The State of WoW

[Jaylock]

Ever consider that people just don't like that content and therefore your mentioning it is ultimately irrelevant? There's no real reason to do challenge mode. There's no real reason to do the proving grounds. People actually want to be able to stay relevant in the game or feel like a part of the forward branching story line. Challenge mode should've been something made for people wanting an alternative path to gearing, not just simply a means by which to get skins.

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Good for you, now speak for the millions and counting no longer playing.

Oh since people left because of not being able to collect cash shop mounts. Oh because people left because of no flying. Or maybe, because people left for not being able to get tier sets and trinkets from LFR.

Hmmm....

Maybe, just maybe.. people let their sub lapse because they *GASP* wanted to play other games? or.. *GASP* the game is 11 years old and they want to do other stuff... or *GASP* they have families and other things they need to attend to than play an mmo 24/7.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

Oh since people left because of not being able to collect cash shop mounts. Oh because people left because of no flying. Or maybe, because people left for not being able to get tier sets and trinkets from LFR.

Hmmm....

Maybe, just maybe.. people let their sub lapse because they *GASP* wanted to play other games? or.. *GASP* the game is 11 years old and they want to do other stuff... or *GASP* they have families and other things they need to attend to than play an mmo 24/7.

Yes millions drop off a couple of months into your newest expansion - the hardest drop in WoW's history - but its all due to random elements that have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the game.

...Are you 'effing serious? I've swatted away your retorts and remarks with relative ease. Don't start traversing into utter tripe in order to defend your beloved product.

[Pantalaimon]

Ever consider that people just don't like that content and therefore your mentioning it is ultimately irrelevant? There's no real reason to do challenge mode. There's no real reason to do the proving grounds. People actually want to be able to stay relevant in the game or feel like a part of the forward branching story line. Challenge mode should've been something made for people wanting an alternative path to gearing, not just simply a means by which to get skins.

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Good for you, now speak for the millions and counting no longer playing.

And that is where the probem lies. You don't like that content therefore you ignore it and say there is no challenge, even though there is. Not every type of content in the game is meant to be challenging. Believe it or not some less challenging content is working as intended. What bugs me are the types of players who essentially say; "I want challenge but I don't want to do raids/arenas and/or end game content and/or group content. I want Blizzard to only make the content I'm willing to try to be challenging." Sounds more like entitlement and a version of a special snowflake, the elusive 'playstyle snowflake'. If you want a greater scope of challenge you need to be willing to step out of your comfort zone sometimes and try new things, instead of expecting new expansions to make your niche of playing on par with what other players have.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

And that is where the probem lies. You don't like that content therefore you ignore it and say there is no challenge, even though there is. Not every type of content in the game is meant to be challenging. Believe it or not some less challenging content is working as intended. What bugs me are the types of players who essentially say; "I want challenge but I don't want to do raids/arenas and/or end game content and/or group content. I want Blizzard to only make the content I'm willing to try to be challenging." Sounds more like entitlement and a version of a special snowflake, the elusive 'playstyle snowflake'. If you want a greater scope of challenge you need to be willing to step out of your comfort zone sometimes and try new things, instead of expecting new expansions to make your niche of playing on par with what other players have.

So in other words the majority of players get the scraps the minority don't care for but we're expected to care for it? I don't get the logic here. How would you feel if the tables were turned? How about I go into the game, gut raiding, put almost all of the effort back into dungeons and open-world content, and reduce garrisons to personal housing with little to no influence on the overall game itself?

You're out over half of your subscriber base. You're bleeding out further. You can't look at the sheer numbers and shrug your shoulders at the end of the day. Fortunately for the rest of us, there is some indication with Legion that they're indeed noticing and NOT simply shrugging their shoulders. That they might actually be making an effort to bridge the divide. Whether or not they're successful is another story.

Depends on how closely they're paying attention.

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The bolded part stands out to me. So you're faulting LFR for your guild disbanding??? I've read some things that made me go "huh" but this takes the cake. Now LFD I loved after playing on lightbringer on horde back in the day. it was 1938203 alliance vrs 60 horde. That said managing a guild is hard. managing a cutting edge guild seems to be a soul crushing gig to be sure. Made much, much worse with the content drought going on.

