Why the negative response to all the positive changes in 9.1.5

[Empower]

It's even worse than that. It's not that they didn't KNOW things were flawed - they did. But they simply wanted to stick with their "engagement metric" mechanics like conduit energy and whatnot for as long as possible. It's all about massaging the visuals, keeping things locked into their agenda for as long as possible and then cashing in on the "fix" when the breaking points is reached.

It's exactly what happened with Legion legendaries. It's exactly what happened with BFA corruption. And so on and so forth.

That's the real problem at Blizzard right now: they have plenty of very capable people, but they also have a team of savvy executives who push a very specific design goal onto everything. And that goal doesn't really care that much about the long-term health of the game - it cares a lot more about medium-term metrics that make investors happy. This is a decades-old game after all, and it's clear that a decaying husk like this won't be a cash cow forever. So they're doing what they can to squeeze what they can. It makes business sense, after a fashion; but it's a kick in the 'nads for players who are deeply invested into the franchise.

To me personally what's more frightening than the whole conduit energy/covenant/whatever stuff is the fact that the raid wasn't that great. So far WoW was always "redeemed" by having stellar endgame PvE content despite the, uh, "rocky" road of mechanical contrivance. But SoD was a major letdown for a lot of people, and it's the first raid in a LONG time where I'm looking at things and just going "you know what, this doesn't really look all that fun to do".

I didn't have that problem with the raid... it's just weird how painsmith is the hardest boss in the middle of the instance. It's also a lot more healer intensive then most raids.

[Gaidax]

Raid's not bad, it's just giga undertuned. We're already progressing at M.Sylv with our 2 3-hour nights a week. The only big wall was Pain, after which 2 subsequent bosses dropped dead in one night and KT followed shortly after.

I do however shudder to think what will happen in 2 weeks from now when we down Sylv... it will be what, half a year of farm? Big yikes.

[Syegfryed]

i don't think people are rly negative about the changes itself, but about blizz. They are just doing those things because the game is in an exodus, they didn't change their shit mentality.

[Byleth]

Because they're obviously trying to plug a hole in a sinking ship with their finger.

There's far greater work that needs to be done to save the ship, a new coat of paint isn't what'll save it.

[Empower]

Raid's not bad, it's just giga undertuned. We're already progressing at M.Sylv with our 2 3-hour nights a week. The only big wall was Pain, after which 2 subsequent bosses dropped dead in one night and KT followed shortly after.

I do however shudder to think what will happen in 2 weeks from now when we down Sylv... it will be what, half a year of farm? Big yikes.

Likely longer. I used to raid pretty high up there long ago. I would recommend settling into raid logging or trying out tbc. Trying to find things to do unless drawn to competitive mythic plus or pvp is posion.

[Resheph]

Is this just an echo chamber for blizz bashing now?

MMO Champion has never really been anything else... There's about 50 ex players that dominate all the topics. Instead of moving on they keep coming back to the boards to talk about a game they haven't played for ages. Apart from a few positive threads around legion this forum is a toxic wasteland.

[Velerios]

I did not notice a single positive change in 9.1.5. Every change is net negative to the game. It's a sure way to ruin WoW.

Yes, you can be angry to the game, but really, this is absolutely bullshit. More customizations are negative for the game, really? You are just angry, but blabla for the sake of blabla is stupid. 9.1.5 is by far not a big jump, heck it's a .5 Patch, and you can see some negative things about this as well, but "every change is negative to the game"... please!

If you want to be angry, then yes do it; not enough content; and really, that's by far not the fault of covid alone, it made it worse, but blizzard themself said that they managed home office quite well (that we knew that was a lie). So this but also i believe blizzard one thing: when they said that they use the best personal they have now for their holy cow: MOBILE (do you guys not have PHONES).

Just the B-Team is now working on the pc titles, for the sake of MOBILE, and Activision with their budget cuts made everything worse: hey, let's cut the money of Warcraft Reforced by a huge amount and then make MORE MONEY BECAUSE WE SAVED MONEY. Activisions reed for money ruined WC3 and WoW and probably Diablo too (second expansion of diablo 3 was cut)

But hey, Gardenscapes makes more money than CoD (and they are only the 9th best selling mobile game). And if we know one thing is that Kotick LOOOOOOVES money. Money money money money money.

