Why is there a need to redesign classes every expansion?

[justandulas]

There could be a lot of reasons why. For example they don't want rotations to be bloated. Pruning avoids that. They don't want classes to get stale. Pruning helps avoid that. That is just two reasons of many. ANd comparing Blizzard to the holocaust is one of the dumbest things I have ever read. Again, show me your proof. This whole post shows me you have none because people who have none resort to pointing a whole bunch on nonsense and then simply, say they are right and anyone who disagrees with them is deaf and blind.

So again, you have made the claim, prove it. You are accusing them, the burden of proof is on you. Show me actual evidence to back up your accusations.

I'd have preferred that added in more and more skills like the talents, BUT limited your bars to 20 or 30 and made us pick/choose. Give us real options, and viable choices. make every bar slot you fill up an important decision. It would also aid character customization so that 2 characters of the same spec can play vastly different.

I'm a big proponent of adding content or spells, never pruning them out; but that there's a way to do both.

That said, 100% agree with your point about the holocaust. People are way too quick to throw holocaust, and nazi out there these days as quick insults but they just shouldn't because it de-sensitizes just how horrible they were, and also hyper-exaggerates their point to the point where you just eyeroll.

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He is a troll. Ignore him. Anyone who blindly points to streaming numbers and blatantly ignores the context you provided should be ignored.

i only pointed to the stream numbers because someone used them to make a point against me, without realizing he had made my point for me.

As for being a troll, i think you should look in the mirror a bit there. I've been open, honest, kind and supportive of even those who like 8.2.

I'm the guy who keeps saying "there's plenty of wow for us all". That's not a troll, or if i am, i'm the nicest damn troll you'll ever meet.

I just happen to prefer the classic playstyle, and think it will dominate BFA on #'s.

It's ok tho, notice i don't mock those who play bfa still? I just think classic will do better than people like you think. /shrug

[rrayy]

At some point it's time to cut your losses and stick to the current class design. Classes have been getting progressively worse since MoP and if we think that BfA is bad, we can't even fathom how bad classes will be in the next xpack.

You only speak for you. There are many players who like the current class design(me) and those who adapt and simply don't care. What you want is for them to solely cater to you because you believe your opinion is shared by everyone. It isn't.

[justandulas]

At some point it's time to cut your losses and stick to the current class design. Classes have been getting progressively worse since MoP and if we think that BfA is bad, we can't even fathom how bad classes will be in the next xpack.

honestly, and i can't prove this, but i suspect there's an underlying reason why it's getting more and more streamlined, easier to play, and more solo/que friendly...

i think they are trying to streamline it to the point they can put the game on consoles. Consoles are about the only real untapped gold mine for blizz in terms of WoW (besides WoW classic, tbc, wotlk servers) but WOW in its older forms was too much for consoles.

So, death by a thousand cuts, and in 2022 we could be in a situation where WoW is on ps5 and nextbox as well. i can't prove it and i'm just speculating... but all the signs are there that this is the direction they are going.

[rrayy]

Without the real talent trees, I don't think WoW will ever be the same. There just isn't enough choice. You barely can customize your character if you think about it.

The DK talents are all useless, you literally never respec and they've been forgotten in favor of the Az traits which barely even synergize with anything, so you end up just stacking the flat stat traits.. Yippee!!

There never were real talent trees. THe old talent trees never gave you waht you continue to think they did. You had a cookie cutter build and you followed it or your were laughed at, didn't raid and told "git gud scrub". There was NEVER any customization or choice. Just an illusion of it.

[justandulas]

You only speak for you. There are many players who like the current class design(me) and those who adapt and simply don't care. What you want is for them to solely cater to you because you believe your opinion is shared by everyone. It isn't.

which is why i always try to cool the fires between the classic vs retail crowd.

Yes, i'm a big supporter and grateful for classic. No, it isn't nostalgia as i'm the type of old school MMO player who prefers that playstyle. to each their own.

I'm also, constantly, telling people that there's plenty of WoW for us all and that you can't change retail to be classic because a LOT of people like retail as is.

