Games systems inherantly player-unfriendly

[Klingers]

I fully admit I'm super-casual but at this point the WoW systems team (specifically the systems team, not the class or raid teams) are just bad designers. Artifact Power punishes you for having alts, punishes you for wanting to play multiple specs, punishes you for taking a week off the game, and punishes you for wanting to tool around and not fill arbitrary bars.

AK is just a band-aid over a festering wound. If the system had been well designed there would be no need for a catch-up mechanic.

The core of the problem is how Blizzard have treated this nebulous thing known as player progression for two expansions now. For close to ten years, although it varied there was a very straight-forward way to "win" the game. Level up. Hit endgame. Get better gear. Boom. Simple. You can vary the gear sources, you can tweak how abilities are gained through leveling, whatever you want. But the bullseye is right in front of you. It's not an endless treadmill.

By comparison Blizzard have spent the last three years throwing everything from Garrisons to Shipyards to Artifacts to Class Halls at us that require you to grind punishing and un-fun amounts of Arbitrary Magic Fun Points to upgrade a... thing.... with a finite lifespan. They try and make "progression" more "compelling" but I'd argue that they really fundamentally fail. Something you "have to do" isn't something you necessarily want to do.

There's serious problems I have with the ways Blizzard looks to engage players. AP could have been a static number of points you share between specs. Blizzard could have added a passive buff to alts to let you get significantly boosted AP up to the point of your highest character for the week. Blizzard could have chosen to let you experience a whole class hall campaign without arbitrary time gates, micro-management or garrison missions. Legendaries, Titanforging... ugh.

I would argue that there is very little compelling, engaging or fun justification behind a lot of the systems team's contribution to WoW over the last three to four years. Sure, you want to keep players subscribed longer, but I'd say the way they've gone about it is very short-term thinking. It's beyond burnout. It's a lingering disgust at pointless complexity and timesinks.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

That bullshit argument has been around forever though. Its nothing new with Legion or Warlords. Blizzard isn't making you do anything. The "treadmill" has been around since the game came out, just like with other games similar to WoW. Catch-up mechanics have been around for a long time too. It just sounds like you're burnt out.

You aren't being punished, you are just obsessed with trying to "win" an MMORPG and thats your first problem. Even if AP/AK didn't exist, you could never win. Even if you got your BiS TF/WF for every single slot, for every single spec, for every single alt... as soon as the next patch/raid/expansion comes out, that BiS gear would be trash.

What the AP system really does is further your feeling of progression. Even if you have most of the best gear you could get, earning AP could still get you some type of reward.

Really it just sounds like you need a break or to move one or something. I started feeling burnt out, so I unsubbed, like I have from time to time since I started player 11-12 years ago.

[Klingers]

eally it just sounds like you need a break or to move one or something. I started feeling burnt out, so I unsubbed, like I have from time to time since I started player 11-12 years ago.

I'm actually taking a break right now. I've just been reading the 7.2 changes and thinking "this doesn't fix anything."

What frustrates me as a player with a lot of history in the game is that while I do have some free time to play the game, I don't have as much as I used to when I was younger.

The main difference in Vanilla/BC/Wrath/Cata and even MoP is that outside of dailies, which at most took about two weeks and were largely optional, most things of a "grindy" nature were side things that could, if you feel so inclined, be smashed out in a weekend. There was always something extra like a dungeon tabard, netherwing eggs or zandalari scouts to make up the difference.

There is a real and documented psychology behind how reward loops work in the brain and yes, you don't strictly have to cap points or do certain activities, but there's something in the brain that makes you feel shitty for "wasting" a day if you're on a treadmill. That's what makes me angry as a long-term fan of the game: The developers pulling this crap at all.

I would love to experience all the lore in the game at my own pace, have fun with the different classes, try stuff out, run all the order hall campaigns... But the time investment is too much. There's too many balls in the air. The goalposts keep moving.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

You can do those things though. Speaking of moving goalposts.... your threat went from the issue of AP/AK to lore and things. Just level alts if you want. Don't worry about the gear treadmill or the AP grind. Read the in game lore, the out of game lore and enjoy.

Its also ironic that you mention dailies and netherwing eggs. Both of those things garnered the same feelings as you;re having now. During the past we had constant complaints about how "necessary" dailies were. How you HAD to do the Netherwing dailies and how much of a grind they are. Here you are now saying how awesome they are...

[Daymanmb]

There is a real and documented psychology behind how reward loops work in the brain and yes, you don't strictly have to cap points or do certain activities, but there's something in the brain that makes you feel shitty for "wasting" a day if you're on a treadmill. That's what makes me angry as a long-term fan of the game: The developers pulling this crap at all.

I like this part.

