Why is Exclusive content a bad thing to some people?

[Osmeric]

I'm really curious what they're going to add in the next expansion. I never would have figured pet battles. hmmm

If I had to guess, it would be expanded dynamic content w. automatic group formation. Other MMOs do this and it's quite popular. Three man scenarios do not count.

[Glorious Leader]

If I had to guess, it would be expanded dynamic content w. automatic group formation. Other MMOs do this and it's quite popular. Three man scenarios do not count.

I figured the whole new secret thing they were going to add was this. It turned out to be flex and proving grounds and virtual servers. Maybe virtual servers are a precursor to this? I mean it would follow the model of ripping of your competitors but I'm just curious why it's taken them so long.

[Robert3620]

Blizzard has said themselves what allows them to justify making raid content is lfr. Without lfr there is not enough people who be seeing the content to justify the resources spent on it. So if you do not like raiding, you should ask them to remove lfr because without it you will not be getting your raids either.

The major thing I am having a hard time understanding is that the more hardcore crowd won against the more casual in pretty much every way. You wanted normals to be harder, they are. You wanted them to get nerfed far less, that happen. You wanted extra rewards, you got titles. From this thread what it really seems you want is people to just not be able to see content during it's current expansion, even if it's a watered down version.

[Osmeric]

I figured the whole new secret thing they were going to add was this. It turned out to be flex and proving grounds and virtual servers. Maybe virtual servers are a precursor to this? I mean it would follow the model of ripping of your competitors but I'm just curious why it's taken them so long.

I had thought CRZ (and VS) were indeed precursors to dynamic world content, since you want a certain player density for it to work.

---------- Post added 2013-06-28 at 12:11 AM ----------

The major thing I am having a hard time understanding is that the more hardcore crowd won against the more casual in pretty much every way.

The only thing that's hard to understand about that is why Blizzard did it.

[Glorious Leader]

The other thing is also that current day raiding is also extremely poor at everything except challenge. I spend more time dodging shit on the ground or staring at cooldowns and timers and bars then I do soaking in the atmosphere. May as well be playing against a box.

[nekobaka]

The major thing I am having a hard time understanding is that the more hardcore crowd won against the more casual in pretty much every way. You wanted normals to be harder, they are. You wanted them to get nerfed far less, that happen. You wanted extra rewards, you got titles. From this thread what it really seems you want is people to just not be able to see content during it's current expansion, even if it's a watered down version.

More like why did they do it the way they did it. The hardcore if you also mean anyone who does normals didnt ask for even harder raids than Cata raids was which personal was on par with prebuff/nerf ICC, 10 vs 25 imbalances caused issues in Cata. The hardcore heroic mode progression guilds did get harder raids though and those was the ones who could clear the heroic mode in at least a couple months of launch. For the less nerfing complaints came due to screw ups like Firelands and how LFR was supposed to be the reason for the developers to not nerf the raids and Blizzard nerfed the shit out of DS anyways trying to keep players on a gear grind from having DS out too long. Even the slow progressing casual guilds got irritated and bored due to the nerfs.

The normal mode raiders both PuG and guilded are the ones who have been losing and instead of Blizzard adjusting things they are just going to slap in a new difficulty. Than again what better way to get skilled players to fill up a new mode than by squeezing them out of the one they been fine in for years. Flex would be DoA if there was little gap between LFR and normal.

[Destruktion]

The major thing I am having a hard time understanding is that the more hardcore crowd won against the more casual in pretty much every way. You wanted normals to be harder, they are. You wanted them to get nerfed far less, that happen. You wanted extra rewards, you got titles. From this thread what it really seems you want is people to just not be able to see content during it's current expansion, even if it's a watered down version.

The mystery is why Blizzard listens to/caves to any part of the playerbase, casual or hardcore. They'd make a much better game if they told the playerbase to butt out.
Anyway, the casual crowd won out against the hardcore crowd in every aspect of this game, and that includes raiding. I don't see any leeway for you to complain here.

[DrSteveBrule]

The other thing is also that current day raiding is also extremely poor at everything except challenge. I spend more time dodging shit on the ground or staring at cooldowns and timers and bars then I do soaking in the atmosphere. May as well be playing against a box.

For once I actually agree with you.
Not that it's not challenging (because they do have pretty tough fights on Heroic) but that most of the time you're watching UI and boss cooldown timers.

Without addons I think the game would be a lot better and harder. I'd prefer having my eye on the boss and watching for visual cues of when something is about to happen.
It's more fun too when cooldowns come off at different times that ends up changing the order.

We'd probably end up wiping a whole lot more but at least the attempts would be more fun.

