realize based on what? They don’t reveal the specifics until PTR when it’s already basically confirmed to happen. So you wont be able to say they are over or under anything based on little more than personal head-canon and again fear mongering by the time it’s here.
This stems from above, PTR is for game breaking bugs and last minute public opinion. By the time it hit PTR unless the entire community agrees (this means not just the forums, youtube and reddit, everyone) it will likely make it through. This is why BEFORE it hits PTR you give actual feedback and thoughts/suggestions instead of “Im afraid youll mess it up so don’t change it”. The latter isn’t going to result in them not changing it and you just robbed them on advice to improve the system before it hits PTR so you not only wasted your time but failed to add anything.
This is how most game companies work. They give you generals most of the way through until the design is concrete because players have a VERY hard time grasping two things: “WIP” and “This may change”. Companies especially in games have found that they have much more to lose sharing early designs and plans than to gain. The only time this isn’t true is for smaller companies that live off constant community building and interaction where having some PR fires due to early designs isn’t as detrimental as a quiet community reach OR for giant releases that will last a long time like expansions.
My “head-canon” is based on past performance. They haven’t suddenly done a 180 and will never under-deliver ever again.
If you’re afraid they won’t do it correctly, that’s still feedback. Especially when they have a proven track record of handling squishes poorly.
And if they have a proven track record on handling things, that needs to be taken into account when they ask for feedback about something that they’re being extremely vague about.
Seems like your into that one fallacy. Forget the name of it but basically your locking a required aspect of something behind another aspect that is interlocked. Dirty example being needing decent credit to get accounts to build credit. Instead, here it is, need a good track record to make a change to build a good track record.
Even then, their track record is 1. subjective and 2. people tend to only put negative things when they build their own fantasy track record of a company when in reality if you put each feature that “failed” compared to ones that didn’t it paints an entirely new story. 3. the vocal minority tends to control the perception of the track record, the guys on YT, Reddit, and these forums. If it were up to them every single AAA company in existence would have a garbage track when its just not the case. When you like at actual businesses with a failing track record they don’t stay up for long.
Like I said, all that is irrelevant because you stand to gain nothing. If they still you about a change, being afraid of change won’t stop it. I can’t think of a single change in the history of this 15 year old game that was revoked solely because of “Fear of change”. Maybe actual feedback but not fear of change. So you can either talk about the cons or the pros of the system being implemented or you can be afraid of change and be basically ignored. Those are really the options. Thinking that fear-mongering change is a metric they are considering is really just denial. If it was the game would have stagnated and shut down servers long ago. Every game company has learned to ignore that kind of feedback because it’s ultimtely unproductive.
Back when WoW still had a level cap of 80, Blizz revealed that 70% of new players didn’t make it past level 10. The level cap is not the problem, and never has been. The leveling experience itself is what needs to be changed, and that won’t be magically fixed just by squishing the number of levels.
Their track record is not subjective. It is an objective fact that they have screwed up the game with every squish. They eventually fix the problems (mostly) but it is a fact that they have made mistakes, they’ve even admitted to making these mistakes.
They haven’t told us enough to give “pros or cons” about it. It’s all vague hand waving on their end and you’re acting like they gave us a 50 slide presentation on it.
Assuming that I am arguing only numbers need fixed.
Lack of comparative data. What is the average retention rate across MMORPGs because last time I looked at the state it was pretty awful and always has been.
Implying that the players quit back then because of the leveling system and not various other factors that cause retention to lower the (story, art, music, class gameplay, etc.)
Also when wow had a level cap of 80, most people (public opinion) were satisfied with the leveling so that kind of destabilizes alot of the arguments here about just reverting things to pre-cata if your implying leveling was still bad pre-cata.
But there is actual concern in this “fear”. Blizzard does not give their team enough time to properly do something like this. They are stuck to popping out a new expansion every 5-ish years. Something as large as a level squish, and not including anything else they may be adding into to also “fix” the issues that players have brought up, is going to take the better half of those 5 years. Not to mention at what cost? And frankly, we have seen it over and over again where they get these big ideas, and have little to no follow through. Leaving a bulk of what made the idea great on the cutting room floor.
