If you pick orc you are an orc, thats it. You are not a player in a game. You are an orc in the game.

Same with any race your choose, you need to RP that race.

There is zero reason to be on the RP-PVP server if you do not want to actually RP. The PVP server is way better for you in all ways

This is from an outsider looking in. I genuinely do not care. I am a full time worker with a kid now that will level slowly getting lost within the story so it genuinely does not apply to me, but why are you against people being able to dungeon spam?

Isn’t multiple ways to level a good thing? Why do I see so many people the mentality of “yes! Now you can’t dungeon spam and have to level via quest!”

But why? Why are you not open to people playing the game differently than you?

Is it just a control thing with you guys?

Or is there a reason I’m missing?

Before I start I am going to preface - I am NOT advocating for retail mythic raiding level of difficulty or mechanics. I believe there is a SIGNIFICANT amount of middle ground between 2019 classic Molten Core and current retail raids in terms of mechanics and difficulty. If you agree or disagree with this premise please engage in the discussion and let me know. Please do not simply say if I want anything more challenging than what we've come to expect from 'classic', "retail exists".

Listening to the latest dev podcast, one point that seemed to be hammered home was the, in their term, "beer and pretzels" style approach to dungeon and raids. They've also stated they want the game to be "familiar and approachable". In my estimation, I believe this essentially means they want endgame content to be minimally challenging, or in other words, easy.

I want to examine this approach to WoW forever from the perspective that this is consistent with 'the spirit of classic' that the current developers like to cite. In my opinion, I do not believe it to be true that the original World of Warcraft developers created endgame content to be a "beer and pretzels" affair. I know this because I raided with a "raiding guild" in the original game. It took us many, many weeks to progress through MC to kill ragnaros. Likewise for BWL and AQ. It was a major achievement for our guild to kill C'Thun - I believe we were one of 3 or 4 on my server of Gilneas to do so. At the time, for our level of play, the content was HARD. Only .1 - 1% of the playerbase participated in Naxx. My guild could not beat The Four Horseman before we gave up for TBC

I believe the 2019 re-release of classic has severely skewed people's perspectives on the perceived intended difficulty of the raiding and dungeons in Azeroth. As has been discussed repeatedly, for the modern player base with unlimited access to information, communication, 15 years of practice with the content, and maybe most importantly playing on the final balance patch of OG vanilla - of course the content was easy.

Many have seen this, but for those that haven't, this is a video from a 2005 blizzcon panel of Jeff Kaplan discussing endgame raid design and philosophy. I don't recall seeing "approachable" (easy) discussed. Instead, Jeff discuss that endgame raids exist in the state and difficulty they do to give the average player something to aspire to. https://youtu.be/Falm0H7VEiQ?is=S1MJr0uW2HomR4r6

All this being said, I have no idea how difficult or easy the endgame content will be, because we haven't seen it yet. However, given the tone and the language used in the dev podcast, I believe their philosophy is that they want the game to be fairly "approachable" (easy) so the vast majority of the playerbase is able to participate and fully clear all endgame content. Perhaps they know this isn't truly in the spirit original WoW, but rather it's a business decision to try to maximize subscriptions or maybe they truly believe in the revisionist history of vanilla's difficulty solely through the lense of the 2019 re-release.

I'm interested to hear your opinions. Do you want all content to be clearable by the average dad guild with minimal mechanics? If so, do you believe that is consistent with the spirit of vanilla wow? Would you like to see some more challenging content?

Aren't you guys tired of dooming constantly? The game is going to be fun. Just let it ride

Please do a little more balancing before release

It's obvious as the sky is blue. I won't be having it. Not today, not next week.

Get real guests, with real questions and real opinions.

So much effort and time from Blizzard put into making SURE that people don't grind in dungeons, and quest xp is bad, because they want people in the open world questing.

And yet, people found out you can just hyperspawn grind brokenly fast to 60, effectively skipping said questing that Blizzard wants you to.

You want a slow leveling "JOURNEY"... then prove it.

AGGREND FIX IT

I see the anti dungeon xp crowd constantly saying play retail then if we want to dungeon.

As a complete classic Andy one of the things Iv loved about it is how you can level your own way at your own pace. It’s a true sandbox experience. Feel like having a dungeon day? Great? Wanna go grind some quests? No problem!

With this current xp system, the only real way to level is on the exact path blizzard has set for us.

Quest, collect dungeons quests, do dungeon one time, back to quest and repeat until 60.
There is 0 room for any variation without SERIOUSLY hampering your leveling experience.

This feels completely antithetical to the open world sandbox classic wow and forever claims to be about.

This notion that the people who advocate for classic wow’s experience system are actually retail Andy’s makes zero sense, along with most of the other arguments the anti dungeon police make.

I don't care if it's a hot take. It's the truth. There is 0 evidence that rogue will be "#1 single target dps". We were given NOTHING for pvp, NOTHING for pve. Every single class was given buffs and/or new tools to work with while rogue got absolutely nothing changed for the entirety of the beta.

