The Design Philosophy of Modern WoW: A Very Cold, Hollow Experience

[Slakthor]

Social aspect is an issue. I understand they needed to bring in cross-realm to fix other issues, but I think it just created a bigger one. Anonymity and not giving a fuck. To be honest, just like social media has done to society. If people don't have to be social to get something done, most of them won't. Blizzard need to promote the social aspect. Your identity does not matter. Prior to cross-realm, your attitude, behavior and ability underpinned how you were perceived and that had ramifications on whether or not you were invited to groups or joined top guilds or if you were given gear. Currently, it doesn't mean shit. You join a group, roll the dice, lose or win and then leave. Repeat. Even in harder content.

Class depth is a huge issue in my opinion. They created this amazing thing in Artifact weapons, giving us a great amount of epic class design and lore. Then they removed it and never truly filled that void. I think the essences in 8.2 will probably be a starting point, but I guess we will need to wait and see how that works out.

The content itself is really tricky. How do you define good content? In my opinion, it's content you do for more than just the item it rewards i.e. mythic raids, they no longer drop the BEST OF THE BEST BE ALL AND END ALL gear.
Remove the rewards from the content to assess the quality of it:

- Raiding: depending on the level can be a challenge. If raiding with your guild then it's a good social event. I always have a laugh when I raid. Content is challenging at the harder end and it is rewarding to kill bosses you've spent hours wiping on. Even without an item as a reward.

- M+: much the same, pushes your ability to play the game and even makes you think of some outlandish strategies. The MDI players are insane and I think there's plenty of satisfaction and reward in finishing a dungeon in time. (What level key would vary depending on skill and group and ability etc). Some people are stoked doing 10s others 15s and others 20+.

- Island Expeditions: I am convinced no-one would touch them if the rewards were removed.

- Warfronts: See "Island Expeditions" (maybe adding heroic difficulty in 8.2 will help, maybe.)

- World quests are better than dailies, but just like dailies you do them for the reward. Nothing else. Rep, Gold, Loot, AP etc etc

-Leveling: alas this has turned into something you have to do to get to end-game now. A pre-requisite, if you will. Is it enjoyable? Not really. You slap on heirlooms and level in one or two zones a continent or follow an add-on or smash through dungeons as fast as you can with no real interaction. Maybe a "hey" and "thanks". We are all guilty of that.

The only joy I get out of leveling is when I set myself challenges i.e. Ironman or something.

How do you fix the game?

Everyone will have a different answer to this...
Me, personally:

- remove AP-esque grinds (no-one wants to do content for the sake of filling a bar)

- keep RNG but minimize and add more choice like the azerite gear vendor: maybe isntead of getting a piece of loot in your weekly chests, you got an item that gave a specific slot i.e. a trinket token. You went to the vendor and bought any trinket that M+ drops. The element of RNG remains but you also have the sense of control. You wouldn't just open chest, D/E or scrap useless item and then hit "exit game"

- fix warforging and titanforging - the way I would do this is by adding an upgrade system. Each piece of gear would have 0/2 on it. 1/2 would be warforged and 2/2 would be titanforged. If you were lucky enough to get a piece of gear that titanforged, it be would be 2/2 when you received it and you wouldn't have to use a currency on it to upgrade it. The currency could be obtained from all the content you do in WoW. This would also cap it. If you raided heroic BoD for example the 0/2 piece would be ilvl 400, 1/2 would be 405, 2/2 would be 410 - mythic BoD would start at 415. Thus an incentive to still do mythic.

- redesign some classes, I think the foundation is there. It just needs to be worked on and tweaked. Would also look at how at the high end, the whole Blizzard philosophy of "bring the player, not the class" is completely thrown out the window.

-level squish. I don't want to level new characters anymore. New players might still enjoy it, but the game is 15 years old now and a majority of players would have an alt-army.

[kronides]

Yeah and having a reputation.

"Oh there is justandulas. He was an excellent Mage when I grouped with him at level 28, invite him for our run of Sunken Temple."

Or - "Don't invite _____, he was an awful Hunter and he ninja'd a 2H Str weapon."


I almost never run into the same people twice anymore. Nor would I remember them anyway because everyone is a silent nameless bot.

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Oh look. More facts.

