How to make old content relevant

[LanToaster]

There was? Was it any good? Have there been any other similar instances? If not, why do you think that is?

No it wasnt. But it was a seperate Dungeon from the Raid.

[Queen of Hamsters]

How does ESO do this? Like Timewalking?

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A tad dramatic, don't you think? What outcome would you consider a disaster, though?

Burnout.

To me, burnout is a disaster since it literally means that the game is throwing too much at me which makes me lose the will to play. BfA was the first time it happened in a span of 11 years, and that was from endgame shit alone.

So I stand by what I said and I'll add that Timewalking events = the perfect way to make old stuff "relevant" so far, because it can be completely ignored.

And the cosmetics/achievements rewards + leveling paths are more than enough to keep the rest of the content visited by willing players.

[nocturnus]

I thought it was pretty obvious I was talking about you and your specific requirements for raids to be turned into dungeons. This entire thread is discussing your opinion on the matter? Why are you suddenly trying to claim that no one can question or discuss since it is your opinion? Including or excluding things you don't like is arbitrary. Because it isn't based on any set of rules.

It's not arbitrary, because it's based on a predetermined set of criteria. Arbitrary is random, by chance, on a whim. My choices aren't that.

Christ, this turned into an English lesson, hosted by an Italian, at that

Again something can be an insult with out a person taking offense. You are just some internet nobody so why would what you say have any impact on me? It doesn't matter if you think it is a simple fact or not because it still makes something an insult. The only one playing a victim here is you who keeps having to insult and demean others simply because they disagree with your idea. Weird right?

The fact that you're still talking about it suggests it did have an impact. It wasn't an insult, now get over it and move on; stop dwelling and mulling over it.

No it wasnt. But it was a seperate Dungeon from the Raid.

I might have forgotten that one, indeed. Funny because I do have the insanity achievement from the same raid.

Burnout.

To me, burnout is a disaster since it literally means that the game is throwing too much at me which makes me lose the will to play. BfA was the first time it happened in a span of 11 years, and that was from endgame shit alone.

So I stand by what I said and I'll add that Timewalking events = the perfect way to make old stuff "relevant" so far, because it can be completely ignored.

And the cosmetics/achievements rewards + leveling paths are more than enough to keep the rest of the content visited by willing players.

Gotcha. But (sorry for another but), can you really blame a burn out on an abundance of content? Ultimately it's the player's approach that causes a burn out, no? Having a lot of options is good. Requirements on the other hand, not so much. But Wow hasn't had any hard requirements since Hand of A'dal, iirc.

[arkanon]

Hey guys, I was chatting with a friend about how we thought it was a shame that Wow has a lot of virtually unused content just 'laying around' and I had this idea which we both found very appealing:

It is not unused - it is past its use by date. It had its time in the spotlight, and now it is no longer relevant. Could they try and reintroduce it in some way? Sure, there are countless ways it could be made relevant again, but the biggest issue isnt "could it be made relevant again", thats very easy to do - just have it drop loot. The real issue is, that content was designed and implemented during a very specific stage of wows development.

Certain classes existed, others did not. Certain abilities existed, others did not. So now we head down the rabbit hole of trying to balance the content around current classes, specs, and abilities - which then changes again each time an expansion is launched. So now we are talking about rebalancing every "dungeon" every single time something new is added, rather than just balancing the current expansions content, a far simpler task.

So now they are investing significant time adjusting and balancing all this content every expansion, which imo is a massive waste of dev time. Sure, they could treat it like timewalking and just let the balancing be a shambles (which it is), but then it needs to have very modest rewards, which suddenly makes it quite undesirable.

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To me, burnout is a disaster since it literally means that the game is throwing too much at me which makes me lose the will to play. BfA was the first time it happened in a span of 11 years, and that was from endgame shit alone.

