It's startling how fast game activity is falling

[Kissme]

It's also because it benefits those better players because the content is sufficiently difficult that carrying the bads will hold them back.

So my point is: if getting the goods to carry the bads is important, the game must not have difficult content, otherwise the goods will have incentive to ditch the bads.

If the game had no difficult content then the goods would just leave, or they would still abandon the bads as there is still no incentive to carry them. The continued movement to smaller raid sizes in and of itself has decreased the incentive to carry players. Why carry bad players in a 25 man when a 10 man gives them same rewards and you can cut the chaff?

And if the goods raid for a challenge, then clearing everything on the first week because there was no difficult content would remove them from the game anyways.

Normal mode content is easily clearable by average players in a short time frame. Hard mode content can be approached by average players on a longer time frame, and by upper echelon players on a fairly rapid pace. Normal mode content is clearable by bad players on the same timeframe that hard mode content is cleared by average players.

The problem comes when bad players expect to clear hardmode content as quickly as average or upper echelon players.

Accept your limitations.

[John Zoidberg]

Great post Faroth, completely agree with everything you said.

[Idoru]

Time+money investment says "Hi".

I have played (and payed for) this game for 8 years now. But the second I stop enjoying it I'm out, time and money be damned.
Why on earth would you keep paying for (and force yourself to play) something you don't enjoy......

[isadorr]

People always wanting what they didnt earn. Obamacare at its best. So you dont want to put the time in but want what others have lol. The elite are effecient and good at what they do so you think they get more than you, which they should. In life the more effort you put in the better is usually is but in wow you want less effort but the same reward. I LOVE the idea of because you pay the same amount you deserve the same content which led to the nerfing, guess what there is nothing but YOURSELF holding you back from doing it.

[GrieverXIII]

If you're raiding normal modes and you're restricted in time, why do you even do LFR, or even play an alt? Personally i'm probably playing around 25-40 hours a week (including week ends) depending on a lot of factors (if i'm going out or not etc), but like i said its my main hobby, so i spend very little time on other things like T.V.

Valor capping is too long, i'll agree with that, but it has nothing to do with raid difficulties. You can pretty much ignore dailies once you're revered, there's more time efficient ways to cap valors. Iif you're looking strictly for valor per hours, bronze challenge mode runs are a very efficient way).

[Kissme]

I think the dumbed down rotations blizzard has implemented along with the numerous addons and class guides take most of the difficulty out of something already trivial. You want to compare being good at wow as hard as basketball camp? A 3-4 button rotation? I understand where you are going with it but in all reality wow is very easy.

Never said it wasn't. I'm just saying that players will have different skill ceilings even if they do put in time and effort. And some players are good at different things. Some people just suck at multitasking, others are terrible at spacial relations or timing. All of these things play into raiding to varying degrees. Muscle twitch speed matters in certain games, or awareness of procs. Some people just don't process these things as efficiently or quickly as others.

This isn't to say that a lot of players don't lack the will to improve. I think that the idea that a game or hobby shouldn't require skill or effort to achieve goals is foolish, because any sense of accomplishment comes from time and effort. A lot of players seem to think that because WoW is a game, they shouldn't need to improve to be able to accomplish whatever they want in whatever time frame they want. Osmeric seems to think that he should be able to get every piece of gear he wants and beat every boss on the hardest difficulty because he logs in. That's a depressing condemnation of the WoW playerbase in and of itself. However, I do think Blizzard has fostered this attitude by saying that everyone should see all content and then implementing mechanisms to allow such things to happen.

I was happier in the game when I was working on Twin Emps in Vanilla and failing, even though other guilds were in Naxx 40, than I was at any point after Ulduar because I felt that what I was experiencing was commesurate with the effort I was investing. That sort of attitude seems to have disappeared from the WoW community.

[Superchief]

This is the first time I haven't resubscribed in years. It kinda feels good, cuz I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything important. The way I look at it is Blizz will release patches later that completely obsolete each previous justice/valor gear set from the vendor just like in Cata. So I'll simply just wait until the last patch in the expansion to take a look, that will save me lots of time! Then I'll jump my character leaps and bounds ahead by organizing a pug raid for the hardest raid and ninjalooting the drops I can use.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

They have said you dont have to do dailies to progress in raiding, you dont have to raid to progress in pvp and all that junk. They are correct, you don't. You also don't have to play if you are bored, unless under a contract. I tell you though since I can only get on a few hours, I spend more time doing old world stuff just for the fact that I cant devote enough time to progress in current content.

Right.

But the main problem is WoW is too gear based. Chasing gear that is useless in 4 months isn't very compelling for long.

Which is why Blizzard needs to diversify content, so players can choose what they want to pursue with SIMILAR outcomes. Making all the good gear raid based is the old system that the devs understand, but in a day and age where raiders aren't raiding for 15hrs a day, that system no longer is viable.

