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

[Balbuto]

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.

without raids the game will die, the end. raids are the backbone of the entire mmorpg end game. If anything m+ is killing the game slowly by seperating guilds into two camps, one that playes m+ to get raid loot and the other that raids to get loot for m+. in a perfect world it goes hand in hand but from what I can tell since bfa atleast it divides end game pushing and the ppl playing it. imo though, not sure what other ppl feel.

[Miffinat0r]

without raids the game will die, the end. raids are the backbone of the entire mmorpg end game. If anything m+ is killing the game slowly by seperating guilds into two camps, one that playes m+ to get raid loot and the other that raids to get loot for m+. in a perfect world it goes hand in hand but from what I can tell since bfa atleast it divides end game pushing and the ppl playing it. imo though, not sure what other ppl feel.

This is confirmation bias. Because you raid you think raiding is holding everything together. GC even made a post about why LFR exists is because the majority of players don't raid.

I'm not saying raiding isn't important. It is, but to say it's the "backbone" is a bit of a stretch. If anything the World is the backbone, the aesthetic is the backbone, and the experience is the backbone. Raiding is just a bone within the overall spine.

[Raisei]

That is demanding other people have less fun. You told me I was wrong and then repeated the exact argument I made. What you described is someone saying "Not only do I want rewards, but I want others to get less rewards to make me feel good."

Nope. I only demand that if you realize a game is not for you, that you leave it alone instead of trying to change it in ways that the majority will dislike.

To make a comparion: Let's say you are playing in an organized soccer team for several years. You and your friends in the team are winning and enjoying your time playing.
Then I come along one day and tell you that I have no fun playing with you because I cannot hit the goal and instead of improving or leaving I demand that the goal is increased to double the size and it is no longer allowed to take the ball from me. And obviously I am not satisfied until these changes are made throughout the entire league.
What do you think, how much fun this would be for you and your friends that have spend time to become good players?

Because casuals want gameplay. They want things to do. This isn't about getting raid set bonuses. This is about having a fun set of endgame activities that give meaningful rewards. "Hey we made everything you like to do completely unrewarded, but uh.... set bonus pieces from grinding one zone!" is not the knock-down argument you think it is.

Surprise. So do the Raiders and Dungeon players. The only reason why their content looks like it is more is because it is harder and thus needs more effort and time to complete. The casuals in this thread do not want difficulty, they don't want to learn fights or even their own rotation, they do not want effort. So, what is the solution? Blizzard would have to patch every two month at minimum to keep delivering content that the casuals can run through in a day before they can complain again that there is no content.
Casual content would have to be delivered at a much higher pace then non-casual stuff, because it is consumed much faster. I am sure you know that it is simply not realistic to expect that.

Every time we ask for things to do, you guys start rambling about mythic level raid gear. You impose your obsession with gear and what other people have onto us. It's like someone saying "I wish there was a local soccer league to play in" and you respond "OH SO YOU WANT A SOCCER TROPHY JUST FOR SHITTING YOUR PANTS ON THE FIELD!?!?!?!?!" It's bizarre.

I find the idea that "casuals" have by now victimized themselves so hard that they think it is okay to use words like "Discrimination" and "Racism" as legitimations for their complaints a lot more bizarre.
But let us not kid ourselves. The whole issue stems from jealousy. The "casuals" want the things that the non-casuals are getting, but they aren't getting them because of lacking social ability, skill, time, tolerance for frustrationand what not. So they write on these forums and demand everything to be changed so that the people who have the former abilities cannot have things they cannot have. If you want to make yourself believe that this isn't the case, feel free, but I am sure you know that even if you are the 1 in 1000000 exception, the other "casuals" are not.

In Final Fantasy almost all I do is play dungeons and raids casually, so I'm not sure what you are talking about. Every day I log into FF14, run some casual dungeons for substantive rewards, run some casual raids for substantive rewards, do some casual pvp for substantive rewards. I can't do any of that in WoW, because the game says that if I want to do dungeons, raids, or pvp for substantive rewards I need to do them at the obnoxious organized level. It won't let me do them casually for rewards.

