Has Blizzards development team become incompetent?

[Deleted]

I know that the whole “Blizz is ruining WoW” cliché has been repeated so many times it has literally become a meme at this point, but being a player that has played since Vanilla (which I know, is also a cliché thing to say) and looking at WoW’s evolution over the past few years, I have literally no doubt left in my mind that at some point, the people who initially created WoW either left, or got moved over to work on other projects, and the people who took over were simply less talented at the craft of making and preserving an MMO. For every “good” decision they made to propel the game forward, they made twice as many “bad” ones, and over the years these bad decisions have stacked up to the point where they have almost completely ruined everything that made it great.

Yes, WoW has mechanically become better and a lot more enjoyable. A lot of the crap from vanilla such as the overly horrendous grinds and clunkiness are gone. It is a lot more fun to play now from a mechanical perspective. Your rotations and abilities are more fun and engaging compared to the old days. It is the design-philosophy of the game as a whole which has become rotten to the core. Blizzard behaves like they have no idea how to properly run an MMO. Like Athene and Sodapoppin Have said, WoW has such unlimited potential, and somehow Blizzard does not know how to capitalize on it.

I can only imagine the rage the original developers of wow must feel, seeing the game they so masterfully crafted stripped down to the bare bones and made as casual as possible to appeal to the masses.

Just look at Warlords of Draenor, and observe what this game has become.

-You rot away in your fortress of solitude called a garrison. They have managed to turn WoW into an anti-social experience where nobody talks to each other. The queuing system has made any form of social interaction completely unnecessary; people hardly bother to chat because the game does not incentivize them to.

-The open world has zero challenge. Even without heirlooms you two-shot most mobs, and they are spaced so far apart now that even trying to die is a challenge unless you jump of a cliff. Leveling has never been more boring, monotonous and unengaging.

-Nothing outside of raiding matters in terms of progression. The only thing you can obtain in the outdoor world at max level are vanity items, gold and achievements.

-Dungeons became obsolete within months of the expansions release, they had to bring back Mythic dungeons and Valor points to keep them relevant, and even then, this only lasted for a short time.

-Gear feels worthless; the upgrade system makes people groan because they rolled bad secondary stats on certain items, and badly designed trinkets can do half of your DPS in raids. The new legendary rings has caused people to view the once prestigious orange color with disdain and disgust.

-PvP is a joke; Ashran is probably the worst thing Blizzard has ever designed for the PvP community. Even Vanilla Alterac Valley was a masterwork in comparison.

-Apexis crystals have become a running gag; they represent everything that is boring, irrelevant and stupid.

-Ability Pruning has become overly excessive: players literally have 10-12 ability's on there hot bars come legion, well blizzard will say most of these ability's where useless or not needed, but they they added flavour to the class you where playing.

-Gold is literally nothing but something you have in your bags alongside currency like honour points, its there to buy vanity items like mounts and transmog gear, it is no longer a vital currency in the game to repair your gear, buy potions and reagents, buy things like arrows for hunters or poisions for rogues, gold at this point is just completely irrelivent and it should never be this way.

It just seems like blizzard has stripped down the game to almost its bare bones and removed almost everything that made the game good in the first place, it has casualised the game to the point even the most common denominator can confortably solo all of the content to max level without dying once, without learning to play his or her class, and when they reach max level they realise there is nothing to do so they leave.

I get so sad when I see what this game has become. Vanilla and TBC may have had gaping flaws, but for me they will always represent the golden age of WoW, and I honestly don’t understand how Blizzard managed to fuck up something so wonderful.

I fully agree with this video and what this guy says, he says it like i would if i made a video about the subject of vanilla servers

[Noctifer616]

So no, I don’t want to unsub, at least not yet, but I get so sad when I see what this game has become.

Your post isn't going to change anything, and staying subscribed even less so. You want change? Quit paying them for a product you think sucks. Every time you give them money you say "thanks Blizzard for this great game I love and enjoy".

You are the problem here.

[Deleted]

I really believe that the team just got focus shifted.
Their increase in team size could just have been in the art department, so they have to make a lot of shiny stuff and the real development has to make plans that occupy all the artists. Which then leads to halfbaked features like the mission tables, because they can make some nice art and the few devs don't have to do much and can do more small things with a lot of art attached.

A real increase in man power for features seems unlikley since they don't even provide as much as with the smaller team.

[Deleted]

Your post isn't going to change anything, and staying subscribed even less so. You want change? Quit paying them for a product you think sucks. Every time you give them money you say "thanks Blizzard for this great game I love and enjoy".

You are the problem here.

