Class design in Battle for Azeroth is worrosime...

[Nyel]

Watching the class changes in BfA has become a pain for me. I really don't understand what Blizzard is trying to do with their class design approach in the upcoming expansion.

Artifact weapons haven't been perfect but they added a very nice layer of character and spec development to the game. To remove most of the artifcat traits is something I really don't understand. Why? You developed them for 2 years now and then remove 4/5 of them? And this is not even the worst about the class changes. It's the mindless "turning skills into talents" they already did in Legion. Instead of creating something new or interesting we're neither getting a new talent row nor new skills. No, they're removing skills, artifact traits AND they're making baseline skills talents - again. Why the hell is Shadow Word: Death a talent now? Why is Void Torrent no baseline ability (or every other artifact skill that was somehow useful)?

This just proves to me that Blizzard's class design has become very shallow, boring and uninspired. They're not capable of creating something interesting anymore. Overall their goal in Legion was to make classes more fun and specs more "special" (and they achieved this lore-wise) but gameplay-wise most specs became incredibly dull and very similar to each other. And now, instead of trying to fix this, they're making specs even more boring by removing artifact traits (the only thing that kept specs interesting in Legion) and not giving anything for compensation. At first I thought "don't worry" but every new Alpha update with their horrible class changes is increasing my negativity towards class design in BfA.

What do you think?

[Deleted]

Just made a thread about the exact same thing on the official forums, and I agree wholeheartedly.

https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/17618053324

[valky94]

i like what they did with warlocks so i have no complaint for now

[Ickz]

I don't understand why people keep making posts like this when BFA's artifact system (azerite armor) hasn't even been implemented yet for the public. It'd be like complaining about Legion class design when you don't have access to artifacts.

[valky94]

Ret also seems significantly improved. And survival seems interesting though I'd have to play it first.

and from what ive seen arms wont be a collossus spec anymore, itll still have it but you wont have to play around it as much,

[Nevcairiel]

I don't understand why people keep making posts like this when BFA's artifact system (azerite armor) hasn't even been implemented yet for the public.

Because people are impatient and haven't learned from every previous cycle. The concept of something being a work-in-progress is hard to grasp.
The only things that are actually making good progress in the Alpha right now are the zone and dungeon designs. Class changes and related systems are by far not "done", we don't even have any picture of where its going due to the lack of the Azerite Armor in current public builds.

Its important to know that the state of the public Alpha is not the state of things internally at Blizzard. We might see a big push introducing the Azerite stuff all at once when they decide to push it to the public. Just because we don't see it doesn't mean its not being worked on.

[Nyel]

I mean seriously, it's not about your class or spec getting an overhaul (Demonology and Survival say hello), it's about the mindless class design Blizzard is trying to establish.

I don't understand why people keep making posts like this when BFA's artifact system (azerite armor) hasn't even been implemented yet for the public. It'd be like complaining about Legion class design when you don't have access to artifacts.

What do you think the Azerite system will be? It will be "+5% damage", "+3% crit" or "if you activate defensive skill xyz you increase your abc by 5%" etc. Don't be delusional. They'll take the most boring artifact traits and turn them into the super enticing Azerite system.

(that it hasn't been implemented yet is no good sign at all because it seems like Blizzard isn't even aware of how it should be or how they want it to be)

[Aliven]

I don't understand why people keep making posts like this when BFA's artifact system (azerite armor) hasn't even been implemented yet for the public. It'd be like complaining about Legion class design when you don't have access to artifacts.

Thats the problem for me. Blizzard create classes around a system which is only for one expansion - artifacts and legos in Legion and now Azerite in BfA. They need to redesign classes after each expansions because they simply dont work without system from previous expansion.

[Dezminion]

I don't understand why people keep making posts like this when BFA's artifact system (azerite armor) hasn't even been implemented yet for the public. It'd be like complaining about Legion class design when you don't have access to artifacts.

Because classes should be fun and complete when you dont have artifacts, azerite armor, legendaries or tier sets.
Those things should just add an additional gameplay layer on top, not to make the class "work" as intented.

[Eazy]

Give Assa nice AoE not RNG.
Remove RTB for Outlaw and make it less spammy.

And I'm fine...

[thesmall001]

Artifact shortcomings: 3 out of 5 artifact traits were flat % increases. 1 out of 5 were utility. The rest were rotational. Many of the active abilities from the artifacts were mild cooldowns that had no real impact higher than an on-use trinket, very few of them were actually interesting beyond "doing what you normally do but a bit bigger". I can agree that the artifact felt cool, and there's something to be said for progressively becoming more specialised at using the spells you use regularly (via those flat % buffs), but it was not a system that provided any real depth in the vast majority of cases.

Azerite optimism: But we'll soon see, as the Azerite system is implemented, that the best of the crop and a spattering of new goodness will soon be making its way back into the class design. The main difference will be that the actual interesting part of the artifacts --relic fishing, trying to get an increase to the passive you needed most-- will be less gated behind RNG and more easily targeted by getting the same piece of Azerite gear from a higher difficulty. And you won't have to pointlessly farm your way through less interesting passives to get there. So it'll be closer to modern talents and less like Classic-Cata talent system.

