No, it's hardcoreisation (is that a word? It is now) that's killing this game.
Catering to hardcores in pre-4.3 Cataclysm by overtuning everything and reducing non-raid content to ball-busting heroics and about ten dailies nearly killed the game.
So did stripping out everything but the raiding and sticking in murderbars to fill for outdoor stuff in WoD, as well as continuing Mists' design of having worthless dungeons.
It became clear that it wasn’t realistic to try to get the audience back to being more hardcore, as it had been in the past. -- Tom Chilton
Yep, I think half the time my posts are invisible just because they're 2-3 paragraphs. Maybe for the better, but hard to make compelling discussion in one liners. I'm not from twitter generation sadly.
Personally I know I'm playing wow more than average player, I wouldn't ask Blizzard to completely alienate playerbase who plays less than me because it's probably 90% of them. Not smart marketing move.
If you have some "cyclical" playerbase that only plays few weeks here and there, they still provide you some revenue. While pushing them away from the game completely because they aren't "putting enough effort to deserve anything" or "they shouldn't play an mmo in the first place" is just a financial shoot in the foot for a company.
This is nonsense. Casuals did not ask for gear to be handed out and for the shift to instant gratification in general. Entitled and shitty players did. Casual does not equal bad. It simply means they can't play as often. I am a casual and I hate LFR/LFG, removal of attunements, lack of tiered progression, overly homogenized classes, and extreme focus on capped content. When getting an upgrade in a 5-man dungeon was cause for joy and not something we simply vendored or sharded.
Shitty players and catering to morons who refuse to learn or get better at the game should draw your ire. Casuals are fine.
Stains on the carpet and stains on the memory
Songs about happiness murmured in dreams
When we both of us knew how the end always is...
I still think terribles are trying to take the casual banner in order to rally more people to their cause. I refuse to let them poison the word. Casuals need to stand up and say that we wont be grouped with these entitled baddies. We want old school Warcraft back just as much as you do.
Stains on the carpet and stains on the memory
Songs about happiness murmured in dreams
When we both of us knew how the end always is...
Stains on the carpet and stains on the memory
Songs about happiness murmured in dreams
When we both of us knew how the end always is...
No, making your game accessible to the masses is never going to cause a massive sub bleed. You might alienate or annoy the hardcore minority, but this group isn't large enough to impact your sub turnover that significantly.
True despite how much some people wish it weren't.
Scorpid and CoW could've done something like the damage dealt debuff akin to Thunderclap and/or other abilities if they had wanted. I miss Sentry along with Water Breathing (which isn't as big an issue now that everyone has like 500% longer breath duration underwater), Cleansing Totem (or the DK Tears Totem of OPness), arms warrior Overpower (which is being re-added as a talent in Legion last I checked).
Pruning is fine if done in small bits and pieces, but some specs (such as arms warrior) got gutted far too hard in WoD. Just my $.02.
What would an expansion look like that catered to the casuals you describe? I think it would look a lot like WoD. Other time consuming activities would be pared away to let these time-challenged players into raids.
But that didn't work, because most players are in fact bad, not casual in that sense. These players couldn't handle even normal mode raids, and they had nothing to fill their play time.
Please continue to emphasize the difference since Blizzard apparently didn't get it. Be warned that if they do get it the game will likely turn to focus on these bads to an extent not yet seen.
Last edited by Osmeric; 2016-05-17 at 12:23 AM.
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
1) Well basically, I cant expect every expansion to stay relevant forever. But at least the current one, instead of patches. The problem is those "Better loot for similar skill levels" is only accessible because they got the gear by skipping over the original relevant content.
2) Nope. It's both new to the players, therefore relevant. Because they should need it to progress.
Content drought is a combination of catchup mechanics and no new content.