How 'Casualization' Is Saving WoW For Raiders

[Myta]

How 'Casualization' is Saving WoW For Raiders Whether They Understand It Or Not.

For years Blizzard has listened to the 'hardcore' fanbase (they aren't actually hardcore), which resented at every opportunity like the Immovable Object itself, Blizzard even developing casual content. Every time this happened from the fishing Artifact to the implementation of Pet Battles, Old World level scaling. These changes don't ever effect the ""Hardcore"" player base, they they complained still, yelled at Blizzard "Why are you doing this?".

As someone who started playing WoW in Vanilla who has played long enough, and is old enough to know Vanilla was extremely casual friendly (and also dogshit as an MMO), I have seen the highs and the lows, and also seen Blizzard listening to this extremely vocal minority. In fact whole expansions launched such as Cataclysm, on the basis that people didn't want the casual content in WotLK (despite H LK at the time was probably the hardest raid boss ever designed, not just in WoW but ANY MMO at the time). What happened? The userbase died.

We've gone from Hellfire Citadel in WoD to the Emerald Nightmare when people complained again that it was too easy, then they made Nighthold, and Tomb and guilds were dying in droves.

With the insane demands of it's phantom playerbase, Blizzard started to cannibalize the healthy lifecycle of the WoW guilds and their actual customer base. The hard truth is that without casuals, there is no WoW. Without casual guilds acting as feeder guilds to raiding guilds, there are no raiding guilds. People fail to realize this, and now are digging their heels and screaming at the top of their lungs as Blizzard reverses the years long deathknell for the WoW community. Firstly by killing master loot, which only leads an unlevel, and unfair system. There is no system in WoW of tackling loot which is fair, and drama free besides Personal Loot. Master Loot exists to create imbalances, either by funneling gear overtly or subversively to people.

Master-Loot Is The Worst System In All of WoW
The Only Thing It Is Good At Is Being The Single Largest Source of Misery In This Game

Every system derived out of Master Loot from DKP, to Loot Council, to GDKP, to Sell Runs are all inherently toxic and the only result from these systems is to breed abuse, nepotism, and greed, there is no ethical way to use Master Loot, at all. This is self-evident from how decades later, no one can create a way to make Master Loot even sort of resemble 'fairness'.

Coupled with the overworld changes, people are leveling characters again, they are meeting each other, adding each other to Battle Tag, grouping with each other. Some of these people will even play together long term, joining guilds or creating them, and this all happens organically and naturally, and this is the crucial structure of WoW at the moment, the ability to take a new player or a casual player and grow them into a raider. That system was lately interrupted through WoD, and most of Legion. This isn't an outsider speaking, this is from the perspective of a Mythic raider with the sense enough to see beyond the bubble of their own guild.

Because of casual players, WoW is alive again, people are playing this game, making friends, joining guilds, and soon in BfA the horrendous, guild-destroying, zero-positive system of Master Loot will also be gone. Now those players will not have that wedge drawn between them over something as stupid as purple pixels which the loot-mongering of Master Loot created.

Casuals are saving WoW. It's too bad that most ""Hardcore"" players do not have a broad enough perspective to understand that. I hope, like I think many others hope, that Blizzard continues to do what it is doing, that it has the guts to tell this over-active, narrow-viewed audience that what they want is not good for WoW as a whole, that what they in fact want will only lead to more dead guilds, more canceled accounts, more dead realms. Ultimately the people they hurt the most with their hatred of the casual playerbase is themselves.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Literally the exact opposite. Have you played this game recently?
They listened to casuals for years and they are finally making the game the way it should be instead of the way the forums want it to be.

[Deleted]

Very much agree, out of many changes I've heard recently ending ML is one I support 100%. It has really created so much drama and inequality in the game up to this point that I am very glad they are finally doing away with it.

[gobio]

Blizzard and its fan boy's logic (recalling from its WOD "glorious" days)

Buff mission table
Piss off fans and face the declining sub
Double down and tell everyone (while ignoring people that unsub) that most people LOVES mission table.

Yeah right.

[melodramocracy]

For years Blizzard has listened to the 'hardcore' fanbase

Sorry, no. You're directly associating 'hardcore' with a given skill level, and you can count on one hand the number of times this has arguably happened.

there is no ethical way to use Master Loot, at all

Also objectively false. In a given group of consistent players it is rather easy to determine who will benefit the entire group the most from an upgrade. It does put more pressure on the ML to be completely objective in the decision process, but to say that its unethical is absurd.

The rest of this argument is circa 2009 or so. Casuals don't 'save' anything, they demand catering, finish what they want to, and then unsub until the next batch of shiny and new comes out.

