From a Vanilla Player: The reason why I think WoW lost its glory.

[Alvorea]

Hello, in advance I would like to apologize about my english, it is not my native language and I may not be able to completely explain what I want to.
My name is Gabriel, and I play WoW since late Vanilla or early The Burning Crusade, and World of Warcraft always been with me since then. I had breaks, like most of you, and skipped only one expansion, Warlords of Draenor, mainly because the aesthetic and lore was not interesting to me that time.
Now, returning to play Legion, and I found out something really sad about the game and the way it is heading, I have every class character past level 80, and it is something that happened across the board on all characters that I have: The game is moving towards a complete dumbed down and simplified version of what it was years ago.
In my point of view, what made WoW interesting, was not dailies or rep farming, or all the grind related, end game is used to be the boring part actually. WoW was more interesting because how I could, with hard work, differentiate my characters, like, my mage, from every other mage in my realm. I am not talking aesthetically only, but my build chosen, profession chosen, my gear chosen, the number of spells available to me for different purposes other than damage itself (remember amplify magic? Buffs? Mana Shield? Evocation?). Those spells made playing Mage something interesting, It was like, if you had enough time playing and learning your class, you could really be better than the other mage guy by just using your arsenal wiser. I could be half frost and half fire before specializations, I could have Ice Barrier and Fire Nova by going down both talent trees, trying different things was fun, PvP and PvE wise.
I know their intention is to make the game easier for new people, but they should not forget that when we once started playing back then, what made us enjoy the game itself was this same complexity that is going lost progressively. I feel like BG's nowadays are no different than a match of Counter-Strike, no trinkets procs, no profession stuffs and no anything that would make you feel different from the other guy, where all are the same thing and what really matters is your skill, internet connection and communication. It is good to have your skills in such a place where they are essential for the gameplay, but your time investing should be rewarded with a more personalized, customized and fun experience with your character.
I don't know if I made myself clear, but it is like, I had a deeper relation with my main character back then, and now he is just another dumbed down version of itself that runs around with different clothing thanks to transmog.
Thanks for listening, but it is not like I am on a nostalgia crysis, It is like the game lost the passion the people had on designing it and are making their jobs easier by just creating a less organic gameplay environment.

Ps.: Even Artifact weapons is bad in my opinion, you end up being with the same very weapon as everyone else. Not fun at all.

Problems pointed by other players that I agree:

- Epics are too easily available and raiding is not as rewarding as it was anymore.
- Cross-realm stuff made your realm community non existing.

[Mhorrg]

I've always put it down to cross realms.

WoW was awesome when your server was a community and you only interacted with each other. As more and more cross realm elements were added we lost the community and community is what makes MMOs good.

[Gimlix]

I've always put it down to cross realms.

WoW was awesome when your server was a community and you only interacted with each other. As more and more cross realm elements were added we lost the community and community is what makes MMOs good.

That might be true, but they need Cross realms to survive.

[Kyrenna]

I can't imagine how the game can possibly be dumber now, when dps rotation was hitting 1 button that throws a missile, may it be frost bolt, fire bolt or shadow bolt.

Sure you had lots of spells, most of which were utterly pointless because they dealt next to no damage in the wrong spec, or worse, took up a debuff slot on raid bosses, (back when you couldn't apply unlimited number of debuffs, which was SO MUCH FUN for sure btw).

Talents offered an illusion of choice, with some talents mandatory while others were outright pointless and impossible to use in any build. Waiting 50+ levels to get your spec's signature move made the game slow and clunky.

All WoW has lost is archaic game mechanics.

[Alvorea]

I've always put it down to cross realms.

WoW was awesome when your server was a community and you only interacted with each other. As more and more cross realm elements were added we lost the community and community is what makes MMOs good.

Oh yes, true.

- - - Updated - - -

I can't imagine how the game can possibly be dumber now, when dps rotation was hitting 1 button that throws a missile, may it be frost bolt, fire bolt or shadow bolt.

Sure you had lots of spells, most of which were utterly pointless because they dealt next to no damage in the wrong spec, or worse, took up a debuff slot on raid bosses, (back when you couldn't apply unlimited number of debuffs, which was SO MUCH FUN for sure btw).

Talents offered an illusion of choice, with some talents mandatory while others were outright pointless and impossible to use in any build. Waiting 50+ levels to get your spec's signature move made the game slow and clunky.

All WoW has lost is archaic game mechanics.

Not everyone had the necessity to pick up cookie cutter talents, some people, like me, like to try new things outside the box.

[Deleted]

Why I keep reading the game is easy and dumb and meanwhile only 1% (?) of players clear all mythic content before its nerfed?

