Dracthyr has a zillion customization options. Five different tabs of them, two of them related to clothing. Dracthyr also has no gender selector. You pick between two body types: Body 1 is masc, Body 2 is femme.
Evoker is an ADVANCED class: when you choose it, you get confirmation dialog like you do when you delete a purple, except instead of "DELETE", you have to type "ADVANCED". Apparently, advanced classes miss out on the tutorial.
BRB in 6 to 8 hours after I'm done with the Character Creator. <.<
+5
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I'm just waiting for the Demon Hunter trees to see if The Hunt makes it into a talent. Then, based on that one thing, I shall determine whether these talent trees are good or poop, like any reasonable person would.
I'm just waiting for the Demon Hunter trees to see if The Hunt makes it into a talent. Then, based on that one thing, I shall determine whether these talent trees are good or poop, like any reasonable person would.
There is also stuff the new trees let you do that was impossible before like Assassination/Outlaw with Shadowdance (both have stealth only abilities and talents that could be boosted this way), or Outlaw picking up Shadowstep AND grappling hook.
Yeah, I mean, that's definitely a reasonable thing to be excited about. I remember there was a time in Vanilla when it was reasonable/viable to just about go 50%-50% on two different talent trees to get access to some key abilities that were not "typical" for your build.
I don't really have the brain for poring over trees and scrutinizing which talents are the best and which optimized route to take to get there. That's why the current talent scheme works for me: just a handful of discrete best-of-three choices, without lock-outs or prerequisites. I understand that this is boring for plenty of people, and for people like me there will always be online guides that show you the "correct" talents to take anyway, so I'll be fine.
The thing to remember too is that the new trees substantially still contain a lot of the ‘pick one of three’ choices; most of the really interesting abilities are in the last third, so mostly you pick two of those paths and then make a few decisions about how to get there.
Some trees have more chaff than others (looking at you hunter) but in most cases you seem to be able to substantially recreate the kits classes have now
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
0
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
I played around with the Wowhead Dragonflight talent calculators, and yeah, they're more permissive than I initially thought (due to the number of talent points you get), but there are still some restrictions that I find a little exasperating.
The Rogue class talent tree is split into three spec-flavored sub-trees that cross over at a few spots, but the middle tier has no cross-overs at all. Cheat Death (the "don't actually die if you take fatal damage" talent, a nice save for someone who mostly plays solo) is in the last tier, all the way on the right, in the Subtlety-flavored sub-tree. The only way to get it is by taking the entire Subtlety-flavor middle tier (at least 5 points), and the only way to get there is by taking a path through the Subtlety-flavored first tier (3 points). So, an 8-point pre-requisite to get Cheat Death. It's not something you can just pick up on the way; it's something that you need to build towards
Realistically, even if I want to play mostly-Outlaw-flavored, I will almost certainly pick up a few of those early Subtlety-flavored talents because they're useful for solo play (Sap, Cloak of Shadows). I might even get Tricks of the Trade, which seems to be a group-oriented talent and so useless for solo play, in order to get Shadowstep, but I don't think I'd sink 8 points in there just for Cheat Death.
Which is all fine, ultimately, it's not a game-ruining thing or anything, just one thing that immediately stood out to me. One could make the argument that Elusiveness and Iron Stomach (which, in the current talent scheme, are the talents you have to pass up to get Cheat Death) are easily accessible in the Outlaw-flavored sub-tree, and that makes up for not getting Cheat Death.
Maybe this is just whining that misses the point, colored by the fact that I don't particularly love, or get excited by, skill trees.
Yeah until they balance it which they absolutely have to, you are currently getting cheat death as outlaw because you gotta get shadow Dance. The ambush setup with shadowdance for outlaw is absurdly broken in the current trees
Dragonriding looks interesting, but man, there goes the #1 perk to playing a Druid.
Druid flight is same as normal + gathering and mounting midair
Dragonflight is way faster than normal flight (from videos it looks like it's faster than taxi flights even, just visually i would say it's at least twice regular flight speed once it's at full speed) at cost of the player have to actually do gameplay mechanics to achieve and maintain that speed
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Regular flight is already faster than taxis.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
0
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
In terms of travel time, yes, thanks to direct paths, but in terms of actual ingame movement speed, many flight paths have large sections where they go significantly faster.
In terms of travel time, yes, thanks to direct paths, but in terms of actual ingame movement speed, many flight paths have large sections where they go significantly faster.
