They could make the game non stop “fun” though, so people WOULD want to log in and spend time playing.
Too much grinding is shooting themselves in the foot; I hear too many players wanting to leave, or just leaving.
There are a couple of threads were people ask about “coming back”, overwhelmingly it is suggested that they wait until the next expansion. People say there is just too much for them to catch up with, especially with 8.3. So that doesn’t really do anything to increase profit, or “shareholder value.”
18 Likes
Not to this level, no. I mean - I know you know that and are choosing to be difficult, but this isn’t central to MMOs. The essence/azerite/artifact power/titanforging/corruption grind isn’t normal for a western MMO.
Prior to WoD would be a good mark for what was considered ‘normal’ grinding.
21 Likes
WoW has never had multiple forced grinds in a single patch. This is going down as the worst patch in history along with patch 7.3.5 and patch 6.1.
Notice the trend? Three of the worst patches in WoW history have come from the last three expansions?
23 Likes
Y’all really pretending as if WoW was never grindy to begin with? Seriously?
I agree completely that to introduce three grinds, and in essentially (what’s possibly, maybe?) the last big patch, it’s ridiculous, but let’s not pretend that MMORPG and the concept of grinding don’t go hand in hand now.
2 Likes
It’s a real shame because 8.3 could be amazing if it wasn’t bogged down by stupid garbage. Could be the one good thing we got out of this mess.
3 Likes
Yea the only reason people put up with such punishing, grindy RNG systems is because once they had the gear, not only was it powerful but it would last you an entire expansion and enough into the next one to start a new grind. Hell I remember some games you could start grinding now for gear that would be released later even. But grinding for a few months for stuff that I’ll lose after that? You’ve got to be kidding. I don’t like those types of systems in general but at least make it worthwhile and fun.
7 Likes
I’ve only got back into the game a few months ago and the pathfinder stuff for Draenor was a wtf moment for me. Damn near left the game and I even had the anniversary buff to work with…and I was 1-2 shotting stuff at lvl 110. Can’t imagine that crap when it was live content.
I haven’t even seen Legion or BFA content, but I have a feeling it doesn’t get any better. I spend much of my time questing and trying to avoid dailies. Anything but grinding out the same content ad nauseam.
9 Likes
There are positives to patch 8.3 like for mount collectors, allied races DK and vulpera/mechagnomes.
But that is not enough to carry a patch and frankly the grinds that they are adding onto patch 8.3 is not going to make content or classes more interesting.
4 Likes
Worst part is you still have to deal with the 8.2 grinds.
Imagine starting a brand new alt in 8.3, or worse - come in as a new/returning player, oh man that has to be an awful time
12 Likes
How would they do that, i.e. make the game non stop ‘fun’ ? Especially when people consider different things fun in this game.
Screw it, I’d like to see them try. Imagine a game with no dungeons and raids.
1 Like
Do you have a better way to pay for that content then than to try to keep people busy and paying them ?
Those Korean grinders are designed around old school Western MMORPG principles. The gear you craft or obtain stays circulated in those virtual economies longer in Korean MMORPGs. This is because of the grindy nature of those games that it has resell value to lower level players or alts. And the gear took a while to obtain but still was an aid to help with the next grind for new gear.
Your time invested was valued and the value still persisted long after you were finished with the gear.
6 Likes
Not familiar with Korean games, but I log in and do what I want regardless.
3 Likes
They’re literally making the same amount of sub money by letting people log on and play what they like without grinding nonstop.
11 Likes
Nah, introducing frustrating systems that drive millions of players away is somehow making them a profit on a subscription based game.
15 Likes
We’re paying for an entire month, not by the hour. They don’t need to increase our time played to get a payment. Hell WoW built it success on casuals who can only log in for limited hours per week.
14 Likes
Ok, lets play this through. We remove essences, we remove all the grind to get the legendary cloak. So people have raids and dungeons to do whenever they want for the next year. How many people are going to actually stay subbed throughout that period.
2 Likes
Yea and Classic’s release bumped their sub numbers by massive amounts but Retail devs still can’t take a hint.
5 Likes
You do realize we have access to data that factually proves that Classic>MoP was more successful than WoD>Legion>BFA, right?
15 Likes