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

[Black Goat]

Please dont:
https://www.icy-veins.com/wow-classi...owns-abilities
https://www.icy-veins.com/wow-classi...owns-abilities

Warlock:

Apply and maintain your assigned curse.
Apply and maintain Corruption Icon Corruption if allowed.
Cast Shadow Bolt Icon Shadow Bolt.

Mage

Use Fire Blast Icon Fire Blast and Arcane Explosion Icon Arcane Explosion to finish off enemies about to die.
Maximize Winter's Chill Icon Winter's Chill and Improved Scorch Icon Improved Scorch stacks on the enemy.
Use Frostbolt Icon Frostbolt if Frost-specced, Fireball Icon Fireball otherwise.

like 80% spam single ability

Considering your list of abilities for the Mage was almost a paragraph on its own and the Warlock is about DOT maintenance, I think you proved my points.

1. The classes are not homogenized. At all.

2. They require more than 1-button spam to play properly.

Thank you.

[Mardux]

Considering your list of abilities for the Mage was almost a paragraph on its own and the Warlock is about DOT maintenance, I think you proved my points.

1. The classes are not homogenized. At all.

2. They require more than 1-button spam to play properly.

Thank you.

Except, that “list of abilities” is 2 things, depending on your spec. One of which only applies if the target is near death.

If frost, use frostbolt (which applies the second “ability” passively), and then... use frostbolt again. Rotation complete.

If fire, use fireball. Use scorch only to keep stacks up. Oof, 2 ability “rotations”? How will we ever manage?

[kaminaris]

Considering your list of abilities for the Mage was almost a paragraph on its own and the Warlock is about DOT maintenance, I think you proved my points.

1. The classes are not homogenized. At all.

2. They require more than 1-button spam to play properly.

Thank you.

LUL, not homogenized, yeah, 1 dot 1 filler, surely you jest.

[Black Goat]

Except, that “list of abilities” is 2 things, depending on your spec. One of which only applies if the target is near death.

If frost, use frostbolt (which applies the second “ability” passively), and then... use frostbolt again. Rotation complete.

If fire, use fireball. Use scorch only to keep stacks up. Oof, 2 ability “rotations”? How will we ever manage?

Considering you just reinforced the fact that, at the least, you have to use 2-buttons instead of 1, does not invalidate my point.

Thank you.

[kaminaris]

Considering you just reinforced the fact that, at the least, you have to use 2-buttons instead of 1, does not invalidate my point.

Thank you.

That is only if you are allowed to have that dot on boss. Cause you know, with 40 ppl you mite not be. And it falls into 1 button filler spam. Yes it does invalidate your point completely. Both of these classes are played exactly the same in raids.

[Eviltroll]

Sorry champ but some of us are fucking beyond giving these hypocritical morons(Blizzard) feedback.

Their arrogance has got them to this point and they deserve every bit of abuse and slander they get.


There is only so long a loyal fan base can put up with repeatedly giving sound and detailed feedback and repeatedly being ignored - only for the devs to realize 6-12 months later that the player feedback was indeed correct.

Do you think there is a reason they completely fucking deleted the BfA feedback forums? We provided hundreds if not thousands of pages of feedback that was all ignored. Is there a reason both Lore and Ion have apologized since?


Part of the reason this game is still kicking strong no longer has to do with quality. It's to do with investment and addiction. Sure it's still the best MMO on the market. But not by a very big margin anymore. The other problem is that no one is investing in Triple A MMOs anymore. The other big thing is investment - you really think players who have 15 years worth of collection and memories in this game wouldn't struggle to let it go and move on?

Well said! And if i remember correctly they were deleting good feedback threads as Alpha& Beta for bfa was on.They gambled on the fact that playerbase is full of plebs who have no interest in raiding/M+ or any meaningful content so they threw in as much Rng as possible ,many mounts/toys and other shit + endless grinding for azerite and essence system.They even managed to make it, i think the most alt unfriendly expansion, by requiring to farm so much reputation /essences on any alt you wanna play seriously.Oh and they again designed some absolute shit trinkets in dungeons , so you can fuckin puke @ reset /or end of dungeons if you have the "luck " to get one of those forged.I played this game since day one in Vanilla, but the amount of "fuck Blizz devs " i've heard from everyone i know or met in this expasion surpassed all previous ones combined..

[Bepples]

Ill correct you because apparently you cant read it. It says 'primarily' a ranged attacker, oh how ironic that that points to what I said.

