Will "casual" players defend blizzards next expansion feature?

[El Gucaragua]

I defend the features if I find them fun, how exactly do you think I'm supposed to know that before they're even announced, let alone playable?

Garrisons sounded interesting in concept. Customizable player housing? How interesting!

Then it released.

Garrisons didn't have player power attached to them though.

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"My opinion is the only one that matters," isn't a good look for anybody. Some people will enjoy the game and its features, some will not. To assume that makes any of them wrong is just being an asshole because the internet gives you the anonymity to do so.

It wasn't an opinion that covenant restrictions were bad for the game, it was a fact. People can still enjoy trash, doesn't make us an asshole for pointing out it's still objectively bad.

[Biggles Worth]

I have the curse of a long and accurate memory it burdens me most of the time. While players are lambasting blizzard now I recall countless threads from players who were unable to think things through to their logical end ceaselessly defend covenants as " meaningful choices".

Will this cycle repeat much like it did in legion, bfa and sl or has such a savage blow been struck that this time around the " casual" playerbase will trust the higher end?

You need to remove the word casual from your argument.

[Osmeric]

Designing the game to only one of these groups doesn't work, the game can't thrive on only one group. .

Why can't the game thrive on just casuals?

[InflaterMouse]

I use the term casual because it's what they call themselves. I call myself a raider so I refer to myself as such. I'm not really interested in debating the label they gave themselves it's simply easier to use it.

Educate me here, when did who call themselves casuals? Up until recently I was raiding as well, sometimes in 2 different raids per week and I am a casual. I mean I am AOC on heroic, won't see it on mythic due to scheduling and right now only really have time for mythic groups around the weekends but I'm still a casual. I guess my point is who gets to label?

Edited to add: I guess it might be my own opinion of a casual but doing dailys, trying to build your toon correctly, knowing fights and showing up to a raid a couple days per week isn't hardcore or a top 1% to me. Raiding world first, server first or cutting edge moves my opinion of a player past casual I guess. I realize that isn't definitive as well, not all of them will fall into a specific category.

Just mythic 1st raiders, top 5% mythic + folks, gladiators move into a different skill demographic with me. There is more to it of course but im trying to figure out who calls it and who gets to set the standard I guess.

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Min-maxing was a huge thing in TBC and WotLK not just for individuals but also raid composition.

Probably more so than any other expansion by far. Totally agree with this and kind of miss it. Defensive cap, armor pen and stuff like that was sort of appealing to me I guess. I hate things like weapon skills and anything like it.

[aceperson]

I have the curse of a long and accurate memory it burdens me most of the time. While players are lambasting blizzard now I recall countless threads from players who were unable to think things through to their logical end ceaselessly defend covenants as " meaningful choices".

Will this cycle repeat much like it did in legion, bfa and sl or has such a savage blow been struck that this time around the " casual" playerbase will trust the higher end?

as a certain scam artist, turned president has proven, there are people who will defend anything.

[fruitbasket102]

Yeah, 100% agree. Im sick of loosing cool skills/mechanics i fall in love with, just to get new (boring) ones, so they can bring back the cool shit 2 expacs later. I mean most Legendarys/Conduits are Skills/Legendarys/Artifact Skills we got 2-3 Expacs back.

They remove cool things for no reason, just to hype the audience for bringing them back "HEY LOOK HOW WE CARE FOR PVP! WE BRING BACK UNIQUE SKILLS; LIKE SHATTERING THROW AND INTERVIN! NOW CHEER FOR US; CAUSE WE LISTENED!!!! AND WE CAREEEEEE!!!!!" there was never be need to remove skills like that at all.



For me this game is still a ROLEPLAY game. And im anoyed by this min/max community. Im sick of all these Ratings like rio, damage and heal meters. People these days dont play for fun, they play for being optimized as fck and doing the hardest content the fastes way.

Generally i would say "i dont care, people can do what they want" - but their mentaly is like cancer, that grown over the years and now has 90% of the playerbase a mindset like these.

I was a big fan of "making a meaningful choice" - because its fun to see different playstyles, but Blizzard failed in balancing, so some classes have just this one covenant to pick, because its super mega ultr amzing in all, and all others dont.

People these days just looking for best numbers, noone cares about fun gameplay, unique builds etc.

