How does Retail fix the social issue?

[Viikkis]

I've said this before but early WoW was different because the experience was new for most people. It was amazing to just see other people "from around the world!" in this online world. So people would chat and just hang out but time's change. Nowadays people don't care about the social aspect that much because it's nothing new. Think of places like Habbo hotel and such that lost popularity overtime because they were mainly social online hubs not so much games. So nowadays people care more about the gameplay than just chatting.

Classic proves this because most people there don't bother chatting or socializing and group up only when they gain gameplay benefit out of it.

[Stanelis1]

The issue with shadowland is there is a clear expectation for players in order to complete the content. You need X DPS and Y HPS to complete +n mm+ dungeon (or any given raid difficulty). If you don t meet that requirement, you become a liability no matter what you do.

This results in a high amount of toxicity in raid, mm+ dungeons and I ve even seen it in guilds this expansion.

If you wan to fix the social issue then :

a) grouping must be a positive experience, eg teaming up with other players must make the game easier, not harder. It was the case in old mmorpg such as everquest, as an exemple. In modern wow (and mmorpg), the game doesn t get easier the more players in the group and it is a mistake.
b) the game needs to be less of a number game based on ilvl and dps and hps. The bulk of the gameplay of a team based game should be coordination, not about how well someone does his dps cycle.

[Khasim92]

The reason people aren't social is because the game no longer requires it. You have addons, guides and videos that tell you exactly what to do in each fight, each quest tells you exactly where to go on your map, finding groups is just clicking in a menu and there is nothing in the game worth getting that requires socializing with other players.
The game evolved with the playerbase. People were asking for more QoL changes because they did not want to socialize. Now that socializing isn't required, people who liked the social aspect have a problem with it. You can't please everyone, and clearly Blizzard believes that by transitioning more towards a GaaS game they're going to make more money. People now use Facebook, Discord, Instagram etc. to socialize with other people, not video games.

[Super Kami Dende]

Retail and Blizzard can't fix the Social issue, because you can't force awkward autists to interact if they don't want to. Even in TBC and Wrath etc, you didn't need to be social. You just went to trade and typed LFG X raid or Dungeon and people invited you.

all the dungeon finder system really did was remove trade spam.

[tomten]

Easy cuz blizz removed any necessity to group in retail.
Can't remember the last time i grouped outside some elite quests and those I only group cuz im tank and they take forever but at night i just solo them.
All mob/rare has no tagging so dont even need to group up.

For the social aspect? Get a guild.

[justandulas]

They can’t. The genie is out of the bottle. Classic is more of a social rpg, and retail has devolved into seasonal arpg. Retail is more similar to d3 and destiny 2, than it is classic

The genie is out of the bottle and they’d have to remove cross realm, merge a ton of servers, add exclusivity back into the game, only offer one difficulty of raid content, and remove seasonal gameplay in favor of expansion progression ladders.

In other words, we’d never see it partly because the remaining players of retail want a destiny 2 version of seasonal WoW with no value and because the cost to save WoW would be too much for atvi. WoW doesn’t even make up 2% of atvi total pie. They’d cancel it before investing into saving it

[T-34]

There is no "social issue" in WoW, neither in Classic nor in retail.

People that want to play mainly for the social interaction with other people use the available tools to do it: Guilds, communities, various discords etc. These people have no problem whatsoever with finding like-minded people for whom the social aspect is the main reason to play.

Then we have those that play the game because of its competitive co-operative aspect. They also have no problem whatsoever, neither in retail nor in Classic to find like-minded people to play with. Players like this can also use various tools and techniques to find players of a similar experience and skill to play with.

The only ones that "suffer" from WoW's hands-off approach to mandatory socializing is the minority group of toxic, entitled players that want more experienced/more skilled players to carry them.

You can see the clear difference between WoW, that doesn't cater solely to the toxic entitled, and FFXIV that caters largely to the toxic entitled.
In Wow players no matter their play style are equal, in FFXIV mandatory mediocrity is enforced by the developer encouraged persecution and bullying of the competitive part of the player-base.

