Years ago, Blizzard misidentified the problem

[Kuntantee]

doesnt matter if argen tournament dailies (not the one building the stadium that came earlier, but those basinc, then aspirant rank and then champion rank) were "catchup" or not (btw this "catchup" had some gear on par with current normal raid at the time...), it is still timegating...

It matters a lot. They did not time-gate anything meaningful. I was not time-gated to respec (changing covenant), nor was I time-gated to learn the story for the most part.

but i see, timegating is timegating only if it affects YOU... well good to know, at least i dont have to waste time trying to argue with you...

Only me? I was in %95 percentile which could not clear the wings before next wing opened. This wasn't a time gate for the overwhelming majority.

[Malania]

The problem that Blizzard identified were content droughts. People, especially towards the latter half of SoO and HFC were quitting because they had completed the game. Blizzard thought that this was a problem and time-gating, extreme RNG and padded out infinite content like M+ were born. It was a losing fight anyway.

No game, will ever, no matter how great it is, be able to occupy people's attention every day for years upon years. There is an activity that does that: it's called real life. A game with "infinite" content would have to be a virtual copy of the real world.

People play video games to escape the real world. By padding out WoW, great experiences like pushing rankings, ratings and tackling new bosses are diluted in an endless swamp of extracurricular currencies, reputations, weekly and daily activities and vanity rewards.

Like the director of FF14 said, after you beat a game you quit until the next content update. The solution to content droughts was a different pricing model instead of the archaic subscription model.

Instead of recognizing that WoW has huge spikes during expansion and content patch releases, Blizzard decided to fight a losing battle and retain customers all year round. This is a fight they'll never win but they'll dilute the game to the nth degree to try so.

The M+ content model is just a redesign of the challenge modes that were available in MoP. This is incorrect.

[Lolites]

So you're averaging ilvl220+ from "barely raiding" and doing 4x M+ a week which drops max ilvl210? I know a load of people who had ilvl233 weapons from PvP and are nowhere near close to clearing M+ raids, heroic raids drop better loot than the highest M+ but you still get mythic raid quality vault loot from doing the highest M+ (while you don't from heroic raid vault).

If you get super lucky with the vault by only getting 2 options you're still behind people who also PVP and raid, by a significant margin. If you didn't get lucky and you're playing more casually you're probably 15-20ilvl behind. This is worlds apart in performance.

no, im slightly over 210 (depends on trinkets) from doing "only" that, and im in top 20 DK on my realm when it comes to M+ (which is my main focus), so if you want to consider doing slightly less dps than people who play 24/7 "miles behind" go ahead, but its bullshit...

btw, if you are "worlds apart" in terms of performance with someone few ilvl above you, its most likely not bcs of gear, but bcs lack of skill

[Dastreus]

Compare the shops

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Not even close, compare the shops

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Mobile games are trash in general, also check out the ff14 shop

aaaaaaaand the WoW shop almost literally sells gold, and all the cool mounts are pretty much only Mythic Raider or Shop. FFXIV has plenty of cool mounts in game, and doesn't sell Gil. (You can argue level boosts do, but -really-, there's a limit on that, too, so it's still not the same.)

[Bigbazz]

no, im slightly over 210 (depends on trinkets) from doing "only" that, and im in top 20 DK on my realm when it comes to M+ (which is my main focus), so if you want to consider doing slightly less dps than people who play 24/7 "miles behind" go ahead, but its bullshit...

btw, if you are "worlds apart" in terms of performance with someone few ilvl above you, its most likely not bcs of gear, but bcs lack of skill

Dude, ilvl is not a skill difference, check warcraft logs or simulations. Go do a M+ dungeon with some ilvl 190s and then some 200's and tell me there is not a massive difference. 20 ilvl you can be talking several thousand dps difference. That's worlds apart, you put that across 3 players in a dungeon it's like an extra dps.

[SirCowdog]

I agree with you that the subscription model "demands" systems that incites the players to be subscribed as long as possible, which some might not find fun.
Each player should decide for himself whether this "milking" detracts enough from his enjoyment to stop playing the game. And I bet that Blizzard has some quite skilled people to measure and determine what the optimal level of "milking" is.

But as long as "we" can't show Blizzard that another system that would give Blizzard a higher profit then nothing will happen.
So "your job" is to make a system where Blizzard can make more money by having the player base playing the game for a shorter period of time compared to now.
So far I have seen no realistic suggestions for such a system.

Those systems exist in the form of other business models that already see use in the industry: F2P, B2P, etc.

But WoW is already heavily entrenched and established. They have a strong core of players who are too deeply invested to break out of what's acceptable. This is why you see Blizzard doing things like stacking the wow token on top of a cash shop on top of a subscription model and getting away with it.

I don't know that there's a good solution. As long as the market and the players are accepting, and as long as Blizzard continues to provide relatively high quality content at a reasonable pace....well. That's what the status quo will be.

[willtron]

people want social gaming. that's why twitch is so damn popular. people don't login to twitch to grind AP or keep up with timegating. they log in to twitch to have fun in chat with other gamers. that's what WoW used to be when it was growing like a weed. then Blizz went on an antisocial bender and ripped out the in-game community.

People log into twitch because they're lonely losers that find its the only way they can interact with other human beings that are as sad as them

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Blizzard does things to appease casual players, hardcore players, and everybody in between.



And instead they get shit on by all 3 camps.

[Accendor]

aaaaaaaand the WoW shop almost literally sells gold, and all the cool mounts are pretty much only Mythic Raider or Shop. FFXIV has plenty of cool mounts in game, and doesn't sell Gil. (You can argue level boosts do, but -really-, there's a limit on that, too, so it's still not the same.)

I never said the WoW model was good, its also shit (and gets worde all the time), but ff14 is even more shit.

[Sorrior]

No, dude. The game model is the same. Subscription and xpac every 2 years.
Their shop has more stuff, but WoW's has the same. They just don't have decos cause there is no housing in WoW.
Both have mounts, cosmetic gear, boosts and transfers.

It's exactly the same and they are both the most sucessful mmo's in the market atm, so the model is the correct one.

And ffxivs transfers are an entire server of characters to another server..at once for one price.

Wow? Pay for every character and if i revall right pay more as well..

Then ffxiv adds old holiday/event items so people can still get them

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Yeah honestly you have really hammered in the issue I have with WoW in recent years. Logging in and seeing all the soft RMT transactions and timegating is making me feel like I'm playing a mobile game.

Didn't they basically admit they play ALOT of cell games these days?