Insignificant systems revitalized

[Stricks]

This is my favorite part of Classic. All the systems that are insignificant during leveling in retail matter again. Now I am not saying they are completely not there but rather their importance is magnified in Classic. Here are a few off the top of my head in no particular order:

1. Gold
-Often times I cannot even pay for all of my skills. This places a heavy importance on currency in the game and it's awesome having to really be frugal to
try and get that next skill
2. Gear
- Quest rewards can be game changers
- Upgrades while questing
4. That ever so slight semi-permanent talent choice making you a tiny bit stronger
5. Connection with the land - no mounts means that I really feel like I am out there exploring
6. Needing to group up to even complete a normal quest or at least make it easier
7. Helping someone not die with no benefit whatsoever to me other than being helpful
8. No shiny things - I have to actually look for rewards
9. Quest log - I actually look at the quest log and re-read if I don't know where something is. Inspecting every word to get a clue where I need to go, like a treasure map.
10. Dungeons
- Traveling to them is a journey
- There is a commitment that is not there with LFG since you can pop in and out

Can anyone else think of some more?

[Wildmoon]

-Resource
-Class specific reagents

Basically, all these things in totality contribute to a more traditional rpg experience. You end up feeling more connected to your characters. When you keep removing the supposed "pointless and annoying things" then the game can end up existing as a bare minimum on "what really matters".

[Rendark]

Most of that stuff is really lame.

[iebevd]

I feel like professions are really important now whereas in retail you don't even bother with them.

[Erethania]

Most of that stuff is really lame.

What else is left?

- - - Updated - - -

I feel like professions are really important now whereas in retail you don't even bother with them.

Absolutely. I always loved professions, and I'm very happy right now.

[Stricks]

Most of that stuff is really lame.

Not really.

- - - Updated - - -

-Resource
-Class specific reagents

Basically, all these things in totality contribute to a more traditional rpg experience. You end up feeling more connected to your characters. When you keep removing the supposed "pointless and annoying things" then the game can end up existing as a bare minimum on "what really matters".

Totally agree!

[Mashanerz]

Most of that stuff is really lame.

It was part of the world building that made a lot of the stuff in classic so immersive.

I think there's a problem when the dev team decides that it still belongs in the game today.

Point #5 is one that is especially annoying to me, they release content that most of us don't care about but we all have to do (level your neck/reputations) and they constantly try and make travel more frustrating. They had it right in Cata - Flying at the start.

It'd be nice to add to the list the idea of power gained being a permanent thing. In Vanilla, your gains weren't diminished every update. Dungeons didn't get harder because BWL came out. Gearing up for Naxx still had a clear progression path and just because Naxx came out didn't mean dungeons started dropping AQ40 gear.

On the flip side, if they want to allow characters to put in minimal effort to gear up then it should be across the board. Leveling an alt shouldn't be punished by a mostly garbage neck grind....consistency with this would be great.

[Azerate]

90% of those are only insignificant in "retail" because you are playing your alts. Many people compare playing your first character in Classic to your 100th alt in BfA sadly. Like people constantly bringing up heirlooms as an argument against retail leveling... or the level 1 mount. I think it's very hypocritical and unfair of a comparison, because you only gain access to those things by getting a main to the level cap first...and more, because if you think you can afford full heirloom set for a class right after capping the first, you simply don't know what you're talking about. Try leveling a fresh character without sending gold, bags, heirlooms and all that to your fresh character and compare then.

Old talent trees being better....the biggest myth in wow history. As a warrior I have like 3 really game changing talents during my whole leveling process. Everything else is +1/2/3% dmg of an ability or stuff like that. It doesn't feel like you're getting stronger with every level at all. Maybe it allows you to cheat yourself that is the case a bit, but in fact no, not at all.

Helping people and interacting while leveling is cool and all, but you have to remember what the main reason for this not being the case in the modern version of the game is. And that reason is...not enough people are in any given point in the leveling process at the same time. And that's also why they scrapped all the group quests, elite quests, and tuned everything so it's possible to do solo. You simply couldn't find any people for it. I was leveling my first character in Wrath, and even back then, I had to skip almost all the stuff marked "group" or "elite" because there was simply no one to do it with. Right now Classic is fresh and hot, and everyone is leveling, but in a month no one will. Imagine trying to get through leveling then. It will just revert back to "please help me with this one quest guildie X" or just skipping it because there's no one around.

