini zone

[upper pasture]

yup, it's open world but also it's own instance

[rain cave]

but if there's a loading screen between them

it's a different instance

[sullen dawn]

No that's not what instance means

[pulsar minnow]

Problem with making a section of a zone strictly no flying next to one with flying is what do you do when you enter the zone in the sky? Do you just plummet and die?

[sullen dawn]

They're different world partitions

[rain cave]

everytime you see a loading screen that's an instance being loaded

[sullen dawn]

No

[rain cave]

yes

lmao

[sullen dawn]

Lmao

I think you should read up my dude

[rain cave]

instance isn't just dungeons raids and PvP, everything in WoW is in different instances

it's a broad term

[sullen dawn]

Ive done quite a bit of product work on multiplayer games. I know what an instance is

[rain cave]

I am also a gamedev

[sullen dawn]

You're referring to a world/map partition

[rain cave]

every zone that needs a form of teleport/loading screen to reach is in a different instance

silvermoon is technically IN the TBC/outland instance

[sullen dawn]

A instance is a "copy" of a particular experience or area you spin up to facilitate a new "run" of that content

[rain cave]

but not in the other eastern kingdoms

[sullen dawn]

For example we have have thousands of simulatenous "instances" of deadmines

The world is divided in zones which have soft loading, and also hard partitions where they are on different world map IDs, bit it's not a different "instance" because that's not what that word means

When people talk about instanced content they aren't referring to it requiring a loading screen to traverse to. Loading screens can be required for many different reasons. Loading an instance is only one of them. A loading screen is required to move to quel thalas because it was build on the Outland world map ID

Technically it's part of Outland

[deep pawn]

But yeah, unless ground travel is literally as fast and as convenient as flying is to me, I'd hate it.

Undermine will work cause it's a smaller zone.

[sullen dawn]

I'm not a fan of convenience. Id rather spend most of my game time in the game world overcoming challenges and friction

[deep pawn]

There's not a single puzzle in this game that is an actual challenge

[sullen dawn]

There's obviously a healthy balance, but they've gone to far in the direction of convenience from old school wow

[sullen dawn]

I'm talking about combat and traversal rather than puzzles, but yes I agree, things are too easy in the open world

A heroic mode (like war mode) would be cool

[deep pawn]

No one truly wants to deal with trash mobs in the open world.

[sullen dawn]

Many do

Just not raider/m+ principal players

[pulsar minnow]

“D.R.I.V.E. is 3 to 5 times faster than your ground mount at base top speed. Plus another 10% faster when driving skills and boosts.”

-T&E Interview

So 500% movement speed tops

[sullen dawn]

Its the reason many people don't wanna play retail, cos the open world, the "world of warcraft" is somewhat flacid now

I have a lot of friends who love lots about retail over classic (better combat, graphics, features etc..) but still won't play cos the open world got gutted

[deep pawn]

Every time Blizzard tries to make people engage in the open world you get the most hated zones of all time.

Maw and Korthia will stain ground content for a decade.

May undermine fix some of that.

[sullen dawn]

The player base isn't a hivemjnd though

[pulsar minnow]

Then there’s Suramar… Antorus…

[sullen dawn]

And I personally liked the maw a lot. It was the only good zone in shadowlands

[sullen dawn]

Exactly. Both loved

[pulsar minnow]

There’s a good way to do it, and there’s a shit way to do it

[deep pawn]

Antorus had a massive network of teleports, Suramar too

[pulsar minnow]

Yeah. “Hence good way to do it”

That doesn’t detract from them being well designed

[sullen dawn]

No one's saying you cant have ANY convenience. I'm saying they've leaned to heavily in that direction

[deep pawn]

I disagree. People got happier the moment they abandoned the "players have to engage the content only this way"

[sullen dawn]

Once again "players" aren't a monolith

They've basically made it so players who want a challenging open world experience with friction can't have it

[deep pawn]

You can, but those players aren't happy unless everyone has to do it.

