What would have to happen to make wow the best it can be?

[RemasteredClassic]

In your opinion.

For me, until major changes are made to the game, specifically an evolved fun talent system with multiple paths per spec (re-adding sub spec choices such as gladiator prot warrior for example as one dps with a shield path at the expense of survivability, another path for aoe tanking since single target is baked into the base prot spec and finally a third path focused on self healing and PvP just as an example of how this system would work) and the removal of borrowed powers other than through non-legendary gear set bonuses, as well as prioritizing story driven content both instanced and otherwise, I will not be subscribing for longer than I can have fun in the game.

I decided I will not play to progress in any way shape or form other than getting one character to max level to check out whatever content is available at max level (meaning no arbitrary business-promoting systems will make me wanna sub for longer than 2 months per expansion considering that amount of sub money, just for two months, can be spent on buying a completely different game without a sub and that we also have to pay for WoW expansions separately from the sub - however a decently designed wow will make me wanna sub longer, such as converting old raids into 10 man queueable content that tells you the story via quests and awards cosmetics, bringing back mage tower, turning bfa islands into solo content available as an alternative 10 to 50 leveling method, making world quests start at level 10 and available all over the world map and Torghast as leveling content from 50 to 60).

I used to be an altaholic but considering the game's direction, that too is also over now. From time to time, I might login to play the free trial to level alts to level 20 in different expansions while waiting for the dream WoW to happen.

[Nyel]

Ion and the heads of game design / development have to be replaced. Their vision for the game clearly isn't working and WoW has been the worst during Ion's lead. As long as Ion and his comrades are shoving their vision down our throats, WoW can't be "the best it can be".

[FossilFree]

I'm afraid a change in leadership and vision is necessary at this point.

[kodemonkee]

Ion and the heads of game design / development have to be replaced. Their vision for the game clearly isn't working and WoW has been the worst during Ion's lead. As long as Ion and his comrades are shoving their vision down our throats, WoW can't be "the best it can be".

^ This and much less systems on top of systems.

[RemasteredClassic]

I actually like Ion. Really don’t think he is the only guy making decisions and steering things towards a certain direction all by himself.

[Gaidax]

Ion and the heads of game design / development have to be replaced. Their vision for the game clearly isn't working and WoW has been the worst during Ion's lead. As long as Ion and his comrades are shoving their vision down our throats, WoW can't be "the best it can be".

Yes yes, Ion is the acting "evil incarnate hellbent on destroying WoW", two minutes after he's gone you'll find a new monster, while bemoaning how good things were when Ion was here.

Same song 16 years long.

---

The specific issue with Shadowlands is simply that 9.0 REALLY overstayed its welcome. we should have had 9.1 a month or maybe even 2 ago. Much of this negativity is because we don't have anything new for what feels way too long now.

What they should try is maybe some sort of constant delivery. Instead of giving one huge patch every 6 months+, try to feed smaller patches every 3 months, like let's say - new area and dungeon being 9.1 at 9.0+3m, then new raid and dungeon season at 9.0+6m and then another new area/dungeon as 9.2 at 9.0+9m and so on...

Basically they need to think of a way to have a new smaller content every ~3 months.

[schwarzkopf]

Well - get rid of the players I guess would make it a perfect game.

The toxic, irrational and emotional reactions from players is the core to why there is a problem with this game.

[Cæli]

release a wow 2, with a possibility to transfer characters. have the best cosmetic stuff re coded into wow 2.
release classic for all wow 1 expansion, every 2-3 years.

[Nyel]

Yes yes, Ion is the acting "evil incarnate hellbent on destroying WoW", two minutes after he's gone you'll find a new monster, while bemoaning how good things were when Ion was here.

Ion and his dev team are the "masterminds" of the borrowed power crap that hasn't worked since Legion. Who do you think is responsible for that, some guy from the financial department? Gameplay is in Ion's hands.

