Legion: Blizzard's most successful expansion to date

[Cracked]

You know there are websites around the keep track of how many "active" players WoW has, and it's gone down by around 50%. People are sick of Blizzards bullshit, they can never give you a straight answer and always mislead the player base. WoW/Blizzard deserves all the shit they get due to the fact that it's there own damn fault.

Less activity doesn't mean less subs. I mean I play way less than I did a month ago, but I have no reason to unsub.

[Jtbrig7390]

Usually its more deterministic though. Grind is fine when you can work towards what you want. Ceaseless grind with the end determined by dice roll is unappealing. Ironically when you do finally get what youre aftee it isnt excitemebt its just relief. Precisely the feeling the devs were tryng to avoid.

There is so much truth to this. I enjoy WoW but what kept me playing even pass my burnout was the chance at a legendary. I got my legendary last monday and as of two days ago I uninstalled WoW.

Now I am not saying that I quit it for good, but I am taking a much needed break for it. May return around 7.2 depending on what content is added. I loved the idea of legion but so far the delivery has been lackluster.

There is no set goals to achieve really, Just shitty ways to keep people playing.

I have
1) Cleared NM EN Twice
2) LFR EN a few times.
3) Got Legendary.
4) Got Ilvl 860+ (862)
5) Exalted dam near every legion rep.
6) Done tons of Mythics.
7) Done a few Mythic +'s.
8) Leveled to 110
9) Got my Ret Paladin his hidden weapon skin. (Is one major cause to my burnout) fucken 30 hours of camping and fishing.

While the list seems long I personally can't say I really enjoyed all of it. The first time in EN in both LFR/NM was fun and each dungeon was fun. But what kept me coming back over and over was the shot at a legendary. I got a half decent one and like you said I felt relief that I got it, not enjoyment.

I wasn't shocked or awed when I got it, It didn't give me any enjoyment really. The one major hook that kept me logging in over and over is gone and I am glade. Playing other games and enjoying myself doing so.

Personally I think I have played WoW for far to long (Since TBC) and I felt that Legion no matter how bad or good was it for me. Ill see what 7.2 has but I really don't see me resubbing at this time.

Sitting on 10 WoW tokens and enough gold for another 3 or 4 and I just don't care to log in anymore. Between the shit RNG and blizzards poor ass choices I just can't give a dam anymore. The Ret Paladin hidden skin did me in and getting the legendary finished it. Before I got it, it got to the point where I logged in did my daily chest and logged off. Doing my mythics if reset and LFR EN.

Like I said between the poor choices and the shit RNG I just can't be asked anymore.

/End Speech.

Edit: Legion feels like Classic Diablo 3 and I wanted Reaper of Souls D3.

[MasterOfNone]

can't prove it now due to them not releasing sub numbers. however, even if 10 million were the number, it still wouldnt be the most successful so there is that. opinions are opinions dude. thats exactly what your op is.

[melodramocracy]

OP you do make good points. For me personally, the slim chance of titanforged / legendary etc aren't going to be enough to hold my interest on their own, when it gets to a point that the content itself no longer feels entertaining.

I'm not there yet, but I do see my overall focus on the game slowing down, despite having a fairly underwhelming "completion" record so far (865 ilvl, 3/7 H EN, +6 mythic)

[satimy]

Oh it definetly is, that's why activision makes money. They take great profitable games like wow, rape them and make them even more profitable.

Ask yourself the question is a game with 10 million subs better than a game with 4 million subs if they make the same money

[DesoPL]

You know there are websites around the keep track of how many "active" players WoW has, and it's gone down by around 50%. People are sick of Blizzards bullshit, they can never give you a straight answer and always mislead the player base. WoW/Blizzard deserves all the shit they get due to the fact that it's there own damn fault.

I can't blame you, somehow i am as well at some points dissapointed. But on second hand, is not worse yet like in Warframe is.

[Kaleredar]

That's untrue actually. Blizzard's policy on wow has always been to cut the grind to a minimum amount. Legion is the grindiest expansion to date.

Really? Compared to gearing up a raid in resistance gear in Vanilla? Compared to boosting characters through every requisite tier of raids in Vanilla in BC? Compared to grinding attunements for dungeons and then heroic dungeons and then raids for TBC? Compared to the general daily grind from TBC to WotLK? Compared to the daily quest grinds that people complained so fervently about in MoP? Compared to the rote "kill 50,000 whatevers" rep grinds in WoD?


There's always a grind in WoW. It just changes its form every now and then.

