Classic+ should NOT mean classic class design in practice

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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I know it might be REALLY hard for some certain classic players to understand, but the 20 year old game does not have good class design in practice. 85% of the specs are actual trash and are never brought to any of the content and are so out preformed by everything else it’s not even funny.

However, that is in practice. In PRACTICE. Flavor wise and class fantasy classic has stronger class identity than ANY other version of the game, probably including TBC as well.

Classic+ is not “Classic with some changes” because you know what? We already have 20th Ann. realms with some changes, and we have SOD. I like SOD, but SOD is the perfect example of why you can’t just do some basic changes like adding 7-8 abilities per class because of how tricky the original game is. It was good for it’s time, but we’re in the present and we have hindsight.

Classic+ (Which it’s basically confirmed it will come eventually) Needs to have a new take on the formula. We are allowed to have well designed classes. They need to keep it in the spirit of classic, with classes have very strong class identity. Not like retail homogenization. Classes should have VERY noticeable STRENGTHS and WEAKNESSES that belong to their class fantasy.

However, that doesn’t mean we should keep the terrible design of Ret Paladin current classic has hat was literally only made that way because devs in 2004 thought it was too similar to warrior (Which is why they didn’t have taunt) Which for the time, and on paper, made a lot of sense actually.

But this is 20 years in the future, and since retail is a “Click que button, wait for shiny reward” for the most part, this is the chance to have another world of the classic Azeroth/Warcraft we all love. Retail has some good things down in terms of design, Classic has good things down in design (Mainly core gameplay and the world itself)

Just really hope Classic+ doesn’t get screwed up. And I’m telling you right now, Classic+ CANNOT and most likely won’t be just the normal 2004 Game with some changes. We’re at FIVE runs of the game now, people get bored. It’ll have to be much, much bigger to really shine like it did in 2019. (Multi billion dollar company, so let’s hope)

inb4 the people who think there should be one viable spec in the entire game and everyone else can kick rocks

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SOD is all the classic+ you’re going to get.

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I’d like to know a more expanded viewpoint on why 7-8 abilities per class are considered basic changes, and what sorts of changes you envision.

As everyone seems to have different views on what Classic+ means, I’m curious if this expression holds any meaning beyond, the next season of Classic?

:woman_shrugging:

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When you really look at it, a lot of the runes is just a collection of passives and some abilities. Obviously it isn’t that basic, but they are mainly spells from TBC and WOTLK which have the same core flow as classic does.

My point of that is, classes need to be worked FROM THE GROUND UP. From the start, not trying to play around with a very outdated system.

Also, after SOD and 20th realms, I think at this point Classic+ is going to be a major “from the ground up” new thing. SOD quite literally is one of the definitions of Classic+ people talked about years ago.

Which means the only way forward, is a major overhaul or entire new game basically of classic.

Contrary to what people believe, Classic WoW isn’t just bad graphics etc etc. It’s the core game design of an rpg with soul in it that we sadly lost over time

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Interesting ideas, but at this point, they are so vague and so far-reaching, it’s anybody’s guess, from my perspective at least, if you actually have any ideas that you’re attempting to share, or if you’re just saying everything needs to change, in which case you may well be talking about a completely new and different game.

I suppose that just leaves me wondering if what you’re getting at is that you wish the original game development team from WoW reimagined it with the base lore of Classic Azeroth, or if you’re just stating that you’d like to go play something else, but maybe not even realizing it.

:woman_shrugging:

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I think what you are talking about might be the tbc prepatch version of classic which we will (hopefully) have longer than 2 weeks, who knows they might just have that maybe have exp eliminator added in tbc era.

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the death knight wants to change vanilla classic classes :expressionless:

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you realize SoD is seen as a failure by most people, right :expressionless:
they have completely abandoned certain specs like arms… yeah, great template for classic+ dude.

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I saw your name and instantly ignored everything you said

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i accept your concession :expressionless:

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TBC has the best class design n combat mechanics in classic pack.

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I wish there was a version of the game that actually provided gear, class identity, and multiple variations for every single spec in the game. Oh wait, there is (it’s retail). Some people act like vanilla was so great, and it was for it’s time. The game evolved and got better. If you want more specs to be viable in end game content then your going to have to stop playing classic. Y’all wanted no changes and that’s a pretty big change. I 100% support the idea of a classic plus but they tried that with sod and it was a pretty bad experience. So, if you don’t want classic then play retail.

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SoD was a failure. They won’t be doing that again.

