So other than the boost (which technically doesn’t count as much imo because it’s a 1-time-limited microtransaction, not an infinitely re-usable game mechanic) what other changes were made merely as a convenience and didn’t serve to address a potentially wide-range issue that could have negatively affected a faithful TBC experience?
I see most all of the changes made as having a pretty definitive motive behind why they got added, none of them being “simply cus we want it to make things easier”. All of them possessed critical reasoning for why they were added, and to address issues that threatened the faithful TBC experience.
I’m just trying to gauge a functional precedence here for “changes that only serve to make the game more convenient for the player”, so that the idea of dual spec, a change that is such, holds more significance than any number of other infinite suggestions someone could make up that makes the game easier or more convenient for them.
Ah, yeah this is something that came with the HvH BGs. Alliance, and only Alliance, got a repeatable quest we could do if we won a BG, any BG. The quest gives you a goodie box that’s usually (90% of the time) filled with just gold (1-4g) and some lvl65 food/water. The other 10% of the time though you get things like 1-4 random ore, herbs, cloth, rep turn-ins, and even the very rare heroic badge.
I don’t see this as a mere convenience, it was done for technical necessity due to the heavily increased server load in 1 concentrated areas compared to a typical “vanilla/tbc” server.
It definitely is a convenience but I see is very much a having been a necessity, and not harmful to the faithfulness of TBCC.
Correct, although it was removed, and I wouldn’t say it was removed for “convenience”. It was removed for…here I’ll let Blizzard do the talking:
And this is ultimately why they scrapped it out of classic. Essentially: the cost of the authenticity on such a vague, non-game mechanics-level wasn’t worth the negative effects.
TLDR; it’s the same situation as feral energy.
I don’t really agree, BGs were essentially unplayable for horde.
I don’t actually agree with HvH being added, but I can recognize the serious barrier to play that their queue times represented.
I think horde should have been obligated to solve this problem on their own, but Blizzard went ahead and gave them a pacifier on this.
The BG turn in quest meant to goad alliance to to PvPing more to shorten horde queue times, which won’t work at all and is rather arbitrary.
Right, but it certainly isn’t something you need, and it doesn’t actually make the Alliance experience any better regarding BGs. It grants a bonus for doing something you’d already be doing if you plan on doing BGs.
There’s obviously going to be hair-splitting on these because convenience can’t be purely no-power, or no-incentive type changes else nothing is really done out of convenience since every improvement for convenience’s sake is going to net the player some kind of minor power or be an incentive itself.
Removal of spell batching, although being entirely an under-the-hood change, materially altered how the game felt and played, benefiting some more than others. Few changes get to be such widespread systemic changes though.
EDIT: Oh and Zipzo’s quote about spell batching is from WoD. The reason they removed it in Classic was much much simpler.
Patrick Dawson: “No changes” being our guiding principle for WoW Classic made it very easy to make decisions on it. We just went to the reference client and went to that. But one thing we learned as we went through the release of the content in Classic is that [no changes] may not always be in the best interest of the players. Putting back in things like spell batching made the game feel a little less crisp. It was authentic, but it’s not what modern players want. The community today is so different from what the community was back in 2007 that it had us take a different philosophy with Burning Crusad e, where we actually started to allow ourselves to make some changes that were in the best interests of the players that will continue to develop alongside the community.
In all fairness spell batching sucked back in the day it sucked in classic and it was idiotic that blizzard went out the way to add to classic because some people lied about it adding skill to pvp.
Kind of like how the claims about lack of dual spec adding some kind of flavor to classic are equally idiotic.
Oh for sure. Spell batching was just dumb and made the old game feel old, which is definitely a “modern player disliking the old” problem. I get there is some nostalgia levels of “git gud” with clunky and unresponsive controls, but WoW just isn’t that kind of game and never has been.
Layering: because Blizzard decided to lift the 2007-2008 realm capacities in favor of less realms but more populated, as they anticipated the player base would decrease.
Spell Batching: attempt to reproduce the experience of the game back then.
That is factually wrong. It allows same faction BG. I’ve reports of alliance in Skeram facing alliance of other realms (and cringing about them).
And that only happened because the alliance wouldn’t queue for BG.
since there is a major player base (90K+ players) that couldn’t play the game properly.
Therefore, the same faction BG was added.
Blame your mercenary alliance fellows. They were complaining they didn’t win anything with the change, and wanted a pony. They got it. Totally unnecessary, although now more and more alliance players are queuing for BGs…
Anyway…
None of these justify dual spec.
Either way, you will not get any 90+ parses with or without dual spec. Focus. Last week to get a good parse on phase 1.
I got a fire extinguisher. It’s hanging on the wall of my kitchen. I’ve never had to use it since I’ve never set fire to the kitchen. But I like keeping it there just in case that happens.
Don’t you just love how in the process of telling you why he doesn’t want Dual Spec, he gives various justifications for every change being made which are actually all points for the added convenience?
Just think about hit.
Layering, Spell batching, HvH BGs, Alliance-only BG quests, etc.
All done for what purpose?
We don’t need any of these things. But they were given to us for one main reason:
Convenience.
Quality of life. Don’t punish the player. Simple as that.
Thank you, Thereza, for making arguments in favor of Dual Spec.
Which was removed… because modern players wanted it. See: interviews.
It isn’t factually wrong, you just want to quibble about my lack of including AvA BGs. The majority are HvH and people know what I mean by HvH the same way if I say “Same Faction” so don’t be deliberately obtuse.
So convenience!
I don’t blame anyone, just noting things added out of convenience.
There was already an in game solution to BG queue times, change factions. Same faction BG’s are purely a convenience feature for people who faction switched then whined about it.
Dual spec on the other hand is a benefit to everyone who plays.
Having more PVPers and tanks/heals is beneficial to WOW. Having access to dual spec or less costly respec option is good for the game’s health.
How many more people would change spec to PVP, to tank is unknown. How about trialling reducing respec cost to 15-25g and measure the PVP engagement and heroic runs count to see if it helps.