Old Players Still Repelled By Current System

[Angella]

Core game has always been about teamwork. Can overcome a lot of gear shortages just by working well together.

[Tstr88]

Making the game extremely casual friendly like it is now isn't bring in MORE players either.

Oh my. No, it isn't bringing in more players, but then again, with millions of subscribers...bringing in more players isn't really their goal at this point, considering the game is almost 10 years old. Blizzard is hardly desperate for more subs, especially with hearthstone and now HoTS coming. Basically your point is moot and it's stupid to boot.

I like how you just made up answers. You said "OK, so, you raided for higher stats. That's gear.". To this response "It was simply a means to an end, to have fun in other parts of the game, that don't exist anymore: wPvP, server only BGs, carrying pugs/guildies in 5 mans or lower tier raids, dueling, farming for useful trade skills (also a wPvP thing), helping people do attunements, world bosses".

You should work at fox news.

Gear = stats. Are you retarded? Fun parts? Some people love world pvp so i'll give you that. Server only BGs were awful. Waiting 2 hours for WSG queue to pop were totally so fun. Carrying through 5 mans? Still has to be done at beginning of expacs, and through flex and normal/heroic raids. Basically you're saying carrying is fun (lol). Dueling...except, you know, dueling is still in the game and happens constantly so that's a fabricated argument (lol fox news). Farming for useful trade skills just means grinding endless hours for raiding and was used as artificial gating. Attunements weren't fun either. Another artificial gating mechanic to keep hardcore guilds from burning through the content too fast. World bosses...I'll give you that one.

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BC grew more in subs than any other point in the game. If BC was broken, then so was every expac that followed. Especially MoP. Im sure a business would really need a gun to their heads to make more money...

Picked up max subs during wrath, but you're close. It was new and fresh at it's height, WoW blew up because gamers from outside mmo's caught onto it. Much like LoL and mobas more recently. Didn't have alot to do with the design decisions for BC. BC is mad outdated by today's standards.

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Vanilla was extremely casual. Compared to UO and EQ, which most people that played in vanilla came off of.

True, but keybinding sense heading to your movement keys to max it isn't exactly fun. "Old" players are turned off because they were never hardcore in the first place. Being hardcore means adapting and still smashing. Can't adapt? Well, you turned out casual.

[fierydemise]

A step but a guaranteed spot in Raid Finder any day/night of the week 24/7 with minimal requirements is something needed as well.

LFR is necessary to spread content creation costs over a larger player base but it doesn't have to be part of the gearing path. I think Blizzard has the right idea with LFR as "tourist mode" that they described at Blizzcon. I don't mind that LFR exists, I don't mind players seeing the content however I think LFR should be deemphasized as much as possible, not because it hurts my fragile raider ego but because LFR isn't a fun experience. Making LFR a tourist mode, with substantially reduced ilvl (possibly around the ilvl of heroic 5 mans as Blizzard has hinted) and requirements seems like a good solution for everyone. It takes players who don't want to be there out of LFR reducing some of the elitist nonsense that makes LFR so toxic and allows LFR to focus on its intended audience, players who want to see the content even if they are not the most skilled.

[MoanaLisa]

LFR is necessary to spread content creation costs over a larger player base but it doesn't have to be part of the gearing path. I think Blizzard has the right idea with LFR as "tourist mode" that they described at Blizzcon.

I agree with this although Raid Finder as part of the gearing path--while true for some--is somewhat blown out of proportion. Other than the first tier of raids, it's been less and less relevant for gearing as the expansion went on and I know several people that are going along just fine rocking 570+ gear that never saw the inside of Raid Finder this expansion. So it's possible but I'll agree it requires more patience to do it the older way: Level-->Dungeons-->Normal-->Progress through tiers-->Heroic, etc. Raid Finder was used as a shortcut and if you've been following along you'll already know that I think it's been over-used by people that should have just said no to it.

I'm hopeful that what they do in WoD will be more clear in intention but I'm not under any illusions: If Raid Finder's gear list includes anything at all that someone could possibly use for something, people will run it.

Raid Finder would likely be more fun if they just made everything a tank and spank and encourage people to blow their damage up as much as possible. Blizzard has obviously had some real difficulties caused by the idea that they sortof/kindof want to make it a raid instead of a beer run.

[Osmeric]

I wonder if the loot drop rate in the next tier of raids will be the same as SoO, or if they will go back to the lower drop rate of T14 and T15.

[Deleted]

Well i`m veteran raiding with one character since i created it in the far 2004 and so far i dint see any problems in current system i have challenge in Heroic raids (well mine guild makes is to look as challenge) and when i want can go and semiAFK with mine alts in LFR/Flex w/o to need to beg and explain to anyone 1 hour
After all its a game no one pays to me to play that game and its consume mine time and all we know that time is money so Basicly when i play this game i lose a potential profit who i can make if i dint waste mine time so you telling me that to spend 10 hours 5 days in the week for raid preparation is good ???

[Bllets]

I wonder if the loot drop rate in the next tier of raids will be the same as SoO, or if they will go back to the lower drop rate of T14 and T15.

I honestly hope they will keep the current chance from SoO.

[Deleted]

Everyone here seems to be focused on complete system overhauls. Where as I'm saying they should offer just one more option for gearing up if you're late to the party and don't feel like facerolling the latest content your yet to see.

If you can get some people to accept you into SoO norm in timeless gear and no achievement and then clear at least 4 bosses right now. I'll give you a tenner.

[zaneosak]

Attunements are essential to make raiding feel like progression at all, and it's something they will never do again, which is unfortunate. Think back to the best MMOs that focused on end-game, attunements were all over the place. Whether it's getting a key by defeating the previous tier or something crazy like gearing up a specific type of gear to defeat a ridiculous boss encounter, it's the same thing.

