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

[Relapses]

Doesn't change facts. Concurrent sub numbers Do mean something in a game whose primary profit generator is... sub fees. Being more profitable is better than being less profitable (not a matter of opinion) due to the ability of profits to drive growth. Having more concurrent subs mean being more profitable. Later versions of the game having less concurrent subs, means they were less profitable. Them being less profitable, means they were worse designed versions of the game. Why they were, might be subjective. The fact that they were, not so much.

Just gonna quote this because it's the fundamental issue that I have with your argument. You correlate "great design" with popularity and lack of populairty with "worse design." And while that's a great surface level argument which matches the numbers you claim to be irreproachable facts, it doesn't make any sense. Movies, I think, would be a great counter example to this line of reasoning. Marvel movies make bank. Small indie films might make one one-hundrenth as much as a Marvel movie but just because one is more popular than the other doesn't mean that Marvel movies are the pinnacle of theatrical experiences nor does it mean that all indie films are total garbage. The same idea applies to video games. Shitty video games can be popular. Good video games can fail to find an audience. It's not a good argument to say that just because WoW was more popular at one point in time that it was only popular because of its game design nor is it correct to criticize other versions of the same game because they were less popular. There are valid criticisms of both new and old versions of the game but to pretend that popularity is the only metric which qualifies its success is one that is a purely subjective stance no matter how much you insist it's factual.

[Beefkow]

What I like about ret though is that you're not dependant on rage, I have tried arms and it's decent fun but ret is so smooth I think.

I think MoP ret was pretty great, or WoD when divine storm.procced seperately from templar's verdict so you could.use both on single target.

I guess I don't mind de-pruning, as long as there are still specs and classes for us pea brain players.

- - - Updated - - -



This is kinda where I'm at as well, I'd rather deal with complicated boss mechanics rather than super complex rotation.

It’s not about the complexity of class rotations, it is about the flavor of the class and how interesting it is.

You might find this hard to believe, but more things is better, at least for me. Legion was a good example. Legionaries, artifact weapons, and tier sets gave you beneficial bonuses that had an impact on your rotation whether its insignificant or not.

All that BFA did was remove and remove and took away flavors, one by one until it leaves a flavorless taste in your mouth.

It was understandable when blizzard started pruning in WOD, it made sense. Classes in MOP had way too many abilities and passives that were nearly identical to one another, or in other words, homogenization. Legion only provided gear that “fixed” the classes. Then BFA basically nailed the coffin.

And why do people keep mentioning bosses? What happened to pvp, world pvp, dungeons, and world content?

[Eroginous]

Just gonna quote this because it's the fundamental issue that I have with your argument. You correlate "great design" with popularity and lack of populairty with "worse design." And while that's a great surface level argument which matches the numbers you claim to be irreproachable facts, it doesn't make any sense. Movies, I think, would be a great counter example to this line of reasoning. Marvel movies make bank. Small indie films might make one one-hundrenth as much as a Marvel movie but just because one is more popular than the other doesn't mean that Marvel movies are the pinnacle of theatrical experiences nor does it mean that all indie films are total garbage. The same idea applies to video games. Shitty video games can be popular. Good video games can fail to find an audience. It's not a good argument to say that just because WoW was more popular at one point in time that it was only popular because of its game design nor is it correct to criticize other versions of the same game because they were less popular. There are valid criticisms of both new and old versions of the game but to pretend that popularity is the only metric which qualifies its success is one that is a purely subjective stance no matter how much you insist it's factual.

It's not a correlation to popularity I'm talking about. Concurrent subs are not a direct correlation to popularity. If that is what you think I'm saying, I see your confusion. And, unless Blizzard is lying about their published numbers (which is possibly, but not likely given the context), those numbers are absolutely factual. The argument against them would have to be levied against their authenticity.

