The problem is raiding

[therealbowser]

Lol no dude. What is wrong with you? Cata made raids more accessible. And current end game content is challenging. All good things. You mention the "community crying" what's this and many posts like it you make doing?

Best joke I've read on these boards in months! Unless you mean LFR, but somehow I doubt that.

WotLK was the expansion that best encouraged casual raiding -- of any raid, not 1-2 select mini raids, and without using LFR, which some people seem to have this mysterious vendetta against that I'll never truly understand.

Cataclysm made even entering base level raids at minimum size very difficult to get into, to an extent it practically killed raid pugging for a lot of players.

This thread is partially true though it was only 4.0-4.2 that raids were literally hurting the game, and it was because of their poor design that revolved around exclusion rather than inclusion. It's also why the raids in Cataclysm were so damn small.

[Sinte]

So why don't you go and play all those mmos that focus on open world instead of raiding,like swtor and guild wars 2? Oh wait,they are dead with miniscule remnants of a player base remaining. Lol I wonder why the only mmo games that survive are the raid focused ones :thinking:

[Berndorf]

Lol no dude. What is wrong with you? Cata made raids more accessible. And current end game content is challenging. All good things. You mention the "community crying" what's this and many posts like it you make doing?

This is called stating an opinion. People have become so insulated and defensive that they can't even see the difference any more.

[Surreality]

Mythic raiding should be the only way to get the best gear. Personally, as a casual player, I have no expectation of getting that gear nor do I feel I'm entitled to it. I get what my level of play allows me, which still isn't so bad. Something like 360 item level and level 25 amulet without really putting much effort into it at all. If I reach a point where I can't get anything better on that character, I play a different one.

[Xaredis]

Same to you, but replace my name with yours.

Except not only do you not understand the basic fundamentals you're also bad at math.

- You dont think effort should = better character/rewards.
- You don't believe time invested should result in more positive outcomes.
- You believe compounding layers of RNG that replace "agency" with "excitement" is superior to 1-2 levels of RNG alongside progression systems such as JP/VP points, professions, and gold farming.
- You don't believe being able to acquire the best gear in the game is worth caring about and that those who do have mental problems.

I hate to break it to you but these views are in complete contrast to every single trend represented in nearly all of the most successful RPG's in the video game industry and that's just a fact not an opinion. On a side note you very readily insult peoples intelligence or claim they have a mental illness when they disagree with you I'm sure you're representative of the majority and that the rest are just the "vocal minority". Enjoy reading some of my complaints in the patch notes for 8.1 (:

[Bhorin]

- You dont think effort should = better character/rewards.
- You don't believe time invested should result in more positive outcomes.
- You believe compounding layers of RNG that replace "agency" with "excitement" is superior to 1-2 levels of RNG alongside progression systems such as JP/VP points, professions, and gold farming.
- You don't believe being able to acquire the best gear in the game is worth caring about and that those who do have mental problems.

I hate to break it to you but these views are in complete contrast to every single trend represented in nearly all of the most successful RPG's in the video game industry and that's just a fact not an opinion. On a side note you very readily insult peoples intelligence or claim they a mental illness when they disagree with you I'm sure you're representative of the majority and that the rest are just the "vocal minority". Enjoy reading some of my complaints in the patch notes for 8.1 (:

Most of what you said doesn't represent my opinion at all, so therefore add "bad reading comprehension" to your list of feats.

[Berndorf]

Quit calling raiding in Vanilla WoW a new thing. Raiding existed in MMOs since at least EverQuest, and was in many other MMOs prior to WoW.

Raiding is the end game coop goal. Not really much else to replace it with in a Massive Multiplayer game.

That said, while it should offer the best rewards, I think you should be able to get close or similar rewards with longer duration grindier activities.

Some people are really having a problem understanding what was actually stated in this op. Most of the people who play wow joined during tbc and wotlk and at that time raiding was new to them. Not to wow or the entire genre of mmo's. I'm also not saying raiding need to end either despite many seemingly thinking that's the point of this thread. I mean honestly I don't even care because I knew most people would get all defensive after reading the thread title but I still completely stand by everything I wrote here. I've watched wow as a player for 12 years now. I can see where its headed.

[Soon-TM]

I don't have any hopes for Blizzard to implement player driven content, all their games are tailored nowadays towards the extreme hand holding treadmill skinner box crap for every game they have. They can't even create another MMO (like the failure of project Titan). I'm not surprised they stay in their confort zone of raid centric theme parky expansions because they don't have the talent to do anything else. Even the vanilla developing team was already plagued with PVE tryhard who only raided in everquest.

Also the current WoW community would hate to lose the hand holding and have to generate content themselves. The game is so on-rails even if blizzard added some kind of persistent content pvp or pve with building castles, defending areas, creating rogue organizations neither horde nor alliance, having random events, they would be lost and cry. Just like they cried during the WoTlK ghoul event because "wah wah i can't afk and continue my snoozefest while leveling". Its a community of carebears

I think that what you describe in your second paragraph is directly related to what you say in the first one. I.e., Blizzard has gone WAY overboard with handholding in most of their games, so they have created an according playerbase.

