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  1. #1

    How did blizzard manage to let class/talent design get so bad?

    I don't think the content in BFA is bad on a fundamental level, outside of them forgetting to add things back to the game (mat vendors, for example) the primary issue with the game is spec/talent design. Most of the specs in the game just feel bad to play, they just aren't fun. You can blame some of this on the GCD change (which to this day makes no coherent sense to me) but many specs have such little talent diversity you could remove most talents and it wouldn't matter even slightly. There are talents in the game that are so bad, they're a dps loss over taking no talent at all. People will play bad content if the specs are fun to play, but when the specs aren't fun to play then no matter how good your content is people are just going to stop.

    I really just don't get the mentality blizzard had going into BFA, they were repeatedly warned by people playing the beta that many specs just felt awful and kept insisting azerite was going to fix it, and that never materialized. And because blizzard doesn't like doing large reworks mid xpac, we're now left with a bunch of specs that likely won't be fixed or fun to play until next expansion, if they're ever fixed at all.

    The only solution I can see going forward is to roll back some of the massive redesigns they've done over the years and restore classes to what they used to be, and then tune the numbers. Because when we do lose azerite and essences, we're going to be left in the exact same situation we're in now, specs that feel incomplete and clunky to play.

  2. #2
    A lot of what you say is subjective opinion.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by durenas View Post
    A lot of what you say is subjective opinion.
    But it's not. By far the #1 complaint people in this game have is spec/talent design. I've never met a high-end raider in this game that thinks spec/class design issues have not been plaguing BFA since day 1.

  4. #4
    Lately they have mixed up 2-3 rows for most specs, that is true. Also too much baseline removal or gating behind specs.

  5. #5
    Let me tell you how.

    It's called Legion. They said... "shucks we are making new animations, lets just redo all of the classes while we are at it and make them "simpler" so more players play our game! We are Blizzard, they will eat that stuff up! Let's add these artifact things, they will make things spicy and they won't know what hit them! Let's also make talent trees all screwy and not bother to fix until the next xpac!".

    In BfA they went: "shucks this is too much for the kids. We are not seeing growth despite having simplified things. Obviously we need to double down! These artifact skills were just an expansion wide system so let's scrap that part, but let's keep the artifact grind! Let's get rid of Set bonuses too and make these sets that people can choose their bonuses, except the best ones will the random box rolls! As for the talent trees lets give them 3 choices that do the same in almost every row! That will make for varied choice and customization!" followed by "whoops, they look unhappy! I know! They liked that optional cosmetic thing about the previous artifact weapons, why don't we bring that back and instead make them mandatory power increases? Great idea!"

    The life of a Blizzard dev.

    Honestly, it only looks possible, imo, because they truly don't play the game. I mean, not more than playing a short burst. They don't play the game daily. They don't do the grind. They don't experience what players have to go through to be competitive.
    Also they are astronomically arrogant and fail to recognize that they are wrong until massive damage has been done. They often ignore most feedback during beta's too.
    I mean the fact that they insisted on the AP grind and titanforging despite the outcry says everything. They see a metric, they don't see people. But people's patience has limits.
    Last edited by Swnem; 2019-10-02 at 12:48 AM.

  6. #6
    most dps specs feel good to me except for a few obvious ones like feral, enhancement, arms, arcane, etc.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by gd8 View Post
    most dps specs feel good to me except for a few obvious ones like feral, enhancement, arms, arcane, etc.
    what about ret? affli? frost mage? frost dk? mm hunt? sp? how do you feel about these?

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by asil View Post
    But it's not. By far the #1 complaint people in this game have is spec/talent design. I've never met a high-end raider in this game that thinks spec/class design issues have not been plaguing BFA since day 1.
    It is. For everything you say would be a fix to any one thing there'd be people who would say it was no better, or worse. That's the very definition of subjective.

  9. #9
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by asil View Post
    But it's not. By far the #1 complaint people in this game have is spec/talent design. I've never met a high-end raider in this game that thinks spec/class design issues have not been plaguing BFA since day 1.
    Opinions are subjective. Whether or not you like class design depends a lot on your class and then whether or not you care for the design of it. I think many of them are not quite right myself but I'm not fooling myself into thinking that my opinion is some fact. Personally I think the problem with class design indicates bigger problems that extend beyond just classes and specs. That's another opinion and another thread.

    "A lot of people say..." is not any sort of confirmation that something is factual.
    "...money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."

  10. #10
    Dreadlord sunxsera's Avatar
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    Hmm ... i think one of the biggest reasons people stop playing wow is that nearly every expansion your class / favourite spec feels completely different and looses a lot of the strenghts from the expansion before.
    I nearly quit in legion because the ovhauled hunter specs MM / SV felt so bad - and i `m pretty sure a lot of warlock players quit some weeks after BfA hit.

