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

[potis]

The "problem" with WOTLK was Arthas on the box cover. Most of the Old Guard left during WOTLK, but there was SO much new blood in the game that the subscriber base saw a net increase. But don't continue harping on about how successful WOTLK was - it wasn't. It had 1 good raid (Ulduar) and 3 good bossfights in ICC (Prof HC25, BQ Lanathel HC25 and LKHC25).

The problem with WOTLK was that the players eventually caught up, not all, but those that played a bit more, did eventually catch up cause the damn last patch took 14 months if i recall? (Do remember, they said peak was around 12mil subscribers and didnt account something like 7-8mil of those werent even level 70 at any time during wotlk).

14 months of ICC dungeons skipping all previous content, freebie PvP gear everywhere, easy mode "ICC10 NORMAL/HC 25MAN NORMAL/HCC FIRST 4 BOSSES" gear score runs etc.

Of course the average player would eventually figure out "Oh am i supposed to raid more now, cant do that".

Thats what most people dont get and accept, and somehow nostalgia hits hard.

The same happens now, Blizzard made the game, actually casual, the problem is they made it way too casual, the guy that self-proclaims himself as casual to cover for the lack of other things, but he is semi-decent at the game and plays more, progresses faster than intended and then after a few months (averagely for SL it was around month 5-6, because 9.1 was delayed), they realized they run out of things to do.

I explained this to my friend thats the same, as above, "When they release 9.2, and the first 4 chapters take like 4 hours to complete for various reasons, from a tank that pulls 20 mobs at a time and cleaves them down, new area, pick up chests, silly little things here and there", we are talking what, 6-8 hours of gameplay the first week.

For him, that works in the summer at his tourist shop, and since 9.2 released February, therefor he can play whenever, the 6-8 hours were the first 2 days, of course he run out of "Things to do", problem is, the true casual, is gonna take longer cause he wasnt wearing 255 item level the first day, and he doesnt cleave down 20 mobs at the same time, so we are talking more hours, which those hours will be plyed in 3-4 weeks, with 3 more chapters added, other farming, other shit, he never catches up.

You get my point.

Complains start when even the true casuals start catching up, the loud whiners of mmo-champion are simply people that have been playing so long and play so much, that the very casual content is too easy, and they simply arent good enough or refuse to get better to participate in content they are supposed to be doing, based on gaming experience.

[potis]

Or wait is it a secret that the “precious” end game is hogged by a select few organized guilds who don’t recruit because they prefer to sell services for rl money or for gold. Are we going to be honest about the state of end game WoW or are we going to pretend this is not happening.

This tinfoil hat moment counters your whole 5.108 and brands you are clueless.

I cant even comprehend how stupid this is to not even be ashamed to type.

Or are you that amazing that Method and Echo and Limit are asking you to pay to join thier guild?

Stop blaming the tokens for your lack of skill to do basic difficulty content.

I know people that went to Mythic raiding and CE in 3 months of starting the game.

1)Cause they want to get better.

2)They are playing around people that affect them positively and teach them properly.

3)Its not a solo content game, stop spamming the forums with such pointless dribble, do your content and unsub if you dont wanna group up.

Stop asking the game to change cause you have reached the cieling of your "skill".

Or i can assume you are worst than my ex-gf that has many AOTCs and even somehow parsed in the 80s while not being able to turn properly without losing her camera, cause thats how easy the game is.

[Delever]

So? Questing is designed to be soloable. Tell me, what about this statement is wrong? Because otherwise you're shifting goalposts to talking about 'bullshit' that I didn't say.

Did I say MMO's are designed to be played Solo? No, I did not. I said Quests are designed to be soloable. And if casuals are only interested in questing solo, then that is how they are playing the game. What you're ignoring is that a majority of the WoW player base is 'intentionally failing to access 70% of the game' because most of it is locked behind mandatory group content which they don't want to do. So they unsub.

Majority of the WoW player base is doing this. As in, there are millions of casual players who are only playing WoW as a solo experience, and only doing the '30%' if we're to use your numbers as example. And Blizzard has intentionally continued to design WoW with soloable content in mind, for these returning players, without making all quests mandatory group content.



When did I ever say I wanted to play solo? lol. Not once have I said that here, ever.

Like, I haven't been subbed to WoW since Cataclysm. Why the fuck would I care about playing solo or not? I only said questing in the game was designed to be soloable. Everything else you're saying is literally projection.

