I tell you why WoW and MMORPGs are struggling in this day and age...

[Candlewick]

If I was redesigning the endgame progression systems right now, this is how I'd do it, and I know people who like the current system will think I'm an idiot:

Raids:
1. Two difficulties: Normal and Heroic.
2. You can queue for Normal, but Heroic you need a premade for.
3. The final 2-3 bosses on Heroic have Ulduar-like toggles for a mythic difficulty level.

Dungeons:
1. Three difficulties: Story, Normal, and Heroic
2. Story is strictly during leveling. Normal is the max level version.
3. Heroic dungeons have rotating affixes, are very difficult, have a weekly lockout, and drop the same ilvl as heroic raids.

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If people are playing them, people are playing them. You are talking about a time period when lots of MMOs came out and failed immediately. Creating games doesn't make anything a golden age. People playing them is what makes it a golden age.

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Yeah, remember when those Dark Souls games came out and they all flopped totally.

Or were they giant cultural milestones that sell huge numbers of copies and completely changed video game design?

I think a very large chunk of wow relies on hard content and I think those are the most stable subs. Right now the lions share of wows player base is on area 52, malganis, illidan, tich for horde and stormrage and sargeras for alliance.

Mythic has become the pillar of the game and given blizzards utter reluctance to allow mythic cross server till it is mostly irrelevant to the crowd it was designed for I suspect players moving around mythic servers make up a decent amount of wows profit.

I think final fantasy works with easier levels of content. I think if wow went down that route it wouldnt kill it but it would be a very large blow to it.

[NineSpine]

I think a very large chunk of wow relies on hard content and I think those are the most stable subs. Right now the lions share of wows player base is on area 52, malganis, illidan, tich for horde and stormrage and sargeras for alliance.

Mythic has become the pillar of the game and given blizzards utter reluctance to allow mythic cross server till it is mostly irrelevant to the crowd it was designed for I suspect players moving around mythic servers make up a decent amount of wows profit.

I think final fantasy works with easier levels of content. I think if wow went down that route it wouldnt kill it but it would be a very large blow to it.

I didn't say anything about making the game easier.

[Candlewick]

I didn't say anything about making the game easier.

I feel like it is the natural end point to cutting down on difficulties. People sadly are envious of others its why when wow adds a mode they always rename the easy mode what the hard mode was then make the hard mode have a new name.

If your suggesting just using heroic and mythic out of the current difficulties in unsure on how that would go over.

[Myradin]

Yeah, remember when those Dark Souls games came out and they all flopped totally.

Dark Souls is primarily a single player game with some multiplayer components tacked on. This makes a considerable difference compared to a game where almost all meaningful progress is tied to working with other players.

Dark Souls uses difficulty well because it is a personal challenge. If you fail, its your fault. You can also play it at your own pace and suffer no repercussions.

In WoW, if you fail, its possibly because someone else messed up that you had no control over. Or if it was your fault, you can blame someone else for it instead of 'gitting gud'. You also generally need a set schedule and do a bunch of other tasks to make sure you're 'up to par'.

[NineSpine]

I feel like it is the natural end point to cutting down on difficulties. People sadly are envious of others its why when wow adds a mode they always rename the easy mode what the hard mode was then make the hard mode have a new name.

If your suggesting just using heroic and mythic out of the current difficulties in unsure on how that would go over.

Generally speaking, the first half of heroic is not much different from the second half of normal, and the second half of heroic is not much different from the first half of mythic.

There is a ton of unnecessary overlap. If we just had two difficulties, the first one could be roughly equivalent to normal right now and the second could be roughly equivalent to mythic and we wouldn't really be losing very much. I would just have the second half of heroic more in line beginning to end with what is currently the first half of mythic and use the toggles for the last couple of bosses to get to the insane difficulty we see at those levels currently.

[Candlewick]

Dark Souls is primarily a single player game with some multiplayer components tacked on. This makes a considerable difference compared to a game where almost all meaningful progress is tied to working with other players.

Dark Souls uses difficulty well because it is a personal challenge. If you fail, its your fault. You can also play it at your own pace and suffer no repercussions.

In WoW, if you fail, its possibly because someone else messed up that you had no control over. Or if it was your fault, you can blame someone else for it instead of 'gitting gud'. You also generally need a set schedule and do a bunch of other tasks to make sure you're 'up to par'.

Heroes of the storm vs league of legends or even dota2.

Making things simpler isnt a recipe to success...

[NineSpine]

Dark Souls is primarily a single player game with some multiplayer components tacked on. This makes a considerable difference compared to a game where almost all meaningful progress is tied to working with other players.

Dark Souls uses difficulty well because it is a personal challenge. If you fail, its your fault. You can also play it at your own pace and suffer no repercussions.

