Do you think Ion/devs understand their player base?

[Lochton]

I'm curious to see what you all think. I personally, think they do..but not on the level that players want them to.

No, I don't but I don't think the playerbase understands the condition of the playerbase either.

[Alcsaar]

Even if they understand the players, they put too much focus and energy into very specific things.

Great for people who like that very specific thing, not great for all the other people who don't care for it.

World quests / Island Expeditions / AP Grinding / Dailies are all examples of this.

I can't stand world quests or dailies, I find them incredibly repetitive and boring, they feel like chores - yet they keep attaching systems to them that require you to do them or you fall behind the curve. There are people who love that kind of shit.

Its same with Suramar. I hate questing at the level cap. Its not rewarding and its boring if you don't care about the lore. Tons of people ate that shit up.


We are seeing the same thing happening in Shadowlands. They're putting a ton of focus on Torghast, which alienates anyone who doesn't like that sort of content and they're either forced to do it even though they don't find it enjoyable in order to get legendaries, or they get to be gimped by not having legendaries. Not good for people who don't care about PvE and only want to PvP at level cap, now you get no legendaries and are forced to play against people who have them.

They're constantly putting all of their eggs in one or two baskets instead of adding a little something to everything.

[Tradu]

To be fair, I don't think this is solely on the players. While there's certainly a lot of blame on the community at large for always looking for a badguy, projection sinister intent or incompetence on the devs, etc, there's also plenty of blame on Blizzard. They could be more transparent on their design philosophy (though this could - and almost certainly would - backfire given how shitty the community can be), but more importantly they could understand the cycle they've found themselves in, a cycle of reactionary changes that tends to be behind the curve, and find a way to be more proactive.

Maybe if they fixed their process so it's actually realistic to get (major) changes made once things are in public testing that'd help. They keep getting extremely valid and good feedback from the moment systems go into alpha/beta, but their internal processes don't allow them to fix it until late into the actual release of the expansion. Of course it also doesn't help that there's still people saying "but it's just alpha/beta/PTR/early expansion" and trying to kill feedback.

[Tradu]

Wasn't Ion a pretty hardcore raider completing heroics? I can imagine he understands those types of players but not the average players which would probably be the majority.

He still "raids" at a Cutting Edge level, but he gets carried while playing suboptimally and not putting effort into gearing outside of raids, which probably explains why he ignores so many of the issues: they simply don't apply when you get carried.

- - - Updated - - -

They understand the playerbase: they just don't care that Alliance doesn't raid.

They do care, but they don't really have any way of fixing it outside of cross faction play, which they've decided it something that can never happen, so instead they try other stupid things that won't work. Hall of Fame could work, but a garbage title is nowhere near enough(as well as stupid issues like losing it if you're no longer in a HoF guild)

- - - Updated - - -

They do. Players have a different problem: we think that what we personally think (and a few of our friends) is how everyone feels. I could bet that majority of people have no problem whatsoever with AP, even though it's such a big problem here on forums

Yeah, and that majority also wouldn't be affected if they put a weekly compounding cap on it(think Conquest) to fix issues at the top end. Too bad it took Blizzard 2 expansions to understand that.

- - - Updated - - -

why exactly did they remove ML? what can be a reason for something like that to exist ? in pugs ppl won't stay if raid leader was ML from start, and if he changes it mid-fight the boss loot will still stay the old setting (be it group or PL), it has zero effect on pugs except one with really newb ppl who don't know what loot system is

Pugs couldn't even use ML by the end anyway. It was literally a change made for idiots who claim to be "stuck" in trash guilds.

- - - Updated - - -

They do, they just think they know better. They also like to wait a full expansion cycle to fix problems/issues that were raised during the beta, to make it look like they came to those conclusions by themselves rather than it being feedback from 2 years prior.

And even when they do "fix" those issues, it has to be their own novel idea. They can't just use the many great suggestions from the community.

- - - Updated - - -

Don't like it? Quit WoW, or go play Classic.

Those are not the only 2 options available, luckily. They can keep ignoring feedback for years all they want, I'm not going to stop giving it.

[Dadwen]

Except raiders weren't asking for pruning and for the most part were and are against it. I also personally don't like the direction they've taken with raids where playing your spec is a complete joke and the entirety of the difficulty comes from playing the fight, because that means easy fights are even more boring now, where in the past they got partially carried by specs at least still being fun and engaging to play.

