Gilga
New Member
I totally agree with Goodwone, I see it as reducing redundancy. Tank gear NEEDS to have stam, armor, and def right now. Not to mention the whole block/parry/dodge nonsense. It's not like you're going to spec a "dodge build" tank or something ... so realy upgrades just link in all of the specs. Really, gear trades for a tank involve survivability vs. threat generation (with DPS being a third thing). So why not simplify gear so that your gear choices involve just that? To me, it makes the game more skill-based because it leads to tradeoffs rather than obvious upgrades. The current stat sprawl makes those tougher. And let's not forget that since classic, gems, glyphs, and inscriptions have been added. So it's not like there's a shortage of choices overall. And some tooltips are out of control ... and not because the item has a lot of subtleties, but to call out a series of redundant stats. How stupid is having to have the whole "XX attack power in bear or cat form only" language on nearly every weapon?
On the healer side ... again, in classic and early TBC, as a resto druid there were 3 core spells (rejuv, regrowth, healing touch) and then one special case one (tranquility). Now, there are those plus lifebloom (which is really two spells in one depending on how you use it), nourish, and wild growth. So that's 7 healing spells to deal with! Not to mention debuff stuff (2) and other special case procs (nature's swiftness and swiftmend and brez'es). So there are a dozen things, really. So you have a mediocre player like me who really can't handle more than 3-5 things, and that's what I do. I don't touch stuff like nature's swiftness or swiftmend any more, because the attention that use to focus on that now worries about wild growth and lifebloom ticks. A good player might do 6-8, and a great player all 12-15. But when you throw 20+ variants out there. I really really doubt that any player, no matter how great, actively trades between then all. Big contrast vs. early TBC when there were only 3-5 spells in the first place and so using downranking allowed great players to triple the options and optimize. So it's not complexity for the sake of enhancing the game or challenging a player, but just complexity for complexity's sake.
Anyhow, overall, I respect Bliz for realizing that the garden does require some pruning every now and then and not just letting sprawl grow and grow. Having few material, quality choices to me is definitely more of a player's challenge than having more empty, redundant choices. It's like Chess vs. Monopoly. Chess is a simpler game ... fewer pieces, fewer rules, etc. But it's the design of those rules that make it a much "tougher" game to master. To me, the Cataclysm changes are along those same lines.
On the healer side ... again, in classic and early TBC, as a resto druid there were 3 core spells (rejuv, regrowth, healing touch) and then one special case one (tranquility). Now, there are those plus lifebloom (which is really two spells in one depending on how you use it), nourish, and wild growth. So that's 7 healing spells to deal with! Not to mention debuff stuff (2) and other special case procs (nature's swiftness and swiftmend and brez'es). So there are a dozen things, really. So you have a mediocre player like me who really can't handle more than 3-5 things, and that's what I do. I don't touch stuff like nature's swiftness or swiftmend any more, because the attention that use to focus on that now worries about wild growth and lifebloom ticks. A good player might do 6-8, and a great player all 12-15. But when you throw 20+ variants out there. I really really doubt that any player, no matter how great, actively trades between then all. Big contrast vs. early TBC when there were only 3-5 spells in the first place and so using downranking allowed great players to triple the options and optimize. So it's not complexity for the sake of enhancing the game or challenging a player, but just complexity for complexity's sake.
Anyhow, overall, I respect Bliz for realizing that the garden does require some pruning every now and then and not just letting sprawl grow and grow. Having few material, quality choices to me is definitely more of a player's challenge than having more empty, redundant choices. It's like Chess vs. Monopoly. Chess is a simpler game ... fewer pieces, fewer rules, etc. But it's the design of those rules that make it a much "tougher" game to master. To me, the Cataclysm changes are along those same lines.
