Seems like development team 2 is doing what they want with the game.

[GreenJesus]

I do believe the tweet in question is a system dev that doesn’t understand why people are mad they are cleaning up a game people said need to be cleaned up. Equating the game to irl problems at the company

I dont remember people asking for our favorite questlines such as "the day deathwing came" to be SJWified and censored.

[Laytnor]

It's pretty obvious how screwed it all is. First, there was incompetence and predatory behavior from the higher ups and certain employees. They got disposed of, as they should.
But now, the eternal victim complex side of development team will never let it go, and proceed to sterilize the game of any remnants of crude humor, old artwork, and any soul in general that has been left from the old days. Neo puritans likes things sterile. It'll be nothing but a loop of sterility and censorship going forwards, and your regular corporate drone soulless crap.
Please look forward to more removed art/jokes, only for it to be replaced by fruits.

Silver lining is, portion of remaining few who still plays blizzard games should see what's coming and stop feeding them, so at least we can enjoy the show of company imploding.

More examples: https://twitter.com/mizliz_/status/1452006019425574913

[Daara]

Team 2 is just the internal name for the WoW team. WoW has 1 development team.

[crusadernero]

It did then it didn't...let me explain that.

In the past catching up took drastically less time. Up until... let's use mop it took about two weeks to be raid ready. Even in tbc you could rather easily jump tiers so long as you had X of your vitial stat ( hit rating, armor pen, etc).

I feel that since legion catch up times have risen drastically and we have the inversed problem. Breaking into mythic as a new player arguably the games progression mode has never been harder and more time consuming then it is now. It would take a new mythic app months of gearing to be acceptable to even lax ce guilds.

If you only complete the game on heroic I can agree with you. If you desire to push beyond that I strongly disagree with your assessment.

As for the point on if this system works better letting players see a gutted and toothless raid over proper tiers..? Honestly I'm not the person who can answer that. I've raiding for over a decade at CE level. What I perceive as a challenge is so drastically different I can't really place myself in their shoes for their perspective .

I find it really weird that Blizzard for some reason insists on making it more time consuming doing harder difficulties. LFR requires little work, normal little more, HC decent amount, then mythic requires ALOT of prep, time and committment. Sheer skill is not enough. I feel for those new players reaching level cap and want to do the hardest content. Not only do they gotta be good, it takes alot of time to be somewhat useful in a mythic raid.

- - - Updated - - -

BC: the expansion where if you didn't keep caught up you had a problem getting there and if you were a guild trying to progress through older content after new raids were out you were subject to poaching of your team by other guilds (and people left because...they wanted to be playing in current content and not feel like they were behind).

That changed in Wrath pretty much (see: Uldaur and how many played through it) and in fact has nothing to do with LFR.

I think there can be a middle ground. Yes, the attunements & guild poaching were a issue back in BC, but its not like it aint happening these days either. People join a normal/HC guild, outgear and outskill the teammates, move onto a mythic guild when having obtained good enough gear.

What I do think is a major change after LFR was put in the game is that wow used to be alot more community/player driven. For better and for worse. People interacted with eachother, argued, made deals, became friends/enemies, created guilds, made community events(I remember back in the day people would have "Pug raid fridays" before automated matchmaking was put into pve), pvp raids in major cities+++. There was always something going on, and alot of it stemmed from the playerbase itself. In order to do content, you had to interact with others. Either take lead, or be led.

Now most of the game is a automated lobby system were it doesnt matter who you interact with, talk with or even how you talk to them. The game dictates how everything must be done. *This is what you should spend your time on doing*, instead of players taking charge themself.

Over years its been this way, and now everyone are so disconnected from eachother and Blizzard. When all you do is doing what youre told(from Blizzard) and everything is automated queues, this is how it goes. There really is no community anymore, its just a bunch of small discord groups in a lobby.

