What would you do to make WOW better?

[kandrathe]

I've had numerous discussions with people lately regarding what they like and dislike in games in general, and one that comes up frequently in my discussions is WOW.

Here is my short list (but not entire list -- I may add more to it later)

1) Make the world change as you do things in it, and make the world change incrementally according to an overall story arc. They've begun to do this for some quests where you would see something different during, or after a quest chain because you affected a change to the world. Tyr's hand is a good example. You go in and help eradicate the Scarlet zealotry, and then they are gone. You do get a sense of accomplishment.

2) Make dungeons and dungeon loot variable based upon level (or ranges). I would make the dungeon variable depending on the average iLvl of the party. Rather than restrict who can go where, when and then never to return. I'd make every mob scalable in abilities, health and damage over the full range of player levels, and attach an appropriate leveled loot table.

2a) same for zones. I would look to ways of making zones more useful for all levels of characters. Rather now, it's a big world with very few things to do at your particular level.

3) I would cut back on the number of items and instead create more synergies for crafting -- e.g. cloth, herbs, dust, etc. Every time they bumped up the level cap, they added whole new plethora of level based items. It creates odd commodity issues where copper, the low level ore sells more than higher level ores because fewer people are mining it anymore. They do some synergy stuff with metal, e.g. bronze, steel, felsteel.

4) I would cut PVP out of the skill tree into it's own separate talent option. You would still have your main build skills as well, but then be able to augment with selected PVP skills from the PVP talent tree (something like the simplified MOP choices -- every 10-15 levels choose a skill from A, B or C). They've already created most of the separation with penetration and resilience, and separate gear. If they would allow a clear separation in the skill tree, it would simplify both PVP and Non-PVP builds. You might even get rid of the Horde/Alliance thing and instead allow people to choose sides more 3rd party allegiances (e.g. Scryer vs Aldor). Make it possible to switch sides (and it doesn't have to be easy to gain rep -- but falling to neutral should be fast). I would also make PVP vendors offer BOA gear that is leveled and very average to enable people to jump into PVP more easily. Currently, you seem to either be a raider, or you do PVP -- I'd try to open it up to make it more accessible and fun for everyone to participate (both raiding and pvp btw).

What would you change?

[shoju]

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.

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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

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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

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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.

[Bolty]

I'll just play Devil's Advocate here and address your points:

1) Make the world change as you do things in it, and make the world change incrementally according to an overall story arc. They've begun to do this for some quests where you would see something different during, or after a quest chain because you affected a change to the world. Tyr's hand is a good example. You go in and help eradicate the Scarlet zealotry, and then they are gone. You do get a sense of accomplishment.

The obvious problem here is that too much of this prevents you from questing with (or in some cases, even seeing) other players. I recall times waiting outside of the ICC raid with my guild and only being able to see 5 or 6 of them, because the raid was split up into different questing phases. Also, it starts potentially removing farming locations. If you need to kill monster X because they're a great source of leather, and your phase removes those monsters from the game world, you can't farm them anymore.

I like what they did with Hyjal somewhat. Your progress there is visible in that the trees that were burned and destroyed start to grow again; you can see that you're visibly affecting the environment, but it doesn't phase out anything that's there.

2) Make dungeons and dungeon loot variable based upon level (or ranges). I would make the dungeon variable depending on the average iLvl of the party. Rather than restrict who can go where, when and then never to return. I'd make every mob scalable in abilities, health and damage over the full range of player levels, and attach an appropriate leveled loot table.

2a) same for zones. I would look to ways of making zones more useful for all levels of characters. Rather now, it's a big world with very few things to do at your particular level.

Well, similar to point #1, the problems come in when you want to farm something in particular - either transmogrification gear or older crafting materials. You'd then have to have a stable of alts at specific levels, with exp gain turned off. How do you get around this without adding a lot of complexity?

3) I would cut back on the number of items and instead create more synergies for crafting -- e.g. cloth, herbs, dust, etc. Every time they bumped up the level cap, they added whole new plethora of level based items. It creates odd commodity issues where copper, the low level ore sells more than higher level ores because fewer people are mining it anymore. They do some synergy stuff with metal, e.g. bronze, steel, felsteel.

