My World of Warcraft Wishlist

[Trend]

I have seen quite a few people complaining about the 4 difficulties. It might not be a problem for YOU, but if you have a look around, it is brought up quite frequently as something people dont like.

I have seen quite a few people complaining about anything they don't personally enjoy. Any one of the raid difficulties might not be for YOU, but if you have a look around, there are plenty of people who participate in all 4 of the difficulties.

Seriously, you've contributed absolutely zero reason to make a change. It's a fact that all 4 difficulties are heavily attended. None of the people with your line of reasoning ever explains why any of them need to be removed. Same exact thing with people who want other aspects of the game to be removed even though any player can simply ignore what they don't like.

[arkanon]

I have seen quite a few people complaining about anything they don't personally enjoy. Any one of the raid difficulties might not be for YOU, but if you have a look around, there are plenty of people who participate in all 4 of the difficulties.

Seriously, you've contributed absolutely zero reason to make a change. It's a fact that all 4 difficulties are heavily attended. None of the people with your line of reasoning ever explains why any of them need to be removed. Same exact thing with people who want other aspects of the game to be removed even though any player can simply ignore what they don't like.

Why so aggressive? Just calm down man. I have explained numerous times why i think the 4 difficulties has had a negative impact on the game. You are over simplifying the issue by saying "people do all difficulties, everything is fine" without digging any deeper at all.
How many people are mythic raiders, but do heroic frequently as well?
How many heroic raiders are doing normal and lfr as well?
What role does WF/TF play in players decisions to complete a certain difficulty. Etc Etc.

There is a huge list of variables you are just completely ignoring.

I have explained my reasoning multiple times, and due to the fact you have been pretty aggressive this is clearly striking a nerve with you, for whatever reason, so im not going to bother going through the while process again, as you have shown yourself incapable of seeing different opinions.

[Soon-TM]

1. Less randomness in all systems. Focus more on deterministic progress.
2. Lots of small group content (3-5 man dungeons, 5-10 man raiding). Let me fill the group with AI controlled NPC's if I need a filler or two.
3. Focus on a new diverse and mature story. Pandaria was a good try. Something more than one-dimensional caricatures please.
4. Return back to MoP system design principles and iterate from there.

This I can absolutely sign. Randomness in current WoW is completely out of whack, even if it isn't as bad as in Legion.

[Tumile]

"Mythic raiding is too hard for me, and so I want EVERYONE to raid at the difficulty setting that *I* like. All the other difficulties that other people like but I don't should just go away."

Yeah seems entirely reasonable.

I mean, i disagree with the OP on almost all points except that one, but thats cuz i find Mythic piss fucking easy. It's a joke how easy it is on a personal gameplay level, if theres barely any difference for me (Piss easy, or slightly more piss easy) i'd rather have the unified option for a multitude of reasons, some of them is because of the dificulty being lower objectively, even if mythic is also brain dead levels of easy, some people struggle with it, And I'd rather play with people I like, than random retarded polish cunts that i hate. as well as theres a different feeling to only 1 difficulty, and a different kind of prestige about it, especially pre-transmog.

The list goes on, but please stop projecting onto others just because you find dodging the giant lazer ball that takes 20 years to charge up difficult. or calling out colours ontop of peoples heads. it's children games level of difficulty buddy.

[Zethes89]

So you want to eliminate mythic raiding? Because the race for world first would be over in a few hours. You would kill the game with this change, it would be dead. More raiders complete LFR, Normal, and MAYBE dabble in heroic Vs the others, and not by a small margin - it would be 100x more players, or even higher.

What i hear is "i wish mythic was a bit easier, because that would perfectly suit me!" without a thought for the overwhelming majority of players who would no longer raid? I get that its YOUR wish list, but my wish list would include things good for the overall health of the game. Because the healthier the game is, the more investment Blizzard will put into the game.

What do you even mean? Many of the end bosses in TBC took ages to kill. The point of 1 difficulty setting is that the raid progressively get's harder as you are moving through the raid where i would expect the 3 last bosses or so to be "mythic" level difficulty or higher. What's the excitement in progressing to a new boss when you all ready did that particular boss 5-15 times on other difficulties? RPG-wise it does not make much sense.

Also, the game had more players before they introduced different difficulty tiers (As far as i remember this happened during ICC, and yes i know u had 10 and 25 man options before they added heroic / normal). And the player engagement was higher imo.

Also, leaving stuff to be desired can be much more rewarding than just getting everything u want. I never got past twin emps in aq40 during classic and that was perfectly fine, it just makes people that actually got past it so much cooler to me. I used to daydream about tier 3.

