The unspoken messages of Shadowlands: Calm down. Play with friends, or solo.

[Omedon]

I expect that this thread is going to get a lot of hate, but honestly it's time to rip a bandaid off.

We've all seen the countless debates, the Preach interview, the threads, the content creators giving this or that opinion, and one thing has become clear to me reading between the lines here.

Blizzard devs do not want us to overthink the game to the point of apoplexy... and honestly I can't blame them.

Our over-analysis of every point of performance has made the game unapproachable for new players to try anything even remotely ambitious. We've created a social compact of "don't be new on my time, I've been playing X years." It's eroding the things that let content get done in a fun way, and so no wonder every new content type since M+ has been solo-capable, self-enabled via queues, and/or trinity agnostic, bringing in diverse groups but not demanding the tank/healer/DPS balance of dungeons and raids. They are developing a lot of "solo in parallel" content because having us rely on each other as strangers who are indeed each individual customers jacks our paranoia and cruelty. They're building a game that's working around a stressed out hostile environment where no one is allowed to be new because the game has been "solved" and some people make Esports money playing it, so clearly that's everyone's destiny .

The devs have understandably given up on entertaining our extreme and toxic obsession of "don't be new" or "don't have a character concept more important to you than the team's performance," because we've just lost the delineation between pick up groups and content intended for actual teams.

I play WoW on a very simple mantra: "Good enough is good enough." I'm a veteran player who knows, generally, how to play my favorite specs well enough to consider myself competent, and I don't go anywhere near content intended for a team because I can't form one regularly enough. At the same time, I haven't missed a single dungeon's story, or a raid step in the core story of the game, because I read the writing on the wall and know where my limits are. I'm not a genius, this isn't rocket science. I'm looking forward to covenants because I've selected characters that fit all four of them conceptually, and I will therefore see all four stories. I won't be in your M+ listings because my friends aren't interested in M+, therefore I don't belong there. And yet, I'll be fine. I'm not worried or even acquainted with how the covenants/soulbinds/conduits will impact the minutiae of my 30+ characters' performance because I know I can see any dungeon I need to if I have the ilvl. If there's a "mythic only" dungeon step, I can get that done too because I'm competent, or ultimately I'm patient to see it go into the queue in a patch or two.

I'm not saying everyone needs to be like me, I'm saying Blizzard developing the game with reasonable expectations that don't align with unreasonable players doesn't make them wrong. It doesn't mean we shouldn't give feedback, it doesn't mean they're perfect and we shouldn't question them, but at the end of the day, the cost of letting them "DM us" like D&D played in their world is that it IS their world. I personally am furious about elements of the lore and how they align with the game, but I respect that this is their game and their vision and if I don't like it, after giving my feedback, I can leave. I'm still here.

The messages of throwing out wild systems like covenants, two handed frost, single minded fury and other conceptual options that might not be optimal but will certainly be cool are thus:

Calm down: They are working hard to bring us their vision. Yelling at them in text or in a streamer interview only makes us look dumb.

Play with friends: There is a cutoff point where we leave "good enough to play with strangers," and the balance has to be allowed to be cushioned by "play with friends and don't stress about it, enjoy the company of friends."

...Or solo: If you can't form a team, that's ok. The game's main vein is group-approachable, and in the worst case, Torghast and the Maw, and I'd imagine most of the core of the game is solo-enabled or at least queue-enabled, gated only by item level.

Just because you were once a server first mythic+amillion superhero raid leader world champion gjillion views professional streamer twitch partner content creator guide writing analyst spreadsheet wielding god doesn't mean you still are in the context of, what is every two years, a new game. That's the hardest pill to swallow each expansion and I sympathize, but it's true. The good news is, WoW builds a personally accessible game for everyone to enjoy one account at a time, which thankfully is how we pay to play.

This has been longer than intended but if you're still here, thank you for reading, and for the Void's sake, calm down! The devs can't come out and say that, but it's clearly there between the lines!

[Ironfoe2]

Blizzard devs do not want us to overthink the game to the point of apoplexy... and honestly I can't blame them.

