"Players rarely argue for less convenience." - Ghostcrawler

[xanzul]

I've never understood comments like this. WoW grew in subscription numbers by a very large amount during vanilla and TBC. Admittedly, it was the shiny new toy in vanilla, but it kept climbing despite how few people were actually raiding and the even lower number of people who did Naxx or Sunwell. Yet, somehow, there's an argument out there that that doesn't work, despite the evidence to the contrary. Naxx was huge, 15 bosses. And yet, what, less than 1% of the population, something like eight or nine thousand players ever killed Kel'Thuzad at level 60...out of over six million. Yet somehow, they found the time to devote to developing it and only gained subscriptions. I'm not saying it has to go back to that way, but I just don't find that argument valid.

Wow's popularity has NOTHING to do with difficult content. It gained subscriptions because it was a popular game and an accessible mmo unlike all other previous mmos. It stopped gaining subscriptions simply because it hit market saturation.

[Osmeric]

THis can just as easily be contributed to the "gain" rate of new customers dropping to basically zero since close to all people who would ever be interested in a MMO has already played or are playing WoW. I'm not saying you are wrong, but we can't know which scenario is right.

I think there was also an effect from the accumulating number of former WoW players.

At the start, if someone heard about WoW, they'd ask their friends. The answers they'd get would either be "don't know, haven't tried it" or "yeah, I'm playing it and having a good time".

But as ex-players accumulated, prospective players would also start to hear "yeah, I used to play that, but stopped because of ...".

So, negative word of mouth accumulates. And now, ex-players outnumber current players by a factor of 2 or more. So most of the word of mouth will be discouraging.

[xanzul]

I don't see that. They create Raids because they are the endgame.

I don't know, If I was a raid developer, I will be ore proud creating Kil'jaeden than any other LFR boss because people feared in front of him, was a menacing figure and people respected that boss and not for difficult or because a low % saw that boss... Maybe we've got a different idea, but that's my impression.

And eliminating the new-possible dungeon to focus on scenarios and Raids help a lot.

Really? People respected bosses? What the fuck. You realize this is a video game right? It isn't a way of life or a religion. just a game. Nothing more nothing less. I think most of the rage about this game has little to do with it changing direction and everything to do with certain players completely losing perspective.

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How do any of those data points demonstrate a dislike for hard dungeons? I don't remember being asked whether I liked them or not, and I don't see how they could find out without asking. People dropping groups, failing to complete dungeons, or taking a long time simply means that players had to leave or took a long time to complete the dungeon, not that they didn't enjoy it. I had to leave plenty of BC Heroics, failed to complete plenty, and took a very long time on many, yet I still loved them.

The problem is, the point you're quoting actually makes sense. Blizzard does listen to the vocal minority when it comes to casualization.

What you people seem completely unable to comprehend is that many players don't consider not being able to play the game they pay for to be "fun". That means excluding them from raids or making dungeons overly difficult for pugs results in players not being able to play. When that happens they don't bother doing the content at all. That is where the data comes in. Blizzard doesn't need a manifesto on every aspect of the game to determine what the best changes would be.

[Jessicka]

Which was to offer options. Cata was very lean and was set up to funnel players into heroics who normally wouldnt have been there in the first place which screwed over everyone else. The average player base is not that bad or other wise every heroic would have been a fail compared to the vast majority of my solo queues being successful. The act of removing normal modes and greatly increasing the rewards from heroics resulted in players who wouldnt even touch WotLK heroics to make their way into Cata heroics and drag groups down. Blizzard gutted grinds severely in Cata. Cata is the first time that non-raiders consumed content within a month or two in large numbers.