That's entirely anecdotal, not "facts."


In your post preceding this, you condemn Moanalisa's position as "anecdotal" or based upon anecdotal evidence, but then swallow this guy's spiel hook, line and sinker.


So, things you want to agree with are "facts," and things you don't want to agree with are "anecdotal."


Anyway, you're wrong, Blizzard designs the game in alignment with player behavior, not the other way around. And even if that were not so, are you really suggesting that coercing players into doing things that they don't normally and naturally want to do (i.e., act socially) is "good game design"? By that logic, BfA gearing is "good game design," because people do it, since we designed the game to force them into doing it.

[Alkizon]

How I feel about Modern WoW: it just doesn't feel fun. The game play doesn't engage me and everything feels like a big rush, like you're moving towards a goal for no purpose other than to reach that goal. It's a very hollow goal.

There is no real imputed goal, it's simple moving by inertia (old memory action).

---

I don't understand what the bolded part means. Could you explain a little bit?

It's something like this:

No LFG would mean no cross realm, no sharding, nothing, just an empty server

Proof kind of: it's warm today, so internet connection is slow. In fact, another extreme. Want to know how to say it right? Too little people involved - bad, too many people involved - bad, enough is good. But in this particular case, you did something stupid and tried to equalize concept of "amount of population" and "social regulation", which was your main mistake. They are related, but not interdependent.

The more people - it's more happens tendency to depersonalize "passers-by", the less people - it's more difficult to survive for a particular individual public association as a whole. A reasonable balance is needed, it's the same true as for everything else.

Lazy will just invent some kind of "poop" to ease (automat) this process for themselves again... khmm. I just had a strange simple thought, that seemed seemingly stupid (not directly related to current discussion theme), but... here: it seems that because of paid subscription system and heap of secondary systems (in form of "collecting"/achievements and other nonsense which being tied to CD/timer (and with only increase in their amount after next portion of "content", but with period remains fixed): easy(ily accessible), but time consuming stuff), prevailing subscription base (such were before, but insignificant amount) has become something like "over-greedy for time" (this is like big city disease, where everyone in a hurry somewhere and nobody cares about anything, because "time = money"), which naturally led to need in watching at optimizing your game pastime and ultimately led entire gameplay to be similar to work, which contributed to loss of ordinary people and onlookers/rubbernecks (not sure in correct terms use), for whom it was enough even just staying in game and communicating with others (without any distant and big goals: 1) already reach own usual limit in terms of progress, which means that “maintaining” oneself at same level doesn't require much time and effort; 2) for which social part is main and only game content and gameplay). After all, you must agree that it's difficult to socialize with people who're busy, hurrying and thus angry at anyone who detain them, since they can afford to be selfish in case of absolute public impunity and (self)independence. Don't you think But, understand me correctly, I'm not so much blame paid subscription, but rather game design and gameplay factors, ie it (first one) just being as a secondary factor in diseases that body can easily cope with, when person has healthy and strong immune system.

---

I wanted to quote this because it's really important. Blizzard will not hand you a social life in the game design. You have to nurture it yourself and continue to do so.

Good post.

This's not a good post, it's just a statement of fact. Show off. But understand me correctly, I'm not saying that person is wrong or lying (it doesn't matter). This is quite acceptable, but condition is somewhat different. I guarantee that at least 2 people from those with whom I played could get out of their imaginary shell only because they were interested in obtaining content, which made corresponding demands on them. That is, it played a positive role in their education/experience... and not just hid in a corner and growling at everything that "I owe nothing to anybody!" Of course, you don't, but if you're interested, then why not help yourself to get it?

Well, have to quote another part of one of messages above:

because in TBC you could not experience everything without a communicating group

And here you're already talking about content, which isn't so much just "for a group", but requires socialization, because it was thought of (from beginning) as “performed in a well-coordinated group of friends”. Therefore, the fact, that this content wasn't available to you as result of your (not specifically yours, but in general) rejecting game social component, is normal its condition. Literally - it demand socialization, because was thought out that way. As for CRZ and LFR, they set certain community tendency (we have already discussed this many times, they violated work of body "immunity" system, and led to inevitable "disease"; devs (that implemented it) recognized truth of this statement themselves). If we take consequences in approximate absolute: yes, those two also were among main reasons. As for LFG, there’s nothing bad in it until it's not automated, since automatics’ function here is exactly "to replace"/make less/abolish work of communicating someone/something with someone/something.

have you tried the oportunities that game is giving you ?

