The problem is raiding

[M1r4g3]

That's the primary reason I think wow subs have been in decline more or less for 5 expansions straight(since wotlk). Let me explain though. Back in wotlk raiding was still this sort of new and exciting thing for most people who were playing the game. It honestly felt like everyone was into it back then. It seems like a huge % of people still playing wow started during wotlk or earlier. The problem is i think the % of those people who still want to raid on a regular basis is deceasing by about 10-15% each exp since then. Bliz has tried a few things to get people to stick around for other end game content with the only partial success I would say being M+ dungeons. Its just not good enough though. So many players who come back for new expansions now are only doing it to dust off some of their older characters and see the sights for a while then leave again.

The other problem is the degree to which the community cries when Bliz provides any other way besides raiding to get good gear. Why are people so obsessed with raiding being the only good way to get gear in this game? Without progression people won't play. ie The game desperately needs other ways to get gear even if its something as easy as warfronts. Which is why they are bringing in a new currency for 8.1. People need to give up the entitlement. Let Bliz explore new forms of end game content that go right alongside raiding and dungeons. Its time. The amount of time being put into raids by the dev teams needs to be cut in half so they can actually polish these other things well enough that people might find them to be fun and worth doing. Raiding is going to be the anchor that sinks this game if it doesn't find a way to innovate itself.

Oh cool i want the TBC design philosophy back aswell!

[Xerfall]

WQ is repeating the same quests that had been done during levelling. Mythic+ is dungeons. Warfront and Island expeditions are the only two new contents and they pale in comparison to raids. Where there any other contents besides those? Did I miss anything, serious question by the way. I may have.

They provided alternative to acquire gear for sure, not alternative content. If you look at previous patch releases, most had been focus on raids and some dungeons. They had release some non raid content before, Firelands daily, Timeless Isle, etc. So hopefully they would do something like those.

They pale in comparison in what category?
Difficulty? Gear level? Fun factor? .. what exactly are you comparing them with in raiding?

[MoanaLisa]

Good post

Thank you. I'll take the chance to make an additional observation that removing LFR from the raiding equation--as many want to do--makes the general point about too much development resource allocation to too few things even more relevant.

[Revamp Man]

Then I misjudged you. Cataclysm absolutely opened up a ton of raiding options in Dragon Soul's LFR difficulty. And Flex raiding was even better; I wish flex raiding still worked the same way, queueing directly as a group for specific wings, but hey... that's just me. One way or another, I agree. I couldn't imagine that I found someone who actually is able to appreciate LFR's purpose here.

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LFR has a toxic community and some people want more compelling content than beating a pinata. Removing LFR wouldn't make people start raiding previous tiers, they'd just jump to the current one regardless so that argument is poor to begin with. It's been that way since, hell, TBC.

That said I do agree that we need more reasons to keep running raids. What they did in Legion with the Balance of Power quests was a good one.

Catchup gear maybe made it possible late TBC bit otherwise no...you were not skipping tiers
No group was saying "why kill vashj lets go Rob illidan" and if they were then they weren't doing well.

[Morgaith]

I want a game that has the launcher like LoL, but social features and gameplay of wow pve. Guilds, raiding, M+. Basically the game without the world.

like vindictus with wow gameplay then, cool idea honestly.

[Fendrith]

That's the primary reason I think wow subs have been in decline more or less for 5 expansions straight(since wotlk). Let me explain though. Back in wotlk raiding was still this sort of new and exciting thing for most people who were playing the game. It honestly felt like everyone was into it back then. It seems like a huge % of people still playing wow started during wotlk or earlier. The problem is i think the % of those people who still want to raid on a regular basis is deceasing by about 10-15% each exp since then. Bliz has tried a few things to get people to stick around for other end game content with the only partial success I would say being M+ dungeons. Its just not good enough though. So many players who come back for new expansions now are only doing it to dust off some of their older characters and see the sights for a while then leave again.

The other problem is the degree to which the community cries when Bliz provides any other way besides raiding to get good gear. Why are people so obsessed with raiding being the only good way to get gear in this game? Without progression people won't play. ie The game desperately needs other ways to get gear even if its something as easy as warfronts. Which is why they are bringing in a new currency for 8.1. People need to give up the entitlement. Let Bliz explore new forms of end game content that go right alongside raiding and dungeons. Its time. The amount of time being put into raids by the dev teams needs to be cut in half so they can actually polish these other things well enough that people might find them to be fun and worth doing. Raiding is going to be the anchor that sinks this game if it doesn't find a way to innovate itself.

I don't really have anything to add to that first part. I think the problem is with raiding's inherent design feature - it requires 20 people to commit about a part-time job's worth of hours to get anything out of it. For the percentage of players who have that, that's great. For those who don't, it's really not particularly appealing.

