What kept you playing WoW in the past? What made it fun to play?

[FossilFree]

It was better as a RPG than as an Esport action game.

[Soon-TM]

Couldn't agree more. Maybe points 2, 4, 6 are still achievable if changes are implemented and player feedback taken...who knows? You'd think Blizz knows their back is against the wall with FF14 and other competition. I don't see why they can't go back and analyze why they had so many players back in Wrath and figure out why they were successful and implement some of those systems like valor gear.

The funny part is that FF14 is reimplementing what Blizzard themselves had managed to do in WotLK: decent badge gear that isn't capped by some stupid personal rating and doesn't take an unholy amount of time to grind.

[Itori]

I'm not sure how to bring the community ever since group finder was created. If anyone is playing BC Classic right now, any thoughts on what Blizz can do? More world events that bring people together?

I play on pagle on TBC and it feels like its high pop, i even see lots of people in low lvl questing zones. Honestly though the cure would lead to merging these servers together into one mega server. group finder really didn't hurt it, it just made things more convenient in getting groups together for dungeons. Also the stigma with WoW is that its a toxic hell hole, and blizzard not dropping the hammer down on people for infractions isn't helping with fixing that stigma.

[caninepawprints]

I know right now many have stopped playing WoW for many reasons. One of the biggest arguments I see is the endless systems Blizzard creates (domination shards, artifact power, etc), coupled with grinds like Korthia and Torghast, a storyline that doesn't seem well thought out, and a severe content drought.

However, back in Wrath, MoP, and even Legion (even with grinds) the game was a lot more active than these last 2 expansions. Honest question, what was different back then, before most of these systems and grinds came in to play? Was it more content, like the Mage Tower, Argent Tournament Grounds, Isle of Thunder, etc? Was it another way to get gear, such as valor and justice gear that lasted I think till MoP? Was it more alt-friendly back then (boa tokens sent to alts for rep during MoP, for example). Or was it you had more friends who played?

If Blizz eliminates or really reduces how many systems or grinds we get in 10.0 and actually listen to their player base, specifically what should they do to bring you back to play, or play more

I loved being able to do dungeons for tokens that I could then use to purchase gear that was current. All the content remained relevant throughout the entire expansion, not just until the next big patch dropped, likely because of the attunements and not all players having them done, so they'd do what content they could. I also loved having a daily or weekly quest to go run a certain dungeon or raid, which gave more tokens or gear. BC and Wrath were alt-friendly. You could change your main, and once you geared them up, you didn't have to play catch-up with secondary powers. It didn't feel like a chore. And on your main, there was actually a reason to continue running dungeons, even if you outgeared them, because of the tokens you'd get at the end.

Blizzard ruined the game with secondary powers, like anima and artifact power. They ruined it further by implementing a score in group finder so that casuals can't get into dungeons that are appropriate for their item level because they don't farm dungeons the way other players do but still have good gear from raiding. People say to "form your own group," but don't take into consideration that sometimes casuals don't want to lead a group. And with the score visible, a lot of players don't want to join anyway because it's too low. I have the gear and skill to do 18+ mythic dungeons but can't get into any groups because I'm only interested in doing one or two dungeons per week, so I'm stuck doing 11-12. The whole "You can get more Valor if you take along people with a lower score than you" was dumb because nobody cares about Valor.

PVP used to be worth the effort in previous expansions, but now it's a joke. A lot of people PVP'd in the beginning of this expansion because the gear was good, but now it's crap.

Shadowlands just sucks all the way around. I've been playing since 2005, and I've stuck with this game through thick and thin despite everything, but for the first time, I'm actually thinking about unsubscribing. It's a very tough, emotional decision because I'm attached to my characters and this game, but it's almost painful to play it now. I only log on once each week to raid, and that's it.

[sargentos]

[Q

---

UOTE=Itori;53414952]I play on pagle on TBC and it feels like its high pop, i even see lots of people in low lvl questing zones. Honestly though the cure would lead to merging these servers together into one mega server. group finder really didn't hurt it, it just made things more convenient in getting groups together for dungeons. Also the stigma with WoW is that its a toxic hell hole, and blizzard not dropping the hammer down on people for infractions isn't helping with fixing that stigma.[/QUOTE]

Ya I guess merging more servers, especially those who enjoy RP, can help. Something else I forgot to mention was professions and how important that used to be compared to how they are now

[spalernTJ]

I could pick up a new class and have fun with it through leveling and max level content right away, without the pressure of outside systems forcing me into one spec and / or playstyle.

