Well I don't think removing the cap on how many players can raid Instance X is a good idea.
However...
I don't think that homoginizing the classes is good idea either. If a certain raid had an AoE Boss and a TanknSpank Boss, then bring 2 tanks. Simple isn't it? Problem is that blizz is pretty much making any tank the same as any other tank, so why bother rolling another char? A Prot Warrior should not tank the same way as a Prot Pally, DK or Bear Druid. Each should be good vs some bosses and not so good vs others.
The problem is many WoW players are lazy and whine. Dual-Spec is for lazy players. They didn't want to reroll, yet couldn't stop respecing so they whined and B**ched, until Blizz game them the ability to essentially be 2 classes at the same time. I had a friend who was a Feral Druid, but she had a healing set as well. Could she heal as well as a Resto? No, of course not. She could however, back up heal in a pinch if asked.
Perhaps the tanks do all get their jobs done differently, but just not as drastic as you think they should? Personally I think some tanks are better than others at some fights and visa vera.
I don't see how making 1 class nearly useless on a boss fight and requiring a different tank promotes better gameplay. Does that margin have to be so large that one player becomes useless in order to have distinctions? What happens in the AE tank doesn't log on that night, raid over?
What I mean is certain tanks should do better vs certain bosses. The Prot War should be the guy that sucks up the massive single target damage. The Prot Pally should be the one to tank mulitple adds. The DK should tank the magic-using bosses. Finally the Bear should be the "jack of all trades" with the highest health.
About the Bear, so many ignorant people Really Whined about Bear's health. So Blizz nerfed it. The problem is that Bears cannot block or parry in Bear form. As a friend put it "I block with my face". This is why they stacked stamina and dodge so much. Since they had less ways to avoid or mitigate damage, they had a much higher health pool to just absorb the hit that the War/Pal/DK would of blocked or parried.
There is nothing wrong with "We Need Class X for this fight". If you are doing a a 10 man have Tank 1 take the boss he's better suited for and then later Tank 2 can take the other one. It's simple, keeps classes differentiated and the game more dynamic. Instead Blizz got lazy, didn't want to worry about designing encounters with too many variables, so they are making all Tanks Equal, all Melee DPS equal, all Healers Equal and all Ranged DPS equal. Makes it easy on them and down right boring for us.
Well I don't think removing the cap on how many players can raid Instance X is a good idea.
However...
I don't think that homoginizing the classes is good idea either. If a certain raid had an AoE Boss and a TanknSpank Boss, then bring 2 tanks. Simple isn't it? Problem is that blizz is pretty much making any tank the same as any other tank, so why bother rolling another char? A Prot Warrior should not tank the same way as a Prot Pally, DK or Bear Druid. Each should be good vs some bosses and not so good vs others.
The problem is many WoW players are lazy and whine. Dual-Spec is for lazy players. They didn't want to reroll, yet couldn't stop respecing so they whined and B**ched, until Blizz game them the ability to essentially be 2 classes at the same time. I had a friend who was a Feral Druid, but she had a healing set as well. Could she heal as well as a Resto? No, of course not. She could however, back up heal in a pinch if asked.
Perhaps the tanks do all get their jobs done differently, but just not as drastic as you think they should? Personally I think some tanks are better than others at some fights and visa vera.
I don't see how making 1 class nearly useless on a boss fight and requiring a different tank promotes better gameplay. Does that margin have to be so large that one player becomes useless in order to have distinctions? What happens in the AE tank doesn't log on that night, raid over?
What I mean is certain tanks should do better vs certain bosses. The Prot War should be the guy that sucks up the massive single target damage. The Prot Pally should be the one to tank mulitple adds. The DK should tank the magic-using bosses. Finally the Bear should be the "jack of all trades" with the highest health.
About the Bear, so many ignorant people Really Whined about Bear's health. So Blizz nerfed it. The problem is that Bears cannot block or parry in Bear form. As a friend put it "I block with my face". This is why they stacked stamina and dodge so much. Since they had less ways to avoid or mitigate damage, they had a much higher health pool to just absorb the hit that the War/Pal/DK would of blocked or parried.
There is nothing wrong with "We Need Class X for this fight". If you are doing a a 10 man have Tank 1 take the boss he's better suited for and then later Tank 2 can take the other one. It's simple, keeps classes differentiated and the game more dynamic. Instead Blizz got lazy, didn't want to worry about designing encounters with too many variables, so they are making all Tanks Equal, all Melee DPS equal, all Healers Equal and all Ranged DPS equal. Makes it easy on them and down right boring for us.
Beatitfully said .. I would like to add if I may, only because it still seems to be a related cause to Blizzard's homogenizing of classes to make the game even easier then the last expansion (if that was possible).. As I have said before, I believe opening up the raid cap limits allows for different roles to be played, and gives people the freedom to play those roles and join raids with friends regardless of size.. This was one of the most successful designs in EQ1 raids, in my opinion.. If the only drawback is that guilds could raid every night " if they had the numbers".. who cares? Why choke the public, because of the actions of 10% of the playerbase?
What I mean is certain tanks should do better vs certain bosses. The Prot War should be the guy that sucks up the massive single target damage. The Prot Pally should be the one to tank mulitple adds. The DK should tank the magic-using bosses. Finally the Bear should be the "jack of all trades" with the highest health.
About the Bear, so many ignorant people Really Whined about Bear's health. So Blizz nerfed it. The problem is that Bears cannot block or parry in Bear form. As a friend put it "I block with my face". This is why they stacked stamina and dodge so much. Since they had less ways to avoid or mitigate damage, they had a much higher health pool to just absorb the hit that the War/Pal/DK would of blocked or parried.
There is nothing wrong with "We Need Class X for this fight". If you are doing a a 10 man have Tank 1 take the boss he's better suited for and then later Tank 2 can take the other one. It's simple, keeps classes differentiated and the game more dynamic. Instead Blizz got lazy, didn't want to worry about designing encounters with too many variables, so they are making all Tanks Equal, all Melee DPS equal, all Healers Equal and all Ranged DPS equal. Makes it easy on them and down right boring for us.
I follow what you mean, but I don't necessarily agree with it. In the case of druids, they were getting a reputation and that is why blizzard changed them. They tanked at the expense of the healers mana pool. Instead of avoiding damage all together, they just required more healing and that just ran healers out of mana faster. I think it was a positive change and noticed bears became much better tanks for it. The difference they had between other tanks was generally a negative and became a reason to exclude them.
