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

[NineSpine]

And your definition is just as ass backwards. The dude playing 10 hours a day grinding out timewalkimg badges and farming the mount is casual. The guy that knows how to open up a group finder, selects the +2, and gets invited, is now automatically not casual.

Type of content you do doesn't matter. How you approach it and the time you put into it does. There are mythic raiders right now that are more casual than people that only do queued content. Not all, not most, but some.

There is a reason that in showing why your definition is bad I appeal to completely normal types of play, and you have to invent crazy shit like fictional people who play ten hours per day running time walking dungeons but never set foot in M+2, or appealing to pacifist herb farming as the knock-down example that renders the definition useless as though there are 100,000 players doing pacifist herb farming leveling.

This is exactly why your designation is meaningless. It is just you deciding who is or is not casual first and then painting the definition around them to fit whatever argument you are making at the moment. Everyone in each of my categories has things in common. They have playstyles and interests in common. Nobody in your categories has any of that. It would be like inventing a definition of "engineer' that excludes people who make software but includes people who build hamburgers at a fast food restaurant. What use is that category? There is no use. You just want to play definition games because being difficult on a forum is your hobby.

[ellieg]

There is a reason that in showing why your definition is bad I appeal to completely normal types of play, and you have to invent crazy shit like fictional people who play ten hours per day running time walking dungeons but never set foot in M+2, or appealing to pacifist herb farming as the knock-down example that renders the definition useless as though there are 100,000 players doing pacifist herb farming leveling.

This is exactly why your designation is meaningless. It is just you deciding who is or is not casual first and then painting the definition around them to fit whatever argument you are making at the moment. Everyone in each of my categories has things in common. They have playstyles and interests in common. Nobody in your categories has any of that. It would be like inventing a definition of "engineer' that excludes people who make software but includes people who build hamburgers at a fast food restaurant. What use is that category? There is no use. You just want to play definition games because being difficult on a forum is your hobby.

Oh the completely normal guy that schedules to do 1 world quest at the same time everyday and thats it? Your examples are the same level of absurdness but you can't admit it.

I admit my definition is just as subjective as yours. You cannot admit that and thats why its entertaining to watch you do the exact things you accuse me of.

Oh we gonna ignore custodial engineers? Or pretend all engineers are similar? We are talking abt a level of commitment, not job titles.

[Tyris Flare]

None of the people I've played WoW with and become friends with has done a Mythic dungeon at all since Legion, when we only tried them because they were the new thing.

Of all those people, I'm the only one still left ever logging in and that's only because after a month or two I miss WoW enough to pop a subscription, play for a day or two, then go back to not playing for a few months.

Is there a reason to believe that such players could be converted into valuable customers without exhausting resources that would lose other customers?

No one ever talks about second order or third order effects with resource distribution. But there's a real risk in investing resources to chase one group will frustrate groups that are already giving you money and 6 month subs.

Also, you guys are retreating the signature post again! We have definitions for this

[Skildar]

Casual mythic raider is an oxymoron. The belief that you can complete the hardest content in the game and call yourself a casual is deluded. Content that also requires scheduling, organization, performance (above and beyond the bell curve), and investment far beyond the norm.

The issue with words like casual is that they are taken away from their original meaning.

I'm considering myself a casual as I only play twice a week. I still manage to do MM+20 and heroic raids.

[NineSpine]

Oh the completely normal guy that schedules to do 1 world quest at the same time everyday and thats it? Your examples are the same level of absurdness but you can't admit it.

I admit my definition is just as subjective as yours. You cannot admit that and thats why its entertaining to watch you do the exact things you accuse me of.

Oh we gonna ignore custodial engineers? Or pretend all engineers are similar? We are talking abt a level of commitment, not job titles.

It is absolutely normal for busy people to schedule their game time, especially if they have kids. The fact that you don't realize how normal this is speaks to how out of touch you are. Most of my friends have limited game time and it has to be scheduled these days. Your definition is literally that the 18 year old who lives in the game while in his parents basement is CASUAL and the 40 year old dad with a tight schedule who just has time to run a few world quests and do some leveling (which is multiple friends of mine) is NOT CASUAL. It's a ludicrous distinction that has no value whatsoever.

