This Week’s Warcraft News Has People Worried

[@BellularGaming]

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[@icEE2603]

if you dont do illegal things and live in europe you dont need a VPN, we have DSGVO

[@erlking5868]

With the raidbuff I see a little issue with the WOW community. I see it already. /lfm raid 20 stacks minimum.

[@CptSauce]

Tanks enjoyed Legion and so did the rest of the player base. Wonder why.

[@yrden99]

Story was great, class weapons system was great, raids were great, dungeons were great. Legion was hands down thé best xpack ever created and I still level my toons on legion.

[@heliosgnosis2744]

And your thoughts or anyone else on Shadowlands?? ....... is my thoughts on that expansion lol

[@sabindinca9007]

@@heliosgnosis2744 I play since early TBC...Wotlk @ Legion best ones hands down....Shadowlands had a somewhat interesting story (but bloated and long and boring in the end)....good class design ...somewhat...multiple choices ....but a TON of bloated content....like...let's say WotLK...grind for ages the Ice Giants rep....you get a shoulder enchant that is BiS .....look @ SL.....endless class hall grind for what?a toy???.....yeah...right...

[@sabindinca9007]

@@yrden99 same here....still messing around with legion....

[@OhNoTheFace]

It was braindead, that is why you liked it :)

[@i.j.dragonfly3123]

How the heck did they anger the PvEers, the PvPers, and the lore nerds in one week? I'm almost impressed

[@xGoodOldSmurfehx]

That is actually rather impressive lol

[@TheArtkaw]

To be fair, WoW players are always angry at something.

[@Leeloo-Foxx]

@@TheArtkaw true. wow players asked for a way to get old trading card mounts without needing to pay 500 bucks on ebay, so blizz finally added it, and then wow players bitched that they got what they asked for

[@Blundabus1337]

As someone who plays a tank 99% of the time, the thing that kills anyone's drive to play a tank is how the community treats us. Pull too slow? omg bad tank. Pull to fast? Wipe, omg bad tank. Making tanks rely on healers more... yeah, enjoy having even less tanks.

[@mercy5379]

well and me as a healer, got already enough to do. a dd who miss a mechanic here, something to dispell there, dodge a mechanic myself, decide between tanking something to finish my cast or cancel cast and move, and run after teammates who ran out of casting range. i liked tanks who can care about them self, and only need some shielding or burst heal on certain mechanics. or a emergency heal if they failed something (as all people do)

[@sweetwater8281]

it's fewer btw, not less

[@soundguydon]

There are two classes I try never to piss off: Healers and Tanks lol.. I mean - I'm of the mindset of doing a more careful / slow run, but by the same token I know a huge part of the playerbase *wants* a fast run. I just want all classes to be needed for their special abilities again, rather than just "go go go," ya know?

[@Blundabus1337]

@@soundguydon Those are roles not classes.

[@soundguydon]

@@Blundabus1337 Ok? Thanks for the correction.

[@zimti7390]

Given how things are being retconned all the time it's getting hard to care anymore

[@MrCarlWax]

Unless I've witnessed the opposite, I don't mind retcons. Getting new evidence that changes what we know of history irl isn't a retcon. That's how I see it.

[@kellywilson137]

@@MrCarlWax Thats fine. But the Jailor as an entity made me hate everything about the Warcraft story. Sargeras? Jailor, Silvanas? Jailor, Dreadlords? Jailor again. Arthas? Also Jailor. And he wasn't even cool looking. Felt like shit. Just my opinion.

[@tommenno]

@@MrCarlWax But we have seen that. We've have them not even know their own lore. They've made fun of the fact they don't know their own lore *in the damned game.*

[@Aldossar8]

​@@MrCarlWaxwriters can write any story change in a way that isn't technically a retcon but that does not mean that the change isn't retroactively changing the continuity of the story. Suppose the writers just told us that Varian was some sort of collective psychosis and that he never really existed. That would be a massive retcon, but they can write it to be possible within the story. It is all a matter of how much writing fuckery people can put up with.

[@robdabanks]

Stopped caring after BFA. I don't want to RP in the world anymore, but I don't get upset by the stupidity of lore anymore. Just the laziness of story telling.

[@PziCrow]

Humans have been telling stories, for as long as we have had language. If people are not interested in the story, it's because it is bad, not because they don't like stories. It is a HUGE part of being human.

[@joshk9573]

Been gaming for 15+ years have never cared for any story in Any game ive played only cared for the multiplayer. Started playing wow in bfa and for the past couple years have consistently been ce/ .01 m+. Would prefer wow to not have any questing or gearing. Really only want to log in and key or raid. Have friends that feel the same that I do about storys in gaming as well. We are only into games for multiplayer

[@witcherpie]

nah mate, most ppl simply don't care about story, this is obvious from the fact that the biggest games in the world like gta exist, the massive action centric movie franchises that offer no real story either etc etc. Most people simply don't care, sadly, but that's the truth

[@PziCrow]

You're still playing the game for story. It might not be the games story, but you are creating your own story, by playing the game. The same with you living your life. You are creating your lifes story, by living.

[@Dhalin]

There's too many people who can't look past raiding and M+ to actually notice there's a story, and what story the game did have was so corny and bad, and the delivery method -- a couple cutscenes ehre and there -- was also terrible. A big wall that you can just skip by hitting the accept or turn in buttons is not gonna give you a compelling story. Never has, never will. That is why games like FFXIV blew WoW out of the water in storytelling, despite WoW having this long and complex backstory built up from WC1 into WC2 into WC3 and finally WoW, but they never were particularly good at actually delivering the story. There were some high points, but a huge part of it was locked behind raids, and most raiders didn't care about the story they just wanted their epeen equipment to show off. Meanwhile, many of the people who DID want the story, were more casual players who didn't care about raiding. They were trying to sell the wrong thing to the wrong person. FFXIV gets around this problem by making most epic fights such that most people can clear it, and they have optional challenge modes for the people who want that kind of thing, and they never lock important story bits behind hard content. The entirety of the main story can be done with the matchmaking system by most people. If you think it's too easy or boring, then go do the optional hardmodes. That's what they're there for.

[@SirBuljo]

@@witcherpie gta didnt provide good stories? okay. Guess i am not as story centric as i thought back when i played liberty city and onwards.

[@conifercrow]

The other thing is that players who like story have likely migrated on to other games because we weren't given any in a satisfying way for so long that we looked elsewhere to find it. So Blizz's data is skewed by survivor bias -- the people not driven away by the lack of story are being polled/datamined to see *if they like story*. Of COURSE the resulting data is going to say that players want less of it. The only players left are ones that don't want it.

[@havtor007]

Yeah I have given up on wow lore because blizzard has Fed it so much and so often that i can not care at all

[@drudle]

I like story. But I also know what I'm getting with Blizzard and enjoy it for what it is.

[@lefish5277]

I LOVED wow’s story with my whole heart but because I’m not good at stupid raids and always get yelled at in chat by players if I’m not up to snuff or don’t do enough DPS, it made me not want to play or run into other people. If my husband hit level 100 and I was level 15 because we started at different times, we could never play together. It was so frustrating. I now pay $15 a month for Fallout 76 instead, because I can play with my husband no matter how large our level gap. And I haven’t run into a single player that was a higher level than me who didn’t stop to give me Purified Water, Stimpaks, ammo, etc. The story is always compelling, and even when there isn’t a quest line I will find stories laid out for me in the remnants of the lives destroyed by the bombs and the settlements that came after. And I’ve only had like two fetch quests in F76, unlike WoW which is every other freaking quest

[@Vahron]

This is actually one of the main reasons why I left WoW, AND the biggest reason why I'll probably never come back. The entire story that was delivered after Legion varies from "barely okay-ish" to "dumpster fire" levels of garbage, all of it, and I have zero trust that The War Within could turn things around. You can't save WoW's lore at this point, it's too much of a mess, and too many people having worked on it have showed clear evidence they don't care. So why should I?

