I wanted to clarify the "blue versions of purples that drop more commonly" portion of the raid section of the video. I did not mean to effectively re-imagine Titanforging. What I meant is, if players felt like they needed some kind of loot in-between rarely receiving purples; you could have blues (which are their own items) that are some mid-way between pre-bis and actual bis.
Great video, some really solid ideas, concise problem descriptions, understanding of holistic impact to game ecosystem. Very refreshing to hear it from someone with a relevant background (software dev, if i recall correctly?). So much of the classic+ YT content is just dumb people ranting, but have no idea of how their ideas would work at scale.
I can definitely sympathize with reduction in the sprint to min/max. Especially with me being nothing really more than a casual player. Not looking to be catered to (in the way of ideas like LFR), but it would be nice to have a more consistently fun leveling journey again vs. camping at my computer and trying to dead sprint to max level.
I really like this video. It really should silence any criticism of "this is just retail WoW" because these suggestions are unlike anything seen in WoW so far. If I could sit the WoW Classic developers down and show them this video, I would. There's plenty of other niches to be explored as well with resistance gear being dropped as blues in raids that would be well itemized gear with resistances because many of the resistance required fights were "you need X amount of resistance, and must make sacrifice a ton of damage to hit that amount." There's also plenty of unexplored niches in exploration, cosmetics, etc that you allude to. Personal challenges that take significant time to grind out for the sake of flexing on fellow nerds is what makes OSRS so good and successful long term. The fact is that raids in WoW have never really been challenging -- fun, but not that difficult at all. The inconvenience of them is what gave their rewards value. That's just not good design philosophy. I appreciate how you recognize that getting rid of the inconvenience must also be balanced with replayability and rarity.
Not much at add to your points, but just want to express my excitement for when Classic Plus becomes a reality. Might not be fore a while, but It has to be a thing considering the amount if interest.
The Blizzard development team currently working on Season of Discovery pretty much outright said Classic+ is happening, they just need to continue collecting feedback to make sure they get it right. Also remember when they announced Season of Discovery at Blizzcon they essentially called it a beta for Classic+. So yes, it definitely should happen!
Im honestly interested to see what you have for class balance and design. ik ppl have for some reason been upset the way SoD took that direction atleast class balance more so for pvp which imo I dont think any pve focused game should ever balance around pvp. But from my experience with SoD so far I feel like classes now can compete on the charts they are all useful still bringing debuffs buffs all tanks are viable its just what utilitie of the tanks you want same for the healers. Ive also enjoyed the way rotations have been for the classes in SoD they arent too difficult and its def better than old classic pressing 1-2 buttons it actually feels like im playing a game. Im a big fan of how some classes have 2-3 dofferent play styles as well examples are rogue having muti, saber slash and a back stab build and then ret paladin having exo, sealtwisting and seal stacking some other classes might have examples of this too but I mainly play melee classes. Im not too understanding on how they went far with this stuff tbh I know ive seen people requesting for classic plus to JUST have under the hood changes but if you look at turtle wow which is what people are kind of aiming for no? New content and under the hood changes ik they fixed mana issues for classes that had it maybe a new spell for the classes not super big changes yet the meta hasnt changed and their dps hasnt gone up if you go take a look at turtle wow recorded raid logs the meta is still warriors, rogues and mages me personally I think the class balance and the general way classes feel in SoD would be the direction to go as apposed to the turtle wow light changes route they took.
Hey thanks for the comment. So, for me SoD **has** kind of gone a little too far with class balancing. However, this is a thought shared by the developers. They said at the Blizzcon announcement of SoD that they were going to be making extreme class balance changes - and have been reminding us since. This is to test the waters of what players like, and what works around the raid balancing their doing. I don't hate SoD class balance, but it does feel more like I'm playing a Cataclysm character less so vanilla. I don't want to hit 1-3 buttons all raid, but classes also feel just a little TOO powerful right now if that makes sense. Remember, a significant part of the magic of Vanilla is how your character isn't some grand hero so much as it's just another piece of a more epic world. SoD class balance, currently, pulls away from that in my opinion. Also - I know very little about Turtle WoW. From what little I've seen, it looks like WAY too different of a game for me.