Any way you slice it it requires your guild to do things outside of the raid to prepare for the raid, which makes you feel like you're really accomplishing something. It makes people play longer too, look at TBC. When Sunwell came out there was still guilds trying to down KaelThas and Lady V. People were fine with it. There was ALWAYS something to look forward to unless you were the Top 2% killing Mu'ru and company. Now we go in , clear the raid, nerfs happen, the rest of you clear the raid, new patch comes out, everybody can go to the next tier without finishing the first because the gear doesnt matter for the entry bosses and by the time you get to the bosses that gear matters, you have the gear from the first few bosses. It's just bland and recycled. They need to go back to an interesting and demanding raid progression system.

This is probably a bad example because it was so grindy, but I loved camping with my guild in Everquest for Shissar Bane weapons that we had to use to kill the final boss in that raid zone, we had to farm ore off trash in the basement and make the weapons for every single person in the raid that wanted to swing on the boss cuz he was immune to every weapon besides the crafted ones with that ore. It was long and grindy but once you geared up for that that kill was pure satisfaction.

[Anprionsa]

Like how everyone has different opinions assumes those same opinions apply to others.

My guild has bee around since vanilla. We roll with the punches and enjoy playing together. We are not repelled by the new system, current system. We just enjoy playing together.

[Emek]

I've been raiding since the launch of BC, I cleared bc before almost all of the nerfs, i finished strong in Wotlk, Cata, and hold some decent kill rankings in mop, so i view myself as a "veteran" raider, and I will say raiding is pretty decent as of right, miles a head of cata anyways, and pretty close to wrath\bc imo. I personally liked the system of having all bosses be difficult and you either killed them or you didn't, no hard modes just "normal" but that makes raiding EXTREMELY exclusive and it's not very fair to other pve players. it'd be the equivalent of saying you can't do arenas unless you are capable of being rival rank or w\e.

As of right now I am fine with the content, heroic modes are fine, early bosses could be significantly more difficult instead of back loading all of the hard content, but w\e. Also I think you need to check yourself when you shit talk the content, it doesn't take much to farm 4-5 easy heroic bosses and then steam roll the medium ones and do that for 4 months and then push down hard bosses in almost full bis.

If your friends are bitching because they are "veteran raiders" tell them to step off their horse molten core was nostalgic, not the end all be all

[zaneosak]

I've been raiding since the launch of BC, I cleared bc before almost all of the nerfs, i finished strong in Wotlk, Cata, and hold some decent kill rankings in mop, so i view myself as a "veteran" raider, and I will say raiding is pretty decent as of right, miles a head of cata anyways, and pretty close to wrath\bc imo. I personally liked the system of having all bosses be difficult and you either killed them or you didn't, no hard modes just "normal" but that makes raiding EXTREMELY exclusive and it's not very fair to other pve players. it'd be the equivalent of saying you can't do arenas unless you are capable of being rival rank or w\e.

As of right now I am fine with the content, heroic modes are fine, early bosses could be significantly more difficult instead of back loading all of the hard content, but w\e. Also I think you need to check yourself when you shit talk the content, it doesn't take much to farm 4-5 easy heroic bosses and then steam roll the medium ones and do that for 4 months and then push down hard bosses in almost full bis.

If your friends are bitching because they are "veteran raiders" tell them to step off their horse molten core was nostalgic, not the end all be all

Raiding should be exclusive with a ton of non-raid challenging content for other players to still feel like they accomplish something. It lets them make raiding really challenging and steadily difficult all the way thru. This is TBC was and how it should of stayed but where's there money, there's greed and that's all she wrote.

[Osmeric]

Raiding should be exclusive with a ton of non-raid challenging content for other players to still feel like they accomplish something. It lets them make raiding really challenging and steadily difficult all the way thru. This is TBC was and how it should of stayed but where's there money, there's greed and that's all she wrote.

The greed is actually with you, expecting that expensive raid content to be made just for you. There aren't enough hardcore players to support it.

[zaneosak]

The greed is actually with you, expecting that expensive raid content to be made just for you. There aren't enough hardcore players to support it.

I don't know where this notion that Blizzard had little resources came from. There is nothing wrong with <5% of the player base experiencing something exclusive, difficult and unique.... 25% experiencing something really challenging perhaps not at the same scale of "epicness" or whatever word you want to use..... 25% experiencing pet battles and the rest leveling 10 alts to lvl 90.....

I guess you can make the argument that there just isn't enough time in between expansions to develop multi-tier raiding schemes for an expansion release (which lets the devs get out ahead of the raiding progression game) but it's a very weak arguement when you're talking about a multi-billion dollar company.

Obviously I know they will never go back to the old system where there is an item that you see in Stormwind and say "wow I want to get that and its almost impossible to get, so I will just have to work harder" but it would be nice to have something like that. Ever since they made every piece of gear scale between LFR and heroic with the same name and same look those days died, except with Legendaries, those are always unique and hard to get .... oh wait hehe :P

[Osmeric]

I don't know where this notion that Blizzard had little resources came from.

No, it's not that Blizzard has little resources (although their resources aren't unbounded). It's that the ROI of making raids just for the hardcore is inadequate. You get the raids you are getting because Blizzard can amortize the cost of the art assets over multiple difficulty levels.

[arcaneshot]

Raiding should be exclusive with a ton of non-raid challenging content for other players to still feel like they accomplish something.

If you were actually raiding, it is like that.

If it wasn't you'd see a lot more Iron Scorpion mounts than you do right now.