[sargentos]

I loved being able to do dungeons for tokens that I could then use to purchase gear that was current. All the content remained relevant throughout the entire expansion, not just until the next big patch dropped, likely because of the attunements and not all players having them done, so they'd do what content they could. I also loved having a daily or weekly quest to go run a certain dungeon or raid, which gave more tokens or gear. BC and Wrath were alt-friendly. You could change your main, and once you geared them up, you didn't have to play catch-up with secondary powers. It didn't feel like a chore. And on your main, there was actually a reason to continue running dungeons, even if you outgeared them, because of the tokens you'd get at the end.

Blizzard ruined the game with secondary powers, like anima and artifact power. They ruined it further by implementing a score in group finder so that casuals can't get into dungeons that are appropriate for their item level because they don't farm dungeons the way other players do but still have good gear from raiding. People say to "form your own group," but don't take into consideration that sometimes casuals don't want to lead a group. And with the score visible, a lot of players don't want to join anyway because it's too low. I have the gear and skill to do 18+ mythic dungeons but can't get into any groups because I'm only interested in doing one or two dungeons per week, so I'm stuck doing 11-12. The whole "You can get more Valor if you take along people with a lower score than you" was dumb because nobody cares about Valor.

PVP used to be worth the effort in previous expansions, but now it's a joke. A lot of people PVP'd in the beginning of this expansion because the gear was good, but now it's crap.

Shadowlands just sucks all the way around. I've been playing since 2005, and I've stuck with this game through thick and thin despite everything, but for the first time, I'm actually thinking about unsubscribing. It's a very tough, emotional decision because I'm attached to my characters and this game, but it's almost painful to play it now. I only log on once each week to raid, and that's it.

Yep, valor gear seems to be something many liked. I forgot about gearing up alts this way, or a new main. I was actually excited when I would log in because I knew how much i had left to get that valor helm, versus the dread of logging in to fill the bar in Korthia. Also agree with you on valor and dungeons.

I do wonder if Blizz thought Legion was successful because of artifact power and weapons or the fact that it offered so much content with a decent story?

[Pakheth]

For me it was several things but the strongest reasons have always been something to work towards, like interesting looking mounts and gear.

I for example loved the colourful and varied mounts and gear of MoP, and absolutely adored the class mounts and artifacts of Legion. Both expansions really made it fun leveling alts, MoP because of great class gameplay, Legion because of all the class order halls questlines and varied artifacts(class gameplay was a bit hit and miss sadly).

Collecting tier sets has always been fun for me and one of the biggest reasons why I raided and would do instanced content. If an expansion had shit looking gear(in my opinion) then I would not participate in that content. Cata, WoD and BfA was times I played very little instanced group content simple because the gear did not interest me. The lack of class tier sets the last few expansions has really killed my interest in doing any of that.

Single player challenges like treasure hoard, mage tower, withered training, horrific visions and Chromie Time I adored, also if I failed it was all on me. They also offered great reward and a feeling of progression.

Not gonna lie, I miss badges/Valor. Having something to work towards that I knew would be worthwhile kept me playing, rather than the uncertainty that is pure RNG. I absolutely loathed the RNG on top of RNG we had in Legion, BfA and to a certain degree SL with the vault. Legiondaries didn't bother me as much as others but I didn't like how gear worked in general making it rain purples. Individual gear pieces lost their magic. I much prefer what we have now where an upgrade is actually an upgrade, though it isn't perfect.

Meaningful professions gave me a reason to level them up and actually make stuff. That also goes for stuff like enchants and gems for my gear. I actually enjoyed the minigame of ensuring my gear was ready for raiding. Nowadays you just equip and you are done more or less and it feels rather hollow.

I guess what is most important for me is that the classes themselves are fun to play, preferably MoP style gameplay with many buttons and free movement, and something visually interesting for me to collect and show off.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Nostalgia. I had so many good memories from vanilla - wotlk that I played cata - legion purely hoping that I'd have similar experiences. I quit in Legion because WoW was just a shitty shadow of its former self.

Also I had a hard time letting go of my account and all the achievements I'd earned over 10+ years. But as soon as I found a better game (FFXIV) it almost seemed like those 10 years of WoW just didn't matter and I left it behind easily.

Pro tip: Ask yourself are you truly enjoying WoW still, or are you just hanging on, hoping things will get better? Because I can tell you after waiting 6 years for that to happen, I gave up. Give up before you waste more of your life on dumb daily quest grinds.

