One of those said issues I remember like it was yesterday. I was there on my elemental shaman when they got their lightning bolt damage nerfed in the Wrath of the Lich King pre-expansion patch. Their excuse? Because we get a new spell at level 75 (WotLK's level cap was 80) and that would make up for the loss of damage. The only problem was that we were still on the previous expansion and every other class got their damage highly buffed even exponentially (curse you Ret Pallies!) and running, at the time, current content. But I shrugged it off and kept it pushing. As time went on, however, the changes Blizzard were doing with
my spec was grating on me, even though I still loved the game. Playing arenas as an elemental shaman in Warlords of Dreanor was the final straw. Never have I felt so underpowered and targeted in my whole Shaman career. Even my buddy Xavi who went enchancement felt the same way. It was kind of degrading the lack of tools we had to fend off certain classes/comps. I'm not sure how it is now, but the early game was miserable for dps Shamans.
Wow, that was quite some whining in that last paragraph! More than I usually do. However, my whining about Shamans is just a small example of a bigger issue: Class Balance. Blizzard must have some fetish of trying to achieve the perfect balance across all specs. While a noble goal, it serves to prove damn near impossible. The issue is when you attempt to get a spec balanced with others, the change can be as minor as changing damage/healing values, or as drastic as removing an well used ability or changing how that ability works. That can get degrading on players who have been used to a certain playstyle. It's almost detrimental if you're doing high end arena/raid content when your class/spec lost what made it great. While ultimately it's Blizzard that make the final changes, this issue is less on them and more on the players. Other games similar to WoW like Rift and SWToR go through the same issues. And because WoW has the highest subscription numbers, even after the loss of subs, there are more play styles (and complaints) that Blizzard has to cater to. I hope they find a better method to get classes balanced, though. It sucks having to relearn a class/spec every patch/expansion.
Almost everything in WoW is centered toward gear. As if everything we did prior to level cap was filler until endgame. Arguably, this is all WoW has ever done every expansion. Give us fun and engaging leveling content and then switch it up to a gear grind once you hit level cap. Mists was the one that I was able to do more than just the gear chase. I pretty much was on brawler's guild for a large portion of the expansion. Also worked on dailies that unlocked story (patch 5.1), and random battlegrounds for the heck of it (after being appropriately geared). Also did an occasional scenario or two. I guess this is more subjective, since there were activities you could do in previous expansions. However you cannot argue that the main course of WoW are the endgame raids. And what are in those raids, you may ask? Raid gear! And because Blizzards attempts to cater to every playstyle, they made sure everyone has a chance to attain raid gear at their play level. Honestly, that's a great thing to give people who may not have time as the 'hardcores' to progress their character, but you would think over that Blizzard would find other ways of progression. But maybe I'm just getting old, because there are plenty that still enjoy the 'carrot-on-a-stick' endgame.
Well that's pretty much my main issues with World of Warcraft in general. There were things in Warlords of Dreanor I had issues with as well, which I may (or not) save that for another article. Until then, fellow readers!
No comments:
Post a Comment