That's because Cata was supposed to be all about raiding. They forgot all those players that don't raid, and all those players who raided 10N. All that was left was new, streamlined levelling and a dungeon finder to dungeons that weren't designed with disorganised random matchmaking in mind. All but about 2-3 dungeons were just like Occulus all over again, so after 20 min wait to get in, then you'd wait another 20 mins to refill the group and another hour to complete it having replaced 2 healers, 3 tanks and 7 DPS. It's a shame because Halls of Origination, Grim Batol, and Lost City were three of the best dungeons they've ever implimented and with a guild run were actually a joy to do. They just weren't though through the Dungeon Finder tool which is how most people saw them. I, like many therefore didn't use the LFD tool to make a group because chances of finishing at a reasonable pace were so slim. And given that lack of progress in the Heroic 5 mans, is it any wonder so few even got off the ground to begin raiding an upward tuned T11? And why so many 25 man guilds found it easier to shed a few bodies than wait for those last few to gear up?

It didn't help that several classes were fundamentally broken mechanically until the first patch which came after the holidays; during which players will have struggled through with broken mechanics and overtuned dungeons (for a matchmaking tool). That didn't set a good standard. To follow that up with all the extensive changes in 4.0.5, and a blog post saying L2P wasn't good PR and just confirmed to many players that Cata was rushed, incomplete, and clearly not for them.

If Blizzard was to build the game they want and you say that Cata was Blizzard ignoring feedback they did not want to hear then Cata is the type of game that the developers wanted to make. Obviously there would of been more launch content which was due to development resource mistakes that are not the fault of the raiders despite how many like to blame the raiders for lack of non-raid endgame.

The back and forth has a strong impact as it did for me going from liking Cata to being bored as shit in MoP despite my game play time not changing and being a handful of hours a week. A large number of casuals wasnt quitting in Cata due to lack of engaging content, they might has as well have found Cata to be fun in comparison. The flip flop does no good. Seems the developers are realizing this and trying to keep changes to certain things by introducing them into small chunks like Flex mode and others without trying to shove the whole population into it.

I think Cata was leaning towards a 'raiding expansion' because they'd seen the success of the expansion of raiding in Wrath. And there's no doubt it was successful. The mistake was tuning 10N up to 25N level, when it was 10N that had made raiding popular in the first place. They'd believed the myth in the echo chamber of the forums that players would step up to a challenge and with that killed the goose that had laid their golden egg. Had they kept 10N where it was, maybe Cataclysm's model would have been more successful. Certainly I wouldn't have spent several months wondering why I'd even bothered levelling an alt to pug those T11 raids when they were so inaccessible.

[xanzul]

And yet, they never once made any polls or asked anyone I know about whether or not they liked the dungeons. They had data, read a vocal minority on the forums, and made a guess.

Side note: Hello Destil! I don't know you but I'm slightly excited.

You really don't get it do you? Blizzard didn't have to guess. They had the metrics showing how many people were running dungeons and how many dungeons were being completed. It wasn't just the complaints that Blizzard based their decision on it was the data as well. Again I know people like to think Blizzard is clueless but they really aren't at least not to the extent players like you seem to be.

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What irks me is when people say vocal minority. Vocal would have to indicate sound, but when I read I don't hear anything. Anyway, can you all stop pulling statistics out of your ass? People are complaining for a reason.

The phrase isn't meant to be taken literally. Also I don't think people said the complaints are for no reason, just that some complaints aren't nearly as valid or shared as they would like to think.

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Vocal minority with a big mouth is not the same as the content majority.

however, that doesn't mean the devs can just ignore those that speak up, usually its the few who do speak up that could have something worth hearing about.

Oh the devs can most certainly ignore whoever they wish. Ultimately it is Blizzard's game, Blizzard's vision and Blizzard's call in what the game needs or doesn't need. The only power players have is to play or not play. That's it. Many of the people who incessantly complain about everything refuse to accept the devs aren't their bitches.

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I agree completely. I hate when people dismiss an idea because a smaller population supports it. As if it makes the idea any less good or valuable.

Do you really not understand that if a suggestion isn't supported by a lot of players that maybe it might make the game worse for others?

