To you, is Vanilla shallow or complex?

[Deleted]

You guys must have never played vanilla, because all the rpg elements it had, are no longer here, and just by that fact, it was way more deep than current wow.

[Akka]

Class design was shallow

I very strongly disagree on this one. On the contrary, the class design is the single strongest suit. The garbage that was "class fantasy" in Legion was the shallow and shitty aspect, but Vanilla actually makes each class very unique and with a strong personality.

[Digitalspork]

Title: Is Vanilla complex or shallow in your eyes?

To some, it’s a completely barebones and shallow version of the game, lacking many fundamental elements added on in the later expansions (like achievements, various QoL changes like the mount tab and autoloot etc). Basic kill quests, horrible itemization, simple boss-fights (mechanically) and so on...

To others, it’s an immensely complex game with long lost RPG elements.

People seem to be really divided on this. I wonder why.

What’s your thoughts?

Honestly, I can see where people will feel that it is Shallow game-play mainly because the Mechanics of Boss Fights when compared to current Mythic Design are virtually like doing LFR.

However, the game in my opinion is very complex due to the way the Statistics in the game worked with your character it was infinitely customizable in ways that the developers couldn't even fathom upon creation. Some of these factors worked their way into BC where for the most part they had an understanding of how most stats worked or had changes how they worked with specific Classes and Abilities.

Example:

DPS Warriors using a fair amount of leather for the secondary stats to maximize damage.


Personally I feel the game overall is of a higher difficulty in terms of encounter design today, but I do very much miss the games former Server Communities versus the Modern Cross-Realm.

[aevitas]

As great as the memories are, I don't think I'll play classic again.

It baffles my mind when people say classes have 'too few abilities' followed by 'I can't wait for classic'. Most specs were pressing 1 or 2 buttons while waiting for threat to drop as dps. Or in my case as a warrior tank, I was waiting to finally get some rage all the time. It really wasn't that engaging if you really think back to it.

As for exploration, that was awesome. Everything was new and that aspect will never be the same if you hop on vanilla now.

[Mormolyce]

Shallow.

It had complexity, bad it was the bad kind - many things were unnecessarily complicated and ultimately didn't amount to much in the gameplay.

Some additional complexity I did like though. Things like Hunter pets being tamagotchis.

[Morbownz]

Playing your Class in a raid environment is where Classic truly becomes shallow. Everything else whilst not being complex is more than just involving. From 1-60 you're constantly decision making because you want to level up quickly, you want better gear and you also want Gold, the path to achieving all these is not linear. PvP is shallow when you play against bad players, play against a good player and it's a different story, winning a BG against a team that have given up is shallow, beating a good team is not.
Legion is incredibly shallow, so much of what you experience offers no challenge or complexity and can be done in an auto-pilot mode, however, like with Classic and other games, when you want to compete and be good at the game it is no longer shallow. Pushing Mythic+ or trying to get good ranks on Logs means you can't auto-pilot through the content because you're decision making has way more impact on the end result.

[Deleted]

Shallow.

It had complexity, bad it was the bad kind - many things were unnecessarily complicated and ultimately didn't amount to much in the gameplay.

Some additional complexity I did like though. Things like Hunter pets being tamagotchis.

Agree with you completely. I think this was most obvious in character stats. I guess they started from a base from other games and ultimately d+d but as a newcomer to MMOs 90% of it made absolutely no sense to me and the game was absolutely horrible at giving you any clue about what you stats you wanted to improve your character (that is still true tbh).

On top of that for a long time it seemed like they had absolutely no idea how to itemize things, with random stats all over the place, a complete scatter gun approach that didn't match how classes actually worked, you could say that carried on in TBC with Prot Pallys requiring spell power weapons.

[Kelathos]

I'd say shallow, slow, and grindy.

But I am still eager to revisit it and feel it out for all its worth.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Shallow all the way through. Convoluted and dated, a shallow ocean if you like. And still well worth visiting and spending time in for its slower pace, in my opinion.

The fact that people often refer to entirely subjective things to describe why Vanilla was superior, says it all. "I cared more back then!" =/= there was some magical component put in place to make you care.

