Why Legion will still be stale in the end.

[PuffyPussy22]

So going into Legion you have to wonder what was wrong with WoD, whether the devs actually think WoD is a failure, and what they are truly looking to change. While there some good changes going into Legion, that being the introduction of a more complex dungeon system, there are also bad things that exist in the game that, no matter what, will end in boredom, stagnation, and people generally asking what is next.

Lets look at how WoW has been designed throughout its history and why, seemingly only starting at the end of Wrath, did the concept of "content droughts" suddenly become a problem. Well, for one, the game before had content droughts, its just to reach this point of the game required a level of skill, time commitment, group cohesion, that only around 1% of people actually saw EVERYTHING in the game and eventually wondered "what now". Now, while some may actually quote this as a negative for the game at that time, what it also actually means, is that 99% of people had something to look forward too, thus most people had no concept of a content drought, even though for 1% of the playerbase there was actually a drought. In BC, we saw a very similar situation and once again, no general problem with a content drought, even though there technically was one for a very small percentage of the playerbase.

Now, we get into WoTLK. Suddenly dungeons are made more of a quick route to get into raiding. No longer were they really a relevant aspect of the game for casual gamers (although more relevant than dungeons today), they were simply more of an aoe fest you got over with quickly to get your emblems for that week. Of course this means more people get into raiding than ever. Good thing right? Well, maybe not.

Of course when you have more people entering your content at a faster rate than ever before, to the point that you are making your own content irrelevent with every patch (See Ulduar being erased before most people even saw it so that we could get the worlds most bland Raid in history in the form of Trial of the Grand Crusader! ), you are of course putting constraints on yourself as developers to deliver content faster than ever. Blizzard fortunately was able to make this last, at least until the final tier of raiding in which case we, for the first time, saw the rise of the content droughts! Oh no! Why could this be!

Well, it should be fairly obvious to most people why this is. Simply put, the more you rush people into later content, the more you make the content before it irrelevant, the more you have to develop content. Now, its odd to me that Blizzard has proven, since WoTLK, that they are incapable of actually developing content at the rate they invalidate their own content. Of course, one has to wonder why they keep doing so and whether Legion will actually change this odd trend.

Well, unfortunately this will not be the case, in fact, it appears it will be worse than ever. With the introduction of ease of access, content is of course consumed faster than ever. This includes things like LFD, LFR, catchup patches, the fact that you can really skip heroics completely and go into LFR if you wish, making one wonder what purpose heroics have at all. All this means is, in the end, by very basic logic that has been proven by each expansion since BC, that this xpac will be no different. In the end it has no option but to be bland, dull and burnt through within the first weeks to months, and then rendered irrelevant, by design of course, only for all of us to be asking "what next".

You really have to wonder what is going on at Blizzard HQ when the idea of 99% having something relevant to do is seen as worse than most people having nothing to do because they consumed it the moment it came out. Until they adopt the ideas that Jeffrey Kaplan and Rob Pardo clearly put into place when they developed this game, ideas that Kaplan has used to extreme success in the designing of Overwatch, then this game can never be anything more than a casual side show for inexperienced gamers and quite frankly, its a disgrace to those of us who call ourselves such.

Thank you for listening.

[grandpab]

How did you get so many posts with a name like that?

[SoulSoBreezy]

So don't rush.

[lanesia24]

So going into Legion you have to wonder what was wrong with WoD, whether the devs actually think WoD is a failure, and what they are truly looking to change. While there some good changes going into Legion, that being the introduction of a more complex dungeon system, there are also bad things that exist in the game that, no matter what, will end in boredom, stagnation, and people generally asking what is next.

Lets look at how WoW has been designed throughout its history and why, seemingly only starting at the end of Wrath, did the concept of "content droughts" suddenly become a problem. Well, for one, the game before had content droughts, its just to reach this point of the game required a level of skill, time commitment, group cohesion, that only around 1% of people actually saw EVERYTHING in the game and eventually wondered "what now". Now, while some may actually quote this as a negative for the game at that time, what it also actually means, is that 99% of people had something to look forward too, thus most people had no concept of a content drought, even though for 1% of the playerbase their was actually a drought. In BC, we saw a very similar situation and once again, no general problem with a content drought, even though there technically was one for a very small percentage of the playerbase.

