More and more I’m seeing from wow content creators, people on Twitter, the forums, and even the top raiding guilds like max and scripe saying blizzard is focusing too much on the competitive aspect of the game which in turn is hurting the game.
I would say pretty much up to wod wow never had this huge esport for the whole game. Sure pvp had some, but there was none for pve content. It was really once mythic raiding got added in that there started a shift in blizzards was of designing the game and reward structures.
And then when legion added mythic plus that’s when it started. Blizzard had a great feature, but they didn’t like the way people ran them. Whether it was over and over again to farm loot or ap, or mass pulling, or trying to skip things. So then they said next expansion we will try to slow down the dungeons.
Bfa came out and blizz got rid of master loot, the global cooldown fiasco. they homogenized all dungeons to have 4 bosses, take x amount of time, to have a roughly the same amount of trash needed, added tyran and fortified for baseline keys, and made trash have much for dangerous abilities.
Raids are now designed so complex because of weak auras and dbm/wigs. Those can easily instruct players on what to do without thought.
So these past few expansions are now so complex raid wise and dungeons are much harder because blizzard is designing the game around its competitive aspect.
THAT IS WHATS KILLING THE GAME.
Blizzard needs to take a step back and look at their biggest player base. Which are the casuals. And start designing this game around them first.
All of these systems that are slowing down the hardcore players are ten times worse for the casuals.
There should be both, we already have the hyper competitive aspect. Now they can add some fun activities for the casuals that’s not just collecting stuff. The dance thingy was a good start.
They just nerfed warlocks and hunters aoe. Why? Because the MDI is coming soon. Recent and direct proof that they are tailoring the game around esports, when almost no one cares about esports. Wow is in a bad spot lately and they really need a win with 10.0. More catering to the 1% is not going to save them.
Esports has definitely made gaming and WoW overall worse lately. There’s nothing wrong about learning strats or making yourself better, but the absolute need to min/max, check logs and parses for literally everything has watered down the community. There’s always been the “meta” for some types, but these days if you’re trying to seriously deviate from it. You’re met with some rough flak.
There’s a reason why games such as BF4 and fromsoft titles still have large dedicated playing populations that still hold the games on a pedestal. It’s focus is making an enjoyable content, and if people sweat out, it doesn’t hold anyone back.
I agree that they can and should cut back on the need to make things competitive for sales, healthy competition is something that drives games. Hard for me to explain this one, but letting us drive the competitions and create the content instead of forcing it on people.
Honestly the game was better before they made the Major League of Gaming. I do hope that the rumors that Microsoft is looking to take it out of the game come true.
Amazing how you talk about the “competitive aspect” and then don’t talk about Arena and Rated PvP in general.
People have been going for World First ever since TBC came out. The difference is just that communication about such things has gotten so much better, that it’s easier for people to make money from people who want to see it done.
You can’t turn back the clock. Blizzard didn’t ruin gamers - gamers ruined Blizzard. (Ok, that’s one heck of an exaggeration, but it sounds clever, and that’s all you need on the forums.)
Are there any articles or leaks that refer to this?
Yes, after the acquisition deal was announced Microsoft said something like “they want everyone playing WoW”, but I wonder if there were any more hints about Microsoft’s intentions after that.
Wow completely gutted esports.
You’re watching too many Asmongold videos: a guy who gets carried to Glad, CE and ksm every season and says the game is too hard, without even playing the game.
I think the difference is that even if less was ultimately accessible to casuals in WotLK, they were kept busy enough earning what they could reach that it didn’t matter. Also secondary forms of gameplay like PvP were more accessible, so if you ran out of casual PvE stuff to do there were always battlegrounds which were pretty easy to get into.
The other thing is that during WotLK, the top of 5-man content was heroic dungeons, so there was a form of group content that casuals could reach the ceiling of and take a bit of pride in, even if it was easy. Now even Mythic 0 is ground level, with at least 15 levels above that. PvP gearing is at the worst it’s been in a long time so that’s no fallback.
I’m casual and I love modern WoW. I can reach M+15 and Heroic Raiding with limited playtime and I am having fun. And i am no way connected to Esports. I am just an average player. 1 to 4x M+ per week, 3 to 6 raid boss kills per week is Casual.
We need devs to finally figure this out too instead of tanking their own game!
Wrath was much more casual than its predecessors Vanilla and BC. Heroic dungeons and unrated PvP were also a viable endgame.
Shadowlands is full of mounts and other cosmetics, but power progression for the casual player is worse than any past WoW expansion and worse than any other major modern MMOs.
The playerbase changing is a natural and inevitable thing. The devs need to stop being so arrogant and stubborn about game design if they want WoW to be the big thing again.