My definition has a hard line in it. Yours has squishy crap like "random" and "set schedule". Does it mean logging in is never scheduled? If they schedule one raid night per week, is it not random anymore? If they say to someone "Oh tomorrow I'll have some time to play" is that a schedule now? Is it still scheduled if they don't give a specific time? What if they say "In the afternoon"? Is it just within the day? Is saying "I can find 4 hours per week to play" scheduled even if the login times are all over? Is it random if they only play at nights? Do they have to sometimes log in in the mornings for it to be random? What spread of hours is "random"?

There are no answers to these questions. Your definition is absolutely meaningless. Every definition is going to have exceptions and grey areas, but your definition is entirely exception in grey area. Almost everyone schedules things SOMETIMES. Almost everyone has SOME VARIANCE in when they log in. Where do those things become "set schedule" and "random"? There is no answer, because your goal is to decide who is or is not casual FIRST and then paint the definition around them after the fact. It's arrogant, self serving horseshit.

[VMSmith]

Is there a reason to believe that such players could be converted into valuable customers without exhausting resources that would lose other customers?

No one ever talks about second order or third order effects with resource distribution. But there's a real risk in investing resources to chase one group will frustrate groups that are already giving you money and 6 month subs.

My friends and I started playing in beta and have been subbed near-constantly since then, with only small breaks of a few weeks here and there. I have nearly every store mount, many of the store pets, I signed up for the Annual Pass and stayed subbed the whole time. So did my friends.

What we were "converted" to was from the valuable customers to former players. So you've kind of got things backward there.

Since beta resources have been diverted INTO raids, not away from them. LFR was created for the express purpose of propping up raid participation to keep it at the level it was and even expanded. Resources have consistently been invested into organized content and the game has steadily dripped players away ever since the initial cultural bounce. Even when the game was expanding its playerbase it was losing countless players and, eventually, new people slowly stopped coming to the game as it was no longer a cultural thing that people had not experienced.

Organized players are the group that's being chased, as you put it. And the game continues to lose players and goodwill. Expansions sell well because many want to come back and relive what they once had, only to leave nearly immediately as they realize it's still a game made by the 1% for the 1%.

[Tyris Flare]

My friends and I started playing in beta and have been subbed near-constantly since then, with only small breaks of a few weeks here and there. I have nearly every store mount, many of the store pets, I signed up for the Annual Pass and stayed subbed the whole time. So did my friends.

What we were "converted" to was from the valuable customers to former players. So you've kind of got things backward there.

Since beta resources have been diverted INTO raids, not away from them. LFR was created for the express purpose of propping up raid participation to keep it at the level it was and even expanded. Resources have consistently been invested into organized content and the game has steadily dripped players away ever since the initial cultural bounce. Even when the game was expanding its playerbase it was losing countless players and, eventually, new people slowly stopped coming to the game as it was no longer a cultural thing that people had not experienced.

Organized players are the group that's being chased, as you put it. And the game continues to lose players and goodwill. Expansions sell well because many want to come back and relive what they once had, only to leave nearly immediately as they realize it's still a game made by the 1% for the 1%.

This isn't what I asked.

It's also a lot of conjecture and subjective opinion. The last three expansions (basically the modern game) have had an enormous amount of resources directed into non-raid content. Covenant halls, quests, the maw, torghast, korthia, ZM.

Not liking them is one thing. I personally think like 90% of that stuff is garbage. But they all took a ton of resources and it's not clear they added or kept many customers.

So the actual question, again: is there a reason to believe that players in your position (or your friends) can be converted into valuable customers again without exhausting resources that would lose other customers?

There's some combination of
-fickle
-old
-fleeting
-bitter

That is going to make some customers not worth chasing anymore, the same way as any other product.

[Relapses]

This isn't what I asked.

It's also a lot of conjecture and subjective opinion. The last three expansions (basically the modern game) have had an enormous amount of resources directed into non-raid content. Covenant halls, quests, the maw, torghast, korthia, ZM.

Not liking them is one thing. I personally think like 90% of that stuff is garbage. But they all took a ton of resources and it's not clear they added or kept many customers.

So the actual question, again: is there a reason to believe that players in your position (or your friends) can be converted into valuable customers again without exhausting resources that would lose other customers?

There's some combination of
-fickle
-old
-fleeting
-bitter

That is going to make some customers not worth chasing anymore, the same way as any other product.

