Per Blizzard, this is incorrect. Game design comes first, before lore, before fantasy.
And idk about you, but I say I main MM Hunter, and my primary alts are Resto Shaman and Prot Warrior. Because I heal on my Shaman and tank on my Warrior.
And for the record, I have never, not even ONCE, argues that it is okay to delete pure DPS specs, or that it is okay to delete pure specs over hybrids. NO spec should have been deleted, EVER. Period. MSV should have been a new thing.
Demon Hunter only received two specs cause making one a tank made them more variable, and to make their DPS spec they had to take abilities from another. To make another spec for DH they would have to find a interesting concept to use. Shamans could tank back long a go, and would love it if we could bring it back. The other would not need to have another spec just give let them have the option of lost play-styles through talents.
We would come up with the concept then pitch it to the head designers, and if they really liked the idea they would ask how long that idea would take to implement. We try to give them the best time frame then they would see if we had the time and resources to go through with the idea. It came down to if we had the time to add a new feature and could spear some people to finish it. The ones who thought of money were just the top guys, but we just had to show them the pay off would be greater than the costs.
If they had the budget to bring a change that they new would only appeal to a small crowd, and maybe bring just a few new players. However, if they were willing to alienate a lager portion of the community then they could afford to add back a spec that they already had most of the ground work for that could bring back more players who had quit cause of their decisions.
Companies do not just keep throwing money at a issue until it is fixed. To save money and time they will go back and looked for what worked and had the best results.
This would be why they went back to the drawling board with MSV and added more range abilities and added some of BM to MSV. They picked two aspect they wanted, first bring back range and second combine it with the most popular Hunter spec. that way they would interest a even larger demographic than the first version of MSV.
It appears to have worked as more player have said they are much more satisfied with this version of MSV, so much Blizzard is giving MSV even more range abilities next expansion.
I think that fantasy is an element of game design though. You can make a completely mechanically sound and fun game, but if the the lore, the worldbuilding, the characters, the plot, the fantasy, etc. isnât there, then that game wouldnât work, particularly when that game is an RPG where those exact elements are the primary purpose of its entire genre.
You said that it would be worse to remove a spec that would cause a class to lose a role, than it would be to remove a spec with a role that the class fills with 2 other specs. If it is worse to remove a hybrid spec than a pure spec, then the reverse would be that it is better to remove a pure spec than a hybrid spec.
No, what Iâm saying is that removing a spec regardless of role doesnât make one better or worse. And arguably, while both melee and range have the same job, dealing damage, they have different roles in groups.
who cares about actual SV hunter mains who like the spec being melee. there is was 13 melee classes/specs to choose from before one of the most polished unique perfect class/spec Ranged Survival was ripped from the rest of us.
if i had to tinfoil hat the 1 AND ONLY REASON that i believe that blizzard nuked ranged survival and made it melee is because a massive chunk of the player base played hunter but more specifically ranged Survival Hunter. (probably 25% of the player base played hunter and 80% of that were survival). Basically deleting the spec and making it go melee was the easiest way for them to get people away from the class or more importantly spec. Half of this reasoning would be to get a chunk of these players to try it as melee then like melee and spread out to other âBETTERâ melee classes. Thatâs my thoughts on the matter.
All they had to do was create a 4th spec but whatever blizzard will do what they want its their game and it seems as if they donât give a flying you know what about it when they make dumb decisions such as this one.
I agree, ion even said he did not want hunters to feel they had to go survival to raid, cause it was just too good, in terms of fun and damage. Only way to force hunters out of survival was to kill it, brutally. Hence the raid patch in WoD, it was a good 60-70% dps loss I know cause I was raiding at time on my survival I know what I did day before and after the patch.
I canât find the quote right now, but Blizzard developers have spoken on the topic, and they prioritize gameplay over fantasy. Fantasy is not a part of that. Fantasy is what you use to polish the aesthetics and themes of the gameplay you want, the coat of paint you put on it.
