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  1. #1

    Blame twitch.tv and streamers for WoW's design failures

    Of course Blizzard would start designing WoW around twitch.tv and streamers. After all, they are the ones who create free publicity and hype for Blizzard's products and get them record sales... but is this publicity really free?

    Nope, it comes at a very steep price for the entire game design of WoW.

    Some things, by their nature, are fun to experience firsthand but not very fun to watch. Building a character for slower-paced, more strategic combat is not very fun to watch. DHs zooming around at 200% speed and spamming "insta gib" abilities, however, entertains people.

    Raids by their design should not be very fun to watch since they require lots of repetition and wipes to complete. Moreover, they have a lot of individual downtime as different players handle different mechanics. Blizzard's solution? Design raids around twitch.tv. One shot raid wipe personal responsibility run rampant all for the sake for satisfying people who want to spam "LOL POGGERS WHAT A LOSER" in chat when someone inevitably fuck ups and wipes the raid. Why bother designing clever mechanics when bosses can just be series of one shot mechanics being spammed in every direction?

    There's more. M+ is without a doubt tailored to please the speedrunning community which is, not surprisingly, also found on twitch.tv.

    But worst of all? Twitch.tv breeds rabid fanboy culture and it seeps into the actual game. When was the last time you played a raid or a m+ without some 12 year old kid spamming "POGGERS OMEGALUL YIKES SCUFFED" all run long?

    Stop designing the game for idiotic twitch culture and you'll see immediate improvement.

  2. #2
    so blame a 3rd party instead of the source of the issues? got it...

  3. #3
    When most of the streamers are blaming Blizzard for turning such a beloved game into what is now BfA? Even very apparent shills like Bellular have finally had to speak out against just how bad the game has gotten. Even when he tries to bring up something positive, you see it through gritting teeth.

    Streamers stream what people want to see... which is why Classic has WAY outperformed BfA in viewers.

    No sir. Blame Ion... and the other lead developers before him. They alone have made the decisions that have turned WoW into an ARPG.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Maudib View Post
    When most of the streamers are blaming Blizzard for turning such a beloved game into what is now BfA? Even very apparent shills like Bellular have finally had to speak out against just how bad the game has gotten. Even when he tries to bring up something positive, you see it through gritting teeth.

    Streamers stream what people want to see... which is why Classic has WAY outperformed BfA in viewers.

    No sir. Blame Ion... and the other lead developers before him. They alone have made the decisions that have turned WoW into an ARPG.
    will you change your smiley to a sad face when they announce 9.0 and everyone including yourself jumps on a bandwagon and forgets about classic?

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Ornith View Post
    will you change your smiley to a sad face when they announce 9.0 and everyone including yourself jumps on a bandwagon and forgets about classic?
    Theres nothing wrong with an expansion launch bandwagon, its called hope. Doesnt mean they probably wont screw it up again lol.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Saninicus View Post
    I don't blame streamers. I blame the fact that blizzard swings like a pendulum.
    /thread

    Blizzard doesn't react moderately they react in extremities and it results in really poor gameplay.

    Removal of abilities for example - Classes had bloat, so they stripped away the things that gave bloat but also took away the things that made classes diverse. Perfect example of the pendulum was Arms Warrior in WoD. They went from having CS, MS, OP, HS,Slam for Single Target to having CS, MS and I believe baseline Rend? and WW or a gutted talented Slam as your filler.

  7. #7
    They took a game, that required a bit of planning, A LOT of time to accomplish things, had value in professions, and changed it to a game that caters to kids and casuals. THAT's what broke WoW.

  8. #8
    this is surely not ion etc per se. it is an industry, a company, a ceo and share holders and their greed is infinite. therefore ppl like ion are commanded to use extremely cost effective development and make most profit by

    - recycling as much as possible
    - streamline everything
    - put in least possible money while let it look like game is big (i.e. a million copy pasted mounts, toys, quests, everything whats cheap to implement)
    - set more on gfx based stuff than game content, because its cheaper and foremost more scalable and agil
    - give him a way to small budget
    - work more with marketing than game quality
    - use A LOT of clever money making systems like tokens, services, etc
    - copy paste as much as possible
    - make every class rely on builder/consumer pattern to decrease maintain effort
    - so called QoL changes, that mostly grants cheaper development
    - autogenerated gear instead loot lists
    - sceanrios with reusable build blocks
    - a lot of quests, cause quests are cheap
    - simplified, streamlined and pruned classes for easier maintaining and balancing
    - and and and

    the list is endless.

    the simple truth is: that company is completely trained, targeted and focused on makin as much money as possible. you can say thats normal, because its a company. the simple difference is, that they realized that they can make way more money with clever systems, cost effective development and marketing, than with building a high quality product. and as long as ppl support them with money and as long as this is more rentable instead of a solid investment in a solid quality product, as long they will go that route.

    ion do just what he is forced too. i work in that business since more than 2 decades. when product management give ppl like ion a budget worth of a shit game and tell him, share holders expect he delievers the quarter numbers he have to, modern wow is the result.

    that is the simple truth. simple as that.
    Last edited by Niwes; 2019-06-10 at 02:39 PM.

