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

[Otaka]

Actualy you do. If Gordons serves you food you have no right unleas you are at same level of knowladge of food to tell that food isnt cooked enough or if it is good enough. If you dont like food what Gordon servers you its propably becouse you simply order what you dont like just like players play gandre of game they dont like and trying to turn that game into something what isnt supostu be.

Thats some serious pepega attitude you got there.

Blindly believing someone with expertise and never questioning their decisions will always lead to bad things.

Even the best in the world dont want blind belief in what they do... because if noone ever questions their skill then it will eventually lead to arrogance and negligence.
This is why advisor's exist, to give a perspective with greater knowledge in a specific topic for someone at a higher position.

A CEO of a company isnt an expert in every field of their company's job roles... they arent a CEO because they are the best in everything to create the product their company sells, they are a CEO because of their leadership skills.
The same goes for every other kind of team.

In a gaming company its important to listen to feedback or your game is going to be bad... a little bit of humbleness goes a long way and admitting your mistakes if theres a large enough audience pointing them out.


Since you mentioned Gordon have you watched kitchen nightmares btw? :P

If you have you would know what ends up happening if owners dont listen to customer feedback... there has been quite a few restaurants in that show in which the owners were arrogantly believing they did everything perfect and customers were wrong, despite sales going down. I remember atleast one of those restaurants did not follow Gordon's advice and guess where they ended up? bankrupt!
It works the same way in gaming industry, unless you have a monopoly like EA... which is sad to see for sports gamers.

[Kralljin]

All those bad changes were made based on community feedback.

No, it wasn't or rather, some rather specific group that i haven't seen much of a presence within the community.

I don't think you can showcase that a large amount of people wanted something like Titanforging or Corruption, yet Blizzard went ahead.
Same goes for Professions, i don't think there was ever a large group that wanted to see professions in the near dead state they are now.

This argument "This was done based community feedback" is pretty much unprovenable in most circumstances and frankly, unlikely because Blizzard never ever was very keen on dealing with community feedback, this isn't a recent trend, the difference is that in the past, their course of action worked to some extent.

And let's not forget, rather than turning back the clock, they leave the foundation intact despite that foundation clearly not supporting the "RPG approach".

[Elias1337]

Thats some serious pepega attitude you got there.

Blindly believing someone with expertise and never questioning their decisions will always lead to bad things.

Even the best in the world dont want blind belief in what they do... because if noone ever questions their skill then it will eventually lead to arrogance and negligence.
This is why advisor's exist, to give a perspective with greater knowledge in a specific topic for someone at a higher position.

A CEO of a company isnt an expert in every field of their company's job roles... they arent a CEO because they are the best in everything to create the product their company sells, they are a CEO because of their leadership skills.
The same goes for every other kind of team.

In a gaming company its important to listen to feedback or your game is going to be bad... a little bit of humbleness goes a long way and admitting your mistakes if theres a large enough audience pointing them out.


Since you mentioned Gordon have you watched kitchen nightmares btw? :P

If you have you would know what ends up happening if owners dont listen to customer feedback... there has been quite a few restaurants in that show in which the owners were arrogantly believing they did everything perfect and customers were wrong, despite sales going down. I remember atleast one of those restaurants did not follow Gordon's advice and guess where they ended up? bankrupt!
It works the same way in gaming industry, unless you have a monopoly like EA... which is sad to see for sports gamers.

You are right. But you as devs should always know what is that trash feedback what you should ignore and what is good feedback and think how you could implement it without alienating your game desing. Which this community clearly have big problem with. WoW community is all about i want this and if you dont give it to us = Blizzard isnt listening. Blizzard do listen. They just consider your feedback bad and not worth implementing. Game was in its most healthy state when devs just did their thing despite having thousands of whiny casuals telling them to something els. And game went downhill when Blizzard started listening to their entilted casual playerbase and cutter game for them.

[roboscorcher]

Asmon is clinically a moron. The Covenant's are an integral part of the story for this expansion. They immersed you directly into the role that your Chosen Covenant plays within the Shadowlands world. While leveling you got a taste of each, and YOU chose the one you wanted to play. There was a perfectly adequate means to change Covenants if you changed your mind later. If it was "to hard" for you then you are playing the wrong game. The swap could be completed within 24 hrs, and was very easy to accomplish.

