World of Warcraft: Current Year

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Caeden

Caeden

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Chris said:
Pandaria had a bad ending, raiding Orgrimmar WTF? Everything else was pretty good.
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I guess. I did not care one bit for the monkey people or the fish people. The saving grace was the one pandarian dude that hated all of us. Pretty zones. Really enjoyed the mountain one. I’m forgetting the names now.

class design was good too.

oh and throne of thunder was awesome along with that island. Didn’t realize that new island zone with dailies and rares would become the next 10 years of patch design though.
 
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Penance

Penance

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Caeden said:
I guess. I did not care one bit for the monkey people or the fish people. The saving grace was the one pandarian dude that hated all of us. Pretty zones. Really enjoyed the mountain one. I’m forgetting the names now.

class design was good too.
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I think Pandaria tilted a lot of people cause it was the first WOW expac that wasn't about Warcraft 1,2,3 or Vanilla lore. Well it was, but people felt it was more of a spin off then part of the main lore. However, the systems and combat were amazing. The raids started meh, but ended being some of the best (ToT and SoO could easilyi be placed in top 10, IMHO). And while pet battles are regarded as lame, even to this day, the fact they put a parallel progression system that doesn't tie in with anything you really HAVE to do in your main progression AND still is going to this day, speaks a lot to how much their design philosophy has changed.
 
Caeden

Caeden

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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12,772
Penance said:
I think Pandaria tilted a lot of people cause it was the first WOW expac that wasn't about Warcraft 1,2,3 or Vanilla lore. Well it was, but people felt it was more of a spin off then part of the main lore. However, the systems and combat were amazing. The raids started meh, but ended being some of the best (ToT and SoO could easilyi be placed in top 10, IMHO). And while pet battles are regarded as lame, even to this day, the fact they put a parallel progression system that doesn't tie in with anything you really HAVE to do in your main progression AND still is going to this day, speaks a lot to how much their design philosophy has changed.
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Yeah. I actually though the talent system changes were in Cata. That was just that massive pruning they did. The talents were great. Farm was kinda meh. Challenge modes were good. But yeah the initial raids were very meh.
 
Leadsalad

Leadsalad

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Neranja said:
You sound very butthurt. Why don't you show aunt Neranja on this puppet here where Blizzard touched you?

No one wants WoW vanilla back in retail. It was an unbalanced game, but at the same time it has an audience full of autists and "world buff speedrunners" that like it that way. Let them have it. I enjoyed TBC much more because they removed the hybrid tax and took a first shot at balancing things. No one really wants homogenization, but at the same time you don't want to get the feeling of being carried by your team because you only do sub-par damage in fights that suddenly all have hard enrage timers and dps checks.

The problem with WoW retail is different, because the retail version has almost completely removed the need for social interactions in the game, which made the game interesting for many players. LFR killed normal mode family&friends raiding, LFG killed keeping people you enjoyed playing with on friend lists to build long lasting social networks. There's nothing you really need in social interactions in the games, which was one of the points in making an MMO.

On the other hand retail game design devolved into "look what interesting stuff we built!" It's like the design team was bored because adding 10 levels, a new talent row and tier set bonuses per expansion isn't worth their time.
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I'd say that the tools have removed a chunk of interaction, sure, but the MMO market is also basically a dead animal. Nobody dedicates the time necessary to the game type anymore as there are nearly infinite alternatives on offer versus back in the EQ through early WoW days where there wasn't a lot of choice in your gaming.

Blizzard also really doesn't have any talent left in the game design section, just the art team is carrying WoW these days. But they also kind of forced the game down the homogenization hole due to the increasing difficulty in top end character progressing content requiring tighter tuning and the very best performance from whichever classes are brought.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

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MoP was my favorite expac because brewmaster tanks were gods. Self heals for 1M and ultra damage, good times
 
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a c i d.f l y

a c i d.f l y

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I logged into the Shadowlands beta, and you're immediately introduced to the Covenants, which aren't at all interesting to me. A "unique" non-combat related ability and a +gooder/spell enhancement. 3 traits (more gooderer) you unlock over time, and a secondary non-combat related perk. They also have it set up so you can create all of the legendary items, and select whatever trait(s) you want. It's basically a choose your adventure version of the legendaries from Legion. All of the traits are the same, essentially, though mostly toned down like BFA's.

It's another facade of choice. You're gonna be using the same two, whenever you can unlock wearing two pieces, that you did in Legion/BFA. With an extra layer of "crafting" and choosing the item that it goes on so you can change out if you get a better piece of gear for that slot. Is it as stupid as BFA gearing? Not really. Is it better? Not really that, either.

I... dunno. I spent over an hour reading the covenants, the abilities, traits, legendary abilities.

And logged out without ever going out into the world.

If they wanted to get serious, they would let you have all of the Covenants. All the abilities. I mean, why the fuck not. That sounds fun (WARNING: FUN DETECTED).

tenor (1).gif
 
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Araxen

Araxen

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It's been this way forever with this game. At least in EQ, they let some stuff stay like FD pulling.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

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They tried to make FD pulling more of a pain in the ass though, which forced us to exploit zone geometry to split mobs in some spots.
 