The tank classes in wow have different strengths and weaknesses compared to each other right now. They just are not rendered near useless in various encounter just to make other classes valuable. I don't see the problem with that.
I feel that there is something wrong with we need class X for this fight, because it promotes exclusion based on a simple choice when players were level 1 and nothing at all due to how good of a player they are. What happens in your 10 man raid when they get to a boss that requires the third and fourth kind of tank? Does the raid have to kick tanks out for replacements? Or is the 10 man suited to just the first 2 types of tanks, so the other 2 are shit out of luck and never get invited? Now the developers are put into a situation they cannot win, because no matter how they design encounters someone is going to get left out.
I really do get what you are saying, but I just don't think it works out in the utopian way you present it. If there are classes that are superior to others, then players will generally seek those classes out and exclude the rest. It has been my experience that specifically making classes deficient has not produced an overall better gameplay experience.
What I mean is certain tanks should do better vs certain bosses. The Prot War should be the guy that sucks up the massive single target damage. The Prot Pally should be the one to tank mulitple adds. The DK should tank the magic-using bosses. Finally the Bear should be the "jack of all trades" with the highest health.
About the Bear, so many ignorant people Really Whined about Bear's health. So Blizz nerfed it. The problem is that Bears cannot block or parry in Bear form. As a friend put it "I block with my face". This is why they stacked stamina and dodge so much. Since they had less ways to avoid or mitigate damage, they had a much higher health pool to just absorb the hit that the War/Pal/DK would of blocked or parried.
There is nothing wrong with "We Need Class X for this fight". If you are doing a a 10 man have Tank 1 take the boss he's better suited for and then later Tank 2 can take the other one. It's simple, keeps classes differentiated and the game more dynamic. Instead Blizz got lazy, didn't want to worry about designing encounters with too many variables, so they are making all Tanks Equal, all Melee DPS equal, all Healers Equal and all Ranged DPS equal. Makes it easy on them and down right boring for us.
I follow what you mean, but I don't necessarily agree with it. In the case of druids, they were getting a reputation and that is why blizzard changed them. They tanked at the expense of the healers mana pool. Instead of avoiding damage all together, they just required more healing and that just ran healers out of mana faster. The change altered bear status of manasponge and made them better tanks for it.
The tank classes in wow have different strengths and weaknesses compared to each other right now. They just are not rendered useless in various encounter just to make other classes valuable. I don't see how excluding three tank classes makes the encounter better. I personally think it is a flawed design to have to cancel a raid, because 1 specific person did not log on. No thank you.
I feel that there is something wrong with we need class X for this fight, because it promotes exclusion based on a simple choice when players were level 1 and nothing at all due to how good of a player they are. What happens in your 10 man raid example when they get to the boss that requires the third kind of tank and then the boss that requires the fourth kind of tank? Does the raid have to kick tanks out for replacements? Or is the 10 man designed to just the first 2 types of tanks, so the other 2 are shit out of luck and never get invited? Now the developers are put into a situation they cannot win, because no matter how they design encounters someone is going to get left out for the justification of diversity through defeciency.
I really do get what you are saying, but I just don't think it works out in the utopian way you present it. If there are classes that are superior to others, then players will generally seek those classes out and exclude the rest.
What I mean is certain tanks should do better vs certain bosses. The Prot War should be the guy that sucks up the massive single target damage. The Prot Pally should be the one to tank mulitple adds. The DK should tank the magic-using bosses. Finally the Bear should be the "jack of all trades" with the highest health.
About the Bear, so many ignorant people Really Whined about Bear's health. So Blizz nerfed it. The problem is that Bears cannot block or parry in Bear form. As a friend put it "I block with my face". This is why they stacked stamina and dodge so much. Since they had less ways to avoid or mitigate damage, they had a much higher health pool to just absorb the hit that the War/Pal/DK would of blocked or parried.
There is nothing wrong with "We Need Class X for this fight". If you are doing a a 10 man have Tank 1 take the boss he's better suited for and then later Tank 2 can take the other one. It's simple, keeps classes differentiated and the game more dynamic. Instead Blizz got lazy, didn't want to worry about designing encounters with too many variables, so they are making all Tanks Equal, all Melee DPS equal, all Healers Equal and all Ranged DPS equal. Makes it easy on them and down right boring for us.
I follow what you mean, but I don't necessarily agree with it. In the case of druids, they were getting a reputation and that is why blizzard changed them. They tanked at the expense of the healers mana pool. Instead of avoiding damage all together, they just required more healing and that just ran healers out of mana faster. I played a pally healer and I never had a problem healing a Bear tank in the BC era.. What changed? The change altered bear status of manasponge and made them better tanks for it.
The tank classes in wow have different strengths and weaknesses compared to each other right now. They just are not rendered useless in various encounter just to make other classes valuable. I don't see how excluding three tank classes makes the encounter better. I personally think it is a flawed design to have to cancel a raid, because 1 specific person did not log on. No thank you. Really? 11 million people playing WoW and your group couldn't find a certain type of tank.. Sounds to me your group has a "selective" process on who you raid with, and a basic DESIGN FLAW such as the ID system that limits your ability to get a tank or healer or whatnot.. Again that is an EXCLUSION tool, and I don't see you standing up against that?
I feel that there is something wrong with we need class X for this fight, because it promotes exclusion based on a simple choice when players were level 1 and nothing at all due to how good of a player they are. What happens in your 10 man raid example when they get to the boss that requires the third kind of tank and then the boss that requires the fourth kind of tank? (EASY and you keep refusing to respond to the concept of OPEN the raid hard cap.. Tweak the dynamics of the raid and allow groups to enter the raid at whatever size then feel comfortable wtih.. If that means that a raid group enters a raid that was designed for 25, with 30 people and they HAVE the 4 different type of tanks.. PROBLEM solved Does the raid have to kick tanks out for replacements? Current reaid mechanics of 10/25 are already KICKING before they enter the instance.. I don't read you complaining about that form of "EXCLUSION"? Or is the 10 man designed to just the first 2 types of tanks, so the other 2 are shit out of luck and never get invited? Now the developers are put into a situation they cannot win, because no matter how they design encounters someone is going to get left out for the justification of diversity through defeciency. The problem can be sovled in a better way then what the devs have done.. However you keep conviently ignoring most other peoples comments and ideas.. Selective???