This. I'm talking about actual speed of movement. Taxis going in circles before landing, taking non linear "pretty" paths, and going from A to B when what you really want is C (that's sort of but not really near A) to D (that's sort of but not really near B ) is not what I'm talking about.
Dragonflight is way faster than normal flight (from videos it looks like it's faster than taxi flights even, just visually i would say it's at least twice regular flight speed once it's at full speed) at cost of the player have to actually do gameplay mechanics to achieve and maintain that speed
I'd like to see some actual testing on that, but right now I'm skeptical.
I watched the video linked last page. Didn't really seem faster than flying to me. Is there a different video that actually tests it quantitatively?
I forget which video it was that I watched last night after work (I watched like 10), but one of the videos was talking about the time comparison of how long it takes to fly from the top of Mount Hyjal to some super distant location. I think it was Silithus maybe(?). Anyway, they said it took over 6 minutes on a regular 310% flying mount, and it took a little over 3 minutes with the Drakthyr racial version of dragonriding.
Dragonriding looks interesting, but man, there goes the #1 perk to playing a Druid.
Druid flight is same as normal + gathering and mounting midair
Dragonflight is way faster than normal flight (from videos it looks like it's faster than taxi flights even, just visually i would say it's at least twice regular flight speed once it's at full speed) at cost of the player have to actually do gameplay mechanics to achieve and maintain that speed
Well when am I supposed to take a leak then while flying to some far off place to do the next quest
Going AFK or when spouse's or whatever need to go on follow or something will be annoying as well. Not the end of the world, but an item on the negative side for me.
Hopefully the fun part on the positive side more than makes up for it.
Normal flying is not going away. All the things we can currently do (afk, autofollow, druid form gathering, etc) that's all still going to be in the game. It just won't be as fast.
In Tali's video he touches on a lot of that. You give up a bit of convenience for a lot more speed and dynamic gameplay. It's a tradeoff. Do you want to travel a really far distance in a short amount of time? Dragonriding is your option. Are you out on a leisurely herbalism jaunt? Normal flying might be your answer.
This is a big philosophy shift if they can deliver on it. Someone has been researching final fantasy 14.
No race/class restrictions when
They’re loosening up some already. For example, Tauren rogues will finally be a thing in 10.0. Other stuff takes more development. Druid forms obviously, but even stuff like paladin steeds.
Normal flying is not going away. All the things we can currently do (afk, autofollow, druid form gathering, etc) that's all still going to be in the game. It just won't be as fast.
In Tali's video he touches on a lot of that. You give up a bit of convenience for a lot more speed and dynamic gameplay. It's a tradeoff. Do you want to travel a really far distance in a short amount of time? Dragonriding is your option. Are you out on a leisurely herbalism jaunt? Normal flying might be your answer.
In Ion's interview, he says that Dragonriding will eventually become as convenient as flying by middle of the expansion. I'm hoping that means it has unlocks and/or gained abilities to make it better that you acquire as you level.
Dragonriding at the start is... not better than flying. It's barely better than ground riding, maybe. If you're not already at a point that's higher than where you want to end up, then it's very easy to end up in a low energy state in which you don't move forward and can't gain altitude. Then... you have to land and run to regenerate energy to take off again except because you dragonrode to get there, you're probably over a giant camp of gnolls or something and not a road.
I find that unless I know where I'm going or it's very obvious I'm going downhill, that I dragonride over roads so that when I inevitably run out of dragonriding energy, I have a safe place to land.
I’ve generally been okay with the compromise that regular flying is something that you unlock after the main story stuff is done, with the caveat that several expansions have unlocked this too slowly, or introduced new zones where flying is completely forbidden all of the time. If dragonriding is cool and is a thing where you unlock the ability to fly over the course of the story and is then completely unlocked after finishing, instead of just waiting for an arbitrary patch, that’s even better.
It’s a little bit like the feather from WoD in the sense that it’s fast, but also kinda limited (at least for now.) we eventually unlock regular flight in all the zones anyway.
But yeah, it’ll be fun for flying to be kinda actual gameplay
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Normal flying is not going away. All the things we can currently do (afk, autofollow, druid form gathering, etc) that's all still going to be in the game. It just won't be as fast.
In Tali's video he touches on a lot of that. You give up a bit of convenience for a lot more speed and dynamic gameplay. It's a tradeoff. Do you want to travel a really far distance in a short amount of time? Dragonriding is your option. Are you out on a leisurely herbalism jaunt? Normal flying might be your answer.
I saw nothing in that video that indicated you'd be able to fly in the Dragonflight zones in any way other than on the dragons. Like the whole reason they're giving access to the new flight right at the beginning of the expansion is because it's specifically limited in its movement capabilities. They don't want you to be able to mount up at the base of a mountain and just harrier up to the top of it.
