How will 8.3 keep casuals occupied for 9+ months?

[Exhuman]

Subs will drop hard in 8.3

In Legion we had mage tower and good gold farming

In BfA nothing.

[Marrilaife]

There seems to be some confusion of what casual means, Anyone on a forum about WoW is not casual, anyone who does non-queable group content is not casual (even Normal raid, M0 is not casual) . There is a whole level of player in the game who has no idea about professions, azerite, addons, buffs , even spells outside of the ones the game adds for them. I'd suggest that not a single poster on here is casual.

That kind of player will literally play a patch for 1-2 afternoons, finish the single player story and then shelf the game until next patch. Maybe an expansion will give them a bit more content, because they're not power levellers and will take their time to explore every zone and check all the questlines.

They're not really a target audience because they aren't interested in WOW the MMO they only consume the single player part, that is small part of wow.

People who stay longer, but are casuals still, are a diverse group with many sub groups like collectors, RPers, pet battlers, achievement hunters, social players (they play group content but in their circle of friends / guild and are not competitive / min-max oriented), avid alt levellers and more, there isn't 1 type of "content" that is of interest to all of them.

[Marrilaife]

It won't keep anybody occupied for 9 months.

A raid patch gives me about 4 months. After that, you can forget it. If a Mythic boss still alive by then, we ain't killing it without serious nerfs. We'll have hit that cockblock boss that every tier has, and after 6 weeks of mashing our faces on it, the signups will drop and we'll have to pug, and then nothing gets killed...

Yes the cadence of nerfs seems really delayed nowadays, especially when we remember times of zone wide buff growing every week from 5% to 30% in icc or DS. Do we really need thousands of guilds stuck on Krosus, Ashvane, Gorefiend, Misstress Saszine, or whatever other boss? If top guilds are already way past that boss, then it should be nerfed. Endbosses should also be nerfed faster and not 1-2 months before tier end because by that time most players who struggled with that boss already have given up long ago.

Especially mid-xpac raid tiers seem to be extreme guild killers, like Kil'jaeden and now Azshara. We're maybe 1-1,5 month away from Nyalotha, I don't know why Azshara didn't get nerfed again, by that time frame Jaina was already gutted by multiple nerfs, Gul'dan also had tons of nerfs along the way to help guilds progress. And I'm saying this as a person who already has Cutting Edge so it's not that I'm wishing for nerfs because I can't get the kill myself.

I also see after Ashvane and Orgozoa got nerfed, lots of guilds stuck on Court or Zaqul and I ask myself what for? Why not nerf these 2 already? Do I feel like "it lessens my accomplishment" because a guild #2000 can finally kill Court? It doesn't bother me. What bothers me is the overall number of mythic raiders dropping as people are quitting, because if you weaken the bottom of the pyramid, you're eroding the whole structure. Higher guilds need the lower guilds to function. Without them there's no recruitment base.

We've already seen with Crucible what happens when you develop content balanced around elitists and world top 100 guilds, it basically goes ignored and unused. Kinda like vanilla Naxx.

[MrLachyG]

the you see wrong

devs confirmed during blizzcon interviews that shadowlands is planned for december 2020/january 2021.

You’re wrong. Will be out in 2020 (not 2021), probably around November, October if we are lucky

[WowIsDead64]

EDIT: sorry, this was meant for the general discussion forum.

With 7.3 lasting 9 months, it is safe to assume that 8.3 will also be around for at least just as long, especially with such a big raid. So the real question becomes, what is going to motivate the casual playerbase to stick around for 9+ months?

No new outdoor zones, no new dungeons. Just the same WQ's and assaults formula from the last 5 patches. What is Blizzard expecting casuals to do after 9 days, let alone 9 months?

And the worst part is, it doesn't even seem like those cut development resources have made their way into Shadowlands either, which is spreading content just as thinly.

Depends on how good 8.3 content will be. Problems with current content:
1) WQs. Obsoleted. "It will drop you just +10 ilvl gear/no epics if you aren't full epic/just rely on WF/TF RNG casino" model means you'd gear there for ages.
2) Invasions are good, but are time-based, i.e. not always available, that is bad for casual player. 2 of 5 WQs aren't soloable there, that will kill this content as soon, as activity will drop.
3) Expeditions are bad, because nothing depends on how you play them - just on how fast you complete them. No way to gear up there during leveling, that causes gear lag, i.e. makes your character weaker and weaker with every level. No gold to cover repair loses.
4) Warfronts? What is that? Another pseudo-PVP with bots?
5) Mechagon. Rares are pure RNG, that is complete crap for casual player, as sometimes it's no rares for 30 minutes, but sometimes it's 4 rares at the same time. I've got my Pathfinder II and mount. What else this crap is needed for?
6) Nazjatar. Overtuned and/or badly designed. Just unbearable. Token gearing model is great though.

If all that problems will be solved to 8.3 content, then, I guess, it will be good for casual players. I don't play on PTR as I don't want to see spoilers, so I don't know, how things are going there.

