I really WANT to love Legion, but I feel like Blizzard keeps getting in their own way

[bubbadubba]

What made those 2 expansions a Success was good timing. The game as it stands now is leaps and bounds better than it was in Vanilla or TBC. Most people just let nostalgia cloud their vision instead of realising that after 12 years they may just be getting bored with the Game.

I somewhat disagree because a big part of what makes a game good is the players preferences to what they enjoy. The game has better graphics and added a few quality of life changes but outside that the game can't be considered better. A few of the quality of life changes actually ruined portions of the game as well.

To say Legion is more "progressively" difficult is incorrect outside of mythic+. Raiding is not more "progressively" difficult then Vanilla or TBC was. World content is not "progressively" difficult at all, Leveling isn't either.

Mythic + is progressively difficult but has the problem of being the same content that scales up, this may not be considered fun to some people though it stands by the increasing difficulty. See where the preference is here ?

My opinion it isn't just Nostalgia, some people preferred the game play and content in those expansions compared to Legion, it suited how they like to play WoW which isn't available anymore. Some people like Legion, some people like Vanilla and TBC, and maybe some like both which causes them to want to play both.

[Pua]

I get the problem but, unfortunately, I'm a little bit more cynical about the reasoning.

There are a few contributors to the topic, really:

1) Class fantasy was a noble goal, but extraordinarily difficult to pull off. Not only did the design fight against itself by trying to find spec-fantasy rather than class-fantasy, it was always going to be a hiding to nothing when you consider that fantasy is a deeply, deeply personal thing. I'm back playing my warrior because my demon hunter ended up not being as fun as I hoped, but I simply didn't get the warrior spec-fantasy. I'd been playing the class for nigh on a decade, including some RP, and I just didn't see my class the way the designers sold it.

That was a problem for every class and, potentially, every player. If you didn't agree with the fantasy... Well, you were screwed.

2) It's laughably obvious that more effort went into some classes and specs than others. There are probably five or six really good specs, specs that saw a lot of time on the design table and were properly iterated upon, and that was it. A decent chunk of specs then ended up being... Fine. What an ugly word; 'fine'. Functional, but pretty dull and not especially interesting to play.

Sadly, too many specs just ended up being brutally unfinished. It's marked all over the design that there wasn't time to give each spec a decent shake, so almost anything got thrown in at the end in order to make up the difference. Those specs didn't play into the agonisingly challenging fantasy the designers tried to create and, instead, just played into frustration at another beta when too many problems weren't fixed.

3) It's been mentioned, but it's true - there's no need to keep fixing things that aren't broken. I understand that there's an intent to keep things fresh, but players can do that (if they choose to) by switching spec, switching class or diversifying their gameplay. There are plenty of options. With so many specs, it's utter madness to try and change them all every expansion and, in effect, it gives the team too much to do.

4) Lastly and, arguably, most importantly... Chris Zierhut and his team simply aren't very good designers, and are too arrogant to listen to what their players tell them. They've banned class-related questions at BlizzCon because they're not interested in letting players have their say in a forum they can't necessarily control, and their decisions are utterly baffling half the time. I'll never forget Chadd Nervig telling world-leading shamans that they just needed to L2P going into Warlords, and nothing much has changed since then. When push comes to shove, class design is never likely to be very good with these people doing the work.

Just my two pence.

[SirCowdog]

I get the problem but, unfortunately, I'm a little bit more cynical about the reasoning.

There are a few contributors to the topic, really:

1) Class fantasy was a noble goal, but extraordinarily difficult to pull off. Not only did the design fight against itself by trying to find spec-fantasy rather than class-fantasy, it was always going to be a hiding to nothing when you consider that fantasy is a deeply, deeply personal thing. I'm back playing my warrior because my demon hunter ended up not being as fun as I hoped, but I simply didn't get the warrior spec-fantasy. I'd been playing the class for nigh on a decade, including some RP, and I just didn't see my class the way the designers sold it.

That was a problem for every class and, potentially, every player. If you didn't agree with the fantasy... Well, you were screwed.

2) It's laughably obvious that more effort went into some classes and specs than others. There are probably five or six really good specs, specs that saw a lot of time on the design table and were properly iterated upon, and that was it. A decent chunk of specs then ended up being... Fine. What an ugly word; 'fine'. Functional, but pretty dull and not especially interesting to play.

