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  1. #181
    Quote Originally Posted by Triceron View Post
    To be honest, I'd be completely down with that.

    Roguelikes are fun, and shouldn't be played simply for a shiny reward at the end. They should be played for the sake of being fun. That point kind of gets missed when they start attaching power progression for the sake of turning it into an Endless Grind system.

    Mage Tower is probably the better example I'd opt for. Content that levels the playing field and offer cosmetics as rewards. And if anything, attach some tie in content to Epic Profession crafts (cosmetic or otherwise) just to shake things up. Stuff like Legendary Crafted items designed for Solo-progression would be great, using solo content instead of Raids as the repeatable content to use to farm said mats.
    Were you not here for the absolute malding of the playerbase after MT was first released? Even if it's "just cosmetic" if the single player content requires you not to suck at the game, your average WoW player wants nothing to do with it.

  2. #182
    Quote Originally Posted by Relapses View Post
    Were you not here for the absolute malding of the playerbase after MT was first released? Even if it's "just cosmetic" if the single player content requires you not to suck at the game, your average WoW player wants nothing to do with it.
    Mage Tower was overtuned IMO. It's not progression content, but the basic concept is there and ripe for adaptation into something that could fit multiple difficulty levels of fun.

    Torghast probably works better, though it's designed for group play. So I guess what I'm getting at is a mix of both ideas; a progression system that levels the playing field and has its own self-contained rogue-like gameplay, where the rewards are also oriented towards Solo-progression like profession mats, token-like currency and so forth.

  3. #183
    Quote Originally Posted by Bramickias View Post
    Go play Diablo 3, or Path of Exile if you want a gear treadmill where you can solo everything. Diablo 4 is also right around the corner and sounds like everything you'd want, wait 8 months and leave WoW for it.
    MMORPG are meant to be played with other players.
    Bingo. Players that don't like playing with others need to stick to single player or co-op games.

  4. #184
    Quote Originally Posted by Triceron View Post
    Mage Tower was overtuned IMO. It's not progression content, but the basic concept is there and ripe for adaptation into something that could fit multiple difficulty levels of fun.

    Torghast probably works better, though it's designed for group play. So I guess what I'm getting at is a mix of both ideas; a progression system that levels the playing field and has its own self-contained rogue-like gameplay, where the rewards are also oriented towards Solo-progression like profession mats, token-like currency and so forth.
    I won't debate you on this too much because at this point it needs to be understood that we are simply on ideological opposite ends of the spectrum here... but I just can't see something like this working out because if it's cosmetic-only then it can't be challenging since there will be no way for a solo player to overcome the challenge without gear which comes specifically from content that requires a group. If they make "solo-only" gear, solo players will feel even more removed from group content should they ever decide to randomly set foot in a dungeon... Blizzard probably wants to avoid this as much as possible. The only way something like this could reasonably work would be if Blizzard made solo content a vertical progression path like raiding and M+. Because of the accessibility of solo content, a change like this would considerably diminish participation in group content. And yeah, I know that's exactly what solo players think this game needs but Morgan Day just mentioned in an interview that they're looking to encourage more participation in group content so this seems extremely unlikely in the short term.

  5. #185
    Quote Originally Posted by Relapses View Post
    I won't debate you on this too much because at this point it needs to be understood that we are simply on ideological opposite ends of the spectrum here... but I just can't see something like this working out because if it's cosmetic-only then it can't be challenging since there will be no way for a solo player to overcome the challenge without gear which comes specifically from content that requires a group. If they make "solo-only" gear, solo players will feel even more removed from group content should they ever decide to randomly set foot in a dungeon... Blizzard probably wants to avoid this as much as possible. The only way something like this could reasonably work would be if Blizzard made solo content a vertical progression path like raiding and M+. Because of the accessibility of solo content, a change like this would considerably diminish participation in group content. And yeah, I know that's exactly what solo players think this game needs but Morgan Day just mentioned in an interview that they're looking to encourage more participation in group content so this seems extremely unlikely in the short term.
    I completely understand the concerns. We're not gonna see eye to eye because we have different ideals of what solo content would be acceptable or what would work and wouldn't work.

