IS Legion killing the wow playerbase?

[Kezotar]

RNG is fine.
Legion RNG is not fine.
Random item.
Random stats.
Random Item Level.
Random Warforged/Titanforged.

That sucks. Legion as an expansion was fine. The item loot reward was poor.


How to fix Legion for me and probably a lot more out there.
Remove Warforged/Titanforged
If you're keeping random stats, add Reforge.

Legendaries? They shouldn't be there. However, if you should balance legendaries up to 90-95% to each other, at that point you should limit it to one per player and reward players a legendary at their choice after a major quest chain. You can still have them dropping, however the rest would be at random. And since they're going to be 95% close to each other, any choice you take is a preferance.

In addition. Change legendaries for different playstyles. Rather than having them all become "MORE DPS".

[TITAN308]

Only the top 5 people in the world should care about their performance? Also, I said that there's certain things that make you FEEL forced to do them. With no limit on AP and Mythic+, that's how a lot of people feel.

How people feel != what is real.

Also, to be blunt, people who play like shit really shouldn't be the driving engine behind tuning or adjustments. Cause news flash, shit player is shit player.

Most of the people bitching about performance stand a lot more to gain by learning to play their class better, learn mechanics for bosses better, or in general fine tune all of their gear as a whole.

A shit player getting a BiS legendary is like sprinkling gold flakes on a turd. Its still a turd.

Can't count how many Ret Paladins I've seen complain about performance, you look at their stats and they have like 44% mastery and zero crit/haste/versa

Blizzard tried to solve this by getting rid of the old talent trees, but somehow players still find a way to fuck up.

[KrazyK923]

Yes

10char

[Trapped]

Most of the people bitching about performance stand a lot more to gain by learning to play their class better, learn mechanics for bosses better, or in general fine tune all of their gear as a whole.

A shit player getting a BiS legendary is like sprinkling gold flakes on a turd. Its still a turd.

I agree with this, but again, if that's how people *feel*, then how they feel is their reality, and Blizzard should account for that. If you're logging on and doing fun stuff but in the back of your mind, you're going...

I need to be farming AP...
I need to be farming AP...
I need to be farming AP...

Then that will cause burnout, and that will cause people to leave the game, which is the whole point of this thread.

[TITAN308]

I agree with this, but again, if that's how people *feel*, then how they feel is their reality, and Blizzard should account for that. If you're logging on and doing fun stuff but in the back of your mind, you're going...

I need to be farming AP...
I need to be farming AP...
I need to be farming AP...

Then that will cause burnout, and that will cause people to leave the game, which is the whole point of this thread.

And I counter with its impossible for Blizzard to program their game to account for players who are irrational.

WoW is already, dare I say, the most casual and/or shit player (don't misconstru that as both being one and the same) friendly MMO on the market. Possibly to even ever exist outside of children's games like Animal Jam. lmao

[Deleted]

then how they feel is their reality

then they should start to question their feelings.

If they aren't able to handle the basics correctly and if they aren't in the position for competitive gaming, there is no reason for such feelings.

You skill as craftman is much more important than the correct tools.

[Kokolums]

I agree with this, but again, if that's how people *feel*, then how they feel is their reality, and Blizzard should account for that. If you're logging on and doing fun stuff but in the back of your mind, you're going...

I need to be farming AP...
I need to be farming AP...
I need to be farming AP...

Then that will cause burnout, and that will cause people to leave the game, which is the whole point of this thread.

To be fair, its not JUST that. In the back of your mind, you're also thinking.

"They are going to eliminate the benefits of all my massive AP farming when the next xpac comes out in a couple of years. Maybe I should just skip the entire expansion and see if the next one is less grindy."

[Sio]

How people feel != what is real.


Most of the people bitching about performance stand a lot more to gain by learning to play their class better, learn mechanics for bosses better, or in general fine tune all of their gear as a whole.

In the past I would take that argument more seriously or indeed as an absolute truth given my own experience but this is the pure RNG expansion, the crazy class inbalance expansion and the go farm AP like crazy expansion where to be viable in 2-3 specs, I spend as much time as I would leveling 2 more alts. But hey, I'm playing less so I guess less stress on the servers, more profit for blizz.

You can be the best you can be mechanics wise but if your class or spec is in bad shape... good luck compared to a spec/person that is squared away/flavor the month/bis legendary geared. I dropped cat like a hot potato after about 3 raids for boomkin given the dps increase and other factors (john freakin madden spec returns) and then found out that well, if I get my two BIS legendaries, I'm somewhat competitive.

[Trapped]

To be fair, its not JUST that. In the back of your mind, you're also thinking.

