Pro-Tips on how to design casual player content right

[schmonz]

I thought about listing some ideas how blizzard could improve casual gamer gameplay in the world and in general. Add yours if you like or flame the shit out of mine if you think they are inadequate:

1.) No thousand currencies

An example from dragonflight:

1. Flightstones
2. Elemental Overflow
3. Dragon Isles Supplies
4. Wyrm's Dreaming Crest
5. Drake's Dreaming Crest
6. Aspect's Dreaming Crest
7. Whelpling's Dreaming Crest
8. Storm Sigil
9. Paracausal Flakes
10. Mysterious Fragment
11. Dream Infusion
12. Emerald Dewdrop
13. Seedbloom
14. Wyrm's Awakened Crest
15. Whelpling's Awakened Crest
16. Aspect's Awakened Crest
17. Cobalt Assembly
18. Dragon Glyph Embers
19. Effigy Adornments
20. Purified Arcane Energy

2.) No inventory full of green or white quest garbage - "Fragment of a broken gnome helmet, #2892", "Little spark of a enchanted something (100)", "Horn splinters of a deceased gnomosaur (1000)"..
3.) No overly complex pathes to get to endgame. In the splash starting screen always link the quest where current endgame starts ("Ok, adventurerer, please click here to get the link to "Breadcrumb quest of the very new island noone ever saw before")
4.) Do not make campaigns linear. Allow people to skip older campaign quests
5.) Make gameplay rewarding. And no, transmogs are not enough.
6.) Create instanced gameplay for solo players and small groups. Every expac. Try not to skip that as like in Dragonflight.
7.) Share every reputation/renown/any kind of bar progression on the whole account (Yes, yes, i know, warbands..)
8.) Make leveling matter for more than .. leveling. Example: Allow people to get heirlooms from questing. And not just.. gold.

If you have ideas, go for it.

[Ghostile]

How many of these currencies are relevant atm?

[Baraden]

How many of these currencies are relevant atm?

Like 3 of them, but he couldn't make a thread for attention then

[schmonz]

How many of these currencies are relevant atm?

So you say all those thousands of paracausal flakes do not matter anymore?

Gosh. Next time i login i have to do some inventory management, don't i?

[WowIsDead64]

1) Stop trying to remove flying, remove jump puzzles instead
2) Remove aggro/combat
3) Decrease density of mobs
4) Remove rares/elites/overtuned mobs
5) Stop trying to force PVP/pseudo-PVP/competing with other players
6) Add bad luck protection
7) Return interesting quest lines instead of boring side-quests and WQs
8) Implement smooth character progression route - no brick walls
9) Remove time-gating and therefore FOMO

[FelPlague]

"Remove combat"
Holy fucking shit lolololololoolololol

[WowIsDead64]

"Remove combat"
Holy fucking shit lolololololoolololol

If Blizzard don't even know, how to properly use it, then it would be better to simply remove it.

[Ghostile]

If Blizzard don't even know, how to properly use it, then it would be better to simply remove it.

A slight correction here.

I think you're the one unable to cope with it properly which isn't basis for removing it.

[Dracullus]

"Remove combat"
Holy fucking shit lolololololoolololol

Truly thread for pro-champs with pro-tips xD.

[Azadina]

1) Stop trying to remove flying, remove jump puzzles instead
2) Remove aggro/combat
3) Decrease density of mobs
4) Remove rares/elites/overtuned mobs
5) Stop trying to force PVP/pseudo-PVP/competing with other players
6) Add bad luck protection
7) Return interesting quest lines instead of boring side-quests and WQs
8) Implement smooth character progression route - no brick walls
9) Remove time-gating and therefore FOMO

Great idea! Just fantastic. Other than WoW combat system is the best there is in the genre, by a galactic mile. It's one of the things it gets right. Why not remove the whole game while we're at it?

[WowIsDead64]

A slight correction here.

I think you're the one unable to cope with it properly which isn't basis for removing it.

We have this problem for years. They don't have any quality standard and constantly overuse combat as result. Only way for them to get rid of temptation to do it - to simply remove combat.

