It’s great if you are melee. Not so much for ranged.
The trendy thing will 100% always to be to bash WoW and the current expansion.
Congrats.
You are trendy.
It was more what it means in contrast, to have overwhelming power you also need overwhelming weakness, which combined with relative scarcity (large AP items had limited acquisition typically from quest chains etc) was very limiting on players, but not in a great way.
Want to change spec? Want to level an alt? Tough luck, you are not only just behind others players, but effectively crippled.
Specs without completed or at least all golden dragons weapons were quite literally not fully design specs.
Being powerful is fun, but for there to be power there needs to be lack of power, and for those players who wanted to play multiple specs or wanted to change spec it was a nightmare.
Same for those who just didn’t have the same freedom of time, I bet it felt great for those peopke who got to no-life the game and were super powerful, but conversely it sucks for the vast majority who would never be able to compete because someone else was able to do 50-100 more runs of Maw.
That’s true, although I’d argue acquisition ends up being a bit more complex than that statement tends to lead on.
Even if you increase acquisition rate you either have to implement a limit, or there will still be exponential power gains which lead to the haves and the have nots, as well as a skinner box design that punishes players for not being able to participate constantly.
That’s not to say borrowed power is inherently bad as a concept, but there are certain considerations to be taken into account such as dependency on the system, fluctuation of player progression, and encouragement of negative player pattern/cycles, etc.
I assume that is supposed to be wasn’t, and that’s a pretty fair opinion.
I think BfA’s design was tragically terrible, and SL’s was considerably less interesting. That would probably be my take on it.
The SL design was less punishing and less “toxic”, however the downside was there was significantly less flavour or interest to it. The bonuses were bland and largely inconsequential (I honestly had to think hard on what they were 
).
Whereas Legion obviously had much more interesting implications on both the story, as well the actual power based effects on the player (as well as being more modular with the relics as previously mentioned)
Yep, or simply not having key spec interactions locked behind those specific power points.
Haha don’t have to tell me twice.
The hit and miss design of the new talents, revamping professions then adding in crafting quality…
Blizzard’s current design can aptly be described as “best intentions”, and we all know the worst things happen with the best intentions lol.
Although I think somethings at least have moved in a positive direction to a certain degree, just with the caveat of they keep significantly messing something else up lol.
I would say though, I wouldn’t be uninterested in a new take on the Legion artifact weapon. I think again, the concept was good but the execution not quite there.
Obviously they have the mechanical details that they would need to work out on having weapons with a talent system as we have discussed. But personally I would also like to see them as non-unique items as well.
Outside of pre-MoP legendary weapons which were exceedingly low in acquisition I don’t think “unique” weapons really have a place in a MMO.
I would be much happier just having a cool designed “crafted” weapon that had a similar talent system, than every man and their dog being the owner of the legendary Ashbringer or other unique artifact.
I’d rather it be like this my weapon that I am infusing with power and creating a legacy for much like Mograine did for the Ashbringer.
Heck even have it so at a certain threshold you get to name your weapon as it becomes this legendary relic.
That was the approach I think they should have taken, and honestly I think it’s an approach they can still possibly take in the future.
1: It makes some major changes people have been asking for.
2: It came after two of the worst expansions to ever exist.
So far I’d call it a great start, but far from ‘amazing’. MoP was the last expac I’d call truly incredible.
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It’s quite simple really, borrowed power systems, especially without a cap, create a forced gameplay loop where you are encouraged to do certain things to keep up/ahead of an expected cycle.
You aren’t necessarily rewarded so much for playing the game as you are punished for not playing and in particular doing certain things.
Consider it along similar lines to not unlocking your vault for a week, except instead of missing an item you miss out on a perpetual power increase to your character.
Gotta do them dailies!
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I still consider WoW the top dog when it comes to raiding…but not by much.
FF is quite close, far less downtime and mechanics that dont require third party software to understand. Eight > twenty players is far easier to fill. It comes out at a more consistent, albeit rigid pace, with its only major weaknesses being lack of “immersion” as most fights are on a round or square platform and barely feel connected within the tier. Its really close to WoW, but not quiteeee there.
