1,600 words regarding my Classic Plus vision ;)

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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Despite my account running out after a long Classic journey I want to outline my concept of the best possible WoW-iteration. I’m going to describe four cornerstones and a metaphoric roof. I’ve been tinkering with these thoughts for a while, so it’s a bit of a read. I post this for I care for the game and I’d welcome discussions regarding any part of this.

  1. cornerstone: Class design
  2. conerstone: World design
  3. cornerstone: endgame
  4. cornerstone: QoL
    roof: integrity

Class design

After playing through the entire Classic trilogy again while also playing CRPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3, Pathfinder Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous and ARPGs like D2 Resurrected (modded for QoL), D4 beta (not for me) and Last Epoch (look, it’s half your price and I get to store all my stuff), I find that the core of any RPG is it’s Class design. This is were both Pathfinders shine and BG3 couldn’t keep me interested, so I put this as the number 1 aspect.

Of the multiple iterations of WoW Classic I consider the Class design of WotLK the best for most classes. Prime example would be the Warlock: While she has maintained her S-Tier dps from TBC, she has become much more interesting and versatile through WotLK’s talent tree overhaul. I have raided as both Affli and Demo during the first two raid tiers and it was great. Another winner would be the Enhancement Shaman, who has retained his top-notch utility but has become much more fun to play with WotLK’s changes - if only there were slow caster weapons beyond Naxx. On the other hand my beloved Hunter did receive similar gameplay changes, yet neither SV nor MM could retain the class’s top dps status from TBC, which I consider an issue. Also, for the Hunter especially I’d make an exception and take something from beyond WotLK: focus. My personal favorite Hunter design was that from Warlords of Draenor. Other classes like Warrior and Rogue haven’t received any notable changes from Vanilla throuh WotLK, but they were fine in Vanilla already.

That being said, I would start a Classic Plus with the Class design from WotLK, so we either go to lvl 80 (not compatible with my remaining points) or condense the talent trees somehow to fit on a lvl 60 char - maybe just award 2 talent points per lvl for the last 20 levels. Numbers tuning should go without saying - see Hunter remarks above. I wouldn’t need Death Knights in Classic (despite that being my WotLK main), but both factions should have Paladins and Shamans.

Further I dislike the buff homogenization from WotLK and would rather go with the TBC version where class identity was stronger. The entire concept of “bring the player not the class” might have sounded clever but has imo failed. For one, an RPG requires class identity, otherwise class choice would be meaningless (like in later expansions where they are about as different as Mario and Luigi) and for another, you didn’t really succeed anyway for Paladin stacking in WotLK is worse than Shaman stacking in TBC ever was. On that note, “raid sac” should not be a thing, trivializes encounters too much.

World design

Now the coolest character design would be for naught if we couldn’t bring our character into a world to explore and eventually conquer. This is where Baldur’s Gate 3 beats the Pathfinders - and Azeroth trumps both Outland and Northrend. According to Wowhead there are 46 outdoor zones in Vanilla (incl. cities) and I would rank each and every Outland zone below them, maybe Nagrand above Silithus, but that’s it. Northrend is okay, but no zone makes top 5 for me either (Stranglethorn by far #1 - jungle, southsea and pirates - best setting ever; after that in no particular order Un’goro, Winterspring and Feralas). Dragonblight, Sholazar and Icecrown are pretty good though, especially the whole Wrath Gate questline.

From my observations it has been established already that the Vanilla 1-60 world is the only choice for a Classic Plus, so at most I’d consider retuning a few Northrend zones to be lvl 50-60 as an addition.

Endgame

This is the aspect, where I can come out as a TBC guy. From reaching max level to defeating Illidan and later Kil’Jaeden there was a clear pyramid of progression without redundancy or backtracking. At the bottom level you equip yourself with questing blues, basic crafts and loot from normal dungeons. Then you hit heroics, the 10-man intro raid Karazhan (THAT zone does make top 10 overall) and Gruul/Magtheridon as a first step into actual 25-man raids. At this point most blues become obsolete but you can still craft relevant epics. Beyond that you qualify (attune) for t5-raids, then t6-raids and eventually Sunwell.

