TL;DR: Consider the importance of fun over competitiveness when it comes to the GCD for various cooldowns that were added to it.
Any discussion about the GCD changes with Watcher always seems to be about the competitive aspect of the game or, more recently in the interview with Sloot about tanks and reaction time. I mean, I get it, your brain is telling you to press a button before the game registers you’ve pressed it because of the GCD, but that argument is feeble and so easily shot down by “well, just git gud.”
What about fun, though? Maybe it shouldn’t be about gitting gud, and more about how the gameplay feels. As an example, and very simply put, when I play my DK as Frost it is more fun to immediately activate another ability after using Pillar of Frost rather than have to wait a global. Gameplay just felt more fluid that way. There are many other examples.
Yes, I’m aware that some people don’t care about that. It’s more fun that way for me though, and I know it is for a lot of other players. I also think the change did more harm for the game than good. If I’m wrong, I’d at least like to know why alternatives weren’t considered for preventing Swifty one-shot macros. For example, why not put the cooldowns in question on their own GCD (obviously not global, in this case, but you know what I mean)?
I’m pretty sure I know why. The Swifty macros were a good excuse, but it seems more like the change was made to slow the game down and intentionally make it more clunky.
Watcher, you said you wanted to do better by the players during that interview. It at least deserves more commentary. I don’t know if you’ll read this (probably not), but it’s early enough in testing for Shadowlands to consider either changing these abilities back or finding an alternative.
I believe when cooldowns started coming off of the GCD originally it was a change made to make gameplay feel more smooth. I can’t think of another reason.
Even looking at it from the outside, I imagine a goal for WoW development internally is to keep the game looking and feeling modern. I love Classic WoW, and I’m looking forward to BC, but I feel like retail is better served with more cooldowns not on GCD.
I know in the past Watcher has asked for examples. Well, I gave at least one. Many other people have. And also, maybe consider that the abilities that were thrown back on the GCD are the examples? When do we reap the results of that feedback?