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tanker27 wrote:

I wont try and sway you. But there is a lot to do in Legion even after getting to max level. The quests in the max zone and world quests are endless. Even if you are not into raiding. After panda land and WoD I am actually excited about it. I really phoned it in during MoP and WoD. I haven't been this excited since WotLK.

If you are not sure about the sub, its easy to maintain with gold now and buying a token to pay for your month. Before they nerfed the gold missions from garrisons I had enough to pay for 13 months of sub and sill have 500K to start Legion with. And from what I have seen with Legion Beta its not hard to maintain.

I can't speak of PvP I dont know what their end game is like in Legion. But yeah they were big changes to it. But Blizzard seems intent on changing it for the better. Heck they just ban-hammered some 6000 accounts for win trading last week. That even disrupted some teams that are doing the Road to Blizzcon.

All of this is why there is still pondering going on. We hardcore raided TBC though WotLK and about half of Cataclysm. Then our raid group imploded and we never got back in the swing of it. As much as I loved raiding. I enjoyed the challenge. LFR was a joke. It was painful to see how much dumbed down content was just to make it open to the masses. We played a year total between MoP and WoD. Maybe a little longer. That all said, there are reasons it's on our mind, but there are just as many why we are hesitant to drop the money. Thanks for the info though. Getting someone's first hand experience is better than just reading about it on the web.

By the time I left again in Legion...it was like, they'd gone back to raid or die, but just made it easier to raid. Which is great if you enjoy raiding but I do not.

Bomber wrote:

All of this is why there is still pondering going on. We hardcore raided TBC though WotLK and about half of Cataclysm. Then our raid group imploded and we never got back in the swing of it. As much as I loved raiding. I enjoyed the challenge. LFR was a joke. It was painful to see how much dumbed down content was just to make it open to the masses. We played a year total between MoP and WoD. Maybe a little longer. That all said, there are reasons it's on our mind, but there are just as many why we are hesitant to drop the money. Thanks for the info though. Getting someone's first hand experience is better than just reading about it on the web.

Honestly, I play to raid. All the way up to WotLK I was a hardcore raider with a very hardcore guild. While we were never racing for the world/server first it still didn't mean we were not putting in 40 hours a week on it. Cataclysm ended that for me. I took a step back, in fact I took a year off. I ended my time during the Firelands raid in Cata and did not come back to WoW until well after MoP was released (some 6-7 months I think).

What keeps me around is my guild. Great group. We have a small dedicated raid team of about 12. And we get sh.......done! We only raid two days a week (TUES & WED)from 7est-10est and we have easily beaten both normal and heroic raids with the Ahead of the Curve achievement by months usually. We and I are fine not tackling Mythic seriously. That doesnt mean we dont do it, we do. We just dont get upset if we fail to a boss and its mechanics. Really Mythic raiding is ludicrous with its mechanics.

Our guild is fairly large we have about 30-40 daily players and sometimes a few of them tag along on raids.

tanker27 wrote:

Bomber wrote:

All of this is why there is still pondering going on. We hardcore raided TBC though WotLK and about half of Cataclysm. Then our raid group imploded and we never got back in the swing of it. As much as I loved raiding. I enjoyed the challenge. LFR was a joke. It was painful to see how much dumbed down content was just to make it open to the masses. We played a year total between MoP and WoD. Maybe a little longer. That all said, there are reasons it's on our mind, but there are just as many why we are hesitant to drop the money. Thanks for the info though. Getting someone's first hand experience is better than just reading about it on the web.

Honestly, I play to raid. All the way up to WotLK I was a hardcore raider with a very hardcore guild. While we were never racing for the world/server first it still didn't mean we were not putting in 40 hours a week on it. Cataclysm ended that for me. I took a step back, in fact I took a year off. I ended my time during the Firelands raid in Cata and did not come back to WoW until well after MoP was released (some 6-7 months I think).

What keeps me around is my guild. Great group. We have a small dedicated raid team of about 12. And we get sh.......done! We only raid two days a week (TUES & WED)from 7est-10est and we have easily beaten both normal and heroic raids with the Ahead of the Curve achievement by months usually. We and I are fine not tackling Mythic seriously. That doesnt mean we dont do it, we do. We just dont get upset if we fail to a boss and its mechanics. Really Mythic raiding is ludicrous with its mechanics.