LOL it has nothing to do with Covenants being "to hard". It has to do with Ion locking abilities to said covenants, promising that the covenant abilities would be balanced by the Soulbind system at Blizzcon. Soulbinds did NOT balance them, and often made the imbalances worse. People warned him through the entire beta not to lock these abilities to covenants, as it would force us into bis covenants, rather than the ones we want to play. Totally ignored. Ion's argument was that "permanent, unchangeable choices with consequences are a part of RPGs", which is wrong on so many levels. 1) Most RPGs are singleplayer, so consequences are limited to what the devs allow. In an MMO, social consequences are often much worse. 2) Preach played a lot of old RPGs, and found no comparable instances of RPGs punishing players for similar ability choices. 3) The covenant system isn't even a permanent choice, because swapping was always possible.

All the devs had to do was separate the abilities from the Covenant system. Maybe give us our chosen covenant's abilities free by default, but other covenant powers require a currency to unclock. That's all they had to do!

[xpsync]

That is not all how it was. In legion it supposedly boosted retention quite a bit, otherwise Blizzard would have given it the islands expedtion treatment.

The new shiny ofc, and not saying dump it, it does bring in younger players, and i'm not for getting rid of it, i'm all 20 except Mists and SoA are 19, personally for me, not a fan is all.

From an mmorpg player standpoint this game is f'ed for them and me, if you want to play an mmorpg.

I raid but if i was only an mmorpg player, i'd be gone to some other mmorpg as well, and if they don't smarten the fuck up i will be, yes i love the raiding but the game is weak af as an mmorpg now.

I like BFA for leveling, but nothing beats the old zones for leveling, reminds you how awesome af this game once was, you know, when it was an mmorpg amirite lol.

[Aliven]

Actualy you do. If Gordons serves you food you have no right unleas you are at same level of knowladge of food to tell that food isnt cooked enough or if it is good enough. If you dont like food what Gordon servers you its propably becouse you simply order what you dont like just like players play gandre of game they dont like and trying to turn that game into something what isnt supostu be.

Right but blizzard is not Gordon Ramsey. He is not even McDonald. He is like shit wrapped in paper.

[Doombringer]

Spot on...
And the funny/sad part is, that at Blizz they are looking for new design and similar jobs non stop, but not one of them sent their resume to Blizz... Or maybe they did and were rejected because, "NO GAME DESIGN EXPERIENCE".

Yet, people listen to this sheep dogs like they are all mighty lords of game design...

Blizz has hired a number of people for WoW in fact that had little to no game design experience. Especially at the outset of WoW, those very early dev days, they brought in people who had the "experience" consisting of "we play Everquest hardcore"...

So get out of here with that nonsense.

You don't need to be a game designer to point out bad game design. Jeff Kaplan was literally hired on to the WoW team initially because he regularly dragged SOE for how they botched various parts of Everquest.

- - - Updated - - -

LOL it has nothing to do with Covenants being "to hard". It has to do with Ion locking abilities to said covenants, promising that the covenant abilities would be balanced by the Soulbind system at Blizzcon. Soulbinds did NOT balance them, and often made the imbalances worse. People warned him through the entire beta not to lock these abilities to covenants, as it would force us into bis covenants, rather than the ones we want to play. Totally ignored. Ion's argument was that "permanent, unchangeable choices with consequences are a part of RPGs", which is wrong on so many levels. 1) Most RPGs are singleplayer, so consequences are limited to what the devs allow. In an MMO, social consequences are often much worse. 2) Preach played a lot of old RPGs, and found no comparable instances of RPGs punishing players for similar ability choices. 3) The covenant system isn't even a permanent choice, because swapping was always possible.

All the devs had to do was separate the abilities from the Covenant system. Maybe give us our chosen covenant's abilities free by default, but other covenant powers require a currency to unclock. That's all they had to do!

So true. "Consequences" in RPGs consist of "I can't use magic as well as a mage can because I'm a rogue, but my playstyle focuses on sneaking and stabbing anyway."

Consequences in MMORPGs become "LOL stabbing and sneaking sucks since patch 8.1.4, git gud, we'd rather take a mage with us."

