I have some hope now where there was none

[shoegazing]

Yeah I never got why people are so upset? Do they want a firebolt they will never use as a arcane mage? Sub rogue upset they don't have sinister strike even though backstab is superior?

Sub Rogues are upset we don't have our Gouge, Poisons, Bleeds, and old Shadow Dance, not to mention Slice and and Dice and Premeditation.

Source: mained Subtlety Rogue since 2005, 2500 arena rating in multiple xpacs, etc.

I suggest you need to talk less and listen more, then you will have a chance to understand.

[roboscorcher]

Sorry not sure if i am reading this right but to me it seems like you're unaware of the powerful naga remapping ability, you can remap the buttons on your naga to quite literally whatever you want! Set them up as standard keyboard functions (image below) and set them to a key on the keyboard you will never press, boom new free buttons! Keep the ctrl and shift modifiers for 1-5 as stuff you would only really press on the keyboard as they are easy to press for your left hand, experiment with the far right side of the keyboard, your '#~[]{}.>< kinda stuff, having some of those as your 1-6/9/12 on your naga buttons will free up more options for you.

...

You can set it to honestly anything you want be it on the keyboard or the mouse, you can even create macros that will play out a set of commands you record if you like, a guy on the priest forums even claimed to have made the entire 60 second voidform rotation in razer naga synapse macros when they were complaining about how boring and static the rotation was in legion.

Thanks, yeah I did most of this stuff a few years ago, but I may tweak it further. Right now, all the naga buttons are set to 'ctrl-#', and I have a Bartender bar shaped to match the grid layout. This bar takes all the ctrl-inputs.

What I'll probably do is remove all the 'ctrl' modifiers out of the naga commands and the bartender bar, then add a second bartender bar just for shift-modifiers (eg shift-1, shift-2). That should give me the freedom to use all my combat buttons without leaving WASD.

- - - Updated - - -

And I'd argue you don't understand game genres, or WoW at all.

I've played on/off for 10 years, I have gamedev education, and I do design work. What are your credentials? Have you ever coded anything?

I'd say [Citation Needed] but we all know you're pulling that out of your ass. There is a handy way we can put that theory to the test though. Let's look at sub retention over time. They really trimmed down buttons during WoD. Somehow, they managed to lose half of their subscribers in under a year. Really makes you think!

Correlation does not equal causation. There are plenty of reasons subs dropped: lack of content, Ashran sucked, faction hubs were bland, update patches were lame, and everything revolved around the boring garrisons. Notice how none of these bad features involve class design.

Also, I wasn't pulling it out of my ass. I have friends who will not play again because their spec is too different/complex now, and my roommate (new to WoW) keeps rerolling once he hits around lvl 70 because "there's too many buttons now." These are real cases I've witnessed, and maybe you consider them filthy casuals, but at the end of the day WoW is a game, not a spreadsheet.

It's the same reason the devs axed reforging and pulled back on gems: they took out needless complexity that didn't have anything to do with real skill or strategy. Cleaning up the UI is equally important, and it shouldn't be a requirement of the end user. It's the devs' responsibility to create a game that is understandable and playable for beginners, while letting the advanced users customise things. This is what game design is all about, and it's why I want better talent trees that are more complex but easier to use. This is where the "power users" should excel and pull ahead of the rest.

Beyond the fact that you're just completely wrong here, this line of argument is irrelevant. Ultimately, if keeping people subbed to WoW requires fundamentally changing the game, then the game should die.

Now THAT's a weird line of logic. "If our system of government is corrupt, then rather than change it, we should let our government die."

Yeah, and if you put me in first person and had a gun+crosshairs onscreen, I would still be in Azeroth, I'd be able to quest, etc. That still fundamentally changes the game, and there are other games that are a better fit for that style of play. In this example, Destiny, CoD or Overwatch. In your example, HotS, LoL, etc.

You really think that pairing down buttons is comparible to converting it into an FPS? What world do you live in?

Let's start with the fact that fewer active abilities undermines and cheapens the PvP meta. If that's not good enough, there's also the fact that a sea of buttons is a giant wall that keeps people like you from grouping with people like me.

Ah so you're a proud elitist who doesn't want normies getting slightly better. It's better to keep the UI needlessly complex to keep the default-UI peasants down than win with strategy, right?

Because if you actually understood what you were talking about, you'd realize that the complexity offered by talents, isn't comparable to the complexity offered by baseline active abilities. The two are inherently different.