Sadly, too many specs just ended up being brutally unfinished. It's marked all over the design that there wasn't time to give each spec a decent shake, so almost anything got thrown in at the end in order to make up the difference. Those specs didn't play into the agonisingly challenging fantasy the designers tried to create and, instead, just played into frustration at another beta when too many problems weren't fixed.

3) It's been mentioned, but it's true - there's no need to keep fixing things that aren't broken. I understand that there's an intent to keep things fresh, but players can do that (if they choose to) by switching spec, switching class or diversifying their gameplay. There are plenty of options. With so many specs, it's utter madness to try and change them all every expansion and, in effect, it gives the team too much to do.

4) Lastly and, arguably, most importantly... Chris Zierhut and his team simply aren't very good designers, and are too arrogant to listen to what their players tell them. They've banned class-related questions at BlizzCon because they're not interested in letting players have their say in a forum they can't necessarily control, and their decisions are utterly baffling half the time. I'll never forget Chadd Nervig telling world-leading shamans that they just needed to L2P going into Warlords, and nothing much has changed since then. When push comes to shove, class design is never likely to be very good with these people doing the work.

Just my two pence.

I can't help but agree with this. The entire idea of class fantasy was one big fat excuse to get away with screwing things up. Any kind of mistake that was pointed out by the players was quickly labeled as "class fantasy". Adding something like a melee spec to hunters in the already melee-heavy environment was an outright mistake. Taking traps away from everyone except that same melee spec was doubling down. The reasoning? Class fantasy. And every class had something like that, I'm sure.

I will say that Blizzard is slowly starting to remedy some of the more heinous mistakes made at launch. But this latest patch seems to be showing us that they really just don't get it at all. When you said "Chris Zierhut and his team simply aren't very good designers, and are too arrogant to listen to what their players tell them." you hit the nail on the head. At this point we've got quite a few highly educated and experienced players who have been with the game longer than the current crop of devs. Ignoring feedback is a stupid thing to do. And no, I don't mean the kind of "feedback" where someone just QQs about their class. I mean the intelligent, well-written, well-considered feedback with data to back it up.

I don't know what Blizzard's actual plan is, but I can't help shake the feeling that Legion is the final expansion, and Blizzard is just trying to milk players for as much money as possible while training some of their lesser team-members before shipping them to other projects. Maybe that's just me, but that's the feeling I get.

[Tinykong]

I really wish they would stop redesigning classes and changing everything for every expac, and just focus on releasing more content to actually play.

[Daffan]

the main problem with blizzard is (also they always lie you straight in the face claiming otherwise) that they DONT play their own games anymore - or at least not wow.

Celestalon plays WoW with a Wacom tablet.

Not even joking.

[Claymore]

Huh, for some reason my previous post didn't... post. Well, I'll try to reiterate.

Regarding Death Knights, I fell in love with the class almost immediately. I shook my head at Frost being a pseudo-tank, pseudo-ranged DW'ing spec, but absolutely loved cleaving mobs as Blood DPS. Wrath saw a *LOT* of tinkering with the Death Knight -- which is kind of a shame, because they had the most thoughtfully-designed Talent-Trees in the game (which were gutted to make way for dual-spec) -- but by the time Cataclysm rolled around, I feel like they were in a good place.

I mean, Blood was a great, interesting kind of Tank, 2hand Frost was competitive and perfectly viable, and then Unholy was still there for those that wanted to play a tad closer to a Necromancer vibe.

Now, though, Blood feels like all the worst parts of a Prot Warrior, Frost is DW-exclusive (and even then, I tried it, but don't even enjoy the gameplay), and Unholy is this incredibly weak spec that relies 100% on your pet.

It just feels like Blizzard forgot what the Death Knight was, because change after change later, it's completely unrecognizable.

[Azmoden]

I really wish they would stop redesigning classes and changing everything for every expac, and just focus on releasing more content to actually play.

I can agree with this 100%. The more time you waste balancing things out (or trying to...), the less time you have to develop actual in-game content.

Because let's face it, besides the minor update to the Brawler's guild, 7.1.5, even though a minor patch, had basically no content except class changes, and in my book that's not content.

Playing with new/buffed skills, or even worse, feeling like you have to play a new class/spec just because MOaR DpS is not content.

At this point, the devs just have you hopping around from class to class and from spec to spec, and call it "content" and "replayability".

