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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast 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 4 of 13)
stevens.ce Mar 25th 2009 10:32AM
^^Agreed
Here my priest is, riding down the road on my Brewfest mount, which I could only get by killing Coren Direbrew, and I don't have that achievement. I guess I could understand certain achievements being hard to measure due to database and time constraints, but I'M RIDING THE MOUNT! Isn't that simply a little if-then statement?
Hazerduz Mar 25th 2009 10:51AM
UHMM NO it doesn't mean you killed Coren Direbrew. My warrior has had the Brewfest mount from the year before, when all you had to do was turn in 600 Brewfest Prize tickets, therefore I do not have the killing of Coren Direbrew achievement either, even though I did kill him the following year.
sanchoponzo Mar 25th 2009 8:20AM
As doofy as it sounds, the whole "ok people hate looking like clowns so lets make all the gear look the same" idea in Wrath was a mistake. I always felt like I've accomplished something when I picked up a piece of gear that looked really cool (in BC). Now that every set, hell, everything in an armor class looks the same with slight variations in color or number of horns on it, I just feel like we are upgrading our stats, not our gear.
As far as death knights go, I was very anoyed as a casual player to see EVERY LFG/LFM full of DKs. I played a DK to 60, then put him on the shelf. I wish they would have either made them unable to tank or able to tank fully. I have been in so many groups where i had to fight back and forth for agro with a DK, and their response was "i wear plate, i can tank." if you are not the tank, don't tank!
What happened to all the unique craftable gear like in BC? Nowadays, you see one prof maxed character, you've seen them all.
/endrant
Bill Mar 25th 2009 8:20AM
Easy,
Allowing the old world to become obsolete.
Old areas of the world are inhabited by relatively few PCs most of which are just ghosts following guides and grinding their way up the ladder.
Levelling has become such a joke there's virtually no reason to hit any instances before level 70. Alts outgrow gear faster then kids outgrow shoes. Why bother running for blues at level 30 when you'll have better greens in an hour?
I realize that there's a rich world in Azeroth but the game lacks a real strong reason to experience it.
It's hard to appreciate Blizzard's desire to keep Azeroth viable when they're not putting any time into updating and enhancing a world that was built for a game system that's been so heavily overhauled.
Sentient Mar 25th 2009 8:27AM
I'd have to agree.
Kylofon Mar 25th 2009 8:38AM
I agree and came in to write exactly that! The first time you level a toon all's well. The second time around you start to notice how incomplete and outdated some areas ar. I think it's silly that there's no real need to go back to OT and the old world in general, and the whole no flying mounts thing gets my blood boiling, though I understand why it's impossible (at this moment in time!). Also, the old instances are such a waste - most of them are really cool and it's a shame they are being ignored. I'm not advocating vanilla servers, but I do like the idea with heroic versions of all dungeons, or perhaps a selected few.
Neyssa Mar 25th 2009 9:03AM
Wow, the real QQ post - everyone start complaining now!
We were just talking about this the other day with my boyfriend...
What I would do is make Heirloom items available in low level instances, so heirloom would not be only for alts. However, I would tie it some "achievment", which doesn't complete if you have a +10 lvl character in the party (to prevent boosting).
I would love to be able to carry this achievment and gear up to lvl 80, to show that i wasnt boosted through 80 levels by friends without knowing my class in and out. I think you could bet an item in every major instance (DM, Zul'farrak, BRD, whatever), and by 70 you would have a Tier of Heirloom items :)
I am sad and happy at the same time for Wotlk:
they took away the fun from pvp, when pve gear is almost better then pvp (not to mention how much easier to get). Also, you are required to have a high arena rating to get cool pvp gear - or get lucky at the christmas tree (doesnt Vault of Archavon work like a chrismas morning? cut the tree and you find free, cool presents under it). Back in BC, it DID count wearing PVP gear. You could easily kill PVE geared players. I mean, isnt that what PVP gear is for?
I also dont really understand this "secret arena rating" stuff, but it made me fed up with arena for this season in about 10 matches.
Honestly, I like to pvp but I hate Wintergrasp. Not just because it's laggy, but the difference is like between a traditional samurai war where you fight one on one, to like WWII air bombing. Because of lagging, the best i can do it Tab - curse, tab - curse, and by the time i cast a spell either my target or I am dead.
I understand that to make up for this, they made raids available for everyone. However, when i started to level my toon way back in BC, I wanted her to pvp (warlock was good back then). Now I am finally a geared lvl80, but dont enjoy pvp. If I had known I will PVE at lvl80, I would have leveled a healer or a tank. Thus, I started a DK, but stopped her because of the DK population. WTB healer hero class :)
Vjax Mar 25th 2009 8:22AM
I agree that creating a DK is simply too easy. From a lore perspective you should have had to sacrifice a lvl 70 toon, which then became the 55DK, but hey thats just me.
Diluting PvP Honor gear, forcing people to do arena's for comperable gear is a problem, and obviously not working with the arena numbers as they stand now.
Tabarding for rep kind of blows for mostly solo players.
Irshalthra Mar 25th 2009 10:34AM
I concur on the DK & PVP issue - both bad moves. Sacrificing a 70 for a DK NEEDED to happen and forcing arena for the good gear was idiotic at best.
I disagree on the tabard. I am a solo player - run very few instances - but there is only 1 reputation I will have difficulty with - Kirin Tor. I am ok with not getting exalted there - unless I do the cooking daily for 300 days ... Yes I have things I would like to buy from them, but I am not running instances.