Talents are mutually exclusive, and fundamentally limited. Fewer active buttons overall already cheapens the PvP meta as I've laid out previously. Beyond that, there's the fact that many talents, including those in HotS, which you used as an example, simply modify existing abilities, which puts a hard ceiling on how complex they can actually be. That's ignoring the fact that balancing talents against other talents that share a tier places yet another ceiling on complexity.

You're free to argue it would offer more complexity, you're just completely and obviously wrong for the reasons outlined above.

That's exactly why I want a more complex tree at endgame: 4+ options/row, savable builds, maybe even the ability to choose 2 per row.

Imagine this scenario: your arena queue pops and you see the enemy has a mage. Not willing to risk the frost mage possibility, you switch your talents from a cleave-heavy saved build to a mobility-centric one. The next game has 3 DK's, so you switch back to a cleave or signle-target build. These are strategic choices.


As far as more "options" goes, that's a buzzword and you know it. The moment your proposed changes hit PTR, they'll be simmed and players will simply be switching between optimal builds more often depending on what scenarios they're in. You're the same kind of person that praises the new talent trees for offering choice, aren't you?[/QUOTE]

Like I keep saying, savable builds and letting us swap more often should allow unique talents to be usable more often. The reason why people still use cookie cutter builds is because the game currently doesn't want you to ever switch when it matters. This is what needs to change.

Or people can simply "git gud." Nobody with an IQ above room temperature is tunnel visioning. Why would I want the skill floor raised? Why would I want to raid, PvP or do any sort of group content with people who are failing at the absolute basics?[/QUOTE]

Ok, now you're lying to yourself, or you're stuck in your pvp bubble. Tunnel vision happens all the time, especially for people using the default UI.


So basically take all complexity out of classes, and load it into raid mechanics? No thanks, that's already the trajectory we've been on and the game's atrocious at the moment.[/QUOTE]

Nope, load them into better talent trees and give us more options to swap. And that would also lead to better raid mechanics, which is not a bad thing as you wierdly implied. Not to mention the new spells the devs would add.


Because I understand WoW is a game with a defined foundation, and that I should look elsewhere if I dislike the foundation of this game. I suggest you try it out sometime.[/QUOTE]

And this is why people hate the WoW community. Self-entitled elitists who cannot take a step back and evaluate the game from another perspective.

Guess what, WoW has always evolved and will continue to do so. Maybe there will be a day when all versions of the game will have their own servers and you can play in one of the old ones. But I don't see how you expect the devs to continue making new abilities when the spellbook is crammed with all these old, barely-useful ones. Maybe you don't want any change ever?

[crono14]

Designing the game to a low common denominator is how the game was and is as successful as it is now.

===========

A careful listen to Ion's presentation doesn't reveal a whole lot new going on here.

There's a perceptual problem that no one seems to want to address. Nearly all "player solutions" to issues involve looking backward. Developers look forward. Their view of game systems is necessarily on where it's going, not where it's been. Otherwise they're just repeating stuff. In fact that's a big issue with BfA: It repeats a lot of system stuff from Legion that was popular then but tired now after Legion. They certainly could slow the pace of change a bit and I think they need to. But that's not going to solve the problems that infest the game now.

Well in the past and in the beginning, the devs made the game they wanted to play and thought was fun. So I mean we have to start there. That game and that fun made the game popular. So I mean you can't really say that further bringing down the game to a more casual level made it any more/less successful otherwise it's your opinion really.Trying to argue why people move on and quit is pointless cause for every single person it might be different.

They can move forward with the game, but they can't forget where it came from and what it was. FF14 is a great example of a game that moves forward but still maintains the spirit of the game through game play and job mechanics every expansion. Their crafting system grows more deep as well.

There was almost nothing wrong with most classes(again I said most) at the end of MoP. Ion pretty much admitted they went far far overboard in WoD and have been continuing down that road until we are where we are now where most classes are just simply not fun and everything in the game suffers for it. A whole lot of classes just lost their identity until I don't even feel like I am playing a warlock anymore when I used to have such cool abilities. Even though Ion is dancing around the blame alittle, he is saying 'we fucked up'.

[Isilarya]

FF14 has more abilities than the average WoW class now and alot of the playerbase play this game on controller, thats really saying something. FF14 is also generally more casual im sure Blizzard could unprune a bit without breaking less hardcore players brains.

