IS Legion killing the wow playerbase?

[Aggrophobic]

I'm clearing mythic , in top 5 of the dps charts, weeks behind AK and don't have a BIS legendary. Oh, and am not a fire mage or enh shaman. So what exactly is your problem? I'm not sure, but the "rng" is not it. The only thing that requires a huge grind is being in the top100 region guild. But that has always been the case.




Now whats your refute going to be? That my guildies "suck" because they're under me in dps with 2 leg's? Yet we're clearing mythic and 10+ keystones, so clearly that's not the case. Is it that the content is "too easy"? Well then what stops you,bud?


The biggest problem with legion is how shit it is for altoholics. Which is very unfortunate. But the "main" experience is definitely an improvement since the last two expansions.

Oh, you can do the content without legendaries. It does however suck to be far behind everyone else becuase you lack these really powerfull items.
And yes, if you do as much damage as your guild mates without legendaries and them with, they simply suck.

No GM will take a new raider without these itmes over someone with if they both are just as good. It's as simple as that. People without have no place in the endgame.

[shoegazing]

I love how everybody wants to see players quit. So it seems that a shrinking playerbase is somehow good for the game?

Maybe if enough PvP players quit then Holinka and the other devs will finally admit that there is a problem and do something to fix it? Nah, that's a pipe dream I know

[Testaxc]

no.

/ e n d . T h e . T h r e a d

a e s t h e t i c s

[Deleted]

I fully agree. But that is the problem. It's not just a a few people that feel that way... it's a huge portion of the playerbase. Many keep playing because they are still addicted... long after iot feels good, to keep playing. It's the investment in the toons, the account they can't walk away from, but they are far from happy.
All I can say is, at some point Blizzard is going to change the game in some fashion that you really don't like. And it will be then you realize what it feels like to have a beloved game slowly removed from existence.
Consider the camera zoom change... an overwhelmingly unpopular change... they finally met in the middle and zoomed it out a little more but people are still not happy.
Same with how flying is handled.
WoW was an amazing game... it just isn't anymore... sad... but true.

i would just like to say i agree with every single point the above poster has written, especially the flying.
im exalted with 73 factions the last time i counted & yet i have to get to atleast revered with another 6 or 7 & then even more shit, just so i can fucking fly in the next patch!!
its utter BS & as for doing the same poxy dailies just so i can gain rep, fly & heaven forbid, help an alt or 2 to level up also!!
nah, im finally done with that godamned game & it can kiss my sorry arse goodbye!!

[Deleted]

the ap grind sucks, starting a character now is pointless so if you want to change main u can just unsub if you plan to be somewhere competitive

[Deleted]

Population has been on a huge downturn since Legion came out even worse than WOD. I think it's because Blizzard pretty much killed alts with the bad AP system.

I don't know the facts. But it sure did kill the game for me.
I bought it and few hours in to the expansion I was allready displeased with the changes and instantly regreted buying it.

The only upside to Wow Legion imo are gnome hunters and the survival spec.

rest is just pure garabge oh wait no some of the lore was actually entertaining but these 3 things aren't enough to keep motivated to play.
So I just leveled a undead hunter and a gnome hunter, got the dalaran fishing mount and took my leave, haven't looked back ever since...

[Trapped]

Who forces you? Someone putting a gun against your head?

If I had a nickel for every time someone used this excuse after someone says they feel forced to do something...

And yes, there ARE things that make you FEEL forced to do them. If you're a competitive player, you are, in fact, forced to do a lot of things in Legion, else you'll fall behind quickly and not be helping out your team as much as others. Call it what you will.

[Kazgrel]

I fully agree. But that is the problem. It's not just a a few people that feel that way... it's a huge portion of the playerbase. Many keep playing because they are still addicted... long after iot feels good, to keep playing. It's the investment in the toons, the account they can't walk away from, but they are far from happy.


All I can say is, at some point Blizzard is going to change the game in some fashion that you really don't like. And it will be then you realize what it feels like to have a beloved game slowly removed from existence.

Consider the camera zoom change... an overwhelmingly unpopular change... they finally met in the middle and zoomed it out a little more but people are still not happy.

Same with how flying is handled.