Funny you say this now, since they just dropped the "big changes" patch notes the other day. They're not live yet, and there's lots of feedback, but they're definitely leaning into the + part of Vanilla+ class design. @delornegg Hard to tell anyone to try out yet another version of Classic since the time investment is so massive, but at the moment I strongly believe TWoW still has the Vanilla spirit. There's much more content in now, in the form of zones, dungeons, raids, gear, and soon to be class changes but from the 30 levels I have there so far it's very much Vanilla. Need to get to raiding to say anything definitive, but TWoW is currently my favorite version of WoW, having previously liked straight Vanilla and SoD best. For WoW devs I think TWoW is great homework to see how certain ideas can pan out for Vanilla+, and I'd very much like it if they took a close look at your video here as well. In particular I appreciate the more intimate dungeon and raid content group sizing. I always love playing with my group of friends, but feeling like we need to have exactly 5/10 people all the time and at the same level is stressful and takes away from the experience. Then you hit raids and it's an even bigger mess for friend groups among the 40man group. This is helped even more by your additional side content while leveling, since it gives people who want to play more in the group something to do that doesn't necessarily cause them to outlevel the rest. Really great video. As a side wish, I'd also hope to see class changes in Vanilla+ focused around increasing personal expression. Classes in Vanilla are loaded with little this and that flavor to build around, many of them could just use a little help to make those styles full and fun. Stuff like Spellpower Hunter, Shockadin, or even whole specs like Demonology Warlock. Let people express themselves without utterly tanking their performance and if possible open up options for more involved gameplay for those that want it.
@@tomika50 I think the issue with looking to Turtle WoW (as Blizzard) for direction with Classic+ is so very few people play that server. The average population is around 3-5k at a time if I'm not mistaken? I'm not sure how many they have registered, but it took Nostalrius during its brief lifespan reaching nearly a million registered users to catch Blizzard's attention.
@@delornegg I could understand the numbers making ppl feel that way. But for me it's more so the setting of the raid makes it still feel classic to me if that makes sense it's not like retail where every raid feels and looks the same just reskinned I guess? Also I guess tier set bonuses would fall into class balance as well the SoD ones I feel like they have 100% been out doing themselves with them. But ty for the response maybe if classic plus keeps these abilities being added in mind and reduces DMG and rebalance bosses who knows what's going to happen I myself just don't think it's worth playing if it's the same class balance with small changes just still makes it unfun.
Very good video in terms of discussions. Some of the ideas are really good (challenge, taskmasters). Overall I disagree on the raiding portion - I think there are some contradicting points you made. Loot scarcity of chase items helps with people being engaged longer, but would also foster the rush to endgame again (earlier raids = more chances on chase items). Raiditem vendors also contradict the loot scarcity (depending on which items being available for purchase). Most classic players want an easier experience - according to your points bigger raidgrps allow less personal responsibility, therefore easier laid back raids for individuals (not for organizers). Just a few points here from my side - some of your proposed changes might feel like solutions but they don't neceassrily solve it in a holistic view. But I like your style of presentation and clear strucutre of argumentation!
Hey thanks for the comment. Let me take some disagreement with your critiques. So first regarding the loot scarcity. Let's remember that these aren't meant to be ideas in a vacuum. Ideally, suggestions similar to what's proposed in this video are implemented together. That being the case, the goal of these suggestions is to give the players the feeling that they have more to do than just collect their phase BiS. That that's not the only content in the game worth engaging with. It's just one aspect. I do understand that it's very hard to see WoW as anything but BiS farm simulator given that's how it has been for some time. You can look at a game like OSRS to see your idea is not born out in practice, though. A minority of players seriously engage with raiding in that game because there are enough other worthwhile things to engage with. Though obviously there will be some % of players who don't care about anything but raiding no matter what you do or change. Regarding the vendors for raid loot, I disagree that it contradicts the scarcity. Remember, purples would be pretty rare to see. Maybe clearing it several times before seeing one drop. I suggest this vendor because scarcity is one thing. But the issue with WoW is there are SO many purples that can drop. The chances of when a purple finally drops it's anything you need would be pretty low. To combat this you would have a vendor where if a purple drops that nobody needs you would be able to vendor it for a **fraction** of what purchasing a purple from the vendor would cost. You would still have to grind either way, it just wouldn't be totally frustratingly absurd. To put a button on this, let me just be totally blunt. Either raiding gets fixed, or Classic+ is doomed. I understand it's fun to think about new raids, new zones, new quests, new whatever. But you have to think 1 or 2 years down the line. What happens when Blizzard quickly hits the content wall churning out a new raid every 3 months? Either Blizzard picks a place to consider Classic+ "finished" and enter some reset cycle. Or they continue developing it outside of the realm of what Classic+ was originally envisioned to be. This 3 month raid/content cycle works for retail. It will kill what people want out of Classic+ (even if it's amazing for a year or 2).
