Whether my message reaches the developers or not, I will still speak out about important things in SoD that personally bother me a lot. In some places I will be quite rude and straightforward. So please forgive me in advance, because I can’t do it any other way. English is not my language, but a translator will help me with this.
To begin with, I want to express my personal opinion on SoD. I really like the idea of making something more coherent, thoughtful, and complete from the classic version of WoW. What is so much missing from that old version of the game. To make playing for all classes in all specializations interesting and exciting for the player. Therefore, adding additional roles such as shaman, warlock, rogue tank. On the one hand, it gives a lot of room for maneuver and interest in trying something new, but on the other hand, it creates a new series of problems of balancing all classes and their specialties. When many old problems have not yet been properly solved, a new one has been added to them. Which leads to the swing that we see now. And there is really no way to keep track of everything and do everything as needed. Perhaps it was worth giving up new roles and concentrating all the energy and time to complete all the other classes to the required level.
Runes and getting them over time became not an interesting experience for new research, but rather became an additional headache. You just have to take them and forget them. You just need them to play the game. Agree that this is not at all what you want to see from this game. Could it have been done differently? Maybe.
And there were quite a lot of such ideas in SoD that were not fully thought through. Therefore, in the very core of SoD there were initially contradictions that lead to problems and only accumulated like a snowball when we go to level 60. Although the developers are trying their best to solve them, they do not have the necessary resources and time for this. Therefore, we see before us WoW with mods similar to a set of mods in Skyrim.
I will not touch on the topic of class balance, otherwise this text risks never ending. Moreover, this matter is quite complex and delicate. So I’ll move straight to the next one.
Racial Traits.
I understand why it is necessary to transfer some abilities to everyone. Due to the fact that they introduce a certain imbalance into the game and this, of course, needs to be corrected. But at the same time, each race should still have its own uniqueness. Abilities that make them interesting and useful (in PvE this is important). And in certain cases they should give a slight advantage in the role for which I choose this race over others. This is their goal.
But when you just remove weapon specialization from humans and orcs without giving them anything in return, it baffles me. If the orcs still have their useful abilities Blood Fury, Command, Hardiness. Then you simply removed humans from the game as a race, leaving useless Diplomacy, The Human Spirit, and Perception. Am I going to defeat the boss with diplomatic conversations? Or will 5% to spirit give me a boost indistinguishable from 0? Perception without comments.And it didn’t even bother you, seriously? I don’t mind when other races gain an important ability that levels the playing field for everyone, but they shouldn’t kill those who take it away from them. And don’t tell me that this has its own advantage (there isn’t one).
Raid difficulty levels.
I will not think about whether it was worth leaving raids at 10 or whether switching to 20 is a good decision. Now it doesn’t matter anymore. Just don’t need to jump anymore, we decided that it will be 20, let it be 20 until the end of SоD. I want to ask another question. Tell me, developers, why are you making difficulty levels in the raid? When they themselves stated that SoD should not be difficult for most players.Don’t you see a contradiction here? If you want to diversify the game in this way and make it more interesting, I’m all for it. But if a raid with an increased difficulty level is quite simple, then such a raid simply will not be interesting. And if you make it difficult, you will quickly correct it to a shameful level, as was the case with Sunken Temple. Then what’s the point?
The case with ST showed that only one Shade of Eranikus needed to be fixed, but in the end you just went and deleted the entire raid at 20. Turned it into a dungeon for level 5 in difficulty. Why are you doing this in such a short time? Do you think that people will immediately stop playing because of the complexity for which they were not even prepared? Or maybe they don’t need to play, where they are required to be useful in a raid, and not be in afk while everyone else does everything for you. There is no need to rush and nerf everything at once, the players will play the game called WoW SoD. If you really have intentions to do complex raids within moderate limits (which is what people are actually waiting for). You should be well aware that this is not for everyone. Not everyone has to take the MS on a high difficulty level (that’s how it should be). Those who are not ready to challenge and try to overcome difficulties and do not deserve to receive a reward, they deliberately refused the challenge by choosing laziness and idleness in the game. You have to understand that quite a few people want SoD raids to actually feel like a challenge rather than boring fake runs. As for loot from raids. You leave those who go to a higher level without any reward. Are you seriously? Getting more items from a lower level raid is not a reward, it is a mockery.Why should I go to a higher level if I get everything at a low level too. Don’t you think this is a very bad motivator to go there? You don’t have to do all the things from Heroic+ bosses. You can make a couple of new things a little stronger, like we did in Ulduar with bosses in heroic mode. You can also increase the chance of dropping recipes, ingredients, legendary parts, and animals.This will not overly buff people who are playing on a higher difficulty level. But at the same time, it will be a good motivator to go there and receive a reward for your torment. Everything is very simple, the effort spent should be commensurate with the reward received.
