Why the negative response to all the positive changes in 9.1.5

[Echo of Soul]

It’s time to get rid of m+ or give an alternative to it.

I think we should go back to the old valor gear system.

* Let's say you can get 2k VP every week from various activities like LFR, m+ etc but harder content gets you capped faster.
* You can then use that currency to buy heroic raid quality gear from a vendor over a long period of time, let's say 3 months for a full set.
* However if you've gotten ahead of the curve or keystone master you can buy mythic raid quality gear from that same vendor.

Once a new content patch comes out you can use justice points (that have no cap) to buy gear from the previous patch if you want to catch up on an alt or something.

Simple and effective.

[Lafdet]

Because this happens every expansion.
Alpha starts-> People voice problems with systems in the expansion.
Feedback is ignored->Beta starts and more people report the same problem.
Devs saying "It'll be fine."->Game goes live and the problems persists.
People start quitting due to problems mentioned months ago-> Sudden fixes to issues.

Also when the developers STILL make statements about covenants being a good idea you'll quickly realize, it's not an underlying design change but just the same old that we've seen since at least legion and it's legendaries/Artifact power.

[BananaHandsB]

Because these are the exact things an overwhelming number of people gave feedback on before the expansion was released. Totally ignored until now. Which has become a theme in their dev cycle. Ignore feedback pertaining to anything monotonous that will artificially increase playtime while decreasing enjoyment. Then wait a couple patches before unveiling an entire patch that almost solely makes those exact changes, rather than providing actual new content/features.

[Mumba]

Being positive of anything online is not the cool thing to do. It's more satisfying to be negative because that makes you feel construtive.


Anyway the strict covenant rules and grinds are things that made me not want play SL, more than try it on the PTR so maybe I'll check it out now.

[Revamp Man]

Yes. Now I'm forced to swap conduits between every boss in raid.


Yes, they're spending time on meaningless things.


Yes, that's absolutely absurd idea.


Yes. Alts should not be easy to acquire, because they'll become mandatory even for casual raiding. Alts are supposed to be time-consuming.


I did. I'm playing this game after all.

Do you raid mythic? If not you don’t need to swap conduits every fight

Were you against the skips for the last 3 expansions? Because they don’t effect you and the alt wasn’t required then

Legion time walking is something you can ignore

Extra customization doesn’t cost a raid tier

Be upset because they don’t learn the lesson but being upset because of the changes is like being upset because lfr has domination gear

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I think we should go back to the old valor gear system.

* Let's say you can get 2k VP every week from various activities like LFR, m+ etc but harder content gets you capped faster.
* You can then use that currency to buy heroic raid quality gear from a vendor over a long period of time, let's say 3 months for a full set.
* However if you've gotten ahead of the curve or keystone master you can buy mythic raid quality gear from that same vendor.

Once a new content patch comes out you can use justice points (that have no cap) to buy gear from the previous patch if you want to catch up on an alt or something.

Simple and effective.

That’s 90% of the system we have lol

Farm for a few months and you’ll have rank 6 research so you can get 233 gear
Plus the 226 gear from weekly activities
The valor upgrades from m+
The 239 gear from weeklies and world boss

[muto]

Because people are stupid. People think it's not a change in underlying game design philosophy. Yes we all wanted these changes 10 months ago, but we are also getting these changes 10 months ahead of time, which is a HUGE change than what we are use to. This has a very HIGH chance of being the change in philosophy we have all been wanting. People are complaining cause they watched Asmongold instead of coming up with their own opinion. This is all positive stuff and people are too much of sheep to see it

That’s like comparing fresh poo to cold poo. At the end of the day it’s still poo. No body wants to wait 10 months for changes that should have been implemented before the game was even released (which was a month late btw), or at least in the first month of release.

[HumbleDuck]

Because this is the internet. It is cool to be angry on the internet.

[Gaidax]

Because people are stupid. People think it's not a change in underlying game design philosophy. Yes we all wanted these changes 10 months ago, but we are also getting these changes 10 months ahead of time, which is a HUGE change than what we are use to. This has a very HIGH chance of being the change in philosophy we have all been wanting. People are complaining cause they watched Asmongold instead of coming up with their own opinion. This is all positive stuff and people are too much of sheep to see it

This is a pure nonsense.

1 year has passed, 1 fucking year... that shit should have happened in 9.0.5. Your response is akin to "whelp we got necessary changes only 1 year after much of them should have been live instead of year and a half by the end of expansion, so good".

