Shadowlands: Why won't blizzard bring back uniqueness?

[Grimbold21]

Then you have the reverse.

Since you mentioned shamans, let's go with the usual memes. Gust of wind being removed cause it turns out it was very similar to blink, and they can't have that.

Now picture in your mind all the different tools that different classes have for that type of action (shortening the distance), and see if it's not easy to make the similarity argument.

After all, as Enhancement I can basically spec into a Charge (Warrior/druid).

[ognomad]

Its so odd seeing the duality of the playerbase and it often shows on this forum quite well. I remember seeing a post that said bosses are too simple and don't have enough mechanics right next to another post that said bosses are too difficult and have too many mechanics.

This post here is another one of those posts where I keep seeing people talk about how they're de-homogenizing too much and its causing issues with spec representation and going back to a "bring the class not the player" mentality. And then there's this post claiming that everything is too homogenized and they need to go back to de-homogenizing despite that being what blizzard has been doing for 2 going on 3 xpacs now.

Its so so odd.

Remember back in the day when you use to wipe on trash?

[Kithelle]

Excuse me for typo in title: Breng = Bring obviously.

I would like to discuss the following evolution the game has been through: Classes do not have any unique flavour left in their toolkit, even items nowadays can do things that normally only some classes could. (a good example are the drums that give bloodlust, orginally only reserved for Shamans)

Wouldn't it be amazing to see some unique flavour back in the shadowlands. Why won't blizzard let one class excell in some shape or form and be less good in other aspects of the game. Is it because blizzard wants to appeal to a broader audience by homonisation of skills? Maybe.

If classes have something that distinguishes them and makes them valuable it truly feels more like an MMO to me. So Blizzard should further unprune stuff and make new unique abilities or skills for classes to make WoW feel like an true MMO again.

How cool is it that only mages could blink, you see a mage blink and it felt special and what about a priest that has one unique very powerfull prayer of healing effect but the other classes dont, these classes can have something else awesome. Why do classes need so much overlap between them nowadays.

My question for you guys: opinions on how to implement more uniqueness in Shadowlands for the classes?

Because...they try not to force anything upon you.

Like with Bloodlust...it's great...every raid worth anything has a Shaman/Mage, right? Well that means any raid or non pug worth a pinch of salt is required to take a Shaman or Mage with them...that's why

You give to many "unique" things then a group is required to pick/force someone to play a spec just for these unique things....we don't have 50 mans anymore where the raid can be loaded with everything.

It's not perfect but it's what we got.

[NineSpine]

No, it's because they didn't want to be in a situation where they had to plan encounters around requiring certain classes.

That just brings up another design problem: The insistence that all encounters must be played according to the designer's script, rather than allowing players to use the tools available to defeat encounters. The prescriptive nature of the design is ultimately the same problem the OP is talking about. WoW was not originally designed this way. It was originally designed such that you would be given a wide toolkit filled with situational, unique abilities, and the "rotation" you played would ultimately be a consequence of your spec, gear, etc. as well as the design of the encounter and even your personal playstyle.

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Because...they try not to force anything upon you.

Like with Bloodlust...it's great...every raid worth anything has a Shaman/Mage, right? Well that means any raid or non pug worth a pinch of salt is required to take a Shaman or Mage with them...that's why

You give to many "unique" things then a group is required to pick/force someone to play a spec just for these unique things....we don't have 50 mans anymore where the raid can be loaded with everything.

It's not perfect but it's what we got.

Instead we just get people bullying people into specs based on raw performance, rather than based on a desire to exploit mechanics in interesting ways that make the player feel like its their moment to shine and provide a special utility to the group.

No problem was actually solved here.

[Whiskeyjac]

That just brings up another design problem: The insistence that all encounters must be played according to the designer's script, rather than allowing players to use the tools available to defeat encounters. The prescriptive nature of the design is ultimately the same problem the OP is talking about. WoW was not originally designed this way. It was originally designed such that you would be given a wide toolkit filled with situational, unique abilities, and the "rotation" you played would ultimately be a consequence of your spec, gear, etc. as well as the design of the encounter and even your personal playstyle.

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Instead we just get people bullying people into specs based on raw performance, rather than based on a desire to exploit mechanics in interesting ways that make the player feel like its their moment to shine and provide a special utility to the group.

No problem was actually solved here.

When was it designed this way?

