Getting rid of manipulative mechanics

[Biomega]

In P2P game devs should have enough money to produce content, instead of "stretching" it via psychological manipulations.

That's just false.

Consuming content takes WAY WAY WAY less time than creating content. That's true for almost any entertainment product. The demand for there to be enough content so that you can consume it and never run out is ludicrous, which is exactly what you your "produce content" without "stretching" boils down to.

What you're saying there is you're fine with SOME "stretching" - you didn't mention difficulty, for example, which fits the exact same criteria. The reason you didn't just include that is probably that in those cases, the "stretching" is a result of something you value (like difficulty), whereas you simply and reductively group everything you DON'T value under headings like "dopamine addiction" (which is an absurd term to use in the first place, because that's not how how it works).

But instead. Devs try to provide potentially infinite content. Why? Why do we need potentially infinite content, if it should obsolete after 4-6 months?

I'm not sure what you're saying here. All the content they make has an EFFECTIVE limit on its life span, because even though, say, the Timeless Isle is still technically in the game and available, no one in their right mind considers it "content" and never did past the initial impact it had. Which is exactly what you're demanding here with your highly specific "4-6 months life span" thing.

I said it in the past, that we couldn't judge DF before seeing it's endgame content. Now we start to see it. And... I don't see any radical improvements, promised by devs. Same WQs. As always. May be I miss something? What is DF's content and reward structure? Will it improve or will it be the same crap again?

So what are you saying? You want every TYPE of content to only live for 4-6 months and then have them come up with something entirely new? That sounds ridiculous.

Another problem - I realized, that I couldn't even get 252 BIS gear (one of major "goals" in ZM), because not all gear was affected by cyphers, so I had to rely on RNG ilvl upgrades, that could take infinite amount of time to drop.

That's an incredible facile argument. The theoretical possibility of "infinite time" on an RNG drop isn't relevant, because it never happens in practice. If you want everything to be purely deterministic, say that - though experience has shown that overly deterministic systems are also less exciting. If you know exactly what you'll get at all times, that puts a significant damper on the reward mechanisms and tends to make them feel a lot more like chores than rewards. That doesn't mean EVERYTHING should be EXTREME levels of RNG, of course. There need to be safeguards and hedges against big variance swings. But "make everything 100% deterministic" isn't the answer any more than "make everything 100% random" is.

Why so bad game design is used is paid game, where content is released regularly?

If you don't like the content you pay for, don't pay for it. That's fairly straightforward. If everyone stops paying for stuff because they don't like it, they'll change it REAL fast. The reason it's barely changing is that PEOPLE KEEP PAYING FOR IT.

RPGs are games about compulsive behavior. We do exactly the same things again, again and again. Kill the same mobs, complete the same quests. Whole logic of such games - is that we get DIFFERENT rewards for them.

And we do, just not the way and in the time frame you'd prefer, apparently. So be constructive about that. Make concrete suggestions that are practicable and achievable, not vague claims that you hate the things you don't like and that you want to never run out of content ever because that's what you pay for. That's not helpful criticism.

Gods know WoW needs to change things, but just throwing empty rants out isn't the way to get there.

[Ghost of Cow]

Everytime I hear someone say things like "FOMO" it just reads like, "I'm a spoiled brat who can't stomach even the mere idea of not getting what I want, when I want, and I'm going to let everyone know it."

[Snufflupagus]

sure the stuff/quest themselves never go away, but early on in a patch they typically are required for something relatively important and you will miss out on having that at the same time most people get it if you don't keep up, which may or may not lead to negative consequences imposed by other players or just perceived negative consequences.

e.g. the perma augment rune has been available for so long now that in my guild using runes is now mandatory, and if you say you don't have it people laugh and you and mount up on the AH mount for you.

if you are a completionist theres also frighteningly often that one WQ/thing that's required for the zone meta achievement that literally only spawns once every 3 months orso cause blizz is bad at making the game.

and typically these things matter more at the start of the expansion than in later patches, so it's certainly something to keep an eye on for dragonflight.

Now hang on a second, are you telling me that if you don't do things to get things you don't have the things?

Boy oh boy this Blizzard gets more evil by the day!

Learn to prioritise. This is a you problem.

