Mass burnout.

[Halstinavos]

I feel the same about burnout, but it's really the player's fault as much as the dev's.
Making AP endlessly available was bad because a fair amount of players felt compelled to grind it until their eyes bleed, which results in burnout (from doing MoS 500 times or whatever).
Others felt they were behind and couldn't compete because they only have 35 as opposed tot he guy with 54 wep traits, so in dps terms they were naturally down like 10%ish (or whatever it math'd to), which is a lot in the grand scheme of things (like equal skill/gear making a difference of 50kish or more).
Legion made everything repeatable, but to a fault, so people repeat the living hell out of it and get bored/burned out.

In past xpacs, burnout happened, but at a slower pace because your "effective" play was limited per day/week (mythic dungeon lockout in WoD, heroic dungeon lockouts prior, raid weekly lockouts, shared lockouts between difficulties like back in the day, things like that).
Sure, you could log in and do something outside the normal raid routine, but odds are it won't be something that makes you more powerful.
Now, effective play is basically every minute in game (as in you can gain something, whether it be gear or AP, at all times), so this ramped up play time and thus, burnout.
It sucks, but that's what happens when you play the crap out of a game; you get tired of it.

Good points.

A lot of players don't feel wasting their time in mythic encounter anymore. With Blizzard Warfoged/titanforged system, someone who does his Heroic run each week could be equally or even better geared than someone whos running Mythic raid. ( and it's even worse if we consider trinkets. )

Also a good point.

[Raelbo]

And yes, it's essentially redundant, the AP will be rather easy to achieve compared to the effort it will take now.

6 months from now it will be redundant, sure. But that doesn't mean it will be redundant in the time between now and then. WoW has always been this way with all gear. It becomes redundant down the line, but at the time it is cutting edge, it does make a huge difference.

[Fappy]

My guild is experiencing this to the point that we are struggling to clear farm content now because we have lost so many people to burnout and new recruits aren't geared/experienced enough to one-shot some heroic bosses in NH. It's actually really depressing. We've put a lot of work into this guild and have had our ups and downs, but it's getting to the point that we've simply lost too many people. The officers are discussing options, but I half expect the guild to completely fall apart when I return from my honeymoon in mid-April.

[burek]

maybe it is the weather

[IceMan1763]

My guild is experiencing this to the point that we are struggling to clear farm content now because we have lost so many people to burnout and new recruits aren't geared/experienced enough to one-shot some heroic bosses in NH. It's actually really depressing. We've put a lot of work into this guild and have had our ups and downs, but it's getting to the point that we've simply lost too many people. The officers are discussing options, but I half expect the guild to completely fall apart when I return from my honeymoon in mid-April.

The game is designed to burn people out. I quit early in the xpac and have been saying they should make immediate changes since early October but very few wanted to hear it at the time. Funny, a lot of those same players are now changing their tune or have also quit.

To sum up the changes the xpac needed:
1) Cap on M+ loot. My suggestion was to only reward gear through the cache which was based on the most difficult 3 M+ dungeons completed during the week.
2) Rolling cap on AP (overall cap that was raised periodically). AK should've been designed to only apply to people who were a certain amount behind. If you are caught up, you get no AK.
3) Either delete all legiondaries or make a determinstic way to get them
4) AP should apply to all specs
5) WF +5 ilvl TF + 10 ivl. No more. A TF heroic raid item should be equal to a standard mythic item, apply the same standard down through normal and LFR.
6) No random secondary stats or gem sockets

That's all I can think of for now, but those changes would've been much better for the game and community as a whole long term. However, then ActiBlizzard couldn't promote how they've increased "deep engagement" through "total play hours increasing". Sad that no one ever stopped to ask if increasing total play hours at the cost of player satisfaction was potentially a bad idea.

- - - Updated - - -

To the contrary. It is the long timers who are still around, grinding up all the stuff. While mayfly players treat the game exactly how you describe it.

You have nothing to back that up. I'm a long time player who quit and I've seen many other vanilla subscribers quit as well.

[Moxal]

We've had a drop off in attencence recently too. We don't raid mythic, so beyond affecting the number of healers (we have too many) it hasn't really prevented us from raiding.

[Raelbo]

I feel the same about burnout, but it's really the player's fault as much as the dev's.

I really think the fault lies almost entirely with the players (yes, I know this is going to trigger a bunch of people who don't understand the concept of personal accountability - they can deal with it).

Making AP endlessly available was bad because a fair amount of players felt compelled to grind it until their eyes bleed, which results in burnout (from doing MoS 500 times or whatever).

Making AP endlessly available was good because it allowed people who enjoyed doing more content a way to keep getting rewarded for their play. The problem you refer to isn't the fault of AP being endlessly available, it's the fault of players being unable to play sensibly. It's like you say, they felt compelled. It's down to their own emotional failings.

In past xpacs, burnout happened, but at a slower pace because your "effective" play was limited per day/week (mythic dungeon lockout in WoD, heroic dungeon lockouts prior, raid weekly lockouts, shared lockouts between difficulties like back in the day, things like that).

This was true on a "per character" level, but the simple fact of the matter is that no artificial cap has ever been able to stop players from finding ways of turning even more time spent playing into an advantage.

