Watcher confirms that raiders are a "minority"

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

Raiding is garbage. Always has been. Always will be. It's so important in WoW because Blizzard can do just about anything and have money thrown at them by gamers.

I've had some good times raiding. Sorry if you haven't.

- - - Updated - - -

"PvP is garbage. Always has been. Always will be. It's so important in WoW because Blizzard can do just about anything and have money thrown at them by gamers. "

"Pet battles are garbage. Always has been. Always will be. It's so important in WoW because Blizzard can do just about anything and have money thrown at them by gamers. "

"5 mans are garbage. Always has been. Always will be. It's so important in WoW because Blizzard can do just about anything and have money thrown at them by gamers.

Yeah, WoW was given to Blizzard by god with 12 million subs already and a bunch of robots paying the sub. Has nothing to do with how it build up and it was the right thing for many people at the right time. Blizzard released Classic and TBC with all the content there was ...and raids and people said: "Oh look, raids. We don't like them, but we pay anyhow. I mean...we also dislike everything else, but lets just keep paying for something we hate. Not like there are other games. d
What the hell?

Agreed. Blizz must have done something right, somewhere along the line, or we wouldn't all be here in a forum to discuss it.

[Deleted]

So lets go back to 1 raiding difficulty and natural Tier progression (you start at the first and work your way up).

All the extra resources can go directly into world content.

[Angel of Justice]

Hi. What you think of my post means as much to me as raiding does to gaming. Thanks.

So it means alot? Ok. /s
I only play WoW for raiding and the people I met doing so,without it it would be empty for me,but apparently its garbage according to our lord and saviour @Axelhander and I will sleep better when I finally quit WoW.
Don't know whats more funny,your "opinion" that you spew as fact,or the fact that you actually believe the shit you write.

[Benomatic]

When the small minority of raiders in guild over rule the large majority of casuals and socials, you know things are going to hit the fan. Happens in many guilds.

[Vestig3]

Or ive totaly missed it or im blind but how has rym not shown himself yet? But ontopic, why make thread about something we have known for years just because a dev confirmed it? It will still not stop them from focusing on raiding

[Angel of Justice]

Or ive totaly missed it or im blind but how has rym not shown himself yet?

Probably busy yelling at Asmongold on twitter or something

[Angel of Justice]

For gods sake, it is not that they devote development into this feature that is played by minority. Raiding had same focus just like in any other expansion. Problem is that everything else lacked.

Situation A: Raiding is good, world content is good.
Situation B: Raiding is good (JUTS AS BEFORE), world content lacks stuff.

Know the difference.

Yup,but they don't want to see the difference,or are ignoring it for the sake of their anti-raiding agenda,nothing new on mmo-c

[CaptainV]

Its not that people are angry at raiding, its that people feel raiding is being used to fill the gap by using artifical difficulty buffers to increase the scale and scope so that 'everyone' can raid, but its blatantly clear that Ian now admits, raiding isnt really appealing to most players and im not surprised.

Because only a minority even cares for a group larger than 5 players to actually do content with (if they're your friends) unless they're random nobodies you can dispose of tommorow.

The issue is really that raiding was relevent when TBC made it relevent, and Wrath made it accessable, but Cataclysm onwards it just became a generic thing.

Much like how Arena's replaced BG's and people were fond of the grand scope of warzones fighting for the alliance/horde over a small 5 man v 5 man group, raiding did the same thing, and created the same artifical problem, people just dont want to raid, because they ironically preffered doing dungeons.

More importantly, quantity will always trump quality, which means to say, a shit raid is overlapped by having 2-3 decent ones at launch if 1 sucks, thats no biggie.

The same goes for dungeons, the same goes for battlegrounds, the same goes for world content, more is better than more diffiuclty curves with less content.

[Awbee]

I wouldn't ever suggest to remove raiding. Even though I don't participate in it (well, exceptionally rarely in casual guild runs etc), it's been a part of the game since Vanilla and I feel like it offers some sort of "framework". Most of the patches revolve around a new raid, and with a new raid there usually comes new gear, maybe a new area, new lore / story, and so on.

I think the right consequence to draw from this, and what Blizzard have thankfully done more and more in the past, is to realize how important non-raiding content is and offer a ton of it. Which means a new raiding patch shouldn't just feature a new raid, but ideally also 1-2 new areas with quests, maybe dailies and reps, and most importantly, new dungeons. This last point has been neglected in WoD and MoP, which I think wasn't great. The Dragonsoul dungeons were one of the most redeeming features of Cata, and the ICC dungeons were also amazing. This is how you keep the people busy and content, and not just the few raiders.

[HumbleDuck]

Yet so much was devoted to raiding.

