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  1. #521
    Quote Originally Posted by Reinhart11 View Post
    Personally, in the face of classic, i think the MoP philosophy would work well, especially combined with better talent trees. A combination of the old and current talent trees would help quite a bit if well designed.
    I think that's next to impossible to unite with each other.

    A lot of the "Pro MoP" Argument is that your character was extremely powerful and that you could handle a variety of situations well.

    Classic is basically the opposite to that, it's designed in such fashion that certain classes / specs flat out suck in a given situation or do not have the tools to handle a given situation.
    They are in certain situations extremely reliant on other people doing their shit.

    A common example that i raise are interrupts, in Classic, even something simple as having an interrupt was something that not every class did have.
    In the current age (which is still influenced by MoP in that regard) every Dps spec has an interrupt, back in MoP, even Healer such as Paladin and Monk did have a baseline interrupt.

    In Classic / TBC, if you happen to play a Tank / Heal class that did not have an interrupt, all you could do is hope that the people that have an interrupt do their job, in MoP you could make up for their fuck ups.

    Quote Originally Posted by Reinhart11 View Post
    How can it be that nothing happens at all. That wasn't the case back in Vanilla, BC, Wotlk, Cata and MoP.
    It's a pretty broad discussion that i think most players avoid because they're not exactly thinking over this subject too hard.

    The unpopular opinion is: Powercreep is an issue, you can't throw everything onto classes until they just feel extremely sameish or cause problems in other areas.
    Next to that, you also have to keep in mind that content needs to be designed around the given tools that players have, there's a reason why so many encounters have a "high damage phase" where the group / raid takes a shit ton of damage, because so many classes have received tools to counter them.

    It also causes issues on other ends, take mobility for example.
    Compare the mobility of the average Melee spec before MoP with the ones now, both Monk and DH are just on another level.
    This causes issues in PvP, Ranged classes need tools to keep these Melees at bay, no other Melees also require some tools to keep up.

    It's an armsrace that gets increasingly difficult to keep a lid on, right now so a lot of melees shit over Casters in a 1v1 situation but get blown out of the water once they enter Rated 3v3 battles.

    On top of that, a lot of things that were previously implemented no longer matters.
    Threat was a big deal in classic, Blizzard then implemented tools such as Misdirect / Tricks of the trade to combat this.
    Then Blizzard made threat a non issue in Wotlk, suddenly those tools lost a lot of value.

    BC / Wotlk was also an era that essentially fixed issues of the classic design, such as certain specs not even having the most basic tools for an rotation, you can also add so many spells to your standard rotation before it gets bloated.
    Sure, lots of buttons are fun, but having 15 different sources of damage where nothing seems to really pack a punch is also not terribly amazing.

    I get it, people hate pruning, but not every spell fills the niche that it once did and Blizzard has a point when they say they can't just throw so much new shit at players every expansion.
    I don't mean to defend their work, they've gotten lazy with BfA but it's also not that they can simply dump new stuff into the game every expansion without taking a look at the greater picture.

  2. #522
    Quote Originally Posted by Soluna View Post
    Amazing, calling me an insane prisoner, as you have no proper argument. But I guess that's the best you can do, considering you are just a random poster who literally has no experience in class design, or anything when it comes down to how to make games, yet you somehow believe that the dumpster fire ideas that mmo-chads come up with are what will save WoW. Go on, amuse us further.

    With that being said, I believe that blizzard can indeed do better. However, I do not think that the mmo community really has any solid ideas regarding reworks/etc.
    Again, I'm not entertaining you if you continue to throw out wild fallacies and having 100% faith that blizzard knows better than everyone else when that's been proven to be false and they've admitted to such numerous times.
    Quote Originally Posted by Boomzy
    People just want to be bullies without facing any sort of consequences or social fallout for being a bully. If you declare X as a racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. person you can say or do whatever you want to them, ignoring the fact that they are a human.

  3. #523
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    I don't know I think as far as the classes go I think they're fine in my opinion. I mean there are a few class specs that I'm not a big fan of like beast master and survival hunters (beast masters are just a little too weird for me and survival just feels very limited in terms of abilities you can use). Enhancement shamans, in my opinion, are the best they've ever been, I have so much fun on mine. Fire mages as well, probably my second favorite class to play as with enhancement shamans being my favorite.

    The talent "trees" or whatever you want to call them these days are shallow though. I mean there might as well not even be one since they mostly feel the same throughout all classes and all but the last two talents hardly benefit you. However because of how bare bone it is I often forget about it so it doesn't really affect me much.

    It's not that they let it get "bad" it's just that they want to widen their audience and to do that they need to make the game more accessible to people who have never played these kinds of games before or just WoW. By simplifying the game it makes it easier for newcomers to understand and control. Which I think is stupid because I liked WoW when it felt like an RPG that had depth to it and not some free to play mobile game but it is what it is.

    This game is no longer for a certain audience anymore, Blizzard wants everybody and their grandma to play. Why? More $$$$, that's why.

