Fundamental Problems of Modern WoW

[Has lost its way]

I just don't really think its a video game anymore for the most part... the challenge and even the possibility of dying is so remote that there just doesn't feel like there is any point to it till raiding or higher mythic+.

Worse if you do enjoy those modes you are saddled with a excessive amount of time to grinding the mindless content for ap.

[Daffan]

Everything feeling pointless, meaningless and on auto pilot.

[Mullet Man]

Not bringing ret paladins, shadow priests, enhance/elemental shamans or what have you, into raids because they were recognized to be inferior or downright bad, isn't synonymous with a min/max mindset.

This is exactly the min/max mindset.
Recognized by who?
Inferior to what?

You are saying guilds, including yours, excluded classes from attending raids because "they were recognized to be inferior or downright bad".
This is the "maxing" half of min/max. You were maximizing your DPS to make the Raid easier, when you really didn't need to.
And you likely did it because one of the high-end, min/maxing, raiding guilds told you it was best.

My guild included Ret Paladins and Shadow Priests that Raided.
We had no problems clearing Ony/MC/ZG/BWL/AQ20.
I switched servers around the time of AQ40, but my old guild cleared AQ40 with this group, and made progress into Naxx40 before BC was released.

[SirBeef]

1) No different that BiS items.

2) So you admit it was just as bad before and they are working on fixing it today. Itemization has always worked like this though, Shitty early on, and better by the end. So this is a non argument IMO.

3) I agree, but you cant go having 60 abilities becasue we have leveld to 120.

4) Vanilla had more puns/pop culture references than any other expansion, Partly becasue it was a 60 level experience, not a condensed version, but hate to break it to you Warcraft, hell, all Blizzard games, except maybe the original Diablo, have always had a sense of humor about them and never reallt taken themselves seriously. That is one of the things I love about Blizzard .

5) I would love for this to happen, but this takes a tremendous amout of resources that I do not think the player base is ready to see trickle out one zone at a time, or have another Cata style expansion that redos the whoel world at the expense of new expansion content. Or possibly, wait two years plus in the final patch while that shit is being worked on. WHile this is one of my biggest gripes about WoW, the old looking older zones, and the time locked quests, I would love for a team to be created to update current quests and zones to reflect the changes that happen in respect to the expansions. Then they can make the old world scale from 1-max level allowing us to skip expansion questing if we want to. Let expansions be some timey whimey lets see what happened stuff, but keep the main Azeroth current in terms of story.

- - - Updated - - -

This is exactly the min/max mindset.
Recognized by who?
Inferior to what?

You are saying guilds, including yours, excluded classes from attending raids because "they were recognized to be inferior or downright bad".
This is the "maxing" half of min/max. You were maximizing your DPS to make the Raid easier, when you really didn't need to.
And you likely did it because one of the high-end, min/maxing, raiding guilds told you it was best.

My guild included Ret Paladins and Shadow Priests that Raided.
We had no problems clearing Ony/MC/ZG/BWL/AQ20.
I switched servers around the time of AQ40, but my old guild cleared AQ40 with this group, and made progress into Naxx40 before BC was released.

Let's be honest, most guilds could clear all 40man conten with 25-30 people, most of the time you have 10-15 dead beats.

[Mullet Man]

Let's be honest, most guilds could clear all 40man conten with 25-30 people, most of the time you have 10-15 dead beats.

Exactly my point. But modern wow players are so set in the min/max mindset, they subconsciously invalidate other options.

For example... here is a Rogue tanking Onyxia from 2006 (pre-bc):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdSr5YyuPvM

[wanax]

Classic had hard content.
Naxx 40
AQ 40

It also had easy content.

Not everything needs to be "an Achievement" to be satisfying.
Not everyone is playing the game to the be the best.
I played Classic with my wife. She loved it, but would never want to compete for world first, or play super hard content.
This is what attracted many people to WoW in the first place.

No offense because I do look forward to the old talent system from classic and a bunch of other points you’ve made BUT part of what made that content hard was managing 40 people when most had garbage internet or cpus

[potis]

Exactly my point. But modern wow players are so set in the min/max mindset, they subconsciously invalidate other options.

For example... here is a Rogue tanking Onyxia from 2006 (pre-bc):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdSr5YyuPvM

...I mean, this is why arguments on here cant be taken seriously.

The majority on his has an insane lack of knowledge of the game called World of Warcraft.

Thats a raid group, in a mix of TOO MUCH GEAR TO DOWN ONYXIA.

The hunter has 6.3k HP, that means he is in AQ40/Naxx/Rank 14 gear level, downing a boss thats is to be done in 55 level greens and blues.

