New major problem with current direction of development

[WowIsDead64]

What Blizzard want: to make players play right here and right now, i.e. sub and play current content, not be unsubbed

Catch-ups: players unsub, because they know, that they can resub at any moment later and catch up immediately - Blizzard are sad

No catch-ups: players unsub, because they burn-out due to trying to keep up to "do it now or you'd fall behind forever" concept - Blizzard are sad

Real reason: players unsub, because game isn't fun

Example: In SL we have renown catch-ups. Waiting 2 months to complete Covenant campaign and another 2 months to get to renown cap - isn't fun. It would be much better to resub after 4 months and get everything non-gated. And it would be even better to resub when 9.1 will arrive and start working towards getting flying immediately. Or, if flying will be gated behind, let's say, 100th renown level - to wait for another X months and then get everything immediately.

And it rises several major questions:
1) Is such World of Waitcraft game even worth playing?
2) Was BFAs "play right here and right now" no catch-up model effective or too many players unsubbed due to not being able to keep up to it?
3) What is effective solution of this problem?
4) May be Blizzard should stop gating "fun" from players and they'll keep playing this game and being subbed then?

I mean, it's not catch-up vs no catch-up question, that causes this problem. It's lack of fun, that is caused by all that gating. So, if players play fun game and don't play unfun, then may be we should simply stop gating that fun from them? If players want flying - give them flying. If players want game to be easier - make it easier. Not entire game, but at least part of it. Why this concept of OPTIONAL casual/hardcore, easy/hard, comfortable/challenging content is so hard to understand, that we still don't have any solution of this problem after 16 years of development? Why it's so hard to understand, that trying to FORCE players to play certain content certain "intended" way - is COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE?

[Argorwal]

What Blizzard want: to make players play right here and right now, i.e. sub and play current content, not be unsubbed

Catch-ups: players unsub, because they know, that they can resub at any moment later and catch up immediately - Blizzard are sad

No catch-ups: players unsub, because they burn-out due to trying to keep up to "do it now or you'd fall behind forever" concept - Blizzard are sad

Real reason: players unsub, because game isn't fun

Example: In SL we have renown catch-ups. Waiting 2 months to complete Covenant campaign and another 2 months to get to renown cap - isn't fun. It would be much better to resub after 4 months and get everything non-gated. And it would be even better to resub when 9.1 will arrive and start working towards getting flying immediately. Or, if flying will be gated behind, let's say, 100th renown level - to wait for another X months and then get everything immediately.

And it rises several major questions:
1) Is such World of Waitcraft game even worth playing?
2) Was BFAs "play right here and right now" no catch-up model effective or too many players unsubbed due to not being able to keep up to it?
3) What is effective solution of this problem?
4) May be Blizzard should stop gating "fun" from players and they'll keep playing this game and being subbed then?

I mean, it's not catch-up vs no catch-up question, that causes this problem. It's lack of fun, that is caused by all that gating. So, if players play fun game and don't play unfun, then may be we should simply stop gating that fun from them? If players want flying - give them flying. If players want game to be easier - make it easier. Not entire game, but at least part of it. Why this concept of OPTIONAL casual/hardcore, easy/hard, comfortable/challenging content is so hard to understand, that we still don't have any solution of this problem after 16 years of development?

Is this primarily a flying whine thread?

Because this game has more difficulty settings than ever.

15 dungeon difficulty levels (and more for fun) ontop of the base normal, heroic, and mythic-0
4 raid difficulties
8 Torghast layers plus twisted corridors

It has everything from braindead simple to face melting hard.

Also, what are you talking about with BFA's "no catchup model?" It had tons of catchup. Catchup has been around in earnest since the IoQ patch in TBC when they made a new 5 man and new badge gear equal or better than T5. The players want it.

[Elias01]

Is this primarily a flying whine thread?

Because this game has more difficulty settings than ever.

15 dungeon difficulty levels (and more for fun) ontop of the base normal, heroic, and mythic-0
4 raid difficulties
8 Torghast layers plus twisted corridors

It has everything from braindead simple to face melting hard.

