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

[Soon-TM]

because tryhards thinks the game revolves around them.

Truth be told, it pretty much does, first with BfA and especially now in SL.

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As for the "hone your skills" argument that some are tossing around, fuck that. Most people want to have fun. They're not logging onto WoW, the video game, as a self-improvement project. That's a ridiculous notion and goes right along with the idea that the game is "work." If it's not 'play' then you're doing it wrong. Sadly this is a concept that the devs seem to have lost sight of in their quest to keep anyone and everyone busy which means in some respects they're doing it wrong as well.

Dear sir/ma'am, this is sig worthy material. Can I borrow it pls?

ML: Be my guest.

[Echo of Soul]

Most people want to have fun. They're not logging onto WoW, the video game, as a self-improvement project. That's a ridiculous notion and goes right along with the idea that the game is "work."

I find it quite sad. I feel more pity for players like that more than anything else.
You're absolutely right, games should be fun and relaxing or exciting, not work.

[loras]

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?

One word: epeen.

A lot of people have a need to shore up their self esteem by talking down, and it's rarely the truly good ones that do so.

I mean there's a reason they keep adding higher difficulties while lower difficulties become easier / more trivialised / more abandoned over time.
It's like with job titles, you need to keep the mediocre masses motivated by pretending they're getting better.

So yeah, the competitive scene is a bit like the Chief Executive button pressers of WoW.

[Wuusah]

In fact—and this is pretty much always as it has been—there are many more people, including yourself, who are up in arms and outraged by even the idea of such a thing than people demanding it. It's rare that anyone comes in and claims they want mythic level gear for doing world quests.

Yeah, people complain that's what people are writing but it's largely untrue. Most casuals simply want to log in, play for a while and in some way feel that their character is improved.

As for the "hone your skills" argument that some are tossing around, fuck that. Most people want to have fun. They're not logging onto WoW, the video game, as a self-improvement project. That's a ridiculous notion and goes right along with the idea that the game is "work." If it's not 'play' then you're doing it wrong. Sadly this is a concept that the devs seem to have lost sight of in their quest to keep anyone and everyone busy which means in some respects they're doing it wrong as well.

It's what you get when spreadsheets rule over creative ideas. Over-engineered crap that isn't all that much fun.

1. I’m not outraged. This thread is silly and ridiculous. Nobody in their right mind gets outraged about a thread like that. Amused, sure. Not outraged.
2. Can’t casuals login and progress their character right now? Am I talking crazy pills? Isn’t the game right now specifically designed with a ton of difficulties so that everyone can find their place? Isn’t the weekly chest designed around giving a weekly ilvl increase as long as you do something? Your open world progression ends at ~200. If you’re playing WoW and you have no intention to do dungeons, raids or PvP then you’re playing the wrong game. Those have always been the main pillars of this game. And they will always be that. The open world is busywork filler content. Always has been.
3. I feel like the problem is not that casuals don’t get to progress their characters. It’s that they are behind the better players in their progression and are simply jealous. Yeah you don’t get a weekly 226 item from the vault. So what? If your average ilvl is 200 then even 205 would be an upgrade for you. If feeling like you got something out of your playtime it is truly what you seek, then there should be no problem whatsoever. So what is the problem again?

[gobio]

It is LEGEND's fault.

Every Paladin is special, the best of the best, instantly recognized when you step into the new expansion city. Then quickly praised for your skills and "YOU ARE THE ONE", all the famous and cool NPC paladin now looks up to you with the best weapon that paladin could have. You are the leader of Paladin.

Those fake ass clown theme park NPC said the same stuff to every Paladin that step through the portal.

But people are not fake ass clown them park NPC, in some cases we definitely are, but not here... I am so Sorry.

[arkanon]

it revolves around whales, not tryhards.

I have seen this term thrown around with some frequency recently - can you define what a "whale" is in this context?

[Raisei]

As for the "hone your skills" argument that some are tossing around, fuck that. Most people want to have fun. They're not logging onto WoW, the video game, as a self-improvement project. That's a ridiculous notion and goes right along with the idea that the game is "work." If it's not 'play' then you're doing it wrong. Sadly this is a concept that the devs seem to have lost sight of in their quest to keep anyone and everyone busy which means in some respects they're doing it wrong as well.

