When did WoW convince itself Raiding is the only thing that's important?

[Miffinat0r]

Seems to me that the change happened around Wrath. The game used raiding as it was intended as a small part of endgame content. Then they wanted more players raiding because the devs liked raiding, and felt that raiding could build a better game, and raiding requirements were lowered. They tried to become more hard in Cata and got immediate pushback. MOP made things more flexible, but still carried the emphasis on raiding, WoD was pretty much the raid or die expansion, Legion offered a ton of things for players but didn't get moving until the last patch, BFA tried to expand legions techniques but failed, and SL tried to go barebones with more emphasis on raiding and a bunch of casual players left.


I'd hate to say but Ion probably needs to go. Who I think should replace him? Is someone who's been around the MMORPG market for a long time but has spent significant amounts of time not around high-end players

[WowIsDead64]

I seriously cannot understand this logic. I've raided before, I'm sure most of us have, but I wouldn't say it's the be all end all of a video game. It's just a minigame to do with more players at the end of a character's leveling career. Where and why did this become the main focus of the game? I was watching Asmon's video last night and I think he brought up a good point--which is that the reason so many players think Raiding is the only thing that matters is because when WoW was coming up the content creators that were promoting WoW were all from the high-end/semi-high-end raiding communities. This gave the game a false sense of where the priorities arise from.

He was convinced in the video that the game tries to focus too much on the Mythic Raider Player and the Average Joe who does nothing but play once a week. While I don't disagree with the Mythic piece, the more I thought about it I could see the Average Joe piece too. But I suspect that was Activision trying to get new players to play--looking at you Mission Table and Level Squish. Those feel like corporate decisions. But the Mythic Raider piece is entirely the Devs fault. The people in leadership on the Dev team focus way too much on the Mythic Crowd. Most players don't even touch heroic raiding, yet why is it always seem like the center of the conversation revolves around Mythic Raiding.

As I finished it I was watching it with my roomate (old WOW player) and he said when he tried WoW again he noticed the leveling experience was ruined, and when he got to endgame the only thing people talked about was raiding. His conclusion was that it's no wonder the population shrank because it feels like the game thinks it's a good thing if everyone is striving to be a Mythic Raider, and he said how do you expect people to have fun under that system?

It's some sort of tradition from pre-Cata times, when players didn't have any info about % of players, participated in certain types of content, so it was assumed by everybody, that majority of playerbase was doing raids and game was purely about raids. It was Cata, where that 90%-10%-1% info appeared, when devs themselves admitted, that LFR was required due to too small % of players doing other raid difficulties. But, yeah, raids are still the most important kind of content. Because it has the highest and the most stable quality over all other kinds of content. Mostly because devs themselves are raiders. So... Yeah. They just make game for themselves. Using our money.

[Echo of Soul]

It didn't, players did.

And then they started hiring players and that was the beginning of the end.

[Tyris Flare]

Literally since the start of the game when MC had the best and most prestigious gear.

(Well, maybe a few months in when they reitemized/buffed it because it was bad at first)

[Miffinat0r]

Literally since the start of the game when MC had the best and most prestigious gear.

(Well, maybe a few months in when they reitemized/buffed it because it was bad at first)

I mean I guess that's correct, but it did not seem like that the rush craze was there back then. This is anecdotal, but I was with my 2 friends over the weekend. They played WoW at launch, quit in Wrath, and they said that while everyone knew where the best gear was it did not mean everything around the raid was irrelevant like it feels today. Also the noted how hostile many in the community become once you start asking should raiding be the only thing we worry about?

[cuafpr]

since they dropped badge gear, and raid quality reputation gear really. Badge gear should come back with badges gathered via several none-instanced and solo content.

[Tyris Flare]

I mean I guess that's correct, but it did not seem like that the rush craze was there back then. This is anecdotal, but I was with my 2 friends over the weekend. They played WoW at launch, quit in Wrath, and they said that while everyone knew where the best gear was it did not mean everything around the raid was irrelevant like it feels today. Also the noted how hostile many in the community become once you start asking should raiding be the only thing we worry about?

But a lot of that, maybe even most of it, is just people/gamers changing over 20 years. People have a million other things they can do with their time than in 2004. They also play games very differently (cosmetics for cash didn't even really exist in any meaningful way back then - mobile market didn't exist).

You can still do almost all the stuff people did back then. I think most people just realized that it's boring by modern standards. You don't need to play an MMO to go out and have a big sprawling adventure now - single player games have massive worlds and can do it better.