[Emerald Archer]

no one can create a way to make Master Loot even sort of resemble 'fairness'.

There are absolutely fair ways to hand out loot. Giving items to the player, that will benefit the raid as a whole the most.

It doesn't need to be some care bear "Everyone gets loot 100% evenly" if you have 20 people all aware, and wanting loot to be handed out purely for the benefit of the raid team as a whole. Which is what you get in higher end guilds. Then for that guild, that's a fair loot system.

Because it doesn't seem fair TO YOU, does not make it unfair. There are plenty of players who favour guild progression over selfish loot gain.

Maybe you've had bad experience with master loot in guilds, that's unfortunate for you. But that doesn't detract from the many guilds who use it, and have it work fair and in a positive way for the guild and their raiders mindset.

I'm okay with the removal, and personal loot being the only route. My concern is just rng. There's not many mail users in my guild, whereas there's a shit ton of Leather and cloth users, so with personal loot, i'm left at the hands of rng pretty heavily. As there aren't many to trade with.

[Torrasque]

Literally the exact opposite. Have you played this game recently?
They listened to casuals for years and they are finally making the game the way it should be instead of the way the forums want it to be.

If anything, they listened to casuals more than they ever have before in Legion... Have you been playing recently? The highest ilvl tokens ever, afk gold farming highest than its ever been before, WoW Token implemented, simplified normal difficulty setting so that they transition from LFR to Normal is significantly less than it ever has been before, in combination with added resources devoted to how flex raiding functions.

[Soeroah]

Literally the exact opposite. Have you played this game recently?
They listened to casuals for years and they are finally making the game the way it should be instead of the way the forums want it to be.

Not really. There are parts of it that are getting harder, like high-end raiding, but they went back on the "mythic only dungeon" idea pretty quick, it's still easy to catch up gear-wise later in an expansion, you can still get decent gear as a casual player through world bosses and world quests, etc.

Not much has really changed in the last few expansions except we have more content than in WoD, and a new dungeon extending system.

[Marrilaife]

First step to implement true "casualization" would be to stop making systems that give advantage to nolifers. Legion with AP farming, legendary farming and mythic+ loot with no weekly lockout or cap opened a can of worms where Joe casual could not keep up with Bob the nolife. It was especially egregious during the first half of Legion when hardcore people boasted 1k+ maw of souls runs. Many others couldn't force themselves or enjoy this new "meta" so they called it quits. They were used from tbc to wod to cap their daily / weekly routine then move onto "having their life" and Legion suddenly told them "no, bro, you're never really DONE for the day / week".

It wasn't masterloot that drove people away (since it existed from vanilla), it was the "keep up with the Joneses" rat race Blizzard suddenly threw the community into. As if they didn't realize, or worse, they knew and deliberately ignited underlying social mechanisms. No you didn't need x traits or x legendary to play in "semi-casual heroic raiding guild", didn't stop these guilds from putting these gatekeeper requirements. No, you didn't need x ilvl to beat content in a pug, but because there were enough ilvl overfarmed "hardcores" around anyone with less didn't stand a chance.

Blizzard might want to de-emphasize raiding with removing tiers, and de-emphasize guilds by removing master loot. They might want to limit how quickly hardcores gear up, and kill split running raids. But that does nothing against the situation that hardcores will be geared head to toe from m+ after 1-2 weeks and create insurmountable gap between them and casuals because they won't take anyone with inferior ilvl to their groups. On average atm hc raid gives you 2-4 items per lockout on personal loot. M+ gives infinite. There's no lockout, only time sank factor. With very little ilvl disparity, the biggest gap were the tier bonuses, and these are axed.

If they wanted to slow down how quickly a player can gear at the start of a raid era and prevent loot funneling, they really need to look deeply at m+ system.

[Firatha]

Every system derived out of Master Loot from DKP, to Loot Council, to GDKP, to Sell Runs are all inherently toxic and the only result from these systems is to breed abuse, nepotism, and greed, there is no ethical way to use Master Loot, at all. This is self-evident from how decades later, no one can create a way to make Master Loot even sort of resemble 'fairness'.

I have zero what I am talking about the post.

[Daffan]

Casuals are wannabe hardcore and favor that game design but they don't even realize it yet.

Only after they receive all their welfare and catchup loot and then realize there is nothing left to do they think how stupid championing their cause was, or not and they are doomed to a life of farming LFR to kill LFR faster next week.

Bro, do U even RETENTION?

[Deleted]

First step to implement true "casualization" would be to stop making systems that give advantage to nolifers. Legion with AP farming, legendary farming and mythic+ loot with no weekly lockout or cap opened a can of worms where Joe casual could not keep up with Bob the nolife. It was especially egregious during the first half of Legion when hardcore people boasted 1k+ maw of souls runs. Many others couldn't force themselves or enjoy this new "meta" so they called it quits. They were used from tbc to wod to cap their daily / weekly routine then move onto "having their life" and Legion suddenly told them "no, bro, you're never really DONE for the day / week".

