Nevermind what I said, I have a very different take on this.
I originally complained about “class balance” but I realized that class balance isn’t that important to me as long as the classes I like more are at viable/OP. People like their class being OP. xD
What took me so long? Well, I made another thread a while later about my take on legacy servers. but that didn’t get much traffic, so I figured I’d update this thread for anyone who passes by and is reading this.
Here is the thread below.
I tried classic, not bad! Took a break from it for now though; so much to do in retail WoW to begin with.
I’m rather excited for Shadowlands, and the new customization options they are bringing.
To clarify. I am not so interested in classic outside of some of the fun spells I missed from WoTLK Here is my older post below:
True dat. Classic WoW seems promising for sure, Edit: (I mainly like the spells in classic.) (In classic, almost every class was OP in different ways imo. I forgot to mention that. Could be wrong though.) and so does Warcraft 3 Reforged. Heck, better class balance alone would be enough for me. Most likely if I quit it will be temporary until Blizzard sorts things out. This is why I never said “IM QUITTING FOREVER” like other folks out there. God knows what Blizzard could do to surprise us.
Only other reason so far is if I finally get tired of this game. But once again. something else might bring me back.
Good point. Though, in Vanilla (Almost) every class was good at something. Pure DPS specs generally weren’t bad. Almost every class was OP in different ways. I could be wrong though, but thats what I heard about classic for quite a while.
And yeah, If Warlocks, and Death Knights, and warriors ended up being OP (Warriors are already good) I wouldn’t be so bothered by it as classes that im not as interested in. I’ll admit that
Honestly I’d prefer WoTLK over Classic. I mainly like classic for some of the spells I miss that were also in WoTLK. Other than that, I’m not too interested in Classic.
Not to be that guy, but how can a person complain about class balance in a thread, then in the same thread say “Classic looks promising”? I assume that’s because you are a warrior main and don’t really care about balance. Nothing wrong with that. People like being OP. I’m sure there’s going to be a ridiculous amount of people playing warriors in classic for that reason. I just like it when people are more honest.
Good point. Though, in Vanilla (Almost) every class was good at something. Pure DPS specs generally weren’t bad. Almost every class was OP in different ways. I could be wrong though, but thats what I heard about classic for quite a while.
And yeah, If Warlocks, and Death Knights, and warriors ended up being OP (Warriors are already good) I wouldn’t be so bothered by it as classes that im not as interested in. I’ll admit that
Honestly I’d prefer WoTLK over Classic. I mainly like classic for some of the spells I miss that were also in WoTLK. Other than that, I’m not too interested in Classic.
“Affliction is fine”
“Outlaw doesn’t do enough damage”
“Beast mastery doesn’t do enough damage”
Raid or Die baby. I actually hate raiding and the raid community so much now that I’d throw hundreds or thousands of dollars at a new MMO promising no focus on organized raiding.
I don’t hate raiders. I was one for years. But the mentality of much of the raiding community has changed over the years. To the point where it stopped being fun, and felt more like a second job. This is also why I’m highly skeptical of Classic. I don’t think classic will be that fun because people are going to approach the game with the same mentality they do live.
The community isn’t what bothers me. What bothers me is the design philosophy that how a spec plays in a raid takes focus over every other part of the game.
That’s what destroyed Affliction. The idea that Affliction does great damage to raid bosses is vastly unimportant when it does garbage damage to trash. Trash actually being the most important thing in M+.
They need to get away from using raids as a balancing metric for specs. Instead look at each spec through the entire gambit of play to see how it plays and correct whatever feels bad.
I vehemently disagree. I think classes/specs should only be balanced around large group content. So everyone one can have strengths and weaknesses that are filled by the people that are around you. This is why I hate the idea of the MDI. I think having to balance the game around group content as small as 5 players is part of the problem with making specs so boring and “samey”.
And for a long time, Blizzard agreed. I still remember back in the beginning of Cata, when so many people were whining about how hard it was to PuG heroics in the beginning, people were whining about how their class lacked such and such. On multiple occasions Ghostcrawler flat out told the community “We don’t balance the game around 5 mans”.
The issue is large group content occurs at the very end of the game. Long after the quest for max level. Long after the quest for mid-tier equipment. Long after dungeon romps and world PvE / PvP.
This is something I talk about from time to time. Why the world feels boring and repetitive but raids feel good to people who enjoy them. This idea that you can make a game where the vast sum of it is boring, repetitive and specs play horribly is not good design.
This is raid or die design in a nutshell and it is killing the game.
You don’t need 19 others to get this. A tank brings qualities to a group the DPS and Healer roles would want. That is applicable at the raid and group level.
I believe nothing in the game should be soloable. That a warrior should always want a healer at their back, that a healer would always want that warrior (or any other DPS / tank spec for that matter). This would help the issue of community building enormously.
Raid or die has ruined this as a possibility. The raid or die faithful think everything outside of raiding should be a gearing and leveling lobby. Where none of it matters and no community exists.
This can’t work because in general people spend most of their time outside of raids. People want community to matter and when they say that they aren’t talking about raids. A raid is a piece of scripted content most people do a handful of times. They don’t spend months in it. They do spend the entire expansion in the world proper.
This is why the world should be the focus. Why small group balance should be the focus.
Locking a spec to single target damage is probably the worst spec design I have ever seen in an RPG. Given the vast sum of scenarios that person playing that spec would need AoE damage. I frankly don’t see it getting any worse at the design level.
And this is because of the raid to non-raid ratio. If we were in raids all the time that wouldn’t be the issue. What you apparently don’t see is that the vast majority of us don’t even raid. I personally loathe raiding. I much prefer to just play 2 or 5 man content. And I do think the balance / leaning that exists should be at the 2 man level. At the role level. Aka, tanks and healers do less damage than DPS but tank to tank the differences are minimal. THAT is a better design than what we have now.
There’s a lot of people who dislike how casual retail is and are looking forward to more of a hardcore MMORPG experience that Classic will provide. I know it’s wild but I can see Classic being competitive with modern WOW.
I think you are conflating overall game design philosophy, with class/spec design philosophy. I do think raid or die is a problem, but that problem extends into making a lot of other stuff feel pointless.
But the thing that irritates me most is boring classes/specs. And I think classes/specs got ruined because of too many people wanting balance in things like 5 mans/3v3 arena and other small scale content. It has forced a lot of homogenization and pruning.
They took one of the most fluid combat systems in the genre and decided to dumpster it all. GCD changes along with excessive pruning has taken a toll on the game. Quite sad really.