I think part of it is the new zones tend to lock too many things into killing rares, so when people have gotten everything they want from the zone and the majority of players have left, it dies because no one is killing the rares for what you need to get and there aren’t enough quests to make up for it.
Another problem is everything is too generic now. We no longer have the varied faction quests or zones and with Shadowlands and Dargonflight, the Alliance and Horde quests don’t seem to be any different and both factions operate out of the same locations. There may be some quest differences for each faction, but it seems so few and far in between that it doesn’t seem like it.
And why do you have to do 20s? You were content with the 15 reward in BFA/SL which is literally the exact same IL as a 16 in DF (first mythic bosses). If you don’t want to put in the effort for the new reward then don’t do it…
I am going to disagree on this point. Forbidden Reach was a great addition. And it was a .0.5 patch addition. Not a .1. It gave chars a great way to quickly gear and gear alts in the patch. It had the ring, which was a mixed bag, but if the powers and stones were more interesting, it could have been better.
Yes the zone was flying around and grinding rares and chests and what not. But with a bunch of people actively doing them, it did feel pretty good to do. I didnt mind flying around, taking a break from Dungeons, killing some rares, farming some gear tokens.
The Vaults were also a good concept. There was very little combat related. It was just jumping puzzles, and simple puzzles. Not groundbreaking. Not difficult. But not Torghast farming levels of unfun.
My issue with Zaralek Caverns, is that the rewards are not worth the hassle. The key would be the BoA gear tokens. With those, you then get highly geared players farming, which makes the rares and events easier for lower geared players. Right now, on a new char, its better to grind dungeons for stones, crests and gear than it is to grind the zone. This is due to higher ilvl chars are just not out there doing the zone like in Forbidden Reach. So the zone is needlessly difficult, for gear that is too quickly replaced.
What I think, is that they have already found what works. But they keep trying to reinvent it, rather than expand it. Rare/Chest/Event Farming in an open world, that drop BoA gear tokens that are LFR/M0 ilvl and then can be upgraded to normal raid ilvl. Every time they have one of these zones, starting at The Timeless Island, players enjoy them and hold the zones as largely good content. These zones are also very active and are great grounds for emergent content. I give the team credit for trying all these new things, but sometimes you just have to accept that something works.
Imagine that if at Max level, one zone becomes active every 2 hours and rotates in a predictable pattern after those 2 hours. There would be a rare spawn event, where over the 2 hours rares within the zone would spawn at 10-15min variable timers. The rares would be similar to Forbidden Reach Rares, but a little less health. Designed to be killed by 3 players, but have the variable health with how many people tag them. Chest events would pop up similarly.
Each zone would drop gear tokens and a currency. The gear tokens are BoA and random. The currency can buy BoP specific tokens off a vendor, or be used to upgrade Token gear. In addition, rares would have the chance to drop the odd mount, tmog appearance, toy ect. Those would be rare specific. The Currency is BoC, but can be converted to BoA at a 35% penalty. Now within each zone you can also use the currency to by Tmog armor sets/weapons that match the zone’s theme.
During the times where the zone rare event is inactive in the zone, blue daily quests pop up, with tasks that reward rep, currency, and the odd specific class specific BoP token. These blue daily quests are at different hubs, which are active on a daily rotation. Maybe 5 daily quests per hub. The standard World Quest stuff. So the 5quests in the zone today, would be a different 5 quests tomorrow, at different locations, with different rewards. Maybe start the zone with 3 or 4 different hubs. And possibly expand through the expac.
Yes this is an iteration on the storm events and past zone wide events, but I just think it is a good way to keep the expansion zones active. And that type of content seems to net the most positive gains.
Idk about bleeding subs, but the game just lacks broad appeal to new players.
Coming in at this point, you’ve missed 20 years of stuff. That’s a lot of stuff to have missed.
The leveling experience is pretty different for an alt with heirlooms and mailed bankroll vs a legitimately new players’ first character. Starting in BFA introduces a lot more mechanics quicker as well vs where a chunk of the player base learned initially (old school crossroads for example).
Then you have leveling dungeons or battlegrounds where most of the other players have a decade or more experience and no patience for someone who doesn’t know how to use misdirect or who to listen to in a random BG.
That doesn’t mean nobody new will start playing, or even stick around at max level. But as far as broad appeal goes there are much more accessible multiplayer games with MMO sized playerbases now.
Catering to the existing population is basically WoWs niche now, and also the biggest obstacle to a large influx of new players.
Edit: I should say trying to cater, because that’s a lot of people who want different things.
Are you killing M Echo and Sark every week? I mean you HAVE to for max rewards right?
The reward from a 16 is the EXACT SAME as the max vault has been for the past 5 years. Early mythic bosses. There being a reward above it now changes absolutely nothing.
DF has some good QoL changes for sure. I think Healers are really feeling under powered though, and I hope that gets addressed.
As far as DF content, I personally have quit doing it; there’s so many quests that give gear so much worse than what you can get on the AH for dirt cheap, and running a few Dungeons quickly upgrades that. I also don’t understand all of the “Rare” mobs that have 5 Mil HP all over the place. Why have Dungeon Bosses hanging in the open world unless the goal is trying to force Group content. If so, that’s a real disservice to solo players who make up a not small amount of the players.