You illustrate my point. If FF is so much better for you, then play it, with my deepest blessings. Why does WoW need to adopt this? There is a game that does what you want, so why does this other one have to do it too? It's exactly what I mean with the casuals never going to be satisfied. All games have to cater to you or they get bombarded with threads like this.
Where is the problem with different people getting different games to play. Why do you need a casual WoW on top of FF?

it just sounds very much like you are refusing to understand what we are asking for, and instead inventing this weird strawman who wants to do a daily quest and get a BiS trinket from it.

I am not inventing anything. People have been asking for high-level gear from inconsequential content for ages. Maybe you don't, but many of your fellow "casuals" do, which means one of two things: Either there is no shared mind-set among the "casuals" or you don't know "your people" very well.

- - - Updated - - -

There is only one person throwing around those words, and it is you. You are the one with the weird hangup.

WoW used to have a lot more for casual players to do. It's not unreasonable to ask for that back, just like if they stopped making raids it would be reasonable for people who like raids to ask for them back.

Lol. This is literally the signature of one of the most outspoken "casuals" in this forum:



Please enlighten me. What casual activities did WoW have? I think we both know that it didn't have any until maybe as late as Legion. In earlier expansions it was even less, because it was expected that you play this game for the group content and that is predominantly what lead to the huge success of this game.

[NineSpine]

Nope. I only demand that if you realize a game is not for you, that you leave it alone instead of trying to change it in ways that the majority will dislike.

To make a comparion: Let's say you are playing in an organized soccer team for several years. You and your friends in the team are winning and enjoying your time playing.
Then I come along one day and tell you that I have no fun playing with you because I cannot hit the goal and instead of improving or leaving I demand that the goal is increased to double the size and it is no longer allowed to take the ball from me. And obviously I am not satisfied until these changes are made throughout the entire league.
What do you think, how much fun this would be for you and your friends that have spend time to become good players?

This analogy doesn't even approach making sense, because I'm not asking to play with ayou. I don't even know who is who here. Did I ask for the content you do to be changed? No, so what are we even talking about?

Surprise. So do the Raiders and Dungeon players. The only reason why their content looks like it is more is because it is harder and thus needs more effort and time to complete. The casuals in this thread do not want difficulty, they don't want to learn fights or even their own rotation, they do not want effort. So, what is the solution? Blizzard would have to patch every two month at minimum to keep delivering content that the casuals can run through in a day before they can complain again that there is no content.
Casual content would have to be delivered at a much higher pace then non-casual stuff, because it is consumed much faster. I am sure you know that it is simply not realistic to expect that.

Again, I can't even figure out what you are trying to say, even if I ignore that you seem to take four sentences to provide five words worth of information. WoW doesn't have casual and hardcore content. It just has content. The casual dungeons are the same dungeons as the mythic dungeons. The problem isn't the content or its volume. The problem is how the content is structured and what the rewards look like.

I didn't ask them to add one iota more content for me than there already is. I just want it to be structured in a fun and rewarding way, and it isn't.

I find the idea that "casuals" have by now victimized themselves so hard that they think it is okay to use words like "Discrimination" and "Racism" as legitimations for their complaints a lot more bizarre.
But let us not kid ourselves. The whole issue stems from jealousy. The "casuals" want the things that the non-casuals are getting, but they aren't getting them because of lacking social ability, skill, time, tolerance for frustrationand what not. So they write on these forums and demand everything to be changed so that the people who have the former abilities cannot have things they cannot have. If you want to make yourself believe that this isn't the case, feel free, but I am sure you know that even if you are the 1 in 1000000 exception, the other "casuals" are not.

This is just a weird ramble about how cool and sexy you are for not being casual. Good for you I guess? It's a little cringey to think this hard about how to play yourself up but... cool?

