The RP Community Megathread

Wyrmrest Accord
242

I quite like flight. This character is dressed as a bird for a reason.

I would be okay with the removal of flight if the map was designed to be fun on the ground and we players had a lot of other movement options so we could still reach places like roofs, tree canopies, etc. (Remove pathing errors from Heroic Leap/Grappling Hook/similar skills, and give all classes options to climb obstacles, etc.)

The problem I keep running into every time Blizzard limits flying is that the ground travel is much too obviously made to slow players down and limit where they can go, instead of giving players multiple was to explore and learn how best to navigate an area.

I like jumping from rock to root to branch to wherever to create my own paths to avoid mobs. I have a lot of fun finding all possible ways to climb a hill or building, and finding silly out-of-the-way places to perch.

But Blizz’s track record of flightless zones feel like they purposely remove creative navigation in order to make the player take the one mob-filled road up the mountain, whose base starts halfway across the map from the nearest flight path, which is only accessible by travelling through an unclimbable canyon also filled with dazing mobs… all so that the world quest to kill 1 mob on that mountain will take the maximum amount of time. Yes, the game needs to keep the player playing for a while. No, doing it this way doesn’t make the player want to keep playing.

And their jumping puzzles? They feel sad because they’re typically a one-time treasure marked on the map - they’re less of a fun ‘ooh, hey, it looks like I could jump on those rocks to sneak my way up that sheer cliff, and hey, there’s something fun up here’, ad more of a ‘ugh, if I want this toy and zone achievement, I’m going to have to spend 1-30 minutes spamming the jump button and hoping my latency won’t crap out’. I want the former, not the latter, but all I get is the latter. (Really, I’d prefer having smaller, randomized, respawning tiny treasures than a checklist of one-off big treasures. Let us explore and keep exploring, rather than making zones one-and-done. But that’s its own discussion.)

So, the choice between flying and not flying gets muddied, because it’s “Blizzard’s afk flying” vs “Blizzard’s ground-limited rat race”, and even with the quibbles I have with the former, I vastly prefer it to the latter.

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243

I used to like to get in bird form on my druid and sit outside RP hubs and occasionally caw or say nevermore.

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244

I 100% agree that they need to return to more open and explorable zone design, flying or no flying.

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245

I wish they would just make a true rppvp server with no phasing, or warmode… I guess that would be a pipe dream, gotta love modern gaming. I love being pigeonholed into d20 or dealing with gming/meta gaming in posts.

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I have spent so much extra time in Nagrand(s) just because the bendy trees are such awesome places to perch. See, Blizz? Extra time /played just from a fun zone!

As an anecdote, there was this one free-to-play MMO that I tried once when I was burnt out with WoW. The only thing I really liked about it was how much I could explore the map - two of its races had inbuilt Heroic Leap-style abilities, very few pathing errors using them, and boy howdy did I use them.
Combined with this, it had this little secondary collecting game, where tiny hidden items were placed in out-of-the-way locations on the map - on top of zone-dividing mountain ridges, inside tree stumps, under fallen logs, inside teapots/baskets/ground clutter, on roofs of houses - there were possible spawn points everywhere.

90% of my time in that game was spent scrutinizing every square inch of the map and climbing absolutely everything I could - and doing so again and again and again, just because it was fun to try to find these things. I’d find a zone whose aesthetics I enjoyed and run around it infinitely. I spent so many hours just exploring a zone even after I’d finished all the quests and achievements related to it.

And it made me really wish WoW had that sort of zone replayability - I’d love to spend hours hopping over logs in Ashenvale or Feralas, checking under ferns and in tree branches, dodging mobs where possible but not feeling the game is forcing me to fight them, just enjoying the zone. Blizz built a really great world, but haven’t implemented many fun reasons to keep players in it.

Edit: It was somewhat similar for me when searching for little Azerite staches on Island Expeditions, though the timer and the mob placement extremely limited the exploration aspect. I’d love to see some more developments in that vein.

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248

That is part of the issue. Of course, like all systems, PvP changes expansions to expansion. There are certainly better systems than what we have now. Many consider the Cata-MoP the best PvP times all around with balance, gearing, WPvP, and rated play. WoD also gave us some easier systems for gearing like Ashran. There is a whole thread on PvP gearing and accessibility here on the Community Council, so I won’t belabor the point. To give a short answer, yes, PvP gearing is a huge barrier for players getting out in the world, trying less choreographed RP-PvP events, and staying engaged in the game as a whole.

Im an altaholic. I have a 60, a 50, and various other lower alts on WrA. Real life and Shadowlands is really getting in the way of me being around more.

I like this, and I think flying should stay overall. But in areas where people congregate, that should feel full, they should be visibly full with players. All faction cities were designed without flying in mind and while I’ve certainly had my fun abusing and using Stormwind rooftops or outer walls, I don’t think thats the accessibility to unreachable spots you’re thinking of.

There is of course the need for major redesign in some places, Thunder Bluff and Exodar come to mind first. I don’t think a mild restriction for flying to city limits would really effect the accessibility to the rest of the world.

I would be an… Emerald Dream :drum: :tada:

Pls don’t kill me again in AB :pleading_face:

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249

I was, in part, speaking of Stormwind’s rooftops.

Part of the issue of cities not feeling full (at the moment that can be pointed to the ABK scandal and SL’s effect on the different styles of gameplay) is that Blizzard does not really incentivize non-RPers going to the different (older) capitals. PvE and PvPers are always encouraged to go to the new expansion capital, whereas RPers will just go… wherever so long as there are people to interact with.

