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  1. #501
    Quote Originally Posted by Tyris Flare View Post
    The last three expansions (basically the modern game) have had an enormous amount of resources directed into non-raid content. Covenant halls, quests, the maw, torghast, korthia, ZM.

    Not liking them is one thing. I personally think like 90% of that stuff is garbage. But they all took a ton of resources and it's not clear they added or kept many customers.
    I can't speak for anyone but myself, but from my own personal perspective it wasn't a matter of "not liking", but rather, outside of Zerith Mortis, the content you listed was resources devoted to content that ultimately was either obligatory (soul ash), or didn't matter past a certain point. A point that fell far short of the point of mattering that the "big three" (raids, m+, pvp) did. Now to be fair, I single out Zerith Mortis because, as a player who prefers to avoid the "big three", I found ZM to be a breath of fresh air, vs. Korthia which was shit IMO.

    Korthia was a soul crushing rep AND currency grind to be able to scrape yourself tooth and nail to mediocrity on one character. On the other hand, Zerith Mortis had a fairly decent storyline associated with it (imo) , and the post story repeatable content was generally quick, bite sized, and rewarding. Everything I am looking for. I can't say just how many players look at content like I do, but I know damn well I'm not alone.

    Blizzard doesn't know when they actually do shit right. They make changes for the sake of change, or to slow us down because they can't be arsed to make enough content, so they'd rather fuck up what works in an effort to stretch what they do make out longer. Instead of looking for ways to make more content, they look for ways to make less and stretch it out. WoD was shit. It was by far the worst expansion as far as I'm concerned. Legion was a redemption story in my eyes. It wasn't perfect, but it earned back a lot of goodwill from me despite its flaws. I enjoyed Mythic+ in Legion. I enjoyed world quests in Legion. I enjoyed invasions in Legion.

    So what did Blizzard do in BfA? They made M+ worse (imo) and it stayed that way in SL. World quests were largely fine in BfA if stingy on rep, but were made worse in SL (gone are the days of kill mr. convenient and shell game wq's for the most part) with the justification that they were less stingy with rep. BfA's assaults were a poor man's version of Legion's invasions (imo). I rarely did them because of the inconvenience and time required factor vs. Legion invasions which had a mix of tedious wq's and quick/convenient wq's. BfA flushed a lot of the goodwill Legion earned down the toilet. And while I consider Shadowlands better than BfA by a small margin (largely due to additional customization, liking the concept of exploring the afterlife, and 9.2's ZM content), it didn't earn as much goodwill and it really needed to in my eyes.

    While I only have a bare bit of info on Dragonflight so far, Blizz SEEMS to be heading in a better direction. 9.2 gives me hope that maybe, just maybe it won't be another "you don't need gear if you don't raid/m+/pvp" expansion. That I'm going to have, not just a lot of content to engage with, but content I want to do, that feels worth doing, but isn't a soul crushing slog, and doesn't feel obligatory. No borrowed power + the new talent trees seems like a big step towards the "no obligatory" crap, and interviews seem to indicate they want players to be able to progress while engaging with content they enjoy rather than having no choice but to do things they really don't want to just to improve their character. The "most things account wide other than player power (mainly gear)" is another big plus in my book. I just hope Blizz gives the whole idea of "more challenging content" a break and strives for "more fun content" instead. While some may find challenging content "fun", I do not. I am not interested in being "challenged". I am interested in being "entertained".

    I'll be keeping my eyes on news about Dragonflight. I'm hoping that the sales pitch they made in April is more than just flowery words.
    Last edited by Kyriani; 2022-05-10 at 12:38 AM.

  2. #502
    Quote Originally Posted by Kyriani View Post
    I can't speak for anyone but myself, but from my own personal perspective it wasn't a matter of "not liking", but rather, outside of Zerith Mortis, the content you listed was resources devoted to content that ultimately was either obligatory (soul ash), or didn't matter past a certain point. A point that fell far short of the point of mattering that the "big three" (raids, m+, pvp) did. Now to be fair, I single out Zerith Mortis because, as a player who prefers to avoid the "big three", I found ZM to be a breath of fresh air, vs. Korthia which was shit IMO.

