WoD: Blizzard's design contradiction

[Mafic]

Blizz has said they want to make the leveling experience easier and is offering free 90s and paid for 90 services to make this so. But, on the other hand, all they have revealed thus far is once you reach level cap at 100 it turns into a hardcore game and very elitist. After the MoP daily fiasco it is apparent they still haven't learned that casual players even with free 90s will not have the urge to continue to level cap and continue to grind at 100 if you put so many artificial barriers towards participating in PVE and PVP.

Stratifying the player base may sound a good idea relative to your gear level but when it comes to proving grounds, and other methods that is heading towards a bad place for a game. Games should primarily be about fun and the fun is being sucked right out if you have to meet requirements to participate in the end game. Basically, casual players will walk away, just like they did in MoP because they don't see the value or fun of what Blizzard is trying to herd the player base into a narrowed path.

[Krazzorx]

/facepalm.

How many times does it have to be said that there will be other options than heroic dungeons? Specifically LFR. Nothing is removed for endgame. Only added.

[shoc]

Blizz has said they want to make the leveling experience easier and is offering free 90s and paid for 90 services to make this so. Bu,t on the other hand, all they have revealed thus far is once you reach level cap at 100 it turns into a hardcore game and very elitist. After the MoP daily fiasco it is apparent they still haven't learned that casual players even with free 90s will not have the urge to continue to level cap and continue to grind at 100 if you put so many artificial barriers towards participating in PVE and PVP.

Stratifying the player base may sound a good idea relative to your gear level but when it comes to proving grounds, and other methods that is heading towards a bad place for a game. Games should primarily be about fun and the fun is being sucked right out if you have to meet requirements to participate in the end game. Basically, casual players will walk away, just like they did in MoP because they don't see the value or fun of what Blizzard is trying to herd the player base into a narrowed path.

A while back Ghostcrawler said that over 80% of their player retention losses come from players who quit before they even reach the level cap. The WoW team puts 100% of their resources into the end-game content, be it PvP, PvE or just other fun things to do. By giving players a free level 90 to start, and by extension the paid 90 service, they are allowing players to access the content that actually matters right away, and hopefully eliminate the player retention losses.

Not to mention, WoD has more end-game progression paths than ever before. From 100, right off the bat, you can gear for raids by either A: Running LFR, B: Running Heroic Dungeons (which rewards LFR quality gear) C: Garrisons, and D: Daily Content a la Timeless Isle. Compare that to MoP, where we only had the option of A:, and we didn't get D: until very recently.

[Krazzorx]

A while back Ghostcrawler said that over 80% of their player retention losses come from players who quit before they even reach the level cap. The WoW team puts 100% of their resources into the end-game content, be it PvP, PvE or just other fun things to do. By giving players a free level 90 to start, and by extension the paid 90 service, they are allowing players to access the content that actually matters right away, and hopefully eliminate the player retention losses.

The long post basically comes down to: "I believe heroic dungeons are bad for the game." Even though we have a 44 page thread on it. We don't need another..

[Seriss]

Proving grounds silver is perfectly doable with a basic understanding of your class. If the requirement was gold, I'd agree that it's too much to ask of a casual player. But if people can manage silver on barely played alts without keybinds and such... that's definitely easy enough for any casual gamer and it's quite enough knowledge of this game to enter a measly 5-man and complete it with a bunch of strangers of equal skill level.

Besides, not every casual player wants to be afk-carried through LFR. Asking someone to complete a medium difficulty level of proving grounds is an awesome system. And if you find you can't do that, ask your friends for a carry.

[Mafic]

It is not just proving grounds it is the no flight at level cap for quite some time. The increased time to participate in this game is going to be a significant push factor for most people to stick with alts or just quit.

The desired effect will be the opposite even though Blizz pours a lot of resources for level cap content.

[shoc]

It is not just proving grounds it is the no flight at level cap for quite some time. The increased time to participate in this game is going to be a significant push factor for most people to stick with alts or just quit.

