Is "more" always a good thing?

[Denkou]

I've been pondering this for awhile and I'd like to hear your guys' thoughts about it.

I started playing in vanilla, when there was nowhere near the amount of options that we have today. I'm going to use battlegrounds as an example. We had a whopping total of three. With each expansion we got a few new ones. Here's a list of all forms of "objective-based" PvP, grouped by the expansion they were first introduced in.

Classic
Warsong Gulch (BG)
Arathi Basin (BG)
Alterac Valley (BG)

The Burning Crusade
Eye of the Storm (BG)
Ring of Trials (Arena)
Circle of Blood (Arena)
Ruins of Lordaeron (Arena)
Halaa (World PvP)

Wrath of the Lich King
Strand of the Ancients (BG)
Isle of Conquest (BG)
Dalaran Arena (Arena)
Ring of Valor (Arena)
Wintergrasp (World PvP)

Cataclysm
Twin Peaks (BG)
Battle for Gilneas (BG)
Tol'Barad (World PvP)
Rated Battlegrounds introduced

Mists of Pandaria
Deepwind Gorge (BG)
Silvershard Mines (BG)
Temple of Kotmogu (BG)
Tol'vir Arena (Arena)
Tiger's Peak (Arena)

While Halaa isn't something you queue for like WG/TB, I threw it in there anyway because it was in a central location and was the "precursor" to WG, if you will. I realize I omitted a lot of smaller PvP areas such as the towers in Auchindoun and the areas in Krasarang Wilds. Adding up the list, we have 11 battlegrounds, 7 arena maps, and 3 world PvP zones. We know Ashran is the new WPVP zone in WoD, and we also know there will be at least a couple of new battlegrounds, although we don't know what they are or exactly how many yet.

Now let's look at classes. In the interest of saving space and avoiding redundancy of common knowledge, I won't list them all out by expansion, but we have 11 classes, 9 of which existed at launch, 1 that came in WotLK and 1 that came in MoP. Looking at races, we have 13; 8 at launch, 2 with TBC, 2 with Cataclysm, and 1 with MoP.

Where am I going with all of this? The issue at hand, or at least in my mind, is balance. The community is always asking for more. More content, more loot, more mounts, so on and so forth. It seems like every few days, a new thread pops up about the next hero class or the next races to be introduced. My question is, is "more" always a good thing? When does "more" become "too much"? Some things, if we are given more of, do not affect gameplay as much. New mounts, for example, would be welcomed by just about everyone, and since mounts are purely cosmetic, no real problems arise from introducing new mounts. However, things such as classes, races, and battlegrounds have more profound effects on our game.

I am of the opinion that for those things, more is not always better, no matter how much people may beg and scream for being able to play as an Ogre Tinker or an Ethereal Demon Hunter. With the 11 classes we currently have, the devs already have a difficult enough time trying to balance them. The same goes for races, which is why racials are being redone for WoD. Wouldn't adding more further complicate things? And as for battlegrounds, there are a few which are currently very one-sided favoring one faction or the other when it comes to W:L ratio; and this is not just anecdotal, there were statistics that came out not too long ago showing just how skewed some of the win percentages are. There are even some battlegrounds that practically nobody wants to play due to balance issues and/or poor design (IoC, I'm looking at you).

Wouldn't adding more be detrimental to the health of the game as a whole? If there are things that are currently broken, why are new things being created and introduced when the time could be spent fixing some of the old problems? What happens when we end up at expansion #8 with 20 different battlegrounds, and only a quarter of them are actually enjoyable, while the rest are imbalanced, broken, or simply outdated? Or 16 different races, but only 4-5 that are played by the majority of the population due to OP racials? There's a reason why most of the top PvPers play human, and its not because of how they look.

Another way to look at it is like this: if WoD came out (or whatever expansion after that) with zero new classes, zero new races, and zero new battlegrounds, would you still play the game? What if their reasoning for not having any of those things is that "we have enough" and that they want to balance what we currently have? Would you view that as Blizzard being "lazy" or doing a "half-assed" job?

In a time and age when the playerbase is always wanting more, I can't help but wonder if I'm the only one who is content with that which we already have. I know the guys in the Tinker thread are probably going to disagree. Just wanted to hear what you guys think about this.

I'm going to leave (PvE) content out of this discussion, because more content is almost always a good thing. PvE content is the medium through which the story is told and is a means for our character to progress, be it through leveling up or obtaining new gear. Because they are scripted encounters and are done linearly, they don't face the same problems with balancing that new classes or new BGs do. Once a new tier of raiding comes out, the focus shifts almost entirely to that tier; nerfs are often applied to previous tiers and new, easily-obtainable gear is introduced to help players "catch up" to the new tier. This is a different philosophy than PvP, in which all battlegrounds can still be considered "current" and "relevant", no matter when they were introduced.

