Does classic have incremental changes now?

[Zayele]

Hi,
I'm someone who's been curious about playing classic in the past, but didn't really click much with the release back in 2019. The main appeal of classic to me is being able to revisit past iterations of different specs that I remember fondly. MoP and WoD classic are on the horizon, and those expansions had the best overall class design of almost any time period in WoW (imo) - specs like launch Mistweaver and BRF blood DK were some of the most fun I've ever had playing.

That said, I'm worried that a lot of these specific iterations will be lost to time - from what I recall, classic would typically start on the very last patch of the corresponding expansion, which makes it an entirely different experience relative to the real deal. Still, would we be able to expect more incremental changes now that we're getting closer to the modern era of WoW? (ie having patch 5.1 with patch 5.1 specs + some changes) As I've not really kept up with news on classic at all, I'm wondering if they've done this at all for wotlk and cataclysm?

Obviously, I don't blame Blizzard for not being able to implement this if it's not in the pipeline; after all, a patch definitely involves thousands of commits, and reverse engineering those is way more work than is reasonable.

[Mysterymask]

unlikely main reason is players FOTM mentality.

Oh Rogues are great in this patch but the next patch warlocks are going to be insane but they suck now. It's one thing in retail where for the most part we don't know what's going to change meanwhile here at the very least its like in Wrath Classic. "Yeah warriors suck now but in ICC they are going to be nuts so I'll struggle through it"

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I am not to afraid to say that their is no way they will to patch by patch changes as they were in original release. Balance will be around the last patch. IF that causes minor issues in certain situations they have shows they might make a change (like if a set bonus doesn't work correctly in patch one because its on last patch balance for example). But like the nerf, buff, and rolling changes made patch to patch. Highly doubt it.

At least they haven't done it yet. Most the releases feel very just get it out there, make sure it, mostly, works.. and then kinda just forget about it.

[Kralljin]

Pretty much every "Classic" Version has started on the last patch and made some adjustment if they felt it was necessary.

Is it great from a perspective of "reliving" a certain expansion 1:1? No.
Does it make the game more playable longterm? Yes.

If you take Cata Classic for example, then Elemental Shaman was complete garbage during the first tier.
It was only after they added the Unleashed Lightning Glyph (casting Lightning Bolt on the move) that Elemental started pick up steam, so as an Elemental Shaman, you'd have to suffer through 3-4 months of being terrible to *finally* receive something that everyone remembers about Cata Elemental Shaman.

Most the releases feel very just get it out there, make sure it, mostly, works.. and then kinda just forget about it.

Honestly, hasn't this become Blizzard the MO for all of their games?

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Honestly, hasn't this become Blizzard the MO for all of their games?

I would debate they do at least try with retail. They seem to pretend to try with D4. But yeah, most their production these days certainly follow this trend.

[anon5123]

No. Blizz is never going to do "patch progression". The Classic team is too lazy/underfunded for that. We're just going to get the final patch and progressive content, like all the other classic expacs.

Most the releases feel very just get it out there, make sure it, mostly, works.. and then kinda just forget about it.

Classic only exists to pull people away from private servers and tempt them to play retail. It has been bare minimum effort from day 1.

[NineSpine]

No. Blizz is never going to do "patch progression". The Classic team is too lazy/underfunded for that. We're just going to get the final patch and progressive content, like all the other classic expacs.



Classic only exists to pull people away from private servers and tempt them to play retail. It has been bare minimum effort from day 1.

Blizzard does basically nothing to attract classic players to retail, and they’ve said classic and retail players don’t overlap much.

[Mysterymask]

No. Blizz is never going to do "patch progression". The Classic team is too lazy/underfunded for that. We're just going to get the final patch and progressive content, like all the other classic expacs.



Classic only exists to pull people away from private servers and tempt them to play retail. It has been bare minimum effort from day 1.