I really do get what you are saying, but I just don't think it works out in the utopian way you present it. If there are classes that are superior to others, then players will generally seek those classes out and exclude the rest. NOT if you add in those gimics you keep complaining about.. such as crowd control.. LOL BTW.. if Bliz does what you want and allows all 4 tanks to fill all 4 types of tanking..... Why even bother having 4 classes? Heck, we can use your logic and see the Druid and Pally can tank, Druid and Pally can heal.. and Druid and Pally can Dps.. Lets get rid of one of them..
I"m sorry if my response upsets you, but there are 2 MAJOR tools used by Blizzard that excludes people from entering a raid.. ID system and the 10/25 hard cap limit.. You seem to selectively ignore those, why in the same breath speak up against exclusing classes roles based on encounter.. (WHICH wouldn't happen if it wasnt' for the first 2 I already discussed).. GET rid of the ID system.. and HARD cap limits and you won't have to worry about class role issues
I explained what happened to bear tanks, the became manasponges and started to become undesirable. Also my group has no trouble finding tanks, but I don't have a pool of 11 million players on my server. If you didn't understand my point then I am not explaining it again, but I think you did.
I'm fine with limited raid sizes, because they address difficulty of encounters. I don't feel the need to rail against them, because they work. I know you think you have struck paydirt in your counter, but raid sizes address different issues.
When developers learn how to dynamically scale difficulty to address dynamic sizes raids, then sure open up the sizes. I will be the first one in line and cheering for that change. I enjoy bigger raids without size limits, but that isn't reason enough to justify stripping down classes to suck just so they can have one specialty. There isn't a need to do that. Wow acomplishes balance just fine while allowing all classes to perform well. There isn't a need to dramatically change raids just to nerf the ever living shit out of classes so there can be niche roles. There is no need to regress to the 90's. It was flawed back then and I see no reason why it woulnd't just be more of the same.
That is something we disagree on, fine. If you feel the absolute need to make some other class next to useless until they are one trick ponies just make classes feel special fine, but most don't feel that way. There are not tons of people begging to play a class that does nothing but cast buffs on the real damage classes. Or tanks that only get tank 1 fight out of 4. There are not healers begging to only be good at healing 5 mans and being functionless in raids. Or some class that can solo awesome, but is unwanted in groups as a tradeoff as you put it.
It seems that most players don't ming performing a full time function with some extra aspects of support or utility. Why shouldn't someone with a sweet raid buff be incapable of doing damage, just for example.
Those concepts died long ago. Earlier you wondered why other developers are not recreating that model anymore, but the answer is right in front of your face. Sorry you feel differently and prefer things be like the good old days. There is nothing wrong with dps classes doing dps and support. Such a topsy turvy world, but it seems to work just fine. No one has to get kicked from a raid, because there is already one buffing class present or one crowd control or THE single target tank. You can bring any combination of classes and not tell your friends they can't come or they are only there to be useful once in a while and might as well not be there for half the fights.
ha ha ha.. now that is damn funny.. HEALERS are a one trick pony my friend..... and so is Tanking.. and so is DPS.. I think you are stuck on Holy Trinity and refuse to see anything else..
... and I think you are stuck on a design that died out years ago, because developers have improved upon it.
Holy Trinity is improvement? That was a good one.. I darn near woke up the family from laughing this early in the morning.. Feel free to keep on playing the format, and I'll keep on eyerolling the devs each time they nerf a game
Have a great day.. time for me to go make some coffee now..
... and I think you are stuck on a design that died out years ago, because developers have improved upon it.
Holy Trinity is improvement? That was a good one.. I darn near woke up the family from laughing this early in the morning.. Feel free to keep on playing the format, and I'll keep on eyerolling the devs each time they nerf a game
Have a great day.. time for me to go make some coffee now..
You are the one trying to boil everything down to holy trinity as if it is something I said or it is representative of the discussion. It would be nice to have a discussion with you that didn't revolve around you misquoting me or putting words in my mouth.
As I said, everything you complain about not existing already does, but in an improved fashion. Sorry you don't find it enjoyable and feel the need to force certain classes into near uselessness in large portions of a games content in order to make those classes feel worth playing. Most people don't agree with you and neither do developers. Good luck in your pursuits to find a game though.
this method seems like there will only be three possible and feasable builds per class. (( does not approve.
Wanted more customization more possibilities, not less.
There will actually be a lot of 'possible' builds since the restrictions on how you assign points within a tree do not change. As far as 'feasible' builds that is a different matter. There is currently about 4-6 'feasible' build per class if you want to maximize your role in a group/raid. Other builds are either utility/special case builds or inferior. If you want a specific high tier talent, there isn't really that much real choice as what lower tier talents you take for most trees.
Depending on what the actual talents will be there will be at least 5-6 'feasible' build per class, depending on which tree one specialized in and what secondary tree talents one wants to take.
this method seems like there will only be three possible and feasable builds per class. (( does not approve.
Wanted more customization more possibilities, not less.
There will actually be a lot of 'possible' builds since the restrictions on how you assign points within a tree do not change. As far as 'feasible' builds that is a different matter. There is currently about 4-6 'feasible' build per class if you want to maximize your role in a group/raid. Other builds are either utility/special case builds or inferior. If you want a specific high tier talent, there isn't really that much real choice as what lower tier talents you take for most trees.
Depending on what the actual talents will be there will be at least 5-6 'feasible' build per class, depending on which tree one specialized in and what secondary tree talents one wants to take.
It all depends on how far blizzard goes with their intention to make spending points a meaningful choice. Personally I don't think there will be enough to make talents builds in the same tree wildly different from player to player. It will mostly just be minor differences like it is now. Hopefully more, but the impression I got was that most people felt upset that they couldn't get all the good talents when real choices were presented at the high levels of the trees.
WoW is fast becoming an arcade game under Street's development. Dual Specialization is a blight and is part of the reason for the Talents change. Blizzard added Arenas to the game and the Systems team has been pushing hard to make players use them,resulting in the complete re-working of the game under Ghostcrawler's direction. It has been noted that the maximum-level talents are basically for PvP. It seems that they won't be satisfied until the entire game revolves around PvP and endless hamster-wheel dungeon runs. From the moment Blizzard started relying on the feedback of huge Everquest raiding guilds for development direction, the die was cast.
