Definitely!
They do, but not the amount I hope for.
Nope, definitely not.
And yet they haven't been or have you not seen the most recent blue post on essences? They're already moving backwards from the Shadowlands annoucement and interviews. Not to sound rude, but as someone who's been around 11 years you should know better than to listen to Blizzcon interviews.
Ion got full on booed at Blizzcon over Pathfinder, and he was still like "there were mixed reactions, some cheers, some boos" and it was literally all boos. If that's not delusion and refusing not to understand your player base, I don't know what is.
They know how to keep people addicted with titanforging and an ungodly amount of RNG layers atop one another. I feel like a lot of people have quit due to this so I don't know if it was worth it though (however anecdotal it may be). What they don't understand is class design and PvP.
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I think he knows most people want flying, but whatever makes them play longer wins in the end (no flying makes everything take more time).
They listen and understand, and I fully believe they get it because a lot of the common minority complaints are talked about in the interviews.
The thing is, the vocal minority is just that: a minority.
Don't like WQs?
Well, guess what... there's an army of Casual Joes out there who do them quietly with nary a complaint.
They have the numbers and if WQs are being completed by X players in Y timeframe and that is considered successful, they keep them.
They've changed and removed some more annoying ones, too, as they've shown they can adjust to demand if it's noticeable enough.
Don't like WF/TF?
Well, that same army is out there grinding gear and getting procs with nary a sound.
But the 1% can't build their perfect BIS!
But the greater than 50% don't give two shits about that and are happily pulling the slot machine arm.
They listen, they know, they care.
But they don't want to alienate Casual Joe because Casual Joe is who keeps the bills paid, the lights on, and the pockets heavy.
So because of that, LFR will remain for everything, WF/TF will probably still be around in some incarnation, WQs will be a prominent 'post-max level' activity.
If you want a passion game, this isn't it.
That ship has sailed and what returned was gilded in gold and it's the casual players that keep the polish on that gold.
Agree and disagree on some things.
- Top level raiding was something that if you wanted to be among the elite in PVE you did what you needed to do, you didn't complain about it and that was that. You don't read a lot of that these days but there may still be a bit of that in the devs thinking, especially Watcher's since he dates back well into those times.
- It's important to separate out game requirements from guild and social requirements. If guilds are requiring multiple geared alts to progress normally then that's fine for that guild. I wouldn't be bothering with it myself personally. I used to raid and at a decently high level before Mythic came along. I stopped after T11/T12 amid a guild collapse due to some of the weirdness that was the first nine months of Cataclysm. I've never raided seriously again so I don't know (and don't much care) about how the guild meta for requirements works these days. Nonetheless, the point here is that if your guild is forcing their mainline team to maintain several alts to keep their seat that's not something the developers need to address. Just because other top guilds do this doesn't mean that everyone else needs to.
- One reason I don't raid seriously any longer is the overtuning that takes place now that I am sure is due to the unofficial world-first race. I think that sucks for everyone not in the race and I wish Blizzard would just stop it if that's what they're doing.
- Another reason not to raid is that I find piling mechanics one on top of another to be a rather boring way to design an encounter. Your mileage my vary on that.
- I have proposed in the past (and still support) that raiding should have its own higher-level progression path in the game through dungeons, older raids and mythic+ that doesn't require any significant effort in the world part of the game so to some extent we agree there. That includes whatever you think you need to do with Azerite armor or legendary items.
All of that said, I think they have an understanding of high-level raiding that is not out of line with past thinking about this. Some of your complaints are socially imposed. It's a controversial thing to say but I still think that while the game should be accessible to all, the world game and the instanced game of dungeons/raids should be separate things. Players who prefer the world should primarily play there; players who prefer dungeons and raiding should primarily stay there.
"...money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."
Except there is no thought process in that direction, artificial grinds were never part of top end raiding. Class stacking was a thing yes, however not being able to bring specific roles were never a thing(ie Mythic Fetid or Mythic Cabal before they finally nerfed it months later). I have no problem with the grind, my primary problems with it is how it effects my ability to play other toons or lack thereof. BFA's class design has been garbage from the alpha when they said "no class changes" then changed their mind when they realized how hated Azerite was because of how late they put it into beta. So god forbid I hate an iteration because they're constantly changing how talents work every single tier, not only do I have to catch up my neck, but I have to play the lotto with the azerite armor vendor, and refarm all the neck essences(and no the minuscule changes happening in 8.3 are not significant enough to warrant any form of praise).
