Well honestly mate, I don’t know what to say, as I’ve personally yet to come across any noticeable difference. Maybe I’ve just forgotten that classes were weaker in the original Patch 3.0, but I really don’t care much. I shoot quest mobs, they die. If they die faster than they did in 2008 I’m not really sensing it.
Not discovered any bugs on my Hunter either, at least nothing that has affected my gameplay in any meaningful way.
In short I’m having a wonderful time in WotLK Classic and have very few complaints.
This is my own interpretation but it’s a mix of people’s mentality in general and stuff blizz changes.
I’ll start with the stuff blizz changed:
reliance on layers and people (ab)using them to camp mobs
changing gear in Ulduar and possibly ToC (trinkets) and ICC.
changes in the badge system - in wrath 10m naxx didn’t give the best badges in p1
changes in the raid lockout system
No RDF planned - ofc it wasn’t in the game in p1 so now nothing is changed
Wintergrasp being a BG instead of a serverwide event, so now you almost 100% have the WG buff which means 5% extra xp, and if you don’t you can layer change (see point 1)
HC bosses giving 4 stone keeper shards instead of 2-3 in original wrath
some spell animations are the ones from retail, pala’s Divine Storm for example. I’m betting we will also get the nerfed version of Tabard of the Lightbringer when ICC drops.
Overall starting on 3.3.5 in p1 gives a bad representation of what it was back then, but that can’t be helped I guess
The player’s own behaviour (this you prolly all know):
VOA class runs which were not really a thing back then iirc
zerg strats for almost everything
GDKP’s
Gearscore being used from the very start of wrath. This became a thing during the ICC patch back then
general speedrun and gogo mentality while back then only the most ‘prestigious’ guilds used this in raids.
People only chasing bis gear which indirectly will nerf Ulduar when it comes out.
Don’t get me wrong this is not complaining, just listing stuff that changed. Still having fun in wrath, though I had more fun in TBC Classic shame it ended so soon.
Well over half of the stuff on that list is a player-created problem rather than a game-created problem. I’ve said it many times. The WoW playerbase has hoisted itself on it’s own petard.
Yeah, OK if I want to really work out the cause and effects then I could argue that Blizzard created a ‘GOGOGO culture’ by dint of increasing levels of convenience within the game, porting those convenience features into Retail, and thus creating a Retail Mindset which has crept into Classic.
But ultimately it’s still mostly the players’ fault.
The remainder of your list mostly concentrates on raiding and raid mechanics.
But one thing stood out for me. I had no idea that Wintergrasp was now a BG? So there’s now no method of exploring the place? There’s no non-instanced version?
I dunno, as I’m not that far ahead. Still at L75 in Borean Tundra.
Well yeah that’s what I said I was gonna list, didn’t I?
Yes because that’s what 90% of the playerbase is doing after reaching level cap. Endgame starts there, the bulk of what you do with your char. Statistically speaking ofc, there’s always ppl abandoning chars at max to start again.
Ofc there’s a non- instanced version, but it’s just empty unless you ‘control’ the zone and then you can enter VOA and buy stuff with the shards. But no battle going on unless you Q for it.
shame it ended so soon.