[Stormwolf64]

People can complain all they want. Just dont call it rare if its not rare.

Just like blue items arent rare, or purple ones epic and orange ones legendary that drop from a random crap out in the world.

Every stupid quest give us a "rare" or an "epic" item.

All this nonsense is so stupid that I cant play this stupid game anymore. Because its full of stupid stuff.

They should go with "unique" instead of rare

[Relapses]

The opposite of time gating is people no lifing literally everything and burning themselves out. Not all time gating is good but it exists for a reason that is hardly manipulative.

[Hitei]

People can complain all they want. Just dont call it rare if its not rare.

Just like blue items arent rare, or purple ones epic and orange ones legendary that drop from a random crap out in the world.

Every stupid quest give us a "rare" or an "epic" item.

All this nonsense is so stupid that I cant play this stupid game anymore. Because its full of stupid stuff.

That's not what rarity means. It's not the rarity of the item with regards to the pool of items players have access to, it's general world setting rarity. They are uncommon and rare to an average person, who is wearing just regular white/grey clothing or armor. Not to you, a person who travels all over the world casually slaying thousands and thousands of enemies that most people would consider fighting one of to you a life defining struggle.

[PaladinBash]

RNG is a fine system if you have two things. Lots of things that drop and lots of ways to get things to drop. WoW has neither of them so it's shit. Diablo 3 loot system 'works' in that there's a gorillion legendaries and set pieces dropping all the time from everything you possibly do, it's just that the absolute vast majority of them suck and are completely useless for everyone. This isn't so much an issue in the gearing up process but becomes an increasingly bigger problem as you go along with your build but that's ultimately how that system works and it's far superior to WoW's system of dripfeeding you useful pieces over a long period of time with lots and lots of chores along the way.

The other element of why it doesn't work for WoW is that the only way to get good gear is to already complete the hardest and most complicated content, thus making it ultimately pointless to have the gear to do it because you already finished it. Thus gear feels more like a reward than a tool, further making it feel extra shitty when you don't get it because you feel like you did something for nothing. Doing 8 keys every week and getting nothing in your vault feels super frustrating and for the vast majority of players, this is absolutely their loot source. Do these players need bis 304 pieces to do their weekly 8 15s or 20s or whatever? Fuck no but does Big Joe Gavel Knight need his welfare dinar Jailer mace to do M Jailer when he's already killed it to get the fucking weapon in the first place? It's a reward, not a tool, so you get mad when you do something for it and get nothing.

The argument of "if you just got it all you'd stop playing" is baffling to me. I know of lots of people who quit or cut back because they feel like they don't get shit and it's pointless to keep trying. I know of nobody who gets what they wanted and feels bad and stops. That's fucking stupid. Getting what you want consistently makes you feel rewarded and good about playing and encourages you to keep doing it. At MOST, I know people who 'finish' a character's gear or more accurately feel it has progressed enough to be able to work on an alt without limiting it, further increasing their engagement and enjoyment of the game. A player who consistently gets fucked on loot gets mad and either stops completely or cuts back because it's fucking stupid to keep trying if you get nothing. This isn't an issue the first month of a season when your average player is still gearing from keys/raids and does 10 or less keys per week so the vault's options are likely to be useful but 2-3 months in, everyone's got everything upgraded and outside of a few key things, everything's trash. The satisfied player plays an alt, the fucked player quits or cuts back. It happens every fucking season.

RNG isn't an inherently bad system, it's just that more shit needs to drop and it needs to drop from more places. So what if some sweaty fuck grinds it all out in a week from nolifing shit? They nolife shit anyway. If it gives them a 1% advantage of a 10% advantage, they will do it regardless because they are mazed rats who can't think beyond spreadsheets and the absolute terror that another player may have a tiny imagined hypothetical advantage over them. The game shouldn't be ruined because of such foolishness. I'm not saying to just hand shit out for free to everyone for just logging in but make shit drop a lot from things that already drop stuff. So what if scums buy boosts? They buy them anyway. Making runs more lucrative means the idiots buy fewer boosts and the whores selling them make less money, meaning fewer do it because it's in turn less profitable. It's a better game that way.

