WoW needs shorter but more meaningful patches

[Keashaa]

It does if you're Ian Hazzikostas and believe that dungeons/raids are the 'important' PVE content.

To be honest, I don't understand the idea why it is necessary that a major patch must include a dungeon / raid. Pushing a new zone can happen without a new dungeon. A new dungeon can be released without a raid. But okay, that won't work if it's all about power increase. Release Korthia without dungeon and raid should be no problem.

[Zantera]

I don't think they should change their approach to raids but as someone who likes to take part in multiple sides of the game, I honestly hate patch day and it makes me feel stressed out more than it makes me feel excited. If you take the Eternal Palace patch as an example, with both Mechagon and Nazjatar, I remember playing 10-12h per day the first few days just on my main and I still didn't get to do everything I wanted to do. (due to rares being rare and so on)

If they utilized the .5 patch more or spaced out the content a tiny bit more, I wouldn't mind. As things are now when a patch drops you're looking at m+ spamming for gear, a new raid to read up tactics to (and prepare for) as well as a new zone, sometimes new systems and so on.

[Temp name]

Roandas post is a big ambiguous in whether he meant the window of text itself or the silly character. If he really only meant the window of text then using Johnny Awesome as an example, while talking about not being immersed in the story, is practically the worst example possible, as literally any inane dialogue window would've put his point across way better.

The guy responding to Roanda however, was 100% talking about Johnny and not the text box, which confused the person responding to him, and that's what I cleared up with my response.

I'll give you that it's a bad example, but I took it to mean the window of text, since that's what was referred to, not the quality of writing

[Surfacin9]

If that happens we'd get posts about time-gating and MAUs with 'empty, boring story'. Imagine time-gating campaigns as small short patch releases, and you're good. You said it urself, it don't have to be interesting, just a filler. Well, some of the campaign quests are exactly that. SWTOR did exactly that a few years ago with the Knights of the Fallen Empire. But could do a good story and it was worth it. Blizzard aren't close to that in anyway and never will be, with a few exceptions (wrathgate, ysera in legion, a decent chunck of warlords questing experience).

Most people play wow for end-game and other activities, much less for story. The current pacing of the patches is good enough, hardcores can rest after they've cleared and prepped for next tier, casuals have time to clear as much as they can without burning out. Those who sub for a month every patch, pay once every 6 months and can experience most of the content. Not giving 9.0/9.0.5 as an example since its an outlier.

Shorter patch cycles would mean more work for every team, especially writers, which can result in an even bigger drop of quality.

[Roserray]

I’d quit WoW if they changed up their style and didn’t have a raid with a decent amount of bosses. The only reason I play WoW is for the raiding and is the only reason I started playing WoW in 2005.

I agree, I also expected that they would change something in the style of the game, but nothing has changed. The game is already old, so I think no new patches will be released for it

[Niwes]

the simple truth is:

what wow doing wrong, is to tell the story via raids. that is imo the most dumb idea they ever had and imo also the solely reason why LFR still exists (cinema mode).

what they instead should do, is making the RBG aspect of wow a real good one, by telling the main story via questing, open world and their „systems“ like covenants. including good story telling, cinematics and interactive story parts. this would make wow heavily appealing to the folks that just solo casual play the open world wow, while being still open to be a part of the die hard wow player.

on the other side, no real raider, regardless if normal, heroic or mythic, do raiding just to see the story. 90% of the reason is the raiding itself.

that said, this would just work, if wow would not be in the milk-the-cow-mode it is since years. this means you had to invest, foremost in good stoty telling and a good interactive questing endgame experience.

but this will never happen, because wow just tries to support their smart cash grab system (token) by a game design feeding that (VP KSM requirememts, conquest gear rating requirements), while parallel just implememting cheap features like Azerite or Covenants, because therefore they just need database entries and cheap static UIs instead „content“ like GFX, world, etc. Blizzard is more interessted in a cheap ballpark, selling their tokens, than in a real good game exp.

sad but true.

[Alroxas]

I will phrase something I said in another topic: Less is more.

O rly? Do you not remember the selfie patch of WoD? That wasn't more...

Theres a reason that a game like FFXIV keeps most of its players, and WoW doesnt, and its content cycle.

FF is a different kind of MMO and it's not an equivalent comparison. For instance, in WoW, you can't (on the same toon) go from being a death knight to a rogue to a mage. But in FF, you can through their job system. Fundamentally, it's a difference in core systems.

No main content has ever been mandatory in XIV, no raids have ever been heavily tedious.

Dungeons in FF are pretty mandatory if you want to progress in the story. In fact, I'm pretty sure you HAVE to do dungeons to proceed in FF story arcs. Meanwhile, dungeons are optional in WoW. Technically so are raids. And if you aren't spoiled by cinematics datamined on wowhead, there's LFR to allow folks to experience raiding without the high difficulty curve.

