World of Warcraft: Dragon Desperation

[1451]

People won't invite you without a 4 set even to a 14 key.
This is where we are now.

 

[Delterius]

It's truly pointless, less than 24h after redownloading and I already deleted the game again, I can't relate to WoW anymore even when I shutdown my brain as best as I can and force myself into some "ahh, back to the old days when things were simpler in my life" mindset. Played a 5-man dun, really unfun, everyone was in a hurry to complete it as fast as humanly possible in a really retarded way, like I don't mind taking obvious shortcuts such as jumping all the way down in Gnomeregan or not wanting to waste time in a run but that was just pathetic, those people don't enjoy playing the game, they just want to finish their tasks fast, they're really trapped in the game like zombie crack addicts as everyone else was already saying itt.

This is why the only scenario where I can imagine myself playing retail WoW again is if the last bits about the leaks are true. Namely the parts where they supposedly plan to revamp areas in Lordaeron and Eversong into Suramar esque experiences. And, yeah, you read that right. I'm considering a week's worth of playing an MMO in single player mode just to sate any sense of nostalgia for the game.

The game is structured around the extremes of 'Playing this game is a Job' and 'Playing this game is Daycare'. You're either installing 10 mods and grinding 4 hours a day to get the gearset / achievements needed to be accepted into the only interesting parts of the game, or you're doing easymode for collectables. There's just no in-between.

 

[Reever]

Mythic dungeons are probably the worst possible way they could've evolved the dungeon formula in my opinion. Attempting to keep people engaged in the content with as little effort as possible. It was pretty amusing seeing them try to push this as an esports though.
I am not sure if that rumour around Legion was true where D3 developers went on to help the WoW team but if they did, their influence shows. The consistent push for scalable content where people only run shit to see their ilvl get 1 point higher, the legendary system and so on.

 

[Sykar]

Hmm, are there any men over 20 who managed to pull off a gender swap? We have 100+ public figures who are trans by now, but I can't think of anyone who doesn't look absurd.

For me the funny part was to swap the J and the G.

 

[TedNugent]

Jesus Christ, it's about time for them to change the talent system, I just hope this is permadeath for borrowed power.

But I know that's too much to ask from a game that has a hard reset with every content patch.

For that alone, I might resub for a few months before I ragequit again.

 

[Delterius]

I just hope this is permadeath for borrowed power.

do you mean 'grind azerite power for the new patch' mechanic? yeah i don't think that's dying any time soon. blizzard is greedy, not just for money but also out of paranoia that if players leave the hamster wheel for one second they won't come back. hence how every progression system entails 4 hour grinds every day, every week. compare that to the ffxiv leads being asked in interviews about 'what does the player do now that they are done with the patch story?'. the answer is along the lines of 'i dunno man log off for a month and cancel your sub. there are a lot of games out there'.

 

[TedNugent]

I just hope this is permadeath for borrowed power.

do you mean 'grind azerite power for the new patch' mechanic? yeah i don't think that's dying any time soon. blizzard is greedy, not just for money but also out of paranoia that if players leave the hamster wheel for one second they won't come back. hence how every progression system entails 4 hour grinds every day, every week. compare that to the ffxiv leads being asked in interviews about 'what does the player do now that they are done with the patch story?'. the answer is along the lines of 'i dunno man log off for a month and cancel your sub. there are a lot of games out there'.

The problem with this shit is the number of people that step off the hamster wheel and press the eject button. I left at the first patch of Shadowlands and I was fucking done. For numerous reasons that were never fixed (e.g. Where's my ripcord, and the general toxicity and hamster wheel feeling).

I am not coming back to Shadowlands under any goddamn circumstances.

That's why Blizzard has repeatedly had the issue of mass sub run off after xpac release, followed by large sub explosion at new xpac release. Eventually enough people got sick of that cycle that they called it quits for good.

For a large contrasting example, I have been gone from Guild Wars 2 for half a year, but I know that day one I can walk into the new xpac (or the next) and continue doing arenas like nothing happened, with full end game gear.

By contrast, missing your fucking weekly chest for two weeks is enough to end your hopes at progression for an entire patch cycle.

I literally had to peel myself away because I had a female expressing extreme distress that I was obsessively grinding 10 mythic dungeons each week just to feed my weekly chest. It was painful and I got tired of it. Th choice between going to bed with someone or staying up til 2 in the morning to run the fifth M+ of the night isn't really a hard choice.

The problem is, someone can unsub for any reason, e.g. toxic gameplay loop, toxic playerbase, hamster wheel, boring content, had to visit their grandparents or go on a business trip, tired of grinding M+ for drops, class spec fell off the FOTM list for next patch, etc. Then the gear/renown loop just amplified their distaste and made it that much less likely they would ever resub until the hard reset of a new expansion pack. IMHO that's what really ended Shadowlands. Too many plates that had to be spinning simultaneously to keep up with the notoriously vicious progression curve.