@@delornegg Hey mate, thanks for the elaborate answer! First of all: I 100% agree with your problem statements. Without a well designed endgame loops classic+ is indeed doomed. No added raidtier or new questing area will fix this, because its a rush to endgame/Bis and then its done and ppl will leave. Vendors: Okay I could see this together with the rare loot to work out. The devil is definetly in the detail: you cannot make it to hard to get BiS Items otherwise ppl will quit due to frustration, but if you give people freeloot leads to boredom. The approach needs to be that loot is rare enough that its worthwhile rerunning the raids. Vanilla achieved this already imo, but this is due to its hoorendous itemization and warrior being the only "real" class. Creating a artifical loot scarcity for warrior/melee classes.
@@tobid1971 I think maybe providing a more specific hypothetical example of how I would envision this loot re-work functioning could be helpful. Let's use Naxx and say for the sake of argument the average cost per epic from the raid vendor is 10,000 tokens. The average purple turn-in value is 1,000 tokens. You receive 20 tokens per boss kill, or 300 per full raid clear. The average drop-rate of a purple is 1/30 so an average of 1 purple per 2 full clears. Assuming no one in your party ever needs a purple, and 1 person gets every purple that drops - it would take you around 12 full clears of Naxx to purchase 1 purple from the vendor. I wouldn't call this handing out free loot. Now obviously all these numbers are just examples, they can be tweaked to match an acceptable level of rarity or "time-to-BiS" so to speak. But I do believe this system would work 100%. It's just a matter of doing it right. The vendor is necessary because of how WoW loot works - as a group starts reaching 2/3rds or 3/4s BiS the chances of the purples that drop being something nobody needs gets very very high. The vendor exists to alleviate that bottleneck. But given these examples it would still take a very dedicated group 2+ months of exclusively grinding Naxx for 8 hours a day to reach full BiS. (Very very very few people would do this or feel a need to rush to this.)
@@tobid1971 Also, sorry, it occurred to me I'm leaving out another important detail regarding these raid vendors. They don't have to just be for raid purples. You could turn in some amount of them for gold, gamble with them to spin some kind of prize wheel, have a vendor for the blue items from the raid which would be cheaper than the purples. Give people other worthwhile things to do with the currency. This would work to significantly reduce the amount of purples being purchased from these vendors.
I would need you to make some more direct comparisons for me to wrap my head around that. Also, in my opinion, something in retail doesn't automatically = bad. It depends on what you're talking about specifically and the way retail goes about implementing a system. There's good and bad ways of executing ideas. For example, I think the pet collection and pet battles aspect on retail is really cool. However I think it's very bad that you can level a character doing them. It should be cute tertiary content and nothing more. Also, I'm not sure what your feelings are about Season of Discovery, but; all they are really doing is putting closer to retail raid difficulty and more retail-like class design into the Vanilla world. That isn't necessarily bad, it just has to be controlled and the spirit of Vanilla kept in the forefront of the design approach. (Currently I feel like it's going too far, but the developers said they are doing that on purpose for the sake of testing and collecting feedback.)
@@delornegg I think, if all of the mechanical changes of retail were put into a game with the creative direction of classic/vanilla, this game would take off like it was taking off when it was the MMORPG. The Spirit of classic is what makes it such a superior game, even though the mechanics of it are not great. What’s really cool about classic the few times I’ve played it is that there’s just people everywhere doing things. The world feels populated arguing about politics. All them things you’re saying about how people race to endgame and then race to get your gear. You’re exactly right that that’s the problem. But have to watch the video again to remember what it was that made me think of that but I will later
no raid lockout means some guilds will try to run a raid 5-6 times a week, which will burn out people even faster. I do dislike the 3 months phases though it feels like the game is always rushing while we may not have progressed what we wanted to in that time. Progression is fun, but progression on a timer is a stressful thing. I'm also missing the 1% or below droprate in the expansions after classic like TBC and wrath, it feels truely epic when it drops, 5-10% droprate means you are all but guaranteed to see it if going enough times.
Guilds would probably try to run raids 5-6 times in 1 day lol. Though with adjusted mechanics and varying difficulties like they are working on with Season of Discovery raids could be a lot less tedious and more entertaining. Look at a game like OSRS where their raids have no time gates and their players grind them over and over and over happy as clams. And also, if other gameplay features similar to what I suggested are implemented in addition to the purples being a rarity - people wouldn't feel a desire to live in raids non-stop until they have full BiS. They would have other things in the game to spend their time on and have fun with.
I really liked the way how you approached the issues. I just disagree with "dual spec" (just reduce the respec gold cost) and "2 main professions" (if we can pick 2 professions then they have to be caped at 225) But great vid, i'm waiting for more videos to come. I'm so hyped for c+
Hey thanks for the comment. I think *wretched* is a very strong word so I have some questions. Out of curiosity, what would be the issues of players having the **option** of toggling HD character models on for themselves? I can't think of one. What titles are being "given away" and which are "meaningless"? Also, regarding cosmetics. If you agree that raid tiers need to last longer - something that will eventually happen is basically everyone is going to look exactly the same as everyone collects their BiS. Don't you think it would be nice if people had some subtle ways of customizing their equipment to their own tastes? I prefer things like this to transmogging because you at least look like you're using the equipment you're using/earned.