[Wildberry]

I've played on/off for 10 years, I have gamedev education, and I do design work. What are your credentials? Have you ever coded anything?

I've played since Vanilla and used to mod extensively on other games. I don't really need credentials though, because nothing I post requires justification through authority, unlike some others I can name.

Correlation does not equal causation. There are plenty of reasons subs dropped: lack of content, Ashran sucked, faction hubs were bland, update patches were lame, and everything revolved around the boring garrisons. Notice how none of these bad features involve class design.

I never claimed that WoD's subscription numbers were monocausal, so congratulations on beating down that strawman, I guess? Do you actually think that we can't infer anything about Class Design from sub numbers? Do you somehow actually believe that more people unsubscribed because of lackluster faction capitals instead of the fact that classes were gutted?

Also, I wasn't pulling it out of my ass. I have friends who will not play again because their spec is too different/complex now, and my roommate (new to WoW) keeps rerolling once he hits around lvl 70 because "there's too many buttons now." These are real cases I've witnessed, and maybe you consider them filthy casuals, but at the end of the day WoW is a game, not a spreadsheet.

Cool, so we're ignoring the very real consequences pruning has had because your bad friends quit the game. I'm supposed to drop the closest thing I have to an objective metric in favor of anecdotes.

Fine, since we're playing the anecdote game:
My friends list has been absolutely barren since Warlords of Draenor. Some people occasionally resub at patches, and expansion launches, but they always say the same thing, some variation of "my class isn't fun now." Usually with more expletives. I've personally unsubscribed for long periods simply because I completely loathe every class I play and have since WoD.

Beyond personal experiences, have you ever bothered looking at forums? People here hate class design, and have hated it for a while. During WoD beta, on the Official Beta forums, pruning was the most criticized subject. Unhappiness with class design dominated the Official forums, and the arena forums all throughout WoD.

Legion Alpha and Beta was a similar story. It had more defenders here, but over the official forums, it was still widely disliked.

Since BfA is current, I don't think I really have to outline how most people feel. They've been doing that well enough, considering we finally got the most obtuse dev team to realize that they completely dropped the ball.

You're the minority, your proposed changes would shift this game in the exact opposite direction it needs to go. There is literally no quicker way to kill WoW than to take you seriously.

Now THAT's a weird line of logic. "If our system of government is corrupt, then rather than change it, we should let our government die."

Are you actually comparing irl political structures to a video game format right now? And somehow you actually have the audacity to pitch this right before criticizing a much tighter analogy. Hilarious and hypocritical.

And this is entirely ignoring the fact that your premise is ridiculous, because you've provided zero evidence to support your claim that "The game is dying because of button bloat," while breezing right past contradictory evidence.

You really think that pairing down buttons is comparible to converting it into an FPS? What world do you live in?

Let's take a look at the following statements from you:

Who cares about the name of the genre? WoW having a sea of buttons is not an MMO req. I've played MMO's with all varieties of button schemes and interfaces.

You're still in azeroth, you can still quest and raid and do everything as before. Your argument is so reductionist. Give me a real argument for keeping the sea of buttons please.

etc.

You've routinely used an entirely different genre as a standard for what WoW should become, and get mad when your argument gets flipped on its head? Hey, Destiny's an MMO, right? They use that setup. :^)

Ah so you're a proud elitist who doesn't want normies getting slightly better. It's better to keep the UI needlessly complex to keep the default-UI peasants down than win with strategy, right?

Is tunnel vision really a widespread problem? No, absolutely not. You're scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel for people, and demanding we demolish the foundations of this game to cater to them. No thanks.

I used the default UI just fine. Will you can the melodrama about how the original UI was somehow holding those poor casuals back?

That's exactly why I want a more complex tree at endgame: 4+ options/row, savable builds, maybe even the ability to choose 2 per row.

Wow, I'm not surprised at all.

I lay out just a few reasons why talents are incomparable to active abilities, and will not be able to replicate the complexity offered by active abilities and you breeze right past it as if it were never said.

No counterargument or anything, you simply expect me to put stock in some vague outline.

Like I keep saying, savable builds and letting us swap more often should allow unique talents to be usable more often. The reason why people still use cookie cutter builds is because the game currently doesn't want you to ever switch when it matters. This is what needs to change.

The game already expects you to swap talents though. That's why tomes exist. That's why there was a public outcry when Blizzard made it so you could only freely change talents in either a rested area or with a tome active. What game are you playing where people aren't regularly switching talents between boss fights, arena matches, etc?

