How do you cater to both the Progression player and the Casual player?

[Drusin]

It seems easy to me to cater to both of those players.
The difficulty is catering to the "I don't want other people to have anything as good as what I have if they didn't do something that I deem as difficult as what I did to get it" type of players.

[Argorwal]

Because swapping out gear pieces like socks every week, obtained from a vault somehow associated with your activities or balling through one-shotting everything in older content is so immersive and in-line with an RPGame.

One could go with just a few items that transform and influence gameplay similar to Dota, gain some currency in exchange for a bit of a power-up and move focus from gearing up to actually playing and working together.

Maybe let DOTA be DOTA and WoW be WoW?

I’m not a fan of the vault (would rather have loot coming from bosses), but that doesn’t mean the best case is to transform it into a different game.

I wonder if people playing Skyrim would advocate they get rid of gear and just make a magic auto that nerfs everything. Who cares about growing a character over time anyway in an RPG?

It’s also interesting you compared a MOBA to an RPG.

Or what would you say to people asking DOTA to suddenly change to a large gear progression game?

[Sucralose]

Why doesn't this particular system carry over? Stop stating you are right and explain why you are right.

Jesus Christ, it shouldn't be this hard to extract an argument out of you if you are right. People who are right don't usually have trouble saying why.

I don't really see what you are getting hung up on. The game is easier so it doesn't need the same levels of difficulty and thus it doesn't need different level of gear.

[NineSpine]

I don't really see what you are getting hung up on. The game is easier so it doesn't need the same levels of difficulty and thus it doesn't need different level of gear.

Telling me you are right for the fortieth time does not explain WHY you are right.

[Triceron]

I think they would need to be able to produce content at far quicker rates then they have been. Raiders even raiders in as small of a bracket as world 100 play for different reasons. If gear became a non factor raids would be chewed apart at speeds resembling wraths launch. Every guild that normally would get CE by near the end of the patch would crush every boss until the first road block boss (This tier painsmith) then would be there for 2-3 weeks before moving on to finishing the tier. The tier would go from the usually months to most guild that would of obtained CE now to six weeks.

Worse normalizing difficulty is extremely hard to do especially now that they have bosses that are not bound by the gcd and have wildly different difficulty spikes if certain overlaps happen. Take Slyvannas and painsmith. Painsmith even after all the nerfs is the harder fight from a technical stand point. It is far,far less forgiving with mechanics and has more complex ones then Slyvannas who when you break it down really only has deathknives as a mechanic beyond move out of raid ones. Ignoring the outliners if you scaled mythic bosses to one level fights would be drastically different by design as well...

If soulrender and reverent hit as hard as to be tuned by around a 250ish ilv they would both become utterly brutal and oppressive bosses. It is a far more complex problem then I think you give credit for.

Except nothing changes if we go with Player Progression instead of Gear Progression.

The 'ilvl' progression would remain the same as it is now, except you have to earn it individually instead of randomly obtaining a piece of gear that 'jumps you up 10-45 ilvls'.

I typically consider myself a 'power gamer', meaning I game the system to my advantage. I'd quit WoW for a period of time after doing progression 10-mans in Cata. Plenty of burnout from grinding bosses for the best gear, and even got achievements for the 'hard mode' achievement shit to get the fancy drakes in dungeons. I'd skipped MoP entirely, and only jumped back in a month before WoD hit.

I was able to complete all of MoP's content within the first couple weeks of coming back. Leveling up? A breeze because I farmed a rare-find archaeology Blue staff that had entry-level epic stats on it, while being equippable 5 levels earlier. Total gear boost that made all world and leveling dungeon content super easy, I could literally out-DPS the DPS in my group as a tank because I had an OP weapon.

I'd missed out on all the raids, so it'd be hard for me to get into the Garrosh raid, right? Nope. Timeless Isles gear + PVP gear + BoE Epics on AH = minimum ilvl to enter Garrosh LFR. Get lucky with LFR and farm up another piece of PVP gear, now I'm in Normal raid. Upgrade my lowest gear, now I'm in Heroic Raid. I obtained my Heirloom Garrosh weapon in less than 2 weeks of play, having done the raid only 3-4 times.

That type of progress requires minimal effort in doing the actual raid content. I put very minimal work into learning the fights or doing all the mechanics correctly. All I had to do was get in the bare minimum at a time when everyone else is over-geared, and jump in at a time when everyone's farming for Heirlooms to get my shot in.