Which is why I was pretty awestruck at the fact Blizzard seemed intent on making 20's the standard.

The higher the body count required to clear content, the more difficult it is to manage. It also hurts, in my opinion, some of the social elements of the game(you're forced to work with more people you don't like) rather than allowing guilds to more organically form.

Right now, in order for me to do Mythic, I essentially have to treat the process of getting into a guild(and they vice-versa) like one might a job search. I just don't get their logic when the same content is already available for viewing within LFR and Normal for much less headache.

I'm of the opinion 20's should be an entirely different beast in of itself(maybe like FFXIV's Alliance raids) with 10 being the max size for clearing the top-end content IF THAT. That'd probably open up a lot more people to the raiding content and all the difficulties within.

[Pantalaimon]

So in other words the majority of players get the scraps the minority don't care for but we're expected to care for it? I don't get the logic here. How would you feel if the tables were turned? How about I go into the game, gut raiding, put almost all of the effort back into dungeons and open-world content, and reduce garrisons to personal housing with little to no influence on the overall game itself?

You're out over half of your subscriber base. You're bleeding out further. You can't look at the sheer numbers and shrug your shoulders at the end of the day. Fortunately for the rest of us, there is some indication with Legion that they're indeed noticing and NOT simply shrugging their shoulders. That they might actually be making an effort to bridge the divide. Whether or not they're successful is another story.

Depends on how closely they're paying attention.

Go ahead and cut raiding and boost dungeons. Check my post history if you're that interested and you'll see that I also really enjoy and spend time in things like challenge modes too which is *gasp* not raid content but is 5 man content. If you cut that? That will really suck, but I also do plenty of things in the world like hunting rares and camping world dropped mounts. It really seems to me like there is a stark difference between how much of the different types of content I am willing to play versus what you are willing to play. I can list plenty of challenging things to do that doesn't require you to step foot in a raid once, not even LFR. It seems like you're just wanting to make your perception of the game lacking challenge as being an objective fact.

I won't argue that WoD is a perfect expansion for all types of players, but in general the majority of the players (an ambiguous estimate to be sure) did not "get the scraps". Look at how many rares were put in to the start of WoD that dropped mounts for players. Some of these were given short timers and some long ones. Some 'casual' and 'hardcore' players love the hunt for these things in any expansion, but Blizzard made QoL improvements to it via shared tags. In MoP players could stick to normal and daily quests to unlock the couple of reps that provided access to learning Alani's mount, which in and of itself was a challenging thing that players could do. I'm mainly focusing on mounts here since I am a collection enthusiast, but the "majority of players" certainly do not get scraps.

Looking at the sub numbers and coming to a broad overgeneralized conclusion that it is because the quality of the game is poor, or that it only caters to 'hardcore' players with strict time schedules for their game commitment shows to me how much critical thinking is actually being used in relation to this issue.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

WotLk was their highest point of retention with their players.

Want to know why? Dungeons matter. There was a currency system. Everything felt relevant and like stepping stones towards something greater. There also wasn't massive content droughts as arguably, WotLK had some of the best content updates for a Warcraft expansion. Started with Naxx, went to Ulduar, went to the Argent Tournament, and then to Icecrown itself. Two of those raids were HUGE. Not only in literal size but assets. We also had new dungeons added on top of it all that were difficult at release and actually interesting, leading into Icecrown.

I know WoW isn't without content but the problem is the shift from keeping people on the same page and working towards these lofty goals before just scattering them across the four winds to chew on menial content that actually did more to detract than add to the overall mission and meaning. Not only have they done that but what they have kept, they've made poor choices with, and diminished their return value.

...again back to logistics of 20's, the pointlessness of dungeons, and the fact you can see everything higher tiers have to offer by clearing LFR.

My assertion of WoW's situation is spot on and I know this beyond a doubt because I've been in WoW for over 10 years and played a myriad of other MMOs along the way. I know how this works. I'm also taking into account how the game has evolved. I have methods and thoughts on how to keep it going forward WHILE rebuilding that subscriber base to something more solid in the long run.

It just depends on what direction they want to go and that's their biggest problem. They lack direction.

