Just came back so I don’t have a long list of stuff yet, but I’ll throw down a couple.
One thing I did notice though was not being able to 1-shot lower level mobs due to some kind of down-scaling. I think it would be cool to have an option to willingly scale-down to the zone you are in to play with lower level players (isn’t this what equipping weaker weapons/armor was though?). I personally don’t love this feature.
I’ve barely at all progressed in the main story, but doing all the side quests and rotating the first zone events I hit level 30 pretty quickly (from 20). I didn’t feel a need to explore the world as in the original world where it was an absolute must to get more xp/better equipment/progress the story(and quest xp). The rest of the current world is pretty cool-looking, but it’s kind of this vast place with mobs everywhere. There are landmarks, but the mobs are generally the same in a zone, there’s nothing out there. There weren’t like little establishments full of local quests - and not being that progressed in the main storyline I guess I didn’t get many quests. I’m actually not a huge fan on the “local events” every X mins thing, as was also done in a game notable for warring of guilds. Some people are into that. They can be interesting, but they currently are very frequent and super rewarding (in a way that its like - why not just do only these events?). Some of the events are bland too like throwing crystals into a portal (or fish into a boat). Maybe if they were rarer/less frequent and easier to track then it might be like “ooo snap an event is happening! better run over there” and not a “let me go grind these events out.” They all reward the same despite different difficulty. I do like the go kill X mobs missions(though they are also probably too rewarding and you can get 5 a day apparently???). I like the idea of reputation, though there doesn’t seem to be a carrot or repeatable benefit(at some cost?) after hitting max rep? I’m not a fan of most of the reputation-reward art(ex creature capture… why?) I’ve seen (atleast the icons - maybe better in person). It’s weird that I can even get so much XP farming just the first zone, so I end up fighting stick people all day. Naturally I ran outside to do all of the built up quests, kill yada yada x# in some zone/critter missions/etc… In “Oldus” I remember seeking out players/grouping up to take on harder content to hit max level, though I did do a lot of solo farm as well (grouping xp bonus/kill chains and such). Now you can sit out getting your daily quest tokens/farming first level zones. Maybe you shouldn’t even give out daily quest tokens until you’ve finished the main story quest (as a way to level alts).
Transmogging one piece of my armor said it would cost like 9k dram. You are crazy. Transmog could be a fun feature, but it’s toooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo expensive. Way too much. It basically is like “get your very-very-very BiS gear then transmog it!” Rather than a “hey look at my cool new stuff”.
/moment of applause for auction house
/moment of applause for item-relocation (though I wish you could move items individually that share a slot - for example the paladin books).
/moment of applause for how smooth casting is now, and how fast/responsive it is
/moment of applause for changing annoying aoe arcane sound effect
/moment of applause for how smooth fps is
/there are other moments of applause but I gotta run here in a moment
All the new classes are no bueno. I could elaborate, but in short they are far too simple and too powerful for their simplicity. I heard from a player that “it’s crazy how much rune mage DPS differs in raids, but even the best/worst players have about the same DPS on scoundrels”. Even older classes imo were too simplistic. For example, warrior could easily get more combos/features and weapon types. Why not just make scoundrel a subclass of musketeer and throw in some orb/turret mechanics? I basically only have ever focused on Rune Mage because it’s the only class with some depth. Even then, it has some problems. Sometimes I’ve wondered if rune mage would actually be better with mana because then it might be worth casting fireball 3 rather than spamming as fast as you literally can fireball 2/frost 2/affliction 2 and now triplicity. At least, some kind of benefit of busting out larger spells. Maybe perfect casting returns mana, or something. That would change magery quite a bit though. Also considering there’s still not a great way to learn spells such as a feedback system on how good/bad you are casting. The depth of runemage stops once you can hit every spell consistently at a rate you are satisfied with. That said, each time I cast something I feel a bit rewarded by it (frost 3, affliction 2 notably) because of the effort it took to get there. I even cast my first pushback 2 yesterday.
I completely despise the rune-tile system, and thinking about it makes my brain whisper “don’t play this game.” It essentially emphasizes even further the point to force optimal rotation on a player. It leaves no space for build variety, no room for true specialization due to what is obviously the best.
Besides like a gunslinger or paladin (or slow ranger build) - every class is about attacking as fast as possible rather than try to consider what might be going on around you, or using some kind of unusual ability / spell / item situationally (not talking about pre-equipping fire rain for a boss that needs aoe, for ex). Besides being completely braindead, one thing that I enjoy about the Scoundrel is that it forces the player to essentially slow down. This alone would be boring for most players, but I think there is happy balance to be had - like having more abilities/resource management/positioning/situational awareness. Something to keep your brain going other than move-move-move my arms faster!
Mixing the two quest tracking systems is kind of confusing/weird. You have your journal quests(book) and your inventory/quest tab-missions. I kind of like the new mission tab, it’s easier to find stuff (though the journal maybe could just be improved to replicate this ease-of-access). But it’s weird to have both. The dialogue options for vendors is no longer so clear anymore either with basically 2 forms of dialogue. Also the dialogue option remains for a vendor who has nothing to say to you… it just closes the gui. Weird.
I actually enjoy the creature capture, I don’t know why lol. However the level of reward is ridiculously high. It should be some kind of side-questy pet/cosmetic(good ones) type of quest line not some requirement for leveling. There should be less opportunities (ie usually piles of POOP - why choose this? LOL) to do so that its more rewarding when you find them. Lower the requirement on how many you have to capture… depending on the creature? Maybe add some kind of challenging variety to how capturing is done? Maybe you have fight/subdue large creatures? Get cool mounts? Cool shoulder pets? House pets? Rare dragon types? Things creature related? Upgrade you creature capture gun? Different kinds of capture equipment? Lay down bait using materials? Combo with a fisherman to catch some kind of crazy cool water creatures? Like teamwork-based creature capture? Basically hunting with the intent to capture.