So hey, do you see: there is enough to hate on: WoW, Blizzard, Activision, Bobby Gallywix and so on. But saying that everything is negative is an total overstatement, because sorry, more customizations for classes that were underwelming aren't bad, it's as simpel as that.

[MoanaLisa]

We all know all these weird stuff they are doing is about MAU and timegating the extreme casuals/expansion hoppers, its nothing else.

Memories are short I guess. The complaints about gating and designing the game to keep players playing longer have always been around.

MAU is just the new substitute for "They're doing this to keep people subscribed for longer" which goes back to nearly the beginning.

It's a ridiculous complaint anyway: What developer of an MMO is going to develop the game to get people to finish and go play something else as quickly as possible? None, that's who.

MMO's generally are grindy motherfucking affairs as anyone who ever played EQ or EQ2 will tell you. People treating any of this like it's new is just hilarious frankly.

[Cwimge]

Everyone is complaining its some desperate attempt to grab players back that should have been in game from the start. People still flaming blizz and the new systems coming in 9.1.5.

New management is taking over and immediately making positive changes, why is this a bad thing? This is a promising thing for the future.
I've played more heavily than I would like to admit since TBC and this already was a more alt friendly/new player than other expansions (even more so than Legion and BfA were which seem to be the most similar comparisons to modern wow). Now I do admit I mainly M+ and can gear a toon to 230+ in about a week and already have 4 alts key logging, but as someone that mainly stays off the toxic forums and just enjoys the game I don't see much validation in the complaints besides, possibly, entering pvp as a new/alt player. Is this just an echo chamber for blizz bashing now?

Take your pick..
Too Little too Late
This is the same shit they always pull, just ahead of schedule
It should not have taken player hemorrhage compounded by being caught up in a public scandal and mass lawsuit to prompt change
They're not actually fixing or changing anything all that useful
We've been lied to and promised the moon too often to trust
Each and every one of these things is true and alone would be a good enough reason. Not that I can imagine you wanting to hear any of the answers you're getting

[cozzri]

Memories are short I guess. The complaints about gating and designing the game to keep players playing longer have always been around.

MAU is just the new substitute for "They're doing this to keep people subscribed for longer" which goes back to nearly the beginning.

It's a ridiculous complaint anyway: What developer of an MMO is going to develop the game to get people to finish and go play something else as quickly as possible? None, that's who.

MMO's generally are grindy motherfucking affairs as anyone who ever played EQ or EQ2 will tell you. People treating any of this like it's new is just hilarious frankly.

We just want binge grinding back. Wouldn't you prefer to have that option to grind mobs for rep, for example, when its convenient to for you as opposed to a handful of repeatable quests over the course of 4 months? Because that's what you had to do for BFA flying and it pissed me off. There needs less restrictions on how you approach the games content. Since pathfinders inception, there STILL is no pvp alternative progression for flying unlock. Why can't there be a rare raid drop codex guilds can get that teaches fly, make it tradable too so people can sell it. The game is more fun when there are alternate progression paths.

Yes MMOs have grinds, the nuanced part on the developers behalf is actually making them fun to do; which lately hasn't been the case.

[Cthulhu fhtagn]

Feels like there's a set of people who sank so much into the game, then disliked the direction it went that just keep on spinning anything related to blizzard in a negative way to somehow feel better about quitting after spending so much time with the game. I'm not defending blizzard here, all this cacophonous shit throwing drowns out proper and warranted criticism.

It is very odd to see the people complain about the exact things that are getting changed, then them shitting on the changes in a heartbeat while reminding you that they were right. In general i dont understand the impulse of shitting on basically a hobby that they're not doing anymore.

[Niwes]

Holy... where did that come from? I don't follow or care for the guy, but seriously, what hat did you pull that one out of?

hehehe. thought exactly the same.

