WoW Desperately Needs Some Kind of a Roundtable Between Devs and Players

[KrayZ33]

Point is, there's drop-off after every expansion release, but we've got multiple reports now about SL's more-than-usual drop-off.

That's also because it's like the longest X.0 patch we've seen for a decade or so (just guessing a timespan here).
I have a pretty "healthy" relationship with Shadowlands for example.
I'm not playing atm, but I played my raids/mythic+ like I usually do. Actually more than I usually did.

But due to how M+ doesn't reward good gear anymore and no access to Mythic Raids. I was done with my progress at some point. Rather quick actually.

So after clearing HC and the +15 Achievement, I was done. Doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the time I had.
The dungeons are really fun actually.
The 9.1 raid looks amazing as well, the new mega-dungeon looks awesome too.

For all I care, the game should drop all the open-world shit (because it *is* done in a very shitty way and very lackluster overall and way to simple) and invest more into dungeons and raids.
They'd lose 50% of the playerbase then though, but I'd get a "better" game.
Another reason why they shouldn't listen to "players" (in this case me) and just look at their data (like they do now).

What do people do, do they do things without rewards? Do they invest time in something even though they don't gain anything from it?
Who does worldquests, when do people stop doing world quests etc. pp.

[Lei]

Who wanted character progression like Path of the Titans aka Artifact Weapon(for a loooong time) ?

Players

Who then wanted AP to be tuned down and more optional, aka anima power?

Players

No, ignoring that players have influed their game, now thats ignorant.

Path of the Titans was something planned by the devs in cata if I remember correctly. Then it was cut. Ever since that point is when players wanted Path of the titans. The "aka artifact weapons" was solely the devs iteration of the thing.

You can not just "aka" things. Anima farm is not what players wanted. At least not in this fashion (effort/gain).
Stop being naive to think that all of this is accidental: that AP farm in 2/3 of legion was shit, that anima farm is shit (I mean experience wise). They are pricing their game waaaay too high and thats sadly a fact.
Anima farm will be probably a somewhat great experience in the last patch. Why cant it be in the first patch? You know the answer.

[Osmeric]

The problem is that there are no actual dev statements about the game, about what their vision is (especially long term) and what kind of players they are designing the game for.

Well of course there aren't. That would immediately drive away too many customers.

[Super Kami Dende]

I'm not. I visit multiple communities both from websites like MMO-C, r/wow, discords, dozens of streamers, the official forums, and sometimes other alternative cesspits like 4chan and the overall sentiment is just negative.

As with most Products, People upset with a product will always be universally louder. If something you buy works for you, you generally don't call the store to tell them.

[Osmeric]

This sounds like a nice idea on paper but in practice it's pretty much worthless. Blizzard can agree to listen but they're not bound to pay the slightest bit of notice.

And, in the face of conflicting clamor from parts of the player population, the devs can select the part they like and go "See? We listened to the players, and it's not our fault if this doesn't work."

[Doffen]

Path of the Titans was something planned by the devs in cata if I remember correctly. Then it was cut. Ever since that point is when players wanted Path of the titans. The "aka artifact weapons" was solely the devs iteration of the thing.

You can not just "aka" things. Anima farm is not what players wanted. At least not in this fashion (effort/gain).
Stop being naive to think that all of this is accidental: that AP farm in 2/3 of legion was shit, that anima farm is shit (I mean experience wise). They are pricing their game waaaay to high and thats sadly a fact.
Anima farm will be probably a somewhat great experience in the last patch. Why cant it be in the first patch? You know the answer.

You are only talking about opinions mostly though. Which is the crux of things. Anima in the end will be boring af because it will yield no effort. Same as AP was boring in 7.3. I want to put effort in. Not getting things for free.

And no, players asked for that progression outside raiding and dungeons for years. Just because you didnt like it doesnt mean they dont listen to the feedback that was given.

I wish AP was more progressing than it is in SL. Sadly they didnt listen to me that I wanted more like the AP we had in Legion. Its a lot less now, and I find less reason to log on and play.

Its not being naive, its being sane. I like a lot about Shadowlands. What I dont like as an example is Torghast because the devs listened to those that said remove the timer, remove the challenge etc. I want timers and a challenge. Being naive in this part is to pretend they didnt listen to feedback just because they didnt listen to MY feedback.

[ek0zu]

I think the least they hear from us the better it would be, it is better to design the game around the global gaming trends and the trends that they observe while we play the game and adapt on those stuff rather than what we say to them. I am completely sure that all of us have said something or even advocated for something and when it was implemented in the game we are like oh shit i have never said this should be in the game or worse advocate for it.

[bryroo]

Actually, MMOC at this point is like 1000x times more toxic than either of them. This forum has driven away most players and is in serious danger of getting closed down. Almost no-one posts here and many of those that do so are very very VERY toxic.

I agree with this. These forums are nothing but miserable arm chair developers who hate the game they won't stop playing.

Blizzard should have zero interaction with the MMOChamp community.

