"Inequity is neccessary for a healthy MMORPG"

[Deleted]

I wouldn't use "inequality" in the sense that someone is "better" than someone else. I think what the game needs is the ability to be different, to develop a character in a unique way. WoW has grown to be incredibly shallow and strictly controlled arcade experience rather than a deep MMORPG. Everyone must do the quick on-the-rails questing to max level, and then they must raid the same instance at the same time, no exceptions. The only thing you get to "choose" is how many different difficulty modes you want to grind the same content.

What the game lacks is the ability to make real choices that affect how your character develops. You should be able to choose to do 5-mans as your end-game rather than the large group raids, and they should provide a meaningful and challenging experience (e.g., lvl60 dungeons, TBC heroics). You should be able to choose to focus on professions and gold making as your primary focus, and get unique and powerful rewards based on your skill and dedication in it. You should be able to choose to schedule a few nights per week to play with a steady raid group, and be rewarded for it via progression into content you wouldn't otherwise see. You should be able to choose to play a certain niche role to specialize in, and fill a unique role in the game/raids/groups. You should be able to choose to focus exclusively on your main and get unique benefits/power over someone that chooses to develop a number of alts.

[Deleted]

Envy is a horrible way to phrase it. I've always talked about Aspiration being the key factor. That needs to come back in some distributed form, that whilst being apparent, and being a motivator for a lot of regular players, also doesn't take away the fun from more casual players.

The game has changed in a way that it is a lot harder for people to like the thought, of aspiration being a big thing. It is in fact a great, great aspect of MMORPGs that has gotten lost in the shuffle of QoL and watered down, more formulaic content creation.

[LilSaihah]

I don't know if it's inequity that is healthy.

Aspiration is healthy.

[papajohn4]

"I remember back in Vanilla"...is all I ever need to read to not bother anymore.

Whatever somebody remembers fondly from any game at any time - it doesn't make it the universal truth. What you loved, somebody else hated.

Feeling ok sitting on yohr garrison lonely on your empty server while we play on full vanilla servers? I am feeling ok too...in some time, vanilla tbc servers will have more population and sure tons more activity than your lobby game...

[Deleted]

You cannot have a sustainable game if 90% of the effort/endgame is only used by 10% of the players.

Nonsense. I don't want to raid (I want to do 5-mans as my end-game), but I would not play WoW without raids in it. In vanilla I never raided, but I probably would've never gotten into it had there not been raids. The mistake people always make with this argument is assuming that the content only has value for those directly experiencing it. That couldn't be further from the truth in a game like WoW. There are massive secondary effects to the existence of raids: 1) it causes raiding guilds to exist, which form basis of the community, 2) it gives everyone a goal to strive for, 3) it makes the game feel more varied and deep, 4) it gives me the possibility to later switch to raiding as my focus if I choose, 5) it gets dedicated and skilled people into the game, who then build tools/guides/forums for others. Game like WoW is much more than the sum of its parts.

[Cytus]

So back to artificial gating?

No artificial gating is what we have now. With the legendary quest line for example.
If you can not experience the final boss of a raid tier, because you are incapable to kill a previous one, it's not artificial gating.

[Axphism]

"I remember back in Vanilla"...is all I ever need to read to not bother anymore.

Whatever somebody remembers fondly from any game at any time - it doesn't make it the universal truth. What you loved, somebody else hated.

That's true. To claim vanilla was the best point of WoW is absurd. That doesn't mean there are certain aspects of Vanilla that some may consider better though.

[papajohn4]

Nonsense. I don't want to raid (I want to do 5-mans as my end-game), but I would not play WoW without raids in it. In vanilla I never raided, but I probably would've never gotten into it had there not been raids. The mistake people always make with this argument is assuming that the content only has value for those directly experiencing it. That couldn't be further from the truth in a game like WoW. There are massive secondary effects to the existence of raids: 1) it causes raiding guilds to exist, which form basis of the community, 2) it gives everyone a goal to strive for, 3) it makes the game feel more varied and deep, 4) it gives me the possibility to later switch to raiding as my focus if I choose, 5) it gets dedicated and skilled people into the game, who then build tools/guides/forums for others. Game like WoW is much more than the sum of its parts.

