Blizzard DID listen.

[Deleted]

Just take a break from the game, it's not the end of the world if you play something else for 6 months and then come back to wow, there is just to much whining, whining just to whine, wod was bad but we got legion after and it was great, not every xp has to be the perfect game so you can play it 24/7

Everyone DID unsub. People want to play their favorite game again. But most people find the expansion terrible. Ive been playing so many other games now since I quit and its great. Hell I even played Diablo 3 again and got the Season achievements. But that is besides the point. Most of us played the game for 14 or 10 years, we want it to be fun. Blizzard should be happy that players care this much for a game and want it to be the best it can be. People have the right to whine and feel upset over the state of their favorite game.

[Deleted]

Some of the community were still unhappy - What about when i have all the bis gear? Why should players be "FORCED" to repeat content with no chance for upgrades? Warforging / Titanforging were added.

If you have full BiS you either get better as a player OR do the same process on an alt OR quit the game. All three of these are better than titanforging.

[Deleted]

I miss Legion and his awesome artefact weapons, sweet legendaries that could change specs and how to play them, specs that gave fluid fast paced combat

[Malix Farwin]

They did listen. They will continue to listen. The issue is that the community is divided. Bigger issue is that they listen to the loudest voices, which are never reflective of what the community actually wants. Those loudest voices frequently don't even sub to the game, but are hellbent on getting their voices heard. It really is all a mess.

Not really, they are selectively listening, not actually listening to the real problems. Example are the changes to shadow and shaman. They know those specs have problems but didnt listen into detail what they were so instead made changes that didnt address anything.

[edw]

Just to support some things here:

Assuming on average every guild has 25 Members in the roster.

~960 Guild Cutting Edge -> 24000 ppl
~14000 Guilds currently on mythic progress -> 327500 ppl
~35000 Guilds take part in hc/nhc -> 525000 ppl

That's about ~875000 ppl taking part in raids so far. (somewhat a mix/guess from wowprogress guild rankings).

That would be somewhat 10 Million bucks on subscribtions or am i mistaken?

Assuming the 1.7 million leak was for real:

"Only" 50%(875000) of players take part in raiding.

"Only" 20 % (~350000 -> CE + M Raider) are passionately playing the game i guess.


I have no idea what all these people do in the game when they're not playing the game but yeah...we're a clear minority...sad to not be heard.

You know there is pvp in this game and a lot of people play it from 11 to 120, there are guild dedicated for every bracket 19-29-39 etc and ofc 120s, they play with some friends in randoms or rated or whatever and have fun, the game is not 100% raid.

There are plenty of people that play this game for the achievements and do only this, a lot do just lvl-ing and so many other stuff. If you are only raiding then yes the game is bad at the moment but that is not the general opinion, just the opinion of the ppl that raid and only raid.

[Kavranzade]

If you look into any change Blizzard has made there will always be a subgroup of players for each of them that will defend that or will want that in the first place. I think the "Blizzard isn't listening to us" argument will never end because there are always players with conflicting interests. It's really up to them to decide what audience they're going to cater to, and how/why that changed over the years is the real discussion to be had I feel like.

[swatsonqt]

Those are speculative numbers, of course, but I think they're a bit too bloated even as such.

It's probably safe to assume that HC/Normal guild won't have avg. 25 member raiding roster it's probably half of it. It's probably also safe to assume that most of those "currently in mythic progress" are actually heroic guilds who managed to pull together 20 man roster for a kill or two, but don't normally field 20 people.

So, with that a better speculation model woud be:
679 with CE (25 people/guild)
5100 with 2+ kills (so probably fielding mythic roster regularly, 25 people/guild)
7994 with 1-2 kills (so probably less than regular mythic roster, let's say 17 people/guild)
35000 in HC/NM mess (let's say avg. 12 ppl/guild raid roster)

That last category has also fair bit of dataquality issues due to transfers, namechanges, pugs etc, so it's very unreliable.