What started out as a vibrant world is being reduced to a chat lobby. Someone called this Blizzard's NGE, but unlike Sony, who changed the essential game overnight, Blizzard is the boiling frog approach, changing everything gradually until the game bears only superficial resemblance to the original vision.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II "People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
WoW is fast becoming an arcade game under Street's development. Dual Specialization is a blight and is part of the reason for the Talents change. Blizzard added Arenas to the game and the Systems team has been pushing hard to make players use them,resulting in the complete re-working of the game under Ghostcrawler's direction. It has been noted that the maximum-level talents are basically for PvP. It seems that they won't be satisfied until the entire game revolves around PvP and endless hamster-wheel dungeon runs. From the moment Blizzard started relying on the feedback of huge Everquest raiding guilds for development direction, the die was cast.
What started out as a vibrant world is being reduced to a chat lobby. Someone called this Blizzard's NGE, but unlike Sony, who changed the essential game overnight, Blizzard is the boiling frog approach, changing everything gradually until the game bears only superficial resemblance to the original vision.
Um not on all accounts pvp has and will always be a side show in this game.
WoW is fast becoming an arcade game under Street's development. Dual Specialization is a blight and is part of the reason for the Talents change. Blizzard added Arenas to the game and the Systems team has been pushing hard to make players use them,resulting in the complete re-working of the game under Ghostcrawler's direction. It has been noted that the maximum-level talents are basically for PvP. It seems that they won't be satisfied until the entire game revolves around PvP and endless hamster-wheel dungeon runs. From the moment Blizzard started relying on the feedback of huge Everquest raiding guilds for development direction, the die was cast.
What started out as a vibrant world is being reduced to a chat lobby. Someone called this Blizzard's NGE, but unlike Sony, who changed the essential game overnight, Blizzard is the boiling frog approach, changing everything gradually until the game bears only superficial resemblance to the original vision.
Um not on all accounts pvp has and will always be a side show in this game.
You know that and I know that, but the Blizzard seems bent on having development revolve around PvP and making you like it!
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II "People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
... and I think you are stuck on a design that died out years ago, because developers have improved upon it.
Holy Trinity is improvement? That was a good one.. I darn near woke up the family from laughing this early in the morning.. Feel free to keep on playing the format, and I'll keep on eyerolling the devs each time they nerf a game
Have a great day.. time for me to go make some coffee now..
You are the one trying to boil everything down to holy trinity as if it is something I said or it is representative of the discussion. It would be nice to have a discussion with you that didn't revolve around you misquoting me or putting words in my mouth. This is good stuff.. LOL.. as for the holy trinity tell me the 3 roles you sign up for when you use the dungeon finder.. ummmm can we say "holy trinity".. dem are da facts..
As I said, everything you complain about not existing already does, but in an improved fashion. Really? Tell us about this improved fashion.. lol oh btw, when was the last time someone filled the role of "puller" in WoW? I know.. "that is a gimic role".. not that healing isn't one as well, but you like to ignore that.. LOL Sorry you don't find it enjoyable and feel the need to force certain classes into near uselessness OH, this should be good.. Tell me how Im forcing and desiring uselessness, when in fact it is YOU that agree with the homogenizing of classes and talents to make everyone equal.. but please elaborate.. in large portions of a games content in order to make those classes feel worth playing. You mean like forcing people to play the gimic role of healer? Cause if everyone could self heal, there would be no need for that role in a group.. Most people don't agree with you and neither do developers. Good luck in your pursuits to find a game though. Most people don't agree??? .. do you have a factual study on that.. or are you using the ole "McDonalds" argument of .. we are the biggest company so we are the best and know how to cook good food.. ???
Anyone who doesn't believe this is a great idea and much needed change has absolutely ZERO understanding of game design and as such has zero right to post their diluted and factually-unsupported opinions.
Yes, everyone has an opinion and they are entitled to express is, but that doesn't mean opinions cannot be WRONG because they have no logic nor practical reasoning/factual evidence to support their beliefs.
WoW is fast becoming an arcade game under Street's development. Dual Specialization is a blight and is part of the reason for the Talents change. Blizzard added Arenas to the game and the Systems team has been pushing hard to make players use them,resulting in the complete re-working of the game under Ghostcrawler's direction. It has been noted that the maximum-level talents are basically for PvP. It seems that they won't be satisfied until the entire game revolves around PvP and endless hamster-wheel dungeon runs. From the moment Blizzard started relying on the feedback of huge Everquest raiding guilds for development direction, the die was cast.
What started out as a vibrant world is being reduced to a chat lobby. Someone called this Blizzard's NGE, but unlike Sony, who changed the essential game overnight, Blizzard is the boiling frog approach, changing everything gradually until the game bears only superficial resemblance to the original vision.
Um not on all accounts pvp has and will always be a side show in this game.
You know that and I know that, but the Blizzard seems bent on having development revolve around PvP and making you like it!
if they wanted me to like PvP they'd go back to the way it was before the battlegrounds,
WoW is fast becoming an arcade game under Street's development. Dual Specialization is a blight and is part of the reason for the Talents change. Blizzard added Arenas to the game and the Systems team has been pushing hard to make players use them,resulting in the complete re-working of the game under Ghostcrawler's direction. It has been noted that the maximum-level talents are basically for PvP. It seems that they won't be satisfied until the entire game revolves around PvP and endless hamster-wheel dungeon runs. From the moment Blizzard started relying on the feedback of huge Everquest raiding guilds for development direction, the die was cast.
What started out as a vibrant world is being reduced to a chat lobby. Someone called this Blizzard's NGE, but unlike Sony, who changed the essential game overnight, Blizzard is the boiling frog approach, changing everything gradually until the game bears only superficial resemblance to the original vision.
Um not on all accounts pvp has and will always be a side show in this game.
You know that and I know that, but the Blizzard seems bent on having development revolve around PvP and making you like it!
if they wanted me to like PvP they'd go back to the way it was before the battlegrounds,
You mean like when Southshore was the only pvp spot in the game and the zone ( a level 20 zone) was dominated by level 60 characters who killed questgivers and prevented lvl 20 players ( who couldn't fight back) from making any progress?
