Do people actually like classes in BFA?

[Amaterasu65]

I can put up with mage playstyle right now. Frost has 3 different viable builds and fire feels nice to play with a specific essence. Arcane however feels bland, boring, uninspiring. It's just one button spam. I still believe that WoD mage was the best one next to MoP, had more buttons, playstyle changed depending on the set bonus, had a lot more raid utility. We brought both damage and other benefits like soaking with immunities, mana replenishment on healers etc. Now we bring just intellect...

[kaminaris]

Lol. You can literally stop pressing buttons as a demo lock for seconds at a time and your dps will not suffer a huge impact. A frost mage's dps will be hugely affected if they stop casting (even for a couple seconds) or don't use procs (and they have more) at the right time and in union with their other abilities (only 2 stacks for FF cap, glacial spike, 1 stack brain freeze cap, and ebon bolt).

I really hope you joking.

People saying bullshit like this but reality is, skill cap is 90% of your class maximum performance played by AI.
Needless to say, not many reach that cap, I'd say 1-2%.

If you take like 60-70% performance as skill cap (which is still unreachable by vast majority) then sure you may stop pressing buttons.

[froschhure]

no, class and ability design is a huge fuck in the face.

[Adam Jensen]

The majority of people who say the game is good/classes are fun are usually just LFR heros/Elite WQ doers. In other words, they have absolutely no base and shouldn't talk about classes/the game, they don't play it.

So sayth Lagweeta. Long may he reign. May no one listen to his words and without becoming wiser.



You have no authority on who's opinion matters, gtfo.

[vitor210]

they copied and pasted the builder/spender and/or combo points to almost every dps spec so everything feels super samey.

Exactly this!

[Ange]

BfA got such a variety of classes and specs that "NOT LIKING THE CLASS" is just a case of playing the wrong class/spec.

You have FOTM 1-2-3 melee specs aka DH/Rogue with zero decision making, instant burst, instant AoE, instant immunity and skill-mechanical advantages in every aspect of the game.

And you have niche specs like Unholy DeathKnight, actually needing a wowhead-FAQ page to describe how it works, because the amount of talents/cooldowns/abilitys interaction and how to use them to do ANYTHING is not the same as pressing one stupid button. Quadratic Scaling in AoE - Why Unholy Death Knights are Kings of Massive Pulls

The amount of FOTM players is ridiculous in BfA. Blizzard should just go back, get rid of account wide stuff and punish FOTM rerollers a lot more, so people actually take time to decide what they like and not choose the easiest and most boring class for a patch or expansion.

FOTM was never that big of an issue with punishing attunements, punishing character-only-reputation and zero catch-up. People had to weigh pro's and con's for the class choice and not just reroll rogue/dh for mythic+ like its happening in BfA, because the game is that casual friendly with 1000 methods of catchup.

[Aggrophobic]

Harsh truth? Yes.

The people that are happy with current class design are likely going to be happy with whatever you implement, because they simply don't understand enough to care about class design. They log in for 45 mins a week, do some WQs and xmog farming, and go about their lives. It is the majority of the playerbase, you're right, but they're also by far the easiest portion of the playerbase to please.

You should absolutely listen to your more experienced, hardcore players. Those are the ones who will actually leave if the designs are bad... like in BfA.

Thing is, even though you or I might know more about the game than the average player. There are a lot more of thoes that you describe and keeping them content is more important to Blizzard. No way around that.

[Temp1on2]

I really hope you joking.

People saying bullshit like this but reality is, skill cap is 90% of your class maximum performance played by AI.
Needless to say, not many reach that cap, I'd say 1-2%.

If you take like 60-70% performance as skill cap (which is still unreachable by vast majority) then sure you may stop pressing buttons.

I'm judging class "simplicty" on how easy it is to do reasonably well in your role with the least effort/paying attention. This is generally how people seem to judge "simplicity" and has even been memed as smashing your head on the keyboard and 'winning' for probably more than a decade.

Mastering a class is an entirely different conversation.

[Laqweeta]

So sayth Lagweeta. Long may he reign. May no one listen to his words and without becoming wiser.



You have no authority on who's opinion matters, gtfo.

Spoken like a true LFR Hero <3. May you find your way to Skyrim peacefully.

