Well what it did was add a bit of mis chanche, when you got to new weapon mid raid. Otherwise you went to auto attack afk on some immune mobds. I understand for some its some cool roleplay vibe, but didnt feel like such to me. I understand the talents and I personally see RP in form of class and unique quests (kill 30 bears for 10 tongues for no reason is not such). But some blue number rolling on combat log registering misses as melee is nuisance. And so now as rogue I just level as combat with sword/dagger and the weapon skill is just nothing i even see.
It may feel different as caster and its funy to melee with new found staff or dagger, but as melee I find it “meh” and adding nothing.
WoW was already from start a very light RPG to attract a wider public, but over the years they made the choice of going down that path even further. Some things were even put in place without a clear idea of what to do with them, like the fact that we have “specialization skill” that automatically increases with our level, so it made sense when they removed that as well.
In retail stats have been greatly simplified, gear quality is measured with a number (some items may still be better than others in more subtle ways, but it’s not the norm), and as a result some game mechanics have become less apparent to the player (for example with the removal of resistances or hit ratings).
Another important different between Classic and later expansions is the focus on leveling has disappeared. Leveling in Classic takes weeks if not months and there’s a lot of content around it, with items or talents you’re looking forward to because the consequences will last for a big part of the process. But when having 120 levels and a player base spanning over so many expansions things get more complicated, so they made the decision of making it all about max level: nothing you do before 120 really matters.
This difference in philosophy leaves little room for weapon skills, spell ranks or even armor types (leather/mail and mail/plate). I prefer the original one but I (sort of) get why they did what they did.
That’s the point I’m making here. When WoW was an MMORPG, it had these little flavour effects. They didn’t actually have much reflection on the game. But, you have to take into account that the original WoW (and most other MMORPGs) were a digital extension/re-invention of the pen/paper RPGs. These were mostly about imagination, story telling and character progression.
The modern WoW game is definitely just an MMO. Almost all of these flavour effects are gone, and the game has a very different objective.
That you don’t like these little RP flavour effects means that probably current retail is the game for you. That’s fine and I don’t think anyone here wants to touch retail to bring back this stuff there.
But for the rest of us, we now have an official blizzard game, we can play that DOES bring back these cool flavour/RP elements to the game.
Different games, for different people. One isn’t really “better” than the other. It’s entirely subjective.
I am not sure how to understand this line? I am one of the rare players, who enjoy both. And I like things in retail, I like things in classic. I dislike aspects in both. I support #nochanges to classic, but am also glad that some things are gone in retail. If that makes any sense. For me best wow - mix of old and new was in WoTLK for example.
Anyway I feel that good RPG mechanics : druid class quests ; bad mechanics : “artificially magical weapon skill points”. It would have made sense if my character had a quest to learn some sort of new weapon. “Go mulgore to kill 1000 boars to master your kung fu staff as orc warrior” - that would be me saying “bring it back now!”
Just we see RP and RP a bit differently I guess. I started wow off in a RPG realm - being always in-character outside raids (and sometimes in raids!) - so I do understand roleplaying and what it means to people. Just we probably have different opinion what is a good game mechanics to support immersion.
RPG side of the game need features like that one. Peoples needs to get rid of moba/battleroyale mind set.
In MMORPG it should take loooong time to develop ur character, making him unique and fill ur role. Instead of that we can swap roles in 1sec. which kills whole RPG element of the game. If WoW 2 would ever be a thing… I hope there wont be qol bs like that, where you can change everything about ur hero in just blink of the eye.
It’s not artificial though, you shouldn’t know how to use maces like an expert if you’re not trained in it.
You just may not like RPGs as much as you think. All RPGs are based on D&D/War games. Which use slow gaining stats, it’s impossible to get a high stat without work.
That’s also fine. But that you were so dead against this and were glad it was removed in retail certainly made me think you were more of a fan of the current game.
Maybe not. To me I see the weapon levelling as just a token “character” progression. I wouldn’t cry foul if Blizzard removed it. But, at the same time I recognize that is does have that value. Running around the world doing these “little” things is just another part of the character progression that was part of the game.
To me though, the whole point of classic is to bring back the game as it was, when it was a real MMORPG, and that is going to include some aspects that you didn’t like, and some aspects I also don’t like.
But, as a whole I for sure prefer this game, to the current retail experience. The huge queues suggests a lot of other people do too.
You have always had ability to respec in game, in fact changing roles is harder in retail due gear you have to grind and farm for. Or what you mean about changes. Yes, you can click a button to respec, but you do not have gear for it and cannot play it.
Plenty of RP elements were removed to make it easier for hardcore endgame players to have multiple characters ready. This includes weapon skills and class quests to learn important abilities and spells.
Spell ranks, well make a level 1 character on retail and check the spellbook for unlearned spells, you’ll notice that spell ranks exist on retail. They were reintroduced in Legion. They serve different purpose than in Vanilla. Damage they do scales with level so now spell ranks just add more features to the spell.
As for mixing specs, introducing the ability to choose spec in Cataclysm was a way for Blizzard to reduce the size of talent tress. They started with 7 tiers and add 2 each expansion. Blizzard noticed that soon they would just double in size compared to vanilla trees. That’s how specs were introduced, at level 10 you chose a spec and got passives that used to be talents. That way the talent trees could be smaller. Then in mists of pandaria they changed into the current talent system
You don’t level weapon skill, it automatically raises while you’re leveling, there are no situation where one player will kill another because they have more weapon skills. It’s most likely you don’t understand how they work.
This is mostly invisible and people remember these skill exist is when changing weapon the first time. If it happens at max level, then you go to Blasted Lands and leave your character afk for like half of hour. It doesn’t really add anything to the game and i’m not surprised it has been removed.
Yeah, didnt said vanila was perfect tho… its just how I see it should be. Respec should be a thing, but for BIG cost. I remember playing Tales of Pirates (god bless, fun times) where was only one way to respec ur hero, ONCE in whole game. Also it was very hard to achieve.