No more edgy classes

[Teriz]

Again you're very wrong and you have absolutely no clue on how business works, A business counts on the popularity of something to make initial sales and if people then go to choose and play something else they have the choice but I still see more Death knights around than a monk and tbh Im so fucking glad I never see the kiddy races on my server as people tend to go for the more good looking races and races you can actually see the armour visuals on.

Wouldn't it make more business sense to cater to an audience that they currently don't cater to, like fans of steampunk/fantasy tech for example? Especially when WoW itself has several steampunk elements within it. It makes little business sense to double down on something that already exists in the class lineup.

[Mic_128]

Plot twist: the Bard class sings death metal.

New class: Death Metal Knight, taught by the guy at the DMF

[Al Gorefiend]

Please give me a brief rundown of the "edgy" elf-favoring classes thus far. All I recall thus far are DH's.

One too many.

[Al Gorefiend]

I’m fine with whatever new class is added. Bard, Tinker, Tax Collector.

As long as it isn’t available to a single elf race or humans. The Horde is still 40% Blood Elf players 12 years after they were added. New races with OP racial abilities and new classes unavailable to elves, all I want.

[alt-ithist]

Good thing they've got all these dark, "edgy" classes to RP as then.. Don't need to waste another new class on them

3.5 classes out of 12 are edgy. If anything they are outnumbered. I consider rogue to be edge lite so they get .5

[deviantcultist]

Are the only options lighthearted or edgy? Why can't we just get a new "normal" class for a change?

Because for a Death themed expansion, "edgy is normal", if I have to put it that way. Just like lighthearted was normal for Pandaria.

My problem is one thing: Shoehorning themes.

Normal can be many things . I suppose a vanilla Dragon class is normal for some? Well for a pure Dragon expansion is sure serves a purpose. I guess that's on the table and even though I personally find it disappointing, it makes sense.

[Teriz]

LOL no you want the initial sales and hype you don't want something that appeals to a smaller audience that would taper off over time again that's just BAD business you cater to the wider audience not the minor, look at Monk for example that fell flat on its face and was awful and a lot of people consider MoP a failed expansion due to the panda and the whimsical lore.

I enjoyed Pandaria myself but you won't get me touching the monk class as it looks absolutely stupid and you wont see me playing a Panda because I like my elves and humans.

According to Realmpop, there's 250,000 Monks at level 120. Based on the nature of the Monk class, those Monk players probably wouldn't be playing the game if the Monk class wasn't in WoW. Are you saying that Blizzard getting monthly subscription fees from 250k subscribers who they probably wouldn't have had beforehand is a failed experiment?

[deviantcultist]

Priest, paladin, druid and monk are exactly for you.

Exactly. Playing a true Shadow class forces you into the Priest stigma: the Light-based support/healer.

Of course, the Light having its Paladin is taken for granted. Shadowpriest having no "paladin" of its own is considered normal for some reason when the story theme is all about Light vs Void.

Sure, just add a random generic or lighthearted class because the Druids need company picking up flowers.

[Al Gorefiend]

Because for a Death themed expansion, "edgy is normal", if I have to put it that way. Just like lighthearted was normal for Pandaria.

My problem is one thing: Shoehorning themes.

Normal can be many things . I suppose a vanilla Dragon class is normal for some? Well for a pure Dragon expansion is sure serves a purpose. I guess that's on the table and even though I personally find it disappointing, it makes sense.

What exactly is a dragon class that is in any way supported by Blizzard? All we got was a half-decade old fan concept for a hero class that sounded full of fanfic lore “the dragons need a champion” “this class uses magic of the dragon flights” none of this has happened in WoW before.

It’s doable but so is a class that hurdles bricks at people.

[deviantcultist]

What exactly is a dragon class that is in any way supported by Blizzard? All we got was a half-decade old fan concept for a hero class that sounded full of fanfic lore “the dragons need a champion” “this class uses magic of the dragon flights” none of this has happened in WoW before.

It’s doable but so is a class that hurdles bricks at people.

Well if you ask me, a Dragon class is forced and pointless. Hell, anything Titan related is redundant given the fact that the lore states that the Titans have made mistakes and mortals need to take matters into their own hands.