What was bad about Vanilla endgame?

  • world buffs and kinda unlimited consumable grind - too much of a time investment and a major downer if you happened to die
  • raid content before Naxx too easy
  • 40-man size impractical

What was bad about WotLK endgame?

  • up to 4 difficulties per raid boss - this really devalues boss kills. I have killed the Lich King and seen the ending credits week 1. Only in 10-man non-heroic but that’s the point - there’s nothing new to see except to try and jump through a few additional hoops for months. Also doing both 10 and 25-man in the same week feels really bad and should at the very least not impact your character’s power. It obviously does and thus kinda forces people to also raid 10-man if they want to somehow compete.
  • incentives for outgeared content - surprise, but this isn’t good but horrible. In TBC I had no reason to go back into Shadow Lab heroic on my main and that was good because I can/want spend a limited time in WoW and if I qualify for t5 I want to spend most/all of it in those raids and have no “obligations” beyond that. Remember I play for fun. Now in WotLK there are dailies, weeklies and badges to collect that ruin your day on off-raid-nights. What’s the point? If I want to go back to lower level content, I can make an alt or if I really enjoy it, I don’t need an incentive. Do you really think groupfinder or the Ashenvale event in SoD are a success because people do it? NO it both sucks but there’s too much of a reward to not do it.
  • BoE epics - I don’t mean Classic drops like the Krol Blade but actual raiding gear being made available for (bought) gold.

So, I am aware that my description means raid logging is good and yes, I think it is. Anything below the current raid tier should be optional (as in: no gearscore improvements) so that I can really only log to have fun. I never ran out of stuff I wanted to do, but those obligations reduced my time budget for that.

Now for a way to bring the best endgame experience into Classic Plus:
That’s probably a huge workload, but I would have every raid tier from Molten Core to ICC (yeah, yeah, Ruby Sanctum, but that’s the epilogue of the classic trilogy) re-tuned for 25-man lvl 60 groups (with their WotLK talents, see above) with ONE difficulty version of each boss - for those that have multiple, use the heroic one, but tone down a few outliers. That’s ten tiers which should each last for about 3 months. When tier X releases, reduce the difficulty of X-1 to the normal version and that of X-2 to a puggable version. That way everybody gets to experience everything and you shatter all those claims of “every player pays the same fee and is entitled to beat Arthas”.

I’d keep the 10-man raids Karazhan and Zul’Aman as such and would also turn WotLK Naxx into a 10-man only. That reduces redundancy for classic Naxx would’ve been the main raid a while ago.

You could also stagger the release of the Northrend zones until their respective raid becomes current content - that would recreate the Sunwell experience, where there was not only a new raid but a new max lvl zone to quest in. It’s just really important to not make them “better” than the old zones to keep players spread over Azeroth.

QoL
This is the least important cornerstone, but off the top of my head, there are many things where I’d go with the QoL of WotLK:

  • instant mail
  • better flight paths
  • swimming mounts (but no flying in Azeroth)
  • functional summoning stones (but no groupfinder)

There are probably more, but nothing that couldn’t be hotfixed.

Integrity

Now what’s sadly as important as making the best potential WoW following the above ideas? Due to WoW being a multiplayer online game, there’s an additional layer that can ruin everything. In a nutshell: hacking, cheating, botting, over- and underpopulation. The first three are kinda obvious but still aren’t handled properly in my opinion. It’s not enough to ban offenders every once in a while. I don’t care how many accounts are terminated, but how many are still out there selling their heinous goods. Regarding population I suppose heavy layering is the only sensible way. I dislike mega-servers so I go for those with the lowest pop where I can experience the WORLD of Warcraft and not only it’s instances. On the other hand, these servers lack people for group content and goods in the auction house for a proper experience. So the only way to provide both is layering.

