What if WoW was slower, harder and more tactical. And full of adventure.

[EntertainmentNihilist]

Slow = boring for many, including myself. There's a reason why most modern games are pretty fast-paced. Or else they go in the complete opposite direction and make it turn based for the audience that actually enjoys slow games.

I don't want every random beast or bandit to take 5 minutes of cooldown popping to fight. That's boring and makes your character seem weak. If a random bandit gets hit by a meteor, it should die.

Honestly, if blizzard wants to actually get new players, they need to revamp / replace the archaic "cooldowns, hotkeys, macros, and click-targeting" combat system with something more streamlined (i'd say "modern", but plenty of old games had better combat, WoW's combat system is the way it is because of technical limitations for MMOs at the time). You could make it plenty hard then. But you make it hard by increasing damage, not HP.

[Neuroticaine]

Most of your suggestions sound like they would make for a dreadfully boring game, and I'd rather waste my time playing something else.

[Irian]

I agree with 1, pretty much nothing else.

I've felt like for a while that mobs die too fast and combat is too frenetic in WoW, I'd love to see it slowed down a bit and made more deliberate. Not necessarily changing the GCD but generally making classes less focused on huge burst and cooldowns and instead shifting a lot of the damage back into stuff like auto attacks, DoTs and cumulative effects. This would also in the process lower the skill gap between new players and veteran players, which I think is kinda sorely needed in WoW these days.

That being said making every single mob dangerous...yeah no. Maybe more like "you can't just pull the entire spawn area of a quest and survive".

[Aphrel]

This suggestion sounds like Spires of ascension was the first weeks of shadowlands pre trashnerf on fortfify weeks.

Basically every pack took a minute to kill (or more) and many mobs were superannoying, refusing to stack up and having so many damn casts that you never had enough interrupts for but still often oneshotted someone. That place wasnt designed to be run even on +15 and definetly not on higher. So it was nerfed accordingly (massively).

Thing is, that was slow, but not very fun gameplay wise. I don't see how other dungeons would magically be fun if they were slower either.

[msdos]

I tanked on BDK in Cata and the dungeons were so fun.
Everyone here was a noob in diapers when Cata came out and barely knew how to play video games, that's why the player base didn't like Cata.

People who like M+ today would've liked the Cata dungeons when they came out.

It doesn't matter how fast you make the dungeons now because everything is ugly and imbalanced, you're only having fun if your eyes are closed, playing FoTM.

[Kallisto]

They did with dungeons in Cata, and everyone cried about it.
So, No thank you.

This.

Blizzard tried in cata. Players complained, ghostcrawler told players to get good or leave. Players bolted until lfr came in. Ghostcrawler was made to apologise.

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MMOs are different from single player games, because the other superior players are right in your face. But even for single player games, there's been a move away from "Nintendo Hard". This is not because of precious values, but because of precious $$$.

Hell Nintendo hard was also a thing for precious $$$. Games during the old era were tough as hell because a game that wasn't hard was going to suck quarters out of the players in the arcade machines.

Most games being ports from arcades to Nintendo and Sega (as well as computers) kept the difficulty. Because easier to port the difficulty to the same level than to mess things around.

[WowIsDead64]

What if WoW was slower, harder more tactical.

You've just described Vanilla and it's incarnations, such as patch 4.0. No, we don't need such game. At least retail shouldn't be such game. Release of Wow Classic has opened gate to new possibility - to split Wow into two (or more) games, that suit different players. Retail should be for casual players. And casuals don't have time to brake through every mob for ages. That's it. And they're missing this great opportunity, instead of using it.

[cparle87]

I mean, turning it into World of Dark Souls would be cool. Make all the mobs truly dangerous but also allow the player to take them down in 2 or 3 hits. Problem is WoW's combat isn't designed in a way that makes taking down tough enemies all that fun, especially for casters who have to stand still to do damage. You can't raise a shield at will to block incoming damage and you can't roll your way out of a tough spot.

Pretty much this. All they can really do is make powerful, deadly telegraphed attacks that you need to avoid. They did that a lot in Cata all the way thru now. Even trash mobs in the level 1 areas would have leap arounds, cleaves, and slams to watch out for.