Want to stick with raids as being the tippy-top of your content? Appropriately build the game around it and stop relying so heavily on sheer logistics to be the gate into higher tiers. Even better, stop using lower tiers as a means to experience the higher tiers with minimal effort. That depletes the value of the effort for many people. Make it a journey again.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

Blizzard doesn't like work. I'd let them go up to 90 with a very heavy handed policy regarding the community interaction (something that really needs a heavy hand with). Sadly it won't happen.

They don't need to put so much effort into it, they just need to stop mixing this new-age approach with archaic logistical barriers; again, back to what is REALLY holding Blizzard back. They lack direction. They're all over the place.

That would be a huge step, on its own, in opening up the game a bit. Then you can start looking at precursor content as more akin to stepping-stones and build it as thus. Both from a story-telling and progression perspective. As then many more would be willing to take on the greater extremes of the game.

[Catblob]

Blizzard got five-million subscribers like it was nothing during the most difficult point of WoW.

Yes... by creating a game that was easier than the primary alternative, Everquest.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

Yes... by creating a game that was easier than the primary alternative, Everquest.

I personally think it had more to do with Warcraft already being a major name and the game itself as a whole being more appealing. I know me and my friends never touched Everquest and WoW was our first MMO.

Arguably, probably the majority found that WoW was their first MMO experience. Assuming all five million came from EQ due to WoW being easier, when likely not even a quarter of that came from EQ, doesn't seem right to me.

Also, difficulty falls off at some point. You can't make things too grindy or difficult but on the other hand you can't just make the game a cakewalk either. There's a balancing act there to perform and I feel Blizzard skewed far too sharply towards the latter as the years went by.

[Deleted]

Still prefer WoW, with its issues, over every other big name MMO out there, which always have one aspect or two aspects that are worse than what WoW offers. WoW offers the least-amount of ingame shop items that I have seen thus far, which is limited to 11 pets, 10 mounts, 3 helmet transmogs, 100 boost, and the WoW token (also obtainable via AH for gold). If you make enough ingame gold every month you can just buy your game time instead of paying a sub, which I know many do.

While some MMOs are free after initial purchase or just right out free-to-play, they offer way more items in their in-game shops or sell DLCs. In GW2 for example, you have to buy tokens (in shop) to be able to transmog your gear with skins. Transmogging 1 item cost 1 token. Many skins/costumes are only sold in the shop aswell with a full set anywhere between 8-15 euros. Black Desert offers only 3 armor looks (which are average and unless you spend cash, you will look like a level 1 throughthe whole game) per class in the game itself, the rest are skins/costumes in the store for like 15-20 euros per costume. Transmogging/how-you-look has become a pretty large and important factor in MMOs lately, which is the reason I brought it up.

Look at WoW, almost everything is accessible through the game. Every piece of armor or transmog (save 3 helmets) can be obtained ingame.

I do agree Blizzard is making mistakes by adding a store while their is a sub running, but thankfully it’s limited atm.

After 8 years of playing I am still here even if the direction WoW is taking seems to be for the worse. Questing/leveling has gotten too easy and needs to be more challenging. Some in-game content is still challenging for the average player like CMs, mythic raiding, or high-end pvp. Even collecting mounts or pets can be a challenge (and annoying) due to RNG. The difficulty is diminishing, but it’s still there in parts.

[nikolbolas]

WotLk was their highest point of retention with their players.

Want to know why? Dungeons matter. There was a currency system. Everything felt relevant and like stepping stones towards something greater. There also wasn't massive content droughts as arguably, WotLK had some of the best content updates for a Warcraft expansion. Started with Naxx, went to Ulduar, went to the Argent Tournament, and then to Icecrown itself. Two of those raids were HUGE. Not only in literal size but assets. We also had new dungeons added on top of it all that were difficult at release and actually interesting, leading into Icecrown.

Cannot argue with this point. WotLK did indeed provide a good pace and content filled patches that made the transition into the raid fun, both from the lore side to the actual reward (specially for alts).

...again back to logistics of 20's, the pointlessness of dungeons, and the fact you can see everything higher tiers have to offer by clearing LFR.

Its no just "seeing" the content, it is the experience of downing a "difficult" encounter with your fellow mates and obtaining higher quality gear for your character. Remember, not all pieces drop from LFR as from reg raid/mythic content. Some tier sets (i would say most of them) actually do spice up the gameplay on your character and in some cases (shadow priests) completely make the spec into something different.

