Pretty much all World of Warcraft players can recollect a moment from the game’s past that left an indelible mark on them and forged their deep-seated love for the world of Azeroth. It’s one of those personal moments — epically gargantuan or infinitesimally small — that resonated with them in a very special way. I’d say that this is true of any long-time fan of the game who’s stuck around for all its highs and lows. No matter how disillusioned we might grow with the game at times, we’re always logging back on in hopes of chasing down those ethereal feelings of nostalgia and wonder.
What idyllic memory earned a special place in my heart? It’s undeniably the early days of the Burning Crusade expansion and, specifically, my guild’s thwarted attempts at taking on the challenges of Karazhan. My guild at the time was a ragtag crew of people from all walks of life. Most of us were brand new to the game. So, well…you can likely imagine the sheer quantity of turmoil we experienced when we stepped into that raid for the first time.
I think I speak for everyone from those early days of the game when I shout to the heavens how absolutely replete Karazhan and Deadwind Pass were with atmosphere. The zone and raid could not have done a better job at exuding a sense of dread. A dreary, gray haze hung over the whole landscape. The trees were lifeless husks of cracked wood and cobwebs. And the castle itself was a fossil. You could tell it hadn’t been inhabited in ages, at least by anything that was still considered alive.
As for the raid itself, well, that place will continue to haunt my memories for many years to come. We spent way too many aimless nights in that dilapidated, magic-blasted caste of pain and suffering. I distinctly remember our crew wiping over and over for weeks on Attumen the Huntsman. How did we not disband right there and then? It was purely through the miracle of goodwill, laughter, and camaraderie.
As mentioned before, none of us were super-skilled players at the time. We were barely ever venturing online to research battleplans or stat priorities. You can actually say we were sort of treating the game like a sandbox MMO at the time, because we were constantly tinkering with absurd ideas and, generally, we were just playing very loosely with the rules. We learned how to overcome the bosses through sheer dogged desire to see what other horrors could be found within the stone walls of Karazhan. Most of our strategies were catastrophically awful to put it nicely. And our raid crew was lopsided because we were overflowing with mages and hunters yet had almost no melee damage dealers. Despite all of those limitations, we still managed to progress along by the seat of our pants.
It also really helped that none of our guild members really had competitive aspirations back then. We had no concept of time. Karazhan was our playground, and we were more than happy to spend as many hours in there as needed to move forward.
I still have such idyllic memories of farming reputation with Thrallmar for the sole purpose of obtaining the Stormcaller sword for my warlock. It was an excessively long and arduous grind for me back then, and yet it was also so rewarding. The sword gave my character a massive boost of power that carried my damage numbers through months of our raid progression. It was nice that all of my guild members also weren’t pushing me to grind the reputation faster. Every moment of progress was taken one slow, leisurely step at a time.
All of this added up to an experience that was truly enthralling. We knew nothing of the lore and history of Karazhan. It was ours to unearth and discover. The atmosphere was oozing with spooky vibes. The art team slammed the ball out of the park yet again with their assets; every little step into the ruined, mildewy halls of the castle brought you another level closer to insanity. And we never looked anything up, so it always felt like we were getting lost in the raid and scrambling to find secrets and shortcuts which made it feel so alive.
We also weren’t fretting about the whole process of min-maxing our classes. Instead, we just appreciated them for all their uniqueness and utility. If we were ever stuck on a boss, then there was usually a reputation we could grind or some profession materials we could gather to obtain the edge we needed. The sweeping vistas of the Outlands were our oyster, and we were free to luxuriate in them while accruing the experience and power needed to tackle our biggest obstacles.
Can you say that our experience with the raid was a relic of the time? Was it an elusive feeling of adventure, novelty, and learning that we’ll never get back? Are we being too sentimental if we dwell on those old memories of the game? And, most vitally, is there any way we’ll ever be able to evoke those emotions again in the current state of the game?
It’s definitely a two-pronged answer.
It is true that the game has naturally lost some of those exhilarating aspects of exploration, discovery, and community. This can be viewed as a natural progression of things as the player base has matured, access to information has skyrocketed, and the general philosophies of the game have evolved. A lot of the old-school systems have also either been pruned to a simpler state or expunged entirely in order to better balance the end-game content. There’s also the fact that the social aspect of the game has been diminished by various quality-of-life features such as the dungeon finder.
In general, itemization has been streamlined. Professions have been simplified. The need for guilds and socialization has been minimized. And the general vertical progression of the game has mostly remained the same.
Does this mean the game is a shell of its former self and our love for it has faltered? No, of course not! We simply found new things to cherish about it.
The newer raids are constantly raising the bar on art and encounter design. The new mythic-plus dungeon system is addictive and provides a great source of endless progression that allows players to demonstrate their mastery of the mechanics and the raw power of their characters. War Mode is an inventive, ingenious new contribution to the game which adds an incentive for more open-world engagement. The horizontal progression of the game has never been better, with a boundless collection of mounts, pets, titles, and achievements to collect. And there are usually a host of new features and systems to tinker around with every single expansion which helps to keep the game fresh and exciting. It really has a ton to love.
So why does it sometimes feel like our characters are stagnating and growing redundant? Why does the world feel so much less mysterious and compelling? Why do our classes sometimes feel a tad redundant and vapid?
The answers, for the most part, have to do with the system design of the game, including character progression, itemization, professions, and rewards. I’m also going to dabble in world design and world-building very briefly, along with a grander design philosophy for the tone of the game and its ultimate goals.
A lot of these revamps will be molded through the reference point of the Dark Souls trilogy and my own subjective opinions.
General Overview
Before getting started with all of my new ideas for the game, I think it’s imperative to absorb the fact that all of these sweeping changes are by no means comprehensive; these things in real game design would have to be iterated on extensively by a very adept crew of developers who possess that high-level knowledge of the game. All of these new systems and features would be in constant flux with the ever-changing design philosophy of the game as a whole. By the end of it all, I’m sure it all would have taken on a completely new form.
I’m also going to emphatically state that World of Warcraft is unabashedly my favorite video game of all time. The team of people who design the game are remarkable, passionate, and utterly wonderful. I’m incredibly elated with the game as a whole and will likely play it for as long as the servers are active. Just like any super fan, however, I’m always yearning for new ways to innovate and expand the game. I’m always trying to find new ways to rekindle those nostalgic sentiments from the halcyon days when Azeroth was so fresh and exciting for me and my friends. All of my rambling below comes from a place of idolization for the game, and nothing that’s critical has any negative connotations whatsoever; instead, it’s just the natural act of me taking the things I already love and imagining them in an even better form.
I’ll also state that while you’re reading through all of my ideas, it’s essential to keep in mind my definition for what an MMORPG really is at its core. We can form this definition by breaking the MMORPG acronym into two parts:
MMO: Competition, Cooperation, Community
RPG: Progression, Customization, Immersion
In my opinion, while contemplating all of these pillars, it’s pretty easy to discern that World of Warcraft is lacking in the “RPG” ones a lot more than the “MMO” ones. This is partly because of the focus on competitive end-game content, like raiding and arenas, where all of the classes are expected to perform within a certain range of each other. If too many systems are stacked on top of the class design itself, then we’re trapping ourselves in the design quagmire of having too many “levers” to pull for balancing. On the reverse side of the spectrum, simplifying the systems too much, such as the talents system, can make the classes themselves feel hollow and unengaging. In general, I’d say it’s necessary for there to be more evergreen systems in place that allow players to consistently evolve their characters, but with a ton of prudence placed on designing them in a way that avoids power-creep and bloat.