But what is that 70% you re throwing around? What is the 70% that people cannot access by playing solo? You can literally access anything in the game from a solo perspective without having to verbally engage with anyone.
There are just varying degrees of difficulty of the same exact thing that you can choose to pursue if a more coordinated group style play is your thing.
You can go into normal and heroic dungeons as well as LFR and low level M+ without exchanging as much as a single word and pretend the people alongside you are NPCs. They are all near impossible to fail and people will not really bother with you 99% of the time if you are underperforming in those difficulties unless you run across the occasional sweaty nerd.
Should all these be made soloable too? How do people actively decide to play an MMORPG with the mindset of never engaging with anyone? Theres a myriad of RPGs that offer a vastly superior solo experience.

EDIT: Unless you count high ilvl gear as content

[Miffinat0r]

Most of us here are long time MMORPG players. Some of us have been playing for over 25 years at this point, within the genre. What makes a good MMORPG? Well many will say it's the community, and the friends you make while playing. Others will say it's the endgame and the challenges you face. All of us will have differing opinions on what does and does not work within the MMORPG space. What I think I can say what's pretty clear is the market has moved past Blizzard at this point. Recently went back and watched this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BazitK-ZgDk

This highlights all the changes that went on from Blizzard's meteoric rise to it's complete and utter collapse, and yes I'm sorry the company was performing financially well, but within the space of the market and the confidence of MMO players this company has collapsed under it's own ego. What changed? Was it the evil money making activision? Sure, you can argue that. Was it the fact that for decades Blizzard probably covered up multiple sexual harassment scandals? Sure you can argue that too. What I like to think changed is us as players is the single greatest reason why this game feels like it's in a tailspin. Players, the vast majority of them, got better at playing video games.

Last night I was talking to my roomate about MMORPGs. He played classic WoW from Vanilla till mid way through Wrath. I played EQ from 2001-2007. Suffice to say our experiences were slightly different. WoW at the time had a ton of features I thought were ez mode. Then when I heard a player hit max level within a month of playing after WoW launched, my guild and I laughed about how WoW was the ez mode MMORPG. My roommate told me about the leveling process and how wanted to play that in a modern MMORPG. It dawned on me then that really the vanilla versions of WoW, and EQ too, aren't hard games. Honestly go play classic WoW right now and tell me that is a hard game? P99 is very much even more guilty of this "faux difficulty" I mean your Action Per Minute is what 2-4 keys at most? The most difficult aspect of these games is you need other players to do content to level (in EQ's sense absolutely, WoW lesser, but still relevant). This is where most people met their guilds, played with players, and found groups to run content with. The mechanics of boss fights back then were simplistic.

Problem WoW faces, and I think this is a broader conversation about video games in general, but it's particularly relevant for MMORPGs, is that there's no happy medium that casuals engage in this long process but do so with numbers that players having the opportunity to game together are abundant. Sure you can say well the endgame has tons of players! But we all know based on the forum posts here this what I've established:

•M+ is not casual content, it's not designed to be.
•Heroic Raiding, and especially Mythic Raiding is not casual content
•Ranked PVP is not casual content

LFR, Mission Table, LFD, and WQ are all casual content. But this content isn't actually challenging. Many will say players are expected to auto-win on this content because it's queued, or it's demanded otherwise forum traffic will be all hell. Now I find this argument to be silly. It's childish to think players whining on the forums have any ability to alter the actual design schedule of developers. I either get told the devs don't look at forums, because it's small microcosm of players, or that all the calls for nerfs from the forums will lead to devs nerfing your favorite content! It's like please make up your minds as to what it is because if one is true then it implies the other is not. But to the larger point which is we're at a crossroads with MMORPGs right now. How are we at a crossroads? Well it seems the old MMORPG formula from EQ has run it's course in the gaming market. What do I mean by this? Well any single-player, open world, RPG does what MMORPGs used to do exclusively well for so long, it's just they do it better. Take Skyrim as an example, arguably one of the best RPGs of the past decade, I'd argue--It's an open world RPG where basically anything you do in the game is going to be rewarded. Want to play a fighter, well the game won't punish you for that. Want to play an alchemist, well the game won't punish you for that. Meanwhile back on the MMORPG ranch if you're not the optimal spec for the encounter you're not going to be doing that content. If you fail to meet a timer you're punished for failure. Take Souls games, while notably difficult, the penalty for death is just that you die and you go and repeat what you just did all over again. No punishment for failure, respawn and try again, maybe at worst you have to go through an encounter that you already did, but after enough tries you figure out what will and won't work. MMORPGs though, well there's other people and you could be wasting their time.

