We already got 1 Rexxar spec. We don’t need 2.
Replace Survival with Dark Rangers and call it a day.
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how bout no. we are comparing fresh ripe oranges to brown spotted rotten apples here. people like ranged survival. it was hands down the best spec in the the game of any class. it was played by more people than any other class spec by double. and people dont like melee survival. the few that do are people that specifically prefer melee classes and or people that are newer and never experience the blissful perfection that it use to be as ranged.
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People liked having a spear on their back while they shot their bow. They liked buying or crafting ammunition, and feeding their pet. People liked having more, better and more interesting traps. People liked being the hunter with glowing axes orbiting their body during pvp. There were a lot of things that made the class/spec popular when the class/spec was popular besides ranged weapons. (But including ranged weapons).
Hardcore players didnt like these interesting but less optimized aspects of the class/spec or aesthetic effects. At best they tolerated them. At worst they cried about them. Why do I need to get more than one weapon? Why do I need to get ammo? Why do I need to get food? Why do I need to play pretend? I only care about numbers and efficiently getting better gear with better numbers that will help me achieve better numbers.
It is easy to say MSV fans are the minority, so RSV should be brought back. We were raised to think that democracy is superior and majority rule is best. Why shouldnt we sacrifice the few for the many?
Blizzard changed all of these things about the class in general, not for the majority of players. According to Dr. Richard Bartle, the majority of players of a Virtual World type game (MMORPGs, MUDs, etc.) are socializers. They play the game to interact with other people. Help other people. Be involved in guilds, or other communities. They tend not to care about optimization, or efficiency. They prefer activities like roleplay or things that let them help other players water their crops, or craft their gear. These people make up between 70-80% of players. (Though you wouldnt guess it)
On the other hand, the changes made to the class have benefitted almost exclusively Achiever and Killer type players. (Explorers are happy with whatever system they are given. As long as they can master it and figure out the little secrets of the system). Achievers want the best gear, the best dps, the most coin, the most achievements. Killers want to make other people lose. Both of these types of players are the minority. They are also the type of player that doesnt see a need for a melee weapon slot. Or feeding a pet. Or keeping ammo. Changes were made to the class to benefit this minority. Changes are made to benefit minority groups all the time.
For more explanation of Dr. Richard Bartle’s Taxonomy of Players- wikipedia. org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types
Reminder that you’re the one saying that we shouldn’t get a 4th spec. Literally, you complain when some players post about reverting SV to pre-Legion, yet at the same time you also say that we shouldn’t get RSV back, despite it would be in a way that doesn’t hurt you…
Didn’t the hunter population reach its highest point after these changes were made?
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Yeah, I dont really think 4th spec is a great idea. I think it was a bad idea for druids.
I simply challenge the arguments made. Bepples is among my most liked commentors. I like good arguments. Particularly ironclad arguments. I try to make them myself, often failing to do so, but trying is a valuable mental exercise, and I have learned a lot about the positions of others by challenging them to better explain themselves.
Actually, I have said we should just get RSV back, but not as a 4th spec. I like the hybrid style of gameplay. I also like the melee weapon as an aesthetic, and for my fantasy. I think it has a place in the hunter fantasy. I would prefer if every hunter spec still had ranged and melee weapons. I think a mostly ranged version of SV (maintaining some hybrid aspects for PvP) would be just as enjoyable as the “mostly” melee version. Sometimes, the arguments for RSV are just flawed, and I think that should be pointed out.
This was absolutely not a hardcore v.s. casual situation. The changes to most of those things were largely welcomed and even requested by many (perhaps most) Hunter players. You can still find old articles with comments today celebrating ammo, pet feeding, and melee being removed. Hell, the removal of ammo was so coveted that our legendary weapon in BC had “no ammo” as its major advertised feature, and in WotLK they were already trying to phase out ammo and bandaiding away pet happiness.
Those changes were made to the class because they honestly did not add much value if any while adding a lot of busywork other classes didn’t have to deal with. I know you don’t like hearing that, but the brutal fact is that most players did not derive value from those mechanics.
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Ok… first of all, I think hardcore and casual are misnomers, and I try not to use them that much (or very loosely for guilded vs lfg players), in part because there are no casual gamers playing MMORPGs. They are making bajillions for King playing candy crush, or back during MoP… farmville or something.
But among the hardcore gamers who played WoW, 70-80% were estimated to be of the socializer type. The hunter class even at its worst performance was attractive to those players in part because of the less than optimized features, not in spite of them. It still is for achiever/socializer hybrids for pet collection. The comments on articles dont accurately represent the different types of players because not every type of player gets enjoyment arguing with me on forums or comment sections (And I them).
And Im not saying any one of those features was core to the class, but the class was greater than the sum of its parts and ranged weapon was not the only thing that SV lost over the years.
I wonder how much time people have spent going onto the online forums for Blizzard’s World of Warcraft video game to fight strangers on the internet trying to bring back a set of abilities removed from the game several years ago.
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Defending SV on the forums is the best way to tank in pvp.
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If forcing Survival into melee range wasn’t a deal breaker for most players, they wouldn’t have reworked it after Legion.
It really isn’t that complicated.
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Legion SV was interesting but poorly implemented, not unlike everything blizzard has tried to implement post MoP.
Like most of those interesting things, they get reworked shortly after their rushed implementation.
It wasn’t interesting tho. The players weren’t interested in Melee Hunter. Hence the drastic change.
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I mean… i guess that’s subjective. You could make the argument that most people were not interested in melee hunter but there isnt enough data to confirm that. We can only infer that by interpreting the data, but it’s not concrete.
Maybe. But the players left the spec in 6.2, not 7.0.
What is true is that melee hunter wasnt interesting enough to bring players back to SV.
Didn’t RSV still have more players in 6.2 than MSV ever has?
If not, why push the spec back towards ranged?
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Idk if it did or didnt, but I think giving the spec more ranged abilities and focusing on things other than melee weapon physical attacks was a good choice, even if legion SV was the most popular spec in the game.
Being unpopular isnt the best inspiration for spec changes. Also… most players (I am convinced) have no original, strong opinion on this one way or another. People hear an argument (and there are a lot of good RSV arguments) and join a tribe based on that argument.
ranged survival was the most played class by far from the end of tot up through soo and into highmaul. then and only then once blizzard started making changes to capping serpent spread and buffing bm through the roof and so on was the slow decline.
i remember in soo in mop coming to the forums and websites like warcraft logs and world of logs and ranged survival was over represented x100.
melee survival is fail. however i will not come on here and ask for blizzard to delete it like they did ranged survival. i will instead as for ranged survival to be brought back similar to how it was at the end of mop. because thats the kind of nice person i am. i would not want melee survival to be ripped away from the 2 or 3 players that actually like it.
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If making the focus on ranged was a good choice, than making the focus on melee was a bad one…
Purposely changing something that’s working out really well will always be a bad choice. Change for the sake of change never works.
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Uhh no lol…
They reworked SV after Legion because their first iteration of it was poorly done. The SV we have now is fantastic.
It really isn’t that complicated.
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Any iteration of melee hunter will be poorly done. It’s a ranged class. The bow is the entire point of its existence.
If current MSV is so fantastic, where are all the players?
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