Dear Ghostcrawler - YOU Are The Problem

[Gimlix]

It's funny when someone makes a thread when they don't know where they are talking about x)

[Deleted]

It's funny when someone makes a thread when they don't know where (should be what) they are talking about x)

It's also funny when someone replies to a thread without knowing simple English grammar. But I totally see your point.

[Eviscero]

I didn't need to read the post, the title contained enough truth for me to come in and voice my support. Ghostcrawler has no clue what he is doing. There has been a steady decline in the quality of the experience of playing this game since he came on board. Each of us can point to a million different specific things we don't like, and he can always counter with: well your opinion is not the majority. Instead, look at the game objectively, and his participation in it as a whole you might see (as I have) that the overarching problem is his lack of confidence and his total incompetence that has slowly degraded a once great game.

There is really one main reasons why I think the game is of lower quality than ever:

Too many band-aid fixes.

When in history has a video game dev been so active on the forums? Sorry folks, this is not a good thing! The community does not know what is best for the game. This is why we aren't all game devs! I honestly believe Ghostcrawler is a narcissist, and his involvement in the forums speaks to this, but more to the point it suggests Ghostcrawler's severe lack of confidence in decision making. He has relied on others (the community) since the very beginning, having no clear direction in his own mind of where he wanted to take the game. As a result we have too many band-aid fixes, rather than a clear and strong point of view.

For raids: we have seen the introduction of new raid sizes, heroic mode vs. normal mode, shared lock-outs, LFR, and now there are murmurings in the community and speculations that removing the shared-lockouts might be on the horizon.
For dungeons: we had dungeons, then hard mode vs. normal mode dungeons, LFD, now scenarios... NOW HEROIC SCENARIOS?!
For PVP: This entire expansion has been one big fucking flip-flop.
In general: Ever take a look at your currency tab and wonder "how the fuck did we get here?"

Since it is freshest in my mind and one of the best examples of GC's cluelessness, let us consider this latest new thing: heroic scenarios... why oh why did we need yet another new (but not new) way to play this game. Yet another half-baked, tacked-on, content-without-really-providing-content, idea spawned from the mind of a simpleton. The only positive thing I can say about these is that GC didn't invent a new kind of currency to go along with them.

Let me put it this way, rather than developing amazing, interesting, stunning, quality content, GC seems much more focused on trying to change the way we interact with the game: how we get gear, how we form groups, how we manage a guild, how we consume that "content." And since he has proven himself incapable of developing ideas that work to solve the so called "problems" in these areas of the game, we have his mashed-up brain-child to "enjoy."


TL;DR
My opinion is that the game is a patchwork of ill-conceived ideas, one on top of another and that there hasn't been a fresh idea out of GC since he took this job. But this is all just opinion. What isn't opinion is the massive drop in subs that has coincided with his tenure. My only question is: Why hasn't he been fired? When you look at the numbers, over this length of time, one would think a change in personal would have been made at this point. He must suck a incredible dick to still have the job he has.

[Lucetia]

I really like how one person has to be the "spokes person" over a certain topic, in this case Ghostcrawler over class development and such, is always the one at fault. You do realize there are at least probably 10-20 people who make the decision? Ghostcrawler just gets to be the bad guy and make the announcements why. So if anyone is at fault it's the entire group working on it.

Secondly, what YOU think is good for the game always isn't, even if you have a backing of people who agree with you.

[TheWerebison]

A collection of opinions about things the OP doesn't like, with a side order of made-up quotes. Compelling argument.

[Gimlix]

It's also funny when someone replies to a thread without knowing simple English grammar. But I totally see your point.

[Kronik85]

Also, there's so many gear sets in the game that people would love to obtain but could never obtain, see: The 3rd/4th colourations of gear on every tier set ever made pretty much. (Green DK Tier 11 springs to mind).

Development time is actually low, because once the basic system is in place, it's like loading something onto a trailer. Once it's on there, the workload to move it along is minimal compared to putting it in place in the first place. Then you have capabilities of random queues for premade groups with a large variety, as opposed to just the same ol' dungeons. This doesn't have to apply to just CMs, but also LFD dungeons, as you could use the similar scaling system to up older dungeons to max level, without ever having to worry about re-doing all the fine tuning elements.

