Lets be honest, WoW's in its current state is...

[Deleted]

pretty horrible. Now I know that I'm just beating a dead horse here, and that this has been discussed a million of times, but what the hell, seems to be the go to topic nowadays, so I guess I'll drop my views on the problem and possible fixes to them.

Inb4 "Not this shit again", "oh, what an exciting thread", "troll", "take off your nostalgia glasses".

Now that we got that out of the way we can discuss the main two problems of todays WoW: Progression and difficulty.

Let's start of with the difficulty part, because it will eventually lead up to the problem with todays progression. Now I know a lot of you will think I'm going to rant about how easy raiding is now a days, but the difficulty that I am referring to isin't related to raiding at all. It's rather related to the overall experience of the game. Leveling, grouping and ESPECIALLY the dungeon difficulty.
I'm going to refer to the following thread : eu.battle.n.et/wow/en/forum/topic/8427632869. It explains everything pretty well, but let's touch on what I think really makes the game mind numbing and unbearable.

First off the leveling.. what a load of bull. About 2 months ago I tried to relevel a couple characters to expand my class pool and to also try out monk. Trust me, I have never, never, felt so mind numbed before. Mind you I leveled one character with BoA gear and the other without, and it doesn't make too much of a difference, except that in one scenario you kill your brain cells for longer, and in the other, a bit less. The problem is, that everything is literally spoon fed. And I mean it. Quests? Boring as fuck. Everything is shown and extremely linear. I honestly, don't understand why people enjoy the new "flow" of quests. In pandaria, you just follow a set path or chains that just lead you from one place to another. I hate that they have done this to vanilla content as well, because honestly, I found wayyyy more enjoyable to sidetrack, search for different quest hubs, new places. Add up the fact that you now get abilities automatically when you level, and you have yourself with a brain mush deluxe - just run from one place to the other aka follow this linear path until you're 90. Group quests? Why the hell were they removed? It was always fun and exciting to see that quest that would give you blue gear, more gold, and more experience in exchange for a bit of effort. You could say that it broke the numbness of linearity and let you try something else - try to take on the challenge and solo 5 man quest alone(which I loved) or take a break and find some people to take on the quest. Either way it spiced things up a lot. The difficulty? Don't even want to comment that. It's just a mass pull fest with overdumbed mechanics now. Want to guess how many times I life tapped or stopped to drink on my warlock from 1-90? Yea that's right, zero(actually, I didn't have life tap on my bars).

Dungeons(I felt like this needed it's own space)? Oh my fucking god, what have they done? Dungeons used to be meaningful , fun, challenging and a key into the actual endgame. What are they now? Useless and boring. They are now just mass aoe fest, with a straight patern, easy bosses and overall useless(not only the normals, but also heroics). Nowadays, you can realistically, after you hit max level just go to the AH, buy a couple of pieces to raise your iLvl , go do LFR and you're set. Damn.

Now that we got most of those points out of the way we can move to the biggest problem: progression. Now this is a big one and honestly the one that has killed WoW for me the past 2 expansions, it's the progression or lack of it.

I know how much people hate when other put on the "nostalgia glasses", but let me try to give prime examples here for a second.

Vanilla - TBC - Wrath(possibly) : Okay, so at least for me, these were the expansions that I found myself logging on every day for the longest hours until the end of the expansion. Why you might ask? Because I felt an actual sense of progression, difficulty, fun and rewards. Back in TBC, after I hit level 70 on new alts I felt like I had a clear path - to get into Black temple/Sunwell/Kara(you name it). How did I achieve it? By baby steps. Hit 70 -> get all the possible best quest/rep gear(possibly buy something from AH) -> run normals until properly geared - > onto heroics -> get attuned -> run previous raids to get the latest possible gear before I stepped into the current tier. And all this while keeping me entertained also helped me find new people(no dungeon finder), and finally after so much effort help me reach the goal : to see the current tier, it's bosses, mechanics.

Cataclysm - Pandaria(mainly pandaria): The game in it's current state doesn't have me coming back for more than a couple of months maximum. Why? I'ts cause I can't find anything to fill my time in terms of meaningful progression. This is what is done on new alts today: Hit 90 - > get a couple of pieces for iLvl requirement - > LFR - > Loot shower - > eventually make way into heroics. Yes, it's that sad. With this type of gameplay I can't imagine myself spending more than 2-3 hours actually doing something meaningful in the game. All of this is done in an automized sense(LFR, dungeon finder, etc.) which makes the process even quicker thus making the game less of a time sink.

This sort of progression also makes the game EXTREMELY bland. You doing LFR means, that you already fought the bosses, saw their mechanics, dialogues, lore in the LFR. Do you really enjoy repeating it in normal/heroic just for those +10-20 iLvl's? I know that me, personally, would much prefer to have a carrot on a stick thrown at me, so I progress in a way that makes me reach my final goal in a climax. Reaching the final tier is the climax of doing dungeons/attunements/previous tiers, and is honestly always been the best reward.

