Assuming Fresh and/or Classic+ happens at some point… I believe I’m exactly the type of player you’re trying to entice back with it, and I gotta say, I’m very interested… I’m a 41-year-old “vanilla-only” player. I was there in the beginning and again in 2019. I played Vanilla, Classic and SoM. I have no interest in Retail or any other expansions. I would come back for Fresh and/or Classic+ only.
However, if you choose to do Classic+, please go with a less-is-more approach. SoD went way too far for me. Fixing a few glaring things in Vanilla is fine, but please don’t go overboard. I don’t want a new game, I just want my old game. I want to play it over and over with maybe just a few subtle improvements and fixes. A certain amount of vanilla flaws are tolerable, perhaps even desirable.
Here’s some feedback from my perspective of what’s needed and what should probably be avoided. I’d appreciate if you’d consider this feedback.
Awesome
Buff/debuff limit removed.
No spell batching.
Great
BGs: Pre-mades vs pre-mades. Pugs vs pugs.
No world buffs in raids.
Adjust phase schedule to be a little faster this time.
Increase loot drops to compensate.
Randomize mats for AQ event.
Would Be Nice
Buff meme specs. Nothing radical. Just enough to be in the low-averages.
Give Paladins a taunt. We need more tanks and it would entice ex-pallies to return.
Barbershop
ZG and Tier 0.5 before BWL would be really cool, I think.
Seasonal resets. Or perhaps Vanilla-TBC-Wrath seasonal resets.
Seasonal achievements, awards, leaderboards and stats to immortalize accomplishments and encourage repeat participation. Good for subscription longevity and replayability.
If layers are absolutely necessary, please reduce their impact so that the world doesn’t feel so dead all the time. It feels bad.
I concede the changes you made to honour ranking is probably for the best.
Increase spawn rates of World Bosses slightly.
Nerf dungeon carries and boosting the way you did in SoM.
Buff XP gains while levelling for alts only.
These feel overly ambitious to me, but ultimately wouldn’t prevent me from returning.
Forced server faction balance on PvP servers.
Nerf the fury warrior/rogue meta slightly.
Make BGs cross-factional.
Transmog
Improve itemization further.
More options for Crafting Professions.
Dual Spec
Allow MC20, BWL20, Onyxia20… same loot, but less.
These are risky changes. I’d be worried they would change the feeling of the game too much. These would make me think twice about returning…
New zones and quests.
New dungeons and raids.
Summoning stones. I’m firmly against, travelling through the world, though tedious, is a big part of why it feels real, and subconsciously, it has many benefits. Counterintuitively, it’s “flaws” like this that are probably the secret sauce of Vanilla. It quietly makes the game feel more meaningful and rewarding.
Increased levelling. (I’m against, but could live with it)
Class Balancing (I’m against, it’s far too difficult to pull off and would risk too much if you get it wrong)
These are changes that are deal-breakers and would 100% prevent me from coming back.
There hasn’t really been any indication that Fresh classic is in the plans or on the horizon, so I’m not sure what gave you the impression otherwise.
Furthermore there isn’t really any reason to relaunch Fresh. All of the content is released on era already, in a permanent phase 6.
Anything that you would like to do in classic wow can be done on Era now. Just level up a character on an active cluster and join a guild that suits your interests/schedule, and begin clearing whatever content you want to play.
I see… yea that’s just the FOMO/Hype-crowd scrambling to look for the “next new thing” after everyone realized that Era is still better than SoD and Cata.
There was that survey (which I’m still kind of skeptical about even existing as everyone seems to be pointing to the same thing) and the hints on interviews about how “SoD is a testing ground for what’s next”. Sadly I don’t think that 95% of what’s being “tested” with SoD makes for a good Classic+ in the future.
The pure fresh thing is probably still a ways off - with changes with a + seems to be the plan, I just hope they leave Era alone as much as possible and don’t turn Era into the +.
Has not existed since classic ERA went to the 1.14 client.
