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  1. #101
    Quote Originally Posted by jazen View Post
    The 'esportification' of WoW is the single largest reason for the decline in subscriptions. Making it so the average player (casual in WoW vernacular) can't be competitive may make the 10% (OoA number) of WoW players that raid mythic/arena happy, but it doesn't make the average player want to try.
    I don't get how you can get to that conclusion, even if it's true and Blizzard uses this approach they completely fail, the sentiment of the hardcore playerbase is a lot harsher towards WoW then that of the average player.

    To elaborate on that, while you could say that mythic+ was a step in the direction of 'esportification' what it did at the same time was making dungeons more relevant over an expansion when it has been raid or die before that.

    Legion also increased things you could do in the open world and kept that more relevant over the expansion with worldquests and emissaries.

    Bfa and SL tried to expand on that foundation and implemented more endgame activities with island expeditions, warfronts and torghast.

    Not really stuff that the "top 10%" is interested in or asked for, especially with blizzards habit to tie relevant player power for that group to it.
    Last edited by Caprias; 2021-11-05 at 12:23 PM.

  2. #102
    Quote Originally Posted by Theangryone View Post
    So you believe that when WoW has at its highest, it was designed for a niche group and not everyone? And you also believe that since Wrath, content has been consistently designed for the widest possible audience?
    Yes thats actualy truth. Why? Becouse those 10+ mil players were that niche audience. What loved to play mmo game. Then they start add more covinience, game become easyer and more solo friendly which should in theori increase pool.of players right? No wrong. These changes had giant impact on entire mmo structure and made wow players bored.

    Look at HoTS. Most casual.moba on the market. Super covinient and easy to play. Nice communist shared level progression. Such game by your logic should be most popular moba. Well thst game is dead btw.

  3. #103
    Quote Originally Posted by Elias1337 View Post
    Yes thats actualy truth. Why? Becouse those 10+ mil players were that niche audience. What loved to play mmo game. Then they start add more covinience, game become easyer and more solo friendly which should in theori increase pool.of players right? No wrong. These changes had giant impact on entire mmo structure and made wow players bored.

    Look at HoTS. Most casual.moba on the market. Super covinient and easy to play. Nice communist shared level progression. Such game by your logic should be most popular moba. Well thst game is dead btw.
    Its not exactly that, its that all those players reach their end point faster, and the natural cycle begins.

    Blizzard knows they cant have (random numbers, dont base your response to the numbers) 8-10 million players subbed for 2 years in a row, but they know they can have 20 million subbing for a month or two anywhere in those 2 years, and the design has shifted into making those people sub one month extra, that is all.

    Its basically this :

    "The proper time a decent player will use for this content is 5 hours", average player needs 30 hours for the same thing.

    Leveling in Vanilla/Classic/TBCC is a prime example of this, decent players did something like 80-100 hours, average classic player probably did 200 + or more.

    200 hours for a true casual can literally be a year of gameplay.

    Now that the leveling changed and became faster/easier/more story oriented than mindless terrible quests of walk 3 continents to kill 5 boars and come back, and its 10-20 hours, obviously the more casuals take around there also, maybe 30 cause its actually no pointless travelling and there is guidance, etc.
    Last edited by potis; 2021-11-05 at 12:26 PM.

  4. #104
    Quote Originally Posted by potis View Post
    Its not exactly that, its that all those players reach their end point faster, and the natural cycle begins.

    Blizzard knows they cant have (random numbers, dont base your response to the numbers) 8-10 million players subbed for 2 years in a row, but they know they can have 20 million subbing for a month or two anywhere in those 2 years, and the design has shifted into making those people sub one month extra, that is all.

    Its basically this :

    "The proper time a decent player will use for this content is 5 hours", average player needs 30 hours for the same thing.

    Leveling in Vanilla/Classic/TBCC is a prime example of this, decent players did something like 80-100 hours, average classic player probably did 200 + or more.

    200 hours for a true casual can literally be a year of gameplay.

    Now that the leveling changed and became faster/easier/more story oriented than mindless terrible quests of walk 3 continents to kill 5 boars and come back, and its 10-20 hours, obviously the more casuals take around there also, maybe 30 cause its actually no pointless travelling and there is guidance, etc.
    People just quit. There are millions of games as blizzard is finding out and ones that respect people's time are blowing chunks out of wow's audience. Hell I can't think of a reason why non mythic raiders and non pvpers wouldn't be playing final fantasy at this point. The memes I see about it ring true.