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Its also ironic that you mention dailies and netherwing eggs. Both of those things garnered the same feelings as you;re having now. During the past we had constant complaints about how "necessary" dailies were. How you HAD to do the Netherwing dailies and how much of a grind they are. Here you are now saying how awesome they are...

I may be missing something but what player power was unlocked from the Netherwing dailies?

[Koriani]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post44713999

Read my post there for an explanation of what I'm about to say that is entirely about exactly this.

~~

Yes. MMO RNG systems are, by design, intentionally, player unfriendly.

The only way that's going to change is if you stop playing.

Does it suck? Depends on how much its a problem for you that this is how the RNG system and humans operate.

But if you go driving to work everyday, you're still a victim of an RNG system and betting nothing will happen .

So you can either accept that this is how MMO/gaming/RNG works anywhere and decide when you want to support it.

Or not.

But the reality of its existence - in WoW especially - isn't changing. RNG isn't going away. And neither are people wanting to be the top 1%.

There may be other games out in the online landscape for you that do not have so many RNG issues - good luck!
(But there are many that are actually much much worse!! Go take a look at SWTORs...)

[ComputerNerd]

You create an artificial goal, a requirement that is not in any way dictated by blizzard to be required for anything.
Hence the upcoming changes, that simply make grinding out AP for the sake of AP increasingly unattractive.
But changing it into a bonus, such that if you gain nothing else there is always something in the form of AP.

[MoanaLisa]

Or you can do what I do. Just play, enjoy yourself, not worry about chasing after stuff you find frustrating and have a good time. I don't grind anything. When I tire of something I leave it alone until I feel like doing it again. It's called being an adult and having a strong enough mind that I play the game instead of allowing the game to play me. From what I can tell there are a ton of people posting here who have no self-control and are quite content to let the game play them. That's their choice. That's their problem.

[potis]

Problem is, Blizzard is doing it actively.

The 95% of subs quitting are people that dont really care whether they play or not, whether they farm or whether their character is up to standards of activity of the game.

The 5% subs quitting is because they get burnt out or dislike some other feature of active expansion.

Blizzard doesnt care that the horrible system pushed at 5% away, they care that the 95% played 2 extra months cause of the horrible system instead of quitting after the first month.

Financially they succeeded.

In this case, i know a lot of people that didnt play unsubbed for a good 2 months, they all had the same problem.

"I cant play my alt when he is so weak cause of AP"

"I cant play my alt when playing him makes my main weaker"

NH made them play again but of course they are struggling with their 35 points over the 54 points one etc etc.

AP should have been account wide, require a bigger pool to farm and be rewarded from everything, not only specific quests etc etc.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I force myself to play a way I hate for a reason I believe in but actually doesn't matter. Clearly Blizzards fault.

/thread

[melodramocracy]

Dear Blizzard,

We're bored and always run out of stuff to do.

*Blizzard creates long term content rewards*

Dear Blizzard,

This grind is unbearable, it was better when there was nothing to do.

[Super Kami Dende]

I've played the 12 years, the most player unfriendly the game has ever been was Vanilla.

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Problem is, Blizzard is doing it actively.

The 95% of subs quitting are people that dont really care whether they play or not, whether they farm or whether their character is up to standards of activity of the game.

The 5% subs quitting is because they get burnt out or dislike some other feature of active expansion.

Blizzard doesnt care that the horrible system pushed at 5% away, they care that the 95% played 2 extra months cause of the horrible system instead of quitting after the first month.

Financially they succeeded.

In this case, i know a lot of people that didnt play unsubbed for a good 2 months, they all had the same problem.

"I cant play my alt when he is so weak cause of AP"

"I cant play my alt when playing him makes my main weaker"

NH made them play again but of course they are struggling with their 35 points over the 54 points one etc etc.

AP should have been account wide, require a bigger pool to farm and be rewarded from everything, not only specific quests etc etc.

In both cases those people were idiots if that was the specific reason for quitting.

[potis]

I've played the 12 years, the most player unfriendly the game has ever been was Vanilla.

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In both cases those people were idiots if that was the specific reason for quitting.

Not everyone plays the same as you do, or whatever else excuse you can tell yourself.

Not everyone wants to be carried.

Not everyone can do the same quests over and over and over.

Playing in Alt in Legion instantly weakens your main cause you are wasting time.

So its either farm your ass out and get all 3 specs to 54 points and then play an alt, or have a weaker character.

Mouthbreathing in pet battles and whatever else you might be doing is not World of Warcraft.

But then again, this is mmo-champion, the holy land of the bad players where every attempt of teaching them is met with "elitist" or any attempt of actually making them play is met with "MY MONEY I DO WHAT I WANT"

[Linkedblade]

It was intended to be an alternative methods of player progression. At least they tried something to fix that lack of progression.

[Super Kami Dende]

Not everyone plays the same as you do, or whatever else excuse you can tell yourself.