    .
    This is all perfectly reasonable, and I think there's a good argument that investing in content to bring in a player like you is very worth their time. Aka, someone who is not impossibly bitter and can be entertained by the game under realistic content conditions (a good ZM!) without completely changing the entire game.

    But a lot of other folks here (assuming they are expressing their preferences correctly) are probably people I would largely ignore because they are too bitter or too far gone that there's nothing realistic to bring them back.

    Another way to think about this is making a big movie. Say its a big dumb action/adventure movie (Marvel flick or something) and you know that if you add in a small romance subplot or similar character arc you can bring in more people. Great!

    But what if that audience demands 45min of screentime? 60m? Well, now you have made the movie uninteresting to your core demographic because they will feel bait and switched, the same was as if you added an hour of explosions to a romcom. You have almost certainly lost more than you have gained.

    This is not that different than WoW, imo. A change that brings in new/old players while mostly leaving existing players alone would be a slam dunk. A new feature that might bring in new/old players but alienates people who already enjoy and play the game would be a disaster.
    A better way to think about Casual v Hardcore: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...asual-Hardcore

  3. #503
    Quote Originally Posted by Relapses View Post
    God forbid anybody on a fucking video game forum have the audacity to enjoy a video game the way it is. No, they're just hopeless addicts who need the guidance of sagely enlightened cynics like yourself who possess the unique ability to see everything from the angle that regardless of what Blizzard does or doesn't do with the game, they're doing it because fuck you.
    Pretty much this. It's very tiresome to read. We only play cause we're addicts, or we have low standards and are fine with crap, or we're sunk cost and sticking with it, or some other depressing thing. It's literally "stop liking what I don't like" mixed with "I'm so much cooler than you for hating this thing."
    The most difficult thing to do is accept that there is nothing wrong with things you don't like and accept that people can like things you don't.

  4. #504
    Quote Originally Posted by Tyris Flare View Post
    This is all perfectly reasonable, and I think there's a good argument that investing in content to bring in a player like you is very worth their time. Aka, someone who is not impossibly bitter and can be entertained by the game under realistic content conditions (a good ZM!) without completely changing the entire game.

    But a lot of other folks here (assuming they are expressing their preferences correctly) are probably people I would largely ignore because they are too bitter or too far gone that there's nothing realistic to bring them back.
    Yea, I get that. There's a lot of people who have just given up on WoW ever giving them what they are looking for anymore. I want to believe that WoW can find a middle ground for players like me and people who enjoy challenging content/the "big three". I see signs that it's possible. It's just up to Blizz to follow through.

    Another way to think about this is making a big movie. Say its a big dumb action/adventure movie (Marvel flick or something) and you know that if you add in a small romance subplot or similar character arc you can bring in more people. Great!

    But what if that audience demands 45min of screentime? 60m? Well, now you have made the movie uninteresting to your core demographic because they will feel bait and switched, the same was as if you added an hour of explosions to a romcom. You have almost certainly lost more than you have gained.

    This is not that different than WoW, imo. A change that brings in new/old players while mostly leaving existing players alone would be a slam dunk. A new feature that might bring in new/old players but alienates people who already enjoy and play the game would be a disaster.
    I think that taking the Zerith Mortis model forward in some manner (without making it worse for the sake of stretching it out) would be a good start. The talent and profession revamp (with crafted tier ala catalyst) is also potentially another improvement that can bridge the gap between the casuals and hardcores (however one defines those). I'm just keeping fingers crossed that Blizz can nail the balance between the two to make the majority of both sides "happy enough".

