WoW into the future

[Verzen]

So a little bit of background. I have been playing mmorpgs since before MMOrpgs were a thing. I started on MUDS in middle school. Everquest came out and I hopped on to that. I killed Quarm in a plane of time guild. I switched to EQ2, then WOW shortly after that. I raided Ragnaros and BWL before I took a break and came back during BC. Stuck around off and on since.

One of the major traps MMORPGs fall into is the syndrome of balance. NO ONE does it right and the strive toward balance ultimately begins to make all classes feel the same. Sure. Button X does damage Y. And it's called something else. But every class in that category has button X that causes damage Y. In the beginning WoW had something interesting. Immunities mattered. You dont bring a fire mage into BWL. You dont bring a frost mage into Naxx.

But due to the strive for balance in all things, the game slipped away from an RPG into more of a competitive E sport when only 1% of the player base even competes at that level and literally everything revolves around this. In order to try to keep the casuals engaged, Blizzard threw down dailies and grinds to give us the illusion of progress. Skinners box as it were. The game drifted away from the feel of an RPG into something else entirely.

When death knights started out with their own version of reincarnated where they became a ghoul... that was both flavorful and fun. They removed it due to a balance issue but what that really did was that the class became more bland.

Throughout the expansion we saw other classes get their gimmicks removed as well. No more auras. Totems are less meaningful. No more poisons. Eventually every class began to feel the same. In the strive toward balance, WoW lost its soul.

If WoW wants to strive toward the future, they will keep this in mind. Make the game FUN. Dailies arent fun. They are a chore. Rep grind isnt fun. It's a chore. It's a lazy fix to a developmental problem. We must start at the base and that's redesigning all the classes and making their designs meaningful.

I want to bring a paladin because I want devotion aura. Cool.

Let's bring a death knight because they have offensive auras or maybe vampiric aura. Or perhaps give unholy back their "phase 2" ghoul ability.

Make WEAPON DAMAGE matter again. Not just stats so warriors wielding two handed weapons in one hand feels EPIC again like in BC.

Design and focus around classes so they are fun to play. Stop worrying so much about balance where you need to get rid of iconic or fun niche abilities that may make you seek out a specific class.

Make each class as diverse and interesting as can be and part ways away from the bland sameness all classes feel like.

This is the same reason EQ2 failed. I've been against extreme balance my entire life. Let's focus on the fun of the game rather than the competitiveness that appeals to the 1%...

[Relapses]

Good thing WoW's playerbase is unanimous in its definition of "fun." And thankfully their opinions are 100% identical to yours!

edit: Ability pruning and class homogenization didn't ruin the game. It made it more fun for people who play the game differently than you. I don't agree with all of the changes Blizzard has made over the years but there's a certain something to be said about a game that doesn't necessarily need to have a 200-page spell book to play optimally. "Easy to learn, hard to master" seems to be the angle Blizzard has taken with the game lately and while it isn't always 100% successful (see: Hunters) there's enough nuance to keep the game entertaining for players at all skill levels.

[Verzen]

Good thing WoW's playerbase is unanimous in its definition of "fun." And thankfully their opinions are 100% identical to yours!

edit: Ability pruning and class homogenization didn't ruin the game. It made it more fun for people who play the game differently than you. I don't agree with all of the changes Blizzard has made over the years but there's a certain something to be said about a game that doesn't necessarily need to have a 200-page spell book to play optimally. "Easy to learn, hard to master" seems to be the angle Blizzard has taken with the game lately and while it isn't always 100% successful (see: Hunters) there's enough nuance to keep the game entertaining for players at all skill levels.

Incorrect. All classes began to feel the same. I'm strictly talking about utility as well. Not pushing buttons. But utility. Passives make the class interesting. Things like auras, or DKs ghoul on death ability. In no way am I advocating for confusing rotations.

[Relapses]

Incorrect. All classes began to feel the same. I'm strictly talking about utility as well. Not pushing buttons. But utility. Passives make the class interesting. Things like auras, or DKs ghoul on death ability. In no way am I advocating for confusing rotations.