[Otimus]

I find it really weird that Blizzard for some reason insists on making it more time consuming doing harder difficulties. LFR requires little work, normal little more, HC decent amount, then mythic requires ALOT of prep, time and committment. Sheer skill is not enough. I feel for those new players reaching level cap and want to do the hardest content. Not only do they gotta be good, it takes alot of time to be somewhat useful in a mythic raid.

- - - Updated - - -



I think there can be a middle ground. Yes, the attunements & guild poaching were a issue back in BC, but its not like it aint happening these days either. People join a normal/HC guild, outgear and outskill the teammates, move onto a mythic guild when having obtained good enough gear.

What I do think is a major change after LFR was put in the game is that wow used to be alot more community/player driven. For better and for worse. People interacted with eachother, argued, made deals, became friends/enemies, created guilds, made community events(I remember back in the day people would have "Pug raid fridays" before automated matchmaking was put into pve), pvp raids in major cities+++. There was always something going on, and alot of it stemmed from the playerbase itself. In order to do content, you had to interact with others. Either take lead, or be led.

Now most of the game is a automated lobby system were it doesnt matter who you interact with, talk with or even how you talk to them. The game dictates how everything must be done. *This is what you should spend your time on doing*, instead of players taking charge themself.

Over years its been this way, and now everyone are so disconnected from eachother and Blizzard. When all you do is doing what youre told(from Blizzard) and everything is automated queues, this is how it goes. There really is no community anymore, its just a bunch of small discord groups in a lobby.

Blizzard has pretty much never had a firm grasp of difficulty curves, for whatever reason. Which really, really doesn't help.

[crusadernero]

Blizzard has pretty much never had a firm grasp of difficulty curves, for whatever reason. Which really, really doesn't help.

You are probably correct. One would think it would be enough to just let mythic raids clearing be enough of a challenge. I've stopped pushing mythic content just because of that reason alone. Its not the raids itself(cause they are great) and a challenge is always welcome, but the amount of hours required outside of it.. Hell, classic wow is a cakewalk compared to it.

[Specialka]

Just read the list of removed jokes and flirts. It is clear that the dev team is now full of snowflakes that can't handle a good joke.

[MoanaLisa]

What I do think is a major change after LFR was put in the game is that wow used to be alot more community/player driven. For better and for worse. People interacted with eachother, argued, made deals, became friends/enemies, created guilds, made community events(I remember back in the day people would have "Pug raid fridays" before automated matchmaking was put into pve), pvp raids in major cities+++. There was always something going on, and alot of it stemmed from the playerbase itself. In order to do content, you had to interact with others. Either take lead, or be led.

I agree with the basis of your post although I don't agree that LFR has a lot to do with any of that. There's a long, long list of things that collectively have contributed to characters isolating themselves from social (in the best sense of the word) play. Organized raiding has never had as big a user-base as people imagine. Most people either didn't raid or got used to being turned down for pugs. Cataclysm pretty much sliced the head off of social/raiding guilds. Maybe it was time for that anyway, maybe not. The guild perks system did inestimable damage to guilds though.

Or perhaps random dungeon groups put the match to the fuse. In any case, all that you describe was well on the downslope before patch 4.3. One should not forget that prior to Cataclysm it wasn't difficult to hear about incidents where people were blacklisted from realms, some perhaps for good reason, others not so much. During Wrath I was witness to several 'guild wars' in chat where guilds were attempting to drive players in other guilds off the realm using ninja looting as the primary excuse.

Blizzard has failed to police its community of players as surely they would once the game grew well beyond anything that was ever planned for it. Trust me that as a general principle moderation of a community is difficult whether it be a few hundred accounts much less millions. It's something you see on all forms of social media, WoW being just that with a game attached to it. Smaller games do a better job but it's a problem no one has solved. Personally I would sum up Blizzard's failures in this regard as publicly believing that their players are better people than they actually are. Abuse happens in game; Blizzard does little more than a slap on the hand or more usually nothing at all. Of course being social in game is going to go to shit over time. How many times do you need to be screamed at or called a cunt in group chat before you just say fuck it and disengage?

