The REAL reason WoW is declining: The loss of sense of accomplishment

[keese]

I see so many reasons pop up about why WoW is "failing" (it's not) and why WoW is dead (also not). They're all either completely wrong, they only tell part of the story, or they're right but for the wrong reasons.

Sure there are millions of players coming and going to the world of Azeroth every day, so the reasons for which are a multitude, but for the most part the long-time players are leaving this game for one reason- the loss of a sense of accomplishment and a sense of epicness. Well what the hell does that even mean? Let me explain. The reason that people play WoW for literally days and weeks of playtime is because you're building and leveling a character which in turn gives you a sense of accomplishment and progress. Now this may seem obvious to some, and many of you are probably saying to yourself, "duh, they do this in Cataclysm, your point is invalid." Yes, there is a sense of accomplishment in Cata, but to a much lesser extent than before.

It used to be that leveling took a long time. Months even. You got talent points every level, you built your character, it grew slowly. You got better gear, you didn't even get trinkets till halfway through leveling. You didn't just click your spec and get your best skill at level 10. Making leveling take hours, with BoA gear cheapens the experience and makes you less invested in your character. You don't feel invested in your character the way you used to and in the end you care less about his own personal story. Additionally, while you're leveling, and you solo a hard to beat elite, or pull a couple too many mobs, blow CDs potions, use your pet to tank, kite, and survive with 10% health remaining, it makes you feel epic. You are the master of your class, you can use every spell in your classes arsenal to overcome overwhelming odds. Even though you might not be that great, you feel epic, you feel like a pro, and this is what games in general are all about, whether it be CoD or Super Mario World. When this sense of accomplishment gained through leveling, skill building, and knowledge of your class dies, so does the influx of new gamers. For them, they are not going to enjoy leveling, see it as something in their way to level 85 (because that's what they're told) and thus they're either going to level to 85, or not, and quit the game.

Also to consider is the shorter leveling 80-85. It's not as important as 1-60 but it's worth mentioning. Whether you enjoyed levels 80-85 is subjective so I won't talk about that too much. There's definitely some epic parts to it. What I will talk about is how once you do level to 85, you rarely if ever return to the zones. This again kills the sense of accomplishment and sense of epic. In wrath and BC when you returned to zones for whatever reasons (fishing dailies, daily quests, dungeons pre LFD), you felt a little awesome because YOU beat that area. You knew where to go, you knew where everything was, what quests were nearby, where the vendors were without looking at your map or anything. That is character building. Even though it might not be a stat on your character pane or a shiny achievement, it's a sense of accomplishment that you have within yourself that's just an added bonus of "I know my way around this game." It's a pretty cool feeling, even if you only feel subconsciously, that you really only feel anymore in Org or SW, and that isn't really that epic.

Let's take a look at gearing in Cata, and why there's no more accomplishment anymore. This is an easy one, and I'll probably take the most crap for this one but the bottom line is this. You can gear up a toon from fresh 85 to raid ready in a day. Do you feel accomplished after that? A little, but personally I just feel relief. Sure it's nice that you can do this and start raiding immediately, but it cheapens the experience. You don't really feel accomplishment from doing it, and you don't feel like you have built your character. Hell, when I do this on alts I couldn't name any of the pieces of gear outside my trinkets. Even when you are raid ready it's not as rewarding to get a piece of gear as it was in BC or Wrath. You pretty much just get whatever drops and fill in the missing pieces with VP. To me, it feels more like you're just working towards an iLvl, whereas before you were working towards specific pieces of gear. Another reason that gear is cheapened is you just replace all of it with the next patch. When something is easy to get, it cheapens the coolness of it. Say what you want about elites or casuals or whatever, but when you first saw someone with the Ashes mount you said to yourself "Hoe. Lee. Shit." What is there like that in this game anymore? Even if you were a casual, it was something epic, something that you could work towards, and maybe you didn't realistically think you would ever get that mount, but you could try. And if you did someday get it, even after it's current content, you felt epic and like you were building your character.

