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

[cparle87]

Yup.the further they moved from this the less popular the game got. But this is how the high-end community wants the game to be so that's how it will be, they want low sub numbers so they can keep the endgame to themselves.

Do we really need to explain correlation does not equal causation again?

And please, give the tinfoil back.

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If the content wasn't so hard, the WoW token wouldn't be needed, as more people could achieve success without paying. And if they ban the token, people just find other ways to pay for boost anyway.

Weren't you a poster in the "why is the default setting for WoW braindead easy" thread?

[Mardux]

Yup.the further they moved from this the less popular the game got. But this is how the high-end community wants the game to be so that's how it will be, they want low sub numbers so they can keep the endgame to themselves.

Why are you pretending that the removal of welfare badges is what makes the game less popular? I can understand why the removal of free gear is a downside for you personally, but to claim its the reason for the decline as if what you are saying is a fact... Lol.

[Battlebeard]

Do we really need to explain correlation does not equal causation again?

And please, give the tinfoil back.

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Weren't you a poster in the "why is the default setting for WoW braindead easy" thread?

I don't remember, if I was, I wasn't complaining it's too easy, rather defend it.

[cparle87]

Why are you pretending that the removal of welfare badges is what makes the game less popular? I can understand why the removal of free gear is a downside for you personally, but to claim its the reason for the decline as if what you are saying is a fact... Lol.

He doesn't under correlation doesn't equal causation. It's a major problem.

[Royru]

Why are you pretending that the removal of welfare badges is what makes the game less popular? I can understand why the removal of free gear is a downside for you personally, but to claim its the reason for the decline as if what you are saying is a fact... Lol.

It seems fairly easy enough for me. Why does anyone play this game? To progress their character. If you shut that off for the majority of players (casuals) they will leave.

You can think whatever you want, but the most popular versions of this game has always been the most casual friendly.

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Its funny people are mentioning the hardcore and ultra casual being the audience for WoW now. I find that to be very true.

As crazy as it sounds I have started playing everquest again as I find it's a better experience than WoW for a gamer like me (somewhere in between hardcore and casual). This is insane and not something I could ever imagine 10 years ago.

It is true 100%. If you’re the type of player who wants to progress your character but you also don’t have enough time out of the week to farm all these needless time wasting systems in the game then you’re screwed.

You either have to not care about gearing at alll or you have to spend more time on the game to keep up.

That’s why I will always love games like destiny 2. It speaks to that type of player. There IS a point in that game where you can sit and go “I’m fully geared, there is no more unless I just want to play for fun”. That and all of their gearing process is entirely centered around weeklies that take very little time to finish and don’t require a premade group to finish.

[MoanaLisa]

He doesn't under correlation doesn't equal causation. It's a major problem.

Every day it's the same thing: "The thing I hate most about the game is X which is why the subscriber base is reclining." It's BS of the highest order.

[Relapses]

WOW Token killed the quality of community in this game.

That's a random thought which is wholly improvable.

The community killed the quality of the community. If the token didn't exist, there'd still be just as much boosting... you'd just have to contend with a lot more Chinese gold selling spam on top of everything else.

[Celement]

That's a random thought which is wholly improvable.

The community killed the quality of the community. If the token didn't exist, there'd still be just as much boosting... you'd just have to contend with a lot more Chinese gold selling spam on top of everything else.

I don't agree. There would still be boosting but it would be far more limited in scope. I also don't think you would see quite the extreme divide of the playerbase . It would be divided down get me wrong but not so sharply.

[Relapses]

I don't agree. There would still be boosting but it would be far more limited in scope. I also don't think you would see quite the extreme divide of the playerbase . It would be divided down get me wrong but not so sharply.

I was boosting before the token existed. The amount of people that we boosted pre-token is the same exact amount of people that want to boost now that the token exists. The only thing that's different now is that things like Discord have made it far easier for potential buyers to find the best deal for their virtual currency. The demand is the same.

[cparle87]

Every day it's the same thing: "The thing I hate most about the game is X which is why the subscriber base is reclining." It's BS of the highest order.