[sullen dawn]

I'm one on of those players and I don't care what everyone else has to do. I literally suggested a heroic mode above so there'd be options

[upper pasture]

nothing is stopping people from not using flying mounts until max. aside from maybe going down into the ringing deeps?

[sullen dawn]

So please don't use that rhetoric

[pulsar minnow]

People got happier once they cut out the slog. The slog being aim your character in a direction and alt tab while they run there. Then tab back in at the next turn.

They then had fun when they got to press space bar and alt tab until they reached their destination

Want people to have fun engaging with the world? Give them a vehicle in which to do that

[sullen dawn]

The "just don't use it argument" doesn't work in games. People will always follow the path of least resistance. These kind of players (we) want options for having the resistence not just be gimping ourselves

[pulsar minnow]

For example. The spider man games. The combat is fun as shit. But would be a lot less fun without the swinging. If swinging was just floating to the next destination it’s boring.

Engaging with the world through swinging and those mechanics makes it fun

[sullen dawn]

A heroic mode would work. You could turn up the rewards to compensate. Turn off lying and make mobs stronger

[sullen dawn]

To me Spiderman is a very boring game ngl

I prefer something like elden ring

Which has mounts but there's lots of friction to stop you using it as a way to avoid all inconvenicen

[upper pasture]

that's literally nonsense, then everyone would be doing the "heroic" mode for the higher rewards and feeling like they are "forced" into it because that's where the "best" rewards are.

[sullen dawn]

No one would be forced. There's an option

That's like saying people are forced to mythic raid

[deep pawn]

People hated Shadowlands when it was all run through the packs of mobs to get to the things that matter.

[sullen dawn]

Because that's where the best rewards are

[pulsar minnow]

Yeah I agree. But I think you’re missing the point

[sullen dawn]

It'd basically be "heroic" and "mythic" open world options

[upper pasture]

if you like being so immersed in the world by not using flying mounts then do it. the incentive is YOU enjoy it

you don't need "better" rewards to do so

[sullen dawn]

Sorry you know that's not how gamer brains work

[upper pasture]

for a long time players were in face "forced" to raid for the best loot. some people enjoyed that, others not so much

[sullen dawn]

Even without the better rewards, a hard mode decide would make it more appealing

[sullen dawn]

And this is my point, players aren't a monolith. People want different things from wow

[pulsar minnow]

You’d split the world in two. That’s bad for an mmo

[deep pawn]

Don't make people suffer to fit your ideal. We had that fight for multiple expansions and the game nearly died for it.

[sullen dawn]

That's not why the game was in bad shape but ok

[upper pasture]

you can LITERALLY do that in game right now. nothing is stopping you from doing a non flying leveling route

[deep pawn]

It was a big part of it.

There's a reason why pathfinder being removed was so cheered

[sullen dawn]

Self imposed restrictions are a bad faith argument when people ask for harder difficulties/challenges

[deep pawn]

Dragon Riding was Blizzard's compromise to make players "engage" to fly.

[upper pasture]

but your "harder" mode is just no flying. you are asking for something that is already obtainable.

[sullen dawn]

Imagine you were an olympic runner who beat everyone they raced. They desperately wanted a new person to run against who would challenge. "Just shoot yourself in the foot" is what you're saying

[clear apex]

The amount of crying over not being able to fly right away in new zones
Which i get it, it did punish players who were slower.
I'm glad DF gave us flying from the start

[sullen dawn]

This is my main issue. The game shouldn't be about being "slow" or "fast" to just to get to end game instancing. The world content should be equal measure part of the game loop

I don't like the perception from certain types of players that the open world is a unfortunate nuisance to be blasted to get to instances

Anyway, to the original point, I hope they experiment more with restrictions on flying

[upper pasture]

pretty sure they will, we are getting no flying for a point in siren's isle. i think DF was the first expansion in a long time that they just gave us flying and left us alone

[clear apex]

I enjoy leveling, story, etc, and don't really care all that much about end game (to a point), but that's what the majority seems to want and that's generally OK by me.
They've added in stuff for us casuals, and i like it. I genuinely do. I didn't fly everywhere while leveling in tww. I chose to stay on the ground and explore. I did every quest chain i could find.
That's not everyone's cup of tea, them flying and zooming past me didn't effect me.

