What would I do to make WoW better. Man... That's a question I have thought a lot about.
1.) Realize that if it isn't fun, it shouldn't be in a game.
Now, I understand, that the very definition of fun, is going to be a very.... broad thing. Different people, have different opinions about fun. But, when I look at things like. Fishing and Archaeology, and realize the number of iterations that they have gone through to try and make them appealing, my first question is:
"Why is it still in the game?"
Sure, there are fun things TO DO while fishing, and there are nifty things to get while working on archaeology (including lore), but the actual action has been changed and iterated to try and make it more enticing to people, and less grindy.
Personally, I think it's still grindy, and not fun. Personally, I think until you cahnge fishing so that you get a targeting reticule to use, it isn't fun. There is nothing fun about clicking a button randomly, hoping that you get it in the fishing pool. That's not fun. I put randomly placing beacons around an area that has no visible parameters (unless you are looking at a map, in which case, you aren't looking at the world) to also not be fun. I understand some people find it fun, but there are a lot of people who don't find it fun.
2.) Re-tune 1-85, or 1-90
The game is WAY to easy. You are no longer required to learn how to play the character properly on the way to max level. If you group in a dungeon, low level dungeons are BEST done, in a group with heavy AoE, and just spamming the AoE. It's faster, People dont' die. Aggro is a joke, pulling aggro doesn't kill you. Quests aren't hard. There is no sense of adventure left.
I think that WOTLK (70-80 zones) had just the right amount of hand holding, and exploration to them. Cataclysm's redesign, to a completely linear start to finish, coupled with nothing being hard, means that the player need old know a few things to get to 85. And once they get to 85, the community admonishes them, because they don't know how to play their class.
Now, I've heard that PVE Scenarios might help with this. I'm not sure. If they do, that's fantastic. If they don't, this game is going to be in serious trouble. MoP raises the level cap to 90. Going one to ninety is HUGE. Doing all this, and realizing that you don't know what you are doing once you get to 90, is bad thing.
3.) Stop putting other games inside WoW.
I didn't play WoW because I wanted to play plants vs zombies.
I didn't play WoW because I wanted to play Farmville (coming soon to a MoP near you!)
I didn't play WoW because I wanted to play Pokemon
Look, I get it. These games are popular. People find it enjoying to play those games. I don't want to play them while I'm playing wow. I get that WoW is a huge exercise in Pop Culture homages. That's fine. But, I think that putting these extra "mini-games" in the game does two things.
1.) It weakens the content around it.
2.) It.... Well... I guess just one thing. It weakens the game.
One of the BIG "no" points for me on MoP was the amount of design time and resources they were allocating so that people could play Pokewow. I understand that the evolution of the Non Combat Pet has come a long way since I started in BC. That's fine. This? This is not interesting to me at all. I don't care about it. But I do care about the design resources being put to it, and it harkens me back to the Dead as ever, and not going to be released Dance Studio.
4.) Stop massively overhauling class designs.
I'm talking about things like
The Paladin conversion to Holy Power.
The Hunter conversion to Focus
The Death Knight Rune change.
It alienates customers, and if designed poorly (I'm looking at you Holy Power) does nothing to improve upon the existing class design and mechanics. It is a layer of complexity heaped on for the sake of change, and the sake of complexity. I could write a book (and laugh as my Terenas Guildies collectively groan) about the failings of the Holy Power System. I tried it in Beta. I gave my feedback. It went live. I tried it until 4.1, and FINALLY gave up the ghost. The truth is, Those changes to my "Main" class, coupled with (at the time) single character achievements and mounts, set the stage for a player (me) who was more often unhappy with the game during the expac, than happy. I stayed around for the guild, and the guild only. I love the guild, but part of my WoW playing love died that day shortly after 4.1 when I made my main change official. Maybe Account wide Achieves, Mounts, and Pets would have helped to fix that. Maybe. Maybe it wouldn't, and I would still be miserable, because of soemthing else that made me sad about the expansion. I don't know.
5.) Stop making small raid tiers.
Firelands, Dragon Soul, Trial of the Crusader. The smallest raid tiers. They are also the raid tiers that posed the most difficult scheduling challenges for <Lurkers> Each tier was about half of the size that it should have been. The Raid tiers work best when they are
a. Non Linear or multiple raids comprising the same tier.
b. larger than 10 bosses.
Dragon Soul was simultaneously my favorite tier of the expac, and my most hated. I love the fights. I @#()%*&@#$^(*&@#^*()@&#$^(*&@#%*(&!@#*(&@#$%*@#^*!&#$@^#*(%&@#$%()@&*#%(@#&%*(@%$*@&%^#!@*&%^#^*(%&(@#*%&!@#*(#&*($&#(%&@#()%&@*#%(*@&#%@(*#%&@*(#&%!# [breathe] !@#)(%&*!@&@#$*(^&@*(#%&!(*@#&@*(#$&%@(#$*&(*#$^&@#(*^&@#*(%&!@#()@#*&%@#$(%&*@#$%*(@&#(%@*(#%&@*($^&ing hate the linear nature of the tier. I want to call up the guy who green lit this idea at blizzard, offer to take him out to lunch, and kick him in the nuts after buying him a nice lunch.
