MoP Rant about Individuality

[Lazurianis]

A part of my ideas that will be stated here are not only my own but partially from the Petopian Nanotrev.

First of all, I have one huge complaint about MoP, uniqueness in general. Players are essentially no different from one another besides a few abilities now, that is it. I was always a huge supporter of the original talent system where you chose your specific talents from three talent trees and rank them up based off of what you need or are looking for. I absolutely loved that, it was rare that two players of the same class were the same and now they hand you all of the good Passive Talents and say "here pick a couple of abilities and glyphs you think are cool". I absolutely despise that, there is no individuality between two people now, which lessens the 'skill' or 'knowledge' needed to play this game. As brutal and rough as that sounds, it's the truth, players needed to know their class and what they were doing back from Vanilla all the way up to Cataclysm which set a mind-set of "What am I doing wrong? Can I improve my talents?". Although yes, this idea still applies, however, not nearly as much as it used to, it's rare to find a new player who knows what a Ability or Skill Rank is now, which just reinforces the idea this game has gotten way too easy in MoP. A lot of people I have spoken to and myself personally agree that MoP was by far Blizzard's worst WoW Expansion Pack, they made a lot of mistakes, and although yes, everyone is entitled to mistakes, there were drastic mistakes made, such as the talent system being butchered. I also understand the removal of needing to go learn your abilities (because that slowed a lot of people down) it removes the necessity of having a "Class Trainer" when they should just be renamed "Specialization Trainer" because they serve absolutely no purpose other than changing for specialization, that is it, and some of us also forget Pet Trainers which leads me into my next topic. Pets are the same aside from special abilities, and it's only going to get worse in WoD. The reason I say that is because of the Level 100 Talent being introduced, With or Without You which gives the pet (if you are in Beast Mastery) ALL OF THE SPECIALIZATION ABILITIES. Yes, I understand, nothing is set in stone, but are you serious Blizzard? At that point, we might as well just have one 'pet class' for exotic and non-exotic pets that includes all of the special abilities. We might as well just let players multi-class at that point too, because why not? Pets should be unique as players should, they should definitely bring back the original talent systems for both pets and players while also reviving the idea of unique pets in terms of allowing them to retain special abilities they may have prior to being tamed, because, let's be a little realistic here -- imagine you go out, in the wild and you find a wolf that knows how to play dead without you ever having to teach him, and when you claim him as your own, all of a sudden, he forgets that trick. Same exact thing, Broken Tooth being the fastest cat in terms of attack-speed, King Bangalash being an Elite Cat with Rake, Snort the Heckler having the Poison Spit, or Magmadar being a Boss Level Core Hound hitting for ridiculous amounts of damage.

Basically to wrap things up, Blizzard made a mess out of MoP and some parts of Cataclysm messed things up as well, and myself speaking from the past, things were a lot better when it was rare to have two players or pets that were the same.

[Lupis]

I respect your opinion and the thought that's gone into it!

However, I disagree on every single point. *Shrugs* Never going to please everyone. I found MoP to be the best thing that's happened to the classes, hunters, and WoW in general.

[Nachtwulf]

The problem with all pets not being the same is that the minmaxers will decree that Every Hunter That Isn't A Sucky Scrub-Noob Must Have (inserrt FotM pet here). This happened in the not-so-halcyon days you mention, with Broken Tooth. EVERYONE HAD GODDAMN BROKEN TOOTH. A dull, boring brown mountain lion. If you didn't have Broken Tooth, you were a scrub. Even if you hated him. (To this day I STILL kill him religiously whenever I find him, out of sheer ancient rage.)

Then it was cats in general. Then wolves. Then ravagers (anyone remember when Go Ravager or GTFO was raid standard?).

It sucks, frankly. I want to pick whatever the hell pet I want because I like it and have to look at it all the time. That way outweighs any slight special-snowflake bonus. Like... oh. Caster pets. Not sad to see THEM gone either. Or remember when the beautiful snow-leopard skin only came on cats that had the a) slowest attack speed in the game and b) a gimped RUN speed? Yeah, that sucked too.

Simply put, if you don't make them uniform, minmaxers will decree that either you have whatever they think is 'best' or you suck beyond all parameters of suckage.

And I don't honestly like that or want to see it back.

To me, the worst expac was Cataclysm. Boring quests, railroaded progression, overarching plots that should've been epic but felt 'meh', annoying raids... half a zone devoted to a cheesy Indiana Jones redux... (I mean, I like Harrison Jones well enough but SERIOUSLY.) Or the fact that the intro to the Twilight Highlands had Epic Story for horde and Oh Hey Isn't This Webcomic Funny for Alliance.

And Malfurion. Who I still want to just die and let the night elves get on with things. Useless manbearpig.

[Arisia]

cutting the quotes somewhat...