No, it does not point to what you said. In what world does a meleespec satisfy the class identity "primarily a ranged attacker?"? No, you cannot turn around and say "Oh, but Hunters are still primarily ranged if only one spec is melee". At that point you can make a physical melee Mage spec and say "but it's still primarily a spellcaster because 2/3 specs still use it". You can't just have one spec that doesn't fit the class identity at all. They all need to fit the class identity, and that for Hunters is ranged.

FYI a Blizzard dev literally came out and stated that SV was always meant to be melee, so actually in regards to this statement.

That's not literally what he said, though, and I did address this in my post so apparently you are the one that can't read.

https:// www.gameaxis. com/interviews/interview-wow-legions-lead-class-designer-senior-producer/

It was another one that was missing its niche. It’s kind of like Marksman except more traps? Or different arrows? So it was kind of missing that “what is the core fantasy?”

Having it move into the melee space and actually return to its roots that was the vanilla Survival experience. You got your Raptor Strike and all that and having those come back and play a role, moving into melee, giving mobility like the Harpoon to draw you in – it’s like it finally gave them a unique identity. If this is the beast companion guy that you’ve always wanted to play then you’re going to have that role.

So what this clueless hack of a developer is saying is that Survival had no niche as a ranged spec and that making it melee returns it to its Vanilla roots. He's utterly wrong, as to be expected from someone who a) isn't a class designer and b) only started working at Blizzard in 2015. His opinion on this is basically worth the same as that of any other revisionist idiot from the forums: nothing. Never mind the fact that he didn't actually say that "SV was always meant to be a melee spec" because even from someone this misinformed and deluded that would be a ridiculous statement given that SV had literally always had a ranged weapon and has had unique ranged abilities since 2005.

The best argument in favour of this stance is that, before patch 1.7, all DPS talents in the Survival tree buffed melee. This did not make it a dedicated melee DPS. Specs were not intended to define your entire playstyle and identity back in Vanilla WoW like they are now. All Hunter specs had a melee limitation; you couldn't use your ranged weapons within 8 yards so up close you had to use melee. Therefore the Survival spec buffed those aspects so you weren't as useless when you got stuck in melee range. You know what the spec also had? Improved Wing Clip, Counterattack, and Entrapment; talents designed to help you escape melee. The core class was still ranged. Agility, our primary stat, gave 2 ranged attack power and 1 melee attack power. Of course "primarily ranged" was the point of the WHOLE CLASS, as it says in the manual. And the first class review, which improved all our specs, gave proper ranged improvements to Survival as well.

So it's grasping at straws to the most extreme degree to pretend that pre-1.7 Survival is a free pass to make a Hunter spec that totally lacks a ranged weapon and has an identity closer to a Warrior than a Hunter after 12 years and 5 expansions of iterative design as a ranged spec.

Furthermore theres no reason what so ever why one of the specs shouldnt be melee.

There's a whole list of reasons. We've already talked about how it's antithetical to the core identity of the class, so here are a couple more:

- The class had 12 years of iterative design focused around ranged combat
- All three specs already had cemented ranged-centric identities and did not need a reboot
- Everyone who joined the class in that time knew they were getting 3 ranged specs, therefore few melee-favouring people if any at all joined the class so there is little-to-no audience for a melee spec
- There are already a wealth of melee weapon users in this game whereas Hunter specs are the only ranged weapon users, and every DPS spec added post-launch has been melee
- The spec has predictably floundered in obscurity since it has been made melee
- Even Blizzard admits that specs have become too divergent, and Survival is the single worst example of this in the whole game (it was even named directly by Hazzikostas as an example of the problem in a 2018 Q&A)

Oh and also regarding your totally self destructive imgur link. Advanced Weapon Skills Crossbows, fist weapons, spears, staves, one handed swords, two handed swords, thrown, two handed axes.

I think that pretty much concludes this argument, its quite clear Blizzard had every intention of making them both Melee and ranged. The same cannot be said of other classes such as Mages and Warlocks can they.

It also lists Unarmed as a weapon skill, so I guess there should be a Hunter spec that doesn't use a weapon at all and just punches people?

What a ridiculously contrived argument. Obviously there was a melee component to Hunters back then. That did not give credence to a spec that ONLY melees without a ranged weapon.

I really dont want to continue a discussion here after reading how arrogant your statement was. Believe what you like, but you should seriously read your quote, its hilariously sad to write things like that on a forum in a discussion with someone else.

Sounds like you really don't want to continue discussion after realising how right I am and how wrong you are.

