Doing a Lot Out of Spite

I know no sane company would ever spite its player base intentionally, but sometimes it’s hard not to think that Blizzard is making decisions out of spite. A lot of the decisions Blizzard make seems to actually lower the quality of life for players.

For example:

  • Players love flight whistle? Remove it.
  • Lots of flight paths? Remove them.
  • Players love soloing old raids? Maybe we’ll let them solo them again in 9.3.
  • World quests are easy to do? Make them painful and long, with hidden steps.
  • Players love getting gear? Very little usable gear will drop, especially from mythic+.
  • Players demanded flight back? It’s now behind painful time gates and only arrives late in the expansion.
  • Players love the new customization? No more for the expansion.
  • Players love running old content? Nerf the rewards into the ground.

I honestly don’t understand why Blizzard seemingly doesn’t want to make its customers happy. A lot of the changes don’t make any sense, though I’m sure there must be some behind the scenes explanation. Right?

Moderator: Edited title to remove the word Blizzard. Using words like “Blizzard,” “Blue,” or “Devs” in your thread title is a violation of the forum rules.

363 Likes
  1. Flight Whistles were made for folks to get to flight. It became worthless once you got flying
  2. Lots of FPs were annoying especially with Flight whistle and how some are pointless
  3. & 4. World Quests in BFA simply gave you uber rewards for minimalist work (eg, Mythic loot for killing 5 boars)
  4. Hey, at least it’s tied to your covenant. Be lucky it wasn’t gated into two parts that required you to explore the whole new regions, become exalted/revered with 10 factions and completing the main story for the first part just to get a 10% ground speed boost then doing the same thing again for part 2 just to get your wings
  5. Dude! what moar do you expect? oh wait…forgot that most of the outcry ironically come from Elven players who want to have a Blood/void elf with an uber beard and Worgens still mad they don’t have a dog tail…
  6. Okay, remember the pain of reworking Hellfire Citadel’s first phase just so you can solo while protecting cannons? Tell me how they’d rework Mythic Kil’Jaden, Eonar and maybe fights like N’zoth to be soloable? It’s not that easy
12 Likes

Three little words… Ion Hazzikostas

81 Likes

They make fun of players in voice lines and quest text too. “Why would anyone walk anywhere?”

Most decisions have to do with business over entertainment. Hooks are easier to implement than engaging content. And they last longer too.

53 Likes

Just some of Ions comments since i started playing the game in 2017 make me think he does stuff to irritate players and is completely oblivious that games are to entertain and have fun with. Challenging is ok. Spite isnt.
Challenging is when SOME world trash does the Slow/Root/Stun/Circle of Death.
Spite is when it ALL does it.

77 Likes

Strange, I don’t seem to be flying…

137 Likes

In my opinion blizzard are extremely anti consumer for some reason good example being Worgen tails which is a heavily requested feature and basically everyone that does WoW art or writes their books think they have them but they always make a statement about it being wrong or just have them removed and refuse to give what a large amount of the player base want

15 Likes

“player love soloing old raids? Maybe we’ll let them solo them again in 9.3”

Well for one thing, I feel we should be specify Legion raids here, as raids older than Legion are still soloable. I plan on heading in to Hellfire Citadel today to see if I can complete the Normal and Mythic recolors of the Demongaze Armor (DK Tier) today.

Secondly, I think they do need to nerf some mechanics in Legions raids instead of making us wait for the last content patch of Shadowlands.

3 Likes

But bruh, muh esports!

41 Likes

I swear, if I get one more slow walking quest, I’m going to lose my mind.

23 Likes

I think it’s obviously unintentional, but most of their design philosophies come from the “stretch play time as much as possible” mentality so obviously players don’t really feel that comfortable having to do more for less.

16 Likes

I agree. I think when they lost the battle over flight in WoD they have gotten more and more spiteful.

Oh you can fly but these zones you can’t. And this expansion a zone where you couldn’t even mount.

They need a attitude adjustment.

105 Likes

That’s so false lol

Even with flight, the whistles were pretty useful. Teleporting back to town is generally faster than flying.

88 Likes

What were they thinking with a zone where you can’t mount? I still hit my mount hotkey there all the time before I remember.

27 Likes

The white knight showed up immediately in this one…unbelievable. SMH…

84 Likes

My brother just started playing just over a week ago, so he’s being forced to go through BfA. He hit 30 last night and couldn’t really believe that the only place in the game he can’t fly now is the expansion he’s going to be stuck in for at least another week or two. He’s less than happy.

9 Likes

He can do Chromie time and go to WoD, which is pretty much the fastest way to level to 48, can’t he?

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I’d get cranky, too, if my “vision” for the game ended up being mediocre fanfic that shipped with so many easily foreseen problems that flight would have been the least of the concerns.

22 Likes

No, can’t do chromie time if your account is new. You have to go all the way through BfA first.

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They have gone from a gaming company to a business in a way. Their main priority is to extend the amount of time you’re in the game - that’s a huge one - and then offer microtransactions around that.

They funnel you quickly through leveling to the end game where you grind and rot. They’ve created a loot scarcity / vegas rng system designed to keep you logging in - the legendary / boe situation seems designed to encourage token sales and what did WE get as a thank you for their 30 years in business? WE got the option to pay them more money.

Compared to some other IPs WoW is saintly - but I can see they are edging their practice over to the dark side - I’d rather they shifted back to their roots.

22 Likes