Why did Blizzard's business model become time-gating and content removal?

[Osmeric]

The randomness of loot also completley clusterfucks the value of gear. An LFR player can literally get gear equal to mythic by pure fucking luck without ever having touched a decent raid difficulty before and likewise a mythic player can get gear even less valueable than heroic gear.

This is fatuous bullshit. Yes, it CAN happen. And I could win the lottery -- which is more likely than an LFR player outgearing a mythic raider, when looking at total ilvl in all slots.

On average, a raider on a given difficulty level will get better gear, and get it sooner, than raiders on lower difficulty levels. The rare (in some cases, astronomically rare) exceptions do not alter this.

[Rotted]

Alrighty then *crack nuckles*

Great. You managed to achieve the bare minimum with an alternate character who most likely had access to the Artifact Knowledge tomes. Have you managed to get all your reputations to Exalted? Have you managed to get all the Artifact Weapon appearances and the alternate colors? Have you maxed out your various professions and gotten all the ranks for them?

Yes the bare minimum, since then I haven't logged in, but I can safely say she'd be approaching 890-900 at this point that's without raiding NH HC. (I haven't logged in since 7.2 launch sadly) The bare minimum, in fact I'd say a little above the bare minimum, I could log in right now and form my own NH normal run and pull the required amount.

Yes, it was with tomes, if he quit two months ago he should have his main character to 25 so he could use said tomes. For the record, I started legion a month late, rolled a new character, hit ak 23 one him I think it was? rerolled to a range got her to 20, then started my third character and got her to 16 I think it was before the tomes rolled out. Short of someone not being arsed to do their tomes every time its ready, theres no reason they shouldn't have hit AK 25 on one character.

Reps, appearance, professions, completely none related to someone coming back or re rolling, the original comment I quoted was talking in general about someone coming back and being behind on AP and AK not about doing anything optional or cosmetic.

For the record, I have exalted on achievement main, on my two raiders I've hit revered with everyone, except nightfallen which is exalted on the third character. Taking nightfallen out of the equation, all that rep is from each set of 4 world quests and emissary's. My third, fourth and fifth characters level'd through dungeons, pvp and questing as a filler for que times, so I barley had any rep for that.

If this was prior to 7.2 I'd agree the AP gap would be huge, 35 is dead easy to get, 54 takes time, on my third character I hit 49 before 7.2 hit, and I started on her late December. But with all that amount being refunded back for new traits and further AK being unlocked, the gap isn't that huge at all, and it doesn't stop anyone from coming back

Honestly? If you want to win the awards you get for playing a video game for more and longer than anyone else, then you should have to be playing the game more and longer than anyone else.

Now that we've cleared that up, exactly what is that 1000 days /played award going to do for you?

So, people should be penalized because they have other commitments regardless they pay the exact same base sub amount? Hell by that logic blizzard was wrong to remove the invasions and should reinstate them right now

All well and good, but you can only do that because you've been playing all along, because it only works for alts, predicated on the AK level of your main. An account that has lapsed will not be able to take as much advantage of the catch-up, as the highest rank of AK that can be bought without first reaching five levels beyond it is only AK 15. Sure, the AK ranks are accelerated depending on how far behind you are, but it's not like you can just buy the AK 20 book (or soon, the AK25 one) and instantly shoot your AP gains to the moon like you can with an alt.

Well like I said above, if he only just stopped playing 2 months ago, he should have AK 25 to get the 20 tome with, also I'm sure his research CD will be down to 3 days in length, we're not talking about someone whose only just joined today or unsubbed after the first month.

[Golden]

Content has been removed throughout the game but why they do it is beyond me. I guess they want the no-lifers to feel special.

From a technical stand point, I can understand why they might want to remove content. If every time you change something for a new expansion, you have to go back and bug test and update 6 games worth of old content, that is a lot of overhead.

[Deleted]

You can rest easy OP, Blizzard already confirmed on last Blizzcon that they won't remove artifacts skins. In fact, they work on a way through which we will be able to use them in the future.

[Requimortem]

From a technical stand point, I can understand why they might want to remove content. If every time you change something for a new expansion, you have to go back and bug test and update 6 games worth of old content, that is a lot of overhead.

I don't believe that's the case at all. If it were, Blizzard would not be the only company I know of that goes out of their way to remove content from the game.

[Thorbalt]

I have no fucking clue what kind of content removal you are referring to.

If you are missing out on anniversary events then, like, make sure you're subscribed and playing during the events. "Yo Mom where's my birthday cake?" "Well, honey, you didn't show up that week, so everyone else ate it."