Our guild is fairly large we have about 30-40 daily players and sometimes a few of them tag along on raids.

That sounds about like us, minus the guild raiding. Our guild doesn't raid so much. We used a third party to find raid on our server. It has long since "died" with LFR and bonuses to guild raiding that have come since. My wife and I used to raid that much across 2-3 characters every week. Firelands and raid group drama (they were all RL friends but wife and I weren't) killed it. We quit not long after and stopped until near the end of MoP.

.

Still raiding with my guild, which I have been in since BC. We have had our ups and downs, but I still play with a lot of the people that I raided hardcore back in BC with. Looking forward to more of our old timers coming back for the new expansion, got a couple that came back int he last few weeks. I just hope the raiding is good this new expansion

Starfalcon wrote:

I just hope the raiding is good this new expansion

It's been fun so far in beta. A large variety of bosses and mechanics.

I loved raiding in Wotlk, I was the MT for our Heroic 10s and 25s, and when I wanted a break I was allowed to DPS and was consistently at the top as a Fury warrior. What ruined the game for me was just before and early into Cata they just destroyed any and all build variety. Everything became this homogenous generic "You are this, you wear this, you skill this, you socket this. No exceptions." Making things equally worse were add-ons like gearscore that served as elite barriers to non-elite content like heroic dungeons that became bitch-fests and votekicks.

I tried to go back a few months ago. Thought if I started a brand new toon it could be fun. I started a Monk and it was awful. It was so on-rails I couldn't believe it. I felt like I was playing some freemium mobile app game to be honest. I like to think I outgrew the game more than the game became unfun to me.

All that said, every time I decide to play an MMO-ish genre, I always compare it to WoW and especially so when considering mechanics and dungeons. I loved raiding and dungeons. I love the trinity. Wildstar really came close to pulling it off, but they catered too much to the elite that they couldn't support the game anymore with subs dwindling. They also put far too much emphasis on content no one played or cared about such as 40v40 war parties. Of all the unfinished features, that should have remained so until the demand for it arose.

The hype for this latest expansion feels real. I probably won't be back ever, and that's OK, but it's fun to see such a long-running MMO still breathing.

steelcity_ballin wrote:

I loved raiding in Wotlk, I was the MT for our Heroic 10s and 25s, and when I wanted a break I was allowed to DPS and was consistently at the top as a Fury warrior. What ruined the game for me was just before and early into Cata they just destroyed any and all build variety. Everything became this homogenous generic "You are this, you wear this, you skill this, you socket this. No exceptions." Making things equally worse were add-ons like gearscore that served as elite barriers to non-elite content like heroic dungeons that became bitch-fests and votekicks.

I tried to go back a few months ago. Thought if I started a brand new toon it could be fun. I started a Monk and it was awful. It was so on-rails I couldn't believe it. I felt like I was playing some freemium mobile app game to be honest. I like to think I outgrew the game more than the game became unfun to me.

All that said, every time I decide to play an MMO-ish genre, I always compare it to WoW and especially so when considering mechanics and dungeons. I loved raiding and dungeons. I love the trinity. Wildstar really came close to pulling it off, but they catered too much to the elite that they couldn't support the game anymore with subs dwindling. They also put far too much emphasis on content no one played or cared about such as 40v40 war parties. Of all the unfinished features, that should have remained so until the demand for it arose.

The hype for this latest expansion feels real. I probably won't be back ever, and that's OK, but it's fun to see such a long-running MMO still breathing.

Yeah, the lack of character customization is pretty sad. Both physically and gameplay. I used to play a half-arms/half-prot Warrior through Wrath. The only thing the game has done that's interesting in the last few expansions is Fistweaving and just like "any DK spec can Tank" a few expansions ago they killed that because balance is hard.

The only MMOs I play regularly now are Star Trek Online because it's fun in small doses, and The Secret World because Trion understands that builds and customization should be a thing.

I cannot argue that. I miss the skill trees! But I understand why they were removed, It's very hard to balance when iterating. I could see skill trees making a comeback now that they uncoupled PvP skills from PvE but I doubt they would even try.

