Blizzard should remove boosts from the game

[thunderdragon2]

Always love forum logic. "LEVELING IS TOO EASY MAKE LEVELING HARDER". "OH THEY'VE MADE LEVELING HARDER IT MUST BE TO SELL MORE BOOSTS DURRRRRRRRRRRRRR."

except they haven't made it harder, they just made it take longer, last night was my FOURTH night in northrend on my dk, borean tundra got me almost 10 levels on 1st night after that its been slow and grindy af and thats with looms

[VyersReaver]

Sure.

Heritage Armor is what basically is selling the allied reading on MMO.

But boost neglect them.


Also don't forget that forcing new players to learn their class while levelling is healthy for the game because if people rush 110 spamming 1 spell they became bad like you are at trolling.

Also preorder comes with a free boost.



But nice try potatio

Stop with the "learning" argument. You can truly learn everything ONLY on 110, where you have all abilities, talents, artifact traits unlocked, and can reasonably adjust stats. Learning before then is just delusional. Even learning at 80, when you get all of your abilities is not the correct way to learn. It's just tedium.

[thunderdragon2]

I could see some sort of sliding scale. If one of the goals (besides obvious one of running profitable company) is to encourage players to learn their class, then players who have already leveled several classes probably need less practice to pick up a new one. So maybe your first ever boost is $60, but every class you level the long way reduces all future boosts by $5. If you have six toons leveled the old fashioned way, a boost would cost you $30. After ten leveled toons, a boost for those last couple (there are 12 total) would be down to $10.

Just a thought.

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One reason for declining subs was a broken experience for new players. If we want an influx of new players to re-invigorate the game, their first sessions playing need to deliver a better experience than what leveling has been these past few years.

buffing mp hp while they still hit like a wet noodle while increasing the exp needed per level isnt the way to go tho, im levelling a dk currently its at 77 now grindy and boring as hell while doing this i have encountered max FOUR other players. FOUR people levelling seeing a still empty world wont encourage new players nor will a grindy levelling system.

[Deleted]

Stop with the "learning" argument. You can truly learn everything ONLY on 110, where you have all abilities, talents, artifact traits unlocked, and can reasonably adjust stats. Learning before then is just delusional. Even learning at 80, when you get all of your abilities is not the correct way to learn. It's just tedium.

LFR proves you wrong.

Also anecdotal experience as "this is the harsh truth" is pretty banana.

Especially in a world where now you can choose where to level so maybe you are in a boring zone that everyone is skipping?

Or maybe 90% of players are waiting allied races to level? Dunno maybe

[Deleted]

It seems to me that Blizzard is trying to get rid of the options to level allied races absurdly fast. I reckon if they did have the previous RaF experience, people would just use that to level two allied races insanely fast while still having the benefit of receiving the heritage armor. They did specifically mention that granted levels will not work with getting the armor, but the flat experience gain will.

[Deleted]

They are not going to remove it. They are building systems around to make it look more lucrative, just like the last expansion did for wow tokens. There seems to be a department fully dedicated to making the game good, then another on smearing shit all over it that you can remove with real money. It just doesnt seem to be enough anymore to make enough money to improve a game, pay the employees and make a couple people rich, they must have all the money.
edit: and yeah, this is what i believe to be the main reason that allied races are allied races and not a customization option at the char creation screen. It is so blatantly obvious and obnoxious. Now we lose more than we could have gained. For example it would have fit perfect to have different origins for humans, but no way are they adding an allied race "lordaeron refugee" or anything like that now. Oh and don't get me started about orc clans.

[Raelbo]

If they really are going to be honest about "We want your character lvl experience to be slowed down as much as possible" then it is controversial to have boost mode available, right now this move is shameful and is a major cash slap grab to the players.

No. What they should do is make them a lot less expensive. Comparable to the price of a token is more appropriate.

The whole point of paid level boosts was never about making money. It was about giving players the option without the game becoming rife with boosted characters. The appropriate for the game paradigm around levelling where levelling was extremely rapid.

The way I see it, and I am not sure that Blizzard does too, is that this game is a in a space where levelling up characters is old content in which many players will have little or no interest. We've been there, done that, got the t-shirt. It's perfectly natural that we should have zero desire to go through the process of levelling up new characters. The only reason such players would level up a new character is to try out a new class with current content (ie max level). They had tried to address this in the past by making the levelling process as expedient as possible, but it was a poor solution because in the end it was still content that the people who wanted it done fast would rather actually skip altogether.