We land somewhere around 280k for the "passionate CE+M raiders" and between 300-420k for the HC/NM mess, I'd guess closer to the former rathen than the latter number.
So probably not 875k, but more like 500k.

I belive the 1.7M number was debunked. It was certainly not confirmed. Would probably be better to calculate with the amount of sold units at launch (3.4M), since that's the "last known confirmed number".

And in that case it's 14.7% of players are participating in raiding, and 8.2% are really passionate about it.

It's still very speculative of course, there's a lot of issues working with wowprogress data and approximated roster sizes, but I feel those are a bit closer to truth than your 50%/20% split.

10/10 did a better job on the calculating

I somewhat was lazy and thought the number would look better xD but yeah...devastating numbers i guess^^

[Mayia]

Warning - opinions incoming. LeTs JuSt JuMp InTo It

It seems to me to be very, very obvious that wow is in an extremely bad state right now. For me personally, its the worst it has ever been, and thats saying something. After just a few minutes on the forums, there seems to be something else thats obvious: a generally accepted idea that Blizzard did not and is not listening. But what if we are wrong?

What if Blizzard are completely stumped and confused as to why the game is in decline. What if Blizzard think they have given us exactly what we wanted? what if they HAVE given us exactly what "we" wanted?

It wasnt that long ago that Raiding was the only way to obtain serious gear in a timely manor. Over the years a couple of systems were added to allow the "farming" of gear - badges obtained from heroics rewarding raid level gear in late BC for example. But the community asked for more. More ways to get gear.
Some of the community cried fowl that it was not "fair" that they should be FORCED to do hardcore raiding to get good gear.

Blizzard listened.

Some of the community were still unhappy - what about pvp? Why should players be "FORCED" to pve for the best gear? Welfare epics were born, and pvp became a serious and often optimal gearing method.

Blizzard listened.

Some of the community were still unhappy - What about solo progression? Why should players be "FORCED" to do group content just to obtain gear? Rep gear, world quests, artifact weapons / neck.

Blizzard listened.

Some of the community were still unhappy - What about when i have all the bis gear? Why should players be "FORCED" to repeat content with no chance for upgrades? Warforging / Titanforging were added.

Blizzard listened.

Some of the community were still unhappy - Sure, reducing raid size to 10man helped, but what if i dont want to raid for hours per week? Why should players be "FORCED" to complete long 8+ minute boss fights with a dedicated group of 10-20 players just do obtain great loot? Mythic plus became the preferred gearing method for many, to the point where many guides specifically talk about m+ builds rather than raid builds.

Blizzard listened.

Some of the community were still unhappy - What happened to the faction war? its world of WARcraft. Why am i being "FORCED" to play as a pacifist just because of server imbalance and no world pvp - why are we fighting all these other threats? what happened to the war? Warmode was added to the expac based entirely on the faction war.

Blizzard listened.

We want more races! - Why should we be "FORCED" to play the same old races - add more! More are added, and then locked behind rep grinds (although not the worst grinds, they exist)

Blizzard listened.


So what happened? Did they not give a portion of the player-base exactly what they wanted?

Did Blizzard listen to the "wrong" feedback, the "wrong" players, the "wrong" part of the community? Or, did 'we' get exactly what we wanted, but we didnt want what we thought we wanted?

But thats just my thoughts on the matter, i would love to know your opinion in the comments down below.

People hated mob scaling time expanding and artifact power grind for no reason in legion.. they made them worse in bfa lol.
maybe in 5 expansions you'll be right!

[THEORACLE64]

“Extremely bad state” is heavily dramatic tbh. WoD was an extremely bad state - this is no where near. It’s not great, that’s a given, but it’s not as bad as it could be.

[Deleted]

10/10.

WoW is hard to play at the minute, but this post highlights a lot. Nice one.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

The problem is that Blizzard has listened to the player group(s) that play for 6hrs a week or less, and made the game more accessable to those type of players.
That's why everything in current WoW can be completed in 1hr gameplay per day and then give you rewards, hell you don't even have to communicate with anyone to get rewarded anymore.

