Blizzard punishing you for stepping out of line - everytime

[Big Thanks]

Seems to me you are confusing being creative with being overpowered.

Then why not "tune" them, intead of "removing" them?
Thats my point...
These were very specific playstyles...which yes, i failed to see the pattern that they were all very good. All the playstyles i mentioned had that in common and i failed to see that.

But, intead of getting rid of them...why not tune them, That is my question.

[arkanon]

OP, I dont care much about your examples, but systems are much, much more important.

The worst example I can think of is the removal of premade BGs that cant sign up in a group bigger than 5 people.

Yes I wanna get achives and farm pugs, or sometimes meat other premades....But nope, blizzard hates fun. It was a great time in TBC etc when we did this.

If I had some time I could prolly find 10 system changes they nerfed...Like realm hopping removal. Well its not removed, but nerfed a lot.

But you neglect to mention that the group of randoms you came up against, your little premade ruined their chance of having fun. It's a very self centered mindset. Turns out, when they changed it so premade only came against other premades, surprise surprise, no one queued. Same with twinking - once twinks only came up against other twinks, no one did it anymore.

Gaining a huge advantage over a bunch of ppl is fun for the ones with the massive advantage, and extremely negative for everyone else.

Another example is tanks in pvp who think they should be almost impossible to kill. This might be fun for the tank, but it's fucking horribly boring gameplay for everyone else involved.

[Kithelle]

WoW is no longer really any sort of RPG it hasnt been for years, There's no real character progression anymore stats and abilities have been pruned, for levels 100 to 120 there's not new talents not a single one and the abilities you do gain you only keep for that expansion only to be weakened again into a new expansion instead of keeping what you learnt and growing.

WoW has no real right to call itself a RPG these days.

Role Playing Game: "a game in which players take on the roles of imaginary characters who engage in adventures, typically in a particular computerized fantasy setting overseen by a referee."

WoW fits perfectly in the definition of a RPG...so sorry you're wrong.

[arkanon]

Then why not "tune" them, intead of "removing" them?
Thats my point...
These were very specific playstyles...which yes, i failed to see the pattern that they were all very good. All the playstyles i mentioned had that in common and i failed to see that.

But, intead of getting rid of them...why not tune them, That is my question.

The reason people flocked to them is they were extremely overpowered. What specifically did you enjoy about the playstyle?

[Big Thanks]

What stops you from using Snake Eyes today?

The old playstyle died with the snake eyes rework.
Snake eyes now is spread between 10 sinister strikes. 10!

[Garymorilix]

The old playstyle died with the snake eyes rework.
Snake eyes now is spread between 10 sinister strikes. 10!

Yes, that is called tuning, yknow. It wasn't reworked. The damage pattern was tuned to be more in line with the general Outlaw damage pattern, which is NOT burst.

[arkanon]

The old playstyle died with the snake eyes rework.
Snake eyes now is spread between 10 sinister strikes. 10!

So it wasn't removed?

[Big Thanks]

The reason people flicked to them is they were extremely overpowered. What specifically did you enjoy about the playstyle?

Deadshot:
Pretty obvious, having burst in a non burst class.
What made it fun was the randomness and"fishing" for the buff...and then the randomness in having a crit or not.
Double randomness

Snake Eyes:
Frenetic as Fudge! The most frenetic spec, never dispatch, always sinister strike and slice and dice.
Very simple...you may say...braindead? But i liked the simple yet frenetic nature of it

Unbound Chaos:
Have you ever played it? You were literally a circus animal jumping around all over the place in Mythic+...hilarious!

Im a customization nerd. I love new playstyles.

[Pandragon]

Snake Eyes azerite trait: Oldschool snake eyes promoted an entire different playstyle for Outlaw Rogue, just like some legendaries did in Legion. To the point of even picking "Slice and Dice" over the random buffs. Incredibly fun and different playstyle...nerfed to the ground and Snake Eyes was entirely reworked in order to remove this playstyle from the game.

Equip Dagger. SS>SS>SS>SS>SS>SnD>repeat. Oh yeah, such a fun and imaginative playstyle. When a trait changes a spec to only using 2 abilities, of course it's gonna get changed.

[Big Thanks]

Equip Dagger. SS>SS>SS>SS>SS>SnD>repeat. Oh yeah, such a fun and imaginative playstyle. When a trait changes a spec to only using 2 abilities, of course it's gonna get changed.

Its fair to say it was braindead (>_<) but its a different way to play the game if you were lucky enough to farm all 3 azerite pieces.
You would unlock a new way to play the game and there is value in that...at least i give it value...Blizzard does not.

[Belloc]

I just dont see the value in removing entire playstyles instead of tuning them.

Because isnt the objective of every RPG to...create new and exciting playstyles?
So isnt it contradictory to remove them? Instead of balancing them?

Because Blizzard is not tuning them, Blizzard is not giving this new playstyles a chance to creep into their game.
They say: No no no no, we did not intend for you to be created, at all. Get the HELL out of my game

I fail to see the value in this...instead of welcoming this "specs" into their game with open arms...they grab a shotgun and "hasta la vista baby".

In a perfect world, they'd tune every playstyle to be viable... but that requires far more time and man-hours than they have for development. Cuts aren't fun, but they're necessary in a game like WoW.

[melodramocracy]

Wow hasn't been an rpg since wotlk.