Speaking of raids and gear, I need to talk about LFD and LFR. These are very very debated topics and have been beaten to death, resurrected, then beaten ten more times. Whether you think they're good or not is up to you and this post won't change your mind. What is undeniable however, is that the social aspect of the game has been lessened. Getting friends in WoW is kinda like leveling your character in a way (in the nerdiest way possible). You have a list of people you can call on to help you with dailies, killing elites, doing dungeons, filling raid spots, or whatever. It's something that isn't a stat on your character sheet or a shiny achievement, but it's something that you build over time and makes you feel like you hold a place of respect in your server.

Last point I want to talk about is class homogenization. This is another heated discussion and I'm not trying to start flame wars, but it's a very important topic. In a raid before Cata, if you were the shaman and your raid leader said, ok let's lust and burn. That felt fucking epic if you were the shaman. You single handedly increased your raid damage and heals, BY A LOT. Same thing goes for a druid with rebirth. You very well could have just prevented a wipe single handedly. Every class had something like this that could "save the day" so to speak. One of the most epic things I've ever seen is demo lock tanking to kill a boss after tanks are dead. Or evasion tanking. Every class had something that NO ONE ELSE brought to the raid. Pallies had a slew of buffs that no one else had. You felt like you were an individual, bringing something unique to the raid that no one else could. You knew your class and your capabilities. This makes you feel like you have built your character into something epic. Now? "ok someone pop the melee buff, someone pop stats buff, alright let's pull. Ok someone who has a resurrection off CD resurrect healer 3. Ok someone pop heroism. Ok boss is dead it dropped agility mail. You don't need because you already filled that spot with VP? Ok someone shard. Next boss." Does that sound epic to you? Sure it can be fun because you're clowning around with your friends but it is no where near epic.

Ok now I want to end with a small story. I was running BRD on my first character ever, without LFD. Obviously, I wasn't very good, and it took us hours to beat the dungeon, but it was freaking epic. There were always surprises around the corner (a bar fight? really?). Anyways, we finally get to the last boss, the emperor, and we missed one of the trash in the area before. So obviously when the boss pulled, so did the trash and we were going to wipe (before BoA so it wasn't super faceroll). right before we were about to die I Divine Interventioned the healer. It was the first time I had ever used that skill and it made me feel epic. I had just saved the group from a twenty minute corpse run using a skill that only my class had. Sure it wasn't the most useful skill, and it could be used to exploit certain things in the game, but right then and there I felt epic. Later on I would realize that I was bad and that people use DI all the time for raid wipes, but it didn't really matter back then. I felt epic. I felt like I had accomplished something through knowledge of the game. I felt like I was building a character that could be used in a group to do something amazing. That my friends, is what WoW is all about. Bring back the sense of accomplishment and the sense of epic, and you bring back the glory days of WoW.


P.S. Sorry for grammatical errors and repetitiveness.

[Marema]

Nice post and all but running BRD for 3+ hours never offered me a sense of accomplishment. It only made me never go back into that instance again. Just like I never went back into Sunken Temple after the first time. People forget how long and boring those instances were, and believe me, you bring back a 5 man that takes 3 hours to finish and people will be flipping out to no end.

I enjoy the game a hell of a lot more now than I did back in Vanilla and even somewhat more then I did in BC. But I can't really compare the current game now to any other version of the game because I don't play nearly as much as I did back then. If I was still a 'hardcore' gamer, yeah, I'd probably hate Cata. But I'm a 60-90 minute a night gamer now and Cata is great for that playstyle.

And honestly, if I wanted a sense of accomplishment I'd go finish my masters instead of sitting on my ass playing computer games. WoW is a time sink, nothing more. If you want to accompish something, turn off the computer and do something constructive.

[Rorcanna]

A lot of people seem to confuse accomplishment and fun, with grindy and tedious for the sake of being time consuming.