If you are missing out on things that only happened if you were playing during X period of time, then, in the future, make sure you are playing during Y period of time.

you failed math hard didnt you. and not just once either from the looks of things.

quick reminder. if you designate something X, than it stays X forever in its current context. using a new letter means you are using a DIFFERENT NUMBER, so why the fuck would not playing during mists(X) matter if you were playing in cata(Y)

[Tech Priest Bojangles]

It's easier to just flat out make people Wait for three months, as opposed to keeping them busy for three months.
Hooray for better "Pacing"!

[Deleted]

This is fatuous bullshit. Yes, it CAN happen. And I could win the lottery -- which is more likely than an LFR player outgearing a mythic raider, when looking at total ilvl in all slots.

On average, a raider on a given difficulty level will get better gear, and get it sooner, than raiders on lower difficulty levels. The rare (in some cases, astronomically rare) exceptions do not alter this.

The best currently available gear should come from the hardest currently available content. Noone cares about "on average" bollocks. Every example that does not abide by this rule should be eliminated from the game. And yes, because it is a role-playing game, it matters a lot what others have. In an RPG, hierarchy is important.

[Sencha]

Didn't get Hand of A'dal? Well, fuck you. You can't get it now. That was before Cata.

Good old times.

[JoaoPinga]

I'm amazed about how many people will defend Blizzard no matter what they do, even on matters that are so painfully obviously not good for players.

"Oh hey, you have to study for that test when the Diablo event came and forever lost the opportunity to not have to carry a hearthstone? Must be a shame to be a casual like you."

[Aggrophobic]

They more or less started destrying the game in WoD but they really did a good job at making everything pointless and boring in Legion.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

oh i dunno maybe like those legendary cloak and ring questlines which are intregal to experiencing the full story of mop/wod?

Without those there's nothing but lvling up and running the instances without any of the quests really. Story was gutted for really stupid reasons. No one who has those things feels special. It wasn't special when it was in game. Why should it feel special now that people who simply weren't subscribed can't do it anymore? It's a dumb move, thankfully seems Blizzard has moved away from it altogether but we'll see.

like classic naxx and the opening of aq?

- - - Updated - - -

I'm amazed about how many people will defend Blizzard no matter what they do, even on matters that are so painfully obviously not good for players.

"Oh hey, you have to study for that test when the Diablo event came and forever lost the opportunity to not have to carry a hearthstone? Must be a shame to be a casual like you."

you don't really need to defend any thing they have been doing the same stuff since classic.

[Deleted]

When they realised it would be nigh impossible to provide content for both the casual buffet as well as the Elite 5 course meal eaters and please both.

It doesn't actually seem like they can please anyone these days going by the vocal minority but I guess at least they are trying.

Major Blizzard problem. Cuttering game for everyone so in the end nobady is having fun. You are supostu pick your audience and desing game for them and not trying to please everyone.

[FelPlague]

Tons of stuff was removed in vanilla/bc early versions of mounts, gear looks, certain dungeon drops, the opening of the AQ gates is something that will never happen again, same with original ZG. And as to time gating there were several bosses where everyone had to drop eevrything and farm for months to get nature resistance, or shadow, or frost, or fire, or gear 8 tanks for shit like naxx horsemen.

None of what you're complaining about is new, you just enjoy whining.

What this guy says. All of nax 60 gear is gone unless you pay a forth e. Corrupted ashbringer. The original all class lines. Vanilla legendaries.

They have been removing content since vanilla BC and wrath. Can't do tribute runs of trial of crusader anymore. Can't get the PvP mounts from BC or wrath. And that is still happening.

The game has not changed that much.Game mechanics have. But the idea and general use of the game has not. The game is still the same.(mostly)

- - - Updated - - -

I'm amazed about how many people will defend Blizzard no matter what they do, even on matters that are so painfully obviously not good for players.

"Oh hey, you have to study for that test when the Diablo event came and forever lost the opportunity to not have to carry a hearthstone? Must be a shame to be a casual like you."

You seem to forgot that diablo event hearthstone you don't need to carry can be obtained elsewhere.

Ever heard of the inn keepers daughter? Dwarven archeology toy. Added in cata. Became a toy in wod. Its a hearthstone. So go get that

Maybe do research

[hulkgor]

"Content removal"... alrighty then.

[Osmeric]

The best currently available gear should come from the hardest currently available content.

Obviously Blizzard disagrees with your vacuous assertion, except in the statistical sense you have rejected.

Noone cares about "on average" bollocks.

