Why do people deny they are simplifying the game when Blizz says explicitily they are

[RoKPaNda]

Name some significant systems that were more complex in Vanilla than they are now.

I'm not denying that most rotations are more complex now than they used to be despite being easier to pull off since the interface is more intuitive than it used to be, I was just pointing out that you picked pretty much the worst example possible followed by the second worst example. One class got shafted in one raid tier and only had one ability that could even hit, and another had a poorly designed spec at one point, neither was a good idea of what the average experience was at the time.

[MoanaLisa]

The game will still have enough subtleties that the ego-obsessed that calculate their value to the planet based on whether or not they can play a game better than someone else will be able to do so. That's what's important, right?

[Gourmandise]

Another 500% complexity if you used your singletarget buffs like you should, but nooo you had to be a baddie casual.
(joke, please don't give me infractions)

/cry
/cast Divine Inter-wait
Guess I'll have to do it the old fashioned way...

[Zaqwert]

Whereas i see plenty of people denying this on these forums..

Simplification is evident all over Wow... homogenisation of the classes, reduction of classes abilities, talent tree simplification, linear questing, truncating dungeons, the list goes on.

Some people see these changes as good steps forward and others see these changes as killing the immersion and losing the RPG element of Wow.

Good synopsis.

There is such a thing as TOO streamlined and TOO simplified. Nobody wants complexity for the sake of complexity, but sometimes a little complexity can add a level of depth that raw simplicity can't.

[ringpriest]

Name some significant systems that were more complex in Vanilla than they are now.

Crafting.
Talent trees.
Aggro.
Spell ranks.
Weapon Skills.
Locks and the methods of opening thereof.
Attunements.
5-mans. Dungeons were non-linear environments, with patrols, scouting was relevant and useful, pulls were complex, there were often multiple objectives and even actual choices in how to proceed.

[Zaqwert]

I also think back to when people jumped all over Ghostcrawler when he tongue in cheeked mocked the WoW attitude that if a grandmother couldn't understand it, it couldn't go into the game.

I'm not against taking into consideration grannies and little kids when designing a game, but watering down your games and compromising the quality of them solo to not scare them off is not cool.

[MoanaLisa]

I'm not against taking into consideration grannies and little kids when designing a game, but watering down your games and compromising the quality of them solo to not scare them off is not cool.

Then I take it that you've disapproved of World of Warcraft since the start. It was after all pretty much a watering down by your definition from Everquest.

[Ulfhedinn]

Then I take it that you've disapproved of World of Warcraft since the start. It was after all pretty much a watering down by your definition from Everquest.

Only it was more extreme. The difference between Everquest/FFXI and Vanilla WoW would be like comparing MoP 5 mans with Heroic SoO. You could not solo on most classes in EQ/FFXI. Even if you could solo it probably wasn't much better than grouping. Everything was more punishing. 10% of your exp for that level every time you die... raids where good fun when you could die enough times to lose your level. In those games you spent many HOURS on each level. There was no questing for levels either. It was join a party and kill the same crab over and over and over...

I love how people think classes are more complicated because they had to make a macro the linked a bunch of stuff together... or having buttons on their bar that they should always use or never use.

[Tzalix]

Of course they are simplifying the game. I disagree with it being something negative. Pretty much all newer Blizzard games follow the idea of "easy to learn, hard to master". And I like it.

[Ryme]

I see very few people deny that. What most people seem to debate is it being a good or bad thing. (In my opinion, at least 99% of it is a good thing.)

I'd go with 70% of it a good thing, though within that 70% they can sometimes go overboard - such as the endless ability pruning.

[tankbug]

Crafting.
Talent trees.
Aggro.
Spell ranks.
Weapon Skills.
Locks and the methods of opening thereof.
Attunements.
5-mans. Dungeons were non-linear environments, with patrols, scouting was relevant and useful, pulls were complex, there were often multiple objectives and even actual choices in how to proceed.