No, it's not good, we have submitted mountains of feedback going back from Alpha on Blizzard closed Beta forums about what these restrictions would do. They seen it, they even addressed it with their typical principal Skinner approach of "it's not us, it's the kids who are wrong".

Heck, this could have been done in 9.0.5 if they would not be so fucking incompetent and not see beyond their noses even in Q&As they did. "Pull the rip cord" is a thing - Ion and the team already knew the issues, they just decided to forge forward with them because their shitty "whelp you could not experience the game as we intended otherwise".

Heck, if not this huge ass streamer backlash and playerbase bailing in drove, they might have not even done this now.

[Amaterasu65]

The changes are perfect. Also more customization is always welcome. The problem is these changes should have been part of the expansion's launch patch. People respond negatively because they did this after they realized the ship is actually sinking fast. I'm sure the covenant rip cord was meant for next patch and not for this 1.5. Considering I'm still playing, these changes might finally make me play alts and experiment more on my main. I was one of the cases (mage) that needed a different covenant to play each spec optimally.

[Boiled-Lobster]

This is a pure nonsense.

1 year has passed, 1 fucking year... that shit should have happened in 9.0.5. Your response is akin to "whelp we got necessary changes only 1 year after much of them should have been live instead of year and a half by the end of expansion, so good".

No, it's not good, we have submitted mountains of feedback going back from Alpha on Blizzard closed Beta forums about what these restrictions would do. They seen it, they even addressed it with their typical principal Skinner approach of "it's not us, it's the kids who are wrong".

Heck, this could have been done in 9.0.5 if they would not be so fucking incompetent and not see beyond their noses even in Q&As they did. "Pull the rip cord" is a thing - Ion and the team already knew the issues, they just decided to forge forward with them because their shitty "whelp you could not experience the game as we intended otherwise".

Do you know how a business works?

I can tell that they were probably doing what they were told to by their superiors prior the purge of blizzard throughout latest lawsuits.

Now that it's slowly starting from a clean ship with the removal of some of those superiors aKa lead designers from their respective divisions, I'm pretty sure it's a good step forward.

People seem to forget how hierarchy works, even in gaming companies.

Should give them a chance now that it's obvious they were molested, suppressed & abused.

I'm amazed how short minded people are, how easy they hop on a hype train because some fancy, no life youtuber said wo.

[Lolites]

bcs some people ALWAYS react negatively, you could tell them you found cure that will cure everything but flu and they would complain why dont you have cure for flu

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The problem is these changes should have been part of the expansion's launch patch.

and even if i agreed, reacting negatively to those changes is stupid for simple reason: up until the moment they were announced some people kept asking for them...
its almost like with little children they want something until they get it and then loose interest immediately...
i wonder what would people do if blizz would now announce that due to massively negative reaction those changes are postponed

[Pheraz]

Because this is the internet. It is cool to be angry on the internet.

Indeed. Basically this. I think we need t-shirts of this

[Gaidax]

Do you know how a business works?

I can tell that they were probably doing what they were told to by their superiors prior the purge of blizzard throughout latest lawsuits.

Now that it's slowly starting from a clean ship with the removal of some of those superiors aKa lead designers from their respective divisions, I'm pretty sure it's a good step forward.

People seem to forget how hierarchy works, even in gaming companies.

Should give them a chance now that it's obvious they were molested, suppressed & abused.

I'm amazed how short minded people are, how easy they hop on a hype train because some fancy, no life youtuber said wo.

Seeing they literally lost half of their active playerbase as a company, does not seem that business really works there.

Blizzard is limping hard and you want to paint them as some shrewd businessmen there. They are fucking bunch of incompetents that can't put out a new product for half a decade and do nothing but bleed customers over the years now - great business plan there.

"Short minded" - sorry mate I'm not Blizz exec.

[Athulua]

The changes themselves are objectively good. Nothing wrong with these.

What is wrong though - they ship them a year too late. It appears to be a cycle at this point.

1) Blizzard announces new expansion - systems get revealed - they're not fun, restrictive, add menial busywork or are flat out time gates.
2) Beta testers voice their concern and disagree with the design. Blizzard remains stalwart and goes through with launch.
3) Expansion launches, players are not happy with the systems. They're exactly what they looked like the moment they were revealed. They add nothing to the game, but restrict the player and force him to do chores.
4) This goes on for months, players are fed up and quit
5) Subs drop hard, blizzard reacts and changes the systems so they're actually fun to play with.
6) New expansion is announced and (by now fixed and fun) systems are removed from the game. Go back to #1.