They need to keep classes like classic and just fix some things that are bad with them. We don’t want expansion spells and abilities in classic.

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For Classic + you can do whatever the eck you want. Just keep it not overflowing into Era.

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Player problem. The people I play with use any class and spec and just have fun. That’s how vanilla works. If you don’t like that or don’t play with people who like that, then that’s your issue, not the game’s. The game shouldn’t change to suit a new player.

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The more I play Classic the more I realize I just want new content. Areas of the game that have never been explored and are not figured out.

The start of SoD phase 1 captured that spirit. People walked in competely blind to the rune system and figured it out organically, no questie to mark X on the map. Thats the magic sauce right there.

If they could deliver an entire expansions worth of content like that it would be amazing.

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while i think sod is as much classic+ as we’ll ever see, i think what our poster means is a rework of some classes, for example hunters using whatever their resource is in retail, or priests and hunters getting their melee spec back.

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It’s an interesting point. The change to Focus for hunters going from Wrath into Cata pre-patch is pretty big. Some people for sure have a preference that falls on either side of that. Apparently, hunters used Focus in Alpha, as well as were able to equip shields.

And in SoD, hunters do have a melee spec, but the idea that they would get a melee spec “back” seems to be coming from a point of view of WoW from Legion onwards where hunters had what was maybe a melee spec.

In current Retail (TWW), I wouldn’t classify Survival as a melee spec, but a mid-range spec with some melee ranged abilities that are sometimes in rotation.

It would be interesting to know what it would look like for priests to get their melee specs back.

There seem to be almost as many different opinions on what Classic+ means as their are people who play WoW, or at least have an opinion on what Classic+ may be, so I’m not sure it has much meaning or context in conversations as a term.

I do think that various seasons over Classic can be a reasonable place to experiment with different ideas and that regardless of how one feels about SoD, there has been some very interesting experimentation there, but there are also private servers that have done interesting experimentation and I don’t think that the Classic team has shown they particularly have resources or vision to build on WoW in ways that are true to original, or particularly in any ways that are better than private servers, with the exception I would say of the BattleNet infrastructure.

My personal opinion, at this point, is that the Classic team would do themselves and the community a service by reverting changes they have made to the core game (Era) that in-turn require even more changes, because they’ve broken balance or ways the game plays (such as changes to ranking, for example, or chronoboons, dungeon skips, experience gains with disparate party levels, etc.

As far as reworks go, perhaps that would be best done in a different game altogether. Or maybe something based around the SoD Phase 1, level 25 cap on Azerothian WoW.

:woman_shrugging:

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I don’t understand how people can still think this. It’s basically confirmed, and even if it wasn’t the reception of sod was ubiquitously positive.

I personally think anniversary was probably launched to give people something to sub for while plus is in development once the decision was made to green light it. I hope part of the decision also involved giving them a chance to correct the mistake of not creating tbc and wrath era servers the first time, but i guess we’ll find out. Either way devs have all but outright stated the plan is to do a proper classic plus.

It will be the most popular version of classic once it launches (as long as they don’t screw it up by releasing “classic but now one class of one faction can taunt!”). There are some real bangers in terms of spec design and identity over the years of “pre borrowed power” expansions, and those changes are why people couldn’t get enough of early sod. Even casuals were playing like 5 or 6 classes, and it wasn’t because they wanted to run the new bfd 10 man dozens of times per week.

Population on sod is clearly lower than release but it’s consistent over several months now. As someone who no longer plays sod, I’ll say it’s easily the most fun version of the game. The reason I (and I assume many more) are playing anniversary instead of sod is solely because it’s seasonal.

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Imo, classes that could use 1-2 extra abilities ( paladin, shamans and druids mainly) should get them, the rest of the classes or classes that are already strong in vanilla should not be touched.

The thing i hated most about sod was that every previously good spec was destroyed and the new flavor runes playestyle was inserted. Like why is mage a healing class in sod? Why is a dps class completely rendered inept for dps in favor of healing? These things ( and the absurd power lvls) have shuned a large portion of players who were truly excited about playing sod back in p1.

Strong classes should go untouched, weak classes should have some talents retuning, like hit talents for locks (and threat reduction etc ; not new talents, just tune the numbers). And the only classes that deserve 1-2 extra abilities are the hybrids, maybe some mana coefficiency changes for spriests and boomies but that’s it.

Paladins , druids and shamans should be able to tank but not the abomination they’ve created in sod. Also no lock/rogue tanks, no mage healers, it’s truly too much.