Legion Alpha - Revitalizing Group Play & Class Fantasies?

SBFord

Legion Alpha - Revitalizing Group Play & Class Fantasies?

While the World of Warcraft: Legion alpha -- well, technically it’s still called that, though the servers say beta but that’s just nitpicking -- has introduced testers to a lot of new features, zones, the Demon Hunter and some of the lore behind the expansion, those things pale in comparison to the new way of playing that most will encounter both in PvE and in PvP.

Read the full story here

Wraithone

Its obvious that Blizzard has learned little or nothing from the failures of other MMO's. The old formula is LONG past its best by date, and that, more than anything else is why MMO's are in decline.

Forcing people to group has been tried... It failed, and in some cases failed BADLY. There are various reasons that more and more people dislike interacting with other players. Add in simplistic design, and forced grouping, and I'm betting that Legion will see worse drop off numbers than WoD did.

H0urg1ass

Wraithone said:

Its obvious that Blizzard has learned little or nothing from the failures of other MMO's. The old formula is LONG past its best by date, and that, more than anything else is why MMO's are in decline.

Forcing people to group has been tried... It failed, and in some cases failed BADLY. There are various reasons that more and more people dislike interacting with other players. Add in simplistic design, and forced grouping, and I'm betting that Legion will see worse drop off numbers than WoD did.

If you took all the other MMO's in existence and scraped all the players for those games together, you'd sill have far less players than WoW has left.

So with numbers that still make other games jealous, what are they supposed to do?  Abandon their age old formula and run off the last few million who like it, or change the game completely and never hear the end of NGE!  NGE! claims for the rest of gaming eternity?

No, I think they're doing what's right for WoW, if we don't like grouping, then we have pleeeenty of games that don't force it or need it.

Shodanas

Correction: BM & SV hunters use Cobra shot. MM hunters have Steady shot.

mrputts

H0urg1ass said:

Wraithone said:

Its obvious that Blizzard has learned little or nothing from the failures of other MMO's. The old formula is LONG past its best by date, and that, more than anything else is why MMO's are in decline.



Forcing people to group has been tried... It failed, and in some cases failed BADLY. There are various reasons that more and more people dislike interacting with other players. Add in simplistic design, and forced grouping, and I'm betting that Legion will see worse drop off numbers than WoD did.

If you took all the other MMO's in existence and scraped all the players for those games together, you'd sill have far less players than WoW has left.

So with numbers that still make other games jealous, what are they supposed to do?  Abandon their age old formula and run off the last few million who like it, or change the game completely and never hear the end of NGE!  NGE! claims for the rest of gaming eternity?

No, I think they're doing what's right for WoW, if we don't like grouping, then we have pleeeenty of games that don't force it or need it.

Agreed the people that still want the WoW experience are still playing WoW. Don't fix whats not broken. All these WoW losing numbers comments don't say that it still is crushing it in terms of players even with the loss of millions.

heerobya

I think they are removing the restriction/limits and costs for switching specs, as well as finally allowing us to save talent spec configurations, or something.

So, less incentive for people to feel like they have to try and level up/quests as Tank or Healing specs.

More incentive to just switch to a DPS/leveling spec.

simsalabim77

Wraithone said:

Its obvious that Blizzard has learned little or nothing from the failures of other MMO's. The old formula is LONG past its best by date, and that, more than anything else is why MMO's are in decline.

Forcing people to group has been tried... It failed, and in some cases failed BADLY. There are various reasons that more and more people dislike interacting with other players. Add in simplistic design, and forced grouping, and I'm betting that Legion will see worse drop off numbers than WoD did.

It may also experience a larger drop off because the game has been out for over a decade. 

Wraithone

H0urg1ass said:

Wraithone said:

Its obvious that Blizzard has learned little or nothing from the failures of other MMO's. The old formula is LONG past its best by date, and that, more than anything else is why MMO's are in decline.



Forcing people to group has been tried... It failed, and in some cases failed BADLY. There are various reasons that more and more people dislike interacting with other players. Add in simplistic design, and forced grouping, and I'm betting that Legion will see worse drop off numbers than WoD did.

If you took all the other MMO's in existence and scraped all the players for those games together, you'd sill have far less players than WoW has left.

So with numbers that still make other games jealous, what are they supposed to do?  Abandon their age old formula and run off the last few million who like it, or change the game completely and never hear the end of NGE!  NGE! claims for the rest of gaming eternity?

