Why is Exclusive content a bad thing to some people?

[Keoren]

Speaking for myself only, Ra-den constributes absolutely nothing to the game. From my personal perspective, they might as well have flushed that development money down the toilet.

I could say the same about arenas, personally. The whole work done in order to preserve a PvP balance between classes is wasted on me.

I still think that the competitive PvP scene has its place the game. Its existence also means that I might at some point stray over on the other side and give it a spin. The possibility alone makes my gaming experience much more fulfilling.

[Deleted]

I could say the same about arenas, personally. The whole work done in order to preserve a PvP balance between classes is wasted on me.

I still think that the competitive PvP scene has its place the game. Its existence also means that I might at some point stray over on the other side and give it a spin. The possibility alone makes my gaming experience much more fulfilling.

Ra Den ofc isn't a possibility in the same way, because of how he is gated.

Not saying you are wrong about it being good to have stuff to strive for, just that the analogy is off. Arena you can do anytime. Ra requires a lots of stuff that is inaccessible to 95% of the playerbase.

[Keoren]

Not saying you are wrong about it being good to have stuff to strive for, just that the analogy is off.

It is not an exact comparison; you are correct. My intention was to give an example of content that I personally am not interested in yet I feel deserves its share of the development time. I will not be getting gladiator or rank 1 title any time soon either, but I still don't think that there is anything wrong with them existing. I don't feel that another person riding their drake means something has been taken away from me.

I am also not arguing that there shouldn't be a healthy balance between the types of content in the game, but that is again more from the perspective of game design and not a financial decision.

[DeadmanWalking]

Speaking for myself only, Ra-den constributes absolutely nothing to the game. From my personal perspective, they might as well have flushed that development money down the toilet.

World Firsters would think they did flush their money down the toilet with Ra-den as they universally think the fight was crap and Lei Shen was the real meat of the tier.

[Deleted]

It is not an exact comparison; you are correct. My intention was to give an example of content that I personally am not interested in yet I feel deserves its share of the development time. I will not be getting gladiator or rank 1 title any time soon either, but I still don't think that there is anything wrong with them existing. I don't feel that another person riding their drake means something has been taken away from me.

I am also not arguing that there shouldn't be a healthy balance between the types of content in the game, but that is again more from the perspective of game design and not a financial decision.

Aye.

Some people love to have something to strive for. Most people don't. The two rarely if ever see eye to eye. The problem is always the balance - by giving more equitable design the strivers get irritated, feeling there is less to strive for. If blizzard puts in less equitable design, their sub numbers drop because the regular people are more of the opinion "I paid my money for entertainment, where is it?" and for them, striving isn't entertainment.

Has to be said, blizzard do an amazing job. Not perfect, but still amazing.

[NeverStop]

Speaking for myself only, Ra-den constributes absolutely nothing to the game. From my personal perspective, they might as well have flushed that development money down the toilet.

The first time I saw Algalon was at the end of Cataclysm. I killed Sinestra after MoP came out. More people will see Ra-den months, years from now. It's not like Ra-den is being removed after ToT is no longer current.

[Granyala]

Ra-den that you used as an example is a single encounter that contributes/ed to the mystery and hype of the raid instance, among other things. It is very hard to measure the value of that in money.

Honestly? There is no "hype" part.
He is so absurdly hard to reach that he might just as well not exist in the first place. He also doesn't seem to have funky events attached like Algalon.
I'm saying this as a 4/13HC raider that will most likely never go beyond 6/13 until 5.4 hits.

I share your view on the hardcore PvP-balancing situation and i'm often quite frustrated by it, because usually MY PvE gets fucked up to please THEIR PvP needs, because Blizzard is unwilling to just create two sets of rules.
But I'm also aware that a successful MMO needs lots of different stuff to appeal to different crowds.

[Vamandrac]

I think it boils down to the fact that everyone pays the same to play the game so everyone should at least have the chance to see everything. Now that doesn't mean that everyone will see all the content, but they at least have a path to do so.

I think Blizzard has struck a fair balance right now with how they have it set up. They allow everyone a chance to see content and get some gear, but still reserve the best gear for those who want to raid at the highest level.

