Did casuals ruin WoW and if so how?

[melodramocracy]

The "community" as the driver for the game is a myth.

And therin lies the issue. If you aren't playing an MMO for the community factor on some level, you are far better served by any number of single player titles, for a variety of reasons.

Why aren't the other MMOs picking up most of these players?

They are, to an extent. There are far more MMO's at least doing 'ok' now than ever before, by a large margin. The rest were folks drawn to this game for whatver reason (my friends play it, Ozzy plays it, etc) who aren't really into MMO's to begin with. There is no reason to cater to such individuals, they aren't going to be consistent players, and certainly not to a sub game.

The number of gamers who have the time and motivation to really get into more than one MMO at a time, I'd guess is quite a low percentage.

Since casual engagement was the problem with MoP (as they said at the Q1 earnings presentation), this means they are going to do even more in the next expansion for casuals. You think MoP is casual focused? You have not yet seen casual focus.

This is another quote that is wide-open to interpretation. Casual engagement might be suffering not because there isn't enough content for said behavior, but because the presented content itself just isn't that appealing. That's an entirely different problem.

Maybe millions of ex-players simply don't like Pandaria. *shrug*

[Tomana]

Blizzard ruined the Game because they casualised the Game until it was unplayable. They removed every complex part and that removed alot of fun.

And they added more complex stuff. Compare the rotation of ANY class in Vanilla/BC and now. It's 2 buttons vs much much more. Except, well, combat rogues. XD

Right now you can level solo from 1-90 no problem. You don't have to communicate with a another person.

I did my first 1-70 toon (hunter) solo. In vanilla and early BC. Problem?

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I'm just waiting for a real new MMO challenger to come along. SWTOR has potential but their end game was horrid. GW2 is all pvp. Still waiting...

The wait will be long. I don't see Wildstar pulling it off, frankly.

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Correct. Blizzard should make content specifically for them instead of trying to feed them watered down progression raiding content. They should also make content for progression raiders, and pvp players and solo players etc.

Won't happen because making something (e.g. a raid instance) specifically for progression raiders is too expensive so it's basically throwing money at a small minority of players.

[Otimus]

I wonder how long it takes Blizzard until they realize that catering everything to bads doesn't work (it has only caused a steady -2M sub / year trend). WoW's success came from the community, which in turn came from having a variety of content for variety of playstyles. Having a single set of content and trying to stuff that down everyone's throat with a dozen different difficulty modes is just not a compelling experience to the majority of players (majority, since more people dislike the game and leave than like the game and stay/join).

The social experience of WoW in the majority of servers today is running LFR/LFD because big guilds are dead and 10 man guilds come and go. That means grouping with random people who you will probably never meet again, who will either remain silent or hurl insults at you (because they have no incentive to actually care about you). Blizzard is building all these cross realm things to "play with your existing friends", but what they don't seem to realize is that WoW used to be the game where you made friends, and that no longer happens.

WoW's success came from being a casual oriented MMO in the public spotlight. There's a reason it's got something like 40 million former subscribers. There's a reason there's a LOT more people who quit, than are who are playing at any one given time.

But the real problem is, is that most of the casual content been pretty much mowed down to being entirely meaningless, and a hardcore content is pretty much the only aspect of the game that ever gets any attention. Practically anything for casual players practically seems like pity content while the hardcore content gets all the dollars and time. It's actually pretty absurd that people don't see this, or care, or even really understand what casual players play like.

MOREOVER, it's very telling that an attempt at a real solution for casual play wasn't attempted until the end of the freakin' last expansion.

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That's because 90% of the friends worth making in the game are going to prevent your character progressing in the game because they can't or won't take the time to read sixteen detailed strategy guides on the current tier's raid bosses plus a strategy guide on their character's optimal talents/rotation for each fight (they aren't even the same anymore because you're expected to switch talents between fights). That's why people don't make friends any more. When you have to choose between buddying up with hardcore players to progress and buddying up with the people you like to stagnate you might as well buddy up with the people you like in another game.

There's a lot of major truth bombs in this statement, and shows a whooooole lot of flaws with this game's core design.

