Well stated… totally agree. But now the finance department is running the game.
No i am sorry if did let you think this was an opinion.
It wasn’t. You didnt answer, this is a fact.
Cool.
What made MoP great? Which classes were awesome and why? I hated my ret paladin rotation, my enahncement shaman damage, my balance druid ecplipse bar. All i could play was my hunter and the shadow priest which played more like a hybrid than the formers.
Classe prunning for me soudns horrible too. But it’s also truth that everyone having soo much CC and Burst and three button rotation didn’t make the gameplay exactly engaging too.
Soo what should they do? Mix more abilities? Cancel some and bring equal number of new? remove several and make more passives?
My ret paladin rotation in WoD was far more complicated in than it was in MoP but was faster paced in legion and i enjoyed the judgment debuff and my moveable divine storm.
It went down two prunnings but was greatly improved in speed and cooldowns.
I loved the questing
I loved the farm
I loved all my classes – they were all fun. Didn’t play a pally much but when I did it was prot. My destro lock was a goddess; my hunter played super well. I didn’t play SP but disc and loved it. All mages were super fun; my druids were resto largely, one balance, one guardian. Why were they fun? They were powerful; many options; many abilities; ie., could spam RoF just as an example… there wre many other class attributes I liked, but I don’t have all day.
I loved the dungeons – they were all fun and interesting designs. I stopped raiding in Cata due to time and RL demands, so I didn’t do Panda raids.
I adored the story and Pandaria is so gorgeous, sometimes I just fly around for s&gs.
Of course, that’s just my opinion. Fact. There is no objective "this was better than that – all is purely subjective. Can’t give you a better answer absent about a week and a multi-page essay.
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The game is the same as it has always been.
That fan is just peddling a thinly veiled personal agenda.
I’d be happy if people like him actually left, but he’s not going anywhere. He will be here, trying to make anyone who will listen to him just as miserable as he is. It’s a truly detestable act to use people’s legitimate feedback about the game as a springboard for your weird issues.
It’s just a video game, it’s not responsible for your happiness. If it was truly the game making him so upset, wouldn’t he just stop playing it? Why the personal attacks against the devs, why the MAU buzzwords and Activision conspiracy nonsense?
Don’t ignore the alarms going off in your head when you read a post like that, these are tell tale signs that somone is trying to make an appeal to ignorance.
There are tons of great posts with details, descriptions, math, and a ton of work poured into them that offer the devs real, actionable feedback. That post has none of that, it’s just emotion and accusation.
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I still love logging in and playing WoW. I see it as still a great game. Yes, some changes could be made, but I still love the game.
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Yep. Except for the writer’s eloquence, I could have written that … including the Broncos stuff. I found nothing in that “letter” that I can disagree with. Those of us who have been around since near or at the beginning, have seen the subtle and not-so-subtle changes the game has gone through. And we’re not impressed.
Unlike women who age like fine wine, WoW is aging like milk.
Change can be good or bad, depending on the intent and the outcome. But change for the sake of change is NEVER a good reason for changing.
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I’m not playing the game for loot. I’m playing for Game Play Experiences. That mostly includes, but is not limited to, Dungeons, Raids, Battlegrounds, and World PvP. Obtaining loots is merely a result of playing the game, and one that I really wish wasn’t such a major focus for everyone. It’s the least interesting component of the game, though it is admittedly a feature that provides a mechanism by which the game can be played.
No, that’s not what he’s saying. But if you think that playing the game is primarily about watching progress bars fill up only to be immediately replaced by another progress bar that needs to be filled up, I feel really sad that this has become the state of gaming. I don’t care about progress bars as my primary motivator for playing games.
Well since you keep insisting, YES, remove character progression. What will happen to the game as a result? Will players no longer be able to queue up for a dungeon? Complete a Quest? Watch cut scenes? because an arbitrary number hasn’t been arbitrarily increasing over time as they complete content? Come on, it makes no difference whether my character is level 110 or level 120. The game play is the same, which is the important part of the WoW experience.
