I'm worried: no casual content improvements for 9.1.5

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

The day WoW will truly be dead will be the day when people stop trying to troll about casual v hardcore and demand things entirely off that spectrum for their own benefit.
No matter what state the game is in, its true flattery to read people saying, after 15 years of more and more being given for less and less, that they still wish the game to continue giving them more for less.

Either way, 9.1.5 is not about content.
All of the things coming in this patch should dramatically impact the life of all players, even those who are not playing actively at max level.

Honestly, the patch's features that are not about progressive max level systems are the ones that are the most interesting to me.

Very interested to see how the Threads of Fate / Torghast leveling changes come, and very eager to see the new character customizations continue.

[Eazy]

The only thing in 9.1.5 I've seen that would've affected myself at all is the new customizations for races. IMO, that's the only casual-oriented change in the patch, AFAICS. Changing covenants and eliminating conduits and all that stuff is for min/max'ers and raiders/M+ and such, I don't see casual players caring about any of that at all other than in an "oh, neat" kind of way.

The covenant-changing thing is also a good quality of life improvement for casuals. People want to pursue new mounts and t-mogs, new campaign.
The alts improvements are HUGE.
The bonus shards for the casual raiders is also a nice addition.
The torghast fixes are also great for casuals.

Like most of the changes are for casuals...

[Elias1337]

The day WoW will truly be dead will be the day when people stop trying to troll about casual v hardcore and demand things entirely off that spectrum for their own benefit.
No matter what state the game is in, its true flattery to read people saying, after 15 years of more and more being given for less and less, that they still wish the game to continue giving them more for less.

Either way, 9.1.5 is not about content.
All of the things coming in this patch should dramatically impact the life of all players, even those who are not playing actively at max level.

Honestly, the patch's features that are not about progressive max level systems are the ones that are the most interesting to me.

Very interested to see how the Threads of Fate / Torghast leveling changes come, and very eager to see the new character customizations continue.

It wont have any impact. Players has quit for completly different reasons and these changes are just small droplet what will have exactly 0 impact on game being fun.

[Davaca]

I don't think they intended this to be a content patch. Whatever new content we get, will be minor or closely related to existing content. If we are going to evaluate how "casual" friendly the current content is, we have to check 9.1, which was the last major content patch.

[Mysterymask]

That excuse that casuals dont have time to do raids was always nonsense and just pure excuse. You are right casuals in fact spend way more time playing WoW on average compared to anyone very high top. They dont have 4-8 free hours to raid but have 40+ hours to farm mogs.

If you thought outside the bubble for like 3 seconds its pretty easy to see why that is.

I am one of those people who wouldn't have 4-8 free hours to raid but 40+ hours for other things
It's called raid requires 4-8 CONSECUTIVE HOURS IE "I have time to sit around every so often to play but I can stop and do something else if I need to" and not feel bad about it
Say I'm the tank Boss is about to do a super strong ability, oh shit the baby is literally shitting everywhere have to go! well great everyones time's wasted because I decided to reproduce and be responsible for a child or if Work doesn't give a shit if we're on attempt 21 of a raid boss for server first they want me now. Meanwhile a raid boss I'm soloing gives no shit if I have to bail early.

[Echo of Soul]

It wont have any impact. Players has quit for completly different reasons and these changes are just small droplet what will have exactly 0 impact on game being fun.

Very possible. These fixes are mostly QoL for the addicted group that still play the game. For the casual playerbase that left for other alternatives there's not much

[Poppincaps]

Bro you hated MOP as a casual player. An expansion that had tons of solo content between Isle of Thunder, Timeless Isle, and Brawler's Guild. What do you actually even want? It seems like you haven't liked any of the expansions from a casual perspective, so why do you even play still?

[xpsync]

Spoilation of evidence for civil court used to be a felony in California, but is now just a misdemeanor.

Makes you wonder what was being destroyed though, not anything to help their case, which is obv.

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Dude, neither you nor I have any fucking idea what's happening at Blizzard internally. What the fuck do you get from automatically assuming that a feature that you disliked was developed by some kind of sexual deviant? This isn't defending Blizzard, this is asking you to think like a rational human being instead of letting your emotional attachment to this video game dictate your reasoning. For fuck's sake, the fact that I even have to explain this to you is honestly quite pathetic. You ever wonder why developers refuse to engage with the community? It's because of shit takes like the one you're trying to push.

Why did you bother explaining? you've already established i'm not normal so... i mean it's quite obv i would never understand, we can't all be perfect like you unfortunately.

[Relapses]

Makes you wonder what was being destroyed though, not anything to help their case, which is obv.

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Why did you bother explaining? you've already established i'm not normal so... i mean it's quite obv i would never understand, we can't all be perfect like you unfortunately.

It's definitely not normal to have emotional outbursts where you call developers sexual predators because you dislike M+. That said, this isn't a question of morality. It's a question of whether you're willing to challenge whatever deeply seated insecurities would result in making such an absolutely insane leap in logic. And clearly you have no interest in thinking about that, so yeah. Continue shitting on video game developers because they failed to consult you personally when making their multi billion dollar gaming franchise. Have fun.