[Ekis]

LOL it has nothing to do with Covenants being "to hard". It has to do with Ion locking abilities to said covenants, promising that the covenant abilities would be balanced by the Soulbind system at Blizzcon. Soulbinds did NOT balance them, and often made the imbalances worse. People warned him through the entire beta not to lock these abilities to covenants, as it would force us into bis covenants, rather than the ones we want to play. Totally ignored. Ion's argument was that "permanent, unchangeable choices with consequences are a part of RPGs", which is wrong on so many levels. 1) Most RPGs are singleplayer, so consequences are limited to what the devs allow. In an MMO, social consequences are often much worse. 2) Preach played a lot of old RPGs, and found no comparable instances of RPGs punishing players for similar ability choices. 3) The covenant system isn't even a permanent choice, because swapping was always possible.

All the devs had to do was separate the abilities from the Covenant system. Maybe give us our chosen covenant's abilities free by default, but other covenant powers require a currency to unclock. That's all they had to do!

Tried to explain this, even on the beta I submitted that as feedback. Locking these abilities behind covenants was stupid and basically forced specific covenants over "fantasy".

[Empower]

Tried to explain this, even on the beta I submitted that as feedback. Locking these abilities behind covenants was stupid and basically forced specific covenants over "fantasy".

It's kinda funny how well the devs line up with homer in the example. All the players want are solid classes, good raids, and good dungeons.

What does blizzard do?

" Ooo let's add choreghast, renowned, artifact research, conduits, soulbinds, and a bunch of other useless crap"

" what do you mean ff14 is crushing us?!?"

[hynx]

if the state of the game was good, then all these streamers and youtubers shit talking would fall to deaf ears. why are y'all fighting about their valid points? While everyone has a differing opinion, the fact that they have an audience says there is in fact a problem. the decline in numbers is proof of that. prove me wrong. the hail marry 6 month sub for hearthstone/wow to try and get some pay pigs back, is more proof. when shit hits clearance bin pricing, there is in fact a problem. its not really a cross promo, its a cross promo that is packaged as "value" when really it isnt. its a discount plain and simple. and not some little sale its a clearance bin move.

if you dont like their message, dont watch their videos, their streams. they still get ad revenue out of you, and each and every viewer pushes even more viewers too them. just how the suggestion algorithm is built. bigger streamers have less difficulty pulling in audience, when there is a funnel helping them get those numbers inflated even more. make those viewer numbers shink and the funnel goes away. you watching and getting mad at what they say, literally helps them. so what are you doing?

[Echo of Soul]

It's kinda funny how well the devs line up with homer in the example. All the players want are solid classes, good raids, and good dungeons.

What does blizzard do?

" Ooo let's add choreghast, renowned, artifact research, conduits, soulbinds, and a bunch of other useless crap"

" what do you mean ff14 is crushing us?!?"

I believe that this is the biggest thing that's wrong with WoW. Lots of systems and currencies, most of them required and tied to player power.

FFXIV has a bunch of systems and currencies too but very few are required. The core is pretty simple, casual friendly and straight forward and if you want to learn how the optional stuff works you can do it at your leisure.

[Doombringer]

if the state of the game was good, then all these streamers and youtubers shit talking would fall to deaf ears. why are y'all fighting about their valid points? While everyone has a differing opinion, the fact that they have an audience says there is in fact a problem. the decline in numbers is proof of that. prove me wrong. the hail marry 6 month sub for hearthstone/wow to try and get some pay pigs back, is more proof. when shit hits clearance bin pricing, there is in fact a problem. its not really a cross promo, its a cross promo that is packaged as "value" when really it isnt. its a discount plain and simple. and not some little sale its a clearance bin move.

if you dont like their message, dont watch their videos, their streams. they still get ad revenue out of you, and each and every viewer pushes even more viewers too them. just how the suggestion algorithm is built. bigger streamers have less difficulty pulling in audience, when there is a funnel helping them get those numbers inflated even more. make those viewer numbers shink and the funnel goes away. you watching and getting mad at what they say, literally helps them. so what are you doing?

Because some people just have to be contrary. And/or they shut their eyes and ears to obvious problems.

If you feel the game is great right now because you're having fun... good! Have you talked to anyone else who isn't having fun and why they're not? This is what people are bringing up.

Sure there are some bandwagon-jumpers who just want to set fires... but this is only in addition to fires already burning.

