You don’t get what you don’t ask for. Keep letting Blizzard know that we want more of this game we love. Retail isn’t it and SoD went down the wrong path if you were looking for more of what the Vanilla version of the game has to offer.
We can learn from this and really focus down on why we’re all here. Why are we playing this version of the game and not SoD, Cata, or Retail? What are things that we might like to see that will keep us in Classic, plus a little more.
Then keep telling Blizzard that so they get the message, because I truly believe they are having a hard time understanding why we are playing this game and not any of the others.
Classic+ is going to be developed by the same people that did SoD, not saying saying its a bad thing or anything, I’m just stating the fact here, just becareful what you wish for.
Sure you might argue that the same people could learn some things of what worked and what didnt work in SoD but its still going to be the same people.
As long as they slow down combat, trim down rotations and return power to major damage/healing abilities, I’m cool with it. I love SoD, but it’s way too fast paced.
Why cant they just do Classic+ and do it like WoW classic remastered? They already remastered D2, WC3, SC1… Remaster Classic and maybe the summoning stones can finally work after 20 years!
A remastered vanilla would be cool. I think all people really ever wanted with Classic+ was some new areas, maybe some new quests. Not a total overhaul in how gear progression works, or the elimination of PvP gear being relevant. Just some extra stuff like they do with holidays, only a big version of that.
That would be cool. But they can’t mess with what makes classic tick while trying to make new dungeons and “REALLY COOL GEAR PEOPLE WANT”.
I personally think a match making tool would be a cool qol for it, but I know many people disagree. I don’t see how msging someone off a bulletin board “inv” is some amazing social exchange. Nor is running from the flight master to the BRS balcony. I mean, whatever, do it if you want. But the social aspect in classic is it’s chat, and engagement with others DURING content.
Barrens chat, for example, love it or hate it, is what people mean when they say vanilla was more social.
Not sending a quick “inv” /w to someone off a bulletin board addon.
There’s a right and a wrong way to do this. The wrong way was the RDF they added in Phase 2 WotLK. The meh way was the bastardized LFG tool they added in Phase 1 WotLK. The right way is the very clean and easy to use Retail LFG tool.
I could be ok with this for Classic+ but anything that takes away from the world mattering (ie, LFG porting, summoning stones, or flying mounts) is no bueno if you’re trying to stick to what makes Vanilla a more unique experience.
It’s been my experience that the social comes from the time you spend building the group and getting out to the dungeon, before you actually start running. I’ve had many groups far off the beaten track where we all talk, joke, and align on goals. It’s a meaningful part of the game. Not every group is like this, obviously, but when you take away opportunities then these things are less likely to happen.
This has been my experience. In OG WotLK and again in WotLK Classic.
I will point out that there is an unfortunately misguided component of modern development and player base who only consider Raid PvE as game content, and ignore the 98% of the game that is not regarding Class tuning.
Worse, those that kinda do think that unique values For PvP or PvE is acceptable class design, even worse are those that wrongly think gear and power factors must always increase.
There is a 0.0% chance that this Blizzard could take the 1.12 Vanilla experience, add completely new zones, quests, and dungeons to it, and have it feel like a natural progression from where Vanilla ended. No chance at all. It won’t even be close.
Saying something like “Just do it like the original devs did it, it’s not rocket science” isn’t nearly enough.
While I agree with you regarding gear and power creep (horizontal progression, man!!), I wouldn’t be so quick to be dismissive of separate values for PvP and PvE. I’m not saying it’s the best solution, but this problem is a tough nut to crack!
I’m going to lump both Dungeons and Raids together under a single category of Instanced PvE. The classes that struggle in Raids still struggle in Dungeons, it’s just that raids exacerbate the problems so much more due to the nature of that style of content. I tend to play a lot of hybrid classes but I’ll speak to Ret Paladin because I know we both have that in common.
In PvE, we’re always kind of at a disadvantage. We don’t hit very hard, our mana bar is extremely limiting, and all of the utility we bring straight up doesn’t work in Instanced PvE, is brought by someone else, or is just extremely low value. Having a Ret Paladin on your squad is a legitimate liability. You can bring one but you’re always better off bringing something else.
However, in PvP, a lot of those issues just aren’t present. Our utility is much more impactful and while our sustain still struggles, our mana gets reset more frequently with respawns and our burst is meaningful. Having a Ret Paladin who is aware of their capabilities and plays to them is far less of a liablity and, in fact, are a benefit!
For Vanilla as it exists today, in the PvE world, there’s a plethora of changes I would suggest for PvE. We need a taunt, we need some mana sustain, and we need a smidge more damage. For PvP? I dunno, feels pretty good actually. Exorcism on player targets???
For this reason I think there is perhaps some merit to considering separate tuning for PvE and PvP. Or something! Because those two aspects of the game are very different and making something work perfectly for both is an extremely difficult design challenge. That hybrid tax that blizzard used to tout is actually appropriate in PvP. Having the ability to heal, even if that’s not your main role, is massively impactful. In PvE? Nobody cares.
Also…
and ignore the 98% of the game
This is maybe going a bit too far with hyperbole. I think Instanced PvE, and even just Raiding, represents a much larger share of the game’s content than you give it credit for. I bet you could actually make an argument for raid landmass making up 2% of the game lol, but in terms of time spent on the activity, its much higher.
Changes to support a more diverse PvE scene would be a positive addition to Classic+. This would have a knock on effect of making the PvP scene more diverse too… I can’t tell you how many AV games this last month have been 80% Warriors >.<
We already have it if you know what I mean winkwink*. I don’t think the community would like the classic plus blizzard would give us so its better they just keep era up, give us the occasional fresh, and if they really are making money of the seasonal stuff they can do that because even if they mess it up really bad its only for a year. The only other thing they should do is give one era tbc and wrath. Just make it a pvp server take it or leave it for the whole community. No classic plus though. It would be so bad it would ruin the good thing they have going with era.