With all of that stated, let’s get started!
Class Design
The overarching, high-level vision I see for classes and their design would follow the incremental adjustments we’ve seen in Shadowlands. I’d continue to unprune more of their abilities across the board — every class would be individually scrutinized — in pursuit of a focus on “class fantasy” rather than “specialization fantasy.”
I’d also like to start expunging unnecessary abilities and spells for classes that cause too much homogenization among them. Every single class doesn’t need to have a way to heal themselves. A lot of the area-of-effect stuns need to be taken away from certain classes. And also, with this likely being my most controversial choice, I’d return to the way mana worked for all the caster classes before Cataclysm.
Let’s use the warlock class as an example. I’ll list some spells below that I believe should be shared across all three of the specializations.
Seed of Corruption: With “Corruption” now being available across all the specializations, I feel like this is an AOE spell that’s relevant to all of them, too. The fact that it spreads your corruption to other targets, along with the fact that it has burst potential, means that it wouldn’t be redundant alongside other AOE spells like “Rain of Fire” which are more about damage-over-time area denial.
Shadowburn: I feel it’s essential for all the specializations to have a form of execute in their rotation, along with a unique and situational way of generating more soul shards for themselves. Warlocks tend to be slow and methodical, so this would become one of their primary ways of occasionally getting “aggressive.” This would now be baseline rather than a talent for a single specialization. I’d balance this by significantly increasing the cooldown and adding a small cast time.
Firestone and Spellstone (Wrath of the Lich King Versions): I would add these for two reasons. They provide fun utility by allowing warlocks to “augment” their weapons to fit their preferred damage styles. Spellstones for damage-over-time. Firestones for burst spells. These also generally added great flavor to the class and weren’t intrusive at all.
There’s a whole array of other spells I’d want to unprune for warlocks across the board. Basically, however, for the means of brevity, I’ll just mention what my main design reasons are for bringing these sorts of spells back.
I want warlocks to have access to more types of spell damage, no matter their specialization. They should all be able to use some sort of chaos, fire, and shadow magic. The main reasoning behind this decision would be that I’m also planning to bring back the resistance stats. I’ll talk more about that in a section below. For now, however, just know that I think all warlocks should have access to more spell schools in order to better react to the situations they find themselves in.
The overall goal is for all the classes to feel more nuanced and distinctive. By focusing on the classes rather than the specializations, we can start to add and remove abilities from them to better solidify their own unique strengths, weaknesses, gameplay systems, and fantasies in the meta.
Talents
Talents form the backbone of customization for classes. It’s what allows the players to adapt their strategies on the fly and tailor their spells and rotations to their playstyles. In order for these to be as successful as possible, this system would need to be revamped in order to have a better combination of “gameplay altering” talents and “feel-good micro adjustments.” I’d like to meet both those goals by splitting the talents into two sections that would allow for more customization and control of your character.
These two sections would include the specialization talents and the class talents.
Class Talents:
These talents would be all about empowering and adding utility to the shared abilities between the three specializations of your class. It would closely resemble the old talent trees that were removed in Mists of Pandaria. The only difference is that there would only be one single tree rather than three. And that one single tree would be a lot wider, with more downward-leading paths than the original ones.
All players will receive one point for every level they gain, which can be used to dive deeper and deeper into the talent trees. This tree will mostly revolve around passive effects like making certain spells do more damage, reducing cast times, increasing the length of damage-over-time and crowd-control abilities, and so forth. All of the paths lead towards their own branch ends which have more impactful changes for a specific class-wide spell or ability.
After a certain number of points have been placed into your class tree, you’ll then open up a final row of passive attributes at the bottom which affect your character and their overall playstyle in various ways. These passive stats are shared by all the classes in the game and are highly generalist. You can choose to focus on just one attribute, or spread your points between all of them. Whereas the skills above were activated via points you got by leveling, these ones are spent by points you slowly accrue through patches and various end-game content activities. In other words, the amount of these points you get over time are static and are slowly drip-fed to the players through new content unlocks. This keeps the players ensnared with a sense of constant progression, while avoiding the negative feelings of a forced grind.
Passive Attribute Examples: movement speed increases, jump height increases, ability leech effects, fall damage reduction, health increases, mana regeneration, dodge chance increases, and so on.
The overall goal of these class talents would be to provide a wealth of incremental adjustments that players can make to reinforce the basic kits of their classes. This is a whole new way for the game to focus on class fantasy. Players can empower their favorite abilities to amplify the parts of their class fantasy that resonates with them the most.
The passive attributes at the bottom of the class talent tree will also provide a very steady and satisfying way for players to continually modify the overall tone and feel of their classes. For example, a warlock might choose to mostly invest in movement speed increases since, at their heart, they are a very slow and methodical class with a lacking amount of mobility. On the other hand, a demon hunter might choose to specialize in the leech attribute since their playstyle is so frenetic, and their meteoric attack patterns would harmonize very well with the passive health stealing.
Specialization Talents:
For anyone who’s been playing the game since Mists of Pandaria, these are going to be very familiar and there really isn’t a whole lot of stuff to talk about. The specialization talents will still be row-based, with three choices per row.
With these talents now, however, we’d need to analyze all of them from the bottom up with a new design philosophy in mind. We’re now focusing on class fantasy over specialization fantasy, so the idea is that we’ll be making these much more focused. The specialization talent should feel like an extension of your base class kit. I’ll give a few examples of this down below with the warlock class.
Affliction Warlock: These talents would revolve around increasing the potency or utility of curses and damage-over-time spells. You might get a few new curses here and there, but the majority of the emphasis would be placed on adding new mechanics and power to shared spells like “corruption.”
Demonology Warlock: These talents would mainly focus on adding extra layers of utility and passive effects to the basic demons that all three of the specializations have. You’ll also gain synergy bonuses for each of the demons that empower the warlock’s base kit in various ways when they’re summoned or sacrificed. The overall focus of this specialization would be to make the demons an overall more integral part of the warlock’s rotation and gameplay beyond the one single utility ability they usually have, like “Seduction” and “Spell Lock.” Ordinary spells like “Shadow Bolt” will also gain more mechanics.
Destruction Warlock: These talents would mainly focus on augmenting the warlock’s main burst damage spells. It’ll add more passive effects and mechanics that allow spells like “Soul Fire” and “Shadowburn” to shine.
I know all of those descriptions are super vague. The essence of the new philosophy for these talents is that they’re focused on adding passives, bonuses, and new mechanics to spells that are shared among the warlock class as a whole. An affliction warlock might occasionally use “Soul Fire” if they need some fire damage in their rotation, but their “Soul Fire” will never have as much power and synergy with their general rotation as a destruction warlock.
An example of adding synergy would be something along these lines: “Soul Fire” simply does large-scale fire damage for an ordinary warlock. A destruction warlock, however, would have the extra utility of “Soul Fire” combusting when used alongside their “Immolate” spell. Which basically means it would do extra damage immediately for however much damage-over-time is left on the “Immolate” spell at the time of impact.
I will, however, still want to keep certain spells specific to their specializations. Things that are extremely emblematic of their specialization — Chaos Bolt for destruction and Hand of Gul’dan for demonology — will be unlocked only for people who choose that route.
The Goal of the New Talent and Class Design Philosophy
With all of these changes, I would be hoping to open up more doors that allow classes to embrace the gameplay mechanics that make them unique. As it stands right now, each specialization is basically its own class, which can sometimes make balancing all of them a nightmare. When you have 36 classes in the game, it’s not unlikely that things will start to get a bit muddled.
