Hiring People from the Elitist Jerks site was a mistake.

[JessicaJones]

Let’s look at current systems

Covenants
Soulbinds
Conduits
None of these are in any way changed by playing hardcore

The maw
Venari upgrades
If you are a player that does one weekly quest in there you hit max rep months ago and you were on par with hardcore raiders

Torghast
They literally made a system to help more casual players get further and get required items to upgrade legendaries without doing it

Dungeons
M+
Idk why this is seen as hardcore when you can do +5s easily and get weekly gear rewards that would be over normal raid level

Raids
Literally no change in story ending regardless of mythic only phases and you receive the same gear

Hardcore essentially just speeds up everything at most but that’s to allow the hardcore players to enjoy the game which for many they actually did a lot more because of the fact these new systems work against them

Everything you said is true, but people feel like they have to do all of it at the same time and harder content because when you see your favourite streamer banging out 25s, you think a 15 should be easy (which it is), but the average player struggles in a 8-10.

[eschatological]

Insane amount... realy?

Even people here lose it. There is not much content in general... treasure hunting is non excisting and new zones and stuff is for everyone.. the major develop time goes into the raids and dung. But for a while now its just not cutting it an we all know it.

This patch literally added more than 50 mounts.

I think like 3 of them are in a raid.

[Raisei]

But many people play WoW for it's setting, the lore, the achievments, the collections. No clue why you are telling people to play FFXIV instead if that game has nothing of that?

You must be mistaken, FF does everything better then WoW. By definition there can't be anything in WoW that is not in FF. That is the consens I am repeatedly reading in this WoW Forum.
Sarcasm aside. I know that and know several people who do play this way. But none of them ever needed to have the game change to enjoy these things. They join the guild raids to get achievments and mogs and are playing in dungeons with others. These are not the people I directed my post at.
I was targeting the toxic "casuals" who demand that the game shuld revolve around Herbalism and World Quests, because they can't be arsed to do the central content of the game and thus get bored quickly.

Never unstood people who play games only for "gameplay" lol. Also I played SWTOR casually since it's release for some time - it never really had any "good" endgame compared to WoW. PvP was great at the start but they botched it quite early.

True, when I first stepped into a WoW raid in late WoD (when the guild switched here) the difference was incredible. I enjoyed some of the raids in SWTOR, like the whole Dread Master ones, but there is nothing on the level of WoW mechanics there.
The lore is very important to me too (see my frequent posts in that sub forum), but it all means very little if I can't enjoy playing the game. It's not a book I am reading after all and I am do not expect a game build for raiding and dungeons to tell a high-level story.

And honestly, it wouldn't hurt WoW to get some ideas from both SWTOR and FFXIV.

Yes, the combat was a bit more fluent in SWTOR for sure, and the animations were of course far superior, but then there was the engine and latency issue that kind of ruined that again. Trying to run a 16m raid in that game was a nightmare for the FPS and the bug fixing once a week was really testing players patience. But I would not say no to a personal story in WoW.

[eschatological]

But many people play WoW for it's setting, the lore, the achievments, the collections. No clue why you are telling people to play FFXIV instead if that game has nothing of that? Never unstood people who play games only for "gameplay" lol. Also I played SWTOR casually since it's release for some time - it never really had any "good" endgame compared to WoW. PvP was great at the start but they botched it quite early.

And honestly, it wouldn't hurt WoW to get some ideas from both SWTOR and FFXIV.

I definitely only play WoW for the gameplay, and the social aspects of it. Literally the best large-scale cooperative content in gaming. Still. I had hopes for Planetside 2 for a hot second, but nah.

I have to constantly ask my girlfriend what the fuck is going on with the story and why anyone would care about it. I've felt that way since Vanilla. It's been generic, trope-y fantasy writing for its literal entire existence.

[Frozenbro]

Insane amount... realy?

Even people here lose it. There is not much content in general... treasure hunting is non excisting and new zones and stuff is for everyone.. the major develop time goes into the raids and dung. But for a while now its just not cutting it an we all know it.

So you dont enjoy the casual content out there, hence it doesnt exist (?), damn this is just another average mmo-champ user, always good to see the hot takes in this forum.