Bonus content chapter:

There are two mini-game additions beyond WotLK that I would like to return - as long as they follow the mantra of not increasing a raiding viable character’s gearscore:
pet battles and the garrison from WoD

I know that many people dislike those but as long as they’re optional: why not? Lowest prio for sure, but I would play both.

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Stopped reading once I saw your opinion about world buffs and content being too easy.

World buffs is good for the game because it has the vanilla feeling to it and it promoted world pvp. Content should be easy because your average classic player can barely do any mechanics. Vanilla is about the social aspect, not sweaty mechanics. Also, consumes stacking had its pros and cons, but it promoted open world farming. Any expansion past vanilla is just a capital afk simulator until raid

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I just stopped reading when I saw it was another Classic Plus thread. I thought we were done with those after SOD came, but nope.

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Good points overall. Ignore those with swamps for brains who need to post their opinion starting with “I haven’t read what you’ve wrote but my opinion on this is…”

I pretty much agree on all points including TBC as the pinnacle of class identity and progression.

But I particularly like that you said “bring the player not the class” is a dumb rpg game philosophy and has proven to have failed.

But most importantly and I can’t stress this enough, the point about wanting to do a dungeon not for it’s reward but for the fun of it. It’s something many have completely forgotten when it comes particularly to WoW. Everything must yield some award, currency, reputation, gold whatever. The point is to PLAY a game for FUN not to DO trudge through thing A so I can acquire thing B so I can trudge through thing C so I can acquire thing E…

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Thanks for your time and how much you wrote. It‘s nice seeing people actually are thinking about the game.

However I diagree with the difficulty part. WoW Classic is extremely easy and you know what? It‘s a good thing. Classic players don’t want a challenge rather a chill eve with the boys in discord. Challenges and Classic don’t go together. You have retail with Mythic+ for that.
Classic gives the people a feel of accomplishment even if what they’ve done is easy. And that‘s good - it‘s just a game.

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Well, regarding difficulty, I mostly agree that Classic should not be “hard”, especially not in the way that retail content is hard - by morphing the game into a jump’n’run that challenges your agility instead of your knowledge.

However I also think that TBC difficulty during t5 and t6 was the sweet spot. Yes it was neither perfect nor “live-like” (no way was Leotheras easier than Lurker back in the days), but it felt good overall. As a raid lead I had a few tools to squeeze the most out of my team. Classic raids - mostly MC - didn’t feel so good for bosses were merely pushovers, we had kill times from 20 seconds to 1:30 and we were far from “pro raiders”.

Also, the open world of Classic is harder than that of TBC and WotLK and I appreciate that. Think of all the elites that got nerfed to normal mobs.

Oh and since you mentioned retail and M+… that’s the last thing I want in WoW. I don’t believe in 5-man challenges in WoW. Yes, you can always tune numbers to the point where players fail, but no dungeon that needs to work with any class comp can ever compare to 25-man raid encounters. I see dungeons as transitional content between (solo) leveling and raids. Screw that alpha, beta, gamma crap :wink:

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This is Retail ligth. Not even Classic +
Might be your dream, would be my nightmare.

And yes, I read it all.

Your QoL changes are not Quality for me the opposite.

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almost though you’re serious but thwn i read the last line. Hahaha, funny.

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But I AM serious.

instant mail
better flight paths
swimming mounts (but no flying in Azeroth)
functional summoning stones (but no groupfinder)

would be opposite of Quality for me.
I am #NoChanges incarnate. Only Quality for me would be roll back all changes already in game.

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Still same cope from those classic plus guys. They have SOD, they have Wotlk, they will have Cata and still simping around stuff from it to implement it to ‘‘classic’’ plus. They got SOD but thats not classic plus. Becuase everyone wants that change or that and not that, lets make a game where everyone will a choice how it looks like and we all end in solo player game haha.

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So you’re just 180° against everything different from 2004? Your opinion is fine, but what’s the point in a discussion featuring potential upgrades to that?

My approach was to take the best of each of the trilogy’s parts.

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The problem is. No-one agrees what “Best” is. And if we implement everybody’s “best” we end up with not Classic no more but monster. That why I am against change. Because some change I would sure like, but many more not!