    As for myself...well I wait with baited breath that either things get better for mythic raiders or Riot gets its mmo off the ground. I trust Riot to make a good game they showed they know how to aim at a audience and maintain it.

    Till then though...

  5. #105
    Quote Originally Posted by Log Cabin View Post
    Hell I can't think of a reason why non mythic raiders and non pvpers wouldn't be playing final fantasy at this point. The memes I see about it ring true
    Precisely. I still tell everyone that I talk games with that WoW does WoW best and always will. But what WoW is has become incredibly narrow. As soon as people realize that they are never going to be those people pushing +20s and getting Cutting Edge Mythic clears, they leave. WoW is for those players exclusively. All features receiving developer attention are designed to funnel players into endless keystone grinding and Mythic raiding. Even something that should be for casuals, like Torghast, is hamstrung by tying it into the loot treadmill.

    FFXIV respects other playstyles, whereas WoW doesn't really acknowledge their existence. Unfortunately, this has also conditioned the WoW playerbase to not recognize anything other than Mythic raids and dungeon grinding as "legitimate content."

  6. #106
    Quote Originally Posted by Log Cabin View Post
    People just quit.
    Thats exactly what i am talking about. People quit, and some come back randomly or they dont, but thats what dont people get, its not 10 million people the last 17 years, its close to 200 million accounts, lets pretend 20mil are bot and bla bla bla.

    There is probably a good 150 million players that could eventually re-sub, most wont, but thats what people dont understand, many do, and thats Blizzards goal, for those that do after 5 years, after 10 years, or whenever, to pay the expansion +1 month, and then all the design is to keep them playing more, even if its one more month, they make millions.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by draugril View Post

    FFXIV respects other playstyles, whereas WoW doesn't really acknowledge their existence. Unfortunately, this has also conditioned the WoW playerbase to not recognize anything other than Mythic raids and dungeon grinding as "legitimate content."
    It does, thats why leveling takes 20 hours, thats why there are pointless 1-2 hour campaign quests/week for 10 weeks in a row, etc and there isnt an option "We see you are a better than average player, wanna skip everything and just do the fun things"?

    Problem with the "newer" generation is that they dont accept what WoW is, aka endgame, aka raiding simulator, and its not Skyrim and no one cares about your solo content, they give you <insert XX hours of content> per patch, and the rest is back to gear chasing as it has been for 17 years, if people cant understand that...

  7. #107
    The Unstoppable Force Jessicka's Avatar
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    Sounds like you have it all backwards.

    You're complaining about roadblocks that allow 'everyone' to play together, which by definition means those roadblocks are designed and intended to expressly ensure that content not be for everyone.

    That they then have to remove those roadblocks suggests that content not made for everyone is the fucking problem.

  8. #108
    Quote Originally Posted by draugril View Post
    Blizzard needs to be confident enough to let its features stand on their own without tying everything into endgame power progression.

    Torghast would have been one of the most innovative additions to the game if it wasn't hamstrung by the obligation of millions of players being forced into the content to get their legendary to do other content. If it was designed specifically for people that would be interested in a rogue-like experience in WoW, it would be unleashed and probably fantastic.
    Bingo. I'm sure people are tired of the FFXIV comparisons, but FFXIV does this in spades.

  9. #109
    Quote Originally Posted by draugril View Post
    Precisely. I still tell everyone that I talk games with that WoW does WoW best and always will. But what WoW is has become incredibly narrow. As soon as people realize that they are never going to be those people pushing +20s and getting Cutting Edge Mythic clears, they leave. WoW is for those players exclusively. All features receiving developer attention are designed to funnel players into endless keystone grinding and Mythic raiding. Even something that should be for casuals, like Torghast, is hamstrung by tying it into the loot treadmill.

    FFXIV respects other playstyles, whereas WoW doesn't really acknowledge their existence. Unfortunately, this has also conditioned the WoW playerbase to not recognize anything other than Mythic raids and dungeon grinding as "legitimate content."
    Unfortunately as one of the mythic plus and raiders I can tell you this is a negative for that crowd... what do I care about choreghast, dailies, whatever the story is, etc?

    I just wanna be left alone in my damn dungeons and raids but they drag me out to go grind things I really couldn't care about but have to do because my content is designed around minimal power gains that casuals likely don't even notice nor care about...

