Mythic is too tight, guilds are dying

[Mamercus]

I think it's wrong to draw the conclusion that people quit because of EP difficulty although there were irritations on that front. The benthic, rep, and essence grinds were really really really really really really really bad. It was like playing a Korean MMO. A lot of excellent players that I know personally noped out because of it. The grind was crazy even for people with flexible schedules and the unemployed. For people who work it was like working a second job after your first job except your second job pays badly and you are working for little blue sea midgets. Getting all gemmed optimal benthic was both inanely boring and incredibly time consuming.

Yes Azshara was pretty hard, but not that much harder than Jaina really. The grind, though? Wayyyyy more time consuming.

[leorana]

I think it's wrong to draw the conclusion that people quit because of EP difficulty although there were irritations on that front. The benthic, rep, and essence grinds were really really really really really really really bad. It was like playing a Korean MMO. A lot of excellent players that I know personally noped out because of it. The grind was crazy even for people with flexible schedules and the unemployed. For people who work it was like working a second job after your first job except your second job pays badly and you are working for little blue sea midgets. Getting all gemmed optimal benthic was both inanely boring and incredibly time consuming.

Yes Azshara was pretty hard, but not that much harder than Jaina really. The grind, though? Wayyyyy more time consuming.

Totaly agree...
On a side note..the real wow-killer, even on the casual level, is KIDS. Working 40 hours a week takes its toll on a person free time and his ability to play WoW. However, kids are a 24/7 job, you can not take a day off being a parent, and kids are much less reasonanle than youe avg boss.

When I was a student and part time employed I played for 40-60 hrs a week. These thays, I can hardly squeese 1 hour, maybe 2 daily. This will gimp you from day1, and if you're behind from the start you're done for allready...

[Osmeric]

I think it's wrong to draw the conclusion that people quit because of EP difficulty

It depends on what you mean by "people". People who had been raiding in Mythic earlier in the expansion? People who had been raiding in H or below? People who weren't raiding at all?

The percentage of tracked raiding guilds that downed the final boss in a raid on M has remained fairly constant over the expansion, while the total number of raiding guilds (at all levels) has fallen distressingly fast, down more than 50% since Uldir.

I wonder if the difficulty argument is the whole story. Difficulty comes along with reward. If the perceived reward (and I mean psychological reward, not raw loot reward) for doing something is reduced, the willingness to invest effort also gets reduced. Blizzard needs to be worried when CBA reactions increase -- they suggest players feel the game just isn't feeling rewarding enough to keep playing.

[Kralljin]

I wonder if the difficulty argument is the whole story. Difficulty comes along with reward. If the perceived reward (and I mean psychological reward, not raw loot reward) for doing something is reduced, the willingness to invest effort also gets reduced. Blizzard needs to be worried when CBA reactions increase -- they suggest players feel the game just isn't feeling rewarding enough to keep playing.

It's been a general criticism of me towards BfA on that front.
I think in previous expansion(s) there was still a rather decent investment vs. Reward calculation going for raiding in general.

However, especially since BfA, i feel like this calculation no longer pays off.
During Season 2, one of my friends managed to get an alt to a point where it no longer really needed anything out of Heroic BFD (400 Ilvl), because the weekly M+10, Weekly chest and Warfront gave enough loot, despite not having done BFD once.
We may no longer have the mission table, but the weekly chest has a similiar effect on gearing in my opinion, you no longer have to do content on a given difficulty to earn it, you can just wait and earn via some easier and more efficient method.

Weekly rewards that award above the usual Itemlvl aren't good for a game in my opinion, it makes people less engaged with the game because the rewards just come to them if they're patient.

Also, in terms of rewards, raids no longer have any particular hooks unless you are a mythic raider, if you only raid heroic, you might as well just do M+ and basically get equivalent rewards for less effort in terms of organization.

[potis]

The percentage of tracked raiding guilds that downed the final boss in a raid on M has remained fairly constant over the expansion, while the total number of raiding guilds (at all levels) has fallen distressingly fast, down more than 50% since Uldir.

Thats just the usual expansion hopping effect, it has nothing to do with the game, every single MMO is like this, even the shittiest MMO release has similar signs.

