Gameplay Should Cater to Skilled Players

[Deleted]

You dont get what i am saying so i'l try again.

As long as there is options like talents or stats or whatever there is always going to be cookie cutter builds.

That in itself does not impact weather or not Blizzard can make rotations more intricate.

Instead of just hittin everything thats off cd with a prio list, you can make dependencies, buffs to track, debuffs to track and so forth. That can make a spec harder to play even if you copy the build from someone else.

The point is even an intricated rotation is not engaging gameplay alone. The whole gameplay debate is futile in WoW, because we already have Mythic difficulty that already creates an envirorment of engaging gameplay. You need to have perfect setup with equip, perfect grip on your abilities and rotation and perfect awarness and knowledge about boss skills, and good knowledge about coordination with other classes and member of your raid/party.

Is this not enough to satisfy "skilled" players? You really need for all spec a "Survival Hunter" like rotation (that for the majority of player that even likes the spec feels very cluncky)?

[Revamp Man]

in the wonderful game of warcraft there are only 2 players:

those who keep hit combo up

and

those who dont keep hit combo up

[Tradu]

The point is even an intricated rotation is not engaging gameplay alone. The whole gameplay debate is futile in WoW, because we already have Mythic difficulty that already creates an envirorment of engaging gameplay. You need to have perfect setup with equip, perfect grip on your abilities and rotation and perfect awarness and knowledge about boss skills, and good knowledge about coordination with other classes and member of your raid/party.

Is this not enough to satisfy "skilled" players? You really need for all spec a "Survival Hunter" like rotation (that for the majority of player that even likes the spec feels very cluncky)?

There's a difference between depth and clunkiness. And you vastly overestimate the difficulty of mythic raids(and where said difficulty comes from). You don't need to play anywhere near perfectly, nowhere near perfect gear, nowhere near perfect knowledge/awareness. It also isn't inherently "engaging", when a lot of the difficulty from mythic bosses(especially in Legion) has come from mechanics that are either buggy or just unfair(KJ armageddons being a good example of unfair, Argus even in his current state being a great example of buggy).
And regardless, I'd much rather have classes be satisfying/deep/interesting to play than have the boss mechanics themselves be amazing, simply because my class is there at all times, so having that aspect be satisfying to play is much more important than 1 boss out of 10 or however many a particular raid might have.

[Deleted]

That in itself does not impact weather or not Blizzard can make rotations more intricate.

Instead of just hittin everything thats off cd with a prio list, you can make dependencies, buffs to track, debuffs to track and so forth. That can make a spec harder to play even if you copy the build from someone else.

Then your solution to a more intricate spec is to add a load of random, uncontrollable elements. Because, if they were predictable, then really your looking at the exact same issue.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

If you make classes have too high a skill ceiling, you either have to tune around people playing at or near the ceiling. Mythic's already demanding enough to keep most people out already (something like 1% of the community plays mythic).

[Deleted]

If an effort was put forth to develop more involved and intricate specs, with an adequate amount of customization I think that would pay off tremendously for Blizzard. Skilled players would show much more interest in the game and the vast majority of players would likely remain the same as they are currently since gameplay is not one of the main reasons why they play the game.

The classes and specs we play today are vastly more difficult than the ones pre MoP, and so massively more complex than vanilla.. so I don't really understand your argumentation.

[Aliven]

The classes and specs we play today are vastly more difficult than the ones pre MoP, and so massively more complex than vanilla.. so I don't really understand your argumentation.

It was hard for them then to keep spamming Frostbolt so now they think it was actually hard.

[Deleted]

There's a difference between depth and clunkiness. And you vastly overestimate the difficulty of mythic raids(and where said difficulty comes from). You don't need to play anywhere near perfectly, nowhere near perfect gear, nowhere near perfect knowledge/awareness. It also isn't inherently "engaging", when a lot of the difficulty from mythic bosses(especially in Legion) has come from mechanics that are either buggy or just unfair(KJ armageddons being a good example of unfair, Argus even in his current state being a great example of buggy).
And regardless, I'd much rather have classes be satisfying/deep/interesting to play than have the boss mechanics themselves be amazing, simply because my class is there at all times, so having that aspect be satisfying to play is much more important than 1 boss out of 10 or however many a particular raid might have.

