Catch-Up Mechanics & Incentive to raid/play

[Rozz]

I think it's good that these catch up mechanics allow people to join entry level raiding at the minimum, while also helping higher end players manage their alts. It benefits both parties and also gives people more choice over what tier they want to focus on. Now you have the choice to skip a raid and join the players in the current season, potentially rising up the ranks.

I like that, because it rewards multiple ways to play the game while also lowering the base initiation hurdle for players who would be otherwise intimidated by a linear progression.

[lllBlackSunlll]

The problem in that time was that yes, you had no personal reason to go back there, which is fine, but as a group/guild, you were still forced to if you wanted any new players to be able to join your raid. And that is the worst of both worlds - you have absolutely no personal reason to go, no gain whatsoever, but you still have to go anyway.

This is the reason catch-up exists, so that players can catch up to a place close to the active players without requiring the active players to carry them through old instances/raids.

I am split on this, but did experience this first hand.
My guild during BC were such a tight family, but then our main tank and 2 healers were poached as were slamming our heads against BT, then some people left.
We recruited new players who were skilled but lacked gear, carrying them through all of the raids to run BT(Took about 4 weeks), then did it again.
Then guild drama hit, guild split in 2, and we did the exact same thing again. Then 2.4 hit and most of us were burnt out and never raided Sunwell. Edit: most of us had to create alts and have multiple raid groups so there would be minimal overlap in the needs of gear for the catch-up progression.

On one hand as a character and I have no reason to raid previous content, unless I wanted to farm the currency implemented later or were selling ZA mounts.
On the other hand this is a way to say that even though my character is good enough, I cannot do this alone.
I agree as a whole player poaching is hurtful, and guild drama is inevitable, but very hurtful when the stakes are high.

But going through it, I felt a lot happier to do it because we became more interconnected with other characters; their progression was also my progression.
Again, I don't believe either model is superior, it is about taking the good from one system while trying to leave out the bad.

[Relapses]

People seem to be mistaken about these things. Catch-up mechanics and seasonal gear resets are important nowadays, because unlike back in mid 2000s, now you have a lot of games that no longer rely on grind to hook people up and WoW has to match this in order to survive.

WoW still kicking is not despite catch-up mechanics and modernization, but thanks to that. Sometime in late 2000s people realized that you don't need to spend countless hours preparing to have fun, when you can just go ahead and have fun right away. That's how MOBAs were born, which in turn gave birth to plethora of other games with similar mindset, including Battle Royales - these are games where you jump into action right away instead of wasting your time doing nonsense and I am actually glad industry moved in to this approach.

This is also the reason for M+, islands and warfronts - Blizz is trying to find game modes that offer instant action in WoW. M+ is successful, others less so and will probably be replaced with other stuff like that, until they find another M+ people will click.

Scaling back on all that or even reverting it to how it was in past will be nothing short of suicide for WoW, because people who actually hold this ship afloat will simply shrug and move on to the many other games that appreciate their time more.

Just quoting this for being the most accurate thing anybody in this entire thread has ever contributed.

[Osmeric]

Linear progression was far better than what we have today. A new raid comes out, nobody plays the previous ones and you can start doing the same daily chores for more ilvl. Horrible design.

Linear progression was a disaster, and will always be a disaster.

Please keep asking for it. This ensures the devs will totally ignore you, which is for the best.

[Thage]

Here's the thing. You can only funnel upward so much until guilds have trouble fielding the numbers necessary. TBC's guild-poaching epidemic was a result of long-term burnout from linear progression systems. If John the tank burns out because the guild hit a wall on Vashj, or got poached by a BT guild, <L33tMasterz> has a choice: trial a 70 who performed well in a Heroic dungeon but needs to be attuned and progressed through Kara/Mag/Gruul and TK/SSC, or poach Jack the tank from <Up-And-Coming>, a guild that's already done Kara/Mag/Gruul and is attuned for TK/SSC. Then <Up-And-Coming> has the same dilemma: bring someone up to speed from scratch, rerunning all the shit they ran ad infinitum getting their core team and alts up to speed, or poach from a guild that's already done it so they don't have to risk backsliding and getting caught in the poaching cycle.

This is what catchups help avoid. Do we need intense catchups every patch? No. But catchups in the midpatch and end patch help guilds avoid getting stuck and backsliding, which helps keep the pool of available raiders from shrinking until a guild progressing through BT/Hyjal/Sunwell has to constantly treadmill their progression while poaching, building up leapfroggers, and/or building up fresh 70 applicants, all with no guarantee they won't just be poached or leapfrog onto the next guild once they get what they want (another side-effect of linear progression over a long period of time).

