If 10.0 is a massive revamp was it worth dealing with Shadowlands?

[Queen of Hamsters]

We're both required to provide evidence if we each have opinions and believe the other is wrong. Once again, you don't default to being correct.

What is your opinion of WoWs performance in the last 2 months? I sincerely doubt there is any data on the last 2 months yet.

And I've provided the grounds for my opinion, you haven't.

As for my opinion on WoW's performance over the past 2 months, I can't say. I believed the game was struggling during 8.3, but it wasn't. I don't have access to the numbers. I KNOW that it is being played, my servers are still listed as High/Full, and that's it.

In fact, I'll count the servers again. Brb.

Edit: 93 High/Full pop servers on EU/Russia together. That's up by 9 from my last count. Yeah, this discussion has been useless, there's no more of a bleed now than there was at any point during BfA or Legion, despite what people with feels over reals were claiming.

[NineSpine]

I strongly disagree with lots of your points.

Good luck disagreeing with personal taste. Do you have any hot takes on how if someone likes a food you don't like they must be objectively wrong?

2.) Does FF14 not have any "weeklies/dalies"? Because there is lots of stuff in WoW, but it is not mandatory. From what I can tell, the FF community is more casual, and thus power gains are perceived as more optional than in WoW. Wow has so many optional things, that you can do, but don't have to unless you are going for top 500 world rank mythic kills, but still people only getting ATOC feel mandatory.

There are daily activities like "run a dungeon" and there are some daily quests but the daily quests are part of totally optional systems that usually take a couple of weeks to max out at most. Virtually everything in FF14, especially at endgame, is optional. Almost anyone can come close to BiS with minimal, sometimes zero, requirement to step foot in content they don't want to do.

3.) I am not sure about that point. Was having "DST-like" items really that great? Maybe, maybe not. Also I am not a fan of super linear progression.

I'm not sure what the point you are making here is. FF14 doesn't have DST-like items.

4.) In which % range is FF14 balanced, and do raid/dungeon speed run comps vary more than in WoW. Is that an effect of less competition or actual better balance.

You can't directly compare the % range, but it is less than WoW by about 5%. However, there is a nuance here: Classes in FF14 are not intended to do equal DPS. Some intentionally do more, and some intentionally do less while providing buffs as part of their rotations. For example, the Dancer has very low DPS but part of their rotation involves buffing a Dance Partner who gets a huge boost. The Black Mage does massive DPS but brings no buffs and is fucked if he has to move. With this in mind, the balance is as close to perfect as one could reasonably expect.

5.) That's neat, but just a different approach. Different people like different things. I like my class being a Warlock, and not whatever I feel like rn.

It's not like you can't main a class in FF14. The game just makes it easy and enjoyable to play the others without any hassle. In fact, there is one class, Blue Mage, that exists solely as a side game unto itself. You don't use it in endgame content. It exists just as a thing to play with (you collect abilities from monsters).

7.) Why is having cosmetics to chase a bad thing? You just above implied that WoW has too little optional content - Seems like a contradiction to me.

You misunderstand me. I didn't say only a handful of cosmetics exist. I said nothing requires insane grinds EXCEPT a handful of particular cosmetics. FF14 has a ton of cosmetics.

8.) That is HORRIBLE design imo. When do people have laughs, make jokes in raids? It is mostly during trash (at least in my guilds).

A lot of people can't raid in WoW because the time commitment is absurd due to the size of the raids. It's a matter of preference, not good or bad design. I'm personally not interested in spending a ton of time killing trash to get to the content I want to do.

9.) Which is again bad design imo. I do not want to play a running simulator to beat the boss I want to play my class. Also, WoW has dps-checks, but they are not tight unless you are really pushing world ranks. A raid consisting of dpsers with blue heroic logs, can achieve CE quite easily. It is still something to worry about, but you do not need to be brightest star on the wow sky to do it.

