Item Level Squish
Fair enough. How about we compromise and still do the squish, but - hear me out - but allow you to still do 100% of your damage?
Is there a technical reason for a squish or is it just because some developers don't like big numbers?
I hear that it's actually approaching some database integer limitation, but I don't know anything about it so I couldn't offer much insight. Aside from that though if I do 183468312 damage or 18346831 those numbers are just difficult to tell apart during combat. (
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
Reducing Ability Bloat
Reducing ability bloat is something that's been talked about fairly recently in interviews and tweeters, it's also something we've attempted to address as recently as this expansion. It's a balance, of course, between having depth of complexity through abilities without making the complexity just a ton of different buttons to push. There's also perception issues of taking away abilities, even if they're never used, as undermining the viability or versatility of a class. Classes are largely defined by their abilities, so taking things away can be a touchy subject. It's something that we will need to give another go at addressing, because classes getting new abilities as level caps raise is essentially a given. In any case we tend to save these kinds of big sweeping changes for expansions.
STOP DUMBING DOWN THE GAME.
Having tons of different buttons to push doesn't make you smart or good at the game. Having fewer buttons doesn't make you dumb or worse at the game. A literal comparison of # of abilities to # of abilities is not a valid comparison for depth of play or complexity that a skillful player can use.
If you have 30 buttons and your rotation is to push each button in order from 1->30, is that a smart game? Can you as a skillful and smart player press those buttons from 1->30 better than a worse player? Now what about if you have 5 buttons that require situational awareness, combo off each other, and a skilled player can achieve let's say a ~10% DPS gain over someone else using those same 5 buttons just by making smart decisions of when to press them.
What's your opinion now on what number of abilities means to making combat complex, smart, or skillful? Do fewer skills actually mean a "dumber" game? Does more of something just seem better? Is context of mechanics/gameplay/skill trumped by counting how many of something there is? (
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
World of Warcraft and Nostalgia
Have you ever considered that some people may have genuinely enjoyed vanilla?
I have no doubt that there are people out there who remember Vanilla World of Warcraft for how it really was, who can list all Vanilla gameplay systems and features in exact detail, and who still prefer the game as it was back then despite all the progress and additions that have happened since. These people would certainly enjoy playing the Vanilla game if they could, and I can understand if it is frustrating for these people to be placed into the same group as those people who actually are nostalgic.
The thing is though, that there are a lot more people who are nostalgic than people who are not. Those people who are nostalgic have some great memories of fun times they had back when the game was new and when they were playing with their first characters in their first guilds. But often these people are treasuring their good memories, while at the same time forgetting (or downplaying) the not so great things from back then. If they could play Vanilla today, they would most likely not find the same level of fun they had back when they were new to the game, and they would most likely be annoyed by the lack of many of the quality-of-life improvements that have been added to the game since then.
Whether or not people are nostalgic is certainly something that there are a lot of different opinions on, and we fully acknowledge and appreciate that. That being said however (and I know this may come across as being harsh or dismissing to some), the developers have the final word in the end. Their preference currently is to keep the game moving forward, and this means that their philosophy is to keep evolving and expanding the World of Warcraft universe - supporting old versions of the game does not fit well with that philosophy. (
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)