    I'm just giving my two cents based on other games that have solo MMO content, and not everything is played for progression gear. Some literally just rewards cosmetics, and not just in a one-and-done way, but through repeatable content that gets more challenging or gathering mats (from solo raid) to craft something better.

    Perhaps the miscommunication is based on the fact we are talking about WoW, so there's an automatic assumption that any type of content that involves WoW would have to progress in a way we're familiar with - through gear.

    But I will propose any means of new progression that comes regardless of race, class or traditional gameplay. Like if the solo 'Raid' content measured progress through your Followers and how well you manage to keep them alive through the encounters, spending in-Raid currency to heal, res or buff for certain encounters. This would work out to a Darkest Dungeon style of hero management, where the challenges you face get tougher and you may have to repeat content to level up your followers or stock up on in-Raid currency and consumables.

    In a loose way of explaining it, think of how Pet Battles is a self contained game mode that has progression and has nothing to do with loot and gear rewards. The content can be absolutely modular, and be based on Raid content, or be some other type of instanced content altogether. As a new progression type, it would have its own design goals so that you're not intended to have Gear Progression in a traditional manner, where your personal power only contributes a fraction of progress while the rest of solo play is (in my example) built like an RTS where your hero isn't the only thing you have to manage, but your army as well. Gearing your Hero is important, but so is upgrading your troops' armor, weapons and other beneficial upgrades.

    Of course, I'm not providing any sort of solution to any specific problem. I'm just spitballing some radical-yet-plausible ideas based on my own experiences from other games, MMO and otherwise. Modular content would be the way to go with this, rather than a traditional 8-13 boss raid that you slog through for hours on end.

    I think the most comparable thing would be WC3 RPG maps, where you're literally playing a new map every time you run new content. Your player power could be your own and you could be geared to the teeth in raid epics, but you still need to have Follower progression to do this specific type of content. It's a new type of content that isn't meant to be brute-forced through ez-mode gear, and the rewards can progress followers in a meaningful way that carries over in an evergreen style.
    Last edited by Triceron; 2022-07-22 at 03:10 AM.

  6. #186
    Quote Originally Posted by Relapses View Post
    I won't debate you on this too much because at this point it needs to be understood that we are simply on ideological opposite ends of the spectrum here... but I just can't see something like this working out because if it's cosmetic-only then it can't be challenging since there will be no way for a solo player to overcome the challenge without gear which comes specifically from content that requires a group. If they make "solo-only" gear, solo players will feel even more removed from group content should they ever decide to randomly set foot in a dungeon... Blizzard probably wants to avoid this as much as possible. The only way something like this could reasonably work would be if Blizzard made solo content a vertical progression path like raiding and M+. Because of the accessibility of solo content, a change like this would considerably diminish participation in group content. And yeah, I know that's exactly what solo players think this game needs but Morgan Day just mentioned in an interview that they're looking to encourage more participation in group content so this seems extremely unlikely in the short term.
    I mean they tries that with visions and it fell pretty flat...

    Interest in vertical content seems to die once the difficulty appropriately matches the rewards.

  7. #187
    Herald of the Titans Alroxas's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rrayy View Post
    That timeline and budget is set by Blizzard. They can increase that anytime I want. Want to add more solo content? ADd more budget and resources for that. You don't have to sacrifice anything. Budgets are not set in stone and unchangeable.
    No but the Activision-Blizzard board would want a good reason why the devs want to push DF out further than Dec. '22. The ROI has to be justified because believe it or not, Blizzard is beholden to the shareholders and not to the players.

    Quote Originally Posted by rrayy View Post
    You won't know that answer unless you actually try.
    I'm sure there are plenty of bean-counters that will say that the ROI for the feature add of more SP end-game content represents less than population than players who enjoy grouped end-game content. Which is why I suggested you start up a petition and see just how many players would sign up. If the number is significant, if there is enough support then sure you can prove those bean-counters wrong. "You think you do but you don't" was proven false by the large number of players that expressed the desire for classic servers.