Crafting. <- What? Explain.
Talent trees. <- Cookie-cutter or suck, where is the complexity?
Aggro. <- Fine, I'll give you that. However, as a dps warrior this busted my balls since I had no good way of reducing threat, so it was broken.
Spell ranks. <- What, buying a new spell is complex? You buy it or you stick with the old one and suck.
Weapon Skills. <- just a grind, usually just hitting low level mobs for 30 minutes until you could kill stuff.
Locks and the methods of opening thereof. <- Like blacksmith keys? When did you ever use that?
Attunements. <- Like getting into MC or BWL? It was a single run through easy dungeons. Anyway, it's now replaced by gearcheck, isn't that a better way?
5-mans. Dungeons were non-linear environments, with patrols, scouting was relevant and useful, pulls were complex, there were often multiple objectives and even actual choices in how to proceed. <- There still are patrols, and mobs you cc or use the environment to defeat. The only real difference I see is that the dungeons used to be bigger, like BRD and xBRS.


Seems to me that they only removed the annoying, grindy stuff. Not interesting stuff. If they want to bring back threat-management, I might welcome it, as long as it's fair for all classes and that it doesn't defeat the purpose of gearing up.

[Gourmandise]

To be fair, Tankbug, using a significantly lower rank of a spell was common use as the cost-effectiveness ratio of higher levels spells was terrible. Some people figured it out and most, as is common with anything connected to the internet, googled a guide.

[Deleted]

big question really is,
why do people care that they are simplifying the game ?

Currently there is
11 class's with a minimum 3 PVE spec each. Thats a minimum 33 basic's that people have the option of learning for, some of which require there own gearing.
Add to that the dizzying array of PVP options and gearing and tactics against other players.
Throw in the profession system, questing, arena, battlegrounds, dungeons, raids, scenarios and everything else I have missed out and it is a hugely complex game, with an enormous learning curve for new players.

Simplification does not always equal bad, and complex does not always equal good. At the moment imo the game is in a position where it is way to complex for new people to actually get to grips with and start enjoying, without spending a couple of hundred hours in game learning the absolute basics. This can be seen with the number of subs that are in decline, whilst not gaining a steady income of new players. A Simplification of several systems within the game will have the effect that new players will not feel so overwhelmed and more likely to keep playing, and old returning players will be able to quickly get to grips with old and new classes.

The problem is getting the balance right, where the game is simple enough to keep new players engaged, and complex enough to allow what they want to be able to achieve and allow the seasoned players the ability to complete. Sure not everyone is going to be happy, There are those out there that like the game so complex that they have to plough thousands of hours into it to be able to learn and master everything possible and still have room to learn, and I am not going to say that is bad thing, I WAS one of those players, I have racked up well over 800 days played across all my toons and I don't regret it. However I absolutely see a need for change if the game is to stop loosing and more importantly start gaining subs again.

[Maoli]

Good synopsis.

There is such a thing as TOO streamlined and TOO simplified. Nobody wants complexity for the sake of complexity, but sometimes a little complexity can add a level of depth that raw simplicity can't.

That's a great point. At the same time, having too much complexity for the sake of immersion also limits Blizzard creatively. If dungeons take hours to run, players will be investing less time in other areas of WoW. What if Blizzard want to add more features to the game to give players more to do (ie: garrisons, pet battles, brawlers guild). Then players have to consume even more of there day just trying to enjoy the basics of the game. I think that's a lot of the reason they are streamlining the game so much. People don't want to sit in hour long dungeons to get a chance at a piece of gear. They want to run content, be rewarded or atleast more in that direction (collection of badges/points) and be able to do other content within the game.

As far as classes and skills, it was pretty annoying when you tossed together a basic group of friends and didn't have 'that class' you needed to do a piece of content (ie MC for naxx, cc for a dungeon) so i'm glad they took that path to homogenize classes and stufff.

[Zaqwert]

Then I take it that you've disapproved of World of Warcraft since the start. It was after all pretty much a watering down by your definition from Everquest.

I find this argument to be quite faulty. Just because something was casual to start with doesn't mean it can't go overboard becoming more casual. Maybe when WoW started it hit the perfect sweet spot and now has strayed from it?

Here's an analogy. Let's say there was a big marathon race put on every year. Obviously not everyone can run 26.2 miles at once, so along comes someone else and puts on another race that's a 10K (6.2 miles), so that this race is way accessible and more fun to everybody.

A few years go by and everyone is enjoying it, but every year they shorten the race.

After a few years it's a 50 yard run around the block.

Someone complains "This 'race' is way too short and easy", I don't think a valid response is "Well, it was always way shorter than a super marathon"

You can take anything to an extreme and that's not a good thing. EQ was too grindy, 2014 WoW is too streamlined, early to mid WoW was the sweet spot.

