“Grind” implies mindless, repetitive farming. I’m quite familiar and comfortable with it. The only difficulty that could be related to it is the ability to get through it. I have had the “It’s Over Nine Thousand” achievement since 2011. Again, a responder who makes the assumption that I’m not willing to work for rewards.
If you don’t know what any of the expansion features I listed are, I’m not sure why you consider yourself qualified to speak on the core philosophy of the game, lol.
Shadowlands has already changed the core philosophy of gear rewards in WoW to be more elitist and grindy, and this has cost the game countless subs.
On the contrary, many solo players simply want to go back to the systems of Wrath / Cata / MoP (Emblems, Valor, etc.) or Legion / BfA (competitive gear from world content and events). Systems like this that benefited everyone helped the game to grow.
MMO game design needs to account for casual and solo players, or it will flop hard like Wildstar or New World. If Shadowlands released as WoW’s debut expansion, it would have flopped, too, as the endgame outside of premade group instances would not have been enough to retain attention.
How to make the systems function is beyond me. But how the current systems function is beyond me. As a player it’s not my responsibility to understand.
Some players would complain it was too hard, yes. But some player’s complain that raids are too hard, dungeons are too hard, world mobs are too hard, that list goes on forever. If “too hard” for some players was a reason not to develop content, WoW wouldn’t exist.
First, the core philosophy of WoW has included solo play since it’s inception. Questing is solo content. Whether you’re levelling, farming items or reputation, or gathering materials for professions and consumables, none of these require groups, nor were they designed to.
Second, one of the most important variables to consider when deciding whether or not to make core changes is your player base and what they want. Considering the increasing number of threads created to discuss this topic, the measurable amount of lost subs, and the ever-growing pool of alternative games, I’d say they better start considering it. Without players, whether they play in groups or solo, there is no game.
Honestly I don’t really care how the casuals/solo players(2 different types of players) gear in this game and I agree they need some sort of progression system OUTSIDE of group content to continue experiencing upgrade. What ilvl or gear really has 0 effect on players that are raiding Mythic or doing higher M+.
What progression system do you have in mind for players that are either short on time or lack the skills/will for group content?
What do they do when people complain about this system being too difficult?
Does the bottom line of solo players deserve the same gear vs the more skilled solo players? Do we need to nerf solo progression content to the point where anyone that plays the game can complete with ease? If not then the bottom line will not be able to complete this solo content and complain to Blizzard which leads us back to this situation but now its turned to “skilled solo players” vs “rest of solo players”.
This is still the exact same, none of the things you have listed requires grouping in SL. The problem right now that most solo players have is there is no content past the things you’ve listed to progress even further and if their goal is gear progression there is nothing left to do other than group content.
Would the solo progression content be super easy and accessible that ALL solo players can complete it with ease? Otherwise you’ll still have solo players complaining about the content being too hard and not being able to gear up.
That hunter isnt worth your time. They grey parse normal raids.
It’s progression. It would go from easy to hard like dungeons and raids do. People will max out at different levels. Not really a difficult concept to understand.
Let us fly in the maw. Increase spawn rates on rares
many people did not start playing mmorpg’s to sit in instance play 24/7, this game has put everything into dungeons and raiding, everything outside instance play is old and unpolished.
Stuck at an ilvl that is too low to move up into harder content without catch up gear.
Certain players have stated that unavailability of catch up gear would result in players who are unable to play because they have no access to even the lowest competitive gear continuing to subscribe - even though they can’t play - for fear of never being able to catch up in some hypothetical future patch or expansion.
I think that world content (world quests, daily quests, callings, invasions, etc.) and queued content such as daily random Heroic dungeons could be a source of currency that could be used to purchase or upgrade Normal or Heroic iLvl gear over time, sort of like the old Valor system. (The current new Valor only affects M+.) If the item level is decent, it’s OK if the currency cannot be used to purchase tier pieces.