Now the accomplishments of your raiding is barely reflected in your character, apart from some achievements and stats. Everyone is running arround with transmog bound to probably be better looking than your crappy blizzard designed non class specific raid armor. I would not even lend it a tought if i saw a character in the 8.2 mythic armor sets, as they look like something u get from lvling during the start of an expansion.

[maulgryve]

5. Resilience. Yeah I want that back as well. I want to be able to get the best gear for PVP - FROM pvp. Not from a raid. Ion just recently said that their mentality on this subject is that they like it how it is though. So I doubt this will ever change sadly.

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Also on my wish list is for something I saw in one of the youtube videos. Maybe T&E. It would be nice if, after the level squish you can level up a new character something like this:
1-20 - vanilla zones.
20-60 - TBC, Wrath, WoD, CATA, Legion, MoP, or BfA. In any order.
60-70 - New expansion.
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I also wish you could just stay at lvl 60 and not have any new levels to gain. Just some sort of heart of azerite or artifact weapon to level up in the next expansion. Your level just stays at max. Gaining levels to me seems pointless.

[Biomega]

What do you even mean? Many of the end bosses in TBC took ages to kill.

That's because they were bugged to fuck. You don't know your WoW history.

Also, you can't compare raiders today to back then. The level of preparedness, experience, and skill top-end raiders have today is worlds apart from what it used to be. You can't just turn back the clock.

People used to run 100m in over 10 seconds, too, some decades ago. But they've gotten better now. Standards are different.

The point of 1 difficulty setting is that the raid progressively get's harder as you are moving through the raid where i would expect the 3 last bosses or so to be "mythic" level difficulty or higher. What's the excitement in progressing to a new boss when you all ready did that particular boss 5-15 times on other difficulties? RPG-wise it does not make much sense.

The problem is that this creates other restrictions. If you tune it to mythic level, a vast majority of players will simply NEVER SEE THE BOSSES. How's that for an RP experience if you just have to go "welp, I got the two lieutenants down but I guess the big bad boss boi I just have to let go and keep on being evil". Or you tune it in a way that most raiders can clear the raid (that's how it used to be) - and then you have thousands of people who are bored out of their mind because content is easy, and top guilds clear the entire raid in a single night. Or you introduce artificial gating - like e.g. making a resistance fight where you have to grind gear on the previous bosses for a month so everyone has the pieces needed to progress further; tried that, was vastly unpopular and created all sorts of problems (like gearing up people only to have them jump to another guild).

The reason we have more than one difficulty is that it allows more players to actually play. If it's too easy, the hardcore people quit. If it's too hard, the casual people don't get to see everything.

Why on earth would we want to go back to a one-size-fits-all approach when the gaming audience is more diverse than it has ever been before? How is that even approaching a good idea?

Also, the game had more players before they introduced different difficulty tiers (As far as i remember this happened during ICC, and yes i know u had 10 and 25 man options before they added heroic / normal). And the player engagement was higher imo.

That's faulty correlation/causation. The game is over fifteen years old now. Player numbers were going to drop one way or another. Making a simple connection like that is grossly fallacious.

Heck, you could make all sorts of weird statements by cherry-picking based on sub numbers. "WoW had more subscribers when Monks weren't in the game. Removing Monks would therefore increase sub numbers to glory-day levels". See how insane that sounds?

I never got past twin emps in aq40 during classic and that was perfectly fine, it just makes people that actually got past it so much cooler to me. I used to daydream about tier 3.

Again with the "I didn't get to do that and was cool with it, so I want everyone else to also be cool if they don't get to do it". It's fine if you had a particular experience - but don't go from that and force that same experience on everyone else. I know tons of people who were pissed off when their guild stopped progressing. They got really frustrated when a new tier came out and they never got to see what happened in the old one. What about THOSE people? Do they just not feature in your personal world view? Are you just telling them to suck it up and get over it? And if so - WHY CAN'T WE TELL YOU THE SAME THING ABOUT MYTHIC RAIDING?

[Octoberfest99]

My ideal World of Warcraft is one where loot matters, where you CAN hit a maximum temporary gear wall and where the content is more ubiquitous (I will explain in greater detail what I mean by that later on in the post.)

My wish list (in no particular order):

1. You should be able to 'complete' your character within a given patch, i.e no random modifiers, no titan-forging, there is BiS and once you've achieved it you're golden until the next patch.

2. Enough of this elitism/noobism, I miss when there was one raid difficulty and that difficulty was not too hard but not too easy. Think vanilla nax difficulty or possibly a bit harder then that.

3. Economics matter in an online game, I want economy to matter again and not just with WoW tokens. I want to see crafting systems where the gear crafted can be used as crutches to enter a 'current tier' raid, that way the economy strives and all of these catch-up mechanics can rightfully disappear from the game.

