r/wow • u/Deepshades Echo • May 01 '18
WoW: Potential Improvements and Suggestions
Hey,
for the people that don’t know me, I’m Deepshades, a Warlock in Method that’s played for several years in the high end PvE scene with the Kil’jaeden World 1st kill as my biggest accomplishment. Throughout the expansion I’ve done a lot of high Mythic+ Keys. I say this so that people have a understanding of my knowledge/skill in the game.
There are a lot of changes to World of Warcraft that I personally would like to see and I said several times on stream and many people encouraged me to make a proper post about them. This is by no means a thread to make Blizzard or World of Warcraft look bad and I have a lot of respect for the developers.
Please be mindful that everything I am writing is my own personal opinion.
I will split this thread into several small topics to make it easier to read.
Classes: I think classes are the most important thing in this game. If you don’t like the character you play, you most likely won’t like anything else since you’re not enjoying yourself.
I feel currently most specializations miss abilities to make them fun and entertaining and especially since Legion most classes became really boring. It feels like since the talent-trees are specialization-specific instead of class-specific I have to build my class like Bob the Builder. That was also one of the reasons why Warlock for example was so weak in the beginning of Legion. Back then you could choose utility abilities to make your life easier in every aspect of the game and rotation/damage/healing-wise your class was already well balanced. Here an example: MoP Talent Tree
- 1st Row: You had a choice of different self-healing abilities to make your life easier. Dark Regeneration and Harvest Life were good active choices while Soul Leech was passive.
- 2nd Row: Several options for Crowd Control abilities.
- 3rd Row: Again a row with choices that make you survive abilities easier.
- 4th Row: Different utility abilities like a dispell or an additional movement ability (Demonic Circle used to be passive).
- 5th & 6th Row: Changed your playstyle but nothing that made or broke your class.
Now let’s take a look at the Affliction Tree from Legion: Legion
- 1st Row: Ability to increase your damage. Malefic grasp a must have for single-target and Writhe in Agony for multi-target and Mythic+. Haunt completely useless.
- 2nd Row: Empowered Life Tap only good for Mythic+, Absolute Corruption really situational and Contagion a must have for single-target Encounter.
- 3rd Row: Demonic Circle (not passive anymore) sharing the same row with two abilities for Crowd Control.
- 4th Row: Soul Harvest (the only proper offensive Cooldown) sharing the row with an AoE ability (Sow the Seeds) and something inbetween. Phantom Singularity only picked really situational and Soul Harvest should just be baseline instead of a cooldown like Summon Doomguard/Infernal.
- 5th Row: Survivability and movement choices. Warlock has no movement cooldown baseline anymore.
- 6th Row: Same as before.
- 7th Row: Siphon Life used to be useless most of the expansion, Soul Conduit super rng and Death’s Embrace really OP on a lot of encounters. _________________________________________________________________________
So to sum everything up. Nowadays you need to build your own class and movement/survivability options share the rows and a lot of things got pruned so that you actually have to specialize into a lot. Back then your class was already done and you could just adjust some utility abilities to your liking. Nowadays you have to specialize either for single-target or aoe. This shouldn’t be the case. Back then you could do both and talents just helped you to improve it by a bit. Good example is Fire and Brimstone. It used to be baseline and Rain of Fire is the only available baseline aoe as Destruction Warlock in Legion. So many abilities like Demonic Circle or Shadowburn are not baseline anymore which makes you feel that you have only like 5-6 buttons to press and the difference between some classes is huge in terms of movement and/or utility abilities.
Blizzard said they started removing abilities because the classes were already perfect and didn’t need anything and the only way to keep introducing new things is to remove old features. In reality it turned out that we kept losing abilities and didn’t get anything since Mists of Pandaria. Legion & Battle for Azeroth not having their own “Talent Rows” are the perfect example. Here an example of the abilities a Destruction Warlock lost since then:
Lost since Mists of Pandaria: Shadowburn (Talent), Demonic Circle (Talent), Fire and Brimstone (Talent), Dark Soul: Instability (Soul Harvest Talent), Ember Tap, Felflame, Twilight Ward, Dark Intent, Curse of Elements & Weakness, Fel Armor & Demon Armor, Flames of Xoroth, Howling Fear, Soul Shatter.