Also, what are you talking about with BFA's "no catchup model?" It had tons of catchup. Catchup has been around in earnest since the IoQ patch in TBC when they made a new 5 man and new badge gear equal or better than T5. The players want it.

There is difference in vendor what sells few items what are 2 tiers behind of current content for badges you can only farm in heroic dungeons and you have to farm 20 of those to get 1 item VS insntlay get to same power level with others just becouse you dont have to wait for weekly renow. My shaman is literaly sitting in exact same 200 itemlvl gear in 1 week as my warrior what i have been playing from start. Thats not catch up. Thats straigh up invalidating players progress.

[WowIsDead64]

Is this primarily a flying whine thread?

Because this game has more difficulty settings than ever.

No, flying is just example. Overall making game easier due to gear catch-ups and nerfing some mechanics, like legendary RNG-gating back in Legion - is another major reason, why some players are unsubbed till some later moment and resub to use catch-ups then. And if there are no catch-ups - they don't resub at all.

Does Maw have any difficulty levels? May be I'm missing something?

[Qnubi]

It's not a problem, a lot of things in life reward patience. Take any game you want to play. You can buy it right now for full price with all the bugs (for example Cyberpunk 2077) and have a less than ideal experience. Or you wait and get a GOTY edition with the majority of bugs fixed and more polish and save quite a lot of money. We pay extra for things being new, including all the bad design decisions the Devs have taken during development that they realize only when enough players complain about it. Granted, a MMO is basically time-limited content. If you start too late you will miss out on most of the things, you can go back an expansion but it won't be the intended experience and everything is gonna be too easy. Objectively MMOs are quite consumer unfriendly and "force" you to play in the present because if you wait too long they move on and the majority of past content is worthless.

[cparle87]

2) Was BFAs "play right here and right now" no catch-up model effective or too many players unsubbed due to not being able to keep up to it?

I played all through BFA and I clearly remember friends who had unsubbed early on getting handed the first 50 neck levels that I worked hard to get. Also the very fact that artifact knowledges exists nullifies your entire argument. If I have to do 10,000 WQs to get to level 70 and a guy comes along 6 months later, gets handed 50, then gets the other 70 in 100 WQs I'd call that a catchup.

[La]

I think a lot of people play one thing, get bored a month or two later, want to play something else, get tired of the countless systems holding their progression back compared to their old main, then quit.

There's too many games out there that are great to commit to a game like WoW and its current systems.

[Argorwal]

There is difference in vendor what sells few items what are 2 tiers behind of current content for badges you can only farm in heroic dungeons and you have to farm 20 of those to get 1 item VS insntlay get to same power level with others just becouse you dont have to wait for weekly renow. My shaman is literaly sitting in exact same 200 itemlvl gear in 1 week as my warrior what i have been playing from start. Thats not catch up. Thats straigh up invalidating players progress.

200 is kinda the baseline for casuals to reach.

[Zephire]

- snip -

I've said it before and I will say it again. To me it sounds like you should look for another game and let WoW go. I mean that in no way as an insult. Every thread you post shows how you don't seem to enjoy the current state of WoW.

OT:
For WoW it's a balance. We as players play the shit out of things and burn out quickly if they don't use gated systems. That's bad, both from a player and business perspective. WoW becomes boring if we burn out and that's sad because we play it (mostly) because it's fun. I enjoy logging on now and then to play some PvP or m+ or raids. Too me, wow isn't anything else. It's not built to be anything else and it would require a major overhaul, basically a new game, to make it so that I want to do other things because it's clearly not working out with making engaging outdoor content, be it due to lagg or just how cheaply implemented things can be or how the reward system works.

Timegating should be where it makes sense. I do like catchup because I'm not forced to do everything every week. I'm subscribed either way. (soulash being un-catchup-able is stupid though).

I think we should just play what's fun for us and do other things when we're "done" with the fun and then come back some times later. Could also just be a different intent needed from developers where they're okay with people dropping in and out (which I kinda think they are, at least a bit) and we as players enjoy things and show loyalty by coming back for the new stuff. Must one thing really be so fun that you won't have time to do anything else? Everyone should be happy to overlap games or other activities. No idea how or if that could/would work from a business point of view though.