Again, this is a matter of preference not good or bad design. I'm not really personally interested in fights hinging so much on DPS checks that I need to climb a silly, pointless, ridiculously long ilvl barrier just to progress in content. It's important to remember here that FF14 does not have the ilvl inflation of WoW. There's basically one new ilvl tier of gear in a patch. That's it.

And yes I have worded my first sentence strongly. Obviously the are people that like FF more than WoW.
I only player 15hrs or so of FF, and compared it to a lvl 25 char in WoW. The gameplay just feels so much worse in FF. Maybe it is my bias, but you just get so little, no talents, after 3-4 hours of gameplay I got a new rank that does slightly more damage - wohooo.
Obvioulsy, this is just my opinion. I'd just say FF and WoW are for different types of players.

Get so little? The big complaint about FF14 is too many skills are in most rotations. It's bloated if anything. My Dark Knight has about 20 abilities that ALL get used in a given boss fight. I have six or seven different mitigation cooldowns of different types. That's how many skills are in a lot of WoW classes entire rotations.

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And I've provided the grounds for my opinion, you haven't.

As for my opinion on WoW's performance over the past 2 months, I can't say. I believed the game was struggling during 8.3, but it wasn't. I don't have access to the numbers. I KNOW that it is being played, my servers are still listed as High/Full, and that's it.

In fact, I'll count the servers again. Brb.

Server population is not based on a static number. The population designations are designated dynamically based on the total population. There will ALWAYS be High/Full servers. Blizzard clarified this after Classic came out because the Classic ones are static and people were inferring invalid stuff comparing them.

[Kohtra]

And I've provided the grounds for my opinion, you haven't.

As for my opinion on WoW's performance over the past 2 months, I can't say. I believed the game was struggling during 8.3, but it wasn't. I don't have access to the numbers. I KNOW that it is being played, my servers are still listed as High/Full, and that's it.

In fact, I'll count the servers again. Brb.

In other words, your own opinion is based on months old data and is basically meaningless right now. But you're perfectly happy accepting you must be right and I must be wrong. Neither of us can provide any real evidence. Is that so hard to admit?

[NineSpine]

How about you first provide me evidence that it IS happening? Why am I required to provide evidence, yet you're not? Although I do have evidence for my current views on the topic, linked them above from OFFICIAL source.

My opinion is based on the fact that the latest data we have mentioned growth and positives, nothing negative. What's going on right now won't become clear until the next official report, and until then I'll continue to believe that you and the rest are basing your opinions on 3rd party sources, streamer behaviour/twitch metrics and content creator opinions.

If it shows a drop/loss in engagement and less profit from the game, you'll have been correct about the loss even if it can't be proven where those players went. If not, if the report shows growth/stability, then I'll continue to be called incorrect by people such as yourself all the same... Same shit, different expansion, really.

Still waiting on that quote you keep saying exists from the quarterly report...

[Queen of Hamsters]

Still waiting on that quote you keep saying exists from the quarterly report...

And you're once again ignoring what's inconvenient and pretending it doesn't exist.

I literally linked it earlier on a prompt from another player. This will be my one and only interaction with you specifically in this thread.

[NineSpine]

And you're once again ignoring what's inconvenient and pretending it doesn't exist.

I literally linked it earlier on a prompt from another player. This will be my one and only interaction with you specifically in this thread.

No you didn't. The quote doesn't exist. You can go back to prattling on about how dynamic server population designations which adjust to total population prove anything, even though Blizzard has explicitly stated they don't.

[Queen of Hamsters]

In other words, your own opinion is based on months old data and is basically meaningless right now. But you're perfectly happy accepting you must be right and I must be wrong. Neither of us can provide any real evidence. Is that so hard to admit?

Not really, I'm saying that you should provide evidence for your claims, you tried turning that around. I'm basing my opinion on the only official data we have until there's new official data.

And to reiterate, my server count. This is a useless debate since more servers are high/full pop in my region now than even during prepatch and release, so on MY end there's no discernable bleed.

Have a good one. I'll wait for the next official report to form an opinion how the game's doing right now either way, since there are other regions to consider.