[Dracullus]

Ion and the heads of game design / development have to be replaced. Their vision for the game clearly isn't working and WoW has been the worst during Ion's lead. As long as Ion and his comrades are shoving their vision down our throats, WoW can't be "the best it can be".

C-L-E-A-R-L-Y, that's why BfA sold more copies on launch than Legion and SL more than BfA. Clear as sky.

Ion and his dev team are the "masterminds" of the borrowed power crap that hasn't worked since Legion. Who do you think is responsible for that, some guy from the financial department? Gameplay is in Ion's hands.

1. You simply can't add new spells and systems forever.
2. No power gain like in WoD is even worse.

So now give me serious alternative to borrowed power system.

Btw, I noticed many people gives or takes Ion's responsibility for Legion when it fits for them. When they whine about borrowed powers (that started with Legion 7.0) - it's Ion's fault. When we're talking about expacs in general - everything was great until Legion, Ion's destroyed WoW in BfA and SL.

[Eosia]

Ion and the heads of game design / development have to be replaced. Their vision for the game clearly isn't working and WoW has been the worst during Ion's lead. As long as Ion and his comrades are shoving their vision down our throats, WoW can't be "the best it can be".

*YAWN* This has been said about every developer who has been a "face" for the devs.

[Fitsu]

Naturally it's a very subjective question and to me it's a question that makes no real sense. I didn't quit WoW because it wasn't good anymore, I quit WoW because I don't have the time and have done it all before.

I don't play anymore but I did at the start and 13 year old me would have absolutely loved Shadowlands. The dungeons are good, PvP is good, classes feel good, world content is alright but I've never cared much about that, raids are amazing, M+ is cool. The patch cycle is a bit crap like this patch has lasted way to long but that aside the actual game itself? It's better than it was back in TBC/Wrath. It's not as good as Legion, but Legion was just amazing.

The problem is, while all this IMO is true it's still just the same stuff with a new lick of paint and eventually that gets boring. No game lasts for ever and genres usually fall out of the spotlight for ~5-10 years giving people a chance to forget them before having a resurgance for the new generation/old players to come back. That's all that is happening, most people have had their fix of MMOs and are ready to move on to something different, that's why no new MMO takes WoWs place because while people say "there waiting for the new MMO" to reignite there love for the genre, in reality there just bored of MMOs but don't want to admit it so they instead blame the game.

Look at other examples. ARPGs, Diablo 2 was all the rage back in 2002 and it lasted a fair few years and then eventually people had there ARPG fix so it died for a while... Then boom 10 years later we get D3 then PoE and everyone is in love with ARPGs again as there "so much better now than they were before" so loads of new ones are coming out. But just like MMOs this ARPG boom started several years ago now and you can see people growing tired, even though just like WoW, PoE is in the best state it's ever been in retention is falling.

Reality is people will only enjoy the same thing for so long before they move on to something else for long enough to forget that thing and then come back fresh and ready to dive back in. So what does WoW need to do? It needs to stop for a while. for 3, 5, 10 years and then they need to release WoW 2 (or an MMO in another universe). Bringing new-gen stuff to an old genre for people to re-experience all again.

[Gaidax]

Ion and his dev team are the "masterminds" of the borrowed power crap that hasn't worked since Legion. Who do you think is responsible for that, some guy from the financial department? Gameplay is in Ion's hands.

It worked just fine - it does exactly what it is meant to do - give new powers and toys without eventual Cataclysm crash and bloat. I've been there, it wasn't fun and led to huge and very necessary MoP prune.

The fact that this is a 3rd of expansion of this, might ring a bell that this, in fact, worked out and IMO, Covenants really delivered, even if top end beelines to cookie cutter setups, which duuuh, they'd always do anyway.

[Raven]

I actually like Ion. Really don’t think he is the only guy making decisions and steering things towards a certain direction all by himself.

Not going to happen, if Ion leaves, the only thing that will change is that the next guy will be the one behind all the problem, just like Ion and every other before Ion.

