Activision Blizzard Earnings Call, World Quest Assistant, Tweets, FinalBossTV #138

[Deleted]

They were extremely vague on those points so anything we say is nothing but speculation... on that note, since when does Blizzard "tone down" on any good numbers? Blizzard always liked to throw specific numbers when things were going well and made sure everyone knew about them. On the other hand, when things weren't as good they were always vague or said they couldn't be specific because of some made up reason, and this time they were extremely vague which imo doesn't point towards good numbers.

In the end it doesn't matter much since they will keep making stuff for WoW, some people will keep playing (some non stop, while others with breaks) and I doubt they will ever invest in a WoW2 since compared with other genres, it would make less of a profit now a days.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Is that compared to the 1st quarter performance of WoD?
Because I'd imagine 1st quarter WoD was fairly successful.

1st quarter of WoD saw 10 million active subs, if that's indeed what they refer to, then yeah...
Interesting to see what Q2 will say in terms of retention.

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breaks) and I doubt they will ever invest in a WoW2 since compared with other genres, it would make less of a profit now a days.

A WoW2 would also give loyal customers (myself included) a good reason to stop playing.

Screw investing 9-10-12 years into a game only to have it broken down in order to try and drag new blood in. New blood whom often can't be arsed to get more invested in a game than remembering what level they're on in Candy Crush Saga...

[Jyggalag]

Difficulty =/= Grind. Just saying.

To get somewhere in the game, you need more actual gameplay skill than ever, and this fact has only gotten more cemented as every expansion has been released with more demanding endgame content from a performance point of view.

I can assure you that you don't have more "skill in your big toe" than me, when you believe that overcoming a grind equals skill by default. What endgame PVE content have you done this expansion?

Cleared EN mythic raiding 8 hours/week in world rank 16 2 night/week guild on 2 different classes with 0 split runs and no PTR. Sold Nightbane runs for about a month.
Last expansion? Highmaul world 36th in 3 night/week guild. Rank 5 ele shaman allstar logs in the world. All CM best times on two separate realms at end of the expansion.
Before that? SoO mythic, 1000+ CM carries, all realm best CMs.
Before that? Hero of the Alliance in RBGs - rank 1 team in Europe season 1 and 2.

Your turn.

[Eleccybubb]

Incoming "sky is falling/wow is dying posts"........... oh wait we already had them every damn time this thing is announced.

[McNeil]

WOTLK had 12 million subs at one point, yet the world of Northrend was dead and PVE-people were sitting in cities spamming for groups all day long. Then came the Dungeon Finder tool, and people would still be sitting in cities all day long. I was considered weird for spending tons of time at the Argent Tournament for the mounts...

Not sure what server you were playing on but from the ones I've experienced, all of Northrend has actually been packed with players. The dungeon tool was a convenience but during 3.3 dungeons were farmed out at that point, its only gotten cancerous when it was available during the beginning of a new expansion.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Cleared EN mythic raiding 8 hours/week in world rank 16 2 night/week guild on 2 different classes with 0 split runs and no PTR. Sold Nightbane runs for about a month.
Last expansion? Highmaul world 36th in 3 night/week guild. Rank 5 ele shaman allstar logs in the world. All CM best times on two separate realms at end of the expansion.
Before that? SoO mythic, 1000+ CM carries, all realm best CMs.
Before that? Hero of the Alliance in RBGs - rank 1 team in Europe season 1 and 2.

Your turn.

Nothing more recent than EN?

In that case, assuming you actually did play yourself, you should be well aware that Mythic bosses don't go down if people just mindlessly mash buttons that light up. That was a thing in Classic, but hasn't been a recipe to down bosses since TBC. Look at how the best guilds in the world had to butt their heads against Mythic Helya. EN and Mythic Xavius in particular was viewed as a joke by the best guilds though, but a joke to them, not the remaining 99%.

As for my own experience;

MoP; Mythic SoO (didn't raid the first 2 tiers), Challenge Modes out the wazoo both in order to get the sets for every class and for boosts (gold) with my tank.

WoD; HC all tiers, Mythic HFC but not the full clear, no world ranks. Did Challenge Modes and was going to repeat the same pattern as during MoP but decided not to once it became clear we'd unlock all weapons by finishing it once.

Legion; HC EN, Trial, Nighthold, progressing Mythic Nighthold.

In short; I have enough experience to know that you don't perform at the top possible percentile by "mindlessly mashing buttons". If you got your world rank kills through doing just that in Emerald Nightmare though, I find it a bit more believable.

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Not sure what server you were playing on but from the ones I've experienced, all of Northrend has actually been packed with players. The dungeon tool was a convenience but during 3.3 dungeons were farmed out at that point, its only gotten cancerous when it was available during the beginning of a new expansion.

