18 years of WoW. What changes would you like?

Community General Discussion
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Wow has been out for almost two decades now, and has had eight major expansions with out any signs of stopping. Here are some changes I think are needed that would make the game more enjoyable for both old and new players.

  1. Change the daily quests for old expansion factions into just repeatable quest. I personally believe it is getting to a point where people shouldn’t have to devote vast amounts of their available time to farming old stuff on either their main or alts at the cost of keeping up with the grind of new content.

  2. Bring back formally removed timed content. Bring back the original Naxxramas, Legendary Quests that were tied just to the end of an expansion, the Reins of the Mighty Caravan Brutosaur. There are different specific reasons for each of these examples, but the underlying principle is that we all pay monthly subscriptions fees to play, and I think with that we should not have to feel like we have to play nonstop or risk missing out or not experiencing something that has been decided to be removed from the game.

  3. Make highly exclusive mounts and titles available on some sort of timed released schedule after they are no longer available. Examples of such are the Scarab Lord Title, the Black Qiraji Battle Tank, the mounts you get from achievements for raids. (There are more but I’m drawing blanks.) I get, being able to show off you did something no one else could or very few could do is great, but some of these badges of honor are so old the people who earned them probably don’t even play anymore. So why not make them available to players who didn’t have the time, the gold to buy a carry, or just started the game after these were no longer available after enough time has passed?

  4. Make the guards at neutral and sanctuary hubs significantly stronger and have a much increased threat radius. I know people are going to say just turn WM off, but this change I feel needs to be made for both factions. I’ve played Alliance and Horde, and since the introduction of WM and particularly in Shadowlands I’ve noticed a trend of both factions depending on your server forming large parties and then griefing the entry ways of major content hubs. I have no problem with either faction forming large hunting parties to hunt down the opposite faction, but I do feel it should in fact be a hunt. Not players just being funneled into meat grinder because the guards won’t run a few feet out onto the road and hit like raid bosses.

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Removal of weekly lockouts on all old content :+1:

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Removal of timegating that makes no sense, return the talent trees, player decision thats actually fun and not locked behind power, lower honor and conquest currency, and much more.

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I would like to see Blizz not focus so heavily on the"3 pillars" and focus on open world a bit more. Not saying remove them or ditch them, just not make those the only real “endgame”, add in meaningful progression for open world players just like the “3 pillars” players have their own meaningful progression systems, allow open world players to have theirs.

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Yes, I can’t stand removing content, or the people defending it. The game’s better off without that mentality. Linking this tweet again:

https://twitter.com/BenGrandblade/status/1435547957709836291?t=WfcItDhWDU0EbX5IcHbeyQ&s=19

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Tails for worgen and vulpera demon hunters.

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I’d like for us to all stop being butt munches to each other.

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  • WQs in every zone regardless of xpac that scale with you (to a point) with “hard mode” options for greater challenge and greater reward.

  • I’d love for anything power related to no longer require us to GO somewhere specific. I get that’s part of the RP and such but by now it’s just annoying. It’s dumb as hell that I can change my soulbind in any rested area… but to change the conduit I need to be at the forge. Just… no.

  • “Epic” version of story quests. Kind of like the difficulty settings for campaigns in SC. Quests in WoW are almost impossible to fail. Some of them actually cannot be failed, which I think is ridiculous. So the option to do a harder mode of it for greater unique reward would be awesome, even if they’re just cosmetic.

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The housing I was promised before retail was even released:

(Katricia, a blue on the forums back then.)

posted 2004-07-15 (7-15-2004 EDIT.)

Katricia: "Guild Halls will most likely not be implemented before World of Warcraft is released. They are very similar to Player Housing (which also will not make the release).

Both Player Housing and Guild Halls will be implemented as soon as possible after release.

I have no information available regarding the functions of either Guild Halls or Player Housing. ~Kat :slight_smile: "

Katricia: Player housing will not be available until after World of Warcraft has been released. Our plan is to add player housing in a future live update or expansion. Our current idea (which could change) is to extend the cities to have player housing neighborhoods. For example, in the canal area of Stormwind players can see a blue instance portal behind a large portcullis; this is the entrance to the player housing neighborhood in Stormwind.

