How did blizzard manage to let class/talent design get so bad?

[shoegazing]

Those bastards deleted half of my favorite Rogue buttons. Pruning and class design is the one and only reason I quit playing retail.

[Eroginous]

The numbers you're quoting are completely fucking meaningless because we're missing key information Blizzard will never release. Once again, we don't know what kept people engaged and we sure as hell don't know what caused people to quit. (I said this in my last response to you.) You say it's "great design" that caused Vanilla to be as popular as it was, but unless you polled every player who played in Vanilla and a majority of them said, "Yes, I'm playing because the design is great," you're just filling in the blanks with your own opinion. On the flip side, even though Vanilla represented a period of growth for subscribers, we have no way of knowing how many players quit or the reasons why they quit. For all we know, every exit poll ever completed for the entirety of Vanilla could have said, "your game design sucks." The only correct conclusion we can draw from that graph is that during Vanilla more people started to play than those who quit. Anything else is guessing. As such, it is intellectually dishonest to support any argument with this incomplete information and it's even more intellectually dishonest to insist you're being objective when you're simply trying to "prove" your opinion is a fact.

Again, why people quit doesn't matter. What you think my opinion is... doesn't matter. Only the facts, matter. I've given them to you. Objectively.

[Wildpantz]

I dont really mind the classes that much abit boring compared to legion. However main problem is game is not a MMORPG anymore its a online game to kill bosses and mythic+ its not an RPG anymore they have slowly been killing of everything except those 2 things. Getting 15min of story every few weeks i mean wtf.

[kaminaris]

Again, why people quit doesn't matter. What you think my opinion is... doesn't matter. Only the facts, matter. I've given them to you. Objectively.

Lol of course it does matter. Game is simply fucking old and you cannot understand sub numbers doesn't mean jack shit.

[WinningOne]

I don't think the content in BFA is bad on a fundamental level, outside of them forgetting to add things back to the game (mat vendors, for example) the primary issue with the game is spec/talent design. Most of the specs in the game just feel bad to play, they just aren't fun. You can blame some of this on the GCD change (which to this day makes no coherent sense to me) but many specs have such little talent diversity you could remove most talents and it wouldn't matter even slightly. There are talents in the game that are so bad, they're a dps loss over taking no talent at all. People will play bad content if the specs are fun to play, but when the specs aren't fun to play then no matter how good your content is people are just going to stop.

I really just don't get the mentality blizzard had going into BFA, they were repeatedly warned by people playing the beta that many specs just felt awful and kept insisting azerite was going to fix it, and that never materialized. And because blizzard doesn't like doing large reworks mid xpac, we're now left with a bunch of specs that likely won't be fixed or fun to play until next expansion, if they're ever fixed at all.

The only solution I can see going forward is to roll back some of the massive redesigns they've done over the years and restore classes to what they used to be, and then tune the numbers. Because when we do lose azerite and essences, we're going to be left in the exact same situation we're in now, specs that feel incomplete and clunky to play.

I just thought it a funny coincidence that one of the arguments I've seen from people who think Classic WoW was a bad idea is how boring the Classic WoW talent trees are and how interesting the Retail WoW talent trees are.

[Drusin]

WoD happened, thats it really, LETS PRUNE SHIT HURR DURR, game fucking ruined.

Lol I don't hear people saying "too complicated" anymore though lol. R.I.P Feral "rotation". You know what, I think it really was just feral that brought down wow abilities. The only two specs you'll ever hear people bring up in regards to rotational complexity is feral and sometimes sub rogues sneak in (get it?). Maybe aff too w/ CoA, Corr, Immo, SL, SB all being regularly used abilities in their rotation.

[kaminaris]

I dont really mind the classes that much abit boring compared to legion. However main problem is game is not a MMORPG anymore its a online game to kill bosses and mythic+ its not an RPG anymore they have slowly been killing of everything except those 2 things. Getting 15min of story every few weeks i mean wtf.

That is kind of proper argument, thing is MMO cannot have good story and expecting something on level of lets say witcher 3 is gonna get you dissapointed. I mean look at all previous expansions, story sucked back then. Reason is pretty simple, to have a good story it must have some consequences and real choices, can't have that in mmo.

All they can do is to make story longer and more interesting. But then again, it needs to get the fuck away from all that old-gods, uber-threats stuff and focus more on character interactions. Having big bad guy you need to defeat each expansion is just damn boring at this point.

And people been blaming all the other stuff while refusing to acknowledge this pattern just got stale and boring.

[Relapses]

Again, why people quit doesn't matter. What you think my opinion is... doesn't matter. Only the facts, matter. I've given them to you. Objectively.

Objectively speaking then, I believe Vanilla was popular because everybody hated the game and they only subbed just so they could subject themselves to the painful experience firsthand.