  5. #505
    Quote Originally Posted by Kyriani View Post
    Yea, I get that. There's a lot of people who have just given up on WoW ever giving them what they are looking for anymore. I want to believe that WoW can find a middle ground for players like me and people who enjoy challenging content/the "big three". I see signs that it's possible. It's just up to Blizz to follow through.
    I don't think Blizzard has the insight or competence to follow through. One big reason for giving up on WoW is the realization that Blizzard fixing things is not a reasonable expectation. They just don't know how.
    "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
    "The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
    "Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"

  6. #506
    Quote Originally Posted by Osmeric View Post
    I don't think Blizzard has the insight or competence to follow through. One big reason for giving up on WoW is the realization that Blizzard fixing things is not a reasonable expectation. They just don't know how.
    I've felt that way at times, but 9.2 and what little we've heard about Dragonflight give me hope that this may actually be changing. Maybe it's just foolish optimism/hopium on my part? I guess my cynicism hasn't hit the point of no return yet. I'll just have to see if my hopium has a leg to stand on as more info on DF becomes available.

  7. #507
    Quote Originally Posted by Kyriani View Post
    I've felt that way at times, but 9.2 and what little we've heard about Dragonflight give me hope that this may actually be changing. Maybe it's just foolish optimism/hopium on my part? I guess my cynicism hasn't hit the point of no return yet. I'll just have to see if my hopium has a leg to stand on as more info on DF becomes available.
    I think they've given that impression too many times and just fucked it up. I can't believe it, or them, at this point. What I heard about DF isn't making me think they can make a product that I'm going to want.
    "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
    "The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
    "Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"

  8. #508
    these are some valid points tbh..

  9. #509
    Quote Originally Posted by Tyris Flare View Post
    Is there a reason to believe that such players could be converted into valuable customers without exhausting resources that would lose other customers?
    I think this is a matter of game design. You'd need something conceptually similar to raiding/m+ for causuals, limited, easy to make content that can be played repeatedly over a longer period of time. Then you wouldn't have to shift developers en masse from raiding/m+ to casual content, a small group could do that.

    What that could be in detail? Don't know, i'm not a highly paid game designer.
    If i had to guess maybe something along the lines of Thorghast/Anarchy Online Terminals/Daoc catacombs, randomly created single player dungeons with desirable, grindable rewards. Or maybe some iteration on the reputation quests. Whatever it is, Blizz shouldn't have the raider/m+ people in mind at all when designing this. I think that a problem with all their previous attempts (like Thorgast, Island Expeditions, Warfronts, Scenarios and so on) that they always did this "We put in something for the raiders, too." thing that screwed over the whole concept.

  10. #510
    Quote Originally Posted by Relapses View Post
    I know that I'm not currently boosting (though I definitely could) because I'd rather buy a token than get "paid" to play the game. If the token didn't exist, I would be boosting because it'd be the only way for me to afford the raid mats I use when I run keys. (Not a fan of the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps and create a bunch of farming alts" or the "just play the AH" approach to wealth creation in this game.) Since removing the token does nothing to cease the demand for boosting, it'd just shove more players like me into the boosting role out of necessity... thereby further eroding whatever imaginary benefit you think not having the token around presents.
    Basically this. It's not like boosting wasn't there before token, token made it only more streamlined and easily accessible through "official" channels. Token itself isn't really a problem - it's Blizzard that needs to attack boosting practices if they don't like them. Which they did, greatly limiting the perimeter in which they can operate.

    I still think boosting overall is just detrimental to the game as whole - makes gold more important than it should be, doesn't make anything to increase players skill as they don't need to learn the then encounters (and it's greatly reflected in the pugging scene which is way bigger than the guild scene) and takes out any "value" from objectives one can set and get by himself. But i perfectly know it's not going anywhere so either i'm fine with what's happening or i can just go play another game.

    Boosting just gets less important when people have an easier time getting character power. And by easier i don't mean by doing an easier content, i mean when there is less friction and artificial barriers to gameplay. If someone can get gear/power without much of an hassle, suddendly he doesn't need the boosts anymore. Only thing left out is the fact that Curve/Rating is still the dominating factor when you're going to pug anything (but again, it's not boosting fault but players fault fundamentally).