[Super Kami Dende]

To say Legion is more "progressively" difficult is incorrect outside of mythic+. Raiding is not more "progressively" difficult then Vanilla or TBC was. World content is not "progressively" difficult at all, Leveling isn't either.

Wrong. In TBC the Progression was farm the same few bosses at the start of a tier to get gear to kill the last few.

Progression in Legion is 3 tiered. There is far more progressive difficulty now than there ever was in TBC.

[Deleted]

They have to tinker otherwise player power would be wildly out of control after 10+ years of WoW. They can't just keep adding spells. My characters feel more powerful now than they ever did.

[Coffeexbean]

Lol you are so stucked in your own opinion.
I dont care about any class fantasy. its a videogame, i want to have fun, not feel like something im not. im an human... i dont have power and i will never have it. good gameplay spec or reroll.

yes its a video game. a video game based on a fantasy world where you have fun by taking the role of a warrior, mage, etc.. remember why you started playing world of warcraft. It probably wasnt to brag about skada meters and world of logs.

[SirCowdog]

yes its a video game. a video game based on a fantasy world where you have fun by taking the role of a warrior, mage, etc.. remember why you started playing world of warcraft. It probably wasnt to brag about skada meters and world of logs.

That was 12 years ago. This is now. Even if it wasn't 12 years ago there are still different ways of playing the game. Some people want to be immersed and feel like they're a wizard or whatever. Other people just want to enjoy the mechanics of the game, and using those mechanics to overcome harder and harder content.

Neither way of playing is invalid.

[fengosa]

I can agree with this 100%. The more time you waste balancing things out (or trying to...), the less time you have to develop actual in-game content.

Because let's face it, besides the minor update to the Brawler's guild, 7.1.5, even though a minor patch, had basically no content except class changes, and in my book that's not content.

Playing with new/buffed skills, or even worse, feeling like you have to play a new class/spec just because MOaR DpS is not content.

At this point, the devs just have you hopping around from class to class and from spec to spec, and call it "content" and "replayability".

There are so many things wrong with this post but let's start with the fact that nighthold is releasing 1 week after 7.1.5. Pretty sure that counts as content.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Its the community that keeps getting in their own way, but otherwise you are correct.
The title is actually really indicative of this.
You claim you want to love the game? Then stop worrying about stupid shit like this and just play. Its a video game, after all.
To me, it sounds like you DON'T want to enjoy it, but you are just playing it because you are stubborn or something.

[Florena]

There are so many things wrong with this post but let's start with the fact that nighthold is releasing 1 week after 7.1.5. Pretty sure that counts as content.

It certainly is content...though it's not 7.1.5 content. It's 7.0 content they held back for pacing issues.

[Armourboy]

Its the community that keeps getting in their own way, but otherwise you are correct.
The title is actually really indicative of this.
You claim you want to love the game? Then stop worrying about stupid shit like this and just play. Its a video game, after all.
To me, it sounds like you DON'T want to enjoy it, but you are just playing it because you are stubborn or something.

Then you haven't comprehended very well. Everything that I've read for the most part is people who are fairly happy with the current content, story, and flow of the game, outside of an outlier here or there (mainly RNG and Legendaries). What's getting in the way is that the classes feel uninteresting, boring, half finished, or just aren't fun for them to play anymore.

It's been pretty rare over the years, but content for once isn't really the major problem. The major problem is finding what you want to play and enjoying it enough to sink time into building your weapon, and trying to get the legendaries. Now maybe there is a class out there they would like and they haven't been willing to try it yet, but to say some have lost some luster isn't a stretch. Now I did my homework coming into Legion. I spent lots of time playing several different specs of several different classes. Obviously they were going to be a bit different because of the weapon, but I didn't worry about number, I worried about whether the core of the spec/class was fun. I chose Fire Mage because it was one of the more fun specs I have ever played in the history of WoW. That said, my Paladin, Druid, Warrior, and DK have all been rather * yawn * so far. I'm just thinking my stars that I made the right choice otherwise I may be in the same boat as many of these players.

Frankly I've always thought Blizzard has tried to do too much and someone ends up suffering when it comes to classes as far as game play and balance. Feel like they would have been better off picking 3-4 to revamp each expansion and left most of the rest alone. Especially something like MoP Ele Shaman that was getting rave reviews.

