Is the "sunk cost fallacy" the reason why some people keep pretending that BFA is ok?

[Wingspan]

Possible.

Another reason is that they don't have a deep understanding of game mechanics and are happy with current fisher price class rotations.

True to some degree. There are more players with very little understanding of the game than most people realize.

I have a real life friend that I lost touch with for years. I ran into him one day and discovered that he had been playing for as long as I had (at the time, about 7 years). He had never raided, which I understood because it is not for everyone. But he had never even HEARD of LFR, which had been out for years by that time. Almost his entire gameplay, thousands of hours, was just leveling characters and questing and doing holiday stuff.

He seemed pretty happy, so I didn’t even bother to try to expand his horizons.

Years later, he still plays and I haven’t for quite a while.

[Kagdar]

I enjoy raiding with friends, for the rest i do some dailies to keep up for raids (just a little until i get bored of doing dailies that day), i do some M+ if friends are available.

For all the stuff i find boring in the game : i don't do it and i play some other games / watch movies / tv series etc.

For all the stuff that people think are "broke" in the game like azerite gear and stuff... i don't care really, the system could be better yes, but i learned to take out the best of shitty stuff i have in my life so... in game i couldn't care less.

p.s. i viewed my off spec as a 2nd character with awesome catch up mechanic (rep and 3/4 of gear). So i have 2 set of items, my off spec had low level azerite pieces for quite some time, when i find an upgrade for my main spec, the old item get's reforges into my off spec. Sure i don't raid mythic and i don't seriously pvp. But life is about trading off stuff, if you want to improve into something, you must sacrifice something else. So if you want to gear up your main spec, your off spec will suffer. If you want to invest in an alt, your main character will suffer.

[Softbottom]

Game is fine; the sky isn't falling.

[Thirtyrock]

Look, I'm not fond of the Azerite system. But the expansion as a whole is fun. I'm having fun in raids, M+, leveling, questing, everything.

[ro9ue]

I'm current not playing. I still think it's a decent expansion I'm jsut not feeling the azerite. Artifacts were much cooler to me.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Couldn’t care less about any sunk cost. Almost All of the problems I have with bfa are community based not game based I haven’t really done any thing with the wow community since mop as I skipped most of wod and only raidied a bit in legion so I hadn’t released how insufferable it’s been.

[Sialina]

Enjoying M+ a whole lot, I also like the zones and the new massive cities. The last expansion I disliked was WoD, I stopped playing then. Maybe, just maybe people enjoy different things from you? Azerite isn't t hat interesting, but it doesn't bother me either.

Simple answer: Just because you dislike something doesn't mean everyone else does too.

[BreakerOfWills]

Is the tendency to sensationalize the reason that people cant fathom that while BFA has many problems it's not the end of the world?

All the "there's never been worse timegating, classes have never been this boring, there's never been a worse launch" clickbait style complaints are just their own self sustaining hype train. Which means that anyone focusing on real issues is drowned out by personalities trying to have their own top takedown, and regular players that preached doom and gloom.

Plus the number of people proposing unfeasible batshit solutions like "abandon azerite" or "bring back artifact weapons" drowns out sensible suggestions - not that blizz will listen, but complaints about not listening mean a lot more when 90% of the complaints/suggestions boil dont down to "Do the impossible before next patch!" It's easier to hold them accountable for not listening when they dont have to sift through mountains of dogshit.

[Justpassing]

Having fun playing video games is a fallacy nowadays? This is really next level.

[Marmot]

"I don't like it so everyone who says they do like it must be lying!"

[Waltar]

Honestly i think sometimes people just need to move on and understand that tbc-mop is never coming back, i log on once a week to play with 1 friend who still plays the current version wow and i have fun playing with him that's about it. I still play Wow with most of my other friends in uh "other ways"

[clevin]

"oh no they put trinket effects onto head/shoulder/chest pieces!"

lol

Raiding and M+ are fun

BGs are fun to kill time in

Arena is fun if you're playing with friends

What else has wow ever been?