GW2 has made massive improvements in the raid department. Its hard to compare because the game is so different fundmentally (horizontal rewards, no hard trinity) but its recent raid content (strikes) has really come into its own, and really plays to the games strengths opposed to some of the earlier stuff, which felt like it didnt have a clear vision.
Runescape…aight theyre really fun but sp different from anything i cant really call em raids. Love RS raiding, but its hard to call it raiding, at least in the traditional sense.
So ya. WoW still remains tops overall, but the gap is closing.
I like the idea of quality, changes I want to see though:
Allow public orders to have minimum quality set.
Allow crafters to always craft at the max level possible any gear not going through a work order… i.e gear for yourself as a crafter should always be top quality. Right now if you are not the best at cratfting, you should be double gatherer.
More gameplay around acquiring knowledge
I feel you, but my issue with that is…WoWs world content blows.
Im not saying theres anything wrong with playing to collect and just explore, i just think WoW is horrendous at making that aspect engaging.
Open world content, give me GW2 a million times before WoW.
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Never played GW2 before, but I did play 9 years of FFXIV as my only MMO before I jumped to WoW at the end of BfA and man… Let me tell you, WoW’s world is so much more full and engaging than FFXIV’s. By miles.
I like all the puzzles, hunting rare spawns, treasures (esp love these tbh) and I’m one of those weirdos who enjoys WQs too haha.
Is it though? It’s far better than 3 xpacs right off the bat (WoD, BFA, SL.)
A common complaint is lack of content, and in that regard it straight up beats TBC and Wrath.
You haven’t played many MMORPGs or aren’t thinking about it objectively if you consider DF mediocrity incarnate.
Ya i cant disagree with FF, its open world is one of its weakest expects.
Give GW2 a shot if WoW gets boring though, seems like something you would seriously enjoy.
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I really do like the talent change, it’s not perfect but it’s good for being wow. As for the story I honestly stopped caring long ago. As for the raids and m+ it’s basically the same as it has always been. New paint of coat on what they’ve been doing for many years. Where DF fails is that nothing feels new and fresh. It just feels empty.
Like many of you I was grinding reputation for a while. I took a little break for just a single day and when I came back I was so bored after 5-10 minutes so I just logged off.
Thanks, you’re actually the second person to recommend it to me. I’ve looked at the lore a little bit since a friend of mine really enjoys it. I just might one of these days if I need a change of pace. Cheers, mate!
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The idea itself is fine, but again it lies with the execution.
As you said yourself, if you aren’t a top crafter you might as well just stop and do double gathering.
It’s a feast and famile design where those who were ahead continue to benefit exponentially compared to those behind.
Better quality has higher demand, and also typically lower supply. So those that do supply have considerably more available work which furthers the gap between available quality, as well as granting them a monopoly on the pricing.
My own complaints are limited to:
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Guild tanks are over saturated and its near impossible to find a guild spot for being a tank unless you start your own guild.
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No catch up mechanics for professions.
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Capped valor and catalyst being locked prevent deterministic gear reward structures. I know that the major counter to this is you’ll spam +2’s but Blizz could easily make it so that valor (earned and its relative cost) is determined by ilvl and M+ key level. Season 4 of SL was a good start they just needed to correct some issues.
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The massive change in the way some specs play. Although I will say that prot warrior is almost everything I’ve ever loved about the spec baked into a single iteration. I think Fury is based around stacking to many long CD’s personally although I love how the annihilator build plays. VDH on the other hand is a spec I went from loving to absolutely hating.
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The amount of nerfs to world content like reps where people were rewarded for degenerate game play and than they over nerf for everyone who didn’t exploit while leaving those players rewards intact.
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Not being able to use older mounts or even newer ones like the wrath DK protodrake which has the same model and rig as the ones we use now. Why release new mounts that are unusable.
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No option for the bulky dragon race instead of the weird emo teens dragonkin we got.
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To much about dragons. I get that its a focus but I’m already sick of them at this point.