    It makes for the nastiest type of players in the world to. I know some guildies go around in full raid gear in a warmode group to corpse camp people to "vent". It is a system no one wins in.

  10. #110
    Quote Originally Posted by Log Cabin View Post
    Unfortunately as one of the mythic plus and raiders I can tell you this is a negative for that crowd... what do I care about choreghast, dailies, whatever the story is, etc?

    I just wanna be left alone in my damn dungeons and raids but they drag me out to go grind things I really couldn't care about but have to do because my content is designed around minimal power gains that casuals likely don't even notice nor care about...

    It makes for the nastiest type of players in the world to. I know some guildies go around in full raid gear in a warmode group to corpse camp people to "vent". It is a system no one wins in.
    I'm not saying this is a plus for you guys. Simply that Blizzard doesn't know how to make content other than raids and keystones inherently engaging, so they strongarm you guys into doing the content to remain viable so they can increase their "engagement" metric. Because if people are doing content, it must be fun, right? It isn't because you forced people to do it if they want to remain viable in the content they actually want to do?

    The team needs to take a look at Goodhart's Law for their design decisions:

    When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
    If they want to know the content players are enjoying, it is completely legitimate to look at the time people spend doing which content. But that metric doesn't define the inherent "fun" value of that content, even if it serves as an indicator. They've made the mistake of designing the game to inflate metrics and have confused that with having inherently engaging content.

  11. #111
    Titan Orby's Avatar
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    I often say the more you try and appeal to everyone the more you appeal to no one...

    for example trying to appeal to both casual and hardcore players wont work, because casual would want the game casual, while the hardcore will complain that the game is becoming more casual. being in the middle is hard to have because then both sides are never happy.

    I get the idea of trying to appeal to more people, most often than not you never can.. I am sure there are exceptions to the rule though.
    I love Warcraft, I dislike WoW

    Unsubbed since January 2021, now a Warcraft fan from a distance

  12. #112
    Quote Originally Posted by Log Cabin View Post
    Unfortunately as one of the mythic plus and raiders I can tell you this is a negative for that crowd... what do I care about choreghast, dailies, whatever the story is, etc?

    I just wanna be left alone in my damn dungeons and raids but they drag me out to go grind things I really couldn't care about but have to do because my content is designed around minimal power gains that casuals likely don't even notice nor care about...

    It makes for the nastiest type of players in the world to. I know some guildies go around in full raid gear in a warmode group to corpse camp people to "vent". It is a system no one wins in.
    Hmm... but the only solution is to remove either global gear progress or any content outside of raids and dungeons.
    Or what else could be done for them? These players have to accept that there is no golden-solution to this.

    The only time that kind of player wouldn't do something other than raiding and dungeons is if there is nothing to gain.

    Not only would they complain about how there is nothing to do other than raiding/dungeons as well, but more importantly that would eventually mean that every single player is forced into that kind of content if Blizzard did it their way, even if they don't actually enjoy it.

    The alternative would be: gear for dungeons, gear for raids, gear for open world, gear for PVP - and every single piece is only working on the content where it came from. That sucks too, doesn't it?

    Isn't it just better to accept that these players are the problem (and not even really welcome), not the game mechanics and systems?

    I think it's a much better idea to be able to get very good gear from absolutely everything with enough investment
    WQs shouldn't just drop Mythic Raid gear, but maybe over weeks and months, with a currency, it should be possible to get something out of it. It would put emphasis on content design other than Raids/Dungeons as well and improve the game overall for everyone who isn't playing WoW as a dungeon crawler.
    If Mythic raiders and key-pushers can't handle it for some reason, it's their problem imho. They should be a relative small niche anyway compared to the casual crowd at least.

    In my opinion, the main reason why these people don't want to engage in anything other than raids and dungeon is the lack of actual *good* content outside of it in the first place.
    It's obviously not easy to design content just like that... but I mean... Blizzard doesn't even really try anymore.
    I still think that the Garrison was good content. Just not as a "main feature" but it certainly was a fun minigame for most people I talked with.
    Last edited by KrayZ33; 2021-11-05 at 01:39 PM.

  13. #113
    The Unstoppable Force Jessicka's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by draugril View Post
    If they want to know the content players are enjoying, it is completely legitimate to look at the time people spend doing which content. But that metric doesn't define the inherent "fun" value of that content, even if it serves as an indicator. They've made the mistake of designing the game to inflate metrics and have confused that with having inherently engaging content.
    Think engagement is actually being used to justify peoples jobs and investment in the team, so teams on those specific projects are being protected by mandatory engagement. That's even more insidious, but that's what happens when you've got to explain why the company needs you and your work.

