WoW Players Consume Content at the Speed of Light

[Jazzhands]

Look at my join date and tell me again. :P

People have been complaining about every aspect of WoW since before MMO-Champ. It's nothing new, you simply weren't exposed to it until you joined.

Sorry I forgot to check your almighty epeen first, and made a small miscalculation on your ability to comprehend my point.

[tylenol]

If it is consumed at the speed of light, how about using some of that $50-100 million a month and make content at the speed of light rather then releasing unfinished garbage?

You are not wrong, but heroic dungeons are way harder than warfronts. No matter how undergeared and retarded people are in warfront, you will win. And you are guaranteed a 340-350 item. Wtf? At least with badges you will have to grind a bit before you have enough badges to buy anything. And the arena system from TBC was a guarantee, yes, but weekly and with points. Warfronts is every game. Guaranteed. It would be like getting an epic item from each arena match you lost.

However, I guess it is just meant as a catch up feature for alts. Which it does succeeds at. Just spending a couple of hours spamming warfronts got me from 305 to 335 ilvl. 9 new pieces equipped and probably 4+ that were duplicates. It just feels weird that such a catch up mechanic is introduced so early. Wqs and heroics are obsolete in like 2-3 hours of gameplay.

Obsolete in 2-3 hours for alts, people have been grinding and hoping they FINALLY get something useful from WQ's for the last month

People bitching all over the place "alts alts, rep grinds, ap grinds" so Blizzard basically removes 1 of the 3 things that isn't super fun doing on alts which would be doing the same dungeons 50 times again to get geared...and people bitch

[MatthiasLehner]

Legion wasn't 20 years ago. You all remember how it was when it launched, I believe.

I still remember for the first week of Legion, I burned 4-5 hours per day total which was my max, and still felt like there are loads of contents to do. I was subbed for 3 months in a row because there was so much to play for, and the new contents were exciting. It makes makes sense since Blizzard had to make a come back from WoD, they even shut that expansion down earlier to develop Legion bigger and deeper.

I always hated levelling alts, but Artifact Weapons made me go level alts, as well. I enjoyed "repeated contents" without feeling robbed, because Artifact Weapons made me visit the spots in the old world, and added some lore bits. (I know AP system was terrible for real alt-hoarders but this was my experience.)

Now for BfA, I'm not subbed anymore. 1 month was enough to explore everything new, and I really had no motivation to go on. Since I like lore bits and whatnot, Allied Races was my target of "repeatable content" as well, but it was simply just too grindy and the reward felt underwhelming. Warfront wasn't even out by the time I quit. BfA definitely feels like a DLC of Legion, and for what it's worth, it feels lackluster to play the classes, compared to the Legion's launch.

It just doesn't feel "new" overall.

[Thetruth1400]

This is all over the board with players though, and you're using cherry picked examples of people and representing them as the entire player base.

Sure, you had those people that bitch that content was stale, which besides being a new story, it is more of the same. To them, maybe it is stale, but that doesn't mean WoW as a whole needs to change, but maybe it's time for those people to step away from WoW and find something else that is different enough to interest them.

You've got the people that just want new content and will say, "Raid over, please new content" but chances are the majority of them haven't even stepped into the raid or completed it. For those that have, Mythics are coming this week I believe, (Maybe next at most) If they want the challenge, that's where it is. Likewise, just seeing the content once is enough for some people and they're satisfied. Blizzard shouldn't be catering to those people.

I agree with you with the gear catch up. We're a month in and WQ, Normal, Dungeons, and Mythic +0 no longer matter because there are easier methods to obtain 340 gear. That is 100% the fault of Blizzard though. They need to stop catering to the "I want it now" crowd and focus on the long term health of the game. People need to accept (like they did in Vanilla - WotLK) that you have to actually play the content, not just get handouts to pass by things with ease. One of the major reasons we see the amount of "where is more content?" posts is because they bypassed all the previous content the expansion offered. Again though, this is on Blizzard to stop with the handout "the only content that matters is the most recently released" content mentality that they've had, and has gotten worse, since Cataclysm.

I'm not one for gating, but personal responsibility. If Blizzard releases 10 new dungeons and you decide to burn through them all in a day or a week instead of having it come as 2 dungeons per week for 5 weeks, then that's on you. Progression should be the name of the game, not easy catch up mechanics where we then wait for the next thing in which catch up mechanics push us there, to wait again, and repeat on infinite.

As for what happened to having fun? People do, but they do it at their own pace. Blizzard has done a poor job of making their content last though, which could come down to the ease, the over saturation of ways to obtain things, or simply the fact that this game is almost 15 years old and, for the most part, is the same gear treadmill it has always been. Over the years, feature after feature has been added, but very little has actually been removed or toned down, which leads to the way things are today.

