"Catering to 5% of your player base will leave you with 5% of your player base"

[MoanaLisa]

Why not? MS got the strings - they can replace everything and call it a day if they wanted?

Ion is praised for the raids and top class in the industry. But i'm really hoping for some MS director, just to spice up things a bit.

I suspect Ion is a good manager of teams and producers. That's his main job, not drafting out every little detail. By all accounts he's good to work with and of all the managers that have been at Blizzard for years, he's one of a very few that came out of all of the recent uproar clean. He's not likely to go anywhere unless he's promoted up the line or takes over a new unannounced title.

Most of what he does if it's like any other management job is sit in meetings, works for design consensus, keeps everyone on schedule and on the same page.

[gigasx]

What exactly is the content for hardcore tho?
They anounced zones, leveling, new class, UI upgrades, professions... what's with the casual that can't do this?

[Kyanion]

Ideally:
1. More mage tower challenges that scale up to mythic level of gear drop with drops not static loot
2. 1-2-3 man max scenarios that scale up to mythic
3. M+ with bot healer and tank
4. RBG solo queue
5. Automatic grouping systems with no interaction
6. Full removal of chat as a UI option

That’s to name a few. I am not asking for easier life I am in favor of the choice to not interact with the community to be respected.

1. The mage tower thing I have no comment on.
2. Ah yes scenarios that failed content in MoP that really wasn't that well liked. Seems like a waste of resources to put more in but if they did, hey great.
3. M+ with bots? You wish. M+ isn't changing any time soon and it shouldn't.
4. As long as it is only with other people who RBG solo queue so you don't run afoul of queued groups.
5. Automatic grouping systems? LFR? Random dungeon? You're not getting it for M+ so give that shit up. No interaction? Yeah I love a player that joins something and refuses to say a damn word. Isn't that the complaint people have with LFD being introduced in WotLK Classic? Well not introduced in this case.
6. Are you kidding? Really?
You're not playing a fucking solo player game. Get over it.

I'm glad Blizz does not cater to this kind of 'solo' gameplay. That isn't what many of the people wanting more solo content are even asking for. You're like one of those League of Legends players that refuses to communicate ANYTHING in game the entire time and does not give warning pings to players or anything. You're just treating a multiplayer experience as a pure solo game. That is really sad.

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Wait, you're literally arguing that nobody should have to play any multiplayer game with...other people. What the fuck my guy?

Yeah that is beyond me right there.

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Don't even bother. He just want to get acess to everything as solo player. Like seriously, M+ with bot healer/tank? How easy then it should be? Below HC dungeon? Or the Tank/Healer should be immortal?
Scenarios were in the game, fun once and then forget them. Maybe thats why Blizz don't bother with them anymore because the participation was low?

He just want a single player in WoW settings but thats not going to happen.

Yeah if that is the type of 'solo' player WoW needs to survive I'd rather it die.

[Lollis]

Yeah if that is the type of 'solo' player WoW needs to survive I'd rather it die.

Yep, basically he wants to press a button, collect mythic loot without any effort, and then peace out. Sounds fun and super engaging.

Play any game that allows for spawning in full gear or abilities such as Grim Dawn, it's fun for a couple of minutes to see what you can do, and then what happens everyone? You stop playing because there is nothing to do, nothing to achieve, no advancement, no challenge.

Our boy doesn't want an MMO, he wants to play solo Minecraft in creative mode.

[Diaphin]

Ideally:
1. More mage tower challenges that scale up to mythic level of gear drop with drops not static loot
2. 1-2-3 man max scenarios that scale up to mythic
3. M+ with bot healer and tank
4. RBG solo queue
5. Automatic grouping systems with no interaction
6. Full removal of chat as a UI option

That’s to name a few. I am not asking for easier life I am in favor of the choice to not interact with the community to be respected.

Plain and simple what do players want?
1. Good time
2. Some gear for their effort

So why should both these things go through the whims of other players when it is a known fact the other players will abuse this kind of power?