And reason is much the same: no any profit, no use, it doesn't change anything, whether you talk or keep silent. And therefore the most important condition is not fulfilled:

"easier and faster" communicate, rather than do everything alone/without communication

---

I repeat, no one says that choice should be equivalent ("if you want you can work together/communicate, if you don't want, you won't need, but result is the same"), but more profitable/easier ("work/communicate together and you'll get more of what you want much easier and faster").

no requirements = no training and experience, everything is simple. Game isn't a simple entertainment, as many thinks here, but also it's not hard work (strictly speaking, this isn't devs' choice, but individual each player to perceive game one way or another), and devs are trying to specialize it with both ways simultaneously - forgetting about middle ground. They divide people even before they are able to decide, which rules out fact of choice. Content is available fully and for all, same as progress regardless of their effort and skills - no goal, no interest, no action - boredom. Naturally, this isn't true for everyone, but statistics is clearly not in their favor.

---

I know it's hard to believe but the game is not bad because you aren't enjoying it.

Game is bad not because someone considers it bad, but because devs in their greed keep trying to "please"(= get) everyone Simply put, it's bad because it's bad and nothing can be done with that. Funny, but true

---

As for the whole topic, it's somewhat presumptuous of you in try to close all design holes in one go, even if only theoretically/informationally

ps. All this is an "old song" of issues that have been repeatedly discussed here. Nothing new

[Pheraz]

I wanted to quote this because it's really important. Blizzard will not hand you a social life in the game design. You have to nurture it yourself and continue to do so.

Good post.

Indeed.
Also will these threads ever stop?

@OP
I know it's hard to believe but the game is not bad because you aren't enjoying it.

[Inci]

Design weaknesses are often covered up by having fun with friends and people you know. I play BfA a couple of times a week with people I know and have been playing with for years. A couple of them are family members. Frankly, we have fun. As disappointing as BfA is it's not a big deal if you're enjoying it with friends or people you know from communities, guilds or your friends' list.

My guild and my friends... they all left the game . I envy you.

[Sethus]

They don't even have a a philosophy or a clear goal. The game is a rotten mess of rng, scaling, titanforging and single player experience.

[Alkizon]

Sharding being fucking awful is a fact. Sharding splitting the playerbase and destroying server communities is a fact.

Correction: sharding is same realm, you're referring to CRZ/R/D (layering for Classic now ). Sharding/phasing is more embarrass/violation of server mechanics ~ legal cheating, spoiled immersion (well, it also affects, but to a lesser extent and in different way).

[SirBeef]

Hey, if it fits your narrative, as always, the usual mmo-champion post

But yes, easy mode rotations, yet somehow you cant even reach the 50%.

Because big bad Blizzard ruined everything with procs, and that 1% extra critical and 2% less mana talent choice is what made you able to play the game in the past, and clear stuff months after they were relevant.

Hey man don't forget, that guy played for years while bashing others who played and enjoyed the game. Being completely ignorant to the fact that he fully supported Blizzard by continuing to stuff their coffers while hating pretty much every decision that was made.

This rotation thing has been proven over and over again. More buttons to press didn't mean it was harder.

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Keep cherry picking.

Keep shitposting. You on one hand bitch about lack of community, then poke fun of someone engaging with the community.

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This may truely shock and suprise you....but some people.....actually have diffrent opions on what they find enjoyable. Yes i know its shocking.

Just because you didnt enjoy classic, doesnt mean that other people dont, and this constant "You just dont remember /its nostalgia" arguments gets really tiring.

My response was to the fact that someone claimed that the old world felt alive compared to today. Not about people who claim to enjoy something must be under nostalgia. But, most of the time we have people spouting off subjectives as objectives. You can like something they way it was but you cannot say having to go to the entrance of a BG to queue, and then not really be able to do anything else because once it popped, you had to go back to it to re-queue, is better than queueing up and being able to quest anywhere, rare hunt anywhere, farm mats anywhere, and so on. Because it isn't. I know that wasn't the example, but Ive read shit like this and it's just mind boggling. You may have liked it and think it's better but it isn't.

