"The biggest thing stopping players from coming back is leveling."...no no no no NO

[swissedog]

You pay for the game and get to level, explore the new world, catch up on the new stories, and play for your 40 or so avg hours of gameplay. (lasts about a month?) This is not that different from the average rpg.

You pay the subscription to keep up to date with the latest releases of content, and the "endgame". Small patches of content that expand the game, and ideally would grant you a similar return on dollar investment. Say approximately $1.50 per hour of new things to do. Raiding is the major counterpoint to that model, which is why they spend a significant portion of time providing new raid content. A standard middle road raiding guild will put 6-9 hours in raid a week, and probably another 6-9 hours outside of raid. The value proposition is improved. When you play 20 hours a week, and pay $15 a month and that content lasts 3 months you are getting good value for your money. Even lfr can consume 4-5 hours a week. That meets the $15 mark as long as lfr is relevant.

It is no mistake that blizzard said they wanted to release content faster. That's because there is an obvious value gap between the initial cost and the ongoing maintenance cost. When you get to the end of the expansion you are getting neither new static content nor expanding content. You are getting less "value" for your gaming dollar.

imho.

[Kalorna]

The thing that stops most people I know coming back is either the time you have to put in to play at a semi-competitive level (even normal mode raiding requires a schedule and most people I know now have kids/full time jobs/partners they live with etc) or the game just doesn't "feel" the same way it used to - stuff like server communities not playing as big of a part anymore due to X-realm everything and LFG/LFR. Most of those players were from Classic/TBC though so the game is very different now to how it was back then. I don't really think leveling plays a big part in people that I know not coming back but I remember a while ago there was some comment from Blizzard that the majority of players never even reach maximum level so for those players payed 90 boosts will probably be a good thing as the majority of the game is now focused on endgame.

[HeedmySpeed]

Wah wah wah, people now have the option to skip leveling, big fucking deal. 99% of current players have already hit 90 on their toons multiple times, the majority of these boosts will be used for someone's 5th alt.

Well, you heard him guys! Big fucking deal! We can close the thread now!

Edit: On a serious note though, if leveling is such a huge stopping factor.... why make it a PAYABLE option to bypass it?
It seems counter productive to solve this issue by putting a paywall in front of them to skip it.

Secondly, fanbois in here claim that it's mostly veteran players who buy alt's anyways.................
but if that's the case, then these 90 boosts fail to hit their target, right?

[Huehuecoyotl]

If it is fun, why haven't I hit level 50 (out of 80)?

Maybe WoW levelling has caused your gameplay skills to atrophy to such an extent that GW2 is too hard for you?

[worstpvperus]

Maybe WoW levelling has caused your gameplay skills to atrophy to such an extent that GW2 is too hard for you?

Or he just doesn't like guild wars leveling. I don't like leveling at all because wow got me addicted to mmo pvp. Leveling compared to pvp isn't even fair its dull and boring in comparison.

[Masoner]

Blizz wants money, Blizz is still trying to keep face, so they come up with some sketchy excuses nobody is going to buy anyway. It's called PR.

Save face with who? they made the most successful MMORPG ever and there will never be another "king" MMORPG unless Blizzards makes it.

[DoctorDoomkin]

To me, it is! It's boring. While the warlock is a cool looking class to play, the mobs do not require me to use my character as often. Just spam Shadow Bolt until they're dead. If I'm tackling more than 2, I get to press ONE additional button to transform into a demon, and then proceed to spam Shadow Bolt(which will become something else down the road if I'm not mistaken).

Another issue I have is that it is nowhere near multiplayer friendly compared to other MMOs. GW2, for example, encourages people to help each other out on quests without punishing them. Your XP gains are the same regardless if you are alone or with a friend, or if a random guy came by to help finish them off. In WoW, due to many quests being "Kill X amounts of Y", I feel like I'm fighting not only what I am supposed to kill, but my own faction because they don't want to share the loot and the XP to progress through the game. With no incentive to help, everyone wants to tag as many enemies as they can so they can progress faster. With not enough enemies to kill for everyone, I often find myself Alt-tabbing to wait until they respawn.

Blizzards questing is not so good when others have done it better. If there is anything I would like to have Blizzard do, is to make the game more coop friendly. I shouldn't feel like I am fighting my own faction, and I should still be given at LEAST full XP for grouping up with friends, or if someone comes by and assists in the kill. If they can't make the quests engaging, make them co-op friendly so that we don't have to sit through them longer than we really need to.

[Khetagurov]

don't mind levelling in general, but i'm currently working on an alliance rogue, and i've been astounded at the number of horde players that spend their days camping lowbie zones.... HH on my server currently has 6 horde 90's in it, several of whom were there a couple of days ago when i actually levelled through it.

if i was new to the game and i was struggling through this without any real idea of how to skip it, i don't know that i'd bother putting any time into it really, it's pretty horrible.

