Please share any thoughts, feedback, and/or experiences regarding the Embers of Neltharion update in this thread.
Note that a few separate threads were opened for feedback on specific topics: Cross-Faction Guilds, the new item upgrade system, Mythic+, and PvP.
Really great things:
-21 quests previously missing from the API showed up with the new patch! still lots missing but its great to see the progress 
-Treasure that requires the Onyxia cloak, really like that this makes an old quest relevant again, I hope we see more of incentivizing playing older content intertwined with new content
One concern we have noticed so far:
9 new versions of āReport to the trading postā which brings the total up to 12,
if we could get some clarification on the plan with these quests going forward that would be great, Im already missing one of them because it reset once and I didnt do it again because there wasnāt any reason to redo what we thought was a repeatable quest
will these be single time quests going forward? or since 12 there is 12, is there one for each month going forward resetting yearly?
Now, this is a topic that have been sore for MANY years, weāre talking almost two decades (yes, since the beginning of WOW) - RARESā¦
With 10.1 we saw the developers embrace a new method of revealing rares in World of Warcraft, the Loamm Scouts. This single idea is one of your best ideas you have done for this topic since - forever.
The fact that you have a scout out in āstoryā but also content to point out where a big foe is, and it is down to someone stronger (us) to go handle it for them, is glorious. With the Loamm Scout revealing on the map, āThis is where a rare is currentlyā is great - yes, I know we had stars and what not before, but it is a great step that I think Blizzard could advance on. Just adds more to the world, and would be leveling to see added to future and older content too.
Note of change (QoL): Have the scout once activated, take 2 minutes before they reveal the threat, make the map marker change from silver (when the scout points out the rare) to flashing red (while people wait for the rare to appear (2 mins)), and then completely red (When people fight the rare), it will grant people a chance to close the gap and reach the target as well.
Additional Scout deployment usage:
Alliance/Horde Scouts calling out rares on Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms.
Alliance/Horde Scouts calling out rares in Outland.
Argent Scouts calling out rares on Northrend.
Shado-Pan Scouts calling out rares on Pandaria.
Alliance/Horde Garrison Scout calling out rares on Draenor (Except the zones where you donāt have an outpost/garrison aka. the opposing faction base zone)
(X-Class Hall) Scout calling out rares on Broken Isles.
(X-Zone Faction) Scout calling out rares on KulāTiras/Zuldazar (Except the opposing faction zones)
(X-Zone Faction) Scout calling out rares in Shadowlands.
(X-Zone Faction) Scout calling out rares on Dragon Isles.
Players that push high end content like glad, CE or higher keys SHOULD be entitled to a mount that isnāt accessible by everyone. People shouldnāt be able to walk in and get the same mount that others grind to obtain.
When I say that Iām not trying to discredit the guilds that prog on normal or heroic by any means, not everyone plays at the same level and thatās completely fine; However, mythic raiding is much different than heroic. The grind to get CE takes constantly grinding max level keys for gear drops, farming specific items, and sometimes MONTHS of prog (Once again, nothing against the heroic guilds that also spend months progging).
I agree there should be an AOTC mount, but dampening the mythic raid mount by allowing it to drop on all difficulties really sucks for the people that do push for CE each tier. It can be viewed parallel to the glad mount, thatās a mount that tons of people want but it isnāt easy to get. You need to actually practice and play thousands of games to improve as a player to get it. It gives the mount valueā¦ Which should be the same for the raid mount.
By also allowing it to drop on all difficulties, youāre removing an incentive for players to even strive to improve. That dragon was insanely cool, it still is but once again, itās not exclusive and the amount of drops that have already happened since release is pretty insane. Why raid mythic when you can queue LFR, normal and heroic which are arguably much easier for some guilds. Rewards shouldnāt be āeasily accessibleā to everyone. When looking back at old content, mage tower appearances, MoP challenge sets, these were exclusive sets that people had to work for and it paid off. It gives people a reason to play certain content. By moving in the direction of allowing everyone to get the same rewards at all difficulties youāre going to eventually lose some players that grind top end content. Would hate to see this change move to PvP as well. Iām not a pvper by any means, but for example, last seasons glad mount looked really sick and itās arguably one of the best glad mounts released. If that was available to everyone - including someone like myself that barely touches pvp - it wouldnāt nearly be as awesome as it is. There IS value in exclusivity.