    A lot of this stuff would just be cut altogether if they didn't have sufficient engagement figures to justify the effort that went into it. We got a lot of hints around this being their way of working when they implemented LFR, and later with Garrisons.

  14. #114
    Quote Originally Posted by draugril View Post
    I'm not saying this is a plus for you guys. Simply that Blizzard doesn't know how to make content other than raids and keystones inherently engaging, so they strongarm you guys into doing the content to remain viable so they can increase their "engagement" metric. Because if people are doing content, it must be fun, right? It isn't because you forced people to do it if they want to remain viable in the content they actually want to do?

    The team needs to take a look at Goodhart's Law for their design decisions:



    If they want to know the content players are enjoying, it is completely legitimate to look at the time people spend doing which content. But that metric doesn't define the inherent "fun" value of that content, even if it serves as an indicator. They've made the mistake of designing the game to inflate metrics and have confused that with having inherently engaging content.
    I do agree with you. To offer an outsiders take on it and in the matter of non group content I do consider myself an outsider. Isn't the issue that there isn't any compelling or challenging content outside of raids and dungeons?

    I thought the reason why mage tower and to a lesser extent visions did good to alright was that they offered players an actually challenge over butchering 30 random defenseless world mobs? Granted visions came with so much baggage attached to them with grinds and that pointless skill system time gating I can get why they didn't take off as well as they should of.

    It just annoys me personally how it seems like whenever the changes made to the game over the years seem to be cast in such a light that the changes made are to appease raiders for a lack of a better term. They don't... we simply wish to be left in our raids and dungeons undisturbed and disturbing no-one. We are not sauron from lord of the rings... more the ents.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZ33 View Post
    Hmm... but the only solution is to remove either global gear progress or any content outside of raids and dungeons.
    Or what else could be done for them? These players have to accept that there is no golden-solution to this.

    The only time that kind of player wouldn't do something other than raiding and dungeons is if there is nothing to gain.

    Not only would they complain about how there is nothing to do other than raiding/dungeons as well, but more importantly that would eventually mean that every single player is forced into that kind of content if Blizzard did it their way, even if they don't actually enjoy it.

    The alternative would be: gear for dungeons, gear for raids, gear for open world, gear for PVP - and every single piece is only working on the content where it came from. That sucks too, doesn't it?

    Isn't it just better to accept that these players are the problem (and not even really welcome), not the game mechanics and systems?
    I've never personally heard of a raider asking for things to be added beyond more dungeons and raids... I am sure some must exist it is a community of likely 50,000 players give or take but so far the only content that really tickled them that was solo was mage tower.

    I personally would rather they split the child and go with gear only effecting that progression path personally. You don't seem to understand. Mythic raiders hell even most heroic raiders don't want what your offering. They crave isolation nothing more nothing less... Leave us to our dark and gloomy forest and bother us no longer.

  15. #115
    Quote Originally Posted by Jessicka View Post
    Think engagement is actually being used to justify peoples jobs and investment in the team, so teams on those specific projects are being protected by mandatory engagement. That's even more insidious, but that's what happens when you've got to explain why the company needs you and your work.

    A lot of this stuff would just be cut altogether if they didn't have sufficient engagement figures to justify the effort that went into it. We got a lot of hints around this being their way of working when they implemented LFR, and later with Garrisons.
    And this is why other games, such as FFXIV, are gaining traction. They aren't afraid to implement features that won't appeal to everyone. I will never touch Chocobo breeding, but I know others who are addicted. There are multiple ways to level a class outside of basic questing/dungeon spam (note that not all of them are efficient, but all avenues still see a good amount of engagement because people actively do what they like). They have an entire class that can't do endgame content. Player housing exists.

    In fact, they cut their equivalent to a Mythic tier to ensure they had the resources to appeal to those smaller subsets of players - not everything is sacrificed on the altar of endgame raiding.

  16. #116
    Quote Originally Posted by Elias1337 View Post
    It affects how will players feel about rewaeds they get and effort they put into the game. You can argue that its just game as you want. It wont ever change peoples aproach toward rewards and effort. People suddendly do not behave differently just becouse they play game and they shouldnt.

    People what defend this type of communist system are only those what profit from it. Aka lazy players.
    So this is a game which is not played because it’s fun or challenging to play but only because of a sort of e-peen metric.

