Jeff Kaplan

[Jngizu]

I was comparing to WotLK versions here. WotLK is pre-Cata, right ?

Which spec ? Because TBC prot or affliction is certainly much more challenging and interesting than any spec I've tested in Legion so far (admitedly I've not tested that many, but that's precisely because classes are pretty boring to play and don't feel really varied or engaging).

That's certainly not an argument I can get behind. Changing stances had drawback, took a GCD, and each stance had only select abilities available, so it certainly added depth and complexity compared to simply clicking an ability.

I don't see how the game is more interesting with making gameplay more boring so the bosses are harder.
Actually, I don't see why a boss harder means that gameplay should be simplified. What's the link between both ?
As for the gratuitous attack and strawman, was that really necessary ?

Well, WoTLK Arms was still easier. I should know, I mained Warrior up until Legion. Cata's Arms was the most challenging one. But Legion is still far more interesting than WotLK's. As for stances, i loved them, until everyone used macros and stances didn't mean much anymore. Still, I was sad they removed them.

As for Prot, I suppose you're talking about Warrior right? Again that's where I wonder about what you have done in Legion, not as an attack but as legit question. Reading your posts, it seems like you barely play the game, and have been barely playing it since Cata. Prot War was actually pretty challenging if you wanted to survive and maximize your DPS (haven't played it since EN though, so they might have changed it, only aware of the nerf on IP). TBC was hard as Prot because of threat management, not really because the gameplay of the class itself.

Affliction, can't comment, haven't played it. But I have friends who have and they have been playing lock since Vanilla. All of them agree that before cata, the gameplay was just stupid.

I don't really know where you think I was strawmanning though? Just made an educated guess that you haven't played the game at a high level for a long time seeing your posts. Wasn't meant as an attack, just that most classes are always bland outside of raids, it was always the case. Unless you had 0 gear or had no idea what you were doing. Which was the case for most people during Vanilla and TBC, and why so many people remember those two as very hard, when in reality they were a lot easier than today. Just people, for the vast majority, had no idea what they were doing.

As for the last point, well you basically focus on your own gameplay, or you focus on what the boss is doing. If you make one very hard, the harder has to go down. You can't really have both. And I think Blizzard has hit the sweet spot for NH. Classes are not easy enough that you can just roll your face on the keyboard and encounters are hard enough that you have to pay attention at what's going on, instead of tunneling on your WA's (which is something else to prove my point btw, no one used WA during Vanilla or TBC because there was no need for it as every class was just extremely easy to play. Try most classes today without any WA's and score in the 90th percentile, it's just impossible).

[Akka]

Well, WoTLK Arms was still easier. I should know, I mained Warrior up until Legion. Cata's Arms was the most challenging one. But Legion is still far more interesting than WotLK's.

I trust your word about it for Cata, but for Legion I really don't see how it's more interesting. At least it's not boring like prot, and the animations do a good job at making you feel like you're giving really heavy hit, but gameplay-wise it's quite poorer than WotLK one. So I'm really scratching my head here.

As for Prot, I suppose you're talking about Warrior right? Again that's where I wonder about what you have done in Legion, not as an attack but as legit question. Reading your posts, it seems like you barely play the game, and have been barely playing it since Cata. Prot War was actually pretty challenging if you wanted to survive and maximize your DPS (haven't played it since EN though, so they might have changed it, only aware of the nerf on IP). TBC was hard as Prot because of threat management, not really because the gameplay of the class itself.

Yes, I've barely played since Cata (barely played Cata and skipped MoP entirely) but it's not really relevant since it's about Legion (which is current) vs pre-Cata (in which I had a pretty extensive game time).
I don't really see, again, how prot in Legion is more involving than prot in TBC, and I'm even more puzzled when you're on one side arguing for Legion by using "maxing out DPS" argument while arguing against TBC by using "it was just about managing threat". It seems pretty self-contradictory ?
It also rather confirm my complaint that playing a tank in Legion is too much like playing a DPS (though admitedly that's been the case since WotLK, it just feels even worse now).
Again, notice I'm not saying the content is easier or harder, I'm talking about the gameplay not being as fun. TBC tanking was fun because it was demanding and varied. Stance-dancing to be able to intercept/slow a mob was a big risk, so you had to not be reckless with it ; keeping aggro gave an actual tank-specific objective (instead of "do as much DPS as possible", which is in some way pretty close, but quite not the same and has nothing to do with the tank role in itself) ; you had at least two debuff and one buff to keep at all time, and all your defensive CD to use. In all that, Legion just kept defensive CD and added Ignore Pain - which I like as a mechanism, but which doesn't compensate for everything else, by far.

