If you could tweak Cataclysm any way you wanted, what would you do?

[SinR]

Modern TMog/Mounts/Pet system

[mrgreenthump]

Make raids harder(with exception of spine, that needs a change so we won't have 8 arcane mages and 6 rogues in a raid) and keep the launch heroics with small fixes to the bosses that were too punishing. The playerbase has evolved a lot since then so to make any challenge they should make things more difficult.

[Julmara]

cata was overall alright the last raid needs a bit of a rework thou some bosses where just boring ass dum
also final raid overstayed its welcome

[NineSpine]

Agreed. There's clearly a strong audience for Classic+ content, and the only reason why WoW Classic's population plummeted so dramatically was certainly because of a combination of several factors contributing to faltering faith in Blizzard and the inevitable stagnancy that occurred when all the content had been exhausted in the Classic servers.

After Season of Mastery, I'm not sure if I think a seasonal model would work—instead, I think that a better system would be to go all the way with Classic+. There's plenty of things to add that could keep things going for a few years—Grim Batol, Mount Hyjal, Kul Tiras, Undermine, the Emerald Dream, Karazhan and the Crypts, etc in the zone or raid department, and I'm sure a few people would like to see Goblins and High Elves added to Classic. It would be in a patch system, of course, not an alternative set of expansions—it would be comparatively cheap to produce and wouldn't ruin the soul of Classic. Just release a new raid or max-level (or even alternative leveling) zone every couple months and people ought to be satisfied.

That type of expansion makes more sense to deliver in a seasonal model. You can't deliver increasing power forever. It will break the game, and it very nearly does break the game when Naxx comes out already.

By delivering this content in a seasonal model, they could expand the game holistically from 1-60. If 4/5ths of your player base is level 60, expanding the quests in leveling zones is a waste of resources. A seasonal model gets around this problem. It suddenly makes sense to expand every level range with new content, providing a lot more leeway. Additionally, it gives the opportunity to mix up the endgame with temporary changes rather than permanent ones.

[Le Conceptuel]

That type of expansion makes more sense to deliver in a seasonal model. You can't deliver increasing power forever. It will break the game, and it very nearly does break the game when Naxx comes out already.

By delivering this content in a seasonal model, they could expand the game holistically from 1-60. If 4/5ths of your player base is level 60, expanding the quests in leveling zones is a waste of resources. A seasonal model gets around this problem. It suddenly makes sense to expand every level range with new content, providing a lot more leeway. Additionally, it gives the opportunity to mix up the endgame with temporary changes rather than permanent ones.

Hrm, that is fair enough. I would, however, add that I think you could add new content horizontally without raising the roof of power. I do see your point still, and I think I could see how a seasonal model would serve the game well under those circumstances—it would make it more worthwhile to add new content below level 60 and implement alternative leveling paths if there were a seasonal model in place. My primary concern is that the lack of permanency may be alienating to people.

[RobertMugabe]

Agreed. There's clearly a strong audience for Classic+ content, and the only reason why WoW Classic's population plummeted so dramatically was certainly because of a combination of several factors contributing to faltering faith in Blizzard and the inevitable stagnancy that occurred when all the content had been exhausted in the Classic servers.

After Season of Mastery, I'm not sure if I think a seasonal model would work—instead, I think that a better system would be to go all the way with Classic+. There's plenty of things to add that could keep things going for a few years—Grim Batol, Mount Hyjal, Kul Tiras, Undermine, the Emerald Dream, Karazhan and the Crypts, etc in the zone or raid department, and I'm sure a few people would like to see Goblins and High Elves added to Classic. It would be in a patch system, of course, not an alternative set of expansions—it would be comparatively cheap to produce and wouldn't ruin the soul of Classic. Just release a new raid or max-level (or even alternative leveling) zone every couple months and people ought to be satisfied.

Yeah I think SoM was an interesting concept, but probably not what Blizz should really do. IMO they should just release normal Classic+ servers, connect/link them over time and keep releasing content over there. Also they just might release new Classic+ servers from time to time for those that seek a fresh experience.
This way there is no FOMO like we had with SoM where if you weren't there from the beginning, joining in later felt bad.

[Linkedblade]

Yeah I think SoM was an interesting concept, but probably not what Blizz should really do. IMO they should just release normal Classic+ servers, connect/link them over time and keep releasing content over there. Also they just might release new Classic+ servers from time to time for those that seek a fresh experience.
This way there is no FOMO like we had with SoM where if you weren't there from the beginning, joining in later felt bad.

Yeah, the way they retired SoM was great. Just wish they have made a BC server that was 2.X permanently. That way whenever a big crowd grows for classic of a certain expansion, they can run a SoM for it, and when it's done they can merge them back to the permanent server.