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No you didn't. The quote doesn't exist. You can go back to prattling on about how dynamic server population designations which adjust to total population prove anything, even though Blizzard has explicitly stated they don't.

https://www.wowhead.com/news/activis...re-2000-322172

"World of Warcraft has seen strong reach, engagement, and participation in value added services, along with a particularly high number of new players joining the community for the first time, boosted by initiatives to enhance the onboarding experience.
Shadowlands continues to drive strong results following its record-setting release in November, with first quarter franchise net bookings growing sharply."

Yes, I did.

Jesus Christ.

Also: https://investor.activision.com/stat...2-180eac785930

That's my quota for patience with you for this month reached. The fact that you and others have such strong opinions on the game's performance (which is of course always BAD!), yet in no way keep up with official reports, is laughable.

Get back to your own fantasy world where Retail WoW never ever performs well, no official data is to be trusted (illegal to deceive shareholders and make it sound like success) and everyone's moving to FFXIV based on... Feels.

[NineSpine]

Not really, I'm saying that you should provide evidence for your claims, you tried turning that around. I'm basing my opinion on the only official data we have until there's new official data.

And to reiterate, my server count. This is a useless debate since more servers are high/full pop in my region now than even during prepatch and release, so on MY end there's no discernable bleed.

Have a good one.

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https://www.wowhead.com/news/activis...re-2000-322172

"World of Warcraft has seen strong reach, engagement, and participation in value added services, along with a particularly high number of new players joining the community for the first time, boosted by initiatives to enhance the onboarding experience.
Shadowlands continues to drive strong results following its record-setting release in November, with first quarter franchise net bookings growing sharply."

Yes, I did.

Jesus Christ.

Also: https://investor.activision.com/stat...2-180eac785930

That's my quota for patience with you for this month reached.

Ah yes, the quote that says "WoW is doing good" and has no numbers, no comparisons, and nothing of value whatsoever in it. That's what you have? That's your rock solid "data" that WoW is doing well? This is the problem. You demand DATA from everyone else, and then you come in with "WOW DONE GOOD" from Activision, in what amounts to promotional material for investors, and you think you hit it out of the park.

Please continue to brag about the server metrics that Blizzard explicitly stated are not static.

[Shink]

nothing is worth experiencing shorter and shorter expansions

[Kohtra]

Not really, I'm saying that you should provide evidence for your claims, you tried turning that around. I'm basing my opinion on the only official data we have until there's new official data.

And to reiterate, my server count. This is a useless debate since more servers are high/full pop in my region now than even during prepatch and release, so on MY end there's no discernable bleed.

Have a good one.

There is no evidence either way yet. That's my point. You have an opinion, but you have just as much evidence as I do for mine: none. Please stop pretending you are automatically right and I'm automatically wrong.

And I'm fairly certain high/full pop counts are mostly relative rather than based on static numbers. If there were only 2 realms and one had 2 players online and the other had 1 then one would probably read as high pop and the other as low.

[subsidalos]

WoW is literal hot garbage shoved inside burnt toast inside of a toaster that hasn't been cleaned for 50 years

[Lane]

Not with the current team, no. They have a design philosophy that's gotten progressively worse since Legion that I don't want applied to EK & Kalimdor any more than I wanted the Cata changes. Honestly, if they didn't have to create open world content I don't think they would, but they have to because new zones are what sell expansions. As much as I'd love a revamp, I just don't see them interested in doing it.

It's possible during the 20 year anniversary, especially if the next expansion does poorly and they fundamentally change their focus. Worth noting that WoW's been in Cata time longer than vanilla and there'd be more incentive to play on a Cata Classic server (which would be due around that same time) if the content were no longer available in retail.

[muto]

No, because they shouldn’t have made the mistakes they made to begin with based on past systems that were not well received, but worked in a similar fashion such as Azerite Power, and Artifact Power. Now don’t get wrong I loved the power I got from the Artifacts, and Azerite, but the not-fun grind felt like a full time job. Now they added a bunch more similar systems. They simply do not learn.

