I know this is going to be a controversial subject. People think there are a lot of problems with WOW, but I argue that the core problem is the class system itself. I would like to make two points.
First, most WOW classes are overly complex. I used to play druid, as well as other classes. I found there were too many abilities, too many things to juggle at once. Learning how to play a class correctly was like some kind of engineering project with multiple factors. Blizzard has already fixed this problem with the demon hunter. Demon Hunter’s have the perfect balance of abilities, making them easy to learn and play. The other classes need to have their abilities reduced to this extent as well. Now I know some of you think this will make the game worse, but I argue it will make the game much easier to manage once they actually understand how to play the class itself.
Second, it may be good to transition from a class system to a job system. In this way, you can level up any spec or class that your race is capable of, allowing, if you wish, a certain number of non-class specs. Maybe you just have one extra spec that allows you to, say, be a holy priest spec in addition to your DH specs. Why do I say this? A lot of us have alts, and a lot of us have wasted a huge portion of our WOW life leveling alts. Let’s have it on one character, so all our achievements and reputations can stay with one person. I like to max reputations, if I want to go from druid to DH, why do I need to re-level timbermaw?
I’d love everyone’s thoughts on this important subject.
My issue is with systems that they introduced in Shadowlands, where they try to make classes more interesting by adding a dozen passive abilities through a jonky system like soulbinds.
Disagree. I’ve been taking brief looks at some of the other games that have come out recently (New World, Lost Ark, etc) and the one thing that struck me is how apparently brain-dead easy they are. You apparently get significant power from the moment you start playing and it looks like its just mash keys as fast as possible = good play. (Obviously if Im wrong let me know, but that was just how it seemed to me). I like that WoW’s classes take a degree of skill and that you have to play for a while to earn the ability to be better and stronger. I personally thought Demon Hunters were a step too far into Easy Mode.
So you are channelling FF14. As attractive as that might seem (and being able to style your character’s play with more choice seems good) there is no way WoW could move to that. It would require a complete wipe-and-reset of Classes. The huge amount of work involved and the backlash from people accustomed to (and who like) the current class systems would be enormous.
What you seem to want is a combination of game styles and that would require a new version of WoW.
It’s hilarious you think WoW classes are more complex than this. And Reaper is one of the simpler ones compared to the likes of Dragoon, or Dancer, or Ninja.
I do see the OP’s point but I like complexity. It has its downsides, one being that the gap between a great player and a bad player widens but it makes things interesting and fun.
On some classes, like my Holy Priest, I’ve got like 3 AoE healing abilites that are VERY similar to one another. And you have to use one first because it increases the value of others.
I know it’s so you can have a normal rotation and an AoE one, but in the olden days I feel like AoE rotations were much simpler.
Having more AoEs adds to the bloat.
I remember when Mages would just spam Arcane Explosion because that was most effective. Same deal with Hunters and Multi-shot, Paladins with Consecrate, Druids with Swipe and so on.
Now you’ve got your various cone abilities, floor-circle AoE, AoE talented abilities, and all AoEs doing less to more than 5 targets because it’d be overpowered otherwise…
I want to say it was simpler and easier before. So, not totally wrong, but it depends on the class.
Hunters as a whole aren’t overly complex, for example. They feel pretty normal to me, at least what a class and spec should feel like in terms of how many abilities, not too much bloat. Everything has a function and there isn’t too much overlap.
I really like the job system in FFXIV… its nice to be able to get the gear for other alt jobs while you level them and not have to do the game all over again from scratch however the amount of work that is needed on the backend and the coding for Blizzard to implement this is not really feasible (I dont know coding but thats how would I imagine).
The only solutions that might come close to it is make important systems and currencies (like Borrowed power systems, I dont want to grind them again on a new alt I’m sorry, I have done them once and I dont want to do something I have already done) account wide, reputations may vary, if the reputation is important to character progression than it should be account wide, if the reputation isn’t than it should be character specific.
Imagine saying warriors and druids w/ convoke is overcomplex
Tbh this is more a problem with SL and the Convoke ability (pure garbage) than Druids as a class. Druids have SO many abilities and a good Druid without Convoke will regularly use most of them and shift forms often.
It’s all resource generation now with a few talents and systems carrying each class. I’m in the unpopular opinion here, but the old class trees were so much better.
I mean MM hunters are basically carried by two skills, and I’m carried by resource generation to proc auto casted skills next to windfury.
It’s pretty simple now, only thing that’s grown in complexity are raids.
Inb4 current mythics were the same as heroic in previous xpacs.
