Not addressing player morale, or anything for that matter

Community General Discussion
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When I logged in for raid today, I realized I hadn’t logged in for a week because my latest chat logs were from the previous weeks raid. And the sad thing is that 1) I didn’t realize I wasn’t logging in/playing because the game is so boring and dull there’s no sense of urgency or desire to play, 2) I didn’t miss anything for not playing an entire reset, my caches gave useless items, world quests and emissaries are useless, as is the world boss, warfronts aren’t active for my faction.

3 months into an expansion and I’m already to that point where I’d feel no remorse for quitting. Typically that only came during the end of expansion - even during WoD.

Players of all walks of life are expressing discontent with the game. The only reason they bother doing that is because we all care deeply about the game. For most of us, WoW and the rest of Blizzards games have been a huge part of our lives.

To see such a drastic change from Legion into BfA has the playerbase shook, I think, because unlike the dip in quality we saw with MoP->WoD we’ve also seen a drastic dip in the quality of Blizzard themselves - their game design, the way they interact with their community, the way they tell their customers (players) that they have fun the wrong way because they aren’t enjoying non-fun mechanics being shoved into the game (e.g, azerite gear and traits). I mean the community told Blizzard that Azerite gear and traits would be a failure THE VERY DAY they were announced - and Blizzard reacted with zero changes to their concept in half a year of beta and no fixes in 3 months of live (basically paid-beta). We’re not even getting KT Humans/Zandalari for several months into the expansion, when they were announced as an expansion feature at Blizzcon '17 over a YEAR AGO. War Mode, Warfronts, and Expeditions are all a complete flop.

All over, player morale is the lowest it’s ever been and I believe that decline is a reflection of the decline of development quality and community management, interaction, and overall care for their customers within Blizzard.

I can’t even expect them to do Classic properly, anymore. I think, unlike previous eras of WoW being awful (14 months of SoO, WoD), there are plenty of high-quality games to compete with WoW that there’s literally no reason to stick around for end-game in BfA.

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Blizzard has proven that they don’t care about much beyond their own wallets. It’s no surprise. I do agree with you - player morale across the board is the lowest I’ve seen as well. The numbers are incredibly low and it’s because BFA is just a recycling of Legion content just painted in a different color.

I am very much looking forward to Classic. As long as Blizzard doesn’t implement the LFG systems I have no doubt in my mind it’ll compete or even surpass modern WOW. The sense of community will be so much stronger. The game content will be so much more challenging. These are ingredients for a successful MMORPG and it’s very exciting.

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BfA is a horrible expansion and I don’t see 8.1 really fixing much, I damn sure don’t see it bringing any players back for the most part. A solid month into the expansion and I nearly abandoned by max level character and did nothing but mess around on twinks when I logged in. For 8.1 I decided to level a new 120 and give it a shot, a good honest try to enjoy WoW again. If 8.1 doesn’t offer anything to make the game enjoyable again I don’t see any other option but to leave. The direction and quality of WoW is very telling given the rushed job on BfA.

We shouldn’t have to make ourselves enjoy a video game.

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Working as intended.
Blizzard has a vision.
Blizzard is your friend.

Obey.

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It would of been a simple fix if they just listened to the community.

It seems to be a growing trend though unfortunately, I just see the dev team doing so many things that no one really wants or was looking forward too…

Its like I want them to listen but I doubt they will so I just pray the next patch isn’t horrible.

Meh.

Forum Mod Edit: This post has been edited by a moderator due to masked language as it is in violation of the Code of Conduct.

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I pray 8.1 isn’t horrible, either, but it doesn’t really seem to be adding much of anything. There are a few class changes of note, but other than that we are basically replacing Uldir with Dazaralor and the rest of the game remains the same.

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They can’t listen to the community because listening to the community would insist that they spend money on fixes. I’ve heard that Blizzard is actively trying to cut costs. If that’s the case why take on meaningful feedback when you can just do the bare minimum and save money?