It's not that many. Multiply that by months and years and you quite logically end up where we are.

Sorry, that was pretty random but my point is in there somewhere about why people stay off to themselves a lot and why LFR was just one small thing in a pile of other things that led to this dysfunctional social game. Apparently a lax concept of office behavior from the very top of the company spread like cancer to other parts of the company responsible for keeping things in line.

[crusadernero]

I agree with the basis of your post although I don't agree that LFR has a lot to do with any of that. There's a long, long list of things that collectively have contributed to characters isolating themselves from social (in the best sense of the word) play. Organized raiding has never had as big a user-base as people imagine. Most people either didn't raid or got used to being turned down for pugs. Cataclysm pretty much sliced the head off of social/raiding guilds. Maybe it was time for that anyway, maybe not. The guild perks system did inestimable damage to guilds though.

Or perhaps random dungeon groups put the match to the fuse. In any case, all that you describe was well on the downslope before patch 4.3. One should not forget that prior to Cataclysm it wasn't difficult to hear about incidents where people were blacklisted from realms, some perhaps for good reason, others not so much. During Wrath I was witness to several 'guild wars' in chat where guilds were attempting to drive players in other guilds off the realm using ninja looting as the primary excuse.

Blizzard has failed to police its community of players as surely they would once the game grew well beyond anything that was ever planned for it. Trust me that as a general principle moderation of a community is difficult whether it be a few hundred accounts much less millions. It's something you see on all forms of social media, WoW being just that with a game attached to it. Smaller games do a better job but it's a problem no one has solved. Personally I would sum up Blizzard's failures in this regard as publicly believing that their players are better people than they actually are. Abuse happens in game; Blizzard does little more than a slap on the hand or more usually nothing at all. Of course being social in game is going to go to shit over time. How many times do you need to be screamed at or called a cunt in group chat before you just say fuck it and disengage?

It's not that many. Multiply that by months and years and you quite logically end up where we are.

Sorry, that was pretty random but my point is in there somewhere about why people stay off to themselves a lot and why LFR was just one small thing in a pile of other things that led to this dysfunctional social game. Apparently a lax concept of office behavior from the very top of the company spread like cancer to other parts of the company responsible for keeping things in line.

Sure, I dont disagree with that. I also dont think LFR is the sole reason for why the game is where it is, and I can also perfectly understand why it was put into the game. If anything, LFR has made it so I have experienced every raid there is in wow, when I didnt have the time or desire to do "normal" raiding.

But all these little changes has brought retail wow to where it is now. A playerbase in a MMORPG that is wastly disconnected from eachother and Blizzard. A game were sitting in Oribos waiting for random queues to pop or filter through the lfg channel. All the while having no need or desire to interact with literally anyone.

Its also a game were doing easy content(LFR) is not worth it except from 1 run(see raid) and the worthwhile content(Mythic, maybe HC to?) requires so much of the playerbase(Not just skills). So we end up with the playerbase running LFR a couple of times, call it the day and unsub.

[MoanaLisa]

Its also a game were doing easy content(LFR) is not worth it except from 1 run(see raid) and the worthwhile content(Mythic, maybe HC to?) requires so much of the playerbase(Not just skills). So we end up with the playerbase running LFR a couple of times, call it the day and unsub.

Yep. That's why it takes them 6-8 weeks to open all the wings.

[crusadernero]

Yep. That's why it takes them 6-8 weeks to open all the wings.

Dont you think most players see through this now and sub when everything is out?

[MoanaLisa]

Dont you think most players see through this now and sub when everything is out?

I would guess that there are a lot of people that subscribe to the first 30 days of an expansion and a couple of months toward the end of it. It's easy enough to run all of the LFR's of an expansion after the last patch is out if that's what you want to do. That's why there's such an enormous dropoff after the first 30-60 days of expansion launch.

[Orwell7]

To chime in a little about difficulty curves..