[@Boris8930]

Well I like doing story content in wow. I am also an open world player.

[@Laxew]

I love stories in WoW, the problem is how they are told. Either you have whole blocks of text to read (boring), or some NPC says something while you are walking and you have to do some task and you don't have time to read or listen. And the worst thing is telling the story during the raid... who can keep up with it. It's good that there are still YT channels like Nobbel that describe what's really going on

[@AlexSaheli]

Good point: people could be skipping story cuz the story delivery/quality might not be that good

[@voxaire]

I skip the story because it could be a masterpiece storyline and I flat out do not care. I don't play wow to quest, I play it to raid and do keys and anything else with friends.

[@arnoldnemeth8578]

@@voxaireyou are weird as fuck, but you have every right to do so.

[@richardsmall5265]

@@voxaire 100% this. I love good stories and worlds, Disco Elysium has to be my favorite game. But I have absolutely no interest in the story of wow, and I doubt theres really anything they can do to change it. I'll do the story quests and side quests for leveling/achievements, but I'm going to have music/podcast/videos going on in my other monitor the whole time

[@minecraftys]

Man wow demographic has changed fair bit since I joined back in 2012. Story used to best parts of wow till they ran head long into the ground since legion. Half fun of a mmo world is the story boys.

[@RandoCDN87]

​@voxaire thank God you don't play FF14. Maybe punish yourself instead like a game such as League of Legends instead 😂

[@sazi]

RE: Story, very well said. It's a tough pill for many of them to swallow no doubt, but it's not that players don't like story, they just haven't been great at telling it. As for Chronicle, they need to apologize, invalidate what was written and issue refunds. So unprofessional. So sloppy. So offensive to people who give them their time and money.

[@christopherdaffron8115]

Personally, I like the story quests. Some are better than others for sure. My only issue with them was that I had to repeat the same story quests for each of my alts. If warbands take that issue away, then I'm good.

[@jmax.webdesign9588]

Does it? I would like to know because I got lot of alts 😅

[@birdcamhighlights5414]

It should according to what they’ve said

[@MrCarlWax]

​@@jmax.webdesign9588Yes quests will tell you if your Warband has already done it. You dont even get rewards for doing it again and you can also hide quest markers you've already done on alts.

[@Djynni]

It's pretty sad that the developers don't have something as basic as a "cannon" timeline for each expansion. I mean what is the point of writing this book when it's wrong?

[@DrewPicklesTheDark]

Honestly I think the world should be completely overhauled in to a new evergreen state that everyone shares. Cata's fires have surely been put out by now, the Iron Horde is gone, a bridge likely would have been built between the northern and southern Barrens, etc. I could go on. Redo the zones, make their quests ones that could be in any time period (Collect local boar asses, slay the local bandit boss, etc.). Yeah it's not extravagant, but it makes more sense than ping-ponging between timelines and other players in your party being phased 50% of the time. If people want to do former expansion stories that have passed, they can talk to Chromie and phase in to that.

[@readifdumb]

@@DrewPicklesTheDarkChromie basically solves any issues this could cause, so I don’t see why not. I honestly love the Eastern Kingdoms, and it’s pretty shit to see it’s still in a Cataclysmic state.

[@NiekVL]

@@DrewPicklesTheDark To recreate everything for present day is never going to happen. You would need a thousand extra developers. How is that a good way to use resources?

[@yeahitsmesofkinwhat]

@@DrewPicklesTheDark GIVE MANKRIK's WIFE A STATUE.

[@DrewPicklesTheDark]

@@NiekVL People said the same about what would become Cata when the dev team was smaller, so I don't buy that argument at all. The waste of resources is a much better argument though. It does beg the question however, where is the line between leaving content old, irrelevant, and unfriendly to new players in favor of new annual content that will become irrelevant in a couple years, and a game that better utilizes it's whole spectrum of content it created? At what point does it became a bad thing? I'm not sure if you have tried leveling a new character cleanly (without BoA perks) but there is a reason new players are rarer than they used to be, it's absolutely atrocious. The end game can only carry people so far, each bad expansion you bleed more people. And if you don't have enough new ones coming in, it's not a good path to be on, even if WoW has luxury of a massive playerbase to afford that more than other games, the path only leads one place.

[@netrimo589]

The biggest issue I have with wow to this day is their obsession with controlling cadence and preventing content binging. I absolutely hate being trickle-fed story like I'm somehow going to choke and die if I gobble it up too fast. I feel like a toddler and blizzard is my mom cutting up tiny pieces of god knows what and feeding it to me making choo choo noises.

[@Iluvantir]

Amen. Couldn't have said it better myself. Used to love old WoW when I found an interesting story arc in a particular zone - I'd blitz my way through it, reading everything, getting right into it. Then after I'd poodle around and do "all the rest of the stuff" in that zone more leisurely. Now, I hit brick wall after brick wall, then have to wait for months to get a resolution. Drip feeding a game, not what I want. All should be there from the off, and let the players progress it at THEIR pace. If Bliz fears there's not enough there surrounding the story to keep people interested, then that's their fault for not HAVING enough there.

[@ianwestc]

They keep the drip drip of content going so that you'll stay subscribed, they absolutely hated that people would do a whole bunch of stuff at once and then unsubscribe for a long period of time. You can still do that of course, but only by subscribing towards the end of the expansion than at the start

[@Gunshow0]

@@ianwestc hence why idgaf about raids etc and gear - ill sub midway or so through an xpac and do that exactly lol

It's all about milking you of your hard earned. Simple as that now at Blizzard... They've been terrible for years now... I'd even say over a decade. It's not about quality anymore. Just grubbing your cash... NEVER doubt it...

[@nicknic28292490]

I tend to lose interest in the story after the initial pack of content that is doable at launch.

[@EmileVinesh]

WoW lore was one of the best things about the game. But as of late, the writing has been BAD and full of pointless retcons. Shadowlands especially ruined a lot of the lore that was already established. Sylvanas and Arthas's characters have been butchered, Nathrezim were suddenly created by Sire Denathrius, The Jailer that crafted Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination etc. It's all retcons that tarnished the well estalished lore and causes a lot of confusion.

[@nicolaskruger8648]

I would be happy if they just scrapped the shadowlands lore. Make a statement, say that was a mistake. rewrite.

[@karamelapple8007]

Nah Sylva is garbage she was always a boring emo mary sue.

[@vipcesh]

They need to make healing more relaxing, it’s not fun and hasn’t been for a while

[@ArshAZ83]

I guess it's true that a majority of the old playerbase, myself included, has quit this game. I remember when tanks just generated threat and had defencives, it was up to the healer to keep them alive and in raids you had 'tank healers' and 'raid healers' the tank healer (usually a paladin or disc priest) speciailising in healing single target with burst heals and the raid healer (usually a druid, holy priest or shaman) specialising in HoTs and group heals. Also DPS job wasn't to heal itself when taking damage it was to move out of fire and prioritise surviving mechanics over topping the dps meter cause it was irrelevant if you're dead and the boss doesn't go down. The game worked just fine that way.