[justandulas]

Or you will get "shunned and ostracised" just because someone didnt like your nick so he told buddies to "spread the word". People sometimes really have no clue and absolutely no insight whatsoever.

Reality is, social aspects were never the issue on retail, never. If you chose to not socialize you could do so, but in the end it provided lots of opportunities like finding guilds and now communities.


Imagine if bus driver suddenly stood up and told passengers they have to start socializing and talking with each other or he won't be driving. This is what you want.

You used that example the other day and tbh, that has never once happened in WoW. When someone got blacklisted, it was for a good reason and guilds always vetted them and asked their side to see the truth

There was no black listing on servers because you argued with your gm or weren’t part of the klique

It would be for things like ninja the Phoenix or bear Mount, ninja full loot off a boss, glaives etc

You won’t be able to find a single REAL example of a player blacklisted over an argument or nothing. It didn’t happen so quit lying

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I suppose I should have qualified that with "they can't without losing players". Does it work in classic and tbc classic? Sure... in the sense that the people who play classic are willing to do it. But we have no metrics to tell us how many people are playing classic vs retail. I'm willing to bet that more people are playing retail than classic and that if Blizzard tried to turn back the clock on retail and announced the removal of LFD/LFR and connected realms (as an example), that it would drive away so many players that they'd quickly do an about face on that decision.



I agree that Blizzard needs to focus on making a good game again, but I don't agree that forcing socialization in the manner of classic would be doing that. You're quick to throw away those people who use LFD/LFR and "aren't good enough", but have you considered the impact that would have on WoW's revenue? If you believe more people would return/start playing wow than stop playing if they did that, then I'd say you're smoking some good shit.



LFR exists to justify the time and resources that get devoted to the creation and maintenance of raid content. Full Stop. Removing LFR would result in the cutting back of raid content both in frequency and quality. FFXIV manages to handle "abundant catch up" and having an LFD/LFR just fine and the game is thriving.



WoW's height was WotLK in my opinion. It was the best balance of accessibility and difficulty as far as I'm concerned. The only thing it would need is LFR, because, if the primary story of the game/expansion requires raiding to see the conclusion, then even those dirty casuals should have an easy and accessible way to see that conclusion. That's not even getting into the fact that it's those dirty casual LFR players that are the reason that Mythic Raiders get to do what they do and have such challenging content. Accessibility is important to a certain degree. And to some degree grinds are also just a fact of life in MMO's. It's all in how those grinds are packaged though that determines how willing players are to engage with them.

Is there stuff the dev team can learn from older iterations of WoW? Absolutely. But I believe that just trying to "do it the old way" will drive away far too many players to be worth it. I know I'd walk away from WoW for good if they removed LFD/LFR because those are the only ways I'd ever get to do dungeons or raids in WoW.

I’d simply point out that WoW population declined for the first time ever, when they introduced LfR/lfd

It has never had a positive affect on the games health or longevity, and it has directly cost them more players than they’ve gained

The more successful project Blizz has had in recent years, was WoW classic, and it had a vibrant community until literally the end and still does into tbc

People want to play a social rpg, not Diablo 3 wearing wows skin

The lfr/lfd have directly cost them most subs than they’ve gained, no question about it

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Wait 4-5 months, and try looking for a group for these 5man group quests. Good luck and have fun.

I never had a problem with 5 mans even in classics end

2 min max for any 5 man group in classic or tbc

And the social element was there from day 1 to the end.

Far more so than retail, other than my mythic guild I can’t remember the last time I needed to socialize in retail. It’s basically destiny 2 in wows skin

[T-34]

In other words, we’d never see it partly because the remaining players of retail want a destiny 2 version of seasonal WoW with no value and because the cost to save WoW would be too much for atvi. WoW doesn’t even make up 2% of atvi total pie. They’d cancel it before investing into saving it

That is simply untrue - or a bunch of "fake news":

in 2020 Blizzard's share of Activision-Blizzard's revenue was 1,9 billion US$ out of a total of 8 billion US$. Activision's part was just shy of 4 billion and King's just over 2 billion.
In other words Blizzards' share of the total pie is 25%
https://investor.activision.com/stat...6-9cb062f12139 (page 37)

If your statement that "WoW doesn't even make up 2% of atvi total pie" to be true then Hearthstone, Diablo, Starcraft, OW etc. should have a combined revenue that was 10 times bigger than WoW's revenue.