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Feels like there's a set of people who sank so much into the game, then disliked the direction it went that just keep on spinning anything related to blizzard in a negative way to somehow feel better about quitting after spending so much time with the game. I'm not defending blizzard here, all this cacophonous shit throwing drowns out proper and warranted criticism.

It is very odd to see the people complain about the exact things that are getting changed, then them shitting on the changes in a heartbeat while reminding you that they were right. In general i dont understand the impulse of shitting on basically a hobby that they're not doing anymore.

yeah, i assume there is a lot of truth in this.

but to be honest: the game gone in another direction since a while. thats life. things change. but to be fair here: this was nobody told, that started in 2005 and did a huge investment into the game for years. ppl like me, playing since 16+ years without interruption simply never will be happy, when you completely change something, they committed themselfes years ago, and dedicated themselfs to, and did a huge time investment. thats the problem wirh wow or mmorpgs: ppl sank time into them. just because no one else, besides wow, grow that huge and got that old, doesnt mean the huge time investments in endless achievements, collections and char progression is completely ignored by the ppl that did them, with some „oh, i thought the game would not change that much, but in this case: so what“….

ofc THESE ppl will not be happy customers.

ppl here discredit Preach, Asmon, Bellular and many others (with not so „prominent“ names lol). but in my world its natural to be pissed, when you tell your customers, after many years of investment: „we piss on what we did for years and go elsewhere. sorry for that“

i mean, come on. who the hell would NOT be pissed by that, when invested so many years ?

[Luck4]

MMO's generally are grindy motherfucking affairs as anyone who ever played EQ or EQ2 will tell you. People treating any of this like it's new is just hilarious frankly.

And WoW was successful because Blizzard decided to take a different approach compared to these MMOs for most of the game's lifetime. Now that they're using the same petty tactics of these MMOs, WoW's huge success is nothing but a shadow of the past.

No wonder their most successful release recently is a version of the game that has none of these new systems.

[Metrox]

Starting around February, posts started popping up in the Blizzard forums asking for Island solo ques for the transmog/mount folks. Dead Silence. More posts every month just asking when/why not solo ques. Dead Silence. Now it's We Are Listening!! Go get them all you mount/mog farmers! We Are Listening......eventually....when forced.

By the beginning of January, folks were posting about skipping the intro quest into the Maw on alts. Fun once ..... okay twice....... try 35 minutes X 27 times. How much did they listen when Beta Testers pointed out the drudgery of the intro quest after they kept having to do it after every character wipe? Silence. Oh they did point it out... a lot..... every character wipe .....every alt creation. Now its: We Are Listening!! 1 year later they did it! Listening when forced.

Follow all this We Are Listening and Helping Alts!! I gave up grinding alts thru the covenant story lines. Each covenant got one toon and maybe Ardenweald got an extra or two. The rest of the classes just sit at the covenant HQ parked dreading the storyline ahead .... seen several times..... still required. We Are Listening!! After almost a year, let's realize some players play 5 alts or more ..... or one of every class!! The classes are "supposed" to fun to play, so they finally Listened!! Come on all you Parked Alts in your tree houses and coffins ..... Blizz says We Are Listening!! Alts Are Fun!! Listening when forced.

Prediction: Mythic Legion Raids ... Ion stated that all players will be able to solo them "deep into the expansion when the gear is high enough." I think that Ion might Be Listening!! He might just send a sticky note to someone and ask them to "put a damage modifier like all raids previous to Legion so the MAU's can solo that stuff. Make sure to nerf the Drooling Dog mount drop so they won't unsub." Ion Will Listen!!

[Otaka]

Because all the changes came way too late, its like they were forced to do these changes now that players are quitting en masse.
They literally lied earlier saying some of these changes are impossible and now all of a sudden they arent? wtf.

Im genuinely waiting for the next expansion and its beta to see if they learn anything from this... if they actually take beta feedback this time, since shadowlands was such a trainwreck at start. Wont buy that exp at launch tho just incase they dont learn.

