This presentation illustrates how we got to our current situation (ie Blizzard obsessed with fixing problems that the playerbase didn’t even think were problems):
You know what’s really freaky is that there are probably people working on the game today that were only children when Classic and TBC were the current titles.
Now I feel old, and I’m in my mid 30’s!
I liked the grindyness of Vanilla, and do wish the game would slow down a bit. But I also saw the merit of the catch up gear in Wrath, but I think I would have just been fine had we gone without them. The game should be a little bit hard, and take a while to earn gear. Otherwise do you really feel like you are ‘earning’ that purple? That concept went out the window long ago, and I think that is in part why people are so angry with this welfare epic system they have had for many years. This expansion has only ramped up the speed and quantity of this loot-a-rama fest so much that it is insane. You now will out-grow your gear in 6 months or less. First it was 340 then 370 and now 400 will be the new norm for us casuals (who don’t and won’t do mythic). I am VERY unhappy with the direction of this game. It is no longer the game I used to love. Many people have said they miss the fun, and the importance of guilds and group play. The social aspect would be almost completely dead were it not for discord and other such utilities.
As for the state of things, I think that WQs are bad, if we must have them then put them back to dailies that gave you something to earn with your rep grind (similar to Isle of Quel’danas in BC or the Molten Front in Cata). Argent Tournament was good, I still am grinding that out today and having fun doing it. And the Molten Front was great because you didn’t see it all unfold at once, you had to earn the rep to open up more quest hubs and to expand the healing of the Front via the druids. That was engaging content.
I think a little rep grind or attunements are good in order to be able to access higher content. In BC we had to grind to Honored with a faction to gain Heroic dungeons that fell under that faction. That seems like a good balance to me. People won’t immediately be jumping into hard content like they do today. It makes them have to work a bit to ‘earn’ the right to experience the content. I really don’t think people should be ready to raid a mere few days or a week after hitting max level (or hitting max level within a few days for that matter). It makes dungeons obsolete too quickly and leaves people bored faster, hence the need for all these catch-up mechanics of welfare epics.
As for attunements, the Onxyia attunement was such an interesting storyline. I only experienced some of it in Vanilla and didn’t really finish it until I was in BC when it was easier to solo. I didn’t do the early attunement for Black Temple, thank god, for that was too long and crazy. To get the key to Karazhan was interesting, and I think a good balance of time and effort. Keys were fun to acquire, and I miss them (and the Key Ring). Much of this content was memorable, and worth doing.
These few examples show that back then we had better progression checks to slow down raiders so that they didn’t get bored too quickly and stop logging in. Very few unsubbed because it was hard. They just gave you something to work for. Sure, like my hubby said, as a mage he was tired of OVER and OVER having to help guildmates in Black Morass as part of the final attunment for Kara, but it was a good thing to be helping A) your guildmates, and gaining favor with everyone and B) ensuring people would stick around and not feel left out for being behind the rest of the pack. If you truly wanted to raid and be a help to your guild, this was what was you did. And guilds were grateful for people like you, and it made you feel included and indispensable. Things such as attunements are GOOD for guilds. They did it briefly even in Legion with the new Karazhan attunement. I don’t particularly like doing Mythics, but I participated in doing the required dungeons in order to see the stoyrline. It wasn’t much, not like the Onxyia attune and the dreaded Damp Note quest in BRD (now that one I did do over and over for guildies lol), but I approve of the effort from the Devs. We just want fun, well-written storylines and quests that make us WANT to delve deeper into content. WQ, Azerite grinding, Island Excursions and Warfronts just don’t cut it. Mere time wasters. We know better, and deserve better.
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Agree with you and the dance studio thing specifically, I think they need to move away from excessive aoe bs because all it does is lag the hell out of people like myself and others to the point where if we don’t dodge something we die instantly, maybe find some other avenue of challenge rather than “you stand here you die” because it’s alienated me from doing mythic and as you said it hurts turret classes
They moved away from some rather class-tuned encounter designs. Like having a debuffer in the group. Or dedicated crowd control.
I always thought that was a mistake personally as it limited them mechanically to what they could do in encounters. Sure, you could give everyone a CC but the problem with that is nobody owns it. So people don’t even use it.
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Great idea I think rather than insta kill circles they should give 2-3 classes a spell that counters a certain boss mechanic (maybe a boss is super tanky and is weak to bleed specifically, others weak to nature from shamans and boomkin, etc) and have every class good at a certain portion of a raid so everyone is up for an invite… I know there is utility right now but far too many classes are left out and I feel like that should change so everyone feels like they matter even if they are a Feral Druid. Everything else you said is dead on what I believe too hopefully someone reads what you wrote from blizzard… professions need a complete rework to reinvigorate the economy… I mainly think this because I play a lot of RuneScape too and this game doesn’t hold a candle to the profession system there
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I didn’t like it when they changed Azeroth as we knew it before Cata, and I don’t like not being able to level out of zones anymore. Plus changing the levels and loot of old dungeons, making Scholomance fit the level of the zone, etc., and cutting up dungeons or flat-out remaking them for a new expansion. I believe people asked for little or any of this, I could be wrong. Perhaps the newer players. But I’m sure most older players of 10 years or more wanted things to stay the same. All that effort put into redesigning older content into their ‘vision’ of what it should be could have been put into newer, purely original dungeons. What are they, George Lucas? Leave the old stuff alone! It wasn’t broke and didn’t need to be fixed. And Han shot first… ![:stuck_out_tongue:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue:")
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The value you get out of nostalgia is far lower than the value Blizzard gets from a new subscriber. So for me this is an easy decision to make.