I wish Blizzard would remove Rio, and addons that check performance in general, because they optimizing the fun out of the game.

so everyone would run around like headless chickens ? if you want roleplay games with no min maxing there are plenty of games for you man

[ohwell]

Your long and accurate memory must be on the on the fritz. Casual player choose what ever covenant that looked cool to them. It was the tryhards who spat the dummy when they Buff/Nerfed them and they had to swap to get another 0.0003% dps. That the sort of reply your bait was looking to hook?

Actually you're mostly right. However, the casuals who acted like it mattered to them when it didn't were also trying to tear down covs etc or like I say about most of the people who claim to be casual here, they actually were just claiming to be casual when they really were not.

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as a certain scam artist, turned president has proven, there are people who will defend anything.

So....almost all of them?

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Why can't the game thrive on just casuals?

Because they haven't been the primary source of income for a long long time. The game can lose probably(just an estimate) 1k subscribers sooner than 1 medium name streamer. Game revenue in the age of "esports" and streaming has expanded far beyond subs.

[Osmeric]

Because they haven't been the primary source of income for a long long time. The game can lose probably(just an estimate) 1k subscribers sooner than 1 medium name streamer. Game revenue in the age of "esports" and streaming has expanded far beyond subs.

This is an interesting assertion. How does Blizzard make money from e-sports?

[Paperfox]

Why can't the game thrive on just casuals?

The other day I watched a video (sorry, can't remember who) where they compared Blizz's quarterly report from 2016 IIRC and the last one. Although the MAUs have fallen nearly in half, WoW's income was nearly the same.

Since subs dropped in half and not everybody bought mounts, then the most likely other source of revenue is tokens.

You get a guy who buys the game, a bunch of tokens, raids then proceeds to quit a month or two later. Depending on how many tokens he bought he could have provided Blizz with the same or greater income in two months as you or I do in a year.

No wonder the game is designed as it is.

Back on topic: I won't be defending the next expansion's borrowed power feature - whatever it is. I'm not even sure I'll be playing in six months.

[arkanon]

as a certain scam artist, turned president has proven, there are people who will defend anything.

President of what? What are you talking about?

[Flatspriest]

I have the curse of a long and accurate memory it burdens me most of the time. While players are lambasting blizzard now I recall countless threads from players who were unable to think things through to their logical end ceaselessly defend covenants as " meaningful choices".

Will this cycle repeat much like it did in legion, bfa and sl or has such a savage blow been struck that this time around the " casual" playerbase will trust the higher end?

What exactly do you mean, the higher end? Are you saying you are better than other players and know more? You don't. Thinking that you do is a sure sign you have no idea what you are talking about. Covenants DID matter when they were first introduced, and still do, otherwise players would not be swapping to and fro to get the best DPS for their spec. Just because you don't think they matter doesn't make it so. Also, there is the thing about personal choice for what "better" means to each and every individual who plays.

[ohwell]

This is an interesting assertion. How does Blizzard make money from e-sports?

Ad revenue..... how does anyone make money on YouTube.... are you new to the past couple of decades or so?

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President of what? What are you talking about?

He's talking about "the big lie" even though we had 2016-2020 of people claiming that election was stolen as well. It's basically been happening multiple elections in the past 6 years or so. Even Stacey Abrams from Georgia spent years claiming her recent defeat was a "stolen election". Anyone who doesn't win at this point can and will claim it was stolen and people will support it on party lines.

[hulkgor]

This thread is silly.

First off, "casuals" don't frequent game boards\forums. They just play when they're feeling it. Secondly, how can anyone, "casual" or otherwise, defend (or not) something that no one knows anything about, and is over a year away?

Lastly, OP is just absurd with all the "curse", "burden" and the like. Get a grip man.

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Ad revenue..... how does anyone make money on YouTube.... are you new to the past couple of decades or so?

Pretty sure Blizzard loses money from e-sports.

[khazmodan]

What an elitist bullshit remark.

Why the hatred against casuals anyway? If you're playing this game casual or hardcore it's like playing a different game. What is fun to a casual player isn't fun to a hardcore player. And vice versa.

Designing the game to only one of these groups doesn't work, the game can't thrive on only one group. So there need to be fun things for casual players and the hardcore folks can have their mythic+ dungeons and mythic raiding.

What you're asking however is designing the game completely around hardcore raiding, all game aspects have to be balanced and tweaked in your favour. I can guarantee you that a lot of people will leave with that stubborn mindset.

If you ask me the game thrives on a casual basis with hardcore aspects. A little bit of everything for everyone.