1. Can we be realistic here for a moment? Who would that actually serve? Such a solo challenge mode which awards player power would need to be tuned to have the same personal player requirements you would expect from a mythic raid or a high m+ key, otherwise it would just fully devalue group content, as it already removes to the necessity to organize a party. And like, no, casual solo players are usually not that invested into the game and their performance to have the necessary skill level and optimization to be able to beat such a challenge, people who play on this level already raid or do m+, so in the end with the exception of a freak minority of outliers, this challenge mode would only be a chore raiders and m+ players need to do to gain additional loot.
2. They tried that already, it was not a success and barely anyone engaged with it. You know who were the people who beat the mage tower solo challenge early in legion? Raiders. You know who only started to beat them from 9.2 onwards when they started to outgear it? The demographic you'Re trying to advocate for. You know what can't be outgeared as long as it offers current item level rewards without raiding or m+? Your idea.
3. Your target demographic would fail at that miserably too though, as bots so far have failed to play on a similar level to real players, so outside of them being overtuned and Blizzard taking your gold for their own automated carries, it would just put further responsibilities on the dps players, with the people who would engage with such a system being already those that play dps to avoid responsibilities
4. Sure, but it probably wouldn't lead to much success.
5. We already have that in the game with all game modes with can be expected to be beaten with a random collection of players of differing skill levels who don't want to interact with each other, it would fail at any game mode that requires any higher level of skill and cooperation. How do I know that? I saw cataclysm heroics and how the casuals loathed those, because they couldn't beat them. And that was just heroics.
6. Thats just weird man, sounds like you're social anxiety is so bad that MMORPGs are actively bad for your mental health. Like, whats next, an option to be set into a solo server?

1. Thats subjective and most of your ideas will not creat a good time for the people you envision they would pander towards, quite the opposite, they would only creat further frustrations as they would get locked more and more from solo play modes as well.
2. Casuals and solo players already get gear for their effort, it even reaches up to normal raid level quality and they are able to upgrade it into a full tier set with the full normal raid transmog appereance.

[Kyanion]

Yep, basically he wants to press a button, collect mythic loot without any effort, and then peace out. Sounds fun and super engaging.

Play any game that allows for spawning in full gear or abilities such as Grim Dawn, it's fun for a couple of minutes to see what you can do, and then what happens everyone? You stop playing because there is nothing to do, nothing to achieve, no advancement, no challenge.

Our boy doesn't want an MMO, he wants to play solo Minecraft in creative mode.

Or a god mode/cheat code. I don't even know what he's trying to get. Whatever it is Blizz would never do shit that insane.

Know what game has a NPC dungeon mode? FF. Know what mode is super dull? That one.

[WowIsDead64]

Or a god mode/cheat code. I don't even know what he's trying to get. Whatever it is Blizz would never do shit that insane.

Know what game has a NPC dungeon mode? FF. Know what mode is super dull? That one.

I constantly hear "Epics in mailbox" or "God mode/cheat code" strawman arguments. Nobody asks to remove hard content with prestige rewards. What players usually ask are: 1) Make base hardcore/difficulty level much lower 2) Don't mix easy and hard content 3) Don't gate easy content behind hard one 4) Make difficulty ramping smooth and gradual 5) Allow player to choose, when he wants to make next difficulty step instead of forcing him 6) Allow player to stop at any desired difficulty. Basically - just make game with good game design, as almost all other games have proper difficulty settings and ramping. And only Wow is crappy game, where player does the most casual content in whole game, i.e. Covenant campaign, everything is ok and then BAM Maw sh*t with elite mobs, special ability not properly working and dying 10 times.

[Kyanion]

I constantly hear "Epics in mailbox" or "God mode/cheat code" strawman arguments. Nobody asks to remove hard content with prestige rewards. What players usually ask are: 1) Make base hardcore/difficulty level much lower 2) Don't mix easy and hard content 3) Don't game easy content behind hard one 4) Make difficulty ramping smooth and gradual 5) Allow player to choose, when he wants to make next difficulty step instead of forcing him 6) Allow player to stop at any desired difficulty. Basically - just make game with good game design, as almost all other games have proper difficulty settings and ramping. And only Wow is crappy game, where player does the most casual content in whole game, i.e. Covenant campaign, everything is ok and then BAM Maw sh*t with elite mobs, special ability not properly working and dying 10 times.

The difference is what the Motorman was requesting to happen and what people who advocate for solo rewards advocate for. I'm not against casual or solo players getting rewards, but it shouldn't exactly be easy to get mythic quality loot either. Motorman is going too far in one extreme to be taken seriously. He wants a full Solo player game and that is not what WoW is. Now there is a lot of content that can be done solo, but going into M+ with fucking NPCs or Bots to do it for you? Yeah no.

