Blizzard doesn't want you to play

[Volitar]

"I don't agree with your opinion so I will insult you". Nice to see you have nothing to bring to the table.

no one is holding a gun to your head, you don't have to read it.

[Lady Dragonheart]

The standard douchebag response.

It is a true point, though. If you feel literally tormented to play, and feel like Blizzard is robbing you of your money... Why continue to play or continue to pay? It doesn't makes sense.

[Zyky]

Ap/Ak- why are you using this as gameplay, never understood this. Just play the game?

Time gating - Ok i see your point, it does feel a bit like crap.

Reputation farming- more the main rewards are capped, just gives an extra passive way to gain gold, seeing everything in legion gives rep anyways....

Nerfs- Ap wasn't nerf in mythic, Mage tower gives you more ap... how is this a nerf?


Ending- why is everyone using ak as an excuse? They did put a lot of game play this time around.

Are you dense? Serious question. AP/AK is gameplay, the specifically tune raid content around having a certain amount of AP which requires AK. They've even openly admitted that they tuned most of Mythic Nighthold around having, previously, 54 traits in your weapon. So how can you "just play the game" when they specifically make the game around having a certain amount of AP?

AP was nerfed in Mythic+, you might not have realized it, but you're actually gaining 30-40% less AP per dungeon now. The only dungeons giving the same amount of AP as pre-7.2 are the longer ones(Arcway and HoV). The shorter ones give 30-40% less AP then they did before. They hard nerfed the Mage Tower because it was "giving too much AP" that's the nerf. Now you're lucky if you get 1-5 over the course of the garbage 3 day cycle that the buff is active before the tower gets destroyed.

[Deleted]

It is a true point, though. If you feel literally tormented to play, and feel like Blizzard is robbing you of your money... Why continue to play or continue to play? It doesn't makes sense.

Love and hate go hand in hand. And not just in relationships.
If you love something you can also see its mistakes. Ghostcrawler has also stated that WoW haters actually are its most passionate fans.

[druenos]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[TheFirstOnes]

Of course there's reasons why they didn't make Rep account wide or AP Character wide, they want to keep you subbed.

The only "destination" for hardcore raiders is BIS 925 Gear but that's behind a huge wall of Titanforge/socket RNG.

Gameplay 1st was lost long ago when they added more then 1 version of a raid/dungeon.

Seeing how ToS drops 930-940 on mythic, they want bigger itemlevel gaps between content (the original plan was 925 KJ loot, but they increased it all by 15 late in PTR, seeing how they realized heroic/mythic NH already drops 925 sometimes)

Let's assume Tomb loot Titanforges to 955 (max itemlevel always been +15 over mythic).

I guess 7.3 Argus will bring another Dungeon/WQ update, maybe more AK levels, some more pvp brawls/reps.

You forgot about the Raid...

- - - Updated - - -

To The OP:

What is this? An SJW Political Movement?

Why do you have to mad?

It's only game....

NO need to get salty over the grind, mate....

[Aggrophobic]

They want you to pay.

I'll try to be as constructive as possible here. The more you play, the less time you will subscribe, so Blizzard has done everything they possibly can to slow down your gaming experience to keep you subscribed for longer.

AP/AK
They say they want AP to come 'naturally', but there's nothing 'natural' about the AP/AK system. The system has been deliberately designed to make you feel like waiting for the next 5 days for your next order instead of playing the game now. The more you wait = the longer you are subscribed.

Time gating
The less you see, the better. With content time gated and players waiting weeks or months for the staggered release of content (e.g. LFR, flight), Blizzard feels as though they will subscribe for longer.

No more destinations
Blizzard has also removed the ability to really 'complete' a lot of their content including reputation farming. You can no longer ever really finish reputations. This might sound like a good idea on paper ('if they never finish the reputations, they'll never unsubscribe!') but when people realise that there is no longer any goal to achieve, they will stop bothering.

Nerfs
Every lucrative source of currency has been nerfed to oblivion (Mythic+ AP, Nethershards, Mage Tower AP, etc). Why the nerfs? The slower you earn currency, the more time you need to buy items. More time = subscribed longer.

