Principles for progressing past vanilla

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
1

First a couple points about vanilla classic.

  1. There should always be a pristine vanilla server available.
  2. There should also be an opening of one fresh vanilla realm every 5 years or so, with the same phases we are getting now.

Now for going past vanilla.

  1. The level cap should never move past 60. Ever. In my view, there are three options to reconcile this. The worst option is to add new bars. Like if we got a “Dwarves” expansion for classic, we get a “Dwarves” XP bar to fill out. The next option, which is good, is to allow player to OPT into a delevel, and in exchange they can access new content. They would have to level their character back up of course. The third option, which is the best, is to never change leveling, and instead just add content that blends seamlessly with the base game.
  2. Expansion content should be as self contained as possible. It should not ruin the base game in any way. If I get a new weapon in an expansion, that should not ruin my interactions with the game outside that expansion. Like if I want to duel my friend who doesn’t have the expansion, it should not give me an unfair advantage just because I have this weapon that he cannot access. Old raids should still be challenging. Guilds shouldn’t start demanding items from an expansion for doing an original raid. One big clarification: If Blizzard moves to a free expansions model, where all subscribers unlock new expansions, that still is not an excuse to ruin base game content with new content.
  3. No flying. Ever. Don’t even try. Flying will ruin player interaction, and it will kill world PvP.
  4. Do NOT speed up travel speed. The less time people need to go somewhere, the lower chances for them to interact with other people on their journey. Getting somewhere faster has 0 increase on immediate fun, I guarantee it. Keep people slow. Let them enjoy the view. Add portals conservatively.
  5. Do not allow long range communication with strangers. That means no LFR and no LFG. It makes sense that you can talk with your guild or friends, it doesn’t make sense for you to be able to organize a group with people you have never met before who are in a completely different area.
  6. Avoid bigger numbers. Things dealing more damage isn’t fun. It means nothing. Numbers should convey exactly what the person needs to know and nothing else.
  7. Focus on physical mechanics. Like stuns, dashes, buffs and debuffs, slows, shields, etc. Instead of a hammer dealing more damage, instead it has a new proc that causes AOE explosion that knocks enemies back. Instead of a dagger dealing more damage, it instead gives you a new 30 second cooldown that provides burst movement speed. Try to give things wind up animations so people can react to them. Making the game physical rather than artificial makes it more fun. People have immediate and meaningful control over the physical interactions of a game. Dealing higher damage numbers requires 0 player input, and it isn’t interesting, at all.
  8. Make classes overpowered at what they are good at, and awful at what they are bad at. Paladins dealing low damage is FINE. Don’t increase that. Instead, make their party buffs better. It makes sense for paladins to be the heart of a party. Warriors never winning 1v1 against rogues is fine. It makes sense for rogues to be good lone wolf assassins. And it makes sense for rogues to be ineffective in BGs where they are surrounded and vulnerable. It makes sense for warriors to be godly when they have allies there to help them. These thematic principles should be integral to how a class plays. Do NOT make classes homogeneous. Straight balance isn’t fun. Its boring. Imagine if in chess there was only one piece: Queen. It would be the most boring game ever. Instead there are Pawns, Rooks, Bishops, Knights, etc. Each piece is good at something. That’s how WoW should be.
3 Likes
2

What a wall, what a wall.

tldr; “make WoW my way”

6 Likes
3

Thanks for speaking for everybody so authoritatively and definitively.

3 Likes
4

Why don’t you make your own suggestions, or at least say why I’m wrong instead of posting that trash.

2 Likes
5

There should be nothing beyond Classic; leave it as is.

1 Like
6

I would personally enjoy new level 60 content beyond Naxx far more than BC.

4 Likes
7

You’re gonna be in for a rude awakening.

Count yourself lucky if they leave 1.12 servers untouched as they move on to reboot the game.

1 Like
8

I really hope that is not the case. Otherwise they would be abandoning the entire purpose of making classic.
Leaving a server up that doesn’t progress shouldn’t be that hard.
I really do want them to progress classic though. Like OS Runescape.

9

The only purpose of Classic WoW’s is to make the Vanilla WoW world available again to play. That’s the only purpose. Leaving it untouched is precisely the point.

Taking it as an opportunity to create WoW 2.0 is not the purpose of this. That’s the purpose of a group of players who have decided that they’re not satisfied just getting Classic; they demand more.

5 Likes
10

Guess we’ll have to see whether your opinion that they are going to spin up a completely new development team and progress Classic forward is more realistic than my opinion they’ll glide Classic into maintenance mode as quickly as possible.

3 Likes
11

IDK how OS Runescape was handled but I also don’t agree with most of your points. I think they need to reboot the game and just keep their focus on the pace, difficulty curve and ‘sense of self’ that Vanilla had. That’s it.