    You want to bring more SP end-game content? Do the same but until you can quantitively show a significantly large playerbase wants it then it ain't happening.



    Quote Originally Posted by rrayy View Post
    A world revamp is not solo content. That is merely updating art assets and quests. That isn't actually adding anything, just changing and updating what is already there. Not remotely the same thing.

    See above. Updating and changing what is already in game is NOT adding solo content. Completely disingenuous on your part.

    Going to call BS on this one. For someone who leveled up to max level both pre- and post-cataclysm the slow way (prior to Chromie Time and level squish) I can state there are significant differences in what was Vanilla WoW leveling. Questlines were removed and new ones added. You couldn't even do the "The Day that Deathwing" quest prior to Cata (since the NPC retelling of those events were predicated on Deathwing doing his thing at the start of Cataclysm)

    Thousand Needles (since it got flooded) had a completely different experience QUESTING and that's just two examples of many more that you could easily go look up.

    The problem is that for the majority of the players coming from WotLK, they skipped all the majority of Cataclysm questing changes because they were already well above level for most of the Cataclysm changes to Azeroth. Instead those players focused in on the questing content from 80 to 85 (again remember this is prior to level squish).

    And yes, I did admit that maybe if it was questing content at end-game instead of leveling from 1 to 60, there might have been a better response but as it stands, I would think that given the lackluster performance of Cataclysm, Blizzard isn't going to invest as heavily in questing content compared to group content moving forward unless it can be demonstrated that a significant portion of the playerbase wants it.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Accendor View Post
    They really are not, it's just in puggable content. As soon as you force people to interact with other repeatedly, they will be much less shitty to each other.
    I dunno, every month or so we get a new thread about how M+ is toxic because players bail at the first sign of trouble, or players berate other players because they don't do "MDI-level" strats for dungeons under a +10 key.

    Quote Originally Posted by Accendor View Post
    With the big focus on easy, puggable content as well as on anonymity (name change, server transfer, level boost, destruction of server communities, phasing and sharding), it's clear people behave like trash. It's a self made problem.
    Well I would point out that it's a convenience factor that causes these issues. There's no more server identity (or even account identity) which provides players with the "freedom" to be as abusive as they want. After all what is the probability that you'll run into the same player again?

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Dejiko View Post
    The sad thing is that they already have it, it`s just heavily underutilized.
    Imagine Torghast without player power necessarily tied to it.

    You could have branching floors with rich vistas and changing biomes.
    Sometimes you`d get a choice between a regular floor where you`d fight enemies, other times it could be a jumping puzzle.
    And on occasion you`d get the chance to relive an old raid encounter, scaled to your group size, or for solo play.
    Great in theory but bad in practice. Think of all the permutations that would need to be coded in. Procedural generation isn't something built into WoW and honestly sometimes procedural generation can fail quite spectacularly. Here' have a jumping puzzle floor... on a character that has low mobility.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dejiko View Post
    have it drop mounts and pets and cosmetic transmog stuff.
    You do realize that those things need to be designed, animated, and checked on every kind of player model that is currently in-game? Do the shoulders need to be scale up more for a Tauren than a Gnome? Should extra attention be given to this helm which looks fine on every race except Worgen in worgen form? Also consider how the community has already responded to some of the "mounts" that blizzard has coded in. Oh KSM Season 1, 2, 3, 4... Hey it's just the same mount but with different recolors...

    Even the current Torghast cosmetics are basically just 1~3 armors but with recolorings.


    Quote Originally Posted by Dejiko View Post
    Have it be class specific, turn into Ursoc as a guardian druid, or Ashamane as a feral druid.
    Offer players cross class skills while in there, maybe you could conjure weapons that shoot spells at your enemies as a mage if you borrowed
    the skill from a blood death knight.
    Imagine a survival hunter with druid shapes etc.
    Ooof... Just look at the Mage Tower... We didn't get 36 different MT challenges... Instead we just got 7. All the tanks have the same tanking scenario and most of the healers (minus Disc) had the same healing scenario. I don't believe this is a case of Blizzard being lazy, but rather the constraints placed upon Blizzard by management/bean-counters/shareholders.

