Influencers got their will, Bliz listened to their feedback, yet noone plays game

[Gondule]

For years influencers have complained about all the "main stream" issues about the game. Like "REMOVE BORROWED POWERS" and "REMOVE MANDATORY CONTENT".

Just to be specific, I am talking about people in this sphere:
- Asmongold
- Preachgaming
- Belluar
- T&E

Just to be clear, those influencers are just echoing how they see their communities talk, so it's more of a community thing. I am not trying to hate on the influencers.

Influencers have made video after video complaining about the same things and tunnelvisioned on certain things like

- no more borrowed power
- no more required content that force you to log in every day
- no more infinite AP grinds
- no more Sylvanas
- more focus on permanent systems like
* talent system
* battlepass system
* crafting system
* flying system
- more communication about the future patches and plans

We all know the list they dreamed of is kinda accomplished in Dragonflight.

Influencers no longer have anything specific to complain about. Great, I guess the game is so fun now?

Because to me it seems they all have never played the game as little as they do in this expansion.

And the influencers have just conveniently moved on to other games, while simutatiously have nothing to complain about. "I'm just not that into the game right now".

I seriously worry that Blizzard took the influencers feedback way too seriously to heart, but the reality is that following them does not make a game that people want to play.

What do you think?

Um, I’m having the most fun I’ve had in decades with this game. I could care less that this game isn’t destroying records. We’re long past the time where WoW is the dominant online game and it’d be super naive to ever think that’ll come back. This is the best expansion in a long ass time, I’m gonna enjoy it regardless.

[BetrayedOf52]

I do agree that influencers think they have magic ideas, and everyone should rally behind them. Especially the ones you listed. It is funny too that they begged for a better WoW, receieved the best wow we have had in a decade and none of them play.

But I also think WoW is in a really good spot right now. Im happy with almost all changes

[THEORACLE64]

That's why i stopped giving my feedback after so many tickets and suggestions i wrote to them. Yet still this game is getting worse and worse.

Yeeeeeah… this was never going to work.

You were basically just messaging customer support.

[Kokolums]

I do agree that influencers think they have magic ideas, and everyone should rally behind them. Especially the ones you listed. It is funny too that they begged for a better WoW, receieved the best wow we have had in a decade and none of them play.

But I also think WoW is in a really good spot right now. Im happy with almost all changes

same thing happened with leveling. blizz received a bunch of feedback from people who thought leveling sucked in wow like its too slow, theres too much travel time, talent points are dumb, rewards are lame, etc. so blizz listened to those that hate leveling and tried to "fix" it for them. but surprise! the people who hate leveling STILL hate leveling and now the people who liked leveling fled to wow classic. so blizz utterly broke leveling in retail.

[Soon-TM]

so blizz utterly broke leveling in retail.

Levelling a new toon in retail reminded me of those trashy *censored* servers where you complete a quest and go three levels up. I always thought that levelling should be a bit longer, while the max level grind should be shortened to compensate.

[Inoculate]

I think that the game and community are actually on the upswing atm. I'm happier with DF than the last two expansions. I'm not playing as much as I did in Legion or MOP, but that's because I'm given time to play other games and WoW without feeling behind if I'm not raiding.

I'd only say that it can be hard to do recently defunct content when it's "kill the mob with a billion health" after the number of groups forming for that specific content continues to decline. I guess playing on update week isn't the biggest ask, so I'm not too bothered. In a few patches, I can go back and solo it at my leisure.

If it's an upswing in population, then why are there less and less groups? Respectfully, the world feels empty as hell even in caverns, i wait around sometimes literally 10 minutes for another player to come kill a rare.

I agree the game is better than recently, but the playerbase has taken a hit and it shows. I wouldn't care if they stopped making the rares with such high base hp pools.

[trimble]

If it's an upswing in population, then why are there less and less groups? Respectfully, the world feels empty as hell even in caverns, i wait around sometimes literally 10 minutes for another player to come kill a rare.

I agree the game is better than recently, but the playerbase has taken a hit and it shows. I wouldn't care if they stopped making the rares with such high base hp pools.

World content has been insanely unpopular since tbc though for its extreme low quality. The biggest damage done to wow was when they made it mandatory for raider in sl to prepare for mythic.

A dead world is wow healing...its always been a theme park mmo. If you want a active world...... I think runescape is it unless you count final fantasy hunts.

[Biglog]

As for the OP, it's one of those things that comes up a lot nowadays. People see result A (in this case, DL being underwhelming), and action B ("influencers" making wow suggestions) happening at the same time, and assume sometimes incorrectly that B must be the cause. I am sure they consider their feedback as longtime players with large communities. But there have been a lot of changes Blizz did that were the total opposite of what the same influencers suggested, which kind of knocks that theory. So it's not like they are just following their direction, the influencers are just a small part of the big userbase picture.

