Why Cater to Hardcore Players?

[Eleccybubb]

Now it is in most cases.

People will still moan about 20 player mythic size being "too big", so go figure if they'd put back 40 mans... logistics wise the community changed a lot. Cross server also played a role.

Uhm no. It has always been the easily accessible MMO since 2004. And no people aren't pissed about it being too big for 20 man. They are pissed that it is a static 20 man and would prefer an option for 10 or flexible from what I've read.

And what the hell OP? WoW probably caters like 3 bits of content towards Hardcore players. Mythic, High Mythic + and High end PvP.

[Softbottom]

Uhm no. It has always been the easily accessible MMO since 2004. And no people aren't pissed about it being too big for 20 man. They are pissed that it is a static 20 man and would prefer an option for 10 or flexible from what I've read.

And what the hell OP? WoW probably caters like 3 bits of content towards Hardcore players. Mythic, High Mythic + and High end PvP.

Thing that comes into play also is what does op think hardcore is? You can have someone who mythic raids 8 hours a week and gets cutting edge every tier and on the other hand have someone who plays 18 hours a day and has never stepped foot into a raid. Whos more hardcore?

[Paperfox]

Hardcore players pay the bills, casuals do not. WoW can survive without casuals, it can not survive without hardcore players. That's a fact, not opinion. It's hardcore players that drive interest in the game for everyone else. It's hardcore players that everyone copies builds from. It's hardcore players that create all the guides and boss strats that everyone else follows. It's hardcore players that clear content and drive the competition for everyone else to clear that same content.

The argument I'm sure people will try to make is there are more casual players than hardcore players, so that means they should get the priority, but that's false logic. Those casual players don't maintain their subs like hardcore players do. Hardcore players remain subbed year round, casual players quit for months at a time. Also, those casual players lose reason and desire to play the game if the hardcore players aren't there to hold their hands and tell them how to play the game.

I always thought that hardcore players spent hours every day playing the game to make sure their toon was as geared as possible and had all the possible extras ie: farmed mats - in other words they worked at the game. Whereas casual players maybe ventured into a dungeon and/or raid, collected pets, had alts and just generally had fun.

I am very pleased to note that I - who previously thought I was a casual player (although I did read up on fights) - was in fact a hardcore player. I did, after all, maintain my sub.

[Schattenlied]

WoW has only gotten more and more casual friendly as subs dropped, somehow I don't think that's the problem.

Skill is appreciated and rewarded, but not nearly as much as time spent is.

The people who get the "best and most prestigious rewards" are the people doing mythic raiding... Mythic raiding is entirely a skill challenge, and because they fail at it A LOT it means they need to put in lots of time to get it right... They would be rewarded just as much if they one shot the boss, and it's certainty possible, but highly unlikely. It's a skill challenge, and coordination of 20 people.

pick up and play, and almost immediately have fun.

and get bored of just as quick... Good model for B2P games where people pay everything upfront, not good for subscription based games like WoW. Good for F2P where people dump money on cosmetics and then regret it 2 months later when they are bored of it, not great for WoW.

I prefer a game where I have to actually put effort in to get shit done, because it feels rewarding at the end, if I don't have to put in any effort, and just get instant gratification, it will feel rewarding once or twice and then I will lose all interest, like I did with HotS and Overwatch.


If you want an instant gratification game, GO PLAY ONE, there are plenty to choose from, and WoW itself has plenty of that. You don't need mythic, or even normal raid get to do any casual activities in this game. You want to see the raids? LFR, you want to do a mythic dungeon? Go for it, you can do that in LFR gear, or gear from 5 mans, or gear from world quests... You can do everything in this game except Mythic Raiding, as a casual activity. I play WoW a whole 5 hours a week and I raid heroic.

[Eurhetemec]

Wow is probably the easiest accessible mmo ever created lol

It was once. When it came out it was amazing for that - the whole idea of leveling by questing instead of grinding mob camps completely revolutionized basic MMO gameplay (even if in the 42-50 and 57-60 ranges you might have to kind of go back to grinding at the start of Vanilla), as did stuff like food and drink that rapidly filled you up, instance-based dungeons that actually worked and weren't super-generic-seeming (instanced dungeons had been done before, but only AC2* had ever done them like WoW did).

Nowadays? I dunno if it's even top-5 in accessibility to new players. Certainly GW2, SWTOR and ESO are more significantly more accessible to new-to-MMOs players, and I'm pretty sure others rank ahead of WoW too, for new players. Even FFXIV which is a bit arcane is at least comparable to WoW for new players.