[WowIsDead64]

1) My opinion - RNG should make every character unique, but shouldn't be used for RNG-gating. Rewards/upgrades should drop. Only difference - in which order.
2) In order to get rid of FOMO, devs should give players enough time to get rewards. Weeklies are better, than dailies. I play other game, that has switched from "Weekend events" to "Monthly events". They give you decent reward, it requires lot of work, but you have more than enough time to complete it, not just a few hours, when you should play non-stop and start to die due to fatigue.

P.S. Limited time offers always causes FOMO. Don't you buy anything on Black Friday? So, may be you're hypocrite, if you say, that you're perfect and aren't affected by FOMO? You should understand, that FOMO isn't actually about "missing" something for me. It's about "Do it now or it would cost more later". For example if my goal is to collect BIS gear and some rare piece drops today - it's better to push a little bit harder right now and get it, cuz otherwise it would drop nobody knows when, so I would be 2x more angry about not being able to get it later.

[rrayy]

oh and if you want to kill rares in ZM or stuff like that, just use the groupfinder. when the content is new/relevant there are always groups for it so you don't have to do things like rush to them or stay in the area. just go to rare spot, type rare name in group finder and you won't have to wait long if at all. and get an addon like tomcats, handynotes or raretracker if you want announcements for rares much better than the default UI.

I don't even use group finder. I just go there just after reset, and on my realms, there are lots of players killing all the rares as they are all trying to complete the weekly.

[Shakzor]

I'm sorry but words have specific meanings. If something is not rare, dont call it rare. Call it something else.

In vanilla epic gear came from epic encouters.
In shadowlands yellow rabbits drop epic gear.

See the diference?

in vanilla, epic gear could also randomly come from random lvl 30 mobs... this is nothing new, just how often particular mobs spawn or the drop rate. And if it's BoP, doesn't matter if 1 or 100 people have it from random stuff in the wild.

1) My opinion - RNG should make every character unique, but shouldn't be used for RNG-gating. Rewards/upgrades should drop. Only difference - in which order.
2) In order to get rid of FOMO, devs should give players enough time to get rewards. Weeklies are better, than dailies. I play other game, that has switched from "Weekend events" to "Monthly events". They give you decent reward, it requires lot of work, but you have more than enough time to complete it, not just a few hours, when you should play non-stop and start to die due to fatigue.

P.S. Limited time offers always causes FOMO. Don't you buy anything on Black Friday? So, may be you're hypocrite, if you say, that you're perfect and aren't affected by FOMO? You should understand, that FOMO isn't actually about "missing" something for me. It's about "Do it now or it would cost more later". For example if my goal is to collect BIS gear and some rare piece drops today - it's better to push a little bit harder right now and get it, cuz otherwise it would drop nobody knows when, so I would be 2x more angry about not being able to get it later.

I have honestly not the slightest clue what your first point is meant to be. That's literally how it works. You clear a raid, you get items, but not all items and not always in the same order.

Weekly/Dailies are not "FOMO" because you don't "miss" anything. You know EXACTLY what you get and it will return the week after. The ONLY thing someone would "miss out" is getting a faction to exalted a day or week sooner. Dailies give neglibes rewards at best and weeklys a bit more.
Dailies exist in online gaming since god knows how long and it has never been a problem anywhere. The only thing people get annoyed is the amount of dailies or variety. Not that they'd "miss out" if they go on a birthday party or something.

The weekly events are so people have an incentive to engage with different content or get more out of the content they already enjoy. Just because there's weekly pet event, doesn't make people go "OH MY GOD! I HATE pet battles but i HAVE to do it at all costs or i'll miss out!!".
Someone that hates PvP or PvE won't suddenly engage in that content just because there's some random reward to it.

You severely downplay FOMO and its effect on people with your "i don't like dailies, therefore dailies are FOMO items". It's meant for something like the mentioned Black Friday deals "get it now on that price or never!" or to a more gaming oriented example, a skin or character or whatever you HAVE to get in a particular time frame or they disappear, makign people more willing to spend money because actually frickign miss out on something. Psychological tricks to actually get the money from people. Often making creating constant "now or never" items for purchase so people keep spending and spending.
If you pay a sub, they already have your money and you cannot spend more to complete weeklys, events or something. Your feeling forced to play and get EVERYTHING is not FOMO, it's addiction (or possibly other psychological issues)

[Biomega]

This is not an mmorpg anymore. Its just an mmo looter.

