What a waste....

[stigz]

what you are saying is not only nonsense but also straight lies.

before cata and LFR was extremly niche activity avoided by majority of players.

blizzard had to put in LFR to even justify raids being still in game

wow didnt become popular because of raiding - if anything it became popular despite it being in there.

mythic + were finall proof how many people would rather do 5 mans then raid.

puting raiding in game was a mistake since MC .

In nearly every game the "majority" of players are casuals that don't like being competitive at higher tiers. That doesn't justify removing competitive content.

Blizzard didn't put in LFR to justify keeping raids in the game, you literally pulled that statement out of your ass. In fact, they made LFR so the casuals WHO WANTED TO SEE RAID CONTENT (are you shocked?) could.

Wow didn't beocme popular because of raiding, they became popular because they did raiding RIGHT.

If they took away raids there would be literally no competitive reason to progress your character outside of M+, which at that point you would basically just be playing World of Diablocraft.

[kamuimac]

In nearly every game the "majority" of players are casuals that don't like being competitive at higher tiers. That doesn't justify removing competitive content.

Blizzard didn't put in LFR to justify keeping raids in the game, you literally pulled that statement out of your ass. In fact, they made LFR so the casuals WHO WANTED TO SEE RAID CONTENT (are you shocked?) could.

Wow didn't beocme popular because of raiding, they became popular because they did raiding RIGHT.

If they took away raids there would be literally no competitive reason to progress your character outside of M+, which at that point you would basically just be playing World of Diablocraft.

i literaly pulled that statement direckly from blues/devs.

im to lazy to relink what was linked here 1000 times and proving this to people who try to deny it.

what you are doin on the other hand is spreading delusion that the fact that 5% of people used raiding made wow world wide phenomenon between 2004-2010 when it was never the case.

and so what if there would be not ? if they stopped wasting resources on raiding since begining they could spend those milions of $ on content that most people actually use on daily basis and maybe they wouldnt loose so many players already back in vanilla/tbc (again quote from devs that before cata 100 mln people tried wow and quit )

[xindralol]

Not really. Look what warfront could be instead what it is. It looks like blizz didnt even tried to make it fun. At Blizzcon 2017 when they talk about Warfronts you can tell that devs had no idea what to do with them yet but somehow it was alredy sold as big new feature for BFA.

Warfronts would be totaly ok if:
1. would be placed in open world as dynamic pvp/pve event againts horde/aliance.
2. have actual impact on the game and environment
3. more warfronts all over the world to conquere horde/aliance cities etc...

But instead they went lazy way. Make them instance faceroll grind with over the top rewards.

I imagine it’s just very hard to come up with something as enjoyable in the long run.

[Whitedragon]

Take warfronts out of the game and nobody will notice.

To heck with you I like war fronts.

Take azerite out and people will be happy.

No then they will bitch about having even less customization, and how everything is to vanilla.

[Pyrite13]

The only people more stupid than Blizzard devs for making this "content" are the players who didn't see that this "content" was nothing but a cancerous pit of animal abuse and rotten eggs. Hopefully this will spell the end of Blizzard as a game company. We can only hope that WoW and all their other games crash and burn as they rightfully should. Do you want to send them a message? Delete your characters, delete your account, unsub, then toss your computer off a tall building.

[Sansnom]

Raids are (usually) the most expensive form of content. Nearly every boss is a unique model, unique animations, unique effects, the longest encounters in the game, thus needing the most planning and balancing, the most trash packs, the most loot to create, the most loot-tables to populate, 4 difficulty levels, cut-scenes, tie-in quests, and so on. No other form of content comes close.

And that is kind of a problem when raids had a relatively low participation rate before LFR. Makes it hard to justify such expenses for such little return.

- - - Updated - - -

Blizzard didn't put in LFR to justify keeping raids in the game, you literally pulled that statement out of your ass. In fact, they made LFR so the casuals WHO WANTED TO SEE RAID CONTENT (are you shocked?) could.

Can you validate that? I always assumed LFR justifies the existence of raids because there were very little people were able, for many reasons, to see the content.

Wow didn't beocme popular because of raiding, they became popular because they did raiding RIGHT.

Raiding was a niche and only a very minority every did raids. So I am curious at how WoW became so popular due to raiding right. What did they do right that EQ did wrong?

My opinion at why WoW got so popular were

PvE servers.
Removed grinding.
Rewards from quests.
No major death penalty. No gold and XP lost.

[korijenkins]

This will show them. Things will improve after they read this, no doubt.

Voicing your opinion on a public forum is better than sitting around and accepting that everything is garbage.

The best thing to do is just unsub.

[Niwes]

In nearly every game the "majority" of players are casuals that don't like being competitive at higher tiers. That doesn't justify removing competitive content.

Blizzard didn't put in LFR to justify keeping raids in the game, you literally pulled that statement out of your ass. In fact, they made LFR so the casuals WHO WANTED TO SEE RAID CONTENT (are you shocked?) could.

Wow didn't beocme popular because of raiding, they became popular because they did raiding RIGHT.

