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  1. #21
    There's been this mounting feeling for the past couple of expansions that more and more elements of the game feel so ephemeral. When you get to the point where it's so granular that they have it for one specific patch cycle (corruptions in 8.3) that's really pushing it. This has definitely colored my perception of the game as a whole and I am no longer able to really feel as invested or attached in anything the same way that I used to, because I know it's just going to be discarded for something else before long.

    Ultimately I don't think the whole design philosophy of herding the playerbase into this ultra narrow treadmill of disposable "current content" at the expense of everything else in the game is good. It's probably a huge part of what drives the plunge in subscriptions inbetween launches. Other MMOs like ESO don't seem to have this kind of problem because they're not designed around that style of progression, and that has made WoW's approach seem all the more strange to me in hindsight. They spend so much time and resources on designing content that's only going to be relevant within a fairly limited time frame, and then they go out of their way to make you not want to care about it any more.

  2. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Will View Post
    I prefer the classic style of gameplay -- TBC and Wrath, so that's what I am excited for. The modern loop is not my thing. Too many systems and daily/weekly incentives.
    I always think it's very odd when people mention Wrath in that aspect.

    First Expansion to introduce a daily quest faction for power? Check.
    First expansion that heavily incentivizes you to complete a given activity on a daily basis? Check.

    Doing daily heroics, especially on multiple characters became a chore quite quickly, yet was pretty much necessary because the T10 did cost an insane amount of emblems and passing on 14 Emblem/week was just too much of a time loss.

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Queen of Hamsters View Post
    As someone with fresh memory of what the biggest complaint was during WOTLK, I'd say they're onto something with their current systems. I might not like it, but I'm not some authoritah on what the game should or shouldn't be...

    Hoping that BfA was the peak of stupidity on systems though, but I've been proven wrong before.
    What was the problem with WTLK? All I remember is that A small minority complained that they felt forced to run 10 and 25M raids for loot drops since they stopped different gear. They also didn’t share the same lockout. That was the only complaint.

    The funny thing is that even though TBC and WTLK were considered “raiding” expansions there was personally less burnout. You did it if you wanted to. Usually 10M were for PUGs and 25M were for your guild runs. Dungeons were fun and basic. Now dungeons are just a mechanic fight because of Mythics and making it competitive.

    Then you have so many other systems at play all to facilitate an artificial grind that you are forced into to grow your character’s power.

  4. #24
    Immortal Nnyco's Avatar
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    Better than having to carry new people thru a bunch of old raids to get em attunent.

    Quote Originally Posted by Will View Post
    I prefer the classic style of gameplay -- TBC and Wrath, so that's what I am excited for. The modern loop is not my thing. Too many systems and daily/weekly incentives.
    Nothin like having to run shitty heroic on a daily basis to get tokens, which is totally different than our modern loop... oh wait.
    Last edited by Nnyco; 2021-02-27 at 04:48 AM.
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    Crabs have been removed from the game... because if I see another one I’m just going to totally lose it. *sobbing* I’m sorry, I just can’t right now... I just... OK just give me a minute, I’ll be OK..

  5. #25
    i want to point out wow wasn't founded upon gimmicks. the gimmicks started in cata when they tried (and failed) to bring in the path of the titans system which was scrapped and resulted in prime glyphs. i didn't realize this until this thread but the wow population decline until wow started making expansion gimmicks instead of just making good content. wow literally only climbed during classic, tbc, and wrath when good gameplay was the most important things. it was cata that started the expansion only features.

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by aceperson View Post
    i want to point out wow wasn't founded upon gimmicks. the gimmicks started in cata when they tried (and failed) to bring in the path of the titans system which was scrapped and resulted in prime glyphs. i didn't realize this until this thread but the wow population decline until wow started making expansion gimmicks instead of just making good content. wow literally only climbed during classic, tbc, and wrath when good gameplay was the most important things. it was cata that started the expansion only features.
    Well when you market your entire expansion based on new features, you have to start crafting gimmicks to create new content. Every expansion since Mop has had a gimmick in some form or another. MoP had the farm, WOD had Garissons which has been the best one yet, Legion had Order Halls which was great as well but then they’ve failed at that since then.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Lazy Gecko View Post
    There's been this mounting feeling for the past couple of expansions that more and more elements of the game feel so ephemeral. When you get to the point where it's so granular that they have it for one specific patch cycle (corruptions in 8.3) that's really pushing it. This has definitely colored my perception of the game as a whole and I am no longer able to really feel as invested or attached in anything the same way that I used to, because I know it's just going to be discarded for something else before long.