All the beta runs of torghast looked fun too but then it ended up being so gutted the live version was a chore, especially when you can wipe on the last boss only because you dont have enough gear... despite clearing everything else as if they were world quests (hint: too easy). Thats bad game design if the gameplay isnt testing your strength at all before the final fight. And there arent even any mechanics that make it hard, its just the stacking debuff the boss gets which kills you if you dont kill it faster... cant kite either to counter it.

[Relapses]

Because this community is full of entitled people who will never be happy with anything Blizzard does. There's a reason "I was promised a pony" is a meme. Even if WoW players got their pony, they'd just bitch about the color of it.

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It is very odd to see the people complain about the exact things that are getting changed, then them shitting on the changes in a heartbeat while reminding you that they were right. In general i dont understand the impulse of shitting on basically a hobby that they're not doing anymore.

It's worse than that. It's a bunch of people who don't care for WoW but want to remind people how much better their hot new girlfriend (FFXIV) is.

[Powerogue]

Reviewing it, all seems good to me. Particularly a fan of some love for the allied races like nightborne eye squint. It's the little things. Like during BFA when I said "literally the only two things I need to salvage this expansion are alpaca mounts and curse of the dreadblades back", both of which we now have.

Still lingering saltiness as far as the end of 9.1's raid but unlike most here I'm waiting to see how the expansion actually ends to see where they take it, I've been pleasantly surprised before.

Still negative towards Blizzard overall as a company with recent lawsuits but that's not relevant to any of the 9.1.5 changes I've seen so far.

[Belloc]

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

Just like you're being forced to run heroic loot-funneling runs? Just like you're being forced to do PvP content because raids aren't dropping items fast enough? Just like you're forced to grind M+ 15s for loot drops? I think your idea of "forced" is somewhat skewed.

Yes, they're spending time on meaningless things.

Things that are regularly being requested by the community are meaningless? Oh, I get it, anything that isn't your specific PvP/raid content is meaningless! No, yeah, you're right, they should only focus on the specific things you want.

Yes, that's absolutely absurd idea.

It's absurd to continue the trend of releasing updated Timewalking content two or three times a year? It's absurd to reintroduce content that many players missed, in a form that doesn't involve out-leveling and stomping it? Oh, right, I forgot what I wrote at the end of my last point.

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

You know, it's funny, I played from Vanilla to MoP without more than a month-long break. Vanilla: Alts were just time-consuming to level. TBC: The next ten levels was easy and then alts were easy, especially with every patch that updated badge content. Wrath: Alts were even easier to level, gear, and be effective. Cata: Alts 'r easy, yo. MoP: Oh, gotta do the legendary grind on all characters this time! Good thing you have months and months to get through to the final step. A.k.a.: Alts were easy.

No, alts should not be difficult to acquire. They've never been mandatory for casual raiding, no matter how easy they were to gear. Stop acting like the only way to play this game is top-100 raiding.

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

Touché, you do play this game. I mean, you play it differently than most of the rest of the people playing it, but hey, who gives a shit about them, right? Oh, wait, that's right: The people making the game give a shit about them, since they're the majority.

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And what makes you think that making game easyer and faster is somehow good change? It feels more like some sort of entiltment of players what want rewards but doesnt want put any effort to get them. BTW we were not forced by anyone to have our bis covenants and conduits but you can be sure that players will demand it in 9.1.5 just for the fact everybody can swap into bis and you have no excuse anymore to not be in your bis build.

People have been making this exact argument since the beginning and it's even more bullshit now than it was then. Spoiler alert: The game is being made slower and harder with every expansion. Do you know how long it took me to level and gear my alt through Wrath, Cata and MoP? No time at all!

They're not making the game easier, they're making it less tedious. There's a difference.

[LDancer]

Sorry - did I misread? The OP is calling SL an alt friendly expansion? SL has killed any interest I have in playing an alt. It is by far the worst for it in My opinion.

[Ragashii]

Because all the problems they are "solving" they created themselves. Why should they be praised for finally fixing the problems a year later?

They still don't think they were wrong in any of their decisions either so nothing will change in the long run. The next expansion will release with the same mistakes, only to be fixed years later.

Time is a flat circle.