Why are classes being ignored in Shadowlands in favor of new systems?

[KrayZ33]

what makes "good class design", sounds real feelycraft to me. How can you say new stuff has gotten more love then class designs?
What metric are you using to compare the 2?
number of changes made? of course the new system is gonna get tons of tweek its new unless you want them to reinvent classes every expac.

This.

On top of that, borrowed powers can actually push or kill a talent choice, so it's not even like they are not connected to each other.

And some classes and specs have been reworked about every other expansion by now, so the whole premise of this thread is already flawed.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

They aren’t being ignored there have been quite a few blue post of feed back taken into account for some of the worse off classes and many classes are getting changes rather that be new ranks added to spells or spells being unprunded.

Rather then should go further vary’s from person to person and when so many give such non feedback as “classes suck” it’s much harder for blizzard to make actual changes that people
Will like.

[Swnem]

I agree and have been saying it for a while. We got class systems already established to provide class growth and customisation.
This rental power business is a waste of everyone's time.

Yes, people don't like prunings, but that is only cause there were no new cool abilities added.

[cocomen2]

"Sheeps" like Preach?

Ok, now I understand what kind of thread it is. Have fun.

Another slave of streamer here to serve.... can you not say his name atleast one day?

[Nerovar]

Get the classes to a good spot, THEN do your borrowed powers bullshit, Blizz.

The problem is: Blizzard thinks that this is a good spot for the classes to be in.

They aren’t being ignored there have been quite a few blue post of feed back taken into account for some of the worse off classes and many classes are getting changes rather that be new ranks added to spells or spells being unprunded.

Rather then should go further vary’s from person to person and when so many give such non feedback as “classes suck” it’s much harder for blizzard to make actual changes that people
Will like.

I think part of the problem is that most people can't articulate in detail what they feel is missing from the class they're playing or what should be there because at the end of the day they're not game devs. Pointing out that "classes suck" should suffice for Blizzard to revisit classes especially when it's coupled to "class was better in patch x.x". I mean, the Legion redesigns certainly weren't based on player feedback and they managed to pull it off (for better or for worse).

It's the same deal as with the GCD changes. It shouldn't be expected from players who think "GCD change was bad" to provide detailed case-by-case arguments for every single spell that was affected. I think this is a really dumb way to obfuscate the fact that Blizzard is doing very little in that regard while still maintaining the appearance of caring about these concerns.

[Sharnie786]

Everyone always forgets Aecane. Spriest and Shamans at least get mentioned, Arcane hasn't been mentioned by anyone in forever. The last time it was mentioned was in HFC when it was broken. Since then it's been bottom tier every tier.

[VinceVega]

I don't think classes are as bad as people make them out to be. Not even Shadowpriests. And yes i do play them... well played i am in a break until the prepatch right now.
I rather they make small changes here and there than reinvent them every expansion, which by the way everyone complained too.

I play Moonkin as a Main and i have to relearn my class from scratch basically EVERY expansion including SL. Granted i am not a fan of how it is right now but it is not bad by any means.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

I mean let's be honest, the answer is simple.

It's innovation for innovation's sake; they just keep reinventing the wheel every expansion because they are selling something "new". That's its worth. It's new and shiny and obsolete by the time next expansion's system comes around. They are literally systems with an expiration date and that has been true since Legion... this is WoW now, each expansion with its own borrowed power system.

[Gardoc]

Yeah I don't get it either why they had to ruin classes with the Legion pruning and then decide that this shitty class design is their foundation for all the new xpacs. They had almost perfect class design in MoP, every class was fun and awesome, skill ceiling was high. They should have used it as a foundation and put their borrowed powers on top of that. But no, they had to destroy everything and stick with it.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

The problem is: Blizzard thinks that this is a good spot for the classes to be in.



