what classes could be combined to simplify the game

[khazmodan]

I know this is a troll thread, but demon hunter could have been part of warlock instead of a stand alone class. Old demonology with metamorphosis was already pretty close (thematically) to demon hunter, and dark apotheosis could have been decoupled into it's own tanking spec, much like guardian druid being split from feral.

It is not a troll thread, I have been thinking about it for a while and after reading another thread with a poll taken that had A tinker class winning in the votes, I thought about it more. the Tinker that is linked here https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...pt-2018-(long) looks like a really fun idea, but adding another class is probably becoming more and more scary to a bunch of developers that see more and more unknown problems coming up. In order to make some fun ideas feasible in the future, getting rid of something that is getting stale and still requiring high developer time, is something to consider.

[arkanon]

Simply put; the game is becoming bloated in classes and specs and needs to be simplified so the cost of time balancing the game is improved and a new and more fun class and/or spec can be added down the road. what would be the classes to combine with the result that at least 1 or 2 specs would be removed from the total after the combination?.

Interesting that you offered no examples and reasoning.

- - - Updated - - -

Well - DH and DK obviously.

Rogue could be incorporated into druid.

DH and DK? Im quite interested in how you think that would work.

[Eggroll]

You think tier was removed cause of the legendary/artifact balancing problem? The problem with the "make it proper" thing is the classes have been through so many iterations that no one would be able to agree which version of a class could be used. To borrow the argument from classic everyone has their own idea of what version of classic is better. What patch, what hotfixes, what bugs to leave in, etc, is the right one. If they reverted the classes back to any version and then only made cosmetic errors they'd end up with a huge angry playerbase mad that their favorite version wasn't used. Followed by more anger later on from the "omg Blizz is so lazy they haven't revamped my class in X years, they don't care anymore!!!!11111one!"

This is all right and stuff, but do you have anything constructive to add?

I think they did remove tier sets because of the balancing chaos in Legion. And probably because of the Azerite armor. And because Legendary pieces were competing with Tier set slot pieces and stuff. There were just too many moving parts. Which, btw we never had before in WoW in this form. It was easily predictable that this was going to be a balancing nightmare.

The one thing that actually needs optimizing is probably their internal working process and management of ressources seeing as they have more devs than ever, yet the quality and quantity is worse than ever. That's where they should start imo.

[WowIsDead64]

Simply put; the game is becoming bloated in classes and specs and needs to be simplified so the cost of time balancing the game is improved and a new and more fun class and/or spec can be added down the road. what would be the classes to combine with the result that at least 1 or 2 specs would be removed from the total after the combination?.

Some can, but shouldn't be. Sorry, but I'm one of those players, for whom immersion >> game design. Blizzard constantly forget, what game they develop. It's not arcade, where game design is the most important thing. It's RPG, where immersion is. If for some player it's more immersive to RP Tinker, even if it's way too similar to, let's say, Hunter, then why not? And in this case class/spec/ability "bloat" isn't that important. New classes/specs bring that sense of breath of fresh air. For me it's also some different things, like that "Welcome!" and "Collection" feelings. Current Blizzard team definitely lacks competent designers, who could understand, that gameplay and game design just can't make game great. There are some things, that are about pure psychology of players. Things, that aren't "perfect" from design point of view, but are "fun" from psychological one. Player Housing - is one of the greatest examples.

[keygy]

the game does not need to be simplify, cutting the classes not gonna do that magically all classes gonna be balanced, be real, its impossible to have all the clases balanced, the game need less rng, more complexity or deep customizacion of the classes.

[Justpassing]

Ehh I don't think it should be any simpler at this point.

[Alphatorg]

I guess there are a few spec which could be candidates for a merge (not saying these are perfect fits):

pirate rogue and MM or SV
affliction and shadow
demonology and unholy
holy and holy
arcane and boomkin

Though I don't think that's on Blizzard's mind at all, nor would it be a good idea, since I don't really see the point. There are like how many specs out there? 36? Even removing 5-6 from them won't make balancing a whole lot easier, but it definitely will alienate players who identify with them. And besides - at least in PvE - balance has actually been fairly good these past years, at least in terms of dps. Imho the biggest problems arise when encounter design favors certain niches (e.g. immunities or multi doting) and you don't fix that by cutting a couple of specs.

[schwarzkopf]

DH and DK? Im quite interested in how you think that would work.

THey are both tank/melee, they are both mortals inhabited by X (X = undead or demon).

Pretty much just have tank (death/demon) and dps (death) and dps (demon) specs.

Remember this is in the context of a pretty far out question - and far out questions need far out answers

[shade3891]

We need a multi-class system with more freedom of choice, maybe even lose the spec names:
( I kept them in the example below to make the intent more clear.

