Blizzard DID listen.

[arkanon]

I am perfectly calm, you are suggesting that the core problem is that 'Blizzard listened to the community' and that this 'magically' (I use this term since you did not elaborate at all on how it caused these problems, or even what the 'problem' truly is, it remains a mystery from the OP) caused the game to collapse.

No, there are a lot of contributing factors that caused the game to collapse, Blizzard listening to the playerbase (in the small way they have) is probably the only reason the game is still afloat. The issue is listening to vocal minorities and overreacting, which Blizzard does continually.

[WotLK] "We are bored because the [dungeon] content feels too easy"
[Cataclysm] changes the game to revolve around harshly punishing dungeons and decides to make it so raids are accessible to even less of the playerbase and has virtually all progression content focus on running them, eventually dramatically turning it around with LFR

[Cataclysm] "We want dailies" (Since there is a lack of decent single player content, and dailies is the main system Blizzard ever had.)
[Mists of Pandaria] adds ludicrous amount of dailies and makes the entire game revolve around running them

[Mists of Pandaria] "We are overwhelmed by the daily content, but Timeless Isle was kind of fun."
[WoD] Removes nearly all daily content and turns everything into blandly grinding enemies for the same type of currency that used to be rewarded from a variety of content.

Thankfully this trend finally lightened up for Legion, when Blizzard presumably realized they were overreacting and instead dramatized the story instead. World Quests were actually good. Feeling comfortable with their success, and despite players saying they hated the AP grind, Blizzard reintroduces the same grind only in such a way that feels totally meaningless to participate in, and with world quests that are (sadly) far less rewarding and significant. They also have chosen to force players to arbitrarily grind reputation (i.e., excessively run world quest content until they burn out and quit) so even though these world quests are fairly enjoyable, they are also fairly frustrating. And dare I mention the dramatic changes to leveling content and how it's burning out new players, so that it's literally forcing the game into decline by putting up a barrier for newbies to overcome?

No, there are serious, dramatic issues within the game but "lol, Blizzard listened to the community by making content accessible" is not even remotely close to being one of them. This literally sounds like you are parroting the "make epics EPIC again" argument, in which case you can take that suggestion right into classic and keep it there for eternity.

PS: And for the record, while I strongly disagree with your post and am all but disgusted by your opinion (if it does indeed revolve around "Blizzard listens to players [they don't, by the way] and this is causing the game to decline!"), I am responding in a calm manner. That doesn't mean that I am going to respect your opinion when your opinion revolves around ignoring player feedback (except yours, I suspect) because "it's causing the game to decline". Sorry if you find this offensive. When you create a post that doesn't revolve around wild assumptions and your extreme suggestion that would literally kill the game, and instead has a discussion revolving around discussing the problem instead of "lol let's encourage Blizzard to ignore the playerbase" then I'll be happy to post in a far more respectful way.

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I want to add that I missed this gem earlier, it emphasizes a lot of what I am trying to say with my previous posts. Blizzard doesn't listen to the community so much as they react to what they see. They think they know better, and in many cases that is correct. But they put too much stock into what they think players will put up with. There are clear reasons why the AP grind still exists, and it has nothing to do with what players asked for or wanted. They feel this progression system keeps people playing, and perhaps that would in theory be correct if it didn't essentially frustrate players into quitting.

The things players are asking for are rarely added, the things that are added tend to be what Blizzard believes will gain them the most money in the long term, the reason WoW is in decline is because Blizzard (Activision) is prioritizing milking the franchise over making the game fun to play. At least they still make a real attempt for the latter, but it's in such a comparatively small way that it can't really keep up with the bullshit any longer.

PS: Great post by the way, completely agreed.

You have completely missed the entire point of the thread, my replies, and many of the opinions posted in here. The entire point of the thread is to show how Blizzard have an impossible goal when trying to "listen" to the community. As you can see, although some parts of the community agree on some issues, even then they disagree on the solutions. But you dont realise you are part of the problem - displaying a "i am right, everyone agrees with me, and WE have not been listened to" while refusing to acknowledge that there are entire segments of the community, often larger than your little echo chamber, that not only dont agree, but hold the direct opposite point of view.

When people use "Blizzard isnt listening" as a reason for the decline in wows popularity, all i actually read is "this game is not tailored specifically towards my exact wants and needs, so its Blizzards fault". I also find the "blizzard isnt listning" crowd over use terms like "WE" and "US", giving the impression they feel like the entire community agrees with them.