[clear apex]

Yeah it's coming later

[sullen dawn]

To me wanting a harder or more engaging world content experience doesn't make you a casual

It's just a different content style preference

[pulsar minnow]

Old Ground and Flying were both unashamedly bad and boring systems.

Flying was boring because you have to sit there while your mount slowly chugs away towards the pin on your map. The only benefit was its convenience.

Ground sucked because it was even slower and had the trouble of having to navigate the poorly designed open world.

Dynamic flight fixed flying. That’s why it’s so beloved.

I don’t know why we’re not even entertaining the idea of that same treatment done to ground mounts.

Now I personally don’t give a shit about mobs this or that. I just want the world to feel alive. I love dynamic flying for that reason, and I feel ill like drive for the same reason. It makes me engage with the open world and treats it like a playground and not a series of obstacles.

I don’t care the method of exploring the world so long as it’s actually ENGAGING.

[clear apex]

I dont think it's "harder"

[upper pasture]

yes, but still a striction for a bit and enforced on all for a time. just like some people want i guess...idk

[sullen dawn]

Id love super hard open world content

[sullen dawn]

The lack of flying no, but I mentioned other stuff above

[deep pawn]

You can't have that as long as mass grouping is possible

[clear apex]

Harder to me is like ... having op enemies, but then i get annoyed.
I don't do m+

[sullen dawn]

More difficult mobs, world dangers etc..

[clear apex]

I don't want that, id go raid instead

[sullen dawn]

Me suggestion was to have hero and mythic open world modes, like war mode. You wouldn't b forced

[clear apex]

They'd have to be their own servers i guess

[sullen dawn]

I don't think so

Just use the war mode tech

It's not like people can't switch between difficulties in other content

[clear apex]

Youre very contrarian you know that lol

[sullen dawn]

I'm not trying to be! I just have a specific ideal for what I personally would like

I appreciate everyone else's views and that what I want isn't desired by everyone

[deep pawn]

Time after time the WoW playerbase has shown it won't "rise up" to a challenge, it'll just quit.

[clear apex]

SL really tested us

[deep pawn]

War mode is largely dead.

[sullen dawn]

That's mostly due to blizz not supporting it

Plus shadowlands zones were ass for it due to the method of moving between zones. Then skyriding has hurt it a lot too

In BFA it was great

They should have continued to refine it and add more WM exclusive content like cross zone escorts and such

[pulsar minnow]

It was also BRAND new. So like everyone and their mother who wasn’t on PvP initially gave it a shot

But fell off

Because nobody wants to waste their time

Splitting the player base is a horrible move

[sullen dawn]

It didn't fall off randomly though. There was a drop post flying (minor) and then post SL (major)

Until then it was doing fine

It's a video game. All of it is "wasting your time"

[deep pawn]

World pvp just isn't fun

[sullen dawn]

To some it is

And it was healthy in BFA

Healthiest since old wow in 2005

[pulsar minnow]

That’s not a good argument

There’s stuff fun in the game they like doing. Frankly world PvP for most has just turned into getting attacked randomly and then turning it off and forgetting to turn it back on

[sullen dawn]

What I mean is. Some people fisn the idea of world PvP to be gameplay, not something getting in the way of gameplay

[pulsar minnow]

Trust me I like wpvp but I don’t want to play it because I like seeing other players

[sullen dawn]

I think that's true for pvers

[pulsar minnow]

Which is a majority of the player base

[sullen dawn]

Yes it's unfortunate where things are at

[pulsar minnow]

So introducing a concept like “hard mode open world” just makes everyone in the community naturally drift one way or the other

You don’t get a clean split and it adds needless design challenges that can be accomplished by just designing the world properly with good mechanics

[sullen dawn]

My only point is it'd be doing better if Blizz hadn't neglected it. It lost momentum due to no support and a strong of expansion that actively contradicted world PvP engagements from a zone and mechanical design perspective

[sullen dawn]

No really since it's all layered anyway. You'd have less layers per mode, but same amount of players per layer so experience wouldnt change

Plus cities and towns are exempt

And if it got bad you could merge realms but I don't think it would

Like you said most would play regular mode

[pulsar minnow]

But plenty would feel pressured to do the other more tedious version just for the better reward. We have seen this time and time again from the player base. It’s always ended up bad.

