The problem is raiding

[crusadernero]

The hassle is that it doesnt pose any challenge and there are things like raidfinder that provide better gear for the same non existant levels of effort.
So in essence you are trapped to do stupid easy dungeon normals to get to apropriate ilvl bracket to do stupid easy heroic mode to get the ilvl bracket to do STUPID EASY raid finder and then you get ready for still quite unchallenging normal raids. everything before normal raiding is a waste of time because its easy hence everyone can have it done hence it has no value. Now with propper incremental levels of difficulty to all those modes with the lowest difficulty already posing moderate levels of challenge and the item rewards scaling accordingly the gear will again be rewarding and killing a boss that you hand to learn to overcome would feel satisfying. Guilds would be excellent environments for such progress and it would also revitalize and detoxify the player community since players would have to count on others to acomplish their goals. It would also force bad apples to be less of a cunt to others or keep them in limbo of solo content that should at max grant them an occasional blue item.

In essence the system would then reward work, time commitment, positive social interaction and skill not laziness, egoism, trivial grind of unchallenging content.

But people like torish dont want time commitment, positive social interaction with strangers and skills. Its easy, obtainable content done with very few friends or even NPCs. Why bother interacting with other people and doing hard content when you can just complete a raid with 1 friend?

As you decribe, the content is very easy. It requires little work. Yet, he is not happy. He wants it to be even easier to do. He dont want to count on others to accomplish his/their goals, he wants to do that alone. He wants to click on a NPC that helps him complete raids.

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Right, and i love that content. Would love that for the current raiding content as well. To have something to do with a small group of friends.

yeah, you see here. He wants all raids to be faceroll like old raids are. Pull the whole raid, kill everything, collect loot and leave. No skill needed in any way at all. But most of all, no need to interact with other players. God forbid if one has to co-op with someone on challenging content.

[Trumpcat]

Raiding has kept WoW alive for many years, Blizzard would know what content pays off. Funny that you say problem is raiding... Plenty of MMOs out there with minimal to no raid content, go enjoy them.

I would recommend Star Wars: The Old Republic. It has about 10 raids in its 7+ lifetime, no focus on endgame and loooots of story and voice over. I heard it's doing great.. ever since it went free to play and from 200 servers at launch it has 5 now.

Them people playing the biggest MMO in the world and asking it were a single player game...

[Alexeht]

When raiding do not give BiS items, then people will just do M+ runs until they throw up and see that there is no reason to play anymore. I always loved raiding, but now there is a little reason to play since RL want you to run M+ so you inflate your ilvl BEFORE you raid, and then you go on raid to get items that you will disenchant since you have better ones - this is current reward of raiding which IS harder than M+, and that's why people do not want to raid. So yeah, problem isn't raiding, it is M+ ilvl inflation...

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Raiding has kept WoW alive for many years, Blizzard would know what content pays off. Funny that you say problem is raiding... Plenty of MMOs out there with minimal to no raid content, go enjoy them.

I would recommend Star Wars: The Old Republic. It has about 10 raids in its 7+ lifetime, no focus on endgame and loooots of story and voice over. I heard it's doing great.. ever since it went free to play and from 200 servers at launch it has 5 now.

Them people playing the biggest MMO in the world and asking it were a single player game...

So much THIS!

[HuxNeva]

But people like torish dont want time commitment, positive social interaction with strangers and skills. Its easy, obtainable content done with very few friends or even NPCs. Why bother interacting with other people and doing hard content when you can just complete a raid with 1 friend?

As you decribe, the content is very easy. It requires little work. Yet, he is not happy. He wants it to be even easier to do. He dont want to count on others to accomplish his/their goals, he wants to do that alone. He wants to click on a NPC that helps him complete raids.

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yeah, you see here. He wants all raids to be faceroll like old raids are. Pull the whole raid, kill everything, collect loot and leave. No skill needed in any way at all. But most of all, no need to interact with other players. God forbid if one has to co-op with someone on challenging content.

I don't know @torish , but the most common mistake in these discussions is that people conflate two things: Social and Skills.
You can be very unsocial and still have top skills and like difficult challenging content (e.g. early mage tower)
You can be very social, but not care too much about 'get gud' or hard challenges (social N raiding guild)

People will choose their game first and foremost according to their social/fun type.
Then they might choose within that type content that might challenge them but does not frustrate them.

It is not 'skill' that separates LFR from N, or M from HC. It is primarily the difference in social stances in the first place.

It's probably heresy to these boards, but there do exist 'LFR Heroes' that study their class, the encounters to find an edge, simm their gear, have the same skills as other raiders and would get orange parses for their ilvl in there if such a thing existed, but would rather quit playing than ever join a guild or apply to a PUG.

There are also many HC raiders that have more than enough skill to be successful in M, but wouldn't want to trade the social inclusiveness of HC raiding for the performance oriented M.

[Yoogo]

I think the problem with raiding was opening it up to people who never wanted to raid. They made a niche content into a bland and dull experience to appease the masses.

