What you are saying here has merit to a certain extent, but that only applies when people stop making new toons/alts to start the leveling process all over again. As more and more people come back to play Classic, this won’t be a likely scenario for a very long time. Having TBC/Wrath on separate servers is the only way to go here as progression servers would just kill the enjoyment for people who only like one version of the game and nothing else. Yes it splits the player base, but as long as you utilize bnet to add people to your list rather than just the server centralized friend list, you can still keep in contact with them and even swap back over to their server/client to help them out if they need it.
Choice and options is what makes the game better overall. The talent system in Classic is a good example here. Yes the cookie cutter argument applies when it comes to end game raiding and PvP, but the exact same thing can be said about the retail talents also. There will ALWAYS be min/maxers who figure out what the BEST talents are for every possible situation, so the “illusion of choice” fallacy will always be present regardless. I happen to prefer the OLD talent system and wasn’t happy it was bastardized in retail
Oh, I understand all that–it’s why I said it was the “slow death” of an MMO’s social experience. It happens little by little, little by little… and then suddenly people are so tragically uninterested in slogging through the early game when all the fun is eighty levels ahead that devs start implementing streamlining to make the early game easier to get through quickly… it happens eventually, and that is half the reason Blizzard went and made Classic to begin with. And because that is so common, it has become–in the public eye–the default expectation of all MMORPGs. Modern MMOs are downright designed to incorporate that curve, even.
As for player choice, I would argue that the presence of less-optimal build choices adds value to the existence of the optimal ones. But more than that, the way modern “WoW-like” MMOs work is extraordinarily rigid. You don’t think, you watch a YouTube tutorial video which point-blank tells you the optimal rotation for your class and the one party role it is spec’d to fulfill, and you do that. There is no room for any kind of decision-making; your numbers go up and you get better equips to make your numbers go up more and you do the one thing the YouTubes told you over and over and if you do your numbers win. Some games like Final Fantasy XIV add some frantic player engagement in the form of moving around to avoid a crapton of AoEs, or something. But it’s like driving down the road and avoiding potholes. You’re still going one way.
I agree with nearly every statement in that post. This bit however, can also be applied to dungeon/raid boss mechanics in general…stay out of the fire lol. Add phases and tank swaps and the like are merely different aspects of the same thing…just obstacles to adapt to and overcome in order to get your kill and get some loot.
It’s really difficult to have much variation on this in new or innovative ways tbh since no matter what changes you make, the outcome is the same…either you wipe, or kill the boss and collect loot. What you are getting at would be to drastically alter how MMORPGs or even action based MMOs are designed.
Btw it’s very refreshing to have convo like this with someone who isn’t blatantly trolling or trying to change the game how they see fit via Classic+ or some other such nonsense, so ty for that
I’ve long had some pretty love-hate feelings toward MMORPGs in my experiments with FF11, retail WoW, Old Republic, and others, as well as my long hours invested into FF14. That plus my interest in game design, equals some pretty complicated thoughts on the subject. My experience with WoW Classic so far has helped me form some more “solid” thoughts than I used to have on many subjects.
And yeah, you’re right. When you get down to it, multiplayer games are burdened by a sense of player obligation to “be the best you can for the team,” and that means more often than not thinking the way a pro esports player would… focus on the optimal, whatever the optimal is. It’s a rare player who can run something of a lower competitive “tier” and best players running those optimal builds and tactics in even the more skill-based games like fighters, so asking for it in a numbers-based MMORPG is asking for perhaps far too much.
That said, the competitive min-max layer of the thing is most important at endgame. The “journey,” which most modern MMOs under-value, is very strong in WoW Classic and the variety of player options lends itself very well to THAT if nothing else. And if, perhaps, a player becomes so accustomed to a “sub-optimal” alternative build during that journey, they just might get so good at it that they can provide value to a team in serious multiplayer in spite of it.
Enabling players to experiment with diverse mechanics might even result in effective builds or tactics that the developers didn’t intend to be in the game–that sort of thing is historically prevalent in gaming, but designing the game from the word go to be rigid limits the potential for it.
It is absolutely about the journey. The end game isn’t going anywhere, so why rush? The constant need to hit max level and fully clear the content was brought about by Blizzard because they tend to release new raid tiers far too often.
