Boosting communities gone?

[Coldkil]

It comes down to balancing designs that punishes playing with strangers.

Pugging heroic becomes impossible when a single persons mistake wipes the raid, be it because they die directly or can't maintain numbers to kill the boss.

Gear scaling is also a problem.

But that's the point - WoW isn't designed to be played with strangers. It's an old school MMORPG where you're supposed to form organized groups to tackle the hardest content. M+ made this paradigm basically worthless imho (but i may be completely wrong and i'm not making M+ guilty of anything).

I can agree with difficulty tuning. Too punishing makes for a worse experience for everyone involved. Gear scaling, a little less as you can get near-ilvl cap gear by running 15s.

As much as i don't get why people buy boosts (but i'm starting to get a very clear idea of the whole thing) i don't get why people expect to have all content just puggable. It's not a single player game. Hell, if it wasn't for the nice groups of people i have played with during these 17 years, i would have stopped playing much sooner.

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Both yes and no, the community has to enforce these barriers because a single persons mistake, or low output, could wipe the raid.

That is a problem caused by tight design and enrage timers.

And why is it so important for most people to raid higher tiers than they should? Because that's the way to get significantly better gear fast.

But raids are terrible to get gear from. M+ is much faster and accessible and rewarding. Enrage timers are not existant anymore, i have had groups where most people parsed grey and we still killed the boss. I agree that in SL raid mechanics were overwhelming in much occasions but SL is also an exception in how overtuned it has been.

People have always put up barriers to find better people for their groups, and it's natural. However, if people are fine to get boosted to do stuff, then these barriers are useless.

[Kyanion]

I said gold selling was bad and had the token not been introduced it would have become worse.

Remember when the gold selling sites used to use trial accounts to speed hack like 30 orcs into Org to form the name of their boosting website in mid air? Or they would have them fall from the sky to die (after people used dancing grenades to make them dance while forming their name) and form the name of the site with orc corpses on the ground.

Yeah I'll take use the token thanks. I am glad gold selling bullshit has faded a ton, less hacked accounts, less people getting banned.

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By design, Blizzard's APIs do not allow for players to figure out the number of active subscribers. So when these "official numbers" are used to do exactly that you'll have to excuse my skepticism.

Love the people that site these made up sub numbers as if they are correct. Many of those websites even say they use google metrics and other shit to guess at the numbers.

[NineSpine]

First off, gold selling isn't only used for boosting. I've purchased probably close to 40 tokens over the last few years and I've never once used the gold from the token to buy a boost. I've used this gold almost exclusively to buy raid supplies (or in SL's case, Legendary base items). Prior to the token, I'd afford raid supplies by crafting fucking BoE off-hands with Inscription. I am not good with gold and I frankly hate the entire "create wealth" part of the game. The best thing that ever happened for me was the increasing popularity of boosting which allowed me to finally afford raid supplies without spending hours of my life crafting off-hands. (I no longer raid; ergo, I no longer boost... which is why I buy tokens.) I can't imagine I'm alone in this but it's not my job to tell people what is and isn't morally acceptable for them to use their own gold to purchase.

I don't and I never claimed I did. I said that based off of information that we do know, the likelihood of boosting constituting a major portion of Blizzard's income is pretty low. Considering your entire argument operates on this idea that the game has become overwhelmed by players who "swipe cards" instead of playing the game (collecting bear asses), I'd say this is a relevant observation. Though you are free to disagree with me, just as I'm free to disagree with the relevance of APIs used to conjure statistics that they were never intended to display.

If a "casual player" in this example is a bear ass collector, yeah. I think it's kind of fucked up for them to have the best rewards in the game.

Fixed:
"If a "casual player" in this example is a bear ass collector, yeah. I think it's kind of fucked up for them to have the best rewards in the game, unless they pay for it by swiping a credit card, because I am a relentless hypocrite."

Boosting creates more demand for gold, which in turn causes gold inflation, which in turn makes everything more expensive, which in turn makes more people buy tokens even if they aren't using them boosts. But oh no, if a casual player has fun it might hurt your feelings.

