It seems there’s a bit of a stigma in the WoW community between unhappy customers and what seems to be die hard loyalists of some kind. Whether it be hierarchy/politics, gear drops, class balances or even story direction. I’m writing this as a returning player to give my perspective.
Firstly and most importantly at the root of WoW it is a game. Any game should have the simple goal of making you entertained and happy. The layers of complexity to those things will vary from person to person, we are not a hive mentality.
I have returned for half a month and been going hard, 12+ hours a day to try and catch up to guildies and pump some appropriate numbers in raids etc. I myself have 2 major problems with the game that may lead me to say goodbye again. First, the loot drops are horrendous. If I am forced to just raid once a week and do one Mythic+ to see what the vault spits up than why am I even playing at all? Why would any player who isn’t a die hard fan want to invest dozens if not hundreds of hours for nothing but a few chips of anima? There are plenty of games out there that I or anyone else could play for 10+ hours a day and easily gain more gratification and achievement.
Of course this is where the die hard loyalists come in. “Thats what makes WoW WoW,. git gud etc” RNG is not a token of skill or being good, it lets the lucky few enjoy an aspect of the game that others will not based on luck. Or worse, lets a faction of elite players extort other players by selling mythic or raid runs for 100’s of dollars.
My second issue is the politics and hierarchy, but that isn’t anything new. In fact if you ask any former player why they stopped playing, that would be their answer 9/10 times. The amount of mythic+ applications I make dwarf the time it actually takes to run the dungeon. If I have an ilvl of 190 and am getting denied for dungeons that drop 187 gear, there’s a problem. No matter how you spin it, that will kill a player base very quickly. My shadow priest can contend reasonably in Mythic+ 5-6 atm and have a chance to actually get meaningful upgrade (all be it an abysmal chance with these drop rates). However I am bottlenecked into playing 3’s and if i’m lucky the odd 4 or 5. Despite being on top of dps charts most of the time. When all is said and done, a better progression system needs to be administered.
I want to make something clear, i’m not intending to grind an axe here. I am just offering a perspective. The bottom line is the effort to reward ratio is not anywhere near where it should be. I love Shadowlands, i think its the best expansion since Wotlk. However, i’m at the point where i log in ready to grind out 10+ dungeons and then a realization hits me “what’s the point”. I literally have to remind myself I am paying Blizzard to play there game, then why am I spending 10+ hours a day with nothing to show for it? This is why WoW is and has been dying for a long time with short bursts of popularity that dwindles quickly. Anyways my 2 cents.
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Yeah pretty much, just cleared castle nathria on my main with my guild this tuesday, and I’m just gonna let my sub run out since it expires in 2 days. With the catch up systems already in place it’ll do my sanity some good to just wait for the next raid tier
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having a catchup mechanic does give a bit of incentive but the problem of running 10 dungeons back to back with nothing but anima to show for it is still my biggest problem. It is really disapointing though, the game itself is as fun as its ever been imo but the more i play the more the idea of “why waste my time” is being cemented.
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Thank you for adding testament to the problem of attitude the WoW community has.
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They’ve said they’re going to do something to address PvE gearing because right now it straight up sucks.
They really should just bring back tokens or valor points because this game absolutely NEEDS RNG protection.
If they did have some kind of fail safe like currency or valor than that would probably be enough for me to stay invested. Hell, if the pvp vendors had anything decent for shadow priest i’d be ok grinding out pvp too even though i’m not crazy for pvp anymore.
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Spot on with this the enjoyment is gone for me .But this is the only game my brother will play but in three days I will just let it end
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yeah… it’s been dying for 15 years.
slowest death ever.
It will probably never truly die out, but the gap between its glory and current state of affairs will only widen. Not only because of the general quality of the game itself but also just because of the direction gaming in general is moving. MMO’s themselves are dying.
It’s just desire and how people think. Do you want a 30 minute run or a 20 minute run? If you invite 220 ilvl people who are coming for Off Spec gear they can obliterate mobs and make the run shorter (in theory, we all know Donald will only ever do 200 dps no matter how much gear he has lol). So you get declined and Johnny Awesome WF raider who is just doing the run for gear to shard gets your spot.
I’m actually considering going to play RuneScape until 9.1. I stopped playing because it was beginning to feel too gimmicky for my liking, but it’s actually pretty fun now.
At this point in WoW I can’t even bring myself to log in sometimes, and when I do I find myself asking what I need to get done for the week rather than just being excited to play.
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Ya I understand the reasoning behind the denials, but the problem still remains.
But Casino owners love RNG, and the fact that those #'s always protect the house. RNG is scripted in such a way that works against players more than it helps, but aids Blizzard with sub counts.
Pretty bored, is why I only am playing 1-2 days a week. Oddly PvP has felt really nice and probably what keeps me playing atm.
Because I am having fun. And I don’t need to invest dozens, if not hundreds, of hours to do so.
It is only a game, after all. What other reason do you need to play a game?
I mean hey, if you find that fun then power to you. Like I said the layers of complexity are different with everyone. I on one hand love shadowlands and the content. My two issues remain with what I stated and the near inability to stay competitive. There is a lot of games out there that can provide that “fun” with out those two big problems. I’m sure 90% of anyone willing to come back to WoW would agree with me. Also I think only ones who would disagree are die hard loyalists. I also need a bit more than a few hours a week to play as I work out of town and need to fill the time.
It would appear Blizz is preparing to fix this based on Ion’s most recent interview. Sure, there are no details, but his interview indicates they know the loot scarcity is a problem for PVE content.
I would expect a badge vendor system.
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