What takeaways should Blizzard add back to retail from classic?

[Absintheminded]

Basically, if I’m going to list the things that, in my opinion, detracted from the World of Warcraft experience it’s:

• No flying mounts
• No LFD (keep the LFG tool in-game that basically allows us to post parties and whisper leaders)
• No LFR (instead, add a comparable difficulty with flex numbers and allow people to use LFG tool, see above)
• Bring back talent trees
• Remove homogenization completely sans required role specific abilities ie taunt, resurrect, etc
• Reduce the number of available portals in-game
• Add a minor gold fee for changing specs outside of rested areas
• Bring back all stats for pieces of gear
• Reduce the amount of copy + paste gear from dungeons and raids. Unique drops are more fun to loot.
• Bring back weapon skill
• Bring back equip bonuses to include hit/crit, AP/SP
• increase the amount of threat healing and DPSing causes

Regarding a hybrid tax, I believe the game would be better served if individual specialization were balanced and made to be useful. For instance, a Retribution should cause respectable damage, be able to off-heal a limited amount, and bring good utility and buffs. I would not asked for gimped specs or OP gods. Abilities could still be limited by spec, to a certain degree.

[probert]

1. that's kinda what they did in BC.
2. vanilla dungeon maps are more complex, not the dungeons themselves.
3. no it doesn't, lvling alone takes that long but persistent dungeon grind either ran or at lvl is far faster even in classic, the only change that's been made in retail in contrast to classic is that you can't run people for ultra-fast lvling alts.

re: point 2. That's exaclty it. The dungeons aren't uber-hard if you come prepared with capable players. But there's a ton of quests, rewards, optional bosses, alternate wings in many of the dungeons that makes returning to them worthwhile.

re: point 3. just because a handful of power levelers/streamers opted to take advantage of a raid group bug doesn't mean that's the reason why people run dungeons in classic (or back in TBC). take Gnomeregan... 6 quests, including some good silver + rewards ontop of all the mob XP and loot. completing a full clear is likely a full level of experience and rewards that will last you 3-5 levels minimum. its a good use of time at level 30 for example.

[Malikath]

Basically, if I’m going to list the things that, in my opinion, detracted from the World of Warcraft experience it’s:

• No flying mounts
• No LFD (keep the LFG tool in-game that basically allows us to post parties and whisper leaders)
• No LFR (instead, add a comparable difficulty with flex numbers and allow people to use LFG tool, see above)
• Bring back talent trees
• Remove homogenization completely sans required role specific abilities ie taunt, resurrect, etc
• Reduce the number of available portals in-game
• Add a minor gold fee for changing specs outside of rested areas
• Bring back all stats for pieces of gear
• Reduce the amount of copy + paste gear from dungeons and raids. Unique drops are more fun to loot.
• Bring back weapon skill
• Bring back equip bonuses to include hit/crit, AP/SP
• increase the amount of threat healing and DPSing causes

Regarding a hybrid tax, I believe the game would be better served if individual specialization were balanced and made to be useful. For instance, a Retribution should cause respectable damage, be able to off-heal a limited amount, and bring good utility and buffs. I would not asked for gimped specs or OP gods. Abilities could still be limited by spec, to a certain degree.

so, basically early wrath?
idk about portals vs. ships but i do feel there needs to be a faction established safe-route that connects main cities and outlying towns, patrolled with NPCs with some semi-scripted events ala stitches to give the world a sense of tenuous security.
also, i don't like hit primarily that while lvling you're generally unable to gear around performance-tax values.
if we took MoP's itemization and allowed players to either gem or enchant to hit cap even at low-lvl i feel it could be restored, but how it was handled during the years makes me glad it was removed as it's effect on killing most DW specs during early tiers due to their insane hit cap penalty.

[Oakshana]

so, basically early wrath?
idk about portals vs. ships but i do feel there needs to be a faction established safe-rout that connects main cities and outlying towns, patrolled with NPCs with some semi-scripted events ala stitches to give the world a sense of tenuous security.

You mean like how Horde has easy mode travel across the board? They have Zeppelins that take then from Orgimmar to their two other main cities and straight to their primary outpost in STV.