As early as late vanilla you needed certain classes in order to succeed.. To my knowledge wow has never ever been a star fits into the triangle hole kind of game.

[Luxeley]

At the start of Cata Blizzard shifted their philos with "bring the player, not the class." This change in philos slowly moved the classes towards Homoginization and the same philos gained momentum in MOP and WOD. Legion offered a little bit less Homoginization and a declared move away from "bring the player, not the class" but clearly not enough of a move. But then Blizzard went full throttle on Homoginization with BFA with dumb ideas like Corrupted gear and Essences. That explains the move but as far as the underlying philos... I can only speculate.

Blizzard doesn't like the class design in Vanilla where certain classes flat out SUCK at raiding. And, the purpose those sucky classes do facilitate perform the underrated and unlikable role of "pure" support ei - Ret Paladin. Support in any shape or form (outside of maybe Pvp) is something the overwhelming majority of players do NOT desire in WOW and that is why all the classes are designed and built for DPS without room for uniqueness.

[FelPlague]

Excuse me for typo in title: Breng = Bring obviously.

I would like to discuss the following evolution the game has been through: Classes do not have any unique flavour left in their toolkit, even items nowadays can do things that normally only some classes could. (a good example are the drums that give bloodlust, orginally only reserved for Shamans)

Wouldn't it be amazing to see some unique flavour back in the shadowlands. Why won't blizzard let one class excell in some shape or form and be less good in other aspects of the game. Is it because blizzard wants to appeal to a broader audience by homonisation of skills? Maybe.

If classes have something that distinguishes them and makes them valuable it truly feels more like an MMO to me. So Blizzard should further unprune stuff and make new unique abilities or skills for classes to make WoW feel like an true MMO again.

How cool is it that only mages could blink, you see a mage blink and it felt special and what about a priest that has one unique very powerfull prayer of healing effect but the other classes dont, these classes can have something else awesome. Why do classes need so much overlap between them nowadays.

My question for you guys: opinions on how to implement more uniqueness in Shadowlands for the classes?

Sounds like what they are TRYING to do with covenents, and people want that removed.

seems you got your answer there.
blizz has said many times they want specific specs and classes to be special at things, but then the players get mads and demand they be able to do it too.
its literally pull the ripcord, blizz wants players to feel unique, but players want to be able to be good at everything.

[Selastan]

Its so odd seeing the duality of the playerbase and it often shows on this forum quite well. I remember seeing a post that said bosses are too simple and don't have enough mechanics right next to another post that said bosses are too difficult and have too many mechanics.

This post here is another one of those posts where I keep seeing people talk about how they're de-homogenizing too much and its causing issues with spec representation and going back to a "bring the class not the player" mentality. And then there's this post claiming that everything is too homogenized and they need to go back to de-homogenizing despite that being what blizzard has been doing for 2 going on 3 xpacs now.

Its so so odd.

Two different kinds of players. Blizzard tries to please both, despite both wanting the exact opposite of the other, ends up underwhelming both of them. I really want them to pick a side, even if I am afraid that it isn't going to be mine.

[NineSpine]

When was it designed this way?

As early as late vanilla you needed certain classes in order to succeed.. To my knowledge wow has never ever been a star fits into the triangle hole kind of game.

You very rarely NEEDED certain classes in order to succeed. You had a better chance of success with better raid compositions, but necessity was pretty rare, aside from generally wanting one of each class in a 40 or 25 man raid. When there was actually necessity, it was often Bloodlust which is the big outlier here, or it was a certain mechanic specifically built for a class to interact with, like mage tanking in Gruul's Lair.

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Sounds like what they are TRYING to do with covenents, and people want that removed.

seems you got your answer there.
blizz has said many times they want specific specs and classes to be special at things, but then the players get mads and demand they be able to do it too.
its literally pull the ripcord, blizz wants players to feel unique, but players want to be able to be good at everything.

This is exactly why players usually make terrible designers.

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At the start of Cata Blizzard shifted their philos with "bring the player, not the class." This change in philos slowly moved the classes towards Homoginization and the same philos gained momentum in MOP and WOD. Legion offered a little bit less Homoginization and a declared move away from "bring the player, not the class" but clearly not enough of a move. But then Blizzard went full throttle on Homoginization with BFA with dumb ideas like Corrupted gear and Essences. That explains the move but as far as the underlying philos... I can only speculate.