Anyways guys im sure I could add more, let me know what you all think and feel free to add your own ideas!

I mostly agree with you. Below are some thoughts:

1. I agree RNG systems like titan-forging do not add meaningful re-playability to raiding. Having the item your seeking drop only to find it is one of the suboptimal versions of the item feels bad. There is already enough of a grind in raids to get BiS items … adding RNG upgrades to these BiS items is not fun.

2. I disagree with you here. Having multiple difficulty levels provides a strong incentive for more people of various skills to engage in raiding. Mythic provides a place for high skill players who want a challenge; heroic provides a place for medium skill players who want a challenge; normal provides a place for lower skill players who want a challenge; LFR provides a place for people who do not enjoy raiding to experience more of the game’s story. Having multiple difficulty levels is healthy for a game and extends the appeal of a game to more players.

3.I agree a strong player driven economy is beneficial to any MMO. Being able to craft high end gear is desirable as is the ability to sell consumables and raw materials on a frequent basis. If they brought back a stat like resilience on PVP gear and added a raid specific stat (say heroism) to raid gear that made raid acquired gear the most desirable for raiding, they could allow crafters to craft high end gear without concern that it would decrease raiding incentive. At most players would have 3 sets of gear: one for raiding/mythic +, one for open world, and one for PVP. For many players they would only need one or two sets based on their play preferences. (I would envision the raid specific stat above would counter a buff on bosses that would make raid gear essential for raiding).

[arkanon]

What do you even mean? Many of the end bosses in TBC took ages to kill. The point of 1 difficulty setting is that the raid progressively get's harder as you are moving through the raid where i would expect the 3 last bosses or so to be "mythic" level difficulty or higher. What's the excitement in progressing to a new boss when you all ready did that particular boss 5-15 times on other difficulties? RPG-wise it does not make much sense.

Also, the game had more players before they introduced different difficulty tiers (As far as i remember this happened during ICC, and yes i know u had 10 and 25 man options before they added heroic / normal). And the player engagement was higher imo.

Also, leaving stuff to be desired can be much more rewarding than just getting everything u want. I never got past twin emps in aq40 during classic and that was perfectly fine, it just makes people that actually got past it so much cooler to me. I used to daydream about tier 3.

Most of this has been firmly debunked by Blizzard themselves, and many, many members of the community. Engagement was absolutely nowhere near what it is now - raiding was a fringe activity completed by a tiny percentage of the playerbase. So im sorry, but you opinion is completely incorrect. You also fall into a very common trap and confuse correlation with causation. You cant just say "they added more difficulties and the player subs went down, therefore the player subs went down as a direct result of adding more difficulties.

It is also fundamentally wrong that players want the majority of raid gear to be out of their reach - another thing Blizzard have debunked on various occasions - as much as a tiny minority might think otherwise, players do NOT want harder and harder content - its just not true. I always shudder when players compare something from 15 years ago and say "see, it worked then, it will work now!" when obviously players expectations and gaming in general has evolved an awful lot in the last decade and a half.

As to your comment about killing a boss 15 times and then progressing to him on the higher difficulty and not feeling any satisfaction - you are absolutely right - which is why i would ask why the player killed the same boss 15 times before stepping up in difficulty? clearly they substantially out-geared the encounter if they have spend 3-4 MONTHS killing him over and over again. I would also ask how a normal mode raider only being able to kill the first boss over and over again is satisfying for that player? or a heroic raider only being able to kill the first 5 over and over?

I am all for reducing the count from 4 to 3, but, i am absolutely against changing mythic to make it easier - it doesnt help anyone.

[seleri]

Boiled down it looks like a lot of what you want is less balance and more variety. Can't say I disagree with that sentiment but people freak out if their spec sims slightly worse than another spec so I doubt it will ever happen.

[enmanueleffren]

that is all. except for personal loot keep that. and bringing back my waifu alleria windrunner.Once you get this item thats it! you've completed that piece and you go get your next BiS piece, in other words you actively work towards a goal, instead of hoping for the best in the current casino style loot system.

[Directionalk9]

Without reading the OP or another post in the thread, I bet the removal of most systems that came during or after Wrath, and reverting things to a pre-Cata state. BRB checking to see if I’m right. Also, I know I’m being a dick.

Minus bullet point 4... nailed it.

[Trend]

Why so aggressive? Just calm down man. I have explained numerous times why i think the 4 difficulties has had a negative impact on the game. You are over simplifying the issue by saying "people do all difficulties, everything is fine" without digging any deeper at all.
How many people are mythic raiders, but do heroic frequently as well?
How many heroic raiders are doing normal and lfr as well?
What role does WF/TF play in players decisions to complete a certain difficulty. Etc Etc.