P.S. I write statements like that because I know it pisses off people like you

Why don't you go back to trying to convince everyone that turning all flying mounts into gliders is somehow not removing flying? It seems like you have a habit of trying to manipulate people and chucking a tantrum when it doesn't go your way.

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TBC was overall the best point of class design.

Yes, when I look back to my TBC Hunter and the only valid raiding choice was going the same 41/20 BM/MM cookie-cutter build and spamming a macro that manages my entire Steady Shot/Auto Shot rotation for me until the boss dies, I definitely felt that I was playing the "best point of class design". /s

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There is absolutely zero point arguing with kaminaris. He will argue his point all day and completely ignore facts when presented with them.

He claims BfA Class Design is amazing. When presented with an actual video where Lead Designer Ion Hazzicostas admits his failure with Class Design in BfA and vows to listen to feedback and fix it in 9.0. kaminaris will just straight up stop replying to you or pick an argument with someone else.

He's also the type that likes to directly compare BfA to Vanilla. A 14 year gap.

I don't know the full context here, but there is a large contingent of people on the forums these days saying that classic WoW class design is laterally better than BFA class design. Not just "better for it's time", but actually better when directly compared.

I don't even like BFA class design. I think Legion and BFA were a big step down from WoD and earlier. Having said that, I'd sooner play 3 years of BFA Hunter than 1 year of Classic Hunter.

[Bepples]

Most people I know that prefer Classic Classes over Retail say so because it actually feels like an RPG

Frankly I think this is buzzword-y nonsense that doesn't really mean much. People just dump it into any game development discussion and expect it to carry it. It's always an allusion to some unwritten list of rules that determine whether or not a game is a proper RPG, which usually boils down to a bunch of grindy/unpolished timewaster crap that doesn't contribute to the game in any significant way.

[Big Thanks]

Frankly I think this is buzzword-y nonsense that doesn't really mean much. People just dump it into any game development discussion and expect it to carry it. It's always an allusion to some unwritten list of rules that determine whether or not a game is a proper RPG, which usually boils down to a bunch of grindy/unpolished timewaster crap that doesn't contribute to the game in any significant way.

Whats your deal with calling everything "buzzword"

Everyone knows when a game is a RPG or not.
And i think you know exactly what we mean when we say something is "more RPG" than something else.

Example:
The new titanforge system is very RPG-like.
Because its combining gameplay mechanics with lore

[TheRevenantHero]

Disagree. Talent trees can open up more than the 3 specs most classes have. Can't speak back then in Vanilla but current Classic is right now evident of that. As a warrior there is some variety in tanking specs, going deep def prot, impale prot and the coming popular fury prot. Locks spec around Demo/Afflic with Ruin when it comes to PvE, others play with a spec knowing they will keep an Imp out. tBC had hybrid specs and so did Wrath to a point (though rarely because last points where often that strong).

Cookie cutter build will always exist when a good build is discovered and known but talent trees so far have offered more of those cookie cut build than the current pick spec/play spec.

OT: Pretty much agree with OP in most cases. My spriest and lock are shelved until those classes are revamped again and atm the only fun dps spec for me with the toons I have is Unholy and Prot Paladin.

My point wasn't that you couldn't make your own spec. The point I was making was that if you did, you were absolutely worthless compared to people who chose the cookie cutter build and will never get taken to raids.

[Bepples]

Grindy/Unpolished timewaster crap.

You mean like the entirety of BfAs world content?

Deflection. I'm talking about things like ammo for Hunters, or ridiculous grind requirements in general (no, no world content in BFA comes close).

Everyone knows when a game is a RPG or not.
And i think you know exactly what we mean when we say something is "more RPG" than something else.

Actually, no, because it's a highly subjective matter.

All the classes and specs combine gameplay mechanics with lore. So what?

[therealbowser]

Yes, when I look back to my TBC Hunter and the only valid raiding choice was going the same 41/20 BM/MM cookie-cutter build and spamming a macro that manages my entire Steady Shot/Auto Shot rotation for me until the boss dies, I definitely felt that I was playing the "best point of class design". /s

Big improvement over classic on a dramatic number of levels. And that wasn't even remotely what I was referring to, but I get the feeling you aren't really looking for context here. that's okay though. we don't have to agree.

TBC wasn't the most balanced point of game design, but to me, it was definitely the most interesting and immersive. There were more roles than "hit stuff", "heal stuff" and "get hit". Being able to fulfill a real hybrid role was exciting. Not even classic truly had that in a way that could actually be performed successfully.