To your second point, it's simply a consequence of the design philosophy - If you have progression of power (linear progression here), then you must reward players for doing the harder content. As a mythic raider myself, players who have only the skill level to clear normal getting the same gear as me would frustrate me. M+ is reasonable - it's also hard, but has scaling dfificulty. You're rewarded for going higher (up to a 10) and it only requires 5 people. Tying them to challenge modes like legion would be okay. But it's not about an obsession with raiding... it's that raiding is just harder than most of the other content aside from m+, and they want to reward players for accomplishing things that are hard.

The last thing I'll say is that blizzard has an overall problem where they believe the most important way to progress is vertically. You 'progress' when you get more power. And then all the ways to do that are arduous and take forever. M+ dungeons are 40 minutes each roughly if you make the timer... why not 20? Raids require 20 people... why not 10? Follow-up is that there are tons of non-linear ways to progress. Cosmetics (See: Legion Challenge Artifacts, panda challenge modes, literally every mount achievement ever... ), Convenience (See: Flying), Titles (Also achievements). People have historically eaten that up, not just in this game, but in other popular mmos. The idea that progression must be linear and must be big... and that because of that you 'must' invest '8-10hrs' per week in order to 'keep up' is not just antiquated, but it's also been proven not to be the only (or best way) to do progression.

[Osmeric]

I think the devs honestly do not know what could replace raids. They've looked, it seems to me, but haven't found anything that could serve the same purpose.

[Fendrith]

I beg to differ. I play 6 hours a week and raid mythic. I think your view of what casual means is skewed. Casual doesn't mean you don't raid. You can be hardcore and play 40 hours a week and never step foot in a raid. Casual doesn't refer to the difficulty of content you do.

I'm not sure the community agrees here. I think the consensus is that 'casual' refers to a combination of time played *and* difficulty that you do (successfully).

[Berndorf]

But at some point effort and reward need to correlate. We already have easy 325 blues from quests and 340 epics from emissary quests. I don't know that there's a good way to make heroic raid level rewards available without it being group content of some kind.

And yes, effort/difficulty DOES need to come into it. That's part of the RPG heritage - you take on new challenges and get access to new content and better gear with which it meet those new challenges.

At the end of the day what we are really talking about is people's time. Bliz wants you to spend time in their game and uses loot as the main way to do so after you level up. I'm not specifically wanting or talking about solo content here either. Group content can be somewhere beyond face roll easy and without feeling like you need to keep track of 6 different timers to do an encounter and 3-4 different phases. Something where you get in for 30m-1h, get a decent amount of currency for your time with a chance of decent loot. The problem with M+ is that, well really there are various problems with it but to get into a +5 or higher group you really need to be raiding to some degree or doing it with friends. The other thing is they depend too much on making trash harder and there is too much trash in each dungeon. Plus you get one chance at loot at the end and so you could very easily do 5 M+ dungeons in a week which could take 3-4 hours plus the time spent finding a group and only get what you get from your cache as a reward. Which might not even be an upgrade. Then on top of that is all it takes is one person leaving and the group is screwed.

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Which purpose would that be?

1.) Telling the final plot
Could be done in quests. In the open world. Where quests should end if they start there.
2.) Giving groups content to play
Could be done in dungeons, which are way more successfull. Dungeons could flex size from 1 (!) to 15.
3.) Having competition and esports
Yes. Thats the only reason raids are still in the game. But even that could be replaced by dungeons.

Raids are a relic of the past. A way too large scale of grouped players. Favored to be organized. That is not what nowadays group play should be. And surely not be the only way to progress your character at some point.

ya I agree with a lot of this. Dungeons could be 5 or 10 people. Keep them 30m to an hour. Less trash. I'd also say make them just heroic or mythic at launch. Then add one level of difficulty with each patch. Add currency. Profit. Some challenge in a reasonable amount of time with some reward is all that is needed.

[rohoz]

At the end of the day what we are really talking about is people's time. Bliz wants you to spend time in their game and uses loot as the main way to do so after you level up. I'm not specifically wanting or talking about solo content here either. Group content can be somewhere beyond face roll easy and without feeling like you need to keep track of 6 different timers to do an encounter and 3-4 different phases. Something where you get in for 30m-1h, get a decent amount of currency for your time with a chance of decent loot. The problem with M+ is that, well really there are various problems with it but to get into a +5 or higher group you really need to be raiding to some degree or doing it with friends. The other thing is they depend too much on making trash harder and there is too much trash in each dungeon. Plus you get one chance at loot at the end and so you could very easily do 5 M+ dungeons in a week which could take 3-4 hours plus the time spent finding a group and only get what you get from your cache as a reward. Which might not even be an upgrade. Then on top of that is all it takes is one person leaving and the group is screwed.

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ya I agree with a lot of this. Dungeons could be 5 or 10 people. Keep them 30m to an hour. Less trash. I'd also say make them just heroic or mythic at launch. Then add one level of difficulty with each patch. Add currency. Profit. Some challenge in a reasonable amount of time with some reward is all that is needed.

so m+ right now?
what you're asking for is a handout, as that's what the currency model boils down to.

