WoW being more hardcore oriented = more popular?

[Sialina]

I think we learned from the LFD fiasco in cata and from LFR that a large minority (and if you'll permit me to be a bit spicy, possibly even the majority) of players absolutely do not want to be able to fail premade instanced content.

I agree with you there, I should have specified that I was mainly talking about content in the world here, things you can do on your own when you feel like it. Instanced content adds social pressures, and that for sure changes up the whole dynamic.
But I still think you might've misunderstood what I mean, when I say people don't want content that is impossible to lose, I mean content that is so trivial that you might as well be watching a youtube video, if that makes sense? In LFR, both easiest and hardest iterations you still have to do something for the bosses to die.

[Shaetha]

-snip-

People on forums are all hardcore players. Casual players just play the game and don't think about anything outside it. Remember that.

[callipygoustp]

No
{10char}

[arkanon]

People on forums are all hardcore players. Casual players just play the game and don't think about anything outside it. Remember that.

If you read any of these similar threads, they are dominated by 'casuals' - although there are SOME 'hardcore' players around here, your assessment that everyone on a forum is 'hardcore' couldnt be further from the truth, at least in this instance.

[Shaetha]

If you read any of these similar threads, they are dominated by 'casuals' - although there are SOME 'hardcore' players around here, your assessment that everyone on a forum is 'hardcore' couldnt be further from the truth, at least in this instance.

I look at it differently. Most people here seem to think doing mythic raids means you're hardcore. I believe the difficulty of content has nothing to do with it. Being hardcore is not about what you do. It's about how you do it, and spending your time talking and learning about a game when you aren't playing it is what makes you hardcore to me. That includes the people that go to fan forums.

Casuals just play the game.

[arkanon]

I look at it differently.

Well you are right about that part, you certainly look at it differently.........

[Big Thanks]

I mean...isn't quite often a hallmark of something difficult that not everybody manages to complete it?

I'd argue that one can enjoy an MMO even without "completing" everything, people enjoyed Vanilla even without killing KT, same goes for TBC and Wotlk.
The crux is, you should have a mix of content that caters to different levels of skill and preferences, multiple levels of difficulty frankly aren't the magic answer to everything in my opinion, as some people simply don't view it as additional content.
They do a dungeon / raid at their chosen difficulty, clear it and leave it.

The approach "everybody should complete everything in our game" seems frankly more the approach of a businessman than one of a game designer, because it's more the business side that cares about participation rates, at least for games that aren't completely focused on the story.

In the same vein, i also don't think WoW needs to throw everything at raids, i consider it frankly pretty much wasted resources when artists create a catalogue of new assets for a raid, only that said raid lands in the bin 6 months afterwards because the games moves onto the next.
I think Blizzard should take lessons from Classic / TBC and rather attempt to re use existing assets to create raids, then use those resources to create more content elsewhere.

I think a healthy mix is important, the issue is that WoW nowadays creates this mix artificially with multiple levels of difficulty.

I dont quite understand the current landscape of wow...specially in PvP which is my main thing

So...the majority of players are "casuals" playing the game...but we will reward only the top 5% of skilled players with the best power in the entire game...the elite wins (x1)
Casuals buy boosts to have the best gear in the game (pay to win)...the elite wins again (x2)
In patch 9.1 Blizzard decided you can no longer "sit" on your pvp rating and you must earn it every week...the elite win again (x3)

Everything is weird to me...unless the objective of Blizzard is to recreate the Eminem (8 Mile) movie in videogame format.

[bigbleach]

Short answer: no

Long answer: No, because when this game was at the height of its popularity during Wrath/early Cata we had near constant complaints about how the game was "too casual" now with the removal of things like attunements, non-degrading honor, LFG, normal dungeons/raids etc etc. Basically, the main storyline/key elements of the game were now more accessible, and this pi$$ed off a minority of hardcore players at the time.
Even late TBC had folks moaning about even the slightest dip in their perceived difficulty.

If the popularity of the game was inherently linked to how "hardcore" it is (a vague definition/concept) then Blizz would make it more "hardcore". It's simple market economics. WoW is a product (always has been) and every time you play it/buy a sub you are being sold something.

In short: you cannot over do it on the hardcore sauce. Doesn't work.