How is that in any point relevant to your argument?

It actually completely destroys your argument.

They arent even attacking because they will overaggro instantly with the amount of gear they have.

So, for the rogue to have fun, everyone else will AFK, GREAT GAMING.

Delete your post, it invalidates everything you are trying to pass.

[Mullet Man]

No offense because I do look forward to the old talent system from classic and a bunch of other points you’ve made BUT part of what made that content hard was managing 40 people when most had garbage internet or cpus

I agree.
The hardest part of Vanilla that I experienced was herding 40 cats.
Seemed like someone was always AFK or otherwise messing around.
Will be interesting to see how it plays out in Classic.

- - - Updated - - -

How is that in any point relevant to your argument?

Because this group of players went to lengths to make it possible.
They are having fun messing around and clearing relevant content.

You don't have to min/max your class setup for raids in Classic.

[potis]

They are having fun messing around and clearing relevant content.

Relevant content.

relevant
/ˈrɛləv(ə)nt/
adjective
closely connected or appropriate to what is being done or considered.
"what small companies need is relevant advice"
synonyms: pertinent, applicable, apposite, material, apropos, to the point, to the purpose, germane, admissible; More
appropriate to the current time, period, or circumstances; of contemporary interest.
"critics may find themselves unable to stay relevant in a changing world"

I bold the part for you.

Killing a boss 2 years after it was introduced, with gear levels around to 200% more than required, while afking for 80% of the video IS PROPER GAMEPLAY.

Again because you do not seem to understand.

They are killing a boss, meant to be killed in Gear level 0.5, with Gear level 4 and because there is a rogue "tanking" aka pretty much the only one pressing ANY BUTTONS for 80% of the fight.

Do you even comprehend what you are saying?

How exactly would ANY PLAYERS of YOUR "mentality of what min/maxing is", reach that level if they started doing that, with Gear level 0.5?

Enlighten me.

How would a rogue with 2.6K HP, tank that boss.

I am gonna stop writing here cause anything i will type after this will result in me getting banned.

[Mullet Man]

Relevant content.

relevant
/ˈrɛləv(ə)nt/
adjective
closely connected or appropriate to what is being done or considered.
"what small companies need is relevant advice"
synonyms: pertinent, applicable, apposite, material, apropos, to the point, to the purpose, germane, admissible; More
appropriate to the current time, period, or circumstances; of contemporary interest.
"critics may find themselves unable to stay relevant in a changing world"

I bold the part for you.

Killing a boss 2 years after it was introduced, with gear levels around to 200% more than required, while afking for 80% of the video IS PROPER GAMEPLAY.

Again because you do not seem to understand.

They are killing a boss, meant to be killed in Gear level 0.5, with Gear level 4 and because there is a rogue "tanking" aka pretty much the only one pressing ANY BUTTONS for 80% of the fight.

I am gonna stop writing here cause anything i will type after this will result in me getting banned.

I didn't realize you were able to inspect every member of that raid and determine they were all equally geared, and none needed gear from Onyxia.

More Rogue tanking info...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPYWFK_Qdh4

[Nnyco]

min/max

You keep repeatin those words, yet they never make sense with you.

[potis]

I didn't realize you were able to inspect every member of that raid and determine they were all equally geared, and none needed gear from Onyxia.

More Rogue tanking info...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPYWFK_Qdh4

I am done talking to you because your level of game knowledge is too low to repeatedly shut you down, sorry but its not worth my time anymore.

No sensible human being that doesnt have serious mental problems would sit AFK and not attack so some random weirdo Rogue can "tank".

I dont know how else to explain it, you are literally requesting everyone to be mentally incapacitated to the levels of what you would consider a non-Homo Sapiens, and completely disregard basic math and logic so some random rando can feel "special".

[cparle87]

1. Titanforging/Warforging.
Many people whine about it but few manage to explain why it is a problem. Sure, when you get that 425 ilvl Titanforged item you feel awesome but it makes every single other ilvl drop below that cap feel completely unrewarding. Looting an epic item should feel epic, not “oh, this is just the base version. screw my luck”. Remove TF/WF and make items more scarce.

2. Itemization
8.1, 8.1.5 and 8.2 seem to make steps in fixing this problem where getting new items isn’t fun but there is more to it - in the old days items were horribly itemized. But that is precisely why that one item with good stats felt so memorable. A named item with a special effect themed after its previous, now dead, owner will stand out among all the other items with only stats on them. Not every quest, dungeon and raid item has to have perfectly itemized stats, you know? Items should have effects that give special bonuses under certain conditions out there in the world. A Shaman trinket which allows them to cast Frost/Water-based spells while moving when near a river “River’s Flow”. A hunter item with a passive that increases their damage done to targets when facing them from above (standing on a hill/castle wall for example) “Higher Ground”. A druid could deal 20% extra Nature damage while in a forest. A hunter helm item which has the following effect: Upon slaying 10 different types of beasts, all non-elite beasts in the zone become neutral to you. Lasts until death.