Affliction, can't comment, haven't played it. But I have friends who have and they have been playing lock since Vanilla. All of them agree that before cata, the gameplay was just stupid.

I'll need some context here. Either they meant affliction was "stupid" balance-wise (it was, Destro was able to pull out more DPS while being much easier to play), in which case I agree but that's, well, a balance problem, not a design one. Or they had a pet peeve against some element which is more about preference than actual "stupid" gameplay.
The concept of Affli was being a massive debuffer and DoTer, and the gameplay was about maximizing DoT and keeping them at all time. It was extremely intricate if you really wanted to get everything out of it (because of how DoT were affected by buffs), which might end up being a bit silly and overtly complex at bleeding edge level of competition, but it was really fitting for the class fantasy (the actual original one, not the updated one we got in Legion) and a truly unique gameplay. That's precisely what I find Legion lacking.

I don't really know where you think I was strawmanning though? Just made an educated guess that you haven't played the game at a high level for a long time seeing your posts. Wasn't meant as an attack, just that most classes are always bland outside of raids, it was always the case. Unless you had 0 gear or had no idea what you were doing. Which was the case for most people during Vanilla and TBC, and why so many people remember those two as very hard, when in reality they were a lot easier than today. Just people, for the vast majority, had no idea what they were doing.

Most classes being bland outside of raid is actually, precisely, a flaw of the new design, and so it, actually, was NOT always the case. In fact, and I said it in a post before, that was actually the opposite in early WoW, and a major reproach I do to post-TBC design is precisely that gameplay is mainly down to "raid rotations".

As for raids, yes you need some measure of difficulty before the gameplay can start to be appreciated (that's the problem with leveling in fact, you can just spam one button and tear through it), but it's still two different elements, even if they interact : what makes me find the gameplay of Legion boring is not it's "lack of difficulty", it's that it's bland, doesn't reflect the nature of the classes well and above all lacks core variety. The "class fantasy" was supposed to break homogeneization, but it only furthered the problem in my opinion, especially by treating now each spec as its own class instead of them being subtle variation of the same core aspect. I particularly hate this later point.

As for the last point, well you basically focus on your own gameplay, or you focus on what the boss is doing. If you make one very hard, the harder has to go down. You can't really have both. And I think Blizzard has hit the sweet spot for NH. Classes are not easy enough that you can just roll your face on the keyboard and encounters are hard enough that you have to pay attention at what's going on, instead of tunneling on your WA's (which is something else to prove my point btw, no one used WA during Vanilla or TBC because there was no need for it as every class was just extremely easy to play. Try most classes today without any WA's and score in the 90th percentile, it's just impossible).

No one used WA during Vanilla or TBC because it didn't exist. It doesn't mean people didn't use add-on to be able to function correctly, it just means that no add-on was as polished and efficient as WA, and so people used a variety of them. Don't confuse it with "people didn't use WA because it was so easy to play !".
Even as a person who usually use only the absolute minimum amount of add-on possible, I had to get some to play decently in TBC.

[Nakotsu]

Previous poster you quoted was right. At least at the beginning of vanilla and almost to its end, warriors were the only viable tanks by design.
Paladins not really, there was this witch hunting on paladins, game designers overall wanted to keep paladins at bay, hence they were 5 min long buffers with a bit of healing and that's it.

Maybe they just didn't do it right. I tanked BWL and ZG and AQ 40/20 And world bosses.... MC thou I was a straight up healing foo out healing my priest and druids in my guild... BC thou I was straight out tank and did every raid.