Interestingly enough, this is the same for the majority of my close friends who play wow - all burned out during BfA - something that hasnt happened since starting in Vanilla. Did we take breaks? yeah, absolutely. We all swapped to SWTOR for a bit, dabbled in Rift, Tried out Wildstar - the usual stuff. But that wasnt "omfg i just cannot be bothered logging into wow" or logging in, swapping between characters for an hour, getting nothing done, then logging off feeling dejected. BfA was the first time any of us just threw our hands up and said "nope, thats enough - its just not enjoyable anymore".

It was only recently when we were doing some beverage assisted torghast runs (and having a blast i might add) that we all came to the simple conclusion - it was the excess of similar content that caused us to completely burn out.

I made this argument a few times during BfA's lifespan - when someone would say they were not having fun, everyone would just say "you are burned out, you need a break" but doesnt anyone else find it interesting that so many players "burned out" during BfA, even though they all had different playtimes, started in different expansions, ran different content, etc etc

[Queen of Hamsters]

Gotcha. But (sorry for another but), can you really blame a burn out on an abundance of content? Ultimately it's the player's approach that causes a burn out, no? Having a lot of options is good. Requirements on the other hand, not so much. But Wow hasn't had any hard requirements since Hand of A'dal, iirc.

Evidently, you can.

And there's been requirements on raiders for as long as I've been raiding, aka, 11 years. The difference was that pre-Legion, those requirements were to get geared, have consumables and enchant/gem the gear properly + know your BIS and stat prio.

With Legion came legendaries, artifact power. A light start, I never did any grinding and kept up just fine. But it also had Titanforging and M+ with all that entails.
Then came BfA. The game had changed, NOT my approach to playing.

So yes, I can blame the game just fine. Or rather, the developer's cynical designs and ham-fisted approach to feedback.

Right now with Covid responsibilities, I cannot raid, not even in Shadowlands. If we'd been in any pre-Legion content, I could've raided just fine despite my unpredictable schedule. Shadowlands is infinitely better than BfA was so far, but it can always get worse. Having the devs get this idea of making ALL the content relevant to max level players, would be one such way for it to worsen with their inability for subtlety.

[nocturnus]

It is not unused - it is past its use by date. It had its time in the spotlight, and now it is no longer relevant. Could they try and reintroduce it in some way? Sure, there are countless ways it could be made relevant again, but the biggest issue isnt "could it be made relevant again", thats very easy to do - just have it drop loot. The real issue is, that content was designed and implemented during a very specific stage of wows development.

Certain classes existed, others did not. Certain abilities existed, others did not. So now we head down the rabbit hole of trying to balance the content around current classes, specs, and abilities - which then changes again each time an expansion is launched. So now we are talking about rebalancing every "dungeon" every single time something new is added, rather than just balancing the current expansions content, a far simpler task.

So now they are investing significant time adjusting and balancing all this content every expansion, which imo is a massive waste of dev time. Sure, they could treat it like timewalking and just let the balancing be a shambles (which it is), but then it needs to have very modest rewards, which suddenly makes it quite undesirable.

Indeed, it would require balancing and I also agree that it shouldn't be done like Timewalking lest it be as unrewarding.

I do not think it would be a massive tank, however. I already gave Na'jentus as an example. But most bosses I can think of seem like pretty straight forward dial tuning situations. Obviously start with the conversion of [parts of] a single raid, see how that goes and proceed from there.

Interestingly enough, this is the same for the majority of my close friends who play wow - all burned out during BfA - something that hasnt happened since starting in Vanilla. Did we take breaks? yeah, absolutely. We all swapped to SWTOR for a bit, dabbled in Rift, Tried out Wildstar - the usual stuff. But that wasnt "omfg i just cannot be bothered logging into wow" or logging in, swapping between characters for an hour, getting nothing done, then logging off feeling dejected. BfA was the first time any of us just threw our hands up and said "nope, thats enough - its just not enjoyable anymore".

It was only recently when we were doing some beverage assisted torghast runs (and having a blast i might add) that we all came to the simple conclusion - it was the excess of similar content that caused us to completely burn out.