And wtf you mean don't mix easy and hard content? There are 4 raid difficulty modes, there is normal/heroic/mythic/mythic+ dungeons. There is the right level of game out there for casual players. There is world content that rewards items, there is a weekly box that rewards things. There is a new system that lets you convert an item and get set pieces.

The things you're requesting as just as much nonsense as his really. I don't even know what you're even asking for.

And it does not even sound like you understand the current state of the game if you think you finish the campaign and then get murdered by elite Maw Mobs. You do realize we're in ZM now right? PLENTY of casual stuff out there too.

[WowIsDead64]

The difference is what the Motorman was requesting to happen and what people who advocate for solo rewards advocate for. I'm not against casual or solo players getting rewards, but it shouldn't exactly be easy to get mythic quality loot either. Motorman is going too far in one extreme to be taken seriously. He wants a full Solo player game and that is not what WoW is. Now there is a lot of content that can be done solo, but going into M+ with fucking NPCs or Bots to do it for you? Yeah no.

And wtf you mean don't mix easy and hard content? There are 4 raid difficulty modes, there is normal/heroic/mythic/mythic+ dungeons. There is the right level of game out there for casual players. There is world content that rewards items, there is a weekly box that rewards things. There is a new system that lets you convert an item and get set pieces.

The things you're requesting as just as much nonsense as his really. I don't even know what you're even asking for.

And it does not even sound like you understand the current state of the game if you think you finish the campaign and then get murdered by elite Maw Mobs. You do realize we're in ZM now right? PLENTY of casual stuff out there too.

First of all, I agree, that MMO genre is too limiting. It doesn't allow us to have some great features, because they're considered to be "anti-social". Player housing for example. It doesn't allow us to play our way, because game have to be "competitive" and therefore all players have to play according to the same rules, even if these average rules don't suit all players. Prestige rewards - are big part of MMOs' design. "Being better than others and showing off achievements" - is major motivation for many players. And today it's even more important, because we have P2W Wow Tokens, i.e. "If you can't do it yourself - you have to buy it". But if for now devs decide to keep it and therefore alienate big % of their potential playerbase - then it's their choice.

Second thing - casual players actually don't need "character power" rewards. They need two things only. "I was there" souvenirs and making game easy. As simple, as that. So, when hardcores clime, that "casuals want to take our exclusive rewards away from us" - they're wrong. Nobody needs your rewards. Casuals just want to feel, that they also play this game - not eat breadcrumbs from hardcores' table. So, they need easily obtainable "pleb" transmogs and easy content, that doesn't require Mythic gear to enjoy it. Because it Mythic gear is required to enjoy content - then casuals are forced to want it.

[Kyanion]

First of all, I agree, that MMO genre is too limiting. It doesn't allow us to have some great features, because they're considered to be "anti-social". Player housing for example.

How the fuck is player housing Anti-Social? They could do it like FF or other games do it where players can easily go to each other's houses and have a guild hall if they wanted. Could be a secondary market for creating/buying/selling things for your house. It doesn't have to be anti-social.

The rest of your comment I just cut out because I have no earthly idea what you're rambling about or what point you're trying to make other than some weird nostalgia trip for Vanilla and then bashing the token with a clueless take.

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Second thing - casual players actually don't need "character power" rewards. They need two things only. "I was there" souvenirs and making game easy. As simple, as that.

As simple as you being wrong I guess. Casual players DO want character power rewards in the form of gear, titles, mounts, pets, etc. Not all casual players want the game to be 'easy' either. You know what the problem is with 'casual' players and 'solo' players? They all want different things. Know what happens when they spread themselves too thin with demands? They just bash the game because Blizz isn't doing whatever fucking niche thing they are asking for.

[Ragedaug]

As for your time being more valuable than my feelings thats debatable but generally speaking noone gives a fuck about anyone's time unless its a lawyer and that time is being charged.

I'm not siding with the guy you are arguing with on most of his points as I have no problem with high level gear being available outside organized raiding, but your reply here is asinine. People not giving a flip about someone else's time is why 24 of us have to sit on our thumb for 30-45 minutes waiting for a raid to start because that last guy is late and can't be bothered to tell anyone where he is or when he's going to be here.