In WoW, if you fail, its possibly because someone else messed up that you had no control over. Or if it was your fault, you can blame someone else for it instead of 'gitting gud'. You also generally need a set schedule and do a bunch of other tasks to make sure you're 'up to par'.

You just said that p[layers don't like difficult content, but now it sounds like you are shifting that to people not liking difficult content with teammates, but that's what all pvp in every game is and pvp is very popular as a way to play games broadly.

And FF14 gets by fine with having fairly difficult content that is queue-able for anyone that wants to do it. They just build the systems around it to accommodate. Low penalties for death, very little downtime between fighting, etc..

[Candlewick]

Generally speaking, the first half of heroic is not much different from the second half of normal, and the second half of heroic is not much different from the first half of mythic.

There is a ton of unnecessary overlap. If we just had two difficulties, the first one could be roughly equivalent to normal right now and the second could be roughly equivalent to mythic and we wouldn't really be losing very much. I would just have the second half of heroic more in line beginning to end with what is currently the first half of mythic and use the toggles for the last couple of bosses to get to the insane difficulty we see at those levels currently.

Maybe? I admit I am just not sure how it would work out in practice you have a lot of players who stay in one mode exclusively for a number of reasons. Normal also allows for a rapid gearing pace when mixed into dungeons.

[pewpmeiser]

they aren't struggling

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Chromie Time was a step in the right direction, but it still feels awkward to play through an expansion and never get resolution or anything for the stuff happening there. As I said above, they build the content for the current patch and don't have a lot of regard for what it looks like later and how janky it becomes.

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MMOs are having a huge resurgence right now. WoW is what is failing.

Even WoW isn't failing. At the next earnings call everyone will be like "wow i thought the game was dead" for the 1000th time.

[Tyris Flare]

If people are playing them, people are playing them. You are talking about a time period when lots of MMOs came out and failed immediately. Creating games doesn't make anything a golden age. People playing them is what makes it a golden age.

?

I mean, disagree considering people are still playing most of those games. ESo, SWTOR, Gw2 all came out in that period and are doing fine. Some died, most didn't. It was a Golden Age of development and people dipping their toes in the pool.

Also an era with failing games isn't a bad thing. It's more likely to have innovation than now when it's impossible to green-light projects because investors don't want to pony up the capital on risky ventures.

[crusadernero]

I don't know if they would... end game content doesn't seem to be a big issue to me in wow as much as endgame progression systems are.

I think there could be improvements sure but I think we are at the point where leveling has gotten so bad it might be time to consider letting new players start level 60 with full conduits and renowned. If something is just a grind I would argue it needs to go.

If they can somehow incorporate more content being relevant throughout an xpac, it will help. As dungeons stays relevant in every xpac, so should raids. While at it, everything you do should be buildt so you get relevant gear/currency from it all. In 9.2 we are yet again at a xpac were two huge raids are left in the dust and considered useless.

As it is now we are left with m+ dungeons, current raid & whatever grind.

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they aren't struggling

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Even WoW isn't failing. At the next earnings call everyone will be like "wow i thought the game was dead" for the 1000th time.

People expect wow(and probably other MMOs) to have 10+ million subs to be considered "not dead". I've been checking out GW2, ESO, NW(yes I did, I actually enjoy it again), SWOTOR last couple of weeks. All of them are active and doing just fine. Do they have millions of subs? Nope, but they dont need to either. Neither does wow.

[Candlewick]

If they can somehow incorporate more content being relevant throughout an xpac, it will help. As dungeons stays relevant in every xpac, so should raids. While at it, everything you do should be buildt so you get relevant gear/currency from it all. In 9.2 we are yet again at a xpac were two huge raids are left in the dust and considered useless.

As it is now we are left with m+ dungeons, current raid & whatever grind.

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People expect wow(and probably other MMOs) to have 10+ million subs to be considered "not dead". I've been checking out GW2, ESO, NW(yes I did, I actually enjoy it again), SWOTOR last couple of weeks. All of them are active and doing just fine. Do they have millions of subs? Nope, but they dont need to either. Neither does wow.

I don't think everything should build into everything. That is part of the reason why low keys are harder to complete then 15s. Hordes of players geared far beyond their abilities... if anything I would tie ilv far closer to skill level then it currently is. People just gotta accept the ego pains of daily quests giving daily quest rewards not mythic gear.

[NineSpine]

they aren't struggling

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Even WoW isn't failing. At the next earnings call everyone will be like "wow i thought the game was dead" for the 1000th time.

The last earnings call specifically said that profits were being offset by decreased revenue from wow.

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I don't think everything should build into everything. That is part of the reason why low keys are harder to complete then 15s. Hordes of players geared far beyond their abilities... if anything I would tie ilv far closer to skill level then it currently is. People just gotta accept the ego pains of daily quests giving daily quest rewards not mythic gear.