The most important factor is is that people are tired of doing it after 11 years. If I told you you'd have to go back to farming mats for months to grind up resistance gear to even have a shot at a boss, would you go "Oh yippee! I remember that so fondly from Vanilla! I can't wait to do that again!" Or that you'd go "whoa, I get to do the same 15 daily quests every day for five months to grind exalted with this faction just like in BC!? Sign me up!"

No, of course not. It's grind fatigue. maybe the grind isn't the same each time, but it wears you down regardless.

That's absolutely not the case unless maybe you are referring to the gold making niche.
They made certain that grinds were not endless in the first place by for instance the id system and weekly power growth was quite strictly limited per character and had a reasonably reachable ceiling.

The loot drops of Vanilla were antithetical to this point. It dropped in such fleeting amounts that many characters never "geared up" properly until their way through the next tier.

Maybe you also see a slight difference for instance between say valor caps and the current legendary system in terms of grind potential.

You also outgrew content on a regular basis which isn't the case anymore so claiming it's always been the same way is let's be nice and call it silly.

We're only two tiers into this expansion. And if you want to be technical, you outgrow each difficulty... normal dungeons to heroics to mythics to heroic raids to mythic raids, roughly.

Usually its more deterministic though. Grind is fine when you can work towards what you want. Ceaseless grind with the end determined by dice roll is unappealing. Ironically when you do finally get what youre aftee it isnt excitemebt its just relief. Precisely the feeling the devs were tryng to avoid.

That was always the case with the highest-end gear. Token/VP gear (the only gear you could guarantee receiving) was never BiS. It was always up to a roll of the dice on the highest difficulty drop.

[cFortyfive]

There's always a grind in WoW.

Nobody is denying that. Your denial though over the scale of it changing is quite pathetic at best.
Again - nothing before comes even close to the legendary grind, ap grind and gear grind thanks to tf. Where previously existed id barriers, valor caps, legendary quests with foreseeable length there is only rng and unlimited mythic + grind. Every bit of even low content still provides you with ap and chances at legendaries and upgrades.

[HumbleDuck]

Yea, no, it doesn't work like that.
Each expansion brought something new to the table, and I don't mean content wise, but new systems.
If the progression of wow expansion was like what you said, BC would have been the last subscription based expansion of wow.

[Kaleredar]

Nobody is denying that. Your denial though over the scale of it changing is quite pathetic at best.
Again - nothing before comes even close to the legendary grind, ap grind and gear grind thanks to tf. Where previously existed id barriers, valor caps, legendary quests with foreseeable length there is only rng and unlimited mythic + grind. Every bit of even low content still provides you with ap and chances at legendaries and upgrades.

Most people would never realistically reach a point with being absolutely "done" with the gear grind until the end-of-expansion lull in previous expansions either. So either you're thinking waaaaay farther ahead than necessary or you've some underlying personal problem with not being guaranteed BiS within a few months.

[cFortyfive]

Most people would never realistically reach a point with being absolutely "done" with the gear grind until the end-of-expansion lull in previous expansions either.

Even more denial. Well can't really help that. It's probably less of a grind in firelands to get bis than getting bis now on four slots but well again - there is not more grind involved

[TheFirstOnes]

I found MoP and WotlK to be the best, legion does not exceed these so far. TBC was amazing with hard 5mans right from the start. I felt every pack in f.ex shadowlabs was as hard as Moroes is now in karazhan

The thing I love about Legion is
- World Quest. It makes the world feel alive, finally people are stepping out of the city/garrison
- Mythic + and fun 5mans
- legendaries. Now it sucks, but later on when we have all its ok

Legion pvp is what turns this expansion into shit. PvP is so bad, it's not even an option. Maybe if you wanna ragequit the game its good

I love pvp, and it's my opinion. Sorry. :/

- - - Updated - - -

You have got to give credit where credit is due. From a financial standpoint, I have no doubt that Legion will be Blizzard's most successful expansion to date. The expansion has been cleverly crafted from the ground up to maximise the time players stay subscribed:

1. Titanforged - will keep players doing world quests and other content every day until the end of expansion. Everyone loves a free shot at the lottery, even if it's only a 0.0001% chance at winning. And even if you 'win', there's always a new lottery the next day.

2. Legendaries - because there are so many legendaries for each spec, it'll take months for most of the population to get 2, let alone the 2 they need. And the legendary upgrade next patch will keep people (particularly the lucky ones) on the treadmill. It will keep people going for months and months, as the next legendary could be just around the corner.

