"Catering to 5% of your player base will leave you with 5% of your player base"

[ClownWorld]

Thought this thread was reffering to the woke mob.

[NineSpine]

See, that is what I mean with "factually incorrect".

1) No one, except for some extremists, is demanding for the game to become "casual unfriendly". The demands come exclusively from the "casual" side. Illustrated nicely by the fact that these threads are alwas made by the "casuals".
People on the other side just want a fair reward for the difficulty they do. If you do Heroic and M+ then you invest a lot of time into learning fights and executing them. The gear you get is the reward for this. If someone would get the same gear for, let's say, farming Marrowroot, which requires neither skill nor practice, then that would be incredibly unfair.

That is demanding other people have less fun. You told me I was wrong and then repeated the exact argument I made. What you described is someone saying "Not only do I want rewards, but I want others to get less rewards to make me feel good."

2) The game HAS become more and more casual friendly for years now. You literally can get a raid setbonus now for farming open world currency. But despite all of this, the "casuals" keep opening threads like this. Tell me, when does it end? When is there enough casual friendliness? How much more do the "casuals" need?

Because casuals want gameplay. They want things to do. This isn't about getting raid set bonuses. This is about having a fun set of endgame activities that give meaningful rewards. "Hey we made everything you like to do completely unrewarded, but uh.... set bonus pieces from grinding one zone!" is not the knock-down argument you think it is.

I am flat out certain that the screaming will not end until you can log in and get a set of Mythic raid level gear in your mailbox for the achievment of paying a sub. Probably not even then and that is why these threads are so harmful.

Every time we ask for things to do, you guys start rambling about mythic level raid gear. You impose your obsession with gear and what other people have onto us. It's like someone saying "I wish there was a local soccer league to play in" and you respond "OH SO YOU WANT A SOCCER TROPHY JUST FOR SHITTING YOUR PANTS ON THE FIELD!?!?!?!?!" It's bizarre.

If people do not want to take part in Raids and Dungeons then there is dozens of games they can play that do not focus on them. Why does this one have to change it's core gameplay to please you?
Play FF (which is after all doing everything better then WoW, if you believe these forums) or SWTOR if you prefer solo-content. Let WoW stay the game it has been for 17 years successfully.

Nobody is gating you from anything, but you.

In Final Fantasy almost all I do is play dungeons and raids casually, so I'm not sure what you are talking about. Every day I log into FF14, run some casual dungeons for substantive rewards, run some casual raids for substantive rewards, do some casual pvp for substantive rewards. I can't do any of that in WoW, because the game says that if I want to do dungeons, raids, or pvp for substantive rewards I need to do them at the obnoxious organized level. It won't let me do them casually for rewards.

it just sounds very much like you are refusing to understand what we are asking for, and instead inventing this weird strawman who wants to do a daily quest and get a BiS trinket from it.

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They hired developers from very prestigious schools who had years of game development experience. I recommend doing your homework before grabbing random comments and making replies of conjecture.

Jeff Kaplan was a failed writer who was working for his daddy and playing EQ all day.
Kevin Jordan had never worked on a game before.

Who are you talking about?

[Miffinat0r]

Jeff Kaplan was a failed writer who was working for his daddy and playing EQ all day.
Kevin Jordan had never worked on a game before.

Who are you talking about?

Where are people getting Kaplan was some OG MMORPG Dev. He wasn't. He was a giant fan of Smedley and McQuaid's work. He literally harassed them up and down the board about their decisions and their reluctance to give in to the high-end community. Him and Asfraibi were literally players who had the backing of devs who were a part of that community. Literally it's the same as Ion.

McQuaid was the OG Dev but he had a drug abuse problem. Smedley was #2 but he sold out to SOE. The devs under them to my knowledge in Kunark got scooped up by Blizz to work on BC. The attunement raid system was literally lifted from PoP from what I've read.

Long story short: Blizz started devlopment on WoW in '99. EQ had launched and was a success in the community. Blizz then started poaching EQ Devs under McQuaid. Basically WoW got huge using EQ's model just made it more casual to get to the endgame. Back then the endgame wasn't particularly hard compared to now. And it looks like from videos and reading all the real MMO talent is either with ESO, GW2, or at Dreamhaven and Riot.