I just can't imagine caring this much about other people having fun with the game. I'm glad that Blizzard has good systems for you to engage in. I don't know why it is so important for you that they don't for other people. It's just odd to me for that to be a priority or to build this creepy complex up about how jealous everyone is. It just strikes me as very juvenile.

You illustrate my point. If FF is so much better for you, then play it, with my deepest blessings. Why does WoW need to adopt this? There is a game that does what you want, so why does this other one have to do it too? It's exactly what I mean with the casuals never going to be satisfied. All games have to cater to you or they get bombarded with threads like this.
Where is the problem with different people getting different games to play. Why do you need a casual WoW on top of FF?

Because I like how wow used to have a lot for me to do, and I'd like it to have that again? This is a lot less complicated than you are making it out to be.

I am not inventing anything. People have been asking for high-level gear from inconsequential content for ages. Maybe you don't, but many of your fellow "casuals" do, which means one of two things: Either there is no shared mind-set among the "casuals" or you don't know "your people" very well.

People are asking for high level gear because their gear ladder runs out in about two hours in most patches. This is about lacking progression, not about needing some specific ilvl. The most reasonable solution is to have a fourth endgame pillar that gets people to high end gear, because that is what impacts high end players the least, but if you'd prefer a solution where they force you to grind up the ladder through a casual system before you can get to the content you like, I guess that's cool but such a demand seems very at odds with the rest of your little essay here.

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Please enlighten me. What casual activities did WoW have? I think we both know that it didn't have any until maybe as late as Legion. In earlier expansions it was even less, because it was expected that you play this game for the group content and that is predominantly what lead to the huge success of this game.

You used to have a pretty long road to go if you wanted to gear up via reputations, professions, queued dungeon gear, and queued BG gear. Those things took a lot of time and effort and max out for a casual player and provided a pretty substantive and broad set of activities that had rewards that took a long time to obtain. Now, all of those activities are cut off very, very quickly. You outgear the queued dungeons and BGs almost immediately after hitting max level. Reputations and professions don't really provide much of substance anymore.

You just seem really desperate to make this pretty mundane request into something it isn't, or to shoehorn this into some self-aggrandizing narrative about all the people who are jealous of you. And I'm trying to help you when I say that the latter doesn't make you look confident and strong. It makes you look kind of desperate and weird.

[Motorman]

So you're playing the game, but you want to play it the way you want, even if that's currently not possible? You want them to design the game the way you want?

You are a paying customer, after all. Your voice matters! You should be heard!!

Everyone's voice matters. Weird that you would think otherwise but good to know where you stand regarding freedom of expression.

[Necromantic]

Jeff Kaplan was a failed writer who was working for his daddy and playing EQ all day.

Stopped reading there. Almost had me going.

3/10

[Mardux]

Grinding for higher tiered gear just for the sake of having better gear is dumb. It's a hamster wheel method of game design which caters to stupid people. The fun is in completing challenging encounters and being rewarded with gear as a side effect of solving a very difficult problem. If you strip everything away that's all encounters are. Mathematical equations in which Blizzard tries to get as close to balancing it out while leaving enough room for the players to have a statistically reasonable chance at things ending up in their favor. That means there are going to be encounters which have a margin of error too narrow for some players to overcome. Blizzard should definitely include encounters which are so difficult only the highest skilled players are capable of completing it. If you happen to be one of the majority of players who don't play at that level it doesn't mean Blizzard hates you.

I'm interested in who gave you the idea that you get to decide what other people are allowed to find fun?

[NineSpine]

Stopped reading there. Almost had me going.

