How to make Blizzard create more WotLK and Legion like experiences

[khazmodan]

You know what this is going to sound extreme but... I think wow would be better without skill trees and simply specs that can be balanced better. I rarely see skill trees ever interacted with beyond pvp and counting if you can spec aoe or not.

It might be best to reduce the talent trees to their pvp components rather then wasting time with them.

The problem with the talent trees is that they don't allow any fun unbalanced choices to be made, an example would be to spread out movement bonuses on the hunter talent tree so you could make a super mobile hunter but lose survivability and dps. Instead its balanced to the point of boredom that most players do there talents once and forget about them because its just not fun to explore the possibilities.

[Nalam the Venom]

So raid or die with one 5man per day. Fun!

It’s not like it can get any worse, so just revisit the wotlk stuff for alittle bit.

[khazmodan]

If people want to cover more than the standard number of professions they make alts. Handing them all out to a single toon wouldn't do much to change any of that except to see some professions consolidated under a single character. It's barely a change at all for players that do a lot with professions. What change there is would be to make it simpler to manage. Blizzard would need to do something about storage for mats is all.

I have definitely made alts with different professions and part of me agrees with you but having some things limited on characters is an rpg element of uniqueness not unlike the class abilities themselves. This is something that if changed, might never be changed back and I think a lot of the players would look back with sadness at what was lost. The professions definitely need a ton of vision injected into them though after first turning them into boring time sinks then reverting back to easy to level but still not fun to explore and experiment with.

[Cosmic Janitor]

1. No dev is ever going to read this here, you might want to try twitter or something, but you will only get blocked probably. Maybe try the official forums and butter them up good, you won't get a reply, especially outside of the US forum, but at least you won't get blocked.

2. I think the old and the new talent system fulfill different roles. While it isn't entirely clear, the old Talent system is mostly represented by the borrowed power systems now. The new one is more for quick customization and is certainly not a tree any longer. It's more like a swappable perk system. I think the Legion PvP talent system and the covenant soulbind system have shown ways how you could combine these into one system that allows for customization and steady unlocks, even at max level. Like areas where swappable/alternative paths exist that need to be unlocked after certain progression, as we have in the soulbind trees. Progression based alternatives like during the first iteration of the prestige system could be another. That would be a possible solution to get beyond the "boring" +% increases, though let's be real, all the specs that are stuck with passives often still have to deal with mostly these passive snooze talents anyway right now, so the argument was never that valid to begin with - especially if the active skils are way weaker.

3. Blizzard has no interest in adding anything to the base gameplay of classes, that is why we haven't seen a new talent row in 3 expansions. They are scared shitless of a game that is too complex for them to handle and they don't want to invest in redesigns down the line (even though they keep doing that anyway, like the munchkins that they are). Anyway, I don't see them deviating from their current path.

[Crionics]

WOTLK is the most over rated gaming "experience" ever. There was nothing to do but raid after you got geared out from heroics in the first couple weeks. The raid content it had was mostly too easy, and it was the 2nd worst PVP xpac after Shadowlands. I hope they never do a WOTLK xpac ever again.

[Doffen]

I will say it again, no matter what is your opinion about it. Game experience is the same. So your baseless assumptions are in fact wrong.
Calling facts as "lies" doesn't make it so. More like you are lying just to defend legion garbage design.

No, you did not play it. You don't even know what I mean by experience. You are thinking about it as per individual, I am talking about it how the whole player base changed transitioning from TBC to WotLK as in the philosophy changed over night. You said yourself during the BfA shitfest that losing TF and how gearing was good as it was then(wasn't) then we go into Shadowlands where the gearing process changed again. It made people look at gearing differently and started to play differently.

Same would be if you added a WotLK alike expansion now. Which is why you have zero clue from playing a external private server. You don't know how the whole gameplay and design can change a player base just like that. You know it from WoD to Legion and BfA to SL, but from then? No idea. So your private server experience is nothing like it. Why didnt you just say that you want another WoD instead as the design was as simple as WotLK. It makes no sense.

