WoW is pulling a HotS

[Zephire]

Time change. You change. People that liked something 14 years ago doesn't necessarily like the same thing as they did or as people do today. A person being 13-14 today has not lived without technology in many cases while you, who was 12 when WoW launched have. Your experience and view on the world must differ quite some. It's not a surprise that WoW evolve over time. If you're looking for something static I suggest single player games with LAN capability.

[Yriel]

WoW was the HotS of its time, the casual MMO where everything was streamlined, where you could level solo, even as a healer. Some say that was the reason for its success.
So i don't get the point of this thread.

[Alkizon]

Time change. You change. People that liked something 14 years ago doesn't necessarily like the same thing as they did or as people do today. A person being 13-14 today has not lived without technology in many cases while you, who was 12 when WoW launched have. Your experience and view on the world must differ quite some. It's not a surprise that WoW evolve over time. If you're looking for something static I suggest single player games with LAN capability.

Times and people don't change, only experience expanding and priorities order.

Which is a form of change. So what you're saying is they don't change, they only change.

Nope, if basic mechanisms of regulation don't change (and they really don't, as well as main "sins" and so on, from beginning of humanity if not more long ago), then this isn't change, because motivation/logic remains the same, people act/driven by same universal rules = aren't changing

Today you needed matches, and tomorrow you need toilet paper because you'll run out of it, and toothpaste with brush change after tomorrow... how and what of these (anything) actually change (in)you?

[Mardux]

I still firmly believe the only reason people enjoyed Legion so much was because of the Artifact Skins farming. Why did people enjoy Artifact skins farming in Legion? Because it felt like an investment. Once you unlocked the skins, they were yours forever. Not obsulete the next minor version of the game.

Legions best feature is to MANY people the Mage Towers. Why? Because 1. It was challengeing and 2. It felt like an investment (unlocking a cool Artifact Skin permanently). People could not just wait until next expansion to do it. People could not just wait for some catch up mechanic to make it easy content. The Mage Tower was completely going against the principals of all their other systems.

BfA is a huge step back in the "investment" feeling. Catch up mechanics are trough the roof (free 400ilvl for killing 10 horde anyone?) and you have that much less cool Transmog gear to farm with the removal of Class Sets and Artifact skins. Playing it just feels like a waste of time because you know all you have worked so hard for will be obsulete in the next "season".

BfA is actually a lot better than Legion for my friend that is only interested in PvP. He does not care about transmog. Only how much he can "pwn" in PvP. In Legion PvP gear barely mattered and you had to do a bunch of PvE to be good in PvP and your rewards from PvP was garbage compared to for instance the PvP world quests. In BfA he can actually cap Conquest points to get a predictable reward, his gear matters and the general balance is a lot more fast phased. He thinks Legion is the worst expansion Blizzard has ever done.

Not sure if you realize this or not, but when you unlock any transmog (excluding holiday items or items you trade away), they are yours to keep. Artifact transmogs weren't special because you got to keep the transmog. Lol.

They were "special" because they were locked behind the same 5-6 fights you have to do over and over across all your toons. And once you did a certain fight on a specific toon, you never had to do it again. But ya know, thats content to some people (and doing the same shit in a group somehow isnt).

[Retak]

Do a heroic dungeon a day to be raid geared, so hardcore.

Better than: "Pay 1.000.000 gold to be mythic geared."

[ToxicFlame]

Better than: "Pay 1.000.000 gold to be mythic geared."

lolwut no? buying gear requires effort, heroic dungeons(aswell as lfr,wq,wb,m+0-5) require none

[mingarrubia]

The history of HotS:
It started out being called Blizzard Dota. It had the Dota map, it had items, it had everything that was needed to be concidered a competetor to LoL and Dota 2. It was just a SC2 custom map. Blizzard showed it off on a Blizzcon at an early stage, and people really loved it!

