How will 8.3 keep casuals occupied for 9+ months?

[Xemioza]

find a gf/bf. spend more time with the gf/bf/hubby/wifey you do have. have a social life?:P

I said i have 1h a day to play...this is the list f things to do. Not the list of things Im doing atm 24/7..

[Marrilaife]

I'm fine with gap fillers like Halion was. I don't know why they don't do this anymore. There is nothing wrong with it tbh. It's additional content you can play, nothing more. The game has become way to competetive that blizzard is just afraid to add simple content to keep players interested. iT mIgHt cOuLd hUrT pRoGrEsSiVe rAiDiNg.

Halion wasn't simple, definitely not on heroic.

Onyxia was simple, and widely pugged.

Yes, they could add "simple" filler raids but instead add raids like Trial of Valor or Crucible of Storms that prove to be a pug killer on heroic and deterrent for anyone outside top guilds on mythic.

Instead of casual easy mini raids like Vault of Archavon or Baradin Hold they add these "world bosses" that can be zerged with 80+ people creating massive lag / fps drops and zero actual in-game experience, it's try to tag boss, die to lag / game freeze, collect loot at the end.

What hurts progressive raiding is content tuned for method, because for every method there's 1000 guilds who break their teeth on that content and give up or have to wait months for nerfs.

Also they got much more tame with progressive nerfs, 8.3 adds endless cloak upgrade, legion had endless artifact paragon trait, but these are nowhere near close 30% zone wide buff or +10 ilvl across all slots thanks to valor upgrades.

It takes less than 2 weeks for method to finish a raid tier. It takes 2 months for a top 100 guild to do the same. 4 months for 500 guilds to clear (after a nerf wave already happened with xrealm mythic).

When it comes to casual raiding, there are also guilds who take long to clear, I have an alt in one of such guilds and they only got Curve in October, I have a friend in another of such guilds, and they got Curve just at the end of October. The tier has been out since July.

A lot of people don't really need super duper extra challenging wipefest "filler" raids, they could use something lighter to take a break from their current progression focus.

I'd swear anyone who says "Crucible was a great raid, finally a challenge!" is probably in some world top 100 guild, so like top 0.1% of the playerbase...

[Tartys]

What is Blizzard expecting casuals to do after 9 days, let alone 9 months?

With a couple of new Allied Races... and the usual pre-event...

[Rinaul]

Same way it's been keeping me busy. Doing mythic +, trying to get rank 4s on my necklace. Pushing my tanking and dps abilities with only an average of 10 hours a week of play time. Probably less. Collecting xmog. Unlocking heritage armors and going to rp in Golds hire with all the fox peoples

[allawyn]

The amount of casual content seems pretty comparable to every other expansion save Legion. And most of Legion's content revolved around attempting the Mage Tower with various alts.

The quality isn't so good. Though a lot of those who won't stick around for it had already left (though I wouldn't guess how many came back for Classic).

My guess is that WOW was on track for one of the lowest inter-patch "troughs" on record. Classic will, however, obscure that. Late summers, my guess is Classic will account for almost all the subscriptions. Then Shadowlands will hit and we will see if it is good enough to let players forget BfA and how much of a bounce back they get.

[Vutar]

You completely twisted my words. I said expansions are always fun at the start of the expansion at least. it's always fun for everyone.

I didn't twist anything. You claimed

"You're suggesting that next expansion will be shit anyways. Which I completely disagree. Every single expansion we played was a blast "at the start of it at least" exploring new content is always fun."

Which makes no sense at all. First, you are making a huge generalization without evidence by claiming that every expansion was a blast at the start. Then you are somehow using that to suggest that this next expansion won't be "shit." Even if I accepted your assumption that every xpac is fun at the start, that still does not prove that the next expansion will not be "shit." Blizzard has shown nothing thus far to expect that the next xpac won't be "shit." I would like them to do so, but thus far they have not.

[Atticon]

I've been gone for a few weeks, why are people thinking SL will release in November and not late August?

[Sharein]

Roleplay will keep me occupied.

[Shakana]

So, you think casuals don't raid, farm as you do, experience the same content, but not on mythic? Maybe you should say "how 8.3 will keep us occupied 9 months", cause in the end, doesn't matter how much mythic you do, in 9 months you will probably burn out, with nothing else to use your mythic gear at,and outdone your content more than x9999 times.

- - - Updated - - -

I've been gone for a few weeks, why are people thinking SL will release in November and not late August?

Because Shadowlands don't have much of the stuff done yet, i think only bastion was presentable at blizzcon for people to play, and still with current talents and spells. I prefer them doing it slowly and well than rush into it as well.

