Why is World of Warcraft so Mismanaged?

Community General Discussion
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I know this is a feeling that not everyone shares. But as a lifelong player, I can’t help but pick up on each and every poor decision that Blizzard makes with this game.

Let me run through some examples.

  1. The War Within Announcement. An expansion debut at Blizzcon. What is the amazing idea for the next race to come into World of Warcraft? Earthen Dwarves…

  2. Recently reworked Demon Hunter class. Overwhelming feedback from players everywhere drawing attention to the fact the any Momentum style of DPS is not preferred. What is the outcome? Blizzard keeps it in.

  3. Speaking of reworks, does any class come to mind that may need one more than the rest? If you are thinking Death Knight, you are correct! But where is it?

  4. Remember that Ret Paladin rework from 10.0.7? Remember how many players were beyond excited for Wings of Liberty, the potential Paladin leap? Scrapped because of the concerns that Paladins would be too similar to Warriors. So what was the solution? Dumb down the gameplay to just allow Rets to hit from 20ish yards away at all times. Much better idea!

  5. Remember when the Dragonflight talent trees were announced? These were the new breaking solution to fix many of the issues players have had with the revamped talent system from MoP. With these new trees, Blizzard finally found a way to add more customization and choice, while also building on the RPG foundation of the game by earning talents with each level gained. How does Blizzard decide to expand on this Evergreen system in the next expansion? By completely abandoning them in favor of the new Hero Talent Trees…

  6. Do you like to PvP? Remember when you could Blacklist 2 Battleground maps? Removed.

  7. Remember the Mage Tower or even the Brawler’s Guild? How awesome would it be to add more of these solo challenges in the game for amazing cosmetic rewards? Instead, Blizzard chooses to add Torghast and Delves…

The list goes on indefinitely.

Of course WoW does have wins too. But the problem is, Blizzard has had way too many opportunities to deliver slam dunks. Especially when players are unbelievably vocal about these gameplay viewpoints.

You can not tell me, that classes now are playing better than they did in MoP.

You can not tell me, that the story is any stronger than compared to Legion.

You can not tell me, that the outdoor world and leveling design is any better than WoD.

You can not tell me, that PvP has felt like the extra decade of time has led to any improvements in reward structure.

Why is it this difficult to get these messages through to Blizzard? Do they seriously pay attention to player feedback? Do they still want to genuinely improve this game?

It seems to me, that on a consistent basis, Blizzard will flop on the obvious slam dunks. And instead, they will add in more clutter and noise that hardly anyone would agree is moving the game in a better direction.

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The trick to playing a DK is assume nothing good will happen for your class

Unless it’s the art team, they did great this season

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This, but without the culture war dogwhistle.

Warcraft is a comic book and always has been. Judge accordingly.

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TL,DR:

Why don’t they do things how I want them to be done?

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It is a new race that folks are hating on simply because their preferred flavour of elf didn’t make it to the dinner table.

Options are good, and the new talent tree allows for options.

Trying to think of anything that needs a rework and I can’t think of anything DK related. I know forum folks are asking/demanding it, but I can’t really think of what in particular is so broken that a rework is needed.

Might just be a me thing though, but if it is just the forums asking for it without a real reason as to why … probably not.

… yeah?
There’s not really much of an argument here to provide a rebuttal towards. Ret paladins overall seem fine, not great, but fine. Again though, same thing as above.

Except that they are expanding on them. That is an expansion of it.

Not really much of a negative thing, especially since the benefits PvP is getting in The War Within where they are finally removing PvP from the vault. And instead going back to deterministic PvP gear you can work towards.

We don’t know how yet, I don’t believe … but we already know that PvP is going to be better in TWW than it has been in probably a decade.

In terms of solo players, they seem to have loved Torghast and Delves is adding PvE solo player ways of participating in the weekly Vault-ritual of dancing for better loot.

