A post on the beta forums

[Iffi]

While checking out beta forums I found this post I feel kinda hits things on the head. I will copy and paste since Blizz likes deleting shit.

[quote="
Aedhild"
:1jyhm0wd]Simplistic Class Design is a mistake.

Class rotational mechanics make up the game's basic and most frequent interactions. They settle into muscle memory and for many players the exchange is subconscious, like any recreational activity. So even though raiding or PvP are mentally and socially stimulating, the character play is still visceral. Even though players may not be able to put it into words, this experience defines "
fun"
to a great extent in this game.

Warlords of Draenor beta class design has followed a philosophy simplifying the rotational mechanics of many class specs, in some cases grossly.

On one occasion of disagreement, players were told "
[T]he difference between the master and the above-average player lies in . . . more subtle timing, cooldown usage, interactions of talents, set bonuses, and trinkets, and in an understanding of how to adjust those considerations to suit differing contexts."


In other words, the true performance delta includes factors beyond rotational mechanics that are, per the definition of "
subtle,"
hard to understand or perceive. And for Warlords, Blizzard wants to "
[re-focus] the impact"
of optimization to them.

By doing this, Blizzard has profoundly misinterpreted what motivates competitive/non-competitive players and exceptional/average-to-below-average players alike.

Why? Because even if they're not ambitious or high achievers, people don't work like this.

People want to achieve a high enough level of capability so they can appear to themselves and others as proficient in a class — the more challenging the class is popularly perceived, the better.

Let me say that another way:

People want to believe they're good at something that takes effort.

You see this in life every day. I'll offer two examples in World of Warcraft:

1. Every patch, some specs that are within one class change places in the DPS race. Sometimes the new highest-performing spec is considered easier than the previous one;
but not always. Where do the best players go? The highest-performing spec. Where do most other players go? The highest-performing spec, even if it's more difficult, because they want to believe they're good enough to get a percentage of the same potential.

Interestingly enough, if the new highest-performing spec is easier, diehards often eschew it and vow to compete, believing their performance is worth more because they demonstrate they're good at something that takes effort.

2. For three years I've been raid leader of a 25-man normal guild. How we survived Cataclysm, I'll never know, but through the ebb and flow I've noticed a phenomenon perhaps not seen much among close-knit circles or hardmode competitors.

We get all kinds coming through our doors, from retired heroic raiders to easygoing casual players. But here's what gets me: every single player who's ever asked to raid wants to go all the way. They want to be on the guild-first kills, the clears, and even the heroic modes we push into if we have time. It doesn't matter if they belong there;
and as raid and guild leaders know, seating and benching is always a challenge.

But nobody with any investment in raiding has ever been satisfied with anything less than the vanguard. Why? Because they want to believe they're good at something that takes effort.

Blizzard will not satisfy this need for self-efficacy by deliberately making the game's basic and most frequent interactions obviously easy.

Take Arcane: few care how esoterically "
hard to master"
it is. Arcane is stigmatized as easy, and some players dread patches when it's the highest performer. A dozen or more specs are slated to join Arcane.

Is the sky falling? Not quite . . . yet. Come 6.0, if "
these shadows remain unaltered,"
competitive and in-the-know players will not react favorably. They won't represent a large portion of the playerbase, however, so although forums will be rife with complaints, the general population may not react as strongly.

But that's where we come back to what's at stake: rotational mechanics, the ineffable, partly conscious element of the game summarized as "
fun."
World of Warcraft is going on a decade, and sometimes milestones like that have effects beyond the immediate. People are hitting 30, or 40, and they look back and reassess why they play;
and it isn't limited to what's tangible or rational.

Players who are not well-versed in game design, or haven't followed every detail and discussion of the beta, may not understand exactly why the game doesn't feel like it used to, or how it did when they were having the most fun and feeling capable. They may not be able to explain why playing on their character, or any of their alts, isn't really . . . "
fun"
anymore.

I don't think that this beta's design fixated on simplism is on the level of early Cataclysm. I do think it's more insidious, though, and will be harder to identify. Ultimately, though, I see it as a forced error, and a shortcoming for an expansion that otherwise has the most promise in more than 5 five years.

[url:1jyhm0wd]http:
//us.
battle.
net/wow/en/forum/topic/13978338149[/url:1jyhm0wd]

^Original Post and all the responses.

I get excited when I find a post that well thought out instead of the typical, "
OMFG MAGES WTF NERF BLIZZ !11"
crap.