[NineSpine]

Your logic failed in moment that you think blizzard is focusing on mythic raiders. Reason why mythic raiding feels important and only things what matter is becouse rest of 99.9% of game content cutters to casuals and most peopel can finish such content one hande while watching netflix so content feels like it doesnt matter. Maybe if casual.content had actual resonable challenge it would feel.more meaningfull to progres in such content.

They can make those features more rewarding becouse it wil make absolote other content in different part of game.

It's always amusing to watch wow-lifers struggle with problems that other games solved years and years and years ago, while projecting their preferences onto everyone else. Most players want fun content and a sense of progression. Challenge is nearly irrelevant for most players. Just because you equate challenge and fun doesn't mean everyone else can.

Here's how easily we can solve the reward problem you called out: Make content drop a weekly capped currency that can be exchanged for gear upgrades, but make the high difficulty content drop lots of it so anyone doing high difficulty content doesn't have to do anything else to cap it.

This isn't very complicated.

[Miffinat0r]

It's always amusing to watch wow-lifers struggle with problems that other games solved years and years and years ago, while projecting their preferences onto everyone else. Most players want fun content and a sense of progression. Challenge is nearly irrelevant for most players. Just because you equate challenge and fun doesn't mean everyone else can.

Here's how easily we can solve the reward problem you called out: Make content drop a weekly capped currency that can be exchanged for gear upgrades, but make the high difficulty content drop lots of it so anyone doing high difficulty content doesn't have to do anything else to cap it.

This isn't very complicated.

This makes sense. But of course there's people going to say "Well less difficult content doesn't deserve blah blah blah" it's like the more I dive into this topic it really feels like people want inequality in a game that mirrors real life.

[Lolites]

When ion became in charge.

i mean, before Ion raiding and pvp was pretty much the only endgame content, with raiding being only pve content (after first two weeks of expansion when you overgeared dungeons), under Ion we got M+, mage tower, actualy useful world content...
but sure, its Ions fault, as everything there is a lot of things you can blame Ion for, but blaming him for raids being "only important thing" is either dishonest or ignorant as hell

[Lorgar Aurelian]

When ion became in charge. I'm sorry but he just looks like a very boring person that has no hobbies or interests in anything other than raiding and high end content. The game design reflects that too.

There’s been more to do outside of raiding in legion-shadowlands then in past expans, mage tower, isleands, warfronts, torghast, more varied world quest/daily’s, more story quest, ect.

If any thing Ion had made the game less raid focused not more.

[MoanaLisa]

It didn't, players did. WOW has things to do that don't focus on raiding but the more vocal part of the playerbase is too busy chasing gear to notice those activities.

B.C. I would think was when it was cemented in on the Blizzard side. Vanilla was always meant to have raids even though they were apparently the last thing done if the stories about Molten Core's design are true. But let's be fair: I'm not a fan of raiding per se. I have done it but I no longer care to. That said, Blizzard's best content, the one they dump the most resources into expansion after expansion, are raids. Players notice these things and some of the best social experiences to be had are to this day raiding with a guild.

Back in the day I used to lobby a little bit for fewer raids by breaking that content up into progressive dungeons. A 12-boss raid could be released over a period of 24-30 weeks as half a dozen dungeons with a progressive story line and difficulty. Many more dungeons, smaller more manageable groups. It's worked out the way it has because Blizzard in its collective heart still believes that bigger is epic, more is epic. Never mind the many terrible ways that Deathwing was handled in Cataclysm. He was HUGE, i.e. he was EPIC!!!.

Blizzard has never ever bought into 'smaller is sometimes better' thinking. It's a choice that has worked for them and made them successful. The fact that it doesn't work for me personally and the majority of others (which might signal that it's time to switch things up a little bit) isn't really a deciding factor any longer. And that's OK. Game developers make choices and in this case the choice was raids.

We also make choices about what to play and whether or not content is worth the time and trouble (and consequently in many cases rescheduling our real lives around guild policies). To this day I still think that having 12-18 more dungeons per expansion released sequentially over time (yes, at the cost of raid tiers) would be better business for the game.

[Miffinat0r]

B.C. I would think was when it was cemented in on the Blizzard side. Vanilla was always meant to have raids even though they were apparently the last thing done if the stories about Molten Core's design are true. But let's be fair: I'm not a fan of raiding per se. I have done it but I no longer care to. That said, Blizzard's best content, the one they dump the most resources into expansion after expansion, are raids. Players notice these things and some of the best social experiences to be had are to this day raiding with a guild.

Back in the day I used to lobby a little bit for fewer raids by breaking that content up into progressive dungeons. A 12-boss raid could be released over a period of 24-30 weeks as half a dozen dungeons with a progressive story line and difficulty. Many more dungeons, smaller more manageable groups. It's worked out the way it has because Blizzard in its collective heart still believes that bigger is epic, more is epic. Never mind the many terrible ways that Deathwing was handled in Cataclysm. He was HUGE, i.e. he was EPIC!!!.