[Relapses]

Fixed:
"If a "casual player" in this example is a bear ass collector, yeah. I think it's kind of fucked up for them to have the best rewards in the game, unless they pay for it by swiping a credit card, because I am a relentless hypocrite."

Boosting creates more demand for gold, which in turn causes gold inflation, which in turn makes everything more expensive, which in turn makes more people buy tokens even if they aren't using them boosts. But oh no, if a casual player has fun it might hurt your feelings.

lol come on now. You can't actually think the boosting causes inflation, can you? The cost of tokens has been pretty consistent over the last two expansions. The only time inflation was a concern was in WoD/Legion when mission tables gave bear ass collecting aficionados access to stupid amounts of gold in exchange for playing a Facebook game.

I'd appreciate as well if you'd stop trying to exaggerate the impact of boosting on my position here. You seem to be on some kind of strange moral crusade against boosting and you're positioning a small percentage of the game's playerbase circumventing the traditional vertical progression system in this game as evidence that the whole thing needs to be built again from the ground up.

[NineSpine]

lol come on now. You can't actually think the boosting causes inflation, can you? The cost of tokens has been pretty consistent over the last two expansions. The only time inflation was a concern was in WoD/Legion when mission tables gave bear ass collecting aficionados access to stupid amounts of gold in exchange for playing a Facebook game.

I'd appreciate as well if you'd stop trying to exaggerate the impact of boosting on my position here as well. You seem to be on some kind of strange moral crusade against boosting and you're positioning a small percentage of the game's playerbase circumventing the traditional vertical progression system in this game as evidence that the whole thing needs to be built again from the ground up.

Adding a currency to upgrade gear is not rebuilding the whole thing from the ground up. Don't lecture other people on exaggeration when you are going to say things like that. I never even said that everyone needs to be able to get BiS. That would probably be the best solution. However, just having a long term progression path for casual players would be enough, rather than their progression path ending in 15 minutes and then people like you lecturing them on how they need to go do content they don't enjoy.

The problem here is that you have a really obnoxious chip on your shoulder, and you expose it over and over again. This is all about you being a nasty, spiteful person towards other people who don't play the game with you. That's why you believe it is unacceptable for them to have more fun, UNLESS THEY PAY FOR IT. It's impossible to tell if this is just general nastiness or if this is projection because you feel like if you have to do content you don't think is fun then everyone else should not have fun either. It doesn't really matter why though.

[Relapses]

Adding a currency to upgrade gear is not rebuilding the whole thing from the ground up. Don't lecture other people on exaggeration when you are going to say things like that. I never even said that everyone needs to be able to get BiS. That would probably be the best solution. However, just having a long term progression path for casual players would be enough, rather than their progression path ending in 15 minutes and then people like you lecturing them on how they need to go do content they don't enjoy.

The problem here is that you have a really obnoxious chip on your shoulder, and you expose it over and over again. This is all about you being a nasty, spiteful person towards other people who don't play the game with you. That's why you believe it is unacceptable for them to have more fun, UNLESS THEY PAY FOR IT. It's impossible to tell if this is just general nastiness or if this is projection because you feel like if you have to do content you don't think is fun then everyone else should not have fun either. It doesn't really matter why though.

If playing the game differently than me means that bear ass collectors get Mythic gear then yeah. I have no sympathy for bear ass collectors. Bear ass collectors should try to be M+ key pushers, raiders or PvPers so they can then have a skill expressive way to obtain better rewards. If bear ass collectors do not want to become M+ key pushers, raiders or PvPers then they can fuck right off because they're playing the wrong game. They can also pay people who aren't dogshit at the game to carry them should that tickle their fancy but this is, again, not a problem as this does not represent a huge demographic of players.

[NineSpine]

If playing the game differently than me means that bear ass collectors get Mythic gear then yeah. I have no sympathy for bear ass collectors. Bear ass collectors should try to be M+ key pushers, raiders or PvPers so they can then have a skill expressive way to obtain better rewards. If bear ass collectors do not want to become M+ key pushers, raiders or PvPers then they can fuck right off because they're playing the wrong game. They can also pay people who aren't dogshit at the game to carry them should that tickle their fancy but this is, again, not a problem as this does not represent a huge demographic of players.

