8.0 What should be left behind

[Butterland]

1. Less passives from abilities.
The "pruning" was terrible. Classes effectively kept everything but now it all applies automatically.

2. Less homogeneity between classes/specs.
Instead of everyone having every debuff at 10% power, everyone should have one debuff at 50% power or 2 debuffs at 30% power.

3. More resources management.
Most classes barely have to even manage their resources. I liked the old days where your rotation would be a compromise between more dmg / high resource cost or average dmg / low resource cost.

4. Less cooldowns with less power.
Whats the point of having 3 dmg cooldowns but effectively just popping all of them at once so that you deal 300% more damage? It just feels like you are weak without cooldowns.

5. Stronger white / base rotation damage.
That may seem casual friendly, but that's what will really differentiate a good and bad player; the ability to pump just a little extra damage all the time vs all your dmg during your cooldowns, all the while managing your ressources.

6. Free global cooldowns.
Why is it so necessary to fill every cooldown? Bring back free GCDs in rotations. This will also have the effect of giving good players an edge since they won't try to fill every GCD leading to resource management.

7. New talent system.
Why not do a compromise between the old trees and the new? Every level, you get to boost a small perk (1% stun resist, 1% crit, etc) and every 15-20, you get a big talent. This could also help hybrids make a small comeback.

8. Hybrids.
Ideally find a way to bring back hybrids WITHOUT the use of cooldowns. Being able to throw an effective heal between 2 damage casts was a great feeling.

9. Healer damage.
Healer damage has been terrible for a few expansions. There should be a way for healers to deal better damage, but at the cost of being mana inefficient (vs the current state of terrible damage at no cost).

10. Instants should suck.
Instant damage and CCs should be weaker (lower damage, smaller durations, bigger cooldowns, low range and/or high resource requirements)

11. Slows and gap closers.
Not everyone needs these. Currently, positioning has little value since everyone can get to their target easily. Make people run more; watch who sucks at positioning crumble. Obviously more pvp oriented, but great way to differentiate a good or bad player in pve.

12. Bring back real leveling.
The total leveling time should be 3-4 weeks, not 3-4 days. Heirlooms need to be much weaker. Dungeons shouldn't give 4 levels a pop. Open world mobs should be harder and open world quests should give more xp so that you don't outlevel a quest line within 10 minutes and need to change zone. Whats the point of the whole quest revamp Blizz did if nobody actually levels that way.

[jackofwind]

It's mostly taken out already. There are just fragments left. Like the class trainers that are still called class trainers, but don't train anyone. It's time to make a choice. Either remove the fragments as well, or put back the old systems.

Put it all back then, which isn't an option of course.

There is no world where sacrificing the last vestiges of RPG that the game has can make it a better game.

[Deleted]

I tried to get into FFXIV, seems a decent game, but.. I couldn't help but notice the GCD. If I recall it was 2.5 - 3 seconds ish, which just made combat feel overwhelmingly slow. I got bored of combat in general after about 10 minutes. If not for that, I'd imagine I would still be playing it now.

Yeah a lot of people have that problem. Goes with being multiplatform I guess. I have a whole bunch of abilities so I don't complain much. It's simpler in some ways and more complicated in others. Naturally there can be multiple solutions for these issues. I bring up XIV, because I know it works.

I agree on most of things, but some of those ideas are just horrible.

Care to ellaborate?

[Averrix]

So pretty much get rid of everything and have it all handed to you? Geez, don't like working for anything?

[Deleted]

For me, there is foremost one thing that needs to be removed: Artifact Power.

It is a grind inside the other grinds for gear and legendaries. It should, imo, either be removed or the rewards should be weakened by a LOT.

[Dellis0991]

Like pretty much all of these ideas are terrible. You realize most of the things you want to get rid of is iconic to the game?!