For Alliance though? Sure, they have the Deeprun Tram for SW to IF. But if you want to go to Darnassus or Dustwallow, you have to go a deep long run through the Wetlands the first time, and if you are on a PVP realm you are fair game waiting for the boats, and for STV you still have to travel via contested territory (again, only an issue for PVP servers) and just prime for ganking before you can even get close to the Camp in STV.

Blizzard does not realize sometimes how they make certain things harder for the Alliance than the Horde. I am not crying about it, it's just something I have noticed over the years.

Good examples are, prior to WoD, if an Alliance portaled to the Blasted Lands, they were complete screwed if Horde is waiting to gank. But for Horde, they can fly right down into the Shadow Cleft and click the portal staying mounted and then just fly into the Dark Portal (Alliances Blasted Lands portal was inside the Mage Tower and it dismounted you). or the fact that Horde could easily fly in and kill the King in SW before anyone knows what's happening, and Grommash hold is smack center in the main hub of Orgrimmar.

Again, these are generally little things, and some only an issue with PVP servers. But it blows my mind how these things get introduced.

[Malikath]

You mean like how Horde has easy mode travel across the board? They have Zeppelins that take then from Orgimmar to their two other main cities and straight to their primary outpost in STV.

For Alliance though? Sure, they have the Deeprun Tram for SW to IF. But if you want to go to Darnassus or Dustwallow, you have to go a deep long run through the Wetlands the first time, and if you are on a PVP realm you are fair game waiting for the boats, and for STV you still have to travel via contested territory (again, only an issue for PVP servers) and just prime for ganking before you can even get close to the Camp in STV.

Blizzard does not realize sometimes how they make certain things harder for the Alliance than the Horde. I am not crying about it, it's just something I have noticed over the years.

Good examples are, prior to WoD, if an Alliance portaled to the Blasted Lands, they were complete screwed if Horde is waiting to gank. But for Horde, they can fly right down into the Shadow Cleft and click the portal staying mounted and then just fly into the Dark Portal (Alliances Blasted Lands portal was inside the Mage Tower and it dismounted you). or the fact that Horde could easily fly in and kill the King in SW before anyone knows what's happening, and Grommash hold is smack center in the main hub of Orgrimmar.

Again, these are generally little things, and some only an issue with PVP servers. But it blows my mind how these things get introduced.

yo, i have a 87 page list of that shit over the decade, and while being a MoP fan myself it's got atleast 13 of those pages.

[Foolicious]

I think a lot has changed for the better and a lot of classic fans still wear their tinted glasses. But there is also some things that would be good in the modern game.

1. Class identity - This includes playing a class with specialisations instead of three classes on one character, different talenttrees(not the classic ones, if they want to stay with the current ones go back to mops design), tier sets/Cosmetic class sets, quests, raidbuffs, selfbuffs, basically all that stuff we lost.

2. seperate realms again, remove warmode - Part of why the world doesn't feel meaningful is because we can switch to a new one at will. Quest mob isn't there? Change realms until he is up at one. Want to have a pet from a rare mob? Change realms and kill rare mobs over and over again until it drops. Farmed all herbs? Change realm and farm there. There are players of the opposing faction nearby? Change realms and avoid them. Even on one realm warmode creates two seperate worlds. We all have chosen a pvp or pve realm i don't see the point of changing it at will.

3. Bring back meaningful stats - Right now everyone can wear everything. Krit/haste/mastery is all we got. Every piece of armor is worth something if you can wear it. There is no difference between an item with bad stats and your bis item.
Bring back mp5 and spirit so healer can choose more mana regen if they want to. Bring back bonusarmor and tankstats so tanks don't feel like damage dealers that can't die. Let int increase your manapool and agility increase your meele crit again. Bring in new stats. Maybe one that increases white hit damage, increased shadow damage etc.

[Absintheminded]

so, basically early wrath?
idk about portals vs. ships but i do feel there needs to be a faction established safe-route that connects main cities and outlying towns, patrolled with NPCs with some semi-scripted events ala stitches to give the world a sense of tenuous security.
also, i don't like hit primarily that while lvling you're generally unable to gear around performance-tax values.
if we took MoP's itemization and allowed players to either gem or enchant to hit cap even at low-lvl i feel it could be restored, but how it was handled during the years makes me glad it was removed as it's effect on killing most DW specs during early tiers due to their insane hit cap penalty.