[WowIsDead64]

I played all through BFA and I clearly remember friends who had unsubbed early on getting handed the first 50 neck levels that I worked hard to get. Also the very fact that artifact knowledges exists nullifies your entire argument. If I have to do 10,000 WQs to get to level 70 and a guy comes along 6 months later, gets handed 50, then gets the other 70 in 100 WQs I'd call that a catchup.

I know, that BFA had some catch-ups, but overall my personal experience was - I managed to "catch-up" on one character only, my main, that had the biggest progress anyway due to doing Pathfinder on him. I had no desire to do it again on any other character. And some content was still hard even after "catching-up", so I can say, that BFA's content had never been truly "nerfed", as it was back in Legion. That means, that existing catch-ups were definitely not enough. And overall catching-up itself meant doing some hard and unfun content, like Visions for example. And it was also about "catching-up via content, you need that catch-up for", i.e. running out of content, while catching-up, that was making catching-up completely pointless. So, overall it was the worst xpack in Wow's history in terms of catching-up.

[cparle87]

I know, that BFA had some catch-ups, but overall my personal experience was - I managed to "catch-up" on one character only, my main, that had the biggest progress anyway due to doing Pathfinder on him. I had no desire to do it again on any other character. And some content was still hard even after "catching-up", so I can say, that BFA's content had never been truly "nerfed", as it was back in Legion. That means, that existing catch-ups were definitely not enough. And overall catching-up itself meant doing some hard and unfun content. And it was also about "catching-up via content, you need that catch-up for", i.e. running out of content, while catching-up, that was making catching-up completely pointless. So, overall it was the worst xpack in Wow's history in terms of catching-up.

What would you consider to be a nerf to BFA content? The 2% stacking damage power on the artifacts that Legion had? And what did you consider caught up in BFA? Rank 3 essences? Max level legendary cloak? What was the "unfun and hard" content you had to do to catch up? Also that last bit was a little circular but I think I got it. Mostly your post was just vague "wave my hand here are the problems you'll see them if you look".

[WowIsDead64]

What would you consider to be a nerf to BFA content? The 2% stacking damage power on the artifacts that Legion had? And what did you consider caught up in BFA? Rank 3 essences? Max level legendary cloak? What was the "unfun and hard" content you had to do to catch up? Also that last bit was a little circular but I think I got it. Mostly your post was just vague "wave my hand here are the problems you'll see them if you look".

Overall nerf/catching-up - is when content becomes comfortable enough, so you no longer "struggle" with it. I struggled with Nazjatar even after all catch-ups, because it was definitely way too overtuned. And only corruptions nullified all previous progression, i.e. made my gameplay comfortable, but they required cloak, i.e. doing dailies and visions, and I hated that content, because it was badly designed. So, there was no good content in BFA, except may be invasions.

[Rinaul]

What Blizzard want: to make players play right here and right now, i.e. sub and play current content, not be unsubbed

Catch-ups: players unsub, because they know, that they can resub at any moment later and catch up immediately - Blizzard are sad

No catch-ups: players unsub, because they burn-out due to trying to keep up to "do it now or you'd fall behind forever" concept - Blizzard are sad

Real reason: players unsub, because game isn't fun

Example: In SL we have renown catch-ups. Waiting 2 months to complete Covenant campaign and another 2 months to get to renown cap - isn't fun. It would be much better to resub after 4 months and get everything non-gated. And it would be even better to resub when 9.1 will arrive and start working towards getting flying immediately. Or, if flying will be gated behind, let's say, 100th renown level - to wait for another X months and then get everything immediately.

And it rises several major questions:
1) Is such World of Waitcraft game even worth playing?
2) Was BFAs "play right here and right now" no catch-up model effective or too many players unsubbed due to not being able to keep up to it?
3) What is effective solution of this problem?
4) May be Blizzard should stop gating "fun" from players and they'll keep playing this game and being subbed then?

I mean, it's not catch-up vs no catch-up question, that causes this problem. It's lack of fun, that is caused by all that gating. So, if players play fun game and don't play unfun, then may be we should simply stop gating that fun from them? If players want flying - give them flying. If players want game to be easier - make it easier. Not entire game, but at least part of it. Why this concept of OPTIONAL casual/hardcore, easy/hard, comfortable/challenging content is so hard to understand, that we still don't have any solution of this problem after 16 years of development? Why it's so hard to understand, that trying to FORCE players to play certain content certain "intended" way - is COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE?

