In order to even attempt to do as the title suggests, we need to get this discussion to at least 100-200 posts, which I definitely can’t do alone, so if possible, please keep coming back and commenting. There also isn’t a “highlight reel,” so if certain comments are particularly useful, please do your best to like and reiterate them, so that when green/blue text individuals who can actually do something, do show up, there’s a higher likelihood of said comments/ideas actually being acted on. Finally, before I begin the “list of issues,” in the event that “real world/off-topic” discussions do arise, even though the “Forum Code of Conduct” is so broad that literally anything can be shut down for any reason, I feel it necessary to personally “predeclare” that pretty much anything can be “relevant,” as long as appropriate context is provided.
Optional (spell) (re)colors, perhaps “client-side” only. Even though there are plenty of additions on the horizon, which will definitely address certain issues, it still seems as though customization pertaining to our characters themselves will be lacking. Even “recolors” which are a part of the game, such as warlock green fire, aren’t “easily” swapped between.
No two “pointless/bad” patches of content in a row, as well as no more of the “poor quality” cinematics/story which have plagued the game since Shadowlands. I get that “filler” content is necessary, but when you have “side” characters such as spiders, followed by goblins, the game just doesn’t really feel like it’s worth playing. The “Only Fangs” types as well, would apparently rather play other games like Dune after Hardcore, or Legacy: Steel and Sorcery, as opposed to the (lackluster) state of Retail. (Before Shadowlands, the Saurfang cinematics were high quality, but even “lower quality” cinematics still had original (not cliched) dialogue, as well as characters whose deaths were actually impactful (not “rezzed” almost immediately afterwards (Khadgar)).)
Looser Mythic Raid lockouts (When returning to the game after the aforementioned “bad/pointless” patches of content, sometimes pugging is way easier than trying to deal with all of the “gatekeepery stuff” associated with guilds. Cross-server helps a bit, but it’s still mind-numbingly painful trying to convey the difference between things like “effective health,” vs hps.
I don’t personally care about this, since I tend to prefer playing tanks, casters, and healers, but people commonly complain about “unnecessary” AOE caps.
It’s nice that Blizz is listening to some feedback pertaining to “massively” unbalanced (casual) battlegrounds. In addition to addressing 3rd party software/premades, it would be nice if something could be done about the amount of honor/conquest rewarded from certain battlegrounds, epic ones in particular, so that it’s not “mathematically correct,” when certain circumstances arise, to do your utmost to try and lose as quickly as possible (and sometimes get penalized for doing so).
1v1 PvP mode(s)? It currently sounds as though PvP won’t be available in player housing, but hopefully it will be. Basically though, retail could really use a 1v1 PvP mode, which doesn’t allow consumables, even if it’s just casual.
TBC Fresh Anniversary server. The anniversary changes are pretty much universally loved, but this individual spells out why fresh TBC servers in particular would be a good addition.
I know this list isn’t “exhaustive,” but hopefully it’s a good place to start, and hopefully we can actually produce a long enough discussion to where at least some of these changes actually get implemented.
In a game where you’re trying to create a world and a community, I really dislike client-side things. For example the Wings on that one black dragon trinket in DF, knowing that it was just client side was honestly kind of depressing.
“No two bad patches in a row” is a bit of an odd statement, because you’d have to believe Blizzard knows / wants patches to be bad. It sounds like what you’re asking for is no more Minor patches, and for all content to just be baked into the major patches.
Sure that would be nice, but then how would we feel about the 8-10 month period between patches?
1v1 PVP Mode (assuming you mean competitive / instanced) just doesn’t work. WoW is balanced around 3v3 Arena. 1v1 PVP is simply rock-paper-scissors unless there is a large skill deficient between the two players.
WoW is unironically the “best” game ever made, and I’m pretty sure it has a very real chance of achieving/maintaining that status again, once player housing is implemented, but in the meantime…
The “client-side” (option) for spell recolors is mainly so that different colors don’t affect PvP, and also potentially so that others’ “fantasy” isn’t ruined by say “red frostbolts” or something like that.
I agree that “taste” is “subjective,” but as far as versions of the game, which are more/less “well-received,” even though they don’t always “tell the full story,” numbers are a fairly reliable metric, and “filler” content is pretty widely “frowned upon,” especially when it’s not very well-done, e.g. Naruto, or patch 11.1.5.
As for 1v1 PvP, just having the option, again, doesn’t have to be competitive/balanced, would be nice, and options to play around with dampening, vs. without, would be nice too. It might even actually help address the “new to PvP” problem, where even in casual 2v2 arena, you still have scenarios where casters especially, are just obliterated by two melee.
True, unfortunately WoW isn’t “free to play,” so it’s inherently going to have a “smaller audience,” but even Xaryu and Preach, people who are “KNOWN for WoW,” retail in particular, are kind of like… meh… (with regards to how things are currently).
Yeah, the sense of stuff that’s “new/relevant/exciting” is lacking. During Legion you had things like Mage Tower and Artifact appearances, as well as “endless” systems in order to keep people engaged, plus the content was almost completely “not filler.”
You can just link to the mid season monk posts on wowhead to point out numerous issues. You can also do this for every season of the game ever since monk was introduced!
OOOOHHHH good point, yeah I read some of the Wowhead articles, and I wasn’t really a fan of all of their class-specific assessments. Even people in the comments were complaining about some of the changes for elemental shaman for instance.
One thing we have to weigh up here is if something is an issue versus a feature that is requested by players (or both!).
An example I’ll give is there was a genuine issue when corruption came out because it was many layers that interacted with each other (corruption effects+ powers + essences + tier set procs). One could say a fixable problem is the lag caused by the layering upon layering of RNG systems.
Yet something like a 1v1 PvP mode isn’t something that is addressing a core issue with the game. It’s a want (maybe??) for some players and that’s ok. It’d be something worth getting player feedback for and implementing if it’s a big want.
Yah I loved and mained ele shaman s1, and then they randomly changed it mid season into something that was not as fun for some reason. 3 minute CDs are too old school for my tastes.
I don’t think lockouts should change to make things more accessible, not all content is meant to be or should be… it’s Mythic raiding.
Who decides what is good or bad content though? You’ll never get a concrete answer on that… you’ll get a plethora of different opinions. Also who cares what a few streamers do? They’re paid to play these games… why do you honestly think a lot of these people were playing Dune?
Problem with 1v1s is they’re completely imbalanced… I could see a non-ranked version working, maybe… but I can’t see ranked ever being good.
Replying to Elk first, fair. I’m someone who would like it if more complexity were added back in the game, especially now that “one-button mode” is a thing. I enjoyed things like “swapping gear” in order to be more “optimized” during M+.
Replying to Yukongold. The game definitely seems to be heading towards MORE accessibility, not less, and Mythic Raids should probably be part of that. The plethora of “nerfs,” especially after RTWF, are nice for that, but they still kind of “require” guilds, which not everyone enjoys.
It would help if likes/dislikes were available for things like cinematics, so that we could get a “numerical” representation of stuff that I agree is at least somewhat “inherently subjective.”
As for 1v1, I mentioned a few additional benefits in other replies, like ease of access for newer players, visibility, testing, etc.
It depends on who you’re trying to make it ‘accessible’ for.
But the devs both intend and like that Mythic is difficult to pug. They know that the core of what gave the game it’s sticking power back in vanilla->Wrath is the social connections people made in guilds, and they intentionally want to preserve that in at least one area of content.
So if you want changes to the mythic lockout, focus on how your changes would help guilds, and get more people to join them.