Problem I see with regards to casual play and why the game feels bad is a three-fold problem:

•The story isn't worth the time. If WoW had a good story the complaints you'd see would be very minimal I feel. This story is so convoluted that players don't even want to know what or where the lore is headed because honestly who cares at this point. WoW will comes up with a dope CGI trailer that looks awesome, and then you get plot points like Sylvanas commits genocide, then betrays her faction, then betrays Azeroth, then realized why she's bad, then flips in the end. Wooooo haven't seen that one before anywhere, ever..../s

• The content gear shift from leveling is so extreme. Even if you were to level this off I think a big problem the game has right now is the endgame is this massive system upon system, and during your leveling process there's next to no instruction on what the endgame actually looks like. I'm sorry but WoW at this point if interrupts are going to be so critical should update their UI to show who's not on CD, I know add-ons do this, but again add-ons are outside the base game, which again proves as a barrier to entry. If the game is going to be designed around these mechanics the devs need to implement a system during the leveling process that instructs players about this, and this is only just one example. Soaking, gathering, and just basic coordination mechanics have to be taught from the game at this point, because there isn't the numbers and the community size that exist to foster this type of learning.

• Professions are a joke. They know it that's why they're focusing on it next expansion, so we'll see what and where they fall.

For example to illustrate my point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AZmuZNu5LA

That's the new Harry Potter game scheduled for this fall/winter. Literally why does that look like MMO concepts in an open world, and looks like it'll be a blast. Although--I have my doubts because HP seems to be a fad that we grew up with versus a long lasting IP that's comparable to SW. But that's another topic. Point is notice how that game feels like an actual breathing living world. Most open world RPGs today have. The problem WoW faces right now is that players became more skilled and with that skill they became less patient. This is the problem casual players face. So MMOs right now are trying to adapt to the increasing skill demands of players; And this is the hottest of hot takes: The worst player right now is probably more mechanically skilled at WoW than some of the best players back in vanilla. It's like arguing who's more skilled Lebron or Michael-- which is a pointless conversation to have because the two of them play in two completely different leagues. Would Mike dominate in today's league? Maybe, would he be Mike compared to everyone around him, probably not. Would Lebron do well in Mike's league, probably, but he wouldn't be playing until he's 35 like he is right now. So you have to apply the standard in which you're in currently. Which to me had me thinking is the game designed around the top 5%? Overall probably not; but the only thing that's consistent in terms of making people happy are these over-the-top mechanics that depend on add-on support. It keeps a niche crowd happy, that's why you see so much pushback from people because the people who do this content are typically very happy.

But where does that leave the company? Honestly after watching Pandora's Box I'm not sure how you can make the argument that Blizzard was an asset MS was targeting. Think of it this way from 2016-2021 the majority of senior leadership at Blizzard had either resigned and gone elsewhere, or got canned because of sexual misconduct. Like what company would want to buy a ship that looks to be sinking from leadership. I know it's profitable, but the quarterly's don't lie, the gem in Activision is CK.

What I think happens from here? DF tries it's hardest to appease everyone. It tries to service the community Ion acknowledged they currently left. It tries to service it's most dedicated hardcore gamers, but only finds itself bending over backward to slow them down for fear they'll leave. I think what happens here is MS acquires Activision/Blizz and moves WoW to the Gamepass and eliminates it's monthly sub for the gamepass sub essentially moving it f2p. Keeps the cash store and releases the same schedule and just profits from the wheel for a bit. And really I think this maybe the last post I make on this topic because I've been up and down and all around this topic and I just can't think of what WoW offers that'll innovate the formula. I think they've reached their endpoint. The only thing now that can change WoW and the MMORPG landscape in it's entirety is an advanced AI that has the ability to break out of a "scripted" mode and alter the world as you play. But we're a few years away from that even being attempted.

[Delever]

I am not English but this is unreadable. Fix your syntax/grammar start making sense and come again I will be more than happy to respond to anything coherent and remotely polite if you are capable ofcourse of being coherent and polite.

Minus the fact that "are" should be "as" what exactly was unreadable from what he said? Its not perfect English but its 100% understandable

[Delever]

Most of us here are long time MMORPG players. Some of us have been playing for over 25 years at this point, within the genre. What makes a good MMORPG? Well many will say it's the community, and the friends you make while playing. Others will say it's the endgame and the challenges you face. All of us will have differing opinions on what does and does not work within the MMORPG space. What I think I can say what's pretty clear is the market has moved past Blizzard at this point. Recently went back and watched this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BazitK-ZgDk

This highlights all the changes that went on from Blizzard's meteoric rise to it's complete and utter collapse, and yes I'm sorry the company was performing financially well, but within the space of the market and the confidence of MMO players this company has collapsed under it's own ego. What changed? Was it the evil money making activision? Sure, you can argue that. Was it the fact that for decades Blizzard probably covered up multiple sexual harassment scandals? Sure you can argue that too. What I like to think changed is us as players is the single greatest reason why this game feels like it's in a tailspin. Players, the vast majority of them, got better at playing video games.