[MoanaLisa]

I dont understand ppls obsession with demanding changes on a forum instead of just playing a game that is already the way they want

That's one primary reason why game and fan forums exist.

[Raisei]

Dependency on other players is a major gating factor wouldn’t you agree? Not to mention that dependency is not only on the others per se but also on their latency, their pc hardware, their schedule, their life obligations etc.

Welcome to the world of MMOs, I guess? If you can't stomach the social demands of playing with actual people on the internet then, and I ask this as nicely as I can, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?

Play single player games, play an MMO that focusses on solo content like SWTOR, leave the game that has been defined by it's group content for 17 friggin years aloooone. It is clearly not for you.

The world does not revolve around you and your needs, no matter how much you feel that it should.

Btw. what it is with these "casuals" throwing words like "racism" and "discrimination" around because a game doesn't bend to their demands? Don't you think that is quite some abuse of words reserved for actual problems in our world?

[NineSpine]

Welcome to the world of MMOs, I guess? If you can't stomach the social demands of playing with actual people on the internet then, and I ask this as nicely as I can, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?

Play single player games, play an MMO that focusses on solo content like SWTOR, leave the game that has been defined by it's group content for 17 friggin years aloooone. It is clearly not for you.

The world does not revolve around you and your needs, no matter how much you feel that it should.

Btw. what it is with these "casuals" throwing words like "racism" and "discrimination" around because a game doesn't bend to their demands? Don't you think that is quite some abuse of words reserved for actual problems in our world?

There is only one person throwing around those words, and it is you. You are the one with the weird hangup.

WoW used to have a lot more for casual players to do. It's not unreasonable to ask for that back, just like if they stopped making raids it would be reasonable for people who like raids to ask for them back.

[ellieg]

There is only one person throwing around those words, and it is you. You are the one with the weird hangup.

WoW used to have a lot more for casual players to do. It's not unreasonable to ask for that back, just like if they stopped making raids it would be reasonable for people who like raids to ask for them back.

The person he quoted quite literally used those words...

And what content did they used to have for casual players that they don't have now? Is it the content or the reward structure?

[Asrialol]

I have explained so many times and yet I get reaction posts like this that are based on a fraction of what I have said. To give you an insight though:

Same as you don’t have to play with me I don’t want to have to play with you. So the game should provide us all as clients of the game with options that allow us to not play with others and still play at our desired level of difficulty without dependency.

Make all the game ALSO playable mage tower style. Why would that bother you who don’t want to play with me?

So you're playing the game, but you want to play it the way you want, even if that's currently not possible? You want them to design the game the way you want?

You are a paying customer, after all. Your voice matters! You should be heard!!

[ellieg]

That's one primary reason why game and fan forums exist.

The primary purpose of a forum is to demand games be like other games instead of just playing that other game and going onto that games forums to talk abt what you like abt the game? Thats really dumb lol

[Drench]

WoW is designed to cater to the 80% of idiots that want idle mobile gameplay.

The game is dead cause it sucks because you idiots want mobile addiction mechanics. Stop buying store mounts and preorders. Stop subbing to collect stuff. FFS.

[Miffinat0r]

WoW is designed to cater to the 80% of idiots that want idle mobile gameplay.

The game is dead cause it sucks because you idiots want mobile addiction mechanics. Stop buying store mounts and preorders. Stop subbing to collect stuff. FFS.

This game is dead or dying because it's old and players don't want to spend 20-40 minutes looking for groups only to be kicked or raged at.

WoW's model was never the perpetual motion machine you think it is.

[Balbuto]

I'm very disappointed with whole announcement. No single world about casual and solo players.
Imo Ion again will focus on raiders and make ppl quit fast.

without raids the game will die, the end. raids are the backbone of the entire mmorpg end game. If anything m+ is killing the game slowly by seperating guilds into two camps, one that playes m+ to get raid loot and the other that raids to get loot for m+. in a perfect world it goes hand in hand but from what I can tell since bfa atleast it divides end game pushing and the ppl playing it. imo though, not sure what other ppl feel.