[fatgunn]

Raiding.

Right now however my guild is dead and pugging Sanctum is a shitshow, I may take a break. If 9.1.5 will hurry up I will level some alts then break til 9.2.

[deenman]

Valor gear. Being able to work towards the second best gear in the game over a long period of time fromm running daily heroics, LFR and some daily quests. As soon as Blizzard sayd fuck you to that playstyle I moved over to FFXIV where it's the norm.

you should never be able to get the second best gear by doing literaly zero challenge content,its why wotlk was hot garbage,valor should be to buy gear on heroic dungeon level and to upgrade gear,i know its a good financial system for blizz as it apeals to casuals,but it devalues your game,better off just have less players in my opinion than cater to the babies,at the end of the day the players left will be of far higher quality,but you have fun with your small children and furries in FF champ

[Echocho]

you should never be able to get the second best gear by doing literaly zero challenge content,its why wotlk was hot garbage,valor should be to buy gear on heroic dungeon level and to upgrade gear,i know its a good financial system for blizz as it apeals to casuals,but it devalues your game,better off just have less players in my opinion than cater to the babies,at the end of the day the players left will be of far higher quality,but you have fun with your small children and furries in FF champ

So you're fine with the bulk of the playerbase jumping ship and switching to a different game where they aren't treated as some sort of pest? Even if it means less money for Blizzard, less content being developed, empty servers etc?
Should they only design the game for the sub 1% and fuck everyone else? Instead of 12 million subs like in Wrath you'd be fine with something like 500k?

[Mendzia]

- Very good story that ended with Lich King
- Soo many very nice people that i've met irl later and some of them are my good friends now
- Talking and interacting with strangers
- Professions that were worth time/gold investment
- BiS lists
- Badge/valor gear
- Guilds were very important
- Rewarding content that required time and social interactions to get loot
- No irl problems/agendas in the game

And many more...

[M1r4g3]

Without devolving into the nitty-gritty of every aspect of what went wrong:

1.) Social aspect of the game is just a shadow of what it once was, and that was a huge part of my enjoyment

2.) More deterministic options when it came to gearing rewards were great, but was dropped in favor of more layers of randomness.

3.) Despite my love for doing/completing the hardest raiding content, the mechanics and design of raids have moved way too far towards difficulty and away from accessibility/fun for everyone. Their decision to design raid content around the assumption players have boss encounter mods was probably the worst decision they made in this regard, but it's still one of many.

4.) Goals for players either being removed, bloated over time, or becoming more obscure/endless. This includes changes to how loot works, systems, 'seasonal' progression across the game, etc.

5.) The game not being an escape from the real world like it used to be, while it currently is reflecting or injecting the current social/political hot topics of the day.

6.) The game design actually reflecting the designers putting fun and the experience of the players first was great, while actually having a back-and-forth dialogue with the players that didn't spit in their faces. But now, this doesn't occur, where feedback is increasingly ignored and the devs are increasingly combative towards feedback that doesn't align with their narratives.

I could keep going with this list, but it'd start getting into overlapping issues as many of what I've stated above intertwine with each other to cause other systemic problems. It's not like a lot of these issue just happened in Shadowlands, as many have been present for many expansions. Some are the result of obtuse design, some are the result of experiments gone wrong but never purged, some are Blizz just being stubborn. Regardless, there's no indication that any of the above reasons will be addressed in the near future. I've never been one for hype driving my gaming decisions, as I generally buy 'hyped' game way after launch if I'm not currently enjoying the creator's previous content... and I don't think even a 10.0 sweeping overhaul could really bring me back in. Pretty much all of my friends in and out of the game no longer play WoW for various reasons, so Blizz has an insanely uphill battle to even get me to consider coming back since they don't even have peer pressure on their side.

Yep, pretty much.

I just want to add to 3. , difficulty overall didn't change much(~since cata), it takes similar amount of pulls to kill a boss now as it did before, difference being that:
Encounters are a 2 part thing, one being the boss mechanics/strat etc. and the other one being your class rotation/mechanics etc,
and since legion the balance between the two massively shifted towards mechanics and lessened from classes, with the hard pruning/streamlining/removal of mechanics like dot snapshotting/trinket reworks/generator-spender playstyle/priority/randomness/ basically making individuals have less control over their performance.