[justandulas]

Ion and the heads of game design / development have to be replaced. Their vision for the game clearly isn't working and WoW has been the worst during Ion's lead. As long as Ion and his comrades are shoving their vision down our throats, WoW can't be "the best it can be".

This. 100x this. They need new management who are OLD school mmo players, who can burn WoW down to the foundation and rebuild it back up as a proper rpg

The classic games feel like far superior rpg and mmo than the retail games since ion and his team turned WoW into Diablo 3 wearing wows skin

No more seasonal content, just progression ladders for expacs. 1 difficulty per raid with no exception, except multiple raids with various difficulties so everyone can have fun. Give raids unique and powerful OP gear again, throw balance out in favor of FUN. Have unique items that are so rare that they only exist as basically one per realm of that. Offer exclusivity. No more store mounts, or store anything. Also, can we get writing that isn’t intended for 12 year old girls? Let’s write stories intended for HBO, not Cartoon Network

At this point tbh, activision would never invest what’s needed in WoW to turn WoW around. They are just trying to manage the decline slow enough to milk it dry, hence the classic realms releasing to try and slow the decline. Without classic realms giving them a population boost, WoW would b on life support

[swdan]

Well - get rid of the players I guess would make it a perfect game.

The toxic, irrational and emotional reactions from players is the core to why there is a problem with this game.

imagine they are always existed. even more of toxic people in real life.

imo the game should go back from "mmo hack and slash" to "mmo rpg"

[justandulas]

C-L-E-A-R-L-Y, that's why BfA sold more copies on launch than Legion and SL more than BfA. Clear as sky.



1. You simply can't add new spells and systems forever.
2. No power gain like in WoD is even worse.

So now give me serious alternative to borrowed power system.

Btw, I noticed many people gives or takes Ion's responsibility for Legion when it fits for them. When they whine about borrowed powers (that started with Legion 7.0) - it's Ion's fault. When we're talking about expacs in general - everything was great until Legion, Ion's destroyed WoW in BfA and SL.

Bfa and SL sales are skewed through months of pre orders. They didn’t sell more copies than legion, wotlk, or tbc.

They just skew day 1 sales through a half year of pre orders. If you took away those, they wouldn’t even compare. Legion had probably double the population of bfa and SL and was the highest point of modern WoW... so that’s a bad example and a desperate one

1. Yes. Yes you can. Everquest still releases expacs with new spells for example. You just need creativity and this WoW team lacks that. It’s Diablo 3 dev team basically

2. Wod was a bad expac but no power gain works. It’s why classic and tbc are more popular than retail. Ladder progression is the most sensible way for an mmorpg to exist... to beat raid A you need to beat B. To beat C you need B. Etc. what we have now is Diablo 3 seasons where 100% of the raid content prior to patch is irrelevant. Meanwhile, people did Mc in classic til the day it died and kz groups will exist in tbc years from now. The current model is inferior to the old model.

[Revamp Man]

MoP with
M+
Emissaries
Flex and mythic
But replace the story with dragons

[justandulas]

imagine they are always existed. even more of toxic people in real life.

imo the game should go back from "mmo hack and slash" to "mmo rpg"

I’ve said for years it’s devolved from an mmorpg to mmo arpg. It’s more Diablo 3 in WoW clothing than it is WoW

Seasonal progression with resets? Diablo 3
M+ are basically reworked rifts
The talent tree is more d3 than vanilla
Multiple different difficulties of content with the same gear scaled up or down? You guessed it, d3

They literally brought in jay wilson and the d3 team in for WoW when they promoted ion... and low and behold, years later, the game is more d3 than WoW

[Mysterymask]

You wanna know the best way to make wow better

Do not read these fucking forums
AT ALL
No Seriously just play the fucking game and don't come here.
If you don't like it just..uninstall/unsub and move on with your life
You'll find you'll be a lot happier that way