[@itrow9526]

Good ol days.

[@UndeadMozelle]

Blood dk has been my main for a few expansions now, so I'm a little worried about the move away from tank self-sustain. Self-healing is a big part of the class fantasy; if I feel helpless and at the mercy of the healer to stay upright I just don't think it'll feel good to play.

[@codyp2808]

If a tank isn't at the mercy of a healer it's not an MMO. Do you think everyone enjoys being at the mercy of unkillable raid boss tanks who do everything by themselves and act like entitled pricks 24/7?

[@thierryfaquet7405]

I love my BDK, it’s my main alt (maining protpally). But if I can you an advice is to try another tank during the pre-patch. TWW gonna be rough for dk and pal tanks (at least S1)

[@Melissaxoxox]

@@thierryfaquet7405 try brewmaster :) It's gonna be a banger now

[@eggs9636]

@@codyp2808 no the issue with tanks requiring healing is that its hard to dictate what you can or cannot pull, dps will always want more targets when they have cds but the tanks needs to have his life in his own hands in order to properly push his limit.

[@Sigaoda2hand]

@@thierryfaquet7405 I run to warrior everytime Blizzard loses their sanity with tank tunning, it never fails me. Prot War may be not one of the best cause lack of utility and all, but it is reliable mitigation... Safe pick in dark times like that 😅

[@Marshal_Dunnik]

The one thing a tank cannot mitigate is nerfs

[@chasedogman2032]

Sure they can, they swap to VDH and avoid all nerfs

[@Hackurai_Gaming]

That's a joke right? VDH just dances, and leaps away from nerfs. Who needs avoidance when you fly around and also have death saves.

[@coreyl33tist72]

@@chasedogman2032oh really? You playing it in tww?

[@coreyl33tist72]

Because it’s a litteral dumpster

[@TechnoSpice]

Tanking is already so miserable, basically being so much more gearscore reliant, in addition to being required to be leaders of dungeons and fights. Blizz is just making being a tank even more miserable when soloing by doing this...

[@Aaron-zl5gq]

I got a feeling tanks and healers are going to be even more scarce in this next expansion, and we’re going into yet another expansion where you don’t get enough experience playing through just the campaign, doing this shit in shadowlands was a big mistake

[@thedragonknight3600]

You’ve hit it on the damn head. People don’t hate wow’s story because they don’t like story. They don’t like the story because they’ve been getting SHIT for years without regard or effort! It’s like American tourists eating only McDonald’s and Wendy’s. It’s because they’ve resolved that they’re not gonna like anything so why even bother trying? When, if they actually have a damn and tried something, they’d love it! Wow has been people’s McDonald’s for forever, and then they jacked up the price and shrunk the burger size. They don’t need to make it so people need to do less story they need to make it so there’s more GOOD story! Even if it’s campy and goofy, if you give it your all then you can at least feel the love!! The LESS story we get the more people will just leave. I don’t want 14 hour stories with 39 hours of side quests. But damn it let me get invested in characters and their personal journeys!!!

[@Eustres]

I agree somewhat, the story direction and how it went was shit and without regard (I agree with this sentiment) but i don't think it was without effort, there was effort put by every designer and that doesn't necessarily translate to a good story. From your POV if they didn't accomplish it (a good story) then they didn't try. People can put a lot of effort into things and people won't be able to see it, they can only imagine that if it fits their own bias/expectations/emotions, if not then they can detach from it. Because humans don't have omnipotence or the capacity to experience others experiences or emotions. We can only guess. We don't know if more people will leave with less story, its a guess, i don't really think Dragonflight was that impactful storywise (opinion) but it seems it had good numbers.

[@carliemorgan1871]

im fine with the story, except for this xpac.. this one sucked

[@blindfire3167]

I mean you're not wrong, but if I go to England, I'm not eating their food lmfao. "OI BRUV SAULT BEYA SEAS'NIN INNIT?!"

[@Prawnsly]

@@blindfire3167 There's loads of wonderful food to be had in England! It's just that none of it is Englsih food :) thank god for European immigrants

[@drudle]

Gotta say, having been in Japan (and the world over) quite a bit, locals of other countries LOOOOOVE McDonald's and Wendy's. And Pizza Hut. They were VIBING on Pizza Hut in Warsaw. This isn't a uniquely American thing. And also as someone who goes to other countries primarily for their food (and coffee), I also love myself trying the local varieties of McDonald's, too. You can have both.

[@Rusvul]

Ironically there's a bug on the beta right now where if you level too quickly you get locked out of the MSQ. The bug is that you cannot queue for a scenario dungeon if you're above level 75, but to progress the main story you have to do the scenario. This bug has been in the last 2-3 beta builds too, so the fear of Blizz making big changes and not working out problems before release seems like a real concern.

[@Melethrion]

seems like a real concern 😂

[@wight4991]

Pretty sure that if the MSQ demands you to clear a scenario dungeon, but said dungeon won't let you in if you have leveled to far (inside an MMO in which you can gain levels outside of MSQ). Then yeah, this looks like a big ass giant bug to me ngl

[@JohnnyMaverik]

@@wight4991 I get what you are saying but technically it's not a bug. The code is working as intended but the intention makes no logical sense.

[@wight4991]

@@JohnnyMaverik they could just do, what they always do and just steal the level snycro function for MSQ and dungeons/scenarios from FF14?

[@JohnnyMaverik]

@@wight4991 Probably will at some point in the future.

[@Eckythump]

The crazy thing is, the healing problem is proving to be a cyclical one. I remember AGES ago, an interview about healing. The developers said they looked to the Illidan fight in BT as an inspiration. A lot of constant danage, requiring healers to triage who gets healed. No spike insta-kill damage - but healers having to make constant decisions. NOW, we're back here again after how many years?

[@amartian2]

There should be a variety of damage profiles in the game. Dragon Flight was consistently high rot + one shots. Most healing specs could handle one or the other, but not both, unless played by an upper-mid to high skilled player, until late in each season. Too many casting mobs. Anything that absolutely needed to be kicked was nerfed to be unkickable. Part of the skill expression for tanks is knowing what to group. For DPS it's largely knowing what to kick or CC and when to use your DR. For healers it's compensating for what the group misses.

[@skylarius3757]

back then wasn't it possible to drop combat and drink to refill mana?

[@yeahitsmesofkinwhat]

Seems like we're getting closer and closer to WotLK healing. That's when it was perfect imo.

[@isometricandy3466]

Nord VPN voluntarily complies with subpoenas for your information.

[@sindicta5757]

Let bro get his bag, nobody with a brain thinks a vpn that's heavily pushed by youtubers is a good choice.

[@guscunnilin]

Maybe if people stopped buying their product they'd stop doing it

[@arthas5270]

VPNs are a scam. Anyone in IT knows it.

[@MoodersInit]

​@@sindicta5757 dude is just informing people who might not know

[@unbidabyss2903]

This individual probably doesn’t care about that, good luck on that one homie

[@tipep]

Your comment on the blood nerfs is just wrong. Some datamined unintended nerfs were reverted, but they had nothing to do with the announced tank changes and were quite minor. The big nerfs (especially to the Death Strike mechanic) are still going strong and might ruin Blood DK as a whole (from a class engagement aspect).