Now, we get into WoTLK. Suddenly dungeons are made more of a quick route to get into raiding. No longer were they really a relevant aspect of the game for casual gamers (although more relevant than dungeons today), they were simply more of an aoe fest you got over with quickly to get your emblems for that week. Of course this means more people get into raiding than ever. Good thing right? Well, maybe not. Of course when you have more people entering your content at a faster rate than ever before, to the point that you are making your own content irrelevent with every patch (See Ulduar being erased before most people even saw it so that we could get the worlds most bland Raid in history in the form of Trial of the Grand Crusader! ), you are of course putting constraints on yourself as developers to deliver content faster than ever. Blizzard fortunately was able to make this last, at least until the final tier of raiding in which case we, for the first time, saw the rise of the content droughts! Oh no! Why could this be!

Well, it should be fairly obvious to most people why this is. Simply put, the more you rush people into later content, the more you make the content before it irrelevant, the more you have to develop content. Now, its odd to me that Blizzard has proven, since WoTLK, that they are incapable of actually developing content at the rate they invalidate their own content. Of course, one has to wonder why they keep doing so and whether Legion will actually change this odd trend.

Well, unfortunately this will not be the case, in fact, it appears it will be worse than ever. With the introduction of ease of access, content is of course consumed faster than ever. This includes things like LFD, LFR, catchup patches, the fact that you can really skip heroics completely and go into LFR if you wish, making one wonder what purpose heroics have at all. All this means is, in the end, by very basic logic that has been proven by each expansion since BC, that this xpac will be no different. In the end it has no option but to be bland, dull and burnt through within the first weeks to months, and then rendered irrelevant, by design of course, only for all of us to be asking "what next".

You really have to wonder what is going on at Blizzard HQ when the idea of 99% having something relevant to do is seen as worse than most people having nothing to do because they consumed it the moment it came out. Until they adopt the ideas that Jeffrey Kaplan and Rob Pardo clearly put into place when they developed this game, ideas that Kaplan has used to extreme success in the designing of Overwatch, then this game can never be anything more than a casual side show for inexperienced gamers and quite frankly, its a disgrace to those of us who call ourselves such.

Thank you for listening.

Not going to work. You can't roll back years of changes and expectations from players just because you want it to take longer to do things. You also make a lot of assumptions without providing any real proof and just expect everyone to believe you're right. Also I don't really agree that people had something to look forward to because a lot of the raid content back in BC required 3+ nights a week to really be able to make progression and for many players it's just content they won't see at all and they know it. The best approach is to offer many forms of content that different playstyles can do and have a sense of progression which it seems like Legion is aiming to do.

[Sinndra]

How did you get so many posts with a name like that?

you can name change your account. he most likely had a far more decent name until he was bored yesterday and changed it to that... name.

[PuffyPussy22]

Not going to work. You can't roll back years of changes and expectations from players just because you want it to take longer to do things.

It is interesting you say this seeing as, one of the highlights of every expansion, is Blizzard making changes and changing expectations in the form of class design, progression design, dungeon design, PVP design, daily design, etc. If the game could survive the backlash from the introduction of LFR, there is no reason to think it couldn't survive the removal, as long as you actually provided something interesting to replace it with. This game really doesn't have to be raid or nothing, truly, we used to have dungeons that were relevant, professions that were relevant and many other aspects for casuals. It was great, honestly, these being completely invalidated by LFR definitely hasn't been some amazing blessing to anyone beyond those too ignorant to know what we had before.

You also make a lot of assumptions without providing any real proof and just expect everyone to believe you're right.

Okay, quote me.

Also I don't really agree that people had something to look forward to because a lot of the raid content back in BC required 3+ nights a week to really be able to make progression and for many players it's just content they won't see at all and they know it.

Yes, you had enough content to do where you could play 3 nights a week, or 7 nights a week, or 1 night a week. Of course you would be slower or faster depending based on common sense, but wait, why is this bad again? Is the idea that if you can't see everything then all the things in between are worthless? So, if I don't get to Bowser in Mario, is the entire game before that point just irrelevant and not fun just because of the mere possibility that I don't see him? Is skipping everything to immediately warp to him somehow the better, more rewarding experience? Odd logic there.

The best approach is to offer many forms of content that different playstyles can do and have a sense of progression which it seems like Legion is aiming to do.

This approach has failed and will continue to fail. Come visit these forums a few months after Legion. We will see whos right. In the mean time, provide some logic on why you think I am wrong.

[Sylv_]

It's stale now..

[Celista]

All expansions are stale at the end. Why did you feel the need to make a thread about this?