3/10

"After working as a writing intern for Universal Pictures, he decided to get a graduate degree for creative writing from New York University.[2] Following this, he worked for his father's recruiting business while performing creative writing on the side to try to get his stories published.[3] He was unsuccessful at getting any of his creative stories published for several years, receiving over 170 rejection notices in a single year. By 2000, he decided to drop creative writing, and spent his time playing video games, as well as toying around with the level editors from games like Duke Nukem 3D and Half-Life.[2][3]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Kaplan

[Necromantic]

"After working as a writing intern for Universal Pictures, he decided to get a graduate degree for creative writing from New York University.[2] Following this, he worked for his father's recruiting business while performing creative writing on the side to try to get his stories published.[3] He was unsuccessful at getting any of his creative stories published for several years, receiving over 170 rejection notices in a single year. By 2000, he decided to drop creative writing, and spent his time playing video games, as well as toying around with the level editors from games like Duke Nukem 3D and Half-Life.[2][3]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Kaplan

So which is it? Both of your responses contradict each other. Your first was one-dimensional insults based on conjecture. Your second was cherry-picked information about 1 of the 40 people who designed the original game.

[Motorman]

Welcome to the world of MMOs, I guess? If you can't stomach the social demands of playing with actual people on the internet then, and I ask this as nicely as I can, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?

Play single player games, play an MMO that focusses on solo content like SWTOR, leave the game that has been defined by it's group content for 17 friggin years aloooone. It is clearly not for you.

The world does not revolve around you and your needs, no matter how much you feel that it should.

Btw. what it is with these "casuals" throwing words like "racism" and "discrimination" around because a game doesn't bend to their demands? Don't you think that is quite some abuse of words reserved for actual problems in our world?

"You people" has some very negative meanings attached to it and should not be used in petty forum arguments. Other than that I am simply making some suggestions. If you cant handle it, move on you are not obliged to agree with me or even read what I say. Telling me what to do though shows the sort of entitlement that has put wow in such a sorry state. I don't suggest how you should play I suggest how I would like to play. Feel the difference?

I didn't ask for the world to revolve around me either your arguments are very silly. Like, calm down dude lol.

[NineSpine]

So which is it? Both of your responses contradict each other. Your first was one-dimensional insults based on conjecture. Your second was cherry-picked information about 1 of the 40 people who designed the original game.

It's not conjecture. It's his story from interviews he did. These are facts. I'm sorry you deluded yourself into thinking Jeff Kaplan was some massive star in game design after getting his degree from Harvard and publishing ten books, but that's not the real world.

How about you just tell me who all these amazing talents from the top schools are?

[Mardux]

Stopped reading there. Almost had me going.

3/10

Why did you stop? Because NineSpine did what you ordered them to do by doing their "homework"?

[Necromantic]

It's not conjecture. It's his story from interviews he did.

Your first response was based off conjecture and completely hyperbolic.

These are facts. I'm sorry you deluded yourself into thinking Jeff Kaplan was some massive star in game design after getting his degree from Harvard and publishing ten books, but that's not the real world.

Could you link me the post where I said "Jeff Kaplan was some massive star in game design after getting his degree from Harvard and publishing ten books" ? I scrolled back and I couldn't find it. I'd appreciate it.

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Why did you stop? Because NineSpine did what you ordered them to do by doing their "homework"?

Typing out one-dimensional insults is not "doing your homework".

EDIT: And neither is copying/pasting the first thing you read from Wikipedia.

[Miffinat0r]

Your first response was based off conjecture and completely hyperbolic.



Could you link me the post where I said "Jeff Kaplan was some massive star in game design after getting his degree from Harvard and publishing ten books" ? I scrolled back and I couldn't find it. I'd appreciate it.

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Typing out one-dimensional insults is not "doing your homework".

I think he took objection to when you said Blizz recruits from top schools or something like that. But the history of the top stars at Blizz that wasn't the case. Blizzard for the longest time has recruited top players in their game or other games to come help design because they felt they understood the game better.

Reality is this Kaplan, & Alex got their start in EQ as players who were later recruited to the Blizz team. They were the definition of elitist jerk. Allakhazam published the emails that were sent to the Dev team and Brad during their tenure. Kaplan pretty much threatened to kill EQ multiple times because of how many players followed his guild. He started out as a jerk but changed his tune when he moved to OW. Alex was the same way he was in FoH which is the OG notorious guild that has a toxic reputation. Alex I don't believe had his emails published like Kaplan did but there were accounts of former devs saying the same thing about him.

