Ways to encourage playing other than gating & boring systems

[Alydael]

Just brainstorming here, not saying this is a good idea or anything, but as a topic discussion starting point: one idea is to introduce a “hero” class-level (one per class, applicable to all specs) stance that you enter into after having spent a certain amount of time in game actively fighting and maybe help encourage players to play the game more and experience this new way of playing their class without any of the frustrating systems we have now.

I agree with you that they hurt themselves by trying to "trick" players into playing more with grinds and systems.

I think that is a terrible approach to making a game and I think it has hurt them a great deal and cost them a ton of potential profit $$$. They lost a lot of money on these grinds and systems.

I have a few out of the box ideas to increase engagement without grinds/ systems, etc.

How about: a good story with suspense so that people are invested in the NPCs and actually want to find out what happens?
Better use of gating- why does the raid just "show up" one day with all the bosses? It makes no sense for the narrative. How about it gets slowly introduced and is actually more entwined with the story?

You do the story and the quests and then you face the raid boss at the end. This "opens" the boss in the raid.

I know people will complain about attunements and other things......... For that I suggest having a lobby raid/ dungeon server. This could be for the players that just want to dungeon/ raid/ pvp without doing any quests, attunements, etc.

Many players just want to rush through everything to get to the "end game" and then start working on their min/max (some people are max level first day by rushing through) That's fine. It is just going to be really difficult to make a game that pleases: regular players trying to enjoy a game, streamers, players trying to rush through everything to get to end min/max, players going for e-sports, pvpers, etc...

That's why the game is a convoluted mess- they are trying to provide for all those different player types at the same time. Some of those are directly at odds with each other. A separate "end game" server that just provides access to raid/ dungeons/ without attunements and other things that make for cool story moments that those players just don't care about. Put the e-sports crowd on that server too.

* That's why I find it hilarious that min/max players will complain about the story. The story is lower quality because they are so limited on what they can do because of that very crowd. Attunements- nope can't do that. I just want to raid! What if one of my raid team didn't get attuned? Why does Blizz lock stuff behind these walls! Arrghhh! Your cov choice matters- no! Can't do that! What if one choice is slightly better than the other and I am stuck with the wrong one! Choices can not matter (in an rpg type game no less.....) Everything has to be exactly the same! Wait, this story sucks.... why can't they write a good story?
Literally makes no sense.......

[phattsao]

It would definitely be good if they took the casual base a bit more seriously. One thing that I really liked in previous xpacs was bonus rolls/loot upgrades. It made the lower level stuff worth doing, and it didn't leave you walking away empty handed after hours of playing.

I know the hardcore raiders complained about it because it "forced them to do LFR"...which I don't really care about. If you feel "forced" to do something in a game, that's on you. Plus, having geared people in LFR actually helps everyone.

The designers kept catering to this elite 1% of streamers....and those guys are all jumping ship now anyway. Time to take a look at the people who actually pay your bills.

[Elias1337]

It would definitely be good if they took the casual base a bit more seriously. One thing that I really liked in previous xpacs was bonus rolls/loot upgrades. It made the lower level stuff worth doing, and it didn't leave you walking away empty handed after hours of playing.

I know the hardcore raiders complained about it because it "forced them to do LFR"...which I don't really care about. If you feel "forced" to do something in a game, that's on you. Plus, having geared people in LFR actually helps everyone.

The designers kept catering to this elite 1% of streamers....and those guys are all jumping ship now anyway. Time to take a look at the people who actually pay your bills.

Game isnt boring beocuse of lack of high end rewards on casual level. Specialy not now where game completly resets your gear progression with every single patch.

[Thraenduil]

I had this thought a couple of days ago. Should Blizzard remove the biggest gatekeeper of them all: Level cap?

Increase the needed exp for max level tremendously so people need to keep leveling throughout the expansion. But at the same time make all instanced content playable for all levels and part of the leveling process. Don't lock raids behind level cap but give players raids that can be done anytime. Mobs in instances can have varying levels but too big gaps don't make your spells miss all the time.

In short, Let players do all the content at any point of their journey and put attunements in only if it makes a good story to play through.

[ihate2beapessimist]

Players will run the same dungeon a million times if it means getting one piece of gear that 6 other classes really need because its BIS 5ever

[MoanaLisa]

Participation in raids above lfr is less than 10% in 9.1. And thats with boosting. Participation in high end content is at its lowest point since we can track. Players do not care about difficulty levels.

It's clear by reading your sentences and words that choices are being made. Players apparently care a great deal what difficulties they choose not to play in.

- - - Updated - - -

I had this thought a couple of days ago. Should Blizzard remove the biggest gatekeeper of them all: Level cap?