A good idea. The economy becomes more vibrant when the professions have a greater reliance on each other.

4) I would cut PVP out of the skill tree into it's own separate talent option. You would still have your main build skills as well, but then be able to augment with selected PVP skills from the PVP talent tree (something like the simplified MOP choices -- every 10-15 levels choose a skill from A, B or C). They've already created most of the separation with penetration and resilience, and separate gear. If they would allow a clear separation in the skill tree, it would simplify both PVP and Non-PVP builds. You might even get rid of the Horde/Alliance thing and instead allow people to choose sides more 3rd party allegiances (e.g. Scryer vs Aldor). Make it possible to switch sides (and it doesn't have to be easy to gain rep -- but falling to neutral should be fast). I would also make PVP vendors offer BOA gear that is leveled and very average to enable people to jump into PVP more easily. Currently, you seem to either be a raider, or you do PVP -- I'd try to open it up to make it more accessible and fun for everyone to participate (both raiding and pvp btw).

They're basically doing this in MoP, as you mentioned. The talent trees are being simplified so there's once choice allowed every 15 levels, and some of the choices are very obviously PvP ones. As someone who participates in both high-end raiding and Duelist-level PvP simultaneously, gear homogenization would be welcomed. I don't see it happening, though, because people who only have time/desire to play the PvP part of the game don't want to be forced into raiding in order to gear up. The top PvE'ers will always then be the top PvP'ers (vanilla WoW model), because the gear gap becomes pretty significant between normal mode and heroic mode gear.

The thing with WoW is that it tries to please everyone, and does a fairly decent job of it throughout. As a result, it also irritates everyone equally, because each particular piece of the game could be improved at the cost of other pieces. That's the sick beauty of it. If you focus intensely on just one aspect of the game, you'll be upset with it to the point of quitting. If you enjoy more than one aspect of it, you'll likely stick around because no game really wraps everything together as well as WoW does. Just my opinion, of course, but that's why I've had a steady subscription to the game for 7 years.

I've known countless players who log in, do their one thing they're interested in doing, and log out. I don't know if I'd stay subscribed if that was my interest level. Let's look at all the different ways people play this game (I'm sure I'll miss a few):

1) Social interaction players
2) Auction House players
3) PvP Battleground lovers
4) PvP Arena / RBG lovers
5) Alt lovers - plays tons of characters without focusing much on one
6) Achievement hunters
7) Content seekers (LFR-only raiders, for example)
8) Normal mode raiders - may dabble in heroics, but mostly just want to hang out with their guild and kill stuff
9) Hardcore raiders - consider normal modes a speedbump, push heroic/competitive raiding for gear, ego, or other reasons
10) Hardcore pvp'ers - gladiator-level players who compete in tournaments

There's something in WoW for everyone there. I think #8 is where the vast majority of WoW players sit, but I have no evidence except anecdotal to back that up. I know I'm a #3, #4, #6, and #9 player. I wish I were a #10, but I can't seem to do both #9 and #10 simultaneously. The truly top PvP'ers don't want to play with you if you can't arena every day.

[shoju]

Using your list, I was an

8 - 6 - 7 - 5

In that order, but with Cataclysm, and my hatred of what was my Main, it really eroded to a point where I'm an 8-5, and even that is starting to fall apart.

[kandrathe]

I like what they did with Hyjal somewhat. Your progress there is visible in that the trees that were burned and destroyed start to grow again; you can see that you're visibly affecting the environment, but it doesn't phase out anything that's there.

