Were the classes the biggest mistake in BfA?

[Shakana]

When we create a character, we need to choose a class. If that class doesn't fit you, you just simply feel like not playing.

When a class is not good as it used to be, we lack of interest for the game.

When a class has it's own and unique aspects, a unique extra gear ability, a unique artifact weapon, we feel good.
We feel powerful. We feel inspired to play because we have a great synergy between us and the class we choose to play as our main.

Even when we create alts. We just play them for the sake of it. To try something new, to have more professions, to farm something.
Sometimes you like an alt so much that you even consider it your "main-alt". Because the gameplay on that alt flourish within you, it's fun, enjoyable.

Sometimes, even makes you betray your main for that fun that your alt provides you and be your new main.

Saying the class changes doesn't matter on this game and it's not a problem, it's wrong in so many ways. The game content can be great, the lore can be great, but if our classes are not feeling good to play, you might not see it now but you'll see it later, it will make you feel bad because you can't have those glorious days you had before. Where you saw yourself being useful with your class and trying to role to a different alt class that is going currently better than your main. If your class for example, is a warlock that is good to play on a spec but you don't like and you can't just change for the sake of others because you simply don't like the playstyle, then you'll feel your only purpose to be on a raid is to get summons and give them cookies, passing all raid trying to adapt and the more you play, the less you want to raid with it.

Legion had a whole expansion dedicated to the uniqueness of the classes. We loved this, we invested time, we did the solo mage tower challenge content as well to unlock another appearances. Mage tower was a pain but it was fantastic. I had the most rage quits in my entire life doing Mage Tower when it showed up and had about 100+ wipes, almost seemed like a raid, but i had no help and no healer, so i really had to know my class to do it right.

The uniqueness of a class in BfA is so unimportant that even the tier sets no longer exists. You can even be the best player in the world, but without your class not been given much attention just makes the whole game dull. It doesn't help the expansion premise is a mess.

Now, i'm not saying that in Legion all classes were great and in all aspects of it were crazy perfect (Survival hunter for example, no one wanted to play it in Legion) but it gave us so much fun and BfA lacks giving us that. Our class/spec artifact weapon gave us a new ability that we grown used to. This was the first thing as a demon hunter that made me sad, seeing fury of illidari going. All classes had this particular ability that instead of being turned into a skill, it got turned into a talent or just completely disappeared. Dks got their Sindragosa's Fury turned into a talent. Do you see? So many things got lost in the process for this expansion. I can't just pretend anymore this doesn't affect me AND i don't think i'm the only one but for sure many people say it's not important, think again. I think the only true and big changes went for Shadow priests and Demonology warlocks that were basically dead in Legion.

[Lochton]

In my opinion, the biggest mistake was, and will always be the Azerite handling.

[Haywire5714]

The biggest mistake with BFA is that it's not mobile only

[oathy]

In my opinion, the biggest mistake was, and will always be the Azerite handling.

Feel 100% the same.
It never felt like a good replacement for the weapons in Legion.

[Accendor]

Every single class I played felt as if at least one button is missing from the rotations and some passive effects to spice things up. Every single one. But they still insist on "the class design from legion was done without the artifacts in mind, thats why it does not matter for bfa if we remove the artifacts and only do very minor reworks"

[Grythletubs]

I feel like BfA was the first time an expansion actually literally went backwards.

And I'm not talking about "wow this is so bad it's like we've gone backwards".

All classes pretty much LOST abilities from their basic rotation (since they're exactly the same as Legion) except for hunters and warlocks, passives and appearances from tier sets. It just feels wrong.

[Briselody]

In my opinion, the biggest mistake was, and will always be the Azerite handling.

To be fair, that's kind of bundled into the class issue: Azerite is the replacement for Legion artifact weapons, which were the replacement for any kind of actual class advancement from 100-110. It worked reasonably well in Legion but fell extremely flat in BfA, as anyone who touched beta told them it would. The primary issue with BfA is that Blizzard takes a year and a half to listen to any feedback and that their writers have no idea how to tell a story in a video game like this.

[lollerlaban]

The biggest mistake they did was removing active buttons from pretty much every single class. They absolute butchered stuff like levelling because you get maybe 12-14 abilities/passives/talents combined until level 60 and then in the next 60 levels you get 3 talents and maybe your mastery, another ability if you're lucky. You feel like your entire class is stagnated, atleast Legion artifacts could've given you another one useable ability + major artifact ability but no.

