Why is Exclusive content a bad thing to some people?

[Deleted]

Unfortunately while some of that may be true the fact remains the top end or high end raiding player base is less than 5% of the total wow player base.

Even if you count in Normal mode raiders its still far less than the majority. Luckily Harder difficulties remain and what I have heard about the Heroic TOT and what appears to be the setup in SoO should be a good thing for those players.

This top 5% of which u speak can be described as the players who play Wow for the challenge, they want to compete and "beat the game". This type of player is becoming rarer in Wow. There is a very viscious hostility against achievers in Wow these days, which is why u will rarely see anyone from this demographic posting on the forums.

I know its anecdotal but players I play with lately and people I speak to in LFR seem to play mainly for gear/upgrading their characters power. Of course we won't know what drives these players and the only ones who truly know why so many leaves would be blizzard. The fact Flex raiding is coming suggests to me its more casual players who needed/wanted a difficulty less than Normal but harder than LFR. Not to mention a way of scaling the content to assist pug runs and guilds with fluctuating numbers.

Do u think that it was the players who asked for yet another difficulty level of raiding somewhere between LFR and normals?

Or do u think it was Blizzard needed to give everyone something else to do to occupy their playtime and created yet another system of recycling content?

I wouldnt be surprised to see another future feature to Wow which is simply another manipulation of the same Raids. More gear to give players the impression they have more stuff to go and get...

[melodramocracy]

Normal mode raiders are going to have a shock in store for them. After last night's testing I can confidently say that SoO is going to be harder, on NM, than ToT. Have fun in your flex mode, because this time around NM is going to require a lot more skill than ToT (ToT was really easy though).

Normal is the new medium. It was the case when there was 1 easier mode under it, and having a second easier mode under it simply makes it easier to justify.

LFR = 'beginner'
Flex = 'normal'
Normal = 'prettygawdamnhard'
Heroic = 'ultrasuperduperunforgiving'

This will, unsurprisingly, anger a lot of people.

[Tara senko]

Thought i already closed this one...

Its cuz they SUCK at the game

Post constructively & don't troll

[Ciddy]

1) Having exclusive mounts and cosmetic items that disappear after the end of an expansion. Why is this bad? Should rewards not be tied to the context of the content they relate to? In other words, if cosmetic and vanity items are rewarded to players who do extremely difficult things like heroic raid bosses, or gladiator PvP, why shouldn't they be removed from the game when new expansions trivialize the content?

I agree with this to a point. I think players who got items like Thunderfury when the content was current should have some way to PROVE that they got Thunderfury while the content was current. So, for example, when TBC came out, Blizzard should've slightly color changed the model for any future players who obtained Thunderfury, or changed the name of it, or something along those lines. But I have no problem with the fact that level 90 players can still obtain old legendaries. The Thunderfury quest chain gave me something to do for a while in Cataclysm when I was otherwise getting burned out on Dragon Soul.

Although....achievements kinda do that now. If you get a legendary item now, you'd get an achievement with the date showing to prove you got it at a certain time. But then that's a lot less obvious than a different glow/color on the item itself.

I don't understand why so many people have a problem with different difficulty levels in WoW. Other games have different difficulty levels. Hell, most games have like 6 of them now (ranging from "A monkey could do this" to "you have to be a fucking Terminator unit to do this"). Also, Blizzard no doubt spent a shitload of time on Naxxramas. I don't think I'd want to do that, then have most of my players saying "Meh, who cares, I'll never see it anyway."

[khalltusk]

This top 5% of which u speak can be described as the players who play Wow for the challenge, they want to compete and "beat the game". This type of player is becoming rarer in Wow. There is a very viscious hostility against achievers in Wow these days, which is why u will rarely see anyone from this demographic posting on the forums.




Do u think that it was the players who asked for yet another difficulty level of raiding somewhere between LFR and normals?

Or do u think it was Blizzard needed to give everyone something else to do to occupy their playtime and created yet another system of recycling content?

I wouldnt be surprised to see another future feature to Wow which is simply another manipulation of the same Raids. More gear to give players the impression they have more stuff to go and get...