I do too. The one problem with Tyr's hand was that once you complete the quest chain you can no longer farm the Crusader enchant formula. Ergo, I would suggest they stop putting recipes as rare world/dungeon drops. More realistically, rare recipes should require some out of the way hermit who has some stringent quest chain requiring some hours of work to earn the reward. Better than hanging out in Tyr's hand killing one type of Scarlet mob for those same number of hours. So, take those average equivalent hours (it took me about 1.5 hours of farming over a couple days to get it) and put them into something more interesting. I guess the way around the grouping with friends issue would be that the world/dungeon reflects whomever is the group leader (founder). I would actually see less of an issue for transmogrification since you'd be more likely to find a group your level willing to go back to an appropriately leveled dungeon with loot tables that would benefit your level. In fact, you could then design dungeons around a particular theme... If want pirate stuff, then head off to Deadmines. If you like the garish blood elf gear, then head on back to the Isle of Quel' Danas. But, kudos to them for changing the Frost Saber/Venomhide Ravasaur mount grind into something more fun -- and it still takes a minimum of 20 days -- it's just that you need to remember to go do a daily quest instead of repeatedly kill mobs that other people need for their normal PVE quests.

Well, similar to point #1, the problems come in when you want to farm something in particular - either transmogrification gear or older crafting materials. You'd then have to have a stable of alts at specific levels, with exp gain turned off. How do you get around this without adding a lot of complexity?

They have the mechanics already with the beige BOA equipment -- They could cut down vastly on the number of items for loot as well if it leveled with you. Seriously, who ever uses anything with the suffix "of the Wolf" (Agility/Spirit)? You could still be motivated to improve on it with a tier system based on difficulty. For difficulty, I'd make it more complicated than Normal/Heroic too. Use the difficulty to amp up the mob stats and corresponding loot table. The gear problem that I see with either raiding or PVP is that eventually you don't really have much choice in equipment either. You need to run this particular raid, or grind up some reputation by repeating the same thing over and over, or save up tokens to get a particular piece of gear. You should WANT to repeat content, not be forced to repeat it.

The thing with WoW is that it tries to please everyone, and does a fairly decent job of it throughout. As a result, it also irritates everyone equally, because each particular piece of the game could be improved at the cost of other pieces. That's the sick beauty of it. If you focus intensely on just one aspect of the game, you'll be upset with it to the point of quitting. If you enjoy more than one aspect of it, you'll likely stick around because no game really wraps everything together as well as WoW does. Just my opinion, of course, but that's why I've had a steady subscription to the game for 7 years.

I'd mostly agree. I do think it would be better for the game if more attention were paid to better enabling, and encouraging people to group up more.

But contrary to my last point... I would toss out a #5 idea; It might be useful to add a variable NPC option for dungeons to fill in a sparse group with a directable AI. Not ideal, but for smaller groups who just need an assist damage spammer, or a heal spammer it might work. For 5-man group, needing 1 or 2, or 10-man groups needing 2-3 bodies it would help more groups to form. Maybe when back when I was in college I could find 10 people all available who want to do the same thing at the same time (it usually involved a keg though). But, for me, speaking as an old codger, finding 3-5 available friends who can be cajoled into a dungeon or raid is an accomplishment.

Ok, one more idea. #6; I really liked what they attempted to do in Skyrim with repeatable Radiant Quests (bugs aside). Why not use this idea for those repeatable quests for earning rep. Make the quest relate to your class -- so, if you are a healing priest, rather than go off and "kill" mobs, you go off and assist in healing on some somewhat random mission some for an NPC. If you are a rogue, perhaps an infiltration without being seen -- or an assassination. Again, for grouping, have the focus of the mission generation be based on the founder/leader of the group -- everyone can participate in the mission (healing or fighting as needed) and scale the difficulty up slightly based on group composition. For example, Argent Dawn rep in EP. Rather than just the repeated killing of either of two dungeon bosses 20 times, why not randomly send the player off to take out something (undead and elite) equally difficult?

[kandrathe]

1.) Realize that if it isn't fun, it shouldn't be in a game.

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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.

I've always thought it would be awesome for them to add a random event to fishing... Just when you start to nod off due to the tedium of casting, and clicking... **BAM** Out jumps a killer sea monster intent on making a meal out of you. Have the mob drop some fish...