3. Class design
You can’t have meaningful progression if you get an ability every 15 levels and sometimes that ability isn’t even remotely interesting. It would be so much more unique and customizable if you get VERSIONS of abilities that you can choose from every level. You would be getting a new ability every level but the maximum number of abilities you have is still limited. This way you won’t have ability bloat but will have near-infinite customization and potential to go wild with cool synergy combos and epic ultimate abilities. Similiar to Diablo 3 but much more expanded.

4. Questing
You can’t have people immersed into your Game/Story if every second quest tries to humorize itself falling flat on its face because not every player’s adventure fantasy equals self-irony and silly puns. You can’t have people immersed into your quests and trials if every quest shows you a yellow dot/arrow showing you exactly where to go. People spend more time looking at their map than at the actual world. What is the point of having a quest description if you are just told where to go. What kind of design is this? Who thought that giving players a landmark they need to find in order to find their goal and then showing the actual goal as a yellow dot on the map would be a fun experience? Even if one would disable the yellow dot/arrow, quests in later expansions don’t give you any directions anymore so that would make it either impossible to find or a blind search, neither of which is fun. Rolo’s Riddle is one of the greatest questchains in this game. Short, barely rewarding, but fun. Why do you think so many people get hyped over secrets such as the Lucid Nightmare? Because they get to actually solve the problem themselves rather than being given the answer on a silver platter. You can’t have people immersed into your battles and conquests if there is no challenge whatsoever. I have so many cool abilities on my action bar that I never get to use in the open world. EVER. Slow? Why would I need that if a mob dies before it reaches me. Stun? Why would I need that if it would be faster to save that GCD and just use a damaging ability to 1-shot the mob. Sap/sleep/polymorph? Why would I need to use that if I can just AoE down all the mops in a pack along with the named Boss mob that they are supposedly guarding. Combustion/Shamanism/Avenging Wrath/Trueshot Aura? Why would I use those if the mob dies in one or two hits anyway? Conjure Food Table? Why would I use these if it would be faster to just walk to the next mob as my health will be fully regenerated by then anyway? Evocation? Why would I use that if my mana never ends even as an Arcane Mage. The world needs to be much much more dangerous. Leveling DOESN’T NEED TO BE A CHORE. It can be a journey. It used to be. But just increasing mobs health and damage wouldn’t be enough. Having to fight a mob for 30 seconds would be incredibly boring. Give them abilities that can be dodged, make abilities that require players to aim properly (aka Skillshots) or plan ahead (abilities that require timing, positioning, smart combination of elements - use lightning on a wet target). THIS is what makes a game immersive. Take a look at games such as Magicka. Enemies should have strenghts and weaknesses. A Fire Elemental should be immune to fire damage. Back in the days you would have frost and arcane spells as a Fire mage. Sure they would deal less damage than your main spec (Fire) but you can deal with this disadvantage. And if you can’t? Well call a friend, it’s an MMORPG for god’s sake. Or just skip the friend and pick a questline better suited for you. You cannot always win. That’s not fun. You can only truly appreciate victory after you’ve experienced defeat.

5. The World
Revamp all old zones the same way that you revamped Arathi Highlands (not like Darkshore - that is just halfassed work) - new textures, new object models, new creature models, new skybox, keep the music (even if you add new tracks, don’t make them repeat themselves on a loop. Have them play only now and then and let people enjoy the nostalgic old tracks. Nostalgy is a powerful emotion. Use it well). New storyline that is all connected. Don’t separate zones like you did in Cataclysm. In the past there used to be quests that led from one zone to another to a third one and then took you back to the first one. Long questchains that span across zones and even continents and connect the world into one. And don’t make each zone a tunnel with only one storyline and path. Give each zone several questlines that can be followed - Stranglethorn Vale has pirates, trolls, naga and ogres. You can follow the pirate storyline into Dustallow Marsh or go after the troll questline in Tanaris/Pandaria/Zandalar, you can choose to chase the naga storyline in Azshara/Stormsong Valley/Vash’jir or you can go after the ogres in Winterspring/Blasted Lands/Deadwind Pass, etc. Elwynn Forest has a Defias questline and a gnoll questline. One could lead to Westfall, the other to Redridge. Wetlands could have a dwarf questline branching into Arathi/Hinterlands and a questline about dragons going into Twilight Highlands. A player will not do ALL questlines. They will choose the one they want to do. They can’t be everywhere at the same time. Will you go to Outland or to Northrend? You go to Outland but other heroes will take care of Northrend. When you are done there you will get a summarized report of the events that happened on the other side so you can keep up with the general story. The story of Azeroth is one and the same for all, but each player chooses which part of it to experience and how to interact with it. There needs to be more lore in the actual quests. Dwarven questlines have always been my favourite because Dwarves like to dig up Titan and other artifacts/ruins and those are directly related to the story of WoW. Questlines in which gnomes and orcs argue about who punched a massive dragon are just… not funny or fun. Not when you are actually trying to save the world. Leveling should not be a filler story/experience. It should be a part of the main story and it should be just as important as max level content. Otherwise people will always try to simply skip it. Once you’ve dealt with the main threat in a zone, it should be phased so that you can’t see it anymore (can always speak with an NPC to phase you back if you want to help a friend). It’s cool to be able to enjoy a nice walk around those beautiful zones, maybe even let players make their own house in the now emptied of threats zones.