[Deleted]

It's not mental. I would absolutely stop playing if they didn't fix issues and change classes. I've actually been disappointed with the lack of changes to classes over the years. Ele shamans and rogues have barely changed in 10 years. Classes like Paladin and Warlock stayed more fresh thanks to constant reworks. The fact that they actually reworked all the classes to such an extent in Legion was a major selling point to me.

People are different. Some people hate change and just want to keep doing the same boring thing over and over again. Some people want variety and to at least be moving in a new direction for better or worse.

Personally I don't understand people like you at all. How can you enjoy just doing the same thing over and over again on just one character? The mechanics in this game are not THAT fun to the point where you think it is perfect and don't want new mechanics and reimaginings to your class. I can understand not liking some specific changes but that doesn't mean it is bad to make changes in general. Just give feedback to those things you dislike.

I honestly don't think they have really changed that much either, you still generally hit the same buttons with a few minor differences. I don't see how people can be frustrated with how their class changed when they are barely even different. I remember ret players whining a ton at the start of legion but even they were barely changed in how they play, it's just some minor tweaks that made them upset (like losing the ability to be a retarded ranged class during wings which was bad design to begin with).

Kind of agree here.
But tbh I don't think we have ever seen giant class changes. Every expansion changes some small stuff - which might seem like big stuff, but not really. Some classes gets changed more than others, but in some way the basic is still there.

[aziras]

TL;DR: Spec changes are not the problem on their own. It is the combination with spec switching cost and spec changes that makes Legion a new messy story.

2) It's laughably obvious that more effort went into some classes and specs than others. There are probably five or six really good specs, specs that saw a lot of time on the design table and were properly iterated upon, and that was it. A decent chunk of specs then ended up being... Fine. What an ugly word; 'fine'. Functional, but pretty dull and not especially interesting to play.

Sadly, too many specs just ended up being brutally unfinished. It's marked all over the design that there wasn't time to give each spec a decent shake, so almost anything got thrown in at the end in order to make up the difference. Those specs didn't play into the agonisingly challenging fantasy the designers tried to create and, instead, just played into frustration at another beta when too many problems weren't fixed.

A lot of different points in this topic, but I want to highlight the quote above. 36 specs is a lot to invest fully in. Playing through the campaigns of each class it is blatantly obvious that they were too ambitious. Many of the spec campaigns are half-baked, some are even close to being copy-paste from others. When players then are deeply devoted to their spec after playing 10+ years, they can't help but feel short-traded. The quality of the specs in Legion spans a HUGE variation. So people need to keep in mind that when they comment on someone's perception, one person might be looking at it from a disappointed spec perspective and the other from a satisfied perspective of one of the specs that got sufficient love.

However, a much more important aspect in this discussion is that class balancing is not the only knob they have been turning. As stated above, Blizzard put more effort into the class fantasy of some specs than others. With the result being some specs feels great, others are really bad, and some are just completely different from what they have been the last 12 years. They are showing some direction, and the observant player has also been able to predict most of the changes, at least in terms of rough changes.
That in itself is fine, but when they then ALSO mess with other core aspects of the gameplay.

Major shake-ups in specs mess with the players' attachment to their characters. A perfectly viable strategy from Blizzard is to shake the specs every so often, so that players will try something new and feel the game in a fresh way. Prevents the game from getting stale and somewhat protects the playerbase from burn-out.

But that strategy goes to bonkers when they at the same time mess with off-specs and alts. In classic it was pretty tough to re-roll and off-spec'ing was not really a thing due to the respec cost and difficulty of getting offspec gear. It simply took a long time and lots of effort to change your main.
Since classic, each expansion has made it progressively easier to play offspecs and juggle alts. Culminating in late MoP where many players had levelled up one of each to 90 and decked them out in timeless/LFR gear and free multispec'ing using the same gear set. Leading into WoD the garrisons further pushed these alt-armies to level cap and geared through LFR and Jungle. After years of having all classes and all specs available, players have gotten used to having options and choice readily available.
Then along came Legion and hammered the players back into picking a main, and going with a mainspec.

None of these two major design directions are bad on their own. Players could likely adapt and come to terms with them.
But the combination of them causes a mess for long-term players.

Many players have started each of the past many expansions by juggling a few alts to get a feel for how the changes affected them. Then eventually settling on one for raid-opening.
In Legion, most players quickly realized that if they wanted to be ready for raiding they had to commit their time to a single spec early. Unless you had a LOT of time to play, you could not keep up with multiple characters, and dual-spec'ing was by design not effective (if you wanted options of arms or prot warrior for high-end raiding, you had to split your time between two warriors as double-time on one would not allow you to get enough AP and legendaries for two specs).

