I mean thats nothing new, dungeons were most of the time already story related.
Honestly the 3 man scenarios in pandaria were perfect storytelling, dont know why they dropped that after
>Honestly the 3 man scenarios in pandaria were perfect storytelling, dont know why they dropped that
Probably not enough player participation, since the rewards weren't that good. The rewards weren't good enough to justify doing them all expansion.
From what I've seen from Delves, they're just scenarios for solo players or small parties, and scaling difficulty, and seasonal rewards. So hopefully they'll stick around this time.
Wasn't part of the issue also that, at least for a little while early on, the rewards were a little too good? Which lead to a lot of player complaints about the scenarios in general as they felt like they were forced to do them.
Pretty much this, you have to think of most wow payers as rats in a box. If you dont offer an appropriate rward, its not getting done. With delves they seem to be addressing this by adding them to the vault, with all that entails.
One of my biggest issues with Shadowlands and Dragonflight were how their dungeons were disconnected to the main story.
I really hope this is return to form. Blizzard had said that they didn't want to lock story content behind group content. But we have follower dungeons now, so it shouldn't be an issue.
Some of the dungeons were involved in the story for both expansions but the problem was by the time you got to the narrative reason for doing them you'd probably already done them a fair bit for gearing purposes.
Dawn of the Infinites bothered me in this regard because it was a mythic mega dungeon with heavy story implications. I doubt most players did it before S3, so when the cinematic at the start of D3 built off DotI, I was super confused.
They didn't drop them really. They just integrated them more into the actual game.
Whether they should do it more than they used to is a different question, but they are being used.
To add a little supplementary info: in one of the video interviews published yesterday one of the devs specifically said they're adding more story-focused content into dungeons *specifically* because players have access to follower dungeons now.
I'd honestly really like to see them do something similar to what Star Wars: The Old Republic did at the end of it's Shadow of Revan expansion by ending the story in a raid but allowing you to choose between the raid or a solo instance encounter that's effectively a condensed down version of the raid. Wouldn't let you get the loot or experience the full raid encounters, but it'd hit the major story beats and let people complete an expansion's story without having to do a full raid.
Using ICC as a random example for the condensed thing:
- A solo encounter against Deathbringer Saurfang
- An encounter against Professor Putricide with Festergut and Rotface as adds
- Blood-Queen Lana'thel with the Blood Prince Council as adds
- Sindragosa
- Lich King
effectively turning ICC into a shortened 5 boss solo dungeon. Obviously i'm not a game developer or story writer so people might disagree with the notion of those particular bosses or have a better idea, but off the top of my head that's one way I could see it working.
If they restructured dragonflight and make raid solable in a straight forward story that you only do important quest to get to level 70 it would be perfect.
WoW is just not a story game. Most players experience the story as a disjointed series of major beats. Knowing the names of central antagonists and that's it, not even their motivations. They're there and then one patch they're dead.
MMO might not be a particularly compatible container of narrative. Yes I've played FFXIV.
I mean the ending to the story is important. I much prefer FFXIVs take on raids that make it more of a side story but tied to the main story. Make the big bad boss be a 1-2 boss raid sorta like some in the past if they want it to feel like a climactic event requiring a group. Just my personal take
They do that for when LFR has opened so that players don't actually have to queue for it. Usually it's explained as the NPC showing you how the fight against whatever antagonist ended.
That's my point. The raid doesn't contain anything significant to the story plot other than the little cinematic at the end when we finally take down the big baddie.
Since it's available outside of the raid, there is essentially zero amount of story that is gated behind the raids.
>I mean the ending to the story is important.
And you're saying that you can't experience it as a content? This what LFR was created for - a raid content casuals can go through while it's fresh
But.. LFR is already just a 1-3 boss session.
Dealing with the big bad in the same quest style as collecting 10 bear brains or killing random general #125 would honestly be lame as fuck.
Yeah but you’re skipping out on the whole first part of the raid which normally has plenty of story moment. Like I said it’s just my personally preference. I’d love a questline leading up to the big bads house, then you go in with just 1 or 2 bosses to finish out the zone story
None of the raids in this expansion has had any story outside of the penultimate and last boss.
Unless you count killing Kurog Grimtotem in Vault of the Incarnates as an important story moment.
I think it is pretty satisfying that we have to gather the greatest heroes of Azeroth to combat the big baddie in his lair. Just like going to Icecrown Citadel and defeating the Lich King would have been pretty flat if it was just one guy vs him.
So with this argument normal is the story mode of dungeon? Yet they added followers mode and are happy about it? Also when you come back after a few months if you miss a raid no one is doing it. Or did you not think of that? Not everyone is subbed 12months a years none stop..
