I hate to say it, but BFA looks bad

[Mafic]

I remember this type of thread from when Legion was in the works.

You do realize that Legion class design was so bad that WoW devs consider further class development as a sunk cost. So they have collectively decided for BFA they are doing the bare minimum for classes this time around to push out an expansion on a deadline...

Indeed they invested a lot of resources to remake classes for Legion but:

1. Why remake classes that were mostly fine?

2. If they knew artifact weapons were going away why design classes around them for only one expansion?

3. Why weren't most artifact talents or traits baselined as they proposed? The few artifact talents and traits that stuck around for BFA have been irresponsibly been forced into the talent trees???

This is a self inflicted mistake that WoW devs made and now they are choosing to cut their losses for BFA class design by not even putting much effort into classes. In that respect I think this feels worse than WoD because WoD tried to address the pruning with some major class changes and mechanics.

To further explain my sentiment this is how I see it. By the second patch of WoD it seemed that the WoW dev team considered WoD a sunk cost and decided to work on the next expansion aka Legion. Is BFA going to be a repeat of WoD where by the 2nd or third patch they bail again? Based on how much time and effort they are putting in class design this is a legit concern.

[Osmeric]

You do realize that Legion class design was so bad that WoW devs consider further class development as a sunk cost. So they have collectively decided for BFA they are doing the bare minimum for classes this time around to push out an expansion on a deadline...

In what universe would past development NOT be seen as a sunk cost? I mean, no one is going to be refunding those salaries to Blizzard.

[Deleted]

The class progression is terrible. I cringe at the idea that i will be playing the exact same spec at 120 as you start at 110. Current Azerite gear doesnt do anything to change things up.

The fact that there are no talents at lvl 120 is baffling. What are they thinking?

War mode is cool though, but all of those abilities should be baseline.

[Mafic]

In what universe would past development NOT be seen as a sunk cost? I mean, no one is going to be refunding those salaries to Blizzard.

That is true but I think I am trying to look at it from WoW devs point of view.

The WoW devs figured that they invested so much in class design for Legion and they (and players alike) still were not satisfied with class design by mid expansion of Legion. So for BFA they are saying they are not going to change classes all that much as most classes are in a Legion prepatch state for the most part. But that leaves a feeling from players that the changes made for legion are sticking around. Or worse for players that did like Legion classes are going to see artifact traits and talents stripped away.

In general it feels like WoW dev team doesn't see the value of class design anymore and focuses more on cosmetic appeal now (eg allied races). Which is ironic because Blizz used to not understand the appeal of cosmetic options like transmog or request for new races like High Elves. But WoW devs are known to go from one extreme to another and this probably a good example with BFA focusing so much cosmetics but gameplay of classes is no longer a focus.

- - - Updated - - -

The class progression is terrible. I cringe at the idea that i will be playing the exact same spec at 120 as you start at 110. Current Azerite gear doesnt do anything to change things up.

The fact that there are no talents at lvl 120 is baffling. What are they thinking?

War mode is cool though, but all of those abilities should be baseline.

Azerite armor as it is right now is not robust enough to cover set bonuses, legendaries, and artifact traits and talents. Maybe it wasn't meant to cover all that ground, but it seems that Azerite Armor is the lynchpin of BFA design. But if BFA design hinges on Azerite armor sooner or later they need to start showing the more powerful Azerite armor pieces on beta, because waiting a year into an expansion for semi interesting Azerite armor pieces seems odd.

[Rogalicus]

If you care about being able to simply choose what you want, the new system is miles ahead of the old system. The failure of the new system is that you have so few things to choose and pretty much every single time it's "Boring - Boring - AMAZING" or "Fun, but weak - Boring - Strong but the boringest". So it's just tuning/design flaws with the rows themselves.

Both systems are shit, but at least old trees gave a sense of progression during leveling.
I don't know why Blizzard is still clinging to the idea of talents, if anything, it hurts game more than it helps. They cut out baseline abilities and throw them into talents to give you an illusion of choice and yet there's still no choice, at most you are changing build for AoE/Single target or Constant damage/Burst period. They should just give away all active abilities and design class as a whole.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Azerite armor as it is right now is not robust enough to cover set bonuses, legendaries, and artifact traits and talents. Maybe it wasn't meant to cover all that ground, but it seems that Azerite Armor is the lynchpin of BFA design. But if BFA design hinges on Azerite armor sooner or later they need to start showing the more powerful Azerite armor pieces on beta, because waiting a year into an expansion for semi interesting Azerite armor pieces seems odd.

Azerite armor will probably quite literally be on the level of nether crucible relics. 3 Slots, 3 main traits that affect your class (around the level of a tier bonus at best), 3 generic garbage traits and 3*5 item levels extra, that's about it. There is no way it will ever compensae every aspect of legion class design, they even said already it's supposed to be around golden traits and tier sets in terms of impact.

[Osmeric]

That is true but I think I am trying to look at it from WoW devs point of view.

