Why Blizzard Shouldn't Listen to the Fans (or, Vocal Minority)

[GukillOP]

I know it's been a while since a lot of these things happened, but Cataclysm (and its continued hate it recieves all these years later) is to me, the biggest reason why Blizzard should NEVER take too much stock into what its fans are saying.

I understand the opinion that people who are willing to invest the time into making a feedback post deserve to be listened to. However, here are some reasons below that I completely lose sympathy with that:

MAJOR Things Complained about during WoTLK (THE BEST XPAC EVAR for a lot of people on these forums.)

-Dalaran (too laggy, spend all your time there.)
-Heroic Dungeons (too easy, too fast, no CC, bring back BC style HM's)
-Raid Scaling (Why can't 10 man have same loot as 25, they weren't on same lockout which led to people doing the same raids twice a week.)
-Levelling Takes Too Long (Vanilla quests still existed, BC/Wrath weren't quick strolls through the zones.)
-Reputations (Wrath reps suck/dont offer good enough rewards.)
-PVP (People dying to have rank system back for BG's)

So what does Blizzard give you?

-Stormwind/Org main cities
- DIFFICULT Heroic Dungeons with needing to CC trash, know mechanics, and be geared enough to do it.
- 10/25 Man Same Loot/Same Lockouts (I know there were tuning issues initially)
-Reduced levelling time & flying right off the bat at 80.
-Reputations you could do via dailies or tabard dungeon grinding (which gets you gear anyway) with rewards being mounts & epic raid loot.
-Rated BG's added to PVP

And guess what? So many people CRAPPED ALL OVER THIS
.... What?!
Blizzard then hit a hard abort button on the direction they were going, and seemed like they effectively gave up on Cataclysm end game and moved on to MoP (with the crappy lack of content Dragon Soul patch.)

I could go on with examples from MoP & Cataclysm, but the morale of this post?

The players aren't game designers. They don't work for Blizzard. Are there good ideas in there? Sure!
But the majority of them aren't - as in they either aren't good ideas, or they are good ideas in theory that wind up really hurting the game in another way. (Looking at you LFD, LFR, SkillUps without seeing your Trainer, faster levelling, World Bosses...)

Don't let the fans dictate the direction of the game - because its been proven over and over that they don't REALLY know what they want - they just THINK they have all the answers to everything.

(Why isn't the game like the "glory days" of BC/Wrath still? BECAUSE THE PLAYERS DIDNT WANT IT TO STAY THAT WAY!!)

With a new expansion coming out, and WoD having a ton of criticism (and I agree with a lot of it), I feel like WoD however is just a product of Blizzard listening TOO MUCH to its fans on the forums and such (guess what? raiding and only raiding isnt the end all be all of WoW! who knew?!)...

I sincerely hope Blizzard doesn't completely overhaul the game (yet again) based highly on what the players post about. Because for 3 straight expansions, it isn't working.

[darklogrus]

They struggle to scale stuff, thats probably why we have 40 difficulties now. Ion sad it best, when he said; "were always bouncing from 1 extreme to another."

[Deja Thoris]

It's not that black and white. To be successful in anything you have to listen to your customers / fans etc.

The art is to filter feedback. You also need to realise that you can't please everyone. Sometimes the ratio of people loving / hating a change is 50:50. Who do you listen to (or not listen to) then.

Anyway, the basic premise for your OP is flawed. You can't not listen.

[Thage]

It's always interesting to see people blaming the fans for Blizzard's inability to adapt to criticism and moderate their reaction therein.

[Tech Priest Bojangles]

It's always interesting to see people blaming the fans for Blizzard's inability to adapt to criticism and moderate their reaction therein.

Amen. Your signature is the perfect response to this thread.

[FattGuy]

I disagree. There were tons of issues in Cata, MoP, and WoD, that weren't our faults, but Blizzards. There are tons. Cata had flying post 80 which destroyed their intention on how they wanted us to level. Dailies that had recipes binded to our professions and gear that all could take weeks to receive. Or garrison/shipyards that are all intended to keep us playing longer. Or again, legendary questlines that intentionally gave us a way to keep us playing more. I could go on and on.

And I don't know why people keep mentioning Wrath. I wonder if people here actually played it, and remembered how it was like on the forums. If anything, Vanilla and TBC were the ones that kept people playing the longest, because shit was harder or took longer to complete back then.