[sunxsera]

2) Dungeons - make new dungeon difficulty where tactics matters. Keep mythic plus many players like it but give us alternative which is fun and tactical to optain loot that matters.
- this difficulty should be very hard where players need to cooperate and use tactics. And most importantly - not time limited.
- people need to CC mobs and use variety of tactics to clear dungeons.
- I believe dungeon finder would work.
- It would be less toxic.
- People would socialize once again. People would find new friends because they would need to communicate with each other to clear dungeon.

So, you basically want a "cc meta dungeon" .. where you take cc heavy classes like rogue or mage - cc everything and kill everything mob by mob ?
Sounds super boring and not hard at all.
Maybe for people 10+ years ago. But things like this happen all the time in high keys while doing max dmg and doing interrupt / stun rotations.
I ´m pretty sure even without a timer 95% of the wow players can`t finish a +22 key.

[RadmaKanow]

What if WoW was slower, harder more tactical. But still accessible but not too time consuming.

I believe someone already tried that.
It was called: WildStar.

No BS - it was really nice game, with some tactical approach to combat. Not talking about end game content, just casual leveling. A shame it died.

[arkanon]

I believe someone already tried that.
It was called: WildStar.

No BS - it was really nice game, with some tactical approach to combat. Not talking about end game content, just casual leveling. A shame it died.

You think wildstar was slower than wow? You played it, yeah?

[Algorath]

What if WoW was slower, harder more tactical. But still accessible but not too time consuming.
Players are now strong like gods. Players are champions killing 90% content with aoe runs. Savers of the worlds. I don't think it's fun anymore.

Let us be adventurers. Adventurers which cooperate with each other and make new real friends.
Typical gamer is not like 10 years ago. Harder games are growing popular nowadays. For example Dark Souls, unforgivable battle royal games, esports etc.

I have some proposals I would like to know your opinion about these proposals.


1) Slowdown the game. Make everymob in game threat. Majority of mobs have some spells. Make them deadly so players need to counter them.
Make players to use CC spells like polymorph/fear if they are attacked by multiple mobs. This is what I love about classic WoW and I think retail should be inspired.

2) Dungeons - make new dungeon difficulty where tactics matters. Keep mythic plus many players like it but give us alternative which is fun and tactical to optain loot that matters.
- this difficulty should be very hard where players need to cooperate and use tactics. And most importantly - not time limited.
- people need to CC mobs and use variety of tactics to clear dungeons.
- I believe dungeon finder would work.
- It would be less toxic.
- People would socialize once again. People would find new friends because they would need to communicate with each other to clear dungeon.

3) Old content should scale with item level in certain way.
- This would be radical change.
- Is it good that we are able to clear every mob in old worlds in one shot? I don't think so.
- It would be great if threat were everywhere.
- Proposition. All mobs in game in each zone would be equaly deadly. This would reset in every new expaision.
- By the time players recieve new equip in current expansion, players would have growing advantage.
- Anyway, even with full end expansion gear, all mobs would be minor threat and player would not be able to oneshot them.

4) Focus on classic Warcraft theme.
- Do not waste old content. Timewalking is great idea, let's improve it.
- Personally, the best 30 minutes spent in Shadowlands to me was new starting zone. Really. Why? Because It gived me original Warcraft vibes. It is just a short tutorial but I love it, it felt like adventure.

5) This will be bery unpopular
- Give mounts benefits in their zones. For example classic racial mounts would increase speed +15% and hp +15% in Azeroth. Shadowlands mount would benefit in Shadowland zones etc.
- Introduce summon proper zone mount button.
- I think mounts are incredibly cluttered. It would be cool if most of people used racial mounts in classic bg's for example. Battle would felt like Warcraft battle.


I think some opinions will be unpopular among you. Lets discuss them!

This happened in Torghast - People couldn't do layer 8 in first week and their outcry got it nerfed to the island expedition level of braindeadness it is today. It just doesn't work for this kind of demographic.

[WowIsDead64]

I believe someone already tried that.
It was called: WildStar.

No BS - it was really nice game, with some tactical approach to combat. Not talking about end game content, just casual leveling. A shame it died.

Yeah, I've forgotten about WildStar. That moment, when guys ask for harder game and then nobody plays it.

[ohwell]

Needing to cc mobs is not "tactical".