[Glorious Leader]

But I'm also aware that a successful MMO needs lots of different stuff to appeal to different crowds.

I agree I suppose but I think currently wow has lots of different stuff but little of it has enough reward attached to it to actually appeal to other people. If it did it would drag players away from raids and then we'd just be in the spot where raids are uneconomical again and they'd had to severely cut back on them.

[hyphnos]

I agree I suppose but I think currently wow has lots of different stuff but little of it has enough reward attached to it to actually appeal to other people. If it did it would drag players away from raids and then we'd just be in the spot where raids are uneconomical again and they'd had to severely cut back on them.

I agree with you 100% and I wonder just how long they can cling to this model of protecting LFR from any content competition so they can keep making raids the primary form of PVE endgame. 99% of everything wrong with pacing and content for casuals at max level right now is most likely rooted in their desire to shove players into LFR whether they have fun doing it or not. Will it end? I'm starting to wonder.

[Glorious Leader]

I agree with you 100% and I wonder just how long they can cling to this model of protecting LFR from any content competition so they can keep making raids the primary form of PVE endgame. 99% of everything wrong with pacing and content for casuals at max level right now is most likely rooted in their desire to shove players into LFR whether they have fun doing it or not. Will it end? I'm starting to wonder.

Look don't get me wrong under the paradigm that raiding is king then lfr makes total and absolute sense and anybody calling for it's removal is way out of whack. I don't think raiding should be king however. In fact I've come to the conclusion that raiding is in alot of ways more of a hindrance to the goal of keeping players. It's this big bloated investment that the developers constantly have to design around. It excludes content that had more appeal (like dungeons) for the reasons I stated above. It really just is a hassle. I know it's not conventional wisdom or even popular to think about but maybe they should take a look at raiding, like a serious hard look. I imagine they did the same for dungeons and well raiding won out but maybe it shouldn't have..

[Jaylock]

I think it boils down to the fact that everyone pays the same to play the game so everyone should at least have the chance to see everything. Now that doesn't mean that everyone will see all the content, but they at least have a path to do so.

I think Blizzard has struck a fair balance right now with how they have it set up. They allow everyone a chance to see content and get some gear, but still reserve the best gear for those who want to raid at the highest level.

The keyword in your first sentence is the "chance" to see everything. And all players DO have the chance to see everything, and they have the "path to do so"

I may be okay with flexible raid as long as it removes LFR from existence, but as it is now, there is no path in sight for removing it because of the "I pay $15 a month just like you" crowd.

[DeadmanWalking]

The keyword in your first sentence is the "chance" to see everything. And all players DO have the chance to see everything, and they have the "path to do so"

I may be okay with flexible raid as long as it removes LFR from existence, but as it is now, there is no path in sight for removing it because of the "I pay $15 a month just like you" crowd.

If you want to blame someone for LFR just point that finger 180 degrees back at yourself. Blizzard never intended for the content to be protected from the players by the players.

The good news is you can continue to exclude players from the hard versions of the content and you should be happy with that because the game can survive without Hardcore mode, it can't survive without content for 90% of its players.

If you don't have LFR there is no reason to expend end game resources on 10% to less than 1% of the player base. Its basic math. LFR=Great frequent Raid content. No LFR=Less Raid content Less often.

[Ronduwil]

I may be okay with flexible raid as long as it removes LFR from existence, but as it is now, there is no path in sight for removing it because of the "I pay $15 a month just like you" crowd.

I think you typoed. That should be the "I won't pay $15 a month if I have nothing to do" crowd. As it stands now without LFR people who don't want to participate in 10-man+ content have nothing left to do.

[Aquamonkey]

If you want to blame someone for LFR just point that finger 180 degrees back at yourself. Blizzard never intended for the content to be protected from the players by the players.

Players decide who they want to do multiplayer content with. Of course they can bar other players from doing multiplayer with them.

This isn't exclusive to raids. If nobody wants to run 5-mans or scenarios with you that's also content being protected from players by players. If nobody wants to run PvP with you, players are barring you from doing that content too.