I think part of the problem is that most people can't articulate in detail what they feel is missing from the class they're playing or what should be there because at the end of the day they're not game devs. Pointing out that "classes suck" should suffice for Blizzard to revisit classes especially when it's coupled to "class was better in patch x.x". I mean, the Legion redesigns certainly weren't based on player feedback and they managed to pull it off (for better or for worse).

It's the same deal as with the GCD changes. It shouldn't be expected from players who think "GCD change was bad" to provide detailed case-by-case arguments for every single spell that was affected. I think this is a really dumb way to obfuscate the fact that Blizzard is doing very little in that regard while still maintaining the appearance of caring about these concerns.

That’s the thing classes have already been revised Many people either aren’t aware as in evident in this thread or stick to the same “this sucks” which tells blizzard nothing of what they should do to actually fix any thing. Even things like “it was better in x.0-4 is non feedback as it tells you nothing of what actually made it better then or what could be done to bring it back to that baring a just flat copy paste which they will never do.

[Watchers]

Funny, Ion said in a video explicitly that they are aware of the shitty class design of BFA and will fix it in SL. And they brought back Holinka.

And yet, here we are. Another expansion of the same lies, same bullshit power ups, same stick on carrot, grinding and grinding and grinding. Funny enough, all your efforts will be meaningless in 2 patches, when they introduce catch up mechanics.

Really stupid game design imo.

i agree, this can be THE REAL wow killer, imo.

Never happened, every expansion was fresh air

[A Chozo]

1 - Classes are "old news", new systems and features attract more players. For most players the classes work fine anyway.
2 - You'll buy the game anyway so there's no need to tinker much with classes.

[Nerovar]

That’s the thing classes have already been revised Many people either aren’t aware as in evident in this thread or stick to the same “this sucks” which tells blizzard nothing of what they should do to actually fix any thing. Even things like “it was better in x.0-4 is non feedback as it tells you nothing of what actually made it better then or what could be done to bring it back to that baring a just flat copy paste which they will never do.

Like I said: it's not the player's job to think about solutions. If they are unsatisfied, that should be enough for Blizzard to make up their mind and try to fix it. If they get specific targeted feedback that's good but it shouldn't be expected or even a requirement for meaningful change. With that line of thinking they're pretty much digging their own graves because it simply shows that they're out of touch.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Like I said: it's not the player's job to think about solutions. If they are unsatisfied, that should be enough for Blizzard to make up their mind and try to fix it. If they get specific targeted feedback that's good but it shouldn't be expected or even a requirement for meaningful change. With that line of thinking they're pretty much digging their own graves because it simply shows that they're out of touch.

No it’s not the players job but when they give useless feed back they shouldn’t be surprised when things don’t change they way they want them to.

Blizzard can’t implement specialized fixes when the problem are Never made clear so that only leaves them to blindly try fixes in the dev time they have and if players don’t like those fixes there is nothing they can do but blindly try another set when they can.

[Nerovar]

Blizzard can’t implement specialized fixes when the problem are Never made clear so that only leaves them to blindly try fixes in the dev time they have and if players don’t like those fixes there is nothing they can do but blindly try another set when they can.

The thing is: they really didn't change much at all and that is indefensible. They can't possibly believe that all the complaints about pruning and botched class design we've heard in the last 4 years could be fixed by readding a few flavour abilities. This isn't an honest attempt at alleviating these concerns - it's more like throwing a bone to the players by once again doing the bare minimum.

[rrayy]

Because Blizzard doesn't listen to feedback.

Class design has been the single most consistently complained about aspect of WoW since WoD. It's also gotten significantly less love than borrowed power bullshit since Legion. They just don't seem to give a shit, tbh.

Blizzard absolutely does listen to all feedback. Not bowing to your demands and catering solely to you does not = not listening. It means they don't agree with you.

[taishar68]

The problem is: Blizzard thinks that this is a good spot for the classes to be in.



I think part of the problem is that most people can't articulate in detail what they feel is missing from the class they're playing or what should be there because at the end of the day they're not game devs. Pointing out that "classes suck" should suffice for Blizzard to revisit classes especially when it's coupled to "class was better in patch x.x". I mean, the Legion redesigns certainly weren't based on player feedback and they managed to pull it off (for better or for worse).