Classes still need to be balanced and rebalanced… New content needs to emerge and some sort of MEANINGFUL progression has to be included, whether that an extension of the level cap or not, it -HAS- to happen.

TBC and Wrath proved the game could move forward without completely devolving… even Cataclysm was… overall… a good expansion, they just made a couple massive mistakes that brought about the full tilt course change for the games design. Namely the talents.

I personally think they should focus on expanding the talent trees and unlocking additional talent points via completion/engagement with newly released content and avoid increasing the level cap as often as possible.

I also think one of the biggest issues was the combination of gear resets, upward scaling and level cap increases. None of those things on their own are inherantly bad, but when they are combined every expansion, it creates a sort of feedback loop where de-escalation becomes next to impossible, so the only way to go is ever upward.

Also; sidegrades will never satisfy as a reward for new content. Never.

2 Likes
12

We don’t need to wait for anything, all logical paths lead to a reboot. It would be financially sound, there is a demand for it that will only grow as things move forward and it would be an easy endeavor for them to undertake.

These Classic servers may very well sit as they are after launch for the rest of time, but new content being developed for this version of the game is 100% inevitable.

This project would not have been given the O.K if it didn’t have viable revenue potential… and a stagnant game that is constantly hemorrhaging players does not generate revenue… Classic certainly isn’t going to do it any better than BFA is.

A reboot on the other hand… that’s a different story.

2 Likes
13

I do agree that classes need to continue being balanced and rebalanced as the meta shifts but I don’t know if we’ll get even that.

I disagree the game needs new content. Their revenue stream from Classic is from subs, not sales/services. Unless they regress to expac sales (although they just announced they’re going in the opposite direction) and service charges (which would be a rude-awakening Classic players).

People have been playing some version of Vanilla for the better part of the past decade and its primarily those players Blizzard wants to net. Blizzard isn’t trying to gut BFA and future expacs of their players and those players aren’t trying to replace or move on from a vanilla experience.

14

But how do you keep people subscribed if things aren’t changing/evolving to keep people interested in the game?

I think you overestimate the value of bringing those players back into the fold… Also, how does Blizzard keep them on official Classic servers, paying a monthly fee when the release of Classic is going to allow Private Servers to become perfectly Blizzlike after launch that can be played for free

15

ALL vanilla realms should remain pristine, not just one. No one should find out that they picked the realm that will be less vanilla because someone out there couldn’t be satisfied with pristine vanilla.

Disagreed. Yes, it’s Blizzard’s choice whether to start the “fresh” roulette wheel, but given the chances it will undermine populations on the original vanilla realms, I personally hope they don’t.

On the WOW Classic realms - nothing. They are vanilla, they stay vanilla.

TBC Classic and Wrath Classic, sure. Maybe even other expansions as their own dedicated Classic realms someday in the distant future when the latest Retail expansion has taken away things that players enjoyed or could do in those expansions. (Which, given the way Retail works these days, is happening more and more.)

My preference, counter to yours, would be for Blizzard to focus any new content development on a new MMORPG - whether it’s WOW2 or World of Starcraft or some completely new idea.

I also strongly suspect Blizzard has no interest in going down that route unless Retail somehow collapses entirely, because they don’t want to be developing content for two games. WOW Classic is a restoration job, not a development job, and once done it is done.

3 Likes
16

The players most interested in this version of the game, and the players Blizzard wants to capture, have been playing a version of vanilla in one form or another for the better part of the past decade. They don’t want any changes and are perfectly happy with continuing to play vanilla in Blizzard’s iteration.

There are other players who exclusively enjoy content up to and including TBC and so on through the expansions. I do see a future where Blizzard might release TBC+ servers, but they’d be standalone rather than tied into “Classic” servers in order to fit with what I wrote and match the market offerings. Nothing like where you’re suggesting in that the game is going to reboot and diverge from its original path with new, original content.

4 Likes
17

In any vanilla+ content it should only be side grade gear and ‘off spec’ gear like a full teir set for elemental shamen or fury for warriors. Side grades from nax but with harder content. :ok_hand:

1 Like
18

The only thing I have to say is I just hope they progress. Even if its just 2 new raids per year and nothing else. We’ll see what they do.

1 Like
19

Those people have been rerolling on private servers for years, either through server shut down or genuine interest to play another class. Vanilla content has proven itself enough for those people. And thus addition of content is unnecessary.

1 Like
20

No more legacy servers. You get into two issues. The first is they simply can’t run two full versions of the game like this. The main one is you’ll still have the changes each expansion that you hated.

What they should do instead is revamp the entire game world for retail and return WoW to its roots, talent trees and all. Change it all back and keep it that way going forward.

3 Likes