No, I think they're doing what's right for WoW, if we don't like grouping, then we have pleeeenty of games that don't force it or need it.

If raw numbers are all that matters, than LoL and others have many more. I've played since late beta. I've played all of the expansions and enjoyed some more than others. But keep in mind there is a reason that Titan and EQN never made it to release...

Certainly WoW will be around for quite some time (look at the original EQ). But as always, it is its own worst enemy.

Rather than focus on what they do best, and keep their core audience happy, they keep chasing after more market share in a declining market. Making the game more "accessible" has been a disaster.

Getting rid of Ghost Crawler (and his cult) was a good first step, but then they fumbled the follow up.

If matters remain as they are, I'd expect Legion to have even worse fall off than WoD did.

SBFord

Shodanas said:

Correction: BM & SV hunters use Cobra shot. MM hunters have Steady shot.

Yes, thanks -- corrections added, though it was more a clarification on what currently is on live versus what is now in Legion.

"Currently, in WoD BM/SV hunters use Cobra Shot while MM utilize Steady Shot".

jbombard

WoD broke the community?? Uhmm Cata broke the community and it has been broken since. If it really took them this long to figure it out, that doesn't bode well for any changes they will make to address it.

It seems like post Cata they have been in panic mode, and just throwing stuff at the wall and praying that something sticks. Desperation doesn't breed good game design.

I really hope they aren't planning on going back to the days of bring the class, screw the player. Having class identity is great, but don't design shit around groups having certain abilities and then not give those abilities to some classes. If you can't guarantee a group will have an ability then don't severely handicap groups that are missing the "correct" class.

Yaevindusk

The new improvements for this expansion -- new combat animations as well as increasing the view distance 300% -- are perhaps the best ways to improve the aging game besides actually putting some effort into a coherent story and frequent content updates (which WoW has been notoriously bad at). As is the simplification of ability rotations, since it is increasingly becoming a game people just want to veg in without thinking or player skill coming into play (especially with Addons and macros doing everything for the player now, which means the only difference between an elitist and a poor player is spread sheet research and copying UI / macros from sites).

Increasing participation by simplification and providing new ways or reasons to join in a party under the guise of additional content or progression will likely foster new guilds popping up since they got rid of the driving force that made smaller guilds extinct with the old guild leveling system. This in addition to the new Challenge Modes fostering player and group skill and allowing for progression on their own terms (which will also help small guilds) without a set of definitive difficulties that may act as a block to anyone with limited time. Progressively harder dungeons that actively change based on your group's skill level will likely drive 5 man groups -- which are easier to form -- to getting the highest point that they are able without turning it into (or providing greater emphasis on using it as) a spreadsheet game for those not interested in such (due to the ability culling and their past comments regarding not wanting specializations to be so difficult that an addon is required to play it at a fair level).

SBFord

jbombard said:

WoD broke the community?? Uhmm Cata broke the community and it has been broken since. If it really took them this long to figure it out, that doesn't bode well for any changes they will make to address it.



It seems like post Cata they have been in panic mode, and just throwing stuff at the wall and praying that something sticks. Desperation doesn't breed good game design.



I really hope they aren't planning on going back to the days of bring the class, screw the player. Having class identity is great, but don't design shit around groups having certain abilities and then not give those abilities to some classes. If you can't guarantee a group will have an ability then don't severely handicap groups that are missing the "correct" class.

With the removal of buffs, or their ability cut from group to individual enhancement, it's probably unlikely, though it's hard to tell with how much has been and will yet be changed.

Solar_Prophet

Sounds like the only thing they're going to do is once again eliminate the need or want to bring certain classes in raids. Skills like Hex helped make shamans a viable choice. Remove that, and you're got a gimped mage with poor AOE and no CC, so why take one at all? Just take a mage, and tell the shaman to fuck off. And that's before taking PvP into account, though I don't really care much about that.

I went through that crap during BC and WotLK. They've tried this approach before and it didn't work then for hybrid classes, why the hell would it work now?

Forcing people to group for world content will just drive them away. Lower DPS survivability? Lower tank damage? Are they insane?

Blizzard really just doesn't know what the hell they're doing with this game anymore. They really don't.