Like any other hobby WoW comes with the responsibility to apply yourself.

If you do sports with a team then they damn well expect you to pull your own weight. Think soccer. The second time you are standing on the field like a sack of rice and your team looses they will give you shit for it. The third time you are out, because nobody wants to play with you.

If you play an instrument you need to aquire skills or your audience will quickly tell you to stop playing.

It's very normal that hobbies require you to learn skills and put effort into them, why people expect that this doesn't apply to video games -especially a multi-player one - is beyond me.

For example: Yesterday I tried to pug CN Normal, which is alright, but you quickly notice that halve the group is just there to let themselves be carried and never has any intention of learning or doing the mechanics. Case in point, on the Council we wiped again and again, because no one could be arsed to watch for the interrupts. Everyone suffered and had their fun ruined because some "are just doing this for fun" and "it's not work".

If you don't want your performance to matter at all I suggest you stick to single-player games, where it at least doesn't affect others, instead of trying to push this mindset on a multi-player game.

[Surfacin9]

Typically heroic won't have all the mechanics, they'll trim a few. Either removing them outright or making one shot/wipe mechanics negligible. Like first boss in HoA doesn't have the circle you need to stay inside or you get feared. You have the entire room to avoid wreckage and dodge the beams.

That's not the progression they're talking about, innit? This is the difference in mechanics, where in normal and heroic you simply get watered down versions of the bosses with 1 purpose - to never pose a threat, unless you're severely undergeared. It was fun doing them the first time after hitting 60, during that week, where you could only do heroic while wearing 150 ilvl crafted gear, then moving on to mythic next week. It was fun because we were experiencing mechanics for the first time, and we were undergeared. Today, a fresh level 60 can already mostly outgear heroics (full 168 crafted gear, slightly lower weapons from world quests, 200 trinket). You roll through heroics mega-fast without any challenge. There is no progression where there is no challenge. And that why I'm questioning the OP. There is no point in considering that content in terms of major features and changes, because that content only exists for the first 2 weeks. Its completely fine to be on the lower end of the spectrum in terms of progression, but that is still raiding (normal and hc) and m+ (between +4 and +10). Anything below that doesn't have progression as it has no difficulty, that's dead content. The max level path of normal-heroic-mythic dungeons is redundant. Either make heroic and mythic harder, then tune the m+ difficulty (rather have KSM @+10, than have +2-4, +6-8 of being practically the same difficulty-wise. Or remove max level normals, tune heroics slight lower to decrease the ilvl entry barrier.

[psyquest]

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?

Wow was at its peak when exclusive gear and mounts required the player to do the hardest content. I ll let you ponder that a few hours and wonder why when the game had so many exclusive rewards was it at its peak.

[ClassicPeon]

That's not the progression they're talking about, innit? This is the difference in mechanics, where in normal and heroic you simply get watered down versions of the bosses with 1 purpose - to never pose a threat, unless you're severely undergeared. It was fun doing them the first time after hitting 60, during that week, where you could only do heroic while wearing 150 ilvl crafted gear, then moving on to mythic next week. It was fun because we were experiencing mechanics for the first time, and we were undergeared. Today, a fresh level 60 can already mostly outgear heroics (full 168 crafted gear, slightly lower weapons from world quests, 200 trinket). You roll through heroics mega-fast without any challenge. There is no progression where there is no challenge. And that why I'm questioning the OP. There is no point in considering that content in terms of major features and changes, because that content only exists for the first 2 weeks. Its completely fine to be on the lower end of the spectrum in terms of progression, but that is still raiding (normal and hc) and m+ (between +4 and +10). Anything below that doesn't have progression as it has no difficulty, that's dead content. The max level path of normal-heroic-mythic dungeons is redundant. Either make heroic and mythic harder, then tune the m+ difficulty (rather have KSM @+10, than have +2-4, +6-8 of being practically the same difficulty-wise. Or remove max level normals, tune heroics slight lower to decrease the ilvl entry barrier.