If we go to page 36 from the same official document from Activision-Blizzard then it is noted that the revenue rose by 1,9 billion US in 2019.
The only Blizzard game mentioned amongst all the games that drove that huge increase in revenue is WoW.

That also goes completely against your baseless assertion that "WoW doesn’t even make up 2% of atvi total pie".

[Eapoe]

So I have spent the last week in TBC Classic and it's so evident that game is much much more social than Retail. People "have to" do dungeons while leveling for reputation, looking for groups in chat. People "have to" group up to do 4-5 group quests in every single leveling zone. People group up for certain quests naturally. People "have to" find a guild so they can start raiding Kara.

In the dungeons, people talk and try to explain pull tactics. Just at level 62, in Slave Pens, there is more chatting strategy on how to pull and where to stand, when to put down Tremor Totem, when to AoE, giving healer Mana Pots, asking for Nature Resistance aura from Hunter on final boss and in general asking for water, asking for mana breaks and helping on quest. All this socialization happened in 1 single run of Slave Pens.

The amount of whispers I did in Shadowlands between 50-60 was 0. Yes, 0. I also am pretty sure I joined a group 0 times. The first time I whispered anything was at 60 to join an early mythic.

I remember early at 60 in Shadowlands I did a Mythic +0 dungeon on my Shaman and we wiped on 2nd boss in Spires of Ascension (on my 4th dungeon or something) and the only "socializing" that happened was that the tank left and then everyone left.

What concrete changes would Retail have to do to make people socialize again?

The thing that makes a MMORPG attractive is the social aspect, no?

So, you want Blizzard to force socialization instead of just being social.

[justandulas]

That is simply untrue - or a bunch of "fake news":

in 2020 Blizzard's share of Activision-Blizzard's revenue was 1,9 billion US$ out of a total of 8 billion US$. Activision's part was just shy of 4 billion and King's just over 2 billion.
In other words Blizzards' share of the total pie is 25%
https://investor.activision.com/stat...6-9cb062f12139 (page 37)

If your statement that "WoW doesn't even make up 2% of atvi total pie" to be true then Hearthstone, Diablo, Starcraft, OW etc. should have a combined revenue that was 10 times bigger than WoW's revenue.

If we go to page 36 from the same official document from Activision-Blizzard then it is noted that the revenue rose by 1,9 billion US in 2019.
The only Blizzard game mentioned amongst all the games that drove that huge increase in revenue is WoW.

That also goes completely against your baseless assertion that "WoW doesn’t even make up 2% of atvi total pie".

I suggest you learn how to read a stock report

6.6 billion of that 8 billion dollars came from micro transactions, and 90% of that came from the cod community.

While Blizz did an increase in players because of classic in 2019-20, the classic players don’t bring the same micro transaction dollars as the retail crowd. They did see a bump with shadowlands, but in quarters without an expansion launch WoW does only make up 2% of the atvi profit pie.

They have multiple cods that outperform them. Multiple. Even cod mobile outperforms them on average.

If it wasn’t for classic and tbc classic propping up wow, they’d be talking pulling the plug.

And even shadowlands has already lost 70% of their MaU according to multiple metrics. There’s a reason they rushed tbc out the door to cover up for SL before they had to report again

[exsanguinate]

Stop playing alone (pugging) and find communities to play with and retail is as social as any other game

it's just unbelievable how blind some people still are and just don't notice the difference between modern and classic wow. like some little corona denier who keeps telling himself there are no problems in this world except for others, you are one of them.

[justandulas]

So, you want Blizzard to force socialization instead of just being social.

Players will always take the path of least resistance. If you don’t require socialization, they won’t do it. It’s not rocket science

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it's just unbelievable how blind some people still are and just don't notice the difference between modern and classic wow. you are one of them.