Now it's RNG gear tokens that make gear feel so yucky. The generic modes on everything, the "one weapon" system. You will soon realize that these people are getting lazy... they want to create easy to maintain, numbers generated content because these newer guys have very lazy, unimpressive imaginations... especially the mathheads from Elitist Jerks... and it's clear they are in charge of the game now.

WoW was an amazing game... it just isn't anymore... sad... but true.

Agree with your last point, but regarding being unable to shake the idea of abandoning a toon/account they've sunk potentially thousands of hours into...when the game stopped being fun, I stopped playing. Happened on several occasions. Just so happens that WoD left such a negative funk in my mind about WoW that I'll likely never play again.

[Nyteyes]

Why do people make these posts every expansion? "Is "expansion" killing the WoW playerbase??" Every. Damn. Expansion.

[shrunken]

proof of this? cause everything seems to point that the population is holding quite high actually

Well, statistically Arena and RBG participation is at an all-time low, and raid participation is way down.

[FelPlague]

Well, statistically Arena and RBG participation is at an all-time low, and raid participation is way down.

1. where is the raid participation proof
2. same with bg and such as it turned out to be a bug
3. even then, neither of these would prove the game itself is not getting much players, there is alot of stuff other then raid and pvp

- - - Updated - - -

Why do people make these posts every expansion? "Is "expansion" killing the WoW playerbase??" Every. Damn. Expansion.

i still remember little 10 year old felplague seeing people say the same thing about BC and thinking "eh, its just people not liking the idea of everything they worked for being for nothing"
then wrath...
then cata...
then mop
then wod...
and now legion.... things never change

[Sencha]

Ion is from Elitist Jerks... the game took it's worst turn when they joined the Blizz team.

BC/Wrath were not filled with RNG gear scratch off tickets.

BC/Wrath did not have a broke ass "Legendary" system

BC/Wrath had exciting, useful crafting.

BC/Wrath had quality, usable rep faction rewards.

BC/Wrath did not invalidate crafted, rep faction, dungeon and raid gear via RNG daily quest rewards.

BC/Wrath had world mobs with drops (recipes, materials, items) worth grinding.

Legion's content is good, it's the gameplay and reward system that is absolute garbage.

- - - Updated - - -

Here's a really well spoken and thought out youtube video from a player explaining why he left game.

Dunno who is this guy in the video but I fully agree will all his points, especially:

- guilds don't matter anymore
- there is no server community anymore due to cross realm
- too many resources are spent on cosmetic stuff (wardrobe, transmog, mounts, etc.). WoW looks like a dress-up game.

[shrunken]

1. where is the raid participation proof
2. same with bg and such as it turned out to be a bug
3. even then, neither of these would prove the game itself is not getting much players, there is alot of stuff other then raid and pvp

Raid statistics are unambiguous, and tracked by no less than 3 websites. All of which we both know you're fully aware of.

The rated bg statistics are also unambiguous, and the cutoffs weren't a bug. The prediction sites didn't have the correct API to predict the cutoffs, warned people of as much, and now everyone who was getting their first title is emotional because they won't be getting Hero (and Glad, for that matter).

I think both of those are reasonably firm evidence that playercount is down, without relying on any anecdotal evidence. If you wanted some anecdotal evidence, the fact that M+ 6-9 carry groups (the most popular range) are the same players day in and day out, that indicates to me that even participation in the basic dungeon grind is down.

The token price has skyrocketed past what it was at the end of WoD because there's no participation in the economy relative to the beginning of the XPac.

I could go on, but I realize that you've attached an unhealthy amount of your own self-esteem and justification in playing the game, to the size of its playerbase and the general health of the franchise. You're really not interested in seeing things any way other than the one that doesn't make you feel bad about yourself and/or nervous about the future of your hobby.

Personally, I think Legion has been a mixed bag of some good and some bad. A lot of people have vanished though. They have a lower opinion of the game than you or I do.

[FelPlague]

Raid statistics are unambiguous, and tracked by no less than 3 websites. All of which we both know you're fully aware of.

The rated bg statistics are also unambiguous, and the cutoffs weren't a bug. The prediction sites didn't have the correct API to predict the cutoffs, warned people of as much, and now everyone who was getting their first title is emotional because they won't be getting Hero (and Glad, for that matter).