@delornegg Don't mind answering. Part of the enduring appeal of classic (not by any means the only, or even most important thing) is the old school, low poly art direction. It's part of the package, just like long time to level. You're eroding a piece of that legacy because "muh pretty models and new anims". You either want the classic experience, or you don't. Things like "The Relentless". Aside from PvP titles (which you still have to at least do go out of your way to do SOMETHING to achieve, and even then the ease with which theyre obtained today is a modern invention), most titles in classic aren't just given away. They're a goal to work toward that had some significance. Giving them away during a leveling grind (which is my understanding of your auggestion, correct me if I am wrong/misunderstood) is a participation trophy. That is the purview of retail and shouldn't be in vanilla. I don't like cosmetics (especially the possibility of tradeable ones) because they will inevitably be sold, either by Blizzard, or as another ridiculously priced object in the vanilla economy, which is already a damn nightmare. Also all it is is another visual to chase. Gear already does this, so it's also redundant.
Good video tho but Classic players cant be helped. If even blizz make these ideas ppl will still find a reason to cry Minmax bots will find another way to ruin the game like they always do
While I do think there would still be plenty of people who want to play the game with a calculator the hope would be, with smaller groups, more of the people who choose to play for the sake of having fun have the freedom to do so.
หลายเดือนก่อน +1
Flex raid sizes and reducing raid size to 5-10 is prob the worst idea i have seen in all these Classic+ videos on TH-cam, at that point just make raids soloable because whats the difference? All this nonsense because "people arguing about loot is bad, mkay?" argument which is silly...
Well, the difference is 5-10 people is 5-10x more than 1 person. Also, I'm going to assume you selectively listened to the video so I'll help you fill the gap regarding the reason for this suggestion. Large raid groups 20-40 people are a problem because: (1) Loot distribution is more complicated. (2) Raids are more stressful especially for key roles in the group. (3) There is less individual player impact. (4) Recruiting becomes a major hassle needing so many people. (5) Keeping a large group of players online for an extended period of time is challenging. (6) There are a greater chance of conflicts within the group the larger it is. Whether over loot or problems during the raid. (7) All of these problems increase the chances of guilds breaking up. (8) Big groups are proven to be worse for social interactions than small groups. (9) Due to recruiting demand, large raid groups contribute to the urgency of reaching cap level ASAP. None of this is to mention is that Blizzard is basically alone on keeping giant raid groups in 2024. The MMORPG gaming world has almost entirely abandoned this approach to raiding. So, a little more than "people arguing about loot is bad, mkay?".
หลายเดือนก่อน
@@delornegg 1. There is nothing wrong with loot distribution unless you are part of the group that contributes nothing to the raid and then gets angry when RL doesnt prioritize you 2. How are they stressful? Its the exact opposite, smaller raid sizes are more stressful because bigger responsibility per player 3. Raids are supposed to be about group effort but this point goes back to point number 2. 4. Unless the GM and officers are terrible people ala retail players you wont have that problem on an active server 5. Point number 4. 6. The entire point of MMO is getting positive and negative experiences while playing with other people, same with real life. 7. Point number 4. 8. Absolutely false, prime example of this is Mythic dungeons in Retail where NOBODY talks to each other unless the tank is not pulling as fast or a dps role missed his interrupts then entire group becomes toxic and people leave. Blizzard abandoned the bigger party/raid sizes because they catered to non MMORPG and later on non gamers who are mostly solo players. If this is your personal preference then fine, but dont try to gaslight people or some Blizzard devs working on SoD seeing this video how 5 man parties should be able to get BiS loot while 20-40 man raid content should be for "casuals". P.S. I didnt want to address the Challenge Masters part of the video because someone else left a comment about that already how its just Retail feature (which is main problem of toxicity in Mythic dungeon runs)
this is probably the most bad faith comment i've seen on a video out of all the videos on youtube
หลายเดือนก่อน
@@tippytoez37 It wasnt in bad faith but it seems it hit nerve since i can only assume you are a Retail player. Also for some reason my reply comment to DelorneGG where i addressed all his points was deleted...
I deleted nothing. If I was going to delete anything, I would have just deleted your original post. So either you didn't actually address anything I said, or something bugged with TH-cam. I 100% welcome a rebuttal to my response. The whole point of me making these videos is to create discussion, even from people that disagree with my ideas.
