1.3 million sub drop

[Glorious Leader]

Yes, they are. Aside from Lei Shen which could cause headaches, there's not a boss in there that doesn't follow clearly repeatable rules with enough slack in it that if you fail, it's not the end of the world.

I'm sorry you find them hard, but that does not make them hard.

I'm sorry you find them easy, but that does not make them easy.

They are in fact to hard for the majority of the players in the game and the players who could potentially be raiding. You can read my comment for what the developers should do with regards to raids.

---------- Post added 2013-05-10 at 11:53 AM ----------

Are you for real?

TBH had the hardest heroics, Badge gear actually took work to obtain from said heroics. Raids were alot harder then they are now with only 1 set of tier. No 3 different versions of the same gear crap they have now.

Yes. Prior to tbc NONE OF THAT EXISTED. The introduced all those features as MASSIVE QOL benefits for players. Raids were easier then they are now actually. Crafted gear was total shit in vanilla and forget farming pvp gear are you kidding me? Man you people have no clue you really don't.

Let me be extremely clear. The history of wows success is the history of QOL. WOW had more QOL than any other mmo on the market at the time and it was marketed to and made for CASUALS. Wrath increased this to the nth degree as well.

[Deleted]

First of all i agree about not flying. That's stupid. My opinion is that if the developers should learn one thing about this expansion is that their is no going back. You can't take something away from players that they had before and that gets to the ROOT OF THE PROBLEM WITH LFR and paradoxically why they can't remove it but must also offer alternatives to it.

Why are so many people raiding lfr these days? And you'll note fewer and fewer are raiding normals. Well it's quite simple. Go look at their recent gearing blog. It all leads to lfr. They shoved all the great mass of the player base into lfr. Hell they even abandoned the daily questing model by and large. YOu can buy 496 with tot island dailies? well that won't last to long and then what do you do? YOU RUN LFR. You run lfr to get rep because well hey look at that the best valor gear is now behind raid rep AND you run lfr to get gear. PERIOD. That's why so many players are raiding. It's appeal is that they've been funneled into it by the developers. Non daily non lfr alternatives need to be offered. Or better yet have daily alternatives (what do i give a fuck if you do dailies) but also offer dungeon alternatives and organized raid alternatives.

Well with LFR and LFD you can go content clear and use a lot of time doing that, you do not need any social connections or a guild, but after having completed LFR what is keeping people ingame? When you have played the singleplayer part of WoW, you are practicly content without having had to interact with other people. And well without other people to have fun with people move on.
Personally I have had fun with the other people online, but with the tools of convenience I can also see that the amount of time spent with fellow guildies or other people from my realm has decreased substantially.

like someone said earlier in this thread

Wow dosn't cater to hardcore or casual anymore.

Wow caters to the anti-social.

The people I would meet in a 25 man pug or 10 man pug (whatever my guild wasnt doing) were the same people I bg'd with or arena'd with.

Now those people are gone, the guild is running on fumes with half the raid way less skilled than desired.

We log on, do OUR dailies, do OUR lfr, never really meet anyone and log off.

Don't cry, wow can survive on the anti-social but many of us have no interest in that.

[Kaidog]

Another point to note is if wow goes F2P it will clearly attract alot of players again, player base will increase etc, but at what cost? without the sub revenue the game quality/quantity might suffer alot. I think blizz will keep milking the game till they can. Even at 2 million subs it will still be profitable.
But the competition is ever increasing. Just go youtube and chk out the amount of mmos that are coming out this year and next. Wildstar, Elder scrolls, Black desert online, Archage etc , coupled with the other f2p games out now like GW2 and Neverwinter. Lets assume that all these mmos are inferior to wow, they will still however take small chunks away from the wow subs.
Add to this fact that Blizzard is not doing anything major to improve the game drastically, wow will keep dwindling. 1.3 million sub loss is not crushing loss, but its a start.

[Ryme]

I'm sorry you find them easy, but that does not make them easy.

They are in fact to hard for the majority of the players in the game and the players who could potentially be raiding. You can read my comment for what the developers should do with regards to raids.

No, I gave proposed reasoning for why I don't consider them hard, you're still going with "because I say so", not me.

I'm an open reader and willing to change my view, but I'm not seeing enough to do that.