My assertion of WoW's situation is spot on and I know this beyond a doubt because I've been in WoW for over 10 years and played a myriad of other MMOs along the way. I know how this works. I'm also taking into account how the game has evolved. I have methods and thoughts on how to keep it going forward WHILE rebuilding that subscriber base to something more solid in the long run.

Sorry, but some may call that: your opinion, and its perfectly fine to have one though...

[SoulSoBreezy]

Okay, so... I wanted to summarize my feelings towards the current and potentially future state of the World of Warcraft.

It's a list! Sort of!

Difficulty

I'm still not sold on the Facebook trope. I really don't understand the comparison.
Anyway, the perception of easy leveling is real. After all, classes are reworked every expansion, while previous world and dungeon content does not. New and reworked skills means that design has to go back into the leveling process and insert these skills *somewhere.*
There's no good solution to this, but keep in mind that there are 110 levels and five expansions to progress through. How slow do we want the leveling experience to be? Slow enough to risk players not experiencing the current game?
Encounter design for dungeon and raid bosses is far, far, far more complex than they were in expansions past. Where does your perception come from? Does it come from an experienced PvEr? Encounter designer? Bias?
And as for the boost? You get one, and if a player doesn't want to go back and level a fresh toon, that's their decision. Is it okay for us to judge a game based on another player's decision?

Expensive

Expensive is relative. I paid $15/month for 11 years. If I had to pay that up front I'd have paid $2,240 (with expansions), which is ludicrous thing to throw down. But the reality is that I did pay it all over time. And every other service is optional.
I also bought a PS4 and a few games that I very sparingly play (cause of WoW, sort of). In contrast, I put maybe an hour or two into WoW daily on average.
Given the opportunity cost and time investment, what's more expensive? Who cares; I'm mostly stating that your perception of what's expensive is short sighted and largely limited to your observations. Well, in my opinion.

Unimaginative

We're both stating opinions here.
A dungeon or a raid? Blackhand is a definite standout for me in a raid. I like pretty much all of grimrail depot, too.
To even admit that timewalking was solely due to FFXIV's implementation is to inflate your ego, but even then, come on. Are games not allowed to compete or inspire one another? It's a silly conversation within a silly conversation.
Comparing LFR difficulty to a traditional experience is also woefully inaccurate. If you felt that HM was already easy regardless of difficulty, that's great. But your experience doesn't define how well the raid was or wasn't made.
But Korgath went out like a bitch. Not cool.

All that said, WoD didn't deliver the way I expected it to. I'm also old-ish and wouldn't have been able to experience all of its glory regardless.

[SeksiVitez]

OP sounds like you're just not meant for a game that is ten years old anymore. That's okay, not everyone is, but plenty of players still generally enjoy how the game is setup, whether the types of raid encounters, the rewards content gives us, or both old and new lore that is presented. It's always possible you could enjoy the game again, but right now I highly doubt it. You enjoy FF XIV right now, so play the game you're enjoying instead of focusing on one you don't at the moment.

As for some of your points I would say that part of the problem is that players aren't new to the game and as a result aren't surprised or struggle with some of the more basic elements of the game now. For example, I started in mid BC and had to learn and adapt my playstyle different ways depending on the class I was starting to learn. Fast forward many expansions where I have leveling down to a comfortable 'art' and I no longer have to theorycraft on successful ways to survive mobs or level through pre end game content. I'm already familiar with how to use CC, minimize downtime if there is any, what stats I need or abilities to use. Sure you can change the quests, mobs, or even class abilities but it isn't going to take me anyway near as long to pick up what I need to do. I don't really see this as the game being less challenging, simply that I am a relative 'pro' when compared to the gamer I used to be years ago. As for end game challenge I'd say that unless you've cleared it all you can't really comment on the challenge, or lack thereof, seeing as reflecting on something you haven't done holds very little meaning. There is still mythic raiding, challenge modes, 3's, 5's, rbgs, and even hardcore collecting (get a Dark Portal Hearthstone, all 17 TCG mounts, or simply test your rng to get all of the raiding 1% mounts for free).