[MoanaLisa]

And yet, they never once made any polls or asked anyone I know about whether or not they liked the dungeons. They had data, read a vocal minority on the forums, and made a guess.

You may never have seen these but on at least three different occasions over the last seven years, I've received invitations from Blizzard to participate in lengthy multiple choice online polls about every aspect of the game. I haven't seen an invite to one since Cataclysm but Blizzard does poll and they poll rather more scientifically than putting up something on their forums. Polling data though can be misinterpreted (famously see the last U.S. presidential election) and confirmation bias is something that is often difficult to step away from when a poll tells you something you might not want to believe.

[Seefer]

Because what is happening on the forums is a miniscule part of the whole picture, but it is all that you see.

Very true, but there are millions who don't post on forums and just leave...............In my opinion Ghostcrawler is a moron and needs to go.

[xanzul]

I find it extremely hard to believe that Blizzard gets the bulk of their feedback about game conditions when it's essentially too late (ie, someone filling out a very non-specific questionnaire during the unsubscribe process). No smart company would wait till then.

Forum responses most certainly are paid attention to, and I'm quite sure Blizzard does read unofficial forums as well as their own.

To assume that forum majorities do not reflect the viewpoints of player majorities is essentially like stating that polling doesn't work.

But polling doesn't work and can be set up to achieve a certain result but not the true view of those being polled. It happens every day in politics and if you think it doesn't happen in the gaming industry as well then you are quite naive. The simple fact of the matter is no gaming company is giong to do design through democracy, at least not any company who intends to stay in business. These forums and the official forums get spammed on a daily if not hourly basis with threads demanding that LFR be removed yet it hasn't been removed. Ever think to consider that might be because the vocal minority on these forums don't match up with not only the activity of players in game but other sources of data as well? If anything the fact that we still have LFR proves Blizzard listens to the majority.

[Seefer]

You may never have seen these but on at least three different occasions over the last seven years, I've received invitations from Blizzard to participate in lengthy multiple choice online polls about every aspect of the game. I haven't seen an invite to one since Cataclysm but Blizzard does poll and they poll rather more scientifically than putting up something on their forums. Polling data though can be misinterpreted (famously see the last U.S. presidential election) and confirmation bias is something that is often difficult to step away from when a poll tells you something you might not want to believe.

Last I asked on their customer support forum when I got one was it was fake.

[Frogged]

Not on it's own, but it's perfectly valid in countering the people claiming that the number of LFR threads is proof that it's a problem.

Besides which, when it comes to whether something is good or bad gaming there is no "fact" - only opinion.

Right. You're actually supporting my argument. People who use the number of LFR threads as reason for whether or not it's good for the game are trying to incorrectly associate the number of people supporting an argument with how true an argument is. You're saying that's incorrect, and so am I.

As for your second point, that's precisely why no one's opinion is any less valuable regardless of how many people support it.

Do you really not understand that if a suggestion isn't supported by a lot of players that maybe it might make the game worse for others?

It's possible, but isn't intrinsically true or untrue. A good idea is a good idea, and a bad idea is a bad idea. Popular support doesn't influence the situation at all, it can only be an effect.

You really don't get it do you? Blizzard didn't have to guess.

And this is where opinion comes into play. I would posit that you're the one who doesn't get it and assumed Blizzard didn't guess. Neither one of us has evidence. It's just opinion.

I do feel that mine is more backed by associated past data than yours, however, as Blizzard is constantly guessing, tripping up, and working to fix nearly every aspect they fail their guesses on. Pull any feature in the last few years from the game and this can be applied. The most notable one is dailies. Blizzard saw people wanted more content and guessed that dailies would fit that criteria. It clearly did not. Likewise, Blizzard saw people were wiping in dungeons and guessed that they didn't want to have a challenge. I feel as though they made a misstep with that guess as well.

