Ghostcrawler: "don't try to be all things to all players"

[styil]

https://twitter.com/OccupyGStreet/st...03361291833344

I agree and I think that this is one of the major problems with WoW today. In an effort to please new and casual players, they have watered down the game for the rest of the playerbase. Veteran players end up disappointed, and new players end up with a watered down experience that isn't enjoyable and don't stick around for.

1. Multiple difficulty raids - too many raid difficulties in an attempt to attract everyone into raiding has made the experience less enjoyable for many raiders.

2. "Infinite" difficulty dungeons - will be a much worse version to today's multiple raid difficulty problem. Instead of providing fine and tightly tuned encounters, everything will just receive indefinite HP and damage buffs, watering down the experience to increase participation.

3. "Railroad" questing - almost all of the questing is still on heavy railroads, removing the sense of adventure and exploration for the sake of convenience for the masses.

4. Homogenised professions - every profession levels up almost exactly the same and has been heavily streamlined to provide much more accessibility.

5. Ability pruning - many rotations are shells of their former selves in an attempt to make the game easier and more accessible for everyone.

And so on. Do you think that Blizzard has ended up pleasing nobody in their quest of trying to please everyone? Or have they managed to successfully cater to everybody?

[Super Kami Dende]

The issue with MMO's is they (used to) draw in large crowds. Large crowds will always enjoy vastly different things but some things may overlap.

For example 2 different players, both enjoy PvE but 1 enjoys Pet Battles and 1 does not. INSTANTLY you have 2 players that enjoy a core part of the game but have 1 player who will complain that they hate Pet Battles because they don't like it and don't see it as content vs the other player that enjoys Pet Battles and wants more of it as content.

This happens a lot in WoW, the issue is morons that play this game automatically think that because they don't like something that nobody likes it. I often post on this forum the statement "Content you don't like is still content" whenever someone moans about having nothing to do and people give them a bunch of things to do and they respond with "nah that is shit, it's not content I want REAL content".

What isn't content to 1 person is enjoyable content to another. MMO's like WoW which cater to large audiences need to give the large audience many different playstyle options. Other MMO's don't do this and they focus on one very specific thing and the people that enjoy it stick around but the people that don't quickly leave.

WoW being an 11 year old game has brought with it many issues, such as with every expansion people expect something New or Flashy which has to be thought up and designed, if it isn't the new or flashy they want; they complain. If Blizzard just expands on current ideas; they complain.

You will always hear people complain simply because there are a LOT of entitled players out there that expect Blizzard to only cater directly to what they want in the game and throw tantrums when they don't get it. I've noticed as time has gone on this has started happening more and more.

Literally the worst thing about WoW is it's playerbase these days. way too many toxic pathetic entitled brats.

[atredies]

As a player only interested in Mythic raiding, I don't care if Blizzard nerf everything into the ground for casual plebs , I don't care if they add more LFR difficulties or even easier dungeons, none of it matters to me, I don't even care if they add more useless junk like selfie cameras or battle pets.

AS LONG AS they keep making mythic difficulty raids, if these ever get cut for any reason I'm outta here.

Let people play they way they want to play, simple as that.

[Pull My Finger]

I think you're misreading and misrepresenting what he said because you're trying to prove a point of your own.

1. Multiple difficulty raids - too many raid difficulties in an attempt to attract everyone into raiding has made the experience less enjoyable for many raiders.

Yeah. That wasn't what he meant. You're just twisting it to substantiate the special snowflake crap. Raiders have nothing to complain about. If too many raid difficulties made the experience less enjoyable for anyone, then it was mostly for non-raiders, because the game is trying to shoehorn them into something they're not really interested in, instead of giving them content they really enjoy.

2. "Infinite" difficulty dungeons - will be a much worse version to today's multiple raid difficulty problem. Instead of providing fine and tightly tuned encounters, everything will just receive indefinite HP and damage buffs, watering down the experience to increase participation.

