What do you think of the announced Wrath of the Lich King Classic, coming later this year?
What are your thoughts about the tweaks being made to the game with this update?
7 Likes
I love that dungeon finder wonât be included and the reasons for it.
I also like that a minimum level requirement wonât need to be met to make a DK.
Sorry if I missed it, but was it mentioned if more than 1 DK can be made per server? That would be a welcome change I think.
26 Likes
Iâm the opposite.
It cemented the fact I wonât touch Wrath Classic.
I think having servers with it and servers without it would have been a good middle ground, instead of outright not having it.
200 Likes
I think the announcement was very exciting but Iâm on the side of LFD being released on launch.
Spamming LFG and Trade for a group isnât a great feeling when itâs being constantly overrun by other people spamming as well and being forced to use an addon to even sift through any of it.
With how gaming is revolved around âmetaâ youâll see classes not being invited because theyâre playing a certain spec or class, people requiring a certain gearscore level to join their group, selling runs, etc. I think the player base will have a better experience having LFD than not having it.
171 Likes
Iâm going to have to play classic now :>
The tweaks seem fine. No group finder might hurt me a bit, but Iâve already spoken with several people that are going to come back to play Wrath, so maybe not so much of an issue anyway!
4 Likes
Happy to see this. Curious how much farther âclassicâ releases will go lol
3 Likes
The Removal of the dungeon finder seems like a mistake to me. The Dungeon finder changed aspects of the community for the better in many ways. Chiefly among them, it allowed some people to play the game at their pace and how they wanted to.
It allowed players who get gatekeeped because of a lack of gear or experience, people who struggle with their anxieties, etc. to be able to go into those dungeons and experience them. No worries about spending an hour or more trying to find people at a bad time. Removing that once again limits you.
If you donât have a good time to play or there are simply not enough people in your realm because it is lacking in population for your faction, there are zero reasons to come back to Wrath Classic. You will find players frustrated at their inability to play the game and they will quit.
The player base actively tried to create a dungeon finder themselves more than once in Classic, there is recruitment not even through the in-game channels or tools but in realm/community discords that are maintained by the player base because itâs simply better to find groups that way.
I do agree this would be a good compromise.
Speaking positively, I approve of no level limits preventing people from making a Death Knight. There are a number of players who didnât play the past classic expansions that will come into Wrath so they can make a Death Knight, it makes sense.
Outside of the dungeon finder changes, I do want to relive Wrath again and Iâll be excited to take that plunge into Northrend once more.
127 Likes
RE: No dungeon finder.
Thereâs a ton of people that love RDF for various reasons:
- easy to find a group
- no need to search over and over
- donât have to run to the instance
- allows for more âgrindyâ leveling than just running all over the place (and usually is faster than questing anyway)âŚ
Then thereâs a ton of people that see it as the downfall of classic. Making it âtoo convenientâ, taking away âthe social element of searching for a group.â
Iâm kinda torn because on the one hand I absolutely love it, and always leveled my alts via the RDF. Even as DPS iâd queue rdf while questing. It was a nice change of pace. Youâre also not limited to only your server to find a group, so you can pretty easily get a group at any level during peak hours and usually any level during off hours too. Doing this on a low pop server would be impossible to group. Doing this on a high pop server, on odd hours, would likely be impossible to group⌠So this is where RDF truly shines is allowing players to get groups quickly and efficiently without having to cut through all the red-tape. No obligation to stick around while a group forms.
On the other hand, itâs one of those things that you kinda know adds to the âget ur s*** and get outâ mentality, people donât want to be in that dungeon for longer than an hr or two (if that), theyâre not invested into it at all because all they did was queue up and wait. If they hated that group and wanted to leave, they wouldnât have to wait long to find another (the 15 min wait timer is almost a joke imo) especially if a tank or healer. DPS would probably be more desperate to stay. Same is true without RDF, but at the same time usually thereâs more investment into it than just âok lets do a dungeon - clickâ
I just canât really imagine a wrath version without those things in some form or another⌠I agree it was possibly a turning point away from the Classic feel, but it was also (imo) the best version of classic in terms of things available to do, balance, raid difficulty options, profession balance⌠Cata was more the turning point for wow than wrath I think. It only got worse and devolved many classesâ original idenities (such as hunters and pallys reworks)
only thing I really hated about wrath is how op DKs were :kekW:
but yeah I kinda agree too with the Blizz team to an extent, thereâs several things that donât really seem to belong in the âclassicâ mantra, not particularly wrath but Vanilla/TBC/Wrath as a whole⌠but where do you draw the line? Where does âClassicâ end (by âClassicâ I mean a barebones game with little QoL improvements), where do actual good quality of life changes begin? imo, Wrath was truly the last version of wow before it changed significantly to what felt like a very different game. Wrath personally is, and always has been what I have wanted to return to. Peak WoW, as they sayâŚ
It wonât be the same without RDF, and my altâs will sit at level 10-20 because Iâm much more willing to queue up with random strangers than spam chat for hours looking for a group. Most players donât even read chat when they play!