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Yriel View Post
    -snip-
    Only real solution is for them to make distance from a pure vertical progression and start going more horizontal. But this also means a fundamental change in how the game is designed and i am sure it would just alienate a lot of players. I'm really curious about DF because the "we're changing the design philosophy" sentence is being thrown around a lot lately, and i want to see if it's a real change or just marketing.
    Non ti fidar di me se il cuor ti manca.

  11. #511
    Quote Originally Posted by Coldkil View Post
    Boosting just gets less important when people have an easier time getting character power. And by easier i don't mean by doing an easier content, i mean when there is less friction and artificial barriers to gameplay. If someone can get gear/power without much of an hassle, suddendly he doesn't need the boosts anymore. Only thing left out is the fact that Curve/Rating is still the dominating factor when you're going to pug anything (but again, it's not boosting fault but players fault fundamentally).
    As someone who is running around in way above "average" gear in every expansion I've played so far. I really don't understand why daily grinders are denied Mythic quality gear. I think everything should eventually lead to the best gear possible.
    People should simply learn to understand that this is not about who has the best gear the fastest. I never understood this "I'm forced to raid LFR" mentality when raid sets came out for example.

    In my opinion. there should be a currency you get for each and everything you do. If you have to, just cap it. But that currency should eventually lead to mythic gear.
    A daily gets you 30 points, a raid boss 500 (or something like that).

  12. #512
    i kinda dont understand the mentality: "everyone needs to achieve everything"

    Isnt it the main drive to get better at the game, to get this nice gear?

    Why cant i accept that i will never get the best gear in the game, if i dont kill the hardest bosses for it?

    even in the times i didnt hardcore raid, i was never like: "well i dont want to do something for it, but give me the best gear!".

    Why does everyone think that he needs to beat the whole game on all difficulties?
    back in my main wow days in bc and classic, most people couldnt even enter the highest dungeons, and will never even see the endgame content.
    now you have the "easy" raids so you at least can see all the content and all the bosses.
    and then you still whine that you cant kill everything on mythic.. i dont get it

  13. #513
    Quote Originally Posted by Wrathberry View Post
    i kinda dont understand the mentality: "everyone needs to achieve everything"

    Isnt it the main drive to get better at the game, to get this nice gear?
    The purpose of the game is to make money, not to make players better at the game.
    "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
    "The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
    "Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"

  14. #514
    Quote Originally Posted by Flatspriest View Post
    You must not have played the game during the original Classic era. You would have to sit and eat after every single mob. You would get attacked by anything and everything that was hostile towards you from a great distance. It was very much harder then. They have made this game so much easier over the years due to a majority of the player base being casuals rather than hard-core raiders.
    As someone who played the WoW beta.... vanilla wasnt all that much more difficult unless you were say, a Warrior. I played a Rogue way back when and it wasnt that hard. Especcially compared to litterally any MMO at the time. WoW's entire success is owed to being a casual experience made for casuals. Even back in vanilla raiders were a very tiny minority.
    World needs more Goblin Warriors https://i.imgur.com/WKs8aJA.jpg

  15. #515
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    I used to think this way too but to be fair there was a lot of guilds that beat one of the earlier raids on mythic setting, so more like "stop only tending to 30% of the player base."

  16. #516
    Quote Originally Posted by Osmeric View Post
    The purpose of the game is to make money, not to make players better at the game.
    Funny thing, one of the lead devs for D3 had this mentality from WoW that gear HAD to be this magical thing held up on a pedestol only for the best players and it couldnt come too rapidly or people would quit.

    Till he did the first item drop rate event. And it turns out ease of access to gear greatly INCREASED player retention. He experimented with it from that point; making new avenues for item gain and vastly increasing drop rates and it over all brought in new players, kept old ones, and in every way helped the health of the game.

    Raid quality gear in WoW used to be easy to get for casuals. And guess what? The game had VERY high player retention during that period. What brings players back and keeps them playing? End of expansions were gear becomes easier to access. What has always. ALWAYS. Murdered player interest and caused massive waves of people quiting? Making gear difficult to get.