    Additionally, imagine how much more time it would take to fully develop robust scenarios for each spec that were unique to each one.

    "Well they did it with artifacts in Legion"
    But did they really? The scenarios to acquire said artifacts did overlap quite a bit. Locations were reused where it fit in Blizzard's lore for Legion.
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  8. #188
    Quote Originally Posted by Alroxas View Post
    No but the Activision-Blizzard board would want a good reason why the devs want to push DF out further than Dec. '22. The ROI has to be justified because believe it or not, Blizzard is beholden to the shareholders and not to the players.



    I'm sure there are plenty of bean-counters that will say that the ROI for the feature add of more SP end-game content represents less than population than players who enjoy grouped end-game content. Which is why I suggested you start up a petition and see just how many players would sign up. If the number is significant, if there is enough support then sure you can prove those bean-counters wrong. "You think you do but you don't" was proven false by the large number of players that expressed the desire for classic servers.

    You want to bring more SP end-game content? Do the same but until you can quantitively show a significantly large playerbase wants it then it ain't happening.






    Going to call BS on this one. For someone who leveled up to max level both pre- and post-cataclysm the slow way (prior to Chromie Time and level squish) I can state there are significant differences in what was Vanilla WoW leveling. Questlines were removed and new ones added. You couldn't even do the "The Day that Deathwing" quest prior to Cata (since the NPC retelling of those events were predicated on Deathwing doing his thing at the start of Cataclysm)

    Thousand Needles (since it got flooded) had a completely different experience QUESTING and that's just two examples of many more that you could easily go look up.

    The problem is that for the majority of the players coming from WotLK, they skipped all the majority of Cataclysm questing changes because they were already well above level for most of the Cataclysm changes to Azeroth. Instead those players focused in on the questing content from 80 to 85 (again remember this is prior to level squish).

    And yes, I did admit that maybe if it was questing content at end-game instead of leveling from 1 to 60, there might have been a better response but as it stands, I would think that given the lackluster performance of Cataclysm, Blizzard isn't going to invest as heavily in questing content compared to group content moving forward unless it can be demonstrated that a significant portion of the playerbase wants it.

    - - - Updated - - -



    I dunno, every month or so we get a new thread about how M+ is toxic because players bail at the first sign of trouble, or players berate other players because they don't do "MDI-level" strats for dungeons under a +10 key.



    Well I would point out that it's a convenience factor that causes these issues. There's no more server identity (or even account identity) which provides players with the "freedom" to be as abusive as they want. After all what is the probability that you'll run into the same player again?

    - - - Updated - - -



    Great in theory but bad in practice. Think of all the permutations that would need to be coded in. Procedural generation isn't something built into WoW and honestly sometimes procedural generation can fail quite spectacularly. Here' have a jumping puzzle floor... on a character that has low mobility.



    You do realize that those things need to be designed, animated, and checked on every kind of player model that is currently in-game? Do the shoulders need to be scale up more for a Tauren than a Gnome? Should extra attention be given to this helm which looks fine on every race except Worgen in worgen form? Also consider how the community has already responded to some of the "mounts" that blizzard has coded in. Oh KSM Season 1, 2, 3, 4... Hey it's just the same mount but with different recolors...

    Even the current Torghast cosmetics are basically just 1~3 armors but with recolorings.




    Ooof... Just look at the Mage Tower... We didn't get 36 different MT challenges... Instead we just got 7. All the tanks have the same tanking scenario and most of the healers (minus Disc) had the same healing scenario. I don't believe this is a case of Blizzard being lazy, but rather the constraints placed upon Blizzard by management/bean-counters/shareholders.

    Additionally, imagine how much more time it would take to fully develop robust scenarios for each spec that were unique to each one.



    But did they really? The scenarios to acquire said artifacts did overlap quite a bit. Locations were reused where it fit in Blizzard's lore for Legion.
    Content added requires time to be tested, to have it meet a certain standard, noone is disputing that, quite the opposite infact.
    You add in Torghast and tie it to player power? Great, it`s only relevant for that one single expansion now, what an utter waste of time.