45 Likes
Some more notes from my thoughts:
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releasing this year with TBC not even a year old yet seems way too soon. PvP seasons have been cut short every single season so far, with the latest being cut in half compared to the original and people will barely be able to get full arena gear as top points earners, let alone anyone else! Means we maybe get 3-4 months of Sunwell likely before pre-patch is live.
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the boost thing is inevitable ($), but I canât believe itâs even being considered with what has happened to the game since introducing a lvl 58 boost. Now donât get me wrong I am not a huge fan of leveling and boosts are great for that, but itâs almost a joke at how many mages/rogues/etc. that are level 70 wearing a full set of lvl 58 communal (boost) gear and just spamming instance farming/selling level boosts. Iâm not saying theyâre all malicious but when patterns become more than a coincidence⌠just saying business is booming for gold buying.
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I like the idea of the barber shop changes, but Iâm unfamiliar with the complete differences from wrathâs barber shop to current retail so Iâll have to see what all options we end up with.
11 Likes
My thing is this is how the Classic community already acts. Itâs how they acted from the very start with dungeon cleave groups and other meta-leveling tactics to speed through the game. Having Dungeon Finder only lets the people who arenât in the meta have the same experience as everyone else. Genuinely, everyone is going to go dungeon spam, might as well give us the tool to let people get it done and let the rest of us enjoy ourselves when we donât have a spam group.
45 Likes
Definitely agree here as well. Weâre 15 years into the future (past?) with all the knowledge available⌠thereâs got to be far fewer than actually donât want RDF, than those that do, right?
I canât say whoâs in the minority of for it or against it, but either some kind of compromise or some form of RDF rather than nothing at all would be best.
39 Likes
I played WotlK back then but I donât think i will join WotlK Classic now even if it was my all time favorite addon.
I also played TBC Classic with some friends for the first weeks and one of the things which annoyed me the most was the looking for group members without a tool⌠It just takes ages sometimes if you only missing 1 spot. It is so much time and not everybody has hours to wait for the 5th person in their grp. Biggest disadvantage is that you can only go with people on your realm, instead of going crossrealm and have a larger number of people that want to join you.
WotlK had the group finder back then and i think it was a nice and good change to the game even if doesnât feel very classic. It will be the 3rd classic addon now so we are already far away from classic classic.
58 Likes
Something that has not been commented on but needs to be addressed is the lack of static TBC servers going forward. There has been some discussions in the wider communities of people disappointed in the decision. I always thought the point of Classic was preserving what was there and providing players a place where they can always go to enjoy the game that they want. However with Wrath totally replacing TBC servers this seems to not be the case
The decision is to take away the servers that some people want to stay on and play on. I am sure it is not a majority of players but there are still people who want to be in TBC forever. Can there not at least be one realm of PvE and PvP types?
Can we know why you are doing this? What led you to decide this was the best course of action?
19 Likes
This is just speculation, but from what I know of the classic Era servers there is a pretty small population and it looks like Blizz put a lot of effort into making the server clones, resources, etc. that hasnât really panned out how they were hoping. Obviously there will be people that want to stay BCC forever⌠but is it worth the upkeep? That I donât know.
Whatâs more likely is that when SoM ends, it will roll into SoM BCC. Or other possibilities is a âFRESHâ Classic w/o the flavor changes of SoM, and a âFRESHâ BCC. Just my guesses but likely wonât see either of these until the end of the year or early next year.
1 Like
Since I know how Blizz likes to compromise⌠What if you took away the instant teleportation to the dungeon? Still give the option to group up with the dungeon finder but rather than forcing players to sift through âLFG tank/heal etc.â we just use it as a group finder. Then the group makes their way to the instance. You will still likely having someone summon people but still requires social interaction and helps reinforce the idea of putting effort into getting to the location as well as âseeing the physical locationâ.
Take away the pain of the group finding, keep the interaction of travel and investing some time with the group before it even starts.
Itâs not perfect, and it will suck having to travel really far for those that want to teleport too, but I think a majority of the community would settle for a compromise to reduce the headache of group finding with still requiring the transportation.
Thoughts?
11 Likes
I donât play Classic, and I try my best not to comment on things I donât participate in, but this was brought to my attention on General Discussion and honestly, I wanted to say something about it:
The entire point of Classic was to let players go back and play the expansion they liked the most. This was the core reason Classic was created, by Blizzardâs own admission.
So what about players who, for them, Burning Crusade is the pinnacle of WoW? Are they just supposed to accept that they wonât get to play what they want anymore, with the promise they MIGHT add season of mastery stuff later?
On top of this, why should any Classic Player play Wrath of the Lich King Classic, with the knowledge that Cataclysm Classic will just replace those servers later on, rendering all of their hard work moot again?
People play Classic because it doesnât change. That hard work has a payoff because their characters wonât suddenly become irrelevant by new content. And yes, a lot of players will get bored and move on, and thatâs when they move to the next expac, but not all.
The Classic Devs are usually good at responding to their community, but thereâs a very clear disconnect with the Wrath announcement. First the dungeon finder being removed, which, just one look at the classic forums and reddit will tell you the majority are not happy with the decision, and now the knowledge that TBC servers wonât exist.
