for a more crisp and modernized combat system with classic progression. I enjoy having a lot of abilities to juggle, but retail is pretty much not an rpg anymore.
I enjoy classic, still, but I do find myself craving the combat variety of retail at times with more options available in combat, especially in pvp (which has become a bit over the top, admittedly, and could use some balancing).
Does anyone else crave a sort of blend between the classic and modern eras?
They seemed to try to achieve this with sod and it just feels clownish to play
Means the execution was poor, and SoD very much seems more end-game focused to me
Yeah, thats called BC and WOTLK.. ESPECIALLY WotlK
I’m not actually sure if retails combat system fits within what I would want to experience in Classic Era. I agree with you that Retail’s combat is really clean. For the classes I’ve played I always felt like I had a diverse set of abiities that all had a purpose. I really enjoyed pushing the limits of my class in the M+ setting.
However, I see the Vanilla style game as more of an RPG and while there is certainly an emphasis on combat, it’s slower paced and more tactical. I’m not sure if the retail style would blend with Classic without changing the feel of the game. Even going back to old world content, which is still in retail (sort of), it just feels very trivial and cheap now.
I think so, but interestingly, the other way around. The Retail combat system feels very lacking feedback to me. There’s a tactile feeling in Classic that just doesn’t seem to be there in Retail. I’m not sure if it is just graphical or audio setting maybe (I’d love for that to be the case).
I’ve been spending more and more time in Retail, really trying to give it a shake. I think it has a lot of interesting systems going for it, but I can’t help but think, I wish I could be playing my Classic character here. This feels especially true for Marksmanship.
I have been enjoying survival a lot. I do notice the same thing on other classes also, like Druid, which I mostly main, especially feral.
A little different, but had a conversation along the same sort of idea line yesterday:
Snipy, what game modes have you been playing recently? little bit of everything? era retail cata?
Over the past month, the majority was spent in Cata Classic. Over the past week, the majority in Retail. I dip into era for a couple of hours here and there.
How about you?
I desire the complete opposite.
I’m actually playing warhammer for pvp, but I am doing a hc run on a paladin (i never play alliance) whenever i die i will go to whitemane to have a pvp toon with my friends. They get together weekly to set up wsg games. Can’t get into my shaman bc its so old so maybe the paladin will get me on whitemane more.
Other than that I am waiting for some sort of news for classic
I see they just delayed cata, I wonder how thats gonna go
I don’t necessarily want the fast pacing or current combat feel, but I would like to have more abilities to play around with that thematically fit
Nothing like hero talents for sure, but maybe something more akin to WoD as far as kits go, but slowed down to vanilla pacing
Out of curiosity, do you PvP at all?
I find that in the PvE space, Era has very few abilities. I’m currently working on a Ret Pally and once I’ve buffed it’s mostly auto attack and judge. However, in PvP I have a lot more situational abilities I can use. This is even more so on my Druid!
If you don’t, maybe give it a try. There’s a lot of AV happening right now which is a really accessible BG. WSG and AB get pretty sweaty, but AV is a nice mix of PvE games and PvP games. You might find you enjoy your existing toolkit a bit more when you get the opportunity to use it! 
This isn’t to say that Era is perfect either, just to be clear on that.
If you do PvP and feel this way, never mind. I just wanted to raise it just in case.
Is there a different GCD timer in Retail vs Classic?
I mean, I’m not claiming any sort of expertise here, but it seems to me that that’s what sets the pace of gameplay.
i wiLL Keep Asking for TBC THE BURNING CRUSADE Classic, i wiLL Keep Asking for TBC THE BURNING CRUSADE Classic , i wiLL Keep Asking for TBC THE BURNING CRUSADE Classic i wiLL Keep Asking for TBC THE BURNING CRUSADE Classic ,i wiLL Keep Asking for TBC THE BURNING CRUSADE Classic
Would not the best possible path forward for you to be a push toward improving the failure mode that is Retail rather than trying change the past?
Yes and No; depends if you play a non-rogue or not. Non rogues use to have a 1.5 sec non modifiable GCD, now it can be augmented and some abilities have a 1 sec GCD for non-rogues.
Rogues have a 1sec GCD, always have.
The retail GCD is modified by haste as well, so you can drastically reduce it.
Oh, absolutely, but I feel like it’s so far gone from what made WoW what it is to begin with that it would be harder to UNdo what has been done than add to what’s already a masterpiece
Adding RPG elements is from a design perspective 1000X easier than modifying classes and achieving the level of balance that Era / Retail have. Perfect example of this is look no further than SoD; what a wreck. Its basically Retail mechanics in the Vanilla world but its tuned very very poorly. This has a lot to do with the team size, the lack of design background, etc. Getting a game in the same quality level in respect to class mechanical balance as Era or Retail (presently) is not an easy task.
Overall the best path forward for what you’re kinda looking for is MoP game client somewhere in the 5.2 - 5.3 patch class balance state with “Vanilla” like quests, and in game requirements.
If I were to build an EZ mode RPG that’s exactly what I would do, because MoP is 10X easier from a design perspective to tune and balance because it does not have traditional talent trees, it has more mechanics but they’re fairly straight forward, yet are easy to play and very very hard to master in a similar way to “Vanilla”, additionally the rotations are somewhat unique for PVE and there are lots of setups, counters and counterplay possibilities in PVP.
Mechanically the raiding was really fun, the classes offered a lot of opportunity regardless of class or chosen spec, and the same could also be said for Arena / BG comps in that patch range.
The only thing you could really improve on are the RPG elements in the game world by using more scatterbrain vanilla like quests, but leverage MoP era technology because it never had Shards.. tho it does have phasing.. phasing is lame, so dump that off a cliff to its death. You could so interesting things like require players actually travel to the dungeons, make resources in game matter, IE mana, rage, energy, combo points, chi, holy power. Additionally make consumables more a thing in PVE similar to early OG Vanilla where they’re needed to do the content rather than BiS your parse.
Overall, Era is a great game, but to build off it using retail like mechanics just ends up in SoD, and the existing classic team really lacks the Class / mechanics design chops needed for that level of game. MoP is the way forward for them, tho I suspect they’re not likely to do well with that either because again they suffer an unfortunate case of Retail thinking; its unfortunate because I think they’re really nice, spirited and passionate people.. Designers for classes however they’re not.
HOWEVER, with that criticism, they are really really really damn good at making PVE stuff, this is where they should focus, and this is why if you used BASE 5.2 or 5.3 MoP, and built content fully for that Core class mechanics set / game rules set.. You would easily have a gold mine on your hands, because you could then offer excellent PVE, Rated BG’s and Areana and casual BG’s that work and need zero balance passes.
This assumes the Devs DO NOT MESS WITH ITEMIZATION LIMITS AND BUILD SUPER MEGA POWER GEAR.. like they have done in SoD that has effectively broken the game.
Restraint is important in that respect, gear is a blessing and a curse, too weak and things are painful.. IE Greys / most greens in Vanilla but too powerful IE Naxx+ loot, GG well played also.
What would really help, is if more specs were viable to play. I find myself wanting to play shadow priest,as the fantasy is really cool. However, the prospect of just being a damage buff bot for warlocks does not sound like fun for me.
It would take a massive effort to overhaul the tuning for the game, but I think it should be possible to fix a lot of the balance issues in the game without disrupting what makes classic unique.