To all the Bellulars, Asmogolds, Preaches, QoL'ers and Fans that want to Design WOW.

[Yarathir]

At this point, I'm certain you don't even know what the phrase "damage control" even means.

Is the egg at least tasty?

[Empower]

Since blizzard is the one who designed a expansion no one wanted bloated with features people hate are they not homer?

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Is the egg at least tasty?

I don't think he gets the reference but I find it funny. I want you to know that.

[Polybius]

You're completely missing what The Simpson's is satirizing here. It's not that you have to be a chef to criticize the food, or that you need to be a game designer to understand what good game design is. It's that each individual person is going to have a slightly different preference for what they want and if given the opportunity to design it themselves most players would make something that's perfect for them but abhorred by everybody else.

And if multiple preferences align it’s pure coincidence and should be dismissed, right? At this point it’s dishonest and willfully ignorant to blame the player.

[RoKPaNda]

I completely disagree. IMO azerite armor was both chronologically a harbinger of the wrong direction, it was also one of the worst systems they ever implemented. And everything that was shit about it was pointed out before beta ended or 8.1 released. And yet, that shitty awful system persisted throughout the expansion with only minor tweaks to make it slightly less awful.

The WoW dev teams occasionally errors on the side of listening to player feedback too much. But that is the exception, not the rule.

I didn't say it wasn't a bad decision, but that is what they got out of the player feedback. What they heard from the players was that it sucked shit that artifact weapons were a grind and that the cool stuff was locked behind that grind. So they made Azerite Armor front loaded with your good traits first and then things you really don't care about and an ilevel bump and no grind was required.

They heard that RNG legendaries weren't fun because at the start some players in shit guilds benched them for not having perfect legendaries - Something that impacted a very small number of guilds because lets face it if you're not doing Mythic it really didn't matter and even then in a lot of cases it wasn't a big deal. So they ditched those.

The end result was fuckall reason to run any content outside of your raid which made BFA boring as shit. half-assing islands and warfronts was all Blizzard though

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

And if multiple preferences align it’s pure coincidence and should be dismissed, right?

If they align and that's always the Catch-22. Sure a huge chunk of this forum aligns but this forum generally I'd say skews longer-term players that are more nostalgic than average toward older designs of the game.

At the same time Blizz will always write off feedback from players because "Well we can't be sure everyone agrees with them, so let's just assume everyone agrees with us."

[Relapses]

And if multiple preferences align it’s pure coincidence and should be dismissed, right? At this point it’s dishonest and willfully ignorant to blame the player.

They don't, though. You can point at a bunch of whiny people on forums who all agree something sucks but just because they're on a forum whining about it doesn't mean there's just as many (and possibly even more) players in the game perfectly happy and completely oblivious to the very important things that people on forums bitch about. Just because you only have exposure to one single aspect of the community doesn't mean that it's an overwhelming consensus. And just because Blizzard changes directions doesn't necessarily mean that they're doing it specifically to appease the people on forums whining about literally fucking everything.

[Titan]

The best parts of World of Warcraft were designed by MMO fans who thought the EQ developers were idiots. Now we have World of Warcraft. Your analogy couldn't be more wrong.

Jeff Kaplan (Tigole) and many others were annoying, whiny forum nerds for EQ.

[Polybius]

If they align and that's always the Catch-22. Sure a huge chunk of this forum aligns but this forum generally I'd say skews longer-term players that are more nostalgic than average toward older designs of the game.

At the same time Blizz will always write off feedback from players because"Well we can't be sure everyone agrees with them, so let's just assume everyone agrees with us."

You think you do, but you don’t.

Edit: Adding to what you said, veteran vs new players, this highlights what’s wrong with the current generation of video games. Season passes, rushing a game for release, retconning, FOMO, Rng within Rng. I shouldn’t be surprised considering the current generation is the least employed.

[Souflikar]

Wouldn’t take advice from one of them for sure since drooling over cat girls is their new norm.