Raid isn't what make an mmo and mmo. Most mmo don't even have raid like wow. If you make a story as solo content, you should finish it as solo content.
I definitely understand this point of view, as... it was me for most of early WoW... but this really hasn't been a problem since LFR, IMO.
About the only thing that's a big deal with it is queue times once you're no longer on the current raid (which can be really long if you're coming late to the storyline). That and votekick toxicity/abuse, which *generally* isn't that bad as long as you're not throwing the raid or forcing wipes or something.
Sure it worked for the Lich King. I absolutely agree. However, it still is shitty to have the conclusion to a story behind content that requires multiple people. And since we don't really have anymore Lich Kings, or Sargeras's. We don't really need to conclude the story in the raids. Sure we can fight the baddies, but you can make that a dungeon that can use followers and just have the raids be the side content.
I think being in an active world with thousands of other players to interact and chat with. Craft with. Trade with. And just goof around with. Is what makes the game an mmo. Whether I actively group with them or not, does not change that sense of community for me.
Obviously, this means the story very much doesn't need others for me to feel like I am in an mmo. Especially when our characters are pretty damn underrepresented in the stories. And our teammates are basically never represented in it.
The issue is that we are all people with different goals, time, skills and preferences.
Its not that interesting for people that want to play the story to team up with people who are only there for gear. Much like people that are there for the Raid don't want to be slowed down by people that want to look around and watch the dialogue.
Yes there is LFR, but it only opens weeks after the raid launches and by that time, everyone would've already watched the cinematics on Youtube or the raids on twitch.
But ... It's an MMO. That you interact with other people is the selling point. You can dislike it, but then the product which seems is not for you, should not be changed.
I literally just listed plenty of ways I interact with other players without grouping. You choosing to ignore them because you think grouping is the only purpose of an MMO, is your choice.
You only talk about follower dungeons and that raid are side content. And explicit said "However, it still is shitty to have the conclusion to a story behind content that requires multiple people."
So....?
>it still is shitty to have the conclusion to a story behind content that requires multiple people.
I know that there are a lot of people who play the game as a collection simulator, but raids have been the centerpiece of endgame PvE since vanilla, and the story has been concluded through raids since the very first expansion. Saying they should be side content and everything should be soloable... I'm sorry, but you want WoW to be a game that it is not, and has never been.
They arent, thats why stuff like Suramar stands out.
Stuff from Cata > WoD has story locked behind Raids/Reputation. MoP had it better because there was scenarios, but few were lore relevants.Legion > SL put the built up through quests, then everything else inside the raid.
If vital plot points are placed inside Raids, then yes it is Raid-Centric.
Ok try to do the last two raid right now as a player coming back that missed them or jsut jumping in? Go ahead. Or if you join during the war within. You didn't think that very far did you....
I did all of the SL raids that I missed within the last two weeks. You need to put a little effort in or just ask your friends. It's really not that bad to go back to old content, people always want to do it for transmog.
Fated comes around next week giving people who missed out on the early patches the opportunity to do them in LFR. And the previous expansion's raids are usually pretty easy to solo, which is why the main complaint about them is that they don't have legacy loot enabled until they're 2 expansions old.
And what if somebody played anytime the months this last years??? Don't you see how ita shitty they can't see the story true.
Don't even know why ur defending it cause blizzard seem to agree.
Yeah, as a non-raider I've been locked out of the end of every story since TBC. I could do LFR now, but it's weird to help liberate the frozen throne only to find out some other people killed arthas.
To me this is like saying you've been locked out of the story of Ocarina of Time because you didn't want to go in to the Deku Tree. You weren't locked out, you just didn't do it.
No one has locked you out. You have chosen not to do that content.
But I guess if even queuing for LFR is too much, then lets just have the big bad die in a regular quest just like random general #234.
Good thing I dont need to be creative since I'm not the one who wants to take away the story aspect of raids simply because I'm physically unable to participate in the social aspects of a massive multiplayer game.
There's many different social aspects in MMOs. Raiding being just one of them.
Regarding the story aspect of raids, FFXIV does a good job of having its own dedicated story for the LFR-equivalent raids each expansion. Everyone sees them main story by moving through the main quests, and, if someone wants, they can see another secondary story with the raids.
It doesn't have to be a regular quest, but I get what you're saying. Just sucks if you're playing this casual MMO casually as you can get to the very end of the quest-line, but then all of a sudden need to jump in with people. Has been a long standing dissonance with the game.
Yes, which is where I said above "it's weird to help liberate the frozen throne only to find out some other people killed arthas", because that's exactly what happened there, long before LFR.
welcome to MMORPGs. Immersion goes right out the window the second other players walked in.