- - - Updated - - -

I trust your word about it for Cata, but for Legion I really don't see how it's more interesting. At least it's not boring like prot, and the animations do a good job at making you feel like you're giving really heavy hit, but gameplay-wise it's quite poorer than WotLK one. So I'm really scratching my head here.

Yes, I've barely played since Cata (barely played Cata and skipped MoP entirely) but it's not really relevant since it's about Legion (which is current) vs pre-Cata (in which I had a pretty extensive game time).
I don't really see, again, how prot in Legion is more involving than prot in TBC, and I'm even more puzzled when you're on one side arguing for Legion by using "maxing out DPS" argument while arguing against TBC by using "it was just about managing threat". It seems pretty self-contradictory ?
It also rather confirm my complaint that playing a tank in Legion is too much like playing a DPS (though admitedly that's been the case since WotLK, it just feels even worse now).
Again, notice I'm not saying the content is easier or harder, I'm talking about the gameplay not being as fun. TBC tanking was fun because it was demanding and varied. Stance-dancing to be able to intercept/slow a mob was a big risk, so you had to not be reckless with it ; keeping aggro gave an actual tank-specific objective (instead of "do as much DPS as possible", which is in some way pretty close, but quite not the same and has nothing to do with the tank role in itself) ; you had at least two debuff and one buff to keep at all time, and all your defensive CD to use. In all that, Legion just kept defensive CD and added Ignore Pain - which I like as a mechanism, but which doesn't compensate for everything else, by far.

I'll need some context here. Either they meant affliction was "stupid" balance-wise (it was, Destro was able to pull out more DPS while being much easier to play), in which case I agree but that's, well, a balance problem, not a design one. Or they had a pet peeve against some element which is more about preference than actual "stupid" gameplay.
The concept of Affli was being a massive debuffer and DoTer, and the gameplay was about maximizing DoT and keeping them at all time. It was extremely intricate if you really wanted to get everything out of it (because of how DoT were affected by buffs), which might end up being a bit silly and overtly complex at bleeding edge level of competition, but it was really fitting for the class fantasy (the actual original one, not the updated one we got in Legion) and a truly unique gameplay. That's precisely what I find Legion lacking.

Most classes being bland outside of raid is actually, precisely, a flaw of the new design, and so it, actually, was NOT always the case. In fact, and I said it in a post before, that was actually the opposite in early WoW, and a major reproach I do to post-TBC design is precisely that gameplay is mainly down to "raid rotations".

As for raids, yes you need some measure of difficulty before the gameplay can start to be appreciated (that's the problem with leveling in fact, you can just spam one button and tear through it), but it's still two different elements, even if they interact : what makes me find the gameplay of Legion boring is not it's "lack of difficulty", it's that it's bland, doesn't reflect the nature of the classes well and above all lacks core variety. The "class fantasy" was supposed to break homogeneization, but it only furthered the problem in my opinion, especially by treating now each spec as its own class instead of them being subtle variation of the same core aspect. I particularly hate this later point.

No one used WA during Vanilla or TBC because it didn't exist. It doesn't mean people didn't use add-on to be able to function correctly, it just means that no add-on was as polished and efficient as WA, and so people used a variety of them. Don't confuse it with "people didn't use WA because it was so easy to play !".
Even as a person who usually use only the absolute minimum amount of add-on possible, I had to get some to play decently in TBC.

What is WA????
I use DBM/Recount/ Z perls unit frames / Bartender4 / Tidy Plates.

[Dangg]

Tanks and healing were definitely much more interesting, because of threat and mana management.

Not seeing it. Like not at all.
Maybe I was just unlucky in my class choice (Resto Shaman throughout Classic/BC) and the others were the interesting ones.
The unique supporting aspect, but healing itself?

[Kokolums]

Vanilla gameplay had to be easier because fewer people had rigs that could handle it and raids were 40 man. I remember raiding mc and i could only point my camera angle to the ground and decurse. If i tried to do anything else my fps was 3

[Deleted]

Stats which you're still falsely associating with WoW's design changes. What it's really showing is that the gaming market in general moved away from MMO's.