[@MrCarlWax]

San'layn vampiric strike says otherwise

[@kalasmournrex1470]

I’ve tested it, blood dk still has the best sustain of all tanks, and I’ll still be maining it. The death strike change is not as big as everyone thinks it is. Also, bone storm finally triggers drw cdr, so we will have way more drw up time.

[@tipep]

@@kalasmournrex1470 The Bone Storm part is huge if true, I'll give you that.

[@mothman84]

R.I.P. Group Finder.

[@Luxorcist]

I want Tanking/Healing to go back to what it was in Wrath. Maybe not exactly, but the dynamic was good. A good tank could easily carry a group even if the healer was lacking and vise versa. This idea that a tank can heal as much as dedicated healer is dumb imo and was better when tanks mitigated/avoided damage rather than healing through it.

[@oteris2924]

I have one great regret in life. Never becoming a writer/lore person for Blizzard. If I knew they were gonna become this incompetent, I would have atleast tried. Shadowlands was such a disappointment because even I could have crafted a better Warcraft story with the pieces already there.

[@moscanaveia]

Bellullar took me way back to 2019 when I realised that every little thing we do in the Horde war campaign is Uno reverse card'd without our knowledge on Siege of Dazar'alor

[@shaneplaysvidya]

It is too close to xpac time to make these changes, and you are right to say they don't have time to test this properly. We already know that Blizz don't really test their game though.. The whole "Do these people even play their game" thing is very real. Solid example? Look at how the shade of eranikus launched in SoD. If the best groups in the world were struggling with this, do you really think a team at blizz ever bothered to play through the fight at all in testing?

[@Fuzzatron3000]

The "you can't give a book patch notes and just update it" made me laugh out loud. Games Workshop and Wizards of the Coast (D&D) do this every 6months-1year. Its quite crazy how much money they make by these "mistakes" and rectified books. Anything in-between is uploaded as an amendment online

[@RyanofAndor]

Exactly. WotC is especially bad about this.

[@Toxichobbit.]

I don't know about WoTC, but GW don't make any money with "rectified books". They release a book, it's immediately wrong and has an errata, which is crap. But the errata is online in a PDF you can download. It's not in a book of erratas that they sell, nor is it in a second edition of the book with all the mistakes of the original printing fixed. They just keep printing the same flawed original book until it goes out of print.

[@Fuzzatron3000]

@@Toxichobbit. Yeah but new codex come out all the time

[@intzbk1]

@@Fuzzatron3000 GW has a new release every three years so every army gets a new book within that time. They should just release the army books online and call it a day. I haven't bought one in years as there are so many places to get the rules for free online.

[@youtbehandletobedetermined]

I'm probably in the minority here, but I hope this leads to dungeons feeling less like a "how fast can we blow through it" and more like they used to be where you had to CC, strategize etc.

[@DrewPicklesTheDark]

They tried that in Cata and everyone cried they couldn't zerg dungeons like they could in Wrath. I don't think the modern playerbase are looking for that sort of stuff, even though I personally think it would be good for the game (on a mechanical level, obviously on a macro level it wouldn't since so many players would hate it).

[@deenman23]

thats dogshit design,it leads in groups always being better if they have a mage and a rogue,no thanks,its better how it is now,everyone has nice flashy aoe,and you just control mobs with interupts or stuns,its way more skillful than sheep a mob and forget about it,you got classic for that....well....ironicaly in classic its still not needed lol

[@Eckythump]

@@DrewPicklesTheDark Drew is right. They did this in Cata and people quit. People 'say' they want slower dungeons and CC back, but the statistics showed the majority didn't. Personally, I liked it - a lot and would like its return.

[@Paranitis]

@@deenman23 I am gonna "well ackshully" you on this one, since there are way more people now that have CCs available. Yes, you got the Mage and Rogues obviously. But you've always had Hunter Traps. Warlock Banish, Shaman Hex, and others. But yeah, I can see both sides of the argument. I personally love slower dungeons that get people to actually leave mechanics (you would hope), but we also have a lot of people who basically play everything as if it is M+, and you can't do slow in M+ and do 30 of them a day if that's the case.

[@patrykmigdalski4679]

@@Paranitis Half of the long CC only works on certain types of enemies, so no thanks.

[@Ethorgaming]

For me, the best story telling was wrath. I really felt that big enemy that even made the horde and alliance work togethere. I really missed it since.

[@cozmofox222]

Well you work together until you kill the opposite faction in ToGC and then kill each other again in the gunship fight.

[@TheMarkJoergensen]

Wrath also had the benefit of Arthas, arguably the most iconic villain in warcrafts history.

[@GothyG]

pre activision was good, from what i hear but my favourite expac was Legion why it finished the story what warcraft started

[@Nagria2112]

that was also the expac the revealed the "evil titans".... Ulduar wanted to kill the whole planet.

[@joshuagarner1654]

Legion was good

[@PunchlinePress]

I gave up on WoW’s core story when they absolutely assassinated Sylvanas as a character and replaced her with some mindless evil puppet of the most poorly written villain ever. That said, I am curious to see what has been done with them weaving threads between Retail, Remix, and SoD with crossover npcs and timelines.

[@lordrevan571]

So since WoD, gotcha.

[@networknomad5600]

@@lordrevan571 Yeah, since WoD. God I hated what they did with timey whimey shenanigans WoD and post-WoD.

[@Gunshow0]

this is whats wrong with wow - weaving threads between Retail, Remix, and SoD with crossover npcs and timelines. - wtf is that?! where the hell on any account does this make sense, Blizztard have completely stuffed their lore - nothing makes sense anymore.

[@shanegates6329]

​@@networknomad5600 it is my sincere wish that people would stop using this irritating doctor who reference when talking about other things

[@Nathreim1]

I agree people don't like the story because its been badly handled for so long people have checked out. Given a proper narrative with structure and good bad ass characters leading the way and you can get the players engaged easily.

[@josh6386]

As a healer main it feels bad watching DPS get 1shot alot and knowing there is nothing u could do about it, so i look forward to see how things develop.

[@thatepicwizardguy]

Yeah I think we're gonna have a rough path before all the pieces come together but theyre clearly trying to move the game away from that 1-2 pieces at a time. Hopefully it happens sooner rather than later

[@Zalagar619]

Yeah well hopefully they can get the tuning right, because as of now on the beta DPS are still getting one shot like crazy, hell even the tanks sometimes.

[@ihatetofu4207]

I am entirely on board with this, its wild despite how much healing we have in our kits atm.. How little agency we have over if a group lives or dies.

[@belinus7180]

They really do botch the numbers sometimes with assumptions. I remember ahead of Wrath when they announced the 10/25 man format to all raids. They said the decision was based on the fact that, at the end of the expansion, Karazhan was the raid that saw the most eyeballs and they attributed that to it being 10 man. It wasn't because Karazhan was a cool raid that was very engaging or anything. No, it was just that it was 10 man.

[@Khaltazar]

Tanks don't need to be the near indestructible people in a group, they should only take damage from the squishy members.

[@guillaumep7660]

Why would they screw with BFA? The story was actually pretty tight, almost clockwork. There's KZbin videos that put all the events and cut-scenes in order, and it flows fine.

[@pepepicapinto543]

Blood DK nerfs are absolutely brutal. If they don't revert the Death Strike nerf, the class is absolutely over And besides, there are already so few tanks ever queuing, with these nerfs and change in philosophy I fear there are going to be even fewer...

[@MrCarlWax]

Have you read the San'Layn hero talent?