They will always chase the better reward, and if the no-lifers are doing it the tedious way, they’ll feel pressured to do the same otherwise they fall behind

It’s also just kind of an admission that the team can’t find a good middle ground of design

Which is totally within reach with Drive and Dynamic flight

[deep pawn]

I don't think ground travel will ever be engaging enough to make me like it.

The zones that were manageable had considerable teleports

[pulsar minnow]

you said earlier you'd be okay with it if it were on par or better than static flying speed no?

also- whos to say these zones wont have teleports?

[deep pawn]

It'd have to be faster to make up for navigating terrain and mobs.

Otherwise I just want flying.

And unless they made zones wide and empty, moving that fast on land would be running into everything

[ember blaze]

https://tenor.com/view/boy-aint-no-way-wow-gif-22526930

the most miserable zone to have ever existed in wow

[ember blaze]

you cant support something that players just don't want to engage with

30% xp boost and rewards werent enough to even get alliance to turn it on

and just like the failure of the MAW, people do not want their gameplay to be frustrating and unfun

[pulsar minnow]

well you saw that Ion said it was 300% to 500% faster than normal riding then right? IE: faster than static flying

[ember blaze]

yeah so just let ppl engage on either

restricting flying before you make ground riding fun is dumb

[pulsar minnow]

I don't have a problem with it personally so long as its fun

I said do it like Northerend or Mists

no flying til campaign is complete and you've explored the base world.

[ember blaze]

no

and theres nothing to explore anyways 💀

anyways now that theyre making ground mounts actually fun and FAST, who cares about forcing you to use ground mounts?

If ground is perfectly fine to traverse around and just as fast and it's FUN, people will also opt to use it

[pulsar minnow]

its almost like designing a fun ground movement mechanic allows you to actually now make the ground world engaging

like it used to be

[ember blaze]

well despite years of forcing ground on you, the world was never engaging

[pulsar minnow]

because the method of transportation sucked balls

[ember blaze]

yes so i dont see why restricting any method of transporation once ground is actually good is necessary

ill ride my legion bike if i can move around as fast as flying, even if flying is enabled if u make that fun to do

[pulsar minnow]

I dont think you understand. dynamic flight speed is 705%. Static flying speed is 420%. Ground speed will be roughly 300-500%

[ember blaze]

okay?

[pulsar minnow]

so then you understand ground will not be as fast as dynamic flight.

and one is inherently faster than the other.

thereby making the other pointless

the point of DRIVE is to open the door into designing cool engaging ground spaces, like how dynamic flight was for flying

it really does not matter if its fun and has a purpose, like it is expected to in Undermine

[ember blaze]

which is why i want it to be as fast

[pulsar minnow]

yeah and thats simply not feasible.

[ember blaze]

because?

[pulsar minnow]

because thats insanely fast for the ground and you'll be flying off cliff faces and basically be uncontrollable

flying at that speed works because its in the air. theres nothing to run into

[ember blaze]

Trees?

random chains leading up to nerub portal

branches poking out

you didnt give any meaningful reasons why it cant be as fast

both forms of transportation should be equal 🙂

[glass flicker]

They said it'll be 10% faster than Skyriding.

[pulsar minnow]

No. "D.R.I.V.E. is 3 to 5 times faster than your ground mount at base top speed. Plus another 10% faster when driving skills and boosts."

