Why Is Blizzard Always At War With The Playerbase!?

[Neuroticaine]

Because the players are constantly asking for the the world and more, and not being given everything you want is not an act of malice.

[chiddie]

this lol like yes open world needs better progression and from the looks of it, dragonflight gives you many avenues to gear up through crafting, dungeons, raids, pvp, and open world and reps. but i def dont want openworld peeps to have even normal ilvl gear from raids, LFR at best!

Dude? Open world is basically giving ZERO ilvl progression as usual after you get to max level + 1 month of wandering around doing the same 20 WQ/Dailies forever and ever.

[arkanon]

nobody is at war. Blizz acts and players obey. its insanity. I warned yall months ago they would pull this shit.

Only months ago? Not a decade ago? And more importantly ...pull WHAT shit?

[chiddie]

So just to be clear - one of the reasons you quit raiding in 2012 was m+, something that didn't exist yet and hadn't been announced?

- - - Updated - - -



If you don't "have time" then do m+ for gear.

This is pure entitlement and nothing more. You used an awful lot of words to say "I want the best gear without doing the hardest content". Then followed up with a LOT of words which translate clearly to "my life has changed, and the game should completely change to suit my life" - again, pure entitlement and nothing more.

Like I said earlier, it's ALWAYS the same with you lot "I want the best gear from doing the easiest content". Always. Without exception.

Dude, it’s not your fault is ow content is piss easy but it’s not our fault either.

It’s up to Blizzard to create challenging ow solo content if they want to retain that part of the playerbase.

I surely won’t play for long a game that offers me nothing unless I group 24/7.

[WowIsDead64]

I am not saying one view is right or wrong but I offer up food for thought. People generally want to feel like their time is not being wasted. If raids offered no gear and instead were only done for speed trials, the number of people that did them would be vastly lower. We see this with people who get BiS and either just raid log or wait for the next expansion (or play an alt). With out door content, dungeons, PvP the same can be considered to be true also. If you can get to a point where you're not longer progressing then the content no longer has a reward and we're now "wasting" our time. There where you start to see people unsubscribe or come here and start complaining. Now if there were a system in place where people could do these types of content and eventually get the best or near to the best gear then they would continue to do this content. Take away the treadmill and honestly large portions of the game really aren't that fun and people quit.

Good post. But funny thing - Blizzard cater to exactly such players and opposite problem happens. They try to provide potentially infinite content to keep players busy forever, but rewards are devalued due to it. No rewards = 0 reward/effort ratio = wasting time. But when rewards exist, but they're way too overstretched to prolong their life time, so reward/effort ratio is close to 0 - it still feels like waste of time. Example? Anima grind. 200 days to get crappy recolors? Definitely feels like waste of my time.

Blizzards' dream - is content like PVP, where players are content-driven. I.e. they do content just for sake of doing content. And rewards are just nice participation bonus. Many rewards are definitely tuned for such players. Like Isle Expedition mounts for example. Such rewards are extremely bad for reward-driven players like me. Because I do content to get reward - not opposite. And when reward is overstretched due to being treated as reward for playing in very very long term - it just makes me burn out due to doing exceeding amount of content, I don't like.

[OrangeJuice]

Only months ago? Not a decade ago? And more importantly ...pull WHAT shit?

Advertise a sundae then give you a banana

[kranur]

Probably because they're unable to keep people in through the quality of content so they gate the fuck out of it.

[8bithamster]

An extremely (vocal) minority of the playerbase on reddit/mmo champ =/= at war.. I really wish people could grasp that basic concept.

It's always great to see how people assume that somehow a social media platform or some "influencer" (just insert your favourite wow youtuber) speaks for the masses, but that's not how it works.

There is no game in the world where everyone blindly agrees or loves it (Ok maybe the star citizen fanbase, but those are already lost to the cash grab craze), people will always disagree on a game, it's content, playstyle etc. Does that mean that every developer is "at war" with their playerbase? Ofcourse not.

Short; different people have different opinions, and some forum doesn't speak for everyone. The fast people learn to accept differing opinions (Which, on mmo champion is nigh on impossible), the faster people can enjoy their life.

[WowIsDead64]

I don't want to say, that game is always about doing content I don't like just to earn rewards. It's perfect, when I can do content I like in order to get rewards I want. But I also can "suffer" to some extent, if reward is worth it. What I hate the most - is overpriced rewards, that require exceeding suffering. Bad thing - Blizzard make their game reward-driven by design. I.e. sometimes they make crappy content and "encourage" players to do it via gating really good rewards behind it. They call it fair approach, because "good reward = more effort". But I don't think, that it's right approach. There should be more options, that should allow players to get reward via way, they actually enjoy - not via being forced to do, what they don't like.

