I think content designed for everyone can't succeed

[BeepBoo]

WoW, and other RPGs, have always been "hamsterwheel games" where you beat content and get better gear that can help you beat harder content so you can get better gear so you can beat harder content and so on.
Getting better gear = getting more powerful is a staple of RPG-games. WoW isn't a game where your ability to "win" is 100% based on skill, gear plays a significant role in your ability to "win".

No one said otherwise. I'm fine with the hamster wheel, but wow was best when you could realistically "cap out" your character every tier before the next one released. Specifically, WOTLK.

Just remember the shitshow when Blizzard demanded that you should be able to do silver proving grounds in order to do heroic dungeons.
You couldn't outgear that and the cries of the entitled could be heard to the moon.

There's more than one way to skin this cat.

[Osmeric]

But when the content was changed is when people started unsubbing?????

Or, when people started unsubbing the content was changed.

[Leer]

Or, when people started unsubbing the content was changed.

If that is true it is the worse way to go about it. WoW's audience is rather niche always has been likely always will. You won't ever attract a new population you will simply burn out your old one faster.

Think about it. Let's say you have a friend interested in mmos. How do you recommend wow to them? The whole " well if you grind for six weeks and we carry you maybe you can come raid mythic with us" is a pretty weak pitch.

[TheRevenantHero]

Alternate title of this thread: Gatekeeping should become far more prominent in WoW.

[Osmeric]

If that is true it is the worse way to go about it. WoW's audience is rather niche always has been likely always will. You won't ever attract a new population you will simply burn out your old one faster.

Think about it. Let's say you have a friend interested in mmos. How do you recommend wow to them? The whole " well if you grind for six weeks and we carry you maybe you can come raid mythic with us" is a pretty weak pitch.

I don't agree with this. Something in WoW attracted a lot of people. It's reasonable to try to retain that attraction, and try to remedy what otherwise drove people away.

My take on this has long been that what happened was that a central pillar of Blizzard's design philosophy -- the catering to the best players and allowing them to shine, to show off that they had indeed mastered the "difficult to master" part of the game -- was not helpful in the long term. I think they faced a choice of abandoning that pillar, or losing most of the people they had attracted, and they could not force themselves to do the former.

[draugril]

It's fine that the game softly encourages you to try harder content. Some players might be enticed, try it and find it satisfying to do. There are plenty who just stop at their difficulty level of choice and consider themselves done with the content until the next patch. It's fine that there is content of varying difficulty in the game. Not everyone has to complete everything, and not everything has to be for everyone.

"Softly encourages"? Sure. Tell that to all the guilds that have been ripped in half because not all its members are on exactly the same page.

In the Molten Core days, you could have a wildly diverse raid team - as long as you were killing bosses, all was well. Your top tier raiders were completing the highest tier of raid content, your bottom tier got to see content they wouldn't see solo, and everyone in the middle had a great time.

These days? Those top tier members are going to want to push further, but the rest of the roster can no longer assist them. The lower tier players are just going to be cut out since their presence scales the raid to make it harder for everyone else. And the players in the middle? They either burn themselves out trying to keep up with the top tier, or stop playing entirely. If your team doesn't have the same dedication, scheduling needs, and skillset across the board... you might as well not even try.

I find myself as one of those middling players. I could keep up on the loot treadmill through WotLK or so, but life changes. As did the game. Where my guild used to be able to accommodate working adults and parents, propped up by the more dedicated among us, the development team decided to make trying to play with a diverse group actively detrimental to the most dedicated. I burned out trying to keep up, and more than that, I burned out trying to keep us together.

[Elias1337]

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.

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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...

Hahah yeah thing is that gear chasing was in past fun. You wanted to gear character becouse it unlocked for you whole new content. You wanted t4 to clear t5, you wanted t5 to clear t6. Nowdays gear chasingg is boring becouse all you do is chasing nubmers not new content. You increase your itemlvl so you can increase diffiuctly of content you have areldy done countless time before just to get high itemlvl so you can do all over again on even harder difficutly. Then your gear gest reseted every single content update and you have perfect mix of creating player apathy towards gear progression. Who would though that such system will no be fun-. Shocking.

[Xath]

I don't agree with this. Something in WoW attracted a lot of people. It's reasonable to try to retain that attraction, and try to remedy what otherwise drove people away.

My take on this has long been that what happened was that a central pillar of Blizzard's design philosophy -- the catering to the best players and allowing them to shine, to show off that they had indeed mastered the "difficult to master" part of the game -- was not helpful in the long term. I think they faced a choice of abandoning that pillar, or losing most of the people they had attracted, and they could not force themselves to do the former.

What attracted people was it was a casual mmo but if you put in the time it could be surprisingly difficult and deep. There was always stuff to push for unless you were the top. Then they started making every tier worthless when a new one came out and lost a lot of that. At least that's my view.

[potis]

snip

The community asked for this system years ago, dont blame Blizzard for something thats community requested.

People that havent played at a higher level since the start, or at least for a long time, dont really know the game, thats why as i have said before, the opinion of the majority of the game is irrelevant, not because they might not be correct about something, but when you whine about 10 things, where the 9 you know nothing about, you are gonna be ignored for the 1 also.

I cant be bothered writing a wall of text again, its basically this, the way the game was designed is that everyone would be a decent player and would try to progress slowly through the tiers as you describe.

The reality? 99% is terrible at the game for their own reasons (understandable for some, but the reality is that people are just terrible at the game) and no matter what Blizzard tried, the players would not improve and would rather quit the game (costs them loss of profits) rather than learn to play, and this was an actual report from Blizzard by the end of Cataclysm, its not random words on the internet by me.

So what was the best solution? Multi difficulties, reset gear every patch, and it worked, instead of the 1% seeing the content, up to 60% saw ALL EXPANSION content at some form and difficulty.