Why are there no new classes in Shadowlands?!

[RelaZ]

Because that would be a spit in the face to the game's loyal customers. What the game most certainly does not need is yet another cash grab hero class to divert people's attention from the real problems with the game (if so only for the first ~3 months of the new expansion).

WoW needs to stop being treated like a cash grab by its owners (Blizzard & Activision). WoW is starting to look more and more like some ridiculous Chinese P2W MMORPG with the abundance of underwhelming classes, P2W gold and cosmetics shop (why would a subscription based game have a cash shop?), and ridiculous races. Everything of course to grab more $$$ before the game dies while also covering up the fact that you don't want to / can't fix the underlying, growing, issues with the game.

WoW's next expansion needs to focus on GAME DESIGN.

This should be done through well thought out, cohesive, long lasting (no borrowed abilities), non-gimmicky (essences), class design which build on player complexity and intricacies (+30 abilities which interact with one another like in WotLK/Cata/MoP), controllability (not RNG), smoothness instead of clunkiness (powershifting, cast while moving, short cast times etc), and agency (utility and cc), and not on some pruned "class fantasy".

Systems wise the game need to re-design and make systems that are fun and give choice and control to players without feeling inhibiting (i.e. not covenants) not maximizing the playtime metrics (i.e. not RNGesus).

Though, I have almost no hope that game design will triumph business decisions. We're far beyond the point where fun and "good game design" wins any important battles over "well it will make us more money" at Blizzard regarding WoW.

[kaminaris]

Because that would be a spit in the face to the game's loyal customers. What the game most certainly does not need is yet another cash grab hero class to divert people's attention from the real problems with the game (if so only for the first ~3 months of the new expansion).

WoW needs to stop being treated like a cash grab by its owners (Blizzard & Activision). WoW is starting to look more and more like some ridiculous Chinese P2W MMORPG with the abundance of underwhelming classes, P2W gold and cosmetics shop (why would a subscription based game have a cash shop?), and ridiculous races. Everything of course to grab more $$$ before the game dies while also covering up the fact that you don't want to / can't fix the underlying, growing, issues with the game.

WoW's next expansion needs to focus on GAME DESIGN.

This should be done through well thought out, cohesive, long lasting (no borrowed abilities), non-gimmicky (essences), class design which build on player complexity and intricacies (+30 abilities which interact with one another like in WotLK/Cata/MoP), controllability (not RNG), smoothness instead of clunkiness (powershifting, cast while moving, short cast times etc), and agency (utility and cc), and not on some pruned "class fantasy".

Systems wise the game need to re-design and make systems that are fun and give choice and control to players without feeling inhibiting (i.e. not covenants) not maximizing the playtime metrics (i.e. not RNGesus).

Though, I have almost no hope that game design will triumph business decisions. We're far beyond the point where fun and "good game design" wins any important battles over "well it will make us more money" at Blizzard regarding WoW.

Bunch of nonsense buzzwords without any real meaning.

We are not getting any long lasting abilities
we are getting borrowed power covenant abilities
nothing permanent

Couple of old abilities coming back, nothing grand
class design is mostly the same
And no matter what blizzard does people will always whine cause it doesn't match their vision of class design.

AND NO NEW CLASS.

[MHMabrito]

I'd say that the more classes they add the harder it becomes to balance the game. They already struggle with balance as it is. More classes just make the equation more complicated.

I love this argument. Balance has never been stronger than it is now - are we playing the same game?

[RelaZ]

Bunch of nonsense buzzwords without any real meaning.

We are not getting any long lasting abilities
we are getting borrowed power covenant abilities
nothing permanent

Couple of old abilities coming back, nothing grand
class design is mostly the same
And no matter what blizzard does people will always whine cause it doesn't match their vision of class design.

AND NO NEW CLASS.

No, it's not buzzwords, just because you cannot comprehend it that does not mean it doesn't have "any real meaning".

I'm saying what Blizzard should be doing - and it is not looking like they're doing it with Shadowlands. Honestly I have no idea what they're doing with Shadowlands, a whole bunch of nothing and a tiny bit of unpruning sprinkled on top?

But a new class is not what they should be doing with this expansion regardless.

[kaminaris]

No, it's not buzzwords, just because you cannot comprehend it that does not mean it doesn't have "any real meaning".

I'm saying what Blizzard should be doing - and it is not looking like they're doing it with Shadowlands. Honestly I have no idea what they're doing with Shadowlands, a whole bunch of nothing and a tiny bit of unpruning sprinkled on top?

But a new class is not what they should be doing with this expansion regardless.

No it's you who can't comprehend what you wrote is just your opinions and people can have entirely different one.

"what blizzard should be doing" is another "just your opinion".
While I say they should be adding new class and not have covenant abilities, instead another talent row + bringing back glyphs (reworking them).

[Malikath]

No, it's not buzzwords, just because you cannot comprehend it that does not mean it doesn't have "any real meaning".