The answer to this question will be steeped in the nostalgia of whatever random version of WoW that the person you're asking has in their mind as the "best" version. And since there are now 9 expansions worth of answers to this question, it's really a pointless thing to ask. We shouldn't be asking what random forum residents feel is the best version of the game. We should be asking the currently paying customers what would keep them as paying customers. And more importantly, what would entice new customers to try out the game. I'd like to think that's, for the most part, how the game's developers approach the way they design things (small incremental changes for patches; larger philosophy changes for expansions)... but then you get into online discussion forums where people like to pretend that WoW would have 100 billion subscribers and nobody would have ever quit the game if only they had kept the design just like it was in whatever idealized version of WoW they have in their minds.

[Kyriani]

The last three expansions (basically the modern game) have had an enormous amount of resources directed into non-raid content. Covenant halls, quests, the maw, torghast, korthia, ZM.

Not liking them is one thing. I personally think like 90% of that stuff is garbage. But they all took a ton of resources and it's not clear they added or kept many customers.

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but from my own personal perspective it wasn't a matter of "not liking", but rather, outside of Zerith Mortis, the content you listed was resources devoted to content that ultimately was either obligatory (soul ash), or didn't matter past a certain point. A point that fell far short of the point of mattering that the "big three" (raids, m+, pvp) did. Now to be fair, I single out Zerith Mortis because, as a player who prefers to avoid the "big three", I found ZM to be a breath of fresh air, vs. Korthia which was shit IMO.

Korthia was a soul crushing rep AND currency grind to be able to scrape yourself tooth and nail to mediocrity on one character. On the other hand, Zerith Mortis had a fairly decent storyline associated with it (imo) , and the post story repeatable content was generally quick, bite sized, and rewarding. Everything I am looking for. I can't say just how many players look at content like I do, but I know damn well I'm not alone.

Blizzard doesn't know when they actually do shit right. They make changes for the sake of change, or to slow us down because they can't be arsed to make enough content, so they'd rather fuck up what works in an effort to stretch what they do make out longer. Instead of looking for ways to make more content, they look for ways to make less and stretch it out. WoD was shit. It was by far the worst expansion as far as I'm concerned. Legion was a redemption story in my eyes. It wasn't perfect, but it earned back a lot of goodwill from me despite its flaws. I enjoyed Mythic+ in Legion. I enjoyed world quests in Legion. I enjoyed invasions in Legion.

So what did Blizzard do in BfA? They made M+ worse (imo) and it stayed that way in SL. World quests were largely fine in BfA if stingy on rep, but were made worse in SL (gone are the days of kill mr. convenient and shell game wq's for the most part) with the justification that they were less stingy with rep. BfA's assaults were a poor man's version of Legion's invasions (imo). I rarely did them because of the inconvenience and time required factor vs. Legion invasions which had a mix of tedious wq's and quick/convenient wq's. BfA flushed a lot of the goodwill Legion earned down the toilet. And while I consider Shadowlands better than BfA by a small margin (largely due to additional customization, liking the concept of exploring the afterlife, and 9.2's ZM content), it didn't earn as much goodwill and it really needed to in my eyes.

While I only have a bare bit of info on Dragonflight so far, Blizz SEEMS to be heading in a better direction. 9.2 gives me hope that maybe, just maybe it won't be another "you don't need gear if you don't raid/m+/pvp" expansion. That I'm going to have, not just a lot of content to engage with, but content I want to do, that feels worth doing, but isn't a soul crushing slog, and doesn't feel obligatory. No borrowed power + the new talent trees seems like a big step towards the "no obligatory" crap, and interviews seem to indicate they want players to be able to progress while engaging with content they enjoy rather than having no choice but to do things they really don't want to just to improve their character. The "most things account wide other than player power (mainly gear)" is another big plus in my book. I just hope Blizz gives the whole idea of "more challenging content" a break and strives for "more fun content" instead. While some may find challenging content "fun", I do not. I am not interested in being "challenged". I am interested in being "entertained".

I'll be keeping my eyes on news about Dragonflight. I'm hoping that the sales pitch they made in April is more than just flowery words.

[Tyris Flare]

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but from my own personal perspective it wasn't a matter of "not liking", but rather, outside of Zerith Mortis, the content you listed was resources devoted to content that ultimately was either obligatory (soul ash), or didn't matter past a certain point. A point that fell far short of the point of mattering that the "big three" (raids, m+, pvp) did. Now to be fair, I single out Zerith Mortis because, as a player who prefers to avoid the "big three", I found ZM to be a breath of fresh air, vs. Korthia which was shit IMO.

.

This is all perfectly reasonable, and I think there's a good argument that investing in content to bring in a player like you is very worth their time. Aka, someone who is not impossibly bitter and can be entertained by the game under realistic content conditions (a good ZM!) without completely changing the entire game.