But let’s play:
I’d like my Classic + this way: Build on Vanilla both in gameplay, professions and all.

  • Level limit to be 60, but last levels 50 to 60 to take way more XP before you get there.
  • all spells, talents, buffs and all class play to be like Vanilla. No locking of anything behind specs like Wrath.
  • Achievements - PERSONAL only
  • Transmogs - PERSONAL only - but freer then was, you can 'mog to all armour you can use, meaning a Plate-wearer can 'mog cloth, leather, mail and plate onto his plate. Also make looks from gery and white items available for 'mogging. All cosmetics to 'mog on anything.

Both Transmogs and Achievements would make lots of people willing to run old content to get stuff.

Zones:

  • Scale down Outlands and Northrend and release zones slowly. One every two months for instance.
  • Fill in blank spaces of maps from start with suppelemting adventures - for levelling, for fun.
  • More recipes for Tailoring / BS with other stats combos than now and other colours, so whole sets are for transmog.
  • more cooking recipes with other then + Stam - and more fun ons like Deviate delight. Add some feasts as well.

End game: I think end game should be fun, and not raidlog.
I’d like

  • No WBs
  • no consumes like petri or other OP mechanics. Only class and cook buffs.
  • And opposite you I like difficulty of “old” Raids/Dungeons to stay same, so that fun is also there for latecomers.
  • Group/Raid finder with NO buffs, no goodiebags, or other incentives to use, only to put group together, TP there and back - Condition. You have to have been to this place at least once on foot.

QoL
Should keep gameplay and like in Vanilla, no changes to Interface, Map or Questlog.

  • Make every addon-like thing optional and continue with addons. Screen UI shold be able to look like Vanilla.
  • LOTS more bank space for storing of Transmogs - make an Armour and a Weapons tab that are really huge.
  • Tab for mounts and pets - PERSONAL only.
  • But drop few more mail boxes here and there. Not amount like Wrath :frowning:
    2 or 3 extra FP’s per faction, not more. (Allys near in that burned down inn in Dustwallow and Rebel’s Camp in STV)
  • A cooking fire or two in SW.
  • Hunter aspects not reset on FP.
  • Abilty to find the book showing Fish pools.
  • No glitter to Quest objects, herbs, mines etc. (or ability to disable)

I think we never agree.

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Back the days of vanilla we do clear the content without World Buffs. Because we don’t know we were able to collect them and use in raids.

I can remember that my very first WB in raids was in Naxx time, and we only hunt-down Onyxia’s WB because it was easy to farm. Nothing about Rends, SF, Blasted Lands potions, ZG, etc.

So, WB were part of vanilla gameplay yes. But not part of the raiding endgame scenario.

And yes, you’re right, later expansions where just raid-logging and wasting time in major capital.

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The thing with your vision is, that Classic was unpolished in regards to class design. Warrior for example was done and hasn’t changed from 60 to 80. It’s Heroic Strike/Cleave on next attack, a cooldown based power move in Bloodthirst/MS, then Whirlwind, fishing for WF-procs with Hamstring and the utilities of Sunder, Demo and Battle Shout. And that’s only the dps role. Warlock in WotLK is comparable in both output and complexity, but Classic Warlock is a one-button class with mediocre output - in the endgame, don’t get me wrong. I have leveled a WL in Classic and more than one in WotLK, the toolkit for that is an entirely different story.

Which class(es) do you play? How do they fare? Do you want all classes with a healing spell to only play that like they “had to” in Classic?

Another big misconception (or rather controversy) is that you consider raid-logging bad and I consider it optimal. Raiding is the pinnacle of WoW (from TBC on) and I want it to be viable to only raid after certain qualifications have been met. It’s perfectly fine to do a million other things for fun (my account is full of chars), but they need not be mandatory or even helpful for your raid performance.

Aside from that I wouldn’t mind most of your changes except for the big stinker: group finder. No, no, no. I’m actually surprised that you would do that for it really hurts the social aspects of running a dungeon.