Missed the patch notes stating flying in 9.1. Also why resub just for flying if there is no redeeming quality to wow and its all just a terrible expansion? You're either gonna play or you're not. People always want more and then cry and moan when they get it and burn through it all and just yell "gg blizz, no content. "

[Cazze]

Overall nerf/catching-up - is when content becomes comfortable enough, so you no longer "struggle" with it. I struggled with Nazjatar even after all catch-ups, because it was definitely way too overtuned. And only corruptions nullified all previous progression, i.e. made my gameplay comfortable, but they required cloak, i.e. doing dailies and visions, and I hated that content, because it was badly designed. So, there was no good content in BFA, except may be invasions.

Sorry to break it to you, but if you struggle with outdoor content, even after catch up, it is not he game's fault you can't play at even the most basic level.

[ShinyInfidel]

Unsubbed here precisely because of all the timegating shizzle. Not interested in being spoonfed several Torghast floors a week with a few things to do inbetween.
Already did the Keystone master and got the Curve. Current WoW experience is miserable to veteran players to say the least. If you're new player, however, things might be brighter and more pleasant.

[WowIsDead64]

Missed the patch notes stating flying in 9.1. Also why resub just for flying if there is no redeeming quality to wow and its all just a terrible expansion? You're either gonna play or you're not. People always want more and then cry and moan when they get it and burn through it all and just yell "gg blizz, no content. "

Flying fixes many problems. Example with Maw, where covenant chapter 8 quests are overtuned. Kirian for example. You need to collect 5 things, that are guarded by elites, and kill some other mobs, then you need to get to boss via narrow road through crowd of elite mobs. Flying fixes this quest this way: you don't need to crawl through elites from one collectable things to another. You need to just fly and then kill guards near it. This thing is hard enough itself. Any elite requires long time to kill and there is risk, that it can kill you instead. And once you complete collecting - you don't need to break through crowd of even more elites. You can just fly over them. That's, why Blizzard hate flying so much. Flying allows players to fix such broken quest design via removing completely unnecessary difficulties.

- - - Updated - - -

Sorry to break it to you, but if you struggle with outdoor content, even after catch up, it is not he game's fault you can't play at even the most basic level.

I understand, that it's subjective and therefore very hard to understand by others, but challenge isn't my motivation to play this game. Story, character progress, visual customization - are my motivations. Exceeding challenge - is what actually kills this game for me.

[dadoodoo]

What Blizzard want: to make players play right here and right now, i.e. sub and play current content, not be unsubbed

Catch-ups: players unsub, because they know, that they can resub at any moment later and catch up immediately - Blizzard are sad

No catch-ups: players unsub, because they burn-out due to trying to keep up to "do it now or you'd fall behind forever" concept - Blizzard are sad

Real reason: players unsub, because game isn't fun

Example: In SL we have renown catch-ups. Waiting 2 months to complete Covenant campaign and another 2 months to get to renown cap - isn't fun. It would be much better to resub after 4 months and get everything non-gated. And it would be even better to resub when 9.1 will arrive and start working towards getting flying immediately. Or, if flying will be gated behind, let's say, 100th renown level - to wait for another X months and then get everything immediately.

And it rises several major questions:
1) Is such World of Waitcraft game even worth playing?
2) Was BFAs "play right here and right now" no catch-up model effective or too many players unsubbed due to not being able to keep up to it?
3) What is effective solution of this problem?
4) May be Blizzard should stop gating "fun" from players and they'll keep playing this game and being subbed then?

I mean, it's not catch-up vs no catch-up question, that causes this problem. It's lack of fun, that is caused by all that gating. So, if players play fun game and don't play unfun, then may be we should simply stop gating that fun from them? If players want flying - give them flying. If players want game to be easier - make it easier. Not entire game, but at least part of it. Why this concept of OPTIONAL casual/hardcore, easy/hard, comfortable/challenging content is so hard to understand, that we still don't have any solution of this problem after 16 years of development? Why it's so hard to understand, that trying to FORCE players to play certain content certain "intended" way - is COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE?