    If you want to be mindful of time that`s wasted, imagine the resources put into making Torghast, Island expeditions,
    old raids, and what do they do with it all?
    Leave it by the way side for the most part.
    MT saw supported now in SL, but what about the rest?

    It`s the weirdest argument i`ve heard in some time.
    Instead of future proofing investments of time and effort, it`s better to just keep churning out more and more new stuff, only for that too to be ignored and forgotten later on? Why?

    There are two ways to make old raids and dungeons relevant, even at max level.
    Scale up the ilvl of the loot, or introduce justice/valor vendors and have the currency drop from old raids.

    What possible reason do you have for returning to Ulduar once you`ve farmed the mounts and the transmog items?
    Why can`t you "toggle" off the mobs and turn the instance into a hub for roleplay purposes for example?

    Hell introduce player housing, have forniture recipes, paintings, decorative vases, bookshelves, couches, chairs drop from certain old raids.
    Want some Nightborne inspired interior decorations? Go try your luck with drops in The Nighthold.

    So the question then becomes, is more time wasted creating these intricate and elaborate raid instances with extremely limited shelf life,
    or is it just far easier to put a painting in the loot table every now and then, add a few new items to Island expeditions in 0.5 patches and so on?

  9. #189
    Quote Originally Posted by rrayy View Post
    Wrong. MMO means "massive multi-player online" which only means many people in one spot online. IN no way does it mean mainly group content. People need to stop misrepresenting what the letters actually mean.
    That's a bizarre response. You seem triggered.

    I never said what the acronym means nor did I make any play in regards to it. If someone does not like a gameplay aspect that is almost always embraced by a particular genre, it's not wrong to tell them that maybe the genre might not be the thing for them. Sure, you can say the genre should not have that aspect, but IMO that's swimming up stream and I stand by my advice.

    Your posts are usually thought out. Guess you were having a bad day.

  10. #190
    Quote Originally Posted by b1gh3x View Post
    And not just world quests and dailies, but rather, meaningful and challenging content that can progress your character through out the entirety of a season.

    I envision a solo end game content experience, much like Monster Hunter or Dark Souls/Elden Ring.

    As it stands, there is currently very little reason to log on, outside your weekly m+/raid times. There is just nothing to do.
    Have you completed flawless torghast???

  11. #191
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alroxas View Post
    No but the Activision-Blizzard board would want a good reason why the devs want to push DF out further than Dec. '22. The ROI has to be justified because believe it or not, Blizzard is beholden to the shareholders and not to the players.
    As an aside: Let's retire the 'shareholder' argument once and for all. No one gives a shit about ATVI shareholders at the moment and they never will again unless the MS deal falls apart. As a matter of fact if the game tanked badly and the stock was trashed in the process they would be happy about that since the share price they will be paid is already set. The very last thing any shareholder in ATVI wants to see at this point is ATVI's stock price to go up higher than the price MS offered.

    MS may, once they have control, put pressure on WoW's developers for better player retention. That's a business case that favors the content that everyone spends time in which by its very nature is solo/world content. I personally think that dungeons and raids are signature-level content for the game but no one thinks that the way to double down on revenues is to put more development money into content that less than half of everyone bothers with. That path financially leads to paying more attention to casual players who are the true bread and butter of the game.
    "...money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."

  12. #192
    The core issue i have right now (without any details, to be clear) is that they still seem to be under the impression that the non-LFG players (call them casuals or solo players if you like) are primarily motivated by 'cosmetics'. Sure, there are plenty who are (collectors), but most players are motivated by gear and numbers going up. With good reason: Numbers open up the actual end game (should they want it). They also make solo farming more efficient, as well as old raid farming. Numbers improve the gameplay experience in a way nothing else in game does. I dont think this is too controversial a point. Numbers are the means by which those players can actually get the cosmetics they may desire in the current raid tier along with the cosmetics they may covet from more challenging encounters in older raids and dungeons.

