lack of "meatiness" in modern wow's combat

[saixilein]

Depends on spec. Even in arms warrior guide they say (as a negative point lol) that rotation is a bit slow and sometimes u dont press anything... I mean thats why i like arms. Fury these days is spaming buttons like an idiot. And so arms still feels impactfull, when u pop cds and using mortal strike with 2x OP Buffs and land a big crit.

But Overall the gameplay these day is just much much fast. I mean look at cooldowns. Back then they were 3-5 min long. These days your offensive cds are like 45-120secs on cd. Or look some wotlk/cata pvp videos... Gameplay looks so slow! But i really miss that. I enjoyed this slower gameplay much more. When it was great to hit an rnemy with lavaburst in pvp. Today you just proccing 1000 lavaburst at once.

[Boricha]

In modern WoW, damage occurs much faster and so the individual hits are less meaningful. Most of your relevant damage happens during CD windows, whereas your damage was more steady and consistent in Classic. Blizzard has also redesigned most abilities to do far less relative damage than they used to so that those abilities could be worked into the regular rotation and not one-shot people in PvP; Pyroblast for example. The change in how numbers are displayed also adds to this, but I think the other things I mentioned are more important to the loss of feeling.

[Alkizon]

I got acquainted with topic and, since I agree with discussion's direction, I'm not going to comment it on the whole, there're enough fair arguments, which I also share. I'd only like to clarify about this point (not as "let's have a talk", just to clarify/inform):

wushootaki
Rotations were also, for the most part, relatively simple up to and including WotLK. WotLK started to change some classes (Paladin and Shaman off top of my head) away from their initial designs with more attention put onto actual rotations rather than seals/totems, but generally the classes seemed to drastically change once they decided to move away from playing an actual class to playing a spec of a class.

Rotations grew more complicated with the addition or more abilities, and as such, there was less weight to certain attacks due to numerous new incoming sources of dmg. Enhance struggles with this a lot, and has for a while. Everything sort of feels like it does the same amount of dmg because you have 25+ dmg sources, so nothing feels impactful.

Whereas, the original conception of Enhancement shaman literally had zero rotation and was about auto-attacking and managing your totems.

That's true (we had even little separate dispute of that), it's about responsibilities and organization of gameplay for support. It's here:
- Beginning;
- specifically about shamans <1> <2> <3> <4>;
- and resulting about support.

Main part of that:

this was difference in gameplay - someone had a piano, but someone had a passive stuff, someone had procs and someone had rotation (eg. stun-lock style), someone had combo points and someone had constant control over own resource, someone was busy and someone have time to put an eye on friends (here, by the way, what was real "hybrid (class) rent" of classic design, but not "trimmed" (D)HPS, they just had number of other tasks and even when they were added more of (D)HPS/buttons, without depriving them of hybrid functionality, there were many wonderful people who coped excellently with all their duties, and it was not everyone’s choice, but that was the charm and differentiation between master and amateur), etc., etc. I understand that "sMuSh da ButnZ" is more fun for you, so choose class+build that will cover/reflect your needs, don't try to put each of them to this level, hence yours as "I-want!", and devs as "OK! we'll do"+"no-problema", problems.

+

Some word about CDs' issue from EU forum:
~ As I understand it, people are asking for more smeared/stable damage policy, rather than just unnecessarily exaggerated peak one, for a number of very pertinent reasons. Moreover, part of hybrid/support gameplay policy was based on exhausting enemy with slow build-up/maintenance of potential, which is very good alternative to current samely gameplay (they could "stand to" in PvP events thanks to this, and could be useful if necessary in PvE - smear/compensate negative/imperfection/insufficiency part as opposed to "pure/strait" classes). People has a decent point here, I must say. In other words, there used to be marathon runners and there were sprinters and even sometimes their hybrids, which itself isn't bad at all for class&gameplay diversity.

[stross01]

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?

When you hit in classic, in the open world, you see a mob's hp fall in big chunk While in a raid, a boss's HP shows signs of progress.

When you hit in retail, in the open world, you know that there's an algorithm in place that paces your optimal enjoyment ratio to stay at a steady 6-9 globals per funs. While in a raid, you know you're about to settle in for a 10-minute encounter with the same boss while watching for a pixel to disappear from a boss's HP bar.

[AppleWhiskey]

Sound design has destroyed a lot of combat feel.

Ever since Cataclysm with their "new" hunter gunshot sound, that sounds like a broken bass instead of the sharp, satisfying explosion of gunfire, they've kept making changes to pre-BC sounds and WC3 sounds that got imported into WoW.

