Should the game have MORE exclusive content?

[Jastall]

And that's a bad thing because? If you're new you should have to catch up. You can get your friends to run you through stuff if you want and help you catch up. I don't see any problem with this.

Because everyone wants to go back to the days of mass guild poaching and having to run alts/new guildies through the same old instances everyone's already sick and tired of just so they can raid.

No wait, the vast majority of people don't care about that noise. There's a reason Blizz hasn't required stupid attunements in raids since Wrath, and made those in Legion account-wide.

[NewOrleansTrolley]

It's probably a lot more sane to just enjoy the ride. Saying this or that on a forum and half expecting Blizzard to listen or agree with you sounds unstable.

/filthy casual

[DeathbahamutXXX]

Yes we should have more exclusivity. What should happen with raiding is that two months after the world first on Mythic all Mythic gear will look like the heroic version but have the mythic stats. Two months after that the Heroic version of gear will look like Normal tier but still have the heroic stats. two months after that Normal mode gear will look like LFR gear. Two months later Mythic and Normal will shift again so mythic looks like the old normal tier and Heroic looks like LFR but they all keep the appropriate stats. And finally two months later a total of 10 months from the Mythic world first all the gear looks like LFR but still has the appropriate stats. Then when the next XP happens the gear should looks like dungeon gear but have the correct stats.

[Mackeyser]

Just some dungeons and raids that people cant queue for. Like they did at the beginning of legion with CoS and Arcway, and Karazhan.

Why is it such taboo to want some exclusive content? It makes the content more rewarding when its exclusive. Do you disagree with this?

The reason exclusive content even worked at all (and no, it didn't always work) was that there was a massive COMMUNITY which had leaders who put in massive amounts of time and energy into developing that community. Beyond even growing their respective guilds, they helped grow their servers, their classes and an understanding of how to organize and raid.

As a former guild leader and raid leader, I can say that I basically stopped at the end of MoP. By that point, I spent most of my time educating players about the very basics of raiding as if this was the beginning of TBC... except the reticence to hang in there was substantial because... LFR... and pugs.... and buying carries.

Without total exclusion of LFR type tools (Cross realm is mostly fine, but it also has issues), you simply can't do it. And I wouldn't want to simply revert because the community has adjusted to the current state of affairs. I do think Blizzard made a monumental mistake in implementing LFR versus going all in on Guild development tools to make it MUCH easier for guilds to recruit, train and run dungeons and raids.

They could have offered "Guild Transfers" for example where for a reduced price, enter guilds could transfer a set number of players as designated by the GM for a set price with multiple pay options. As an alternative, they could have offered, full realm transfers where for a reduced price a person could transfer all of their toons from one server to another as in many higher end guilds, players would have several well geared toons geared for raiding.

They could have offered better recruitment and training tools so that Guild/Raid/Class leads would have an easier time finding and educating new players and growing the base of raiders.

They could have offered better raid design so that the hardest boss in a raid wasn't the damn scheduling boss. They also could have created better tools to aid GMs in scheduling/coordinating not only Raids, but pre-raid tasks, set reminders, etc.

This list could get really long. The point is that it's all fine and well to think back to TBC and wax nostalgic about the elitism of being in Black Temple. But that's pointless now.

Blizz decided basically to abandon Guilds for individuals. It's gotten to the point that in TBC, you NEEDED a guild to really get into much of any content. You NEEDED other people. Which...makes sense in an MMO.

Now... you can buy the game, start a toon, level it to max and play to end content... and NEVER talk to another living soul. The few things you might need that are from crafting, you can buy from the AH, bags, quest items, glyphs, etc. I think that was a colossal mistake because it's been eroding the COMMUNITY.

Unfortunately, the frustration at that erosion has been misplaced towards everything from exclusive content to gating to caps versus diminishing returns on X point system.

That all misses the point. Blizz chose long ago to favor the individual over the collective...in an MMO. They chose to abandon the very thing that allowed guilds to thrive.

It's not a mistake they can undo nor is it a choice they particularly regret. That's very sad, imho.

And as much as Blizz tries to straddle the fence with stuff like Arcway and CoS and Mythic+, it's not now nor never will be the same as the coherent community, imperfect as it was, that we shared during TBC and into WotLK.

