Previn wrote:DragonChild wrote:Likewise, I am also VERY impressed with WoW design, and think that D&D needs to be more like WoW, not less - there's a lot to learn there.
Can you explain what exactly you think WoW does right?
So OK, I'm going to talk about Cata (the current expansion that is just about over), and Mists (the next expansion that is in beta). I have absolutely no desire to get into stuff like raid difficulties and 10v5 man or quest design or any of that shit. I am ONLY talking class design, end of story.
As a bit of background - in WoW, each class has three specs (like Fire, Frost, Arcane mages) and talents to choose from. From the beginning of the game, talents were trees - put five points in tier 1, get to tier 2, etc. They look like this;
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#LZZo
Cata clever changes
-When you pick your spec, you immediately get a bunch of cool stuff that makes you who you are. So if you decide to be a Protection Warrior, focusing on tanking, you immediately get a pile of HP, and a powerful shield slam ability. If you instead went with the Arms warrior (guy who uses a two handed weapon), you get extra damage with two handed weapons and a heavy damage strike. In short, the key thing that makes your character interesting is handed out RIGHT AWAY, rather than later on.
-Each spec also has a "Mastery" stat. This really don't transfer over to TTRPGs, but it's clever. Mastery stat is available on gear, but does different things depending on your spec. For example, Holy Priests (heavy healing spec) have their mastery cause their heals to also place a heal over time. Discipline Priests (more set-up healing; better single target, has force fields, can do some damage) has mastery make all of their force field powers stronger.
-Talents that just gave a numerical bonus to everything; that is, "+5% crit to all attacks", were largely, although not ENTIRELY eliminated. These were obvious choices, and thus they were not choices, and so were removed. Instead, this stuff was mostly just handed out for free!
-Healers were encouraged to do damage, and have stuff to do when nobody is hurt. Two examples; Restoration Shamans have Telluric Currents, a power that makes their lightning bolt spell cause them to GAIN mana, instead of spending it. Discipline Priests have Evangelism and Archangel. As they deal damage, they gain stacks of Evangelism, causing their damage spells to deal more damage and cost less mana. At any time they can pop Archangel - it eats the stacks of Evangelism, restoring a bunch of their mana (usually, more then the damage spells cost!), and giving them a bonus to healing spells for a period of time. Healing classes are rewarded for figuring out when they have time to do something other than heal.
Mists clever changes
-Talent trees just flat out do not exist. Things that were choices before you just GET - if you are a restoration shaman, they give you all of the neat choices you could have chosen before. Of COURSE the healer was going to pick "-10% heal mana costs". It's not a choice, get rid of it. Instead, every fifteen levels you are given a choice of three talents to pick between available to all specs. That is, ALL shamans, be they melee, caster, or healer, pick between the same three talents at level 15. These talents are good for any shaman (ideally), and all serve the same purpose.
Here's some examples. At level 30, as a death knight, you choose between these three powers (note that all of these powers have a similar cooldown timer):
Lichborne: Count as undead for 10 seconds. This makes you immune to charm and fear. Death knights also have a very powerful "Heal an undead" spell, so this lets them fully heal themselves.
Anti-Magic Zone: Creates a large bubble for the party to stand in for 10 seconds. Allies in it take 75% less damage damage. Can only absorb so much damage before it "pops".
Purgatory: When you would normally die, you instead go into "negative HPs" for 3 seconds. Damage continues to occur. If you are healed into positive HP before those 3 seconds are up, you won't die.
Ok so, they're all pretty neat. Even as just someone who is focusing on raiding PvE content, it's a tough choice. Lichborne allows you to ignore a lot of "screw you" combat mechanics like fear, and allows you to heal yourself up if something happens like a healer dies (and as a death knight, you can then revive that healer). Anti-Magic Zone is REALLY useful on a lot of bosses with big nasty magic attacks... but isn't really going to prevent terrible mistakes from occurring. If you get hit by something you weren't supposed to, you were screwed anyway. Purgatory is the best at "Ok, there was an error, but because I have this power we're still good, the fight isn't over". All three are defensive powers, all three stand out at being good for different things, but the hardcore min/maxers can't pick one as best based on anything but preference.
And this was just one example - balancing three options together, "Pick one of these three movement abilities", "Pick one of these three damage abilities", etc, is a lot easier to make a balanced, interesting choice, than "Pick one of any of the talents that exist, ever", or "One of these 30 spells".