Not a super major deal to me but I know a lot of people also arenāt stoked to see TCG items coming back either. People that farm content to get enough gold to buy old tcg items from people, or were lucky enough to get it when it came out are just disregarded with the new twitch promotions. It would be just as cool to create new mounts for the twitch partnerships rather than re-releasing EXCLUSIVE mounts that not everyone had before.
In the future it would be nice to see some separation from difficulty rewards.
I personally donāt have a problem with difficulty gated rewards, however I donāt think they should be removed after a short time (Iām just pretty against removing stuff overall)
for example
I have no problem with this being heroic only, but the fact that we just flat out canāt get this quest anymore once shadowlands released is frustrating
One thing I noted while doing the Researchers Under Fire Event is that every group Iāve been in has been unable to complete all 12 steps of progress due to a short timer somewhere in the middle of the event that requires you to do a few things in a set amount of time. This is part of the Cleansing the Lockdown leg of the event which only gives you 10 minutes to complete about 5 or so tasks, the final of which spawns a little boss that must be defeated before the timer ends. A majority of the time the timer runs out right as this boss spawns.
In itās current iteration this version of the Researchers Under Fire event is unable to reach the full reward even when there are at least 2 raids worth of people doing this event.
Iād like to see the timer for the Cleansing the Lockdown event lengthened to the amount of time itās following event has which is about 13 minutes (A Titanic Counter Attack). 5 minutes is not enough time to complete the Cleansing the Lockdown leg.
IMO, FOMO cosmetics are completely fine.
Gladiator mounts, AOTC mounts, Challenge Mode setsā¦
as cool as all these things are, there is an element of prestige because there was a time when you could earn them. Yes, people will miss out, but it makes these items more rare which is not a bad thing.
On the other hand, FOMO content - removed questlines, mage tower before it was brought back, etc. is not a good thing. Players should always be able to experience old content, even if they canāt receive the time-gated rewards that were earned by doing it when it was current.
The Achievement to use Clacking Claws while killing rares is very annoying when the rares are not spawning as fast as they should to justify the duration of the item being 10 minutes with a 1 hour cooldown.
Wait, that is an achievement?! And Iāve deleted so many?!
Yup; and another point of feedback is for one rare on the achievement list in particular. Brullo the Strong will often times not spawn his chest on defeat. Most of the times heās not spawned it is due to people being targeting by his focus knock back which will knock people out of his circle or his leap attack on people outside the circle.
Something that has to be added here!
Thank you for the auto-revert to Human form for Worgens. I was sceptical about it because I wanted what you did in Cataclysm Beta, where you, the player, could decide if you wanted to be a Worgen or not - but this is a very good alternative!
So after doing Researchers Under Fire a few times Iāve come to understand how both parts work; Zaqali and the other one. After the first Sundered Flame attack youāre only given 10 minutes to complete 5 or so tasks and this is not enough time for people casually doing this. As it stand you need a coordinated raid group to get the full 12/12 reward.
This isnāt very fun when past events like Grand Hunt and other similar group events have not required such coordination or grouping up to complete just to get the full reward.
Iād like to see the event timer increased for the time remaining until the Sundered Flame returns with reinforcements. Something like 15 minutes might be better for people who are just casually doing this content rather than requiring raid groups each time you want to get 12/12 on the tasks.
The Renown system and the factions associated feel very shallow once you finish out their respective reputations. Embers of Neltharion sadly didnāt introduced any chase rewards for the new and old renown factions.
