lack of "meatiness" in modern wow's combat

[Ilookfly]

The dmg text numbers are different. Thats the biggest part of it. Both the font and animations of the number makes it feel this way.

[MasterHamster]

As WoW shifted more towards Action RPG style, they had to sacrifice a lot of that Oompf and impact in combat. It begun with WoD and has only gotten smoother and smoother since. Some like it, I think it feels like I'm fighting air. There's no "physical" aspect of combat, it's just a game of keeping myself aimed at a mob and within range.

It doesn't feel like you're actually hitting anything.

[Aucald]

I've never been a huge fan of the "Soulsborne" combat style that's increasingly popular in action titles these days - I find it cumbersome and unwieldy, and it puts me more in the frame of input lag than it does realism or "meatiness" in the majority of its offerings. I have seen it done well in a few games, the one that comes most quickly to mind being DMC5, but beyond that, for me, it's more a miss than a hit. That's purely a personal and subjective thing, depending on how you like your combat and your expectations of combat flow in a video game.

I don't think Soulsborne combat would work very well in WoW, and that's even if it could be implemented properly in the game's engine (which would require massive amounts of retooling to get to work). Combat in Vanilla/Classic wasn't Soulsborne-like, either; it was just clunky and slow, which I felt gave the illusion of meatiness without any of its real impact. Soulsborne-type combat also doesn't work very well for ranged/caster-type combat, which is a very prominent part of WoW as well.

[Djbobo]

I've never been a huge fan of the "Soulsborne" combat style that's increasingly popular in action titles these days - I find it cumbersome and unwieldy, and it puts me more in the frame of input lag than it does realism or "meatiness" in the majority of its offerings. I have seen it done well in a few games, the one that comes most quickly to mind being DMC5, but beyond that, for me, it's more a miss than a hit. That's purely a personal and subjective thing, depending on how you like your combat and your expectations of combat flow in a video game.

I don't think Soulsborne combat would work very well in WoW, and that's even if it could be implemented properly in the game's engine (which would require massive amounts of retooling to get to work). Combat in Vanilla/Classic wasn't Soulsborne-like, either; it was just clunky and slow, which I felt gave the illusion of meatiness without any of its real impact. Soulsborne-type combat also doesn't work very well for ranged/caster-type combat, which is a very prominent part of WoW as well.

I wasn't talking about copying how the Soulsborne combat works. It's just an example for a game with meat to its combat.

The best ability to show the difference is probably Whirlwind. It barely has any spell effects to it in classic but you can clearly feel its impact, whereas the modern Whirlwind is a lot flashier and has a much more sophisticated animation but feels like you're hitting your target with an actual wet noodle. It went from being one of the most fun abilities to something you wish you didn't have to use.

[Aucald]

I wasn't talking about copying how the Soulsborne combat works. It's just an example for a game with meat to its combat.

The best ability to show the difference is probably Whirlwind. It barely has any spell effects to it in classic but you can clearly feel its impact, whereas the modern Whirlwind is a lot flashier and has a much more sophisticated animation but feels like you're hitting your target with an actual wet noodle. It went from being one of the most fun abilities to something you wish you didn't have to use.

Is the argument more one of the aesthetics of the ability, or the impact of the ability in terms of damage? I do recall that a Warrior's Whirlwind once used to be something of a power move in the class toolset, so to speak, whereas now its place in the priority list is more of a filler move - and that, while perhaps subjectively less than satisfying, is less of a flaw in WoW's combat system and more of a flaw in how Warriors specifically operate within that system (in this case, a flaw in how Warriors or other classes have their APL/rotations configured).

[Djbobo]

Is the argument more one of the aesthetics of the ability, or the impact of the ability in terms of damage? I do recall that a Warrior's Whirlwind once used to be something of a power move in the class toolset, so to speak, whereas now its place in the priority list is more of a filler move - and that, while perhaps subjectively less than satisfying, is less of a flaw in WoW's combat system and more of a flaw in how Warriors specifically operate within that system (in this case, a flaw in how Warriors or other classes have their APL/rotations configured).

It's just about how abilities feel, not about their actual damage. Whirlwind is just an example because it went from feeling like a massive hit to being nothing more than a wet noodle. Sure its role inside the toolset may have changed but that doesn't mean it has to feel like its doing nothing.

It's the same for pretty much all main abilities and big hitters. All the "swoosh"-sound abilities are especially bad because the sound kind of implies you don't actually hit the target and instead just barely glance it.

[FAILoZOFF]

I agree even tho I can't quite point my finger on whats to blame for it. Also I feel like all races are homogenized to using the exact same eanimations loosing their own identity

[Aucald]

It's just about how abilities feel, not about their actual damage. Whirlwind is just an example because it went from feeling like a massive hit to being nothing more than a wet noodle. Sure its role inside the toolset may have changed but that doesn't mean it has to feel like its doing nothing.