[Niwes]

For me it is in BfA:

Goods:
- Love Moonkin. Change nothing. its fast paced and not become boring too fast. like it.
- Love Fury warrior. its fast paced and has good mechanics. dmg needs bit more balance in some corners. like it.
- Frost mage. it feels good and has a well rounded setup. all in all its a bit too straight but still not boring. its ok.
- Fire mage. has its toolbox. like the mobility. not like mixture of long cast FBs & instants. all in all a good spec.

Mids:
- Prot paladin is mid ground. Liked older version more, but its ooook.
- Blood DK was a more interessting and had a better feeling in older xpacs but is ooook.
- Shadow seems ok, but was more fun in the shadow orbs times. i do not like the void form window system at all.
- Resto druid was more fun in past and even when its good and all its more boring today. but it works.
- Bear druid seems too simplified and is boring too me.
- Arms warrior has a relatively rounded setup but feels to slow and starved to me.
- Arcane Mage. was a fan in wod. arcane felt ok when i tested it, but since its totally unbalanced. not played much.
- Combat rogue (i refer to use new name^^) is faced paced. good in general for aoe. but i dont like how it feels.
- DH both specs seems fine and nothing changed that much. but also never played them much.
- Holy priest. is ok. have a well rounded setup. but for me its too streamlined in general.
- Heal shaman. do not like the direction and the niche of the spec. also too slow. but overall ok.

Bads:
- Marksman and BM in comparison to old versions before Legion feels horrible lame, slow, clunky and boring
- Ret paladin is super lame, repetitive and boring. Way too simple and streamlined.
- Enhancement was more fun in MoP because its way too rng driven now and has no aoe.
- Elemental is too straight and simple. cd on flame shock is shit. new mobility aka no gusts of wind is shit.
- Do not like mechanic of actual prot warrior at all. had way better times in the past.
- Sub rogue is way too repetitive and feels boring. besides that it is so st niche that it is unusable.

Specs i cannot say anything about:
- Cat
- Frost DK
- Unholy DK
- Holy paladin
- Assa rogue. waaaaay too slow for my taste, but this was always the case with this spec, so i ignore it.
- All Monk specs. never played.
- All Lock specs (not like the new mechanic since Legion of affli at all, but also did not played much)
- Surv hunter. never played.
- Disci priest. Do not like that spec personally and not played much.

[Craaazyyy]

You just described the majority of the playerbase. Should Blizzard only listen to the minority that raids?

yes

because people that don't raid or don't do high lvl pvp also don't really care about any of that.. they dont care about class design and they would play even if every class had 1.5 buttons

[justandulas]

They ruined my one class (demo lock) going into legion. Then they ruined my veng dh in bfa by neutering him, my dh in legion could effortlessly solo a 40 man raid team of my veng dh from bfa

It’s never fun to lose that much power, game flow, and abilities all at once

[Asrialol]

Harsh truth? Yes.

The people that are happy with current class design are likely going to be happy with whatever you implement, because they simply don't understand enough to care about class design. They log in for 45 mins a week, do some WQs and xmog farming, and go about their lives. It is the majority of the playerbase, you're right, but they're also by far the easiest portion of the playerbase to please.

You should absolutely listen to your more experienced, hardcore players. Those are the ones who will actually leave if the designs are bad... like in BfA.

Harcore players are such a small minority to this game that I doubt it'd be a huge dent. 603 guilds has killed Azshara on Mythic - if we assume a roster of 25 people per guild, that's 15000 players. Not really enough to leave a huge dent in the subscription numbers.

I'm far from hardcore myself, raiding casually 6 ish hours per week (which is more or less the only time I play these days), working on mythic Za'qul and I'm quite happy with the class design. Why would I care if they removed useless abilities. Why would I care if they put cooldowns on the GCD. I don't find that, for instance, disc priest feels worse than before. Legion and BFA disc has been the most enjoyable expansions for that spec, in my opinion. Yet - I'm a casual, so my words don't matter.

People don't seem to understand that casual players aren't only the WQ / LFR heroes. I have friends who don't raid at all who spend more time playing the game than I do.

- - - Updated - - -

yes

because people that don't raid or don't do high lvl pvp also don't really care about any of that.. they dont care about class design and they would play even if every class had 1.5 buttons

Source on that?

[kaminaris]

I'm judging class "simplicty" on how easy it is to do reasonably well in your role with the least effort/paying attention. This is generally how people seem to judge "simplicity" and has even been memed as smashing your head on the keyboard and 'winning' for probably more than a decade.

