WoW: The RPG Without Customization

[plantation]

I was a BM hunter back in wrath, which was considered unplayable in PvE for those that don't remember. Your pet scaled exceptionally well with flat AP, more so than agility, so I gemmed everything with the +40 AP gem. I was never top DPS but could generally keep up and even pass certain classes... playing an "unplayable" spec with bizarre items and gem choices.

The cool thing was that it worked. I was able to keep up with others playing a very unconventional build. And that's what an RPG should be about imo. Playing what you want, finding ways to make it work. Having the OPTIONS to try and make it work. Not being locked into anything. Current wow is nothing like this.

[Kyanion]

I was a BM hunter back in wrath, which was considered unplayable in PvE for those that don't remember. Your pet scaled exceptionally well with flat AP, more so than agility, so I gemmed everything with the +40 AP gem. I was never top DPS but could generally keep up and even pass certain classes... playing an "unplayable" spec with bizarre items and gem choices.

The cool thing was that it worked. I was able to keep up with others playing a very unconventional build. And that's what an RPG should be about imo. Playing what you want, finding ways to make it work. Having the OPTIONS to try and make it work. Not being locked into anything. Current wow is nothing like this.

But this is just anecdotal and might not reflect how the class was viewed in logs when compared against other variations of the class. Just because you beat people you grouped or raided with does not automatically mean your spec choice/gem choices/enchant choices were correct.

With that being said if you were having a good time and your raid didn't care what you played then more power to you. That is the more important thing to me. As long as your having fun and the guild is cool with it, go for it.

[Kyanion]

Look. We're never going to see sub numbers again. But I'd wager they're still dropping. I think the game is in sub-retention mode because they know it can't last forever.

They report on time logged in to the game now. Which is why the RNG is dialed up to 1000. Provide as little quality content as possible, timegate the shit out of it and load it up to the brim with RNG. That's their prerogative now.

Yes yes we know. The game is dying. It has been dying for years. Blah blah blah and oh by the way year 13 is just around the corner. I'm sure subs will rise again when the next raid patch hits and of course they'll go right back up when the expansion hits. I don't give a flying fuck how many people are playing as long as the game is putting out new content and puts out things I want to do with my guild. When they fail to provide things to keep me playing I'll stop playing and do something else.

[Raelbo]

Always with the word "illusion".

And why exactly is it not applicable? Call it what you will, but if a certain choice is infeasible, then it's not really a choice. This was the case with most of the customizations you talk about. In theory people had a choice. In practice the vast majority of people selected from a very small subset of the available choices. Now, maybe people do genuinely feel like they're making a choice because they actually have to go through the process of making that selection, and maybe this is something people need to feel. But I get the feeling you're more concerned with being right than in actually trying to understand the real issue here.

Isn't the current Talents also an Illusion of choice?

To a certain extent, yes. As I mentioned in the paragraph above, I think that players do still, to some degree, have a need to feel that they are making a choice.

That being said, the variety of choices is fairly limited, and most choices do fit a specific need (eg aoe vs single target, pve vs pvp). In the end what they've effectively done is removed most of the choices that people would likely never take anyway and left only the obvious choices.

And while I get that the narrative you'd like to push is that they should've left those choices for the few special snowflakes who want to be extra unique, what you fail to acknowledge is the significant development effort required to cater to all the different options. Sure, it's possible, but does it make sense? And no, just because you and a few others claim that you wouldn't use the cookie cutter build, doesn't mean it makes sense. For a start, talk is cheap. Secondly, the metrics used in the first place, based on how many people actually made use of those choices (ie very few), is far more compelling.

Isn't it true that in WotlK there were several different builds for the same class/sepc?

No, I don't think it was true. I only started raiding in WotLK and I remember there was only 1 "correct" build. Sure it changed every now and again, but it never felt like a real choice.

Of course you're always going to have people who are willing to try out different things, to try and see if they can find a better option. And every now and then it will happen that some enterprising player will find a different build that is more effective than the incumbent cookie cutter build. But that never really results in a choice. All it does is replace the old default cookie cutter build with a new one to which everyone flocks.