[Skylarking]

It's difficult for blizzard to discern whether an opinion is the majority or minority.

[MoanaLisa]

It's difficult for blizzard to discern whether an opinion is the majority or minority.

Should Blizzard let players essentially drive the design of the game? I would say no.

[Delever]

Multiple reasons.

• The game leads are hardcore raiders who only care about hardcore raid content. People who care about story or casual open world gameplay or crafting or PvP or side content like pet battles are shafted.

• Back in the day, Blizzard was a studio of people working out of their garages. They were passionate. They also had stocks in the company and were very driven to succeed. Then WoW exploded and Blizzard scaled up. Over time the original people have left and have been replaced by fresh out of college graduates who aren't motivated to do their best. They either just want the name Blizzard on the resume, or they just want their paycheck.

It's been this way for nearly a decade. Things aren't going to change. Even if Ion Hazzikostas is replaced I think the problems are institutional. You have to accept that WoW isn't going to get better.

Yeah man. Those damn fresh out of college zoomers and their lack of passion am I right? Shall we give em the good ole boomer nudge of "work harder buddy"? Maybe that ll re-ignite their "lost passion" and even help them afford a fraction of a living room in the current market.

[8bithamster]

Should Blizzard let players essentially drive the design of the game? I would say no.

If I look at mmo champ? god no, please no. Never.. that would be the worst way to handle the game.

[Delever]

Should Blizzard let players essentially drive the design of the game? I would say no.

Ideally no. That sounds like a total mess to be honest. How games should work in my opinion (and I m willing to discuss and debate this) is the following:

I think a game creator, whether that be a company, an individual or a small studio should have a vision and try to bring their vision to life to as close to their perceived standard as possible. That vision takes life and fulfils a niche in the market that attracts a certain audience that likes and is in line with that vision. The audience is free to give criticism and feedback and the creator is allowed to ignore or incorporate it but in an ideal scenario, the people who play and stick with your game are the ones in line with the vision that you had in your head. Along the initial flock of people who come to play your game, there will be some people that do not agree with your vision to a large degree (not talking about small things here) and loudly try to point you to a different direction because they have a different vision. In my opinion those people should not be playing your game and instead of trying to change the game, they should be trying to find a game that better fits their ideals and visions as the market has plenty of games to choose from atm.
Fans of an artist should not drive the artists art but rather appreciate it for what it is. People giving van Gogh instructions on how to paint and him following in a way where he tries to please the most amount of people instead of the niche group that enjoyed his art for what it was would have resulted in much different paintings.

Of course, what I am talking about here is a very very idealistic scenario where factors such as profit, greed and money come into play to effectively dismantle the whole process of bring a game vision to life as the corporate department of a big company will always push for the most amount of money even if it means destroying the niche of the game to target a broader audience.

The playerbase of WoW has already driven the design of the game enough. The current playerbase is the representative of the new vision of the game as most people who enjoyed WoW for what it was pre - cata/mop are either playing classic or have moved on to other games. A sizeable fraction of the old playerbase is also either playing on and off due to the sheer amount of time and commitment already spent of this game or have coped with the changes and the new direction and learned to enjoy it.

I personally stand in the middle of those two categories. I do not inherently dislike the new direction of the game but it certainly is not the design direction that made me fall in love with the game. I miss having less quality of life features to facilitate grouping and social interactions. I know that these are not even done in classic now but this is because once the QoL wave starts, there is no going back and people will find a way to avoid grouping and minimize social interactions even without the QoL features being present.

[WowIsDead64]

Ideally no. That sounds like a total mess to be honest. How games should work in my opinion (and I m willing to discuss and debate this) is the following:

I think a game creator, whether that be a company, an individual or a small studio should have a vision and try to bring their vision to life to as close to their perceived standard as possible. That vision takes life and fulfils a niche in the market that attracts a certain audience that likes and is in line with that vision. The audience is free to give criticism and feedback and the creator is allowed to ignore or incorporate it but in an ideal scenario, the people who play and stick with your game are the ones in line with the vision that you had in your head. Along the initial flock of people who come to play your game, there will be some people that do not agree with your vision to a large degree (not talking about small things here) and loudly try to point you to a different direction because they have a different vision. In my opinion those people should not be playing your game and instead of trying to change the game, they should be trying to find a game that better fits their ideals and visions as the market has plenty of games to choose from atm.
Fans of an artist should not drive the artists art but rather appreciate it for what it is. People giving van Gogh instructions on how to paint and him following in a way where he tries to please the most amount of people instead of the niche group that enjoyed his art for what it was would have resulted in much different paintings.

Of course, what I am talking about here is a very very idealistic scenario where factors such as profit, greed and money come into play to effectively dismantle the whole process of bring a game vision to life as the corporate department of a big company will always push for the most amount of money even if it means destroying the niche of the game to target a broader audience.