The very notion that Blizzard is an all-powerful entity that never needs to make a guess due to it's acquisition of massive amounts of data is just ludicrous at best. They're human, just like everyone else, and data doesn't always contain the answer, just a path toward it.

[Seefer]

But polling doesn't work and can be set up to achieve a certain result but not the true view of those being polled. It happens every day in politics and if you think it doesn't happen in the gaming industry as well then you are quite naive. The simple fact of the matter is no gaming company is giong to do design through democracy, at least not any company who intends to stay in business. These forums and the official forums get spammed on a daily if not hourly basis with threads demanding that LFR be removed yet it hasn't been removed. Ever think to consider that might be because the vocal minority on these forums don't match up with not only the activity of players in game but other sources of data as well? If anything the fact that we still have LFR proves Blizzard listens to the majority.

Personal opinion here but I think they don't remove it because

1) They are afraid to EVER admit when they screw up

2) You can't put the genie back in the bottle, what is done is done, kinda like flying mounts.

[xanzul]

Casuals ALWAYS cry and beg for convenience. They start with "Oh I have a job, I come home tired, I have N kids, I only have one hour per night, I'm not unemployed blabla" and then they go on saying "I pay $15 and me wants 20minute dungeons, free epics, wanna see all the raids, total faceroll, wait epics not enough, now me wants free legendaries, instateleport, LF dungeons, LF raids, LF your mom", and the crying and begging goes on and on.

Casuals destroyed WoW. The "rot" in WoW development team goes far deep and WoW cannot be rescued without a radical amputation and a painful recovery. If they continue inaction, WoW will bleed subs until dead. If ever made, WoW2 will be simply more of the same of Cata/MOP crap, unless Blizzard takes bold action.

There are millions of hardcore gamers that once populated those now empty servers. There are lot of nerdy kids who enjoy games more than facebook-deep. Blizzard's foolish attempts to get non-gamers play WoW failed miserably. Blizzard will fail unless they start tailoring their games for gamers.

Again this is a video game not a religion. There is challenging content in the game and the ability to do easy content doesn't negate that at all. Not even remotely.

People like you have destroyed the game for yourselves without any help from Blizzard or anyone else. For the love of god take some responsibility for yourself and realize attitudes like yours are the real problem here.

[Seefer]

Right. You're actually supporting my argument. People who use the number of LFR threads as reason for whether or not it's good for the game are trying to incorrectly associate the number of people supporting an argument with how true an argument is. You're saying that's incorrect, and so am I.

As for your second point, that's precisely why no one's opinion is any less valuable regardless of how many people support it.

Just because people like something doesn't mean it's a good thing for a game or whatever else.

[Belisaurio]

Really? People respected bosses? What the fuck. You realize this is a video game right? It isn't a way of life or a religion. just a game. Nothing more nothing less. I think most of the rage about this game has little to do with it changing direction and everything to do with certain players completely losing perspective.

Maybe I become old and that type of things don't exist anymore, but anyone remember Battletouds? Panic rat!!! I feared that rat and I still hate rats cause that boss. It's an example only and I don't know if this days the players can understand what I'm saying.

[Seefer]

Again this is a video game not a religion. There is challenging content in the game and the ability to do easy content doesn't negate that at all. Not even remotely.

People like you have destroyed the game for yourselves without any help from Blizzard or anyone else. For the love of god take some responsibility for yourself and realize attitudes like yours are the real problem here.

Yep, we sure did, we made players lazy and not want to improve then try to pug in or join raiding guilds to fill spots...............yep we sure did that! We made people who were happy not raiding and just doing other stuff in the game bitch and complain about wanting to raid...........yep we did that! We also made it so those who wanted to raid weren't good enough so they bitched and complained about it being too hard and not being faceroll! Man we are the devil!