I posted this on retail forums but figured it would be nice to hear MMO-Champ's opinion on my vision as well. What kind of additions would you make to my ideas? What problems would you identify in my ideas? I am all yours. Thank you for reading.

1. The alternative is you get to a point where there is no possible way to improve your character besides the next difficulty up in raiding. We had that in WoD, people called it "raidlogging" and while some people said they liked it the louder voice was that it was bad.

2. Not all pieces are perfectly itemized. Blizzard has said in the past that they deliberately look at gear to make sure it doesn't get this way. Back in Antorus, for instance, there were cases where I had to juggle whether a tier piece with substandard or even bad bad stats and/or a lower item level was worth giving up a higher ilvl piece with perfect stats.

3. You also can't have meaningful progression if you get multiple new moves every expansion and maybe you never even use any of them because they're either a niche, a filler move just cause, or something for a spec you never used. Why would a feral druid still have claw when mangle is its replacement in every way? Why have cure poison when abolish poison is so much better?

4. There were quest helper addons from day one in classic, and there's going to be new nothing new in retail. As for the whole skillshots thing, we have a lot more of that than we did in classic. I was surprised when I went to re-do the loremaster in the remade old world and noticed, hey that mob has a totem or it uses a leap or a swipe I have to avoid. Blizzard has always had silly quests and have never shirked at laughing at themselves. Who says the story while levelling up isn't part of the story? I thought people hated phasing, are you really calling for every subzone to be able to be phased once you did the questline there so there's no mobs unless you talk to a bronze dragon? That has to be way high up on my list of worst ideas I've heard of WoW.

[Mullet Man]

I am done talking to you because your level of game knowledge is too low to repeatedly shut you down, sorry but its not worth my time anymore.

No sensible human being that doesnt have serious mental problems would sit AFK and not attack so some random weirdo Rogue can "tank".

I dont know how else to explain it, you are literally requesting everyone to be mentally incapacitated to the levels of what you would consider a non-Homo Sapiens, and completely disregard basic math and logic so some random rando can feel "special".

You mad bro?

Fun is relative.
You seem focused on individual "fun". This was group "fun".
Just because clearing content in a non-traditional way as a group does not seem fun to you, does not invalidate it for others.

There were many non-standard raid events on my Vanilla server:
- All Druid
- All Paladin
- One Warrior, all priest
- Etc...

If you joined one of these groups, your playstyle had to adapt to the limitations of the setup.

[Oncereborn]

I see your explanation for the problem with Titanforging but here is the thing...Titanforging adds re-playability. Without it, players would stop raiding as soon as they got all their BIS pieces as there would be no reason to raid again as there is no chance of an upgrade. Less players raiding means less guilds raiding which means less subs.

And as far as the 'essences' suggestion, this is not a bad idea EXCEPT you shouldn't be able to purchase them from the auction house. Being able to purchase them would mean players could upgrade their gear by warforging/titanforging without ever having to step into a raid. This doesn't make sense.

This ideology is the problem. There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with "finishing" content. It's supposed to be every players goal in a game is to do this. It should not be a never ending thing because then you now have a goal which you can never achieve and that causes anything you do achieve to be meaningless. This meaningless feeling is the single biggest reason for peoples hate towards BFA, there's so much content available but it all feels meh, log in and can't be bothered to do any of it.