When you cut that down to just 12 classes, the “design levers” become a lot more balanceable. Now we can really focus on the strengths and weaknesses of each class as a whole along with their unique forms of utility and flavor.
Let’s try breaking a few classes down into some of their most intrinsic, deep-seated gameplay and fantasy features:
Paladins — They are the slowest class in the game, but they make up for it with their inimitable resilience. They have a boundless supply of passive and active utility for protecting themselves and others. Auras, Seals, and other forms of utility should be a huge part of their playstyle which generally feels more passive than other classes.
Warlocks — They are supposed to be the hardiest of all the casters. They’re slow, but they make up for it with built-in passive shielding. They also tend to be more dynamic and reckless than other casters because all of their bouts of power tend to come with drawbacks, such as health depletion, movement slows, and demon sacrifices.
Mages — They are the glass cannons of the casters. Their health pools and defenses are very low, making them brittle, but they come with a diverse array of strategic tools to overcome that weakness. Mages are also built around group-wide convenience elements such as portals and food.
I’m basically aiming to delve into the gameplay qualities that make these classes noteworthy, and then the goal is to dial the uniqueness of those qualities up to eleven. All of these classes should have positives and negatives. That’s the main idea of a role-playing game; in no circumstance should it ever be okay for every single class to perform within the same ballpark of damage and success for every situation.
An environment like this, where classes are more idiosyncratic and dynamic, could be greatly compounded in a negative way if other areas of design such as encounter and world design aren’t also constructed with the new philosophies in mind. We’d never want to have a raid tier, for example, where mages are underperforming on every single boss. All classes should have a place to shine in both instanced and non-instanced areas. And all classes should never be shunned simply because of their damage output, because the plan is for all classes to also have unique group-wide utility they bring that no other class can touch.
Itemization
World of Warcraft has always been a game that’s focused on vertical progression as its main trick for absorbing its player base; we’re all very acquainted with the loot treadmill concept, where we’re constantly seeking higher item levels in a continuous circle of ever-climbing raid and dungeon difficulty.
It’s a simple concept, but it’s also very perennial in that it clicks directly into the competitive foundation of our minds. A new goal is always materializing just ahead of us in World of Warcraft, with new raid tiers and higher item levels, which makes us constantly yearn to be the best player on the server.
This sort of vertical gearing progression can run into a few problems, however, and there are some deep flaws that have formed over the years to make the ritual of gearing a whole lot less engaging than it used to be.
Let me quickly identify what I see as the most conspicuous problems for gearing and itemization in the current iteration of the game.
Problem 1
The first conundrum is the possibility of player burnout from the constant pursuit of new gear and items. As it stands now, the system is built with a lot of inherent RNG aspects, such as tertiary stats and gem slots that may or may not be on the item, along with the fact that there’s always an incremental item level boost just around the corner.
All of these randomized elements we find on armor now have basically nullified the joy of stumbling upon a best-in-slot gear piece.
One of the biggest incentives for grinding for armor back in the days of The Burning Crusade was the fact that you would acquire prizes that empowered your character for many months to come. Sometimes, your character would even stumble upon a piece of gear that would last through multiple raid tiers in the same expansion.
This felt highly rewarding.
Now, however, your items will usually be haphazardly swapped a dozen times throughout the current raid tier, and by the time the next tier releases you’ll swap it out yet again with the first new item you acquire. This is because an item with a higher item level will always be better than one with a lower item level.
Are you wondering why a raw item-level increase is always better? That’s actually due to the second central problem I see, which I’ll talk about briefly next.
Problem 2
A lot of the quirks and eccentricities have been thoroughly worked out of the gear pieces throughout the expansion releases.
The most essential part of any gear piece is now the primary stat — strength, agility, intellect — which also dictates the item level of the gear that stat is found on. A huge swathe of the old secondary stats have been expunged or rolled into existing primary stats.
This has created a very insipid environment for gearing in the modern version of the game. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that gear no longer has any unique procs or effects on them to set the items apart from each other.
The basic formula for gearing in the modern version of the game is this:
Highest Primary Stat + Best Two Secondary Stats for Your Class = The Better Item
This streamlined gearing process has made the implementation of the “loot treadmill” a lot easier for the developers, but it’s also come with the cost of making the players’ choices less meaningful and unique.
How to Improve the Itemization
In order to add more complexity and distinction to items, I’d plan to diminish the overall power of the primary stats while greatly expanding the secondary stats and additional effects of all the armor in the game.
At the same time, I would like to add a new “Legacy Armor” system that allows the game to maintain the gearing complexity throughout each expansion and that sense of achieving a best-in-slot item, all while avoiding power and ability bloat in the game as it continues to grow and evolve.
I’ll discuss both of those things below.
The primary stats — strength, agility, intellect — will once again see the glorious return of spirit alongside them. Strength, agility, and intellect will once again be treated as stats that offer a generalist boon for your class, but they won’t be the go-to stats anymore for pure damage increases.
Strength: Attack Power, Health Regeneration, and Defense.
Agility: Attack Power, Health Regeneration, and Dodge.
Intellect: Spell Power, Health Regeneration, and Mana Regeneration.
Spirit: Mana Regeneration.
The reasoning behind the return of spirit is the return to the way mana worked before the changes in Cataclysm. This created a much more dynamic sort of environment where there were tradeoffs between playing melee and ranged. It won’t just be arcane mages who are dealing with mana as a resource anymore.
Alongside spirit, a whole supply of new and old secondary stats will be making their return to armor in the game.
Attack Power — This stat can once again be found on items and weapons and offers a significantly bigger boost to your melee damage than either strength or agility.
Spell Power — This stat can once again be found on items and weapons and offers a significantly bigger boost to your ranged damage or healing than intellect.
Resistance — A very situational stat for alleviating a variety of different magic damages such as nature, fire, frost, arcane, and shadow. I’d also like to add holy as a new resistance category for the future.
Defense — A stat to help you reduce physical damage while improving your ability to block, dodge, and parry.
Armor Penetration — Allows the players to bypass a certain percentage of armor with their attacks and spells.
Spell Penetration — Allows the players to bypass a certain percentage of resistances with their spells.
Armor — Reduce physical damage.
Stamina — Increases health.
Attack Speed — Increases the speed of your auto-attacks. Only matters for melee classes.
There are two other stats I would add to the mix, but I’d like to quickly mention a few of the reasons for bringing these ones back.
Spirit just makes the game more dynamic in general. Ranged classes tend to have the upper hand in confrontations, but they’re limited by the amount of mana they have left. Spirit adds a new element to armor where they’re constantly choosing between more power through other stats or the added combat longevity of more mana.
The return of attack and spell power also adds another interesting element of choice to the process. Those two stats are pure damage increases, but items with more of those will usually come with the tradeoff of having less of a primary stat. So, players are constantly deciding between being more well-rounded or a glass cannon.
Having the defense and resistance stats back allows the players to customize themselves to withstand more damage from certain classes. This can create a lot of interesting strategies in both PvP and PvE. We can also bring back elemental magic damage in raids as a big mechanic again, where players are constantly choosing between taking less magic damage of a certain type at the cost of losing out on other things like damage output.
The resistance stat also thematically ties the gear items to the zones and places they’re found in, which really helps to distinguish the pieces and make them more meaningful. We all remember gear from Wailing Cavers, for example, because of all the nature resistance you’d find on it. The same goes for fire resistance gear from Molten Core.