That's all I have to say about the people crying over the game becoming "easy"...they are clearly not pursuing the highend stuff to begin with, but instead spend time and energy being bothered with things that are meant to be available to most players to begin with. Such as lower power gear, LFR encounters, gold and so on.

We also have the simple facts of life here, and people tend to overlook them...EVERYTHING is more epic the first time. BRD was surely epic and massive the first time, but what about the 20th time for those that did it every week? ICC to me was so awesome the first time that I had a rush for hours after having finished the first run, and all up until the first clear...but when I had completed it 2 times, it began to get boring.

Challening fight mechanics and many smaller but different instances > one big time consuming instance with easy/basic boss mechanics and lots of tedious trash to clear.

[BloodchargedIllidan]

A lot of people seem to confuse accomplishment and fun, with grindy and tedious for the sake of being time consuming.

That's all I have to say about the people crying over the game becoming "easy"...they are clearly not pursuing the highend stuff to begin with, but instead spend time and energy being bothered with things that are meant to be available to most players to begin with. Such as lower power gear, LFR encounters, gold and so on.

Wrong, it is becoming easier. Seeing as the only "hard" fights in DS Heroic were Spine and Madness.

[Belial91]

BRD was one of the best instances ever and Sunken Temple didn't ever really take that long.

[Furell]

I didn't even read your whole post, but you're totally right. It really sucks WoW lost his sense of accomplishment it first had, now it's just a big bad grindfest. I don't know if you are Dutch, but i just read an article a few days ago about gaming in general and getting the accomplishment feeling what's so needed in games to keep you hooked. It's the same as sex without...

[Powerogue]

what I got sick of was that there is no such thing as an accomplishment that keeps.

"hey, a cape that boosts my resistance to fall damage! this will actually remain useful for a while" LOLNO, REMOVE FROM GAME
"hey, I sure am glad I trained fishing, now I have an advantage in making money" LOLNERF FISHING
"hey, this quest awarded me a slowfall trinket! there are uses for this!" LOLFLYING MOUNTS EVERYWHERE

and last but not least

"Phew, that 60% speed swimming mount only took me a month straight of fishing! This is bound to give me the edge in vash'jir!" HAHAHA NO IT'S SLOWER THAN THE REGULAR MOUNTS

[ukrainium]

Honestly, if people are so fed up with WoW and the direction the game has been going then just quit. No one is forcing you to stay.

Yea, the game did feel epic 7 years ago. I just came back from a year long break and the game still feels epic to me. If you hate it, leave.

[Rorcanna]

what I got sick of was that there is no such thing as an accomplishment that keeps.

"hey, a cape that boosts my resistance to fall damage! this will actually remain useful for a while" LOLNO, REMOVE FROM GAME
"hey, I sure am glad I trained fishing, now I have an advantage in making money" LOLNERF FISHING
"hey, this quest awarded me a slowfall trinket! there are uses for this!" LOLFLYING MOUNTS EVERYWHERE

and last but not least

"Phew, that 60% speed swimming mount only took me a month straight of fishing! This is bound to give me the edge in vash'jir!" HAHAHA NO IT'S SLOWER THAN THE REGULAR MOUNTS

Hmm...why should they balance an entire zones leveling around ONE single rare mount?

The turtle is for flavour only, Vash'jir is a leveling zone where tons of people went and got a mount they cannot use anywhere else just to make the leveling smoother. You can still use the turtle, can't you?

---------- Post added 2012-02-14 at 06:06 PM ----------

Wrong, it is becoming easier. Seeing as the only "hard" fights in DS Heroic were Spine and Madness.

That depends on who you ask, doesn't it?

The game hasn't lost it's sense of accomplishment, it's not EASY to get the best rewards. That's actually all there is to it. How is this? Because there's still tons of people enjoying what they achieve in-game and working hard on what they want.