Everyone of these posts I can instantly tell the OP hasn't down anything over a +4. There is more skill involved in high keys WITH a timer than WITHOUT and needing to cc 4 out of 5 mobs and pull 1 at a time. That is not challenge.

Pulling 10 mobs and needing perfect interrupt/stun/blind rotations while doing top tier dps is harder than spending 30 minutes on a pack killing one at a time.

"Tactics" matter more in m+ and obviously you are shit at them cuz you don't know that.
route
comp
comms
int/stun orders
cd usage

All more skillful than your boring "im not good at the game" mode you are suggesting.

lol stopped reading at cc is not tactical. It is. It's the same reason aggro is so dominant in Hearthstone. They cater to the lowest common denominator.

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Yeah, I've forgotten about WildStar. That moment, when guys ask for harder game and then nobody plays it.

No it's when a game comes and people make a campaign against it without actually playing it. "Hur dur nobody is playing it but neither have I"

[WowIsDead64]

No it's when a game comes and people make a campaign against it without actually playing it. "Hur dur nobody is playing it but neither have I"

Do you talk about me? I actually played it on release, overall liked leveling, but quit, because I had nothing to do in endgame. Major kinds of content back then - were casual dungeon runs, PUG raids and outdoor content. But some guys were crying about "bring Vanilla/TBC hardcore back". And this game was exactly for such players. But all of a sudden game died, because it didn't cater to casuals, who were "paying all bills".

[Amerissis]

No thanks. I already quit due to the Maw, I don't need (more) frustration.

[kranur]

I found initial Cata heroics to be ok difficulty wise. They were not as hard as some people claim, they seemed so because tehy came after wotlk heroics which were as easy as heroics today.

Now on the slowing down thing, sure making every mob fight last 1 minute will get boring, but so is the current killing 10 mobs at a time cause they pose no threat.

[Alkizon]

I want to note right away that Cata didn't fail because of dungeons, as many (+/+/+/+/+/+/+/+ those people are wrong, this is much more fair statement, just a spike, nothing realy new/bad) argue here (there were enough prerequisites of a different nature), everything was quite good directly with their design at first, however, they didn't differ much from everything that was done after classics by "twist" of path, therefore Cata also has nothing special to boasts in this sense.

This is one point. And now with regard to speed, imo, everything depends on balancing near golden mean (in the end, mob doesn't always have to be strong on its own, but in a group, and with appropriate landscape/placement, with "inconvenient" abilities, it all depends on reactivity, but alas, set of roles is regulated (it stuck in "specs"), as you know "balance" is given higher priority (to detriment in class and originality) in design required for e-sports).
- - - - -
since they eliminated unavoidable elements of social interaction, took away sensible control from players, gave it to automation, so players, in revenge, took control out of game area and now devs also ceased to control anything... timer/pl-lootbox/rio-rating/hurry-no-talking/half-dungeon-is-zero-result - this isn't about everyone, but since game doesn't recommend appropriate behavior in key places' design, which means it doesn't teach, doesn't weed out at initial stage - there're no natural conditions for formation of community, which means "what has grown, has already grown" means whining, toxicity and crying mice chewing cactus at final stage of game design (it's too late, initial stage has been missed)
- - - - -
It's quite normal to require player to make fast/short-term decisions during some moments, just design of encounter should be more thought out from point of view of "lore/plot = open world" (you know: outer location ⇒ vestibule/outer guarding dungeon ⇒ instance quarters = maze/place of residence/home of local "evil"), and not standardized/unified with difference only in scenery ("one more" generated corridor)... M+ in its basic idea doesn't allow such flexibility. It's "lazy" design that simplifies work as much as possible, turning this for devs into kind of "child's game with a kit".

Can you see this? This isn't just instances or encounters design, this is whole system in general, starting with servers/open world structure, through hierarchy of progress (classes/talents/characteristics) and up to rules for distributing loot, this all together naturally forms very line of behavior that now dominates. People are only mice, system creates a corridor and places cheese there (it all depends on creator's intelligence/understanding) - only this is cause of current disgrace. Therefore, such your private replacement of some elements won't give any meaningful result. Ripples in water, which will bring some minor chaos and likely stir up/raise some sludge locally, but won't change river's flow.

