Casual players dominate WoW, yet game is still focused on esports?

[Triceron]

A MMORPG is a role playing game in a shared world.

Which has content that can be adapted as a spectator sport.

What do you think the topic of this thread is about? Esports is a type of sport, smart guy. It just happens to be a closer classification to competitive chess (also a sport) than to any traditional physical sport.

[schmonz]

Which has content that can be adapted as a spectator sport.

What do you think the topic of this thread is about?

This thread questions why a MMORPG is being turned into a comeptetive esport game.

Can a MMORPG have competetive components? Sure.

Should it focus entirely on that? No.

It should offer both. Competitions for those who like it, and the typical role playing game for those who expect that from a MMORPG.

[Triceron]

This thread questions why a MMORPG is being turned into a comeptetive esport game.

Can a MMORPG have competetive components? Sure.

Should it focus entirely on that? No.

It should offer both. Competitions for those who like it, and the typical role playing game for those who expect that from a MMORPG.

And you said "We do not talk about a sport" while admitting that we're talking about competitive Esports, which is talking about a sport

Don't be that guy, especially if you're going to contradict yourself.


And to your own argument, I've not made any comment about WoW having focused entirely on Esports, so I'm not sure why the fuck you're bothering to quote me in the first place.

[schmonz]

And you said "We do not talk about a sport" while also saying now that we're talking about competitive Esports, which is talking about a sport

Don't be that guy, especially if you're going to contradict yourself.

I do not contradict myself. Only because a MMORPG has competetive gameplay does not turn it into a sport.

Whacking the shit out of a gnome in a battleground is no sport. It is player versus player, which is both about role playing a horde player being a warrior and about being faster with killing others.

Infact, a MMORPG is a hybrid game. It is no sport, and worst suited for any kind of esport.

Yet blizzard rapes the game genre, cares overly about numbers and balances the class diversity out of classes and specs just to make them esport viable.

Probably they should invest more effort into their MOBA and make it a real competition to LOL instead of raping WoW to become a sport for timed dungeon runs for exploitive highend guilds?

[Triceron]

I do not contradict myself. Only because a MMORPG has competetive gameplay does not turn it into a sport.

It exists on the same level as competitive chess, which is also classified as a sport.

If you're only here to be a grammar nazi and argue semantics, make it clearly known here and now.

Infact, a MMORPG is a hybrid game. It is no sport, and worst suited for any kind of esport.

That is not a fact. That is your opinion. And one that no one has to agree with.

You want to talk actual facts? WoW is played competitively as an Esport. That is a fact. You can say it's the 'worst kind of esport' if that is your opinion, but that's all you're doing here. And I honestly don't really give many fucks about your opinion on WoW as an Esport, so again I'm not sure why you're bothering to quote and respond to me in the first place. My original post was not even remotely relevant to what you think about the game now, it had nothing to do with you or your opinion. That you personally don't consider the game to be a sport doesn't mean no one is talking about sports and only talking about MMO's. Feel free to do believe what you want, but don't pretend you can fucking tell me what is and isn't being talked about.

[schmonz]

It exists on the same level as competitive chess, which is also classified as a sport.

Oh, so because A shares some similiarities with B, B is A?

Fallacies?

If you're only here to be a grammar nazi and argue semantics, make it clearly known here and now.

I am here to tell you a MMORPG should not be about sports. It is a goddamn RPG and should be about immersion, the narrative and class diversity. It should not be about Hazzikostas jumping around in a mythic dungeon tournament but about making a great themepark MMORPG for its players.

No, sorry. That is not a fact. That is your opinion. And one that no one has to agree with.

You can rape almost every game genre to become available for esports. But that is no reason you should. A MMORPG should be a RPG in a shared world and not about monetizing some booster guilds because they are faster with killing a pixel boss. In a MMORPG that should not play any role. Blizzard killed a lot of immersion, removed any gearing progression from outside organized group play just to get their esport bullshit going. And it is not even successfull.

They have a moba. They should use that.

- - - Updated - - -

Feel free to do believe what you want, but don't pretend you can fucking tell me what is and isn't being talked about.

Thank you for allowing me to have an opinion.

[Triceron]

Oh, so because A shares some similiarities with B, B is A?

Because the terminology is applicable to Esports of all types. It is currently debateable, and not refuted completely, as you are aiming to do. There is no definitive authority that says Esports is not a Sport, it all varies.

I am here to tell you a MMORPG should not be about sports.

No, you tried to tell me that MMORPGs are not sports, but failed at that, so now you're backtracking to say they 'should not be about sports'.