And fwiw trash is fine. Idk how you want a 30 min dungeon without trash but eh. Most dungeons have 3-8 pulls between bosses, and that's not even that much.

[elvor0]

I beg to differ. I play 6 hours a week and raid mythic. I think your view of what casual means is skewed. Casual doesn't mean you don't raid. You can be hardcore and play 40 hours a week and never step foot in a raid. Casual doesn't refer to the difficulty of content you do.

I dunno, I'd say it still doesn't make you casual. Most higher end raiders (except y'know the REAL top end) aren't really playing that much a week in general I don't think, because they don't need to. They don't need to spend hours pugging or redoing content because their group fell apart. You log on, do your 6 hours, log off, maybe do some m+, but again, don't take you that long because you've got guildies to do it with. It's not casual, it's efficient.

Not to say being casual means you have to be poor skill level, just that I don't think you could call anyone doing mythic casual.

[Berndorf]

so m+ right now?
what you're asking for is a handout, as that's what the currency model boils down to.

And fwiw trash is fine. Idk how you want a 30 min dungeon without trash but eh. Most dungeons have 3-8 pulls between bosses, and that's not even that much.

Currency is giving you something for the time it took to do the dungeon and defeat it rather than nothing. If you see that as a handout then that's your prerogative but it a silly way to see it imo. Its a form of bad luck protection and allows you to have certain items to have as a goal to spend your time on. People who are better or better geared will be able to complete more dungeons or w/e we call them and thus get more currency. Trash isn't fine either. Its a common opinion even here that there is way too much of it.

[rohoz]

Currency is giving you something for the time it took to do the dungeon and defeat it rather than nothing. If you see that as a handout then that's your prerogative but it a silly way to see it imo. Its a form of bad luck protection and allows you to have certain items to have as a goal to spend your time on. People who are better or better geared will be able to complete more dungeons or w/e we call them and thus get more currency. Trash isn't fine either. Its a common opinion even here that there is way too much of it.

You get a guaranteed piece at the end of the week 1)
2) mmo-champ kids complain about everything in game

[Berndorf]

You get a guaranteed piece at the end of the week 1)
2) mmo-champ kids complain about everything in game

Still too way too much trash in at least half the dungeons. Its pointless except to waste people's time but then again you don't think people spending time on something is enough to ask for some kind of compensation. Even though that's a primary rationale for handing out currency irl.

[Kokolums]

Raids are not the problem.

The problem is the destruction of the in-game community.

Trying to destroy raiding while not fixing the in-game community just breaks WoW more.

[Osmeric]

Which purpose would that be?

The only one that matters: retaining subs.

[Berndorf]

Raids are not the problem.

The problem is the destruction of the in-game community.

Trying to destroy raiding while not fixing the in-game community just breaks WoW more.

No one is trying to destroy raiding here. ffs

[Jastall]

Yeah Tbc raids = Legion/BFA raids in difficulty you sperg.

I'm not even sure what argument you're attempting to make here. That BC raids were way more difficult than Legion ones? Mythic KJ would like to have a word with you. Unless you think the grossly bugged and overtuned Kael'thas was a shining example of raid design, as every other BC boss was killed quicker than most Legion/BfA endbosses once players could feasibly get to them.

[HCLM]

I'm a casual who does mythic. I swear people don't know the meaning of casual.

You are raiding or you are 'raiding' mythic? Because being 2/8 at this point of xpac doesn't really count as raiding mythic. If you spend 3 night a week, playing for 3 hours, that is already 9 hours a week. On top of that if you are Raiding Mythic, you're supposed to be on pair with other players in your guild. So farming pots, and gold for runes, doing m+for better gear. To sum it up if you are spending like 12hours a week in the game, you're not casual.

[Heathy]

its funny because in the early days not raiding every day was pretty much, casual, if you weren't raiding pretty much all week you weren't hardcore so you were casual.

in tbc I went from friends and family to a semi hardcore raiding guild, semi hardcore being raid signup expectation vs the true casual of raiding when you can and not forcing ppl to show up to keep their spot. in classic i don't remember being required to sign up but we did still raid 3 days a week, the same amount i did in tbc, the difference between the two guilds was mostly down to raid expectation and attendance. its funny because i was an officer in my tbc raid guild for t6, but i can't remember what our attendance requirement was, i think it was 90% but it might have been lower.

I guess its just shifted to whether or not you raid mythic or heroic/normal, if you raid mythic you probably aren't casual but if you raid heroic and normal you probably are. if you're raiding heroic you most likely could do mythic but don't want to for any number of reasons, perhaps it being highly tuned doesn't interest you, perhaps you just don't have time to wipe 100s of times till you get it. but its just funny how that changed over the years.

personally i just try to have fun and try to not let lables dictate anything specific about anyone. pretty sure a lot of casuals could be top tier players if they could spend enough time bashing their heads against the content. what i've learned over the years is the content is hard but once you wiped on it 50-100 times it starts falling into place after a while, the stars start aligning.