Then they decided to move it out of SC2 to their own game. Here, they started "innovating". They changed name to Heroes of the Storm, removed items, they made some gimmicky maps etc. to a point it could no longer be concidered a competetor to the MOBAs anymore. "Streamline and make it more accessable!". Nobody wanted to switch from LoL or Dota 2 to this game. Basically telling the LoL and Dota 2 players that love blizzard "you are not the target audience anymore, sorry". Sure there were a small amount that switched, but LoL and Dota 2 did NOT lose any noticable playerbase when HotS released. Blizzard went from targeting the MOBA community to caitering to the casual MOBA community that BARELY EXISTS. The game is now basically in "maintenance mode", it's dead.

The same can be said about WoW. "Streamline and make it more accessable!". The people that enjoyed Classic and TBC WoW are today told "you are not the target audience anymore, sorry" and instead they target this casual MMORPG community that BARELY EXISTS. See the resemblence?

And they are wondering why the numbers keep dropping. Wonder if they even see the parallel to HotS. Probably not, so expect WoW in "maintenance mode" in a few years.

TL;DR: Heroes of the Storms is a MOBA made for people that does not like MOBAs. BfA is a MMORPG made for people that does not like MMORPGs.

It's not casuals vs. hardcore players anymore. Right now it's raidloggers vs. people who actually want to play the game (aka everybody else, be it casuals or whatever).

[Captain Proton]

WoW was the HotS of its time, the casual MMO where everything was streamlined, where you could level solo, even as a healer. Some say that was the reason for its success.
So i don't get the point of this thread.

This x1000. WoW was a very casual mmo compared to other MMOs before it

[D3athsting]

It's not casuals vs. hardcore players anymore. Right now it's raidloggers vs. people who actually want to play the game (aka everybody else, be it casuals or whatever).

There's nothing to do for ppl who want to play the game, wow is tailored to raidloggers now

[LilSaihah]

Does kinda make sense. WoW is throwing away the central conceits that make an RPG work. There's so little character progression and customization in the game that it feels so much more like a looter-shooter than an RPG.

That's fine, if you like looter-shooters but with click-targeting mechanics. But I don't think it's an MMORPG worth the name anymore.

[Daffan]

Sorry but making the game more casual friendly is what's ruining the game, everywone want:
- insta max lvl
- insta max gear
- insta alt rdy geared
- insta all

Sorry kids you need to work for those insta all, not log in and have epics in your mail rdy to equip. The game is a lot more different from back in wotlk than today. WoW is on a downhill atm with all these free lot everywhere with all the kids screaming they want loot faster and then when you get it all after a week or two you guys say: there is no content.
All seem to hate to grind something and say cba doing this or that.
End of runt, enjoy the game you guys cry over stuff to change and here we are with bfa and the state it is now.

Exactly.

Yes on one hand the times have changed and MMO's aren't king right now, but WoW also changed dramatically over the years, in a bad way.

[huth]

Times and people don't change, only experience expanding and priorities order.

Which is a form of change. So what you're saying is they don't change, they only change.

[roboscorcher]

WoW was the HotS of its time, the casual MMO where everything was streamlined, where you could level solo, even as a healer. Some say that was the reason for its success.
So i don't get the point of this thread.

I agree that HotS streamlined the MOBA genre, much like WoW. I also think that HotS's weak playerbase has almost nothing to do with it.

It has more to do with Blizzard ignoring the MOBA genre until *after* LoL's success. Then they fought a legal war with Valve over the Dota trademark and lost. Valve ran with the Dota dev that Blizzard ignored for years, and Dota2 became a decent competitor to LoL. HotS is a good game, but Blizzard had so much egg on their faces before the game even launched. And when it did, it lacked a lot of features it has now.

[justandulas]

WOTLK was stupidly hardcore compared to current game. get out.

Current wow is a joke no denying that, but dont forget that wotlk introduced wrath babies. You remember that term? Wrath players who felt entitled to gear but couldn’t cut it with vanilla and tbc

[Aleksej89]

"MMO RPG"

There is no RPG in BFA because they butchered the classes with over-pruning and then implemented the worst character/gear progression system WoW has ever seen.
The content BFA offers might actually be semi decent and partly enjoyable if i could use the classes back as they were in MOP.

