Did casuals ruin WoW and if so how?

[nekobaka]

I also laugh when you talk about topping DPS charts while merely using recount. What do you think the purpose of recount is?!? That's like saying, "I didn't cheat on my arithmetic test except for using a calculator."

Recount does not directly tell you what buttons to press. It provides the result of your performance based on certain metrics. The far closer comparison is taking a test that shows your score after answering a question. Recount is a tool that can tell you if you are not meeting the DPS requirements along with how many mechanics you failed.

There are a number of visual and audio cues that are given by bosses to let you know when abilities will happen. The raid environment has become quite busy compared to BC and WotLK where these cues are harder to pick out among all the noise. It still does not make it impossible.

My point still remains - removing LFR and replacing it with actual content would be better than keeping LFR in the game and not changing anything else.

For the past year a number of posters and myself have been trying to discuss alternative ways to make non-raid alternatives to LFR and even devote more resources to them. The LFR supporters however feel threatened just by the notion of offering alternatives even while no mention of directly changing LFR is made. These posters scream out said its just an elitists way of trying to get rid of LFR. At least one of these posters has changed their views of LFR after many months of defense for it saying that it should remain the main focus and now claiming they will quit after clearing the new raid on LFR saying how horrible it is towards keeping casual players subscribed. Odd how some posters will flip sides like that.

[Gungrir]

Blizz saying that 1% did naxxaramas is very different from saying "1 to 5% of the people out there ever raided".


And I can tell you, from my experience, anyone that actually hit max level that wanted to try Kara did. There's a big difference between entering Kara and clearing it, or just trying out some of the bosses. Either way you still raided. Seriously though, if there's anyone on the forums here that never tried Kara back in BC, announce yourselves. Let's see how many respond.


And the money comes from many types of players - guys that never make it past level 20, people who are hardcore, people who only bought vanilla and didn't get any expansions, and people who hit max level but only play casually. My point still remains - removing LFR and replacing it with actual content would be better than keeping LFR in the game and not changing anything else.

I was talking about 1-5% clearing rate and not i put my nose into the door raider and of course Blizzard makes their money from many different sources. Merchandising, other titles, player base in WoW.

If they remove LFR they need to replace it, exactly my thoughts but they would need to focus 80% on the "replacement" then on the actual "raid" content, would you be ok with that?

[RickJamesLich]

It's not a silly assumption, it's something they've discusses on many levels. They never used it as an excuse to make raids, the did that anyway because it's the content they played in EQ and in other mmos where the devs came from. They created raids because thats what they did but they never had the same pressing NEED to entertain as many players at max level as they did before. Their audience or many many more memebers of their audience have hit max level. This has created a far more diverse group of people hitting lvl 90 than ever. That diverse group of people (OTHER PEOPLE) need to be entertained. The need exists now because people are at max level where they weren't as many as before.

I agree reusing the same raid is silly. Creating dungeons takes about as much time and resources as making a raid so I'm okay with raids taking a back seat in favor of dungeons. Bring em on. If it means you get DS for 9 months ENJOY. If it means raid become 5 or 6 boss (at most) endeavors with mostly reused assets and gear being provided outside of the raid I'm all for it. I'm all for raids actually becoming NICHE things but my suspicion is that what that would entail most of you would hate.

We'll probably get 10 months of Siege lol, I plan on doing 4 personally. Your point of "more people are hitting 90 then ever before so they need more content", I don't see how this leads to re-hashing raids and making them easier. Plenty of max level players were content with what blizzard offered previously, which I'm sure you will agree was much more challenging for the most part, whether it was 5 mans, raids, or simply questing. Removing challenges from these things obviously does make certain players happier, but on the flip side, players that enjoyed that stuff or are looking forward to it for the first time will likely not get a fun experience. Without any risk of dying, the game pretty much turns into something where you just run around and kill stuff, IMO that's why subs are lower now than they are in times like BC.