Thus, sure, ill conceed wow is an amazing game, if you like raiding.

You must be joking. Let's see WoW has M+ for those who enjoy dungeon running at the highest levels including competitive play like MDI or the Great Push. You still have Arenas and Rated BGs for competitive PvP. Oh there are pet battles for those players who don't want to do raids nor dungeons nor PvP. For others, it's transmog hunting through old dungeons and raids.

I think what you're missing is that WoW caters to many kinds of players more than other MMOs.


As for content development, sure we all would like shorter development cycles but that's not always possible. And throwing more resources at development also has diminishing returns. The larger the development team, the more corporate management is added for oversight which then slows down progress.

[uopayroll]

I will phrase something I said in another topic: Less is more.

Not every single patch needs a raid, not every single raid needs to be 14 bosses long.

Theres a reason that a game like FFXIV keeps most of its players, and WoW doesnt, and its content cycle.

There is a cycle in XIV that launches just enough content a patch to keep people doing it without it being gated by the conventions of a weekly time gate grind.

Instead, that kinda content, like beast tribes is entirley listed as optional, filler to pass the time to keep you entertained but never to demand your time.

No main content has ever been mandatory in XIV, no raids have ever been heavily tedious.

World content is hit and miss, the pvp definatley needs work, but one thing WoW needs that XIV nailed, is shorter patches.

If they had more story driven patches, we'd get more story and more focus on the story of each expansion, which allows us to get the core of our gripe off our shoulders, content.

Even if that content is largely just some filler plots between the bigger moments, its still something.

Part of the reason wow's story, raiding, and everything suffers, is clutter/bloat that has slowed it to a crawl.

In the ye old, you had 2-3 raids an expansion launch, now you have 1 with 4 tiers of scaling difficulty, all that have to be balanced around severely stiffening development.

1 raid tier is fine, or 2 at most, but not 4, 4 is too many and seriously slows the game down for anyone but raiders.

Thus, sure, ill conceed wow is an amazing game, if you like raiding.

It is not, if you dont, and there was a time, Classic to WOTLK it had some content outside of raiding, that could still be considered competetive with it, pvp, dungeons, story, tabard rep farms.

so instead of the dreaded time gating from one big patch, you want the patches themselves to be time gated?

[Lolites]

Having them look at games I have zero interest in is irrelevant to me.

looking at games that NEVER EVER even achieved what wow is achieving now after runing for almost 17years and couldnt even measure to wows peaks, always seemed such a weird notion to me...
like "we should check how this other game that is doing WORSE is doing things, that will help"

[Aresk]

Theres a reason that a game like FFXIV keeps most of its players, and WoW doesnt, and its content cycle.

Out of curiosity, what's the source on this? I know people who have stopped playing FF to play WoW and vice versa. I haven't seen either game have great player retention.

Instead, that kinda content, like beast tribes is entirley listed as optional, filler to pass the time to keep you entertained but never to demand your time.

No main content has ever been mandatory in XIV, no raids have ever been heavily tedious.

What makes content optional vs mandatory? WoW, to my knowledge, has no mandatory content outside of leveling and sometimes short unlock questlines, and that can be done in multiple ways. FFXIV absolutely has mandatory content. I stopped playing when I was level 54+ in all professions, level 56 in my highest job, and couldn't continue crafting or doing more dungeons because I was still stuck in ARR story.

World content is hit and miss, the pvp definatley needs work, but one thing WoW needs that XIV nailed, is shorter patches.

I personally like this point in the patch, where I can raid log and play other games or work on alts. Then again, I mostly raid in WoW, so I likely have a very different view of the game's current state than you.

It is not, if you dont, and there was a time, Classic to WOTLK it had some content outside of raiding, that could still be considered competetive with it, pvp, dungeons, story, tabard rep farms.

Out of curiosity, what competitive content does FFXIV have outside of raiding? I watch my old guild stream savage raids, but I honestly don't know what kind of content it has end-game beyond that. WRT WoW, there's still PVP, dungeons (more so now than during Classic-WotLK since M+ was introduced), and rep to farm.

[Wangming]

I think you should play FFXIV and leave WoW alone. FFXIV is terrible.

Care to ellaborate? I mean you probably have a legit reason to think so, but this is not enough info for a discussion.

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Out of curiosity, what competitive content does FFXIV have outside of raiding? I watch my old guild stream savage raids, but I honestly don't know what kind of content it has end-game beyond that. WRT WoW, there's still PVP, dungeons (more so now than during Classic-WotLK since M+ was introduced), and rep to farm.