Maybe that just points to more of him\them not knowing what the players are asking for, but that was one of the reasons giving back around the time of WOD for the beginning of the pruning.

[MoanaLisa]

I think it's that there is a lot of us who USED to be harcore raider/pvpers but either don't have the time or most of our friends from the game have left so we still want to play but we want to play solo and we are actually decent at this game so we want it to be somewhat challenging.
I mean I know that what people like me will find challenging the really good players will continuously tell me is super easy but I don't care

Yeah, I thought that Suramar and the Mage Tower were a real breath of fresh air for solo players. Walking over stuff is fun sometimes but a steady diet of it isn't my cup of tea either. I just play with friends now and because of scheduling and real life things we can only rarely make up a dungeon group, much less a raid group. So stuff like this is welcome.

[Ruri]

It's gonna be a do to a certain extent. 'To the amount I hope for' is largely based on ones own personal values and wishes which won't be the same among even two people. That includes WoW devs.

[A Princess From Norway]

I think that he does yeah ^^ The problem is probably activision pushing him and his team to make the game grindable so people will stay in longer and give more money. Also he is a cutie :P

[Nebron]

Of course they do. 100%. They understand hardcore players, players who post on forums (insane minority) and casual players who just play.

What some dont understand is that the game is also a business and I believe they are a little forced to make things last as long as possible to keep players subscribed. They just need to find a middle ground.

Example: warforged and titanforge should exist but not to insane levels. (MoP style is good imo)

Ap grinds should exist, not to insane numbers, something in the middle and some cosmetic stuff for the ones who push further probably.

Okay, it's just so painfully wrong...

The ones who Blizzard is catering content to are the very majority of the playerbase. They just give away items to the players that actually should be a reward for the effort and time a player is willing to commit to the game. Nobody ever should care wheter anyone has a job/ children or anything else. Why should I care that someone wants to get the best loot in the game, but unfortunately has no time to get it by the same means that other players do. It's a constant excuse for the LFR existance, while we all very well know, that LFR is nothing more than an AFK-fest and item-trading farm.

On the other hand you write that Blizzard listens to hardcore players. It's just massive: boy, oh boy. Tell me, what about abilities pruning? What about the existance of countless passive spells that allow casual players to catch-up high-skilled players (of whom I am not) when it comes to damage? What about making high-end gear unique so that it's pretty impossible for mortals to achieve it, yet with some effort and excercise, it's within the reach?

WoW was actually on the wave, when playerbase reached above 10 milions active accounts. Guess were was the Titanforging and Warforging then? Nowhere. AP grind should exist? Guess when they intorduced that system into the game - with Legion itself, when WoW began to be at it's lowest. Cosmetic stuff for those who wish to push further? Do you realize what is the driving force for most of the people to play? It may be shocking, but items actually. Obviously, people play for cosmetics like me - 28k achievements, 70 exalted on a single character, the Insane title and over 300 mounts. So what? I do not play to show-off - some do, and that's great. But MAJORITY of players play for a serious reward, something that will make them more powerful. It's a simple psychological mechanism that works in every single MMO-like game. The thing that also drives people to get better and be high in rankings. That's why people play PvP games with ratings. Same shit goes about raiding the most difficulty PvE content.

You should be able to target a reward and work your way for that. Eventually, after claiming your ideal reward of which you dreamt last night, you should be able to make it even more powerful within your own possibilties, without praying to RNG Gods for a warforge or even a titanforge, let alone a game socket. These things - the empowerment of a specific gear (the one you choose freely) - are fundamental for a healthy gameplay. You know what actually push players away from the game, sometimes even subconsciously? That you can't plan out your progress.

You can't really log into the game and play. You can't look at the item and decide wheter you like it more or less. You need to simcraft that gear using an external source, sometimes even paying for that. You need to pray piously to the Gods of RNG so that the item that finally dropped is maximally Titanforged and hopefully socketed. No! You should be able to collect the points, just like the valor points to decide which item you'd like to empower. You should be able to put the gem sockets in your items via professions - which eventually would make them more profitable and useful.