Just ask yourself simple question. What purpose does it serve? To prevent us from skipping mobs? It's ok for dungeons and raids, yeah. But not for outdoor. In outdoor killing mobs is pointless, as it's not even way to clear our route from point A to point B. Mobs constantly respawn and only meaningful reason to kill them - to complete your quest objective. And player will do it, no matter if combat exists or not. Only justification for it's existence - to learn dungeon/raid mechanics and getting used to them in advance . Yeah. Ok. But don't overuse it then! For what reason whole outdoor content is turned into aggro-maze? Some sort of minefield or stealth-action? It's done for no reason. And if Blizzard don't know where to stop - it would be better to simply remove combat.

[Ghostile]

We have this problem for years. They don't have any quality standard and constantly overuse combat as result. Only way for them to get rid of temptation to do it - to simply remove combat.

You say "we" when you mean "I"

[schmonz]

Well, if combat really is too hard for players, the devs should make it less complex.

I for example did not get into evokers. I have still no idea how to play them. Or why they have such a limited tool set.

Good games are easy to learn and hard to master.

[ceall]

We have this problem for years. They don't have any quality standard and constantly overuse combat as result. Only way for them to get rid of temptation to do it - to simply remove combat.

Just ask yourself simple question. What purpose does it serve? To prevent us from skipping mobs? It's ok for dungeons and raids, yeah. But not for outdoor. In outdoor killing mobs is pointless, as it's not even way to clear our route from point A to point B. Mobs constantly respawn and only meaningful reason to kill them - to complete your quest objective. And player will do it, no matter if combat exists or not. Only justification for it's existence - to learn dungeon/raid mechanics and getting used to them in advance . Yeah. Ok. But don't overuse it then! For what reason whole outdoor content is turned into aggro-maze? Some sort of minefield or stealth-action? It's done for no reason. And if Blizzard don't know where to stop - it would be better to simply remove combat.

There's a mmo that just launched on Steam called Palia. It does exactly what you want. There's ZERO Combat in it. Maybe you should start playing that and finally leave wow and this forum (where all your posts are delusional) behind.

[XDurionX]

I don't know which profession makes up the "pro" here, but it's certainly not game design.

[Soeroah]

I don't mind the many little currencies to buy mounts and pets that's essentially Protoform Synthesis without the blueprints, but I think they shouldn't go into a bag but something closer to the old key ring system, a sort of faux-inventory box of materials. Closer to currency, but not in the currency tab itself, though with the new categories they're adding to help tidy the currency tab up, perhaps.

[WowIsDead64]

You say "we" when you mean "I"

We - all players, who quit back in WOD due to attempt to remove flying.

Look. Wow pretends to be old school RPG, where approach to completion of content mattered. Today's Wow is purely about grind anyway. So, combat exists only to slow players down and force them to kill 10x more mobs, than they actually need to complete their objective.

[schmonz]

I don't know which profession makes up the "pro" here, but it's certainly not game design.

At least pro-armchair-designer

[Ghostile]

We - all players, who quit back in WOD due to attempt to remove flying.

Look. Wow pretends to be old school RPG, where approach to completion of content mattered. Today's Wow is purely about grind anyway. So, combat exists only to slow players down and force them to kill 10x more mobs, than they actually need to complete their objective.

This would make sense if I couldn't drop next to my targets and kill just them or on the box I need to loot.

[mysticx]

We - all players, who quit back in WOD due to attempt to remove flying.

Look. Wow pretends to be old school RPG, where approach to completion of content mattered. Today's Wow is purely about grind anyway. So, combat exists only to slow players down and force them to kill 10x more mobs, than they actually need to complete their objective.

What else will we be doing if we're not fighting mobs? Clicking ground spawns? Hardly riveting content, is it?

Combat is the core of the game (And arguably, the thing it excels at), without it, WoW is just a basic point-and-click adventure game.

The main reason for people to engage with content is to get better gear, to make our characters better at... oh right, combat.