If you didn't, even better, you would get sneered at for trying to get a coveted DPS slot for a 10 key, or the entire group would dissolve after a wipe.

Shadowlands was absolute AIDs. The worst I've ever seen in an already horrifying gameplay loop.

 

[Delterius]

For a large contrasting example, I have been gone from Guild Wars 2 for half a year, but I know that day one I can walk into the new xpac (or the next) and continue doing arenas like nothing happened, with full end game gear.

Which is the crux of the issue. Stepping off the hamster wheel should be considered a natural and important part of maintaining WoW not just as a healthy sustainable market, but 'lifestyle' of sorts. Consider all the loser brains itt (myself included) who periodically end up buying into an expansion and playing the game for a month or so out of nostalgia, either due to good memories formed during play or just a desire to engage with the game's systems/art/classes/whatever. Imagine what things would be like if that nostalgia was unimpeded by the Game as a Job formula of progression.

In FFXIV a patch cycle is something to look forward to. I know I can get back on track of progression any time I want. And I also know that even if I don't feel like doing Ultimates I can still have fun playing a moderately tunned new raid on patch day, going in blind and healing the fuck ups by other mediocre casuals. WoW offers nothing for casual play. You have to play this game as a Job, or you're relegated to Daycare. Or cut off entirely in the case of PvP.

 

[Keshik]

I just hope this is permadeath for borrowed power.

Probably will be there to level up our dragon riding.

 

[Data4]

WoW ended for me at Wrath. I bought and tooled around a bit in Cataclysm and Pandaria, but it was during a phase of gaming ennui and I never got invested. Haven't looked back since.

 

[Whisper]

Amazing how trans people feel like they are the opposite gender in body and yet here we have this nigga growing facial hair. Guess he identified as the bearded lady in a circus freakshow his whole life, ackackackackack.

- We hired two inclusive directors to make our development team more diversitive.
- How it will help us to make good videogames?
- Videogames?

 

[Correct_Carlo]

I never put 2+2 together before, but I think the reason why it seems like there are so many trans people in game development is that programming attracts autists and autists are disproportionately trans.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I never put 2+2 together before, but I think the reason why it seems like there are so many trans people in game development is that programming attracts autists and autists are disproportionately trans.

Eh, I think it's more that the entertainment industry is a safe haven for them. Sedentary blue hairs who live on twitter don't work for construction companies, or on oil rigs, or drive trucks. That nonsense wouldn't fly there and they wouldn't last a day. The entertainment industry is one of the few places where they can actually get a job, so they flock there. The entertainment industry is also the most visible job sector, so it seems like there are more crazies than there actually are in real life.

 

[J1M]

People without plans for children or a family to feed are more willing to compromise current and future earnings for other things. For example, persuing a dream job or pushing a political message.

 

[Maculo]

I can't say I played Shadowlands extensively, but I did enjoy tanking Mythic+ with friends on discord. Glad to see borrowed power go, but I hope Blizzard does more to spice up dungeons and Mythic+.

I like the return of the talent system, but I had hoped the rumor about class overlays was true, such as Dark Ranger for Hunter and Necromancer for Warlock. Alas, it was never to be.

 

[J1M]

I can't say I played Shadowlands extensively, but I did enjoy tanking Mythic+ with friends on discord. Glad to see borrowed power go, but I hope Blizzard does more to spice up dungeons and Mythic+.

I like the return of the talent system, but I had hoped the rumor about class overlays was true, such as Dark Ranger for Hunter and Necromancer for Warlock. Alas, it was never to be.

Agree more flavor in the form of cosmetic glyphs on steroids would be nice. But I have never understood people thinking warlock and necromancer are related.

Not sure if this is still the case, but Unholy DK with the right talents was one button away from being a ranged undead summoner. (Still had to be in melee to apply one spell.) Blizzard should really lean into that and make Unholy a ranged spec.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

two

I don't know how to explain this to you.

 

[Jaedar]

I remember when Sylvanas ran away from the Lich King in terror in the Halls of Reflection. There is only one way that fight should have ended.

I always thought sylvanas being independent made no sense after tft ending. Lich king got back all his powers (presumably), so all undead should immediately fall back under his control, or at least be able to brought under control if he focuses.

So basically, the lich king v sylvanas fight ends as soon as lich king consciously exerts effort to reclaim his wayward zombie.

I'm sure they retconned in an explanation at some point.