[Kauko]

The fanboy army is in the offensive... the worse part of wow community are the fanboys of streamers that just don't know how to think with their own heads. Everyone that has a different opinion is the enemy. If their streamer loves the game, they love it, if he hates it they hate it... what a way to live...

[Polybius]

They don't, though. You can point at a bunch of whiny people on forums who all agree something sucks but just because they're on a forum whining about it doesn't mean there's just as many (and possibly even more) players in the game perfectly happy and completely oblivious to the very important things that people on forums bitch about. Just because you only have exposure to one single aspect of the community doesn't mean that it's an overwhelming consensus. And just because Blizzard changes directions doesn't necessarily mean that they're doing it specifically to appease the people on forums whining about literally fucking everything.

Oh sure thing. The .5 changes don’t reflect the feedback ignored. It’s all whining.

[Guidance]

not sure about others, but bellular isnt a big loose to wow

[OokOok]

You're going to get hate, but you're not wrong. Asmongold proved this the other day when he made that list and tweeted it to blizzard, seriously go look it up his "What we want in new classic" list, it's the dumbest shit i've ever seen and this simpsons video best describes it

[Relapses]

Oh sure thing. The .5 changes don’t reflect the feedback ignored. It’s all whining.

If you can't see that an overwhelming majority of the "feedback" given by players on forums is vacuous white noise then I don't know what to tell you. Do you really think that Blizzard deserves to take orders from people who question their intellectual faculties regardless of what they do or don't do? I know I wouldn't.

[Polybius]

If you can't see that an overwhelming majority of the "feedback" given by players on forums is vacuous white noise then I don't know what to tell you. Do you really think that Blizzard deserves to take orders from people who question their intellectual faculties regardless of what they do or don't do? I know I wouldn't.

There were forums dedicated to constructive feedback for each class (and more) in Beta and Alpha tests. Like I said, dishonest.

Addendum: Seeing that you’re as dismissive as the devs and paint the entirety of forums in a bad light (some can’t separate good feedback from bad feedback, and your profile signature just proves that) I’m going to stop responding. It is what it is, streamers and gamers can play whatever the hel they want and are entitled to their opinion.

[zorkuus]

That car with the unwanted and bloated features is Shadowlands, and it wasn't the players who designed it.

[EyelessCrow]

Wouldn’t take advice from one of them for sure since drooling over cat girls is their new norm.

You really can't take a moral high-ground, drooling over a corpse.

[roboscorcher]

I watch most of these streamers, and while some of their ideas or solutions are dumb, collaboratively they were right about a lot of things. Preach was pretty spot-on when critiquing high-end systems (legion leggos RNG, Azerite Armor problems, Covenants being bis and forcing rerolls, etc). Asmon is pretty hot-headed and brash, but he did bring alot of attention to Classic and the cool things it brought. Madseason even moreso, and his critque of the TBC store was exhaustive.

Importantly, people are allowed to critic without offering solutions. Making solutions is the job of the developer, who is supposed to take in the feedback. The feedback for Shadowlands was loud since the getgo, and the devs slept on the changes. Why? Maybe they were stubborn, maybe Bobby forced their hand. Either way, the game suffered and most of us moved onto other games. Including half the streamers mentioned by OP.

[Mokrath]

Do you really think that Blizzard deserves to take orders from people

Nobody is saying they need to take orders?

So many Olympic level mental gymnastics in this thread.
People dislike a product, they give feedback, people who make product observe trends, product maker adjusts things based on trends.
With Blizzard it goes feedback, see trends, ignore trends and tell customers they are wrong/ignorant/don't understand, then right before you sell them the next thing say "we hear you and we are going to try and communicate better" before repeating the cycle.
Also, for everyone 10 people complaining you have 100 who just quietly walk away and don't come back because they aren't that invested in your product or business.

[Mamut]

I think most people already know players ideas are horrible or good only on paper and would be a disaster if implemented. If they have any ideas at all because the most common feedback is something like "it sucks" without even saying why or how could be improved.