This is a video game. It should be as fun as possible. If you oppose the game being fun because it would hurt your feelings if someone else has a good time, you are proving that you aren't fit to dictate how the game should be. This is a video game. It has talking cow ladies in it. The way you have convinced yourself that it isn't about fun is downright weird. It's just as weird as a pvp player demanding rewards be taken out of raids because it hurts their feelings. The game is not about this bizarre complex you have. It's about having fun.

[T-34]

Heck, I know I gave up every single major patch in Shadowlands because I simply didn't have more than 10 hours a week to play, and that got me nowhere near the levels I enjoy playing at (heroic/mythic).

If you and the people you play with can't get close to doing heroic raids with 10 hours playtime per week then I am sorry to tell you and the people you play with are impressively bad at the game and/or are unwilling to put in an effort.

And that is also true if you only pug the content. This is a clear case of a YOU-PROBLEM.

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This is a video game. It should be as fun as possible. If you oppose the game being fun because it would hurt your feelings if someone else has a good time, you are proving that you aren't fit to dictate how the game should be. This is a video game. It has talking cow ladies in it. The way you have convinced yourself that it isn't about fun is downright weird. It's just as weird as a pvp player demanding rewards be taken out of raids because it hurts their feelings. The game is not about this bizarre complex you have. It's about having fun.

In a skill/effort-based game the rewards should to some extent reward skill/effort or the game isn't fun.
People that want to play a game where the rewards in no way are based on effort/skill should go play a slot machine.

Luckily the latter people are a tiny minority which is vastly overrepresented on this niche forum.

[Kyanion]

lol come on now. You can't actually think the boosting causes inflation, can you? The cost of tokens has been pretty consistent over the last two expansions.

Hell, the main time you see tokens increase in price is when a new expansion is announced (which caused a spike in NA prices that hasn't settled back down yet), when a new store mount comes out or another blizz title is launched or it gets an expansion.

[NineSpine]

In a skill/effort-based game the rewards should to some extent reward skill/effort or the game isn't fun.
People that want to play a game where the rewards in no way are based on effort/skill should go play a slot machine.

Luckily the latter people are a tiny minority which is vastly overrepresented on this niche forum.

1. Time is also a form of effort.
2. Nobody is saying skill based content shouldn't have special rewards.
3. As long as the game happily lets people swipe a credit card for rewards, everything you argue is moot.

[Cthulhu 2020]

I'm probably missing something though or assuming something wrong. I will forever be baffled by the fact being boosted war frowned upon and would get you "ostracized" by the community and now it's literally the optimal way to play the game if i have to hear some people (who also are supposedly the top tier players).

Go for the simple answer: Money.

Boosting earns these top tier players tons of gold. We also know from numerous interviews of management and top tier ownership within the boosting community that there's not only real money accepted under the table, but straight up RMT as well. Some of these people earn a living off of boosting lower tier players. They were good at something, and so some of them have turned their hobby into a side hustle for extra spending money, and some have even turned it into a career.

Yes, boosting was once such a shameful act that nobody talked about it, because the vast majority of the community would look down upon you for not completing content on your own merits. Now most of the raiding community has figured out just how much money they can make from this, so they accept it with open arms.

It's the same reason the WoW token was originally reviled when it was first announced, and now receives so much support. So many people participate in benefitting from the WoW token. Whether they enjoy paying their sub in gold or whether they enjoy getting piles of gold to do what they want. Or they're the boosters who know that a lot of their boosting business would dry up, because while RMT does happen, the majority of players feel safer using Blizzard sanctioned RMT.

And of course, way back when, the only real way to show off was gear sets. When you raided, you had awesome looking and powerful gear that would make people inspect you for it, then tell you in whispers you looked awesome. Boosting now often just involves getting a title and a mount. The game has shifted from gear being the primary motivator to achievements and mounts.