And yes, you do also get the tiny minority of players who will go with a different build because they like being different, even if it's less effective. In a game with literally millions of players, you're always going to have exceptions, but that is not a sound basis for assigning most of your design resources.

I have already posted previously proof that several hybrid specs existed...if you don't believe me:

Well of course several hybrid specs existed. The question is, were they widely adopted? And what about the thousands of theoritical specs that were possible but no one adopted?

Customization is still possible, it's simply been whittled down to the options that people are likely to make use of. What has been removed is the myriad of spurious options that were generally ignored and represented little more than a wasted effort to create, for nothing but the illusion of choice.

[Tojara]

There was never really any customization in this game to begin with, it hasn't magically disappeared, it just wasn't there to begin with.

Gems are never interesting because you aren't really customizing your gear. You slot in the best gem and you're done with it. The only time you would have different gems instead of the same type, was when reforging and hit caps were in the game, or you were trying to hit some break point that allowed an extra tick.

I could go on and honestly, not really defending Blizzard, but this game has never really had customization. If you thought your 'whacky' setup was viable back in previous expansion, it probably was, within the confines of the people you played with or how you approached the game. You can still to this day play healers as DPS, gem your stuff sub-optimally, play specs that aren't strong, or use legendary items over other ones that aren't good. The option is there, people generally don't take it though.

Basically what I'm getting at is there is, and always has been an illusion of choice in this game. It hasn't changed. The only reason why it felt like choice was there in the first few expansions was simply because the player base was far more ignorant to playing the game properly. Now we have a billion tools that tells us exactly what's best and how to play the game. That always existed in the earliest expansions as well, it just wasn't as a wide spread.

I think the game should have more customization, but I don't really see how they can do it. I won't accept however that there is somehow more customization now than there was in the past, because that simply isn't true.

[Raelbo]

Yes, but then you have to consider there is also a ton of people who do not get close to any of the competitive aspects of the game, i understand the customization options still remain in the game for that population, though i have no idea if those players would or would not be interested in further customization.

Personally, I suspect that most players who are interested in customization are also concerned with performing well. It just seems natural that the two would go hand in hand.

Well i guess the op and some repliers to the thread are interested in that customization, is it justified to design the game around them?, i do not know, that is something for blizzard to consider i guess.

Blizzard did consider it. And they had some rather long blue posts about it at the time. Basically their conclusion was that the number of people who actually use the customizations (as opposed to those who might claim to want it) is far too small to justify the effort of catering to those customizations.

And to be fair, much though I personally like the idea of customization in an RPG, I have to concede to Blizzard's point.

[Deleted]

I mean you can come up with new ways, they're just not encouraged because simcraft had made everything numerically valued

think about the one shot macro from swifty for example. stuff like this doesn't really exist anymore because the classes are just not deep enough anymore.

[kary]

think about the one shot macro from swifty for example. stuff like this doesn't really exist anymore because the classes are just not deep enough anymore.

mashing every ability off the gcd with a trinket and a pot was never highly innovative.

[Deleted]

Yes you did, but you are in denial with your tinted glasses.

(-__-)

@Raelbo
I like your well written post with the negatives but you need to understand something:
-Even though the trees of WotlK didn't offer customization for a lot of classes, one can't deny the fact that "Talent Trees" will always have more potential to offer more customization than today!

If you want proof of this just watch the situation of Deathknights in WotlK.
They made new talent trees from scratch and as a consequence there were A LOT of ways to play a DK.
http://forum.warmane.com/showthread.php?t=324069
This is a thread of DK's discussing the endless possibilities in talents. Some links to the talent trees no longer work unfortunately.
But this guy replied:

Wtf DK is the most hybrid-friendly class there is in Wotlk. Blood with un-dispellable diseases is more viable than blood with DRW IMO. http://rpgworld.altervista.org/335/d...00100000000000

Deathknights were proof that if Blizzard wanted, they could make awesome customization with talent trees. WotlK talent trees will always have the potential to offer more customization than today. Because they are trees. EVEN THOUGH they did NOT offer customization to SOME classes (cookie cutter builds) they will always have the POTENTIAL to offer if well designed.