There are MMO's that release expansions that are designed around an existing level cap, i.e. the expansion is all end game. I don't know if that's removing level cap but the practical difference isn't that great.

[Elias1337]

It's clear by reading your sentences and words that choices are being made. Players apparently care a great deal what difficulties they choose not to play in.

Following path of least resistance isnt choice. If there is obvious way to achieve somthing more efficienly players will always pick it regardless if they want do LFR or not. They will rather get bored in LFR and quit than wasting time being unefficient in higher difficulty levels.

[Huehuecoyotl]

There are MMO's that release expansions that are designed around an existing level cap, i.e. the expansion is all end game. I don't know if that's removing level cap but the practical difference isn't that great.

That's the single biggest change that Blizzard could make that would solve a lot of issues. Get out of this mentality that content is throwaway; not only do they reset everything for every expansion, they reset DURING an expansion. The deliberately set about ensuring that only a tiny portion of the content they've spent decades creating is relevant at any point.

Break that cycle, and work towards being like GW2 in that everything is end-game and remains end-game. If someone doesn't play for a year, they come back to a year's worth of content that they can play, enjoy and be rewarded by. Not just in a cosmetic sense, but in real terms.

Make it so you can run old raids and dungeons in two ways; as an outleveled player soloing them for pets, mounts and transmogs. Or as a group downleveled to experience them as they were. But the downleveled version rewards current "end game" gear. Can provide rep if the right tabards are worn. Will drop materials relevant to the current end-game.

Do this, and suddenly the game has an enormous amount of content. Dozens upon dozens of raids. Countless dungeons. Quest chains experienced as they were intended to. Classic almost (but not quite) becomes irrelevant, because you can do it all on one character, in Retail.

Of course some people will still move towards the easiest path; spamming a dungeon or raid because it's "best" for mats, XP or items. Who cares? Let them do that, if they wish. Or put daily lockouts on dungeons, if you want to at least control it to a degree. It's not like anyone would run out of dungeons if they could only do each one once a day.

Otherwise we'll carry on getting complaints about a lack of content, because every new patch renders all previous content obsolete. You can never keep up if that's your model, so break the cycle and start using the enormous back-catalogue of content that's already there.

[MoanaLisa]

Following path of least resistance isnt choice.

That's nonsense. It's a choice to follow the path of least resistance. Every fucking time. You choose what and how you play. Being lazy is a choice as well.

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That's the single biggest change that Blizzard could make that would solve a lot of issues. Get out of this mentality that content is throwaway; not only do they reset everything for every expansion, they reset DURING an expansion. The deliberately set about ensuring that only a tiny portion of the content they've spent decades creating is relevant at any point.

Break that cycle, and work towards being like GW2 in that everything is end-game and remains end-game. If someone doesn't play for a year, they come back to a year's worth of content that they can play, enjoy and be rewarded by. Not just in a cosmetic sense, but in real terms.

I'll only say it's great and is far more to my liking than any other progression system design. There are endless things to do. It's also dead simple to play with friends or acquaintances at any level.

I'm not criticizing any other game. The major MMO's all bring something to the table that I like. They also all have their problems, flaws and things that bug me or that I just don't like. For the most part all of the now five MMO's that I am playing are enjoyable experiences for different reasons.

[Elias1337]

That's nonsense. It's a choice to follow the path of least resistance. Every fucking time. You choose what and how you play. Being lazy is a choice as well.

No its not. Becouse in WoW being lazy or putting in work/effort doesnt make any differece you still get into same point. Literaly only difference between doing LFR and Mythic raid is 1 single achievement. Thats it. Thats only difference so no *** players have no desire to do it.

[Djuntas]

Make fun content. That might bloody help. Let people play however they want.

[Empower]

No its not. Becouse in WoW being lazy or putting in work/effort doesnt make any differece you still get into same point. Literaly only difference between doing LFR and Mythic raid is 1 single achievement. Thats it. Thats only difference so no *** players have no desire to do it.

I always feel disconnected from posts like this. I have nearly every raid cleared on its hardest difficulty when current barring some wrath and legion+ bfa just due to life events and not having time to fuck around with the power systems.

There doesn't need to be a special reward for mythic,hell there doesn't need to be any. Difficulty is a choice every player makes. I rarely run lfr since mop ( the last expansion I can point to with broken drops where lfr could be vital for mythic progression via trinket drops). I still do lfr and even lower difficulties like normal and heroic at times for transmog.

That said if I didn't have mythic wow wouldn't be a game I would play. I don't have an issue with people enjoying the game the way they want so long as blizzard doesn't force me into their parts of the game to enjoy my parts... it's why I hate world content and choreghast.