Neranja

Neranja

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Leadsalad said:
I'd say that the tools have removed a chunk of interaction, sure, but the MMO market is also basically a dead animal. Nobody dedicates the time necessary to the game type anymore as there are nearly infinite alternatives on offer versus back in the EQ through early WoW days where there wasn't a lot of choice in your gaming.
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If that was truly the case, then FFXIV wouldn't have taken off after their abysmal 1.0 launch. What is a stark contrast to WoW though, is that they don't force players into timegated grinds to keep players subscribed and keep those "daily user interaction" numbers up. Instead they have a short patch cycle, where you get a new piece of content every 3 months. This is far better then releasing a raid tier every 6 months and keep players hanging at the end of the expansion for 11 months with nothing new.
 
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Merrith

Merrith

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Neranja said:
If that was truly the case, then FFXIV wouldn't have taken off after their abysmal 1.0 launch. What is a stark contrast to WoW though, is that they don't force players into timegated grinds to keep players subscribed and keep those "daily user interaction" numbers up. Instead they have a short patch cycle, where you get a new piece of content every 3 months. This is far better then releasing a raid tier every 6 months and keep players hanging at the end of the expansion for 11 months with nothing new.
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I will say that despite the shorter content cycles, there is still a good amount of "lull time" for FFXIV between those patch cycles. They do have stuff that fills in for the X.X5 patches at times, but they absolutely will go through stretches of content lulls as well. Still love the game, and all the stuff there is to do, just depends how much you're engaged with the extras. Of course their guys have even stated they fully expect players to take breaks from playing during the lulls and play other games.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

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FF lull times are largely contingent on what you do. If you just raid, you’ll probably get tired between major patches. There is a good chunk of side content, like crafting, treasure maps, etc if you’re willing to delve into that
 
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sadris

sadris

Karen
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a c i d.f l y said:
I logged into the Shadowlands beta, and you're immediately introduced to the Covenants, which aren't at all interesting to me. A "unique" non-combat related ability and a +gooder/spell enhancement. 3 traits (more gooderer) you unlock over time, and a secondary non-combat related perk. They also have it set up so you can create all of the legendary items, and select whatever trait(s) you want. It's basically a choose your adventure version of the legendaries from Legion. All of the traits are the same, essentially, though mostly toned down like BFA's.
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Blizzard: The original talent tree system was the worst thing we ever designed.

Also blizzard: We have a new talent tree system in our next expansion.
 
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Chris

Chris

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sadris said:
Blizzard: The original talent tree system was the worst thing we ever designed.

Also blizzard: We have a new talent tree system in our next expansion.
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Never understood this.

People enjoyed the Diablo 2 and Vanilla WoW talent trees plenty.

If you feel like everyone makes the same choice, improve the choices. If you can't top the previous ultimate skills for your new expansion, make the tree wider or add a 4th tree.

No instead lets just make the tree really basic and no more "multiclassing" choosing things from different trees.
 
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Daidraco

Daidraco

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Chris said:
Never understood this.

People enjoyed the Diablo 2 and Vanilla WoW talent trees plenty.

If you feel like everyone makes the same choice, improve the choices. If you can't top the previous ultimate skills for your new expansion, make the tree wider or add a 4th tree.

No instead lets just make the tree really basic and no more "multiclassing" choosing things from different trees.
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I've often thought the same way about Talent Tree's. There have been so many abilities, traits, w/e that Ive seen over the life of WoW, much less other MMO's that were/are in talent tree's that were just bad. Terrible, even. I couldnt even wrap my head around how they could be used even in the most specific of situations and come out anywhere near as good as one of the other available options.

Sometimes, the adjustments that could be made to those abilities would be as simple as increasing the healing/damage/defensives of it. So I just relegated it to the devs "filling" the spot with something that obviously no one will choose to use, and it still ticks the mark that the class has the same amount of options to choose from as any other class.
 
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Chris

Chris

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Daidraco said:
I've often thought the same way about Talent Tree's. There have been so many abilities, traits, w/e that Ive seen over the life of WoW, much less other MMO's that were/are in talent tree's that were just bad. Terrible, even. I couldnt even wrap my head around how they could be used even in the most specific of situations and come out anywhere near as good as one of the other available options available.

Sometimes, the adjustments that could be made to those abilities would be as simple as increasing the healing/damage/defensives of it. So I just relegated it to the devs "filling" the spot with something that obviously no one will choose to use, and it still ticks the mark that the class has the same amount of options to choose from as any other class.
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Like in Vanilla WoW Rogues can choose between something like 5% Crit or 5% Dodge. Hmmm....

Make it be 5% Crit vs 10% Extra Crit Damage and now you got a choice.

Design a skill around being beneficial if you crit often with it (stacking armor penetration per crit) and beneficial if you crit big (next ability does extra damage scaling with how big the hit was). Now you got something to build your character around too.

Another issue is ability bloat, instead of introducing new abilities all the time and then needing to prune them, just add features to existing abilities.

They have really shit game systems designers at Blizzard.
 
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Neranja

Neranja

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Chris said:
They have really shit game systems designers at Blizzard.
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That's because there was only one guy that made all the talent trees and spells and class design back in vanilla WoW. He later told the story that he didn't have enough time to improve the paladin seals and hunter resource management, which is why hunters (last class to get introduced) got mana.

Another big problem in vanilla was that those class designs were not balanced together with the varying Itemization, and (what you can see now) buffs, especially world buffs. This is why some classes like warriors scale really well with gear and buffs, while others don't.

The whole game back then wasn't designed to be a competitive autistic neckbeard challenge, though. More of a "social get-together and get loot" game.
 
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