And that's a complete fuck up on your part, because nothing I've ever said here implies that MMORPGS should be anything. I never implied they should or should not be a sport. So all you're doing is trying to peddle your personal beliefs as fact, getting called out on bullshit, and doubling down on projecting your own beliefs when you haven't realized that I've not introduced a single opinion that contradicts any of your beliefs.

All I've done here is shown you the facts. Like the fact that Esports and gameplay balance can be comparable to physical sports. That you say no one is talking about sports is wrong, because Esports CAN BE considered a type of sport. That you don't think MMORPGS should be about sports is your own opinion, one which I have said nothing contrary to.

So again, why are you responding to me in the first place? Well I can tell you. Because you have a personal issue with accepting the statements I've made, statements which haven't even introduced any opinion that is contrary to your beliefs. You're unable to accept the simple fact that MMORPGS are being played as a spectator sport. You're unable to accept that they are debatably considered a sport. You're unable to accept anyone else choosing to consider it to be a sport and regarding it as a sport. And honestly, this has nothing to do with me, it has everything to do with you.


I completely accept that you have these opinions. I'm just confused as to why you are bothering to use your opinions to 'correct' me, when we both know they're just your opinions. It's assholery, and I want you to be aware of what you're doing. You need to be aware that you're admitting you're only here to 'tell you why my opinion is right and yours is wrong', and I'm the wrong person you should be peddling that bullshit to.

[schmonz]

Which means to me you're just here to be 'that guy'. I don't give a fuck what you want to tell me.

I could be absolutely agreeing with what you want to tell me, and I'd still tell you to keep your fucking opinions to yourself.

Ok then, lets not discuss in a discussion forum.

Do you happen to work for Blizzard? Because you sound like a developer when its about other opinions.

"I give a shit" is literally their feedback mantra.

[Triceron]

Ok then, lets not discuss in a discussion forum.

Attempting to start a conversaion by telling people why their opinions are wrong is not discussion.

Let's be clear, if you actually want to discuss then you should have started with something to discuss, not admit that you're here to 'tell people why they're wrong'

Sorry Schmonz, but you're still full of shit, and I'm calling you out.

[schmonz]

Attempting to start a conversaion by telling people why their opinions are wrong is not discussion.

It actually is, especially if you argument why they are wrong. Your next step would be to bring counter arguments then. Or do you expect me to blindly accept all your reasons why a MMORPG is a sport?

Let's be clear, if you actually want to discuss then you should have started with something to discuss, not admit that you're here to 'tell people why they're wrong'

But that is how controversial debates start. If you cannot stand contrary opinions than to why a MMORPG is a sport or not, you should not come up with an idea that a MMORPG is a sport and not an RPG in a shared world.

Sorry Schmonz, but you're still full of shit, and I'm calling you out.

No, you just avoid a debate, as you cannot stand contrary opinions. But thats ok with me, i add you to my ignore list, and we are done.

[luciano]

"Most baseball and softball players are in recreational leagues, yet ESPN is still focused on Major League Baseball?"

[Magnificent Madmartegan]

Proper gearing progression would be if you had different difficulties of your gameplay, and would need gear from difficulty 1 to master difficulty 2. You know, as like Blizzard implemented it for normal raids and heroic raids, or heroic raids or mythic raids. Or mythic+1 for mythic+2 etc.

Something like that does not exist outside of premade group play in World of Warcraft.

It does... its called group content. Regardless of power progression IF you consistently were able to solo everything then nothing technically becomes harder. Thus group play.. it is something either in a dungeon, raid or out in the open world that is too difficult to kill solo needing a group to do so. I don't get why solo players don't understand that. The natural progression in a MMORPG in terms of "proper" progression is to have a threat be so difficult it must be done in a group. Solo player "progression" is rep, exploration, etc. Its akin to saying someone that only likes doing solo content is a "hero of the people/village", you defend the small groups from small threats, thus small loot. Raiders/dungeoneers/group players would be akin to "heroes of the kingdom" they're the one's that slay the dragons, destroy the invading armies, etc thus big threats= big loot. IF you want gearing progression for solo content the ilvl of gear should be equal to the difficult of content (read above in terms of difficulty) so you're ilvl should be way lower then those that do dungeons/raids and progress to a level that is still lower.

[Triceron]

It actually is, especially if you argument why they are wrong. Your next step would be to bring counter arguments then. Or do you expect me to blindly accept all your reasons why a MMORPG is a sport?

Then I think you lack maturity and sensibility. I think a sensible person would be able to accept that other people can have the opinion that MMORPG is a sport, without having their own beliefs offended.