Ion also followed this route as prior he was a DC lawyer who loved WoW endgame in Wraith and pointed out how hard a raid was and showed mathematically why it was flawed. He was hired through the same route.

Especially now Blizzard I don't believe people are rushing to go work for anymore. Especially given the recent news about how they treat their employees. Most I'd assume who have real talent were probably scooped by Riot or Dreamhaven.

[Necromantic]

I think he took objection to when you said Blizz recruits from top schools or something like that. But the history of the top stars at Blizz that wasn't the case. Blizzard for the longest time has recruited top players in their game or other games to come help design because they felt they understood the game better.

Reality is this Kaplan, & Alex got their start in EQ as players who were later recruited to the Blizz team. They were the definition of elitist jerk. Allakhazam published the emails that were sent to the Dev team and Brad during their tenure. Kaplan pretty much threatened to kill EQ multiple times because of how many players followed his guild. He started out as a jerk but changed his tune when he moved to OW. Alex was the same way he was in FoH which is the OG notorious guild that has a toxic reputation. Alex I don't believe had his emails published like Kaplan did but there were accounts of former devs saying the same thing about him.

Ion also followed this route as prior he was a DC lawyer who loved WoW endgame in Wraith and pointed out how hard a raid was and showed mathematically why it was flawed. He was hired through the same route.

Especially now Blizzard I don't believe people are rushing to go work for anymore. Especially given the recent news about how they treat their employees. Most I'd assume who have real talent were probably scooped by Riot or Dreamhaven.

The point originally was that the people who worked on vanilla through LK had experienced backgrounds and/or came from good schools. This is not the case today. I'm honestly not interested in his or anyone else when their only defense is conjecture. Responses like that are dated and boring.

Ion is where the game started taking the biggest shit dive (I guarantee I'm not even in the minority who believe this).

But they have not hired talented people in a long time, all the good ones jumped ship. And you're right, the recent events probably repel good talent even further.

[NineSpine]

The point originally was that the people who worked on vanilla through LK had experienced backgrounds and/or came from good schools. This is not the case today. I'm honestly not interested in his or anyone else when their only defense is conjecture. Responses like that are dated and boring.

Ion is where the game started taking the biggest shit dive (I guarantee I'm not even in the minority who believe this).

But they have not hired talented people in a long time, all the good ones jumped ship. And you're right, the recent events probably repel good talent even further.

Name. Them.

[MoanaLisa]

The primary purpose of a forum is to demand games be like other games instead of just playing that other game and going onto that games forums to talk abt what you like abt the game? Thats really dumb lol

Some people don't want to abandon the years of investment they have put into a game. That's fine. Who are you or anyone else to tell them they're wrong? The disconnect between the people who think the game should stay exactly as it is and the very same people who regularly comment about how the game is failing is pretty remarkable. This is a smallish community here at MMO-C. You don't need to look far to see that it's often the very same people. "The game is failing. Don't change it." <shrug>

[Triceron]

The person he quoted quite literally used those words...

And what content did they used to have for casual players that they don't have now? Is it the content or the reward structure?

Neither. Both.

Content was much more like what 9.2 has provided now. Multiple avenues of accomplishing the same goal, rather than shoehorning everything into Raids or gating all progress behind arbitrary infinite grinds for dozens of separate types of content.

Back then, Raids were not the be-all end-all for story in the game. Like, most of the story in the game was told through quests, and there were was enough quest content to last months of play, because the difficulty was a wide spread and it promoted exploration instead of giving everyone a compass and map that literally has everything checked off for you. Or how professions and crafting had become utterly pointless if you can just wait a few weeks and get carried through some M+10 runs instead.

From a personal standpoint, I think modern reward systems are a problem in general. I'll give the Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 examples of loot distribution.