  9. #9
    Hating on streamers is as trendy right now as "Keanu is a nice guy" memes.

    Everything you listed can be more accurately contributed to changing player tastes and trying to add more competitive elements into the game.

  10. #10
    Your cause and effect are off.

    I get it, you hate twitch and whatnot, but blaming your issues down below on twitch related things is false.

    Especially in the light of the fact that Classic, which counteracts literally all of your points, has been gathering a shit ton of views.

    Quote Originally Posted by Wilfire View Post
    Some things, by their nature, are fun to experience firsthand but not very fun to watch. Building a character for slower-paced, more strategic combat is not very fun to watch. DHs zooming around at 200% speed and spamming "insta gib" abilities, however, entertains people.
    No, people just enjoy mobility.
    And edgy shit, DH's fit both.

    Quote Originally Posted by Wilfire View Post
    Design raids around twitch.tv.
    As far as i recall, streaming progression gathering lots of views wasn't a thing until Method started streaming it.

    And neither Uldir nor BoD were really heavy on those mechanics.
    That aside, fights becoming more strategically focused rather than numbers is an effect of the Titanforging system, this is why "gear check" fights have vanished since Legion.
    You cannot tune fights really around a certain Ilvl anymore, tune it too low, you'll outgear within a week, tune it too high, people rely on Titanforging in order to beat the boss.

    Quote Originally Posted by Wilfire View Post
    One shot raid wipe personal responsibility run rampant all for the sake for satisfying people who want to spam "LOL POGGERS WHAT A LOSER" in chat when someone inevitably fuck ups and wipes the raid.
    Since ToS, Blizzard has avoided those effects.

  11. #11
    So basicly Blizzard should make games for TRUE people and not those other people. And you just happen to be the TRUE people. How exiting.
    (Not that I find your arguments why Blizzard designs for watching streams very convincing. They recently slowed down the game (GCD change), they are reducing the one shot mechanics and I haven't seen any trends towards less wipes and repetition. I dont think raiding has really changed that much since MoP. It certainly didnt get less clever. M+ is played a whole lot and only a tiny amount of players are speedrunning.
    I'm sure Blizzard doesn't hate it when streamers promote their game (which they rarely do, because hating on it gives SO much more money), but your grievances with the current game seem to be a mixture of personal problems with the game and correlation/causation errors.
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  12. #12
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    It's as much a problem with uneducated audiences as it is hosts. TV-media has this effect on a lot of stuff when there's no integrity nor respect for anything but the $. Unfortunately the most efficient generalization will always be pandering to the lowest common denominator and if allowed to steer will always drive the bus off the cliff.
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  13. #13
    Activision wants a more mobile/free to play design philosophy in WoW it is clear at this point. They are testing the waters for a freemium version of WoW and have been for a long time. I am just wondering when they plan to pull the trigger, get full access to all content if you sub and if you want to play free you get limited access to new content.
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  14. #14
    I do agree the designers have been influenced by streamers with speed run dungeon designs and achievements for everything. But the game has changed to what the loud minority of people have wanted easier grouping, marked quest, boring quest, adjustable group designs etc. But in all actuality the design and blame for the majority of bad choices lately fall flatly on the design teams.

  15. #15
    2 Things prove you wrong OP.

    Was LFD, LFR influenced by twitch and streamers then put into the game by blizz?

    NO! because twitch wasn't even a thing back then.

    So this doesn't count for all of twitch and streamers. This was done ALL BY THEM, NO INFLUENCES!

  16. #16
    The fuck are you talking about

  17. #17
    I mean Cdew said on stream a while ago "the best part of Bfa...exiting the game" Hes one of their esports figures, a pretty loved one at that. He could shill for them, but he openly dumpsters on the current game, so I dont know who you THINK they are building the game for but it sure as hell isnt them.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Ornith View Post
    will you change your smiley to a sad face when they announce 9.0 and everyone including yourself jumps on a bandwagon and forgets about classic?
    I didn't buy BfA, why would I even give 9.0 a second thought?

    nah... Modern WoW is dead to me. I finally realized that there is no hope for it ever being a good game again.

  19. #19
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    I don't think twitch and streamers have anything to do with design flaws, they just use the popularity of the game for views.

    Also you're saying some things that don't directly correlate with twitch at all.
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  20. #20
    Wtf? I'm the first one to say that streamer culture is complete trash, but the current design trend of WoW started on the very first day of Vanilla WoW and has been going on conistently since then. WoW was the casual's easy mode MMORPG back in the day and we all wanted that. That somewhere along the lines the games design turned to instant gratification is a reality of the industry, not just streamers, but the foundation was laid long before major youtube acceptance was a thing, let alone live streaming.

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