1) The mythic clear rate speak itself about the difficulty of mythic raids, it's kinda objective;

2) Feel free to tell me what a "deep" rotation means. I played WoW since TBC, but i never remember something "deep". I remember some rotation fun, some boring, but who i am to say "it's fun because it's deep". If you can't measure deep with objective fact, it's all subjective. And the prime example is Survavil Hunter, it's the shining example that you can't measure the "depth" of a spec only by counting the buttons.

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If you make classes have too high a skill ceiling, you either have to tune around people playing at or near the ceiling. Mythic's already demanding enough to keep most people out already (something like 1% of the community plays mythic).

Also this.

[Tradu]

Then your solution to a more intricate spec is to add a load of random, uncontrollable elements. Because, if they were predictable, then really your looking at the exact same issue.

Not at all. WW in HFC was a great example of a very intricate spec with very little (relevant) RNG. You had a lot of planning ahead both with resources and Tigereye Brew. You had mechanical skill with cancelling Chi Torpedo's animation between GCDs as well as Storm, Earth, and Fire. There were maybe 5 people in the world anywhere near perfecting their play, because there was always something you could do to play better.

[Deleted]

Ideally, the gameplay should teach players how to get more skilled in the game, and provide incentives on the way for getting better. WoW is very bad in this regard, which was not relevant in the earlier days, because the community took care of it.

Now, there is still plenty of options created by the community to teach you how to get better (a multitude of information websites, forums etc.), but they are quite disconnected from the game, and many people don't care to give an advice how to get to this information anymore.

Also, many players simply lack motivation to get better. And this will probably change for some people if Blizzard would change the gearing and content access premise (having easy dungeon and raid difficulties so people can see all content without having to get better to access harder content), but I think that this is only a small minority.

So... we probably will never get back to the days of TBC.

[Revamp Man]

Its not my statement but i'd love to know where you are getting your facts from

i wouldnt disagree with the statement but what i would say is "i want a way to work around the RNG of some specs even if it means making the spec more intricate"

look at frost mage for example no matter how skilled you are or how geared you are if you dont get a proc you are fucked with boring spam

now imagine a talent or something that allows you to work around that boring ass moment say a 20s CD that you can pop for a proc or something that helps it a bit but it is still pretty shallow

now lets look at some specs with good ST but bad aoe

WW monk has great aoe capability as long as we have SEF otherwise we have to tab target alot and that eats some time up (really wish blizz didnt fuck with that ability but whatever) Now i think but am not sure as im not in alpha that our new 100 talent that adds a cone to tiger palm could easily be made to apply mark of the crane on the targets hit so we can spin kick much easier

does this add complexity?? no but it helps the spec if the player chooses it

[Tradu]

1) The mythic clear rate speak itself about the difficulty of mythic raids, it's kinda objective;

2) Feel free to tell me what a "deep" rotation means. I played WoW since TBC, but i never remember something "deep". I remember some rotation fun, some boring, but who i am to say "it's fun because it's deep". If you can't measure deep with objective fact, it's all subjective. And the prime example is Survavil Hunter, it's the shining example that you can't measure the "depth" of a spec only by counting the buttons.

I didn't say mythic isn't hard, it clearly is. You just listed a bunch of things as requirements for clearing mythic when you don't need to be anywhere near perfect in those areas to do so.
A rotation with a lot of decision making is what I'd call deep, instead of mindlessly pressing the buttons that happen to light up thanks to RNG. Examples being basically every iteration of Windwalker, MoP/WoD Demonology, pre-7.3 Feral. All of them required you to plan ahead and make decisions on when and how to spend your resources to a huge extent. Compare it to something like current Retribution, where you have essentially no long-term decisions to make(and even short term the only decision is whether you want to spend Holy Power on singletarget or AoE).
Again, not sure why you keep bringing up Survival, which is a clusterfuck of mechanics that don't work very well together.