[clear apex]

Faster than flight speed would be insane, it's already hard enough to turn around at times, can't imagine doing that on roads

[ember blaze]

https://tenor.com/view/skillissue-skill-issue-gif-22125481

[rain cave]

tbh it might actually be easier than normal ground mount style + fast speed

[clear apex]

Fzero speeds

[rain cave]

because you wouldn't be getting RSI whipping your mouse to turn

[clear apex]

Perhaps

[rain cave]

also keep in mind it won't just be like square roads/turns everywhere

highways, underpasses

[clear apex]

I'm excited for it though.
I love Mario kart

[rain cave]

and the drifting would probably help sharpercorners

like I can imagine a goblin car doing a cartoonish squash and stretch comedcially to do a quick turn

like some whacky races type stuff

[rose escarp]

[sullen dawn]

I do love me some fzero

But yeh wanting ground mounts to be 710% or more is dumb

Drive seems cool for the cars ,(300-500). I expect when dynamic ground mount goes expands to other mounts it might be slightly less

Maybe different for mount family

Like horse could be 200 base, 350 too speed. But it can do some other stuff to make up for it

Frogs can be slower again but they can jump really high

[harsh mason]

We don't even know how it will feel in the game, within the framework of the location map…

[sullen dawn]

I'm sure drive will feel good and fine

Someone was requesting "faster than skyriding"

[deep pawn]

If zones stay as large as they are now, and we're forced to be stuck on the ground, yes. Undermine is likely smaller, more a Korthia then a Zaralek, so it probably works there.

[sullen dawn]

Nah

[deep pawn]

I would hate to have to traverse Ringing Deeps stuck at 200%

[sullen dawn]

More time spend in the open world, and more friction there please

[sullen dawn]

No one said 200%

I said ground mounts shouldnt be faster than skyriding

That's ridiculous

[deep pawn]

Until the open world can give you myth crests and hero track gear, it's irrelevant beyond what we do in it now, and they won't do that because they cannot make a proper scaling challenge.

[deep pawn]

you can't go in straight lines so even at the same speed it'll take longer.

[sullen dawn]

I think they should do those things but even if they can't, the game is world of warcraft

[sullen dawn]

Good

[deep pawn]

no, that's crap, the devs lost that fight once and would lose it again.

[sullen dawn]

And you'll notice I was specially saying for ground mounts not to be over 710

I suggested 300-350 ISH in average for ground mounts depending on family. Some could go faster (cars), some slower (frogs, but they'd jump high)

Not a single person argued for being stuck at 200%

Immersion > Efficiency

I also think "they cannot make a proper scaling challenge" is false. They haven't done it before, but it's not like it's outside the laws of physics

Just shows a lack creative thought on your behalf tbh

[deep pawn]

Unless you're absolutely willing to essentially make it instances that just others can see from outside it won't work. Oh that challenge suddenly became impossible because a troll tagged it. So, no, they can't unless you're willing to do the ff14 Bozja 1 on 1 duels, and that would break immersion too.

SoD proves open world just doesn't work since they've stuffed everything open world into instances because otherwise the entire game ecosystem falls apart.

[sullen dawn]

SoD doesn't have phase limits like retail

Sorry layers I mean

Modern can only have X amount of people per layer as is

[deep pawn]

SoD has layers, classic has had them for years now

[sullen dawn]

And you can remove rewards when people are in raids, just like you limit quest progress there

[sullen dawn]

Yes but they're significantly larger than modern

[deep pawn]

I'm not talking about raids, unless you mean first come first tag and no one else can touch it because again, that would be immersion breaking and you'd have people holding tags.

[sullen dawn]

I'm not talking about any specific methods right now

Just that only a fraction of possibilities have been tried. There's always ways to solve problems

If they put enough design effort in, they could make it work

[deep pawn]

I feel like it's a waste of development time when every bit of world content they do try players hate it when they're forced to engage for progress or ignore if it's optional.

[sullen dawn]

"players"

Theres that word again

[deep pawn]

Radiant Memories was such a worthwhile bit of dev time eh?