  4. #524
    Quote Originally Posted by UnluckyAmateur View Post
    Again, I'm not entertaining you if you continue to throw out wild fallacies and having 100% faith that blizzard knows better than everyone else when that's been proven to be false and they've admitted to such numerous times.
    You must have a hard time reading, as I mentioned that I believe that blizzard can do better. But sure, keep throwing the word 'fallacies' around my good dude.

  5. #525
    Quote Originally Posted by otaXephon View Post
    You have repeatedly indicated that Vanilla was "better design" for a number of reasons. This is an opinion. Yet you continue to base your arguments around this predetermined "fact." This is where your entire post falls apart and it's why I keep repeating myself in every response to you.
    I have objectively concluded Vanilla wow has better overall design within the context of a MMORPG, when compared to the current iteration of the game. I have done this by stating numerous facts, some of which are common knowledge to much of the player base, and have been for some time. The things you keep calling 'opinions' are statements of fact objectively given to compare two things which are directly competing for the same sub fee. The part you don't seem to get, is personal opinion isn't even needed to demonstrate why Classic is better than BFA.

    It's not a matter of opinion that Classic has all the mechanics and content that launched Wow and made it a powerhouse MMO. It's not a matter of opinion that this content has had a lot of influence on the community of players and devs it exists for. It's not a matter of opinion to point out the numerical facts Blizzard has released themselves about concurrent subs and it is not a matter of opinion to point out the history of Private servers hosting derelict versions of this game to give a large number of players the experience they actually want.

    The facts speak for themselves. I'll tell you when I start sharing opinions.

  6. #526
    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    I have objectively concluded Vanilla wow has better overall design within the context of a MMORPG, when compared to the current iteration of the game. I have done this by stating numerous facts, some of which are common knowledge to much of the player base, and have been for some time. The things you keep calling 'opinions' are statements of fact objectively given to compare two things which are directly competing for the same sub fee. The part you don't seem to get, is personal opinion isn't even needed to demonstrate why Classic is better than BFA.

    It's not a matter of opinion that Classic has all the mechanics and content that launched Wow and made it a powerhouse MMO. It's not a matter of opinion that this content has had a lot of influence on the community of players and devs it exists for. It's not a matter of opinion to point out the numerical facts Blizzard has released themselves about concurrent subs and it is not a matter of opinion to point out the history of Private servers hosting derelict versions of this game to give a large number of players the experience they actually want.

    The facts speak for themselves. I'll tell you when I start sharing opinions.
    I have objectively concluded vanilla had garbage class design, literally anything is better.
    Fact 1: Classes are more diverse in BfA
    Fact 2: Everything is homogenized in Vanilla
    Fact 3: vanilla was made into powerhouse of mmo because of changes they did.

  7. #527
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    Quote Originally Posted by kaminaris View Post
    I have objectively concluded vanilla had garbage class design, literally anything is better.
    Fact 1: Classes are more diverse in BfA
    Fact 2: Everything is homogenized in Vanilla
    Fact 3: vanilla was made into powerhouse of mmo because of changes they did.
    Diverse, sure, yeah. I'm sorry but if you think BFA is diverse you think classes are their animations not their mechanics.
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  8. #528
    Quote Originally Posted by kaminaris View Post
    I have objectively concluded vanilla had garbage class design, literally anything is better.
    Fact 1: Classes are more diverse in BfA
    Fact 2: Everything is homogenized in Vanilla
    Fact 3: vanilla was made into powerhouse of mmo because of changes they did.
    Um, not sure where you supported anything factually, but I'll bite:

    1. Class diversity is no better in BFA than Vanilla: see the addition of not 1, 2, but 3 WHOLE classes to the game and still no new pure dps, nothing different in how s class heals, tanks, or dps. DKs are essentially paladins mashed with warriors and warlocks. Monks are essentially rogue/druid mashed with a really cool skin pack. Demon Hunters are essentially hunter/rogue/dks... if I can sum up the design of a class within the design space of another class, it's probably not very diverse. If the game is essentially the same without it, we probably could have used a more diverse design from the development team for that class.

    2. Homogenization is the act of giving greater access to tools originally designed to be role or class specific. Giving both horde and alliance paladin/shaman. Making buffs similar and giving every class one. Giving every class an immunity CD and a CC button. Giving every melee interrupts. Every ranged a gap opener and every melee a gap closer. The original version of the game every class had a designed niche it existed in, those niches were as different and unique as the could be: to the point where only alliance had paladins, only horde had shaman. Magic dispelling was done by priests, and diseases by paladins. Poisons and curses by druids. If you wanted to play druid, you had to pick NE or Tauren. If you rolled as a resto druid you could still use almost all your feral/boomkin abilities and swap between tanking or dps, giving you the feel of being a true hybrid. You weren't locked out of abilities unless you went too far into a talent tree to take other options, which was only a very small part of the class you aren't getting access to, between specs.

    This is by definition, less homogenizing.

    3. Vanilla was a powerhouse MMO before TBC dropped. They peaked subs in Wotlk, around 12m. In vanilla, they had a peak of 8m subs, the most growth they had during any point in Wow. TBC only saw an additional 3m subs, and wotlk the same 3m, peaking at 12m. Vanilla was every bit a powerhouse as it is now, back in Vanilla. The game is definitely more polished now, but it's definitely not any more of a powerhouse, and certainly not because of expansion content.

