I agree with the OP here, WoW is no longer rewarding in the ways that it used to be.
Originally, it was enough to just “down the boss and get loot”, with progression being the reward for all the time you put into the game. As a bonus, if you put time into a guild, you made friends and once the “serious progression business” was over, you would have fun runs and alt runs where having a laugh was more important than getting numbers to go higher.
But, over time, the game has changed from a progression model to a numbers model. People don’t play WoW today to get bosses down and have fun, they play WoW to get their ilvl to a specific place, to “pump” in fights, to get a percentage prase on Warcraft Logs, to get a time or +15 on Mythic dungeons.
It’s all about the numbers you put out, not the fun you have in the game. WoW is no longer the social game it began as, WoW is a job with metrics you have to meet each expansion/patch or you’ll get left behind, always in a constant race to be “the best” on a spreadsheet in a community of self-made managers who judge you based on your numbers.
Only way they can get my attention with gear nowadays is when they did corruptions.
Which were arguable in many ways but also made gear way more interesting than any other seasons.
As I don’t expect them also to go back to the expansion-wide classic-like type of gearing that is the closest thing for me that could make it feel rewarding. That and not having to spent hundred of hours in dungeons each season just to feel like I can do decent in raids.
And maybe at last, have some type of bad luck protection system so we can feel done without having to play 20+ weeks of the same content and not getting what you want. But who knows, maybe I’m crazy and that is way too much efforts to implement and would totally ruin the game because we gotta have insane amounts of rng else the game can’t be fun. Reminds me of titanforging.
If you’re not into arena pvp, M plus ratings, or mythic raiding you’ll feel like you’re done after a month or so of a new patch. But this is an intended design of the current game - getting max bis gear is pointless unless you are shooting for mythic clears or super high m+ ratings.
That feeling is because WoW’s reward structure is either 100% highs or 100% lows. You will either spend a lot of time, roll the dice and get something to make you feel excited or you feel absolutely miserable.
Even the slow, guaranteed grinds feel like a drag because of how it has to remain 100% high/low at all times. My favorite example is the current renown system. The only consistent way to get rep after you finish the questline is to do the weekly quests, so your progress is noticably hard gated and it feels like it. The fact they give you the option to grind infinitely, but with small returns (hunt down rep tokens for 15-20 a pop) makes it feel long and unless you are specifically into that, the best way is to just wait a week for the weeklies.
There is a fine line between the high/lows that Blizzard likes, but I honestly doubt they’d ever do that again because they believe that deterministic = play less, and MAUs are already struggling as is.
People who say stuff like this didn’t play the game seriously back then.
The tools may not have been as sophisticated, but we still had elitist jerks, we still had tank spot, we still had damage meters, we still had min maxers, we had guild portal and vent. If you were in a progression guild it very much was a numbers game.
I had to fill out an application and do an interview on vent when I joined my MC progression guild back in vanilla. This isn’t a recent phenomenon.
I’m not sure I understand what an alternative design would be for the game. I’m a bit lost on how “the point of getting the best gear is to do the most difficult content” is a point of criticism.
Sounds like a bad raid team. A self inflicted issue, really.
I mean, it happens. But this is also the absolute easiest time to get gear in WoW’s history.
This makes sense if you dont think about it. Then it just makes no sense at all.
Um. A ton of people still play the game to down bosses and get loot. Plenty of people play to put time into a guild and make friends.
Maybe you dont. But plenty do.
Its extremely easy to play this game with the social aspect.
“now”? You think that didnt happen in the olden days? It was mmmmmmmmmuuuuuuuuccccccchhhhhhh more common. Guild applications started before WoW even existed.
My first guild, like 20+ years ago. Had a 3 page application, an interview, and a 3 month probationary period.
I took a 3 year break because the game/company became so toxic. When i came back, the game rewarded just enough to keep to keep me happy. Now I’m going on 2 months with no new normal/heroic raid loot and no new Mythic+ loot. I’m told its all RNG and bad luck protection balances this out. Its does not. As far as my vaults, its all repeat gear i already have and same goes for TW cache rewards. I’m at a loss. I enjoy the game, but why bother playing if it’s not going reward you? If blizz has the power to remove gear or change gear because of a mistake they made, they have the power to reward you when they want