WoW isnât an RPG, itâs an MMORPG - those genres are not the same, in an MMO, especially a themepark MMO like WoW with a focus on group-based endgame content, design elements, particularly those involving the role you play when grouping with other players, HAVE to be more important. They werenât always - look at Vanilla, TBC, even Wrath to some degree - and there were entire classes that were disallowed from competitive content if they didnât adhere to the expected gameplay of other players. Try raiding on a non-Resto Druid in Classic. MAYBE you can get a group to let you offtank as a Bear. Cat DPS? Moonkin DPS? Forget it.
Your inference is inaccurate.
It is not ok to delete specs. Period.
Deleting a spec that deletes a role from a class is objectively worse than deleting a spec that does not delete a role from a class. There is no âmore OKâ here, because neither deletion is ever ok in the first place.
If that was the case then Blizzard should have just designed four classes, each with one spec, that each fulfill a different role. A tank class, a healer class, a ranged DPS class and a melee DPS class.
Furthermore, while I definitely enjoy raiding, the intense focus on raiding has watered down the game. An MMORPG should focus on the world outside of instances first and foremost, but everything currently in game essentially serves to point towards raiding. Raiding is more akin to cooperative games like Warframe or Destiny. Raids are important, but Blizzardâs laser focus on essentially designing and balancing the entire game around them harms the game as a whole.
It makes sense too. It is way easier to design single encounter boss fights than it is to design similarly engaging experiences out in the world, be it for multiple people or solo players. Now quests out in the world are almost exclusively about gearing up, unlocking consumables, earning reputation in order to gear up or unlock consumables, in order to benefit from them in a raid instance.
The MMO in MMORPG is composed entirely of adjectives. It is a role playing game first and foremost, that is massively multiplayer and online. The MMO should serve to enhance the RPG, rather than detracting from it.
Raids have been the pinnacle of content in this game since 2004. Gameplay has always been targeted towards endgame first and foremost, though Iâll admit that worldbuilding used to be much more important than it has been in WoD, Legion, and BfA.
And if you think there should be no hybrid classes out of some misguided jealousy for Druidâs 4 specs I donât really have an answer. Have fun playing an MMO with no healers or tanks because those roles SUCK to level without the ability to go DPS to speed it up, at least sometimes.
After becoming a survival main after being a MM main since vanilla we arent hated, but our kit does need rework. I love survival even if I am the 2% who main it, but when it comes to rotation and utility we lack everything traditional about a melee class. Having to cycle between KC and mongoose bite along with using your poisons is pretty much all we have. They need to remove some of the talents out of our talent tree and give them to us as a baseline ability overall so KC isnt our main button to keep on repeating over and over.
It has become far more focused on end game raids and what not though. Blizzard even introduced store items to skip the majority of leveling, and even provide you with gear. They even give you a free one when buying the new xpac so a new player could just skip leveling entirely.
Again though, this laser focus harms the game as a whole imo. Yes, raiding is the end game content. But itâs also one of the reasons why a lot of people just up and quit playing, because it just begins to feel like a second job. There should be heavier content to consume in the world that doesnât just serve the purpose of gearing you and funneling you into raids. There should be more forms of gameplay outside of instanced combat. Blizzard has tried doing some things like this at times, but they are usually arbitrarily discontinued or made irrelevant in the next xpac. Brawlerâs Guild and Troves of the Thunder King were some of the most fun Iâd had in WoW for years. Blizzard could do way more than this though, and introduce new elements to the game that grow over time just like the raid content does.
Just as an example, Blizzard could introduce player homes similar to those in Runescape (where they are instanced, similar to WoD garrisons). They could serve as huge gold sinks and time investments, with long term goals with rooms, utilities, etc. that the player needs to build themselves. Crafting professions could be used to make all sorts of things for them too. Players could need profession crafted items, special boss drops from dungeons/raids, reputation items, world drops, untradeable items from specially made world encounters, etc⌠You could have class specific areas, and even share your house with your alts so that with every class youâd gain access to all the rooms (for example, with a Warrior you could have a training room, with a Mage a portal room, with a Hunter a trophy room, etc.). You could even go crazy and introduce guild halls or player run towns and what not (again, all instanced so that they can overlap).