Draenor and Silvermoon, only the 2 most populated PVE servers on EU.

Northrend zones were not nearly as relevant at max level as zones in Legion. Legion might have half the subs of WOTLK, but I sure see a far more alive world thanks to the actual content in said world beyond leveling.

[Jyggalag]

Nothing more recent than EN?

In that case, assuming you actually did play yourself, you should be well aware that Mythic bosses don't go down if people just mindlessly mash buttons that light up. That was a thing in Classic, but hasn't been a recipe to down bosses since TBC. Look at how the best guilds in the world had to butt their heads against Mythic Helya. EN and Mythic Xavius in particular was viewed as a joke by the best guilds though, but a joke to them, not the remaining 99%.

Nope, quit the game because of the same systems you claim to defend like the AP grind. I'd have to have a serious amount of cash to achieve all that with a pilot account. I wouldn't buy an account like that to quit playing either.
Not once did I say bosses just went down. I said if you want to clear mythic content now, player skill is not as relevant as it used to be, there's now homework involved and a serious, repetitive, tedious grinds for AP, TF/WF gear and legendaries. Used to be someone like me who wanted to kill bosses by playing 2 nights a week could do so by mastering my class and a few wipes to pick up the mechanics. Sure, the bosses are harder, but that's not incentivising players to play, it's putting them off. People don't want to have to play 7 nights a week to kill bosses. When you commit to a guild that aims to kill bosses and you're not max traits or w/e you feel crap

Mythic Xavius was indeed a joke. Mythic Cenarius, on the other hand, not so much (before overgearing/zerg strat).

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To clarify - I'm not advocating for easier bosses at all. See earlier posts for my argument of what was healthy for the game.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Nope, quit the game because of the same systems you claim to defend like the AP grind. I'd have to have a serious amount of cash to achieve all that with a pilot account. I wouldn't buy an account like that to quit playing either.
Not once did I say bosses just went down. I said if you want to clear mythic content now, player skill is not as relevant as it used to be, there's now homework involved and a serious, repetitive, tedious grinds for AP, TF/WF gear and legendaries. Used to be someone like me who wanted to kill bosses by playing 2 nights a week could do so by mastering my class and a few wipes to pick up the mechanics. Sure, the bosses are harder, but that's not incentivising players to play, it's putting them off. People don't want to have to play 7 nights a week to kill bosses. When you commit to a guild that aims to kill bosses and you're not max traits or w/e you feel crap

Mythic Xavius was indeed a joke. Mythic Cenarius, on the other hand, not so much (before overgearing/zerg strat).

I don't "defend" the grind, in fact I'm downing Mythic bosses just fine and I can 100% honestly say that I have an attitude of "fuck the AP grind". My artifact weapon hit 54 traits before 7.2 came out and I didn't grind. I'll max it out once more before 7.3 comes out just fine, and I don't grind. I always have something relevant to strive for in-game, always some way to progress even on my main. It used to be that once my main was raid geared, I'd run out of shit to do with that character until the next tier came out.

Downing bosses still comes down to people playing their classes and specs correctly vs the boss mechanics. You won't get world rankings having my attitude towards the AP grind, but I'd rather play the game and enjoy it than bend over backwards and not enjoying it for some thankless goal.

Hell, there's even complaints that raids aren't getting faster to clear and bosses easier in NH despite people learning the fights and getting gear. I've never seen this complaint before in all my years raiding. It's not a positive or negative thing in my book though, it just is. Granted, people are now roflstomping EN Mythic so perhaps the jumps in power vs content are meant to happen between tiers rather than within them.

[precious]

Oh its one of those days that WOW is dying again?

[Niwes]

Incoming "sky is falling/wow is dying posts"........... oh wait we already had them every damn time this thing is announced.

to mention that (around the sixth time in this thread) is exactly same boring as the behaviour itself. oh no. wait. its more boring. because at least the given reason varies, why wow is dead, while the complete content of your totally useless comment dont.

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Oh its one of those days that WOW is dying again?

nice. the next one (7th) 2 posts later...

how inspiring.

[Jyggalag]

I don't "defend" the grind, in fact I'm downing Mythic bosses just fine and I can 100% honestly say that I have an attitude of "fuck the AP grind". My artifact weapon hit 54 traits before 7.2 came out and I didn't grind. I'll max it out once more before 7.3 comes out just fine, and I don't grind. I always have something relevant to strive for in-game, always some way to progress even on my main. It used to be that once my main was raid geared, I'd run out of shit to do with that character until the next tier came out.

Downing bosses still comes down to people playing their classes and specs correctly vs the boss mechanics. You won't get world rankings having my attitude towards the AP grind, but I'd rather play the game and enjoy it than bend over backwards and not enjoying it for some thankless goal.