There is no MMO in BFA because there is very little reason or enjoyment in venturing out into the outdoor WORLD of warcraft... teleport to raids/dungeons and that's it.
The boring content is even worse to experience because of the awful classes being such boring shallow trash.

Previous expansions had some of these problems as well but BFA is the first one to have such extreme issues in BOTH the MMO and the RPG aspects.

[justandulas]

"MMO RPG"

There is no RPG in BFA because they butchered the classes with over-pruning and then implemented the worst character/gear progression system WoW has ever seen.
There is no MMO in BFA because there is very little reason or enjoyment in venturing out into the outdoor WORLD of warcraft... teleport to raids/dungeons and that's it.

Previous expansions had some of these problems as well but BFA is the first one to have such extreme issues in BOTH the MMO and the RPG aspects.

Bfa is an action rpg. Perfect for diablo fans, but not even close to an mmo.

I’ve played MUDs with more MmO feels than current wow does.

Current wow is diablo 3 the mmo.

Talent system? Diablo
M+? Rifts
Homogenized classes? You bet
Differing levels of the samex gear fighting rng? Yup
Solo players being able to get top end gear? Yup
The world serving as a cheap quest hub with freebie gear? Yeah

Bfa is more diablo 3 than vanilla wow

[Aleksej89]

Diablo 3 might be trash compared to diablo 2 or POExile but d3 is still an enjoyable game to a point.

Battle for Azeroth is just straight up VILE and unpalatable garbage.
Its bad doused with awful filled with lame and encrusted with boring.

There is a big difference between a bad wow expansion (like lets say WOD) and a borderline unplayable one such as BFA.
Even a bad one like WOD i played for several months and found a decent chunk of enjoyment.

BFA is so appallingly bad that i quit in disgust a few weeks after it launched, even while my sub was still active.
It has beautiful visuals and even decent questing zones but the classes, the ass-erite system, the gearing, the outdoor "content"... its all unredeemable.

[justandulas]

Diablo 3 might be trash compared to diablo 2 or POExile but d3 is still an enjoyable game to a point.

Battle for Azeroth is just straight up VILE and unpalatable garbage.
Its bad doused with awful filled with lame and encrusted with boring.

There is a big difference between a bad wow expansion (like lets say WOD) and a borderline unplayable one such as BFA.
Even a bad one like WOD i played for several months and found a decent chunk of enjoyment.

BFA is so appallingly bad that i quit in disgust a few weeks after it launched, even while my sub was still active.
It has beautiful visuals and even decent questing zones but the classes, the ass-erite system, the gearing, the outdoor "content"... its all unredeemable.

Agree I wasn’t trying to make it seem like diablo 3 is awful, it’s just not what I want in my mmo rpg. An action rpg and mmorpg are two different genres, which is wh bfa has ran so many players away... half of its gear systems belong to diablo 3

People play an mmo rpg to rpg and slowly build a character up, not to play seasonal diablo 3 with wow classes which is what Bfa has turned the game into

[rrayy]

WOTLK was stupidly hardcore compared to current game. get out.

No it wasn't. WoW was NEVER hardcore. Stop it with that nonsense.

[Yriel]

I agree that HotS streamlined the MOBA genre, much like WoW. I also think that HotS's weak playerbase has almost nothing to do with it.

It has more to do with Blizzard ignoring the MOBA genre until *after* LoL's success. Then they fought a legal war with Valve over the Dota trademark and lost. Valve ran with the Dota dev that Blizzard ignored for years, and Dota2 became a decent competitor to LoL. HotS is a good game, but Blizzard had so much egg on their faces before the game even launched. And when it did, it lacked a lot of features it has now.

Blizzard was late to the party but MOBA fans seem to be loyal to their respective game. If you look at battle royals, half a year ago people would have said that Fortnite had the genre in its death-grip but then Apex appeard and took a lot of its players. BR players seem to be constantly on the look for the next game while MOBA players never seem to move much at all.
You never know.