How 'Casualization' Is Saving WoW For Raiders

[rda]

And there are multiple avenues for those individuals to gear up entirely via RNG, as well as the option for them to join raid groups or guilds that do NOT use ML. Removing the ML option is another example of a terrible solution to a nonexistent problem.

There are nearly no raid groups that do not use ML. ML gives too many perks to the master. It's a genuinely bad option, it does far more bad than it does good.

The problem is abuse. It is real, ML is abused all the time. ML is part of why people dislike high-level raiding.

If people are so concerned with ML, leave it for mythic, but enforce PL (and disable trading) everywhere below mythic, as a first step.

[schwank05]

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.

I love Master Loot, and Had some of the most fun I have ever had in some of the old GDKP Runs back in Wrath.

[melodramocracy]

There are nearly no raid groups that do not use ML.

Citation needed. Our guild ran PL 100% of the time, and folks would trade as required. Removing the trade option is icing on an already dumb cake.

[rda]

Citation needed. Our guild ran PL 100% of the time, and folks would trade as required. Removing the trade option is icing on an already dumb cake.

Do a scan of guild application pages and check what PUG raids use. Your guild is a complete outlier and it being a complete outlier explains why you aren't seeing ML as an issue - you haven't been subject to it.

[Deleted]

One of the former officers in our guild tried to push for ML loot in the next tier, when he was outvoted he quit the game.

Literally for him the game of WoW was to be the one divvying loot. That was his ego trip. And that's why it needs to go.

[Emerald Archer]

jest because its convinient it doesnt mean its good for playerbase overall

thats why they disagree

So if we're not discussing what you were talking about (I was not discussing convenience, but talking about how it's doable in a fair way) what's your point? Did you just not read the first 2 parts of the discussion and jump in after?

[Germs]

One of the former officers in our guild tried to push for ML loot in the next tier, when he was outvoted he quit the game.

Literally for him the game of WoW was to be the one divvying loot. That was his ego trip. And that's why it needs to go.

I love how people quote stuff like this as the reason master looter needs to go. Let me clear this up for you. Its leaving because that's the only way Blizzard has found to decrease the prevalence of split runs during progression which is the actual toxic behavior hurting raiders. Master Looter serves as a vital tool to put gear on the players who will use it most effectively for pushing early kills. Its as simple as that. Its not because someone was mean to you in a pug, its not because meanie elitists are selling runs, and it sure as hell is not because someone is "abusing" ML in a pug.

[rda]

^^ Maybe you are right, but that just means that Blizzard are removing ML for a reason while there is a different, much bigger reason to remove it.

[The Stormbringer]

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.

I loved it...!

...for the amount of gold it made me, that is. It paid for 1.5 years worth of sub time. And the Salvage Yard gave me lots of transmog I didn't have, admittedly usually not complete sets, but still.

[Deleted]

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'.

This is quite the mind-blowing read for me, so thanks for that I guess.

Can you share some of the experiences that made you feel this way? I've been in various guilds and have raided at a pretty decent level since Mogu'shan Vaults, and not once have I experienced this so-called unfairness of the ML system firsthand, so I feel like you might've just been playing with the wrong people.

[mingarrubia]

I for one am totally OK with ML removal. I think it's a step in the right direction.

[NihilSustinet]

Hardcore raiders have already left in droves. if casuals are saving wow for anyone, its the casuals.

[Narwal]

What I disagree with in WoW today is the release schedule accompanied by catch-up mechanics for every patch/raid tier. I want content to be gated by gear checks combined with skill level. High level gear should be rare, and should take time to acquire. Raids should require that higher level gear in order to be successful. Heck, even bring back resist type gear scenarios, or special items that take time to farm required for specific bosses (think nef in vanilla and the cloak). This means, getting rid of lfr and other "free loot" modes in the game. I think the fun in this game is the group play of dungeons, raiding, instanced pvp.

[Mister Cheese]

One of the former officers in our guild tried to push for ML loot in the next tier, when he was outvoted he quit the game.

Literally for him the game of WoW was to be the one divvying loot. That was his ego trip. And that's why it needs to go.

One of the few exceptions to the rule and you act as if this is the reason they are removing master loot.

[Cyero]

jest because its convinient it doesnt mean its good for playerbase overall

thats why they disagree

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it was - but devs managing game atm are not devs from back then

they went full retard mode on supporting only hardcore playerbase killing the game in the process.

now they made 180 turn - all shit like islands allied races and all other stuff is clearly aimed as casual content.

ML change is showing clear change in game direction. wouldnt surpirsed me if in month they announce removal of mythic raiding from game

- - - Updated - - -



thats is straight lie though

last 5 years in game have been nothing but catering for hardcore crowd - mythic raiding , removal of jp/vp , removal of gear on vendors equal to raiding gear , puting in mythic + that only raiders benefit from because low mythic + levels dont offer anything worthwhile.

thats not catering to casuals - that turning off casual customers from your product.

I mean so far the island content seems interesting though then again I'm sort of new to wow so I don't know what's being casualized or what ever

[Polarthief]

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'.

Oof, your thread had me going there until you lost all credibility with this.

You think RAW RNG and giving loot to the raiders who are shit and garbage to the players carrying the carries is FAIR? If you legit tell any serious raider that ML is unfair and Personal is fair, they are going to laugh in your face, myself included.

[Pensylvestor]

There isn't a way to know 100% what will benefit the team the absolute most, but you get as close as you can. It isn't just "best player OR highest % upgrade" there's a mix of both that goes into it. And ofc there's potential for it to not be the best possible decision, but any reasonable person knows that the person in charge is doing the best they can as a human.

But the last part, about the loot bias cause of RL, shouldn't come into it. That is a clear negative of the loot system, not what it's primarily used for, but a poor outcome that can happen if you have a bad leadership.

It seems to me that you've had some loot bias issues in the past, that's the only reason I can think you'd bring that up.

I'd imagine most people have experienced some sort of loot bias in one form or another. I've had similar experiences even in a couple top 100 world guilds. And in most cases, if you see it happen once, it will happen again if you remain in that guild.

[Emerald Archer]

I'd imagine most people have experienced some sort of loot bias in one form or another. I've had similar experiences even in a couple top 100 world guilds. And in most cases, if you see it happen once, it will happen again if you remain in that guild.

Yeah most people have for sure seen it or been apart of it, but that doesn't mean it happens in all guilds. My last guild it was pretty obvious it was happening, but every guild prior was clean, no bias. The guild i'm in now is exactly the same, clean af and no bias.

My point is just that there are definitely guilds who can and do pull off a fair masterloot.

[kamuimac]

I loved it...!

...for the amount of gold it made me, that is. It paid for 1.5 years worth of sub time. And the Salvage Yard gave me lots of transmog I didn't have, admittedly usually not complete sets, but still.

see i dont know why people complain about mission tables since they bought me 3 years of game time , all other blizzard games that i didnt have + destiny 2 , everything from game store (pets, mounts , helms ) , virtual blizzcon tickets and i still have few mln gold left -_-

if it wasnt for them i would probably never tried out overwatch as im not much on fps games but i did

and people hate them - dont understand why

but thats derailing thread so ... yay ML is gone time to rejoice

[Deleted]

they should remove mythic or do it accessible to everyone in pugs