But again, you have to realize that the business model is what Blizzard uses to dictate their game development. So when the business model is suffering (like it seems to be, right now) they reshuffle resources and try to go back to roots with games like D4 and D2 remaster and WC3 reforged, even going so far as to stopping development on Overwatch 2 (lol, really?) and Star Craft Expansion (or 3, can't remember which). I'm literally divorcing everything subjective about the discussion from the actual metrics Blizzard uses (whether they release them anymore or not) to decide how to approach game development. I guarantee you no one in Blizzard HQ is deciding what to do with the next wow content based on what players actually say. It's always metrics driven. They use participation numbers all over the place to track how well features and systems do. This is why things have changed so much. Why they've embraced these changes.

Blizzard, quite literally, ignores all the things you guys are trying to talk about. They ignore them regularly and make terrible decisions regularly, despite saying they listen. They will read your feedback. They will take it in and discuss how it reflects the metrics and how the metrics can be used to support polishing, scrapping, or modifying a part of the game. But they won't listen to the feedback and actually consider it. You will not see a change in the game from a players feedback.

You will see a Great Idea from Blizzard that they Came Up With by Listening To Player Feedback. How much of that idea resembles player contribution, is probably entirely different. But I am not trying to argue that sub fees mean the game was popular and that popularity means it was successful. I'd even be willing to admit that later versions of the game did a better job at being accessible to new and returning players, did a better job of engaging players on other levels (mini games, collections, etc). But those metrics are likely unknowable and it would be difficult to nail down which version was better, especially when we're trying to also account for subjective opinions like the ones being shared a lot here.

There's nothing wrong with subjectivity, but it often gets bandied about while the actual driving factors of game change (metrics) get ignored. Like if you want to know why Garrisons existed in WoD? They saw how cool the Yoon farm was in MoP. Players have asked for housing for years. It's not a brilliant idea, it's the logical step most devs would probably make in other MMOs. Then after WoD? Order halls! Let's tie in class flavor and spend way more art resources designing player housing! Those decisions were not made if player feedback was being considered. They were made solely based on the metrics. Because the difference between MoP Farms, WoD Garrisons, and Legion Order halls is about the same difference as a moped, a stretch limo, and a cruise ship. There's no way the massive investment of resources matches the feedback on any scale.

Lots of people said they hated farms. Lots of people hated garrisons. Subjective opinions all around, likely ignored out of hand because they contributed nothing positive toward making player housing better for the next expansion... and that's really the rub. Blizzard is like your optimistic grandfather who only talks about the positives. They literally won't change anything about the game unless there are numbers to support it.

It’s not about the complexity of class rotations, it is about the flavor of the class and how interesting it is.

You might find this hard to believe, but more things is better, at least for me. Legion was a good example. Legionaries, artifact weapons, and tier sets gave you beneficial bonuses that had an impact on your rotation whether its insignificant or not.

All that BFA did was remove and remove and took away flavors, one by one until it leaves a flavorless taste in your mouth.

It was understandable when blizzard started pruning in WOD, it made sense. Classes in MOP had way too many abilities and passives that were nearly identical to one another, or in other words, homogenization. Legion only provided gear that “fixed” the classes. Then BFA basically nailed the coffin.

And why do people keep mentioning bosses? What happened to pvp, world pvp, dungeons, and world content?

See, a lot of players have to admit that what 'it's about' is probably going to be different from person to person. Some people really enjoy class design. Spending talents and theory crafting their sheet and playing with gear to find optimizations. Other people really enjoy jumping into a game and smashing things without much thought towards their character sheet.

If we take these two groups of players and try to design a game for them, Vanilla wow is better for the first group who likes RPGing, and BFA is better for the second group of people who doesn't bother much with their character sheet. There's a lot to be said about either group in terms of subjectivity, but it's not hard to see why Vanilla wouldn't appeal to someone who just wants to login and smash face or slay dragons to see Lewts explode like a piñata. While it's also not hard to see why BFA wouldn't appeal to someone who wants to figure out which talents to take: 5% crit on an ability or -30% resource cost.

The point at large I was trying to make earlier was that the version of the game that appealed to any specific group would likely be for very specific reasons that stopped being present in a later version of the game. It's real. It's not so much burnout as it's unhappiness with change. RN I do play occasionally, if I can find time to do so. What I play, tends to depend on what I'm in the mood for. I'd happily play Vanilla daily if I could, and I'd pay a live sub fee to do it. That's my personal preference, and I could go into why.