The problem isn't that lower end content gives lower end gear. The problem is that you comically outgear that content in literally a day or two, leaving you with the big three endgame activities to choose from.

[crusadernero]

I don't think everything should build into everything. That is part of the reason why low keys are harder to complete then 15s. Hordes of players geared far beyond their abilities... if anything I would tie ilv far closer to skill level then it currently is. People just gotta accept the ego pains of daily quests giving daily quest rewards not mythic gear.

Thats true. Tbh right now its to much with dungeons. We already have normal+Heroic, but considered useless. Normal is for leveling & HC are relevant for a very few days. 2 weeks into a new xpac, heroics is useless. After that theres m+.. I see no reason to have so many key levels. The first couple of lvls are more or less a regular mythic dungeon. Its convoluded. Should be more streamlined.

[Candlewick]

Thats true. Tbh right now its to much with dungeons. We already have normal+Heroic, but considered useless. Normal is for leveling & HC are relevant for a very few days. 2 weeks into a new xpac, heroics is useless. After that theres m+.. I see no reason to have so many key levels. The first couple of lvls are more or less a regular mythic dungeon. Its convoluded. Should be more streamlined.

I would say heroic is pointless but world loot should also be capped at 180. Wows early progression system is broken and needs to be completely remade. It's ok to have one ore two cheat items like crafted pieces its another to have mobs you kill by accidentally brushing against them give you gear that bypass half the progression.

[NineSpine]

I mean, disagree considering people are still playing most of those games. ESo, SWTOR, Gw2 all came out in that period and are doing fine. Some died, most didn't. It was a Golden Age of development and people dipping their toes in the pool.

Also an era with failing games isn't a bad thing. It's more likely to have innovation than now when it's impossible to green-light projects because investors don't want to pony up the capital on risky ventures.

You are referring to the handful of games that lasted compared to a couple of dozen at minimum that are turned off, and it's worth noting that GW2 and SWTOR get a fraction of the continuous content that WoW and FF14 do. Would you call wow successful if they halved the amount of content they put out in order to stay profitable?

This is the mistake a lot of people make. They think games are doing great as long as they aren't turned off, but what really happens is resources are pulled away as they are deemed not to be worth the investment anymore. WoW is going to be running until all of us are dead, but if you think its getting a huge expansion every two years during that time, I've got bad news.

[Zorachus]

WoW's problem is pretty simple, it got bland, boring and generic, and it's too late to change it now, until a major revamp in 10.0 potentially.

Legion was the last "fun" expansion, but it also introduced "systems" which is bad, but in Legion they were doable and fresh for the time. I would grade the Legion expansion a B+. Then BfA continued that, and made the game worse, with crap like Essences and Corruption gear, the worst shit ever. I would grade BfA a C-. Then came Shittylands, with so much promise and the early previews looking so exciting, but now a year later it's a dog shit expansion, I would grade SL a D-

But Blizzard could right this ship, make another Legion, but not that exact expansion, but a fresh new design like that, something different and new and original, like Legion was for it's day, but in a different way in 10.0. It can be done with the right leadership.

First step is lose these three things;

- Systems like Artifacts, Azerite, Corruption, Essences, Netherlight Crucible, Soulbinds, Conduits, Renown, etc...all that garbage needs to never come back and nothing like it again. Don't ever design "systems" like that again in WoW.

- Multiple currencies, all this different crap you need to obtain to upgrade your Legendary, or buy this special thing or this and that, F it, that crap sucks. Soul Ash, and Soul Cinders and Reservoir Anima, or Coalescing Visions, and Prismatic Manapearl, and Ancient Mana, Wakening Essence, etc... don't create this garbage in the next expansion.

- Time gating. Stop Blizz, please just stop with this.

[NineSpine]

I would say heroic is pointless but world loot should also be capped at 180. Wows early progression system is broken and needs to be completely remade. It's ok to have one ore two cheat items like crafted pieces its another to have mobs you kill by accidentally brushing against them give you gear that bypass half the progression.

There should be three tiers of gear at any given point. Thats it

Tier 1: The very easy to obtain baseline gear for endgame.
Tier 2: The gear you get from average content.
Tier 3: The gear you get from difficult content.

That's it. We don't need this giant span of item level during one tier. It should be very, very simple.

[Candlewick]

There should be three tiers of gear at any given point. Thats it

Tier 1: The very easy to obtain baseline gear for endgame.
Tier 2: The gear you get from average content.
Tier 3: The gear you get from difficult content.

That's it. We don't need this giant span of item level during one tier. It should be very, very simple.

I agree though a simple system like that would need blizzard to greatly increase the amount of content they produce rather then vanity projects like torghast

[NineSpine]

I agree though a simple system like that would need blizzard to greatly increase the amount of content they produce rather then vanity projects like torghast

Torghast could have been great if they didn't neuter it so much and make it mandatory.