is incorrect. WoW is the only MMO to have not figured this out. WoW is about the only fortune 500 owned digital product that is not a growth product. WoW is about the only top 50 MMO that didn’t double or more in size during the pandemic.
The problems we have today in WoW are the exact same problems we had in vanilla for the exact same reasons. Same problems in TBC, same problems in Wrath, same problems in Cata, on and on. The argument about WoW’s loot structure has hung over the franchise like an exasperating misery cloud for 20 years. One can see that the loot structure is incorrect like a red clown nose on Casper. You can see it from orbit with a 240p toy camera.
WoW’s loot structure is like if you could only get legendary cards in Hearthstone if you were already legend rank or could give Susan $2000 a month. No one would have ever played that game. It would be a forgotten foot note at the bottom of a listicle about comically bad games.
Every single season of WoW has had an identical loot structure. It’s the sinew holding all the different problems together, keeping them propped up like tent of shame. All the little loot minutiae people argue about here over have been largely cosmetic changes. The seasonal stat sheet cap is always balanced to be unavailable to the majority of players entirely. The endless cascading litany of problems this one balance decision has caused is WoW’s only true problem. It is the root of all other problems. Even if you don’t care about the loot structure, you are still in the splash zone of these problems. We need sweeping change, about 21 seasons ago!
Not as a given. Personally, I think WoW loot is far too easy to grind via approved channels and also far too short lived. But that’s not the main issue, it’s extremely poorly balanced for both ends of the spectrum and the people caught in the middle. It’s just incorrect, it’s in everyone’s way like a Snorlax.
Just to touch on a few of the “problems”:
“Raid loggers” “Nothing to do!”
The loot structure is too focused on stat sheet growth, that there has to be a hard cap on loot. This causes an endless cycle of very short term growth and very sudden community collapses. It is the cause of the grave state of the vast majority of WoW guilds. All we see are the corpses of tens of thousands of guilds that have been flexed back and forth too many times through this cycle of collapse.
“X content is toxic!”
X content is toxic because people aren’t there because they want to be there. They are there because it is the only place to grow their stat sheet. Content should be for the people who enjoy playing that content.
I’ll add more by request, I have about 7 more but I’m tired of typing.
Whats wrong with this? Who wants to have a second job in the game? Not me. Lol. Wrath was the best. Chill in Dal in between raids, or just log off. Gotta have balance.
This is more about rarity of loot that lives through the expansions than loot structure in itself honestly, (keywords op used “there has to be a hard cap on loot”) The only way to achieve that is if blizzard creates secret var that counts the value of loot the players can earn, then create PRNG that spits out a percentage of that variable…just put finger in your ears and shout “LALALALALALA” at least that’s what I’m doing.
Just when I thought I heard it all, GD goes “not today.”
I feel like somebody read a pop psychology book on motivation and cherrypicked the parts that agreed with their preconceived notions about what people ought to want. And they’re going to go with it come hell or high water. They have Top Men working on it, and surely players will realize that the people who design the game are misunderstood geniuses.
Sock me to at Dardon… wait, that wasn’t quite it was it?
Then post them as you haven’t had any valid points yet.
And that’s not a very nice way to ask, make me think you don’t want more. Valid isn’t a valid term in this usage. The validity of a independent observer’s perspective is not within your sphere to judge. There is a famous series of logic puzzles to show why, look those up if you are interested in discussing in a good faith way.
I am not even particularly referencing that many opinions to validate here. I am referencing chronic problems that exist within the community. Saying these problems do not exist and can not be solved is about as valid as saying goop candles make good shoes. Both things are as trivial to disprove. Just as wax crumbs aren’t going to stop broken glass, one can see highly successful solutions employed to these exact specific issues in at least 9 distinct formats across the industry. Your personal preference does not impact the existence of the issues.
WoW team knows about them all, the dev team plays the games that employed these solution instead of WoW. Why you think we have M+? Why we got dragon riding? Why we got world quests? Because the devs like Guild Wars, everything made in the last 10 years has been 1:1 rips about 2 years behind Anet. We’re basically playing like a fangirl indie clone game at this point.