What was BFA’s target audience?

[Varolyn]

Expansion is too grindy for casuals (has been improved a little bit though).

Essence system makes it terrible for alts.

“Required” content like IEs were far too mundane for hardcore players.

Lack of tier sets was bad for xmog.

Gearing progression is screwed up. You get a lot of pieces all at once and then it can take forever to get an upgrade. BIS is essentially dead.

Seriously, BFA’s target audience may very well be people who like to make spreadsheets or run endless sims on raid bots.

[Grumpy Old Man]

Beta testers?

[Dziubla]

Seriously, BFA’s target audience may very well be people who like to make spreadsheets or run endless sims on raid bots.

On the contrary, I'd say the audience is people who don't give much of a fuck about all this crap you mention. For casuals without this weird mentality of "I HAVE to do it", the expansion isn't grindy at all (or, at least, not more so than past expansions).

Essences? The base ones are pretty easy to acquire even with minimum amount of effort (rep/HoA level), as for the others (raid/m+/pvp), if you play the content that requires them, you will get them sooner or later, if you don't play the content that requires them, you don't need them, and shouldn't care.

I wouldn't call IEs "required" content, unless you're one of the most hardcore players that seriously pushes mythic raids. And if you're one of those people, then you're probably used to having to do a lot of mindless/boring/trivial content to get 0.0001% edge over others. And while the "boring" part is certainly on the content, the "required" part is on the player. You can opt out of doing islands, and you won't really be THAT far behind, especially later on in the patch. Sure, at the START of the patch, where ppl are rushing to unlock their essence slots, islands are definitely useful/mandatory, but after that...nope.

I fail to see how lack of tiers was bad for XMOG.

Gearing looked that way for quite a while now, it's not exactly a BfA thing. When your gear is shit, you get upgrades fast, and sooner or later you reach a certain point when getting upgrades is almost impossible, at least without some lucky titanforges. If you're gambling/addicted sort of person, then you will keep running trivial content hoping for luck. If you're a sane person, you will see that wasting countless hours for +2 overall ilvl is...well, not exactly sane. It is what it is, some like it, some don't, but once again - not a BfA thing, so.

[lockybalboa]

The hardcore group. Moochamp group.

[Pony Soldier]

To me it always seemed like Blizzard was trying to catch the attention of all the mobile game kids who love spending their parents money on microtransactions. For at least the past 3 expansions now their content has been severely dumbed down to where even an 8 year old would be able to understand and made it addicting enough for them to keep coming back by dangling that carrot or Twinkie or whatever you wanna use in front of their face.

I think they're trying to tap into that mobile game audience. The kind of audience that are willing to give them their whole life savings so they can have all the shinies. I mean can you blame them for wanting to take advantage of their stupidity?

That's what I think anyway.

[Drusin]

Expansion is too grindy for casuals (has been improved a little bit though).

Essence system makes it terrible for alts.

“Required” content like IEs were far too mundane for hardcore players.

Lack of tier sets was bad for xmog.

Gearing progression is screwed up. You get a lot of pieces all at once and then it can take forever to get an upgrade. BIS is essentially dead.

Seriously, BFA’s target audience may very well be people who like to make spreadsheets or run endless sims on raid bots.

Mount collectors

- - - Updated - - -

To me it always seemed like Blizzard was trying to catch the attention of all the mobile game kids who love spending their parents money on microtransactions. For at least the past 3 expansions now their content has been severely dumbed down to where even an 8 year old would be able to understand and made it addicting enough for them to keep coming back by dangling that carrot or Twinkie or whatever you wanna use in front of their face.

I think they're trying to tap into that mobile game audience. The kind of audience that are willing to give them their whole life savings so they can have all the shinies. I mean can you blame them for wanting to take advantage of their stupidity?

That's what I think anyway.

The game was either shitarded as during vanilla and BC when gear had fucknut stats on it like Str and Mp5 or it was dumbed down, I'd rather have dumbed down tbh lol.

[Pony Soldier]

The game was either shitarded as during vanilla and BC when gear had fucknut stats on it like Str and Mp5 or it was dumbed down, I'd rather have dumbed down tbh lol.

Oh yeah there's nothing wrong with the game being more simple I actually like it better this way than with all the convoluted crap stats we used to have. I was just pointing out that everything was simplified maybe to just make it more simple and fun for players but to also reach out to a wider audience and anyone with common sense will say that doing that usually causes problems.

