Then play different forms of content, M+ is not the only endgame content, there is plenty to do without stepping foot in dungeons and then you can just play the weeks you deem “fun”
You know something can still be pointed out as improvable design just because you can manage to still complete it?
Fromsoft games are a shining example of this. I’ve beaten every “souls” game except bloodbourne, sekiro and elden ring cuz I don’t own them. I like those games. I don’t like every part of those games though. There’s a lotta stupid bs that you can’t do much about and it can feel kinda unfair at times. I still won anyway and I beat the games, but I still hated those parts and thought they brought the experience down a lot. Both can be true.
What decisions are those exactly? The post above yours seems to suggest the opposite. The reward structure is more geared toward casual players and anyone pushing is probably doing it because they like improving and competing, not because of external incentives. At best, it’s a shot at the title. They certainly aren’t doing it for gear or cosmetics.
As above, gearing is very casual friendly right now, especially if you like dungeons. I’ve stopped actively pursuing gear on a character I made several weeks ago because the game isn’t challenging me enough. You can hit heroic item level ranges very quickly, which is far more than most players need for their goals. If there’s a wall, I must’ve leapt right over it.
I agree gearing is definitely very casual friendly, I have at least three characters at 440+ by doing like one dungeon a week and a couple of raids over a few weeks, really doesnt take much effort to gear up.
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This post is so wow brained its perfect
“worked for me, so everything must be fine”
Gearing up is probably the easiest its ever been, its just if you want to put the effort in
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Well, what’s wrong then? I did ask you a question, that wasn’t answered, and put forward something to engage with.
We could use any number of my characters too, not just this one. How about my friends? How about the people who clearly don’t belong in 16’s I play with in pugs but are there anyway. There seems to be minimal barriers to entry, especially when it comes to gear.
You actually answered yourself and didn’t realize it
And as for gearing being easy. Yeah it is really easy to get alts into the stage to jump into content. That’s great. The amount of time to “complete” your gear is about the same though and the crests just make it feel new and different. Anecdotally I haven’t really enjoyed interacting with the system because its full of the “you should be watching a guide of how to optimize how you spend these or risk screwing yourself” sort of attitude which is why I use the dedicated pusher language
That was me begging the question, for sure. I was hoping for something against that, though. It doesn’t seem like there’s an incentive that exists beyond those players. That is to say: Blizzard hasn’t done anything except offer them a challenge. Your post suggested there were many elements of design facilitating that, when I don’t think there is. The game seems much more for players other than key pushers, if I’m frank.
I don’t know if I agree with this. Crests seem significantly less restrictive than Valor was. At the very least, it might ask some critical thinking of the player, which I feel is okay.
Its the same thing of people saying crafting is better than it ever was. And it is, cuz you can craft gear that’s really really good. Kinda broken in fact. But if you’re the kind of player that missed a few weeks of digging through dirt for a few hours and are on a low pop server where the crafting orders are a waste of time, you might not be having as good a time with the new crafting system
That’s sorta what I’m getting at with the dedicated players talk. There’s a bit of a handwave and a wink where if you’re playing a lot and actively then yes absolutely blizzard is enabling us a lot more to just blast content and that’s awesome. Definitely making steps in the right direction on that end. You’re still having to farm dungeons that aren’t worth score to get enough valor (flightstones) of the right level for whatever crest piece you need and waiting for the week where the vault blesses you with the actual good gear
Crafting definitely has more than its fair share of friction, but I don’t know if we should use low population servers as a vessel for criticism there. The reason being: Populated servers are what the game is designed around.
I can’t say this has been my experience. I’ve mostly done keys for score and I haven’t run out of currency. I did grind VP for the trinket, but I was overcapping stones, without a doubt. I’ve even upgraded many sidegrades just to have options and my bags are certainly filled with crests. I feel you on vault rng, but I think it’s more supplementary than ever. The game hasn’t pressured me to fill my slots with 447 gear and I can certainly accomplish that with the crests I have in my bags and crafted items. The vault is a far cry from previous expansions where it was your only path upward.
Yes I can. Because I play on one. If the game shouldn’t have low population servers then they should either be merged or more things should be cross realm cuz I’m not paying 25 more dollars to make the game have less friction.
I feel like my point has effectively been made where if you are putting in some consistent hours every week then blizzard has designed the game to enable you to farm yourself up a lot better than before. I think now the gaps are showing for people that don’t play all the freakin time. Sometimes you see people get carried by drops and vault and get 4 set in a week or two and sometimes you’re like man I’m about to just log off until catalyst is enabled. Man I did ten VP runs and no trinket. Oh awesome, belts and repeats in my vault so this week is a wash.