Hell, there's even complaints that raids aren't getting faster to clear and bosses easier in NH despite people learning the fights and getting gear. I've never seen this complaint before in all my years raiding. It's not a positive or negative thing in my book though, it just is. Granted, people are now roflstomping EN Mythic so perhaps the jumps in power vs content are meant to happen between tiers rather than within them.

So what's your argument? You've just had a go at players "bitching about having too much to do" in the context of the AP grind, and yet you admit you don't like it yourself.
Going back to your previous comment about "time investment =! challenge", players who want to complete a raid tier at a challenging mythic level are largely limited by time investment, which is more relevant now than ever. And the sad fact is that you're wrong about world ranks and your attitude to AP. Every single player who has achieved world ranks hates it. The only people that like it are the people who do content where the AP grind doesn't matter.

Saying that the current progression system is better than previous expansions that had almost double the player count because mythic bosses are harder or the fact that world content scales is nonsense. Those things aren't mutually exclusive. It's not like RNG and AP has to exist to allow Blizzard to design harder bosses or implement scaling.

Your 3rd point is an absolutely valid complaint. It's the reason a lot of top mythic guilds are quitting. When you've no-lifed a raid until it's on farm, your reward used to be a break from a demanding progress schedule to re-clear and farm loot for the next tier/raid instance. That's not possible when raids are still taking as long to clear week in week out, with 12 minute bosses taking just as long each reset. It's not healthy for the mythic raid scene. Most decent 2-3 night/week guilds that get manage to get cutting edge Gul'dan will maybe kill him a total of 1-2 times before the next raid. Burn out is guaranteed.

[Eleccybubb]

to mention that (around the sixth time in this thread) is exactly same boring as the behaviour itself. oh no. wait. its more boring. because at least the given reason varies, why wow is dead, while the complete content of your totally useless comment dont.

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nice. the next one (7th) 2 posts later...

how inspiring.

You mean the same "varying reasons" as every other earnings thread? Yeah so much variables.....

Every earnings thread someone makes a statement "wow is dying" and gives some stupid reason as to why they think WoW is dying and how their armchair dev skills could improve it. And yet here we are 13 years later. Hell that tombstone from The Daily Blink explains these threads perfectly.

Claim it's dead all you want every earnings quarter but the fact is 13 years later and the game still seems to be going fine. Name one MMO that's still this successful 13 years later. Everquest, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, FF11 all MMOs from that time period are essentially dead as a dodo with barely any players.

[Ilikegreenfire]

Legion had a few peoblems, problems that made me quit for good, which I'm glad I did.

1 Demon hunter balence ya I know don't play the new class if you want balence, but when you lock compeitive single target dps behind a single legendary item you did something wrong.

Legendarys, after 4 shit legendarys in a row I had no will to continue on

Artifact power grind. Anyone that had to play multiple roles early kew what a pain it was. You either have 2-3 shitty ones or 1 good one and 2-3 supremely shitty ones
Artifact power should have been for all artifacts, make the grind longer if you have to to compinsate.

[Niwes]

Nope, quit the game because of the same systems you claim to defend like the AP grind. I'd have to have a serious amount of cash to achieve all that with a pilot account. I wouldn't buy an account like that to quit playing either.
Not once did I say bosses just went down. I said if you want to clear mythic content now, player skill is not as relevant as it used to be, there's now homework involved and a serious, repetitive, tedious grinds for AP, TF/WF gear and legendaries. Used to be someone like me who wanted to kill bosses by playing 2 nights a week could do so by mastering my class and a few wipes to pick up the mechanics. Sure, the bosses are harder, but that's not incentivising players to play, it's putting them off. People don't want to have to play 7 nights a week to kill bosses. When you commit to a guild that aims to kill bosses and you're not max traits or w/e you feel crap

Mythic Xavius was indeed a joke. Mythic Cenarius, on the other hand, not so much (before overgearing/zerg strat).

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To clarify - I'm not advocating for easier bosses at all. See earlier posts for my argument of what was healthy for the game.

what this guy wanna say is that Legion raiding is more dependent on stuff around than ever.

the typical "2-3 evenings a week" hardcore raider that is dedicated to raiding and not more (maybe additional 3-4 hours with guild in dungeons, grind stuff, do quests etc but not more) and that wants to make "the best out of his 2 raid evenings" (by clearing hc and first few myth bosses, or by clearing mythic etc) has a really hard time in this xpac. and this is why some ppl hate it or leave.

on the other side, if you are unemployeed or student, have just a single main char and/or play 7 days a week and need 5 of them to clear mythic, and want always something to do, you have the best time of your life in Legion (as long as you like grinding too as a raider).

for years in my life i was in the second group. since 2 years i am in the first group. so i think i understand what he (and many 28-55 year old wow dedicated longterm players out there) means.

