There is no retail or classic design. It is erroneously by people that want to describe elements of WoW’s game and class design they don’t like by calling them “Retail” or “Classic”. It is a dishonest way of arguing that fails to realize that every single expansions (even most patches) have changes in game, class and system design. None of these changes are “retail” or “classic”.
Agility is a stat that exists in Vanilla WoW and Dragonflight WoW. Does that make Agility “Retail”? So Vanilla is “Retail”? That’s a very simplistic and incorrect view of the design.
Again. Show me in the video where the person used the words Golden Era. JAB’s response was a link to dungeon finder which has existed since patch 3.3 in Wrath. Is wrath “retail”?
World of Warcraft has gone through an unfathomable amount of changes since November 2004.
Were changes introduced in Cataclysm? Yes undeniable so. Would they constitute a large departure from before? Not in the slightest. Many classes play almost exactly the same as they do in Wrath
Also “educate you so much” shows you to be a low disengenous smug troll. I thought you could have an honest conversion. I suppose not.
I did not say this. I say Cata does not feel like Vanilla-TBC-Wrath. I do not play Retail and have not done since BfA. I do not speak up about anything , where I have zero knowledge.
I care to thoroughly disagree. As a Hunter, I have now Focus, but no potions to replenish focus, neither any food that boosts it. I can have 5 pets, that I can call everywhere I like, I do not have any bullets anymore, I can run and shoot, and, and , and . No Cata does indeed not feel the same as the three previous expansions.
I’m repeating this everywhere but yes… too much GCD stacking (as warrior I can stack deadly calm with a damage trinket, colossus smash and heroic strike which is now an off gcd instant attack). In general it feels like rage is easier to come by and it’s constantly spiking up and down more, the combat gets more bursty in general. This was the case somewhat in very early Wrath and then again in S8 with access to strong PvE gear, but it feels more “floaty” in Cata and more deliberate in Wrath. If Wrath is closer to Dark Souls, Cata is closer to Assassin’s Creed.
They started this process in wrath, but it starts to get out of hand in Cata; trying to SOLVE for class weaknesses, ultimately hurting their niche. In wrath hunters get disengage, locks get port, OK, bit more mobility homogenization, not the end of the world… in Cata this gets expanded to interrupts across the board, and magic dispels for healers. More self-healing to some degree, move while casting to help with kiting etc.
I think mana management begins to become relaxed and matter a bit less in Cata, it also seems like armor starts to matter less and casters get a bit more tanky. I’m not sure why that happens (not a stat / theorycraft nerd - bad at that stuff) but it begins here for sure. I know from a warrior’s perspective the loss of “normal” damage and focus on centralizing everything around Colossus Smash (rather than just being able to get passive armor pen) is a big part of it.
From a Mages PoV the abilities work pretty much exactly the same save for the Combustion change.
The expansion’s over a decade old…
I played through Vanilla to WotLK and you’re right similar gameplay and now in Cataclysm the gameplay is pretty much the same. Not much has changed for Mages, maybe it’s completely different for other classes but again, the only change that has any gameplay change to Mage is Combustion being a DoT. The biggest general gameplay difference for me is flying in EK and KD.
Even Balance Druid is pretty much the same so I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Why do you have to make so black and white? Either you think my way or you’re a shill.
Cata absolutely feels like Wrath. It does not feel like TBC, and feels even less like Vanilla. Each of these three are very distinct, and to say otherwise is disingenuous.
A mostly visual change that is only slightly different than swapping to and from Viper.
Not yet you can’t, this hasn’t been implemented yet.
Arbitrary difference, if you weren’t running around with so many bullets as to make them negligible, you were a terrible Hunter.
I don’t plan to post this on multiple threads but feel like saying it once.
Now the caveat is that I haven’t played Wrath for a year so there were some changes to make the game more “like retail” in that time.
Over the last year I’ve played Era/Hardcore and some Retail. To be fair my Retail play has mostly consisted of messing around farming transmogs to sell on the AH and things like that, with a bit of leveling too, but the leveling is too fast to notice that.
I do think there are differences between Cata and Retail but the vibe was the same to me.
One of the big things for me (and most don’t seem to care) is that one of the things that I remember in Cata was the comradery of leveling a guild. The Cata guild stuff IS nearly a carbon copy of the new Retail one on every level. So without that “unique” and to me fun part of Cata, I don’t see the point in bothering with the game,
I did the raids and dungeons the first time and don’t feel like playing round two. For those who are coming back for that sure this isn’t Retail and another big thing is raiding being the end game of Cata and M+ dungeons as end game being prevalent in Retail. So I’m not saying there are no differences, but to me what Cata is right now does feel very much like Retail - and I have played Retail recently. I think if Cata was released as it was back in the day it wouldn’t “feel like” Retail so much to me.
I do think that Cata should exist for those who want it.
But not being able to chug a focus potion changes the feel of the gameplay … Having a pet from level one - and not feeding the pet changes the gameplay, as it changes managing of bag space, not having arrows/bullets does the same. Not being forced to stop hen shooting changes gameplay.
For other classes other things changes gameplay,
For Paladins Holy power charges changed gameplay.
Maybe it’s not the case for Rogues, can’t say, never played one, but for all the classes I played back in December '10, Cata changed gameplay.
You’re objectively wrong here. So many thing in Cata changes gameplay.
You’re free to say that changes were to the better, I disagree, but no changes? no way!
It’s a cool d&d style element, the solution was to make ammo more interesting by adding more unique types (frost ammo, poison ammo, bleed etc.), then integrate that into the crafting system to bolster player engagement in the economy.
Ammo is definitely a cool idea, no arguments there.
But it’s been poorly implemented from the very beginning of Vanilla, so removing a mechanic they’ve tried and failed multiple times to make interesting is only sensible.