Again, Blizzard has a game that has 11 million players who pay money every month to play it. You think 'you' are more right than they are? What game do you play that is better? Where is pvp better? Warhammer, AOC, darkfall? haha
Let me give you some data. I play on a medium server. Every 3 hours, there is an event called Lake Wintergrasp, and it almost always ends up being 100 v 100 or 150 v 150 or something like that. EVERY THREE HOURS. AOC, Warhammer and Darkfall are all lucky if they have 300 players online on a server at the same time, let alone doing pvp against each other in large fights.
World pvp is a broken and old concept and was left behind (for good reason). It results in nothing but high level character ganking low level characters and/or zergs. There isn't a pvp that exists that is dominated by ganking low level characters or simple zerg.
WoW is fast becoming an arcade game under Street's development. Dual Specialization is a blight and is part of the reason for the Talents change. Blizzard added Arenas to the game and the Systems team has been pushing hard to make players use them,resulting in the complete re-working of the game under Ghostcrawler's direction. It has been noted that the maximum-level talents are basically for PvP. It seems that they won't be satisfied until the entire game revolves around PvP and endless hamster-wheel dungeon runs. From the moment Blizzard started relying on the feedback of huge Everquest raiding guilds for development direction, the die was cast.
What started out as a vibrant world is being reduced to a chat lobby. Someone called this Blizzard's NGE, but unlike Sony, who changed the essential game overnight, Blizzard is the boiling frog approach, changing everything gradually until the game bears only superficial resemblance to the original vision.
Um not on all accounts pvp has and will always be a side show in this game.
You know that and I know that, but the Blizzard seems bent on having development revolve around PvP and making you like it!
if they wanted me to like PvP they'd go back to the way it was before the battlegrounds,
You mean like when Southshore was the only pvp spot in the game and the zone ( a level 20 zone) was dominated by level 60 characters who killed questgivers and prevented lvl 20 players ( who couldn't fight back) from making any progress?
Again, Blizzard has a game that has 11 million players who pay money every month to play it. You think 'you' are more right than they are? What game do you play that is better? Where is pvp better? Warhammer, AOC, darkfall? haha
Let me give you some data. I play on a medium server. Every 3 hours, there is an event called Lake Wintergrasp, and it almost always ends up being 100 v 100 or 150 v 150 or something like that. EVERY THREE HOURS. AOC, Warhammer and Darkfall are all lucky if they have 300 players online on a server at the same time, let alone doing pvp against each other in large fights.
World pvp is a broken and old concept and was left behind (for good reason). It results in nothing but high level character ganking low level characters and/or zergs. There isn't a pvp that exists that is dominated by ganking low level characters or simple zerg.
While you do bring up good arguements .
A: There is still a lot of ganking going on , how many times didn't you ran across a lvl 80 who one shot you?
B: WG... On my med populated server its a disaster , when lots of people do show up the game lag likes hell and apart from the instance reset day the alliance side ends up with 5+ tenacity , so ye extremely unbalanced. now i do love WG but it also gets a bit boring after a while , more PvP events like that would be fun.
Personally i wouldn't mind world pvp being revived, would spice things up , the only thing we have now are wandering solo lvl 80's hunting lowbies. And maybe a system to disfavor lowbie ganking would be nice as well (like negative honor).
And about BG's and Arena , now BG's are ok and fun but the arena thingy seems just a bit cheap . if i want to play arena styled pvp i'm going to play games designed for that . I actually never understood why people liked arena PvP , whats the point of playing an MMO if its to play 2vs2 PvP and such. Now WG and AV , those gave an MMO PvP feeling , but random PvP battles around the world would be even more fun , diversification ftw
But yes , there are downside to world pvp and i guess its hard to find a good compromise which fits everyone
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt. Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
The dungeon finder was a direct result of the homogenizing of the classes. Since Blizz is trying to make every tank essentially the same, the Finder can then just plug any LFG Tank into the "tank slot". The Finder would never have worked if tanks were differentiated from each other as the queue system would have no way of knowing what tank would be good for what boss.
As for the topic of bears being "mana sponges" for the healers that only is true on paper yet was rarely so in practice. Before the nerf, a Bear could have over 40k health in bear form. Now, if another tank was down to half health, the healer probably has to burn a cooldown or use a fast heal cuz that tank could be dead in a few secs. With the Bear, that isn't true since at half health the Bear would still have a huge amount of health left. Good Bear tanks stacked stam and dodge (agil or rating). The stam gave them the high health and the dodge gave them a chance for a 100% mitigation. After all a "miss" is zero damage.
Probably pvpers were whining since a Bear with 40k health would be a P.I.T.A. to take down. On the other hand, they don't hit that hard so not like they are going to kill YOU that quick either.
The dungeon finder was a direct result of the homogenizing of the classes. Since Blizz is trying to make every tank essentially the same, the Finder can then just plug any LFG Tank into the "tank slot". The Finder would never have worked if tanks were differentiated from each other as the queue system would have no way of knowing what tank would be good for what boss.
As for the topic of bears being "mana sponges" for the healers that only is true on paper yet was rarely so in practice. Before the nerf, a Bear could have over 40k health in bear form. Now, if another tank was down to half health, the healer probably has to burn a cooldown or use a fast heal cuz that tank could be dead in a few secs. With the Bear, that isn't true since at half health the Bear would still have a huge amount of health left. Good Bear tanks stacked stam and dodge (agil or rating). The stam gave them the high health and the dodge gave them a chance for a 100% mitigation. After all a "miss" is zero damage.
Probably pvpers were whining since a Bear with 40k health would be a P.I.T.A. to take down. On the other hand, they don't hit that hard so not like they are going to kill YOU that quick either.
exactly.. same with healers as well.. I see now that Pally's are getting a AOE heal.. LOL It's why I had both a 80 holy pally, and a 80 holly priest.. 2 different healers to handle 2 different jobs.. I have NO problem using alts to fill so called "gimic" roles.. I don't know why everyone wants their main toon to cover all roles.. Hense homogenizing of classes..
Is it my old age, but weren't bear tanks the prefered tank in most Kara raids back in BC era? at least it was in the groups I ran with...
The dungeon finder was a direct result of the homogenizing of the classes. Since Blizz is trying to make every tank essentially the same, the Finder can then just plug any LFG Tank into the "tank slot". The Finder would never have worked if tanks were differentiated from each other as the queue system would have no way of knowing what tank would be good for what boss.