    This is a lesson blizzard has learned many times in WoW as well as Diablo, yet they refuse to ever truly learn from it.
    World needs more Goblin Warriors https://i.imgur.com/WKs8aJA.jpg

  17. #517
    Quote Originally Posted by ugabelege View Post
    I used to think this way too but to be fair there was a lot of guilds that beat one of the earlier raids on mythic setting, so more like "stop only tending to 30% of the player base."
    Just 2225 guilds have clearned the first raid of SL on M, even at this point. If that were 30% of the player base the game would already be dead.
    "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
    "The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
    "Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"

  18. #518
    Quote Originally Posted by ugabelege View Post
    I used to think this way too but to be fair there was a lot of guilds that beat one of the earlier raids on mythic setting, so more like "stop only tending to 30% of the player base."
    30% is such a ludicrouslly high number for raiders. Even normal and up raiding doesn't likely amount to even 10% of the playerbase. Some servers? Yes, because raiders will congregate to a handful of servers. Most servers? lolno.

    Raiding is something that a minority of players do in every MMO. Its why MMO that try to pander to that audience always end up failing. Its trying to grab an audience that amounts to very little.
    World needs more Goblin Warriors https://i.imgur.com/WKs8aJA.jpg

  19. #519
    Quote Originally Posted by Toppy View Post
    This is a lesson blizzard has learned many times in WoW as well as Diablo, yet they refuse to ever truly learn from it.
    If there's one thing a company needs to do is get rid of employees who make mistakes the company has previously made. They either can't or don't care to learn from experience.
    "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
    "The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
    "Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"

  20. #520
    Quote Originally Posted by Wrathberry View Post
    i kinda dont understand the mentality: "everyone needs to achieve everything"

    Isnt it the main drive to get better at the game, to get this nice gear?

    Why cant i accept that i will never get the best gear in the game, if i dont kill the hardest bosses for it?

    even in the times i didnt hardcore raid, i was never like: "well i dont want to do something for it, but give me the best gear!".

    Why does everyone think that he needs to beat the whole game on all difficulties?
    back in my main wow days in bc and classic, most people couldnt even enter the highest dungeons, and will never even see the endgame content.
    now you have the "easy" raids so you at least can see all the content and all the bosses.
    and then you still whine that you cant kill everything on mythic.. i dont get it
    I'd say the purpose of the game (for the devs) is to make money, and (for the players) to entertain.

    There's a finite ceiling to how much "better" people can get at a game and it differs for everyone. If the game's "main drive" was to "get better at the game" it would inevitably push people out as more and more players hit their individual ceilings.

    I was well past being a teenager when WoW came out so I'm considerably older now. My physical and mental reactions are notably slower than they were 20 years ago plus the inevitable decline of health that aging brings.

    Difficulty increases over the years pushed me out of raiding. M+ difficulty scaling & player expectations (sorry but +15 is my limit and its not "easy" for me like many like to say it should be) pushed me out of doing dungeons as an endgame (what purpose do heroic dungeons even serve anymore?). Rated pvp pushed me out of doing anything worthwhile with pvp. No jumping into battlegrounds for some fun and coming away with something useful anymore. Can't even unlock an old artifact tint because it requires rated wins.

    I'm not looking for the "best gear in the game" for doing nothing. I do believe the gap between those that do the hardest content and those that only do the easiest content should be significantly smaller than it is, and difficult content bragging rights should come from cosmetics (unique skins, titles, mounts, etc).

    It's fine for skilled players to have some way to show off their achievements. It's not fine (imo) for the player power gap between the best and the worst to be massive because at the end of the day we're all playing the same game and to some degree are playing together, and if my experience is made worse because someone else decides my gear isn't good enough to do X thing, well that kinda fucking sucks for me now doesn't it? And how does that experience make me wanna keep playing and thus paying? Answer: It doesn't.
    Last edited by Kyriani; 2022-05-10 at 11:57 AM.

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