Well FYI I am one such player I only do LFR as I really do not want to go back to scheduled raiding as much fun as it was I have an odd IRL schedule. The hostility for these players goes both ways. LFR players and casuals take a bashing from a lot of people who are hardcores or pretend hardcores.

I think that blizzard genuinely recognized that a lot of casual raiders who enjoyed the fairly easy normal content in wrath got done over in Cata and mop and present them flex raiding to help (same with pugs).

[Glorious Leader]

Nah. They'll keep heroic. They like the extra mechanics. However the fights are really bloody amazing. Seriously they're so much fun. Pretty chaotic and hectic. Lots of abilities to keep track of (timer wise). Honestly though people shouldn't complain. People should be proud when Blizzard introduces a very hard raid with some utterly awesome mechanics.

I have a hard time accepting that the developers spend all this time making all this art and environments and assets in general when I spend more time in raids looking at timers then I do the actual boss or the raid itself. May as well be fighting in a white room. I will absolutely complain when the developers make fights that have me constantly running around like a chicken with his head cut off. If I wanted to play an arcade game I'd go play an arcade game. Ion Hazikostas should be fired. Mists is the worst raiding in a long while.

---------- Post added 2013-06-25 at 04:12 PM ----------

I think u have pinned too much value on loot tbh.

What other progression or advancement does this game offer at lvl 90? Pet battles? Well okay that's the reason pet battles have the popularity they do. They are however are obviously not a long term solution.

[Tomana]

Thought i already closed this one...

Its cuz they SUCK at the game

Please show me all the games you developed (which must not suck)

[TheBigPapi]

I think u have pinned too much value on loot tbh.

I raided at top level for 4 years before i quit and i genuinely didnt give a fukk about loot. I raided 25man for most of that time and can only remember a couple of players who were loot-whores. The rest of us were playing the game for the challenge, and downing bosses was our progress. Sure, loot helped in that progress but it wasnt the end of our goal by a long shot.

U will find that most top players and experienced players r past caring about gear and loot... just watch Reckfuls channel for an example. The PvP world doesnt appear to care much about gear. A couple of weeks ago he took a toon to 2.2k ranking in full blues. Hes switching toons alot these days and he just wants to play good games and have fun. Gear really isnt even discussed on his streams.

Looks to me like the current community have forgotten the main reason we play videogames is for fun... taking gear so seriously is not fun.

Man this is so true. Problem is, players like these don't really play anymore and most of the new/young players have loot whore mentalities. Then again, the guild/team mentality helped to curb this a bit. Let's face it, its not really a team game anymore, guilds are virtually obsolete and the only thing people are interested in is getting loot and ahicvement for themselves even if that means other people have to carry them.

---------- Post added 2013-06-25 at 02:14 PM ----------

I have a hard time accepting that the developers spend all this time making all this art and environments and assets in general when I spend more time in raids looking at timers then I do the actual boss or the raid itself. May as well be fighting in a white room. I will absolutely complain when the developers make fights that have me constantly running around like a chicken with his head cut off. If I wanted to play an arcade game I'd go play an arcade game. Ion Hazikostas should be fired. Mists is the worst raiding in a long while.

---------- Post added 2013-06-25 at 04:12 PM ----------



What other progression or advancement does this game offer at lvl 90? Pet battles? Well okay that's the reason pet battles have the popularity they do. They are however are obviously not a long term solution.

I agree that raids certainly aren';t what they used to be. ON the second part, I think he meant more of the mentality of the players rather than actual content. I think we can agree that there are far less respectful skilled players today than there used to be back in Vanilla/BC. The atmosphere is the community is way different and far worse. Forums proves this and usually trade chat unless you're on a barren server thats on life support/

[Jessicka]

Just a hunch, but I think the clue is in the very adjective. Exclusive, as in, to exclude. People don't like to feel excluded.

[Ronduwil]

Man this is so true. Problem is, players like these don't really play anymore and most of the new/young players have loot whore mentalities. Then again, the guild/team mentality helped to curb this a bit. Let's face it, its not really a team game anymore, guilds are virtually obsolete and the only thing people are interested in is getting loot and ahicvement for themselves even if that means other people have to carry them.