[sullen dawn]

The wow player base are not a monolith

[sullen dawn]

Quirky and fun but lacked difficulty to make them interesting in the long term

[deep pawn]

I can't think of a piece of world content in the last two expansions players have liked, delves are the first "world content" success they've had and that's instances! 😄

[sullen dawn]

"players"

[deep pawn]

You're playing a game, you're a player.

[sullen dawn]

Yes but they don't have universal opinion lmao

[deep pawn]

Fine, the vast majority of current players.

[sullen dawn]

Players arent a monolith, and the ones you hear complaining are typically the vocal, instance orientated people

It isn't even the vast majority

It's the vast majority of the most vocal and most engaged scores social platforms

Blizz wouldn't make that open world content if they didn't see people engaging with t

[deep pawn]

If stuff like Researchers under Fire and Superbloom were truly popular you'd have people begging for more, but they weren't.

[sullen dawn]

They were badly designed experiences. It wasnt Ty they were open world that was the issue

[deep pawn]

The world content in TWW feels like an afterthought of reused concepts just to give weekly tasks to do.

[sullen dawn]

Superbloom was brainlessly easy

My main point is, your "players" is a small percentage of the reality of the different types of people who play this game. And instance Andie's shouldn't be the only ones who get what they want

[deep pawn]

I don't think appealing to some sort of "travel needs to suck for me to be immersed" mindset is just going backwards. People didn't enjoy the terrain of WoD or Legion anymore, they used the whistle and flew to the next location anyways.

[sullen dawn]

Don't kill the open world to make the life of sweats easier

Because we've been there and done that. They don't keep old zones updated

If zones were evergreen people would be engaged with them

[deep pawn]

The open world is still there, it's still gorgeous, I've spent a lot of time exploring just for herbs/ores and just to see, and I've explored a lot more of it cause of flying, if I was stuck on the ground it'd just be ignored.

[sullen dawn]

By you

Id have a more immersive time

Look ultimately we're two different types of players

[deep pawn]

and I feel like the times Blizzard catered to that mindset, the game died at it's fastest rates ever.

[sullen dawn]

All I'm saying is all types should be looked after, and I'm glad Blizz is moving in this direction with things like delves and limiting flying

[deep pawn]

I'm telling you, an expansion where you spend more than 2 hours locked to the ground will be the next WoD.

[sullen dawn]

And I'm telling you, thats only true if they don't make the ground content engaging enough

[deep pawn]

The game had that fight already, the "I feel so disconnected by flying" argument lost and lost hard to the point Dragonriding is seen as something that saved WoW.

[sullen dawn]

Skyriding is good because it made flying actual gameplay, instead of floating through the air

[deep pawn]

But this is WoW, the devs constantly have to relearn the same lesson, over and over and over and over.

[sullen dawn]

I think they're smarter than you think

[deep pawn]

No, it's popular cause players weren't forced to deal with pathfinder bullcrap for a year and can only fly at the end of the expansion.

[sullen dawn]

Lmao

[deep pawn]

Dude, Spirit Shell returning for like two patches proves the designers constantly forget lessons cause of team turnover.

[sullen dawn]

I said good not popular

[deep pawn]

It's not about being smart, it's the team likes to repeat the same mistakes.

[sullen dawn]

Developers also arent a monolith. and it's a complex product to keep aligned to the vision and desing philosophies. But in the next few years, as we see the open world play more of a role, I think you'll see that many of their long standing philosohies were right, just not executed in the right way previously

[deep pawn]

Nah, I lived through WoD-Shadowlands.

No flying at the start of an expansion I'm just out

Not doing it again.

At most I'll tolerate an FF14 style where you unlock flying in each zone as soon as you finish the main story on the zone.

[sullen dawn]

I would play more, and many of my friends would return to the game

[deep pawn]

They were wrong about ground travel being better.

This isn't 2004

[sullen dawn]

So while I sympathize, I prioritise my own interests over yours

[deep pawn]

Go play another game that caters to your interests then.

[sullen dawn]

No I like wow, and I'm glad it's showing signs of moving in this direction

You can go play another game

[deep pawn]

DF and TWW saved WoW from it's decline.

