lack of "meatiness" in modern wow's combat

[Djbobo]

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to shit on modern wow. I'm just interested in other people's experience.


So I recently got into the Soulsborne games, which have an insane amount of "meatiness" to their combat. Every swing with a weapon feels meaty and impactful. I can't really put my finger on what causes this feeling but it feels amazing and brings a good amount of joy to being in combat.

It's pretty similar for classic wow. Using abilities like whirlwind with sweeping strikes and having them crit feels almost illegal. Even DoTs and heals feel way different in classic wow.

I'm having a hard time pinpointing the reasons for why it feels different. It's almost like modern wow is so smooth its combat turned from playing paintpall to playing laser tag. The impact and "meat" somehow got lost in the process of making the games combat smoother.


So, is it just me or do you guys feel the same about modern wow's combat?

[exsanguinate]

I miss the bleed animation rupture once had. for some reason it is gone since I don't know when. the sound is different too.

[Nerovar]

Auto attacks certainly have a more noticeable impact on classic. Nothing feels better than playing paladin and getting some meaty crits with a reckoning proc.

[Loveliest]

I think it depends on the class you play. On my paladin tank I like how things feel. When you pop wings, throw shield, hit with shield of the righteous, drop consecration it feels awesome. On warrior tank I like how thunderclap feels and that's about it. I guess it's a combination of sounds, animation and personal preference.

[Djbobo]

Did they change anything besides animations/sounds? I even feel it just casting a flash heal on my tbc priest compared to my retail priest. The retail priests heal feels almost "digital", kind of too smooth. The paintball/laser tag analogy is probably the best I can do when describing how it feels to me.

[bloodykiller86]

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to shit on modern wow. I'm just interested in other people's experience.


So I recently got into the Soulsborne games, which have an insane amount of "meatiness" to their combat. Every swing with a weapon feels meaty and impactful. I can't really put my finger on what causes this feeling but it feels amazing and brings a good amount of joy to being in combat.

It's pretty similar for classic wow. Using abilities like whirlwind with sweeping strikes and having them crit feels almost illegal. Even DoTs and heals feel way different in classic wow.

I'm having a hard time pinpointing the reasons for why it feels different. It's almost like modern wow is so smooth it's combat turned from playing paintpall to playing laser tag. The impact and "meat" somehow got lost in the process of making the games combat smoother.


So, is it just me or do you guys feel the same about modern wow's combat?

First of all you're basing an animation based combat requiring physical hits vs tab targeted combat that just requires you to be close. Second what is probably causing that perception is your scrolling battle text. use one of the classic ones or Miks scrolling battle text and you'll feel more like classic

[enigma77]

Did they change anything besides animations/sounds? I even feel it just casting a flash heal on my tbc priest compared to my retail priest. The retail priests heal feels almost "digital", kind of too smooth. The paintball/laser tag analogy is probably the best I can do when describing how it feels to me.

I think the number in the middle of your screen is smaller in retail, especially when you crit.

[mysticx]

Speaking for warriors (The class i've been maining since i started), we need the old deep wounds "splurt" back (On critical strikes), that gave crits some great "oomph", made them stand out a bit more, which is quite important for a class that isn't very flashy in itself.

[Kralljin]

I think it's the issue that modern WoW places a much bigger emphasis on rotations and cooldown windows over singular abilities.

Arguably a good example from (non Classic) times is Chain Lightning.
Was it damn stupid to just spam a single button for AoE during Cata / MoP as Ele?
Yep.
Was it fun?
Yep.

Singular buttons simply don't play that much of a role anymore, hence they don't have the same "oomph" anymore, it's about the sequences they're being used in.

[Djbobo]

I know you can't compare the soulsborne combat to wow's, it just made me notice the meatiness and that classic wow actually had it aswell.

I did actually try those classic numbers addons but it's still doesn't feel anywhere close to classic.

[Kuntantee]

I think classic was "meaty" as you described. Weapon hits were worthy and had oomph to them. Modern WoW is arcadey. I prefer old style but that's never coming back.

[Trumpcat]

Death Knights, for example, have nice punch to Frost spec, then you go Blood or Unholy, swing that giant two handed sword, it hits and you hear... a mixture of hissing and a sigh? I find it terrible, it's like you're waving in the air, no impact. Similarly I think Demon Hunters really lack punch at several abilities. Arcane and Fire Mage, where are the explosions, the energy? You got an ability called SUPERNOVA (which is trash), you use it and it does a limp "poof". Just about every other popular game has meaty satisfying effects, yet the WoW sound and often animation designs just keep struggling. Warcraft 2 had more impact to spells like Blizzard or Fireball and it was 1995.

[Myradin]

Probably has to do with how most classes are pretty spammy in classic. So when something different happens, it feels more notable.

Whereas retail has a lot more procs and abilities flying around, making each individual ability less impactful.

[Video Games]

Completely agree aboout classic and i believe its a combo of the worse sound effects and the way the numbers come out of the mob. Modern wow just feels so plain and light

[micwini]

mostly to do with 2 things that I have noticed:
1, The numbers on your screen are smaller or retail, so its harder to notice if you've just landed a big crit. They also fly of your screen very quickly compared to classic.
2. Sound. Sound in retail is very different from classic. There is so much sound in retail that you have to turn the slider for combat sounds way down. In classic there arent as many so you probably have sound higher and it feels more impactful. Also because crits have a special, unique sound effect compared to regular hits.

[Ssateneth]

Combat in older expansions is slower. You have a lot of dead space in rotations waiting for abilities to come off cooldown (or you are spamming 1 button on every gcd that does direct damage like frostbolt). So you usually just have a number showing up on the screen once in a while instead of 5-10 numbers a second on modern wow.

You time a 2h auto attack with an instant weapon attack ability, but now you have nothing else to press for the next 6 seconds.

Or your one ability that has a medium cooldown hits slightly less than your main spam ability but it hits everything around you for the same damage and can crit (looking at you blast nova + dragon breath). It feels meaty because you don't have lots of little numbers from dots or abilities that deal damage in rapid succession (eye beam, rampage, etc)

[fatgunn]

mostly to do with 2 things that I have noticed:
1, The numbers on your screen are smaller or retail, so its harder to notice if you've just landed a big crit. They also fly of your screen very quickly compared to classic.
2. Sound. Sound in retail is very different from classic. There is so much sound in retail that you have to turn the slider for combat sounds way down. In classic there arent as many so you probably have sound higher and it feels more impactful. Also because crits have a special, unique sound effect compared to regular hits.

This is most of it. I'd suggest OP install a combat text addon that really highlights the crits. When I used the scrolling combat text I kept mine set to just show crits but it was always super drastic. Was fun trying to beat my chaos bolt records.

[Ladey Gags]

It's due to the shitty animation and sound reworks. Whoever th ehell blizzard hired has no idea how to make animations and sounds feel impactful and meaty. The original game perfected this, but to no surprise these updates have for hte most part been complete shit. They originally said graphical and sound updates would stick to the original look but only have updated polygons or whatever. That shit has completely gone out the window

[Echocho]

Modern WoW combat lacks impactfulness, it feels almost as bad as ESO combat. I think one of the reasons is because of how fast paced it has become. Death of a thousand cuts kinda instead of waiting for that big hit.

[klaps_05]

Classic wow also had few stuff going on in combat, so you could feel those chunky weapon hits. In modern wow you cast 2 spells and get 7 procs each with some effect/sound/etc. Still, the fluidness of the combat system is there, which is why it is The best.