Wow Players Want Easy... Easy Runs, Easy Gear

[Shiekyerbooty]

There is a lot of contention between casual and hardcore player base.... and how our rewards for gameplay should be implemented

Some people say they deserve better gear or better rewards, because they do different content they perceive as being more substantial. In reality though, everyone chooses the path of least resistance, we always choose the easy way.

That's why there is META for mythic dungeons... people want the classes that make the runs easier for them

That's why there is META in Arena... people people want the easiest chance to win

That's why there is class stacking, and guilds choose the OP dejour for Race to World First

In any RPG MMO, the player wants his/her character to feel stronger next week than it did last week.... no matter what content you choose to enjoy.

Blizzard needs to either balance it's classes with equal AOE and single target, or they need to come up with upgrade systems for every style of player, because no one wants to play an mmo and feel like their character is stagnating

[Razion]

A main concern I think is that the rewards can't be the same because people can freely swap between difficulties and then use the same rewards on harder difficulties.

Say people selected difficulty of all content on character creation, and it was as immutable a choice as class or faction to a lesser extent is, would that shore up the issue of content reward to difficulty ratio?

Or, should the game have a more free difficulty slider, but only Casual gear usable in Casual mode content and Hardcore gear only usable in Hardcore?

[arr0gance]

This post reminds me of this LFG comic:

[Queen of Hamsters]

I'm sure you have access to better data on player engagement than they do. Yup.

[Dracullus]

In any RPG MMO, the player wants his/her character to feel stronger next week than it did last week.... no matter what content you choose to enjoy.g

Find me thread on this forum (or reddit/wowhead/battlenet) from Legion/BfA era where people were asking for/praising constant week to week progression. Because I heard lot about peopled fed up with infinite grinds and yearning for ending point (like in GOOD OLD TIMES), but somehow didn't catch anything like that.

[gcsmith]

There is a lot of contention between casual and hardcore player base.... and how our rewards for gameplay should be implemented

Some people say they deserve better gear or better rewards, because they do different content they perceive as being more substantial. In reality though, everyone chooses the path of least resistance, we always choose the easy way.

That's why there is META for mythic dungeons... people want the classes that make the runs easier for them

That's why there is class stacking, and guilds choose the OP dejour for Race to World First

In any RPG MMO, the player wants his/her character to feel stronger next week than it did last week.... no matter what content you choose to enjoy.

Blizzard needs to either balance it's classes with equal AOE and single target, or they need to come up with upgrade systems for every style of player, because no one wants to play an mmo and feel like their character is stagnating

A lot of MMO players want achievable goals, an endless treadmill is not achievable. Why do you think mount collecting is so popular? Because it's a way to spend game time and reach a known goal.

[Shiekyerbooty]

A lot of MMO players want achievable goals, an endless treadmill is not achievable. Why do you think mount collecting is so popular? Because it's a way to spend game time and reach a known goal.

Right, achievable goals

I could be wrong, because I have played off and on since Legion... but, It seems like now, a lot of the side content that we use to choose to do, is now woven into the story line or tied to resource gathering, where we accomplish it just by playing the normal grind.... They took the side content and made it main content, and now it seems like there's less choice and content

[Electric Lighter]

I'm sure you have access to better data on player engagement than they do. Yup.

I mean...we are talking about the company that thought every bfa system would be loved and that torghast would be so popular they were worried people wouldn't want to play anything but torghast.

At this point maybe they have the data but they sure as heck showed they can't read it.

[jellmoo]

The big problem is that casual content is made meaningless really quickly. Catchup gear comes out, and invalidates pretty much all of the stuff that super casual players would get. Casuals get that gear (through questing and world quests, maybe some rep grinds) and suddenly they hit the wall again. Only this time, there's nothing left to do.

The casual content they might normally do, let's say regular dungeons, heroic dungeons, LFR, unrated BGs, has no more rewards for them. They just stop.

I don't think that most super casual players actually want gear that is rivaling that of what more hardcore players want, they just want a gear path that brings them forward. Even if it's time consuming and incremental. They want to have meaningful things to do, and somewhat meaningful rewards for doing them.

[Dracullus]

Progression is not the same as grind.

Here's a grind: go and complete these piss easy world quests week after week because you get rep/ap/legendary/whatever.
Here's progression: last week we killed 5 bosses but couldn't kill the 6th because our gear wasn't good enough or we ran out of time. This week we got an extra reset of gear and with a bit more experience, we killed 6 bosses. Next week, we can hopefully kill 7 bosses.

OP clearly said about geting more powerful week-to-week, not about progression through content. Even more, he advocate for people that refuse to do further progression, but still want get more powerful gear each week or at least as powerful as mythic raiders/keystone masters/elite PVP.

The big problem is that casual content is made meaningless really quickly. Catchup gear comes out, and invalidates pretty much all of the stuff that super casual players would get. Casuals get that gear (through questing and world quests, maybe some rep grinds) and suddenly they hit the wall again. Only this time, there's nothing left to do.

Casual character progression ends pretty fast, because it's for casual people with little time. People that play more, refuse to do harder content and stop ~200, can repeat this for alts, take break or do collectible stuff (which is more time consuming in SL than actual progression).

