Why is it alright to diminish the experience of non competitive players?

[Kithelle]

I noticed this trend over a few topics now. Why do players only consider something an issue when it effects raiders and high end players like mythic+ and gladiators?

Why is it when it comes to destroying the progression of a player doing heroic dungeons moving onto mythic is it seen as something that has zero value? I constantly see requests and at times celebration when systems are made to undermine low level progression in favor of simply letting people grind repetitive content. Is this just a case of " Its always been this way"?

Why is the start of the game seen as something that is entirely free to bypass and ruin the progression of the larger playerbase?

Welcome to a MMO that is ran by a raider...only raiding matters to him.

[Mafic]

MMORPGs always had some element of competition. But the key was that cooperation was always more valuable. I think BlizZard has lost sight of this. Vanilla raiding wasn't really difficult but it was more of a cooperative experience.

Current raiding scene is hyper focused competition because of the many mechanics.

[Glorious Leader]

The OP also has a thread asking for an expansion of only dungeon and raid content. Evidently eliminating every other form of content isn't "diminishing the experience of non competitive players"

[Mysterymask]

You cannot make a competitive game for the lowest denominator. It will just be 20 iq easy.

Pokemon, Super Smash Bros, Power Rangers Battle for the Grid, Guilty Gear Strive say hi

[starstationprofm]

Pokemon, Super Smash Bros, Power Rangers Battle for the Grid, Guilty Gear Strive say hi

All high quality esports

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Riot should do that. Just like Blizzard should balance around casuals. Thats where Blizzards biggest success stems from typically i.e. balance around casuals and then work within that framework to tune high end difficulty.

Blizzard has never balanced around casuals. No good competitive game has.

[Mysterymask]

All high quality esports

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Blizzard has never balanced around casuals. No good competitive game has.

.....I hope this is sarcasm cause all 4 of them are HUGE esports

[Mentacyde]

Most people don't objectively examine their lives or their psychological state. They're angry about something that usually results from the structure of society and feels high and mighty from their position in the video game. They see others lowers than them and take out this anger on them. Instead of taking the time and energy to examine what's went wrong in their lives and to fix the issue of that anger.

[Tsarez]

That's what Mythic+ is. A really accessible way

Hehehe, the frost mage, feral druid and survival hunter are crying in their corners.

M+ is many things but least of them is being accessible.

[arkanon]

.....I hope this is sarcasm cause all 4 of them are HUGE esports

Although I am not saying I dont believe you, it boggles my mind that there is seriously a competitive esport power rangers game!!! SSB and GG doesnt surprise me in the slightest, and know a thing or 2 about the SSB competitive scene in particular.......but a fucking POWER RANGERS GAME?>?!??!?!?!?!? Mind blown.

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Hehehe, the frost mage, feral druid and survival hunter are crying in their corners.

M+ is many things but least of them is being accessible.

Its extremely accessible. Accessible does not mean "anyone can do anything they want, play whatever they want, however they want, and still climb to the top of the ranks". It simply means the barrier to entry is extremely low, which it is.

[Swnem]

Honestly, i understand the sentiment. The focus on e-sports can be tireing. It's not really helping the fun factor for the players at large to make a game focused on the top end.
It's a problem i'm seeing in the gaming scene at large atm, which i hope gets turned around. I never understood the appeal of e-sports. I never watch arena or mythic invitational for longer than 5m. It's boring.

[Shaetha]

I can't really say I agree with you. I have played games non competitively that I wanted to simply complete even if it was on easy mode. Bioshock as an example. I would of felt cheated if I knew the game simply let me win regardless rather then working within the game.

There is no difference between doing CN in raid finder and playing any single player game on easy mode.

The elitists become elitists because they want to feel special, and those people don't understand that some people just want to play a video game instead of making it into work. Those people also happen to be the loudest people on forums by my observation.

The end of the story is it's not alright to insult how anyone plays, but it is also not okay to play a way you don't like and complain about it.

[Argorwal]

Welcome to a MMO that is ran by a raider...only raiding matters to him.

Is that why since Legion the game has moved the furthest from “raid or die” it’s ever been?

And has seen more solo and world content based progression than ever before?

The “raider” running WoW has ironically moved the game away from its decade streak of catering to raiders.

