The impact of MoP Remix on Retail WoW

Hey Guys, Xanilly here. 476 Furry-… I mean Fury Warrior.

So since I have been playing MoP Remix since its launch, I decided I was going to give some input here into why I feel that MoP Remix might have actually impacted people’s perception of WoW and the difficulties the devs may have meeting communities’ expectations moving forwards.

I am going to start with the aspect I feel is most important and really kinda backed blizzard into a corner: Removing the level barrier.

The problem I often see with WoW and pretty much everyone already knows is the level barrier, everyone always rushes to level past levels 1-60 right now and will be rushing from 1-70 in TWW because they don’t want to miss out on current content with the rest of the playerbase.

This has caused players to become fatigued when leveling multiple classes or even caused new players to quit entirely at times… It just feels like an old system that now has no real excuse to be there.

Mop Remix introduced what I look at as a rough draft of actual proper level scaling and yes I do mean ROUGH DRAFT cause they had/have a lot of balancing to do in that regard.

But starting from level 10, there are no barriers whatsoever to join content with other level 10-70 players aside raiding… and even then Raiding starts at level 25 for normal raids in which players can all group up and just have fun in Remix.

This may pose a significant challenge for blizzard because now they have shown it can be done and they just need to perfect it, I personally cannot look at retail the same way anymore because of this fact alone.

My second point that makes retail seem to limited: Total freedom of choice.

Blizzard introduced several gems, meta gems, cogwheel gems, prismatic gems, tinker gems, etc. All of them having various effects on your character.

  • Prismatic: Basic stat gem with stamina when maxed out.
  • Meta: Crazy powerful ultimate moves more or less.
  • Tinker: All sorts of wacky effects like damage/healing procs, absorb shields, etc.
  • Cogwheel: Movement abilities/passives.

All of these had a profound impact on how people played the game, obviously people wanted to see how badly they could break bosses by going full on damaging tinker gems lol but some like me enjoyed well… for lack of better word? Tinkering.

I’ve built hilariously unkillable shadow priests, wicked overpowered warriors, healing enhancement shamans, you name it. The sky was/is currently the limit.

Retail WoW… doesn’t have this much flexibility and I feel like it just suffers because of it, now I know when remix ends I am gonna be missing all of this and tbh… I am not looking forwards to it, if they added MoP Remix as a permanent thing? this would 100% be my home for that reason alone.

I feel like the sheer freedom blizz gave players in remix has now made people look at WoW and ask “Why are we still doing the old way then? Limiting what we can do when we have seen what true freedom looks like?”

Third Point: Gearing!
God I loved gearing in remix, the way the gear leveled with you and by the time you hit 70 you could have a really good solid foot in the door for max level content was FANTASTIC! I really enjoyed not having to replace every single piece repeatedly every time I got a new level upgrade even while leveling.

The ability to just throw bronze at gear and have it grow along side me was a major highlight for me, sure I did eventually replace it with blues and then purples as I grew in my ability to complete content…

But the fact that it went along with me was a major highlight, this needs to happen more often. The current system in DF feels very off by comparison.

This may also pose a significant challenge moving forward because now… It just invalidated how blizzards been doing the gearing process for years, knowing we can take pieces from 10 all the way up to max level and never have to replace them.

Are there benefits to replacing them? absolutely, but its not a necessity and it allows for people to once again just jump right in. Again another point I feel blizzard backed themselves into a corner.

Now to how I feel/see it impacted things in WoW and honestly a change I never expected I would see.

Before Remix there was at least to me this sense of “You’re not good enough to join us in X content, lol git gud noob.”

At first there was the same mentality in Remix but after a very short time, much to my surprise… People started being more willing to “carry” others through raids like heroic raids and mythic raids… Getting them their clears and lifting each other up to higher and higher heights instead of pretending like they are better than others.

I am a sensitive person I will admit, so to see someone reach a hand out in Remix and go “Hey I am more than willing to help if you need it.” made me cry a little, I’d been shot down by group after group in retail and that all changed here.

Now? I am also one who is more than willing to help people get their mythic SoO clears, aid them in leveling, really anything.

In Conclusion:
Please don’t squander this opportunity to change WoW for the better, take what you did in remix and run with it. Make WoW something even more special.

PS: If you need help and feel stuck, just shoot me a tell in game on Xanilly on Wyrmrest Accord. I’ll always be willing to lend a hand to those who need it if I can.

  • Love Xanilly.
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My only issue here is that it would be difficult to find every exploit or tuning oddity. I could easily see being (Example level 32) the most meta level for whatever you are doing, and the top raiders only wanting to take that level bracket.

And if they put max level too far ahead than you will see groups not wanting to take any lower levels.

I do think this could be cool if they got it too work right, my concern is that it makes raid scaling a nightmare with far more variables.

I don’t think any mechanical changes should be made to retail because of remix but If players can bring new(old) mindset of helping and teamwork I would be okay with it.

I also think that remix will become a permanent part of WoW with different expansions rotating in.

Yeah no, remix works cause it was timed and in a vacuum. There’s no way anything introduced in it ever make it to retail.

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I believe a lot of it could work if they put enough thought into it, the level disparity being the main thing. It needs refinement.

Remix was fun for sure but I’m glad it was isolated. There would be no way to ever balance any sort of meta/tinker gem system in the game itself. They would have to make them so unimpactful that one would wonder why they were there.

While playing with others of various levels was fun, it was also frustrating. There was nothing fun about just following along behind over-powered other characters and not doing anything to contribute to a fight. I think party sync could use a bit of a facelift to let people of different levels play together but I don’t think a free-for-all system is quite the way to go about it.

Remix was fun, and if there is one thing I would like to see them bring to Retail from Remix, it’s giving all gear slots primary stat plus stam, no secondaries, but all prismatic sockets and let people customize their stats how they want with gems. Would also have the bonus of making jewel crafting more relevant again.

I would love to see it turned into a season thing. Each season it’s a specific xpac and the toons you make in it are locked in that xpac for the duration of the season, not to be released into remix until the end.

I’m going to offshoot your points about tinkering and the gems and gear involved to ask: do you think this also could mean a rough draft of some type of tinker spec or profession? A lot of work went into making all of these things work together and I think this would be a good launching pad to try tinkers

Man once a season would just be too much honestly.

I’m fine with it being like once an expansion type deal and having it be in the usually quieter Season 4.

But yeah, rotating events every season sounds like just too much and I would no longer enjoy it.

Maybe not every season then, but it would last a season. I don’t really want it to always be the final season of an Xpac though and overlap with prepatch like now.

I don’t think Remix has/should have any impact on Retail.

Remix was a meme. The gameplay ideas are not transferrible to Retail and I do believe that if such an attempt were made, we would see a major drop off in player satisfaction. What made Remix fun was the silly OP mode of it. Imagine trying to play Remix but it was tuned more closely to Retail numbers–it would be an absolute slog.

Players have shown they want and prefer Tier over what is essentially what Azerite Powers and Covenants attempted to do–add passive, ‘effect’ abilities and sometimes active abilities that are not tied to your class.

This defeats decades of WoW philosophy. The differences between Spec 1 and Spec 2 are what make WoW gameplay unique and engaging. Opening up pandora’s box to have an almost entirely homogenized experience is the antithesis of WoW.

I prefer the slower pace of retail tbh. I played a bit of remix but only enough to get a few transmogs and mounts. After that I left. The remix gear and gems felt sort of like bethnic gear to me and I really disliked it. I felt like I had to constantly change my gems and swap them out into new gear. It was cool that we could get some more movement abilities.

I dunno I didn’t feel like my class mattered more than the special abilities I got.