Breakfast Topic: What is WoW's biggest mistake?
by Zach Yonzon 
Mar 25th 2009 at 8:00AM
That said, not everything's perfect. I haven't played Arenas in quite a while, and apparently a lot of people haven't been queuing up, either. I do enjoy all the Battlegrounds, and I definitely try to get my daily (or several times daily) dose of Wintergrasp. But Wintergrasp still lags like a poor version of a Ray Harryhausen movie. As much as Blizzard has gotten a lot of things right in Wrath, I'm sure a lot of people feel that they've gotten things wrong, too. In fact, some of the things I like might be the exact same things some people don't like.
So far, what do you think is WoW's biggest mistake? Do you think opening up raiding to more people was bad? I know a lot of you will yell 'Arenas' at the top of their cyberspatial lungs. Were Death Knights a mistake? Frankly, I can't think of anything truly egregious -- I'm having a lot of fun like I mentioned -- but maybe some of you feel otherwise. Where has Blizzard taken a misstep? What direction do you think is wrong or would be wrong for the game?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 13)
MusedMoose Mar 25th 2009 8:03AM
I'm not sure what WoW's biggest mistake is, as I haven't seen nearly enough of the game.
However, I think WoW Insider's mistake is asking this question, for the sheer amount of argument, QQ, and general wank that's sure to follow.
-_-
Matthew Rossi Mar 25th 2009 9:58AM
Those things are not always bad to have in a comment thread.
Some times it's better to have commenters fired up, arguing with each other, and venting their spleen, as long as it isn't taken too far and doesn't degenerate into pointless name calling and insults. (And even then I'll often simply step away from a thread rather than try and police it.) Everyone makes mistakes, after all, and not just Blizzard. It's better to simply leave them out there and let folks do what they want with them. Eventually they'll move on.
jerzz80 Mar 25th 2009 10:06AM
Theres no single right answer to this question. Its simply the sum of all of Blizz's mistakes.
--PVE--
Content too easy = Fail
Too much focus on the mini game of 25 man raids without enough 25 man raids = Fail
Not enough freedom to progress your toon beyond the ways Blizz wants you to = Fail
Not enough focus on 5 man isntances = Fail
--PVP--
World PVP doesnt exist = Fail
Wintergrasp = Fail
Lack of new BGs = Fail
Complete imbalance amongst classes = Fail
Arena = Fail
-- Other --
Death Knights = Fail
Palladins = Fail
The PVE game is way too easy. The PVP game is way to hard unless ur a DK or Pally.
Irshalthra Mar 25th 2009 10:07AM
It causes people to read, respond therefore participate. This is a bad thing how?
Creid Mar 25th 2009 12:37PM
@jerzz80
Agree with you almost 100%, except the part about paladins (because I'm one ;)). I quit not so long ago because I felt that, unlike vanilla or tbc, you raid every night not to progress but just to smack the loot pinata and hope you're gear drops and that's not what I want to do. The game got very repetitive and more of a chore than a game. The phrase "Wrath of the Care Bear" is thrown around my guild for reason, just hope that Icecrown is difficult or any of the content before it...I just can't see Ulduar doing that.
One thing that really annoys me is people complaining about how only 6% (I think) got to see Sunwell, it's not like you didn't have lots of content to play around with...I remember seeing people with t3 and saying to myself wow they must be good players and dedicated, now all I see is people with the same gear...that could change but I doubt it a lot, but because of this argument, the more dedicated players have to sit around and wait for the rest to catch up?
One last thing, why change something that worked in tbc and vanilla now? Remember casuals =/= bad players, which I think Blizzard missed.
kabshiel Mar 25th 2009 2:19PM
At the moment, the biggest mistake is to let players start their DK at 55, but force them to level up any other class. That's the reason, even more than the overpoweredness of the class, that there are way too many of them. If Blizz would just let anyone who already has a 55 start any new character at that level, I guarantee that most of the class population imbalances would disappear.
Lewis Mar 25th 2009 3:58PM
PVE is too easy and relies too much on optional stress to make it harder. Sarth xD is the equivalent of hey let's just run through some trash to the boss. That's not content. That's akin to the lazy recoloring philosophy at Blizzard.
Too much homogenization, in gear as well as class abilities. I don't want half the raid to be able to overwrite my buffs. I don't want to feel that if I just logged out now nothing would be missing other than some dps. Everyone should have at least one unique buff. In BC i was arms dps. My dps wasn't the best and my spec was relatively uncommon but I brought a unique buff that allowed me to play the way I wanted while contributing. My class now has a single useful (HP) buff.
PVP with the exception of wintergrasp is just a waste of time. Bgs have been the same since vanilla, with the exception of the unenjoyable and gimmicky EOTS and SOTA. Some acknowledgment of the death knight's overpowered state would be nice.
With the introduction of DKs and the absolute failure of balancing warriors I really feel my class just is not cared for currently. There was nothing wrong with having classes be different. Right now it wouldn't matter anyway since everything is so easy. You don't need to min/max any more, so how about some individuality?
Mattimus Mar 25th 2009 5:29PM
@jerzz80
I have to disagree with you on a number of points.
As far as "no new battlegrounds", that's not true at all. Strand of the Ancients is WotLK's new Battleground, much like how Eye of the Storm was the new battleground for TBC.
The reason why they can't add a ton of new Battlegrounds was, as stated by a Blue once, that it would spread out the PVP population among the BGs far too much, and would only make it harder to find a game.
