Expansion is only temporarily enjoyable. Fails to fix all main flaws.

[Waliel]

This. There is always one correct choice. The only thing builds give you is the illusion of choice.

There's still something fun about seeing all those shiny buttons where you could dump your skill points and whatnot, even if realistically there's only one real way to do it.

I disagree with this. Other MMOs and games have been more flexible with respect to builds.

WoW had big enough skilltrees to dump all your points into one and not fill it completely. Know what happened? They scrapped all of that, because even the devs themselves said that there was only one real way to build your character depending on your spec and if you played pvp or pve, and called many of their talents "newbie traps". Those talents sounded good on paper, but were pretty much useless in any real scenario.

Sure, plenty of examples. Rift (before it went F2P) was everything I described in OP. Amazing character build system, multiple paths to obtain gear, challenging content and expansion launched with three raids. It was a WoW clone like FFXIV, but felt more like its true successor than FFXIV does. Too bad, they ditched the game and made it trash after F2P.

There was still only one optimal build for the role you wanted to do on you class shortly after launch when I played. For example, every single rogue ever went Saboteur or whatever the ranged spec was.

Correct me if I'm wrong but WoW has more raids in each patch but they also have multiple difficulties of those said raids for various types of players yes? Would the same system work here as well? From what I've seen they seem to add more raids/dungeons in general and in multiple difficulties. Then again I've never played it so I'm open for someone to enlighten me.

I think WoD had two raids at launch, but don't quote me on that. The 6.2 patch, after seven or eight months after launch, introduced the first and last raid after the launch and features 14 bosses. There will be no new raids until the next expansion, which will come no sooner than 2016 earliest.

[Aeyis]

WoW had big enough skilltrees to dump all your points into one and not fill it completely. Know what happened? They scrapped all of that, because even the devs themselves said that there was only one real way to build your character depending on your spec and if you played pvp or pve, and called many of their talents "newbie traps". Those talents sounded good on paper, but were pretty much useless in any real scenario.

Dual wielding elemental shamans would like a word with you.


WoW offered plenty of actual choice, but over the years it was more and more dumbed down for the sake of ''balance'' and ''making it easier to get into for all type of players, not just the hardcore''

[Asierid]

Dual wielding elemental shamans would like a word with you.


WoW offered plenty of actual choice, but over the years it was more and more dumbed down for the sake of ''balance'' and ''making it easier to get into for all type of players, not just the hardcore''

There was no choice. The choice was useless flavor talents that did nothing but add single digits of HP/reduced damage, or made things more shiny. In the end they all accomplished the same goal, nothing important. Sure you could take more damage reduction; or you could be less bad, stop taking unnecessary damage and take the increased crit chance instead.

You ran one build and that was it. The "choice" you speak of was nothing but useless abilities or traps that new players fell into which did nothing but point them out as second rate.

You raided as Arcane in Wrath and you liked it. Frost was laughed at.

I was a Riftstalker, so no...not every rogue became a Sab. A lot of players were trying it out when it got buffed more for AoE, to get a feel for it, but that's different. There were plenty of Assassins, Nightblades, and Blademasters running around.

This makes no sense. Sab was the go to build until it was nerfed. Then it slowly shifted into Sabodancers as Bladedancer was buffed. Anything else was, again, second rate. You were nothing more than a hinderance to the raid as the sheer amount of DPS Sab/Sabdancer could put out was stupid compared to anything else.

You remember the balancing incorrectly.

[Wisekuma]

You remember the balancing incorrectly.

No. I do.

What year did you play Rift?

[Tuathaa]

You raided as Arcane in Wrath and you liked it. Frost was laughed at.

That was one class and after the started cutting the skill tree. The others (with the exception of Shaman) had more than one competitive build.
Balancing was done because of hybrids (panzerkin, slsl, etc) and pvp. If Blizzard controlled the skills the had better control of the damage.

[Wisekuma]

WoW had big enough skilltrees to dump all your points into one and not fill it completely. Those talents sounded good on paper, but were pretty much useless in any real scenario.

This shows you have no clue what you are talking about.

There was still only one optimal build for the role you wanted to do on you class shortly after launch when I played. For example, every single rogue ever went Saboteur or whatever the ranged spec was.

I was a Riftstalker, so no...not every rogue became a Sab. A lot of players were trying it out when it got buffed more for AoE, to get a feel for it, but that's different. There were plenty of Assassins, Nightblades, and Blademasters running around.


Your claims are quite laughable and I am beginning to understand why MMOs are becoming so boring and bland.