Everything from class gameplay, mechanics to story being told in the game has only grown more complex and involved. I'd say the Class Order Hall was the pinnacle of this games' RPG element. Hopefully they'll capture it again someday. Even doing something as simple as World Quests, I'm constantly making decisions like which ones to go for, grouping, which routes. It's been 2 years and it still holds up.

Not to mention the fact that the game has never had more effort put into keeping the world relevant beyond leveling than it did during MoP and Legion. And the game has 14 years worth of world for players to experience at their own leisure.

[Coombs]

Do you want to be in an immersive world or do you want to go to Six Flags under Azeroth and buy a few tickets, teleport to the head of the line, ride the ride on rails, and then sit at the snack stand showing off your Lit Mog?

One is shallow as fuck, the other is just good game design.

[Mormolyce]

Agree with you completely. I think this was most obvious in character stats. I guess they started from a base from other games and ultimately d+d but as a newcomer to MMOs 90% of it made absolutely no sense to me and the game was absolutely horrible at giving you any clue about what you stats you wanted to improve your character (that is still true tbh).

On top of that for a long time it seemed like they had absolutely no idea how to itemize things, with random stats all over the place, a complete scatter gun approach that didn't match how classes actually worked, you could say that carried on in TBC with Prot Pallys requiring spell power weapons.

I've been thinking for ages that they should probably dispense with stats. Really stats are irrelevant except for ILVL now.

But they probably don't want to make such a fundamental change.

[Deleted]

In vanilla you needed social skills to get something done which gave the game much more depth. I think retails is shallow because you get anything done without saying a word, there is no community anymore.

[Queen of Hamsters]

In vanilla you needed social skills to get something done which gave the game much more depth. I think retails is shallow because you get anything done without saying a word.

Lol.

Hyperbole at its best. You can get the easiest content done without saying a word. The moment you aspire to something more, you'll need to communicate and have a team. PVP or PVE. The Discord era means that people create communities even outside of the game to talk about and coordinate in it.

In Classic you could be part of a 40-man raid just as padding, seeing the very top tier content all the same.

[Mosotti]

Maybe it wasn't more complex in the true sense of the word. But it was certainly more alive from a MMO perspective. You had to actually talk to people to get anything done, no teleportation to dungeons, no map that shows you everything, no dungeon journal, weird unfinished zones that made your imagination run wild. Two different games, I can find the fun in both.

[Sastank]

Complex and new for its time. Simplified by today's standards. Challenge came from things being new for a lot of people, getting enough online on time, and the grind itself in general for various things like attunements, res gear, and leveling overall.

Edit: The amount of resources we have today also make things seem like they were harder back then, without as much research and handholding available

[McNeil]

Its inbetween for me. It also depends on what aspect we are talking out, I think the world felt like it had a lot more depth to it and that all RPG elements helped making this game feel like a MMORPG. But gameplay compared to today is more shallow while it has never been any complex imo.

[Deleted]

I've been thinking for ages that they should probably dispense with stats. Really stats are irrelevant except for ILVL now.

But they probably don't want to make such a fundamental change.

I'll be clear I don't want to get rid of stats.

The focus on ilvl by Blizzard is a desperate attempt to treat the symptoms rather than the disease.

All it needs is there to be somwthing in the spell book, an idiots guise if you will, saying something along the lines of:

Keep up buff x
Hit spell y as often as possible
Look for gear with stat a on but keep stat b above approx c%.

I play pretty much every spec here and there and I have to admit a lot of the time I have to fall back on ilvl as a tool to decide an upgrade because looking up and remembering the stat priorities for 30+ specs is more effort than is really neccesary.

[Jonnusthegreat]

Definitely shallow, but that's not a bad thing. Too much complexity ruins a game.

[Kelathos]

I play pretty much every spec here and there and I have to admit a lot of the time I have to fall back on ilvl as a tool to decide an upgrade because looking up and remembering the stat priorities for 30+ specs is more effort than is really neccesary.

Why try to remember the stat priorities when we have addons like Pawn?

[Deletedaccount1]

Very shallow today because everyone just follows cookie cutter guides for specs and gear.