And then we can take your own misleaded headcanon that experience is meant to explain different people. One individual who played both vanilla and classic vanilla can have, and its happened with many that their experiences are totally different. Same systems etc, different perception.

You did not "call out" anyone besides trying to present your opinions as facts. Multiple people told you that you have a habit of "distorting reality" so to speak.

Funny you should say distorting reality and multiple people in the same sentence, when with said people, you mean yourself in plural?

I guess when someone is exposed for all their lies and are out of arguments they retort to personal attacks.

Now the hard facts are:

Not facts, your opinions on something you did not play.

1. I know how wotlk worked. Your opinion about it is irrelevant.

First off, no you don't. Second, I played it. You think that just because you think that a PS got same quest, gear, raids etc you know how WotLK was, but WoW has been the same since vanilla in that regard, it has no bearing on how an expansion worked whatsoever.

2. Wotlk was simple expansion, there was nothing complex about it.

Simple in regards to what? Raid logging? You might as well said WoD then, but you lied instead for some reason? WotLK was simple you say, but you dont know why, and definitely not how it transitioned from TBC to WotLK and how it changed the game. SL is already close to raid logging in terms of progression design, go even further then what? You already criticized blizzard for removing TF going into SL and how gearing works now. With that in mind, WotLK is definitely not for you LOL! Just shows you dont know how WotLK was. I bet you even just tried it a few times "bUt i kNoW hOw iT wAs"

3. You do not compare performance on heroic, this is one of the things you still don't get. Also I did stop serious raiding due to legion bullshit, stopped giving a damn ever since. Now since you havent provided your own logs I will just assume you are LFR hero so please stop talking about thing you don't understand. If you think having good parses on normal/heroic indicates your skill then we have nothing to talk about.

You talking to me not getting things has become a laughable joke. You got this idea that the only players that are good are the ones doing mythic raids, which couldnt be further from the truth, there are many average to bad players that raid mythic, which you are a prime example of. And heroic got way more parses, aka more data to take from it. To ignore that just shows how out of touch you are with reality. There are mythic bosses who are easier than some heroic bosses. In EN my less than average guild did 4 bosses in Mythic, 4 in Nighthold, 1 in ToS and 2 in Antorus. Some of them was way easier than some of the heroic bosses.

With all the average to low percentiles, off and on mythic/heroic, changing guilds more often than you change your stance on a topic is a clear indication of either:

1. You are not a very tolerable person
2. You are looking for free kills
3. You don't have the skill.

Its a fallacy that the only good players comes from mythic. Lots of WoW players got real life commitment and dont want to sign up for doing mythic. I got asked from the now second best guild on the server on both DH and alt Mage during EP if I was interested in doing mythic, they didnt know my mage was my alt so they asked both of my characters. I said no. There is no prestige in doing so, and leave my less than average guild for it would be a big no.

So just pretend you didnt find me on WCL or armory, pretend that I am a LFR hero(whats wrong with that anyway?) I am not the one who starts with lowball insult about performance. You do, and I'll just call you out on it. I dont lie to pretend that I am better than I am, because that have no bearing on my opinions, neither does it for you, but for some reason you think thats the case.

You did not provide me with any logs. I found them myself by searching on WCL. You never linked from your warlock either but it was easy to find. Since you are so much better than me on dataz, how can you not find me?

4. Legion legendaries where so trash design even blizzard apologized.

You tried that one before, blizzard did not apologize like you think, they just said that the acquisition wasnt good, in hindsight. But they also said that the legendaries itself was fun, but they acknowledged that seeing you guildie got bis while you got sephuz wasnt a good feeling. You read that clickbait title on youtube didnt you lol.

I dont know what you think an apology is? They brought in the same legendary system bar acquisition in Shadowlands. Make sense that they apologized for it then? Get real.

They also said the Artifact weapon was a good system, they even said that people were done with it too fast. Now, for BfA however, they said they had to make a band aid for Azerite Armor, and they said they had to use a lot of extra resources to make up for all the flaws from the Armor system, so they made a gimped Artifact weapon system through the Essence system. BfA was the absolute trash expansion where blizzard failed with close to every system.