[Irian]

I think the incredible job they did in balancing the monk class from launch gives me faith that, when given a clean slate, blizzard can make a new class and give it a fair amount of strengths and weaknesses without being OP. I think their larger problem comes from building off of the classes that already exist.
A new class is a good thing for the game as it shakes things up a bit. It gives players a new experience in PvP and PvE in a way because you're going to be interacting with that class and so it keeps the game exciting and gives players new experiences. I for one loved fighting monks when they were new because it was different and it was fun learning the ins and outs of a new class.

I think in order for Blizzard to get away with 0 new classes, 0 new races and 0 new BGs I'd like them to at least go back and reiterate on the things that they know they screwed up. AV immediately comes to mind.
Anyone with a brain can see that AV is grossly imbalanced towards one faction to the point where it feels pointless. It's a brainless PvE rush and doesn't belong as a player versus player battleground at all, being primarily NPC focused. Go back to the drawing board, find a way to keep it short if need be, but make it fun. Make the two teams be forced to clash. Make PvP actually involve PvP.
All that was said above also applies to IoC.

[Deleted]

I think "more" works for environments such as battlegrounds and raids. Diversity in scenery is always welcome. I'd hate to only have Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, and Alterac Valley after all these years. I wouldn't be surprised if battlegrounds would be even more desolate.


In the case of adding classes, i think Blizzard have gotten it entirely wrong. With Monk being the most recent example. They have been given a kit that upsets balance. For no reason, a monks interrupt also silences if from the front. For no reason the monks fists doubles up as a stun and nuke. Other classes stuns use a resource that hinders the damage output. A kidney shot costs the combo points and energy for the rogue and they have to build up toward their nuke. I won't even start on their mobility.


In conclusion, more is good as long as new is created equal with old. They have the tenancy to create new with power as an advertisement to attract players. Whether intentional or not.

[Denkou]

I think in order for Blizzard to get away with 0 new classes, 0 new races and 0 new BGs I'd like them to at least go back and reiterate on the things that they know they screwed up. AV immediately comes to mind.
Anyone with a brain can see that AV is grossly imbalanced towards one faction to the point where it feels pointless. It's a brainless PvE rush and doesn't belong as a player versus player battleground at all, being primarily NPC focused. Go back to the drawing board, find a way to keep it short if need be, but make it fun. Make the two teams be forced to clash. Make PvP actually involve PvP.
All that was said above also applies to IoC.

I don't like the current state of AV either, but for different reasons than you. I dislike that it basically takes < 10 minutes to complete and is little more than a zerg rush to the other base. I think most players who started playing in the last 3-4 years or so don't even know all the cool things you can do in AV, like summoning the ice lord/druids/riders and capping mines for extra reinforcements. I'm not saying we should bring back the days of 12-hour AV battles, but at the same time each objective, each tower and graveyard and point of interest on the map should have more relevance than it current has. Make players actually go out and have to do stuff in the battleground so that we don't have 30 people AFK every match. As it is currently, AV is completely broken.

[Deleted]

Another proof "more" is not always good is the fact every time a new expansion comes out with a new zone and level cap the world becomes emptier and emptier with players.
When more zones are created the bigger the space to be filled with players, plus as the game becomes older less players will be leveling.

I know this is a minor thing but i really love to see the leveling world filled with players leveling and this is an issue impossible to solve as the game becomes bigger and bigger every day
Not sure if CRZ zones were able to fix the leveling experience of wow, i pitty the lowbie new players who think leveling = run the same instance in LFG.

But anyway, this is a minor thing. WoW is all about endgame today

[Blithe]

They need to fix the imbalance in Alterac Valley, and make Wintergrasp and Tol Barad instanced battlegrounds before any more battlegrounds get added. The queues need to be fixed too, it takes 10 minutes for a Horde player, but instant for an Alliance player? It's to the point where your fastest honor per hour as Horde is doing Heroics and converting them to Honor Points, though with that being said on Alterac Valley weekends; winning can net you as much but that's only every few weeks and only lasts a few days.

I'd also love to see more game-types, such as Deathmatch in battlegrounds, but with strategies in place that don't necessarily make it a stand in the one area and zerg each other kind of style.

World PvP seems to be on the right track, with the temporary (hopefully it's permanent this expansion) removal of flying mounts, balancing of crowd control, PvP gear being better than PvE gear in PvP scenarios, as well as our one and only Ashran; I really have high hopes for it.

Not to mention with the addition of Skirmishes, being the battleground equivalent of a rated battleground, but for arenas; it'll be much easier for players to join in on that experience as it's unranked and you get rewards. Not having to grind for gear is another great aspect of them.

And for those who just want to practice, there's still Wargames.

[DiscoGhost]

variety is the spice of life