Development Update: A Message to the WoW Community

[Drusin]

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/ne...update-preview

Thanks Pebro

[Kalivox]

Took them a year for something that was talked about in beta... But hey, they finally did it. It does feel like they were holding this change for when numbers drop and they want people to come back for x patch, sadly.

[kranur]

I feel like WoW Classic Classic is ... too soon

[NatePsy]

The problem is they're designing the game for themselves and not for the players. Like sure I get that not everything players suggest should be enacted (For obvious reasons) but for the systems that are heavily criticized, they should stop and think "Ok maybe our philosophy for this system isn't working" and then go look at content creator's to see what they're saying because some of those big supporters of your game have good takes where feedback is concerned. (Preach being one of them) Even the feedback sub-forums on their own website, fansite forums etc are all great ways to provide insight behind what the playerbase is thinking and feeling. They don't do this enough because I guarantee you if they did, the game would stamp out issues and implement QoL much sooner.

They really need to break this stubborn cycle they currently have because it's making the game suffer when they dig their heels in and tell the playerbase "No, we disagree" even though the vast majority are telling them their design isn't working. They did the same shit with Legion Legendaries, BFA Azerite Armor and now the Conduits/Covenants/Torghast. Like if you get the feeling your playerbase disagrees with your design philosophy, stop what you're doing and go view your content creators videos and suggestions and see if you can salvage anything from said feedback and go back to the drawing board.

An outside looking in perspective is sometimes the best perspective you can get, a developer meeting is great sure, but sometimes a foreign concept is good too.

[Mazzic518]

Too little, too late.

[StillMcfuu]

Please let them do Classic seasons, please let them do Classic seasons...

It's a shame that it's taken them to be shamed so badly by their player base to take action... But I still love WoW and hope the shame makes them actually try and not keep pumping out all their gacci crap content they've been riding for the past 6 years.

[Samuraijake]

cant wait for the next expansion where they realize players have alts.

[Freekstarz]

There's a lot of dumb takes in this thread about these changes being due to the lawsuit, or FFXIV, or dying subs.

If you took 10 seconds to use basic common sense you'd realize that these sort of changes happen literally every single expansion about a year in when they start preparing stuff for the X.2 patches. X.1 patches are already far into development by the time release happens so major systems changes get pushed to the patches afterwards, because the content then has to be designed around those changes.

It is nothing new and it has fuck all to do with recent events.

Just like 8.2 added heroic warfronts because people had been complaining about how faceroll they were, Azerite Essences because people had been complaining about the passivitiy of azerite powers, and introduced the ability to hide all transmog slots besides legs because players had been asking for that.

Just like 7.2 removed the dumb quest gating on obliterum forge usage that players had been complaining about, fixed the dumb recipe drops from mythics that players hated, added the reputation prestige so that emissaries that people had been complaining about weren't completely worthless, and addressed the complaints that players had about some classes being completely left out of the updated visuals and spell effects other classes got at launch.

Just like 5.2 cut way back on the daily quest shit that players had been absolutely furious about and pretty much scrubbed the original "scenario" system that players hated from existence in favor of the single player story-based scenario, and also increased transmog customization by unlocking weapon type based on animation like people had been asked for.

Like I'm sorry to ruin your dumb narrative, but this is normal development cycle. Not some evidence that <your favorite youtuber> was right all along and Blizzard is scared of going out of business. They are always loathe to implement systems changes at launch, avoid doing it for X.1 because they want it to get done and out the door and then dump a bunch of feedback-based system changes into the next few patches.

This patch give the impression that with everything going on, they finally took the changes people asked for SINCE BETA of Shadowlands and even some from BFA out of the trash can. But then again they do tend to do this all the time... Rinse and repeat as it may.


8.2:
- Heroic Warfronts were a faceroll as well.
- PvP Warfronts were NEVER added despite it being requested heavily.
- People never liked the Azerite gear since BETA of BFA especially coupled with the Azerite Grind.
- Then they added Corruption gear in 8.3(1th of January 2020) which added another RNG grind, these being terribly balanced, ridiculously overpowered in PvP(one-shots) and some in PvE(More stars!). Added to that the Legendary Cloak Corruption Resistance timegating. Every single hotfix after the release of 8.3 had fixes for Corruptions one way or the other.

7.2:
- Removing timegating from a quest is something they always do as a catch-up mechanic for new/returning players.
- Recipe drops in mythics? As far as I remember these dropped from all difficulties but had higher chances on high difficulty.
- Reputation prestige? You mean add a grind for collectors that has low RNG droprates on the things you want?
- Updated Visuals/Spell effects that should have been in the game at release?

5.2:
- So basically all these changes you've named were complained about since day 1 and they changed it.