I've been playing on a private server now for almost 3 weeks and I've found a guild I'm happy with, made dozens of friends, /played 7d 12hrs and not hit 60 yet (currently 48). A lot of things you do is hard and time consuming, which means you NEED people to progress further. How do you get people to join you? Well you communicate, make connections, spend TIME and EFFORT. All this "annoying shit" means the reward at the end, and the journey you took to get there, is rememberable and satisfying as hell.
I couldn't re-tell a single questing experience from WoD, Legion or BfA but I remember multiple storylines and interactions from Vanilla, TBC, WotLK, Cata and MoP. Why? Because they were inconvenient, annoying and required time + effort. If you complete something faster than it takes you to take a shower... how can you possible remember it months or years later?

[Lei]

The PRICETAG (time spent ingame) on these is the problem. Because every single feature costs us. The cost was not this eye gauging before, now it feels like you are paying the price, the tax and everything with every "new and amazing feature".
You are being showered in crap, the time to get a USEFUL and WANTED item is maybe slower than ever before. In wotlk you did your daily heroic, got your badges, and you could count the days when you could get your TIER SET PIECE. Today you get epics till you barf, but usually not the pieces you would want.

[Ærion]

There is plenty to be said by those willing to participate in a discussion, willing to put forward their own opinion and thoughts on the matter. Your "reply" shows you have nothing to add, but just wanted to be noticed. Add something or move along.

I will do exactly as I please, *k you very much. (much like blizzard)

[judgementofantonidas]

Warning - opinions incoming. LeTs JuSt JuMp InTo It

It seems to me to be very, very obvious that wow is in an extremely bad state right now. For me personally, its the worst it has ever been, and thats saying something. After just a few minutes on the forums, there seems to be something else thats obvious: a generally accepted idea that Blizzard did not and is not listening. But what if we are wrong?

What if Blizzard are completely stumped and confused as to why the game is in decline. What if Blizzard think they have given us exactly what we wanted? what if they HAVE given us exactly what "we" wanted?

It wasnt that long ago that Raiding was the only way to obtain serious gear in a timely manor. Over the years a couple of systems were added to allow the "farming" of gear - badges obtained from heroics rewarding raid level gear in late BC for example. But the community asked for more. More ways to get gear.
Some of the community cried fowl that it was not "fair" that they should be FORCED to do hardcore raiding to get good gear.

Blizzard listened.

Some of the community were still unhappy - what about pvp? Why should players be "FORCED" to pve for the best gear? Welfare epics were born, and pvp became a serious and often optimal gearing method.

Blizzard listened.

Some of the community were still unhappy - What about solo progression? Why should players be "FORCED" to do group content just to obtain gear? Rep gear, world quests, artifact weapons / neck.

Blizzard listened.

Some of the community were still unhappy - What about when i have all the bis gear? Why should players be "FORCED" to repeat content with no chance for upgrades? Warforging / Titanforging were added.

Blizzard listened.

Some of the community were still unhappy - Sure, reducing raid size to 10man helped, but what if i dont want to raid for hours per week? Why should players be "FORCED" to complete long 8+ minute boss fights with a dedicated group of 10-20 players just do obtain great loot? Mythic plus became the preferred gearing method for many, to the point where many guides specifically talk about m+ builds rather than raid builds.

Blizzard listened.

Some of the community were still unhappy - What happened to the faction war? its world of WARcraft. Why am i being "FORCED" to play as a pacifist just because of server imbalance and no world pvp - why are we fighting all these other threats? what happened to the war? Warmode was added to the expac based entirely on the faction war.

Blizzard listened.

We want more races! - Why should we be "FORCED" to play the same old races - add more! More are added, and then locked behind rep grinds (although not the worst grinds, they exist)

Blizzard listened.