What does that have anything to do with the whole "pleasing everyone" theme? Mythic+ is a typical example of a niche thing that most definitely won't attract everyone.

3. "Railroad" questing - almost all of the questing is still on heavy railroads, removing the sense of adventure and exploration for the sake of convenience for the masses.

Again, what does that have anything to do with it ... your point doesn't hold any value of all, it's just cheap polemics. You're just trying to put your own spin on something someone who matters™ said. Removing the sense of adventure - you don't say? So that's fact now? You sure everyone feels that way? Convenience for the masses - blah! Can we do without the corny canned phrases? Oh, the masses. Well no, we're making games for the odd one out, we don't want too many people to like this shit. Right?

Exploration? I don't know what game you seem to have been playing in the last few years. MoP and WoD both clearly displayed an effort to encourage straying off the "railroad", walking around and discovering stuff. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the zones of those two expansions contain more stuff to find and explore than anything in Vanilla/TBC. Get real please!

4. Homogenised professions - every profession levels up almost exactly the same and has been heavily streamlined to provide much more accessibility.

Again blah and polemics, with no substantial argument whatsoever. You can stand there and talk about "streamlining" and "accessibility" and "masses" all day. It's just cheap talk because you don't have anything to substantiate it with. Professions have certainly suffered, but without having to wear an Underdog Edition® tinfoil hat - it was more likely because of a lack of concept and direction and not because someone's trying to "streamline" something for some kind of "masses", that you, apparently, aren't a part of. In any case, Legion shows a genuine attempt to remedy that.

5. Ability pruning - many rotations are shells of their former selves in an attempt to make the game easier and more accessible for everyone.

Again just putting this whole spin on everything you can think of. Ability pruning is there to improve gameplay, there's no conspiracy. And if "accessible" means that something's being made better, more likeable to more people - what's so terribly wrong about it?

To be frank, this whole "accessibility, catering to the masses" thing is lame as hell. It's childish and can't be taken seriously. You sound like a kid who doesn't want the other kids in the street to play with the same toys.

[Soeroah]

I don't think what you're saying is what he's saying.

"Don't try to be all things to all players".

He's saying, for example, not to try to make Pet Battling relevant to everyone, or Mythic relevant to everyone, not to try to shoe-horn people into types of content they aren't interested in.

That's entirely separate from allowing casual players to experience a nerfed, easy version of raiding. Now, trying to make those players get into higher-level raiding? That would be what he's talking about.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Ghost crawler and co are slowly killing league of legends for me. His opinion means fuck all to me and I wish he would retire.

Veterans wanted the ability pruning more than any other demographic because mist game play was button mashing. That expansion's where most spec hit 5 buttons was all bout dat button mashin. Yup... no depth/s

[Sanct]

Yeah. That wasn't what he meant. You're just twisting it to substantiate the special snowflake crap. Raiders have nothing to complain about. If too many raid difficulties made the experience less enjoyable for anyone, then it was mostly for non-raiders, because the game is trying to shoehorn them into something they're not really interested in, instead of giving them content they really enjoy.

The Mythic>Heroic>Normal>LFR thing, with the Legendary questline intertwined, is a drag when you're late to the party and want to raid at the highest difficulty. Doing anything meaningful in that context with an alt is also a pain.

My non-raider friend, that first tried to raid during SoO, got burnt out before he finished his legendary cape. After killing Garrosh for weeks in LFR/Flex, he had no desire to get the cape, spend time on the progression track, and find a solid group of people to raid with, just to do the same boss.

[Jtbrig7390]

The Mythic>Heroic>Normal>LFR thing, with the Legendary questline intertwined, is a drag when you're late to the party and want to raid at the highest difficulty. Doing anything meaningful in that context with an alt is also a pain.

My non-raider friend, that first tried to raid during SoO, got burnt out before he finished his legendary cape. After killing Garrosh for weeks in LFR/Flex, he had no desire to get the cape, spend time on the progression track, and find a solid group of people to raid with, just to do the same boss.

Then don't do LFR.....

Nothing is a requirement.