[PuffyPussy22]

you can name change your account. he most likely had a far more decent name until he was bored yesterday and changed it to that... name.

My name has been this since its inception and I will gladly change it if the mods ask me too.

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All expansions are stale at the end. Why did you feel the need to make a thread about this?

Only stale when there is nothing fresh left to do. Re read the post you clearly missed the first few sentences. When you reach the point of repetition for no real gain is when the game becomes nothing more than just that.

- - - Updated - - -

It's stale now..

Agreed, and why is that? Moreover, why wasn't this a major issue during Vanilla and BC? Everyone keeps glossing over this aspect.

[Hinastorm]

First off, your coming off a bit hostile to calm responses to you, not sure if intentional, but tone it down a bit.

I did read the whole thing.

To boil it down, possibly too simply, its 99% of people seeing content, and having some droughts....vs.....only 1% of people seeing content, and the masses playing catchup.

If those are our 2 choices, i'll pick choice 1 all day long.

[WiggleTillFriday]

Casual sideshow? lol BTW your name is a disgrace.

[PuffyPussy22]

To boil it down, possibly too simply, its 99% of people seeing content, and having some droughts....vs.....only 1% of people seeing content, and the masses playing catchup.

If those are our 2 choices, i'll pick choice 1 all day long.

You say masses playing catchup. You know what? Some people have beaten Dark Souls 3 already before me, I am essentially playing catchup, why does this matter? Why is my sense of worth or progression or enjoyment based in anyway around what someone else has done? If im going through content I haven't personally seen, then that really is all that it is. I am simply seeing new content and have reasons for logging on.

I realize there are other opinions and fully accept that, I am wondering if you can flesh out exactly why having nothing major to do is BETTER than having something major to do. I will wait.

edit: added major to discussion of content since you could technically talk about very minor reasons to login like, Garrisons, or pet battles if you really wanted, but having an actual story arc, dungeons, raids, etc to explore that are never seen are a bit more "major" or "vital" then...whatever you want to call those tasks. Background noise I guess.

edit2: Would also like to add. If you don't see the last boss is it not considered content? To go back to my last point, if I don't see Bowser is everything before that somehow not rendered content? Is everything before that inconsequential? Why? I hear this position held often and have never seen any argument to even remotely make sense of why anyone thinks this way.

[HuxNeva]

Early wow was a labor of love, which happened to be very successful. Modern wow is business optimized for out-of-the-box experience, roughly the first 2 months of an expansion', and subsequent subscription retention is based on low cost/high margin maximization through the 'HOOK model' (model and theory for customer habit formation). This is why you see predominantly cheap reward mechanisms (achievements) and lots of content reuse (multi difficulties dungeon/raids, gear reuse with just different numbers in the textbox). It is spun as 'making content 'accessible', but it is purely a spending optimization exercise.

[Wildmoon]

Agreed, and why is that? Moreover, why wasn't this a major issue during Vanilla and BC? Everyone keeps glossing over this aspect.

No one glosses over the aspect. People have realized what you are trying to say long long ago. It's just that there's no guarantee if in this day and age that model of old is going to work or not. The record of attempts to go back to full "BC model" haven't looked good.

[Sylv_]

My name has been this since its inception and I will gladly change it if the mods ask me too.

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Only stale when there is nothing fresh left to do. Re read the post you clearly missed the first few sentences. When you reach the point of repetition for no real gain is when the game becomes nothing more than just that.

- - - Updated - - -



Agreed, and why is that? Moreover, why wasn't this a major issue during Vanilla and BC? Everyone keeps glossing over this aspect.

Oh, finally a person with a level mind.

There are a lot of aspects of why it's stale. Firstly, my personal thought is the complete revamp of a lot of classes. They tried hard to make it a fresh new experience, but in doing so they killed their game. I'm good with a few solid changes that are for the betterment of what I play (Hunter) but when they bleach the entire class, I'm not. I hopped on the ptr, tried a few things with the prepatch changes and I am completely turned off. The artifact and it's abilities won't change anything.

Secondly, artifacts. Cool idea in pass over chatter. In actuality? There goes one big aspect of the game; obtaining weapons was enjoyable and always exciting when you finally overcame that RNG hurdle. Now? You get the same weapon and have to find stupid items to make the ilvl higher. You have to grind power for the weapon. Etc.

Thirdly, alting or alternative specs. Destroyed for the most part. There's a lot of hear-say on how the catch up will work. A lot of extra time investment is now required from before.

