What exactly does blizzard learn from each expansion?

[Log Cabin]

Has anyone noticed that it doesn't seem to ever come from player feed back?

Just to pick out a few from legion onwards (I could go back further but just for a bit of brevity) .

Legion: players loved artifact weapon appearances but disliked artifact power. Blizzard trashed the cosmetic parts of the system and kept artifact power going forward.

BFA: Players despised all the power systems that increasing got more and more obnoxious as the expansion continued onwards. In shadowlands these systems didn't just survive they multiplied.

I don't even see any self awareness in shadowlands since in 9.1 they added a massive time gate tied to grinding via gem sets they effectively lock you out of higher level raiding till you have them. I have to admit it is starting to feel more like spite then simple ignorance of what their playerbase wants.

[thunderdragon2]

Has anyone noticed that it doesn't seem to ever come from player feed back?

Just to pick out a few from legion onwards (I could go back further but just for a bit of brevity) .

Legion: players loved artifact weapon appearances but disliked artifact power. Blizzard trashed the cosmetic parts of the system and kept artifact power going forward.

BFA: Players despised all the power systems that increasing got more and more obnoxious as the expansion continued onwards. In shadowlands these systems didn't just survive they multiplied.

I don't even see any self awareness in shadowlands since in 9.1 they added a massive time gate tied to grinding via gem sets they effectively lock you out of higher level raiding till you have them. I have to admit it is starting to feel more like spite then simple ignorance of what their playerbase wants.

that i've learned is blizz is trying to force us to like systems we hate

[qwikz]

They don't believe that they have ever done anything wrong so there is nothing to learn.

[Azxza]

The whole systems on top of systems to progress your character is genius level stuff. No longer can you simply do the content you wanna do and progress that way. Nowadays you have to run around like a chicken with its head cut off while trying to micromanage blizzard’s wonderful systems, all so you can do the content you want to do and not have your class feel incomplete. Two expansions in a row of many people saying they hated it. I can’t wait to see what ‘lesson’ blizzard learns from this

[Log Cabin]

They don't believe that they have ever done anything wrong so there is nothing to learn.

I just want the cycle to end... it feels like hoping ouroboros will die though... it just continues the endless circle constantly growing stronger with each rotation. I just wanna do dungeons and raids and then start again when ive beaten them. I used to get through two to three characters and enjoyed each step of it. One night was reclear then the two others was seeing the raid through an entirely new class.

What was gained by killing off my playstyle? Who profits from this madness? It clearly isn't blizzard.

[Myradin]

Honestly I think their approach is to try and refine something rather than toss it out like the player base demands the moment they don't like something.

[Azxza]

I just want the cycle to end... it feels like hoping ouroboros will die though... it just continues the endless circle constantly growing stronger with each rotation. I just wanna do dungeons and raids and then start again when ive beaten them. I used to get through two to three characters and enjoyed each step of it. One night was reclear then the two others was seeing the raid through an entirely new class.

What was gained by killing off my playstyle? Who profits from this madness? It clearly isn't blizzard.

My hunch is that Ion REALLY hates alts. It’s the only way I can make sense of their constant anti alt design.

[muto]

They learn how to ignore feedback for the first year of every expansion.

[uuuhname]

nothing, really, seeing as nearly every expansion is a giant reset in one way or another.

[Log Cabin]

Honestly I think their approach is to try and refine something rather than toss it out like the player base demands the moment they don't like something.

I can't even give them this benefit of the doubt.... Mage tower was a startling success it felt like a bolt out of the blue. They replaced it with a shitter version via visions and now its in a god awful "what the fuck did you do!" state with choreghast.

If this is them refining something I fucking wish they would stop.

Edit: For a blissful moment I had forgotten warfronts and islands existed,

[Dystemper]

They don't learn anything, that's why the game is dying, they haven't created a new ip in ages, and they are now irrelevant.

[Postmasters]

I just want the cycle to end... it feels like hoping ouroboros will die though... it just continues the endless circle constantly growing stronger with each rotation. I just wanna do dungeons and raids and then start again when ive beaten them. I used to get through two to three characters and enjoyed each step of it. One night was reclear then the two others was seeing the raid through an entirely new class.

What was gained by killing off my playstyle? Who profits from this madness? It clearly isn't blizzard.