[kary]

I was a BM hunter back in wrath, which was considered unplayable in PvE for those that don't remember. Your pet scaled exceptionally well with flat AP, more so than agility, so I gemmed everything with the +40 AP gem. I was never top DPS but could generally keep up and even pass certain classes... playing an "unplayable" spec with bizarre items and gem choices.

The cool thing was that it worked. I was able to keep up with others playing a very unconventional build. And that's what an RPG should be about imo. Playing what you want, finding ways to make it work. Having the OPTIONS to try and make it work. Not being locked into anything. Current wow is nothing like this.

Categorically false.

You can still play your shitbuilds.

[epLe]

Balance in Legion has been and still is a complete and utter joke.

This is due to Legendaries and other factors. But its also due to the fact after 12 years Blizzard still can't do it - or don't care enough to do it.

Why are the same specs always left in the dumpster. Warcraft logs proving they are underperforming but when hit up about it - Blizzard always responds with some bullshit like:

"Look guys, nice theorycrafting and logs but we're just not seeing the same numbers as you guys on our internal tests. X spec is performing fine. You're wrong".

Then you look back at warcraftlogs and think - What the fuck are they smoking. The logs are REAL DATA from the LIVE SERVERS. Retarded.

Blizzard got way better data for making any such statement,
Warcraftlogs is just a gathering of the small (loud) minority who actually submit their user generated logs to them.

So all in all, Blizzard is right is saying "You're wrong", when whiners refer to warcraftlogs.

[kary]

Blizzard got way better data for making any such statement,
Warcraftlogs is just a gathering of the small (loud) minority who actually submit their user generated logs to them.

So all in all, Blizzard is right is saying "You're wrong", when whiners refer to warcraftlogs.

People who generally only play the best builds so logs are skewed towards the better builds.

And people having the same talents has been a thing since WWS back in TBC.

[Tojara]

While there was a lot of ways to play DK in raiding and PvP, there was still a superior way to play the class, even in WoTLK. I mean, that's math. At times in WoTLK there was a tanking spec for blood/unholy/frost, and there were a few different sub-specs within each one of those for DPS. But there was still a best option, and that was reflected by what people ran all the time.

You could also play enhancement, retribution or shadow priest in raids in vanilla and talk about how cool you were, and how much a trend setter you were. You could even say that it was viable because in your situation, you were wiping the floor with your guilds rogues. That still doesn't make it strong, and it still didn't make it viable. It just means the people you were playing with couldn't play properly, and you had some semblance of knowing what you were doing, despite playing something that really wasn't viable.

You could also fill up on raid buffs and take retarded talents as a rogue in TBC and be completely unhittable, allowing you to tank bosses at the highest level of content at the time. I tanked Mother, Teron Gorefiend, Reliquary and Gurtogg on my rogue. It wasn't optimal, but you could do it. It also wasn't fun for others in my guild because threat capping was an issue as there was no bonus threat generation playing a rogue.

Just because people play something outside of the norm and do okay with it, generally just speaks volumes to who they are playing with. Granted it doesn't matter what you do if you just do your own thing and don't really care about those things. Guess what though, that's always been the case.

Like mentioned multiple times you can still play your shit specs, wear shit legendary items and take the worst talent choices available. On paper the new talent 'tree' looks like it has a lot of options, but in reality it rarely has any options. What I will say about this 'tree' is that most of the talent choices are generally impactful, in regards to throughput or giving you abilities, even if there truly aren't real options at times. The old talent trees were just as bad though. They were a group of 50 points or whatever you could place into each tree, with 4-5 impact points, with the rest being marginal stat gains (1% crit, 2% reduce mana cost, 2 energy off sinister strike). Basically all Blizzard did was bake those points into your class and take the big talents and make you choose between them.

Again, not defending the lack of customization. Only stating that there has never really been choice. There is just more information available now. You can, as always play whatever you want, that has never changed. And again, just because you perform well with something that is seen as sub-standard, doesn't make you a trail blazer, nor does it bring any legitimacy to the spec or play style.