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And once again you're wrong. I was never a "hardcore", the most I raided was 3 nights per week (granted I did clear as much or more of the end-game than "hardcore"). The whole of vanilla I was a casual and only did 5-mans and gold-making (didn't quest, pvp, raid or even join a guild). However, I can tell you that if the game only had that content that I "engaged in" and nothing else, I would've never even considered buying it. That's because a large chunk of the value in WoW does not come from the content you see or engage in, it comes from having a compelling game world and community, which in turn comes from having a variety of content catering to a variety of playstyles.



And I see no evidence whatsoever to come to that conclusion. In fact, quite the opposite seems to be true. And providing some content for progression raiders is very different than "catering to hardcores".



That's what they've been saying for a long time, and that's what they have moved to address. The game is now 100% casual/bad focused, yet the -2M subs/year trend continues. And those players are largely casuals, the current model does not cater for them. It's be bads that it caters for and that are staying in the game. But Blizzard can keep going in the same direction and their sub trend will continue in the exact same direction. Until the shareholders have had enough of it and force WoW to go f2p with cash shops and pay2win through the nose. That's where the game is going if we're realistic about it.

Frankly, I'd say doing any organized activity at all kind of throws you into a sort of hardcore spot. I think people don't quite grasp how uncommon that has been, at any point in WoW's history.

[RickJamesLich]

If nothing else, this post is a good example how forum posters think they know stuff that Blizzard cannot figure out.

Riddle me this everyone. If it is so "obvious" what makes a good and sucessful game that even us, hiding behind anonymous nicks on random forums who are clueless in game design can figure out - how come not even an established company like Bioware with a HUGE franchise behind them that they have proven they can handle in Single player games could NOT make a MMORPG to even REMOTELY rival WoW?

I think the problem with blizz, myself is that they are too focused on money and they think that bringing people into half baked raids is the answer. Raiders have a lot of fun in WoW, IMO the most fun, they get the coolest sense of progression and the best social experience in the game - it's only natural that blizz would want to lure other players to this aspect of the game.

The problem IMO is how the implemented it, the system lacks challenge and often bores people, not only that but since they don't learn much about actual raiding, they end up having a very difficult time breaking into regular raiding. I'd contend that it's easier to get into raiding if you have *not* done LFR at this point to be honest. Long story short, blizz is catering to "bad players" or "casuals" or whatever you want to call them, in a very silly way. They are eliminating parts of the game that they feel that casuals may think are "too challenging" but that challenge is often what made raiding so fun in the first place.


Not saying I have all the answer, but blizz clearly over the last few years has taken a totally different stance on many issues in the game - call it involvement from activision or whatever you want, but WoW has changed, and while some parts of it are very good, I think some are much much worse. Not saying I got all the answers, I don't think anyone here is saying that, but some of the problems are pretty obvious, judging by the tone of Ghostcrawler's posts at times, I think he's nervous about the new direction too.

[Grimble]

Blizzard decided it would be great and cheap if they could bang out one raid instance every few months and make it the endgame content for absolutely everyone playing the game by way of a bunch of different difficulty versions. Meanwhile most WoW players don't like raiding. Period. If there's a disconnect with casuals, that's it.

[Ronduwil]

The problem IMO is how the implemented it, the system lacks challenge and often bores people, not only that but since they don't learn much about actual raiding, they end up having a very difficult time breaking into regular raiding. I'd contend that it's easier to get into raiding if you have *not* done LFR at this point to be honest. Long story short, blizz is catering to "bad players" or "casuals" or whatever you want to call them, in a very silly way. They are eliminating parts of the game that they feel that casuals may think are "too challenging" but that challenge is often what made raiding so fun in the first place.

The problem is that Blizz is making the same mistake that you are. Raid content does not cater to "bad players" or "casuals" period. It doesn't matter how easy or difficult it is. It's not casual content. If my friends and I are only logged in for a couple of hours apiece and on average only 45 minutes of that playtime overlaps, we don't have the time to park in a queue waiting on LFR to pop. When we do, we don't enjoy being forced to play with 20 other strangers. That's not conducive to a pleasant casual experience. As a casual I want to log on and run content with four or five friends. Raiding doesn't provide that. Period. Not in LFR, not in Flex, not in Normal, and not in Heroic. Raiding is not casual. Here are the raiding options:

• Play with 9 or 24 other people who are logged on for the same two hours that you are. That's not a reasonable constraint to place upon casual players
• Spend 45 minutes in queue to spend 1-3 hours facerolling content with 20+ random strangers. Note that those random strangers can still derail the raid if enough of them disregard mechanics. That's not fun.