[Eleccybubb]

Legion had a few peoblems, problems that made me quit for good, which I'm glad I did.

1 Demon hunter balence ya I know don't play the new class if you want balence, but when you lock compeitive single target dps behind a single legendary item you did something wrong.

Legendarys, after 4 shit legendarys in a row I had no will to continue on

Artifact power grind. Anyone that had to play multiple roles early kew what a pain it was. You either have 2-3 shitty ones or 1 good one and 2-3 supremely shitty ones
Artifact power should have been for all artifacts, make the grind longer if you have to to compinsate.

Legendaries will probably go next expansion anyway. No way they will keep them after the shitshow.

Artifacts should be going after Legion. Who knows what will happen then. Probably go back to standard weapons.

I think AP should have been for all specs. Maybe to compensate they could have cut the amount the other 2 specs get in half? I dunno just throwing an idea out.

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what this guy wanna say is that Legion raiding is more dependent on stuff around than ever.

the typical "2-3 evenings a week" hardcore raider that is dedicated to raiding and not more (maybe additional 3-4 hours with guild in dungeons, grind stuff, do quests etc but not more) and that wants to make "the best out of his 2 raid evenings" (by clearing hc and first few myth bosses, or by clearing mythic etc) has a really hard time in this xpac. and this is why some ppl hate it or leave.

If they want to make the best then that's their choice. Nobody is forcing them. Especially with Tomb being less tuned around Artifact traits this time. Not calling you wrong but if you want to go batcrap crazy farming the Concordance for example which shouldn't really be farmed in one whole go then that's on you.

The first tier has hit hardcore players hard I agree with you. But I'm sure they said Tomb or the raid after won't be tuned so hard around traits this time.

[Ilikegreenfire]

Legendaries will probably go next expansion anyway. No way they will keep them after the shitshow.

Artifacts should be going after Legion. Who knows what will happen then. Probably go back to standard weapons.

I think AP should have been for all specs. Maybe to compensate they could have cut the amount the other 2 specs get in half? I dunno just throwing an idea out.

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If they want to make the best then that's their choice. Nobody is forcing them. Especially with Tomb being less tuned around Artifact traits this time.

Ya after getting kicked from 2 guilds whom I told I was a tank with little dps artifact power who had me go dps most of the time anyway and then would complaine about my dps enough was enough why spend 20+ hours a week farming shit just to raid when I can go right to the fun shit in overwatch/lol. I mean linking artifact power and being able to chose your legendarys would have solved so many problems and kept people like me playing.

[Eleccybubb]

Ya after getting kicked from 2 guilds whom I told I was a tank with little dps artifact power who had me go dps most of the time anyway and then would complaine about my dps enough was enough why spend 20+ hours a week farming shit just to raid when I can go right to the fun shit in overwatch/lol. I mean linking artifact power and being able to chose your legendarys would have solved so many problems and kept people like me playing.

And I agree. Being able to target Legendaries easier may have worked. Although not having them at all would have been even better imo. Not fun getting Sephuz and Prydaz on a SV hunter.

[Niwes]

You mean the same "varying reasons" as every other earnings thread? Yeah so much variables.....

Every earnings thread someone makes a statement "wow is dying" and gives some stupid reason as to why they think WoW is dying and how their armchair dev skills could improve it. And yet here we are 13 years later. Hell that tombstone from The Daily Blink explains these threads perfectly.

Claim it's dead all you want every earnings quarter but the fact is 13 years later and the game still seems to be going fine. Name one MMO that's still this successful 13 years later. Everquest, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, FF11 all MMOs from that time period are essentially dead as a dodo with barely any players.

i agree to all you say. but where is your benefit in posting the obvious ? after 5-6 other guys did ?

[Mafic]

This is good news.

It means they will stop this stupid pruning they did in WoD and Legion and finally listen to players that still play the game.

[Niwes]

Legion had a few peoblems, problems that made me quit for good, which I'm glad I did.

1 Demon hunter balence ya I know don't play the new class if you want balence, but when you lock compeitive single target dps behind a single legendary item you did something wrong.

Legendarys, after 4 shit legendarys in a row I had no will to continue on

Artifact power grind. Anyone that had to play multiple roles early kew what a pain it was. You either have 2-3 shitty ones or 1 good one and 2-3 supremely shitty ones
Artifact power should have been for all artifacts, make the grind longer if you have to to compinsate.

yep. simple truth.

make a chars power dependent on that much rng stuff and that much grind stuff, while excluding everything else, is plain and simple the WORST idea ever you can do in wow, when you played your own game longer than 1 xpac.

and on top of that you release tripple spec which is nearly useless cause of trinkets, relics, AP, legendaries and a lot of RNG. what a weird shit.