Blizzard has never ever bought into 'smaller is sometimes better' thinking. It's a choice that has worked for them and made them successful. The fact that it doesn't work for me personally and the majority of others isn't really a deciding factor any longer. And that's OK. Game developers make choices and in this case the choice was raids.

I think you're correct, but I do think they should begin now to change course. I mean from what I'm reading on gaming forums, videos, and just word of mouth it seems to me that most average MMORPG players aren't really into the whole "Raid or Die" idea, and honestly I don't think they ever were on board with that idea. I do find it funny how defensive people get when you begin to deconstruct raiding as a construct in an MMORPG though.

[Kiwijello]

One word:

Ion

[LordVargK]

You are the only one convinced by this. And your fanatism on this subject is honestly not healthy anymore.

[MoanaLisa]

I think you're correct, but I do think they should begin now to change course. I mean from what I'm reading on gaming forums, videos, and just word of mouth it seems to me that most average MMORPG players aren't really into the whole "Raid or Die" idea, and honestly I don't think they ever were on board with that idea. I do find it funny how defensive people get when you begin to deconstruct raiding as a construct in an MMORPG though.

I edited my post after thinking for a minute but the edits only push it more toward your thinking in this post. "Raid or Die" should have died in Warlords. Every progression path through the expansion lead to raiding. The business results speak for themselves even though I thought the raids were quite good.

[NineSpine]

There’s been more to do outside of raiding in legion-shadowlands then in past expans, mage tower, isleands, warfronts, torghast, more varied world quest/daily’s, more story quest, ect.

If any thing Ion had made the game less raid focused not more.

Mage Tower was great.

Islands, Warfronts, Torghast... these are all awful systems that don't provide interesting progression and were constructed as chores rather than as fun content.

World quests are much worse than the old daily quest system, because they insist on constructing the world quests as an overly managed system. I don't want to be directed to which world quests to do today. I want to be given hubs with interconnected quests that provide an experience to play through, not told "Here's your random shit to do today".

- - - Updated - - -

i mean, before Ion raiding and pvp was pretty much the only endgame content, with raiding being only pve content (after first two weeks of expansion when you overgeared dungeons), under Ion we got M+, mage tower, actualy useful world content...
but sure, its Ions fault, as everything there is a lot of things you can blame Ion for, but blaming him for raids being "only important thing" is either dishonest or ignorant as hell

We used to be able to gear long term from non-M+ dungeons, we used to have reputations we could target for useful rewards, we used to have trade skills that took time to level and had useful rewards, we used to be able to do random BGs and gear over the long term.

All of that is gone.

[Miffinat0r]

Mage Tower was great.

Islands, Warfronts, Torghast... these are all awful systems that don't provide interesting progression and were constructed as chores rather than as fun content.

World quests are much worse than the old daily quest system because they insist on constructing the world quests as an overly managed system. I don't want to be directed to which world quests to do today. I want to be given hubs with interconnected quests that provide an experience to play through, not told "Here's your random shit to do today".

I don't think there's any actual reason to do Islands, Warfronts, or Torg for anything tbh. What's the point? Collectables?

What I don't get is why isn't the highest pinnacle of any of the big 3 just cosmetics? Seems to me to be the answer. You're doing that content because you find it fun. The rewards are neat but the prestige and the cosmetics are why you do things. Kinda seems counter-intuitive to me.

[Hitei]

I don't think there's any actual reason to do Islands, Warfronts, or Torg for anything tbh. What's the point? Collectables?

What I don't get is why isn't the highest pinnacle of any of the big 3 just cosmetics? Seems to me to be the answer. You're doing that content because you find it fun. The rewards are neat but the prestige and the cosmetics are why you do things. Kinda seems counter-intuitive to me.

Lol????

That is exactly why. Because you people are literally not okay with that being the case.

[Lmaop]

Blizzard always believed that and that's why its a dogshit company tbh. They cant design a game to save their lives, literary, as the past year showed us

Here is the reality, the majority of this playerbase doesn't do organized raids. This was already a widely known thing you could interfere with from the API but WoD printed it out in black and white.

Meanwhile, in the non-current year 2021, where the game shited itself, ion did give interviews and talks half of the interview time about mythic raid comp balance. It doesnt take asmongold or anyone else to see they lost the plot.
One of the major reasons why they removed master loot was because of, i quote, "high-end guilds doing too many funnel split runs". 40 E-celebs literally occupy headspace in the lead gamedesigners head which features should be in the game or not