    The other important number to account for, are those published by Blizzard of having over 100m accounts created. While these numbers are old (subscriber numbers also have not been publicly announced since the end of MoP, when they had dropped to 7.7 million, below the peak of Vanilla, LOL), simple napkin math shows that 100m+ unique accounts subbed and never more than 12m concurrent, is a very low retention rate. Simple math shows Vanilla had the most growth, best retention, and overall most ideal design for the largest concurrent segment of the population. While the concurrent sub count increased by 30% and 18% in the next two expansions, it also fell by as much the following two. By the time the 5th expansion dropped, the sub count was no longer being reported because it was most definitely not a good number.

    Again, the only way BFA is a titan or a powerhouse, is when you consider the rest of the game with it... which no one does. Because BFA is the only part of it that matters right now. And it likely has something like ~5 mil subs. It would be interesting to see how many of those are only playing Classic. Would be nice for classic to have its own sub fee, so we could see the actual numbers between the two. Can only guess as to why Blizzard won't do that...

    Your objective conclusion does not align with reality.



  9. #529
    Stood in the Fire Fixxit the Gnome's Avatar
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    I love the inane discussion that games and movies fans have every 6 months or so around the "objectivity" of unarguably subjective opinions.
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  10. #530
    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    Um, not sure where you supported anything factually, but I'll bite:

    1. Class diversity is no better in BFA than Vanilla: see the addition of not 1, 2, but 3 WHOLE classes to the game and still no new pure dps, nothing different in how s class heals, tanks, or dps. DKs are essentially paladins mashed with warriors and warlocks. Monks are essentially rogue/druid mashed with a really cool skin pack. Demon Hunters are essentially hunter/rogue/dks... if I can sum up the design of a class within the design space of another class, it's probably not very diverse. If the game is essentially the same without it, we probably could have used a more diverse design from the development team for that class.

    2. Homogenization is the act of giving greater access to tools originally designed to be role or class specific. Giving both horde and alliance paladin/shaman. Making buffs similar and giving every class one. Giving every class an immunity CD and a CC button. Giving every melee interrupts. Every ranged a gap opener and every melee a gap closer. The original version of the game every class had a designed niche it existed in, those niches were as different and unique as the could be: to the point where only alliance had paladins, only horde had shaman. Magic dispelling was done by priests, and diseases by paladins. Poisons and curses by druids. If you wanted to play druid, you had to pick NE or Tauren. If you rolled as a resto druid you could still use almost all your feral/boomkin abilities and swap between tanking or dps, giving you the feel of being a true hybrid. You weren't locked out of abilities unless you went too far into a talent tree to take other options, which was only a very small part of the class you aren't getting access to, between specs.

    This is by definition, less homogenizing.

    3. Vanilla was a powerhouse MMO before TBC dropped. They peaked subs in Wotlk, around 12m. In vanilla, they had a peak of 8m subs, the most growth they had during any point in Wow. TBC only saw an additional 3m subs, and wotlk the same 3m, peaking at 12m. Vanilla was every bit a powerhouse as it is now, back in Vanilla. The game is definitely more polished now, but it's definitely not any more of a powerhouse, and certainly not because of expansion content.

    The other important number to account for, are those published by Blizzard of having over 100m accounts created. While these numbers are old (subscriber numbers also have not been publicly announced since the end of MoP, when they had dropped to 7.7 million, below the peak of Vanilla, LOL), simple napkin math shows that 100m+ unique accounts subbed and never more than 12m concurrent, is a very low retention rate. Simple math shows Vanilla had the most growth, best retention, and overall most ideal design for the largest concurrent segment of the population. While the concurrent sub count increased by 30% and 18% in the next two expansions, it also fell by as much the following two. By the time the 5th expansion dropped, the sub count was no longer being reported because it was most definitely not a good number.

    Again, the only way BFA is a titan or a powerhouse, is when you consider the rest of the game with it... which no one does. Because BFA is the only part of it that matters right now. And it likely has something like ~5 mil subs. It would be interesting to see how many of those are only playing Classic. Would be nice for classic to have its own sub fee, so we could see the actual numbers between the two. Can only guess as to why Blizzard won't do that...

    Your objective conclusion does not align with reality.


    There is absolutely nothing objective about stating that you prefer one version of the game to the other. It's quite literally the opposite of the definition of objectivity and it's insulting for you to keep insisting otherwise. Further, subscriber levels are useless because we have no fucking idea why people quit the game and in order for your shitty fucking argument to be true you'd have to assume that both a.) nobody ever quit WoW during its periods of growth, and b.) the only reason people ever quit is because the game changed. Both of these assertions are so insanely preposterous that it's mind-boggling how players like you keep using that stupid fucking graph to support anything. But hey, you don't have to take my word for it -- here's a direct take from somebody who has actually seen the fucking data. (This is the closest we'll ever get to knowing the aforementioned trends since Blizzard doesn't release this information.)

    Just like, fucking stop at this point. It's embarrassing how far you're reaching to "win" an argument on the internet.