It has become homogeneous but only within the classes themselves. There is still quite a lot of variety between classes.

tanker27 wrote:

I cannot argue that. I miss the skill trees! But I understand why they were removed, It's very hard to balance when iterating. I could see skill trees making a comeback now that they uncoupled PvP skills from PvE but I doubt they would even try.

It has become homogeneous but only within the classes themselves. There is still quite a lot of variety between classes.

I get that it's hard to balance; I really do. It's probably the hardest part of an MMO.

But there are problems with that argument:
1) Blizzard has 3x the staff and 10x the money of other MMOs, and those other MMOs manage to create a basic level of balance.
2) We've sacrificed Skill Trees, Weapon Types, Playstyles, Stats (hello Hit Rating!) and Differentiated Gear. And we've gotten.... no balance in return. Sure, Damage-Out is well balanced, but everything else is dropped on the floor. If the players are going to make the needed sacrifices, the developers should in return make the game more balanced.

If you don't believe me, compare the class utility of a Prot Warrior and a Prot Paladin. One has utility, one... doesn't. But at least they do the same damage for PVP!

I'm not sure if you guys haven't been playing for some time, or if it's that there was always a misunderstanding about talent trees.

Talent trees were not overhauled because they were hard to balance. It was because the perfect combination of talents were publicly available on the internet as the optimal combination. Further, the talents were often passive modifiers that didn't alter or affect the gameplay in any other way (i.e. generally, there were no CC options available, and even if there were, CC would be forgone by a passive DPS increase talent).

Nowadays, people still tend to copy the top DPS build, but there are a lot of opportunities to swap builds between encounters. For example, switching between a more AOE or single-target centric set of talents for an encounter. There are also certain talent tiers where a CC option is forced to be picked, so that there's no optimal DPS choice. I would say they've ultimately accomplished what they were going for and improved the gameplay, although there are many naysayers who are nostalgically fixated on the previous system.

People often forget that the internet changed dramatically over the course of WoW's lifetime. In 2004, YouTube didn't exist. Many people simply played the game intuitively, not using the internet as a game guide. That made the old talent system work well. Some of you on here saying "I used to have these talents and it was really cool/unique" certainly had sub-optimal builds. However, the current talent system is a way to provide choices DESPITE the accessibility of the internet as an infinitely thorough game guide.

For my input, I took a look at a couple of the classes for Legion (warrior and rogue) and noticed that they made an improvement from previous expansions by providing more differentiation between specs. People who've played Legion will know what I'm talking about. For example, only one Rogue specialization (assassination) can use poisons. Only one Rogue specialization (subtlety) has a wealth of mobility and CC that we've come to expect from rogues. Lastly, only one Rogue specialization (outlaw) has an array of ranged and RNG based abilities that we've never seen before. I think the spec differentiation will drastically improve gameplay - especially PVP. Here's to hoping.

Talent trees were pointless for many classes.
As an SPriest I had one raiding spec. Everything else was essentially gimping myself.

I spent the points once and forget about them trees until the next expansion launched or Blizzard changed sth. major in a patch.

I vastly prefer the current ability selection where you vary playstyles on a "per encounter" basis.

PS: Elitistjerks already existed in 2006 when I started. I'm sure similar pages existed back in 2004 too. The knowledge was always public and people always ranted ingame if you deviated from cookie cutter.

strangequark18 wrote:

Talent trees were not overhauled because they were hard to balance. It was because the perfect combination of talents were publicly available on the internet as the optimal combination. Further, the talents were often passive modifiers that didn't alter or affect the gameplay in any other way (i.e. generally, there were no CC options available, and even if there were, CC would be forgone by a passive DPS increase talent).

Pretty much. The example I point to is frost mage in Cataclysm. There was basically one viable build if you wanted to be even remotely competitive for DPS, and said build sacrificed a lot of the utility (CC) that made frost fun. Blizzard could have buffed frost to be competitive in PvE, but then they would have been stupid overpowered in PvP because they'd boatloads of damage AND utility (and there were already people whining about how good frost was in PvP).

So yeah, it was a system where you had one viable build or you were gimping yourself...having the kind of discrete separation in the current system allows for meaningful choices and offers less "right vs. wrong" situations. It ain't perfect (we still end up with some "right vs. wrong" specs), but I do think it's an improvement.