We don't want another uber borrowed power expansion such as legion, where everything was deleted after 2 years.

And we can thank BfA with all the layers of shitty systems for that.

[kaminaris]

No, you did not play it. You don't even know what I mean by experience. You are thinking about it as per individual, I am talking about it how the whole player base changed transitioning from TBC to WotLK as in the philosophy changed over night. You said yourself during the BfA shitfest that losing TF and how gearing was good as it was then(wasn't) then we go into Shadowlands where the gearing process changed again. It made people look at gearing differently and started to play differently.

Im not going to read that bunch of text, its wrong anyways so just to stay on topic as you seem to failed to heed moderator warning.

It does not matter how "whole playerbase transitioned from TBC". I was pretty much solo back then so It wouldn't matter in the slightest. I had no transition and no previous play before, it would have been exact same experience for me. This is something you somehow cannot understand. I wouldn't have "play differently" cause I did not play before at all.

So you are simply wrong.

And again this has nothing to do what I said. That wotlk was simple.

During legion shitfest when TF went over the roof people really didn't change their habbits. Its the garbage legiondaries that did so. The best gearing system was in 8.2. The worst was 7.0-7.2 due to legendaries. In the entire 5 latest expansion it was just the legendaries that created this "experience" that people dont want.

[Palapop]

I'll NEVER understand why people glorify Legion that much.

The ONLY good thing about Legion was quests (Suramar/order hall/artifact QUESTS (not retarded AP grind)) and mage tower.

Everything else was beyond retarded! :

1. world quests (tho they were less pain in the ass compared to what are they right now)

2. "legendary" rng slot machine (lol) - having MOP glyphs would fix everything in 30 secs.

3. artifact power grind. just WHY?!

4. Introduction of new "honor system" - speechless about this 1. Only the MOST RETARDED lfr/normal PVE player could come up with such idea of "honor system".

5. Lore. Especially 7.3 where we randomly end up on LEGIONS home world where Sargeras is nowhere to be found, UNTILL we fight "materialized" world soul. Then Sargeras randomly pops on OUR planet. Grinding his limb to our planet causing 0 dmg. EXCEPT for that magic fiery sword which has turned into the stone now. lololololol...

6. Not to mention class design. 99% classes were NOTHING if you didn't have artifact and desired legendary to play your spec properly.

7. weekly rng chest charade.

8. no pvp/pve vendors.

[McNeil]

Legion is getting WAY too much praise these days, its not even that much different compared to Shadowlands. It introduced new features that people ended up liking (mythic+, world quests etc) which are also present in SL, but its also the expansion that started the whole system bloat, endless grinds and gear feeling unrewarding with warforging/titanforging, only a few new zones (and also very badly terrained), the bad lore where the Burning Legion is reduced to just mindless brutes instead of the cunning masterminds from WC3. Not even mentioning the legiondaries which if you didn't get the right ones you coudln't even play your class properly

The Suramar experience was definately the highlight and its something they should have done more often (both Nazjatar and Korthia should have had them). Without flying it could be a huge pain to navigate though. The mage tower is good but imo vastly overrated. Its just singleplayer content that you do once, only the rewards stand out which were worth doing. I also liked the class halls but the only class story I really liked was from death knight.

WotLK would be the better option to take hints from. Introduce a huge new continent with a well known villain, which is like the complete opposite of what SL offered. Add a lot of new content (10/25 raiding, Wintergrasp, new profession, achievements, new class, heirblooms etc) that actually lasts without being one trick ponies. The only thing WotLK did wrong was not offering enough challenging content at the beginning, something they went overboard with in Cata and it backfired........ badly.

[TidalConflux]

People are literally having 20/20 hindsight and forget people openly bitched about both expansions. Or are we actively forgetting that 3.0/3.2 and 7.0 were openly griped about for a variety of reasons?

[dawawe]

Why does everyone like legion? Do people really not remember it was the start of this shitty borrowed power, endless ap grind, time gated power bullshit everyone still complains about to this day?

