Gratz
Comic 993 - Squealer
Author Notes:
1. No gimmick system:
This may be a little strange but one of the bigger problems I have is with the Garrison, Class hall, and Artifact weapons system. The problem is I feel like they take power away from our character and the expansion becomes more about those systems rather than leveling and powering up our selves. I also don't like how they fit into the game flow as in most of the game your powering yourself up until you hit WoD and Legion then you get these tools that are vital to the game but minimal to you. In fact you end up leaving them behind which means any work you put into them doesn't carry on with you.
2. Add more abilities back into the combat:
I understand the reason for trying to tighten our class identity. I think it's a very good one in fact. But it feels like in tightening our abilities they removed a lot of the flexibility we once had. I main pally this expansion and really got into Protection this time too, I ended up Protec for PvE and Ret for PvP. So this is kind of how my Legion was experienced for me. The problem I have is combat feels very much the same every time. I don't feel like I have the choices I use to. For example when playing ret I only have one burst, and two defensive cool downs. Combat goes like this. Generate 2 holy power, Generate 1, Generate 1, wait, generate 1. Holy power cont 5, Judgment, Pop Wings, Vindicator, Holy power 1, Vindicator, Ash bringer, Vindicator, Holy power 1, Vindicator. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat. (some holy power 1 are 2s if off cool down.) If I play outside of this pattern I lose damage. "Blizzard has talked about easy to learn hard to master". But I don't feel like that's the game anymore. It feels more like, "easy to learn nothing to master." So what I want is more abilities that force you to make choices in combat. For example say you have two burst abilities. Do you use both of them and do a lot of damage now and low damage latter? Or do you save one and do moderate damage now and moderate damage latter? I want combat feel like when you win you made good choices in the battle and less like you did a good job at following a scrip.
3. Strong narrative:
Legion did a lot of good things with its narrative this expansion. But it also felt, loose. Every zone and patch had its own story which was good but they also felt estranged from one another. We started the expansion by finding away to Gul'dan We got hid with a detour in the Emerald nightmare and the Trials of Odan. Then we Killed Gul'dan and more Legion showed up. next we killed them and found our way to another planet where we then kill some kind of super titian and end the Legion. Well there is a flow from one point to another that we can follow. It just doesn't feel as tightly knit as I would have liked. We went from hunting an Orc to stopping an evil god. That is quite the rate of escalation. So for the next expansion I rather have a story where the main baddie is the same at the start and the end. (kind of like the Lich king) or a story that brings about why we need to stop someone. (like Garrosh in MoP) For a story to have a strong narrative each event does need to be connected to one another but you should also see the conclusion of the end take root at the start of the story. (the Lich king wakes up and attacks.)(Garrosh escalates war and Orc supremacy)
4. More customization.
This is a MMORPG, customizing yourself is the whole game. RPG Be who you want to be is helped by Looking how you want to look! MMO Your playing with other people who are going to see you so look your best! I hope they built the new models with body sliders in mind and animations you can pick. (dance hall) I want the ability to add tattoos and scars to my character model, to have a large verity of hair styles, colors and face options. The ability to pick how I stand how I afk. I want to color my armor and find new fun things to play with. I may have gone a little crazy just now but I do feel that customization is one of the strongest aspects of a RPG and the more you have of it the stronger the game will feel.
Permalinks:
Copy this comic strip into LiveJournal, your blog or Myspace with this code:
Or into forums with this code:
<a href="https://Gratz.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/845338"><img src="https://img.comicfury.com/comics/142/363255941e6024fce0f08f5a522e3bdf1553940674.jpg" alt="Gratz - Squealer " border="0" /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://Gratz.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/845338">Squealer </a>
<a href="https://Gratz.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/845338">Squealer </a>
Or into forums with this code:
[URL=https://Gratz.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/845338] [IMG]https://img.comicfury.com/comics/142/363255941e6024fce0f08f5a522e3bdf1553940674.jpg[/IMG] [/URL]
[URL=https://Gratz.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/845338]Squealer [/URL]
[URL=https://Gratz.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/845338]Squealer [/URL]
Second: I agree with your sentiments on how we keep leaving these cool systems and things behind. I'd love to keep my Artifact weapon, mostly because I'm a beastmaster hunter and I will -not- give up my soul bond with Hati without a fight. Nothing Blizz says can justify us losing powerful weapons after they gave them to us as new toys. There should be some way to retain something that the players have invested tons of time into. I'd also like for the Class Halls to still be relevant next expansion. That seemed like a huge step in a new direction, and I don't want to lose it. The Garrison not carrying on with us was fine with me, mostly because it's on Draenor and it was created for that purpose.
I would also like more combat abilities back. On my warlock, I think what Blizz did was pretty darn cool. I run demonology and getting to summon an army of demons, if temporary, is really fun. However, on my hunter or my mage, I felt...weakened. My rotation consists of hitting certain abilities in order and waiting for cooldowns so that I can continue after the initial burst. To say the least, my mage now relies more than ever on a rotation (pop cooldowns, burst, build up arcane charges with filler spells, spend the charges, repeat). And my hunter...so many things were turned into passives. Now I hit abilities and mostly wait for cooldowns.
The lore and narrative could -definitely- be improved upon. MoP had a lot of good quests, though sometimes I felt things were missing. Then WoD had a ton of cut content and it was mostly a waiting game until the new content came out (so much potential, so much disappointment). Legion, well, there are so many unrelated, small arcs that I didn't care for after they were over with. Sure I enjoyed all of them! But I didn't feel a connection to many places or people and honestly, I -wanted- Gul'dan to run off again so that we were forced to follow. But I was alright with how he died. And now with this Argus stuff? I will never not say that Argus should have been it's own expansion. It feels rushed and tacked on. So much could still be done past the dungeon and the final raid. Killing Kil'jaeden and then seeing Argus in the sky, waiting for the next expansion, would have been AMAZING!
Yes, customization! And the dance studio. I really want an alternative to the night elf female dance. I don't like it much.
...What?
Also, I have exactly one FemNelf. I've never even used the dance emote with her it's so embarrassingly bad.
Just dance. Gonna be okay. Da-doo-doo-doo, just dance. Spin that record babe. Doo-doo-doo....
My opinion on what needs to happen, mechanics-wise, next expansion can be summed up in one word: 5.3. My Death Knights want ALL their iconic abilities back, that they've had since Wrath; not a pitiful subset that some pinch-ass dev thinks is a sub specialty. Worglock wants her Burning Embers back, not a clunky soul shard substitute that clogs up the rotation. My mage wants her Frostfire bolts back. I'm pretty sure PallyTaur wants some things back, but I haven't sat down and talked to her about it. If Blizzard wants to do storytelling, they need to look back one cycle to 5.2, best story exposition they've ever done.
What I'm AFRAID we're going to get is more pruning, Titan-Powered Artifact weapons, and Angry Jaina becomes a Void-Lord, then a raid boss. I would just about choke on WoW at that point.
Which is a real shame me and my brothers where so excited for the Destiny 2 announcement. I even watched the event live, but when I saw what it was I just felt disappointed. Like I said my hope for what could be lead me to being burned so that's kind of on me.