WoW's current end game direction is a little disappointing to me..

[Jaylock]

From an overall gameplay perspective, WoW's current direction is a little disappointing to me. I recently watched this old Blizzcon pannel with Tigole (Jeff Kaplan) talking about raid design, and it made me a little frustrated with the current end game as it stands now.



Let me first say that I think that many aspects of this expansion was way better than MoP or Cataclysm before. The theme, the story line, the villains.. all were bigger threats in my eyes (especially since the Legion figured out how to now invade real Azeroth), than the panda villains (including a washed up orc who was made warchief prematurely).

That being said, it really makes me sad how "lazy" Blizzard has gotten when it comes to aspects of the end game. Let me throw some numbers at you:

In terms of completely unique raid environments (different tile sets, vibe, location dungeon scenery) heres how each expansion stacks up:

• WoD: 4 completely different / new raid environments
  MoP: 6 completely different / new raid environments
  Cata: 6 completely different / new raid environments
  WoTLK: 7 completely different / new raid environments (counting naxx as the majority of the player base had not experienced it in vanilla)
  TBC: 10 completely different / new raid environments

As you can see from this list, in terms of completely different raid environments, TBC wins by a long shot. WoD in this regard is a complete failure. Sure the bosses in WoD's raids were varied and fun, but it felt like we got shafted with the types of raids we saw.

I dont like the idea of having 1 year expansions. It means less value for our money. What I want (and i think most of the more avid player base wants) is less time between the final raid tier of an expansion and the opening of the next expansion.

Even if we get 1-2 boss raids like we had in Gruul's Lair, or Magtheradon's Lair, still, they are completely different raid environments. It gives the playerbase more choice, of which raids they want to go do. Each different raid environment feels varied, and has different vibes from another one.

Last thought (among many that I have), in that video that I linked, Jeff talks about attunements. He talks about how when there is unbeaten content in the game that is only accessible by doing long quest chains, and beating hard bosses, and you the player know this, it makes the world feel a lot larger. It brings a sense of excitement, and yearning. It makes the role playing aspect of "hey is my character strong enough to tackle this amazingly powerful dragon" an actual relevant question. How can i get to that point? In short, it is good for the game and the community. This is a point that I 100% agree with.

I had little to NO desire to do any of the raid content at a high level in WoD because of the fact that any mouth breather could enter the raid the day the patch hit. Call me a special snowflake, call me old fashioned, call me nostalgic, or any other insult you can think of, but the fact is, I dont want to replay a boss on 4 difficulties just to see numbers on my gear go up, or tiny variations of my gear look different. I raided when things were attuned at a high level, because I felt the reward of getting there matched the difficulty of actually getting myself and my guild attuned to the difficult content.

[ro9ue]

First.

In this negative Blizzard post by Jaylock.


But yes, I agree the end game is poor. I think if "Adventure Mode" is real, it could do wonders for the game. RAID RAID RAID is NOT the answer anymore. Not in 2015.

[Deleted]

What I want (and i think most of the more avid player base wants) is...

Why should we or Blizzard care what they want, as they are just addicts anyway. Flawlessly explained by - take a wild guess -

...and people logging in.. which WoW seems to just have people logging in because they are addicted and cant give up their addiction.

[rogueMatthias]

I thought flying had fixed all of the problems in WoD?

[MrSerious]

its obvious they are putting less and less effort into the game and focusing on how to get more money from the player for the least amount of effort i.e. store mounts.

[Packing an i5]

your going to get shit on by some people in this thread for posting a vanilla video and comparing Vanilla to now because many people do not have fond memories of vanilla or they never played it. Do have to keep in my mind classic wow released in 2004 when Mmos were still a fresh genre, it was ever quest but easier and with a better combat system. For many people it was there first mmo.

It just seems those really fond of vanilla quit years ago because the game is unrecognizable now so do not expect a ton of support on Mmo C a site mainly used by White Knight Blizzard Defense force chaps who still play wow.

I really miss old wow what I don't miss though are

*Long Grave Walks - only one graveyard per zone

*Paying for Ranks of a spell at the class trainer- I did not mind the traveling time to the class trainer and making the decision to forgo the trip another 2 levels or swoop to him immediately if I knew I was getting something good. My favorite version was in cataclysm you got the spell and learned it once and for good no ranks but still had to learn new stuff from the trainer. Now trainers feel kind of useless and immersion has been reduced.

*Only being able to carry stacks of 10/20

* Not having transmog and the barber shop

[Mormolyce]

I don't know if the raid centric model is sustainable long term, it's a style that's probably going to fade away in MMOs in general. At the moment there is still a large population playing the game that way though so you have to weigh the people happy with a non-raiding "endgame" against those who will lose their shit about it.

