Name the biggest problem, that should be addressed in 9.0

[FAILoZOFF]

Devs need to go back to Warcraft orcs and humans and reignite the imagination of the world fantasy. Legion ruined the classes with the stupid class halls.

Clean slate, go back to the beginning and rebuild from the ground up.

Race identity
Class identity
World building
Faction identity
Swords and sorcery
Adventure
The unknown

Tone down the steampunk and mass industry, tone back the spacecrafts, the technology. Less lasers.

tone down the power levels!

more swords and sorcery!

Invest in new enemies that aren't DBZ level of power creep

Zone weather effects!

updates settlements to feel alive and have purpose.

all of these above, MAKE AZEROTH GREAT AGAIN, make it MMO and make it RPG, head towards sandbox style of game

[rips]

dead talents

[Xemioza]

Random stats, sockets on gear is a big NO for me, also AP grind...
Wotlk gearing model with enchants and static sockets, end of MoP classes, WoDs raiding, MoP/WoD legendary ring/cloak/neck/trinket/whatever questline, legion Class Halls, and I wont ever logout xd

(Art team is carrying all expansions xd)

[shadowmatrix]

For me it's "Mandatory vs Optional content" problem. IMHO, it's the root of all other problems in this game.

Examples:
1) Do we really need mandatory leveling?
2) Do we really need mandatory rep grinds on every character or should it be account-wide, i.e. optional for alts?
3) Do we really need mandatory AP grinds?
4) Etc.

1. No matter what you call it your still leveling. Better to have something straight forward and simple then switch to some weird mishmash of RNG and stat gating.

2. Players complain about stuff being shared making the game not feel like an RPG but ask for more stuff to be shared.

3. Neither AP grind required players to do anything different from what they would normally be doing.

What needs to change?
Players pretending like they speak for the majority.
Players ignoring other player's comments in their mad rush to blame Blizzard for every woe.
Players putting a third party website ahead of their own play experiences.
Players claiming (insert new expansion here)is the bad for alts despite the increasing amount of catch up mechanics in the game.

[RemasteredClassic]

Classes - enough has been said

Rep - introduce a variety of ways for this mindless grind please and then maybe we can put up with it. As long as it feels like a side activity and not the main goal then it should be fine as a side effect automatically done anyway via every kind of activity if possible.

Queues - fix em by adding AI so 5 mans can be done with 2 players each bringing their own alts played by AI, please?

No flying in Warmode but lots of pvp events and exclusive awards

Flying in x.1

1-5 flex mode in everything from old expansions including raids with it’s own progression system

Give players all gathering skills

Make professions great again by letting us craft a legendary weapon that takes a year to craft and involves every activity in game.

Let horde and alliance play together

After squish, stop leveling beyond 60 completely, giving alts choice of leveling continent - new expansions introducing non leveling based progression.

Revamp everything making it a completely different game from classic so that we would get motivated to play classic again. Only problem here is player base splitting but AI can fix that in retail.

Variety everywhere would ensure nobody gets bored ever again. Primary spec and secondary spec means 6 different play styles per class.

Separate pvp stats for every talent/skill so you can better balance them without affecting PVE, and without having to create different specs and talents for pvp. Give everyone all abilities talents and skills at all time, everywhere instead.

Add cosmetic system for spell effects and animations race/class locked items that can be had in a variety of ways.

Don’t burn people out locking them into a single class by making it impossible to reroll because of AP/essences like in BfA. The more people enjoying alts the more they play and not the other way around.

[Abysal]

3. Neither AP grind required players to do anything different from what they would normally be doing.

The problem with the AP grind is that it punishes players for playing alts. If I only play my main and I just get AP by doing what I would always be doing, fine whatever. It sucks a little because of I need to take a couple weeks off from the game I start falling behind, but it's not that big a deal. But if I want to play multiple characters, then all the time spent on one character is reducing the progression on the others. It creates a situation where I can never reach a state of completion on a character. For Blizzard, this is great. Players will never reach a point where they can say "I'm maxed out now I can unsub" but for many players, this feels awful. It feels like you are working towards a goal you'll never reach and it feels like if you want to do stuff not related to end game, that you're falling behind everyone.

My point is, I don't like that the design philosophy is basically "no life your main and play nothing else."

I know there's catch up mechanisms but they present their own problem. AP catch up basically tells me that what takes me 10 hours today will only take me 1 hour in a month, so why should I do it today? Catch up in fact encourages me to not play the game. This doubles down on the "no life your main, don't have alts" mentality. Alts are pretty important to keeping WoW fun for me because Blizzard has a bad habit of breaking spec design every expansion. The main you love playing in expansion A can become a completely unenjoyable experience for you in expansion B. If having alts is encouraged and made easy, then with 36 specs in the game, you can probably find something you enjoy playing. If they are discouraged, then you end up getting frustrated and quitting.

[WowIsDead64]

I mean, for me the biggest problem - is that I'm forced to do content, I don't like, in order to unlock content, I really like. I understand, that this game has competition factor, i.e. all players should be in the same conditions. But it hurts game too much. Blizzard should finally find some solution. If I don't really care, what some other players do, then I should be able to do content, I like, despite of some players being envious or even jealous.

[Chonar]

Can't fix the playerbase, unfortunately.

[Claymore]

Honestly? The single BIGGEST problem is that BFA has focused entirely on the Horde, and the Alliance has just been adjusting to suit whatever needs the writers feel best serve the Horde's storyline.

Yes, gameplay is important, but so is narrative. A *LOT* of WoW players came from Warcraft III, and BFA's story leaves a lot to be desired.

Next up, I would say the lack of meaningful player choice in customizing their gameplay. I think Talent-trees simply offer more variety and flexibility. I miss 2hand Frost on my DK, and back in Wrath, you could play around with all kinds of crazy builds.

And third, I would argue that "Void Lords" are a sad excuse for a "villain" at this point. Old Gods clearly aren't compelling villains amongst players, and the Void Lords still remain some vague "idea" rather than actual villains in any capacity. I loved Legion, but Argus should've been its own expansion, and Sargeras should've been an expansion entirely separated from that. We've basically run out of villains, so Blizzard tried to introduce "oh, the REAL bad guys are these Void Lords!" bu they haven't been even remotely successful in building them up as any sort of real threat.

[Dadwen]

obvious (like I need to say it) class design.

Before I've even re-subb they would have to bring back ranged Survival hunter.

*and on a personal level, I'd prefer scaling to be optional, from the 3 months I played with it in Barf...err BFA it sucks....

[Kyranna]

Class design has hit rock bottom, they have never been worse than this and completely unfun to play. Everything else is based on this, so it gets second place. There are a lot of other things that are terrible, such as lack of alt friendliness, loot, rep grinds, ap grinds, etc. basically the whole system needs to go back to its root and restart in a non ugly way.