As for the raids thing, I see what you're saying but I just don't see how you get to the conclusion - take places like Ulduar, BWD, and many more great raids that didn't have a duplicate version of the place that was set intended to be a guaranteed win. Blizz created these places just fine.

[Glorious Leader]

We'll probably get 10 months of Siege lol, I plan on doing 4 personally. Your point of "more people are hitting 90 then ever before so they need more content", I don't see how this leads to re-hashing raids and making them easier. Plenty of max level players were content with what blizzard offered previously, which I'm sure you will agree was much more challenging for the most part, whether it was 5 mans, raids, or simply questing. Removing challenges from these things obviously does make certain players happier, but on the flip side, players that enjoyed that stuff or are looking forward to it for the first time will likely not get a fun experience. Without any risk of dying, the game pretty much turns into something where you just run around and kill stuff, IMO that's why subs are lower now than they are in times like BC.


As for the raids thing, I see what you're saying but I just don't see how you get to the conclusion - take places like Ulduar, BWD, and many more great raids that didn't have a duplicate version of the place that was set intended to be a guaranteed win. Blizz created these places just fine.

Because the audience is diverse as humans are anywhere. They are OTHER PEOPLE who do not have your skill, ability, time, or even just plain desire to commit to raiding like you. They however still expect and need to be entertained if you want to keep them around. Now their are obviously more of those people than you so the developers had to come up with some way that kept both of you entertained. They could have said fuck raids we'll do something else but instead they kept it and tried to get as much use out of it as they could but making it was wide spread and available as possible. "Plenty" is basically a tiny tiny minority because it was a very small amount of players who actually got to max levels. The REAL plenty of people were leveling and not worrying about end game or raiding. Just chasing the reward and carrot that came with getting levels. People now hit max level relatively quickly but they still expect to be entertained. Theirs plenty of risk of dying in the game. Lot's of challenge for you but they want to make the game as diverse as possible because their audience is diverse. However in this they've actually done a terrible disservice to diversity. Basically the entire game is raiding now, more than ever, even if it's just raiding on lfr because as noted before it has to be made as economically viable as possible. Serious alternatives that offered a different progression paths were NEUTERED to bring you people massive "quality" raids you love. Congratulations. YOU WON RAIDERS.

[RickJamesLich]

I was talking about 1-5% clearing rate and not i put my nose into the door raider and of course Blizzard makes their money from many different sources. Merchandising, other titles, player base in WoW.

If they remove LFR they need to replace it, exactly my thoughts but they would need to focus 80% on the "replacement" then on the actual "raid" content, would you be ok with that?

My point is this "nobody raided" notion is simply not true and not clearing the raids IMO is a good thing, raids, much like 5 mans, can get dull if you clear them too quickly. And I am definitely saying replace LFR with something cool. Blizz has totally done this before, and while some posters here may not have found casual content fun in older expansions, if everyone thought it sucked, I highly doubt the game would be as successful as it is. If it meant taking out a few bosses, I'd say go for it still - as it stands, blizz is going to burn out a lot of max level players next patch, and while that will happen to some players no matter what, it's almost like the intent is to burn people out with the same raid over and over.

[Glorious Leader]

My point is this "nobody raided" notion is simply not true.

Replace nobody with virtually nobody and it's correct. It's just you can't see beyond your personal circle and assume your personal bias is evidence of a trend in the game. It's not. . Certainly not enough to justify the ENOURMOUS expense of raids especially the raids we've had in mists. Especially since the developers are telling us this is exactly why LFR exists and it's roll in the greater scheme of things. Raiders WON they WON big time this expansion. Hell the developers even tried to roll back instant catch up and (in ghostcrawlers own words) tried for "a slightly more vanilla feel" with respect to catch up. It's just that old straw about being careful what you wish for...

[Ikkarus]

Lazy ppl ruined the game, not casuals..Lazy ppl that used to say:

"It is impossible for me to raid, do something..."