But it's more to do with the state of the game back then and what it offered, which is a different experience to what is offered now. Not necessarily worse, just different. Those differences tend to be factual, rather than subjective, even when discussed through personal perspective. And those differences happen as a matter of Blizzard design policy, which is reflected by the numbers, usually. Not typically a matter of player feedback or popularity.

You're right in that people keep trying to cherry pick raiding to make a point while ignoring the rest of the game. The pruning and class changes all around had way more to do with the rest of the game than raiding, always. And while it's difficult to make this point without coming across as a subjective opinion (evidence here already), I think the point still stands that one could look at the design of Vanilla, and conclude that it's better than any version that has come after it.

If I could come up with an objective rubicon for it (lol what time?) I totally would.

[kaminaris]

Why do you keep calling people delusional when you simply disagree with the facts that are being thrown at you? Or even if you don’t believe in what they’re saying, you start to insult them.

You’re starting to sound like a child, grow up.

Because stating uneducated guess as fact is delusional. Sorry but thats how it is. No facts were presented, only uneducated guesses based on incomplete data which is laughable.

- - - Updated - - -

It’s not about the complexity of class rotations, it is about the flavor of the class and how interesting it is.

You might find this hard to believe, but more things is better, at least for me. Legion was a good example. Legionaries, artifact weapons, and tier sets gave you beneficial bonuses that had an impact on your rotation whether its insignificant or not.

In fact they did not. Biggest influence had legendaries. Artifacts gave you just one more skill and a bunch of flat damage increase. Tier sets were mostly boring flat damage upgrades, nowhere near as impactful on rotation as azerite gear. You can see evidence of that in simcraft APL.

flavor is completely subjective.

All that BFA did was remove and remove and took away flavors, one by one until it leaves a flavorless taste in your mouth.

That is one of the biggest lie players are parroting. No, BfA did not change classes much since legion.
It merely showed what were classes in legion when being unlucky with legendaries. Shit design that required specific gear based on tons of RNG.

It was understandable when blizzard started pruning in WOD, it made sense. Classes in MOP had way too many abilities and passives that were nearly identical to one another, or in other words, homogenization. Legion only provided gear that “fixed” the classes. Then BFA basically nailed the coffin.

And why do people keep mentioning bosses? What happened to pvp, world pvp, dungeons, and world content?

That is the problem of legion and legion alone. Gear should not be required for your class to feel "complete".

- - - Updated - - -

It's not a correlation to popularity I'm talking about. Concurrent subs are not a direct correlation to popularity. If that is what you think I'm saying, I see your confusion. And, unless Blizzard is lying about their published numbers (which is possibly, but not likely given the context), those numbers are absolutely factual. The argument against them would have to be levied against their authenticity.

No it's not about that, it's about decline in MAUs over the years. It's inevitable. No matter what blizzard does.

But again, you have to realize that the business model is what Blizzard uses to dictate their game development. So when the business model is suffering (like it seems to be, right now) they reshuffle resources and try to go back to roots with games like D4 and D2 remaster and WC3 reforged, even going so far as to stopping development on Overwatch 2 (lol, really?) and Star Craft Expansion (or 3, can't remember which). I'm literally divorcing everything subjective about the discussion from the actual metrics Blizzard uses (whether they release them anymore or not) to decide how to approach game development. I guarantee you no one in Blizzard HQ is deciding what to do with the next wow content based on what players actually say. It's always metrics driven. They use participation numbers all over the place to track how well features and systems do. This is why things have changed so much. Why they've embraced these changes.

Participation metrics are incomplete data. Neither you nor blizzard should focus solely on that. Ultimately the best metric is player fun and retention. But since you can't measure "fun", you have to substitute that with participation rates + player feedback.