Armor and spell penetration, of course, make a return because they allow players to counter other players with high resistances and defense. A rogue, for example, might want to invest in armor penetration if they foresee themselves going toe-to-toe with a lot of plate wearers in PvP with high armor like paladins and warriors. A mage, on the other hand, who always seems to struggle with fighting against warlocks in battlegrounds, might choose to equip a plethora of different shadow resistance items in the hope of gaining an edge over them.
All of these stats allow you to really customize your playstyle. You can choose to have more health. You can choose to have a more sizable pool of mana from which to fling your spells from. In contrast, you can choose to be a glass cannon with some absolutely cataclysmic attacks that wreak havoc on your opponents’ armor. And finally, you can choose to build up your immunity to certain forms of damage in order to flourish in certain areas of the world or certain situations better than other players.
With all of the above stated, I would be removing one secondary stat that we have in the current version of the game: versatility. I find this stat redundant alongside the reintroduction of defense and resistance. I also just think that versatility accomplishes too much for a single stat, increasing both damage and survivability, which makes it very bland. Gearing will feel a lot more varied and meaningful with this one gone.
The Dark Souls Influence on Stats
But wait, there’s more! I’d also like to add two entirely new stats to weapons and gear that are directly inspired by the Dark Souls trilogy:
Weight — All armor will now come with a number describing how heavy it is. The bigger the number, the heavier the piece of gear is. A certain set of plate armor, for example, might come with an inordinate amount of defense and stamina, but it’ll certainly weigh a lot more than a piece of cloth armor. The total accumulation of weight your character has from their armor will affect their base movement speed by a certain percentage amount.
Weapon Scaling — This is a stat that will only be on weapons. And it’ll function as a way of turning the resistance stat into something more offensive. All weapons, much like Dark Souls, will have an emblem at the bottom that shows their tier ranking– “S” being the best and “E” being the worst–for each of the resistance types and how it scales with all of them. The weapon will then convert some of the resistance you have from your armor into damage you inflict with your attacks and spells. So, a weapon with “A” scaling in fire will naturally convert a huge amount of your fire resistance stat into fire damage. The ultimate goal behind the introduction of weapon scaling would be to give the resistance stat more overall importance in the grand scheme of things beyond its normal niche purposes.
Both of these stats add an interesting new way for the game designers to add new levers of balance to all the gear. A legendary sword, for example, might have an absolutely devastating proc effect for auto-attack hits, but that proc effect could be balanced by the heavy weight and slow attack speed of the weapon. This is a tradeoff.
It also boosts the thematic role-playing aspects of the game. Classes who choose to invest in plate armor should indeed be slower than those that are wearing cloth armor. And conversely, players who are wearing plate armor should feel more resilient and inexorable.
This brings us to yet another massive change I would be making with gearing and itemization: all classes should be able to wear all the different types of armor. Paladins can once again wear cloth armor like the old days. Mages can equip a piece of plate armor if they’re really yearning for a sort of “battle-mage” fantasy.
The vast majority of plate armor will revolve around stats that benefit melee classes, and cloth armor will generally focus on stats like spirit and spell power, but there will always be pieces of gear that occasionally break the norm and keep players on their toes.
Expunging the armor-type restrictions for classes would greatly expand the complexity of stat strategies for players while they’re gearing up. Let me list a few things below to show off my reasoning:
A paladin might choose to wear some cloth armor because it tends to have more spirit on it than plate armor, and he greatly prefers his healing spells over his melee attacks. And so, he’ll relinquish some of that sturdiness in pursuit of better healing capabilities. Now his rotation will focus more on spells, which cost mana, rather than melee abilities.
A warlock might choose to equip a plate chest piece because of the sheer quantity of defense and armor on it. She’s hoping to fully embrace the tanky aspect of playing a warlock and add more survivability against melee attacks at the cost of her movement and magic resistance. Maybe she’s even hoping to be a partial off-tank for a melee-centric boss fight in one of the current raid tiers.
A hunter might choose to festoon himself with cloth gear pieces instead of mail armor because he needs the extra spirit more than the extra defense. He leans towards attacks like Arcane Shot that tend to deplete his mana too quickly. Also, the cloth armor weighs less and will allow him to be even more elusive in combat.
In most cases, cloth armor will be better for casters like mages and warlocks and plate will be better for warriors and paladins, but I think it’s always smart to be malleable with in-game design, allowing the players to make those optimization choices for themselves.
Procs, Unique Effects, and the Legacy Armor System
Procs and unique effects are stellar for two central reasons: they add strong thematic ties to the items which help them stand out, and they also make the gear and weapons feel more idiosyncratic in the way they shape and mold the gameplay.
An example of a thematic tie could be a sword that drops from Kel’Thuzad. Maybe it has a chance to proc a huge blast of frost with every auto attack that slows its victims’ move speeds by a certain percentage. Something like this adds distinction to the item itself, which helps to evoke stories and memories of it in the players’ minds. Kel’Thuzad is a Lich who’s commonly associated with frost magic, so you can see why a sword like this would be very pertinent as a drop from him.
These sorts of unique procs and effects should be more ubiquitous throughout the game. There are so many ways to add pizazz with them and create ingenious new gameplay loops and class and item synergies. This also has the caveat of opening a door to unforeseen combinations that are absolutely broken, but that’s why hotfixes are a thing.
The beautiful thing about tying all these procs and effects back to the gear again is that it’ll now be far more useful beyond just the tier it’s a part of. In certain situations, a proc might actually be more beneficial than a straight-up stat increase from another piece of gear. This means that the actual task of acquiring these gear pieces will be significantly more satisfying, because a lot of them will now be relevant throughout the whole expansion. Now players will once again feel like they’re amassing a collection of powerful treasures, rather than some nebulous upgrades they could replace within a week.
The real question, however, is how do we prevent all these effects and procs from growing unwieldy and amorphous over the progression of multiple expansion launches? We all remember those items from Vanilla WoW that were STILL best-in-slot as far as Wrath of the Lich King.
Typically, these were items with amazing effects that worked in absolute percentages, rather than arbitrary values translated to percentages through mathematical formulas which took into account the player level.
Another way to prevent the power creep and bloat would be the “Legacy Armor” system. In a nutshell, this system would simply label any armor from an expansion that’s being used outside of that expansion’s zones as legacy armor, which would then disable all the unique procs and effects in all other zones besides its original ones.
With this system in place, the design team would really be able to pursue the wacky and fun itemization of vanilla World of Warcraft, but without needing to fret about considering the interactions of all of the effects for every piece of new content they release. Also, this would really promote the sandbox nature of the open-world game because these effects would still be active in the zones they were found in. This means there could still be wildly unpredictable interactions and results in the areas where competitive end-game content isn’t currently the main focus.
It’s a lovely compromise. The overall game balance remains healthy, yet the players still feel like they’re getting to cling to the items and effects they worked so hard to obtain.
The Main Goal of These Itemization Updates
I want the gear to tell a story. I want the gear to have memories attached to it. Certain items and weapons should be evocative and timeless. You want the players to remember how hard they worked for these items. You want them to be proud of them. The main goal should be for the players to feel so sentimental about their gear that, even when not being actively used, they still keep the items locked away in their bank storage.