Rogue 4pc is better than T2; not joking.
The BG thing is basically active already, but can’t be fully functional because the pvp population isnt big enough to support this in all BG’S.
NO WB in raid may be way less popular than you expect.
Speeding up the tempo of progression may make it too sweaty causing casuals to quit. They’re more important than you may realise.
Faster / more loot will not correct the sweaty meta that would likely drive people away. You and I like harder content, and I would personally enjoy it, but most players dont, and its why SoM lost traction fast.
Most players quit after BWL because they assume wrongly that it’s hard because they’re told its hard. The PVP meta certainly suffers post BWL because thet meta gets really bursty; something I personally love, but most do not enjoy this so PVP falls off a cliff with AQ.
There is ton of evidence. Have you been living under a rock ? Did you even see the latest dev interview ? Or do you like to troll post early just to get likes that you clearly never get
I’m on board with most of the things you’ve said. My vision for a Classic+ also aligns with the “less is more” mantra. The Vanilla game stands on its own pretty well and really only needs a few tweaks.
With that said, here’s a few comments or areas where my views diverge a bit from yours.
I’m definitely against transmog. I like that in Vanilla, what you see is what you get. I think that’s an important part of the experience. Just my personal view.
Dual spec is also one of those things where it takes a bit away from your identity. You get a lot of freedom with your spec in Vanilla and the difference between “the best” and “just ok” isn’t actually all that big. You don’t need to have the best spec for all scenarios if you want to play multiple parts of the game, you actually can mix it up a bit. Or decide to pull the trigger and full commit for a period of time.
Dual spec is super convenient, but it all but eliminates any thought surrounding how you build your character. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.
Both of these I’m actually super in for, but they should really come after all your other changes. They also need to be very much in line with what we would expect from a Vanilla game so the dev team, in particular the designers, would really need to ensure they’re in tune with this.
That’s not true at all. It would hold weight if a respecing was IMPOSSIBLE, but it’s not. Paying 50g to change your “identity” isn’t really an identity at all. Dual spec should have always been in WOW, or remove the ability to respec completely.
That 50g is actually 100g if you bounce back and forth between two specializations a lot and is more than enough for most of us to think twice about it. It was never intended to be impossible to respec, but the reason it increases with each use, and then decreases over time, is to discourage you from overusing it.
I stand by what I wrote. Dual spec takes away from the design and engagement around talent specializations. It certainly is convenient, but it’s not meant for this version of the game and it’s an absolute loss to the feel of the game for Dual Spec to be present in the fresh servers.
I still disagree. It was a compromise between casuals and hardcores from the days of better MMO’s where your character was literally set in stone once a choice was made, just like in real life.
50g isn’t worth anything, especially later on in a server. Sure, it’s a pain to go through all the talents again, and swap abilities out, but to claim that it has anything to do with character identity and depth is an absolutely false…because you can change it.
Character creation choices have a lot more meaning in this game, because they can’t be changed.
You’re taking that to the extreme conclusion without bothering to consider what goes in between. It’s not black and white. You’re supposed to have the flexibility to change up your playstyle, but it’s supposed to be restrictive enough that you’re discouraged from doing so frequently.
Adversity breeds creativity and it’s no different in this case. If all you want to do is PvE as one spec then there is no adversity and people pick whatever the meta spec is without considering what those talents even mean. If you want to do PvE, PvP, open world farming, questing, or any other such combination of things, now you have some adversity. You can either pay, or you can get creative and look for ways to build your character so that you can do all of the activities you want to do at the expense of not being perfectly suited to all of them.
That is your character’s identity. That’s what not only creates interesting and compelling choice with how you build your character and encourages you to really learn those talents. With a deeper knowledge of them you can then make your own choices as to what you take based on what you do.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that you don’t look into these. You’re missing out on a rather complex and rich system that gives you a lot of choice. However, since you don’t look, you don’t feel like you have any choice, and therefore you need dual spec becuase it’s easier for you than reading and understanding what your talents do.