Later, the backpedaling:

posted 2007-10-04 (10-04-2007 EDIT.)

Nethaera: "These were not promised at any particular time . I don’t believe we even used the word “promise” in any statements about these. We have said in the past , however, that these are things we would like to see added to the game. I can’t give you an ETA since we don’t have one as of yet.

We’d like them added in, sure, but beyond that we couldn’t tell you more. When we get close to a point where we actually are implementing these things, we’ll do what we can to give you all a heads-up."

That page only addresses such quotes until Garrisons were added (which were NOT “player housing.”)

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Hmmm…

(Just my opinions, saying now as I know some, perhaps many will disagree)

Short versions being…

1: LFD and LFR are gone, LFG is there but you must still walk/run/fly to your destination, summons stones be helpful is some get there quick enough.

2: Raid/Dungeon difficulties are gone, they are now made going forward with no different difficulties and ends up being you either can, or you cannot.

3: For the next expansion at least, no focus on PvP whatsoever. In the sense that the focus on any balancing class wise and such is looked at from a PvE perspective.

4: WoW Token, and Level Boost are gone. Mounts and such cosmetic wise can remain but for them to remain at their current price, then the subscription is to go. Should the Subscription remain, then the mounts, pets and such are to be placed within the game via an event that comes around once per year for players to go and earn, or something of the sort.

5: Tabards make a return for reputation grinding going forward, no gating of any sorts for how much one can earn a day, week and such.

6: Pathfinder is gone, just need to explore each area in every zone, buy the license for 50 gold and poof, off ya go.

7: Cross Faction play. Be you Alliance at start or Horde, you can group up with any other player regardless of faction as well as have guilds with both sides. Really the factions will only remain for PvP services.

8: Player Housing… well… maybe not that, least not yet.

9: Heirlooms are limited to just a ring that offers you 50% more XP overall. Hope here is so that as you level, quest rewards, dungeon and such can offer you better gear as you level and to some extent you feel progression perhaps.

10: Transmog limitations are gone. Regardless of your class you use any armor type, only exceptions would be Class specific gear.

11: Guild Halls… maybe that would be nice, perhaps.

12: No more ‘limited timed’ events going forward. Such as if you miss out you cannot ever gain anything from said event again. Though in some regards like PvP Seasons, Season 1, you go and earn what ya can. Season 2 you do the same thing but you cannot earn the Elite gear at least from Season 1. Season 3 however you can earn Season 1 Elite gear but not Season 2. This way at least those who went through the effort (or not as some do just buy carries at times) two seasons ago had time to show off and brag about the gear they had but after enough time it came back for those who still wanted to earn the gear but it would not be from Ranked however.

(Not so short on that last one, my apologies)

13: Permanently delete characters even should they be at the level to which it is no longer possible. (Just a personal thing really, I would prefer that when I delete a character that the ‘option’ for them to return in no there. Difficult for some to understand but as I said, just a personal thing)

14: No ‘story’ going forward, just a new place to explore and quest to go on. Was thinking maybe a Island perhaps that offers Bandit Forts, Evil Wizard Towers, Kobold Underground Cities, and other basic enemies. Nothing as dramatic as the ‘shadowlands’, ‘outer space’, ‘different dimension’ and such.

I could go on but I think that is enough. These are just ideas that I have considered over the years and while here they may sound short as far as how each one is described, but there is more to each one such as reasons and examples and such. But tis the forums, and I rather not spend too much time typing it all out. That and I doubt some, perhaps many would not care to read it all.

1 Like
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A Devilsaur mount.

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In no particular order:

  1. Removing sport out of the game. WoW is a game. it is an MMORPG. It is the world of the RTS “Warcraft” and as such we are meant to play in that world. Blizzard cannot do that and also truncate everything that blocks competitive minded players from accessing their competition environment. Once every two years we get a huge dump of new content, and players rush through it in a week to spend all their time doing the same thing each week, just slightly more challenging. It’s completely backwards.

