Why do people want content slower?

[Armourboy]

9 months between raid is still to long. Come on it's almost a year, making gaps even is not a solution.

It may not be the solution you want, but its about as good as you are going to get with Blizzard.

We are going on 12 years now, if they haven't figured out how to push more content out faster to stop the lull at the end it is not happening. Whether you like it or not, Blizzard has basically said with WoD and Legion that short or year long expansions are a pipe dream. Basically it takes them a certain amount of time to produce good content, and make the changes they need to make with classes. Obviously, if they would stop overhauling classes it might shorten things a bit, but I've about decided that is a pipe dream as well. They can't help but try and reinvent the wheel when it comes to classes every expansion.

So based on what Blizzard is telling us you aren't getting anymore content that probably what you saw in MoP, that is pretty much it. So you can space things a bit better so that you are sitting around for 7-9 months at the end, or you can continue pumping things out in 6 months or less and then sit around for a year at the end of the expansion.

You can decide how you want it done, or you can let basic grinds make a big comeback. or roadblocks like attunements, or any other host of things that have been removed over the years. Basically they now know ( and have said as much) that it takes X amount of time to make content. You can ask and keep hoping for more, but basically 3 raid tiers in 24 months is about it if you want big raids. If you go with smaller ones you might could push it to 4.

The answer is basically to pump out as much as they can and space it better. You may not like that answer or agree with it, but that doesn't make it less true.

[nekobaka]

WoW is a subscription based MMO. When casual players are blowing through content in a month and done there is a problem. There is always going to be repetition in a game like WoW and I do not see a reason why the developers want to bow down to such short term customers. At the same time no-lifer alcoholics who get cranky when they cant level all 20 some of their alts within a week should not be considered typical of the majority especially considering that they are smaller than even mythic raiders.

If the developers cannot even keep the majority busy then what luck do they have to keep the minority busy for months on end in a game that makes a lot of revenue from subscriptions. Perhaps a different story if expansions actually released far faster and yet that has so far proven to be a failure.

[Deleted]

It is not the solution. If WoD was spaced out, it'd still be 11 months a raid tier. Even if MoP was spaced out, it'd still be almost 9 months a raid tier. Those lengths are just far too long and spacing the raids out would have accomplished nothing. Releasing more content is the only solution. Asking for longer raid tiers and more "spaced out" raid tiers isn't.

Dude, stop.
You keep repeating 11 months, yet I'm pretty certain WoD didn't last for 3 years...
November 13th 2014 - August 30th 2016, that is 1 year, 9 months and a half. Which is in fact 21 month, divided by 3 that's 7 months.

It's early morning, my maths may be off, but this seems fairly simple.

[Vynny]

The problem with your idea of people having more to do because they weren't able to finish a raid before the tier ended is kinda misguided. The problem is that as soon as content is obsolete, people lose most reason to go back there, so it doesn't guarantee that more people have more to do. I mean think about how many people do sunwell or hyjal nowadays. Not many because there's no relevant reason to go back there. The same applied with highmaul after BRF came out, the gear became obsolete so there was no relevant reason to put time into that versus putting time into BRF.

So considering that once content becomes obsolete, very few will go back to it, it's better for blizzard and the playerbase if a raid tier is fully savored before moving onto the next. For most raiders highmaul had at least another 4 to 6 weeks to it, and another 4 to 6 weeks of highmaul would mean 4 to 6 weeks less of HFC which would've been a good thing honestly. And if you don't think highmaul had another 4 to 6 weeks then you're overestimating how many guilds had cleared it and underestimating how long content can be on "farm" status before it get's dreadfully boring. There were very few guilds out of all of the mythic raiding guilds that had cleared mythic highmaul and another week or 2 would've given them time to clear mythic highmaul leaving 2 to 5 weeks of farm that could've been done before the bleeding edge guilds were thoroughly done with it, and that's not even mentioning the cutting edge (heroic) or normal guilds seeing as they can typically stay on the content for longer without getting bored.

[WowIsDead64]

The general consensus for content like Throne of Thunder is that the next raid was released too soon, there wasn't enough time to complete the content, and that the next raid should have been released later.

But isn't that situation a good thing? Shorter raid tiers mean that fewer people will completely finish the content and always have something new and fresh to do. And people who finish the tier quicker will have the next tier's of content sooner. If I had to pick between 6 month raid tiers and 9 month raid tiers, I'd pick 6 month raid tiers every single time. And so would the many people who simply do not raid for every single week in the raid tier. So I think the solution here is to release content faster, not slower.