The problem with all pets not being the same is that the minmaxers will decree that Every Hunter That Isn't A Sucky Scrub-Noob Must Have (inserrt FotM pet here). This happened in the not-so-halcyon days you mention, with Broken Tooth. EVERYONE HAD GODDAMN BROKEN TOOTH. A dull, boring brown mountain lion. If you didn't have Broken Tooth, you were a scrub. Even if you hated him. (To this day I STILL kill him religiously whenever I find him, out of sheer ancient rage.)

((cut here))

It sucks, frankly. I want to pick whatever the hell pet I want because I like it and have to look at it all the time. That way outweighs any slight special-snowflake bonus. Like... oh. Caster pets. Not sad to see THEM gone either. Or remember when the beautiful snow-leopard skin only came on cats that had the a) slowest attack speed in the game and b) a gimped RUN speed? Yeah, that sucked too.

((cut here))

To me, the worst expac was Cataclysm. Boring quests, railroaded progression, overarching plots that should've been epic but felt 'meh', annoying raids... half a zone devoted to a cheesy Indiana Jones redux... (I mean, I like Harrison Jones well enough but SERIOUSLY.) Or the fact that the intro to the Twilight Highlands had Epic Story for horde and Oh Hey Isn't This Webcomic Funny for Alliance.

And Malfurion. Who I still want to just die and let the night elves get on with things. Useless manbearpig.

Nachtwulf pretty much summed it up for me; I was lucky-- when I started out in WoW, way back in the days of Vanilla, I fell in love with one Cat. After taming it, it was the only pet I used-- and my guild was kind and allowed me to use it EVEN though everyone knew that cats weren't the best in DPS and I was only hindering the raid and being a dumb ass n00b. They knew I loved this pet and figured since this wasn't the primary raid team, what the heck.

I don't WANT to have to choose my pet based on the fact only THIS ONE PET is the best for Raiding, or instancing-- even if it is damn ugly, or doesn't fit all the work I've put into the character of my toon, or the fact I'd rather chew tinfoil than use it. I love the changes to equalize pets -- means we ARE individuals now, moreso than before... with transmog and equalization, we finally can make the toon we want to see, personalized to what we want... and that's kinda the OPPOSITE of them all being the same.

Oh and I hated Cataclysm with the force of three million suns... but then again, all "oh NOES THE WORLD IS ENDING" type scenarios tend to leave me cold. And Pandaria, with the whole Garrost the dirtbag powerhungry moron left me cold as well. I was hopeful, after LK, that finally there would be ways for the factions to work together... after all we had to to save the world from Arthas... but NOPE, here we are again with the "Horde bad and stupid violent peoples" and "alliance rigid and stupid violent peoples" so we all must haaaate each other. ::eyeroll::

[Nachtwulf]

Unfortunately 'Horde vs Alliance' is never going to go away or likely, even get backburnered again. The game is based, at its root, in a RTS game, where the Horde (evil demon-backed monsters and cruel savages) were pitted head to head with the Alliance (Humans, the good guys, holy paladins and unicorns and yes, all that stuff.)

The RTS was -super- black and white. WoW has muddied the waters in the ensuing years, but you can't really take away the fact that a good part of the game is that Horde and Alliance must always hate each other. Shaky alliances can happen, but someone somewhere will always do something stupid and then everyone's back to hating each other again.

For that matter, with the upcoming expansion... it's just going to make the Alliance hate the orcs that much more. They won't see any difference between the orcs that stomped them in the last couple wars and the orcs that are trying to stomp them now. Horde is Horde, regardless of whether it's 'Iron' or 'New' or 'Old' or whatever. Only the 'New Horde' cares because the racial divisions actually do affect them. To the Alliance, orcs and trolls have ALWAYS been the enemy, for hundreds of years in the case of trolls. Sure, maybe they don't have anything overtly against tauren, say, but if anyone chums up with someone you've been fighting tooth and nail with forever, then obviously they're bad guys too.

I also can't see the draenei not hating orcs either since, you know, genocide and all and sucking up to demons and... yeah. None of that is going to wash away anytime soon. People in the US that were alive during WWII or Korea or such still tend to hate the people they fought. We can call them racist now because a lot of us didn't live through that, but the scars of war run deep.

[Redith]

Then it was cats in general. Then wolves. Then ravagers (anyone remember when Go Ravager or GTFO was raid standard?).

Ya I remember this. I would want to use my Tiger and I was told. "No you need a wolf. Use a wolf or we will kick you" So then I got a wolf and then it became "Use a ravenger or we will vote to kick you" don't miss those days.
I do wish though that flying pets (Birds, Hawks, Owls) could fly. That would give us a reason to tame them due to their utility

[Lupis]

I will die of happiness when the day comes that the Alliance and Horde aren't fighting over something old and stupid. I have a feeling WoD is going to make me rage even more than MoP when it comes to stupid faction wars. They're realistic, don't get me wrong, and I love how Blizzard is starting to make the wars more into shades of grey and less into "good v bad", but- sometimes you get a little sick of war. It's frustrating.