[Karnak]

I'm not denying that most rotations are more complex now than they used to be despite being easier to pull off since the interface is more intuitive than it used to be, I was just pointing out that you picked pretty much the worst example possible followed by the second worst example. One class got shafted in one raid tier and only had one ability that could even hit, and another had a poorly designed spec at one point, neither was a good idea of what the average experience was at the time.

I am using the same custom keybindings that I have been using since Vanilla, with the addition of the Razor Naga. My interface was just as intuitive in Vanilla as it is now. Rotations are more complex and boss fights are more complex. The game is harder.

Crafting.
Talent trees.

New ones are more complex as they actually give viable alternate choices at times whereas the old ones only left a handful of points to spend in non-mandatory, read "insignificant", places.

Aggro.

Agreed.

Spell ranks.

For healers, agreed, for DPS, no. Mind you it was pretty much gaming the game for healers to be doing what they were doing with it.

Weapon Skills.

<Yawn> No. Having to level up weapon skills was not complexity, it was a chore.

Locks and the methods of opening thereof.

Another chore, button clicking for the sake of button clicking that added no actual difficulty.

Attunements.

A grind or long quest, not difficult, just a chore.

5-mans. Dungeons were non-linear environments, with patrols, scouting was relevant and useful, pulls were complex, there were often multiple objectives and even actual choices in how to proceed.

Yeah, I miss those too. Players need to rush through dungeons now though. I will note that I wasn't doing dungeons at all once I was raid geared, unlike now, so I can't comment on what Vanilla dungeons felt like when massively overgeared.

I'll also note that dungeon difficulties have varied pretty widely from patch to patch in WoW, Vanilla included.


EDIT:
You left out Hunter and Warlock pet systems.

[Deleted]

The pendulum has swung a bit too far. Try the following experiment: que for a heroic dungeon.
Now, try and die without just pulling every mob in the place. It is actually quite difficult to die
if you have a decent healer and decent gear.

In cata by contrast just completing a heroic dungeon was a big deal.

[fixx]

Some people see these changes as good steps forward and others see these changes as killing the immersion and losing the RPG element of Wow.

Cutting ability bloat has got nothing to do with immersion or RPG, that's just bullshit excuse from people who don't know what immersion or RPG means. I'll give you a hint: it has got nothing to do with the number of skills or abilities or complexity of the game.

BioWare is known for many of the best computer RPGs and best immersion on the industry, and how many buttons you have in their games?

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I look at it like buying a mixed nuts bag at my house. My wife just picks though them and eats all the cashews and I eat the walnuts and typically we just throw the rest away. So I got to ask was it the ACT of digging though those others we knew weren't going to eat the joy or was it simply eating the ones we liked the joy. Was the other unused, or should I say rarely used nuts (you would eat a few here or there), important enough to spend money on to just get what we as a majority wanted. Or would it just be best for us to buy 2 bags of nuts with one being cashews and the other walnuts and not waste the others we don't eat minus the few we get by accident.

Blizzard doesn't think the fun lies in the ACT of digging though a pile of content/skills of which only very few pieces of it are used VERY regularly. Instead they want to focus on the parts that people use the most and try to make those pieces the most important parts without a pile of garbage around them. The fun doesn't lie in the clutter and throwing away what you don't use. The fun lies in using your favorite and enjoying it.

For me it is pretty simple to see. For others not so much. I am sure a lot of it is based in opinion, and I can accept that. Problem is.. most can't.

[mrpoundsign]

You really see no problem with being able to perform that well just mashing keys as you see fit? And what does being in a top guild have anything to do with the topic at hand of some specs, particularly Arms, can be facerolled to be nearly as effective as optimal play? In case you didn't watch the video or read the thread I linked, here's a rundown of how to play Arms optimally:

1. Charge
2. Rend
3. CS on cd
4. MS on cd
5. WW until out of Rage or MS coming off cd
6. Refresh Rend when it's about to end.
7. Repeat steps 2-6.

Congrats, you are now doing the optimal Arms single target rotation. Here's AoE rotation.

1. Charge
2. Rend everything
3. WW everything
4. Repeat 2+3 when Rend is about to expire

Last I checked this is the strongest spec in the game with only Frost Mage being any sort of competition.

http://www.icy-veins.com/wow/arms-wa...owns-abilities seems to disagree about rotation complexity. http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/ disagrees about arms being top DPS.

The largest problem with these kinds of arguments is you get the least informed shouting the loudest.