Tl;dr Stuff won’t feel full if there are no players and if players have no incentive to go to older cities over the new expansion capital/s.

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250

Yeah, getting players somewhere is certainly the primary issue in general and ABK’s management issues have not helped in the slightest with retaining people. Still, I generally come from a systems standpoint before an individual. Warmode and sharding automatically split people into different instances where they are unable to interact, even when they want to.

It kinda goes back to my OP here, gotta update some of the other cities to feel lived in and practical to use. Transmog venders, portal rooms, ect in every city. That RPers care about those things too. We, generally, do whatever is easiest or most practical. The reason why the Wyrven’s Tail, the Horde’s only really accessible inn for some sort of RP, is used because it is in a space that is surrounded by those amenities and not effected by sharding systems. Even then, it is encroached by the Vulpera area, the Maghar area, Pandaren across the way, a bank, and an AH across the way. Its constricting and feels forced and almost unnatural to be there as an RP hub with what I could call game play needs. Whereas Silvermoon, for example, has two inns, with actual seats, open parks and spaces, and better planned economy services, but has none of the other practical things players want, in addition to being effected by the War Mode split, and sharding after that causing it to hardly be used. Stormwind has close to none of these issues, and it shows in some of the walk up and city RP that still does exist.

So address this more systemic issue will make addressing the individual and personal issues far easier.

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251

I agree with you on sharding, though not so much on Warmode. I actually… like the implementation of warmode. It’s easy enough to opt-in (or not, as in my case.) I do wish that (at least) on RP realms it kept to realm-only if it doesn’t already. I can’t say, since I play with it off.

But, yeah, I agree. I’ve spoken in-depth to friends about all the changes I would make to the various ‘old’ capitals to make them updated, but also include all the various things they need without it feeling forced or crammed. There’s plenty of empty space around most of the capitals to expand them (mountains around Stormwind/Orgrimmar, the oceans around the capitals, Ironforge could finally get its second floor, etc.)

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252

In fairness, Warmode or not to Warmode is kinda a separate issue all together. I know my request for a server wide removal of Warmode is not exactly a popular one and primarily a request of pretty active RP-PvPers. IMO, the PvE/RP server rule set was Warmode, just without the buffs for opting in. You could toggle it on and off, and done. But I digress and have accepted it may never happen.

My only big compromise I request here is that all major cities act the same as Orgimmar and Stormwind. You can opt in and opt out of Warmode at the location, regardless of Warmode status everyone can see everyone else, and there is no sharding. They clearly have the technical feasibility to do so, so why not extend it to 4-10 more locations?

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253

I honestly have absolutely 0 idea why it does not function this way already, and it should. Regardless of anyone’s feelings on Warmode, it’s an ‘easy enough’ change and a major QoL improvement to those who participate in the system that subtracts nothing from those who don’t.

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254

Said it in another thread that Warmode was a cool gimmick for BFA, but terrible as a long term tool. There should be dedicated PVP servers and Warmode should only exist for non-PVP servers. Taking away 24/7 PVP was a mistake that caused irreparable damage to PVP/RP-PVP servers.

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255

Sorry :sweat_smile:

256

Shall say it.

The Space Marine 2 trailer I would say is an accurate depiction of what it looks lore wise when Paladin, Death Knight and Demon Hunter heroes show up to handle enemies for the non-hero people.

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257

The problem with War Mode is the phasing, which serves no purpose except to keep non-PvPers from seeing PvP out in the world and PvPers from seeing almost anyone. I don’t understand the logic behind the buffs to leveling (why incentivize players who aren’t PvPing to risk getting ganked by players who aren’t leveling?), and PvP talents clearly aren’t enough to encourage players to try world PvP. But it seems that there was as much or more PvP on PvE servers when you could flag up whenever you wanted and didn’t have to worry about what phase you were in.

The system seems like a complete failure to me. I can’t think of an advantage to it other than that the phasing and the requirement to flag in Stormwind or Orgrimmar could cut down on people spontaneously flagging up just to gank players who are vulnerable or distracted - but only because it reduces the amount of players participating, which seems like a lousy goal for any system.

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258

while in warmode
quests should award pvp gear and honor/cp
kills in wpvp should give a lot more honor

im also a fan of no wm and rppvp servers (again)

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259

PvP needs to reward more, generally speaking.

I can run TF out of PvE in this game and come away with bags overflowing with all matter of items. PvP needs more in the motivational gear/toys/etc dept.

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260

Gear shouldn’t even be in the equation, PVP should be COMPLETELY skill-based rather than who has more gear. All pvp incentives should be completely cosmetic. The game is historically more fun when there is just one honor and one conquest set.

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261

To clarify, I’m not necessarily referring to performance-type-gear. I can run lowbie dungeons and come away with a ton of transmog items.

PvP doesn’t provide that and it should.

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262

Gotcha, I wasn’t sure. But I agree in that regards, the current pvp vanity rewards are pretty trash. Repainting mythic sets for 1800 ‘elite sets,’ uninspired 2100 illusions and 2400 tabards don’t cut it. Glad mounts are always nice though, but there needs to be more than just that…

They could easily remake old classic tiers into pvp sets. Redo High Warlord, and Grand Marshal gear. An updated t2 could be really cool too. Just more anything tbh.

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