Does WoW need a "Wizard" mode?

[Crimson Spears]

Im curious what the actual benefit is though to anyone but 'the small fraction' are though? I mean, its not like y'all are going to suddenly stop telling everyone to L2P or whatever? Like, what is it we're actually getting out of this? Has the difficulty or challenge of all content below that point been lowered or something? Or do you mean the challenge goes up because the hardcore no longer need to do their busy work? Like how does this help someone running their +6 anyway? What do you mean here? It seems like im not really getting much out of this deal, whilst youre making out like a bandit.

It doesn't effect them in the slightest. Its a net neutral to them. I figured it would just let people focus on the content they find most enjoyable to them it isn't a this helps or hinders the whole playerbase kind of idea.

[Powerogue]

That's a terrible idea for a subscription based game. Instead of the best players taking the longest to ultimately reach incredibly challenging goals, they would finish first and then quit until the next expansion.

Trying to think of if other video games had this model. Beat the old school rs inferno? Congratz, you're now 200m maxed in all skills and we'll go ahead and give you all the quest points too and 100 billion gold while you're at it. Game done. Grind over.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Same here. Dunno why this is wizard mode.

Maybe it's a play on the virgin-wizard meme of yore where it would take you ages to get there, but if you did there is some kind of pay-off? Though I don't think it works as well here.

[Nynax]

Would be nice.

But id settle with just removing all the time gatings.

I had forgotten...but does anyone remember the time when Blizzard was fighting a PR reputation that WoW was the game people lost their kids, parents, spouses, and lives to?

I know we harp on Blizzard for "money grubbing time gating" now, but there was a time when they started adding caps just to keep some people from killing themselves.

[Kokolums]

This simply isn't how the game works. You enjoy playing because there's something to do. If you run out of things to do, you won't enjoy playing.

Giving players everything, removes everything worth doing, leaving nothing. Everyone could have just stopped and enjoyed Island Expeditions for the instanced spammable grindfests they were if that's what people wanted - But nobody did, because Island Expeditions had no rewards. Hell, if it weren't for the AP gain, nobody would ever have touched Islands.

actually, i wound up doing islands quite a bit as they were simply a different way to level alts. it gave me more variation in leveling. choreghast would be better if it had a path for leveling alts.

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That's a terrible idea for a subscription based game. Instead of the best players taking the longest to ultimately reach incredibly challenging goals, they would finish first and then quit until the next expansion.

Trying to think of if other video games had this model. Beat the old school rs inferno? Congratz, you're now 200m maxed in all skills and we'll go ahead and give you all the quest points too and 100 billion gold while you're at it. Game done. Grind over.

diablo i had this model. everyone quit and begged blizz to stop everyone from hacking.

[Crimson Spears]

Which doesn't change the fact that they were universally despised.

Every game mode has SOMEONE who likes it. You could find someone who would play the ridiculously hard old games which didn't intend to have a solution either. That doesn't mean the mode is fun, likeable, or even relatively worthwhile to do. Most would argue that the ridiculously hard old games are not worthwhile whatsoever.

In a discussion about "Wizard" mode being just another difficulty mode and not anything new, this is no different than Island Expeditions. No, "Ultra Mega Hard Super Mode" would not have made people want, or like, Islands any more than they did, because difficulty doesn't make people enjoy games. It was just not enjoyable, and if you didn't enjoy the original version, you aren't going to enjoy a HARDER version that you only need to clear once and then invalidates ALL other forms of content in the game.

Why even keep playing at that point?

The idea is it "invalidates" content that crowd would never of enjoyed. When you crushed the hardest bosses over a decade the idea of butchering world mobs loses its flare...

[Cuppy]

Yes, add this mode where you can ”beat the game” so you can gtfo and play something that actually is competetive and hard. Also add that everything there ever was, is and will be is granted to you via mail, all the mounts and transmogs. Totally supporting this.

[chiddie]

Curious, why is it called "Wizard" mode?

Next -> next -> next -> next -> finish.

[Kyphael]

Isn't that mythic?

[prwraith]

Like other post, if you unlock everything then why would you continue playing.

This is a weird argument. Do you stop everything just because you've unlocked it? Is that the goal?

Ie, cataclysm expac. I finished ie BiS'd several characters and still played, because prior to dragon soul that expansion was damn near perfect. And just fun to play, regardless of how much I had left to accomplish.

[Crimson Spears]

If you didn't enjoy the content to begin with, why would you like the content when it's difficult?

More importantly, why do you need the power? You don't like the content it would let you do anyway, and it would only let you do content you DON'T like faster.

Sounds like you just need to stop playing because you don't like the game. Greater difficulty, or being handed everything in the game over an arbitrary step up in difficulty, isn't going to solve that for you.

What kind of weird ass logic are you using?

