SL and what the achievements system can do to spice things up

[RemasteredClassic]

I've been logging in once or twice a week recently due to SL feeling too familiar to the previous two expansions and not much being there for it to be exciting for longer than just a honeymoon phase. It's a shame for such a massive IP to not be so enticing to play anymore at such an early point into the release of a new expansion.

If only they would keep things simple.

The thing I dislike the most is having a long to do list unrelated to the core elements of the game. I'm fine with grinding multiple difficulty levels of dungeons & raids, torghast and PVE gear being on the stingy side with drop rates as long as getting XMOG unlocks is on the generous side (which is currently not the case and should become a focus instead of systems that are meant to act as time gates for the sake of slowing down the pace and keeping people subbed for as long as possible). Obtaining PVP gear/xmog should, IMHO, be the opposite of that to keep players at around similar gear scores so they stand a fair chance at fighting each other without one dominating the other.

People will actively play if the classes are fun (which is currently the case) AND they get rewarded often with a combination of gear of varying ilvls depending on content difficulty with the more powerful ones dropping less frequently, balanced out with generous amounts of xmog to be obtained in various ways and without being gated behind major patches & weekly resets, but through non-time based unlocks such as the achievements system.

I really think that the achievements system should be relied on for more than just unlocks of seasonal achievements by top tier, smallest percentage of players since it adds new dynamics and fun/challenging/creative ways to interact with the content in general which makes it less likely to get boring so quickly.

The current MAU tactics do not work well with the western crowd of gamers IMHO and should be abandoned in favour of innovative ways to make players spend more time on the game and actually enjoy it. MAU tactics do nothing but frustrate and drive people away.

I am stating the obvious, but I wish the game would stop focusing on being a money making business at its core, and change its attitude to being a fun focused game which will lead to it being a good money making business anyway. In its current form, it screams "gimme your money, and keep giving me more and more....."

[Djuntas]

I just wish they would get rid of MAU achivements, and nasty gimmicks thats not avaliable without X thing like locking stuff behind covenant choices. Let me grind EVERYTHING today if I want to - No gating, no requirements.

[RemasteredClassic]

I just wish they would get rid of MAU achivements, and nasty gimmicks thats not avaliable without X thing like locking stuff behind covenant choices. Let me grind EVERYTHING today if I want to - No gating, no requirements.

Any troll can easily come up with any counter argument. MAU achievements are at least grindable all at once which is ultimately what you say you want to be able to do EVERYTHING TODAY!!! but the idea with achievements is that you WILL NEVER be able to do so because they require ACTUAL THINKING. Take for example the "Ascended Skymane" which is an OPEN WORLD achievement cosmetic reward that is more fun to solo than raiding Naxx in Classic IMO. Your brain will fail to "grind everything today!" if all kinds of content was locked behind such achievements as long as they give REWARDS, not useless achievement points.

[A Chozo]

You speak as if people are magically beholden to the game through MAU tactics.

They aren't.

They play because they want to. Because they find fun or something. You keep saying that the MAU isn't working, yet you resub and keep playing. They fine enough to keep this game with one hell of a fanbase and playerbase. We'll know that MAU bullshit isn't working when you unsub. Until then, they work.

[RemasteredClassic]

You speak as if people are magically beholden to the game through MAU tactics.

They aren't.

They play because they want to. Because they find fun or something. You keep saying that the MAU isn't working, yet you resub and keep playing. They fine enough to keep this game with one hell of a fanbase and playerbase. We'll know that MAU bullshit isn't working when you unsub. Until then, they work.

You are partially right, but the reason behind me resubbing and keeping playing is just ONE and none other than there not being a viable alternative. BUT, this is only for now....Outriders is coming out in a month from now, that will keep me happily exploring something new and stop me from resubbing this time. Once I get enough of Outriders, New World will be out.....and I am now seriously thinking of going back to BDO now that I know their 2021 roadmap includes awesome new features. But, let's say I end up hating BDO, Crimson Desert will be out right around the corner too, and so will other games. This is enough for me to stay unsubbed from wow until 9.3 when I will resub to check things out one month before 10 comes out.

Either way, my new strategy with WoW is to not buy the expansion on my main region, and try it out for free in Taiwan first for the first month, if I like it, I buy it on EU/NA and keep subbing, otherwise, wait until the last month and explore the rest of the content on Taiwanese realms. Keep doing that until a decent enough expansion is out that is worth buying and continuously subbing to.

[RemasteredClassic]

You are partially right, but the reason behind me resubbing and keeping playing is just ONE and none other than there not being a viable alternative. BUT, this is only for now....Outriders is coming out in a month from now, that will keep me happily exploring something new and stop me from resubbing this time. Once I get enough of Outriders, New World will be out.....and I am now seriously thinking of going back to BDO now that I know their 2021 roadmap includes awesome new features. But, let's say I end up hating BDO, Crimson Desert will be out right around the corner too, and so will other games. This is enough for me to stay unsubbed from wow until 9.3 when I will resub to check things out one month before 10 comes out.

Either way, my new strategy with WoW is to not buy the expansion on my main region, and try it out for free in Taiwan first for the first month, if I like it, I buy it on EU/NA and keep subbing, otherwise, wait until the last month and explore the rest of the content on Taiwanese realms. Keep doing that until a decent enough expansion is out that is worth buying and continuously subbing to.

Outriders + New World + Crimson Desert + other games coming out around the same time will make it super difficult to even think of visiting SL, let alone playing it regularly. 2021 is looking to be the beginning of the decline of WoW as a subscription game with the MMORPG fans finally getting some decent alternatives that won't feel too familiar in a week.

Even though Outriders and Crimson desert will be more the co-op, mmorpg lite type, if the moment to moment game play, reward structure and graphics are satisfying, that's all we want. Add Overwatch 2 on top of that and WoW will likely lose its subscription model + paid expansions, a combination that is banned in Taiwan and China. Should be either you pay for expansions and play for free or pay to play and get expansions for free like the case for WoW in China and Taiwan. Classic wow and TBC/WotLK when released will basically follow that model, you don't pay for them, but can sub to play them.

I just hope they don't mess things up with the way they introduce TBC/WotLK. From the looks of it though, they will probably mess it up given they have been asking people the wrong questions in the recent questionnaire which should not even be a thing considering they could simply just COPY the entire Classic list of servers to a SEPARATE entity and upgrade them all to TBC, creating a whole separate game without touching live classic servers and complicating things through transfers, copying characters...etc.