I present Exhibit A: The split run. This is classic example of how top end raiders found a way around the weekly raid boss lockout. They spend twice as much time in the game to level up 2 characters and then run the raid twice, funneling all the gear to one of their characters. Effectively it becomes a way for their main to run the instance twice (or three or four times depending on how much time they are willing to spend levelling up even more alts).

In the end, things are exactly the same as they have always been: The player chooses how much time to spend advancing their power and is responsible for managing that. The difference now is that they have simply made it so that players no longer have to jump through convoluted hoops to do this. If you want to focus all your power on your main, you can do that without rolling alts and finding other imaginative ways to circumvent the barriers.

[Celestial476]

I think my guild just reached this point to for the current patch. We had just started Mythic NH a few lockouts ago, but as of last week we had to begin calling off raid nights because 2-3 or even more people had posted out for the night. Combined with the slow dropoff of people losing interest in the game we now quite literally have a 20 man roster, so when one person posts out our plans are shot for the night.

Really, I just took this time now to reroll a new character and began to get them geared on our Heroic runs to prepare for 7.2 and ToS.

[Teri]

Making AP endlessly available was bad because a fair amount of players felt compelled to grind it until their eyes bleed, which results in burnout (from doing MoS 500 times or whatever).

Get ready to farm 2-3 million times Maw of Souls at AK50 If people don't change their self-control they'd feel the same about AP101.

[Vargur]

My guild is thriving. Gotta start recruiting soon

If it's thriving, why do you need recruitment?

[AceofH]

Many of the MYTHIC NH bosses are tuned around 54 traits.

and how many guilds/players are honestly doing Mythic Content?

my rogue, who was my second toon to level cap has 44 traits and he hasn't even been trying really. i think i've done 5 M+ dungeons.

[Stormspark]

Blame the people who have no self control and think they have to "beat the game" and do everything. Those of us with self control are really enjoying this expansion.

[AceofH]

No, it's essentially a reset. Everyone will be at the same point. Yes, they will be set to 35 as of the latest news.

"For those not at Knowledge level 25, don’t worry. You’ll be led to Dalaran to get a boost up.
If you haven’t opened all 35 ranks of your available traits, a quest will become available so you can complete that before moving on."

the extra points are still there. you just have to place them. this is being done so you can sit there and take those addition points and put them in the new artifact traits.

[Teri]

Blame the people who have no self control and think they have to "beat the game" and do everything. Those of us with self control are really enjoying this expansion.

The people without self control will have no End to AP grind, good change by blizz making it literally unreachable as running a 20 minute dungeon 2 million times would take 76 years.

[faithbane]

Anyone else experiencing this level of burnout in their guild?

Its funny I am still lurking in the forums but burnout hit me like almost exactly 2 weeks ago and havent logged in much since

[Raelbo]

The problem is that the game encourages you to burn the candle in both ends because there are no caps on things.

Sorry but I beg to differ. The game allows you to more easily burn that candle at both ends, but there has never been a genuine cap on things. The only difference now is that you don't need to resort to alts to get there - you can play the way want to play which really should be a good thing.

The rest really is simply about people being unable to moderate themselves. I would far rather play a game where the player is given the freedom to choose their playstyle and in return is expected to moderate their playtime, than a game that restricts that freedom in order to protect people who lack the capacity to moderate themselves.

The solution isn't to bitch and complain on the forums about how this is all Blizzard's fault by telling players who fail at taking personal responsibility that it's not their fault. Of course it's their fault. The solution, obviously, if for players to start accepting responsibility for their choices and opening their eyes to the fact that they don't have to force themselves to grind the game beyond the point they enjoy it. It's really not rocket science....

Blame the people who have no self control and think they have to "beat the game" and do everything. Those of us with self control are really enjoying this expansion.

^^ Exactly this (written while I was typing my reply above)

[Paulosio]

At least a small part of the problem is the people with no self control who did dumb things like running Mythic Maw of souls for multiple hours in a row pre level 25 artifact knowledge. They put in tens of hours to get a miniscule performance boost and then someone who just waited a week or 2 while playing in a more relaxed way achieved the same thing with less than half the effort.

People burn themselves out. It's not the game burning them out... I understand the mentality if you are in a top 100 guild or something where it's actually essential to the purpose of the guild that everyone is at the cutting edge of their abilities as fast as possible but very very few people have that excuse.

[Teri]

So you think they quit instead of completing things?

They certainly will quit before maxing out a 7.2 weapon as it takes 76 years running a 20 minute dungeon 2 million times.

[Stormspark]

The people without self control will have no End to AP grind, good change by blizz making it literally unreachable as running a 20 minute dungeon 2 million times would take 76 years.

There isn't supposed to be an "end", and it's not a grind. It's a consistent reward you get for pretty much all content throughout the expansion, kind of like valor points previously.

[Teri]

There isn't supposed to be an "end", and it's not a grind. It's a consistent reward you get for pretty much all content throughout the expansion, kind of like valor points previously.

I know, that's what will make it so funny.

Guilds setting weapons anywhere above 75+ traits will burn out hard unless 7.3 speeds up things further.