[Lei]

You are only talking about opinions mostly though. Which is the crux of things. Anima in the end will be boring af because it will yield no effort. Same as AP was boring in 7.3. I want to put effort in. Not getting things for free.

And no, players asked for that progression outside raiding and dungeons for years. Just because you didnt like it doesnt mean they dont listen to the feedback that was given.

I wish AP was more progressing than it is in SL. Sadly they didnt listen to me that I wanted more like the AP we had in Legion. Its a lot less now, and I find less reason to log on and play.

Its not being naive, its being sane. I like a lot about Shadowlands. What I dont like as an example is Torghast because the devs listened to those that said remove the timer, remove the challenge etc. I want timers and a challenge. Being naive in this part is to pretend they didnt listen to feedback just because they didnt listen to MY feedback.

They can't do challenging things when THE WHOLE PLAYERBASE HAS TO BE ABLE TO FINISH IT, from LFR players to mythic raiders. It's not like the mage tower when it was "just skins". The devs are putting themselves into the corner with wanting something EVERY player can progress AND wanting challenging content at the same time. The two just can not coexist. And then roguelikes rely on at least the same amount of luck than skill. If you get OP powers you breeze through. If you get shitty powers then good luck. Thirdly: importing a whole new game into WoW is risky. If I want to play roguelikes I go play that, because inside WoW they can only be a heavily watered down version of the original thing. They can't create a whole, fully fleshed out game within a game. Again: the devs are putting themselves into the corner.

Anima is boring right now, because it is tied to shitty activities (WQs).

[Edward Wu]

hate the game they won't stop playing.

This was maybe true years ago but it certainly is no longer true now, at least I can speak certainly for myself there. Game really is no longer that addicting, especially in SL where it feels like they slowed character progression to a crawl.

[Deneios]

Here is the issue with your analogy though - you havnt seen the helicopter - you are not even sure if it crashed at all, its just some dude on youtube saying "hey so i am pretty sure this helicopter is upside down in a tree somewhere" and some people are taking it as fact and extrapolating numerous causes for a crash they cant even confirm happened.

Now if Blizzard came out and said "hey, so our subs have dropped from A down to B, and played hours is down from A to B, and the numbers completing activities 1, 2, & 3 is down to an all-time low from A down to B" - now we have JUST enough information to start drawing some conclusions and talking about possible problems, and potential solutions.

Oh but i have seen the how the helicopter first took flight in closed beta. Bit iffy but it flew. Seen it in the storms and clear days but now last 2 expansions it has been firmly planted in that tree and the flames are getting bigger. The pilot is Ion and he hasnt even called the fire department to put out the flames.

[Lane]

Contrary to what a lot of others believe, I think the devs are making the game they want to play and that's the problem. Given what I've seen, most of them do not have diverse playstyles, a disproportionate amount of the ones in the highest levels of power are old schoolers who seem like they want to bring back the glory days of EQ, and/or you have the ones only interested in instanced group content despite Blizzard saying repeatedly for over a decade that a small percentage of players engage in it (and ultimately forced them to have to create LFR to justify the resource expenditure into that type of content).

I've seen them repeatedly shoot down good ideas, like fast travel that would allow players to be engaged in activities rather than a travel simulator, for no good reason other than they think it'd make the world feel smaller. Meanwhile, those of us who like to do things like farm transmog can tell you the world is too damn big to not have fast travel like every other modern day MMO with similar sized worlds. I was hoping between Suramar portals and Argus that maybe they were finally coming around to the idea that fast travel isn't a bane to the game experience, but I haven't seen anything similar since.

WoW also doesn't have dynamic events, which every MMO I've played since 2011 has. They have been exceptionally slow about adopting any amount of solo or small group (1-3 players) content that, again, other MMOs I've played have had for almost as long. WoW, by comparison, feels really archaic to me most of the time. They were doing a good job at taking ideas from other games and improving upon them up until Cata it seems then suddenly it's like they decided the game didn't feel like an early 2000s MMO anymore and have not done much in innovation since.

I think WoW gets by a lot on players who have 10-15 years of investment, attachment, and familiarity to the game and their characters despite other MMOs doing almost everything better. I also think that's why you see so many people who seem to hate the game but keep playing. They want to keep playing their characters, but the content they're being given is sorely lacking.

[cuafpr]

I cant think of anything worse than a bunch of random wow players having a video call with the devs. Let them make the damn game, if someone doesnt like it, they can play something else. This idea that the game should or could be tailored to suit individuals is ridiculous.

then don't watch or participate personally I think it would be interesting to see a greater diversity of types of players talking with the devs than always the same group of streamers.

[Osmeric]

This was maybe true years ago but it certainly is no longer true now, at least I can speak certainly for myself there. Game really is no longer that addicting, especially in SL where it feels like they slowed character progression to a crawl.

I found it remarkable how easy it was to quit SL. It was a huge change to me, even from BfA.

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Contrary to what a lot of others believe, I think the devs are making the game they want to play and that's the problem.