I think it's only matched by "Can we agree <insert thing I don't like> is the reason WoW is dying". Slightly different phrasing, but seems more ego filled to me.

[VMSmith]

Except he wasn't trying to redefine difficult nor was he saying Animal Crossing was difficult. You're putting words in his mouth.

What he said, was that the game had a difficulty curve. And if any part of the game is tougher than another part, he's correct.

Ok, I'll say this one last time for people like you that didn't bother to read the entire exchange before proferring your two cents:

There is NO difficulty curve in Animal Crossing.

None.

Nada.

Zip.

It never gets more difficult. At any point. It's also not difficult in the first place. I have addressed both over the course of the conversation, though you could only be bothered to consider one post. I get that, paying attention to an entire conversation is hard and jumping in to be pedantic is fun.

But there's no difficulty curve in Animal Crossing.

I hope that clears things up for you. If you're unsure how rare fish cannot be more difficult than common fish, please see my earlier posts.

[cparle87]

Ok, I'll say this one last time for people like you that didn't bother to read the entire exchange before proferring your two cents:

You seem to mistake a small curve for no curve at all.

And thank for the ad hominem attack. I read all your posts back to the beginning. Your entire argument was that end-game content was no more difficult than the very first things in the game, which is clearly untrue. It doesn't matter if the things the player has to do become more difficult, the items become more difficult to find either by location or rarity, or any other metric. That is a difficulty curve.

[MoanaLisa]

If you're unsure how rare fish cannot be more difficult than common fish, please see my earlier posts.

Apparently drop rates define difficulty for some. I suppose I understand that but the frequency with which you press the correct button is really the skill level decider in many games.

[potis]

I was boosting before the token existed. The amount of people that we boosted pre-token is the same exact amount of people that want to boost now that the token exists. The only thing that's different now is that things like Discord have made it far easier for potential buyers to find the best deal for their virtual currency. The demand is the same.

Lets be realistic, when something is exposed and more people know it, more people use it, thats a fact.

Less experienced players dont know the truth about what was going on behind the scenes, how could they, so for them, token is "something new", they dont realize how many people used chinese gold buyers, how many got hacked and how many tickets were created cause of that, and the token both provides Blizzard with less need for people to deal with hacked accounts, and averagely a 7e gain per token sale, but the average baddie cant comprehend how much safer it is, when it happened either way.

But it also exposed them to its existence and made it easier, its the same with D3 auction house, everyone knows D2LoD had RMT sales through forums and the problems it caused, its massively different if 1% of the population does it and knows about it, and 100% of the population wants to get involved.

Token is a very slippery slope discussion, i am all for it cause it doesnt affect me even the least and in reality it helps me, cause decent players i know that tend to quit and come back quiet often, use it to do the relevant gearing (like legendary crafting for SL) as example but once more the less experienced players think thats the problem to their inability to play the game even at its basic form, and since others skip the learning curve with $, thats what they are supposed to do, bla bla bla, people are bad at the game.

[Osmeric]

Apparently drop rates define difficulty for some. I suppose I understand that but the frequency with which you press the correct button is really the skill level decider in many games.

Did you know getting gold and diamonds in the real world is easy? Just walk around a pick up rocks, and eventually you'll have one that's either gold or diamond. Easy!

[Celement]

I was boosting before the token existed. The amount of people that we boosted pre-token is the same exact amount of people that want to boost now that the token exists. The only thing that's different now is that things like Discord have made it far easier for potential buyers to find the best deal for their virtual currency. The demand is the same.

I can't and won't agree with this. There are an absurd number of people who would never of touched buying gold from third party sites and the boosting explosion wasn't seen till after the token.

I don't want to derail the thread as this is another topic but the token vastly altered wows community and even if it was removed tomorrow its effects would still be felt.

[meowfurion]

So I'll throw in my 2 cents as far as why I and many, many others quit this game.

I beta tested this game during vanilla, and I alpha friends and family tested every expansion, and have completed every boss in every single live expansion up until I quit during BFA, and rejoined briefly for Shadowlands, but by then the damage had been done.