[Miffinat0r]

without raids the game will die, the end. raids are the backbone of the entire mmorpg end game. If anything m+ is killing the game slowly by seperating guilds into two camps, one that playes m+ to get raid loot and the other that raids to get loot for m+. in a perfect world it goes hand in hand but from what I can tell since bfa atleast it divides end game pushing and the ppl playing it. imo though, not sure what other ppl feel.

This is confirmation bias. Because you raid you think raiding is holding everything together. GC even made a post about why LFR exists is because the majority of players don't raid.

I'm not saying raiding isn't important. It is, but to say it's the "backbone" is a bit of a stretch. If anything the World is the backbone, the aesthetic is the backbone, and the experience is the backbone. Raiding is just a bone within the overall spine.

[Raisei]

That is demanding other people have less fun. You told me I was wrong and then repeated the exact argument I made. What you described is someone saying "Not only do I want rewards, but I want others to get less rewards to make me feel good."

Nope. I only demand that if you realize a game is not for you, that you leave it alone instead of trying to change it in ways that the majority will dislike.

To make a comparion: Let's say you are playing in an organized soccer team for several years. You and your friends in the team are winning and enjoying your time playing.
Then I come along one day and tell you that I have no fun playing with you because I cannot hit the goal and instead of improving or leaving I demand that the goal is increased to double the size and it is no longer allowed to take the ball from me. And obviously I am not satisfied until these changes are made throughout the entire league.
What do you think, how much fun this would be for you and your friends that have spend time to become good players?

Because casuals want gameplay. They want things to do. This isn't about getting raid set bonuses. This is about having a fun set of endgame activities that give meaningful rewards. "Hey we made everything you like to do completely unrewarded, but uh.... set bonus pieces from grinding one zone!" is not the knock-down argument you think it is.

Surprise. So do the Raiders and Dungeon players. The only reason why their content looks like it is more is because it is harder and thus needs more effort and time to complete. The casuals in this thread do not want difficulty, they don't want to learn fights or even their own rotation, they do not want effort. So, what is the solution? Blizzard would have to patch every two month at minimum to keep delivering content that the casuals can run through in a day before they can complain again that there is no content.
Casual content would have to be delivered at a much higher pace then non-casual stuff, because it is consumed much faster. I am sure you know that it is simply not realistic to expect that.

Every time we ask for things to do, you guys start rambling about mythic level raid gear. You impose your obsession with gear and what other people have onto us. It's like someone saying "I wish there was a local soccer league to play in" and you respond "OH SO YOU WANT A SOCCER TROPHY JUST FOR SHITTING YOUR PANTS ON THE FIELD!?!?!?!?!" It's bizarre.

I find the idea that "casuals" have by now victimized themselves so hard that they think it is okay to use words like "Discrimination" and "Racism" as legitimations for their complaints a lot more bizarre.
But let us not kid ourselves. The whole issue stems from jealousy. The "casuals" want the things that the non-casuals are getting, but they aren't getting them because of lacking social ability, skill, time, tolerance for frustrationand what not. So they write on these forums and demand everything to be changed so that the people who have the former abilities cannot have things they cannot have. If you want to make yourself believe that this isn't the case, feel free, but I am sure you know that even if you are the 1 in 1000000 exception, the other "casuals" are not.

In Final Fantasy almost all I do is play dungeons and raids casually, so I'm not sure what you are talking about. Every day I log into FF14, run some casual dungeons for substantive rewards, run some casual raids for substantive rewards, do some casual pvp for substantive rewards. I can't do any of that in WoW, because the game says that if I want to do dungeons, raids, or pvp for substantive rewards I need to do them at the obnoxious organized level. It won't let me do them casually for rewards.

You illustrate my point. If FF is so much better for you, then play it, with my deepest blessings. Why does WoW need to adopt this? There is a game that does what you want, so why does this other one have to do it too? It's exactly what I mean with the casuals never going to be satisfied. All games have to cater to you or they get bombarded with threads like this.
Where is the problem with different people getting different games to play. Why do you need a casual WoW on top of FF?

it just sounds very much like you are refusing to understand what we are asking for, and instead inventing this weird strawman who wants to do a daily quest and get a BiS trinket from it.