    My issue then is the way they're talking about the end game loop with reputations. They're being very clear (perhaps not to scare their core playerbase) that these are cosmetic rewards with no player power. And that worries me. They tried this exact thing in shadowlands with the covenant rep items. They weren't great. Whether it was the reward itself being lackluster or the sheer cost/time being completely out of kilter, they failed to incentivise players like me to do them. Collectors im sure, poured their heart and soul into these grinds on all 4 covenants, only to have players like me turn up a year and a bit later to easily scoop them all up within my 2 months of playtime due to the massive anima changes over the course of the expansion. That can't have felt good.

    Cosmetics don't drive players like me, unless they are on a hefty discount (as they always are later in the expansion). Numbers drive players like me. And i want to now make the case why BfA was perfect for non-LFG players; and why it kept my sub almost throughout the entirety of the expansion (shadowlands got 4 months total). Its a combination of the following four things working in tandem:
    1. The emissary system.
    2. Titan/Warforging.
    3. The azerite necklace.
    4. Warfronts and World boss.
    5. (you could add in timewalking events and LFR, though its a bit less noticeable).
    Let me break it down into the components to explain why they all worked so well together. But first a very important disclaimer:

    [DISCLAIMER: Please, for the moment, try not to think about how these tie into the broader LFG/Organized game. I know you will be cross with titanforging and warforging in raids and also island grinding for azerite power. This is simply trying to explain those systems in a bubble specific to the world game itself. Bear with me, i will bring this up at the end].

    1. The emissary system is the absolute core to this. Playing the game solo you'd obviously cap out if you dont touch the LFG system. Working as intended. Eventually your world quests would hit on an average ilvl and reward you only items around that ilvl. Every 5 (average) ilvls your gear increased the world quest rewards would bump up another 5 ilvls. So your playstyle here would be very simple: At cap you'd be doing world quests to fill your low level slots (and there were pretty varied compared to the parsimonious distribution we got in SLs). This would bump your ilvl... but NEVER enough to reach that next take off point. Which is where the next three items come in.
    2. Titan/warforging. Rare and extremely rare. But maybe once or twice a week, one of those emissary drops (or a world quest drop) would titanforge giving you that little extra. Maybe once every few months you'd get something useful (kind of important), that would warforge. These would boost your average ilvl half a point or so. On its own, itd be torturous and not worth the time investment.
    3. Azerite neck would just keep ticking away with all the content youre doing in game. Its never going to give you the boost youd love, but it keeps whirring away in the background rewarding you for the time you invest in the game.
    4. The actually big hitters of this system were the weekly warfront rewards (still on RNG though and you will get plenty of duplicates) and the world boss drop (congrats on your azerite power drop for the week!). Both had the potential to kick you into the next tier. Though both were heavy rng dependent. But here's another thing thats important about them. Initially, they will boost you, but over the life-cycle of the patch, they're going to get less and less useful as those world rewards eventually outpace them.
    5. The timewalking event definitely had the capacity of boosting a lowilvl slot and usually would help adding half a point here and there to your av ilvl, but they also came once a month. LFR was heavily relegated from wod onwards (and only found its niche again in sls with the great vault), but it definitely always had a chance of a decent missing slot now and again.

    Okay, with all that explained you can see a few things: Firstly, these parts worked almost seamlessly together to make sure the wall was never effectively hit; they always had that carrot just in front of the player to keep going. Second, this was a very slow progression/grind system. It does not remotely compete with mythic plus or raiding for efficiency. By the time you'd overtake the rewards in warfronts for example, you'd be close to the end of the patch cycle. Third, note the very hard cap on the two biggest sources of ilvl progression. Unlike the emissary system, they provide swift gains (luck notwithstanding) early on, but over the course of the patch, their value diminishes. This is an incredibly elegant way of not only incentivising those players through the course of the patch, but also slowing down their gains the further into the patch they are. This makes it incredibly difficult (though not impossible) to move into the next tier of emissary rewards WITHOUT engaging in LFG content.

    Overall, it was an incredibly satisfying, engaging and rewarding system with all the incentives in the right place for your non-lfg player. It was also incredibly inefficient and didnt compete with the pace of gear accumulation inside the LFG system. Which brings me to my final point. The trouble blizzard often have is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. BfA was a failure and is looked upon with derision precisely because key aspects of that system bled into the LFG game. But having learned from this, there's no reason at all why they shouldnt have a second look at this and see what worked and didnt work.