Blizzard should have never introduced any "welfare-alike system that allows players who do not wish to commit their time and effort into the game with the best possible gear out there. Look at the rewards from the Warfronts chests.

Who cares about cosmetics anymore, when the best ones come from the Store or events that all players are enabled to complete? You know why Invincible was so desired? Because it was nearly impossible to get it, until late MoP, let alone WotLK itself. It wasn't available to mortals until it could be solo'ed by literally anyone. Look at the Heavenly Onyx Cloud Serpent - it's like 0.01% chance of drop - even if some noob is lucky as hell and get it at it's first kill, imagine how much effort it requires to get thet mount!

I can't say: Blizzard definitely is aware of some major issues! But it doesn't look like they will be ever able to address them all. The pressure from the lowest-effort playerbase is too high for them to take on the pretty drastic/heavy changes. People genuinely love being catered with the loot, not realizing at the same time that it burns them out People can't recognize the most basic problems in the game, so there is nothing to be said about long-term goals for the healthiness of the game.

Of course Blizzard should keep players engaged all the time, or do the best they can to achieve that goal. Nevertheless, with omitting the core issues, ignoring the feedback whenever the BETA rolls-in, and provide people with welfare, they won't get back on the wave. Classic seems to be a good test for that. Let's see how the activity will look like in a year. I can guarantee to you, that numbers will stay at at least medium-high level. And somehow "a difficult" iteration of the game didn't scare the players. There is MUCH to be taken from the Classic.

If Blizzard truly wants to change something, they need to revise their entire philosophy of the game. They surely discuss these issues, but they are not brave enough to put WoW onto another level. They need to answer a freakin fundamental question that stays in the core of the game: "what makes people stay and play their game? It's surely not cosmetics alone. It's not another iteration of the same system we have seen since Legion (Class Order --> War Campaigns/Azerite gear --> Convenants).

So no, I wouldn't say your diagnosis is correctly, it's quite the opposite. What Blizz needs to do is to look that actually hardcore gamers say, and provide opportunites for casuals to get better and more powerful with their time and effort commitment. There can be no a healthy game if players get their loot for free with an excuse of "lack of time". But on the other hand, due to that problem, Blizzard will always provide spoon-feeding, so that the money is there

Solution is withing the range, but Blizzard is conciously unwilling to reach for it.

[Ange]

If I then go on vacation for 3-4 weeks and come back, my gear is basically equivalent to that of a fresh 120.

It still works, but you have to do the high end content if you demand the geargap to last that long.

Go raid mythic, get geared in the first 2-3 weeks of progression and your min-maxed raidgear will outdo anything what a casual player will have 6 months later.
Even the "above" casual player with weekly-10 (mythic+) chest and weekly-pvp (1800-2000) chest will need insane RNG luck to get just to the ilvl range of a mythic raider. And thats just ilvl, with the insane socket/essence/azerite/trinket power creep you have still a solid 80-100% DPS difference.

So yes, you can still do endgame content, take a 6 month "vacation" come back and be still above casual players.

But here is a hint, dont just listen to forum trolls, negative talk-streamers and dont believe me. Go to a class discord or logs and check for yourself what a week1/2 raider did at the start of the tier progression and what a casual player right now is doing (simDPS). There will be no surprises, the gear gap is still there and negative content streamers are sometimes just lying their asses off.

So no, I wouldn't say your diagnosis is correctly, it's quite the opposite. What Blizz needs to do is to look that actually hardcore gamers say, and provide opportunites for casuals to get better and more powerful with their time and effort commitment. There can be no a healthy game if players get their loot for free with an excuse of "lack of time". But on the other hand, due to that problem, Blizzard will always provide spoon-feeding, so that the money is there

Solution is withing the range, but Blizzard is conciously unwilling to reach for it.

WotLK peaked the playerbase with easy pve content, broken class balance in every aspect of the game and with a major story line accessible by the casual playerbase.

The game changed to more and demanding raiding, more and demanding dungeons, more and demanding requirements for PvE in general and more and demanding gearprogression (for raiders).

And what happened with the playerbase?

And what did blizzard in LEGION/BFA?

And what happened with the playerbase?

You know well, that with less players, yes with less casual players, the amount of raiding players goes down aswell. There are some beautiful participation statistics to raiding here at MMO-C, you should maybe compare some WotLK numbers with later expansions and compare yourself how "good" the catering to the hardcore players were to the raiding community.