More on topic- I was lucky during the Cat/Wolf/Flavor of the Month craze, in that I was too young to care. Though I admit, I had a ravager that I only ever took out for dungeons. Ugh. Abandoned that thing as soon as I could- I just couldn't bond to a pet I only had to avoid people going "RAVAGER OR GET OUT".

[cowmuflage]

Can we lop in the old days of "You don't care about your pets if you are not BM" too this pile of things we did not like from old WoW? That was bullshit being told I did not care about my pets becuase I played MM

[Nachtwulf]

The argument I usually get is 'well, it's not called World of Negotiationcraft'.

Yeah, I played BM more or less until Cata. Except for a brief stint in BC (where you were considered the one-button wonder), BM has always suffered hate and derision. Usually for being underpowered (which it usually was due to bad pet AI, pets not scaling with gear, pets generally being badly programmed)... but I played it anyway. Marks felt slow, and Survival was laughable due to its bizarre (and gimpy) melee focus. (though I was marks a few times in BC just to be allowed to raid.)

The massive revamp made all the specs more or less compatible and I was able to go back to BM without being kicked out on my ear, so that's good. And I like that they gave up trying to make Surv a melee...ish...spec.

And, to be honest, I don't miss the old talents. Blizz was right when they said 'people cookie-cutter'. Sure, every rare once in a while you could fudge something if you wanted it but 99% of the time, you went to a website, copied down the Best Talent Build, and input it into your character, usually without thinking. There wasn't any 'better at your class'... you and everyone else ever (except the new kids who didn't know it existed yet) went to the same exact website and used the same exact talents. And half of them were just '%-to-damage" or hit or whatever. Yawn city. If you picked out all the talents that actually did something interesting... they probably wouldn't even add up to the options we have now.

[Kayb]

Can we lop in the old days of "You don't care about your pets if you are not BM" too this pile of things we did not like from old WoW? That was bullshit being told I did not care about my pets becuase I played MM

OMG totally agree. I've always played MM, and I'll will never stray. I hated those players who crapped on like that.

[cowmuflage]

Can we lop in the old days of "You don't care about your pets if you are not BM" too this pile of things we did not like from old WoW? That was bullshit being told I did not care about my pets becuase I played MM

OMG totally agree. I've always played MM, and I'll will never stray. I hated those players who crapped on like that.

Another thing I'll add to that is the "I'm a better hunter because I tamed a rare pet and you are a sucky one because you have a common skin" mindset people had. Thank god people have stopped being so vocal about that. Do you remember the threads here about that shit? Was nasty. I remember it most from WOTLK.

Those where not good times to be a hunter who did not like to camp for skins or liked skins that did not have a "rare" option (we all knew they where not rare seeing as everyone had them!) It sure made me feel bad for not liking Spirit beasts

[Kayb]

I've never felt bad about not liking spirit beasts, imo the vast majority of them look aweful

[GormanGhaste]

I refused to try taming spirit beasts until Cataclysm, because I hated that the entire family was rare. Ghostcrawler was my gateway SB

[Xota]

I've never felt bad about not liking spirit beasts, imo the vast majority of them look aweful

Oh, they're absolutely heinous. Why are all but two of them (both from LK, and one duplicated as a wolf) that horrible spectre-type transparent from WoW classic or alpha? The Malorne and Tortos models would have made great spirit beasts. Or Xuen if it weren't a monk guardian. That being said, I use a red spirit porcupine, Tlehuitzotl, for my main tanking pet on Timeless Isle. The bonus heal and ability to stealth makes it pretty valuable. And because it's red, it doesn't turn invisible during bestial wrath.

To address the OP concern about talents, I respectfully disagree. When the talent buffet replaced the talent trees, I thought there'd be less options, but they more or less baked all the boring passive talents into the specs. I think there's more room for uniqueness now, since you don't have manditory pre-req talents. I think I had 2 points to play around with on my hunter when we had trees, and they didn't really effect game play. Now I can tell I have at least 3 talents that most other hunters I run into don't. I use blink-strike instead of crows, I use barrage instead of glaives (except for pvp), and I use the healing bond thing instead of iron eagle. As long as barrage keeps sounding like a machine gun, I'll always favor it over glaives.

Game mechanics have to change occasionally to keep people interested. I agree that the pet talent system is pretty boring, but I don't know what they could do that wouldn't end up either 'cookie cutter' or making a particular pet mandatory for every hunter. Unless they gave each family 3 possible abilities, and you chose 1 (or 2 for exotic families). That would be rad, you wouldn't have to take a spore bat just to get spell haste.