I can see many of your points for the expense of the game. Perhaps you have a thinner wallet in mind for your entertainment? That's okay and in many ways that is smart. However, some see WoW's current cost as still being worth more than going to a monthly movie, eating out, or spending hundreds of dollars at a convention. With that in mind I think it is important to keep in mind that just because character boosts exist it doesn't mean the majority of players use the cash ones. In fact I know of more players who have only used the free ones than I do who have bought some. I don't really have a problem with some mounts being on the cash shop (Annoyed that so much unique art is exclusive on there, but I get why they make such a business decision). If you're a dedicated collector of amost anything you know that the hobby is rarely cheap for anything.

As for the unimaginative part I can't really do anything for you there. There is a lot of diversity that Blizzard can experiment with in a variety of types of PvE or PvP content, but some things are simply a core of the game. If you think the 'trinity' of class design is unimaginative all I would say is that is a long laid aspect to a ten year old game's identity. If you think too many raid encounters are tank and spanks, or that too many classes are kept stagnant in the same playstyle for years then I would agree that is unimaginative and I'd suggest providing direct feedback to those channels of communication that is relevant for your complaint. I would ask yourself if the things you have complaints about fit into the identity of the game that is not changing, or if they are parts of the game that are more likely to change or are expected to. For all we know you just might have reached the point where anything that feels remotely like a very old MMORPG is not your cup of tea anymore.

I think your first sentence was the ENTIRE POINT of his post. But the state of the game has zero to do with it being ten years old. That sounds like the kind of crap some people said to me days after my brother died, "Well... it all happens for a reason. "

The game devs' bosses got so target fixated on attracting everyone's great grandmother and four year old to WoW that they relentlessly threw away the original WoW and replaced it with a pretender that has a difficulty level for just above infants.

Blizzard could literally make Legion an expansion that is nothing more than allowing you to log in once a day to click just ONE button in the middle of your screen to get loot, and you would still be posting diatribes like this in WoW's defense.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

I think your first sentence was the ENTIRE POINT of his post. But the state of the game has zero to do with it being ten years old. That sounds like the kind of crap some people said to me days after my brother died, "Well... it all happens for a reason. "

The game devs' bosses got so target fixated on attracting everyone's great grandmother and four year old to WoW that they relentlessly threw away the original WoW and replaced it with a pretender that has a difficulty level for just above infants.

Blizzard could literally make Legion an expansion that is nothing more than allowing you to log in once a day to click just ONE button in the middle of your screen to get loot, and you would still be posting diatribes like this in WoW's defense.

I have a word for the people that have suddenly showed up in force with essentially the same lines being espoused but... I'll be nice and keep it to myself.

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Cannot argue with this point. WotLK did indeed provide a good pace and content filled patches that made the transition into the raid fun, both from the lore side to the actual reward (specially for alts).




Its no just "seeing" the content, it is the experience of downing a "difficult" encounter with your fellow mates and obtaining higher quality gear for your character. Remember, not all pieces drop from LFR as from reg raid/mythic content. Some tier sets (i would say most of them) actually do spice up the gameplay on your character and in some cases (shadow priests) completely make the spec into something different.



Sorry, but some may call that: your opinion, and its perfectly fine to have one though...

You aren't going to have twenty "mates" to clear content with. Do you realize how much drama and bullshit goes on in these larger guilds?

Also, it might be my opinion, but it doesn't change that I see it as fact and so do a lot of other people. Either Blizzard sees it similarly or they're not going to even retain what they have currently. We can argue semantics all day but your defense would only bring this game further down, not keep it pieced together.

WotLK was the height of WoW. Look how far removed from that we are today and even worse, look at the direction we're going. Garrisons alone was one massive alarming feature that consumed much of the expansion on its own. Not only are we regressing in given areas but what changes or advancements are occurring are being done so into questionable territory.

Garrisons is, in fact, a perfect exemplification of the modern phone and Facebook games craze. To make such a core facet of WoW be carried by this feature was eye-opening to say the least. I'm shocked they're even considering keeping a SHRED of it within Legion as even that much has many Youtubers already pausing with uncertainty.

[Catblob]

I personally think it had more to do with Warcraft already being a major name and the game itself as a whole being more appealing. I know me and my friends never touched Everquest and WoW was our first MMO.