All of these new stats and effects allow the team to handcraft each batch of new items, which makes them feel more personal. It’s no longer just a randomized collection of two stats and a primary stat — numbers that don’t mean anything — but an actual piece of treasure for them to celebrate. Items can now have so much flavor and personality. All of these secondary stats and effects can be used to give a sense of place and tell a story. Since gear and vertical progression are the single most central part of World of Warcraft, it’s vital that we find ways to enkindle more emotions in the players through that system. This is what will allow them to truly spiral into their characters and embrace the role-playing aspect of the game.
World Design
A well-designed world in a video game should appear expansive and diverse, with new mysteries jutting out in every direction, but it should also be very deliberate, tight, and cohesive in the way it’s all connected.
Zone Geography and Spacing
World of Warcraft zones, for me, were at their most inspiring and powerful back in Wrath of the Lich King and Mists of Pandaria.
These expansions did a few things very well with their zone designs.
They utilized wide-open spaces in their designs which gave the players room to breathe while traversing them. In a zone like Valley of the Four Winds you could wander off the path without accidentally stumbling into a small army of enemies. The same goes for a zone in Wrath of the Lich King like Dragonblight; a player could stand on a mountaintop there and gaze for miles at the frozen, cracked earth diffusing out in all directions.
There are multiple benefits to having these wide-open spaces in design, which have slowly dwindled as the game started to move towards more dense, action-packed zones with future expansions. The first point is that these expansive areas that are easy to navigate put the player in a more relaxed mood. People are more inclined to explore and savor the landscape when they aren’t running into enemies and geographical barriers with every step. This means they’ll naturally take the content at a slower pace.
What’s so auspicious about players moving through the environments more methodically and leisurely? You’ll be able to scatter more hidden secrets, rares, and treasures throughout the zone for them to find, and they’ll stumble upon them in a more organic way. Rather than being funneled into areas with treasure through barriers and enemy placement, the players will stroll about and discover the content at their own pace.
You see this sort of trend in Dark Souls. The environments, although treacherous and gloomy, teach the player to maneuver in a slow, deliberate way. Some of the most indelible areas in the game are also the most open. Ash Lake is an area in the first game that you reach after climbing down an enemy-clogged tree. At the bottom you’re greeted with idyllic, sweeping vistas and a huge lack of enemies. It’s quiet. That lack of sound induces a sense of enchantment and calm, promoting an environment the player wants to linger in.
This is smart game design. Having this sort of wide-open space allows the players to really take the content at their own pace. Most players will generally just stand around and fall into a trance while exploring. In other words, it creates immersion. And that immersion induces feelings of contentment and joy.
By offering these spaces of respite and calm in future zones, the developers can technically get more bang for their buck, too. Players will inherently be more likely to luxuriate in these zones more often and return to them time and time again. We won’t see as many AFK players camped near mailboxes in the nearest city.
The spacious geography also has the positive effect of augmenting the awe and majesty of set pieces in the zone. All of the flat, rolling terrain in these older zones created natural sightlines that allowed the players to be cognizant of these landmarks from almost any area of the zone depending on their vantage point. These sightlines worked in a way that naturally guided the players and reduced navigational frustration. It also made the landmarks themselves more eye-catching. Would Wyrmrest Temple have been as resplendent if it were surrounded by a sea of mountains, towering trees, and buildings?
Probably not. There was something truly striking about the sight of this towering spire in the middle of a desolate, dreary snowfield. Any extra clutter around the temple itself would have made the vista too “busy.” And then, naturally, we would have focused on the ornamentation in the area rather than Wyrmrest Temple itself.
Compare that to another landmark in a Legion zone, Shaladrassil, a robust and mighty tree that’s supposed to be the centerpiece of the whole area. The terrain is so cluttered and gnarled that you can never really appreciate the sheer size of it.
Now you can compare Shaladrassil to an older tree in the game: Nordrassil. This one is located in a zone from Cataclysm, and the landscape surrounding the landmark is free of visual bloat. The sightlines are unobstructed, and there aren’t other environmental features competing with the tree for the players’ attention.
While looking at the two screenshots, you can really start to see how the terrain around these in-game landmarks dictates how mesmerizing and grand they appear to the players gazing at them. All of this has to do with the tone and “feel” of these zones and how they emotionally affect the players. It’s an abstract concept, hard to quantify, but it’s one that can be deduced through qualitative scrutinization.
Zone Layout
Another element that factors into good world design is the overall layout of the zone and the way the exploration and gameplay is paced. To discuss this one, I’ll be comparing two zones in the game side-by-side. One of these zones is outstanding in its layout principles, whereas the other one is flagrant with its negative qualities.
The first one we’ll be discussing is Storm Peaks, which is exemplary in every way you can possibly imagine.
This zone is meritorious in the way that it handles vertical design and open-ended exploration in such a visceral and epic way. It’s a place that’s brimming with nooks and crannies to explore and a whole deluge of lore to unearth, but it does it in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the player or frustrate them.
Most players will start their journeys at the K3 base camp in the southern-most portion of the zone. It’s a little ramshackle Goblin spot that’s located in a very flat area that’s super easy to navigate. The players are greeted with epic sightlines of the gargantuan Titan-forged mountains in the distance while questing. This is a great introduction for the zone because it’s easy for the players to navigate. And it allows the adventurers to get their bearings of the general landscape before adventuring into the mountains themselves.
Players are really able to pick their poison, per se, in regard to which directions they choose to trek towards from K3. You can trudge your way into cramped, claustrophobic caverns that are clogged with enemies. You can ascend the mountains themselves via treacherous, serpentine footpaths. Or you can remain out in the wide-open valleys that dot the zone between all its towering peaks.
Again, this is phenomenal design. The zone isn’t forcing the players into types of areas they loathe, and there are always alternative routes that fit their preferences. And also, the zone isn’t relentless when it comes to the areas that are more cluttered such as the caverns; there’s always another wide-open valley at the end of that tunnel, and there are other longer paths leading around the tunnel to get to that valley.
The players will be less disgruntled with the “challenge areas” of the zone when those places are the exception and not the norm. They don’t mind entering areas that are overflowing with enemies when they know they’ll eventually get to return to a wide-open space with time. That doesn’t really happen with a lot of the modern zones. Most of them are covered with cluttered, enemy-dense areas that are tightly woven around a multitude of quest-giver hotspots. There’s no room to breathe.
An example of a “challenge area” in the Storm Peaks would be the Engine of the Makers. It’s a cramped underground facility that was forged by the Titans. It’s enigmatic and bewildering. You feel claustrophobic while you’re down there. As the player descends into its murky chambers, they will feel a sense of anticipation and dread. And there’s also the fact that they’re constantly working their way downwards which means…they’ll need to find their way back up again eventually.
That all sounds terrible, right? It’s genuinely not though. Mainly because of the fact that the Engine of the Makers is surrounded by a big, beautiful, wide-open valley that will eventually offer them respite when they leave.
The Storm Peaks is also shrouded in mystery. And it accentuates this theme through the holistic layout design of the place. It’s built as a zone you’re supposed to continually ascend via vertical progression. This vertical progression is presented through clear sightlines that really guide the players. The monotony of mountains is always being broken up via wide-open spaces and occasional nooks and crannies like caverns and pits; all of this, of course, leads towards Ulduar, which is the beating heart of the zone. The towering opulence of the Titan facility is viewable from all over the Storm Peaks. As you continue to ascend the mountains all over the zone, you’ll see it time and time again. This makes it extraordinarily clear to the player that Ulduar is their primary goal.
Vertical level design tends to be very mystifying to players in the way it winds around and twists in on itself. This zone, however, is a masterpiece because it intersperses that verticality with sightlines and flatness in order to give the players a sense of reprieve from it all. The landscapes are varied and flow together congruously. It’s ingenious.
