Why are so many unhappy? Probably because some want the game to be a self contained mathematically perfect competitive game, others want something they can do mindlessly whilst watch an episode on Netflix, others want something casual but engaging to spend their free time on, others want an actual RPG with an interesting world, and others just don’t know what they want at all.
Blizzard tried to target too many different audiences and now the result is an abomination that doesn’t serve any audience but instead very superficially serves all of them.
The game is targeted at raid loggers. It’s not trying to keep them happy. It assumes that they are so addicted that they won’t quit no matter what and gives them chores to keep them from unsubbing when they normally would go play other games.
The game is making no effort to keep anyone else playing.
PVP players who recognize their gear issue regularly and usually agree upon the same solution
High End PVE players recognize where things need to be nerfed (Limit’s raid leader Maximum admitted both DH generally and DK’s AMZ were outliers and needed to be nerfed) and recognize tuning issues otherwise calmly
The Story can be good, which would make RPers and Lore Nerds happy
A lot of people are raid logging now because there is no meaningful enjoyable content outside of raiding. Torghast is not fun on it’s own and that’s why there is soul-ash behind it. It forces people to run it.
The direction 9.1 is taking Torghast is absolutely not it.
But keep in mind, Ion is a raid logger. He has designed the game he wants to play. There is one right way to play the game and the playerbase is getting funneled into it.
When beta feedback tells you “NO TIMERS!!! ITS NOT FUN!!!” and you add a soft-timer anyway in 9.1…that’s past experimenting at that point. Its forcing their “we think timers are fun” attitude on you. Made worse that its NOT optional and you have to clear everything AND be fast to time 5 star/4star to advance and upgrade legendary. We also told them stop with the mission tables…they ignore us. Same thing with borrowed power.
Alpha feedback:Blizzard covenants are terrible and people will just pick the strongest one… You should really reconsider this
Blizzard: no we don’t think they will
Same with their logic of “morally grey”, where they said Sylvanas’s actions are actually morally grey and BFA would end with “Horde Pride”, and it wouldn’t be Garrosh 2.0
And now 9.1 is preparing to reveal “Actually Elune let all the Night Elves be genocided and burned alive and sent to WoW Hell where some were obliterated for the sake of the Greater Good”
You are simply relating people who do different content as different audiences, but that’s actually a very shallow outlook on it.
There is quite a bit more to how different audiences interact, often which are contradictory to each other.
A good example is the PvP system in SL, especially towards the start of the expansion.
Realistically all people who engaged in PvP for the sake of doing PvP were in a good space, similar item thresholds, consistent rewards etc.
However because of the fact gear is universal, PvE players with already much higher gear (PvP gear at the time capped at 184) decided it was a great avenue for additional high ilvl pieces.
So players with 213 items from heroic, 210 items from M+, and even just 200 items from normal participated for the good rewards.
This created a situation where those PvErs felt like they needed to do the content (reasonably I should add) because any additional piece of equivalent to progression rewards is huge, whilst PvPers who didn’t PvE felt at a severe disadvantage in their own form of content.
Another example was the necessity to bore your brains out every fortnight with Warfront in BfA, because regardless what content you were doing getting a bonus heroic equivalent piece of gear was stupid not to pass.
Yet many more casual players could contrue it as being good as they have access to much higher than usual rewards.
I’m not unhappy, it’s more… apathy. There’s some things that I enjoy, but overall it’s becoming an experience in mediocrity.
I find it personally funny how there are quite a few avatars in the forums that defend this mediocrity to a fault, on everything, without question or constructive critique.
There’s a noticeable lack of true passion anymore. The last great revamp of a class/spec was done by Chris Kaleiki, who is now gone.
The content is stagnant, the meta is vastly unchanged, and there are quite few decisions being made ahead of 9.1 which are concerning.
I’m still passionate about this game, but the passion on the internal side seems to be missing, or rather, aimed in the wrong direction… Which is why I am quite interested in true projects of ambition like AoC.
I find the 9.1 Torghast much more interactive than before. Shorter floors for the main achieve, more for the cosmetics, a bit more challenging- I can dig it.
And yet many people enjoy the mission table so the took appropriate action and ignored you and those who opposed them.
They don’t have a solution for borrowed power vs. long term progression and button bloat. Which is why they want to experiment again in upcoming content. I’m sure that will receive amazing feedback as well like “dumpster” and “tire” fire all over again. We’ll see!
So for who are these story decisions that are making the RP/Lore community largely unhappy?
Or the PVP decisions?
That’s you. Will it spark joy for the majority of the playerbase?
Correct, but they also removed it from it being necessary for progression. Now only people who do it are those who enjoy minigames, or Collectionist players who want a hand at the mounts and pets therein.