I've already said but the problem with incremental patches is as such

Patch x.0: Oh Man X Class is OP as fuck buuut in x.1 they are going to nerf them to the ground so I better power level X class then level up another class that's going to be OP in X.1 followed by whoever's OP in X.2

If you find it fun that whatever class you play is Broken in one patch and you KNOW in the next its going to be shit have fun with that

Then we have other fun things like BUGS
do they just implement the bugs or things that aren't supposed to be there? Should Vanilla of had reckoning bomb? Maybe the Naxrammas patch needed Rogues with the old HAT glitch for like 3 weeks before they release the patch that fixes it. That sounds so fun get everyone to powerlevel a Rogue so they can slam into Naxx with a bug for like 1 reset that sounds AMAZING (/s). Hell sticking with Wrath and Rogues what bout unpopular abilities like all the shitty incarnations of Hunger for Blood or maybe PVP needs to be plagued with 3 patch cycles of Throwing Weapon Specialization?

Like I understand wanting the FULL CLASSIC experience hell the Marvel vs Capcom collection mildly sucks because we got the Saturn version of X-Men vs Street Fighter and not the cool 1.0 version where everyone had an infinite but at the end of the day in a fighting game I can pick another character versus having to level something different because I KNOW a class is going to be nerfed to the ground in 3 months or less and I want to make sure I get to try the OP class NOW.

[Veiled Shadow]

I've already said but the problem with incremental patches is as such

Patch x.0: Oh Man X Class is OP as fuck buuut in x.1 they are going to nerf them to the ground so I better power level X class then level up another class that's going to be OP in X.1 followed by whoever's OP in X.2

If you find it fun that whatever class you play is Broken in one patch and you KNOW in the next its going to be shit have fun with that

How is this even a problem? The alternative is what you see in a lot of classic raids - massive overrepresentation of the best specs to a much greater degree than what is the norm in modern WoW. At least being forced to gear a new character every patch is a 'barrier to entry' that dissuades everyone from simply picking the best class day 1.

Moreover, fotm rerolling for a new patch has been commonplace throughout the game's history, it's surely not upsetting any norm if it were to happen in classic.

[Caprias]

Blizzard does basically nothing to attract classic players to retail, and they’ve said classic and retail players don’t overlap much.

Do you have a source for that?
Liquid Maximum said the opposite a couple times on stream iirc. that from his conversations with devs. "people would be quite surprised about the overlap in the classic:retail playerbase".

And, obviously anecdotal, this matches quite a bit with my friendliest and myself playing SoD, cata or fresh on Retail downtime with only a very few playing strictly only retail or classic.

[NineSpine]

Do you have a source for that?
Liquid Maximum said the opposite a couple times on stream iirc. that from his conversations with devs. "people would be quite surprised about the overlap in the classic:retail playerbase".

And, obviously anecdotal, this matches quite a bit with my friendliest and myself playing SoD, cata or fresh on Retail downtime with only a very few playing strictly only retail or classic.

It was one of the SoD developer interviews. There are like 875 of those.

[Akka]

Do you have a source for that?
Liquid Maximum said the opposite a couple times on stream iirc. that from his conversations with devs. "people would be quite surprised about the overlap in the classic:retail playerbase".

Well, maybe he meant "people would be surprised at how little they overlap".
Because I certainly do remember some Blizz representative saying in 2020 or so that there was nearly no overlap between both.
It might have changed a lot with WotLK though, as WotLK is basically the bedrock of retail, while Classic was the actual original beast.

[Caprias]

Well, maybe he meant "people would be surprised at how little they overlap".
Because I certainly do remember some Blizz representative saying in 2020 or so that there was nearly no overlap between both.
It might have changed a lot with WotLK though, as WotLK is basically the bedrock of retail, while Classic was the actual original beast.

Sorry I won't go through hundreds of vods but no, I'm pretty sure it was around the early SoD times where this came up.
Classic compliments retails seasonal lows quite well from my experience as well, the tribalism idiots are pretty isolated here and in the WoWhead comments.

[schwank05]

Do you have a source for that?
Liquid Maximum said the opposite a couple times on stream iirc. that from his conversations with devs. "people would be quite surprised about the overlap in the classic:retail playerbase".

And, obviously anecdotal, this matches quite a bit with my friendliest and myself playing SoD, cata or fresh on Retail downtime with only a very few playing strictly only retail or classic.

Both my Classic raid groups all exclusively play Classic. Most Retail players that dabble in Classic in content droughts are IMO huge issues as they always end up back in Retail leaving their Classic raid teams a man short. I have seen this several times over the years, which is why I was excited for the Normalized loot for 10/25 in CATA I no longer have to run 25 man progression raids with 22-23 people in them we can just run 10 man and get the same loot.