[Shade]

Basically to wrap things up, Blizzard made a mess out of MoP and some parts of Cataclysm messed things up as well, and myself speaking from the past, things were a lot better when it was rare to have two players or pets that were the same.

Was it really that rare though?

I really don't think that there was that much individuality in the older expansions, but then I only started playing in WOTLK. Back then the guild I was in basically told me that I had to follow a specific talent tree selection, be in a specific spec-MM-and that I always had to run the raid with a wolf or cat by my side. I literally had a guild member get into vent and walk me through every 'choice' that I could make and ordered me to set mine up just like hers, because of course with her as the top DPS, I had to do exactly as she did.

Never mind that I despised the MM rotation, preferred a different talent tree and dang well loved playing a BM. BM wasn't 'good' enough so I had to go MM or they would not allow me to raid, or be in the guild, and thus I wouldn't be able to play with my own brother.

Now I agree, there is not as much individuality today-but thats going to be true no matter what Blizzard does I would think. There are always going to be people who go and calculate the best rotation, stats, glyphs, shot rotation etc to maximize DPS, post it online and if you don't go look it up then you are a horrible noob player who doesn't know anything about anything.

I am ridiculously thankful that I no longer have people that get to dictate to me what pets I can and cannot use. I'm not always raiding, and even when I am, I want to use something that has meaning to me, not the super 'rare' pet that has an extra buff on it or something.

(And that BM is actually viable as a raid option now is wonderful).

I am not an original player, as I've gone through only three expansions-but I would say MoP was personally my favorite of the lot. I adore that I can go out and tank with a miniature crow if I feel like it, or that I can actually have my warp stalker running around in a raid as a ferocity spec and not get kicked for using a 'tanking' pet.

[peanutbuttercup]

I personally don't miss the old vanilla system where every single pet differed with attack speed, run speed, and having to pick up pets to learn higher ranks of attacks... no thanks. It was just needlessly complicated.

And specs have always had a cookie cutter quality to them, even back in the days of many many talents. I even had a couple of people whisper me before (during random dungeon groups) that they had copied my spec from my armory. Not sure if that's creepy or funny or both.

That said, I've also never had a problem raiding with whatever pet I wanted and whatever spec I wanted - it wasn't until MoP that I was asked to please bring a certain pet for buffs because of the rise of 10 mans. I'm always surprised that hunters say that they were sat or kicked from groups because of their spec or a pet. I've never had that happen nor have I even been threatened with it. I think I've only been kicked from a group once, and that was by some jerk who kicked over half the group because he was mad that we wiped once.

[Lisaara]

I don't miss the old system...At. All. Sorry, but I disagree with pretty much everything you said.

While some stuff is the same, I feel like I have more power over my talents than ever before. I don't HAVE to do THIS spec to put this talent here to be good. Back in BC? I was forced to have a specific talent tree and if I had one point in the wrong spot? Insta-ridicule and called a scrub.

Also the vanilla pets? I never experienced it but from everything I've heard, I'd never want to. I'd never touch my hunter ever again.

I don't really get the appeal of wanting to be a special snowflake. Heaven forbid someone else does something similar to you. ._.; I don't mean any offense by that, mind you. It's just this argument is a bit old, tbh, and it's always the same. "It's not unique anymore!" Well...I ask....when was it ever? The answer? It wasn't. It's more unique now than it was back then. If you didn't have a Devilsaur as a BM back in wrath? KICK! No Broken Tooth? SCRUB! You get the idea....

[Novikova]

So, I came back after 10 months (hooray grad school. Spring break!).

I played a hunter in vanilla. And the AH always looked like a dentist's nightmare with broken teeth everywhere. Then ravagers and wolves and - yeah.

Frankly, I realize what people mean by homogenization of classes and characters, but honestly? I'd rather be able to use a pet I like instead of 'bring x or we're giving you the boot/you're hurting your DPSEESESESES!/whatever'.

Also, I'm not a fan of CRZ (or the server merge between SC/FM, but what's done is done, etc). But I am enjoying things a lot more than Cata. I don't think it was that rare to see hunters with the same pet, even in vanilla. People are drawn to one skin/type more than another. I bet wolves and cats are up there for popularity (although, wolves less so).

I also imagine it's hard to be unique by virtue of the sheer number of hunters. With instant boost, heirlooms and redonk easy leveling...

[Nachtwulf]

The idea of bringing buffs for the group is a great idea, really. You CAN fill in spots if something's missing but in a raid now, someone is likely to pretty much have everything, so it doesn't matter what you bring as long as you set it to Feroc and turn growl off.

Though I admit, I tend to raid with a quilen, purely for having one extra brez. In pug raids you can pretty much never have too many brezzes. The only problem is, is the tendency for my pet to be out of range...

[Novikova]

Much like many great ideas, jerks tend to ruin it for everyone else.