Group1:
Assassination, Subtlety, Outlaw, Marksman, Beastmaster, Survival, Windwalker, Brewmaster, Mistweaver, Havoc (elf only), Vengeance (elf only)

Group2:
Feral, Balance, Guardian, Restoration (druid), Elemental, Enhancement, Restoration (shaman)

Group3:
Arms, Fury, Protection (war), Protection Holy(pala), Retribution, Holy (pala), Blood DKnight, Unholy DKnight, Frost DKnight

Group4: (casters)
Fire, Frost, Arcane, Destruction, Affliction, Demonology, Shadow, Holy, Discipline

Example for Group 1:



Don't think it will ever happen in current wow but one can dream about wow2

[Lodreh]

If you merging specs then completely break classes apart rather than keep them under a class umbrella. You end up with more classes but less specs... therefore less to balance.

Example:
Arms Warrior, Windwalker Monk => Blade Master
Affliction Warlock, Unholy Death Knight, (Old) Shadow Priest => Necromancer
Destruction Warlock, Fire Mage => Blood Mage

[Lochton]

Simply put; the game is becoming bloated in classes and specs and needs to be simplified so the cost of time balancing the game is improved and a new and more fun class and/or spec can be added down the road. what would be the classes to combine with the result that at least 1 or 2 specs would be removed from the total after the combination?.

Funny you don't bring any examples.

And no, the game isn't bloated of classes. And you can't have true balancing.

Though, if so, I guess a far out idea would be to give Hunter 4 Specs, merge rogue in and rename to Ranger. Specs would be Beastmaster, Marksmanship, Outlaw and Assassination.

[GUZ]

What about race restrictions?

[Kyphael]

You want less choices in an MMO?

[Ielenia]

Also stop revamping them for no reason.

It's not "for no reason". There is an obvious, clear reason: to keep things fresh.

It doesn't matter how many classes there are so long as they actually take the time to work on them and keep iterating them to perfection,

"Perfect balance" won't ever happen without making every class basically a carbon-copy of each other with just different graphics. Hell, "good balance" is nigh impossible to reach, either.

Also, your argument kind of looks like this: "Stop revamping classes! Just keep revamping classes!"

and if they didn't hit the fucking reset button every other expansion we'd already have well balanced, well designed classes.

No, we would have the same classes we had back during vanilla WoW that were in a much worse state of balance we got today.

[Celarent]

Are we talking about the baker's dozen official classes, or the nearly 40 classes players have come to expect to be distinct and balanced?

Spec uniqueness and viability were part of an exciting vision 10 years ago — it succeeded at several points along the way. Problem was, as voiced earlier in the thread, class devs made expansions into mountains to plant their flags. Some classes would be turned upside-down. Some would be forgotten in the corner of the workshop or caught up in some big shot's dumb idea (see: WoD Arms). Doesn't sound like anything has changed since I stopped paying attention to retail. Even if WoW teams had the talent, they no longer have the time.

Going back to viewing classes as just classes, with special abilities chosen from old-style talent trees, deserves another look. Vanilla's shortcomings in player choice stemmed from execution more than concept, and hindsight — with a live simulation going on in Classic — is huge.

[zlygork]

obviously we need to combine demon hunter and holy priest.

[unbound]

Simply put; the game is becoming bloated in classes and specs and needs to be simplified so the cost of time balancing the game is improved and a new and more fun class and/or spec can be added down the road. what would be the classes to combine with the result that at least 1 or 2 specs would be removed from the total after the combination?.

So, why do you think if they reduce the number of classes that they will actually make more classes?

Seriously, this is not how any corporation works. Saving them money only adds to their bottom line. Whether they invest on something new or improved is entirely independent of their cost savings. Corporations actually go into debt when they see a good opportunity that calls for expenditures of money they don't have.

Blizz does not spend any near the amount of time balancing the game as the fan boys want you to believe. Any claims Blizz makes to this point is simply PR. It isn't a matter that Blizz can't put more effort into balancing and adding more activities to the game and still be wildly profitable...it's simply a matter that they have determined that they don't have to. They have enough true believers that will swallow any tripe put in front of their faces that they know they have a solid defense mechanism in place for any decision, no matter how obvious it is towards their bottom line and not in the interest of the players.

Blizz has been chipping away at their expenses of this game with each expansion since Wrath. Stop giving them more ideas on how to chip away at even more expenses...putting more money in their pockets will give you absolutely nothing more than what they were planning to give you.

[Jahaga]

Also stop revamping them for no reason.

I agree 3000%

[msdos]

I dunno about combing classes, but I like the affinity, 2 talent tree stuff. I like the direction of having some classes have altered talent trees. I wouldn't mind seeing DK have all 3 specs scrapped and just have 1 tree.

First talent row would be the old presences, which would determine if you tank or not. The second could be something that locks you into dual wielding, buffing self healing or dot damage. The talents themselves would obviously be bulky and offer a lot more for one choice compared to other classes.

I don't think DKs need 3 trees anymore, they just need way better abilities. The entire blood tree is basically filler, same with unholy.

[A Chozo]

the game is becoming bloated in classes and specs

The game is not bloated, nor it will be bloated in classes and specs.

and needs to be simplified so the cost of time balancing the game is improved and a new and more fun class and/or spec can be added down the road.

We could have 8 or 80 specs, the devs would still fail at balancing in the eyes of the community. There's no way to win against tier lists.

So, instead of having 8 "unbalaced" classes, I very much prefer to have 18 "unbalanced" classes.