Arguably, probably the majority found that WoW was their first MMO experience. Assuming all five million came from EQ due to WoW being easier, when likely not even a quarter of that came from EQ, doesn't seem right to me.

Likely, and that's why it is disingenuous to say that WoW gained/maintained its consumer base by presenting a difficult game... and why it's just as silly to say that WoW lost its consumer base by presenting an 'easier' game, especially when the 'downward spiral' started at the beginning of Cataclysm, an expansion that had plenty of difficult content presented to the average player.

Also, difficulty falls off at some point. You can't make things too grindy or difficult but on the other hand you can't just make the game a cakewalk either. There's a balancing act there to perform and I feel Blizzard skewed far too sharply towards the latter as the years went by.

The problem is that the community has become very reward-driven. People aren't simply doing things for the challenge of doing them; they're doing things for a potential reward at the end of the tunnel. If the reward is too great for an 'easy' challenge, people feel forced to do dumbed-down content. If the reward is too little for a formidable challenge, people feel that the challenge is a waste of time. It's an incredibly difficult balancing act to perform, and heroic dungeons are a perfect example of that difficulty.

In TBC, people rarely ventured beyond Heroic Mechanar and Steam Vaults due to the difficulty present in the other Heroic Dungeons; it was such that people could clear the first tier of raids more capably than they could clear things like Heroic Shadow Labs and Heroic Shattered Halls. This was a problem, as Blizzard was designing 'introductory' content (which is effectively what heroic dungeons are, given that their items are weaker than those found within raids) that was more difficult than the raid content that was present in the game.

In Wrath, Blizzard tried to adjust for the issue by making heroic dungeons easier. Given that this was the 'peak' of subscribers for WoW, it can be safely assumed that this change didn't turn people off from the game. Unfortunately, one of the more common complaints in that expansion was that the vast majority of heroic dungeons were far too easy (no CC required; just mindlessly AoE everything down without much care for mechanics... quit the group if Oculus is chosen as the dungeon). Suddenly you had a problem where players felt 'forced' to do boring content, and the problem became much more significant as the expansion progressed into higher and higher tiers of gear.

In Cataclysm, Blizzard tried to appease the "heroics are tooe easy" crowd by making heroic dungeons difficult again. Unfortunately, the increased difficulty resulted in far fewer people that were willing to run (or capable of running) heroic dungeons. Essentially, the reward of doing a heroic dungeon didn't match up with the level of frustration that accompanied the number of wipes associated with it, and there was a swift nerf to many mechanics for the benefit of the population.

In Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard took a different approach to the issue with the introduction of Challenge Mode. Instead of trying to constantly balance back and forth with a 'one size fits all' strategy, they instead tried to create a mode for the 'bad' players, and a mode for the 'good' players. In theory, this should have worked, as players just wanting to get through the dungeon could do so, while players that wanted a challenge could have one. Unfortunately, the 'good' players wanted 'good' rewards for taking on the challenge, and thus we were in a situation where nobody did Challenge Mode because they didn't feel the reward justified the difficulty present. Therefore, you were essentially left with a single difficulty that was far too easy for those wanting a challenge... and we were back to the Wrath problem where players felt 'forced' to sleepwalk through easy content because of the rewards present (Valor Points).

I feel like Blizzard introduced a nice little wrinkle to the content difficulty with the introduction of Mythic Dungeons (striking a bit of a balance between reward and difficulty), and it'll be interesting to see if they do decide to bring that back sometime in Legion. Overall though, Blizzard has found resistance regardless of which design choice they pursue... and so it's really coming down to a 'numbers game', something that we don't really have much real data to assess.

[Deleted]

Suggesting that the difficulty has dropped from doing LFR is just silly. One of you even said game has a "difficulty just above infants". So a 5 year old can run a mythic raiding guild now? Loooooool.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

Likely, and that's why it is disingenuous to say that WoW gained/maintained its consumer base by presenting a difficult game... and why it's just as silly to say that WoW lost its consumer base by presenting an 'easier' game, especially when the 'downward spiral' started at the beginning of Cataclysm, an expansion that had plenty of difficult content presented to the average player.