Chain lightning sounds like utter garbage compared to its WC3 variant and up to Legion/Warlods variant (i think that's when they changed it).
Holy light is a travesty now.
Avenging wrath...
Rogue abilities...
Fireball

They keep hiring these random designers probably fresh out of designing some mobile game or whatever and give them creative licence to redesign what the masters made 20 years ago and did right.

There is a reason why everyone pisses nostalgia over warcraft 3 songs, sounds, story, as well as WoW's original design: it was created by what was then one of the most talented game development teams in the world.

Now they hand the torch to Mr 15 arm tattoos and nose piercings who spends their lunch time posting on twitter about how anduin and wrathion should fuck and down with the patriarchy.

It's just not working. It's all this "kill the past if you have to" mentality. Destroy what was done and loved by masters and let the "non-bigoted" "enlightened" "open minded" generation take over.
It's why it just keeps blowing up in their face over and over.

[cuafpr]

some of the new animations I think impacted, but it still seems better than most MMOs out there to me.

[Amariw]

Hm i get you. I personally don't think its not meaty but i could think of several reasons why for some people it'd feel that way:

-In classic each warrior swing is a huge portion of their damage, especially mortal strike. There's no "rotation", you just auto atk and mortal strike, so they're correspondingly huge. In Retail those are just small parts of your rotation which is made of many more clicks, each click not being as impactful (not to mention fury warrior). Still, fury's Rampage always feels awesome and "meaty" to me.

-The same is true for many classes due to the development of interactive rotations. Warlock shadowbolts hits like trucks in classic, because that's all they got. In retail demonology's shadowbolt is barely 3% of your dmg, if even that much, it might as well do 0 dmg if it still give you shards for your other abilities. The big damage comes from lining lots of demons into your Tyrant cd.

-Retail cds are very impactful on your entire kit, and often enhance it rather then just add stats. The above demonology tyrant cd is a good example (doubling your other demon's durations, enhancing their dmg AND dealing massive damage on their own). This makes it so for a lot of classes, short cd windows are 30-50% of their total dmg in a fight, which makes it feel like your not cd windows are week.


Still, you have stuff like destruction warlocks, which even to this day each chaos bolt feels like it HITS. Its not as awesome as it was in mop/wod days because like most classes this would make the modern Infernal cd too op (as it even gives you extra shards), but it still feels good. Same for hunters and aimed shots, and assassination rogues and their constant bleeds and poisons.

If this is what causes your experience, then my personal opinion is that its for the better. Classic is great, but the lack of rotation is too much for me at endgame. Its fun to have a more interactive button scheme that actually feels like it matters.

That said, i do think they gave up on some of their better designs. MoP demonology warlock felt awesome because your rotation turned you into a fucking demon. It didnt matter that you casted a lot of medium damage spells, the fact they got frequently upgraded in demon form felt so fun it was cheating. Same for MoP affliction where having all dots, Haunt and malefic grasp channel on a target HURT even outside cd windows.

I think the game would benefit from some speccs returning to more consistent damage that don't have as many crazy cd windows. Especially dot classes like affliction warlocks, spriests and to some extent assassination rogues.

[Coldfrostzero]

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?

I quit retail after the pre-patch stuff to the BFA raid for the Queen Azshara raid. Classic was released not long after so I dove back in to that and have been playing it ever since. An IRL friend of mine who him and his wife lead the guild I was on in retail (until I was kicked - long story not really a big deal) and asked me to come back and play. Sure I'll come back and give current WoW a try. Leveled a paladin to cap and started gearing. Felt exactly like it had for the last 3 expansions. Literally nothing different. Ret paladin not so great on DPS and we're looking at heroic modes so I swap to Warlock because I wanted to feel impactful. Despite the dps difference, still felt just...like I wasn't really doing much.

I think it comes down to boss health bars and length of fights. When you can see a boss's health chunk down considerably as the fight goes on, it feels a lot better than massive HP you're slowly whittling away at so you can move on to the next phase. Rygelon is kind of an exception as doing the fight feels kind of on pace and he's more of a boss who just kills you if you're not playing smart. Fights like Halondrus just feel so incredibly long and a battle of attrition instead of how Rygelon works. Halondrus feels more like what newer WoW has to offer and Rygelon feels more like what Classic WoW feels like. Anduin is kind of in the middle, but the mechanics originally were far too punishing it felt like. Not sure how it is now though. Haven't logged into retail in awhile.