    Ultimately I don't think the whole design philosophy of herding the playerbase into this ultra narrow treadmill of disposable "current content" at the expense of everything else in the game is good. It's probably a huge part of what drives the plunge in subscriptions inbetween launches. Other MMOs like ESO don't seem to have this kind of problem because they're not designed around that style of progression, and that has made WoW's approach seem all the more strange to me in hindsight. They spend so much time and resources on designing content that's only going to be relevant within a fairly limited time frame, and then they go out of their way to make you not want to care about it any more.
    Well it’s a good thing you brought up ESO. The reason is that ESP doesn’t depend on monthly subs. Sure you can buy it and get some bonus stuff but WoW’s entire model revolves around monthly subs. They need players to commit and keep renewing their subs which is why they have to come up with new “features” or “gimmicks” to have you running on the wheel. They’ve embraced it and have found new ways to move around it. The 6 month time pass is so common these days. There’s one every 6 months now. The last time they had it was back in Cata or something I think.

    Blizzard devs are too controlling on how players play the game. That is the main problem. They literally try and control everything from what loot you can get, to how you get it and how quickly you can progress.

  7. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by Will View Post
    You don't need to be a chef to critique food.
    You do if you want to be taken seriously. Sitting there in your arm chair spouting the bandwagon slogan of "developers don't even care" and "wow use to be fun" doesn't make me want to take you serious.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Scrod View Post
    I want loot to really be loot. Run m+, get loot. Run raid, get loot. That’s the whole game.

    I think it makes sense for m+ to drop lower than raids but also have a currency or something you cap for your weekly piece (or maybe exactly the the valors points system where it allows you upgrade a set amount per week).

    No dailies.
    No legendaries.
    No covenants.

    Leveling is ok to do once but then twist of fates is the way to go.
    Have you visited your vault this expansion? You literally described the vault. I hope you haven't been playing all this time without visiting your vault.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nizah View Post
    why so mad bro

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by arandomuser View Post
    i dont like it
    at start of of xpac i thought i would like the vault, but after ive gained alot of gear its just very similar to the bfa vault in terms of feeling
    and the thing is i really WANT to play wow outside of raid logging but theres nothing to do, worth doing
    this is a point i made before the xpac came out nobody will do content for fluff things anymore like they did in wotlk when mounts and pets were alot rarer, now its all about player power, and frankly it seems the legion/bfa loot systems gave people a reason to keep playing, hell atleast when you did islands to get your next artifact power level,you were playing the game for something that progressed your character
    The problem is that mounts went from Being a novelty to its own progression system. Blizzard knows this and which is why you have a 100 new mounts every expansion.

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    Quote Originally Posted by GUZ View Post
    I would like real player housing and a guild hall to chill with my homies fuck these covenants...and why didnt they add a cov recall
    Pick any house in SW or even in any of the cities and make it your own. No one ever visits these places. I was in SW the other day and this was the first time since Cata I’ve been inside so many of these little vendor shops and inns. At least back then you needed to visit them for your trainer to level up professions, vendor items, trainees, etc. Now it’s all in a UI.

  9. #29
    only visiting shadowlands on wednesdays for 5 minutes when I open my vault. i just don't do anything content relevant anymore because it's pure boredom. i'm just standing around in stormwind or in goldshire and queue for RBG or Arena. unfortunately, this is the sad truth. not even trying to shittalk this addon. they need to change something.

    if you have fun do world quest and circle around the maw game is perfect for you

  10. #30
    Nothing "Dynamic" and "Social" in the modern game? Let's see if I can just get a small list from recent expansions...