[Glorious Leader]

Well with LFR and LFD you can go content clear and use a lot of time doing that, you do not need any social connections or a guild, but after having completed LFR what is keeping people ingame? When you have played the singleplayer part of WoW, you are practicly content without having had to interact with other people. And well without other people to have fun with people move on.
Personally I have had fun with the other people online, but with the tools of convenience I can also see that the amount of time spent with fellow guildies or other people from my realm has decreased substantially.

Nothign but that's why I want alternatives like accessible 10 man normals. Beer league raiding. I agree the fun of this game is with people at least for me it is but I'm also not stupid and I recognize that ya know people are different and have different desires and wishes. So lfr can stay cause it fills it role but in it's current form it's to big and fills to much role and instead of only sucking up the players who use it because their iregullar with raiding, can't commit to it, are TERRIBLE at the game for whatever reason or play at odds hours it sucked up everybody by and large. It shouldn't do that. Alternaties should be offered to A. Not suck up players and B. Give them something to do when lfr is done and C. to make a social connection. Beer league normals can suit this. Current normals cannot.

---------- Post added 2013-05-10 at 12:03 PM ----------

No, I gave proposed reasoning for why I don't consider them hard, you're still going with "because I say so", not me.

I'm an open reader and willing to change my view, but I'm not seeing enough to do that.

You didn't give a proposed reasoning. You gave your view on the matter which is narrow and doesn't see anything. I'll give you a reason why they are hard. To much rng and it's to busy. Players have limited capacity for both memory of abilities and rotations and ToT in particular pushes the bounds of this. For you that's not a problem for others it is. Here check this out.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...46?page=13#246

That post in particular is bang on and explains what new raiders or raiders who are not heroic, who are normal or even just bad in some instances have trouble dealing with. Of course this is very granular and applies differently to different folks but to some degree or another this is what those people struggle with and it's why tot is so punishing for them.

The new raid is simple to hard for the majority of the player base. Especially on normal.

[Deleted]

TBC was the casual's expansion now? That's it, I have officially heard everything there is to hear on the internet

[Glorious Leader]

TBC was the casual's expansion now? That's it, I have officially heard everything there is to hear on the internet

For it's time absolutely. And relative to vanilla absolutely. WoW in general IS THE CASUAL GAME or at least the casual "mmo" game and was recognized as such. And always has been. Just more so over time.

Are you people kidding me? I would have killed for season 2 arena gear in vanilla. Or for craftable gear. or DUNGEONS with epics. or for god damn badge gear. or for flying. ALL QOL CRAP that wasn't around in vanilla. Are you nuts you know what I had to do to get gear? Never mind having an ALT. AN ALT. IN VANILLA. LOL.

[Deleted]

I think that WoW was probably more the 'mass market appeal' game rather than the casual game. The mass appeal came from the art design, the races, the gameplay, the Blizzard polish, etc. But there were hardcore elements also. WoW gained its mass appeal by managing to appeal to both casual gamers and the hardcore alike. You didn't have to be hardcore, but the rewards were there if hardcore was your thing. I think it's a mistake to call WoW a casual game.

[Trassk]

Blizzard will need to think HARD now of its mistakes, what it did, and what it isn't doing.

Its obvious despite there intentions, the stuff they'e done recently in wow, it isn't enough to get the players intrested in staying subbed.

Faster patches, faster content? Doesn't cut it.
I don't think the pandaren theme helped much either tbh. There a great race, but it felt like something had gone missing in the games design.

Is it because wow is now just to old and people are drawn to newer games? Maybe.
Is the content just not cutting it like it did 5-6 years ago? Probably, all games begin to decline, even franchises.

I can't help but feel that blizzards problem is they are not not invested in wow like they use to be, and it shows in the content. They do have less people working on it then 5 years ago.

If blizzard are serious about reviving wow and making it stable again, they need to look into making what is a game that is nearly a decade old into something that appears fresh and has fresh ideas.

- Update the old races. I mean come on, we have races in wow that looks like something from the NES console still running around, its not charming anymore, its just creepy.
- Shake up how methods are done. Endgame content is always the same every expansion, try something else and research into other mmos.
- Levelings fine.. the first few times we do it, but there needs to be a rule for older games to not have to put up with slow leveling for alts, maybe we could do more with alts if we actually had reason to spend time in leveling them up.
- BIGGER. Pandaria felt so small, cataclysm did to, it feels like they could make things bigger and more expansive, then what feels like a pocket expansion.

And a load of other suggestions I could make that will not even see the light of day.