[Raisei]

It's been generic, trope-y fantasy writing for its literal entire existence.

Absolutely. But that is not necessarily a bad thing if it is done well.

But yes, the story is a nice extra and I care about it, but it's not the focus of my playing or the reason why I play. That would be my guild that I have been with for over a decade now and the great raiding and dungeoning in WoW.

[mbit]

"game changed they hired tryhards"
so op apparently doesnt know the original devs where tryhards coming from everquest raiding.

Theres a very simple explanation why retail is shit - their new hires are shit. Taking a look at twitter is like looking at the mental asylum, they hired a bunch of type lvl99 psycho full mythic raid gear looking at their post history including direct hate of wow players. Hiring someone who hates your customers and product is just asking for failure.

[DarkAmbient]

Ion has failed to appreciate the effectiveness of simplicity. Think about how relatively simple the game used to be. Think about how chill the zones used to be. Now you're bombarded with a ton of systems and annoying zones that make you not want to level any alts because fuck going through all that shit again.

[cparle87]

Well who else to blame, when the game is raid or die. Like what PvE endgame do you have beside mythic + and raiding? You can't say the game was designed for casuals, can you?

How exactly is the game raid or die when you can get gear 6-19 below HEROIC raiding without setting foot in any instanced content? Or did you forget about the entire new zone full of rares, mogs, gear, pets, toys, and mounts to farm? You claim there is no PvE engame outside instances then in the same sentence completely ignore anything not in an instance as not endgame in the first place. There are people to whom world content is endgame. It's not you, but it still exists.

[Alanar]

So you dont enjoy the casual content out there, hence it doesnt exist (?), damn this is just another average mmo-champ user, always good to see the hot takes in this forum.

I dont think you get it.. besides your comment is pretty useless.

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This patch literally added more than 50 mounts.

I think like 3 of them are in a raid.

So what are you saying? That I am wrong cus there are only 3 mounts in the raid? Casusls are the new hardcore. Casuals will spend way more hours on "that" content.

[Saltysquidoon]

What even is the thesis of this thread? All of this daily stuff and world quests and grinds were added because people didn't want to raidlog or didn't want to raid (so after a point they had nothing to do).

The vast vast majority of this infinite content (with the notable obvious exclusion of high-end m+) exists for and is aimed at the casual player, so they always have something to do.

[Alanar]

"hardcores" using casual aspects of a game doesn't change the fact its casual content.

What are hardcores in your opinion and what does hardcore stand for theae days.

[rogoth]

Given that people like ion helped make the best content wow has had with things like ulduar it definitely wasn’t a mistake to hire them.

Rather they should have bm move on from encounter design to higher rolls is a whole other question.

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The game has always been raid or die with almost no end game content outside of raids and mabye some relevant dungeons.

Expans like Sl and bfa likely have the most not raid content of any of them with things like islands torghast and other little things all over rather they are actually good or not.

he had NOTHING to do with that content, it was made before wrath launched, at which point he was still the pleb running the EJ forums and an officer in the guild at the time, publishing guides done by josh (Lore), and hosting them on the EJ website, it wasn't until well after wrath ended that he got hired, i would suggest checking your info before making false statements like this.

[Irian]

Yeah, but sadly that mistake was made a long time ago.

In general the "hardcore" game design kinda sucked the fun and life out of WoW. They pushed so hard for the M+/world first/arena esports and "balance" that they drove the game itself into the ground for it. I feel like WoW's development from about Cata onward is proof that the players don't actually truly know what they want out of a game and you should never hire hardcore players to design it.

As others have said though I think this is pretty done and talked about by now. The sinking ship is already riddled with holes, the conversation has been had and argued on both sides. Sadly this is what we're left with.

[Lolites]

For me its the fact that every facet of the game benefits hardcore players more now. For example, one new problem in recent expansions is dungeons used to be considered casual content. Now it is hardcore content thanks to Mythic +.

if you want to casualy do dungeons you still can, M+ didnt remove lower dificulties, everything up to mythic is how it was before, since it was added... hardcore players getting something new didnt remove casual content...