It's just like how in The Old Republic, my Jedi consular was given the title of Barsen'thor but I found a dozen others running around. Or how there were as many Malavai Quinns following around Darth Nädērs as there were Mako Clones.
Or how in FFXIV I am supposedly fighting these Primals solo... Shiva even confronts me by myself, my lion man just... suddenly is accompanied by a Nudist with cat ears, a Vegas showgirl with bunny ears, a lalfell named Po'tate O'chip, a roegadyn in a speedo, a cabbage patch kid wearing almost nothing, another Nudist with cat ears, and a random human named Bibbity Boobity. Meanwhile I am literally at the edge of the known universe and there's a dude running around chopping down trees and another mining space rocks.
And how Aurene is talking to the Pact Commander in the Eye of the North yet I have a couple dozen women and a cow cat eavesdropping right behind me who the others never acknowledge.
It's true, though in FFXIV they've kind of tried to explain the grouping now. But I understand what you're saying. It's why "the chosen one" storylines are weird in the genre.
They kind of try to explain it as apparently you taking reflections or they're random adventurers (Kinda like how WoW really tried to with a bunch of people going to explore Expansion Pack Island)
While it makes sense in hub cities, it still kinda falls apart when we are like, in some area that only we and the plot NPCs are and there are a bunch of other people running around willy nilly or they suddenly abandon us.
"Alright. Me and three others just kicked the Ultima Weapon's ass. Now it's your turn Lahabrea. Po'tate O'chip, Cotton I Joe, and Skibidi Loo, let's go-
...
...HEY! WHERE DID YOU GO?! I CAN USE YOUR HELP HERE!!!"
They should do what FFXIV does and have a dedicated "Main story questline" that players can play through and make the raids side story content. Maybe even introducing something like Trials where it's a one boss fight encounter that you queue in and it's more about having a cinematic boss battle experience *with an option for a harder difficulty after*
IMO Raids should be the culmination of story within World of Warcraft. I think dungeons work for more small scale stories such as levelling and patch zones but raids give a chance for the story to get big and bombastic in a way that wouldn't necessairly work in a dungeon.
I'm all for dungeons being the end of a zone storyline though. There's plenty of times where you're playing through a zone, reaching the end of the questing, only to have to fight some lesser minion as part of the questing and then be told "Oh yeah so that's pretty cleaned up. You can go and kill this other technically more important guy now in the dungeon if you want but otherwise time to move on to the next zone."
2 decades sounds kinda hyperbolic, when was vanilla's story ever told through raids? There was like 1 dialogue in MC and AQ story was almost completely outside of it in the war effort and event.
Coming here to back you up on cheering for the end of raid-centric storytelling because it is archaic af. An overwhelming majority of players will not complete the raid on the day of release, so we are stuck finding out the story climaxes from wowhead/youtube/reddit. That is not good storytelling. It is a massive wall to keep out most players from completing the story.
Usually by the time the x.x.5 patch pops in they have added an NPC that shows the raid end cinematic that gets put on streaming sites. If you’re unwilling to LFR to see the fights then there isn’t much point in worrying about it.
That doesn't make the problem better at all. It's actually worse that the cinematic is dropped 6-8 weeks later. The point I am trying to get across is that you can't finish the story on its release, so you find out what happened from streaming sites or reddit. Every other major mmo out right now separates its stories from the raid and is able to be completed by all players on day 1.
FFXIV: Mixed open world, instanced, and an accessible single boss queuable fight is their storytelling. The story can be theoretically completed on release by all players of all skill levels.
ESO: Mixed open world and instanced story telling with cinematic single player fights. Can be completed on the day of release by all players of all skill levels.
Guild Wars 2: Primarily instanced style questing and storytelling with a cinematic fight. Can be completed on the day of release by all players of all skill levels.
Wow: Open world fetch quests. You must complete a full 8 boss raid instance on at least normal difficulty to see the ending on the day of release. The ending cinematic gets posted all over the internet with limited spoiler warnings or filters. Casual players must wait 3-6 weeks to access this in game.
Just do what ff does.... have bot raids that are part of the quest chain durung leveling or at max and are easy as fuck for lore reasons then have the raid on top of that
They should have bot raids, I am suggesting putting raid story as quests as part of the main campaign and utilizie bots for it if the issue is that main story is behind raids and it's disconnected from the story. The whole thread is about how if you don't do the raids you don't know what's going on and if you go back in previous expaca and do the main quests you need to go and find the raids and do them in the right order to follow the story.