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MMORPGs always had some element of competition. But the key was that cooperation was always more valuable. I think BlizZard has lost sight of this. Vanilla raiding wasn't really difficult but it was more of a cooperative experience.

Current raiding scene is hyper focused competition because of the many mechanics.

I’ve never seen more anger directed at raid members than someone making a stupid mistake in classic and causing someone to die (or gasp raid wipe) and lose world buffs.

[Tsarez]

Is that why since Legion the game has moved the furthest from “raid or die” it’s ever been?

And has seen more solo and world content based progression than ever before?

The “raider” running WoW has ironically moved the game away from its decade streak of catering to raiders.

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I’ve never seen more anger directed at raid members than someone making a stupid mistake in classic and causing someone to die (or gasp raid wipe) and lose world buffs.

What would be the content outside of raiding and M+ if I may ask? Certainly there isn't any meaningful progression outside of it, and by the off chance you want to do PvP as someone who is participating only in casual/world environments, you're almost always one shot material for the enemy who is mythic equipped. Heck, even just heroic equipped is enough to obliterate casuals.

Whatever that progress is that you're speaking of, it's almost certainly pointless or so much inferior to raiding/m+ that you might as well not even bother doing it.

[Argorwal]

What would be the content outside of raiding and M+ if I may ask? Certainly there isn't any meaningful progression outside of it, and by the off chance you want to do PvP as someone who is participating only in casual/world environments, you're almost always one shot material for the enemy who is mythic equipped. Heck, even just heroic equipped is enough to obliterate casuals.

Whatever that progress is that you're speaking of, it's almost certainly pointless or so much inferior to raiding/m+ that you might as well not even bother doing it.

Prior to Legion how far were you gearing if you weren’t raiding?

We have mythic+ now, which is a massive dungeon based gearing and progression system.

How much gear were you getting from doing quests and dailies prior to Legion? Basically none? We’ve had up to normal level raid gear (that would be like 251 ICC10 gear) for story content, emissaries/callings, heroic raid gear from warfronts, better than heroic gear from visions.

We’ve had assaults, world PvP based quests buying up through heroic gear in BFA, mage tower solo challenge, Torghast, and massive post level cap quest chains and story progression.

TBC classic is launching in 3 weeks. How well geared is someone going to get there doing world content and questing without doing dungeons? How much solo content or post level cap progression is there?

[munkeyinorbit]

Hehehe, the frost mage, feral druid and survival hunter are crying in their corners.

M+ is many things but least of them is being accessible.

Is it impossible to get a key for these specs? I have all three classes. I will check to see what happens when I try to make my own group tonite. I suspect that you are completely wrong and mythic plus will be super accessible for those specs.

[Razion]

I think there's a concept that casual players aren't as cynical, that they're easier to please.
That these groups don't want the same things. That there are multiple groups. Process started around Wrath, with terms like Wrath-babies, and all that. People trying to separate groups, trying to turn the player-base against itself. People seeing as other people in the community as other, and now casuals and hardcore seem so divided now. Despite the most divided casuals and hardcore were in Naxx of Vanilla, to now when more people than ever are raiding and doing hard-core content -- even competitive content like the Mage Tower was praised.

We may consider casual, the larger part of the playerbase -- when that was the case ages ago. Nowadays the line is blurred more and more with every expansion as players become more experienced. Hardcore players, as it were, nowadays, can be seen as a problem as they're seen as unable to control themselves. That they'll obsess to the point of running things like Maw of Soul to hell and back for AP even past the point where it wouldn't be fun and even now those old set up divisions across players still even now tell us that casuals are more willing to stop doing activities like that if they're just not fun, or more willing to unsub if something is unfun. So because a hardcore player is in a way more obsessed and harder to please, their sub is still seen as being worth more because they'll be around longer, they'll be more involved in more content, have less reason to leave. A power player as more motivation than a casual one. Even casuals nowadays mix-max Covenants, but a power player will grind things like Maw of Souls into the dirt even when it isn't fun. But will a casual player do that? The perception is different.

Leveling being the bulk of the experience hasn't been the case for ages - since, what, Wrath, maybe? With the redux of the world in Cataclysm, there was an expectation that if you were a casual player you had to rush through all the Classic content before it went away forever. Players who sat around forever content in the sandbox of leveling were suddenly thrown out and said now play in a new one... one they, admittedly, asked for. So now the playerbase is all consolidated at end-game, where the hardcore subscription is seen as more valuable, as being more committed and the casuals as a liability despite them being in the past more numerous.

