The problem is that what you just said has no “one size fits all” approach. And WoW’s open world content is designed to be the McDonald’s of world content. How do you make something challenging for a moderately skilled player and not alienate ResidentSleeper Gamer Grandpa?
Like, let’s be real here, there’s a poster who keeps whining about how easy LFR is, when LFRers will constantly wipe and whine on end bosses of LFR tiers if they offer even the slightest bit of challenge. Queued or open-world content can’t be hard because it MUST accommodate the lowest common denominator and that lowest common denominator is basically rock-boat.
There are “semi-instanced” concepts that I think could be interesting and work but people can’t even handle the Maw having different CRZ mechanics than other zones, could people really handle phased versions of progressively harder open world zones?
While I personally wouldn’t mind more open world content I have no idea how they could don’t and I’d say based on the last 16 years or so that it’s unlikely to change and there is no reason to expect it to. If that doesn’t suit people then they are simply playing a game that doesn’t (and doesn’t intend) to do what they are hoping for. Hence my call of duty analogy
But when they bring our nazjatar which higher tuned mobs there are dozens of threads of people complaining that it’s over tuned and impossible to do etc.
There is an extremely consistent pattern of any content not being faceroll easy and huge whinging on the forums.
Don’t get me wrong I like it harder and wish it were but it simply won’t happen
Operation Meachgon on day 1 was one of my favourite wow experiences but it was hot fix nerfed mid week because of the complaining. It didn’t even last until the forest weekly reset before they nerfed it I to the ground
Seen just one raider say that in the first 50 posts. Regardless, legion order halls, ap/Stygian/whatever currency, BFA neck, islands, wavefronts, horrific visions, torghast.
NONE of these are designed for raiders. To pretend like the game is designed for raiders or that they’re happy with any of it is a joke. This is coming from someone who raided on single tier all of tbc through to SL. I don’t raid but I’m not blind enough to see that they aren’t getting anything they want.
The issue with this game is Blizzard has said “you think you do, but you don’t” for entirely too long. Pages of feedback ignored until it’s too late and everybody’s quit.
^ this
Then players get angry at each other for “ruining the game” when is reality no one in getting catered to
Casual players thinking that mythic raiders or high key pushers are getting catered to is laughable. I’m not on the casual side but apparently all the stuff they have added for them (torgast, warfronts, neck progression etc) have missed the mark
Stygian grind is absolutely designed for raiders. Hello? Do you think casual players care about a 0.2% bonus from each gem socket or conduit? No, they don’t. One piece of gear with a higher ilvl gives far more than that.
It’s designed to create a time-sink in the game for raiders because Blizzard has metrics that show that players who only raid-log are more likely to quit. We already saw this in WoD. I’m not searching through every quote but I’m almost positive Ion has said something to this extent (players that play more are more likely to continue playing).
Order halls, islands, warfronts, visions, and torghast, sure. Those are pieces of content designed for casuals. Don’t even try to pretend that Conduit/Socket grinds are not meant exactly for raiders though.
You really think there is no faction of players on the WoW forums that haven’t claimed some form of “WoW has always been about raiding, so get used to it”? It’s literally evident of brief scan of this thread alone.
And then there’s the other whinging raider faction that says the game is not designed even more for the them than it already is. And that’s despite the oft stated opinion that raiding is probably the only well crafted content in Shadowlands with which almost everyone from streamers to raiders to pvpers to nonraiders agrees.
I just don’t know why after 16 years or whatever people are expecting to to suddenly change. They are like a teenage girl trying to change they bad boy. Despite years of evidence to the contrary I can change him!
I’m not saying it should or shouldn’t be but i would like to know why people think wow should be something that is isn’t and never has been.
I have often thought that as well. If people are raiding for the gear and not because they enjoy it, and the game has to cause a loot drought just to get people to raid again, then WoW is struggling with a fundamental problem.
Even raiders themselves admit that if there is an alternative to raiding that provides equally powerful gear, then most people will take the path of least resistance to get that gear.
When WoW first came out, playing online with other people was a novelty and raids were a natural result of that. These days, nearly all modern games have some sort of multi-player element, but most of them do not have anything like WoW’s style of raiding.
It’s fine if WoW wants to continue to offer raiding as its specialty, but it needs to accept the fact that its modern audience will continue to shrink if the devs refuse to let non-raiding contents offer power rewards. Torghast is the best example of content that should offer gear but for some strange reason doesn’t.