[Deficineiron]

Wow's popularity has NOTHING to do with difficult content. It gained subscriptions because it was a popular game and an accessible mmo unlike all other previous mmos. It stopped gaining subscriptions simply because it hit market saturation.

and here we have mr binary - with all the answers. I am curious - why did cataclysm lose subs sharply after release? was it related to the content, or purely unrelated matters, like it being a 7-year old game or whatever?

just wondering if you are consistent in maintaining that difficulty has zero relation to subscription retention rate, or you only say this selectively.

[Endus]

If your guild is really "hardcore" I assume you are required to have alts raid ready. You are pretty much required to do LFR to gear up New alts to get evne close to being raid ready.

This makes no sense at all. It is only true for the few weeks it takes to get them into normal raid gear/LFR gear the first time, after they ding 90. Then you're pulling them into the (H) alt raids every patch and gearing them up, exactly as you do your main. You don't touch LFR on either character, beyond that initial window.

The only people raiding LFR constantly are those who are doing so for VP for some reason, or because they're moderately casual raiders who work mostly on normal modes and are possibly gearing up their alts here and there. The hardcores you mention, where you need at least 2 characters raid-ready, they're not raiding LFR. They're raiding Heroics, with both characters, and have no reason to hit LFR at all, on either character. Unless they're making a brand-new alt, in which case they'll hit LFR for a couple weeks at the very start of the gearing process, and then never again.

2) You can't put the genie back in the bottle, what is done is done, kinda like flying mounts.

The only reason youm "can't put the genie back in the bottle" is because the "genie", in your example "flying mounts", is so widely popular that the outcry for removing it would vastly outweigh the benefits you'd gain.

There's no problem removing an unpopular system. The issue here is precisely that some systems are very popular, but a minority don't like them. Flying mounts are a perfect example of this. They weren't a "mistake", they were a widely requested feature, and they're very popular. It led to some unforeseen issues in future design, but that does not mean they're bad or should be removed, or that they're being complained about by most players. If they were, it'd be easy as heck to remove them.

[Frogged]

and here we have mr binary - with all the answers. I am curious - why did cataclysm lose subs sharply after release? was it related to the content, or purely unrelated matters, like it being a 7-year old game or whatever?

just wondering if you are consistent in maintaining that difficulty has zero relation to subscription retention rate, or you only say this selectively.

I'll never understand why people describe Cataclysm as The Great Difficult Era. It wasn't. The heroics were just as easy as WotLK's. Cataclysm's downfall was Blizzard's approach of resting on it's laurels and the subsequent lack of content, not it's supposed (nonexistent) difficulty.

Just because people like something doesn't mean it's a good thing for a game or whatever else.

I couldn't agree more. My statement was just based on the idea that people are worth listening to, not necessarily following. The quick dismissal of any idea that doesn't conform on MMO-Champion is one of the great plagues of WoW. As small as the forum community is, if it were more accepting and directed toward game improvement for everyone, so much more could be done. It would be impossible for Blizzard to ignore the ideas coming out of a community like that. Instead we waste time bickering and being prejudiced on both sides of the casual/hardcore debate.

[Deficineiron]

Just because people like something doesn't mean it's a good thing for a game or whatever else.

in fact there is a blue post noting that ultimately, most player will want everything with the minimum effort, and it is the game designer's responsibility, not the players, to decide what players should have to do to receive rewards, and how players should interact with the game world.

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I'll never understand why people describe Cataclysm as The Great Difficult Era. It wasn't. The heroics were just as easy as WotLK's. Cataclysm's downfall was its lack of content, not it's supposed (nonexistent) difficulty.

actually most of the actual game content was easier than anything before - often allowing less choices and decisions too (linear questing anyone?) - only initial release 85 content was harder, briefly, beyond what an lfd environment would functionally tolerate.

[MoanaLisa]

Last I asked on their customer support forum when I got one was it was fake.

In this case, these weren't. They took me to the Blizzard web site and yes, I do know the difference between real sites and fake sites. There are, no doubt, a lot of fake polls out there and that's probably reason enough why Blizzard doesn't do this more often. It's really not a concern.