The game is what it is. We can either enjoy it as it is or move on. But Blizz can't do the kinds of things OP wants because... that requires the TBC level of community and we're just never going to get THAT back, which is why we're also not going to get that kind of content back.

/shrug. I'm sad about it, too.

[SirCowdog]

Yes we should have more exclusivity. What should happen with raiding is that two months after the world first on Mythic all Mythic gear will look like the heroic version but have the mythic stats. Two months after that the Heroic version of gear will look like Normal tier but still have the heroic stats. two months after that Normal mode gear will look like LFR gear. Two months later Mythic and Normal will shift again so mythic looks like the old normal tier and Heroic looks like LFR but they all keep the appropriate stats. And finally two months later a total of 10 months from the Mythic world first all the gear looks like LFR but still has the appropriate stats. Then when the next XP happens the gear should looks like dungeon gear but have the correct stats.

I'll be honest, I had to read that three times before it made any sense.

Basically you're saying that only world first kills in the first 2 months should have the gear appearance of completing mythic, and that further kills in heroic and so on should also "go away" after a set amount of time? I'm on the fence about that. The reward of appearances should be based on completion of the relative challenge, and that's something that can and SHOULD be done now that WoW has the technology and capability to scale like what we see in M+.

Rather than making it so that appearances are unobtainable after a set amount of time, wouldn't it better to simply make it so that the content itself maintained its challenge and difficulty, thus preserving the value of the achievement instead of simply making it unavailable?

[Vichan]

Yes we should have more exclusivity. What should happen with raiding is that two months after the world first on Mythic all Mythic gear will look like the heroic version but have the mythic stats. Two months after that the Heroic version of gear will look like Normal tier but still have the heroic stats. two months after that Normal mode gear will look like LFR gear. Two months later Mythic and Normal will shift again so mythic looks like the old normal tier and Heroic looks like LFR but they all keep the appropriate stats. And finally two months later a total of 10 months from the Mythic world first all the gear looks like LFR but still has the appropriate stats. Then when the next XP happens the gear should looks like dungeon gear but have the correct stats.

this post was painful to read. and no this shouldn't happen, we also don't need more exclusive content

[SirCowdog]

T Blizz chose long ago to favor the individual over the collective...in an MMO. They chose to abandon the very thing that allowed guilds to thrive.

And there was a good reason for doing so. The problem with creating a game in which you can't really do anything significant unless X of your friends are online creates a real problem. Instead of being able to sit down and just relax and play, you are forced to fight the "scheduling boss" as you mentioned.

I'm all for promoting group activities, but not when it comes at the complete exclusion of the ability to play solo as well. There's definitely a fine balance to be struck there. I think a lot of striking that balance needs to have a foundation in better fundamental systems. Difficulty which scales with group size rather than being static. Less reliance on static group roles like the holy trinity, and more on player skill and build diversity. Those are all things which WoW lacks due to its age.

The game is too heavily invested in it's original design parameters. And those parameters made a LOT of sense, given both the community and the technology of the time it was desinged. But WoW is REALLY starting to show its age, and I don't envy the dev team's challenge with trying to push those limitations as far as possible. At some point I really do feel they're going to have to either retire WoW, or take the plunge and go with a completely new game(WoW2 or something). They're already almost at that point with each new expansion being virtually an entirely new game anyway, with the gear and ability resets.

[ls-]

And that still happens today to many guilds. Your guild is 3/10 NH M? Too bad that 4/10 M NH guild needs your top dps balance druid. Find a guild willing to put effort into its members then.

Fortunately, it's nowhere near as bad as it was in TBC. TBC was kinda a pinnacle of guild poaching, even in WotLK it wasn't that bad

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

Doesn't matter, game will be dead soon enough. Honestly though, WoW is trash outside of raiding and high lvl mythic+.

[Battlebeard]

NO! Absolutely not. If anything, more of the content should be more accessible for more people. The community is so divided and this game has become a single player game unless you raid with a guild. I would love the ability to queue for Normal and HC raids as a example AND to queue for Rated BGS, Arena etc.

We need to be united, not divided!