  11. #531
    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    Um, not sure where you supported anything factually, but I'll bite:

    1. Class diversity is no better in BFA than Vanilla: see the addition of not 1, 2, but 3 WHOLE classes to the game and still no new pure dps, nothing different in how s class heals, tanks, or dps. DKs are essentially paladins mashed with warriors and warlocks. Monks are essentially rogue/druid mashed with a really cool skin pack. Demon Hunters are essentially hunter/rogue/dks... if I can sum up the design of a class within the design space of another class, it's probably not very diverse. If the game is essentially the same without it, we probably could have used a more diverse design from the development team for that class.

    2. Homogenization is the act of giving greater access to tools originally designed to be role or class specific. Giving both horde and alliance paladin/shaman. Making buffs similar and giving every class one. Giving every class an immunity CD and a CC button. Giving every melee interrupts. Every ranged a gap opener and every melee a gap closer. The original version of the game every class had a designed niche it existed in, those niches were as different and unique as the could be: to the point where only alliance had paladins, only horde had shaman. Magic dispelling was done by priests, and diseases by paladins. Poisons and curses by druids. If you wanted to play druid, you had to pick NE or Tauren. If you rolled as a resto druid you could still use almost all your feral/boomkin abilities and swap between tanking or dps, giving you the feel of being a true hybrid. You weren't locked out of abilities unless you went too far into a talent tree to take other options, which was only a very small part of the class you aren't getting access to, between specs.

    This is by definition, less homogenizing.

    3. Vanilla was a powerhouse MMO before TBC dropped. They peaked subs in Wotlk, around 12m. In vanilla, they had a peak of 8m subs, the most growth they had during any point in Wow. TBC only saw an additional 3m subs, and wotlk the same 3m, peaking at 12m. Vanilla was every bit a powerhouse as it is now, back in Vanilla. The game is definitely more polished now, but it's definitely not any more of a powerhouse, and certainly not because of expansion content.

    The other important number to account for, are those published by Blizzard of having over 100m accounts created. While these numbers are old (subscriber numbers also have not been publicly announced since the end of MoP, when they had dropped to 7.7 million, below the peak of Vanilla, LOL), simple napkin math shows that 100m+ unique accounts subbed and never more than 12m concurrent, is a very low retention rate. Simple math shows Vanilla had the most growth, best retention, and overall most ideal design for the largest concurrent segment of the population. While the concurrent sub count increased by 30% and 18% in the next two expansions, it also fell by as much the following two. By the time the 5th expansion dropped, the sub count was no longer being reported because it was most definitely not a good number.

    Again, the only way BFA is a titan or a powerhouse, is when you consider the rest of the game with it... which no one does. Because BFA is the only part of it that matters right now. And it likely has something like ~5 mil subs. It would be interesting to see how many of those are only playing Classic. Would be nice for classic to have its own sub fee, so we could see the actual numbers between the two. Can only guess as to why Blizzard won't do that...

    Your objective conclusion does not align with reality.


    1. Yes it is more diverse, you can't use Shroud by any other class than rogue, can't have summon stone, gate and candies anything other than warlock. Each class has something unique and useful. In Vanilla nothing of that was useful as you spent most time spamming 1 button. Thus making mage exactly the same as warlock.

    2. Homegenization is a buzzword that anyone can interpret as they see fit. I see vanilla warlock completely homogenized with mage.

    3. Vanilla would soon die out if not for TBC, player retention was terrible.

    Number of subscribers means jack shit if none of these players stay in game. Like Vanilla and TBC. It was those fixes and changes up to Wotlk that made it last.

  12. #532
    Quote Originally Posted by otaXephon View Post
    There is absolutely nothing objective about stating that you prefer one version of the game to the other.
    If I were stating my personal preference about a version of the game, you'd be right. Instead, I'm using numbers (facts) to show you how the game has significantly changed and the concurrent subscriber count has fallen in tandem with those changes, to the point where Blizzard won't even release them anymore.

    Quote Originally Posted by otaXephon
    ]It's quite literally the opposite of the definition of objectivity and it's insulting for you to keep insisting otherwise.
    Using lots of big words there. Let me help you out. Objectivity is taking substantive facts, and using them (alone) to draw a conclusion about reality. Deny reality all you like, you're just being obtuse at this point.

    Quote Originally Posted by otaXephon
    Further, subscriber levels are useless because we have no fucking idea why people quit the game and in order for your shitty fucking argument to be true you'd have to assume that both a.) nobody ever quit WoW during its periods of growth, and b.) the only reason people ever quit is because the game changed. Both of these assertions are so insanely preposterous that it's mind-boggling how players like you keep using that stupid fucking graph to support anything. But hey, you don't have to take my word for it -- here's a direct take from somebody who has actually seen the fucking data. (This is the closest we'll ever get to knowing the aforementioned trends since Blizzard doesn't release this information.)