    So let’s fix that. Let’s have dedicated instance servers where players can create characters or copy characters from retail. They all start with base gear. There is an interface that allows a team leader to select and organize teams, and players just zone into the instance, raid, pvp or dungeon and do whatever competitive level gameplay. Whatever success measurement is used awards points - points are then used to acquire empowerment. Perhaps there is even a power tree that is independent from retail. Certain goals and stretch goals unlocks cosmetic rewards that are reflected in retail.

    This model would then allow Blizzard to go ham. Imagine mythic raids that have affixes. Imagine a Torghast-style random empowerment in a rated BG. Imagine having random challenges in any instance. Or having M+ raid progression. Imagine all the power being earned not from farming gold but by doing content in the Competitive Instance Server.

    Then retail could go back to being a game. We can then remove LFR, which is no longer needed because flex makes pugging much easier. You have Normal flex raiding and a set 15-man for Heroic (since I am not convinced Blizzard can scale properly, so this would allow Blizzard to tighten their tuning on heroic, and ease the mechanics a smidge on flex to accommodate the influx of pugging runs).

  2. Player housing - Garrisons 2.0. Garrisons were actually fun until the echo chamber, and Blizzard adding garrisons to /trade kind of peed in the pool. But imagine a situation where you get to pick one of the 11-20 zones (and for this, I am absolutely assuming Blizzard rehabilitates the Night Elf and Forsaken start zones), where earn your Keep (which is an homage to D&D 1.0-2.0 where players earned a keep at a certain level). Here we can have a mission board, and an inn, where we acquire adventurers and send them on adventures. Your keep now becomes a quest hub for adventuring NPCs.

    And maybe you have some of the cooler buildings, but nothing that includes power. Instead maybe you can have an annex to your class hall, or an embassy in which various factions you have gotten to exalted come by to visit. Maybe you have a small farm, or an alchemy lab where you can experiment to discover unlearned recipes. Maybe there is a trophy room, and you have to go to all sorts of old content to acquire a token of that kill. You have your museum which holds all your archaeological finds. Your armory where your armor and special items/weapons are displayed. A library which (like the long lamented Lore Library Addon used to do) displays all the books, papers, letters you have acquired over the years, with a vendor that, has items to trade for currency you acquired for each find (like Lore Library).

    The Garrison would have the initial aesthetic of your main faction, but you can earn, craft or have crafted assets of whichever aesthetic pleases you. And the more everyone does to their keeps in that zone, maybe it unlocks some zone-wide buff for leveling players, and special events for high level players (like how the Broken Isles did). We know that players can handle high level events in low level zones because of the Nightmare dragons. And you can choose to either have your alts run their own keep, or attach them to a single keep, in which case they appear as NPCs in your main keep.

  3. Make classes become the source of borrowed power designs. While borrowed power worked for artifacts, it felt forced with the heart of Azeroth (especially when the gear didn’t have any narrative context - how could everyone have azerite gear when no one knew what azerite was?) So have the borrowed power come from your class hall and make the class hall be a thing (marrying Druids/Moonglade with Monks 10 level visit and Legion’s Order Halls). Every expansion, the reason why there are new abilities is because of the research the classes have been doing. This would allow Blizzard to narratively cycle back in older abilities. We could go back to the days where different trainers were used for each level. Maybe trainers could then be used to swap out signature abilities.

  4. Introduce the Argent tourney as a traveling event that happens at each city once a month. Narratively this makes perfect sense, as in the Middle Ages, realms would host tournaments where knights could display their prowess and it acted as a deterrent to war. There is no reason the Argent Crusade couldn’t take their show on the road, like how DMF used to be before they got their own island. The assets and gameplay are already there - you just have them spawn in front of each city, alternating Horde and Alliance, mid-week each month.

