Does exclusivity make a better game? Gating content

[Andromedes]

There should always be multiple paths to the same content and rewards. Different people have different skill sets and interests, and WoW has evolved into a game where these need to be acknowledged.

Now, it may not be the same amount of time or the same timeframe, but the content should be available to all. Cutting edge progression raiders may get their firt, but there absolutely needs to be a path for others to get there in other fashions as well.

Off topic, cool avatar mate, i am watching bob ross right now He is everything what Jesus should be.

[Jtbrig7390]

It was so casual only a few % ever completed naxx 40 or even tried it.

Casual doesn't equal complete rate.

Its clear you never played Everquest.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Give people a carrot to chase and they'll invest time into playing the game, being part of the community and making the game more alive.
Give people carrots left and right and they'll be full of carrots and wont invest into playing the game, being part of the community or making the game more alive.

You see this in effect from the end of WotLK/early Cata when the game was at its peak and then as more and more content was made readily available (LFR, LFG) players started to take breaks whenever they "completed" whatever there was to do in a patch.
A good example of this was how low the Sub numbers dropped at the end of MoP and how insanely much it climbed for Warlords launch and then how it's dropped again now. Come Legion and it'll jump up to 10+ million again for a couple months and then people will quit, Legion may keep people around for longer because of Artifact Power and Legendary collecting and so on.

Legion in general offers A LOT of content outside raids for people to do and a lot of it is gated with time and "skill" / gear. For the hardcore and dedicated (like mythic raiders) this will seem like a chore because we'll be "forced" to rush this until we're done with it but for the "casuals" it's going to give them things to do for months and months.
There's a lot of things I dislike about Legion but if I was ever going to go "casual" this is the expansion that looks like the best so far.

[Eleccybubb]

You mean since mid Lich King?

Go play EQ1 and then say Vanilla wow catered to the hardcores. Because it sure as shit didn't. Everquest takes grind to a whole new level and makes Korean MMOs look like casual games.

[Flurryfang]

I think an aspekt of gating is, that there is something, which pushes you be better at the game and involve yourself a bit more/using more hours on the game, to see the more exiting content. In TBC, having mount hyjal and BT blocked behind a lot of gating, made me become more hardcore in my playstyle. I knew, that if i wanted to see this content, i had to become better at what i did.

Right now, with gear being the only reward for being a better player, the reward is not high enough in my opinion. Having content be a reward for being good at the game is great, and while some might cry out, that it locks away some content for people, who simply don't have the time or ability to get better, then i would just say, that there is then an encitiment for these people to value their life a little bit better.

All in all, Gating is very good. It made TBC a great raid expansion and i personally miss it quite alot. It also made old raids/dungeons current content for some people, which made it so that people were consuming a wider range of content then right now.

[Sencha]

And yet blizzard has the number 1 subbed MMO and most profit MMO in the world ever.....

Clearly they don't know what they are doing and clearly casuals can just walk into Mythic Raiding and steam roll it.

Sometimes I wonder if people like you think before you speak.

They could have twice more subs if they do the right choices.

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They listened to the "Hardcore" players in WoD and removed sets from LFR. Didn't work out to well. WoW has always been a casual game since vanilla when compared to its counterparts such as EQ.

Wow they remove sets from LFR, what a hardcore decision!!!

[Thage]

In moderation, exclusivity is a carrot on a stick to progress upwards and a reward for the most skilled players. That's why you rarely see anyone seriously complaining about Mythic mounts and Gladiator mounts. The problem is when things are arbitrarily time-locked within an expansion and large chunks of the expansion's storyline are axed for no reason other than to essentially bribe players into staying subscribed. A player who levels in Pandaria and goes to Draenor will have no idea why Garrosh is suddenly such a big deal in Nagrand, as the legendary questline in MoP was removed. A player who levels in Draenor and goes to the Broken Isles is going to be greeted by an important questgiver (Cordana Felsong) suddenly working with Gul'dan, and there is no explanation offered because the legendary questline (which was essential for tying the story in WoD and Legion together) was removed rather than simply removing the legendary reward itself.

There's also a balancing act on return on investment. That was the biggest issue with raid design as the devs themselves mentioned it, which is what necessitated LFR's creation. Even with the group finder, and the rewards nerfed into the floor, LFR in WoD remained 25-30% more popular than Normal in all three raids because of the vast difference between a guaranteed entry if you wait long enough, and being subject to community lockout (this gets worse the longer a tier wears on, as well). If there aren't enough people actually doing the content the devs spend so much time and manpower on, to say nothing of the resources used up designing the maps and programming the boss encounters, the devs have to find a way to justify that budget (by opening up the environments and encounters to a wider audience) or reallocate the budget into things with a better return on investment, like open-world content and dungeons.

Buying/selling carries is hardly a problem, either. Either someone invested the time or money to get the gold to buy a carry, or they knew a guy who got them in (in which case, the reward is for actively being social). And if the sellers are good enough to take down the content with one or more people essentially there to tank the floor, I don't see the issue in letting them reap the benefit from that skill level by using it to pad their guild's coffers in preparation for the next tier or the next expansion. It's a win/win for everyone involved except for players who invest an unhealthy amount of time into worrying about what other players deserve when those players will almost certainly never encounter one another, and thus neither will affect the other's gameplay in any meaningful way.

