Blame Blizzard on this one. They incentivized grabbing all the mobs and AOEing them down and then acted all surprised when people did just that.
Don’t blame every bad decision on the elitists. Blizzard is capable of doing dumb stuff all on their own.
Blame blizzard for giving everything so much aoe in the first place that it made that strat viable then had to be removed
"Has science gone too far"xd
Those problems always existed even without “meta” people.
They just were amplified.
But yes if we were all ignorants we would probably see less problems.
I just hope that it hasn’t pushed them to design the dungeons in such a way that it’s a LOT less fun because of them maybe wanting to prepare how it looks for the M+ focused people and the MDI’s.
It’s kind of a case of the meta people complained based on very high end play and then Blizzard responded by balancing a lot of the game specifically around that.
Nobody forced Blizzard to do it but at the same time, it probably wouldn’t have been changed if not for the meta people insisting everything be balanced around their playstyle.
At least for some of the things, mainly that happened longer ago. More recently a lot of stuff has felt more like a case of “We want you to play how we want you to, not how you want to” from the WoW team.
you’re making it sound like the “meta people” is a hivemind concept. Or even that people follow a meta, just blindly.
A lot of people actually follow science. We have mathematical proofs in the form of simulations and experimental proofs in the form of logs. If you’re “meta” for choosing with cold logic, then I’m glad to be meta.
And it’s hard for people like Blizzard to disagree with logic. It’s not that Blizzard catter to high end people more, it’s actually because their feedback is often more interesting and detailed.
Yes since Legion and borrowed power system basicly the game has started to “hate” you more if you were trying to push content. Requiring more hoops and loops than ever, more grinds just to be good in the content you want to do. For me I’m just calling it off, I can deal with more grinds and having to do more stuff basicly and more systems basicly. But there’s just a limit of abuse I can deal with and covenants and soulbinds conduits are there for me.
Taking an RPG game and subjecting yourself to always picking the most mathematically optimized path is the definition of being a meta slave. And sure you can be like that, but the game shouldn’t be designed around meta slaves. It’s an RPG first and foremost.
That’s fine you can be an hipster-elitist.
Have fun with your niche game, which is wow wasn’t for many years and certainly wasn’t at its peak.
The “meta people” refers to the group of people who specifically complained to Blizzard about stuff like how they were “forced” to take certain professions because they resulted in slightly higher DPS numbers.
I don’t have a problem with people wanting to do whatever the mathematically optimal setup is. I have a problem when the game started being specifically designed around those people, because it hurts my enjoyment of the game when I start having things taken away from me so that those people don’t feel “forced” into things.
Wrath wasn’t designed around meta slaves either, nor should it have been.
The thing you don’t understand is the way the word forced is used.
Yes they’re willingly taking a choice they don’t want for power for a greater fun.
So yes they’re making a sacrifice, and you sure would want to make less sacrifice to get to your goal.
For me I just draw the line, we got all systems to farm outside of raids already if I have to do 3 more alts just to play 1 class that’s too much. The sacrifice to do this is just too extreme to get to my fun part.
It wasn’t designed around hipster elitists too.
It was just not designed agaisn’t people.
It was just for everyone.
I understand just fine how the word is being used.
That doesn’t change that we’ve had things changed like the removal of profession perks because people complained about needing to take specific ones to get a slight increase on their DPS.
You’re getting too caught up in the semantics of it. The use of the word “forced” or not is not the main focus of that point.
This also goes beyond just covenants, which I don’t think are terribly well designed in the first place for a system of character building.
Maybe balance is something you don’t like.
Do you feel balancing the game is bad.
Or a bit like we probably agree just that when Blizzard see a problem they don’t finely tune they just blast it down with a nuke.
“Hipster elitists” is a very reaching term. Wrath was an RPG game designed for players who enjoy RPG games. Shadowlands is also designed for players who enjoy RPG games. WoW shouldn’t ever be designed around meta slaves.
You might not like it, but tough. 
Let’s not start getting into stupid strawmen argument. Nobody ever argued balance is inherently bad.
I’ve used profession perks as an example and I was a hardcore raider back in WotLK. Do you know what the difference in performance was for profession perks?
Usually less than 1%. It was NOT a case of balance being so out of wack that it was vital they get rid of them.
Hipster elitist is what it’s mean.
People not respecting the norm being elitist about it.
It’s just my new term for people calling others meta slaves.
How was wrath more an rpg than any other expansion?
It was super easy to change spec.
And this is what people are basicly standing on right now with covenants and soulbinds.
I mean that’s why they did it.
Probably enought that people cared. And to be fair professions weren’t that much amount of work compared to what we have today as grinds.
Make choices great again!!
It was really only ever the min/maxers that cared about it given how little variance there was.
Which was my original point: Plenty of stuff over the course of this game has been changed around and made worse because some min/maxers complained and Blizzard started designing the game around that until more recently.
and there’s certainly no “Just ignore it because it doesn’t affect you” like some people have been trying to claim. It affects me whether I like it or not.
Yay! I hope we get pre-Legion stuff back at some point though or even better enhanced versions made for post 8.3 and 9.5 in the future or a further update than that. Remember “In the hands of a master ANYTHING can be a weapon.” It’s not what you have it’s how YOU use it and adapt it, one’s own imagination and inventiveness is the sharpest tool in their shed.