At the same time, there are still a number of players who do enjoy the journey of levelling up new characters, and what Blizzard has done now has greatly enhanced that experience. But at the same time they have made the situation a whole lot worse for the former group.

The bottom line is that the middle ground solution they had prior to this patch just wasn't great for anyone. For people who don't like levelling it reduced the problem, but still didn't make it something that they wanted to do. For people who did enjoy the levelling experience, it made the process not very immersive. The only solution is to provide two different solutions and let players decide what to do.

So yeah, the boost should be available - but it should not be prohibitively expensive. Blizzard don't really need to encourage people to go through the levelling process every time we want to try out a new class anymore. Levelling is an obsolete part of the game, and it's totally ok if, for a big chunk of the player base (IMO the majority), this game is only about current content - just as it is ok if a different group of players wants to still relive that obsolete part of the game.

I really don't think anyone can complain too much about a level boost costing 20Euro/$20. With the token system you can even use gold to buy it.

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They are not going to remove it. They are building systems around to make it look more lucrative, just like the last expansion did for wow tokens. There seems to be a department fully dedicated to making the game good, then another on smearing shit all over it that you can remove with real money. It just doesnt seem to be enough anymore to make enough money to improve a game, pay the employees and make a couple people rich, they must have all the money.

Actually, the high price of the level boost proves you wrong.

You don't maximise profit by charging ridiculous prices for a service. You maximise profit by finding the ideal combination of price and popularity. Lowering the price increases sales. I'd bet that if they halved the price of level boost they would way more than double sales, yielding a significantly better profit. Just as a simple test, how many here have paid $60/60Euro for a level boost? Very few, if any, I'd bet. I reckon almost all the level boosts that happened were from free level boosts people got when buying new expansions.

The reason for the high price was to deter people from overusing the feature. For Blizzard it makes far more sense to get players to enjoy the game (and their mindset was (maybe still is) that by having us do levelling, we'll enjoy the game more) and thus retain subscribers, than to try and milk us from something like a level boost.

[Deleted]

Actually, the high price of the level boost proves you wrong.

You don't maximise profit by charging ridiculous prices for a service. You maximise profit by finding the ideal combination of price and popularity. Lowering the price increases sales. I'd bet that if they halved the price of level boost they would way more than double sales, yielding a significantly better profit. Just as a simple test, how many here have paid $60/60Euro for a level boost? Very few, if any, I'd bet. I reckon almost all the level boosts that happened were from free level boosts people got when buying new expansions.

A ton of people i know used raf, it was cheaper than a boost and was perfect when covering all bases for split runs. I have also had a lot of friends join the game to play with me and my other friends, not to level. Now raf being taken away making the boost more lucrative. Many people will be asking is it more fun to work for x amount of hours or play for 20 just to get to max level. I personally do not believe blizzard cares about retaining subs just before the expansion. My bet would be that when the biggest lull is coming they release couple of the allied races and hope people pay 60€ to boost one up rather than actually playing for 4 months before the expac. Looks good for the 2nd quarter finance checks.

The price of the boost is actually pretty low if you don't enjoy leveling and are able to work.

[Moozart]

And I ask again

Why do you think that Blizzard could possibly care about your opinion if you're not even playing their game?



Yeah I'm so against Recruit A Friend I have 8 accounts and all the mount achievements because of it. You figured me out. You're a regular Sherlock Holmes.

Also it's your not you're. Try to cash out some of that Bnet balance for some Elementary school English classes bud.

If you do not understand that I can tell you have a pretty sub par IQ. As a business owner myself it is my JOB to know why a customer wants to stop doing business with me or has already stopped. I have to see if there is a problem that I can solve to get that customer back or retain them. Unhappy customers post on social media and could hurt future business. i go out of my way to help solve issues with clients when I have them, especially if its something we may have done policy change wise that is causing it. I have completely reverted policies for my company because it had such a negative response from my client base... THAT is how how companies should operate.

[Kazuchika]

Lemme know when you have six million customers because then maybe I'll actually care about your inane ramblings that are still completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

[Raelbo]

I was called out for predicting that back in the day though. Allegedly I was embarking on a slippery slope. Funny.

That's because back in the day, when levelling was still relevant a level boost would have been a clear case of pay2win. These days, levelling is an obsolete activity, so selling a level boost isn't really pay2win anymore. I am betting that your argument back in the day was probably about pay2win rather than level boosts. Even a broken clock will be right twice a day.

By all means though, link me back to your prediction and we'll see whether your prediction was based on sound reason, or like the broken clock, dumb luck.