World buff.
I would remove them from the game and give all these buffs to certain classes. There are already wars, druid, priest, paladin (choose what you like best). Which would work exclusively in the raid.And these enhancements would not have been achieved just like that; it would have been necessary to do an epic chain of difficult tasks, including raid bosses. To make it much more interesting and exciting. That’s what I would do.
But now we just have the same gains as always. Which kills any desire to collect them 1,000,000 times. Therefore, I propose to make some compromises and simplify some things.
Let’s say after we pass the task for Head of Onyxia and Head of Nefarian Head of Nefarian, Heart of Hakkar, Head of Rend Blackhand. We can approach a new NPC once a day and take only these buffs and only for ourselves personally. Each boost will be available only after completing the task. I will list them for clarity: Warchief’s Blessing/Might of Stormwind, Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer, Spirit of Zandalar. Whether this should be done with DM buffs is difficult to say right now. I think it’s worth just giving the opportunity to take them at the end and at the beginning of the dungeon (if all the conditions are met) so as not to have to run around.
Is it worth changing so that after death the world gains are preserved. This is not a trivial question; the decision is yours. I don’t think it’s worth devaluing WB too much.
And yes, Songflower Serenade and Warchief’s Blessing/Might of Stormwind need to increase the time like everyone else to 2 hours.
Professions.
Each producing profession should have a unique buff and be useful rather than useless. Let’s say enchanting has its own [Enchanted Sigil: Living Dreams], and alchemists would rather have their own personal infusion like from ST. And if we consider that we are not at all interested in things from the producing profession. Due to the fact that they are either worse or similar, which falls in the raid. Then what can they give us, real and tangible, so that there is an incentive to keep them throughout the game? Any crafts for resistance and so on can be done by twinks, but enhanced things with resistance are most likely not even necessary.
Also, now all mining professions do not have any strengthening, which will hang as a dead weight and will not be useful. But I can still agree with this that extractive professions should not give gain and be equally as effective as producing professions. And so, each producing profession should and must provide a unique boost similar to [Enchanted Sigil: Living Dreams]. Here are some wishes.
Engineering
Remove [Arcanite Dragonling] and [Gnomish Battle Chicken] so that they are no longer a trinket, but can be used as an item (an infinite number of times, just with a 1-hour cooldown). Whether they will have a common CD and whether they can both be summoned at once is up to you to decide. This will be a good improvement that will allow you to give a boost not only to yourself, but also to the group/raid once an hour, without losing the keychain. Perhaps they should be adjusted a little so that they do not cause a strong imbalance, but I think this will be a good gain along with the others.
Blacksmithing
These are mainly warriors, paladins, hunters, shamans. Give them a unique weapon enchant that works in conjunction with Wild Strikes/Windfury Totem.
Leatherworking
You can give the drums that were in TBC.
Tailoring
You can just give an analogue to [Enchanted Sigil: Living Dreams].
Legendary weapons.
We’re already seeing a proper change for [Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros], which becomes useful for Druids as well. And it’s good that the developers are considering the possibility of using legendary weapons effectively for other classes.
Let’s take [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker] as an example, it usually went to warriors tanks. They were the only full-fledged tanks in the entire classic and they were very effective. But now we have paladins and even rogues for whom these weapon characteristics are not entirely suitable. Therefore, it will be great if at the end of the task there is a choice from several options suitable for each class for its role in the raid.
Finally I would like to say. The way the game challenges players, the way the raids will be moderately difficult and there is no need to be afraid of it. Make interesting sets. bonuses that will change the player’s behavior in boss battles. Create exciting events. This will at least somehow maintain interest in SoD. If we want the same thing, and that is to enjoy the time spent playing, and not suffer from the emptiness of what is happening. We can say that with the beginning of the end of the game, the difficulties are just beginning. And there is no need to rush anywhere with the quick release of BWL, AQ 40, NAXX. It is better to spend more time to bring the necessary mechanics of bosses and classes themselves to mind, think through everything to the smallest detail.
I think these are the main points that concern me that I would like to touch upon. I’ll say right away that I will always be on your side and appreciate your work and time. I understand that not everything can be done. And despite all the failures, the solutions that plague SoD were not always immediately visible. But I want to wish you good luck and I hope that you succeed (although it will not be easy).
I would be very glad if the people responsible for the development and promotion of SoD at least read this message. Thank you for your attention.