In contrast to everything stated above, we have the Antoran Wastes from Argus, which fully embraces all of the worst qualities a zone can have.
The only word I would ever use to describe this zone would be ‘muddled.’ The whole place is littered with crevices and impassable terrain. And to make matters worse, all of this unwieldly geography is crammed into a tiny space. As a player who’s traversing the zone, you’ll more than likely need to retrace your steps over and over in order to find the correct routes. There are multiple dead-ends, with absolutely no clear sightlines for signaling to you the proper directions.
You can break the Antoran Wastes into a series of linear walkways, but the entrances and exits of these walkways are obfuscated. This means you’ll be constantly falling into the wrong places, taking inadvertent detours, and just aimlessly wandering in hopes of stumbling upon the proper entrance for the route you need to take.
There’s also the fact that basically every inch of the zone is covered in bulky, end-game enemies with massive health pools and cataclysmic attacks. You can’t move around without aggroing several of them at once.
This turns the zone into an exhausting slog. There’s no respite from the near-constant action or the unwieldly terrain. All of which has the repercussion of turning this into a zone the player will want to work through as hastily as possible. No one’s going to linger in the zone or explore it beyond what they’re forced to do, which means it’ll be left feeling lifeless and depleted after just being out for only a few months.
The Antoran Wastes also made the huge blunder of having no clear landmarks for the players to work towards. Unlike Ulduar in the Storm Peaks, Antorus was never clearly visible to the players. The entrance of the raid simply camouflaged into the terrain of the zone. This had the effect of making the whole place feel unfocused. All of the players were left wandering, unsure of their objective or purpose.
The Hope for Future Zones
I’m really hoping that future zones will learn to take the well-paced, wide-open spaces of the old zones and evolve those concepts even further. I really do believe that the players need to have room to breathe in order to make the world-based gameplay have more longevity. We need easy-to-navigate terrain, along with specific areas that are imposing and scary. And we need clear sightlines. You never want the players to feel bewildered or exhausted.
I’m not saying every zone needs to be copy-pasted and follow these principles directly, either. Zones like the Maw are actually healthy for the game, and we should be tailoring zones to fit their lore and place in the world like that, but they need to be limited.
Once we have a nice zone balance and the players are more relaxed and willing to dawdle in these zones, then we can really start to steer the game into more of a sandbox-like nature. The open spaces can be filled with areas for socializing and trading. There’ll be more unique environmental interactions for profession components. The spacious areas of the zones can be suffused with more objectives and landmarks for world PvP through the War Mode system. We can have extreme challenge areas that are formidable for long durations of time until much later in the expansions when players gain the gear needed to conquer them. There can even be timed events and dynamic zone changes depending on the time of day or the current weather conditions.
Again, think of this in terms of Dark Souls. Why is the world of Lordran so captivating? One of the biggest reasons is that you can inadvertently stumble into areas you’re not leveled up for. The game isn’t forcing the player in these directions, but you are given the freedom to go into those areas if you desire. An example of this would be the Darkroot Garden. Players can access this zone very early in the game if they have the correct key for it. There’s a door in the Undead Burg that leads down into the garden. They’ll most likely die when they descend the stairs into the high-level zone, but just the fact that they can do it infuses them with so much curiosity. Doing things like this makes the world feel so alive.
If we treat the zones as a living, breathing space, rather than a theme park we’re meant to careen through in a single day, then we can even have less new zones being added to the game as a whole. Instead, the focus will be on large, immersive zones that perfectly complement the new sandbox approach of the game and give players a reason to linger in them.
With zones that focus on these qualities, we can start to steer the game towards long-term evergreen systems and sandbox design, rather than the more time-gated style of content we have at the moment.
Professions
Professions have had a few innovations over the last few years such as expansion-specific tabs in the interface and recipe ranks, but they’ve been largely neglected. At one point, professions used to be one of the primary sources of player investment in the game, a critical part of the ecosystem that drove huge swathes of the open-world engagement, social interaction, and server economy. They’ve lately been steered into more of a part-time side activity that doesn’t require much commitment or thought, but I would really love to put the whole system through a bit of a metamorphosis that brings it back to its old glory.
Let’s start with focusing on why I believe professions are so essential to the game as a whole. The biggest reason is that they’re one of the most effective ways to incentivize players to interact with the game world. Professions also have the positive effect of keeping players engaged with the game in-between all their primary activities such as instanced content and leveling. All of these crafting and gathering skills also function as an indelible part of player identity. It allows people to interact with and assist each other in indirect ways that go beyond combat. This really embraces the role-playing aspect of the MMORPG genre.
So, how do we return professions to their old glory?
The first thing I would do is appraise all the professions individually, looking for ways to bring back old specializations — Goblin versus Gnomish engineering — along with new ones to add diversity to the crafting and gathering paths. Professions really need to make use of the role-playing aspect of the game, and supplementing them once again with massive player choices like these adds the depth needed to elicit player immersion.
The next thing I’d really want to bring back for professions would be rewards and bonuses that are only available to the people that profession belongs to. Some of these bonuses in the past included gems that only Jewelcrafters could use and unique ring enchants for Enchanters. My goal would be to add meaningful incentives like these to every single profession in the game, including even the gathering ones.
A third and final focus for professions would be a renewed focus on scrutinizing the recipes for every profession to make sure they’re all versatile and play a stable role in the vertical player progression of the game. All of them should have something of value to contribute that never goes out of style.
One minor dynamic that I’d like to have for professions is that all of the professions should weave together in a way that induces collaboration. Enchanters will enchant ores that blacksmiths need to craft armor. Tailors will provide special threads to people with inscription for sowing armor patches. Jewelcrafters will emblazon diamonds onto anvils to empower a Blacksmith’s recipes. And the list just goes on.
I’ll go through every single profession one-by-one below and touch on the ways that all three of these design philosophies would apply them.
Jewelcrafting:
· Specializations — Armor Ameliorator and Weapon Ameliorator. The armor specialist covers a wider range of gems, typically red, blue, and yellow sockets, that are attached to all the armor. The weapon specialist deals with weapon and trinket gems that are typically much stronger and contain meta sockets.
· Unique Bonuses — Access to empowered gems only available to jewelcrafters. Gems no longer need to be placed in the correct slot color to obtain the socket bonus. Gems can be removed from sockets without being destroyed.
· Profession Role — Gems are purely about adding raw upgrades to players’ stats. Armor will now once again incorporate gem slots on a steady basis, giving jewelcrafters a far more consistent role to play in gearing. This will be the one and only profession that allows players to augment their stats.
Enchanting:
· Specializations — Charmer and Honer. The Charmer is responsible for all the enchants relating to ranged classes. The Honer is responsible for all the enchants relating to melee classes.
· Unique Bonuses — Access to empowered weapon enchants only available to enchanters. Increased chance for common greens and blues to drop from enemies out in the world and in dungeons.
· Profession Role — Enchants are all about adding new functional, dynamic effects to armor and weapons that adds utility. This sets it apart from gems which focus on raw stat increases. Examples of these sorts of effects include movement speed increases, damage increases against specific types of enemies, shielding procs, damage boosts to specific types of magic, and resistance increases.
Inscription:
· Specializations — Metamorphosis and Amenities. The metamorphosis inscription will focus on the cosmetic upgrades for classes. The amenities inscription will focus on miscellaneous convenience items such as reputation boosters, books for resetting talents, and trinkets.
