I’m a casual gamer and starting playing WOW in 2018 on the recommendation of a family member who had subscribed since 2006. When I first started playing I loved the density of the game and I played Open World content for the first 2 years fairly casually. As I understood the game more I realized that in order to get the most out of your character you had to do end game content such as raids and M+. I joined a casual guild and started end game content during Shadowlands and the pandemic. I fell in love with M+ as I saw that it was engaging but it didn’t consume the time that Raid does. I’m a working man and 2-3 hours of uninterrupted game time is quite hard for me to accomplish so M+ was the perfect balance. Today M+ is the only content I find engaging as open world content is way too Mundane. Blizzard has done better with improvements toward open world but it’s still very gated and requires doing things that I just don’t find fun in order to achieve maximum success. Fast Forward to 2024 and I have come to the realization that this particular MMO is way too divided. You have casuals like me who do feel like we want to be successful at the content that we enjoy but the bar for that success is extremely high now. This isn’t a dig at the “good players” who have been more successful than I but in order for me to get my character to the top gear levels, i would have to play over and over and over to grasp the dungeons. I simply can’t do that especially with the fact that it sometimes takes in excess of 30 minutes just to get a run going and then have it collapse because someone leaves ( yes I know blizzard is working on that but I doubt it will fix the issue ) M+ has become so complex with the goop and swirlies and constant interrupting combined with just trying to find like minded players that it has become impossible for me to enjoy. As for guilds… Because of my work schedule and living in North America, I can only play during the early afternoons. Most players jump into the game after they work in the evening and night and unfortunately I work at those times so finding a guild with like minded players is pretty difficult which leaves me to pug and that experience has become a nightmare. All this combined has put me in the painful position to say goodbye at least for now. I’m sure some will comment and say good riddance and that’s fine… I don’t have any ill will towards those who enjoy this game at it’s current state but for me and I suspect many others the games level of entry has become simply too high and too time consuming. I love games and I particularly love this game and as a person who was born in the early/mid 70s I grew up on video games so I truly hate to say goodbye to World of Warcraft but it is now out of my league. I wish all of you the best.
Sorry you’re not enjoying it. The dungeons are definitely becoming more and more complex. I think they attempted to separate casual and hardcore players with the 9-10 and 11-12 jump and by removing difficult affix combinations. I think it’s a work in progress, but I don’t see the dungeons getting any less complicated anytime soon. They could always tune down the dungeons but then we will have people doing 30’s and higher again and that’s a separate issue. Unfortunately I don’t know if there is a way to balance it to make everyone happy.
I also like World of Warcraft.
Sadly, that’s becoming a common theme I’m hearing. You are always welcome to message me if you want one last try to make some friends to run stuff with. I’m always looking for key victi - er, friends.
Hi, I appreciate the offer and no, I haven’t unsubscribed yet. Let me ask you… do you run keys during the daytime like 1/2pm eastern standard time? also what realm are you in? I’m in Proudmore
Add me Cer#1230 and we can chat.
I requested you. Thanks
I returned after a decade. I am a casual player so it took me longer than normal to reach specific growth points. I am now at a point I need to do Heroic raids or 7+ mythics. But because it took me so long I find myself not being able to participate. For example, was in a heroic raid. Took down the first two bosses down no problem. My dps was not the best but it was well above average for someone just getting into that level and I did the mechanics just fine. Got kicked to make room for a mythic geared player. Since delves cannot even get me to ilvl 623 that t10 and 11 recommend, this really puts me in a tough position. I like playing the game, but if I am locked out of progression because I do not have 40+ hours a week to play, there is no reason to keep playing. This is what got me to leave back then, I was just hoping things changed when they talked about making the game casual friendly.
Well, it is more player friendly then 2006; raiding the barrens, attuning to keys, walking to instances, no access to flying. It used to take hours and hours just to do content. LFG, portals, dragon riding have definitely eliminated a lot of open world downtime. The big difference is that when you look at other games, everything is instant now. A 20min queue is nothing compared to 2006 WoW, but painfully outdated when compared any other modern game (FPS, RTS, etc).
I couldn’t imagine what this game was like in 2006 and I feel you. I started playing in 2018 and I can clearly see in some ways progress was made but my general feeling is that the developers go against the player base and then bread crumb the player base with rewards but yes… it’s clearly outdated with some things. Just simplify the game… geez… I’m no game developer but my god this is crazy now.
Well said post right here. Good take.