The playerbase of WoW has already driven the design of the game enough. The current playerbase is the representative of the new vision of the game as most people who enjoyed WoW for what it was pre - cata/mop are either playing classic or have moved on to other games. A sizeable fraction of the old playerbase is also either playing on and off due to the sheer amount of time and commitment already spent of this game or have coped with the changes and the new direction and learned to enjoy it.

I personally stand in the middle of those two categories. I do not inherently dislike the new direction of the game but it certainly is not the design direction that made me fall in love with the game. I miss having less quality of life features to facilitate grouping and social interactions. I know that these are not even done in classic now but this is because once the QoL wave starts, there is no going back and people will find a way to avoid grouping and minimize social interactions even without the QoL features being present.

Such arguments are usually sound like hypocrisy. Because it's always great to say "Find another game", when devs' opinion perfectly matches yours. How about stepping in our shoes? What if tomorrow devs will change their mind and switch to completely different game design, that no loner will match your preferences? Will you just quit and find another game? Or will you voice your concerns somehow? Mmm? We tell devs about our problems - it's up to them, how to deal with them. May be they should make completely new game. Or may be it would be cheaper to just fix design of current one to widen it's auditory.

[Osmeric]

Should Blizzard let players essentially drive the design of the game? I would say no.

I would say yes, but not superficially. Player attraction and retention ultimately have to drive everything they do. They're a business, after all.

Blizzard's problem has been they either don't understand their customers or don't accept what such understanding would be telling them.

This doesn't mean "customers say X, therefore we do X". Customers may not understand themselves either, and certainly don't speak in anything resembling a unified voice.

[8bithamster]

I would say yes, but not superficially. Player attraction and retention ultimately have to drive everything they do. They're a business, after all.

Blizzard's problem has been they either don't understand their customers or don't accept what such understanding would be telling them.

This doesn't mean "customers say X, therefore we do X". Customers may not understand themselves either, and certainly don't speak in anything resembling a unified voice.

No.. players should not. Let's take at DF for example. We have seen on this forum alone:

"omg add tinkers, blizzard knows literally everyone ever wants tinkers"
"Mythic is to hard, nerf it all"
"Heroic is to easy, buff it all"
"Make all M+ queue-able"
"Solo players need to get access to all mythic raid gear"
"Solo players should not get more than green/blue gear"
"Blizzard sucks because fomo is ruining the game"
"The new flying is a horrible concept and the developers should quit"
"The new flying is the best ever concept"

Are you sure, are you really sure you want all of the above to have a say in development?

You know who has the best data points? Blizzard.
Do they share the data sets with us? Nope
Should they? Nope
Does that mean they have no idea what they're doing? Nope

[Delever]

Such arguments are usually sound like hypocrisy. Because it's always great to say "Find another game", when devs' opinion perfectly matches yours. How about stepping in our shoes? What if tomorrow devs will change their mind and switch to completely different game design, that no loner will match your preferences? Will you just quit and find another game? Or will you voice your concerns somehow? Mmm? We tell devs about our problems - it's up to them, how to deal with them. May be they should make completely new game. Or may be it would be cheaper to just fix design of current one to widen it's auditory.

Its not hypocrisy but you do you. And I am in your shoes albeit not with the same arguments that you make on many posts. The game has changed design and while I occasionally come back to the game and play for some time, I have found different games as I mainly play XIV and New World these days to satisfy what I am looking for in an MMO. WoW still satisfies this to some degree but I feel like the main thing occasionally bringing me back is my attachment to the game and the time I ve spent.
The devs change their minds all the time and this very changing of minds is what gradually drove me away from the game to begin with. You miss the point of why this happens though. It is the community that makes the devs change their mind no matter how much people pretend it isnt. It is listening to a market of players that was not your primary audience anyway and trying to hit two birds with one stone and missing both of them.
The game is jumping back and fourth between its classic values and its modern values, deleting and re-introducing features and trying to find a middle ground to please everyone instead of just sticking to their guns on a direction that will nurture a specific type of playerbase that will be loyal to the game and bring a steady flow.

You often hear people call XIV players zealots and fanboys and to a large extent this is true. I m not saying that this fanatic behavior is good or healthy but I wanna take a step back and ask people here if they at least understand why in a time where games get trashed and review bombed left and right for as little as having ONE bad launch day or ONE mediocre feature, how does XIV manage to have such a large and devoted following? And at the same time have a large audience of people who vocally dislike it and yet manages to objectively be very successful?