[Sencha]

Yes, definitely!

[Hctaz]

Fortunately, it's nowhere near as bad as it was in TBC. TBC was kinda a pinnacle of guild poaching, even in WotLK it wasn't that bad

No you're right about that but it still happens and for even less of an actual reason. I could understand why that guild who only had 10 men going into Karazhan every week trying to get 25 guys geared up for BT would have a problem with poaching. People just didn't want to wait anymore. That mentality is still present to this day though and that won't change. Human nature is always to try to get an edge on everybody else. People who like power will use others for stepping stones to get to where they need to go and then never thank them once for it... Dark stuff lol. I also think some of that issue was exacerbated by the fact that Kara was a 10 man raid and also was introductory to the raiding series but fractured your guild into separate groups. I think that makes it a lot easier for people to get poached.

I'm very confident Blizzard could introduce a system of more "exclusion" by toning down or removing catch up mechanics and removing Normal mode and reverting back to the old Normal/Heroic dynamic (heroic will still be identical to how mythic is). I think with only two difficulties it will be easier for new guilds not to feel burn out and there is that stepping stone of gear if need be. Like... Normal EN gear should be good enough to tackle normal Nighthold gear so you can start on heroic (using my difficulties and not Blizzard's here). I dunno I would like to see that happen. It's a shame when the new raid comes out and the old raid is now just as meaningless as the last expansion was to you. The catch-up mechanics make it this way.

- - - Updated - - -

NO! Absolutely not. If anything, more of the content should be more accessible for more people. The community is so divided and this game has become a single player game unless you raid with a guild. I would love the ability to queue for Normal and HC raids as a example AND to queue for Rated BGS, Arena etc.

We need to be united, not divided!

But exclusive content would promote that. We're talking exclusion the likes of Vanilla, TBC, and Wrath when people knew everybody on their server. Oftentimes, you would have to pug older content to get some edge in the newer one and you would take note of the names of people who were actually good or not good at raiding. I used to remember the name of the local troll on Fenris, the server I played from TBC-Cata. (he was a warlock) I used to remember this paladin guy who was a douche bag and lied about his age to get money from some girl for game time before breaking her heart. I remember the names the guild leaders and former guild leaders and I would send whispers asking for their strats for bosses we couldn't down to see if they had some alternative method that might just click better with us. All of this stuff is lost to me.

I play on Thrall now and I only know two guilds: Mine very well and Obsidium only sorta well since a former raider friend from MoP is there. I know the names of a handful of players from Obsidium. I know everybody from my guild. That's it. I don't know who this random warlock farming herbs next to me is. Is he a main? An alt? Does he raid? Is he good? Fuck if I know. I just hit queue and I'm in dungeons and LFR with more strangers.

[setsuna f seiei]

Immortal titles and stuff like that, I know people loved in Wrath Nax and Ulduar but hated it in ToGC, cutting edge should be like the pvp titles and only give titles to people who killed said boss while it was current like herald of the titan

[Sansnom]

But exclusive content would promote that.

Would it?

I play on Thrall now and I only know two guilds: Mine very well and Obsidium only sorta well since a former raider friend from MoP is there. I know the names of a handful of players from Obsidium. I know everybody from my guild. That's it. I don't know who this random warlock farming herbs next to me is. Is he a main? An alt? Does he raid? Is he good? Fuck if I know. I just hit queue and I'm in dungeons and LFR with more strangers.

Right. Without queues, what could happen? You don't know this player, so you will stick with the people I know and exclude this player. So you get your group runs.

And that excluded player? Fuck if you care. You get to do your stuff. That is all that matters to you.

Before LFD, I would get kicked from groups. Sometime I get to see the reason. Their friends just log in and so they replaced me. They are perfectly legit to do that. For me, tough luck. Go find a guild or others. For new players, this is a big issue. Not every guilds have scheduled dungeon runs. Even those that did, it was still cosy up to the tank and healers. Sorry mate, we need to gear our raiders first. You have to PUG.

It is usually the same arguments. Those who wants queues removed do not see a problem. They get their content done. So there is no problem because they did not experience.

[Hctaz]

Right. Without queues, what could happen? You don't know this player, so you will stick with the people I know and exclude this player. So you get your group runs.

