Heretical ideas that would make the game more enjoyable

[Badmojoman-alakir]

Idea 1.
Wow would be a much better game if gear did not have stats.

Would you run mythic dungeons or raids if you did not get good gear from it?
No?
Well that’s because the game is not fun/engaging enough on it’s own.

PvP would be more balanced and more accessible to players. It would be a game of skill, and anyone could engage in it.

PvE could become more rogue-lite with finely tuned challenges, making it more fun to engage in. With a focus on more dynamic enemy behavior.

What are the rewards?
Transmogs for you characters and transmogs for your house.

Idea 2.
DPS meters are bad for the game. They make for toxic behavor and pressure people out of actually having fun.

What to do instead:
After every boss, there is a score card that announces the winner.
It’s calculated based on damage avoided, damage done, healing done, tanking done, last second saves and fun dynamic events unique to each boss.

You should not know how well you are doing until the end of the boss fight.

Idea 3.
Wow classes need to be much more simple, but there needs to be a lot more classes. Variety is the spice of life. Make the game more accessible, but give people more options. Add in all the fan favorite classes like: Spell Breaker, Tinker, Shadow Hunter etc. collecting transmogs for each character becomes the meta.

Idea 4:
Story telling should be more dynamic. Dialogue options, facial animations, cinematic camera angles, voiced characters. With AI voice over becoming so good, there is no reason for you not to do this. Yes “Artists” will complain, but players will actually enjoy the story more. This also forces wow into a quality over quantity mindset.

Idea 5
More interactions with the space of the world (not just a few items and mobs). Climbing ladders, opening doors, reading notes, breaking crates, searching cabinets. Things like that make the space more interesting and engaging. Right now it’s just walking through an art gallery with mobs in it.

Idea 6
Ragdoll physics. This idea has been around for a while, but never materialized because “wow engine is old”. Aren’t you the developers? Are you seriously saying you are completely unable to update your own engine? There are so many ways for you to do this and you have never bothered.

You know there are ways for you to isolate spagetti code right?
Or even create separate versioning for expansions?
Make it run on the user end as an optional feature only?

[Draghon-burning-blade]

Well, those are quite major changes but i wouldn’t enjoy them as they remove things that caused me being with WoW for 20 years, so not agreeing with this.

[Uda-uldum]

@Badmojoman-alakir

Wow would be a much better game if gear did not have stats.

Gear is not a reward. Gear is a mean to nerf content over time such that everyone has a sensation of “progress” in the content they do.

So if you remove stats from gear. Thats OK. But then you will need to nerf everything by 2% per week or something like that.

@Badmojoman-alakir

DPS meters are bad for the game. They make for toxic behavor and pressure people out of actually having fun.

Or how about stop being emotional teenagers and using the addon for what it’s intended: To know how and where to improve.

And yes. Sometimes the improvement has to come from someone else. There is nothing bad with that.

@Badmojoman-alakir

Wow classes need to be much more simple, but there needs to be a lot more classes. Variety is the spice of life. Make the game more accessible, but give people more options. Add in all the fan favorite classes like: Spell Breaker, Tinker, Shadow Hunter etc. collecting transmogs for each character becomes the meta.

Classes need to be unique. First and foremost. A Tinker cant be a Shaman with different colored buttons. It defeats the purpose.

And IMO we are already at the maximum this game can give. More classes would be a mistake.

@Badmojoman-alakir

Story telling should be more dynamic. Dialogue options, facial animations, cinematic camera angles, voiced characters. With AI voice over becoming so good, there is no reason for you not to do this. Yes “Artists” will complain, but players will actually enjoy the story more. This also forces wow into a quality over quantity mindset.

Storytelling in this game has always been dumb. Take in mind that 1 expansion takes 2 years. So blizzard will take 2 years to tell you a story. And that is WAY too much.

Imagine for a minute that Rick and Morty season 8 was composed of 4 episodes. And we got 1 episode every 6 months. And not in sequnce. So the 3rd episode of season 8 is the continuation of the story told in episode 2 of season 3.

Dont ask this game for miracles. WoW is not a game that can provide a compelling story at a reasonable pace. Just accept it.

