I’ve always found that this is a pretty common problem in the WoW community but it seems far stronger in the Evoker community given the Dracthyr vs. Visage topic.
I understand that some people LOVE being in dracthyr form. What I don’t understand is why they care so much that others don’t?
If I can play in Visage 100% of the time, how does that negatively impact you? There are three ways that Blizzard could do this:
Add new spell effects for each of the Dracthyr “themed” abilities to work in Visage form. Easy for most except the flying ones like Deep Breath.
Do what they do on Demon Hunters and just fast swap forms for specific abilities. Almost like how “auto return to visage when out of combat” works but during combat.
Do nothing and just let it look silly in some cases.
IMO #2 is the right answer and in theory should be pretty easy (i.e. Cheap) to do, so it would have minimal impact on adding/doing more.
Yet this community seems torn right down the middle between “Yes do that!” and “No, it being a choice makes it negative for MEEEEEEEE”
Can’t we all just agree optionality is the best solution for all?
It’s simple, by allowing permanent visage you fundamentally alter the lore and flavor of the class and race. A lot of people like the current flavor and lore.
This is a problem that can not be avoided by “I’ll do it my way, you do it yours.” It would be like the vulpera suddenly gaining wings and the ability to fly. No amount of someone not using the wings will change that they exist, and the flavor and lore implications there of.
The ultimate issue is you’re wanting an option for the mechanical fun you see in using it. Others want that to not happen because they like the current story around the class. These things are mutually exclusive and neither position is inherently wrong.
I can’t say that Vulpera flying around with wings would impact me anymore than seeing a dragon riding a flying horse made out of red magic impacts me.
If this seriously impacts peoples ability to play and enjoy a game, maybe it’s time to step back from the game and remind yourself it’s not real.
Transmogging is, to many, the core of the game. Huge portions of the game are literally built around collecting transmogs. Omitting it from an entire class because a handful of people might get lore offended is just selfish.
Should Vulpera not get player housing because they live in the dunes out of carriages? No because that would be ridiculous.
Interesting enough, DH/VE/BE and Evoker/Dracthyr/Visage share quite a few assets and rigs. So if blizz ever expand CC options on either of them it’s more likely than not that the other may benefit from it. Visage already share the Glide animation so a Glyph that changes the magic smoke on the feat for instead showing wings just need to be coded in, would not be that hard.
As well as the Soar Ability animation that makes you Jump high to start to fly, just like a Meta does only need to be Coded so DH can fly in Meta form, Meta does already have a few animations of flying and they been extensively use with NPC Ravendreth Gargoyles, Dreadlords and other couple of Raid Bosses… (Although I suspect the problem lies with the Vengeance wingless form since they never coded in the “Fiery Energy Wings” use by other Mounts, It would have to change to a Havoc Meta to fly if ever added).
Dracthyr already have a way to lock themselves in their prefered form.
It’s seems very possible to do these requests and seeing already the existing assets its just a matter just being approve in the dev cycle for the coding and smoothen the animations.
Blizz is already aware how appealing and requested this is since Evokers and Dracthyr came out, It’s just a matter of when Blizz think it’s a good time or not to add them to put the resources.
They already know that the more they let players customize or personalize their avatar PC the more likely they will invest more time and money in WoW, not to mention it attracts new players from other MMO or IPs who wish to roleplay the WoW version of their Race/Class Personal Fantasy in this Virtual World.
Resources are finite and design in one area has clearly detracted from design in the other. This isn’t existing in a vacuum where every task pipeline is receiving equal and generous attention so everybody is in harmony with their gameplay experience.
Dracthyr don’t have transmog, and they have gotten nothing new since launch for customization. The mounts with the same customization UI have gotten new armor sets, colors, parts, etc. The visage has gotten numerous new outfits that in at least one case doesn’t even have the belt visible in true form.
And as a side… There’s a lot of elf varieties already, who get a lot of attention, there’s exactly one variety of anything draconic to play ingame currently.
Of the base spell set, nine spells are really themed around being a dragon:
Dream Breath
Hover
Verdant Embrace
Deep Breath
Fire Breath
Rescue
Wing Buffet
Tail Swipe
Soar
Wing Buffet can be removed from the list, you can already use it on other non-evoker Dracthyr in visage form and it just goes poof in front of you. Soar is out of combat and you can use a normal mount if you’d rather so it’s out.
Hover is already solved for as visage form has a “glide” version that could easily be used, maybe a small effect around your character but not required. You could use this for Rescue and Verdant Embrace as well.
Dream breath and Fire Breath are in a similar bucket and could be grouped together. Both of these spells just “playing” as your visage would mimic other classes like Holy Paladins shooting out a frontal of holy power or a mages cone of cold. Alternately you could treat it like the mages Dragon Breath and make the “dragon” part of the effect.
That leaves Deep Breath and tail swipe. Here we can look at demon hunters and how when they use Eye Beam they turn into their demon form. You can easily jump up as a dragon, do the breath, then land and instantly go back to your visage. Ditto for tail swipe.
None of these things need to be expensive. They COULD be to make them look nicer and have more polish but the effects already look fine.