Not giving a flip about someone else's time is why you have that AFK'er in dungeon or raid who's watching his shows on TV while you run him through the dungeon. He just wants his dungeon rewards (gear, xp, etc) and doesn't care that he's dead weight and it takes you 1/3 longer to clear the dungeon with him not contributing.

Not giving a flip about someone else's time is a clear and direct message that you believe your time is more valuable than anyone else's time. It's selfish and more than a little narcissistic.

If the only time you remotely care about how you are wasting someone else's time is when you have to pay for it (i.e. your lawyer example) that would in the realm of sociopathic.

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Second thing - casual players actually don't need "character power" rewards. They need two things only. "I was there" souvenirs and making game easy. As simple, as that. So, when hardcores clime, that "casuals want to take our exclusive rewards away from us" - they're wrong. Nobody needs your rewards. Casuals just want to feel, that they also play this game - not eat breadcrumbs from hardcores' table. So, they need easily obtainable "pleb" transmogs and easy content, that doesn't require Mythic gear to enjoy it. Because it Mythic gear is required to enjoy content - then casuals are forced to want it.

Nobody needs it. Your arguments to starve powerful gear from casuals can be extended to anyone in the game. Obviously the world first clears are done without all the gear upgrades. So they didn't need it. Final bosses never need to drop gear. If you beat the final boss in the XPac, why do you need any gear from it? Yet it drops the best gear you can find in the entire expansion.

Gear in an RPG isn't about "needing" it. The content could easily be tuned to be completed by players with no gear/stat bonuses. Gear is about progression, and casuals get an endorphin rush just like raiders do when they get a gear upgrade and progress their character, which is likely one of the bigger reasons they play the game.

[Niwes]

I'm very disappointed with whole announcement. No single world about casual and solo players.
Imo Ion again will focus on raiders and make ppl quit fast.

at least your title statement is definitely true.

IF they cater just to 5% of their playerbase… i can’t say that. i have no data.

but the statement is 100% fact.

[gigasx]

Oh so the problem is playing multiplayer in a MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE ROLE PLAYING GAME, i guess we can't argue anymore other than go play a single player game

[WowIsDead64]

How the fuck is player housing Anti-Social? They could do it like FF or other games do it where players can easily go to each other's houses and have a guild hall if they wanted. Could be a secondary market for creating/buying/selling things for your house. It doesn't have to be anti-social.

The rest of your comment I just cut out because I have no earthly idea what you're rambling about or what point you're trying to make other than some weird nostalgia trip for Vanilla and then bashing the token with a clueless take.

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As simple as you being wrong I guess. Casual players DO want character power rewards in the form of gear, titles, mounts, pets, etc. Not all casual players want the game to be 'easy' either. You know what the problem is with 'casual' players and 'solo' players? They all want different things. Know what happens when they spread themselves too thin with demands? They just bash the game because Blizz isn't doing whatever fucking niche thing they are asking for.

I personally don't say, that houses are anti-social. Some pro-social players use this strawman argument and unfortunately Blizzard support them. I also think, that "anti-social" term is bad in this case. Anti-social is something about being sociopath. It's more about PVP players, who get fun via humiliating other players. I would rather use term "socially neutral". Real truth - Blizzard don't do it, because it's feature, that has low profit ratio - it requires high development cost vs small amount of so called "content". This is something similar to situation with Cataclysm, when lots of resources were invested into new leveling, but great leveling wasn't able to keep players subbed.

And no. Players don't need character power rewards. They're especially useless in age of scaling, when mobs constantly scale to always stay "hard" for you. What players want - is illusion of progression. You should clearly understand, that action-RPG games are actually games about playing with numbers. Just think about your motivation to play games like Diablo. All you want - to find better piece of gear to increase numbers, that consolidate in one number called "character power". But mobs scale to match your power. Either their level or difficulty. This this game isn't about gaining "power". It's about seeing higher numbers on a screen. It's about playing with numbers. Getting satisfaction via seeing higher numbers, filling some bars, etc. All RPG games are about it. So no. Players don't need character power. What they need - is tools to make game a) doable b) fun. Doable is obvious. For example rares aren't soloable by players, who don't have Mythic gear. That's why casuals need them. Fun is also obvious. Nuking mobs is also more fun, than slowly crawling through mob swamp. You should clearly understand, that "Earning fun game" concept doesn't work for casual players. Because this "earning" - is actually their core gameplay and when they reach "fun" - they have nothing else to do and have to start "earning" from scratch. That turns their game into constant suffering from this "earning".

