World of Warcraft: Current Year

No idea if any of this will turn out to be fantastic, mediocre, or total shit. Of course I'll buy the expansion... just like death and taxes, inevitable.

Khane said:

In the current state of WoW leveling from 1-120 you get barely any new skills as you gain levels, you can go up to 80 levels without thinks like a silence (hi balance druids) without any means to counteract certain mob abilities and you only get talents at set intervals with large level gaps in between. You don't even get anything new from 100-120. If they do the squish right they'll be able to fix all that. If they do it wrong it's just kinda more of the same.

I don't see a level squish as pandering to streamers or high end raiders or the like. I see it as a necessary change to get new people interested (60 levels is a lot more palateable than 130 to a new player) and to hopefully make the leveling process more dynamic for existing players. We'll see how it's implemented but I'm in favor of it.

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If they really want to cater to new players, have this expansion be a reset. Everyone enters the shadowlands at level 1. Max level is 10. GG.

What is the shadowlands leak that was circulating months ago? Did it talk about a new class?

Chersk said:

What is the shadowlands leak that was circulating months ago? Did it talk about a new class?

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Most of them mentioned Necromancer or Tinkerer, some of them saying it was a Dragon Isle with Dragonmarked/Dragonking/whatever.

No new Necromancer class means we will never get it, as this would 100% be the expansion to do it.

No mention of new allied races/main races is also a wtf.

Confirms there won't be cross-faction play.

Class sets seem unlikely, but not impossible.

Tower of the Damned required for Legendary grind.

They admit Sockets on Benthic were a big mistake, and sockets overall throw gear out of balance. No official word on WF/TF.

A lot of boring questions, but here's a the gist...

- Leveling zones will have a set order for first play through. Alts will be able to choose their order.

- Alliance and Horde will essentially have same leveling experience.

- Again confirms that there will likely always be Horde and Alliance split.

- Might be additional rep grinds on top of the Covenants.

- Class tier sets again, unlikely to return.

- New leveling area for all character 1-10, from 10-50 you can choose any expansion to level through.

While there's always that bit of excitement over new lore, new expansion to the WoW universe (even if it's all mostly hand waving and shitty writing), don't see anything to get me super excited for this expansion. When I came back at end of Legion, I decided to stick around through start of BFA for promises of the faction v. faction shit. Islands were shitty, was never that big into M+, and the whole "it's not old gods, but it actually will be...and we somehow turned Azshara and N'zoth into single patch baddies" is pretty silly.

Maybe they make the faction system more than just aldor/scyers bs, and the tower thing a much better version of islands, and the new zones end up amazing...but I'm doubting it.

i'm actually really interested to see how the tower turns out. i played a bunch at bfa launch and while the MECHANICS are all over the park, the visuals and individual zone stories were pretty interesting. then like always, once i hit the "okay now you're gameplay revolves around grinding non-stop and hoping RNG favors you" i quit. i'll likely buy the expac when it comes out and do the same thing, but the concept of the tower and the randomness of the layout could be something that keeps me around longer depending on how "new" it feels everytime... or it could suck and i'll only play a few months at best.

If they hold true to their word, and really are removing almost all RNG elements, this expansion could be the best one in a long time. Dailies and RNG are the biggest inhibiting factor to enjoyment in retail WoW. Take Legion's systems, make them worse, more grindy, and add more RNG and you end up with BfA. Take Legion's systems, make them better and less grindy, and remove all RNG and you have a recipe for success.

The tower has potential. We'll see how it's implemented. Though I don't get the "Up to 4 people". Was that a typo and it's you + 4 other people for a normal sized party, or are they screwing with normal party size again?

The original artifact weapon advancement itself was fine. You had big power upgrades early on, got another big upgrade when you unlocked the final grind portion of it and then had something to do for small power gains over time. But most importantly there was an end to the grind. You could get to the point you were finished.

The problem with it was it was weapon specific so you couldn't reasonably maintain two specs and gl if you wanted to make an alt unless AK was already maxed (which was also character specific, ugh). Remove those two major problems with that artifact advancement system and you could actually have a good, interesting path of advancement for end game characters.

i don't mind dailes, honestly. especially how the WQ's were in that you could see what the rewards were for them. i ignored them unless it had something i wanted. i'm absolutely fine with dailes having rep and gear rewards as long as they are 100% ancillary to progression.

Dailies never were ancillary to progression, they were mandatory. They were the only source of reputation and they were limited on a per day basis. Skip them on any given day and you fall further and further behind with no way to catch up.

granted i'm not a progression player anymore. i absolutely go at my own pace and give no fucks whatsoever about keeping up with the joneses. but i did dailies when i felt like it, and i was happy with that.

I guess it's fine for anyone not concerned with all the content that is gated behind reputations, like end game dungeons, story and character progression, end game recipes, and all the other things only available when you hit certain reputation levels.

Khane said:

Dailies never were ancillary to progression, they were mandatory. They were the only source of reputation and they were limited on a per day basis. Skip them on any given day and you fall further and further behind with no way to catch up.

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Go back to something like Netherwing dailies

What WQs / Dailies have been optional in the last 3 or more expansions?

Dom said:

The better question is which were not optional.

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The reason I asked is because none have been optional. You needed them to unlock even your order hall progression (Legion) and the war story advancement (BfA). I already outlined in a previous post all the reasons they were mandatory, because of EVERYTHING being gated behind rep, and those being the only source of it at max level. If you thought they were optional it was probably because you hit max level and moved on to a new character, they were absolutely mandatory to progress a main for anything. Including unlocking certain max level dungeons.