This tier did harm to the culture of <Lurkers> - Terenas. I fear some of that harm is irreparable. It canceled one of our raiding nights, because there wasn't enough content. It drove the remaining two nights into teams. We had the W raiders, and the M raiders. We can argue about how much we don't like that "idea" all we want, but that is what happened. We had some crossover between the two nights, but it was on different characters. We finished two freaking sets of legendary daggers 3 days apart, because M had its progression, and W had its progression. Never before did I feel such a massive disconnect between myself and people I was in a guild with. It felt awful.
6.) Stop nerfing content so fast, and so hard.
Seriously. You made LFR, which is a hit. Great. I'm glad. I'm happy for you. I burnt out in there, because like I feared, it is a cesspool of players. You have the assholes, and the bad players, and the elitists, and the rest who are just trying to grin and bear it.
Great. You brought raiding to the masses. Now, the masses can see the content you can design, and you will never again have a situation like Vanilla Naxx, and Sunwell. GOOD I agree, everyone should have a chance to see these amazing, breath taking zones, and these epic bad guys.
But now really. Leave the rest of it alone. Let guilds progress at their own pace. You got rid of attunements, which was a big killer of guilds in BC. Don't make "difficulty" suffer.
7.) Heroic Modes
This is a personal point, More personal than the rest. I can point at a lot of forum posts, and websites, and in game stuff to make a case for my other points. I can't do that "as well" with this point, because their arent' as many people vocal about it.
Get rid of Heroic Mode
Right now, Heroic Mode, is the WoW equivalent of Nightmare, or Hell, or Inferno Difficulty in Diablo III. WoW isn't a console game. it isn't Diablo (and Diablo isn't WoW). It isn't FFXVII. It isn't Halo. It doesn't need a difficulty setting. "Hard Modes" were much more fun than "Heroic Mode" There was something more interesting with OS3d, and Ulduar designs. The Hard Modes were a challenge. Something you had to work, and prove that you could handle. Heroic Mode, is a setting. OH HEY! I BEAT IT ON NORMAL! NOW IT'S TIME TO PLAY IT ON HEROIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RAWR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For me, the idea that the hard mode was something that I had Control Over was far more engaging of a system than "uh............ I clicked on my portrait and made it harder."
NO.
I want to KILL HIS FREAKING HEART
I want to DECIDE to face him, and his 3 dragon buddies AT THE SAME FREAKING TIME
I want to PUSH MIMIRON'S BIG RED BUTTON
I want people to play near flawlessly on Hodir, because in doing so I BEAT THE HARD MODE
I want to push my raids survivability and not kill the Saronite so that it becomes ANOTHER FREAKING BOSS
I want to choose which super awesome Titan Construct(s) I think I need to come with me into the belly of the beast.
I don't want to zone in, kill trash, and try to kill the big lava worm while Nefarian is hurling skeletons at me, only to decide "Nah! that's still too hard!" and zone out, and press the reset button like this is a Nintendo game, and I'm 7 again.
8.) Get rid of Shared Loot Tables in Raids
This probably goes hand in hand with making larger raid tiers, but it is a pebble in my shoe. Scroll down to my Signature. Click the link for Onisu. That's my main. Scroll down to the bottom of the armory page, and count the number of times that I have killed
Morchok
Yosahj
Zon'ozz
Hagara
Ultraxion
and Blackhorn
between the 3 difficulty settings of Dragon Soul. As of 6/14/12 when I wrote this post, that total is 203. TWO HUNDRED THREE
In 203 attempts, I have never seen the Shared Loot trinket Drop Bone Link Fetish
I know. I'm not alone. Our Hunters, and Druids have only ever seen 1 Vial Of Shadows. I'm not them. I can sympathize with them, because it's the same, but I can't make their case. I can only make my own.
203 attempts to see a !@#()*%&ing trinket drop, and it's not even dropped so that I could lose it to someone else.
ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!?
This is a "good" way to do loot? REALLY?! I just don't see the benefits of a loot system that takes the RNG to another level.
Obviously, my opinion comes from someone who is a little burnt on the game, a little tired, and actually, I'm 15 days away from my sub running out. I hold no ill will towards anyone who continues t derive enjoyment out of the game. I hold no ill will towards blizzard (except the guy who thought an 8 boss completely linear raid was a good idea). Play, Game, Have fun.