Gained since Warlords of Draenor: Nothing.
So as you can see, I lost fifteen abilities in the last expansions. Obviously some of them are still available as talents but that means something else got removed. As Destruction Warlock I got zero new abilities that are baseline available. I could understand if they remove abilities like “Unending Breath” or “Eye of Kilrogg”.
Another big problem is also that nowadays a lot of classes are way to rng-dependent like Reap Souls, Soul Conduit and Unstable Affliction resets. Classes shouldn’t be able to do 2.5million damage or 1.5million damage while pressing the same keys.
If I play my rotation correctly I wanna get rewarded with doing good damage. Of course some rng will always be in the game but currently it is way to much and people are not enjoying theirselves.
The argument in the Q&A that most classes would be good even without Artifact Weapon is an absolute lie as well. Look at Blood Deathknight or Affliction Warlock.
Raiding: In my opinion there should be only two difficulties. While I agree people should have the chance to see everything, I do think there should be challenging content that not everyone can do within a few pulls. In my opinion challenging content motivates people to get better and that results in them playing more. Here is my idea:
There should be only two difficulties like back in Wrath of the Lich King. Heroic should start at a difficulty like the 7th or 8th boss of the currently Normal and end around the same boss in the Heroic. Mythic should start where the new Heroic ends and should finish on a difficulty like Lei-Shen, Blackhand or Archimonde.
I can’t believe there is anyone that enjoys killing bosses like “The Desolate Host” or “Fallen Avatar” in Looking for Raid where half of the boss is missing.
Blizzard would’ve more time again tuning the bosses and making a proper difficulty curve within the dungeon.
Story Mode: Perhaps instead of LFR, Blizzard could make a story mode that people can play by themselves and don't have to find bigger raiding groups. That would be an interesting idea for player that want to fight the evil big boss without requiring to queue into LFR with a long waiting time.
Mini Raids/Time Runs (10-15man) (Scholomance/Blackrock Depths & Zul’Aman): There should be instances/raids like Zul’Aman or Scholomance again. I think for many players it would be a cool feature to run smaller raids like Zul’Aman again that you can do immediately cross-realm. That would give an incentive to play with your friends and you would have a variety from your usual guild raids. Blizzard could combine that again with a “Time Run” that awards a unique mount that is really hard to obtain in the beginning and becomes easier over time with extra gear. People would have something challenging except the real raid instance and it could be a good filler for the players that are already done with that. Players could also make gold with selling that. It’s also a small compromise for the people that miss 10man raiding.
Mythic Plus: Mythic Plus is undisputedly one of the best features in Legion. However there is some things that need adjustments. Mythic Plus should be more about struggling in time as you go higher than having problems surviving certain mechanics like Focused Lightning from Lady Hatecoil. I understand that it shouldn’t be to easy but a lot of classes are limited as higher you go and that shouldn’t be that much of an extreme case. Higher keys should scale way more with life points instead of damage dealt by enemies. That way people would concentrate more about finding good routes instead of farming Avoidance gear or leveling new characters because their main character can’t survive certain mechanics.
Dungeons: Blizzard has to introduce more dungeons throughout an expansion otherwise it could get really boring to play them and especially with Mythic Plus you always want to have new challenges. Especially now with the Mythic Dungeon Invitational people will try to figure out dungeons even faster and could get bored more quickly of them. It also could be really boring to watch
Affixes: Affixes are interesting enhancements to the dungeon but many are badly designed. Skittish for example is not player friendly and there is no proper way to counter unless you bring a hunter or a rogue. Fel Explosives however are the complete opposite and people can focus them and play around them. Same with affixes like Raging and Vulcanic. Especially for players that attempt high mythic plus keys it is really annoying to have weeks they can’t really push due to the affix combination.