I agree. Wotlk made things very casual friendly, with fast heroics, lots of dailies, etc. The playerbase doing 5 mans probably exploded overnight and continued because even for those with little time, could easily do several in a single night. Hardcore players had raiding and hardmodes, everybody was happy. Cata brought harder 5 mans, which made it a nightmare to the facerolling casuals who had only experienced wotlk 5 man difficulty. The more hardcore players stuck to not pugging. It was bad for everyone. Then we had WoD, which had great raid content, but next to no casual content. Basically no dailies. No reps to farm. Not much of anything. The game again suffered, however, i do not think they were catering to only the hardcore in WoD. Just poor development. If you took the raiding from WoD, there was nothing but a good leveling experience. I can't think of a time in wow where there was not something for the hardcore. The casuals have been left out from time to time, however, i wouldn't say that with how the content works today. The amount of time it takes to consume casual content, especially with how the patch cycle works, it becomes irrelevant quickly. One thing I can certainly say, is wow could probably use a few more casual activities. Something without geared attached to it so nobody feels forced to do it. But then it has to be fun. Content without much of a reward gives us Scenarios from MoP, before the harder version came out, which was made lol within a patch anyways. One with tons of rewards that was not fun were islands from BFA. Cosmetics that look really good coming from easy content causes everybody to run around with it ( think the D3 mount and how many people used it ) and those cosmetics loose their luster. Part of what mage tower so good in legion was a good cosmetic coming from something difficult, that eventually, everyone and their grandmother could outgear and complete, without having to wait until the next expac.

TLDR: Blizzards largest issue is not learning from what works and what does not. They try to reinvent MMOs every expac, with silly systems, instead of building the ones they have. Like they have been with M+. I think they took a step backwards in SL with it, by reducing the ilvl. And that was them trying to stop what the hardcore do, which they should just give up on because the hardcore community will push and push, even doing content they hard, just to stay ahead.

[Kralljin]

I dont quite understand the current landscape of wow...specially in PvP which is my main thing

So...the majority of players are "casuals" playing the game...but we will reward only the top 5% of skilled players with the best power in the entire game...the elite wins (x1)
Casuals buy boosts to have the best gear in the game (pay to win)...the elite wins again (x2)
In patch 9.1 Blizzard decided you can no longer "sit" on your pvp rating and you must earn it every week...the elite win again (x3)

PvP is kinda scuffed because it is a weird blend of your standard RPG progression and competitive element.

For all intents and purposes, a competitive PvP game works best when you create an equal footing between both players.
Blizzard tried to do that in Legion with the Template system, where the difference based on gear (unfortunately not Artifacts) was actually pretty minor, with their template system giving them an additional tuning knob.

A lot of people however did hate the system because it removed a lot of progression from their character.
You no longer had the moment of acquiring a new item and seeing the numbers going up a little or that a situation where you previously did in seconds now suddenly survived.
It also led to the fact that some people no longer saw any point in doing PvP because its gear rewards were abysmal in comparison to PvE modes - why do PvP modes when the rewards were objectively inferior and more difficult to acquire than in PvE?
Previously PvP was its own progression in way, that died with Legion.

That's just the crux of PvP in RPG's, the progression aspect of those games clashes with the competitive aspect of PvP.

I personally believe that PvP should have remained a more whacky side mode without its hypercompetitive element such as rated Arena, because i think those competitive elements do not mesh very well with an RPG.

[threads]

wow is failing because of too many systems and fomo bait that encourages people to buy gold boosts for everything.

[Greyvax]

This is why wildstar failed IMO (in the beginning)

Maybe hardcore was more popular back in the day when people didn't know any better, but after decades of QOL features, there's nothing lucrative about months long attunement processes, one-shot mechanics, and spending entire days doing raids/dungeons.

[Tyris Flare]

I look at it differently. Most people here seem to think doing mythic raids means you're hardcore. I believe the difficulty of content has nothing to do with it. Being hardcore is not about what you do. It's about how you do it, and spending your time talking and learning about a game when you aren't playing it is what makes you hardcore to me. That includes the people that go to fan forums.

Casuals just play the game.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...asual-Hardcore

I think this is a better way to look at it than hardcore or casual. Most people are talking about "lifestyle" vs "hobbyist."

WoW has a lot of both, but both casual and hardcore players that are lifestylers are the ones mostly on forums and discords

[Soon-TM]

This is why wildstar failed IMO (in the beginning)

Maybe hardcore was more popular back in the day when people didn't know any better, but after decades of QOL features, there's nothing lucrative about months long attunement processes, one-shot mechanics, and spending entire days doing raids/dungeons.

It's actually a quite instructive story. To a large extent, when WoW was the new kid on the block, it was able to take off as quickly and stunningly as it did because it was much, MUCH more accessible than anything else (talking about the likes of EQ or UO here) at the time. Conversely, when the game started to head into Git Gud™ direction (i.e. early Cata), the consequences were immediately felt... And they weren't for the better. WoD was an ever better example of how the game fares when there is little to no casual content - and no, getting dumb loot in garrisons wasn't what one could in good faith call casual friendly content.