[Deleted]

99% of the posts in this thread and all other threads like it:

"WoW is obviously in decline because of X, where X = my own psychological frustrations and gripes with the game reworded to sound scientific-ish."

It's been eight years. I wonder when people are finally going to catch on.

[freighttrain]

Mmo champion thinks that you are either hardcore or casual.

In fact blizzard thinks you are either hardcore or casual

screw the major population of normal ass people.

Consider a bell curve (normal) distribution

3% are pure hardcore, race world first/ server first

14% are hard modes

66% are normal raiders, some unable to do all of normal (but all of flex), some able to do some of hard (but all of normal)

14% are Flexers

3% never touch a raid

I assume LFR spans all percentages to some points, and is its own curve.

I know this is simply a guess, but from what I see every day, I don't think it is far off. Wow has always been a raiding game for a reason.

This curve probably was much different when heroics were fun. but LFR has replaced them, and Flex has started to replace LFR

According to Blizzards numbers from DS in Cata, only 50% of players hit up DS and a vast majority were in LFR. They have never released official numbers but raiding has only been enjoyed by a small percentage of players until LFR. Even after it is only half maybe slightly more now with flex and LFR.

[Count Zero]

Only in this case "walking and talking" rewards you with full epic raid tier content AND there is nothing better or different to get from harder difficulties of raiding, apart from item level and same gear with different colors.

"There's nothing different, if you don't count what's different"

Da fuq ?

Plus, guess you don't feel the same way, but - when I see someone in full lfr or full flex gear, I don't see them as being on equal footing with my character who is in a mix of normal and heroic gear - just like I don't see my character being on equal footing with folks in mostly/full heroic gear.

[Smudge]

Even after it is only half maybe slightly more now with flex and LFR.

There is a pretty large pool of players, I would guess 25-50% of active accounts, who:

* Find random groups particularly in LFR just too goddamn rude to deal with frequently or perhaps ever
* Can't put together a reliable approx 10-person raid group for reasons of schedule, server population, personality, whatever.

Raiding, whether it's LFR "raiding" or real flex/normal/heroic raiding, is just not for them. The game really needs to cut these folks some slack and encourage them to keep on playing for other reasons.

That "slack" used to be leveling, when leveling was a worthwhile process. Now, I don't think that pet battles, heroic scenarios, Timeless Isle achievements, whatever, really cut it.

[Itisamuh]

There is a pretty large pool of players, I would guess 25-50% of active accounts, who:

* Find random groups particularly in LFR just too goddamn rude to deal with frequently or perhaps ever
* Can't put together a reliable approx 10-person raid group for reasons of schedule, server population, personality, whatever.

Raiding, whether it's LFR "raiding" or real flex/normal/heroic raiding, is just not for them. The game really needs to cut these folks some slack and encourage them to keep on playing for other reasons.

That "slack" used to be leveling, when leveling was a worthwhile process. Now, I don't think that pet battles, heroic scenarios, Timeless Isle achievements, whatever, really cut it.

Well said. My slack has always been PvP, but that area of the game is in such a sorry state in MoP, that even it became unplayable.

[Smudge]

Well said. My slack has always been PvP, but that area of the game is in such a sorry state in MoP, that even it became unplayable.

Indeed, PvP (sub max level too, obviously) has been a fun place in WoW, but in my opinion PvP has been pretty much a wasteland in MoP.

I have less than 50k HKs to 250k, but if I have to get them in the current version of WoW, it will absolutely never happen.

[BenBos]

There is a pretty large pool of players, I would guess 25-50% of active accounts, who:

* Find random groups particularly in LFR just too goddamn rude to deal with frequently or perhaps ever
* Can't put together a reliable approx 10-person raid group for reasons of schedule, server population, personality, whatever.

Raiding, whether it's LFR "raiding" or real flex/normal/heroic raiding, is just not for them. The game really needs to cut these folks some slack and encourage them to keep on playing for other reasons.

That "slack" used to be leveling, when leveling was a worthwhile process. Now, I don't think that pet battles, heroic scenarios, Timeless Isle achievements, whatever, really cut it.

Now that we make up % for free. My guess is that 20-25% plays BG's.

It always was my main activity and it is easy to see why ...: solo - whenever you have time - some GREAT show off achievement titles - casual - no harassment - fun - over in 20 minutes - terrific engine in 3D typical WoW view - enough terrain/mecanics differences.

I only leveled through PvP for most of the time. Not always, but mostly when I didn't do the Iron Man run.

And a TIP for Blizz: now that we have free lvl 90's ... perhaps it would be great to have an officialy tracked Iron Men run.

Something along the line of Diablo3 hardcore play ...

[worstpvperus]

But they were glass, and dead in two seconds after their coup de grace move.

Not a good K/D ratio.

Funny but pointless.

Vanilla and bc had the least balanced pvp in my opinion. In Wotlk and Cata I could get decent ratings with shit gear and I could beat several fully geared players in greens or level 60 high warlord gear.