Blizzard doesn't like the class design in Vanilla where certain classes flat out SUCK at raiding. And, the purpose those sucky classes do facilitate perform the underrated and unlikable role of "pure" support ei - Ret Paladin. Support in any shape or form (outside of maybe Pvp) is something the overwhelming majority of players do NOT desire in WOW and that is why all the classes are designed and built for DPS without room for uniqueness.

This is horseshit. Plenty of players have been driven away from the game by homogenization. Lots of players would like to have more interesting class design. They also don't want a situation where some classes are just bad at certain parts of the game, but theres a middle ground here and we are WAY to one end right now.

[VinceVega]

Excuse me for typo in title: Breng = Bring obviously.

I would like to discuss the following evolution the game has been through: Classes do not have any unique flavour left in their toolkit, even items nowadays can do things that normally only some classes could. (a good example are the drums that give bloodlust, orginally only reserved for Shamans)

Wouldn't it be amazing to see some unique flavour back in the shadowlands. Why won't blizzard let one class excell in some shape or form and be less good in other aspects of the game. Is it because blizzard wants to appeal to a broader audience by homonisation of skills? Maybe.

If classes have something that distinguishes them and makes them valuable it truly feels more like an MMO to me. So Blizzard should further unprune stuff and make new unique abilities or skills for classes to make WoW feel like an true MMO again.

How cool is it that only mages could blink, you see a mage blink and it felt special and what about a priest that has one unique very powerfull prayer of healing effect but the other classes dont, these classes can have something else awesome. Why do classes need so much overlap between them nowadays.

My question for you guys: opinions on how to implement more uniqueness in Shadowlands for the classes?

Making classes and specs too unique,you just end up many specs completly useless or just taken as a favour for the person.
Players should play what they want, but in the same line should not expect to get handouts. If i play a useless class that is my choice.

But why make that class shitty in the first place? Uniqness always comes with a disadvatage. Some specs will be incredible in PvP but really bad in PvE. You got falvour. Great. But the people who had fun with this spec in PvE will be quite miffed.

Classes play differntly enough and every class has something unique allready they bring to the pool right now. Why mess with it?

[NineSpine]

Making classes and specs too unique,you just end up many specs completly useless or just taken as a favour for the person.
Players should play what they want, but in the same line should not expect to get handouts. If i play a useless class that is my choice.

But why make that class shitty in the first place? Uniqness always comes with a disadvatage. Some specs will be incredible in PvP but really bad in PvE. You got falvour. Great. But the people who had fun with this spec in PvE will be quite miffed.

Classes play differntly enough and every class has something unique allready they bring to the pool right now. Why mess with it?

This is factually wrong. You don’t need to homogenize everyone to keep them viable.

[arkanon]

Sounds like what they are TRYING to do with covenents, and people want that removed.

seems you got your answer there.
blizz has said many times they want specific specs and classes to be special at things, but then the players get mads and demand they be able to do it too.
its literally pull the ripcord, blizz wants players to feel unique, but players want to be able to be good at everything.

I feel like i could almost copy/paste this response i have said it so many times. Although i have NO ISSUE at all with Arena and M+, i do believe they are the core of the class design issues. When arena was introduced, classes without decent self sustain/defensives/self heals fell out of favor for those who did have it. This was the beginning of what we see now - every class has a self heal and defensive abilities. It also had a pretty big impact on Burst classes. In a BG, burst isnt such a big deal - sure, you will run to a flag and blow up 1 player in a couple of globals, but, that isnt going to win the BG - but it will win an Arena - and thus everyones damage was smoothed out.

M+ with its almost entirely AOE focus did the same to classes, but with AOE - who would bring a pure ST or 2 mob split cleave spec to a dungeon that is almost entirely AOE from start to finish? Turns out, no one......and thus every spec now has endless AOE / cleave capabilities.

Again, to be clear, i dont hate arena or m+, and think they have added a lot to endgame and give players who dont want to raid or do RBG a different avenue to progress down. But those are the two big ones for me.

So what did this mean overall? Specs lost a lot of what made them unique - no more did you get to a boss with heaps of trash and say "sweet! our warriors are gonna have a field day!". Previously, most specs were ok/average in most situations, but occasionally had an opportunity to really shine and do exceptionally well - SP / AFF locks on split aoe / cleave, Destro on 2 target, warriors on AOE, ASS rogue in pure ST sustain - you get the idea.

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This is factually wrong. You don’t need to homogenize everyone to keep them viable.