It's also been said that a new BG is already in the works, though... and with multi-queuing, and the new queue-from-anywhere feature in 3.1, I bet we'll see a bunch of new Battlegrounds crop up in coming content patches.
The other thing, or other two things, I sort of took issue with was this part:
"Not enough freedom to progress your toon beyond the ways Blizz wants you to = Fail
Not enough focus on 5 man isntances = Fail"
I don't know what you mean by "beyond the ways Blizz wants you to". Progression has actually expanded since the game was released, but character progression was still a core part of the game from inception. If you don't like the flavor of it, then that's not something they can fix. You always leveled up and got gear from questing and dungeons, that's just how the game was designed. Now they allow you to do Arenas for gear, but I'm not going to debate the pros and cons of the Arena here, as Arenas are a subject I could not possibly care less about.
As far as not enough emphasis on 5-mans... again, I have no idea what you mean. There are lots of 5-mans in WotLK, and each one has a Heroic mode. There's a Red Proto-drake mount achievement for specifically doing things inside of heroic 5-mans.
Maybe you want 5-man designs more like BRD, but BRD was a nightmare back at level 60. If you needed something from it (my poor Paladin's Lightforge Gloves used to drop off of the Emperor in BRD, and it was the only D1 set piece that dropped in there if I recall correctly), and I never saw them until they made them BOE because groups just fell apart long before hitting the end of the instance. It was just way too long. (And before arguments pop up of "It was supposed to be looked at as a winged dungeon", nobody really looked at it that way, since it was all in one instance, and everybody had gear from all different sorts of areas they wanted, so it was difficult to tell people, "Let's focus on this area").
I'd like to hear some deeper rationalization, specifically on these points, as to why you find them to be unsatisfactory, beyond "fail".
MusedMoose Mar 25th 2009 8:16PM
I want to apologize for stating my thoughts on this poorly. I really need to remember to *not* make posts on this site early in the morning, as I've said something I later regretted more than once.
What I meant was this:
I don't understand the point of posting this as a conversation topic. Judging by how much people complain in nearly every single topic posted on this site, asking what WoW's biggest mistake is will just open the floodgates for non-constructive whining. Posts like jerzz80's are exactly what I'm talking about - people who basically say that everything sucks without offering any suggestions of how it could be better, or even saying why they think it sucks.
I know, there's nothing forcing me to read the topic or the responses. It just seems like a topic like this encourages whining and wanking, and I don't think it was a good idea.
Pyornthe Mar 25th 2009 8:04AM
Speaking as a person who enjoys a good long rep grind of killing dozens and dozens of mobs, I think that changing all of the factions to daily-only and tabard-only was a mistake as far as I'm concerned. All my wrath factions are maxed out, and I just don't feel like there's anything for me to do in the game aside from my guild's weekly Naxx25 runs.
Marliej Mar 25th 2009 8:07AM
You feel like there isn't anything to do but nax25?
How about OS10 3d? And OS25 3D? Guess you'll have enough to do there ^^
Solanti Mar 25th 2009 8:14AM
Sons of Hodir can be done as a "long rep grind of killing dozens and dozens of mobs" by way of collecting Relics of Ulduar. If you really miss that style of play you could always chase achievemements for Cenarion Circle, Timbermaw, etc.
Kemikalkadet Mar 25th 2009 9:01AM
You can always go back and do the sceptre quest chain. There's a nice grind of ~14k silithid carapieces to get neutral with the brood. :)
baal80 Mar 25th 2009 9:13AM
Sarth3D is *NOT* content.
Irshalthra Mar 25th 2009 10:18AM
I think Blizz made a nice mixture here. I too like the long grinds and will grind for rep b4 I do dailies if possible. Blizz gave rep grind capabilities with The Sons of Hodir Relics AND Cenarian Expedition Ears (for those of us that do not instance much). I enjoyed grinding both of these to exalted.
There are others that you have to do dailies for, BUT it actually goes maybe too fast - by the time the quests are complete you are almost there.
Then there is Kirin Tor which you pretty much HAVE to run instances for... unless you do the daily cooking for 300 days in a row!! I will probably not get exalted here, but I am ok with that. If I don't do instances there are things I should not get.
Pyornthe Mar 25th 2009 10:34AM
I got exalted with Sons of Hodir the day the turn-ins became available. :P
So there was no mob-grind there for me. Just diligence in going every day to blow horns and collect ice scraps.
miked Mar 25th 2009 2:53PM
@baal80
Are you really trying to say the easy mode is the "content" and the hard mode isn't?
Sarth25+0 is 10-mannable. All you need is a tank who can survive (I'm pretty sure that's possible in quest greens/blues) and healers with enough mana regen to last the fight. The rest is just patience and staying out of the fire.
Sarth+0 is not content. It's a joke. Sarth+3 *is* content.
Antiquity Mar 25th 2009 5:27PM
How about go outside?
Feeling like you have to be logged into a game all the time is a BAD DESIGN.
Max Mar 26th 2009 12:33PM
do you also enjoy driving red hot skewers into your eyes? because that's just about as fun as rep grinding.
UncleScar Mar 25th 2009 8:05AM
As someone who never plays in the Arena I can't really comment on those.
Death Knights? They'll normalise with time, so not too fussed there either.
What personally gets my goat is the homogenised buffs, its really diluting what classes are about when 2-3 folks in your raid bring what is essentially a very similar buff, I shouldn't have to spec specifically because my RF brings one other class or not, I shouldn't be FORCED to make choices like that due to class-interaction.
Each class should bring its own unique facets to a raid, but then, that'd be going back to pre-ez mode.