The reason I left, is mainly because of class imbalance. That brings with it several points:

1) My preferred class and spec used to be high difficulty, high reward. Now no matter how hard I try, it'll never ever come close to outDPSing the flavor of the month in the number 1 slot, assuming gear is of comparable ilvl.

2) Since that is the case, and since this Mythic+ environment was created/released, that disparity has become even more evident. Content has become gated by try-hards and elitists who simply do not bring the player, but bring the class, because "optimum raid composition."

3) Given facts 1 and 2, and the only guilds and raids I could find as my preferred spec/class was with people who didn't take things very seriously enough to allow me to come, or with guilds run by a boyfriend/girlfriend duo who had to go AFK every few minutes to smoke/tend to a child/argue/whatever, I had to take what I could get.....which meant that we were never going to get to where I wanted to be as my preferred class/spec.

4) Putting all that into perspective, it created a situation where I would have had to play a class I didn't really want to play that I wasn't as good at playing, having less fun than I wanted to have for my money and time spent each month, to experience Mythic+ dungeons and raids.

5) If I DID get to come as my preferred class to any runs, which I was denied over and over and over and over for because of some lame addon score that people look at, and messed up ONCE, I was replaced with the flavor of the month.

Now, I don't blame people for wanting to have an optimum raid composition for maximum effect and efficiency. People's times are valuable to them and they deserve to spend it how they wish, but given all this info in this situation, I saw WoW as someplace that wasn't for me anymore. I left and found other things to do and other games to play. There's just simply more fun things to do than bashing my head against a wall for hours on end simply because I'm not playing a <INSERT CURRENT TOP DPS CLASS>.

I truly miss the days of WOTLK, but I can't go back to the classic client and its hideous graphics enough to play classic and do that again. Maybe I will. Maybe that's where I will experience WoW joy again, but it doesn't "matter" as much as live does, if that makes sense.

I also don't have a sub anymore and each time I go to that screen to spend $14.99, I stop myself and say "nahhh.. it's not worth it. I can't get caught up in time to raid before it's done." And I refuse to run around in what people call "wellfare epics"...

[KrayZ33]

I was boosting before the token existed. The amount of people that we boosted pre-token is the same exact amount of people that want to boost now that the token exists. The only thing that's different now is that things like Discord have made it far easier for potential buyers to find the best deal for their virtual currency. The demand is the same.

That, I doubt a lot.
First and foremost because M+ didn't exist and that's when boosting became doable for a lot of people and not just raid-groups.
That specifically means upgrades aren't guaranteed and now they are (mythic quality as well).

We have people in our guild buying M+ boosts because they are "cheap" for their twinks just to get a weekly chest whenever they couldn't run with someone. And they are the type of player that run +20(+) themselves. In fact, one of them is in my M+ group
They are more boosters available as well as they are more people taking these boosts.

So the token alongside M+ made it somewhat of a well designed system specifically meant for that kind of service imho.

I don't think the token alone is responsible though.

[ellieg]

So I'll throw in my 2 cents as far as why I and many, many others quit this game.

I beta tested this game during vanilla, and I alpha friends and family tested every expansion, and have completed every boss in every single live expansion up until I quit during BFA, and rejoined briefly for Shadowlands, but by then the damage had been done.

The reason I left, is mainly because of class imbalance. That brings with it several points:

1) My preferred class and spec used to be high difficulty, high reward. Now no matter how hard I try, it'll never ever come close to outDPSing the flavor of the month in the number 1 slot, assuming gear is of comparable ilvl.

2) Since that is the case, and since this Mythic+ environment was created/released, that disparity has become even more evident. Content has become gated by try-hards and elitists who simply do not bring the player, but bring the class, because "optimum raid composition."

3) Given facts 1 and 2, and the only guilds and raids I could find as my preferred spec/class was with people who didn't take things very seriously enough to allow me to come, or with guilds run by a boyfriend/girlfriend duo who had to go AFK every few minutes to smoke/tend to a child/argue/whatever, I had to take what I could get.....which meant that we were never going to get to where I wanted to be as my preferred class/spec.