It's just me saying that anything is fine as long as it makes sense for the expansion context. Therefore, people asking for lighthearted themes contradicts a serious expansion.

[Katchii]

People playing at level 37 are paying for the game, and they're playing as Monks. Why would you discount them?


If the argument is "which class has the most players" why would you not count every person playing as those classes? That's like arguing which NFL team has won more super bowls and not counting any super bowls before 2000.

It's not about discounting PEOPLE but alts, characters. If someone made a character, leveled it to 37 and then never touched it again, it's obviously not their main or even a character they care about THAT much. Counting those characters skews the data heavily. In a poll looking specifically at popularity, counting characters that are unplayed is not really accurate.

You're argument amounts to saying that clothes from an old trend that is clearly over are still popular because a lot of people who wore them before still have them in their closet.

[Teriz]

It's not about discounting PEOPLE but alts, characters. If someone made a character, leveled it to 37 and then never touched it again, it's obviously not their main or even a character they care about THAT much. Counting those characters skews the data heavily. In a poll looking specifically at popularity, counting characters that are unplayed is not really accurate.

You're argument amounts to saying that clothes from an old trend that is clearly over are still popular because a lot of people who wore them before still have them in their closet.

But we don't know if they're unplayed simply based on their level. Again, those are just assumptions since we don't have the data. The only data we have is the number of Monk toons versus the number of DH toons. All I'm hearing are excuses about why the total Monk number is higher than the total DH number.

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That's 6% of the playerbase...

Death Knights are also only 6% of the playerbase (at 120). Do you think Blizzard views DKs as a mistake too?

[Katchii]

But we don't know if they're unplayed simply based on their level. Again, those are just assumptions since we don't have the data. The only data we have is the number of Monk toons versus the number of DH toons. All I'm hearing are excuses about why the total Monk number is higher than the total DH number.

Taking into account all of the things other people have said:
1) Abandoned alts are a thing - counting ALL characters includes those, which skews the numbers, for EVERY class, not just Monks.
2) Monks are an older class and don't have restrictions on the number you can create per server (this is a big one), which makes #1 even more pronounced.
3) They're not "excuses" they're legitimate pieces of information that should be considered in any honest analysis.

I'll admit numbers CAN be used to argue popularity, but with 1 and 2 above, it's a much more accurate and reasonable metric to count only max level characters as at least then we have an accurate representation of a number of people who took the time and effort to level them to that point.

To argue in favor or using literally every character ever made despite the implications mentioned above, is not a very academic or honest argument.

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Death Knights are also only 6% of the playerbase (at 120). Do you think Blizzard views DKs as a mistake too?

Who said anything about a mistake?

[Teriz]

Taking into account all of the things other people have said:
1) Abandoned alts are a thing - counting ALL characters includes those, which skews the numbers, for EVERY class, not just Monks.
2) Monks are an older class and don't have restrictions on the number you can create per server (this is a big one), which makes #1 even more pronounced.
3) They're not "excuses" they're legitimate pieces of information that should be considered in any honest analysis.

I'll admit numbers CAN be used to argue popularity, but with 1 and 2 above, it's a much more accurate and reasonable metric to count only max level characters as at least then we have an accurate representation of a number of people who took the time and effort to level them to that point.

To argue in favor or using literally every character ever made despite the implications mentioned above, is not a very academic or honest argument.

We can't have an academic argument on any of that because we don't have that information. All we have is assumptions. The only numbers we do have are the total numbers of Monks and DHs, and there's more Monks than DHs period.

Frankly anything beyond that is simply an excuse or an assumption.

Who said anything about a mistake?

@Serenity River said that due to their population numbers, Monks "fell flat on their face" and made MoP into a failed experiment. I was merely pointing out that based on popularity numbers at 120 (since you folks seemed dead set that that's the only level that matters) DKs are pretty much at exactly the same population number as Monks are, which means that DKs are about as popular as Monks currently.

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Whole expansion in that theme? No thanks. God forbid.