Ok, now you're lying to yourself, or you're stuck in your pvp bubble. Tunnel vision happens all the time, especially for people using the default UI.

I've used the default UI since vanilla. I don't have a tunnel vision problem. I interact with plenty of people across the spectrum of gameplay. Everything from multiglads to BG heroes, mythic raiders to guys who now just do normal PuGs. The ones who still use the default UI don't tunnel vision.

If anyone's in a bubble here, it's you. Please leave the "Lowest of the Low" bubble and get back to me, please.

Nope, load them into better talent trees and give us more options to swap. And that would also lead to better raid mechanics, which is not a bad thing as you wierdly implied. Not to mention the new spells the devs would add.

I've already outlined why complexity cannot be loaded into talent trees in a comparable fashion. At some point you're going to have to acknowledge that your vision of the game isn't going to be able to offer similar levels of complexity, or raise the skill floor, it's just going to lower the skill ceiling.

With regard to raid mechanics, I've actually heard the complaint from a number of people. Usually you have to parse out what they really mean, but the baseline is "It feels like they're overdoing mechanics to compensate for the fact that my class is boring."

Were it just a few people, I'd write them off as bad. But it's people who I know can actually handle mechanics.

And this is why people hate the WoW community. Self-entitled elitists who cannot take a step back and evaluate the game from another perspective.

The only one who's entitled here is you, actually.

You've come into a game with a set foundation, and you want to demolish all of that, simply because it would suit you and your friends better. You want the game to change on a fundamental level, just to suit your tastes, when what you're advocating is the exact, direct, and complete opposite of what the prevailing opinion of the community that has bothered vocalizing their opinions.

Guess what, WoW has always evolved and will continue to do so.

Yes, WoW has changed. Recently it's changed for the worse. Your proposals would push it further in that direction. Beyond that, not all change is comparable. You're completely ignoring the severity of the changes you're proposing which wouldn't be an "evolution" but constitute an entirely new form of gameplay. No thanks.

But I don't see how you expect the devs to continue making new abilities when the spellbook is crammed with all these old, barely-useful ones.

What alternate version of this game are you playing? What spells in particular are you classifying as "barely useful?" I'm seriously curious, at this point, because on every class I play, every spell clearly has a use.

Keeping in line with the rest of your post, you've actually somehow stumbled on the complete opposite of reality. Not only are our spellbooks not crammed with spells, our spellbook actually has gaping wounds where old abilities which rounded out classes, were ripped out.

Maybe you don't want any change ever?

Considering the changes brought by the past three expansions? Nope, I don't.

If anything even remotely resembling your proposals were to become a reality (Thankfully it seems the devs have realized the opposite needs to happen, or are at least paying lip service to that), I'd unsub in a heartbeat, and write off Blizzard as a company.

Again, you literally picked the wrong game. Go play another one instead of trying to further ruin this one.

[Hyrja]

All talk no action, Ion is like a politician but then for WoW

[Rhila]

And this is why people hate the WoW community. Self-entitled elitists who cannot take a step back and evaluate the game from another perspective.

Guess what, WoW has always evolved and will continue to do so. Maybe there will be a day when all versions of the game will have their own servers and you can play in one of the old ones. But I don't see how you expect the devs to continue making new abilities when the spellbook is crammed with all these old, barely-useful ones. Maybe you don't want any change ever?

Are you sure your playing the same game as the rest of us?

Id love if you could names some old barely useful spells that exist right now?
Because most of my classes barely have enough spells to cover 2 bars (not including macros) and they all get used regularly. If you think theres useless spells in bfa chances are its because your not a very good player, and i dont mean that as an insult.

[Trend]

I've played on/off for 10 years, I have gamedev education, and I do design work. What are your credentials? Have you ever coded anything?

Except for WoD I've played very consistently since the closed beta in the summer of 2004. I am a senior engineer at a truly global tech company and my primary application is responsible for $1.5B a year in revenue. So obviously what I think is more valid than what you think right? (For those who are having a hard time understanding the point, arguments on the basis of authority are worthless, especially in the context of arguing with strangers on internet forums.)

People have continued to state the value of having more abilities and rather than responding honestly, you just keep pretending that nobody has given any reasons.

Fortunately, it does not matter what your odd opinion is. They have already recognized that they have stripped away too many abilities and there is zero chance they do or will agree with your concepts.