[davidbane123]

"Leaving things behind" is a VERY tricky subject. It leads down the path to "let's just nerf to hell anything I don't personally like". which leads to destroying the entire game when a crowd of people do it. Like I say, we know what happens when the gamers have control. They will give themselves god mode, one shot the final boss, and then say the game sucks. If not given control, they will whine to have every single freaking mechanic removed until they have god mode.

That's the danger of this thread. Let's remove items. Let's remove bags. Let's remove flight paths and have instant travel. Let's gut the quest system. Let's gut the talent system. All of it revolves around "let's make the game easier". That is not good brainstorming. Its not good feedback.

If you want to talk about what should be left behind in a more serious conversation, you should talk about what should be left behind WHERE DOING SO MAKES THE GAME HARDER.

Dangerous how? Because a dumbass says some words? Honestly, this will all be forgotten in like a week's time lol. I wouldn't worry about this rant post.

[Deleted]

You realize most of the things you want to get rid of is iconic to the game?!

Ehmmm, no? Class trainers being utterly useless is a recent development. Epic mounts not being epic, profession items being unnecessary, LFR difficulty, random drop legendaries. These are all new.

[Polarthief]

Random drop legendaries

Nope. Bad idea. Nothing legendary about them now. Let's go back to insanely long difficult questlines.

They'd actually be fine if they were all utility only and tuned to be SOMEWHAT balanced. Prydaz is vastly superior to almost any utility/defensive legendary, just as much as your BiS throughput ones are vastly superior to your shittier throughput ones.

I don't know how the devs can justify Day 1 Sephuz as being anything but liquid diarrhea compared to other legendaries (for raiding where you pretty much never proc it ever). It's indefensible. Finally giving a passive 2% Haste and 10% Speed, it's at least decent for raiding.

[Deleted]

They'd actually be fine if

So the current system can't stay.

[Alvito]

Probably it would be bigger if it wouldnt adress mainly those who like to group up.

You know, there is no single player RPG in the world of warcraft. As long there isnt, the best chance to address RPG players would be to allow a lot of solo experience in the already existing MMORPG, with a shift towards content distribution among everyone no matter if he wishes to group up.

Actually, WoW always was meant to be a broad audience game. There is a very large audience of solo rpg players.

While i play the game for close to 12 years already, it never fully adressed my preference of playing mainly solo.

There are also a lot of first person shooter players and people that like sports games, Good luck there are other games that resolve that issue. They gave shouldn't be altered to fit the few like yourself that decided to play a game based on interaction with others and groups yet don't want that to be apart of what they do.

[Deleted]

There are also a lot of first person shooter players and people that like sports games, Good luck there are other games that resolve that issue. They gave shouldn't be altered to fit the few like yourself that decided to play a game based on interaction with others and groups yet don't want that to be apart of what they do.

Actually quite a lot can be done solo. Of course you will get subpar gear and will miss out on quite a bit of lore, but you can level alone. Not sure why someone would do that, but nothing is actually preventing it. If people could do pacifist runs, anything is possible.

[Dellis0991]

Ehmmm, no? Class trainers being utterly useless is a recent development. Epic mounts not being epic, profession items being unnecessary, LFR difficulty, random drop legendaries. These are all new.

I ain't talking about the new stuff, I'm mainly talking about the stuff like the npcs (npcs fill up space and are good for rpg reasons) and the utilities for professions (campfire is iconic) and the mounts aren't a big deal. Heartstones are fine how they are.

[Vorecien]

I'd like to begin, Balager, for thanking you for your input. I'm now going to step through each individual idea and pick at the bones of your input.

Well it is that time again. Fake leaks are comming and we will most likely get an expansion announcement at Gamescom. I mean we probably won't have more than one major content patch after Argus, and the new expansion will need to be beta tested as well.

It's possible that we'll see an expansion announcement at BlizzCon, but with GamesCom a few months before then, that's a bit of a stretch. GamesCom will probably be the first unveiling of Patch 7.3.5, or possibly bigger plans for their recent partnership with Bungie and Destiny 2. Neither of us actually works for Blizzard, so all we have are educated guesses. We've both shared what we believe will happen; thus, we shall wait and see.