Wrath just so happened to be my favorite point in time playing WoW. Of course, some of the things I complained about also occurred during wrath. As for hit rating, it was never a really big deal leveling up. Sure, getting a hit trinket leveling the up was a big deal, but it’s not like it was make or break. At max level, you're fighting progressively harder mobs and bosses, so hit is just one more thing that can separate the seasoned players from the pack.

I also feel like gems should make a strong comeback. In so many scenarios, Blizz saw a problem and removed an entire aspect of the game, rather than just fixing the problem. The excuse with gems was that everybody just stacked the same gem based on role/spec. To me, it’s still an RPG element that should remain.

[Azerate]

I try really hard and I can't really think of anything to be honest... Classic is somewhat enjoyable as a separate game that shows you those old times, but I consider most, if not all of the upgraded features we have today, to be superior.

I guess maybe tier sets, though is that really a vanilla feature? We only lost it in BfA. And even then, I think you should also be able to get the tier set in some way in m+ and maybe emissaries.

I would love to see gems, enchants and reforging making a comeback, but again, those are hardly vanilla features (gems not even being in vanilla at all).

[Fred Skinner]

I believe the devs will abuse classics success to get their biased agenda going.

[rarhyx]

meaningful class quests
talent trees even if it is cooki cutter build for raid and pvp - I like "hybrid speccs"/non-cookie cutter builds for lvling/daily quests/wq just screwing around with friends
class armor

[MoanaLisa]

I would like the world game to be slower, more about exploration, and much less about "getting to the end so we can all raid".

For that to happen Blizzard would need to rethink how it rewards play in the world and just exactly what the word "rewards" means. I do believe that success in the game from a business perspective lies more in treating the world with creativity and respect. Dungeons and raids are fine and have their own communities but too often "the world" just seems to be some place to get past to get to something else, i.e. not a place to be in itself. They should think about that.

It seems to me that the game as it now stands is somewhat upside down in content.

[Velerios]

remove LFR and LFD, leave timewalking

Again and again and again: WILL NOT HAPPEN. As much as there are many players who hate them, more are liking them. Sorry, but polls shown again and again that the loud minority hate it. LFD and LFR has NOTHING to do that BfA is a big pile of crap. But i need to agree for the rest you said: Mobs need to be harder, dungeons including LFR and LFD need to be LONGER and HARDER.

Simply male like on Epic Battleground another LFD for epic dungeons where you go in for hours, not minutes. Not every retail-player wants to finish a dungeon in 20 minutes or less.

LFD is not the fault that dungeons are bad, bad dungeons are the reason they are bad. Look at the dungeons on classic: they take longer, they are harder, people need to make mana-breaks and all in all you need to take care of everyone else. Buffs are important, gear is much more important and so on. This and that you had MUCH more breaks where you could chat made Classic-Dungeons better than live-dungeons. This and having NON-LINEAR-Dungeons like BRD.

- - - Updated - - -

Bring back mp5 and spirit so healer can choose more mana regen if they want to.

NO TO MP5! It is idiotic to seperate Spirit and MP5 when both do exactly the same. Spirit should be the stat to go for everyone, but don't bring back the 5 second rule. Instead make mana-reg SLOWER and make Spirit increase this by a large margin.

[Mrbleedinggums]

The ability to complete the AQ40 opening chain. That's it.

Timewalking versions of Vanilla raids and dungeons.

I'm absolutely baffled that people want to get rid of LFD/LFR. Don't like them? Don't use them. I can't even remember the last time I used either (except for Timewalking) but not everyone plays the game at the same level.

Thank you for being one of the reasonable people in here. Seeing half these posts make me wonder if they're just stunted intellectually. "I DON'T LIKE IT SO NOBODY SHOULD BE ABLE TO PLAY IT!" bunch of damn boomers they are.

I did mythic raiding, I almost never did LFR and I only did LFD to get the tanking bonus satchel. I don't mind both though because I understand too that not everyone has the time commitment to be able to do a 3 hour Gnomeregan or 4 hour UBRS or 10 hour AQ 40, let alone the extra time to set it up.