The notion that "raid tiers need to be spaced out better so we don't have content droughts" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more you ask for longer raid tiers, the longer these expansion waits will be. And also if WoD has shown us anything, this thought process is completely irrelevant. No amount of spacing out would have made the lengths of the 2 raid tiers in WoD acceptable.

I think that instead of actively petitioning Blizzard to release content slower, we should be asking them to release content faster so that there's always something to do for everybody, and to not keep people waiting for months on end without new content. Not only will this benefit the playerbase, but it will also benefit Blizzard's bottom line as people will stay subscribed for longer.

There are two completely separate groups of players: short term "cyclical" ones and long term "stable" ones. "Cyclical" ones want content to be released faster, cuz they play it for 2-3 weeks and then quit, cuz they come into game to "see it" only and "hate grind". "Stable" ones need time to completely consume it. Blizzard try to maximize profit, so they try to keep "cyclical" players playing their game for as long, as possible, till they won't quit "forever" (till next xpack) - that's why Blizzard try to release content faster at the beginning of xpack and stop doing it at the end.

[nazrakin]

Something which is only a thing because of the 4 difficulties and was not a problem before

4 difficulties became a thing because there was a bigger problem: people werent seeing much past the first tier. That is why they've switched things up in almost every expansion in an effort to increase participation. First they cut down on raid size in TBC. WOTLK took that further and had 10m versions of all dungeons. Cata made 10/25 equal and introduced LFR. MoP introduced Flex/xrealm raiding. WoD gave us 20m Mythic and flex everywhere else. Legion is the first time we haven't seen any major shifts in the raid structure, unless you count tier being back in LFR. WoW type raids are extremely costly in terms of development resources, so its hard to justify them when a majority of the audience isn't participating.

[jasdasm]

too simple, rejected

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acutally no thats complete false.

they just need to take out the 4 difficutlys of raids

done in an instant

doesnt help making old content not useless.. blizzard gives you enough ilvl to make sure you feel the upgrade

[Lilija]

Something which is only a thing because of the 4 difficulties and was not a problem before

No, multiple difficulties have nothing to do with this. People don't want to do old content. Didn't want to do it in TBC or Vanilla and did really douchy things in order to boost themselves asap into the most relevant content. That model had tons of things that were wrong with it.

Multiple difficulties make it possible to make the hardest content harder with every expantion for the long time players while at the same time present something for the new player so they can start somewhere and not just bash their heads against the wall as it happened in Cataclysm.

Raids released with not less than 6 months within each other should work quite well. It might even be slightly bigger depending on the size of the raid and observing how the community is actually progressing.

[Soulfighter101]

They want their content equally staggered, instead of getting all the content in year one, then having an entire year of jack shit to do. A raid tier and accompanying patch every 6 months is totally reasonable if we're getting expacs every two years.

[Nefarious Tea]

But isn't that situation a good thing? Shorter raid tiers mean that fewer people will completely finish the content and always have something new and fresh to do. And people who finish the tier quicker will have the next tier's of content sooner.

The problem with that is that this isn't BC anymore where the item level difference between lvl 60 quest greens in hellfire peninsula to the highest tier of epics in Sunwell Plateau is barely 60 ilvls. People continued to do older raids because slightly easier content meant a slightly easier time gearing up. Now, a single raid tear is easily as big an item level jump (from LFR through to Mythic) as the entire BC expansion - if not significantly more.

As soon as a new tier of content is released today, however, these gigantic item level jumps make all previous content completely obsolete. Faster content patches means half the expansion sits, barely touched. As soon as BRF went live, people just stopped doing HM, and as soon as HFC went live, people just stopped doing BRF. Well, I suppose that's not quite true... a few people did them if they still needed legendary quest progression or wanted particular items for vanity purposes; I should say the playerbase as a whole stops raiding anything but the newest, shiniest, highest item level raid. Been that way since Wrath.

[Lilija]

Game was better when everyone wasn't on the same page.

No, it wasn't.

When gearing actually took months instead of days...

No, it wasn't.

When leveling took weeks instead of hours...

No, it wasn't.

When dungeons were actually difficult...and an entirely great form of endgame..

Have you done the most difficult dungeons? Like for example Challenge Modes in the first week of WoD?

When raids were considered somewhat exclusive

Mythic raiding is pretty exclusive

When gold actually meant something...