Last night I was talking to my roomate about MMORPGs. He played classic WoW from Vanilla till mid way through Wrath. I played EQ from 2001-2007. Suffice to say our experiences were slightly different. WoW at the time had a ton of features I thought were ez mode. Then when I heard a player hit max level within a month of playing after WoW launched, my guild and I laughed about how WoW was the ez mode MMORPG. My roommate told me about the leveling process and how wanted to play that in a modern MMORPG. It dawned on me then that really the vanilla versions of WoW, and EQ too, aren't hard games. Honestly go play classic WoW right now and tell me that is a hard game? P99 is very much even more guilty of this "faux difficulty" I mean your Action Per Minute is what 2-4 keys at most? The most difficult aspect of these games is you need other players to do content to level (in EQ's sense absolutely, WoW lesser, but still relevant). This is where most people met their guilds, played with players, and found groups to run content with. The mechanics of boss fights back then were simplistic.

Problem WoW faces, and I think this is a broader conversation about video games in general, but it's particularly relevant for MMORPGs, is that there's no happy medium that casuals engage in this long process but do so with numbers that players having the opportunity to game together are abundant. Sure you can say well the endgame has tons of players! But we all know based on the forum posts here this what I've established:

•M+ is not casual content, it's not designed to be.
•Heroic Raiding, and especially Mythic Raiding is not casual content
•Ranked PVP is not casual content

LFR, Mission Table, LFD, and WQ are all casual content. But this content isn't actually challenging. Many will say players are expected to auto-win on this content because it's queued, or it's demanded otherwise forum traffic will be all hell. Now I find this argument to be silly. It's childish to think players whining on the forums have any ability to alter the actual design schedule of developers. I either get told the devs don't look at forums, because it's small microcosm of players, or that all the calls for nerfs from the forums will lead to devs nerfing your favorite content! It's like please make up your minds as to what it is because if one is true then it implies the other is not. But to the larger point which is we're at a crossroads with MMORPGs right now. How are we at a crossroads? Well it seems the old MMORPG formula from EQ has run it's course in the gaming market. What do I mean by this? Well any single-player, open world, RPG does what MMORPGs used to do exclusively well for so long, it's just they do it better. Take Skyrim as an example, arguably one of the best RPGs of the past decade, I'd argue--It's an open world RPG where basically anything you do in the game is going to be rewarded. Want to play a fighter, well the game won't punish you for that. Want to play an alchemist, well the game won't punish you for that. Meanwhile back on the MMORPG ranch if you're not the optimal spec for the encounter you're not going to be doing that content. If you fail to meet a timer you're punished for failure. Take Souls games, while notably difficult, the penalty for death is just that you die and you go and repeat what you just did all over again. No punishment for failure, respawn and try again, maybe at worst you have to go through an encounter that you already did, but after enough tries you figure out what will and won't work. MMORPGs though, well there's other people and you could be wasting their time.

Problem I see with regards to casual play and why the game feels bad is a three-fold problem:

•The story isn't worth the time. If WoW had a good story the complaints you'd see would be very minimal I feel. This story is so convoluted that players don't even want to know what or where the lore is headed because honestly who cares at this point. WoW will comes up with a dope CGI trailer that looks awesome, and then you get plot points like Sylvanas commits genocide, then betrays her faction, then betrays Azeroth, then realized why she's bad, then flips in the end. Wooooo haven't seen that one before anywhere, ever..../s

• The content gear shift from leveling is so extreme. Even if you were to level this off I think a big problem the game has right now is the endgame is this massive system upon system, and during your leveling process there's next to no instruction on what the endgame actually looks like. I'm sorry but WoW at this point if interrupts are going to be so critical should update their UI to show who's not on CD, I know add-ons do this, but again add-ons are outside the base game, which again proves as a barrier to entry. If the game is going to be designed around these mechanics the devs need to implement a system during the leveling process that instructs players about this, and this is only just one example. Soaking, gathering, and just basic coordination mechanics have to be taught from the game at this point, because there isn't the numbers and the community size that exist to foster this type of learning.