[Schattenlied]

And what was the spread in past tiers? I am assuming you are using 75% percentile of Mythic per second amounts to get that 20% so about 17% in NH, over 75% for HFC, about 32% for BRF, 82% for SoO. These are the ones I can find. 20% does not look bad.

20% is still not balanced, not even close, balanced is within margin of error.

[Fabinas]

While I agree with your assessment that perfect balance in a game like WoW is impossible, that does not address the issue at hand.

Sure, making classes hugely customizable adds to balance issues, but that is not the only problem. The crux of my argument, which is based on Blizzard's explanation, is far simpler: Making classes with customizable talent trees and glyphs etc is a lot of extra work that players never take advantage of. Essentially it's wasted effort and their resources can be utilized more effectively on other areas of the game.

Just because they still don't manage to achieve "balance" is in no way a justification for the notion that they may as well go back to making talents etc customizable. If anything, it's the raison d'etre for removing those customizations. Players are going to gravitate towards the most imba customization, which is what makes all the other options reduntant. And this isn't just a theory, it's how the game actually played out.

The work was already there. The talent trees needed to be expanded and re-balanced because of any new additions. Before the glyph pruning there were more than 400 different glyphs in game (cba to look the exact number). That Includes the ability AND the visual ones. Yet, they still cut them almost all, because: a) the profession was "unbalanced" with so many glyphs retaining value whether they were lvl 1 or level 600 inscription, b) they wanted to introduce some of the ability glyphs as talents c) Why most visual glyphs were eliminated beats me.

- - - Updated - - -

I think it's a case of "I looked up what spec to use and never deviated from it so everyone else must've too". I never followed guides, I made the builds myself. For example I ran a fire build on my warlock in TBC while everyone else ran with the cookie cutter shadow bolt spam spec and I kicked their asses every single fight, simply because the spec worked better in an actual raid environment than it did on paper.

"That summer i was in band camp...."

[Pua]

But that is exactly the closest to player housing you will ever get in wow.

Maybe so, but don't call it player housing. It isn't.

Wrong. There was a small bit of work on it in the Alpha with basic house placement and creation. Nothing huge.

I know that, and what I said was right.

Blizzard have never implemented player housing in World of Warcraft.

No matter how bad garrisons were perceived they are still a form a player housing, of course not on the level of what is seen in other games but it is what it is.. And they were a form of player housing just not very good..

No, they weren't.

The design intent for player housing is completely different from the design intent of garrisons.

They're not equivalent or comparable in any way.

[kary]

Sorry I don't keep 10 year old logs laying around, but it doesn't change the fact that the shadow bolt spam spec of TBC did better on paper so everyone used that one. The incinerate build did worse on paper but better in practice most of the time mainly because of the much lower cast time of incinerate, the damage over time from immolate and the introduction of conflagrate allowing for more movement, but nobody used it.

Yeah gonna have to call bullshit because shadow bolt destro stacked multiplicatively with other shadow bolt destro locks, and spriests.

Incin had a lower cast time, but shadow bolt hit harder. Even with full +fire damage gear and sunfire chants, incin destro would get outpaced by shadow destro.

Beating shitty kids is another story entirely.

Also there was like... no movement in BT/Sunwell, and locks had shadowburn for movement as well.


I can see fire outpacing shadow if your raid was bad and had no spriests/other warlocks, though.
But refer to where I said beating shitty kids is another story entirely.

[grexly75]

Maybe so, but don't call it player housing. It isn't.


I know that, and what I said was right.

Blizzard have never implemented player housing in World of Warcraft.


No, they weren't.

The design intent for player housing is completely different from the design intent of garrisons.

They're not equivalent or comparable in any way.

In the end what we got with Garrisons was the closest thing Blizz have ever given us with regards to player housing.. And more than likely the only time we will ever have something like it in WoW..

[plantation]

Categorically false.

You can still play your shitbuilds.

lmao what shit builds? there aren't options anymore, everything's the same.

[kary]

lmao what shit builds? there aren't options anymore, everything's the same.

You could play things like eyebeam spec for DH, there's like 3-4 different feral builds, 2-3 different moonkin builds, 2-3 hunter builds(zoo, aspect, dire frenzy), there's TV and GS frost mage builds.

Tons of builds exist.