oh okay i guess
Well, that’s one hell of a necro. And quite impressively, the fellow was necro’ing his own thread. Nicely done. Anyhow… there’s actually an answer of sorts here.
Is WoW “out of touch” with it’s core audience?
Define “core audience”, because that aspect has changed over the past five years… well, it arguably started before then. But less than initially thought, this thread appears to date back to BfA based on the Azerite and corruption mentions in the first post.
And while M+ was introduced in Legion, it didn’t really become a dominant feature until BfA. All of the Class-specific content and general good time of Legion obscured all of the “structural changes” occurring at the time for WoW’s content. As such, BfA is where the changes hit players - particularly what could be called the “casual audience” - like a ton of bricks. The wall of grind didn’t help either.
Anyhow, here’s the point - the game and it’s culture shifted with BfA, with the groundwork for that shift happening in Legion. Since then, the game has mostly expunged the “old core audience” while cultivating the "new core audience’.
So is WoW out of touch with it’s core audience?
Technically, no. Because it’s shaped the sort of player it wants.
It’s become a real “Fit in or #%$@ off” situation, really.
Now the mode to do such things is M+.
And you have to run 50-100 keys in the first 2 weeks they’re out in order to get enough gear to join a Mythic raiding guild. Hope you have 8 hours of gametime a day if you want to engage with the real endgame!
Yes.
If anything these newer expansions and the existence of WoW Classic, shows that Retail has lost its way.
Necrotic magic is at work here. Hmm.
This game is slowly becoming more solo player friendly but it does need more work on that end.
The argument seems to be based on the conception that the game would be “better” or “more successful” or even “unified” if there was one and only one targeted audience and specific progression gameplay, and players were given no options to play any other way. This partly goes back to the idea that conversion of people who don’t want to play that way will happen universally, again, if they are given no choice in the matter. Or that the few who would not “convert” given the right tough love “incentives” are insignificant in number. Or even that the game would be more “successful” if it was so purified that only the top 1% of players remained. Clearly this is a non reality-based definition of “success” if you think the game will continue to be financially worth developing with only a tiny elite playerbase.
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The main problem is not that WoW is out of touch with it’s core audience, it’s that WoW has no core audience. Blizzard fell for the “try to appeal to everyone” meme.
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You seem to be agreeing with posters who think that Blizzard should have chosen one specific splinter group in the playerbase to be its “core audience” and developed content exclusively for that group, thus making game irrelevant for anyone in other player demographics.
Yes, and that way is called “Endgame Progression or Die”.
Raids, Mythic+ and Delves? All on a weekly reward schedule to keep players stuck on the perpetual loot treadmill. All other content (outside of maybe PvP) is there and designed to funnel players towards the endgame content loop where hopefully they’ll stick around and eventually spend more money on microtransactions. And the playerbase is increasingly full of “suckers” compared to how I remember it in the earlier expansions.
I hate the way how the game is designed with that focus in mind, personally.
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How can you say that when WoW offers the most diversity in its content than at any other point in time
Previously it was “raid or die”
But somehow " raid or m+ or delve or whatever" is worse
Could you expand on what a sucker is in this context
no… it’s the children who are out of touch!
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They’re the same thing, fundamentally. Just different group sizes.
You’re doing the same set of content week-after-week in pursuit of loot.
The playerbase in general is more willing to spend money on microtransactions, and do so shamelessly.
I recall when buying a token was absolutely unthinkable for the majority of players.
It has since become a fairly normalized activity.
they are not
Fundamentally
They give vastly different options.
Please tell a person enjoying solo delve content they don’t need it because raids exist.
When was WoW not based on the weekly loot lock out?
Dang
So they deserve to be insulted.
The cool thing is every item is able to be bought with in game gold.
I actually don’t remember when buying a token was unthinkable. Day 1 people loved and praised being able to buy them
People bragged about using the WoD table missions to pay for WoW time
I know it’s a necro thread but yes. They’re out of touch and continue to be out of touch lol
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The focus on new systems the last decade has been for the casual player to escape “raid or die”
Are you saying focusing on the casual/solo player is out of touch?
Of course that’s what they’re saying, that focusing on anyone who isn’t an uber leet raider like them is a waste of time.
By virtue of how they have designed this game, every new system is still a funnel into endgame content lol
Delves were a nice touch but ultimately the end goal still is to get better gear and pursue harder content. There is no long-form “casual” content for people to participate in that doesn’t revolve around either of those things lmao
No, actually, that’s not what I’m saying at all lmao
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But that’s how it’s been since TBC
No actually, because TBC had plenty of content in its new region that people could frequent for hundreds upon hundreds of hours before ever setting foot inside a heroic dungeon or raid lol
But I mean, if you want to use TBC as an example, then sure. We can use it as an example.
We can also point out how from TBC onward, WoW never witnessed the same population growth it did in Vanilla, and how once they really dropped any effort to care about casual play, the subscription counts began plummeting lmao
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