• Professions are a joke. They know it that's why they're focusing on it next expansion, so we'll see what and where they fall.

For example to illustrate my point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AZmuZNu5LA

That's the new Harry Potter game scheduled for this fall/winter. Literally why does that look like MMO concepts in an open world, and looks like it'll be a blast. Although--I have my doubts because HP seems to be a fad that we grew up with versus a long lasting IP that's comparable to SW. But that's another topic. Point is notice how that game feels like an actual breathing living world. Most open world RPGs today have. The problem WoW faces right now is that players became more skilled and with that skill they became less patient. This is the problem casual players face. So MMOs right now are trying to adapt to the increasing skill demands of players; And this is the hottest of hot takes: The worst player right now is probably more mechanically skilled at WoW than some of the best players back in vanilla. It's like arguing who's more skilled Lebron or Michael-- which is a pointless conversation to have because the two of them play in two completely different leagues. Would Mike dominate in today's league? Maybe, would he be Mike compared to everyone around him, probably not. Would Lebron do well in Mike's league, probably, but he wouldn't be playing until he's 35 like he is right now. So you have to apply the standard in which you're in currently. Which to me had me thinking is the game designed around the top 5%? Overall probably not; but the only thing that's consistent in terms of making people happy are these over-the-top mechanics that depend on add-on support. It keeps a niche crowd happy, that's why you see so much pushback from people because the people who do this content are typically very happy.

But where does that leave the company? Honestly after watching Pandora's Box I'm not sure how you can make the argument that Blizzard was an asset MS was targeting. Think of it this way from 2016-2021 the majority of senior leadership at Blizzard had either resigned and gone elsewhere, or got canned because of sexual misconduct. Like what company would want to buy a ship that looks to be sinking from leadership. I know it's profitable, but the quarterly's don't lie, the gem in Activision is CK.

What I think happens from here? DF tries it's hardest to appease everyone. It tries to service the community Ion acknowledged they currently left. It tries to service it's most dedicated hardcore gamers, but only finds itself bending over backward to slow them down for fear they'll leave. And really I think this maybe the last post I make on this topic because I've been up and down and all around this topic and I just can't think of what WoW offers that'll innovate the formula. I think they've reached their endpoint. The only thing now that can change WoW and the MMORPG landscape in it's entirety is an advanced AI that has the ability to break out of a "scripted" mode and alter the world as you play. But we're a few years away from that even being attempted.

This is more of a community problem though as all of the specs are perfectly capable of clearing all content. Some are slightly better than others but the community adapts a very specific mentality that does not even apply to their group/skill level and makes it absolute. It is usually also lower skill level players that adapt this mentality and not the higher skilled players.

- - - Updated - - -

I try to find even 1 sensible reason why someone would be so mad about an opinion he disagrees with but I guess it is enough to keep this quote as the reason why WoW should offer viable options to players who don’t wish to interact with people like you.

- - - Updated - - -



Fair enough, I still can’t comprehend it. And your problem is?

My "problem", if you can even call it that, is that he debunked your asinine statement about top guilds gatekeeping endgame content (like literally what the actual fuck) and you resorted to attacking his English because you did not have an answer to what he said.

[HansOlo]

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.

If you can't find some casual activity in a game with 18years of backlog... I'm sorry, but - it's just not the game for you.

Accept/Exit Game - Blizzard.

[ellieg]

Getting past the freakishly racist “you people” sort of arguments, I would like to point you to the fact that the difficulties faced by “us people” is not playing against the game but playing with people of this demeanor and attitude.

People with this mindset are a major deterrent and a detriment to WoW as a whole. Honestly, every time I have to choose “play with someone like that or play something else” I choose something else.

Or wait is it a secret that the “precious” end game is hogged by a select few organized guilds who don’t recruit because they prefer to sell services for rl money or for gold. Are we going to be honest about the state of end game WoW or are we going to pretend this is not happening.

I am a client of blizzard. I am not a client of you or any other player. Treating me as a client instead of a co-player is the main source of all problems. The sooner you figure it the longer the game will last.

So, to ask for soloable content is to ask to be free of dependency of the whims of every other player. Which I think is one of the most rightful things one can ask.

- - - Updated - - -



Dependency on other players is a major gating factor wouldn’t you agree? Not to mention that dependency is not only on the others per se but also on their latency, their pc hardware, their schedule, their life obligations etc.

How are ppl blocking you from their "precious endgame"?.