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If anything, I'd say never giving any meaningful casual content probably did more to kill it. There was never anything any good actually really given to casual players. (About the only things you can really say is maybe WOTLK's raiding being more open and newbie friendly). Everything else that's been done that gets bashed for this is just like placating people with meaningless content in desperate hopes to stop them from leaving so they foot the bill for more raid content. Leveling didn't really get made "Casual friendly", it was already that. It got made worthless. Just like everything else, all in a big ol' effort to try and shovel every last person into some form of raiding. That's, IMO, what has done the most harm: Trying to make raiding the entire game.

Personally i found Wrath to be the peak of friendliness to both casual and more hardcore players. There was certainly plenty of challenging content (some was too easy, to be fair) but casual players could line up goals - farm out some heroics targeting specific items, or work towards currencies for good gear. Not full sets, but good gear. There was an obvious ranking to dungeons with certain 5mans being far more difficult than others.

Casual pvp was fun (for me, opinions obv) again working towards gear, with the timed wintergrasp event being a total shambles, but also pretty enjoyable in its own way. At the time i found WG exponentially more enjoyable than the current "warfronts".

I am not saying Wrath is / was the pinnacle of wow/mmos/gaming, and i acknowledge i was working a different job, didnt have kids, etc etc, so life coulda played a big factor in it. Just my thoughts.

[Trumpcat]

Dull and unrewarding Warfronts, Islands and world content. Dull class specs, the worst they have been the past three expansions, maybe more. Azerite universally disliked - mundane traits that dont have the impact legendaries and artifacts did, rng, cluttery.

Which of the above did anyone ask for?

Bad game design is bad and it can't be blamed on the community. Don't try it.

[Dadwen]

I could put up with most of the crap but not the shitty class design, and they seem to be sticking to their guns on that front.

[arkanon]

Dull and unrewarding Warfronts, Islands and world content. Dull class specs, the worst they have been the past three expansions, maybe more. Azerite universally disliked - mundane traits that dont have the impact legendaries and artifacts did, rng, cluttery.

Which of the above did anyone ask for?

Bad game design is bad and it can't be blamed on the community. Don't try it.

As mentioned a few times in this thread, people DID and have asked for years for every class to have certain abilities, complained about X class being mandatory because it has Y ability, and constantly demanded pin point balance. Sadly, the way Blizzard tried to go about granting these wishes has lead to the classes we have now. Anyone that cant see that is beyond help in my opinion.

Also, i would argue that the warfronts are far too rewarding, and should only reward cosmetics, pets, and mounts. I didnt need ANOTHER way to get gear, i wanted the ones that existed to be improved and worked on.

[Deficineiron]

Stop trying to derail the conversation just because you dont have anything interesting to say. Just be gone and go troll somewhere else. You are so predictable and boring. Say something on topic, or bugger off.

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Given the Diablo Immortal fiasco, i honestly think you are giving Blizzard too much credit. However i do believe this is absolutely true in the past. And that goes back to their quote about how giving the players everything they want is a bad idea. I really should find that quote, i think its on-point with this conversation. My understanding is that sure, Diablo Immortal is just a cash grab for the chinese market, so im sure they didnt expect an entirely positive reaction, but if you talk to "insiders" and poeple with insider knowledge, many from Blizzard genuinely expected a good reaction.

Let me ask you this - If they didnt, would they have chosen to announce it as the keystone of Blizzcon?

bold - there was something very close to to this by a blue around time of d3 release, talking about d3. essentially, players ultimately want everything instantly, up to blizzard to set all the rules, not the players.

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Find me anything online related to blizzard and the immortal announcement that is positive - forget this forum, ANYTHING from ANY website that doesnt acknowledge that the overwhelming reaction has been negative.

I would think a atvi or ntes pr might be positive-sounding....

[arkanon]

bold - there was something very close to to this by a blue around time of d3 release, talking about d3. essentially, players ultimately want everything instantly, up to blizzard to set all the rules, not the players.

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I would think a atvi or ntes pr might be positive-sounding....

Yeah cheers, that sounds about right. I did have a dig, but couldnt find anything. I guess its goes all the way back to DnD - If the dungeon master just rolls over (no pun intended) to every challenge, it would get boring pretty quickly. "The Giant demon sees you, and asks what difficulty you would like him to be? a 1? 2? 3? 4? 4+?"

[Deficineiron]

Yeah cheers, that sounds about right. I did have a dig, but couldnt find anything. I guess its goes all the way back to DnD - If the dungeon master just rolls over (no pun intended) to every challenge, it would get boring pretty quickly. "The Giant demon sees you, and asks what difficulty you would like him to be? a 1? 2? 3? 4? 4+?"

I am pretty sure I actually quoted it here on mmo-c, but was years ago and don't know enough key phrases/words to find it. I have tried also.