I don't want to see it backslide.

[sullen dawn]

Yes but flying wasn't the principle reason

[deep pawn]

I got so tired of people quitting expansions only to come back the last patch, when guess what, FLYING CAME BACK

[sullen dawn]

A lot of people I know got bored when flying came back in this expansions

Killed the open world vibe

And just quit

[deep pawn]

they're obviously a smaller number than those who enjoy flying

[sullen dawn]

Like I said were different kinds of payers. We're not going to agree. You just seem unable to see a world where gorudn traversal is the main mode in SOME (not all) reas of the game, but than it is not simply 200% mounts

Drive shows they're are alternatives

But if you think 750% speed ground mounts would be fun I don't think you know much about game design

[deep pawn]

I'm willing to give it a shot, as a single zone, for the expansion, but I will not accept it becoming the forced way to engage with the game for more than a miminal amount of time.

[sullen dawn]

You would be crashing every 2 seconds

[sullen dawn]

So we'll see what direction it goes in 12.0 and 13.0

I would hope northrend has "severe weather"

Which makes it only possible Inna select few sub zones to fly

And those areas can be designed heavily for skyriding based gameplay

[deep pawn]

Undermine is likely a small zone so forced ground travel can work there.

[sullen dawn]

Let's see what happens

[deep pawn]

But forced ground travel in Dorn? Ringing Deeps? Non starter

[austere gazelle]

they should have forced ground travel in Azj Kahet

[ember blaze]

and you are in the minority

sorry to say

[ember blaze]

and theyre making ground monk its own mini game so we'll see if they make it as fun as dragonflying

if it was just another no flying zone, it would be very stupid on their part to go back to that with old ground mounts

[deep pawn]

I wish I truly found dynamic flying fun, I do it because it's what I have to to have flying from the start of an expansion.

[ember blaze]

is regular flying blocked off? 🤔

[deep pawn]

I wouldn't touch it if static flying was as fast.

[ember blaze]

it was behind exploration right?

[ember blaze]

at least they upped it a bit. and in flying dungeons giga boost it

[deep pawn]

a bit but yeah, still slower.

[sullen dawn]

That would be so bad

People afking in air again 🤮

[deep pawn]

Never bothered me honestly

[sullen dawn]

I'm talking about war mode

[deep pawn]

Oh, war mode is whatever.

I have one char I use it on but it's annoying

[sullen dawn]

For you

[ember blaze]

shoot them down???

[sullen dawn]

It's not as much as an issue now since skyriding is preferred by most

But people typically floated too high

[ember blaze]

maybe im remembering wrong, but cant u cast while moving with the item

[sullen dawn]

Yeh from the ground

[austere gazelle]

this new class changes are insulting for DH.

they acknowledge our damage is low... For PVP....

[deep pawn]

For better or worse it's middle of the pack in the raid

The dps specs they buffed are all on the bottom of this.

[harsh mason]

How did you determine that?

I'm just really surprised when I hear that according to the footage from the announcement, they draw conclusions about at least something

Especially about the size of the location

We haven't seen this location, we've seen footages of several streets lol. How does this even work in the community?

[silent urchin]

they've been a bit vague, but it sounds like there's an outdoors part of the zone that will allow flying

it's just the city itself that doesn't

[harsh mason]

I'll say it again, we don't know how the size of the location will feel for new transport and speed, we don't know. It doesn't work like that, you take 2 locations, compare their sizes and draw conclusions. I don't think the developers are idiots to make a 700% transport speed for a location like Korthia, built up with houses.

Therefore, there is no point in talking about the size of the location when we already know that there will be mega fast transport there

The location can be multi-level (like with flyovers and so on), and for which fast transport will compensate for the time it takes to travel that distance

[deep pawn]

just the zone previews make it look more condensed than other patch zones?

[silent urchin]

there's a few screenshots in the press kit that show a pretty open area that's not part of undermine itself

[deep pawn]

The black blood part right? Some people think it's not connected cause of all the titan ruins