Is the dev team lost?

[Pikkarg-bleeding-hollow (Pikkarg)]

Make a raid designer director of WoW and WoW becomes raid or die. I think that summarizes everything quite well.

But mostly the problem is this idea that its their way or the highway. The game pretends to be a game for everyone but it’s really not.

[Chillbro-turalyon]

What dev team? Bfa looks like it was done by interns

[Grumbles-hellscream (Grumbles)]

The short answer is: Yes, they are lost.

The long answer is: They are so lost they aren’t sure where the goal posts are. They are still wandering around the parking lot for the game, and it’s the wrong parking lot.

[Twibiju-staghelm (Twibiju)]

There’s a large part of the vocal minority that wants wow to be grindy and slow like a real descendent of Everquest (granted Everquest was more griindy).

And those types need to kindly go back to EQ.

Classic comes out soon

Or they can go to these- but they’ll realize that these changes Bliz made (the QoL stuff) was implemented for good reason.

Though the AP/AZ, rep grinds etc are getting extremely old at this point.

[Sinfel-illidan (Sinfel)]

This is what happens when you put all the diablo devs on wow.

[Grognog-wyrmrest-accord]

Azerite armor solved the problem of grinding AP because once you had a certain level, you were good.

Did it really?

Artifact system
-Get artifact
-Get AP to level up artifact
-Unlock traits

Azerite armor system
-Get armor
-Get AP to unlock traits for that armor
-Get new armor with same traits
-Get more AP to unlock same traits you had before
-Get new armor with same traits
-Whoops, need more AP
(repeat infinitely… or at least until 8.2 when the Heart of Azeroth sounds like it will essentially function like an artifact weapon)

Granted, there were legitimate complaints about artifact weapon leveling, because each spec had its own unique AP requirements, but clearly there were more elegant solutions to that problem than the Azerite Armor system they invented.

Leveling a character to unlock cool traits is pretty tried-and-true in RPGs. Leveling multiple times to earn the same things you just had is incredibly discouraging.

[Hamstar-draktharon (Hamstar)]

They admit that the audience is fractured but they don’t talk about uniting it in any way.

Why talk about something that can’t be done?

[Gruna-norgannon]

Contrarily, a massive part of the silent majority that drives microtransactions are voicing their satisfaction with QoL improvements like LFG and quick queue rewards that rain gear. Where participation trophies exist, and logging in is half the effort. Where people don’t have time to make hard choices and build online relationships, and every face in the game is just another anonymous body to throw at content in a bid to reap easy rewards.

… No.

[Grognog-wyrmrest-accord]

They should have taken a picture of the game with their cell phones before they left, so they could remember what it looks like.

[Imanipple-malygos]

sniffle

[Glyndem-eonar]

Do I think they’re lost? Absolutely.

They seem to have this idea that everything has to be redone in their vision. Everything must go their way and if the players don’t like it, they’re automatically wrong.

People want vendors - they say that’s too complicated… or it simply puts too much of a strain on us to choose. Yet we got something like Azerite gear with multiple choices for talents. Or, we got RNG on RNG on RNG… like wow.

People want choices; It’s good they’re providing choices in the storyline - but so far it’s only on the Horde side. Flying would be a choice to have or not have, but because their personal grudge against it is simply “Dont’ ignore our content” when in reality, you are still doing that content. If they took the time to build content around flying and make it more immersive instead of complaining and whining that their current content would end up being ignored, we’d probably have a much more enjoyable game.

Content and their counter agreement for flying; Pathfinding… so we have to do the content just to simply fly - Totally fine with that on a personal level. I have the achievement for part 1, I should be able to fly. However, that’s where my personal agreement on it ends, now it’s just a childish thing to hold it off when “They” feel it’s necessary and doesn’t destroy their supposed hard work. We can’t fly because we haven’t repeated the same quest enough times. Sadly, these quest provide almost nothing new - besides the incursions - all WQ’s are done while leveling up, they’re the exact same types of rares/things you done in the questline. Yet, that in itself wasn’t enough to experience their supposed content - repeat it for a good year.

The fact they comment around the major questions people have for them even in their Q/A’s. They cherry pick ones, ignore mostly upvoted questions and even the ones they cherry pick they don’t provide clear cut answers. Just look at the blue post at the ones you can find here on the forums, nothing is clear cut - it’s all a carrot on a stick answers simply to string you along. Everything is built to string the player along as long as possible - or what I’d like to call, Milking.

Check out their currently released Warfronts - simple and no challenge, designed to reward the player with - effort on their side. There is no PvP option vice the whole Warfronts idea being based around “Horde vs Alliance”. Supposedly we were told we’d get a “Hard/Heroic” version and we still don’t have it. They are simply providing you gear in some places and then stringing you along in the next.