Players are not overthinking. It would just be nice if Blizzard was at least thinking.

Calm down

This is so condescending, you could work for Blizzard.

They are working hard

Nobody can believe that at this point.

Honestly though, I don't even know what you want to say with your post. It seems entirely pointless. Play solo or in a group? When has that been a point of discussion recently? I've been playing for 12 years, I know I can play the game solo or in a group.

[callipygoustp]

Blizzard is, once again, over thinking.

"Everything will be fine" - where have I heard that before.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

For the most part, I agree with the sentiment and agree Blizzard is not to be blamed for people thinking they need to min/max every decision when they are not even playing their own rotation optimally.

Either way, I do disagree with the notion of "play with friends, or solo."

Its actually the other way around if you ask me.
Instead, the mantra should be "think for yourself, instead of letting some one better than you tell you how to play."

That really is the crux of the issue.

Instead of admitting that there are a variety of ways to play the game and succeed, a chunk of the population simply let some one else use mathematical simulation using increasingly noisy metrics to try to tell them how they should play their class.

The sooner people realize they will never be perfectly optimal in every aspect of the game - and more so, that no math can ever account for the wide variety of circumstances the game has created - the sooner everyone can get back to having fun and working on bettering themselves individually instead of worrying how they theoretically stack up to people they don't interact with.

The most helpful hint to realize comes, ironically, from the race for World First.
Those guys beat Nzoth Mythic with gear that would likely sim 50+ percent worse than what players have now, yet people still wipe 300+ times to the fight.

The game is just not that tightly tuned that every possible drop of output must be accounted for.

Whether or not morons putting groups together for weekly farm content know that or not is irrelevant.
You don't want to play with people requiring nonsense like that for easy stuff like that anyway.
It stymies individual progression.

[WowIsDead64]

...

I agree with all of that, except may be being able to do it solo, cuz if content will be as overtuned, as it was back in BFA, then it won't be possible to comfortably do it without Mythic+ overgear or farming tons of time-gated "power" crap.

I'm one of those players, who has been pushed from team-based content long time ago and decided to switch to casual mode, i.e. to do content for fun, not for competition/challenge/esport. This also means, that if some system just doesn't work my way - it's just ignored. I don't do Mythic+/Mythic raids? Therefore I don't need to min-max all that power. Therefore I don't care so much about all that azerite/essences/corruptions. Problem is... All that system ARE REQUIRED in BFA in order to play comfortable. Without them your character is way too weak. This is especially bad for catching up and alts. This has made this game literally unplayable for me, as it pushed me from last content, I had in this game - outdoor content. And I don't see any improvements in SL. Things are even going to get worse. Maw is going to become so hardcore, that even ground mounts won't be allowed there, not even talking about flying ones. So currently I don't have any plans to play SL. At least till some later patches, that may be will fix that problem.

[Rendark]

Or we can say I don't like this thing and this is why, as much as we can. Just because it's their game doesn't mean they shouldn't be told when there about to do something dumb, again.

[Doffen]

I am looking forward to it, looks really nice from a semi/somewhere in between hardcore/casual point of view. No guildies are playing atm now, and it's gonna be like this until pre patch. It's gonna be nice to get together again as well. Love expansion launches.

[klaps_05]

Its alpha, maybe covenants system will be tweaked.
Its beta now, covenants stayed the same, but maybe we tweak the abilities or fundamentally change them.
Its prepatch, abilities are the same, but we changed A B C by 1%-3%.
Its 9.0 mythic week, A doesnt work with B, C was nerfed by 8%, D was removed.
...
Its 9.3 mythic week, we rebalanced the covenants, but DO NOT WORRY, you can now switch freely between them. Thanks everyone for the feedback, we will try to listen more.

Its one thing to ask for feedback and promote how you take it into consideration, but then if you just go ahead and do whatever it is you wanted to do in the first place, the "listening to feedback" is just free marketing.

[Krakan]

I think they have a theory on how this will go down... I think talent trees, glyphs, reforging, ap,legendary items, relics,azerite, essences ,and corruptions have shown us how it will actually go down.