Warzod

Less desire for grouping I believe comes much more from the increasing caustic and selfish nature of the current MMO gamers. Developers can invent all of the interesting and enjoyable grouping mechanics they want but as soon as you get grouped with a bunch of hate filled trolls all that desire to group goes down the toilet. I play MMOs to group and only to group. It is what I have loved about the genre since the first time I entered a dungeon in UO. But in the last few years I find myself not playing MMOs and returning to single player games because the general populace makes gaming just absolutely miserable. I know everyone just runs the pre-recorded message, get a guild, and I actually run one, have for over 15 years, but that does not mean you will not be exposed to the random PUGs ever or the general toxic environment. It is truly a sad statement of game development and society as a whole. If one was to believe in aliens I am not surprised that have not been contacted. If you drove by our planet would you want to meet us either?

Nokksonwood

I was excited to see some of the changes early on, but now it seems the changes being made are making the game extremely boring ;(

itchmon

I wish they would take a turn toward vanilla, rather than toward simplification. The game was at its best when there were ongoing lively conversations on boards and guild chats where best to spend those talent points, which Stat to prioritize.

Eq has seen this (meaning, the idea that the game was at its best in its early stages ) with the insane success of the progression servers, it remains to be seen whether they take the lessons to any new content they make. Will wow learn too?

Kajidourden

If they simplify it any more it's going to play itself.

SBFord

itchmon said:

I wish they would take a turn toward vanilla, rather than toward simplification. The game was at its best when there were ongoing lively conversations on boards and guild chats where best to spend those talent points, which Stat to prioritize.

Eq has seen this (meaning, the idea that the game was at its best in its early stages ) with the insane success of the progression servers, it remains to be seen whether they take the lessons to any new content they make. Will wow learn too?

Blizzard has pretty much said that this isn't going to happen.

Funny as it is, I've known of some folks who've played on private Vanilla servers and come back 2-3 months later saying, "Now I remember those days..." and they don't mean it in a flattering way either. Thing is that those with a nostalgic bent to Vanilla WoW don't really want the gameplay that it embodied, but that sense of the "first time" and the camaraderie that those early days in the MMO genre fostered. They say "you can't go back" for a reason, I think.

Theocritus

" are perhaps the best ways to improve the aging game besides actually putting some effort into a coherent story and frequent content updates (which WoW has been notoriously bad at)."

I think they watched EQ crank out expansions and content and really burn out the player base...Im sure they are intentionally slow

cronius77

SBFord said:

itchmon said:

I wish they would take a turn toward vanilla, rather than toward simplification. The game was at its best when there were ongoing lively conversations on boards and guild chats where best to spend those talent points, which Stat to prioritize.



Eq has seen this (meaning, the idea that the game was at its best in its early stages ) with the insane success of the progression servers, it remains to be seen whether they take the lessons to any new content they make. Will wow learn too?

Blizzard has pretty much said that this isn't going to happen.

Funny as it is, I've known of some folks who've played on private Vanilla servers and come back 2-3 months later saying, "Now I remember those days..." and they don't mean it in a flattering way either. Thing is that those with a nostalgic bent to Vanilla WoW don't really want the gameplay that it embodied, but that sense of the "first time" and the camaraderie that those early days in the MMO genre fostered. They say "you can't go back" for a reason, I think.

exactly i'm one of them. People here have rose-tinted glasses on Vanilla was NOT good at all. It was tedious and boring especially having to do quests to get skills or forced grouping to kill elite quest mobs for no reward at all. Especially on aging servers where most players are above level 30 so they lower level zones are mostly empty.

Hunter for example since this article used it. Vanilla you had to go every few levels and find a new bite pet claw pet or charge pet, tame it and use it until you learned the new pet ability. Then finally after plenty of annoying RNG you could train your current pet to use it IF and only IF you had enough talent points for your pet. Or a Paladin had to do a long quest chain to get a rez spell or the cost to train your skills always had you hurting for gold unless you played the auction house.

I prefer the cataclysm wow any day of the week to all that vanilla crap with 4 skill bars on your screen cluttering everything up or the many worthless talents in each of the three trees you had to take to get the one hybrid ability. People here swear by that old talent tree, it sucked it was clutter and people still had the exact same cookie cutter builds as they do now.

Warlyx

heerobya said:

I think they are removing the restriction/limits and costs for switching specs, as well as finally allowing us to save talent spec configurations, or something.

So, less incentive for people to feel like they have to try and level up/quests as Tank or Healing specs.