I made this argument a few times during BfA's lifespan - when someone would say they were not having fun, everyone would just say "you are burned out, you need a break" but doesnt anyone else find it interesting that so many players "burned out" during BfA, even though they all had different playtimes, started in different expansions, ran different content, etc etc

This is pretty interesting, because my friends and I quit playing for the opposite reasons. For us there wasn't enough to do. Allow me to elaborate though, because BFA had tons of content, but we just didn't enjoy it. WQ's were lame, Island Expeditions were lame, raiding we never liked, questing and leveling was amazing, but you can do that only so often in a short period of time before that gets boring, right? Beside M+ there just wasn't anything fun to do and once we'd seen all dungeons and no new ones were released in time, we were like "okay, that's it then. We finished the game's content worth doing" and moved along.

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Evidently, you can.
And there's been requirements on raiders for as long as I've been raiding, aka, 11 years. The difference was that pre-Legion, those requirements were to get geared, have consumables and enchant/gem the gear properly + know your BIS and stat prio.

Those requirements weren't real though... They were artificially implemented by other players. So in the end, it's not the content that's burning you out, it's the idea that you have to do all these things in order to measure yourself to other players with the same mind-set.

So, no man, I don't agree; it's not the abundance of content that's the culprit. It's the individual person's approach to playing the game.

The game offers you options, it's up to you whether you take none, a few or all of them. With attunements it was different; you had to do that in order to unlock specific content. That's a requirement, if you ask me. Not what some idiot GM demands.

Disclaimer: I do know that finding laid-back guilds who raid but don't treat it as a job can be challenging. Most people have this idiotic "pro-gamer" ambition and constantly compete with other guilds on the server, rather than focusing on having fun. You could always do as I did: start your own guild with your mind-set as unique selling point. You'll be surprised at how many people actually share the fun before performance vision and because they do, performance will come organically. At least, that's my experience.

[arkanon]

once we'd seen all dungeons and no new ones were released in time, we were like "okay, that's it then. We finished the game's content worth doing" and moved along.
.

No, the statement is "okay, that's it then. We have finished the games content we enjoy". There was plenty of content "worth" doing, if your motivation was improving your characters power, increasing your rating (pvp or io), challenging yourself with difficult content, or moving outside your comfort zone and trying out raiding. And this is something core to wow that hasnt changed in 15 years, so it really was a "you" problem.

[nocturnus]

No, the statement is "okay, that's it then. We have finished the games content we enjoy". There was plenty of content "worth" doing, if your motivation was improving your characters power, increasing your rating (pvp or io), challenging yourself with difficult content, or moving outside your comfort zone and trying out raiding. And this is something core to wow that hasnt changed in 15 years, so it really was a "you" problem.

No. I meant it how I said it.

"Worth" is subjective, ergo we had done all content that was worth doing. Period.

Besides, I never said it was a problem. We weren't burnt out, we were simply done.

[arkanon]

No. I meant it how I said it.

"Worth" is subjective, ergo we had done all content that was worth doing. Period.

Then on that basis alone, wow is not for you. Time to move on.

[nocturnus]

Then on that basis alone, wow is not for you. Time to move on.

What a stupid thing to say.

"Oh, you don't like what I like, so WoW is not for you!"

We enjoyed the worthwhile content quite a lot and we're enjoying the worthwhile content right now, quite a lot. When we're done with that, we simply stop buying game time and that's that.

Really, not rocket science.

[arkanon]

What a stupid thing to say.

"Oh, you don't like what I like, so it's not for you!"

When a game offers you a plethora of unique and rewarding content, and you do an absolutely TINY fraction of the content available, and quit because "nothing else worth doing", you are clearly not the target demographic of said game. So instead of trying to change the game into your own personal playground that fits your own personal wants and needs, go find a game that better suits those wants.

If you dont enjoy the vast majority of what a game has on offer, why play it?