The "play how you want" seems like a good idea on paper, but without a clear progression path, chaos ensues, which is exactly what we see. The overabundance of instant gratification just leaves a vocal minority that craves the next thing to fill their attention for a few hours before they get bored again and head back to the forums crying out for more.

[StraTosSpeAr]

The OP is operating under the assumption that Blizzard is putting out tons of content and it's all the players' faults.

That simply isn't true.

There just isn't a ton of content out. What is currently available is what should have been expected at release. If Uldir and warfronts were available at release, then we could say that the expansion had a good amount of content. As it is, Blizzard time-gated the content to create the illusion of adding more content, when they should've put the work in on the front end. What was there available at release?

-A leveling experience that was good because of quality zone design and storytelling, but awful because of horrendous scaling and absolutely no power gains (e.g. abilities, more efficient killing) while leveling
-Standard professional options.
-Single war mode campaign.
-Island expeditions that have been universally panned for their lazy design and awful implementation.
-Standard set of dungeons/heroic dungeons.
-Standard PvP (no new battlegrounds, couple new arenas).
-War mode that was implemented prior to the expansion that doesn't offer any new gameplay or content changes
-New races with a horrendous release model that requires you to extensively play prior expansion content
-World quests that were immediately criticized for their complete lack of meaningful rewards

So what real end game content is there related to actual progression? Dungeons, war campaign, island expeditions, world quests. Dungeons are a staple are are there every expansion. The war campaign is good, but compared to Order Halls (with a unique story for every class) is lacking. Island expeditions are absolutely awful, and so is the implementation of world quests. Now compare this to Legion and you will see why people are upset.

Not only this, but even with the content that's available, it just feels awful. As other people have posted, classes feel horrendous due to awful scaling, a complete lack of any meaningful progression in the 110-120 leveling experience, and horrible and unbalanced class design/rotations. Every class either feels like you're just spamming weak skills 100 times to kill every mob or you are spamming useless skills until you get a lucky proc to blast them with a big skill. There is nothing meaningful or engaging in most class design, and the constant pruning, stat re-adjustment, and failure to add any new abilities or skills to classes contributes heavily to this.

Furthermore, the progression itself is miserable. The problems with scaling have been beaten to death, and the reward system is infuriating. World quests are utterly useless in terms of rewards, and even dungeons are horribly un-rewarding; there are countless posts on multiple forums about how insanely terrible the drop rates are (I recently went 7 dungeons without a single drop).

Ultimately, the amount of content isn't the biggest issue; it's the feel of the content. The design of this game just doesn't feel fun or enjoyable, especially when compared to past iterations of WoW.

As for what happened to having fun? People do, but they do it at their own pace. Blizzard has done a poor job of making their content last though, which could come down to the ease, the over saturation of ways to obtain things, or simply the fact that this game is almost 15 years old and, for the most part, is the same gear treadmill it has always been. Over the years, feature after feature has been added, but very little has actually been removed or toned down, which leads to the way things are today.

This is completely and utterly false. One of the biggest problems with WoW is the poor implementation of features and their inability to make them meaningful between expansions. Not only have classes lost an incredible amount of abilities through WoW's lifespan, but just think of the actual content. What content from prior expansions is relevant anymore? Think of the mountain of features that have been left by the wayside due to Blizzard's design model. Are any dungeons from past expansions relevant? How about any unique features? Wintergrasp? Told Barad? Ashran? World PvP objectives in Outland/Draenor? Garrisons? Order Halls? Reputations from prior expansions? Anything? Anything at all?

Blizzard spends a ton of energy to make new features and then at the beginning of every new expansion completely disregards them. This is a massive waste of resources. If they tried to make a system where features like PvP zones, garrisons/order halls, invasions, or any other unique expansion feature that you can think of stayed relevant to players through expansions, the world wouldn't feel so dull and there would still be a plethora of meaningful content for players to experience.

A perfect example is the ridiculous design of how a war-based expansion has us cooped up on little islands in the middle of the sea. Never mind the fact that this war should be breaking out across the entire world. This would easily engage zones like Told Barad, Wintergrasp, probably even AU Draenor, and could feasibly send players to zones across the entire world in different war-themed events or unique content, but the only thing we have is a single war front that has received mixed reviews.