[Elestia]

Talent design isn't bad at all. Any talent system SHOULD enhance the spec and offer many internal builds and combinations that take advantage of many ways of using said spec.

Class cores don't function outside of utility abilities and have not been functional in many years. In general, abilities that are available regardless of spec are considered core abilities. Most spec abilities are too differentiated outside of talents.

These abilities already and have decades of passive functionality baked into them from years of progressive iteration. That being said, it doesn't really excuse not having proper talent trees to evolve the core to that kind of specialization which Blizz makes freely available. There's A LOT of depth and intermediate progression that can be added. The gameplay of going from a basic class into a fully specialized version would make a lot of sense.

For instance, frost and arcane mages have zero fire abilities - zero core for an entire spell school, damage, utility or defensive. Mages do have great talents that enhance their specs / how the spec gets played. They used to have access to all, and at least fireblast in MoP which was a movement filler spell. Granted, there's many better instant casts now... and maybe having limited access to certain schools helps make frost and arcane feel much more specialized.

I just think the ideal of having both a foundation class be as functional of a whole spec, on its own, as a specialized version of the same class should be possible. No idea what that would even look like in terms of gameplay -- maybe like Vanilla. Abilities should never be lost or traded.. they should evolve.

[Eroginous]

Lol of course it does matter. Game is simply fucking old and you cannot understand sub numbers doesn't mean jack shit.

The thing you and anyone else struggling to contribute here, needs to understand is that Blizzard is first and foremost a business aimed at making a profit. What started out as a small office culture driven group of gamers, struggling to survive in the gaming industry, quickly turned into a behemoth of a gaming devopler when Wow launched. Blizzard became gigantic because of Vanilla, saw what that success could do to their development ability, and promptly set out to recreate that success every two years.

Part of what keeps them going is Wow's success after each expansion launch... which is what leads to such large shifts in sub counts. To sit here and say that sub numbers don't matter... you don't seem to understand just how sub driven the game is. What they've realized the last two expansions is that new content alone can't keep subs up. Subs are doomed to be cyclical because of their two year design cycle. That's just how it is. I guarantee you, without numbers from other games, that no other Blizzard IP has a cyclical participation factor. There's a reason no other Blizzard IP follows the same release cycle: it wouldn't benefit the game or the company in any way.

They've been able to enjoy accidental success for 15 years, but that cow has gone dry. They've downsized dev teams, refocused resources around other IPs, laid off staff, changed out management, and are about to shift focus to a mobile diverse market (much to PC gamers dismay). You can talk type til your fingers fall off, otaXephon can disagree along side you.

Doesn't change facts. Concurrent sub numbers Do mean something in a game whose primary profit generator is... sub fees. Being more profitable is better than being less profitable (not a matter of opinion) due to the ability of profits to drive growth. Having more concurrent subs mean being more profitable. Later versions of the game having less concurrent subs, means they were less profitable. Them being less profitable, means they were worse designed versions of the game. Why they were, might be subjective. The fact that they were, not so much.

Really not hard logic to grasp. Try harder, guy.

And people been blaming all the other stuff while refusing to acknowledge this pattern just got stale and boring.

I think you're choosing to ignore what we are really saying in favor of your favorite straw man to beat up... I don't think you're participating in this discussion at all. To acknowledge the game as stale and boring... would be a subjective opinion. Which isn't an opinion I have. I'm not bored by the game and it doesn't feel stale at all. I wish I had time to play again, honestly. I'd kill it in Classic. Finish leveling my druid and go raid some dungeons proper.

Hell, I'd even play my live account, probably buy the next expansion just to see where the game is going.

The game is definitely not stale or boring for most of the people trying to talk to you RN. Reducing the discussion to subjective opinions like this are exactly what we are trying to avoid. Just like calling specs one button specs and saying that makes two classes identical. It's absurd. Illogical nonsense.

As to the other part of what you said, how we're refusing to acknowledge some truth... when we post, we're giving you the truth. Giving you what is real. You're the one refusing to acknowledge it.

Objectively speaking then, I believe Vanilla was popular because everybody hated the game and they only subbed just so they could subject themselves to the painful experience firsthand.

The part I wish you could handle is, I am agreeing with you when you say we don't have enough information. No census was done to determine data points related to why people stop playing. No where did anyone come forward and release data related to player surveys about their game after deciding to quit. At the very best, the most we can say about any reason players might have had for quitting is:

1. Some players quit.

2. They had a reason which fell into one of several categories, other players also happen to have for wanting to quit.

We can't say anything else about it, so this data is irrelevant. Subjectivity is subjective.

- HOWEVER -

We do have copious data points on the actual raw numbers of people paying to play a game over a long period of time (long enough to qualify as a case study) that show trends following timed content releases and what would be a natural depression in the numbers one could reasonably expect over the natural age of a game. These trends are further supported by sweeping changes taking place within the game during each content release, and sweeping changes to design policy on the development side of things.