[@williamanderson6006]

screw them im done tanking hell im done playing

[@ExplorationRandomDestination]

Tanks have been stupidly strong for to long. Bring it back to when tanks where tanks not out dosing dps and out healing healers while pulling 30 mobs surving and killing everything while everyone else dies

[@Zalagar619]

Saying that without playing it is nonsense. I've been watching Beta play by the pros since they released the build that included the tank nerfs and blood DK are in a great spot, possibly the best tank atm. Most are saying it might even be a net buff overall when accounting all the changes. So far Blood DK, Guardian Druid, and Brewmaster Monk are looking great. Prot pally is the only tank that is actually nerfed to far, to the point when they run out of CD's, they simply die.

[@jasoncustoms5272]

Not enough people playing tanks / healers? Best fix is to make the classes have to pay even more attention and ultimately make it more of a pain to do. Seems about right.

[@strugl3snugle245]

If you think tanking and healing is "a pain" just don't play the game. Challenge = fun. Easy = Bored in a week.

[@GltchyMod]

@@strugl3snugle245 youre correct. i always wanted to play a tank and make a guild. so i did it. it was hard, and so that made me want it more. i did a bunch of content and had a shit ton of fun.

[@richardsmall5265]

@@strugl3snugle245 For real, there are plenty of easier classes if thats what you want, but having more challenging classes is fantastic for those of us that want it. we can have both

[@lorenzobabbage9536]

I really don't have to pay that much attention to maintain my sustained healing as a tank

[@godlygamer911]

It's a skill-based issue. If you play DPS you aren't very good and that's fine. But how are they supposed to make you better?

[@KendaricV]

The problem with Dragonflight and it's story was, for me at least, that it wasn't really interesting and well written. I did enjoy parts of it, but for the vast majority of it I was just not engaged. BfA on the other hand had me engaged in the main story arcs, the characters involved felt like actual characters rather than simply questgivers.

[@zimti7390]

Remember how a ton of QA jobs were cut years ago? No wonder the quality has gone downhill ever since 🙄

[@bluestrider2562]

Blizzard muddying their own lore doesn't inspire confidence. As for the story, I LOVE the story (well i use too), but most people I know have never followed WoW lore. I mean like 7/10 people I played with barely know anything and just follow the cinematic highlights, whereas in FF14 only like 3/10 are story skippers. I think this is Blizzards fault, not because the story has ever been absolutely terrible outside of Shadowlands, but because they have stretched themselves too thin trying to making all the broad niches good; such as Raid, M+, PvP, pet-battles, mounts, new experiences, Story...ect. They never used their own resources to capitalize on their massive success and its showing now at the cost of trying to have so many micro communities. This broad playerbase is what they have cultivated and its abundantly clear their resources are dwindling. I didn't know about the separate teams working on the different parts of the expansion. That worries me. What came to mind was CoD and Black Ops; where they took turns being good and bad. Or the latest Star Wars trilogy where they all had different teams that ultimately led to messy overall direction. If they can't even keep their own lore straight, how can we trust them to have different teams keep their developing continuity? Here's to hoping that it ends up being like the early Marvel movies leading up to the Thanos.

[@serendip1tyz]

ff14 shoves the story down your throat

[@bluestrider2562]

@@serendip1tyz not disagreeing, but 14 had always been narrative driven. They have cultivated that into their community.

[@ArchangelGavriel]

It would seem to me that for a very long time now, Blizzard has put far less emphasis on making good content and more on making just content. Quantity is more profitable than quality. And that is where they are losing. People remember the quality and being shifted to quantity is losing their player base. I hadnt played in over a decade and when i came back to check out the new stuff, i only see all the broken pieces. So sad. I still love WoW, but it is a shadow of what it once was. I'm not saying it is irredeemable. It will just take alot of work and time and loads of TLC.

[@Korijenkins1414]

Your criticism of Legion's story is the exact same criticism I apply to Breath of the Wild when people suck it off. If the story is so inconsequential that you can do it in any order at all and still reach the same ending, is it really good?

[@lefish5277]

King just put all my frustration into words thank you

[@mogalixir]

It can be if all the story beats are still emotionally satisfying even if dampened by being self-contained. Just because you can do it in any order does not mean it's inconsequential. Just because you can add the dry ingredients of a cake in any order doesn't make the cake unsatisfying. That being said, BotW gains a lot of flexibility in terms of gameplay by being non-linear. WoW gains nothing by letting you choose A vs B. The Legion zones all had satisfying, self-contained, endings. This is like saying a book of short stories is bad because it's not a novel. BotW does lose some potential for narrative though - the only through line is truly the memories of Zelda and the champions.

[@Quix32]

The story in breath of the wild is the adventures you go on as link. If you think it was inconsequential or bad, it probably just wasn't for you (you lack imagination)

[@Sithalos]

Expecting cohesive writing from Blizzard is like expecting the new guy at Starbucks to get your name right on the cup.

[@ChinnuWoW]

I don’t think most people know how to spell “Sithalos”. It’s a very unusual name, I’ve never even heard it before. Are you from Kekistan by any chance?

[@Sithalos]

@@ChinnuWoW Nah, I'm from the US.

[@tigeryang333]

Old guys at starbucks wont get your name right either.

[@hristopavlov298]

The version where WoW ends at Legion is cannon.

[@felipearias5622]

WoW should have really ended in Legion, tho Legion should have come after a South Seas xpac where we fight Azshara instead of WoD.

[@Gunshow0]

and thats where it should have completely stopped - next, WoW2

[@BogzySama]

@@Gunshow0 Made by the same clowns, so how would wow2 be any different or better?

[@skaluv]

I still think the opportune time to introduce half-elves was BFA. The race traditionally appeared mostly in service to Kul Tiras which made the area a good place. I could have seen a neutral island that served as the starting area with the story being it was where most of the children were sent for protection. It would also have a Panderan like decision where you chose your faction after completing the starter quests. They could still do it. I think half-elven needs to be it's own race instead allied or mod because most IP that have them presents a unique set of skills coming from their source races.

[@spartanxxxx]

People who started playing WoW back in the day did so because they loved WC3. How can they not fathom that WoW players would still love story if they could just actually pay people to come up with interesting stories instead of nonsense like BFA and Shadowlands? Truly baffling.

[@summonsays2610]

Y'Shaarj - titans killed it, Pandaria C'Thun - classic, Ahn'Qiraj Yogg-Saron - Wraith, Ulduar N'Zoth - BFA, Ny'alotha, the Waking City Wasn't there supposedly another "slain" old god in darkshore back before they recon'd everything? IIRC it was something like 'That which can't be killed was slain here and waits to reawaken'?

[@Maria_Erias]

There was, yeah. And unless my memory is failing me (which is possible), I thought it was also mentioned that a fifth old god had been destroyed and/or imprisoned during the wars between the old gods during the days of the Black Empire. There's also the design of the chamber where the Sarkareth fight happens that heavily resembles Yogg-Saron's prison chamber in Ulduar.

[@shevilwow3396]

timelines or alternate things is kinda meh now. i just want the actual real events to occur and follow on to each patch/expac. its hard to keep up with everything these days and its easier to just not commit to understanding it but then whats the point

[@Gunshow0]

couldnt agree more - the whole alternate time lines fucked WoW - nothing makes sense anymore and Blizztard are pulling lore out of their ass to patch it all together so it makes any sense.