[Deleted]

The point is even an intricated rotation is not engaging gameplay alone. The whole gameplay debate is futile in WoW, because we already have Mythic difficulty that already creates an envirorment of engaging gameplay. You need to have perfect setup with equip, perfect grip on your abilities and rotation and perfect awarness and knowledge about boss skills, and good knowledge about coordination with other classes and member of your raid/party.

Is this not enough to satisfy "skilled" players? You really need for all spec a "Survival Hunter" like rotation (that for the majority of player that even likes the spec feels very cluncky)?

Also this. Skilled players have difficulty levels dedicated for them alone. Leave easier content be as it is.

[Revamp Man]

Ideally, the gameplay should teach players how to get more skilled in the game, and provide incentives on the way for getting better. WoW is very bad in this regard, which was not relevant in the earlier days, because the community took care of it.

Now, there is still plenty of options created by the community to teach you how to get better (a multitude of information websites, forums etc.), but they are quite disconnected from the game, and many people don't care to give an advice how to get to this information anymore.

Also, many players simply lack motivation to get better. And this will probably change for some people if Blizzard would change the gearing and content access premise (having easy dungeon and raid difficulties so people can see all content without having to get better to access harder content), but I think that this is only a small minority.

So... we probably will never get back to the days of TBC.

i can think of one thing in one spec that rewards good gameplay right now and its a talent in the WW tree that ups your damage when you trigger the mastery

[Tradu]

WW was one of the most deep specs to begin with, also the one with the least presentation, so people have no intrest in it if you ask me

There is a reason why disc priest way played most or hunters in general when you was only the bubble boi

There was no reason to play Windwalker outside of enjoyment, so very few people did. Outside of 2 weeks in early Highmaul, it was always middle of the pack at best, until Legion launch where it was broken in 5mans and now in Antorus where it's extremely strong in both raids and 5mans, so people didn't have any reason to switch to it from their current character. And I don't necessarily think every spec has to be like WW, but I do think there should be some specs like that available for people who want to put in that extra effort(which was one of the big draws for both Feral and WW in the past). Not every spec needs to appeal to everybody.

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Also this. Skilled players have difficulty levels dedicated for them alone. Leave easier content be as it is.

Difficulty levels don't help if the classes themselves don't offer a high skill cap and rewards people for getting better(and no, Legion classes in general don't, and that's by design as Blizzard has said)

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i can think of one thing in one spec that rewards good gameplay right now and its a talent in the WW tree that ups your damage when you trigger the mastery

The mastery itself already rewards you for "good gameplay", Hit Combo just doubles down on it.

[Deleted]

I didn't say mythic isn't hard, it clearly is. You just listed a bunch of things as requirements for clearing mythic when you don't need to be anywhere near perfect in those areas to do so.
A rotation with a lot of decision making is what I'd call deep, instead of mindlessly pressing the buttons that happen to light up thanks to RNG. Examples being basically every iteration of Windwalker, MoP/WoD Demonology, pre-7.3 Feral. All of them required you to plan ahead and make decisions on when and how to spend your resources to a huge extent. Compare it to something like current Retribution, where you have essentially no long-term decisions to make(and even short term the only decision is whether you want to spend Holy Power on singletarget or AoE).
Again, not sure why you keep bringing up Survival, which is a clusterfuck of mechanics that don't work very well together.

And the only people who needed this kind of grip on the spec where, i hope for them, Mythic players. So here we come again of engaging gameplay that emerges only when the previous factor i mentioned comes togheter. Of course a LFR player will never find a HFC WW or MoP/WoD Demonology "deep" because LFR mechanics does not need this kind of knowledge. But if the WW wants to step up, here it comes a more engaging spec. Even Retribution paladin, played at Mythic Level, is way deeper then a Retribution played by a LFRaider.
Of course, when you are a pro mythic raider that can master a lot of spec you can say "This is more RNG based, this need to plan ahead, this need to be fast at soaking so you need to do this to maximes dps and so on". But how many player can actually master all WoW classes?