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I play all, only not Rogue and have played to 60 (don’t like Warlock at any level) and like them all to stay as in Vanilla. No heals for other than healing from Vanilla.

You misread me. I liked Classic + to have level limit 60 :wink:

I don’ care for or against raid logging. I just say I want raids to be fun. Is OK you got have good gear, know bit what you do etc. but not preparing for like a second job. Not get all buffs, do nothing till you raid. That’s boring a… and why I against WB of any kind. Bring food, bring class buffs and remember mats :wink: but not: Go SW to get one buff, go BB to get another, go pick flower … and then not play until raid night. No way.

Group finder is for me tool that allows me to do Dungeon at all. I love levelling. I love Questing. I loath to leave my levelling to travel far to do Dungeon. So mostly I say plain No, when people ask me to go Dungeon with them… you then say: Get summonses … But I have to get back again too. Bam, playtime used for one dungeon is no fun!
TP to and back from Dungeon would solve for me and many other. And social why I say you have to go there by foot - touch Meeting stone :slight_smile: - at least once before use Dungeon Finder. For me would be OK you create group, ‘by hand’ then get TP. TP is for me essential part of RDF.

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I was talking about the issue of Priests, Shamans, Paladins and Druids being only raid-viable as healers in their unfinished lvl 60 state. I’m not a fan of Mage healing etc either. Except for Priest, which I didn’t play in Classic, those classes have gained massively through TBC and WotLK and I like their WotLK iterations much better than their classic versions.

Again a misunderstanding: I meant that Warriors at 80 are the same as they are at 60. In other words, they were complete in Classic already and didn’t need additions like the other classes.

We agree on that actually. That second job part sucks and is why I don’t want dailies or weeklies or 10-mans or other activities below 25-mans providing raid-relevant upgrades. Getting WBs and then logging out to conserve them also sucks, but that’s not what I meant by raid logging. For me that’s just the ability to raid and only raid on my main once he is ready. No backtracking to heroics for badges etc.

Well, you can always HS back. For me the deciding factor is to form a group manually via chat interaction. Group finder - especially cross-realm - gets you all kind of negatives for it’s likely that you’ll never see each other again. People queue with their undergeared, pvp-specced Rogue feeling entitled to the dungeon’s reward, others pull nonstop without talking or waiting for mana at all. Then you have those toxic guys that flame all the time. Also the group-finder created a lot of bad matches: On my server the meta quickly became to do exactly one Soulforge per day to reap maximum badges for main characters, avoiding any actual gammas. Meanwhile every fresh 80 queued for it as well for it’s the most sensible thing to do at that point. But when you combine a 3k gearscore tank with 6k gearscore dps, it’s not going to be pleasant.
Getting rid of all that and into dungeons in SoD was super-pleasant.

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I see we come from differnt point into this game. You are end gamer, I am leveller and is hard to make changes pleasing both. I like the travel to max level to be nice, exciting and scary :wink: This why I play now HC (with a teeny bit Era) and have not touched either Seasonals.

I have one last commen

Nope, I almost never have HS where I quest. HS is for fast training of Class/Professions, then fly/travel back to Quest area, So I can be Questing on other continent than where is HS. Is why I loved the TP in and out of Dungeons. As is now, I just do not tank (or indeed run) any dungeon ecxept for when chance have it I am near when someone ask.

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I think end-game and leveling can co-exist, that’s what I’m trying to accomplish with my suggestions. What do you think affects the 1-60 experience in a negative way? You’d have WotLK talents, but the quests stay the same, exp needed stays the same, no monster is downgraded to non-elite, I wouldn’t want quest glitter either - pristine leveling experience imo.

As for your HS, well, use it how you like to, but it sounds like you use it twice a week, which is kind of a waste.

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Those locked many things behind Spec choice. Not fun.

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Like what? I guess you’re mixing this up with a later system, where you had to pick a spec at lvl 10?

I don’t remember when that came, but it wasn’t WotLK, you have the same talent system as before but with 20 more points in each tree - and a few modifications ofc.