But the point is it’s still about climbing ladders in a competitive environment. It’s not fun. There is a mental block there knowing the sort of environment I’d be playing in. I just can’t find it fun anymore.
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Just play to beat the dungeon. There’s thousands of posts from folks who say they want a chill environment for m+ and raiding, all you need to do is find each other. Nothing competitive at all about doing normal raid or a +10 with some friends and a few cold beverages of your choice.
This mandate to turn the game into an e-sport came from the parent company. They tried to shoehorn this nonsense in all their IPs.
The hilarious thing is, that e-sports have been an utter failure. No one is making profit off this content.E-sports have essentially become a very expensive marketing ploy.
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The biggest hurdle is resisting suggestion from peers. Peer pressure was what almost ruined this game for me. Not just casual, but all of WoW is really what you make of it.
My friends stopped playing ages ago. I get what you’re saying and on paper you are not wrong. This content can be made casual with the right group and approach. What I, and I think many others, deal with is a personality thing. It is very hard to articulate. But when some form of endgame content is ultimately “leaderboards and timers that get harder as you go” I just tune out. It doesn’t feel like an adventure to me, it feels like work.
The last time I did a lot of endgame stuff was Warlords. I was hopeful that M+ would be interesting but I really did abandon it about halfway through Legion and was fully uninterested by BfA.
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I don’t think I’ll be buying the next xpack, not at full price anyways. Not unless there’s something significant added for the rest of us that aren’t M+/raider Andy’s. Solo dungeons spread out through the world would go a long way with me. Something casual but not stupidly easy.
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I don’t know if WoW can handle it but thinking about Public Dungeons would be VERY fun and interesting. These are areas in ESO consisting of ancient temples and caves around different maps that are non-istanced (or in some cases are when they have to be). Anyone on the map can enter the area and clear bosses and get gear. Some classes can solo them. It’s super interesting. I think Final Fantasy XI came up with the idea first.
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Unless you’re looking at Rio ranks on their website there’s no real leaderboards, and the timers can be ignored. (Of course there’s raid options that don’t have the same timer anxiety too)
I guess your perception is what it is, but I think framing that as how the game actually exists does nothing but scare the folks who you’d actually like to play with out of the content.
I play ESO off and on but something keeps dragging me back to WoW. Addiction I guess. I got a new PC so I was in the process of dling ESO but my internet connection is painfully slow.
I think this is what so many M+ defenders don’t get. A lot of MMO gamers are not min maxers, and don’t care about ranking up on some ladder.
I know the game has always had some elements of this design in the game, arena ladders and the old PVP system, but it was way more optional and not as in your face as the game operates today.
I think Blizzard just borrowed too many elements from Diablo 3 and AARPGs in general. I get why they did it, they were trying to fix players from just blowing through the content in a few weeks and unsubbing, so they created the scailing content to keep players hooked.
The issue is, these systems don’t really have a mass appeal among a lot of casual MMO players. M+ defenders will say it does, but I don’t think this is the case at all. I think a lot of players just engage with M+ because there really isn’t anything to strive for outside of raiding and M+. What else is there to do in the game at endgame?
Professions are still a mess, the world content is terrible, the end game story content is abysmal, even the rep grinds are just boring and offer terrible rewards.
I know people knock the older versions of the game as raid or die, but casual players had a place in the game then. The world content offered pretty decent gear, professions mattered, and the dailies back then were a path to getting decent rewards as well.
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I’m not sure I agree with this. Casuals I think are actually more likely to stick around in an old game because of friends, nostalgia, familiarity and also because a slower pace means less burnout and lots of leftover content at the end of the day.
On the flipside, cutting edge elitists come, see, conquer, and move on looking for the next hot new thing to sink their teeth into.
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I have a complicated relationship with ESO myself. There is a lot it does very well. It has an impressive, though very easy, open world. Crafting is a hoot. Quest design is AMAZING. But the Crown Store prevents meaningful rewards from being in the game. Can’t get fun pets or mounts by fishing or exploring. Can sometimes get good looking gear. Cosmetics are the real endgame in ESO. GW2 has a similar problem with mounts all being in the shop but I find that game’s monetization less frustrating. It was designed to not have a sub fee from the start so that helps.
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ESO is a fun game, and I wish Blizzard would borrow some of the concepts from this game.
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Are you suggesting WoW would still be gaining players for 20 straight years?
As a casual player, absolutely. I don’t know why people think it needs to be a competition. Just relax and play.
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I would LOVE to see WoW do public dungeons and delves.
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WoW needs to look at ESO for quest design and open world inspiration and GW2 for movement and casual gameplay ideas.
Guild Wars 2 has the best open world CONTENT since world bosses range between “Bandit camp leader is cranky” and “This giant dragon is eating the jungle and everyone in the map needs to come kill it right now!”
GW2 is also just a delight to play. Whenever I come back to WoW I feel annoyed about how it feels to just move around in this game compared to that one. We did steal its gryphon riding though.
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Yeah I think most of the open world stuff is a tad too easy in ESO too. I guess it can be challenging for leveling players and that’s probably what they’re aiming for. I tried GW2 but the movement in it feels floaty after playing WoW and other MMO’s for so long.
WoW could benefit a lot by taking stuff from those two games though.
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You don’t have to care about any ranking to do m+ though. Nobody’s standing in front of a giant scoreboard in Veldrrakken looking at your runs.
People asked for 5 man progression content for years and ended up getting the most rewarding system by a mile. That’s a win for a lot of people.
Wrath classic is out right now.
What type of gear does it offer “world content” players? Basically zero?
Daily quests led to getting 1 Naxx10 level epic.
Some badge catchup gear came later. No RFD until ICC so this was all manual group forming through chat.
“Professions mattered” is very vague. I’d argue professions have never been as important as they are in DF. I’m wearing 4 amazing crafted items right now which is more than I’ve ever worn ever I think.
I think the casual place in the game back then was the 100-150 hour leveling game that players (different players) also cried about as too long of a boring slot for their alts.
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