[Alydael]

As a player only interested in Mythic raiding, I don't care if Blizzard nerf everything into the ground for casual plebs , I don't care if they add more LFR difficulties or even easier dungeons, none of it matters to me, I don't even care if they add more useless junk like selfie cameras or battle pets.

AS LONG AS they keep making mythic difficulty raids, if these ever get cut for any reason I'm outta here.

Let people play they way they want to play, simple as that.

I agree. I never understood why people cared what other people are doing in the game. Also, different difficulties are relatively easy to make, it is just a number tuning process. I would agree that professions are mostly streamlined to the point where there is not much difference between them (from the OP), I would say the same about the classes- although they claim that is changing in Legion (but we will see, I have my doubts).

- - - Updated - - -

The Mythic>Heroic>Normal>LFR thing, with the Legendary questline intertwined, is a drag when you're late to the party and want to raid at the highest difficulty. Doing anything meaningful in that context with an alt is also a pain.

My non-raider friend, that first tried to raid during SoO, got burnt out before he finished his legendary cape. After killing Garrosh for weeks in LFR/Flex, he had no desire to get the cape, spend time on the progression track, and find a solid group of people to raid with, just to do the same boss.

Well, he did start late. Even so, if he hadn't been playing, then got burnt out before he even got to the progression point- was he really "in it?"

[Koloss]

https://twitter.com/OccupyGStreet/st...03361291833344
2. "Infinite" difficulty dungeons - will be a much worse version to today's multiple raid difficulty problem. Instead of providing fine and tightly tuned encounters, everything will just receive indefinite HP and damage buffs, watering down the experience to increase participation.

I played GW2 for some time and actually this was the best part of it. Fractals or whatever it was called there is huge fun and i ended up playing for half days. If it will be just half as good fun i'm into it. Balance can be achieved there as well, also every player will be able to reach the same levels if there is a level that only best players can reach, well that's kinda the top level, but it's still theoretically possible for every player.

[Deleted]

Veterans wanted the ability pruning more than any other demographic because mist game play was button mashing. That expansion's where most spec hit 5 buttons was all bout dat button mashin. Yup... no depth/s

I am a veteran and I oppose pruning, especially having so many spec-exclusive skills / spells and almost no utility / flavour ones. This is killing the RPG aspect. You need to have a bunch of situational and flavour skills if you want to have an RPG. Else, you will get a dungeon crawling hack & slay game like Diablo.

Button mashing has nothing to do with the number of abilities, but with the gameplay design. Whack-a-mole can be played with 3 or 10 buttons.

[SoulSoBreezy]

*narrative*

I agree with some of the other posts here. A specific narrative is trying to be driven using a very high-level statement, which isn't even correctly aligned.
Readers of GC's posts should have realized by now that there's some insight to be gained, but it's mostly about game design and a look back on his work on wow. Honestly. This's some well dressed exaggeration.

1. Multiple difficulty raids - too many raid difficulties in an attempt to attract everyone into raiding has made the experience less enjoyable for many raiders.

Extremely inaccurate to the statement. If anything, tying something compelling and accessible like a legendary quest makes more sense in the correct context.

2. "Infinite" difficulty dungeons - will be a much worse version to today's multiple raid difficulty problem. Instead of providing fine and tightly tuned encounters, everything will just receive indefinite HP and damage buffs, watering down the experience to increase participation.

This makes no sense at all. It's the expansion of a staple feature of wow, but it's not trying to drive like, pvpers into doing mythic+ dungeons to get gear.

3. "Railroad" questing - almost all of the questing is still on heavy railroads, removing the sense of adventure and exploration for the sake of convenience for the masses.

Not only is this incorrect, but it has nothing to do with the tweet.

4. Homogenised professions - every profession levels up almost exactly the same and has been heavily streamlined to provide much more accessibility.

Wait. What expansion are you talking about? If it's WoD, you're just drumming up old, old topics that have been beaten to death. If it's Legion, you ought to look at a few videos or articles.

