As a Classic rat I thought I will share my thoughts on what Blizz could do differently to atract likes of myself and others to play Cata and potentially other expansions.
Well we have to understand that Cata expansion not only in the name but it was also a cataclysm for WoW franchise and ultimate downfall as game popularity started to decline.
And since Blizz introduced WOTLK +++ its only fair to talk about Cata in +++ pespective.
First of all, removal of all resilience/pvp gear
I love PvP. Although im raider at heart, pvp also plays important part in my WoW interaction. PvP gear in my opinion adds another layer of advantage to already PvP seasoned players. I often find that if someone is good at PvP, he will get you either way. So instead a standard PvE gear should be offered as a reward.
Skill tree
Cata is where skill system got dumbed down to that silly simplified talent thingy; choose 1 out of 3 every 10 levels or so. Either expand Vanilla-WOTLK skill tree or just skip forward to Dragon expansion skill tree.
And that would be it really, I cant think about anything else. But these 2 signifcant issues will restore world PvP and give player sense of real character customisation.
The only way to make Cata Classic edible would be only open new zones and downscale to level 80. Not ruin world, not ruin talents, not ruin immersion by remove pet feed, arrows and so on. Not make anything account wide either. And then remove bugs, revove bots, remove ugly mounts, and Token. Roll back UI changes, reinstall paintings and so on- Give RDF.
In short more a Classic-restored-extended, than Cata+.
I have no desire to play cata because it sucks. But who knows? Maybe I will try it, but only if they rework servers to be able to see the opposite faction on PVP servers. Or at least link them in some zone (like that isle without flying mounts where all wpvp was). I won’t play another expansion on monofaction server. I am sure of that. Better quit or go to Pserver.
As was said, it is incredible that classics still continue. Every pserver with these kinds of problems would have been forgotten long time ago. People really don’t want to miss the classic experience.
GDKP being the main loot method and an obvious RMT front since Classic 2019.
I legit know someone who claims his friend ‘farmed’ over 500k gold to spend on items in Black Temple. In wrath this exploded exponentially that even blizz wanted a piece of the pie - aka token.
Semi HC guilds. That term basically means your guild is gonna be as elitist as possible, but not progressing like a HC guild. I’ve seen officers giving their own core lootprio, kicking members for no reason, being kicked for not being able to raid 3 nights a week - including PTR training. All the while doing semi-hc progress too, meaning not being able to down Algalon or even Counsil on HM.
general gatekeeping in pugs unless you start your own group. Ofc this is partly on blizz. HC ++ means nobody is gonna do regular hc to gear up. See GDKP for the sollution I guess.
Semi-HC guilds. All the drawbecks of minmaxing and loot council without any of the benefits. Imagine unironically calling yourself semi-hardcore, it’s like that meme with Jorge wants to be hardcore
This is a horrible idea. Everyone will be afking/botting in pvp to farm honor for pve gear instead of trying to win. I’d go the other way to discourage this behavior - make pvp gear have 0 stats in pve and 0 gearscore.
Nah, that was MOP. Cata had normal talent trees, but you picked a spec at level 10, got 2-3 free abilities for it and were locked into only being able to spend points into that one tree until you got the last talent from it. Only then the other two trees would unlock. I’d prefer if they rebuilt the trees completely, so that the free abilities are included as talents somewhere in them and the lock is removed.