1.) Realize that if it isn't fun, it shouldn't be in a game.
Now, I understand, that the very definition of fun, is going to be a very.... broad thing. Different people, have different opinions about fun. But, when I look at things like. Fishing and Archaeology, and realize the number of iterations that they have gone through to try and make them appealing, my first question is:
"Why is it still in the game?"
Sure, there are fun things TO DO while fishing, and there are nifty things to get while working on archaeology (including lore), but the actual action has been changed and iterated to try and make it more enticing to people, and less grindy.
Personally, I think it's still grindy, and not fun. Personally, I think until you cahnge fishing so that you get a targeting reticule to use, it isn't fun. There is nothing fun about clicking a button randomly, hoping that you get it in the fishing pool. That's not fun. I put randomly placing beacons around an area that has no visible parameters (unless you are looking at a map, in which case, you aren't looking at the world) to also not be fun. I understand some people find it fun, but there are a lot of people who don't find it fun.
2.) Re-tune 1-85, or 1-90
The game is WAY to easy. You are no longer required to learn how to play the character properly on the way to max level. If you group in a dungeon, low level dungeons are BEST done, in a group with heavy AoE, and just spamming the AoE. It's faster, People dont' die. Aggro is a joke, pulling aggro doesn't kill you. Quests aren't hard. There is no sense of adventure left.
I think that WOTLK (70-80 zones) had just the right amount of hand holding, and exploration to them. Cataclysm's redesign, to a completely linear start to finish, coupled with nothing being hard, means that the player need old know a few things to get to 85. And once they get to 85, the community admonishes them, because they don't know how to play their class.
Now, I've heard that PVE Scenarios might help with this. I'm not sure. If they do, that's fantastic. If they don't, this game is going to be in serious trouble. MoP raises the level cap to 90. Going one to ninety is HUGE. Doing all this, and realizing that you don't know what you are doing once you get to 90, is bad thing.
3.) Stop putting other games inside WoW.
I didn't play WoW because I wanted to play plants vs zombies.
I didn't play WoW because I wanted to play Farmville (coming soon to a MoP near you!)
I didn't play WoW because I wanted to play Pokemon
Look, I get it. These games are popular. People find it enjoying to play those games. I don't want to play them while I'm playing wow. I get that WoW is a huge exercise in Pop Culture homages. That's fine. But, I think that putting these extra "mini-games" in the game does two things.
1.) It weakens the content around it.
2.) It.... Well... I guess just one thing. It weakens the game.
One of the BIG "no" points for me on MoP was the amount of design time and resources they were allocating so that people could play Pokewow. I understand that the evolution of the Non Combat Pet has come a long way since I started in BC. That's fine. This? This is not interesting to me at all. I don't care about it. But I do care about the design resources being put to it, and it harkens me back to the Dead as ever, and not going to be released Dance Studio.
4.) Stop massively overhauling class designs.
I'm talking about things like
The Paladin conversion to Holy Power.
The Hunter conversion to Focus
The Death Knight Rune change.
It alienates customers, and if designed poorly (I'm looking at you Holy Power) does nothing to improve upon the existing class design and mechanics. It is a layer of complexity heaped on for the sake of change, and the sake of complexity. I could write a book (and laugh as my Terenas Guildies collectively groan) about the failings of the Holy Power System. I tried it in Beta. I gave my feedback. It went live. I tried it until 4.1, and FINALLY gave up the ghost. The truth is, Those changes to my "Main" class, coupled with (at the time) single character achievements and mounts, set the stage for a player (me) who was more often unhappy with the game during the expac, than happy. I stayed around for the guild, and the guild only. I love the guild, but part of my WoW playing love died that day shortly after 4.1 when I made my main change official. Maybe Account wide Achieves, Mounts, and Pets would have helped to fix that. Maybe. Maybe it wouldn't, and I would still be miserable, because of soemthing else that made me sad about the expansion. I don't know.
5.) Stop making small raid tiers.
Firelands, Dragon Soul, Trial of the Crusader. The smallest raid tiers. They are also the raid tiers that posed the most difficult scheduling challenges for <Lurkers> Each tier was about half of the size that it should have been. The Raid tiers work best when they are
a. Non Linear or multiple raids comprising the same tier.
b. larger than 10 bosses.
Dragon Soul was simultaneously my favorite tier of the expac, and my most hated. I love the fights. I @#()%*&@#$^(*&@#^*()@&#$^(*&@#%*(&!@#*(&@#$%*@#^*!&#$@^#*(%&@#$%()@&*#%(@#&%*(@%$*@&%^#!@*&%^#^*(%&(@#*%&!@#*(#&*($&#(%&@#()%&@*#%(*@&#%@(*#%&@*(#&%!# [breathe] !@#)(%&*!@&@#$*(^&@*(#%&!(*@#&@*(#$&%@(#$*&(*#$^&@#(*^&@#*(%&!@#()@#*&%@#$(%&*@#$%*(@&#(%@*(#%&@*($^&ing hate the linear nature of the tier. I want to call up the guy who green lit this idea at blizzard, offer to take him out to lunch, and kick him in the nuts after buying him a nice lunch.