[Queen of Hamsters]

There is no evidence either way yet. That's my point. You have an opinion, but you have just as much evidence as I do for mine: none. Please stop pretending you are automatically right and I'm automatically wrong.

And I'm fairly certain high/full pop counts are mostly relative rather than based on static numbers. If there were only 2 realms and one had 2 players online and the other had 1 then one would probably read as high pop and the other as low.

I've been going by the servers to determine where to play (always ending up with properly populated servers) and official quarterly reports for a clue on performance, since WoD when they stopped reporting subs. I'm good with doing so moving forward as well.

The number has increased. During worse times, it decreased and labels changed. That's all there is to it. I'm not saying anything on connected servers, only the labels changing and the count going up or down which nobody can convince me doesn't correlate with players joining/leaving, even if the server is merged x times.

As for the opinions and ability to back them up, I shall leave it unsaid since it doesn't seem to land that my opinion is based on something concrete, and won't change until there's something NEW concrete showing a change. I learnt not to base my opinion on my personal feelings for the game several times during BfA AND for the first period of SL.


Peace.

[Nerovar]

Edit: 93 High/Full pop servers on EU/Russia together. That's up by 9 from my last count. Yeah, this discussion has been useless, there's no more of a bleed now than there was at any point during BfA or Legion, despite what people with feels over reals were claiming.

This is somewhat misleading.

You have to take into consideration that connected realms will count the combined population and display it as the same for every realm in the same pool. So when you have like 10 dead realms that are all connected, they still all might actually display as high pop because their combined population somehow qualifies as high.

So when you take a look at e.g. EU English RP realms, you'll have Argent Dawn (which is just one full pop server) that is pretty decent in terms of population but then you also have the combined Defias Brotherhood et al. which is made up of 7 combined realms (all of them display high pop) but it's a fucking ghost town with barely any players to be found.

The list will tell you that these are 7 "high pop" realms when in reality all of them combined don't even have 10% of Argent Dawn's actual players. I mean, just log into one of those servers during prime time and check for yourself.

[Nite92]

Good luck disagreeing with personal taste. Do you have any hot takes on how if someone likes a food you don't like they must be objectively wrong?



There are daily activities like "run a dungeon" and there are some daily quests but the daily quests are part of totally optional systems that usually take a couple of weeks to max out at most. Virtually everything in FF14, especially at endgame, is optional. Almost anyone can come close to BiS with minimal, sometimes zero, requirement to step foot in content they don't want to do.



I'm not sure what the point you are making here is. FF14 doesn't have DST-like items.



You can't directly compare the % range, but it is less than WoW by about 5%. However, there is a nuance here: Classes in FF14 are not intended to do equal DPS. Some intentionally do more, and some intentionally do less while providing buffs as part of their rotations. For example, the Dancer has very low DPS but part of their rotation involves buffing a Dance Partner who gets a huge boost. The Black Mage does massive DPS but brings no buffs and is fucked if he has to move. With this in mind, the balance is as close to perfect as one could reasonably expect.



It's not like you can't main a class in FF14. The game just makes it easy and enjoyable to play the others without any hassle. In fact, there is one class, Blue Mage, that exists solely as a side game unto itself. You don't use it in endgame content. It exists just as a thing to play with (you collect abilities from monsters).



You misunderstand me. I didn't say only a handful of cosmetics exist. I said nothing requires insane grinds EXCEPT a handful of particular cosmetics. FF14 has a ton of cosmetics.



A lot of people can't raid in WoW because the time commitment is absurd due to the size of the raids. It's a matter of preference, not good or bad design. I'm personally not interested in spending a ton of time killing trash to get to the content I want to do.



Again, this is a matter of preference not good or bad design. I'm not really personally interested in fights hinging so much on DPS checks that I need to climb a silly, pointless, ridiculously long ilvl barrier just to progress in content. It's important to remember here that FF14 does not have the ilvl inflation of WoW. There's basically one new ilvl tier of gear in a patch. That's it.