How would you have a pure single target dps be viable in M+?

[kranur]

Excuse me for typo in title: Breng = Bring obviously.

I would like to discuss the following evolution the game has been through: Classes do not have any unique flavour left in their toolkit, even items nowadays can do things that normally only some classes could. (a good example are the drums that give bloodlust, orginally only reserved for Shamans)

Wouldn't it be amazing to see some unique flavour back in the shadowlands. Why won't blizzard let one class excell in some shape or form and be less good in other aspects of the game. Is it because blizzard wants to appeal to a broader audience by homonisation of skills? Maybe.

If classes have something that distinguishes them and makes them valuable it truly feels more like an MMO to me. So Blizzard should further unprune stuff and make new unique abilities or skills for classes to make WoW feel like an true MMO again.

How cool is it that only mages could blink, you see a mage blink and it felt special and what about a priest that has one unique very powerfull prayer of healing effect but the other classes dont, these classes can have something else awesome. Why do classes need so much overlap between them nowadays.

My question for you guys: opinions on how to implement more uniqueness in Shadowlands for the classes?

You do realize that if a class does not do a good job at multi-target / aoe they are basically cut out of mythic+ for example.

[Kralljin]

Again, to be clear, i dont hate arena or m+, and think they have added a lot to endgame and give players who dont want to raid or do RBG a different avenue to progress down. But those are the two big ones for me.

I agree on this, in general, small group size + competitive game mode are extremely difficult to mix with any sort of unique aspect of a class, be it strengths or weakness.

In larger group sizes, it's easier to make room for a certain class / spec because they bring something unique, at the same time it's also easier to offset a certain weakness.
Nobody bullied Warlocks in Cata or MoP because their AoE damage wasn't that amazing, because the game was more focused on raiding where this thing could be offset.

One of the better examples for this is Shroud of Concealment, a spell no one gave a fuck about for years and due to M+ it's now suddenly this huge deal Blizzard has designed the last two seasonal affixes around just to stop people from abusing Shroud.


I still remember an interview with Rob Pardo from 2009, when he said that one of his biggest regrets on WoW (at the time) was the introduction of Arena and he either would have completely revamped classes to work in Arena or axe'd Arena from TBC completely.

[NineSpine]

I feel like i could almost copy/paste this response i have said it so many times. Although i have NO ISSUE at all with Arena and M+, i do believe they are the core of the class design issues. When arena was introduced, classes without decent self sustain/defensives/self heals fell out of favor for those who did have it. This was the beginning of what we see now - every class has a self heal and defensive abilities. It also had a pretty big impact on Burst classes. In a BG, burst isnt such a big deal - sure, you will run to a flag and blow up 1 player in a couple of globals, but, that isnt going to win the BG - but it will win an Arena - and thus everyones damage was smoothed out.

M+ with its almost entirely AOE focus did the same to classes, but with AOE - who would bring a pure ST or 2 mob split cleave spec to a dungeon that is almost entirely AOE from start to finish? Turns out, no one......and thus every spec now has endless AOE / cleave capabilities.

Again, to be clear, i dont hate arena or m+, and think they have added a lot to endgame and give players who dont want to raid or do RBG a different avenue to progress down. But those are the two big ones for me.

So what did this mean overall? Specs lost a lot of what made them unique - no more did you get to a boss with heaps of trash and say "sweet! our warriors are gonna have a field day!". Previously, most specs were ok/average in most situations, but occasionally had an opportunity to really shine and do exceptionally well - SP / AFF locks on split aoe / cleave, Destro on 2 target, warriors on AOE, ASS rogue in pure ST sustain - you get the idea.

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How would you have a pure single target dps be viable in M+?

You are spot on regarding arena and M+. Tha TSS why fixing homogenization would require reinventing M+ to not be a speed run mode, but I think that’s possible.

[Orwell7]

How would you have a pure single target dps be viable in M+?

Blizzard was clever enough with their absolutely disastrous class design to convince you that their way is the only way.
See, you are thinking inside Blizzard's box. Of course with these strict rules in WoW that is not viable.

