IMO the main issue is that each content is handled as its own game. It has the same look, skin and thematic as WoW but mechanic-wise each major content patch is a soft reseted season that have NOTHING to do with the rest of the expension or world. Each content should expand the universe, add something to the game, but instead WoW feels like a really long time ago the same way as I once in a year go check up on my kongregate account to see whats new. I can play each new minigame that add points to my account, but it has nothing to do with the other games... Which is intented. But WoW should be else... it is considered as an mmorpg. But even the market is soft reseted by each patch. And since literally everything is soulbound and 1 character can add buffs to the whole SERVER... well... I dont say we should have a second life inside WoW but somehow we should have. I would rather feed a digital city and trying to be the best merchant of the server than the forced way is to grind azerite with 13 characters, because "that is the way" of playing wow. So many time an expension is like: "wow! A new race... again... cool! How will that benefit my Demo warlock? -_-"
@@Sam-id5zz Not sure if a so called "wow2" would solve the problem.What would a new engine able to do what they arent capable of now? Maybe a trajectory based 3D action based combat? The issue is still the way the minigames are disconnected from each other. We have a MASSIVE... dead and empty world. The game always happens on 2-3 map out of the 200? Classes needs to be rebalanced in each patch thanks to the reworked ilvl and rng dmg boosts. Leveling is quick, yet still time gated. The game could be easily turned into a "chose your champion" screen, pick a class-spec combo and just start running to instances like an old school beat m up game. It was a "troll topic" on forums but would actually make sense if the stats would just scale with Ilvl same as pvp. Since we have 4 stats, each item have 1of 1x of stat A and 1.5x of statB. And if you even try to diviate from the one that devs visioned, you either underperform, or your class is nerfed.
They had the perfect chance to revert back to the old talent system, add in tier sets and reduce the amount of item lvl bloat with SL! cant understand ppl who are saying the lvl bloat is reduced, the first tier alone has 30 ilvl difference, if they carry that on fo reach raid tier!! They removed talent points cos they thought it was too complicated, well thats funny as hell now in hindsight.
The problem is very easy to spot: WoW has too many layers. WoW has systems that are too complex. Systems upon systems, with new teporary systems introduced each xpac and the task of balancing old systems and squishing their stuff into the permanent systems. Too many options, e.g. raid difficulties requiring these huge ilvl jumps. Too many systems rewarding gear, making gearing up really confusing (at least for me, who prefers the linear path Classic to LK provided). Also, WoW has too much RNG in its gameplay. Item drop chance + titanforge + corruption + socket + teritiary stats. Note that each time you add a layer, the chance of getting the perect item decreases exponentially. Add in tons and tons of procs, procs based off other procs (looking at you, Fire mage) which can lead to greatly different results in DPS. Luck seems to impact your gaming experience way more than skill does. Legacy systems like the garrison, class hall, artifacts, old reps and old raids are completely irrelevant and - if it weren't for nostalgia and achievement hunting - could as well be removed without altering your progression one single bit. It's a race to the previous xpac's maximum level to then quickly go up 10 levels and be rewarded... nothing, besides unlocking too many layers. Plus, the legacy content is so squished that there is basically no power gain e.g. between 50 and 60. I can always run around soloing 4+ mobs while leveling my mage for example, and with scaling the content becomes neither more difficult nor easier.
As Psyren pointed out, they've cut away a lot of the RNG bullshit. I'm not 100% sure about the tertiary stats being gone or not, but those rarely amounted to much other than "nice to have". Their design goal for Shadowlands is less but better loot. It's also why they've removed the coin which let you reroll on a boss. Otherwise I really can't agree about the idea of removing old systems, there's no point in doing that.
@@Akeche I know about the old system, and I'm glad they're leaving most, if not all of it in. For loot, I wish they do away with any RNG stuff and random stat rolls, just like your Best in slot item drops - that's it for this raid tier and armor slot. Slap on some enchant and gems on and done, like it is in Classic. I'm also glad that they're squishing the levels from 120 to 60. With 120 levels and the current character progress, you sometimes go 3, 4 or even more levels without gaining any ability, passive, talent et cetera. You're rewarded with nothing which makes the point of that levelup obsolete.
Removal of hit, expertise (weapon skill), penetration, resistances, scaling mana and *nuanced* talent tree's means that every item in modern WoW has only one feature: throughput. Either it makes you do more DPS/Healing or is doesn't. It doesn't matter what name you give the system that increases throughput, in the end it's just another variable in a DPS simulator. The concept of your character being stronger due to being able to fight longer (casters gaining mana and mana regen), living longer (resistances, armor and stamina) or gaining enough benefit from gear that you can change talents (dropping hit% late in an expansion) no longer exist. Blizzard did this to simplify the game, but ended up simply making it possible to quantify the game. Now we rely on tools to tell us how and what to play in order to be optimal. And people who don't do that are shunned faster than those with a bad WOTLK gearscore. At the end of the day there is less choice in WoW now in terms of customizing your character. Other than the choice to just play another class.
Actually, a lot of that still happens even before they removed those stats from the game. Why? Because blizzard has not only made specs segregated from on another for the most part but they also kept in the outdated concept of tank healing and dps in the game.
I really hate the massive power jumps every patch. I played BFA when it came out and got my character pretty strong. Took a break cuz I wasn't enjoying bfa...came back later and I'm more obsolete than an AOL trial disc
Remember that Dark Legacy Comic where Keydar pokes a mob with his sword and it just gets swallowed up in procs and his damage meter tells him that only 4.4% of the damage dealt was from him and not from some kind of proc? (It's number 716.) That comic explains why the current system seems antithetical to meaningful personal player progression.
The solution to increasing ilvl is rather simple in my opinion.. Lets say that the first raid has 4 ilvl "steps". You would get ilvl1 for LFR, ilvl2 for normal, ilvl3 for hc and ilvl4 for mythic (you can even add one more layer to it and have last x bosses in a raid drop items of an ilvl increased by 1) But when the next content patch hits, dont just give the LFR items ilvl of 5... Make it LFR = 2, normal = 3, hc = 4, mythic = 5.. Then the next one LFR=3 etc.. This way the difference in ilvl is much smaller and you can keep the older content beneficial for all players (except the ones clearing mythic).. For example I can be a casual player who can only clear normal in curent tier, but I can get upgrades also from previous tier HC or mythic... Or maybe I can only kill a few bosses in the older tiers so I farm those...
2:25 This made me chuckle cuz I've been literally attaching BWL into binding runs every second raid day for a month now and hoping that cursed Garr binding would finally drop after 6 months lol.
same. our gildlead played pserver and has a combined run count of over 80 and is still missing the garr binding. now we have 4 player in our raid which have geddon but no garr. *sad noise*
I'm in Beta and the only temp power that really makes sense are the Legendaries (a few broken ones aside). You pick the ones you want and you can build them at your own pace with a cap per week on how much Soul Ash you can get, so someone playing 24/7 won't get a lead over a "regular"player. Many of them tweak the way you play your spec in interesting ways that aren't game breaking, and I think they'll do fine to differentiate between other players who play the same class + spec combos. Conduits are just passives and are boring, Soulbinds are just passives and a few fluff abilities and the Covenant abilities themselves are broken/useless for half the specs in the game in some content.
After MoP,for some obscure fucking reason,the higherups at blizzard,decided to drastically down size the class balance team,which would explain the switch to borrowed power, back then,every spec had its own dev,while now i assume they went with borrowed power because they dont have the manpower to do it the old way
Retail is making them also good money so they know whatever they put out good or bad systems players going to just complain but still continue to play. They need real competetor in mmorpg.
Agreed and yet balance druid is the complete reverse - breaking what's fun about it now by going back to a broken Eclipse system which mirrors all problems shadowpriest had with void form It's nothing new, though. I still remember when Symbiosis was coming out, I knew it'd only last an expansion because it 100% ran counter to stuff they were stripping out of other classes due to "lessons learned".
One of the things that I absolutely detest about the current stat system on gear is that it's simply 2 primary stats, and 2 secondary stats. Not only that, but your choices are so narrow. No matter what you pick up, it's essentially all the same. How frustratingly boring. The earlier versions of the game were so so much better in that every item had it's own stats, and these were sometimes imbalanced to differentiate them and provide more gearing choice. It's so much more rewarding to acquire and piece together different items to suit your own playstyle.
Simplicity is key to perfection when it comes to anything, especially games. For me after Cata, things became really complex not to mention BFA and Shadowlands looking like a recipe for nightmares.
My reaction too lol. Fucking Esfand is running around with Thunderfury for gods sake. Legendary items were never actually anything special, we were just lazy and dumb kids.
@@Akeche not really. The amount of guilds who did clear even MC in actual Vanilla was 0.1% of what's going on now. Players were shit, making the content hard and legendaries hardly ever seen.
On Pserver, (excalubur)it wasn't a question of "is this pug going to finish it", but more a question of "is this one of the bad pugs, where we won't do it in the time limit?". I once actually had 4 people leave because 2 people died on eagle boss, so they left with a "this raid sucks".
I'd say ZA was definitely a catch up raid, it was a T5 raid but had alot of bis items along with item same level as T6. As a druidhealer the healing mace from last boss was bis all the way up to KJ in sunwell because of its haste for example, even tho some prefered to use the illidan mace. But it was at the same time pretty hard as you say, alot of things you could mess up on, bombs on the birdboss etc.
@@haldir108 I also played on excalibur, and since ZA was reseted every 3 day many people had no problems leaving if something went wrong, since they could do it soon again unfortunately.
Jimmy Andersson yeah it is not really a catchup raid if the difficulity is really high. Catchup raids are supposed to be easy so people can catch up on loot if they did not do previous raids
@@Bugge5001 Well even if so, ZA does help ppl catch up very much, you can clear it with T4 gear with some struggle and you will get items which many are T6 level. That is catching up in my book, but I get your point. I think why ZA is great tool for catching up also is the fact that its a 10 man raid, takes 1 hour to complete, its very easy to get a group for, no attunement quest chain needed, and you have a high chance get the item you need once it drops since you dont have many to roll against, compared to the 25 mans.
Some of this probably comes down to the game being 16 years old... they got to a spot they liked with class design in Legion, so they've kept it basically the same since. But they can't just release a new expansion with your character basically not changing at all, so they have to add some other system, that doesn't affect the classes themselves, the leveling experience, how the classes will work in the NEXT expansion, etc. Player interest would no doubt be a lot lower if the game just played the same way from one expansion to the next, even if they added new zones and raids.
I mean they can't rework everything now, they've spent millions of dollars and hundreds of hours developing those systems and the content that surrounds them. It's too late.