5. Ability pruning - many rotations are shells of their former selves in an attempt to make the game easier and more accessible for everyone.

I can't even respond to this well. I've gotta say, you're overreaching. This's probably the last time I respond to these kind of OPs you make. They kind of suck, and they don't do much to produce useful conversation. You used a "safe" critique of theme park MMOs and turned it into five topics that are already talked about elsewhere.

[OreoLover]

MMO: To be massive, target the massive central themes/interests

I think Blizzard has done a great job, and made mistakes too.

[AmboWambo]

I think they should scrap lfr as an difficulty level, just make it into a tool to queue for normal mode raids with normal mode loot. They should also start making ilvl increases more linear and reduce the amount of loot that drops from raids, maybe it would stop to make the previous tier completely obsolete when a new tier is being released when some items are still solid choices.

[Sanct]

Then don't do LFR.....

Nothing is a requirement.

That wasn't really an option at the time. Close to zero pugs of t14/15 content meant LFR was your primary source of gear and legendary quest items. Flex came after he managed to obtain a decent item level. The cape was mandatory for most guild applications on our server. What other option did he have?

Well, he did start late. Even so, if he hadn't been playing, then got burnt out before he even got to the progression point- was he really "in it?"

It took him around 14 weeks to hit the final stage of the legendary quest, probably 20+ Garrosh kills on LFR and Flex. By then the allure of higher difficulty raiding had worn off for him.

[Alydael]

That wasn't really an option at the time. Close to zero pugs of t14/15 content meant LFR was your primary source of gear and legendary quest items. Flex came after he managed to obtain a decent item level. The cape was mandatory for most guild applications on our server. What other option did he have?



It took him around 14 weeks to hit the final stage of the legendary quest, probably 20+ Garrosh kills on LFR and Flex. By then the allure of higher difficulty raiding had worn off for him.

If you consider that an x-pac lasts 2 years (over 100 weeks) and he only played 14 weeks, that isn't a lot of time invested.

[Deleted]

In an effort to please new and casual players, they have watered down the game for the rest of the playerbase.

I don't think that's the cause. Casual and new players does not equal to dumb players.

What they did was water down experience for lowest common denominator and players who wanted single player game. The kind of player that either wants to play alone (in MMO) or nobody wants to play with. Another issue is streamlining of everything, removing depth and immersion from game.

WoW was so successful because developers found perfect middle between easy and hard - easy enough that players could play whenever they wanted, hard enough that social interaction was encouraged (but not required). Also because game had depth and was immersive. That was attractive to new and casual players.

[Koloss]

That wasn't really an option at the time. Close to zero pugs of t14/15 content meant LFR was your primary source of gear and legendary quest items. Flex came after he managed to obtain a decent item level. The cape was mandatory for most guild applications on our server. What other option did he have?

Man, i was full casual whole WoD and i never ever touched LFR. Saying that there were close to zero pugs of t14/t15 meant that you didn't even open Group Finder. Spoiler: There were loads of pugs. If someone really wanted to get a better raid experience not some faceroll in LFR it was more than possible. And you can leave these raids whenever you want except it's Mythic, so don't come with the "i don't have time for real raiding" excuse.

[ComputerNerd]

WoW is not trying to be all things to all players, but SOME things to most players.
No game can be that, nor is trying to be.
Most of the complaints directed towards wow are because it is not all things to some players.
People complaining that they are not the sole audience, when there is anything for someone who isn't them.

That is why people who don't need LFR demand its removal, instead of you know - just not doing it.
Even recently a demand for removal of transmogrification.
If there is something they don't want, nobody should have it.

[deniter]

I play MMOs because they tend to be time consuming and have lots of things going on and lots of things to do for me to progress through.

I'm not playing MMOs because they have a huge selection of activities i can choose the ones i like and enjoy and ignore the rest. These games are about all of it, or none of it.

If i like some small mobile game, i won't buy a bundle of 100s of apps only to get the one i like. I pay only for that specific one, or invest on a bigger and more expensive game.