It's power gaming. I game the system to my advantage, which is why I know the glaring holes involved. Progress being attached to gear means all you need to do to progress is to get the gear. And effectively, this is why Boosting is a thing. You can bypass effort by going straight for the Gear.

What I propose is more an effort-driven means of progress that wouldn't be as easily cheesed. If content requires skill, then you should develop those skills to beat the content in order to reap the rewards. And the rewards shouldn't just be something that 'makes you more OP for all other content', because that ultimately leads to the Boosting we see today, where top-end content is doable by less people because everyone's overall ilvl is high enough to bring in 'dead weight' for cash. I mean, ultimately shouldn't the game be promoting Player progression anyways?

I'm advocating against my own method of playing through MoP, because I don't think this is how the game should be meant to be played. Gaming the system is how the current game is meant to played. Even your example of Top End raiders having to do split raids to gear up individuals the quickest is an example of how the game 'is meant to be played'. And it really gives advantages to those who have access to the resources to game the system (people helping split-raid, or having lots of money to buy Boosts) over those who are legitimately trying to progress on their own.

[Relapses]

That's assuming everyone has the time to do it. Please remember it is just virtual pixels. And someone else getting the same gear as you by doing "less work" in no way affects your gameplay experience. Perhaps if you actually understood that the WoW forums and fansites would be filled with less elitists playing a 15 year old game.

That's the problem with this argument. You can't have an opinion on this forum that the current system isn't fundamentally broken or needs to change because doing so makes you an "elitist." It's not about the rewards themselves, it's the fact that if you make the same things available to all players it greatly, greatly removes the incentive from doing actual difficult content in the game. You remove that incentive and the whole thing starts to fall apart. The entire structure that modern WoW exists falls apart. But hey, casuals get Mythic gear and therefore more subs and therefore game is good, right? I can't get behind this argument (especially when it's usually positioned as, "well FF14 does it and it's beating WoW") because I don't think that removing the building blocks this game has existed on for nearly two decades is a particularly great idea.

[Sucralose]

Except nothing changes if we go with Player Progression instead of Gear Progression.

The 'ilvl' progression would remain the same as it is now, except you have to earn it individually instead of randomly obtaining a piece of gear that 'jumps you up 10-45 ilvls'.

I typically consider myself a 'power gamer', meaning I game the system to my advantage. I'd quit WoW for a period of time after doing progression 10-mans in Cata. Plenty of burnout from grinding bosses for the best gear, and even got achievements for the 'hard mode' achievement shit to get the fancy drakes in dungeons. I'd skipped MoP entirely, and only jumped back in a month before WoD hit.

I was able to complete all of MoP's content within the first couple weeks of coming back. Leveling up? A breeze because I farmed a rare-find archaeology Blue staff that had entry-level epic stats on it, while being equippable 5 levels earlier. Total gear boost that made all world and leveling dungeon content super easy, I could literally out-DPS the DPS in my group as a tank because I had an OP weapon.

I'd missed out on all the raids, so it'd be hard for me to get into the Garrosh raid, right? Nope. Timeless Isles gear + PVP gear + BoE Epics on AH = minimum ilvl to enter Garrosh LFR. Get lucky with LFR and farm up another piece of PVP gear, now I'm in Normal raid. Upgrade my lowest gear, now I'm in Heroic Raid. I obtained my Heirloom Garrosh weapon in less than 2 weeks of play, having done the raid only 3-4 times.

That type of progress requires minimal effort in doing the actual raid content. I put very minimal work into learning the fights or doing all the mechanics correctly. All I had to do was get in the bare minimum at a time when everyone else is over-geared, and jump in at a time when everyone's farming for Heirlooms to get my shot in.

It's power gaming. I game the system to my advantage, which is why I know the glaring holes involved. Progress being attached to gear means all you need to do to progress is to get the gear. And effectively, this is why Boosting is a thing. You can bypass effort by going straight for the Gear.

What I propose is more an effort-driven means of progress that wouldn't be as easily cheesed. If content requires skill, then you should develop those skills to beat the content in order to reap the rewards. And the rewards shouldn't just be something that 'makes you more OP for all other content', because that ultimately leads to the Boosting we see today, where top-end content is doable by less people because everyone's overall ilvl is high enough to bring in 'dead weight' for cash. I mean, ultimately shouldn't the game be promoting Player progression anyways?

