The game was never dumbed down for casuals, it was dumbed down for the sake of raiding.
Even the ability prune was for raiding. Blizz stated they wanted players to have to focus less on their rotations so that they could implement more difficult boss mechanics in raids.
Gear is now trivial to acquire so that players can jump into raiding as quickly as possible after hitting the level cap.
LFR was created to try and get more people into raiding.
Garrisons and mission tables made it so raiders had to spend less time farming gold and mats in between raids.
Character boosts exist so people can jump into endgame and raiding as soon as possible
Every change in this game is motivated by blizz’s desire to make it as easy as possible for people to get into raiding and now mythic+
Honestly, the last time I saw these kinds of changes it was because the game was going to console.
The elder scrolls used to be PC only.
Game by game they started removing really cool parts of the game and it was driving me nuts
Someone online said that he thought they were doing it to put the next game on console, and sure enough…the next one was on console.
It may be about pushing content easier…or it may well be they have other platforms in mind.
which Im ok with as long as they dont try to force ME to change.
Just paid $1000 for crap for this game over the last month.
One sure fire way to make me quit permanently is to tell me I just wasted a lot of that money on two 27" monitors and 8 GB of ram.
I’m a casual and I am ‘offended’ by this. I don’t need ANYTHING dumbed down for me. I raided from Wrath through to Pandaria. Then, my life changed and I no longer had time to devote to progression raiding. I wasn’t ‘elite’ but I’m not bad.
Choosing to play my own way doesn’t mean I’m stupid.
And this is what’s wrong with gaming communities since players could start playing and communicating with others.
Lathander: “My opinion is superior and correct! I don’t care about anyone but myself! I r l33t! Noobs!”
I’m casual, and like Allelya quite correctly said, I don’t need or want things dumbed down. For many of us it’s a time issue, not a skill issue. Are there bad players? Sure, but that isn’t why the class design is so awful. In fact, it’s the casuals that are leaving the game, I expect. There is a heck of a lot more effort put into making a mythic raid than any other content in the game.
Unfortunately for Blizz, there are a lot more casual players than mythic raiders, so they are shooting themselves in the foot. I see a lot of my casual friends moving on to games like FFXIV, where rotations are significantly more complicated than current WoW.
The current class design isn’t to appease casuals, it’s to cut costs and drag out the play time of those who stick with the game. Also, the class devs are simply incompetent. They clearly don’t play WoW or any other MMO, because classes play like a phone game. They refuse to learn about the classes, don’t play them and ignore the gamers who do play.
Poor design, dev incompetence and laziness are what is hurting the game, not casuals.
Grow up. Facts are facts. If you are upset about it that’s on you, not me.
I guarantee I go out of my way to help people learn the game properly and inform people in game more than you probably do.
But again the trend has been from the 90s to make simpler games to mass market instead of making the best game in that genre they can. It takes crowd funding to get games like that now.
Casuals aren’t leaving. It’s core players. IE players who are between casuals and hardcore. At least that’s what has happened in all of my social circles on WoW. ‘Casuals’ are still there often spending more time than core or hardcore players playing the game. They just do different activities like pet battles and achievements.
I don’t have a lot of time either but I still manage to learn my class. That’s a cop out excuse.
Show me where Blizzard specifically said “We are dumbing down the game for casuals”
Please. Show me these facts. I’m waiting…
Your post is an assumption and YOUR opinion. It is NOT fact.
You’re insulting others who you deem beneath you (yet claim you try to help people, that’s laughable) and then have the audacity to tell me to ‘grow up’. Dude. Move on.
According to Blizzard, it does. “You think you do, but you don’t.” You don’t know how to play the game they way they want you to play it and they don’t like it. They change the game so your playstyle no longer functions. It’s not some happy coincidence, it’s intentional.
A lot of the class changes over the years were positive and made logical sense. Others removed alternate styles of play and unique aspects of classes, in the effort make the classes more homogenous. This is an effort to remove outlier playstyles so the devs have an easier time “balancing” the game.
I’ve always disliked how Ion and the devs today talk down to the players, like we’re lucky to have them making “content” for us and we don’t deserve it. You’d think they actually have some kind of success under their belts. Sadly, they measure that in dollars, not in satisfied customers.
They went for cheap, recycled crap and BOY did we get it. They talked about the “new invasions” like we’re too stupid to realize it’s the exact same thing that legion had. We give them a hard time about azurite armor and they won’t drop it because it’s the only unique thing for BfA. No one likes hearing their ideas suck.
There’s plenty of money for development. The problem is that less money spent on development means more profit. You can guess what the empty suits chose.
Go back over the last 3 decades of gaming and go through each series of games. Count how many things get cut over time. Blizzard doesn’t have to say it. They are DOING IT.
Care for a mentor to help you learn and not rage when you mess up? Want help doing quests while leveling? Care for personal interactions more than get gud? Come on over!