Obviously you are wrong, since average ilvl is a gating mechanism that Blizzard cares about.

Every example that does not abide by this rule should be eliminated from the game.

Or you could just quit, because why should Blizzard do what you want?

[Deleted]

Obviously Blizzard disagrees with your vacuous assertion, except in the statistical sense you have rejected.

Obviously you are wrong, since average ilvl is a gating mechanism that Blizzard cares about.

Or you could just quit, because why should Blizzard do what you want?

You support the themepark type of WoW that it is right now, where the RP element has gone completely missing. I support the more sandboxy WoW that it will never be again. It is obvious the developers who started this project have by now taken their leave and sooner or later this forum will be but an echo chamber.

[TheVaryag]

From Vanilla and up until Cataclysm (which is, coincidentally, considered to be WoW's golden age), you could play very sporadically and still get to experience all of the content. You could play for a month or so, get bored, quit, come back a year later and then run through the content that you've missed and see the story / the encounters and all that.

Starting from Cataclysm, Blizzard began to remove content. If you missed a PvP season or didn't play your char seriously during that time, you'd end up never being able to obtain the elite recolor of the set. In MoP, Blizzard stepped up their content removal game and first deleted Battlefield:Barrens when SoO launched and later completely erased the legendary cloak questline and when WoD launched. If you want to experience MoP story right now, you just can't since most of the important post-launch story content was removed. This is on top of elite set removals.

WoD mostly had the same model of content removal as MoP but also added time-gating in the form of pathfinder achievements.

Now Legion retained all of the content removal and time-gating features of previous expansions but doubled down on them: artifact appearances are very likely to be removed when the next expansion launches and they aren't something that you can obtain in a day or two, you have to play the same character for months to collect all of them. Not to mention the insane AP and RNG treadmill that you have to keep running unless you want to fall behind and be locked out of current content.

So the question is, why does Blizzard insist on people continuing to play their mains to keep up with the pace of the game instead of quitting for a few months to cool off or play alts? The only thing this business model promotes is burnout.

It Is mostly true they just give us burnout this way, they really like their time-gating and wasting our time kind of deal. It's like... never did a raid take this long to launch since the patch containing the raid was suppose to launch In. The raid usually launches In a week of the patch, or the same week. Launching In a week after patch makes sense, get people used to the new potential changes you made and content you gave.

But this Is silly, I mean Nighthold's LFR was gated behind 2 week releases, not 1 week anymore. That's your first sign of their obvious content gating, then 7.2 release gave us even more of that, and If we'll see 7.3 Argus and beyond we'll see more of that gating. Blizzard -can- and should cator to hardcore playerbase because that's the cogs that keep the game going. You can't maintaince a playerbase on casuals. Blizzard Is trying to be that woman who thinks every man will love her, to be everything to everyone and they can't and they shouldn't. Going for hardcore playerbase was a good Idea from Vanilla to Wrath. I mean go play Vanilla WoW -right- now, on this certain unnamed WoW vanilla private server which name has to remain unspoken as If It's a bad thing, but hey not my decision. It'll show you, the start of WoW and how they were building everything up, to be fair yes, Vanilla is flawed In many, many points but you could easily get over those points because you enjoyed the combat, the talent hybriding, the raiding, the tough and challanging content and questing, and most importantly: Community, you had a guild, a few guys to group up with to do a dungeon which took time, strategy, thinking and time. You earned that run through Ragefire Chasm, did those quests and even got a shiny new axe from It.

There's not even a multiplayer aspect In WoW, It's a singleplayer game at this point. You can solo everything, hell even heroic dungeons you can solo with enough ilevel gear, and even then people will demand you're 900+ ilevel despite heroics being tuned for 810+ but that's tryhards for you. And even then, you barely talk, there's not even a hello, hi how are you, nice weather we're having In this dark and dreary cavern! Not a word, to be fair not everyone wants to always talk and be social and especially In games, but surely you go Into an MMO expecting to talk and be alittle social.

I've made friends on that vanilla private server that I haven't In 7+ years since Cataclysm launched, because the game Isn't promoting team play, group content, coordination and strategy. That's all been thrown out the window since everyone can just spam AoE Taunting/healing/damage and that's all you do. No thinking, no brain function required - just spam AoE. Unless you're doing Mythic raiding you'll hardly find coordination and even then there's so little of It.