"No, I can't CC the mobs, please make it easier"

"No, I can't walk till there, make a portal please"

"That guy saw the end game, I want to see it too but I don't want to put effort on it, please do something"

...

[RickJamesLich]

Because the audience is diverse as humans are anywhere. They are OTHER PEOPLE who do not have your skill, ability, time, or even just plain desire to commit to raiding like you. They however still expect and need to be entertained if you want to keep them around. Now their are obviously more of those people than you so the developers had to come up with some way that kept both of you entertained. They could have said fuck raids we'll do something else but instead they kept it and tried to get as much use out of it as they could but making it was wide spread and available as possible. "Plenty" is basically a tiny tiny minority because it was a very small amount of players who actually got to max levels. The REAL plenty of people were leveling and not worrying about end game or raiding. Just chasing the reward and carrot that came with getting levels. That doesn't happen anymore in fact those people were not satisfied with the lvling experience in mists (for a number of reasons it's utterly horrible) and were even less satisfied with the end game. None of it was particularly casual friendly.

I totally agree there are people that don't have my exact skill or play for the same amount. Changing the game so that challenge is eliminated from almost all aspects except for certain parts of raiding IMO is still a bad thing though. Blizz had plenty of hard stuff and easy stuff before, the game has been massively successful, I don't think it's a stretch to assume doing this again would harm the game.
Making raids as "wide spread as possible" has diminished raiding, that is my point. Even ghostcrawler has stated, LFR really isn't anything like raiding.... so why put something called "looking for raid" in the game if it doesn't emulate what it was intended to emulate?


I definitely agree that MoP's leveling was not fun compared to previous expansions, the casual players I know IRL agree here.


I got a feeling that you and me will disagree on how "casual friendly" MoP is but I do think we will agree that it could be much more satisfying than it is, perhaps for different reasons. I think if blizz tossed in an entry level raid, made 5 mans challenging to the point where you can wipe if you don't follow mechanics, but also rewarding them properly (they should've been at least at the LFR item level) would be a good start. There's plenty of stuff they could do though, make professions interesting instead of just giving a .5% boost to the stat of your choice, rep grinds that give good rewards, not just 489 gear from VP, and keeping dailies, but spicing them up so they aren't just "kill 5 mogu's and pick up 6 weapons off the ground" at every daily hub. I'd kill for one more bombing run right now lol. If raiding takes a hit, I wouldn't mind lol.

[Mormolyce]

CCing mobs in dungeons was never compelling gameplay really.

[roahn the warlock]

Casual players tend to be more toxic. Or just the new generation of players are toxic.

I should add Bad casual players are the absolute worst and are what most people are talking about when they say Casual. I am casual but give me an extra 4 hours every day and I could be hardcore.

Now this is just a theory. But maturity = intelligence. Intelligence = better player. Therefore better player = mature. Now granted there are outliers. But in my experience good players are pretty chill.

Other theory. Casuals demanded LFG, with LFG you get the 4-chan of gaming.

These theories are both evident with Brawler's guild. Players give buffs, are helpful, give rezzes, give advice. This is because (At least at the start) Only good players can handle Brawling, That and it is server based, meaning dicks are quickly shunned (Like it was in TBC)

[Glorious Leader]

I totally agree there are people that don't have my exact skill or play for the same amount. Changing the game so that challenge is eliminated from almost all aspects except for certain parts of raiding IMO is still a bad thing though. Blizz had plenty of hard stuff and easy stuff before, the game has been massively successful, I don't think it's a stretch to assume doing this again would harm the game.
Making raids as "wide spread as possible" has diminished raiding, that is my point. Even ghostcrawler has stated, LFR really isn't anything like raiding.... so why put something called "looking for raid" in the game if it doesn't emulate what it was intended to emulate?