I don't see the "so much devoted to raiding" part is WoD.
2 raid tiers, both with mediocre art design. They were good mechanics wise, but I see that as improvement rather than devotion to raid design.
WoD by no means was more suited to raiders than previous expansions.
Let's not blame lack of effort in other aspects of the game on one mediocre aspect of it and move on.

[Kryos]

Since 2005 Blizzard wants people to raid since they think (and they are right) that raiding is where WoW shines and is fun in a group of people you like (and yes it's boring in LFR and not fun in a group full of jerks).

This statement about the topic of raiding/raid design and popularity is the best and most open one Blizzard ever made - it's from 2005 Blizzcon:


11 years later it's still the same. A minority actually raids and Blizzard still thinks it's the best part of the game. I personally also feel that way. Without raids, I would have quit playing WoW about 9 years ago.

[Jtbrig7390]

-snipp--

So you ignore my points and ur argument is (Not in raid chat).

Well guess what you are in a raid group,fighting a raid boss,inside a raid. So I think my 3 is bigger then your 1. Also no one talks in RAID CHAT when they are in a instance thats queable. Just like PVP BG's you are raiding in a BG because your group size is bigger then 5. But when you type it says Battleground.

But hey say whatever makes you feel good pumkin just remember I am right and you are wrong.

[Feuerbart]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...5664?page=4#75

Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas confirms in the above post that only "A minority of players raid" and "A tiny minority touch Mythic raiding". We have at last got confirmation that raiding isn't an activity done by the majority of the players, but only by the minority, just like PvP, pet battles, alt leveling, etc.

Now that we've established a benchmark for the size of the total raiding participation, how can anyone really justify the disproportionate amount of development resources devoted to this minority activity? "But so many people raid through LFR" is no longer a valid argument as Watcher has confirmed just how few players actually do raid. Why is a disproportionate amount of development resources going into this minority activity and not more fairly distributed to other minority activities (like PvP balance, more pets, etc.) or activities completed by the majority (e.g. quests and dungeons)? It is very clear, especially after WoD, that these areas were very starved of development resources, and even just a slight increase in development resources would have improved these areas substantially. Yet so much was devoted to raiding.

In my opinion, it makes no sense to continue raiding development on the scale that it currently is at for such a minority group, especially after what happened with an expansion that was mostly about raiding. Please redistribute development resources to other areas more equally.

Well done you. Taking things that far out of perspective is a feat.

He said everything in wow besides leveling is done by a minority. So we take all of that out? Of course not.
But you saw one tiny bit of information that tingled your antiraid nerves and jumped on it. Again well done you.

Learn to look at the bigger picture instead of looking at your little isle in it.

[evilcast]

I am going to go out on a limb here. This guy name rym will. When it comes to trying to do the most retarded thing in the game he usually finds a way to fill his whole pie hole with it. Then hash tag it with LFR and no one will give zero shits no matter how many times he posts about it.

I lol'd hard and dropped my phone at this

[Grimbold of Skullcrusher]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...5664?page=4#75

Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas confirms in the above post that only "A minority of players raid" and "A tiny minority touch Mythic raiding". We have at last got confirmation that raiding isn't an activity done by the majority of the players, but only by the minority, just like PvP, pet battles, alt leveling, etc.

Now that we've established a benchmark for the size of the total raiding participation, how can anyone really justify the disproportionate amount of development resources devoted to this minority activity? "But so many people raid through LFR" is no longer a valid argument as Watcher has confirmed just how few players actually do raid. Why is a disproportionate amount of development resources going into this minority activity and not more fairly distributed to other minority activities (like PvP balance, more pets, etc.) or activities completed by the majority (e.g. quests and dungeons)? It is very clear, especially after WoD, that these areas were very starved of development resources, and even just a slight increase in development resources would have improved these areas substantially. Yet so much was devoted to raiding.

In my opinion, it makes no sense to continue raiding development on the scale that it currently is at for such a minority group, especially after what happened with an expansion that was mostly about raiding. Please redistribute development resources to other areas more equally.

WoD mostly about raiding... 2 Tiers - compared to at least 3 tiers previous expansions? Legit argument sir.

You are taking only the things you want from his post - "Minority of people a re raiding", why do you blatantly ignore the rest?

Should they cut down other parts of the game he mentioned, because only minority of players is doing them?
Why do you even want raiding removed from the game? I - for example - am raider who killed every boss on every difficulty in WoD and I in my opinion - there was not enough content for that long expansion - yet it never crossed my mind that developers should scrap some other area of the game for sake of raiding. So, what is your problem with raiding? Is it just that you do not raid, so you do not care and thus raiding should be removed?

[Barnabas]

Because if you cater to the true "majority" the only thing Blizzard would focus on each patch is improving the virtual chatroom functions, making it easier to spam analthunderfury links and having the game mail you rewards automatically every couple of months. It's a minority that actually actively take part in all the content regardless of what is there, lots of people are really casual players.