People don't have to play with you. Just like you arent forced to play with ppl you don't want to. Which endgame are you bring excluded from? If it's mythic raids, do you have heroic raid clears and logs? If its heroic raiding guilds, do you have normal clears and some pug heroic bosses? Or are you just talking abt pugs not inviting you. Just make your own group, or realize who you are competing against for the raid slot and make yourself more desirable.

[HansOlo]

Calling me “stupid” and making cliche references to “tin foil hats” (a favored movie cliche argument) did not “debunk” my “asinine statements” (another favored cliche of mmoc posters).

Saying I could hardly comprehend let alone response to the torrent of nonsense that I had to read again and again is NOT an attack on one’s English it’s a call that one be coherent so I can understand why he is being so abusive and insulting.

Get your facts straight and stop trying to make an impression out of fake things you make up as you go it doesn’t work.

Edit: Top guilds sell gear. In every server. It doesn’t have to be “Method” you know any guild that can clear the content then sells gear. This is why they never recruit anymore or they recruit as little as possible. That’s a fact not something made up.

If you attract that much negative attention from a bunch of people - maybe you are the unpopular opinion. And maybe you should consider your own suggestions first and/or "facts".

[Miffinat0r]

This is more of a community problem though as all of the specs are perfectly capable of clearing all content. Some are slightly better than others but the community adapts a very specific mentality that does not even apply to their group/skill level and makes it absolute. It is usually also lower skill level players that adapt this mentality and not the higher skilled players.

To a point--but again when everyone is first farming, which we know is when the peak of players are playing together, even the high-end players when something first launches only play with optimal specs. Arguing otherwise seems anecdotal. This maybe a community aspect but lets not pretend that high-end players ignore this; maybe they ignore after their first raid team is geared, but the point remains there's not enough people that allow for this because the game has fallen dramatically.

[HansOlo]

“Negative attention” is not a measure of anything especially in this forum where it’s habit that people take a high stance pretending they belong to the player elite that frowns upon everyone with different ideas.

An obligatory armory would tell a very different story and perhaps the posts would somehow be different and more honest.

I have my views and voice them i do not expect to be applauded for them and I don’t care if someone hates me for them. In the end it’s just a pointless passing of time since nothing of what we say here will ever impact anything in WoW. So fire away if you have to but please don’t ever think that your “negative attention” means fuck all to me

You basicly admit that you are trolling?

Don't worry - you defiantly don't suggest ANYTHING remotely relatable, that could be a good change or something they would pick up. It starts with earning the respect of the community.

[Delever]

Calling me “stupid” and making cliche references to “tin foil hats” (a favored movie cliche argument) did not “debunk” my “asinine statements” (another favored cliche of mmoc posters).

Saying I could hardly comprehend let alone response to the torrent of nonsense that I had to read again and again is NOT an attack on one’s English it’s a call that one be coherent so I can understand why he is being so abusive and insulting.

Get your facts straight and stop trying to make an impression out of fake things you make up as you go it doesn’t work.

Edit: Top guilds sell gear. In every server. It doesn’t have to be “Method” you know any guild that can clear the content then sells gear. This is why they never recruit anymore or they recruit as little as possible. That’s a fact not something made up.

Of course they do. And I dislike this as much as anyone but the problem there stems from blizzard forcing a billion gear loops for them to be able to compete in the WF race. But lets take the WF guilds out of the equation and instead focus on the more "normal" CE guilds on each server that also sell gear.
How does this prevent you from accessing that content? If you think you could be part of such a guild and are prevented of achieving this by the mere fact that said guilds are not recruiting on purpose, I am 110% sure that there are 19 other likeminded players that you could band with and go clear this content. Are the aforementioned CE guilds going to bodyblock the entrance to mythic sepulcher?

[HansOlo]

How are ppl blocking you from their "precious endgame"?.

People don't have to play with you. Just like you arent forced to play with ppl you don't want to. Which endgame are you bring excluded from? If it's mythic raids, do you have heroic raid clears and logs? If its heroic raiding guilds, do you have normal clears and some pug heroic bosses? Or are you just talking abt pugs not inviting you. Just make your own group, or realize who you are competing against for the raid slot and make yourself more desirable.

This guy and I had fight in some other thread - this was my take away:

1)He was complaining about toxicity in this community and also admitting that he got some social issues(meanwhile no contribution towards constructive and positive atmosphere as you noticed).

2)He believes that cutting himself out socially, makes the game more pleasureable.

3)He believes that Blizzard is obliged to implement features, so that this person(and other people, who are not capable of handling social situations)can enjoy the game. Personal note - I can handle it, depsite my own problems - as I reject to blame the game(I did try my best to guide).