[nocturnus]

When a game offers you a plethora of unique and rewarding content,

Also subjective; what is rewarding to you, isn't necessarily rewarding for someone else.

There are a lot of people that ONLY do PVP. Is wow "not for them"? Should they "move on"? Why? Because they have to play the game like you do, or not play it at all?

See how stupid that is?

and you do an absolutely TINY fraction of the content available, and quit because "nothing else worth doing", you are clearly not the target demographic of said game. So instead of trying to change the game into your own personal playground that fits your own personal wants and needs, go find a game that better suits those wants.

If you dont enjoy the vast majority of what a game has on offer, why play it?

Eh, because I enjoy that part? Do you even read your questions before pressing the 'post' button?

If fishing was the only thing I enjoyed, I'd play WoW. It would be utterly stupid to deny myself something I enjoy, merely because it's "just a tiny fraction" of the game. Who gives a crap? As long as I'm having fun.

[arkanon]

If fishing was the only thing I enjoyed, I'd play WoW .

Why wouldnt you just buy a fishing sim or fishing game? Why would you pay the box price plus subscription to only fish? But hey, thats fine, if thats what someone wants to do, they are more than welcome to do that.

HOWEVER, when they start suggesting the game be changed to fit their niche requirements, thats where the majority step in and say "no, we dont want dev time invested in your niche little gameworld.

[nocturnus]

Why wouldnt you just buy a fishing sim or fishing game? Why would you pay the box price plus subscription to only fish? But hey, thats fine, if thats what someone wants to do, they are more than welcome to do that.

It was an example.

Some people barely play the game but still log in for the social aspect. The point is that you're not the one who decides what content is worthwhile or not. It's subjective and as such, it differs per individual.

HOWEVER, when they start suggesting the game be changed to fit their niche requirements, thats where the majority step in and say "no, we dont want dev time invested in your niche little gameworld.

What majority? You think this here, is the majority of Wow's player base?



Anyway, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but Wow constantly changes. Some changes you'll like, others you won't; it's the nature of the game. I loved artifacts and class missions. Alas, they removed that. Boohoo. They introduced Island Expedition. I didn't like that, to me it was a huge waste of dev time. Boohoo. It didn't ruin the game for me, though. I just consumed the content I did enjoy. BFA didn't have a lot of that, so we were done pretty quickly. The game is ever evolving and devs will never satisfy everyone. Luckily, that's not their ambition either.

[rhorle]

It's not arbitrary, because it's based on a predetermined set of criteria. Arbitrary is random, by chance, on a whim. My choices aren't that.

Remember you stated you can include whatever you want because it is your idea. That is a literal use of the word arbitrary. lol. Focus less on giving lessons, insults, or whatever else weird thing you want to state to make yourself superior and focus on the actual idea and discussion.

Not arbitrary and not removing. I'm simply not including things I either don't like or don't think would work well in my idea. My idea, ergo I can do with it whatever I like.

[arkanon]

The game is ever evolving and devs will never satisfy everyone. Luckily, that's not their ambition either.

I agree - so stop trying to adjust the game to fit your personal preferences, accept that the game will evolve in whatever direction Blizzard wants it to, and that is very unlikely to be such a niche thing as "lets turn old raids into 5mans" considering they already have time walking which I am very confident they would say fills that niche already.

You asked opinions, and then get frustrated when you dont get an echo chamber. All your immature attempts at insults and passive aggressive replies really have no affect on people.

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It was an example.

Some people barely play the game but still log in for the social aspect. r.

Yes, and I say again, that is absolutely fine. The line in the sand is when those same people start asking for changes to the game to fit their niche requirements.

[Garymorilix]

Raids were never designed to be done by 5 people mechanically.
This would mean bosses would be "nerfed" so much they would basically be reworked beyond recognition.

The raid itself was not designed to be a dungeon.
Pacing would be non-existent. Older raids, and even newer ones, have trash packs all over the place ranging from barely any to overwhelming amounts.
The difference between the Argent Tournament raid and something like Ny'alotha or Throne of Thunder is night an day. Even when we look at raid finder wings.