And why do you think it's happening ? the MMORPG genre is the only video game genre whom game design has been broken for years (since the middle of WOTLK actually) and nothing has been done to address the problems that are plaguing the genre since then, as most game companies systematically try to build their game imitating blizzard's post WOTLK design. Blizzard proved with wow vanilla and TBC that there was a public for well designed MMORPG. But that design has been lost mid WOTLK and NO games were released since then with that game design.

If it shows anything is that players don't play poorly designed games (eg a MMO that tries mostly to cater to solo players cannot work on a large scale, because solo players play better solo games and people who want to play in group play better multiplayer games). It should be obvious if you look at mmorpg's forums that players have been longing for a decent MMORPG for years.

I don't have 150 M ~200 M $ but if I had you could be sure I'd be proving my point right now, as there really is a huge opportunity right now on the market.

Vanilla gameplay had to be easier because fewer people had rigs that could handle it and raids were 40 man. I remember raiding mc and i could only point my camera angle to the ground and decurse. If i tried to do anything else my fps was 3

No, that's because a group RPG and a MMORPG is more about problem solving on a group's scale than microgestion on a player scale.

[HordeFanboy]

Wow needs ppl like him asap. I dont want third garbage expansion in a row.

[Akka]

Not seeing it. Like not at all.
Maybe I was just unlucky in my class choice (Resto Shaman throughout Classic/BC) and the others were the interesting ones.
The unique supporting aspect, but healing itself?

Maybe it depends on classes, or maybe it depends on player's preference. Having to manage an entire fight about your mana instead of focusing on maximum throughput was more interesting (if I want to focus on throughput, then DPS seems more logical). I played a priestess, and my entire gameplay was about maxing regen and doing the FSR dance. It made for a completely different game than DPS or tank - it was all about knowing when and how to heal and to use CD and so on to be able to keep people alive while staying as much as possible outside the 5s no-regen.

Vanilla/TBC offered real variety in roles and approach : tanking was very different from healing which was very different from DPS, each role having a completely different focus and gameplay. Support classes were maybe not official but quite real (the whole crying about the "hybrid tax" was stupid to me, I expected them to not be as specialized as the "pure" one, that was their fucking own personalities, and the very reason why I played my shaman was to be able to buff everyone, not to top the meters alone), debuffers had also their niche.
Now ? Everything is just a slight variation on the DPS gameplay, and the entire buffer/debuffer roles (and even buffs and debuffs) have been removed. Blech.

What is WA????

Weak Aura.

[Nakotsu]

Maybe it depends on classes, or maybe it depends on player's preference. Having to manage an entire fight about your mana instead of focusing on maximum throughput was more interesting (if I want to focus on throughput, then DPS seems more logical). I played a priestess, and my entire gameplay was about maxing regen and doing the FSR dance. It made for a completely different game than DPS or tank - it was all about knowing when and how to heal and to use CD and so on to be able to keep people alive while staying as much as possible outside the 5s no-regen.

Vanilla/TBC offered real variety in roles and approach : tanking was very different from healing which was very different from DPS, each role having a completely different focus and gameplay. Support classes were maybe not official but quite real (the whole crying about the "hybrid tax" was stupid to me, I expected them to not be as specialized as the "pure" one, that was their fucking own personalities, and the very reason why I played my shaman was to be able to buff everyone, not to top the meters alone), debuffers had also their niche.
Now ? Everything is just a slight variation on the DPS gameplay, and the entire buffer/debuffer roles (and even buffs and debuffs) have been removed. Blech.

Weak Aura.

we didnt need to manage them we either choose devotion for more defense(depending if you hit the 140%) or Retribution for more aggro... We also really didnt need to heal ourselves back then either. The main thing was AGGRo but again retribution aura usually took care of that plus Holy Shield/ concecrate...
Not to mention nothing back then had immunities to holy damage...
Vanilla you didnt have to manage your mana Atleast I never did I just had so much... there wasnt a cap like todays paladins.
BC was a huge ramp up thou to aggro and the lot made it super awesome to be a paladin tank.

In fact heres a video watch it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84OwHLAuQzc
I wish I had of had the capabilities to record back then...