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Tbf, you could argue you got Activision to thank for that. Publishers only care about making money $$$ even if it’s at the expense of a player’s unenjoyment towards a product.

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Remember how the game director of Final Fantasy XIV stated that a dip in playerbase is expected 3-4 months after new content is released? Especially in the few weeks leading up to a new content patch?

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From what I can tell Blizzard uses beta to flush out game breaking bugs, but once beta hits, core game designs are locked in, and they do not make large scale changes. They have hinted to this when they have have answered (but not really) questions as to why they do not listen to feed back during betas. My general opinion is by beta they have too much sunk costs in time and resources to scrap a system.

If they scrap the system then they are left with a major void, and have a harder time putting that larger price tag on the expansion. The flip side is you get what you have in BFA, which is damage control and 6 months of putting out fires, and what I assume is a somewhat large drop in subscriptions (just a guess…)

BFA is almost like a perfect storm, where they figured out a way to cause an issue in almost every area of the game (accept for the art). After 14 years one would think they would have their player base dialed in, and game creation dialed in, but it is like each expansion is their very first and that is just mind boggling to me.

I get why they make some of their decisions, their player base is very diverse and they will never please everyone, but it seems like they go out of their way to shoot themselves in their own foot. There are some decisions that seem like no brainers that would appease larger portions and give them some breathing room and yet they dig in and die on their swords.

Personally I am ok with BFA, but then again I threw my hands up in the air and said screw it, Blizzard doesn’t care, so I wont either. I just play for fun, I do not care about story, gear, progression on my other account, or anything. I log in kill stuff, talk to people, and it is what it is. Only way not to let the game kill my morale…

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To say that they arent addressing ANYTHING is to ignore everything they are putting into 8.1 and what has been announced for 8.2.

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It’s not like there’s an easy solution. They believe they are right and blame the community for not receiving their ideas well.

And putting more ressources on a declining game like wow probably seems like a waste of money for them.

Let’s just hope next expansion is better. But with bfa my trust with blizzard has fallen and won’t buy the game before release.

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8.1 is broken up into 3 parts. The December patch has about, maybe, a weeks worth of “stuff” to keep busy but that’s it. The raid isn’t until January and the last part is TBA. Not exactly a lot of content to work with.

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Except for art.

But yeah, this is my sentiment as well. Every system in Legion that worked, had purpose, and fit into a larger scheme of game-play was systematically altered because they didn’t like the one aspect of that system that made it work.

So, now, all we have are the same systems all askew.

Sure, gathering AP was dull, but we had skills to unlock that progressed. Azerite gear doesn’t feel like a progression.

Sure, doing WQ was dull, but we unlocked our weapon and got bonus gold and the amount of AP kept growing.

Sure, Crafting is dull, but we could make filler gear and upgrade it or at a minimum sell it for descent gold. Now, crafting is just for scrapping and nothing more.

Yes, we had a mission board that everyone loves to hate, but at least you occasionally got missions to do. Now, the only ones to do are pet charms.

And, we still have the RNG on top of RNG systems that players have been complaining about since they were added and Blizzard wants us all sucking them down because that’s the pathway to lootbox systems that players just hate.

A progression game is about working toward and not just hoping for a titanforge.

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Whoa I thought the raid was out the moment 8.1 lands.

Yikes.

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Even with the raid that comes later it will feel like the selfie cam patch.

We get another island expedition. There isn’t really much new to do until the new raid. Mostly it will be class fixes.

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So true - all of it.

Blizzard stopped listening to its community, the one that raised it to the lofty heights it has found itself.

The result is a pretty disattisfied customer base who would now rather unsubscribe than continue talking to a brick wall.

Well done Blizzard - you did this :+1:t2:

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:man_facepalming: :man_facepalming:

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they added a token system. they added a new wf…including a heroic wf where you can lose. they added invasion like WQs which sound interesting.

my point is that you can’t say they are ignoring us and not doing anything when they are actually doing things.

you may not agree with the things they are doing, but that’s a different argument.

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they dont care plain and simple you pay $15 to play or not.

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