This applies to my comment above, for the most part in expansions past Classes stayed relatively the same throughout an expansion cycle(until Legion) with slight differences tier to tier. Now this in itself is not a bad thing, its good that they're updating talents to try and be on par with each other on a patch to patch basis for the most part. However the underlying issue is, ok so you no longer like the class you're playing, so your option is to suffer with the changes or change mains and the amount of work required to change a toon is absolutely absurd right now and it isn't changing much in 8.3.
I agree entirely with this point, however it doesn't change that it's happening. The funny part is, every single time Ion's guild gets to a rough fight they nerf it to the ground, this has been true since Legion as well. Every single time Elitist Jerks reaches a hard boss, a week or two in it gets nerfed. Ion's guild is a estimation of the "average guild" and honestly raids should be tuned that way from the start and if not just slightly harder. I personally hate that Blizzard is promoting the WF race in such a way and it 100% trickles down to every guild that isn't or doesn't care and just wants to kill bosses.
I can agree as well, it's not as fun to have a million things happening at once. I'm fine with it like different phases like Argus or Jaina, but when it comes to a fight like Azshara I feel like its significantly overdone.
I do agree with this, however I don't feel there should be heavy grinds outside of the raid in order to remain relevant. I think MoP or WoD had it down perfect where you could get Valor capped just doing a few daily heroics and clearing the current raid and that was your progression moving forward in the raid. However it's impossible to cap your Neck just raiding and doing a daily heroic a few times a week. I think if Blizzard follows through with all their promises for Shadowlands it'll shape up to be a good expansion, but based on the most recent Blue post on Essences I feel they're already going back on them "understanding" players desires for the game moving forward.
I agree entirely, however(correct me if I'm wrong), but it sounds like we agree that you should do the content that you want and be rewarded accordingly. Meaning that you shouldn't be able to get capped out Titanforged gear from just being lucky in a World Quest or from LFR. And on the same hand, you shouldn't be forced to or feel forced to participate in content you don't want to for example if you have no interest in rated Arena or RBGs then you shouldn't have to participate for say Conflict and Strife.
Yes, exactly. If you must define progress by the gear you're wearing, make that gear optimal for where you got it. Dungeon/raid gear should work best in dungeons and raids. World gear (like Benthic as one example) should be optimal in the world. Therefore there's no particular pressure to do mythic+ or raids if you don't want to and vice versa. Everyone gets taken care of. Gear attributes can bonus or turn off depending on where you are. There was a remarkable amount of dislike for the idea from people I thought would like it but that's fine. It's just fanfic-MMO-design. I still think it's a decent idea and reflects the fact that for many players the game has become somewhat binary. Most people would like to do one or the other and become irritated that they're forced at times to do both.
Personal example: I love doing professions (even as bad as they currently are). It's irksome to go run mythic+ to get mats because the people I prefer to play with aren't always around to do mythic+. I see professions as largely a "world" thing so why can't I pick up my mats in the world? It's not like I'm making raid gear for anyone. It's more annoying than anything. Same thing a few expansions back about having to go into PVP areas to pick up mats when I don't enjoy PVP even a little bit. Blizzard could stop that shit right away and I wouldn't mind a bit.
If anything, I think this is an area where developers don't have much of an understanding of how people like to play. If they did they would stop enticing people to do things they don't enjoy just to get a few bits of progression. Others can disagree and that's fine.
Last edited by MoanaLisa; 2019-11-07 at 07:18 PM.
"...money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."
I feel Blizz understands the casual playerbase WAY better than the MMO-Champion forums.
the numbers are almost 30 30 30 ... thats insane.
In this thread people who have no idea about corporate management and think a sample size of a couple thousand is the opinion of a couple of million
I mean dude....MMO champion is essentially
-Maybe at MOST 1000 people
- Of which maybe 500 of them actively play wow
- And likely only play with the english speaking playerbase
- Who AT MOST know maybe 100 people on 1 server
I mean that's why blizzard uses metrics...the human mind can't really comprehend the opinion of THAT many people
They understand, they just don't care.
about half way down underLFR justifies the creation of more raid content when millions of players are able to see content. Only a few thousand people actually saw Kel'thuzad, but millions saw Deathwing. The reason Mists of Pandaria is starting with 18 bosses and adding larger raid tiers than we have had previously is because many players are going to see the raids through LFR.
Developer Interviews
https://www.mmo-champion.com/content...e-Posts?page=2
one of the quotes on it I could find about LFR and raids.