Blizzard, quite literally, ignores all the things you guys are trying to talk about. They ignore them regularly and make terrible decisions regularly, despite saying they listen. They will read your feedback. They will take it in and discuss how it reflects the metrics and how the metrics can be used to support polishing, scrapping, or modifying a part of the game. But they won't listen to the feedback and actually consider it. You will not see a change in the game from a players feedback.

And it rightfully should ignore all feedback from vocal minority. This is the biggest problem because there is no valid feedback system in place. Easiest solution (not exactly the best) would be sending surveys each 1-2 month to large amount of randomly selected players to gather crucial data how people feel about certain features.

It would be much much better than bitching on forums. Thought 5-6 years of my play I only got survey once.

You will see a Great Idea from Blizzard that they Came Up With by Listening To Player Feedback. How much of that idea resembles player contribution, is probably entirely different. But I am not trying to argue that sub fees mean the game was popular and that popularity means it was successful. I'd even be willing to admit that later versions of the game did a better job at being accessible to new and returning players, did a better job of engaging players on other levels (mini games, collections, etc). But those metrics are likely unknowable and it would be difficult to nail down which version was better, especially when we're trying to also account for subjective opinions like the ones being shared a lot here.

That is again problem of not having valid feedback loop. You cannot accurately determine what player likes more currently even with all the statistics blizzard has.

For example which design was better? Mechagon with 1 WQ + daily quests or Nazjatar with WQs and couple of dailies.
You will only know which zone players preferred from statistics, not which design above was better.

There's nothing wrong with subjectivity, but it often gets bandied about while the actual driving factors of game change (metrics) get ignored. Like if you want to know why Garrisons existed in WoD? They saw how cool the Yoon farm was in MoP. Players have asked for housing for years. It's not a brilliant idea, it's the logical step most devs would probably make in other MMOs. Then after WoD? Order halls! Let's tie in class flavor and spend way more art resources designing player housing! Those decisions were not made if player feedback was being considered. They were made solely based on the metrics. Because the difference between MoP Farms, WoD Garrisons, and Legion Order halls is about the same difference as a moped, a stretch limo, and a cruise ship. There's no way the massive investment of resources matches the feedback on any scale.

Garrison was the result of incorrectly drawn conclusions from statistical data. And I fully agree here, IF we had a proper feedback system AND developers would be willing to listen to players, garrison wouldn't be so mediocre.

Have you ever played alpha/beta? If you did, you would know the "feedback" system they have is UTTER GARBAGE. There is literally no way to contribute in any meaningful way.

Lots of people said they hated farms. Lots of people hated garrisons. Subjective opinions all around, likely ignored out of hand because they contributed nothing positive toward making player housing better for the next expansion... and that's really the rub. Blizzard is like your optimistic grandfather who only talks about the positives. They literally won't change anything about the game unless there are numbers to support it.

And it would be possible to support it with numbers if we had:

1. Heavily moderated feedback system (similar to forum but)
2. That players can contribute to, thumbs up, thumbs down the idea (one per account)
3. One post per week (because lets be honest, we have milions of players, nobody will read walls of texts)
4. Anyone shitposting would be banned from it.
5. Any not constructive feedback would be removed.
6. 1 post = 1 issue, other players vote with thumb up/down
7. Sorting by highest vote count, mods would be bringing those issues to devs and Ion and closing issue if it would be marked as resolved.

It is the reason forum feedback is ignored, because there is too much text, to much shitposts and almost nothing constructive.

[Eroginous]

Because stating uneducated guess as fact is delusional. Sorry but thats how it is. No facts were presented, only uneducated guesses based on incomplete data which is laughable.

Saying 'how it is' and being deliberately obtuse about the facts I've presented kill any points you might actually have.

That is the problem of legion and legion alone. Gear should not be required for your class to feel "complete".

And here I find myself agreeing with you, classes should not need to acquire specific in game items to have their rotations feel complete. Blizzard has done what Blizzard always does, using live server data to move towards specific changes, adding things to the game where they think they can get away with it. It's never about consistency or giving players a valuable play experience.