The problem is that the community has become very reward-driven. People aren't simply doing things for the challenge of doing them; they're doing things for a potential reward at the end of the tunnel. If the reward is too great for an 'easy' challenge, people feel forced to do dumbed-down content. If the reward is too little for a formidable challenge, people feel that the challenge is a waste of time. It's an incredibly difficult balancing act to perform, and heroic dungeons are a perfect example of that difficulty.

In TBC, people rarely ventured beyond Heroic Mechanar and Steam Vaults due to the difficulty present in the other Heroic Dungeons; it was such that people could clear the first tier of raids more capably than they could clear things like Heroic Shadow Labs and Heroic Shattered Halls. This was a problem, as Blizzard was designing 'introductory' content (which is effectively what heroic dungeons are, given that their items are weaker than those found within raids) that was more difficult than the raid content that was present in the game.

In Wrath, Blizzard tried to adjust for the issue by making heroic dungeons easier. Given that this was the 'peak' of subscribers for WoW, it can be safely assumed that this change didn't turn people off from the game. Unfortunately, one of the more common complaints in that expansion was that the vast majority of heroic dungeons were far too easy (no CC required; just mindlessly AoE everything down without much care for mechanics... quit the group if Oculus is chosen as the dungeon). Suddenly you had a problem where players felt 'forced' to do boring content, and the problem became much more significant as the expansion progressed into higher and higher tiers of gear.

In Cataclysm, Blizzard tried to appease the "heroics are tooe easy" crowd by making heroic dungeons difficult again. Unfortunately, the increased difficulty resulted in far fewer people that were willing to run (or capable of running) heroic dungeons. Essentially, the reward of doing a heroic dungeon didn't match up with the level of frustration that accompanied the number of wipes associated with it, and there was a swift nerf to many mechanics for the benefit of the population.

In Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard took a different approach to the issue with the introduction of Challenge Mode. Instead of trying to constantly balance back and forth with a 'one size fits all' strategy, they instead tried to create a mode for the 'bad' players, and a mode for the 'good' players. In theory, this should have worked, as players just wanting to get through the dungeon could do so, while players that wanted a challenge could have one. Unfortunately, the 'good' players wanted 'good' rewards for taking on the challenge, and thus we were in a situation where nobody did Challenge Mode because they didn't feel the reward justified the difficulty present. Therefore, you were essentially left with a single difficulty that was far too easy for those wanting a challenge... and we were back to the Wrath problem where players felt 'forced' to sleepwalk through easy content because of the rewards present (Valor Points).

I feel like Blizzard introduced a nice little wrinkle to the content difficulty with the introduction of Mythic Dungeons (striking a bit of a balance between reward and difficulty), and it'll be interesting to see if they do decide to bring that back sometime in Legion. Overall though, Blizzard has found resistance regardless of which design choice they pursue... and so it's really coming down to a 'numbers game', something that we don't really have much real data to assess.

The easy content got dumbed down significantly in Cataclysm. The drop off didn't occur until after. I personally found the dungeons easy myself so when they called them 'hard' I laughed my ass off. Not to mention, I WAS A HEALER. The only thing that had changed is I needed to be more mindful of how I was healing rather than simply spam everything I had.

When they did what they did, I largely lost interest in the entirety of the expansion going forward.

Right now though, there is no excuse at all for what they've presented with Warlords of Draenor. It is so mind-numbingly easy and forward that I don't see a point in playing it. It's not fun. Most of it is time-gated on top of that which makes a lot of the content feel superficial. It's not hard. It's not worth my time or effort. It's not fun. It's time-gated in such a manner that I would've preferred just to automatically get the rewards after X amount of time had passed versus grind any each day before said gate kicked in. THAT WOULDVE BEEN ODDLY BETTER.

I'm sorry dude but Blizzard hasn't introduced fuck all as of yet. They have a chance with Legion but I am doubtful they've learned. They know something isn't right. They're concerned. However, that does not mean they really have a beat on the problem. The missions remaining in Legion on its own is adding insult to injury as it is. Even if it is only a smidgen of what remains of the garrisons from WoD.

[Deleted]

Likely, and that's why it is disingenuous to say that WoW gained/maintained its consumer base by presenting a difficult game... and why it's just as silly to say that WoW lost its consumer base by presenting an 'easier' game, especially when the 'downward spiral' started at the beginning of Cataclysm, an expansion that had plenty of difficult content presented to the average player.



