Glyphs are very unique to WoW and allow for a level of customization that no other mmorpg has. Being able to customize spell effect colors or how spells look is one of the best things WoW devs have come up with, and glyphs have been loved throughout their history but especially when they became cosmetic.
The problem is, the devs have not really expanded on glyphs much at all since they became cosmetic. Shamans got new glyphs for Ascendance forms recently and it was extremely hype, I hope that shows blizz how thirsty people are for new glyph customizations overall. Glyphs can add customization to classes that don’t overstep boundaries of class fantasy or confuse other players.
We really need 1 patch that is a major glyph dump, focused heavily on that. People would be really hyped over it as many players across all aspects of the game from casual to rank 1 pvpers/m+ers have been asking for more glyphs.
For instance, using my main in this example, Shaman could have glyphs that still remain within class fantasy and don’t disrupt/confuse other players like:
Glyph of Magma Lasso: Changes your Lightning Lasso into a Magma Lasso
Glyph of Wind Lasso: Changes your Lightning Lasso into a Wind Lasso
Glyph of Water Lasso: Changes your Lightning Lasso into a Water Lasso
Glyph of Red Lightning: Your Lightning bolt now takes on a red appearance (separate glyph for Chain Lightning as well)
Glyph of White Lightning: Your Lightning bolt now takes on a white appearance (Separate glyph for Chain Lightning as well)
Glyph of Magma Shield: Your Lightning Shield turns into a Magma Shield
Glyph of Wind Shield: Your Earth or Water shield turn into a Wind Shield
Glyph of the Lightning Wolf: Your ghost wolf form is imbued with Lightning
Glyph of the fire wolf: Your ghost wolf form is imbued with Fire
Glyph of the Ice wolf: Your ghost wolf form is imbued with Ice
(these glyphs would be useable with glyphs that change your ghost wolf form)
It does confuse me that they came up with the concept and it has been well received - and then just barely ever add anything.
I think we had a few glyphs added for pistol shot recently.
I think perhaps it has to do with the cost of spell visuals and how much they update them. Any commitment to a new effect means it’s one more file in the code and perhaps future patches leads to more debugging, etc.
(I am not a programmer)
This leads to a much greater commitment overall as they don’t want to remove them.
I love glyphs though. Reddit recently pointed out that there’s an item like a glyph in SoD that allows you to be a druid and enjoy transmog. This “astral form” has occasional stars but does not give your character a blanket effect that renders everything blue. I really wish they would add it to retail - I love balance but the amazing transmogs of this patch can’t be seen when I’m actually active.
I do hope they change their tone and unleash their creativity.
It is so lame that I can’t use the Glyph of Ember Shards as demo or affi. It is my biggest gripe with warlock glyphs that I can’t match fiery soul shards to my t-mog unless I’m destro!
Yeah it’s really odd for sure. It’s a system that has so much potential for customization, and it doesn’t even have to be insane but what they did for ascendance forms and what they could do (examples given in my first post) would be really sick.
I promise people would get so hyped over a patch that just brings in a ton of new glyphs for every class. I’ve seen so many different kinds of players asking for this over the years, more so in recent years after the ascendance glyphs renewed hype about glyphs in general.
I’d love to be able to change the color of my lightning bolt/chain lightning to match other elemental colors that make sense for it like red or white. I’d love to have glyphs that let me change my current elemental shields to the two that we don’t have available at all (magma shield/wind shield).
So much potential here and it’s a completely unique system to wow. We dont need to wait for ffxiv or some other mmorpg to come out and do it better, only for blizzard to then realize the value glyphs have. It’d be nice if they realized it long before another company does it.
I would personally rather see all of the passion, money and time that’s being funneled into player housing instead be directed towards vastly increasing player customization including a total revitalization of cosmetic glyphs.
I know that’s probably just me, though. I’d rather the character I see 100% of the time I’m playing look good rather than some doll house that I won’t see, except for when I’m visiting it.
even on my busy server not all the glyphs are always up. I’d craft myself, but grinding crafting up takes a lot of money now plus sometimes rare drops or rep farming and not everything’s warbound yet
The issue with Glyphs is that they typically interfere with their ability to develop other systems. See Druid forms or Warlock’s demon menagerie.
Yes, you can tie changing up a class or specialization’s abilities but what happens if that class or specialization lose that ability? We have seen it before. And what if they want to make a system that is more in-depth and allows for greater customization than what glyphs are able to provide?
Glyphs are inherently problematic from a design perspective, which is why we don’t see a lot of 'em anymore. Simply because of how limiting they are, both for players and the developers.
I wouldn’t call that a hot take, though I don’t think we need to say “I’d rather have x than y”. Player housing is awesome and can potentially bring a lot of new players to the game, especially with the way it seems the devs are doing it. Neighborhoods were not something I even thought of but after the devs mentioned it I’m excited for that specifically.
Realistically we could have both, just not at the same time of course that’d be way too much work something would get rushed. We (as a playerbase) have been asking for more glyphs/customization for a long time now though, so it would be great to see it in midnight at some point.
I’d love for them to begin focusing heavily on this area of customization.
What do you mean they interfere with the ability to develop other systems? I don’t think that’s accurate at all. If we lose an ability than we would just lose the glyph(s) that customize that ability, but creating the glyphs has never and will never stop them from removing or adding things. And they shouldn’t. Class design should and will always come first, glyphs second, if something needs to be changed or removed then it can happen regardless of whatever glyphs exist. And a lot of the time they make glyphs for what they know we’ll likely always have, ie in my examples those are all abilities that have been with the class for a long time now with little risk of removal.
And they can make something more in depth than glyphs, sure, but I’m not sure what that has to do with asking for more glyphs nor is it relevant honestly. Can’t really sit here and think about that because we have no idea what they want to do, which means we can only offer feedback about what we already have available. If they want to make a more in depth customization system than glyphs, that’d be cool, but we haven’t heard or seen anything about that so I’m just going to discuss the potential of what we already have.