I'm not sure why you choose to be offended and believe that someone else's statements and opinions on MMOs being a type of sport somehow forces you to blindly accept anything. IMO, it's a sign if immaturity. Just like there's no reason to blindly accept that 'pineapple on pizza is good', simply acknowledge that there are people out there who hold and share that opinion, whether you personally agree or not. If someone tried to engage a conversation by telling others why it's factually wrong to put pineapple on pizza, it just tells me they're being an asshole.

But that is how controversial debates start.

It isn't a controversial debate. It's about you holding on to a certain belief as fact, being unable to accept anyone regarding a different position, and feeling the need to correct others on what you believed to be fact when it's actually just a difference of opinion. It's not a controversial debate, it's a gross misunderstanding, on your part.

No, you just avoid a debate, as you cannot stand contrary opinions. But thats ok with me, i add you to my ignore list, and we are done.

Funny you say this, since this is exactly how you reacted.

What was being debated? You came at me saying 'no one is talking about a sport' and later admitting 'I'm here to tell you MMORPG's should not be a sport'. You couldn't stand anyone comparing Esports to Sports, and you avoided any attempt at discussion or debate by trying to tell me no one was talking about sports.

You admit to having a one-sided conversation. You're not discussing, you're telling. You're not interested in listening. You're full of shit, and even if you ignore me, my posts are still being seen by everyone else and will know you're full of shit.

[PenguinChan]

Delves are handled as the great saviour of all casual endgame gameplay, while noone has seen them yet. Also i would not like to see them as a teaching ground, but as real endgame for anyone who does not want to play mythic+ or raids.

Yet i am very skeptical, as the devs past shows they simply are not able to create intrinsically AND extrinsically rewarding instanced gameplay for casual gamers. I mean.. if all you know is theorycrafting raid encounters and mythic raiding, you simply have no idea what a typical casual gamer would want.

I get that, but it sounds like Delves are meant to be a breadth of content which - honestly, it should be. That's just me copium-ing, but I think they're clearly influenced by some of FFXIV's successful takes. No reason why you can't have easier delves and harder delves. The easier ones to teach (and casually do) and harder ones that require players to not die en masse. FFXIV is pretty much the same with their Eureka / Bozja style stuff. You can TECHNICALLY solo most random events (even the harder ones) but you can't solo the actual open world raids. I don't think we're there yet for open world raids, although I'd like to see it happen.

Sure, as successfull MMORPGs actually should adress their casual gamers with progression.

Well yeah. Ghostcrawler was correct in saying that players will step up to the challenge and get better. What he missed is that not EVERYONE will want to do that (especially in a very punishing way), which is totally fine. FFXIV solved this by having all the story stuff in its own difficulty tier - and anything that does require some amount of coordination is offset by the fact you can infinitely revive even the bad players so they aren't snorting floor dust the entire fight. Harder difficulties are less forgiving in that regard and obviously the Ultimates in XIV will usually result in failure if you don't have enough DPS for the burn phases.

EDIT: As for power progression, many modern games (and I'm gonna assume WoW eventually) will start to grab and take from them. Casual players tend to get 95% of the power, or 100% of the power (eventually) that the high-end players do. But in exchange for that, there is almost always a cost-efficiency. Raiders and high M+ should always progress faster / easier, while Heroic dungeon / LFR / open world players progress at a normal pace.

Warframe has an interesting take on it, what with the trading of mods / blueprints that can take a long time to grind for. So end-game players have easier access to these things, which makes it lucrative for them and provides some premium currency value.

What that form of progression takes in the future IDK. But I'm hoping they keep that ideal in mind, while designing new systems.

[Ielenia]

You want to talk actual facts? WoW is played competitively as an Esport. That is a fact. You can say it's the 'worst kind of esport' if that is your opinion, but that's all you're doing here. And I honestly don't really give many fucks about your opinion on WoW as an Esport, so again I'm not sure why you're bothering to quote and respond to me in the first place. My original post was not even remotely relevant to what you think about the game now, it had nothing to do with you or your opinion. That you personally don't consider the game to be a sport doesn't mean no one is talking about sports and only talking about MMO's. Feel free to do believe what you want, but don't pretend you can fucking tell me what is and isn't being talked about.

I've argued with him for several pages, trying to get him to understand that those "facts" he keeps repeating are nothing but his own bias and negative views on WoW, but all he did was double-down on it all.

I doubt you'll have much success, but I wish you good luck either way.