Correct, except for the word "anymore".

Don't glorify WoW's past. We may have had less epic drops back then, but purple is just a color. It was ALWAYS about loot drops, and little else.

[Polybius]

just play behind the curve a bit. blizz always makes things easier down the road. the FOMO isn't real. we always had a few slackers/people with little time in the guild with artefact/azerite power and stuff like that and it never really affected out progress all that much.


oh and if you want to kill rares in ZM or stuff like that, just use the groupfinder. when the content is new/relevant there are always groups for it so you don't have to do things like rush to them or stay in the area. just go to rare spot, type rare name in group finder and you won't have to wait long if at all. and get an addon like tomcats, handynotes or raretracker if you want announcements for rares much better than the default UI.

There is FOMO, but what OP is describing is not it. Remove all that and you have zero endgame. OP just doesn’t want to play the game but does so anyway, they have a serious addiction.

[WowIsDead64]

I have honestly not the slightest clue what your first point is meant to be. That's literally how it works. You clear a raid, you get items, but not all items and not always in the same order.

Weekly/Dailies are not "FOMO" because you don't "miss" anything. You know EXACTLY what you get and it will return the week after. The ONLY thing someone would "miss out" is getting a faction to exalted a day or week sooner. Dailies give neglibes rewards at best and weeklys a bit more.
Dailies exist in online gaming since god knows how long and it has never been a problem anywhere. The only thing people get annoyed is the amount of dailies or variety. Not that they'd "miss out" if they go on a birthday party or something.

The weekly events are so people have an incentive to engage with different content or get more out of the content they already enjoy. Just because there's weekly pet event, doesn't make people go "OH MY GOD! I HATE pet battles but i HAVE to do it at all costs or i'll miss out!!".
Someone that hates PvP or PvE won't suddenly engage in that content just because there's some random reward to it.

You severely downplay FOMO and its effect on people with your "i don't like dailies, therefore dailies are FOMO items". It's meant for something like the mentioned Black Friday deals "get it now on that price or never!" or to a more gaming oriented example, a skin or character or whatever you HAVE to get in a particular time frame or they disappear, makign people more willing to spend money because actually frickign miss out on something. Psychological tricks to actually get the money from people. Often making creating constant "now or never" items for purchase so people keep spending and spending.
If you pay a sub, they already have your money and you cannot spend more to complete weeklys, events or something. Your feeling forced to play and get EVERYTHING is not FOMO, it's addiction (or possibly other psychological issues)

You're subjective. What is unimportant for you - is important for others. 252 gear isn't unimportant for player, who doesn't do M+ or raids. Yeah, dailies weren't important prior to MOP, because they dropped mostly cosmetic rewards. MOP was exact addon, when Blizzard gated badge gear behind reps, so dailies started being FOMO. Why it's FOMO? Yesterdays elite WQ provided ring as reward. Ring is "rare" reward, because rings don't drop from other sources. So, I would have to do this WQ on all characters, if I wouldn't abandon this FOMO crap. I decided to focus on getting renown to 80 on all characters and getting all mission table followers. F**k this FOMO s**t.

[Nerph-]

You're subjective. What is unimportant for you - is important for others. 252 gear isn't unimportant for player, who doesn't do M+ or raids. Yeah, dailies weren't important prior to MOP, because they dropped mostly cosmetic rewards. MOP was exact addon, when Blizzard gated badge gear behind reps, so dailies started being FOMO. Why it's FOMO? Yesterdays elite WQ provided ring as reward. Ring is "rare" reward, because rings don't drop from other sources. So, I would have to do this WQ on all characters, if I wouldn't abandon this FOMO crap. I decided to focus on getting renown to 80 on all characters and getting all mission table followers. F**k this FOMO s**t.

Oh no, you have to do 1 WQ on all of your 4(?) characters, totaling in a massive maximum of 30 minutes needed playtime!

You don't even have to do it. If you feel it's a chore, or not worth it, why are you even doing it?