    Just like, fucking stop at this point. It's embarrassing how far you're reaching to "win" an argument on the internet.
    No one has to make any such assumptions about anything pertaining to specific player behavior. It's simple math. People play games they enjoy, sure. Blizzard, as a company, had the highest concurrent subscriber count (do you understand that means active subs, not people who quit? I'm not even talking about people quitting) out of any period during the game, in wotlk. Concurrent subscribers is important because it tells you how many people paid for the game over a time period, (which is typically a sign of how successful the business model is).

    When the business model sees an influx of profit flow, they are considered successful. People can buy stocks, seek gainful employment opportunities, and enjoy the benefits of a successful company (good games to play, yay!). When a business model sees a drop-off in profit flow, they usually go to great lengths to understand and address it, since it can mean the death of their company if they don't. Blizzard has spent 15 years trying to recapture Vanilla wow success and it's led to a disjointed monstrosity of a game.

    Furthermore, knowing they've had over 100m unique subscriber accounts in the last 15 years, but have a single digit percentage of that now, indicates they are no longer operating in nearly as profitable a manner as they used to be. Call it whatever you want to, since they've clearly put a ton of effort into being a big game by a big company. What it isn't, however, is the same game design and resulting success they had during Vanilla.

    When the numbers show you the facts (I don't care what GC says, I'm not even talking about why people quit, you don't need to) it's not hard to grasp them, should you choose. The facts are that even at its peak (12m) Wow has lost 10x more concurrent subscribers in its lifetime than it ever sustained. High turnover is bad for business, no matter what you think of Wow. Factually, numerically, Vanilla was a better game design.

    Keep calling it an opinion... really making progress.

    1. Yes it is more diverse, you can't use Shroud by any other class than rogue, can't have summon stone, gate and candies anything other than warlock. Each class has something unique and useful. In Vanilla nothing of that was useful as you spent most time spamming 1 button. Thus making mage exactly the same as warlock.
    Mage was never the same was warlock, not even in vanilla. There was never a point when anyone spent most of their time spamming 1 button. Even below level 10 in classic RN, you quickly gain more skills and are soon rocking a full rotation of abilities. I think you missed the point of what actually makes a class diverse... it doesn't feel like another class when you play it. I can't help you understand what you've never played. Vanilla was the very first iteration of Live Wow. When you play it, you play the deliberate design of passionate gamers trying to breathe life into an MMO.

    Do you think that you're playing the same kind of a game now? It's obvious to most of the players who were around back then, maybe you should give it more time. I mentioned the fact they added 3 whole classes to the game (and gave one a 4th spec) to get you to stop for a second and ask yourself how much diversity there really is. 3 new classes in 15 years. 3 melee DPS, 3 tanks, 1 healer.

    Where are the ranged DPS? Where are the pure DPS? Where is the class design that adds something new into the deign space? They literally recycled warlock, paladin, and warrior gameplay to make DKs. DKs are nothing like they could be, had they been designed with diversity in mind. They recycled rogue and druid gameplay to make monks. They recycled Hunter and rogue gameplay to make demon hunters...

    They would not do that if they were really interested in class diversity. Hell, the redesign of classes that took place in Legion wouldn't have needed to happen. They made a Pirate spec for rogues to give them flavor.... after 12 years of being sticky rice melee. No one, at this point, can look at what Blizzard has done and conclude there is more diversity now that there has been. Classes are more spec locked than they've ever been. No longer can you experiment with trees (they don't exist). No longer can you bring something special to a group as a particular class (don't even try to say shroud is special). You just play your class, get pushed through the amusement park, and then unsubscribe until the next major content drop.

    Sounds like a great time to me.

    Quote Originally Posted by kaminaris
    2. Homegenization is a buzzword that anyone can interpret as they see fit. I see vanilla warlock completely homogenized with mage.
    When you use it, sure. For the rest of us, I'm sure it tends to be a useful word with an easily understood definition. Such as, 'the deliberate design choices that lead to the game experience becoming too similar between players.' Giving every class including rogues a heal button. Giving every class immunity to death buttons. Making Monks too similar to rogues/druids ( I should know, I played all 3 in MoP). Giving horde paladins and alliance shamans. Making druid available to Trolls just to even it out when they made them available to worgen (which I am sure was a callback to D2 druid). Remember when druids and shamans could not dispel magic? When being a warlock or paladin gave you access to some special quests before they gave all classes their own level 20 quest (and then just gave warlocks and paladins something to replace getting their mounts, which they just learn @ 20 magically). Having players of all level scaling to the same level to do content is homogenization, just like the rest of the examples I've given.

    I'm totally in favor of nicer looking models and polished rotations with balanced game play, but I think it sucks that no matter what level I do holiday event at, not only are there level 20s mixed with level 120s, but half the time they can just stand there and do nothing with their 3 abilities anyway. And we still kill stuff. Like, I get it that scaling helps get queues popping. Does it really need to scale up level 20s to max level so they can do content obviously trivial even for them, at that point?

    Homogenization makes fights more about who can out spam heals and CC, rather than careful coordination or consideration for for rock/paper/scissors balance.

