9.0 General Discussion

[Soon-TM]

Old Expansions? Gone.
Cata World? Revamped.
Levels? Squished.
Classes? Redesigned.

I'd definitely be hyped af for 9.0 if Blizzard went with this. I'd keep old expansions available as optional leveling paths, i.e. when you finish your race's starting zones at level let's say ~10 (post squish), you can keep levelling up in the old world or you can go 10-60 (assuming that 60 would be the new level cap) in e.g. Northrend.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

....No we don't need to lose even more, don't even suggest that, PVP shouldn't be the sole decider of pruning either.

PvP is why we're where we are now. Which I think is exhibit A for why PvP should never again be taken into account when designing classes.

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I'd definitely be hyped af for 9.0 if Blizzard went with this. I'd keep old expansions available as optional leveling paths, i.e. when you finish your race's starting zones at level let's say ~10 (post squish), you can keep levelling up in the old world or you can go 10-60 (assuming that 60 would be the new level cap) in e.g. Northrend.

I'd take optional leveling. Either way if the new cap is 60, make it so you can go 1-60 in the New New World, and make it so the old expansions cap out at 50.

[Lex Icon]

PvP is why we're where we are now. Which I think is exhibit A for why PvP should never again be taken into account when designing classes.

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I'd take optional leveling. Either way if the new cap is 60, make it so you can go 1-60 in the New New World, and make it so the old expansions cap out at 50.

i'd say pve is probably the biggest culprit when it comes to class design. with that extreme obsession of logs and balancing and constant complaining over these things.

[Voidism]

If they do a world-remake I hope they keep the world alive and somewhat relevant even at endgame.

[exochaft]

i'd say pve is probably the biggest culprit when it comes to class design. with that extreme obsession of logs and balancing and constant complaining over these things.

It's kind of both, since there are just as many people complaining about class/spec balance in PvE as there is in PvP. Considering that the effects of spells and abilities can easily have separate tuning depending upon the content (such as spells/trinkets/Azerite powers/etc. having different scaling in instanced PvP), the whole balancing issue of PvE affecting PvP (and vice versa) is pretty limited in that regard. If anything, I think the general class design is as fault versus niche applications, although having PvE or baseline abilities moved to PvP-only talents is rather annoying in some instances. It's not always the case, but there are instances where PvP talents are what the PvE specs "need" to feel good or at least feel more complete, especially if they used to be baseline to the spec as I mentioned earlier.

We're at a point where there are systems in place that allow different arenas of play to be mutually exclusive for tuning purposes, but the constant need to reinvent the wheel is what takes up a lot of development time verus building upon the systems they already have and are successful. I do understand, though, that the current model Blizz is trying is to have bare-bones baseline specs with expansion-specific gear/systems adding the depth (which can later be removed to avoid bloat). The concept makes sense from a power/ability/system creep perspective, but some baselines for some specs are not where they need to be and the systems may hide but not entirely mask issues with certain specs and balancing. What's worse is that some issue take several major patch cycles to be addressed, if at all. It's a major downside of such a expansion cycle model of class design, as the real testing occurs when the most people are experiencing the changes: when the changes are on live servers.

If I had a wish for 9.0, I'd want a clear defined set of goals for class design and more developer feedback. As of right now, I have almost no idea what Blizz is thinking or wants to do, as such communication is really rare nowadays (as we used to get more frequent blue posts, such as Dev Watercooler posts explaining what's going on the design philosophies at play). Sure, that takes effort on their behalf, but I think it would go a long way towards having the players understanding what's going on and allow the players to provide feedback in the mindset of what the devs are intending to do. If the devs don't tell us what their broad design goals are and we keep suggesting things that wouldn't work under said design goals, they're likely going to be ignored.

Just as a random example of what I'm talking about, I remember a blue post concerning tank design and balancing back in MoP iirc. One thing that always stuck in my mind was that they admitted that the Guardian tank mitigation model was so difficult to accurately sim that they'd just throw bears into raid encounters and balance tanks around what bears could handle since their mitigation models were easier to sim. Once they got the encounters tuned for bears, they adjusted the other tank classes accordingly, and that was an addendum to tank changes that were being made. However, when looking at the design of tanks at the time and the adjustments Blizz kept making, that perspective made a whole lot of sense in the end when with zero context the changes were just weird.