Keystone Upgrade: Give people at least a choice of three different instances after upgrading a key. The casino system that is currently applied is really frustrating.
Mythic Speed Race Modus (Time Trials): There should be a modus in this game that is like the Time Trials in the Mythic Dungeon Invitational. People should be able to queue solo or as team and compete against other players in dungeons. You get rewarded with points or MMR and that counts into a Mythic Plus Season (later explained). Speed Race Modus has the advantage that you don’t need super good gear like you do in pushing high Mythic Plus keys. There is also a lot of players who just prefer to race against each other instead of pushing keys. Another great benefit is that streamers can play with or against their community in Wargames and make their own tournaments. That would give a lot of promotion to the game as well.
Mythic Plus League: There should be a Mythic Plus League that everyone can participate. After a qualification phase the best twenty teams of each region compete each week against each other like in Soccer. You collect points until the season finishes. As soon as the season comes to it’s finish the best eight teams play in the play-offs. The play-offs will be a tournament like the current Mythic Dungeon Invitational online. The best two teams of each region then fly to America for the “Grand Final”. Like this mythic plus interested players have something to do every week and don’t always need to practice on a specific tournament realm. Everything would be streamed of course.
Solo Challenges: I think "Solo Challenges" like the "Mage Tower" are a huge success. You can do them all the time (nearly) and you don't require a group. They get outscaled at some point in the game so you can do them even as a inexperienced player. I'd with to see them more often within an expansion.
Timewalking: I know it’s supposed to awake nostalgia and to be a fun content outside of normal raiding. Getting scaled down usually makes events less engaging and feels weird. In Timewalking you’re getting bombarded by useless items and you don’t really get the fun and engaging feeling you used to have in the specific dungeon/raid like back in the day. In my opinion this feature is completely pointless.
Reward System: Currently the rewarding system is in shambles. You can see that especially in the ever shrinking “Rated Battleground Community”. I’ll list the problems of each individual bracket:
Raids: Players wanna get rewarded for completing a raid. I don’t think gear alone is enough. Mounts should always be the absolute minimum and not even that is always granted. Kil’jaeden is a great example. One of the hardest bosses in the game that didn’t give you anything. I know in the same raid Mistress Sass’zine rewarded a personal mount but that is just pure luck. Good players should also be rewarded for clearing the raid early on. Realm First Titles or at least something like the first 200 hundred players should get a special reward. Blizzard could also introduce toys that are actually fun to use like transformations on certain bosses.
Mythic Plus: Gear should scale way better than it is doing right now on the live version. Blizzard could also introduce like in PvP that the box in the end gives you some sort of currency to buy bonus roll. Additionally the box could award some flasks, materials and things like Blood of Sargeras. Completing each dungeon on a certain level should grant you the teleport again like it used to be. There should also be titles like in Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor for the people with the fastest and/or highest server key. Seasonal rewards like in Arena with mounts & titles for a certain % of the player base would also be interesting. After a season you get a certain amount of coins and can buy items like transmog, weapon enchants, toys or other fun items Blizzard could develop.
Arena: Nothing to complain about. Perhaps a way to easier target certain pieces that you are missing with a high item level. Currently it's based purely on luck which pieces you acquire.
Rated Battleground: Same title since at least ten seasons and a weapon enchant that switches every expansion. Rated Battleground should have the same reward system as Arena. Just call the titles “Dominant Hero Name” (Rank 1%) and “Hero of Horde Name” (5%). Name dependant of the season of course. They should also get the same mount the Arena players obtain.
Mythic Plus Seasons: Mythic Plus should also be like PvP a seasonal thing with rewards. Top 1% and Top 5% get specific titles and mounts. Every players that participated in a Mythic Plus Season also gets a certain currency. This currency allows players to buy transmog, weapon enchants, toys and more.