    Group Finder Redux, Garrisons, Order Halls, M+, War Mode, Islands, Warfronts, World Quests, Covenants, Torghast.

    Are we saying none of this content was designed on some level to be dynamic or social or both?

    But to answer the question about what I like and don't.
    Dynamic Content:
    I like the premise of dynamic content when it works. Modes like M+ were fun in Legion and BFA for me. I liked Islands a little bit (didn't feel a need to do it a lot, but I would've if I did), and I liked Warfronts quite a bit (I did this frankly even when I didn't need to), but I haven't liked Torghast. I'd be lying if I said Islands and Warfronts and Torghast were as varied as I would have liked, but I think M+ was varied just right. Garrisons had varied invasions, but they all felt the same. And Group Finder has basically just turned into a way to group up for M+ rather than any kind of spontaneous wacky group activity palooza -- all the random stuff is in categories no one would go to normally.

    Social Content:
    Group Finder, M+, WQs, and Torghast haven't turned out to be very social - people tend to just group up, do the thing and leave immediately. Order Halls you'd see people running around silently, but not any kind of "socializing" ever happened there and there also wasn't anything to do together in the Order Halls.

    No one hung out together in Garrisons, probably because you couldn't actually customize them to be unique personalized hang-out spots and also there wasn't any kind of practical or spontaneous way to show up at a friend's Garrison without being invited and nor was there much to do there together beyond fishing or Invasions which all felt the same - it was practically entirely a solo experience which frankly I think nearly killed the game because of how isolated I think people felt in their Garrisons (isolation in the Garrison also contributed to by lack of flying, frankly). But by god did they nail the feeling of people not wanting to leave their Garrison. Too bad staying in the Garrison sucked.

    Maybe people in guilds had fun farming Islands together, but solo people just did the thing and left. There was no luxury to hang out because people were always in a race to win because NPCs or other player team could win - but it's not like playing against an enemy player team created any kind of socializing, anyway. Warfronts, people actually chatted in a bit. A bit more lax here, but people are still pretty goal focused in this kind of thing like in M+.

    So anyway, in conclusion -- some of this will be long-term. Obviously War Mode and M+ are here to stay, for example. Obviously some things REALLY didn't work out in the community, like Garrisons, and obviously some things like Island and Warfronts were probably just missing maybe some small tweak to be really amazing. So like, do I think I like dynamic social content like all these? I mean, a lot of these I think I liked. But right now I definitely wouldn't call myself a social or a group player. I do like having the option for solo and group play in all forms of content, and I think having the choice in content is extremely important because when the content does hit just right it does add so much more to the game in a way that isn't really comparable to any other kinds of features.

    What other kinds of solo idealized features even come close to what most of these would have offered if they had all been ideal? Like, maybe transmogrification, pet battling, new races, and new classes have maybe been as successful or more-so as any of these other dynamic social features (well, Blood Elves and Death Knights definitely), but also some features like Garrisons were so completely dangerous that the damage was completely unparalleled in the game's history. So it's hard to say - is the risk worth it? I mean, I think so. Even with presented with another WoD, if I knew a Legion was right after I'd still take that.
    Last edited by Razion; 2021-02-27 at 06:45 AM.

  11. #31
    Well it's a bit late to be complaining about this. Would've been a better idea to push back on this in say MoP when they removed JP/VP/HP/CP vendors, introduced warforging, rebranded normal raiding as "heroic" just to bring up a few examples of glaring warning signs that were pointed out by people like myself as they were being peddled by Blizzard.

    Legion with all it's bells and whistles was the big push to just flat-out replace all systems with more lucrative and calculated systems, which you know credit to them for playing and winning such a long game, but now it is what it is for as far as the eye can see.

  12. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by Will View Post
    You don't need to be a chef to critique food.
    but you should be if you want to tell the actual chef how to make it better...

  13. #33
    WoW's game play loop is designed to give players an immense breadth of stuff to do.

    WoW players game play demands instant gratification that lasts for ever. Quick things that are slow. Unique things that are the same.