But a lot of other folks here (assuming they are expressing their preferences correctly) are probably people I would largely ignore because they are too bitter or too far gone that there's nothing realistic to bring them back.

Another way to think about this is making a big movie. Say its a big dumb action/adventure movie (Marvel flick or something) and you know that if you add in a small romance subplot or similar character arc you can bring in more people. Great!

But what if that audience demands 45min of screentime? 60m? Well, now you have made the movie uninteresting to your core demographic because they will feel bait and switched, the same was as if you added an hour of explosions to a romcom. You have almost certainly lost more than you have gained.

This is not that different than WoW, imo. A change that brings in new/old players while mostly leaving existing players alone would be a slam dunk. A new feature that might bring in new/old players but alienates people who already enjoy and play the game would be a disaster.

[cparle87]

God forbid anybody on a fucking video game forum have the audacity to enjoy a video game the way it is. No, they're just hopeless addicts who need the guidance of sagely enlightened cynics like yourself who possess the unique ability to see everything from the angle that regardless of what Blizzard does or doesn't do with the game, they're doing it because fuck you.

Pretty much this. It's very tiresome to read. We only play cause we're addicts, or we have low standards and are fine with crap, or we're sunk cost and sticking with it, or some other depressing thing. It's literally "stop liking what I don't like" mixed with "I'm so much cooler than you for hating this thing."

[Kyriani]

This is all perfectly reasonable, and I think there's a good argument that investing in content to bring in a player like you is very worth their time. Aka, someone who is not impossibly bitter and can be entertained by the game under realistic content conditions (a good ZM!) without completely changing the entire game.

But a lot of other folks here (assuming they are expressing their preferences correctly) are probably people I would largely ignore because they are too bitter or too far gone that there's nothing realistic to bring them back.

Yea, I get that. There's a lot of people who have just given up on WoW ever giving them what they are looking for anymore. I want to believe that WoW can find a middle ground for players like me and people who enjoy challenging content/the "big three". I see signs that it's possible. It's just up to Blizz to follow through.

Another way to think about this is making a big movie. Say its a big dumb action/adventure movie (Marvel flick or something) and you know that if you add in a small romance subplot or similar character arc you can bring in more people. Great!

But what if that audience demands 45min of screentime? 60m? Well, now you have made the movie uninteresting to your core demographic because they will feel bait and switched, the same was as if you added an hour of explosions to a romcom. You have almost certainly lost more than you have gained.

This is not that different than WoW, imo. A change that brings in new/old players while mostly leaving existing players alone would be a slam dunk. A new feature that might bring in new/old players but alienates people who already enjoy and play the game would be a disaster.

I think that taking the Zerith Mortis model forward in some manner (without making it worse for the sake of stretching it out) would be a good start. The talent and profession revamp (with crafted tier ala catalyst) is also potentially another improvement that can bridge the gap between the casuals and hardcores (however one defines those). I'm just keeping fingers crossed that Blizz can nail the balance between the two to make the majority of both sides "happy enough".

[Osmeric]

Yea, I get that. There's a lot of people who have just given up on WoW ever giving them what they are looking for anymore. I want to believe that WoW can find a middle ground for players like me and people who enjoy challenging content/the "big three". I see signs that it's possible. It's just up to Blizz to follow through.

I don't think Blizzard has the insight or competence to follow through. One big reason for giving up on WoW is the realization that Blizzard fixing things is not a reasonable expectation. They just don't know how.

[Kyriani]

I don't think Blizzard has the insight or competence to follow through. One big reason for giving up on WoW is the realization that Blizzard fixing things is not a reasonable expectation. They just don't know how.

I've felt that way at times, but 9.2 and what little we've heard about Dragonflight give me hope that this may actually be changing. Maybe it's just foolish optimism/hopium on my part? I guess my cynicism hasn't hit the point of no return yet. I'll just have to see if my hopium has a leg to stand on as more info on DF becomes available.

[Osmeric]

I've felt that way at times, but 9.2 and what little we've heard about Dragonflight give me hope that this may actually be changing. Maybe it's just foolish optimism/hopium on my part? I guess my cynicism hasn't hit the point of no return yet. I'll just have to see if my hopium has a leg to stand on as more info on DF becomes available.

I think they've given that impression too many times and just fucked it up. I can't believe it, or them, at this point. What I heard about DF isn't making me think they can make a product that I'm going to want.