I wanted to clarify the "blue versions of purples that drop more commonly" portion of the raid section of the video. I did not mean to effectively re-imagine Titanforging. What I meant is, if players felt like they needed some kind of loot in-between rarely receiving purples; you could have blues (which are their own items) that are some mid-way between pre-bis and actual bis.
Great video, some really solid ideas, concise problem descriptions, understanding of holistic impact to game ecosystem. Very refreshing to hear it from someone with a relevant background (software dev, if i recall correctly?). So much of the classic+ YT content is just dumb people ranting, but have no idea of how their ideas would work at scale.
I can definitely sympathize with reduction in the sprint to min/max. Especially with me being nothing really more than a casual player. Not looking to be catered to (in the way of ideas like LFR), but it would be nice to have a more consistently fun leveling journey again vs. camping at my computer and trying to dead sprint to max level.
I really like this video. It really should silence any criticism of "this is just retail WoW" because these suggestions are unlike anything seen in WoW so far. If I could sit the WoW Classic developers down and show them this video, I would.
There's plenty of other niches to be explored as well with resistance gear being dropped as blues in raids that would be well itemized gear with resistances because many of the resistance required fights were "you need X amount of resistance, and must make sacrifice a ton of damage to hit that amount." There's also plenty of unexplored niches in exploration, cosmetics, etc that you allude to.
Personal challenges that take significant time to grind out for the sake of flexing on fellow nerds is what makes OSRS so good and successful long term. The fact is that raids in WoW have never really been challenging -- fun, but not that difficult at all. The inconvenience of them is what gave their rewards value. That's just not good design philosophy. I appreciate how you recognize that getting rid of the inconvenience must also be balanced with replayability and rarity.
Not much at add to your points, but just want to express my excitement for when Classic Plus becomes a reality. Might not be fore a while, but It has to be a thing considering the amount if interest.
The Blizzard development team currently working on Season of Discovery pretty much outright said Classic+ is happening, they just need to continue collecting feedback to make sure they get it right. Also remember when they announced Season of Discovery at Blizzcon they essentially called it a beta for Classic+.
So yes, it definitely should happen!
Im honestly interested to see what you have for class balance and design. ik ppl have for some reason been upset the way SoD took that direction atleast class balance more so for pvp which imo I dont think any pve focused game should ever balance around pvp. But from my experience with SoD so far I feel like classes now can compete on the charts they are all useful still bringing debuffs buffs all tanks are viable its just what utilitie of the tanks you want same for the healers. Ive also enjoyed the way rotations have been for the classes in SoD they arent too difficult and its def better than old classic pressing 1-2 buttons it actually feels like im playing a game. Im a big fan of how some classes have 2-3 dofferent play styles as well examples are rogue having muti, saber slash and a back stab build and then ret paladin having exo, sealtwisting and seal stacking some other classes might have examples of this too but I mainly play melee classes. Im not too understanding on how they went far with this stuff tbh I know ive seen people requesting for classic plus to JUST have under the hood changes but if you look at turtle wow which is what people are kind of aiming for no? New content and under the hood changes ik they fixed mana issues for classes that had it maybe a new spell for the classes not super big changes yet the meta hasnt changed and their dps hasnt gone up if you go take a look at turtle wow recorded raid logs the meta is still warriors, rogues and mages me personally I think the class balance and the general way classes feel in SoD would be the direction to go as apposed to the turtle wow light changes route they took.
Hey thanks for the comment. So, for me SoD **has** kind of gone a little too far with class balancing. However, this is a thought shared by the developers. They said at the Blizzcon announcement of SoD that they were going to be making extreme class balance changes - and have been reminding us since. This is to test the waters of what players like, and what works around the raid balancing their doing.
I don't hate SoD class balance, but it does feel more like I'm playing a Cataclysm character less so vanilla. I don't want to hit 1-3 buttons all raid, but classes also feel just a little TOO powerful right now if that makes sense. Remember, a significant part of the magic of Vanilla is how your character isn't some grand hero so much as it's just another piece of a more epic world. SoD class balance, currently, pulls away from that in my opinion.
Also - I know very little about Turtle WoW. From what little I've seen, it looks like WAY too different of a game for me.
Funny you say this now, since they just dropped the "big changes" patch notes the other day. They're not live yet, and there's lots of feedback, but they're definitely leaning into the + part of Vanilla+ class design.
@delornegg Hard to tell anyone to try out yet another version of Classic since the time investment is so massive, but at the moment I strongly believe TWoW still has the Vanilla spirit. There's much more content in now, in the form of zones, dungeons, raids, gear, and soon to be class changes but from the 30 levels I have there so far it's very much Vanilla. Need to get to raiding to say anything definitive, but TWoW is currently my favorite version of WoW, having previously liked straight Vanilla and SoD best.