4)He ignores the sustainability of the game - from a very narrow egocentric perspective.

Have these in your notes - also he got me banned - because I lost it with the f-word due to frustrations.

He is just worth getting mad over.

[ellieg]

I have explained so many times and yet I get reaction posts like this that are based on a fraction of what I have said. To give you an insight though:

Same as you don’t have to play with me I don’t want to have to play with you. So the game should provide us all as clients of the game with options that allow us to not play with others and still play at our desired level of difficulty without dependency.

Make all the game ALSO playable mage tower style. Why would that bother you who don’t want to play with me?

I wouldn't care if they did this but im letting you know right now that they aren't going to do that. The game has been the way it is for 17 years. If you are looking for a hard solo experience, wow is not a great fit for you.

- - - Updated - - -

This guy and I had fight in some other thread - this was my take away:

1)He was complaining about toxicity in this community and also admitting that he got some social issues(meanwhile no contribution towards constructive and positive atmosphere as you noticed).

2)He believes that cutting himself out socially, makes the game more pleasureable.

3)He believes that Blizzard is obliged to implement features, so that this person(and other people, who are not capable of handling social situations)can enjoy the game. Personal note - I can handle it, depsite my problems.

4)He ignores the sustainability of the game.

Have these in your notes - also he got me banned - because I lost it with the f-word.

Gotcha. I can understand ppl wanting things but be realistic. Wow isn't gonna change the way he wants it to. I dont understand ppls obsession with demanding changes on a forum instead of just playing a game that is already the way they want

[Triceron]

But what is that 70% you re throwing around? What is the 70% that people cannot access by playing solo? t

It's bogus numbers that other people were using that I was merely following in the example of for the sake of argument.

These aren't numbers that I made up, just using for context. If you are legitimately asking, yes they are all made up statistics.

[Delever]

Finally we can discuss:

Here is the problem (and not a personal problem as I am a solely arena/RBG player for years)

Most players who are between casual and potent raider are unable or reluctant to make their own guilds and or groups.

This creates a problem (in my eyes): These guys have to resort to either group finder or guild.

Now take into account that in smaller servers the guilds are counted in the fingers of one hand or less. Random groups have little to no success for higher content. Time investment is massive if you are doing the organizing. So, what do these people do? They eventually quit.

So what’s the point I am trying to make: What if (and that’s merely a suggestion) the game realizes and accounts for all the time, organization, lack of resources problems and eliminates the dependency of fixing such issues before one can raid or jump in an RBG.

What if we make RBG 6 man so people can create groups faster.

What if we make it less deterring to lose an RBG and let subtle higher ranking increases that people will enjoy.

What if we make more mage tower style content

What if we make smaller group raiding enticing again.

What if we take into account that pugs have massive fail ratio, identify why the fails and try to fix that part.

What if we stop the boost selling services that plague WoW.


These are mere ideas not even suggestions but most people here are like “oh you want it easy because you are bad”. Like they don’t even listen to understand.

Once upon a time some dev said “let’s have 40 man raids”. 18 years later that’s obsolete. Nothing is set in stone esp in a video game where every rule can be bent. The game should revolve around the evolution of the players lives not the other way around. And in the end of some people don’t want to play with other people they should also be allowed to play and not feel like third class citizens that are just allowed to play the mediocre part of WoW.

Sparked an interesting conversation indeed. I actually see where you re coming from and agree 100% with all of the points you brought up and seem to have misunderstood your initial statement as I saw it merely from the argument between 2 people and did not bother to read all these pages.
I would add:

- Helping small servers by merging them so people have a better chance at finding a guild
- Receiving increased rewards for helping inexperienced players through content. That way, getting a newbie from your random queue doesnt feel deterring but sort of incentivizes you to help them get through it.
- Doubling your point about smaller scale raiding.

I have been playing XIV alongside WoW for the past decade and I found myself raiding more in XIV simply because of the smaller raid structure. I miss 10 man raiding so so much and the best memories I have even as a player who started back in late Vanilla/early TBC and raided hardcore in wrath, my fondest memories are from progressing 10 man heroic raids in mists.

Theres nothing stopping me from doing this in heroic of course but if I want to dabble in mythic then I have to do it in a 20 man group. God how I miss 10 man raids...

[VMSmith]

I wish the game would be designed by those who love MMORPGs. And not by those who only love the raiding or mythic+ minigame.