I do quote the Pardo Rule from time to time (about microtransactions).

I am also a designated MMO-C conspiracy theorist (I think the merger with activision influenced wow developing./tuning - iow, accessibility), so you should be careful being seen in public posting to me.

[Pickynerd]

I could put up with most of the crap but not the shitty class design, and they seem to be sticking to their guns on that front.

I unsubscribed after playing beta, I knew no matter how fun this expansion could have been otherwise, it would have still been shitty with the class design they rolled with.

[Roar-Powah]

Blizzard issue is fix something until it breaks, funny as it sounds it's what they've been doing. CRZ/Sharding is one example of that, why not connect / merge realms together instead of forcing everyone in a broken system that is CRZ. They use to do it, yes people use to complain about the name and after a little while it would settle back down. Merges helped a lot, it made more sense since it was a system that added players in the realm that you could trade , guild recruit etc with. Realm merges worked, connected realms work and yet they went the moronic way of doing things. Then again it might be a cost thing since they have to keep them fucking shareholders happy over the player base.

Blizzard use to have a motto "when it's ready", but that has gone out the window and it was very clear with BfA it was a set date no matter how bad everything was. What is even worse is that Blizzard had a smaller team and use to pump out content that was less buggy and better quality than what is it now. Like i said above it's all about the shareholders and screw the players.

So OP, Blizzard does listen to their shareholders and that is it.

[A Blue Smurf]

The biggest problem with WoW, and I feel like this has been a creeping issue that began mid cata/early mists and has since started snowballing, is that there is no real character progression. There was no single change that lead us here, rather an accumulation of small and somewhat unrelated changes that worked together to chip away at the core feeling of progression.

Character Progression used to be based around the carrot on a stick loot grind that was supported with tiered content progression.

Leveling > Max Level Dungeons > Heroic Dungeons > Tiered Raids > Special Encounters (Alagon, No Lights Yogg, Lady Sinestra etc)

The loss of the tiered raid system, introduction of replacement catch up mechanics opposed to complimentary catch up mechanics and the trivialisation of dungeons and heroics all assisted towards to the degradation of the support system that allowed carrot on a stick, loot-orientated character progression to work.

These changes in combination with the consistent watering down of characters both in their spellbooks, theme and role utility in favour of complicated, specific, streamlined specialisations and rotations ultimately robbed characters of their individuality and sense of self-determination.

This all came to a head with Legion and artifacts, what should have been real character progression was relegated to a mindless grind with the results then stripped away from characters.

Cliff notes:

1) Removal of spells and abilities, little to no new abilities, class homogeneity, talent and specialisation streamlining with narrowed roles and utility all lead to a greatly reduced sense of character individuality and self-determination.

2) Content trivialisation, permanent catch up mechanics that renders previous content obselete opposed to complimenting it and the reduction/removal of tiered progession eliminate the sense of social ladders and standing which further reduced the feeling of character progression.

[MoanaLisa]

The loss of the tiered raid system, introduction of replacement catch up mechanics opposed to complimentary catch up mechanics and the trivialisation of dungeons and heroics all assisted towards to the degradation of the support system that allowed carrot on a stick, loot-orientated character progression to work.

I'll dissent a little bit on that. "Character progression" that resets with each new expansion is like a magic trick that once you see it enough times it no longer works. The fact is that you can now catch up within the expansion without waiting for a new one. That makes more business sense.

But there's never really been character progression when that BiS piece from the last expansion was replaced with a green item in the next for hauling poop from one side of a farmer's field to the other. BfA is the seventh time that trick has been played. Nobody is fooled by it.

[SirCowdog]

I'll dissent a little bit on that. "Character progression" that resets with each new expansion is like a magic trick that once you see it enough times it no longer works. The fact is that you can now catch up within the expansion without waiting for a new one. That makes more business sense.

But there's never really been character progression when that BiS piece from the last expansion was replaced with a green item in the next for hauling poop from one side of a farmer's field to the other. BfA is the seventh time that trick has been played. Nobody is fooled by it.

What's worse is that they're pulling the same trick every raid tier. BfA season 2 is doing it.

As much as I like to crap all over Classic servers, one of the things I like is no catch up mechanics. The only concession I would make is to allow catch up within an account, so alts wouldn't have to push through ALL the progression just to try a different class.

Give players something to sink their teeth into. To look forward to, but without being punishing, or wasteful. One of the biggest problems with AP is that so much of your work is marginalized by simply waiting a couple weeks.

I really think the game badly needs a form of progression thats longer term than week to week. Blizzard practically abandons and marginalizes everything except the current patch, and that is badly hurting the game and any possible sense of accomplishment or investment a player might have.