[Aeula]

Modern WoW is all about the moment-to-moment gameplay we often see in open world games. Blizzard want to provide something for the player to do at all times, even if that thing isn’t necessarily fun.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing if the majority of the content is engaging. I actually enjoy always having something to do as I have long considered WoW to be my timesink game. But some things have been sacrificed.

In order to always have something to do Blizzard has to provide you with players for their group content. Players which might not be available strictly on a server by server basis. In order to provide players they had to sacrifice server community, which in turn sacrificed the majority of the game’s social elements.
It doesn’t matter how hard something is or how frequently you have to find a group, ultimately those other players will often act no different to bots, mute and focused on the task they grouped up for. This is because the lack of smaller, server based communities has made social interaction a less desirable thing, it’s now purely out of necessity rather than enjoyment born of pure human interaction. Most people joining the game now probably won’t have any real social interaction until they join a guild used for something other than the perks. Because the lack of server-based social interactions makes the community come off as cold and unfeeling. As though everyone around you is just another bot.

Blizzard won’t go back to server communities again and even if they do that’s no guarantee that WoW’s social elements will return, just look at RP realms. There’s no forced connectivity there but outside of roleplaying you’re unlikely to have any social interactions because people can just open the group finder and find groups for whatever they desire. Which, again isn’t a bad thing. Without the group finder I just wouldn’t raid, personally due to the fixed time commitments which I can’t keep. But it does come at a cost.

Modern WoW needs to find its own path with its philosophy, one that keeps the moment-to-moment gameplay and all the conveniences but still finds a way for some form of social interaction to take place. Or they’ll abandon social interaction altogether. I don’t see them going back to the classic philosophy and I don’t think they should. Let Classic be Classic. Modern WoW has changed too much to go back to that, it’s audience expects something different now.

[SirBeef]

Modern WoW is all about the moment-to-moment gameplay we often see in open world games. Blizzard want to provide something for the player to do at all times, even if that thing isn’t necessarily fun.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing if the majority of the content is engaging. I actually enjoy always having something to do as I have long considered WoW to be my timesink game. But some things have been sacrificed.

In order to always have something to do Blizzard has to provide you with players for their group content. Players which might not be available strictly on a server by server basis. In order to provide players they had to sacrifice server community, which in turn sacrificed the majority of the game’s social elements.
It doesn’t matter how hard something is or how frequently you have to find a group, ultimately those other players will often act no different to bots, mute and focused on the task they grouped up for. This is because the lack of smaller, server based communities has made social interaction a less desirable thing, it’s now purely out of necessity rather than enjoyment born of pure human interaction. Most people joining the game now probably won’t have any real social interaction until they join a guild used for something other than the perks. Because the lack of server-based social interactions makes the community come off as cold and unfeeling. As though everyone around you is just another bot.

Blizzard won’t go back to server communities again and even if they do that’s no guarantee that WoW’s social elements will return, just look at RP realms. There’s no forced connectivity there but outside of roleplaying you’re unlikely to have any social interactions because people can just open the group finder and find groups for whatever they desire. Which, again isn’t a bad thing. Without the group finder I just wouldn’t raid, personally due to the fixed time commitments which I can’t keep. But it does come at a cost.

Modern WoW needs to find its own path with its philosophy, one that keeps the moment-to-moment gameplay and all the conveniences but still finds a way for some form of social interaction to take place. Or they’ll abandon social interaction altogether. I don’t see them going back to the classic philosophy and I don’t think they should. Let Classic be Classic. Modern WoW has changed too much to go back to that, it’s audience expects something different now.

I find that people using the lack of communities argument are missing one crucial point. People had to if you wanted to get any group content done. Whether that be in a guild or with the server. My experience was mostly guild communities. Only when we needed others to fill a group would I seek outside help if you will. I never asked to join others while questing to make it easier, certainly not to just have a conversation and meet people. Maybe some people did, but that was not my experience on multiple servers.

But if your server was small, you had no ability to do things in group settings because the pool was not there, and if you acted like a dick, it became even smaller. Yes, LFG took the pressure to behave away, but people acting like dicks is not Blizzards fault, nor is the lack of communication and wanting to be part of a community. You said it best, there has to be desire. Classic will force people to do it, there inn't much of a desire IMO.