  11. #11
    Because they ignored essentially all feedback on classes during beta. We told them. We told them classes were boring. For months and months. They didn't listen to us.

    Also, a lot of people said, "Wait for Azerite Armor. That'll make the classes deeper and more interesting." Hahaha.

  12. #12
    Irrelevant subjective opinion

    You also give us no info on your experience, because we all know where this is going to end

    Classes are boring where?In HC LFG tool dungeons and LFR? In 500 r.io +3 (depleted) runs?

    The open world and the casual PvE instanced content are an absolute joke and cannot display how a class is supposed to play/feel, and that's a problem of the design of those activities not of the classes themselves

    I did harder endgame content on Ele-Resto Shaman/Ret/Spriest-Disc and I like all of them


    Also, if the design in BFA went so much worse compared to Legion;

    How is it that more guilds progressed on BOD than Nighthold?

    How is it that more guilds 2.5 months into the tier progressed on EP than TOS?

    How is it that M+ seasons have had more individual character registered in any 4month gap in BFA seasons compared to ANY Legion M+ season (besides the 1st since it isn't tracked anymore) ?


    Surely this awful design, which you claim not to be subjective, would have made the playerbase plummet, no?

  13. #13
    This is obviously a very subjective topic of discussion but I do believe there is a bit of merit in this topic anyway.

    Class balance is always a very finicky topic because there is so many factors that play into it. I don't think Blizzard will ever please 100% of players 100% of the time, but there are some extreme examples where it's clear Blizzard just doesn't give a shit and are waiting for an opportunity to hit the reset button with an expansion. I think that's a greater criticism of the number of specs this game currently has but it still is something that is rarely addressed by devs and players usually say, "just play {x} instead." This leads into the other broader criticism I have of the current design direction. Now, more than ever, classes sim very close to one another with smaller amounts of variance. This means that, generally speaking, a better player will simply perform better. What defines skill is less how much of a "God tier" opening you had and more how you played a specific encounter. On the whole, I'd say this is good design but... I still miss the days when trinket procs and certain RNG factors could make for an incredibly rewarding parse. Personally, I feel like things like trinket snapshotting helped really helped delineate between decent and mediocre players. (It also made certain specs unfairly powerful so it's no wonder Blizzard removed it.)

    Classes today, while different enough to feel unique, are generally less interesting at the price of Blizzard's never-ending quest for "true balance." And while they seem to be closer to that than any point in the past, was it worth the sacrifice?

  14. #14
    I feel like homogezation killed it for me. I've played rogue since the release and as the years went by, I've seen other classes get stuns, the same burst potential and I got more mobility, heal and damage reductions like them, destroying the high risk high reward aspect of the class, to the point where I am enjoying my Classic rogue a lot more than my retail rogue.

    In their quest for the "perfect balance", Blizzard not only destroyed the class identity but also any notion of food chain, element that I miss the most nowadays. Was it worth it to give everyone the same tools so they can have a chance to win any 1v1 duel? I personally don't think so and I really hope that they will bring back more class identity and the possibility to play a higher reward higher risk gameplay in the next expansions.
    Last edited by Loeko; 2019-10-02 at 02:29 AM.

  15. #15
    Stood in the Fire october breeze's Avatar
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    Seriously dude, where you've been in the past two years?!

  16. #16
    I mean, it should be obvious that class design was guttered and pruned transitioning from legion to BFA.

    You lose 5 things and gain 1 thing, that's not fun.

    Also, a lot of people are saying class design is purely a subjective opinionated topic. It's actually both objective and subjective.

    GCD change is bad design or backwards, fact.

    Classes were pruned from legion to BFA, fact.

    Class design is nonfunctional in BFA, fact.
    Last edited by Beefkow; 2019-10-02 at 02:39 AM.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Palapop View Post
    what about ret? affli? frost mage? frost dk? mm hunt? sp? how do you feel about these?
    shadowpriest is somewhat okay aside from some clunkiness but ya there's a good handful of specs that aren't great rn but there's plenty of good ones to choose from too and that goes with basically any expansion/patch. you could always go play classic where there's only like 3 dps specs that are even viable at all and aren't even fun to play

  18. #18
    The Insane Syegfryed's Avatar
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    They probably don't play the game, maybe just a few devs who work on the classes actually play those classes

    there is no way that they do do play but would let the design be in this lame state.

  19. #19
    The Undying Slowpoke is a Gamer's Avatar
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    Esports. Fewer knobs means faster balance.
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  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Slowpoke is a Gamer View Post
    Esports. Fewer knobs means faster balance.
    In theory, anyways. In practice, historically, I think, balance hasn't gotten any better, and they've just balanced out all the flavor from classes, specs and talents.

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