From this data we absolutely can define Blizzards success at designing and maintaining a game over 15 years, concluding objectively that earlier design was more successful than later design. Whether anyone liked it or hated it, is a completely different story, as well as to the WHY they might have. We don't have that data and it wouldn't matter even if we did, because those are the very subjective notions you've sat here dismissing.

Now, that we're on the same page (hopefully), we can discuss more nuanced positions if you want.

[kaminaris]

-- snip --

This is pure delusion and denial, desperately trying to justify your burnout with a game with blizzard and everything they did. But reality is all of your conclusion based on incomplete data are purely subjective and wrong.

And you do not understand the very basics. For a game to be profitable it must be fun. There is no way around it. People will simply leave the game and generate zero profit if WoW would be bad. And since no franchise can hold forever, playerbase will eventually bleed out no matter what blizzard does - since you can never please everyone.

[lockybalboa]

Because Ion that's why. Pruning is the specialty of this no-talent and brain dead lead

[Palapop]

Ret is amazing what are you talking about

OT: Call me a casual but I don't really mind the pruning, there's a beauty in simpler classes, involving not playing piano on your keyboard and your bars not being filled with all kinds of shit

If you like current ret, then you should play arms warrior. Because, that's what ret is now. Was even "more" arms warr during the legion and it's mastery build.

best ret was between wotlk-mop.

I wouldn't call you a casual for liking the pruning. But "homogenizer".

[kiramon]

Disagree. Talent trees can open up more than the 3 specs most classes have. Can't speak back then in Vanilla but current Classic is right now evident of that. As a warrior there is some variety in tanking specs, going deep def prot, impale prot and the coming popular fury prot. Locks spec around Demo/Afflic with Ruin when it comes to PvE, others play with a spec knowing they will keep an Imp out. tBC had hybrid specs and so did Wrath to a point (though rarely because last points where often that strong).

Cookie cutter build will always exist when a good build is discovered and known but talent trees so far have offered more of those cookie cut build than the current pick spec/play spec.

OT: Pretty much agree with OP in most cases. My spriest and lock are shelved until those classes are revamped again and atm the only fun dps spec for me with the toons I have is Unholy and Prot Paladin.

There were 3? Resto specs for Druid in classic - deep resto, mana efficient balance/resto (the best imo), and feral hotw(the worst heals).

[Naiattavain]

subtlety rogues had a real surprise last part of wod, they were really good in world pvp, pvp in general then legion just fucked over the class balance. been broken ever since. hope that gets fixed because the class does have a really fun play style should be ashamed for breaking the class to market in china..

[Baine]

I've never met a high-end raider in this game that thinks spec/class design issues have not been plaguing BFA since day 1.

That's the catch. As a very casual player, I think the classes are fine.

[taishar68]

I think there should be a simple design goal: follow the "easy to learn, difficult to master" paradigm, tailor that to match content, and don't let the design of the game take away from the fun of playing it. There should never be a spec that is easy and fun to play while leveling, say, but arduous and frustrating in dungeons/raids. I think that has happened to a large extent for a very long time, and it falls on Blizzard to correct the issue.

[Beefkow]

This is pure delusion and denial, desperately trying to justify your burnout with a game with blizzard and everything they did. But reality is all of your conclusion based on incomplete data are purely subjective and wrong.

And you do not understand the very basics. For a game to be profitable it must be fun. There is no way around it. People will simply leave the game and generate zero profit if WoW would be bad. And since no franchise can hold forever, playerbase will eventually bleed out no matter what blizzard does - since you can never please everyone.

Why do you keep calling people delusional when you simply disagree with the facts that are being thrown at you? Or even if you don’t believe in what they’re saying, you start to insult them.

You’re starting to sound like a child, grow up.

[Inukashi]

How can people complain about prunning and saying vanillas classes were good to play in the same post?

I actually like the prunning. Difficulty shouldn't come from one more button to press, but from dungeon mechanics.

Also were's the fun having to more spells that can proc?
red proc -> i press 4
blue proc -> i press 5

That's as good as having one spell less that procs twice as often.

[Palapop]

What I like about ret though is that you're not dependant on rage, I have tried arms and it's decent fun but ret is so smooth I think.

I think MoP ret was pretty great, or WoD when divine storm.procced seperately from templar's verdict so you could.use both on single target.

I guess I don't mind de-pruning, as long as there are still specs and classes for us pea brain players.
.

So, that's what's wrong with ret. It's SH*T compared to what it was.

Every class is available to all players. Even to "pea-brain-sized" ones. But "deeper" complexity will always require more brain cells. Ones right now? Nah.