Anyways...Demon Hunter is a really fun class to play. Apparently they're shunned in mythic dungeons and raids (oh well), but the DPS spec offers the "build and spend" strategy of a ret paladin with the mobility of a warrior.

superjawes wrote:

Anyways...Demon Hunter is a really fun class to play. Apparently they're shunned in mythic dungeons and raids (oh well), but the DPS spec offers the "build and spend" strategy of a ret paladin with the mobility of a warrior.

They are shunned now because they are a gimped class. They only have two talents available to them. None of the mitigation or even the DPS stuff. What you see currently is just overbuffed stats that will be rectified one Legion goes live next week.


PSA: if you think of leveling now is the time to do it with invasions. I started a level 1 hunter on Saturday and as of this morning I am sitting at 97. I did nothing but Invasions. (I had a friend port me around until I got flying.) I will more than likely hit 100 tonight.

strangequark18 wrote:

I'm not sure if you guys haven't been playing for some time, or if it's that there was always a misunderstanding about talent trees. Talent trees were not overhauled because they were hard to balance.

They most certainly were overhauled because it was hard to balance each iteration and with PvP. Past devs have stated this as fact the most recent being Ghostcrawler.

You're assertation about the internet is ludicrous at best. There have always been theorycrafters since day 1. And since Day 1 there has always been those cookie cutter builds. You forget that some of the lead designers in WoW came from the player base and development teams of Everquest.

tanker27 wrote:

strangequark18 wrote:

I'm not sure if you guys haven't been playing for some time, or if it's that there was always a misunderstanding about talent trees. Talent trees were not overhauled because they were hard to balance.

They most certainly were overhauled because it was hard to balance each iteration and with PvP. Past devs have stated this as fact the most recent being Ghostcrawler.

You're assertation about the internet is ludicrous at best. There have always been theorycrafters since day 1. And since Day 1 there has always been those cookie cutter builds. You forget that some of the lead designers in WoW came from the player base and development teams of Everquest.

100% correct. Removal of the talent trees had nothing to do with "WOW knows best" but the overall increasing complexity of adding 5-10 more talent points with every xpac and testing all the exponentially increasing variety of possible allocations for balance. 
Theory crafting in principle created a lot of exclusionary attitude by some elitists but for the most part there were always viable build alternatives that went against the cookie cutter specs. The problem with theorycraft builds is that they calculate max possible not necessarily max feasible dps and often a few several adjustments can be made that go against the mold that make the actual raidability/playability better.  Example would be vanilla hunters, where most raid groups would shun MM hunters that grabbed mana talents or balanced int on their gear because it went against theory craft. In real raid practice however; those that grabbed more mana friendly builds had lower total dps but higher overall damage because they spent less time running to the back, using feign death and drinking mage water. 

tanker27 wrote wrote:

strangequark18 wrote wrote:

I'm not sure if you guys haven't been playing for some time, or if it's that there was always a misunderstanding about talent trees. Talent trees were not overhauled because they were hard to balance.

They most certainly were overhauled because it was hard to balance each iteration and with PvP. Past devs have stated this as fact the most recent being Ghostcrawler.

You're assertation about the internet is ludicrous at best. There have always been theorycrafters since day 1. And since Day 1 there has always been those cookie cutter builds. You forget that some of the lead designers in WoW came from the player base and development teams of Everquest.

I'm not sure what instance of dev statements you're talking about, but the blue post back in the day:

Fundamentally, taking into account what we’ve learned about talent trees over the years, we’ve come to the conclusion that the talent tree model where you pick up tiny performance increases here and there (and where there’s, mathematically, nearly always a ‘right’ answer and a ‘wrong’ answer) is not a great model. The Mists talent design is a major revamp that should fix this problem once and for all. Talents should be meaningful game-changers. At absolute worst a given talent may be the right one only situationally, and at best, players will have a lot more customization to make their play-style stand out. Furthermore, the fact that you’ll have more flexibility to change your talents should help keep gameplay fresh, even with that character that you play most often.

More or less supports my point.

