Do You Guys Who Raid/M+ Ever Wonder What's the Point?

Community General Discussion
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I’ve enjoyed raids for so long, used to manage downing a couple Mythic raid bosses even in the past on my old, old main, but since coming back in Dragonflight and onward I’ve kinda lost that momentum I used to have and only made it to Heroic Sarkareth last expansion, even though I was reaching for Mythic.

You’d never catch me making a “Goodbye Topic”, that isn’t what this is, it’s not if I come back but when, my Subscription’s only paused for a couple months. Thing is, the lack of permanence to anything I work for in terms of my character’s power has begun to wear me out.

When I told my friend who never played WoW how it all worked seasonally, he’d ask the question “What’s the point?”, I kind of just told him I enjoyed it, it was fun to me. But lately, particularly I think after leading a raid on Heroic Broodtwister, coordinating people for hours, I’ve started asking the same thing.

I mean, what is the point? We work our way to the top, deal with PUG groups, rushing to meet the demands of our guild or communities, we strain through with the time we have every week to fill out our vaults, do our weeklies, and god forbid you’re someone who also wants to do professions, reputations, the campaign, mount farming, transmog farming and old-world content like me as well.

Once you’re essentially at the top, maximum item level that is, peak end-game, come next season or expansion you’re thrown back down to the bottom and have to work you’re way up the ladder again.

I can’t be the only one feeling this way, but I think when I come back, peak end-game just isn’t worth it. I’ll work through heroic raids still because it’s fun, I still love raiding and won’t stop any time soon, but heck if I don’t miss those types of games like Skyrim where you can permanently enjoy the heights you worked for to reach for as long as you want without getting dropped back down to start all over again.

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Someday, Blizzard will hit the “off” switch and everything you ever worked for in this game will be gone. So, the point is that you’re having fun while getting that gear, because that’s the closest thing to permanence you’ll get.

Oh, and transmog.

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Transmog is the real end game.

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I went into lfr and saw all teh particle effects etc etc. Folks afk at entrance, others screaming at healers. I said that very same thing and left group. Raiding is not for me anymore. Heck grouping in this game is just awful now.

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Agreed. I will not stress enough how much I love raiding. Doesn’t matter if I’ve already downed all my bosses for the week, I’ll go into PUGs and still be doing them even though there will be no reward.

I’m just gonna set the bar a bit lower honestly, 619 item level will do just fine for me.

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The point of raiding is to have fun with my friends.

There’s no other reason to play WoW.

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I get where you are coming from as I used to participate in high end raiding many years ago, took a long break, skipping most of the expansions by now, and now just have no desire to play this game at a high level at all anymore.

I’m old and boring now and have different priorities and responsibilities than I did over 10 years ago.

To answer your question though, the point is that the game is supposed to be fun. If you are enjoying your time spent in this game doing whatever, then that’s your money and time well spent. As soon as you stop having fun and move on to something else, that’s okay too. There is plenty to do in this game.

I think you can say the same thing about any other hobby or leisure activity too. Sit outside in the park reading a book? What’s the point?? You’re not actually DOING anything! Follow a sports team to the point you own season tickets? Waste of time! Not like you’re playing the game yourself and getting paid millions for it!

There is no point to any of these activities. You could also work 24/7 too, but you might find that’s unhealthy and not very fulfilling either

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There’s two answers to this:

  1. To have fun!
  2. What you are experiencing right now is part of existentialist philosophy and this occurs with EVERYTHING you enjoy or have enjoyed in the past. At some point you have done everything you have wanted, something has changed and ultimately you ask “what is the point of this, where do I see myself in ‘X-amount of time’?”

The simple answer to all of this: have fun, since you aren’t having fun, go and do something else. If it is something you feel like you miss doing you’ll come back to it and if you don’t and find something else to do, congratulations - your midlife crisis showcased something else you’d rather want to do. I’m not kidding by the way, this thing you are experiencing is the same thing people experience during a midlife crisis.

