Could Seasons work in Wow?

[Wyrt]

How many people would like raiding if instead of adding new raids, they just cut content relentlessly and made it easier and faster to clear? Because that is Blizzard's idea of "improving" leveling. Every time they make changes to leveling, it is all about dumbing it down, making it easier and faster and allowing you to skip large chunks of it. No WONDER people just want to get it over with.

Could you imagine if raiding was "updated" the same way? Instead of buying a level boost to 110, how about a raiding boost sold for $25 in the store that gives you all the gear you need to clear EP? How about a big red button in your bags to autokill EP bosses on mythic?

Um, raiding is already like that? You don't have to do every raid in order to get to the current raid. You just jump straight into the current raid.

[Kokolums]

Um, raiding is already like that? You don't have to do every raid in order to get to the current raid. You just jump straight into the current raid.

No its not. I'm taking about the current raid. Just give people a big red button to one shot all mythic bosses on a press. That is what modern leveling in retail feels like. They just stripped it down and took every bit of challenge out of it. And then look at classic where everyone is leveling and people LOVE it. But that goes against EVERYTHING we've been told about "modern gamers". Gee...

[Wyrt]

No its not. I'm taking about the current raid. Just give people a big red button to one shot all mythic bosses on a press. That is what modern leveling in retail feels like. They just stripped it down and took every bit of challenge out of it. And then look at classic where everyone is leveling and people LOVE it. But that goes against EVERYTHING we've been told about "modern gamers". Gee...

All leveling before BfA is old content, not current content.

Classic leveling isn't challenging either unless you consider trying to stay awake while wanding things to death challenging.

[Marrilaife]

We got stats on how many people watched the event, it was in the hundreds of thousands for the majority of the time. Even if we say it was just 10000 people watching, if we assume there's 25 people per raid, that's still 400 guilds needed to be "in the race".. Which it isn't.

400 guilds don't even kill the same boss, if they kill it at all. There's usually maybe 200-300 guilds tops that can kill the boss before super heavy nerfs. Because that boss is designed for methods and their likes and completely disconnected from skill level of an average mythic guild.

Twitch viewership is rising, but mythic raid participation is going down.

I have the impression that mythic+ also attracted more players in legion than in bfa. The amount of people pushing high keys narrowed down.

[Ashenhoof]

That's not a "probably". That's a definitely.

We got stats on how many people watched the event, it was in the hundreds of thousands for the majority of the time. Even if we say it was just 10000 people watching, if we assume there's 25 people per raid, that's still 400 guilds needed to be "in the race".. Which it isn't.

Tbh, I sometimes watched the Method stream during the "World first race", but only when I was at work during breaks.

As soon as I was home I played the game and couldn't be bothered to watch any streams. *shrug*

[Kaver]

Everyone always seems to really enjoy the freshness that new expansions bring. Everyone starts in quest greens, has to level again and their gear means nothing.

Would a seasonal approach work for those who enjoy race to world firsts or leveling fastest? Each season you race to get to max level and kill whatever end-game boss is available.

The reason I enjoy new expansions is because of the new end game content.

I hate leveling and I hate the extreme powerloss we experience. Going from being a god in Legion with full Mythic Antorus gear and BiS legendaries to leveling green pieces from BFA just suck. You feel like someone just takes all you power away. It is the worst kind of progression..

... in my opinion of course. I’m being subjective based on what I like.

[huth]

This. Since levelling doesn't matter, we already have that exact Season every patch.

And a more comprehensive version every expansion.

[LuminaL]

I would love if it we stopped trying to turn every game into some stupid esport.

this guy gets it.

every single game that was turned into an Esport game lost its charm for me.

[Cosmic Janitor]

How many people would like raiding if instead of adding new raids, they just cut content relentlessly and made it easier and faster to clear? Because that is Blizzard's idea of "improving" leveling. Every time they make changes to leveling, it is all about dumbing it down, making it easier and faster and allowing you to skip large chunks of it. No WONDER people just want to get it over with.

