A few big fundamental changes could, I think, but I feel like it has so little to do with the actual ease or method of communicating and far more to do with the design of the game, both pre- and post-cap. I've thought about this stuff at length in the past because I've observed in other games what makes communities form and what encourages people to not be assbags to each other. My thought is that improving the community can't come at the cost of convenience, at least not directly, so it doesn't feel like a punishment rather than a natural thing.
1. Reward positive player interaction. As in, a simple LoL or FFXIV or even Overwatch-esque "thumbs up" system with minor cosmetic rewards for leaving good impressions on pug players. Playing into WoW players' number and collection fetishes it should have a number as well as a publicly viewable method of display, either through cosmetic rewards or a number that is visible on the inspect screen.
2. Classes need to synergize again. Stuff like single-target buffs, group buffs, group utilities and synergy are fun in a party or raid environment and make content feel less redundant. At the moment I see no difference in half of the classes in my party because they all do the same shit with a different coat of paint on it. Stuff like the warlock giving you dark intent or a party member using a group damage cooldown during a burst phase is interesting, has a lot of nuance and can make or break a good player. It's another way to show you know wtf you're doing. This game isn't Diablo and it should stop designing its classes like Diablo, it's an MMORPG and should demand synergy.
3. Gradually erode servers even more. Yeah server communities are dead, RIP but there's very little that can bring them back now that they're gone, at least not without shooting the game in the foot. Instead I'd be strongly in favor of servers being little more than a nametag and economy, and having players able to choose between PvE or PvP or RP or RPPVP through an ingame switch like how they intend to do PvP servers next expansion. Perhaps only players on the denoted RP servers have the option to opt into RP and RPvP, as a way of almost ingame categorizing themselves as "in character" for players who are interested in that kind of thing to convene and not be harassed, and to be able to separate the harassers more easily and enforce stricter rules given the ease of opting out.
Server instances would still be a thing but they'd be more malleable, with a player on, say, Kel'thuzad automatically moving to Dark Iron if they have a raid group there. Additionally I'd like to make server instances more transparent, with the ability to manually select, say, "Dalaran - Sargeras 3" instance if you want to do a trade with someone without partying. It would also lead to people naturally selecting "hub channels" and staying around their own instances as hangout locations, as I've seen happen in many games.
Prices won't go down because for 90% of population it's better to vendor that shitty green 2 handed sword they just looted off instead of reposting it on the AH for 6 months paying listing fees in hopes someone buys it. Only people who bother are transmog sellers and they only bother in hopes of high profit, because sell rates of greens are 1 in 300-1000.
Not knowing how the economy works doesn't make it trash.
But yeah, feel free to go on a low level mob killing spree and post greens for charity prices if that's your cup of fun. I bet no levelling player will ever buy them, if they sell, it's gonna be to transmog flippers because the item had some potential in their spreadsheets.
Not even mentioning the fact there is 0 reason to buy levelling gear because quest rewards cover that well enough (and will be improved further on in 7.3.5), oh and also: heirlooms exist.
Why should prices be low, anyway? Was it better when you had to grind hours and days to get your first mount, instead of just selling a stack of linen cloth on the AH and having every mandatory expense more than covered?
This complaint literally reminds me of all the threads about "tokens are too expensive because I can't have WOW:F2P edition with putting zero effort into obtaining gold".
No thanks. I want to play with the people I already know and I don't really want forced to interact with the rest of you people.
With recent game design when you can cruise through content without interacting with anyone, it is impossible to establish community, that's it.
There are few initial steps they can make towards it but probably will receive a backlash on forums from recent players, so there are few my ideas:
1) Make a good part of world content/quests not doable in solo, you can put many group quests in the end of the chain so to be able to fininsh it people will start to look for each other's help.
2) Remove some QoL that auto queue you for content (for example make at least some dungeons available only through normal grouping without queue, same with raids), also improve the diffuclty on the lowest levels of all dungeons/group content, so it won't be possible to faceroll it, both for leveling and end game, since players has to learn how to cooperate in groups to achieve the success.
3) So previous clause leads to class changes, so they won't be copy of each other with different animation, there should be synergy between classes, also some unique cc/buffs.
4) Rewards system should be changed as well, harder group content should award you with stronger items which should be unachievable in solo, that will put a good incentive for players. Basically all solo content should award you with items that only prepares you for group content either pve or pvp, but never should be on par with it.
Last edited by Loxotron; 2018-01-12 at 07:52 AM.
Last edited by kamuimac; 2018-01-12 at 02:09 PM.
Wanting to buy "as cheap as possible" is the same as seller wanting to sell it "as expensive as possible". 9k is not infinite price either. It was an example.
Anyway no idea why people cry about "high prices". If prices are high go out there and make easy gold. Low level greens are not a good field because it's extremely niche. Same as irl you won't easily find clothes for 2 meter tall people because they're so rare many companies don't even bother making them. But let's take a commodity that is daily sold in decent volumes: flasks. First people cry flasks are too expensive, then if they look into crafting them, they complain mats are too expensive and profit margins too small, and then when they look into getting mats themselves, they complain farming herbs is shit gold per hour. That's what we call a paradox.
There's no reason for that. There's no point in community for regular player. You can consider other player as badly programmed bots and still be able to see everything.
It is stupid to have to take that step because the social aspect is the lifeblood of wow. The less social it is, the smaller the playerbase gets. You do NOT add layers of complexity to the social aspect for this reason. Horrible idea. Absolutely horrible. Players shouldnt have to jump thru hoops and get creative with game mechanics just to be social.
TO FIX WOW:1. smaller server sizes & server-only LFG awarding satchels, so elite players help others. 2. "helper builds" with loom powers - talent trees so elite players cast buffs on low level players XP gain, HP/mana, regen, damage, etc. 3. "helper ilvl" scoring how much you help others. 4. observer games like in SC to watch/chat (like twitch but with MORE DETAILS & inside the wow UI) 5. guild leagues to compete with rival guilds for progression (with observer mode).6. jackpot world mobs.
I love how whenever 'fixing the community' comes up people only ever talk about what Blizzard can do, not the simple things that they can do but quite simply aren't.