This leads to the next issue, loot.
Even if this was done it cannot be allowed to drop actual end-game loot. It simply can't.
Not only would it be extremely easy to cheese some no-mechanic archaic raid for high tier end-game loot (rather than something actually new with mechanics) but if you allowed that you would NEED to keep balancing not only every single instance ever with the current meta BUT balance literally every single item that could drop from any of it in BOTH PvE and PvP.

Let's not even mention the fact that DH's could probably cheese a shitload of old instances simply by not existing back then so those weren't created with DH's in mind.

When you actually go past the surface level thought of "wouldn't this be a good idea" you should realize that it is literally impossible to implement within the current scope of the game.
The amount of sheer manpower needed to keep track of everything and development needed to keep everything running and "balanced" would just be insane with 8 expansion worth of content.

[arkanon]

Raids were never designed to be done by 5 people mechanically.
This would mean bosses would be "nerfed" so much they would basically be reworked beyond recognition.

The raid itself was not designed to be a dungeon.
Pacing would be non-existent. Older raids, and even newer ones, have trash packs all over the place ranging from barely any to overwhelming amounts.
The difference between the Argent Tournament raid and something like Ny'alotha or Throne of Thunder is night an day. Even when we look at raid finder wings.

This leads to the next issue, loot.
Even if this was done it cannot be allowed to drop actual end-game loot. It simply can't.
Not only would it be extremely easy to cheese some no-mechanic archaic raid for high tier end-game loot (rather than something actually new with mechanics) but if you allowed that you would NEED to keep balancing not only every single instance ever with the current meta BUT balance literally every single item that could drop from any of it in BOTH PvE and PvP.

Let's not even mention the fact that DH's could probably cheese a shitload of old instances simply by not existing back then so those weren't created with DH's in mind.

When you actually go past the surface level thought of "wouldn't this be a good idea" you should realize that it is literally impossible to implement within the current scope of the game.
The amount of sheer manpower needed to keep track of everything and development needed to keep everything running and "balanced" would just be insane with 8 expansion worth of content.

This is something i have tried to express in posts here - and have essentially been brushed off with passive aggressive insults. The reality is that to make them a viable piece of content, they need to have rewards - otherwise they should have left them as they are. Now we run into a few issues which i will link from above as i believe they align quite well with what you are saying, and i cbf typing it out again:

It is not unused - it is past its use by date. It had its time in the spotlight, and now it is no longer relevant. Could they try and reintroduce it in some way? Sure, there are countless ways it could be made relevant again, but the biggest issue isnt "could it be made relevant again", thats very easy to do - just have it drop loot. The real issue is, that content was designed and implemented during a very specific stage of wows development.

Certain classes existed, others did not. Certain abilities existed, others did not. So now we head down the rabbit hole of trying to balance the content around current classes, specs, and abilities - which then changes again each time an expansion is launched. So now we are talking about rebalancing every "dungeon" every single time something new is added, rather than just balancing the current expansions content, a far simpler task.

So now they are investing significant time adjusting and balancing all this content every expansion, which imo is a massive waste of dev time. Sure, they could treat it like timewalking and just let the balancing be a shambles (which it is), but then it needs to have very modest rewards, which suddenly makes it quite undesirable.

So as you say, DH is one good example, but i remember when monk was introduced and BRM in particular was just completely broken in timewalking - they just took no damage. Warriors had the same at one point where i had a ignore pain that ran the entire width of my screen, and deathgrip and gorefiends, as well as mass entanglement etc - they would completely change some encounters. As i say above, and as you eluded to, content is designed in a time capsule, taking into account the classes, specs, and abilities that exist at THAT point in time, and the content is balanced accordingly.

As such, to make this work would require extensive balancing and testing - time which could and should be put into NEW content.

