You know what, I like it 
What if, instead of giving Blizzard money to develop whatever they feel like we instead could choose what our subscription dollars funds 
I donāt do any arena, or rated pvp, or M+ or Mythic raids so Iām not going to select the option for my subscription to go there Iād instead select the option for quests/WQs and general low end stuff. Then each segment of the game has a budget directly from the players who do that content
The time window on tiers is also very short now. Itās not like BC where the tiers were evergreen throughout the expansion. Tiers have an expiration date now, and there isnāt much time as it is, much less with everything being a surprise out of the gate.
You know what would boost up that tier viability timeframe?
3 year xpacs 
I honestly find it crazy that they have no way to give tiers longevity in their own expansions anymore; save for outliers like getting Ashvaneās Razor Coral in BfA. But at the same time are perfectly content making M+ players re-farm the same gear with higher numbers (from the exact same dungeons) each season.
Or find a better managed routine for developing expansions, patches etc so that they donāt spend the bulk on a system or two and seemingly are now 2 expansions behind on stuff [yes yes covid but common this is getting silly, Blizzard is stupidly slow].
Like irl, too many entrenched protecting their turf. Thatās why theyād throw up every argument against matching demand with supply using more direct, tangible means.
Square Enix does it.
The PTR is open to everyone though.
Anyone can test the raids.
Look at all these ābut anyone can use ptrā blizz white knighters.
Look, the point we are making is that blizz made world first a big deal and if they continue to do so, fine, but it means absolutely nothing. Why? Because they get to experience 99% of the raid on ptr. If they want the race to actually mean something, they have a sign-up for world firsts which prohibits any and all world first players from participating from raids on ptr. THAT would make the race more legitimate.
Also, blizz gets away with using free labor on ptr. Sure, we can choose to use it, but is it truly a honorable thing to have your playerbase test everything before it releases without a penny for their time and effort? Clearly not. Especially raids.
Honestly, if ppl want to test the main world or whatever, fine, go for it. However, once someone starts testing phased content like dung/raids, they should get compensated.
Finally, most of us donāt want to ptr for hours testing raids. We are not world firsts, or the 1%. So the ptr being there, means nothing to most ppl. So just bc there is access doesnāt validate the world-firsts experiencing most of the raid early.
World first race is community driven, thoughā¦ Thereās only bragging rights on third party sites.
Hall of fame was supposed to drum up more alliance participation but its not really working.
To have no public testing, theyād likely have to reduce the difficulty of mythic encounters by a pretty huge margin. No more spreadsheet bosses and stuff.
They did have an internal team years ago from what I remember. They were pretty decent but not on the same level as world first types who take holidays and play 16+hr days to achieve high ranks.
Edit: this thread reminds me of the types of threads we used to get where people would complain that the game is over because someone thatās not them finished the content already.
Someone putting in multiple hours on ptr and then still putting in 500 pulls on live (because something changed, or they never experienced the secret mythic phase) has no effect on your play.
Just because a raid was knocked over in a week doesnāt mean they didnāt put in hours equivalent to months of your average cutting edge guild raid hours to achieve that.
And you can still go on blind if you find 9-29 others who feel similarly.
Second edit: one of the other major reasons the same guilds win again and again ignoring the previous points about taking time off to effectively āworkā at it; these guild also have the gazillions of gold (or USD) to buy all the boe gear and craft materials to get ahead.
Taking away their testing would probably have very little effect in slowing them down.
THey were doing LfR testing in the PTR and anyone can get into it .
Well look at it this way. They have the people who have the most experience in that content testing for them and they still have to tweak balance for weeks after a raid goes live. Just imagine how bad it could beā¦
I keep wishing players would stop playing alpha, beta and ptr. That would force blizz to hire people to do the testing. Iāve said this before, that itās also illegal for blizz to use players as free employees, but until a lawyer files a class action they will keep doing it.
Im sure you know more about what is illegal than the gaming industry as a whole. Early access/beta is more common now than ever.
No they didnāt, some people in the community did that.
I donāt think Blizzard even recognized that there was a āworld first raceā until recently.
Yea they get tonnes of helpful and great feedback then they read it and go āna itās great as it is you all donāt know what youāre on aboutā and low and behold when the patch goes live those exact things that are talked about come to fruition. So for example blizzard is like āwow we never wouldāve guessed 90% of druids/hunters/warlocks going night fae or 90% of paladins going kyrian we thought everyone would want to make a meaningful choiceā.
Getting kind of sick of it tbh, itās also apparent in this patch as well they arenāt listening.