@Badmojoman-alakir

More interactions with the space of the world (not just a few items and mobs). Climbing ladders, opening doors, reading notes, breaking crates, searching cabinets. Things like that make the space more interesting and engaging. Right now it’s just walking through an art gallery with mobs in it.

They did that in DF and nobody did them. Cause they are annoying.

@Badmojoman-alakir

Ragdoll physics. This idea has been around for a while, but never materialized because “wow engine is old”. Aren’t you the developers? Are you seriously saying you are completely unable to update your own engine? There are so many ways for you to do this and you have never bothered.

Updating the engine implies 3/4 years of dedicated development.

Are you prepared to play the game with out any new content for 3 years? SL style, but worse?

[Badmojoman-alakir]

@Uda-uldum

So if you remove stats from gear. Thats OK. But then you will need to nerf everything by 2% per week or something like that.

You don’t need to nerf something that was balanced correctly the first time around.

@Uda-uldum

Or how about stop being emotional teenagers and using the addon for what it’s intended: To know how and where to improve.

And yes. Sometimes the improvement has to come from someone else. There is nothing bad with that.

People respond to incentives. Systems create behaviours. If you change what “success” is defined as, then you change the goal people move towards.

@Uda-uldum

Classes need to be unique. First and foremost. A Tinker cant be a Shaman with different colored buttons. It defeats the purpose.

And IMO we are already at the maximum this game can give. More classes would be a mistake.

Agreed. Making classes simpler means removing buttons allowing for weaknesses to exist. Likewise, different strengths. Resulting in more unique classes and playstyles. We are not at the maximum the game can give, we have overleveraged the existing system.

@Uda-uldum

Storytelling in this game has always been dumb. Take in mind that 1 expansion takes 2 years. So blizzard will take 2 years to tell you a story. And that is WAY too much.

It doesn’t have to be dumb. It’s only dumb because there is a lot of breath, but there is no depth. Improved systems would allow quality to scale.

@Uda-uldum

Updating the engine implies 3/4 years of dedicated development.

Are you prepared to play the game with out any new content for 3 years? SL style, but worse?

It takes this long only if your developers are incompetent or you are resource constrained. Engine can be updated incrementally or isolated parts of it can be updated.

[Uda-uldum]

@Badmojoman-alakir

You don’t need to nerf something that was balanced correctly the first time around.

Did you read what I said? Its not about balance. At ALL.

Lets put it this way. Season starts. Start with a 2+. After 1 or 2 weeks, you end up doing a +8. And now, you are stuck timing a +8 and depleting all +9s. For the rest of the season. Or 6 months. If it was raiding, same concept. You kill the 7th boss of the raid, and spend 6 months wiping 1000 times to the 8th boss of the raid.

99.9999% of people simply stop playing. That is what gear is supposed to prevent. You get stronger over time and that gives you a sensation of progress in the content you do by allowing you to push better M+ keys, or kill more bosses in Raids.

So it dosent matter how well balanced things are from the beginning. They have to get easier over time…

@Badmojoman-alakir

People respond to incentives. Systems create behaviours. If you change what “success” is defined as, then you change the goal people move towards.

No. One should NEVER reduce any system to accommodate the lowest common denominator. The fact that a minority of people have the emotional intelligence of a peanut dosent mean we should assume everyone else does.

And those “peanuts” are not just individuals that take the recount too seriously. Its also those that take the comments from strangers about the recount too seriously and come to the forums whining about “systems and behaviors”.

@Badmojoman-alakir

Agreed. Making classes simpler means removing buttons allowing for weaknesses to exist. Likewise, different strengths. Resulting in more unique classes and playstyles. We are not at the maximum the game can give, we have overleveraged the existing system.

Simpler classes means less diversity. If you have 10 colors, you have 10 options. If you reduce the choice to 3 colors you don’t get 30 options. You get 3.

And enough with this “remove buttons” argument. I had enough with the 1-button discussions about this. Classes need to be complex enough to accommodate a wide range of players. And at the moment, its pretty good.

@Badmojoman-alakir

It doesn’t have to be dumb. It’s only dumb because there is a lot of breath, but there is no depth. Improved systems would allow quality to scale.

What do you mean with “improved systems” ? Be more specific because everyone can “bla-bla” anything, until you have get realistic about it.