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Love the people that site these made up sub numbers as if they are correct. Many of those websites even say they use google metrics and other shit to guess at the numbers.

When another game has three times the amount of people talking about it on twitter, three times the amount of active users on reddit, three times the amount of posts and replies on reddit, official discords with three times the number of active users...

And the amount of language used about the other game is much better, "Good" "Amazing" "Great" "Awesome" "Fun", vs WoW's "Terrible" "Awful" "Unfun" "out of touch" "Shit" "Toxic"

I'd say it really makes one think...

But it clearly doesn't. Sticking one's head in the sand is easier when you've attached your self image and self worth to a single game, and feel threatened by any criticism or news that it's doing poorly.

I loved WoW as it was, not the monstrosity it has become. I still hold a faint glimmer of hope that one day, we may see a complete revamp of the philosophy and design of the game into a modernized version of a once beloved game. But I'm not holding my breath. The continued existence of the WoW token and boosting is just one of a plethora of symptoms of what is effectively Bobby Kotick's cash cow, milking players for all they're worth, like trying to squeeze water from stones.

[T-34]

1. Time is also a form of effort.
2. Nobody is saying skill based content shouldn't have special rewards.
3. As long as the game happily lets people swipe a credit card for rewards, everything you argue is moot.

1.
Time is rewarded in WoW.
A wilfully or un-willfully unskilled person who is willing to grind for a long time will be rewarded with more gear than the same wilfully or un-willfully person that doesn't put in the time.
The same wilfully or un-wilfully unskilled person who does group content with similar unskilled players will be be rewarded with even higher level gear.
I forgot to add that Blizzard rewards co-operative content - group content- with better gear than solo content.
I explain this fact with my own personal theory that players that play with other players - or with other words
are social - are more likely to stay subscribed than solo players and if my theory is true then it makes sense to reward those customers more.

3.
Ah the good old credit-card argument. In any computer game whatsoever people can pay other people to play for them. That is no way special for WoW.
Following your logic then no game whatsoever should reward players for skill because you can buy your way to rewards in any game.

[MoanaLisa]

Yes, boosting was once such a shameful act that nobody talked about it, because the vast majority of the community would look down upon you for not completing content on your own merits. Now most of the raiding community has figured out just how much money they can make from this, so they accept it with open arms.

How it started: "Don't do drugs. They are bad for you."
How it's going: "Here, buy some drugs from us."

[Somic]

That literally says for real money. I know this might shock you but gold isn't real money.

Literally read the third paragraph. The answer you are looking for is right in the post you quoted yourself. Read it

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Still not against the rules to sell anything for gold ingame. what they do with the gold after is something else and not corralated to the boosting for gold. also the "rmt" is not done by the boosting but the individuals who are paid in gold after, hense why the gold part isnt banned but what they decide to do on their own is something else.

Wow another one, guys fucking read the third paragraph. Why does no one read the posts they are fucking quoting.

[NineSpine]

1.
Time is rewarded in WoW.
A wilfully or un-willfully unskilled person who is willing to grind for a long time will be rewarded with more gear than the same wilfully or un-willfully person that doesn't put in the time.
The same wilfully or un-wilfully unskilled person who does group content with similar unskilled players will be be rewarded with even higher level gear.
I forgot to add that Blizzard rewards co-operative content - group content- with better gear than solo content.
I explain this fact with my own personal theory that players that play with other players - or with other words
are social - are more likely to stay subscribed than solo players and if my theory is true then it makes sense to reward those customers more.

3.
Ah the good old credit-card argument. In any computer game whatsoever people can pay other people to play for them. That is no way special for WoW.
Following your logic then no game whatsoever should reward players for skill because you can buy your way to rewards in any game.

You didn't address anything I said. Not interested until you can do that.

[enigma77]

Good riddance.

[Utrrabbit]

ALL boosting servers are banned. It is against ToS. They will be banned perma.

[Kyanion]

When another game has three times the amount of people talking about it on twitter, three times the amount of active users on reddit, three times the amount of posts and replies on reddit, official discords with three times the number of active users...