[MoanaLisa]

The difference is what the Motorman was requesting to happen and what people who advocate for solo rewards advocate for. I'm not against casual or solo players getting rewards, but it shouldn't exactly be easy to get mythic quality loot either.

At the very minimum it should take a lot longer. Material requirements should be high. I wouldn't necessarily gate it but I would make the material collection stringent enough that it would be better to go the M+ or raid route. I doubt if you would find much of anyone suggesting that mythic quality power rewards should be available as quickly as they are to mythic players. People do suggest that all of the time to denigrate the idea but it's very rare to find anyone that doesn't understand that if that quality of reward were in the game it would take much more effort and time than other paths.

The main idea would be to allow non-raiders to have quality goals that they could eventually obtain with enough persistence and that they wouldn't obtain the latest patch catch-up gear and then sit the rest of the patch or expansion with little or no opportunity for progression and improvement.

[chiddie]

I'm getting really tired of casuals complaining about how casual unfriendly this game is when, without a doubt, every expansion has made this game more and more casual friendly. You guys can complete every raid in the game, every dungeon in the game, even entry level mythic dungeons. You have a huge amount of world content specifically designed for you, as well as plenty of other solo content of varying difficulty.

Anyone who thinks that this game is focusing on hardcore content is delusional.

None of this content you mentioned give proper player power progression after 1 month. And it is one month only because of time gates, else it would be even less.

Edit: btw new crafting system seems interesting IF they take their word about ilvl being mythic level AND it won’t require BoP reagents you can find in M+/raids/PvP only.

[Niter]

I wouldn't say that they're catering to 5%, there have been multiple videos showing how many guilds have cleared raids in the past few years, and the number seems to be around 65% (there are many videos for that with their sources and such, so a quick search on YT should suffice). The number of guilds clearing mythic dungeons isn't as solid, but it seems that there are more people clearing such dungeons, so they seem to be prioritising the majority of their player base.

Having said that, there should be at least 20% of their players who don't really go for such content. They could be hardcore PvPers, we can't be certain, although from my experience with the game I don't think more than 10% actually play that much PvP. There must be some overlap there as well, considering PvPers and raiders.

That isn't to say they couldn't have more storylines in the game, with phasing, stuff to collect, discover and complete. A lot of people in WotLK, for instance, played the other high level areas to see the rest of the storylines. Many quests even required max level before we could get them. In WoD, there were a lot of stuff to collect in areas where a fresh max level character wouldn't venture alone. Adding stuff to professions, which was common in Vanilla and TBC despite some items not being particularly powerful, or pursuing customisation options (a big example would be the dark eyes for Night Elves, from a quest players didn't really have to do unless they wanted the customisation), such ideas would be interesting. Other possibilities such as the series of quests and daily quests we had to build the Argent Grounds could also be interesting as long as they wouldn't lead to power that couldn't be acquired otherwise.

Having more to do rather than going for drops and grinding resources to achieve more power would be excellent.

[Yriel]

I constantly hear "Epics in mailbox" or "God mode/cheat code" strawman arguments.

I always thought the funniest thing about that is that the M+/raiders almost literally get "Epics in mailbox" with their weekly vault rewards. Just for doing the content they do anyways the get free epics. But if they get those it's ok, of course, they deserve those.

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None of this content you mentioned give proper player power progression after 1 month. And it is one month only because of time gates, else it would be even less.

And in SL they made that even worse with giving everyone M0 entry equipement at the end of the leveling/coventant quests, invalidating all normal/heroic dungeons and world contant instantly. Just to have their precious M+ and raiders hop into their favourite content as fast as possible.

[ellieg]

I agree. Catering to the 5% of casuals that probably already quit but still come to cry on the forums is not a good idea. I'm glad they aren't doing this.

[Flarelaine]

Given the subs plummeting off a cliff, they might actually want to try that.

Go on, present those numbers.

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The main issue in WoW group play is that it doesn’t work if you don’t have a fixed group of people to play with in fixed times. I would have no problem in doing M+ if they would all be “boom I’m in”, no problem if I then fail the timer. Difficulty is manageable, time isn’t.

Now if only there was a way to associate with other players, form a group, perhaps for the long term...