MMORPG should not be an eSports-centered genre. Period.
Want to play something competitive? Go play Dota 2, or LoL, or Valorant, or Warzone, or CSGO or any other game that is build around competitiveness and professional play.
The fact that the entirety of WoW’s endgame is build around pushing keys and doing mythic raids is maniacal. There is 0 horizontal progression and absolutely nothing to do for a casual player. There’s a reason why most casuals have left the game - it hates them.
WoW forces you to be a hardcore player. Otherwise, you’re stuck waiting for months in between major patches. RPers are the only ones who still seem to find ways to enjoy the game and even they acknowledge that WoW is not nearly as RP-friendly as it could potentially be (FFXIV and SWTOR are perfect examples of how to implement RP mechanics in your game the right way)
The fact that abilities in this game are directly affected by how they perform on the competitive scene is humorous and sad at the same time. Now, do I have a solution? No. But here are some games that do.
Guild Wars 2 (horizontal progression done right)
FFXIV and SWTOR (RP and story done right)
Same 2 games + ESO and Wildstar (player housing done right)
I don’t do either of those and I’m playing end game content. It’s called public events and new end game zones. Open world players have their own upgrade path, too. Something we asked for.
One of the great things about MMO’s, your journey ends when you want it to. You can pick goals to work at, and once you reach them decide if you want to keep going or take a break till something else comes around.
I’ll agree wow retail/classic feels limited in that regard; like there’s only 2 paths for PVE/PVP, where even a game like old school RuneScape has that figured out, and FF14.
If you think FF14/SWOTR are more worth your time, no harm in going there
I have a friend who just collects, it’s what makes them happy on wow. I have another who will push seasons hard, get AOTC then go roleplay until next season. And I have a friend who just enjoys leveling alts and professions/making gold.
What I’m trying to say is, your end game with wow can be anything you want it to be.
WoW should not feel forced to be one thing or another. We have a wide variety of people playing in a wide variety of ways. We’re going to have conflicts of interest and different subcultures that have trouble understanding each other, but I’m not a fan of any solutions that involve driving people out of the game.
Getting along with each other, even when we greatly differ, feels like an elemental part of the MMO experience to me.
I think its great that wow has continuous vertical progression. While I do enjoy horizontal games like ESO or GW2, I also grow bored with one particular build or character very quickly because your gear progression tops out so fast.
I think both are important, and there’s no reason games need to be one or the other. I think wow would benefit greatly from keeping its current seasonal progression, but adding more casual/fun/social aspects to the game as well. Because its also easy to lose interest in the game if even though maybe you enjoy m+ or raid or pvp, that’s not all you want to do in a mmo.
There are all types of players that play this game and there should be content for different play styles, not just your “casual” play style. Actually, it kinda sounds like you’re the one who needs to find something else to play
To be fair, most of WoW’s playerbase has been playing since at least Legion, or way earlier. Most of the playerbase has the “sunken cost fallacy” thrown on them. I do this, too. As much as I enjoy my friends and guildies, I play literally because nothing else is actually better to me and I’ve spent over 7k+ USD into this game over basically 2 decades or 10k if you include the other 8 Accounts for RaF and things for them as well, so I’m not going anywhere really, not until Ashes of Creation comes out.
I manage to get around it by having a dozen alts to repeat stuff I like with.
Easy way to burn out, i guess…but it does keep me from needing to do end game crap I will hate.