For the endgame there's pretty much no thought process since your entire rotation is maybe 3-4 active buttons + cooldowns, only a select few classes actually have their rotations changed depending on Azerite traits, which is dumb to begin with since i feel a lot of the azerite traits should've been active abilties like they're making now so you actually have buttons to press, instead of snoring at 15% downtime waiting for stuff to pop back.

[Aeula]

Not in the slightest as far as I’m concerned.

Gameplay wise, ret feels the best it’s been since 5.4.

I’ve been more put off by allied races and, more importantly, the godawful story. Not to mention general lack of anything fun to do.

So I was playing a class I legitimately enjoyed and I still quit as soon as 8.2 hit the PTR.

[Musta]

That and azerite

[Dadwen]

Having a class not feel complete with out some outside help is the issue IMO, leg weapon, Azerite or whatever crap they come up in the next expansion, the class should feel complete and powerful by itself and the armor or whatever effects a bonus on that (which I don't think what is happening).

[luciano]

What's missing is FUN.

It's not fun to kill the mobs as any spec/class. There are few PEW PEW PEW buttons. Every class, more or less, builds up combo points and then spends combo points.

It's like going into an arcade that promises 1000 old-style video game terminals...and then you get in and every single one of them is Pac Man. Pac Man is great and all that, but not "18 months and nothing else" levels of great.

[Pakheth]

Pretty much the situation for me. The classes just are not fun to play. They feel clunky, slow and it all feels like a big step backwards.

Legion wrecked my favorite class and spec, BM hunter, but I found a lot of fun in my Elem shammy and WW monk. Legion removed a lot of abilities but had other class mechanics that made it fun to play. WW monk was very energetic and fast paced. Elem shammy felt like a hard hitting cannon with good buildup. Now both classes feel slow and hit like a wet noodle with none of the uniqueness they used to offer.

I went back and looked at my old MoP screens and realised how many abilities and functions our characters have lost. Then I looked at my gameplay videos and I saw all the buttons I actively pressed during a fight. I have nothing of that now. It's press one button, then stare at the countdown and then press another. It's slow, it's unmotivating, it's just not fun.

It hurts.

[Sencha]

The biggest mistake started in Wod/Legion with all these daily boring chores (mission table, world quests, etc.).

[nyc81991]

BFA would still be pretty bad but the class design being better would make it much more enjoyable than it is now.

[Thetruth1400]

Every single class I played felt as if at least one button is missing from the rotations and some passive effects to spice things up. Every single one. But they still insist on "the class design from legion was done without the artifacts in mind, thats why it does not matter for bfa if we remove the artifacts and only do very minor reworks"

I agree. I think the reason for this is, we aren't classes anymore, we're just specs. I'm no longer a Mage, I'm just a Frost Mage. I'm no longer a Priest, I'm just a Shadow Priest. We have no ability to flex as we need to, we're just stuck with the spec we choose and lose literally all flavor of the other specs almost entirely.

I also agree with others here, it's a lot more than just class design that made this expansion feel like crap. Personally, I think the biggest fault of this expansion is they went even heavier into the solo player content, and it just makes the game feel small and unrewarding. Everyone has access to near the best stuff in the game so there is no incentive to actually get better and try harder things. Instead, you can just wait a few months and Blizzard just goes, "Okay, everyone gets up to this ilvl now for doing literally the least possible!" I miss the days when we had a clear progression path to gear and it was actually rewarding. If you wanted the best, you had to put in some effort, not just log in, do some dailies, and wait for the Blizzard handouts to roll in.

[Hyral]

Yeah, they decided to follow the Legion CLASS FANTASY nonsense, definitely biggest mistake. I would say only one too but there's little things like making Warfronts PvE only and how terribly handled Islands were.

[Pakheth]

Legion did also the big nono of homogenising the animations between the races which for me ruined one of the unique aspects of each race and class which made certain race and class combos more interesting than others. Still salty about that. BfA's lack of individual class tiers did not make this any better.

[Kithelle]

I don't know about biggest, but at least to me they were a massive blunder.

[Nathasil]

For me the #1 mistake with BFA is the story. Then comes everything else that was already mentioned. The problem with the story is that there is no way for them to ever fix it again going forward. They will never dismantle the Horde. So the story between the factions will never again make any sense going forward.

Classes, Azerite and Tier can all be fixed in the next expansion. The story-foundations of the game being utterly destroyed can never be restored as long as they are not willing to change the factions at their core (name, symbol, everything) - which they won't do.