[Trend]

1. Titanforging/Warforging.
2. Itemization
3. Class design
4. Questing
5. The World

It's a 15 year old game. Not sure if you realize that. You don't even mention that it could possibly be a challenge to make changes so it stays fresh, but not too many changes so it doesn't feel like something else. Why people can't understand the obvious is a real mystery. There is no path they could take that would continue to thread the needle to keep the game at its pinnacle.

P.S. I personally think most of the items on your list are dumb. They could make changes that would make you happy, but those changes wouldn't be objectively good.

[Wraethion]

The most fundamental problem, in my personal opinion, is just Titan/War-forging. I have a bit of a gambling addiction so when I see a new piece of gear didn't forge, it feels like I low-rolled and also the compulsion to go back and keep trying to get a higher ilvl version of the same gear. That I might as well be pulling a slot machine for even better gear.

[Mullet Man]

The most fundamental problem, in my personal opinion, is just Titan/War-forging. I have a bit of a gambling addiction so when I see a new piece of gear didn't forge, it feels like I low-rolled and also the compulsion to go back and keep trying to get a higher ilvl version of the same gear. That I might as well be pulling a slot machine for even better gear.

Welcome to the Skinner's Box.

[Eurhetemec]

1. Always having a better version to aim for of what you loot trivializes the thing you looted. And thus making any item drops trivial. Whereas in the past it would be such a huge thing. It kills people's desire to continue playing.

2a. Scarcity would make each item feel more impactful and unique. By the time I level through Pandaria 80-90 I get 3 gloves pieces with the same item level and stats. Don't you see the problem in this? Getting a 360 ilvl weapon then a 365 WF version of it then a 370 WF version of it then a 380 TF version of it... this isn't fun. It splits the joy of looting that item into 4 different pieces and by the time you get the final one, considering how the countless vain attempts and bonus rolls, you feel nothing. Empty.

2b. I like immersion. Minor effects like these with flavour would boost my immersion. Absolutely open for even better traits as long as they have strong flavour/fantasy and so on. Something to make the world feel alive. And our characters a part of it

4. No, this is just wrong. What do you mean "Make WoW into GW2" ? Which part? All sections of that paragraph (1. the quest objective helper/yellow dot/arrow 2. the weak outdoor mobs that don't provide any challenge or need to use utility abilities 3. giving strengths and weaknesses to mobs such as fire elementals being immune to fire) are things that were originally in WoW (Vanilla). Where do you see GW2? The only game I gave as an example here is Magicka (because of how it utilizes mixing of elements and creating new spells and its physics - lightning on a wet target = bonus damage).

Re: 1. Ok that makes some sense. I don't really agree, but I get where you're coming from. I guess I would say that the top-end gear should not TF, but I don't see it as a problem if stuff at least X ilvls below it does.

2a. Yeah, but that's not workable with challenging content. If you want people to do challenging content, you need to make gear not scarce. Otherwise it's easy to make the game completely unfun and make people quit, because they just can't get their gear to drop. This absolutely has happened at various points in WoW and in other MMOs. It's not a theoretical concern.

If you want Classic, go play Classic. The non-challenging content (I say this as a player since open beta of Vanilla) there is well-suited to rare gear. But you can't have Mythic shit and make gear rare.

I could totally play an MMO with rare gear. But what you're asking for would require 180 in WoW's design and to basically abandon Mythic raiding and Mythic+ dungeons.

2b. I totally don't see how any of the weird effects you described are immersive. I'd love to have immersive effects, and maybe you just made bad choices in what you described, but "bonus to damage when near a river" is not immersive.

4. I take it you've never played GW2?

The combo attacks are very similar to your "use lightning on a wet thing" ideas and so on.

Magicka is a completely unbalanced silly game (great fun with other players but...). Comparing it to an MMO is not a good idea. Again, you'd have to get rid of all serious content, or expect it to be exploited by people using some weird combo effect which was totally OP, because that's what would happen if WoW played like Magicka.

GW2 has similar stuff but tones it down enough to work in an MMO.

GW2 doesn't have quest arrows and so on in the same way. It requires you to explore the world and know areas in a really serious way at times.

GW2 requires you to use more abilities to kill routine, unimportant mobs, and they can kill you if you don't use them.

GW2 has a world that is a lot more dangerous.

GW2 has skillshots, lots of them.

I could go on. It's clear you've not really played GW2 because you don't seem to know any of this. But it's what you're asking for. You actually might want to go and play it, then come back and tell us if you thought it was more fun and immersive than WoW. Because my feeling is that, in actual practice, it is neither.

Don't get me wrong. I think underneath your ideas are some not-bad concepts, but most of your suggestions are not good ways to get to those concepts.

[Wraethion]

Welcome to the Skinner's Box.

Exactly why I feel the forging system is awful.