Something like that would introduce a huge amount of content to the game, and could be continually expanded upon with each new xpac. They would build off of what already exists, and take advantage of the ways that people already play the game, while providing something new and interesting for players. But because WoW currently laser focuses on raids, something like this would likely never happen. Everything is only considered if it is either small with little time investment or if it would benefit raids. But Blizzard could introduce huge amounts of new and unique features and elements to the game, and they just donât.
Brawlers Guild is instanced combat. Trove of the Thunder King is an instanced non combat scenario.
Player housing is a nice idea that has zero relevance to the discussion.
The point of all this: melee SV is hated because it is a melee spec on a traditionally ranged class, and its existence is only due to the deletion of a well-oiled ranged spec. To add, many of the melee SV proponents do their spec no favors with their âf you, got mineâ attitude towards former RSV mains who want their spec back.
Itâs easy to say âgive 4 specs!â, but since Hunter is pure DPS, 4 specs is not likely.
Itâs easy to say âDelete MSV and give RSV back!â, but that would be the same mistake that pissed off the RSV players in the first place.
Itâs easy to say âDelete 1/3 of MM talents and make room for real RSV instead of the half measure ES and LnL that currently exist!â, but thatâs just going to piss off MM mains, which solves nothing.
Itâs easy to say âMake SV ranged again and make BM the melee spec!â, but thatâs just going to piss off BM mains, which solves nothing.
Brawlerâs guild essentially functions as non-instanced. Heck, these days major cities are essentially âinstancedâ. The instance is not the primary issue, but rather the nature of the instance. Brawlerâs guild acts as world based content allowing non-grouped players to interact in ways different from dungeons and raids. Troves was engaging solo content also very different from dungeons and raids.
Was just an example of the kinds of things Blizzard could do to add significant content to the game that isnât just instanced dungeons and raids.
No easy solution for Blizzard. The latter three suggestions wouldnât be easy for players, and would upset them justifiably so.
But the first solution of 4 specs would benefit all players. The only problem is Blizzard and their pride. Thatâs why it is the best solution. Blizzard is the sole cause behind the massive mistake of deleting ranged SV, and so I personally couldnât care less if the solution to their mistake wasnât easy for them. Please donât take this as vitriol towards you, as I know you agree with me on this one.
I hate melee survival because Blizzard basically came (analogy time, deal with it) and told me that they were going to remove my favorite NFL team and replace them with the Cleveland Browns. Are there Browns fans? Sure, but the Browns suck and my previous favorite team that is now deleted was SOOOO much better. (This is an opinion learn how to deal with them! Not everyone will have the same as you!)
Now when I want to do something that I had enjoyed for over 10 years I canât. It has been deleted. It may have kept the same title but make no mistake, it was deleted. Instead Iâm forced to be either a Browns fan or move on to another team. To make things worse, they took my 2nd(MM) and 3rd(BM) favorite teams and either made them unbearable to watch(play) or so boring that I fall asleep at my keyboard to try to force me to into something that I never wanted.
Lots of analogyâs I know but it was the easiest way for me to explain why I hate MSV. Do I want it deleted? No! No one should have to go through losing their favorite spec like I did, but it is becoming harder to keep that mentality with every poster that says to âdealâ with it, or move on or to stop asking for my favorite spec back. I donât care if you dislike a few posters that are more vocal. No one has the right to tell me how I should feel and react to Blizz deleting my favorite spec and they certainly donât have the right to tell me to stop asking for it back. You may love MSV and the last 4+ years, I put over 10 years into RSV. Even though some of you have about 40% of the investment that I did, I still do NOT want MSV removed I just want RSV back!!
Exactly and well put. For me tech two teams were retired the mm team, went petless and slower, and survival team, went melee. I had to go watch a different team, elemental, cause looks to be gone forever.