For WoW devs I think TWoW is great homework to see how certain ideas can pan out for Vanilla+, and I'd very much like it if they took a close look at your video here as well. In particular I appreciate the more intimate dungeon and raid content group sizing. I always love playing with my group of friends, but feeling like we need to have exactly 5/10 people all the time and at the same level is stressful and takes away from the experience. Then you hit raids and it's an even bigger mess for friend groups among the 40man group. This is helped even more by your additional side content while leveling, since it gives people who want to play more in the group something to do that doesn't necessarily cause them to outlevel the rest. Really great video.
As a side wish, I'd also hope to see class changes in Vanilla+ focused around increasing personal expression. Classes in Vanilla are loaded with little this and that flavor to build around, many of them could just use a little help to make those styles full and fun. Stuff like Spellpower Hunter, Shockadin, or even whole specs like Demonology Warlock. Let people express themselves without utterly tanking their performance and if possible open up options for more involved gameplay for those that want it.
@@tomika50 I think the issue with looking to Turtle WoW (as Blizzard) for direction with Classic+ is so very few people play that server. The average population is around 3-5k at a time if I'm not mistaken?
I'm not sure how many they have registered, but it took Nostalrius during its brief lifespan reaching nearly a million registered users to catch Blizzard's attention.
@@delornegg I could understand the numbers making ppl feel that way. But for me it's more so the setting of the raid makes it still feel classic to me if that makes sense it's not like retail where every raid feels and looks the same just reskinned I guess? Also I guess tier set bonuses would fall into class balance as well the SoD ones I feel like they have 100% been out doing themselves with them. But ty for the response maybe if classic plus keeps these abilities being added in mind and reduces DMG and rebalance bosses who knows what's going to happen I myself just don't think it's worth playing if it's the same class balance with small changes just still makes it unfun.
Very good video in terms of discussions. Some of the ideas are really good (challenge, taskmasters).
Overall I disagree on the raiding portion - I think there are some contradicting points you made. Loot scarcity of chase items helps with people being engaged longer, but would also foster the rush to endgame again (earlier raids = more chances on chase items). Raiditem vendors also contradict the loot scarcity (depending on which items being available for purchase).
Most classic players want an easier experience - according to your points bigger raidgrps allow less personal responsibility, therefore easier laid back raids for individuals (not for organizers).
Just a few points here from my side - some of your proposed changes might feel like solutions but they don't neceassrily solve it in a holistic view. But I like your style of presentation and clear strucutre of argumentation!
Hey thanks for the comment. Let me take some disagreement with your critiques. So first regarding the loot scarcity. Let's remember that these aren't meant to be ideas in a vacuum. Ideally, suggestions similar to what's proposed in this video are implemented together.
That being the case, the goal of these suggestions is to give the players the feeling that they have more to do than just collect their phase BiS. That that's not the only content in the game worth engaging with. It's just one aspect. I do understand that it's very hard to see WoW as anything but BiS farm simulator given that's how it has been for some time. You can look at a game like OSRS to see your idea is not born out in practice, though. A minority of players seriously engage with raiding in that game because there are enough other worthwhile things to engage with. Though obviously there will be some % of players who don't care about anything but raiding no matter what you do or change.
Regarding the vendors for raid loot, I disagree that it contradicts the scarcity. Remember, purples would be pretty rare to see. Maybe clearing it several times before seeing one drop. I suggest this vendor because scarcity is one thing. But the issue with WoW is there are SO many purples that can drop. The chances of when a purple finally drops it's anything you need would be pretty low. To combat this you would have a vendor where if a purple drops that nobody needs you would be able to vendor it for a **fraction** of what purchasing a purple from the vendor would cost. You would still have to grind either way, it just wouldn't be totally frustratingly absurd.
To put a button on this, let me just be totally blunt. Either raiding gets fixed, or Classic+ is doomed. I understand it's fun to think about new raids, new zones, new quests, new whatever. But you have to think 1 or 2 years down the line. What happens when Blizzard quickly hits the content wall churning out a new raid every 3 months? Either Blizzard picks a place to consider Classic+ "finished" and enter some reset cycle. Or they continue developing it outside of the realm of what Classic+ was originally envisioned to be.
This 3 month raid/content cycle works for retail. It will kill what people want out of Classic+ (even if it's amazing for a year or 2).
@@delornegg Hey mate, thanks for the elaborate answer!
First of all: I 100% agree with your problem statements. Without a well designed endgame loops classic+ is indeed doomed. No added raidtier or new questing area will fix this, because its a rush to endgame/Bis and then its done and ppl will leave.