This forum is pretty much the last safe space for retail fanatics. They were against classic before it was even conceived and still are.

Will never understand it because they should be on their knees kissing the feet of WoW classic and it’s players in pure gratitude

Imagine an alternate reality where bfa and SL have unfolded exactly as they have but without classic existing. They’d be talking pulling the plug on WoW with 10.0 and sending it into maintenance mode

[Kokolums]

So fixing it by not actually fixing it. Got it.

I don't know why you need to be so combative. This plan solves all the issues.

[Yriel]

A lot of things would have to change for it to happen. For example this made me think about how I never group in retail, even for elite quests; but in TBC this past week I have grouped even for non-elite quests. The respawn rates for mobs have a big part to play in this, I don't want to fight for 12 kills of some mob that respawns every 5 mins with other players I so I will invite them. For kill quests where one mob is the target with a long respawn I will invite other players. So many things, even little changes that may slip your mind like mob spawn time and density, all come into play.

How is that social?
"Thanks for the invite, the respawn really sucks, hm?"
"I've got all mobs i need, bye".

Yeah, thats really social. Friendships are forged. Not.
I've seen enough of these groups, i don't mind them but the game is in no way more social with them.

[Kokolums]

You have to understand minds to make social work. If i want to encourage a kitten to be social, i might give them a treat for social behavior. Tiny little things like that can have a massive impact long term. In BC, a random player might cast a fort, int or mark and thorns on me as they pass by. In BC, i might be facing a tough quest but a random player offers to group for it and i have a positive experience. These little things have massive long term impact towards player attitudes. They start to associate good feelings with seeing other players out in the world, which in turn pushes people to be nicer to each other instead of toxic and they start to say hi, chat, form bonds and pretty soon youve got an awesome mmo on your hands.

Thats why i for YEARS have been an advocate for helper buffs that all can wield to buff each other.

I have been heavily critical of blizz removing the importance of such buffs for a very long time. All classes should have them and they should be important. In SL almost none do and they are watered down to near uselessness anyway.

[Azerate]

There is nothing to fix. If you want to socialize, the game offers many avenues to do that successfuly and a lot of group content for your premade groups. If you don't want to, you can still play a major part of the game and enjoy it like that. Why do so many people feel the need to force people into doing things they don't want to be doing?

Will never understand it because they should be on their knees kissing the feet of WoW classic and it’s players in pure gratitude

Imagine an alternate reality where bfa and SL have unfolded exactly as they have but without classic existing. They’d be talking pulling the plug on WoW with 10.0 and sending it into maintenance mode

Ah right, you're the OP of that other clown bait thread.

Classic was fairly popular at launch and then its population declined like 20 times to almost nothing. Main game players owe nothing to "Classic players", especially the exclusive classic players which are probably in the vast minority. The majority of people playing classic are people taking breaks in BfA/SL during content droughts.

[Deferionus]

I love how people act like the lack of social requirements in wow is from a decision of blizzard, rather than a growth of the wow community.

I mean, there are videos of Kevin Jordan breaking down design elements and how they do not encourage socialization like the ones they implemented vanilla-wrath when he was involved with working on WoW. If one of the original WoW devs says the current design does not encourage socialization I think that is a pretty good deduction to make.

Check out his videos on WoW/Twitch. They are pretty interesting when he compares modern wow vs the older eras and the pros and cons of both.

[Osmeric]

Apparently the way you fix a problem in the game is by gaslighting those pointing it out.

[Niwes]

Try doing mythic plus. You will get this experience. People discuss which route to take, which mobs to cc/stun or kill first, when to invis pot, when pride will spawn, etc. If you only do heroic dungeon queue in retail then no shit people won't be talking.

I've noticed that its always super mega casuals that say there is no socialization in retail. "I did a +0 once".

you definetelly do not live in the same wow world as me. i have KSM 15 solely from Pugging, and i NEVER ever saw more text than „hey“ and „thx bb“.

NO CLUE where you met that ppl, when not doing m+ solely via guild runs. ??????