It's ultimately devalued when new content comes out. As you say, BFA didn't change much from legion, and Legion wasn't much different from WoD. Cata was when things really changed in the game, entire systems were re designed, the old world got a face lift, entire zones were redone with new quest hubs. For players who valued the way the world used to be, it was a reason to stop playing... which is the detriment of their game design philosophy. Not valuing what players value. 'Don't you guys have phones?'

Remember that? I am all for Diablo immortal. But it's laughably ignorant for them to treat what players value in this way.

[Big Thanks]

And here I find myself agreeing with you, classes should not need to acquire specific in game items to have their rotations feel complete.

I dont agree that gear shouldnt take part in customization. I very much support it BUT the problem with WoW is the absolute lack of control on said gear.
The best gear comes in the form of randomness in a chest...THAT is the problem (for me)

I loved Azerite traits...until they got nerfed in PvP.
I was the happiest monkey playing BFA...until the day came...the day of the nerf.
But talking about PvP is pretty much offtopic so, in conclusion:

"I think gear should take part in customization...but in WoW this is pretty much stupid because of the lack of control"

[Eroginous]

I dont agree that gear shouldnt take part in customization. I very much support it BUT the problem with WoW is the absolute lack of control on said gear.
The best gear comes in the form of randomness in a chest...THAT is the problem (for me)

I loved Azerite traits...until they got nerfed in PvP.
I was the happiest monkey playing BFA...until the day came...the day of the nerf.
But talking about PvP is pretty much offtopic so, in conclusion:

"I think gear should take part in customization...but in WoW this is pretty much stupid because of the lack of control"

To be clear, I'm not saying we shouldn't have gear to customize, rather that's one of the more fun parts of the game (gear acquisition). What I am saying, is that your characters actual abilities rotation should not be determined by gear items. Aside from popping a trinket, you should not have a weapon that gives you a talent sheet and new abilities. It's fundamentally flawed game design, automatically creates an environment where having other weapons doesn't matter, which is completely counter intuitive to having weapons in the first place. You are trying to get good gear items to round out the way you want your character to play. This is done with stats complimenting your characters talents and abilities. Gear provides the stats. Should not provide talents.

It's terrible crossover design and it's not even original. It's a silent admission that talent trees were superior character customization options to the ones we have now, a condemnation of the sweeping changes they've made to remove them... and then they don't matter when BFA drops new ones. Lel.

Classic. Blizzard.

[kaminaris]

To be clear, I'm not saying we shouldn't have gear to customize, rather that's one of the more fun parts of the game (gear acquisition). What I am saying, is that your characters actual abilities rotation should not be determined by gear items. Aside from popping a trinket, you should not have a weapon that gives you a talent sheet and new abilities. It's fundamentally flawed game design, automatically creates an environment where having other weapons doesn't matter, which is completely counter intuitive to having weapons in the first place. You are trying to get good gear items to round out the way you want your character to play. This is done with stats complimenting your characters talents and abilities. Gear provides the stats. Should not provide talents.

Agreed, except it wasn't even a "talent tree" it was just straight up get-all with zero customization. In order to get them all you had to farm some shit content. And what was worse - that artifact was way more powerful than rest of the gear combined.

Not being able to change weapon in RPG game was preposterous.

It's terrible crossover design and it's not even original. It's a silent admission that talent trees were superior character customization options to the ones we have now, a condemnation of the sweeping changes they've made to remove them... and then they don't matter when BFA drops new ones. Lel.

Classic. Blizzard.

No not really, talent trees were boring, there was no customization in it, you did have some choice tho. Again, artifact had no choice. You eventually got everything

[Beefkow]

No not really, talent trees were boring, there was no customization in it, you did have some choice tho. Again, artifact had no choice. You eventually got everything

I'm assuming you're talking about talent trees from pre-MOP.

Ya, they were boring but it was exciting to level up and get a point and put it in a talent, it felt great to level.

Now talents MOP+, I like them but here's the problem:

-Blizzard is too lazy to put in actual effort
-If it's a pure dps row, a lot of balance has to take place and most of the time 1 talent is always taken
-Not a single row was added after WOD.

I mean come on, 2 expansions and we haven't gotten a single row? What do we get from leveling from 100-120? Nothing?