You are absolutely correct, when WoW was at its best is when it understood that even hardcores have times when they want to play some or a lot of casual gameplay, whether it be professions, farming, fishing, pet battles, transmog collecting, and so many other things. For me; hyper focusing on progression sounds like being trapped on a wheel with very little freedom to explore and while I understand that the raiders can hit some amazing highs with people they really like, I just can't bring myself to sacrifice the freedom.

The reality is that the WoW developers stopped focusing on fun gameplay and instead focused on simple uncreative options for the players that are easier to balance and about as stimulating as pumping gas in my car.

[aceperson]

President of what? What are you talking about?

i'm being vague on purpose. if you can't figure it out on your own, then i'm not going to tell you because that could start a whole different flame war.

[Velerios]

Sorry, but this thread is full of bullshit.

Because meaningful choices are good, but how they implement everything was bad. When the power limit of abilities is so high that everyone only takes what was on icyveins, then there is actually no meaningful choice at all. And the thing about casuals:

Wow didn't care for casuals since Legion, period. BfA release gave a sh*t about casuals as do Shadowlands, and only 8.2 had at least a bit of content. But there is simply no casual content anymore, and that is what destroyed WoW. Shadowlands is the same, but even worse.
Blizzard only cater the hardcore-players, and even they aren't happy about everything anymore. Most of the work flows into mythic+, raids and blizzards shareholder favorite: E-SPORT-CRAP! Blizzard put more and more and more effort into e-sports so that they can milk this cash cow and forgot that they bleeded the cash cow itself by destroying the game: Feedback is ignored, Content is dungeons and raids and that's all folks. Budget-Cuts from Trade Prince Bobby Kotick to make more money, but instead killed of the game.

Sorry, but the issue were never "meaningful choices". Shitty implementation of Meaningful choices is the issue.

AND FRICKING TEMPORARY SYSTEMS. Blizzard fuck these temporary systems finally, give us something like glyphs that give us a PERMANENT system, and don't turn around the whole game around it. Gems, Glyphs good, AZERITE/SOULBINDS CRAP!

Any "casual" player does not care about these systems that get cut out in the next expansion anyway. some people are so frustrated about all the shit they added that they simply gave up (beside as said before having no content at all), and that's all of it; instead of having one clear system, like talent trees, nah blizzard need to have multiple temporary systems on top of each other. And they got worse in every xpack in the last 3 expansions. I rather have Netherlight Crucible back than anything they gave us in the last 2 xpacks. But the best thing would be to finally go away from temporary systems, give us something that we still have access in the next expansion (and pack this in the UI, rather than having a table/npc/forge/whatever. Just a fricking button in the UI, is this really so complicated?

To go back to the topic:
Again it's not about meaningful choices or that you hardcore overlords are soooo much better than the casuals; to have success, blizzard needs to get back to make the game appealing to the 90% of casuals rather than kissing the bum of the upper 1-0,1% of the playerbase and giving them everything. And please: don't listen to any popular streamer, period!

[Caerrona]

The other day I watched a video (sorry, can't remember who) where they compared Blizz's quarterly report from 2016 IIRC and the last one. Although the MAUs have fallen nearly in half, WoW's income was nearly the same.

Since subs dropped in half and not everybody bought mounts, then the most likely other source of revenue is tokens.

You get a guy who buys the game, a bunch of tokens, raids then proceeds to quit a month or two later. Depending on how many tokens he bought he could have provided Blizz with the same or greater income in two months as you or I do in a year.

No wonder the game is designed as it is.

Back on topic: I won't be defending the next expansion's borrowed power feature - whatever it is. I'm not even sure I'll be playing in six months.

See you say maus then you say subs. How are people on this website still so fucking stupid that they still can't realize maus= all of blizzard games and subs= not released forever.

Actually the ONLY info we have about subs was q1 2021? (Might be wrong on that, maybe q4 2020) which stated shadowlands SUBS were higher than the last decade. Putting it at roughly what 8-10mil.

Official info - wow is more than fine
Mmoc - wow is duh ded game

[Zigrifid]

As a casual player and a wow fan ! i will certainly NOT , enough is enough bfa was were i drew the line and in SL i had hopes but this is a terrible mess !

[Soon-TM]

Official info - wow is more than fine

There is no official info other than a sharp drop in MAUs across all Blizzard titles over the last few years. Which really does not look too hot no matter how badly you want to spin the narrative.

[Ashleyxoxo]

Casual players are playing FFXIV