Blue DK T12 for me. I agree with you to some extent, the main snag I see with any of this is Blizzard won't get any credit for it. People will say it's lazy, they will say it's rehashed and to some extent they will be right. We did in the past and we would again. I'm not saying that it's not worth doing since it's a gold mine of content but the reality of something and the perception of it are two entirely different things. Vanilla was shit (by modern standards), doesn't stop people perceiving it as the greatest iteration of WoW ever.

They are two separate issues completely. Dead servers are not the fault of 25mans. Nor are 25mans the fault of dead servers. Keep the issues apart.

I'm not attributing blame but not being able to run them isn't an issue? The forums are now all about "there's no community", we've got GC on twitter talking about 10 v 25 being somewhat wrong atm. If 25 man was to become to go to format again then the fact that I can't run them because my Horde population isn't big enough to support them I'd say that's a fundamental issue. Raiding is a complex beast, it's more of less effected by everything.

Beyond logistics I don't see an issue with 25 vs 10 at all. Not every fight is balanced to be the same difficulty on ever format but they provide different challenges regardless. If people want to say X is harder than Y that's their own problem.

The community has been able to handle having all those options for the first three expansions, hell we have more options now than ever, but apparently we should restrict the options to 15 instead of 16, where in say... Vanilla we had the option of doing 3 things but it seemed like a lot more as they took longer than things these days (Hypothetical values).

We only had dual lock outs in WotLK and people moaned like buggery unless I'm in a psychosis or Blizzard made the up issue then why are we here now with 10/25 seperate lock outs.

I 100% agree on dead servers though, and splitting factions in terms of PvE gameplay should be removed (and possibly will be at the end of this expansion given current storyline tbqh). Merging servers is not necessary, but more in game conduits of the like of OpenRaid.US should be explored.

One idea I once had, was to add a fracturing channel system that priorities players on your own realm, but is also cross realm. Caps at say 1000 players, and then when it hits 1000, it spawns a new one (If there's only 1600 people, mathematically split into 800/800, but back on topic). This chat channel acts like a cross server LFG Channel from old WoW, players can then find groups because the game seems a lot more alive when no matter where you go in the world, you can VOLUNTARILY (Don't force it on players like General chat channel at the release of D3), join this channel and raid XRealm/XFaction or do RBGs (Which are already XRealm). Even when it's 1AM in the US and your server is dead, you're online and you can get grouped into a channel with all the other players who only have 5-10 people online on their realms, and it makes a community as one again without the need for server merging. It also removes the need to add/remove players on Real ID or BTag to do XRealm content as you can right click their name and interact.

Once this kind of backbone is in place, you can further work on keeping up to date, the amount of content available for XRealm/XFaction, limited possibly to the current tier if they wish to keep it that way, but it's a real simple amount of coding to make a chat channel (Channel function is in place already via CRZ zones in General chat and LFR/Other XRealm features) and expands a server's theoretical size instantly.

Your idea is waaaaaaaay beyond me I'm afraid lol. Sounds good though and I could see somet like that being successful. OpenRaid seems to be catching on, it's a solid idea that wouldn't have worked before RealID. If Blizz could help this sort of thing then they should but it's always nice to leave things in the hand of the community providing they use it right.

[Skronk]

What I don't get is it why everyone uses Cataclysm heroics as example.. WotLK had much harder heroics at beginning. I don't even remember cata heroics being hard at any point.

wha...? sorry i dont agree, aside from Loken i cant think of a boss or heroic in wotlk that ever gave me any trouble in a PuG or otherwise. Granted, i may just have been extremely lucky, but IMO cata had far more difficult encounters in heroic, be it due to the encounters themselves or the general ineptitude of those i ran them with

OT: Ghostcrawler is little more than a glorified mouthpiece for the Dev team that some parts of the community have chosen to regard as satan incarnate, he cant possibly be the WoW dictator thats making all the decisions off his own back like some would have me believe. Not saying hes not responsible for some of your complaints but your living in a fantasy land if you think removing him will change much, if anything.