There is a huge list of variables you are just completely ignoring.

I have explained my reasoning multiple times, and due to the fact you have been pretty aggressive this is clearly striking a nerve with you, for whatever reason, so im not going to bother going through the while process again, as you have shown yourself incapable of seeing different opinions.

Funny response. Didn't see it until now. Pretty typical grade-school strategy ... if you have no real points you just throw out the "why u so mad bro?"

I think what you're saying is dumb. I don't need to be emotional to think something is dumb.

In your list of things I supposedly haven't considered (pretty poor assumption on your part), I agree with what Ion has stated in interviews. I agree that the game should not be designed around the accommodation of those who just can't help themselves. In other words, if a mythic raider feels compelled to keep doing heroic because of the chance of getting a massive TF, I honestly don't care and I definitely don't think that outweighs the benefits of having heroic available for people who want to raid heroic as an appropriate level difficulty for where they're at. If that same mythic raider feels compelled to do normal or LFR, I think he has much bigger issues than WoW in his life that need to be resolved.

If you want to keep raging because you can't control yourself enough to pass on content you don't want to do, then by all means keep raging bro. (That's sarcasm by the way. I'm just making fun of your strategy.)

[Nerovar]

Sounds good my dude.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

So Vanilla but with TF2's gear system...?

[Advent]

Funny response. Didn't see it until now. Pretty typical grade-school strategy ... if you have no real points you just throw out the "why u so mad bro?"

I think what you're saying is dumb. I don't need to be emotional to think something is dumb.

In your list of things I supposedly haven't considered (pretty poor assumption on your part), I agree with what Ion has stated in interviews. I agree that the game should not be designed around the accommodation of those who just can't help themselves. In other words, if a mythic raider feels compelled to keep doing heroic because of the chance of getting a massive TF, I honestly don't care and I definitely don't think that outweighs the benefits of having heroic available for people who want to raid heroic as an appropriate level difficulty for where they're at. If that same mythic raider feels compelled to do normal or LFR, I think he has much bigger issues than WoW in his life that need to be resolved.

If you want to keep raging because you can't control yourself enough to pass on content you don't want to do, then by all means keep raging bro. (That's sarcasm by the way. I'm just making fun of your strategy.)

I completely agree with this, which is why I don't listen to any complaints that mythic raiders have. Anyone who wants to be or compete with the best, be it in real life or a video game, has to do things they don't want to do. But they don't complain about it because it is necessary. But the moment raid players have something else to do but raid, they call for nerfs. LFR is in the game and drops tier gear? Nerf. Dailies are worth doing? Nerf. World quests reward gear? Nerf. Artifact Power needs grinding? Nerf. It's beyond ridiculous.

[ArmatisUlv]

That was not what I was going for, with one difficulty things are more streamlined, less dev resources are wasted on content that barely anyone experiences, and I would wager it leaves a lot more people satisfied. I also believe raids should have a linear scale approach in how they're set up, i.e first boss is easy, last boss is a challenge, this would keep the world first race still relevant.

I think more time would be spent on developing raids because people would burn through raids like Naxx 40 in a day.

You're forgetting that what truly made raiding hard back in vanilla was the amount of people you had to manage and the skill cap of the players. Gear played some part in it but not as much as everyone thinks (I'm not saying someone in mc gear could compete in naxx but someone in mc gear could do all the mechanics properly). The skill level now compared to back then is so much higher. You want them to release a raid that is one of two things. So hard that only 1% of wows player base sees it or it is so easy because it only has 4 mechanics per fight.

Raids are fine as they are right now. What I think should be on your wishlist is improving your skill.

[Powerogue]

1. I've never had a problem with that because you just settle once you have BiS gear not counting the random modifiers, because they make a minimal difference.

2. That system lead to almost no one raiding. I get that the promise of more raid to do is supposed to motivate you to do better, and I've had experiences both ways. Positively with Karazhan, but negatively with Ulduar where my guild was literally stuck on the first 4 bosses for the whole patch until the next raid came out.

3. Crafted gear being more useful is a plus, but IDK what that has to do with cancelling catch up mechanics. "rightfully" make it impossible to have alts or return to the game a patch late in any given expansion.

4. I don't see why that would be less boring/uninspiring than tier sets.

5. It really mostly meant really cramped bags and a lot of farming really arbitrary old and low level content.

6. Guild tax? That sounds horrible.

7. We already have grinds for cosmetics. The point of things like AP is to feel post-level cap progression of your character, which cosmetics don't do.

8. I mean it seems like they're planning on doing that. Depends on the class IMO. Some I think are in a good place but outlaw rogues without CotD suck eggs.