[@unknowncomic4107]

I always have faith that no matter what...Blizzard will always find a way to screw things up. They will nerf tanks again just weeks after launch. Just watch and see.

[@Sundagar]

AutomaticJak and other higher end healers have some good pointers on how raid and m+ healing can be frustrating with any damage source being near one-shots and requiring instant topping up. This leads to mainly Healers ''sniping'' damage with CD's and/or pre-casting big heals. As a healer personally I agree, I'd prefer going back towards raid encounters especially where rot damage is intense and not everyone has to be 100% hp at all times. Allows for more constant and sustained healing. That being said it's all personal preference so who knows what the majority likes/dislikes.

[@federalcheesegrater556]

The game has become way too fast nowadays. Really appreciate them wanting to slow it down. I hope that at some point, they strike a balance between classic's auto-swing timers and the retail's button mashing meta.

[@T.R.75]

meh. been saying for years that Blizz just keeps adding needless complexity to try and tell us consumers, see, new, shiny, buy. complexity doesnt equal fun. complexity does however let Blizz try to tell people that see, our game is hard, watch our game in esports, see, hard. its not, the complexity is just annoying, and makes it even harder to balance correctly. keep it simple stupid. this goes for the pvp side as well. also go back to threat for tanks. tanks shouldnt be out dpsing dps. tanks/dps shouldnt be out healing healers. its dumb. you play a specialized class for a reason, to be better at something that other classes arent. tanks eat damage, dps pew pew, healers heal. bingo bango bongo, done. the homogenization of classes is so boring.

[@DrewPicklesTheDark]

It's stupid because they remove features/abilities/systems/etc. and say "It's too complex" as the reasoning, then add in some of the most unnecessarily complex garbage there is as an expansion gimmick directly after.

[@Theparadoxd7]

"People don't like story" No I think people don't like FORCED STORY where you MUST COMPLETE THE CAMPAIGN in order to have x npc needed to progress to show up or x npc show up to buy the current loot....when you've done it twice on alts already and the npc is always at the END of the damn chain.

[@icarusgeo]

What about that "self-sustain nerf" and solo players (which are the massive majority at this point) ?

[@eggs9636]

solo players being massive majority? No shot

[@icarusgeo]

@@eggs9636 It is. The fact that they're dramatically pivoting their principles with the introduction of Warbands is another proof of it.

[@MrDoggo23]

@@eggs9636 Why do you think most Qol stuff like Warbands, new transmog unlock and account wide reputation are pushed out with the next expac? This is solo player vibes. Most MMOs have this problem nowadays.

[@eggs9636]

@@MrDoggo23 i dont think any of those things drive people towards solo play, neither of those things reduces my gameplay with other players, it just makes having alts easier. The only thing I would say is directed at solo play is delves and im hoping they are a success

[@vodazz]

​@@eggs9636 not just delves - follower dungeons, story mode raid boss fight, rewards from the Vault for solo players (related to delves), even crafting I hear is more solo friendly in TWW. As a mostly solo player myself I'm very excited for the expansion mostly for these reasons.

[@parmachkai]

as healer I love this. healing in dragon is chasing a tank half way through dungeon before getting kicked for not healing him. they need to slow the f down

[@Runic-Raven]

I mean, as a Healer i would be glad if they finally change it back to ressource management instead of: Tank 100%......... TANK SUDDENLY ON 20% *panic pressing every heal CD*

[@pvt.prinny759]

Yeah i tried healing for a while in shadowlands, it was incredibly stressful especially when tanks ran ahead like olympic athletes giving no time to breathe

[@barrelracer318]

@@pvt.prinny759 AM I that one solo odd tank that was always slowing things down making sure everyone had mana and good amounts of health? I always hated rushing through dungeons, but I dont want dungeons to become a step awasy from being slough again. I really hated when dps in pugs would just start pulling the whole room. I dont care if were not moving as fast as thou needest, on a nontimed run. I was fine letting them just eat it as the healer I ran with was cool with the pace. My main thing was making sure we were not loosing members due to negligences.

[@sgt.morrigahngaming]

@@barrelracer318 I am the same. I rather stop, let ppl get resources back so we can actually continue as a group. As long as this is not a key, we, per say, have all the time in the world to finish it. I usually check with the healer if they are ready. If a dps is playing as they stole their account, I will not pull mobs off them, but rather let them have an "oof" moment .. then we can continue. If this is a problem, the dps is always free to leave the dungeon. I've never had a healer leaving due to my way of playing like this. I'm old .. I don't have the rush and something biting my ass ... :D

[@magnus1383]

I hate that so much. Tank suddenly at 20% on a healer that does healing over time 💀

[@FroggyArtStudio]

The changes with bdk are particularly worrisome as being a self healing slow moving threat is kind of what they do

[@kalasmournrex1470]

Still are. It’s fine. I put hours into tank testing since the nerfs.

[@Sfourtytwo]

Warcraft stories are me playing the game rudely interrupted by "epic" cutscenes with "epic" music and hamfisted story. None of it feels rearned none of it feels interresting or well told and i basically start skipping that BS after the fifth cutscene. Have been a TTRPG GM and player for about 25 years.

[@graysaltine6035]

Putting a timestamp in the middle of your sponsor read is a bit weird....

[@jayjays_shed2158]

Blizzard just needs to get a think tank and a bunch of D&D masters to design a compelling story!

[@drudle]

They do have a think tank and a bunch of story writers, though.

[@jayjays_shed2158]

@drudle just lacks a compelling story.

[@mogalixir]

And now their franchise head (John Hight) is the head of D&D for Hasbro instead.

[@jayjays_shed2158]

@mogalixir is the head, but not the creator, right?

[@STARSHIPTROOP]

Dragonflight: the expansion full of one-shots The War Within:(healing more important) ???

[@EightCore]

Atm more oneshots as in dragonflight

[@gorilla30100]

Well making healing more important kind of means less one-shots, and I hope thats the design philosophy they take. If you're getting one shot, there's no need for healing because you just die. That's a big part of why you see no healer comps at very high key levels, and that's especially amplified with some of the self-healing certain classes have.

[@XiaosChannel]

i think saying they're taking away from the story is reading too much into it, since the original message was they are moving the amount of effort from main to side quests. I would argue having more side quests -- i still have to see them to tell how good they really are -- could make the game feels more like an RPG, in fact, with more player freedom and things to discover

[@XiaosChannel]

but overall story is definitely a weak point of current wow. i just dont think it's the quantity though. it's the quality of the writing that is bad.

[@1Forn61]

thats neat, WoW turned to much into a MMO only instead of being MmoRpg especially in this day and age they can do soo much which they werent really able back then.

[@ChaosEternalRE]

In my experience, the best quests are sidequests since they don't feel the need to take a bombastic, avengers-esque approach to them. Focusing less on the often one-dimensional main quest sounds like a plus to me, lol.

[@Sheriff_Bruce_Lee]

Us healers were complaining about spikey damage and twitch gameplay since I was last playing, and that was back when Thrall had a full head of hair.

[@Draevon68]

Too many players want a quick road to ez-mode. They want to see huge damage numbers, fast dungeon clears and quick access to high level gear. To hell with an actual challenge and needing skill to go along with smart play. Relax everyone. A good expansion awaits us.

[@petemagyar1445]

Their flagship endgame content is timer based, of course people want to clear it fast

[@ArshAZ83]

@@petemagyar1445 since when were mythic raids timer based?