[Eviscero]

If GC were running a restaurant and sales started to dip he is the type of dumbass that would immediately cut food costs by buying lower quality ingredients, not realizing that in the short term his bottom line would improve, but in the long term his business would fail.

[ComputerNerd]

Any "forcing" is done solely by the community, being pressured by other players to remain competitive.
Adding back in seperate lockouts on 10/25m raid content or adding back in superior gear on 25m will see players move to that which offers the best gear.
They will be forced back into that in exactly the same way they already are in LFR, because it is extra gear and valor.

If not for the valor cap then players WOULD earn as much as possible per day, doing as many dailies or heroics as they could until they keeled over.
Simply because there would be someone else doing it, and therefore they do not want to be left behind.

Another example of not understanding what a casual player is. I shall repeat it here as I have done in numerous places already.
A causal player is one who cannot commit to organised raiding, where real life takes a priority and has a knack of interrupting.
They are the players for whom LFR should be for primarily, those who get the opportunity to raid without a fixed schedule.

Yes there are problems with how the lockouts are implemented, but not in the way you describe.
The problem is LFR having a seperate lockout, when all 3 formats should share the same loot lockout.
Do not prevent a player raiding in multiple formats or even the same boss multiple times during a weekly lockout, but only allow loot once from any one boss.
So that way a player could effectively cherry-pick the difficulty on a per-boss basis, or simply raid with friends after you have killed x boss for your progression.

Dailies are a problem where the equipment considered an important part of the gear progression is locked behind reputation barriers, but players having a means of bypassing that daily reputation amount are siezed upon and farmed endlessly, because it is to "remain competitive".
The original lack of cooldown on the Hozen Peace Pipe, and the reputation tokens from the Zandalari rare spawns being such examples.

There is room for "stepping-stone" gear behind reputation gates to be made more accessible, but it needs to be something not requiring or encouraging excessive farming.

[Kronik85]

I didn't need to read the post, the title contained enough truth for me to come in and voice my support.

Wowzers? I actually think you could be right on some of that but lets just Godwin the thread right here. if I was to make a topic saying "GC has ruined the game and I've got the thing to fix it!" you would rush in posting your support? Well won't you be over joyed when it turns out that the rest of the thread was me saying "lets exterminate the Jews! to fix WoW!".

Look before you leap for heavens sake son lol.

Brought it up because we appear to have some kinda Greek Nationalist in the thread who doesn't realise how stupid it is to make any visual reference to Nazism.

[Faroth]

Seems like you put a lot of thought into your post to try and present what you see as some problems, so it seems it deserves some consideration rather than a brief, glib response.

I never used to be someone who read all of Ghostcrawler's tweets but since MoP I've been paying attention to them. He basically only has two kinds of tweets:
1) "Well basically we don't want players to do anything they don't absolutely want to do and don't want them to be forced to do it. We also don't believe they should have to rely on others to do something."
2) "We absolutely believe that there should be more social interaction and involvement in between players."
So let me get this straight... to accomplish #2, you believe the best way to go about this is implementing more of #1? Is this guy losing it?

You're taking specific points and applying them as blanket statements. To adequately consider his response and the way they are approaching development, you'd need to look at the topics being asked and what they are replying to. They don't feel you should be completely dependent on others to make any progress, and that's pretty typical as a choice for WoW since Classic, though it may not be the most efficient means of progression. So in that regard, they wouldn't want you reliant on others. Take a look at FF XI and EverQuest as examples where a game has you reliant on others. As for the social aspect, they've acknowledged that their efforts for #1 has indeed had an impact on #2, which means they are acknowledging the consequence and are looking at what might be done to address it.

I don't know if people realize this or not, but this game used to be considered a MMORPG. A "Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game", now it's a OLCG (Online Loot Collecting Game). He's taken away the feeling of massive by making travel nearly instant for anywhere you want to go, and he's taken away the term multiplayer by putting in so much solo crap and less dependent on other players that you can literally play your character and obtain BiS LFR gear without every speaking to another person in the game. The only exception: You might need some help on Change of Command. Maybe a tank has solo'd it before, but I don't know.