I'm advocating against my own method of playing through MoP, because I don't think this is how the game should be meant to be played. Gaming the system is how the current game is meant to played. Even your example of Top End raiders having to do split raids to gear up individuals the quickest is an example of how the game 'is meant to be played'. And it really gives advantages to those who have access to the resources to game the system (people helping split-raid, or having lots of money to buy Boosts) over those who are legitimately trying to progress on their own.

I just don't really see how you can make that system work while having other systems. It doesn't bother me that people go to extremes to game the system but rather how much of the system is tied to trivial content. It is just how to divorce the two that has me lost...

I feel like cypher from next patch is a very good first step for how it should be handled. Allow many layers of power but keep them all restrained to outside of challenging or pvp content with the soft nerf items locked behind time gates via story quests.

[Triceron]

To be honest, I’m surprised they haven’t done something like this already.

Because this sounds exactly like the type of game someone designing a spreadsheet simulator would do, where the focus is solely power vs content and completely tosses the actual immersive part of playing an RPG, equipping gear, and growing a character stronger that make a game a game, not a spreadsheet.

There really isn't anything immersive about equipping gear that isn't already trivialized by transmogs and other customizations.

That you personally feel feel your immersion comes from gear that has higher stats is really just a product of conditioning. There are plenty of games that offer horizontal progression gear that don't boost stats, but rather offer other types of customization options that are useful and relevant to the content at hand.

Like Monster Hunter. It's a massive evolution on the Diablo 1 formula to the point where most stats get fairly capped, and progression comes more from stacking certain statuses or building up a set that unlocks a useful feature like 'Hearing Protection' that allows you to bypass a boss' stun mechanic whenever they roar near you. Not everyone needs to build a set to unlock that feature, but having it is an option and a very useful one to have.

An example earlier was Sylvanas' bow. If it were a piece of gear that gives you access to a new skill that you can fit into your rotation, that would be a good example. The bow itself doesn't need to be tuned 'multiple Ilvls' higher than the rest of the content. An item that 'has Wailing Arrow' which is a good enough incentive on its own to aim towards. We're still talking about fulfilling all the RPG aspects, just that the raw ilvl stats don't need to be there in order for you to progress. All of that can be literally through your player's own achievement.

And as for being a spreadsheet simulator; like that's what WoW already is if you consider some people only use their preferred transmog and only see gear as a tool to push forward into harder content. We had iterations of WoW where you're literally spending most of your time using 3rd party calculators and 'Ask Mr Robot' sims. What's the difference really? WoW is already that game.

[Zyrinx]

Things to do that aren't seasonal or transient. Collecting us already a huge one, Housing could be the ultimate, if done properly.

[Glorious Leader]

It would make more sense to just have world ilv base, heroic, then mythic...

The other ilvs are not really tied to progression. You would cut out the weird bloat from 200 to 233 and get rid of the grind system rather then removing gear from the parts of he game that effect play.

No actually it wouldn't make more sense. Since you can't actually progress past mythic, mythic is the least difficulty setting thats tied to progression in so far as gear is concerned. I suggest that the people least impacted by having gear removed would be mythic raiders.

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I just don't really see how you can make that system work while having other systems. It doesn't bother me that people go to extremes to game the system but rather how much of the system is tied to trivial content. It is just how to divorce the two that has me lost....

It has you lost because you don't understand the concept of other people existing in the game and wanting to be entertained by it.

[NineSpine]

That's the problem with this argument. You can't have an opinion on this forum that the current system isn't fundamentally broken or needs to change because doing so makes you an "elitist." It's not about the rewards themselves, it's the fact that if you make the same things available to all players it greatly, greatly removes the incentive from doing actual difficult content in the game. You remove that incentive and the whole thing starts to fall apart. The entire structure that modern WoW exists falls apart. But hey, casuals get Mythic gear and therefore more subs and therefore game is good, right? I can't get behind this argument (especially when it's usually positioned as, "well FF14 does it and it's beating WoW") because I don't think that removing the building blocks this game has existed on for nearly two decades is a particularly great idea.

The game wasn't built on 4 difficulty settings and M+ two decades ago. The game wasn't built on a system where ilvl trumped all. There were items from the 40s that were endgame BiS throughout the entirety of classic. The system we have now in WoW is the product of incremental changes that have rendered it just as different from its original self as it is from Guild Wars 2 or Final Fantasy.

