Hiring People from the Elitist Jerks site was a mistake.

[epigramx]

I remember those people in UO, we called them "banksitters" and they were the laughingstocks of the community. Preening peacock behavior is frowned on by most adults. Yeah, people do it, but everyone else laughs at them

You may pretend they are a minority, but I was not talking only about people visibly showing off: I was talking about how people FEEL: they will eventually ACT in different ways because of that and they may NOT show off visibly.

For example: this game has a ton of people that never actively show off but they really want to be competitive on high end raiding: they may completely ignore you if you ask them as a casual to group up.

[Triceron]

What the hell does FF14 have to do with single player games. I was strictly talking about PURELY single players gamers (that ZERO other players EVER enter them) and FF14 is not just multiplayer: it has EXTREMELY competitive multiplayer content.

It seems like someone wanted to advertise FF14.

What does it have to do?

It has content designed for singleplayers in it. Not in spite of being an MMO, or just because it

And no, I am not advertising it, I am using it as the best example. I don't even play FF14 and never have, but its the most successful example which is why I use it.

Guild Wars 2 and Phantasy Star Online 2 are two games that do similar things that I have played.

WoW is the one MMO I know that doesn't cater to progression of solo content outside of the leveling experience, and is a reason why so many casuals don't feel the need to stay subbed since Multiplayer aspects are not compelling enough for them.

The purpose is to illustrate that there is an audience who plays WoW as a singleplayer experience, and they always come back, and that they have no reason to stay. They will come back when a new expansion comes and more leveling content is made, and will leave once thats done again.

The reason they have no reason to stay is because Blizzard does not progress the story at a pace that makes sense for most solo-oriented players to consider staying subbed. All other avenues of game progression involves Power progression. You might get some story progress in some major patch, but that's about it, and it might not even be worth subbing a month just to do what amounts to half a day worth of story content. Other games provide story outlets at a much more consistent pace, like weekly episodic.

[kaminaris]

Your entire post just screams "my opinion is fact and anyone who disagrees is flat out wrong."

Newflash... people are allowed to enjoy parts of the game you dislike. "Dunno why" people like you think that isn't ok. Hell, people are allowed to enjoy entire games that you dislike.

Maybe there are people out there who didn't like grinding near-meaningless "content" just to get 7 shitty legiondaries before that "much better" expansion decided they should get a mediocre legiondary.

If the current WoW and people not hating it as much as you do makes you that upset, just stop playing it.

Nice try to move goalpost, nothing you said is relevant to discussion. Its not about what people like or not like. Its about HAVING POSSIBILITY vs not having it to gear up to decent level using various methods.

Which current iteration simply lacks. Nobody said anything bout legiondaries. At least read what you are replying to.

[Crimson Spears]

Nice try to move goalpost, nothing you said is relevant to discussion. Its not about what people like or not like. Its about HAVING POSSIBILITY vs not having it to gear up to decent level using various methods.

Which current iteration simply lacks. Nobody said anything bout legiondaries. At least read what you are replying to.

What exactly is lacking from the current gear structure? Covenant gear take you right up to mythic 0 the starting difficulty for end game arguably with heroic being story mode.

You can go beyond that with korth gear if you feel the need to. I guess I just don't see what is stopping you from starting the content. It is a mmo solo play is never gonna rival group play nor I would argue should it.

[Sinte]

Well who else to blame, when the game is raid or die. Like what PvE endgame do you have beside mythic + and raiding? You can't say the game was designed for casuals, can you?

Is it though? There are plenty of side things you can do. This is like saying FFXIV is "raid or die", because thats all you have. Their pvp is terrible, their glamour hunt is...oh wait, raids/dungeons. And they don't even have the luxury of mythic+.

Yet the game is still fun. I think the problem is that gear progression is absolutely awful in wow compared to FF, where besides the "best of the best" weapon and stats, you can still get to a pretty good item level *eventually* just by playing and doing dungeon dailies and occasional raids.

[Zorachus]

Offer something beyond Raids at end game. I haven't Raided in years, it just seems so outdated now. To spend 3 to 4 hours, sitting in my computer chair, whacking away at some video game monsters, in a Raid, with players screaming and yelling in your headset. Ugh. Rather watch paint dry.

M+ is good, because it can be done anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes or so. In and out, get some gear upgrades. Doesn't take too long. But they need more dungeon releases on patches, not just one big new dungeon, but there should be 2 to 3 new dungeons released each patch, to keep the game fresh.

Or release new end game zones, more often. Like Korthia, Nazjatar, and Argus. Those added in patch zones, with new quests, and fresh content and new gear, actually breath fresh life into a WoW expansion. I know it takes a lot of development time, but I would love to see those new patch zones added more frequently, not just once per expansion, but once per major point release. So an expansion would get three new end game zones released per expansion, with the .1, and .2 and .3 patch releases respectively.