If they took away raids there would be literally no competitive reason to progress your character outside of M+, which at that point you would basically just be playing World of Diablocraft.

dont disagree. just want to add the really REAL reason:

they said they tell their lore and story mostly via raids. at least they did this in cataclysm and before, when LFR was introduced (cata). but ppl that cant commit theirselfes to fixed raid days and guilds/groups, have no chance to see the story of the xpac, that is told in expensive cinematics from blizz. so they introduced LFR as an raiding entry point, as well as some form of cinema mode, so more ppl are targeted and also can consume the overall story of the xpac, when blizz tell their story and invest much money in great cinematics.

this may sound a bit strange these days, with all the order hall and war campaign story telling. but in the days of cataclysm this made sense.

this is NOT an oppinion or something. you can read the official blue posted statements of this, by gregg street, tom chilton and others, on the forum archives. i am just too lazy to dig em out. but its true.

this „bring the xpacs story to more customers“ thing was, quoting blizz, the main reason of introducing LFR.

[Revamp Man]

I repeat for umpteenth time, it will be even worse and you have already passed this in Legion. What you need is normal classes design, and not pieces of your strategy scattered on all corners of Azeroth. Items are expansion progress, these are stats/characteristics, this is your "role" and main content separator, but “class stuff” is your character progress in game as a whole, this is your strategy and style of play (otherwise, you will get an imbalance and "mandatory" items, exceptions to super flexible systems that you'll never get from Blizzard).

BIS items can't be avoided, especially in case of scant builds choice (since it became super-relevant, since trees were removed in specs' favor, which essentially don't change builds within its borders, but often only button/effect you use, with taking into account BfA: which are also not equivalent = with clear favorites), they can only be made inaccessible, as in case of w/tf, which only causes players frustration, because depriving sense of control over situation/customization/gameplay, which leads game to less interactivity/involvement/interaction and breaking basic progress/competition rules/principles for games of this genre. Prolonged and purposeful construction of such boundaries suggests that they're trying to limit players' imagination and capabilities to their own (if it were above average players' level, than it might won't be so bad, but judging by socio-demographic statistical trend, bar slowly, but clearly falls) and that their current slogan could sound something like this: "Player's choice freedom isn't game's advantage, but developer’s disadvantage".

I understand that it's difficult to explain this to people who have never seen it, but... I don't know. Maybe I just lack words or am mistaken with their choice? I mean, everything is simple and easy to understand/lying on surface, why it's still so hard to get it?

Do you know when this will really work? When everywhere there will be a “constantly active” scaling of everything with everything and there will be no classes at all, then it will somehow work without interfering anything, but (how it isn't strange) it’s still relatively far away (not so completely unattainable, but in near future; this is the way how it looks like in approximated game future according to some people I know; not that I believed it, looks disgusting even on paper, like murdered progress, but in principle). And it doesn't matter how many and what traites you'll adding, but still problems/conflicts/displeasure won't go anywhere.

As for WF/IE - are just this. I'm not saying, that no one like it, but let's call things by their proper names.

ps. *feels drained*
Well, you can't always guess. Ie, my departure was directly related to art "change" (= character models) together with shameless mechanism for its implementation. They changed my characters (almost nothing to do with originals, except for the name) and took control of their display in the game from me (technically, they violated their own game rules). Neither I nor my friends could put up with it and we left. The end.

I mean, yes, it can be outweighing factor. Problem here is precisely in change, because if art were such initially, I won't ever spend time on this "kindergarten" regardless of gameplay (as I did with Wildstar or Swtor - never touched these games, I had similar impressions from Overwatch and Fortnite (here also played additional factor that I'm not fan of FPSs, but if talking about art), not mine at all, full of excesses, repulsive). Many people just don't understand that quality and technology don't always go together and it's especially true regarding art. Technology doesn't improve it, just expands directions and tools. Although, I hope, they at least realize that opinions and impressions are relative, while reconstruction accuracy is determined value.

I feel like we had a communication breakdown
1. I want BiS
2. New gearing system is disgusting
3. Rental abilities are garbage
4.wf/tf is a plague

[Alkizon]

I feel like we had a communication breakdown
1. I want BiS
2. New gearing system is disgusting
3. Rental abilities are garbage
4.wf/tf is a plague

Funny that you answered after I added "Wildstar link"

You talked there about "traits", so if we replace your "traits" with character bound class talent, then everything would somehow look better, but traits will still be bad.

About quoted part: yeah, sure, that sounds decent.

[Monolithi]

First off I don't raid.

Second off, bullshit. You are delusional if you think people spend more time doing warfronts and expo's than raiding. Even if you don't count LFR.

At this stage in the game both of those are a chore to gear up an alt.

If you dont raid, why do you even care about things like class balance, azerite armor?

- - - Updated - - -

The only people more stupid than Blizzard devs for making this "content" are the players who didn't see that this "content" was nothing but a cancerous pit of animal abuse and rotten eggs. Hopefully this will spell the end of Blizzard as a game company. We can only hope that WoW and all their other games crash and burn as they rightfully should. Do you want to send them a message? Delete your characters, delete your account, unsub, then toss your computer off a tall building.