Do you see the pattern here? Blizzard adds things that people have complained about since Beta(PTR) or even about similar things in previous expansions, Blizzard adds grinds, timegated content and convoluted systems and then at x.1 / x.2 or even x.3 or subsequent hot-fixes 'fixes' these in (almost) the exact way that people have been asking for months/year(s).

This "Normal development cycle" as you call it, is just Blizzard doing whatever the hell they want before releasing an expansion or patch without heeding feedback. You would think they would listen to feedback and learn from mistakes made in previous expansions to not repeat them in the next.

But instead they keep doing the same things over and over again, despite HEAVY community feedback and we always have to wait for x.1/x.2/x.3 before they take the time to fix the mess.

I would wager a few of these changes were not initially planned, but were added to garner some goodwill from the players, but it remains to be seen if they will actually start listening to feedback for the next expansion/patches or if they will just repeat how they developed the expansions/patches like they did in the past.

Personally I'm looking out towards other ventures, I'll keep checking out the major patch logs and perhaps I'll return in the next expansion but that remains to be seen, it all depends if Blizzard actually turned a leaf or will repeat the same tiring concept.

[Empower]

Took them a year for something that was talked about in beta... But hey, they finally did it. It does feel like they were holding this change for when numbers drop and they want people to come back for x patch, sadly.

They are hoping to survive endbringers with this patch...what a fitting name for a competitor's expansion...

[Ethas]

When people say that WoW community is toxic they are not talking about chats or other public behavior. They are talking about elitist jerks who can’t stand there might be people new to the game or mechanics. That is toxicity. Blizzard completely missed the point being under such fire this looks stupid.

[Wramp]

not gonna lie, i was pretty skeptical that they would make any significant changes in 9.1.5 that would WoW me or anyone else, but this patch is a major step in the right direction, and yes, maybe it comes as a result of the recent fiasco that is Blizzard lawsuit, but overall im happy with several of the changes and look forward to what they do next. IDGAF what the reasons are behind the recent motivation to please us, just continue to do so for the right reasons and i will stay on board.

[Ragerlis]

This is good, no complains about it, but reading it feels like being abused for sometime and the abuser just came by to say sorry and tells how much he cares.

Thanks but no thanks, too late.

[TheRevenantHero]

This nothing but putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. There will be plenty of people will fall for it but everyone who has sense has moved on to greener pastures.

[Froggy]

#ALLtheCHANGES for fresh classic please.

[Harthmut]

Let's see...

Don't serve us systems on systems on systems on systems to grind arbitrary resources for to make up for the lack of actual content

Stop handing us reskins of the same mounts and pets over and over again

Delete the wow token and make a global gold reset because you completely destroyed the economy with this stuff

Delete store mounts and pets

Delete store transmogs

Reintroduce actual tier sets

Don't make me repeat content i have already done when I'm levelling an alt

Make professions mean something

Make profession recipes and skill level account wide

Fix the clipping of ears, horns and eyebrows on helmets

Fight botting ACTIVELY

Fix faction imbalance

Merge servers and reduce sharding

Delete the black market auction house because it diminishes player achievements by buying wow tokens

Let legendaries be legendary again and not yet another thing we need to feed with arbitrary resources

Fix world pvp

Let players have fun, you could start by making the dark moon faire permanent and add variation to the holidays and micro holidays by adding small quest lines and seasonal rewards and not resell the same pets and mounts every year

Hell, make the game appealing to people who don't raid period. You can achieve that without pumping high ilvl gear into them

And that's just what i can come up with on the spot. I'm sure there is much more that can be done to fix this mess.

[Daronokk]

In my opinion the thing that needs fixing most is the god awful story.

If the story is good again I could actually come back.

Especially as an Orc player that's been f*cked over for years. From 'your' race being villain slapped to being completely neglected. Where is the fun in that?

[Gaidax]

And what do you want that they do? What ever they did some would come out with this response...

They earned their memes.

[Toppy]

Come back to me blizz when you've launched an expansion by listening to feedback, rather than a year into one when most people have left. It shouldn't take financial ruin for you to pay attention.

[terminaltrip421]

torghast still needs to reward something beyond just exp -- unless its an epic assload of exp.

the only way to truly fix the shadowlands alt leveling experience, IMO, is allowing us to do the main storyline while taking part in threads of fate. I' don't want to run around doing one quest at a time when storylines generally group several to be done simultaneously. and renown isn't going to make me touch bonus objectives in the same way I don't mess with them now unless I can do them while doing a WQ or without having to really do anything.

[nvaelz]

Most of us salty people see how greed took control over Blizzard and I'll work hard(for free) to enlighten people to the fact that Blizzard decieved us by designing their game around monetary game design and I highly doubt a blue post is going to come forward apologizing to players for tricking them to grind this game while trying to abuse their wallets in deceptive ways <- 9.0 boost service gold rush -> 9.1 Korthia Crystal money laundry.