My point, I think WoW would be so much nicer, if there was more content released at a quicker pace, more dungeons, more new zones, etc... Not just one new zone, but keep it coming with new content more often, besides just a big Raid release.

[Triceron]

Is it though? There are plenty of side things you can do. This is like saying FFXIV is "raid or die", because thats all you have. Their pvp is terrible, their glamour hunt is...oh wait, raids/dungeons. And they don't even have the luxury of mythic+.

Yet the game is still fun. I think the problem is that gear progression is absolutely awful in wow compared to FF, where besides the "best of the best" weapon and stats, you can still get to a pretty good item level *eventually* just by playing and doing dungeon dailies and occasional raids.

FF14 isn't designed all around raid content, that's the difference.

It literally is not 'Raid or die', and it has plenty of alternatives to progress that doesn't involve raiding.

WoW has other avenues too, but frankly very little content for the casual player who may not be interested in obtaining power progression. Where is all the story in WoW? All funnelled towards raids. Where is the player housing? Non-existent. Where is the Crafting? Dead a month into launch, unless you're making raid consumables. That isn't compelling end game content for any casual or solo-oriented player.

[arkanon]

Just add a severe penalty for people who leave in the middle of a m+ run, just because it wont be in time etc, and all will be well. You cant imagine how many people who don't raid or pvp have actually left for FF14 because of that. That and of course the people who cant play the class/spec they enjoy because they get declined in grps and raids.

How do you prove it was because it wont be timed? How do you know their power didnt cut? Or they had an emergency? Or the game server crashed? Or the instance servers were lagging? Does only the first person to leave get punished? If so, why?

They could add a "vote to disband" button or something, where people all agree to end the run for any reason, but that doesnt cover all the other possibilities. I could see it being a 3 strike system, where the first times you leave there are simply "warnings" placed on your account, but no punishment until it happens a 3rd time in X amount of time, but even that could be abused i guess.

[kaminaris]

What exactly is lacking from the current gear structure? Covenant gear take you right up to mythic 0 the starting difficulty for end game arguably with heroic being story mode.

You can go beyond that with korth gear if you feel the need to. I guess I just don't see what is stopping you from starting the content. It is a mmo solo play is never gonna rival group play nor I would argue should it.

Make it no gear at all, just templates, everyone will be templated and lets see how it goes.

[Crimson Spears]

Make it no gear at all, just templates, everyone will be templated and lets see how it goes.

Like final fantasy? I don't know how well that would work since wow is based on instanced content progression but i don't get your point. Play the game.

[kaminaris]

Like final fantasy? I don't know how well that would work since wow is based on instanced content progression but i don't get your point. Play the game.

Not really like FF.

So its not an mmo let alone rpg, just and instance based online lobby game, thanks for proving the point.

[Crimson Spears]

Not really like FF.

So its not an mmo let alone rpg, just and instance based online lobby game, thanks for proving the point.

Yes? Was this ever not the case? Everything about wow has been a instanced lobby game with blizzard being utterly desperate to beg, bribe, and bully players out of those lobbies with chores.

[kaminaris]

Yes? Was this ever not the case? Everything about wow has been a instanced lobby game with blizzard being utterly desperate to beg, bribe, and bully players out of those lobbies with chores.

Literally 2 last expansions and wotlk, MoP and Cata to some degree, maybe TBC and vanilla.

[Lane]

I agree. Those that say things like "you don't need those rewards, I do because I do hard content" are missing why people play RPGs in the first place. It's not to kill hard bosses (it can be, but it doesn't have to be), it's to pimp out your character.

This. Character progression in WoW is gear. I don't know if they're still doing it, but they were scaling outdoor content to ilvl at max level. Raiders have always had a huge advantage over non-raiders in all content. They dominated PvP for the longest time, outdoor content is inconsequential, and they had a significantly easier time doing "solo" content like the mage tower. What activities exist in WoW that aren't instanced group content are more difficult for players who don't do it as a result.

WoW is the one MMO I know that doesn't cater to progression of solo content outside of the leveling experience, and is a reason why so many casuals don't feel the need to stay subbed since Multiplayer aspects are not compelling enough for them.

The purpose is to illustrate that there is an audience who plays WoW as a singleplayer experience, and they always come back, and that they have no reason to stay. They will come back when a new expansion comes and more leveling content is made, and will leave once thats done again.

This used to describe me, but there's a design progression from Legion to SL that's one I'm not interested in continuing. I'm not hopeful for the next expansion either, 1) because it's supposed to be the alternating 'bad' expansion (just because SL broke the pattern doesn't mean 10.0 won't continue it) and 2) we already know expansions are worked on years in advance, so I'm guessing 10.0 is 'done' to an extent that they can't fundamentally change too much of it now. I had already skipped BfA because nothing in it was interesting to me and SL was extremely disappointing. Blizzard's got a lot of changing and convincing to do to lure me back after this one.

[Crimson Spears]

Literally 2 last expansions and wotlk, MoP and Cata to some degree, maybe TBC and vanilla.