Lfr shouldn't drop runes granted it's a consumable designed for mythic raiders. Still that said it drops from multiple places so it's been mitigated.

[Elias1337]

I always feel disconnected from posts like this. I have nearly every raid cleared on its hardest difficulty when current barring some wrath and legion+ bfa just due to life events and not having time to fuck around with the power systems.

There doesn't need to be a special reward for mythic,hell there doesn't need to be any. Difficulty is a choice every player makes. I rarely run lfr since mop ( the last expansion I can point to with broken drops where lfr could be vital for mythic progression via trinket drops). I still do lfr and even lower difficulties like normal and heroic at times for transmog.

That said if I didn't have mythic wow wouldn't be a game I would play. I don't have an issue with people enjoying the game the way they want so long as blizzard doesn't force me into their parts of the game to enjoy my parts... it's why I hate world content and choreghast.

Lfr shouldn't drop runes granted it's a consumable designed for mythic raiders. Still that said it drops from multiple places so it's been mitigated.

Yes there has to be otherwise most people will simply quit your game. Rhata why you see such low raid participaton in raid content above LFR. There is no point wasting time in higher difficulty levels just for sake of challenge when there is plenty of other games what actuly does offer tons of exclusive content for beating their challenging mod.

[Niwes]

Just brainstorming here, not saying this is a good idea or anything, but as a topic discussion starting point: one idea is to introduce a “hero” class-level (one per class, applicable to all specs) stance that you enter into after having spent a certain amount of time in game actively fighting and maybe help encourage players to play the game more and experience this new way of playing their class without any of the frustrating systems we have now.

Example stances:
Warrior -> Gladiator
Paladin -> Spellbreaker
Death Knight -> Mawsworn
Hunter -> Dark Ranger
Shaman -> Dragonsworn
Rogue -> Ninja
Monk -> Lorewalker
Druid -> Druid of the Flame
Demon Hunter -> Warden
Mage -> Blood Mage
Warlock -> Necromancer
Priest -> Cultist

The player can choose to enter this stance whenever it becomes active or just ignore it or use it at a more appropriate timing. This could serve as a replacement to the temporary powers and a fresh new way to play classes unlocked after finishing an epic end game quest chain. The devs can then iterate on this system every expansion to keep things interesting. This kind of a system maybe not suitable for PvP which is OK considering PvP has exclusive talents/abilities.

you need no longer than 1 hour to come up with 50 good ideas of better „content“ IF you would accept the follwoing base constraints:

- the content dont need to scale well, profitwise.
- the content dont need to scale well, timewise.
- the content dont need perfect balancing.
- the content dont have to fall under „cost effective development“.
- the content dont need to be perfectly maintainable.
- the content dont need to be completely exploit safe.
- the content dont need to fit in perfectly in existing shemes, like reusing of game mechanics.
- the content dont need to fit in perfectly in existing shemes, like recycling of world- and game-elements.
- the content dont need to cater to everyone.
- the content dont need to last longer than 1 patch.

IF you ever would accept above points (spoiler: Blizz will not), you could add GREAT content to the game and everyone with some brain and good wow experience could come up with A LOT of great ideas in an hour.

the problem is, Blizz created a giant bunch of constraints on themselfes, that never allows them to do great things. because its either not cost effective enough, or not „wow-secure“ enough, or not scalable enough. thats why they always land on the same shit again and thats why they do that same shit over and over. at least they know for sure, that this shit sells. and they have such heavy constraints, they simply cant come up with something better. so they stick to their formula.

simple as that.

[Empower]

Yes there has to be otherwise most people will simply quit your game. Rhata why you see such low raid participaton in raid content above LFR. There is no point wasting time in higher difficulty levels just for sake of challenge when there is plenty of other games what actuly does offer tons of exclusive content for beating their challenging mod.

I don't think anyone cares. WoW flourishes before lfr and mythic.

I have no idea why people care about who does what. You build mythic then just strip it down to a mildly interactive YouTube movie for those who want that.

[Kathranis]

Well, the way I see it, anything they do that has milestone markers is going to be called gating anyway.

I feel like Renown is probably the wrong angle because it's "world content" with weekly limits. It's fine to have daily world content, or even Callings that you do once every three days. But when it's a task you do once a week with no further progress, it feels like gating.

Really, I think Timeless Isle is still the perfect model for repeatable world content. It's not something you just go and do once a day, it's a place where you hang out and participate in content for as long as it takes to get what you want, whenever you have time to do it. Korthia is decent but I feel like it'd be more fun if you were incentivized to keep killing rares even if you'd already killed them that day. Even if it means lowering the drop rates for the cosmetic rewards. Also I really feel like they don't need to cap Cataloged Research. At all.