Dont you see all these "Newly formed guilds" every single expansion?

Do you know how many people i tell to "Lol fuck off" every expansion start with their usual attempts to create a guild "As they will return to the game".

Raiding is suffering because of grinding, its not the fun type of grinding, its the boring "Why am i doing this shit" type of grinding, and balancing around it, balancing is mostly irrelevant, but bad players cant get carried as easily as before.

If you have 2-3h/day or at least the WILL to do the basic 2-3h/grind required the first 2-3 weeks each patch cycle, then you can enjoy the game at its casual raiding environment, Mythic included also, and thats just the quests, you will do some M+ also so its even more hours, averagely we are talking 20h/week to be in a half-relevant state in the early patch as a respectable player with a relevant item level and farm under your belt, what difficulty you do is irrelevant.

The problem is that the majority of players outside the Mythic element, does not have even that..Maybe they dont have the time or the will? I dont know, all i know its 100% a problem.

I have posted this before, i saw 3 guilds die because of AP, all for the same reason, they were raid loggers because they were playing since Vanilla and have reached the age of kids/family, they could casually clear most of older HC content (nowadays Mythic) over the years, and you could see them all excitedly grinding at the start of the expansion cause its new, but when they realized that they had to keep doing this sort of daily grind, after years of raid logging, they dropped the game like a sack of potatoes.

The majority of those were shit players for my standards in their majority, so no harm done, but they were raiders,that would kill the bosses days before the next patch, but raiders none the less.

And then the other problem arises, you have a decent guild that was doing okay, and for some reason some members no longer have those 20h/week for basic grinding, they cant keep up, guild suffers, better players/grinders get fed up and jump ship, repeat.

[scelero]

Difference is that Musk was born rich, he has never seen poverty or even being a middle class citizen. Meanwhile most of us come from the trenches, having to climb the raiding ladder to get into the "0.4%". Seen the game from all PoVs and claiming difficult raids is the reason people quit the game is just false.

Good point. People seem to miss the core issue with what it is they're seeing, not because everyone around them sucks. It's just that you deserve to be in the 1% but can't seem to ever get there.

My experience, is most people don't get there because they give up for one reason or another. Not because they can't, but because they choose not to. But the OP already nailed that on the head (well, at least to those who can take a step back and look at what's being said).

It's always the people attempting it, and the weakest link in that chain that makes them break. The sad thing is, most don't realize they become the next weakest link when they realize this and don't do anything about it. Which is what most failing guilds do, in one format or another.

I'm all for weak minded guilds, dying. There's already too many to weed through as it is. I personally, don't think the game sucks, or I wouldn't be posting about or play the damn thing. I think everyone involved or surrounding it, for the majority, do suck though. But this goes in all avenues of life in these parts I live in today. Everyone are weak minded with 'conditions'. Remember when you could just call them a b!tch. Man, good times.

[Osmeric]

I'm all for weak minded guilds, dying. There's already too many to weed through as it is.

You DO realize that all the "weak minded" guilds dying is a recipe for the game to die as well, right?

[Leaf4Prez]

I played on the Zuluhed/Ursin/Andorhal/Scilla realm group. I quit raiding in BoD/CoS. My guild transferred off, and so did several others. I logged in a month or two ago to feel out the servers. There is only 1 alliance guild raiding, we were a horde majority by 2 to 1. The horde guild still raiding have been 4/8 for 3 months.

https://www.wowprogress.com/pve/us/connected-zuluhed

I didn't transfer with my guild (which actually ended up dying on Thrall a month or two later when classic came out), and went on to classic, where we raid 2 hours a week tops. The raiding in Mythic is dead on the outer realms. And even if I wanted to raid with the guild raiding, there is no way to communicate with them. In warmode I don't see anyone from my server, there is no discord, our realm forum is a ghost town, and the connections I knew left long ago.

The game isn't dead, its on life support for raiders. Classic helped people realize that the "casual" life is what they've wanted for years. They don't want to log in every day for hours to grind something that means nothing 77 days later. The don't want to raid an entire tire which is INVALIDED the next patch. People have been raiding MC every week for 16 weeks now almost, and they still haven't seen their piece drop, but they don't care.