Think about it for a second. What do you prefer? Hitting 90 and heading straight into LFR, getting the gear and possibly continuing into normals/heroics? Or would you rather break down your game into chunks that kept you occupied for a longer period of time, thus removing the "I'll resubscribe when new patch comes out" scenario, because you'll actually have something to do until the new patch hits. I find it funny that people blame Blizzard for not producing content fast enough, when in reality, there's more content than ever, just that half of it is useless or just done too quickly.

The game isin't dying because it's too hard/easy/aged. It's dying because of what it has become. A quick express that takes you no longer than a couple of days.

How do we fix this? Honestly at this point, it's hard to say if we can fix this. Look at Cata's heroics for instance. They were probably the closest you can get to vanilla/tbc dungeons, and what happened? QQ shitstorm everywhere. The game has has just changed too much to back to where we started. So the only thing I deem possible - a vanilla server. Look at it as more of a test, to see which way the game is actually better off and what do people enjoy more.

There are also other problems like class homogenization, reducing social interaction and others that I could touch upon, but the post is already too long, and probably half the people won't bother reading it anyway.

TL;DR: Games too quick,bland, easy thus leaving people with nothing to do, but to unsubscribe and wait for next patch, cause they are already done with the previous one in a week.

Thanks for your time and welcome to thread 9798789 discussing this topic.

Mod Note: Many more of same topic on the forum, locking this thread.

[Deleted]

Good post, completely agree with you.

[Nymfomania]

Leveling is why people bot.

[Mawnix]

"Oh, what an exciting thread".

[McNeil]

Expect to get flamed by all the fans here :P

[Mawnix]

Well then..like..play another game?

It is not like WoW is an endagered species that everybody loves, like the Panda and goes out of their way to protect it. It you find the game so horrible..play sth else. There certainly must be some MMO out there who presses all your buttons.

^This.

Once more I'll say it:

WoW is a video game and unfortunately an online video game at that. Since so many people use it, and its numbers have far exceeded what Blizzard ever expected, they have to do what's best for the masses. Not everything they do is for everyone, but it does its job in trying to do so.

WoW is not for everyone. It has never BEEN for everyone. If it was for EVERYONE, EVERYONE would be playing it, no? EVERYONE who's ever tried it would still be playing it, no?

Move on then. Find another video game. WoW isn't suited for you any longer. Sorry to see you go, but once again I'll say it:

It's a video game.

[Deletedaccount1]

I don't know its not that bad. Certainly the game used to be better but I find that when it comes to games, WoW is still probably one of the best investments of my time but it isn't my entire life anymore like it used to be.

[Buxton McGraff]

I don't like Call of Duty games, so I don't play them.
You don't like WoW, but instead of just not playing it, you'd rather play it and be grumpy about it and cry.

[Chuckadoodle]

Expect to get flamed by all the fans here :P

Nope not flamed, OP consolidated a bunch of QQ and complaints into one thread, its all been argued to death and most likely doesnt have an original thought in his post. Yep, dungeons are easy, TBC was the better than Sliced bread, previous tiers are obsolete on the gear treadmill, leveling is meh, all been said before in a dozen posts at least. Nothing new here just someone who made an account and cut and pasted from several other posts.

Some points he is right on, some can be debated and some is rose colored glasses just like every other whine, QQ post on the forums.

[Amerrol]

I think you are just bored of the game. I recently got bored myself because I realized that I wanted to play an alt, but I didn't actually want to do SoO a million times, and that perception just soured the idea of H SoO on my main. So I quit.

You mention Wrath, and the experience was similar starting with ToC. Hit 80 > gear for the ToC/ICC 5 mans > pug a raid. Granted it was more difficult than it is now, and it took a bit longer, but if you wanted to raid on alts it wasn't all that different of a process. Sure before that it was different, but your post makes it seem like this happened because LFR came out. All LFR did was lead to faster burn out.

[Sarcon]

Can we all please stop blaming the game? God forbid we just accept the fact that we're getting older and are bored with a game most of us have been playing for 6-9 years. Wow is just the new 'cool' thing to hate. Much like Nickelback and Lebron James.

[Bathory]

Yes I'll be honest, I'm loving the game atm. Can't wait to see what Blizzcon brings.

Okay, so at least for me, these were the expansions that I found myself logging on every day for the longest hours until the end of the expansion.

Oh really? You were logging into a NEW MMO constantly?

You do know how many years ago that was right?

[Deleted]

^This.

Once more I'll say it:

WoW is a video game and unfortunately an online video game at that. Since so many people use it, and its numbers have far exceeded what Blizzard ever expected, they have to do what's best for the masses. Not everything they do is for everyone, but it does its job in trying to do so.

WoW is not for everyone. It has never BEEN for everyone. If it was for EVERYONE, EVERYONE would be playing it, no? EVERYONE who's ever tried it would still be playing it, no?

Move on then. Find another video game. WoW isn't suited for you any longer. Sorry to see you go, but once again I'll say it:

It's a video game.

I am not currently playing wow, and haven't been so since pretty much the start of pandaria. You could say that I "moved on", but I still keep trying at the start of every expansion, oh well.