Granted, it might be easier to find groups now since it's easier to talent swap and classes aren't completely shit on balance (durr warriors can only tank durr) so tanks and healers aren't super rare, so if for some reason they did a complete revert it wouldn't be as bad. But it's still something that they would never just get rid of. It's like if they were to ask for Blizzard to get rid of Battle.net chat.

[Ghostile]

I'd like to see them completely revamp the leveling experience to actually be enjoyable again. Right now you're just bulldozing your way through everything to get to 120. The story isn't even important or coherent till you get to the latest expansion.

Really they should look more at FFXIV for how leveling should be handled. The story while leveling through Shadowbringers stomps anything WoW has ever done into the ground in terms of story. The difference in story telling quality is an embarrassment for WoW. In the opening act of their expansion they've told a more complete and deeper story than BfA will tell throughout its entire expansion.

You'll never make leveling in an MMO challenge player's skill level because everyone has to be able to level at least. So focusing more on having a compelling story does wonders for the experience.

But wow is a game a lot of people play for raiding.

I couldn't suggest FFXIV to my old raid partners because I would have to tell them it takes a month to get to the endgame.

[Acolyyte]

There's a lot of things you just CAN'T get back from playing Vanilla. Even classic only has moderate success with these - Such as the old communities of Warcraft or the sense of wonder in exploration when you didn't know everything already.

From having played Classic, what are the parts where you really stop and think "Damn, I wish Blizzard hadn't got rid of this - It needs this back"

For me it's all the RPG elements of being a rogue and finding shady dealers hiding under buildings to mix up stashes of poisons and buy flash powder etc. Sure it's a chore, but i feel 1000% more connected to my rogue as a rogue.

I aggressively abandoned my retail main, a shadow priest, to reroll in classic. I played shadow priest up through wotlk when i was younger and the obscene power at expense of mana longevity was just so fucking fun.

In live, shadow priests are absolutely broken in pvp. They are at the mercy of melee, and I struggle to kill enemies with far worse gear than me, for the simple fact that all my burst damage is gated behind an ridiculous ramp up that requires hard casting. With melee's unlimited interrupt toolkit in retail it is an exercise in frustration.

So to answer your question, i'd love to see real class identity return, along with having to actually MANAGE your resource (mana, rage, etc). Let us learn all our spells, not just the ones that pertain to our spec. And for specifically, bring back racial priest spells, the old vampiric embrace, inner fire, and get rid of voidform.

[Lurker1]

There's a lot of things you just CAN'T get back from playing Vanilla. Even classic only has moderate success with these - Such as the old communities of Warcraft or the sense of wonder in exploration when you didn't know everything already.

From having played Classic, what are the parts where you really stop and think "Damn, I wish Blizzard hadn't got rid of this - It needs this back"

For me it's all the RPG elements of being a rogue and finding shady dealers hiding under buildings to mix up stashes of poisons and buy flash powder etc. Sure it's a chore, but i feel 1000% more connected to my rogue as a rogue.

Nothing except bring back tier sets beyond bfa thats it.

[Powerogue]

I thought Legion did a great job of bringing back emphasis on class fantasy. I miss my order hall already. I'm not even level 10 on my classic shaman and already went on a short questline to connect with the elements and craft my first totem from a piece they gifted me. This sort of stuff matters. I think we should have class quests scattered every 10 levels or so all the way from 1 to 110.

[munkeyinorbit]

Crafting is broken in retail. What is the point of crafting an item that needs mats from end content if by the time you get the crafted item you already have an item that is just as good? I understand that you just can't give the item away but surely there must be some middle ground. Last time I looked into it the crafted items were bop. At least make it boe so it isn't a complete waste of time.

[Ghostile]

Tailoring the game around those type of people is what caused a lot of WoW's decline to begin with.

Have you looked at the barren wasteland that is FFXIV endgame? That happens when you tailor the game around questing casuals.

[Ange]

If you all would just keep playing classic, some ideas might come back. But people are leaving after 1 week or half of the leveling/gameintroduction, thats not really what any MMO is aiming for.

Classic is still RAID-OR-DIE, players who didnt even tried raiding, never even saw the main game.

The takeaway would be how to not repeat it in future.