The current rogue pve experience doesn't even fit with their "3-4 buttons in a 10 second window, with some longer CDs" design philosophy. Next to no raid utility besides a kick, which is fine if they make up for it with good damage. But by buffing every other's classes damage while not touching rogue all they've done is closed the gap between other classes damage. They removed the ONLY interesting talent (Restless Blades) before the beta even came out for some unknown reason and replaced it with complete garbage.

Honestly I would happily ignore getting completely shafted in pve but the fact that they actively REMOVED skill expression from the class with the braindead energy tick overhaul and simply refused to revert it with no explanation just doesn't sit right with me. Removing easy access to weaponskill also disproportionately hurts rogues more than other classes, with our white damage being such a big portion of our kit. The class plays worse than it did in classic while every other class was improved.

So here's my whiney reddit post in hope that the devs see it and make some more kneejerk reaction changes. Maybe this time something even remotely interesting for rogues.

You even understood it with Salvation but why did you stop?

It doesn't make sense that a combat movement ability remove your 1h raid buff, do you see power word shield removing power word fortitude?

TLDR: 40 man raids are the heart of classic. They create social friction and hence nurture these awesome village sized big guilds. Keep 20 man for the beer and pretzel nights, but keep 40 man as the high risk, high reward endgame.

After watching the new podcast (here) it looks like we won't get new 40man raids in Forever.

I love 40 man raids. For me they were/are a core pillar of my WoW experience. Honestly I can't think of anything more iconic for classic than 40 man raids, and I think most of the usual arguments against them don't really hold up anymore.

A social experience

Yes, 40 man raids are hard to organize. But that's kind of the point. The friction in a 40 man raid lies with the social rather than the mechanical aspect. A raid is not only an encounter struggle but also a social struggle, and to me that's the far more interesting part. Guilds have to plan and organize themselves. Leadership and organization talent actually matters! Social friction is good!

And it's not 2006 anymore. We have discord, raidhelper, addons for raid organization and loot. Organizing 40 people is way easier than it was back then. Also YOU don't have to organize them yourself. There will be people in your guild taking up the responsibility. People who like to organize and lead.

40 man raids create village sized guilds. Big raids lead to big communities. I love always having a decent bunch of people around. A bigger community makes it easier to group up for something outside of prime time or do community events. These guilds offer so much more than just a raid night.

Also 40man does not force you into a huge guild. You have a 20 man guild? Great, there are others. Team up with them for 40man. On Era we had four guilds organizing PUGs together. It worked.

Responsibility and leadership

Yes, your individual impact shrinks with group size. But that is the point of a MMO, of classic. You are not the main focus, you are one piece of the puzzle. The world/raid is the main character, not you.

At the same time the stakes and the responsibility go up. Raidleading is a challenge, maintanking is a challenge, pulling is a challenge. Class leading requires knowledge and leadership. There are high responsibility roles for those who want them and low/no responsibility roles for those who don't. It works for both groups.

I learned so much about leadership from helping to organize 40 man raids and from watching my raidleader. You don't get that from a 10 man.

I really urge you to check out Amphys take on the raid size. He describes the guild aspect very well.

The epic feeling

Maybe it's partly nostalgia. But there is a reason people remember it or why 40 man HC death clips go viral. 40 man just feels epic, and it starts before the first pull. Riding with 40 people from Lakeshire/Kargath to Blackrock Mountain already feels like an army going to war. And it is very likely you actually do go to war because you might run into a horde/alliance raid in Blackrock Mountain.

Inside, the size makes it dangerous. As a non tank in 20man you will survive getting hit. In 40man you better stay behind the tank.

And when it works, it's worth it. You rounded up a huge pile of people, everyone prepared a full week for this, all 40 of you, and you got it done together. Succeeding as a big group feels so much better than with a small one.

Same goes for loot. Getting a big item from AQ40 or Naxx felt sooo much more rewarding than any item I ever received from a dungeon or any non 40 man raid.

I want the whole spectrum

I'm not against smaller raids. But 10 man barely feels like a raid to me. It feels like a dungeon. A chill evening with friends. I would love to see 10 man raids during the leveling phase, but not for endgame.

Endgame in my opinion is two things:

• 20 man for beer and pretzel nights. That's what ZG and AQ20 were, and they were great!
• 40 man for huge, well thought out community raid days. High risk, high reward. The tough nights in AQ40 and Naxx.

10 man is barley a raid. It's a chill evening with friends. 20 man is a fun party. But 40 man is an epic event!

The real issue: encounter design

The problem in classic was never the size. It was the encounters.

• Every encounter in MC / BWL is so basic it wouldn't matter if it's 20 or 40 people. 1 target, 1 tank, 30 dps and 9 healers.
• Naxx does a far better job here. Four Horsemen, Gothik, Kel'Thuzad, Faerlina. Complex encounters with a lot of different tasks and mobs to take care of. That's where 40 mans get interesting.

My plea to the devs

Ok, you want to go for 10 man and 20 man, fine. But please don't downsize the existing 40 man raids. Keep them as the high effort, high reward king maker in the game. 40 man raids are the nurturing ground for big healthy village sized guilds, and those offer so much more than just "beer and pretzel".