You don’t want this.
I remember Heroic: Lei Shen. Fun fight. But being forced to suicide because you didn’t have an immunity in Phase 3 sucked.
Heroic: Maloriak – While an easy fight, being able to clear the Orbs with Cloak of Shadows was important, but having Stampeding Roar made that a mechanic a joke.
“Required” spells like that simply aren’t fun. They should make a mechanic easier to handle, but they shouldn’t outright negate it, or make it a joke.
There’s two ways to look at that.
If a fight doesn’t require stampeding roar it’s another reason not to take a druid. When you boil the thing down to pure DPS requirements guess what happens? The best DPS get chosen.
100% agree
I mean mainly like a damage type being more effective in certain fights… think Pokémon sort of… I didn’t raid in vanilla as I was very young when I started this game (like 12) but now I hear talk about nature resistance to some bosses needed and other things like this and always wondered why there isn’t defensive stats for bosses and people where when you bring certain combinations to a fight it works out better for you… maybe this wouldn’t work not sure
It’s about the same as missing a few buffs in the group, such as Int or AP or Fort.
It would still feel mandatory, but it would be nice to get more RPG elements back into raiding. At the moment, everything sorta feels like a spreadsheet.
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The moment they got rid of the fun trinkets in vanilla and started making “Does xxxxxx damage (2min CD)” Trinkets is when WoW became a numbers game rather than an ideas one.
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the dev team is just trying to find “new” treadmills to keep players subbed
fun and lore are secondary to subs at this point, or they would completely revamp pathfinder 1 and 2 asap
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listen, if raider io and warcraft logs didn’t take over wow. then wow would be fun. but if I need a certain amount of good parses or score to do content. Then the whole experience just feels gated. i go on wow, i try to get invited to a plus ten to do my weekly, spend 20 mins getting denied, then log off.
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I feel your overall post ‘hit the nail on the head,’ so to speak, but a lot more needs to be considered before the underlying issue can be fully nailed down.
World of Warcraft is basically an amalgam of multiple games:
- RPG, where one can play a character without the limitations of game mechanics (MMO elements optional)
- MMO, where players collectively work together on various tasks (show up, get things done, log out)
- Action, where you pick character, pick event, get group, enter location (dungeon, arena, etc.) and then start the game
- Social app, where one can relive the days of Barrens Chat or comment on dead naked gnomes on top of the Orgrimmar mailbox (is this still a thing?)
- Fishing simulator (see also: social app), where one can almost become too drunk to fish
As players, we can mix and match the above options, and more, however we like. The issue then points towards player preference - i.e. players can choose fast-travel, or players can take the scenic route, and what matters is that both groups understand and accept each other (in whatever fashion they choose).
Personally, I maintain the semi-annual subscription yet rarely find time to play. Regardless, once online, I enjoy chatting with friends, group content, solo content, complaining that I can’t see the herbs for the foliage, and sometimes stopping to stare at a detailed encampment out in the middle of the wilderness.
The key takeaway is there is far more to development, in general, than just dangling a carrot to keep people playing. Unfortunately, what development teams want to do are not always the same as what they have to do, or are even allowed to do. Voting with our wallets is one way to send a message, but another is by focusing on the content we enjoy. If game statistics show that nobody uses fast-travel, then fast-travel becomes less important; likewise if everyone uses the game menu to find groups, then why focus on meeting stones?
The only way I feel that developers can give one solution for all of the potential player types and game options is to phase everything. Literally [figuratively] - everything: have a setting in the game menu similar to “Enable fast-travel” where enabling means ‘click button, get group’ and disabling means ‘{walk, run, fly, get lost, finish writing your memoirs} and then reach destination.’ Then phase the players separately from each other (similar to world pvp).
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Quoted for agreement and to add my perspective: I pay monthly for everything in the game. Due to work/life balance, most of my time is spent on past content. The rate at which content is created exceeds the rate at which I can experience said content; and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Picture if you would, a stranded boat in the middle of the ocean, and there’s a hole in the boat that needs to be plugged.
Rather than plug the hole and fortify the boat so that no more leaks like that occur and endanger the entire crew, they decide to puncture many holes indiscriminately around the hull in order to reward everyone with random amounts of water.
My mentality aside, I found humour in the imagery ![:slight_smile:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
Unfortunately, a well-fortified boat doesn’t capture an audience nearly as well as a sinking ship.
What do the developers want? A fortified boat? Chaotic busywork? Improved water physics (I’m ok with this one too)? And how much say to the developers get these days?