Vendors: Okay I could see this together with the rare loot to work out. The devil is definetly in the detail: you cannot make it to hard to get BiS Items otherwise ppl will quit due to frustration, but if you give people freeloot leads to boredom. The approach needs to be that loot is rare enough that its worthwhile rerunning the raids. Vanilla achieved this already imo, but this is due to its hoorendous itemization and warrior being the only "real" class. Creating a artifical loot scarcity for warrior/melee classes.
@@tobid1971 I think maybe providing a more specific hypothetical example of how I would envision this loot re-work functioning could be helpful.
Let's use Naxx and say for the sake of argument the average cost per epic from the raid vendor is 10,000 tokens. The average purple turn-in value is 1,000 tokens. You receive 20 tokens per boss kill, or 300 per full raid clear. The average drop-rate of a purple is 1/30 so an average of 1 purple per 2 full clears. Assuming no one in your party ever needs a purple, and 1 person gets every purple that drops - it would take you around 12 full clears of Naxx to purchase 1 purple from the vendor.
I wouldn't call this handing out free loot. Now obviously all these numbers are just examples, they can be tweaked to match an acceptable level of rarity or "time-to-BiS" so to speak. But I do believe this system would work 100%. It's just a matter of doing it right. The vendor is necessary because of how WoW loot works - as a group starts reaching 2/3rds or 3/4s BiS the chances of the purples that drop being something nobody needs gets very very high. The vendor exists to alleviate that bottleneck.
But given these examples it would still take a very dedicated group 2+ months of exclusively grinding Naxx for 8 hours a day to reach full BiS. (Very very very few people would do this or feel a need to rush to this.)
@@tobid1971 Also, sorry, it occurred to me I'm leaving out another important detail regarding these raid vendors. They don't have to just be for raid purples. You could turn in some amount of them for gold, gamble with them to spin some kind of prize wheel, have a vendor for the blue items from the raid which would be cheaper than the purples. Give people other worthwhile things to do with the currency. This would work to significantly reduce the amount of purples being purchased from these vendors.
A lot of these changes you’re talking about implementing just sound like retail
I would need you to make some more direct comparisons for me to wrap my head around that. Also, in my opinion, something in retail doesn't automatically = bad. It depends on what you're talking about specifically and the way retail goes about implementing a system. There's good and bad ways of executing ideas.
For example, I think the pet collection and pet battles aspect on retail is really cool. However I think it's very bad that you can level a character doing them. It should be cute tertiary content and nothing more.
Also, I'm not sure what your feelings are about Season of Discovery, but; all they are really doing is putting closer to retail raid difficulty and more retail-like class design into the Vanilla world. That isn't necessarily bad, it just has to be controlled and the spirit of Vanilla kept in the forefront of the design approach. (Currently I feel like it's going too far, but the developers said they are doing that on purpose for the sake of testing and collecting feedback.)
@@delornegg I think, if all of the mechanical changes of retail were put into a game with the creative direction of classic/vanilla, this game would take off like it was taking off when it was the MMORPG. The Spirit of classic is what makes it such a superior game, even though the mechanics of it are not great. What’s really cool about classic the few times I’ve played it is that there’s just people everywhere doing things. The world feels populated arguing about politics. All them things you’re saying about how people race to endgame and then race to get your gear. You’re exactly right that that’s the problem.
But have to watch the video again to remember what it was that made me think of that but I will later
no raid lockout means some guilds will try to run a raid 5-6 times a week, which will burn out people even faster. I do dislike the 3 months phases though it feels like the game is always rushing while we may not have progressed what we wanted to in that time. Progression is fun, but progression on a timer is a stressful thing. I'm also missing the 1% or below droprate in the expansions after classic like TBC and wrath, it feels truely epic when it drops, 5-10% droprate means you are all but guaranteed to see it if going enough times.
Guilds would probably try to run raids 5-6 times in 1 day lol. Though with adjusted mechanics and varying difficulties like they are working on with Season of Discovery raids could be a lot less tedious and more entertaining. Look at a game like OSRS where their raids have no time gates and their players grind them over and over and over happy as clams.
And also, if other gameplay features similar to what I suggested are implemented in addition to the purples being a rarity - people wouldn't feel a desire to live in raids non-stop until they have full BiS. They would have other things in the game to spend their time on and have fun with.
Only 1 min into video, just wanted to comment now to be A rebal, :) lol
I really liked the way how you approached the issues.
I just disagree with "dual spec" (just reduce the respec gold cost) and "2 main professions" (if we can pick 2 professions then they have to be caped at 225)
But great vid, i'm waiting for more videos to come.
I'm so hyped for c+
HD character models, cosmetics, and giving away meaningless titles are all wretched ideas.
On board for most of it though.
Hey thanks for the comment. I think *wretched* is a very strong word so I have some questions.
