I really wish you’d stop intentionally misconstruing everything people says here to further your trolling.
It’s true. I have mythic+ gear. And I don’t have issue doing group content SOME of the time. But I would sure love for it to not be EVERYTHING I do.
If ALL I’m going to be doing is M+ and callings… then I’m going to quit the game before long. It’s inevitable. It’s going to happen. Because m+ is fun, but it’s not enough. I need something I can do when I don’t want to group. Or when I don’t want to be forced to rush because of the m+ time limit.
And… I need a way to get my wife interested in the game. Because I guarantee you I’m going to be far more likely to stick with a game if we’re both playing. If she’s not interested, then we’ll probably end up finding a game she is and focusing on that instead.
So ya. I have M+ gear. And i will continue doing M+ even if they add solo content because it’s fun. But if it’s ALL I have to do for fun? This subscription I’ve got ain’t gonna last that long.
No. WoW has been dominant because MMOs are extremely expensive to make, difficult to make well, and WoW got in at just the right time. And now, nobody trying ot make a new mmo can make anything anywhere near polished or complete enough to attract a sustainable base except companies like SquareEnix.
Which goes back to my previous point, which you wholly ignored… EVERYONE… is feeling stagnant right now. Even people who do PvP.
So requesting solo content, when it’s lack of content for those who have been playing since launch, is a bit odd to ask for until we see what patches bring.
And by your own words, you want better gear, for solo content, so kinda… ya… Won’t get into that again. And if your wife isn’t interested, maybe try something she likes instead? Adding more solo content now, or later, won’t keep her interested.
Yes, everyone’s feeling stagnant, but solo content felt stagnant DAY ONE. Solo content was mishandled in an epic fashion this expansion. There was none. So no, it is not comparable. Most categories of content are only feeling stagnant because of how long the cycle has been, which is understandable. But in Shadowlands specifically, the METHOD in which they handled the content a solo player would be involved in was misguided and did not work. So the point of my thread is to let them know that is the case. That Shadowlands from square 1 was not well done for solo players. So a new patch, even if it came today, if it followed the same path as the original expansion’s content… wouldn’t change anything. Because it would be stagnant still.
Waiting until ‘we see what patch brings’ is WAITING TOO LONG. They need the feedback NOW when they’re still working on implementing and designing the patch content. Because otherwise they won’t fix the problem. They need to be told it’s a problem when they still have time to correct it or else we’ll be stuck again.
Your idea of ‘don’t give feedback because it might be fixed next patch’ just creates an endless cycle of not talking about a problem. Because when 9.1 comes out, if it’s still a problem, you can just say ‘well maybe they’ll fix it in 9.1.5 so wait for that to discuss it’ and so on. It’s an endless cycle of deferment that gets us nowhere. We need to talk about the issue because otherwise they don’t know there’s an issue and can’t fix it.
Actually… my wife does like WoW. She has an account and has played in multiple expansions very casually over the game’s lifespan. She likes the world and the lore, enjoys the basic mechanics, and has fun playing with me… when there’s content to do. The problem is… there often isn’t. There often isn’t a rewarding path for her to experience the game. So she gets bored and quits. So yes, adding a solo/small group progression path WOULD keep her interested.
Not true. If it was just a question of timing, WOW would have died within a year or so. Instead each expansion kept it growing until it hit around 12 million subscribers. And it wasn’t just a case of the big boys not spending money because most of the big competitors were going out of their way to jump on the MMO bandwagon. EA/Bioware even committed $200 million for their game which was based on both a very popular gaming franchise(Knights of the Old Republic) as well as pop culture franchise(Star Wars) and it went FTP within six months. It wasn’t just money or timing. No game gets that big and lasts for that long unless it is making a product that people want to play. And the focus of the game that they all wanted to play was raids and dungeons. Everything else in the game came second to that.
It was the most casual MMO at the time. By far. That’s why it grew.
It had the same level of epic group content as predecessors like Everquest and FFXI… but it also offered casual content. And thus it appealed to masses of people.
THAT is what it did differently. It didn’t punish people for dying like Everquest did, it DIDN’T force people to group to level like FFXI did, and it made playing alone fun through things like rep grinds and the like.
Your argument falls flat no matter how many ways you try and twist history around. The game still has casual content. But it has NEVER offered players mythic gear for soloing content unless it was a late catch up mechanic to get you up to speed for the new gear grind. If it had done what you are suggesting now, the game would have died or been put on maintenance mode years ago.
Per your edit, you don’t need to group now to do world content. It’s FAR easier in retail to solo level out in the open world than it ever was in vanilla.
The reality is that WoW’s success was built on offering content for a wide variety of players, particularly bringing players who otherwise would never have played MMOs into the genre by making the game casual friendly. This is just a fact. It’s been proven time and time again that Blizzard’s success comes from the fact that they have so many different TYPES of players that even if one of those types of players weren’t particularly happy at any given time, the game would survive.