This, really. Sometimes we over-focus on the things that are new which is understandable... they're the new, shiny things that are supposed to be fun and when they disappoint, it feels like failure. But let's say you ignore warfronts and expeditions. Pretend they just weren't delivered. Then, the real issue is azurite armor. Is the design of that fucked up? Yeah, I think it has issues, primarily that just like legendaries where some were much better than others, some traits are much better than others. Couple that with how you can't get high level armor out of M+ and how you can have a great trait, get an item level upgrade and have the same trait be unavailable because of the HoA level and the armor's got issues.

But if you simply get decent traits and more or less ignore the min/max aspect of it... what are we down to? As Kwaai says, we have the core stuff WoW always has. If you enjoy that, you're likely OK with BfA. If you do things that really need min/maxing or if you're burnt out on the core activities of WoW (and perhaps your friends have quit so even the boring activities aren't a good way to just waste time with buddies) then WoW will be boring to you.

Also....

You can flip this on its head: If they had nailed all of the new stuff but you found the core activities of WoW boring, would you really care that the Azerite armor was perfect etc.?

[DarkAmbient]

It's undoubtedly a reason why many keep playing. I've seen posts where people have said they're only playing because of the all time they've already spent playing and all the achievements they have. Sunk cost is a very powerful psychological hook.

[Delano]

Short answer: yes.

Long answer:
yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Maybe some people keep pretending BFA is okay because they actually like the game still and think BFA is okay?

[Primemrip]

Just wondering: it would make a lot of sense if people became unable to recognize that they're wasting their time on a bad expansion, after having invested so much money/time into this game?

The sunk cost fallacy is why Blizzard won't let Azerite die. They want it to work so bad so they double down.

[Yoshimiko]

Are some people playing because of sunk cost fallacy? Sure.
Do some people think BFA is a good expansion? Sure.
Do some people still play because they have a cute cat? Yup!

This is the problem with words like "some". You show me 2 people who are still playing for some reason, and voila; some people are. I unsubbed because I didn't like how bland and anemic all of the classes are but that's not something that bothers a couple of my friends. I've got one friend who just plays the AH. Nothing else. He comes home from work, kicks off his shoes, pops into the AH and starts flipping. That's his relaxing time. Every day. He'll occasionally go out and do other things, but in general you can find him sitting in Orgrimmar flipping more than a McDonalds cook. He thinks this expansion's just fine.

Not everyone has your same values and more important, not everyone thinks BFA is bad. Not everyone thinks like you, we're not a hivemind. I think BFAs bad, but I also thought Legion was bad.

[Beerbill Society]

For me it is, my personal experience with BFA so far is the definition of this fallacy.

I had lost my faith in WoW since WoD, and only kept playing occasionally, for nostalgia and to keep up with the history, in Legion I actually had fun leveling and even started Raiding again.

In BFA it felt awful leveling, I was really excited to see Kul'tiras zones and Jaina story being developed but I caught myself feeling forced to go through the content to "see" the parts i wanted.

I didn't really enjoy it, quests felt boring and even the dungeons didn't felt great.

I'm not claiming the game is bad hur dur doomsayer, just saying in my personal experience it didn't feel great as it used to, I had fun leveling in WoD for example and I consider it one of the worst things ever in WoW history.

To be fair I had given up on retail, only came back to wait for Classic, so there is that, but it does feel like loss letting my old characters abandoned.

[Mafic]

Maybe some people keep pretending BFA is okay because they actually like the game still and think BFA is okay?

Maybe non MMORPG players think it is okay. But MMORPG players acknowledge the flaws of BFA.

[Donald Hellscream]

Maybe why some people do, I am happy with the raiding so far and raiding is the primary goal for me, beyond that wow still gives me enough hours of entertainment monthly to justify the 12.99 euro cost for a subscription.

The fact that I have been playing the game for 13 years have no impact on why I keep playing.