How do you fix the game without doing any of the following.
1: You cannot remove the store as the store generates more revenue than subs at this point, and share holders would crucify you.
2: You cannot remove LFD/LFR/etc. since the outcry from the “I only have 1 hour a day” or “I hate socializing” blocs would be huge and potentially lost subs.
3: You cannot restore some elements from the older versions of the game as older players will still hate the game for LFR/CRZ/etc. even if you restore things like class fantasy somehow (which they haven’t anyway).
4: You cannot pick a target audience because corporate is breathing down your neck making sure the game “appeals to a wider audience”
5: You cannot slow the pacing down because all the younger millennials and zoomers will lose patience becausse “games are supposed to be fast” and quit.
6: You cannot speed up the pacing since all the boomers, gen Xers, and older millennials will get frustrated because they did “not sign up to play Sonic the Hedgehog”.
7: You cannot take it to it’s MMO roots since it’s a risky and not too profitable genre these days and also much more work anyway.
8: You cannot add “fun” things because the min-maxers will abuse them at the expense of other players.
9: You cannot make the game casual friendly as it will kill off the min-maxers, who are often the ones providing free advertisement.
10: Probably more I am forgetting.
What do you do? Blizzard’s answer was to release WoW Classic, but let’s say for a moment releasing a second version of the game was not a thing. How do you fix it?
Fix what, exactly? Saying, “fix the game.” is overly broad and doesn’t have much meaning. It’s like saying “I need to fix my car.” What? The tires? Transmission? Wipers? The more specific and detailed, the better.
This is a non issue - If you remove the top 10 they will replaced by the next ten and so on so forth . There will always* be a hardcore community even Candy crush saga has them .
However if you go the reverse direction then just Like Widstar you will die a sloooooow death -Server by server by server
It wont make any sense at all to anyone thats still engaged and into it. It only makes sense to those of us that have been a state of wow divorce for the last 3 xpacks (or more).
I would never be so arrogant as to assume I could make WoW better. Every player who’s been on the WoW grind for sixteen years thinks they should be put in charge because they have the secret to success that Blizzard doesn’t. In reality, giving these people the reins would just see a bunch of pet project crap being implemented. A good example is Asmongold. He’s said that if he was in charge, all he would do is overcomplicate warriors and add a billion new mounts to collect. That doesn’t sound like the kind of game I want to play.
Make LFR a solo scenario where focus is on mechanics to pass. You get very baseline gear from this that you can upgrade by doing group content.
Get rid of Normal mode everything once at level cap, call heroic Normal. Call Mythic Heroic.
Implement an M+ system to raiding with a public leaderboard sorted by boss. Call this Mythic raiding.
Tier sets only available by raiding, but all gear can be upgraded to Normal raid ilvl via currency system.
Rep tabards.
Keep updating Mage Tower. Have Proving Grounds offer limited time rewards as well.
Either keep developing something like WG and TB, or update one of those or expansion. I feel like a great part of Wrath was doing WG into pugging a big group to do those bosses and earn gear.
Without touching older content, swapping out pacing, or removing features of the current game, all that is left is to branch out. Unlike in Shadowlands where one can choose any variation of the game whence to level their alts, give an option to proceed to the next expansion (current game) to one’s favored theme. You won’t be appealing to a specific audience if you have 12 different dev teams working on 12 different themes for future content with only 3 overseers to determine whether they are too similar in context. (To elaborate: the following expansion has no theme, and is not a mishmash, but alt-locked road to seeing new story x 12 [replay value increases to at least 1 additional playthrough per player])
Essentially: Hire more staff, pay good money for the hours required, playtest the product to the ground with real alpha/beta testers, and release a finished product to the paying customers. There’s no reason for a multimillion dollar contract for a CEO when Johnny McDraw gets fired and Barry Goodtale gets the axe.
But this is hypothetical on an unlikely scenario: I would probably never afford to buy out Blizzard.
cancel all activision shareholder meetings and prevent any and all communication from people who are purely financial backers. They shouldn’t be seen OR heard. They have no interest in the games content only that it generates money. They should have ZERO routes of communication with any of the development team. They pay the bills and get a cheque at the end of the month, no other input.
Restore class fantasy with NEW versions of old glyphs and game features.
diversify content see 2.
solo content see 2.
see 4.
See 4.
disconnect “fun” cosmetics and stat upgrades and core game features, so that fun things like glyphs and what not only affect the appearance of abilities/talents not their functions or damage.
Um…you do know the casuals are usually much more of a game’s populace player base and thus the word of mouth advertising yea?
since 90% of players go back and farm old raids for transmog and toys and mounts and titles and pets, to satisfy them and get their money, make legion fully soloable, nerf to oblivion the difficult mechanic kiljaeden and friends, and make BfA soloable as well.