I'm not one of them but i'm just one guy, and my opinion isn't exactly gospel or anything. To each their own, but we should all as wow players be supportive of bfa and classic getting what they want, even if you are on the other side of that fence. We should all want both versions of WoW to be as successful as possible.

i just don't understand the animosity towards classic, i suppose. No one cried foul when the NES classic, or SNES classic were coming... but when wow classic is incoming people act like it's the worst thing to happen to WoW

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There never were real talent trees. THe old talent trees never gave you waht you continue to think they did. You had a cookie cutter build and you followed it or your were laughed at, didn't raid and told "git gud scrub". There was NEVER any customization or choice. Just an illusion of it.

no? i played and raided on SEVERAL hybrid builds. Hell, you often NEEDED random crazy specs such as tank warlock to succeed properly.

Half the people i raided with back in the day had oddball talent builds, and many of them were top dps with it.

EDIT: although in your arguments defense, not every class had proper hybrid builds to play around with either. about 50% did have cookie cutter builds, while 50% seemed to have a lot more design flexibility.

[Swnem]

There isn't a redesign every expansion, Legion was a special case cause of the class hall/artifact weapon themes, but there are some changes made.
Why? Because you want things to be fresh, for develoment to happen.

I most certainly wouldn't be happy if Ret payed like it does in Vanilla still. That was utter back side.

[BananaHandsB]

If Blizzard had left WotLK class design intact, no one would have complained.
Same goes for MoP and Legion class design. Artifact abilities and trees could've easily been carried over as new talent trees or baked into the Azerite system.

No one complained about having "too many abilities". If they were worried about button bloat, they could've added more customization to existing abilities instead of adding new ones.

As it stands, tearing down the class design completely every expansion and redesigning classes from ground-up is a huge waste of manpower and more often than not leads to unsatisfactory results (BfA).

Classes often need changes during an expansion but it's too disruptive to the current expansion to make major changes so they save it for expansions.

[Wildberry]

There never were real talent trees. THe old talent trees never gave you waht you continue to think they did. You had a cookie cutter build and you followed it or your were laughed at, didn't raid and told "git gud scrub". There was NEVER any customization or choice. Just an illusion of it.

This is one of the dumbest memes on these forums. During, say, 3.3 Unholy DKs alone had 3 separate builds that you'd choose from. That was for raiding alone, PvP offered far more opportunity for considerations on playstyle, current meta, etc.

The current talent trees offer the illusion of choice, nothing more. Certain talents get swapped frequently between bosses. There's still an "optimal" talent for scenarios, and the mindset of the playerbase is still "pick this or gtfo." How many complaints have we seen from Frost DKs, for example, who don't like BoS but feel compelled to take it simply because it's better?

You still don't have meaningful customization, you still don't have actual choices. The only thing the new talent system really offers is the tediousness of needing 2-3 keybinds for a set of abilities where only one will be active at a time, due to the frequency of switching.

People really need to get it through their heads that switching from "X talent optimal for scenario A" to "Y talent optimal for scenario B" isn't the same thing as having a choice, it's just annoying.

At some point it's time to cut your losses and stick to the current class design. Classes have been getting progressively worse since MoP and if we think that BfA is bad, we can't even fathom how bad classes will be in the next xpack.

Considering I've practically quit the game at this point, and am just treating forums/fansites as a waiting room for reforged & classic, I'd say we're at rock bottom already. Might as well roll the dice again, in hopes that they get it through their heads that the vast majority of people hate post-MoP class design, and they decide to turn the clocks back.

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Because you want things to be fresh, for develoment to happen.

Nobody ever asked me this, and after seeing "development" for the past three expansions, I certainly don't want it. If we could just freeze things at WotLK, or even MoP levels, I'd be happy enough.

I'm not too crazy about the fact that my classes have become completely unenjoyable, and practically unrecognizable from what they were when I first started them.

[glowpipe]

I'm very confident that Classic will be ahead of BFA 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year in.