    Quote Originally Posted by kaminaris
    3. Vanilla would soon die out if not for TBC, player retention was terrible.
    Vanilla wasn't going anywhere. They had a content slate they left unfinished to release TBC instead. No idea why they would do that, but it's funny that you think Vanilla had poor subscriber retention... for the two years it was out the went from zero to 8 million subs, never dipping below their previous quarters peak concurrent. Even if they were losing subs as fast as they gained them, they still managed to retain 2/3rd of their maximum concurrent subscriber count before tbc release. No idea what graph you're looking at.

    Quote Originally Posted by kaminaris
    Number of subscribers means jack shit if none of these players stay in game. Like Vanilla and TBC. It was those fixes and changes up to Wotlk that made it last.
    I'm not just talking about the number of subscribers. I'm talking about the relationship of concurrent subscribers and the time period those concurrent subs began... Which was Vanilla. Sure, they climbed even higher and peaked at 12m in wotlk. Cool. And then the game started to lose people, hemorrhaging for whatever reason. Concurrent subscriber numbers just plummeting to numbers not seen since earlier in Vanilla, when the game was just getting started. No idea if it's getting better or worse. I just know it's not good. Especially when you factor the number of total subscribers they've had up to the point when they released that infographic (cata).

    Honestly not trying to argue or throw around personal opinions... candidly reiterating the facts until you guys are willing to accept them.

  13. #533
    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    If I were stating my personal preference about a version of the game, you'd be right. Instead, I'm using numbers (facts) to show you how the game has significantly changed and the concurrent subscriber count has fallen in tandem with those changes, to the point where Blizzard won't even release them anymore.
    It takes intelligence to be able to use statistics. Like 100% people in my room says you shouldn't be using it. It's a fact.


    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    Using lots of big words there. Let me help you out. Objectivity is taking substantive facts, and using them (alone) to draw a conclusion about reality. Deny reality all you like, you're just being obtuse at this point.
    Objectively speaking you have no idea what are you talking about and don't understand statistics.


    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    No one has to make any such assumptions about anything pertaining to specific player behavior. It's simple math. People play games they enjoy, sure. Blizzard, as a company, had the highest concurrent subscriber count (do you understand that means active subs, not people who quit? I'm not even talking about people quitting) out of any period during the game, in wotlk. Concurrent subscribers is important because it tells you how many people paid for the game over a time period, (which is typically a sign of how successful the business model is).
    It's not a simple math. It's way harder than you can grasp that's for sure. Ghostcrawler had access to their data and spoke why people were leaving. Long story short, because it was getting old, and their friends stopped playing.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    When the business model sees an influx of profit flow, they are considered successful. People can buy stocks, seek gainful employment opportunities, and enjoy the benefits of a successful company (good games to play, yay!). When a business model sees a drop-off in profit flow, they usually go to great lengths to understand and address it, since it can mean the death of their company if they don't. Blizzard has spent 15 years trying to recapture Vanilla wow success and it's led to a disjointed monstrosity of a game.
    It is because of their efforts, game is still number 1 mmo. You seem to not understand it. WoW is still number 1. Vanilla success was pretty simple, competition at that time sucked.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    Furthermore, knowing they've had over 100m unique subscriber accounts in the last 15 years, but have a single digit percentage of that now, indicates they are no longer operating in nearly as profitable a manner as they used to be. Call it whatever you want to, since they've clearly put a ton of effort into being a big game by a big company. What it isn't, however, is the same game design and resulting success they had during Vanilla.
    Which further proves you have no clue about statistics, how to interpret them, business and how game market has changed.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    When the numbers show you the facts (I don't care what GC says, I'm not even talking about why people quit, you don't need to) it's not hard to grasp them, should you choose. The facts are that even at its peak (12m) Wow has lost 10x more concurrent subscribers in its lifetime than it ever sustained. High turnover is bad for business, no matter what you think of Wow. Factually, numerically, Vanilla was a better game design.

    Keep calling it an opinion... really making progress.
    Again, when you do not know a thing about market and statistics, factually speaking, you shouldn't be talking about what is fact and what it opinion. What you presented is merely lousy interpretation of couple of numbers, thus, not facts but your opinions.


    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    Mage was never the same was warlock, not even in vanilla. There was never a point when anyone spent most of their time spamming 1 button. Even below level 10 in classic RN, you quickly gain more skills and are soon rocking a full rotation of abilities. I think you missed the point of what actually makes a class diverse... it doesn't feel like another class when you play it. I can't help you understand what you've never played. Vanilla was the very first iteration of Live Wow. When you play it, you play the deliberate design of passionate gamers trying to breathe life into an MMO.
    So I guess you never seen streams when people killed rag? Thing is, even if you have number of spells that are not worth using, it doesn't make your class any different from a mage which also spams frostbolt.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    Do you think that you're playing the same kind of a game now? It's obvious to most of the players who were around back then, maybe you should give it more time. I mentioned the fact they added 3 whole classes to the game (and gave one a 4th spec) to get you to stop for a second and ask yourself how much diversity there really is. 3 new classes in 15 years. 3 melee DPS, 3 tanks, 1 healer.
    I have played ALL classes since MoP, all specs. And I have played good couple of hours on pservers/classic. Yes we have 1000% more diversity now than vanilla ever dreamed of.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    Where are the ranged DPS? Where are the pure DPS? Where is the class design that adds something new into the deign space? They literally recycled warlock, paladin, and warrior gameplay to make DKs. DKs are nothing like they could be, had they been designed with diversity in mind. They recycled rogue and druid gameplay to make monks. They recycled Hunter and rogue gameplay to make demon hunters...
    DK does not play anything close to warrior and paladin... not to mention warrior LOL.
    and monk does definitelly not feel like druid or rogue.
    If you are judging by generator & spender then all classes are the same in vanilla because all classes have mana. It's just stupid.