This isn’t a negative thing but a positive thing. And for non-solo players, Torghast was Torghast but Delves are going to be its own endgame pillar, and ain’t replacing M+ or raiding. So… again, just good things.

Considering the numbered points you tried to make are all either easily explained or actual positives for the game … Eh, maybe try better points to be your top 7 next time?

We don’t know how WoW is managed. It may be horrible, it may be great; the stories we have heard from ex-employees certainly tell a terrible picture though … but none of that has to do with how the game is designed which is what your problems actually seem to be.

Hilariously, I disagree with your entire premise but I have a better 1 through 7 points that could’ve made for a better discussion than what this of yours is. But my concerns lie fundamentally with management, as the game is actually good. Regardless of your design complaints with the game (that, again, all are either easily explained or are actual positives for the game).

If you want to actually make some points about management though … just go to YouTube and look up “WoW Thor”, you’ll find his shorts and/or streams quite easily. He’s talked about what it is like to work at Blizzard in the past so… he can make better points that are actually about the game’s management.

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Yes I can because it is true.

Much better given how much retconning Legion did.

Warlords of Draenor had no outdoor world content; I was either in an instance or in my Garrison that entire expansion.

I haven’t done any Battlegrounds or Arenas since Warlords of Draenor except for a brief stint in Battle for Azeroth, but it looks much better than farming Honor and Conquest Points as your only source of gear.

Because your “message” is just a bunch of lies.

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8

This made me so sad to read…

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9

Clearly the real reason WoW is mismanaged is because neutral pandaren have not yet gotten their own expansion, nor has the entire game been rewritten to my exacting specifications for greatness.

Am I doing it right?

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Whenever Pandaren finally get their heritage armor I hope that neutral pandas get their own colorization of it that’s only unlocked at the current expansion max level.

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I feel like the retconning was acceptible in Legion. It filled in the gaps that were never explored in Illidan’s character and made him awesome. The retconning in SL was trash becuase it fundamentally changed established lore which undermined previous character story arcs.

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Nothing here is evidence of mismanagement. Thats hyperbole.

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I would say releasing a reskinned race on expansion launch, while previously releasing brand new races n the middle of an expansion suggests mismanagement.

Surely if it was well managed the reskins would come mid patch and the races with new models would be part of the new expansion hype.

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That’s not “mismanagement”. You disagreeing with their direction for the flavor of the expansion isn’t mismanagement. That’s hyperbolic.

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Because they don’t have Professor Mcgonagall and are run by the Weasley twins? I feel like this is a trick question…

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You are basically making the same mistake we have seen before. Remember the people who complain the most in forums make up a forum “echo chamber” of people telling each other what they want to hear over and over and over again.

Those people represent a minority of people in the forums and people in the forums make up a minority of the player base but because the echos repeat over and over the “echo chamber” folks are convinced they speak for “the players”.

They don’t. They are just expressing a minority opinion. There is no evidence they speak for the entire community.

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For that to work, neutral pandas need to be more than a curiosity limited to one zone.

I’d rock the armor anyway, but I wouldn’t even be able to do the questline on this guy.

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I’m convinced that Blizzard’s design decisions are based primarily on developers’ personal biases and the affirming input of “Friends and Family”, people who obviously don’t even play the game they influence.

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It’s a massive creative endeavor trying to appeal to a ton of different people being handed down from dev to dev for 20 years.
It’s gonna have some issues.

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More than likely has something to do with money.

All WoW has is its IP strength but even that is starting to fade in the wider market, next to the kind of money you could make off of mobile games or modern cash shops.

Which is why their money and focus are going towards games like Diablo Immortal, then incorperating that design over into games like Diablo 4. It wasn’t just very poor game design or mismanagement that they got something like inventory management so horribly wrong in D4.

They’re always looking for new ways to monetize everything over making quality products so something old and outdated like WoW is going to suffer in terms of quality or improvement.

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Any direction other than “sell as many copies of the game as possible” is mismanagement.

Including a new race with the expansion is a no brainer.

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