I feel they've tried too hard to breathe new life into their game. Quality of life enhancements that should have been baseline years ago, are here now.

WoW is an old car with a fading clear coat, and a few scratches. You can keep turtle waxing the baby up and trying to get that sparkle back, but you just can't.

I feel the cloning from Diablo makes the game-- stale. I feel it was such a hard cop out. Transmog has been around before D3 was even out. Their initial system was terrible and poorly put together when it should have been what it will be today. Hind sight is 20/20 always. Some people may not have been able to think of that idea when they first created it, or, they were told to stfu by people above them. Who knows.

This entire expansion doesn't have a classic feel to it at all. Even WoD and going into it had a certain feel about it, and I really disliked WoD.

Legion, to me, feels forced and rushed. Things were taken away to only be brought back because the anger from the community and how it's been continually betrayed year after year make it stale.

I guess in the end of this rant, maybe Legion isn't stale.
Maybe Blizzard is stale.

Thinking back to SC2, HotSwarm: A boss fight was directly cloned from a boss fight in Diablo 3.
The stories in their separate IP's are like 90% identical.
The once great powerhouse has lost it's originality along with the original people who made the game(s) they produced great.
Time changes, people move on.

Yep. I will now finalize with-- Blizzard is stale, not Legion.

(PS: This wasn't a major issue during Vanilla, or BC, or even Wrath. This was because the great minds who operated inside the teams of Blizzard were still there. As they were forcibly removed, quit, fired, whatever, their games' fire's slowly turned into dull embers.)

[Sierra85]

all expansions are stale by the end.

i think vanilla was the only time the game was still fresh at the end?

[deniter]

@OP

You're 100% right, but it's too late to turn this train. They should practically redesign the whole game from the very start and that's not gonna happen. These annual 3 month stand alone single player expansions are WoW now, and it will continue as long as it's profitable for Blizzard.

Best we can do is to wait for possible WoW 2 and hope it's gonna be an MMO with some longevity and replay value.

[khazmodan]

How did you get so many posts with a name like that?

maybe his cat lived 22 years and it was puffy so the name is an homage...just kidding he is probably just trolling with it

[Eroginous]

Blizzard doesn't design by democracy, they design by committee. Blizzard HQ is a group of devs that have pretty liberal freedom to do what they want. This means that instead of directing people in a specific direction of design philosophy, the leads over at Blizzard give their devs a task and let them figure out how to best approach it. Often times, it's a team effort (like the systems team for a class) that does the legwork to create and implement changes to a class, which then gets implemented in game as if it was intentional directed design by a single person.

That's just never the case. You can criticize people like Ghostcrawler all day for 'letting X bad thing happen' when at the end of the day, he's just there to help his group of devs find their assholes. That's why X or Y change can make it live, sit on live servers for months (maybe years) and be a problematic change for all players, and still not get fixed by the devs. Just look at reforging. That's a perfect example of 'design by committee.' We think that it would be great to offer up a way to alter the rolled stats of an item to a degree! Let's do it in Wow!

And then 2 expansions later: 'yeah, we think it would be great to offer RNG generated loot with randomly chosen stats instead of letting players tweak their gear.' Reforging was removed, no matter how good or bad it was for the game. It stood in the way of RNG loot and so it went away.

The problem with Wow, and I've said this for a long time, is that the goal of the dev team is to produce disposable content and constant change. Both of these things disinterest long term players and give Blizzard a platform to be something different to new players each expansion or patch. Think about it. If X or Y idea didn't work the patch before, they just do something different and then market those features as the grabbing point for players who don't know any better (new players). That's why Wow is so cyclical, why the subscriber base fluctuates so much, and why this game is struggling to retain veteran players.

[PuffyPussy22]

Early wow was a labor of love, which happened to be very successful. Modern wow is business optimized for out-of-the-box experience, roughly the first 2 months of an expansion', and subsequent subscription retention is based on low cost/high margin maximization through the 'HOOK model' (model and theory for customer habit formation). This is why you see predominantly cheap reward mechanisms (achievements) and lots of content reuse (multi difficulties dungeon/raids, gear reuse with just different numbers in the textbox). It is spun as 'making content 'accessible', but it is purely a spending optimization exercise.

Interesting opinion. I have often thought that the concept of accessibility through raiding was truly nothing more than an excuse to essentially replace all casual content with raid content and pretend like casuals didn't actually lose anything, when in reality, they lost most of the game. That being the parts between questing and raiding that once took a lot of dev resources.