There's good and bad about WoW's relatively new stance on not making major changes to classes since Legion. Generally, your class plays and feels the same if you step away and it's like riding a bike. However, it feels stale incredibly fast because there is no nuance to the specs anymore. Very little things like Killing Machine that make you play around that. You spam your main attack spell, use your spender, rinse and repeat until boss dies. Combat needs an overhaul once in awhile. I agree with not every expansion, but it's okay to experiment with things.

[EntertainmentNihilist]

So you are just going to ignore all CRPG games because........you dont like them?

1. I can't find a single RPG that isn't an MMO that uses a similar, slow, target-hotkey style combat system.

2. Yes. That's what all criticism is, condemning things we don't like and praising things we like.

[Djbobo]

Hm i get you. I personally don't think its not meaty but i could think of several reasons why for some people it'd feel that way:

-In classic each warrior swing is a huge portion of their damage, especially mortal strike. There's no "rotation", you just auto atk and mortal strike, so they're correspondingly huge. In Retail those are just small parts of your rotation which is made of many more clicks, each click not being as impactful (not to mention fury warrior). Still, fury's Rampage always feels awesome and "meaty" to me.

-The same is true for many classes due to the development of interactive rotations. Warlock shadowbolts hits like trucks in classic, because that's all they got. In retail demonology's shadowbolt is barely 3% of your dmg, if even that much, it might as well do 0 dmg if it still give you shards for your other abilities. The big damage comes from lining lots of demons into your Tyrant cd.

-Retail cds are very impactful on your entire kit, and often enhance it rather then just add stats. The above demonology tyrant cd is a good example (doubling your other demon's durations, enhancing their dmg AND dealing massive damage on their own). This makes it so for a lot of classes, short cd windows are 30-50% of their total dmg in a fight, which makes it feel like your not cd windows are week.


Still, you have stuff like destruction warlocks, which even to this day each chaos bolt feels like it HITS. Its not as awesome as it was in mop/wod days because like most classes this would make the modern Infernal cd too op (as it even gives you extra shards), but it still feels good. Same for hunters and aimed shots, and assassination rogues and their constant bleeds and poisons.

If this is what causes your experience, then my personal opinion is that its for the better. Classic is great, but the lack of rotation is too much for me at endgame. Its fun to have a more interactive button scheme that actually feels like it matters.

That said, i do think they gave up on some of their better designs. MoP demonology warlock felt awesome because your rotation turned you into a fucking demon. It didnt matter that you casted a lot of medium damage spells, the fact they got frequently upgraded in demon form felt so fun it was cheating. Same for MoP affliction where having all dots, Haunt and malefic grasp channel on a target HURT even outside cd windows.

I think the game would benefit from some speccs returning to more consistent damage that don't have as many crazy cd windows. Especially dot classes like affliction warlocks, spriests and to some extent assassination rogues.

Just to clarify: by classic I mean Vanilla - Wrath, probably even MoP iirc.

Not everything was perfect back then. Lava Lash for example was absolutely awful. It did no damage, there was barely any animation, the sound didn't make any sense. Using it felt really bad. But still, even with more complex rotations without much downtime most spells and abilities had waaaaay more oomph to them.

[arkanon]

1. I can't find a single RPG that isn't an MMO that uses a similar, slow, target-hotkey style combat system.

2. Yes. That's what all criticism is, condemning things we don't like and praising things we like.

You can't find a single one? Maybe because you exclude all crpg's because you don't like them.

When forming an argument, you can't ignore things you don't like and pretend they don't exist.

I prefer manual transmissions over auto, but trying to say "all cars are manual" would be an absolutely idiotic argument to make, don't you think?

[Ichab]

For me everything feels different in classic compared to retail. The sound your quiver makes when you use your bow, the way you deal with your pets, the fact you have to actually be holding a pole in order to fish, the fact you have to actually have wood and kindle in order to start a fire......... I wish they hadn't changed it.

[EntertainmentNihilist]

You can't find a single one? Maybe because you exclude all crpg's because you don't like them.

When forming an argument, you can't ignore things you don't like and pretend they don't exist.

I prefer manual transmissions over auto, but trying to say "all cars are manual" would be an absolutely idiotic argument to make, don't you think?

But I'm not. I literally can't find them. I googled examples of "CRPG's" none of them seemed like WoW combat (they seem to be either turn-based or RTS-like) - though I also don't like them either.

However, I am condemning this clunky combat system because I "don't like it". Like virtually all criticisms of works of entertainment. To give more explanation, the "manually target and press hotkey" is a very interpretive, artificial way of doing it. Being an "RPG" has nothing to do with it, "RPG" doesn't mean combat has to be artificial and interpretive.