How on earth can you wish to anyone or any company to burn and end its life? You know, there are people there working for salary to feed their families?
Is it so hard to just leave if things arent going your way?
Wishing harm to anyone/anything is so uncivilized, so mean- cant really find right words for such behaviour.

[Raugnaut]

If Island Expeditions weren't so tied into Azerite farming, they likely would have been hailed as one of the most amazing PvE contents Blizzard added in an expansion, since they are basically just a more sandbox version of MoP Scenarios, which was widely hailed as good and appreciated.

However, since they were not only tied in, but deemed almost mandatory for Azerite farming, people hate em. Sad really.

[Queen of Hamsters]

They have access to actual data on player engagement, direct feedback and player staying power.

If they keep pouring resources into features, it's more than likely because those features are popular.

[Alanar]

What I find the most worrisome is the apparent change of direction in artstyle. The art, the music is different. Compare a screenshot with wow vanilla and a new warfront, you'll see. Colors have less depth, less vibrant, it's closer to paint style software that you can see on artstation, different than before.

I'm not saying that vanilla is technically superior, I'm saying that the art and essence is more and more different as time pass. This can indeed undo world of warcraft while the majority isn't even noticing.

Gameplay as we know already changed a lot, probably to scale to the changing market and demographics.

Remove gameplay and art from a legendary game, you're getting a terrible waste yes.

The art and the music is the only good part right now, dont ruin it please.
The art on allied races is lackluster however.

[ManiaCCC]

The art and the music is the only good part right now, dont ruin it please.
The art on allied races is lackluster however.

IMHO, music went downhill after TBC - but WotLK had few nice tracks.

[Alanar]

IMHO, music went downhill after TBC - but WotLK had few nice tracks.

Matter of tatse? Idk I mostly play with music on 1% I care about art and I always like it the most at blizzcon for example, they always show the cool stuff.

[Kolvarg]

Raids? Right now people do more warfronts than your precious raids.

Assuming that's true (which considering LFR counts as raids, I'm not too sure) - More people doing something doesn't necessarily mean that something is better or will lead to better player retention.

More often than not the reward of an in-game activity (and in hand with that the effort-reward ratio) has a greater impact on how many people do that activity than actual gameplay.

You need to look at the variables and external reasons - primarily that Warfronts are even more free loot than LFR, with a very good drop (for casual players) every week or so. Otherwise you'd look at the real world, see that there are more people working than there are people gaming, and conclude that working is a more enjoyable activity than gaming,

[Cæli]

The art and the music is the only good part right now, dont ruin it please.
The art on allied races is lackluster however.

the art is far from as good as it once was. not as bad as those AAA games with bright plastic texture. blizzard is among the best in the industry as a result. they should learn the meaning of preservation however.

[Revamp Man]

Funny that you answered after I added "Wildstar link"

You talked there about "traits", so if we replace your "traits" with character bound class talent, then everything would somehow look better, but traits will still be bad.

About quoted part: yeah, sure, that sounds decent.

The idea of traits is pretty bad when it's something effecting gameplay like the spec specific ones (looking at you fury of xuen) but the generic ones are basically dungeon set bonuses.

Make the fun traits talents
For example make xuen baseline and make fury a talent


What I think makes the entire system feel more off than it should is the fact we have gone 20lvls with 0 character progression besides rental abilities

[Octoberfest99]

Its staggering the amount of resources blizzard is devoting to aspects of this expansion that nobody cares about.
Warfronts, isle expos, azerite. Take warfronts and isle expos out of the game and nobody will notice. Take azerite out and people will be happy.

Hyperbole does not add credibility to your argument. Just because you don't like warfronts, islands, and azerite doesn't mean no one likes them. I for one do enjoy island expeditions and think warfronts could be fixed by upping their difficulty (which is happening in 8.2) and allowing a PVP mode.

Instead of developers focusing on actual class balance, they're focusing on adding new azerite traits.

Altering azerite traits is a method of achieving class balance. They may be failing in this respect, but it is not because azerite traits could not be used to fix balance.

Instead of getting more/more instersting/more frequent dungeon and raid encounters, we're getting fucking warfronts and isle expos.

Blizz already puts a heavy focus on mythic+ and raiding. I don't think they need to put more resources toward those areas. Legion had 13 dungeons and 5 raids; BfA has 10 dungeons and 3 raids with 1 more dungeon and 1 more raid in 8.2. If 8.2 is the last patch of BfA then yes it had less dungeon and raid content, but if there is a patch 8.3 then the overall dungeon and raid content will likely be equal.

I get that some experimentation and trial is needed to discover new and interesting concepts. The problem here is that instead of treading lightly and gauging what works and what doesn't, bliz loaded up all of its resources into a train which has already derailed. And instead of accepting this they are doubling down, adding to the train more of what made it derail in the first place. That being boring, one dimensional grind-fests, existing only to fuel a horribly designed azerite system which the game would be better without.

How precisely are raiding and dungeons not boring one-dimensional grind fests? Honestly, what content in any MMO could not be considered repetitive? The only solution you offer is more of the same content WoW has released for 15 years, dungeons and raids. If WoW has gotten stale it's not because of warfronts and islands.