TBC - Do we need Changes for an Authentic Experience?

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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Hi People,

I want to preface this with a little something abt myself:

My name is Gubc from the German Guild “Bananas in Pyjamas” on the german Realm Patchwork(transed from Lucifron) we are a fairly small semi hardcore Guild. We cleared all the Content in Classic WoW.

It pains me to say but most of Classic Vanilla content was a total Pushover except Naxxramas. On our Server wich isnt on the Top End of EU Servers the amount of Guilds that cleared MC BWL and AQ40 without much Resistance was very large infact i dont know any guild on my server that raids that hasnt cleared Aq40.
The only “real” challenge for many guilds was Naxxramas wich is still only cleared by 5(?) guilds on the Server with 4HM Saph and Kel being Roadblocks.

In my Opinion and for me personally this made Vanilla less good than it couldve been. Naxxramas and the Experience that i had with my Guild wich i found in Classic was Amazing. Even with 15yrs of Knowledge, Experienced Leader Ship, Min-Maxing with Consumes and World Buffs that Place was and is still a good Challenge. Ofc it is not on the difficulty of modern Mythic or even Heroic Raids but it doenst have to be that complex to provide a satisfying Challenge. This added greatly to the enjoyment i had in Phase 6 of classic.

If you doit like we do and you are like me who is a fairly careless person raiding Naxx suuuucks objectively you have to farm tons of consumes get world buffs get yelled at by your raidlead because you added some stinky abomination of stupid green slime but it doenst feel as shallow as killing ragnaros in phase 1 2nd ID without Sons spawning, skipping an entire phase of the bossfight.

Wich leads me to the Title of this Thread:

If we want an authentic Burning Crusade do we need Blizzard to make Changes?

Or do we want Changes in general?

With the TBC Naughty-Server Meta that was also prevalent in Classic Vanilla - I cant see Nerfed Heroics, T4,T5,T6 being a reasonable challenge for Players in 2020

What do you think about this “Issue” ?

ps: Blizz if u read this - plz give Alliance Seal of Blood :wink:

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That depends on the “patch” classic bc will start at. If it’s 2.4.3, then yes, heroics will be a joke, about as difficult as clearing RFC or Stockades. Well, everything will be a joke, including Sunwell, so it’s probably not even worth releasing such an abomination.

If it starts at 2.0.3 and it slowly progresses, then heroics are definitely not going to be a joke in the beginning - I can guarantee that people are going to wipe in heroic BF (as they should, it’s supposed to be hard, “heroic” even). I’ve seen it recently.

The one change that ABSOLUTELY NEEDS to be introduced is personal loot - made mandatory, as is the case with retail. Otherwise it’s all going to be LFM whatever, nether reserved, vortex reserved, DST reserved, Tsunami reserved, Alar reserved, glaives reserved, gems reserved and LFM whatever, gbid. These eventually get players to stop logging in, as they feel it’s pointless to try to do anything because they “can’t” improve their character unless they pay for it.

Other changes that would be good, but aren’t absolutely necessary:

  • “phasing” content (as in, don’t have t5 available from the very beginning or we’re gonna experience content draught again, as was the case between t5 and t6)

  • dual spec (would just be nice to have). Blizzard/Activision only realised this in WOTLK, although they should’ve introduced it in TBC, since it was obviously needed for arenas.

I can play just fine without these two changes (50g to respec isn’t as bad in BC as it was in vanilla), but the one change I think NEEDS to be made is implementing personal loot.

Last, but not least - and very controversial - either eliminating drums or making them usable by anyone, not just leatherworkers. Blizzard/Activision later admitted that was a huge mistake which forced entire guilds into a single profession, but that’s probably not going to happen.

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Changes? Hmm…

I was a part of the #nochanges mob before Classic launched, I freely admit it. I still don’t like the idea of any changes to core game mechanics, however I think a lot of people didn’t take into account the impact of tertiary game mechanics.

Leeway is a textbook example.
The blunt truth is, it’s detrimental to the game right now in 2021.
There was an obvious reason for it back when we were all playing on Daddy’s garbage AOL dial-up internet, but now leeway is grossly overcompensating for a problem that no longer exists, resulting in some hilarious hitbox shenannigans.