• WoD: 4 completely different / new raid environments
  MoP: 6 completely different / new raid environments
  Cata: 6 completely different / new raid environments
  WoTLK: 7 completely different / new raid environments (counting naxx as the majority of the player base had not experienced it in vanilla)
  TBC: 10 completely different / new raid environments

Not that it's a real comparison anyway, but at least count number of raid bosses rather than instances. You're counting Mag and Gruul as equal to ToT, Ulduar or HFC.

I had little to NO desire to do any of the raid content at a high level in WoD because of the fact that any mouth breather could enter the raid the day the patch hit.

You mean LFR? Didn't open on patch day bra.

But really this idea that you don't want to raid because other people can is monumentally retarded. There is no universe in which WoW's increased accessibility is not a HUGE improvement over Vanilla/TBC era.

[Ultramad]

So much nostalgia! Ugh the passion that guy clearly had and the ideas they went with back in the day! They were so simple but so fundamental to everything that made the game great! They didn't even know if they could get onyxia to fly! It was a freaking technical achievement back then! We're so spoiled now and things are so polished but it feels fake, it feels like it has no passion behind it. None of the things Jeff Kaplan talked about in that video.

We're simply too good at the game these days I think. Most of us have been around for at least 6 years(LK), and some of us have been around for nearly 11. I think it might be time to reinvent the wheel.

[RickJamesLich]

It really is remarkable how much blizzard changed their philosophy of gaming just for the sake of getting more money. I saw a few videos of the end of the beta for vanilla the other day, and it looked really cool. For those that don't know, demons hit up all of the major cities and people were dying everywhere, some teamed up to fend them off but it was just wave after wave until bosses (stuff like in MC) were hit. Everyone that participated in that stuff at the time thought it was cool and remember it really well. If something like that happened now, we'd get people threatening to quit and endlessly posting about how blizz needs to revert that change immediately. Essentially a lot of the playerbase blizz catered to ended up killing off most of the fun stuff in the game.

In particular when he mentions that raids should be fun yet challenging, and then you see stuff from now like LFR where the bosses topple over... it really gives you a sense of how badly WoW has changed.

[Yooginava182]

From what I understand is that he was working on the "titan" project blizzard had going on ... ( hope they at least show us some work that they did ) but they said after it was canceled is that most.. if not all of that team came back to work on WOW.. so hopefully he can come back cause his last expansion he worked on was Wrath ( which up to that was the best wow ever had ) ... but please come back sir.. you did good for this game.

[PrairieChicken]

Jaylock isn't permabanned yet?

Infracted [ML]

[Wildmoon]

Why the hell do you count Naxx? The reason you gave doesn't make it new environment. Also, the design from the past won't work today. The reason WoW is still standing strong today is because it keeps adapting to the new market and playerbase. There are examples out there why hardcore design won't work today. The design of WoW today that makes the game accessible but still retains that hardcore aspect works.

[Redroniksre]

It really is remarkable how much blizzard changed their philosophy of gaming just for the sake of getting more money. I saw a few videos of the end of the beta for vanilla the other day, and it looked really cool. For those that don't know, demons hit up all of the major cities and people were dying everywhere, some teamed up to fend them off but it was just wave after wave until bosses (stuff like in MC) were hit. Everyone that participated in that stuff at the time thought it was cool and remember it really well.

They still do this, that was the beta, not live, for WoD they were summoning Iron Stars in Orgrimmar that would kill everyone and summoning a ton of Deathwings tentacles.

[Elestia]

I think if LFR has to remain a thing, it should be much harder, at equal to heroic and drop "normal" level loot. Regular raiding should be mythic difficulty period.

Big point of the video: "We want to challenge our players in a fun way." In no way can LFR currently be considered a challenge. In no way is normal mode a challenge. They're things bad guilds and pugs do when they want to raid but don't have the time or people. Is it arguably fun? To a certain degree, but it isn't challenging and it erodes the reward of content that IS challenging and IS engaging. Maybe this is subjective - except its to the point now where mythic has become so rare, that's its pointless, unheard of and unneeded for 90% of players and raiders alike.

However, minus the extensive levels of raid play, WoD has gotten it right in many ways, namely encounter mechanics and design. They're more fun, engaging and challenging in addition to feeling fresh and unique - innovation after all these years. If loot could matter, imo the end game could be restored. For now, the high quality is reason enough for most to keep raiding, but its hardly enough reason alone to do mythic.

Encounters that really get it right: Alagon, Sinestra, Ra'Den, Imperator, Blackhand, Archimonde - Encounters which exemplify what good raiding should look like. These encounters don't by themselves suggest certain strategies, they demand them, requiring unique / skilled play to effectively defeat. Essentially they're not min/max-able.

[MoanaLisa]

After months of threads about how great WoD was I'm not buying into this thread at all.

Closing.