Classes being good is not the same as good design: As to the argument that classes should be flawless at baseline, my decade of experience in this game and playing almost every class has taught me something. When they kept adding more and more stuff as baseline, classes became increasingly the same. Every class had an execute, every class had a cleave option, every class had a multi-dot option, every class shared similar buffs and it all became very "template". Tanks all had the same cooldowns. Healers all healed the same way. And variation, instead of being something that made you special, became something that made you sub-optimal. And the classes that had cool stuff got left out of dungeons and raids.

Classes need to be broken: And let me tell you why it's actually okay for classes to have weaknesses at the start of an expansion: When you have a designed weakness, you have design space to overcome that problem, and that drives you to reach that goal. If you go back to Cataclysm and look at Prot Warriors and Paladins. They took spike physical damage until they block capped, and that sucked, but it meant you cared about getting every piece of gear that helped you reach the CTC caps and then you felt powerful once you reached that point. And it was good. All that has changed is that we have less obfuscated mathy % problems and more conceptual problems like "I'm weak to magic damage" or "I don't have great burst or cleave".

The design team know what they're doing. It's just that good design sometimes won't, and shouldn't, feel good to the player. You're not here to start as a god. You can't start an expansion with all the utility you want, maxed stats and perfect DPS. So it's okay that you start off a little bit gimped. And, for the sake of avoiding homogeneity, it's okay if you still have weaknesses at the end of the expansion too.

[Restors]

Because classes should be fun and complete when you dont have artifacts, azerite armor, legendaries or tier sets.
Those things should just add an additional gameplay layer on top, not to make the class "work" as intented.

This times 100000000!! Well said.!

[Deleted]

Just made a thread about the exact same thing on the official forums, and I agree wholeheartedly.

https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/17618053324

Advertising for general forums lol.

worrosime

[Deleted]

*Cut for better readability*

This guy get's it.
This is just the right answer to end the senseless discussion before beta even came out.

[Deleted]

Because classes should be fun and complete when you dont have artifacts, azerite armor, legendaries or tier sets.
Those things should just add an additional gameplay layer on top, not to make the class "work" as intented.

This needs to be quoted over and over again until someone like red shirt guy (not really serious but he does get guaranteed questions) directly tells them at blizzcon where they would actually have to justify the direction they are taking it.

It is a huge underlying problem for past couple expansions, not only are you losing baseline stuff, core functioning mechanics, even iconic stuff that made your class your class being taken away and made spec specific or outright removed, maybe getting a full revamp where you lose everything you loved in place of a bullshit voidform and insanity mechanic (not bitter at all) etc etc you are no longer truly gaining character progression in my opinion, you're merely getting reset every expansion now where you slowly earn back things that you have lost, only now it seems like you're not even fully gaining back all you lost, some stuff you're permanently losing. Was a cool gimmick in wc3 frozen throne as arthas lost power but in an mmorpg where character progression is everything it just simply is not on.

I made a druid recently to get the mage tower forms even though i am making a druid specifically for zandalari forms, first time i actually ever made a druid past low level and i was shocked that now you don't even get abilities for all your forms, they are completely barren until you take a talent that gives you some basic abilities for that role. Think about that for a minute, The very core of a druid is shapeshifting and switching roles but now you actually have to spend a talent point to do the BASIC abilities in that form and its ONLY for one form. Now i know, as a druid you will pretty much always be in the form of your actual spec for the overwhelming majority of your game time but come on..... You're now an arch druid who suddenly cannot do anything but auto attack in cat form because you picked guardian talent for your boomkin?

[Bugg]

Nothing actually New or Original.
Same old shit, maybe from another class or spec.
Pathetic.

[thesmall001]

This guy get's it.
This is just the right answer to end the senseless discussion before beta even came out.

<3

/10CharactersOfLove

[docterfreeze]

It's legion 2.0. Too simple. Not enough powerful buttons. Since MoP ended we've been getting weaker and weaker. Doesn't make any sense.

[Deleted]

Because classes should be fun and complete when you dont have artifacts, azerite armor, legendaries or tier sets.
Those things should just add an additional gameplay layer on top, not to make the class "work" as intented.

Except they do. For example as a feral druid you'll be building up combo points using shreds and rakes, while spending them on finisher abilities like rip, ferocious bite and savage roar (if talented). Of course i'm oversymplifying the rotation. But all in all, this is how ferals are supposed to be working. And they do! All that leggos and the artifact abilitie did was provide us with things like more combo points, faster energy regenaration etc. Which is exactly what you mentioned. They added an additional gameplay layer on top. They didn't make or break the spec. And this is the case for most of the classes and specs.

Now what they're doing is, they're taking away that 'additional gameplay layer on top' and replacing it with a new one, probably via Azerite armor traits. This way they're keeping the core of the specs the same while still adding more stuff to keep them fresh and interesting.

Am i being too optimistic? Maybe, but at least let us wait and see first, then judge.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I'm fascinated that you can dismiss the entire expansion as the "Michael Bay of WoW expansions", with so little to go by...

Whilst I think classes should be designed at 100% without additional RPG-fluff and progress stuff such as the Azerite pendant or Artifacts, the developers probably want to make those things feel more impactful by tying how a class plays to them.

As for my own class, I'm cautiously optimistic, as it's looking now I might even be back to having 3 specs to choose from rather than just 2. :d
I chose Indifferent in the poll since I can't say for sure yet.