[Goradan]

They've failed to make the classes feel and function like one and striped complex mechanics away to get more normies to play the game. Not to mention that everything is now a DPS race in raids now.

[Forgottenone]

One thing I have always been upset about is how they removed warlocks ability to tank. A caster tank was unique and interesting. Was it capable of efficiently tanking current content? No, not compared to the other tanks. However was it fun to do in 5 man dungeons? In smaller raid settings? Heck yes. I understand them removing/changing demo warlocks because demon hunters were coming around but it felt like they had started to go into a fun territory.

[kaminaris]

I'm assuming you're talking about talent trees from pre-MOP.

Ya, they were boring but it was exciting to level up and get a point and put it in a talent, it felt great to level.

Now talents MOP+, I like them but here's the problem:

-Blizzard is too lazy to put in actual effort
-If it's a pure dps row, a lot of balance has to take place and most of the time 1 talent is always taken
-Not a single row was added after WOD.

I mean come on, 2 expansions and we haven't gotten a single row? What do we get from leveling from 100-120? Nothing?

What I imagine to be successful talents is:

Grid of 10 rows and 4 columns focused PURELY on:
6 Rows purely for DPS
2 Rows for HPS+DPS
2 Rows for damge reduction

Similar to what we have now because tree is impossible to balance and prone to cookie cutter.


And skill tree for UTILITY spells consisting of choosing 5 utility spells and then improving on each of them

for example for demo lock you would have 10 utility spells to choose from:

Aoe stun, ST stun, speed boost, evade, immunity, soft CC, hard CC etc.

Lets say we choose AOE stun for this

Now the second choice is either:

Make it larger circle, make it last longer, make cast faster

Lets say we choose to make it last longer, then 3rd tier would be either:

enemies affected, deals 20% less damage for 5 seconds after stun ends
enemies affected, take 10% more damage while stuned
enemies affected are snared for 2s after stun ends

[Craaazyyy]

Lol I don't hear people saying "too complicated" anymore though lol. R.I.P Feral "rotation". You know what, I think it really was just feral that brought down wow abilities. The only two specs you'll ever hear people bring up in regards to rotational complexity is feral and sometimes sub rogues sneak in (get it?). Maybe aff too w/ CoA, Corr, Immo, SL, SB all being regularly used abilities in their rotation.

i mean most pruned abilities weren't rotational abilities

it was all the other stuff that got pruned

- - - Updated - - -

How can people complain about prunning and saying vanillas classes were good to play in the same post?

I actually like the prunning. Difficulty shouldn't come from one more button to press, but from dungeon mechanics.

Also were's the fun having to more spells that can proc?
red proc -> i press 4
blue proc -> i press 5

That's as good as having one spell less that procs twice as often.

you know there are other parts in the game besides dungeons and raids? in which class design is pretty much the only thing that matters? also it can be both class mechanics and dungeon mechanics, simply because dungeon mechanics have its bounds

[FAILoZOFF]

Those bastards deleted half of my favorite Rogue buttons. Pruning and class design is the one and only reason I quit playing retail.

yeeaah, tho its not all about raw button count imo, playing vanilla made me realize how much they flattened the abilities over the years to the point where each ability is "binary" deals damage/heals stuff/interrupt/dispels
no pros, no cons, no quirks, no consequences

- - - Updated - - -

How can people complain about prunning and saying vanillas classes were good to play in the same post?

I actually like the prunning. Difficulty shouldn't come from one more button to press, but from dungeon mechanics.

Some people just don't like playing Guitar Hero. Imagine that. And no, i don't mean that GH is easy or smth. Just different kind of difficulty.

[emmasanchez3]

There are too much variables to consider, so i think there are doing all right

[kaminaris]

That argument makes no sense. If the game was only losing subs from its peak due to its age, then it would have already hit a sub plateau. Tons of games are old and are actually growing in playerbase, yearly purchases, sub numbers. WoW has constantly been updated and refreshed, so its not like its some outdated crappy game. Yes its lost some sub numbers due to age, but denying its losing subs because its been so badly managed recently is just total denial.