Thats the thing though, i don't want to quit, because i love the game and cant stand the direction the game is heading and has been for some time now, i want them to do a complete uturn and go back to how it was, and it looks as though legion is more or less the same as wod, with diablo features added in in an effort to try and keep players playing, instead of actually coming up with original ideas on how to make the game how it used to be.

[Noctifer616]

Thats the thing though, i don't want to quit, because i love the game and cant stand the direction the game is heading and has been for some time now, i want them to do a complete uturn and go back to how it was, and it looks as though legion is more or less the same as wod, with diablo features added in in an effort to try and keep players playing, instead of actually coming up with original ideas on how to make the game how it used to be.

Like I said, the only way to vote is with your wallet. I can't say I agree with your post since the only thing I care about are raids, everything else is just not content I enjoy. As soon as I got tired from raiding I quit and I don't plan to come back till Legion. That's my way of saying I won't play till new content is out.

[tankbug]

Vanilla and TBC may have had gaping flaws, but for me they will always represent the golden age of WoW, and I honestly don’t understand how Blizzard managed to fuck up something so wonderful.

Well, you answered your own question. No, they are not incompetent, they just don't think the game was "perfect" back in it's original form, while you do. Your preferences are not aligned anymore. Nobody has fucked up anything.

[lolbubble]

Calling them incompetent would actually be a compliment at this point.

[Totemslap]

Thats the thing though, i don't want to quit, because i love the game and cant stand the direction the game is heading and has been for some time now, i want them to do a complete uturn and go back to how it was, and it looks as though legion is more or less the same as wod, with diablo features added in in an effort to try and keep players playing, instead of actually coming up with original ideas on how to make the game how it used to be.

In what fucking way is Legion comparable to WoD? Dungeons are relevant again, there's meaningful progression via artifacts, PvP talents, and reputations appearing to give rewards. In addition, 5 mans are finally relevant again, offer good gear, and can have their difficulty scaled according to the players doing the content. Blizzard has also said they intend to add new 5 mans via patches again in Legion. Never mind the fact that there's actually legitimate open world endgame of some sort, much of which requires a group. You're fucking delusional if you compare WoD and Legion. I'm not saying Legion will be a better expansion than WoD, but if it is a bad expansion, it will likely be for entirely different reasons. I reiterate: you're completely delusional.

And this is coming from someone who adamantly agrees that Blizzard's development team has become incompetent, lazy, and tremendously out of touch.

[Thrif]

Not incompetent, they are just making the same mistake Blizzard has been doing for a decade now - they fail to realize what made their games so wildly popular in the first place, and design away from it. They don't understand their own games, they don't understand their fanbase, they don't understand what people really want. If they hadn't been so humongously popular in the first place and is still riding that wave, their games really wouldn't gather much attention.

Your post isn't going to change anything, and staying subscribed even less so. You want change? Quit paying them for a product you think sucks. Every time you give them money you say "thanks Blizzard for this great game I love and enjoy".

You are the problem here.

Well said, and very true. Blizzard has shown a lot of times that they really only listen to one thing, and that is the revenue. If you want change, you gotta hit 'em where it hurt, even if it's miniscule.

[Deleted]

In what fucking way is Legion comparable to WoD? Dungeons are relevant again, there's meaningful progression via artifacts, PvP talents, and reputations appearing to give rewards. In addition, 5 mans are finally relevant again, offer good gear, and can have their difficulty scaled according to the players doing the content. Blizzard has also said they intend to add new 5 mans via patches again in Legion. Never mind the fact that there's actually legitimate open world endgame of some sort, much of which requires a group. You're fucking delusional if you compare WoD and Legion. I'm not saying Legion will be a better expansion than WoD, but if it is a bad expansion, it will likely be for entirely different reasons. I reiterate: you're completely delusional.

And this is coming from someone who adamantly agrees that Blizzard's development team has become incompetent, lazy, and tremendously out of touch.

Its wod 2.0, because I have played on legion servers since early alpha, i know from first hand what the game is and what it is going to be, sure dungeons will be relevant again, but for how long can a dungeon hold players attention, and keep players subbed and happy with the content? we still have the same old quest to max level see all of the zones, then do the same old garrison missions, but with players been inside the garrison, and same old content that will keep us playing for a few months and most of us will simply leave again.

I honestly think they have missed a treat with the garrison missions, they could of constantly gave players a veriety of things to do out in the world, but instead only offer 5-10 quests at a time, it should be a daily influx of 20-30 quests a day with different and random things to do in the world. like kill a certain number of players in that zone, or kill this rare mob in that area, but yet again they have half arsed it in an effort to save development time.