It's the same for pretty much all main abilities and big hitters. All the "swoosh"-sound abilities are especially bad because the sound kind of implies you don't actually hit the target and instead just barely glance it.

So more of an aesthetics argument, then. I agree on some scores, although I don't really play my Warrior enough to speak to their specific abilities like Whirlwind. I know some of the more recent updates make combat with my DK feel more impactful, especially the ability-specific animations they added in Legion and BfA, and some of the extended color effects of weapon strikes. But yeah, some abilities do lack a feel of "punch" they could otherwise have. One area where I think WoW could improve is enemy reactions to your attacks - combat would feel more impactful and overall satisfying if enemies had a wider range of reactions to being struck.

[M1r4g3]

As WoW shifted more towards Action RPG style, they had to sacrifice a lot of that Oompf and impact in combat. It begun with WoD and has only gotten smoother and smoother since. Some like it, I think it feels like I'm fighting air. There's no "physical" aspect of combat, it's just a game of keeping myself aimed at a mob and within range.

It doesn't feel like you're actually hitting anything.

Its a lot more complex and affects every aspect of the game but since i cba to write out a novel il just tldr it:

Action combat is probably worse overall for the majority of players in wow than the one we had pre legion/wod.
Blizzard compensated for the reduced complexity and limitation of classes/specs post wod by increasing the amount of mechanics for bosses/mobs and making them more punishing, which then caused the ''wait for the dumbest person to do the mechanics correctly once and we got it" to be a lot more prevalent due to the reduced complexity/limitation of classes now, i personally don't remember in the past few years if i ever killed a mythic boss when even one person died earlier on in the fight with no combat rez simply because ''playing better''(what you gonna do press sinister strike harder?) wasn't enough to deal with certain soft enrage mechanics/mechanics in general.
Action combat also minimized your personal skill progression over the course of the xpack, like sure thats still kinda a thing for some people but only for the bottom like 10% or something.
Carrying people is also worse again for similar reasons, and by carrying i mean having a normal/hc(even mythic guilds) guild for example with a very varying mix of skill levels where the better players ''carry'' the worse players, which is a good thing since it allows you to play with a wider range of people/friends that might not be as good as you but both still get something out of the fight.

Other than blizzard(its probably easier/cheaper to design one boss for everyone rather than 38?specs for one boss)who benefits from this?

Oh yea also normalizing abilities so everything hits for similar numbers.

[Chilela]

As a hunter I want the gun shot sounds back, I hate the pea gun sound. After replaying classic when it came out I didn't realise how much I missed it. And I get it can be annoying to some people so why not have an option to turn it off or on?

The Classic vs Retail hunter gun sound was one of the first things I thought of when reading this thread. I think in general, better sound design for abilities would assist in maintaining a feeling of "meatiness" in ability usage, and is probably the most realistic option in general. At this point, a lot of what felt "meaty" in terms of ability impact in Classic WoW was due to the inherently slower pacing of it compared to now.

Addendum: Playing Feral while using a toy that transforms you into a humanoid model still feels pretty meaty. In particular, watching a humanoid model wildly flail around a 2H weapon is INCREDIBLY satisfying, and shapeshifting no longer overwriting appearance-changing toys was the single best change of 6.1.

[Swnem]

Well... in my opinion WoW's combat animations have always been tame and unimpactful. Really wish that pressing the buttons was a bit flashier.

[infinitemeridian]

Certain classes / specs desperately need another pass at their spell effects / animations. Particularly, hunters (mainly surv), dks (mainly blood / uh), and arms warriors. Maybe enhancement shamans too?

[NaNaaru]

I think the animations lack acceleration and momentum. A lot of the swinging type of attacks seem to have constant radial velocity instead of taking into consideration the momentum generated through the movement.
If we are talking about whirlwind - I think it would look more meaty if the animation had slower and faster paced intervals of swing, like an actual humanoid would have when swinging an heavy object in such way.

[Neuroticaine]

I personally feel that the way modern WoW feels is a massive improvement over classic WoW. I think virtually all new abilities and animations have a better since of visceraity.

Maybe what you like is just watching your character swing solitary weapon swings with a pause between. I think that's valid. I prefer to press a button and the button feels good to press. A perfect example of a button that does not feel good to press is old Heroic Strike/Cleave. It did nothing upon press, and simply queued up to augment your next auto attack. Modern WoW is more fluid and responsive. Classic WoW had substantially less going, so it may have been easier to focus on the "feeling" the big hits when they happened over the boring white numbers.

Just a guess. Different strokes for different folks.

[EntertainmentNihilist]

Its a combat system - nothing "archaic" about it at all. Most RPG's still use this system, other than ground targeted / aoe spells, and thats the same for wow. Isnt that what people wanted? To keep/return to the "rpg" roots of wow?