    People don’t clear M15 because it’s fun and challenging, they clear them at that level because rewards are better then people who don’t clear them for whatever reason.

    It’s not about what i can get, it’s about what others can’t get.

    This is why the community is so toxic and the game subs are slowly fading away.

    Glad I went back to ARPGS and SWTOR where nobody cares about other people’s gear in order to have fun.

  17. #117
    Quote Originally Posted by Log Cabin View Post
    I do agree with you. To offer an outsiders take on it and in the matter of non group content I do consider myself an outsider. Isn't the issue that there isn't any compelling or challenging content outside of raids and dungeons?

    I thought the reason why mage tower and to a lesser extent visions did good to alright was that they offered players an actually challenge over butchering 30 random defenseless world mobs? Granted visions came with so much baggage attached to them with grinds and that pointless skill system time gating I can get why they didn't take off as well as they should of.

    It just annoys me personally how it seems like whenever the changes made to the game over the years seem to be cast in such a light that the changes made are to appease raiders for a lack of a better
    To be clear, it's not the "fault" of raiders themselves. It's Blizzard viewing that playstyle as the only "legitimate" way to play the game. Mage Towers were fantastic because they were self-contained. Torghast would be even better, but they refuse to let it stand on its own merit. Same for the Visions. Instead of allowing people to enjoy content based on the merit of that content, they layer a few systems on top to get as many people as possible to play it. And, obviously, these systems all feed into that endgame loot treadmill. As such, the design decisions with that content need to be neutered because the content needs to be at least tolerable for the swathes of disinterested players they're forcing into it, which completely kneecaps the system for those who were conceptually interested in it. Thus, it appeals to no one.

    And in the process... you start to lose people. If people are ambivalent about 95% of the content, but super interested in that remaining 5%... just let them play that 5%. Let raid loggers raid log. Don't force PvPers to PvE to remain competitive, and vice versa. If you force them to play content that aren't engaged in, they'll burn out. Especially after three expansions of the same formula.

    Honestly, I just think they're scared to place any sort of legitimate focus on features outside of their raids.
    Last edited by draugril; 2021-11-05 at 01:52 PM.

  18. #118
    Quote Originally Posted by T-34 View Post
    Exactly! Players that wilfully refuse to be the best they can be and who don't respect the time and efforts of their fellow players try to represent themselves as "persecuted casuals" by the "evil gatekeeping elitists", whereas this isn't a question of casuals vs. hardcore' - this is a question whether reward should follow difficulty of content or not.

    You can easily find casual players that can clear the hardest content in-game, just as you can easily find people that play the game hardcore who aren't able to do silver proving grounds.

    People that advocate for that trivial content should give the highest rewards aren't casual - they are players that wilfully refuse to put in an effort and who are rightfully ridiculed and shunned by normal players, casuals as well as hardcore.
    Sorry, I still couldn’t find any valid reason you should care the way I get my top gear.

    You like getting it doing M+? Fine.

    I like getting it fishing all the time? Fine.

    Your playstyle doesn’t affect mine, mine doesn’t affect yours. This is all you should care IF you play for the sake of having fun doing what you like to do in game.

  19. #119
    The Unstoppable Force Jessicka's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by draugril View Post
    And this is why other games, such as FFXIV, are gaining traction. They aren't afraid to implement features that won't appeal to everyone. I will never touch Chocobo breeding, but I know others who are addicted. There are multiple ways to level a class outside of basic questing/dungeon spam (note that not all of them are efficient, but all avenues still see a good amount of engagement because people actively do what they like). They have an entire class that can't do endgame content. Player housing exists.

    In fact, they cut their equivalent to a Mythic tier to ensure they had the resources to appeal to those smaller subsets of players - not everything is sacrificed on the altar of endgame raiding.
    Completely agree, when you have a game with a massive and diverse playerbase it shouldn't be 'odd' that different people like different things. I'm all for incentives and encouragement to try new things, or to make them occasional content, but to make them a part of the central weekly treadmill just seems to turn more people off than it brings in.

    I also think more people might enjoy those distractions without the pressure.

  20. #120
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    GC and others have pointed out before that game data shows players do not “rise to the occasion” when they make things intentionally harder. Therefore, to retain the most players and make the most money, flexibility is the only way to do that. That means having LFR, flex raids in varying difficulties, and a very optional hard mode (mythic) for the few that do want to push.

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