Once again I don't think you'd like it if raiding became niche again. Niche raiding would entail the following:

Mostly reused assets from the other content they have to make in liue of raiding (hypothetically dungeons or world stuff ala DS)
Bosses with INSANE challenge (it can be challenging as hell because guess what's next...)
Only like 4 or 5 bosses every 10 months (remember it's niche and it has to be allocated the appropriate resources for it to be niche)
Can't tell the story (after all we want it to be niche and not fodder for the masses who WANT story)
can't award any gear or character progression that can't be done outside the raid or through another alternative (same as above we don't want it to be fodder for casuals)

Ultimately it is not raiding in that particular sense but it is raiding in so far as it's the same shit they call a raid (in terms of content creation) just scaled appropriately. You have to think about this from an economics stand point. It couldn't possible emulate what it's named to emulate because historically that has had VERY LITTLE appeal to most people. They needed "raiding" or better yet the raid content to have broader appeal (really just shove people into it) so they could justify it's expense as a sort of catch all for all folks. A streamlining of content production so they could increase the pace of raid production and the scope to. Massive bloated raid tiers every 5 or 6 months with tonnes of trash and 12-13+ bosses with all sorts of complex mechanics.

I agree this is TERRIBLE and not very casual friendly or fun but the alternative was to severely curtail (possibly eliminate) the production of raids in favor of creating content that entertained a larger portion of their audience. The principle that OTHER PEOPLE play this game would be in effect. Their is no magical universe where you get both. Hell in TBC we didn't even get any new heroics until sunwell.

[roahn the warlock]

CCing mobs in dungeons was never compelling gameplay really.

Yeah, it was boring. And as a warlock... it was a complete pain in the ass to never get heroic spots in dungeons runs because they needed a mage. He was a pure class that could do it better. And if I got to come I just loved competing with a mage for the cloth items

(It was however liberating to kick ther dps' ass in raids)

"LFG daily heroic Need mage" *shudder*

[Beergod]

Yeah, it was boring. And as a warlock... it was a complete pain in the ass to never get heroic spots in dungeons runs because they needed a mage. He was a pure class that could do it better. Oh but sometimes I got to come to mechanar

"LFG daily heroic Need mage" *shudder*

The joys of being a mage..

[RickJamesLich]

Replace nobody with virtually nobody and it's correct. It's just you can't see beyond your personal circle and assume your personal bias is evidence of a trend in the game. It's not. . Certainly not enough to justify the ENOURMOUS expense of raids especially the raids we've had in mists. Especially since the developers are telling us this is exactly why LFR exists and it's roll in the greater scheme of things. Raiders WON they WON big time this expansion. Hell the developers even tried to roll back instant catch up and (in ghostcrawlers own words) tried for "a slightly more vanilla feel" with respect to catch up. It's just that old straw about being careful what you wish for...

I'll agree, in WoW, most players don't hit max level. But at that point, content at max level isn't really the issue for them. As for raiding, as I said, if anyone here hasn't ever touched a raid before, speak up now. I doubt anyone will respond... I'd do a poll, but it's too much effort lol. As for the enormous expense, I think that is justified in the fact that it attracts people to the game. Hearing that you can form an army and literally storm into a massive dungeon has gotten people to play wow, even if they don't reach that point themselves. Take street fighter for example, if they made the game a single player game, one in which you could never face off with a friend, the company may save some money, but then again, it'd turn off a lot of people that may be interested, even if they do play solo a lot of the time.
You and me will probably disagree no matter what on raiders winning. Raiders run out of content typically by Wednesday and have to wait until next Tuesday again.
The instant catch up is part of what made DS so dull, you bypass almost all of the content the game has to offer, and the stuff you do wanna run, typically you can clear in an hour or so. It left everyone flying on their mounts in stormwind or ogrimmar for 9 months because they already did everything in the game and had nothing left.

- - - Updated - - -

CCing mobs in dungeons was never compelling gameplay really.

For some, but having some level of coordination at the cost of wiping for some like myself, added in a challenge and made it a lot more fun. Really, do you think the new way, where you always go in and just aoe everything is more interesting?