[Phasma]

It's a double-edged sword. If they completely ignored everyone, they would lose people's interest as well. The best approach, in my opinion, is seeing what the player base has to say, and giving them something better than what they are asking for. Blizzard does not do that anymore for some reason. Well, they do, but they aren't as consistent as they used to be. Like flying for example. They directly took the approach the player base expected when they could have offered a more compelling solution to the problem.

[breadisfunny]

They struggle to scale stuff, thats probably why we have 40 difficulties now. Ion sad it best, when he said; "were always bouncing from 1 extreme to another."

we didn't need ion to tell us that.

[corebit]

OP you assume that all Blizzard does is base their design decisions on the community, when in fact they only do that on rare occassions. They take community feedback into consideration, but it doesn't mean they will necessarily follow that feedback.

The latest example: PVP mercenary mode.

[unbound]

It's always interesting to see people blaming the fans for Blizzard's inability to adapt to criticism and moderate their reaction therein.

A big part of the issue. It is also interesting seeing people defend Blizzard's continuing decrease in content with each expansion.

[Super Kami Dende]

It's always interesting to see people blaming the fans for Blizzard's inability to adapt to criticism and moderate their reaction therein.

It's always interesting to see people that constantly whinge or make up conspiracy theories about EVERYTHING Blizzard says or does. The new Merc's mode showed just how juvenile this forums can be.

[goblingirl]

Personally, I think Blizzard's problem isn't that they listen to the fans. It's that they listen to and attempt to please a MINORITY of fans.

They need to be actively and regularly polling their entire customer base, via the Launcher or even an in-game pop up survey UI. Most players never go to forums, official or otherwise. Most players don't follow Blizzard's accounts on Twitter and certainly don't tweet back at them. Blizzard needs to gather the opinions of the majority, not the minority who actively post/tweet.

Until they start doing that, then they will always respond in extreme ways to the extreme opinions expressed on forums, Twitter, and etc.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

And I don't know why people keep mentioning Wrath. I wonder if people here actually played it, and remembered how it was like on the forums.

Oh, I remember. But WotLK wasn't the worst time, the worst time was early in Cata (with the death threats and all). Bad on the forums, worse in game.

[roahn the warlock]

They struggle to scale stuff, thats probably why we have 40 difficulties now. Ion sad it best, when he said; "were always bouncing from 1 extreme to another."

From this post and the OP. No truer fucking words have ever been said. I don't blame Blizzard for all the problems since Wrath. I blame the whiny playerbase. WoD is the lovechild of casuals and they hate it.

- - - Updated - - -

Personally, I think Blizzard's problem isn't that they listen to the fans. It's that they listen to and attempt to please a MINORITY of fans.

They need to be actively and regularly polling their entire customer base, via the Launcher or even an in-game pop up survey UI. Most players never go to forums, official or otherwise. Most players don't follow Blizzard's accounts on Twitter and certainly don't tweet back at them. Blizzard needs to gather the opinions of the majority, not the minority who actively post/tweet.

Until they start doing that, then they will always respond in extreme ways to the extreme opinions expressed on forums, Twitter, and etc.

But WoD is pretty much all the casuals raved about in MoP, turned up to 11

[goblingirl]

From this post and the OP. No truer fucking words have ever been said. I don't blame Blizzard for all the problems since Wrath. I blame the whiny playerbase. WoD is the lovechild of casuals and they hate it.

- - - Updated - - -



But WoD is pretty much all the casuals raved about in MoP, turned up to 11

No. WoD is pretty much all the people on the forums claimed casuals raved about. Casuals don't really post/tweet. I doubt most of them are aware of what's being advocated for in their names, even.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

From this post and the OP. No truer fucking words have ever been said. I don't blame Blizzard for all the problems since Wrath. I blame the whiny playerbase. WoD is the lovechild of casuals and they hate it.

Which casuals? I don't consider a "raid or die" expansion a "lovechild of casuals".

[corebit]

Which casuals? I don't consider a "raid or die" expansion a "lovechild of casuals".

Garrisons had so much potential for being the content for casuals, just like Pet Battles was for MoP, but Blizz fucked it up. What I'm afraid though is that they will go to the other extreme again next expansion and stay the hell away from any idea resembling player/guild housing, which will be unfortunate.

[Traveler Voltin]

The vocal minority killed LFR.
I miss MoP

[Deja Thoris]

It's always interesting to see people that constantly whinge or make up conspiracy theories about EVERYTHING Blizzard says or does. The new Merc's mode showed just how juvenile this forums can be.

Yes because when people disagree with an inelegant bandaid to a self created problem the only course of action is to call them juvenile right?

[Throne]

Its their game not their fan's game.