Compared to the Legion Paragon Chest, it lacks an incentive to continue doing world quests/reputation for older factions, making them less interacted going on. Also some rewards mainly those who rewarded a spark upgrade item should be revisited and changed. It will be confusing for new players to receive a reward they simply canāt even use.
I would suggest giving the player an old spark and change the reward to the old mythic quality. This way the rewards tend to be still somewhat relevant going on. Players who finished those in early patches should receive both retroactiv.
For the Paragon Part - Having some faction associated dragonriding cosmetics from the chest would be a really cool addition (maybe a faction based armor or saddle).
So far the feedback from my guild is positive. This patch feels better than 9.1.
There is some issues we are talking about :
1- Bags, bags, bags. There is a lot of small issues tied to this. Itās weird we have so much space - I have to use addons to find something - but still have not enough bag space.
2- The NM raid feels easier, way easier than 10.0. Sure, we know our classes better, we upgrade our stuff easier with the new system. But still, it feels to me that the raid is a little undertuned in NM.
3- Still some grifters in the working orders system. Not needing everything IS good. But come on, can anyone really believe in good faith I will give 10k worth of materials for a working order of 10g ?
3- The incentive to travel Zaraleck is low, and I see a lot of players staying at Valdrakken.
Having crafting tables in the new zone would help.
To add to the Researchers Under Fire I have found that it is hard at times to get groups to be willing to do it. Also, I enjoy playing on war mode which never has enough to do the event. If it were set up similar to the Hunt where you have a cumulative effect that may help.
Also, last week it was almost impossible to find groups willing to do the Elderās world boss. Not sure what causes this though.
I gotta admit I chuckled at this. Itās very true. Though, we must all admit the strides made have been excellent. The reagent bag is a beyond welcome addition - and I hope we get larger sizes soon.
But even beyond that, for me at least the āgear bloatā is significantly lower now than it was back in Shadowlands.
Ahā¦ Itās getting worse now than in Shadowlands for me.
Maybe because iām a crafter + raider ?
One feedback Iād want to give is about the āeliteā area (Zaqali Caldera). It has a decent amount of rares, world quests and campaign quests connected to it but it is in no way a fun area to be in.
This area is crawling with mobs which makes it difficult to traverse. It also has a decent amount of patrols and the return of the āget shot down at 10-stacks while flyingā. The overall feel for me regarding this area is that itās not an enjoyable experience.
During the campaign, Sabellian and Ebyssian tends to pull everything that the area has to offer. The mobs themselves either has a huge shield or spawns four pillars which you have to CC (which is an issue as they are quite spread out) in order to do damage. Both of the above spells have high uptime and as a tank, even well geared one, you spend an eternity killing even a few mobs.
It isnāt difficult, it isnāt challenging, itās just frustrating to be in.
The recent change that went into effect today to reduce Elite Rare Frequency is just bad. I donāt know what the drop rate on items was increased to but unless they were boosted to be 50% I donāt see how this change is a good one.
Some people like me would rather throw their army of alts at a rare for an 8% drop on an item and wait about an hour for a respawn on an alt than wait what looks like going on 2 hours for a rare to respawn. The drop rate doesnāt seem to have been significantly increased at all either after doing a few rares already.
Why not just admit drop rates were bad, increase the drop rate without having to decrease the rate at which rares respawn? Sharding also makes this 50 times worse than how it was originally.
Iād like to add that this change penalizes collectors who only want to collect mog, drakewatch scripts, toys, pets, and the one rare drop mount.
Edited for confusing wording.
Edit #2: Iād like to add that since this change today I see less people at rares in the caverns than before on weekly reset day. Literally killed Cavern Rares for people.
Edit 3: Iām more understanding how the new change worksā¦ which is now 5,000 times worse than what I initially thought.
This thread better explains everything thats wrong with the recent change to rares, plus more people and more feedback: Youāre seriously gating the rares now?
Other than voice line skip issues. Iām really loving the Blue Dragonflight questline, and that we are sent around, and we collect story and update on some zones.