    As i've argued, as a self-contained world system, this was beautifully elegant and addressed many of the issues around incentives, time, and gearing that we routinely argue on these forums as well as everywhere else. Were titanforging solely contained to those world quests (warforging id argue is too high a boost and shouldnt exist at all), then it would have far less of an impact in the LFG game. There are of course issues of bleeding. But these can be solved by soft caps on emissary systems (extended in the x.x.5 patch) or DR at certain ilvl break points. The necklace (or some ticking power item) as well can easily be resolved by either a) making it a rep reward and keeping it exclusively to world content SLOWLY ticking over b) making it completely useless in non-world content; or c) or if you also want one; empowering it through raiding et al far quicker than any other source with hard weekly caps.

    There is no reason in my eyes why they should consider the entirety of the world quest system of BfA a failure. I would genuinely love for them to reimplement it, only with more care. What i wouldnt love though, is for them to chuck a bunch of cosmetic rewards on a rep vendor and hope that's enough to keep people playing. because i genuinely dont think it will be.

  13. #193
    On the top of single player content, I will bring up player housing: a largely solo endeavor that would ultimately help promote community and social interaction in the game if done correctly. After playing a few mmos that aren't WoW (Wildstar and FF14) it completely blows my mind that Blizzard continues to pass the buck on player housing.

    Whales for player housing are 100% what kept Wildstar alive for the 2 years after it's failed launch, with items appearing in the game shop that people bought to create legit player zones (where mostly rpers would spend their time).

    But FF14 really opened my eyes to the type of social scenes that players can generate from housing. In addition to getting extra money by selling furniture exclusives in the cash-shop, FF14 has a whole sub-culture separate from the game that involves things like RP cafes, Night Clubs, Music Venues and Comedy Nights (utilizing discord for voice), and so much more.

    Players host their own events, with DJs streaming music on twitch that players can tune in to watch. And no two houses are the same - with housing items coming from now only PvE dungeon content, but also PvP and professions.

    It just seems to weird, that Blizzard, in an effort to want to reinvigorate the social scene, doesn't want to add a feature like this. Will it isolate some players? Yes --- But will other players make an Alliance Brawler's Guild Aesthetic Nightclub with raving gnomes, a moonkin DJ, and overall create some really great social groups to join and interact with? Also, yes.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zaelthon
    do i wanting my cat come the expansion due to signifying a reroll fresh scratch the night elf mage?

  14. #194
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    I'm wondering what this Grand Adventure Time thing is. could it be single player content? like the old scenarios, but for single players (or groups if you choose)

  15. #195
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dejiko View Post
    Content added requires time to be tested, to have it meet a certain standard, noone is disputing that, quite the opposite infact.
    You add in Torghast and tie it to player power? Great, it`s only relevant for that one single expansion now, what an utter waste of time.
    Or is it? Those systems are iterated from previous ideas that morphed from content created exclusively for that expansion. Case in point: M+ is derived from the CM dungeons from MoP and WoD. That's the history of how M+ came to be. Granted the current iterations of M+ (IMO) lean to heavily on MDI and other tournament play that affects the rest of the player base in both positive and negative ways.


    Quote Originally Posted by Dejiko View Post
    It`s the weirdest argument i`ve heard in some time.
    Instead of future proofing investments of time and effort, it`s better to just keep churning out more and more new stuff, only for that too to be ignored and forgotten later on? Why?
    Because players want new and shiny and not rehashed older content. Just look at the initial responses to SL Season 4 rehashed older (mega) dungeons and fated raids. In fact, we're seeing this extended in DF season 1 (and probably season 2) on the M+ dungeon list.

    Granted, I'm personally in favor of these systems because the alternative is worse aka 2+ years of the same dungeons each season repeated for the same loot just higher ilv.

    And like I pointed out in the first point: Older content isn't necessarily "forgotten" some systems are carried forward or iterated to bring a new version.

