Fundamental Problems of Modern WoW

[Shinrael]

1. Titanforging/Warforging.
Many people whine about it but few manage to explain why it is a problem. Sure, when you get that 425 ilvl Titanforged item you feel awesome but it makes every single other ilvl drop below that cap feel completely unrewarding. Looting an epic item should feel epic, not “oh, this is just the base version. screw my luck”. Remove TF/WF and make items more scarce.

2. Itemization
8.1, 8.1.5 and 8.2 seem to make steps in fixing this problem where getting new items isn’t fun but there is more to it - in the old days items were horribly itemized. But that is precisely why that one item with good stats felt so memorable. A named item with a special effect themed after its previous, now dead, owner will stand out among all the other items with only stats on them. Not every quest, dungeon and raid item has to have perfectly itemized stats, you know? Items should have effects that give special bonuses under certain conditions out there in the world. A Shaman trinket which allows them to cast Frost/Water-based spells while moving when near a river “River’s Flow”. A hunter item with a passive that increases their damage done to targets when facing them from above (standing on a hill/castle wall for example) “Higher Ground”. A druid could deal 20% extra Nature damage while in a forest. A hunter helm item which has the following effect: Upon slaying 10 different types of beasts, all non-elite beasts in the zone become neutral to you. Lasts until death.

3. Class design
You can’t have meaningful progression if you get an ability every 15 levels and sometimes that ability isn’t even remotely interesting. It would be so much more unique and customizable if you get VERSIONS of abilities that you can choose from every level. You would be getting a new ability every level but the maximum number of abilities you have is still limited. This way you won’t have ability bloat but will have near-infinite customization and potential to go wild with cool synergy combos and epic ultimate abilities. Similiar to Diablo 3 but much more expanded.

4. Questing
You can’t have people immersed into your Game/Story if every second quest tries to humorize itself falling flat on its face because not every player’s adventure fantasy equals self-irony and silly puns. You can’t have people immersed into your quests and trials if every quest shows you a yellow dot/arrow showing you exactly where to go. People spend more time looking at their map than at the actual world. What is the point of having a quest description if you are just told where to go. What kind of design is this? Who thought that giving players a landmark they need to find in order to find their goal and then showing the actual goal as a yellow dot on the map would be a fun experience? Even if one would disable the yellow dot/arrow, quests in later expansions don’t give you any directions anymore so that would make it either impossible to find or a blind search, neither of which is fun. Rolo’s Riddle is one of the greatest questchains in this game. Short, barely rewarding, but fun. Why do you think so many people get hyped over secrets such as the Lucid Nightmare? Because they get to actually solve the problem themselves rather than being given the answer on a silver platter. You can’t have people immersed into your battles and conquests if there is no challenge whatsoever. I have so many cool abilities on my action bar that I never get to use in the open world. EVER. Slow? Why would I need that if a mob dies before it reaches me. Stun? Why would I need that if it would be faster to save that GCD and just use a damaging ability to 1-shot the mob. Sap/sleep/polymorph? Why would I need to use that if I can just AoE down all the mops in a pack along with the named Boss mob that they are supposedly guarding. Combustion/Shamanism/Avenging Wrath/Trueshot Aura? Why would I use those if the mob dies in one or two hits anyway? Conjure Food Table? Why would I use these if it would be faster to just walk to the next mob as my health will be fully regenerated by then anyway? Evocation? Why would I use that if my mana never ends even as an Arcane Mage. The world needs to be much much more dangerous. Leveling DOESN’T NEED TO BE A CHORE. It can be a journey. It used to be. But just increasing mobs health and damage wouldn’t be enough. Having to fight a mob for 30 seconds would be incredibly boring. Give them abilities that can be dodged, make abilities that require players to aim properly (aka Skillshots) or plan ahead (abilities that require timing, positioning, smart combination of elements - use lightning on a wet target). THIS is what makes a game immersive. Take a look at games such as Magicka. Enemies should have strenghts and weaknesses. A Fire Elemental should be immune to fire damage. Back in the days you would have frost and arcane spells as a Fire mage. Sure they would deal less damage than your main spec (Fire) but you can deal with this disadvantage. And if you can’t? Well call a friend, it’s an MMORPG for god’s sake. Or just skip the friend and pick a questline better suited for you. You cannot always win. That’s not fun. You can only truly appreciate victory after you’ve experienced defeat.