Mythic raiding killed end game. Getting together 20 people instead of 10 or 25 destroyed raiding in my opinion. Bring bag end-game 10 mans. That is how FFX14 has been doing it forever, 8 man end-game raiding. Getting 7 others together is much better, and easier to replace dropouts.

[kaminaris]

I played on the Zuluhed/Ursin/Andorhal/Scilla realm group. I quit raiding in BoD/CoS. My guild transferred off, and so did several others. I logged in a month or two ago to feel out the servers. There is only 1 alliance guild raiding, we were a horde majority by 2 to 1. The horde guild still raiding have been 4/8 for 3 months.

https://www.wowprogress.com/pve/us/connected-zuluhed

I didn't transfer with my guild (which actually ended up dying on Thrall a month or two later when classic came out), and went on to classic, where we raid 2 hours a week tops. The raiding in Mythic is dead on the outer realms. And even if I wanted to raid with the guild raiding, there is no way to communicate with them. In warmode I don't see anyone from my server, there is no discord, our realm forum is a ghost town, and the connections I knew left long ago.

The game isn't dead, its on life support for raiders. Classic helped people realize that the "casual" life is what they've wanted for years. They don't want to log in every day for hours to grind something that means nothing 77 days later. The don't want to raid an entire tire which is INVALIDED the next patch. People have been raiding MC every week for 16 weeks now almost, and they still haven't seen their piece drop, but they don't care.

Mythic raiding killed end game. Getting together 20 people instead of 10 or 25 destroyed raiding in my opinion. Bring bag end-game 10 mans. That is how FFX14 has been doing it forever, 8 man end-game raiding. Getting 7 others together is much better, and easier to replace dropouts.

You give classic way too much credit. Sorry but gear is not and never was important. The journey and struggle is what matters, the moments you had with friends trying to down the boss. While I agree we should get 10 and 20 man mode because its hard to get 20 ppl together.

And honestly, game would be so much better without people who even consider gear as a part of a goal.

On our server and in our community maybe 2 or 3 people left for classic (out of 200+ people), one of them already came back.

Getting 10/15 and 20 player mode + making progress easier is what can save raiding and guild, people need breaks.

[Ishayu]

Statistics at hand do not include other factors which play a major role here ( grinding activites and others ). Therefore you can't put the blame on the difficulty being the culprit.

Having to grind is an intrinsic part of the difficulty. If you don't have to grind to defeat all the bosses, then the bosses are by definition easier. You cannot separate character power and skill entirely in a game like WoW, and I don't understand why you're trying to make that argument.

I almost feel like shifting intonation to that of Chen Stormstout and asking you: "Why do we grind?"

[Popastique]

Having to grind is an intrinsic part of the difficulty. If you don't have to grind to defeat all the bosses, then the bosses are by definition easier. You cannot separate character power and skill entirely in a game like WoW, and I don't understand why you're trying to make that argument.

I almost feel like shifting intonation to that of Chen Stormstout and asking you: "Why do we grind?"

Going by your logic one can tie almost any WoW actitivty and its aspects ( pvp, pet battles, racials, etc. ) to mythic difficulty, which by removing would make encounters easier. But if that is your definition of difficulty - i won't stop you here, that's not my point.

Your brought up statstics and how, i quote "the statistics just straight up don't agree with you" which is pretty much false. Statistics at hand only show us the amount of kills, and .... that's it. So unless you do a survey, reach out to those guilds and players who stopped raiding, and make a pretty big report - statistics do agree with me and anyone else. Did some guilds stopped raiding? Yes. Was it out of difficulty reasons? Won't know unless you make a pretty big survey, end of story.

[Krille]

Having to grind is an intrinsic part of the difficulty. If you don't have to grind to defeat all the bosses, then the bosses are by definition easier. You cannot separate character power and skill entirely in a game like WoW, and I don't understand why you're trying to make that argument.

I almost feel like shifting intonation to that of Chen Stormstout and asking you: "Why do we grind?"