@Duck Sauce Blizz were already making shady decisions in terms of gameplay and marketing before they were acquired; go look it up. Not as black and white as you want to believe, unfortunately.
I definitly agree with all that's said here. The growing complexity of these systems, stacked on eachother, just completly destroys my interest in playing Shadowlands. I know the art work for the new areas will be beautiful and amazing to see, but the game itself fails in keeping me attached to it for more than a month. However, it does seem there are plenty of people who find these systems interesting or at least Blizzard keeps thinking they're doing the right thing in coming up with new systems each new expansion, as much as it boggles me. But me? I'm just loving my classic experience and really hyped for TBC!
Content > Systems. There are areas in retail that work better, and areas in classic that work better. We need some overhauls on the game. First things first we need a more linear raid system, like you mentioned, the power from end raid LFR being better than the first raid tear is awful. Being able to complete one raid and it still be useful is the best way to go about things, makes more content more accessible for more reward so if a low geared player wants to run the first raid, they can still do it and have high end players running the bigger raids still have opportunity to get reward from it, Classic does a great job at this. At the same time I believe the justice and valor point system should make a return, Keep the good gear for Heroic and Mythic, yet let something be available for the people stomping on dungeons and M+ (maybe even add them as WQ awards) to have these systems help set achievable rewards in place, the RNG Farm isnt fun outside of M+ and Raiding, having a system to replace the crappy bracers you've had for months is great, yet it still wont be heroic/mythic raid powerful to where you can farm WQ and Heroic Dungeons for them. It's an easy system that lets people gear and doesnt let these crazy systems take over.
@@zippanto PVP Vendors with honor and conquest with a PVP stat was always the best way to do it, Linear and powerful progression. I still keep my full conquest arena set from MoP mogged to my warrior to this day.
WillE - I suspect that every new expansion now will be 50-60, and every old one will just be added to Chromie Time as a new 1-50 leveling path. This will basically solve ilvl bloat permanently, and also make comparing class power between expansions easy. I do agree with you that temporary power should be a smaller percentage of our output than our ability to play our class is. One of the worst parts of BFA for me was Corruption, and the fact that it could account for 50% or more of a characters dps. It's the complete antithesis of an RPG.
Not sure if it solves the problem. If you stay basically at the same level and the item level of your equip stays also around the same numbers you aren't getting stronger and every follow expansion you deal the same amout of damage. So you never have the feeling to become stronger. That is also a problem with the variable level of the mobs. They keep to level with you, so every time you outlevel them and become better, they follow and you are on the same power level again. I mean there was a blizzcon or some other pesentation for the first item squish, where they considered to let the equip forever on the same level, but they didn't do it because it feels awefull for the player who never gets really stronger. So yea, the older the game gets, the more this itemization is a problem + the WoW engine is not good in dealing with numbers in the millions. They have to squish the item from time to time or they can stay around the same power level forever, both options are not ideal. I for myselfe like the squish more then staying at a power level, but other player may like the other system more.
It's hilarious that they do all this hard work when they can just make an amazing expansion with a ton of content instead of accruing all their resources to balance of a complicated but overwhelmingly boring and nearly invisible system that no one wants. All that work is literally for nothing.
For any other WoW Classic players who glazed over at the WotLK ilvl talk - 30 item levels is more than the gap between dungeon blues and naxx loot. Scarlet Kris to Kingsfall is 26 ilvls.
Nailed it. Class design is being sacrificed so they can plunge resources into systems that historically have been problematic at best. A refocus on class identity, flavour and abilities, along with an emphasis on actual content over world quests and quota filling would do wonders for this game.
After MoP,for some obscure fucking reason,the higherups at blizzard,decided to drastically down size the class balance team,which would explain the switch to borrowed power, back then,every spec had its own dev,while now i assume they went with borrowed power because they dont have the manpower to do it the old way Quota filling and WQ are entirely optional in Shadowlands,the only things tied to player power are 2 quests per week and one run of the big tower
The jump to one "talent tree" was the easiest, most boring way bliz could've done the fix to the essay like talent trees. But i feel personally that a big part was lost right there. The feeling of control over your choices. Funneling into homogenised gameplay started to get real obvious there. The flavor of vanilla and tbc druid for example was completely gone.
We all know it was the illusion of choice,everyone just picked cookie cutter,we are able to pick any build we want NOW,because we're million times more experienced than the dunces in 2004,and even then most people still pick cookie cuttet
One obvious problem with ilvl inflation just seems to be the number of raids tho... do we really need 4 tiers of every raid? LFR and Mythic obviously have their own niche, but it seems to me you could easily merge Normal and Heroic modes?
im still a fresh sub to your channel and man.. i have watched a ton of your videos i lovem this video speaks volumes... i felt i was getting old or something b/c they changed and dont seem to want to change anymore. anyway this hits the nail on the head imo.
Wille, have you ever watched any of Egoraptor's Sequelitis? If you haven't it's a suggestion to watch it, because it talks about some of the issues game developers have when transition betwen one generation to another of the same game. When a game tries to bring "new stuff" to an already created game that is loved and "feels good playing" without actually nailing the core of how does that change actually change the game. It's interesting that you put in perspective the same questions to each expansion and then compare the additions/changes to the core mechanics of the game. I reflected a bit about it after watching your video, but it's pretty simple: When I played for the first time WoW it was basically me experiencing the game through the "eyes" of my Warlock. I didn't clear dungeons or raids, completed quests or grinded reputation to "save Azeroth" or for the game to treat me like "Champion", no...I did those things because it was fun doing so. Theme is a strong part of evolving and growing stronger, but in a game like WoW it should always bring back to the common denominator of the game which is: Your Character. If there isn't a sense of attachment and growth to your character it quickly becomes just a number, just a dungeon, just a raid, just a piece of gear, and no matter how many systems are there to make your character feel powerful and strong (and no matter how strong) it just doesn't mean anything, because it doesn't feel like adding to a theme that the player enjoys (which is growing your character). So many people enjoy Classic WoW because of the vast amount of ways you can develop and grow your character, even with the super outdated mechanic of super long and tedious grinds, slow and rare sources of gear, it all adds to the same theme. But if the game keeps on clinging on to old systems (leveling, dugeons/heroics, professions and raids as they were) in conflict with the new systems they add ("artifact power", azerite gear, corruption, etc) without really asking themselves "how does this change the game?" and properly working on these changes, then we are just fucked because we all love this game and we want it to be good...and it just never will like this.
You should do a video going over all of the number squishes. I'd love to see a graph of the average health pools jumping all over the place through expansions and patches
I actually LIKED azerite traits over tier sets. I hated however how they were tied to the heart level so you could get a new piece of gear and not use it all. They felt like a decent replacement for set bonuses from tier sets. Yes, some tier sets bonuses were rotational changes. However a lot were also just stat buffs. Here were some from my main (shaman) Increase damage from shocks by 25% Increase damage from stormstrike by 30% Lightning shield deals 5% more damage Increase lava lash damage by 15% There were some awesome ones. Like when ever feral spirit was active, we would turn into wolves too and our wolves could proc our weapon imbues. Or when ever we used unleashed elements we would proc our weapon imbues (great rotation changer there to force a windfury strike). Azerite traits felt the same. There were some generic ones, some decent ones, and some rotational changers. I just wish they weren't tied to to the heart at all.
if you made power gains extremely small it would help this issue. People might argue well no one will raid or push Mythics etc etc. I point you towards Eve were the hardcore player base will devote nearly endless resources for advantages in the 0.1 - 0.5% range. It really doesn't matter how small the power increase is from max level to raid to end raid. So long as there is SOME kind of increase that is all players will care about at the end of the day. Also to look cool.
12:14 When I saw these numbers I went from happy to concerned to rational. I think the jumps will naturally be higher than before because we now have 4 raid modes instead of 2. But still, Blizz have to rethink the way they use numbers. Why squish anything if they will still push us over 100k every time? Why are they so obsessed with big numbers getting out of hand? 😄
You forgot about one that almost would have completely changed the game. In phase 1, paladins who had the Reckoning talent would get reckoningstacks from players who got crit while affected by Blessing of Sacrifice. This would have allowed tanks to pull all the whelps in onyxia and use a /sitmacro spam. All paladins could then have cast BoS on the sitmacro spamming tank and probably oneshot Onyxia.
I know this video isn't about ''character power'' in terms of lore but I can't wait for my legendary hero who has defeated countless almost god like entities over the years to be killed by a fucking seagull,crab or group of murlocs this expansion.
They need to define a power gap with mythic raiding, eg start @ 200IL and finish @ 240IL for the expansion. Delete a raid level diffculty or two and then keep all other content 15 IL lower than mythic. This would reward higher skilled players and allow the casuals to continue playing the game for whatever reason they like. and they need to plan to keep ATLEAST 2 teirs of raid content relevant at a time. THAT is what classic did best.
Depends on the spec you were playing, really. If, say, MM hunters are your favorite spec and they were bad in MoP, you wouldn't really remember it that fondly.
Really enjoy your videos. Glad to see your commentary on Retail. I am curious, what would your idea expansion look like from a player power perspective? Would a Retail expansion that returned to some version of linear raid progression, power through gear/talents/professions, and lower jumps in power between raid tiers, with minimal or no tempory power gain systems even be palatable in modern WoW?
Also imagine this: Because of all the artifact power we gained, we got in tune with our artifact and absorbed its active ability and a passive. Because of all the azerite we were soaked in, we absorbed some of the planets essence and can use it to replicate some of the azerite effects- which then become a new talent row and you can pick from 1 of 3 sets that include 2 major and 1 minor power each. Its almost like.....progressive strength gain. Like you would want in a game where you represent a character in a growing world.... Sorry I have so many comments on this video I'm just very irritated by this topic and how its taking so long to figure out. But hey, get you some metrics, WillE.
Funnily enough most of the artifact abilities were given back baseline or as talents,and a good bunch of azerite traits were made baseline,a talent,or even a legendary effect in Shadowlands Sure not everyone got both, but they did exactly as you said
they did something that is in the most reductive form possible in the same ballpark as what I said in the regard of those things existing, sure. Its all the same except for: Without any choice or depth out of the things we had, without doing so uniformly to make uniform power gains and seem like our classes are growing, and by giving many classes the option to take it- as a talent. Replacing something they previously had. Overall a net loss of power because instead of X talent + artifact/azerite trait you're left with "Item i have to take to fill in that hole" They re-designed the classes around the artifact weapons. When they went away, some of the stuff stopped working so they had to give it back somehow. If someone steals your shoes and you go buy another pair, you arent really gaining anything. You just once again have shoes. And you've lost money. Leaving this expansion some of those azerite traits were stopgaps to make the loss of artifacts not feel so terrible. Those will now be baselined. So instead of for example, when leaving BFA saying "our classes were at power level 105 at the start of BFA and now we'll be at 110" its 'Our classes were at 105 at the start of BFA and we had to patch some people up to get to 105...and now we're all 105. Maybe. Or we've slid back to 100. Same as we have been doing for 3 expansions" "If they dont have this they will be completely broken" =/= "choice of how to build and empower your character." WillE made the point for me- has your toolkit changed since WoD? Unless you're a reworked class, almost certainly not.