The WoW devs figured that they invested so much in class design for Legion and they (and players alike) still were not satisfied with class design by mid expansion of Legion. So for BFA they are saying they are not going to change classes all that much as most classes are in a Legion prepatch state for the most part. But that leaves a feeling from players that the changes made for legion are sticking around. Or worse for players that did like Legion classes are going to see artifact traits and talents stripped away.

Why do you say they are not satisfied? If they are not making large changes, that indicates to me they ARE satisfied.

[Mafic]

Why do you say they are not satisfied? If they are not making large changes, that indicates to me they ARE satisfied.

They were not satisfied with how much investment they put in class redesign of Legion so they are now satisfied doing the bare minimum for BFA. They had to do a mid expansion rework of several specs in Legion which is very rare. Plus, a lot of players did not appreciate the larger changes to classes for Legion so WoW devs are going to do the bare minimum now for BFA.

- - - Updated - - -

Azerite armor will probably quite literally be on the level of nether crucible relics. 3 Slots, 3 main traits that affect your class (around the level of a tier bonus at best), 3 generic garbage traits and 3*5 item levels extra, that's about it. There is no way it will ever compensae every aspect of legion class design, they even said already it's supposed to be around golden traits and tier sets in terms of impact.

Yeah but at some point they have to tip their hand on how robust and powerful these traits will be. Because if it is like Netherlight crucible 2.0 that isn't going to carry an expansion.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Yeah but at some point they have to tip their hand on how robust and powerful these traits will be. Because if it is like Netherlight crucible 2.0 that isn't going to carry an expansion.

Imho it's not supposed to be. That is just something that the fanbois made up in their heads. The pieces will be important enough that you will want to farm them, but it's only really worth it if you have pieces you actually can still unlock. If you only raid normal you will be done fast anyway, even if these pieces are the gamechangers that the fanbois think they are and come with 10 tiers worth of traits each.

[Deleted]

The class progression is terrible. I cringe at the idea that i will be playing the exact same spec at 120 as you start at 110. Current Azerite gear doesnt do anything to change things up.

The fact that there are no talents at lvl 120 is baffling. What are they thinking?

Why would you suggest they have no long-term idea for class design? They sure do ... I mean ... they have shown that often enough (by going in circles or even straight backwards) ... right?

[Osmeric]

They were not satisfied with how much investment they put in class redesign of Legion so they are now satisfied doing the bare minimum for BFA. They had to do a mid expansion rework of several specs in Legion which is very rare. Plus, a lot of players did not appreciate the larger changes to classes for Legion so WoW devs are going to do the bare minimum now for BFA.

Or, they are largely satisfied with where the classes are and see no need for large changes.

Given that they ARE changing other aspects of the game, how does your theory make any sense?

The most parsimonious explanation is that the simplification of classes in Legion was successful, forum blowhard complaints notwithstanding, and they are sticking with a winning formula.

[Tygruss]

I hope so too, waiting to get into the beta still to try it out.

[Mafic]

Or, they are largely satisfied with where the classes are and see no need for large changes.

Given that they ARE changing other aspects of the game, how does your theory make any sense?

The most parsimonious explanation is that the simplification of classes in Legion was successful, forum blowhard complaints notwithstanding, and they are sticking with a winning formula.

No I don't agree at all.

They are not going to do large changes for classes for BFA so far, because the large changes for classes they did do for Legion was not received well from the players. Also the players did not appreciate the constant changes to classes post launch either. It is purely that simple from my point of view in that they view doing large changes to classes as pointless in terms of time investment and frustrating players more often than leaving things alone.

The simplification of classes was not successful in Legion because they had to do several mid expansion reworks of several specs. More specifically the entire rework of Sub mid expansion of legion is a good example of this. Sub was simplified to the point that Shadow Dance was turned into a boring DPS passive which devalued entering stealth and using stealth generators and finishers. That is why for the mid expansion rework Sub was changed at its core along with the entire talent tree for the most part. They even returned Shadow Step to the spec because the simplification of adding a teleport to ambush aka shadowstrike was causing many issues in PVE and PVP. So, simplification is not always better or a winning formula.

I do not see how this is a winning formula as an alpha/beta tester and here is why:

1. Legion mid expansion reworks

They had to rework several specs during the expansion which is rare to happen. Given the lack of effort put into classes with BFA compared to Legion the possibility of mid expansion rework is much higher now even if that is not what the WoW devs want. But the WoW devs were not planning of doing mid expansion reworks of specs in Legion either. But player feedback along with live data metric mining pushed the WoW devs to that direction in the end.

2. Most class and spec changes should happen during alpha/beta

Players don't appreciate when specs and classes change so much during an expansion. Even WoW devs agree with the players on this but the level of complacency shown toward class design isn't a level of satisfaction. But accepting that they have a deadline to meet and class design is not a priority for BFA as a result. My prediction is you will see massive hot fixes post launch for classes because that is how the WoW devs have positioned themselves. Partly because they rely more on live data metrics and also because they have a deadline to launch.

3. Warmode unpruning

Gating utility and rotational complexity behind a PVP warmode isn't going to go over well with PVE players. If you are on beta you can see how much classes and specs play fluidly by simply having three additional talents to utilize.