As for the topic of bears being "mana sponges" for the healers that only is true on paper yet was rarely so in practice. Before the nerf, a Bear could have over 40k health in bear form. Now, if another tank was down to half health, the healer probably has to burn a cooldown or use a fast heal cuz that tank could be dead in a few secs. With the Bear, that isn't true since at half health the Bear would still have a huge amount of health left. Good Bear tanks stacked stam and dodge (agil or rating). The stam gave them the high health and the dodge gave them a chance for a 100% mitigation. After all a "miss" is zero damage.
Probably pvpers were whining since a Bear with 40k health would be a P.I.T.A. to take down. On the other hand, they don't hit that hard so not like they are going to kill YOU that quick either.
I'm still not convinced why 1 tank should be excluded from doing the roll their entire class was designed for. What makes that good? It is like saying the dungeon finder would be a great tool for 2 tank, but the consolation prize is those 2 tanks can do something else well that doesn't include tanking for a group. The dungeon finder tool is just an extension of players seeking out other players to group with. The system used to get players together does really matter, because if there are classes that can't perform their designed task then what is really the point at all?
As for bears being manasponges, speaking as a healer that is what they were becoming. For example, they didn't have better avoidance than a warrios or anywhere close to the tools to deal with danger situations. The only advantage they had was a big healthy pool and when they required just as many cooldowns when a pair of hits landed or something. Only they required more healing to top off and thus something of a manasponge. It wasn't something that made druids incapable of doing their job, but left unaddressed for long enough it could have. I'm fine with changes that address a problem proactively.
WoW is fast becoming an arcade game under Street's development. Dual Specialization is a blight and is part of the reason for the Talents change. Blizzard added Arenas to the game and the Systems team has been pushing hard to make players use them,resulting in the complete re-working of the game under Ghostcrawler's direction. It has been noted that the maximum-level talents are basically for PvP. It seems that they won't be satisfied until the entire game revolves around PvP and endless hamster-wheel dungeon runs. From the moment Blizzard started relying on the feedback of huge Everquest raiding guilds for development direction, the die was cast.
What started out as a vibrant world is being reduced to a chat lobby. Someone called this Blizzard's NGE, but unlike Sony, who changed the essential game overnight, Blizzard is the boiling frog approach, changing everything gradually until the game bears only superficial resemblance to the original vision.
Um not on all accounts pvp has and will always be a side show in this game.
You know that and I know that, but the Blizzard seems bent on having development revolve around PvP and making you like it!
if they wanted me to like PvP they'd go back to the way it was before the battlegrounds,
You mean like when Southshore was the only pvp spot in the game and the zone ( a level 20 zone) was dominated by level 60 characters who killed questgivers and prevented lvl 20 players ( who couldn't fight back) from making any progress?
Again, Blizzard has a game that has 11 million players who pay money every month to play it. You think 'you' are more right than they are? What game do you play that is better? Where is pvp better? Warhammer, AOC, darkfall? haha
Let me give you some data. I play on a medium server. Every 3 hours, there is an event called Lake Wintergrasp, and it almost always ends up being 100 v 100 or 150 v 150 or something like that. EVERY THREE HOURS. AOC, Warhammer and Darkfall are all lucky if they have 300 players online on a server at the same time, let alone doing pvp against each other in large fights.
World pvp is a broken and old concept and was left behind (for good reason). It results in nothing but high level character ganking low level characters and/or zergs. There isn't a pvp that exists that is dominated by ganking low level characters or simple zerg.
While you do bring up good arguements .
A: There is still a lot of ganking going on , how many times didn't you ran across a lvl 80 who one shot you?
B: WG... On my med populated server its a disaster , when lots of people do show up the game lag likes hell and apart from the instance reset day the alliance side ends up with 5+ tenacity , so ye extremely unbalanced. now i do love WG but it also gets a bit boring after a while , more PvP events like that would be fun.
Personally i wouldn't mind world pvp being revived, would spice things up , the only thing we have now are wandering solo lvl 80's hunting lowbies. And maybe a system to disfavor lowbie ganking would be nice as well (like negative honor).
And about BG's and Arena , now BG's are ok and fun but the arena thingy seems just a bit cheap . if i want to play arena styled pvp i'm going to play games designed for that . I actually never understood why people liked arena PvP , whats the point of playing an MMO if its to play 2vs2 PvP and such. Now WG and AV , those gave an MMO PvP feeling , but random PvP battles around the world would be even more fun , diversification ftw
But yes , there are downside to world pvp and i guess its hard to find a good compromise which fits everyone
Cata seems to be more PvP focused, or atleasts offers far more opportunities for PvP to spark. For example almost all the zones now have a clearly definded allaince and horde base - often overlooking each other, we got rated battle grounds and guild vs guilde (group vs group) battle ground games. And we ofc get wintergrasp 2.0 - lets hope blizzard learned enough from wintergrasp 1.0.
For me I would add a simple mechanic where by a player of the opposite faction dropped an item (outside of battlegrounds), you can then trade these items in for honor points. Make the rewards good and add/change them frequently and it might work.
Comments
What I mean is certain tanks should do better vs certain bosses. The Prot War should be the guy that sucks up the massive single target damage. The Prot Pally should be the one to tank mulitple adds. The DK should tank the magic-using bosses. Finally the Bear should be the "jack of all trades" with the highest health.
About the Bear, so many ignorant people Really Whined about Bear's health. So Blizz nerfed it. The problem is that Bears cannot block or parry in Bear form. As a friend put it "I block with my face". This is why they stacked stamina and dodge so much. Since they had less ways to avoid or mitigate damage, they had a much higher health pool to just absorb the hit that the War/Pal/DK would of blocked or parried.
There is nothing wrong with "We Need Class X for this fight". If you are doing a a 10 man have Tank 1 take the boss he's better suited for and then later Tank 2 can take the other one. It's simple, keeps classes differentiated and the game more dynamic. Instead Blizz got lazy, didn't want to worry about designing encounters with too many variables, so they are making all Tanks Equal, all Melee DPS equal, all Healers Equal and all Ranged DPS equal. Makes it easy on them and down right boring for us.
Beatitfully said .. I would like to add if I may, only because it still seems to be a related cause to Blizzard's homogenizing of classes to make the game even easier then the last expansion (if that was possible).. As I have said before, I believe opening up the raid cap limits allows for different roles to be played, and gives people the freedom to play those roles and join raids with friends regardless of size.. This was one of the most successful designs in EQ1 raids, in my opinion.. If the only drawback is that guilds could raid every night " if they had the numbers".. who cares? Why choke the public, because of the actions of 10% of the playerbase?