It just seems so much quests stacked on quests, on quest; it felt very overwhelming to me. Add in that the new crafting system is a mess. Who thought that baking RNG into crafting was a good idea? Blizz really needs to get out of the RNG mindset pretty much everywhere. RNG is a miserable idea that just causes player frustrations, which leads to players leaving.
Don’t get me wrong, DF has some good points and I know there are a lot of happy players with it, And I am genuinely happy for them. Blizz just needs to understand that if they change their mindset on making too many overly complicated systems, and get back to the basics of just letting the players play and enjoy the Game in the manner that they enjoy the most.
Are you experiencing it when you log in? If yes than that really is great to hear.
I am not. The options for end game are not compelling generally speaking for me.
Not a fan of professions now or the last few expansions. They haven’t been in a good place for a while. I am glad ppl enjoy it but I don’t. I think having so many teirs of a reagent is pointless when everyone will ignore the bottom ones and only value the top ones. Among other things…
PvP really hasn’t seen much in terms new things to do in quite a while. Over the course of 2 years how many times does everyone really want to do the same 8ish dungeons over and over and over and over and over. That is not burnout. Its simply not fun. Not rewarding or satisfying. Are there still NO new BG’s for example? No existing ones overhauled…like Wintergrasp…? WIntergrasp as an example might not be current expansion content, but it is if you Random Q and get dropped there…yet it receives no improvements and the experience generally isn’t fun.
People say this expansion is great but I just do not see that personally. Don’t get me wrong. I did for a month or 2 long enough to pay for a year sub, because THIS time I wouldn’t get sick of the current content or collection grinding. Am I an active user because I am subscribed or based on whether I log in or not every month? People suggesting per Blizzard, with no numbers or no inside knowledge/data of what composes those numbers, that the game is doing GREAT! It just doesn’t seem like it is.
Didn’t last long. I don’t enjoy, even only twice per lock out, flying around doing the boring world quests. They are largely not fun. The climbing ones were frequently bugged when I would try and do them. Probably not an issue now but it was.
Tried the new zone. Couldn’t bother to finish it. Same thing flying from rare to rare to grab some garbage currency for X Y or Z whose relevance is limited to at least a patch, at best the expansion it is created in. I think that was 10.5 patch? I haven’t logged in since.
Honestly…I was underwhelmed by the zones as well. Azure span felt like an attempt to tap in to peoples connection with Grizzly Hills to me. Didn’t work for me. Usually I at least like the zones. I usually can remember at least one zone from EVERY expansion up to the dreaded Shadowlands that I love. I cant recall the name of any of these zones without looking them up.
Quests overall were ok. I wouldn’t say they were terribly engaging with the exception of a few…the dwarf talking about loss. Good one. Not replayable outside of some text for a specific race though.
Story. Does anyone need to really expand on that much at this point? Some people don’t care about story but story gives people something to care about within the world they occupy. I will leave it at that.
Trading post is fine I guess. As a collector I would rather just do enough in game whether I like X Y or Z and have it all and be done. UI doesn’t make it easy within the framework of the game to actually keep lists and such of things to work on and you have to rely on addons. That’s one more thing to keep track of. Outside of that I would say I largely like the trading post and think overall its good despite my detraction.
M+…boring.
World Events…like the soup? No…it seemed fun at first like all things…but then I did it a second time. Its just spamming an aoe…while standing there…
What story there is and the rep limitations and only so much your main can gain a week or twice a week or whatever it is at this point…no thanks.
No doubt I could add more but…Ill just keep checking in every so often and see if things have actually significantly improved and at least try the next expansion like I always do hoping for better.
When I think of Dragonflight…I think…mediocre teir. Honest rating.
Honestly, it was the rainbow content that finally made me leave after 2 decades. I still play classic here and there though, so they’re still getting sub money from me unfortunately, even if it’s just a month here and there.
I can only speak about myself here, but for me gaming stopped being fun when it became a rush this and rush that environment.
For me gaming was about relaxation, but now it feels like a job.
No matter how hard I try, I never finish the content of an expansion, it´s just too much to do and my alt chars, are not getting any play at all.
But exactly this made WOW so fun for me back in the days, to have different chars at different stages of the game. I miss just chatting with guild members, making a bad pull and we all wipe or doing some Twink BG´s. Walking through the world, inviting someone for an elite area and we just played there for 30 minutes and became friends.
Nobody has interest in this anymore so it seems, people are like ghosts, they are there, but you can not interact, it´s just a sad state for an MMO.
Everything must be perfect and fast, no mistakes or distractions allowed, because if you are behind, you are out and so you play with Zombies all the time.
Nobody in this game has time for “niche” things, everyone is chasing the next higher score and this in every game I played in the past years.
I don´t want an easier game, I don´t want even faster leveling, I want more depth in what I do, without the feel that if I don´t do it quick, I fall behind or miss out due it´s removal.
Maybe I am alone with this feeling, but while I keep my sub alive, I for sure lack interest in the current game design.