Most of us have heard Ion talk about game 1 vs game 2. Many of us have spent a LONG time playing game 2, which Ion claims is a player-created problem that devs are not responsible for. I would beg to differ.
If you’re not familiar with the reference, Ion Hazzikostas gave an interview a while back referring to “game 1” as the challenges of getting your group together to down a boss–something the devs are responsible for accomplishing in the design of WoW. He then points to a “game 2”, that he says is player-derived, and involves the pursuit of better performance through player power progression. It’s why end-game essentially boils down to parse analysis and class optimization strategy. It’s where BiS, stat priority, raid/group composition, and class/spec rotation perfection come from.
If it doesn’t occur to you immediately, you’re not alone. But, for those in the know, everything I just listed are all features of this game that come from and are controlled by game developer design. As a player, I cannot choose what item is BiS for a particular slot, because I cannot craft items directly and choose what stats go into that item–until very recently with the inclusion of item crafting missives. But, crafting an item typically involves making a choice between diverting time and energy from “game 1” to farming mats and finding a crafter to save gold, or spending (sometimes quite a bit) gold to forgo that labor in exchange for someone else’s time and effort.
Similarly, raid/group comp often defines a “meta” composition that we’re all too keenly aware, sometimes makes our preferred class/spec obsolete for an entire season (at best) or expansion (at worst). Players spend considerable time deciding what class/spec they’re going to main each period (with the exception of die-hards), only to feel duped weeks later when capricious dev overlords find favor with another spec or class and tune your choice back to the F tier.
Class rotation is probably the closest players will ever come to being in control of their own creative destiny when it comes to optimizing performance. Learning when to hold a spell and how to squeeze every last ounce of dps or survivability or healing out of the buttons you have at your disposal is the responsibility of every player that wants to achieve greatness in “game 1”, and as a corollary get better at “game 2”. HOWEVER! You can spend a lot of effort and time perfecting rotations, learning dungeon or boss encounter timing, and group/composition interactions only to find again, that devs retool how your class or spec works. It only takes a small tweak in some class rotations to significantly impact whether using one ability over another is optimal, or even including another ability is worth it at all.
A recurring theme throughout many WoW player’s tenure in this game has been to decry the manipulation of devs in how the systems of the game operate and what it means for each players’ individual success. Making changes to class and spec performance mid game is tantamount to changing the rules of chess right before declaring the checkmating move. It can essentially invalidate everything a player has worked for–either in reality or in the perception of the player who recognizes they’ll have to make changes that render their previous effort obsolete.
Player agency is paramount to individual success and a feeling of accomplishment when considered in the mass aggregate of an MMO. There are simply too many factors with too many differing opinions to try to design a singular game that fits every fancy. That, I assert, is why Blizzard seems to never be able to get ahead of the ball. We’ve all been on both sides of the supporting devs when our hand is declared the winning one, and on the side of wanting to burn the building down when our winning hand is declared not.
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! This was a particularly long read for a forum post. I write here occasionally, not in the hopes that some dev will read it and go “hmm, that’s a good idea”, but as a sort of self-analysis towards why I find myself continuing to play.
I really, really enjoy this game…when it’s enjoyable. That’s usually when I am rewarded for my effort. But, that’s my playstyle. I’m a rewards-based player that doesn’t want to play for the challenge or achievement. I’ve got plenty of that in my real life. I come to this great game for satisfaction in playing an entertaining game. When the rules constantly change, or the difficulty is constantly ratcheted up or down to try to control some variant of player power progression, it’s just not fun. I understand Blizzard is a business and they’re in it to make money. I’m happy to pay it…I have been for 20 years now. That being said, I’m certain when I assert that I, like many–if not most players–can tell the difference between trying to balance a game for the entertainment value, and when devs are making calls to arbitrarily stack the deck against the player because they’re watching the stock value on the ticker tape or concerned about whether we’re going to re-sub at the end of the month.