 

[Maculo]

I can't say I played Shadowlands extensively, but I did enjoy tanking Mythic+ with friends on discord. Glad to see borrowed power go, but I hope Blizzard does more to spice up dungeons and Mythic+.

I like the return of the talent system, but I had hoped the rumor about class overlays was true, such as Dark Ranger for Hunter and Necromancer for Warlock. Alas, it was never to be.

Agree more flavor in the form of cosmetic glyphs on steroids would be nice. But I have never understood people thinking warlock and necromancer are related.

Not sure if this is still the case, but Unholy DK with the right talents was one button away from being a ranged undead summoner. (Still had to be in melee to apply one spell.) Blizzard should really lean into that and make Unholy a ranged spec.

One of the leaks mentioned Necromancer overlay for Warlock, otherwise I agree with you.

 

[Metro]

WoW ended for me at Wrath. I bought and tooled around a bit in Cataclysm and Pandaria, but it was during a phase of gaming ennui and I never got invested. Haven't looked back since.

There were some good innovations past that but the bad far outweighed the good. I particularly like the idea of the scaling/mythic 5 mans but as someone noted above, it's become way too min-maxed to be enjoyable without a group of friends. And at my age I'm too lazy to make new e-friends to play WoW with as 99% of the people I used to play with have long since quit. Wrath was the last expansion that I raided or even played on a regular basis. Usually I will sub for a month per expansion but had zero interest in Shadlowlands.

 

[TedNugent]

They appear to be making some appreciable rumblings for the new xpac.

Notably, they are talking about pvp conquest gear scaling to a set level. This doesn't entirely remove the hamster wheel, as you still need a full set, but it is an improvement. Shadowlands was weird because it was bracketed, but once you broke a certain conquest threshold, you could unlock new gear upgrades that were competitive with PvE. I remember, upon release, it was considered mandatory for world first guilds to both buy BOEs and get arena rating up for preraid gearing, and the gear drought caused by reduction in drop rates in M+ as well as the ilvl drop in M+ made this even more essential. The weekly chest was the primary means that you actually obtained gear upgrades reliably.

Meanwhile, they are also saying that they will retain the weekly chest, which also requires hamster wheeling increasing amounts of M+/arenas/bosses to get your three pieces a week to choose from. I hope they reconsider the item level split.

M+ was in a very painful place on Shadowlands release, with drops that were 10-20 item levels below your weekly chest. They deliberately neutered it to prevent it from becoming necessary for progression raiding; in so doing, they actually made solo gearing for progression almost impossible and made M+ sort of invalid as a gearing option in and of itself. It had to be supplemented by pvp or raids.

They have also said that the new talent trees will incorporate a lot of prior borrowed power from previous expansions, suggesting this may replace a lot of systems. Even better, the gating system appears to only be character level. The fewer patch-specific progression systems, the better.

Patch releases should be about gear catch up, not bogging returning players down in a net. That helps players get back in mid-cycle, which is healthy for the game and for the players.

Tbh though I think best case scenario this may last until the first content cycle. Their design team has proven again and again that "refresh" is their compelling design goal, and they cannot stop themselves from scrapping everything.

I also strongly believe that the entire talent system will itself be scrapped next expansion. I guarantee it, in fact. Making it effectively just another borrowed power system by everything but name.

The important thing is that when they do replace it, they replace it with another talent tree that is gated by leveling, and nothing else. Gear provides an adequate progression system in and of itself, and tier sets are enough for each raid tier for borrowed power.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

Am I remembering things wrong, or did the dragonflight say something like "ok, fuck it, we're not relevant anymore" at the end of Cataclysm?

 

[Keshik]

https://www.wowhead.com/news/dragon...with-ion-hazzikostas-and-steve-danuser-326869

More things being account bound is a plus, is a shame how far back my alts are.

Am I remembering things wrong, or did the dragonflight say something like "ok, fuck it, we're not relevant anymore" at the end of Cataclysm?

Nope, they did



But when have the WoW writers been slaves to canon

https://www.wowhead.com/news/mages-priests-and-rogues-available-to-all-races-in-dragonflight-326890

Tauren rogues at last, lol.

 

[Reever]

 

[Delterius]

Am I remembering things wrong, or did the dragonflight say something like "ok, fuck it, we're not relevant anymore" at the end of Cataclysm?

warcraft 3 ended with medivh saying 'the world no longer needed guardians' or whatever

that didn't stop blizzard from introducing a half human quarter orc quarter draenei chosen one in the comics who was the son of medivh and garona and meant to become the next guardian of tirisfal

and then everybody hated him delaying that storyline to legion, where the mage player character basically becomes the guardian of tirisfal anyways so whatever

world of warcraft is the first and only fully retroactive continuity