But again, that’s not an MDI thing, that’s a M+ thing.
I understand the frustration with designing dungeons around M+ system (Classic BRS for life), but this isn’t something caused by the E-Sport.
PvP has been in the game since Vanilla.
Okay, but you still haven’t said specifically how e-sports have affected the game. You simply stated that they have.
Show causality.
And it isn’t an E-Sport.
Again, show how this is caused by the e-sports, and not the M+ system in general.
Generally, when people bring up the game “Becoming an ESport” they are referring to skill pruning and the way classes were (previously) pigeonholed into using just a few buttons. It also refers to the fact that because of Seasonal Tournaments/Mythic Invitationals, Balance comes at the end of an expansion, or at the very earliest the start of a new PvP/Mythic season.
So specs that are underperforming, sometimes deliberately, earn a negative reputation with the playerbase and as a result aren’t brought along for content until their issues can finally be addressed.
Personally I don’t think it’s so much that esports ruin the game, as they simply add nothing of value for a lot of players. I’m sure I’m not the only one who started out playing video games to get away from being bad at sports, so it’s not in my wheelhouse, like, at all.
Is this an MDI thing? I thought it was symptomatic of their new patch cycle that came early on in Legion (before the MDI).
You can’t with arenas, nor m+ because they change per season
This game was not designed in anyway to fit within the eSports profile. Sports, in a literal sense, are 2 teams fighting it out for a length of time in an ‘arena’ designed for it. Like LoL and DoTA, the maps are designed for 2 teams to have a half hour or so fight, there is plenty going on, it gives people something to watch where they can focus on different aspects of the match.
WoW? We have an arena that lasts like 5 minutes at most, an M+ setup that is the same copy paste every single time based on the FoTM classes or an RBG setup that has not changed in about 10 years.
A new map, one simple new map to start us down a path that allows us to go M+ style in a 5v5 setup. Think DoTA x WoW, than I would happily participate, but not with what we have, the game does not have what the eSports community needs to accommodate them.
Possibly. I do feel that it’s even more concerning though with the fact that a lot of the balance concerns may be slipping through the cracks because nerfs/buffs would affect the current season. It may not have started as an Esports problem, but it has certainly become one.
… and let the numbers speak for itself what it was like and the difference it was back then compared to now
WoW began and FLOURISHED as an mmoRPG…a “roleplaying game” meant for many users to get together to play their characters how they saw fit, for what content they saw fit.
The game and classes were balanced as needed and they had unique benefits and drawbacks.
NOW…the game is a shell of what it once was, not just in playability and fun, but also in estimated sub count(estimated because we cannot tell anymore other than anecdotal who we see in the world).
The fun was taken away, the “sandbox” was taken away…we are left with a themepark game on a rail from A to B and the game is now balanced around the “competitve content” and how it affects that instead of how changes just affect the classes themselves and betters them.
It needs to get back to it’s roots…what made it great. An mmo is not an esport.
Blizzard goes for long periods of time without balancing things because of esports tournaments.
People emulate things like MDI at all levels including leveling dungeons leading to unfun and outright negative experiences. I can’t heal anymore because undergeared tanks try to turbo pull without the skill or gear and it just stresses me out so much. Dps pull ahead of me even when I’m talking on my night fae brewmaster. I basically have to not loot anything not even bosses in leveling dungeons to keep ahead of the turbo dps that pull for me if I’m not fast enough for them. It’s hell.
The gogogo mentality is pervasive and has never been nearly as bad as it is right now. MDI inspiring the sweatiest of tryhards is at least partially to blame.
Show me what other game is as poorly balanced as WoW and has 6 months of tournaments getting 5k views.
how so? you can still wander around killing elites and exploring if you want. but people don’t want to, because they can’t get 233 ilvl gear by doing so. that’s a player issue, not a game design issue.
Or, they should figure out how to get the balancing right before the end of the expac
MDI, as the representation of e-sports, is the public view of a change in the design direction of the game that I think people are really complaining about.
Put two or more people in the same activity, and at least one of them will try to make some part of it a competition. That is part of human nature.
But design philosophy of an E-sport versus a MMO versus a RPG is where this is all going south. Also, the MDI, and Mythic+, are only focused on one aspect of competition: time. But that focus is affecting other areas of the game for people that would rather play to more traditional RPG, or MMO, style elements. Talents, theoretical class and spec throughput and balancing, affect how Blizzard designs raid and open world content.
Blizzard could try to branching out to other ways to measure player ability:
Blizzard seems to have decided the marketing aspects of e-sports, including designing for e-sports, are better for the game than the continued business of MMO and RPG players. Part of me hopes they are right, but it is driving away players like me that do not care, and do not want to care, about that particular style of competitive play.
There is nothing wrong overall with having an e-sport element in WoW
there IS something fundamentally wrong with the development focus on esport to the point where other aspects of the game have seemingly gotten little attention.
E-Sports, at least in the context of WoW, is a completely unviable business model. WoW’s reach is just not as widespread as a franchise like LoL or Fortnite. It never will be. As someone who’s extensively studied the revenue model of E-Sports (for work), I think Activision made the mistake of trying to overlay E-Sports onto its Blizzard franchises. CoD might work well because it’s got the reach. WoW? Even OverWatch? I’m very skeptical because both games lack the numbers.
So going back to your question, how has it ruined the game?
When WoW devs spend time designing the game for E-Sport events like AWC or MDI, it takes away from development time for other things that might actually enhance the game experience. Since they haven’t yet realized E-Sports won’t work for a game like WoW, they are effectively ruining the game by not spending adequate time on things that matter.
This is the part I struggle agreeing with when people say WoW is an esport. I still go out and quest in old areas. I can go slow and actually read the quests. I still go work on old achievements that can take weeks. I can party sync with low level players and experience it at a more challenging level if I want. Just because I’m at max level doesn’t mean everything lower is now irrelevant. Unless of course one’s view of relevance is exclusively tied to gear or end-game rewards.
A couple of reasons why I think people are saying this.
And Blizzard balance is slow and at times asinine. I recall they bluntly say that they did not want us to play Demonology and they drastically change the spec, or warlocks actually, a shadow of their former selves. Warlocks aren’t the only one that suffered through this. I also miss Necrotic Plague for Death Knights.
I take the game with an absolute grain of salt now thanks to the company that runs this game.
Esports gives a un-realistc look at wow.
Like watching AWC ----- Actually trying to play arena…2 totally different worlds.
I dont think it has ruined the game, btw, but it sure could be implemented better.
When they added timers to dungeons and no loot till the end, it changed the pace that people take all content at.
That said it’s good for players to learn how to go go go because that is all that awaits them at the higher levels of those dungeons. It may not make for a better dungeon experience but the way things are designed right now you barrel headfirst and just hardly survive. its the only way to push because if you are comfortable then you arent in a high enough key.