The game's audience, for sure, has changed, and the game has also changed to fit the desires of players who complain and want for different things, different experiences. But the casuals, the 'dreamer' archetype, aren't asking for things that realistically the WoW team seems willing to do. Casuals ask for things like more core races and classes and flying while being told it's impossible to balance or that it takes too much art to make the whole world or to keep updating race models, while a hardcore will ask for system changes to grinds to be made easier and for temporary systems to be made less painful and still be told that those solutions are more feasible.

There's also a perspective that casual content is 'already there'. That these players will always be playing the minimum that is already accessible in a given expansion, that they don't need anything else. But raiders, these high end players, need more -- they need gear to farm, they need bosses to kill, they need reasons to stay subbed when they beat the game. But the casual player doesn't beat the game, they stay subbed and play anyway. So content gets made for hardcore players.

[munkeyinorbit]

What would be the content outside of raiding and M+ if I may ask? Certainly there isn't any meaningful progression outside of it, and by the off chance you want to do PvP as someone who is participating only in casual/world environments, you're almost always one shot material for the enemy who is mythic equipped. Heck, even just heroic equipped is enough to obliterate casuals.

Whatever that progress is that you're speaking of, it's almost certainly pointless or so much inferior to raiding/m+ that you might as well not even bother doing it.

Nice goal post movement there buddy. First it was raiding. Now it's raiding and dungeons. But PvP isn't a valid option because geared people smash ungeared people. Just like in raids and dungeons. You made an incorrect statement. It was explained why it's incorrect.

Next moving of the goal posts : "The gap between the geared and gearing impaired has never been bigger."

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

I can't really say I agree with you. I have played games non competitively that I wanted to simply complete even if it was on easy mode. Bioshock as an example. I would of felt cheated if I knew the game simply let me win regardless rather then working within the game.

Its not something to agree or disagree with. Its just how it is.
The confusion likely comes from a disagreement about what it means to "compete" though.
To me, and likely Blizzard too, this simply means struggle towards success against the content and alongside the playerbase.

If you are doing even the easiest of content and attempting to do it well, you are competing.

Everyone else is just playing for fun, and therefore the content is made to offer little challenge - because that's not what they would be after.
It offers just enough to potentially spark the part of the brain that might enjoy the competition afterwards.

[arkanon]

I’ve never seen more anger directed at raid members than someone making a stupid mistake in classic and causing someone to die (or gasp raid wipe) and lose world buffs.

HAHA, totally! I was in a pug raid a while back, and the tanks messed the taunts up - in their defense, the entire server chugged and had a nasty lag spike for a good 2 seconds, so it wasn't even their fault. The amount of hatred directed towards them in this "casual pug" was astonishing, and I can honestly say, outside of the odd individual in modern wow, I have never seen almost an entire raid bombard 1 or 2 people over such a simple thing.

Everyone loses their cool from time to time in the heat of the moment, but this went on for a good few minutes before one left, and apparently continued for DAYS after the event, with tryhards desperately trying to "blacklist" the tanks involved. Thankfuly, most people are too level headed for that rubbish and I have seen one of the tanks in a couple of other pugs since.

All this because the server chugged for a couple of seconds and the tanks made a mistake, one that MOST of us would have made in the same situation.

[Kithelle]

Is that why since Legion the game has moved the furthest from “raid or die” it’s ever been?

And has seen more solo and world content based progression than ever before?

The “raider” running WoW has ironically moved the game away from its decade streak of catering to raiders.

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I’ve never seen more anger directed at raid members than someone making a stupid mistake in classic and causing someone to die (or gasp raid wipe) and lose world buffs.

Except it hasn't? Raiding/Mythic + are still kings...PvP barely gets any attention at all. Lucky to get a new mount every now and then otherwise it's the same old grind. We've gotten 1 whole new map since MoP...got a few arenas but those I hardly count since the objective is always the same, just different scenery.

Face it dude, they put almost no effort at all in PvP...heck competitive PvE has even eclipsed competitive PvP. Hardly seen any arena competitions in the last few years but seen plenty of mythic+ competitions.