Quests...everyone and their mother are using addons that trivialize them. Some are even using autopilots that tell you point by point what to do. No one reads the quests and searches the whole map for the objective, except a few weirdos who enjoy being immersed, but guess what, you can do that on live too.

I guess I agree to a point on Dungeons with you, but then on the flipside this means that most people can't be bothered to do them because of the time you have to invest. It's funny because I have some diehard classic fans in my guild, and they admit they won't ever do any dungeon because they are adults now with real lives and just cant commit like 2 hours to a dungeon, that might still fail, that is only a leveling boost pretty much. Overall, I am still doing way more of those dungeons than anyone else in my guild, and I'm the biggest classic sceptic out of all of them. It's pretty telling, that people who extoll the virtues of those systems are the ones also proving their biggest flaws.

[Katchii]

Most of that stuff is really lame.

As someone who didn't even care about Classic until this past weekend I would have agreed, however the sense of adventure and role playing all of these things impart can't be denied. It may not be everyone's thing, which is fine, but all of these "inconveniences" make the world feel much more immersive, involved and alive. You're not a god among men like you can be in retail, you're a nobody adventure trying to make their way in the world. That difference makes the game feel like a completely different beast and it feels amazing IMO.

[Rucati]

Honestly I disagree with almost everything on this list. It's almost all meaningless and irrelevant to the actual game.

1) Gold. Gold really isn't a problem, half the skills you can learn are useless and skipping them has no negative impact on leveling whatsoever. Getting 100g by 40 for your mount is insanely easy by just vendoring everything you can't use and not learning your useless skills.

2) Gear rewards are rare but they also hardly matter, the difference between 10 agility and 15 agility isn't even going to be noticeable.

3) (Skipped 3??)

4) Yeah that 1% spirit really made me feel a tiny bit stronger, except no it was actually meaningless. Oh boy my pet got 10% armor, I'm sure I'll really notice getting a tiny bit stronger there. Classic talents are garbage because they have no impact on anything.

5) I guess? It's not really different than exploring on a mount except it takes longer. Pretty sure I spend at least 50% of the time in classic looking at my other monitor anyway because I'm just auto running for 5 minutes in between quests.

6) Could be because I play a Hunter but I haven't felt the need to group for anything other than one shit escort mission in Darkshore, and honestly if I had waited a level or two I'd have been able to solo it I just wanted to move on from that zone.

7) Pretty sure I've never done this and I don't know why anyone would, it's unlikely anyone is going to die anyway unless they aren't paying attention and aggro more mobs or just go AFK.

8) Not really sure what you mean. Just that quest items don't sparkle? I haven't really noticed honestly, they're almost always big enough to be noticeable whether they sparkle or not.

9) The quest log isn't bad, other than the times where it doesn't really tell you anything. Personally though I'm just using an addon to walk me through the quests anyway because the game is tedious enough without me having to read every quest I want to do.

10) Haven't done any dungeons in classic, don't really plan to. I guess it's nice that you have to spend 30 minutes spamming chat to find a group, then another 10 minutes running to the dungeon though.


So yeah... Out of those 9 systems there's maybe 2 that have value. Not a very good ratio honestly.

[Mullet Man]

Old talent trees being better....the biggest myth in wow history. As a warrior I have like 3 really game changing talents during my whole leveling process. Everything else is +1/2/3% dmg of an ability or stuff like that. It doesn't feel like you're getting stronger with every level at all. Maybe it allows you to cheat yourself that is the case a bit, but in fact no, not at all.

You are working towards those "game changing" talents each level.
That is why they are important.
That is why it feels good and rewarding for most players.
They have something they are working towards.

Having things you want, and working towards them is what makes Classic great.

[anon5123]

Gold really isn't a problem, half the skills you can learn are useless and skipping them has no negative impact on leveling whatsoever. Getting 100g by 40 for your mount is insanely easy by just vendoring everything you can't use and not learning your useless skills.