Take that feeling you had when you felt you were forced to ditch epic Naxx/AQ/ZG gear for that first really powerful green/blue in TBC and then drastically increase the frequency of that same feeling every time new content is released or there is a major patch put out. Virtually everything you do in retail is completely invalidated and made obsolete in a matter of months due to this problem. THAT is the reason we had nolifers and neckbeards clearing MC/Ony in the first week of Classic. People have been conditioned to rush rush rush to get to the raids and blow through them at warp speed
Regarding player skill using suboptimal talent builds or gear…we’ve all heard stories about people wearing greens/blues and out dpsing people in T1/T2 all the time. It’s not uncommon at all for skill to surpass gear/talents
I disagree OP. Though not on all accounts. I do agree that arena killed class diversity. now matter when you believe that homogenization started, Arena accelarated it tenfold.
But on the other points I simply disagree as a point of preference. I feel that class design continued to improve all the way through Wrath, even if they started adding similarities between the classes. Many classes in Vanilla were severely one sided. TBC at least brought all classes to a point that they felt balanced individually as well as in group contribution.
Lore was fantastic IMO. It felt a bit “Sci-fi”, but I enjoyed it thorougly. Enough that even though I never player WoD, I leveled a new toon in Legion just so I could enjoy outlands pre-destruction. It was very cool.
And I too think that TBC and Wrath are not an if, but a when. It’s all about how they approach it. Personally, I think the best balance is new servers for the expansions, with the option of free transfers for players who want to keep their progress.
I think that due to how servers will think out after this migration, they may want to merge some of the vanilla servers, or possibly even just migrate some of the current servers to TBC, with free transfers to vanilla servers for those who want to stay vanilla. Either way, it’s the best approach with the least impact.
I like to believe that there are those out there like me who enjoy WoW classic because it was and still is a good game, and not because of some insane nostalgia trip that they refuse to leave for the rest of their life.
The overwhelming vast majority of people are not motivated by nostalgia. That’s a myth, concocted by the opposition some years ago.
Consider the most basic observations - there’s been 7 expansions, over 100 million people have played the game, and from the beginning wow has existed in a single and continuous game-state.
It’s only logical that the collective playerbase will have a huge range of opinions on what version of the game they enjoyed the most, and naturally the range will cover the full spectrum of expansions.
I’m talking about maps and quests, everything else is still there aside from needing keys and attunements. TBC content is still mostly intact. Talent trees are hardly the majority of a whole expac. I liked BC as much as the next dude but the outlands are still pretty much there as they were, aside from keys and attunements. Except ZA, it’s yeeted. Not to say I wouldn’t mind a BC server though, but it’s extremely unlikely and not really necessary
I’m not saying I don’t enjoy Classic as it is right now…but IMO Blizzard would be missing out on some major cash in subs if they don’t go that route in 2-3 years down the road. Look at how many came back to play Classic…and many of them are playing with the hope/expectation that BC and Wrath are coming later
Well it coudl be that you title your post “Why TBC is bad for Classic” and the first line is “It introduced flying”. Hence - BC is bad because of flying and it will ruin the game if it follows on from Classic.
Unless I’m holding my mouth the wrong way when I look at it…
Arena was by far the best thing to happen to PvP. It made it about defeating the best opponents instead of a pug steamrolling contest. In other words, PvP now required skill to rise to the top instead of being unemployed or account sharing. TBC added more depth to the classes and allowed more builds to perform decently.
I hope we do get TBC Classic (and eventually Wrath Classic, but I’d personally stop there). The only thing I disliked about TBC was arena, and how you had to do it to get the best PvP gear. Most people take arena way too damn seriously. If you can find a team of some chill people to do it with, then it’s a bit better. But man, finding those chill people (if not playing with friends already) is hard to do. At least it was for me. Maybe I just have bad luck.
On the subject of PvP, I had a love-hate relationship with resilience as well. It was nice when you finally had some, but right when you dinged 70 and basically had none… Holy crap that made PvP frustrating. Dying in like 2 hits from people decked with resilience already while you barely damaged them. Not fun.