[jbombard]

The mystery is why Blizzard listens to/caves to any part of the playerbase, casual or hardcore. They'd make a much better game if they told the playerbase to butt out.
Anyway, the casual crowd won out against the hardcore crowd in every aspect of this game, and that includes raiding. I don't see any leeway for you to complain here.

Not so sure. There are plenty of players asking for crap on both sides, Blizzard can't make a decision either way without "caving" to somebody. I'm pretty sure they are doing what they feel is right, and that had ended up in bad decision after bad decision after bad decision since Cat.

Still in MoP I think we will see more raid bosses than any other xpack, we saw the death of dungeons.
Casual players now can only raid for any reasonable character progression what so ever. The time commitment required to keep current is much higher which favors the hardcore dedicated player more than the casual player. We also saw the death of alts this xpack.

[Robert3620]

The mystery is why Blizzard listens to/caves to any part of the playerbase, casual or hardcore. They'd make a much better game if they told the playerbase to butt out.
Anyway, the casual crowd won out against the hardcore crowd in every aspect of this game, and that includes raiding. I don't see any leeway for you to complain here.

How did the casual crowd win? They got raids they are unable to do except for lfr. Normal is now tuned higher and less people are able to do it. Both normal and heroic are much more exclusive then they have been and with not being nerfed remains firmly closed against the casual players. Blizzard has said that it's the casual players that have been suffering during this expansion and leaving. If they are the ones winning in this debate, why is it you think they are leaving in the numbers they are leaving in?

Raiding has always been somewhat exclusive and not done by a majority of the player base. Now it's even more exclusive then it has been and even fewer people are even attempting to take part in it. This may please a certain player base but that player base is much smaller then the one it is angering. Flex raiding is being added to try to please the player base that had content for them taken away with the new model. It would of been nice had they done it at the start of the expansion or left normal alone. At this point I think flex will do little to nothing due to the fact that many of the players who it's designed for already left.

[Ronduwil]

Even the slow progressing casual guilds got irritated and bored due to the nerfs.

You're putting words in our mouths. Heroic DS was hard, even with the nerfs. The nerfs made it possible for us to finally get Heroic DW down two weeks before MoP came out. If your guild went into DS with full FL heroic gear I could see how you would be bored with the instance. If you're in a group where you're stuck at Heroic Hagara for 3 months because you can't seem to get more than 8 players to consistently show up for raids on any given week it's another story. When you're on a server that only has 15 guilds even attempting heroic raids finding replacements is not so easy. Consider that even though we didn't get Heroic DW down until 9/11/2012 we still finished #3 on the alliance side for our server. That's why the nerfs were necessary. I'm sure Heroic DW was a cakewalk if you ran with the same 10 people week in and week out and two of them were sporting their legendary FL staff and everyone was decked out in 410 gear. It wan't so easy when 2 weeks before the previous expansion we were still dragging in new and/or returning players sporting a 384 LFR set and a couple of BoE valor pieces.

The normal mode raiders both PuG and guilded are the ones who have been losing and instead of Blizzard adjusting things they are just going to slap in a new difficulty. Than again what better way to get skilled players to fill up a new mode than by squeezing them out of the one they been fine in for years. Flex would be DoA if there was little gap between LFR and normal.

I think the new difficulty will make raids more like they were in the ICC days. Now you'll be able to grow your guild with casual flex raids and once you get confident you can take the top 10 players and form a core team that raids normals and heroics. Kind of like how Wrath guilds ran three casual ten mans and then picked the top 25 for their 25-man progression run.

---------- Post added 2013-06-28 at 02:08 AM ----------

The mystery is why Blizzard listens to/caves to any part of the playerbase, casual or hardcore. They'd make a much better game if they told the playerbase to butt out.

This isn't a mystery. They are a business, and their revenue depends on maintaining subscriptions. If 75% of the unsubscribers list excessive difficulty as their reason for leaving Blizzard would be stupid to maintain the high difficulty level. It's basic business. Blizzard doesn't exist to cater exclusively to your needs. They exist to make money, and that means going with what the majority wants.

Anyway, the casual crowd won out against the hardcore crowd in every aspect of this game, and that includes raiding. I don't see any leeway for you to complain here.

0 Heroic Dungeons since MoP was first released. If that's winning I'd hate to see what losing would have been like.

[nekobaka]

You're putting words in our mouths. Heroic DS was hard, even with the nerfs.

I think the new difficulty will make raids more like they were in the ICC days. Now you'll be able to grow your guild with casual flex raids and once you get confident you can take the top 10 players and form a core team that raids normals and heroics. Kind of like how Wrath guilds ran three casual ten mans and then picked the top 25 for their 25-man progression run.