The desired effect will be the opposite even though Blizz pours a lot of resources for level cap content.

The no flight is Blizzard putting their philosophy of 'Flying is for old content' into action. It worked great in Timeless Isle and Isle of Thunder, I don't see how it is any different. We are only going to be landlocked for 3-4 months anyways.

[Phaty]

It is not just proving grounds it is the no flight at level cap for quite some time. The increased time to participate in this game is going to be a significant push factor for most people to stick with alts or just quit.

The desired effect will be the opposite even though Blizz pours a lot of resources for level cap content.

flying or no flying does not effect participation in any way what so ever

[Deleted]

Proving grounds silver is perfectly doable with a basic understanding of your class. If the requirement was gold, I'd agree that it's too much to ask of a casual player. But if people can manage silver on barely played alts without keybinds and such... that's definitely easy enough for any casual gamer and it's quite enough knowledge of this game to enter a measly 5-man and complete it with a bunch of strangers of equal skill level.

Besides, not every casual player wants to be afk-carried through LFR. Asking someone to complete a medium difficulty level of proving grounds is an awesome system. And if you find you can't do that, ask your friends for a carry.

Proving Grounds will be tuned in such a way that it's doable for every class. It might not be exactly the same as current Silver.
I don't think your friends will be able to carry you, since it's a one-person thing (?).

[Deleted]

After the MoP daily fiasco it is apparent they still haven't learned that casual players even with free 90s will not have the urge to continue to level cap and continue to grind at 100 if you put so many artificial barriers towards participating in PVE and PVP.

The problem with MoP having so many factions requiring daily quests, wasn't that you had to grind rep as that was nothing new, but rather that you also had to farm justice and valor points to purchase the reputation gear and other items. Essentially they double gated the rep rewards, meaning that by the time most people could actually purchase them they were already obsolete. Anyway I doubt that Blizzard will repeat that mistake with WoD.

Stratifying the player base may sound a good idea relative to your gear level but when it comes to proving grounds, and other methods that is heading towards a bad place for a game. Games should primarily be about fun and the fun is being sucked right out if you have to meet requirements to participate in the end game. Basically, casual players will walk away, just like they did in MoP because they don't see the value or fun of what Blizzard is trying to herd the player base into a narrowed path.

Most casual players will simply go from WoD normal dungeons into LFR, neither of which require the proving grounds silver medal, totally skipping heroic dungeons and other raid tiers. Heroic dungeons are simply an alternative way to gear for normal mode raids instead of using LFR, which in turn gear you for heroic mode raids. Of course you could still gear up for normal modes in LFR, it would just take a bit longer.

Personally I would like to see normal (current flex difficulty) mode raids require the gold proving ground medal, as that difficulty of raid is in far more need of weeding out poor skilled players than LFR or dungeons ever were.

[GodlyBob]

It's been said before, but you don't have to do heroic dungeons if you don't want to. Less serious players can go through normal 100 dungeons and into LFR to get gear and see all available content. Heroic dungeons -> normal raids -> ect. is for more skilled players or for people who otherwise have more time to devote to the game. Everybody can experience all content at the difficulty that they are comfortable with.

[blackblade]

Blizz has said they want to make the leveling experience easier and is offering free 90s and paid for 90 services to make this so. But, on the other hand, all they have revealed thus far is once you reach level cap at 100 it turns into a hardcore game and very elitist. After the MoP daily fiasco it is apparent they still haven't learned that casual players even with free 90s will not have the urge to continue to level cap and continue to grind at 100 if you put so many artificial barriers towards participating in PVE and PVP.

Stratifying the player base may sound a good idea relative to your gear level but when it comes to proving grounds, and other methods that is heading towards a bad place for a game. Games should primarily be about fun and the fun is being sucked right out if you have to meet requirements to participate in the end game. Basically, casual players will walk away, just like they did in MoP because they don't see the value or fun of what Blizzard is trying to herd the player base into a narrowed path.