    If anything is close on live then I would say mage is close to ele shammy. And maybe affli lock to shadow priest but well. Spriest is kinda unique now.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    They would not do that if they were really interested in class diversity. Hell, the redesign of classes that took place in Legion wouldn't have needed to happen. They made a Pirate spec for rogues to give them flavor.... after 12 years of being sticky rice melee. No one, at this point, can look at what Blizzard has done and conclude there is more diversity now that there has been. Classes are more spec locked than they've ever been. No longer can you experiment with trees (they don't exist). No longer can you bring something special to a group as a particular class (don't even try to say shroud is special). You just play your class, get pushed through the amusement park, and then unsubscribe until the next major content drop.
    Sounds like a great time to me.
    Yes shroud is special, gate is special, tanking elemental is special, pet taunt is special (Kings rest), spellsteal is special and many other cases.
    Its still better than level to max and stop playing for a year because there is nothing to do. That was what happened in vanilla. Player retention was absolutely terrible.





    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    When you use it, sure. For the rest of us, I'm sure it tends to be a useful word with an easily understood definition. Such as, 'the deliberate design choices that lead to the game experience becoming too similar between players.' Giving every class including rogues a heal button. Giving every class immunity to death buttons. Making Monks too similar to rogues/druids ( I should know, I played all 3 in MoP). Giving horde paladins and alliance shamans. Making druid available to Trolls just to even it out when they made them available to worgen (which I am sure was a callback to D2 druid). Remember when druids and shamans could not dispel magic? When being a warlock or paladin gave you access to some special quests before they gave all classes their own level 20 quest (and then just gave warlocks and paladins something to replace getting their mounts, which they just learn @ 20 magically). Having players of all level scaling to the same level to do content is homogenization, just like the rest of the examples I've given.
    What nonsense are you sprouting? Warlock does not have heal button, hunter always had heal button which is now baseline. Rogue needed this because it is squishy AF.
    More than half of the classes don't have any death immunity buttons. Rest of nonsense is just your opinion which is completely irrelevant. Healers still are restricted to some dispels which is especially visible in M+. Literally nothing you said is valid.

    Homogenization is when warlock spams shadowbolt all the time and mage spam frostbolt all the time making these classes exactly the same.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    I'm totally in favor of nicer looking models and polished rotations with balanced game play, but I think it sucks that no matter what level I do holiday event at, not only are there level 20s mixed with level 120s, but half the time they can just stand there and do nothing with their 3 abilities anyway. And we still kill stuff. Like, I get it that scaling helps get queues popping. Does it really need to scale up level 20s to max level so they can do content obviously trivial even for them, at that point?
    DUH it's event stuff. It was made so people can participate. It was suppose to be trivial.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    Homogenization makes fights more about who can out spam heals and CC, rather than careful coordination or consideration for for rock/paper/scissors balance.
    If classes were homogenized M+ competition would be diverse but it isn't. BECAUSE classes have unique stuff we usually see similar composition there. Homogenization was at peak in MoP. Now it's not even close.


    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    Vanilla wasn't going anywhere. They had a content slate they left unfinished to release TBC instead. No idea why they would do that, but it's funny that you think Vanilla had poor subscriber retention... for the two years it was out the went from zero to 8 million subs, never dipping below their previous quarters peak concurrent. Even if they were losing subs as fast as they gained them, they still managed to retain 2/3rd of their maximum concurrent subscriber count before tbc release. No idea what graph you're looking at.
    Vanilla was plunging into abyss. It is a fact vanilla had terrible retention
    https://www.vg247.com/2010/02/11/onl...says-blizzard/
    These are pre-cata numbers, in vanilla it was even worse.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eroginous View Post
    I'm not just talking about the number of subscribers. I'm talking about the relationship of concurrent subscribers and the time period those concurrent subs began... Which was Vanilla. Sure, they climbed even higher and peaked at 12m in wotlk. Cool. And then the game started to lose people, hemorrhaging for whatever reason. Concurrent subscriber numbers just plummeting to numbers not seen since earlier in Vanilla, when the game was just getting started. No idea if it's getting better or worse. I just know it's not good. Especially when you factor the number of total subscribers they've had up to the point when they released that infographic (cata).

    Honestly not trying to argue or throw around personal opinions... candidly reiterating the facts until you guys are willing to accept them.
    [/QUOTE]
    Everything you said is your personal opinion which is nothing close to fact. Deal with it.
    Funny enough, if not for cata revamp. Subscribers would continue to plunge even harder.