Old models

This one is obvious. The game is old. The graphics are old. An engine update is long overdue. But that can't happen in a simple expansion. What can be done is to update all the NPC , gear and monster models that haven't been updated in the recent expansions. You might not think it is a big deal that kids still look like the way they did in Vanilla for example, but it totally is. Also, throw out the cataclysm leveling gear. Ditching all the unique looking equipment in favour of generic stuff that don't fit any racial or class aesthetics was a mistake. Let's take the engine as far as possible.

There are many stale models in the game. I'd love to see an updated marmot model, but we'll just have to wait. Blizzard tends to fixate model updates on creatures that are prolific in the story. We saw them favor draenei models over blood elves during Warlords of Draenor because of their prolific part in the story. With a higher polygon count in player models, I'd love to see a higher-resolution model for the original faction-based mounts (e.g. Rams, sabers, etc).

Modeling takes a lot of time, and the art team is only so large. We're seeing their efforts in the game. The most recent and noteworthy creature model update was to all rabbits in the game. I'm sure squirrels, marmots, deer, sheep, and others are on the horizon... somewhere. This game is very large. It wasn't built originally with the thought in mind that it would last for over a decade. The designs probably would have been different had they known this would be the outcome.

Bags

Let's be honest. Bags suck. As far as gear go they are pointless. They don't make our characters look different and they don't give stat bonuses. They just limit our inventory. There is a reason why every MMO uses simply an inventory that is far larger than our backpack and can be extended later for money. We could do the same if the code allows it. To make sure tailors don't lose revenue, let's make bags consumables that increase the inventory size. This would be much simpler than emptying a bag, putting it in the inventory and putting a bigger bag in its place.

Blizzard is aware that the inventory system is lacking. They know that a system like the current is inexcusable, but it's not a simple fix. What you're suggesting is grounds for a complete rewrite to the system, and they're just not ready to do that yet. But hey, it's possible that they decided to buckle down and knock this out in 8.0, along with an overhaul to the auction house UI. (An auction house UI update was confirmed by Ion Hazzikostas, but not necessarily for 8.0.)

Personally, I'd love to see scrollable bags. In other words, we keep the organization feature, we keep the search functionality, but add a scrollbar to the side of the bag frame. This would kill the Bagnon mod, though.

Hearthstones

Don't get me wrong. Hearthstones are awesome. We get a return spell. Cool. We need that. But do we really need that to occupy a slot in our inventory? Why can't it be an ability? Or an icon on the interface? Sure it is just one slot, but still. There really isn't a reason for it.

I agree that Hearthstones must stay, but continuously adding new ones isn't an answer. They already grouped Mage portals together. Consolidating the Hearthstone spells into one button in our General tab in the spell book sounds great to me. This may be seen in the future.

Cooking fire

Not much of a hassle, I admit. Just two clicks before you can cook. But still, why? We can mine without mining picks and skin animals without a knife. Hell, we pull mounts out of thin air. Can't we just imagine a cooking fire being present and simply craft?

I don't understand how we skin without a knife or mine without a pick, but cooking without a fire? I'm sure Blizzard can stretch the first two a bit to make sense, but the last one? My characters already consume nasty foods -- but uncooked foods? That would be unacceptable in my book. If no boss has slewed our champions (or heroes) in the past, then it would certainly be embarrassing to die from uncooked Leybeque Ribs, no?

Besides, it's not like the cooking fire takes up bag space. It used to require Simple Wood and Flint and Tinder, both of which consumed bag space. Not to mention that it received a pretty awesome visual update in Legion.

Forge and anvil requirements

Again, this is stupid. The game has no problem letting us hammer things without a hammer, but an imaginary anvil is too much. Either go back to the old system where you need to equip tools be in the right place to level professons, or throw away all these silly requirements.