But alright, let's back to initial topic...
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You're moving from point A to point B in absolutely predictable way and with predictable difficulties to point where there could be writed "rotation/algorithm for a group of bots" (this still stays tactical isn't it? so maybe problem you trying to solve is hidden in different place?) to complete particular dungeon without using any "conditions" to change behavior. All this happens quickly and within entire passage... for good long dungeon - these are sections of path with absolutely static indicators (alternating temporary/permanent safe zones, linked by certain conditions/patrols/gurds/keys/triggers/hiden branches etc.), but for M+ (let's take worst and possible scenarios) this is whole dungeon: yes yes, you're driven by timer, you're driven by "random" affixes, place of deployment isn't someone's house/den/anthill, but generated absolutely straight corridor, during which nothing sensible happens (trash doesn't carry any semantic load, except to slow down player, there are no manifest elements of external world/connections/resources or internal presence of intelligence/interactivity within location; player shoudn't be distracted by anything, timer is running away, ratings is falling and the only useful thing is at the end of this dash; even changing gear at certain stage was forbidden, isn't it? why then don't just highlight needed buttons, like in "Guitar Hero", which devs have planned here to be pressed... oh boy! but this could be directly easily inserted by appropriate "spec" gameplay, or is this already happened?), everything is as rigidly scripted as possible (appearance of cut scenes uncontrollably and comically obsessive) and only significant event is "lootbox" at its end, which isn't clear where been received and how it got there ("moving textures" themselves, outside of cut scenes, are absolutely empty and soulless).
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That's how it might look, how different is such one from current situation?

I'd sympathize with the author, citing some inexperience, but... mention of "scaling" kills all my such enthusiasm.

[username993720]

I, actually, suggested that in one of my threads:
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...be-implemented

Increase Difficulty and Decrease Accessibility

The world content has become increasingly easier over time, and mobs don't feel like a threat anymore. one could gather a group of mobs and take them down with not much effort. Health and resource management should be a thing in outdoor content. Crowd control should be mandatory. Elite mobs should feel scary as hell and require a group to take down. People say Scaling removed any sense of progression and hindered the ability to grind. And still, the power relations between a player and a low level mob allows a naked gnome to punch a giant dragon to death or beat a character like the lich king in one swing. this completely breaks immersion, as you're not supposed to be a super saiyan god, and this is not an asian rpg. Thanks to Scaling and Timewalking, these power relations were balanced a bit, but should be taken a little bit further. Why not, for example, take out the marked areas on the ground that alerts you where a hostile ability is gonna land (both NPC and player). That way, an element of surprise & difficulty is added to the game.

Remember the days when your attacks would miss/be parried/get blocked/or resisted? it added a sense of thrill and suspension, especially in PvP or against an elite mob. Nowadays, all attacks hit their mark, and in doing so it made the combat gameplay feel a bit stale. Now, as for GCDs, i'm a bit torn. On one hand, im all for it because it slows down combat and, therefore, prevents players from being too overpowered. On the other hand, it doesn't fit the fantasies of classes like the Rogue, the Monk or the Feral Druid - which are all based on being swift and deadly. Upon checking Gamepedia, however, i discovered that the GCD of these energy-using classes/specs is usually 1 second (in contrast with the general 1.5 seconds). But, unlike the other classes, haste doesn't affect their GCD. I think it should definitely do. as for Threat, maybe make it more significant like it once was.

Moreover, not all content should be available for all the players to see and experience just because they pay for the game. some content should remain extremely hard to reach, and, therefore, give players something to aspire for. giving players access to complete every content in the game makes the content run out very fast, instead of giving players something to look forward to. this should not be about time-gating or grind-gating, but rather difficulty-gating. this will maintain content longevity and let hardcore players stand out from other players.

Collaborative Quests

For the most part, questing in WoW has been a solo experience. you do not need help from other players in order to complete them. this makes the leveling experience feel very dull and boring. what i would suggest is to add collaborative quests, which can be completed only by collaborating with other players. for example, Runescape had the quest "Shield of Arav", which required a player to collaborate with another player in order to complete the quest. you had to get one piece of the shield by pledging allegiance to one clan, and another player had to get the other half of the shield by pledging their allegiance to a rival clan. this required communication and cooperation, and, therefore, affected the enjoyment of the quest. For example, a player might need the help of a rogue to lockpick a chest or a door, pickpocket a high level target or use glyph of disguise to trick a hostile mob. A mage could help retrieve an item that is unreachable with blink. Priests could be used to Mind Vision of Mind Control targets. Healers could be required to heal or cleanse targets. And classes like the death knight/warlock/priest could be used to communicate with undead/demons/abberations for you, or in order to decipher their speech. quests like these would make the game a hell of a lot more fun and interactive than the solo experience of today's WoW.