I still don't get how a game whose multi-player content consists exclusively of very hard raiding, hard raiding, and very easy raiding is catering to casuals. Raiding is raiding, and raiding is not casual. Blizz is not catering to "bad players" or "casuals." Blizzard is trying to get those groups to raid even though they never wanted to and probably never will. Please quit blaming them for Blizzard's bad decisions. LFR does not cater to casuals. If anything it caters to ex-raiders.

Also please quit calling for LFR to be removed. Removing it won't fix anything because the fact will remain that there is no multi-player content for casual players. The idea that casual players would magically start raiding if only LFR were gone is a complete fantasy. It doesn't cost much to create and maintain, and there is a group of players who actually enjoys it, so let it be.

[Glorious Leader]

The problem is that Blizz is making the same mistake that you are. Raid content does not cater to "bad players" or "casuals" period. It doesn't matter how easy or difficult it is. It's not casual content. If my friends and I are only logged in for a couple of hours apiece and on average only 45 minutes of that playtime overlaps, we don't have the time to park in a queue waiting on LFR to pop. When we do, we don't enjoy being forced to play with 20 other strangers. That's not conducive to a pleasant casual experience. As a casual I want to log on and run content with four or five friends. Raiding doesn't provide that. Period. Not in LFR, not in Flex, not in Normal, and not in Heroic. Raiding is not casual. Here are the raiding options:

• Play with 9 or 24 other people who are logged on for the same two hours that you are. That's not a reasonable constraint to place upon casual players
• Spend 45 minutes in queue to spend 1-3 hours facerolling content with 20+ random strangers. Note that those random strangers can still derail the raid if enough of them disregard mechanics. That's not fun.

I still don't get how a game whose multi-player content consists exclusively of very hard raiding, hard raiding, and very easy raiding is catering to casuals. Raiding is raiding, and raiding is not casual. Blizz is not catering to "bad players" or "casuals." Blizzard is trying to get those groups to raid even though they never wanted to and probably never will. Please quit blaming them for Blizzard's bad decisions. LFR does not cater to casuals. If anything it caters to ex-raiders.

Also please quit calling for LFR to be removed. Removing it won't fix anything because the fact will remain that there is no multi-player content for casual players. The idea that casual players would magically start raiding if only LFR were gone is a complete fantasy. It doesn't cost much to create and maintain, and there is a group of players who actually enjoys it, so let it be.

The bold should be stressed. They've tried to make it as casual friendly as possible but you can't put lip stick on that pig. LFR is the ultimate catering to raiders and hardcores. It keeps their content sustainable.

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While not entirely unreasonable this would mean blizzard has to essentially not make a single new raid again for the next 5 years, because that is the appropriate allocation of funds the playerbase warrants.

Correct. That would have been the right decision. Instead the developers tried social engineering and failed miserably.

[RickJamesLich]

The problem is that Blizz is making the same mistake that you are. Raid content does not cater to "bad players" or "casuals" period. It doesn't matter how easy or difficult it is. It's not casual content. If my friends and I are only logged in for a couple of hours apiece and on average only 45 minutes of that playtime overlaps, we don't have the time to park in a queue waiting on LFR to pop. When we do, we don't enjoy being forced to play with 20 other strangers. That's not conducive to a pleasant casual experience. As a casual I want to log on and run content with four or five friends. Raiding doesn't provide that. Period. Not in LFR, not in Flex, not in Normal, and not in Heroic. Raiding is not casual. Here are the raiding options:

• Play with 9 or 24 other people who are logged on for the same two hours that you are. That's not a reasonable constraint to place upon casual players
• Spend 45 minutes in queue to spend 1-3 hours facerolling content with 20+ random strangers. Note that those random strangers can still derail the raid if enough of them disregard mechanics. That's not fun.

I still don't get how a game whose multi-player content consists exclusively of very hard raiding, hard raiding, and very easy raiding is catering to casuals. Raiding is raiding, and raiding is not casual. Blizz is not catering to "bad players" or "casuals." Blizzard is trying to get those groups to raid even though they never wanted to and probably never will. Please quit blaming them for Blizzard's bad decisions. LFR does not cater to casuals. If anything it caters to ex-raiders.