I'm saying what Blizzard should be doing - and it is not looking like they're doing it with Shadowlands. Honestly I have no idea what they're doing with Shadowlands, a whole bunch of nothing and a tiny bit of unpruning sprinkled on top?

But a new class is not what they should be doing with this expansion regardless.

you're not gonna get through to him, he's one of the die-hard post-wod fanatics.

[blankfaced]

I'd say that the more classes they add the harder it becomes to balance the game. They already struggle with balance as it is. More classes just make the equation more complicated.

Really? They had more trouble with class balance in vanilla than they do now in my opinion.

[Swnem]

Honestly? Cause they are still trying to unscrew the mess they made with Legion, and because they don't like sales, apparantly.

[Kelathos]

Theory...

Legion: Blizzard built class design around artifact weapons.
BFA: Blizzard gut and damaged many classes with the removal of artifact weapons.
Shadow: Blizzard panics after having no idea what went so horribly wrong, fears they can't handle a new class or even new specs at this time.

[Rhozul]

Theory...

Legion: Blizzard built class design around artifact weapons.
BFA: Blizzard gut and damaged many classes with the removal of artifact weapons.
Shadow: Blizzard panics after having no idea what went so horribly wrong, fears they can't handle a new class or even new specs at this time.

I largely agree with this, except I'd revise Shadowlands to:

Shadowlands: Blizzard realizes that they gutted all of their classes in BFA and only got about 2/3 of them feeling good with the addition of essences and key azerite traits, which they are removing in Shadowlands. In attempting to avoid the cycle of broken classes, they've decided to repair the game's 36-ish specs rather than add 3 new ones.

[dewd]

new classes needs devs and they fired 800 just a year ago. not only are they overwhelmed with even making the current ones playable as seen in bfa but adding another 3 specs would be even more of a shitshow.

[kaminaris]

I largely agree with this, except I'd revise Shadowlands to:

Shadowlands: Blizzard realizes that they gutted all of their classes in BFA and only got about 2/3 of them feeling good with the addition of essences and key azerite traits, which they are removing in Shadowlands. In attempting to avoid the cycle of broken classes, they've decided to repair the game's 36-ish specs rather than add 3 new ones.

Refinement again:
Shadowlands: Blizzard realized that classes they gutted in Legion and patched by rental power gear (artifact, legiondaries) needs to be upgraded again so they are adding yet another rental power faction reputation grind but at the start of expansion instead of mid way (essences).

Which at the end of the day will have the same issue as legion had and BfA will have = people bitching about classes and loosing things cause thats what we will get from relaying on rental power.

- - - Updated - - -

new classes needs devs and they fired 800 just a year ago. not only are they overwhelmed with even making the current ones playable as seen in bfa but adding another 3 specs would be even more of a shitshow.

BfA class design is legion class design minus rental power gear. And it will be shitshow regardless.

[Kyphael]

Theory...

Legion: Blizzard built class design around artifact weapons.
BFA: Blizzard gut and damaged many classes with the removal of artifact weapons.
Shadow: Blizzard panics after having no idea what went so horribly wrong, fears they can't handle a new class or even new specs at this time.

Pretty much. This whole class balance crisis is completely generated by Blizzard's very own design.

[Capultro]

to earn more money. From now on, fill expansions will come, and, rarely will it bring anything really interesting ... the bad thing about all this is that Blizzard has many fans, that they will always pre-buy all the new expansions they will be doing So, guys, this problem has no solution.

[Brocksley]

I think they were planning on dark rangers. They made male ones, then they made night elf ones, they showed a tank form in dark wardens, a dps in rangers, and a healer in banshees, then they gave the night elf ones a leader, then they had sylvanas go neutral. It seems like it was a pretty logical progression to dark rangers. But I think they scrapped it to save development time because they had to divert a bunch of resources for shadowlands to try and fix the train wreck of BFA.

[huth]

then they had sylvanas go neutral.

"I want to kill everybody" isn't neutral.

[Phurox]

I both get excited and feared by the shadow lands class changes.

I hate how they destroyed my combat Rogue, my main since classic, but actually quite enjoy fury warrior. So I hope they fix the rogue but fear they fuck up my fury warrior.

[docterfreeze]

They could barely cobble together demon hunters in legion, you really think they can make another new class? DH had to take a bunch of abilities and mechanics from other classes they still could only come up with two specs.

[Teriz]

They could barely cobble together demon hunters in legion, you really think they can make another new class? DH had to take a bunch of abilities and mechanics from other classes they still could only come up with two specs.

There's actually plenty of material for a Tinker class. Not only do you have WC3 and HotS abilities, but abilities from various mech NPCs throughout WoW. Coming up with 3-4 unique specs shouldn't be an issue. You can't really say that with any other WoW-related class concept.

[Swnem]

Apparantly cause devs think they need time to fix what they broke for no reason. Not that theres any garantee they will.

So, we can speculate that it's cause the game is in decline and the budget was cut and the xpac features reduced.