[WowIsDead64]

And that's your problem.

The game isn't developed to cater to one player's very specific desire to only do one kind of content and max out their play efficiency.

No, it's game's problem, because it's entry skill threshold is too high. Some people say, that I'm bad player. I analyzed my performance in other games and I can't call myself bad player. My pure skill is actually average. It's Wow, that is way too complex and overall hard game. I guess, I'm just too old for games, that require lots of stuff to be learned to be played properly. Yeah, age makes us casual. It's real truth. Not because I don't have time to learn things, but because my brain no longer wants learning. It's like there was learning period in my life - now it's time to stop learning and use my knowledge instead. My brain wants straightforward game. My brain wants game, that isn't annoying or tedious. And I don't want to say, that whole game should be made straightforward, as some other guys claim. I.e. something like "Wah, wah, you try to take raids away from us - you're anti-social". No. Keep raids, M+, PVP and "sandboxes" for hardcores, if they need them. There should be straightforward casual content. Like Garrisons for example. I don't think, that it would take too much resources to create it. Blizzard just need dedicated "casual" team, that specializes on casual content, like we have raid and M+ team for example. Devs from that team should understand, what being casual means. And of course you should understand, that "extra team" shouldn't mean taking people away from other content. It's completely new team, that would create content, that would bring extra profit in return, that would found creation of this content.

What does straightforward game? Due to some reasons devs think, that players love to solve puzzles. May be it's true and RPG genre has always been based on solving some puzzles, but things have gone way too far. Whole game is just one big puzzle. Like you arrive in Korthia and you constantly die due to being too weak. What should you do? Overall right solution is to suffer for some time in order to catch up. It could be ok, if you would need to do it once. But it's not true, if you play alts. And this way game turns into constant suffering from all that problems. Straightforward means, that you don't need to constantly think about all that problems - you just need to play the game. For example there are no pre-requirements to start playing your Garrison. You just level to 90 and that's it! You can do it immediately even without leveling to 100, so there is no reason for you to even hurry and try to get to max level ASAP.

[Raven]

I would say most of the changes are casual friendly, but then again for me what counts as a casual is more about the time they spend playing the game then what they do when they do play the game.

[Mysterymask]

No, it's game's problem, because it's entry skill threshold is too high. Some people say, that I'm bad player. I analyzed my performance in other games and I can't call myself bad player. My pure skill is actually average. It's Wow, that is way too complex and overall hard game.

Being good at one game doesn't mean your good at another...and yes you are a bad player

Actually even better you've played for YEARS..at least you complained about this for years you should have a level of skill at least MARGINALLY above average

[Snufflupagus]

We see lots of improvements, arriving at 9.1.5 PTR. Yeah, 9.1.5 is hit or miss for Blizzard. It's critical patch to save Wow and not let it collapse. Problem, I currently see - is that all improvements are popular demands from hardcore guys like streamers, not actual players, like if Blizzard would value feedback from their streamers more, than players' feedback. Yeah, we have skipping lots of content, covenants swapping, conduits swapping, sending exceeding anima to alts, some improvements for Torghast, even Mage Tower. Don't you think, that this improvements are good for min-maxers only, who are hardcore players by definition? For players, who do raids, M+, get enough Anima as side product from "just doing content"? But just answer simple question. Do they give any goal to play game for casual players? What content casual players are expected to do? Leveling? Korthia? Maw? WQs? Do we have any improvements for this content? I don't see any. Is this content considered to be "perfect", that it doesn't need improvements?

Overall casual goals from old xpacks:
WotLK: Perform badge runs and pug raids
Cata: Same, but overtuned content ruined this goal, may be LFR sets in 4.3
MOP: Almost nothing, if you hate mandatory rep grinds and claustrophobic "sandbox" isles
WOD: Garrison, Shipyard and Baleful gear, leveling itself was also great
Legion: Class Hall, Class Hall set tranmog, Class Hall mount, artifacts, legendaries
BFA: Almost nothing, except may be invasion transmogs, corrupted items were interesting, but leveling Cloak via visions was bad, 8.3 locations were badly designed too
SL: Should have been Covenant sets and mounts, basic ones are easy to get, but leveling is too boring and tedious - others require Anima/Souls/Gifts grinds, that are way too bad for casual player. They mean explicit Anima grinding from WQs. Korthia improves situation a little bit, but it's still Maw 2.0. I don't play content without flying. Principally. And I don't see, why flying can't be implemented in Korthia.

I returned home after summer vocation and decided to give SL content another chance. I'm trying to do this content now and it's terrible. I don't think, that 9.1.5 will make me play SL, if there won't be any improvements for it.

What do you think? Is it real situation, that casual content doesn't need any improvements in 9.1.5? If so, then, I guess, Wow is lost for me. May be forever.

Has it occurred to you that maybe WoW just isn’t the game for you? Like, I’ve read your list of terrible ideas for making WoW a rubbish game. Sometimes it isn’t the game that’s the problem, it’s us wanting WoW to be something it’s not.