How competitive do you want it to be? There is no ranking in dungeons so you can't really compare those. There are occasionally triple triad tournaments and I'm fairly certain you have a ranking in Mahjong. There are ranked arena fights, 3 way battlegrounds, chocobo races and you can "I think" get a ranking in Deep Dungeons (better, optional Torghast)
Unofficially you can compare everything. Who has more jobs at 80, best glamour, mount comparison minion comparison (pet)

[Aresk]

How competitive do you want it to be? There is no ranking in dungeons so you can't really compare those. There are occasionally triple triad tournaments and I'm fairly certain you have a ranking in Mahjong. There are ranked arena fights, 3 way battlegrounds, chocobo races and you can "I think" get a ranking in Deep Dungeons (better, optional Torghast)

Ah, good to know! The only thing I know about FFXIV PvP is that they use different skill setups, so it's cool to see the different options there. And I couldn't imagine trying to compete in triple triad or chocobo races as a newbie; I feel like I would get owned so quickly! Thanks for the response!

[prwraith]

Ha WoW and story.

As if there's even a lore department.

[Tradu]

Yes, I'm sure everybody else wishes that it was Legion again. Hey, does anybody like Legion here? Can we get a show of hands for "Legion is best expansion"?

No. Legion patches felt disjointed story-wise. Broken Shore got released while you were still raiding Nighthold. You got sent to Argus before finishing Kil'jaeden progress. Having it all in the same patch is better in terms of cohesion. I'd much rather have a big patch every 6-8 months than get spammed with tiny fragments of patches.

[Queen of Hamsters]

looking at games that NEVER EVER even achieved what wow is achieving now after runing for almost 17years and couldnt even measure to wows peaks, always seemed such a weird notion to me...
like "we should check how this other game that is doing WORSE is doing things, that will help"

Yeah, too many people growing jaded with WoW, finding another game they do enjoy, then reacting as if it's the second coming and WoW would be A M I L L I O N times more successful if only the devs of THIS game copied the game that person CURRENTLY is in a honeymoon phase for.

No, for me it's more than enough that they look to the history of THIS game. When I enjoyed this game the most, it was my one and only game for 11 years straight. Not a single other game has captured me that way, and I do enjoy GW2 now and then all the same.

[Tradu]

It does if you're Ian Hazzikostas and believe that dungeons/raids are the 'important' PVE content.

Which they are. It's what WoW has always done well, and I genuinely don't understand why people would play WoW if they don't raid/M+ (I'm just lucky they do, because in the end it funds the creation of raids). There's games that do all the other content better, but none that do raids/dungeons better. It really isn't a new thing. WoW is all about instanced content and it always has been (if anything they've wasted more time on open world content recently than they did in the past)

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There are two top-level defining ideas about how WoW's developers think about and promote their game design. They're very simple.

• Bigger/More = Better.
• Bigger/More = Epic.

When you hear any Blizz developer use the word 'epic'—and they use it all the time when they're promoting something—that's generally what they mean. It's big. It's loud. "Deathwing is epic" (no matter how dumb and out of scale the final DW fight was in Cataclysm).

Note that they want to define what you think of as epic. It's too simplistic but I don't believe there's anyone at Irvine HQ that truly understands how less can sometimes be more.

That translates to patches. They really believe in the idea of few but big patches. Big patches are more epic, you see.

And they're absolutely right.

[Wangming]

Ah, good to know! The only thing I know about FFXIV PvP is that they use different skill setups, so it's cool to see the different options there. And I couldn't imagine trying to compete in triple triad or chocobo races as a newbie; I feel like I would get owned so quickly! Thanks for the response!

To be fair PvP is not a big part of the game. We will get a new PvP mode in Endwalker, but there is no info on specifics yet.

And of course you will be owned. Repeatedly. That is how learning works. It is hard and long but rewarding (that's what she said).

[Nasuuna]

Rift did a similar patch cycle on its initial release, it had 13 numbered patches on its launch

was something like

Big raid

Small Raid

PvP patch

Big Raid

Small Raid

PvP patch


it was a good cycle, small raids were 10man catchup raids with 4-5 bosses, big raids were you huge sprawling raid zones with 10-11 (or 2 5 boss raids in case of the first tier)

constant stream of content > vomiting one major patch every 6 months

[Semihagez]

I meant.. what's happening now is clearly due to pandemic and WoW dev team really isn't setup to do remote work. But yeah.. 7 months without a new raid content on a monthly paying game in a beginning of an expansion is clearly unacceptable.

[Triceron]

The problem isn't big raids, it's lack of content at a decent pace.

They tried the smaller scale stuff with more patches in Cata. It was just a boring mess of regurgitated content and lazy bosses. The whole end tier raid had 8 bosses and Deathwing was the only unique model through the whole raid. Entire raids like Abyssal Maw and War of the Ancients were cut, replaced with remade Zul Aman and Zul Gurub as dungeons.

WoW doesn't need to go back to that. What it really needs is better content generation.