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tbh, if they keep making the game to fit your taste buds it wont be around much longer. its obvious their development decisions are killing the game or maybe a majority of us don’t know what “fun” in wow is anymore now that we have the “more rng infused fun” version of wow which is bfa failing bigly as our commander in chief would put it. BIGLY! SAD that you cant admit that, also sad blizz cant seem to defend their own product at this stage in the game. its revert after revert and were not even close to done reverting if we want to save wow. its painfully obvious yet here comes the white knights defending an obvious failure in azeroth. let all just hold hands and agree that wow has never been in a worse state. when you kill off a community so large how can this game survive on a skeleton crew of players. how will it keep printing money. they came with a solution for that cutting out the gold sellers but that’s a band aid for the investors. how many band aids will they throw at the player base before it dies off. azurite is a problem and their solution is another ring. rng gearing is a problem and their solution is more rng gearing I cant even count on cache to give me gear for the spec im playing anymore since 8.1. and just like that im done doing quest for caches im not wasting hours of my time for enchanting mats… but hey! at least in your little area of your house in that dark corner wow devs can do no wrong. or maybe your so whipped you cant even admit your princess is a “working girl”. working you like an udder on a cow…
The aren’t making the game for my tastes. If they were I’d be playing it.
BiS was implied in the line complaining about titanforging and the “never-ending” loot chase. The implication is that OP wants to be done getting better loot. That means having your BiS. If you don’t have BiS, then there is a loot chase.
I, too, enjoy the experience of raiding moreso than the reward. But the complaints about ML, titanforging, and everything else loot related seems to indicate that the community is focused on loot. If that wasn’t the case we wouldn’t be having this discussion. We wouldn’t give one flying whit about Azerite gear.
Yeah, the community focuses on loot, and it’s not just BiS either. Almost all the gear runs through the gambit of RNG. Having a BiS is awesome to be sure, however, people can, and do play well without ever having gotten them. The loot issue isn’t about BiS, but rather the redundantly overboard system of RNG on EVERY piece of loot.
I’m not redirecting. I’m asking a question. Azerite gear sucks. AP sucks. Should Blizzard just remove it? Should there be any form of max level character progression aside from standard gear upgrades? Because that doesn’t seem to be the consensus. It seems people want a progression system at end game, just not one that requires effort and time. They seem to want a progression system that you can finish in a weekend. Once again, you’re asking Blizzard to remove incentives to play apart from the first couple of weeks after a patch. Once you clear the new content, then what? Should WoW really be designed in such a way that you can play two weeks out of six months and have absolutely no reason to log in between?
Yes, do away with it. Or, at least put a cap on it, and say so. Progression is one thing. Endlessly pluggin away at a goal that isn’t achievable is beyond monotonous. Progression is possible without using AP tricks, how about new talents at a certain rep level, or ilvl. Or the ability to combine talents, progression isn’t all about gear. By the way, the game itself has been out for 4 months, and the next raid won’t be out for another month.
Like I said above…people have no idea what they want. But they sure as heck know what they don’t want. So you don’t want an RNG fest for gear distribution. Fine. What system do you want? And how fast should we be able to get the top gear? Would you rather have a currency grind that takes months on end for the set you want? What if you desperately need an upgraded set of gloves? Would you really rather spend the next three weeks grinding one specific type of content in order to earn the coins, badges, points, or woobies to buy the one item that you need? Or would you rather have a chance to get that upgrade every day from any one of half a dozen sources?
You’re right that people know what they don’t want, yet most have suggested ideas for a different system. The issue there is that Blizz will do what Blizz will do, whatever the backlash may be. Then and only then, do they change things up.
People see the currency grind as a means to an end, they get to see progress towards getting that gear, or item, they want. It’s literally is a slot machine right now, as you may get lucky on the first run, or you may never see it; no matter how many different places you try.
Prime example, would be the Horseman’s Reigns. Yeah, it only drops from one boss, and the window is short, but some have never gotten it. Or Invincible’s Reins, and that people can run every week over and over again. I’m pretty sure people would like another way to have their time and effort rewarded, aside from a giant Maybe.
This is what we call an unsubstantiated claim. And considering that WoW has supposedly lost a vast majority of its players in recent years, it makes me doubt there are more people min-maxing today. But I’ll be happy to look at your evidence.
Actually it’s more common sense than a claim. I mean, you’re not going to go into a M+15, or higher, and not have done your homework on rotation and finding the appropriate talents to eek out every possible advantage are you?
Also, add to the fact that Mythic’s and Raid are pretty much the only way for some to get gear they want, since there wasn’t a way before 8.1, yeah, I’d say it’s become commonplace.
Personal experience is not definitive. I remember being rejected for MC runs because I was in all blues. And players having a better understanding today of the game mechanics and needs to overcome a challenge is hardly the fault of Blizzard. Unless you intend to blame them for implementing actual challenge to the game in total. Should we roll back raid mechanics and high end M+ mechanics to faceroll level in order to make raider io irrelevant? Do we really need to dumb the game down for the sake of inclusion of bad players?