I am not inventing anything. People have been asking for high-level gear from inconsequential content for ages. Maybe you don't, but many of your fellow "casuals" do, which means one of two things: Either there is no shared mind-set among the "casuals" or you don't know "your people" very well.

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There is only one person throwing around those words, and it is you. You are the one with the weird hangup.

WoW used to have a lot more for casual players to do. It's not unreasonable to ask for that back, just like if they stopped making raids it would be reasonable for people who like raids to ask for them back.

Lol. This is literally the signature of one of the most outspoken "casuals" in this forum:



Please enlighten me. What casual activities did WoW have? I think we both know that it didn't have any until maybe as late as Legion. In earlier expansions it was even less, because it was expected that you play this game for the group content and that is predominantly what lead to the huge success of this game.

[NineSpine]

Nope. I only demand that if you realize a game is not for you, that you leave it alone instead of trying to change it in ways that the majority will dislike.

To make a comparion: Let's say you are playing in an organized soccer team for several years. You and your friends in the team are winning and enjoying your time playing.
Then I come along one day and tell you that I have no fun playing with you because I cannot hit the goal and instead of improving or leaving I demand that the goal is increased to double the size and it is no longer allowed to take the ball from me. And obviously I am not satisfied until these changes are made throughout the entire league.
What do you think, how much fun this would be for you and your friends that have spend time to become good players?

This analogy doesn't even approach making sense, because I'm not asking to play with ayou. I don't even know who is who here. Did I ask for the content you do to be changed? No, so what are we even talking about?

Surprise. So do the Raiders and Dungeon players. The only reason why their content looks like it is more is because it is harder and thus needs more effort and time to complete. The casuals in this thread do not want difficulty, they don't want to learn fights or even their own rotation, they do not want effort. So, what is the solution? Blizzard would have to patch every two month at minimum to keep delivering content that the casuals can run through in a day before they can complain again that there is no content.
Casual content would have to be delivered at a much higher pace then non-casual stuff, because it is consumed much faster. I am sure you know that it is simply not realistic to expect that.

Again, I can't even figure out what you are trying to say, even if I ignore that you seem to take four sentences to provide five words worth of information. WoW doesn't have casual and hardcore content. It just has content. The casual dungeons are the same dungeons as the mythic dungeons. The problem isn't the content or its volume. The problem is how the content is structured and what the rewards look like.

I didn't ask them to add one iota more content for me than there already is. I just want it to be structured in a fun and rewarding way, and it isn't.

I find the idea that "casuals" have by now victimized themselves so hard that they think it is okay to use words like "Discrimination" and "Racism" as legitimations for their complaints a lot more bizarre.
But let us not kid ourselves. The whole issue stems from jealousy. The "casuals" want the things that the non-casuals are getting, but they aren't getting them because of lacking social ability, skill, time, tolerance for frustrationand what not. So they write on these forums and demand everything to be changed so that the people who have the former abilities cannot have things they cannot have. If you want to make yourself believe that this isn't the case, feel free, but I am sure you know that even if you are the 1 in 1000000 exception, the other "casuals" are not.

This is just a weird ramble about how cool and sexy you are for not being casual. Good for you I guess? It's a little cringey to think this hard about how to play yourself up but... cool?

I just can't imagine caring this much about other people having fun with the game. I'm glad that Blizzard has good systems for you to engage in. I don't know why it is so important for you that they don't for other people. It's just odd to me for that to be a priority or to build this creepy complex up about how jealous everyone is. It just strikes me as very juvenile.

You illustrate my point. If FF is so much better for you, then play it, with my deepest blessings. Why does WoW need to adopt this? There is a game that does what you want, so why does this other one have to do it too? It's exactly what I mean with the casuals never going to be satisfied. All games have to cater to you or they get bombarded with threads like this.
Where is the problem with different people getting different games to play. Why do you need a casual WoW on top of FF?

Because I like how wow used to have a lot for me to do, and I'd like it to have that again? This is a lot less complicated than you are making it out to be.