Regarding the internet assertion, you are failing to consider the entire player base. Obviously people have been using the internet to gather video game information since long before WoW, however, there is a magnitude to consider. Perhaps in 2005, only 20% of the subscriber base utilized online resources for quest info/tracking. Perhaps by 2008, this proportion grew to 50%. I'm not claiming these numbers are even remotely accurate, but with some perspective, you'll admit that an effect of that nature had taken place. Why has such as increase occurred? Many factors, including accessibility/availability, effectiveness, and an aging subscriber base. That kind of increase occurred for all aspects of the game, including raid content (YouTube videos of encounters), talent trees/builds, and all kinds of add-ons.

Have you ever heard the statistic that only a tiny percentage of the subscriber base had experienced end game raid content? I forgot what that percentage was (before LFR), but it was shockingly low, and that's the primary reason why LFR was released. Often times, elitist gamers such as us overlook the initiatives primarily induced by the experiences of the "casual" community.

I cant find the post/s right now but they are out there about talent trees being had to balance per iteration. One of the cases for removing them is the majority of choices were fluff. They didn't add anything and some choices were down right need to haves. Case in point: Old School Fury Warriors that passed or skipped over the Raging Blow skill was making a serious and detrimental mistake.

Now without talent trees its an inherent skill.

The new talent trees still have a correct spec and a wrong one. But the gap is much much smaller than with full-on trees. You "can" choose that one skill you think is interesting and fun, and be laughed at, but it probably would only make a 1-2% change in DPS/HPS so really it doesnt matter. This plays into Blizzards mantra of bring the player not the class.

And since we are on the subject this again is the reason why they removed things like multi-strike, Armor penetration (gawd I loved Armor Pen as a melee, Stack the SHeeeet out of it), dodge, parry, Hit, Expertise, etc.. etc.. And dont be shocked if Cleave hit the cutting room floor soon. (probably not for Legion) Some classes and Specs Cleave better than others.

Also the majority of these 'nerfs' were fueled by PvP. How many times did we see a trinket get the nerf bat because they were too powerful in PVP.....a lot!

But I am optimistic about Legion Its about dang time they decoupled PvP from PvE. We shall see how this shakes out.

You're definitely right about some of those stats like armour pen. For example, armour pen was really easy to balance for PVE (all bosses had the same armour), but in PVP, if you stacked armour pen it would make you ridiculously strong against plate bearers but weak against cloth bearers. They even did a similar fix for the warrior ability Colossus Smash. The original idea was to cause a debuff that makes attacks ignore armour, making warriors especially powerful against plate bearers. I recently noticed that it just applies a debuff with a flat damage increase, equally effective against all opponents.

I've been on both sides of the coin as far as engaged in competitive PVP (hardcore arena 3's) and ignoring PVP and focusing on PVE whether it be leveling or raiding. As a hardcore PVP-er it was frustrating to lose matches because of an overpowered PVE trinket or otherwise unfair mechanic. However, as a PVE-er, I really enjoyed the arbitrary variations in stats, gear, etc. For example, when I first played I recall many Paladins leveling up were stacking spell power and wearing cloth because it happened to provide better DPS. Also, stats on gear were far more varied; Some items would have 20+ stamina and nothing else, some would have an odd combination such as strength, agility, and stamina. Most notably, Druid gear would often have combinations of strength, agility, intellect, stamina, and spirit.

Some of these aspects gave the game character, charm, and intrigue that has been muddled down a little bit in the name of balance, be it PVE, PVP, or both. As far as segmenting PVP, they've tried many things such as PVP power, resillience, iLVL manipulation, versatility, and now a new talent tree. Let's hope they can finally nail it down lol.

So, uh, how's the new expac so far?

I am very much enjoying the expansion so far, the questing is extremely well done and the professions have a ton of quests to make them really feel like you are learning to make things. The new scaling for the broken isle is extremely nice as you can do the different areas in any order you like and the questing is no longer on rails as you can bounce around to different areas and are not locked on rails like in cataclysm. The graphics in the new areas look spectacular, new dalaran looks super impressive and everything makes it look like a real city and shops look like they really sell things. So far I am very excited and pleased with the expansion, blizz really hit it out of the park with this one. I would put this as one of my top expansions so far, and I have played the game since vanilla. If they keep the quality up and the content keeps coming out...it may be the best expansion ever. Plus new karazan is coming out next patch and I am really looking forward to that.