Whats the difference between COD and WoW, CoD is refreshed yearly, and was actually more stale engine wise than WoW has ever been only last year. And yet it continually grew yearly, it dropped more recently only to hit huge peaks again with the most recent release. WoW is updated once every other year, people come back to CoD yearly for the same repetetive gameplay experience, why wouldnt WoW players do the same.

Are you even trying to compare MMO to FPS? Ok so if you want a comparison, each wow expansion is One or two new guns, 3 new maps, 3h campaign story, some tweaks to old guns, you really think CoD would be still growing? And i smell some bullshit as I skim tru steam charts. ALL of their titles show a steady decline:
Look at lower chart, not first one

https://steamcharts.com/app/10190#All
https://steamcharts.com/app/311210#All
https://steamcharts.com/app/476620#All
https://steamcharts.com/app/10090#All
https://steamcharts.com/app/202990#All
https://steamcharts.com/app/476600#All
https://steamcharts.com/app/10180#All
https://steamcharts.com/app/42690#All

[Eroginous]

*snip*

Not sure why you feel the need to break up posts to address each little nuance in the same way mutliple times.

1. We have a feedback system. It's called the forums. People regularly use it to discuss the game with each other, giving Blizzard all the feedback they need to make positive changes to the game.

2. Your idea of what is a good feedback system... already exists a la the forums. There's also an in game ticket system where you can pretty much anytime day or night speak to a GM about whatever you want. You can pass along feedback to the devs directly through GMs (done it before) as well as show your appreciation or disappointment, so long as you do it in a courteous, constructive manner.

3. The vocal minority is who actually bothers to give feedback at all. Most players just play game until they decide they don't want to anymore. The vocal minority is who blew up social media for weeks after Diablo Immortal was announced. The vocal minority is who is now in this thread trying to discuss how they think Blizzard has let class design and talents get so bad.

4. Your idea of 'complete data' is questionable. Like you think that not knowing why Fred stopped enjoying his Rogue is useful information for a developer. The first fact you have to acknowledge is that a game developer can never please every one who might be interested in their game. They can only a) attempt to do their best, and b) do it on time and within the scope of their budget. This often comes across as an iterative process in games like Wow, spanning several years of new content. There is different categories of data and different uses for each category. You're not going to consider player happiness (subjective) when developing content because each player is simply going to have a different gauge for happiness and you might fail miserably trying to please everyone. Instead, you're gong to consider just how many people bothered to do the content you made and see how long they did it for, how long it took to reach milestones, how many times they repeated the content, who they did it with, what time of day, how many hours per day/days per week, ect.

Almost none of the data they could use to determine what to do next, is gleaned from players thoughts or feelings. They will gladly read how much you liked or disliked something and why... only to go back to work creating whatever it was they were working on before they read your feedback. The things they will take from you are the metrics of how you played their content and combine it with the metrics of how others played it... to determine what needs to be tweaked, added, removed, and how.

You saying you hate how mages and warlocks have the same rotation, is meaningless. It offers nothing for them to develop the game on. Just your disdain for what you perceive to be oversimplified game design . I don't understand how one could collect a bunch of data on how players feel, and do anything useful with it. Especially when it comes to negative feedback. Blizzard has even responded to player feedback directly on the forums, stating they can't do anything with negative ire. They need constructive feedback or they can't do anything with your post, no matter how right you may be.

5. The game is not designed by democracy. We players did not elect anyone to design Wow. We discovered Wow at some point in our lives and gave it our time and attention, and then became Entitled Whiny Babies when Blizzard decided to shift things in a direction we didn't like. Blizzard has a plan. They have a team of developers tasked with realizing that plan. They have an idea of what they are going to do and they aren't going to deviate unless it simply doesn't work. The second fact you need to understand is that even if your most ideal forums were implemented, it would result in the exact same game development.