However, WoW is unique in that it has both a solid endgame, and one that hasn't been entirely consumed by elitism. I mean, it seems funny to say that, because there's tons of hilarious, awful, ridiculous elitism in WoW (just open up LFG and get ready to alternately roll your eyes and laugh out loud at some of the smug, pompous, schoolboy-ish stuff in there), but relative to say, GW2? Holy shit, it's like WoW is a super-friendly, super-welcoming game.

* = AC2 did a lot of stuff people traditionally attribute to WoW. However, I think it's fair to attribute most of it to WoW, because AC2 was a huge shitshow that hardly anyone played, due to it's amazing combination of completely unstable servers, hugely buggy launch (like, WoW alphas are infinitely more bug-free than this was at launch), and absolutely no balance whatsoever.

[Hctaz]

Did you play tbc and vanilla? even wrath still had long grinds to it. the game is significantly dumbed down not only stat and ability wise, but content wise less grinding to get goodies. In this sense the game is catering to casuals more than ever.

I think it depends on what you define casual versus hardcore. I think OP is referring to hardcore as somebody who invests a lot of time into WoW but not necessarily somebody who raids. There are plenty of people defined as "casuals" who play a LOT more than I do. I really only play to raid but I raid 12 hours a week minimum as a mythic raider and my guild does heroic split runs for the first monthish of every tier. So to many people I'm "hardcore" because of those facts but not hardcore because I only play WoW for a total of 14-15 hours a week on average.

I think OP is referring to people who grind out the game for 940+ gear constantly when he says "hardcore"

I will also say that you're right about the game significantly changing. I honestly preferred the attunement quests and other progress achievements. Stuff that you worked for in order to progress at end game. I don't like how the grind has shifted away from long quests to being all about RNG gear titanforges. I don't like this shift at all. This game isn't Diablo. The game was never before about grinding gear. Gear was something you got from doing end game content and allowed you to do harder and harder end game content.

[Softbottom]

It was once. When it came out it was amazing for that - the whole idea of leveling by questing instead of grinding mob camps completely revolutionized basic MMO gameplay (even if in the 42-50 and 57-60 ranges you might have to kind of go back to grinding at the start of Vanilla), as did stuff like food and drink that rapidly filled you up, instance-based dungeons that actually worked and weren't super-generic-seeming (instanced dungeons had been done before, but only AC2* had ever done them like WoW did).

Nowadays? I dunno if it's even top-5 in accessibility to new players. Certainly GW2, SWTOR and ESO are more significantly more accessible to new-to-MMOs players, and I'm pretty sure others rank ahead of WoW too, for new players. Even FFXIV which is a bit arcane is at least comparable to WoW for new players.

However, WoW is unique in that it has both a solid endgame, and one that hasn't been entirely consumed by elitism. I mean, it seems funny to say that, because there's tons of hilarious, awful, ridiculous elitism in WoW (just open up LFG and get ready to alternately roll your eyes and laugh out loud at some of the smug, pompous, schoolboy-ish stuff in there), but relative to say, GW2? Holy shit, it's like WoW is a super-friendly, super-welcoming game.

* = AC2 did a lot of stuff people traditionally attribute to WoW. However, I think it's fair to attribute most of it to WoW, because AC2 was a huge shitshow that hardly anyone played, due to it's amazing combination of completely unstable servers, hugely buggy launch (like, WoW alphas are infinitely more bug-free than this was at launch), and absolutely no balance whatsoever.

MMOs as a whole are more accessible compared to what i guess we can call the archaic mmos (everquest, ultima, daoc).

[Eurhetemec]

MMOs as a whole are more accessible compared to what i guess we can call the archaic mmos (everquest, ultima, daoc).

Oh definitely, and WoW really started that - and partly by accident, given they didn't even realize questing was a "big deal" until, what, closed beta?

I miss DAoC though. I think the one thing I'd like to bring back from older MMOs, really, that you could bring back, that isn't just nostalgia, is the open world being actually kind of dangerous, you having to think for a second before engaging some mobs, maybe plan your approach, and so on. WoW has this a little with stuff like Argus, but only a little, and only when you're not geared out the wazoo.

I know this is terrible heresy too, but if I was making a new MMO, I would not includ infinitely flying mounts either (maybe ones which could fly for a limited time, or could keep flying but had to actually manuever and so on) but that dragon has long since bolted the stable.

[arkanon]

Hardcore players pay the bills, casuals do not. WoW can survive without casuals, it can not survive without hardcore players. That's a fact, not opinion. It's hardcore players that drive interest in the game for everyone else. It's hardcore players that everyone copies builds from. It's hardcore players that create all the guides and boss strats that everyone else follows. It's hardcore players that clear content and drive the competition for everyone else to clear that same content.