[arkanon]

But I'm not. I literally can't find them. I googled examples of "CRPG's" none of them seemed like WoW combat (they seem to be either turn-based or RTS-like) - though I also don't like them either.

However, I am condemning this clunky combat system because I "don't like it". Like virtually all criticisms of works of entertainment. To give more explanation, the "manually target and press hotkey" is a very interpretive, artificial way of doing it. Being an "RPG" has nothing to do with it, "RPG" doesn't mean combat has to be artificial and interpretive.

You are welcome to critique it and say you don't like it, but your claim was no other rpg games use a similar system. Many do. Most crpg do. Rather than accept this, you just say "nah those don't count because I don't like them".

I'm not arguing it's a good system, in saying that contrary to your statement, many rpg games use a similar system.

[EntertainmentNihilist]

You are welcome to critique it and say you don't like it, but your claim was no other rpg games use a similar system. Many do. Most crpg do. Rather than accept this, you just say "nah those don't count because I don't like them".

I'm not arguing it's a good system, in saying that contrary to your statement, many rpg games use a similar system.

Again, I looked up examples of "crpgs" and none of them appear to use the same system.

[arkanon]

Again, I looked up examples of "crpgs" and none of them appear to use the same system.

Then you REALLY need to explain exactly what type of system they use compared to wows.....and why are you putting crpg in quotations all the time? Have you never heard the term before?

I get from your name that you are going for this whole teenager "all entertainment sux and im mega edgy" kind of thing, but you still need to present actual arguments.

[karung]

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

Totally agree with you.
Let's face the fact, wow is now a mixed of wow and diablo 3. Esp. after they fired d3 director and moved his team to wow. Everything started to smell funny afterwards.
I do not think they can salvage it, the game we loved is no more.

[Amariw]

Just to clarify: by classic I mean Vanilla - Wrath, probably even MoP iirc.

Not everything was perfect back then. Lava Lash for example was absolutely awful. It did no damage, there was barely any animation, the sound didn't make any sense. Using it felt really bad. But still, even with more complex rotations without much downtime most spells and abilities had waaaaay more oomph to them.

I can't remember each and every expac as i mostly played locks back then and affliction was already built around lots of seperate DoT effects. So might be you're right, might be just a subjective memory, can't say. I can say MoP destruction warlock's chaos bolts felt more impactful then today's. A large part of it is probably because today's shard generation is bigger and cds and tier set drive it even further through the roof, so dest locks have to be balanced around more frequent bolts than in MoP.

As said, I imagine it might be a somewhat similar situation across the board, because modern cooldowns often increase your resource generation, meaning you have to be tuned around very strong cds with frequent spenders.

[Arai]

As many have already said. Its mainly the sound and animations. Personally I can only speak of Ret Paladin and Arms Warrior. The Ret Paladin had a relatively cool Templars Verdict animation back in MoP (and WoD?). Then Legion came and we got this lame backslap attack. The sound doesn't help it either. Then they removed Exorcism which had no special visual effect but instead this really cool sound effect. You literally felt it and the guaranteed crit on undead helped it a lot too.
What did we get in return? A lame sword coming out of the ground. Looks terrible and sounds terrible. Crusader Strike also hits for absolute nothing. The biggest offender however is Judgement. Oh have they ruined it. The old judgement came from above the target. I can't exactly say why but the old one felt SO GOOD while the new one is terrible. Its mainly the lame animation throwing that pixelated golden thing.

The funny thing is that they could easiely reimplement the old animations and even sounds through glyphs but they don't because of some stupid design and philosophy decisions that again make no sense. Or they are just lazy. Because the animations themselves are in the game, they barely have to do any work for it.

Animations and Sound are also a huge factor for simply enjoying your character. Why do we pick certain races? Because they look cool but also because their fighting animations look good and are satisfying. And classes are similar to that. I can't really stand Monks since their fighting animations just don't fit with me. Its less the playstyle and more how the character looks/performs visually.

[Athorha]

Animations and Sound are also a huge factor for simply enjoying your character. Why do we pick certain races? Because they look cool but also because their fighting animations look good and are satisfying. And classes are similar to that. I can't really stand Monks since their fighting animations just don't fit with me. Its less the playstyle and more how the character looks/performs visually.

I want to see void Monks doing 'Portal' attacks. Risingsun kick being a face kick then phasing back to standing like an action movie. Maybe thats more whirling punch. Rsk breaks the mold for me, but I never really look at my char in combat so its more of a reminder to continue not.