Some people become painters, others get a different job, some go back to school. From a gaming perspective though, maybe you want to try a different hobby, try different genres or styles of playing the game, heck maybe you want to do something so radical where you choose to “go back to school” … no idea what that would be in this gaming context but, you get what I mean.

Try something else, because that’s where you are at. People play games for their enjoyment and that enjoyment can come from any different angles or avenues and ultimately, if you don’t want to do it: don’t. Doesn’t mean that you won’t want to come back later and do it, or maybe you won’t come back at all, or maybe you come back later and want to do something entirely different altogether.

That’s life in a nutshell. Usually just takes people roughly living 40-60 years before they figure that out. WoW’s been around for 20 years and we have seen all manners of raids, PvE, and PvP occurring in the game. Folks experiencing a midlife-WoW-crisis isn’t unheard of or that surprising really; we just don’t like to think of it as such because we don’t want to attribute “real life” concepts to video games but that’s really just a whole load of hogwash nonsense. People can experience real things in games and this is VERY much so a real thing that you are experiencing.

So… that’s my answer and hopefully you can figure out what you wanna do!

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This is def my endgame for WoW, FFXIV, n Diablo 4 at this point :rofl:

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Kinda depends on why you play. I typically play to prog my character but eventually you hit your limit and it’s cool to break until you can do it again. General feeling is the point of any game is to escape for a bit from rl and enjoy yourself while doing it.

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Well my reasons are only excitement which wears off after a week or 2 of doing them. So you won’t see me chasing the holy grail .

At some point my gameplay ends up being logging checking ah, logging out . At which point I just let my sub lapse .

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The point is the game. There isn’t really a point. You do the thing to make the number go up and when the number is high up you can do difficult content.

Every MMO player goes through this at one point or another, when the veil is lifted and you realize you’re grinding number to get bigger number in an endless loop that doesn’t go anywhere in and of itself.

Really, all of life is like that. What’s the point? The point is the experience.

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There is no point to anything we do, as the way things go, nothing matters no matter how far one goes or what they achieve in life or a game.

But, even though it’s all pointless it doesn’t mean that it isn’t fun. If it is enjoyable, there’s no reason not to do it as long as it doesn’t impede the things that need to be done to be able to continue doing the things that are enjoyable.

As for the ladders and such, generally if you get high in one season, it lets you carry that momentum into the next. The M+ grind tends to be like pushing a boulder up a hill, it’s hardest from the bottom pushing it up to the top, but once you reach the peak it pretty much can go all on its own.

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Ive not really noticed nor cared about gear for an age… barring unless a specific quirky item makes or breaks my spec.

When you naturally farm 10s or push early mythic gear kinda just arrives. It isnt chased.

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It’s fun. I think that a lot of people seem to have lost sight of that but remain on the treadmill.

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Back in the day, power felt more permanent, but in reality it was more about community.

There’s still community out there, but most of us want the game to somehow do everything for us. I used to talk on vent every day, just shoot the shot with guild mates, I don’t anymore but somehow it’s not me, it’s the game!

So for me the game is about hitting certain goals, enjoying the enjoyable parts, and collecting mogs

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You answered it when you answered your friend: You enjoyed it, it was fun.
Ultimately I think there is no point to anything – not to learning, nor loving, nor even living – but what we make for it.

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I wish the vault would give upgraded raid gear. If you do normal raid you should get a heroic piece in the vault

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Shouldn’t get loot from bosses on difficulties you haven’t killed.

In answer to the OP though, overcoming challenging content with my friends is fun.

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There is no purpose. That’s why I set some goals to myself for the season. Realistic goals, that is. As much as I enjoy to watch numbers go up, grinding forever leads to burnout.

Every season, I try to:

  • Pay attention to the story and characters
  • Get KSM
  • Get AotC
  • Get nice current transmog
    That’s it. Once I’m done I turn off my laptop and come back next season.

No infinite farming, no ninfinite grinding, no excessive multitasking. Just a small achieveable checklist and I’m done.

It is, of course, still repetitive but it carries the very simple purpose of challenging myself every season to complete these. This keeps the game fresh to an extent, at least for me.