The argument I'm sure people will try to make is there are more casual players than hardcore players, so that means they should get the priority, but that's false logic. Those casual players don't maintain their subs like hardcore players do. Hardcore players remain subbed year round, casual players quit for months at a time. Also, those casual players lose reason and desire to play the game if the hardcore players aren't there to hold their hands and tell them how to play the game.

Just thought i would point out that Blizzard themselves have said that is not at all true. "Hardcore" players, PVE in particular, are more likely to drop their sub and take a few months off. Im really not sure where you think you got your information from. Well, i think i know, you pulled it out of the air to support your argument, claimed it was absolute fact and cannot be denied.

Either your view of what "hardcore" is is really different to mine (and some others based on replies), or, you are just really misinformed about the play styles of these hardcore players.

[Thwunder]

Casual to what regard? I spend a significant amount of time and try to get as good of gear as I can to contribute to raids, so I would not call myself casual but I am certainly not trying to be the best Shaman in the world of Mythic Raiding.

[Deleted]

WoW is not a casual game. No matter what you may think depending on how long you've played this, I think your opinion has been tainted. The average MMO player is by no means a casual. Even just putting in 10-15 consistent hours a week into this game means you probably play more than the average player. Probably far more then the average player puts into a single game every week.

WoW still, for some reason, seems to reward the "hardcore". A type of player who puts an exorbitant amount of time into the game. Skill is appreciated and rewarded, but not nearly as much as time spent is. This kind of design is in stark contrast to every other current Blizzard game. All the others have a tried and true philosophy: pick up and play, and almost immediately have fun. The same cannot be said for WoW, especially since it's low level content is abysmal.

World of Warcraft, a relic of a bygone era of video games, has very clearly dropped in popularity. It is no longer a giant in PC gaming. We don't need current sub numbers to know this. Interest in the game is at an all-time low.

So why press on with such an archaic design style? Why continue to give out the best and most prestigious rewards to these absolute no-lifes who find the time to play it 20, 30, even 40 hours a week?

It makes no sense from a business standpoint. It's hardly a surprise, then, that WoW is being forgotten by anyone but the most hardened fanboys.

1. You vastly underestimate how much the average player does play. It is somewhere between 10-20 hours weekly (even if it would have declined a bit over the last few years), with 25-30% of players playing significantly more than that.

Sources (amongst others): http://electronics.howstuffworks.com...-warcraft1.htm
http://www.iis.sinica.edu.tw/~swc/pu...ame_hours.html

2. You vastly overestimate the time someone needs to play this game to be "successful" in it. You can easily play 10 hours a week and be amongst the top 2-3% of players. It is just about what you do when you play.

3. You fail to recognize that WoW is a subscription game and other Blizzard games are not. No one would pay 13 Dollars/Euros monthly to play 2-3 hours. You would if you would play 10+ hours for months and years.

4. Having a game that can reatin millions of players for years is like having millions of season-ticket holders in sports. And those are worth their weight in gold because you can count on their money coming in.

[clevin]

1. You vastly underestimate how much the average player does play. It is somewhere between 10-20 hours weekly (even if it would have declined a bit over the last few years), with 25-30% of players playing significantly more than that.

Sources (amongst others): http://electronics.howstuffworks.com...-warcraft1.htm
http://www.iis.sinica.edu.tw/~swc/pu...ame_hours.html

Both of those studies use data from a decade ago.

WoW does reward time more so in many cases than skill but that's the genre.

[Lorianus]

OP has a point, atleast PvP wise since s7 were they started balancing the game for 3 v 3 and killing the more casual friendly 2 v 2 in the process the participation slowly was dieing to the point we are now, because lets face it average joe doesnt care about 3 v 3 balance but he cared about maybe getting Challenger/Rival with his best buddy in the 2 v 2 1800 bracket.

In that sense they killed the cannon fodder that used to queue up in BC>end of Cata with balancing/catering for the 1%, and massivley reduced the MMR inflation in doing so.

Queuing up for rated arena is simply unattractive unless you care about the particular elite set recolor.

Less people queuing up for 2s = every game you fight against the current FOTM setup consisting of "gladiator xyz" with his best healer buddy "arena master abc", and that happens on nearly every MMR beginning @ 1600-2k.

[tripleh]

Special snowflakes are a small minority in the game. All the rewards from mythics and achievments mean nothing to an average player. As hardcore raiding guilds decline, the content changes and focuses towards the ones that generate the most $$ in the game. Blizzard isn't the controlling entity anymore. Activision is at he head of the company. With each expansion more veteran players leave hardcore raiding to play more casual. We already see a decline with some guilds having issues filling spots in raids.