Not everyone wants to be carried.

Not everyone can do the same quests over and over and over.

Playing in Alt in Legion instantly weakens your main cause you are wasting time.

So its either farm your ass out and get all 3 specs to 54 points and then play an alt, or have a weaker character.

Mouthbreathing in pet battles and whatever else you might be doing is not World of Warcraft.

But then again, this is mmo-champion, the holy land of the bad players where every attempt of teaching them is met with "elitist" or any attempt of actually making them play is met with "MY MONEY I DO WHAT I WANT"

Bolded part is why I said they were idiots.

[Darsithis]

punishes you for taking a week off the game, and punishes you for wanting to tool around and not fill arbitrary bars.

Really? I log in 3 times a week to raid and that's it (currently re-clearing Thief full ghost with all collectibles and loot) and I don't feel punished or behind. I get like 7 or 800k AP every clear and that's good enough. I haven't done a single world quest in weeks. Alts are easy to catch up on.

So its either farm your ass out and get all 3 specs to 54 points and then play an alt, or have a weaker character.

By what measurement? Aside from pure DPS, I doubt everyone uses all 3 specs; I'm a blood tank and have yet to use either frost or unholy in anything but a few M+.

Maybe bleeding-edge people want to max everything as fast as they can, but they're the ones doing that to themselves. The game isn't to blame for that and for virtually the entire playerbase no one will actually see a real, significant difference if they don't max every single weapon.

[Nosdrone]

It's weird that some players are just now realizing, after 12 years, they're the problem. Playing a video game for 40 hours a week isn't healthy or sustainable.

[Stormspark]

Really? I log in 3 times a week to raid and that's it (currently re-clearing Thief full ghost with all collectibles and loot) and I don't feel punished or behind. I get like 7 or 800k AP every clear and that's good enough. I haven't done a single world quest in weeks. Alts are easy to catch up on.



By what measurement? Aside from pure DPS, I doubt everyone uses all 3 specs; I'm a blood tank and have yet to use either frost or unholy in anything but a few M+.

Maybe bleeding-edge people want to max everything as fast as they can, but they're the ones doing that to themselves. The game isn't to blame for that and for virtually the entire playerbase no one will actually see a real, significant difference if they don't max every single weapon.

In addition, the people that feel the need to do that are such a minute fraction of the playerbase that they don't matter. We're talking like 0.01% here. If Blizzard tries to design around not giving those people "too much to do", there's no content at all for the rest of us (see WOD).

Also, if someone is "super casual" as the OP claims, they don't need any more than 35 points anyway.

[ls-]

I'm actually taking a break right now. I've just been reading the 7.2 changes and thinking "this doesn't fix anything."

What frustrates me as a player with a lot of history in the game is that while I do have some free time to play the game, I don't have as much as I used to when I was younger.

The main difference in Vanilla/BC/Wrath/Cata and even MoP is that outside of dailies, which at most took about two weeks and were largely optional, most things of a "grindy" nature were side things that could, if you feel so inclined, be smashed out in a weekend. There was always something extra like a dungeon tabard, netherwing eggs or zandalari scouts to make up the difference.

There is a real and documented psychology behind how reward loops work in the brain and yes, you don't strictly have to cap points or do certain activities, but there's something in the brain that makes you feel shitty for "wasting" a day if you're on a treadmill. That's what makes me angry as a long-term fan of the game: The developers pulling this crap at all.

I would love to experience all the lore in the game at my own pace, have fun with the different classes, try stuff out, run all the order hall campaigns... But the time investment is too much. There's too many balls in the air. The goalposts keep moving.

Here's the thing though, WoW is an MMORPG, you can't beat/win MMO game, this genre is about almost endless character power progression, unless you set artificial goals you ARE NOT supposed to be done w/ anything.

If it's possible to win MMO game w/o setting any artificial goals, a game in question is a failure Obv it may not look like a failure in the eyes of some players, however as MMO game it is indeed a failure cuz it failed at doing/being what games of this genre are supposed to do/be.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Problem is, Blizzard is doing it actively.

The 95% of subs quitting are people that dont really care whether they play or not, whether they farm or whether their character is up to standards of activity of the game.

The 5% subs quitting is because they get burnt out or dislike some other feature of active expansion.

Blizzard doesnt care that the horrible system pushed at 5% away, they care that the 95% played 2 extra months cause of the horrible system instead of quitting after the first month.

Financially they succeeded.

In this case, i know a lot of people that didnt play unsubbed for a good 2 months, they all had the same problem.

"I cant play my alt when he is so weak cause of AP"

"I cant play my alt when playing him makes my main weaker"

NH made them play again but of course they are struggling with their 35 points over the 54 points one etc etc.

AP should have been account wide, require a bigger pool to farm and be rewarded from everything, not only specific quests etc etc.

Source needed.