How can you say that personal experience isn’t definitive, and you pretty much use the same claim? A challenge shouldn’t be just a glorified gear check. Allowing gearscore and raider io to run rampant only encourages a less comprehensive means of skill checking, and more of a gear check. Besides, raider io can be fooled with carries. What’s your solution to that?
Again, personal opinion. I have seen just as many complaints that leveling from 110 to 120 takes too long. That’s why there are debates about how much or how little XP is gained from Island Adventures and Incursions. You simply cannot make the leveling experience quick and easy but also slow and immersive at the same time.
Blizzard has the dilemma of trying to develop this game for several different types of players. They need to provide compelling content for Johnny No-Life who plays 18 hours a day for months on end. Then they need to allow a method for Timmy Two-Jobs to be caught up when he can only play one hour a month. After all, why should Timmy who pays the same $15 sub fee have to spend the next 30 years to get to where Johnny got in a week? Now Johnny need challenging end game content that pushes his l33t sk!llz and allows him to show that he is one of the top 100 players of all time. But that content also needs to be easy enough for Timmy to clear with no talent and in the midst of a minor stroke.
We need an immersive leveling experience that tells an intricate story and teaches you how to master your class by slowly introducing new abilities. It also needs to introduce you to game mechanics that become more central to end game content. But this experience needs to be totally skippable on demand for current players, players that want to play with current players, returning players, or anyone who just wants to skip it.
A person’s rate of XP gain should be flat across the board. If it takes Johnny No-Life a day to do it, then so be it. Likewise, if Johnny Two-Jobs takes 3 months.
Again, personal opinion shouldn’t be dismissed because someone doesn’t agree. If that were the case, I wouldn’t have responded to your post, twice now. Because while we may not agree, discussing our different opinions might provide new solutions.
After all, your idea that we need an immersive leveling system designed to instruct on class abilities and play style and the option of skipping it is a great idea.
Because new players will be drawn in by rep grinds, gold grinds, no flying, poor questing design, broken specs, limited choices, elitist raid guilds, and a clear cutoff point to how far you can progress without raiding…all rendered in loving 14 year old detail? Maybe next we can bring back playing with a stick and hoop.
A Typo can change an entire meaning, such as “They’re OFF the mark once again”, instead of “They’re ON the mark once again.” So while most of your response I agree with, I don’t agree with the remark at the end. Classic was extremely immersive, with requiring reagents, ammo, care of hunter pets, lack of mobility throughout the world, and so on and so on… But that immersion has been left behind in lieu of quality of life changes, and per my personal opinion, it went too far. It went from a world that you participated in, to a world you simply exist in.
That is just flat out not true. The community screams ‘X is broken, no fun, boring!’ Blizzard says ‘we’re fixing X’. Community says ‘Blizzard doesn’t listen’. When was the last time you saw a thread complementing them, thanking them, or even acknowledging the obvious feedback related changes they’ve made? Want an example or seven?
Blizzard reversed their decision to restrict AZ gear trading.
Blizzard implemented many class changes and tuning.
Blizzard put in an AZ gear vendor.
Blizzard is planning to remove AZ traits on gear in 8.2
Blizzard put in a player choice in the Horde war campaign questline.
Blizzard implemented a doubloon vendor.But yes, Blizzard doesn’t listen to their community. You try stacking all this new code on top of 14 years of old code and see if you don’t dig up a few bugs. Of course there are mistakes. But they are acknowledged and fixed. Yet the people want more. They want to live in a world where everything goes exactly as planned the first time around. Anything less just proves they are incompetent greedy ActiBlizz scum.
Here’s a question…Do you thank someone for fixing something that they broke in the first place, or do you simply say, “If you had listened in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened?” While I have no time, or desire, to look them up, I’d confidently claim that most of those fixes applied in 8.1 were talked about during the Alpha and Beta stages.
As far as bug fixes, I’m no game designer, but I’ve bounced around code once or twice. So, if it is something obscure, like a messed up text string in a tooltip, or quest text, so be it, that happens. However, to somewhat shrug it off because the code is old, well I can’t get behind that. Coding is what they do, what they’re paid to do, and proper testing reveals bugs of a major nature. If it’s server stability they’re concerned about, then perhaps a simultaneous launch isn’t a wise idea. Or as my instructor once said, “if it ain’t broke, don’t break it.”
You’re also generalizing how people expect things to happen. Yeah, we’d like to see a smooth launch, or less bugs. I’m the sure devs do as well. Incompetency and greed only become factors when the game is pushed out with those bugs still in place after they’ve been reported. Soon ™ , used to stand for something.