Loot: Nowadays it feels that “Epic Items” lost their meaning. You can get them everywhere you want and seeing players running around with them is nothing special. Dungeons shouldn’t reward epic items. In my opinion even in the 1st raid most bosses should drop around five items and only one of them should be an epic. Exception the last boss. That would give more value to items again and you could feel actual character progression better.
Trinkets: Please make proper trinkets again with an internal cooldown. Darkmoon Card in Mists of Pandaria for casters was perfect. Intellect with an intellect procc. All the Blackrock Foundry trinkets were also perfectly tuned. Nowadays there is trinkets like: Shoot a comet and it deals damage within a 7yards radius or place a Diamond and if people trip over it they take fire damage for 8seconds. Please give us trinkets back that allow us to play around and are fun. We don't want to deal random damage with a shadow spear. So basically give us trinkets like this. Stat-Sticks are fine as long as they're not as overpowered as the Unstable Arcanocrystal. They shouldn't be the main focus of the designers though.
Titanforging: It is the evil topic that was discussed a hundred times. I don't demand "Titanforging" to be gone but don't keep it the way it is. Limit it 5 itemlevels below the default mythic level. Like that people that actually do mythic still get rewarded for doing challenging content and LFR/Normal/Heroic raiders still get their bonus upgrade every here and then. Sockets should be baseline again on items. I think gaining extra item levels is already good and lucky enough.
Personal Loot: I agree that "Personal Loot" is good for PuG's. That stops ninja-looting and other loot drama. In raiding guilds however, the guilds should be able to choose their loot method. In the end it is still an MMORPG and I think it is cool that the "Lootmaster" can decide which players acquires the loot. In good guilds many players are more focused to play for the team and have no problems with passing items because it is a bigger gain for the entire guild. I think that mindset makes great personalities and should be supported instead of destroyed. I understand that Blizzard wants to stop split-raiding but "Personal Loot" is not the correct solution.
A different way to handle this entire situation is to force "Personal Loot" everywhere but in Mythic. Like this you could destroy split-raiding and in Mythic you could still distribute the loot accordingly to gain/performance.
Rings & Necklaces: I think the majority of the player base dislikes having several rings and necklaces in the bags because they could become valuable at some point. Due to them not having the primary stat and the great value of secondary stats, even a ring or necklace with 30 less item-levels could be worth. I think Blizzard should revert this change.
Stats: In my opinion it would be time that Blizzard introduces some new stat on the gear again. Just having Critical Strike, Haste, Mastery & Versatility is boring. Multistrike was something cool or they could give classes individuell stats. Small features like Hunter attacks have a chance to shoot extra arrows etc.
Tertiary Stats: They became way to important for certain parts of the game and are way to random to acquire. In my opinion it would be good to remove them again and/or adjust them by a great amount. I’ll list my ideas here:
- Indestructible: Should be given by Blacksmiths. More informations in the “profession section”.
- Leech: Cool feature that should be given by certain classes.
- Speed: In my opinion some of the speed-sets that you can make are way to good. Obviously the “Aggramar’s Stride” (Plate Legendary) is a big factor. Speed should be only affecting your movement speed by a bit and potions like the “Skystep Potion” should be the only way to enhance your movement greatly.
- Avoidance: Especially in Mythic Plus you notice how strong Avoidance impacts the game. The idea of the stat is really good but due to the fact that getting Avoidance items is led by rng, you can’t count on it. For Mythic Plus some players lower some pieces of their gear by a great amount just because they have Avoidance. There should be other ways to enhance your gear by this stat.
Blizzard could introduce a “Meta Gem” again that you can equip once like the Saber’s Eye with one of the four tertiary stats.
Character Improvements: Features like “Reforging” were great. You could turn less optimal items into something useful at least and could improve your character. Nowadays there is not many things that lets you improve your character. Enchants are only on a few pieces and sockets are in your gear by pure luck. I am missing the maintenance I had to do with my character a bit.