The only way someone couldnt complete a m+0 with adequite gear is if they wherent able to read what their abilities do or what the bosses abilities does in the combat log. This most likely translates into not being old enough to play the game anyway.

I've had the same argument against the OP earlier in the thread but he doesnt seem to keen on responding to it

[ek0zu]

Shadowlands is greatly improved compared to Legion and BFA, however there is still room for improvement. I think 9.1 will be pretty good and if they follow the path that they have set with Shadowland's launch they could make casuals (in time investment NOT skill) fell in love with the game once again.

Classes are very good compared to the latter expansions, the instances and the raids are top as always, the only think that i dislike nowadays is that you cannot solo q on mythic+ and on rated pvp (always having the necessary credentials of completed the previous difficulty, having completed mythic 9 to queue for mythic 10, and having reached 1800 rating to queue for 1900 rating, etc).

I strongly believe that if solo q is enabled (for harder content) it will give a huge boost in WoW's performance in terms of both subscription numbers and retention.

Yeah obviously World Content needs to be improved far and away from what it currently is nowadays but i have not seen any other MMO being good at that as well, I think only GW2 has good world content.

As it regards the professions, they were also a side thing for the raids (and for mythic+ nowadays), ffxiv is great on the professions side and WoW should probably look into it but when professions were harder i could never ever the highest skill point on any but now i can do it without much hustle, i even max out fishing and cooking and working on Archeology every now and then, which is nice for me i guess.

[Elias1337]

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.

Vannila raiding was difficult in 2004. Its not difficult now in 2021.

[Revamp Man]

Vannila raiding was difficult in 2004. Its not difficult now in 2021.

it was difficult in 2004 because of the fact we were all bad at the game and the pc and internet was garbage

today it is actually harder in terms of mechanics

[Accendor]

No but certainly you can give them things to work for no?

For people who struggle through normal dungeons completing heroics would be a meaningful personal achievement to them no?

Why then does their seem to be this expectation to over gear them to the point it is painfully clear they didn't overcome anything but simply out geared it?

As a high end player (m+ and raiding) let me tell you that the reward structure is broken everywhere. Its not only on the lower end spectrum, but also all the way up to the end. Gear progression got a lot worse since BfA.

You are right of course that currently heroic dungeons are in a really bad place because there is no reason for them to exist anymore as they campaign gives you gear to easily completely overgear them and remove them from the gearing progression completely.

This is true for many other aspects of the game too at the moment.

[Soon-TM]

Wow was at its peak when exclusive gear and mounts required the player to do the hardest content. I ll let you ponder that a few hours and wonder why when the game had so many exclusive rewards was it at its peak.

I mean... People who do the hardest content (mythic raids, gladiator) still have exclusive mounts, xmogs and titles, so by your logic WoW still is at its prime.

Now, some among them could have bought their way into all that shiny stuff, but that's an entirely different story.

[Mafic]

I think you’re on the right track with this. Today, we have numerous convenient systems that group players together to down content efficiently, therefore, bypassing the social and competitive ways to find like minded players who were interested in progressing through various forms of content. It didn’t become this way overnight. It’s been gradual, and back in earlier expansions before LFR, LFD and guild finder, etc, it required social interaction to seek out players to do content. This was even satisfying enough for the casual players, and it didn’t matter as much to them that they didn’t get to raid in places like Naxramas, Black Temple, Sunwell - you get the idea. People in leading edge guilds didn’t care about casuals, and casuals didn’t feel ignored by the top end guilds. Every guild usually had something to progress towards in socially cooperative ways without these modern convenient systems we have today.

TLDR; Social interaction in earlier expansions of the game was a form of content in itself, creating meaningful and fulfilling experiences that drove players to want to do more challenging content. Today’s group finders dilute the player experience and have helped to polarize casual players from competitive players.

There is truth in that the player base has become more segregated with all these various systems in place. The only area where you see hardcore and casual interact with each other is still in unrated BGs ironically. It can be a frustrating experience for players on both sides of the spectrum but it is also refreshing because you learn about the differences. And with these differences you still try to cooperate to win the BG even if there is a skill and/or gear gap.