I follow what you mean, but I don't necessarily agree with it. In the case of druids, they were getting a reputation and that is why blizzard changed them. They tanked at the expense of the healers mana pool. Instead of avoiding damage all together, they just required more healing and that just ran healers out of mana faster. I think it was a positive change and noticed bears became much better tanks for it. The difference they had between other tanks was generally a negative and became a reason to exclude them.
The tank classes in wow have different strengths and weaknesses compared to each other right now. They just are not rendered near useless in various encounter just to make other classes valuable. I don't see the problem with that.
I feel that there is something wrong with we need class X for this fight, because it promotes exclusion based on a simple choice when players were level 1 and nothing at all due to how good of a player they are. What happens in your 10 man raid when they get to a boss that requires the third and fourth kind of tank? Does the raid have to kick tanks out for replacements? Or is the 10 man suited to just the first 2 types of tanks, so the other 2 are shit out of luck and never get invited? Now the developers are put into a situation they cannot win, because no matter how they design encounters someone is going to get left out.
I really do get what you are saying, but I just don't think it works out in the utopian way you present it. If there are classes that are superior to others, then players will generally seek those classes out and exclude the rest. It has been my experience that specifically making classes deficient has not produced an overall better gameplay experience.
I follow what you mean, but I don't necessarily agree with it. In the case of druids, they were getting a reputation and that is why blizzard changed them. They tanked at the expense of the healers mana pool. Instead of avoiding damage all together, they just required more healing and that just ran healers out of mana faster. The change altered bear status of manasponge and made them better tanks for it.
The tank classes in wow have different strengths and weaknesses compared to each other right now. They just are not rendered useless in various encounter just to make other classes valuable. I don't see how excluding three tank classes makes the encounter better. I personally think it is a flawed design to have to cancel a raid, because 1 specific person did not log on. No thank you.
I feel that there is something wrong with we need class X for this fight, because it promotes exclusion based on a simple choice when players were level 1 and nothing at all due to how good of a player they are. What happens in your 10 man raid example when they get to the boss that requires the third kind of tank and then the boss that requires the fourth kind of tank? Does the raid have to kick tanks out for replacements? Or is the 10 man designed to just the first 2 types of tanks, so the other 2 are shit out of luck and never get invited? Now the developers are put into a situation they cannot win, because no matter how they design encounters someone is going to get left out for the justification of diversity through defeciency.
I really do get what you are saying, but I just don't think it works out in the utopian way you present it. If there are classes that are superior to others, then players will generally seek those classes out and exclude the rest.
I"m sorry if my response upsets you, but there are 2 MAJOR tools used by Blizzard that excludes people from entering a raid.. ID system and the 10/25 hard cap limit.. You seem to selectively ignore those, why in the same breath speak up against exclusing classes roles based on encounter.. (WHICH wouldn't happen if it wasnt' for the first 2 I already discussed).. GET rid of the ID system.. and HARD cap limits and you won't have to worry about class role issues
I explained what happened to bear tanks, the became manasponges and started to become undesirable. Also my group has no trouble finding tanks, but I don't have a pool of 11 million players on my server. If you didn't understand my point then I am not explaining it again, but I think you did.
I'm fine with limited raid sizes, because they address difficulty of encounters. I don't feel the need to rail against them, because they work. I know you think you have struck paydirt in your counter, but raid sizes address different issues.
When developers learn how to dynamically scale difficulty to address dynamic sizes raids, then sure open up the sizes. I will be the first one in line and cheering for that change. I enjoy bigger raids without size limits, but that isn't reason enough to justify stripping down classes to suck just so they can have one specialty. There isn't a need to do that. Wow acomplishes balance just fine while allowing all classes to perform well. There isn't a need to dramatically change raids just to nerf the ever living shit out of classes so there can be niche roles. There is no need to regress to the 90's. It was flawed back then and I see no reason why it woulnd't just be more of the same.
That is something we disagree on, fine. If you feel the absolute need to make some other class next to useless until they are one trick ponies just make classes feel special fine, but most don't feel that way. There are not tons of people begging to play a class that does nothing but cast buffs on the real damage classes. Or tanks that only get tank 1 fight out of 4. There are not healers begging to only be good at healing 5 mans and being functionless in raids. Or some class that can solo awesome, but is unwanted in groups as a tradeoff as you put it.
It seems that most players don't ming performing a full time function with some extra aspects of support or utility. Why shouldn't someone with a sweet raid buff be incapable of doing damage, just for example.
Those concepts died long ago. Earlier you wondered why other developers are not recreating that model anymore, but the answer is right in front of your face. Sorry you feel differently and prefer things be like the good old days. There is nothing wrong with dps classes doing dps and support. Such a topsy turvy world, but it seems to work just fine. No one has to get kicked from a raid, because there is already one buffing class present or one crowd control or THE single target tank. You can bring any combination of classes and not tell your friends they can't come or they are only there to be useful once in a while and might as well not be there for half the fights.
ha ha ha.. now that is damn funny.. HEALERS are a one trick pony my friend..... and so is Tanking.. and so is DPS.. I think you are stuck on Holy Trinity and refuse to see anything else..
... and I think you are stuck on a design that died out years ago, because developers have improved upon it.
Holy Trinity is improvement? That was a good one.. I darn near woke up the family from laughing this early in the morning.. Feel free to keep on playing the format, and I'll keep on eyerolling the devs each time they nerf a game
Have a great day.. time for me to go make some coffee now..
this method seems like there will only be three possible and feasable builds per class. (( does not approve.
Wanted more customization more possibilities, not less.
You are the one trying to boil everything down to holy trinity as if it is something I said or it is representative of the discussion. It would be nice to have a discussion with you that didn't revolve around you misquoting me or putting words in my mouth.
As I said, everything you complain about not existing already does, but in an improved fashion. Sorry you don't find it enjoyable and feel the need to force certain classes into near uselessness in large portions of a games content in order to make those classes feel worth playing. Most people don't agree with you and neither do developers. Good luck in your pursuits to find a game though.
There will actually be a lot of 'possible' builds since the restrictions on how you assign points within a tree do not change. As far as 'feasible' builds that is a different matter. There is currently about 4-6 'feasible' build per class if you want to maximize your role in a group/raid. Other builds are either utility/special case builds or inferior. If you want a specific high tier talent, there isn't really that much real choice as what lower tier talents you take for most trees.
