Why is it alright to diminish the experience of non competitive players?

[Marxman]

People don't keep playing games that they don't enjoy

You would think that, but you'd be wrong. There are a ton of WoW players still subbed and playing that haven't enjoyed the game in years. It's an addiction more than a hobby.

Source: I played all of WoD, half of Legion, 1/3 of BfA, and 2 months of SL. I didn't really enjoy any of that time. I just didn't want to quit because WoW was a social avenue and addiction.

[starstationprofm]

You would think that, but you'd be wrong. There are a ton of WoW players still subbed and playing that haven't enjoyed the game in years. It's an addiction more than a hobby.

Source: I played all of WoD, half of Legion, 1/3 of BfA, and 2 months of SL. I didn't really enjoy any of that time. I just didn't want to quit because WoW was a social avenue and addiction.

Sounds like you were enjoying it then

[Marxman]

Sounds like you were enjoying it then

I enjoyed my guild and my friends. If not for them, I likely would have permanently stopped playing retail back in Legion. Unlike TBC -> MoP, it's not a game I can enjoy by myself anymore. The systems are just too intrusive and obnoxious.

[starstationprofm]

I enjoyed my guild and my friends. If not for them, I likely would have permanently stopped playing retail back in Legion. Unlike TBC -> MoP, it's not a game I can enjoy by myself anymore. The systems are just too intrusive and obnoxious.

Well duh, I think most people would agree playing an MMO alone is a pretty sad experience.

[Marxman]

Well duh, I think most people would agree playing an MMO alone is a pretty sad experience.

Yet Blizzard has seemingly catered to that group for the past 4 expansions now.

[Echo of Soul]

Well duh, I think most people would agree playing an MMO alone is a pretty sad experience.

Yet I think it's way more common than we think to play the game without engaging in lasting social bonds. Doing the bulk of your activities alone with some matchmade content here and there like random bgs, LFG and LFR.
It feels like MMORPGs that focus on that playstyle are gaining traction over the ones that offer the old school experience. It's why I think that a game like Pantheon will end up being a niche product.

[Biomega]

Well duh, I think most people would agree playing an MMO alone is a pretty sad experience.

It depends on what you mean by "alone". My guess is that a substantial number of people playing WoW these days engage in ad-hoc group gameplay much more so than organized, long-term socializing - i.e. they jump into BG queues, raid through LFG, and so on. They may be in a guild for various reasons, but not necessarily engage in regular organized guild activities - which is, ironically, what a lot of self-proclaimed "social guilds" are like.

Raiding is of course still the main draw in terms of structured, organized social play; but I bet there's a ton of people who PUG raids now, too, and never really need or want the structure.

[starstationprofm]

It depends on what you mean by "alone". My guess is that a substantial number of people playing WoW these days engage in ad-hoc group gameplay much more so than organized, long-term socializing - i.e. they jump into BG queues, raid through LFG, and so on. They may be in a guild for various reasons, but not necessarily engage in regular organized guild activities - which is, ironically, what a lot of self-proclaimed "social guilds" are like.

Raiding is of course still the main draw in terms of structured, organized social play; but I bet there's a ton of people who PUG raids now, too, and never really need or want the structure.

I mean having no friends/guild and just pugging all the time. That's miserable imo.

Both for gameplay reasons ( harder to find groups/raids since you're at the mercy of LFG ) and social reasons ( having people to brag to about your newly acquired mount/rating/whatever )

[nvaelz]

It's easier to grind money in poker than progressing in WoW - that says something about the current state of the game. You think it's a commonality that people should ditch friends and play with "other competitive players" to increase power? You think that if you can't do that then you are not a skillful player? You think that if gold boosting is extremely popular it's not a reflection of demand? You think that just because you value yourself extremely high and think friendships are mean't to be sacrificed for selfish prosperity; it's normal?

We are more than one archetype of player in this game and since you "elitists" won't get that since you're border psychopaths you neither can see the negative vibe imposed on everyone, it's like food being something you can only eat if you stab someone else in the back. It's easy to progress in the current state of the game if you can be devoid of all feelings of bringing the weakest along and if you can simple sacrifice what's good for greed it's a positive for you aswell.

Sadly most people can't look far enough to see the consequences of such negativity and it's not only just a game it infuses people to change for better or worse.

Oh I know this is all broken grammar and confusing but you can roleplay that you don't know what I'm talking about all you want.

[cparle87]

You can act all puritanical and self righteous all you want, but when players find a brick wall in their progression, a minority will try to Git Gud™ - and a majority will just quietly leave. Which in turn represents less money, i.e. less budget for the toys of the hardcore crowd. If you have a game that is bleeding players left and right, what do you think the next budget will look like? Especially when the game itself is pretty old.

Hint: don't expect anything the scale of Legion. That was a one time fluke that will not be seen again.

- - - Updated - - -



Source please.

You claim that Blizzard is "bleeding players left and right", something that you can't prove. While wikipedia will straight up tell you they sold 3.7 mil copies on launch day alone. Can you not sense the hypocrisy here?

[Soon-TM]

You claim that Blizzard is "bleeding players left and right", something that you can't prove. While wikipedia will straight up tell you they sold 3.7 mil copies on launch day alone. Can you not sense the hypocrisy here?

I said "if", aka a possibility, not a declarative statement. If I was in your place, I would really try to improve my reading comprehension skills before I'd start trying to educate others. But to each its own

[La]

Well, casual players shouldn't really be so concerned with gear as those types of players, nor does them getting gear that's mythic equivalent something they should be handed, when they have no real "use" for it.