It still does - simply numbers has changed

When becoming good in the game meant something

It still does. Maybe you aren't good if you can't see it...

Remember the days when content wasn't so easily completable and accessible? Pretty much the perfect formula for MMO's.

No, it's far from perfect.

The game has become incredibly casualized. Any idiot can start playing this game and do everything that is worth doing in 2 weeks then quit. It's pathetic and it's not going to change.

Show me all those idiots completing Mythic raids in 2 weeks (without being boosted)

[Lilija]

WoW is a subscription based MMO. When casual players are blowing through content in a month and done there is a problem. There is always going to be repetition in a game like WoW and I do not see a reason why the developers want to bow down to such short term customers. At the same time no-lifer alcoholics who get cranky when they cant level all 20 some of their alts within a week should not be considered typical of the majority especially considering that they are smaller than even mythic raiders.

If the developers cannot even keep the majority busy then what luck do they have to keep the minority busy for months on end in a game that makes a lot of revenue from subscriptions. Perhaps a different story if expansions actually released far faster and yet that has so far proven to be a failure.

And yet for some magical reason those casual people bring more money than the no lifers (if they didn't WoW would be modeled around another group). Can you figure out why? It's math.

[jasdasm]

what? if there are no four difficutlies ist just a normal upgrade, linear progression like in tbc or vanilla

so yeah does help


why should i do mhytic BRF when i could go hellfire LFR and the normal?

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People not want to do the same shit over and over again, if this wasthe case rep grinds would be loved, so the current system is dumb, way dumber and more unefficent then "douchy" things you might to remeber.

Multiple difficulties only make things tedious, also you dont deliver actually a coutner argument to the post you quoted if i mind you. If multiple difficulties such a great thing and stretching the play time why dont add more? the "normal" guilds would take even longer ! so you coold release raids every 10 months!


also no that shit with 6 months doenst help, in tbc content was released before the other tier was beat. Cant do that if you gonna faceroll in lfr or normal

wont happen. the hardmode aka mythic is here to stay. i could see 3 modes but not less

[Tojara]

Content slower in the form of raids, is honestly preferred in my opinion, for pretty much everybody. If you're in the top 1% it's kinda nice to break after a raid is done and just take it easy, and if you're not, well it won't feel like so much of a rush to finish before the next big thing comes out. I think in either scenario, both groups of raiders win, and everybody between does as well.

Keep in mind my above statement was about RAIDS. I think raid pacing hits a good point at around 6 months, with 9 months probably be acceptable (IMO) for the final tier of the expansion. The problem is Blizzard recently hasn't been adding anything of substance between these giant raid tiers. You don't get story elements added, dungeons or anything of that nature anymore. While not a lot, something simple like the 5.1 Landfall thing in MoP does wonders, as does them releasing the ZG/ZA in Cataclysm between launch and Firelands. WoD was a travesty in this regard because we basically got nothing aside from BRF after Highmaul, and then we got Tanaan and HFC in 6.2 Granted I think Tanaan and HFC were good, but not for what, 13 or 14 months?

Of course pacing wouldn't be an issue at all for raids if they didn't obsolete old raids immediately after something new came out. Back in Vanilla and to an extent TBC, you had items and reasons to do the old content. I don't know if it was the best designed, but unless you were at the very top, I highly doubt you ever felt like there was nothing to do in the game. Granted in Legion they sort of make old content useful in the sense that Legendaries can drop, and things have the potential to Titanforge (albeit rare) all the way up to current iLvL.

It's a weird situation because they put so much work and effort into all their raids and realistically the only one that we put a crap load of time in is the last one of the expansion, since basically WoTLK.

[Lilija]

so back then, people werent seeing anything past tier (call bullshit on that btw. where is the source for this), so we got the fucked up system what we have now that resulted in FEWER Raids, because thats so cost efficient?

yeah make perfectley sense

You can believe what you want but the cost was mostly behind pushing more participation. You know what costs the most in a game design? Graphics. So making a dungeon that is consumed by 1% of playerbase is not really cost efficient. And this is something Blizzard was actually quite opened about.

[Nefarious Tea]

But bro people telling me the multiple difficulties have NOTHING to do with this, you must be wrong!

Well, I mean multiple difficulties for each raid wouldn't objectively do this. But Blizzard has made the decision that LFR gear from the newest raid is on par with Heroic gear from the last raid. Jumping that much is detrimental. If Normal gear from raid N was as good as LFR gear from Raid N+1, then the steps would be smaller... but even the ilvl jumps between difficulties are too large.