3. TIme gate after time gate - whether it be for relic slots, order advancements, suramar, artifact knowledge, class quests or anything in between, you can be rest assured that there will be several time gates waiting for you no matter what stage you're at. More time gates = longer subscriptions.

4. RNG - forget Titanforged, you need to actually get the item first. Gear can come in basically any permutation you can think of. Loot tables are bigger than they've ever been. The loot has been designed to maximise your chances at getting loot you don't need. The longer it takes to get gear you need, the longer you will stay subscribed.

5. Scaling of everything - whether it be world quest rewards, mythic+ dungeons, artifact traits, the idea behind these is that you can never truly finish the 'content'. They will always just keep scaling. There will always be another level of grind in Legion. As such, people will keep subscribed in a futile attempt to finish content that has no end.

All of the above will no doubt, in my opinion, contribute to Legion being Blizzard's biggest success story. They have ticked all the boxes, and done everything they possibly can to artificially extend the time players remain subscribed regardless of whether or not they are enjoying the game. However as for the long term health of the game, where can Blizzard really go after this? +100 Super Titanforged? Mega Legendaries? Item level 2000? It feels like this is WoW's last hurrah as we know it. All of these changes are great for short term shock value, but are detrimental to the long term health of the game. There's only so much of this psychological roller coaster people can take.

The focus needs to return to maximising the enjoyment of the content itself, not maximising the time it takes to obtain the rewards to artificially extend the life of subscriptions. Legion has proven that people will jump over hoops regardless of the quality of the content, but this model is not sustainable in the long term. I don't see people returning for another expansion of +50 Titanforged grinding and research waiting.

1. Troll title

2. "Here's my bullshit opinion that i'm going to post, everyone should love/reply to it cause i'm a special snowflake" -__-

3. Get triggered mate! Jesus, who knew that a game would trigger you this hard. Ahahaha


Ya want true difficulty and glory? Go play dark souls. I heard that the game required LOTS of time and emotion into it.

[Kaleredar]

Even more denial. Well can't really help that. It's probably less of a grind in firelands to get bis than getting bis now on four slots but well again - there is not more grind involved

Firelands wasn't an end-of-expansion raid.

And it's weird you mention firelands; that raid had some very sketchy gear distribution. Three agility 1 handers and only one strength one hander that could only drop from trash? That's whack, yo.

[cFortyfive]

Firelands wasn't an end-of-expansion raid.

Pretty sure you were claiming people weren't ever done outside of end of expansion raids. That said I really don't see the point in this even people on the top of the ap leaderboards haven't completed the grind for gear yet and probably have already spend more time playing than others in mythic clearing guilds over addons.
Your shadowresistance gear, wod reputations and what not are just sad jokes not even mentioning how little there was to gain in terms of character power.

[Kaleredar]

Pretty sure you were claiming people weren't ever done outside of end of expansion raids. That said I really don't see the point in this even people on the top of the ap leaderboards haven't completed the grind for gear yet and probably have already spend more time playing than others in mythic clearing guilds over addons.
Your shadowresistance gear, wod reputations and what not are just sad jokes not even mentioning how little there was to gain in terms of character power.

Well seeing as resist gear was kinda necessary to progress in many raids... that was requisite to even attempt to get the scant few pieces of gear off of bosses.

And then you seem to not recall the necessity of going back and grinding people through previous raid tiers to gear other people up to gear YOURSELF up.


Again I find it pretty hollow to be complaining that you don't have every piece of BiS when a new raid tier drop and the expansion has only been out for a few months

[Doffen]

Loving Legion. Suramar is so great. Doing Court of Stars, The Arcway + Maw of souls(wich theme is so cool) on my main and my alt each week would be enough to keep me subbed. But there is so much more goodies. And Nighthold, I am so thrilled about that raid. The theme and the looks of it.

Everyone complaining about RNG. The loot has always bern rng. Before weapons and trinkets were the big thing to get. RNG. Now its trinkets and legendaries. Seems people forget how RNG it was before Legion when you didnt get that 10% dps increase weapon, or when you got it. Same RNG!! Its the same thing as ever.

People complaining just to complain. Like always. Just like the RNG, it follows us in every expansion

[Gyrotex]

You have got to give credit where credit is due. From a financial standpoint, I have no doubt that Legion will be Blizzard's most successful expansion to date. The expansion has been cleverly crafted from the ground up to maximise the time players stay subscribed:

1. Titanforged - will keep players doing world quests and other content every day until the end of expansion. Everyone loves a free shot at the lottery, even if it's only a 0.0001% chance at winning. And even if you 'win', there's always a new lottery the next day.