- - - Updated - - -

Hi,
I'm someone who's been curious about playing classic in the past, but didn't really click much with the release back in 2019. The main appeal of classic to me is being able to revisit past iterations of different specs that I remember fondly. MoP and WoD classic are on the horizon, and those expansions had the best overall class design of almost any time period in WoW (imo) - specs like launch Mistweaver and BRF blood DK were some of the most fun I've ever had playing.

That said, I'm worried that a lot of these specific iterations will be lost to time - from what I recall, classic would typically start on the very last patch of the corresponding expansion, which makes it an entirely different experience relative to the real deal. Still, would we be able to expect more incremental changes now that we're getting closer to the modern era of WoW? (ie having patch 5.1 with patch 5.1 specs + some changes) As I've not really kept up with news on classic at all, I'm wondering if they've done this at all for wotlk and cataclysm?

Obviously, I don't blame Blizzard for not being able to implement this if it's not in the pipeline; after all, a patch definitely involves thousands of commits, and reverse engineering those is way more work than is reasonable.

I agree wholeheartedly with class design MOP Brewmaster and Disc were best the specs ever have been, even in their heavily nerfed state at the end of the xpac Brewmaster and Disc still were awesome at the end, not completely OP, just great.

[NineSpine]

Sorry I won't go through hundreds of vods but no, I'm pretty sure it was around the early SoD times where this came up.
Classic compliments retails seasonal lows quite well from my experience as well, the tribalism idiots are pretty isolated here and in the WoWhead comments.

In my experience, most of the antagonism comes from the people who said Classic would never happen, then said Classic would fail, then said Classic would never continue to other expansions, then said Classic would never get seasonal servers, then said Classic would never get new content, and now they are on to "Classic+ will never happen". They tied up a lot of their identity in hating on Classic and they can't seem to cope with the reality that it's popular and successful.

[Relapses]

In my experience, most of the antagonism comes from the people who said Classic would never happen, then said Classic would fail, then said Classic would never continue to other expansions, then said Classic would never get seasonal servers, then said Classic would never get new content, and now they are on to "Classic+ will never happen". They tied up a lot of their identity in hating on Classic and they can't seem to cope with the reality that it's popular and successful.

I guess that means that Classic has absolutely no antagonism since the people you're describing exist only in your head.

[NineSpine]

I guess that means that Classic has absolutely no antagonism since the people you're describing exist only in your head.

You are almost literally that person, and the main evidence is that you hang around the forum for WoW Classic, constantly injecting yourself into conversations about a game you don't like and don't play.

[Akka]

Sorry I won't go through hundreds of vods but no, I'm pretty sure it was around the early SoD times where this came up.

=>

It might have changed a lot with WotLK though, as WotLK is basically the bedrock of retail, while Classic was the actual original beast.

Do you remember when SoD did came out ?

Classic compliments retails seasonal lows quite well from my experience as well, the tribalism idiots are pretty isolated here and in the WoWhead comments.

"lack of overlap" because people who like to play Classic typically don't like to play retail (because the fundamental design is different) has nothing to do with "tribalism" and all to do with, duh, different designs attracting different players. The tone you have about "tribalist idiots" tends to illustrate that it's more about what you want to be rather than what is.

[Relapses]

You are almost literally that person, and the main evidence is that you hang around the forum for WoW Classic, constantly injecting yourself into conversations about a game you don't like and don't play.

I don't hate Classic. What I dislike are all forms of entitlement and it just happens that Classic fans happen to be some of the most entitled people in existence. Also, I get that you want a safe space free of dissenting opinions but that's not the purpose of this discussion forum. Stick to the Classic WoW subreddit if you want to live in an echo chamber.

[Caprias]

=>


"lack of overlap" because people who like to play Classic typically don't like to play retail (because the fundamental design is different) has nothing to do with "tribalism" and all to do with, duh, different designs attracting different players. The tone you have about "tribalist idiots" tends to illustrate that it's more about what you want to be rather than what is.

So, some p.server guys(truly some.. special individuals), a couple thousand maybe?
Game is fundamentally "make your guy stronger",vanilla still has a lot more in common than differences to retail, yet some people act like it's almost a different game genre lmao.

It's just so funny to me that what people like you and ninespine preach somehow never matches with what I've seen ingame since 2019 outside of some insufferable exceptions no one wants to play with anyways.