I’ve been told it wouldn’t be fair to judge BfA until after it’s over. Do you agree?
I doubt they are willing to change the core systems of Shadowlands even this early in development. They will wait and put in some sort of paste on “fix” to address some issue that is causing many players to leave, a “fix” that ends up funneling resources to elite players at the expense of casuals.
That’s what happened with the titan residuum vendor. Elite players ended up with enough titan residuum to buy the azerite gear they needed, at least sometimes. Casuals never got enough titan residuum to buy any gear, and they lost the vendor value of their azerite gear and now had to make a special trip to the scrapper to break it down into worthless components that basically had to be disposed of, or required a trip to an auction house and time to try to get any gold from it.
If that is the case, explain to me how classic is more interesting to me without all of the neurochemical transmitters and what not? It is literally a boring, long, drawn out game on paper compared to retail and yet? That game is amazing at its core. It has its flaws as well but that game feels like community. It feels like a time investment worth investing in. It is what this game used to be. WoW is not what WoW used to be. It is full of all this instant gratification, throw crap at you left and right to try and make you play daily while at the same time not letting you play how you want, but how the devs want you to play. Do you know what that sounds like? A PHONE GAME.
I know raiders on the forum often seem to be paranoid and think they’re under attack from casuals who are (successfully) telling developers what to do, but this is way out there.
It used to be that there was room for many different types of players in the game. Now more and more we see attitudes like yours saying that casuals who expect to play any content in the game whatever are unreasonable and trying to take away your fun.
I guess if you see it as a zero sum game, then it makes sense to think that resources would be freed up by eliminating content for casuals and funneling those resources directly to you.
If I had a dime for every time I’ve seen the “it’s only alpha/beta/ptr!” for a bad system that goes live exactly the way it is, I’d have enough to buy a controlling share in Acti-Blizz and get these systems changed myself.
The only way to ever get these systems changed if you don’t like it is constant feedback from the second it gets announced until it goes live.
Oh no, that’s exactly I meant before with the Detox thing.
That is the exact situation I learned about.
I wont try to talk about that here, because I barely understood it myself, but it really opened my eyes.
Classic is a great example.
Its extremely simple and very easy and you always know what to expect.
You enjoy it more because it has none of that stuff. Literally, less is more in this case, and in the case of dopamine reception and brain chemistry.
The reason the topic was so interesting to me was because I feel like I am some grand exception to this.
In a world where everyone is rushing to a red light, I feel like I am the only one actively staving off what I would call burnout daily.
I regularly avoid things I know I love to make sure I love them years from now.
It can be sad times, but I know if I spend too much time doing one thing it WILL be less enjoyable, and I would rather the satisfaction that I will always enjoy something than the rush of enjoyment today.
Its probably why I always get such jagged responses here.
I am thinking on this topic completely differently than most players, and I BELIEVE that perspective is valuable, but I am unable to make it seem valuable in purely text, especially to people who aren’t interested in hearing it from the get go.
People still think Blizzard gets their feedback from reading Tweets and forums? Why would they do that when they have hundreds of thousands of player’s worth of data to examine directly from within the game itself?
I should’ve done an argument from both sides of the fence. I feel ya… like what they mentioned with the lock changes… its almost enough to think about shelving this guy (been coming since legion tbh) I’m going to see how it feels in alpha/beta.
The sad part is you have only seen half the system and are drawing conclusions without seeing the other half each covenant has its own abilities that are oriented to a certain gameplay yes but each has its own sources of anima to go along with it that if by what blizz said at blizzcon would balance them out evenly
That’s not what I meant at all. I don’t remember even talking about that, honestly, but man its been a crazy one so I probably just missed you starting the conversation.
My point that I attempted to make there is that this is not a simple game to create.
No matter what happens, some one will not be happy.
Because of this, it seems incumbent upon said person to try to campaign for happiness, but they neglect to realize that in doing so they might be stealing it from some one else.
I try to resist this, for that reason.
There are a LOT of things I would prefer to see changed, but there is no reason to expect that Blizzard should listen to me specifically.
