Pruning, remember when this game was so popular because it required skills.

[Ickz]

Been playing WoW since beta. Multi-glad rogue and warrior in TBC/wotlk - have been pretty casual after that. I actually prefer having less buttons, but those buttons I have need to be interesting and have mechanics that can reward skillful play. Currently, that is not really the case. I'm a big believer in not needing tons of abilities for skillful play - I hope Blizzard can figure out how to get there over the course of Legion.

[Saberstrike]

Vanilla and Wrath were the best times for pvp. It had more diversity and had great balance.

Nostalgia goggles, such nostalgia goggles.

[Knolan]

Nostalgia goggles, such nostalgia goggles.

Couldn't agree more.

Even though I really love WotLK, I shall never forget of the Warrior using DBW bladestorming my priest from 100 - 0.

[Thelin]

In Vanilla, we had dmg meters, threat meters, Decursive, and boss mod add-ons, so no, they did not come "later in BC". Naxx 40 was not hard at all. It was simply a long arduous grind to get the resist gear.

No, certainly not at the start and very early phases of vanilla there were not add-ons, and certainly not the built-it game raid warnings people have today. Naxx 40 wasn't hard at all? That's why only 1% of guilds even cleared it but alright. We were 1 of maybe 25 guilds worldwide that killed Kel'Thuzad b4 the nerf that occurred b4 TBC was out.

[Gorgodeus]

No, certainly not at the start and very early phases of vanilla there were not add-ons, and certainly not the built-it game raid warnings people have today. Naxx 40 wasn't hard at all? That's why only 1% of guilds even cleared it but alright. We were 1 of maybe 25 guilds worldwide that killed Kel'Thuzad b4 the nerf that occurred b4 TBC was out.

Try again. World #18 guild and we had addons up the wazoo. We had threat mods, a boss mod, a threat meter, a dmg meter, and decursive, although it was broken by Blizzard there for awhile.. We even used an addon that let you look in other players bags to make sure they brought the required consumables. Sorry but your guild was simply unaware of them.

[Thelin]

Try again. World #18 guild and we had addons up the wazoo. We had threat mods, a boss mod, a threat meter, a dmg meter, and decursive, although it was broken by Blizzard there for awhile.. We even used an addon that let you look in other players bags to make sure they brought the required consumables. Sorry but your guild was simply unaware of them.

Bullshit, there was no bossmods in MC/BWL. Decursive and threatmeters were probably it. Some of the first ones were off wowAce, something like CT Raid assist. There wasn't even an additional skill bar, you had to download a basic add-on to have it. Hell raid frames didn't even come about till much later. Hell even the raid warning/threat meter for 3 sunders didn't come around till later in Vanilla.

[Gorgodeus]

Bullshit, there was no bossmods in MC/BWL. Decursive and threatmeters were probably it. Some of the first ones were off wowAce, something like CT Raid assist. There wasn't even an additional skill bar, you had to download a basic add-on to have it. Hell raid frames didn't even come about till much later. Hell even the raid warning/threat meter for 3 sunders didn't come around till later in Vanilla.

Sorry but we were using everything I stated. Most of the addons we used had been implemented at least a year before Naxx 40 released (patch 1.11).

[Thelin]

Sorry but we were using everything I stated. Most of the addons we used had been implemented at least a year before Naxx 40 released (patch 1.11).

Never said they didn't exist by Naxx, more and more came about Around AQ. My point was there wasn't a heavy reliance on them early on in Vanilla. Even by AQ/Naxx there certainly was not more than a handful of add-ons being used. Decursive was broken half the damn time. My point was compared to Today the heavy reliance on add-ons and macros has completely changed the way the game is played.

[Brewdie]

Ummmm, actually based on your graph it shows that WOTL was the start of a popularity halt. Years 2005-2006 showed the most popularity with an aggregate player base increase of about 20%. 2007-Q3 of 2008 roughly 3%. Once WOTL hit the base held, which means not that there was an increase in popularity resulting in an influx of "new" players but that the content was enough to hold the current base. That ended with Cata at Q1 in 2011. Carefully look at the graph indeed. With a relatively nonengaging style of raid-play, and the change to a far more compressed talent and ability system that really began late WOTLK and during Cata, you can see how, based on this graph, it affected player retention.

[Deleted]

Most of the specs were literally face rolling shit. Sorry to break it to you. Should i link TBC too? How about the Warlocks in black temple? Pruned enough for you? Hunter dps being a single marco to match auto attack speed, list goes on. Complexity never made this game popular, it was faceroll shit from the start. If anything filling action bars with rotation stuff did the opposite.

You are wrong on so many levels. You'd never have any success with a single macro. Just maybe as combat rogue with the best gear.

The classes were challenging and everybody was playing. You can't say that about wod/legion.

- - - Updated - - -

^ P. much this.

It was especially bad with hybrids.

"Hmm, I'm a feral druid; I think I'll stay caster form and spam wrath for dps!"

While I miss feral / enhancement being great healers at <lvl60 5-mans, I can't help but agree with that most classes became better off with this more focused specialization.

What makes the game fun do you think? Having many or few choices?

[Crruor]

You are flat out wrong and thanks for confirming you didn't play in WotLK.

A Sub Rogue in WotLK > Legion Sub.

Legion Sub is a tunneling mongloid spec that teleports into casters faces. A Sub Rogue in WotLk utilized Shiv, expose armor, hemo, backstab, different poisons, and had options of different talent builds (eg Waylay).