No spell effects look perfect. Disintegrate is literally in the shape of a square and comes more out of your nose than your mouth.
My point is, Blizzard could do this for free if they just enabled the same visage setup as other Dracthyr classes. It is a fantasy game, there is no “makes sense”.
What IS a waste of resources is building a class that no one wants to play because it is exempt from engaging in one of the most core and popular features in the entire game.
I don’t and I’m not sure who this other group is you speak of.
It doesn’t.
Lastly, till they do let you do what you want, grab those potions that turn you into a sailor, or the Brann illusion, or many other things out there that do that sorta thing until it’s there.
Bit of hyperbole there and doesn’t help your case.
Arguing for the sake of arguing. Thats all it is, more contrarian trolling from dumbasses that have nothing better to do. No one reasonable would fight against cosmetic options, of all things.
I just wish we could choose our visage race. I’m not a fan of the BE male model so I went with the Human female. She’s cute and all, but meh. My inner visage is a Male Gnome. Lol. Also love the Dracthyr form. I just wish I didn’t have the same armor on from thousands of years ago. Fashions change Blizz!
Design work on visage detracts from design work on Dracthyr. Visage has more options than Dracthyr already; they can be put on hold until Dracthyr have parity in gameplay experience with Visage.
It’s not lost on the developers that Dracthyr are limited in what kind of transmog they can use, and they would like to compensate for that with more barbershop options, though with all resources currently going into the expansion launch, that would probably come as a patch feature.
The premise of ‘nobody’ wanting to play the dragon race unless they can be in elf form is a bad take.
Never said that about the race. I said that no one (being dramatic) wants to play Evoker because they are forced into dragon form and miss out on a major feature of the game because of it.
Evoker usage is by far the lowest. Is that solely because of this? No of course not, but it doesn’t help at all.
I originally refused to play an evoker because I couldn’t transmog. Finally decided I just wanted a max level of every class and realized they are super fun to play. It still annoys me to no end that I’m forced into dragon form anytime I enter combat.
If you played a feral Druid would you be annoyed that you had to be in cat from for your cat abilities? It’s the same as breathing fire etc as a dragon.
I like the idea of visage form (as limited as it is), but I rolled a dragon to be a dragon and I feel like it makes perfect sense to be one in combat.
Meanwhile I want the out of combat regen that visage gets in dragon form, too. I’m playing Evoker because I want to be a dragon. Why are you making me be an elf if I want to bring that extra utility?
Preach, I find it wild they kept that a thing when allowing visage form in combat for the other classes. Especially when they can use the wing buffet racial without wings.
If I played Feral Druid and every race except Night Elf had the ability to not play in cat form, yeah. I might be a little bit bent out of shape about it if I wanted to play a Night Elf not in cat form. Especially if the primary argument against it was “I don’t want to play without cat form for my Night Elf, so you shouldn’t have the ability to play without cat form as a Night Elf either”.
That’s how it currently functions for Dracthyr. Every class available to the race with the exception of Evoker has the ability to play in Visage permanently and love them or hate them, if you want to play Evoker, you have to play Dracthyr. For the most part all that’s being asked for is extending the same courtesy to Evokers that is extended to every other class that can be Dracthyr as a compromise. That and if I’m in visage, put me in visage on the character select screen.
Awesome, do you. I rolled an Evoker to be an Evoker, being a dragon is just an unfortunate side effect of that and I wouldn’t be if I had literally any other option available to me.
Only dracthyr can be evokers because evokers are dragons.
The intro video showing what evokers could do as a class when dragonflight was announced heavily focused on breathing fire or other breath spells because they are dragons. You’d think people would want to play an evoker because of being a fire breathing dragon, not a magic casting elf or human female.
Wishing the dragon could not be a dragon because you don’t like how the dragon looks is an argument I don’t think you’re going to win with Blizzard.
Which I’ve made my peace with, as unfortunate as I think it is. That said, there’s an existing compromise built into the game that’s already available to every Dracthyr class except Evokers.
I like the dragon magic and I like the feel of the class mechanically. I don’t like the dragons it’s attached to. If Dracthyr didn’t look so goofy and could transmog, I wouldn’t have a problem.
Playing in visage permanently is just a more reasonable goal than reworking the entire race to be something I would play given that there are people who like them as they are. I’m more than willing to compromise to make both camps happy, the “I don’t so you can’t” folks just aren’t willing to meet people who disagree half way.
The disconnect is that you seem to see Evokers and Dracthyr as one and the same, I don’t. I see them as two separate entities that unfortunately happen to be stuck together.
I’d happily play Evoker without being a dragon, I just don’t think it’s a reasonable goal. Permanent visage is given that it already exists for every other class available to the race and solves the problem to some extent without a ton of extra work on Blizzard’s part.
I want visage form expanded on so I can choose what race to be when I’m not a dragon and allow them to have glowy dragon eyes all the time like Ebonhorn.
I just think the dragon class/race combo should stay that way but get expanded on if anything. I just think flying across the screen horizontally breathing fire as a human would look ridiculous.