I am not inventing anything. People have been asking for high-level gear from inconsequential content for ages. Maybe you don't, but many of your fellow "casuals" do, which means one of two things: Either there is no shared mind-set among the "casuals" or you don't know "your people" very well.

People are asking for high level gear because their gear ladder runs out in about two hours in most patches. This is about lacking progression, not about needing some specific ilvl. The most reasonable solution is to have a fourth endgame pillar that gets people to high end gear, because that is what impacts high end players the least, but if you'd prefer a solution where they force you to grind up the ladder through a casual system before you can get to the content you like, I guess that's cool but such a demand seems very at odds with the rest of your little essay here.

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Please enlighten me. What casual activities did WoW have? I think we both know that it didn't have any until maybe as late as Legion. In earlier expansions it was even less, because it was expected that you play this game for the group content and that is predominantly what lead to the huge success of this game.

You used to have a pretty long road to go if you wanted to gear up via reputations, professions, queued dungeon gear, and queued BG gear. Those things took a lot of time and effort and max out for a casual player and provided a pretty substantive and broad set of activities that had rewards that took a long time to obtain. Now, all of those activities are cut off very, very quickly. You outgear the queued dungeons and BGs almost immediately after hitting max level. Reputations and professions don't really provide much of substance anymore.

You just seem really desperate to make this pretty mundane request into something it isn't, or to shoehorn this into some self-aggrandizing narrative about all the people who are jealous of you. And I'm trying to help you when I say that the latter doesn't make you look confident and strong. It makes you look kind of desperate and weird.

[Necromantic]

Jeff Kaplan was a failed writer who was working for his daddy and playing EQ all day.

Stopped reading there. Almost had me going.

3/10

[Mardux]

Grinding for higher tiered gear just for the sake of having better gear is dumb. It's a hamster wheel method of game design which caters to stupid people. The fun is in completing challenging encounters and being rewarded with gear as a side effect of solving a very difficult problem. If you strip everything away that's all encounters are. Mathematical equations in which Blizzard tries to get as close to balancing it out while leaving enough room for the players to have a statistically reasonable chance at things ending up in their favor. That means there are going to be encounters which have a margin of error too narrow for some players to overcome. Blizzard should definitely include encounters which are so difficult only the highest skilled players are capable of completing it. If you happen to be one of the majority of players who don't play at that level it doesn't mean Blizzard hates you.

I'm interested in who gave you the idea that you get to decide what other people are allowed to find fun?

[NineSpine]

Stopped reading there. Almost had me going.

3/10

"After working as a writing intern for Universal Pictures, he decided to get a graduate degree for creative writing from New York University.[2] Following this, he worked for his father's recruiting business while performing creative writing on the side to try to get his stories published.[3] He was unsuccessful at getting any of his creative stories published for several years, receiving over 170 rejection notices in a single year. By 2000, he decided to drop creative writing, and spent his time playing video games, as well as toying around with the level editors from games like Duke Nukem 3D and Half-Life.[2][3]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Kaplan

[Necromantic]

"After working as a writing intern for Universal Pictures, he decided to get a graduate degree for creative writing from New York University.[2] Following this, he worked for his father's recruiting business while performing creative writing on the side to try to get his stories published.[3] He was unsuccessful at getting any of his creative stories published for several years, receiving over 170 rejection notices in a single year. By 2000, he decided to drop creative writing, and spent his time playing video games, as well as toying around with the level editors from games like Duke Nukem 3D and Half-Life.[2][3]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Kaplan

So which is it? Both of your responses contradict each other. Your first was one-dimensional insults based on conjecture. Your second was cherry-picked information about 1 of the 40 people who designed the original game.

[NineSpine]

So which is it? Both of your responses contradict each other. Your first was one-dimensional insults based on conjecture. Your second was cherry-picked information about 1 of the 40 people who designed the original game.

It's not conjecture. It's his story from interviews he did. These are facts. I'm sorry you deluded yourself into thinking Jeff Kaplan was some massive star in game design after getting his degree from Harvard and publishing ten books, but that's not the real world.

How about you just tell me who all these amazing talents from the top schools are?