Heirlooms are antisocial and bad for WoW

[Kokolums]

"Animals raised in isolation aren't always the most functional. The only positive relationship this animal has is with that crane."



Buffs in vanilla were social activities. When you ran around in the game world in vanilla, seeing another player was a positive experience because they might buff you with fort, int, mark, thorns, etc. These buffs were impactful and helped you (unlike a fort or int today in the game world). In turn, this helped foster a positive environment, helping to imprint upon new players the importance of social skills.

Modern WoW stripped this social interaction out. Fort / int is much less impactful and so people generally don't cast it on each other. Buffs are found in solo activities like conjuring a set of heirlooms, or doing a world quest and clicking on an item on the ground that rewards a 5 minute buff. This is detrimental to the game and the social experience.

WoW needs a new talent tree - a helper tree. Putting points into it gives you the ability to buff fellow players. The buffs you get from looms should be on that tree, and reimagined as spells you can cast on others. Enchant buffs could be on the tree as well. So may some potion buffs like trolls blood. If you want to put buffs on items lying on the ground, make them only castable on other players, or add them directly to the tree as well. The tree could include social networks connecting you to other helpers for bonuses.

It seems like such a minor thing, but is greatly impactful in the long term.

[Katchii]

"Animals raised in isolation aren't always the most functional. The only positive relationship this animal has is with that crane."



Buffs in vanilla were social activities. When you ran around in the game world in vanilla, seeing another player was a positive experience because they might buff you with fort, int, mark, thorns, etc. These buffs were impactful and helped you (unlike a fort or int today in the game world). In turn, this helped foster a positive environment, helping to imprint upon new players the importance of social skills.

Modern WoW stripped this social interaction out. Fort / int is much less impactful and so people generally don't cast it on each other. Buffs are found in solo activities like conjuring a set of heirlooms, or doing a world quest and clicking on an item on the ground that rewards a 5 minute buff. This is detrimental to the game and the social experience.

WoW needs a new talent tree - a helper tree. Putting points into it gives you the ability to buff fellow players. The buffs you get from looms should be on that tree, and reimagined as spells you can cast on others. Enchant buffs could be on the tree as well. So may some potion buffs like trolls blood. If you want to put buffs on items lying on the ground, make them only castable on other players, or add them directly to the tree as well. The tree could include social networks connecting you to other helpers for bonuses.

It seems like such a minor thing, but is greatly impactful in the long term.

How do heirlooms affect any of this?

[Kokolums]

How do heirlooms affect any of this?

They provide buffs that should be allocated to social play. If you want leveling buffs, they should come from other players being generous and casting a spell on you instead of opening a menu and clicking an icon.

[Kiivar86]

They provide buffs that should be allocated to social play. If you want leveling buffs, they should come from other players being generous and casting a spell on you instead of opening a menu and clicking an icon.

So instead players would either hassle others to open a menu and click an icon or figure out some workaround.

[Katchii]

They provide buffs that should be allocated to social play. If you want leveling buffs, they should come from other players being generous and casting a spell on you instead of opening a menu and clicking an icon.

Heirlooms don't provide those buffs though, they provide stats just like other gear does, but they don't provide the buffs you're referring to and are just easier and faster than getting new gear, but the same affect would occur if people just chain ran dungeons and got near gear constantly getting the increased stats from new gear. So I'm still unclear how heirlooms affect the things you're discussing.

[Beastiel]

I agree with the title but hoo boy that idea is fucking terrible. Punishing people for logging in and playing by themselves for a short while on a whim is the antithesis of everything that makes wow successful

[Shigma]

After they give no exp, they are really pointless and just stayed to diminish the outrage of removing them for people who spent gold/currencies to farm them. So i kinda agreed to the title. But this post makes no sense at all, honestly.

[BrioWoW]

WoW hasn't been a social game for a long time.

[Resheph]

WoW hasn't been a social game for a long time.

It's exactly as social as it ever was. The players and the world they live in have changed a lot in that time though.

[Lochton]

Uhm.. The use of heirlooms does not prevent you from being social or grouping with people. It does not barricade you from others, nor does it ruin your friendships or relationships - and if it is part of the reason of such, then you got rid of necessary dead weight.

- - - Updated - - -

WoW hasn't been a social game for a long time.

WoW is as social as you and other people seek it to be?

I mean. I see people gladly talking, grouping, laughing, joking, meeting up, waiting together, working together, and more. Plenty of social interaction if you as well wish to be part of it.

[uuuhname]

I'm sorry I've never encountered a situation where a random Mage or Priest handing out a buff did anything to make the game more engaging in a social sense, at any point playing this game. you can emote a thanks to them and move on, and this is coming from someone who has played since TBC.

[Razion]

The main problem that Heirlooms attempt to solve is people who hate leveling by making it faster, or easier more like nowadays what with the recent Heirloom changes.

Certain competitive players would probably tell you that the only point of the game is end-game - things like raiding, or pvp.

We could extrapolate the problem and say that rather than saying the problem is leveling itself and needing to get rid of that in other ways (like DMF, Xp pots, boosts, etc., which would still be used if Heirlooms were axed) then we could also say raiding or pvp is the problem. We'd probably have more of a case to say this, as the bulk of the playerbase, the casual audience, consumes and participates in casual content like leveling over end-game progression raiding or high-end rated pvp.