I only got to play a bit last night, but so far it's pretty good. I also like the new Dalaran. Extra bonus points for giving us a special Dalaran heartstone (Dalstone?).

I'm planning on raiding with a new guild, so I'm leveling my priest first as holy. That...has not been so good. I need to run a couple quests in shadow to see if my DPS is good enough for questing, but I'm not so sure that will help because of my healy artifact. If I still feel stumped, I might just run dungeons or quest in a group.

tanker27 wrote:

I cant find the post/s right now but they are out there about talent trees being had to balance per iteration. One of the cases for removing them is the majority of choices were fluff. They didn't add anything and some choices were down right need to haves. Case in point: Old School Fury Warriors that passed or skipped over the Raging Blow skill was making a serious and detrimental mistake.

Now without talent trees its an inherent skill.

The new talent trees still have a correct spec and a wrong one. But the gap is much much smaller than with full-on trees. You "can" choose that one skill you think is interesting and fun, and be laughed at, but it probably would only make a 1-2% change in DPS/HPS so really it doesnt matter. This plays into Blizzards mantra of bring the player not the class.

And since we are on the subject this again is the reason why they removed things like multi-strike, Armor penetration (gawd I loved Armor Pen as a melee, Stack the SHeeeet out of it), dodge, parry, Hit, Expertise, etc.. etc.. And dont be shocked if Cleave hit the cutting room floor soon. (probably not for Legion) Some classes and Specs Cleave better than others.

Also the majority of these 'nerfs' were fueled by PvP. How many times did we see a trinket get the nerf bat because they were too powerful in PVP.....a lot!

But I am optimistic about Legion Its about dang time they decoupled PvP from PvE. We shall see how this shakes out.

"But I am optimistic about Legion Its about dang time they decoupled PvP from PvE. We shall see how this shakes out."
I have bought it and just waiting to move in a month to play it seriously, or hope I want to anyways lol. 

Starfalcon wrote:

I am very much enjoying the expansion so far, the questing is extremely well done and the professions have a ton of quests to make them really feel like you are learning to make things.  The new scaling for the broken isle is extremely nice as you can do the different areas in any order you like and the questing is no longer on rails as you can bounce around to different areas and are not locked on rails like in cataclysm.  The graphics in the new areas look spectacular, new dalaran looks super impressive and everything makes it look like a real city and shops look like they really sell things.  So far I am very excited and pleased with the expansion, blizz really hit it out of the park with this one.   I would put this as one of my top expansions so far, and I have played the game since vanilla.  If they keep the quality up and the content keeps coming out...it may be the best expansion ever.  Plus new karazan is coming out next patch and I am really looking forward to that.  :D

"Plus new karazan is coming out next patch and I am really looking forward to that."

Omg I am just hearing this for the first time lol. 

As everyone here is saying the expac seems pretty good for the most part. One thing I personally don't like is feeling like my hand is being held while I'm questing. They've made it so that you can complete the quests in the zones in any order, which is nice. BUT the quest lines themselves are very standardized, linear, and predictable. I will always miss Vanilla when the quests were much more varied in the depth, rewards, etc. Basically, part of the game back then was using intuition to choose between quests or zones to focus on/complete. But WoW has been sticking to the linear model since tBC, so whatever. For the record, Legion has relatively fun linear quests.

strangequark18 wrote:

As everyone here is saying the expac seems pretty good for the most part. One thing I personally don't like is feeling like my hand is being held while I'm questing. They've made it so that you can complete the quests in the zones in any order, which is nice. BUT the quest lines themselves are very standardized, linear, and predictable. I will always miss Vanilla when the quests were much more varied in the depth, rewards, etc. Basically, part of the game back then was using intuition to choose between quests or zones to focus on/complete. But WoW has been sticking to the linear model since tBC, so whatever. For the record, Legion has relatively fun linear quests.

Just wait. When you get into Suramar there are little to no breadcrumb quests that lead you. And you'll need to complete these storyline quests to advance.

In fact when thinking about it, you are crazy. Every zone has at least two or three hubs that have no breadcrumb quests attached. You have to find them by exploring!