[Flutterguy]

What unifying characteristic of the WoW player base is there besides playing WoW? There are a lot of different WoW players who focus on different parts of the game.

[Aurabolt]

I'm curious to see what you all think. I personally, think they do..but not on the level that players want them to.

You just answered your own question. No poll necessary.

The thing most of the people on MMO-C, WoW Reddit and elsehwhere who are critical of WoW convinced me they don't care about is they only represent a small fraction of those who currently or used to play WoW. They just think if they complain and whine long enough and loud enough, Blizzard will do what they want. They could care less about the fact most who play WoW are not a part of these online communities either. Oh, the irony. LOL.

[brt2pp]

playerbase doesn't understand itself, how could ion ? blizzard know participation statistic and general feeling about features, and that is enough to push game in right direction

[Elias01]

They do, they just think they know better. They also like to wait a full expansion cycle to fix problems/issues that were raised during the beta, to make it look like they came to those conclusions by themselves rather than it being feedback from 2 years prior.

You have no idea. Absolutly no idea how long it actualy takes to redesing or create whole new systems. It doesnt take days or weeks or few months. It takes very very long time to get something from board into the game.

[sam86]

Basically: Trials deserve loot too if they killed a boss and seemingly only people who are empowered by ML like ML, according to Blizzard.

why the f8ck would a new trial get loot from day one? what is good exactly for a raiding guild if a day one recruit is as rewarded as a 10 month old veteran, or dare i say 3+ years? how is that justified?
That's all they said?

[Zenfoldor]

I don't think they understand at all.

[Bigbazz]

You have no idea. Absolutly no idea how long it actualy takes to redesing or create whole new systems. It doesnt take days or weeks or few months. It takes very very long time to get something from board into the game.

You're dodging the point I was making. Blizzard will outright defend their decisions, direction, balancing etc etc for the entire expansion and then come up with the "fix" all by themselves after people had already been strongly campaigning for it during the previous expansion beta. They wait 2 years and then act like they came up with some grand idea to fix an issue they found with the game, that 2 years prior they were ignoring the community on or outright disagreeing fundamentally with how the community felt.

Pruning, GCD change, many balancing issues, awards structures etc. Do you know that early in Legion people had already asked that weekly chests provide a choice of multiple items to reduce RNG? 2 expansions later they reveal it like they just thought up the best idea. Blizzard will dig their heels deny the community insisting they know best until the dust has settled enough for them to pitch it as their own design philosophy.

[sam86]

playerbase doesn't understand itself, how could ion ? blizzard know participation statistic and general feeling about features, and that is enough to push game in right direction

i know what i want, and so do u, and anyone who talks can easily tell
the best option is that they ask the playerbase, and obey who answer them, if u are silent, u literally giving away ur right to voice ur opinion, no one to blame but urself that stuff that u want didn't happen in game
Unless u can prove to me and everyone that blizzard can read ppl minds, there is zero blame on them for being silent, that is how democracy works, ppl vote, ppl who don't vote have no say in result, ur fault u dropped ur right
So playerbase consist of what used to be millions of ppl, and i'm 100% positive that at least there was one guy who play wow whose opinion is exact opposite of mine, so what blizz do? check online ppl who voice what they want, and do it, if my opinion is shared by only 5 ppl, and his opinion is shared by 10, he wins, democracy ftw (ironic i know since i live in one of WORST tyrannical countries on earth)

[Kayze]

sure, they do, but that doesn't mean they'll implement what people say they want. The problem is that Blizzard isn't that great and understanding the problems players actually have to create a solution, so they just design a solution they think could help but won't.

But then there's also business goals mixed in, so they gotta add that RNG and complicated grindy systems to keep players subbed.

[Nebron]

It still works, but you have to do the high end content if you demand the geargap to last that long.

Go raid mythic, get geared in the first 2-3 weeks of progression and your min-maxed raidgear will outdo anything what a casual player will have 6 months later.
Even the "above" casual player with weekly-10 (mythic+) chest and weekly-pvp (1800-2000) chest will need insane RNG luck to get just to the ilvl range of a mythic raider. And thats just ilvl, with the insane socket/essence/azerite/trinket power creep you have still a solid 80-100% DPS difference.