[nocturnus]

Remember you stated you can include whatever you want because it is your idea. That is a literal use of the word arbitrary. lol. Focus less on giving lessons, insults, or whatever else weird thing you want to state to make yourself superior and focus on the actual idea and discussion.

Whatever I want, based on specific criteria I have, ergo not arbitrary. End of lesson two; let's see if your mind can grasp the concept this time.

I agree - so stop trying to adjust the game to fit your personal preferences, accept that the game will evolve in whatever direction Blizzard wants it to

How about this: I'll do whatever I want, regardless of what you think.

and that is very unlikely to be such a niche thing as "lets turn old raids into 5mans" considering they already have time walking which I am very confident they would say fills that niche already.

Maybe. Maybe not. We don't know and regardless, this doesn't mean we shouldn't converse about it.

You asked opinions, and then get frustrated when you dont get an echo chamber. All your immature attempts at insults and passive aggressive replies really have no affect on people.

What makes you think there's any frustration at this end? I'm not the one crying about my feelings. I'm sure they have no effect, which is why you keep bringing it up

Yes, and I say again, that is absolutely fine. The line in the sand is when those same people start asking for changes to the game to fit their niche requirements.

I hate to break it to you, but you're not in a position to draw any 'lines in the sand'.

Raids were never designed to be done by 5 people mechanically.
This would mean bosses would be "nerfed" so much they would basically be reworked beyond recognition.

This is a very interesting subject. I broached it once or twice with Naj'entus as example, but everyone shouting "impossiburu becuz raid foight" ignored that completely.

Let's take a few bosses from BT, list their abilities and brainstorm whether it really would be this hard to rebalance for a group of five. I think it would be extremely simple.

Even if this was done it cannot be allowed to drop actual end-game loot. It simply can't.
Not only would it be extremely easy to cheese some no-mechanic archaic raid for high tier end-game loot Let's not even mention the fact that DH's could probably cheese a shitload of old instances simply by not existing back then so those weren't created with DH's in mind.

Could you give an example, as I did? What do you think would be 'cheese-able'? Could you also think of a way to negate this?

When you actually go past the surface level thought of "wouldn't this be a good idea" you should realize that it is literally impossible to implement within the current scope of the game.

This is the only factually incorrect thing you've said so far. You don't think it would be possible [opinion], I think it would be and the existence of Timewalking actually reinforces this feeling. Neither of us are right or wrong, though. It's an opinion based on the effort we think balancing requires.

The amount of sheer manpower needed to keep track of everything and development needed to keep everything running and "balanced" would just be insane with 8 expansion worth of content.

Agreed. Converting eight expansions worth of raid content would probably be a lot of work - even if neither of us know how much work it would actually be, it's a pretty plausible conclusion to draw. This is why I wouldn't convert all content, as I've mentioned before. I'd personally start with one raid, or part of one raid, see how that develops and work from there. Iirc it's the same approach they took with Timewalking.

Edit: I noticed I forgot to reply to your concerns in reference to loot: I think that would be the least difficult thing to balance. Think about it, the only tough part, would be set bonuses, which have already been removed from the game and trinkets. If rebalancing trinkets would be as tough as you think it would be, they could simply remove them. The remaining items are stupid stat-sticks which might as well be carbon-copies of existing items with a different skin.

[Relapses]

Agreed. Converting eight expansions worth of raid content would probably be a lot of work - even if neither of us know how much work it would actually be, it's a pretty plausible conclusion to draw. This is why I wouldn't convert all content, as I've mentioned before. I'd personally start with one raid, or part of one raid, see how that develops and work from there. Iirc it's the same approach they took with Timewalking.

It only took 12 pages of people telling you this is a waste of game development time to finally narrow your suggestion down from what you clearly implied in the OP to "like maybe one more Timewalking dungeon"? Impressive. It's still a bad idea that won't ever happen but it is nevertheless endlessly fascinating to see you finally admit the scope of your suggestion is pretty flawed.