[hansfredrichseidel]

these are some valid points tbh..

[Yriel]

Is there a reason to believe that such players could be converted into valuable customers without exhausting resources that would lose other customers?

I think this is a matter of game design. You'd need something conceptually similar to raiding/m+ for causuals, limited, easy to make content that can be played repeatedly over a longer period of time. Then you wouldn't have to shift developers en masse from raiding/m+ to casual content, a small group could do that.

What that could be in detail? Don't know, i'm not a highly paid game designer.
If i had to guess maybe something along the lines of Thorghast/Anarchy Online Terminals/Daoc catacombs, randomly created single player dungeons with desirable, grindable rewards. Or maybe some iteration on the reputation quests. Whatever it is, Blizz shouldn't have the raider/m+ people in mind at all when designing this. I think that a problem with all their previous attempts (like Thorgast, Island Expeditions, Warfronts, Scenarios and so on) that they always did this "We put in something for the raiders, too." thing that screwed over the whole concept.

[Coldkil]

I know that I'm not currently boosting (though I definitely could) because I'd rather buy a token than get "paid" to play the game. If the token didn't exist, I would be boosting because it'd be the only way for me to afford the raid mats I use when I run keys. (Not a fan of the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps and create a bunch of farming alts" or the "just play the AH" approach to wealth creation in this game.) Since removing the token does nothing to cease the demand for boosting, it'd just shove more players like me into the boosting role out of necessity... thereby further eroding whatever imaginary benefit you think not having the token around presents.

Basically this. It's not like boosting wasn't there before token, token made it only more streamlined and easily accessible through "official" channels. Token itself isn't really a problem - it's Blizzard that needs to attack boosting practices if they don't like them. Which they did, greatly limiting the perimeter in which they can operate.

I still think boosting overall is just detrimental to the game as whole - makes gold more important than it should be, doesn't make anything to increase players skill as they don't need to learn the then encounters (and it's greatly reflected in the pugging scene which is way bigger than the guild scene) and takes out any "value" from objectives one can set and get by himself. But i perfectly know it's not going anywhere so either i'm fine with what's happening or i can just go play another game.

Boosting just gets less important when people have an easier time getting character power. And by easier i don't mean by doing an easier content, i mean when there is less friction and artificial barriers to gameplay. If someone can get gear/power without much of an hassle, suddendly he doesn't need the boosts anymore. Only thing left out is the fact that Curve/Rating is still the dominating factor when you're going to pug anything (but again, it's not boosting fault but players fault fundamentally).

- - - Updated - - -

-snip-

Only real solution is for them to make distance from a pure vertical progression and start going more horizontal. But this also means a fundamental change in how the game is designed and i am sure it would just alienate a lot of players. I'm really curious about DF because the "we're changing the design philosophy" sentence is being thrown around a lot lately, and i want to see if it's a real change or just marketing.

[KrayZ33]

Boosting just gets less important when people have an easier time getting character power. And by easier i don't mean by doing an easier content, i mean when there is less friction and artificial barriers to gameplay. If someone can get gear/power without much of an hassle, suddendly he doesn't need the boosts anymore. Only thing left out is the fact that Curve/Rating is still the dominating factor when you're going to pug anything (but again, it's not boosting fault but players fault fundamentally).

As someone who is running around in way above "average" gear in every expansion I've played so far. I really don't understand why daily grinders are denied Mythic quality gear. I think everything should eventually lead to the best gear possible.
People should simply learn to understand that this is not about who has the best gear the fastest. I never understood this "I'm forced to raid LFR" mentality when raid sets came out for example.

In my opinion. there should be a currency you get for each and everything you do. If you have to, just cap it. But that currency should eventually lead to mythic gear.
A daily gets you 30 points, a raid boss 500 (or something like that).

[Wrathberry]

i kinda dont understand the mentality: "everyone needs to achieve everything"

Isnt it the main drive to get better at the game, to get this nice gear?

Why cant i accept that i will never get the best gear in the game, if i dont kill the hardest bosses for it?

even in the times i didnt hardcore raid, i was never like: "well i dont want to do something for it, but give me the best gear!".

Why does everyone think that he needs to beat the whole game on all difficulties?
back in my main wow days in bc and classic, most people couldnt even enter the highest dungeons, and will never even see the endgame content.
now you have the "easy" raids so you at least can see all the content and all the bosses.
and then you still whine that you cant kill everything on mythic.. i dont get it