Lots of people want things that aren’t good for them in the long run.
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I read it as “high APM” (actions per minute) but I could be wrong.
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It’s true, yet you’ll get flak for suggesting it.
Despite it being true for life in general not just WoW.
Why would the numbers matter? You think people quit because the damage numbers are higher? That’s the most insignificant reason I’ve ever heard. It’s completely arbitrary. Whether it’s 5 or 5 million, it amounts to the same result, especially since you pointed out bosses are harder to defeat in 2023.
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Think that’s the big problem.
Pick one.
Crazy dance dance arcade style combat
Or
Insane rotations with multiple builders, spenders, CD’s, Dot’s and what ever else.
Having to focus on both at the same time is the problem.
And I’m getting kind of sick and tired of a 7 second set up for a 30 second burst window with a “you’ve been picked” mechanic that takes you out of combat at 15 seconds.
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Howdy!
tl;dr: I don’t think it’s that cut and dry. There are lots of other factors that come into play, too.
For starters, people generally don’t play old video games, and at 20 years, WoW is now a very old game. (For reference, who buys Neverwinter Nights in 2023? Not many.) Certainly, expansions help keep it feeling new, hence folks are still playing, but it’s never going reclaim the press and word-of-mouth buzz like in 2004 and generally in the 2000s. I doubt WoW is attracting many completely new players. Related, gaming really has gone completely console.
Second, WoW was a phenomenon, and it got folks who don’t play MMOs or RPGs or even video games to try it. I’m sure that many folks got that itch scratched back in the early days and have moved back to other types of games. Someone who isn’t really into these types of games isn’t going to stick around for 15 years.
Third, Warcraft ended with Arthas assuming the Frozen Throne. This set up in many of our minds that Arthas was the final bad guy. Even those, who played RoC or Warcraft 2 and know there’s a lot more lore than just The Frozen Throne, probably viewed those other storylines as concluded, and thus Arthas was the final baddie. When he died, a lot of people (myself included) felt like the Warcraft arc was concluded. I’m sure a lot of people decided not to continue on in the story after that.
Fourth, on a similar note, the story has gotten…weird. Things don’t really fit together as nicely as they did. My guess is that, after 20 years of employee turnover, there’s simply been too many cooks in that kitchen for lore to be consistent, logical, and free of plot holes. They also resorted to some poor choices to keep content going: retcons, bringing the dead back to life multiple times, not developing the next generation of characters.
Also, parents are starting to pay more attention to what kids do online. Playing an MMO, with interaction with tons of strangers, makes some parents uneasy. Taken altogether, I doubt youth care much for WoW. And they might likely view it as an old person’s game their parents play. Additionally, kids don’t have computers these days: they have consoles and phones. Eventually, they might get a school laptop.
Speaking of which, those of us from 2009 are 14 years older. That’s a lot of time for other priorities start to win out (working more, children, other hobbies) and now friends we played WoW with have moved on. That’s a big one: playing a game without your real life friends, especially if they are playing something else, is a little sad.
Anyway, I think all those things likely factor into the dropoff of players, and it’s too difficult to say which dominates. My guess is first two are the biggest, but 
.
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Looks at Pokemon.
Looks at Magic: The Gathering.
Looks at chess.
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The introduction of haste, and the dramatic reduction in cast times (I think they even lowered the GCD from 1.5 s to 1 s? Could be wrong on that one); those things have been a huge negative to me in this game over the past 10 years.
“So go play Farmville, Grandpa”
How about no. The gaming world is replete with spastic gameplay for futureless zoomers with the attention span of a gnat. Go play those.
Perhaps the OP’s main problem is that other people are doing big numbers, but the OP… isn’t.
The game’s been around a long time and most people have gotten better at the game over that time. Which is natural; the longer you practice doing something, the better you get at it.
Some people, however, downright refuse to get better at the game. And instead complain about how unfair it is that everybody else is better than them, now.
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Sorry, I should have stated that people generally don’t play older video games. I’ve edited my post.
Looks at Civ.
Wow, thank you
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Arthas? That’s when the game had 12 million players.
(I’ll go back and read.)
Still the best video game series ever made, bar none.
What made WoW so appealing:
-
It was an easier version of EverQuest that allowed more people to get into mmorpg’s and eventually quest all the way up to level 60 without losing experience or your loot (very casual in comparison).
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It was ahead of all other games technically and graphically in design and therefore ahead of its time by upwards of a decade. No one came close in comparison.
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It had a massive Warcraft following and loyal Blizzard playerbase well before it launched which helped blow up hype levels to legendary status
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It became a cultural icon
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Marketing was pretty good
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Very responsive and well designed combat engine built from the Warcraft RTS engine
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Well designed endgame lastly by former elite EQ raiders
These days what WoW has going for it is a solid endgame and pretty well designed combat, and a good underlying engine for responsiveness in that regard. Most competitors have caught up to it otherwise.
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And your words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
“Generally”
Of course there will be exceptions. That doesn’t take away from the fact that many people are not going to play WoW 20 years after release.
Weirdly, I think I’ve only ever played as Gandhi like once.
If you look at classics talent trees, almost all the talents either buffed current abilities or replaced them.
Compare that with retail talent where you could literally add 15 more buttons
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Looks at those games stream numbers
Looks at newer games stream numbers
Well there does seem to be a lot more interest in newer games, so maybe people don’t generally play old games.