It wasn't masterloot that drove people away (since it existed from vanilla), it was the "keep up with the Joneses" rat race Blizzard suddenly threw the community into. As if they didn't realize, or worse, they knew and deliberately ignited underlying social mechanisms. No you didn't need x traits or x legendary to play in "semi-casual heroic raiding guild", didn't stop these guilds from putting these gatekeeper requirements. No, you didn't need x ilvl to beat content in a pug, but because there were enough ilvl overfarmed "hardcores" around anyone with less didn't stand a chance.

Blizzard might want to de-emphasize raiding with removing tiers, and de-emphasize guilds by removing master loot. They might want to limit how quickly hardcores gear up, and kill split running raids. But that does nothing against the situation that hardcores will be geared head to toe from m+ after 1-2 weeks and create insurmountable gap between them and casuals because they won't take anyone with inferior ilvl to their groups. On average atm hc raid gives you 2-4 items per lockout on personal loot. M+ gives infinite. There's no lockout, only time sank factor. With very little ilvl disparity, the biggest gap were the tier bonuses, and these are axed.

If they wanted to slow down how quickly a player can gear at the start of a raid era and prevent loot funneling, they really need to look deeply at m+ system.

Someone on these forums who actually realised what the real Problem with this game since Legion is...have my Upvote good Sir/Ma´am

[Pooti]

First step to implement true "casualization" would be to stop making systems that give advantage to nolifers. Legion with AP farming, legendary farming and mythic+ loot with no weekly lockout or cap opened a can of worms where Joe casual could not keep up with Bob the nolife. It was especially egregious during the first half of Legion when hardcore people boasted 1k+ maw of souls runs. Many others couldn't force themselves or enjoy this new "meta" so they called it quits. They were used from tbc to wod to cap their daily / weekly routine then move onto "having their life" and Legion suddenly told them "no, bro, you're never really DONE for the day / week".

It wasn't masterloot that drove people away (since it existed from vanilla), it was the "keep up with the Joneses" rat race Blizzard suddenly threw the community into. As if they didn't realize, or worse, they knew and deliberately ignited underlying social mechanisms. No you didn't need x traits or x legendary to play in "semi-casual heroic raiding guild", didn't stop these guilds from putting these gatekeeper requirements. No, you didn't need x ilvl to beat content in a pug, but because there were enough ilvl overfarmed "hardcores" around anyone with less didn't stand a chance.

Blizzard might want to de-emphasize raiding with removing tiers, and de-emphasize guilds by removing master loot. They might want to limit how quickly hardcores gear up, and kill split running raids. But that does nothing against the situation that hardcores will be geared head to toe from m+ after 1-2 weeks and create insurmountable gap between them and casuals because they won't take anyone with inferior ilvl to their groups. On average atm hc raid gives you 2-4 items per lockout on personal loot. M+ gives infinite. There's no lockout, only time sank factor. With very little ilvl disparity, the biggest gap were the tier bonuses, and these are axed.

If they wanted to slow down how quickly a player can gear at the start of a raid era and prevent loot funneling, they really need to look deeply at m+ system.

So just because you only want to play X amount of time, the game should be designed with an end point where there is nothing to do until next week? That is an extremely one-sided thought process. I think "always something to do" is a great design. It was the first time they had these systems, and there was of course some growing pains, but as it stands now in my opinion both artifact trait gain and M+ are in a good place.

As for actual thread topic, I have been in the same guild for years, and we have always used ML and some form of DKP EPGP. I can count on one had how many times since BC there has been drama surrounding loot. That's just my anecdotal impression of it though. End of the day taking choices away from guild groups is not really a good idea.

[Spiral Mage]

I'm always confused when I see people create posts like this that demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of the game, player-base, or of the reasons for it's design direction.

I mean, if you want to make an argument, shouldn't you get your facts straight first and know something about the subject? -- It might sound nasty and that's fair but it's more of a "why people do this boggles my mind" kinda deal.

[Deleted]

Casuals are wannabe hardcore and favor that game design but they don't even realize it yet.

Only after they receive all their welfare and catchup loot and then realize there is nothing left to do they think how stupid championing their cause was, or not and they are doomed to a life of farming LFR to kill LFR faster next week.

Bro, do U even RETENTION?

haha this
/10 char

[Marrilaife]

I think "always something to do" is a great design.