· Unique Bonuses — They can have double the number of cosmetic glyphs equipped and don’t lose them when they swap them. They can rework two stats per piece of armor with their patches, rather than just one.
· Profession Role — Cosmetic effects for spells, mounts, and armor would be expanded to put this profession in hot demand. Inscription will be one of the main sources for allowing players to shape and mold their class fantasy. For example, a hunter could add black mist effects to their arrow abilities to transform the fantasy of their class into that of a Dark Ranger. Also, both specializations will have access to the ability to craft armor patches, which allow players to rework one secondary stat per piece of armor. This system would be similar to reforging and would be another way to make inscription very essential to the gear-progression loop of the game.
Engineering:
· Specializations — Gnomish and Goblin. The Gnomish specialization revolves around zany inventions that add spice and utility to the player’s in-game experience; this includes gadgets and gizmos for world teleports, speed increases, damage absorbs, temporary invisibility, and various forms of crowd control. This contrasts with Goblin engineering which focuses on damage items such as bombs. Goblin devices have the negative quality of sometimes self-combusting and damaging or killing the user.
· Unique Bonuses — Significantly reduced cost for armor repairs. Armor durability takes twice as long to break. The cooldown effect on most engineering items is reduced by half for the player.
· Profession Role — Along with their usual function of providing themselves and others with cool gameplay-enhancing knickknacks, this profession will also have another two services to provide that give it a consistent, indispensable role to play in the vertical progression of the game. Engineers will provide tools that allow players to upgrade the ranks of their crafted gear. This profession will also be able to engrave prismatic sockets into certain pieces of armor for other players. Given that they’ll consistently be in hot demand now, this profession will have a consistent way to make gold.
Alchemy:
· Specializations — Elixir Master, Potion Master, Transmutation Master. All three of these would work exactly like they did back in The Burning Crusade. Depending on which specialization you pick, you’ll serendipitously have moments where you receive double the amount of that item you’re concocting. Each specialization will also have one specific elixir, potion, and transmutation recipe that’s unique to them.
· Unique Bonuses — Alchemists will no longer have their potions and elixirs tied to the global cooldown, meaning they’ll still be able to rapidly cast spells and abilities directly after the consumption of one. Also, the cooldown between potion uses is also halved for all alchemists.
· Profession Role — Alchemy has always had great long-term profitability and viability, and the only thing I’d want to do would be to return to the complexity of the system back in The Burning Crusade. I’d love to see the return of more situational potions that revolve around things like resistance stats and temporary boosts of damage to certain types of magic. Also, along with this, a return to having more utility potions would be wonderful, like speed increases, water-walking, and potions that even temporarily reduce the cooldowns on class abilities. The wider breath of potions means that we’d have to really scrutinize all of them to make sure they’re balanced. All of them could be categorized into different levels of impact that dictate their cooldown lengths.
Leatherworking / Tailoring / Blacksmithing:
· Specializations — All three of these professions would once again have paths they can go down for crafting specific types of armor sets for various needs. A Leatherworker, for example, can choose to focus on the tribal, elemental, or dragonscale paths. The return of these specializations would coincide with the reintroduction of all the classes in the game being able to wear all the armor types.
· Unique Bonuses — Leatherworkers will inflict more damage to beast-type enemies. Tailors will inflict more damage to humanoid and elementals. And blacksmiths will inflict more damage to dragonkin and giants. All three of these professions also gain bonus armor for wearing their crafted gear.
Leatherworkers will have their role expanded alongside the newly overhauled mount equipment system. Mounts can now be individually customized, meaning that recipes for them will be in hot demand. The list of attributes that can be applied to the mounts will also be expanded. All sorts of things can be added, like trample effects, temporary speed boosts, jump heights, and daze resistance. This system could be evolved even further if mounts were to become a vital combat system. Health can be added to mounts, and new recipes could be introduced like armor for adding more health to your mount or stirrups that allow you to attack from your mount. All of these attributes would be deleted if removed from a mount, and ranks will be introduced over time, to keep this system profitable for the leatherworker.
Tailors will have a new system for crafting imbuing threads that allow them to convert half of the resistance from a piece of gear into another resistance. This will be a popular skill because it’ll allow players to further customize their resistance, which also makes the gearing process a lot less rigid. Now, for example, even if all the gear in a raid only contains holy resistance, players will still be able to work with tailors to alter and adjust their stats as needed. This gives all of the tailors a consistent area of importance in the vertical gearing of the game, along with adding even more complexity and viability to the resistance stat as a whole.
Blacksmiths will have an entirely new system, taken directly from Dark Souls, that melds with the new weapon scaling stat. Suffusion Stones are a new commodity they’ll be able to craft which transmute the scaling stats on weaponry. A holy suffusion, for example, will boost the effects of holy resistance scaling, but this will happen at the cost of dampening the physical damage of the weapon along with the way it scales with a couple of the other resistances. This new system would maintain blacksmiths’ importance in the vertical progression of the game while also reinforcing their thematic strength and fantasy.
The Grand Vision
World of Warcraft is one of those games that’s truly gleaming from end to end with potential and room for innovation. The development team has been indefatigable in their pursuit of evolving the game for the modern era and bringing it one step closer to perfection. We’ve gone from the more deliberate, slow-paced gameplay of the classic version of the game to the more rapid-fire, balanced gameplay of the current iteration. And there’s really no way that you can conclusively state that one approach is better than the other.
What if, however, the game really started to appraise each of these segmented philosophies from all of the past expansions, and we started adding them all back bit by bit in order to build the ultimate version of the game?
What if we bring back the RPG in MMORPG once again?
The broad vision I have for the direction of World of Warcraft is that it would once again embrace the turmoil of sandbox design. All of the classes will have their niches in the content of the game, places they thrive in or struggle, and the spotlight will be placed on their fantasies and idiosyncrasies. Ideally, players will no longer play classes solely because they’re the best in a current piece of content, because they’ll know that they’re within a dynamic world where these power balances are constantly shifting.
This brings us to itemization and gearing. The main reason I’d want to bring back complexity to gear is that it would allow players to customize their classes in ways that can overcome some of their shortcomings. Making micro adjustments to your character is what most people consider to be the bread and butter of a role-playing game. An example of this would be a mage who’s been dominating in battlegrounds with the rhythm of their high-burst playstyle. Their mana is depleted instantly through the whirlwinds of their spell onslaughts, but their opponents are generally defeated expeditiously enough to make this a viable strategy. In raiding, however, they find themselves coming up short; the bosses outlive the longevity of their mana bar, and their potions and passive mana regeneration are barely scraping by.
What makes this kind of system pleasurable? Well, to start with, it’s the fact that the mage will need to alter their playstyle and their gear for the type of content they’re trying to pursue. For a raid, this mage would need to reinforce themselves with gear that revolves around spirit instead of intellect and spell power. That’s a micro adjustment they’ll have to make in their mind while playing. The beauty of this system is that the mage will likely develop the habit of forming gear collections for different types of gameplay. That feeling of amassing treasures is something we’ve lost in the current iteration of the game. If you combine this with the fact that gear now serves a purpose over a much longer duration of time, where it’s not simply dependent on the item level and primary stat, then you’ll notice that the act of gearing has transformed into something rewarding.
Some people might counter this by saying that highly complex gear created unforeseeable interactions that were ruinous to the game’s balance. I would agree that what they’re saying is partially true. Those interactions, however, were really the heart and soul of what made the game so compelling back then; people didn’t mind those absolutely bonkers interactions, because they enkindled a form of theorycrafying and excitement in the player’s routines. It was so fun to feel like a mad scientist in the old days, mixing gear and talents to form new combos and tricks. The most egregious of balance issues can always be remedied through hotfixes, but I think a certain amount of turmoil is very healthy.