I guess I can say that I have fallen into this at one point or another. I tend to gobble up all the info I can on any class I am playing. I can't play an alt without going to Mmo-champ, Iceyveins Arenajunkies, and Elitistjerks (back in nam) and read about everything. From talents, priorities, glyphs, hell even the tips and tricks sections. I remember spending damn near as much time on Tankspot as in game back in Wrath watching videos and reading guides for classes I didn't even play. I was never the, WTFL2PLAY type but I always wanted to help people I felt were under-performing.

The direction he highlights of WoD with the gutting of most classes (except Shaman) to a few buttons has been an ongoing complaint trend on the Beta Forums so I am thinking it has to have some weight and not be a knee-jerk response to his/her class being weak or nerfed or something else.

Opinions?

[Deristus]

I agree 100%. I liked the transition they made from Wrath to Cata that turned your "
Rotation"
into a "
Priority system"
. It made you feel like you really stood out if you played your class optimally, because let's be real, paladin tanking in wrath... 96969 rotation, hit a cooldown as needed, profit... and that is just one example that can basically sum up how easy playing your class was back then compared to now.

I had a heroic geared destro lock during ICC and I remember the rotation literally being 4 buttons. Now I look at a lock and I have no clue wtf they do, it got A LOT more complex, and thus more rewarding to play. So the idea of regressing back to that era of simplicity, and then making it even easier than that is just disappointing to me and everyone else.

I feel like Blizzard knows they are making a ton of mistakes with WoD and that's why they are already thinking up ideas for the expansion after WoD, and the one after that as well. If I had to guess I would say they are planning on pumping out expansions a lot quicker than before, and patches will be half as long as they are now, hence why everything seems like it's getting nerfed into the ground.

[Slater]

It's a weird balance they are trying to navigate. Some classes are being made "
easier"
while others aren't changing much. Look at how complex feral druids were in Wrath. They were made simpler in Cata, simpler again in MoP, and again they are being made easier to play in WoD.

That being said, bosses have been made exponentially more complicated since the old days. A fight like heroic Siegecrafter simply could not and would not exist back in BC or Wrath. Even the hardest raids of all time (original Naxx and Sunwell) didn't have fights this complicated. They mostly relied on terrible raid comps (like bringing 8 warriors to tank in Naxx or bring all the shamans and holy priests to heal in Sunwell) or super tight enrage timers forcing your raid to have all of the BiS gear from every previous boss.

It sort of seems like Blizz is trying to make the bosses themselves more difficult instead of making classes harder to play. That in theory makes it easy for new players to pick up the game while making heroic, soon to be mythic, raiders feeling good about their accomplishments.

The downside of course is that it does lead the player base to feel entitled since classes become easy to learn. Everyone expects a raid spot because they can dps well but they can't avoid the 5 mechanics that heroic Siegecrafter throws at you simultaneously.

[Glacie]

[quote="
Slater"
:kwsizfmw]It's a weird balance they are trying to navigate. Some classes are being made "
easier"
while others aren't changing much. Look at how complex feral druids were in Wrath. They were made simpler in Cata, simpler again in MoP, and again they are being made easier to play in WoD.

That being said, bosses have been made exponentially more complicated since the old days. A fight like heroic Siegecrafter simply could not and would not exist back in BC or Wrath. Even the hardest raids of all time (original Naxx and Sunwell) didn't have fights this complicated. They mostly relied on terrible raid comps (like bringing 8 warriors to tank in Naxx or bring all the shamans and holy priests to heal in Sunwell) or super tight enrage timers forcing your raid to have all of the BiS gear from every previous boss.

It sort of seems like Blizz is trying to make the bosses themselves more difficult instead of making classes harder to play. That in theory makes it easy for new players to pick up the game while making heroic, soon to be mythic, raiders feeling good about their accomplishments.

The downside of course is that it does lead the player base to feel entitled since classes become easy to learn. Everyone expects a raid spot because they can dps well but they can't avoid the 5 mechanics that heroic Siegecrafter throws at you simultaneously.

The only thing that comes to my head is this;
"
Just Because you have the tools, doesn't mean you should build a house!"
just an odd way of saying just because you can doesn't mean you should...

Yes the skill required to understand your class and get it working has been lowered by far. But the real skill comes in using the kit that each Class has in the most creative or useful ways in raiding or BGs. But I still agree with the fear of entitlement...but then again most uncultured shits will feel that way...and already do.

*cough*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pa72ZDVUcY
*cough*

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