Depending on what the actual talents will be there will be at least 5-6 'feasible' build per class, depending on which tree one specialized in and what secondary tree talents one wants to take.
It all depends on how far blizzard goes with their intention to make spending points a meaningful choice. Personally I don't think there will be enough to make talents builds in the same tree wildly different from player to player. It will mostly just be minor differences like it is now. Hopefully more, but the impression I got was that most people felt upset that they couldn't get all the good talents when real choices were presented at the high levels of the trees.
WoW is fast becoming an arcade game under Street's development. Dual Specialization is a blight and is part of the reason for the Talents change. Blizzard added Arenas to the game and the Systems team has been pushing hard to make players use them,resulting in the complete re-working of the game under Ghostcrawler's direction. It has been noted that the maximum-level talents are basically for PvP. It seems that they won't be satisfied until the entire game revolves around PvP and endless hamster-wheel dungeon runs. From the moment Blizzard started relying on the feedback of huge Everquest raiding guilds for development direction, the die was cast.
What started out as a vibrant world is being reduced to a chat lobby. Someone called this Blizzard's NGE, but unlike Sony, who changed the essential game overnight, Blizzard is the boiling frog approach, changing everything gradually until the game bears only superficial resemblance to the original vision.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
Um not on all accounts pvp has and will always be a side show in this game.
You know that and I know that, but the Blizzard seems bent on having development revolve around PvP and making you like it!
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
Fanboy he is a fanboy.
if they wanted me to like PvP they'd go back to the way it was before the battlegrounds,
You mean like when Southshore was the only pvp spot in the game and the zone ( a level 20 zone) was dominated by level 60 characters who killed questgivers and prevented lvl 20 players ( who couldn't fight back) from making any progress?
Again, Blizzard has a game that has 11 million players who pay money every month to play it. You think 'you' are more right than they are? What game do you play that is better? Where is pvp better? Warhammer, AOC, darkfall? haha
Let me give you some data. I play on a medium server. Every 3 hours, there is an event called Lake Wintergrasp, and it almost always ends up being 100 v 100 or 150 v 150 or something like that. EVERY THREE HOURS. AOC, Warhammer and Darkfall are all lucky if they have 300 players online on a server at the same time, let alone doing pvp against each other in large fights.
World pvp is a broken and old concept and was left behind (for good reason). It results in nothing but high level character ganking low level characters and/or zergs. There isn't a pvp that exists that is dominated by ganking low level characters or simple zerg.
While you do bring up good arguements .
A: There is still a lot of ganking going on , how many times didn't you ran across a lvl 80 who one shot you?
B: WG... On my med populated server its a disaster , when lots of people do show up the game lag likes hell and apart from the instance reset day the alliance side ends up with 5+ tenacity , so ye extremely unbalanced. now i do love WG but it also gets a bit boring after a while , more PvP events like that would be fun.
Personally i wouldn't mind world pvp being revived, would spice things up , the only thing we have now are wandering solo lvl 80's hunting lowbies. And maybe a system to disfavor lowbie ganking would be nice as well (like negative honor).
And about BG's and Arena , now BG's are ok and fun but the arena thingy seems just a bit cheap . if i want to play arena styled pvp i'm going to play games designed for that . I actually never understood why people liked arena PvP , whats the point of playing an MMO if its to play 2vs2 PvP and such. Now WG and AV , those gave an MMO PvP feeling , but random PvP battles around the world would be even more fun , diversification ftw
But yes , there are downside to world pvp and i guess its hard to find a good compromise which fits everyone
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
The dungeon finder was a direct result of the homogenizing of the classes. Since Blizz is trying to make every tank essentially the same, the Finder can then just plug any LFG Tank into the "tank slot". The Finder would never have worked if tanks were differentiated from each other as the queue system would have no way of knowing what tank would be good for what boss.
As for the topic of bears being "mana sponges" for the healers that only is true on paper yet was rarely so in practice. Before the nerf, a Bear could have over 40k health in bear form. Now, if another tank was down to half health, the healer probably has to burn a cooldown or use a fast heal cuz that tank could be dead in a few secs. With the Bear, that isn't true since at half health the Bear would still have a huge amount of health left. Good Bear tanks stacked stam and dodge (agil or rating). The stam gave them the high health and the dodge gave them a chance for a 100% mitigation. After all a "miss" is zero damage.
Probably pvpers were whining since a Bear with 40k health would be a P.I.T.A. to take down. On the other hand, they don't hit that hard so not like they are going to kill YOU that quick either.
exactly.. same with healers as well.. I see now that Pally's are getting a AOE heal.. LOL It's why I had both a 80 holy pally, and a 80 holly priest.. 2 different healers to handle 2 different jobs.. I have NO problem using alts to fill so called "gimic" roles.. I don't know why everyone wants their main toon to cover all roles.. Hense homogenizing of classes..
Is it my old age, but weren't bear tanks the prefered tank in most Kara raids back in BC era? at least it was in the groups I ran with...
I'm still not convinced why 1 tank should be excluded from doing the roll their entire class was designed for. What makes that good? It is like saying the dungeon finder would be a great tool for 2 tank, but the consolation prize is those 2 tanks can do something else well that doesn't include tanking for a group. The dungeon finder tool is just an extension of players seeking out other players to group with. The system used to get players together does really matter, because if there are classes that can't perform their designed task then what is really the point at all?
As for bears being manasponges, speaking as a healer that is what they were becoming. For example, they didn't have better avoidance than a warrios or anywhere close to the tools to deal with danger situations. The only advantage they had was a big healthy pool and when they required just as many cooldowns when a pair of hits landed or something. Only they required more healing to top off and thus something of a manasponge. It wasn't something that made druids incapable of doing their job, but left unaddressed for long enough it could have. I'm fine with changes that address a problem proactively.
Cata seems to be more PvP focused, or atleasts offers far more opportunities for PvP to spark. For example almost all the zones now have a clearly definded allaince and horde base - often overlooking each other, we got rated battle grounds and guild vs guilde (group vs group) battle ground games. And we ofc get wintergrasp 2.0 - lets hope blizzard learned enough from wintergrasp 1.0.
For me I would add a simple mechanic where by a player of the opposite faction dropped an item (outside of battlegrounds), you can then trade these items in for honor points. Make the rewards good and add/change them frequently and it might work.