Get so little? The big complaint about FF14 is too many skills are in most rotations. It's bloated if anything. My Dark Knight has about 20 abilities that ALL get used in a given boss fight. I have six or seven different mitigation cooldowns of different types. That's how many skills are in a lot of WoW classes entire rotations.

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Server population is not based on a static number. The population designations are designated dynamically based on the total population. There will ALWAYS be High/Full servers. Blizzard clarified this after Classic came out because the Classic ones are static and people were inferring invalid stuff comparing them.

What is that logic lol. Obviously I can argue about the points you brought up, it is your interpretation of things, with some of which I disagree.

You can also come close to BiS in WoW with only one type of content (Raiding, m+, or PvP). Currently there is some "only" raiding stuff you can get, but you said close to BiS, so I do not see this as being very different.

Items are part of keeping old content relevant. DST is an example, you would do older content to get stuff which is relevant right now.

That is pretty rose-tinted. Is a "Dancer" output (including their buffs) really within 5% of ALL other classes? That is something I highly doubt.

I know I can be just one class, but I think that there should be a distinction (BTW, I thought arguing with personal preference is a no-no ).

I'd argue the thing that gives "cosmetics" value/prestige is how hard they are to get. So not sure that this is a positive.

Yes, okay so be it - Raiding is not for everyone. If you cant play 3 hours straight once a week - play something else.

That is just false. First of all - I said "imo". Secondly you achieve this item level by just raiding - no need to do anything else.


I did not say there are to few relevant abilities at max level. All I said is that you acquire more stuff in WoW. It is faster paced. New abilities, abilities upgrade (not in a dps way, in a mechanical way), customization via talents.

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Ah yes, the quote that says "WoW is doing good" and has no numbers, no comparisons, and nothing of value whatsoever in it. That's what you have? That's your rock solid "data" that WoW is doing well? This is the problem. You demand DATA from everyone else, and then you come in with "WOW DONE GOOD" from Activision, in what amounts to promotional material for investors, and you think you hit it out of the park.

Please continue to brag about the server metrics that Blizzard explicitly stated are not static.

WoW broke the launch day sale record with WoW. So it is not based on assumptions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...lling_products

WoW sold 3.7 million copies day 1.

https://venturebeat.com/2020/12/08/w...c-game-launch/

So there is evidence.

[Triceron]

Theres a billion ways to muck up reality without it being the Jailer. Heck even a failed Gnome experiment could end up tearing up the cosmos.

[Advent]

We both know that no data will satisfy you. There will be excuse after excuse for the massive influx of players into FF14, a game which also steadily grows *between expansions*, a feat that WoW hasn't done in over a decade. You will also have excuses for everything WoW related getting ratioed. You will have excuses for the forums being full of seething hatred for the game. You will have excuses for the biggest wow streamer getting *bigger* when he switched to FF14.

You'll have excuses for all of it, so why waste time asking for it?

Holy christ dude. Someone made a claim, and another person asked for proof. This is debate 101. If someone claimed the building you lived in was structurally unsound, wouldn't you ask for proof? Or would you just take their word for it?

[Stormdash]

Jailer is out there doing "Reality's end" stuff. If he's a plot point to usher in a massive 10.0 world revamp and redone systems and classes, etc. do you think that would change your perspective on Shadowlands?

Basically knowing they were doing a ton of work for the massive rework and Shadowlands would just be a WoD to a mega-Legion.

If they do a big revamp for 10.0*, going to the Shadowlands may have been worth it because it at least gets us out of the "world" while it's being refurbished. I mean, I don't like Shadowlands pretty much from a concept level up - they've completely demystified death and grief and loss in the Warcraft lore by turning the afterlife into just... a faraway place that's inconvenient to visit but otherwise available. It's New Jersey, now. But if you can say anything for sending us to a different metaphysical plane or whatever-the-actual this place even is, they justified some fundamental reality shifting.