They changed the game to match a more modern convenience. We identify these changes as quality of life modifications. In no which way were they meant to make sense. For example, hunters pull ammunition from where... their... hmm? I agree that from a it-should-make-sense perspective, something needs to change. You were protesting for bag space earlier, though. Thus, I must ask if you really want them to return to the old system or move further down the rabbit hole? You have two contradicting suggestions here -- select the lesser of two evils.

Flight paths

Yes, quick travel is important. But it isn't really quick, is it? Do we need to see the entire flight? How about we use flight masters as instant travel points?

Hm... it's less of a flight path if I click a button and teleport. Mage portals would become (almost) obsolete; their only benefit would be at the end of a raid when players don't want to use their Hearthstone cooldown. I don't see a huge change coming to the flight system, only small changes to make select flights shorter.

The current talent system

AKA the only thing I really disliked about MoP. Hey, we threw out the old talent system because there was a "correct way" to allocate talent points and we want to avoid that. Well news flash. That's still a thing. Also we don't get talents at the same intervals. For non hero classes it's mostly every 15 levels with the last comming after 10. But for Death Knights it is a total clusterfuck. 56, 57, 58, 60, 75, 90, 100. Let's try again, shall we? Or if they really don't want correct and incorrect ways, let's just forget about talents.

People that bring up the talent system are often too nostalgic for the old system. We'll never return to it. The present system may continue to be built on, but Blizzard, among many players, are very happy with it. It's been deemed a success. Although, only altering talents in rested XP areas (or with a tome) is a bit of an inconvenience, but oh well.

Classes and specs

A rather complicated issue. First thing first: The Legion class design isn't the best. The specs need rework. Also thanks to order halls and demon hunters, there is not much the devs can do if the want to add things. A new non-hero class? That needs a new order hall with storylines, followers and at least two artifact weapons. A fourth spec for classes? Druid already has a fourth and demon hunter doesn't even have a third. Also, new artifact weapons. Triple spec? No point. We can change specs basically any time we are not in combat. But honestly sometimes I'm not even sure we need some of these specs. Does rogue need three melee DPS specs for example? Why can't one be an evasion and/or parry based tank? Tanking mage with shields and teleport? Why not? I know removing specs would be problematic but sometimes it feels like a class has more specs because it is expected to have more. (Warlock and rogue especially).

It's about preserving the class fantasy. Why can't every class tank; why stop at rogues and mages? It just doesn't make sense to allow a mage (with shields) to tank. There is an awesome class design idea for shaman tanks (dubbed the "Earthshaper"), which can be found here. New classes can be a thing in the future, although we probably won't see one for some time. Artifact weapons won't be a thing in the future, but it will be a bit weird to level through Legion content X expansions from now without an order hall. We'll see what Blizzard decides to do with that, if anything.

Rogues and their three specs tie back to my class fantasy point. Assassination rogues specialize in poisons; they're even dubbed "deadly masters of poison." Outlaw rogues specialize in toe-to-toe combat, mastering several weapon types, and they totally fight dirty. Subtlety rogues rely heavily on hidden combat -- basically specializing in stronger attacks from the dark.

Weapon requirements for abilities

No, I don't want to decapitate mobs with arrows, but when every warrior skill needs a two handed weapon, but all quest rewards are one handed I start to get irritated. Let's forget about this nonsense and just go with melee weapon, ranged weapon, dual wield and shield.

Your classifications aren't incorrect. It would certainly solve your problem, but it would break a lot of Transmogrification rules. Thus, we probably won't see a re-classification and consolidation task turn up with weapon types.

Class trainers

You know. All the NPCs that are still present but have absolutely no use. It would be nice to give them class quest that reward core abilities or gear. If not, remove them.

Again, these were a part of some quality of life changes made throughout the past few expansions. They play absolutely no role in our current gameplay, but simply removing them from the world doesn't change the fact that they don't play a role in our current gameplay.