[Akka]

Here's the thing. You can only funnel upward so much until guilds have trouble fielding the numbers necessary. TBC's guild-poaching epidemic was a result of long-term burnout from linear progression systems.

It was nearly entirely due to excessive attunement, not linear per se.

[Big Thanks]

You guys realize the idea of "no catchup" is only "good" (and even so debatable) for new players?
People who play since day 1 would feel the content drought at the same time of today?

The only thing this does is making entire Guilds doing outdated content in order to "boost" new players.
Which is cute...but is more of a chore than anything else.

And in the process of doing this you had to remove gear from PvP...which goes gainst the RPG elements of a MMO.

If you read a post on this thread of a person trying to make this work, you would get an headache just by how convoluted and complicated it is to make this happen.

[MoanaLisa]

People seem to be mistaken about these things. Catch-up mechanics and seasonal gear resets are important nowadays, because unlike back in mid 2000s, now you have a lot of games that no longer rely on grind to hook people up and WoW has to match this in order to survive.

WoW still kicking is not despite catch-up mechanics and modernization, but thanks to that. Sometime in late 2000s people realized that you don't need to spend countless hours preparing to have fun, when you can just go ahead and have fun right away. That's how MOBAs were born, which in turn gave birth to plethora of other games with similar mindset, including Battle Royales - these are games where you jump into action right away instead of wasting your time doing nonsense and I am actually glad industry moved in to this approach.

This is also the reason for M+, islands and warfronts - Blizz is trying to find game modes that offer instant action in WoW. M+ is successful, others less so and will probably be replaced with other stuff like that, until they find another M+ people will click.

Scaling back on all that or even reverting it to how it was in past will be nothing short of suicide for WoW, because people who actually hold this ship afloat will simply shrug and move on to the many other games that appreciate their time more.

Thanks for the entirely excellent post. The part in bold font (my emphasis) is a perspective I haven't seen a lot of talk about and something I hadn't thought of. It makes sense, rings true, and needs to be a part of any discussion like this. Someone else further down the thread talked about how games are advertised and how no one wants to see stuff that looks cool, join up and find they are weeks or months away from playing it. That seems to me to be also true.

I have my own different ideas about this but I think that both of those points are very important.

[rrayy]

Ah, look, another self-serving narrative BS !
Care to provide an argument or a source that actually support this "they are the same" that isn't just "I want them to be the same so I can sprout my shit" ?

Go to any of the allied races threads here, look at all those that complained aobut having to do old content to get htem, then compare it to those complaining about catch up mechanics, wanting them out, and wanting to go back to doing old content to get ready. You will find there are more than a few that are on both lists.

[Big Thanks]

Exclusive content fosters feelings of failure and rejection. For those excluded -- which by definition is going to have to be a dominant chunk of the player population -- the end result is that the game doesn't deliver to them the thing that is supposed to be the goal of playing it.

Is it any wonder that that sort of musical chairs design ends up losing most of the people who at one point played?

This is something worth debating and would make an AWESOME thread.

IMO every videogame with a "ranked" system...preys on the feeling of exclusivity and prestige.

Entire League of Legends community is playing 1000 games per season just so they can feel good about themselves with a "boarder/rank/prestige"

But it depends on the type of player.
Some players give up...others keep fighting for it. Which one are you?

edit: If you read the OP, you will see he is the type of player looking for prestige. Which is entirely normal for a gamer. I used to be like that...still am (i think) but to a lesser degree.

[Daffan]

Nothing you said there is a legitimate way to “catch up”.

“Catching up” requires that your gear meets the minimum standards for the current content. Flex, premades, cross-realms are just means of access... they do nothing for you if your gear isn’t already caught up.

Because what I was doing was refuting your claim that catchup is basically a necessity. Which was complete rubbish.

You don’t understand what “getting stuck in Kara” meant to a lot of guilds. A lot of guilds didn’t even get to the point where they needed a 25 man roster... many spent a year or more before they managed to even beat the raid. They were caught in an endless cycle of helping people gear for the raid and then losing their better players to more advanced guilds, causing them to need to help more people gear.

If they cant maintain a 25 man roster what does catchup do for them exactly?

[Wingspan]

Because what I was doing was refuting your claim that catchup is basically a necessity. Which was complete rubbish.

