STOP making the game for the top 0.01% of the players! It’s killing this game

[Tyris Flare]

We resolved this entire conversation is in the post in my sig!

Freighter is a Hardcore Hobbyist, same with all these other people who get CE in 2 days a week.

Echo et al are Hardcore Lifestylers.

Collectors who play the game all the time (often more than raiders) but don't do any "real"
content are Casual Lifestylers.

People who don't post on these (or any) forums and flit between games are Casual Hobbyists.

It's a much better paradigm that the endless attempts to define casual!

[cparle87]

People die in LFR, bosses wipe us, and it takes FOREVER to kill the bosses. Like a LFR boss kill is about 4-5 times the length of a boss in TBC Classic.

The focus and performance you need for LFR nowadays is absurd, compared to what it used to be, and to what non-LFRs used to be.

LFR is a vicious, self reinforcing cycle. People go into it with the mindset of "everyone in here is going to suck and even if they don't they're not going to try so why should I bother trying?"

[Ashana Darkmoon]

Always do LFR on reset day if you can. Dramatically easier

[Glorious Leader]

Always do LFR on reset day if you can. Dramatically easier

I did it a couple times actually zonal isn't to bad. The most wipes I had was like 4.

[Battlebeard]

You can't compare the matchmade mode (lfr) where noone talks or the only talk is trash talk of today with any pre-lfr content. In lfr you go in and expect at least half of the group to be afking. In vanilla classic, or even bc classic, you expect everyone to lift their weight, even in pugs (mostly also cause it'd hurt ones server reputation if they wouldn't).
That is why lfr feels harder. That's why I'm always preaching that normal mode is "easier" (note the quote marks!) than lfr. Because you simply do not have 15/25 players afk there.
Clear times of normal full clears are faster than the queue and the clear time of a single lfr wing combined, because you have infinitely less slackers there. That is why I can't understand anyone saying "I only do lfr because I can't commit to a schedule". There is no need for a schedule to do normal, in fact your limited playtime is better spent/more efficiently spent doing normal pugs instead of lfr.

I only do LFR cause it's litterally impossible to ever get invited to Normal mode. Unless you already cleared it and have 260, there is a 0.0001% chance you ever get invited.

[Azharok]

I only do LFR cause it's litterally impossible to ever get invited to Normal mode. Unless you already cleared it and have 260, there is a 0.0001% chance you ever get invited.

So it's not impossible

[Battlebeard]

LFR is a victim of player mindset which ends up boiling the raid down to the lowest common denominator. Even a very good player walks into LFR and their mindset is likely "Everyone is going to suck and not even try so why bother trying? I'll afk and move around enough to not get vote kicked, wipe a couple times, and we'll power through it on determination." It becomes a self-reinforcing problem.

- - - Updated - - -



C'thun was literally impossible. The world first people went about ten weeks bashing their heads against him without success before they went to Blizzard and aske for hotfixes. These days if the WF first guys are struggling it gets nerfed in a couple days so they can continue progressing.

Naxx was the ultimate case of raid roster boss, in that you needed eight tanks to do the Four Horsemen.

We just had Naxx classic, in it's original state, and you didn't need 8 tanks, people were just sort of inexperienced back then.

[oplawlz]

We just had Naxx classic, in it's original state, and you didn't need 8 tanks, people were just sort of inexperienced back then.

This is kind of a misnomer. Classic started with everything optimized to the last patch, which made all the previous raids much easier. Players also knew exactly what gear they needed for the next tier from the get-go, allowing them to target not only BiS for current raids but future ones as well.
Not disagreeing with the experience thing, just pointing out there were several other factors.

[cparle87]

We just had Naxx classic, in it's original state, and you didn't need 8 tanks, people were just sort of inexperienced back then.

You needed 8 tanks for the 4 horsemen, two for each of them. It was one of the ultimate roster bosses.

[Battlebeard]

You needed 8 tanks for the 4 horsemen, two for each of them. It was one of the ultimate roster bosses.

Not in the 2019 Classic, it was done with about 5 tanks. People just nuked Thane, then the tank swap was super easy.

[cparle87]

Not in the 2019 Classic, it was done with about 5 tanks. People just nuked Thane, then the tank swap was super easy.

Guess we'll have to jot that down to #somechanges, then.

[Magical Mudcrab]

Guess we'll have to jot that down to #somechanges, then.

No, people were just bad at the game in 2004. Even during Classic launch, I was doing MC in a group of people from 58 - 60, and we were still able to clear it in about an hour (this was in the first month of launch), which was basically unheard of in Vanilla. I believe Naxx was even cleared by people using exclusively green gear as a form of "challenge mode". Normal Naxx runs did did a burn strat, taking advantage of all classes being able to output significantly higher DPS than was done during Vanilla and requiring fewer tanks, but most guilds not using the burn strat would use an 8 tank rotation (4 in, 4 waiting for tank stacks). Essentially, the problem isn't #somechanges, it's that people didn't understand the game back then.