If the problem is a game that tells a story in 4 chapters, 1 every 6 months, how can you improve that? By taking less time? By having a DLC every 2 weeks? It cant be done. WoW is not the game for that.

@Badmojoman-alakir

It takes this long only if your developers are incompetent or you are resource constrained. Engine can be updated incrementally or isolated parts of it can be updated.

You made that up and dont know what you are talking about.

First: The “incremental updates” and “isolated parts” is precisely what they have been doing for the past 20 years and it’s what got us to this situation. And you cant practically do this if the goal is to change and modernize the engine. Its like saying that you can transition from Windows to Apple OS by parts. That you can use Word in Windows, but browse the internet in Apple and have both running at the same time seeming-less with out issues. Nobody does this.

Second: No. Updating the engine means re-doing all the code. All the assets. EVERYTHING from scratch. For ALL past expansions and content. That is where most of the work goes into.

Its re-doing all of wow from scratch. To do that in a reasonable amount of time (couple of years) you need the most gifted coders on the planet. Those individuals aren’t born yet. Maybe 500 years from now with matrix-style implants or something like that.

Basically. Its NOT gonna happen. EVER. What will happen is that eventually, when there is no other possible choice Blizzard will begin working on WOW2. THAT is where the engine will be updated. And its how other developers do it. Not just in games, but in any software. You simply don’t notice it because its super rare for a game to live as long as wow has.

[Badmojoman-alakir]

@Uda-uldum

Lets put it this way. Season starts. Start with a 2+. After 1 or 2 weeks, you end up doing a +8. And now, you are stuck timing a +8 and depleting all +9s. For the rest of the season. Or 6 months. If it was raiding, same concept. You kill the 7th boss of the raid, and spend 6 months wiping 1000 times to the 8th boss of the raid.

99.9999% of people simply stop playing. That is what gear is supposed to prevent. You get stronger over time and that gives you a sensation of progress in the content you do by allowing you to push better M+ keys, or kill more bosses in Raids.

People pushing progression raids beyond normal or mythic 1 is extremely rare when you compare it to the total player base. Yes, people quit, but they quit because the effort and enjoyment are not in a good correlation. As a developer, your job in balancing content becomes a lot easier when you do not have to factor in inconsistent gear level logic. You can actually create content in progressive levels of difficulty that only rely on player skill. As a player that feels like a more “fair” deal as well.

@Uda-uldum

No. One should NEVER reduce any system to accommodate the lowest common denominator. The fact that a minority of people have the emotional intelligence of a peanut dosent mean we should assume everyone else does.

World of Warcraft is a business. More subscribers = more content and more money as a player. You have to cater to the masses. Otherwise you lose the masses and you have to close down the game. They have even spoken about this. Shadowlands was a near-death-experience for WoW because the numbers dropped.

@Uda-uldum

Simpler classes means less diversity. If you have 10 colors, you have 10 options. If you reduce the choice to 3 colors you don’t get 30 options. You get 3.

10 classes with 25 buttons = 250 buttons
25 classes with 12 buttons = 300 buttons is more diversity based on your logic then.
Classes don’t need a diversity of complexity. The game needs that. Trying to make every class support every playstyle is bad design and only creates bloat. With 25 classes you can have a variety of playstyles and a variety of complexity.

@Uda-uldum

If the problem is a game that tells a story in 4 chapters, 1 every 6 months, how can you improve that? By taking less time? By having a DLC every 2 weeks? It cant be done. WoW is not the game for that.

It only takes this long because the storytelling systems and dev tools does not support faster outcomes. Better tools make higher quality product - faster. Update the tools, update the game.

@Uda-uldum

You made that up and dont know what you are talking about.

First: The “incremental updates” and “isolated parts” is precisely what they have been doing for the past 20 years and it’s what got us to this situation. And you cant practically do this if the goal is to change and modernize the engine. Its like saying that you can transition from Windows to Apple OS by parts. That you can use Word in Windows, but browse the internet in Apple and have both running at the same time seeming-less with out issues. Nobody does this.

Sir. I own a software development company. I have been building software my entire life. I have worked in some of the biggest players in the industry. I know very well what I am talking about. I see where they are investing their money. I can tell they do not have very competent people working on the engine. Because they do not pay enough money to attract good talent. They have a bunch of legacy engineers sitting on their butts making excuses on their cozy jobs.