Its not engaging for very long due to the game being catered to the lower end gamers.

Remember hogger!!? That boy was a sense of wonder wasnt he. The nostalgia and memories of "holy crap hes hard" in a party of 3 level 11s. Sense of achievement when killed.

Now: 1 shot him solo as a level 7 and continue past him like he is nothing.

See the difference between the 2? Game is insanely stale and nothing but a giant grind thanks to blizzard lowering the bar of difficulty year on year.

Answer: make the game harder = its more engaging and WILL give more satisfaction while also taking longer to do the content. Its pretty simple logic really.

[Rinaul]

Flying fixes many problems. Example with Maw, where covenant chapter 8 quests are overtuned. Kirian for example. You need to collect 5 things, that are guarded by elites, and kill some other mobs, then you need to get to boss via narrow road through crowd of elite mobs. Flying fixes this quest this way: you don't need to crawl through elites from one collectable things to another. You need to just fly and then kill guards near it. This thing is hard enough itself. Any elite requires long time to kill and there is risk, that it can kill you instead. And once you complete collecting - you don't need to break through crowd of even more elites. You can just fly over them. That's, why Blizzard hate flying so much. Flying allows players to fix such broken quest design via removing completely unnecessary difficulties.

- - - Updated - - -


I understand, that it's subjective and therefore very hard to understand by others, but challenge isn't my motivation to play this game. Story, character progress, visual customization - are my motivations. Exceeding challenge - is what actually kills this game for me.

You assume they're going to enable flying in the maw. Thematically makes no sense. Not even any fps there. Everywhere else I could see it. This still doesn't answer the thing I mentioned. How will this fix anything. Now they'll finish everything quickly and again we're back to "gg blizz, no content"

[crazyswayzee]

i think there is a difference between catchup for a dude that just came back and a catchup for your alts. like i dont want to do all 8 layer of torghast on 4 of my alts but i have to or otherwise i dont get leggys and i'am not viable, for someone that justs came back it is okay if he goes through it all with his main char - if you could skip some things of the storyline here and there it would be nice. also waiting for shockbarrier to come up because it only drops in cold heart crap layer is also not that wise because some classes rely on specific legendarys. (affli warlock same with the 50% slow).
the catchup on heart of azeroth in bfa was kinda needed because in the last patch you had too many different systems on top of systems so you basically needed some shortcut there. btw they didnt let you catchup on corruptions on alts and that was the reason why the last patch was one of the most unaltfriendly patches ever, also the very late account wide essence rank 3 thing.

rn im happy that my 2 mains can chill and dont have to do torghast unless there will be some other legendarys that might get better and i only have to do torghast on my pally, thats what i like because i love my alts and i dont have fun to do every side topic on every char, so my mains are just chilling and i can pvp with them whenever i want, i really enjoy it rn (some balancing is needed tho but thats another topic). btw my main didnt do a single quest in the maw for like 4 weeks, neither my druid or my pally. im just doing torghast until they got the bis 235 leggy (and maybe one off spec leggy just for fun in bg's or something) and then i can do pvp until i die. im happy that i'm not forced to do mythics or raiding.

btw i did the raid this week for the first time and we smashed through 9/10 hc with an okayish guild grp, is it normal that hc is that easy? i would be bored too if this was my endgame content, or is mythic raiding the new norm for casuals these days?

[WowIsDead64]

You assume they're going to enable flying in the maw. Thematically makes no sense. Not even any fps there. Everywhere else I could see it. This still doesn't answer the thing I mentioned. How will this fix anything. Now they'll finish everything quickly and again we're back to "gg blizz, no content"

That's, why Maw should be 100% optional. And I hope, that it will be fixed in 9.1 too. The most simple solution - to make different phase of Maw for story quests, where ground/flying mounts are enabled. As you can see, I don't even ask to delete it from game. And overall flying will make game more fun fore me and therefore make me want to play it. For example it will fix alt leveling. I don't say, that it will fix all possible problems. BFA has shown us, that design can be so bad, that even flying can't fix it.