Impossible to design bad luck out of the game, best gear shouldn’t be free, you should be rewarded for playing more, git gud, yadda yadda I get it and I understand. Let’s just skip all of that out of mutual respect for each other
My TLDR is that while barrier to entry removal and alt friendliness is great to see, I think the game could do a bit more for people in the middle ground of being active.
I really like it this way, as much as I think the upward momentum is too strong. It’s definitely a boon for friends I play with that are less inclined to get sweaty and figure things out. They have an easier time and I get to play with my buds. It helps pugs to some extent, as well.
I have the seldom gripe of people I think definitely have no business in keys as high as I find them, but that’s just how it is.
That’s exactly where the topic ends for me, because I agree with that, specifically. I think Blizzard should design content around large servers, with some odd concessions for less, and help players stuck in the pitfall of low population. The content is mostly fine, but some environments aren’t suitable and it should be on Blizzard to remedy that because it’s more their fault than the players.
I wish it was only ten, but that’s okay. You just need something and the game seems to do well, in that regard.
That was, more or less, what I was trying to say, initially. The game is doing a good job of providing steady progress to most players. It feels like it has casual folk like me very much in mind. I do disagree with some minor things, respectfully, but it was nice to talk.
The thing I’d most like to see the game work on next is a better introduction to new people to encourage them into these endgame systems like M+
making the initial gearing process is nice to start but then they’re getting yelled at by someone that’s played for 15 years because they don’t have banish on their hotbar and don’t know why that mob is being pinged or don’t realize that they’re expected to knock the mobs out of the sanguine or didn’t know they shouldn’t have opened their vault right away and a bunch of currency and time just went down the drain. Little stuff like that should get tidied up
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Well, blatantly poor attitudes aside, the real problem there is that the difficulties of the dungeons before mythic plus don’t encourage learning at all. Even mythic plus dungeons have varying degrees of success when it comes to teaching players anything. I just did a 16 Neltharion’s Lair earlier, and we had a dps that knew nothing about the dungeon. They were very quick to blame me for their deaths; wrongfully so, I might add.
This situation poses a difficult problem: I can say they don’t belong there because they obviously have no idea what they’re doing, but, at the same time, they do belong there because 16’s are the next place to improve their character. This is a critical misstep when balancing gear and difficulty, which is a symptom of the overarching problem.
If you look even further, the game holds your hand from the jump and there’s no natural pressure to learn anything. The lion’s share of the game is both too easy and too complex to foster self-improvement, unless you’re very keen to think critically about everything you’re doing. WoW desperately needs a proper leveling experience that introduces more advanced concepts. This should include modern dungeon & raid mechanics, player expectations and currency & inventory management. All easier said than done, of course. The game needs to hold your hand in the right places and also learn when to let go.
All that being said, it’s okay for negative feedback to be the impetus for learning too. Not everyone’s gonna’ chew a pug’s head off for not knowing what to do; far from it, in my experience. I, myself, will help anyone who asks while telling them they’re wrong. I’ll be the first person typing out mechanics in chat, if someone’s confused. As much as I don’t like Blizzard unloading the work onto the players themselves, we do have some of the most impressive resources of any community out there. I get why such overhauls aren’t a priority for the developers.
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No actually there isn’t… nor is that a justification for doing a lousy job developing the biggest customer draw of your game.
Your takes are stupid, and you literally have WoW brain.
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Nuh uh! There’s like…world quests? And uh…you could go get one shot in battlegrounds for a few hours to get some honor gear! And you’re still at a disadvantage to the people that have full conquest but you’d have sort of a fighting chance eventually from a stats standpoint but it would be better.
And there’s pet battles, which is the most high octane content that loads of people do.
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I could be overestimating the thousands of hours of content left by other expansions, but there’s a lot you can do without chasing any given season of mythic plus or even any current content.
I don’t think their criticism is necessarily invalid. If you’re frustrated with the design of affixes, you should be able to step away and do something else, even if that means playing a different game altogether. The current content is always designed years in advance, so expecting radical changes any time soon is unrealistic. At the very least, we got some substantial changes to how affixes work and some were removed altogether. The difference between season 1 and 2 of DF is night and day. It’s pretty uncharitable to say they’re doing a lousy job in that respect.
But nothing worth my time.
That’s the thing though, in the end; we didn’t. It was essentially just more of the same.