That element of cooperation is indeed lost with PVE side progression and I don't think BlizZard realizes this.

[cparle87]

Snip

"OP, what sort of a progression is there from heroic to mythic dungeons, apart from increased difficulty?" That's what you said. And I answered you.

[crusadernero]

Shadowlands is greatly improved compared to Legion and BFA, however there is still room for improvement. I think 9.1 will be pretty good and if they follow the path that they have set with Shadowland's launch they could make casuals (in time investment NOT skill) fell in love with the game once again.

Classes are very good compared to the latter expansions, the instances and the raids are top as always, the only think that i dislike nowadays is that you cannot solo q on mythic+ and on rated pvp (always having the necessary credentials of completed the previous difficulty, having completed mythic 9 to queue for mythic 10, and having reached 1800 rating to queue for 1900 rating, etc).

I strongly believe that if solo q is enabled (for harder content) it will give a huge boost in WoW's performance in terms of both subscription numbers and retention.

Yeah obviously World Content needs to be improved far and away from what it currently is nowadays but i have not seen any other MMO being good at that as well, I think only GW2 has good world content.

As it regards the professions, they were also a side thing for the raids (and for mythic+ nowadays), ffxiv is great on the professions side and WoW should probably look into it but when professions were harder i could never ever the highest skill point on any but now i can do it without much hustle, i even max out fishing and cooking and working on Archeology every now and then, which is nice for me i guess.

With that point or rank system they are putting into m+ and the fact that arena has ratings already, a solo queue should be coming. Probably a big feature in the next xpac and gives them time to flesh out the system in a decent way.

Honestly, I would probably play wow more if it was in the game. My playstyle suits a queue system with quick in and out. It might not be the best for the game overall, but personally I would welcome it. And at this point - why not right?

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There is truth in that the player base has become more segregated with all these various systems in place. The only area where you see hardcore and casual interact with each other is still in unrated BGs ironically. It can be a frustrating experience for players on both sides of the spectrum but it is also refreshing because you learn about the differences. And with these differences you still try to cooperate to win the BG even if there is a skill and/or gear gap.

That element of cooperation is indeed lost with PVE side progression and I don't think BlizZard realizes this.

normal is for leveling, complete story/questlines. I have no idea what purpose heroic dungeon serves at all at this point. They MIGHT serve a purpose early on in the xpac, but they are so quickly obsolete. Goes to show Blizzard dont really know what to do with it, so it just stays

[ohwell]

It isn't, and as a matter of fact, the experience of competitive players is NEVER tarnished by whatever the casual crowd is doing. So the question doesn't really go both ways, nice attempt though.

It most certainly is, so bad attempt though. This constant demand for gear for doing trivial content is diminishing to the competitive players. The big mistake of the expansion was giving 197 gear so easily which is actually what the OP is about but it went over your head lol.

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I mean... People who do the hardest content (mythic raids, gladiator) still have exclusive mounts, xmogs and titles, so by your logic WoW still is at its prime.

Now, some among them could have bought their way into all that shiny stuff, but that's an entirely different story.

Exclusive? So you mean no one else can ever get them once they massively outgear and outlevel it? No? That word doesn't mean what you think it means then.

[Soon-TM]

It most certainly is, so bad attempt though. This constant demand for gear for doing trivial content is diminishing to the competitive players. The big mistake of the expansion was giving 197 gear so easily which is actually what the OP is about but it went over your head lol.

Players need to feel like their toon is progressing, else they unsub. Given how the only way in thisgame to progress your character is through gear, people will always be asking for gear, so your point is kind of moot. Not even an attempt at rebuttal

So you mean no one else can ever get them once they massively outgear and outlevel it? No? That word doesn't mean what you think it means then.

Given how e.g. mounts go from a 100% drop rate when the raid is current to 1% once it becomes obsolete, yes - the mounts are effectively exclusive, unless you grind those old raids like a madman or are EXTREMELY lucky.