[Halliax]

So, another thread full of entitled people wanting free mythic gear? I dont know whats the catch here, you do harder content, you get better gear. Simple. I hope this game doesnt becomes another FFIXV or ESO, I know FFXIV does a lot of success currently, but why we cant have our own game? What will you guys ask next? Autoplay?

[ClassicPeon]

They did it for years.

Then problem isnt them catering to the wrong people. The problem is Blizzard being unable to make engaging content atm.

[Triceron]

Not true. Casuals could not get BIS gear if they did not do the highest difficulties possible.
But that's what the casuals want. And that kind of system is totally nuts. Getting the absolute best gear from doing dailies, even extremely timegated, is dull. Beside that you get the same effect from weekly chests, somewhat, beside Trinkets and BiS stats on each item maybe.
But the worst criers don't even want to make something for the chest. Not even a single key each week.

The thread is full of memory bias. You could NEVER get BiS gear if you did not work for it in higher difficulties.
Token gear etc. was always worse gear than achievable.

And beside that you can get Tier pieces in the next Patch for doing basically anything. So they cater the casual player a lot.

Or do you want to get BiS gear from farming Herbs?

It doesn't even have to be BIS, most people are just talking about progression in general.

Look at the weapons and items you can craft. It's been limited to one blue, one epic. And each tier, they *might* throw another entry-level-raid BoE epic craft your way. That's generally about it.

Many other games, crafting is a full progression system in itself, one that continually rewards something to strive for. You are upgrading yourself through a series of crafting challenges. You can gain access to new abilities through the unique crafts you make. There are risk/reward mechanics to increase the power of your gear, at the risk of having it corrupted/destroyed, so you're incentivized to having access to backups in case you don't get payoffs. That's something to work towards. The way crafting is right now, you can farm up stuff to make a cool epic weapon, but that's about it. Now your crafting gameplay comprises of making the same entry-level-raid BoE weapon to sell and make money. There's no actual progression from crafting in WoW.

That's a huge difference from other MMO's and other games that have progression tied directly into casual content, like crafting.

[Weezull]

The differentiation needs to be made between casual = bad players, casual = low playtime, and casual = want to screw around and not really accomplish things. Obviously there is a ton of overlap there, but it still sucks that this word takes on such different meanings and leads to people talking past each other.

For example I have pretty low playtime but not really any skill barriers to any of the content I've done (M+20, glad). Having to do "chores" hasn't really been an issue. A few hours of torghast per character really isn't a problem, since it takes longer than that to get bored of torghast especially since you can rotate through different specs and try different anima powers. What's been an issue is the gold cost of legendaries, and the fact that I either need to run around mining/herbing for days, or buy tokens. Whereas for another "casual" player who lives in the game but sucks, he probably has far different concerns, and it seems there are many in this thread who think that you should be able to get gear through pure time investment devoid of any performance incentive.

[hulkgor]

Simple.

Different types of content, that appeals to both types of players (and everything in between).

It's really not "one size fits all".

[odamienskii]

because you want to cater the same type of content for casuals and non casuals. Dont do it.

Give them other engaging and fun content besides the big 3. Community based POIs. Reward meaningful items, such as cosmetics for these activities and make them plentiful and unique, not lazy recolors of raids and dungeons, etc. Make it your priority to design gameplay and cosmetics evergreen so that you don't have to rethink the wheel each expansion but instead have the option to build upon existing material instead.

I was freaking tired of the game only existsing within the treadmill of grind to keep character relevant so that I can then jump into M+ and Mythic.

The raids are already good as is with LFR/Normal for casuals.

Its all well and good doing this but the problem is the casuals want the powers the nolifers have, thats where blizzard falls short, it was clear from taughast alone what the intention was, have levels for all players, 1-8 was it? within a few days the majority of the community was crying "its too hard" because better players were completing it and they were unable to because they wasnt good enough, what was the answer? blizzard nerfed it to accommadate the bads.

The same will happen with anything at all that blizzard introduces to cater to the casuals, they will not enjoy it because wow isnt about shiney costmetics, its about power. casuals wont admit it but they still go to places like m+ to get the best gear so they can go to there social night raids and say "look what i got"

Untill blizzard stops folding whenever someone not good enough cries "its too hard" the game will forever suck for the better players.

Il give an example of a resto druid in the guild i was in "taughast is literally impossible it needs a nerf" on my first attempt i cleared it, to help i spoke to her about where she got stuck and she was trying to facetank 2 elites in catform where i used my experience and cycloned one of them, told her this and she was like "thats genius!" no its not genius at all, its what 500 days played time gives you. thats why players like me need harder content and not to have everything attunned for the worst players in the game because frankly the game is nothing but a free to play casino with zero difficulty for players like me. boring...unsub.