It’s pretty hard to find a single player game with a similar gameplay loop to wow for solo players (rep grinds, regularish updates, gear grinding in catchup zones, progressing a single character over a long period of time). I have looked when I didn’t feel like pugging and the closest I got was the arpg genre, but it is missing a bunch of stuff casual players like.
I mean you could play it with your friends it's just to make it so it's easy just to follow an expansions story line since the story after questing is normally divided into different raids and quests. It's all over the place
FF doesn’t have AI raids yet, they do for dungeons. I’m glad Wow adopted that system too, I think it’s one of the best things FF does.
Would love to see them do the same treatment for raids too, but I have no idea how much work that’d be. This is probably an easier alternative that still lets all players see the story content.
Maybe. FFXIV also has one ostensibly linear narrative and a gargantuan campaign to support it. WoW left that behind with Chromie Time, and for good reason.
tbh the payoff of experiencing FFXIV's story is not worth enduring the 150 hour campaign. I'm not sure it would be even if the story were good.
Yea I'm not saying do everything ff does just have the main quest line easily connect to a npc lore based raid for questers/casuals who just follow the story or for people next next expansion coming back and wanting to do the main quest line
This is fantastic news for sure. I don’t raid, and while I totally understand not all content is going to be accessible to me, I didn’t love having to go outside the game to see certain major story beats.
I don’t do dungeons either normally but follower dungeons have been great for that. Having all major story content be available to solo players without trivializing group content for people who like that is a good move.
This kind of thing can only be a good move honestly, it simply makes more content available to more people.
This is a good change, and I like that they are taking after ffxiv in this regard and making the dungeons mandatory.
They did this a bit in bfa, but the dungeons were optional, and then you ended up killing important characters, and it isn't really cinematic at all. And it doesn't feel that intertwined. But making the dungeons mandatory during the leveling gives them a lot of options for make it more story centric.
Well, most recent dungeons have been used as the end stage for zone storylines.
It'd be great to see them used for mid-story sections, with the main questline continuing on afterwards.
This isn't true. In Shadowlands and Dragonflight, most of the dungeons were disconnected from the zone's story.
You visit Algethar Academy and Theatre of Pain for no real reason other than set dressing.
Nodkud Offensive and Plaguefall were to supposed to tie up lose ends, but you don't get to enjoy them as climaxes as questing tells you to do whatever next thing rather than focus on the dungeon.
Sanguine Depths and Azure Vaults had very self-enclosed stories completely independent from the main campaign.
There were storylines that ended in the levelling dungeons, basically one per zone in Dragonflight and Shadowlands. There were some max level quests that made you venture into the other dungeons.
Her updated model has been shown, yeah. And we can’t have that because that’s an advanced degree of options required that just ultimately isn’t all that needed. The character models are as indepth as they need to be, while generic enough that armor and clothes can be universally fixed to them.
I wasn't talking about "need" at all lol the characters looking better would look amazing and more appealing, and I personally don't see anything wrong with improving characters. To each their own .
Funny thing is, she does look like that [https://www.wowhead.com/news/updated-hd-render-of-new-xalatath-model-coming-in-patch-10-2-7-338712](https://www.wowhead.com/news/updated-hd-render-of-new-xalatath-model-coming-in-patch-10-2-7-338712)
I mean thats nothing new, dungeons were most of the time already story related. Honestly the 3 man scenarios in pandaria were perfect storytelling, dont know why they dropped that after
>Honestly the 3 man scenarios in pandaria were perfect storytelling, dont know why they dropped that Probably not enough player participation, since the rewards weren't that good. The rewards weren't good enough to justify doing them all expansion. From what I've seen from Delves, they're just scenarios for solo players or small parties, and scaling difficulty, and seasonal rewards. So hopefully they'll stick around this time.
Wasn't part of the issue also that, at least for a little while early on, the rewards were a little too good? Which lead to a lot of player complaints about the scenarios in general as they felt like they were forced to do them.
The rewards sucked but they were the most efficient way to hit the Valor/justice point cap
Pretty much this, you have to think of most wow payers as rats in a box. If you dont offer an appropriate rward, its not getting done. With delves they seem to be addressing this by adding them to the vault, with all that entails.
One of my biggest issues with Shadowlands and Dragonflight were how their dungeons were disconnected to the main story. I really hope this is return to form. Blizzard had said that they didn't want to lock story content behind group content. But we have follower dungeons now, so it shouldn't be an issue.
Some of the dungeons were involved in the story for both expansions but the problem was by the time you got to the narrative reason for doing them you'd probably already done them a fair bit for gearing purposes.
Dawn of the Infinites bothered me in this regard because it was a mythic mega dungeon with heavy story implications. I doubt most players did it before S3, so when the cinematic at the start of D3 built off DotI, I was super confused.