I don't know how to make archeology fun, in the game, or in real life. You dig, you rarely find anything, and when you do you need to spend hours and hours carefully using dental equipment to gentle extract the fossil from the surrounding rock. I'm just glad they didn't choose accounting as a WOW profession.

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.

I don't know. It's like what Bolty said... It's social. They should just go all out and also add Pazzack from KOTOR, and Triple Triad from FF8. I'd be happy to not have some A-hoo challenge me to a duel whenever I Ride out of Stormwind, or through Goldshire. In fact, I was running my Rogue (at level 45) through Eastern Plaguelands one day when I was repeatedly harassed by some level 85 paladin wanting to duel. NO. NO, I don't want to duel a player 40 levels above me when I'm busy doing quests. I finally had to stealth, parachute off a tower and skulk off to shed this vermin. But hey, they'll let anyone into this game. Anyway, maybe these zealous dueling people will be setting their little kung fu panda companions against other peoples Plants vs Zombie flowers. I don't have to play that game either. If only... the deaths would be permanent.

8.) Get rid of Shared Loot Tables in Raids

Oh, I agree. Back in the day, before you just got generic armor tokens, I ran BRD/BRS too many times trying to get my dungeon set one. Then, the same with Molten Core for my Tier 1 set. It would be better if everyone in the raid just got a certain number of participation points for each boss, and maybe some fraction for each trash mob. I do much more like the current token system. Save them up, and cash them in for shiny prizes of your choosing. But, still... too many things are rare drops and getting it is a combination of tenacity and wild luck.

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.

and

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.

I somewhat agree. If they implemented my #1 idea, every dungeon would have 3 modes (easy, normal, hard) -- it would be centered on your groups average level, and would come in 5 person dungeon, 10 person raid, and 20 person raid flavors. There would be no need to ever nerf it. I wouldn't differentiate content or loot between LFR and non-LFR. LFR should merely be a way to find a group. As for players not knowing how to play their class -- I would have an easy mode, where it's forgiving and possibly teaches them something. Blizzard is trying to appeal to both the clueless newb and the hard core raider who wants a challenge so massive that only their 40 person raid group can solve it after months of trying. The sad part is that the elite 40 person raid group is only 40 people, and hardly sufficient to fund the game. So we really need the hundreds of thousands of clueless, juveniles running around to pay for the content that the select few get to even attempt.

What I don't like is when after a few months of releasing new content, the hard core have burned through all the new content and are bored -- then they nerf it just before the slower more causal players get through it. The casual player never gets to solve the puzzle as it was designed.

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.

::nod:: There needs to be an overall class model that has consistency. If I were to design it... I'd make "The Generic Player" -- without class first. Figure out the base combat mechanics -- to hit, attack power, ranged attack power, block, parry, spell power, resists, damage reduction, etc. Then, figure out how the attributes (strength, intelligence, dexterity, spirit, etc) affect the generic players combat mechanics. Call me old school, but I'd give back to the players the ability to assign attribute points and skills at level up. It's how we work to differentiate our builds. Then, every class should just be a layer on top of the generic player that adds modifiers for that class. Prot warriors get bonuses for strength, and armor -- mages get bonuses for intelligence, and a little for spirit, priests get bonuses for spirit and a little intelligence, rogues get bonuses for dexterity, and dodge. Etc. Gear should be a modifier as well, but I would only make it up to 50% of the base generic (e.g. if the players intelligence is 200, then the bonus of int on gear diminishes rapidly after 100). You'd need to apply the same mechanics to all mobs as well. WOW has deviated so far from reality in this regard that it's nonsensical. With my gear on I'm a super hero, and without it I'm chopped liver. The emphasis is therefore on improving the gear, and not on improving the hero.

But... not just the classes, but crafting too. How frustrating for new players that 20% of the recipes are now unavailable -- because somehow the cataclysm made the Mithril order forget how to craft their armor. I like the discovery system in crafting, but I would extend it to all construction professions (blacksmith, engineer, leather-working, tailoring -- either like Alchemy for those types of accidental discoveries, and/or like inscriptions where you can devote some time and resource each day for "research")