I agree but do we really need 4 modes of raiding for that? All these you claim, didnt happen in vanilla/tbc when there was only 1 raiding mode?

With 1 raiding mode, not only we achieve what you said, but surelly need less resources put on raiding and free up more for the rest of the game...is a win/win situation

[Axphism]

So as soon as I reached max level, my skill was what determined if I could kill a raid boss?

Your skill, the skill of the players around you, and to a lesser extent the gear you have already acquired. That's absolutely true.

[Deleted]

Only an idiot would "ever" think even more exclusivity is what WoW needs right now considering how well recieved Mythic raiding is, which is to say, it isnt.

Even more exclusivity? What's still exclusive in WoW? A couple of mounts and a couple of gear sets? A mythic Archimonde phase?

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Interesting but doesn't he realize that Blizzard tried this very ideology again at launch with Cataclysm? That didn't go over too well for them..

I don't think the players are to blame for all of WoW's current problems but it is very true that many of them don't know what they really want and that's probably part of why Blizzard seems to shift each expansion in the opposite direction of the previous one. At least they can draw in lots of people at launch with new promises and hope to sell boxes.

Harder heroics in Cataclysm failed because of LFG.

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So back to artificial gating?

Back to it? We have it now. Back then we didn't.

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How many people have the 13/13 Hellfire Citadel achievement?

The actual problem is, how many actually want to have it? That's the crux. People have no motivation to do it with LFR.

[thorvath]

'I don't like losing; the only path for me to not keep losing was to get better/take on harder challenges.'

The problem is he doesn't recognize that there is another path: Quit and play a different game. Sure some people will get invested and rise to the challenge. But I'd wager the vast majority will just shrug their shoulders say 'oh well guess this is as far as I can get' and move on. This is an especially tricky balancing act for MMOs because they depend on the critical mass of players.

Special snowflake syndrome has always amused me because their complaints are self-defeating... they want to be separated them from the 'bads' but they still need the 'bads' to play because 1) who are they going to stand out from if they leave and 2) it's the casual scrubs who are footing the bill for all this content. To top it off because MMOs are so interdependent they need a continuous influx of new raiders, but their desire for a walled garden leads to an ever shrinking pool of recruits.

And like every private server I've seen gives you god mode items so I dunno what he's smoking. They aren't super popular because they are illegal (heck maybe they are super popular anyway it's not like we get sub numbers from the guys running pirated servers).

[Cytus]

This is correct. If you need evidence of why more exclusivity is a stupid idea, look at how exclusive Mythic raiding is now, and look at the subscriber numbers. Thank you, drive through.

You seriously think Mythic raiding is causing any subscriber decrease? The playerbase raiding Mythic is generally the most stable of all and the reason is obviously that they take much longer to clear "their" content than an LFR hero.

Also please explain what about raiding on Mythic difficulty is exclusive? Where is the gating? Nobody tells you that you can't do it aswell than yourself! There are allready over a thousand guilds who killed Iron Reaver on Mythic by now!!!

[Segus1992]

Only an idiot would "ever" think even more exclusivity is what WoW needs right now considering how well recieved Mythic raiding is, which is to say, it isnt.

I agree, but that's because the game has consistently moved towards a more "something for everyone" approach - exclusivity becomes bad for those not willing to put the time required into the game.

As someone who played Vanilla (and would only maybe go back to it over WoD), the feeling of seeing someone decked in the high end gear was definitely real and spurring. It's not something WoW will ever go back to in the same sense however, as that'd require LFR + normal raids + transmogrification to be removed entirely. We all know that's never going to happen.

Regardless, throwing around random insults like a child is never necessary.

[Deleted]

Back to it? We have it now. Back then we didn't.

So all those dungeons, crafting and attunements and whatnot, that I did back then, was purely for the fun of it, and not to be able to withstand the smackdowns of the bosses by acquiring gear. I truly have wasted a lot of time, seeing as I could apparently have run into the raid once I hit max level.