I enjoy harder parts of the game and find simplistic parts tedious... what does me wanting to just do mythic style content have to do with me enjoying the game? I'm suggesting a mode that simply lets me do what I enjoy... I don't understand what point your trying to make.

[Queen of Hamsters]

That is no longer an economically feasible model for long-term projects like MMOs.

You cannot create enough meaningful content quickly enough to keep both casual and hardcore players engaged purely through entertainment value - not if you want to make a buck in the process, anyway. That's why everything is now built with long-term retention models in mind that use gamification and gating to find the sweet spot between the allure of enjoyable content and the continuous time investment of a progression model. I.e., they are trying to use the few good parts to keep you playing through the bad parts, which exist only to keep you occupied and stretch out time so you don't exhaust the good parts too quickly.

Everything gets stale eventually, and with the overabundance of alternative forms of entertainment, even stellar products will exhaust their audience quickly without a retention mechanic.

How dare you bring facts of business to the table when these people have FEELINGS about these things???





/

[Kumorii]

Next -> next -> next -> next -> finish.

Didn't tell me anything tbh.

[Crimson Spears]

Didn't tell me anything tbh.

I was thinking about a really bad movie called the wizard figured it would be a tongue in cheek name.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098663/

[Aphrel]

I had forgotten...but does anyone remember the time when Blizzard was fighting a PR reputation that WoW was the game people lost their kids, parents, spouses, and lives to?

I know we harp on Blizzard for "money grubbing time gating" now, but there was a time when they started adding caps just to keep some people from killing themselves.

pft, those fools wouldve killed themselves one way or another anyway. If a person doesn't have the common sense to not stay awake for 72+ hours and die of a heart attack then its not a question of if, but when that person will hit the dirt.

[Megor96]

High end players are already wizards IRL so they don't need a special mode for that.

[Falkeshall]

Sounds shit

[Boddhi]

Like other post, if you unlock everything then why would you continue playing.

To fill my empty life with -something-.

[ippollite]

It doesn't effect them in the slightest. Its a net neutral to them. I figured it would just let people focus on the content they find most enjoyable to them it isn't a this helps or hinders the whole playerbase kind of idea.

Its not though. See my page 2 post. And im not against the idea in the slightest. Id love you muppets (affectionately) being given your own progression system. Id love nothing more than aotc being the literal end game in terms of gear and everything else being flexxing. Id love nothing more than blizzard to say "at aotc youve officially beaten the game in terms of power, but now we're going to throw every affix we can design (balance be damned) at you idiots using a leaderboard (just TRY and break the meta!), and we are gonna reward you for your standing at the end of the season". I really want this. Horizontal progression from aotc. No more world first! No more mythic raiding, just a seasonal leaderboard with an infinite difficulty (and untested) curve for the hc to push (raiding is number one!). You get a playpen universe only you and players like you can play in. You get tonnes of cosmetic rewards and bragging achievements (leaderboard is on every notice/activity board in game).

You (and all the guilds jostling for position), need to work this puzzle out. You guys will be endlessly entertained. All you want to do is raid, right? Im gonna give you all the raiding you could ever dream of. Then put you in competition with every other raiding guild in existence with a leaderboard, then continually up the challenges with every affix, enrage timer and countdown (the same thing i suppose) i have at my disposal. Is it balanced? I dont really care. Solve for x.

Hell, why not wizardry you? (though it should obviously be out of reach of the mainstream playerbase - at say 25 so if it truly matters to you, you'll do it, but not so that it makes the current plus 15 crowd think 'i can do this and its such an amazing reward, so i suppose i need to do this!' - i can/need to do this are two very different perspectives that one should balance around). But the point is, you and all the other top 1000 can fight it out in a playpen sub game universe for bragging rights. Your world first heroic denathrius kill is meaningless in the scope of things because thats just step one. Youve basically made it to the ladder. Now you gotta fight for your spot.

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point is: You get your shit (something to actually push thats actually challenging and rewarding), we get to cap out at aotc making players who just like playing the game, finish their shit and MAYBE feel incentivized to push forward applying to guilds like yours.

Oh, i forgot. Id also shower you with titles, mounts (never again collectable) and gear effects no one else remotely has or could even get. If you missed it, you aint getting it again. (just so we're clear, you're getting showered with rewards for being world top 10, some rewards for being world 100, and a reward or two for being top 1000 - im taking care of you). They aint ever gonna be repeated. We are blizzard. We have the literal best talent in the world to design you some unique shit like a scarab mount (with more polygons) or a title (its like, a sentence! words are infinite!).

Point is crimson, your scope is way too narrow. I want to scythe you off from the rest of the game completely. I want to give you a challenge so difficult you'll never beat me. You just want the same bullshit, but free for accomplishing something like 10-20% of the playerbase could do right now within a week of its release (and the next 20% would finish by the time 9.1 rolls out).

That aint elite. Thats basic as shit.

[czarek]

Yes! Thats perfect idea for more boosts. No tnx.