And frankly, this is not just the WoW team. This can be seen creeping into their other games as well. I have no doubt that a lot of these teams, these devs, have great ideas, but they fall very short on the execution and follow through
No, what they would need to do is give fairly clear plans to what they plan on doing, why, and how it is going to fix which problems. How they plan on this going to go into effect. What possible foreseen issues may arise. How they plan on handling those. A time frame + the option to extended it as needed (i.e. not bound by the 5 year expansion timeline). And a promise this won’t interfere with any other features they plan on adding (i.e. other things won’t get cut because this being a resource hog).
I mean be mad at the game industry I guess. Like I said, that’s how almost every single AAA company operates. They gain very little actual constructive feedback in WIP designs and more times than often get people howling like baboons that can’t read the giant “This may change” sticker. Then they need to send updates everytime they alter the design where they have to fight another wave of “Your changing things” howlers, then players fall behind on info and are expecting different versions of the system causing more howling when it’s finalized form is revealed.They stand to gain very little by the end compared to waiting until their designs are concrete. This is common knowledge in the space. Players want full transparency but as a community, as a populace, they misunderstand and abuse what that is until it’s an actual detriment for the company to do so.
These companies will never give you their full design plans when they are still being iterated on. It’s just not going to happen. So fearmongering the system this early does nothing but plants seeds in you and other players to already call the system a flop before even giving it a fair chance when it’s fully revealed at a gamescom or blizzcon or in a QnA or however.
How can we give something a fair chance when you’ve also said they’ll never give us the full details on it?
We’ve had all sorts of concerns about level squishing beyond just “we’re afraid that Blizzard will handle it poorly” that you’ve ignored so you can keep browbeating us for being “mean” to poor little old Blizzard.
So now you are calling actually concern “howling like baboons”. You contradict yourself in so many places. For example, they don’t give you all the information before PTR, but you have to give constructive feedback before PTR. Any feedback before PTR (which would be lacking a lot of information based on your statement they don’t give us full details) is “fear mongering” because it’s based off Blizzard’s many past behaviors and what little information they give us.
Its because most of them do not realize that their power is relative and instead see a squish as a cut. Instead of seeing a squish as a condensing of 120 levels into 50 or 60 they think that the levels past 50 or 60 are just being cut. That is the biggest issue, its the same reason people are against level scaling because they only see numbers while ignoring all other sides of character growth.
Or because we realize the level squish is just a band-aid that doesn’t fix any of the actual problems with leveling. And, like their other band-aids, it’s one that will have be applied again and again because it doesn’t solve the actual problem it’s supposed to solve.
No, it is not. People don’t want the squish because the squish, in and of itself, will not fix the issues, and there are solutions to fixing those issue without squishing. Not to mention the last few times they squished and did the scaling they have broken a lot of things that took months to fix if they even did. To top it off it’s a temp fix for a larger issue.
Because it’s simply not ready yet? Your trying to critique a cake that hasn’t even been put in the oven…
Hivemind, Groupthink, Fearmongering is not a valid method of describing concern which is why it gets ignored.
Going back to the cake, you can tell me how you feel about a cake before it’s finished. You can tell me what you don’t like about cakes, what you do like about cakes, what are some bad experiences you have had with cakes in the past and that will allow me to alter the recipe before it’s in the oven. This didn’t require you to know anything about the recipe nor did you fear monger me changing the cake recipe. All you did was give insight.
I like how you keep ignoring that we have other criticisms beyond being “mean” to the poor little multi-billion dollar company. You just keep proving how dishonest you are with your arguments.
And yes, if a company says they’re going to make a brand new type of cake, but they won’t tell you any of the ingredients, it’s perfectly OK to be at least a little bit concerned about the end product.
Thats…that’s literally how the foods industry works. They release a promo or teaser for a new item and 9/10 the ingredients used won’t show up publicly until it’s in production. Blizzard gave you as much info as they do, a name. Your getting a new cherry cake, your getting a level squish. Anyway…
I don’t know how to put it any simpler, maybe this…being concerned isn’t justification to adding to a howling hivemind. Their is a way to structure a concern so it actually gets considered by a company and their is a way to howl so it gets ignored. That’s all their is to it.
“Change bad, no trust” is an example of the latter.
Like if you can’t see the difference between say “This mechanic trash, go back” compared to a thoughtful analysis of what you do and don’t like about the possible addition then idk what to say…