I hope that we return to a 'gameplay first' model rather than a 'metrics first' model. That is the way to retain long term subscriptions as opposed to cheap tactics like AK.



From the US Forums by Ikhj - https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20753797048

Pretty much, yes.

[potis]

I have been yelling this since the first month of Legion launch.

Everything in Legion is made to make the expansion hopper/casual sub for 1 more day, it has nothing to do with game design choices, its simply business oriented on how to milk the players, the expansion hoppers, the casuals.

Every expansion has this, people return, hit some awesome number or 10-12m subs for a month or two, then suddenly by the end of the expansion we have a new low.

They want to prevent that, so if by the end of 7.3 instead of 5 million subs we have 5 million and 1 subs, they achieved their goal.

Despite that, the game isnt in such a bad state, apart from the horrendous RNG with legendaries and the balancing around AP farming when they said they wouldnt do that (LOL ) everything else is rather okayish.

I know many expansion hoppers,old raiders or old IRL friends from Vanilla-->Wotlk, that only sub at the start of the expansion to see things maximum of 1 month..

Reality from my side is that there are still a couple subbing on/off in Legion because apparently they enjoy something, they never played this long before, not in Cata, not in MoP or WoD.

So yes Legion did something right from a business stand point, despite having this horrible grindy element.

[druenos]

It is a true point, though. If you feel literally tormented to play, and feel like Blizzard is robbing you of your money... Why continue to play or continue to pay? It doesn't makes sense.

I don't think that's what he is trying to say. Just because someone is complaining doesn't mean they don't like the game, they just think something could be done to improve the game. This person has a brain, don't you think he knows he doesn't have to play if he doesn't want, he doesn't need a dick to point this very obvious fact out.

[Deleted]

No worries. Maybe now you will be able to realize that nobody really is making you play the game other than yourself.

I didnt see anyone say anything about forced lol

[Todesbote]

I get the point and in some regards there is truth behind it but some of the arguments are misleading. You could also read some of the points you make from another perspective:

Time gating
The less you see, the better. With content time gated and players waiting weeks or months for the staggered release of content (e.g. LFR, flight), Blizzard feels as though they will subscribe for longer.

True there is a lot of time gating. However the alternative to gating content is to release everything at once. This would then lead to a very intense couple of weeks where all the new content is available right away - possibly overwhelming some players - and in return lead to a content drought for the months after the initial release. So while you are right - there is time gating and always has been in WoW to some extend - there are reasons for that. If they would dump everything at once some people would burn themselves out on it and eventually some people would complain that there is nothing to do after they rushed through it.

Nerfs
Every lucrative source of currency has been nerfed to oblivion (Mythic+ AP, Nethershards, Mage Tower AP, etc). Why the nerfs? The slower you earn currency, the more time you need to buy items. More time = subscribed longer.

Bringing some activities in line with other activities in terms of AP progression could also be seen as a way to save the community from themselves. If for example they would have kept the Mage Tower AP working like it was in Heroic dungeons - everyone who considers themselves to be a cutting edge PvE player would feel like anything besides grinding Heroic dungeons would be a waste of time as long as the Mage Tower is up. I feel like Blizzard's goal is to offer players a variety of content to play while making sure that nothing is so profitable that everyone is doing that over the other things at all time. By the way Nethershard drop rates were buffed on many of those things (chests, rare mobs, commanders, world quests). True Mythic+ AP was lowered in comparison to world quests or raids but they added incentives to push Mythic+ as high as you can by adding a lot of AP to the weekly chest.

AP/AK
They say they want AP to come 'naturally', but there's nothing 'natural' about the AP/AK system. The system has been deliberately designed to make you feel like waiting for the next 5 days for your next order instead of playing the game now. The more you wait = the longer you are subscribed.

The more you wait = the longer you don't have your next trait. If you feel like waiting for a couple of days until you get your next AK level before doing anything - that's fine. It's your choice. A choice you wouldn't really have if AK wasn't there. There would be no catch up mechanism and if you consider yourself cutting edge in PvE you would feel like you should spend every waking hour farming AP. Would that be better than the current way? I don't think so.