So why don't you go and play all those mmos that focus on open world instead of raiding,like swtor and guild wars 2? Oh wait,they are dead with miniscule remnants of a player base remaining. Lol I wonder why the only mmo games that survive are the raid focused ones :thinking:

Do you have any numbers or sources to back up such an extraordinary claim?

[Xaredis]

Most of what you said doesn't represent my opinion at all, so therefore add "bad reading comprehension" to your list of feats.

And now you're lying you vehemently vouched for TFing/WFing and that it was a completely fine system standalone with no changes needed. This by itself is in direct contrast to the first point, the third point, and the fourth. In regards to the second I suppose if you believe that time invested into "heroic dungeon spam" should be equal to time invested "into heroic raiding" then sure TFing/WFing make this true. But with respect to time investment in "self improvement" and "achieving certain goals to progress your character weekly" then in that since advocating for TFing/WFing to remain in the game as they are is in completely contrast to the second point as well. So unless you've changed your views dramatically these were points you believed in as of last week.

[Torto]

Raiding is the purest form of cooperation in a MMORPG though

It's a massive group content where players have fun and cooperate together to defy the odds.It's litterally the essence of MMORPG gameplays,and the endgoal of most RPGS : getting together with you companions at the end of your journey to defeat the toughest foes yet,foes that will not fall without you and your companions working as one

It also gives non-raiders something to look up to and move forward to

No one is suggesting raiding should be removed from the game, there just needs to be something more.

I'm a non raider and i assure you I don't look up to those that do. These days if I see someone running around in high end raid gear i just assume they paid for a carry. The novelty, uniqueness and mystique is well and truly gone. It's been raid or die for so long now players are starting to choose to die and leave the game. It needs new content for non raiders that are crying out for progression.

Legion was a step in the right direction with M+, class halls and quest lines like Suramar. BfA tried and failed with Island Expeditions and warfronts but at least its something new. They need to do more to keep non raiders invested in the game, twisting their arm and forcing them to raid isn't the answer.

[Deleted]

Raiding is a tumor that's been ruining MMOs for a long, long time; As -a thing to do-, raiding isn't bad. However, when your game is designed solely for raids, with everything else subservient to that, every other aspect begins to suffer. From class design to how relevant the world is, I feel like raiding as the main focus of game design is responsible for a lot of things going down the drain, and just not being fun.

I feel like that's what people miss the most about classic. Sure, you had to raid to get the best gear, but that wasn't what the game was about. It was about the journey through the world of warcraft with other players. Not about 'gogogo buy 120 boost and raid with us!'. And the class design sure as hell wasn't based on 'well this spec is a raid dps, this spec is a raid tank, and i dont care if they're shit everywhere else'. A lot of specs were bad in raiding, but very viable and FUN to play in other parts of the game. When you reduce & streamline every class to 'bare minimum required to raid', you get disaster that is BfA's classes.

The future of MMOs lies in social, player-driven sandboxes that retain the 'feel' of old WoW's 'journey through the world' adventure, but with mechanics that support endless supply of player driven content -- rather than gating the players into what the devs think they should do. The first game company that understands this and doesn't shit the bed with pay to win will be the 'real' wow killer.

Unfortunately, the 'core' of WoW's audience nowadays is mostly pve raiding care bears who've been catered to for years, at the expense of everyone else. And I strongly agree that shifting the game from catering to 'PvE tryhards', to catering to a more 'RPG' crowd again would do a lot of good in the long run. PvE'ers will still have their raids -- it's just that the rest of the game (like class design) shouldn't have to suffer for them getting their tiers in time.

hmm, well... This is a new one... so wow devs are not catering for casuals... they are catering for hardcores...!

[Torto]

Raiding should not be the main focus of a broad audience MMORPG. As raiding always was niche content. Well, before LFR, that is.

^ exactly this

[Bhorin]

And now you're lying you vehemently vouched for TFing/WFing and that it was a completely fine system standalone with no changes needed. This by itself is in direct contrast to the first point, the third point, and the fourth. In regards to the second I suppose if you believe that time invested into "heroic dungeon spam" should be equal to time invested "into heroic raiding" then sure TFing/WFing make this true. But with respect to time investment in "self improvement" and "achieving certain goals to progress your character weekly" then in that since advocating for TFing/WFing to remain in the game as they are is in completely contrast to the second point as well. So unless you've changed your views dramatically these were points you believed in as of last week.

What you said is actually false (in particular with points 1 and 4), but I am not going to bother to outline why because you're completely off topic. Nice bait though.

(Edit: Also, finding it hilarious you told that guy not to reply to me because it is "not worth" it--yet here you are writing several paragraphs full of strawmen about an off topic conversation.)

[Ordaine]

This is called stating an opinion. People have become so insulated and defensive that they can't even see the difference any more.

How can you call it an "opinion" when you start throwing in statistics and made up percentages in an attempt to make fiction a fact?

It's also a fact that raiding is END GAME content hence you get the max level gear possible. If raiding was also going to be the death of wow, it would have died in vanilla when it was at it's hardest point. Molten Core, AQ20/40, Naxx.