If they cant maintain a 25 man roster what does catchup do for them exactly?

The post that you quoted of mine had nothing to do with catch up (directly) and just explained how BC was the reason that things changed.

Seriously, go back and read it... someone brought up the BC model as being the best... and then I explained why the BC design actually prompted the changes. We are literally here now because of the problems that sprung up from the BC raiding model.


On the topic of catch up specifically, yes, it is absolutely needed. There is a bit of debate open for how fast it happens and to what power level it rises... but it is a must.

[nekobaka]

This is something worth debating and would make an AWESOME thread.

IMO every videogame with a "ranked" system...preys on the feeling of exclusivity and prestige.

Entire League of Legends community is playing 1000 games per season just so they can feel good about themselves with a "boarder/rank/prestige"

But it depends on the type of player.
Some players give up...others keep fighting for it. Which one are you?

edit: If you read the OP, you will see he is the type of player looking for prestige. Which is entirely normal for a gamer. I used to be like that...still am (i think) but to a lesser degree.

Then there is players like myself that dont care if they are missing out of a segment of the game as long is there is an activity they enjoy. Taking away ones endgame to me fosters far more feelings of rejection then the accessibility of a game play type that is not designed for me.

Many games with seasonal rank systems also have non-ranked systems that still employ skill based match making in attempts to keep games fair.

[Big Thanks]

Then there is players like myself that dont care if they are missing out of a segment of the game as long is there is an activity they enjoy. Taking away ones endgame to me fosters far more feelings of rejection then the accessibility of a game play type that is not designed for me.

Many games with seasonal rank systems also have non-ranked systems that still employ skill based match making in attempts to keep games fair.

Did some research when made that post.

In League of Legends only 10% of the entire population plays ranked...

Those 10% are 10 million players though, so there absolutely is a lot of people and there is a market for it.

But it just goes to show "casuals" are always the majority.

[lllBlackSunlll]

People seem to be mistaken about these things. Catch-up mechanics and seasonal gear resets are important nowadays, because unlike back in mid 2000s, now you have a lot of games that no longer rely on grind to hook people up and WoW has to match this in order to survive.

WoW still kicking is not despite catch-up mechanics and modernization, but thanks to that. Sometime in late 2000s people realized that you don't need to spend countless hours preparing to have fun, when you can just go ahead and have fun right away. That's how MOBAs were born, which in turn gave birth to plethora of other games with similar mindset, including Battle Royales - these are games where you jump into action right away instead of wasting your time doing nonsense and I am actually glad industry moved in to this approach.

This is also the reason for M+, islands and warfronts - Blizz is trying to find game modes that offer instant action in WoW. M+ is successful, others less so and will probably be replaced with other stuff like that, until they find another M+ people will click.

Scaling back on all that or even reverting it to how it was in past will be nothing short of suicide for WoW, because people who actually hold this ship afloat will simply shrug and move on to the many other games that appreciate their time more.

I am asking a serious question, what is the point to leveling when it comes to WoW?

For League of Legends the lv1-30 is basically a long tutorial in a game that doesn't really hold your hand and is very community driven.
If this is true for WoW, does leveling currently do this?

Is leveling to give context to the story of the game, to give the player meaning on why they are killing 20 boars, because it eventually leads us to kill an Old God?
If so, is this at all important to the game (is the game story driven in its core values)?

Is the leveling stage expected to be part of the actual game experience equal to end game content?

These are legitimate questions in part of the role of an MMORPG because if leveling does not accomplished one of the 3 I named, then why not scrap leveling all together? But again if this were the case, then it also puts into question the role of stats, unique abilities, etc.

In Fortnite some guns are considered to be better than others, but a gun is a gun and can still kill, but this concept received a lot of push back when WoW open world started to scale on level and stats. I did like it though from the time I tested it on Beta vs now, but the feeling of leveling didn't change, just made leveling easier, which still suggests 'why do we level'?

But the idea of getting into the fight and can will on an equal playing field just as fast as someone who has player 10k+ hours is nothing new, and has been popular since the days of Quake/FPS Arenas.

Another genre that does this are RTS game, Starcraft for example does not hold any player back based on their account's level. This used to be a popular genre, but is considered dead, and it has always been that anybody could get right into the action on an equal playing field where a noob could theoretically beat a pro (but unlikely).