In D2, a casual player has the same chances of getting something a hardcore player can get though, with enough luck; and even then some of the best items in the game are not uniques at all. It's all dependent on how you choose to build your character and what stats you prioritize over others. You can competently play the game wearing a mix of blues and yellows (Greens and Blues), and most of your player power comes from your class. Like, a Paladin can literally buy a magic scepter with +3 Class skills from a vendor and socket a junk shield with +all resistence gems and be pretty viable end game. All the upgrades you get after that just help you farm the same content faster, otherwise your 'progress' isn't really being limited by your gear.

Diablo 3 is like modern WoW. It literally spams you with uniques (Epics), and your goal is on getting the most optimal high-stat version of the same drops that everyone is getting. The progression content is literally designed around you completing a 'set bonus' or else your progress completely halts. In most modern design, it's quite pointless to aspire to treating Dungeons or Heroics as progression content, because they've been replaced by Mythic+ and Raids completely. Back in TBC, you could spend your entire 2 year run just doing Heroic dungeons, because they were significantly challenging and had worth to do throughout the expansion. And Heroics were fine because geared players could speed run it, while casual players treat it as a slower paced progression run. Today, that is replaced by Mythic+, and while it effectively does the same thing, Mythic+ is also not very casual because of its mechanics and timers doesn't offer much flexibility for casual play. It's all geared towards the hardcore style of speeding through it for the best rewards.

[cantrip]

Opportunism does not create a better game.

[ellieg]

Some people don't want to abandon the years of investment they have put into a game. That's fine. Who are you or anyone else to tell them they're wrong? The disconnect between the people who think the game should stay exactly as it is and the very same people who regularly comment about how the game is failing is pretty remarkable. This is a smallish community here at MMO-C. You don't need to look far to see that it's often the very same people. "The game is failing. Don't change it." <shrug>

But when the game has been the way it has for 5+ years, maybe its time to move on. I've been hearing wow is dying since 2004.

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Neither. Both.

Content was much more like what 9.2 has provided now. Multiple avenues of accomplishing the same goal, rather than shoehorning everything into Raids or gating all progress behind arbitrary infinite grinds for dozens of separate types of content.

Back then, Raids were not the be-all end-all for story in the game. Like, most of the story in the game was told through quests, and there were was enough quest content to last months of play, because the difficulty was a wide spread and it promoted exploration instead of giving everyone a compass and map that literally has everything checked off for you. Or how professions and crafting had become utterly pointless if you can just wait a few weeks and get carried through some M+10 runs instead.

From a personal standpoint, I think modern reward systems are a problem in general. I'll give the Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 examples of loot distribution.

In D2, a casual player has the same chances of getting something a hardcore player can get though, with enough luck; and even then some of the best items in the game are not uniques at all. It's all dependent on how you choose to build your character and what stats you prioritize over others. You can competently play the game wearing a mix of blues and yellows (Greens and Blues), and most of your player power comes from your class. Like, a Paladin can literally buy a magic scepter with +3 Class skills from a vendor and socket a junk shield with +all resistence gems and be pretty viable end game. All the upgrades you get after that just help you farm the same content faster, otherwise your 'progress' isn't really being limited by your gear.

Diablo 3 is like modern WoW. It literally spams you with uniques (Epics), and your goal is on getting the most optimal high-stat version of the same drops that everyone is getting. The progression content is literally designed around you completing a 'set bonus' or else your progress completely halts. In most modern design, it's quite pointless to aspire to treating Dungeons or Heroics as progression content, because they've been replaced by Mythic+ and Raids completely. Back in TBC, you could spend your entire 2 year run just doing Heroic dungeons, because they were significantly challenging and had worth to do throughout the expansion. And Heroics were fine because geared players could speed run it, while casual players treat it as a slower paced progression run. Today, that is replaced by Mythic+, and while it effectively does the same thing, Mythic+ is also not very casual because of its mechanics and timers doesn't offer much flexibility for casual play. It's all geared towards the hardcore style of speeding through it for the best rewards.

Can you give any specific examples? Like what hard quests were you doing? And when? Like 10 years ago?