6. I don't know why you think your rows/columns idea is any different/better than what we have on live. I also don't know why you think the talents on artifact weapons aren't talents. They essentially function like any talent points, offering incremental stuff that makes your character way stronger. The problem with talents since MoP is that Blizzard took all these separate components to your game play and combined them into singular talents. Any given talent you pick now likely has 2-4 other talents built into it. It wasn't having these flat throughput increases that made old talent design more meaningful. It was the fact that taking a throughput increase would come at the cost of something else, combined with the other fact that when you changed specs, your talents in the lower trees would still offer their original benefit to you, across specs. Taking Roots Pushback resistance as a druid or lowered shapeshifting costs, was beneficial to any spec. You didn't have to lose access to an entire ability completely because you decided to change specs for a fight. All but the furthest of talents were available to every spec, along with every learned ability and rank, giving players a huge number of permutations to pursue on a character sheet.

I really don't see how you can acknowledge that as a player, and still conclude that there's more customization or flavor now vs back then. It's really not the same. No matter the class or spec you choose, Blizzard has chosen which abilities and talents you get access to as that spec. Meanwhile, Classic gives the player choice over which abilities and talents to use, no matter the spec chosen. Live, chosen for you. Classic, you choose. Live, no choice. Classic, choice.

I can't make it any clearer.

[FAILoZOFF]

I dont really mind the classes that much abit boring compared to legion. However main problem is game is not a MMORPG anymore its a online game to kill bosses and mythic+ its not an RPG anymore they have slowly been killing of everything except those 2 things. Getting 15min of story every few weeks i mean wtf.

That is kind of proper argument, thing is MMO cannot have good story and expecting something on level of lets say witcher 3 is gonna get you dissapointed. I mean look at all previous expansions, story sucked back then. Reason is pretty simple, to have a good story it must have some consequences and real choices, can't have that in mmo.

All they can do is to make story longer and more interesting. But then again, it needs to get the fuck away from all that old-gods, uber-threats stuff and focus more on character interactions. Having big bad guy you need to defeat each expansion is just damn boring at this point.

And people been blaming all the other stuff while refusing to acknowledge this pattern just got stale and boring.

Ill only add that whole story-telling in WoW is mind boggling retarded and more convoluted than it really has to be.
I mean, theres some dialogue, now you have do kill some sht that poses no real threat to you, some more dialogues, now click stuff, cutscene, done.
Like WTF?! I'd rather see a whole story as actual vid or read some sht.
As kaminaris said WoW story cant be tailored like its single player game, rather it'd be better if the devs acknowleaged the fact that this is online/mmo game and embraced interaction with other people in the WORLD.
Also the mentioned power creep, one second you fight ultimate evil be it lich king, corrupted mad dragon, old gods, titans then you are back to whacking squirrels and wolfs for world quests. ???
Yeah this sht really got old fact, nor it makes a good platform for stories.

[Malix Farwin]

Point about class design is indeed correct:

BFA:
1) has content but half of it is terrible content (design wise)
2) Titanforging is shit and people hated jn legion and Legion was alright
3) from this course up to now I can tell you bfa does not have better raids
4) bfa has the worst story of any expac (minus the naga/old god stuff to a degree, nah it's the worst)

- - - Updated - - -



Ota, why is comprehension and logical reasoning hard for him?

1.) The content feels worse than it is because of Class design. If i for example had MoP class design i would enjoy running islands all day because i would ahve something to do with this awsome design
2.) No duh thats why i mentioned it wasnt the determining factor, in fact Legion Titan Forging was much much worse and occurred much more often on top of legendary grind so its objectively worse then BFA in that regard
3.) Hard disagree. The only good raid Legion had was Nighthold. Every other raid sucked except Antorus which was average.(of course i am only talking from the perspective of a Mythic Raider if u think it was better from a lfr/normal/heroic standpoint then thats fine but still objective)
4.) Nah cata was just as bad, your problem is you think people actually factor in story a lot mroe then they do. You thinking its worse than Cata, MoP, and WoD is just being objective and relatively speaking accrouse most demographics the difference between the story between those xpac and BFA wouldn't influence how much they put it about the others.

[mario710]

My destruction warlock (441) decimates anyone who engages me.

This game is in the best state of class balance in years.