Liked the video, tho it missed out on wotlk hardmode for sarth, which is Sarth 3d and 10/25 versions of the same raids with different ilvl loot. think its mentionable since it first occured there
Yeah its really annoying that they refuse to do anything about dead talents. Or mandatory ones, Breath has been the go to build for frost without corruption for 4ish years now and its ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that yeah they never balance the classes well enough so it is always the same ones at the bottom or the top. Unless they overtune or have an unintended effect with the temporary power like DH.
After MoP,for some obscure fucking reason,the higherups at blizzard,decided to drastically down size the class balance team,which would explain the switch to borrowed power, back then,every spec had its own dev,while now i assume they went with borrowed power because they dont have the manpower to do it the old way
And it all comes down to having 4 different difficulties. There is no way to not have gear inflation when you have so many, there HAS to be a HUGE difference between someone who's fully LFR geared and someone who's fully mythic geared, else there's no point in it.
i know this isn't borrowed power related which is what the video was definitely focusing on, but i have mixed feelings about how classes are done. i was a huge fan of the old talent system and the new talent system is just stupid to me. everyone says the new talent system has real choice and i just don't see it. you still have the same cookie cutter and what you said about the classes mostly not changing in the last 2-3 expansions feels true to me too. that's where i'm on the fence though. i hate it when a class/spec i love gets changed into one i hate. ever since they removed the defensive stats i haven't wanted to tank at all. i've been tanking in shadowlands but it's quickly getting old due to the whole kiting meta thing. tanks to me haven't felt like tanks in forever. at the same time though, they need to make changes and one thing i wish they would do is follow through on the selling point of this new talent system and offer real choice. demon hunters had 2 viable talent spec options in legion, you could go demonic or you could go nemesis and both worked well. since the end of legion, it's been demonic only which severely limits the choices of the rest of the talents as you're going to want to take w/e will boost the eyebeam. they need to at least rework the talents so that the difference between the best and worst in a spec is 1-2% tops. that would be close enough that your average player can take what they want and not give a shit.
Not a wow player. Most hours in a game: Guild Wars 1. I'm all for number squishing. You make me consider playing Wow on a Blizzard server for the first time! In GW1, top level was 20 and reachable real fast in the expansions. Because the levels and hitpoints were so consistent, whenever you saw a damage number, you immediately knew whether it's a lot or not and what's happening. Everybody had 500-700 hp, elementalists nuke you for up to 140, you get meleed for ~40 a lot, deep wound shaves off 100, bleed and poison take 6 and 8 hp/s etc. Understanding the numbers without thinking about them is a great quality of life improvement.
WillE spitting some truth. I think I'll stick to Classic until we're atleast a few weeks/months into launch of Shadowlands. I just dont trust Blizzard to make a game(expansion) that is fun and functional the way it used to be anymore. In Vanilla&TBC i feel free to express myself via my character the way i envision it. In the later patches you either follow what's meta, even within the even smaller pool of choices, or you aren't allowed to join anything. But who knows, maybe they'll prove me wrong! That'd be cool.
These massive power increases are a way to for blizzard to balance the content so is challenging for the world first guilds and then achievable for the thousands of other guild with this extra borrowed power. The problem is that’s not how it really works out.
While Azerite Armor and Corruptions were awful, I actually really like the basic idea of the Essense system. It was easy to understand, not reliant on RNG, the actives and most passives were tangible (not this "change to proc something" crap) and getting and upgrading the powers was straightforward. It was not perfect, mostly because it was rushed after the failure of Azerite Armor, but the idea would have produced a really satisfying gameplay loop for BFA. While it was "one size fits all", there were so many essences that you could choose which 3 compliment your class / spec well. Of course it SHOULD HAVE been semi-account wide the way it eventually became at the very end, where getting the same essences with your alts became easier. On the other hand, Azerite and corruptions were such trash systems. After getting each piece of gear you basically had to re-think your entire setup because of overlaps, the total corruption level, some abilities stacking, some not, and they were almost all really ezoteric random procs that were impossible to compare without looking up online what is the best. So you had to keep a bunch of gear pieces because you may need a previous shoulder if you get a new headpiece... and all of this was RNG-based, you couldn't target specific Azerite and corruption powers until much later, and given how strong they were number-wise... yeah. What a disaster.
Honestly I think the idea of specialisations is kinda wonk to begin with. Like why does the druid have 4 specs instead of 2 (flora and fauna, for instance). Hunters also have this problem. I like the idea of a melee hunter, just not one that focuses on traps for that. It's because in vanilla it was based around it's range and ammunition mechanics that the hunter was build, but should've been 2 classes. Beast master and archer/ranger. Bringing the power back to classes (not specs directly, that should be more of a flavour thing imo) is definatly the way to go forward. Like why couldn't the hunter just 'make' his ammo or use the poison from his pet to augment it. Long story short I have had some time to think about ideas but most fall unto this: Vanilla wasn't 'complete' enough to build upon. The stat's for instance are too singular in their uses (Int is pure magic). I also think debuffs and the like could be a bit more like Monster Hunter, where instead of applying the debuff instantly, you build it up against the boss and allow it to stack up. This could've solved the debuff issue as instead debuff being their own thing, they act as inflicters/enhancers for a singular (if it falls in the same category (DoT's stack with DoT''s but not stat reducers for istance) debuff. This can also make your groups coordinate more on the debuff front depending on your setup.
Great video, if you really think about it most of the content in previous expansions is now worthless, which is by the way a very self created problem by Blizzard. Especially with the borrow power that requires so much work and tuning and gets thrown in the bin as you said by the next expansion.
After MoP,for some obscure fucking reason,the higherups at blizzard,decided to drastically down size the class balance team,which would explain the switch to borrowed power, back then,every spec had its own dev,while now i assume they went with borrowed power because they dont have the manpower to do it the old way
***This is the video that all the blizzard devs need to be locked in a room for 48 hours with playing on repeat. Seriously serious. Imagine ruining possibly the greatest MMO in history via willful ignorance.***
I'm a casual who plays a lot. I know the systems inside and out, but I am bad at execution. I am down for whatever shitshow this ends up being, I'll mostly run guildies through low keys to get started gearing, and farming mats and crafting stuff, the stuff I do now. As long as Holy Priest can heal an m0, Destruction Warlock can DPS an m0, and Blood Death Knight can tank an m0, I'm fine on that front. Having 4 different stories to dig into sounds really nice. And with the new alt friendliness I can build a full stable of crafters. In BFA I never successfully completed a key higher than 5 in time, and I don't care. I realize I'm in the minority opinion on this, and I worry for the game as a whole, and especially the power minded people. I am perfectly amenable to a delay in release date to hammer some these issues out. But for me on a purely personal level I'm unreservedly hyped.
I tell you,the minmaxers are blowing the covenant problem WAAAAYY out of scope,i am on the beta,every spec can do everything perfectly well, what covenant you picked only Really matters in mythic raiding and m+20, Anything else is just pointless peer pressure,believe mr
Yeah, I also find it annoying that they keep rehashing the glyph system into the artefact system, azerite system etc and keep pretending it's something new..... how dumb do they think we are? 😂
Disagreed when you said that WotLK ruled out dungeons since emblems were also acquired through them, especially when doing heroic dungeons and you would be able to get pretty good gear from those emblems that were on par to some of the items you got through raiding
Yeah I'm not sure if he misspoke, or doesn't remember tbh. That said wotlk kept dungeons relevant for the majority of the expac, as they should be. It used to be an amazing feeling hitting lvl cap on an alt to be able to get straight into dungeons for raid lvl gear(from emblems), and then be into raids within the next week or so on a competitive lvl of others, especially if you were actually good at the game. Nothing will ever beat woltk game design, no matter what anyone could complain about from that era.
You'll be happy to know that they have been nerfing covenant power a lot since alpha, so they won't have as big of an affect on your character as people originally thought
Its odd to me that Blizzard keeps trying to get more complicated with their gearing systems... RNG and reforging and on and on. Meanwhile FFXIV has shown that you can have 1 set of gear for every class to work towards and have it obsolete every 1 or 2 patches and everyone will keep playing like that. I have been saying since Cata release that Blizzard loves to change things just to say they did... Every expansion they have had to rewrite Stat code instead of picking a system and sticking with it.
Heroic dungeons in Cataclysm were not more difficult than they had ever been. Cataclysm heroics were quite easy compared to TBC heroics. The only reason that misconception exists is that Wrath brought in a ton of new players who complained really loudly about the difficulty levels compared to easy mode Wrath heroics.
I really don´t understand why the ilvl differences have to be that high within a tier and between tiers. The numbers shown could be easy lfr = 190 / normal = 200 / heroic 210 and mythic 220 (with no ilvl spikes for the las bosses. Then the next tier should be lfr = 200 / normal = 210 / heroic = 220 and mythic = 230. That should reduce the infaltion by a whole lot. (also getting rid of at least 1 difficulty should help and save 10 ilvl.) And yes i know stuff like trinkets an sets aren´t balanced as easy with just numbers. But people will always run older raids for that one trinket thats still good. So it won´t go away anyway. Ashvane trinket anyonne?
@Nuclear Confusion Well it doesn´t work. At least not for me. I get the items i get and are done with it. I can understand that many players want to min-max their character even in content where it is definetly not needed, but imo there is a point where it becomes ridiculous. Farming a trinket from 2 years ago is such a case. Anyway i think reducing the ILVL gaps inside and between tiers would go a long way. (although i think that the overreliance on borrowed power is a bigger issue).