Out of curiosity, what would be the issues of players having the **option** of toggling HD character models on for themselves? I can't think of one.
What titles are being "given away" and which are "meaningless"?
Also, regarding cosmetics. If you agree that raid tiers need to last longer - something that will eventually happen is basically everyone is going to look exactly the same as everyone collects their BiS. Don't you think it would be nice if people had some subtle ways of customizing their equipment to their own tastes? I prefer things like this to transmogging because you at least look like you're using the equipment you're using/earned.
@delornegg
Don't mind answering.
Part of the enduring appeal of classic (not by any means the only, or even most important thing) is the old school, low poly art direction. It's part of the package, just like long time to level. You're eroding a piece of that legacy because "muh pretty models and new anims". You either want the classic experience, or you don't.
Things like "The Relentless". Aside from PvP titles (which you still have to at least do go out of your way to do SOMETHING to achieve, and even then the ease with which theyre obtained today is a modern invention), most titles in classic aren't just given away. They're a goal to work toward that had some significance. Giving them away during a leveling grind (which is my understanding of your auggestion, correct me if I am wrong/misunderstood) is a participation trophy. That is the purview of retail and shouldn't be in vanilla.
I don't like cosmetics (especially the possibility of tradeable ones) because they will inevitably be sold, either by Blizzard, or as another ridiculously priced object in the vanilla economy, which is already a damn nightmare.
Also all it is is another visual to chase. Gear already does this, so it's also redundant.
Good video tho but Classic players cant be helped. If even blizz make these ideas ppl will still find a reason to cry
Minmax bots will find another way to ruin the game like they always do
While I do think there would still be plenty of people who want to play the game with a calculator the hope would be, with smaller groups, more of the people who choose to play for the sake of having fun have the freedom to do so.
Flex raid sizes and reducing raid size to 5-10 is prob the worst idea i have seen in all these Classic+ videos on TH-cam, at that point just make raids soloable because whats the difference? All this nonsense because "people arguing about loot is bad, mkay?" argument which is silly...
Well, the difference is 5-10 people is 5-10x more than 1 person. Also, I'm going to assume you selectively listened to the video so I'll help you fill the gap regarding the reason for this suggestion. Large raid groups 20-40 people are a problem because: (1) Loot distribution is more complicated. (2) Raids are more stressful especially for key roles in the group. (3) There is less individual player impact. (4) Recruiting becomes a major hassle needing so many people. (5) Keeping a large group of players online for an extended period of time is challenging. (6) There are a greater chance of conflicts within the group the larger it is. Whether over loot or problems during the raid. (7) All of these problems increase the chances of guilds breaking up. (8) Big groups are proven to be worse for social interactions than small groups. (9) Due to recruiting demand, large raid groups contribute to the urgency of reaching cap level ASAP. None of this is to mention is that Blizzard is basically alone on keeping giant raid groups in 2024. The MMORPG gaming world has almost entirely abandoned this approach to raiding.
So, a little more than "people arguing about loot is bad, mkay?".
@@delornegg 1. There is nothing wrong with loot distribution unless you are part of the group that contributes nothing to the raid and then gets angry when RL doesnt prioritize you
2. How are they stressful? Its the exact opposite, smaller raid sizes are more stressful because bigger responsibility per player
3. Raids are supposed to be about group effort but this point goes back to point number 2.
4. Unless the GM and officers are terrible people ala retail players you wont have that problem on an active server
5. Point number 4.
6. The entire point of MMO is getting positive and negative experiences while playing with other people, same with real life.
7. Point number 4.
8. Absolutely false, prime example of this is Mythic dungeons in Retail where NOBODY talks to each other unless the tank is not pulling as fast or a dps role missed his interrupts then entire group becomes toxic and people leave. Blizzard abandoned the bigger party/raid sizes because they catered to non MMORPG and later on non gamers who are mostly solo players.
If this is your personal preference then fine, but dont try to gaslight people or some Blizzard devs working on SoD seeing this video how 5 man parties should be able to get BiS loot while 20-40 man raid content should be for "casuals".
P.S. I didnt want to address the Challenge Masters part of the video because someone else left a comment about that already how its just Retail feature (which is main problem of toxicity in Mythic dungeon runs)
this is probably the most bad faith comment i've seen on a video out of all the videos on youtube
@@tippytoez37 It wasnt in bad faith but it seems it hit nerve since i can only assume you are a Retail player. Also for some reason my reply comment to DelorneGG where i addressed all his points was deleted...
I deleted nothing. If I was going to delete anything, I would have just deleted your original post. So either you didn't actually address anything I said, or something bugged with TH-cam. I 100% welcome a rebuttal to my response. The whole point of me making these videos is to create discussion, even from people that disagree with my ideas.