The community has basically devolved into a "give me" type personality which wants end game loot without doing the end game work.
Keystones were a filler for gear for catch up and raiders or those that just don't want to raid, but want gear.
If you DO want gear and don't want to raid, just keystone grind... You honestly can't expect to get gear without a grind or challenge of some kind.

The vendor in 8.1 is also being added to get rid of the rng factor of farming azerite gear and just allowing you to buy it out right. You are still going to have to farm content for currency. Hell you are going to have to raid and do high level keys to get the high level gear in a reasonable amount of time.
It is by no means a mechanic being introduced to appease the lazy, but a pay off for those putting in the time and getting bad rng.


If you want what you post to be taken as an opinion, you should probably post it as such instead of trying to make what you say a fact.

[Torto]

Mythic raiding should be the only way to get the best gear. Personally, as a casual player, I have no expectation of getting that gear nor do I feel I'm entitled to it. I get what my level of play allows me, which still isn't so bad. Something like 360 item level and level 25 amulet without really putting much effort into it at all. If I reach a point where I can't get anything better on that character, I play a different one.

Why? Why should it? Why not make mythic raiding the fastest way to get the best gear? If I can get an 400 ilvl piece of gear from a mythic drop in one night or earn it after 4 weeks doing a different activity I actually enjoy, who does that hurt? If a raider can get bis in 3 months and i can get the same bis after 6 months doing something else what is the harm?

And before you rush in and say i don't need the high level gear, that is the problem. Blizzard isn't making content for non raiders that requires us to get bis to complete it.

[MatadorMedia]

I don't think the variety of options at end-game is ever a problem. The problem for me is mainly RNG. You used to be able to target exactly what you wanted (the ilvl, the piece of loot, the pet/mount or whatever). But you can't do that anymore. The chance of an item arbitrarily forging to some higher ilvl means there's no reliability in spending gold on enchants, b/c you might get a higher item randomly any second. You can't target the pieces of loot because the azerite armor has random affixes. The pet and mount drops are all random drops on islands. There's no way to target anything in this game anymore. It's just play a bunch of random shite in the game and cross your fingers that some random RNG reward will plop in your lap. Total garbage.

[Berndorf]

How can you call it an "opinion" when you start throwing in statistics and made up percentages in an attempt to make fiction a fact?

It's also a fact that raiding is END GAME content hence you get the max level gear possible. If raiding was also going to be the death of wow, it would have died in vanilla when it was at it's hardest point. Molten Core, AQ20/40, Naxx.

The community has basically devolved into a "give me" type personality which wants end game loot without doing the end game work.
Keystones were a filler for gear for catch up and raiders or those that just don't want to raid, but want gear.
If you DO want gear and don't want to raid, just keystone grind... You honestly can't expect to get gear without a grind or challenge of some kind.

The vendor in 8.1 is also being added to get rid of the rng factor of farming azerite gear and just allowing you to buy it out right. You are still going to have to farm content for currency. Hell you are going to have to raid and do high level keys to get the high level gear in a reasonable amount of time.
It is by no means a mechanic being introduced to appease the lazy, but a pay off for those putting in the time and getting bad rng.


If you want what you post to be taken as an opinion, you should probably post it as such instead of trying to make what you say a fact.

Are you even listening to your self while you type? You called what I wrote in the op crying. I told you it what it was and you still are clinging to some need to tell me all kinds of nonsense like my facts are wrong therefore how could I be stating an opinion. You do you dude. If my opinions bother you so much that's again you being part of a very insular and defensive community that will attack something after reading the first sentence. Its not new to me. Its sort of what the internet has been for the 20+ years I've been on it.

[Sastank]

Best joke I've read on these boards in months! Unless you mean LFR, but somehow I doubt that.

WotLK was the expansion that best encouraged casual raiding -- of any raid, not 1-2 select mini raids, and without using LFR, which some people seem to have this mysterious vendetta against that I'll never truly understand.

Cataclysm made even entering base level raids at minimum size very difficult to get into, to an extent it practically killed raid pugging for a lot of players.

This thread is partially true though it was only 4.0-4.2 that raids were literally hurting the game, and it was because of their poor design that revolved around exclusion rather than inclusion. It's also why the raids in Cataclysm were so damn small.

Yes. LFR and Flex raiding both have raids open to more people and in different sized guilds/groups. Not an opinion or debatable lol.

[Soon-TM]

hmm, well... This is a new one... so wow devs are not catering for casuals... they are catering for hardcores...!

Of course they are, and always have. Even in terrible xpacs like WoD, the high level raiding content was very good. The only xpac that gave non raiders something interesting to do was Legion - and maaaaaaybe MoP, but that would be stretching it.

[ReD-EyeD]

Of course they are, and always have. Even in terrible xpacs like WoD, the high level raiding content was very good. The only xpac that gave non raiders something interesting to do was Legion - and maaaaaaybe MoP, but that would be stretching it.

Absolutely agree.
"terrible xpac like WoD" brought to us the best raiding tiers in a long time. BRF is probably the best raid ever in WoW if you drop away nostalgia factors.