My guild constantly brings in people for PuG runs. We advertise on server forums and we have a long list of players on our server we contact when we need players or want to PuG. We have an active community withing our guild and amongst a group of server members. But that's because that is what the guild wants to do. Not me personally. I'd rather list in the group finder and fill quickly. But, the desire is there.

[Alkizon]

SirBeef
people acting like dicks is not Blizzards fault

Yes and no. They contributed to painless accumulation of such experience, until it became norm. So, Blizzard isn't generally to blame for the fact that this or that person is behaving badly, but they're to blame for “characteristic” tendencies in community as a whole - they allowed/contributed to making it happen. Main principles still are the same: conditions of formation, adaptation and experience ...because conditions are controlled by game design. Probably somewhat rude to blame them for what they didn't understand and apparently continue to misunderstand, but to deny their influence is to defy healthy logic.

A simple example: is it true to blame parents for the fact that their child grew up becoming tainted cockered @$$hole?

SirBeef
Blizzard said it was time fr you guys to leave the nest

And I'd have accused your parents for not providing necessary values (but here an individual approach is important and also your example is unsuccessful as a whole, although it's logical, explanation further), but they simply lost control of situation at some stage, problem is in that notion of “what I quoted” shouldn't be in game's case at all (there is no "adulthood" as well as constancy of "content" for community: 1 educated out, 2 ill-mannered in - balance requires constant adjustment, and therefore sustentation of conditions formation must be a constant notion). It's not appropriate, because devs continue to control entire process, they continue to be responsible for conditions (since this is their main purpose and duty), and it's not true for your parents from a certain stage. Your analogue falls in “moving to different game and there already having started all serious issues” for player’s category. Is it understandable?

I apologize for a bad example, because it's partially my fault, but I didn't give you my answer and just wanted you to answer me exactly the way you answered, so you'd ask yourself this question. I understand that this falls under "monipulation" category, but I think you'll forgive me. Just wanted you to understand logical chain stages, priorities in judgments.

[SirBeef]

Yes and no. They contributed to painless accumulation of such experience, until it became norm. So, Blizzard isn't generally to blame for the fact that this or that person is behaving badly, but they're to blame for “characteristic” tendencies in community as a whole - they allowed/contributed to making it happen. Main principles still are the same: conditions of formation, adaptation and experience.

A simple example: is it true to blame parents for the fact that their child grew up being tainted cockered @$$hole?

It all depends. My parents raised use to be honest, and respect others, not to do drugs or other illegal activities, as most parents do. My sister became a drug addict as an adult. It that my parents fault for what she did after she went off on her own? No. If my parents were druggies and were open about it in the home then yes.

People being dicks is more akin to the second example. Blizzard set the rules initially, people followed or were shunned by the community. Blizzard said it was time fr you guys to leave the nest with LFG, and the community became drug addicts. Players did this to themselves because Blizzard wasn't watching if you will. Players know better, but being nice is harder and requires more effort than being an ass. Not Blizzards fault.

[SirCowdog]

It all depends. My parents raised use to be honest, and respect others, not to do drugs or other illegal activities, as most parents do. My sister became a drug addict as an adult. It that my parents fault for what she did after she went off on her own? No. If my parents were druggies and were open about it in the home then yes.

People being dicks is more akin to the second example. Blizzard set the rules initially, people followed or were shunned by the community. Blizzard said it was time fr you guys to leave the nest with LFG, and the community became drug addicts. Players did this to themselves because Blizzard wasn't watching if you will. Players know better, but being nice is harder and requires more effort than being an ass. Not Blizzards fault.

I always wonder what would happen if LFG and LFR was restricted to only individual servers. Keep the functionality and QoL improvement of being able to find a group at any time, anywhere, but also stay within the bounds of server community and reputation. Continuously be a jackass, and you'll start showing up on a lot of people's ignore list, which would eventually lead to it being harder for you to find a group at all.

It's something I hope they implement someday: A checkbox option when using LFD or LFR: "Only group me with players on my same server". It can't be THAT difficult to program.

[msdos]

I actually just want to play Classic for the PVP and PVP vendors.