[Ronduwil]

Not quite sure you can say more people are hitting max level now than ever before.

If hitting max level is your definition of fun I guess you could say the game is fun for everyone. Unfortunately the stuff on the way to max level is typically much more fun. Once I level cap a character I get a sinking feeling because I know all that character has to look forward to is repetitive grind. To me, that's not fun.

And in the days of Sunwell Plateau, casuals had some pretty good content even if they couldn't touch the Sunwell.

Unfortunately nowadays casuals don't have any good content.

I'd agree the game is not often picking up new players - blizz for as long as I've known has thrived from word of mouth, but what's really worth bragging about in WoW nowadays?

To me, and probably to many casuals, WoW has never been anything to brag about. The point of the game was to have fun. I haven't bragged about accomplishments in a computer game since my early college days.

I remember one of the things someone would bring up was raiding - but after LFR, stuff like that has just died down. Wow's lacking that x-factor that would sound really cool and pull people in.

I've heard former WoW players at work talking about raiding before. It was always in the context of "stuff I used to do in college" and was always followed up by "and that's why I'm never going back to WoW... I just can't do 'just one more pull' until four AM anymore."

And trust me when I say LFR has hurt the raiding community - it's much more difficult to find raiders now and many guilds are splitting up because of it, last tier, I was in 4 guilds that split up lol. Now I know you're thinking I'm just talking about my own experiences, almost every long time raider I know is saying the same thing - old players are leaving and there's very few new guys to take their place, unlike previous expansions. LFR IMO is definitely the culprit here.

I think you're vastly overestimating LFR's impact on the raiding community. The real problem is that there is no way to recruit new players now. Raiding guilds don't spring fully formed from the ether. There used to be a group of 4 or 5 guys who bonded over heroic dungeons, ran them until their characters had progressed as far as they could, and began seeking new content to master. At that point they would branch out into raiding and before you knew it they were forming 10-man guilds. Without the intimacy of heroic dungeons there are no bonding opportunities. Guilds now come in three varieties: leveling zergfests that exist solely for perks, old raiding guilds dying slow painful deaths, and old raiding guilds who are poaching players from the dying ones. The days of new raiding guilds are past, but that's not LFR's fault. If you want to blame anything then blame the absence of an environment in which new guilds can thrive.

[Glorious Leader]

I'll agree, in WoW, most players don't hit max level. But at that point, content at max level isn't really the issue for them. As for raiding, as I said, if anyone here hasn't ever touched a raid before, speak up now. I doubt anyone will respond... I'd do a poll, but it's too much effort lol. As for the enormous expense, I think that is justified in the fact that it attracts people to the game. Hearing that you can form an army and literally storm into a massive dungeon has gotten people to play wow, even if they don't reach that point themselves. Take street fighter for example, if they made the game a single player game, one in which you could never face off with a friend, the company may save some money, but then again, it'd turn off a lot of people that may be interested, even if they do play solo a lot of the time.
You and me will probably disagree no matter what on raiders winning. Raiders run out of content typically by Wednesday and have to wait until next Tuesday again.
The instant catch up is part of what made DS so dull, you bypass almost all of the content the game has to offer, and the stuff you do wanna run, typically you can clear in an hour or so. It left everyone flying on their mounts in stormwind or ogrimmar for 9 months because they already did everything in the game and had nothing left.

Right it wasn't an issue for them OR THE DEVELOPERS who could make raids as much as they wanted and know that players were occupied and busy with lvling. Asking for people who've never touched raiding on a web site primarily populated by members of the raiding community is rich and also confirmation or sample bias. Also in this day and age of lfr that's probably alot harder to find admittedly. In that sense LFR is a pretty good success it exposed so many more people to the raid content.