[Osmeric]

DR&S forum? Also im talking about from the blues. The general threads are alliance crying. High elf crying. And lfr crying on the General forums.

Note: I miscounted there, so it was actually 11.

But yes, blue posts are way down. I explain that by WoW being in cash cow mode. Cash cows are products for which growth is no longer a goal. They are milked by reducing expenses (such as the cost of people who post on forms); when even that stops making them profitable they are shut down.

[FelPlague]

And the worst part is, it doesn't even seem like those cut development resources have made their way into Shadowlands either, which is spreading content just as thinly.

what cut development resources?

[kamuimac]

I'm not sure the definition you suggested is correct.
Casual refer to people not connecting every day, maybe from time to time. What they do during their game time is not relevant. It's obvious that they don't have a high PvP rating or the curve the first weeks. They might do some BGs, arenas, LFR, NM, filing a slot in HM if their gear is OK, why not a +5 to +10 keys. Some connect a lot more during their week off so they might play a lot and some even post on forums.

he is not wrong though

you have here people who play 15-20 hours a week and claim that they play casualy .

casual player is someone who plays 3-4 hours a week max.

it doesnt matter if he raids mythic during this time or does solely lfr.

[Trumpcat]

There is this thing that matters too - once you've gained all the power the expansion progression had to offer you get to enjoy being powerful and on top of the things for a while, before you are reduced to a levelling scrub again. I do appreciate these periods. Also almost everyone plays alts too and enjoys bringing one or more to that level of power. Some people come in late too, they also want to complete raids and do the things. Not everyone is starting on day 1 of content release.
And then if there is some down time before the pre-launch events begin that's fine. They won't repeat 9+ months of drought at any rate.

[Bumbasta]

They'll probably try to fill it with classic releases so ppl don't stop their subscription.

[peter92q]

im waiting for shadowlands , wanna be rejuvenated for WoW again

[Sangfoudre]

he is not wrong though

you have here people who play 15-20 hours a week and claim that they play casualy .

casual player is someone who plays 3-4 hours a week max.

it doesnt matter if he raids mythic during this time or does solely lfr.

3-4 hours a week max, if you do the average on a long period of time.
Some people need to move for their jobs, so they cannot be connected regularly.

Hey guys, back to the basics, casual means "occurring without regularity",

[Alvito]

the answer is simple

it wont

8.3 is aimed solely at youtubers and raiders so they dont do too much negative PR before launch of 9.0

they simply have no choice but to shut them up .

thats why there is 0 content for casual players and only grinds aimed at raiders. there is no mage tower this time meaning there is absolutely no reason to push gear because you will replace it with leveling greens anyway and there is nothing that you could utilize it for unless you raid.

for me its a perfect moment to take long break from game most likely 6+ moonths long since match or april

Pure nonsense. Raiders are going to burn through content far faster and pack it in sooner, as they often do with the final patch. A close to a year raid window isn't anything a raider wants besides somebody in some shitty mythic guild hoping to back into CE with some pug Carrie's after raid restrictions are lifted.

[Valysar]

I'll try to do all +15 in time again, horrific visions, and leveling vulperas/mechagnomes, and horrific visions, oh, and horrific visions.

[Vutar]

This is really getting under my skin. You don’t understand how modern mmos work. You don’t have to stay subscribed after 8.3

We all learned this since early expansions. Blizzard is not retarded enough to swhift focus on creating 8.4 and give us a half ass expansion.

I am going to assume you didn't mean to reply to me. Otherwise, I'd have to assume you don't have very good reading comprehension skills.

[Flutterguy]

It won't. It'll last just long enough for new expansion hype to keep people going until launch.

[Th3Scourge]

Bruh 8.3 is a MASSIVE patch

[Augusta138]

No, but WoW Classic will.

And that's if WoW still has any player base after the great Blitzchung betrayal.

If this actually was a thing, it would have happened already.

People will just enjoy the game in any way they do now, being a raider / M+ player or just leveling alts.
Nothing will change in how people will play the game IF 8.3 takes 9 months or more.

And if the above people get sick and tired: they take a small break till 3 weeks before launchdate of Shadowlands.
(thats what i usually do, if i am done farming achieves / M+ / mounts / etc etc etc etc etc etc)

[LostSinclair]

Cyberpunk 2077 is coming April 16th 2020, I think that's going to keep plenty of people occupied for a couple of weeks, but given WoW's history were likely getting the prepatch 3 to 4 months before release, it's basically impossible to guess it before January when we start seeing more hints (beta announcements, blue posts, PTR nonsense) but eventually we'll get a pretty good idea oh how long the drought will last(or if they're are any hidden hooks in 8.3.5 to keep people occupied for another month or two). Personally I'm still hoping for a late summer/early fall release for Shadowlands.

[ablib]

What a dumb thread.

Casuals want more time in between patches to do all the one off crap things there is to do in the game.

It's the hardcore folk (short attention span folk) that consume all content early, and then quit during the droughts.