"gold isn't a problem"
"HALF the skills"
"100g at 40 is ez"

Confirmed never played vanilla.

Gear rewards are rare but they also hardly matter

"rare" ? Just because the game doesn't shower you in epic quest rewards from every single quest doesn't mean they're "rare".

More confirmation that you've never played vanilla.

Classic talents are garbage because they have no impact on anything.

Okay, try raiding with 0/0/0 spec and see how far you get

But of course, that would require you to actually play vanilla first.

It's not really different than exploring on a mount except it takes longer.

Taking longer to travel makes the world actually feel like a world.

Could be because I play a Hunter but I haven't felt the need to group for anything

So you're anti-social playing an anti-social class and telling other people that the game isn't social

lol

Pretty sure I've never done this and I don't know why anyone would

see above

Haven't done any dungeons in classic, don't really plan to.

see above

I still wonder why people who hate Classic so much keep coming to this forum to loudly proclaim how much they hate Classic and it sucks and is a bad game.

I guess there's just so little content in BFA that you have tons of free time for shitposting on forums

[Rucati]

"gold isn't a problem"
"HALF the skills"
"100g at 40 is ez"

Confirmed never played vanilla.


"rare" ? Just because the game doesn't shower you in epic quest rewards from every single quest doesn't mean they're "rare".

More confirmation that you've never played vanilla.


Okay, try raiding with 0/0/0 spec and see how far you get

But of course, that would require you to actually play vanilla first.


Taking longer to travel makes the world actually feel like a world.


So you're anti-social playing an anti-social class and telling other people that the game isn't social

lol


see above


see above

I still wonder why people who hate Classic so much keep coming to this forum to loudly proclaim how much they hate Classic and it sucks and is a bad game.

I guess there's just so little content in BFA that you have tons of free time for shitposting on forums

Really grasping there. I promise you I played more vanilla than you did. I have 40g on my level 24 Hunter on classic right now, there's zero chance I could get to 40 and not have 100g given how fast gold gains increase as you level. And if you think you need to buy more than half your skills I don't even know what to say, you must be either really stupid or really terrible.

And gear is quite rare, yes. Half the quests don't give any gear, and of the ones that do most of them won't have gear for your class. You wanna try and say I never played vanilla and yet you think gear isn't rare lol. No idea what you're talking about.

Wow you got me, you can't raid with a 0/0/0 spec, that doesn't mean that the talents you get while leveling are meaningful. Nobody feels a 10% increase to their pets armor, you're fucking kidding yourself if you think otherwise.

I guess it feels like a world when I hop on a flight path and go AFK for literally 10 minutes because that's how long it takes to get where I'm going. I mean, I guess it feels like the real world anyway.

It's really interesting though how you continue to say I never played vanilla, despite no evidence of that, and then everything you say just makes it look like you have no clue what you're talking about. I can't imagine that strategy works out for you very often.

[toffmcsoft]

Confirmed, Classic is better & fun - Retail is worse & boring.
Classic is harder, retail is casual easy mode.

[Eapoe]

This is my favorite part of Classic. All the systems that are insignificant during leveling in retail matter again. Now I am not saying they are completely not there but rather their importance is magnified in Classic. Here are a few off the top of my head in no particular order:

1. Gold
-Often times I cannot even pay for all of my skills. This places a heavy importance on currency in the game and it's awesome having to really be frugal to
try and get that next skill
2. Gear
- Quest rewards can be game changers
- Upgrades while questing
4. That ever so slight semi-permanent talent choice making you a tiny bit stronger
5. Connection with the land - no mounts means that I really feel like I am out there exploring
6. Needing to group up to even complete a normal quest or at least make it easier
7. Helping someone not die with no benefit whatsoever to me other than being helpful
8. No shiny things - I have to actually look for rewards
9. Quest log - I actually look at the quest log and re-read if I don't know where something is. Inspecting every word to get a clue where I need to go, like a treasure map.
10. Dungeons
- Traveling to them is a journey
- There is a commitment that is not there with LFG since you can pop in and out

Can anyone else think of some more?