[eduwneso]

probaly becouse they had already gone deep into the design of bfa when those complaints came rolling in and if they delayed releasing bfa cause of said feedback they risked the wrath of the community cause they did not keep there promise of dishing out content faster?

THIS! imagine the rage if they said that the expansion was delayed to october or december... it sends shivers down my spine

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Targeting mobile gamers by announcing something a primarily PC-centric gaming convention seems like a stupid idea. Even if Mobile gamers did notice what's going on with Diablo Immortal, their attention span wouldn't last more than a few months before they moved on to the next thing.

It's pretty clear that blizzard DOES listen, but like someone earlier mentioned: So do cats, and neither one actually gives a shit. Look at the tweets and forum posts leading up to Blizzcon about Diablo. Blizzard KNEW players were expecting something fairly big, and Blizzard responded to that in several ways. Blizzard played off that expectation, but then went with an announcement for a mobile game? It's a headscratcher.

This entire issue is one of a complete and total disconnect from the playerbase. The players are saying one thing, and Blizzard is hearing something completely and totally different.

On a side note, blizzard did say to fans to bring down the hype about the blizzcon when they saw how people where speculating and building hype.

[Guardian Bob]

Not sure if the classic redo will run on old hardware. Considering the fact it shares some system developments of modern WoW.

I made a mistake, it was suppose to say hardcore not hardware.

If anything, I'd say never giving any meaningful casual content probably did more to kill it. There was never anything any good actually really given to casual players. (About the only things you can really say is maybe WOTLK's raiding being more open and newbie friendly). Everything else that's been done that gets bashed for this is just like placating people with meaningless content in desperate hopes to stop them from leaving so they foot the bill for more raid content. Leveling didn't really get made "Casual friendly", it was already that. It got made worthless. Just like everything else, all in a big ol' effort to try and shovel every last person into some form of raiding. That's, IMO, what has done the most harm: Trying to make raiding the entire game.

To be fair Classic WoW, TBC, and somewhat WOTLK were all focused on raiding. It was after Cata where raiding took a back seat, thanks to LFR. It was also Classic WoW, TBC, and WOTLK that had the most subscribers. It's only made worse when you have LFR, Normal, Heroic, and Mythic raids which is a nice way of saying the game has difficulty settings.

For a games content to have any meaning it has to be difficult, and the game devs made it seem difficult by making the game grindy, hence the problem with BfA. Putting time into something feels as difficult as something that was actually hard, and that's been the case for WoW for a while. Warmode was a move to casuals, but hardcores won't like it. Wait until classic is released and we'll see how all this casual catering worked out.

[HuxNeva]

TLDR If 'the community' is a catch phrase to cover every single post that has ever appeared on any forum, then finding any position on any topic you need is just a search problem. Cherry picking at its finest.

Most forum posters can't even understand the game systems they are commenting on, lt alone think through the consequences and dynamics of adding/removing/changing them. They also believe every other player is the same as them, just worse.

[eduwneso]

Holy hell. What does a new class have to do with Character progression past level 100?

The progression feeling you talk about only happens one time per character, and the core of this game is the end game.
Don't get me wrong, It felt bad leveling from 110 to 120 and no new skill or talent... but I spend most of that process seeing the traits of the azerite armor and testing them so at the end, I forgot about it.

Having all the skills from lvl 1 and nothing new until 120 for example, would not impact your end game and that is the core of this game so...

[Deleted]

we need legion 2.0

[Deleted]

Some of the community cried fowl that it was not "fair" that they should be FORCED to do hardcore raiding to get good gear.

Blizzard listened.

Some of the community were still unhappy - what about pvp? Why should players be "FORCED" to pve for the best gear? Welfare epics were born, and pvp became a serious and often optimal gearing method.

Blizzard listened.

Some of the community were still unhappy - What about solo progression? Why should players be "FORCED" to do group content just to obtain gear? Rep gear, world quests, artifact weapons / neck.

Blizzard listened.

Those are good. Maybe if raiders weren't anti social some of those changes wouldn't have been needed.

[SirCowdog]

This one has really annoyed me in the past patches. Remember the Foozel Tokens you had to collectect in masses last tier patch? Yeah, they suddenly lost all value in our current patch and now you have to collect the Foobar Tokens instead.... grrh..

Blizzard might be over-valuing player interest in the Fubar-Token.

[Vorkreist]

I love how easy it is to please the last remaining player base.

They were content with the state of the game since Bfa release. Nothin seemed wrong their bubble of hunting two pokemons for 2 hours a week so when Blizzard releases a patch that adds new spell icons and extra grindfest levels. SEEE BLIZZARD LISTENED!!