[Kehego]

dude is talking about wow like its dark souls lmao

[Cwimge]

Here's the problem. I don't like telling people how to enjoy the game but... if you don't raid, PvP or run M+ then you are probably playing the wrong game.

I'd get enough gear to survive and handle old raids, then go farm mog and mounts. Then do it on an alt. I would dabble in raw gold farms as well

[Kehego]

I'd get enough gear to survive and handle old raids, then go farm mog and mounts. Then do it on an alt. I would dabble in raw gold farms as well

yeah that's "fine" but you have an idea of what you want to do

this guy though? XD

[scubi666stacy]

Im a casual player and i have been able to get:

- Green fire in MOP, with mop tier1 raid finder gear, needing to use a damn purification potion to dispel the Doom enrage and health funneling the pitlord because he fucking died because of my low dps.
- every mage tower of every class i played back in legion, with nighthold normal pug gear.
- solo 5mask vision runs, with vision gear, nyalotha LFR and welfare epics from weekly events
- solo all twisting corridors layers in the first month of patch, with mostly normal nathria gear, rest improved world quest gear, weekly chests...

Casual means that you play a small ammount of time, its a real word with a real meaning, no ammount o mental gymnasics will change that.

You have plenty of content, you had and you will have, that requires barely any time investment or thinking in the game, that are challenging and are really good milestones for casual players to pursuit.

Giving things free without any effort is the opposite of what a RPG are for.

This. I dropped the ball after Legion a bit due to my RL changes, and because Visions and Torghast have not been as fun as Mage Tower (where I finished 103 fights successfully on all specs, at least 2 per spec), but these are all good examples. I even managed to do the Artifact questline with PUG raids in Legion for all 12 classes. And I got the slime serpent mount on my paladin tank alt with an item level of slightly above 200, which also was fun.

I wish that farming reputation for the Archivars would not be such cumbersome, because I am already through with the other Korthia rep for weeks on my main, and still lack so much rep for the Archive. I don't have time for mindless grinding anymore.

But I really look forward to other things like reknown catch-up, sending anima to alts, skipping maw introduction quest etc.

Maybe I will even tackle the twisted corridors mount again, idk. My plan is to get as many Covenant cosmetics as possible before the expansion is over, and to farm mounts and pets. I really am excited for the return of the Mage Tower as well.

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If you thought outside the bubble for like 3 seconds its pretty easy to see why that is.

I am one of those people who wouldn't have 4-8 free hours to raid but 40+ hours for other things
It's called raid requires 4-8 CONSECUTIVE HOURS IE "I have time to sit around every so often to play but I can stop and do something else if I need to" and not feel bad about it
Say I'm the tank Boss is about to do a super strong ability, oh shit the baby is literally shitting everywhere have to go! well great everyones time's wasted because I decided to reproduce and be responsible for a child or if Work doesn't give a shit if we're on attempt 21 of a raid boss for server first they want me now. Meanwhile a raid boss I'm soloing gives no shit if I have to bail early.

This. A baby does not care about you doing group content. If it needs something, it has to be addressed right away. So some people like myself just cannot do organised content anymore with some exceptions, and these exceptions are not on a high difficulty level.

[Cwimge]

yeah that's "fine" but you have an idea of what you want to do

this guy though? XD

Granted. To be fair I'm also the person complaining that having to beat an avatar mythic dps check is stupid, and that no boss should be able to get an environmental kill outside of current content. I've seen a guy reliably solo mythic KJ, but I donno if that's something I could do on a shammy, and there's no soloing bfa at all.
I do also have to engage with current content to gear up to clear old content. Leveling greens don't do a great job

[Trumpcat]

All content is accessible and playable at lowest effort thresholds.

World for toys, pets, mounts, mats, gear/transmog, anima, reputation, gold. Maw, Torghast, Korthia, Covenant campaigns, Kyrian arena mini game, dungeons and raids, battlegrounds and then again older content for collection or story.

Some people just aren't interested in playing the game.

[WowIsDead64]

Sorry for blog-like posts, I just actively try to make Korthia work for me. 6-7/7 and +10 item levels. Mobs are still too overtuned and I still die. Overall current game is much harder, than old one. Simple example: back in old times, if you interrupted mob's cast, you were perfectly ok and was doing everything right, but now mob starts to cast next spell immediately and you never know, which one is deadlier. And there are lots of such mobs and their spells. And player should always keep in mind, which one to interrupt. This is insane amount of data to learn just to play video game.

Current problem - there are quest mobs, that have too much health and deal too much damage. And due to claustrophobic design there are too many other mobs around them. It takes too long to kill quest mobs - other mobs have time to respawn and kill you. I need to switch to extra mobs, because they deal extra damage to me, but I start to miss "big" casts from main boss this way. It's actually dungeon level of difficulty and I don't think, that I can call it casual content.

And also. It's exactly crowds of mobs, constantly respawning and putting me to non-stop combat without any ability to take some rest from it for a moment, while I may not be ready for it, i.e. may not have my class resources available (such as mana to self-heal myself) - is exact reason, why flying is 100% MANDATORY REQUIREMENT for me to enjoy content. You know, f**ck broken claustrophobic design. This design is masochism and just can't serve as justification to remove flying.