[cuafpr]

that's part of the issue but currently there is ZERO (imo) toon progression till max level and gearing. During leveling you get nothing when you ding, heck even the mobs scale with you so you lose that sense of growth for your toon. At max the only way to feel it is to gear, and gear quickly since ilvl world scaling is a thing to. If there were ways to progress toons besides gear most of which comes from raids m+ things might slow down a bit, and make leveling mean something again.. imagine 10 times the amount of XP per level required but leveling made interesting somehow.

[tacoloco]

I only consume content at the speed of sound. Much more relaxing.

[Thuunda]

The people who employ the "gogogo, nownownow, gimmegimmegimme" mentality are the reason time gates exist.

If everyone would just slow down and enjoy the game without rushing it, they would find themselves much less hindered by time constraints. And the content offered to them would last longer.

This game needs to last for the next two years people. Slow the fuck down. Stop worrying about the destination and enjoy the ride.

Nah. you know what the real problem is? People who think the play style they enjoy is for everyone. Not everyone wants to "Slow the fuck down" or "Enjoy the ride" and who are you to tell them to?

The REAL problem is that this game has been made TOO easy to accommodate people who just wanna "take it easy" and "enjoy the ride on the free loot train". This game used to be HARD, like a real grind at times. You needed to have a team to accomplish stuff, not just solo queue for things and you get stuff... All these people who blow thru content? They are better than you at the game, no hard feelings. But its fair for them to be hungry and want a challenge, its their $15 after all.

TL;DR Filthy casuals thinking hungry players are entitled is backwards thinking. Casuals are the true cancer.

[Re4leader1]

First week of the expansion: Thread titled "Game is Stale"
First week of Uldir: Thread titled "When will the next raid release"

27 days guys. In 27 days we already have catchup mechanics rewarding non stop 340 gear

And people wonder why content is gated, lol

---------

Whats my point?
I guess my point is that themepark MMO's should really find a different way to approach how content is made to consume.
Because i think this is all a fake way to entertain people.
Is all about "OPEN THE GATES TO THE THEMEPARK!"
You have one ride...and suddenly you are tired of it.
Then OPEN THE GATES TO THEMEPARK 2.0!

What happened to enjoying the gameplay? People just want constantly a new themepark.
I guess this is how MMO's are made after all.
But then you really must give Blizzard some space because only Superman can keep up this pace.

And what sucks even more if God forbid you couldnt play 1 week or really hated your class and rerolled. Oh your 1 ilvl lower? Nope you cant join our raid

[Soon-TM]

Blizzard cant keep up this pace.

When you make even your newest content obsolete with every new patch release, as it's been the case since WotLK, yeah, you can't keep up with that pace. BC progression felt far more natural, both in PvE and PvP.

The game is like this because of the players,not the other way around
WoW's playerbase is the worst thing that happened to WoW

The playerbase is often crappy because Blizzard has taught them, time and again, that they can be complete asshats and get away with it, on anything that isn't high end arenas/RBGs or M raids/high M+. The moment that crossrealm queues (except those for normal BGs) were introduced, toxicity began to grow exponentially.

[SirBeef]

Free epics for everyone has been a thing since WotLK when they let you get raid gear from heroic dungeon badges, unless you count the "lose 10 matches" arena system in TBC.

Free epics for not much effort came in TBC with PvP gear and when the badge system started.

[FishtheFish]

The game isn't the problem, the players are the problem. People spend 6 hours a day playing then blame Blizzard when they get sick of it. Just because there's a world quest doesn't mean it has to be done. Just because Island Expeditions are the best source of AP doesn't mean you need to run 100/week. People forgot that video games are supposed to be FUN and I cannot figure out why. And Blizz devs can't make people understand what moderation means.

This, so much this.

[Echo of Soul]

i would still take mechanics check over gear check any day

One doesn't need to exclude the other. A healthy mix of both is best in my opinion.

[Deleted]

First week of the expansion: Thread titled "Game is Stale"
First week of Uldir: Thread titled "When will the next raid release"

27 days guys. In 27 days we already have catchup mechanics rewarding non stop 340 gear

And people wonder why content is gated, lol

---------

Whats my point?
I guess my point is that themepark MMO's should really find a different way to approach how content is made to consume.
Because i think this is all a fake way to entertain people.
Is all about "OPEN THE GATES TO THE THEMEPARK!"
You have one ride...and suddenly you are tired of it.
Then OPEN THE GATES TO THEMEPARK 2.0!

What happened to enjoying the gameplay? People just want constantly a new themepark.
I guess this is how MMO's are made after all.
But then you really must give Blizzard some space because only Superman can keep up this pace.

And even with superman they are not sure if it will continue

https://comicbook.com/dc/2018/09/12/...ears-dc-films/