Hi,
I’m an on and off returning player that never played the game for more than a year straight, so whenever I return for a while, I see a lot of changes.
Just recently I created a Druid on Classic and then one day later another on Retail.
I had some experiments with the Druid class before, but my main was always a Warrior/Paladin, so I did not care much.
But what I’ve witnessed now in terms of differences between the overall Druid experience on Classic and Retail, is just sad.
First of all, why the hell does the main spell cost only 1 mana on Retail, and the other important spell (I guess Moonfire) doesn’t cost any mana? When is a new player on Retail supposed to learn the fundamental game mechanic that spells actually cost something and one should watch out for how much mana he/she got left? Classic experience just wins for me in this regard.
Secondly, when did the change of getting the Cat form instantly at lvl 4 happen? On Classic, the first form you get is the Bear form and there’s a beautiful quest line connected to it, when you have to travel to Moonglade, speak with the spirit of the great bear and then fight for your Bear form (or understanding of it) in Darkshore.
When I got my Cat form at lvl 4 on Retail, I developed a strong suspicion, that the Moonglade thing at lvl 10 was removed too. So I played some more and learned that in fact it was removed.
Absolutely disgusting if you ask me. How the hell is a completely new WoW player supposed to kinda form a bond with his main char that happens to be a Druid? I mean, the Moonglade thing was something so beautiful and absolutely important for a Druid, that I can’t believe it’s gone forever on Retail.
I understand (to some degree) the necessity to speed up the process of leveling or adjust it to the amount of content, but why does it have to be at the expense of getting to know your character and class? I truly believe that the first 10 levels are the most important in understanding the mechanics of your class. But if one spends only 20-30 minutes leveling from 1 to 10, there’s no way a new player would create a bond with the char and class, or actually learn something about how is his class different from the others.
I definitely won’t argue with more experienced players of Druid class, just a little conclusion on how it ended up for me when it comes to understanding the Druid class.
After going through the experience of leveling from 1 to 10 on both Classic and Retail (as somebody who knew almost nothing about the class before), I strongly feel, that I’m a far better Druid on Classic than on Retail. If I were a completely new WoW player, the Retail experience would confuse me so much, that I would not know at all how the hell is a Druid supposed to be played.
I mean, if you have 3 forms (Cat, Bear and Travel) by the level 10 without any explanation on what they are and in what situations is one form better than the other, you’re lost. At least from my recent experience.
Not sound rude… But just by reading the abilites (forms) you can paint a picture how to use them… There billions of vids and guides that also tells you how to play the class… The biggest issue in wow is the hate towards new players… Since ppl only let ppl with experience into their groups… (At end game)
Mana for non-main-healing casters has been more or less a utility-pool than anything else, apart from Arcane Mages. This has been a thing for years. Mana management is no more.
After the level squish, so the SL pre-patch. Level 120 became 50. 20 became 8 orso and so forth.
The new player doesn’t need to learn this ‘fundamental game mechanic’ because it doesn’t exist any more. Damage spells don’t cost mana. If you’re doing a lot of self or off healing, you need to watch your mana, but balance druids can generally ignore it because it’s no longer a resource for them. The game has changed… fundamentally.
Because on Retail, mana is for healing. That’s why. There’s a reason that most classes have gone away from mana when it comes to their DPS specs. Ferals have always used energy. Boomkins generate Astral Power now for their powerful spell. Shadow and Elemental Shamans also don’t use mana for dealing damage.
Secondly, when did the change of getting the Cat form instantly at lvl 4 happen? On Classic, the first form you get is the Bear form and there’s a beautiful quest line connected to it, when you have to travel to Moonglade, speak with the spirit of the great bear and then fight for your Bear form (or understanding of it) in Darkshore.
When I got my Cat form at lvl 4 on Retail, I developed a strong suspicion, that the Moonglade thing at lvl 10 was removed too. So I played some more and learned that in fact it was removed.
Absolutely disgusting if you ask me. How the hell is a completely new WoW player supposed to kinda form a bond with his main char that happens to be a Druid? I mean, the Moonglade thing was something so beautiful and absolutely important for a Druid, that I can’t believe it’s gone forever on Retail.
Because some Druids want to play Feral, and forcing them to wait to level 20 to get Cat Form for leveling was just stupid. That means they have to spend 19 levels (which in Classic was a hell of a lot of time) casting spells or being stuck in Bear Form (which is NOT a good form for leveling).
