Would you appreciate an expansion with no raids?

[Deleted]

I don't see the logic. Sure it's nice if the raiders are happy, but the hypotethical question is: would I MYSELF mind if there weren't any raids in the next expansion? Personally I wouldn't. .

I think you would, because the plummeting in population/players might put the game at the risk of dying, and that would be bad for everyone, that is why i think it is so important.
Would that not be the case, i would agree with you, the dissapearance of a part of the game you do not take part in, would be inconsequential for you.

[kojinshugi]

SWTOR has been dying for the last few years.

SWTOR is doing fine. People are playing it, it's making money. Is it dying as a WoW clone MMO with a group-oriented endgame? Long dead.

[Deleted]

Play Guild Wars 2 - that's what you seek. I want my raids, that's why I play WoW.

Guild wars 2 now happens to have raids, it is quite a controversial topic for the players though.

[Pull My Finger]

I think you would, because the plummeting in population/players might put the game at the risk of dying, and that would be bad for everyone, that is why i think it is so important.

If you're talking about LFR as "raiding", perhaps ... but raiding, as in, mythic and stuff? Hell no. No way. That's comparatively niche.

[Halicia]

The only way I could see a no-raid expansion being pitched, is as a true filler expansion with an estimated lifespam of 6-12 months tops...

that *also* expanded the scaling tech to apply to almost all content, old quests, raids, dungeons, etc... and managed to work them into the gameplay a bit.

Of course, I don't see Blizzard doing anything remotely like this without adding *new* raid content.... but *shrugs*

[Leih]

High-quality instanced group content is one of the things that WoW does better than any other game. Taking it out would be removing one of the key things that WoW offers that other MMOs haven't been able to match. Even if you personally don't take part, the raiding scene in WoW is something that no other MMO has been able to match, even the more successful ones.

[Deleted]

If you're talking about LFR as "raiding", perhaps ... but raiding, as in, mythic and stuff? Hell no. No way. That's comparatively niche.

Nope i was not including LFR, and i do agree that Mythic is extremely niche, to the point that i think the removal of Mythic would not put the game in any danger, specially not now with the Mythic+ dungeon system in place, but i think the removal of normal/heroic/ mythic would be too much for the game to survive.

[Phlegethon]

Personally I'm a bit bored of doing the same stuff in every expansion: farming, new dungeons to get into new raids which are the core content of WoW.

I know Blizzard has a hard on for raids but thats not the sole purpose of MMOs. The game feels like everything else is an afterthought. PvP is secondary, leveling is secondary and hasn't evolved much (still too many kill X things quests); world quests are just rehashed quests, dungeons are relevant at least but for me its not very different from raids, its still PVE instanced content.

I wish they focused more on world content...but not world quests or dailies, I mean heavy investment in world content such as world events, things like invasions regularly happening, content that doesn't revolve around quest-style things, being able to conquer special territories and generate resources for your faction instead of just playing for your little hero character. Building open area castles...yeah its mostly day dreaming as their engine cannot handle that I guess.

I don't have anything against raids mind you, I'm just a bit bored of how stale the progression system of most MMOs has become

YOU don't need to progress throuhg raids.

There, I fixed that for you. Play this expac as if it has no raids and your problem (at least that one) is solved. For everything else, I urge you to seek councelling.

[Lime]

Would you enjoy a car with no engine? How about a pizza with no toppings?

Yes, I would.

[Drunter]

Sounds like cancer.

[aziras]

Funny thing is: WoW is the MMO-king because it did EVERYTHING just good enough that it set expectations for new MMOs to provide that content. Discussing not to keep up the pace seems a little strange as it would kill WoW.

That said, there are examples from other MMOs of content that could be adopted. Off the top of my head I miss these two elements:

Random world invasions (think: RIFT). Players actually used chat, maps, guilds, etc. to put a tab on "where is the action today?". Because they are random it adds some dynamics. It also allows for some whacky tunes because each boss could be a 1-man, 2-man, all the way up to a server-wide raid that could only be beaten with the combined might of the best guilds. Ideally some of them should have players give up and just wait for them to despawn.
WoW used to have these, Kazzak or the green dragons for example. However, they were not random (except for spawn timers). The tricky part is to find the way to make the rewards desirable, without making it mandatory to farm. This has always been the problem with WoW as content tend to be either irrelevant or mandatory, with very few exceptions.

Another element that could be borrowed is the keeps from WAR. World zones that could be held by a faction. You only get a reward for taking them. So it becomes boring to maintain them on servers with off balance (and it seems Blizzard finally fixed this part too). Rewards needs to be balanced, and that is likely to be the main challenge.

The game has a major issue to address before any real content discussions can be made. It is something that plagues all MMOs. The issue is around the balance between full-time-players and the weekend-warriors. If you make rewarding content for weekend-warriors it will get farmed silly by the full-timers. If it is tuned for the full-timers it is out of reach for the weekend-warriors. This even without taking player skill into account, there are just certain mechanics that sets apart the person that plays 15 hours/day from the one that plays 6 hours/week. Both pay their monthly subscription and both are important for the continued success of the game.

