Hello
First and foremost I’d like to specify that the following feedback will contain subjective and as much as possible objective feedback and I’ll do my best to honestly own up to which is which. It will be separated into two main feedback areas, classes and dungeons. As I don’t believe in feedback without suggestions for improving, I will detail these suggestions also alongside the feedback.
I’ve played wow on and off starting from Burning Crusade, and while that’s nowhere near as much as other fellow players, hopefully it helps for context.
So let’s jump straight into it, and firstly I’d like you to keep the below question in mind while reading this;
Does a game (design) create toxic players, or do players create a toxic game?
A few notes; The feedback here, where it touches on players, is to be used as a % of the playerbase and does not at all refer to all players.
I’m sure being part of a tight guild resolves some of the problems below, however I believe it should not be a requirement.
Before I wanna share some generally good feedback;
1. New talent system - personally I love it. It has to be said the customisation options are fantastic, it allows for you to play in a style you like and definitely has brought back some ‘old’ builds which even if it’s just for nostalgia sake, works, and works well. One must acknowledge the influence of the min-maxing, sure, but build variations are still viable.
2. Dragon flying - Keep this one simple, whatever your roadmap is for the future, keep this, please.
3. Professions - It’s in one of the best states since probably the Lich King expansion, the interaction between different professions is good, and the way you achieve/unlock recipes are also good. One negative point is honestly the crafting orders. Unnecessary and robotic, I like to see players interacting on trade chat to have people craft things, and crafting orders, while convenient, is no more than a variation of the group finder (more on this later).
4. Lot’s to do - events, quests, reputation farming, all good and not much gatelocking to be seen.
So good stuff there.
So now onto the specific feedback as per the title, deep breath…
Classes
Healers - I don’t have much experience as healers so can’t say much. Though they are impacted with the points below.
Melee DPS - Actually in a good state in my opinion, I’m sure each individual will have their bugbears, but for the most part, they are fun, good survivability tools and diverse enough.
Suggestion for improvement - Not much honestly - only a note that at one time many melee classes felt the same, so please don’t ever go back to this.
Ranged DPS - Well well, what a mixed bag. On one hand you have what you could say Ranged Melee, unaffected by Dungeon and Raid mechanics so to speak as no real cast blockers due to instant casts, and good survivability - looking at you fellow hunters. Sure there needs to be a level of difficulty to different specs with the risk reward (dps) being balanced out, but it feels some ranged classes are punished more than others due to the need for constant moving and avoiding mechanics. Additionally there’s an influence thanks to these turret specs which I’ll go into more detail below, but what this means is, a slight negative point towards the good point about new talents, i.e. some of those talents would never be taken due to this.
Suggestion for improvement - If the design philosophy currently is risk reward, either tune those classes punished by needing to move, or honestly, make all ranged classes have most skills as instant cast by default - not just a skill which allows for another to be instant cast.
Tanks - Can they still be called tanks I wonder. Can these roles still be named after a vehicle which is extremely armoured to take a lot of damage, but slow and steady? I know why you did it blizzard, and what I don’t know is, do you regret it? Tanks as they have existed for many expansions no longer exist - these new tanks are at times stealth fighters, piloted by players who actively avoid trash in dungeons. The main measurement of a good tank - threat - no longer exists. They are self sustained and easily outscale any dungeon which makes for what a friend calls “fairweather tanks”, but I call them, “tourism tanks”. The easiness of just changing spec and your gear adapting causes players to queue as tanks simply to ‘queue jump’. Now some of these points are specific to the players however it’s ‘cause before effect’ - having a spec which is trivial, with little thinking required translates to how they are also played. The main impact is dungeons and Group finder.
Suggestion for improvement - Eek, ok let’s machine gun this;
- Bring back threat - and by that I mean proper threat, not one hit and that’s all good.
- Make tanks a bit more squishy
- Bring back tank specific gear and stats -versatility is fine however when you see a tank you can tell sometimes there’s no care for tank gear (looking at your dps trinkets)
- Make them slower - so speaking from under the table as some people throw the kitchen sink at me, but really, tanks moving at twice the speed of a hunter?
So onto the next part, dungeons; and i’m splitting this into three sections; LFG while leveling, Normals and heroics, and Mythic including Plus
LFG LEVELING DUNGEONS
Well, I’m gonna say this is objective feedback based on the impact on players, but honestly, this is one of the worst designed features I’ve seen in the game, and you did anima farming!