[Foolicious]

i'd say pve is probably the biggest culprit when it comes to class design. with that extreme obsession of logs and balancing and constant complaining over these things.

The biggest contender to this day is blizzards "bring the player not the class" obsession which gutted the classes. As long as there is someone in your group it shouldn't matter what they play. Which was stupid even back then. Then we lost a lot of abilities because blizzard wanted us to press less buttons and minimize the chance we forget to activate the right paladin aura before a fight etc. The list goes on.

Warmode and pvp talents are only the tip of the iceberg. It's an excuse to remove things like cyclone from pve content while giving the illusion to pvp players they earned something by playing pvp/warmode.

Logs and meters actually have little impact on class design. They could simply add % damage buffs and nerfs to even out meters. Shadow priest for example dominates raiding content but that doesn't mean that its a good design. Most of the priest players either stopped playing one at the start of bfa or hate the current design.

[Blayze]

The next scaling announcement is probably going to be "what if you could level anywhere, in the entire World of Warcraft, at any level you chose?"

[Wangming]

This.

I can put my hotkeys in the same place across almost every class/spec I play.

Builder - Spender type designs are so fucking boring.

And when I pointed this out in a different thread I was flamed to hell and back. They think it is enough difference that one class calls it holy power, another calls it astral power, or combo points, or chi or maelstrom. But you do the same thing. Build up one resource, spend it, and wait for procs.

That's not class design. That's bullshit. It's time to take a look at FFXIV and how it desings jobs. Especially ninja, red mage, dancer and machinist. Or Astrologian. Maybe gunbreaker. Samurai perhaps.

[THEORACLE64]

a new, interesting logo has appeared on 4chan
http://boards.4channel.org/v/thread/475465403
blurriest one I've seen so far, looks very fake but I like the name.

That is some horrible photoshop.

[Mahmeya]

If they do a world-remake I hope they keep the world alive and somewhat relevant even at endgame.

We all know how they can do it.

World quests in every friggin' zone.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

And when I pointed this out in a different thread I was flamed to hell and back. They think it is enough difference that one class calls it holy power, another calls it astral power, or combo points, or chi or maelstrom. But you do the same thing. Build up one resource, spend it, and wait for procs.

That's not class design. That's bullshit. It's time to take a look at FFXIV and how it desings jobs. Especially ninja, red mage, dancer and machinist. Or Astrologian. Maybe gunbreaker. Samurai perhaps.

You just said things without explaining how those classes are designed. There are only so many ways to give mechanics to a class. Even if there weren't many specs.

[Blayze]

You just said things without explaining how those classes are designed. There are only so many ways to give mechanics to a class. Even if there weren't many specs.

That and you can have a lot of hotkeys be the same even if the class mechanics are wildly different, because nobody wants to have to go hunting for an interrupt across their bars.

[Voidism]

We all know how they can do it.

World quests in every friggin' zone.

I just wish for a little bit more than WQ's. Maybe events that happen every few hours etc. Something to liven up the world.

[Wangming]

You just said things without explaining how those classes are designed. There are only so many ways to give mechanics to a class. Even if there weren't many specs.

To save space. As for there being a finite ammount of special mechanics: WoW currently uses only one across the bord. Using four would be an improvement.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

To save space. As for there being a finite ammount of special mechanics: WoW currently uses only one across the bord. Using four would be an improvement.

The way these builders work vary. Rage at least on mine is generated via auto attacks and maybe one random trait that helps(Which FYI I'm not a fan of, I'd rather be constantly attacking then waiting for auto attack to generate rage and or Charge). Rogues start their energy max, build up 4 red circles instead of just waiting for their energy to fill and do a big attack.

Its different. I'm not speaking for Holy Power though. Its first iteration was...well not good, I know its improved since like Mist and WoD.

[FlubberPuddy]

Its different. I'm not speaking for Holy Power though. Its first iteration was...well not good, I know its improved since like Mist and WoD.

While Holy Power is a sort of “combo point” system it’s not exactly combo points like a Rogues.

Holy Power mechanic is that certain skills require a certain amount to use vs you could use any Rogue combo pts skill with any amount of combo pts.

Additionally, Holy Power moves don’t use “more or less” pts and don’t strengthen the ability based on how many pts used. Whereas Rogue combo pts does.

Those are some of the ways Holy Power is different from Rogue CP. It might be small differences but they’re there.