  5. Jobs. Give characters jobs based on their preferred gameplay:

    1. Bounty Hunter - this would serve as the old-style “go into the dungeon and kill this boss.” It could also include world bosses, rares and other targets.
    2. Mercenary - this is your pvp bucket - gives you special goals to be accomplished in pvp.
    3. Archaeologist - let’s repurpose archaeology to be a job where players explore all parts of Azeroth and beyond to find and acquire unique items. Let’s get all “Indiana Jones” on this.
    4. Merchant - This would be the catch-bucket for auction house and the revamped professions - an entire gameplay could be made for buying and selling specialty goods - maybe some of which Blizzard sneaks into the AH on a tab only seen by Merchants. This is also where you could have a mission table as you send trading caravans off to acquire something.
    5. Socialite - Imagine taking the whole “party” mechanic from the venthyr and doing that in a main city. Imagine being able to invite fellow players and they see special items based on their jobs.

  6. Professions as gameplay. I would absolutely just crib everything and anything from FFXIV here - from dedicated gear, unique stats, crafting gameplay. I know Blizzard can’t take FFXIV’s professions lock, stock and barrel but I think they really need to make professions its own gameplay, even down to it being a full time activity in lieu of end game raiding and dungeons.

  7. Return to racial start zones. The one thing that makes WoW unique amongst most MMOs (GW2 being an outlier) is that WoW used to lean in to racial identity. The first 20 levels of your experiences in WoW were framed around your race and its place in Azeroth. Blizzard needs to go back to this. And I would couple this with ensuring that while there is a “MSQ” that tells the story of the world of warcraft, that there is a secondary chain that tells the story from the viewpoint of your character’s race, and give the lore teams the space to advance multiple stories without having to wait 10 years.

  8. Adopting a Hawk and Dove approach to the faction conflict. When the main factions need to be a thing, let players choose a path that is “Dove” (meaning they are acting as ambassadors to the other faction and helping build bridges) or “Hawk” meaning they are pretending to be helpful but rather are working to sabotage the other faction in some way or building out a spy network within the opposing faction). This allows players to engage in the faction story on their terms while still honoring the conflict.

1 Like
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Some talent options that increases downtime in rotations, i think it feels nice to have some breathing room in a raid fight to take it all in plus i feel myself burning out being GCD locked after playing for more than 1 hour.

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Remove lockouts on old raids, but either no or limited loot/rep/gold after the first full clear/reset. This resets every week, so players can still grab the regular loot/rep/gold for every first clear of the week.

Make the 1-button travel form optional for druids and allow them to have either the 1-button or original 3 for the travel forms.

Make all reputations 2 expansions and older account-wide. Introduce the rep chests for old reps, but make them per-character so that players can’t grind rep/chests on their main to help power up an alt.

Pathfinder would be fully exploring the zones and completing the main story arc for each. No reputation requirement.

Allow Demon Hunters to use metamorphosis as a flying mount. Its a separate ability that is treated exactly like the druid flight form.

Add instanced housing for each major city.

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Also, remove the gold cost from transmog already as well as lifting the restrictions for wands since Blizzard is no longer making any to use outside of early expansion greens.

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Hunters to be able to wear Leather instead of all the clunky old drab looking Mail like I have cluttering my pages of complete wearable crap~

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I would love for the classic wow 1-60 content, including the original barrens, deadmines, shadowfang keep, etc to be added back in for chromie time leveling as well.

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I would really like to see a challenge mode for leveling implemented, some kind of hard-mode for those who enjoy the 1-50 experience but find it far too easy. I just leveled my Dark Iron in WOD and I died once in 40 levels - the entire experience has so little challenge anymore.

I tried it naked and that helps but getting higher gear is a big part of the fun. It used to be you could go to Slahtz and turn off leveling so you would be under-leveled for the content, but now everything scales so that no longer does anything.

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Lower barriers to entry for raids and PVP. Allow people to get into the content they want faster with more frequent class balance updates and better communication from Blues.

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Make PVP a giant persistent fight for land and resources that you can join at any time with serious benefits and consequences (buffs and special access to instances for controlling zones)