I’ve seen quite a few people arguing that one of the reasons Classic and TBC are so good, as opposed to Wrath or other later expansions, is because class homogenization didn’t exist.
I know that the basic concept of class homogenziation is making every class essentially do the exact same thing with the same strengths and not many prevalent weaknesses for the sake of balance: “Bring the player, not the class.” But I’ve also seen some people suggest that doing something as simple as giving Protection Paladins a Taunt ability would qualify as homogenization and should be avoided, with others disagreeing with that notion
So what exactly is *class homogenization, in its clearest definition?
A term used by people wearing rose tinted glasses to justify poor game mechanics choices made by developers who were inexperienced in MMORPG design 15 years ago.
At the time they were the best in the business.
In saying that, class balance is not necessarily ‘good design’. Having to work as a team and have pros and cons and your choices or decisions having a long term effect on your character development are what MMORPGs should be about.
In terms of World of Warcraft, homogenization refers to the way that every single class slowly gained the ability to do the same thing over the years. For instance, in the case of rogues, we got aoes and heals and teleports galore as time went on, despite our original class fantasy starting out as a somewhat squishy single target ambush predator sort of deal.
When people talk about homogenization, that’s what they mean. Every class became more and more similar, until anyone could play any part of the game on any class and no one was truly special anymore.
Would you say adding a Taunt to Paladin like they did in TBC or fixing Elemental / Shadow Priest’s mana problems to not be as overwhelmingly prevalent would qualify as homogenization?
In other words, what would cross the line of homogenization?
I remember being in a raid in Warlords of Draenor, or was it Mists? Either way, we were buffing. And everyone was using their buffs, and a lot of buffs were redundant, so one person would cast his, then a second later another person would cast his and cancel out the first person’s, then another person who was the same class as the first person would cast his buff and cancel out the second person’s…
The distinction between classes and their roles is becoming more and more blurred. Tanks that do not require heals, healers whose damage output rivals dps roles, etc. have all lead to what people refer to as class homogenization.
Blizzard had never made an MMORPG before WoW. How do you figure they were the best in the business when they literally had no game in the genre in the business?
Homogenization is essentially the stripping away of all the things that make a class unique among the rest of them.
It isn’t something that can be demonstrated on a short term or for a single class.
Its debatable how much it has occurred up to modern wow and probably subjective as to its extent.
However it has occurred atleast somewhat, this to many has made the game better as they can finally play a ret paladin competitively or top dps meters as a shadow priest.
I think its a little more complicated than all that and it actually boils down to the stripping away of what was at some point important class utility in things like summoning & life tapping, providing water and food and portals, resurrecting the dead, bubble hearthing, totems and buffs, lock picking and poisons.
But this also extends to non class specific abilities like professions.
All of these non combat related abilities are often what people tend to complain about on forums and the likes thus making blizzard change them to become more homogenized and accessible to people who dont want to play a certain class or profession. The result is that choice making no longer feels quite so gratifying when you find the niche of one of your choices.
The individualization of each character also helps to create a more cohesive world where you have to interact with that guy over there to get some water to heal your next dungeon excursion.
Look im not very good at explaining this kind of thing, all i can tell you is that i started playing wow in MoP and as soon as i was introduced to vanilla wow or vanilla like wow, i was introduced to something that actually resembled an MMORPG.
This paladin tanked fine in BC and Wrath. We have a taunt, just not a singletarget taunt.
The first time this became an issue was during Tier 7 when the horsemen swap required you to aoe-taunt first, then the other tank to ST his mob. Couldn’t be done in reverse, had to be this way.
There will inevitably be overlaps but your argument is related to 2 abilities, considering that both classes as a whole in vanilla operate completely differently, one with pets and dots and one with high cooldown related mobility and short cast ranged damage.
However in “retail wow” such differences in these classes are far more difficult pinpoint.
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