Having multiple difficulties in and of themselves isn't the issue... Blizzard's item level distribution between them is.

[Rafoel]

The general consensus for content like Throne of Thunder is that the next raid was released too soon, there wasn't enough time to complete the content, and that the next raid should have been released later.

But isn't that situation a good thing? Shorter raid tiers mean that fewer people will completely finish the content and always have something new and fresh to do. And people who finish the tier quicker will have the next tier's of content sooner. If I had to pick between 6 month raid tiers and 9 month raid tiers, I'd pick 6 month raid tiers every single time. And so would the many people who simply do not raid for every single week in the raid tier. So I think the solution here is to release content faster, not slower.

The notion that "raid tiers need to be spaced out better so we don't have content droughts" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more you ask for longer raid tiers, the longer these expansion waits will be. And also if WoD has shown us anything, this thought process is completely irrelevant. No amount of spacing out would have made the lengths of the 2 raid tiers in WoD acceptable.

I think that instead of actively petitioning Blizzard to release content slower, we should be asking them to release content faster so that there's always something to do for everybody, and to not keep people waiting for months on end without new content. Not only will this benefit the playerbase, but it will also benefit Blizzard's bottom line as people will stay subscribed for longer.

For many people "always having something fresh and new to do" isn't a goal. They are fine as long as they have ANYTHING to do (so they haven't cleared the raid yet). Simultaneusly, when Blizzard releases the content so fast that they never manage to finish any raid instance, they feel like the whole game is pointless - like the movie you are forced to stop watching just before the culminating action.

[Shenkz]

Releasing raid tiers before everyone has finished them unfortunately does not work with the current reward structure. Too many welfare epics and 'catchup' mechanics are added with each new raid tier making previous tiers obsolete, there is no reason to go back and do them other than for achievement/mount even within the expansion. The only way they could add new raid tiers before the numbers that they want have completed them is if they went back to the BC model where you had to go from tier to tier even if you were on the 4th tier of the expansion.

with legion there is an item level ceiling for all gear in the game that can be upgraded to through titanforged. Wether they choose to raise the ceiling for older tier to match the new raids/crafted gear/world quests ceiling will determine if previous tiers will be worth running gear wise.

lets use current information as an example, 895 is the ilvl ceiling for first tier content, all gear in the game can reach this. mythic raids are 880 ilvl base, so you only need to roll +5 3 times to hit the ceiling. now lets say second tier comes out, the cap on ilvl is raised to 940, and normal raids of the next tier drop 895. Some people may not like that your BIS trinket could come off the first tier if you are lucky and it goes to 935+, but I like that idea, even getting 935+ versions of the T19 and the it still be better than T20 in that case.

The game already has catchup built in through world quests and crafting, but that could be another form by giving incentive for the T20 players to run their new friends/guildies through older content on off nights at the chance they could get insane version of an older trinket that could be BIS in t20

[Lilija]

People not want to do the same shit over and over again, if this wasthe case rep grinds would be loved, so the current system is dumb, way dumber and more unefficent then "douchy" things you might to remeber.

Multiple difficulties only make things tedious, also you dont deliver actually a coutner argument to the post you quoted if i mind you. If multiple difficulties such a great thing and stretching the play time why dont add more? the "normal" guilds would take even longer ! so you coold release raids every 10 months!

You obviously have no idea how the 4 difficulties work. They have NOTHING to do with the lenght of the content. Guilds chose 1 difficulty they want to progress thru and use 1 lower to gear up for that progressiong. So in reality, 2 difficulties is what exists for the majority of guilds.

also no that shit with 6 months doenst help, in tbc content was released before the other tier was beat. Cant do that if you gonna faceroll in lfr or normal

And there still were content droughts. It's the ONLY reason SWP was released prematurely as it was planned for next expantion and that's why we had to do Naxx for the 2nd time :P

6 months is just some arbitrary number. In reality Blizzard should just release new content when the majority of raiding guilds finish their chose difficulty and are in farm mode for some time (most guilds are fine with about month or 2 of farm). And 7 months seems just perfect for 3 raid expantion if we assume it should take around 2 years (which is the lowest, realistic time to prepare for next expantion).

[xcess]

Well i think the problem is more the spacing between content . A lot of ppl start to drop off probably after 3 months of no new content. Personally I dont mind cos it gives me time to catch up on other things but I can see how it is for people who dont wanna do all content