Mastering a class is an entirely different conversation.

Your 'reasonably well' is average in my dictionary. And by average I mean ~60%. My reasonably well is 85%+ which is maximum of 5% players.
If you want to judge relative complexity of a class, check all simcraft APLs.

[Temp1on2]

Your 'reasonably well' is average in my dictionary. And by average I mean ~60%. My reasonably well is 85%+ which is maximum of 5% players.
If you want to judge relative complexity of a class, check all simcraft APLs.

No, my 'reasonably well' is what is expected by the majority of the player base (i.e. what won't get you kicked/noticed for doing 'low dps').

[kaminaris]

No, my 'reasonably well' is what is expected by the majority of the player base (i.e. what won't get you kicked/noticed for doing 'low dps').

Then it's average. Not "reasonably well". Sorry to break it to you but vast majority of players can't even do that "average" dps.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...s/23#boss=2298

Check where "Upper quartile" is. Then you will realize (or maybe not, maybe i also need to point it out) that vast majority of players also don't raid at all. Of course some of them could be good but don't raid for other reasons but. Point still stands.

[ non raiders                                                                                                               ][ raiders ]

and then MID line where the average dps is:

[                                                                                                 |                         ][    |    ]

which translates to:

[    below average                                                                            |     above average                      ]

[Temp1on2]

Then it's average. Not "reasonably well". Sorry to break it to you but vast majority of players can't even do that "average" dps.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...s/23#boss=2298

That's my point.

I think you're splitting hairs over semantics here.

[msdos]

Unholy last row of talents suck. Frost last row sucks. Boomkin last row sucks. Outlaw last row sucks. Sub just sucks period. Feral is like you have to be a god savant gosu S Korean pro to play well at a high level. Mages don't have multi-dotting or 1/6 the utility they once had so they're bad. Survival is the worst melee spec. Marks is trash in every aspect of the game. Resto shamans can barely heal M+. Enhancement is god awful in M+ and dies to everything. Arms is just garbage in M+.

Yet people claim classes are the best they've ever been? Very strange indeed.

One problem I'm seeing is they can't balance multi-dot, M+ and raid environments simultaneously. There's either more homogenization coming or more essence, generic one fits all stuff coming, probably both.

[Pony Soldier]

I think it's safe for me to say that it's the most fun I've had with the classes since I started playing back in 2006. Sure they're simplistic but is that really a bad thing? I'd rather have them be simplistic than overly complicated where I have to spend like a whole week just learning how to play my class and what each spell does and when to use it and have my screen cluttered with a thousand different spells and abilities.

I love how it feels more action oriented too instead of the slow boring gameplay it used to have. I remember playing paladins back in the day when it was 50% auto attacks and 50% using your seals and judgement. I'm sorry but I hated the class because of how slow it felt. It was agonizing sitting there watching my character auto attack and miss half the time. Until they started making them more action oriented then I started to love them again.

Also I really want class overhauling to stop. I'm sick and fucking tired of relearning my class every expansion so I'm super glad that Blizzard is deciding to not make any major changes to them. I hope they just keep them this way and just do little updates and tweaks here and there, that would be totally fine.

I get people's hatred towards the current design because I used to feel the same way when they first did the overhaul back some time after MoP. I even remember saying how the classes felt like a "hallow shell of what they used to be". However, the more I played them the more I understood what Blizzard was going for. I love the idea of each spec in a class having their own identity with their own set of exclusive abilities. It makes it feel like there are 24 classes instead of 12. I think it makes sense and it makes the classes feel cleaner and more organized and it puts use to every single ability instead of having half of them left unused because they had little to no practical use for your spec. After getting used to it I ended up really liking the change and I started to really enjoy classes like I never have before.

I actually think class gameplay is one of the major reasons why BfA brought me back and held my interest throughout the whole expansion. They're just super fun to play and I hope the classes stay this way. It's one of the very few things I can praise Blizzard for.

[Adam Jensen]

Spoken like a true LFR Hero <3. May you find your way to Skyrim peacefully.

8/8 Normal EP, 7/8 Heroic in a guild that's 8/8.

Not bragging, and not claiming to be forefront, that's just where I am, take it for whatever you feel like taking it. I just find people like you hilarious "only I and people who meet my exact criteria are worthy of opinion! I'm speshul because I'm 9/8 Mythic N'zoth and it's not even out yet!"