1). It’s awesome paying for an arbitrary skill that you probably won’t even use that often due to spell ranks and using lower ranks to not go OOM? Yeah, sounds great.
2). Short of heirlooms while leveling alts, quests reward gear upgrades in Retail as well. You may not get a shiny new weapon until level cap IF you played all thru Legion, or a different gear slot if you ran mythic raid or high level m+, but to say no upgrades while leveling is dishonest and ignorant.
3). You kind of skipped this one.
4). What? There’s nothing permanent. That’s like me stating “that slight permanent talent choice in Retail.”
5). Lol. I love seeing this one thrown around as so many people that claim they’ve played since Vanilla but then quit after “no flying/pathfinder” was done now praise not even having a mount and all the exploration.
6). Normal quest? No, moving on.
7). You can do this in Retail as well, whether someone just happens to be in a bad spot or is getting ganked. Side note: one of my favorite things from Classic players is how they talk about Community yet they are the ones who abandoned it, only able to have a “community” when forced into one. It’s sad.
8). This one is personal opinion based. I personally hate it, but that’s me. Others can enjoy it, but I won’t act like it’s fact that it is somehow objectively better.
9). Again, subjective. I remember leveling before “shiny things” and I just skimmed the text as some of it was very tedious. Besides, I still read/listen to quest text/chat if it appears interesting.
10). It’s as much as a journey as anything, didn’t need it’s own point. Also, you mention LFG but neglect m+. Cherry picking examples are great, aren’t they?

[Garymorilix]

This is my favorite part of Classic. All the systems that are insignificant during leveling in retail matter again. Now I am not saying they are completely not there but rather their importance is magnified in Classic. Here are a few off the top of my head in no particular order:

1. Gold
-Often times I cannot even pay for all of my skills. This places a heavy importance on currency in the game and it's awesome having to really be frugal to
try and get that next skill
2. Gear
- Quest rewards can be game changers
- Upgrades while questing
4. That ever so slight semi-permanent talent choice making you a tiny bit stronger
5. Connection with the land - no mounts means that I really feel like I am out there exploring
6. Needing to group up to even complete a normal quest or at least make it easier
7. Helping someone not die with no benefit whatsoever to me other than being helpful
8. No shiny things - I have to actually look for rewards
9. Quest log - I actually look at the quest log and re-read if I don't know where something is. Inspecting every word to get a clue where I need to go, like a treasure map.
10. Dungeons
- Traveling to them is a journey
- There is a commitment that is not there with LFG since you can pop in and out

Can anyone else think of some more?

There is a huge flaw in everything you just listed: you compared Classic leveling activities vs WoW end-game activities.

1) Kinda true, gold is more relevant to a point, but not because of what you said.
I think you need to be intentionally spending gold on BS to not have enough gold for skill training. It is not as hardcore of a currency management as people claim it to be. Ofc, if you can't play the game and spend all your money on food you won't have gold. But again, what skill level is our basis for making statements?
The only thing you won't have gold for without doing professions or AH is mounts. Everything else is a breeze.

2) Untrue.
Even on normal WoW you get plenty of upgrades during leveling, which make you stronger. The pace might be different, but the end product is the same.
This ofc doesn't apply if you use heirlooms, but then again, the core statement applies to both versions of WoW.
Nostalgia hit hard here.

3) Where is point 3?

4) You will never notice a 2% increase in anything. This is again, a nostalgia feeling, not a real "uhh I feel soooo much stronger with 1% more crit".

5) I mean, if you don't want to use mounts, then don't use them.
Just because someone else prefers to not take 2 hours to hand in a quest, it doesn't mean they're less immersed.
Also, mounts do exist in Classic. Is everyone who buys one and uses one a moron?
If you don't want to use something, don't. Gating other people off just so you feel better is nonsense.

6) Untrue. Outside of elite quests, everything can be done alone.
Grouping up also speeds up questing in normal WoW.
What's the point here?

7) I haven't once seen people do that, for one simple reason: mob tagging. They know they'll get the tag if you die.
This is more common based on my gameplay.