LFD/LFR reduce this, but it still exists. If other players don't want to run with you, they can kick you or leave. Players will still be a "barrier" for you seeing content.

If players are constantly choosing not to play multiplayer content with someone in an MMO, maybe that person should look at him/herself to figure out why nobody wants to play with him/her.

If you don't have LFR there is no reason to expend end game resources on 10% to less than 1% of the player base. Its basic math. LFR=Great frequent Raid content. No LFR=Less Raid content Less often.

Even with LFR, that raid content still gets seen by 30-40% of players. While the cost-effectiveness has improved, they are still blowing their wad on a minority of players. And most of the people in LFR had no interest in doing raid content to begin with. They didn't want to raid, they didn't ask for raids, but Blizzard shoved it at them for cost-effectiveness.

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I think you typoed. That should be the "I won't pay $15 a month if I have nothing to do" crowd. As it stands now without LFR people who don't want to participate in 10-man+ content have nothing left to do.

Heroic scenarios offer even better rewards than LFR.

[Ronduwil]

Heroic scenarios offer even better rewards than LFR.

Do heroic scenarios require healers? Also, there's more to a game than just rewards. I haven't done the heroic scenarios, but if they're anything like the normal ones I'm unimpressed. You run around killing trash for 15 minutes before finally killing a boss who is only marginally tougher than the trash was. If scenarios had been any fun I would still be maintaining my subscription.

[Lord Blackmore]

I may be okay with flexible raid as long as it removes LFR from existence, but as it is now, there is no path in sight for removing it because of the "I pay $15 a month just like you" crowd.

I have no idea why people think that Flex has anything to do with LFR. LFR serves a vastly different purpose than Flex. And as much as people claim the reason LFR won't got away is because of the ""I pay $15 a month just like you crowd", it's pretty clear that there is a sizable portion of players who like LFR because it frees them from being tied down to other people's schedules.

And if anyone thinks that removing LFR is going to somehow repair the community or drive people back to raid guilds, they need a reality check. The community is gone and there's not a damned thing Blizzard or anyone else can do about it.

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Do heroic scenarios require healers? Also, there's more to a game than just rewards. I haven't done the heroic scenarios, but if they're anything like the normal ones I'm unimpressed. You run around killing trash for 15 minutes before finally killing a boss who is only marginally tougher than the trash was. If scenarios had been any fun I would still be maintaining my subscription.

The actual scenarios are different from the normal ones, but as far as gameplay is concerned, it's the same as normal scenarios. And no, healers really aren't required unless DPS sucks.

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If the casual players are so important why don't they put casuals on stage at Blizzcon? Why doesn't blizzard nerf normal content even more so the droolers can figure out normal mode faceroll style?

I'm sort of gobsmacked that anyone would use this as a serious argument.

[Aquamonkey]

Do heroic scenarios require healers? Also, there's more to a game than just rewards. I haven't done the heroic scenarios, but if they're anything like the normal ones I'm unimpressed. You run around killing trash for 15 minutes before finally killing a boss who is only marginally tougher than the trash was. If scenarios had been any fun I would still be maintaining my subscription.

There's a difference between not having anything to do and not liking what there is to do.

[Lord Blackmore]

WoW subscription numbers reflect global gaming numbers in that total mmo subs is going down in favor of mobile platform games. It's a testament to WoW's strength that they reflect global numbers and not subscriber whims.

Facts and logic have no place in this discussion. People keep bringing up sub numbers and then point to LFR as being why, which is completely asinine.

Wow is 9 years old now. Lots of people have moved on from Wow. Either in favor of other games or they've gotten older, found jobs, started families or whatever. And while it's certainly possible that LFR hastened the decline, it is in no way the primary driver.

[Ronduwil]

There's a difference between not having anything to do and not liking what there is to do.

Financially there is not. Also, as a main spec healer heroic scenarios still leave me with nothing to do except LFR. Since I don't like LFR either I unsubbed. This was before heroic scenarios, but from what I'm hearing those aren't enough to suck me back in.