A whole lot of things really factor into the game design decisions, from headcount/turnover (something Blizzard has had a problem with recently), to budgets, listening to forums and general player feedback, player retention (customer reasons given for unsubbing), etc.

[Inoculate]

World content has been insanely unpopular since tbc though for its extreme low quality. The biggest damage done to wow was when they made it mandatory for raider in sl to prepare for mythic.

A dead world is wow healing...its always been a theme park mmo. If you want a active world...... I think runescape is it unless you count final fantasy hunts.

World content has been dying because they force players into pve and pvp instanced content. You're right and I should move on at this point as the game is clearly not designed for players like me in mind.

But what happens as more and more leave? How hard will it be to recruit as the pool of players wanting to branch into raids and such dwindle?

[trimble]

World content has been dying because they force players into pve and pvp instanced content. You're right and I should move on at this point as the game is clearly not designed for players like me in mind.

But what happens as more and more leave? How hard will it be to recruit as the pool of players wanting to branch into raids and such dwindle?

Nah people who enjoy world content havent ever belonged in wow. Them leaving wouldnt even be noticed by normal raid guilds much less higher levels of play. I guess the guy who pvps in full mythic gear in the level 61 era will suffer but thats it.

The problem is you cant have challenging world content in a mmo as people just drown it in numbers. Everquest even tried making a unkillable boss once and people battled it for a week to kill it. We wil never notice world players leaving because they never even played the same game.

[Lolites]

If it's an upswing in population, then why are there less and less groups? Respectfully, the world feels empty as hell even in caverns, i wait around sometimes literally 10 minutes for another player to come kill a rare.

i dont know where or when you play, i constantly see groups of people killing rares and doing events... even at the oddest time...

[Inoculate]

Nah people who enjoy world content havent ever belonged in wow. Them leaving wouldnt even be noticed by normal raid guilds much less higher levels of play. I guess the guy who pvps in full mythic gear in the level 61 era will suffer but thats it.

The problem is you cant have challenging world content in a mmo as people just drown it in numbers. Everquest even tried making a unkillable boss once and people battled it for a week to kill it. We wil never notice world players leaving because they never even played the same game.

Your viewpoint is one of a raid logger. You clearly don't understand what the entire game ecosystem depends on if you think you wouldn't notice the other gamers dropping.

Those fresh recruits with no experience? Less of those which means less successful raid recruitment. The few that can adapt will be a smaller pool.

The people buying carries to keep raid mats flowing? Also dwindle, so your team is having to either convert to farmers or start requiring people to supply their own mats.

The players you think don't interact with you still support the game activities you enjoy.

Plus the less subs, the less money to go back into the game.

It's simple.

[Soon-TM]

Nah people who enjoy world content havent ever belonged in wow.

This is the kind of "reasoning" that gave us masterpieces such as WoD.

[crusadernero]

World content has been dying because they force players into pve and pvp instanced content. You're right and I should move on at this point as the game is clearly not designed for players like me in mind.

But what happens as more and more leave? How hard will it be to recruit as the pool of players wanting to branch into raids and such dwindle?

Wow didnt have world content for years. In fact, when Blizzard started to double down on trying to create world content, the players started to move away. Classic had literally nothing of it, except the leveling and player made activities. BC had some, but most of it was standard dailies. Wotlk same.
With cata and onwards we got more and more and reached peak world content when everyone was forced to grind stupid WQs for legendaries and power progression.

Glad its gone in the sense I dont have to engage with it. I do it now and again, but im glad theres no forced playtime for it.

wow has, since it launched looooooooong ago been level up-->get gear from proffs, dungeons, raids, bgs & arenas. Always.

I have literally no idea what you have been waiting for all these years. DF is probably peak world content.

- - - Updated - - -

This is the kind of "reasoning" that gave us masterpieces such as WoD.

WoD was hot garbo, I agree. But it was one content concept away from being decent - mythic+

[Thes]

I think the issue is not that people don't feel "forced to play" it's more that they DONT "feel like playing and having fun in" the game.

I play less but I have more fun when I do so; I think the game accomplishes that way better than it has in the past.

Not super into the whole dragon lore, although dragon riding is very cool and I would love to see it in the old world too.

[Inoculate]

Wow didnt have world content for years. In fact, when Blizzard started to double down on trying to create world content, the players started to move away. Classic had literally nothing of it, except the leveling and player made activities. BC had some, but most of it was standard dailies. Wotlk same.
With cata and onwards we got more and more and reached peak world content when everyone was forced to grind stupid WQs for legendaries and power progression.

Glad its gone in the sense I dont have to engage with it. I do it now and again, but im glad theres no forced playtime for it.

wow has, since it launched looooooooong ago been level up-->get gear from proffs, dungeons, raids, bgs & arenas. Always.