[Snow White]

Wow vets are growing up, having kids, getting real jobs and generally unable to invest as much time as they once did for their beloved game. Instead of quitting they simply demand a more convenient game. Blizzard listened. It's spiraled out of control to the point where everything is faceroll and everyone feels entitled to their purps.

Also, the game is just way too focused around gear and endgame and I think that's one of it's major faults. When you create expansion after expansion adding higher level caps you pretty much have to make it easier and more convenient so the newer players can keep up. There is nothing to do in wow at low levels. even the holiday events require you to be level cap to complete all of the objectives / achievements.

I'm really excited for guild wars 2 to come out because it doesn't put all it's eggs in one basket (end game) and actually encourages you to stop and smell the roses.

[Miley]

The game feels less epic just because it's been out for so long and people have been there and done that already.

[Kujako]

And here I thought it was because there was nothing to do but mail box dance.

[keese]

Honestly, if people are so fed up with WoW and the direction the game has been going then just quit. No one is forcing you to stay.

Yea, the game did feel epic 7 years ago. I just came back from a year long break and the game still feels epic to me. If you hate it, leave.

If people are fed up with the direction the game is going they should voice their opinion so that we see a return to glory instead of simply quitting.

[Yig]

Trying to pin something down to one reason is a mistake in absolutist thinking, you're doing nothing with this post but giving form to your own gripes. The only decline in WOW is the fact that nothing lasts forever. People get tired of things. If your "hypothesis" in the OP had any merit, WOW would not have had record all time popularity and sales when accomplishments you speak of were easy to obtain.

And when things were harder, sales were lower.

[dokhidamo]

Personally my sense of accomplishment comes from the story, not the difficulty. So this may be why you left WoW, but not why people don't like WoW as much.

[Domiku]

Why so many TL;DR posts on this? The reason wow is failing is because lots of reasons not down to 1 single reason. People leave for different reasons. Work, kids, lack of interest, new mmo, etc etc etc.

Most people i know on wow played it for about 3 years + now and they they started playing they didnt have commitments. Now they are more casual players and cant play like they used to. Some of those friends got frustrated at the start of cata as they didnt have the time to play the game or raid (what they liked doing) so they left. I have other friends who just left to play Rift, Aion, SW or to try another genera of game.

I also have friends who left because they passed a driving test or got a girlfriend or a job that stopped them playing.

Majority of wow players have been playing some time, people change, things change. There is no single reason why players leave. Some might want the game more casual (most i guess fit into this bracket as i said most the player-base grew with the game and cant play like they used to but want to achieve the same as they did in the past, not raid old tiers and LFR). However Some people might be new to the game and leave because they want the game to be harder and its to casual for them.

Blizzard are doing a good job at trying to keep as many players happy as they can, it will never work for everyone if your not liking the game dont play it. Warcraft is a GAME! a game should be fun not taxing, if your not liking it try something else and stop the QQ at the majority of the playerbase blizzard is trying to support (and doing a good job at it still having 10.2M players is a grate achievement)

[keese]

The game hasn't lost it's sense of accomplishment, it's not EASY to get the best rewards. That's actually all there is to it. How is this? Because there's still tons of people enjoying what they achieve in-game and working hard on what they want.

I disagree 100%.

[Velanis]

I didn't bother reading your wall of text. But, it's been said before - WoW is 7 years old. This is why it's declining.

[Tomana]

I didn't even read your whole post, but you're totally right. It really sucks WoW lost his sense of accomplishment it first had, now it's just a big bad grindfest.

Because BC wasn't a grindfest? And LK? Take for instance the Quel'Danas dailies vs Firelands dailies vs Icecrown and Hodir dailies - I don't know if there is a clear winner in grindfeast terms.

[Senchae]

The 1 big thing I miss about wow really is the arena point stops, IE 1350 gave boots or whatever up to 1800 for the T1 wep I remember in wrath when I got the 1800 wep and then the 2k shoulders it really felt like the learning all the classes mechanics and practicing arena, strat discussions and all that was paying off, now I honestly just cba to grind rating for nothing.