4) Putting all that into perspective, it created a situation where I would have had to play a class I didn't really want to play that I wasn't as good at playing, having less fun than I wanted to have for my money and time spent each month, to experience Mythic+ dungeons and raids.

5) If I DID get to come as my preferred class to any runs, which I was denied over and over and over and over for because of some lame addon score that people look at, and messed up ONCE, I was replaced with the flavor of the month.

Now, I don't blame people for wanting to have an optimum raid composition for maximum effect and efficiency. People's times are valuable to them and they deserve to spend it how they wish, but given all this info in this situation, I saw WoW as someplace that wasn't for me anymore. I left and found other things to do and other games to play. There's just simply more fun things to do than bashing my head against a wall for hours on end simply because I'm not playing a <INSERT CURRENT TOP DPS CLASS>.

I truly miss the days of WOTLK, but I can't go back to the classic client and its hideous graphics enough to play classic and do that again. Maybe I will. Maybe that's where I will experience WoW joy again, but it doesn't "matter" as much as live does, if that makes sense.

I also don't have a sub anymore and each time I go to that screen to spend $14.99, I stop myself and say "nahhh.. it's not worth it. I can't get caught up in time to raid before it's done." And I refuse to run around in what people call "wellfare epics"...

90% of specs are more balanced now than they have ever been. You can look at rankings between all the specs over the years and honestly im not sure how much closer they can get them. You have 2 at the top that could be reigned in a little bit for aoe dmg in m+, and a couple at the bottom that just dont do great but aren't actually as bad as you'd think. For ST they are all super close. Some do better on some fights but thats just due to the nature of the mechanics.

Do you do m+? If so what level keys? Cause all specs are viable up to at least +20, especially +15 where loot ilvl caps. Class bias exists for sure but its not like the content is impossible.

What class do you play? Are u getting denied from groups and thinking it's ur spec? Or are u just 1 of 300 dps signing up to a key getting passed over by someone with higher ilvl and higher rating? I've been in groups with ferals topping the meter and destro locks below the tank. Unless you're at the very top level of keys, skill is gonna play far more of a factor than spec.

Overall for m+, just run your key. For raids, its quite easy to start your own pugs. Or make friends and join/run them together.

[Relapses]

I can't and won't agree with this. There are an absurd number of people who would never of touched buying gold from third party sites and the boosting explosion wasn't seen till after the token.

I don't want to derail the thread as this is another topic but the token vastly altered wows community and even if it was removed tomorrow its effects would still be felt.

???

The "boosting explosion" was in full swing in MoP. You'd see people selling CMode boosts all day, every day. ou'd see Heroic SoO boosts. You'd see Garrosh boosts. (Demand skyrocketed when they added the BoA items to his loot table.) It wasn't a secret. It wasn't underground. It wasn't taboo. A buddy of mine got through college by doing RMT boosts on the side (he was making $3k+/mo). Gold selling spam was also in full swing. I played on US-Illidan back in MoP and you literally could not use trade channel unless you downloaded an add-on called BlockChinese because the gold selling spam was so bad. I mean, hell, there was so much gold selling on Illidan that the server currently has multiple Chinese-language guilds on it because they got so bored of farming gold that they decided to kill bosses instead.

Additionally, you seem to be implying that the people who boost today only do so after buying a token, or that the people who boosted in the days before the token only boosted with gold they bought from Chinese gold farmers. There's absolutely no correlation to be made here because we have no idea what people do with the gold they get from tokens nor do we have any proof that boosts prior to the token's existence were primarily RMT. (Some were, obviously, as my own example indicates.) That's not to say that I think the token is beyond reproach or that I wholesale condemn gold selling and RMT in this game; just that the whole "token = bad" and "remove token = game good" argument is pretty weak since it does nothing to address the underlying issue... the fact that people who want to get boosted will find ways to get boosted regardless of whether Blizzard provides a tacit endorsement.