Back when I first started playing I would inspect people in my garbage gear, and see their gear, and I wanted it. So I worked towards it and eventually cleared all of the raid content in TBC to get it, which was a big accomplishment to me and the difficulty, and in general at the time. So do you think someone who did what I did should have someone who did far less, yet have gear that's very similar to mine?

Same reason that video games balance from the top down, because bad players can always improve and reach a higher point for the rewards. It's actually far more accessiable and easy to learn in WoW than most games like that. "I don't have the time" "I have a job/life/kids" Well, how is that everyone else's problem? Most people would probably tell you WoW is far more casual now than it's ever been, but some people just make excuses and want the easy road.

[Biomega]

I mean having no friends/guild and just pugging all the time. That's miserable imo.

Both for gameplay reasons ( harder to find groups/raids since you're at the mercy of LFG ) and social reasons ( having people to brag to about your newly acquired mount/rating/whatever )

There's a reason a lot of people prefer playing this way, though. It doesn't require scheduling, it doesn't cultivate relationships in which you might be burdened with expectations, it's easier to manage, and so on. It has downsides as well, clearly; that's why this almost never works at the very high end. But for a lot of people it works well enough to do the content they want to do, in the way they want to do it.

[Echo of Soul]

There's a reason a lot of people prefer playing this way, though. It doesn't require scheduling, it doesn't cultivate relationships in which you might be burdened with expectations, it's easier to manage, and so on. It has downsides as well, clearly; that's why this almost never works at the very high end. But for a lot of people it works well enough to do the content they want to do, in the way they want to do it.

That's why MMORPGs that offer both are starting to close in on WoW.
If you can offer casual players a long path to the second best gear in the game through running LFG/LFR and random BGs that's a lot of happy subscribers. You just have to make sure that it takes long enough to get all the gear so it doesn't make the hardcore community feel like it's something that they must do.
If WoW had this as a core system rival MMORPGs wouldn't had stolen so many players.

[starstationprofm]

That's why MMORPGs that offer both are starting to close in on WoW.
If you can offer casual players a long path to the second best gear in the game through running LFG/LFR and random BGs that's a lot of happy subscribers. You just have to make sure that it takes long enough to get all the gear so it doesn't make the hardcore community feel like it's something that they must do.
If WoW had this as a core system rival MMORPGs wouldn't had stolen so many players.

lolwhat? No MMO is closing in on WoW.

[Soon-TM]

lolwhat? No MMO is closing in on WoW.

Source please. I'm tired of all these folks claiming that "WoW is number one", or contrariwise "WoW is dying" without bothering to produce even an ounce of evidence. Ditto for comparisons with other MMOs, since the last time I checked, there is no publicly available data from either Bethesda/Zenimax, Square Enix, or Arenanet - or Blizzard itself, while we're at it.

[psyquest]

Wow has never been a hard game. It went from:

vanilla: slow game, easy classes, easy bosses but long farm and attunements to get to content. Basically, you needed time to get the best stuff.

It started changing slowly but surely until they introduced things like easy grouping, mythic raid, LFR raid for those with no time to follow the lore, normal/heroic/mythic instances then mythic+ keys. The game started getting way way faster than vanilla and started piling up systems on top of systems.

The game lost its RPG element and its mmo elements to try and give those with no time at their hand to be able to play. But then by lowering the time constraint, they upped the complexity until it has become what we have now. Borrowed power everywhere, instead of your character, its talents and specs with better gear being the most important thing it has become a character, its specs, its legendary, its convenant, its gear, its talents, its rotation and its scaling with gear...

Been around since vanilla, I dont miss the vanilla/TBC period but I feel that somewhere along the journey we have lost the essence of what makes an mmorpg.

[Lurker1]

Funny just speaking for myself I come from mmorpgs that reward time spent or hard content done or even both sometime its not shocking to me players want time spent rewards vs hard content done rewards for WoW At all.

[Raisei]

Source please. I'm tired of all these folks claiming that "WoW is number one", or contrariwise "WoW is dying" without bothering to produce even an ounce of evidence. Ditto for comparisons with other MMOs, since the last time I checked, there is no publicly available data from either Bethesda/Zenimax, Square Enix, or Arenanet - or Blizzard itself, while we're at it.

To be fair this very much depends on how you rate the quality of an MMORPG and there are dozens of answers to that, but if we go to the roots, then MMOs are about groups of players joining to beat things up together. They are the digital evolution of good ol' D&D groups slogging through dungeons for kills and loot. You may disagree with this, but I think that much is pretty clear.

While other games certainly are better then WoW in some aspects, like story, pvp, solo content and such, there is no MMO currently that can hold a candle to WoWs group content, neither in quality nor in quantity. Especially since the addition of Mythic Plus allowed endless progression and endless relevance of dungeons on top of the raids.
This makes WoW the best MMO for many people, because many want the group content. So if we are rating MMOs by what can be considered as the root of MMORPGing, then WoW is still number one, but if a player is looking for something else, s/he might not agree.
For example, someone coming for a good story will not find that here (even though the game did improve a lot on that since vanilla), they would be much better served in SWTOR for example, while people that want group content will have a terrible time in that game and would be well served here.

[Echo of Soul]

.

While other games certainly are better then WoW in some aspects, like story, pvp, solo content and such, there is no MMO currently that can hold a candle to WoWs group content, neither in quality nor in quantity. Especially since the addition of Mythic Plus allowed endless progression and endless relevance of dungeons on top of the raids.
This makes WoW the best MMO for many people, because many want the group content. So if we are rating MMOs by what can be considered as the root of MMORPGing, then WoW is still number one

Using that logic, Wildstar should be one of the best if not the best MMORPG on the market. Remind me, how's that game doing at the moment?