I'm worried for WoW's future at this point, and If there's anytime to be dramatical It's now, we don't even know the sub numbers, and their confidence In their game is shown with that. And how they've treated the latest patches. Remember 7.1? Supposedly big patch, but all we got was a Onyxia mini-style raid with re-used abilities and areas, even Onyxia's lair was unique, comeone. We got Karazhan which is now useless at this point, although the story's not bad despite the complete butchering of the lore since Legion launched (Come baaack Metzen... you weren't that bad afterall!) We also got suramar story continuation which really doesn't count as "Extra" content, as It's content they already had but just cut up In half and gaze us In a "big" patch to seem like they're giving consistent content.

Well 7.1 was hyped even before Legion LAUNCHED, that's the first a patch detail for the first expansion patch was given before launch. Showing their confidence at first, but I thought It was more of trying to overhype the hype machine by already adding the patch there to be hyped alongside the launch. And then 7.1 releases a month or two.. ish Into launch, right?

And then, we get 7.2 release date announced a week before It comes out, barely any PTR testing on that, no confidence shown anymore on their side and ofcourse Its' because of their silly gating that we found out Is now the focus of their expansion, heavily. But then you could've noticed that In Legion In general with the mission tables and world quests and everything already. Oh and also, them trying to sneak In an update that scales ilevel to mobs. Which Is like... the worst, do, not, do, that. You'll ruin the ENTIRE game If scaling becomes game-side In every aspect of It. Or majority of It at least.

Also I guarantee Tomb of Sargeras is coming after 7.2.5 because that seems to be their focus, their "Betwenn" patches of non-content mark when their raids are launching. Even Nighthold which was supposedly a launch raid launches a week after 7.1.5.

I'm so confused by Blizzard's content releases, It's content, sure but It's... not content. Like I've said above, they're trying to be the woman to every man and they can't. It's content for every man, but not all of the content the man wants to do, not everyone does proffesions (Which still suck since cataclysm), pokemon-..Imean pet battles or even PvPing. I mean what pvp content did we get... a snowy arathi? Really? Which by the way Is nullified by using the Black Potion from Darkmoon apparently, which removes the mist and lets you see perfectly anyway.

[Deleted]

From Vanilla and up until Cataclysm (which is, coincidentally, considered to be WoW's golden age), you could play very sporadically and still get to experience all of the content. You could play for a month or so, get bored, quit, come back a year later and then run through the content that you've missed and see the story / the encounters and all that.

Starting from Cataclysm, Blizzard began to remove content. If you missed a PvP season or didn't play your char seriously during that time, you'd end up never being able to obtain the elite recolor of the set. In MoP, Blizzard stepped up their content removal game and first deleted Battlefield:Barrens when SoO launched and later completely erased the legendary cloak questline and when WoD launched. If you want to experience MoP story right now, you just can't since most of the important post-launch story content was removed. This is on top of elite set removals.

WoD mostly had the same model of content removal as MoP but also added time-gating in the form of pathfinder achievements.

Now Legion retained all of the content removal and time-gating features of previous expansions but doubled down on them: artifact appearances are very likely to be removed when the next expansion launches and they aren't something that you can obtain in a day or two, you have to play the same character for months to collect all of them. Not to mention the insane AP and RNG treadmill that you have to keep running unless you want to fall behind and be locked out of current content.

So the question is, why does Blizzard insist on people continuing to play their mains to keep up with the pace of the game instead of quitting for a few months to cool off or play alts? The only thing this business model promotes is burnout.

the elite items came out in s6 (it was only weapons that required 2350 rating , later went down to 2.2 in s7 and s8 , and they were been removed every season), so no it didn't start in cata.

[Heathy]

its probably something to do with prestige if you can get an item or set at a higher level then the value of that set or item diminishes, for example i use benediction as my transmog weapon and probably always will, if you could still get it today i wouldn't get ppl wisping me every so often and complimenting me on my staff. certain items stand out when they become impossible to get. I guess it comes down to wanting things to maintain the same level of effort as it originally took, which isn't really possible when you out level the content by a large margin.

I like doing mog runs but they feel cheap, don't feel like you've earned it just blew through it at a higher level.

I think if you play long enough you'll eventually see reskins of all the best previous sets.

seems to be a tough balance between, having a lot of content to do on your main, so the option to play one character and one character only is a viable playstyle, but those that want to play a variety of different classes and roles also should have ways of not being left behind because they have 2 or 3 times as much content to get through to have all their alts at the same power level. the only way this can be balanced is by having what we have now, catch up island and 2 months of nighthold farming.

right now is alt time, if you've been raiding nighthold since it opened there probably isn't much your going to get from there on your main by now if you've been doing full clears, its reached the point that you could potentially raid with alts until tos is released and still have plenty of ilvl to progress.