But there are LOTS of other ways, like:
-interaction between classes - look up Heroic Opportunities in Everquest2
-switching stances, but they have a 2-3-4 sec cast time
-in MoP, classes were A LOT different, but everyone achieved more or less the same PERFORMANCE while doing really different rotations (and by performance I meant that every spec could do good st, aoe, cleave, etc.)
-the "endgame modes" of the game encourage minmaxing, you know why? because the classes themselves are piss easy to play, so they have to design M+/raids with this in mind, so either the encounters are hard mechanically OR you need to bring the best classes to meet dps requirements. usually both.

This "difficulty" of WoW's endgame is:
-either against the time in M+, where DPS matters the most (you have X amount of hp to kill in Y time), with harder dungeons and maybe 6 player parties this can be a lot more forgivable WHILE being difficult, like "difficult" difficult that if you don't play your class properly you just won't kill the pack / boss

-or against convoluted mechanics in raids where you need to have a lot of air horns in your ears to be able to react

This all can be fixed by introducing harder-to-execute rotations with lots of synergistic buttons to press.
With this in mind the difficulty of a content can be tuned for "average" players who just cannot do their rotations optimally, and the end of endgame requires you to play your class DAMN well.
Rerolling nowadays is only a time commitment because most specs play the same, and your "enemy" is the encounter itself, and by learning it on one character you can do it on all of them.
Rerolling in this modified difficulty system will be difficult in itself, to adjust to a new class, to learn it's magic and to make it work should take a few weeks at least.

[InfiniteCharger]

Excuse me for typo in title: Breng = Bring obviously.

I would like to discuss the following evolution the game has been through: Classes do not have any unique flavour left in their toolkit, even items nowadays can do things that normally only some classes could. (a good example are the drums that give bloodlust, orginally only reserved for Shamans)

Wouldn't it be amazing to see some unique flavour back in the shadowlands. Why won't blizzard let one class excell in some shape or form and be less good in other aspects of the game. Is it because blizzard wants to appeal to a broader audience by homonisation of skills? Maybe.

If classes have something that distinguishes them and makes them valuable it truly feels more like an MMO to me. So Blizzard should further unprune stuff and make new unique abilities or skills for classes to make WoW feel like an true MMO again.

How cool is it that only mages could blink, you see a mage blink and it felt special and what about a priest that has one unique very powerfull prayer of healing effect but the other classes dont, these classes can have something else awesome. Why do classes need so much overlap between them nowadays.

My question for you guys: opinions on how to implement more uniqueness in Shadowlands for the classes?

Because Blizzard is promoting the go go go mentality in everything any more.
The old school DnD way of playing where encounters were based on using the composition of the group to best effect is gone.
It kind of required everyone to know a little about every class and what they brought to the table.
Now it is just run in a shoot stuff and making sure you are keeping up on the flavor of the month progression chart.
And it doesn't matter what content you do, all of it is focused on keeping up progression stats.
All content is designed to be consumed quickly, from WQs to dungeons and so forth for max replay value.
And every class is basically boiled down to the big 3: DPS, heal or Tank. There is no real distinction otherwise.
Resource management doesn't matter anymore (ammo, mana, threat, etc). Utility isn't really a thing anymore (traps, sheep, etc).
So everything is streamlined now as a result of changes made gradually over time.

Whereas the original game was designed for content to last a while and be a time sink.
Case in point, many dungeons were just as long or longer than raid encounters.
That is truly following the DnD approach.

[Ealyssa]

opinions on how to implement more uniqueness in Shadowlands for the classes?

You see the shitshow about covenants ?
That's why...

[Kaver]

Just look at what was happening with the covenants for a couple last months. Some people, especially the ones vocal in the community as content creators don't want uniqueness, they want to be able to do everything, whenever they want, without any "gating".

Blizzard is trying their best to implement just a little bit of uniqueness, but even that gets attacked so furiously and so harshly by a subset of the community that they have to constantly backpeddle on everything.

This thread reads like it was written by someone who hasn't followed any discussions about SL recently

The problem with covenants is that they can basically be boiled down to 3 aspects:

1) A base and some transmog
2) A quest campaign
3) 1 damage ability + 1 utility ability

This is in my opinion incredibly half-assed. Covenants brings no synergy or interaction with the open world. After you’re done with your quest campaign then covenants mean nothing. If Blizzard really want to make meaningful choices then do it. Make something that has actual consequences and matters. There is nothing meaningful about covenants and the illusion that Blizzard have tried to create will be broken once the mainstream players start to play the Shadowlands. They will quickly realize how one-dimensional the covenants are.

[Ham on Rye]

All classes are equal.

Some are just more equal than others.