"They are going to eliminate the benefits of all my massive AP farming when the next xpac comes out in a couple of years. Maybe I should just skip the entire expansion and see if the next one is less grindy."

Correct. All the grinding would be worth it if was for something you'd permanently acquire for your character, such as a mount, achievement or whatever else. Such a grind that only lasts for an expansion is a bad grind (imo).

For the record, I started playing online games when I first started Runescape (lol), so I'm well aware of how grinds work.

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And I counter with its impossible for Blizzard to program their game to account for players who are irrational.

WoW is already, dare I say, the most casual and/or shit player (don't misconstru that as both being one and the same) friendly MMO on the market. Possibly to even ever exist outside of children's games like Animal Jam. lmao

Hey now, my 8-year old son loves Animal Jam! :P

But in all seriousness, I understand they can't account for irrational players, but in the end, I think as gamers, we want what's best for our own personal needs/desires, which by definition, is very irrational. Blizzard needs to revolve the game around making the most people happy, and like someone else said, people who love Legion are either A) Uber casuals or B) Hardcore mythic+ farmers/raiders. The "middle class" kinda got screwed.

[Usernameforforums]

I got something like 30-40 days played in legion. I am feeling the burnout now but im at 35demo/35aff/31destro 25ak so i dont really need to do much. The .5% increase isnt much to keep me goin for the weapon. Now im just loggin in to run mythic raid nights, pug a heroic/norm raid, and i might do a dungeon or two.

[iky43210]

And I counter with its impossible for Blizzard to program their game to account for players who are irrational.

WoW is already, dare I say, the most casual and/or shit player (don't misconstru that as both being one and the same) friendly MMO on the market. Possibly to even ever exist outside of children's games like Animal Jam. lmao

You don't know shit about system design if you think how certain things are implemented couldn't influence behaviors

[eridil]

legion content was fine, the class however .... sure I could have played my alts, but the hunter is what led me to play wow with a passion ... and the Hunter jsut does not feel fun, so I unsubbed. If you still play wow good for you, but my class just does not feel the same anymore.

[Deleted]

Population has been on a huge downturn since Legion came out even worse than WOD. I think it's because Blizzard pretty much killed alts with the bad AP system.

Any proof for your statement?

[durenas]

Or even: they're going to nerf the requirements in 3 months. Maybe wait until then.

If you think about the most successful recent attempt at world content, it's definitely Timeless Isle. And the major difference between Timeless Isle and Legion is, in Timeless Isle once you outgeared it, you were done. There was a goal to reach. There was a point where you felt that you had mastered the content and, not coincidentally the rewards weren't there anymore.

In Legion, it never ends. AP and Legendary drop chances mean content is still rewarding months after you outgear it. I'm definitely someone who has tried to avoid letting that affect my playstyle, and I think that's actually hurt me because I'm behind guild mates on AP by 2-3 ranks and a legendary.

There's the same problem with RNG rewards. That sense of, "Hey, I just got the best in slot wrist piece. I'm not gonna replace this until next tier!" is gone when warforged/tertiary/sockets exist. They don't ever want you to feel like you've accomplished the best thing you can accomplish because they're worried that means that you'll unsub.

It shows their complete lack of confidence in their ability to make the content engaging on its own, because they're focusing so much effort on trying to extend its life indefinitely.

It's also sad because I like alts, and I'd much rather be spending the time I spend on my main working on alts that are actually at the level the content is intended for. Instead I blast through everything on my main over and over. Ugh.

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That's absolutely the wrong way to think about this. How a game makes people feel is critical to game design, even if they're being illogical about it.

The overwatch guys touched on this after season 1. They said that having the ratings start around 50, which is typically a low grade on a test, made people feel inferior to other systems that would have shown higher numbers. Obviously it made no logical different but they said it was bad design because people felt like they were worse.

This is a game, and one of the most important things is thinking about how your game makes people feel.

I'm item level 870+ now. Most of my gear is at least 860 barring outliers like a trinket that just will-not-drop. I have a couple of legendaries, one of which is BIS(thank the RNG gods!). I don't DO world quests to farm AP now. I don't do very many world quests to get order hall resources, nor do I bother with the tradeskill quests. I do my wrapper(and I'm considering dropping that as well), and call it a day.

I spend most of my time farming mythic+ Vault of The Wardens for that goddamn trinket(Faulty Countermeasure). The AP i get in there is quite good, but it's the consolation prize. I'm at 36 traits on my artifact, and 23 AK. I'm by no means 'competitive', but I am in a comfortable spot with my artifact.