I guess we can agree to disagree everything about the last two expansions was blizz begging on their knees for people to do something other then instanced content and the player base going " lol nope"

[Dalinos]

When you start approaching a game world that is supposed to offer a holistic RPG experience like a mathematical problem, you will end up with current WoW where every activity feeds into this giant equation that effectively boils down to a function for your player power.

Nothing in this game can exist for its own sake anymore and because of that nothing is designed to stand on its own legs and provide a fun experience. I don't know if this is rooted in a lack of confidence in the work of their own devs or because they don't want to be wasteful with their ressources (I think Ion said that they won't do Legion style class content because it is "wasted" if most players don't play through every campaign). It seems like to them content is only successful if most or all players engage with it. The easiest way to do that is to attach unspecific universally desired rewards (like AP or some currencies) to that content which makes it necessary for your player progression. Naturally, everyone will do world quests if they're the biggest source of AP and everyone will do Torghast if it's your only way to get "legendaries". Therefor these are examples of successful content.

This is how you end up with a bland experience where lore, class fantasy, challenge and reward structure all become subservient to what is effectively economic concerns. Everything we see in the game today like world quests, torghast, covenants etc. are derivatives of previous forms of content molten down into this unspecific mush so that every class/spec/faction/race can (or rather must) play it because that is the most efficient way to design content. The problem is that when you ask players what (designed) experiences were memorable to them, it's usually class specific and/or not tied to power progression like class quests, suramar, artifacts, mage tower, green fire, old legendary quests (though usually not limited to one class) etc.

We the players are to blame for that man. "Nothing in this game can exist for its own sake anymore" you say. The designer responsible for the Onyxia Head buff came out and said publicly that when he designed this quest, he thought of it as "Something fun a player gets to do ONCE in their character's lifetime, give in the Head of the big bad dragon to the city watch and see it hanging on the city walls, with a fun buff for people in that area". What did we players do with it? Put it on a timer so we reach TBC levels of power during Classic, and abuse IT, along with Dire Maul buffs (another little fun addition) and Songflower buffs (yet another little fun addition) to go and demolish raid bosses in 40 seconds.

That is the players fault man, not the developers.

[Crimson Spears]

My wife and I are big housing enthusiasts in MMOs and, talking about it the other day, we realized that at this point not even housing is likely to bring us back to WoW. They've just really designed the game into such a hole that we're not interested in stepping in any longer.

I admit out side of raiding/mythic plus/ and pvp i don't know what draws players into wow. Even the big three... if another company nails instanced content down but doesn't make people jump through hoops like choreghast...look out blizz.

[Crimson Spears]

I don't have actual numbers, of course, but I have a strong feeling that in recent weeks the number of players of all stripes that have reached a point of "enough!" with WoW has been much greater than typical ... driven both by the content drought, the lackluster content itself and the number of content creators pushing traffic to other games and people are finding they can actually have fun in those other games. I had bounced off of FFXIV once before, but all the YouTubers and streamers jumping on it lately caused me to try it out again and this time it's sticking ... thanks in part to me finally reaching that "enough!" point with WoW.

I could see it. I just found FF to slow and to easy at the top end but I am rather deep in mythic raiding and have been for years. If they shape that up though...well never grinding a "ap" or choreghast is tempting.

[kaminaris]

I guess we can agree to disagree everything about the last two expansions was blizz begging on their knees for people to do something other then instanced content and the player base going " lol nope"

You can't disagree with facts. Both legion and bfa was rather easy to get to heroic level gear without stepping foot into raids. That is just a fact.

And you are absolutely wrong about the second part, it's the furthest from truth sentence. People love outdoor content but when it's shit people don't do it.

Guess you didn't learn your lesson from WoD. You'll get to that once you realize the only way to continue raiding is to switch to another game
(spoiler alert, because when blizz loses majority of normal players, mythic raiders won't be enough to sustain development costs.)

[Nerovar]

We the players are to blame for that man. "Nothing in this game can exist for its own sake anymore" you say. The designer responsible for the Onyxia Head buff came out and said publicly that when he designed this quest, he thought of it as "Something fun a player gets to do ONCE in their character's lifetime, give in the Head of the big bad dragon to the city watch and see it hanging on the city walls, with a fun buff for people in that area". What did we players do with it? Put it on a timer so we reach TBC levels of power during Classic, and abuse IT, along with Dire Maul buffs (another little fun addition) and Songflower buffs (yet another little fun addition) to go and demolish raid bosses in 40 seconds.

It's the developers job to work around player behaviour instead of caving in and doubling-down on whatever dumb shit the top 10% (max) of players are doing. Instead they take these players and put them in as their lead devs in charge of designing the entire game.

Furthermore, I've listed numerous examples of content that wasn't part of any power progression and was still widely received as great fun content (arguably even more memorable than raids/whatever).

That is the players fault man, not the developers.

Absolute nonsense.