[NineSpine]

Hrm, that is fair enough. I would, however, add that I think you could add new content horizontally without raising the roof of power. I do see your point still, and I think I could see how a seasonal model would serve the game well under those circumstances—it would make it more worthwhile to add new content below level 60 and implement alternative leveling paths if there were a seasonal model in place. My primary concern is that the lack of permanency may be alienating to people.

It definitely would only appeal to a certain subset. I think seasons would have to be shrunk down to 6 months maximum, which would require a pretty heavy reevaluation of the endgame. We can't expect the number of phases or gearing pace that exists currently. It would also be very tough expand the game horizontally over and over again like that without ruining some of the qualities that make classic feel the way it does. If the game slowly becomes a bloated theme park with a point of interest every six feet, it is going to undermine the feel of the game.

Everything would have to be done slowly and deliberately, and with a level of love for the source material that may not fit the company Blizzard is today. You have to get people who can strike that balance where they can add a 20 bear ass collection question without it feeling lazy but also without it feeling too modern and over engineered. There is a very particular feel that has to be maintained.

[RobertMugabe]

That type of expansion makes more sense to deliver in a seasonal model. You can't deliver increasing power forever. It will break the game, and it very nearly does break the game when Naxx comes out already.

By delivering this content in a seasonal model, they could expand the game holistically from 1-60. If 4/5ths of your player base is level 60, expanding the quests in leveling zones is a waste of resources. A seasonal model gets around this problem. It suddenly makes sense to expand every level range with new content, providing a lot more leeway. Additionally, it gives the opportunity to mix up the endgame with temporary changes rather than permanent ones.

IMO what makes Classic special is really the leveling experience and environment, not the endgame experience (which is far superior on retail). That's why leveling is still so popular in Classic and why hardcore is so much more popular than ironman on retail.

It would be actually interesting if they added a lot of leveling content (for example the Ashenvale has barely any quests) to the existing zones (and add more zones like Hyal), where you can have a much different leveling experience every time. Of course they should also add more dungeons, more raids (progression and alternative/catch up raids) etc. But overall I don't think that a Classic+ would ever "compete" against retail when it comes to repeatable content, but it doesn't need to.

But yeah resets and new server releases would be necessary, but they shouldn't make it too fast like SoM and have incentives for players to (re)join in the middle of the cycle.

[NineSpine]

IMO what makes Classic special is really the leveling experience and environment, not the endgame experience (which is far superior on retail). That's why leveling is still so popular in Classic and why hardcore is so much more popular than ironman on retail.

It would be actually interesting if they added a lot of leveling content (for example the Ashenvale has barely any quests) to the existing zones (and add more zones like Hyal), where you can have a much different leveling experience every time. Of course they should also add more dungeons, more raids (progression and alternative/catch up raids) etc. But overall I don't think that a Classic+ would ever "compete" against retail when it comes to repeatable content, but it doesn't need to.

But yeah resets and new server releases would be necessary, but they shouldn't make it too fast like SoM and have incentives for players to (re)join in the middle of the cycle.

The Classic endgame is quite messy, but I still prefer it to the retail grind-a-thon. I strongly prefer the model that with one character I am only going to do the same piece of content a few times at most. I don't want to run the same dungeon 400 times in a row. I'd like to run it a few months later on a different character a couple of times, but the retail model of relentlessly berating you to run the same content over and over and over again, even encouraging people to run the same raid on two different difficulties in one week, is just obnoxious to me.

[Laqweeta]

Nothing, I hated Cataclysm. Cataclysm was the first expansion that made me quit for 4 months +
The game started getting too easy (to go from 2 mobs being deadly on you at level 8 to 10 mobs on you all with SW:P flash healing yourself to full)

[RobertMugabe]

The Classic endgame is quite messy, but I still prefer it to the retail grind-a-thon. I strongly prefer the model that with one character I am only going to do the same piece of content a few times at most. I don't want to run the same dungeon 400 times in a row. I'd like to run it a few months later on a different character a couple of times, but the retail model of relentlessly berating you to run the same content over and over and over again, even encouraging people to run the same raid on two different difficulties in one week, is just obnoxious to me.

Yeah that's true.

I thought running BRD several times for HOJ or running UBRS for the caster trinket from the rare boss was a grind (both examples of loot where Blizz could easily introduce alternatives through new content), but besides that I have never ever run close to as many dungeons or as frequently as I have done dungeons on retail with M+ for KSM, which is not really much of a challenge, but it's actually just a huge grind first and foremost (if you're at least a solo DPS player with no WoW friends who can't just skip to +15 and get caried).