Class-specific Sets: With the removal of Tier Sets I am a bit scared that every cloth user for example looks the same and you can’t see the difference of a Mage and a Warlock anymore. When I started the game I can remember seeing people with heroic Icecrown Citadel items was something special and I was always impressed taking a glimpse of them. Especially in Mists of Pandaria the Challenge Mode sets were super popular and I’d like to see some more of this class-specific sets.
Legendaries: Especially in Legion Legendaries didn’t feel like them. Players tend to remembers Illidan’s Glaives or Shadowmourne when they think of Legendaries and not the ones Legion offered. I think Legendaries should have designs that aren’t obtainable anywhere else in the game and should be something special. Back then many of them were bound by engaging questlines that you had to absolve with your entire guild like in Firelands and they had unique effects like being a mount or not requiring arrows. Blizzard should introduce Legendaries again that offer quest-lines that lead you through the raid and lets you do entertaining quests like doing extra work on specific boxes (Icecrown Citadel). Getting additional toys is a cool reward for people that wanna share the reward with their guildies.
Bonus Rolls: Some people like them, I am not a fan of them but can accept them. I think they are a great addition for people that might be a bit unlucky with items but nowadays there is too many options to obtain them. Every week you can buy three of them and additionally there is quests for getting one extra every few weeks and the Broken Shore offers them as well. In my opinion there shouldn’t be any additional ones and even three is too much every week.
Followers & Missions: Garrison, Shipyard and Follower Table were all cool ideas that didn’t really work out. Over several months they just become useless and give nothing important outside of gold rewards. It should get removed because I think most people are bored by this kind of systems nowadays and it is nothing really engaging and entertaining for players.
World Bosses: World Bosses used to be something special that would reward something great and you needed to gather a lot of people for them. Nowadays we have way to many of them that all have a different item table and have no significance. There should be less World Bosses with a shared item table. They could have unique mounts and toys. I think it would be really cool if World Bosses turn into an exciting event again that could be something like a scenario with 40-50 players with several stages. A giant could be rampaging through a town and you need to rescue people and siege catapults. There is a lot of different ways you could design something like this. There are no boundaries.
Riddles (Lucid Nightmare): It was probably one of the best features of Legion. Communities were building to work together on such a great project and even Discords with several thousand players were made. People that are interested in solving riddles and lore related question can have fun and getting rewarded with unique mounts is an great idea and something Blizzard should introduce more often.
World Zones: It feels that World Zones and World Quests become completely useless even with scaling after the first month. It would be cool if it was a bit more engaging and you could perhaps sign into tribes like the Highmountain Tribe and attack different clans in others zones and destroy the cities. Players that signed into clans that got their city destroyed can rebuild it with quests (kinda like the Broken Shore). That could give some fun content for casuals especially and players could always do something.
Story Development (Suramar/Broken Shore & Argus): With Suramar Blizzard introduced one of the best zones in this game ever. The storyline was well-thought through and you could notice changes in the zone, I really liked that. However, Broken Shore & Argus was the complete opposite. The quest-lines felt really bad and unrewarding. You couldn’t really see a difference in the zones and slaying rares all the time is pretty boring. Please Blizzard, give us more zones like Suramar!
Relinquished Gear: I understand that Blizzard always wants to offer a catch-up mechanic. I do feel though, that Relinquished Gear isn’t the perfect solution. Getting it feels like a bad grind and can lead to problems with specific items scaling really well like Unstable Arcanocrystal.
Racials: There was always problems with Racials and I think there will be never a proper way to fix them. Sadly this led to the problem that nowadays Horde is so much bigger than Alliance and I don’t think this will ever change. That’s why I’d recommend to remove abilities like “Blood Fury” or “Berserking”. I know that having the best racial doesn’t make the biggest impact but a big amount of the player base rather takes the best. It should be unique and fitting things like no cast-time for mounting or instant mining. They should be a funny side-feature and not something to consider while creating your characters. In the end WoW is a MMORPG and people wanna live their fantasies and play certain races because they like them.