Anyone claiming they're some hardcore epic raider now sure didn't put in their dues.

I rather get my gear for time spent in the game on a variety of pursuits (sampling all) than just a tiny segment, that gets old quick.

This is why I would love for WoW to have a Signature style quest-line, that by the time the expansion is a 8 months or so from the end, players can get some epic gear for putting effort in on their own schedule. Raiders will hate it, but more people will have hope that there's some light at the end of the tunnel where there's something good that awaits for effort over time.

We need to start rewarding patience.

[Berri]

This 'WoW is dying' thread has been masterfully disguised!

Actually though, it's not. WoW is doing great and there are a myriad of RL complications that can lead to a steady decline in player population. I myself haven't noticed one whatsoever.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

I have played (and payed for) this game for 8 years now. But the second I stop enjoying it I'm out, time and money be damned.
Why on earth would you keep paying for (and force yourself to play) something you don't enjoy......

That's you. Do you realize there's 10+ million others?

[unholytestament]

Yes. As predicted, we have reached the point in this expansion where Cataclysm was a brilliant, wonderfully designed expansion. Just like Cata sucked and Wrath was perfect and Wrath sucked and TBC was perfect.

Happens every time, without fail.

Kind of funny how the doomcriers were the ones saying something about history repeating itself earlier.

[BeastmasterGuardian]

Right. But the main problem is WoW is too gear based. Chasing gear that is useless in 4 months isn't very compelling for long.

This. This is why I don't kill myself to do dailies or to raid. Being the first one to do it is not gonna win me some sponsorship from Pepsi and a 5M dollar contract. Plus, after the next expac launches, the gear that took months to gather is basically worthless. Figure I will just take my time and get what I get without stressing.

[KCguy]

Well like any MMO, eventually content runs out and there isn't much to do. Other than doing the new 5.1 dailies which don't take that long, there really isn't much else for me to do other than my 2 night a week raiding. I've got some alts up already, but even then I'm not going to valor cap them because chances are I'll only do LFR with them. So I don't care. I've also done all the factions as well. I could blow tons of gold on a brawler invite, but then what? Wait literally a few hours to get my turn and kill an elite? Woop de freakin do. lol.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

This 'WoW is dying' thread has been masterfully disguised!

Actually though, it's not. WoW is doing great and there are a myriad of RL complications that can lead to a steady decline in player population. I myself haven't noticed one whatsoever.

More excuses.

The game is dying due to apathy and staleness and some brain dead decisions from Blizzard (e.g., Warlocks being so OP it's just watch players die as healers don't have efficient counters scenerios, all so it can work in arena, hells bells anywhere else).

[MoanaLisa]

Just like he would have 3 months into cata - and after 4.1. Still the stats were showing a steady decline at the time and we got same arguments going then.

Carefully read all that I posted in the thread and you would find that I agree you can tell whether things are generally going up/down with regard to activity. My point is more subtle in that due to the nature of the sampling mechanisms (especially WRC) the nature of the sample can and will change over time. That makes comparing one set of data (first two months of MoP) to another a much more difficult proposition. I'm not saying that you can't use Xfire/WRC to determine broad overall trends. I think you can. I'm much more skeptical of using either to compare results spaced over a very long time frame of 18+ months and then draw conclusions from that.

[melodramocracy]

I think its because the xp is not alt friendly so far so a lot of people that would normally play and level alts just dont have the drive to do it.

Which strikes me as odd, because the time and effort required to level multiple alts and vp cap them all on any given week in Cata > the effort it takes to do dailies + vp cap on 1 toon now.

After years of Blizzard saying 'hey, there's no need for you to make a decision on much of anything', folks don't like suddenly feeling like they need to decide on what single toon they'll be focusing on for at least the start of this expansion.

[unholytestament]

But the main problem is WoW is too gear based. Chasing gear that is useless in 4 months isn't very compelling for long.

It has proved compelling enough to put it in the number one spot and keep it there for years.

WoW has always been based around gear.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

This. This is why I don't kill myself to do dailies or to raid. Being the first one to do it is not gonna win me some sponsorship from Pepsi and a 5M dollar contract. Plus, after the next expac launches, the gear that took months to gather is basically worthless. Figure I will just take my time and get what I get without stressing.

Yep.

Raising 30 alts on Shandris alone is enough of a time sink as it is.

Feels wonderful not being on that gear roller coaster. Now can simply play (if Blizzard doesn't screw up things again...no more 164k crits + DoTs in BGs without efficient counters!).

[Kissme]

Great post by Faroth

Although I would argue that various parts of each and every expansion were terrible or good. I don't think that we've hit the nostalgia window for Cataclysm yet, but then I never hit a nostalgia window for wrath. Each to their own.

[Mang]

Just because people are playing less doesn't mean they're not paying their subscription.