The problem is that the community has become very reward-driven. People aren't simply doing things for the challenge of doing them; they're doing things for a potential reward at the end of the tunnel. If the reward is too great for an 'easy' challenge, people feel forced to do dumbed-down content. If the reward is too little for a formidable challenge, people feel that the challenge is a waste of time. It's an incredibly difficult balancing act to perform, and heroic dungeons are a perfect example of that difficulty.

In TBC, people rarely ventured beyond Heroic Mechanar and Steam Vaults due to the difficulty present in the other Heroic Dungeons; it was such that people could clear the first tier of raids more capably than they could clear things like Heroic Shadow Labs and Heroic Shattered Halls. This was a problem, as Blizzard was designing 'introductory' content (which is effectively what heroic dungeons are, given that their items are weaker than those found within raids) that was more difficult than the raid content that was present in the game.

In Wrath, Blizzard tried to adjust for the issue by making heroic dungeons easier. Given that this was the 'peak' of subscribers for WoW, it can be safely assumed that this change didn't turn people off from the game. Unfortunately, one of the more common complaints in that expansion was that the vast majority of heroic dungeons were far too easy (no CC required; just mindlessly AoE everything down without much care for mechanics... quit the group if Oculus is chosen as the dungeon). Suddenly you had a problem where players felt 'forced' to do boring content, and the problem became much more significant as the expansion progressed into higher and higher tiers of gear.

In Cataclysm, Blizzard tried to appease the "heroics are tooe easy" crowd by making heroic dungeons difficult again. Unfortunately, the increased difficulty resulted in far fewer people that were willing to run (or capable of running) heroic dungeons. Essentially, the reward of doing a heroic dungeon didn't match up with the level of frustration that accompanied the number of wipes associated with it, and there was a swift nerf to many mechanics for the benefit of the population.

In Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard took a different approach to the issue with the introduction of Challenge Mode. Instead of trying to constantly balance back and forth with a 'one size fits all' strategy, they instead tried to create a mode for the 'bad' players, and a mode for the 'good' players. In theory, this should have worked, as players just wanting to get through the dungeon could do so, while players that wanted a challenge could have one. Unfortunately, the 'good' players wanted 'good' rewards for taking on the challenge, and thus we were in a situation where nobody did Challenge Mode because they didn't feel the reward justified the difficulty present. Therefore, you were essentially left with a single difficulty that was far too easy for those wanting a challenge... and we were back to the Wrath problem where players felt 'forced' to sleepwalk through easy content because of the rewards present (Valor Points).

I feel like Blizzard introduced a nice little wrinkle to the content difficulty with the introduction of Mythic Dungeons (striking a bit of a balance between reward and difficulty), and it'll be interesting to see if they do decide to bring that back sometime in Legion. Overall though, Blizzard has found resistance regardless of which design choice they pursue... and so it's really coming down to a 'numbers game', something that we don't really have much real data to assess.

Now that is a well stuctured argument.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

Suggesting that the difficulty has dropped from doing LFR is just silly. One of you even said game has a "difficulty just above infants". So a 5 year old can run a mythic raiding guild now? Loooooool.

Mythic isn't hard. Get the fuck over it. Tired of people thinking that having to tolerate 20 other individuals somehow equates to difficulty of the game itself. Not the fact that trying to assemble said 20 and have them actually be competent enough to clear content is the actual challenge in of itself.

Need to discern the difference.

- - - Updated - - -

Now that is a well stuctured argument.

I boiled it down to, "Blizzard can do no wrong and the community is shit," as usual. Basically the line Blizzard itself often likes to tow because it's own zealots will readily do the same.

The guy argued we have no REAL data to assess and yet we do. The only reason Blizzard is at all seemingly remotely interested in listening is because they've LOST millions in a very short span of time. There isn't enough spinning the ravenous fans can apply here to completely erase that fact.

[Niwes]

/yawn

that game became just a stupid cashcow for blizz. accept it.

put in the least possible effort and get the most money out of it. pack cheap shit into great art stuff, a big marketing campaign, and some "biggest team ever" bla bla and sell as much high priced xpacs as possible + 2-3 months of subs. that was it. thats wow. simple as that.