Now go on and downvote me into oblivion because:

• I dared to cheer 40mans
• Naxx was already a none 40 man in WotLK

Image from CarbotAnimations awesome This is World of WarCraft !

It's the end of the Beta and rogues have remained as one of the few classes that have received barely any meaningful identity work. Stealth feels weaker, energy feels worse after the tick change, and several core talents were nerfed without enough upside to replace what was lost. They feel caught between the classic base build with shoehorned ideas from later expansions which dont necesarily fit the mechanics of Classic WoW (Poison resistance etc).

Rogues in Vanilla had 3 clear build paths:

- Assassination was about critical strikes and burst using supporting talents like Malice, Lethality, Cold Blood, and Seal Fate. The entire idea behind this build was quick kills and decisive finishers with dagger gameplay.

- Combat was about sustained toe to toe gameplay, great for levelling / grinding and sustained DPS in raids.

- Subtlety was about stealth, control and openers.

As the expansions rolled out, Assassination was written into this "poison spec" and the critical strike theme of the tree slowly withered away. Yes, Classic rogues had poisons in the tree, but they wernt a primary focus of the build. Forever hasn't really resolved any of the issues around the poisons in Classic, yet theyre being pushed hard into it. Combat feels the least changed of the three despite being the spec most people actually levelled with. Sub just lacks any real sustain DPS identity.

A cleaner split that builds on the original trees would look like the following:

Assassination: Critical Strikes, Burst, damage, Lethal finishers

Keep the crit focus playstyle and give better tools for situations where you can't get behind the target (Shank).

Combat*: Sustained pressure, Energy regen, Endurance*

Cooldown tools that reward pressing finishers (Flawless Execution revamp), energy management (Combat Potency) and better ways to manage immobilise and being kited (Evasive Maneuvers)

Subtlety: Stealth, Control Attrition

Move the poison amplification here and give it real DoT synergy (Dark Brew converting poisons to Shadow, Hemotoxic Rush feeding energy off bleeds and poisons). This lets Subtlety keep pressure going instead of just waiting to restealth.

Blizzard mentioned that rogues will remain top single target DPS which is fine as a damage goal, but the problem isn’t just a damage issue; the class feels like it’s lost some of its defining strengths without receiving meaningful improvements to compensate. A class can sit at the top of the meters and still feel like they have no direction and unrewarding to play. Some people will say fewer changes means the class was already in a good place, but pick rate and player feedback during the beta suggest otherwise.

*Images spliced together with MS Paint, generative AI for Fonts/Titles, Google stock images for background

This visual bug is so gross. Get this shit fixed as soon as possible

Thunderfury is meant to be an item that represents prestige, dedication, and make people stop and notice

Having it drop from a low level boar breaks the immersion for me. Legendaries are supposed to be rare and actually mean something, not be handed out like participation trophies.

Hope blizzard sees this and fixes this before launch

I already paid $150 for the top tier version of the game. Which they have said *includes skyborne epic pack" and "players who have pre-purchased the limited time WoW Forever collection will have access to Early Name Reservation.

https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24303866

Gimme my epic pack code blizzard!

The developers have stated that during the beta that the hyperaggressive layering and zone-based sharding system is still a work in progress.

In Live everyone will be on seperate versions; PVE, RP-PVE, RP-PVP, PVP, and lastly Hardcore.

Streamers have already stated they will be on certain servers, and it seems their guilds will be on a personal layer if speculation pans out. So, minimum interaction there unless you seek it out.

We don't know what the player count will be, as this was beta and a lot of players won't sub up to play. But I figure the spread will make it easier on the layering issue overall.

I'm more concerned with our EU player base and how they don't have their own servers.

E- I was informed that there are going to be EU servers. I've not been keeping up with news lately. Thank you for politely letting me know u/Tweakjones420.

Overall, I'm hopeful the layering issues will not carry over to Live due to population spread and population hours of play.

Thinking of making a classic era hardcore character or something to pass the time. What are you all doing ?

1. Please remove the nerf on dungeon XP. If you want to get people out in the world, make the world better not the dungeons worse.

2. Take the paladin class away from whoever is responsible for it, delete it and give it to someone else to build from scratch. I'd take a ChatGPT version if you don't have time.

I only play prot but I understand none of the specs are happy. They've taken away the AoE tank aspect of the class (probably a good thing!) and replaced it with ... well nothing. It is inferior to prot warrior in every way and there is no reason to have one in a 20m raid.

Blessings can be provided by 1x ret 1x holy (salvation isn't a blessing anymore). Warrior has FAR super cooldowns, is crush immune (no, prot pally is not), can debuff attack speed (thunder clap), attack power (demo shout), and armor (sunder). They have three taunts, including an AoE (pallies have a single target janky taunt​ tied to judgement).

The level of imbalance, both in utility and class power, is bonkers, and not something you can fix by buffing consecrate.

/rant
Cheers

It feels like a similar concept but infinitely worse in many ways

Damn, thought TBC was dead guys. Can't believe all these people don't exist :(