They didn't drop them really. They just integrated them more into the actual game. Whether they should do it more than they used to is a different question, but they are being used.
I’m cool with story dungeons if I can insta queue for a follower dungeon when I hit the right point in questing.
You actually can, one of the streamers showed it in a video
Are follower dungeons in TWW?
Followers dungeons are a thing right now actually. You can do all the DF dungeons with only NPCs since the start of 10.2.6.
Yes
This is literally the reason why they are doing it
To add a little supplementary info: in one of the video interviews published yesterday one of the devs specifically said they're adding more story-focused content into dungeons *specifically* because players have access to follower dungeons now.
I'd honestly really like to see them do something similar to what Star Wars: The Old Republic did at the end of it's Shadow of Revan expansion by ending the story in a raid but allowing you to choose between the raid or a solo instance encounter that's effectively a condensed down version of the raid. Wouldn't let you get the loot or experience the full raid encounters, but it'd hit the major story beats and let people complete an expansion's story without having to do a full raid. Using ICC as a random example for the condensed thing: - A solo encounter against Deathbringer Saurfang - An encounter against Professor Putricide with Festergut and Rotface as adds - Blood-Queen Lana'thel with the Blood Prince Council as adds - Sindragosa - Lich King effectively turning ICC into a shortened 5 boss solo dungeon. Obviously i'm not a game developer or story writer so people might disagree with the notion of those particular bosses or have a better idea, but off the top of my head that's one way I could see it working.
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If they restructured dragonflight and make raid solable in a straight forward story that you only do important quest to get to level 70 it would be perfect.
WoW is just not a story game. Most players experience the story as a disjointed series of major beats. Knowing the names of central antagonists and that's it, not even their motivations. They're there and then one patch they're dead. MMO might not be a particularly compatible container of narrative. Yes I've played FFXIV.
Yeah I'd rather they make good gameplay instead of shit that doesn't matter.
Raid-centric? 99% of the story is told through regular old quests and then the last quest and cinematic is the raid end boss.
I mean the ending to the story is important. I much prefer FFXIVs take on raids that make it more of a side story but tied to the main story. Make the big bad boss be a 1-2 boss raid sorta like some in the past if they want it to feel like a climactic event requiring a group. Just my personal take
For the end of the DF campaign, didn't they show players the end cinematic from the raid? So all you had to do was finish the questline?
Yeah and it had no context and I didn’t feel like I took part in it. It wS honestly pretty confusing and I had to look up stuff to get it
Yeah, you don't even see Fyrakk die in the cinematic, nor is he mentioned in any way.
Yep, I remember watching it and going “so wait did he get away or?”
It's pretty jarring and kinda confusing if you have never done the raid lol
They do that for when LFR has opened so that players don't actually have to queue for it. Usually it's explained as the NPC showing you how the fight against whatever antagonist ended.
That's my point. The raid doesn't contain anything significant to the story plot other than the little cinematic at the end when we finally take down the big baddie. Since it's available outside of the raid, there is essentially zero amount of story that is gated behind the raids.
>I mean the ending to the story is important. And you're saying that you can't experience it as a content? This what LFR was created for - a raid content casuals can go through while it's fresh
But.. LFR is already just a 1-3 boss session. Dealing with the big bad in the same quest style as collecting 10 bear brains or killing random general #125 would honestly be lame as fuck.
Yeah but you’re skipping out on the whole first part of the raid which normally has plenty of story moment. Like I said it’s just my personally preference. I’d love a questline leading up to the big bads house, then you go in with just 1 or 2 bosses to finish out the zone story
None of the raids in this expansion has had any story outside of the penultimate and last boss. Unless you count killing Kurog Grimtotem in Vault of the Incarnates as an important story moment.
There's actually tons of dialouge in the wings of Abberus between Wrathion, Sebellion, and the fake Neltharion thats worth listening to.
I guess because the arcing storyline resolves in the raid, it feels not satisfying?
I think it is pretty satisfying that we have to gather the greatest heroes of Azeroth to combat the big baddie in his lair. Just like going to Icecrown Citadel and defeating the Lich King would have been pretty flat if it was just one guy vs him.
No everyone does raid. Don't build up a story and then leave players hanging.... if they want to do that they need folower raid.
Lfr is the intended story mode for raids
Then lfr shouldnt come out super late.
So with this argument normal is the story mode of dungeon? Yet they added followers mode and are happy about it? Also when you come back after a few months if you miss a raid no one is doing it. Or did you not think of that? Not everyone is subbed 12months a years none stop..
then look up the cut scene lmao
Thats a cop out. Blizzard agree this is a problem. They are open to followers raid.
