Results from Xaryu's Classic+ community survey
While this is just one source, there are plenty of other community discussions on Forums, YouTube, and Reddit. Today, we're taking a look at all of these sources to help determine what players really want from Classic+.
Reimagining the Leveling Journey
The idea of Classic+ is a game mode that expands upon the ideas and gameplay of a Vanilla Azeroth. This phrase, however, is incredibly vague, and if you asked every player what Classic+ means to them, you'd get a different answer every time. In this first section, we'll be going over what we believe are the more inarguable desires from the majority of players.
New Quests
New Zones Both at Endgame and Leveling
Updates on Zones That Were Either Unfinished or Feel Empty
Finish all Original Unfinished Content in Game
New Dungeons and Raids
Class Adjustments
Dual Specialization
Reduced Mana for Buffs and Longer Buff Timers
These seem to be the most common expectations of what players would like to see in an official Classic+ game. Players want the journey that they enjoyed in the original version of Azeroth to be revived, because although we often hear "Classic WoW is about the journey", when you've done the same journey multiple times, it can begin to feel stale. Players who participated in Season of Discovery got the first taste of this, as it was Blizzard's first attempt at providing an "alternate" Vanilla setting, with new abilities, new quests, new dungeons, reimagined dungeons and raids, and more!
Grand Crusader Caldoran's Hall from the SoD Exclusive Raid - The Scarlet Enclave
Players have also expressed a desire for Blizzard to continue developing unfinished content from the original version of the game. Some examples include the Essence of Eranikus Quest Chain, that just abruptly stops in Winterspring. James Clark and his mysterious lockbox that cannot be opened in Elwynn Forest, as the item James' Key was never put into the game. And, of course, there's the infamous The Missing Diplomat Quest Chain, along with Varian Wrynn's original in-game model being located on Alcaz Island in Dustwallow Marsh. Although Wrynn's Model was removed in Patch 1.9, it was believed that players would eventually get a continuation of this quest chain as they got to max level, but this never came to fruition
Varian Wrynn seen in the sewers beneath Alcaz Island before Patch 1.9
Outside of quests, players would love to see what was intended for the potential Furbolg Raid in Azshara we never got to experience. Zones like Mount Hyjal, intended to be entered from Winterspring, Karazhan and Deadwind Pass, and Southern Silithus just to name a few.
Mount Hyjal's History in Classic Karazhan and Deadwind Pass
Class Reworks
Before we move on to the more controversial requests of Classic+, we should discuss its own class adjustments. Blizzard made several Class adjustments in Season of Discovery, primarily through the rune system, giving players access to abilities either from later expansions of the game or completely exclusive to Season of Discovery. Some of these include tank abilities for Warlocks and Rogues, and healing abilities for Mages.
Season of Discovery's Rune Interface Panel
Those wouldn't be the only adjustments we saw in this version. There were also talent adjustments, such as Paladin's Holy Shield awarding Attack and Spell power for every point of Defense the player had, and then tier set bonuses offering unique buffs and adjustments to abilities.
Classic World of Warcraft's Holy Shield Talent vs Season of Discovery's Holy Shield Talent
But do players want such extreme class changes going into the next Classic project? The consensus seems to be no. However, players do want to see more Specialization diversity. Examples include giving Paladins a few more abilities, like Crusader Strike and Hand of Reckoning, to be able to compete as a DPS and Tank Class, and overall just shifting away from the Classic "meta" of 20 Warriors in one raid.
A couple of things that seem to be pretty inarguable amongst the community are reduced mana for buffs, increased buff durations, and Dual Specialization. Classic Anniversary servers were given two major quality-of-life updates: instant mail sent between characters on the same account, and dual specialization. It would seem that these changes would also fit well into Classic+.