That quote about "Not equipped to provide a solution" is bullshit. At least in our situation. Blizzard just wont listen. Let me give you an example: Azerite armor? Supposed to replace tier sets, talent row, artifact weapons and be a new source of effects past that. What we got fell far short of just the artifacts but what if we added a third row of rings a few more traits, took the ones we have up in power a little bit to be more meaningful. Give them gameplay effecting things like reduced costs, regeneration, longer effects, shortened cooldowns, buffs you can activate by playing correctly (Lord of War, anyone?) Now, by stacking 2 of them you get a "set bonus" type effect upgrading the trait, logically this would be great anyway since so many traits had a "One stack only" effect on them. By stacking 3 you get a legendary effect from legion or a new one. Suddenly there is choice to be made. Based on your setup you also get a "set bonus" determined by what you're empowering. If you stack 6 of a certain variety you get a free talent from one of the rows much like the legion rings. This makes opportunity cost a real thing. Do I want 3 legendary effects at the expense of 3 smaller quality of life choices, like a reduction of resource cost, cooldowns or lengthened windows? Is that one talent worth it to my gameplay to have to dance around all these other windows many players are not? What do I want for certain situations, or is a universal build better because of the variety included in most(Non-raiding, I know you guys want to use a specific set for the specific encounter) fights? Now all this is just spitballing but imagine that. It took me all of two minutes to imagine this when I first did. IF they started iterating immediately on systems for the next xpac right after a new one dropped with a closed group of testers under NDA it would be possible. There are players such as Preach for example that would have fairness and balance in mind while also having mechanics that are fun at the forefront. Let player feedback and developer time work together. Imagine having 2 years to develop a great system? Instead we get a rushed alpha/beta where nothing related to player power is put in until the very end. Questing and story content is the very last thing that we need, mechanics need to be upfront. Imagine all the hours and headaches it would save to have playtesters actively telling you what works and doesnt instead of chasing red herrings to throw it away after dozens of work hours of adjusting systems to fit that, and how much of a quality jump could go into other areas of the game that devs who are stuck doing something they clearly cant do would be able to accomplish working on an area of the game they can make a difference in. I do think there's a leadership issue- the right people and the right resources arent being allocated to fix the problems that are currently plaguing a lot of the game. Blizzard is insane. They let go of 800 people to save money. Yet they have good, fair players who would design parts of the game for them if they would let them. Imagine going to an architech and saying "I loved our neighbors house you designed so I drew this one up. If you okay it, we build if not I'll go back and work on it till you do, then we'll pay you for the chance to use it." They would think you're fucking with them for how good of a deal that is. Yet Blizz wont do it. TL;DR- Ion is a good dev, nobody is trying to say he isnt excellent at the part of the game he likes, and needs to stay on for raids and story content. A second dev should be lead for mechanics and should be public and vocal with the community about how to fix shit. Because after 15 years, we do actually know something about the game, believe it or not.
@Nuclear Confusion But...I just explained how it would be cheaper if they players did all the iteration for them. Not to mention the knock on effects of a good expansion- more subs, tokens, shop mounts, shop pets. Good game=more players=more sales. I guess promoting someone from "assistant project lead" to "co project lead" would take a small salary increase, sure.
I did just edit my statement slightly so its not 100% what you replied to. I want to be upfront that im adjusting my statement for clarity, and not trying to be a dick to you directly. It just is a tertiary effect, lol.
@Nuclear Confusion I mean I understand what you're saying but two things really tip me off to the fact that its not dead- the marketing for BFA being a "old style" expansion leading to explosively high sales(highest day 1 of the franchise) and the reintroduction of classic being such a massive affair. Players do want to play this game, they just arent being a game they want to play. I also have no doubt that your conclusion about people with credit cards they arent responsible for or people with problem consumption habits being the prime market for revenue, they are in most industries now sadly. The fact that a design direction is flawed and actually managing to stay afloat despite 3 questionable expansions in a row (Legion is viewed better retroactively than it was at the time) is a testament to how much attachment people have to this IP and the nostalgia it retains. I'm unconvinced that they've given up on this game because of how much of the ACTI stock rests upon it- until they get another flagship franchise this and CoD are all they have to keep investor confidence up. Being able to boost subs back up to even 5-7 mil would be a massive win fall due to the amount of monetization options available today. Not to mention how they hired back most of the positions laid off or re-allocated them to actually higher paid positions of skilled labor such as the military regiment size amount of programmer hires they made during the course of BFA. It appears to just be a typical scumbag "cost savings" job cut that negatively impacted customer service overall. Forum mods are absolute trash now, that's for sure. They always were though. The point remains- They are listening to the wrong crowd, shutting out good ideas and not placing resources(the ones they do have) properly internally to turn out a product with any sort of integrity to the playerbase. That's why its gone from sandbox to themepark, because the players dont have a toolkit that allows them to make their own fun as much as they used to and/or the honeymoon period with the game has worn off.
Interesting. I played ALL of bfa without doing hardly any of the content. I really enjoyed the AH and getting a whole new roster ready for shadowlands though lol. I like the game at its core but we all know they can do much, much better at this stage.
If 90% of your power, comes from borrowed power, and 10% from your class.. if they get the balance wrong, it doesn't affect general performance as much because it will only be a variance of 10% max, vs 80 or 90%. Thats the logic behind it away, but I think the assumptions are flawed, even if the argument would otherwise be Valid. It isn't Sound.
Shadowlands failure will bring a swift TBC. I'm expecting April at the latest. *Fingers crossed. Bought SL way back, and won't long on even for a second. Might even look into a refund tbh.
Part of me just wants to make a Blood elf paladin, and go to Outlands again like the good old days. But another part of me wants Naxx to have a fair chance again since barely anyone did it back then because of the expansion announcement that happened only 2 weeks after first clear.
I hate how gear has no real meaning now... its a means to an end rather an end.. you know that next big patch it will probably be replaced by something better or easier to get (depending where you get too or how you play) I think classic accidently nailed it with some pieces lasting ages others getting obvious upgrades each patch and catch-up mechanics not really being there.. I dont know what the fix is.. but gear needs to feel less transient.. my Tier 1 and 2 sets are still the ones I feel most attached to.. and I think that's because they saw some use and felt powerful for the time I used them!
I'm actually looking forward to the launch of this expansion. And by that I mean I'm looking forward at the disasters Blizzard will once again wrought. After Warcraft III refunded, I expect nothing else from them.
All i want is Metamorphosis back for Demolocks. That was the reason for me that i stoped playing in Legion. Demolock was such a mess to play in Legion imo
They’ve turned WoW into Diablo. All the great developers have left. I don’t think the current ones really know what they’re doing. Working on the airplane while it’s in the air is smart, right?
@Wonder of U a majority of cataclysm trinkets were like, or just stat buffs on a long ICD. thats the difference though, DBW was basically the only trinket in wrath that was THAT powerful. there was a lot of good ones like phylactery or the one from Rotface, but not very many huge power spikes
And they removed reforging because it was too complex, now theres so much happening at any given time you have no idea whats going on without simulating a situation for several thousand literations just to figure out the avarage chaos that'll occur with your character. Let me swap some crit into haste if they wanna rng the hell out of the items and their possible stats dammit.
"Getting raidbots to perform some quantum entanglement on my six figure combination of gearing options" lol. Big true.
Odd comment I know, but my 2year seems to enjoy your voice. He even waves goodbye when your outro begins. Keep up the good WoW content!
He needs to make a second channel where he reads bedtime stories or wow lore or smth
No lie wow videos are the only ones my 1 year old will sit and watch with me at nap time lol
Future wow player
That is so adorable :)
Widepeepoohappy
Salutations females and males, it is I, William
Get back your cave snacky, you wild meme man
Get outta here snacky
Epic crossover
Crossover man!
Ah yes, of course 5Head
IMO the main issue is that each content is handled as its own game.
It has the same look, skin and thematic as WoW but mechanic-wise each major content patch is a soft reseted season that have NOTHING to do with the rest of the expension or world.
Each content should expand the universe, add something to the game, but instead WoW feels like a really long time ago the same way as I once in a year go check up on my kongregate account to see whats new. I can play each new minigame that add points to my account, but it has nothing to do with the other games...
Which is intented.
But WoW should be else... it is considered as an mmorpg. But even the market is soft reseted by each patch. And since literally everything is soulbound and 1 character can add buffs to the whole SERVER... well... I dont say we should have a second life inside WoW but somehow we should have.
I would rather feed a digital city and trying to be the best merchant of the server than the forced way is to grind azerite with 13 characters, because "that is the way" of playing wow.
So many time an expension is like:
"wow! A new race... again... cool! How will that benefit my Demo warlock? -_-"
After wrath they should have just come out with World of Warcraft 2 instead of changing the world they way did
I honestly enjoyed cata, but nothing much after that.
@@Sam-id5zz Not sure if a so called "wow2" would solve the problem.What would a new engine able to do what they arent capable of now? Maybe a trajectory based 3D action based combat?
The issue is still the way the minigames are disconnected from each other.
We have a MASSIVE... dead and empty world. The game always happens on 2-3 map out of the 200?
Classes needs to be rebalanced in each patch thanks to the reworked ilvl and rng dmg boosts.
Leveling is quick, yet still time gated.
The game could be easily turned into a "chose your champion" screen, pick a class-spec combo and just start running to instances like an old school beat m up game.
It was a "troll topic" on forums but would actually make sense if the stats would just scale with Ilvl same as pvp.
Since we have 4 stats, each item have 1of 1x of stat A and 1.5x of statB.
And if you even try to diviate from the one that devs visioned, you either underperform, or your class is nerfed.
I am a big fan of items that last into the next expansion, where the old achievement helps you in the present
sneakiest "Willie here" so far!
we need a compilation of these.
Literally went back 5 times to see where it was lol
@@easycake3251 i had to slow it down to .5 speed to see it. Great one!
@@easycake3251 It took me soooo much more and i'm not ashamed
@@easycake3251 Like 10+ times for me... :D
Gone back like 50 times and i still cant find it wtf?
They had the perfect chance to revert back to the old talent system, add in tier sets and reduce the amount of item lvl bloat with SL!
cant understand ppl who are saying the lvl bloat is reduced, the first tier alone has 30 ilvl difference, if they carry that on fo reach raid tier!!
They removed talent points cos they thought it was too complicated, well thats funny as hell now in hindsight.
Classic/BC/Wrath talents are simple as hell compared to how convoluted the systems are now.
took me a sec to find it in the intro
I had to rewatch 4 times then just paused it.
Haha, same here. Cheeky!
I had to pause it! That was a good one!
OMG I REWATCHED AND FOUND IT AFTER SEEING THIS COMMENT!! Took me lile 10 watches, i thought he didn't put one in this time XD
haha was just about to complain that he didnt do his face, but now i saw it :D ty
The problem is very easy to spot: WoW has too many layers.