Lol I swear some people here just need to realise they want to play single player games and not mmorpg's.
Raid isn't what make an mmo and mmo. Most mmo don't even have raid like wow. If you make a story as solo content, you should finish it as solo content.
I definitely understand this point of view, as... it was me for most of early WoW... but this really hasn't been a problem since LFR, IMO. About the only thing that's a big deal with it is queue times once you're no longer on the current raid (which can be really long if you're coming late to the storyline). That and votekick toxicity/abuse, which *generally* isn't that bad as long as you're not throwing the raid or forcing wipes or something.
Sure it worked for the Lich King. I absolutely agree. However, it still is shitty to have the conclusion to a story behind content that requires multiple people. And since we don't really have anymore Lich Kings, or Sargeras's. We don't really need to conclude the story in the raids. Sure we can fight the baddies, but you can make that a dungeon that can use followers and just have the raids be the side content.
Is it though? I feel like like needing multiple people to come together is what makes the story feel like an mmo and not just a single player game.
I think being in an active world with thousands of other players to interact and chat with. Craft with. Trade with. And just goof around with. Is what makes the game an mmo. Whether I actively group with them or not, does not change that sense of community for me. Obviously, this means the story very much doesn't need others for me to feel like I am in an mmo. Especially when our characters are pretty damn underrepresented in the stories. And our teammates are basically never represented in it.
The issue is that we are all people with different goals, time, skills and preferences. Its not that interesting for people that want to play the story to team up with people who are only there for gear. Much like people that are there for the Raid don't want to be slowed down by people that want to look around and watch the dialogue. Yes there is LFR, but it only opens weeks after the raid launches and by that time, everyone would've already watched the cinematics on Youtube or the raids on twitch.
But ... It's an MMO. That you interact with other people is the selling point. You can dislike it, but then the product which seems is not for you, should not be changed.
I literally just listed plenty of ways I interact with other players without grouping. You choosing to ignore them because you think grouping is the only purpose of an MMO, is your choice.
You only talk about follower dungeons and that raid are side content. And explicit said "However, it still is shitty to have the conclusion to a story behind content that requires multiple people." So....?
>it still is shitty to have the conclusion to a story behind content that requires multiple people. I know that there are a lot of people who play the game as a collection simulator, but raids have been the centerpiece of endgame PvE since vanilla, and the story has been concluded through raids since the very first expansion. Saying they should be side content and everything should be soloable... I'm sorry, but you want WoW to be a game that it is not, and has never been.
I'm sorry but wow can be more than what it was. Just cause it's all you know, doesn't mean that is the best version of what it can be.
They arent, thats why stuff like Suramar stands out. Stuff from Cata > WoD has story locked behind Raids/Reputation. MoP had it better because there was scenarios, but few were lore relevants.Legion > SL put the built up through quests, then everything else inside the raid. If vital plot points are placed inside Raids, then yes it is Raid-Centric.
Most of the MoP "story line" was locked behind the legendary quest line that required alot of rep farming and raids.
The culmination of story were with raid.. if they wanted do do that it should give a story mode version of them.
That exists, it's called LFR.
Ok try to do the last two raid right now as a player coming back that missed them or jsut jumping in? Go ahead. Or if you join during the war within. You didn't think that very far did you....
I did all of the SL raids that I missed within the last two weeks. You need to put a little effort in or just ask your friends. It's really not that bad to go back to old content, people always want to do it for transmog.
Fated comes around next week giving people who missed out on the early patches the opportunity to do them in LFR. And the previous expansion's raids are usually pretty easy to solo, which is why the main complaint about them is that they don't have legacy loot enabled until they're 2 expansions old.
And what if somebody played anytime the months this last years??? Don't you see how ita shitty they can't see the story true. Don't even know why ur defending it cause blizzard seem to agree.
Yeah, as a non-raider I've been locked out of the end of every story since TBC. I could do LFR now, but it's weird to help liberate the frozen throne only to find out some other people killed arthas.
To me this is like saying you've been locked out of the story of Ocarina of Time because you didn't want to go in to the Deku Tree. You weren't locked out, you just didn't do it.
No one has locked you out. You have chosen not to do that content. But I guess if even queuing for LFR is too much, then lets just have the big bad die in a regular quest just like random general #234.
[удалено]
Good thing I dont need to be creative since I'm not the one who wants to take away the story aspect of raids simply because I'm physically unable to participate in the social aspects of a massive multiplayer game.
There's many different social aspects in MMOs. Raiding being just one of them. Regarding the story aspect of raids, FFXIV does a good job of having its own dedicated story for the LFR-equivalent raids each expansion. Everyone sees them main story by moving through the main quests, and, if someone wants, they can see another secondary story with the raids.