I think the current devs are getting parts of the playerbase, predominantly the min-max oriented hardcore player audience and the part of the audience who is more into moba-and diablo 3-styled games, who like gameplay which is heavily into grinding and randomized loot with a limited amount of active player abilities and more into min-maxing. I think who they don't get are the more traditional rpg-elemented players and the casual-audiences. I mean, I myself have to say, that I kinda feel discouraged to get into endgame to begin with, because it comes off as too messy and bothersome, especially with the azerithe system which heavily determines the builds and playstyles I can play on the basis of randomized loot.
I kind of prefered the Burning Crusade and on a different angle the wrath of the lichking kind of design. with Burning Crusade, it was in my opinion probably the strongest in terms of a clearly set rpg endgame progression system. I know where to start, with reputation vendors, normal dungeons for my max level gear, afterwards heroics, badges vendors and Karazhan to get me equipped into raiding and then progressing through the 25 Man endgame raids. For PVP, I knew I had to grind me honor points for my starter pvp gear and then start doing Arena to get me the non-ranked set first and then slowly progress through ranks for the current high end pvp gear.
With Wotlk, it was rather similar but Blizzard skipped progressing through older raid tiers. Still, there was a clear path to go for me if I was max level and wanted to gear up. I started fo farm the normal emblems for pve starter gear and the weekly locked ones for current normal raid gear and it was friendlier for fast casual pve content, as I had the option of using the LFG for grinding heroics and with it being friendlier towards solo players without a dedicated raid guild to farm current content via pugs in normal mode, while heroic were theoretically more reserved towards static guild groups. It was easy, it had clearly set goals. Character progression was easy as well. You had your talent points through leveling which made your character stronger and unlocked powerful essential abilities for your spec while higher level gear as well as t-set bonuses gave your characters additional power. Now with azerithe gear, titanforging all of this min-maxing, I feel it kinda has become really too bothersome to get into all of it. I'm kinda afraid too try to seriously get into endgame pve content with this kind of system.
I feel like Azerithe gear and essences even made it worse compared to Legion, where I at least knew that I simply had to grind up this system. Though I also have to say that with the artifacts, class design wasn't too bad and classes were generally fun to play once you unlocked more and more artifact traits. The problem was more, that this progression was fully tied into endgame content, with all classes being build around this weapons. If they had skipped the artifacts and simply made the traits part of the general leveling progress, leveling itself could have been fun as well, this way classes simply felt bad while leveling them as they lacked important passive and active abilities. And with BFA it got worse, since classes were barely changed but we were stripped of all the passive and active abilities which were essential for making the class fun and engaging to play. Blizzards biggest mistake was not to make the artifact traits simply traits you unlock while leveling and keep even during the new max level.
Another problem, in my opinion, is that really lack any sense of progression in the game. Up until I think wotlk, you would simply unlock new abilities during leveling as well as gaining new rows on your talent tree, with the final one in many classes feeling like your definitive new Ultimate which makes you stronger. This kind of progression is just too rare while leveling and stopps fully at 100, you don't get new abililities and powers for your class during the current expansion and due to how scaling works, you don't feel stronger while fighting mobs up until a rather high item level, at max level you even feel weaker than before until you have gear. Before, every new level and every piece of loot made you feel stronger.
I also miss the time where we had support heavy classes and I feel like they can be done in a holy trinity role based mmo. Final Fantasy does a rather devent job with them, classes are rated on both, their personal dps as well as the support skills and additional raid dps they bring to the group and I feel like WoW did during TBC a not so bad job at doing this as well, giving supportive hybrid classes tools that made them valuable for groups even if they bring in less personal dps than dedicated pure dps classes.
Truthfully I feel like Benthic would have been perfect if sockets weren't a thing. They're on par to Mythic raid gear without the socket and require a considerable amount of work to make them 425, but also probably disable the perk in the raid, which would fit exactly what you're saying. I just feel like blizzard has taken too many steps to try and homogenize gear so players don't feel bad when they don't get what they want, instead it feels bad when what you want drops, but doesn't drop with perfect RNG rolls.
They know, but they don't know how to communicate with their player base. See: High Elf Allied Race response (Not going to argue that here, I have posts in the High Elf thread if you are curious).
Peace is a lie. There is only passion. Through passion I gain strength. Through strength I gain power.
Through power I gain victory. Through victory my chains are broken. The Force shall set me free.
–The Sith Code