[Edward Wu]

I love this blatant lie that the people who want freebies are "casuals". You want to appear part of this imaginary majority that can bend the will of Blizzard by simply existing. In truth you're part of your own, much tinier subgroup of players and don't have nearly the persuasive power you want people to think you have.

[Shiekyerbooty]

A main concern I think is that the rewards can't be the same because people can freely swap between difficulties and then use the same rewards on harder difficulties.

Say people selected difficulty of all content on character creation, and it was as immutable a choice as class or faction to a lesser extent is, would that shore up the issue of content reward to difficulty ratio?

Or, should the game have a more free difficulty slider, but only Casual gear usable in Casual mode content and Hardcore gear only usable in Hardcore?

Solid Point...

If I remember correctly, there was a time when highest level PVP gear was crap for Raids and Dungeons, and most PVE gear was nerfed in PVP.... I think that is the best choice...

Just in this Race for World's first the winning team had a monk with a 233 weapon and trinket from pvp.... that would not have been able to happen in previous expansions

[Dracullus]

You still conflated that with "infinite grind", which I don't think anyone is advocating for.

Yep, no one advocates for infinite grind or titanforging. They advocate for constant progression, "getting stronger every week" and not realize it's same thing.

[jellmoo]

Casual character progression ends pretty fast, because it's for casual people with little time. People that play more, refuse to do harder content and stop ~200, can repeat this for alts, take break or do collectible stuff (which is more time consuming in SL than actual progression).

Yeah, but if they want to continue playing that character, they hit a wall. The game funnels them into either:

- Continue as you were but you no longer get meaningful rewards
- Move onto content type you don't want to do

There isn't a system in place for them to continue to progress and acquire meaningful upgrades (even if far lower than those doing more difficult content). It just stops.

[ohwell]

I'm sure you have access to better data on player engagement than they do. Yup.

Ok then that means there's absolutely no crisis and Shadowlands is fine which I completely agree. Otherwise they'd be jumping at changes like the doomsayers claim.

[arr0gance]

I mean...we are talking about the company that thought every bfa system would be loved and that torghast would be so popular they were worried people wouldn't want to play anything but torghast.

At this point maybe they have the data but they sure as heck showed they can't read it.

Ah yes, and who better to tell Blizzard how to develop their games than random forum users who don't have access to the information they do and, you know, just fucking guess about shit.

- - - Updated - - -

Ok then that means there's absolutely no crisis and Shadowlands is fine which I completely agree. Otherwise they'd be jumping at changes like the doomsayers claim.

TIL that the game can only be in one of two possible states: 1.) Everything is amazing (and the expansion is called Wrath of the Lich King) or 2.) Everything is broken, everybody hates it, nobody's playing it, they're doing everything wrong, please fire {insert lead game developer here}.

[Electric Lighter]

Ah yes, and who better to tell Blizzard how to develop their games than random forum users who don't have access to the information they do and, you know, just fucking guess about shit.

- - - Updated - - -



TIL that the game can only be in one of two possible states: 1.) Everything is amazing (and the expansion is called Wrath of the Lich King) or 2.) Everything is broken, everybody hates it, nobody's playing it, they're doing everything wrong, please fire {insert lead game developer here}.

I mean that system works well for runescape where players vote on what is added to the game. The only time it backfired was when the devs tried to sneak something past that system.

I don't understand why the idea that the community can simply demonstrate what it wants is somehow inferior to some devs pet project. Can you name a new system that was well liked since mage tower?

[kaintk]

wow players want fun again like in vanilla

is it that hard to understand that the game actually is not fun at all ?

[Accendor]

There is a lot of contention between casual and hardcore player base.... and how our rewards for gameplay should be implemented

Some people say they deserve better gear or better rewards, because they do different content they perceive as being more substantial. In reality though, everyone chooses the path of least resistance, we always choose the easy way.

That's why there is META for mythic dungeons... people want the classes that make the runs easier for them

That's why there is class stacking, and guilds choose the OP dejour for Race to World First

In any RPG MMO, the player wants his/her character to feel stronger next week than it did last week.... no matter what content you choose to enjoy.

Blizzard needs to either balance it's classes with equal AOE and single target, or they need to come up with upgrade systems for every style of player, because no one wants to play an mmo and feel like their character is stagnating

I think you misunderstand how m+ works. You are assuming people want it easier and that is why a meta exist (spoiler: For the vast majority of players this is not even true).
Thats not correct however. M+ for the most part is "all or nothing". Once s key has been depleted its not possible to create the same one again to try again without a lot of luck and massive hassle.
Its not about "making me it easier", its about "making it possible"

[Dracullus]

There isn't a system in place for them to continue to progress and acquire meaningful upgrades (even if far lower than those doing more difficult content). It just stops.

200 is only hard ceiling for people that refuse to do anything beyond LFR/LFG, just like 226 is ceiling for people doing everything. But we have ton of people in between. Why would 'solo players' get same rewards as let's say people doing +5? That's basically saying their effort is meaningless. (How much space there even is between 200 and 226?)