[Dartz1979]

Account wide reputation and gold makes sense but I'm not so sure about all professions on one character. WoW has been screwed up waaaay beyond just one quick fix, it needs an entirely new philosophy focused on "what is maximum fun for the player" not on "milk the player for all the money possible and forget the long term loyalty building". This is probably a moot point anyway because I really don't think they can get the kind of talent to come to a game this big and turn it around quickly when it already has a titanic halfway down look to it.

I'm gonna really miss WoW when it was at it's best, I freaking loved talking with friends and just random players when we would explore a new expansion and so many of you guys were just excited about finding so many new fun things to do.

having to level 7 alts just for other professions seems slow and with no hierlooms to speed up the process any more yea im kinda pissed at that is pend alot of time and money and pvp when they changed the hierlooms to no more bonus exp was like kinda agitated wasted all that time and effort getting them..kinda wish they'd give option to give back gold for them cause as they currently are in game now are useless.

[Team]

Blizzard is making more money than ever and they STILL can’t match the bars set for previous expansions

That says more about them than our expectations

[Voidism]

[...]I have a feeling we'll get something worth subbing to for the entire expansion next.[...]

I thought this about Shadowlands. I was so excited to finally get some cool solo progression system, but Torghast turned out to just be there to serve as time sink for raiders. Add many other problems that people have pointed out. It seems like Blizzard is just living on the fumes of previous success nowadays.

[TheRevenantHero]

Getting experience like WotLK or Legion would require Blizzard to give a shit about the game. And since they obviously don't anymore, we're just gonna keep getting expansions like BfA and SL.

[Kaleredar]

Why does everyone like legion? Do people really not remember it was the start of this shitty borrowed power, endless ap grind, time gated power bullshit everyone still complains about to this day?

1> The story was based off of major, long-running warcraft story threads.
2> The zones were well designed and unique.
3> The Alliance/Horde war still factored into the storyline.
4> Playing different classes profoundly affected the story you'd be going through. For each and every class. Hell, each spec had differences peppered in. It's probably the expansion with the single most replayability value by far.
5> Artifact power, while "borrowed," still allowed for a tangible and direct benefit to the player's performance that wasn't obtuse and could be earnestly pursued almost regardless of what type of content a player chose to do.

I suppose legiondaries and warforging and whatnot were "annoying" to people who fancied themselves bleeding-edge raiders that had to maximize every .0X% of DPS. But most people did not care, and saw the legendaries, or occasional warforge bonus, as what they were intended to be... cool bonuses.

[DookuDookuTree]

If they hire more people & pay them well that would probably be a way to make a good expansion.

[Elias1337]

If people want to cover more than the standard number of professions they make alts. Handing them all out to a single toon wouldn't do much to change any of that except to see some professions consolidated under a single character. It's barely a change at all for players that do a lot with professions. What change there is would be to make it simpler to manage. Blizzard would need to do something about storage for mats is all.

Only shows how clueless you are when comes to game desing. It would be giant change. Fact you have to level up alt, level up profession, swap characters to farm different mats put off huge amouth of players. This incovinience is what holds players away from having all proffesions on multiple alts. Which is heatlhy for mmo. If you would allow professions on one toon. Everybody absolutly everybody would level up all professions.

Just look at token lol. Tolen made getting gold super easy and becouse getting gold become super covinient boosting is on rampart.While in past it was only few players paying for gold and buying boosts becouse of incovinience of getting gold.

[Kumorii]

If they hire more people & pay them well that would probably be a way to make a good expansion.

halfway there, because they are looking for more people, probably already hired some.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Only shows how clueless you are when comes to game desing. It would be giant change. Fact you have to level up alt, level up profession, swap characters to farm different mats put off huge amouth of players. This incovinience is what holds players away from having all proffesions on multiple alts. Which is heatlhy for mmo. If you would allow professions on one toon. Everybody absolutly everybody would level up all professions.

Just look at token lol. Tolen made getting gold super easy and becouse getting gold become super covinient boosting is on rampart.While in past it was only few players paying for gold and buying boosts becouse of incovinience of getting gold.

Bullshit. Omnicrafters in FFXIV are very rare, most people simply don't care about professions at all - that is true for every mmo.