My point is that getting right into the action may not be a major sign of what defines success in the game market, outside of niche games.
Starcraft is a fantastic game, but so few people play it. Dota 2 is also an amazing game, and is still very popular, but they both have the same model, just different genres. I feel the model of genre and trends in the gaming market is a bigger dictator than the feeling of personal development in a game vs the possibility of getting into a game and potentially being the best player.

[SirCowdog]

There are a lot of variables to this.

For one thing, you may have a friend that plays year round (staying progressed) and you would like to join them periodically... but you don’t want to burden them with gearing you up every time you come back. It’s in Blizzards interest to facilitate this, because otherwise, the player will just stop bothering to return.

They should have HUGE piles of data to track this kind of “friend cycling”, so this could ultimately be why it’s in place. The recent practice where buying the new expansion and getting a “free” expansion-ready character is fundamentally the same thing (only per expansion rather than per patch), so Blizzard is obviously targeting that.

This is a fair point, and something that I think should be addressed by blizzard more specifically on a friend-to-friend basis rather than jamming the catch-up down everyone's throat whether they like it or not. If you want to play with your friends, perhaps some sort of system where you get a boost, like RAF, when playing with those people. Or a way for friends to boost your rate of progress somehow.

That's a can of worms, though, since as we all know, people would absolutely abuse the hell out of it and find a way to exploit it. But given that all the older content in an expansion is going to be skipped anyway, I don't think it could do MORE harm.

As for the free expansion-ready character: I have zero issues with that, considering my basic stance is "Play the expansion, not the patch".

For another thing, MMOs are very hype-driven (so much of the world is now). It’s a psychological hit to some people to see all this new amazing-looking stuff being hyped (new raids, etc) and then discover (after re-joining) that you are months away from anything that you were actually excited about and came back for. When that happens, it’s probably not going to end well.

This is also a fair point. Keeping a 15 year old MMO popular and active has to make some concessions to the current generation of gamers. But I question the need to go to the extremes that we're seeing in the current game, where each patch is ending up almost being its own separate game. To the extent in BfA 8.2 where we're going to see a complete overhaul of the gearing and end-game progression systems.

And I think that kind of thing is caused by trying too hard to react and warp the game to fit short-term trends instead of sticking to a more stable game design. And I also question the value of catering to short-term profits when we're seeing games like ESO and FFXIV, as well as Classic WoW, slowly gaining more traction by sticking to a longer-format design.

We'll see what happens with 8.2 and 8.3. There appear to be a lot of good changes coming. I just hope it's enough, and that the next expansion tempers the trend of disposable content with more meaningful long-term goals for players to invest in.

As a lesser, non-gearing example of this, I kind of expect Bliz to drop the long requirements for new Allied Races in the future for this reason (although they will probably try to continue it through the next expansion just to see if they can get it to take hold). I suspect that sometime in the future the barrier will be a week or less... even if you have never played the game.

I doubt it. They haven't done anything like that for Pathfinder and flying, even in expansions which are completely irrelevant(WoD) to the current expansion. And leaving the quest requirements fuels things like race change purchases. They might increase the rate at which rep is gained, or something like that. But they also might just leave it as it is, letting power creep of the next expansion speed things up for players who want those unlocks.

I edited in my solution to this part after you quoted me. Basically, lower difficulty levels fix the Kara problem (more details in that post).

And that's the type of solution I would rather Blizzard use instead of overpowering catch-up mechanics that make previous content pointless.

I think maybe that's something I haven't been very clear about when I get carried away with the discussion. I'm not against slowly making things easier for content which isn't on the cutting edge. I just don't think it needs to be completely bypassed and invalidated simply because it's not the most current in the expansion.

On one hand I agree with you... and on the other, there’s Classic, which would suggest that we are wrong. Of course Classic could flop (and probably will long-term), but there is DEFINITELY a group of people out there who ONLY want things the same way... forever.

True enough. But I also think the context here is SUPER important. Classic doesn't take the main game and devolve it backwards. It provides an option for that style of gameplay for those who want it. The problem with the modern game is that all too often you aren't being given that choice.

This is a key point that I think many people forget.

[MidnyteTV]

Seems that you need to resort to insults because you are being destroyed in debate. Guess it says it all.
.

Failing to answer questions presented to you is a sign that you clearly have no clue what you're talking about and are ready to concede.

It's ok. You just want to bring back the elitist way of raiding that nobody wants nor will the devs even come close to bringing back.