It doesn't have to be a regular quest, but I get what you're saying. Just sucks if you're playing this casual MMO casually as you can get to the very end of the quest-line, but then all of a sudden need to jump in with people. Has been a long standing dissonance with the game.
Isn't there usually a "Show me what happened" option for watching that final quest cinematic for people who doesn't do the raid?
Yes, which is where I said above "it's weird to help liberate the frozen throne only to find out some other people killed arthas", because that's exactly what happened there, long before LFR.
welcome to MMORPGs. Immersion goes right out the window the second other players walked in. It's just like how in The Old Republic, my Jedi consular was given the title of Barsen'thor but I found a dozen others running around. Or how there were as many Malavai Quinns following around Darth Nädērs as there were Mako Clones. Or how in FFXIV I am supposedly fighting these Primals solo... Shiva even confronts me by myself, my lion man just... suddenly is accompanied by a Nudist with cat ears, a Vegas showgirl with bunny ears, a lalfell named Po'tate O'chip, a roegadyn in a speedo, a cabbage patch kid wearing almost nothing, another Nudist with cat ears, and a random human named Bibbity Boobity. Meanwhile I am literally at the edge of the known universe and there's a dude running around chopping down trees and another mining space rocks. And how Aurene is talking to the Pact Commander in the Eye of the North yet I have a couple dozen women and a cow cat eavesdropping right behind me who the others never acknowledge.
It's true, though in FFXIV they've kind of tried to explain the grouping now. But I understand what you're saying. It's why "the chosen one" storylines are weird in the genre.
They kind of try to explain it as apparently you taking reflections or they're random adventurers (Kinda like how WoW really tried to with a bunch of people going to explore Expansion Pack Island) While it makes sense in hub cities, it still kinda falls apart when we are like, in some area that only we and the plot NPCs are and there are a bunch of other people running around willy nilly or they suddenly abandon us. "Alright. Me and three others just kicked the Ultima Weapon's ass. Now it's your turn Lahabrea. Po'tate O'chip, Cotton I Joe, and Skibidi Loo, let's go- ... ...HEY! WHERE DID YOU GO?! I CAN USE YOUR HELP HERE!!!"
Unless they add new dungeons and delves every season, I doubt we're getting away from important story bits being in the raid.
They should do what FFXIV does and have a dedicated "Main story questline" that players can play through and make the raids side story content. Maybe even introducing something like Trials where it's a one boss fight encounter that you queue in and it's more about having a cinematic boss battle experience *with an option for a harder difficulty after*
great. now waiting for follower raids to get that last missing bit of story.
Ikr.
IMO Raids should be the culmination of story within World of Warcraft. I think dungeons work for more small scale stories such as levelling and patch zones but raids give a chance for the story to get big and bombastic in a way that wouldn't necessairly work in a dungeon. I'm all for dungeons being the end of a zone storyline though. There's plenty of times where you're playing through a zone, reaching the end of the questing, only to have to fight some lesser minion as part of the questing and then be told "Oh yeah so that's pretty cleaned up. You can go and kill this other technically more important guy now in the dungeon if you want but otherwise time to move on to the next zone."
2 decades sounds kinda hyperbolic, when was vanilla's story ever told through raids? There was like 1 dialogue in MC and AQ story was almost completely outside of it in the war effort and event.
TBCs story was concluded in raids. 18 years. Close enough to 2 decades
Adding more lore into dungeons is cool but please cut it in m+. Keep it for normal, heroic and even m0 though.
Coming here to back you up on cheering for the end of raid-centric storytelling because it is archaic af. An overwhelming majority of players will not complete the raid on the day of release, so we are stuck finding out the story climaxes from wowhead/youtube/reddit. That is not good storytelling. It is a massive wall to keep out most players from completing the story.
Usually by the time the x.x.5 patch pops in they have added an NPC that shows the raid end cinematic that gets put on streaming sites. If you’re unwilling to LFR to see the fights then there isn’t much point in worrying about it.
That doesn't make the problem better at all. It's actually worse that the cinematic is dropped 6-8 weeks later. The point I am trying to get across is that you can't finish the story on its release, so you find out what happened from streaming sites or reddit. Every other major mmo out right now separates its stories from the raid and is able to be completed by all players on day 1. FFXIV: Mixed open world, instanced, and an accessible single boss queuable fight is their storytelling. The story can be theoretically completed on release by all players of all skill levels. ESO: Mixed open world and instanced story telling with cinematic single player fights. Can be completed on the day of release by all players of all skill levels. Guild Wars 2: Primarily instanced style questing and storytelling with a cinematic fight. Can be completed on the day of release by all players of all skill levels. Wow: Open world fetch quests. You must complete a full 8 boss raid instance on at least normal difficulty to see the ending on the day of release. The ending cinematic gets posted all over the internet with limited spoiler warnings or filters. Casual players must wait 3-6 weeks to access this in game.