I never mentioned confusion once. At some point, however, button bloat is a legitimate concern and not everything that the game had in the past should always 100% be carried over into the future. You keep mentioning specific things that Blizzard removed and refer to them as "interesting," or "fun" as if all players share the same sentiment you do. Blizzard has to appease a very wide swath of players and as much as ability pruning might suck from the standpoint of somebody who may have enjoyed the gameplay of certain removed elements in the game, it has to be reasoned that their removal wasn't simply "because fuck you" (as many on this forum will tell you), but rather because the developers wanted to make the game as accessible as possible.

[swatsonqt]

So a little bit of background. I have been playing mmorpgs since before MMOrpgs were a thing. I started on MUDS in middle school. Everquest came out and I hopped on to that. I killed Quarm in a plane of time guild. I switched to EQ2, then WOW shortly after that. I raided Ragnaros and BWL before I took a break and came back during BC. Stuck around off and on since.

One of the major traps MMORPGs fall into is the syndrome of balance. NO ONE does it right and the strive toward balance ultimately begins to make all classes feel the same. Sure. Button X does damage Y. And it's called something else. But every class in that category has button X that causes damage Y. In the beginning WoW had something interesting. Immunities mattered. You dont bring a fire mage into BWL. You dont bring a frost mage into Naxx.

But due to the strive for balance in all things, the game slipped away from an RPG into more of a competitive E sport when only 1% of the player base even competes at that level and literally everything revolves around this. In order to try to keep the casuals engaged, Blizzard threw down dailies and grinds to give us the illusion of progress. Skinners box as it were. The game drifted away from the feel of an RPG into something else entirely.

When death knights started out with their own version of reincarnated where they became a ghoul... that was both flavorful and fun. They removed it due to a balance issue but what that really did was that the class became more bland.

Throughout the expansion we saw other classes get their gimmicks removed as well. No more auras. Totems are less meaningful. No more poisons. Eventually every class began to feel the same. In the strive toward balance, WoW lost its soul.

If WoW wants to strive toward the future, they will keep this in mind. Make the game FUN. Dailies arent fun. They are a chore. Rep grind isnt fun. It's a chore. It's a lazy fix to a developmental problem. We must start at the base and that's redesigning all the classes and making their designs meaningful.

I want to bring a paladin because I want devotion aura. Cool.

Let's bring a death knight because they have offensive auras or maybe vampiric aura. Or perhaps give unholy back their "phase 2" ghoul ability.

Make WEAPON DAMAGE matter again. Not just stats so warriors wielding two handed weapons in one hand feels EPIC again like in BC.

Design and focus around classes so they are fun to play. Stop worrying so much about balance where you need to get rid of iconic or fun niche abilities that may make you seek out a specific class.

Make each class as diverse and interesting as can be and part ways away from the bland sameness all classes feel like.

This is the same reason EQ2 failed. I've been against extreme balance my entire life. Let's focus on the fun of the game rather than the competitiveness that appeals to the 1%...

yeah listen to him. Make wow fun again and yeet balance out of the window. At least the game will be fun for that one particular class that is running around "having fun being op af". That will probably be good for everybody else because they wont get invited for some reason...

best plan to safe the game 0/10 would not recommend

[Verzen]

yeah listen to him. Make wow fun again and yeet balance out of the window. At least the game will be fun for that one particular class that is running around "having fun being op af". That will probably be good for everybody else because they wont get invited for some reason...

best plan to safe the game 0/10 would not recommend

I never once said make one class OP. Please don't purposefully be obtuse.

Each class should have abilities that make them unique and help differentiate them even if they aren't 100% balanced because when you STRIVE for 100% balance, the only way to get complete balance is if everything is the same and that gets boring.

- - - Updated - - -

Here let me put it in a language you guys might find more palatable.

How can you balance two different things when they do two entirely different functions?

For example. Druids use to be the only ones with battle res. Shamans had self battle res. Both were unique and interesting/cool. Druid could use it on others. Shaman could only use it on self. Shamans had heroism and were the ONLY ones with hero.

Now they give their unique abilities to death knights to res others and heroism now can be used by hunters and mages. They literally balanced it by making all the utility the class brings to be more ubiquitous so classes began to feel the same.

You cannot balance, say, an aura that reduces all damage by 10% as a fun defensive utility with the death knights reincarnate ghoul ability. You just can't.