What would of happened if blizzard didnt flap at the first wave of casual complaints was players would of gradually learnt, got better, improved and climbed the ladder, like they should have, but nono, blizzard just nerfed it. i hear BOLLOCKS that some classes were undertuned blah blah, if thats the case why didnt blizzard attune just those classes? they nerfed the whole thing to accommadate the mass wave of casuals expecting to be able to clear the content experienced players can clear because....its there game too.

"I have a baby"
"i have a job"
"i have a life"

What about the people that pump 16 hours a day into the game? thats where blizzard has lost the majority of subs, not from the casuals, but the real oldschool hardcore players because those players like me were held back on things to do from the 3rd day of release after all m0 was cleared. then the following week the 2nd day after m0 was recleared. literally nothing to do.

Blizzard need to understand that socials log into the game for the .....social aspect, that will ALWAYS be there no matter what blizzard introduce. but hardcore players can only play hard content if hard content is there, which frankly it isnt, sure bad players are going to think "the games hard what you talking about" i remember raid bosses like mimiron hardmode pre nerf, lich king heroic pre nerf, siegecrafter blackfuse pre nerf. 400+ wipe bosses, soon as its nerfed everyone clears it and it loses its value for hardcore players. no longer fun, no longer challenging, but social player has now cleared it too so he must be as good right? wrong,

i bet if blizzard looked into the history of subs they would notice a side by side decline of when a raid is pre nerf and after a raid is nerfed, that should tell them everything they need to know. as soon as it becomes easy for all thats when the unsubs will start waiting for the next patch where it will be challenging again.

[Swnem]

LOL. TBC was horrible for casuals.

It was a different time and not really cause there were 10 man raids. Unless you mean the no-step on any instance kind of casual... then there were dailies/reps and crafting. It wasn't very different from what we have today.

But, for the casual raider, those 10man exclusive raids were sweet.

[Sanguinerd]

snip

I've read people being wrong before but this takes the cake.. You genuinely think most sub-losses are players leaving because content isnt hard enough? Who the hell do you think is still subbed at this point? It certainly isn't your average casual player.

People are leaving because besides "the big 3" there is nothing to do for casuals that rewards proper character progression and that's "all" they want. Everything is behind walls people do not want to climb and people like you who are always screeching "just get better at the game" don't seem to get it; people dont care about being good they want to have fun.

If Blizzard truly wants to have a successful expansion again they need to offer meaningful character progression for EVERYONE. They did it before, they know how to do it now they just need to get rid of whatever gatekeeping crapdev is holding everyone back.

[Echo of Soul]

So, another thread full of entitled people wanting free mythic gear? I dont know whats the catch here, you do harder content, you get better gear. Simple. I hope this game doesnt becomes another FFIXV or ESO, I know FFXIV does a lot of success currently, but why we cant have our own game? What will you guys ask next? Autoplay?

I haven't seen a single person asking for mythic gear. In the past you could buy the second best gear in the game with valor points that you got from doing things like daily heroics, raids on any difficulty and daily quests. It would take you months due to the weekly cap to get a full set and the next patch you could buy the previous patch's gear with justice points which had no cap which acted like a catch-up system. People just want them to put back in to the game something that was taken away.

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I've read people being wrong before but this takes the cake.. You genuinely think most sub-losses are players leaving because content isnt hard enough? Who the hell do you think is still subbed at this point? It certainly isn't your average casual player.

People are leaving because besides "the big 3" there is nothing to do for casuals that rewards proper character progression and that's "all" they want. Everything is behind walls people do not want to climb and people like you who are always screeching "just get better at the game" don't seem to get it; people dont care about being good they want to have fun.

If Blizzard truly wants to have a successful expansion again they need to offer meaningful character progression for EVERYONE. They did it before, they know how to do it now they just need to get rid of whatever gatekeeping crapdev is holding everyone back.

You hit the nail on the head. In that rival MMO that everyone is leaving for you can do exactly that. Do matchmade content, get currency and slowly buy the second best gear in the game. Casuals aren't treated like second class citizens there so that's who left and it started about a year ago when they realized that Shadowlands only gave them scraps and the only people who deserved good things in WoW were the people who did premade content.