Oh, and I have thanked Blizz for their work many times over the years, but doesn’t’ mean that I still can’t be critical of their work.
You’re held accountable in what manner? You (the non-specific poster) get to anonymously post whatever nonsense, ill-informed opinion, cherry picked extreme example, or outright lie suits your mood. And there are no consequences. Is your boss scrutinizing every word you post? Is your ability to make rent or feed your kids dependent on your behavior on these forums?
There was a popular and poorly researched discussion a couple of months back about falling sub numbers. The same unsubstantiated source was passed around like VD. Who was held accountable for that? If I want to post that “Shamans are broken and unfun” I don’t need to know what I’m talking about. I don’t need to provide examples, stats, or a coherent thought. I don’t even need to have ever played a shaman. If a Blizzard rep posts “We’re fixing shamans” he needs to know what he’s talking about. He needs to be able to explain how they’re fixing shamans, when, and how it will impact every other class in the game.
There is a clear double standard when it comes to the community and the devs.
Many people called out that fallacy, and that’s the accountability I’m talking about. Yeah, anonymity allows for all sorts of things to take place on the forums, yet there are consequences, perhaps not concrete, but we start to identify trolls, and we are given tools such as the spam marker.
As for any other consequences, well we are the consumer. As such it’s incumbent to hold companies accountable. I mean, would you not complain if you’re food order was prepared wrong?
If players provided the requested feedback during the testing phase of a game, and it was ignored; whose responsibility was it?
As for players, there is a plethora of posts, and requests from Blizz to elaborate on what you have an issue with. Some don’t get it, and many of those posts, are lost to time; buried because the community won’t let it see light because it’s useless.
I think your claim on a double standard isn’t true either, as an employee, when making a comment, you’re representing Blizzard. What you write should reflect that, every company that I know of, is very clear about representation. So yeah, if a Blizz employee doesn’t have the answer someone seeks, then it’s gonna be a dodge, or a “We’ll get back to you on it”. But then again, when was the last time an actual developer, or coder, posted to the forums?
That may be true for some. But a lot of people simply like conflict. They like being edgelords who are too cool to actually like WoW. They are smarter than you, me, the devs, and the entire industry. And they want to make sure that you know it. These are the same people who sit on their couch and tell Bill Belichick what plays to call for the NE Patriots offense. These people are experts on everything and we should be grateful they’re sharing their wisdom with the rest of us.
I never said people didn’t like conflict, or that there weren’t mouth breathers who curse our very existence as a nuisance. What I was merely bringing to light is that what most drives our conflict is our love for the game. We shouldn’t let others coerce us into silence, and if it is indeed Blizz that attempts to do so, then that leaves us as the consumer with the only tool left to express our displeasure, i.e.; our wallets.
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I’m not going to go through every sentence of your response since I have plans for New Year’s and don’t want to be writing till then. But I do appreciate you taking the time to put some actual thought and effort into your post.
So you want to replace an AP grind by doubling down on the rep and gear grind? I’ve gotten the impression that most players are not a fan. Imagine the outrage if 7th Legion rep was nerfed to the point that most people couldn’t get exalted until sometime after the last raid of the xpac went live. Imagine having to chase higher ilvl pieces of gear that may not be an actual upgrade because it has crit instead of haste or intel instead of strength.
My point is that designing a “fun” and balanced progression system at end game is not something that can be done in an afternoon. AP is an experiment that has its positives and negatives. It worked pretty well in Legion. Let’s not toss the whole thing before we even try to improve on it. We didn’t scrap the internal combustion engine the first time one burst into flames.
That’s because Blizz are the ones who have to answer for the systems they implement. If I come up with an idiotic system here on the forums and Blizz decides to run with it, who are you going to blame, me or them? Yeah, it was my stupid concept. But Blizz made the call to use it. It’s their business on the line.
So…no evidence.
It’s not definitive because personal experience is personal. It does not represent the whole of the player experience any more than yours does.
As for your question about gearscore and raider io; it’s not perfect. But it’s better than any other system that exists. The system offers more than just one number. You can see how many runs someone has done with what affixes and how many were done in time.
Sure you could buy a carry. But one carry is not going to have a substantial impact. And not too many players are going to pay for 5, 10, 20 or more carries. We just don’t have that much gold. And even fewer of those people who buy carries are going to be foolish enough to believe they suddenly can handle the dungeons without a carry. It’s a very small problem. Chances are if you recruit someone with a score over 1000 they know what they’re doing.