[Deleted]

People are still so focused on wow when they hate it, am i missing something or are you guys this addicted? Sure they fucked up this expansion but looking at legion they sure changed a lot of the things you just complained about. And yes i know they changed a lot because i play the alpha.

- - - Updated - - -

Its wod 2.0, because I have played on legion servers since early alpha, i know from first hand what the game is and what it is going to be, sure dungeons will be relevant again but we still have the same old quest to max level see all of the zones, then do the same old garrison missions, but with players been inside the garrison, and same old content that will keep us playing for a few months.

Clearly you haven't played on the alpha if you think the ''old garrison missions'' are going to be there, they haven't even implemented class campaigns for most classes so you don't know what you're talking about, there are also world quests that require you to be in groups, Professions are going to be relevant again and have a ton of quests. It also has a rank up system. I could literally list so many differences and added features.

I love how you claim to be in the alpha, but you see no difference between legion and wod, maybe you should take a break from the game because you are so stuck in the past.

[CaptainV]

The development team that made the origional world of warcraft has left long ago, very little if any members of it still remain.

The thing is, alot of the new staff are exactly that, new, fresh faces, they dont really know what they're doing and as a result they seem... for a lack of better words, incompitent.

[Deleted]

yes. A lot of the stuff they claimed to be impossible or very hard I have seen implemented on private servers

[zebreck]

I don't think they are, no. Literally everything I've seen from Legion has been pretty cool. That said, I've largely avoided the professionally offended rantocracy on youtube and twitch so that probably helped.

[Deleted]

yes. A lot of the stuff they claimed to be impossible or very hard I have seen implemented on private servers

That's because most of the time the people who offer private servers care about the game and do things to make it even better. Sad to see that Blizzard cannot to what some people do in their free time.

[Nevcairiel]

I honestly think they have missed a treat with the garrison missions, they could of constantly gave players a veriety of things to do out in the world, but instead only offer 5-10 quests at a time, it should be a daily influx of 20-30 quests a day with different and random things to do in the world. like kill a certain number of players in that zone, or kill this rare mob in that area, but yet again they have half arsed it in an effort to save development time.

For claiming to have played the alpha, you sure do not know anything about the end-game concept called World Quests that does *exactly* this, the world map gives you 20 quests easy to do various random tasks, from normal killing quests, to rare mobs (also elites that need a group) and raid world bosses, to PvP objectives. Not to mention that most of the simpler quests are not daily but change/respawn within hours instead. Rarer quests like world bosses are on a longer timer, of course.

[owbu]

I think they sometimes run into problems during the idea to game transcription process during development and based on that they have to cut corners so much, that the whole expansion feels subpar. I dont really see a big diffrence in quality between WoD and Cata. I had more fun in Cata, but thats because the game was centered around my playstyle more, not because its execution was more competent.

So far I havent heard about any major "well..we found out, that idea is total crap" moments in the legion beta. There is also no sudden disturbing silence. So Legion might just be as good as MoP was.
They havent said anything about the patchcycle for legion yet, right? Thats my biggest concern right now.

[Aleks0410]

not incompetent. There's just no passion behind the game anymore. They create "artificial content" so to speak, to either bring back subs or keep subs. They don't really care if the game is good or you enjoy it. They are so desperate to give players something to do to keep them logging in, to keep them subbed. Instead of giving people content that they will actually enjoy.

[Spiral Mage]

Basically someone else complaining about how the game has ALWAYS been, except because he sees a change of scenery, he somehow comes to believe these things are new .. I'm not sure why but that about sums up this post.

The Garrison is where you AFK now, before, you can pick an inn in a major city, or AFK out in any zone that looked pretty to you. Nothing in the world mattered before, and it doesn't now.

The open world has always been pretty much a dead zone to max level players.

Nothing outside of raiding has EVER mattered.

Dungeons have always become obsolete in this time frame.

PVP has always been a joke.

There isn't a single shred of logic in the comment about Apexis crystals, so nothing to respond to there.

Ability pruning has been almost a non issue except in the case of one or two specs, so OK?

Gold has always been pretty much useless until game time tokens. What's your point?



Same deals, different scenery. Nothing to see here.

[Deleted]

You can also say fans do not understand Blizzard, they dont understand their game but you don't because you probably assume they should please whatever fans desire. If I'm creator of my game, I would like many players to play it but that doesn't mean I would go so low that I must change everything because of their wishes.

I'd try to come to a compromise. Blizzard does that and that is why their games have mistakes. Like all others do.

Well if Blizzard really only want their game to be their "vision" they must come to accept that a lot of people don't like it. And if they put out a product their customers don't like they will go out of business.
But the customers don't want them to go out of business and tell them what to change to get more customers...