You got your joy from getting gear while the rest of the "plebs" ran Kara. You want a way to brag about what you've done and you're pissed that other people can come in, gear up, and get into raiding.

I'll give you one more chance to answer the questions presented: Should someone who didn't play DS1 or 2 have to backtrack before they can pick up DS3?

Seriously. Answer the question. Or just admit you're been rekt.

[TrollHunter3000]

This game made it 15 years and beyond because it moved away from Classic.

All that needs to be said. And this thread clearly belongs over in the circle jerk that's the Classic subforum.

That's what I don't get about people who make these threads. They think blizzard made the decisions without any feedback when they literally have all the statistics to look at and get feedback about why people were quitting the game. Everyone always links that chart about how the population began to go down after wrath but the reality is that it was going to go down no matter what. You can actually see a correlation for when WoW began to lose players and several factors such as that initial player base getting older, getting jobs, going to school etc. Yeah, new younger players started the game but it was fewer than those leaving. You also had platforms like steam start to take off around that time. A TON more games were being released from smaller and even completely independent developers. People had far more options all the sudden.

They could have kept all the same game design philosophies as classic but they would have last their playerbase much faster. I mean shit, they started catch up mechanics in BC and kept that trend going all the way through wrath and the playerbase was still growing during that time it just slowed down. Blaming catch up mechanics is some of the dumbest shit I've ever seen.

[Relapses]

That's what I don't get about people who make these threads. They think blizzard made the decisions without any feedback when they literally have all the statistics to look at and get feedback about why people were quitting the game. Everyone always links that chart about how the population began to go down after wrath but the reality is that it was going to go down no matter what. You can actually see a correlation for when WoW began to lose players and several factors such as that initial player base getting older, getting jobs, going to school etc. Yeah, new younger players started the game but it was fewer than those leaving. You also had platforms like steam start to take off around that time. A TON more games were being released from smaller and even completely independent developers. People had far more options all the sudden.

They could have kept all the same game design philosophies as classic but they would have last their playerbase much faster. I mean shit, they started catch up mechanics in BC and kept that trend going all the way through wrath and the playerbase was still growing during that time it just slowed down. Blaming catch up mechanics is some of the dumbest shit I've ever seen.

Correlating subscriber loss with any single feature is one of the most common and frustrating logical fallacies I see on these forums. Every other fucking thread some galaxy-brained supergenius links this picture to support their argument and proceeds to act as if they've ascended this corporeal world and can finally see the strings which hold this universe together.

It's infuriating on a level that is hard to place into words.

[kaminaris]

It was nearly entirely due to excessive attunement, not linear per se.

Because it is simply boring to see the same arguments the same thread that are in no way original nor creative way. Just ranting about something that supposedly "hurts" the game while it is doing exactly opposite.

You guys realize the idea of "no catchup" is only "good" (and even so debatable) for new players?
People who play since day 1 would feel the content drought at the same time of today?

Not even close, we have a lot of raiders coming and going, taking breaks (sometimes even for entire expansion). With catchup mechanism they can raid with us whenever they come back.

And no. I have been playing since day 1 and catchup gear has absolutely nothing to do with it. Simply because there is not enough real content. Fun/challenging/worthwile CONTENT.

I am asking a serious question, what is the point to leveling when it comes to WoW?

There is none, at least the way it is done now. Because it is outdated, tedious and simply boring.

Quests should never be any of those: kill X of some mob, gather Y of some resource, bring something to another NPC.

Quests should be meaningful and tell a story. They should last longer than a couple of minutes. Example of good quest:
Fight your way thru a cave, kill boss at the end making sure he wasn't able to finish summoning some evil sh*t, burn all his research so it cannot fall into wrong hands.
*Plot twist 1* boss escapes leaving traces so that you can find him (searching for clues, figuring out where he went)
*Plot twist 2* he had ace up his sleeve and stuns you escaping with all his research leaving clues behind.
Now you have to figure out where he went. This is a place where developer creativeness can come in handy - minigame that solves mystery.
NPC tells you this time you have to prepare before striking again otherwise result will be the same. So you have 2 options, either take cloak of invisibility from some god forsaken place fighting hordes of undead protecting the place OR ask some veteran hunter to prepare poisonous darts leading you to gathering poisonous herbs from some graveyard.

I could go on but you get the drill. This should be a SINGLE quest. Wow had some of these, like scenarios for DK artifact weapon in legion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRGUTgT6Byg
ALL quests should be like this. Then leveling would not be boring AF. And a lot more meaningful.