Also please quit calling for LFR to be removed. Removing it won't fix anything because the fact will remain that there is no multi-player content for casual players. The idea that casual players would magically start raiding if only LFR were gone is a complete fantasy. It doesn't cost much to create and maintain, and there is a group of players who actually enjoys it, so let it be.

The issue I believe is that blizz is not that everyone couldn't see raid content, but really, the stuff blizz is giving casuals as content now is a lot weaker than before, even though they didn't always get into the top raids. Places like Kara or normal modes had much better accessibility, 5 man heroics were awesome, progression from PvP - the game lacks that stuff now. Before you could log on for an hour an knock out a heroic 5 man and get a decent reward or build up to one, now you can go into a 5 man heroic.... but what's the point? Since it takes longer to queue for it then it does to actually complete the place, it doesn't feel like a dungeon so where is the fun?


I will agree blizz is nudging people who didn't raid before into doing so, even if there were good reasons why they didn't want to in the first place. And there was multi-player content for casuals before, like Kara, if you raided back then, how many people did you know that never touched that place that hit max level and enjoyed pve? I don't know any myself.

As it stands right now, blizz is using LFR and now flex as an excuse to not actually create content - 5 mans may be extinct next expansion the way things are going, which I think is a big mistake. And I'm not saying casuals would magically start raiding, some may, a lot may not - but there are a lot of reasons, maybe some just aren't into raiding? Right now though that's really the only thing they got. Put other stuff in, make raids that are casual friendly, but not just a re-hash of the same stuff, but don't make them so easy that you wanna afk them.

[Glorious Leader]

Correct. Blizzard should make content specifically for them instead of trying to feed them watered down progression raiding content. They should also make content for progression raiders, and pvp players and solo players etc.

I agree but as noted it is apparently not economically feasible for them to do all that and sustain the "quality" of raids you've seen in mists. You should be happy though. Raiding won out. Big time.

[RickJamesLich]

The bold should be stressed. They've tried to make it as casual friendly as possible but you can't put lip stick on that pig. LFR is the ultimate catering to raiders and hardcores. It keeps their content sustainable.

Our content was sustainable long before LFR existed, in fact, based off blizzard having billions on reserve I'd say it's more than sustainable. Beyond that though, LFR is definitely not catering to real raiders, that's why most LFR guys don't get into good raid groups. We'd rather have blizz give them real content instead of a half assed version of what is normally a good raid. Believe me, nobody is saying casuals shouldn't have content, they should totally have cool stuff to do, but blizzard is going about it a really poor way, just so they can save a bit of money.

[Glorious Leader]

It's pretty funny to see everybody come around to the wheres the new dungeon train. Some of us have been screaming and hollering about this for months and instead have been told HEY MAN LOOK AT ALL THE DIVERSITY IN MISTS which is really just a crock of shit. Raid raid raid raid raid raid raid is all the games about now. Everything else is meaningless pity content with no depth and more importantly no character progression.

[Choptimus]

wow is ded gam, all gam will die, it just takes time, casuals are a non-factor

[Glorious Leader]

Our content was sustainable long before LFR existed, in fact, based off blizzard having billions on reserve I'd say it's more than sustainable. Beyond that though, LFR is definitely not catering to real raiders, that's why most LFR guys don't get into good raid groups. We'd rather have blizz give them real content instead of a half assed version of what is normally a good raid. Believe me, nobody is saying casuals shouldn't have content, they should totally have cool stuff to do, but blizzard is going about it a really poor way, just so they can save a bit of money.

The circumstances that existed which allowed for something like SWP are no longer true. The first circumstances is that the player base is not growing anymore. The second circumstance is that far more casual and just players in general are hitting lvl 90 and must be entertained at lvl 90. To be entertained at lvl 90 the developers would either have to get them involved into the content they create (raids which take up most of their time) or forsake that content in favor of other content to entertain their audience. LFR is a win for raiders wether or not you wish to accept this is irellevant.