[Deleted]

No, literally since it was even conceived. WoW has always been the most casual of MMOs. As an old EQ player, we took the piss out of WoW players for a reason

TBC was very hardcore for us "normal people"
I mean Black Temple was released and no one in the world was able to complete the previous raid tier.
Can you imagine that nowadays?

[Eleccybubb]

TBC was very hardcore for us "normal people"
I mean Black Temple was released and no one in the world was able to complete the previous raid tier.
Can you imagine that nowadays?

And? It doesn't change the fact WoW was still a game for casuals ever since 2004. Again you clearly haven't played EQ which actually was hardcore. WoW has always been an MMO for a casual playerbase. The lower man raids such as ZG/Ruins in Vanilla were made for the intent of casuals who could get half decent gear but nowehere on par of the 40 man gear/tier sets. Same with Kara and Zul'aman in TBC which were 10 mans which allowed players to get into raiding a bit easier.

[Rafoel]

Locking content behind a skil check barrier or time sink. Does it make the game more immersive for you?

Is "the journey" and "epic quest for rare unique rewards" healthy for the quality of the game?
or
You want the majority of content open to the masses?

Possible controversial issues:
-Easy Epics
-Buying Mythic runs with gold for mounts
-LFR
-A big % of people will not be able to see all the content
-Snowflakes VS Wrath babies

Just so you know, i am a proud snowflake who thinks exclusivity is key for immersion.

What the fuck is "skill check barrier"? That you need to use mouse and keyboard simultaneusly? That you have to have your monitor plugged in?

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They listened to the "Hardcore" players in WoD and removed sets from LFR. Didn't work out to well. WoW has always been a casual game since vanilla when compared to its counterparts such as EQ.

What do you mean by "didn't work out too well"? It was a very good change. One of the two things, with introduction of normal/flex mode, that revived pugs.

Also, if WoW was always a casual game, casuals should have been happy about it. No reason to change anything, ever.

[Deleted]

What the fuck is "skill check barrier"? That you need to use mouse and keyboard simultaneusly? That you have to have your monitor plugged in?

You know...a skill check.
You can only see the end boss of X raid if you have the skill to complete the raid and previous raid tier. A skill check.

[Echo of Soul]

For me exclusivity is a great motivator. Ever since raids started having more and more difficulties I don't feel the same drive to do the most difficult content since it's basically the same as the easiest content. If you've seen the last boss in LFR you've seen him, he won't look any different at mythic.

[Tommi]

You mean since mid Lich King?

WoW was ALWAYS the casual MMO, right from the start. That's what drew people who didn't want to farm all day every day for 20 hours to keep up with others to it from other grindy as fuck MMOs, it was casual.

WoW is the definitive 'My First MMO'

[Blur4stuff]

I'm willing to bet most of the players who like this idea are ones that assume they'll get to see the exclusive content. If you could guarantee that they would never get to experience it, most would change their opinion.

So who exactly is exclusive content making the game better for? Almost no one.

[Krimzin]

I'm willing to bet most of the players who like this idea are ones that assume they'll get to see the exclusive content. If you could guarantee that they would never get to experience it, most would change their opinion.

So who exactly is exclusive content making the game better for? Almost no one.

I think you are taking the exclusivity a bit to far. Personally, I would like to see attunements in place that makes you work to unlock some content.

[Deleted]

I think you are taking the exclusivity a bit to far. Personally, I would like to see attunements in place that makes you work to unlock some content.

Behold...the Burning Crusade Attunement chart for raids so oldschool



Seriously, who can say TBC was casual? You guys are insane. Or this game called EQ was something completely stupid.
Campared to today's standards TBC was pretty hardcore.
Some circles in this chart took weeks. This is content for Months.

[Kallisto]

The problem is that a normal person doesn't want to clear LFR > Normal > Heroic > Mythic
I don't even know who in their right mind would do such a thing...oh right. Only 5% of the population

"No one" wants to clear the same content multiple times on multiple difficulties for multiple months. Only the crazy ones.

I said to myself the past week "ok, i'm bored, i want to see the last boss of the game in LFR"
I entered, killed the first boss, proceeded to lose my soul and i gave up on life itself and /leave raid group.

It's just not the same thing anymore. Everything is open. There is no quest.

I really don't get this. Do you believe people pick up a game (any game with difficulty levels) win on super easy no brain mode and say "Whelp done.". Honestly? No normal people don't do that. Normal people work up the difficulty levels to test themselves. Take Civilization, no one stays at chieftain. They may the first time round on it but I guarantee you the vast majority will work their way up at least to halfway through the difficulty levels with some hitting Deity.

[Lochton]

I think some things should be gated to a certain extent. I don't believe everyone should have access to everything without working for it.

[Deleted]

Casual doesn't equal complete rate.

Its clear you never played Everquest.

Forgot we are talking about EQ and not WoW here. Tho , I do agree EQ is a more difficult game than WoW.

[Demithio]

Of course giving players something to strive for is healthy for the game. Easy mode game play (convenience) and being handed everything is what makes players lose interest after they "win" at the game. Blizzard probably aren't as stupid as some would like to believe. They must have known this would happen if they started developing in this direction. It is somewhat puzzling though as to why they would want such an unstable sub base instead of a far more stable base like they had during the 'carrot on a stick' days. Did they think they would fare better with a rinse / repeat cycle of releasing a new expansion and having players join and then drop after they "won"? Perhaps.