This tier did harm to the culture of <Lurkers> - Terenas. I fear some of that harm is irreparable. It canceled one of our raiding nights, because there wasn't enough content. It drove the remaining two nights into teams. We had the W raiders, and the M raiders. We can argue about how much we don't like that "idea" all we want, but that is what happened. We had some crossover between the two nights, but it was on different characters. We finished two freaking sets of legendary daggers 3 days apart, because M had its progression, and W had its progression. Never before did I feel such a massive disconnect between myself and people I was in a guild with. It felt awful.
6.) Stop nerfing content so fast, and so hard.
Seriously. You made LFR, which is a hit. Great. I'm glad. I'm happy for you. I burnt out in there, because like I feared, it is a cesspool of players. You have the assholes, and the bad players, and the elitists, and the rest who are just trying to grin and bear it.
Great. You brought raiding to the masses. Now, the masses can see the content you can design, and you will never again have a situation like Vanilla Naxx, and Sunwell. GOOD I agree, everyone should have a chance to see these amazing, breath taking zones, and these epic bad guys.
But now really. Leave the rest of it alone. Let guilds progress at their own pace. You got rid of attunements, which was a big killer of guilds in BC. Don't make "difficulty" suffer.
7.) Heroic Modes
This is a personal point, More personal than the rest. I can point at a lot of forum posts, and websites, and in game stuff to make a case for my other points. I can't do that "as well" with this point, because their arent' as many people vocal about it.
Get rid of Heroic Mode
Right now, Heroic Mode, is the WoW equivalent of Nightmare, or Hell, or Inferno Difficulty in Diablo III. WoW isn't a console game. it isn't Diablo (and Diablo isn't WoW). It isn't FFXVII. It isn't Halo. It doesn't need a difficulty setting. "Hard Modes" were much more fun than "Heroic Mode" There was something more interesting with OS3d, and Ulduar designs. The Hard Modes were a challenge. Something you had to work, and prove that you could handle. Heroic Mode, is a setting. OH HEY! I BEAT IT ON NORMAL! NOW IT'S TIME TO PLAY IT ON HEROIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RAWR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For me, the idea that the hard mode was something that I had Control Over was far more engaging of a system than "uh............ I clicked on my portrait and made it harder."
NO.
I want to KILL HIS FREAKING HEART
I want to DECIDE to face him, and his 3 dragon buddies AT THE SAME FREAKING TIME
I want to PUSH MIMIRON'S BIG RED BUTTON
I want people to play near flawlessly on Hodir, because in doing so I BEAT THE HARD MODE
I want to push my raids survivability and not kill the Saronite so that it becomes ANOTHER FREAKING BOSS
I want to choose which super awesome Titan Construct(s) I think I need to come with me into the belly of the beast.
I don't want to zone in, kill trash, and try to kill the big lava worm while Nefarian is hurling skeletons at me, only to decide "Nah! that's still too hard!" and zone out, and press the reset button like this is a Nintendo game, and I'm 7 again.
8.) Get rid of Shared Loot Tables in Raids
This probably goes hand in hand with making larger raid tiers, but it is a pebble in my shoe. Scroll down to my Signature. Click the link for Onisu. That's my main. Scroll down to the bottom of the armory page, and count the number of times that I have killed
Morchok
Yosahj
Zon'ozz
Hagara
Ultraxion
and Blackhorn
between the 3 difficulty settings of Dragon Soul. As of 6/14/12 when I wrote this post, that total is 203. TWO HUNDRED THREE
In 203 attempts, I have never seen the Shared Loot trinket Drop Bone Link Fetish
I know. I'm not alone. Our Hunters, and Druids have only ever seen 1 Vial Of Shadows. I'm not them. I can sympathize with them, because it's the same, but I can't make their case. I can only make my own.
203 attempts to see a !@#()*%&ing trinket drop, and it's not even dropped so that I could lose it to someone else.
ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!?
This is a "good" way to do loot? REALLY?! I just don't see the benefits of a loot system that takes the RNG to another level.
Obviously, my opinion comes from someone who is a little burnt on the game, a little tired, and actually, I'm 15 days away from my sub running out. I hold no ill will towards anyone who continues t derive enjoyment out of the game. I hold no ill will towards blizzard (except the guy who thought an 8 boss completely linear raid was a good idea). Play, Game, Have fun.
nobody ever slaughtered an entire school with a smart phone and a twitter account – they have, however, toppled governments. - Jim Wright