It seems like a nasty combination of years of paying for bottom of the barrel developers with low wages and marketing taking over development.

Brain drain has taken its toll to the point they likely need to hire entirely new teams and train them to start course correcting. I don't trust any of the current team to do so.

It more or less comes down to hoping a new mmo comes out with a focus on dungeons and raiding.

[oldgeezer]

That players love mission tables. I especially love mission tables.

[crusadernero]

I can't even give them this benefit of the doubt.... Mage tower was a startling success it felt like a bolt out of the blue. They replaced it with a shitter version via visions and now its in a god awful "what the fuck did you do!" state with choreghast.

If this is them refining something I fucking wish they would stop.

Edit: For a blissful moment I had forgotten warfronts and islands existed,

Thats why we should never ask of Blizzard to create classic+ content.

[Schizoide]

Going back to Cataclysm:

Cataclysm
- Challenging auto-queuing PUG content doesn't work.
- Don't make any more water zones (correct lesson, although I personally liked it)
- Keep zones connected (lesson largely forgotten in BFA and then completely dropped in Shadowlands)

MoP
- Failed experiment: Scenarios
- Don't gate player power with long daily factions.
- Experiment: challenge modes (a moderate success, but most people only did them once per expansion at best)

WoD
- Failed experiment: force players to go out in the world, don't keep them in garrisons
- Don't try to take away flying, players are willing to quit over it
- Don't try to release yearly expansions.
- Don't call content patches with zero content major point release content patches (duh)

Legion
- Successful experiment: Mythic+
- World quests are good (forgotten in Shadowlands)
- Maybe we took table missions too far
- Don't reward substantial gold in table missions (forgotten in Shadowlands)
- RNG for major borrowed power is a problem (immediately forgotten)
- Max-level world content (Suramar) is good (immediately forgotten)

BFA
- Failed experiments: island expeditions and warfronts
- MUDflation from borrowed power needs to be controlled
- Allied races are good, players love them (immediately dropped)

Shadowlands
- Failed experiments: Torghast, The Maw, Covenants, Conduit energy
- Players REALLY don't like not being able to mount at all
- Don't hard-cap AE to strict numbers, it feels bad and players hate it
- Crafted legendaries/non-RNG borrowed power are a success
- Even when limited to cosmetics-only, progression needs to be reasonably paced (anima rewards in 9.0)

[epigramx]

What they learned for SL, is "lol make Legion V3". It's the same old "grind the world for borrowed power and do m+ dungeons and keep the rest of the systems the same old since TBC".

[Theangryone]

The most important thing Blizzard has learned from each expansion is the fact no matter how bad the class design is, no matter how bad the story is, no matter how unbalanced pvp is, no matter how redundant world content is, as long as you bump the ilevel on gear at least 10 points per patch people will still play and defend their decisions.

[Radaney]

They progressively learn how much further they can fuck players in the ass whilst still getting paid and also shilled for it.

[Skirdus]

Well at the very least, they learned that randomized legendaries suck and made it so you can actually target the specific legendaries you want, some of which are returning legendaries from Legion. I'd say that's something of an improvement

[ohwell]

Has anyone noticed that it doesn't seem to ever come from player feed back?

Just to pick out a few from legion onwards (I could go back further but just for a bit of brevity) .

Legion: players loved artifact weapon appearances but disliked artifact power. Blizzard trashed the cosmetic parts of the system and kept artifact power going forward.

BFA: Players despised all the power systems that increasing got more and more obnoxious as the expansion continued onwards. In shadowlands these systems didn't just survive they multiplied.

I don't even see any self awareness in shadowlands since in 9.1 they added a massive time gate tied to grinding via gem sets they effectively lock you out of higher level raiding till you have them. I have to admit it is starting to feel more like spite then simple ignorance of what their playerbase wants.

Just because people give feedback doesn't make it right. The number of people who sit and claim "choreghast" and "amg we told you about this in the beta" are much smaller than it would seem.

Also, take the current example of the unlocks happening on the 2nd. People here and on MMOC are like "Oh a change that should have been that way from the start" which is completely ignorant and a badly supported argument. Listening to player feedback on that would have been ridiculous. This is the point they intended on doing most of this if not all of it because it makes sense in the lore.

Player feedback is typically garbage unless it's seemingly 90-100% on outlets like this.