Officially the unluckiest CCG player ever.
+2
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I would be shocked if we don't eventually open up regular flying
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
when they announced it originally I'm pretty sure they said you'll eventually unlocked regular flight in the DF zones similar to the current pathfinder achievements
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Flying totally ruined this game and Id be shocked of they added it to DF when dragon riding is both upgradable and clearly so, so much better than the old system.
They might. It's something to think about, but hard to evaluate until we get our hands on it. My immediate concern would be some zones in Wrath like Icecrown and Storm Peaks, where they kind of went ham with the verticality because flying = swimming. Depends on the kinds of abilities you unlock in the future, I guess.
Also they'd need to put in like the custom animations for things like barrel rolls.
So yeah probably not. They might allow the dragonriding system in old content with the Dragonflight mounts, but it seems like a crazy amount of work to try and backport it to others.
Yeah I was gonna say, the animation structure seems like a lot of work
I'm not saying they'd be unwilling to do it if Dragonriding is a big hit, but it's almost certainly something that is of a scale to not be a mid-patch feature, probably requires an expansion workload
Not that I don't want the opportunity to do a barrel roll with a ghost horse
I feel like at a certain point in every expansion, you've squeezed most of the juice from the stone in terms of fun, and now the emphasis is on efficiency. You're not playing to have fun anymore, you're playing to do a job (dailies, rep grind, etc etc). So, folks want to be in and our ASAP, not to be engaged when they are doing something like flying across the continent to where the next set of world quests is.
I'm not even saying whether it's good or bad that WoW turns into a mindless grind on a regular basis, more just pointing at the pattern of behavior.
Basically, I hope that dragonriding is fun and engaging for when I want to be engaged, but I also hope that it doesn't replace regular flying for when I want to do low-brainpower, zone-out play. How am I supposed to alt-tab and shitpost on forums if I'm constantly engaged in the game?!
Flying totally ruined this game and Id be shocked of they added it to DF when dragon riding is both upgradable and clearly so, so much better than the old system.
Flying did not ruin the game. Blizzard’s inability to creatively design around it did. Flying was quite good in TBC with lots of fun little places to go and find once you unlocked flying. Places like Ogri’la that were literally only accessible by flying. The netherwing island stuff.
But Blizz started seeing flying as the enemy, shortcutting their content, rather than embracing it and designing the world, quests, and content with flying in mind. It’s their own fault that flying made max level too quick and easy. Players want to go fast. That's a universal truth. Blizzard decided to bury their heads in the sand and blame flying. But flying isn't the problem. The problem is that they stopped designing content for flying.
The problem is that scenic vistas and those "long way 'round the barn" flight paths and things annoyed players. Long before flying was introduced, players were already in revolt against slow, inefficient flight paths. It's just human nature to want to go fast. To not want to have your time wasted.
The sights are there. People can stop and enjoy them if they want to. But forcing the players to stop and enjoy them hundreds of times. That's bad design.
Flying absolutely did not ruin the game. Lack of understanding of basic player psychology did.
Posts
I'm in!
Dracthyr has a zillion customization options. Five different tabs of them, two of them related to clothing. Dracthyr also has no gender selector. You pick between two body types: Body 1 is masc, Body 2 is femme.
Evoker is an ADVANCED class: when you choose it, you get confirmation dialog like you do when you delete a purple, except instead of "DELETE", you have to type "ADVANCED". Apparently, advanced classes miss out on the tutorial.
BRB in 6 to 8 hours after I'm done with the Character Creator. <.<
Wowhead datamined the Alpha and The Hunt is in.
Best talent trees ever.
I don't really have the brain for poring over trees and scrutinizing which talents are the best and which optimized route to take to get there. That's why the current talent scheme works for me: just a handful of discrete best-of-three choices, without lock-outs or prerequisites. I understand that this is boring for plenty of people, and for people like me there will always be online guides that show you the "correct" talents to take anyway, so I'll be fine.
Some trees have more chaff than others (looking at you hunter) but in most cases you seem to be able to substantially recreate the kits classes have now
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Yeah until they balance it which they absolutely have to, you are currently getting cheat death as outlaw because you gotta get shadow Dance. The ambush setup with shadowdance for outlaw is absurdly broken in the current trees
https://www.wowhead.com/news/dragonflight-talent-feedback-future-plans-for-core-and-unholy-death-knight-trees-327744
This is a big philosophy shift if they can deliver on it. Someone has been researching final fantasy 14.