I should have been more specific. Guilds who had players that had no interests in doing heroic mode that got bored of normal mode after the nerfs was left with ether drop and recruit or call it. Normal mode was nerfed to the point that LFR was considered harder than normal. PuGs shot back up and I would say that depending on the fight it was easier than ToC. Back in ToC I remember over a handful of guilds going on break because of how bored they got yet couldnt get their whole raid to step up to heroics. Not all these guilds got back after the break and add the same thing to an end of expansion raid and looking at my realm at MoP launch was filled with very few guilds I recognized compared to Cata launch.

Hopefully Flex will help though I dont expect it to do much this expansion depending on how virtual realms work out. Depending on the feedback this expansion I would expect the developers to make it a bigger focus for the next expansion like they did LFR this past expansion.

[Tomana]

The only thing that's hard to understand about that is why Blizzard did it.

I suspect there is a power game between the finance guys (who would like to optimize subs) and the devs (who are more nerdy and would still like to make difficult content and let the MMO be at least a slight timesink).

Someone should make a TV series about that... called "Game of Drones" or something like that.

[Belisaurio]

I suspect there is a power game between the finance guys (who would like to optimize subs) and the devs (who are more nerdy and would still like to make difficult content and let the MMO be at least a slight timesink).

Someone should make a TV series about that... called "Game of Drones" or something like that.

Yeah, but they are winning the finance guys :S

The major thing I am having a hard time understanding is that the more hardcore crowd won against the more casual in pretty much every way. You wanted normals to be harder, they are. You wanted them to get nerfed far less, that happen. You wanted extra rewards, you got titles. From this thread what it really seems you want is people to just not be able to see content during it's current expansion, even if it's a watered down version.

Can you point what people won?
Hardcore: Ilvl + titles+ mount vs lot of hours and hardcore raiding.
No-effort people (can't say casual): Free epics, see and beat endgame and finish the current content, Legendary items vs queue time and little luck with other players.


Maybe I'm looking that with wrong glasses.

[Osmeric]

Yeah, but they are winning the finance guys :S

Not sure how to parse that broken grammar, but if you are saying the finance guys won, you are IMO mistaken.

[Gilian]

Can you point what people won?
Hardcore: Ilvl + titles+ mount vs lot of hours and hardcore raiding.
No-effort people (can't say casual): Free epics, see and beat endgame and finish the current content, Legendary items vs queue time and little luck with other players.


Maybe I'm looking that with wrong glasses.

Haha, idd. Hardcore players won? Depends on how you look at it :P. Also I don't like looking at it like that, hardcore vs casual bullshit.
If anyone "won" then that would be the casual players since that's the direction Blizzard has been focusing on the most. Even during Vanilla and TBC but they went more extreme since WotLK.

[Belisaurio]

Not sure how to parse that broken grammar, but if you are saying the finance guys won, you are IMO mistaken.

Sorry for my grammar, I only write in english here. But I don't see what mistake I've done.

Haha, idd. Hardcore players won? Depends on how you look at it :P. Also I don't like looking at it like that, hardcore vs casual bullshit.
If anyone "won" then that would be the casual players since that's the direction Blizzard has been focusing on the most. Even during Vanilla and TBC but they went more extreme since WotLK.

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

[khalltusk]

Haha, idd. Hardcore players won? Depends on how you look at it :P. Also I don't like looking at it like that, hardcore vs casual bullshit.
If anyone "won" then that would be the casual players since that's the direction Blizzard has been focusing on the most. Even during Vanilla and TBC but they went more extreme since WotLK.

Game is supposed to be casual orientated anyways ever since vanilla! (how casual is up for debate)

I think currently its got two extremes of content, you got loads of grinds/hard content and dead easy content with not a lot inbetween. I must say I enjoyed the treasure room solo instances. Platform jumping is fun!

[Osmeric]

Sorry for my grammar, I only write in english here. But I don't see what mistake I've done.

The devs have consistently skewed the design to favor the needs of the 1%. This is financially senseless. The mere inclusion of heroic raid modes cannot, IMO, be justified on financial grounds. Ra-Den makes absolutely no sense financially. The tuning up of normal modes cannot be justified. The increase in grindiness is difficult to justify.

Overall, the devs have consistently shown an attitude of "the best players must be catered to, regardless of the overall cost to the game". A finance guy didn't come up with that strategy.

[Deleted]

I must say I enjoyed the treasure room solo instances. Platform jumping is fun!

what the hell is this? lol

Have they copied another GW2 feature and added jumping puzzles?... surely not!