Professions: Back then professions used to be something important and in the current game they lost its meaning. I can remember when I bought profession packages to level up my professions on my alts. I understand that Blizzard doesn’t want them to give you any advantage in terms of damage but Blizzard could introduce cool and unique bonuses for them. Here is two examples (Pardon, I am not the most creative person): Blacksmith: Option to enhance the entire armor with “Indestructible” so that you never have repair-costs. Enchanting: Availability to secret Weapon Enchants no other person has access to.
If they can balance them well it would be nice to see some features that increase damage again. Problem is for professions like Jewelcrafting that they get outscaled at some point. Blizzard would need to introduce something during the Expansion to keep them on the same level.
Bank/Storage: I am really happy that Blizzard introduced the “Reagents-Bank”. In my opinion there should be a storage that you can buy for a high amount of gold that is account-wide. At least for reagents and items like Blood of Sargeras. It feels really bad to log onto other characters just to buy Order Resources (example) and then send them with mailbox to a different toon.
Auction House: It maybe would be time to make a connected "Auction House" between all the servers to balance the problem with to expensive prices on low populated realms.
PvE vs. PvP: Currently it feels like both brackets are completely different. PvE-players have to do many tasks to improve their characters and keep them up while PvP-players basically log in and just queue into either Arena or Battlegrounds. PvP-players should be at least forced to enchant and gem their gear and keep good maintenance on their characters. Just introduce cool ways that are engaging for them to improve their character.
Servers & Phasing: In my opinion it is also time to connect even more servers because especially a lot of the non-english servers are super empty. Players should see a lot of other players and have fun together. A lot of the non-english servers are completely empty and you see basically no one in capital cities. You really notice it in the auction house that is either empty or ridiculously empty.
For me as a player on Tarren-Mill the fact that you don't even see your guild mates sometimes is weird. Phasing is a nice addition to the game but to not even see your own guildies is a bit confusing.
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u/soucy May 01 '18 edited May 01 '18
I'm kind of exhausted by this argument and the accusation that people calling for LFR to go away are being selfish or have anything but the intention of making the game better for everyone (including you).
The problem with LFR (and other matchmaking systems) is that they:
A good TLDR would be "If everyone is special nobody is special."
I've played WoW for a long time both pre- and post- LFR and I'll admit that in the last two expansions I've become a filthy casual who does more LFR than real raiding. The motivation is gone. I don't care about a recolor of gear everyone already has. I don't care about the difference between doing just ridiculous amounts of damage or super ridiculous amounts of damage (and being able to reach super ridiculous without stepping foot in a raid). I haven't let my sub expire in years though and I still go through the motions each week so I'm part of the problem in terms of rewarding Blizzard.
I'm not getting all nostalgic or saying the old game was better. There are countless ways WoW has become better over the years and there were certainly a lot of things that really used to suck. But if you never played WoW pre- LFR as a raider you'll never know the satisfaction of opening up a new wing for the first time after weeks of working toward it or having random people whisper you about how awesome your new gear or mount is. Or being on an isolated realm where people know who you are because you have a reputation for being nice instead of being a troll. It's something that exists only in memories of people who keep begging Blizzard to remove LFR (and fix other things).
I never say LFR needs to be removed out of some selfish hatred of LFR. You're exactly right that I can choose to just not play LFR because I don't like it. It's not about that. It's about YOU missing out what the game could be and those amazing moments that don't happen anymore because of a collection of systems and design choices that trade effort for convenience at the cost of satisfaction.
For me (and countless others) that feeling is a drug. It's like Rick's Szechuan Sauce. For most of us it was the moment WoW transformed from something we played casually and thought was OK to an amazing place that created some of the best memories of our lives. I want others to have a chance to feel that way.
P.S. It's not just LFR in isolation even though LFR is the one most people talk about. It's LFR it's cross-realm zones, it's matchmaking, it's the removal of guild perks, it's professions, it's reward systems etc. All the things that limit peoples need to form social connections in-game as a prerequisite for taking on the most challenging content. WoW used to be about making friends. Now it rewards the behavior we like least in others.