For players that like to queue for unrated PvP, Honor gear could be made more competitive in iLvl, or Conquest gear could be made competitive in iLvl without the need for ranking to upgrade.
Expansion features such as 3-man scenarios (MoP), island expeditions, Horrific Visions, or Torghast could be made queueable or scale to solo players, and either drop gear or the currency for gear.
There are many things that casual and solo players are happy to do, but gear needs to be an intrinsic reward. Most solo and casual players will not demand a full set of max-iLvl BiS gear, but what we seem to be getting in 9.2 is way too much of an insult.
World content and daily Heroic dungeons would probably never be too difficult. If world content requires a group, game devs should put an automatic group-finding function (green eye?) on it, as world boss world quests have now. (Ve’nari weekly quests in the Maw in 9.0 for example did require a group, but had no automatic group finder.)
I would imagine that the difficulty level of expansion feature instanced content should be somewhere around Torghast Layer 9 in 9.0, or Horrific Visions in 8.3. Solo players should learn how to CC, interrupt, watch their health, and juggle damage abilities effectively, but if the content is too tightly tuned (too much mob damage or enemies abilities that need to be interrupted come too frequently), then the content could become frustrating for too many players or certain classes.
With world content and queued content, all solo players would have to remain at the same gear level, unless you add in upgrades for players who keep playing to earn more currency.
With something like Torghast, island expeditions, or Horrific Visions, higher difficulties could award slightly better gear or more currency for gear. Players that want more challenge or better gear can go for it, or players that don’t can stay on the lower difficulties.
But the base system should never be as difficult as timewalking Mage Tower, unless it is some kind of additional challenge mode where the reward is guaranteed Heroic or Mythic iLvl gear.
If there are a variety of difficulties with rewards increasing in iLvl, players will be able to earn meaningful rewards in line with the level of challenge they are comfortable with. Most importantly, players will not feel like they are being excluded from progression entirely because they don’t have a team.
Yep, its ridiculous what this game has become under the current development culture.
Hopeful microsoft brings back the old WoW mentality that droves its success - accessibility for a wide range of different play styles, not trying to shove raiding down everyone’s throat.
I’ll call it now - Patch 9.2 will be WoW’s worst ever and a great way to cap off the worst expo ever, setting all the time % decline in playerbase for the game.
Because it’s not how they play the game, this person will never understand this. Especially the bold part.
You mean where it was raid or die?
The delusions of some people never cease to entertain me.
False. I don’t care how other people play the game.
When someone makes a claim that they aren’t bad at the game and then they have bad parses then yes they are bad at the game in comparison to everyone else.
Supposedly, according to raider types themselves, there just isn’t much to do in ZM outdoor world and “by week 4-5 people will be complaining that there’s nothing to do unless you M+ or raid”
That kind of prediction is certainly concerning for casual/non-raiding players since it looks like 9.2 will be the only morsel of fresh content we get until some point in 2023 when 10.0 finally relieves us/breaks the content drought 
Do what SWTOR does have gear rewards scale to your ilvl giving you a little bump. This will not effect mythc raid loggers they will still have the best gear.
I said hi to you the other day at the org AH.
I have never seen a Game Director who somehow remains so proud despite being proven wrong as often as he is.
I don’t know who should take the reigns of WoW at this point, but it cannot be someone who only cares about players competing for World Firsts. Ion needs to go back to designing raid encounters… and someone who actually cares if the game is played by the bottom 99% needs to take his spot.
If they only cared about giving the best experience to top end raiders they’d go back to masterlooter with no trade restrictions, which they haven’t. They’d also figure a way to release the new raids at the same time in Europe and America for the world first race, which they don’t seem to be looking at doing. I’m really not sure who they are trying to cater the game to. There are plenty of things that exist in game that don’t seem to benefit the top end players. There are other things that are super unfriendly to casual players and inconvenient for hardcore players. I am not convinced they are designing a lot of the game with players in mind, but rather engagement metrics and token sales.