The fact is also this. Maybe the reason blizzard doesn't invest so much into wow like it has done in the past, is because the know themselves there game is getting old and what made wow charming isn't doing so to players like it use to, so they think why bother, lets do a half arshed job of it and focus on other projects.

In my mind. the best thing that could happen for the warcraft franchise, and for the warcraft community as a whole, is to just stop focus in the game, and focus on reiventing warcraft, make a new game, invest in making something that could last another decade rather then putting money into something that will be lucky if it sees another 3 years.

New graphics, new engine, and the story brought from a 'fresh' start, like wow once did 8 years before. Still make it azeroth, but bigger and more expansive. Make the characters, lore and npc, more engaging, and quests and instance more adventurous, and less grinding.

Wow is still the strongest MMO on the market despite its numbers, but it won't last, thats a matter of fact. The only question is, does blizzard allow there game to slowly die out from many different reasons, or do they press on and try and revive the franchise and make warcraft fans invested in the genre again?

[Glorious Leader]

I think that WoW was probably more the 'mass market appeal' game rather than the casual game. The mass appeal came from the art design, the races, the gameplay, the Blizzard polish, etc. But there were hardcore elements also. WoW gained its mass appeal by managing to appeal to both casual gamers and the hardcore alike. You didn't have to be hardcore, but the rewards were there if hardcore was your thing. I think it's a mistake to call WoW a casual game.

I don't want to burst your bubble but the mass market IS casual. The rest of the mmos were all niche by and large and it was because they weren't mass market appealing i.e casual enough. WoW was an mmo where you could actually get somethign DONE by yourself and not having it take forever to do. It didn't feature a 80 man raid... oh that's another one to 25 and TEN MAN raids in tbc FILTHY FILHTY CASUALS.

All the shit that people moan and whine about ruining this game for the most part happened in TBC. Flying mounts, Arena, BADGE GEAR, removal of attunements, well everything except lfd and lfr I guess but you get the point. Yet somehow TBC is also simultaneously the best expansion but also the least casual friendly when it did nothing but add casual qol features. This community lol.

[khalltusk]

For it's time absolutely. And relative to vanilla absolutely. WoW in general IS THE CASUAL GAME or at least the casual "mmo" game and was recognized as such. And always has been. Just more so over time.

Are you people kidding me? I would have killed for season 2 arena gear in vanilla. Or for craftable gear. or DUNGEONS with epics. or for god damn badge gear. or for flying. ALL QOL CRAP that wasn't around in vanilla. Are you nuts you know what I had to do to get gear? Never mind having an ALT. AN ALT. IN VANILLA. LOL.

I actually know what you are talking about.

Vanilla dungeons all dropped blues, only epic items that dropped were BOE or ones like the carapace used in the quests to get epic gear (think it was from some gnome in WPL?) So for the most part dungeons only dropped blues. TBC introduced heroic dungeons that had an epic drop off the last boss and better blue gear. You also had some stuff drop off bosses for crafting (which was vastly improved over some of the items you could used for gear in vanilla)

Badge gear was improved in TBC over time. I think with the ZA / SWP patches badge gear became a lot easier to aquire and was really good in terms of power. Arena gear (mainly weapons) was aquired by PVE players to help them in PVE. It was quite odd having to do that early on.

Wow was always the most casual of MMOs it just moved the goal posts to define "how" casual it was over time. Doesnt mean its a bad game now or that no mistakes have been made (it is a good game still but many mistakes still have been made)

[Deleted]

So I am not allowed to laugh in people's faces when they say that "new patches and expansions shouldn't offer new zones, but instead have content in the old zones"?
Or when they want to remove LFR.
Or remove flying mounts?

No. When and if they implement those features and subs drops, you can.

[Deleted]

No, I gave proposed reasoning for why I don't consider them hard, you're still going with "because I say so", not me.

I'm an open reader and willing to change my view, but I'm not seeing enough to do that.

Normal modes have definetly become harder when you compare them to say 10 man normal mode in wrath.
First boss naxx.
mt tanks anub'rekhan
ot tanks the add.
dps kill add do dmg on boss and kill small corpse adds when they spawn.
when the boss does his locust thing mt runs to the other side of the room and melee run away. rinse and repeat.