I would much rather they make the game the way they think is best, and just explore it the way I find most fun.
That’s all I meant.
But…
Like it or not, this is a real thing.
If the game wasn’t trying to be a thousand different things at times, it might be much more successful.
The problem is, it would appeal to less people, and that is not a good option for a game this old, I’d imagine.
If Blizzard was influenced by individuals (whether it be people in guilds like Method, big streamers like Asmongold, or even just people on the forums), we wouldn’t have waited until 8.3 to get Essences made even slightly alt-friendly.
They would have listened to the overwhelmingly negative feedback on systems like Legion Legendaries, Azerite Armour, Essences and Corruptions and changed it before it went live, instead of leaving it the way it was for months, if not years and “fixing” it at practically the last second.
I never had this issue in BC or WotLK. When they started changing the game and moving away from what I felt made the game “the game” for me, it wasn’t burn out, it was disappointment. I have not recognized this game for a long time now. I have seen it turn into a phone game throughout the years. Every new expansion is something akin to something I could download for free and play on my mobile device. It functions nearly the same way outside of raiding. There is no community in this game. There is nothing worth investing in anymore.
The sad part is that many of us stick around hoping that blizzard sees the light and tries to recreate what worked in those past expansions when they were at their peak. They have failed, miserably, at that. I would have to assume 12 million subs is better than 2-3 or less, who knows how many there are, they quit letting us know.
Another thing, people say that MMO’s are dying off. Look at those sales numbers for recent expansions. WoW is not dying off in theory, there is interest, its just that these developers do not know how to make a WoW game that people want to play now.
The only Destruction change being making FnB generate more embers is pointless because none of Destructions ember spenders are good in an AoE situation.
Demonology not getting any baseline kick or any sort of improved mobility is going to leave it in the dumpster unless they overtune it like they did in BoD.
My complaints are more regarding the Covenant systems, since I know that’s going to be inherently less flexible than class design or tuning since it’s basically the flagship expansion system (and again, I draw upon previous experience with Garrisons, Legiondaries/Artifacts and Azerite Armour/Essences, in regard to this).
But the Warlock changes definitely don’t feel like they’re done. There’s gotta be more there, or else we’re going into a third expansion of Blizzard completely ignoring any other content for Warlocks and justifying it with “they’re always good in high end raids!”.
Okay, well I am happy we are able to speak from our heart here, but now we are basically back to where it all started.
You admitting you don’t like the game and want it to be changed to something that likely isn’t even fully replicatable is the mentality I am at war with.
It is selfish and unfair to those of us who are having fun today and it is making it very hard to think about the future of this game.
If you literally haven’t enjoyed the direction of the game for over 10 years now, I think it might be best that you respect the wishes of those that do and stop worrying about systems you are likely never going to enjoy no matter what changes.
On that note, I am going to close it up for the night, finally.
I really enjoyed a lot of these conversations.
It was therapy in a way.
I just hope that players can finally find closure and move on if they genuinely don’t think the game can produce what they will enjoy.
Its not fair to hold the “12 million subs” over the game’s head like they need to listen to you at all costs.
Did you have fun in BC and WotLK? What is the problem with going back to something that resembles that, if you did, if a ton of the player base also did?
Covenants are entire factions with massive lore behind each, very distinctive aesthetics behind each, and are touted as this idea of “Choosing the side you like the most”
Its touted as a system of player choice, choosing a faction you either think is the coolest or agree with the most, etc. So by tying direct player power to each covenant you have now turned something that should have been a fun player choice, like siding with Saurfang or Sylvanas in the war campaign, something merely cosmetic or story based into something that will create BiS choices.
Not even the Scryer and Aldor were like that. Yeah, they had gear you could acquire from them but you eventually outgrew that gear. It was a stepping stone. Player abilities wont be outgrown, they are with you all expansion.
It creates a problem where Blizzard is saying “You have this free choice! Choose you who like!” but the community is yelling at you “Choose X or you are making a subpar choice and we will look down upon you for that reason!”