I’m gonna say that leeway has to go, it’s not needed anymore, and does more harm than good.

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#Nochanges has been supported with varying degrees of “intensity” by the community, but only a minority advocated for the most literal interpretation of it.

Many people like to claim that “nochanges has failed” for such stuff as Black Lotus spawn change, 30-instance limit, and other “fixes” that, for good or ill, happened to Classic. But most #nochangers have been advocating for no changes on a more fundamental level.

Like, personally I don’t give a damn in TBC if, say, Blizzard tweaked the rollout of PvE and PvP content slightly, or changed spawntimes or introduced layers. The point of #nochanges is to not get stuff like LFR, class changes or other drastic alterations of the original gameplay. Everything else you hear from the #prochange field is generally a thoroughly insincere exaggeration of the concept to make their outrageous proposals look more reasonable.

Such as, say, giving SoB to Alliance Paladins.

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no changes

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It’s that title an oxymoron?

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There’s no way to have an authentic experience, no matter what you do. Unless you can somehow turn back the time or wipe the playerbase’s memories and existing knowledge.

If you change something from how it was, if you don’t change anything, it won’t be authentic and even if you do change something it still won’t be authentic. Also chasing something so obscure idea as “authentic”, when most people’s descriptions of such an experience for each version of the game varies, is pointless.

You can have changes, that will likely make it more enjoyable for some people, but there’ll always be those who hate the changes. So if you want to change something, you’d have to be able to explain the desired change and its desired outcome properly.

If you truly want a challenge, you’ll have to go back to retail and mythic raiding, you will not find similar kind of challenge from the earlier versions of the game. Most challenges regarding vanilla were of organizational nature, maintaining a guild capable of getting a full ( and prepared with consumables etc) roster for each 40 man raid was bigger part of a challenge than the raids themselves.

There won’t be an authentic or challenging experience with TBC, at least for most part of the expansion. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of guilds breeze through until Sunwell and then hit some roadblocks. It’s a problem you’ll face when you use latest patches and tuning of an expansion.

If you don’t use it, there may be problems with other areas of the game. I highly doubt Blizzard is putting in the kind of resources and attention to really figure out the most optimal route at this stage, they are more likely to go with the simplest route. That is unless players come together on a few specific changes that they want, but it can’t be too abstract.

Going on about how one wants the dungeons/raids to be more challenging, for example, doesn’t say all that much. Challenging how? Maybe once beta tests come out, it’ll be easier to point out the problems, but also by that point such big changes might be too much to ask for.

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I’m for ‘sensible’ changes to enhance gameplay and make it long-term fun.

What is ‘sensible’ is a question of debate but the classic, “no changes” then introducing all the changes because “ThEy WeRen’t InTended” made things a lot less enjoyable than need be in some aspects. With an honorary mention for the mess that is/was AV lol.

I reckon with PvP season arena’s being introduced and contious seasons with ranking we won’t be having static talents/abilities throughout the entire expansion either. Think to combat faction imbalance we should also consider at least faction change from the dominant side to the less populated one now that shamans and paladins have been introduced. It wasn’t in TBC but it certainly helps pvp servers (Have fun in outland with current server populations) and might balance out the queue times in the long-term.

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I subscribe to Zalanji explanation of #nochanges.

About difficulty, one of the main reasons I play this game is because of it’s casual friendly nature. Also I can tell you that it isn’t that easy for everyone, for my first guild MC was a challenge.
Ofc when you play alongside players who know what to do, bring all WBs and consumes the game is easy.

Maybe TBC can offer both worlds to players with normal and heroic modes if they are implemented in the right way.

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I mean really, personal loot? That would just be one (huge) step towards that solo arcade game that is Retail.

Nobody forces anybody to join groups where things are reserved in any way, and creating your own “FFA” group isnt hard nore is it forbidden. You are making it sound like people are joining “reserved”-runs like they are forced

Hoping for a specific item to drop for a guild, or a friend , creates bounds between players and puts the focus on the group and not the player. Making your own groups with friends or guildies so that SHOULD a specific item drop one is guranted it - is acually reason for some to play a dungeon they otherwise wouldnt.