[SinR]

As long as people fall for FOMO companies will exploit it

- - - Updated - - -

I actually read OP's post.

That's not even FOMO. ZM content will continue to be there until the end of time. You can get Exalted with the Enlightened and never have to go there again.

FOMO, or "Fear Of Missing Out" is when something is advertised as LIMITED TIME ONLY! An example of this could be: Jigglesworth Sr, the Dinar system in Season 4, KSM Mounts, Gladiator mounts and titles. Once they're gone, that's it. No more.

[WowIsDead64]

I actually read OP's post.

That's not even FOMO. ZM content will continue to be there until the end of time. You can get Exalted with the Enlightened and never have to go there again.

FOMO, or "Fear Of Missing Out" is when something is advertised as LIMITED TIME ONLY! An example of this could be: Jigglesworth Sr, the Dinar system in Season 4, KSM Mounts, Gladiator mounts and titles. Once they're gone, that's it. No more.

It's RPG. It's not interesting to get some reward just for sake of getting some reward without any progression. If it would be true - I would play WOD forever. Once Blizzard will grant free 252 gear for pre-patch event - end of story. It will no longer be interesting to do ZM. We all will be playing DF then. So, it's exactly limited time only.

You should understand, that being casual is about playing what you want and when you want. If you're forced to do something specific - it's already casual unfriendly. I've already abandoned Tier set grind. Then abandoned ilvl grind. Thx God content isn't overtuned, as it was in the past (Nazjatar for example), so I can live without it. What else should I abandon? Abandon this, abandon that. And at some point there is no content to do, so only option is to quit. That's, what I call casual-unfriendly game.

[Nerph-]

It's RPG. It's not interesting to get some reward just for sake of getting some reward without any progression. If it would be true - I would play WOD forever. Once Blizzard will grant free 252 gear for pre-patch event - end of story. It will no longer be interesting to do ZM. We all will be playing DF then. So, it's exactly limited time only.

You should understand, that being casual is about playing what you want and when you want. If you're forced to do something specific - it's already casual unfriendly. I've already abandoned Tier set grind. Then abandoned ilvl grind. Thx God content isn't overtuned, as it was in the past (Nazjatar for example), so I can live without it. What else should I abandon? Abandon this, abandon that. And at some point there is no content to do, so only option is to quit. That's, what I call casual-unfriendly game.

Who is forcing you to do something? Does Blizzard have a gun to your head as we speak?

It is completely doable to be casual in WoW. You can log in when you want and do whatever you want.

[WowIsDead64]

Who is forcing you to do something? Does Blizzard have a gun to your head as we speak?

It is completely doable to be casual in WoW. You can log in when you want and do whatever you want.

Do we play game or just pay money for lulz? There is no point in paying money just to log in and sit it capital city.

[Biomega]

Who is forcing you to do something? Does Blizzard have a gun to your head as we speak?

It is completely doable to be casual in WoW. You can log in when you want and do whatever you want.

It's funny, you go by a LITERAL reading of "forcing you", but you then METAPHORICALLY say "do whatever you want".

So, to Uno-Reverse you...

"WTF are you talking about, you CAN'T do whatever you want! Can you play as a 20-ton dragon girl with rainbow fur and Anduin X Wrathion sock puppets? NO! So you CAN'T do 'whatever you want', OMG you liar".

Be careful how you argue, people. Don't use one standard to criticize people, and then be totally blind to the same standard in your own statements.

[Nerph-]

It's funny, you go by a LITERAL reading of "forcing you", but you then METAPHORICALLY say "do whatever you want".

So, to Uno-Reverse you...

"WTF are you talking about, you CAN'T do whatever you want! Can you play as a 20-ton dragon girl with rainbow fur and Anduin X Wrathion sock puppets? NO! So you CAN'T do 'whatever you want', OMG you liar".

Be careful how you argue, people. Don't use one standard to criticize people, and then be totally blind to the same standard in your own statements.

I'm pretty sure you and other people know I meant you can do whatever you want from what the game lets you do. Don't be obtuse.

- - - Updated - - -

Do we play game or just pay money for lulz? There is no point in paying money just to log in and sit it capital city.

Again, no one is forcing you. Why are you even paying Blizzard money to play a game you obviously do not enjoy?