It’s not new player friendly - The idea that putting a level 10 player, including new and returning players, straight into mechanically challenging dungeons in Warlords of Draenor is absolutely stunning. I was leveling through these and honestly, when you have a level 12 new player to the game, who is unfamiliar with mechanics, needing to do these is absolutely stupid. Something as simple for more veterans as an interrupt, which if I may, is a talent choice, to needing to do this on point to avoid a group wipe is such a bad idea I can’t even begin to think how the meeting to have this chosen went. This directly translates to a level of toxicity and impatience from many players. Look at your internal logs if you have them, I’d say these dungeons have the most player deaths of any dungeons ever. If I was stating WoW for the first time I’d quit, as it’s not a good, rewarding experience these dungeons produce.
Suggestions for Improvement: If you’re going to have random dungeons as part of the leveling experience, sure that’s cool, but you have a portfolio of dungeons which were designed for the purpose of progressions - use them. From the vanilla dungeons to Lich King dungeons, tailor these against people’s level which means;
- Level 12 players can only do one of the simpler dungeons, unlocking harder as they become more familiar. Higher level players can also use these to balance the population. At higher levels there may be less people, however it will go a lot easier due to the built up experience. Lower level players should never be able to jump straight into doing mechanically heavy dungeons.
Experience rewards - Paraphrasing here, but the dungeon finder says something along the lines of using it to do a random dungeon will give you X experience and money. Now, that’s not entirely correct is it? What it should really say is, “Killing the last boss will reward you X experience”. This is because on top of the terrible dungeons part of this leveling rotation, most bosses are skippable. If I remember correctly, you can literally skip the whole Freehold Dungeon by killing a few mobs and go straight to the last boss, avoiding 3 bosses. Also because Item rewards (more on this below) are pathetic, why do these? Again the consequence of people in the group is confusion to what is actually happening - just FYI, not many people communicate their intentions on LFG…
Suggestions for Improvement: Quite simple in my view, spread the experience through the dungeon. If the reward for completing a dungeon is 50k xp, if there’s 5 bosses, make 10k xp, with completing the actual dungeon maybe giving an extra 5k. Also increase the XP from trash, to allow players to become familiar with skills & mechanics and be part of the game.
Item rewards - I’d like to personally thank you on behalf of my Death Knight for all the cloth gear these rewards, it makes the experience even more fun - sarcasm may be the lowest form of wit, but sure gets a point across.
Suggestions for Improvement: I’m sure it’s known it’s broken, no need to hit that nail in the head, a head…
Scaling - Have you ever needed to cook for yourself, and look into the fridge and only a bunch of random things there, so you use that. It’s not fantastic, but also not terrible so yeh, keep cooking.
Suggestions for Improvement: I’m sure this is being worked on but as I said, kinda works.
LFG END-GAME NORMAL AND HEROIC DUNGEONS
For this, I’ve only see a couple things making the experience not optimal, and some of these are copy and paste from the Leveling dungeons.
Scaling - So actually it’s not that scaling exists in endgame normal and heroic dungeons, it’s that in my view it doesn’t currently. It’s too easy for someone with high gear to swap to a tank spec and pull a whole dungeon. Now while this is in a way fine, it’s a reward for your time and effort put into gearing, it causes a massive disparity between players in LFG. While one person is relaxed getting to grips with rotation, a tank may have already pulled and killed half the dungeon alone. That creates a small elitist attitude, which while possible only a small population is prone to this, makes for the experience ‘toxic’.
Experience reward - for normals before max level, use the same methodology as the LFG experience suggested. Balance XP throughout the dungeon rather than just the last boss kill.
Suggestions for Improvement: Scaling. Have a item level range on players for normal and heroic, and if a item level 420 joins the group, they would actually be e.g. 359 or so, making the dungeon more bearable and what it can seem at time - a means for someone to farm a dungeon while someone heals them.
MYTHIC +
I like the idea of Mythic plus, and the potential, but there’s only one thing that makes these a ‘waste of time’
People just leave - Especially desired roles, it’s too easy for a player to leave a Mythic dungeon, at no risk except the key holder. Too many times this leads to a ‘i’m gonna be toxic because you need me else I leave’ attitude.
Suggestions for Improvement: Honestly, I’m not quite sure how this could work, but ideally, you’d want a (cooldown?) penalty for a player leaving the dungeon (rage quit), without others being affected by the same penalty. Only thing that comes to mind is;
- If a player leaves the group while in Mythic plus, their cooldown for leaving is proportional to how much time they spent in it. This avoids people leaving just before last boss
- If a player to work around this restriction decides to go AFK, then use the rules of Kicking players from the group, not affected by the penalty. The issue with this which would require though is any potential exploit at a sacrifice of a player.
So hopefully some food for thought and I’m sure you are trying to turn a new leaf and become a better game/expansion than before, but hopefully feedback is heard, and if anything at least considered.
I’ll see you in-game.
Enjoy