EDITED: Just saw your suggestion and how it was recivied in another thread. The world hasnt lost (all of) its mind after all ^^

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Well maybe i was reaching a little with the authentic part - but killing raid bosses so fast that you essnetially or even completely skip mechanics (that are easy compared to modern ofc) cant be the way

Even a simple mechanic can be failed if you have to continue doing it for a prolonged period of time.

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Blizz are lazy, they’ll most likely do the same thing - 2.4.3 with content gates. Meaning, unfortunately, faceroll heroics and raids until Sunwell.

However, TBC raids in general have more mechanics that Vanilla raids. And changes from 2.1 to 2.4.3 were not as from 1.1 to 1.12.1. 2.0 to 2.1 saw a lot of changes but half of them I’d call “good” (no worldbuffs, more sensible itemisation, changes in raids that are more like bugfixes). So I still hope for a tiny bit of challenge in TBC.

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Naxx was basically the foundation of how Blizzard started tuning raids from there on. You won’t be able to skip mechanics on bosses like Kael’thas or Vashj anymore than you can skip them on, say, Kel’thuzad. Even if we go with 2.4 numbers. Heck, 2.4 Kael’thas is still so ridiculously harder than 1.0 Ragnaros that it’s not even a fair comparison.

Will the hardcore still clear these raids with ease? Yes they will. Some of these players have been training for years on pservers where, say, SSC bosses all have 8-9 million HP, Brutallus has 16 million and Kil’Jaeden 21-22M (in case you don’t remember… most SSC bosses have 3-4M HP with Morogrim being the highest at 5.6, Brutallus had 10.5M HP and Kil’Jaeden had 12M). Even completely unnerfed encounters isn’t gonna give them any pause. But we’re not talking about the kind of players that have trouble with Naxx consumables. I’m sure those ppl will have a fine time in TBC no matter what.

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No please, there is lore reason why it is only for Blood Elfs. If anything make seal of vengence stronger.

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A staggered release of content patches as per the original time-frame for them would be great.

However this will not make any sense to shareholders and would cost a lot more to deliver than what was done for Classic Vanilla and so I guess we will get a similar system to what classic had already of several gradually released phases.

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Let me be blunt, if Activision gets possessed by some feverish madness and releases patch 2.0 with world buffs, tk, ssc and hyjal (t6!) available at launch, with T4 gear being worse than 5men heroic and crafted gear, with melee basically barred from heroics and every group being some variation of paladin/druid for tank, shaman healer and hunter/lock/mage for dps and with mages having no icy veins, I will simply not play it, and wait it out until at least 2.1 when the most broken stuff gets fixed.
But I dearly hope it won’t come to that, blizzard has a shred of reason left and they release the game as 2.4.3 with gated content.

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Sounds like your early TBC experience was very different from mine. I usually had a warrior tank, and a rogue dps in my group. The healer was usually whatever was available.

Peronally I don’t see any reason to bother with TBC if we get 2.4.3 with gated content.

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I didn’t experience early TBC, I made a mistake of rolling a new char on a fresh realm Sporeggar EU that came out with TBC. I ended up burning out at level 40+ and only came back when BT was already out and farmed by more serious guilds. That’s why I particularly want to experience the start of this expansion in Classic.
So yeah, I don’t know. Those are the horror stories I heard from players in my guild when we farmed BT and progressed in SWP, in the vein of “be glad you didn’t have to go through the heroics back in the day, newbie, it was hell”.

Edit: But do you remember the whole “spellcleave” meta in early Classic? Do you not think it will be the same in TBC? LF2M MechHC cleave, Mage/Lock, Suneater hard res, signets hard res

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Don’t really feel like addressing everything that is wrong with this post but I just wanted to say that in 2.4.3 Sunwell is largely (sufficiently) unnerfed from its release.

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Bots need to be banned and Blizzard needs to be awake during classic TBC, so whenever something comes up they can respond. Didn’t they hire someone to oversee classic? Hopefully that will improve things.