I agree they are going about it in a poor way. If the economic realities forced them to choose between making raids but shoving everybody into raids or severely curtailing the production and quality and depth of raids then the later was the obvious choice. The former is a choice in favor of raiders and hardcores. Congratulations. You (and raids) won. Dungeons lost.

[pallyopness]

content for casuals that dont want to get with 10 people or more....heroic scenarios and heroic dungeons....those that are anti social all the way around.....pandaria rares and pet battles....learn your place. People that want a challenge and have the time to commit...raids....easy as that

People need to quit calling for the end of raids just because they dont have the time and or skill to do them properly....If you remove raids what is progression? why would you need better gear? who the hell would stick around after max level...probably a whole lot less than most of the whiners would like to believe

[Binary Speaker]

casualpalooza

If thats not the next xpac name I will be very disappointed.
OT: I think WoW is in a pretty good spot right now. You got LFR for people like me who just want to see the content and not be on a schedule. Flex for smaller guilds or what have you so people can do a raid with whoever is on at the time. Normal for normal players and heroic for people looking for a challenge. I think the loot rewarded for each is fair and not getting titles/achieves for LFR is fine by me.
I think at least some of the "casuals ruined WoW!" is just people who think the game was much better when it took 5 hours just to get ready for a raid. But I digress.

[melodramocracy]

Not sure how raids are suddenly considered some enormous player exodus factor, or 'casual' factor when they've always been here, they've historically been less accessible, and they've historically been used as the wrap-up of every major story arc the game has put forth.

To say that they're only important "now" really means that you haven't been paying attention. The only casual activity that has been poorly served in this expansion is 5 man content. Scenarios aren't a good substitution at all, if that was the intent.

[Glorious Leader]

Not sure how raids are suddenly considered some enormous player exodus factor, or 'casual' factor when they've always been here, they've historically been less accessible, and they've historically been used as the wrap-up of every major story arc the game has put forth.

To say that they're only important "now" really means that you haven't been paying attention. The only casual activity that has been poorly served in this expansion is 5 man content. Scenarios aren't a good substitution at all, if that was the intent.

Dungeons have been poorly served in the interest of making raids. Better "quality" raids I might add which is really just huge bloated raid tiers with tonnes of trash and overly complex bosses. Who hasn't been paying attention now?

Would you be happier if they went back to 6 boss raids and a couple of dungeons (1 or 2) for every big patch? or better yet more DS tiers?

[pallyopness]

dungeons have NEVER been a great thing EVER. They have squarely been used for gearing purposes for what? OH YES...RAIDS!!! lol

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

No the elitists ruined WoW with their demands..
Nothing was hard just time-consuming. Lots of free time=you can have and IQ of 10 and still clear any content you want. BLizz like any other business saw the time constraint so they had to lower the difficulty along with the length of raids/took prebuffing out of the picture(like resistance buffing yourself, fire prot potions so forth) and introduced easier mechanics

1. Realm communities got ripped to shreds with the introduction of LFD, pvp queuing and later on LFR. You can play this game with all the chat windows disabled, sure blizzard introduced them but only because the "casual" playerbase said they wanted to see all the content.
2. The lack of realm communities has lead to a epidemic of "keyboard heroes" who act like the biggest fucking morons on the internet (wow in this case) because what others think about them doesn't matter at all. Back in the days before LFD you had Tanks, Healers and DPSers you LIKED on your friendslist and if you EVER wanted to get somewhere you had to actually behave so people would invite you back.
3. Now that everything is so easy you end up playing what? 3-4 hours a week and you can see EVERYTHING in this game, you're wondering why the realms have so low population and the subscribers are dropping? People get bored of doing the same thing over and over so they subscribe when new expansions come out, new major patches and then quit again when they've done everything in a month or two.


Casuals demanded easier thing, blizzard let them have it, sub numbers drop, wow is now half of what it was before LFR was introduced. You CAN'T ignore those facts...

[melodramocracy]

Who hasn't been paying attention now?

Fun fact: There were more raid bosses in Wrath than there are in this expansion.

Would you be happier if they went back to 6 boss raids and a couple of dungeons (1 or 2) for every big patch? or better yet more DS tiers?

My preference is for shorter raids, or a few different raids per tier, as well as more 5 man content, so yes I would. But that has nothing to do with my stance on folks thinking that raids were historically less 'important' than they are now.