2. Legendaries - because there are so many legendaries for each spec, it'll take months for most of the population to get 2, let alone the 2 they need. And the legendary upgrade next patch will keep people (particularly the lucky ones) on the treadmill. It will keep people going for months and months, as the next legendary could be just around the corner.

3. TIme gate after time gate - whether it be for relic slots, order advancements, suramar, artifact knowledge, class quests or anything in between, you can be rest assured that there will be several time gates waiting for you no matter what stage you're at. More time gates = longer subscriptions.

4. RNG - forget Titanforged, you need to actually get the item first. Gear can come in basically any permutation you can think of. Loot tables are bigger than they've ever been. The loot has been designed to maximise your chances at getting loot you don't need. The longer it takes to get gear you need, the longer you will stay subscribed.

5. Scaling of everything - whether it be world quest rewards, mythic+ dungeons, artifact traits, the idea behind these is that you can never truly finish the 'content'. They will always just keep scaling. There will always be another level of grind in Legion. As such, people will keep subscribed in a futile attempt to finish content that has no end.

All of the above will no doubt, in my opinion, contribute to Legion being Blizzard's biggest success story. They have ticked all the boxes, and done everything they possibly can to artificially extend the time players remain subscribed regardless of whether or not they are enjoying the game. However as for the long term health of the game, where can Blizzard really go after this? +100 Super Titanforged? Mega Legendaries? Item level 2000? It feels like this is WoW's last hurrah as we know it. All of these changes are great for short term shock value, but are detrimental to the long term health of the game. There's only so much of this psychological roller coaster people can take.

The focus needs to return to maximising the enjoyment of the content itself, not maximising the time it takes to obtain the rewards to artificially extend the life of subscriptions. Legion has proven that people will jump over hoops regardless of the quality of the content, but this model is not sustainable in the long term. I don't see people returning for another expansion of +50 Titanforged grinding and research waiting.

I think people who are disagreeing with you now are triggered by the word "successful" - because it can be treated very loosely.

What determines success? Number of players? Overall volume of sales? Player engagement? Which sub-group of players exactly then? You get what I'm trying to say here, hopefully.

On topic - yes, I agree that Legion is the best expansion to date, in my personal casual altoholic player opinion of course.

One major positive that you've missed in your summary, imho, is the boosted social aspect of gearing and "carries". The fact that players help each other kill mobs, with shared tagging, pass around loot that they don't need, are incentivised to "carry" and be carried through Mythic+ are all very positive additions to the game that Warlords almost killed.

[cFortyfive]

Well seeing as resist gear was kinda necessary to progress in many raids... that was requisite to even attempt to get the scant few pieces of gear off of bosses.
And then you seem to not recall the necessity of going back and grinding people through previous raid tiers to gear other people up to gear YOURSELF up.
Again I find it pretty hollow to be complaining that you don't have every piece of BiS when a new raid tier drop and the expansion has only been out for a few months

Sure insinuating I stated anything close ti the latter makes your lacking argument a whole lot more convincing .
And I didn't forget anything don't worry I had attended those raids during progression. Not sure where you get the impression from that resistance gear was at any point some incredibly significant grind. You could even just buy all the boe items from not as ambitious guilds. Not even mentioning how long those times are gone.

And then you seem to not recall the necessity of going back and grinding people through previous raid tiers to gear other people up to gear YOURSELF up.

So and today you just progress with people without gear ?
I have no idea what kind of argument that's supposed to be you always need geared people to gear yourself not sure how that helps your argument especially if it's once again content limited by ids and was pretty quick to do in comparison to now.
Also when was the last time that actually happened. Didn't set one foot into aq anymore once most of naxx was done. Might have been doing some bwl during aq it's too long ago. Can't remember occasions where I went back to tk while already being in bt to gear anyone.

Same RNG

I suppose you consider flipping a coin the same rng as a scratch card as well.

[Doffen]

I suppose you consider flipping a coin the same rng as a scratch card as well.

If waiting for the imba weapon upgrade for 6 months is the same as flipping a coin, then yes. RNG is RNG, legendaries now is the same as weapons were before. Or close to it at least. Wich was my point. Dont know what yours was

[Asaliah]

My only concerns yet are the difficulty to reroll and the non-transferable AP/AK to your other specs' artefact.