One example I can think of that sort of solved this is EVE-online. Two elements make up the balance:
1) Secure space: Allows the weekend-warriors to fly around, shop, mine, mission, etc. without getting hunted by players well out of their league. If they are feeling more risk-tolerant nothing stops them from going on an excursion into nulsec to get some pulse exercise.
2) Offline training. Progress is gated mainly by time. And calendar time that is. WoW has taken a huge step in this direction with the app and missions. But it still seems that is a little side-game and will never be the main progression path in the game. In EVE you can play 24/7 and earn a ton of ISK. But you cannot train yourself to fly a ship significantly faster than the guy who plays a few nights a week. Yes, ISK can speed up some things, but assuming the guy playing every now and then can earn the ISK to pay for skill-books then they progress at the same speed.

Of course it all boils down to what Blizzard believe their playerbase is required to be. If they need both the hardcore players and the casuals they need to crack the magic formula for satisfying both player types. The current setup is great for casuals the first 2 months of an expansion, then becomes mostly for raiders/PvPers, and the cycle repeats at next expansion.
Most raiders hate levelling and consider it a chose that must be endured before the are at max level and "prepared" for raiding. Most casuals enjoy the playing experience through the new zones and get bored when all there is left to do is rep grinds and enduring LFD and LFR nonsense with their "undergeared" characters.

[ceall]

An expansion without raiding will be 2 years without my sub.

[Deleted]

the raiding scene in WoW is something that no other MMO has been able to match, even the more successful ones.

Yep this is very true, but the problem is that nowadays WOW raiding scene is also unable to match the pre-WOD raiding scene, that is why they are trying to consolidate 5-man raiding in legion.

[Eurhetemec]

It is an MMO, as in its majority of content requires grouped play, not just rando's all with the same target.

I remember the olden days of MMOs, when that was essentially what raids were...

Hell, Molten Core wasn't a million miles from that...

Yep this is very true, but the problem is that nowadays WOW raiding scene is also unable to match the pre-WOD raiding scene, that is why they are trying to consolidate 5-man raiding in legion.

I'm not sure Blizzard are even the cause of the problems with raiding, though. I mean, everyone obviously wants to blame them, and everyone has their own theory on what caused the problems, but personally I think an awful lot of it simply has to do with WoW's aging player-base, and the changing gaming habits of gamers of all ages.

I mean, it's not 2006 or 2008, back when WoW was a new, special game with no real competitors, and where Steam Libraries for most people were single-digits to low dozens (as opposed to hundreds+), and even back then WoW had problems with no having enough people reach Naxx/Sunwell.

[EternalBany]

I would yes.
Legion is the closest experience to Warcraft IV we got thus far, cept its online.
I think it could be successful, guilds and team work but nothing as big as raids, raiders are not their main chunk of subs

[Dominus89]

I wouldn't mind an expansion with no raids, but then they'd have to fill it with lots of different things to do.
A big problem with no raids though is that would we fight any big baddies and if so, would we just do it in a 5man group? That wouldn't make much sense, ponder if we'd run in and kill Archimonde with just 5 people.

Would you enjoy a car with no engine? How about a pizza with no toppings? Raid's have and will always be an integral part of WoW's structure for PVE content. Stop doing those and you might as well just shut down the servers, hell the lack of raids in WOD damn near killed the game. It is an MMO, as in its majority of content requires grouped play, not just rando's all with the same target.

The lack of raids wasnt the problem in WoD.
Lack of things in general to do was.

[Queen of Hamsters]

No. Only reason for me staying with WoD, was the raiding. Without raiding and something more to strive for, I'll be bored of the game very quickly.

[Pull My Finger]

Nope i was not including LFR, and i do agree that Mythic is extremely niche, to the point that i think the removal of Mythic would not put the game in any danger, specially not now with the Mythic+ dungeon system in place, but i think the removal of normal/heroic/ mythic would be too much for the game to survive.

We can't know for sure. But the thing is: people say raiding is the engine of the game. No it's not. Diversity is the lifeblood of the game. Who knows if it would really "kill the game" if they did an expansion without raids. I doubt it. But what do I know. I think the game would live on without them, but a part of the playerbase would break away.

Why would they want to do that? Having a diversified experience has worked well for them. Why would they purposefully lose out on a fraction of paying customers? Neglecting the non-raiding playerbase didn't kill the game. But it hurt it considerably post-Cata. They adjusted and it worked out well for them. I think neglecting raiding would be similar. It wouldn't kill the game, but it would hurt it to some degree, subs-wise. In the long run, I'm pretty sure the game can sustain itself the best if they can keep the biggest number of different players with different interests around.

[Deleted]

No, raiding is the only thing WoW still has that's better than most MMO's without it there's no reason to play it instead of something else.

[Aeula]

Oh hell yes. If they cut raids they can focus on stuff that's actually fun to do. Maybe questing wouldn't have been so agonising this expansion if not for raids.

Hell maybe I'd have something to do other than log on once a day for my world quests and dungeon.