^^^ this x 1000

[Mirishka]

You make me sound like an entitled brat with your very specific quoted lines (>_<)

I said, i fail to see the value in removing player created playstyles intead of tuning them and welcoming them into the game with open arms.
Because WoW is an RPG and supposedly when Blizzard succeeds in creating a new playstyle...it should be a "win" in their book.
Instead it is frowned upon...which is incredibly strange! For an RPG.

And? That is exactly how you come across.

The game takes away some extremely overpowered things - as many replies as this topic have pointed out - and you want to keep falling back on the 'players can't express themselves, players can't discover new playstyles wahhh' card when the truth is much simpler: OP things that you liked were removed, you're mad, and we're subjected to even more of your whining and complaining.

This is not World of Discoverycraft, this is not World of Playhoweverthefuckyouwantcraft. It is not World of IgnoreOPMechanicscraft for the sake of not upsetting fragile gamers. However terrible Blizz might be at balancing the overall game, they are absolutely in the right to remove stuff that is stupidly overpowered or abuse-able.

But please, keep on spinning the 'Blizz won't let me explore the depths of my character!' bullshit.

- - - Updated - - -

What stops you from using Snake Eyes today?
Hell, deadshot is still one of the best traits you can have (with the right setup).

Your argument is nonsense. If Outlaw is not designed to have burst, then it having burst breaks the game.
It's like saying "why can't my affli lock do NON-dot dps?" Because it's supposed to be a dot spec.

The definition of an RPG is not "I can do whatever the fuck I want lol". It's playing a role. Your role has rules. Simple as that.

Besides, overpowered shit has to be fixed in an online environtment. This is not the early 2000's anymore, where all your RPG's are offline and you find that one ability+item combo that is obviously Op as fuck and not inteded but you feel like some 350 IQ genius for finding it out while in reality you just broke the game.

Brilliantly said.

[Niroshi]

Despite the general hostility here, the OP's core point is basically correct. Blizzard has routinely changed things to step on players' fun for ages now, which is why the "fun detected" meme exists. It's not really restricted to class design even though the OP's post revolves around that, it touches basically every aspect of the game and you all know it.

[Shakana]

Your examples are yours alone and you have your right, but i think other things are more "fun detected". Everytime a class or some system in game to play they constantly change or remove. Feels a overall "no fun allowed", not just with the classes itself. It's kind of sad, but i think they do it by trying to balance specs and other things. Most of the things removed by them was about people complaining, so now people complaining more, just makes them ignore. They said even a blue post that classes balance and fantasy goes from person to person (subjective as it can be) and they can't fulfill everyone's needs.

[TrollHunter3000]

And dont get me started on the 50% nerf to all azerites in PvP, making effectively all custmization a simple DPS increase from azerites...instead of creating entire new playstyles.
[/B]

Pretty clear from this you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Azerite in pvp at full effect would make it literal garbage one shot bullshit

[Gaidax]

They nerfed the OPAF spec I was playing, need to make Blizzard antifun thread based on stretching shit.

[Anti-Troll-Bot]

It is a themepark. Blizzard wants you to use every carousel, because they were quite expensive, and the costs need to be justified by the participation. Last is one of the biggest Problems in world of Warcraft. Everything the devs ever implement needs to be seen by as many people as possible, or noone would give the money to develop it.

This is the reason for LFR existing, because the devs love raids, while in a really healthy environment only a very few like raids. So now they created a Version which allows people to see the content, but without any valuable gameplay.

That is really funny, considering the fact Blizzard wants to pretend that gameplay is their main directive.

Everyone having to do world quests has the same reason. While many do like questing, there are others who would want to focus on raids or dungeons only, but they may not because of cost justification.

[TwoMana]

While the OP is mostly talking about their subjective opinion/examples, the problems with class design have been mounting since MoP but really blossomed in Legion, where the Legendaries and Artifacts took the role of "talent trees".

This has continued to BFA. Whilte Azerite traits don't necessarily drastically change the way you play your class, essences do.
Essences are not lottery items like Legendaries, but they are locked behind fairly tall gates.

This feels bad - deciding between "AoE build" or "Strong ST build" shouldn't depend on grinding 50k honor, leveling you 3 Nazjatar followers to lvl 30 or collecting gazillion Mechagon Oscilators.

They should be customization options in the talent tree OR baseline class abilities.
This is the result of their furious baseline pruning and lack of attention to the talent system - we didn't even get a lvl120 talent row. Also every spec has become a "class" in itself, which is just silly - there are too many of them. Specs should be flavor of the base class. The current talent system is fine, but it needs constant attention, because that's where lot of the customization options should live.

But we've gone through the "Azerite/Essences/Timegating sucks" so many times I don't really think I have much to add.
I enjoy playing BFA for what it is (a themepark ride, with seasonal gearing and raids) - but I wish we could turn back the clock to a time when WoW wasn't a Diablo-hybrid.

[Big Thanks]

They nerfed the OPAF spec I was playing, need to make Blizzard antifun thread based on stretching shit.

They didnt nerf, they completely removed/reworked/70% nerfed
They didnt see "value" in keeping this player created playstyles into the game.

Imagination was effectively CUT from the game entirely.

Blizzard: "Look, how cute, they found a new way to play the game...NOT! SIKE! Thats the wrong numba!"

And me as a player?
I farmed 3 pieces of Snake Eyes
I farmed 3 pieces of Unbound Chaos
I farmed 3 pieces of Deadshot

I was farming all traits as a collector. A collector of different playstyles...
And i was like *insert meme* "Am i a joke to you?