I like that they uped the difficulty and Ilvls of the dungeons recently in the new patch, that’s cool. That’s the correct way to increase levels and increase catch up mechanics. But again, no challenge (Granted I don’t think heroics should be).

But most of all, they ignore their customers. No, I am not talking about the ones who whine and complain while providing 0 reasons or things to improve upon - I am talking about the ones that do. The ones that spend hours in their PTR, ones that take time to post things about their class that they find wrong/incomplete or whatever. Ones that take time to find bugs, report them and provide where they’re at - only for them to all still exist in the release form. Ones that tell you GCD is making classes boring and clunky, only for them to barely budge on it or have to change how burst worked just to simply help ease the clunkiness they caused. Ones who post that Master Looter is needed back for guilds - because this joke of everyone gets their own rolls and you can’t trade is destroying the way guilds have progressed ever since you know, they were probably created. Still no replies, still no communication - all simply wait and see or “Soon”.

So yes, I do think they’re lost. So lost in their own thought they forgot what they’re creating a game for, why they’re creating it. They lost all passion in creating it, it’s seen in how many people just quit playing. It’s seen in their stock value and such (granted that stock isn’t just Blizzard). It’s seen by the store mounts that have more time and effort put into them than the ones you’re supposed to work for and achieve, with unique actions and such. It’s honestly a joke and I feel that if they don’t turn around and look at how they’re doing things, they will really destroy this game.

My 2 cents.

[Fùry-stormrage (Fùry)]

Can’t ever win an uphill battle they need to just reorganize their priorities and return to their roots

[Imanipple-malygos]

when I was a poor stupid player in val it only made me want to get better, I don’t understand why they baby things so much now.

sniffle sniffle.

[Pikkarg-bleeding-hollow (Pikkarg)]

They need to go back to the 07’-08’ model.

1. No more single player scenarios.
2. No more limiting us to daily resets.
3. No more titanforging RNG loot.
4. No more dance studio encounters where movement is so absurdly important that turret classes get screwed.
5. No more friendly on a console class design.

As for the ways to get back?

1. More ways to get reputation that isn’t time gated.
2. More ways to challenge the player in solo and party play.
3. Streamlined and relevant legacy zones. Basically legacy zones are no more. The entire world is relevant.
4. Tightly tuned encounters for solo, party and raid encounters that are challenging to culminate the end of an expansion. Basically take the end game ilvl into account for their completion.
5. Deeper professions.
6. Meaningful items that flavor your character but don’t define your character.
7. Hire a lot more writers.

Anyway that would be the road to redemption I’d suggest.

[Beezlebubba-emerald-dream (Beezlebubba)]

More like half the team is laid off.

[Grognog-wyrmrest-accord]

More like half the team is laid off.

The most interesting thing to me about the interview is Ion actually said how many people were working on WoW (300).

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone actually give a number before now, it’s always been in terms of “largest ever,” etc. etc.

[Alockxander-proudmoore (Alockxander)]

Honestly, I don’t think they are as lost as it might seem at first. I think their struggle is to do big things when their budgets have been axed.

For example: “I have this great visionary idea!” gets followed up by “We don’t have the people, budget or time to do something that big. We have to go smaller.”

[Byniri-zangarmarsh (Byniri)]

I’ve always been someone who has scoffed at the whole “WoW is dying!” mentality for years and years.

This time… idk, something feels different. The amount of bugs in the game, the horrid way the dev team has tried to fix issues, the atrocious faction war story, the outright lies and awful excuses the dev team has spewed, Ion’s existence as lead dev, it’s not good.

[Vera-silver-hand (Vera)]

Honestly they should just enable flying already. But ask this , why not go back to the stuff that worked? It feels as if the current team is lazy in terms of designing meaningful content. That and the narrative team have gotten sloppy and poor at trying to keep players immersed in the story. Usually its just the development , but in BFA the narrative team have been added to the list of failure. They try to tell themselves that everything is ok. But honestly , I’ve never been so freaking bored. Trying to push myself to level alts . Hardly even touched lfr this expansion. Makes you worry about the next expansion , because so far things just get worse. Activision needs to shake things up and get others in charge. Otherwise wow is doomed.

[Cyouskin-stormreaver (Cyous)]

Is bfa just treated as a lost cause as they try to rush out the next expansion at this point?

Depends how they handle 8.2 You can usually tell by then if an expansion was abandoned (creativity).

With regards to them making old references, TBC is just old at this point. Going into specifics really won’t help unless you’re arguing a more generalized statement.

Azerite is a core system in WoW. It’s perfectly understandable if they want to improve it. But for me…it’s a game designed around spreadsheets, instead of creativity and fun. Whoever is calling the shots with the “endless grinding” systems has pushed a 15 year WoW veteran away.