I know of no modern RPG's that use such a weird, clunky combat system. They are all more action-based (Dark Souls, Elden Ring, POE, Diablo, Skyrim, Fallout, etc.) or turn-based (ewww).

[Bigbazz]

The level of meatiness playing a TBC Fury Warrior compared to retail is just such a contrast. It's about 4 things.

1. Sound effects
2. Animations
3. Contrast
4. Friction.

In TBC rage is a finite and valuable resource to the extent where you often don't have enough to always use your abilities, haste effects and other damage bonuses (attack power) also have a dramatic effect on the rage income so the spec has a huge contrast between highs and lows and builds anticipation for large damage bursts, during which time you may be just "managing" rage flow and biding your time.

So when you sit there and you pool rage while you wait for a potential proc (say Dragonstrike or your Shard of Contempt) you're anticipating that moment where you pop the sweeping strikes, you hit off that massive whirlwind hit and you queue up your Cleave attacks and you can see the numbers while you hear the sweeping strikes fire off...

TBC Fury has the contrast. In Shadowlands you're simply working through a rotation/priority with no impact or anticipation, rage is not so crucial and does not require nearly the same level of managing to maximise. The anticipation is simply for example the Bladestorm and the audio for Bladestorm doesn't give it any impact, while the rest of the spec just feels so smooth like butter and full of small invisible hits, it's just a spam spec with empty feeling attacks, the friction and anticipation and release is missing.

Shadowlands Fury is like attack of the 100,000 feathers, TBC Fury has that extra dynamic of the on-next-attack hits and rage management to allow it to be a "hard hitting" spec.

[arkanon]

I know of no modern RPG's that use such a weird, clunky combat system. They are all more action-based (Dark Souls, Elden Ring, POE, Diablo, Skyrim, Fallout, etc.) or turn-based (ewww).

So you are just going to ignore all CRPG games because........you dont like them?

[Th3Scourge]

Retail wow combat is also 'death by a thousand cuts' with so many spells and abilities adding minor dots, small damage bonuses here and there etc via gear, covenant soulbinds and buffs.

So most classes have a damage breakdown of like 20 damage event abilities even though the top 2-3 make up about 60% of the damage.

[Irian]

The new sound effects as of Legion just don't sound as good as the old ones. They're more dynamic and varied, sure, but that doesn't really mean that they're better. I feel the same way about the new casting animations too, sure they're objectively more fluid and polished, but the game lost that satisfying animation flow unique to each race.

I feel like old WoW knew exactly what it was doing with sound design and modern WoW is just sort of all over the place. I think a great example of this is ret paladin, who just feels weak because of how lame and unsatisfying their sounds and animations are.

[Tiev]

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to shit on modern wow. I'm just interested in other people's experience.


So I recently got into the Soulsborne games, which have an insane amount of "meatiness" to their combat. Every swing with a weapon feels meaty and impactful. I can't really put my finger on what causes this feeling but it feels amazing and brings a good amount of joy to being in combat.

It's pretty similar for classic wow. Using abilities like whirlwind with sweeping strikes and having them crit feels almost illegal. Even DoTs and heals feel way different in classic wow.

I'm having a hard time pinpointing the reasons for why it feels different. It's almost like modern wow is so smooth it's combat turned from playing paintpall to playing laser tag. The impact and "meat" somehow got lost in the process of making the games combat smoother.


So, is it just me or do you guys feel the same about modern wow's combat?

I AGREE wholeheartedly.


This is exactly how I feel about modern WoW.

I think this stems from 3 things:

1 - Sound. Abilities in general have a less intrusive, more mellow sound than they used to have, apart from some outliers. Things like bleeds (from either warrior or druid) to shield slam, with warriors have been significantly changed to become less "In your face". Probably because too many other sounds compete for the player's attention, they didn't want to make it a symphony of abilities.

2 - Graphics. Abilities look a lot more "Fortnitefied" if that can be a term. Look at incinerate from warlocks. They're a short quick burst of those candles people use at birthdays when before they were a majestic (if low res) carpet of flames.

3 - Too many abilities that do damage, means you don't have a lot of high damage ones. A product of having an old MMORPG where number of skills is ever increasing.


All these things combine to make combat more fluid but less impactful in my opinion as well. Playing TBC classic, whilst a tad boring, I didn't mind watching a fireball fly towards a boss because when you saw the impact, you heard the lash sound and saw a huge number fly up. That's satisfying.


I said that before and I'll say it again, WoW used to be hard, heavy metal with impactful sounds, and badass art. Sometimes dissonant, sometimes too loud, but that's Metzen Metal. Now it's become a symphony of harmonious pieces auto-tuned for mellowness not to intrude on your personal space, like modern music. It looks and sounds pleasing, but it's very bland and forgettable.


I'm with you there, I want to feel the impact of my spells. None of that new incinerate, wild strike or aimed shot, please. Give me old bleeds back, old shield slam or the new charge! That has a lot more impact than it's ever had.