[Alopex Major]

They say this every expac. I'll believe it when I see actual results in the game.

[Kralljin]

They say this every expac.

For the record:
They haven't.

[Zafire]

He talks about how a spec shouldn't play like a new class. He mentions that a specialization should resonate with you. I miss hybrid specs, honestly. I don't know if this is something we can ever go back to. It doesn't even have to be super viable. It could just be good at soloing PvE content (like doing dailies) or have a niche in PvP (like flag carrier).

Most fun I ever had on Rogue was sub/assassination hybrid sword spec with hemo. This was the case in PvP in TBC, and it was a fun leveling spec in WotLK. I really don't like how if I choose sub or assassination I'm using daggers no matter what, because that's what my specialization says I should be using. It's an unattractive system to me.

Most fun I ever had on Death Knight was blood DPS, but choosing the ghoul pet from the Unholy tree instead of blood weapon because it did more DPS. I found this more fun and immersive too.

[Mikazukinoyaiba]

New/returning players quit because there are too many buttons. If you don't see this as a problem, don't ever complain about the dwindling playerbase. Now your turn. Why would a sea of buttons be a good thing?

Yeah, BFA and pruning definitely bring more new/returning players now that there's less button to press.

Go back to flipping burgers please.

[Philomene]

Sub Rogues are upset we don't have our Gouge, Poisons, Bleeds, and old Shadow Dance, not to mention Slice and and Dice and Premeditation.

Source: mained Subtlety Rogue since 2005, 2500 arena rating in multiple xpacs, etc.

I suggest you need to talk less and listen more, then you will have a chance to understand.

Leave it, this topic is filled by 1500 players / overgeared normal raiders defending the prune because "we didn't need it" or "you only had to click it once and be done", that says it all

[Keeper Stalladris]

Ions video on class design

I am delighted to see them actually finally publicly acknowledge they also are not happy with the state of classes, i won't get ahead of myself in hoping for miracles in 9.0 because ultimately i cannot see them scrapping voidform or anything that would make me enjoy my class again, however the fact they are now in agreement and openly talking about making classes actual classes again and specs being actual specialisations of a class rather than a "mini class" does give me hope.

I am slightly worried however that blizzard being blizzard these days will fail hard on this and we will see a big imbalance of some classes or specs seeing total revamps or return of much needed abilities that were removed while others have to endure another spriest shaman "that's gonna have to wait for a patch new expansion" fiasco like bfa.

I just cannot see them doing what needs done for a fair amount of classes (at least the ones i used to enjoy playing before the garbage of legion and bfa) that to be brutally honest require around 2/3 or more of their talent tree to actually go back to being baseline to make the class feel good. Unless they said fuck it at the start of BFA and decided on this back then so they are currently working on that right now (which could explain the lack of changes we normally see) and it is their top priority to overhaul every class and spec to bring them back to enjoyment levels we haven't saw for a number of years i cannot see them being able to achieve it before time for next expansion. It coming from Ion just feels like hollow lawyer marketing talk to keep people from losing all interest entirely.

But still, there is now hope where there was once none.

They do this all the time.

Every time people criticize the game Blizzard denies these problems for 3-5 years while saying that "we hear you", then they turn around and say "you are right". And then people clap like retarded seals.

[roboscorcher]

Are you sure your playing the same game as the rest of us?

Id love if you could names some old barely useful spells that exist right now?
Because most of my classes barely have enough spells to cover 2 bars (not including macros) and they all get used regularly. If you think theres useless spells in bfa chances are its because your not a very good player, and i dont mean that as an insult.

It's not about buttons being useless. It's about a sea of buttons that only do 1 thing. Some buttons have procs that make them awesome in certain contexts, and I'd like to see more of that. I really do think that merging lesser spells into bigger ones (via the talent system, which will also be improved) is the way forward, and it will free up buttons for future spells.

Like I said before, Hammer of Wrath is such as spell. All of its effects could be baked into Judgement, albeit with slight alterations.

- - - Updated - - -

Except for WoD I've played very consistently since the closed beta in the summer of 2004. I am a senior engineer at a truly global tech company and my primary application is responsible for $1.5B a year in revenue. So obviously what I think is more valid than what you think right? (For those who are having a hard time understanding the point, arguments on the basis of authority are worthless, especially in the context of arguing with strangers on internet forums.)

People have continued to state the value of having more abilities and rather than responding honestly, you just keep pretending that nobody has given any reasons.