It's just with the way they handle the WQs and how everything is time gated and randomized. It just makes it seem like they're copying off of what mobile games do to try and replicate the success they're having and adding it to WoW. So instead of putting in the extra effort to make quality content they're just copying what the mobile game industry is doing since it seems like they're making a lot of money from what they're doing and for the simple fact that it's easier to just randomize things and halt people's progress just so they can keep coming back and paying for that subscription.

So when you combine stupid pre-teens and addictive MMO gameplay there's usually a lot of dollar signs that come out of it and that's all Blizzard cares about.

[Frolo Bobbins]

Seriously, BFA’s target audience may very well be people who like to make spreadsheets or run endless sims on raid bots.

I think it was pretty clear that Devs created a game "they'd like to play themselves".
And so BFA's target audience is clearly people who used to post on Elitist Jerks' "well kept garden"

[Kokolums]

The new features for BfA were IEs and WFs. IEs have a slot machine feel as they are not difficult in the slightest but reward stuff randomly. Pull the lever, maybe get a mount or pet or mog once in a while.

Torghast sounds like an updated IE. It is not timed at all, run around a now-random map. Pull the lever, maybe get some anima or runes. Turn those in for stuff.

[schwarzkopf]

Target Audience - WoW Players.

Not the Target Audience - WoW Workers.

If you like PLAYING the game - then BfA was for you.

If you treat it like a job - then it probably sucked.

[potis]

The expansion content (Islands/Warfront) was targeted towards extreme casuals, and at the same time extreme collectors, which is why they suck ass, they are ultra boring for anyone outside those two groups, the extreme casual dont even know what they are for, extreme collectors probably dislike it but still farm them for mount/pets/transmog, for everyone else its literally the worst thing in the last 15 years.

The rest is just usual World of Warcraft, grind to raid, each expansion has a different type of grind that overall its the same, just renamed.

[ArkantosChampion]

Casual - 74% of the game.
Hardcore - Mythic Raid, Mythic+15, Gladiator/Hero of the A&H, Essence on Alts, Essence Rank 4.

[Huzzaa]

To me it always seemed like Blizzard was trying to catch the attention of all the mobile game kids who love spending their parents money on microtransactions. For at least the past 3 expansions now their content has been severely dumbed down to where even an 8 year old would be able to understand and made it addicting enough for them to keep coming back by dangling that carrot or Twinkie or whatever you wanna use in front of their face.

I think they're trying to tap into that mobile game audience. The kind of audience that are willing to give them their whole life savings so they can have all the shinies. I mean can you blame them for wanting to take advantage of their stupidity?

That's what I think anyway.

Yup, and they've now permanently lost me at that. I came back again around January this year and well. How many times can I shoot myself in the foot, is what I wonder?

PS. I don't entirely agree with the dumbed down bit (in your second post). The game is in my opinion the opposite. Way too convoluted. But the twist is, if you're never really stepping into the normal content (mythic, really ... not the crap underneath it) then the game is seemingly stupid easy that nothing matters indeed, because it's too easy.

[Sithalos]

It didn't have a target audience.

[erifwodahs]

I'm pretty sure Blizz has spreadsheets on how many players did what type of content for how long.
You might think it's not for altoholics, but if they like to gear and equip alts to be ready to raid level, BfA keeps them busy AF for sure. They would have added acc wide essences already, if grinding those would bleed out subs instead of making those altoholics put more work into wow.

Edit: What I want to say - you put the things out in the way you see them, not actually trying to understand. Simple prejudice towards blizz and the game is very visible, poorly hidden behind "a wish to find out what is the target audience"

[Project 501D13R]

Considering the rng, I'd say people with a gambling problem.

[Azerate]

All the people playing it instead of crying on forums?

[George Costanza]

Shills obviously.

[Relapses]

People who play for an hour a day and log out. And also don't quit. Lord help your soul if you quit.

[Sansnom]

To me it always seemed like Blizzard was trying to catch the attention of all the mobile game kids who love spending their parents money on microtransactions. For at least the past 3 expansions now their content has been severely dumbed down to where even an 8 year old would be able to understand and made it addicting enough for them to keep coming back by dangling that carrot or Twinkie or whatever you wanna use in front of their face.

I think they're trying to tap into that mobile game audience. The kind of audience that are willing to give them their whole life savings so they can have all the shinies. I mean can you blame them for wanting to take advantage of their stupidity?

That's what I think anyway.

Did you play? Then you must be their target audience if Blizzard ALWAYS trying to catch their audience and it also catches you.