It’s not just about the portals, it’s about Blizzard constantly telling all players to [Edited by Blizzard] the entire expansion. I do think it’s about to reach the breaking point however. Because this is getting ridiculous.
Legendaries in Legion, GCD change, master loot, class designs, gameplay, azerite, artifact power, islands, drop rates, loot rng.
And now portals.
Imagine if they didn’t double down, like they always do with their stupid ideas, on telling players to [Edited by Blizzard]. And instead had a guiding philosophy of “Don’t take away things players have and are enjoying”
WHAT A THOUGHT. JESUS. CHRIST.
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.
Don’t get me wrong, the portal change is pretty…stupid imo.
But they constantly listen to feedback. And have made a ton of changes based on feedback. We just tend to ignore when they do, and the big things we want changed (that dont get changed) stand out more.
That’s because Papa Ion knows best, and if you disagree, you’re wrong. This has been a recurring theme since WoD. Not sure what the people above him are on, but I need some.
I find Blizz are pretty good at taking feedback sometimes.
Problem is, instead of iterating on what they already made, they throw on the e-brake and veer entirely in the other direction, leaving behind a ton of perfectly fine systems that could have been improved…
Dear Leader is micromanaging this game to death. If patch 8.2 hits the PTR with no class changes that is a clear indicator they have given up on this expansion.
Personally, I feel they are too reactionary. And swing too far in a direction. Example. Mission tables. They were huge money makers previously, and were tied to the class hall quest lines waaay too much. Just drawing out specific steps. People complained that the mission table felt too forced/mandatory. (both in needing to do it for the quest line, and for gold).
So Blizzard listened. They just swung the change so far in the opposite direction. The table then became basically useless, and you often wondered “why am I even doing this?”. It was something that had no real time commitment, yet “almost zero work at all” didn’t justify it. Granted its a little better with the treasure maps from Island Expeditions. I feel like there could have been some middle ground between " I feel completely obligated to do the mission table on all my toons, regularly, without missing one" and “next to worthless”.
I do think it would be interesting if there was more interaction between Mission Table / Warfront / Island Expedition (similar in how you get a Mission Table Treasure Map from IEs).
I’m not sure how active they used to be on popular topics, but they’re actively ignoring the portal conversation. Even though it now has TWO threads on the top of the list. Sure they might be active, but talking about your favorite battle pet or answering simple gameplay questions that other players have already answered while ignoring issues isn’t constructive.
And even if CM presence here has increased, it’s likely they’ve given the devs our feedback and they have decided not to listen to it anyway. Unless the CMs here are just straight up not giving our feedback to the devs at all, I really doubt it’s a CM problem. And I doubt that, too, because Ion makes it repeatedly clear that he knows what people are complaining about it, but then gives a reason why we’re actually wrong and here’s what they’re gonna do instead.
There will always be more CM responses on the “light” topics. Its because they aren’t devs. On the controversial type issues, they can only give Approved™ responses. They can relay the feedback all they can, but until they get a response from the devs, they can’t give further insight. That is above their pay grade.
On “light” topics, such as your favorite battle pet, they can talk more freely for obvious reasons.
That being said, in two particular threads they have talked heavily about the issue of portals. Whether or not we like what they said, is something else.
Here is a rather long thread they created
In this thread, they have like half a dozen posts last I checked
I definitely believe they relay the feedback. I just think sometimes the answer is “no”. Once again, not defending some of their most recent choices. But I don’t think we should expect every thing we want to be implemented. We (as a community) tend to ignore any time they do listen to our feedback, while acting like every single time its ignored is a personal slight.
To be fair, GD complains/suggests some really horrible things. And I would sincerely hate any game to cater to every whim of the loudest forum posters.
There is a difference in listening to player feedback and just doing what they tell you. Just because you might disagree with a decision doesn’t mean others don’t support them. Which is the problem with player feedback, it generally isn’t a consensus and what is expressed here is only a minority of the player base.
You don’t know that it’s the minority opinion any more than we know it’s the majority decision. But if they felt the need to make a long winded “we know, but we don’t care” post, you can bet there was pretty intense pressure for them not to do it. The vocal minority is ignored outright, not addressed directly.
I never said it was a minority opinion. I was pointing out that those of us who use the forums are a minority of the player base. There is a difference.