[@Thedawntempest]

I play both WoW and FFXIV, and at this point I don't really expect great overall storytelling from WoW. I like individual area stories, but I play WoW when I want to run dungeons, and FFXIV when I want a good story.

[@KSL918]

I’m a healer and it never made sense to me to see tanks’ self-healing rivaling my overall healing on the charts. Nerfing their self-healing is quite welcome, imho.

[@Tyranno-Bore-Us]

Not just that but it is completely insane that (as someone who DPS/heals in pvp) that healers have such high survivability when they're being attacked by a group of players. Insane.

[@dawnhoughton4533]

That's y I quit wow. Only a dungeon raid healer, tanks out healing me, just rushing through. Didn't feel needed. Quit. Years ago.

[@BrianHuis]

I agree, but I fear for tanks that already weren't the greatest. Paladin, BDK and Vengeance will prolly be fine, but I think Bear and monk will be slammed down even harder now.

[@dracotoy]

I feel like it was fine for bdk. The whole gameplay of that class was managing runic power more than anything. We always joked with our healers that you only look at their health bar if their runic power is empty

[@edwardweaver6869]

@@Retalin_ Yeah honestly, it’s like you can’t take anything away from tanks without them crying foul. Reduce their healing “BUT MUH SOLO SKILLS!” Nerf their damage “BUT I CANT CARRY!” My guy your role is to get hit in the face and control the enemies, not be Superman.

[@nathanielnizard2163]

My dragonflight experience(from a very early player who started in r40, did some hardcore pve, even raidleaded at a point): do campaign and hit max level > unlock expeditions > go eat > never launch game back

[@ExMalakite]

I gave up on the Lore after that s***show that was Shadowlands.

[@edmundmk6416]

As someone who much prefers Classic I'm not a fan of the story quests at all. I've been playing MoP remix a little and instead of going and exploring Pandaria I'm thrown into a bunch of set pieces with explosions everywhere. Completing shield quests moves NPCs around and changes what's going on. It doesn't feel like I'm playing in a shared world with other people, and it doesn't feel like the world has an existence outside of my actions. I honestly wish more of my guild mates had stuck around in Season of Discovery!

[@jirikrkoska1755]

Honestly, every dungeon I play is - tank sprinting forward not concerning himself with anything, be it people or healer, both be damned, losing aggro, fook dat, closing themselves with boss in the arena with three people still outside... yea, changes are needed

[@thatepicwizardguy]

Yeah tanks were clearly BS. Problem here is they got a taste of being OP for like a full expansion lol its like in POE when they had harvest league and then took it away.

[@jirikrkoska1755]

@@thatepicwizardguy It kinda reminds me of Vanilla, when the rogues were absolutely OP in PvP but somehow thought they are just so good players!

[@Raven777777777777777]

That's not problem with tanks. That's problem of everyone trying to speed run everything. I played prot war since TBC expansion and many times there were dps running ahead so it's problem with players, not classes/specs but there isnt easy fix for that. Maybe if WoW didnt had subscription people wouldnt feel presured to do everything as fast as possible.

[@jirikrkoska1755]

@@Raven777777777777777 oh yeah, I remember that. I think it had to do with ppl just playing the dungeons by aoeing the heck out of everything. I think slowing the game down is not a bad idea. I mean, I prefer playing the game and not playing speedrun number goes up simulator. Which WotLK really changed for the better. And everone hated it....ooooh my :D

[@Raven777777777777777]

@@jirikrkoska1755 It's true that back then there was a lot of AOE spam. It's definetly better to play the game instead of numbers simulator. It might be what changed the game for the worst. I think it was Asmongold who said that addons shouldnt be part of the game or something like that, i dont remember exact wording anymore.

[@Whatatwist2009]

I feel with Chris being in charge of the overall story they know where major plot point A>B>C>D go in the story so the patches can be worked on together as they already know who the big bads will be in each patch and how the major plot points need to end in each patch to set up the following patch.

[@Maria_Erias]

Hopefully, working on all patches concurrently will prevent them from forgetting plot threads and story lines like they've been doing for the past few expansions now.

[@slytherben]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the historians exited around the same time as Danuser and were not "fire by Microsoft."

[@RyanofAndor]

The historians were part of the Microsoft layoffs. Danuser was let go or resigned sometime around that point.

[@slytherben]

@@RyanofAndor The Microsoft firings were January 25. Danuser and the historians were fired prior to Blizzcon in November. The way I remember it, the historians completely failed to fact check the Exploring Azeroth series and were fired

[@Candlemancer]

I saw one of the former "historians" on twitter literally today saying that it wasn't their job to make devs follow the established canon. They were laid off because their job was a waste of money and they did nothing but stroke the "writers" egos.

[@TheEregos]

They were fired in April so yeah they would have proof read this book already.

[@TheEregos]

@@slytherben Not all of them were fired, they were when Christy was not Danuser who got fired on his own.

[@Streaming_Music]

What I want is BC dungeon and raid mechanics. You want me to worry about interrupts, I'd rather focus on CC'ing mobs in ways those interrupts aren't needed.

[@tipep]

One major concern is that tanks will just feel boring to play if none if the buttons have a big impact and you're just mobile healing dummies that can't do anything to keep themselves alive. This has the potential to make the problem of finding tanks even worse.

[@adrenaline19]

M+ lower keys will be a tank wasteland for sure. Higher keys will be fine.

[@barrelracer318]

@@adrenaline19 I honestly think it will be affected at all levels. This will drive a lot more away from being tanks in general. A few tanks in the guild I am in just dropped to be dps. So we went from having seven dedicated tanks to three. And our healers arent happy about this situation either. Our dps could care less lol

[@TheFailfail]

Personally I think Blizzard's idea with nerfing tanks is good. Can it be badly implemented? Of course, I'm not gonna say there's no way this comes back to bite us all in the ass. But tank were too strong. Dungeons were basically just the tank going off on his own, being borderline unkillable while the healer and dps getting absolutely destroyed by party wide damage. Tanks got this weird main character syndrome due to how strong they've been and it's weird. I'm glad Blizz are doing something to change the party dynamics a bit. Hope it works.

[@Blazieth]

The main thing about WoW's levelup story... it is not, itself, the story. The WoW levelup story of any given expansion is _setup_ for the actual story, which happens in max-level content, raids, and patches. Nothing gets _resolved_ by the end of the levelup story; smaller issues might get wrapped up, but the actual PROBLEMS are left hanging to be resolved in the ACTUAL story content. That is where WoW and FF14 differ. FF14, the raids and story and stuff _are_ the levelup content. Then they just make higher-difficulty versions of the stuff that happen during levelup to do as max level content, or have the raids be entirely separate, self-contained stories. Doing nothing but the main levelling story in FF14 results in an end to the story. There may be loose ends to pick up on in patches, but the main story is _over._ Doing the same in WoW just gets you setup for the real story without any true resolutions.

[@-Maeola-]

I remember loving the Velen story in WoD. Definitely bought forth the feels ❤

[@AlyxSharkBite-2000]

This will cut the number of tanks for general groups (Leveling dung, lfg etc..) because they will be not as good to be leveling / daily quest type stuff. So not a many will be leveling and queuing so, its gonna make doing those dungeons suck with extra log queues.

[@lorenzobabbage9536]

I main a tank. In DF right now I'm virtually invincible and typically every DPS will die before I do. That is weird, because my job is supposed to be to survive, but actually it's the DPS dying which is the greatest risk of a wipe. Good changes.