5. The World
Revamp all old zones the same way that you revamped Arathi Highlands (not like Darkshore - that is just halfassed work) - new textures, new object models, new creature models, new skybox, keep the music (even if you add new tracks, don’t make them repeat themselves on a loop. Have them play only now and then and let people enjoy the nostalgic old tracks. Nostalgy is a powerful emotion. Use it well). New storyline that is all connected. Don’t separate zones like you did in Cataclysm. In the past there used to be quests that led from one zone to another to a third one and then took you back to the first one. Long questchains that span across zones and even continents and connect the world into one. And don’t make each zone a tunnel with only one storyline and path. Give each zone several questlines that can be followed - Stranglethorn Vale has pirates, trolls, naga and ogres. You can follow the pirate storyline into Dustallow Marsh or go after the troll questline in Tanaris/Pandaria/Zandalar, you can choose to chase the naga storyline in Azshara/Stormsong Valley/Vash’jir or you can go after the ogres in Winterspring/Blasted Lands/Deadwind Pass, etc. Elwynn Forest has a Defias questline and a gnoll questline. One could lead to Westfall, the other to Redridge. Wetlands could have a dwarf questline branching into Arathi/Hinterlands and a questline about dragons going into Twilight Highlands. A player will not do ALL questlines. They will choose the one they want to do. They can’t be everywhere at the same time. Will you go to Outland or to Northrend? You go to Outland but other heroes will take care of Northrend. When you are done there you will get a summarized report of the events that happened on the other side so you can keep up with the general story. The story of Azeroth is one and the same for all, but each player chooses which part of it to experience and how to interact with it. There needs to be more lore in the actual quests. Dwarven questlines have always been my favourite because Dwarves like to dig up Titan and other artifacts/ruins and those are directly related to the story of WoW. Questlines in which gnomes and orcs argue about who punched a massive dragon are just… not funny or fun. Not when you are actually trying to save the world. Leveling should not be a filler story/experience. It should be a part of the main story and it should be just as important as max level content. Otherwise people will always try to simply skip it. Once you’ve dealt with the main threat in a zone, it should be phased so that you can’t see it anymore (can always speak with an NPC to phase you back if you want to help a friend). It’s cool to be able to enjoy a nice walk around those beautiful zones, maybe even let players make their own house in the now emptied of threats zones.


I posted this on retail forums but figured it would be nice to hear MMO-Champ's opinion on my vision as well. What kind of additions would you make to my ideas? What problems would you identify in my ideas? I am all yours. Thank you for reading.

[plato13]

I can mostly sign this.
The world is exactly why i liked WoD. Treasures were unique and had identity. Same goes for rare mob drops, they were mostly themed after the mob you got them from. In legion and bfa everything got replaced with bland AP.
Yes the story and the pve endgame was bad. But WoD had the best world design and doesnt get enough credit for it.

[toffmcsoft]

Class design is a major problem, especially when so many classes feel exactly the same.
Legion was a step down and BFA is even worse.

Blizzard needs to remove any "Endless Grind" that increases your characters power by a %.
The AP system / Heart of Azeroth is horrible design.

[Mullet Man]

Retail WoW tries to make every class equal.
Classic WoW celebrated class differences.

[vertigo12]

Breaking down your sections into several paragraphs would be gelpful and take away the eye strain from the illusion of a neveremding read.

How fundamental could the problems get?

Titanforging.
- implement a titan Forge mechanics which allows having the same gear drop allow you to create titan essence so you can upgrade the ilevel of the gear as bad luck prevention.



You may sell the essence in the AH and acts as +enhancement on gear from other games.

[john42]

3. Class design
You can’t have meaningful progression if you get an ability every 15 levels and sometimes that ability isn’t even remotely interesting.

I think a tremendous amount of the class design issue comes down the GCD and blizzard's general approach to what a player should be doing in a fight. So long as combat and dps revolves around spamming a builder every 1.5 seconds then capping it off with a spender, you're going to see boring class design. The builder + spender approach, and generally smashing buttons as soon as the GCD is up, is an artifact of 2010 game design, and WOW will be at a disadvantage to continue it for another 10 years.

Abilities in mobas like League and HOTS should serve as the template for abilities going forward. These are non-spammable abilities with very real effects. Generally, abilities don't get spammed every 1.5seconds. Instead, it is up to the player to decide on the optimal time to use an ability. The difference between a player who spams all their abilities in a moba vs one who times them appropriately is tremendous, easily a large portion of the 'skill' required.