Part of the reason for this is that the normal raid difficulty is tuned to where you need either flawless execution or crazy-high ilevels to successfully down content. When people form pugs they want to guarantee success so they screen for high ilevels because realistically a pug is not going to perform flawlessly. WotLK was nice in this regard because bosses had optional mechanics that would turn up the difficulty and give optional rewards for good groups. So you could form a pug and if things went well you could amp it up a bit, but if things didn't you could still kill some stuff and come out of the raid feeling like you'd accomplished something. This is no longer the case. I'm not saying that no one screened based on gearscore in WotLK, but I definitely think that Cataclsym magnified the problem severely. By the time DS came out you couldn't even join pugs without linking your achievement. That's right! In order to pug a raid you had to have successfully completed it first. That was even more of a catch-22 than the gearing situation.

This is why MoP isn't compelling to me. I'm forced to rely on my guild too heavily. If my schedule deviates from theirs the game is over for me because the pugging scene is completely outrageous.

[Osmeric]

Part of the reason for this is that the normal raid difficulty is tuned to where you need either flawless execution or crazy-high ilevels to successfully down content. When people form pugs they want to guarantee success so they screen for high ilevels because realistically a pug is not going to perform flawlessly.

People complain LFR killed social connections, but really the "crazy high" tuning of normal mode raid content is what did it.

[Glorious Leader]

Man this is so true. Problem is, players like these don't really play anymore and most of the new/young players have loot whore mentalities. Then again, the guild/team mentality helped to curb this a bit. Let's face it, its not really a team game anymore, guilds are virtually obsolete and the only thing people are interested in is getting loot and ahicvement for themselves even if that means other people have to carry them.

---------- Post added 2013-06-25 at 02:14 PM ----------


I agree that raids certainly aren';t what they used to be. ON the second part, I think he meant more of the mentality of the players rather than actual content. I think we can agree that there are far less respectful skilled players today than there used to be back in Vanilla/BC. The atmosphere is the community is way different and far worse. Forums proves this and usually trade chat unless you're on a barren server thats on life support/

No it's not true. Your both making gross generalizations based on nothing. It isn't about the loot except in so far AS LOOT IS THE ONLY WAY TO PROGRESS OR ADVANCE YOUR CHARACTER. The rpg in the acronym mmorpg. If they offered an alternative form of advancement that was as good for progression as loot was then loot could go fuck itself because i'd be getting stronger. Hell even if they offered a side form of progression like lvl 99 in diablo 2 that would be some kind of alternative to RNG RNG RNG RNG RNG RNG RNG RNG.

Actually I agree but probably for different reasons. The "skilled" part just got a whole lot fucking harder. The easy to play hard to master spectrum has shifted so far in the ballpark of hard to master that "skilled" players are indeed far and few in between because the measure of a "skilled" player is so far off the fucking charts now compared to what it was in vanilla and bc.

---------- Post added 2013-06-25 at 06:56 PM ----------

People complain LFR killed social connections, but really the "crazy high" tuning of normal mode raid content is what did it.

They insist this a function of lots of players not having gear. I don't agree that's all it is but okay fine. They changed gearing to in this expansion. So less people available for pugs, less people available to recruit, less people raiding normals. In reality they made everything outside of lfr far more exclusive. It's not a wonder people went to lfr. It's where you go for gear to even GET to do normals. Why in gods name this had to be done I still to this day don't know.

[nekobaka]

They insist this a function of lots of players not having gear. I don't agree that's all it is but okay fine. They changed gearing to in this expansion. So less people available for pugs, less people available to recruit, less people raiding normals. In reality they made everything outside of lfr far more exclusive. It's not a wonder people went to lfr. It's where you go for gear to even GET to do normals. Why in gods name this had to be done I still to this day don't know.

I saw his tweet about gear being the issue. If that really is the case then that just means we have gone back to the Classic and BC content accessibility problem that WotLK and Cata tried to resolve.

[Osmeric]

They insist this a function of lots of players not having gear.

I think GC (and perhaps the dev team as a whole) are clinging to that as the excuse for low normal mode participation, all the while saying everything is ok and that the participation numbers really aren't bad.

I've given up on them, mostly, but I hope other game designers (and their future employers, after WoW finishes collapsing and they "pursue personal opportunities elsewhere") understand what's been happening.