8) What does this even mean?

9) Untrue. Even if you don't use a quest helper, all the information you need is like 3 words at the bottom.
Don't act like you have to read everything.

10) You travel to dungeons in normal WoW too doing M+. Hell, you even have to make your own groups. Crazy right? Exactly like Classic dungeons.

[Akka]

I tend to think that all this can be summed up somehow in : more grounded.

The defining difference I see between WoW Vanilla and current WoW is that in the first, mechanics existed to simulate a world in which adventures took place. So most of them were mainly for immersion purpose, and they built the combat around them. This made a system where the world was the core component, and the gameplay was how you dealt with it. Abilities were also much more "down to earth", simple technical skills.

Conversely, today's WoW is all about combat combo and rotations, with everything else being just a pointless (and mostly ignored) background. There is layers upon layers of systems cutting the characters from the world, in a strictly game-based design. There is scaling, automated switch in stat, everything happening at the push of a button and so on. The execution is more active than Classic (though not really better than TBC/WotLK) but it's so detached and so formulaic that I end up finding it more boring in the end, and it certainly doesn't engage me in the global game.

Classic is immersive because the mechanics make you part of the world. Retail isn't because the world has become irrelevant to the meta of the game.

[wysimdnwyg]

Helping people and interacting while leveling is cool and all, but you have to remember what the main reason for this not being the case in the modern version of the game is. And that reason is...not enough people are in any given point in the leveling process at the same time. And that's also why they scrapped all the group quests, elite quests, and tuned everything so it's possible to do solo. You simply couldn't find any people for it. I was leveling my first character in Wrath, and even back then, I had to skip almost all the stuff marked "group" or "elite" because there was simply no one to do it with. Right now Classic is fresh and hot, and everyone is leveling, but in a month no one will. Imagine trying to get through leveling then. It will just revert back to "please help me with this one quest guildie X" or just skipping it because there's no one around..

This right here is why Classic is better than retail for leveling new characters (today). It's not about the talent trees, because while I like the old trees better, those are largely superfluous. It's not about the RPG elements, or the fact that leveling is "hard", or that professions "mean something", or any of a hundred other things.

No, what makes leveling in Classic better is that there are people at your level. A lot of them. And there are things that are clearly just easier to do in a group (like killing 20 of those mobs that everyone else is killing). This is the biggest factor in the now mythological "community" we had in Vanilla, and it's what is allowing a resurgence of that in Classic. There are people your level, doing the same things you are doing, so you group up and do them together. My Rogue is level 17 and I've already been in a dozen random groups completing different quests. And I tell you what, it's so easy that way, it's the norm not to see people bail when they are done (although that does happen sometimes), but for people to stick around until everyone in the group is finished. THAT is what makes leveling in Classic the fun game we all remember from Vanilla. And frankly, if the game was what leveling in retail is (even minus the heirlooms and bags/gold/whatever sent from high level characters), it just wouldn't be the same. You don't need anyone else for 95% of the game in retail because the quests are easy, tags are shared, and you can get gear from WQs and emissaries. And even without all of the boosting stuff, a new player could level up to 120 - twice the levels of Classic - in 1/10th the time.

[tyrlaan]

90% of those are only insignificant in "retail" because you are playing your alts. Many people compare playing your first character in Classic to your 100th alt in BfA sadly. Like people constantly bringing up heirlooms as an argument against retail leveling... or the level 1 mount. I think it's very hypocritical and unfair of a comparison, because you only gain access to those things by getting a main to the level cap first...and more, because if you think you can afford full heirloom set for a class right after capping the first, you simply don't know what you're talking about. Try leveling a fresh character without sending gold, bags, heirlooms and all that to your fresh character and compare then.

Old talent trees being better....the biggest myth in wow history. As a warrior I have like 3 really game changing talents during my whole leveling process. Everything else is +1/2/3% dmg of an ability or stuff like that. It doesn't feel like you're getting stronger with every level at all. Maybe it allows you to cheat yourself that is the case a bit, but in fact no, not at all.