WoW has systems that are too complex. Systems upon systems, with new teporary systems introduced each xpac and the task of balancing old systems and squishing their stuff into the permanent systems. Too many options, e.g. raid difficulties requiring these huge ilvl jumps. Too many systems rewarding gear, making gearing up really confusing (at least for me, who prefers the linear path Classic to LK provided).
Also, WoW has too much RNG in its gameplay. Item drop chance + titanforge + corruption + socket + teritiary stats. Note that each time you add a layer, the chance of getting the perect item decreases exponentially. Add in tons and tons of procs, procs based off other procs (looking at you, Fire mage) which can lead to greatly different results in DPS. Luck seems to impact your gaming experience way more than skill does.
Legacy systems like the garrison, class hall, artifacts, old reps and old raids are completely irrelevant and - if it weren't for nostalgia and achievement hunting - could as well be removed without altering your progression one single bit. It's a race to the previous xpac's maximum level to then quickly go up 10 levels and be rewarded... nothing, besides unlocking too many layers. Plus, the legacy content is so squished that there is basically no power gain e.g. between 50 and 60. I can always run around soloing 4+ mobs while leveling my mage for example, and with scaling the content becomes neither more difficult nor easier.
Titanforge + corruption are gone, sockets are purchasable now, and tertiary stats are irrelevant though
As Psyren pointed out, they've cut away a lot of the RNG bullshit. I'm not 100% sure about the tertiary stats being gone or not, but those rarely amounted to much other than "nice to have".
Their design goal for Shadowlands is less but better loot. It's also why they've removed the coin which let you reroll on a boss. Otherwise I really can't agree about the idea of removing old systems, there's no point in doing that.
@@Akeche I know about the old system, and I'm glad they're leaving most, if not all of it in. For loot, I wish they do away with any RNG stuff and random stat rolls, just like your Best in slot item drops - that's it for this raid tier and armor slot. Slap on some enchant and gems on and done, like it is in Classic.
I'm also glad that they're squishing the levels from 120 to 60. With 120 levels and the current character progress, you sometimes go 3, 4 or even more levels without gaining any ability, passive, talent et cetera. You're rewarded with nothing which makes the point of that levelup obsolete.
Removal of hit, expertise (weapon skill), penetration, resistances, scaling mana and *nuanced* talent tree's means that every item in modern WoW has only one feature: throughput. Either it makes you do more DPS/Healing or is doesn't. It doesn't matter what name you give the system that increases throughput, in the end it's just another variable in a DPS simulator.
The concept of your character being stronger due to being able to fight longer (casters gaining mana and mana regen), living longer (resistances, armor and stamina) or gaining enough benefit from gear that you can change talents (dropping hit% late in an expansion) no longer exist.
Blizzard did this to simplify the game, but ended up simply making it possible to quantify the game. Now we rely on tools to tell us how and what to play in order to be optimal. And people who don't do that are shunned faster than those with a bad WOTLK gearscore.
At the end of the day there is less choice in WoW now in terms of customizing your character. Other than the choice to just play another class.
Actually, a lot of that still happens even before they removed those stats from the game. Why? Because blizzard has not only made specs segregated from on another for the most part but they also kept in the outdated concept of tank healing and dps in the game.
Getting a bot calculate the best option to reforge into the optimal expertise and hit levels was not fun to me
Nightpire and it got to a point where it just better to overcap on hit/expertise because you can just reforge it all away later on
I really hate the massive power jumps every patch. I played BFA when it came out and got my character pretty strong. Took a break cuz I wasn't enjoying bfa...came back later and I'm more obsolete than an AOL trial disc
I don’t even play wow but I like watching your vids lol
Same
Dude is high iq
Same
Remember that Dark Legacy Comic where Keydar pokes a mob with his sword and it just gets swallowed up in procs and his damage meter tells him that only 4.4% of the damage dealt was from him and not from some kind of proc? (It's number 716.)
That comic explains why the current system seems antithetical to meaningful personal player progression.
The solution to increasing ilvl is rather simple in my opinion..
Lets say that the first raid has 4 ilvl "steps". You would get ilvl1 for LFR, ilvl2 for normal, ilvl3 for hc and ilvl4 for mythic (you can even add one more layer to it and have last x bosses in a raid drop items of an ilvl increased by 1)
But when the next content patch hits, dont just give the LFR items ilvl of 5... Make it LFR = 2, normal = 3, hc = 4, mythic = 5.. Then the next one LFR=3 etc.. This way the difference in ilvl is much smaller and you can keep the older content beneficial for all players (except the ones clearing mythic)..
For example I can be a casual player who can only clear normal in curent tier, but I can get upgrades also from previous tier HC or mythic... Or maybe I can only kill a few bosses in the older tiers so I farm those...
2:25 This made me chuckle cuz I've been literally attaching BWL into binding runs every second raid day for a month now and hoping that cursed Garr binding would finally drop after 6 months lol.
same. our gildlead played pserver and has a combined run count of over 80 and is still missing the garr binding. now we have 4 player in our raid which have geddon but no garr. *sad noise*
We are sitting on 2 Geddon bindings now, pls Garr just give us the binding let it end
*Legion: Where the power comes from?*
Two words:
*Unstable Arcanocrystal*
I'm in Beta and the only temp power that really makes sense are the Legendaries (a few broken ones aside). You pick the ones you want and you can build them at your own pace with a cap per week on how much Soul Ash you can get, so someone playing 24/7 won't get a lead over a "regular"player. Many of them tweak the way you play your spec in interesting ways that aren't game breaking, and I think they'll do fine to differentiate between other players who play the same class + spec combos.
Conduits are just passives and are boring, Soulbinds are just passives and a few fluff abilities and the Covenant abilities themselves are broken/useless for half the specs in the game in some content.
You've done plenty of digging on the systems, but I would love a video about why blizzard made changes, not just why they were bad.
After MoP,for some obscure fucking reason,the higherups at blizzard,decided to drastically down size the class balance team,which would explain the switch to borrowed power, back then,every spec had its own dev,while now i assume they went with borrowed power because they dont have the manpower to do it the old way
Retail is making them also good money so they know whatever they put out good or bad systems players going to just complain but still continue to play. They need real competetor in mmorpg.
I quite like that actually, would be interesting to consider, ill note it down!
Shadow priest is going from a mess to a fluid spec with a great talent tree so I'm happy
Agreed and yet balance druid is the complete reverse - breaking what's fun about it now by going back to a broken Eclipse system which mirrors all problems shadowpriest had with void form
It's nothing new, though. I still remember when Symbiosis was coming out, I knew it'd only last an expansion because it 100% ran counter to stuff they were stripping out of other classes due to "lessons learned".
Loved that you dropped some Mark Rosewater insight!
I remember watching that video from Mark Rosewater a year ago, it's awesome seeing it applied to an MMO!
One of the things that I absolutely detest about the current stat system on gear is that it's simply 2 primary stats, and 2 secondary stats. Not only that, but your choices are so narrow. No matter what you pick up, it's essentially all the same. How frustratingly boring.
The earlier versions of the game were so so much better in that every item had it's own stats, and these were sometimes imbalanced to differentiate them and provide more gearing choice. It's so much more rewarding to acquire and piece together different items to suit your own playstyle.
I mean, at least this time around we won't be having titanforging on launch, so you can actually have a BiS list.
Simplicity is key to perfection when it comes to anything, especially games. For me after Cata, things became really complex not to mention BFA and Shadowlands looking like a recipe for nightmares.
“Legendaries for everybody”
Oh, so sulfuras.
Cant wait for BC raiding:
"LFM Black Temple glaives locked"
My reaction too lol. Fucking Esfand is running around with Thunderfury for gods sake. Legendary items were never actually anything special, we were just lazy and dumb kids.
@@Akeche Esfand runs a guild and plays the game for hours every day, of course he has a legendary you brainlet.
@@Akeche not really. The amount of guilds who did clear even MC in actual Vanilla was 0.1% of what's going on now. Players were shit, making the content hard and legendaries hardly ever seen.
TIME TO HIT THE RESET BUTTON
I would not call Zul Aman for a catchup raid. It was actually pretty hard even for good guilds, especially the speed run for the Amani War Bear.
On Pserver, (excalubur)it wasn't a question of "is this pug going to finish it", but more a question of "is this one of the bad pugs, where we won't do it in the time limit?".
I once actually had 4 people leave because 2 people died on eagle boss, so they left with a "this raid sucks".
I'd say ZA was definitely a catch up raid, it was a T5 raid but had alot of bis items along with item same level as T6. As a druidhealer the healing mace from last boss was bis all the way up to KJ in sunwell because of its haste for example, even tho some prefered to use the illidan mace. But it was at the same time pretty hard as you say, alot of things you could mess up on, bombs on the birdboss etc.
@@haldir108 I also played on excalibur, and since ZA was reseted every 3 day many people had no problems leaving if something went wrong, since they could do it soon again unfortunately.
Jimmy Andersson yeah it is not really a catchup raid if the difficulity is really high. Catchup raids are supposed to be easy so people can catch up on loot if they did not do previous raids
@@Bugge5001 Well even if so, ZA does help ppl catch up very much, you can clear it with T4 gear with some struggle and you will get items which many are T6 level. That is catching up in my book, but I get your point.
I think why ZA is great tool for catching up also is the fact that its a 10 man raid, takes 1 hour to complete, its very easy to get a group for, no attunement quest chain needed, and you have a high chance get the item you need once it drops since you dont have many to roll against, compared to the 25 mans.
Some of this probably comes down to the game being 16 years old... they got to a spot they liked with class design in Legion, so they've kept it basically the same since. But they can't just release a new expansion with your character basically not changing at all, so they have to add some other system, that doesn't affect the classes themselves, the leveling experience, how the classes will work in the NEXT expansion, etc. Player interest would no doubt be a lot lower if the game just played the same way from one expansion to the next, even if they added new zones and raids.
they had to replace legendaries and artifact weapons but azurite system was not enough
This is a very good and well thought out video.
important video
It’s funny how literally everyone is speaking out against the covenants and how they won’t work, yet blizzard continues on, RIP
seethe
@Duck Sauce common misconception
I mean they can't rework everything now, they've spent millions of dollars and hundreds of hours developing those systems and the content that surrounds them. It's too late.
I think covenants are a cool idea. I’m also not under the delusion that I’m in contention for best in the world at the game so there’s that
@Duck Sauce Blizz were already making shady decisions in terms of gameplay and marketing before they were acquired; go look it up. Not as black and white as you want to believe, unfortunately.