[@mr0tom83]

I main heal. I agree. I saw tanks solo 2-4% of a Normal raid boss .. In dungeons, in a good group it feels bad because I only have to sustain heal the dps. No skill needed. In a bad group I get to 'save' ppl who are not that skilled at moving and positioning.

[@Candlemancer]

@@mr0tom83 It also feeds into why dungeons and raids have more and more unavoidable group-wide damage. It's to give healers *something* to do in a game where two competent tanks could solo every raid boss, even if it would take them all day.

[@soundguydon]

A lot of the problem in-game (IMHO) is the lack of roles for all classes. As it stands, the tank speedruns through dungeons, the healer keeps everyones health up and DPS just... DPSes... There is *currently* no need for special abilities / spells, etc. My main has always been my mage (love the class) and I remember "back in the day" when many classes were *needed.* A mage would have to sheep a mob, a hunter would have to trap another, a warlock with the ability to Soulstone / Portal, etc was needed, etc etc... These days, there's no need for a range of classes.. Just a healer, tank and shoot-em-down... I'd like all classes to be needed for their special abilities again.

[@piltonbadger9897]

I left WOW a couple of years ago, and I don't regret leaving. Healing had become a miserable experience for the most part.

[@Mindcry7181]

same I left WOW because it was just so boring so I went FFXIV never went back

[@user-hh1sf3mt9w]

Surramar story : the best story in WOW History. It was actually the closest they have come to a good single player RPG.

[@andydawg2655]

This will be one of the worst disasters in recent times for the game. They will fail biggly. Could be the death of M+ and raiding.

[@mallusdarkblade]

You make a great point, people will skip and ignore a story if its meh but will go all in when it's actually good.

[@fredrick1176]

Dragonflight, which they said would have great story, was basically just a crappy Disney show. All about love and friendship and no stakes. Wow needs to lean back in to its edging dark side and add gravitas back into the story.

[@Lancin1987]

The story isn't the problem, it's how they present it. I'm not interested in reading a wall of text each time I do a quest. Warcraft needs to get with the times and have all their quests voiced. If I could kill mobs and continue playing the game while the story is voiced to me in the background like Diablo 4, I'd enjoy it a lot more.

[@Manwu5]

Blizzard fuked up tanks again in the past.... In pvp they are unplayable and the same gonna be for pve as i see. Tragic balancing

[@wormsakyk]

Yeah, i love a nice cohesive story, some sort of MSQ. Coming back to wow before war within has been a doozy, they just dumped multiple quests starting the patches storylines with no way to tell in which order i should be doing them. Then the npcs just have dialogue option to see a cutscene of what happened in the past. Its fine if wow doesnt want to have a linear questline like FFXIV but at least give me the option to see what order the quests are chronologically

[@Maria_Erias]

The couple of times I came back to see what had happened in Dragonflight were the same way. A bunch of story quest markers with no way to tell which ones were relating to which parts of the story, or even which patches. I wound up doing later story quests before earlier ones because they're all just jumbled together, with not even a snowball's chance in hell of figuring them out without reading a Wiki.

[@Girrrrrrrr]

Oh man I haven't read the story in Wow since like...Legion. After that it's just an awful convoluted mess. I love story in games, but WoW lost the plot so long ago.

[@Maria_Erias]

I actually liked the story of 8.0 (for Alliance, at least). Seeing Jaina facing her past and coming to grips with the choices she had made and the consequences of them was actually quite nice, and showed remarkable character growth. Character growth which was then thrown out the window in Shadowlands where they turned her back into a bratty tweenager...

[@robtherelic510]

Story is, imo, the main reason why wrath is still probably the most popular expansion, that storyline resonated with the players

[@opo3628]

Seriously, when you look back on it, Wrath was ugly and uninspired AF when it came to visual assets. But the narrative and the gameplay were so good, players were more than happy to overlook the flaws.

[@snarly7346]

I hate BAD story. I play FF14. I love the story. I do the MSQ religiously. In WoW, I skip it all. It's funny how they can't look in a mirror and realize that maybe, their writing, is the problem?

[@keithb6344]

Different people like different things in games. I never cared about the WoW story. I hated the FFXIV story because it was constant cutscenes I didn’t care about. So much of the leveling is listening to people chat. It’s boring. I played most of the FF games when I was a kid. Tactics is still one of my favorite games. I can tell you 0 about any of those stories. I have no clue why Mario saved the princess, either.

[@DrewPicklesTheDark]

​@@keithb6344 Mario saves the princess because she needs saving. Short, sweet, straight to the point.

[@MrGuybrush10]

I mean in ff14 you have todo the msq once and its heavly solo focused and alot of running from npc to npc without much combat. Wow story hasnt been great of late but their is alot more todo While levelling that looks good

[@GothyG]

did you play through legion? i believe legion had good story, might be the only good expac after 2004-2009 era of story telling for wow

[@Roguemastersent]

You know how to tell if someone is a FF14 player? They tell you they are while putting down the game you enjoy playing. Different people like different things. The story in FF14 isn't that impressive.

[@vl4581]

I like it. I've been a shammy healer since day one. I hate it when the Demon hunter just runs ahead a leaves add that start ripping through the DPS. The healer has over heal them. If the tank has to stay some what close to the group it will be better.

[@Malacine]

I'm checked out from the story going forward. Legion was fine, the Order Hall for DKs was incredible, and since then it has just been a shitshow. I would really like to see Blizzard make the main plot more optional, to the point they let lore nuts play the story, and give people like me the option to just grind stuff like delves and wqs to get to max level.

[@Maria_Erias]

More options are always better, for sure. But Blizzard being Blizzard, I get the feeling that they'd put some kind of limit on alternative ways to earn xp in order to force players through these side stories. Like, only being able to do X number of delves per day, or only unlocking world quests once you hit max level on at least one character.

[@Malacine]

@@Maria_Erias you are probably right on that. It's a want for me, but they've been having us do the story for years, and unfortunately I don't see them implementing a Diablo style of approach to leveling.

[@TheRabidSniper]

Re: Maria's interview. Thank you SO MUCH for being willing to use your experience as a developer and thoughtful and designer to inform a strong opinion, calling them out for a bad decision, and trying to contextualize it! Please don't pull your punches! Don't be rude. But don't hold back!

[@lusalma5404]

Ironically I know fiction books that got revised and republished (not usually for the better)

[@Whatatwist2009]

The problem is they hit a point where if nothing was unchanged then they have to keep in the sweaty damage spikes or tanks would basically just be able be unkillable on bosses. So for healers to have their issues fixed tanks had to be reduced a bit so that blizz can tone down the spikes.

[@Evilshtt353]

As a tank main since vanilla, I ain't scared of no nerfs. I'll make it work, always have and always will.

[@DrewPicklesTheDark]

Imagine the meltdown if Blizzard added threat back in lol.

[@IngeE89]

I’ve been playing resto Druid since vanilla and I’m pretty excited for the changes. I greatly prefer the older expansions where healing was more about skill, which spells to use in which situation and managing your mana. I prefer that over the crazy healing-whack-a-mole combined with DPS that playing a healer class has become. Let tanks be tanks and healers be healers.

[@opo3628]

Yeah, I have to agree - I really dislike the current day’s expectation for healers to pump out a certain threshold of DPS as well, even during periods of spike damage. When I’m healing, *that’s* what I want to focus on. If I want to DPS, then dang it I will just play as one.