[Deleted]

I agree but do we really need 4 modes of raiding for that? All these you claim, didnt happen in vanilla/tbc when there was only 1 raiding mode?

There should only be one difficulty mode, in my opinion. And tuned so that nobody should expect to automatically finish all of it. That would probably mean that most of the "story" would have to move outside of raid instances, into quests, world content, and 5-mans. I'm perfectly fine with that, when I progression raided I wasn't motivated by the story anyway, I was motivated by progress into new content.

I never understood this obsession of seeing everything, it just means you've run out of content. I don't want to see everything (and Blizzard will just keep producing more endlessly anyway), I want a good gaming experience. For super casual raiding, would take Kara alone above all of MoP's LFR content. I want to be able to make choices that makes me unique in some way. Not better than anyone in everything, but specialized so I'm better in some things and worse in others.

LFR is just a massive waste of content since people just blow through it in a single night, and then are out of new content until the next gate is removed. If I was to get back to raiding, I'd want to raid 3 nights per week, and take roughly 2-3 weeks to kill a new boss and 6+ weeks to kill the end boss. And I mean actually new, not just a more difficult version of the LFR one. That also means that I'd be satisfied with something like two 9 boss raid instances per year, so less content than Blizzard produces now. The current content pacing is just completely screwed up.

[Drpizka]

I agree with OP.

I used to be in full blue set and I was like "I am powerful". I mean blue means rare. I was in a full rare set and I liked it.

Then I tried to get an epic, and when I finally got it it felt so good and rewarding.

Nowadays, I am in full epic having done nothing at all.

There must be a distinction, great and dedicated players have to be rewarded. Blue gear isn't that bad at all. You don't need epics to run dungeons, do pvp or go to entry raids.

In my opinion, they must bring difficulty back. Make questing harder; remember how much time it used to take you to kill a mob? if not go to nostalrius and see. Remove all these flight paths; There are 3 fp in Tirisfal Glades. I mean, really? why so many?
Make epics feel epic, not to mention legendary.
Bring back the social aspect of the game, we need to cooperate and create groups. Its not a solo game. Again, visit a private vanilla like server and you will see people puging even for quests.

[gcsmith]

LFR was designed to be an experience for solo players to experience the raid? Here's an idea, make LFR into a solo queue where you have to do your role decently to achieve LFR Loot. Instead of a 25 man grind fest, it becomes a 1 man do the role with NPC's. Where you're actually tested. Would make it a little more interesting, and shorten queue times as well

[Srg56]

Inequity is neccessary for a healthy MMORPG

What a silly notion. I mean, MMOs are supposed to simulate real life society to a degree, right?

When was the last time you saw someone go "oh man, that person has a really nice expensive car! i better work hard to earn enough money to buy myself such a nice vehicle!"

That's right, never. What you will hear is, "that lucky PoS, he probably inherited the money", or "rich fucker", etc etc.

My point is, what did you expect?

[Cytus]

LFR was designed to be an experience for solo players to experience the raid? Here's an idea, make LFR into a solo queue where you have to do your role decently to achieve LFR Loot. Instead of a 25 man grind fest, it becomes a 1 man do the role with NPC's. Where you're actually tested. Would make it a little more interesting, and shorten queue times as well

... and wreck instance servers

But yeah, generally, this should work as an idea.

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What a silly notion. I mean, MMOs are supposed to simulate real life society to a degree, right?

When was the last time you saw someone go "oh man, that person has a really nice expensive car! i better work hard to earn enough money to buy myself such a nice vehicle!"

That's right, never.

I do. Seriously. Why else would I invest commitement into my career other than to have nice things?

Or was your posting ironic?

[gcsmith]

So all those dungeons, crafting and attunements and whatnot, that I did back then, was purely for the fun of it, and not to be able to withstand the smackdowns of the bosses by acquiring gear. I truly have wasted a lot of time, seeing as I could apparently have run into the raid once I hit max level.

That's not artifical gating. That's called RP. Of course you have to be ready to face some of the bosses, cus they're meant to be bad asses. Artifical gating is something like LFR where you have to wait 10 weeks to even have access to the full raid.