Fortunately, it does not matter what your odd opinion is. They have already recognized that they have stripped away too many abilities and there is zero chance they do or will agree with your concepts.

Ok, how do you answer these questions?

1) What is your limit of reasonable combat buttons available to press? 10? 20? 50? 100? 1000?

2) At what point is it unreasonable to expect the player to know and use all these buttons in combat?

3) How much should devs rely on addon devs to provide a decent UI experience?

4) Would people not be more open to deviate from cookie-cutter builds if they could save them and swap in more places?

Merging buttons is not a crazy concept. Macros do the exact same thing, and people lost their minds when the GCD changes meant they had to press individual buttons again.

- - - Updated - - -

I've played since Vanilla and used to mod extensively on other games. I don't really need credentials though, because nothing I post requires justification through authority, unlike some others I can name.



I never claimed that WoD's subscription numbers were monocausal, so congratulations on beating down that strawman, I guess? Do you actually think that we can't infer anything about Class Design from sub numbers? Do you somehow actually believe that more people unsubscribed because of lackluster faction capitals instead of the fact that classes were gutted?



Cool, so we're ignoring the very real consequences pruning has had because your bad friends quit the game. I'm supposed to drop the closest thing I have to an objective metric in favor of anecdotes.

Fine, since we're playing the anecdote game:
My friends list has been absolutely barren since Warlords of Draenor. Some people occasionally resub at patches, and expansion launches, but they always say the same thing, some variation of "my class isn't fun now." Usually with more expletives. I've personally unsubscribed for long periods simply because I completely loathe every class I play and have since WoD.

Beyond personal experiences, have you ever bothered looking at forums? People here hate class design, and have hated it for a while. During WoD beta, on the Official Beta forums, pruning was the most criticized subject. Unhappiness with class design dominated the Official forums, and the arena forums all throughout WoD.

Legion Alpha and Beta was a similar story. It had more defenders here, but over the official forums, it was still widely disliked.

Since BfA is current, I don't think I really have to outline how most people feel. They've been doing that well enough, considering we finally got the most obtuse dev team to realize that they completely dropped the ball.

You're the minority, your proposed changes would shift this game in the exact opposite direction it needs to go. There is literally no quicker way to kill WoW than to take you seriously.



Are you actually comparing irl political structures to a video game format right now? And somehow you actually have the audacity to pitch this right before criticizing a much tighter analogy. Hilarious and hypocritical.

And this is entirely ignoring the fact that your premise is ridiculous, because you've provided zero evidence to support your claim that "The game is dying because of button bloat," while breezing right past contradictory evidence.


Let's take a look at the following statements from you:





etc.

You've routinely used an entirely different genre as a standard for what WoW should become, and get mad when your argument gets flipped on its head? Hey, Destiny's an MMO, right? They use that setup. :^)



Is tunnel vision really a widespread problem? No, absolutely not. You're scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel for people, and demanding we demolish the foundations of this game to cater to them. No thanks.

I used the default UI just fine. Will you can the melodrama about how the original UI was somehow holding those poor casuals back?



Wow, I'm not surprised at all.

I lay out just a few reasons why talents are incomparable to active abilities, and will not be able to replicate the complexity offered by active abilities and you breeze right past it as if it were never said.

No counterargument or anything, you simply expect me to put stock in some vague outline.



The game already expects you to swap talents though. That's why tomes exist. That's why there was a public outcry when Blizzard made it so you could only freely change talents in either a rested area or with a tome active. What game are you playing where people aren't regularly switching talents between boss fights, arena matches, etc?



I've used the default UI since vanilla. I don't have a tunnel vision problem. I interact with plenty of people across the spectrum of gameplay. Everything from multiglads to BG heroes, mythic raiders to guys who now just do normal PuGs. The ones who still use the default UI don't tunnel vision.

If anyone's in a bubble here, it's you. Please leave the "Lowest of the Low" bubble and get back to me, please.



I've already outlined why complexity cannot be loaded into talent trees in a comparable fashion. At some point you're going to have to acknowledge that your vision of the game isn't going to be able to offer similar levels of complexity, or raise the skill floor, it's just going to lower the skill ceiling.

With regard to raid mechanics, I've actually heard the complaint from a number of people. Usually you have to parse out what they really mean, but the baseline is "It feels like they're overdoing mechanics to compensate for the fact that my class is boring."

Were it just a few people, I'd write them off as bad. But it's people who I know can actually handle mechanics.