Raiding doesn't attract people to the game, the elf on the box or the dragon cinematic does. I know of nobody who bought wow and thought about raiding when they bought it. The enormous expense is NOT JUSTIFIED in any real sense because even if you do hear about all that crap and get a raging hard on the likely hood is that for most people the actual fun of that activity wore off pretty fast and/or the commitment wasn't sustainable for them anyway. Raiding in it's purest non lfr would still not justify it's production cost because it wouldn't HOLD anybody.

[nekobaka]

CCing mobs in dungeons was never compelling gameplay really.

And mindlessly AoE trash is? I do not see what is so compelling about an cloth wearer AoE tanking elites.

Yeah, it was boring. And as a warlock... it was a complete pain in the ass to never get heroic spots in dungeons runs because they needed a mage. He was a pure class that could do it better. And if I got to come I just loved competing with a mage for the cloth items

(It was however liberating to kick ther dps' ass in raids)

"LFG daily heroic Need mage" *shudder*

As a warlock I rarely had issues getting groups in BC and even did some with a boomkind and a ret paladin. Oh and MGT what fun to CC three targets while still having to DPS. I doubt I could pull off such things again after so many years of simplistic CC. Even Cata had a lot of wiggle room for CC and did not get close to BC unless your group did not kill anything on a GB bombing run and then you get BC.

[Gungrir]

i thought mages where only there for water and food + portals back to the city (and no not tables)? I remember mage books where always in high demand on the AH ^^ and i sold a buckload from Dire maul in the first few weeks.

[Glorious Leader]

The days of new raiding guilds are past, but that's not LFR's fault. If you want to blame anything then blame the absence of an environment in which new guilds can thrive.

And the absence of an environment where players can grow. The game teaches you nothing and just expects you will understand the overly complex rotations and boss mechanics. Hell TBC was simpler than this. It was a fucking joke.

[RickJamesLich]

Once again I don't think you'd like it if raiding became niche again. Niche raiding would entail the following:

Mostly reused assets from the other content they have to make in liue of raiding (hypothetically dungeons or world stuff ala DS)
Bosses with INSANE challenge (it can be challenging as hell because guess what's next...)
Only like 4 or 5 bosses every 10 months (remember it's niche and it has to be allocated the appropriate resources for it to be niche)
Can't tell the story (after all we want it to be niche and not fodder for the masses who WANT story)
can't award any gear or character progression that can't be done outside the raid or through another alternative (same as above we don't want it to be fodder for casuals)

Ultimately it is not raiding in that particular sense but it is raiding in so far as it's the same shit they call a raid (in terms of content creation) just scaled appropriately. You have to think about this from an economics stand point. It couldn't possible emulate what it's named to emulate because historically that has had VERY LITTLE appeal to most people. They needed "raiding" or better yet the raid content to have broader appeal (really just shove people into it) so they could justify it's expense as a sort of catch all for all folks. A streamlining of content production so they could increase the pace of raid production and the scope to. Massive bloated raid tiers every 5 or 6 months with tonnes of trash and 12-13+ bosses with all sorts of complex mechanics.

I agree this is TERRIBLE and not very casual friendly or fun but the alternative was to severely curtail (possibly eliminate) the production of raids in favor of creating content that entertained a larger portion of their audience. The principle that OTHER PEOPLE play this game would be in effect. Their is no magical universe where you get both. Hell in TBC we didn't even get any new heroics until sunwell.

It's ironic that you say raiding will be a niche again, yet bring up DS, which was when LFR was created lol.

And raiding definitely told a story before, despite being as you call it, a "niche"... typically it was the perfect place because after overcoming an epic challenge, you get much more than loot. Keep in mind the game has been massively successful with this formula since the beginning.


And LFR not being like regular raiding, IMO is why you don't really see many posts talking about how awesome LFR is - and why the subs are going down. The game can have broader appeal without having to re-hash stuff, as I've pointed it, it's been done many times before. I see you are really sticking to your guns on this whole "blizzard cannot ever make raids unless they make LFR, because it will only be cost effective this way" yet, the opposite has been true
since launch.