I am NOT entitled to get exalted with all reputations if I do not partake in all facets of the game. I do not expect to get any arena achievements since I do not play arena nor should I expect to get all of the exalted reputations since I do not run instances.
Rhozul Mar 25th 2009 8:21AM
Honestly, the only real "big mistake" I can think of in World of Warcraft, in my opinion, was Onyxia's Phase One where you had to literally have your spell casters wand Onyxia down during Phase One or else you'd eventually overaggro the tank and wipe.
Not exactly a fun mechanic, and rapid succession aggrowipes are not seen on any other boss in the game. Guess Blizz learned from their mistakes :P.
ScytheNoire Mar 25th 2009 8:22AM
Arena's were their top mistake. They should of never made them such a big focus, and never tried to balance the game for them, instead of all the other content.
Not releasing a Healer/Caster Hero class at the same time as the Death Knight was the other big mistake. Lots of Death Knights now, but another Hero class would of balanced things better. Right now melee and tanks are in abundance, but casters and healers are still a shortage.
Not allowing old classes to be rolled starting at 55/60 once you have an 80, again, would help balance the population.
Imbalanced servers, many with 70%+ Alliance just makes things like zone combat like Wintergrasp not as fun. Even with tenacity, it's no match for overwhelming numbers. There should be a limit to how many can be in Wintergrasp during a battle, simply to keep things more balanced.
More battlegrounds are needed. Many more.
Old PvP rewards, like mounts, should no longer require marks, but instead move to requiring honor, or require a better mix of marks, rather than the WSG/AV/AB old one's.
You should not be able to do Heroics until you have the achievement for completing the regular dungeon. Nothing more annoying than all these fresh 80's trying to do Heroics, especially when they haven't even been to the instance before.
I guess I could go on for hours listing all the problems with the game, but they have fixed a lot, and continue to really improve the game a lot. But some things are just really annoying.
Chuddy Mar 25th 2009 8:42AM
How quickly you forget that you too were once new and didn't know a fight. Grant anyone with half a brain can wowhead the dungeon 1 minute prior and put together what's going on but still. Unless it's a guild run I expect every single person to be a moron. Makes dealing with wow so much easier.
negativegirl Mar 25th 2009 9:07AM
It's a rare find for someone to take the initiative to wowhead a dungeon or much less anything else. Mostly out of laziness or knowing that someone else will do the stuff for them.
I think having to complete an instance on normal before you can do heroic is a pretty good idea.
Anthology Mar 26th 2009 1:38AM
/p "Do you guys know the fights?"
Is it really that hard to do?
Decrusher Mar 25th 2009 6:52PM
its funny that you should mention 70%+ alliance. not that it isnt true, but i have never played a sever with more alliance then horde. btw i play alliance. are these alliance servers any fun, or just drowning in noobs?
slp Mar 25th 2009 8:23AM
The biggest mistake is that they failed to realize that they HAVE to separate arenas/pvp from PvE. Now they have to keep in mind 2 totally different aspects of the game, and you can see the results. There is only 1 or 2 viable PvE talent trees for each class, same with PvP. It makes talent-trees totally obsolete. You are basically choosing between option 1 and 2. They cannot balance classes, they remove spells or change coefficients because it is too powerful in pvp, etc.
Alternative solution would be something like flagging players as "players" and spells would have different coefficients/effects on "players" and on "mobs" (i.e. PvE). With this change, BOTH major sides of the game could be very well balanced.
sephirah Mar 25th 2009 8:23AM
Taking all that was "bad" in BC and switching in its opposite that.
PvP gear too easy to get? Put high AR on it!
Attunements to heroic/raids that required some effort? Just go anywhere as soon as you ding 80!
Raids too hard? Make the puggable!
Mob or instance grinding for rep? Get rep from dailies and any instance!
Classes brought something exclusive to raids? Make all classes equal!
A class is OP? To the ground, baby!
People choose crafting professions for very good BoP items? Make all items BoE and unattractive!
People bought gear from badges obtained from lower level content? Have only few and not really good items you can buy!
I'm not complaining that those changes are all inherently bad, only that they are too radical respect to their previous implementations.
sephirah Mar 25th 2009 8:26AM
Hmm, I should have reread my post as some sentences make no sence... :P
havitech Mar 25th 2009 9:29AM
I got what you were trying to say, and you're completely right.
I keep hearing, "people will complain about anything!" Yeah, it's true, but I think in these examples you listed Blizzard should have been able to meet a happy middle-ground, but instead they chose the opposite extreme in each situation, and it didn't solve anything. So it's no surprise that people are still complaining.
Blizzard did an incredible job on WotLK overall, but they have such an odd difficulty when it comes to finding the middle road.
lucifer.cross Mar 25th 2009 8:24AM
I'd have to say their biggest mistake was making WotLK little more than BC 2.0 ... More reps to grind, more dailies to do, same crap, different day. Or, as the case may be, same crap, different continent. Sure, there's new content, different lore to explore, but it's still the same despite it all. Sort of a contradiction, I realize, but whatever. lol. When generalized, there's not much new and different. Even the "new Kara" is a place some of us had the luxury of hitting up once or twice before BC swept us off to Outland.
I dunno. I guess I'm just sick of spending my playtime doing the same handful of quests each and every day, to work on rep and make a little easy money. "Welcome to an MMO," you might say. Yeeeeah. Repitition is my bane. Grar. Whatever. lol