Also as far as Rage goes, you also gain Rage upon getting hit don’t you?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

While Holy Power is a sort of “combo point” system it’s not exactly combo points like a Rogues.

Holy Power mechanic is that certain skills require a certain amount to use vs you could use any Rogue combo pts skill with any amount of combo pts.

Additionally, Holy Power moves don’t use “more or less” pts and don’t strengthen the ability based on how many pts used. Whereas Rogue combo pts does.

Those are some of the ways Holy Power is different from Rogue CP. It might be small differences but they’re there.

Also as far as Rage goes, you also gain Rage upon getting hit don’t you?

No, you don't, not as Arms anyways. I don't think Fury works that way either but I could be wrong.

[Wangming]

The way these builders work vary. Rage at least on mine is generated via auto attacks and maybe one random trait that helps(Which FYI I'm not a fan of, I'd rather be constantly attacking then waiting for auto attack to generate rage and or Charge). Rogues start their energy max, build up 4 red circles instead of just waiting for their energy to fill and do a big attack.

But that's like saying golden utensils are different from silver. It is technically true, but it is mostly the colour. Just to give real differences here are somem of the ones you asked for:

Ninja: Beside mana points that all classes use for basic abilities it has a resource it can generate by finishing combos (used to be auto attack, but people complained cause it is too slow. You don't use auto attack that often), using the mug skill or by spending away ninjutsu. More on that later. this special resource (called ninki) can be used for a rather strong single target attack, a ranged aoe attack and to summon a shadow clone for a small time that mimics all your weaponskills, effectively doubling your damage. Also you have ninjutsu. You have three mudras that you have to weave together into combos of 1 2 or three for various results. These results include ranged attack, aoe attack, a way to shorten the global cooldown, croud control or Suiton. Suiton lets you use attack that would othterwise recuire stealth for a short time. Or you can end Suiton's duration and generate more ninki. These mudras are oGCD skills and entering stealth out of combat resets their cooldown.

(I main ninja)

Samurai: The big thing samurai has that no other job is iaijutsu. You have a special gauge for it with three symbols. Each combo you have grants a different one. You can generate some with ranged combos as well. Anyway the effects of iaijutsu depend on how many of these symbols you have. And you can only have one of each. So it's kinda more like what combo points should be cause you are using different skills. And the more different skills you use, the higher your damage is. You can keep these symbols as long as you want and iaijutsu has a long cast time cause the class fantasy of Samurai is of a warrior who patiently waits for the right moment to cause monstrous ammounts of damage instead of throwing around tricks left and right like with ninja.

Astrologian: It got a major rework with Shadowbringers and I preferred the old one where you can discard cards to enhance the effect of the next one, but the core of the job stayed the same. You pull out random cards and use those to apply buffs to the party.

Monk: Instead of filling a resource bar, finishing combos for monk grants it stacks of greased lightning, which ups attack speed. Of course there are skills to open up chakras to gain access to powerful abilities, but there are different methods for that.

Old machinist: Back in HW people didn't like machinist cause it was complicated. It had lots of RNG and you needed to be very good and lucky to put out decent damage. But I liked how messed up it was. Combos didn't automatically grant bonus attack to your next a bility. You had a random chance. But you had two oGCD skills that let you load in bullets to your pistol. These bullets gave you 100% to proc said abilities. If I recall correctly it also made abilities instant cast.

Red Mage: Mained it in Stormblood. The big thing of Red Mage is balance. It is famous for mixing white magic and black magic. It's signature spell is dual cast. Any time you cast a spell with a cast time your next spell becomes instant. You have two resources. Black mana and white mana. You obviously use different skills to build up each from zero. Once those bars are filled enough you can consume them with powerful melee combos. So balances threefold. short cast time and long, white magic and black, ranged combat and melee.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

But that's like saying golden utensils are different from silver. It is technically true, but it is mostly the colour. Just to give real differences here are somem of the ones you asked for:

Your example isn't the same. Gold and silver are different color, what I described is different but not so much its big and completely new. Its enough of a different to feel unique. There can be only so many ways to do combat in a video game.

[Shadochi]

a new, interesting logo has appeared on 4chan
http://boards.4channel.org/v/thread/475465403
blurriest one I've seen so far, looks very fake but I like the name.

That just looks terrible XD