Helping people and interacting while leveling is cool and all, but you have to remember what the main reason for this not being the case in the modern version of the game is. And that reason is...not enough people are in any given point in the leveling process at the same time. And that's also why they scrapped all the group quests, elite quests, and tuned everything so it's possible to do solo. You simply couldn't find any people for it. I was leveling my first character in Wrath, and even back then, I had to skip almost all the stuff marked "group" or "elite" because there was simply no one to do it with. Right now Classic is fresh and hot, and everyone is leveling, but in a month no one will. Imagine trying to get through leveling then. It will just revert back to "please help me with this one quest guildie X" or just skipping it because there's no one around.

Quests...everyone and their mother are using addons that trivialize them. Some are even using autopilots that tell you point by point what to do. No one reads the quests and searches the whole map for the objective, except a few weirdos who enjoy being immersed, but guess what, you can do that on live too.

I guess I agree to a point on Dungeons with you, but then on the flipside this means that most people can't be bothered to do them because of the time you have to invest. It's funny because I have some diehard classic fans in my guild, and they admit they won't ever do any dungeon because they are adults now with real lives and just cant commit like 2 hours to a dungeon, that might still fail, that is only a leveling boost pretty much. Overall, I am still doing way more of those dungeons than anyone else in my guild, and I'm the biggest classic sceptic out of all of them. It's pretty telling, that people who extoll the virtues of those systems are the ones also proving their biggest flaws.

So much this. The only thing I slightly disagree with is the old talent trees. I like them in concept, but not implementation. I'd much rather have a rich talent system that's actually a tree rather than the 7 or 8 choices that you can change in seconds.


To tack on some additional thoughts with regards to the OP's list:

4. Talent tree - yes, I wish we had a more robust talent system in retail and that you couldn't just change it on the fly

5. Connection with the land - this is kind of bs to me. No mounts coupled with a grossly inefficient quest experience means I spend most of my time walking around. This might be neat the first time I stroll from Razor Hill to Orgrimmar, but it gets pretty tired and uninteresting by the 10th time. Or the 100th. Or when I go all the way up to the Boulder Lode mine to finish a quest, then turn it in at Ratchet only to get another quest at the Boulder Lode Mine. I don't play WoW to make sure my characters get their steps in for the day. Walking everywhere quickly becomes boring and actively keeps you away from having fun.

Also, I like how people in retail whine and moan when they can't fly all the time but allegedly walking everywhere in classic is super cool.

6. Grouping for normal quests. This is a fallacy. If it's a kill quest, yes its faster. But this is no different than retail. Sure in retail I don't even have to be literally in the same group to work with someone, but that doesn't mean I'm not working with them.* If it's a collection quest, you may have actually slowed yourself down by grouping with someone.

*Though yes, people that tag a mob and run off to kill another to help themselves only are jack asses.

7. Saving people. Literally independent of game version. There's nothing inherent to classic that promotes this compared to retail. You are either someone that likes to help people that get into a bad situation or you aren't.

8. Shiny things. Not even sure what you mean here.

9. Quest log. This is kind of nice. It would be nicer if quest write-ups weren't completely wrong sometimes and don't send you to the right place. Of course, to Azerate's point, this will fade away once you start playing alts because you will simply know where to go without reading squat.

10. Dungeons. I'm with you on the increased incentive to stick with a group, but not even having active summoning stones for instances is really annoying. Again, there's nothing compelling about walking everywhere after you've done it once or twice.

-Resource
-Class specific reagents

Basically, all these things in totality contribute to a more traditional rpg experience. You end up feeling more connected to your characters. When you keep removing the supposed "pointless and annoying things" then the game can end up existing as a bare minimum on "what really matters".

I'll get behind this when inventory works like encumbrance in an actual TTRPG. My pile of candles shouldn't take as much bag space as a fucking wolf. Carrying arrows or soul shards, both of which weigh a pittance compared to half or more of the things we carry in our bags, shouldn't gimp my ability to pick up things.

[Uselessrouge]

Most of that stuff is really lame.

there is call of duty for the people like you that dont like the elemetns of an RPG


spawn , choose class , kill




most of those things should be normal for an mmorpg ... gear , class skills , stuff like making poisons