The result being that the cost of "picking wrong" is MUCH higher than previously. And that turns players off. The class changes themselves might not be a big deal, but when the player then discover that their passion pick was inferior, then the pain of switching is much bigger.

Tanks and healers have been somewhat used to a switching pain in the past. Because none of the classes have two tank or healer specs. So you always had to re-roll to a different class if you wanted to switch tank spec. But DPS players had the luxury of many classes with multiple dps specs.
Take the ever-popular mage as an example. Since classic, mage players have had the choice of arcane, frost, and fire. With an almost free switching cost (MoP and WoD having only a few min-maxing differences between the specs in terms of trinkets and stat weights).
These players are then tossed into Legion, where the first hour of playing forces them to pick a spec. That is fine, the next level you get to pick the others too. But over the next days of playing, the trap is sprung. During levelling you put your relics into a weapon, your loot spec determine which relics you get from quests. You also put some AP into your weapon (unless you are patient and keep it all for a later choice). As you hit level cap and venture into endgame you realize that you need to invest in a weapon, and that a soft-cap on daily AP prevents you from keeping your options open. You may also obtain a legendary and get one suited only for one spec, further putting you down that path.
Combine this with the fact that many players have always picked a "levelling spec" and then switched to a raid-spec at level cap. To make the trip easier and you get players that are annoyed by the system simply by the transition from levelling to endgame, for no other reason than the switching cost of specs.

TL;DR: Spec changes are not the problem on their own. It is the combination with spec switching cost and spec changes that makes Legion a new messy story.

[Akka]

There's a free trial up to lvl 35.

There is ? That's a good thing to hear, I might try to pick it up once I finish my Skyrim run

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While the Death Knight was always my favorite class -- in terms of Lore -- I think it's an issue that lots of classes struggle with. Warlocks have absolutely had it the worst

God yeah... I played warlock a lot in TBC and WotLK... When I tried it again in WoD, I honestly to God didn't recognize the class and had half the spells totally unknown...

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Blizzard changes class rotations and feel every expansion.. I cant believe people quit their class/game about it. Pick a class based on what fantasy you enjoy. Like animals and guns? hunter. Like wizards? mage. Wanna be edgy? lock. If you could have "superpowers" irl what would they be. Thats how you pick a class lol. Been a warlock since day 1 no alts

Except the fantasy itself has completely changed. The characters I play today absolutely don't feel anything like the ones I played in Vanilla. My rogue was a sneaky bitch crawling in around unaware foes, stabbing them in the back and lashing a flurry of slices that left them dead. Now she's some sort of dagger-wielding warlock with teleport spells, or a poison elemental...

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better changin classes al the xpacs before playing the same for 12 years.

I still like chess after 30 years, haven't felt the need to change the rules.

[Deleted]

Except the fantasy itself has completely changed. The characters I play today absolutely don't feel anything like the ones I played in Vanilla. My rogue was a sneaky bitch crawling in around unaware foes, stabbing them in the back and lashing a flurry of slices that left them dead. Now she's some sort of dagger-wielding warlock with teleport spells, or a poison elemental...

Personally I'm happy the classes feel different after 12 years. I mean the Rogue example you used is still pretty accurate, you still stealth around attacking unaware enemies. Just play subtlety for that style, it's pretty much the same thing just more complex then opening on a player with your AQR and 1 shotting them with a SS The game would be REALLY stale if they stuck to the exact same archetype of class/spec.

[Akka]

Personally I'm happy the classes feel different after 12 years. I mean the Rogue example you used is still pretty accurate, you still stealth around attacking unaware enemies. Just play subtlety for that style, it's pretty much the same thing just more complex then opening on a player with your AQR and 1 shotting them with a SS

No, it's really not. Rogues (and in fact most non-magical classes) in Vanilla were about the approach on the fight.
Rogue in Vanilla was trading speed for stealth, positioning the back and unleashing a surprise and devastating attack. It was about control through trickery, CC, timing and slashing at a foe.
Rogues in Legion are some sort of shadow/poison casters with magical abilities and superpowers, that barely care about positioning or managing a fight and spam a lot of SFX-heavy spells.

The game would be REALLY stale if they stuck to the exact same archetype of class/spec.

No, it would feel consistent and stay faithful to what someone actually liked in their class.