Here's the deal, in general you have a large pool of people that are not interested in story in any way, you have have the best fucking story under the sun and they still would not give 2 shits about the story, they just want to mash their hotkeys in hotkey mmo games like WoW and that satisfies them. That is why they make it shorter, because a large chunk of their paying customers have no interest in it.

Now the reality of wow is that questing has never been that interesting story-wise. I've probably read 95% of all quests that have ever been in WoW to this day and the actually interesting ones make up a tiny fraction of all quests. Besides Blizzard's use of by now extremely dated meme's as the base for their stories, the overall story and presentation isn't exactly engaging at the best of times. And the truth is, even the best of the quests lose massively on doing them a second or third time, which is what most casuals experience when leveling their alts. This is another reason why they make it shorter and it's appreciated by people.

Overall, they could try to make awsome stories, they could try to use different methods for delivery, but then the first group of people that doesn't care would still skip it all or even complain if other methods don't let them get through it fast enough. There is also no reason to force people through things they've done years ago already ofver and over again, I have 12 110+ characters, for the love of god, I don't have to see Garry throw random orc villain # 23124 off a bluff again for the 10th time. What matters here is the first time experience and frankly that one is completely different without heirlooms. Expecting people to sit through 10 year old game design is still not exactly great for attracting new customers, especially when the people they want to play with sit 110 levels further up the scale.

Also if you think people would enjoy leveling more if it had some arbitary challenging aspects then you are flat out wrong as well. While people love to claim this, reality has proven to be different, otherwise the predecessors of WoW would have outshone World of Babycraft with the power of a 1000 suns.

[Highlord Hanibuhl]

I honestly thought you meant like better weather-effects...

[Ifeanychukwu]

Fuck no. WoW already had it's identity for years. I wish they would stop trying to turn WoW into a fucking Diablo 3 clone, esports wannabe. If you want that kind of gameplay then go play those types of games because there's plenty of them.

[micwini]

We already have this. They even call is this way.

[Polybius]

This.

This shit ain't Diablo. I want to play an MMORPG again, not an MMO PvE raid simulator esport. Hard pass on anything like this, but it wouldn't surprise me if Blizzard did it one day.

Sadly they kind of already do this.

- - - Updated - - -

I honestly thought you meant like better weather-effects...

Haha. This.

[bloodmoth13]

Everyone always seems to really enjoy the freshness that new expansions bring. Everyone starts in quest greens, has to level again and their gear means nothing.

Would a seasonal approach work for those who enjoy race to world firsts or leveling fastest? Each season you race to get to max level and kill whatever end-game boss is available.

I dont think its as bad an idea as people are saying.

Having a seasonal reset, say, every 2 months where you start with standardized gear for that season and try progress through the raid over 8 weeks to get your best time could be interesting and give guilds a way to refine their approach to a raid after beating it.

In order to make it as competitive as possible, rng would need to go, and maybe each player is given a set of seasonal specific gear to enter the first tier with. Have gear restricted solely to gear earned from the raid (with a seasonal tag) and have guaranteed item drops per boss.

This could be a very reliable way to earn tier gear (complete a full xmog set) and keep content challenging. I dont really see any reason not to do this (other than dev time) as its just setting standards for competitive.

Personally i wouldnt touch it with a 10 ft pole, but im not a hardcore player.
I think hardcore players have been feeling a little ticked off lately because their achievements arent as well enshrined as they once were, not my problem at all, i just want flashy gear from legacy raids, but being able to boast that they finished 1st place on season 2 tier 9 would be a great indication of their performance.

[thilicen]

It's boring enough as it is in Diablo.

[maulgryve]

I always thought that in an expansion, it would be cool if you didn't level up to the expansions max level during the .0 phase. Instead you could level up in steps. For example:
8.0 max level = 112
8.1 max level = 114
8.2 max level = 116
8.3 max level = 120

Sort of similar to your seasons idea.