And again, i think it all boils down, in the end, about being fun or not. You don't need a deep spec to make a fun spec, but it's also true that fun is subjective. In short, you will never have the same opinion.

[Tradu]

And the only people who needed this kind of grip on the spec where, i hope for them, Mythic players. So here we come again of engaging gameplay that emerges only when the previous factor i mentioned comes togheter. Of course a LFR player will never find a HFC WW or MoP/WoD Demonology "deep" because LFR mechanics does not need this kind of knowledge. But if the WW wants to step up, here it comes a more engaging spec. Even Retribution paladin, played at Mythic Level, is way deeper then a Retribution played by a LFRaider.
Of course, when you are a pro mythic raider that can master a lot of spec you can say "This is more RNG based, this need to plan ahead, this need to be fast at soaking so you need to do this to maximes dps and so on". But how many player can actually master all WoW classes?

And again, i think it all boils down, in the end, about being fun or not. You don't need a deep spec to make a fun spec, but it's also true that fun is subjective. In short, you will never have the same opinion.

Of course the lower tier raider doesn't need to play at a high level, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be available to those who want it(and currently it isn't, because nearly the entire "skill burden" is placed in the encounters rather than the specs/classes). I know before I joined a mythic guild, I still loved playing Windwalker and pushing myself to get better, and the spec allowed for that, regardless of the difficulty I played, because there was a high skill cap even just for the DPS "rotation", not just for "high end specific" things like using your utility, positioning or teamwork.
And yes, fun is obviously the goal in the end, and I clearly have a different opinion on how to achieve it than the current developers(and probably most of the community). For example I was one of the people who strongly disliked the changes to Windwalker that were made in order to make it more appealing to more players, because I believe that it's fine for a spec to have a low participation rate as long as the people who do play the spec enjoy it(and it receives appropriate balancing attention, which WW probably didn't until Legion)

[Tradu]

In theory you are right however:

The problem arises here that blizzard is to keen to be all inclusive which affect this. Because blizzard is too afraid to tell some people indireclty through to game they are playing bad (and dont forget there is giant area between mhytic raiding and wiping in lfr).

What this results to is that blizzard design classes in a way, which is limiting them, where you cant to that much wrong to begin with and their is little variance. As i said even tanks got the shaft this expansion because of this with AM

Tanks are a pretty good example of a role where they had to make it extremely easy to play(leaving minor DPS optimization as the only "skill" component), because if they make the actual survival part difficult, bad players will just die, because tanking at its core is very binary, and obviously having bad tanks just die constantly doesn't work, because then bad guilds wouldn't be able to get anywhere.

[Revamp Man]

There was no reason to play Windwalker outside of enjoyment, so very few people did. Outside of 2 weeks in early Highmaul, it was always middle of the pack at best, until Legion launch where it was broken in 5mans and now in Antorus where it's extremely strong in both raids and 5mans, so people didn't have any reason to switch to it from their current character. And I don't necessarily think every spec has to be like WW, but I do think there should be some specs like that available for people who want to put in that extra effort(which was one of the big draws for both Feral and WW in the past). Not every spec needs to appeal to everybody.

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Difficulty levels don't help if the classes themselves don't offer a high skill cap and rewards people for getting better(and no, Legion classes in general don't, and that's by design as Blizzard has said)

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The mastery itself already rewards you for "good gameplay", Hit Combo just doubles down on it.

my point on it is it says "hey that mastery is a big damage buff and if you want to do more heres a talent that rewards you for keeping that big damage buff up with more damage"

[Deleted]

The point is even an intricated rotation is not engaging gameplay alone. The whole gameplay debate is futile in WoW, because we already have Mythic difficulty that already creates an envirorment of engaging gameplay. You need to have perfect setup with equip, perfect grip on your abilities and rotation and perfect awarness and knowledge about boss skills, and good knowledge about coordination with other classes and member of your raid/party.

Is this not enough to satisfy "skilled" players? You really need for all spec a "Survival Hunter" like rotation (that for the majority of player that even likes the spec feels very cluncky)?

No the point was they arent the same.