There comes a point in your development that world quests become a waste of time. It's up to each one of us to determine what that point is.

[Pua]

RNG is fine.
Legion RNG is not fine.

To be fair, I supported the feature when announced and when I thought about it. I liked the idea of a longer tail on gearing, and was very happy that gearing itself was possible outside of organised raiding. Now, however, I've played the system since August and... It was a mistake.

While the design intent was positive, the actual result is an awful lot of frustration when the item you wanted to upgrade didn't (or you got a crap upgrade like Indestructible), and the next item you got pinged 30 item levels, but got vendored because you had something better already equipped. I bemoaned the fact that double-random rewards in Mists felt punishing rather than rewarding, so I suppose I really should have known better.

Now, rather than double-random, we're at triple or quadruple-random and it simply isn't any fun in my opinion. For boss kills, it used to be pretty simple:

1) Did something drop?
2) Is it something I can use?
3) Is it something I want?

Sadly, the position we're now in involves:

1) Did something drop?
2) Is it something I can use?
3) Is it something I want?
4) Is it upgraded?
5) Is it the upgrade I want?

Personally, I think the entire concept of gearing in World of Warcraft needs a rethink; but I can't see it happening. The design team won't take a risk of that type with a game of this age, and I think a shrinking playerbase isn't necessarily something you should risk.

I really do think they need to heavily dial back the loot casino for the next expansion, though. Legion did so many things right, it's a shame that class design and loot mechanisms are the things that badly fell over.

[Akka]

thats not evidence since it requires an addon to get its data. the less people use the addon, the less accurate the data is.

Don't play dumb just to win an Internet argument. The data speaks pretty strongly, even if it's far from perfect, to give rough idea of what is happening.

[glowpipe]

proof of this? cause everything seems to point that the population is holding quite high actually

You say that. Yet they had to enable CRZ in Legion, for the first time in current expansion, to keep zones alive. And yet they are more or less empty. Doing kirin tor today i saw about 10 players total. This with CRZ on.

[FelPlague]

You say that. Yet they had to enable CRZ in Legion, for the first time in current expansion, to keep zones alive. And yet they are more or less empty. Doing kirin tor today i saw about 10 players total. This with CRZ on.

uhhh crz has been active for the last few expansions now... just not the first few days to stop from massive overflow....

[Kezotar]

To be fair, I supported the feature when announced and when I thought about it. I liked the idea of a longer tail on gearing, and was very happy that gearing itself was possible outside of organised raiding. Now, however, I've played the system since August and... It was a mistake.

While the design intent was positive, the actual result is an awful lot of frustration when the item you wanted to upgrade didn't (or you got a crap upgrade like Indestructible), and the next item you got pinged 30 item levels, but got vendored because you had something better already equipped. I bemoaned the fact that double-random rewards in Mists felt punishing rather than rewarding, so I suppose I really should have known better.

Now, rather than double-random, we're at triple or quadruple-random and it simply isn't any fun in my opinion. For boss kills, it used to be pretty simple:

1) Did something drop?
2) Is it something I can use?
3) Is it something I want?

Sadly, the position we're now in involves:

1) Did something drop?
2) Is it something I can use?
3) Is it something I want?
4) Is it upgraded?
5) Is it the upgrade I want?

Personally, I think the entire concept of gearing in World of Warcraft needs a rethink; but I can't see it happening. The design team won't take a risk of that type with a game of this age, and I think a shrinking playerbase isn't necessarily something you should risk.

I really do think they need to heavily dial back the loot casino for the next expansion, though. Legion did so many things right, it's a shame that class design and loot mechanisms are the things that badly fell over.

Pretty much. However, you've got it wrong that you think Blizzard made this design in favor of the players. Oh they added the RNG all along knowing it will be a pain, however that some people still would farm it and it would be a +% in revenue. It wasn't intended for me and you who might play casually. It's for those who always want better.

Heck, 860, 890. What difference does it make for me? For those pushing Mythic +20 it makes one. And voila. There's the trick.

Add Mythic + so hard that you need items to make it through.
Add way to gain items through heavy RNG to get to them.

What did I just create? A infinite loop of gameplay which isn't gameplay. In fact, it's not WoW. It's Diablo 3. And we know what happens after 1 week after a new season in Diablo 3...

[glowpipe]

uhhh crz has been active for the last few expansions now... just not the first few days to stop from massive overflow....

In mop and Wod we only had the shared servers. I only saw players from Doomhammer and Turalyon. Even in the end. Now i see people from all over. Im on Zenedar now, We are shared with Frostwhisper and one other server. Something on B. Still see people from all over. Eonar, Grim bator etc.