[Tack980]

Are you dense? Serious question. AP/AK is gameplay, the specifically tune raid content around having a certain amount of AP which requires AK. They've even openly admitted that they tuned most of Mythic Nighthold around having, previously, 54 traits in your weapon. So how can you "just play the game" when they specifically make the game around having a certain amount of AP?

AP was nerfed in Mythic+, you might not have realized it, but you're actually gaining 30-40% less AP per dungeon now. The only dungeons giving the same amount of AP as pre-7.2 are the longer ones(Arcway and HoV). The shorter ones give 30-40% less AP then they did before. They hard nerfed the Mage Tower because it was "giving too much AP" that's the nerf. Now you're lucky if you get 1-5 over the course of the garbage 3 day cycle that the buff is active before the tower gets destroyed.

OK, follow up question, you do know that doing the higher mythic plus gives you more ap now up to +30, and you get a huge boost in the cache weekly (ajusted for ak 25 im getting 15% more a week). Are you even doing mythic Nighthold? If you are, to get to that gear level you kinda got that ap natrually, and there are people who clear past the first 3 at lower traits when it was 54, they readjusted the power levels in this patch so that isn't even required. Also that kind of crap was awalys in place in the form of gear previous expac ( when there was only one way to get gear and it took weeks to get it) I diddn't read any nerf on the mage tower ( I could be wrong, but didn't see one reported)

[Myah]

While the gating and delays highly annoy me, I don't blame them. They're a company and the first objective is to profit.

[Lochton]

They want you to play, pay and invest. That is what you do in the game, end of story.

[chipwood]

I can't tell if you're serious or not.

player 1: Wow the current balance of arena is a little wonky WAAAAH WAAAAH WAAAH GONNA UNSUB.
Eleccybubb: QUIT BLIZZARD ISN'T HOLD A GUN TO YOUR HEAD

player 2: I wish they would add voice acting for all these quests, WAAAAH WAAAAH WAAAH GONNA UNSUB..
Eleccybubb: QUIT BLIZZARD ISN'T HOLD A GUN TO YOUR HEAD

fixed that for you.

[Deamon87]

It feels as if some designers who recently joined Blizzard were previously working on mobile farming games. Happy farm game or things like this.

And ideas from those designers were warmly met by high management.

Grinding, farming, grow carrots in your garden. But, hey, Blizzard even released mobile app so that you can do this everyday activity from your mobilephone

[Lady Dragonheart]

I don't think that's what he is trying to say. Just because someone is complaining doesn't mean they don't like the game, they just think something could be done to improve the game. This person has a brain, don't you think he knows he doesn't have to play if he doesn't want, he doesn't need a dick to point this very obvious fact out.

And what is the most effective way to let a game company know that you are satisfied with their company/game? My unsubbing and turning their backs on them until demands are met, looking for alternatives that suit their needs and desires for a good game.

[Deleted]

I'll try to be as constructive as possible here.

Lol you failed already with some shitty rhyming clickbait title.

[TheFirstOnes]

I can't tell if you're serious or not.

player 1: Wow the current balance of arena is a little wonky I wish blizzard would fix this
Eleccybubb: QUIT BLIZZARD ISN'T HOLD A GUN TO YOUR HEAD

player 2: I wish they would add voice acting for all these quests, they are a little boring.
Eleccybubb: QUIT BLIZZARD ISN'T HOLD A GUN TO YOUR HEAD

Do you see how your logic is dumb?

If only the community actually acted like that. LOL

[chooi]

am i the only one who just do the 4 wq for emissary + wq for new reput and disconnect ? 7.2 is a huge let down for me;p like adding more air in an already empty bag

You're not the only one. I just wanna finish Revered for flying before my sub runs out (16d left) and come back later in some months with really high Artifact Knowledge to get everything I want within a fraction of time in comparison to now. The new raid is coming in some months, so I don't really see the point why I should grind out my artifact right now at abysmal AK levels...? That's just a waste of time.