I am not trying to imply that the game is for everyone, or will fit everyones needs. It just seems that people are more dissatisfied with the game than ever before, and possibly for legitamate reasons reasons at that. I'm just expressing my feelings towards the game that I love current state and how it might impact future gamers, games. I mean, the reasons behind the "unsubscribe until new patch comes out" is pretty plain obvious and so far to everyone that I've spoken has the unsubscribe or sit in stormwind/ogrimmar feeling more often than before. And no, it's not cause of burn out.

[tumppu]

Any game I deem "pretty horrible", I uninstall/unsub. I suggest you do the same, because you really are beating on a dead horse (for you).

Personally I still login pretty steadily, to do something here and something there. I never get the people who go on about "progression". Most games I don't play for progression, I play them to be entertained, to pass time and to have fun. As long as I can hit at least two of those, I'm not planning to quit wow.

[Deleted]

Apart from "TBC is da best!" part of OP's post,I generally have to agree.WoW is in a pretty bad state right now,and no,I don't think Blizzard will ever fix this.

[Deleted]

Raidquality for normal and heroic is pretty good. Im enjoying it again, which I didn't in Cataclysm.
So I would say the state of the game is pretty damn good.

[Abysal]

Agree with most of what you said however I disagree that the problem is that the game is "quick express." Things can be quick and entertaining and they can be slow and dull. The problem imo is that it's mindless. I actually like the leveling pace as opposed to vanilla/BC. What I don't like is that I can level 1-90 without interacting with a single player, seeing a single elite out in the world, dying, really without trying. If it took me the same amount of time but I actually had to focus and try, it'd be much more engaging.

I was okay with the 5.0 dungeons in 5.0. They were easy but not so easy that no one ever died. I'd rather they be on the easy side than be so hard that tanks/healers keep rage quitting and I have to sit there waiting for another one the way we did in cata. What I don't like is not adding new dungeons in 5.2 and 5.4 to give us new challenges and an alternative progression path to LFR.

There is actually a lot more to do in this game than there's ever been. Challenge modes, pet battles, brawlers guild, proving grounds, arena, battlegrounds, duels, dungeons, lfr/flex/normal/heroic, scenarios/heroic scenarios, leveling, tiller farm, timeless isle farming, world bosses, achievements (did I miss anything?). I suspect many people who are bored with the game barely have spent much time doing challenge modes or pet battles. Maybe they aren't for you. Fine. I agree that the progression model in MoP sucked. The devs have come right out and said they weren't satisfied with it either. But there definitely is lots to do in this game.

Unless you've beaten all the non-progression based challenges in the game, I don't think it's fair to say there's nothing to do.

[Deleted]

You missed one part - you play it for years and are so experienced that for you it is maybe kind of boring nowadays. For you it is leveling an alt as fast as possible to Level 90 and the Game gives you the opportunity for it. But you really think you would the same if you started the Game now?
I have a friend - he was always interested what i am playing and he nearly never played a game except some browsergames. So i bought him this game and showed him the first 10 levels some things - myself got a bit impatient cause he was not able to see the global cooldown or when to hit the button on the right time. And he was exploring around and it took almost 6 hours till he got level 10.
But I also recognized the smiling on his face when he checked the drops and learned what they are for - when he discovered new type of Mobs, got a new speel. Yeah he did Quest, but he also started to explore. And that reminded me what i was doing back in the days.
I do not flame you and this is not a hate answer - i just want you to see, that you played now for years and you are experienced a lot in handling such games. But a lot of people are not - you use the fastest possible way which is good - but also boring. Others don´t do this. They still explore, find new quests they never did, enjoy also a bit of story, gimmicks, try to complete the characters when they hit level 90. And completion is not hitting Level 90 and get all the "gear". Maybe for you and your alt.
MoP gave a lot to do for Level 90s, more as ever before and sometimes it was hard to catch up. Now at the End of the Expansion of course they made it easier and that is ok. Now it is the time to level alts and gear them to at least 470 or 496 to be ready for the next Expansion. WoW just seems for a lot people so easy cause they already playing for years. And so all the "the state is bad, this is to easy, you need no brain anymore..." comes from.

[magicric]

Spot on. Unfortunately this thread will either get closed cause Moderators don't like anyone bagging this game and or you will get a lot of people flaming you.
I stopped raiding and there was literally nothing that I enjoyed out of the game other than raiding.
I tried leveling a couple of new characters but didn't enjoy it anymore, it felt easy and boring.
I'd had stayed if they brought more dungeons and dungeons that were like at the start of Cata.

[Deleted]

Any game I deem "pretty horrible", I uninstall/unsub. I suggest you do the same, because you really are beating on a dead horse (for you).

Personally I still login pretty steadily, to do something here and something there. I never get the people who go on about "progression". Most games I don't play for progression, I play them to be entertained, to pass time and to have fun. As long as I can hit at least two of those, I'm not planning to quit wow.

Progression can be seen different ways now a days I guess. You could call getting an achievement/getting more battle pets progressing. It depends on the person. But the idea of "progression" I had in my original post, was the reason behind actually having so much time to sink into WoW. You can basically call it a reason to log in. It can vary from person to person, but my reason to log was to do something that day. And it so happens that most of the time, that reason was to get that piece of gear from Mana tombs etc, so I can work my way towards the final goal.