For an example of this style of ability in an MMO, look at GW2 (love it or hate it). Some abilities are much closer to the Moba style instead of the Wow style, where it is beneficial to time your casts, rather than just hitting any ability that is up. There certainly are classes that don't follow this paradigm at all in GW2, and combat does sometimes devolve into 'spam everything', but at least 90% of the time you are not spamming your builder/spender.


6. Dungeons

I am going to add in a #6 to the OP's list. Similar to my above point, the current design of dungeons in BFA also feels like a throwback to 2010. Compare the layout of these modern dungeons to some that were released over a decade ago. For example, compare Sethekk Halls (released in BC, 2007) to BFA's dungeons. They share near identical layout traits: tons of mobs packed into tiny hallways. Where's the innovation? Where's the truly new mechanics?

I will give credit to some of BFA's dungeons in that they have borrowed some design elements from GW2 dungeons (known as fractals). There are now some non-mob challenges in some dungeons, such as the lightning ball movement puzzle in Temple of Seth, the mini-event prior to the Captains boss in Freehold, or the orbs also in temple of seth. These additional mechanics help diversify dungeons into something beyond a wall of mobs with a ton of HP, or boss fights that are more than 'dont stand in bad'.

[Clozer]

Retail WoW tries to make every class equal.
Classic WoW celebrated class differences.

Classic wow had no difficult content, current wow has. Imagine you have to push keys with classic wow ret paladins. There is no way this ever gonna happen again.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Retail WoW tries to make every class equal.
Classic WoW celebrated class differences.

Classic is really the worse example of this as the majorly of specs are worthless there not celebrated there dead weight. tbc or wrath had the classes still be distinct but also not useless.

[Mullet Man]

Classic wow had no difficult content, current wow has. Imagine you have to push keys with classic wow ret paladins. There is no way this ever gonna happen again.

Classic was an RPG with the added bonus of being an MMO.
Retail is a Diablo clone with instanced group content.

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Classic is really the worse example of this as the majorly of specs are worthless there not celebrated there dead weight. tbc or wrath had the classes still be distinct but also not useless.

Only dead weight if you play the min/maxing game.

[Greyvax]

The biggest problem that WoW has always faced:


Class ability gets nerfed/removed due to being too powerful in PvP, thus gimping the class' viability/usefulness in PvE content

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Classic was an RPG with the added bonus of being an MMO.
Retail is a Diablo clone with instanced group content.

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Only dead weight if you play the min/maxing game.

No even without min maxing there dead weight as many can’t fill the rolls they were made for something tbc or wrath didn’t have a problem with:

[plato13]

I will give credit to some of BFA's dungeons in that they have borrowed some design elements from GW2 dungeons (known as fractals). There are now some non-mob challenges in some dungeons, such as the lightning ball movement puzzle in Temple of Seth, the mini-event prior to the Captains boss in Freehold, or the orbs also in temple of seth. These additional mechanics help diversify dungeons into something beyond a wall of mobs with a ton of HP, or boss fights that are more than 'dont stand in bad'.

I think you need to be carefull with those puzzles to not having them get out of hand. Looking at destiny 2 for example almsot every raid boss is a puzzle sequence followed by a dps window. In my opinion destiny 2 is an example that you can make your bossfights too abstact because off puzzles. So far wow did a somewhat decent job preventing this. Two instances of them not preventing it would be the Lifebinder fight in Antorus or Spine of Deathwing in Dragon Soul. I think everyone has its own definition of where you should draw the line.

[nToxik]

I see your explanation for the problem with Titanforging but here is the thing...Titanforging adds re-playability. Without it, players would stop raiding as soon as they got all their BIS pieces as there would be no reason to raid again as there is no chance of an upgrade. Less players raiding means less guilds raiding which means less subs.

And as far as the 'essences' suggestion, this is not a bad idea EXCEPT you shouldn't be able to purchase them from the auction house. Being able to purchase them would mean players could upgrade their gear by warforging/titanforging without ever having to step into a raid. This doesn't make sense.

[Mullet Man]

No even without min maxing there dead weight as many can’t fill the rolls they were made for something tbc or wrath didn’t have a problem with:

That is called an RPG.
Not every class can do everything.
Guess what... people playing Classic had a lot of fun with this model, we cleared the content, and all specs were played.
Some, like yourself, see this as a problem. It is not.

[Clozer]

Classic was an RPG with the added bonus of being an MMO.
Retail is a Diablo clone with instanced group content.