What they have is a beautiful dream something that isn't wrong to aspire to but even taking games with thousands of abilities like guild wars you always end up with a pretty rigid meta.

Unless they really nerf the difficulty of mythic raids to near early wrath level I can't really see how this will work.

I've never not seen a power system trickle down to the average player simply due to the average person wanting to be better at the game.

[Wuusah]

The devs have understandably given up on entertaining our extreme and toxic obsession of "don't be new" or "don't have a character concept more important to you than the team's performance," because we've just lost the delineation between pick up groups and content intended for actual teams.

If they don't want players to focus on performance then they shouldn't make the game all about performance. If they want us to just pick what is fun then why does Mythic+ still exist? Why not go back to "challenge mode" dungeons with cosmetic rewards? Why does mythic raiding with tightly tuned bosses still exist? Or maybe you are just wrong.

I play WoW on a very simple mantra: "Good enough is good enough." I'm a veteran player who knows, generally, how to play my favorite specs well enough to consider myself competent, and I don't go anywhere near content intended for a team because I can't form one regularly enough. At the same time, I haven't missed a single dungeon's story, or a raid step in the core story of the game, because I read the writing on the wall and know where my limits are. I'm not a genius, this isn't rocket science. I'm looking forward to covenants because I've selected characters that fit all four of them conceptually, and I will therefore see all four stories. I won't be in your M+ listings because my friends aren't interested in M+, therefore I don't belong there.

I'll be honest, your mentality disgusts me. You are complacent at the bottom.

Calm down: They are working hard to bring us their vision. Yelling at them in text or in a streamer interview only makes us look dumb.

Blizzard wants feedback, they get feedback. They don't need you to white knight for them

Play with friends: There is a cutoff point where we leave "good enough to play with strangers," and the balance has to be allowed to be cushioned by "play with friends and don't stress about it, enjoy the company of friends."

I'm curious, what difficulty do you consider "good enough to play with strangers"? Also do you think you'll ever get better at something if you don't stress about it?

every two years, a new game.

And that's what people complain about and they have the right to complain about. We don't want a new game every two years. We don't want them to break the game every two years and then try to fix it during the expansion. I don't think that's an irrational expectation.

[Asrialol]

Most people are calm. There's always that vocal minority that is extremely loud.

[Hinastorm]

Overzealous tryharding is killing mmos, or at the very least making them way less fun for 90% of players.

The top 1% were always doing this, even 20 years ago, but now that people can make money from videos/guides/websites, it all trickles down to the kinds of players who have no business playing, or even trying to play, like the 1% do.

I don't have a good answer. If there is some way a new mmo can suppress information about the meta, i'd love to see that. Or devs who change their game so damn often, that it's nearly impossible to keep up.

[Orwell7]

HEY
SERIOUSLY OP

you are telling me that I just blindly choose the flashiest ability that "I like"?
If I'm going into a dungeon, should I just press that button I like, because I don't want to read up on my rotations?
Hell, that CASTER MOB has a cool effect, I like to see it, please don't interrupt it?

Damn, I want to see those mobs closer, should I run into them, but I'm not the tank? What is a tank, by the way? DPS, Healer? What are those buttons? I play for fun!


What is the "limit" the players SHOULD accept to tackle a challenge? What is the required "skill", how do you measure it?
If I go to the dungeon and we wipe and wipe and wipe again, shall we write a ticket to Blizzard because it is not fun, though we didn't even read our spell descriptions? We play only for fun!

What the hell?!

[Huzzaa]

I think you should watch Asmongolds reaction video to Preach' interview.

[Geckoo]

Blizzard devs do not want us to overthink the game to the point of apoplexy... and honestly I can't blame them.

And their way of doing this is by adding layers upon layers of complexity that it's pretty much impossible to figure out without having to rely on simulations done by third-party websites. Honestly, pandaria did a better job, we even had NPC's all over the place telling us to slow down every time we clicked on them.