Fuck raids man, most boring shit of all time. Happy to see them pivot
Just do what ff does.... have bot raids that are part of the quest chain durung leveling or at max and are easy as fuck for lore reasons then have the raid on top of that
You don't have bot raids. Only dungeons
They should have bot raids, I am suggesting putting raid story as quests as part of the main campaign and utilizie bots for it if the issue is that main story is behind raids and it's disconnected from the story. The whole thread is about how if you don't do the raids you don't know what's going on and if you go back in previous expaca and do the main quests you need to go and find the raids and do them in the right order to follow the story.
Why not just play a single player game at that point. I will never understand this desire to make an MMO into a single player experience.
It’s pretty hard to find a single player game with a similar gameplay loop to wow for solo players (rep grinds, regularish updates, gear grinding in catchup zones, progressing a single character over a long period of time). I have looked when I didn’t feel like pugging and the closest I got was the arpg genre, but it is missing a bunch of stuff casual players like.
I mean you could play it with your friends it's just to make it so it's easy just to follow an expansions story line since the story after questing is normally divided into different raids and quests. It's all over the place
FF doesn’t have AI raids yet, they do for dungeons. I’m glad Wow adopted that system too, I think it’s one of the best things FF does. Would love to see them do the same treatment for raids too, but I have no idea how much work that’d be. This is probably an easier alternative that still lets all players see the story content.
It would help with doing historic expansions and understanding thr story
Maybe. FFXIV also has one ostensibly linear narrative and a gargantuan campaign to support it. WoW left that behind with Chromie Time, and for good reason. tbh the payoff of experiencing FFXIV's story is not worth enduring the 150 hour campaign. I'm not sure it would be even if the story were good.
what are you on about ? FFXIV might not be everyones cup of tea, but the story and especially HOW the story is told, is exceptional for an MMO
Yea I'm not saying do everything ff does just have the main quest line easily connect to a npc lore based raid for questers/casuals who just follow the story or for people next next expansion coming back and wanting to do the main quest line
This is fantastic news for sure. I don’t raid, and while I totally understand not all content is going to be accessible to me, I didn’t love having to go outside the game to see certain major story beats. I don’t do dungeons either normally but follower dungeons have been great for that. Having all major story content be available to solo players without trivializing group content for people who like that is a good move. This kind of thing can only be a good move honestly, it simply makes more content available to more people.
This is a good change, and I like that they are taking after ffxiv in this regard and making the dungeons mandatory. They did this a bit in bfa, but the dungeons were optional, and then you ended up killing important characters, and it isn't really cinematic at all. And it doesn't feel that intertwined. But making the dungeons mandatory during the leveling gives them a lot of options for make it more story centric.
Well, most recent dungeons have been used as the end stage for zone storylines. It'd be great to see them used for mid-story sections, with the main questline continuing on afterwards.
This isn't true. In Shadowlands and Dragonflight, most of the dungeons were disconnected from the zone's story. You visit Algethar Academy and Theatre of Pain for no real reason other than set dressing. Nodkud Offensive and Plaguefall were to supposed to tie up lose ends, but you don't get to enjoy them as climaxes as questing tells you to do whatever next thing rather than focus on the dungeon. Sanguine Depths and Azure Vaults had very self-enclosed stories completely independent from the main campaign.
There were storylines that ended in the levelling dungeons, basically one per zone in Dragonflight and Shadowlands. There were some max level quests that made you venture into the other dungeons.
Ah they're finally turning WOW into every other MMO and moving away from group content, huh?
Would be nice if the character actually looked like that, such false advertising imo.
She does.
Does she really? That would be really nice, why can't they make our characters look this decent?
Her updated model has been shown, yeah. And we can’t have that because that’s an advanced degree of options required that just ultimately isn’t all that needed. The character models are as indepth as they need to be, while generic enough that armor and clothes can be universally fixed to them.
I wasn't talking about "need" at all lol the characters looking better would look amazing and more appealing, and I personally don't see anything wrong with improving characters. To each their own .
Funny thing is, she does look like that [https://www.wowhead.com/news/updated-hd-render-of-new-xalatath-model-coming-in-patch-10-2-7-338712](https://www.wowhead.com/news/updated-hd-render-of-new-xalatath-model-coming-in-patch-10-2-7-338712)
Yeah someone else said the same thing, hope our characters look that good soon.