I definitly agree with all that's said here. The growing complexity of these systems, stacked on eachother, just completly destroys my interest in playing Shadowlands. I know the art work for the new areas will be beautiful and amazing to see, but the game itself fails in keeping me attached to it for more than a month. However, it does seem there are plenty of people who find these systems interesting or at least Blizzard keeps thinking they're doing the right thing in coming up with new systems each new expansion, as much as it boggles me. But me? I'm just loving my classic experience and really hyped for TBC!
Content > Systems. There are areas in retail that work better, and areas in classic that work better. We need some overhauls on the game. First things first we need a more linear raid system, like you mentioned, the power from end raid LFR being better than the first raid tear is awful. Being able to complete one raid and it still be useful is the best way to go about things, makes more content more accessible for more reward so if a low geared player wants to run the first raid, they can still do it and have high end players running the bigger raids still have opportunity to get reward from it, Classic does a great job at this. At the same time I believe the justice and valor point system should make a return, Keep the good gear for Heroic and Mythic, yet let something be available for the people stomping on dungeons and M+ (maybe even add them as WQ awards) to have these systems help set achievable rewards in place, the RNG Farm isnt fun outside of M+ and Raiding, having a system to replace the crappy bracers you've had for months is great, yet it still wont be heroic/mythic raid powerful to where you can farm WQ and Heroic Dungeons for them. It's an easy system that lets people gear and doesnt let these crazy systems take over.
It's all sounds really easy. Until you consider PVP and how PVE decisions affect PVP.
@@zippanto PVP Vendors with honor and conquest with a PVP stat was always the best way to do it, Linear and powerful progression. I still keep my full conquest arena set from MoP mogged to my warrior to this day.
@@GavinWilliamsTheGreat I more meant, but how do you balance PVP when your PVE players are one-shotting people in PVP?
"Because your raid leader doesn't have his second binding"
I feel personally attacked
WillE - I suspect that every new expansion now will be 50-60, and every old one will just be added to Chromie Time as a new 1-50 leveling path. This will basically solve ilvl bloat permanently, and also make comparing class power between expansions easy.
I do agree with you that temporary power should be a smaller percentage of our output than our ability to play our class is. One of the worst parts of BFA for me was Corruption, and the fact that it could account for 50% or more of a characters dps. It's the complete antithesis of an RPG.
Corruption was designed from the very start to be insanely broken,it wasnt an accident
Not sure if it solves the problem. If you stay basically at the same level and the item level of your equip stays also around the same numbers you aren't getting stronger and every follow expansion you deal the same amout of damage. So you never have the feeling to become stronger. That is also a problem with the variable level of the mobs. They keep to level with you, so every time you outlevel them and become better, they follow and you are on the same power level again.
I mean there was a blizzcon or some other pesentation for the first item squish, where they considered to let the equip forever on the same level, but they didn't do it because it feels awefull for the player who never gets really stronger. So yea, the older the game gets, the more this itemization is a problem + the WoW engine is not good in dealing with numbers in the millions. They have to squish the item from time to time or they can stay around the same power level forever, both options are not ideal. I for myselfe like the squish more then staying at a power level, but other player may like the other system more.
It's hilarious that they do all this hard work when they can just make an amazing expansion with a ton of content instead of accruing all their resources to balance of a complicated but overwhelmingly boring and nearly invisible system that no one wants. All that work is literally for nothing.
For any other WoW Classic players who glazed over at the WotLK ilvl talk - 30 item levels is more than the gap between dungeon blues and naxx loot. Scarlet Kris to Kingsfall is 26 ilvls.
Nailed it. Class design is being sacrificed so they can plunge resources into systems that historically have been problematic at best. A refocus on class identity, flavour and abilities, along with an emphasis on actual content over world quests and quota filling would do wonders for this game.
After MoP,for some obscure fucking reason,the higherups at blizzard,decided to drastically down size the class balance team,which would explain the switch to borrowed power, back then,every spec had its own dev,while now i assume they went with borrowed power because they dont have the manpower to do it the old way
Quota filling and WQ are entirely optional in Shadowlands,the only things tied to player power are 2 quests per week and one run of the big tower
You should put out a "Wheres Willie here" book lmao
bringing us the content we dont know we need
The jump to one "talent tree" was the easiest, most boring way bliz could've done the fix to the essay like talent trees. But i feel personally that a big part was lost right there. The feeling of control over your choices. Funneling into homogenised gameplay started to get real obvious there. The flavor of vanilla and tbc druid for example was completely gone.
We all know it was the illusion of choice,everyone just picked cookie cutter,we are able to pick any build we want NOW,because we're million times more experienced than the dunces in 2004,and even then most people still pick cookie cuttet
@@dafire9634 thats soo wrong
One obvious problem with ilvl inflation just seems to be the number of raids tho... do we really need 4 tiers of every raid? LFR and Mythic obviously have their own niche, but it seems to me you could easily merge Normal and Heroic modes?
I do agree we could have 3 tiers,but at least they're trying to fix ilvl bloat in SL
im still a fresh sub to your channel and man.. i have watched a ton of your videos i lovem this video speaks volumes... i felt i was getting old or something b/c they changed and dont seem to want to change anymore. anyway this hits the nail on the head imo.
Wille, have you ever watched any of Egoraptor's Sequelitis? If you haven't it's a suggestion to watch it, because it talks about some of the issues game developers have when transition betwen one generation to another of the same game. When a game tries to bring "new stuff" to an already created game that is loved and "feels good playing" without actually nailing the core of how does that change actually change the game.
It's interesting that you put in perspective the same questions to each expansion and then compare the additions/changes to the core mechanics of the game. I reflected a bit about it after watching your video, but it's pretty simple: When I played for the first time WoW it was basically me experiencing the game through the "eyes" of my Warlock. I didn't clear dungeons or raids, completed quests or grinded reputation to "save Azeroth" or for the game to treat me like "Champion", no...I did those things because it was fun doing so.
Theme is a strong part of evolving and growing stronger, but in a game like WoW it should always bring back to the common denominator of the game which is: Your Character. If there isn't a sense of attachment and growth to your character it quickly becomes just a number, just a dungeon, just a raid, just a piece of gear, and no matter how many systems are there to make your character feel powerful and strong (and no matter how strong) it just doesn't mean anything, because it doesn't feel like adding to a theme that the player enjoys (which is growing your character).
So many people enjoy Classic WoW because of the vast amount of ways you can develop and grow your character, even with the super outdated mechanic of super long and tedious grinds, slow and rare sources of gear, it all adds to the same theme. But if the game keeps on clinging on to old systems (leveling, dugeons/heroics, professions and raids as they were) in conflict with the new systems they add ("artifact power", azerite gear, corruption, etc) without really asking themselves "how does this change the game?" and properly working on these changes, then we are just fucked because we all love this game and we want it to be good...and it just never will like this.
Blizzard: Keeps ramming the triangle into the square hole.
Players: Uh maybe if you..
Blizzard: NO. THIS WILL WORK, YOU ARE WRONG.
You should do a video going over all of the number squishes. I'd love to see a graph of the average health pools jumping all over the place through expansions and patches
I actually LIKED azerite traits over tier sets. I hated however how they were tied to the heart level so you could get a new piece of gear and not use it all.
They felt like a decent replacement for set bonuses from tier sets. Yes, some tier sets bonuses were rotational changes. However a lot were also just stat buffs. Here were some from my main (shaman)
Increase damage from shocks by 25%
Increase damage from stormstrike by 30%
Lightning shield deals 5% more damage
Increase lava lash damage by 15%
There were some awesome ones. Like when ever feral spirit was active, we would turn into wolves too and our wolves could proc our weapon imbues. Or when ever we used unleashed elements we would proc our weapon imbues (great rotation changer there to force a windfury strike).
Azerite traits felt the same. There were some generic ones, some decent ones, and some rotational changers. I just wish they weren't tied to to the heart at all.
if you made power gains extremely small it would help this issue. People might argue well no one will raid or push Mythics etc etc.
I point you towards Eve were the hardcore player base will devote nearly endless resources for advantages in the 0.1 - 0.5% range.
It really doesn't matter how small the power increase is from max level to raid to end raid. So long as there is SOME kind of increase that is all players will care about at the end of the day.
Also to look cool.
12:14 When I saw these numbers I went from happy to concerned to rational. I think the jumps will naturally be higher than before because we now have 4 raid modes instead of 2.
But still, Blizz have to rethink the way they use numbers. Why squish anything if they will still push us over 100k every time? Why are they so obsessed with big numbers getting out of hand? 😄
Because (if I recall correctly) health values are tied to an engine limit (32bit numbers?) and they nearly hit it in Mists, so had to squish.
@@benclapp6100 I didn't know that. Sounds plausible since they weren't able to enlarge the main bag slots for 15 years 😄
You forgot about one that almost would have completely changed the game. In phase 1, paladins who had the Reckoning talent would get reckoningstacks from players who got crit while affected by Blessing of Sacrifice. This would have allowed tanks to pull all the whelps in onyxia and use a /sitmacro spam. All paladins could then have cast BoS on the sitmacro spamming tank and probably oneshot Onyxia.
I know this video isn't about ''character power'' in terms of lore but I can't wait for my legendary hero who has defeated countless almost god like entities over the years to be killed by a fucking seagull,crab or group of murlocs this expansion.
I think the game was way better when you were a nobody looking in rather than a central part of the plot.
So when it comes to knowing how to develop balanced player power progression, Activision-Blizzard thinks it does, but it doesn't.
Who else restarted the video a few times to find the Wille?
They need to define a power gap with mythic raiding, eg start @ 200IL and finish @ 240IL for the expansion. Delete a raid level diffculty or two and then keep all other content 15 IL lower than mythic. This would reward higher skilled players and allow the casuals to continue playing the game for whatever reason they like. and they need to plan to keep ATLEAST 2 teirs of raid content relevant at a time. THAT is what classic did best.
We didn't know what we had with MOP everyone was too focused on the Panda hate, we deserved WOD for sleeping on MOP :(
MoP is the most undervalued WoW expansion ever, but also the PR team at Blizzard did awful job at presenting it.
MoP sounds like it was pretty solid
It was my favourite expansion ever I miss it
@Henrik Wandall 100%
Depends on the spec you were playing, really. If, say, MM hunters are your favorite spec and they were bad in MoP, you wouldn't really remember it that fondly.
Jesus I had to -5s the start of the video like 7 times to see the willie face. Was worried for a second that you forgot it :(
With warlords of draenor you forgot the garrison system, through which you could equip your characters with raid gear.
Honestly one of my fav channels, can listen to WillE talk about WoW all day 😁
Had to restart the video to find the gnome head in the fire; for a short moment I was shocked, that you missed randomly placing it. xD
Really enjoy your videos. Glad to see your commentary on Retail. I am curious, what would your idea expansion look like from a player power perspective? Would a Retail expansion that returned to some version of linear raid progression, power through gear/talents/professions, and lower jumps in power between raid tiers, with minimal or no tempory power gain systems even be palatable in modern WoW?