So what happened? Did they not give a portion of the player-base exactly what they wanted?

Did Blizzard listen to the "wrong" feedback, the "wrong" players, the "wrong" part of the community? Or, did 'we' get exactly what we wanted, but we didnt want what we thought we wanted?

But thats just my thoughts on the matter, i would love to know your opinion in the comments down below.

Many agree that Blizzard shouldn't be there to cater to every whim of the unwashed masses. WOW is THEIR dream, the players are just welcomed guests.

[Lei]

Many agree that Blizzard shouldn't be there to cater to every whim of the unwashed masses. WOW is THEIR dream, the players are just welcomed guests.

I don't think they know what they want anymore.
I wish there was just one dev in leading position with 22k+ achieve points, collecting and willing to participate in everything and he would just come out and say "hey, I think reps are fun, wqs are fun (paragon caches too), islands are fun!" Can anyone imagine this?

[Deleted]

So when everyone complained about AP grind on artifacts, but liked everything else like skins and ability trees, why did they get rid of everything else and keep the AP grind? They don't listen to us on big issues, they have their own ideas and stick to them no matter what. You are giving players way too much credit for these changes.

Who are those “everyone” who complained about AP grind?
I loved it, it was great carrot.
Is it maybe all who came to forums complained? Well, that might be true, problem is they are not “everyone”....

[Osmeric]

Blizzard's problems come from ingrained design principles they adhere to that aren't working.

A great example of this is PvP, and the principle that reward has to be justified by accomplishment. The result? Rated PvP has good rewards, unrated does not, and unrated participation collapses.

[Maudib]

Blizzard loves to listen... to the sound of their own pompous voices. Those people that call the shots, are the ones solely responsible for the current state of the game? Each one cares nothing about the game... they just want to make a name for "their one big thing" that revolutionizes WoW. And almost none of them have done that.

Instead it has become a frankenstein of a game... and not the good, lovable Herman Munster kind.

[Osmeric]

Many agree that Blizzard shouldn't be there to cater to every whim of the unwashed masses. WOW is THEIR dream, the players are just welcomed guests.

This is the cause of their failure. The customers have the final vote on whether a game design is successful.

- - - Updated - - -

LOL

Wait... you are serious?

The vast majority of players of all kinds don't bother complaining. Forum postings are from a tiny tiny slice of the player population.

[Guardian Bob]

So what happened? Did they not give a portion of the player-base exactly what they wanted?

Did Blizzard listen to the "wrong" feedback, the "wrong" players, the "wrong" part of the community? Or, did 'we' get exactly what we wanted, but we didnt want what we thought we wanted?

But thats just my thoughts on the matter, i would love to know your opinion in the comments down below.

Blizzards biggest problem is that nobody there designing WoW expansions actually plays the game. At least doesn't play the game as a hardcore player would. You have feedback all over the place, but someone at Blizzard thought that LFR was a good idea and that Warmode was a good idea. My favorite, removing the Diablo 2 style talent system from WoW in favor of the D3. Obviously those were terrible ideas as anyone who actually plays the game will tell you. Blizzard needs to stop hiring people with psychiatry degrees and needs people who actually plays video games. Specifically MMO's obviously.

Also, the micro-transactions need to go, specifically the $15 monthly fee. This is what drives players away and what drives developers to make grindy content that gives players a daily lock out. That $15 monthly fee is killing the game, and has been for a long time. This gives devs freedom to explore fun game mechanics instead of mechanics that try to make you waste your time to extract that $15 monthly fee. Blizzard should instead focus on trying to get people to buy expansions as a source of profit, cause I doubt as many people bought BfA compared to Red Dead Redemption 2. Blizzard isn't exactly making AAA game content like God of War or Red Dead Redemption 2 where it takes years. Each WoW expansion is basically a $50 DLC with a lot of reused assets. Make a good game and people will buy it. Make a bad game and you'll call your customers entitled.