That’s the key to Blizzard’s success with WoW. That, and addiction. Because, let’s face it, once you’ve invested a thousand hours into a character… it’s pretty hard to convince yourself to start over in a new game.
There’s literally no reason why adding solo progression as an alternative would negatively impact that model. If anything, it fits nicely with it, because it gives one more group of people - competitive solo players - a path to enjoy the game fully.
The arguments that ‘not many people would be interested in it and thus it’s not worth the development resources’ are fair and reasonable - I don’t really know the actual numbers. I know I would be. I know some others who would be, including my wife. But I can’t speak to a specific total. And nobody else can either… because none of us can read minds.
But arguments that ‘it would kill the game’ are just absolutely absurd.
This is untrue on many levels. The only thing that is even remotely accurate, is WoW was more “Casual” It was less punishing, but not more casual. You didn’t have to worry about losing your gear forever from a corpse run that failed, you didn’t have to worry about deleveling, etc etc. You could even log off for a day, and not be far behind due to rested XP.
It offered 0 Casual content. There is nothing casual you can do in Vanilla WoW to progress your power level. There is nothing casual you can do in TBC to progress your power level. There is nothing you can do in WotLK to progress your power level. Nada, vs raiders and PvP players.
What it did offer, was a ground breaking thing called Instanced Content. No more guilds fighting over world bosses all the time for anything. It offered rested XP system. It offered a simpler talent system to make unique builds, even if they eventually lost to the “Meta”. It offered faster traveling, it offered easier grouping, etc etc etc.
I mean… I was there during Everquest and FF11. I remember the battles to control the world mobs, the timers etc. Far worse then the dragons they added in Vanilla WoW at a later patch.
Anyone could level a character to max level and get good enjoyment out of it. It was casual friendly COMPARED to the competition.
It wasn’t solo friendly like I’d like it to be going forward, absolutely. But it was VERY casual compared to its competition.
(Also: I’m done replying to my two trolls here… so I’ll happily engage with anyone else… but I don’t have time to engage with people who just want to make hyperbolic predictions of doom and gloom surrounding this idea)
I’d be on board for that being a thing. I wouldn’t participate much because I’m not a huge pvper and it wouldn’t solve the problem I’m talking about here… but I’d be on board for it existing.
Solo progression would benefit everyone, because it would give everyone a new option for rewarding gameplay even when their guildies/friends are offline. Right now the game is very shallow, and revolves entirely around repeating mythics and repeating arenas. Most mmos, including wow in the past, have more depth to them than that. The rest of the game needs to feel fun and rewarding, and forgoing that in favor of the “competitive” treadmill is a bad idea. The game simply needs more content (and more features) that are engaging and value your time spent.
Yep. It was certainly less punishing than the other games but casual? No way. Not if you were a player looking to have the best gear. You weren’t going to get top level gear in the open world and even that was dangerous depending on which class you played. Most soloers figured out quickly that it was better to group up before hitting a dangerous pack of NPCs or it was certain death.
“Also: I’m done replying to my two trolls here… so I’ll happily engage with anyone else… but I don’t have time to engage with people who just want to make hyperbolic predictions of doom and gloom surrounding this idea”
So when confronted with people who have a polite disagreement with your idea you resort to dismissing them as trolls and mute them? No wonder you can’t find people to play with.
There are plenty of elitists who think it would be great for the game if enough of the right players were convinced to leave. Some of them believe that purging all the casuals will result in a tidal wave of tens of millions of hardcore players joining, players who have been avoiding wow up until now because it was never hardcore enough for them.
Or because they didn’t want to play a game that could also be played by commoners.
But there are also those who believe that if only the right 2% hardest core players were to remain, that would be a smashing success. I’m not sure who would pay for development.
Nah. They would expect to get far more of the expensive content they want and pay no more per player than before.
Why are there people who assume that “casuals” have always wanted the best gear? People who want that are not casual at all.
Why do people not bother reading who posters are replying to when making their own comment? Because if you had done that, you would see that is exactly what he is asking for. He even says it in his opening post…
“But I do think that players should be more open to the idea of adding an alternate progression path that operates similar to M+ and raiding where a person puts in the hours, gets gear, then uses that gear to increase the difficulty of the content they engage in and gradually acquire better gear… just either alone or with one or two friends in stead of in groups of 5 or 20.”
A person who wants to play 30 hours a week doing escalating difficulty in content to get rewards is not casual. The fact that you assume anyone who doesn’t want to group is casual is a big part of why you’re a troll.
Don’t you go making sense now lol. These people some of them anyways seem to think that if you only made content for one kind of customer you’ll make more money lol. Thankfully stores like Walmart figured out a long time ago that you want to sell as much product to as many people as possible if you want to make the big bucks. Jeff bezos and Amazon come to mind. if the only thing Jeff bezos sold on Amazon was lug nuts and barber chairs he wouldn’t be making anywhere near the amount of money is now.
Diversification is the absolute key to making the most money possible end of story
Again with the insults. This is the most likely reason that you are having trouble grouping up in game. No one likes to play with people who throw insults around when they don’t get their way.