You never used expose armor in pvp back then, bar some super tryhard duel openers without breaking sap. Nor were there more talent builds, there was some minor difference but most people played the same. Nowadays you actually have much more variety.

Now im not going to argue that current sub rouge is harder the woltk rogue - its not, rogue back then was way more punishing but also more rewarding, rogue right now is retarded and its really easy but those points you brought up arent really true.


And to be honest, for 90% of woltk, and for most people the entire expansion, you didnt play sub, you played mut rogue with half the sub tree till prep. That was literally a 2 button class, mut - envenom, never swap target just keep training. That was rogue gameplay for most of woltk. It was a infinitely more mongo spec then any current rogue class.

[Saberstrike]

What makes the game fun do you think? Having many or few choices?

A druid being able to fulfill every role removes your choice to pick something else. Why bring a warrior if a cat druid does better dps, and also heals, and has a battle rez?

And besides that, having balance spells as a feral isn't a real choice. You don't use them unless you're a moron. In that was very little was removed in ways of choice, many classes just had useless abilities that needed to be rid of, or abilities that covered their weakness too well.

It may not be as fun for you to play a class that isn't best at everything any more, but it's an MMO. You're supposed to have flaws and you're supposed to interact with other people to cover them.

[aysatsana]

Hunters literally had a 1-click macro for playing. Warlocks were spam shadowbolt.

Feral was complex, but not even near as complex as it was in Cata/MoP/WoD.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

People need to differentiate PVP and PVE. PVE was never complex and still isn't. Mastering a rotation is far from hard, all you have to do is read a bit and practice on dummies or in dungeons. I'm saying this as someone who was a top 10 parser back in Cata in a top 25 us guild. I used to read EJ all the time. It's more about knowing what to do, and once you do it's really fucking easy. PVP was much more complex back then. As a hunter I had like 2-3x the amount of spells I have now, and all had their usefulness in PVP. Spells like tranq shot, 4 traps, scare beast, master's call all had their uses and it was what differentiated a good hunter from a bad ones. Bad hunters probably wouldn't use all of their spells because there are so many, but a good hunter would have all of them keybinded and use the niche ones. Ie most average hunters never used tranq shot, or scare beast to fear feral druids, etc. Nowadays you have so little spells that it's really hard to differentiate a good player from a bad one. Kiting is basically concussive shot and run now, it used to have so many more options than that (knockback, traps, masters call, scare beast, etc...)

[Mafic]

You never used expose armor in pvp back then, bar some super tryhard duel openers without breaking sap. Nor were there more talent builds, there was some minor difference but most people played the same. Nowadays you actually have much more variety.

Now im not going to argue that current sub rouge is harder the woltk rogue - its not, rogue back then was way more punishing but also more rewarding, rogue right now is retarded and its really easy but those points you brought up arent really true.


And to be honest, for 90% of woltk, and for most people the entire expansion, you didnt play sub, you played mut rogue with half the sub tree till prep. That was literally a 2 button class, mut - envenom, never swap target just keep training. That was rogue gameplay for most of woltk. It was a infinitely more mongo spec then any current rogue class.

Nope you are wrong again.

Mut/prep took more skills to play than current Legion Sub or Assassination.

You had dismantle, shiv, Prep, etc.

[Deleted]

The game was not popular because of the amount of abilites but because of the content and story.

And I would disagree with WOTLK being the peak.If Wotlk was so great then we would not have seen the sudden decline early in Cata. Wotlk started to burn out people, made the world feel artificial due to all the automated queues and so on.

[Crruor]

Nope you are wrong again.

Mut/prep took more skills to play than current Legion Sub or Assassination.

You had dismantle, shiv, Prep, etc.

Not really, you literally tunneled something till it died. No swaps ever. Just cause there were more buttons doesnt mean it was hard. It was the most braindead spec of them all back then.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

The game was not popular because of the amount of abilites but because of the content and story.

And I would disagree with WOTLK being the peak.If Wotlk was so great then we would not have seen the sudden decline early in Cata. Wotlk started to burn out people, made the world feel artificial due to all the automated queues and so on.

It was more due to burn out because content patch was the same for roughly a year. LFG was added at the end of Wrath. If anything LFG made it tolerable.

[Borfl]

Nice cherry picking. Anyway its a fact Wrath had more options and nuances to master a class there was definitely a higher skill gap between garbos and pros vs the moba-tier 5 button skill set garbage we have today. As far as "skill" goes, lets be real PvP has always been about who played the dumbest cheesiest fotm spellcleave burst, stacked high CC, or high sustain comp of the season and wrath was FULL of them and despite that, sadly, S6 and 7 were arguably the best seasons in WoW's history.

[Mafic]

Not really, you literally tunneled something till it died. No swaps ever. Just cause there were more buttons doesnt mean it was hard. It was the most braindead spec of them all back then.

This is not true at all. Vanish + Prep allowed quick swaps or peels for teammates. Dismantle was a powerful tool as well as shiv to peel for teammates or set up kills.

Just stop you are exposing yourself by not understanding.

[Blayze]

If Wotlk was so great then we would not have seen the sudden decline early in Cata.

People played TBC because of vanilla. People played Wrath because of TBC. People played Cata because of Wrath.

Cata was when Blizzard tried to make everyone hardcore raiders to cover up the lack of endgame world content caused by the old world revamp. They did this by making dungeons absolute ballaches, raids overtuned bullshit and Valour a nightmare to cap each week.

That's why so many people quit in Cata, until 4.3 brought Raid Finder and with it finally actual introductory raid content instead of shit like Halfus and Omnotron.