  14. #534
    Quote Originally Posted by kaminaris View Post
    1. Yes it is more diverse, you can't use Shroud by any other class than rogue, can't have summon stone, gate and candies anything other than warlock. Each class has something unique and useful. In Vanilla nothing of that was useful as you spent most time spamming 1 button. Thus making mage exactly the same as warlock.
    Bruh, dungeon summoning stones didn't work in classic, having a warlock was a big deal.

    Classic is the opposite of homogenization lol.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by otaXephon View Post
    Just like, fucking stop at this point. It's embarrassing how far you're reaching to "win" an argument on the internet.
    He's not winning or losing an argument, he's just posting facts and solid points.

    Nothing more, nothing less, deal with it.
    Last edited by Beefkow; 2019-10-22 at 11:22 PM.

  15. #535
    Herald of the Titans Klingers's Avatar
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    How did blizzard manage to let class/talent design get so bad?
    Hubris.
    Arrogance
    Not listening to their community.
    Ion Hozikostas.

    /thread
    Knowledge is power, and power corrupts. So study hard and be evil.

  16. #536
    Quote Originally Posted by Beefkow View Post
    He's not winning or losing an argument, he's just posting facts and solid points.

    Nothing more, nothing less, deal with it.
    Drawing an incorrect conclusion from unknowable information isn't a fact. It's a delusion. There's nothing to "deal with." It's a terrible argument that is easily defeated by a very small level of critical thinking.

  17. #537
    Quote Originally Posted by Lyasandre View Post
    it doesn't make sense and it kills a lot of gameplay to instantly "forget" how to use aimed shot as BM hunter
    That's not really that outlandish. Aimed Shot has always been something exclusive to MM to some degree, either by talents or eventually baseline to the spec. You could still reach it from BM when it was talented but it was always a non-baseline, Marksmanship ability in some form.

    What doesn't make sense is Survival in general (forgetting how to use a ranged weapon entirely)

    In general they tried to separate the specs so much that they have almost nothing in common so now each class has to start with a spec pre-chosen and then at level 10 you chose one. So as a Hunter you start as BM until level 10. They tried to make this make sense for Marksmanship at least (it keeps Cobra Shot for a while before it changes to Aimed Shot) but it falls apart for Survival. What was better was how it was done pre-Legion where the stuff you got from 1-10 was stuff common to all the Hunter specs; the problem is there isn't enough in common any more to do that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dellis0991 View Post
    Hunters got butchered badly between wrath and Legion, they went from having ranged and melee in specs to losing melee in specs (not all specs) to melee in a one spec.....slots all fucked up throughout the years.
    We only got butchered in Legion. Hunters were actually pretty good in Cata, MoP, and WoD. I would argue that was their prime.

    What happened was they wanted to reinforce the fact that they were a ranged class and they viewed the melee elements as obsolete, so they were phased out. Good riddance.

    Quote Originally Posted by JavelinJoe View Post
    I dont think Blizz will change it for that matter, but we will see, either way I think almost every class suffers from this. For example I was unbelievably happy that SV hunter became Melee like it always was supposed to be. The class is called Hunter, not Ranger. Theres no reason that we shouldnt have a spec like that and despite 90% of hunters not liking it, I believe it was a good decision. You'll always upset someone to please another, you really cant win in Blizzards world.
    Imagine having such a detestable attitude that you think that a change that 90% of a class hated is a good thing.

    No Hunter spec was ever meant to lack a ranged weapon.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zyky View Post
    I already told you where to look, but I'll repeat it again: go look at the logs, the logs prove he's talking out of his ass.
    Lol, what a misinformed comment. The logs just show that people in competitive content will pick the most competitive option. He is very clear in icy-veins that those talents are good but not best. If you actually take the time to simulate them you will see that these are absolutely true statements, and that's to be expected considering Azortharion is one of the most experienced and accomplished Hunters.

  18. #538
    WoW is just a Barbie dress-up simulation while you wait for a poorly plotted story to play out over months. They don't care about gameplay.

  19. #539
    It's simple. They made all the specs be "whole"-ish in legion, lied to themselves that they would still be fun without artifacts. Launched BFA and boom, all passive traits or generic traits everyone has. Some specs were really fun in legion and decided to change it for some reason and now it's incredibly bad (MM hunter). I was missing BC->WoD enh sham in legion, but then BFA came and I had to play the same spec but more boring for another 2 years? No thx...

    I hope their mistake was thinking that the specs would hold out enough for BFA but didn't and not thinking they did a very good job with them. The former would imply they knew specs would not be optimal but had big plans for the next expansion and needed to get on that ASAP. The latter means they are oblivious to their mistake.

  20. #540
    Quote Originally Posted by Beefkow View Post
    Bruh, dungeon summoning stones didn't work in classic, having a warlock was a big deal.

    Classic is the opposite of homogenization lol.

    - - - Updated - - -



    He's not winning or losing an argument, he's just posting facts and solid points.

    Nothing more, nothing less, deal with it.
    Excvept he isn't posting facts. That graph contains nubmers that are in no way provable because Blizzard stopped reporting sub number and nobody has any idea what they are anymore. People now outright make them up to fit whatever agenda they have.

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