Trying to improve your character's performance is also an integral part of any MMORPG, because it's also part of building your character. Specially one that is so heavily based around the idea of character progression through gear improvements, specially considering that the whole game is based around numbers, as many RPG's are by the way.

It should come to no surprise that some players will care about those numbers and how to make them work in their favor. In fact, i would dare to say that everyone in one way or another does care about those numbers. Don't you keep improving your gear when possible? don't you keep leveling up? why you do it? numbers.

When it comes to talents/abilities i agree that everyone should be able to choose whatever they feel it's better for them, according to their own reasons. And choosing a talent because it performs better is just as valid as choosing a talent because you like the animation and do not care about the damage, or simply because the gameplay it provides feels more comfortable to you. In the end we all want to have fun playing the game.

But our freedom of choice also needs to be understood with everyones freedom of choice in mind. Including the possibility that your choices can be seen as bad choices by someone else, and if that person happens to be the one creating a group with certain goals in mind, then bad luck, he has as much freedon to choose who he invites by his own arbitrary reason as you have freedom to run around as a hunter wearing cloth with a fishing pole politely asking your pet to attack.

Now of course, the whole issue and where in my opinion Blizzard will fail is assuming that by making it hard to swap covenants certain type of players will just give up on playing the game the way they want and that the trickle down effect will magically make that a group with a goal in mind accepts anyone without having any type of consideration. That won't happen.

What i think that will happen, is that most players, not just high end min/maxers, will not enjoy being presented with a choice between some ability that looks fun and a theme that fits their character. It won't happen at the beginning, but as soon as people starts playing around, seeing other players from their same spec using stuff from other covenants and being curious about it, wanting to just try out stuff that looks fun, noticing that a lot of other players are part of certain covenant for the content you enjoy most... when all that happens a few weeks after release, frustration will kick in at many levels and for many players.

[Accendor]

I have never read a more unsympathic thread than this one and I have read my own.

[MrTharne]

HEY
SERIOUSLY OP

you are telling me that I just blindly choose the flashiest ability that "I like"?
If I'm going into a dungeon, should I just press that button I like, because I don't want to read up on my rotations?
Hell, that CASTER MOB has a cool effect, I like to see it, please don't interrupt it?

Damn, I want to see those mobs closer, should I run into them, but I'm not the tank? What is a tank, by the way? DPS, Healer? What are those buttons? I play for fun!


What is the "limit" the players SHOULD accept to tackle a challenge? What is the required "skill", how do you measure it?
If I go to the dungeon and we wipe and wipe and wipe again, shall we write a ticket to Blizzard because it is not fun, though we didn't even read our spell descriptions? We play only for fun!

What the hell?!

This is an awful strawman.

There is a difference between :
- spamming spells without any thought put into it and playing like someone who do not give a shit about gameplay/how to play your class like you suggest
and
- doing mechanics of the fight correctly and doing your correct class rotation all the while using the Talents/Covenants that you want to use.

This is the problem at the moment with the community.

If you know how to play your class, if you know how the fight works, I do not give a flying frack about what Talents/Covenants you have if we only try to do +15 or Normal/Heroic raiding. (Or higher if we are in a guild and everybody is okay with that.)

[Fantazma]

I created a Thread that was locked and thanks to this Thread today I learned 3 very important things:

1 - The game director ... is not responsible for the direction that the game is following...
2 - If a problem started here just when you got here .... this is 100% just a coincidence...
3 - Now I know why the problems in the game are big: Because the playe-base is big and the big problem in the game ...is the player-base.

[Nnyco]

Players are not overthinking. It would just be nice if Blizzard was at least thinking.



This is so condescending, you could work for Blizzard.


Nobody can believe that at this point.

Honestly though, I don't even know what you want to say with your post. It seems entirely pointless. Play solo or in a group? When has that been a point of discussion recently? I've been playing for 12 years, I know I can play the game solo or in a group.

Nothin gets your point across like instant insults.

[TheFirstOnes]

Jokes on the other players, I'm a Ret Pally. If I can't go Bastion, I can just go Revendreth or Maldraxxus. All 3 of em fit my RP.