[Lumineus]

They insist this a function of lots of players not having gear.

If this is true, it's still a problem that they created. Double-gated Valor gear already seven item levels below the curve, then cockblocking progression through the actual tier with ridiculous crap like Garalon. Why does Mogu'Shan Vaults have a seven day lockout, anyway? That's like putting a weekly lockout on Upper Blackrock Spire.

[Glorious Leader]

If this is true, it's still a problem that they created. Double-gated Valor gear already seven item levels below the curve, then cockblocking progression through the actual tier with ridiculous crap like Garalon. Why does Mogu'Shan Vaults have a seven day lockout, anyway? That's like putting a weekly lockout on Upper Blackrock Spire.

It has a lock out because the developers are fundamentally assholes. It was a tweet by GC but somebody asked him about what he thought about lfr simple handing out welfare epics and his response was well yea you can only do lfr once a week . As if it was a fucking bad thing that people had epics in wotlk. Even in the systems in cataclysm that did hand out epics at a decent pace (even if they were hidden behind over tuned bullshit that people complained about i.e dungeons) had to be severely neutered even if the player base overwhelmingly enjoyed. it's constantly about telling you how to play their game. They're like the apple computing of video games.

To be fair I should post the entire comment in context just so people don't accuse me of bias. I still think he's an asshole for this but decide what you will

Chirio ‏@N4klas 10 Jun
@Ghostcrawler You said in Wotlk epics were too easy to receive. But LFR isnt free epic loot? Heroic dungeons feel difficult, even mop ones.
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Greg Street ‏@Ghostcrawler 10 Jun
@N4klas The weekly lockout for LFR makes a big difference in rate of gearing.

[Jessicka]

I saw his tweet about gear being the issue. If that really is the case then that just means we have gone back to the Classic and BC content accessibility problem that WotLK and Cata tried to resolve.

Of course we have. Except that gear inflation now is making it many times worse. They seemed to be expecting players going into T15N to have several pieces of T14H gear. I'm not sure why that is, if Heroic is meant to be the 'exclusive' content rather than a part of the natural gearing progression curve for Normal raiders.

Or is it to do with item upgrades, to prevent the feeling that those with a lot of 2/2 upgrades taking their nerf of T14 with them? Doesn't that mean those who hadn't got the upgrades are going in with content tuned 10-20% higher?

[Glorious Leader]

Of course we have. Except that gear inflation now is making it many times worse. They seemed to be expecting players going into T15N to have several pieces of T14H gear. I'm not sure why that is, if Heroic is meant to be the 'exclusive' content rather than a part of the natural gearing progression curve for Normal raiders.

Or is it to do with item upgrades, to prevent the feeling that those with a lot of 2/2 upgrades taking their nerf of T14 with them? Doesn't that mean those who hadn't got the upgrades are going in with content tuned 10-20% higher?

I mean that's another one right there to. It's insane. The dps difference (due in LARGE part to the monstrous ilvl inflation) between a fresh dinged lvl 90 player and some johnny heroic raider in full 536 is fucking insane. It's pretty rough for players starting out to because it feels like no matter how much gear you get your not going anywhere or getting any improvement. Ilvl 600 cloaks ffs...

[Deleted]

I think GC (and perhaps the dev team as a whole) are clinging to that as the excuse for low normal mode participation, all the while saying everything is ok and that the participation numbers really aren't bad.

I've given up on them, mostly, but I hope other game designers (and their future employers, after WoW finishes collapsing and they "pursue personal opportunities elsewhere") understand what's been happening.

I think GC is sortof right about Tot. With gear it isn't so bad. Where I think they have gone wrong is expecting people to go away and gear up for 12 weeks before standing a real chance in there. After the T14 attrition, I doubt it's a viable strategy.

[Deleted]

What other progression or advancement does this game offer at lvl 90? Pet battles? Well okay that's the reason pet battles have the popularity they do. They are however are obviously not a long term solution.

If u read the rest of my post beyond that sentence then u would have the answer.

TLDR: progression by downing bosses is much more important than loot. And in the world of PvP rankings r the progression. in both of these worlds gear is simply a tool and most serious players dont give a shit about gear, its a tool to help them progress.