And just to reiterate, all this would be controlled via the “Legacy Armor” system which would allow the design time to isolate these crazy interactions to just one gigantic release of content. Every new expansion would wipe the slate clean, giving the players a renewed sense of anticipation and experimentation. And their old armor would still be fully active in old world content, of course, where the game balance is less of an issue.
The Most Immersive World Possible
I’ve already talked profusely about how I’d want the game to embrace balance going forward, with classes and items being more uneven and varied across the board. Now we’d just need to take that sort of Wild West approach to balance and apply it to the shape and form of the in-game world as a whole.
You know those wide-open zones I talked about loquaciously a lot earlier in this rambling opinion piece? The goal would be for those zones to be filled with content that encourages the players to be out and about.
There will be areas and dungeons where certain players are naturally more attuned to the challenge. Certain players might have more of a certain resistance stat that provides more immunity needed for a boss encounter. Other classes might have a specific kind of utility that grants them a huge leg up for one specific area. Or, for example, people that are using one profession might have more chances to thrive in certain places than people with another profession; a leatherworker will have the edge in a dungeon that revolves around animal-type enemies due to their inherent ability to do more damage to them.
The world will generally be more ruthless once again. Open-world content will no longer feel as straightforward. An example would be the fact that health and mana regenerate a lot slower than they currently do. Potions and bandages will once again be necessary items for speeding up the pace of your gameplay and staying alive. The zones themselves, however, will feel less relentless due to their openness.
This sort of unevenness induces more interaction. Players will rely on each other a lot more than they currently do. Socializing and building up a reputation for yourself will once again become a trademark feature of the game. Going out into the world to gather ingredients and trade with others for perks will be the norm.
A controversial change I would make would be the removal of looking-for-dungeon and looking-for-raid. I think these go against the pillars of social interaction and adventure and expunge the way the game used to focus on guilds and server communities. You can still use the group finder interface to team up with others, but you’ll no longer have the luxury of instantly being placed in dungeons or raids without running to them. Guilds should once again see the return of perks in order to incentivize people to join them. And the majority of a raid group should be from the same server and guild to receive those benefits.
I also believe that item level as a concept should be removed from the game. It tends to create an overly toxic environment. A new value like Adventure Score could be introduced which is a numerical value derived from your accomplishments in the world like the number of bosses you’ve killed.
You’ll pick your class, customize your armor, alter your appearance and fantasy, and specialize in areas of gameplay that allow you to tell your own story. Everyone will have their own tales to tell, and the game will become more about the stories the players create rather than the main one being told in quests.
These sorts of player-driven stories and communities will be formed in the new zones that are boundless, stretching in all directions. We can stop fretting about zone diversity and, instead, start focusing on design within each of the zones themselves. All zones should prioritize a good combination of challenge areas and social hubs. Who remembers the halcyon days of classic World of Warcraft when Gadgetzan in Tanaris was a hotspot for hubbub and player-created events? We need more of those sorts of places.
All of this creates a very solid foundation for each expansion going forward. And it’ll all be in constant flux. There will always be a deluge of interactions and character progressions that keep the community constantly satisfied.
Evergreen Systems
How can we build off of this foundation and start to prolong the game beyond the simple vertical progression that has made it so addictive? The answer would be evergreen systems that fill up the time outside the usual content loop of raids, dungeons, and other instanced content.
A housing system similar to the one in Final Fantasy XIV would be remarkable for the long-term health of the game. This is a more casual form of content that players can consistently engage with. And things like guild halls and social squares would naturally supplement the social scene of the game even more. It would also add new ways to interact with the open-world sandbox of the game, because house resources and supplies would be accrued from a broad array of different content: hidden quests, limited time events, dungeons and raids, rare drops from enemies out in the world, achievements, professions, and so much more.
All adventure games need a place that’s idyllic and relaxing, where the players can take it easy and appreciate the slower moments of it all. If we look at the Dark Souls series, a place like Majula fulfills that role. The world of Dark Souls 2 is treacherous; it’s made up of dilapidated castles and bubbling swamps, the dark recesses of the lands oozing over with abominations of every kind imaginable. Majula, however, is stunning and calm. It’s where you linger to talk with folks you’ve met. It’s where you trade and level up. It’s the centralized spot from which all the branches of your journey originate.
A housing system will require a plethora of development resources to get up and running, but it’ll be the type of feature that amalgamates with the rest of the game for years to come. New communities could be formed as more districts and cities spring up in upcoming expansions.
These are the sorts of things the game can start to focus on for its open-world content. And why stop there? The zones can be filled with dynamic events that happen sporadically around the world. There can be intensified weather effects, like snow and rain, which enhance the world with new secrets and enemies. Maybe the micro holiday system will continue to be expanded on, with monthly and yearly events being added to the zones on a consistent basis. Dungeons can be placed in the zones, only to be accessible years later; having these sorts of portents for future content promotes rabid speculation and anticipation. We can make it so the zones are overflowing with rare drops like profession recipes, mounts, and unique gear. There’ll be factions with reputations that aren’t time-gated, allowing the players to dive into the grinds whenever they’re feeling up to the challenge.
At the end of the day, the aim is for the world to feel as alive and vital as possible. And there are so many ways to do it.
Conclusion
World of Warcraft, at least to me, has always been a game about friendship and camaraderie. The raids and dungeons are a vessel for socialization; it’s just a way of coming together in a digital space where the challenges bring out our best selves. The act of helping others and teaming up to conquer these roadblocks is one of the greatest pleasures you’ll find in all of modern gaming.
A lot of my viewpoints towards it are muddled in this nebulous cloud of warm, tender nostalgia. Nostalgia for those sentimental, liberating memories of childhood. The days when I could simply dawdle on my parent’s computer for hours while zooming around those neon purple trees that dotted the forests of Teldrassi. The days when places like Blackwing Lair held an almost mythical status in my eyes. The days when life was so straightforward, and I could just focus on the game in front of me.
It can be really onerous for me to look past the nostalgia at times. It’s easy for my thoughts to get tangled with the enthralling impressions my past journeys left on me. The game was so magical when you hadn’t explored every inch of the world. When there were still so many concepts you were unfamiliar with. It felt so rewarding when you were learning the ropes of the game alongside throngs of other people who eventually also became some of your most steadfast friends.
Those are a lot of the sentiments that blind me when I recollect my past experiences like the raid nights in Karazhan and my first eager steps onto the icy shores of Northrend.
At the same time, however, having just poured an immense amount of time into Classic WoW, there are still so many veritably wonderful things about the way the game used to work. We’ve had so many amazing new inventions over the years, but I still find myself yearning for certain concepts that have been lost to the echoes of time. I’d love to imagine that there is a perfect form of Azeroth out there where we’re able to fashion together the old and new to make something truly brilliant.
Should this little meandering write-up of mine be addressed to the mailbox at the front of the Caverns of Time? I don’t know what Chromie is up to at this moment in time, but maybe she knows what’s best for the future of the game. I’m simply one person, and I can’t see the future like the Bronze Dragonflight, but I do have complete faith in whatever direction we’re heading. Because, always and forever, the Warcraft team will unequivocally be the most passionate and cool team of people in the industry.
Here’s to another seventeen years on Azeroth and the innovations they’ll bring!