What is the definition of grind to you? We now know that you need 158k AP after 8.3 launch to get 75 and the last minor. This will be all you have to get to kill Nzoth mythic. If you did the paragon thing you will have 40k AP waiting off the bat, so 118k AP to go.

Is that a grind to you? If you're a top 200 guild, you probably should get 75 before reaching the more difficult bosses, might take 2 weeks. So from patch launch you have like 70k AP (cus of artifact knowledge) to farm in 3-4 weeks. Doesnt sound much like a grind to me. Especially since you will get more than 10k from a full raid clear (normal/heroic).

[kaminaris]

What is the definition of grind to you? We now know that you need 158k AP after 8.3 launch to get 75 and the last minor. This will be all you have to get to kill Nzoth mythic. If you did the paragon thing you will have 40k AP waiting off the bat, so 118k AP to go.

Is that a grind to you? If you're a top 200 guild, you probably should get 75 before reaching the more difficult bosses, might take 2 weeks. So from patch launch you have like 70k AP (cus of artifact knowledge) to farm in 3-4 weeks. Doesnt sound much like a grind to me. Especially since you will get more than 10k from a full raid clear (normal/heroic).

Just by doing emissaries and 3x islands should be probably enough to reach 75 in 5 weeks. Azerite was never a problem of raiding, even for people who doesn't farm anything at all. Artifact power in legion was.

[123youshowme]

Just by doing emissaries and 3x islands should be probably enough to reach 75 in 5 weeks. Azerite was never a problem of raiding, even for people who doesn't farm anything at all. Artifact power in legion was.

don't say that too loud, the people with no idea about the state of things will attempt to crucify you.

[khazmodan]

You DO realize that all the "weak minded" guilds dying is a recipe for the game to die as well, right?

Mythic raiders do not significantly support the game compared to the masses of casuals.

[Kaver]

I don’t think mythic is much tighter now than in Legion. I think much of the decrease in raiders comes from BFA being a bad expansion in general.

[Orwell7]

Mythic raiders do not significantly support the game compared to the masses of casuals.

Which is a problem with CAPITALISM and should not be a factor of how good a game is.

[GringoD]

Totaly agree...
On a side note..the real wow-killer, even on the casual level, is KIDS. Working 40 hours a week takes its toll on a person free time and his ability to play WoW. However, kids are a 24/7 job, you can not take a day off being a parent, and kids are much less reasonanle than youe avg boss.

When I was a student and part time employed I played for 40-60 hrs a week. These thays, I can hardly squeese 1 hour, maybe 2 daily. This will gimp you from day1, and if you're behind from the start you're done for allready...

Can sorta relate. One parent in my guild didn't even have flying back in november, which just put him even further behind on rep & essences etc. But at that point you really had to slack off on your character. Can't carry that level of neglect.
We got a lot of parents though and they manage quite well. Just know your place and don't look for guilds that expect you to finish the grind in 3 weeks from tier start.

- - - Updated - - -

Mythic raiders do not significantly support the game compared to the masses of casuals.

Lots of sheep below will always mimic the pro scene. If mythic were to collapse, then it will take a chunk of the foundation with it.

[123youshowme]

Can sorta relate. One parent in my guild didn't even have flying back in november, which just put him even further behind on rep & essences etc. But at that point you really had to slack off on your character. Can't carry that level of neglect.
We got a lot of parents though and they manage quite well. Just know your place and don't look for guilds that expect you to finish the grind in 3 weeks from tier start.

- - - Updated - - -



Lots of sheep below will always mimic the pro scene. If mythic were to collapse, then it will take a chunk of the foundation with it.

it took the dude 4 months to get revered with 2 factions?
did he play once a week or something? Mechagon/Nazjatar take 2 weeks clearing the board, a month for mecha if you only do the 1 quest intermittently

[GringoD]

it took the dude 4 months to get revered with 2 factions?
did he play once a week or something? Mechagon/Nazjatar take 2 weeks clearing the board, a month for mecha if you only do the 1 quest intermittently

Worse. He didn't even have the Tortollan rep yet.
But as the other guy said: Kids eat into your free time. And if you hate world quests on top, then you're probably not going to want to spend your spare time on 'em.