More incentive to just switch to a DPS/leveling spec.

legendary weapons say HI .....u gonna need to work on that weapon if u are going to use that spec... or u will crippled badly.

Volgore

"Abilities seem to have been reduced to four or five active ones "

So Blizzard is still obsessed with their ability pruning and on their mission to force MOBA gameplay onto WoW?

Rusque

Volgore said:

"Abilities seem to have been reduced to four or five active ones "

So Blizzard is still obsessed with their ability pruning and on their mission to force MOBA gameplay onto WoW?

I don't know if that's their intention, but I'm still surprised that no MMO has actually merged Dota style moba and battlegrounds. It would be like Smite, except with your MMO character. It would be insanely popular. It keeps feeling like a missed opportunity imo.

Warzod

I think the 'rose colored glass' effect has been greatly affected by the continuing degradation of the average game's difficulty level. Each new MMO removes one more element that some people felt was time consuming or tedious not realizing it lessens the experience of the game as a whole. I went through the entire paladin mount quest chain and when I finally completed it the feeling was amazing and I still have fond memories of it. Now they just give it to you and it means nothing. Here kid have a cookie.

Players have spent years now complaining about all the very things that make gaming interesting and memorable and then turn around and complain that all the games out now are not interesting or memorable. Gamers have created the games we have today. Sure, some people have gone back and played classic servers only to say they don't like it as much as they remembered they did and I will venture a heavy wager it is because they have been playing over-simplified hand holding games now for so long they are acclimated to them. It's naturally hard to go back to something more challenging. Ask anyone that has fallen off their diet/work-out and gone back to laying around eating fast food. Will it be difficult to go back to when it was harder and less convenient, yes.

We have been fed watered down, sugar-coated, easy mode MMOs for so long now any challenge is going to feel icky at first. But I will tell you that I personally have not felt that sense of reward or accomplishment in any of the recent years of modern MMO gaming that I do in just the short time I have in going back to progression servers or classic emus.

We all hate to talk about it, it is the pink elephant in the room, but modern MMOs and modern gamers are coddled, spoon fed everything with little to zero challenge or chance for loss. Everything is just a grind. Do anything long enough and pay a sub or cash shop long enough and you will be awesome is the motto. If the Lord of the Rings books had been written using the trappings of modern MMOs Frodo and Sam would have just hopped on a giant eagle and flown to Mordor, destroyed the One Ring and called themselves heroes because anything more than that would have been too hard, inconvenient, grindy, time consuming, etc.

Volgore

Rusque said:

Volgore said:

"Abilities seem to have been reduced to four or five active ones "

So Blizzard is still obsessed with their ability pruning and on their mission to force MOBA gameplay onto WoW?

I don't know if that's their intention, but I'm still surprised that no MMO has actually merged Dota style moba and battlegrounds. It would be like Smite, except with your MMO character. It would be insanely popular. It keeps feeling like a missed opportunity imo.

Indeed..and i would be insterested in such a game as well.
But i'm not sure if this is exactly the right thing to prevent World of Warcraft further losing appeal or if this is what the playerbase expects from WoW.
Blizzard must be thinking that the ever dwindling subs can't be helped by trying to please the mmorpg-folks anymore, but perhaps by possibly attracting 500k - 1mio MOBA players that would be confused by the amount of class-abilities the game was once beloved for.

If subs continue to go down after this xpack, the game may likely hit the 2-3mio subs. Not that we would ever know, now that Blizzard bailed out from releasing subs since they have found a way to sugarcoat some other numbers to please the shareholders.

However, i expect to see the downward trend to continue about 3-4 month after Legion and feel that the game is at a crossroads. The movie, artefact weapons and (once again) the Burning Legion and fel-stuff won't help for too long.
Blizzard either seems to have no idea or no intention to put in some effort and bring the world of warcraft back to WoW. Imo going back is the only reasonable way to go forward at this point.

Hawkster

" Blizzard is heavily invested in pruning the skills of every class to both make them simpler, or at least least less micromanagement-oriented...."

I was on the fence about this xpac, but with that statement...they have helped me make up my mind. Simpler? Right now, you can basically have a 3-4 ability rotation and that is it. Soon, it's going to be an "attack" button (just keep hitting this one button...no, really...that's all you need to hit..)

Well, saves me the cash. Thanks Blizz