[ElDoorO]

Yeah except magicaly auto depositing your anima doesnt make any sense from RPG stand point. This type of QoL reminds you that you just play systemic game and takes away immersion so yes even this takes away from game.

Except having hundreds of them doesn't really ADD to RPG. Remember this is a game.

Have you not yet learned that the speed difference between a mount speed and a human running is... too close? How about walking and literally never breaking an ankle or leg?

It sounds more like what you want is Second Life more than a modern MMORPG. Something like Ultima Online might appeal to you more.
The fact of the matter is the overwhelming majority complains about having to deposit Azerite the way they did. Thus, this was basically removed in SL.
Further, and perhaps more importantly, the dev's themselves has said raiding is the end-game. Read between the lines there. The other things are just side-games. If you're not a raider and, instead, prefer to RP... then likely you're just gimping yourself and perhaps WoW isn't for you anymore.

This type of QoL change allows you to do things you enjoy.

The systemic problem of the game and iLvl mattering too much is a whole different problem.

You probably long for the days like in UO where a _6 sword of vanquishing was significant but you could still lose in a fight if you were an idiot.

That's a whole other problem.

[Sin of Pride]

Well in TTRPGs you also have the DM to manage the experience. If your fun build doesn't work your DM can course correct, another thing that doesn't work in WoW.

True but I was speaking in a more video game sense. In most rpgs you can always grind to level 99 when the story boss usually caps around level 60

[Nootz]

Imagine thinking everyone has the same opinion you do. That is exactly what you are doing. They ALWAYS listen to feedback. Not caving to your every complaint or demand does not mean they are ignoring it. As I have stated before, this is nothing more than what they have down the past several expansions. This was planned BEFORE "the shit hit the fan".

Since you are all geniuses who think you know so much better, you should go out and create your own game to show us all.

I love these responses.

Why did they implement the changes tons and tons of players have been asking for since beta in a 9.1.5 patch and not 9.1? 9.0.5 is way too early, but 9.1? Doable.

It happened to line up with all of the negative publicity towards wow and their main competition getting tons of positive publicity. That isn't a coincidence.

You can make your character stronger by choosing your own path.
At least in most RPGs you can.

You don't pick a rogue in DnD just because he destroys DM-campaigns with a sneak attack. You pick the class/character because you think it's fun to act and play like that. You can also play a rogue because you want to meta-game, but that should just be one way to play and there should be 500 different ways also. The DM should make a campaign that has meta gamers in mind, but should also add campaign elements for people who roleplay and have their "non-combat" stats leveled.

If I try to recreate a Death Knight in Divinity Original Sins. I build a theme around it and play that.
I'm not picking druid spells just because I could easily do that also and there is "that one spell that is super OP"
That doesn't mean my character doesn't get stronger though, it just means I'm not min-maxing like my boss is behind my back and wants profit.

Since Blizzard doesn't design content for people like that however, the game became all about competitiveness, even though we should play together and have fun and enjoy different flavors instead of just one.

No one is saying to not play a spec you enjoy. The only spec that I can think of that gets any kind of deserved shit in WoW is Survival Hunters. Everything else is absolutely viable to play. Always play what you prefer.

The kind of play environment you're talking about is strictly within guilds or close knit friends. Going into the pug world with any kind of odd off-meta combo will not get you far. And expecting random players to just let you play how you want is a completely disconnected thought about how the game is designed in 2021. In 2006, sure you would get away with it. Not anymore.

[Tumile]

Spot on...
And the funny/sad part is, that at Blizz they are looking for new design and similar jobs non stop, but not one of them sent their resume to Blizz... Or maybe they did and were rejected because, "NO GAME DESIGN EXPERIENCE".

Yet, people listen to this sheep dogs like they are all mighty lords of game design...

who would want to work for blizzard though? you're gonna end up going on a business trip only to find out that ur colleagues just broguht butt plugs and lube. then when u get home they are all stinking drink and snorting coke in the bathrooms while doing everything in their power to keep u miserable, so the only out is to join them in their alcoholic past times activities, two years later you're gonna find urself drinking copious amounts of alcohol and crawling around in the female employees cubicles in order to cope with the terrible work enviroment.