If you could kill people in BFA, I would like it, but it takes too long, it's too slow and every single thing is artificially extended in duration and time gated and it's all random.

None of my friends like PVP so I'm left out and I don't have time to go "nurture" another social life in another reality. This is where "WoW is like a second life" comes in. I don't have time for that crap and that's not worth 15$ for me. It's really really easy to pretend everyone has tons of time for multiple social lives.
The community is a bonus. Community isn't the first thing I think of when I'm buying a game and people need to be real with themselves pertaining to that.

[Pentai]

There are also those who prefer permanence over constant innovation. Change and progress is frustrating when you aren't gaining stuff, though you can't keep adding stuff indefinitely and without pruning once in a while. So Classic is a counter to those inevitable ups and downs.

[Lei]

Dude, vanilla thru current was flawed as fucked in their own ways. The game has just been damned fun to allow some of the flaws to get in the way. You can support something with flaws. BotW had tons of little things that never got in the way of it being an amazing game. Similar to WoW, a bunch of little things that have not, for me, overcome the fun factor of playing. Yes, I have made official forum posts to voice concerns of things I have concerns about. I test each iteration and give a crap ton of feedback. I mean if you hold games, especially WoW to this purity testing you seem to be proposing, no game would ever be played. Got some news for you , all games have flaws.

Not sure if this was meant for me, but flaws happen by accident. Accidents are honest.

[SirBeef]

I always wonder what would happen if LFG and LFR was restricted to only individual servers. Keep the functionality and QoL improvement of being able to find a group at any time, anywhere, but also stay within the bounds of server community and reputation. Continuously be a jackass, and you'll start showing up on a lot of people's ignore list, which would eventually lead to it being harder for you to find a group at all.

It's something I hope they implement someday: A checkbox option when using LFD or LFR: "Only group me with players on my same server". It can't be THAT difficult to program.

It was tried with the meting stone thingy. I bet things might be somewhat more civil, but then you run into fast queue times on high pop servers, and long queue times on lower pop servers. I do like that option of selecting your own server. slide that over to group finder as well when making groups.

[msdos]

Yes and the combination of all of those has destroyed community and social aspects of the game.

It destroyed world PVP for me, that's 100% without a doubt. It was crystal clear to me that the reason I can't actually get revenge in wpvp is because of sharding. Period. What is the point of that? I've had people literally vanish from combat via phasing. I'm not playing a game that expects me to pvp against literal phantoms, it's retarded.

[Aleksej89]

Classes got reduced from 30+ abilities down to barely 10 - and that is if you really go out of your way to pick the active talents instead of the passives.
Utility, tools, situational and niche abilities, stuff that gave the class theme and appeal and uniqueness all got removed and stripped out.

For me its unacceptable for an RPG to dumb down and oversimplify classes to the point that they are too shallow even for Hack&Slash titles.

As an example the Wizard class in the old Neverwinter Nights rpg has around 200 different spells.
That is not even counting in all the wacky stuff you can do with multi-classing and mixing it up.

WoW is supposed to be a MMO RPG.
The whole MMO aspect blizzard killed when they made it so that you can play the game and even see most of the content without ever communicating with anyone.
The whole RPG aspect blizzard killed once they began their "ability prune crusade" which instead of perhaps snipping a few abilities ended up removing more than half of the class capabilities and identity.

I would gladly pay a subscription fee to play ANY wow - vanilla, tbc, wotlk, cataclysm, MOP, legion and EVEN WOD because they were fun in their way.
But for me BFA just has NOTHING worth spending any time on even if it was a free game.

[insert random number]

Design weaknesses are often covered up by having fun with friends and people you know. I play BfA a couple of times a week with people I know and have been playing with for years. A couple of them are family members. Frankly, we have fun. As disappointing as BfA is it's not a big deal if you're enjoying it with friends or people you know from communities, guilds or your friends' list.

This! I'd like to compare it to going to my bouldering gym. When I started out there I didn't know anyone. So I was mainly there to climb. Route builders change and the quality of the climbing problems fluctuate. Back when I first joined this gym it really had an impact on how much fun I had while bouldering. Nowadays I know a bunch people I regularly run into and hang out with. If there routes are bad I still have a lot of fun bouldering because of the social interactions.