[InfiniteCharger]

The only reason why MMOs have not traditionally been considered true esports is because they are based on the idea of individual player progression in gear, skills, talents, etc. So in any given match on any given day there is no guarantee what level of progression any group of players will have in any kind of "competitive match". And in WOW they have tried to factor all of that into the RWF and other kinds of "esport" like events but the reality is that mostly it boils down to who gets to "beat the game" first by ringing the bell at the top of the scale. Whereas most true online esport games do not have progression and all classes are the same for all players, so the only thing being measured is the skill of an individual player. And this is why I see it as a bad to tune the game around making the endgame content challenging for a handful of top tier players, which ultimately limits class design, talent trees and skills for everybody else so that endgame raids last longer than a few hours. Whether you want to call it an esport or simply a fan based event, the game should not promote artificial difficulty by such methods. Because in theory what you run up against, IMO, is the fact that DnD was never built around such things as online progression and competition. So most of these techniques in terms of "tuning" is only relevant to online gaming and not the tabletop. And no matter what mechanism you build in a persistent online MMORPG, somebody is always going to figure out how to "game" the system.

[minteK917]

There is a reason Mythic plus is keeping this game alive and not mythic raiding or world first. I think Blizzard did a decent job now Identifying that. Honestly Id just reform the game to be more centered about what I call Midcore players. This is actually where most players exist, not just cusuals. Here is what blizzard should do to keep this upward swing of keeping midcore players in and stop even thinking about the top 0.1%

-Flesh out Mythic + even more.
-Keep only 2 raid difficulty. Normal mode and Hard mode.
-Normal Mode is tuned to be about what Heroic is now and gives the best rewards gear wise same as a high mythic + key. Its all flex people can be 10 or 40 if they want, increase amount of loot dropped based on player count.
-Hard Mode, current mythic mode. Gives cosmetic reward, title, mounts and other things that shows you have accomplished this task and it never drops from anywhere else.

Do this, this game will actually keep even more players. 90% of the game needs to be built only around midecore players and them progressing gearwise.

[Relapses]

I get that, but it sounds like Delves are meant to be a breadth of content which - honestly, it should be. That's just me copium-ing, but I think they're clearly influenced by some of FFXIV's successful takes. No reason why you can't have easier delves and harder delves. The easier ones to teach (and casually do) and harder ones that require players to not die en masse. FFXIV is pretty much the same with their Eureka / Bozja style stuff. You can TECHNICALLY solo most random events (even the harder ones) but you can't solo the actual open world raids. I don't think we're there yet for open world raids, although I'd like to see it happen.



Well yeah. Ghostcrawler was correct in saying that players will step up to the challenge and get better. What he missed is that not EVERYONE will want to do that (especially in a very punishing way), which is totally fine. FFXIV solved this by having all the story stuff in its own difficulty tier - and anything that does require some amount of coordination is offset by the fact you can infinitely revive even the bad players so they aren't snorting floor dust the entire fight. Harder difficulties are less forgiving in that regard and obviously the Ultimates in XIV will usually result in failure if you don't have enough DPS for the burn phases.

EDIT: As for power progression, many modern games (and I'm gonna assume WoW eventually) will start to grab and take from them. Casual players tend to get 95% of the power, or 100% of the power (eventually) that the high-end players do. But in exchange for that, there is almost always a cost-efficiency. Raiders and high M+ should always progress faster / easier, while Heroic dungeon / LFR / open world players progress at a normal pace.

Warframe has an interesting take on it, what with the trading of mods / blueprints that can take a long time to grind for. So end-game players have easier access to these things, which makes it lucrative for them and provides some premium currency value.

What that form of progression takes in the future IDK. But I'm hoping they keep that ideal in mind, while designing new systems.

We already had a system which allowed turbo casuals to get within 100% of the power of Mythic raiders: It was called Titanforging and it allowed you to get a BiS trinket for collecting 20 bear asses. Wonder why that's not around anymore...

[Shadowferal]

We already had a system which allowed turbo casuals to get within 100% of the power of Mythic raiders: It was called Titanforging and it allowed you to get a BiS trinket for collecting 20 bear asses. Wonder why that's not around anymore...

Because the bears are extinct?
Would going pvp and collecting player asses be a solution?

[Merpish]

Well, good luck then. WoW seems to cater to your needs. I just would want it to cater to the needs of none-minmaxers as well.

Thanks we get CE every season because of it.

WoW does cater to the non-min max crowd. Out side of CE raiding and extremely high M+, you don't have to be super optimal. As long as you fill every global with a spell, you will be able to easily get AoTC and KSM.