Since Legion the "expected" amount of homework to do before you are Mythic ready is skyrocketed.
Not just AP, artifacts, corruptions, gems or anything particular - the whole thing added together.

With Legion they tried a few new things - how gear is obtained, where is the source of gear, grindable power progression at max level, they shifted around the ratio of borrowed power vs. actual character power, WQs, M+, titanforging (!)

Sadly they went to the wrong conclusion about WHAT made Legion good (based on sub numbers), unfortunately Blizz thought (and Im sure their excels have this conclusion) that players WANT grinding both before and during raid seasons.
Nope. We do it because it means power progression. If we just cannot be more powerful on sheet by grinding shit, we won't. But we still pay our subs and raid, because THAT is fun.

[crusadernero]

To chime in a little about difficulty curves..

Since Legion the "expected" amount of homework to do before you are Mythic ready is skyrocketed.
Not just AP, artifacts, corruptions, gems or anything particular - the whole thing added together.

With Legion they tried a few new things - how gear is obtained, where is the source of gear, grindable power progression at max level, they shifted around the ratio of borrowed power vs. actual character power, WQs, M+, titanforging (!)

Sadly they went to the wrong conclusion about WHAT made Legion good (based on sub numbers), unfortunately Blizz thought (and Im sure their excels have this conclusion) that players WANT grinding both before and during raid seasons.
Nope. We do it because it means power progression. If we just cannot be more powerful on sheet by grinding shit, we won't. But we still pay our subs and raid, because THAT is fun.

Doing mythic raids should be about challenging yourself and your raid team, nothing else. Its obsene what amount of legwork that is required to do it. Having four difficulties in wow is more than enough, having the obsene amount of extra grinding is not healthy for the game.

They could remove all the power grinds outside of raids and make all raids in a xpac relevant in one way or another.

[s_bushido]

They could remove all the power grinds outside of raids and make all raids in a xpac relevant in one way or another.

I don't know how you can simultaneously hold these two positions. If all the raids in an xpac are relevant, they will be mandatory in the same way that "power grinds" are. The only difference being that one requires a coordinated group, and the other you can do on your own whenever you want.

But even then, I get the feeling that people are still complaining about grinding only because it's become a custom...and not because they actually have to grind anything. What even can you grind for anymore that directly effects your power? Conduit upgrades? Is that it?

[crusadernero]

I don't know how you can simultaneously hold these two positions. If all the raids in an xpac are relevant, they will be mandatory in the same way that "power grinds" are. The only difference being that one requires a coordinated group, and the other you can do on your own whenever you want.

They could make "Old" raids in each xpac somewhat relevant. Maybe it drops currency(Valor/Justice). When new raid launches, nerf old ones. It can be a optional way to obtain gear on par with LFR/Normal from new raid. LFR at this point is utterly useless except from seeing the raid.

[Asrialol]

I don't understand why anyone would want to be a dev at Blizzard.

It would be the same as working in the school cafeteria. You love making food, and want to give students a good meal. But you have to stick to whatever the higher ups have given you in the budget, and play by their rules. The students hate the food you make. You know they hate it. The students say the "chef" (you) are bad, terrible, etc.
Can't feel good to have a job like that, where both the higher ups are retarded and also the students are retarded for not understanding where the problem actually lies.

[Postmasters]

I agree with the basis of your post although I don't agree that LFR has a lot to do with any of that. There's a long, long list of things that collectively have contributed to characters isolating themselves from social (in the best sense of the word) play. Organized raiding has never had as big a user-base as people imagine. Most people either didn't raid or got used to being turned down for pugs. Cataclysm pretty much sliced the head off of social/raiding guilds. Maybe it was time for that anyway, maybe not. The guild perks system did inestimable damage to guilds though.

Or perhaps random dungeon groups put the match to the fuse. In any case, all that you describe was well on the downslope before patch 4.3. One should not forget that prior to Cataclysm it wasn't difficult to hear about incidents where people were blacklisted from realms, some perhaps for good reason, others not so much. During Wrath I was witness to several 'guild wars' in chat where guilds were attempting to drive players in other guilds off the realm using ninja looting as the primary excuse.