It's the same deal as with the GCD changes. It shouldn't be expected from players who think "GCD change was bad" to provide detailed case-by-case arguments for every single spell that was affected. I think this is a really dumb way to obfuscate the fact that Blizzard is doing very little in that regard while still maintaining the appearance of caring about these concerns.

I don't think you need to be a game developer to offer good feedback, and I don't see how "class X sucks" is enough feedback to work with.

Say you open a restaurant, and you get a bad Yelp review. The comment says "food sucked", and that's it. How do you know how to fix that problem? Was the food too salty? too Sweet? Cold? Hot? etc. Vague feedback is useless.

But, as I said, you don't need to be a game dev to offer constructive feedback. Here is a real world example:

I don't like the way Arcane Mage plays, and haven't since Cataclysm. I hate having to manage mana, a useless meta game that adds a layer of friction on top of complex encounters or encounters that require quick action. I think some talent choices don't add any fun but are the best in theory and if you can't play them than you are not playing the class to its optimum level.

I know absolutely zero about game design, even though I think I have a vague concept. "Is my feedback "right"? I guarantee you few players agree with me, or at least publicly, since saying you think something is too complex is like saying you have a small, uh..., but that is just my subjective feedback. To be clear I am not suggesting they change arcane for me; I am old and slow and half blind, but if you asked me about the spec, that is how I feel about it.

But that is something a game developer can look at and say "I see how this guy feels, and why, he does have a small unit!" Just kidding. But that is a far cry different than me saying "arcane sucks".

[docterfreeze]

I watched reaction of people in Alpha and they were fine with most specs beside some outliers like Feral or Shadow. Something happened or it's another "classes are in terrible state" pointless thread?

People say MM is good because it currently deals good damage in beta. To anyone who has played MM for multiple expansions it has many obvious problems in both PvE and PvP. Can't just take "x is fine y is bad" at face value.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

The thing is: they really didn't change much at all and that is indefensible. They can't possibly believe that all the complaints about pruning and botched class design we've heard in the last 4 years could be fixed by readding a few flavour abilities. This isn't an honest attempt at alleviating these concerns - it's more like throwing a bone to the players by once again doing the bare minimum.

But they have made meaningful changes if you want more then have already been made you need specifics not just nebulous claims by people who likely haven’t even looked at the changes.

Let’s use hunter as an example as there the class I’m most interested in. Of course not at a high end level though.

Baseline Abilities: Arcane Shot, Eyes of the Beast, Hunter’s Mark, Kill Shot, Scare Beast, and Tranquilizing Shot

Eyes of the beast is of course useles flavour and arcane may or may not be useful to bm and Sv depending on numbers. But hunters mark is something you’ll always use and have to recast on target switching fights. Kill shot will change your execute rotation scare beast will likely be useful in M+ and pvp tranq shot will be useful all over the place. Theses are just the class wide changes and there things you will use all the time. Each spec then has multiple talent changes which change gameplay further which you can see here.


https://www.wowhead.com/shadowlands-...-class-changes


Should they make further changes? Maybe but without specified feed back They can only do so much.

Oh and I just saw that apparently shadow priest were Reworked. No idea if this is better or worse as I’ve never really played one but it seems pretty meaningful from my comply ignorant view.

https://www.wowhead.com/news=317236/...hanges?webhook

[docterfreeze]

The legion redesigns were a tragedy. So much depth lost, the skill cap lowered to a level not seen since classic or tbc. For reasons only they know it's what they're choosing to stick with for 3 expansions. At least for the first time since MoP we're gaining more permanent abilities than we're losing.

They think classes having too many strengths from too many buttons is a problem so that's why almost all time which would be spent improving classes is instead spent on improving rental abilities. I just disagree with their philosophy. I like my class being able to do lots of things much more than I like feeling like a snowflake.