Will it kill retail WOW? No, and i hope not because plenty of people luv it and i'm a big supporter of "There's a WoW for all of us"

That said, there's a very real chance classic kills BFA

EDIT: Secondly, new and fresh? It's a beta for a 15 year old game... a 15 year old version of this game in BETA is drawing thousands of times the attention of the current retail game. If that isn't an indictment on BFA, i don't know what is.

because the beta is for wow classic is new and fresh its been out for like 2 weeks now ? its a hot topic which will die out again. Regardless of what you say.

and guess what, we are in the middle of a raid tier in retail. Lets compare that view number when 8.2 is out and the eternal palace is released shall we ? you say 45k now for the beta. method world first race had what, 200k viewers. and thats just one team streaming. Add up all of them, and classic is pale in comparison

[justandulas]

because the beta is for wow classic is new and fresh its been out for like 2 weeks now ? its a hot topic which will die out again. Regardless of what you say.

and guess what, we are in the middle of a raid tier in retail. Lets compare that view number when 8.2 is out and the eternal palace is released shall we ? you say 45k now for the beta. method world first race had what, 200k viewers. and thats just one team streaming. Add up all of them, and classic is pale in comparison

Well, that’s fair but shall we compare eternal palace numbers to wow classic launch? I suspect wow classic to dwarf expectations.

Nothing against 8.2 tho I really think there’s a lot there and the raid looks fun (although I worry about eel fight long term fun factor) and fans of bfa will have a ton there

Just because I think wow classic will be much bigger than people expect doesn’t mean I want 8.2 to bomb. I hope millions tune into 8.2 and classic. Why wouldn’t I? Bfa may not interest me much at this point but it does others, and even tho I can’t wait to play classic forever; there’s still future expansions for retail that are gonna blow me away too so I will never root against bfa for that reason alone

Plenty of wow ahead for all of us

[spalernTJ]

There wouldn't be a need for spec revamps every other expansion, if they stopped senseless pruning and trying to come up with endless power grinds in order to force you to play forever. If they revamp all the specs once more, give each class and spec their own identity and a fully functioning playstyle, then center expansion specific events to cater around the complete classes instead of making incomplete classes that become complete as you do the endless grind, then we wouldn't need a revamp every expansion.

[rrayy]

This is one of the dumbest memes on these forums. During, say, 3.3 Unholy DKs alone had 3 separate builds that you'd choose from. That was for raiding alone, PvP offered far more opportunity for considerations on playstyle, current meta, etc.

The current talent trees offer the illusion of choice, nothing more. Certain talents get swapped frequently between bosses. There's still an "optimal" talent for scenarios, and the mindset of the playerbase is still "pick this or gtfo." How many complaints have we seen from Frost DKs, for example, who don't like BoS but feel compelled to take it simply because it's better?

You still don't have meaningful customization, you still don't have actual choices. The only thing the new talent system really offers is the tediousness of needing 2-3 keybinds for a set of abilities where only one will be active at a time, due to the frequency of switching.

People really need to get it through their heads that switching from "X talent optimal for scenario A" to "Y talent optimal for scenario B" isn't the same thing as having a choice, it's just annoying.

That is far more choice than the old trees had which was you must follow the cookie cutter build or be gimped. The illusion of choice was completely the old trees. There is more choice with the current trees than there ever were with the old ones simply because there was no choice with the old trees. You need to get it through your head that the old trees were not this hot bead of customization you and others continue to claim it was.

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There wouldn't be a need for spec revamps every other expansion, if they stopped senseless pruning and trying to come up with endless power grinds in order to force you to play forever. If they revamp all the specs once more, give each class and spec their own identity and a fully functioning playstyle, then center expansion specific events to cater around the complete classes instead of making incomplete classes that become complete as you do the endless grind, then we wouldn't need a revamp every expansion.

Pruning is not senseless. If they do not prune, then you have a point where oyu have 1000+ abilities. Pruning prevents bloat.

[Kuja]

To keep classes fresh?

[MrExcelion]

I think the highest echelons of development are afraid of stagnation. Maybe the class design team doesn't feel like they're earning their paychecks either if they don't flip everything on its end every xpac but maybe they don't spend as long playing the live game.

My two cents.

[Wildberry]

That is far more choice than the old trees had which was you must follow the cookie cutter build or be gimped. The illusion of choice was completely the old trees. There is more choice with the current trees than there ever were with the old ones simply because there was no choice with the old trees. You need to get it through your head that the old trees were not this hot bead of customization you and others continue to claim it was.