Based on the opinion of the forums complaining about rep grinding, no flying, and everything else that requires effort…you’re in the minority. There is a reason that Classic will not outperform retail once it launches.
Well, I’m not a d-bag. So I usually go with civility. Especially when the person acknowledges their mistake and fixes it in a timely manner at no charge. I accept that people are human and prone to mistakes.
And that’s what we got. Compared to other dumpster fire games that have been released in the past few years WoW has been the example of stability. Even compared to the launch of previous expansions this one has been a dream. Do you remember the launch of WoD or BC or Vanilla? Because I do. And it still gives me the dry heaves.
That’s not what I call consequences. Like I said, only one side of the discussion has their jobs on the line. A spam marker could be considered a point of pride if you’re an edgy troll.
That depends on a lot of factors. Was the feedback clear and comprehensive? Was it specific? Were bug reports able to be replicated by the devs? Was it simply an opinion instead of cold hard facts? Not all feedback is created equal.
I’m not saying they didn’t drop the ball a bit. But there are always extenuating circumstances. It’s not like the devs spend the first hour of every work day just deleting tickets.
“Wrong” is a relative term.
How is it a dodge to admit you don’t have information that you don’t have? Would you rather be lied to?
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/groups/blizzard-tracker/activity/posts?category_id=171
How do you know what most think? 4 out of 5 dentists think you’re being obtuse. I checked.
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At this point they could send a 10,000 check to every player and everyone would complain because 10,000 isn’t enough.
I honestly don’t know what people expect anymore, blizzard answers them and implements fixes just to be met with more hate.
They come up with a new plan, but since these people aren’t working 24/7 on this to get it out instantly that makes them evil.
I still love wow, but I hate it’s community now.
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Cool.
I love still don’t answer anything.
I deeply hated the dungeons to the point i never do them even in TW.
The story was a faction war, a shallow one. And insect guys. I also disliked it. Questing was no different tbh kill x collect y oh look panda family is dead, w/e they were created 5 secs ago anyway. And the farm is a 1.0 garrison honestly, but alas better fit than garrison itself.
There isn’t that much space for subjective
If i put you in pandaland with completely different mechanichs on boss fights and classes, twists lore here and there chances are you are not going to like it.
And those are objective changes, you love a hyper mobile destro lock but people arent going to play if it does no damage and is coutnered by other classes easily,
Which is the objective part.
Also Playing mele in pandaria was horrendous for pvp. and id rather see the game fall and go bankrupt than another panda expansion, the race itself is also horrible.
That was subjective.
Fun is subjective.
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Long live our lord and savior Shigeru Miyamoto! He has not forgotten what gaming is all about.
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So is food, and art.
Unless you are in the business about creating them
Then you gotta know what makes X people think what is fun and good and there is only objectiviness around it.
Question is if you are able to dialogue on that level.
“dialogue” is not a verb.
Not sure what “level” you’re referring to. Fun, entertainment, what people like, – all totally subjective.
If you have some magic formula that will please everyone and guarantee fun for all, you should definitely share it with Blizzard.
You described the problem with the Azerite gear system right there. You can chase a piece of gear, get it and receive less than desirable traits. Or traits better suited to another class spec. Heck, I’ve seen traits more suited to an elemental shaman drop on gear for my beast mastery hunter. Or getting a higher ilevel piece you cannot even use until you grind out another resource. The RNG is embedded not only in the acquisition of the gear, but in the gear itself. Compare that to the past with opening the dungeon journal, seeing a piece of gear you want with the specs you want, and running that dungeon until the RNG drops the gear for you. The previous system gave the player some sense of planned progression if they applied themselves. Nothing of the sort exists for how gear is approached now.
Again, that’s the rep grind we have now with BfA. They’ve changed rep from quests granting the traditional 150-250 rep per quest completion to only 75 rep. And there’s no other way to grind rep beyond questing unlike expansions prior to Warlords. Players want to put the work into acquiring gear, they just want some reasonable expectation that the work matters and that they can get rep based gear while it’s still relevant to the content, not months after the fact.
It only worked well in Legion because the system provided player agency and clarity as to the choices to be made, what talents to pursue and because the artifact weapon was basically an old fashioned talent tree. There was no RNG involved in the design. The player could fill out the entire tree based upon how much work they put into it. Azerite gear is a huge step back because it adds an additional RNG factor to gear acquisition and gear stat/trait makeup that wasn’t present in the artifact weapon. It’s unfathomably bad as a system for character progression. The player has no agency over their progression at all with the system.
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This is precisely my problem with the game lately. The ‘casino’ aspect. I hate it, to be quite frank.
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