[Soliden]

I can't imagine how the game can possibly be dumber now, when dps rotation was hitting 1 button that throws a missile, may it be frost bolt, fire bolt or shadow bolt.

Sure you had lots of spells, most of which were utterly pointless because they dealt next to no damage in the wrong spec, or worse, took up a debuff slot on raid bosses, (back when you couldn't apply unlimited number of debuffs, which was SO MUCH FUN for sure btw).

Talents offered an illusion of choice, with some talents mandatory while others were outright pointless and impossible to use in any build. Waiting 50+ levels to get your spec's signature move made the game slow and clunky.

All WoW has lost is archaic game mechanics.

Hey now, sometimes you had to use lesser ranks to conserve mana.

[Jotaux]

Not everyone had the necessity to pick up cookie cutter talents, some people, like me, like to try new things outside the box.

Well I guess playing sub-optimally does make it more difficult.

[Darsithis]

While I won't debate whether or not some specs are a little more braindead than others, I do have to disagree with most of this. Having a lot of spells doesn't make a class complex or smart. Having a few spells also doesn't necessarily make a class dumbed-down or braindead. It matters how those spells play into each other, how manageable the spells are, and what level of skill is needed to truly master the class.

Blizzard has been working for many years on two concepts: bring the player, not the class, and easy to learn, hard to master. So far I think they're doing a good job with most specs in that respect. You can pick up a lot of the classes easily but if you want to perform at a high level it takes more than just pressing the buttons that glow.

[Alvorea]

The content can be "Hard" and yet that does not mean the game itself is "Complex" or that you have free of choices to make regard your character. Difficult is something that can be set regardless of game design complexity.

[Raetary]

you people simply dont get that its been 10 years, community changed, generation of gamers changed, if the game didnt also change it would've died out faster than a bug under a shoe.

[Eleccybubb]

Tbh Vanilla wasn't all rays of sunshine. Certain specs being absolute trash because bosses had resistances or the spec was just shite and quality of life wise WoW is way better today than it was back then.

[Apsychicrat]

Why I keep reading the game is easy and dumb and meanwhile only 1% (?) of players clear all mythic content before its nerfed?

Because the game has lost its luster to them after playing for so long, they keep trying to explain why. the real reason why is simply tastes change with time and that doesnt make the game bad.

but most people arnt introspective enough to see that and blame the game

[Tart]

Why I keep reading the game is easy and dumb and meanwhile only 1% (?) of players clear all mythic content before its nerfed?

Raid or die in a nut shell.

[Luckx]

During TBC leveling was Harder and if you died you had to corpse run for 3mins and not 30secs like during Cata.

Also PVP was much more casual friendly , at least BGs and World PVP, u was able to get good pvp gear just by doing BGs without Arena.

And TBC had Great World PVP and during Cata World PVP nearly died.

"WOW lost its glory" defintly not because of Dungeon Finder or CRZ. Without CRZ most questing zones like Vashir and Silithus will be empty and feel like Single player game and not like MMO.

Also WOTLK Lore and Storyline was way much better and epic than MOP/WOD/Legion "Storyline" & "Lore"

[Alvorea]

Well I guess playing sub-optimally does make it more difficult.

That is the problem, it is about fun, and you can have fun by feeling the game more personal, even when not always winning. Everything is about competition nowdays, and all the fun are left behind.

[Tart]

you people simply dont get that its been 10 years, community changed, generation of gamers changed, if the game didnt also change it would've died out faster than a bug under a shoe.

I agree 100% with the new generation, i really started seeing the change from wrath onwards. But in the same breath i think Wrath invited a whole new sort of player base.

[Serenity87]

All WoW has lost is archaic game mechanics.

This is a really good point and something a lot of people ignore. This game is 12 years old, a lot of mechanics/ideologies that made sense a decade ago don't now.

12 years ago most people didn't go online to look up the best talent builds, they took what looked exciting. If the old talent trees were in the game today I guarantee groups would be denying people because they didn't take the best talents.

The whole "WoW has lost its glory" statement is silly. Maybe it's lost its glory to you, but millions of people are still playing and making memories with friends they found through the game.

FWIW, even though this has no baring on the discussion, I've also been playing since vanilla (just before they added AB to be precise).

[Jazzhands]

Well I guess playing sub-optimally does make it more difficult.

What's optimal in raids may not be optimal for other content. This holds true even in Vanilla.

[Apsychicrat]

That is the problem, it is about fun, and you can have fun by feeling the game more personal, even when not always winning.

I dont see how some check box in a giant tree of mainly passive abilities makes one thing more fun than another. those talent trees were pick and forget, i hardly even cared to look at them unless a patch re balanced things.