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Even transmogs and mounts require hardcore raiding if you want to get all the best ones.

im sorry, when was this not true? in wotlk when "best" mounts droped form last boss of the raid on hardest difficulty?
its not game benefits hardcore players more "now", but since the very begining... and actualy, casual players get more to do in last few expansions than ever before...

[Kumorii]

What are hardcores in your opinion and what does hardcore stand for theae days.

Good question, I agree on that it certainly depends on each and every one of us. But for me it's someone who pushes themselves in whatever they take part in. Hardcore content is content that push that on players. So higher difficulties for example pushes players and thus it's hardcore content.

World content doesn't do any of that, hence its casual content. You don't really need to push yourself to overcome a lot of the world content. Its fairly easy. With that said, you can still be a hardcore player focusing on casual content. So there is a difference between content being casual and hardcore compared to if a player is one of either.

One who pushes themselves to farm mounts and transmogs vigorously certainly are a more of a hardcore collector. However the content itself is on the casual side. Unless you strive for the current highest difficulty mount and mogs. The. You'd be a hardcore collector raking part in hardcore content. Etc etc.

[Lolites]

its soulless devs with massive egos vs players in general,

judging by this forum alon, i would say its devs vs. players with massive egos, how many posts "do this one thing i want to make the game better for everyone" did we have in last month? ive seen at least dozen

[klogaroth]

he had NOTHING to do with that content, it was made before wrath launched, at which point he was still the pleb running the EJ forums and an officer in the guild at the time, publishing guides done by josh (Lore), and hosting them on the EJ website, it wasn't until well after wrath ended that he got hired, i would suggest checking your info before making false statements like this.

As a lead game designer on the World of Warcraft team, Ion’s primary responsibilities include contributing to the overall vision of the game and overseeing the creation of the game’s dungeon and raid content. Hazzikostas joined Blizzard Entertainment in the summer of 2008 as a game designer

Wrath of the Lich King was released on November 13, 2008

Check your whatnow?

Maybe he didn't do any work on Ulduar, which came out in April 2009, but will have been in development for a good while. But he certainly didn't join Blizzard "well after wrath ended".

Josh's guides were published by Tankspot.

[Echo of Soul]

That's the perfect recipe to make a terrible, boring, shallow game.
Ion team is bad because they are too much about "spreadsheet and analysis", not because they are "hardcore". Fact is, the original WoW designers WERE hardcore players.

I agree. WoW had a pretty good foundation from vanilla to MOP. Simple, straight forward, consistent and kinda easy to understand. Stop slapping a bunch of convoluted crap on top of that foundation. If you want to develop side content go right ahead but if you attach it to everything else then it's no longer side content, it's a system that everyone will hate because they have to do it and it complicates the game.

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Check your whatnow?

Maybe he didn't do any work on Ulduar, which came out in April 2009, but will have been in development for a good while. But he certainly didn't join Blizzard "well after wrath ended".

He was hired as an encounter designer during Wrath I believe but over the years he climbed the corporate ladder culminating in him becoming Game Director around late MOP or early WOD. Legion was the first expansion developed 100% under his supervision, which explains the massive shift in design philosophy in Legion, BfA and Shadowlands.

[Alanar]

Good question, I agree on that it certainly depends on each and every one of us. But for me it's someone who pushes themselves in whatever they take part in. Hardcore content is content that push that on players. So higher difficulties for example pushes players and thus it's hardcore content.

World content doesn't do any of that, hence its casual content. You don't really need to push yourself to overcome a lot of the world content. Its fairly easy. With that said, you can still be a hardcore player focusing on casual content. So there is a difference between content being casual and hardcore compared to if a player is one of either.

One who pushes themselves to farm mounts and transmogs vigorously certainly are a more of a hardcore collector. However the content itself is on the casual side. Unless you strive for the current highest difficulty mount and mogs. The. You'd be a hardcore collector raking part in hardcore content. Etc etc.

Yea I had the same feeling. I mean these days mount farmers for example spend way more time in game then say mythic raiders.

Hardcore gamers imo is just a way to say the time spend on things. I have seen heroic raiders do more raid nights thn a mythic raider. Hard to say what is what on just a difficulty. Anyway I essentialy agree with you.

But i feels more like a lost term these days.