The answer is simple. The game fills a specific audience niche and fills it very very well FOR THAT AUDIENCE. While the game has evolved and things have changed since its release, the CORE direction of the game remains literally unscathed. Looking back at a realm reborn and comparing it to Endwalker I dont feel as if I m looking at a completely different game like vanilla WoW and Shadowlands for example. FFXIV took a decade to nurture and captivate a specific type of playerbase that is attracted to this sort of game direction. During its popularity surge when blizzard was being hit left and right by negative press, lots of new people jumped over to XIV that did not necessarily fit that niche and after their honeymoon period was over, they started complaining and demanding changes to the game that were totally against the core of the game. You know what the XIV dev team did? They did nothing. Because they respected their vision and the playerbase that brought their vision into is success today. They did not ONCE compromise their vision to attempt to try and hold the surge of people that came with Shadowbringers and Endwalker.

This resulted in the core playerbase sticking with the game, a large part of the bandwagon that didnt fit with the games values to again jump ship and bail and the game keeps growing at a nice and slow pace.

Disclaimer here: I do not think XIV is a perfect game. Far from it. But I do think the way that the XIV dev team handles the direction of the game is far FAR better than how the WoW team(s) have handled their game over the years.

EDIT: I wanted to add one more thing. What happened in WoW over the years is better explained with an analogy I have in my head. Lets say in the year 2010, a new vegetarian restaurant opens in town and takes the vegetarian community in the town by storm. People love its meat alternatives, they love their falafels etc you get the idea. People who also enjoy a vegetarian diet also find the restaurant very nice and occasionally come to eat there. The restaurant is exclusively a vegetarian restaurant and offers animal products but not meat with also some vegan options on the side without being its main course. The restaurant is so successful that they start opening new divisions.
Months later the news reaches everyone in town and everyone wants to try the restaurant. People come in, have a taste of the food and find out they like some of the food but the vegans would prefer more vegan options and some of the meat eaters want some main courses with meat. The people who founded the store are in favor of a few more vegan options but not a lot and they are vehemently against the idea of adding meat options on the menu as is this completely against their initial vision and personal values. A large part of their core steady customers would also not like such an addition to the menu due to personal ideals and beliefs and the lack of such choices is a big reason why they come to the vegetarian restaurant where they feel more comfortable.
As the chain has grown quite big though, pressure from the top come trickling down and the restaurant is forced to change directions in an attempt to try and expand to more audiences and maintain its surge in popularity. Slowly, meat is introduced into the menu and more vegan options become available. The resources to do this are of course taken from the same pile of resources thereby compromising the quality of their vegetarian cuisine. Their dabble in the new cuisines is only mildly successful as there are far better vegan and meat restaurants in town for those who want such options. As other vegetarian restaurants open in town, the initial community of steady customers slowly starts to abandon this restaurant which finds itself losing popularity. Profit remain similar as the meat eaters tend to spend a lot more money and consume larger quantities of food on average but restaurant publicity goes down and its identity is soon diminished, becoming another generic restaurant in the town.

[HASELHOOF93]

Usually because "the playerbase" is a constructed public - there's no monolithic player base that wants any one thing or even a set of things like the items you've posted above. Ask a cross-section of players about any of the above line items and you'll get different and often contradictory responses, from essential agreement to people who will say "LFR raiders don't deserve mounts," or "Pathfinder is fine L2P" or "M+ sucks and shouldn't distract from WoW's true end-game: raiding," etc., etc. There's no unified player base for the developers to be at war with, and everyone wants WoW to cater to them and their playstyle because, well, we all sort of live in our own perspectives and generally imagine everyone else does too unless told otherwise (and sometimes not even then).

What is "archaic" or "meaningful" is also equally open to debate, and indeed, is debated pretty much nigh constantly here and elsewhere.

What is this? Logical reasoning? Get out of here!

Just end threads like this already, or put up some sort of disclaimer (explanation if you will, like the quoted post above), its just hurting the game.

[Delever]

Usually because "the playerbase" is a constructed public - there's no monolithic player base that wants any one thing or even a set of things like the items you've posted above. Ask a cross-section of players about any of the above line items and you'll get different and often contradictory responses, from essential agreement to people who will say "LFR raiders don't deserve mounts," or "Pathfinder is fine L2P" or "M+ sucks and shouldn't distract from WoW's true end-game: raiding," etc., etc. There's no unified player base for the developers to be at war with, and everyone wants WoW to cater to them and their playstyle because, well, we all sort of live in our own perspectives and generally imagine everyone else does too unless told otherwise (and sometimes not even then).

What is "archaic" or "meaningful" is also equally open to debate, and indeed, is debated pretty much nigh constantly here and elsewhere.

There never will be a totally unified playerbase but by sticking to your vision and your guns you can at least achieve a MOSTLY unified playerbase. Blizzard dabbled in too many fields and changed core direction back and forth too many times to be able to nurture a specific type of community.