I'm not claiming was a "hot bead of customization," I'm simply saying that this meme that the new talent trees offer choice or are any less cookie cutter isn't true, and it's a dumb argument used by dumb people.

I've already outlined scenarios in the old trees where you have a degree of choice. Is switching between optimal talents more often somehow more choice than that? No. That's why you can't offer specifics and you're falling back to untrue platitudes.

And wow, would you look at that, the guy with the bad opinion on talent trees is also defending pruning. Absolutely comical.

[Gevoth]

There isn't. There's a need to expand upon the classes every expansion. See what I did there?

Holding for years til an eventual "re-work." Deleting old class development. Designing systems to be throwaway so that you don't have to balance them later. These are major mistakes and they all happen because people don't want to do the work of balancing layered nuanced classes and systems as stated by Ion in interviews. The classes have ended up here by design because it makes dev life easier. Not because they think it's good or fun. It's just what's easiest for them. That's the deciding factor. Let that sink in.

The complete overhaul business only happens on a few specs(not classes) over and again BTW. Some don't get touched outside of getting gutted when last expansion's meat and potatoes are deleted.

[Musta]

Cuz blizzard doesnt understand permanent character progress and learning. Which is a core element of any rpg.

[spalernTJ]

That is far more choice than the old trees had which was you must follow the cookie cutter build or be gimped. The illusion of choice was completely the old trees. There is more choice with the current trees than there ever were with the old ones simply because there was no choice with the old trees. You need to get it through your head that the old trees were not this hot bead of customization you and others continue to claim it was.

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Pruning is not senseless. If they do not prune, then you have a point where oyu have 1000+ abilities. Pruning prevents bloat.

Which is why I did not call pruning itself senseless. I specifically said "if they stopped the senseless pruning." Because a lot of the pruning they do, is whack. I understand there will be a point where pruning has to be done, but it's been a really long time since classes were even close to that amount of abilities, and yet they continue to prune. They remove abilities and talents, then they also removed artifact weapon traits and put some into talent trees, then they removed legendaries which could more or less be classified as extra talents, chosen through gear.

They also removed "Fun" abilities, which isn't really a problem to have around, as they're not necessary for general gameplay. The ability to control your pet as a hunter directly, the old divine intervention from paladins etcetera. Pruning is not unhealthy for a game, senseless pruning is.

[Rustov]

I've mained Hunter since Vanilla through BFA, we're the poster child for class overhauls. Cata to MoP was probably the most stable we've ever had, and that transition finally killed the minimum range mechanic, to give a gage of the kind of radical changes we've suffered through. But I want to point out just one, to illustrate the difference between pruning and senseless pruning.

MoP Survival Hunter rotation was built around two things, Lock and Load procs and Serpent Sting rolling. The latter is the topic. Serpent Sting existed as an independent ability. It was plopped on a mob at the start of the fight and refreshed whenever the mob was hit by Cobra Shot, our focus builder. It had a short duration, so there was always a certain amount of skill to keeping Serpent Sting up, else letting it fall off and wasting a GCD to re-apply. This was a very satisfying process and contributed to the fluid, challenging but not overtly difficult Survival rotation.

Come Warlords, and Blizz went on a pruning rampage. Truthfully, not many abilities were affected, and they tried hard, but their lack of understanding undermined their whole effort. They saw Serpent Sting and thought, since it was only optimally applied once per fight, that it should be deleted and baked into Arcane Shot. This kept Serpent Sting, but gutted the refresh mechanic and hollowed the rotation to single-mindedly mashing LnL procs. It was so bad it gave Blizz the pretext to delete the spec and throw up a melee one in its place.
The goal, and Blizz has more or less realized this (but still fails at executing, often badly) should be to minimize buttons on bars, WITHOUT pruning fun mechanics. Surv only needed four abilities + one passive for a wholesome rotation, but they deleted one-too-many and tore the spec in half.

[Candy Cough]

Lmao classes are much better now

Back then all classes were pretty much the same. What exactly was the difference between any of the hunter specs? Yeah
Demonology and Destruction? Not a damn thing aside minor abilities
Fury was arms with two weapons

Class identity is much more prominent now