So yes, you can still do endgame content, take a 6 month "vacation" come back and be still above casual players.

But here is a hint, dont just listen to forum trolls, negative talk-streamers and dont believe me. Go to a class discord or logs and check for yourself what a week1/2 raider did at the start of the tier progression and what a casual player right now is doing (simDPS). There will be no surprises, the gear gap is still there and negative content streamers are sometimes just lying their asses off.



WotLK peaked the playerbase with easy pve content, broken class balance in every aspect of the game and with a major story line accessible by the casual playerbase.

The game changed to more and demanding raiding, more and demanding dungeons, more and demanding requirements for PvE in general and more and demanding gearprogression (for raiders).

And what happened with the playerbase?

And what did blizzard in LEGION/BFA?

And what happened with the playerbase?

You know well, that with less players, yes with less casual players, the amount of raiding players goes down aswell. There are some beautiful participation statistics to raiding here at MMO-C, you should maybe compare some WotLK numbers with later expansions and compare yourself how "good" the catering to the hardcore players were to the raiding community.

You miss the point tho.

I don't say that the raiding should be harder or inaccessible. On contrary, it's great since that time we've got another raid difficulty - which is mythic. So now, we have normal tiers, heroic tiers and mythic tiers. Why would we keep LFR, when there's a quiet consent on loot-trading and AFK-fests?

Raiding itself got more demanding, yeah, so you try to devaluate my point about high numbers on playerbase in WotLK and low in Legion/BfA? But you miss quite an important thing. Neither WotLK, not even Cata and MoP did "cater" the content for the least-demanding. It started in Legion and haven't been changed since. I'm pretty much casual, and with the minimum of effort got the gear "almost" as good as mythic raiders. People obviously take an adventage of the system that allows them to collect the great gear. A good example: in Legion, imagine you had a good gear. You went off for a while, like 2 weeks. In that time, it would be absolutely certain that anybody who freshly dinged 110 could catch-up to you. The system was broken, by the way Ion thankfully at last admitted it, and so you could simply take adventage on that system.

It's really not that difficult. All people need to understand is that behind any driving factor, there's a reward. And as long as reward is getting out of your reach, either due to the massive multipliers of RNG, or by inaccessibilty, it's frustarting and push people to dump on the game. Is it important to allow casuals grow in power? It's essential! But certainly - giving them the power for literally nothing is not the way. It's also a clear startegy: I choose a reward I'm going to put my effort to. But it can only make sense as long as I can estimate how much effort it requires and judge my chances on that. Look at the "better" players now. Why would soemthing be rewarding for them when they put a lot of effort and skills to achieve it, when there's a casual around the corner to achieve the same, but just 2 weeks later with some adventage of the system? Progress should be steady and predictable to the maximum. Does it also mean that RNG is the worst thing that can happen in game? No, once again - it's essential and inevitable. But it needs to implemented the way, so it doesn't hurt the game in any sense.

Therefore once again, a balanced game should offer the content for the most-demanding playerbase, and at the same offer the casuals a way to achieve the reward in their own pace. You lack time and skill? No problem, you will get your rewards, but later, in a slower pace. Effort and time commitment should be directly proportional to the reward and players should not be discouraged and ripped off and deprived of incentives. Once you cater everyone with that "welfare-alike systems" you end up with discourged "most-demanding playerbase" and, I'd say it oddly, but "demoralized casuals" with lack of incentives to grow in power, who demand more and more for free. It's a pretty though blow to everyone actually, and so it kills the game.

And let's be clear. Numbers dropped since the release of WoD when they peaked to 14 millions IIRC. It's not because somehow there was an massive exodus due to storytelling or something. It's because the game became dramatically unattractive and failed to satisfy the playerbase. Some people like to think about it as a grand cosnpiracy theory of players and some weird burn-out because of the franchise age. Nope, it's Blizzard who changed their philosophy of game design, and did not live up to the expectations when it comes to innovations. Look at Legions/ BfA/ Shadowlands features. These are a copy-paste with some tweaks. I quite like the Shadowlands for the first bold moves, but there's still much to be done.

Funnily enough, casuals benefit on the "more difficult" game design as it requires an actual gameplay and as long as the content is attractive and you have rewards to strive for, people keep playing.