WoW devs are banking on upfront box sales for BFA with allied races and that is their winning strategy which is not about long term health of the game.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Rapid fire was an ability that got pruned.

--source: played huntard in vanilla.

Reap magic I didnt know about. I guess you're right then BFA has a lot of new exciting class ability development

The rapid fire we are geting now is a new ability with the same name as the old one but it is still totally new.

[Mitshukiwow]

I think it's a bit early to know it but i think BFA will be amazing

[styil]

No I don't agree at all.

They are not going to do large changes for classes for BFA so far, because the large changes for classes they did do for Legion was not received well from the players. Also the players did not appreciate the constant changes to classes post launch either. It is purely that simple from my point of view in that they view doing large changes to classes as pointless in terms of time investment and frustrating players more often than leaving things alone.

The simplification of classes was not successful in Legion because they had to do several mid expansion reworks of several specs. More specifically the entire rework of Sub mid expansion of legion is a good example of this. Sub was simplified to the point that Shadow Dance was turned into a boring DPS passive which devalued entering stealth and using stealth generators and finishers. That is why for the mid expansion rework Sub was changed at its core along with the entire talent tree for the most part. They even returned Shadow Step to the spec because the simplification of adding a teleport to ambush aka shadowstrike was causing many issues in PVE and PVP. So, simplification is not always better or a winning formula.

I do not see how this is a winning formula as an alpha/beta tester and here is why:

1. Legion mid expansion reworks

They had to rework several specs during the expansion which is rare to happen. Given the lack of effort put into classes with BFA compared to Legion the possibility of mid expansion rework is much higher now even if that is not what the WoW devs want. But the WoW devs were not planning of doing mid expansion reworks of specs in Legion either. But player feedback along with live data metric mining pushed the WoW devs to that direction in the end.

2. Most class and spec changes should happen during alpha/beta

Players don't appreciate when specs and classes change so much during an expansion. Even WoW devs agree with the players on this but the level of complacency shown toward class design isn't a level of satisfaction. But accepting that they have a deadline to meet and class design is not a priority for BFA as a result. My prediction is you will see massive hot fixes post launch for classes because that is how the WoW devs have positioned themselves. Partly because they rely more on live data metrics and also because they have a deadline to launch.

3. Warmode unpruning

Gating utility and rotational complexity behind a PVP warmode isn't going to go over well with PVE players. If you are on beta you can see how much classes and specs play fluidly by simply having three additional talents to utilize.

WoW devs are banking on upfront box sales for BFA with allied races and that is their winning strategy which is not about long term health of the game.

They launched Legion without a damage reduction cooldown for one of the tanks (Blood). I think that sums up Legion class design in a nutshell.

[Tharkkun]

The Warlords prune was a hit to the gut for sure.


But logging into the 7.0 pre-patch for Legion. Not having the Artifact or any Legendaries......

I looked at my bars and thought - HOLY. FUCK. Where the fuck is everything?

Doing those invasions was insanely boring. Basically had 2 or 3 buttons to press.




That's what we're returning to in BfA. 7.0 pre-patch levels of gameplay.

- - - Updated - - -



Pruning wasn't a mistake? Maybe not the first time around in WoD.

Then we got pruned in Legion. Gutted.




Oh and it's happening again in BfA. 3 expansions worth of pruning. 6 years. With NOTHING new added.

So in other words you just want you bars filled up for no reason other than the feeling that there's spells there? Even if they are useless? Sound legit.

- - - Updated - - -

Legion was a failure for PVP players and BFA is going to be a failure for PVE and PVP players based on class design. Also I never burned myself out of the Legion expansion.

When I test expansions for alpha and beta I don't burn myself out. What I test is looking for bugs, feel of classes and professions. Quest bugs as well but not the extent that I live on the test realms.

How was Legion a failure? It gave players what they had been asking for since they got a taste of guild wars PVP. Begging for years. So they gave it to them to make the playing field equal and then players suddenly say it's garbage and they don't want it. The old saying "Be careful what you ask for" can only be said so many times...

If returning to the old system where players can be infinitely more powerful to those starting out is what makes PVP great again then I'll pass.

[Jaigar]

They launched Legion without a damage reduction cooldown for one of the tanks (Blood). I think that sums up Legion class design in a nutshell.

And Legion showed that they can release expansions with crappy class tuning and still sell well. So they'll continue to do the same.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

absolutely no new BGs, outdoor pvp or arenas added will do that.

we have gotten a new bg's and two new arenas what are you on about?

[Dakara]

Probably my biggest gripe with BFA is that the talent trees still end at level 100 yet we're losing most of the Atrifact abilities/passives.

Don't get my wrong, I understand Blizzard can't tack on more and more abilities every expansion, that just results in pruning, but what really "grinds my gears" is there was the perfect opportunity to add in another row (or two) of Talents to keep some of the better Aritfact traits, but instead they just pruned other talents to throw the odd Artifatc/Legendary talent, often in awkward positions.

Just feels lazy IMHO.