Stone guards.
Tanks taunt away dogs, swapping the dogs in order to get the right on to explode.
time the explosions right so you do not get to in a row.
while doing that the tanks and the raid move up and down the room.

all players have to watch out for ice crystals, black puddles, if they get chains.
+ remember boys and girls to time your cds right and do a lot of dmg the enrage.

or maybe compare strategy guides

anub'rekhan
http://www.wow-guides-now.com/how-to...ies-guide.html
the stone guard
http://www.icy-veins.com/the-stone-g...d-strategy-wow

I can understand that casuals have more problems now adays than back in wrath.
Sure it is really interresting encounters but well, for beer leauge, well the only way it will work is if they have a drinking game for the stone guard, everytime you wipe you drink at least they will get frecking wasted^^

But I will also say that because they bumped the gear in 10 man up to 25 man they had to bump the difficulty too, which for the casuals probably wasn't such a good thing. Being a 25 man raider myself back in cata well we just continued.
But comparing the first tier of cata to the first in wrath there was significantly less pugging or beer league fun.

p.s. because of the catering to the anti-social. And I will have to admit it being a good game. I have an idea that it might just kick in now. The need to socially interact and bond degraded and disappeared during cata. And now what is left for most people is just a single player game. In which they have fun from time to time but they do not stick around.

[Glorious Leader]

No. When and if they implement those features and subs drops, you can.

God I hope they do. you think 1.3 million was a big loss? Go ahead and stick it to the filthy filthy 15 dollar paying casuals harder. Luckily the developers have SOME SENSE although I think they could stand some more. I'll quote GC HERE.

Greg Street ‏@Ghostcrawler 7 May
@StephenReis123 It is hard to move backwards for sure.

Which misses the point but I guess intuitively they just must know better. It isn't hard to go back, it's very easy from a development standpoint. it's just detrimental to the game.

I also want to add that any measure to engender long term social bonds vis a vi raiding won't work until they fix server pop. I mean all this conversation is kinda academic if theirs nobody around you to play with.

[Syran]

God I hope they do. you think 1.3 million was a big loss? Go ahead and stick it to the filthy filthy 15 dollar paying casuals harder. Luckily the developers have SOME SENSE although I think they could stand some more.

I don't know, but are you implying that casuals have it somehow hard in this expansion?

[Glorious Leader]

I don't know, but are you implying that casuals have it somehow hard in this expansion?

yes but i'm not the only one. Casuals not being engaged suggests they have it hard.

[Trassk]

I don't want to burst your bubble but the mass market IS casual. The rest of the mmos were all niche by and large and it was because they weren't mass market appealing i.e casual enough. WoW was an mmo where you could actually get somethign DONE by yourself and not having it take forever to do. It didn't feature a 80 man raid... oh that's another one to 25 and TEN MAN raids in tbc FILTHY FILHTY CASUALS.

All the shit that people moan and whine about ruining this game for the most part happened in TBC. Flying mounts, Arena, BADGE GEAR, removal of attunements, well everything except lfd and lfr I guess but you get the point. Yet somehow TBC is also simultaneously the best expansion but also the least casual friendly when it did nothing but add casual qol features. This community lol.

you know I always felt there was a reason why wrath of the lich king had the most number of subs in it. Wrath has always felt like the most casual focused expansion in the game, and its numbers show. Despite the tiny minority of hardcore players bitching about it, it got the numbers invested in it, so anything they have to say is pointless.

[Deleted]

God I hope they do. you think 1.3 million was a big loss? Go ahead and stick it to the filthy filthy 15 dollar paying casuals harder. Luckily the developers have SOME SENSE although I think they could stand some more. I'll quote GC HERE.


Which misses the point but I guess intuitively they just must know better. It isn't hard to go back, it's very easy from a development standpoint. it's just detrimental to the game.

Sorry I missed the point of your post.
Yes I think 1.3 million in a single quarter in the dead centre of an expansion is not only a big loss but a shocking one at that. I run my own business and if I was facing such figures I'd be worried sick and would definitely be looking to change something.

[Trassk]

yes but i'm not the only one. Casuals not being engaged suggests they have it hard.

I don't expect the more hardcore minority to understand it of course, they never have done.

[Glorious Leader]

Sorry I missed the point of your post.
Yes I think 1.3 million in a single quarter in the dead centre of an expansion is not only a big loss but a shocking one at that. I run my own business and if I was facing such figures I'd be worried sick and would definitely be looking to change something.

The point was that if you start to get rid of more qol features you alienate casual players who live on qol in general. The broader point I think was that you can't go back. You could go ahead and get rid of flying but it won't grow the game anymore. Mists was a regression, even in their own words, and it didn't stop the sub loss.