Also imagine this:
Because of all the artifact power we gained, we got in tune with our artifact and absorbed its active ability and a passive.
Because of all the azerite we were soaked in, we absorbed some of the planets essence and can use it to replicate some of the azerite effects- which then become a new talent row and you can pick from 1 of 3 sets that include 2 major and 1 minor power each.
Its almost like.....progressive strength gain. Like you would want in a game where you represent a character in a growing world....
Sorry I have so many comments on this video I'm just very irritated by this topic and how its taking so long to figure out. But hey, get you some metrics, WillE.
Funnily enough most of the artifact abilities were given back baseline or as talents,and a good bunch of azerite traits were made baseline,a talent,or even a legendary effect in Shadowlands
Sure not everyone got both, but they did exactly as you said
they did something that is in the most reductive form possible in the same ballpark as what I said in the regard of those things existing, sure. Its all the same except for: Without any choice or depth out of the things we had, without doing so uniformly to make uniform power gains and seem like our classes are growing, and by giving many classes the option to take it- as a talent. Replacing something they previously had. Overall a net loss of power because instead of X talent + artifact/azerite trait you're left with "Item i have to take to fill in that hole"
They re-designed the classes around the artifact weapons. When they went away, some of the stuff stopped working so they had to give it back somehow.
If someone steals your shoes and you go buy another pair, you arent really gaining anything. You just once again have shoes. And you've lost money.
Leaving this expansion some of those azerite traits were stopgaps to make the loss of artifacts not feel so terrible. Those will now be baselined. So instead of for example, when leaving BFA saying "our classes were at power level 105 at the start of BFA and now we'll be at 110" its 'Our classes were at 105 at the start of BFA and we had to patch some people up to get to 105...and now we're all 105. Maybe. Or we've slid back to 100. Same as we have been doing for 3 expansions"
"If they dont have this they will be completely broken" =/= "choice of how to build and empower your character." WillE made the point for me- has your toolkit changed since WoD? Unless you're a reworked class, almost certainly not.
I lust for the days of MoP class design. I would love to return to that era of class design with Pre dungeon nerf cata game design.
Liked the video, tho it missed out on wotlk hardmode for sarth, which is Sarth 3d and 10/25 versions of the same raids with different ilvl loot. think its mentionable since it first occured there
Yeah its really annoying that they refuse to do anything about dead talents. Or mandatory ones, Breath has been the go to build for frost without corruption for 4ish years now and its ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that yeah they never balance the classes well enough so it is always the same ones at the bottom or the top. Unless they overtune or have an unintended effect with the temporary power like DH.
After MoP,for some obscure fucking reason,the higherups at blizzard,decided to drastically down size the class balance team,which would explain the switch to borrowed power, back then,every spec had its own dev,while now i assume they went with borrowed power because they dont have the manpower to do it the old way
Hope the difference between a fresh 60 and doing initial max level dungeons isn't as wide as a dungeon 60 and a full BWL-geared player.
I replayed the beginning maybe 5 times only to find WillE
Never understood why you had 15-20k health when you reached lvl 120 and suddenly you had 500k when geared. THATS 25 TIMES AS MUCH.....
Cata heroic dungeons were only hard if you had never played TBC, it was a good way of knowing who actually knew how to play.
And it all comes down to having 4 different difficulties. There is no way to not have gear inflation when you have so many, there HAS to be a HUGE difference between someone who's fully LFR geared and someone who's fully mythic geared, else there's no point in it.
i know this isn't borrowed power related which is what the video was definitely focusing on, but i have mixed feelings about how classes are done. i was a huge fan of the old talent system and the new talent system is just stupid to me. everyone says the new talent system has real choice and i just don't see it. you still have the same cookie cutter and what you said about the classes mostly not changing in the last 2-3 expansions feels true to me too. that's where i'm on the fence though. i hate it when a class/spec i love gets changed into one i hate. ever since they removed the defensive stats i haven't wanted to tank at all. i've been tanking in shadowlands but it's quickly getting old due to the whole kiting meta thing. tanks to me haven't felt like tanks in forever. at the same time though, they need to make changes and one thing i wish they would do is follow through on the selling point of this new talent system and offer real choice. demon hunters had 2 viable talent spec options in legion, you could go demonic or you could go nemesis and both worked well. since the end of legion, it's been demonic only which severely limits the choices of the rest of the talents as you're going to want to take w/e will boost the eyebeam. they need to at least rework the talents so that the difference between the best and worst in a spec is 1-2% tops. that would be close enough that your average player can take what they want and not give a shit.
Not a wow player. Most hours in a game: Guild Wars 1. I'm all for number squishing. You make me consider playing Wow on a Blizzard server for the first time!
In GW1, top level was 20 and reachable real fast in the expansions. Because the levels and hitpoints were so consistent, whenever you saw a damage number, you immediately knew whether it's a lot or not and what's happening. Everybody had 500-700 hp, elementalists nuke you for up to 140, you get meleed for ~40 a lot, deep wound shaves off 100, bleed and poison take 6 and 8 hp/s etc. Understanding the numbers without thinking about them is a great quality of life improvement.
WillE spitting some truth. I think I'll stick to Classic until we're atleast a few weeks/months into launch of Shadowlands. I just dont trust Blizzard to make a game(expansion) that is fun and functional the way it used to be anymore. In Vanilla&TBC i feel free to express myself via my character the way i envision it. In the later patches you either follow what's meta, even within the even smaller pool of choices, or you aren't allowed to join anything. But who knows, maybe they'll prove me wrong! That'd be cool.
@Wonder of U Simply stating my opinion and experiences. You're free to disagree. In fact: I'm glad it works out better for you.
These massive power increases are a way to for blizzard to balance the content so is challenging for the world first guilds and then achievable for the thousands of other guild with this extra borrowed power.
The problem is that’s not how it really works out.
While Azerite Armor and Corruptions were awful, I actually really like the basic idea of the Essense system. It was easy to understand, not reliant on RNG, the actives and most passives were tangible (not this "change to proc something" crap) and getting and upgrading the powers was straightforward.
It was not perfect, mostly because it was rushed after the failure of Azerite Armor, but the idea would have produced a really satisfying gameplay loop for BFA. While it was "one size fits all", there were so many essences that you could choose which 3 compliment your class / spec well. Of course it SHOULD HAVE been semi-account wide the way it eventually became at the very end, where getting the same essences with your alts became easier.
On the other hand, Azerite and corruptions were such trash systems. After getting each piece of gear you basically had to re-think your entire setup because of overlaps, the total corruption level, some abilities stacking, some not, and they were almost all really ezoteric random procs that were impossible to compare without looking up online what is the best. So you had to keep a bunch of gear pieces because you may need a previous shoulder if you get a new headpiece... and all of this was RNG-based, you couldn't target specific Azerite and corruption powers until much later, and given how strong they were number-wise... yeah. What a disaster.
Corruptions were designed from the ground up to be insanely broken, it wasnt an accident
@@dafire9634 Intentional or not, it's bad design.
Honestly I think the idea of specialisations is kinda wonk to begin with. Like why does the druid have 4 specs instead of 2 (flora and fauna, for instance). Hunters also have this problem. I like the idea of a melee hunter, just not one that focuses on traps for that. It's because in vanilla it was based around it's range and ammunition mechanics that the hunter was build, but should've been 2 classes. Beast master and archer/ranger. Bringing the power back to classes (not specs directly, that should be more of a flavour thing imo) is definatly the way to go forward. Like why couldn't the hunter just 'make' his ammo or use the poison from his pet to augment it. Long story short I have had some time to think about ideas but most fall unto this: Vanilla wasn't 'complete' enough to build upon. The stat's for instance are too singular in their uses (Int is pure magic). I also think debuffs and the like could be a bit more like Monster Hunter, where instead of applying the debuff instantly, you build it up against the boss and allow it to stack up. This could've solved the debuff issue as instead debuff being their own thing, they act as inflicters/enhancers for a singular (if it falls in the same category (DoT's stack with DoT''s but not stat reducers for istance) debuff. This can also make your groups coordinate more on the debuff front depending on your setup.
Great video, if you really think about it most of the content in previous expansions is now worthless, which is by the way a very self created problem by Blizzard. Especially with the borrow power that requires so much work and tuning and gets thrown in the bin as you said by the next expansion.
After MoP,for some obscure fucking reason,the higherups at blizzard,decided to drastically down size the class balance team,which would explain the switch to borrowed power, back then,every spec had its own dev,while now i assume they went with borrowed power because they dont have the manpower to do it the old way
@WillE, wasn't there a squish with Cata as well?
And why do you split legendaries / azerite gear and artifact weapons from gear ?
WillE making the best fucking videos, perfectly encapsulating the best topics. Thank you brother you are a legend
***This is the video that all the blizzard devs need to be locked in a room for 48 hours with playing on repeat. Seriously serious. Imagine ruining possibly the greatest MMO in history via willful ignorance.***
I'm a casual who plays a lot. I know the systems inside and out, but I am bad at execution. I am down for whatever shitshow this ends up being, I'll mostly run guildies through low keys to get started gearing, and farming mats and crafting stuff, the stuff I do now. As long as Holy Priest can heal an m0, Destruction Warlock can DPS an m0, and Blood Death Knight can tank an m0, I'm fine on that front. Having 4 different stories to dig into sounds really nice. And with the new alt friendliness I can build a full stable of crafters. In BFA I never successfully completed a key higher than 5 in time, and I don't care. I realize I'm in the minority opinion on this, and I worry for the game as a whole, and especially the power minded people. I am perfectly amenable to a delay in release date to hammer some these issues out. But for me on a purely personal level I'm unreservedly hyped.
I tell you,the minmaxers are blowing the covenant problem WAAAAYY out of scope,i am on the beta,every spec can do everything perfectly well, what covenant you picked only Really matters in mythic raiding and m+20,
Anything else is just pointless peer pressure,believe mr
Yeah, I also find it annoying that they keep rehashing the glyph system into the artefact system, azerite system etc and keep pretending it's something new..... how dumb do they think we are? 😂
aah theres 1 I forgot.. probably because its just become cosmetic, I guess you can call it professions for wotlk though
Disagreed when you said that WotLK ruled out dungeons since emblems were also acquired through them, especially when doing heroic dungeons and you would be able to get pretty good gear from those emblems that were on par to some of the items you got through raiding
Yeah I'm not sure if he misspoke, or doesn't remember tbh. That said wotlk kept dungeons relevant for the majority of the expac, as they should be. It used to be an amazing feeling hitting lvl cap on an alt to be able to get straight into dungeons for raid lvl gear(from emblems), and then be into raids within the next week or so on a competitive lvl of others, especially if you were actually good at the game. Nothing will ever beat woltk game design, no matter what anyone could complain about from that era.
