To The Devs at Blizz Thank You But

Community General Discussion
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So I read through the forums and there is so many armchair experts and commentators for mostly the negative. Myself included at times, I admit. I want to first say thank you for the work yall do and constantly bringing some creativity, even if it doesn’t work sometimes. However, with almost 20 years of changes and trials there are distinct key elements to WoW with regards to gameplay and classes and more specifically specs of classes.

We all can appreciate the efforts to get us to try new things. But when you screen through the forums and see a distinct overwhelming ask for specific things, why not execute those? Having a vast majority of customers asking for something and then avoiding it consistently, why would anyone continue to be a customer? It is my understanding that the sub drop offs seem to be happening after launch and patches faster than ever.

I will give an example from my own experience and continually see is the demand for bringing back Metamorphasis. More specifically since the beginning of DF demo is almost nothing like what it began as in comparison to what it looks like on 10.2. Patch after patch the desire and demand from your cusotmers is clear. Why not do that?

Im sure it isn’t as easy as taking a poll, using the ideas with the highest demand, and then mixing in some other new creative ideas to create the best possible experience. Regardless, I think this is much simpler look at building something amazing. Sometimes it is the super simple things that have the best results.

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Lol

Because these forums are an absolute **** show most of the time, asking the most silliest of things (e.g. all classes all races), and then complaining about a problem with the most moronic victim card ever pulled.

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Because the forums represent an extreme minority and people happy and content are highly unlikely to seek out company representatives just to express that vs when people are unhappy and want someone to do something about it.

Plus there is absolutely no consensus on what players actually want. Heck Blizzard can’t even decide “who” this game is for. Easy answer is “everybody” yet the content that is available and rewards are quite…staggered…in favor of “certain types” very clearly.

Go ahead and try and do something as basic as define a “casual” vs a “hardcore” (or tryhard or sweatlord). An actual definition that all of the players will agree upon (or at least an extreme majority like say 90%).

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Dragonflight is apparently retaining players far more successfully than previous expansions.

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I agree the forums asks are sometimes hilarious. However, there are some legitmate questions within this forum. Liek the ones, asking why not give customers what the majority wants?

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Because you get no innovation that way. I’m not saying they don’t stubbornly refuse to do some things they should, but when you simply pander to the lowest common denominator you wind up with boring and uncreative homogenous products that don’t actually excite anyone.

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Because believe it or not the majority of players are NOT on the forums and a forum “majority” is not a playerbase majority. Like someone stated above people what are dissatisfied are far more likely to be on the forums than those who are happy with the current status quo. I played this game for 13 years before even reading them, and I only post about 1) things I hate; or 2) in defense of things I REALLY like that someone else doesn’t. The only unsolicited feedback the devs should really act on would be true bug reports. Otherwise it would be just like US politcs, where the loudest group of idiots get thier way and the majority get shafted. :speak_no_evil::hear_no_evil::see_no_evil:

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Op,it isn’t just what we want in the game it is what Blizzard can do as a company to make a profit, it’s business. We can ask for changes but they has to be weighted with other factors, is it what really the player wants, how does it work in the game ,do we have the means to make this?

The game is creative but not innovated because they are set in methods of repeated modes. In essence, they can’t see through a future to be.

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We don’t have any way of knowing that the small number of people who post in the forum actually have extreme minority opinions. In all likelihood, the same opinions that are stated in the forums are also seen in the general playerbase.

There isn’t even a process for this to happen. In fact, there are a lot of forum posters saying they are very happy with everything about the game, in fact, aggressively so. They do not all sound sincere.

This is true. But the idea that “you can’t please everybody, so we’re going to develop the game for the people we want to be our core demographic, and people who don’t want to play that way will have no choice but to play a way they don’t have fun” doesn’t make much sense as a business decision.

I don’t think Blizzard has made any effort to do real research to categorize their playerbase. They seem to take feedback from influencers like Bellular.

A “casual” is someone who plays the game casually. They log in when they feel like it and play what they feel like playing that day. Their gameplay does not involve changing their work schedule or family responsibilities so they can be available on somebody else’s schedule. They are fine with other people playing some way they aren’t interested in themselves, and having content that those people like.

A “hardcore” player is the opposite. They may be very competitive, constantly comparing their “progress” with that of other people. They arrange their lives so they can do harder content with a team. They aren’t interested in easier content that lesser mortals like to do, and may want it removed, because those same lesser mortals don’t deserve rewards. They are judgmental and will tell you someone who isn’t playing the game the way they think that player should be playing it is doing life wrong, that they never liked this videogame or any other and should get out of their game.

My personal definition of “tryhard” is a person who is doing something wrong, but thinks if they keep doing the same thing but harder, they will reach their goal level of improvement.

“Sweatlord” is not a word I use. Someone who lives in their mom’s basement without A/C?

I have explained the many factors that a player may use to define their own playstyle, skill, and preferences. There are also those who use the term “casual” as a slur, or those who think the only true casuals are mythic raiders who are at the moment slumming it with the unwashed masses, who are “baddies”. If you can’t accept that’s how the word works in real life, then you’re probably a person who bases your value in life on being right in a videogame where you think most people are dead wrong. And you want them out of your game.

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At least your suggestions/asks get an answer. Mine don’t.

It seems only the outrageous get responses and it perpetuates this as the norm

:dragon: :dragon: :ocean: :dragon:

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It’s not like people haven’t found methods to be more responsive to customer feedback with methods like Agile devleopment. They have, and a little effort to make that visible to players could help.

Keep a customer backlog. Let the players vote on the backlog but turn development over to the engineers. If they have some further questions, set up a survey and collect formatted, structured, moderated details from the players but push the development into the next patch or expansion until it’s been worked through.

What happens when you really do find the 49/51% case? Buff this, but nerf that? You’re not going to get what you need from players.

What do you do about when you have a game mechanic where you have a long term goal to provide full equality, but you need to ween people off a popular, yet not fully featured, implementation until you can build that into a fully featured true set of options? Again, you won’t get what you need from players.

Program management still has to manage a program, roadmap, and get the developers to make tough calls. Players don’t have much agency here, and devs aren’t historically excellent at those things either.

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Keep in mind these forums are a minority. Also, they look for any nook and cranny to complain about — this includes not listening to the majority.

And WHEN they complain about the latter, they pull something out of thin air that isn’t even an excuse.

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Homogophobe!

Sorry, I don’t really believe that. But it’s society’s kneejerk reaction these days.

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