[Flatspriest]

100% agree, the game is far too hard, it only caters to top players, there is a reason Classic became huge.

You must not have played the game during the original Classic era. You would have to sit and eat after every single mob. You would get attacked by anything and everything that was hostile towards you from a great distance. It was very much harder then. They have made this game so much easier over the years due to a majority of the player base being casuals rather than hard-core raiders.

[Doffen]

Mythic players are way more than 0.1% of the player base. Today its more likely that you can swap the numbers and remove the dot, 10%.

In SoO 9000 guilds killed at least one boss on mythic. 22k on normal. We are closing in on half of the amount of normal players(41%ish). Which wasn't the case just a few years ago. In Tomb of Sargeras it was 9k vs 31k. Less than 30%. Going back in time, the raiders were even at even lower percentages simply because it had more players and more players are likely to have a bigger spread on what content they are playing.

If anything, blizzard should cater more to those who already play the game and has done for years, the raiders.

[munkeyinorbit]

3 hours a week is not a lot of commitment.

And ill say it again, performance has nothing to do with whether or not u are casual. Unless you are trying to classify all casuals as low skilled?

Casuals play low skilled content. 3 hours or 40 hours a week. If its low skilled then it's casual.

[cantrip]

I think the game should cover the top players, but only to a degree based on how many they are compared to casual gamers.

The problem is the devs are elitist jerks. Draw your own conclusions from that statement.

As long Hazzikostas is game director, the only service left for casual gamers will be lip service. While he talks about the world on announcements, he really focuses on dungeons and raids again. While he sells ideas as groundbreaking, they are simply moneymaking features if you take a closer look. If you check implementations like new races, they are simply derived from existent animations and assets. If you take a closer look on the new dragon riding feature, it is simply a tamagochi like thing where you feed your dragon with different quality food you can buy from the auction house (another incentive to buy tokens). If you check the crafting system, it is merely a replacement for boosting to allow high end guilds to craft BOP items for whales who buy gold from tokens.

In the end there is only one good gameplay component in PVE, and it is premade group gameplay. Either in dungeons or raids. Everything else is for moneymaking or simply bad effortless design, up to toxic components like LFR with watered down difficulty rather than challenges especially made for matchmade groups.

Instead of adding new gameplay for casual gamers the devs remove components. Or could anyone find a replacement for Torghast like gameplay yet in Dragonflight?

Beside the shady moneymaking attitude in new components like the crafting auction house and dragon riding, they also obviously think, their casual gamer community mainly are stupid fucks, as all the world quests they implement could be done by brain dead monkeys rather than players that look for compelling, fun and rewarding gameplay.

Before anything is going to change, the devs have to get rid of their stereotypes. Also the devs have to change their bias and to create a game for a diverse playerbase rather than "the stupid casuals" or "the high end elite" only.

Also, the devs simply should talk straight instead of bringing up lip services without real background. Their customers are not as stupid as those biased developer tyrants (who actively take the game hostage for their wet dream of an elitist jerk) think they are.

[czarek]

Casuals play low skilled content. 3 hours or 40 hours a week. If its low skilled then it's casual.

Casualas plays low skilled content ???? What ?! If you play as casual it not mean ur low skilled or grabing for low skill content...

[potis]

Casualas plays low skilled content ???? What ?! If you play as casual it not mean ur low skilled or grabing for low skill content...

Everyone uses the word as they see fit, taking it too seriously only damages your braincells, for him, casual means low skilled content, without any actual logic behind it.

So someone playing only daily HC dungeons on 8 alts for 40 hours a week, is a casual, and the guy playing 5 hours clearing Mythic raid + his weekly Mythic Plus is a hardcore no-lifer.

Lovely logic eh?

[Ashana Darkmoon]

Mythic players are way more than 0.1% of the player base. Today its more likely that you can swap the numbers and remove the dot, 10%.

In SoO 9000 guilds killed at least one boss on mythic. 22k on normal. We are closing in on half of the amount of normal players(41%ish). Which wasn't the case just a few years ago. In Tomb of Sargeras it was 9k vs 31k. Less than 30%. Going back in time, the raiders were even at even lower percentages simply because it had more players and more players are likely to have a bigger spread on what content they are playing.

If anything, blizzard should cater more to those who already play the game and has done for years, the raiders.

It is pretty interesting how almost everyone draws the conclusion that Blizzard is making a mistake giving X players content instead of Y rather than the equally plausible explanation that they are following their own internal data and understand who butters the bread

[Miffinat0r]

Not sure why this is still even a debate.

Ion confirmed via interview that they focused on the top for too long and ignored casuals. He acknowledged it.

Now if he meant anything by it has yet to be seen but there's no point of even arguing when the lead GD says they ignored the vast majority of their players for competitive players.