You'll be happy to know that they have been nerfing covenant power a lot since alpha, so they won't have as big of an affect on your character as people originally thought
Player power, what happened?
Item level, that's what happened.
we are listening to player feedback. also, there never was a ripcord.
Its odd to me that Blizzard keeps trying to get more complicated with their gearing systems... RNG and reforging and on and on. Meanwhile FFXIV has shown that you can have 1 set of gear for every class to work towards and have it obsolete every 1 or 2 patches and everyone will keep playing like that.
I have been saying since Cata release that Blizzard loves to change things just to say they did... Every expansion they have had to rewrite Stat code instead of picking a system and sticking with it.
Yeah but FF relaunched 10 years after Vanilla. They're still early in the game's life compared to WoW.
Heroic dungeons in Cataclysm were not more difficult than they had ever been. Cataclysm heroics were quite easy compared to TBC heroics. The only reason that misconception exists is that Wrath brought in a ton of new players who complained really loudly about the difficulty levels compared to easy mode Wrath heroics.
I really don´t understand why the ilvl differences have to be that high within a tier and between tiers. The numbers shown could be easy lfr = 190 / normal = 200 / heroic 210 and mythic 220 (with no ilvl spikes for the las bosses. Then the next tier should be lfr = 200 / normal = 210 / heroic = 220 and mythic = 230. That should reduce the infaltion by a whole lot. (also getting rid of at least 1 difficulty should help and save 10 ilvl.) And yes i know stuff like trinkets an sets aren´t balanced as easy with just numbers. But people will always run older raids for that one trinket thats still good. So it won´t go away anyway. Ashvane trinket anyonne?
@Nuclear Confusion Well it doesn´t work. At least not for me. I get the items i get and are done with it. I can understand that many players want to min-max their character even in content where it is definetly not needed, but imo there is a point where it becomes ridiculous. Farming a trinket from 2 years ago is such a case.
Anyway i think reducing the ILVL gaps inside and between tiers would go a long way. (although i think that the overreliance on borrowed power is a bigger issue).
That quote about "Not equipped to provide a solution" is bullshit. At least in our situation.
Blizzard just wont listen. Let me give you an example:
Azerite armor? Supposed to replace tier sets, talent row, artifact weapons and be a new source of effects past that. What we got fell far short of just the artifacts but what if we added a third row of rings a few more traits, took the ones we have up in power a little bit to be more meaningful. Give them gameplay effecting things like reduced costs, regeneration, longer effects, shortened cooldowns, buffs you can activate by playing correctly (Lord of War, anyone?)
Now, by stacking 2 of them you get a "set bonus" type effect upgrading the trait, logically this would be great anyway since so many traits had a "One stack only" effect on them. By stacking 3 you get a legendary effect from legion or a new one. Suddenly there is choice to be made. Based on your setup you also get a "set bonus" determined by what you're empowering. If you stack 6 of a certain variety you get a free talent from one of the rows much like the legion rings.
This makes opportunity cost a real thing. Do I want 3 legendary effects at the expense of 3 smaller quality of life choices, like a reduction of resource cost, cooldowns or lengthened windows? Is that one talent worth it to my gameplay to have to dance around all these other windows many players are not? What do I want for certain situations, or is a universal build better because of the variety included in most(Non-raiding, I know you guys want to use a specific set for the specific encounter) fights?
Now all this is just spitballing but imagine that. It took me all of two minutes to imagine this when I first did. IF they started iterating immediately on systems for the next xpac right after a new one dropped with a closed group of testers under NDA it would be possible. There are players such as Preach for example that would have fairness and balance in mind while also having mechanics that are fun at the forefront. Let player feedback and developer time work together. Imagine having 2 years to develop a great system?
Instead we get a rushed alpha/beta where nothing related to player power is put in until the very end. Questing and story content is the very last thing that we need, mechanics need to be upfront. Imagine all the hours and headaches it would save to have playtesters actively telling you what works and doesnt instead of chasing red herrings to throw it away after dozens of work hours of adjusting systems to fit that, and how much of a quality jump could go into other areas of the game that devs who are stuck doing something they clearly cant do would be able to accomplish working on an area of the game they can make a difference in. I do think there's a leadership issue- the right people and the right resources arent being allocated to fix the problems that are currently plaguing a lot of the game.
Blizzard is insane. They let go of 800 people to save money. Yet they have good, fair players who would design parts of the game for them if they would let them. Imagine going to an architech and saying "I loved our neighbors house you designed so I drew this one up. If you okay it, we build if not I'll go back and work on it till you do, then we'll pay you for the chance to use it." They would think you're fucking with them for how good of a deal that is. Yet Blizz wont do it.
TL;DR- Ion is a good dev, nobody is trying to say he isnt excellent at the part of the game he likes, and needs to stay on for raids and story content. A second dev should be lead for mechanics and should be public and vocal with the community about how to fix shit. Because after 15 years, we do actually know something about the game, believe it or not.
@Nuclear Confusion
But...I just explained how it would be cheaper if they players did all the iteration for them. Not to mention the knock on effects of a good expansion- more subs, tokens, shop mounts, shop pets. Good game=more players=more sales.
I guess promoting someone from "assistant project lead" to "co project lead" would take a small salary increase, sure.
I did just edit my statement slightly so its not 100% what you replied to. I want to be upfront that im adjusting my statement for clarity, and not trying to be a dick to you directly.
It just is a tertiary effect, lol.
@Nuclear Confusion
I mean I understand what you're saying but two things really tip me off to the fact that its not dead- the marketing for BFA being a "old style" expansion leading to explosively high sales(highest day 1 of the franchise) and the reintroduction of classic being such a massive affair.
Players do want to play this game, they just arent being a game they want to play.
I also have no doubt that your conclusion about people with credit cards they arent responsible for or people with problem consumption habits being the prime market for revenue, they are in most industries now sadly.
The fact that a design direction is flawed and actually managing to stay afloat despite 3 questionable expansions in a row (Legion is viewed better retroactively than it was at the time) is a testament to how much attachment people have to this IP and the nostalgia it retains.
I'm unconvinced that they've given up on this game because of how much of the ACTI stock rests upon it- until they get another flagship franchise this and CoD are all they have to keep investor confidence up. Being able to boost subs back up to even 5-7 mil would be a massive win fall due to the amount of monetization options available today. Not to mention how they hired back most of the positions laid off or re-allocated them to actually higher paid positions of skilled labor such as the military regiment size amount of programmer hires they made during the course of BFA. It appears to just be a typical scumbag "cost savings" job cut that negatively impacted customer service overall. Forum mods are absolute trash now, that's for sure. They always were though.
The point remains- They are listening to the wrong crowd, shutting out good ideas and not placing resources(the ones they do have) properly internally to turn out a product with any sort of integrity to the playerbase. That's why its gone from sandbox to themepark, because the players dont have a toolkit that allows them to make their own fun as much as they used to and/or the honeymoon period with the game has worn off.
Interesting. I played ALL of bfa without doing hardly any of the content. I really enjoyed the AH and getting a whole new roster ready for shadowlands though lol.
I like the game at its core but we all know they can do much, much better at this stage.
If 90% of your power, comes from borrowed power, and 10% from your class.. if they get the balance wrong, it doesn't affect general performance as much because it will only be a variance of 10% max, vs 80 or 90%. Thats the logic behind it away, but I think the assumptions are flawed, even if the argument would otherwise be Valid. It isn't Sound.
Shadowlands failure will bring a swift TBC. I'm expecting April at the latest. *Fingers crossed. Bought SL way back, and won't long on even for a second. Might even look into a refund tbh.
Part of me just wants to make a Blood elf paladin, and go to Outlands again like the good old days.
But another part of me wants Naxx to have a fair chance again since barely anyone did it back then because of the expansion announcement that happened only 2 weeks after first clear.
Willi here: 0:01 left bottom fire.
see, it started to decline when they started to switch the system
Change is good, yet they have entangled themselves in their experiments. Somehow they are scared to take a big step back and start polishing fresh.
@@r3nnr4d24 change is good when its done for the better, this was just drunk suggestions no one asked or wanted
@@r3nnr4d24 change has to be careful. Here they were being reckless.
They get more money from nline show + subscription system. Willie please use less text in your videos it hurts my head
Blizzard: Not a mistake! A feature!
I hate how gear has no real meaning now... its a means to an end rather an end.. you know that next big patch it will probably be replaced by something better or easier to get (depending where you get too or how you play) I think classic accidently nailed it with some pieces lasting ages others getting obvious upgrades each patch and catch-up mechanics not really being there..
I dont know what the fix is.. but gear needs to feel less transient.. my Tier 1 and 2 sets are still the ones I feel most attached to.. and I think that's because they saw some use and felt powerful for the time I used them!
I'm actually looking forward to the launch of this expansion. And by that I mean I'm looking forward at the disasters Blizzard will once again wrought. After Warcraft III refunded, I expect nothing else from them.
This really puts my worries nicely. How can you think blizzard will balance covenants when they can't even balance a single talent row?
WoW 2 needs to appear. Wipe the slate clean.
All i want is Metamorphosis back for
Demolocks. That was the reason for me that i stoped playing in Legion. Demolock was such a mess to play in Legion imo
They’ve turned WoW into Diablo. All the great developers have left. I don’t think the current ones really know what they’re doing. Working on the airplane while it’s in the air is smart, right?
I miss when trinkets or stuff like that did 1-3% of your total damage. Now shit goes up to like 50% of your damage and it's just pathetic
Last night my guilds blood DK was topping the mentors on dps. 80% of her damage was twilight dev. The fuck is wrong with this game?
@@dimondblade the corruptions were intentionally designed from the ground up to be insanely broken,it's not an accident
@Wonder of U a majority of cataclysm trinkets were like, or just stat buffs on a long ICD. thats the difference though, DBW was basically the only trinket in wrath that was THAT powerful. there was a lot of good ones like phylactery or the one from Rotface, but not very many huge power spikes
And they removed reforging because it was too complex, now theres so much happening at any given time you have no idea whats going on without simulating a situation for several thousand literations just to figure out the avarage chaos that'll occur with your character.
Let me swap some crit into haste if they wanna rng the hell out of the items and their possible stats dammit.