Besides, that quote is taken way out of context. Ion's point is that, individually, you can say that any form of content caters to a minority because people tend to do one thing and not everything. If there is 100 people and 5 of them try everything, 25 of them raid hardcore, 25 of them pvp hardcore, 20 of them farm AH all day and 25 of them are casual RPers, then you can safely say that raiding, pvp, AH farming, and RP are all minority activities because none of those have a majority of the customers...

Trade chat trolls need content too you know.

[Bigby]

I remember LotRO's dev team tried to use the argument "only 11% of people actually raid!" as their justification for no longer making raid content.

Low and behold, even as a F2P game, their profits and their playerbase pretty much nosedived after they stopped producing said raid content.

[Spray]

Then what does the majority do? Quit the game?

There is no majority, simply put.

A minority only raids, a minority only pvps, a minority only levels alts, etc, etc. Some of those groups obviously intertwine, but there is no single activity in the game that EVERYONE or 90% does, except leveling to max. But even leveling can be done in a plethora of different ways, by questing, by dungeoning, by battlegrounding - hell, I know a guy who leveled his alt just by gathering professions.

What Watcher says is true - in a such a diverse game as WoW there is no place for arguments like "no-one does this" or "everyone likes that". So what they can do is focusing on each of those activities in the same time and Legion kinda does that - revamping professions, early leveling, new pvp system, new dungeon system, etc, etc. There will be something for everyone.

And about raids being focused on - keep in mind that making a raid instance means making a content for many different groups of people - mythic raiders, normal raiders, LFR runners, achievement hunters and, in the future, transmog seekers. Those can be 5 totally different groups of people, some people will belong to two or more groups simultaneously, but for some people the only reason to go into the raid are those precious achievements - so you are still designing content for them to see and explore.

[Pua]

I ended up in a couple of Twitter arguments over this. You know the usual; one side says “Ion’s a dick who doesn’t get it”, the other side saying “Ion slays the trolls – I love that guy”.

The reality is somewhere in the middle.

From a design perspective (and it’s important that this is remembered), what he’s saying is that no activities, other than dungeons and quests, are participated in by a majority of the players. Sure, sure; technically, that might mean 49% - but I think that’s a disingenuous way to continue the debate. What everyone should take from his post is the following points:

- Every activity in the game is played by a minority of players.
- Not every reward is designed to be for every player.
- Not every change is designed for every activity or group.
- All of these individual minorities, make up the World of Warcraft community.

He’s saying that the game needs to cater for a diverse playerbase, rewards should be shared out amongst it, and if you don’t like a change you should consider whether or not it’s aimed at you. I have only a passing interest in pet battles or PvP and am a former raider, but accept that a lot of players love those aspects of the game and that certain things will change on their behalf. Suggesting that they shouldn’t, in order to provide you a better experience, is the personification of entitlement.

There are some arguments that are worthwhile, of course, and their nuance is often lost.

1) If design time is going to that activity, it’s not going to mine – why not?

A fair point. If all activities, or at least those with comparable participation, aren’t seeing similar attention, it’s right to ask why that is.

2) If quests and dungeons are the majority activity, why have they been so badly serviced at endgame?

Another fair point, but the evidence suggests that Legion is trying to sort this out. Ten dungeons and world quests, both with replayability and longevity systems designed for them, is a huge step in the right direction.

3) Does this design intent mesh with reality?

This is the crux of the debate for me. One particular line stood out.

If we decided to focus on a specific playstyle and elevate that portion of audience above the rest, then we could certainly visibly and consistently address clear feedback from that group, but WoW would become a far smaller game in the process.

The erudite will have noticed that this is exactly what’s happened. There’s an obvious correlation between the number of raid instances and bosses increasing, and the volume of all other content decreasing. Clear feedback from a certain group (organised raiders) promoted the creation of a perfectly-tuned Mythic mode for them, but “WoW [has] become a far smaller game in the process”.

To the tune of over half its playerbase. Those who remain are hopelessly divided.

On the first page of this thread, it was pointed out that designers make the game they want and not the one their players want. Nowhere is that more evident than in World of Warcraft since Cataclysm’s conclusion. They’ve built a raiding game, with everything else relegated to second place, and built mode after mode in order to increase the minority that does it.

The result is that most players have simply walked off, because nobody likes to be treated as an afterthought. There is evidence that this has been noticed for Legion, and that the raid-centric design principles have been checked, but we’ll need to see the entire expansion before we can make a solid conclusion about that.

For the sake of the game, I hope they’re going to sort out the gross imbalance between raids, and everything else.

[Luckx]

Playing wow since TBC, and im playing WOW for PVP,World pvp,Questing,Professions,Archeology, but i dont like raiding. Last time i did raid was ICC during WOTLK. During MOP/CATA i havent tryed LFR even once. Only did few LFRs during start of WOD just to test how does LFR works