Saturday, July 29, 2017

What to Keep From Legion

"Best" expansions are obviously a matter of opinion. There are some people I'm sure who absolutely adored Warlords of Draenor. But the general consensus in the past has been that Wrath of the Lich King, or for some people, Burning Crusade, was WoW's best expansion. I lean more toward Wrath, given its introduction of the Death Knight, the iconic Scourge antagonist (not to mention the glory that was Ulduar) and the general way in which raiding was accessible to casual guilds so that normal players could really experience endgame content.

Legion is the first expansion since Wrath that rivals it, and could take its place.

Legion brought a ton of cool new features with it, and has generally been pretty exciting for long-term players, introducing a ton of elements that we've been waiting to see for a long time. I think (normal +) raiding is more accessible that it has been since Wrath, and generally there's just a lot of stuff to do.

Obviously not all features that came with Legion can come with us. And some, like Demon Hunters as a playable class, are a feature that will obviously continue to be a part of the game for the rest of its lifespan.

But let's take the less obvious stuff that I'd like to see in future expansions.

Level Scaling:

Now, first, a caveat: one of the downsides of level scaling is that leveling zones don't have a real story flow. In Draenor, Alliance players at least got to see Y'rel go from a prisoner forced to work in mines for the Shadowmoon clan to rising as the Draenei's greatest hero and eventually becoming an Exarch. When zones can be done in any order, there's not really room for continuity between them.

That beings said: having the entire Broken Isles available for top-level content has really made open-world questing at the level cap a far more interesting and diverse experience. I think that if Blizzard wanted to have each new "continent" scale up to its expansion's level cap, I'd be fine with it.

On the other hand:

Top-Level Quest Zones:

Historically, when a zone was meant for players of at the level cap, it tended to have very little in the way of story. Now, Broken Shore kind of falls into that pattern. But Suramar and what I've seen on the PTR for the three Argus zones is much more what I've been wanting ever since they started talking about Vale of Eternal Blossoms when Mists was announced.

The joy of questing is about playing through an interesting story, and Suramar's Dusk Lily resistance was a fantastic story. Having a questing zone where you can make use of your raid gear to show off just how much of a badass you've become is a lot of fun, and something I hope they do more of this kind of thing.

Class Order Content:

I'm a little worried to see that there's nothing as of yet in the 7.3 PTR about class-specific content. While designing 12 different experiences can sometimes dilute the creative resources (and certainly some class campaigns were a lot more interesting than others) I think that keeping class orders and their order halls relevant would be a really fantastic thing for the game.

So often one can feel a little out of place - my Undead Rogue sometimes feels strange in the spikes and animal hides of the Horde's typically Orcish environments, but the Hall of Shadows is much more his kind of place (especially the treasure room.) Order halls are a great way to remind you of your class identity and feel at home, and quests surrounding those orders is a great way to reinforce the idea of your class.

Mainhand/Offhand coming as one:

This is really a consequence of the artifact system, but not having to worry about getting a sword to go with my shield is a real relief. I could imagine future weapons coming in sets. This one's minor.

Many Artifact Traits:

I know artifacts are a Legion-only feature, but a lot of the traits introduced with them would be great additions to the baseline specs or as talents.

World Quests:

World quests are a really far superior version of Daily Quests. Not having to pick them up at a hub and only having to do four of a larger number to get your "big reward" of the day makes it feel a lot less like a chore. Plus, having voice-acted introductions instead of quest text is a good way to get you into the questing quickly.

Legion has brought a bunch of cool new features, and while some are destined to wind up left behind on the Broken Isles, I think that many have earned their places in future WoW content to come.

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