It takes away player choice, player agency, by giving the choice a very real statistical value! Asmongold, who I am not a fan of, even made a really good point when he said–
How do you put a number to the Hunter class ability previewed? Being able to attack without line of sight? If all the abilities were weird gimmicks like that then sure, that might be a different story, but then look at the Paladin one which turns your Judgement, Avengers Shield, and Holy Shock*(I think?)* into an AoE that targets all around you! That has a statistical value that can be calculated out more thoroughly. It stands to reason that not every hunter ability is going to be a gimmick and there will be direct power options that will get calculated out into a BiS choice.
So suddenly, as a player, it no longer feels like I am given a legit choice. It places an anxiety on me of purposefully weakening myself just because I want to hang out with the cool angel boys and girls in bastion and have a beer with good ol’ Uther!
The system is flawed from the start Metro, just like Azerite Armor was!
I won’t lie, I am no fan of Asmongold in any capacity. Heck, you have seen me rant about the dude before, I have serious issue with him but he has a legitimate point here!
Every bit of feedback I have seen has been against this system for the exact reason I have stated. The only people defending it have been making comments like this–
They don’t defend it saying “Its a good idea because of X”, no, they ALL say invalidating statements. Every. Single. ONE! “Players just don’t want to make hard choices” and “Players are just complaining to complain” and such and so on.
Players want to make a choice without feeling like the community are the ones dictating said choice! These Covenant abilities are not Racials, they are not tiny tiny tiny differences, these abilities are HUGE! On top of that there is also the situation of these abilities getting nerfed and re-balanced AFTER launch and suddenly you find yourself locked into one covenant and feeling like you are forced to re-grind out a different one (Which is supposedly akin to switching between aldor and scryer in terms of time and effort)
It sound burdensome and flawed from the get go! If I want to join #teamanglebois it should be a choice that feels good to me because I LIKE them. Not a choice that is weighed down by so much anxiety of community perception and judgement.
THIS is feedback that needs to be made! No one here wants the game to suck, no one, not a single person! Not a single person saying these systems suck are saying it because they want the game to fail, its because they don’t want another BFA! They are trying their darndest to get that point through and avoid it from happening again!
I agree with a lot of this. Honestly at this point, I think Blizzard just needs to go back to the old style of how the game was. We get all our talents as we level, get all the spells we need like normal and have no extra mechanics on top of that. Make all the gear normal like it used to be, no corruption mechanics, no titanforging etc. until they can actually figure something out that actually works. Because so far it seems like every system has been nothing but a failure.
And on top of all that there are still 3 wildcards we don’t know details about ON TOP of the covenant choices.
Legendary Items, supposedly will be crafted and work like Legion Legendaries. Those were major game changers in how classes played, so how will those interact with covenant stuff.
What is going to replace Corruption in Shadowlands, we know it wont be WF/TF and it will be a new system. How much of an impact will that have on the choice.
Then we have the Stewards who are tied to Covenants, how much will those abilities/passives affect choice?
Its system on top of system on top of system right from the get go. At least with BFA it was JUST Azerite armor at the start. This time around we have what? Four systems of character power on top of traditional gearing and character advancement???
I am skeptical and worried and I think that Covenants in general are heading toward an unpleasant place.
Metro stated “Its just a shame, because I know that this system will not end up staying the way it is for long, so how can I enjoy it as it is if the community is going to force it to change?” but I would rather they change BEFORE Shadowlands goes live instead of having a ton of bandaid fixes afterward because feedback didn’t get through again.
Alpha has not started yet, Shadowlands is a ways off, there is time to consider if this is a good choice or not moving forward before having another BFA.
Yeah this just isn’t good honestly. I don’t understand why they can’t simply just go back to the original gearing system. I mean not having all these extra systems with most likely rng on top of that could add resources and time to other development right? I will say they do have a chance to fix all of this now. If they decide not to listen to the feedback and stick their head in the sand thinking their system is perfect well then thats on them and we better hope that this won’t be BFA all over again.
