As The War Within alpha takes off and we’re seeing more and more about the expansion’s features, I want to share some of my thoughts about various topics with the community. I’m curious to see what people think.
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Currencies
- Overall, the approach towards Warbands is amazing and a massive step in the right direction! The one thing that seems weird to me is the philosophy towards currencies. Account wide currencies should work the same way Trader’s Tenders work – they go into the currency tab and any character on the account can spend them by default. Instead, the currencies are “account wide” but have to be transferred from one character to another via a new UI element in order to “help avoid confusion over spending the wrong currency on the wrong character.” What does that even mean? This sounds like a super over-engineered solution to a problem that doesn’t actually exist. Just make all account wide currencies work like Trader’s Tenders and if a player accidentally buys something on the wrong character, either they sell it back for a refund or they learn from their mistakes.
- Now that auction houses are linked region-wide, gold should especially work like Tenders. Having to send gold from one character to another and/or loading up the Warband bank with gold so it can be transferred to another character is dumb. There are no economic implications for linking the gold to all characters on an account.
- The continued plan to tax the transfer of some currencies between characters is also dumb. What is the value in doing this? I earned the currency, let me spend it how I want without losing some of it simply because I want to help an alt gear up. It is such a weird philosophy.
- Maybe this has been talked about/implemented already, but please convert all currencies to actually exist in the currency tab. Marks of Honor, Polished Pet Charms, and other similar items whose only purpose is to be used as a currency should live in the currency tab, not as items in our bags/bank. I’d even go so far as to say things like Battle Pet Bandages, Untapped Forbidden Knowledge, and other similar items should be considered currencies and housed in that tab. I could see an argument for not making those account wide but they function in much the same way as a currency and thus should live with the other currencies or a similar UI element.
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UI Updates
- Some of this may have already been implemented or there are plans to implement but I’ll say them anyways.
- Please update the party and raid frames to allow for more buffs to be displayed. I shouldn’t need a third party addon to see all of the HoTs I’ve put on my raid when I play resto druid. If players want to be able to white list or black list certain buffs and debuffs, they can and should use an addon for that. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask that, by default, we should be able to see all of the buffs we put on our teammates.
- Please bring back the Legion-era arcane mage clearcasting proc animation. It used to track the stacks of clearcasting but now we need a weakaura to do that effectively. It used to be in the game, why was it removed? I would say that other similar proc/buff animations should be looked at across all classes – spend some time looking at the most popular weakauras that track that sort of information and work to add more of them to the game. It might even be nice to be able to turn those on/off and maybe add them to the UI editor to move/resize.
- Nameplates need work. I don’t have much else to say other than that. Take inspiration from Plater, ElvUI, and other similar addons and go from there.
- If boss fights continue to have healing mechanics like the spirits on Fyrakk or the trees/roots in Larodar, please make them show up in the boss frames like they did on Larodar. Trying to target and heal the spirits as they walk through a field of enemy targets was so annoying.
- Please continue standardizing the animations for various fight mechanics. It’s wonderful that a big circle with a swirly animation always means stack and the smaller version always means soak. Are there other common fight mechanics that could be standardized like that?
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Miscellaneous Suggestions
- If professions are going to continue having things like refining leather or reclaiming concoctions, can you figure out a way to not separate the stacks of supplies into what’s in the character’s inventory vs. what’s in the bank, please? It’s annoying when I have a stack of 2 potions in my bags and a stack of 3 of that same potion in my bank and I can’t reclaim them because there isn’t one stack of 5. Obviously it’s not that big of a deal to do a bit of inventory management before crafting but I think it’s worth asking for that improvement if possible.
- Please allow dracthyr and worgens to have separate transmogs for their visage/human form and the dragon/worgen form (I’m sure this is more of an issue for dracthyr than worgens but including both anyways). Ideally, this would be two layers. First, give us a version of glyph of the stars for moonkin so we can stay in human/visage form during combat. I know Ion mentioned in an interview recently that when dracthyr is expanded to other classes, there are plans to allow visage form in combat, but it also sounded like that might not include evokers for…reasons. The second layer would be to separate the transmogs. I personally like being in visage form out of combat and transforming into a dragon in combat. But I always have to restrict my transmog in visage form so that I don’t look totally stupid in dragon form. And/or allow more gear pieces to display in dragon form. I know this is rich coming from the race that has the most appearance customizations in the game, but if we’re going to be so restricted with transmog options, can we be given more color options with the dracthyr armor to try to match those pieces with the few gear pieces that do display?
- Please allow us to specifically purchase gear for our alts via vendors like the keystone vendor. Having to play the lottery with the gear boxes in the hope that it drops the piece of gear my alt needs feels bad. There’s such a weird aversion to gearing alts quickly and easily in this game that I’ve never understood. I think I speak for most people with alts when I say that I’m more inclined to play my alts if I can get them fairly geared up quickly. If the sleezy business model argument is that you want us to have to log in and play more to gear our alts, I can assure you that I’m more likely to log in and play more on my alts if I don’t have to grind through lower tier content that I’ve already done on my main. If I have to slog through grinds over and over, I’m just not going to play that alt (and very likely just won’t play the game at all until there’s something new for my main to do). But, if I’ve done the work on my main and can send some halfway decent gear to my alts, I am much more likely to log in more often to experience the content I like from a different lens as a new class/spec.
Thanks for reading!