First off, Ghostcrawler is lead systems designer, not supreme overlord. He's actually said he kind of wishes they had not implemented flying mounts, or at least had more restrictions tied to them from the start because they've done a lot to "shrink" the world and make it feel less dangerous. Those are GC's statements, so while he was involved with the decision, he obviously didn't dictate that they let you port around and insta-fly. But he knows the genie can't go back in the bottle on this, so they have to address it in other ways, like no flying until max level and locations like Isle of Thunder. And yet there are people STILL complaining on the forums that MoP is too spread out and takes too long to travel across and it's all done to "force players to spend more time playing."

I agree LFR isn't the best addition to the game because of the affect it had. But that's a very complicated topic to delve into.

The issue is, you have no idea what you're doing anymore, I think you're just thinking up random ideas and random answers to questions asked.

Have you ever considered that, again, GC is not Supreme Overlord of Blizzard and that he has some limit to how much he can say? He's a public figure for the company, but he's going to be restricted on how much he can say about future plans. Combined with the twitter limit, he's doing what he can to address questions, but he can't go full disclosure on everything.

And thinking up random ideas....that's kind of the nature of MMO development. They get into a conference room and brainstorm what might work, what new ideas would be cool to bring in. Surprise, there's a lot of people contributing those ideas and a collaborative effort.

Removing The 10/25 Separate Lockout: Why? Why was this necessary? Players felt "forced" to do both? Yeah, I think we can all agree Normal and Heroic raiders are both looking for more to do these days. I honestly didn't see too much complaining about separate lockouts, all the complaints were about one tier's gear being better than the other.

You weren't paying attention, then. There was a lot of complaint about burn out because they "had" to run 10 and 25 raids every week to stay ahead. Just like they claim now they "have" to run LFR on top of Heroic 25 because somehow Blizz is forcing them to do so. It was indeed done to address complaints, and not a small number of them, as Blizzard doesn't react to a dozen complaint threads on the forums, but on a large spread of player feedback from multiple sources.

Nerfing Cataclysm Heroics: Why? People had to put CC back on their Action Bars and people actually had to not stand in fire or they would die? I absolutely loved Cataclysm Heroics because they required the use of SIMPLE, I mean MIND NUMBINGLY SIMPLE techniques to kill trash and bosses. People would have gotten over it and once they outgeared it, it would've gotten incredibly easier. Instead, you nerfed it from the get go and turned them into a joke.

The problem with Cataclysm Heroics was they were hard AND long. They were decently designed for players who formed a group, but for LFD they weren't a little on the difficult side. That in itself isn't too bad, but most of the heroics apparently saw Shadow Labyrinth from TBC as their role model.

Each expansion should, at launch, have a couple difficult heroics aimed for about a 45 minute clear (and faster if you're being efficient), a couple aimed for about 15-20 minute clear, and a few ranging between the two ends. Yes, as you get better gear, they'll become face roll. The problem was the difficulty curve was sharp in Cataclysm when a lot of players had gotten used to being lazy and running LFD in full raid gear (something they had not regularly done before).

MoP Heroics As A Whole: These feel like the most distant heroics I've ever seen to date. In BC, Wotlk and Cata, I knew what every single heroic was and every boss. When I zone into a MoP heroic, I have to remind myself or try to remember what the hell is in here. This expansion has less heroic content than ever but they don't feel heroic, and since launch, I've never seen a single wipe in a heroic (and yes, I use that LFDurrrrr tool).

I don't feel they're as forgettable as you do, but I'll agree they are overall less memorable, largely because they were designed to be brainless AoE tank and AoE DPS with no risk for failure (which the community pretty much flips out and quits if there's a single wipe now).

I really would like to see Pre-made group Heroics brought back so we have LFD, Heroic, Challenge Mode as the three difficulties. Heroics could offer more valor and a chance at LFR ilvl epics from the last boss, meaning you could efficiently go Dungeon > Heroic > Normal raid without touching LFR. I think they need to shift back and make social aspects more advantageous, so pre-made groups are the most efficient way to get valor, gear, etc. but LFD and LFR are there for players who can't play with friends (or are too anti-social to make them).