[Selastan]

I don't think the casual/hardcore is valid at all. It's more about RP vs G. (Not the RP like RP servers do, just RP in general.) On one hand you have players who want a story experience, who want to get into their character's mind and experience the world. On the other, you have players who view their character as a vehicle through which to experience gameplay. Blizzard's trouble that they focus on the 'G', and think that players who don't like the 'G' just think it's difficult, so they make easier versions of the 'G' and new different types of 'G' that anyone can do. But what those players who didn't like the 'G' really want is less menus, more impactful and flavorful classes and abilities, and a slower paced game where they aren't clicking something every time the GCD ends.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

wow is failing because of too many systems and fomo bait that encourages people to buy gold boosts for everything.

What fomo bait? There's nothing in the game right now worth buying a boost for. Next season's M+ mount is the same. You can buy PvP mounts from older seasons with saddles. There is no mount from Denathrius.
There are points where the fomo bait is a legit complaint. This isn't one of them.

[khazmodan]

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...asual-Hardcore

I think this is a better way to look at it than hardcore or casual. Most people are talking about "lifestyle" vs "hobbyist."

WoW has a lot of both, but both casual and hardcore players that are lifestylers are the ones mostly on forums and discords

This is a very interesting and very close to accurate analysis of players. I do feel there are some that need a better explanation but still fit in one of those boxes. I personally have played since Vanilla with my old boss that is 60 years old and I am 52 years old which definitely is a factor in how we play since we were not into the game in our most competitive years in our 20s. My style has been; playing alts like crazy too get a different experience and try to dig interesting storylines and emotional impact lore out of the game. My old boss on the other hand is much more about competition in gearing up, gold and the routines of raiding, which is where I diverge because I hate the idea of being stuck in the wash rinse repeat of raiding even though early raiding in Molten Core was some of my best memories in the game.

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wow is failing because of too many systems and fomo bait that encourages people to buy gold boosts for everything.

I think this is part of WoW's downfall for sure because it does set up a bad motivation for Acti/Blizz too demand more ways to "pay to win" in the game but it's not the only thing. The destruction of the community through LFD, LFR, cross realm phasing, and maybe even the loss of master loot has made WoW a very solo game and it does not compete well at all as a single player game.

[Echo of Soul]

I'd wager most people who are still playing are closer to hardcore than casual so my general answer would be: yes.

This was sorta confirmed by the site that tracks covenant choices. Back when shadowlands launched there was great diversity, not a lot of minmaxing. Then after about two months millions of characters had disappeared (since the site only tracks active characters) presumably from casual players and the covenant choices shifted over to the majority minmaxing.

WoW is not a particularly casual friendly or even RPG friendly game, if that's your bag there are better MMORPGs to choose. Out of the big three WoW is the worst once unless you're hardcore minmaxing and want content that supports that choice.

[arkanon]

wow is failing because of too many systems...

Could have stopped there and covered off 99% of the people I personally know who no longer play. I'm about as far from a classic fanboi as you can get, however there is something to be said about the simplicity of the game back then.

[Kagthul]

I'd wager most people who are still playing are closer to hardcore than casual so my general answer would be: yes.

You are drawing wrong conclusions as to why the playerbase is waning. The most important factor is - because the game is 15 years old.

People who are still playing are mostly compulsive gatherers (mount/mogs/toys/pets/achi points collectors), super try hard pvpers or raiders/m+ pushers. I think you are horribly wrong thinking that people who still play this game after 15 years would be happy doing slow and boring content (as you can see by classic wow that is mostly populated by hardcore crowd anyway).

The stats dont agree with that. Most max level toons do none of those things.

[Echo of Soul]

Could have stopped there and covered off 99% of the people I personally know who no longer play. I'm about as far from a classic fanboi as you can get, however there is something to be said about the simplicity of the game back then.

It's exhausting to play when there are so many interconnected systems and currencies. From a usability perspective it's really bad. Back in the early days the game was a lot more accessible because the few systems the game had were all pretty easy to get a handle on.
Today you often have to do a lot of research in order to understand how the game works and it changes from patch to patch, the foundation is constantly changing.

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The stats dont agree with that. Most max level toons do none of those things.

Because they quit months ago, those characters are no longer tracked due to being inactive.

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There are so many mechanics unaffected by gear that I don't feel the sense of progression, of casually blasting through content that used to be hard. I'm tired of always feeling like I'm on my toes.

That's a big reason casual players quit the game and move over to FFXIV for example. There you can play the game a lot more relaxed and still greatly progress your character.
For the m+ crowd and mythic raiders that game would be horrible, it just moves to slowly but for the average player it's comfortable and soothing and you won't get yelled at if you make a mistake.