One of the side-effects being that its a lot harder to carry people, and by ''carry'' i mean you could have had a pretty massive difference between your best and worst player and still progress just fine because that good player could compensate for bad player because they had more control over their performance, as opposed to now where progressing with a non-balanced team is extremely frustrating and boils down to waiting for the worst player to ''get it'' or get lucky and do it correctly once otherwise you literally can't do it, so in a way the balance also affected the social aspect of the game by shrinking the pool of players you can play with(obviously you can play with whoever you want its just that now its a lot more frustrating to play with worse players which obviously affects people differently but it still does).

Hopefully the logic makes some sense since i'm tired and have no idea if what i wrote is even coherent lol.

[Kumorii]

guild, raids and dungeons. Some times I got burned out for playing to much as I do with most games.

[Drusin]

Honest question, what was different back then, before most of these systems and grinds came in to play?

No idea so I'm just going with it was new ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Was it more content, like the Mage Tower

Nope, only did that because Blizz FOMO'd it, 32 towers down and I use exactly 0 of the appearances.

Argent Tournament Grounds, Isle of Thunder, etc?

Hell no lol

Was it another way to get gear, such as valor and justice gear that lasted I think till MoP? Was it more alt-friendly back then (boa tokens sent to alts for rep during MoP, for example).

That didn't keep me playing that was just nice while I played

If Blizz eliminates or really reduces how many systems or grinds we get in 10.0 and actually listen to their player base, specifically what should they do to bring you back to play, or play more

I already play 8+ hours a day lol, I just don't do content I don't like gg. That option isn't available to everyone though because say you don't like covenants, if you were me you could just not do shit in your covenant but what if you're also a high end raider? Now your choice will affect gameplay somewhere else you actually enjoy. There's still an option though, I don't like M+, I don't step foot in that shit ever and the only time I did was Legion and as a raider I quit raiding because I didn't want to have to do M+ to raid.

So your question could be "What could make you expand the activities you participate in" which is obviously not having to grind other bullshit to do it optimally.

And they can fuck right off with their SL WQs, far more shitty and tedious than Legion or BFA WQs.

[justandulas]

The ladder progression. I loved having to beat A to get to B, raid B to get to C, etc… it gave a real hierarchy amongst servers.

Then server transfers came into play, and eventually multiple raids became 1 raid with multiple difficulties and suddenly it didn’t feel like a proper rpg anymore. It became Diablo 3 the mmo arpg where there’s 4-5 difficulties of everything in the game, multiples of all the gear, and it’s all meaningless in the name of accessibility. Exclusivity in an rpg means more than mass inclusion

[Accendor]

I know right now many have stopped playing WoW for many reasons. One of the biggest arguments I see is the endless systems Blizzard creates (domination shards, artifact power, etc), coupled with grinds like Korthia and Torghast, a storyline that doesn't seem well thought out, and a severe content drought.

However, back in Wrath, MoP, and even Legion (even with grinds) the game was a lot more active than these last 2 expansions. Honest question, what was different back then, before most of these systems and grinds came in to play? Was it more content, like the Mage Tower, Argent Tournament Grounds, Isle of Thunder, etc? Was it another way to get gear, such as valor and justice gear that lasted I think till MoP? Was it more alt-friendly back then (boa tokens sent to alts for rep during MoP, for example). Or was it you had more friends who played?

If Blizz eliminates or really reduces how many systems or grinds we get in 10.0 and actually listen to their player base, specifically what should they do to bring you back to play, or play more

They removed basically every community feature and miss if the stuff that requires player interaction. That was a huge mistake.

[Othraerir]

raiding

/10

[Neotart]

I wish i knew really, i started playing towards the end of BC, and i LOVED Wrath and Cata. Maybe its because i grew up ? a lot of my friends stopped playing at the end of MOP, so i took a long break and didn't start playing again until the end of WOD, by that time it felt like a whole new game (for the worse) idk why? I met new friends, played since then, until now, maybe its all the odd changes they JUST now decided to do, or maybe Shadowlands as a whole, i was hyped for SL. The 1st few weeks were fun, but somehow i just had a drop off... and then all "that" started happening, I'm honestly worried about the next year of WoW and what its becoming. player count is still dropping, and yet players are still having server lag?! world boss lag? raid lag?

I guess what really made it fun for me was playing with my close friends, whether they were real life friends, or we met online, it didn't matter to me, but at some point it stopped being FUN! and started to feel like WORK, trying to keep up

WoW today is just random ques, clicking buttons, joining groups, no one says a word to each other....its become a anti-social game, i really didnt see how bad its become in that regard until i played a little bit of final fantasy.