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A ton of people i know used raf, it was cheaper than a boost and was perfect when covering all bases for split runs. I have also had a lot of friends join the game to play with me and my other friends, not to level. Now raf being taken away making the boost more lucrative. Many people will be asking is it more fun to work for x amount of hours or play for 20 just to get to max level. I personally do not believe blizzard cares about retaining subs just before the expansion. My bet would be that when the biggest lull is coming they release couple of the allied races and hope people pay 60€ to boost one up rather than actually playing for 4 months before the expac. Looks good for the 2nd quarter finance checks.

The price of the boost is actually pretty low if you don't enjoy leveling and are able to work.

Yes, but as you yourself point out, people chose RAF to level because it's cheaper. Just because someone will buy the level boost at $60 doesn't mean they won't make a ton more money selling ten times as many at $20.

Like I said, the high price disproves your tinfoil hat theory that Blizzard are trying to maximise their profits from level boosts.

Personally I'd like to see level boosts sold in game for gold. Or having repeatable quests much like the legendary upgrade quests. ie grind a lot of stuff at level cap, get a boost. I guess we'll see in time.

[Schizoide]

They should remove paid boosts. Including a single boost with each expansion is fine, as it allows new players to quickly catch up with their friends.

Only problem is you can just buy a new WoW account and the latest expansion and attach them to your Battle.net account to get a boost, so there's no real way to stop people from paying for them that way.

[Lucavian]

Then for what reason would Blizzard even begin to care if you're not even technically a customer?

Because businesses target potential customers, that's how businesses work.

[Deleted]

Like I said, the high price disproves your tinfoil hat theory that Blizzard are trying to maximise their profits from level boosts.

What on earth are you talking about, they just nerfed raf. It is pointless now if you use heirlooms in terms of speed. On top of that the way allied races are implemented is far from what i think most people wanted or from something people will like. Meanwhile the character customization is still at a state that looks like a game from 10 years ago.

edit: If you think they aren't trying to make money from the boosts then why would they be 60€. They literally cost nothing for blizzard, they do them in ptr for free at a press of a button (on our end!). A raf for 20€ being more lucrative was the issue and now they nerfed it.

[Deleted]

Put down the tin foil you have already been proven wrong.

[Jujudrood]

Boosts are fine.
It's money, if you have it and want to spend it, do so.
No argument can be sufficiently made against it that will hold a candle to its purpose; to expedite to current content and earn $$$.

Players aren't bad because of boost, they've always been bad.
Leveling from 1 (or 55, or 98) doesn't mean you've learned how to play correctly and/or effectively, it only means you've learn how to play JUST enough to level, which honestly you can spam one freakin' ability and level, even with the hp sponges in the leveling world today.

Literally the only thing removing a boost would do is make those who wish to utilize it grind levels in old ass content, which is flat out boring to a ton of people, especially with the hp increases making it take on average 2-4 seconds longer to kill a single mob (give or take a sec or 2 based on level/class/spec, some have it easier, some harder).
People like me who've played for 12+ years and have leveled throughout various ranges dozens of times have seen all the content and have experienced all of the old things we wanted, either when it was current or later for shits n gigs.
Forcing all to level does nothing but deter people from alt'ing, which in turn deters people from participation in the daily/weekly stuffs, which in turn reduces play time.
If I can drop $60 to boost a toon and potentially add playtime longevity, then they would be silly to remove that option.

[Brocksley]

Actually I think the boost is now worth the price. Before, leveling was such a quick and dirty thing I never felt the need to boost. RAF nerfs, exp changes, and dungeon adjustments now make the boost look like an attractive option with a justified cost.

[Deleted]

edit: If you think they aren't trying to make money from the boosts then why would they be 60€. They literally cost nothing for blizzard, they do them in ptr for free at a press of a button (on our end!). A raf for 20€ being more lucrative was the issue and now they nerfed it.

Can't fathom all this dumb thinking sigh

[Deleted]

If you really can't understand why they nerfed RAF, increase BOOST PRICE

After reworking levelling...we can't help.



If they wanted to milk people they could have done this months if not years ago.
Set boost to 20$ and make levelling like now.

But nope, they did just before the allied race debut, with a specific reward tied to levelling without boost, and they increase boost???
They nerf RAF so people would not exploit it? Wow

And their new attitude to stakeholders is #TimeSpentLogged and no more #Subs

[Deleted]

Can't fathom all this dumb thinking sigh

Good argument, keep em coming.