I agree, although I think they are also facing increasing budget pressure.

[Tradu]

You shouldn't take MMO-C for word. People on here are pretty negative about the game. And it's not like there weren't a channel for communication, we have the official forums where blizz is pretty active.

Not sure we're thinking of the same official forums or game developer.

[Crimson Spears]

I found it remarkable how easy it was to quit SL. It was a huge change to me, even from BfA.

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I agree, although I think they are also facing increasing budget pressure.

So long as the raids and dungeons remain good I think they are fine but they are stressing that with the amount of BS they keep trying to put in the way of dungeons and raids.

[Edward Wu]

I found it remarkable how easy it was to quit SL. It was a huge change to me, even from BfA.
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I think they fucked up bad and they know it now, or maybe they don't and are still oblivious. BfA had really good character progression compared to SL. Titanforging and Corruption both had the "bling" effects that were necessary dopamine hits to players that kept people playing. Azerite neck leveling as well, I think your character looked like he dinged a level (I don't remember) every time you leveled your neck, and the essence system was another thing you could hunt for and grow your character. There was actually a lot going on with gearing that made it feel really good compared to how it is now.

I cannot believe I am defending BfA but there it is. SL it feels like Titanforging never left and they just hid it really well this time, it's now invisible within the game's code instead of front-and-center on an item's tooltips. It feels like the chance an item has to drop has a similar chance to seeing an item drop that Titanforged or procced a Corruption effect in BfA. Except now it's even worse because usually if you're in M+ or out in the world that gear is useless until you take it to a vendor who upgrades it for you.

They transformed the BfA weekly chest into The Vault and made it way too good, and now it is the primary method of gear acquisition for most players. Going to some bank-looking thing in the main city and right clicking it to get your drops instead of finding them in dungeons or raids. WFRaiders also had to PvP to gear up. They just bungled up loot acquisition hard this expansion.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Utterly pointless. Blizzard knows exactly what people would say there. They just chose to ignore/delay it. Same with their systems. When they make a new one they know exactly what is wrong with it and how to fix it after they maximized player dissatisfaction : player engagement.

[Doffen]

They can't do challenging things when THE WHOLE PLAYERBASE HAS TO BE ABLE TO FINISH IT, from LFR players to mythic raiders. It's not like the mage tower when it was "just skins". The devs are putting themselves into the corner with wanting something EVERY player can progress AND wanting challenging content at the same time. The two just can not coexist. And then roguelikes rely on at least the same amount of luck than skill. If you get OP powers you breeze through. If you get shitty powers then good luck. Thirdly: importing a whole new game into WoW is risky. If I want to play roguelikes I go play that, because inside WoW they can only be a heavily watered down version of the original thing. They can't create a whole, fully fleshed out game within a game. Again: the devs are putting themselves into the corner.

Anima is boring right now, because it is tied to shitty activities (WQs).

Very well put if I may say. It is clear that the devs are putting themselves into a corner. I don't think that "exclusive" things in a game is a bad thing. Rather, I would want more of it.

Anima however is a breeze atm, a clear of the raid and some mythic+ nets you around 1500 anima when doing something you like. And that's base, if you have rank 1s, or 2s, or even 3s you look at quite the amount doing stuff you would do anyway. I would want a tad more bound to actual power. I don't do more WQs myself, except the world boss(not every week that even) but still gain like 2-3k anima on my main/2 alts because I also get it from the mission table. When I remember that :P

I do have WoW fatigue however, and a new pc which can (finally) play other games. Which is why I would have wanted SL to be before BfA, cause then I had more time, and SL is imo a lot better. If they switched and we had BfA now I would have just quit at this point. There is hope, but I think my wow days ends soon if they don't shake things up.

[dope_danny]

Why? they have less players than ever but are making more money than ever. The down with the ship brand hogs will take any macrotransaction, buy it day one and defend it online. You don't like it? tough shit you aren't the wow devs primary target audience anymore and have been replaced by the modern paypig. Headdown and consume your swill without complaints.

I mean fuck they call you "consumers" and not "customers" anymore for a reason. Why change when people are clearly willing to pay more for less and accept mediocrity as the norm as long as their sunk cost sadness prison is still around to graze the hours away on?

Some people don't care about the game improving or revitalising it. They just want it to be there. Like a wierd digital equivalent to a cult. Its more important its there as a buffer to reality than for it to be a top tier piece of entertainment you feel is worth your time and money. Because the alternative is that its just a money hole to waste all your time and money on and 17 years deep the people hitting their 40's realising they aren't 19 anymore cannot deal with that all being questioned so double down. Consume product while getting excited for next product.

I mean fuck i've seen people today say "well yeah its shit now, and has been shit since warlords, but i'm giving them one last chance with 10.0" after seven years of "one last chance"

When you make more money from a brand loyalty audience that don't care you dont need to care about anything but making more money off them. Anyone else who has standards, wants the game to improve and gives a shit while questioning the devs? we don't matter anymore. We haven't mattered for a long, long time.