Options For PvP
Next, we'll look at some systems and features that may be a little more controversial for Classic+. We'll first take a look at some PvP systems that players could potentially see in Blizzard's next Classic Project
Arenas
Rated Battlegrounds
Seasonal PvP Gear
Warmode
The first two focus on bringing in later versions of instanced PvP modes: Arenas and Rated Battlegrounds (RBGs). If this Classic+ is a forever game mode, essentially a WoW 2, then systems like this could be crucial to the longevity of the game. In Classic WoW, the gear players can get from Honor is very strong, especially around rank 12-14. After that, there's no other system to grind out additional PvP gear. This works in the original Classic, as the gear competes with its endgame raid, Naxxramas. However, in a game that looks to continue past that, should we have more available PvP gear options? Should we have rated PvP like Arenas and RBGs with seasonal PvP Gear? Should this PvP gear be optimal in PvE as well?
The caveat to this is that more instanced PvP can cause way less World PvP, which is a staple of Vanilla WoW. Should all the focus shift to instanced PvP, this could be very detrimental to the open-world aspect of the game. Perhaps not only could we get seasonal-rated PvP gear, but also seasonal Honor Gear as well. And with that being said, would a system like Warmode be optimal for Classic+?
Should Warmode Come To Classic?
Players tend to choose PvP servers as the bigger, more centralized server, even if these people do not want to participate in World PvP. Adding Warmode to the game and eliminating PvP/PvE servers, and offering rewards could be a good move for Classic, but if the rewards are not attractive enough, and we get rated PvP modes, it could certainly discourage world PvP as a whole.
Dungeon & Raid Adjustments
According to the comments from our previous article, the two most popular raid sizes were 25-player and flex raiding. Players have experienced all types of raid sizes throughout Classic, from the largest being 40 players to the smallest being 10. We've seen 25, Season of Discovery's unique version of "flex raiding", and Mists of Pandaria Classic players will eventually see 20-man Mythic in Patch 5.5.0 with the Siege of Orgrimmar Raid.
What's The Best Raid Size?
Looking at SoD's version of Flex Raiding, endgame raids at level 60 were tuned and designed for 20 players, but you could bring a max of 40. Loot, boss HP, and damage in this version would not adjust to the raid size, so even though you could clear the content more easily by bringing more people, the loot distribution would be more scarce. In the modern World of Warcraft, loot, bosses' hp, and damage scale with the number of players. Would one of these features be something players would want going into Classic +, or would they rather be a fixed difficulty and raid size?
Vanilla World of Warcraft's 40-Player Raid reduced down to 25 players in The Burning Crusade
On the topic of raid difficulty, should we see the Heroic difficulty be introduced for both raids and dungeons? Imagine going into Heroic Razorfen Kraul, Scarlet Monastery, or Blackrock Depths? Would this be a popular feature brought into Classic+ for farming Pre-Raid BiS gear? Players would see something like this be introduced in Season of Discovery with the Karazhan Crypts. Although it did not have a Normal and Heroic option, its difficulty was definitely scaled to something players would call "Heroic" compared to other level 60 dungeons.
Karazhan Crypts in Season of Discovery
Solo Challenges
Players tend to have mixed opinions on whether solo-focused content is appropriate in Classic+. We saw one iteration of this added in Season of Discovery with the Khonsu Challenge. First, this was only available to Warriors for one of their endgame runes, but would later be open to all classes as a part of the secrets quest chain to unlock cool appearance toys and the sunglasses emote. We've seen solo content presented later in WoW, with Legion's Mage Tower, Shadowlands Torghast, and more recently, Delves in The War Within. Systems like Delves and the Mage Tower were extremely popular and well-received when they were introduced, one offering unique transmogs and another offering decent ilvl gear!
The Khonsu Challenge in Season of Discovery
Would features like these be appropriate and healthy for the overall game of Classic+, or would they stray too far away from the MMO aspect of the game? One could argue that it all depends on the rewards offered for completing the challenges. Transmogs in themselves are a very controversial topic for Classic, and solo content offering competing BiS gear might also seem controversial in an MMORPG. Delves in modern WoW, however, don't offer the best gear, but great entry-level gear, and help players achieve their weekly Great Vault. So maybe players would be more welcoming if the rewards from these solo challenges didn't interfere with what they believe is the "spirit" of Classic.
What would you like to see in Classic+? Let us know in the comments down below!