Druid flight is same as normal + gathering and mounting midair
Dragonflight is way faster than normal flight (from videos it looks like it's faster than taxi flights even, just visually i would say it's at least twice regular flight speed once it's at full speed) at cost of the player have to actually do gameplay mechanics to achieve and maintain that speed
In terms of travel time, yes, thanks to direct paths, but in terms of actual ingame movement speed, many flight paths have large sections where they go significantly faster.
This. I'm talking about actual speed of movement. Taxis going in circles before landing, taking non linear "pretty" paths, and going from A to B when what you really want is C (that's sort of but not really near A) to D (that's sort of but not really near B ) is not what I'm talking about.
I'd like to see some actual testing on that, but right now I'm skeptical.
I forget which video it was that I watched last night after work (I watched like 10), but one of the videos was talking about the time comparison of how long it takes to fly from the top of Mount Hyjal to some super distant location. I think it was Silithus maybe(?). Anyway, they said it took over 6 minutes on a regular 310% flying mount, and it took a little over 3 minutes with the Drakthyr racial version of dragonriding.
No race/class restrictions when
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
Well when am I supposed to take a leak then while flying to some far off place to do the next quest
Going AFK or when spouse's or whatever need to go on follow or something will be annoying as well. Not the end of the world, but an item on the negative side for me.
Hopefully the fun part on the positive side more than makes up for it.
In Tali's video he touches on a lot of that. You give up a bit of convenience for a lot more speed and dynamic gameplay. It's a tradeoff. Do you want to travel a really far distance in a short amount of time? Dragonriding is your option. Are you out on a leisurely herbalism jaunt? Normal flying might be your answer.
They’re loosening up some already. For example, Tauren rogues will finally be a thing in 10.0. Other stuff takes more development. Druid forms obviously, but even stuff like paladin steeds.
In Ion's interview, he says that Dragonriding will eventually become as convenient as flying by middle of the expansion. I'm hoping that means it has unlocks and/or gained abilities to make it better that you acquire as you level.
Dragonriding at the start is... not better than flying. It's barely better than ground riding, maybe. If you're not already at a point that's higher than where you want to end up, then it's very easy to end up in a low energy state in which you don't move forward and can't gain altitude. Then... you have to land and run to regenerate energy to take off again except because you dragonrode to get there, you're probably over a giant camp of gnolls or something and not a road.
I find that unless I know where I'm going or it's very obvious I'm going downhill, that I dragonride over roads so that when I inevitably run out of dragonriding energy, I have a safe place to land.
But yeah, it’ll be fun for flying to be kinda actual gameplay
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
I mean it makes sense for my winged mounts to need to do that.
Makes no sense for my helicopter or magical jellyfish.
So yeah probably not. They might allow the dragonriding system in old content with the Dragonflight mounts, but it seems like a crazy amount of work to try and backport it to others.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
I'm not saying they'd be unwilling to do it if Dragonriding is a big hit, but it's almost certainly something that is of a scale to not be a mid-patch feature, probably requires an expansion workload
Not that I don't want the opportunity to do a barrel roll with a ghost horse
I'm not even saying whether it's good or bad that WoW turns into a mindless grind on a regular basis, more just pointing at the pattern of behavior.
Basically, I hope that dragonriding is fun and engaging for when I want to be engaged, but I also hope that it doesn't replace regular flying for when I want to do low-brainpower, zone-out play. How am I supposed to alt-tab and shitpost on forums if I'm constantly engaged in the game?!
Flying did not ruin the game. Blizzard’s inability to creatively design around it did. Flying was quite good in TBC with lots of fun little places to go and find once you unlocked flying. Places like Ogri’la that were literally only accessible by flying. The netherwing island stuff.
But Blizz started seeing flying as the enemy, shortcutting their content, rather than embracing it and designing the world, quests, and content with flying in mind. It’s their own fault that flying made max level too quick and easy. Players want to go fast. That's a universal truth. Blizzard decided to bury their heads in the sand and blame flying. But flying isn't the problem. The problem is that they stopped designing content for flying.
The problem is that scenic vistas and those "long way 'round the barn" flight paths and things annoyed players. Long before flying was introduced, players were already in revolt against slow, inefficient flight paths. It's just human nature to want to go fast. To not want to have your time wasted.
The sights are there. People can stop and enjoy them if they want to. But forcing the players to stop and enjoy them hundreds of times. That's bad design.
Flying absolutely did not ruin the game. Lack of understanding of basic player psychology did.