[Uda-uldum]

@Badmojoman-alakir

People pushing progression raids beyond normal or mythic 1 is extremely rare when you compare it to the total player base.

Who said progression raid in Mythic?

What about heroic? What about normal? What about achieving Portals?

Or how about simply killing WQ mobs faster… simple as that… “feeling stronger” as a result of your actions in the game. Please read what I say. Carefully this time.

@Badmojoman-alakir

You can actually create content in progressive levels of difficulty that only rely on player skill. As a player that feels like a more “fair” deal as well.

False. It is easier to say to people that you need to farm X activity, pass Y mission, or do Z challenge to get what you want. Than to tell them: You suck, L2P buddy !

@Badmojoman-alakir

Yes, people quit, but they quit because the effort and enjoyment are not in a good correlation.

If you dont beleive me, beleive Blizzard when it sais that from its own lips. Not just by Ion, but by multiple other developers over the years.

But hey. Keep insisting that people prefer to “learn” than to “do” to achieve the sensation of progression. The sensation of “achieving something”.

@Badmojoman-alakir

World of Warcraft is a business. More subscribers = more content and more money as a player. You have to cater to the masses. Otherwise you lose the masses and you have to close down the game. They have even spoken about this.

Thats right. You remove the Recount for a majority that are adults that use it properly, because a minority of emotional teens cant deal with it… and you make a mistake.

@Badmojoman-alakir

10 classes with 25 buttons = 250 buttons
25 classes with 12 buttons = 300 buttons is more diversity based on your logic then.
Classes don’t need a diversity of complexity. The game needs that. Trying to make every class support every playstyle is bad design and only creates bloat. With 25 classes you can have a variety of playstyles and a variety of complexity.

How about 25 classes with 25 buttons genius?

And its not about the # of buttons. Its what they DO.

A dot is a dot. It dosent matter if many classes have dots. Warriors have Deep Wounds. Thats a dot. Warlocks have Corruption. That is also a dot.

But warriors have other abilities that together make a warrior a warrior. You remove those and leave just Deep Wounds and the difference between a warrior and a warlock is ZERO.

That is why simplifying classes goes against having more diversity. Get it?

And now, lets talk about adding more classes to the ones we already have. If you think about Dots. And melee/ranged. And pets, Area of Effect spells, ect… You categorize things by what they do. And you permute how many unique combinations you can get… you are reaching the limit already.

For example: If you invent a Tinker, with a Dot (like Deep Wounds) and also with a heavy hitting ability, using a resource… then… it becomes indistinguishable from a Warrior. You need new mechanics. And they simply are not there.

@Badmojoman-alakir

It only takes this long because the storytelling systems and dev tools does not support faster outcomes. Better tools make higher quality product - faster. Update the tools, update the game.

?? So you want faster outcomes ? Im sure that Blizzard deliberately takes 8 months to make a new chapter just for fun. In reality they prefer to slack for 7 months and work for 1, like a true teenage slacking the final report to the last day.

If it was so easy, they would have done it already. Please.

@Badmojoman-alakir

Sir. I own a software development company. I have been building software my entire life. I have worked in some of the biggest players in the industry. I know very well what I am talking about. I see where they are investing their money. I can tell they do not have very competent people working on the engine. Because they do not pay enough money to attract good talent. They have a bunch of legacy engineers sitting on their butts making excuses on their cozy jobs.

Well your company must suck if you claim that. Cause I know about Development myself. And I dont need to present my whole CV to try and prove something that is simply so obvious.

And sure… say they invest their money on lazy engeneers… REALLY ??

Blizzard is a corporation for gods sake. They put their money with their shareholders. They dont care about their Devs, they don’t care about us. Only on making their shareholders richer.

Geez… if that is surprising to you, I am 100% doubtful that you “worked in some of the biggest players in the industry”.

And yeah sure. If you had the budget of the US military maybe you could pull off changing the whole engine with out pausing the game cadence. But that makes zero economical sense. By any metric.

Expecting a corporation to do something like that is like wishing cows to fly. You are asking a company to make a massive investment, that they know will produce zero to no return. And take losses that their shareholders 100% will not agree with.

Are you sure you “played with some of the biggest players in the industry” ??? You might be talking to one you know…