To add to this - selling the Digital Deluxe version of BCC for $70 was very deceptive marketing, if the plan was for BCC classic to cease to exist only a little over a year after it was released. (Itâs been 11 months since release, and wrath classic is slatted for 2022)
27 Likes
Not exactly. J Allen Brackâs statement on this was that CLASSIC servers would always be available. And they are, in Classic Era, with no one playing on them. At no point has Blizzard said âyou can play TBC foreverâ or âyou can play Wrath foreverâ. You are extrapolating what J Allen said at Blizzcon in 2018.
You are excused for not knowing the power of F R E S H, but I want to emphasize here that people in this community play on servers knowing their progress will be wiped all the time. People are playing SoM right now knowing full well Naxxramas is the end of that line.
Also, Modern WoW renders your hard work moot every expansion and people continue to play it. So it is clearly not a deal breaker.
The great irony of the museum argument is that classic players have reset their progress more frequently than modern players. You can argue the game deserves to be preserved in some state and that is probably noble - but it is divorced from the players themselves.
Who does? I donât. You donât. Everyone who progressed from Classic to TBCC disagrees.
Case in point, Progressive Classic servers is something no one has ever played before and TBCC Classic is currently more popular than Classic Era by far. No one plays on Classic Era. Hypothetical TBC Era servers would be even less popular than Classic Era.
Honestly, just take a moment and recognize you donât play on Classic servers and are advocating for a variant you donât intend to play either. For whom?
2 Likes
Regarding the LFD discussion, it bears mentioning that going without LFD disproportionately affects low population servers and content. Specifically:
- LFD would be helpful to lowpop servers where forming groups manually means not being able to run at all (âsorry guys too long gotta goâ).
- LFD would be helpful to older content (1-60) where - even on higher pop servers - there are few people leveling, especially in light of paid boosts (âlf4m WCâ)
Personally, I like the Classic devs tackling progressively more and larger aspects of the game that they feel will make for a âbetterâ Classic. I like the idea of a âClassic mantra,â as Sixx put it. And I donât think these above problems (which are real problems) are insurmountable with server merges and free transfers. So I am âforâ no dungeon finder. Even on a smaller server where I will realistically either run a dungeon with guildmates or not at all. I donât feel there is a lack of content in general, so running fewer dungeons is fine when the ones that I do run are of generally higher quality. And there is no FOMO on either side of the âdidnt run 10 LFD on each alt todayâ nor ârunning LFD instead of premadeâ treadmill. In short, I think the game is a better version without LFD.
Anyways enough of my personal feelings.
This has been a divisive point among the community. Clearly. As with most things, the âagainstâ crowd is loud (really, why would a âforâ crowd ever be loud about things they have no need to change?). Iâm not even sure where the majority comes down on this. And while I generally donât like the idea of compromising with players in game development, I think the first time thru Wrath classic is at least the right time to try it a couple of different ways.
Brian has already said Blizz is working on an updated LFG tool for Wrath launch. Donât scrap that. The original Dungeon Finder tool wasnât added to Wrath of the Lich King until patch 3.3, with Icecrown Citadel! The compromise seems to me to be to launch without LFD, see how it goes, and add it to WLKC at a later phase. Itâs true to the timeline (#nochanges (: ), both sides get their preferred state for a period of time, and Blizzard gets to sell boosts to the 1-60 crowd in the meantime.
While LFD is definitely a very convenient feature and makes grouping up for a quick dungeon so much easier, I also personally agree that it isnât in the spirit of Classic that Blizzard is trying to maintain. The struggle of forming a group is part of Classic, and the game tries to push you into more social situations where that struggle becomes easier (finding a guild, making friends, anything that makes grouping up easier).
With that said, the people that donât have access to a guild, or friends that will happily help out in any dungeon they need, will have a much more difficult time on the other hand. Forming a random group in the current state of the game is pretty painful, spamming Trade Chat and LookingForGroup for half an hour just to fill that last spot with a tank is not a very nice experience, so many would welcome an automated system like LFD. The current LFM tool we have in TBC is pretty barebones, and Iâm sure a lot of people arenât even using it.
The Retail LFM tool where you can create groups for different categories like Dungeons, Raids, or Custom, would be much more welcome, and I think (as long as itâs properly moderated against WTS spam) would be a welcome addition by the majority of the playerbase over what we currently have.
4 Likes
My thought on LFD which some others seem to agree. Since weâve already tried with it in the past. If it doesnât seem like a good change then release it. Also vice versa seems like a fine idea as well, release it, and if we donât care for it, get rid of it. I think we should be more open to trying things out here and there. After all its the second go around, why not try it differently. I would agree that LFD did eventually lead to things that caused large issues in the social aspect of the game. I donât think LFD was a problem on its own. I donât like LFR, raids are not dungeons, and a quick 5-man group is a just a nice time/spam save. I think a great addition to the LFD tool would be an option to select the type of environment you want to play in. Like Casual Laid Back, Normal/Average, or Hardcore/Speed Clear, or Any Group and then the system would match you with like players if applicable that may become more lenient as time in que gets longer. my two cents anyways
Cheers ~ solo
1 Like