There's a post elsewhere, but think of it like this.

                      Normal Dungeons   > > Heroic Dungeons > >
Questing Gear >                               > Looking for Raid > > Normal Raiding > > Heroic Raiding > > Mythic Raiding
                      Normal Scenarios   > > Heroic Scenarios > >

Other things to note; VP gear is likely disappearing. There's a quote from an interview saying as much, though nothing is in stone.

Because Heroic Dungeons are tuned to be more difficult than before, they're being given gear on par with LFR and heroic scenarios today, which makes going into normal raiding without having to worry about LFR gear a bit nicer.

Because there's no lockdown between Heroic, Normal, and LFR, you're also encouraged to run as much as you can. The proceeding tier, LFR and Normal might not be relevant to a Mythic/Heroic raider, and dungeons/LFR might not be relevant to a Normal/heroic raider.

Because there's no longer a tight lockdown on number of players, lots of groups may have more incentive to pick up one or two extras. esp. if they're > 20 people and wanting to run Mythic, it further encourages 'Oh, I got a friend I wanna bring to the group.' in a guild run that would otherwise have a full roster and not be willing to sit known quantities for unknown ones. The flex tech raids means that you're making the DPS requirement slightly higher, have a slight risk of more mechanics, and an extra chance at drops from said bosses. This is doubly important because bringing in, say, 4 extra dps increases the chance that 1 extra peice of loot drops, which could be useful for even non-dps-roles.

Cross server Normal and Heroic is also a pretty big step forward, esp. for people on low pop realms looking to app for a higher-pop guild.

Generally speaking, Proving grounds is only confirmed required for LFD -> Heroic Dungeons. If the current plan is still to have additional rewards for a premade group, it's still a sub-optimal route. (BTW, Silver proving grounds is not terribly difficult to achieve today.)

Heroic Scenarios will still likely only apply to premade 3man teams. LFR will still likely be a big AFK-faceroll-festival.

[GodlyBob]

Personally I would like to see normal (current flex difficulty) mode raids require the gold proving ground medal, as that difficulty of raid is in far more need of weeding out poor skilled players than LFR or dungeons ever were.

I think a silver there would still suffice for WoD normal raids. I could only see them implementing a gold standard for heroic raids, but I'd be very surprised if blizzard added a queue system for that level.

[StationaryHawk]

More difficult content is for people who enjoy more difficult content. If a player's definition of "having fun" means doing nothing that requires a moderate amount of skill, then they're more than welcome to run normal dungeons and do LFR (which requires silver in the proving grounds, a feat that takes very little to no time at all).

[Khime]

Proving Grounds will be tuned in such a way that it's doable for every class. It might not be exactly the same as current Silver.
I don't think your friends will be able to carry you, since it's a one-person thing (?).

He meant ask your friends for a carry through the heroic, since you don't need Silver in proving grounds if you go into a heroic in a pre-made group.

[Chickat]

I see the system working like this.

Casual and or bad players do this. Level to 100>scenarios=normal level 100 dungeons>lfr=>normal raids
Hard core people and people that like harder more challenging content would do. level to 100>normal 100s for a bit for gear>heroic dungeons>normal raids

Content for everyone.

[Grimbold21]

Needing Silver PG in order to do LFG Hc 5 mans = taking the fun out of the game.

Ok......

[Deleted]

Needing Silver PG in order to do LFG Hc 5 mans = taking the fun out of the game.

Ok......

Please, explain.

[Grimbold21]

Please, explain.

Post in regards to the OP's coment on this supposed player stratification via silver proving ground requirement to do heroic 5 man via LFD tool (i think it was that) and how that removes fun from the game.

I was implying that the notion is, to me, silly.

[Deleted]

Oh sorry, didn't understand it was sarcasm