I think both of those are reasonably firm evidence that playercount is down, without relying on any anecdotal evidence. If you wanted some anecdotal evidence, the fact that M+ 6-9 carry groups (the most popular range) are the same players day in and day out, that indicates to me that even participation in the basic dungeon grind is down.

The token price has skyrocketed past what it was at the end of WoD because there's no participation in the economy relative to the beginning of the XPac.

I could go on, but I realize that you've attached an unhealthy amount of your own self-esteem and justification in playing the game, to the size of its playerbase and the general health of the franchise. You're really not interested in seeing things any way other than the one that doesn't make you feel bad about yourself and/or nervous about the future of your hobby.

Personally, I think Legion has been a mixed bag of some good and some bad. A lot of people have vanished though. They have a lower opinion of the game than you or I do.

i feel like your trying to guess my life...
cause your doing a bad job, im actually playing on private servers more then retail these days, mostly just for nostalgia and because the current game is a insane drag right now with grind

but i dont see your evidence of the game doing bad population wise

[schwarzkopf]

And yes, there ARE things that make you FEEL forced to do them.

And no company can change how you feel.

They made the AP/AK system work better when you DIDN'T farm it ... yet people still farmed it to death.

They made the daily system work better when you DIDN'T farm it.... yet people still farmed it to death.

So yeah - people are leaving because they burned themselves out, but you can't stop people doing silly things.

[shrunken]

but i dont see your evidence of the game doing bad population wise

"I don't see your evidence" - Yes, I understand that you don't. You're making it a priority not to look.

It's very telling that while your demands for evidence have been met with reasonable posts, your responses are limited to essentially telling me that you just don't feel like it can be so.

You're not really holding your own in this thread. I'm sorry if this is rough for you because of some kind of personal imbalance or because WoW is filling a void in your life for the time being.

[Trapped]

And no company can change how you feel.

They made the AP/AK system work better when you DIDN'T farm it ... yet people still farmed it to death.

They made the daily system work better when you DIDN'T farm it.... yet people still farmed it to death.

So yeah - people are leaving because they burned themselves out, but you can't stop people doing silly things.

I do agree with you, but blizzard does have the ability to throttle player progression in this game and they failed to do so in this expansion. With no cap on how many mythic+ dungeons you can run, people just can't control themselves. It offers an infinite amount of player power, and it rewards people who play far more than people who don't play as much. At this point, they might as well just remove the loot lockout from raids if they're not going to put a cap on mythic dungeons.

[schwarzkopf]

I do agree with you, but blizzard does have the ability to throttle player progression in this game and they failed to do so in this expansion.

And previous expansions people whinged about Blizzard throttling progress - and left.

Point is - there is no way to make everyone happy, this time around Blizzard have thrown incentives to slow down - but not forced people to.

People just like doing things the hard way, and avoid the smart way - again, not Blizzard's fault.

[dproject]

I played since vanilla and never missed any expansion. My personal opinion Legion is the best expansion to date, followed by TBC and WOTLK.
I think people who don't like this expansion is because they were too spoiled by previous expansions where grinding system were left out from the game.
Now, the game becomes more grindy, but it's what MMORPG should be, you have to put maximum effort and get rewarded. not just sitting on your garrison for couple minutes per day and still can catch up with the guys who put hours and hours effort per day in the game

[Trapped]

And previous expansions people whinged about Blizzard throttling progress - and left.

Point is - there is no way to make everyone happy, this time around Blizzard have thrown incentives to slow down - but not forced people to.

People just like doing things the hard way, and avoid the smart way - again, not Blizzard's fault.

I just think mythic plus dungeons are too powerful to not have a cap on them. I think the AP system was put into place to always give players something to do, something to improve their character. I just think they took it a bit too far when it comes to mythic plus dungeons. I think there needs to be a minimum, as well as a maximum time commitment to stay competitive in this game. Currently, there is no maximum. People who no-life the game will be far superior in player power than someone who does not play that way. In a way, I do think it is partly blizzard's fault. They put the carrot on a stick out there, and people love carrots.