Nobody is ever going to bring up flying, LFR, or anything that would destroy what Vanilla is. That is gross hyperbole spread by the various “#NoChange” groups.
What we want instead is stuff like class/talent changes, QoL changes to make some classes more interesting play, bringing the non-homogenized Melee Hunter back, as well as take Vanilla into direction it originally should have gone, should no expansions have happened.
So stuff like:
- QoL changes: make some classes more interesting to play. Doesn’t have to be a radical DPS change, just add/change like 1-2 abilities and call it a day. Melee Hunters could get Lacerate and improved Mongoose Bite(so it can be used regardless of if your target dodged, maybe identical to it’s WotLK variant)
- Talent changes: This is so the original fantasy of 16/17/17 or 25/26 hybrid trees can be accomplished. Trees should be designed so those kind of alternatives exist for all classes and specs and provide interesting alternatives to existing mono builds.
- Also there’s some questionable talent design like many talents which do not improve your DPS at all, like 1.12.1 Survival, and some classes have pretty terrible 31pt/21 talents. So bringing other classes up to par with some of the more interesting classes like Fury and Combat would be a nice change.
- More RPG mechanics. Making intellect more appealing for melee users, strength more appealing for casters, reworking thrown and making more race-specific class abilities for each classes, even adding sub-specs for existing specs would be nice. What about thrown combat Rogues, tank enhancement Shamans, or Dual-Wielding ret Paladins.
- If Vanilla proves succesful(doubt it, most nochangers seem to want reset rather than new content) then new areas, BG’s, mechanics are of course possible, but I doubt it.
- PvP balance. This is obviously big to me, making unviable PvP specs like Fury Warriors more viable in PvP, but without diluting their class fantasy. Since Classic will forever be static 1.12.1 there’s no harm in revisiting some specs that are performing poorly in PvE/PvP and improving their viability.
Does it really sound so weird, that some people prefer the old gameplay style of Vanilla, and I would rather have more content that either makes existing Vanilla more enjoyable to play, or follow’s Classic Vanilla’s original design intentions and limitations, just like original Vanilla received support constantly throughout it’s lifespan.
Design-wise, while TBC improved on many flaws Vanilla had, but it’s setting and design direction was still very different from Vanilla, such as inlcusion of flying or increasing the number of talents to 41 instead of rebalancing and filling the existing ones, so I would never even concider playing any expac after Vanilla.
Vanilla still had more interesting core mechanics, and while this will not be here for launch, Hunters were melee for large part of Vanilla, so making Melee Hunters back instead of the homogenized 1.12.1 ranged Survival that defined later expansions, would be a perfect Vanilla change.