Dailies, Valor and Gates: You see, implementing a butt load of dailies was NOT the issue at hand. The issue was making them REQUIRED for the current and up to date BiS gear. Not only that, but you put a retarded 1k cap on Valor and then taking that even further, you put a REPUTATION requirement on everything. Why? What in the world. This doesn't instill fun or encourage people to play more, this is just a clever trick to get people who are currently subscribing to stay subscribed.

I honestly don't see an issue with the valor cap. I originally saw the rep gating as the way they were trying to implement the TBC/Wrath restriction of being paced by the time restrictions of forming groups and running heroics, but it didn't really transition well. I think they should stick with MoP's quantity of factions and dailies, but make them a source for transmog gear, pets, mounts, and cosmetic items as well as titles and tabards.

Though personally, I kind of think they should debate removing valor/justice gear from being a guaranteed source of gear and shift back to running dungeons for drops and ilvl upgrade from JP/VP helping to offset the pieces that don't drop for you so you can skip it.

1) The ridiculous Valor Cap. Who the hell cares if someone wants to earn 10k Valor in a single week. Why punish players who want to play more by forcing them to play alts or stop playing until Tuesday just because of some ridiculous gating mechanic.

Burn out.

Players claim "don't nanny us" then complain they're forced to do too much. If you could get 10K in a single week, a mass outcry would claim you HAVE to cap 10K per week, not optional at all. Blizzard basically needs to decide what the limit is and enforce it and keep it in place. Stick to their guns and keep moving towards THEIR design. Listening to players has caused a lot of problems, like removing the daily quest limit (they were hesitant and now kind of regret it) because it make players feel they had to do all dailies every day (which was NOT the design of this expansion).

2) Implementing BiS gear at the start of an expansion via Dailies. I would make reputation rewards more fun, such as mounts, pets and BoA gear for alts so that once they hit the maximum level, they can simply purchase some starting gear for that alt if they're exalted with that daily faction hub.

Dailies didn't give BiS gear and you could bypass valor gear entirely without buying a single piece from the start. I agree with the reputation rewards being fun and things for alts rather than all progression though. Maybe 1-2 stat items for helping give you a boost, but not a lot.

Looking For Raid: Yep.. and now please allow me to put on my flame absorbent suit because I'm sure all the casuals and people who like to stand in fire will surely come knocking on my door. I wouldn't remove this feature, but it needs such drastic improvement that it would be better to start from scratch. This tool is such a piss poor design in my humble opinion. Did anyone honestly think this would improve gameplay?

I think they gave players more than they asked for. LFR didn't necessarily need lower ilvl gear almost equal to normal raid gear. It could have given blue gear, other rewards, etc. and been even easier than now so they didn't have to do much encounter tweaking. Early requests for an LFR-esque option was basically "let us see how the raid's story works out, let us just SEE the raid without having to overcome the logistics of raiding."

Personally, if LFR rewarded gear a little better than heroics but a noticeable step down from normal raiding, BUT with the chance to get the normal raid crafting patterns, I'd have totally dug that. Some will surely disagree, but either way I think LFR is another genie that won't go back in the bottle. That said, though, I enjoyed the start of LFR each patch this expansion because....*gasp* we wiped. Without determination in Mogu'shan Vaults, we wiped, learned the fight, finished the raid run. I liked that.

What I would like to definitely see added is a way for a really good LFR run to queue as group for another LFR so they can stick together for more.

I'm ignoring your attempt to satire the development of LFR considering it shows a pretty bad lack of understanding for it, the reason it was implemented, and even how the loot worked and why it was changed.

One last thing: FFS stop saying Cataclysm Heroics caused a lot of people to quit, no it didn't. The lack of end game content upon hitting maximum level was the reason a lot of people wanted to leave. Cataclysm was a weird expansion.. no one felt connected to the game at all and the majority of people I knew were like.. "who is Deathwing...?" The real and only interraction we got with him was while leveling an alt and being burned alive. Troll...

Blizzard has more data as to when and why players were quitting.

However, yes, they really did botch the cohesiveness of the story and Deathwing as a villain.