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Far to many mechanics in pretty much all content that isn’t open world. Honestly its getting to be to much I just want to slow down the game pace by 4 expansions or so. With a naked prot warrior timing a +20 its clear you can’t challenge the top players, and they have the ability to do silly things to challenge themselves anyway. Focus on the average player instead.
While it seems like a lot many of these have existed for as long as WoW has and SL’s list was almost 5 times as long. I think DF is doing great so far.
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I think it’s okay…
But I’ve enjoyed every expansion. WoW is WoW is WoW. I usually like it.
I would rank DF slightly above or on par with Shadowlands right now. Shadowlands had more variety in your leveling and there were actually reasons to do outdoor content.
Now, the only reason to do outdoor content is if you want a Shaman cosmetic. Great expac if you are a shaman. Every cosmetic is a shaman cosmetic. I enjoyed having reasons to go do stuff, but the community wanted no player power in the outdoor world, so bliz delivered.
Leveling is the exact same experience every time. Amazing the first time. Fun the second time. Very tedious on third time and up…
Dragonflying is fun though, and certainly is a huge convenience this early in the expac, so there’s that.
At the same time, the longterm things this expac introduced, such as the talent trees, UI changes and such are all very good.
The old M+ dungeons are great (even though that started in SL, so isn’t really a “Dragonflight feature”… these specific ones, such as CoS, are awesome though)
The raid is very ho-hum. I pretty much play to raid. I always enjoy raiding to a degree, but this one’s nothing special. All three SL raids were better IMO. SL also had more variety in its transmogs, mounts, and aesthetic overall.
The new race looks bad, in general. Players who show some restraint will certainly come up with some cool looking dragons with the many customization options, but always being a dragon and the limited transmog is a deal breaker for me. Even if you could stay in visage form, that would actually be worse, not better.
The dracthyr visage forms look like it’s some type of very-2023 political statement from bliz, to be frank.
Overall so far 6.5/10
Hoping for a great .1 and such.
DF didn’t hold my attention at all, couldn’t justify keeping my sub up for now at least. It’s good but it’s more of the same. I’ll look for updates and if it seems worth it I’ll sub here and there. Screw the carrot chasing. Grinding daily for a few weeks for the belt of unity in SL, only for it to be a complete joke useless item in the next xpac made me realise something I think. The gear from mythics/raid is the same thing (except for the cosmetic value). It feels pointless to me, I’m not really growing as a character.
The combat in this game is the big carry here. It’s probably the best in all MMOs imo. It can’t carry the whole game around though. I feel like that’s all I really do while playing WoW. I’m just repeating cycles of gear upgrades after gear upgrades and killing stuff. It’s the big carry, but at one point too much is too much. There’s not much else to do besides collecting and professions.
“You know what you were getting into” I mean, probably. I still absolutely love Azeroth and the combat in this game but when I played DF it felt absolutely shallow.
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depends. if you just want to get to endgame as soon as possible so you can push m+/raids without having to worry about grinding any power progression systems, you’ll probably like it, since that’s the player Blizz made this expansion for. if you spend most of your time outside grouped content or PVP, it’s ABSOLUTELY NOT WORTH IT. they cut the solo/open-world content to the bone.
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I’d say all the things they pushed forward into this xpac are in worse shape than previous. M+, raid, pvp, class balance, world content. All worse. The amount of shilling Blizz is doing for 6-12 month sub deals, cash shop deals, watch our streamers play this game for items, amazon prime deals, are all telling.
They made the game more toxic, too. Solo shuffle is probably one of the most toxic things ever, you can have a team mate throw 2-3 matches and you are forced to lose rating and there’s no way to even report them for it. You can’t report people for non-participation/afking solo shuffle and there’s no way to make up the lost rating.
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beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Someone can not or does not have to explain why they find something beautiful or fun, they just do.
Maybe everyones love for wow as a whole out weighs what a slug of a company blizzard has become, and in most cases the game over all. But people can still love it, and that is there choice.
DF is a great Expac you hear them say: To which you ask “why” and they reply “because I said so” There own self want, love, and enjoyment of the game they again perhaps can not, or do not feel they need to share with you, they just think its great.