Same with battle res, heroism etc etc etc. Giving those unique staples to multiple different classes in an attempt to "balance" things is lazy design. Give each class unique and interesting utility to help maintain a differentiation between the classes.

But hell, what do I know? I've only had over two decades of MMORPG experience.

[Gaidax]

Incorrect. All classes began to feel the same. I'm strictly talking about utility as well. Not pushing buttons. But utility. Passives make the class interesting. Things like auras, or DKs ghoul on death ability. In no way am I advocating for confusing rotations.

That's like BS.

I know people like pushing that meme, but seriously take DK and DH and tell me how these two feel the same.

All classes have some similarities like inevitable filler ability you press when you have nothing else. Sure Destrolock and Fire Mage both have literally same spell in Incinerate and Fireball (coefficients not withstanding), but the playstyle, perks, resource systems, abilities - all are VASTLY different.

[ecospherez]

Sorry but nah, whilst i agree some unprunning needs to happen to add some flavor, i do not agree that it should come at the expense of balance.

Absolutely nothing feels the same when playing a shaman or a warrior in the current game.

Also, adding things like bloodlust to other classes was a good idea, there is nothing fun about having to bring a shaman to everything because you need it. This comes from someone who mains a shaman.

No one other than role players want to play a class that is shitter at tanking/healing/dpsing than others because of poor balance just because you can do something zaney on it.

[Ragnarohk]

Snip

I agree that unique abilities were a nice thing. But balance in this era is important.

Look at how Rogues had instant invites over any other DPS in Mythic+ because of Shroud. It made them unique yet mandatory. They have to be really careful when they give a unique tool to a class.

[Darkarath]

Sorry OP but I disagree with you. Balance is necessary, It will never be perfect, but hell I prefer what we have now than those days when I would not get invited to anything because I played a Ret Paladín.

Plus every class and every spec feel, honestly, different to me. I am not saying that all of them are fun, or well made, with good rotations, but no, they do not feel the same at all.

I am super excited to see what they do in Shadowlands. They definitively went crazy in Legion, focusing too much in make every spec unique, but it made sense at that point because Artifact Weapons were a thing, and It was a blast to try all of them. But I really feel that, at least for a couple of expansions, a class should be centered around core skills for all specs, with each spec adding new important ones, but keeping the essence of the class in all of them.

I do not know if this approach would be perfect for all classes, for example, I like that fire mages have only fire spells, but hopefully they will give us that option through talents.

[Tausfer]

Eventually every class began to feel the same.

[swatsonqt]

I never once said make one class OP. Please don't purposefully be obtuse.

Each class should have abilities that make them unique and help differentiate them even if they aren't 100% balanced because when you STRIVE for 100% balance, the only way to get complete balance is if everything is the same and that gets boring.

- - - Updated - - -

Here let me put it in a language you guys might find more palatable.

How can you balance two different things when they do two entirely different functions?

For example. Druids use to be the only ones with battle res. Shamans had self battle res. Both were unique and interesting/cool. Druid could use it on others. Shaman could only use it on self. Shamans had heroism and were the ONLY ones with hero.

Now they give their unique abilities to death knights to res others and heroism now can be used by hunters and mages. They literally balanced it by making all the utility the class brings to be more ubiquitous so classes began to feel the same.

You cannot balance, say, an aura that reduces all damage by 10% as a fun defensive utility with the death knights reincarnate ghoul ability. You just can't.

Same with battle res, heroism etc etc etc. Giving those unique staples to multiple different classes in an attempt to "balance" things is lazy design. Give each class unique and interesting utility to help maintain a differentiation between the classes.

But hell, what do I know? I've only had over two decades of MMORPG experience.

yeah and in the old model druids were probably better than shamans because they could rezz the one who died. Nobody wanted a shaman because druid was way stronger. So you just benched the shaman in order to make the druids kit more fun. go ask the shaman how he feels about it.

Niche abilities are cool and stuff but we just came to a place in wow where being cool ist not desirable. You have to be the #1 in the meters. you have to clear the hc raid asap. otherwise you "lost the race" because we ourselves made every event in the game a race.. so whats the plan here to fix that? oh yeah. give 1 particular class a headstart...