*I've previously been on the "burn Shadowlands, do a 9.2 raid to finish up, and get us onto 10.x by this time next year" train but honestly it's been so disappointing, and the pressure is now so high from alternative games, I have changed my mind - still just do a 9.2 but be willing to drag it out and put in the actual work to REALLY overhaul the game for 10.0 and do it right, stop throwing good money after bad and good time after bad. Would rather have a real WoW renaissance in 2023 than just the next single-serving expac in 2022.

[NineSpine]

What is that logic lol. Obviously I can argue about the points you brought up, it is your interpretation of things, with some of which I disagree.

You can also come close to BiS in WoW with only one type of content (Raiding, m+, or PvP). Currently there is some "only" raiding stuff you can get, but you said close to BiS, so I do not see this as being very different.

Sweet, so no Torghast and no legendaries? Sounds like "close to BiS" to me! You have to either be doing high end M+ or Heroic raids to get close to BiS, and both of those are going to require you to do lots of content to initially get to, Torghast for legendaries, possibly other content for the legendary recipe, and of course whatever you need to do to get your soulbinds up. Virtually nobody is doing heroic raids and no M+ because the advantage doing that content gives you is masive.

I've played both games extensively. You haven't, so lecturing me about how wrong I am about a game you've barely played is not productive.

Items are part of keeping old content relevant. DST is an example, you would do older content to get stuff which is relevant right now.

Again, you don't know what you are talking about. Every final fantasy dungeon is evergreen content. Every raid. Every trial. Every piece of side content. Every system. Every endgame zone. Not the last one or the ones from the expansion. EVERY ONE. To compare that to "Once in awhile an old raid can have a good item" is really ignorant.

That is pretty rose-tinted. Is a "Dancer" output (including their buffs) really within 5% of ALL other classes? That is something I highly doubt.

No, I said the percentage is 5% closer than WoW, even considering that FF intentionally has lower output characters. Your inability to believe it doesn't change that it's true. Again, one of us has played both. One has not.

I know I can be just one class, but I think that there should be a distinction (BTW, I thought arguing with personal preference is a no-no ).

A distinction between what? If you want to play one class nobody is stopping you.

I'd argue the thing that gives "cosmetics" value/prestige is how hard they are to get. So not sure that this is a positive.

I said there aren't giant grinds. I didn't say there isn't anything that takes time or is hard. Once again, I know what I'm talking about and you don't. The hardest raid difficulty in FF14 forces you to scale down to it. You can't overgear it. You can't go back next expansion and farm the transmogs. The first raid is still as difficult as it was at release.

Yes, okay so be it - Raiding is not for everyone. If you cant play 3 hours straight once a week - play something else.

Do you think that this kind of ignorant condescension is compelling?

That is just false. First of all - I said "imo". Secondly you achieve this item level by just raiding - no need to do anything else.

So what? I'm not interested in farming earlier fights to hit an arbitrary ilvl to clear the next fights. I want the raids to be a test of my skill, not a test of my patience.

I did not say there are to few relevant abilities at max level. All I said is that you acquire more stuff in WoW. It is faster paced. New abilities, abilities upgrade (not in a dps way, in a mechanical way), customization via talents.

"Customization" where you choose the right talent or you are bad and underpowered? Wow, what choice! I'll take the balance instead, thanks.

So your argument is that WoW gives you more abilities earlier on while leveling? That's it. If that's really important to you, that's fine, but pretending that frontloading abilities and then giving you very little later on is great is some game breaking change... ok

WoW broke the launch day sale record with WoW. So it is not based on assumptions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...lling_products

WoW sold 3.7 million copies day 1.

https://venturebeat.com/2020/12/08/w...c-game-launch/

So there is evidence.

What does that have to do with retention problems a half a year later?

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Holy christ dude. Someone made a claim, and another person asked for proof. This is debate 101. If someone claimed the building you lived in was structurally unsound, wouldn't you ask for proof? Or would you just take their word for it?

And arguments were presented about the information we had, and then post after post the asker made excuses to dismiss all information and declare themselves right because Blizzard says WoW is good.