Epic mounts

Put down the pitchfork. This is not what you think. I'm not saying we should remove the models for them. But at this point there is nothing equip left about them. There was a time when having epic mounts meant something. You could only get them at the level cap, they were expensive and they were faster than the regular mounts. Now you get epic ground mounts at 40 (the level cap is 110), mount speed is dependant on the riding skill, and they are also account bound. They are no longer status symbols. So why do we need normal looking and slightly better looking mount at the same time if they are functionally the same? Why not just keep the epic mount models and have them available at 20? Or give them something extra?

I can only say "quality of life" so many times in a post before it becomes a crutch. The game evolved with the times. We may see model updates for them in the future, but I don't about extra "flair."

Okay... I'm done. Overall, good ideas. I hope that you see some of your ideas in the future.

[Sinyc]

I don't agree with much of what you said, but it appears you took a decent amount of time to think about these and write them out. So I applaud the effort.

A few things I'll touch on:

Heirlooms: While I don't have many of them except ones you get free for playing the game, I see the point. You either need to have a way to skip levels 1-100, maybe via a one time gold payment or money, or live with heirlooms.

Dungeons and raid difficulties: I agree with you here. Part of the reason I quit during WoD was having to raid normal, then heroic, then mythic so that everyone in our Mythic roster had the best possible gear and for BoE's to sell for guild related stuff. It was awful. They should all share a loot lockout, or get rid of heroic/rename Mythic to heroic. And just have Normal and Heroic.

Flightpaths: I wouldn't mind seeing instant travel like in the Witcher 3, but it's super low on my list of things for 8.0.

Bags: I have been saying this to my friends and guildmates for YEARS. At least they give you void storage and all that, but I hate the way bags are done in WoW. I never have enough space!

[Deleted]

I ain't talking about the new stuff, I'm mainly talking about the stuff like the npcs (npcs fill up space and are good for rpg reasons) and the utilities for professions (campfire is iconic) and the mounts aren't a big deal. Heartstones are fine how they are.

I ain't talking about the new stuff, I'm mainly talking about the stuff like the npcs

(npcs fill up space and are good for rpg reasons)
So why not give them more role beside beside filling up space? Or remove the class trainer tag from them and have them as normal townsfolk?
and the utilities for professions (campfire is iconic)
Sure. And you can't cook without a campfire. But you can brew potions without one. Hearthstones need to occupy and inventory space and you have to find an anvil, but you can just pull out mining picks, fishing rods, skinning knives, shovels and surveying gear from behind your ear. And the firewood we actually needed to carry back in the day. Looking at it like this way it really doesn't make much sense, does it? Again, for the one millionth time. They don't have to be removed if a rework is found, but the current "system" is dumb and should not stay.
and the mounts aren't a big deal.

Not sure what you mean with this part. Not a big deal how they currently work? Well okay. Like I said, different oppinions are totally fine. I personally wouldn't mind if all epic mounts were hard to get. As in too hard for me to get. Or at least very hard. Not everything has to be acessible to everyone and I am totally fine with far better players experiencing stuff I won't.

[KrazyK923]

Artifacts and Artifact Power
Class Hall missions (I'm fine with a base)

Player as the hero
Illidan
Khadgar
Sylvanas

[Deleted]

There are also a lot of first person shooter players and people that like sports games

You dont want to tell me a MMORPG is not also a RPG inherently, dont you?

They shouldn't be altered to fit the few like yourself that decided to play a game based on interaction with others and groups yet don't want that to be apart of what they do.

You would not lose anything if the game was for a larger target audience. And Blizzard could address many more players and endure the game lifecycle a lot.

[Deleted]

Things

A lot of good feedback. Thanks. About the contradictory part:

It sounds weird because we are at a halfway point. You need to carry a Hearthstone and an inking set, but you don't need to carry a mining pick a fishing rod or a skinning knife. You need fire to cook but you don't need it to brew potions, and it works without firewood. You grind stone into a powder with your hands, but you need forges and anvils to make metals bars or to make stuff out of said metal.

This needs to be unified somehow. I'm up for either, provided most of the community follows.

[Spiffums]

Removing Bags? How would we carry anything? And think about how messy your action bars would be with all those extra "skill buttons".