For real though, I dont want them to use MY ideas, I want THEM to have good ideas, they are meant to be the pro's but considering how insanely incompetent they are, listening to none delusional somewhat functional human beings with atleast a resemblance of cognitive function is the next best thing. if hundreds of basement dwelling glue sniffers like me can literally predict 90% of the issues Wow has had literal years in advance to them changing it, then what the hell are they doing? took me one sniff of BFA to know the azerite system was bricked. it was never fully fixed, but atleast it was somewhat mended... 1½ years later, how did they mend it? by making the azerite traits so weak compared to other aspects of the game that they simply didnt matter much. amazing fix.

the exact same happened in Shadowlands. to top it off, they keep failing basic 1st grade math problems, just take a look at inscription, the EXACT same issue 3 expansions in a row, the numbers didnt add up in legion, so they fixed them in patch 7.1.5. we had the EXACT same numerical issue in BFA, and it was never fixed. theres was no use for blue pigment, like literally only 1 recipe required only blue pigment and it was useless, meanwhile every other recipe required either Green or Red pigment, but the quanities didnt add up, even if u made the recipes with the most possible blue pigment except for the singular useless one, it still wasnt even close. I had to make a script to delete blue pigment, because manually deleting hundreds of thousands simply wasnt an option. its literally BASIC math. same thing happened AGAIN in shadow lands.

U gotta be real fucked up on coke not to put 2 and 2 together. so yes, I'd rather they listened to homer, not because I want them to listen to Homer, but because the alternative is just that much worse.

[Luck4]

I believe that this is the biggest thing that's wrong with WoW. Lots of systems and currencies, most of them required and tied to player power.

FFXIV has a bunch of systems and currencies too but very few are required. The core is pretty simple, casual friendly and straight forward and if you want to learn how the optional stuff works you can do it at your leisure.

I really don't understand why Blizzard keeps adding so many systems. I mean, just look how much stuff is put in every zone these days... pets, mounts, toys, achievements, etc... If they get rid of these mandatory arbitrary systems, people would be able to experience these other types of content, and new players, with spare time, can experience the old unexplored content from previous expansions. But NO, gotta make everyone waste two or more hours doing repetitive and boring stuff EVERY SINGLE DAY, to increase their Y/Y engagement metrics...

[KrayZ33]

No one is saying to not play a spec you enjoy. The only spec that I can think of that gets any kind of deserved shit in WoW is Survival Hunters. Everything else is absolutely viable to play. Always play what you prefer.

The kind of play environment you're talking about is strictly within guilds or close knit friends. Going into the pug world with any kind of odd off-meta combo will not get you far. And expecting random players to just let you play how you want is a completely disconnected thought about how the game is designed in 2021. In 2006, sure you would get away with it. Not anymore.

That's exactly the problem and something that should change?
The game is designed for performance. There is hardly anything to do for people who don't care about performance.

Otherwise, the game remains the way it is and apparently, hardly semms to be happy with it.

"My mythic+ key ran out"
"I'm not getting any invites to do stuff"

yada yada, etc. etc.

This has hardly anything to do with players should find their own groups and own guilds and own circles.
Other games don't need that, why does Wow?

What was wrong with how it was in 2006? Where is the middle ground?
Why can't we just do like 95% of the content with whatever spec/class we want without getting flak for it by random strangers?
Like I can/could in Destiny 2 or FFXIV for example.

It's funny that you mention Survival for example, because performance wise, the spec is solid.
Yet you can't even get into relatively easy shit like heroic raids with it (or rather, you have to invest thrice as much time), where classes and more importantly, players, don't even use their superior utilities.

Why is that?

[Yuujin]

Is this the thread where the six remaining Blizzard fanboys who have only been playing the game for ~4 years come to defend Blizzard against the mean streamers?

[Echo of Soul]

The game is designed for performance. There is hardly anything to do for people who don't care about performance.

It's not even that. A lot of players actually care about performance but not at the cost of fun.
For example you can find a spec and a build that you really enjoy and you'll do your absolute best but that's not enough, you should play a spec that you don't enjoy and a build that you enjoy even less because that's what's optimal.

That's one of the reasons why you don't see as much of this in FFXIV for example. The classes only have one spec, they don't have any loadouts and they're very balanced. Even if you pick the worst possible class you playing it well is worth so much more since the theoretical max DPS is like 10% worse than the best one.