[HuxNeva]

I think the problem with raiding was opening it up to people who never wanted to raid. They made a niche content into a bland and dull experience to appease the masses.

I don't think they realized at first how much they would have to 'dumb it down' because in any larger online anonymous no repercussion group, 20% release their inner jerk and prefer to grief and annoy the others. That is the reason for the 'blandness', not the lack of skill or the need to appease the players.

[Yoogo]

I don't think they realized at first how much they would have to 'dumb it down' because in any larger online anonymous no repercussion group, 20% release their inner jerk and prefer to grief and annoy the others. That is the reason for the 'blandness', not the lack of skill or the need to appease the players.

Seems like a chicken or the egg what came first argument. The result is still the same.

[kamuimac]

yeah and back then there was no mmo that the masses could enjoy. You cant really compare how the marked was 15 years ago and today.

its obvious Blizzard has gone to far on the hand holding for players. When wow really became popular it required alot more from us players than now. Its like they are creating a game for people who play Fortnite. Log in, play a few hours and get everything done. Unsub for 5+ months, come back, play a few hours, get everything handed to you, unsub. Just does not work in a mmo in the long run.

Making everything easy to obtain and complete is what drives people away. Im not saying it needs to be hardcore(like wildstar did), but there should be a middle ground here.

I dont get people who hate on raiding being endgame and demand something else to be end game(something that requires maximum 1-2 friends to do), while at the same time saying "oh I dont care about gear I just want to play with my friends".

its just blatant lies. Those people want the gear, titles and mounts. They just dont want to put in the effort to get it.

1)ragnarok online
2)mu online
3)lineage
4)silkroad
5)ultima online
6)FF XI
7)everquest

and many many others.

people were playing so many mmorpgs before WoW revolutionized everything

the fact that you claim different means you didnt play back then .

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I think the problem with raiding was opening it up to people who never wanted to raid. They made a niche content into a bland and dull experience to appease the masses.

agreed

instead opening it to people they should have removed it and focus on 5 man content which was always much more popular .

raiding should have gone years ago - game would be much healthier and better without it and toxic people who raid hardmodes.

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Raiding has kept WoW alive for many years, .

ye ... those 5 % that raided totaly paid they bills.

this thread is really going places now

[Yriel]

So basically, the most successful WoW period is when raids were pretty exclusive (giving something to strive for and the feeling of "always something else to do"), but there was a lot to do outside.

Guess you just proved this design was the best !

You all argue as if there were only a set number of 12 mil. players in the whole lifetime of wow.
Blizzard themselves said they had a big player turnover and at least 10 times as much people tried wow then there were active players. Most people bought it and never even finished leveling. A whole lot quit at other stages of the game, who can say why.
My guess is because they, at some point, run out of enjoyable content to justify paying a monthly fee. I also guess that this has a lot to do with raiding, since it was always the be all, end all endgame activity and people who (for whatever reasons) didn't raid just quit at some point. The number of raiders were always small and you always could track them via 3rd party sites.

But raiding is cheap for Blizzard. Instead of making 10 dungeons every patch, why not make just one, scale up the numbers and call it a raid, that will keep the people occupied. It's just a cost-benefit assessment for Blizzard.

[Flurryfang]

I personally think raiding is one of the few things keeping WoW going aswell as it is.

Like, lets be real here, raiding is the penultimum group experience in MMOs and i bet that most people in here has not only a butload of amazing raiding experiences, but that their best experience in WoW was also connected to raiding. I also think this is why so many people are very defensive about keeping raiding the main source of raid gear, because they fear people will leave it and then they will be without a raidgroup/guild. People always tend to flock to the easiest and most convenient way to progress in a game and if Blizzard comes up with alternatives to raiding that either requires less time, smaller groups(less cordination) or bigger rewards, i fear that raiding will slowly wither out, not because it is bad content or people have a bad experience with it, but because it makes much more sense in the world of effort-divided-by-rewards.

I do agree, that alternatives are good, im a personal fan of M+, but i think people fear that WoW is very unstable and that the smallest tip in the wrong direction can tank the raid aspect of WoW completly.

[Craaazyyy]

I really can't agree with this...

The problem is the systems upon which everything is built (like class design, for example)... They have become shallow and uninteresting, which bleeds into everything they serve as a foundation for.

exactly

everything starts with class design, its the single most important thing in the game

[kamuimac]

When raiding do not give BiS items, then people will just do M+ runs until they throw up and see that there is no reason to play anymore. I always loved raiding, but now there is a little reason to play since RL want you to run M+ so you inflate your ilvl BEFORE you raid, and then you go on raid to get items that you will disenchant since you have better ones - this is current reward of raiding which IS harder than M+, and that's why people do not want to raid. So yeah, problem isn't raiding, it is M+ ilvl inflation...

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So much THIS!

because doin the same bosses in raid 30 times is sooo much more interesting and doesnt make people to quit game -_-

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I really can't agree with this...