Bring the Class not the Player

Homogenization of the classes (being able to do what other classes are able to) is deteriorating the gameplay (the same applies to hunter pet abilities). every class in the game should feel unique and different from its counterparts. classes should have advantages over other classes, as well as weaknesses in comparison to other classes. For example, when in a raid group, every class should bring something to the table that the other classes can't, and play a specific role in advancing the raid group throughout the content. Having unique and exclusive class mechanics will give classes the opportunity to shine in certain situations and give players the feeling that they contribute to the whole raid.

For instance, a rogue could be required to Pick Lock a door or a chest, Pickpocket a key from a target, utilize Detect Traps to warn others of hidden traps or provide Shroud of Concealment to get past an unbeatable target. a mage could be required to use Blink in order to breach a blocked path and loot a key, or press a switch on the other side that will open a gate for the others. a warrior could be required to use Spell Reflect to break a boss' immunity or kill bosses that can only die from their own attacks. a shaman or a druid could be required to use Thunderstorm or Typhoon to knock a target off a platform, when it's low on health or something. a mage or a priest could be required to provide Levitate or Slow Fall for players to survive a long fall. a priest could be required to use Leap of Faith to help a certain player get somewhere. a priest, a warlock or a death knight could be required to use Mind Control, Subjugate Demon or Control Undead in order to manipulate a mob to open a path. a priest or a warrior could be required to use Mass Dispel or Shattering Throw in order to dispel an undispelable barrier. a shaman, a death knight or a priest could be required to provide Water Walking, Path of Frost or Levitate in order for the group to traverse certain terrains. a warlock could be required to provide Unending Breath for players to survive a long dive, use Demonic Gateway to get players over a chasm or use Ritual of Summoning to summon players where only the Warlock and a handful of players can get to. a druid could be required to provide Stampeding Roar for the group to outrun a massive boulder. a hunter could be required to use Flare to light up a dark room or expose hidden enemies. a warlock or a hunter could be required to use Eye of Kilrogg or Eyes of the Beast to get past certain guards and loot or press something. a rogue, a hunter, a warrior or a demon hunter could be required to use Grappling Hook, Heroic Leap, Disengage, Fel Rush, Double Jump, Glide or Vengeful Retreat to reach unreachable places and loot or press something. a monk or a warlock could be required to use Transcendence or Demonic Circle on a moving platform, that deals massive amounts of damage to those who step on it (even with shielding spells), in order to get to the platform's final destination without dying. then, they would press a switch that will form a bridge or a staircase for the other players.

This holds true in pvp as well. certain classes should have clear advantages over other classes. For example, as a Paladin you should definitely have an advantage over Undead, Demons and Aberrations with Exorcism, Holy Wrath and Turn Evil. Hunters should have an advantage over Beasts with Scare Beast, Shamans should have an advantage over Elementals with Bind Elemental, and so on and so on. Certain classes could be susceptible to certain magic schools like, for example, mages could be susceptible to fel magic users like warlocks and demon hunters (because of arcane vulnerability to fel), warlocks and demon hunters could be susceptible to priests (because of the burning legion's fear of the void), priests could be susceptible to death knights (because of the void's fear of death) and so on.

[Soon-TM]

<snip>

WoW doesn't need to be slower, it is quite of a bore as it is, with its long ass flight paths, its terribly time consuming and tedious world quests, its hodgepodge of systems you have to level after reaching 60, and its even more tedious Maw and Torghast. It doesn't need to be harder either, Nathria HC and M+ >11 already offer a considerable challenge at its intended gear level, and you have mythic raids if you want to try the really hard stuff. Finally, it's quite tactical already in PvE, where not properly CC'ing in high level keys can mean the difference between your tank running around like a headless chicken or just going SPLAT down, or in raids with their ever increasing in number, overlapping boss mechanics. And I'm not even mentioning PvP, where it's expected of you to slow/root/silence/otherwise CC your enemies.