    Challenge Mode : Play WoW like my disability has me play:
    You will need two people, Brian MUST use the mouse for movement/looking and John MUST use the keyboard for casting, attacking, healing etc.
    Briand and John share the same goal, same intentions - but they can't talk to each other, however they can react to each other's in game activities.
    Now see how far Brian and John get in WoW.


  14. #34
    Stood in the Fire Sinaa's Avatar
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    I would prefer a larger theme park with less complicated attractions.

  15. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by Will View Post
    I prefer the classic style of gameplay -- TBC and Wrath, so that's what I am excited for. The modern loop is not my thing. Too many systems and daily/weekly incentives.
    Except those things existed in BC and Wrath too. You had daily lockouts on daily quests and heroics, and weekly lockouts on raids. And up until MoP you couldn't even do all the dailies there were to do because there was a daily limit of 10 then later 25. There was really nothing besides farming grinds for mats you could do nonstop.
    The most difficult thing to do is accept that there is nothing wrong with things you don't like and accept that people can like things you don't.

  16. #36
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MMOTherapist View Post
    What do you think about it?

    There is non existant dynamic and social driven gameplay (apart from RP imaginary and pretend scenarios)
    Do you enjoy this system or you wished there was something new to this formula?
    You can't force people to be social. If you do that people leave, especially with a community that tends to run toward toxicity as it is. My social game is tied up with friends, acquaintances that I've met over time, and a guild of very casual older players (55+).

    It's fine. Expecting Blizzard to make the game social for you is expecting too much. No one knows how to do that for a game as old and settled as this one is. If you want to engage socially in World of Warcraft you have to do something. Normally, finding and getting into a guild is the first step.

    There are all sorts of ways to be social in WoW but no one is going to do it for you.
    "...money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."

  17. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    You can't force people to be social.
    I believe this should be possible. When something amazing can only be solved with a group and when finding a group is hard, I think pressure will drive people to act more socially and filter out those who absolutely cannot.
    I think you could design a game to do that. Of course you need to break whatever meta&tricks people will try to find to circumvent your gameplay, because path of least resistance.

    Now if the question is whether Blizzard could do that kind of game, I doubt it because it would be too niche and it’s really unusual.

  18. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by hulkgor View Post
    WoW is a theme park mmo, and it's successful like that.
    No its not successful. They currently have no margin for error. One more Blitzchung level event and they are going to have serious issues keeping the game going. As a reminder corporate usually doesn't strictly operate on the idea that "if something is profitable, keep it". Often they use profit margin thresholds. If the profit margin drops under a key percent, they start shuttering the entire business or division.
    TO FIX WOW:1. smaller server sizes & server-only LFG awarding satchels, so elite players help others. 2. "helper builds" with loom powers - talent trees so elite players cast buffs on low level players XP gain, HP/mana, regen, damage, etc. 3. "helper ilvl" scoring how much you help others. 4. observer games like in SC to watch/chat (like twitch but with MORE DETAILS & inside the wow UI) 5. guild leagues to compete with rival guilds for progression (with observer mode).6. jackpot world mobs.

  19. #39
    The Unstoppable Force Super Kami Dende's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MMOTherapist View Post
    What do you think about it?

    There is non existant dynamic and social driven gameplay (apart from RP imaginary and pretend scenarios)
    Do you enjoy this system or you wished there was something new to this formula?
    The Game has survived and been the highest played in the Genre for nearly 2 decades.


    Obviously it's done something right.

  20. #40
    cross-expansion/horitzontal content = eventually you have too much relevant content and you run into issues too. or you end up with powercreep requiring some sort of expansion-esque or squish-esque reset anyways.

    expansion based content (aka tbc model) = cool in theory but in practice just leads to a lot of people guildhopping to tier 5 guilds once they have the loot from their tier 4 guilds, causing everybody with guild loyalty to get perma stuck in tier4.

    patch based content with cathcup = works best in practise by lowering barriers of entry. though to be honest how accessible you want the game to be is a design choice, but a logical one with the average age of players rising.

    where we are right now though we've overshot it a bit though, seeing how heavily encouraged rerolling to fotm specs every patch is in raiding, pvp and m+ is atm. the fact that you can set your clock by the frequency of squishes nowadays also means there is something really wrong.

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