[Milkyz]

Grab all these ideas you feel are awesome for a MMO for nowaday standards and public, start a gaming company and make millions. I'm sure you will get to 20mi subs in two months after launch.

You don't even need to know how to produce games, your ideas are enough.
If you don't have money to start a project, try that Kickstarter website. As we can deduce from all whining on forums, it's clear that you'll have MILLIONS of players craving for a game like you are suggesting, so money from donations won't be an issue.

Good luck.

[Kazlofski]

Ghostcrawler isn't the problem, the community is. They simply do what most of the people cry for.

[Eviscero]

Ghostcrawler isn't the problem, the community is. They simply do what most of the people cry for.

Read my post where I point of GC's total lack of confidence in game dev. has led him to rely on the community since day 1. This is the source of the problem.

[Deleted]

Removing The 10/25 Separate Lockout: Agreed, was a stupid idea.

Nerfing Cataclysm Heroics: Also agree, they weren't even that hard for people with half a brain.

MoP Heroics As A Whole: Not sure I agree, I found them really interesting so the difficulty never bothered me. Challenge Modes however were so much more fun to do, even if they are a AOE + cooldowns zergfest.

Dailies, Valor and Gates: No, just no. The gear from vendors... is shit. It's meant to be shit. The best items come from raiding, and always should. I'm casual, I don't touch normal / heroic raids, and I'm happy enough with the system as it is catered towards players like me. My biggest gripe was that there were too many factions at launch.

LFR: It's fine. It really is.

[Ryme]

Raiding has changed because developers egos got way out of hand - essentially, the formula that created the largest and most successful MMO ever made was deemed to be a waste because:

"BUT I WANT MORE PEOPLE TO SEE MY CONTENT! UNLESS EVERYONE SEES WHAT I DID I WON'T DO ANY MORE!"

Seriously, I don't get it, you've helped make one of the best games ever made, and it's not enough? You have to redefine the game and it's assets or risk your ego taking a bit of a bruising.

[Elapsed]

This thread is new, refreshing, well-thought and argued for and is in no way childish, naive and completely oblivious to how a business actually works. I bet this is going to generate a bunch of interesting discussions and arguments of incredible depth.

you are a fantastic person, I've very certain your friends love being around you (non-sarcasm)

[Z3ROR]

Everyone who is agreeing with the OP: Leave WoW at once. WoW is not your game anymore.

Problem solved!

[Sansnom]

You know, for the longest time, I always thought Activi$ion was the poison of this game that was decreasing the quality (in my opinion... calm down and put down the flame throwers.)

Now.. while Activi$$$$ion is still a money sucking bottom less pit of greed, I don't think that's half the problem for World of Warcraft at all. I never used to be someone who read all of Ghostcrawler's tweets but since MoP I've been paying attention to them. He basically only has two kinds of tweets:

1) "Well basically we don't want players to do anything they don't absolutely want to do and don't want them to be forced to do it. We also don't believe they should have to rely on others to do something."

2) "We absolutely believe that there should be more social interaction and involvement in between players."

So let me get this straight... to accomplish #2, you believe the best way to go about this is implementing more of #1? Is this guy losing it?

Did not bother read the rest of the post but putting it on down to GC is a bit harsh. Have you ever been in his position? Have you ever try to keep everyone happy?

Case in point. Prior to LFD, people had to fly dungeons. What happens? Everyone in the group is asking everyone else for a summon. The stone needed two people, not just one. And if everyone else are scattered across all over the world, it takes time for two people to get there to start summoning.

Then LFD came with their no summoning. And there was also the guild perk, Have Group Will Travel and also the portals to all cities from Dalaran. Almost all people I know loved it.

Then they removed the portals and also the guild summon. What happened? People started moaning and wanted them back.

Some one group of people want the instance travel. Another group does not.

If you was in GC's position, what would you do? Nothing matter what you do, one group of people will moan and moan and moan. That has always been the case in WOW since I played. It is a huge melting pot of players from all backgrounds and style of play.

It is one game trying to cater to millions of players. If you can do a better job, then maybe you should apply to Blizzard.