Poor little hunters got moved up from being tranq bots that spammed aimed shot to having a full rotation and being highly sought after in dungeons. Must have truly been rough on you.

[F Rm]

Furthermore theres no reason what so ever why one of the specs shouldnt be melee.

I would agree.
Especially in today's WoW.

For me, the act of giving us a melee spec have never been the issue. For me, it's in the way that they did this. It came at the expense of a much liked spec/playstyle already in existence.

They should've added MSV as a 4th spec option from the start in Legion. And we wouldn't 've had a problem with this. They did not do this so, give us that 4th spec option now instead, with it bringing back the old ranged SV which involved Explosive shot, Black Arrow, Serpent Sting, and more...

[FAILoZOFF]

TBC wasn't the most balanced point of game design, but to me, it was definitely the most interesting and immersive. There were more roles than "hit stuff", "heal stuff" and "get hit". Being able to fulfill a real hybrid role was exciting. Not even classic truly had that in a way that could actually be performed successfully.

THIS, like really, people should look past "rotation" when discussing class design of vanilla, tbc and even WotLK to an extent
that was not the point even, it was more about strategy, preparation and knowledge more than actual "arcade game" of executing rotation.

[Black Goat]

That is only if you are allowed to have that dot on boss. Cause you know, with 40 ppl you mite not be. And it falls into 1 button filler spam. Yes it does invalidate your point completely. Both of these classes are played exactly the same in raids.

The exception is not the rule. Take your L gracefully, at least. I'm not going to play "Let's move the goalpost to suit my complaint" with you. You never mentioned raids or DOT overlap. You're adding caveats to your argument as you go along because you know you're wrong. It's very telling.

The classes are not 1-button spam, because you and I both know, you have to hit more than one button to play the class properly.

Mages are not Warlocks.

No it does not invalidate my point. I'll say it once again for the those in the rear, the exception is not the rule.

Your hyperbole is unacceptable, and frankly, childish.

[Theangryone]

He was mainly mentioning sub count from classic through wotlk, when the game was at its peak, so he's right on that count.

But yea, there is no solid proof what the sub counts were at since subs dropped substantially during WOD.

So what you are saying is the game had the highest growth of subs when it was new and then when it had been out a few years it started to decline. Really. Stop the presses. I'm shocked.

[Beefkow]

So what you are saying is the game had the highest growth of subs when it was new and then when it had been out a few years it started to decline. Really. Stop the presses. I'm shocked.

You really think 50% of the subscriber base just got tired of the game all of a sudden in WOD?

I guess it was a coincidence that sub numbers dropped 50%, could've been cata or MOP for all I know.

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The exception is not the rule. Take your L gracefully, at least. I'm not going to play "Let's move the goalpost to suit my complaint" with you. You never mentioned raids or DOT overlap. You're adding caveats to your argument as you go along because you know you're wrong. It's very telling.

The classes are not 1-button spam, because you and I both know, you have to hit more than one button to play the class properly.

Mages are not Warlocks.

No it does not invalidate my point. I'll say it once again for the those in the rear, the exception is not the rule.

Your hyperbole is unacceptable, and frankly, childish.

Don't argue with kaminaris, he's obviously arrogant and quite frankly, a white knight at its finest. A person who thinks that everything they say is automatically correct.

If he can't see the difference between a mage and a warlock, let alone back in classic, then I wouldn't give him the benefit of the doubt.

[Craaazyyy]

LUL, not homogenized, yeah, 1 dot 1 filler, surely you jest.

maybe there's more to class design than just rotation? haven't thought of that?

[nonameelf]

Streamlining for Esports.

[kaminaris]

Don't argue with kaminaris, he's obviously arrogant and quite frankly, a white knight at its finest. A person who thinks that everything they say is automatically correct.

If he can't see the difference between a mage and a warlock, let alone back in classic, then I wouldn't give him the benefit of the doubt.

People complaining about talents or homogenization and saying classic is better in that regards are simply delusional.
MOST of the time you spend is casting frostbolt or shadowbolt.

"let alone back in classic", laughable:

https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/rep...casts&source=1
https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/rep...done&source=27

The only difference is warlock has this one dot. And 5/6 letters in spell name

frostBOLT
shadowBOLT

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maybe there's more to class design than just rotation? haven't thought of that?

No there is none, if there is literally ZERO impact on your gameplay, all these cheap fillter "talents" +X% to something are completely uninteresting.