I've been running Mythics since Friday. Not so hard they take some coordination but nothing a little CC can't handle. (I wouldn't ever dream of doing these in a PuG.) Finished my Class hall unlocking the third Relic on my Artifact weapon. I am one Artifact point away from my second gold dragon in the AW. Been world questing like a mofo. I like the world quest system, i'm sure it will get old but right now its varied. iLVL is at 830. So I am in good shape for raiding, probably be able to get 840 by the time raids open.

strangequark18 wrote:

They've made it so that you can complete the quests in the zones in any order, which is nice. BUT the quest lines themselves are very standardized, linear, and predictable. I will always miss Vanilla when the quests were much more varied in the depth, rewards, etc. Basically, part of the game back then was using intuition to choose between quests or zones to focus on/complete. But WoW has been sticking to the linear model since tBC, so whatever. For the record, Legion has relatively fun linear quests.

Thinking this through again. The majority of quests of what can be construed as the main story line is mostly linear until you get to Suramar. There still are dozens upon dozens of pocket quests and flavor story lines that have no breadcrumb trail. These are stumble upon quests and are reminiscent of Vanilla and are found through straight up exploring.

Thus far, I have a larger negative opinion of this expansion than I do of WoD.

The number of just terrible design choices are staggering. I'm not even sure why it's called an RPG anymore.

Ryu Connor wrote:

Thus far, I have a larger negative opinion of this expansion than I do of WoD.

The number of just terrible design choices are staggering. I'm not even sure why it's called an RPG anymore.

Curiously, like what? I feel its far better than WoD and MoP.

tanker27 wrote:

strangequark18 wrote:

They've made it so that you can complete the quests in the zones in any order, which is nice. BUT the quest lines themselves are very standardized, linear, and predictable. I will always miss Vanilla when the quests were much more varied in the depth, rewards, etc. Basically, part of the game back then was using intuition to choose between quests or zones to focus on/complete. But WoW has been sticking to the linear model since tBC, so whatever. For the record, Legion has relatively fun linear quests.

Thinking this through again. The majority  of quests of what can be construed as the main story line is mostly linear until you get to Suramar. There still are dozens upon dozens of pocket quests and flavor story lines that have no breadcrumb trail. These are stumble upon quests and are reminiscent of Vanilla and are found through straight up exploring.

Haven't done Suramar yet but I've heard good things about it. Otherwise, I see what you're saying... although there's another element that's hard to put into words but I'll try.
I've come across some of those quest lines that you talk about with "no breadcrumb trail", but it's not as if I explored to find such a quest. I walk right into it because it pops on my mini-map as I navigate the main quests. And that is one of my complaints with these zones, they are so tightly packed with quest zones, rares, treasures, that you really can't help but inadvertently encounter them. Sometimes I feel almost claustrophobic; Last night while I was accepting (reading) a quest from the quest giver, there were some horde fighting a rare NPC right on top of me. They basically just pulled it from the pond about 10 feet away. It's almost as if these zones are designed as if we're all suffering from ADD and about to lose interest at any moment, so they throw everything in our faces. The ultimate effect is that when I do kill the rare, grab the treasure, find the quest, I don't feel any satisfaction of having explored, or even chose that course of action. Does that make sense? When I think of Vanilla questing (pre-Cata), I remember some large open zones with plenty of essentially unused space (think of Tanaris or the Wetlands). Zones such as that were definitely my favorite and made the world feel natural. Unnatural is probably the best word to describe what I don't like about the Legion zones.
Even the design of the quests have changed a lot in that respect. For example, some Vanilla quests were absurdly difficult or took way too long for the reward. Now, they all take almost exactly the same amount of time and require the same amount of effort. Also in Vanilla, quest premises were significantly more modest, even at max level. Nowadays, I'm constantly saving the world (along with 50 people around me simultaneously saving the world). But of course while saving the world, sometimes I get locked in a wooden cage only to be saved seconds before certain death. I'd almost prefer if they (quest givers) would just say hey, if you get a bunch of the pelt from this deer I will make you a piece of gear, and that's it - no continuation. Is that objectively "fun"? No. But at least it makes the world feel natural. Not contrived to the point where it feels like each quest line is a short screenplay written by a 6th grader. Then, I would have more "fun" overall progressing my character through a world that feels somewhat real.
But perhaps if Blizzard took my advice, half the player base would immediately quit out of boredom.