I don’t think any one change is responsible for WoW’s decline.
I could list several features of retail that are so appalling to me that I won’t be subscribing if any of them exist in the game’s current content.
I actually really like the LFG system in retail, and wish that were implemented instead of random matchmaking.
That’s false.
LFD was a response to dead realms just like LFR was a response to how blizzard messed up pug raids that existed in WotLK by making 10/25 man share lockouts.
Which was a result of faction imbalance, player choice, and the faction segregation. Let’s not leave player choice out of this discussion people. Players chose to use the tool in a manner that was detrimental to community. Cross server communities could have existed and to an extent in bg’s. With the forums it did. Trash talking rivals are community. Lol.
However that non engaged “I don’t care about the next person”. That came from the community itself.
Just like the age old fight of trying to get people to use a voip for better communication in harder group content. That was player choice to resist that opportunity to build community.
Community isn’t just what happens in the game.
It was one of many factors that when mixed, created massive problems with community and progression.
LOL. Wrong.
By elitists do you mean people who prefer generally competent people for their groups?
I think a lot of what made me stop playing wow boils down to convenience.
Flying mounts- made it too easy to travel
LFD-too easy to group
Quest tracking built into your map-too easy to level
I could ignore a large portion of what it used to take to reach my goals. I stopped experiencing the world by flying over it, I only socialized with other players when I had to, which was close to never; and I stopped reading quest, my map told me where to go.
Convenience isn’t always good/healthy. Sometimes it’s the effort invested that makes the reward worthwhile.
By itself, no “one thing” is responsible, however various QoL “Improvements” did cause massive impact.
LFG, automated the grouping process, cutting out a vital line of communication.
LFD, automated the gathering process by teleporting members to the dungeon as well as reinforcing CrossRealm anonymity.
LFR, was the heaviest blow, removing game mechanics from encounters, and all but removing the need for a guild when it came to the more casual players.
These factors were, in conjunction with the fast paced, AoE everything, no CC, zerg-fest mentality of dungeon design, made nearly every encounter a race to get in and out as fast as possible. Individually each item was by itself damaging, but in combination, each contributed to the death of the social structure that was highly prevalent in Vanilla WoW.
There is probably some psychology behind things like LFG/LFR/CRBG causing a decline. Convenience is very attractive usually, but not free, there is always a trade.
I always played a tank when I wanted to PVE, so of course my groups were fast. I also rarely joined an existing group, rather I looked for what we needed to fill a group.
However, once the group was formed I was up for whatever usually. If someone needs to farm Strat UD and they don’t get their item I’ll happily do it again unless it is super late or I really have to go for real life things.
Doom? no… It was one step of many at killing off the need for community. WotLK was arguably the biggest and best expansion and LFD was alive and well. So LFD by itself was never the issue it was the update after update adding in similar features that ultimately doomed wow to be a normal MMO instead of the monster it was.
Wrath is where WoW stopped growing in subs after a big growth spurt from Vanilla to the end of BC. LFD started the ball rolling as I said in my OP.
No, I mean people that think that accessibility is bad. That think that everyone being able to kill the “big bad” of the expansion without being looked down a nose at by people is a bad thing.
With LFD/LFR you don’t have to kiss some raid leader’s boots to be able to participate in the content. It took the control of the content out of the hands of the guild leadership and that’s what’s got the elitists upset.
oh my god, I couldn’t have said it better. This is exactly why the world seems lifeless now. I litterally feel like playing an easy single player games full of bots. I miss the feeling of playing in a community so much and exploring a world with others.
Add to that the FLYING mount which let you skip all the world and all the people around.
What a bad, bad choice from Blizzard…
If someone doesn’t want to be put in this position, there was nothing stopping them from creating their own group before LFD/LFR came out.
Without LFD/LFR there were probably people who were known and passed over continuously when groups were forming up. Like the real world. Some people are left out.
Seems fine to me.
I prefer WoW without LFD, LFR but I’m not about to assert that it doomed the game. Same with BG queues, when everyone had to go to the instance portals to queue it made some interesting world PVP situations.
I could live in a version of retail WoW with insta-queue menus, MoP was great, but I cannot live in a version of retail where everyone has a legendary and everyone is the savior of the universe and all of that nonsense. It’s really disgusting and it makes me wish for the game’s demise.
They certainly are, especially in usa today.
Homeless jobless and illegal immigrants getting hired for jobs those that are jobless have applied for only for the employers to say that no american one wants to do those jobs.
You make a lot of good points. I played at the game from release through bfa. I very rarely pugged a dungeon. I usually ran with a guild group. The only thing lfd did was make it to where we didn’t have to run to the dungeon. It will probably be the same for me in classic.
I think there were a lot of factors that changed WoW with each expansion that changed the game experience for people. For me that change happened with Cataclysm. The world changed, the mechanics changed, etc. After Cata, the game no longer resembled itself and had become a different game altogether but it wasn’t because of LFD.
And that’s why wow is at its lowest all time player base? Because it’s great and people love it?