[Panta]

I am still doing some Wrath/Cata content... So, I could be four/five years without even a patch and still have plenty of things to do.

[pinelakias]

LUL it wont

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

8.3, Classic, and Shadowlands Beta will be enough I think.

[beanman12345]

i really don't know. no new zone is kind of a deal breaker for me. people play to have fun and I personally got bored at 8.2 and quit. If my friend decides she wants to come back maybe i'll play but last few weeks I've been playing ffxiv and digging it, and playing borderlands 3 on the side. By the time I'm done with ffxiv, cyberpunk 2077 will be out and i'll be done with that by 9.0 when I'll come back. That's me as a casual, nothing for me, my friend is also on a break, but for other casuals maybe they aren't yet bored so they'll stick around. Everyone is different.

[kaintk]

Im casual and will pay for one month of subscription

doing the new allied race content
the 8.3 content
doing the new lfr once to see the new boss and raid structure
Respec my dk draenei to lightforge draenei if it is up
Giving thunderfury to her in transmog if up too

And that will be that, freezing my account until shadowland for months, playing others good game meanwhile

WoW is really becoming a boring game outside of patch content, why going in raid higher than lfr if you only want to discover this content once? Farming raid are boring for me now, its sad because devs dont know how to make the game more dynamic, they just release a few content patch that you finish with in 2 week , after that you have 2-3 month of boring thing to do in game..

And i was a nolife player before bfa, like 12-15 hour by day..but now im...casual..and the strange thing about it is that im loving it to be a casual in WoW!

[Raddest]

Im casual and will pay for one month of subscription

doing the new allied race content
the 8.3 content
doing the new lfr once to see the new boss and raid structure
Respec my dk draenei to lightforge draenei if it is up
Giving thunderfury to her in transmog if up too

And that will be that, freezing my account until shadowland for months, playing others good game meanwhile

WoW is really becoming a boring game outside of patch content, why going in raid higher than lfr if you only want to discover this content once? Farming raid are boring for me now, its sad because devs dont know how to make the game more dynamic, they just release a few content patch that you finish with in 2 week , after that you have 2-3 month of boring thing to do in game..

And i was a nolife player before bfa, like 12-15 hour by day..but now im...casual..and the strange thing about it is that im loving it to be a casual in WoW!

Heads up, female LF Drenai have ultra small 2h. It's pretty bad.

[Exkrementor]

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?

I mean what are casual players doing since bfa came out? If I wouldnt raid then I wouldnt play the game.
If you are just farming transmogs and doing petbattles or whatever, ok. But why are you playing the game if not for raiding or pvp? Why would you grind shittons of worldquests for basically no purpose? There is nothing to gain there. AP does nothing for you.

[Yriel]

if u talking about trial accounts in their older form back then, they also stated that their own number isn't trusted due to the influx of many bot farmers that's why they weren't sure if ppl do actually leave, or it is just flat out a farm bot who wants to publish his website without care if he gets banned or not
they did in end revamp system (in cata) to be more friendly toward new players

No i meant real accounts.
Even among my own friends there are 2 guys that (10 years ago) read so much about the wow hype that they bought the game, played a bit but then found it too boring and stopped at ~lv 20.
I think a lot of people that weren't really into MMOs tried WoW because it was everywhere back then.

[Dracullus]

I've been gone for a few weeks, why are people thinking SL will release in November and not late August?

1. Last raid coming 2 months and last big patch 4.5 months after Argus/Antorus.

2. Judging from Blizzcon, expac is at earlier stage than BfA during reveal, especialy if we talking about max level systems.

3. Legion/BfA had "will be released before September 21st" note on pre-order and released on Summer; Shadowlands has "before December 31st" so we expect Fall release.

So overall, it's based on common sense, not official word from devs.

[Zexaniro]

1. Last raid coming 2 months and last big patch 4.5 months after Argus/Antorus.

2. Judging from Blizzcon, expac is at earlier stage than BfA during reveal, especialy if we talking about max level systems.

3. Legion/BfA had "will be released before September 21st" note on pre-order and released on Summer; Shadowlands has "before December 31st" so we expect Fall release.

So overall, it's based on common sense, not official word from devs.

this delusion is absolutely insane.

we only got a demo for a half baked zone in shadowlands, all of the dungeons are unfinished, the zone we got is unfinished, gameplay is unfinished etc

we won't be seeing the expansion until December next year at the earliest.

[froschhure]

farmwise there are several low percent drops. this can keep people busy for a long time.

but i agree, if you don't like m+, the next patch is a catastrophe. Since it's adding another layer to identify yourself with the game.

Casuals, mostly, seem to live from LFR /LFD - and with every patch raiding seems to be more and more unworthy (at least the non mythic ones)