World of Warcraft: Forever developers had some serious work to do when it came to preparing all of the game’s classes for their Forever iteration and figuring out which 2004 era weaknesses to keep.
‘if a class has a weakness, let’s not take that weakness away’
VICE recently had a chance to sit down for an extended chat with some key members of the World of Warcraft: Forever development team. During the conversations, we took the opportunity to ask for more details about the process of designing the Forever very of each class and specialization…
VICE: One of my favorite things about Classic WoW is how distinct every class and every specialization feels. Were there any particular classes or specs that you thought needed the biggest changes to have their identify cemented for the Forever experience?
Kris Zierhut (Principal Game Designer): Let’s talk about the classes first. If you go back and play Classic era, as it really was in 2006, there were some classes that were a lot weaker than others. Particularly Druid, Paladin, Shaman had lots of problems. But even Warlocks and Shadow Priests too.
So, the classes that were in a weaker state needed more work to get them into a better place. They needed mechanical changes. But one of the guiding principles was, if that class has a weakness, let’s not take that weakness away. Let’s keep that weakness, but make them stronger overall.
Take, for example, Retribution Paladins. They would very much say, ‘We should have an interrupt! We should have a way to snare things! We should have a way to solve problems. Give us our own version of Thunder Clap!’
There’s a lot of things that they would ask for. But we deliberately, consciously said that we are not going to give them those tools. Yes, those are things that they’re missing, but they bring other great things along. They bring Blessings, they bring the capability to heal, they bring all kinds of very unique and distinct utility with their seals and judgements. So, let’s keep that.
In fact, let’s double down on some of that. So some of their talents strengthen those aspects, but don’t give them the things that they were missing. Take the things that they were already good at and make them more so.
Sometimes that can be tricky. We talked about Holy Paladin… One of their big weakness is being very bad at being able to heal area damage. If the whole party gets damaged at once. And that’s so big of a weakness that we had to do something for it, but let’s make them have to work a little extra hard for it. Let’s make it not their strength. Let it remain somebody else’s strength.
So, in a raid group, they’ll probably still let the Priest do that and they can focus on the tank. But, if you’re in a dungeon and the whole group takes damage all at once, you’ll still have an answer.
Back in 2006-2008 we tried to achieve this approach with a lot of classes that were weaker by giving them a unique buff that only they bring. So you would bring them in a raid because of their unique buff. But this really wasn’t satisfying to players over time. They would say, ‘No I don’t just want a to bring a buff, I want to be as good as the other characters.’
So what we did over time, we strengthened those classes, but then they had these unique buffs and they were as good as the other classes and that created its own set of new problems.
So this time around, the focus has been on bringing their performance up to full power. So they can do nearly as much damage as the classes who don’t have a tanking or healing capability.
So far, this formula seems to be working well for the WoW: Forever team as record-breaking numbers of players flock to the MMO experience. As more players reach the endgame and begin raiding and tackling level 60 dungeons, it will be very interesting to see what patterns emerge in the metagame and if there are any complaints or further balancing that will be needed.
Be sure to check back soon for lots more World of Warcraft: Forever news, updates, and guides as the game continues to play out its early days.
World of Warcraft: Forever and World of Warcraft: Midnight are both available now on PC.
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