More player-expression please :D

Community General Discussion
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So I hop between WoW and FFXIV quite frequently, and without a doubt the reason I play FF is how social and alive it feels.
And to cut to the chase, that has nothing to do with the games story, it’s gameplay, it’s endgame systems or anything.

I think it’s purely down to the plethora of emotes and casual glamours (transmogs) that the game has, if people want to be a leather-clad metalhead, they can, if they want to be someone who dresses rather inappropriately, they can, if they want to be a businessman, they can.
I’m not saying Wow needs to cater to my inner Metalhead, I’ve already got that with big plate shoulders on my Death Knight, but it’s the ability to be who you want to be in game that FF caters to so heavily, where Wow simply does not.

I’d like classes and races to have more emotes, some unlockable through quests, some buyable on the store? maybe even rep ones? more idle animations too, so we can express ourselves and our character in a more visual form than just using RP3 and typing leans against a wall.
Also as a quick note: I’d be far more tempted to sub for 6 months if I got an emote, including a mount that is from the flightmasters in the new expansion just frustrates me.

It seems like a small thing, especially if Wow is the only MMO you’ve played, but player-identity should be everything in an MMORPG, it should be at the forefront in terms of priority, and yet in a world full of players everyone just has the same static idle animations. we look more like NPC’s than the NPC’s do.

Would player housing make the game more social? yes.
But the key thing here is that over in FF I didn’t meet my friends I made 1 month after I started playing because they had a big fancy house, I met them because they all looked cool, unique, like people, and they were behaving like people, talking, dancing, some of them doing funny dances! Sipping tea, and just generally having a good time in a regular, non-player housing bar.

I feel player housing does need to happen at some point, or atleast some kind of “guild halls” for guilds and friends to meet up and hang out, but I think other things, like how a player can express themselves in game, should be a higher priority and should be tackled first.

ALSO dye-able gear when blizzard? (I know on a technical level that’s difficult for old sets, but new ones going forward? implement this and stop re-using models for tier sets.)

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they sayd it in some Blizzcon (idk wich one), but basically is WAY too much work.

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And yet they manage to recolour most things and try to pass it off as a new reward.
Look at all the armour sets across the years that have come with 2-5 recolours, Shadowlands’ covenants sets too.

Regardless of how they talked about it at a past blizzcon, this is Activision Blizzard, if Lord of the rings online can have player housing and armour dyes, i’m pretty sure they can find a way to implement it into Wow, they certainly do not lack the resources to pursue it.

As an example - who’d have ever thought cross faction groups and something like dragon riding were possible?
Hell, something like a Demon Hunters’ double jump and glide probably seemed impossible to players before it was shown to us.

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Yeah, FFXIV glamour system is really awesome!
Got my bunny running around in a sweater and slippers with sunglasses fighting gods, it’s great fun.

WoW could certainly do with more player expressions, and less race/class restrictions. But they have instead chosen to remove a good deal of them instead, and replace them with nothing.

WoW needs a fundamental overhaul and introduce a huge amount of “casual” fun content, puzzles, platform jumping, Mini games (Heartstone in-game)
And of course player housing.

But i don’t think it’ll ever happen.
They’ll keep spending time on raids most players don’t even do. I’ll be all for them just skipping traditional raids, and just turn raids into a single instance.
You queue up with your premade party, you go in. You fight the boss, get the loot and leave.

It seem like they spend so much time on raid design and quantity of bosses in raids, few of them are memorable at all, and you just click auto run for a good deal of the raid.
I remember all FFXIV bosses, because they were a spectacle to fight, raids are not tiresome, because it’s only one boss, there is no trash to clear, no auto run hallways.
It’s just a platform, the boss and your party.

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I think the chances are better now than they ever were.
They’ve seen how many of us have hopped over to other mmo’s, quite a few people outright deleted their Wow account with 0 intention of ever returning.
And simply adding a new class and delivering their current style of content alone, even if they do it more frequently, is not gonna be enough to win those people back or tempt completely new people into trying it.

Now I don’t trust blizzard or Ion himself, but they claim their new target audience is the regular/casual people they’ve neglected for so long, which is a good sign if they’re being truthful.

But like you said, if they want to achieve these things, most of the games’ over world and character systems needs overhauling… which they’re already doing! Talent trees are coming back and the plan is that player power is mainly attached to them outside of gear, no more lego’s, no more covenant abilities, just talents as a strong foundation.
Then dragon riding is coming in, completely changing how their developers design zones, changing how we think about traversing the zones while we quest, it’s a game-changer!
Then we’ve had night warrior and dark ranger cosmetic unlocks, loads of “ensemble” transmog sets, the dracthyr and our rideable dragons are going to town on customisation options, which I’ve no doubt will carry over to the other races too.

We’ve also seen tons of “normal” faction buildings get high-res upgrades through data mining, and they’re yet to be added to the game world.

Legion, BFA and SL were a mess, but I think they’re kinda playing the long game and slowly setting the stage to introduce all these cool social/casual things we want, the things they need to add.

As a final point - MMORPG’s can be so fun because they’re simply a platform for us to gather with friends, and that’s what FF feels like, And that’s what I want Wow to feel like, because ultimately as a video game I do prefer Wow.

PS: I know I’m high on the hopium, and I 110% expect to be disappointed on all these topics.
But I think it’s also 110% justified to have these expectations of such a large company if they want us to keep playing, when the competition ultimately provides a superior experience (again, even if I do prefer Wow on a core combat gameplay level).

and yeah I agree completely in regards to FF’s approach to raids, they’re literally ALL memorable, every single one, every single fight.
I cleared Normal fated nathria as a tank and I could not tell you a single thing about it other than how bored I felt (I have ADHD, a 10 man, 3 hour raid is NOT fun for me)

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It would need for Blizzard to acknowledge cosmetic collection as another endgame instead of as a fomo bait for PvE/PvP endgame activities
#gives an angry look at MoP/WoD Challenge mode mogs and their ilk#

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Yeah…
Recognising professions as it’s own endgame is a step in the right direction (though I wish crafting and gathering was a mini game like in FFXIV)

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I wouldn’t mind if gathering remained as just a cast bar, since when mass gathering I generally just pop yield skill on bonus attempt nodes and then auto-gather, but what would be nice if nodes actually worked more like they do in XIV, where you always know where to go, and there are always nodes available for common material in that specific location.

The semi-random nature of gathering nodes in WoW has historically been one of the main things to turn me away from crafting/gathering.

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