If you played Legion in 7.3 or BFA in 8.3 you may recall the game being actually fun to play. This was the point when they fixed most of their crap decisions. I mean, late BFA was the most fun I ever had with the game. Grinds were gone by this point, essences were purchasable on alts, corruptions were purchasable as well, you could corrupt your entire gear and build a crazy character with 70% unbuffed haste, going up to 200% in combat with azerite procs etc.

But then, we know the systems will be gone and replaced with shit versions of new ones soon. I mean what's the point of Conduit Energy ffs? They flat out deleted this system in 9.1.5.

[Raisei]

I love how people keep saying: "We told them to do all this a year ago, now it is too late!!!"

Do you have any friggin idea how many ridiculously stupid wishes and demands they get during a beta? If they would listen to all that nonesense then the game would have to deliver 50 times the content it does just to satisfy halve of them. At some point they have to stick to some design philosophy and cut their losses.

The infinite arrogance of these forums is astounding, but not really surprising anymore.

Is Shadowlands perfect? No, of course not. But thinking that your personal input is what would have changed it all for the better is truely the peak of arrogance.

But to answer the OP. People complain because they enjoy complaining in this forum. That this is still called MMO-Champion is pure irony. Halve of them aren't playing the game at all and just enjoy shitting all over it. There is no change in the game they would not complain about. Blizzard could send everyone 10 million gold tomorrow and people would complain they had to walk to a mailbox to pick it up.

[Lochton]

Some of the negative reaction is because people didn't get it how they wanted it, or what they wanted.

[anveena]

It's the same shit they did in Legion and BFA. If you're going to cave in and change your systems several months in based on feedback you've received as far back as the beta then just change them in the fucking beta.

[MoanaLisa]

I can't imagine any other business where you could fail constantly for over three years and still be employed much less still giving of a " we know best" attitude.

Because if the game is generating more revenue than ever before no one is going to be fired.

Hard truth: You are one opinion. Yes, there are others like you. No, the group of you haven't affected WoW's revenue in any discernible way at all. No one is getting fired when the game is doing as well as this one is. If you still play then you haven't made a dent in what's most important to Blizzard (and always has been, never mind the rose-colored glasses of the days when "Blizzard made games for gamers." They made games to make money which they have done very well at). If you quit some time ago then that tiny drop was discounted then and is no longer relevant or interesting today. If you quit along with the apparent millions that buy an expansion and stay around for a month or two then you're just a drop in that ocean which they expect and now plan/budget for.

It's fine to dislike the game, certain elements of the game, or to think that their engineering approach to design is bereft of any soul (as I do). But let's not kid ourselves and believe the trope that is too often stated here that "the game is on the ropes" or is dying in any way. It's not. That's a fact that has to be faced.

Believe me when I say their inability to put out a new game over the course of five years is more destructive to the studio than any systems complaint about World of Warcraft which is still paying for more than it's share of Blizzard's costs.

[Kralljin]

Do you have any friggin idea how many ridiculously stupid wishes and demands they get during a beta?

It's not like the Game Director sat down for a ~1h discussion with a certain Content Creator to discuss the lockout of those covenants.

If they would listen to all that nonesense then the game would have to deliver 50 times the content it does just to satisfy halve of them.

That's what you have CM's for that read and compile feedback for the developers.

This is something a lot of people are forgetting: Unless you are a small indie company, you have CM's to interact with the community, the CM's read the forums / social media, gather feedback, compile it and present it to the developer.
It's not the job of a developer to wade through every single unrealistic demand.

Of course, unless you fire CM's left and right because the people in charge don't see player feedback as relevant for the development of their games.

[Gaidax]

I love how people keep saying: "We told them to do all this a year ago, now it is too late!!!"

Do you have any friggin idea how many ridiculously stupid wishes and demands they get during a beta?

It's Blizzard's job to separate something ridiculous like "remove LFR/M+" or "fire Ion" from something reasonable like "allow us to switch conduits at will".

It's not some binary black and white thing, there were plenty wishes and "demands" that were completely down to Earth and had enough reason to the point they were even addressed in various Q&As by Ion, hence "pull the rip cord" - asking for Covenant flexibility and more alt friendly systems where you don't need to bloody regrind same shit you already did on main - that is not some ludicrous insanity.