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Only dead weight if you play the min/maxing game.

Who cares what retail is, you want a an ez game with no challenge where everyone can be a special snowflake. I guess a lot of people want that after all. Classic is coming for you.

[plato13]

I see your explanation for the problem with Titanforging but here is the thing...Titanforging adds re-playability. Without it, players would stop raiding as soon as they got all their BIS pieces as there would be no reason to raid again as there is no chance of an upgrade. Less players raiding means less guilds raiding which means less subs.

Having such heavy layers of RNG like warforging and titanforging only makes sense if you:

A: Have unlimited trys to get the item.
B: Have the items be tradable so the competetive people can decide its worth paying the big price tag.
Or C: Having the content last A LOT longer. And i am talking like a year per patchcycle.

[Mullet Man]

Who cares what retail is, you want a an ez game with no challenge where everyone can be a special snowflake. I guess a lot of people want that after all. Classic is coming for you.

OP cares. He wrote a 1500 word dissertation on what is wrong with retail WoW.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

That is called an RPG.
Not every class can do everything.
Guess what... people playing Classic had a lot of fun with this model, we cleared the content, and all specs were played.
Some, like yourself, see this as a problem. It is not.

No it’s called a fail in deign making specs that can’t do what there suppose to because you didn’t give them the tools they need has nothing to do with being an rpg and it surly isn’t celebrating them. It’s like making rogues without stealth and just telling people
To play sneaker.

[Mullet Man]

No it’s called a fail in deign making specs that can’t do what there suppose to because you didn’t give them the tools they need has nothing to do with being an rpg and it surly isn’t celebrating them. It’s like making rogues without stealth and just telling people
To play sneaker.

What content wasn't cleared because of these lack of tools and "fail in design"?

[Shinrael]

1. If you are in raid instance, getting an epic that is a base verions of TF/WF is going to be same feeling as if epic item dropped that is not for you or you don't need it.
2. I never understood people complaining about itemization. You always had weird stuff in WoW.
3. I would assume you will talk about end-game class design not leveling class design. I agree that it's boring to have something every 15 level. Level squish is nigh.
4. Questing, if you don't enjoy it, you will not read it. You will just follow yellow mark. If you do enjoy it, you will read quests and follow the story they are about. Just like in any other game.
5. Nostalgia is self defeating emotion.

1. It is okay to not always get an item. The rarer, the more you will treasure it.
2. No, items have been quite homogeneous for years, there hasn't been weird stuff for a while. That is why I "complain".
3. I was talking about leveling (you get abilities while leveling, not at the end game). But class design both during leveling and at max level needs major rework.
4. It's... not quite as you describe it. You enjoy read the quest. And then determine if you enjoy it or not. If you just skip it then you won't know if you enjoy it or not. IT would just mean you hate.... reading. Which is a personal problem. I read all quests. I like reading. But it's not about reading or not. Quests nowadays have voice acting and all. The point is - regardless of whether its in the quest text or the voice acting, there should be a hint to help you solve the puzzle, not a direct yellow arrow leading you to the answer/destination.
5. It is an emotion which can turn even a negative experience into a positive one. Used appropriately it can enhance the positive effect of an already positive memory/experience..

I see your explanation for the problem with Titanforging but here is the thing...Titanforging adds re-playability. Without it, players would stop raiding as soon as they got all their BIS pieces as there would be no reason to raid again as there is no chance of an upgrade. Less players raiding means less guilds raiding which means less subs.

And as far as the 'essences' suggestion, this is not a bad idea EXCEPT you shouldn't be able to purchase them from the auction house. Being able to purchase them would mean players could upgrade their gear by warforging/titanforging without ever having to step into a raid. This doesn't make sense.

Maybe the game has too much replayability? There are 12 classes and 18 races. I can't "replay" the game on my alts if I can't keep up with the amounts of replayability on my main. Many players wish for that exact thing - to be able to get their BiS and stop raiding. There are new raids every 6 months. This doesn't mean that you have to continue raiding the same raid for 6 months non-stop only to start raiding the next one when it comes out? Where is the time for relaxation? For leveling alts, for enjoying transmog farming, for exploration, for secret-hunting, for mount farming, for rep grinds?

I have no idea what essences you are talking about.

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OP cares. He wrote a 1500 word dissertation on what is wrong with retail WoW.

Yep. I grew up with this game. I want to see it flourish and to enjoy it with friends. No other game can replace it. Not nowadays anyway.