No, Undermine would more than likely be the hub from which you could travel to other underground regions (Azjol Nerub immeadiately comes to mind), though some parts of Undermine you should be able to adventure through.

[Ange]

No one is choosing a class based on it's popularity. That is for naive people and people who want to be accepted regardless of their skills being shit.

Now check RAIDER.IO statistics and look how old/young many of thoses POPULAR classes really are. Its allready hard to find DH/ROGUES that are played for more than 1 M+ SEASON, R.IO shows you all the unwanted data blunt as it is.

People play FOTM as soon as skill is involved.

Players went full FOTM in challenge modes, they went full FOTM in proving grounds and legion mage tower was done with the easiest classes first followed with months later on the "mains".

Some players threat WoW as a single player game - nothing wrong with that - but it changes how to interact with those players.

[Katchii]

We can't have an academic argument on any of that because we don't have that information. All we have is assumptions. The only numbers we do have are the total numbers of Monks and DHs, and there's more Monks than DHs period.

Frankly anything beyond that is simply an excuse or an assumption.

Yes we absolutely DO have that information or at least enough of it to warrant consideration. Unless you're going to try and argue that you don't believe there is such a thing as abandoned alts or refuse to account for the fact that Monks don't have a character limit per server, both of which skew the numbers.

And I'm saying counting data that will skew the results is dishonest. You're not arguing in good faith here. If anything, the fact that there are more max level DH's than max level Monks, despite Monks not having a character limit per server shows that more people are making and playing DH's to max level....which can easily be seen as them being more POPULAR, which is the argument here.

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LOL no you want the initial sales and hype you don't want something that appeals to a smaller audience that would taper off over time again that's just BAD business you cater to the wider audience not the minor, look at Monk for example that fell flat on its face and was awful and a lot of people consider MoP a failed expansion due to the panda and the whimsical lore.

I enjoyed Pandaria myself but you won't get me touching the monk class as it looks absolutely stupid and you wont see me playing a Panda because I like my elves and humans.

So over both US and EU realms at max level there are 554,496 Monks, Overall max level characters population is 9,163,732 so Monks are a whole 6.05% of all classes.

Whimsical is just not interesting for masses.

Monk as a class is not any more whimsical than anything else, it's the Pandaren race. I personally really like Monk, I just like other classes more. It just doesn't do anything better than other classes and it's really never been FOTM so there's no reason to pick it over something else.

I've not said that at all, you're putting words into my mouth.

Honestly, not wanting to defend Teriz here at all, but those were actually your exact words. See below...

LOL no you want the initial sales and hype you don't want something that appeals to a smaller audience that would taper off over time again that's just BAD business you cater to the wider audience not the minor, look at Monk for example that fell flat on its face and was awful and a lot of people consider MoP a failed expansion due to the panda and the whimsical lore.

I enjoyed Pandaria myself but you won't get me touching the monk class as it looks absolutely stupid and you wont see me playing a Panda because I like my elves and humans.

[Vakna]

Do you really think Blizzard care about some attached social stereotype when they are developing new classes? They're not going to change an entire expansions theme just because some internet person doesn't like "edgy" stuff.

[Mic_128]

look at Monk for example that fell flat on its face and was awful.

One of the reasons Monks weren't as popular as DK/DH's was that they started at level 1. If monls started at 110, of course there'd be a lot more of them

[Katchii]

Eh, my bad I still feel it did, I mean seriously he thinks he talks for all players and thinks mains are lvl 20.

I get where he's coming from, it's not that "mains" are level 20 but that if we're looking at popularity, less than max level characters should count too. The problem is, there's far too much junk data using that metric because of the abandoned alts and the fact that Monks don't have a limit to how many can be made per realm like DH does, so it shouldn't be used in the analysis as it horribly skews the results.

My example before is that it would be similar to identifying trends as "popular" based entirely on what's sitting in someone's closet rather than the clothes they're actually wearing normally.

[Teriz]

A better barometer would be to look at why DKs have collapsed population wise. A good theory is that the former DK players moved over to the DH, while the Monk numbers have held steady. This indicates that if the next class is also an edgy hero class that the current DH players will migrate over to the new edgy hero class.