I have literally no idea what you have been waiting for all these years. DF is probably peak world content.

- - - Updated - - -



WoD was hot garbo, I agree. But it was one content concept away from being decent - mythic+

Vanilla had tons of world content. Lots of rep grinds, outdoor dungeons, questlines that spanned both continents. TBC brought dailies with shattari skyguard and netherwing to name a few. Not to mentiom the isle of queldanas and its unique raid unlock.

Just because you dont engage with content doesnt mean it never existed nor should.

[Ateo]

So it's great that they listened, but end of the day they still made a poor game. I mean it was engaging for a while but honestly it's just boring. There isn't really anything I like about it so I unsubbed back in early Feb and have been playing classic...just not blizzard classic.

This guy hit the nail on the head.

It took them what, 10 years to FINALLY listen to the fans? Then when they did they did it during the most lack luster story to have ever been introduced to wow. How the fuck did they make dragons boring and so disneyfied.

I haven't played since mid season 1 dragonflight. But last night I came back because my girl wanted to play the new zone. My God, that intro quest was the worst experience I've had in wow since MOP. Why the hell do they have to keep making this game into a kid friendly Disney style experience? Where did the seriousness of wows story go? I'm not talking "omg this bad monster giant god is a world ending threat" I'm talking gritty, down to earth, immersive and semi realistic writing like mankirks wife/defias story arc/classic wow ambiance and vibe style of writing. Writing that made me think "man this world is rough but I can't get enough of it."

This game has become for lack of a better word, for soft children.

Go play classic wow. Go play wrath. Those games that did so well did so well because they had dark fantasy and gritty realistic (for a fantasy universe) worlds. Yes there was the very few odd and end meme quest but it was nothing like now, every single quest is soft or meme inserts or some pop culture reference or some weakly voice acted Disney spin off style character entering the scene.

Those mole people are pathetic. The dragons lost all their edge. The world of warcraft has become weak, soft, and pathetic and its core audience has lost interest. No matter what they do as developers to make this game "fun and easy to enjoy" it will not be either because the core content of the game is NOT WORLD OF WARCRAFT.

You simply can't build a franchise off the back of a rts who's known as a dark fantasy game and then go turn it into shit show of a game that walks on eggshells and has to try to not offend anyone with every turn they make.


Ive been playing this franchise since warcraft 2 dropped, I've read and own every book, I havent been this turned away by the content since MOP.


Over the past decade or so we have seen some horrible expansions(content pacing issues, mandatory brain dead content, bad story arcs, etc) but WoD at least had the base backbone of the warcraft franchise themes, Legion was supposed to be the "return to form" all the fans wanted, BFA was at least gritty and very real feeling moments, but then shadowlands destroyed the lore, and Dragonflight is continuing in turn by destroying the very world we play in.

[trimble]

Your viewpoint is one of a raid logger. You clearly don't understand what the entire game ecosystem depends on if you think you wouldn't notice the other gamers dropping.

Those fresh recruits with no experience? Less of those which means less successful raid recruitment. The few that can adapt will be a smaller pool.

The people buying carries to keep raid mats flowing? Also dwindle, so your team is having to either convert to farmers or start requiring people to supply their own mats.

The players you think don't interact with you still support the game activities you enjoy.

Plus the less subs, the less money to go back into the game.

It's simple.

That isn't how it works...its not how it ever worked.

We are not kin even though we play the same game. WoW's endgame has always been dungeons>raid. World content is that annoying thing players quite over because it had rep requirements for tedious and boring quests. People who genuniely enjoy world content in wow cant be compared to mythic raiders...their are too few of them. Its better to compare them to glads.

Bots keep the mats flowing and honestly its a better system for it. Pay pigs buying tokens pay for carries its always been the case there is a reason up to wod carries where very rare and not overly sought after.

People who play wow as a single player game are just not its audience and never have been. Ever attempt to get players who enjoy a mmo as a multipler game into the world has been an unmidigated disaster from legion to bfa to shadowlands nightmare grinds that injuired the game badly. Your era if it ever existed is past... its time to move on.

I don't hate you I just understand why you will never ever be focus on again and its for the greater good.

[Orwell7]

Warcraft III as dark fantasy is like plants vs zombies.as a horror game

[trimble]

This is the kind of "reasoning" that gave us masterpieces such as WoD.

WoD was the expansion that was targeted at non raiders... it had a gear progression path based on time alone via the garrison they begged to have for years. It had heroic level gear availble for the first time via apex crystals. It covered the map in rare spawns dropping mounts and treasures and still has arguably the best leveling experience.

The problem with WoD was it gave the non raider, non dungeon player everything they claimed to want so they quite the game not having anything else to do. WoDs only flaw from what I can recall for that group was that and the last tier dragging on to long.