Watcher confirms that raiders are a "minority"

[styil]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...5664?page=4#75

Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas confirms in the above post that only "A minority of players raid" and "A tiny minority touch Mythic raiding". We have at last got confirmation that raiding isn't an activity done by the majority of the players, but only by the minority, just like PvP, pet battles, alt leveling, etc.

Now that we've established a benchmark for the size of the total raiding participation, how can anyone really justify the disproportionate amount of development resources devoted to this minority activity? "But so many people raid through LFR" is no longer a valid argument as Watcher has confirmed just how few players actually do raid. Why is a disproportionate amount of development resources going into this minority activity and not more fairly distributed to other minority activities (like PvP balance, more pets, etc.) or activities completed by the majority (e.g. quests and dungeons)? It is very clear, especially after WoD, that these areas were very starved of development resources, and even just a slight increase in development resources would have improved these areas substantially. Yet so much was devoted to raiding.

In my opinion, it makes no sense to continue raiding development on the scale that it currently is at for such a minority group, especially after what happened with an expansion that was mostly about raiding. Please redistribute development resources to other areas more equally.

[Rivin]

Game developers tend to make games that they want to play. Most of the WoW dev team leaders are raiders or former raiders. Hence, disproportionate focus on raiding.

[Deleted]

Coming to WoW soon. Pet battle difficulty. Personally I think Pet battles aren't inclusive enough. I'd like to see a looking for pet battles mode that allows lesser skilled pet battlers to group together to defeat the harder pets.

[clevin]

You're distorting what he said which is that ALL play styles are a minority. There IS no majority activity.

Now then... would I like to see more 5 mans? Yes. More active BG and arena development? More quest hubs and areas? Yes and yes. More, say, pet battles? No. Nothing against pet battles but they and other things like archaeology, etc are not core activities. Groups PVE and PVE and group and solo open world activities are core. I'd love to see more of those even at the expense of raiding. But What I'd REALLY like to see is less sniping to remove X so we can have Y and more insistence that we get both X *and* Y or we don't buy the game. The do an expansion, support it for maybe 12 months, and the have left us with nothing new for 10-14 months per expansion. Want me to stick around? Give me reasons.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Confirmed but nothing changes. I guess that closes the debate. Majority does not rule. The devs do. So whatever they make goes. GG

[Nuckels]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...5664?page=4#75

Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas confirms in the above post that only "A minority of players raid" and "A tiny minority touch Mythic raiding". We have at last got confirmation that raiding isn't an activity done by the majority of the players, but only by the minority, just like PvP, pet battles, alt leveling, etc.

Now that we've established a benchmark for the size of the total raiding participation, how can anyone really justify the disproportionate amount of development resources devoted to this minority activity? "But so many people raid through LFR" is no longer a valid argument as Watcher has confirmed just how few players actually do raid. Why is a disproportionate amount of development resources going into this minority activity and not more fairly distributed to other minority activities (like PvP balance, more pets, etc.) or activities completed by the majority (e.g. quests and dungeons)? It is very clear, especially after WoD, that these areas were very starved of development resources, and even just a slight increase in development resources would have improved these areas substantially. Yet so much was devoted to raiding.

In my opinion, it makes no sense to continue raiding development on the scale that it currently is at for such a minority group, especially after what happened with an expansion that was mostly about raiding. Please redistribute development resources to other areas more equally.

Let me start off with, I agree WoD had to little content outside of raiding, with that being said why can't we have it all?

Now to my issue with your post, your qoute is entirely taken out of context, so badly that I'd say you missed the point. Everything in wow that can be done except for questing is done by a minority in comparison to questing. Nothing implies that the same amount of people PvE that do PvP etc. Without that data your entire argument is Mute.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

Then what does the majority do? Quit the game?

[MoanaLisa]

Waiting until Legion to see the content balance between raiding and everything else. From what I've seen so far it's a more equitable balance so ranting about Warlords non-raid content is pointless. Really, it's time to start looking ahead instead of going over Warlords again and again.

And yes, you completely distorted the actual point of Watcher's post. Unsurprising.

[Flurryfang]

Pretty much what Tai Rin says. The devs think that raiding is the most fun part of the game, and therefore they will try to push people into playing raids. The majority of people could love to do Ashran, still does not make it good content.

[Deleted]

a minority can still mean anything up to 50% of the player base. so no there isn't much of a benchmark he gave.

raiding was the same as any other expansion before WoD, so raiding isn't the blame for the lack of stuff to do besides raiding. (Also, why does everyone assume that raiders don't do anything else besides raiding. raiders were also unhappy with WoD. So can we stop blaming the raiders -.-)
And raiding doesn't require that much development time. It is 1 team that does raid encounters with help from the art team and they implement the same art in other places anyway and the lore team.

[Hiricine]

Hardcore raiders attract people to play the game. Many of the "Casual" players around are friends and family of raiders, and generally speaking, people quit the game fairly quickly when they feel like they've "Beaten" it. The new Mythic+ dungeons are likely to attract "good" casual players who can't commit time to join a larger group, and hopefully blizz can expand that experiment.

[cFortyfive]

Majority does not rule.

Well who'd want bronze retards spending 5 minutes a week in a game make major design decisions ? I mean talking as an actual player and not a stakeholder since nobody here really is.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

I think a lot of people misunderstand what Ion said.

He said that there is a lot of development on several sides of the game - but no side in particular should ever be the main focus, because activities themselves are pretty niche in the game. Beside leveling dungeon and quests, a lot of people will focus on one or two sphere of the game, but rarely all of them.

That's why he said that, and he's absolutely right. Legion tries to play with that better than WoD. If it works remain to be seen.

[Lamora]

Raiding isn't done by a majority of the players. Pvp isn't done by a majority of the players. Pet battles aren't done by a majority of the players. Cancel Christmas, we're all going home.

[Ersula]

It makes sense that they would still focus on raiding because that is what "works" and they'd still want raiding to appeal to people who haven't tried it yet.

But there is a definite shift: Alpha testers and WoW coverage sites have all commented on how 5-man dungeons feel more developed than previous expansions, while the Legion launch raids feel much simpler, and less polished than the 5-mans.

[Deja Thoris]

Well who'd want bronze retards spending 5 minutes a week in a game make major design decisions ? I mean talking as an actual player and not a stakeholder since nobody here really is.

Players are customers. Customers are stakeholders.

You're welcome.

[cFortyfive]

Players are customers. Customers are stakeholders.

You're welcome.

Sure sure so when can I expect my revenue shares ?

[Eapoe]

If you read the whole post he says a minority represent everything except a majority of leveling dungeons. By this logic let's just scrap the game, right?

[Schizoide]

"Minority" means 49% or lower. That's a heck of a lot of people.

And you're missing his point, that they need to cater to every player. Casual raiding, friends & family raiding, hardcore progression raiding, casual small-group play, hardcore small-group play, battlegrounds, arenas, pet battles, soloing old bosses... these are all valid playstyles.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Well who'd want bronze retards spending 5 minutes a week in a game make major design decisions ? I mean talking as an actual player and not a stakeholder since nobody here really is.

I am going to go out on a limb here. This guy name rym will. When it comes to trying to do the most retarded thing in the game he usually finds a way to fill his whole pie hole with it. Then hash tag it with LFR and no one will give zero shits no matter how many times he posts about it.