Know what it means? It has 3 times the people on twitter/reddit/posts/twitch etc. Does it mean it has more players. The answer might surprise you. Nope.

Think what you will but there has been no proof that any other MMO has surpassed WoW with active players. There have been flashes in the pan that might have gotten close with new releases but those quickly faded away. Looking at you New World, FFX14 (when streamers paid it some attention), Lost Ark, and so on.

Also what is your source for this? Something laughable like https://mmo-population.com/ ? I mean that one has to be reliable right? It thinks there are almost 500,000 people playing STAR CITIZEN right now. LOL.

Wow does the same thing for me it did 16 years ago. It gives me dungeons to do, raids to do with friends and guildies and provides me with the Auction House in which I enjoy the PvP nature of it to make gold.

[Tronski]

But that's the point - WoW isn't designed to be played with strangers. It's an old school MMORPG where you're supposed to form organized groups to tackle the hardest content. M+ made this paradigm basically worthless imho (but i may be completely wrong and i'm not making M+ guilty of anything).

I can agree with difficulty tuning. Too punishing makes for a worse experience for everyone involved. Gear scaling, a little less as you can get near-ilvl cap gear by running 15s.

As much as i don't get why people buy boosts (but i'm starting to get a very clear idea of the whole thing) i don't get why people expect to have all content just puggable. It's not a single player game. Hell, if it wasn't for the nice groups of people i have played with during these 17 years, i would have stopped playing much sooner.

If WoW isn't meant to be played with strangers, then boosting isn't a problem, since you're playing with the people that brings you along anyway.

But the root of the cause is that people want to play with strangers, or forced to on their alts or like me, in groups that are being made when it suits their schedule. That's why they buy boosts in order to bypass these barriers.

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But raids are terrible to get gear from. M+ is much faster and accessible and rewarding. Enrage timers are not existant anymore, i have had groups where most people parsed grey and we still killed the boss. I agree that in SL raid mechanics were overwhelming in much occasions but SL is also an exception in how overtuned it has been.

People have always put up barriers to find better people for their groups, and it's natural. However, if people are fine to get boosted to do stuff, then these barriers are useless.

I'm one of those people who can't adhere to a schedule, thus raiding at set hours is impossible for me. That means I have to play with strangers most of the time. Playing M+ with strangers is worse than pulling teeth. And with limited time to spare, I don't particularly enjoy having my key downgraded because one of them just left 10 mins in. WoW with friends and WoW with strangers are two vastly different experiences.

True, they know by now that people bypass them, but the barriers still filter out those that don't.

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If you and the people you play with can't get close to doing heroic raids with 10 hours playtime per week then I am sorry to tell you and the people you play with are impressively bad at the game and/or are unwilling to put in an effort.

And that is also true if you only pug the content. This is a clear case of a YOU-PROBLEM.

Lol, sure, as if you'd know anything about that.

[Coldkil]

-snip-

I can see your points and they seem still contradictory to me. But also kinda makes sense?

You clearly have not time to play the game "properly" but still you want to play it, instead of playing another game that may fit better your gameplay session and have less hassle.

Playing the game is complicated and annoying and a terrible experience, so you buy boosts to make your experience better otherwise you cannot enjoy the game. And you're not alone and it's clear there's an upwards trend of people doing this right off the bat no questions asked.

It's just fascinating. The community itself instead of building up relations to make their gameplay better, just resorts as a whole to buy boosts from more skilled players so they "can also enjoy the game as it's supposed to be fun". I find it a full devolution of the playerbase to an abysmal level.

If it's truly like this, i can see my game days in WoW basically counted. It will reach a critical mass where either you get a boost or you're just left out of the content. Hopefully my current guild keeps going on, otherwise i'm done. Simply because buying a boost takes away all the value in doing anything in game - i want to earn my stuff and not pay to get it.

EDIT: this doesn't mean people should play in a certain way. Everyone spends money for a sub so it's not my problem tbh. But i can see this devolving like the faction balance, to the point game changing measures have to be taken because there's no other way available.