The problem is the systems upon which everything is built (like class design, for example)... They have become shallow and uninteresting, which bleeds into everything they serve as a foundation for.

ah ye .. those amazing vanilla / TBC time when 3/4 of classes were using 3 buttons at max .

those were good times with complicated interesting gamestyle.

persoanlly cant wait for classic so people who never played back then realise how shitty gameplay way .

demo on blizzcon will be eye opening for so many people

[nToxik]

If you're not raiding or doing high level M+ then why do people feel the need that they have to get better gear? I mean everything dies in the game fast as it is without raid or M+ gear. If you don't like raiding or M+, just don't do it. It's that simple.

[Alexeht]

because doin the same bosses in raid 30 times is sooo much more interesting and doesnt make people to quit game -_-

How is that different from doing same bosses across 10(do not remember exact number but is irrelevant) or so dungeons which aren't as complicated as ones in raid? M+ is worse than LFR at this point ...

[Tamurello]

the problem is the demographic of the game has shifted, most people playing this game are now older ,in their 30s at least, most people that age just don’t have the time to commit to raiding how it’s meant to be played ie in an organized guild with clear time commitments, blizzard has done things to address that, the LFG tool helps do the raids on a more casual level and mythic plus is fantastic as can be organized in a tighter group giving more time flexibility, unfortunately the issue will not go away as the younger demographic with the time to play hardcore are simply playing other games

[Yoogo]

1)ragnarok online
2)mu online
3)lineage
4)silkroad
5)ultima online
6)FF XI
7)everquest

and many many others.

people were playing so many mmorpgs before WoW revolutionized everything

the fact that you claim different means you didnt play back then .

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agreed

instead opening it to people they should have removed it and focus on 5 man content which was always much more popular .

raiding should have gone years ago - game would be much healthier and better without it and toxic people who raid hardmodes.

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ye ... those 5 % that raided totaly paid they bills.

this thread is really going places now

You would have the same in 5 mans in time as they got tuned higher and higher. It's bad to mix people who are passionate about the game with those who " play for fun"

[IceMan1763]

the problem is the demographic of the game has shifted, most people playing this game are now older ,in their 30s at least, most people that age just don’t have the time to commit to raiding how it’s meant to be played ie in an organized guild with clear time commitments, blizzard has done things to address that, the LFG tool helps do the raids on a more casual level and mythic plus is fantastic as can be organized in a tighter group giving more time flexibility, unfortunately the issue will not go away as the younger demographic with the time to play hardcore are simply playing other games

Adding more insanely easy difficulty levels does nothing to counteract what blizzard has done with loot systems and end game progression to massively increase the time needed to prepare your character to raid Mythic. At the game's height, in Wrath, they did the exact opposite with their loot systems and made preparing your character to enter a raid far easier.

The argument then becomes "well if you don't have time to prep your character for mythic, step down a level". I have found though that Heroic is still incredibly easy for a skilled group. That same group though would hit an AP wall in raid like NH and TOV in Legion, for example, where they struggle to progress because they don't have time to run Maw of Souls 50 times a week. What people forget is that "stepping down a difficulty level" is just one option. The other, which I and many others have chosen, is to play another game that respects their time more.

[Trumpcat]

...

ye ... those 5 % that raided totaly paid they bills.

this thread is really going places now

Not sure where you pull out those 5% from. Was it 5% raiders sometime in vanilla mentioned by Blizzard? I personally don't know a player not raiding nowadays. No other MMO has as strong emphasis on raiding as WoW does, certainly Blizzard knows what their playerbase is doing and certainly they don't dedicate a massive part of every expansion to some elusive 5%.

[Celadir]

I don't understand why Raiding is under debate. Raiding, like flying, is an aspect of the game that I and many others enjoy so leave it at that. It literally isn't hurting you if you don't do it. Zero harm done except, for some reason, if it bothers you so much for them to be available. Just because I don't particularly like doing M+, WQ, or small group content you don't see me racing through forums pissing all over those elements WoW has to offer. Is it frustrating that M+ can reward better items than raiding, sure, but does that mean I want to delete M+, absolutely not. People enjoy M+. People enjoy PvP. People enjoy Raiding.

That aside, there are so many ways to play WoW now. Besides class balance, I can't think of anything to really complain about.

[Craaazyyy]

because doin the same bosses in raid 30 times is sooo much more interesting and doesnt make people to quit game -_-

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ah ye .. those amazing vanilla / TBC time when 3/4 of classes were using 3 buttons at max .

those were good times with complicated interesting gamestyle.

persoanlly cant wait for classic so people who never played back then realise how shitty gameplay way .

demo on blizzcon will be eye opening for so many people

did he even compare current wow to vanilla/tbc? also they werent using 3 buttons

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In TBC, 13 million players played. 12% of them played raids. Everyone else played dungeons or leveled up chars.

13m? in tbc? at the same time? thats a LOL from me, dawg