But, obviously, there are camps of people who like raiding, pvp, and leveling. Destroying any of these areas risks alienating a large portion of the playerbase, even if they aren't an overwhelming majority.

If the game continues to just appeal to where the money is, eventually that can spiral down to only appealing to whales, a trap that many MMOs fall down. It's not pretty.

So, how to avoid. Try to appeal to everyone.

Giving people alternatives, a way to skip leveling by making it accessible, but keeping leveling there as an activity for people who enjoy it.

We've already had the answer to this implemented before, in a way, if roundabout, but it could be broadened to other options to make it a more robust solution. The previous answer I'm talking about is the choice of what level to start at. Previously, you would need to roll a Hero Class in order to skip large pockets of leveling.

But, if players had the choice on any given character they made to start at a higher level, we could solve the desire for players who hate leveling who have already done it to skip it, while retaining a pure leveling experience curated for the people who do actually desire it.

This answer, choosing to start at a higher level or not, I think, is probably the best work-around. Perhaps in synergy to what OP suggests, Heirlooms wouldn't strictly be necessary as leveling skips for people who hate leveling, but could rather be geared to people who love leveling - such as those rolling alts who love the experience of power-leveling or who love to have different kinds of experiences when leveling them.

Personally leveling is one of my favorite parts of the game. Heirlooms could be much better served as a supplement to players who actually enjoy the activity, with leveling being something skipped altogether for people who hate leveling. I don't see much point in forcing others who don't want to to level characters a ton all over again when they've already done it - as their complaining invariably has led to a reduction of the leveling experience for those who do care about it. In order to preserve leveling, I think it would be in the best interest to have an alternative option for those players who dislike it to skip it entirely.

Bit of a problem here, though, that paid level boosts are a thing. It would probably be hard to convince Blizzard that making this a free option would be worth it. Unless, the increased fun of the base leveling experience could perhaps be marketed somehow, or if they could figure out if the people making free alts would result in a lot more subs and play-time and engagement and better queues for everyone, or other such benefits. But I'd be pulling guess-work out of my butt at this point to try and figure out more ways this benefits.

Anyway, trying to be a bit pragmatic and trying to solve the issues of everyone... well, I guess it'd make the game better for players, maybe not as good for Blizzard. I imagine there might be some criticism to this approach, like, "with the option to skip there, who would ever pick to level?" And, well, I guess that's the perspective of people who don't like leveling, they probably wouldn't see any point in having the distinction... but as someone who likes leveling, I couldn't imagine not doing it for its own sake. Making characters, leveling them, deleting them, starting over, is something I like doing regularly... so, while I guess I understand the perspective of people who think they'd like to be forced into leveling... I guess my reasoning then is that if people see it as a forced option to skip than not, then maybe they don't really like leveling? But I doubt it'd be seen like that. Some people probably want to feel forced to level, weirdly enough. Not sure how that could be done except with rewarding people who do bother to level traditionally catch-up gear or something. But, depending on how powerful that kind of reward is it might for example feel mandatory for those who want to skip. So, this kind of route seems tricky too.

[Skirdus]

I'd agree that heirlooms de-incentivize social interaction and do away with the idea of players having to work together to accomplish a single-minded goal, but that's moreso due how insanely overpowered they are and not the actual intended benefit of them, that being the massive experience bonus.

The solution? Just nerf the huge stat boost and keep the bonus experience gain. Problem solved

[qwerty123456]

I'd agree that heirlooms de-incentivize social interaction and do away with the idea of players having to work together to accomplish a single-minded goal, but that's moreso due how insanely overpowered they are and not the actual intended benefit of them, that being the massive experience bonus.

The solution? Just nerf the huge stat boost and keep the bonus experience gain. Problem solved

Heirlooms let you do dungeons efficiently and when a groups good theres often times someone who will try and queue again with the group since they did a good job. I highly doubt taking 10 extra minutes to do a dungeon or waiting around 20 minutes for someone to help you kill a mob is really giving people more social interaction.

[Twdft]

Quality thread, as always

[Shink]

several years too late OP

[BrioWoW]

It's exactly as social as it ever was. The players and the world they live in have changed a lot in that time though.

It's definitely not as social as it ever was. Having the ability to talk to people doesn't make it social.

[Biomega]

It's definitely not as social as it ever was. Having the ability to talk to people doesn't make it social.

This is not untrue. But "social" doesn't automatically translate into higher quality. You could just make EVERY activity in WoW demand a group (much like say raiding or m+ do) - that would make the game more social, but would it make the game better?

There's plenty of things that people just don't want to be social for. It's good to give them a choice. Does this come at the expense of atmosphere and community? Yes, but that's inevitable in a world where people are more interested in on-demand content rather than going through the trouble of setting up situations.

[BrioWoW]

This is not untrue. But "social" doesn't automatically translate into higher quality. You could just make EVERY activity in WoW demand a group (much like say raiding or m+ do) - that would make the game more social, but would it make the game better?

There's plenty of things that people just don't want to be social for. It's good to give them a choice. Does this come at the expense of atmosphere and community? Yes, but that's inevitable in a world where people are more interested in on-demand content rather than going through the trouble of setting up situations.

So like I said, WoW hasn't been a social game for a long time.

[TheLucky1]

So like I said, WoW hasn't been a social game for a long time.

If that is your definition of it, sure, and that's good.

We have seen where the "social" nature of classic has gone, utter rubbish.