This is also probably the reason why I enjoy running the vanilla dungeons, as they are either very quick runs (like BRD HOJ runs) or I don't do them nearly as much (and can relax a bit) as on retail where after dozens of speedruns of the same 8 dungeons I just get bored of the game and my life.

[NineSpine]

Yeah that's true.

I thought running BRD several times for HOJ or running UBRS for the caster trinket from the rare boss was a grind (both examples of loot where Blizz could easily introduce alternatives through new content), but besides that I have never ever run close to as many dungeons or as frequently as I have done dungeons on retail with M+ for KSM, which is not really much of a challenge, but it's actually just a huge grind first and foremost (if you're at least a solo DPS player with no WoW friends who can't just skip to +15 and get caried).

This is also probably the reason why I enjoy running the vanilla dungeons, as they are either very quick runs (like BRD HOJ runs) or I don't do them nearly as much (and can relax a bit) as on retail where after dozens of speedruns of the same 8 dungeons I just get bored of the game and my life.

It's a hugely under-appreciated aspect of why classic works so well. You have a combination of two factors:

1. Classes that feel extremely distinct from each other.
2. A significant amount of content that only needs to done once to a few times.

I leveled a paladin first in Classic. I had a great time. Then, I leveled a Warlock. It was like playing a different game. The classes were so remarkably distinct that it made the game a completely different experience. And in both cases, I had dozens and dozens and dozens of hours of content to play through before I had to repeat anything. Not only were the classes distinct, but my professions, faction choice, and to a lesser extent race all had meaningful impacts on what playing the game felt like.

By comparison, there is a distinct samey-ness to retail, and you are funneled into content repetition VERY quickly. Playing my Warlock or my Paladin in retail does not feel that different, I'm playing the same content over and over, and on top of that the content itself has a very template-based feel to it.

[fazaim]

Cataclysm brought the transmog feature which is great. However, the transmog in Cataclysm is the absolute worst piece of trash design across almost every class.

[MiiiMiii]

"heroics" in WOTLK is a fucking joke. Thats the best part of Cata. The Heroic dungeons being hard for the first few weeks. But Blizzard just gave up after ppl complained. Nerf the dungeons and kiss their feet.

In Cata I think the quests are objectivly better but because of the dead world PvP meta it sucked. At least it did not have "war mode".

[The Stormbringer]

Give the Worgen an equivalent zone and city/big town that the Goblins got (Azshara/Bilgewater Harbor).

Or if not that just keep the Worgen Female Alpha design.

[jeezusisacasual]

They should give a competing end game gearing system that actually competes with Raiding similar to how Mythic plus has helped the live end game. Also expand transmog to what it is like in the live game to remove the ugly ass sets people had to use. Focus more on the median playerbase and not the upper tier to hopefully push people into level of gaming instead of the heroics are so hard people say screw this instead of hell yea we did it.

[Soon-TM]

I don't think Cata can ever be "tweaked", it was too big of a failure on pretty much every front except raiding - even then, we were stuck with &%$#ing DS for ages. In order to make Cata more palatable, they should (imo):

• Tune the level of each zone so that you can get to level 80 without ever setting foot on Outland/Northrend. Those places can remain as optional zones for levels 60-70 and 70-80 respectively.
• Tone down the amount of meme quests. Sure, WoW has always had that stuff, but in Cata there were memes and pop references left, right and centre. Uldum was particularly egregious in this regard.
• If you want HC dungeons to be hard at the intended level of gear, do it so that it doesn't involve castrating healers. Nobody rolls a healer to see their teammates die slowly while you are just standing there, almost powerless. It may have been not much of an issue with a guild group, but this is RDF we're talking about.
• Cata's first tier sucked ass, there should be something to do, other than spamming the troll dungeons. And its second tier was great, but FL was too short for a major raid, way too short. I heard that the famously cancelled Abyssal Maw raid was brought up to speed during BfA and sold as the EP raid, so I guess there will be no Abyssal Maw in a hypothetical Classic Cata either.
• And for the love of the Eternal Sun, do something, anything with DS, but don't just re-release it as was. It was just crap, pure, unadulterated bullcrap.

[Kokolums]

By Cata, WoW had become extremely antisocial. Blizz doesn't even recognize that as a problem. They released Season of Mastery which was an antisocial version of Classic vanilla WoW. SoM was doomed to fail from the start and anyone could see that. Cata would need a massive overhaul of the social systems to even have a shot at succeeding.

[Nak88]

By Cata, WoW had become extremely antisocial. Blizz doesn't even recognize that as a problem. They released Season of Mastery which was an antisocial version of Classic vanilla WoW. SoM was doomed to fail from the start and anyone could see that. Cata would need a massive overhaul of the social systems to even have a shot at succeeding.

Can you explain why Cata and SoM were antisocial?