But not a casual friendly one. In this type of scenario a person with more time on their hands gets ahead, you can say all the positives of that state of affairs, but casual-friendliness is not one of them.

as it stands now in my opinion both artifact trait gain and M+ are in a good place.

Artifact is easy to reach 75 "softcap" atm but that wasn't always the case (where the "cap" was and what the effort to achieve it was), we have to wait and see how the azerite acquisition is tuned around, there's no guarantee it will feel perfect or it will feel bad, we have to see, but there's always a concern.

M+ is in a good place now (after nerf removing 3-chesting) but that's because raids counter it by having tiers - raids give less loot on average but that loot is more valuable, which balances each other out. That won't be the case in BFA. Also the worry is what will happen with trinkets - Antorus has many good trinkets, but Emerald Nightmare had mostly bad ones, which made many classes chase m+ trinkets like memento, horn of valor or faulty coutermeasure.

Point was Blizzard seems to think no masterloot with kill split raiding and throttle how quickly hardcore guilds gear up, but that won't have much effect in the world where m+ loot is mostly comparable to raid loot, as you can't throttle m+ loot unless you change the whole system (and doesn't look like it).

[Mister Cheese]

All of your arguments are based of the view of someone who barely plays this game and has a lack of understanding of its systems, and doesn't understand why the hardcore playerbase is arguing for why Blizzard shouldn't be removing certain things to benefit the casual crowd. Calling things toxic doesn't solve anything. Knock it off. We already know there isn't a WoW without casuals.

Blizzard has no reason to start removing features that benefit progression guilds. For every point that is brought up. "That loot master just stole my loot." Well you fucking know what? "This guy with personal loot just looted something he didn't need, and he won't give it to someone who needs it." Have fun with that. All the loot systems have their problems. Do you know how easy it is to earn loot now? You don't even need to be in a guild anymore to get to an item level that rivals that of a mythic raider. You don't need to ever see a group using master loot, because only groups that have mostly guild members can use master loot. And if you don't want to see master loot, you can just leave and join another readily available group. It's just that simple.

Stop complaining. Stop defending Blizzard when they want to remove features that only offer more choices.

[Pooti]

But not a casual friendly one. In this type of scenario a person with more time on their hands gets ahead, you can say all the positives of that state of affairs, but casual-friendliness is not one of them.

Artifact is easy to reach 75 "softcap" atm but that wasn't always the case (where the "cap" was and what the effort to achieve it was), we have to wait and see how the azerite acquisition is tuned around, there's no guarantee it will feel perfect or it will feel bad, we have to see, but there's always a concern.

M+ is in a good place now (after nerf removing 3-chesting) but that's because raids counter it by having tiers - raids give less loot on average but that loot is more valuable, which balances each other out. That won't be the case in BFA. Also the worry is what will happen with trinkets - Antorus has many good trinkets, but Emerald Nightmare had mostly bad ones, which made many classes chase m+ trinkets like memento, horn of valor or faulty coutermeasure.

Point was Blizzard seems to think no masterloot with kill split raiding and throttle how quickly hardcore guilds gear up, but that won't have much effect in the world where m+ loot is mostly comparable to raid loot, as you can't throttle m+ loot unless you change the whole system (and doesn't look like it).

It is not casual friendly I suppose, but if you only play casually, why are you competing with people who are not? Play with other casual people.

[Leih]

The problem with personal loot is when you have an unbalanced raid setup, but you're an organised guild. If your 10-man raid is made up of 5 leather users and only has 1 plate user, there is a much higher chance the loot from the boss will include leather and those 5 leather users can share it around if they get something they don't need. That lonely single plate user can only get loot if he/she is the specific person who gets the plate drop and it's the thing they want. With Master Loot or Group Loot, every item has the same chance to drop regardless of raid setup, which feels more fair to me.

[Allenseiei]

If you think that about master loot then i pity you for playing a complete different game. Maybe if you stop playing on cesspool guilds with manbabies leading them you could actually see how good ML is.
I'm not saying personal loot is bad, i think its great for its purpose, but what I disagree in blizzard's decision is to FORCE personal loot to everyone. You are free to leave a guild who uses ML if u have distrust in its practice but dont penalize guilds that have existed for over a decade and have achieved good loot distribution from their loot council.

This casual - hardcore drama people keep pushing is retarded. Real hardcore players dont care about casuals, they just want to have their hard content. 99% of the cryers or vocal minority groups are casuals dissing out other casuals.
WoW is already "casualized" and its already a known fact that casuals give blizzard more of a reason to expand content (LFR) but its also casuals that dont care about the games content, since they ignore most of it.

What vocal minority groups that call themselves "casuals" just want welfare loot to overgear the content so they dont ever need to actually learn how to use their class at 70% capacity so they get their ego fit from that.