This sums it all up so well. Before WoW, MMOs had thriving game worlds that we explored, enjoyed, and played in. Warcraft has shrunk the MMO experience down to these minigames, as you call them. And I agree that that's what they are, they should never have become the primary focus of any MMO. The genre is poorer for the fact that Warcraft was so successful and people thought that these instanced content minigames were the reason why and have continually strived to copy that portion, in hopes of similar success.

[ellieg]

I am not demanding anything. I shared some ideas. I am not sure why that’s bad and I don’t have a clue who the other guy who keeps trash talking me is I really don’t keep a log of my forum interactions.

Not specifically you, but there seems to be a group of ppl on here that want to change wow into a different game, instead of just playing a dif game that is already the way they want. Ppl that would walk into a chess enthusiast club, complain that all pieces should act the same cause that's how it is in checkers, but refuse to just go play checkers.

[HansOlo]

Not specifically you, but there seems to be a group of ppl on here that want to change wow into a different game, instead of just playing a dif game that is already the way they want. Ppl that would walk into a chess enthusiast club, complain that all pieces should act the same cause that's how it is in checkers, but refuse to just go play checkers.

I completely agree.

[Triceron]

Can you please stop with this bs? Seriously. Yes, you can choose to play it solo, but it is not its strength and it will NEVER be so. It focuses on group content because single player games don't offer that. So if you want group content, you go to the genres that offer it. If you want strong single player experiences, go play something that focuses on that. It will be a better fit for what you're looking for.
Seriously. This game is NOT supposed to be single player. It offers little content as such. If you buy a single player game you spend up to 100 hrs in it. Maybe more depending on replayability. And then you expect for that price and a monthly fee to get single player content at top quality for the lifespan on an expansion. It doesn't work like that. Single player content will last you just about the same and rest will be grind and repeatable. And what makes repeatable content not boring in this particular genre is engaging with other humans. Whether vs in pvp or cooperatively, in dungeons or raids. If you want to do this, you choose this genre. If you want to play a single player game that is the quality of a single player game that lasts for thousands of hours instead of hundreds, this is not it.

Please, please, do yourself a favour and pick a genre that is designed for what you want. If I play wow, I come here for group content because I have SO many other options for single player games and not that many for good group stuff. Please, stop trying to transform it into something it can never be and moving focus for the one thing it's meant to do right. Just choose something else that is actually designed for what you want.

[And as a side note, to your last remark, I level with my friends as well every patch. Even stuff like ZM I didn't do alone. I don't play this game to solo.]

Honestly, no reason not to allow people to play how they want

Imagine if the RTS games didn't allow you to solo create your own VS AI multiplayer game because 'RTS is balanced for Vs Human PVP!'

It'd be quite ridiculous. It'd be an arbitrary reason to remove solo play options.


I never said the strength of MMO's was Solo play. The strength will always be in being a massive multiplayer game. But that doesn't mean they can't or should stop providing solo viable content for end game.

Mage Tower for example is clearly solo designed content that does not have group play attached. MMO's CAN be designed with substantial solo oriented, end game content. I don't see why the need to complain at having options.

Is it the fear that it will cost you a raid tier? Or that more people would be taking gear away from you? I never understand why people feel the need to get in the way of what really is a simple solution that doesn't affect Grouping in the slightest.


I played Phantasy Star Online 2 and that is an MMO that has solo options for all of it's 'Raid' content. Soloing Bosses is hard as fuck without anyone else there to res you. Grouping is the best and quickest way to get any of the raid content done efficiently, while the solo option is merely there for anyone who chooses to use it. The game doesn't cater to solo players, it merely gives an option to have solo progression. The game also offers multiple difficulty settings for story mode, for those players who aren't looking for loot progression and just want to experience the story.

Solo content is quite common in some of the other MMO's I've seen, so I don't wear the same blinders as people whose only MMO experience is from WoW or the MMOs that follow in WoW's footsteps. To me, it's not as big a deal as those who are against solo options make it to be.


Like for example, WoW could add a Solo copy of LFR with boss damage and raid mechanics tuned lower for easier survival, but boss health remain quite high so it will take much longer to complete solo than any group. I think increased time investment would be a fine trade off for solo-viable lowered difficulty, and you could reward the same gear in both. Solo players can literally spread out their LFR progress over a week, while group LFR players literally get it done in a couple hours time. Same lockouts, so no one can double up on solo and group loot. I think that'd be fair.

It is literally effortless for Blizz, it'd be a literal tick box that activates Solo mode. LFR is already so devoid of mechanics that, if the numbers were tuned right, it practically can be soloed.