I mean... I played plenty in this world without queues and all I can say is that I didn't discriminate based on a player I didn't know. I knew plenty of people who knew plenty of other people and we all would still invite randoms to our groups when we needed a fill. If you were trying to be picky about who you got to run your heroic dungeon with you then have fun waiting 2 hours for that tank slot to be filled with somebody from a respectable guild on your server.

And that excluded player? Fuck if you care. You get to do your stuff. That is all that matters to you.

I mean yeah you're right. Except now I can do that by hitting "Decline" on a LFG queue system that pops up showing a random person's name who I've never even seen before. At least in Wrath I saw people in trade chat and could recognize a name or two even if I had never spoken a word to them. If that person is so butthurt about being excluded then... start your own group. HMMMMM...

Before LFD, I would get kicked from groups. Sometime I get to see the reason. Their friends just log in and so they replaced me. They are perfectly legit to do that. For me, tough luck. Go find a guild or others. For new players, this is a big issue. Not every guilds have scheduled dungeon runs. Even those that did, it was still cosy up to the tank and healers. Sorry mate, we need to gear our raiders first. You have to PUG.

Okay? And if nobody in my 25 man raiding guild in Wrath wanted to run ToGC when ICC was out or didn't want to run their heroic with me I would just ask in trade chat to see if I get any responses from the players who were well respected in the community on our server. It isn't hard to know who is a troll/ninjalooter/rude asshole. I knew all of this from only about two weeks of being max level. Hell, I even picked up bits and pieces while I was leveling and would try to catch a group for TBC dungeons. You'd see "So and so" post in trade and people would call him out for being a ninja or some shit.

And actually, I hardly ever ran a dungeon with any guild I was in throughout Wrath. Make your own damn group. Stop relying on other people's groups. Wrath was the first time I ever raided seriously and I got into pugs all the time. I ran Naxx before Ulduar came out and I even got to run some Ulduar with a random guild who needed a backup dps for the night the first day it was released. It was pretty cool and I was basically some unknown.

And another thing: You probably got kicked for being bad. Don't be bad. Saying "Oh hey my guild member logged on and he needs this dungeon" is actually code for "everybody in the group is whispering about how bad you are and they just don't want to tell you". Or heck, maybe the guy's friend did log in. Big deal. Simply put him in your mental list of "Join his group and he'll flake on me for his guildies" and just don't join his group anymore. It's not hard.

It is usually the same arguments. Those who wants queues removed do not see a problem. They get their content done. So there is no problem because they did not experience.

Because there is and never was a problem with random pugs or grouping. Some people are assholes and some people aren't. Just make a mental note, start your own group, or just grow a pair and learn to deal with the fact that not everybody is going to treat you well.

[Kazgrel]

Yes. I desperately want to see them ruin this game completely.

WoD was a good start.

Mostly joking, part serious, btw.

As for the OP, this is probably only the 143762348th time he's asked this question in some way, shape or form. WoW still has unique skins/titles/mounts/etc. from mythic raiding and top rating pvp as far as I know. This question can generally be boiled down to "I only want mythic raiding and/or top tier pvp to have all the good rewards while everyone else is stuck with quest/dungeon loot". There's already a solution for that, too, but the downside is that it may have something to do with private servers.

[Tomana]

Only if people playing the said exclusive content accept to pay extra money for it.

[Ysho]

Yeah, its fun that I cannot acquire the only kaldorei mount in the game because I do not PVP. Totally fun. Its also very fun that its character bound and not account bound.

/sarcasm

If everyone had immediate access to the Kaldorei mount, it would be fun for approximately 4 minutes. Then you'd never see anyone use it. Kids what everything...and when they get it they're bored and want something different.

[Lillyth]

If everyone had immediate access to the Kaldorei mount, it would be fun for approximately 4 minutes. Then you'd never see anyone use it. Kids what everything...and when they get it they're bored and want something different.

No, its been long enough, I want a different version of it, preferably without shitty human flag.

[Vargas]

Nope. Game is fine as it is.

If you want people cheering for you, go cure the common cold or do something productive. WoW is just a game; not a measure of self worth (god knows why people treat it as such).