Blizzard has failed to police its community of players as surely they would once the game grew well beyond anything that was ever planned for it. Trust me that as a general principle moderation of a community is difficult whether it be a few hundred accounts much less millions. It's something you see on all forms of social media, WoW being just that with a game attached to it. Smaller games do a better job but it's a problem no one has solved. Personally I would sum up Blizzard's failures in this regard as publicly believing that their players are better people than they actually are. Abuse happens in game; Blizzard does little more than a slap on the hand or more usually nothing at all. Of course being social in game is going to go to shit over time. How many times do you need to be screamed at or called a cunt in group chat before you just say fuck it and disengage?

It's not that many. Multiply that by months and years and you quite logically end up where we are.

Sorry, that was pretty random but my point is in there somewhere about why people stay off to themselves a lot and why LFR was just one small thing in a pile of other things that led to this dysfunctional social game. Apparently a lax concept of office behavior from the very top of the company spread like cancer to other parts of the company responsible for keeping things in line.

I think it has to do more with in game restrictions on content more then social ones. I am not a believer in over moderation. There are some edge cases where mods in wow should step in to curve harmful actions boosting spam being the biggest but overall if people want to be nasty to each other let them. It is what the ignore system is for. Trying to force people to be pleasant at the very best just makes people stop talking and silently remove people from groups. Just look at all the "I did 1k total dmg in my mythic 15 and people left blizz punish them " posts.

Blizzard is in the unique position where they paradoxically have to much instant gratification with gear and content and to much time wasting activities to get into harder content.

The game would be far better without renowned, covenants, conduits, soul ash, ap, and gem slots locked behind killing world rares and fucking bird nests of all things.

[Eosia]

They could make "Old" raids in each xpac somewhat relevant. Maybe it drops currency(Valor/Justice). When new raid launches, nerf old ones. It can be a optional way to obtain gear on par with LFR/Normal from new raid. LFR at this point is utterly useless except from seeing the raid.

They were relevant before in the past. Up until after Black Temple/Mt Hyjal opened up. You had to clear Blackrock Depths to get to the Molten Core until you got attuned to it and could go right in. You had to do Lower Blackrock Spire to get attuned to Upper Blockrock Spire which, in turn, you had to complete to get attuned to Blackwing Lair. Ahn'Qiraj required the entire server to grind and open the gates. Naxxramas was a rep/material grind.

In Burning Crusade, they really got ambitious and made the attunements build off of each other. First you had to grind rep to buy the keys to the heroic versions of the dungeons. Some of these had long, involved quest lines involving other dungeons in the vicinity to get keys to the third one like Shattered Halls, Arcatraz, etc. Then you had to do specific ones on heroic in order to get key fragments to take into the Black Morass for your Karazhan attunement. Then you hhad to kill Prince Mal'kazaar and Gruul to get attuned to Serpentshrine Cavern. The Eye, aka Tempest Keep, had a quest line similar to Karahzan's. You had to kill Lady Vash'j and Kael'thas to get attuned to Mt. Hyjal. You had to kill specific bosses in SSC and TK, in a specific order which involved jumping back and forth between to two raids IIRC, then kill a specific boss in Mt Hyjal, to get attuned to Black Temple.

What was the result? Guilds having to recruit from a continually decreasing pool or they would have to take nights off to run old content. One of the top guilds on my server actually carried another guild's Kael'thas kill to simply get recruits attuned to Hyjal. People complained. And Black Temple nearly had the same fate as NAxxramas did in Patch 1.11... an expensive piece of content hardly anyone saw the inside of let alone cleared. Which is why Blizzard eliminated all attunements in Patch 2.4. The only "attunement" that remained IIRC was the one that required a normal kill of a capital boss before you could go into heroic versus the switches that Ulduar had.