Because the game is 17 years old now, and what was a great experience 17 years ago when everything was fresh and new gets tirering for long-time players who has stuck with the game for a long time.
You’re essentially arguing that Classic and Retail should be the same. There’s a reason they’re different. Classic is for people who want the real original RPG experience. Retail is for people who either wants things faster or like the improvements to the game over the classic experience.
Its just got old.
I remember getting lvl10 bear, lvl20 cat, lvl30 travel, lvl16 seal form when there was no indicator and actual info on the internet (maybe I didnt knew where to search).
Remember when warlocks payed another warlock 100g fee to help summon dreadsteed in DM.
Now its old and not fun anymore, everyone rush endgame, theres legit no new players left.
All the class quests are gone except the Legion ones. This is sad, but as they kept adding more and more race-class combinations and also changing abilities and rebalancing stuff, they couldn’t keep up so they just rather removed everything. It’s sad, yes… I wish there was Classic timewalking in retail, though. At this point, they might as well just add all of that back.
17 years of game evolving…i mean what did you expect?
Vanilla was alpha,tbc was beta.None of those 2 were finished nor polished.I mean,most classes leveled by auto attacking lol…even casters mostly used wands,because they would oom in middle of fight,fighting mobs 1 level above them.
In WOTLK classes actually begin to look polished,and only progressed from that point.
Vanilla was unfinished and poorly tested product released.
TBC was one massive clown fiesta as well,made with sole purpose of trolling loyal customers.
To this day,i feel sorry for everyone who had to experience attunements and all questing for the first time.
TBC and WOTLK are WoW at it’s very best since Cata it’s been slowly going down hill until what we have now in retail just doesn’t even feel like WoW anymore, I think if they want the next exp to be a success, of course what ever they come up with will sell well but if they don’t want to loose half their player base in a few months like SL did then they need to reach out to all the devs they have lost that worked on TBC and WOTLK and beg them to come back give them free rein to change anything they want and let them make the game.
‘Losing’ a load of players during the first few months of an expansion is normal. Active subscriptions spike when the expansion launches, drop off as people find they’ve done what they want to do, then spike again each time there’s a new patch. It always makes me laugh when people speak as if this is something unique to the current expansion. Retail WoW isn’t perfect, but it’s a whole lot better than it was in the dull old days when the fun content was gated behind a long and boring grind. If you loved TBC so much, then you only have to wait a couple more weeks to experience it all again. Meanwhile, retail has moved on.
you always get big drop off but not this big I still have friends that play Retail they say the amount of players in their guild that have stopped logging on over the last couple of months is way higher than it was in BFA.
But I liked the attunements you needed to unlock things it gave you something you had to work towards, and as far as the grind goes it’s still there just in a different form Azurite power having to get exalted with multiple factions to unlock flying in BFA and Covenants in SL ect…
Except that covenants aren’t a grind unless you choose to make them one.
I’ve done the full campaign on one character in every covenant (because it’s story, and it’s interesting). Besides that, I haven’t deliberately focused on any covenant stuff. The things I enjoy in WoW are weekly raids (with friends) and mythic plus (mostly with friends), and those things have rewarded me with enough renown tokens to get 4 characters to max renown and enough anima to get the transport network to rank 3 and all the other covenant upgrades to rank 2 or 3 on the 2 characters I play most. I occasionally do a world quest, if there’s one nearby while I’m waiting at a summoning stone for all my group to be ready for M+, and I occasionally do the rescue souls quest, if I’m waiting for my group to be ready for Torghast. I pick up most of the callings, and if I happen to complete one in the course of my normal activities, I hand it in.
Let’s stop pretending there’s a grind in SL. You can achieve what you need to do the content you enjoy just by doing the content you enjoy. There’s an optional grind for mounts and toys and cosmetic stuff, but that’s exactly as the word says - optional.
Unless you are healing, you are not using mana on druid, and its not a mechanich you deal with. Only your healing spells cost mana, and they cost a lot, so you just dont care as dps about it usually.
Second: I agree with lack of class identity cause no stance-quests, or paladin mount quest, or warlock mount quest, or druid form quests. But “the fundamentals of the class” is quite over-exxagerated imho. In classic maybe, but in retail, your rotation isnt something you can do until around lvl 40.
And Moonglade is a thing at around lvl10.
(maybe I didnt knew where to search).