The only one who's entitled here is you, actually.

You've come into a game with a set foundation, and you want to demolish all of that, simply because it would suit you and your friends better. You want the game to change on a fundamental level, just to suit your tastes, when what you're advocating is the exact, direct, and complete opposite of what the prevailing opinion of the community that has bothered vocalizing their opinions.


Yes, WoW has changed. Recently it's changed for the worse. Your proposals would push it further in that direction. Beyond that, not all change is comparable. You're completely ignoring the severity of the changes you're proposing which wouldn't be an "evolution" but constitute an entirely new form of gameplay. No thanks.


What alternate version of this game are you playing? What spells in particular are you classifying as "barely useful?" I'm seriously curious, at this point, because on every class I play, every spell clearly has a use.

Keeping in line with the rest of your post, you've actually somehow stumbled on the complete opposite of reality. Not only are our spellbooks not crammed with spells, our spellbook actually has gaping wounds where old abilities which rounded out classes, were ripped out.


Considering the changes brought by the past three expansions? Nope, I don't.

If anything even remotely resembling your proposals were to become a reality (Thankfully it seems the devs have realized the opposite needs to happen, or are at least paying lip service to that), I'd unsub in a heartbeat, and write off Blizzard as a company.

Again, you literally picked the wrong game. Go play another one instead of trying to further ruin this one.

Rather than squabble on these points again, I'm going to give you some scenarios so you hopefully understand my perspective a little better.

1) WoW's combat numbers have ballooned into the millions. If left alone, within a few years the numbers will be too large too read. You could abbreviate them, but the numbers still feel absurd to most players. Do you squish the numbers to make the numbers readable again, even if it somewhat reduces players past progression?

2) WoW's max level has increased to the point where levelup rewards are spread too thin. Do you squish the cap from 120-60, knowing that it diminishes players' past progression somewhat? Or do you bit the bullet to make the leveling experience more enjoyable?

3) WoW's combat spell count has expanded to a point where they can no longer fit on the standard actionbar. Do you merge the lesser/situational buttons into more interesting ones, do you prune them outright, or do you leave them alone? Doing nothing means that the combat experience will become less managable in the future, and each button is less valuable/unique/impactful. Pruning means the ability/effect is gone, which also sucks.

[Halyon]

Just screams "Let's bring back that "one playstyle or gtfo"" mentality of the old talent trees.



To be honest, Warrior Stances rank pretty high in the list of "things that got changed each expansion" until their removal.

Outside of PvP and maybe leveling, i fail to see their appeal.
If you're Dps, you sit in Berserker Stance, if you're tank, you sit in Def Stance.

Unless Blizzard gives you some sort additional incentive to use Battle Stance, you're not going to use it.
If that incentive happens to be a single ability, you just bring back Cata Arms Warrior keybinding all of their abilities with a /cast Berserker Stance macro.

Getting Warrior stances to live up to their original inception in the primarily PvE focused game such as WoW is not that easy.

Well, the stances would be nice for leveling I suppose, but as for the rest...

Skeptical unless good changes are actually witnessed.

[Zandalariprelate]

So, any chance for a new revamp of classes after bfa? I though they will just release filler spells that nobody will use in raiding except for niche situations

[shoegazing]

It's quite an easy task on paper what they have to do for 9.0 but for Blizzard it will be a tremendous amount of work:

MoP/WoD class design + Legion class fantasy + a brand new, enticing and fresh progression system akin to talents / glyphs that matter as much as usual talents

No thanks to Legion Class Fantasy. My Subtlety Rogue should feel like a classic Warcraft Rogue like it was since 2004, not this gaudy, trashy, overdone, hamfisted sHaDoW mAgIc NiNjA garbage they turned it into.

The only part of my character I recognize anymore is the transmog. And don't give me that bullshit about uNiQuE sPeCiAl SnOwFlAkE sPeC fAnTaSy, I don't want to hear that trash. I play a ROGUE not this reimagined bullshit.

[Arakakao]

So... did he say something interesting? I can't watch a video of Ion Hazzikostas talking. For some reason his voice bores me to sleep.

[Soon-TM]

So, any chance for a new revamp of classes after bfa? I though they will just release filler spells that nobody will use in raiding except for niche situations

Honestly, I'd be fine with that, if it means that they are going to give pause to the pruning train. This whole "if it isn't used in raids, kill it" mentality is killing the game for me.