    Let's go back to Island Expeditions, the principle of IEs were to provide an alternative means to grind AP compared to the Legion AP grind of doing M+ dungeons over and over again. While IEs did fail because player response to them was low, it did pave the way towards the renown system we have now in SL where progression forward is capped so that as long as you keep up, you're fine. Additionally, for those who do fall behind, the early catch up mechanism is accelerated until you get close to cap. Current catch-up jumps you even further to where you can effectively get to 80 relatively quickly.

    So far, we're seeing the same renown system moving forward in DF except instead of having to grind each individual "faction", all factions progression renown at the same time.


    Quote Originally Posted by Dejiko View Post
    There are two ways to make old raids and dungeons relevant, even at max level.
    Scale up the ilvl of the loot, or introduce justice/valor vendors and have the currency drop from old raids.
    That's easier said than done. Just look at how badly tuned Iron Docks, Lower Kara were on the first week of Season 4. Even the loot had to be buffed to make some of them more meaningful than vendor loot. And again, the argument comes up to where are the resources to do this overhaul for not just every expansion but also every season? Remember there are a finite amount of resources/time even for a company as big as Activision-Blizzard.

    Honestly, Season 4 should have had more attention given to it. Some of the issues from M+ could have easily been seen with just a small group (say 2 groups of 5) running S4 M+ keys at the +10, +15, and +20 levels with different affix combos to see where obvious problems are.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dejiko View Post
    What possible reason do you have for returning to Ulduar once you`ve farmed the mounts and the transmog items?
    Why can`t you "toggle" off the mobs and turn the instance into a hub for roleplay purposes for example?
    But how many people are going to RP through Ulduar? I honestly don't see how that would be a significant number of players that moves Activision-Blizzard to say: "Hey we should put some resources into this!". You're more than welcome to prove me wrong with a petition... I'd like to see if that petition could even reach a million.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dejiko View Post
    Hell introduce player housing, have forniture recipes, paintings, decorative vases, bookshelves, couches, chairs drop from certain old raids.
    Want some Nightborne inspired interior decorations? Go try your luck with drops in The Nighthold.
    The problem is that WoW isn't designed for that very well. Even the example found on Youtube required extensive modding AND it wasn't shown if it could be done on a larger (multiplayer) scale. The last few episodes of Mythic Quest Season 2 basically hit this on the head. "Hera" has amazing features but MQ wasn't designed for them so it just doesn't work. Instead it would be easier/better to create a new game based on "Hera" so that those features can be realized.

    Heck wasn't Aerial Combat promised back in WotLK? Where's that "feature"?

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by wushootaki View Post
    On the top of single player content, I will bring up player housing: a largely solo endeavor that would ultimately help promote community and social interaction in the game if done correctly. After playing a few mmos that aren't WoW (Wildstar and FF14) it completely blows my mind that Blizzard continues to pass the buck on player housing.
    It's a bit unfair to compare WoW to newer MMOs which may have been designed from the ground up to include player housing. Moreover, the initial implementation of player housing back in the old days (think EQ days) were pretty crappy and it wasn't a big feature that the majority of the playerbase went for.

    And while player taste may change over time, at this point, it seems that Blizzard would need to play catch-up with more modern MMOs with player housing. So that even if that feature was added in DF, you would still have complaints that WoW's player housing wasn't as deep or rich compared to FF14, ESO, or <insert other new MMO>.

    And lastly, adding in player housing as a new system wouldn't necessarily expand SP content for the previous expansions unless Blizzard also went back and made new content for those older expansions to be farmed for. Which then begs the question, why invest there (in older content) when you could do the same in the newer zones? Instead of 3 chairs from DF, 1 from SL, 1 from BFA, 1 from Legion (etc etc), why not just make 10 different chairs from DF?
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  16. #196
    Quote Originally Posted by Bramickias View Post
    Wrong, MMORPG are meant to be played with other people. Having lots of people in one online place is just any big online game.
    I kind of disagree. We can be in the same game playing with other people but that does not necessary mean people would be doing the same thing. Ultimate Online
    I think allowed people to play as blacksmiths or other professions.

    So you could argue these players are playing solo but also playing together.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bramickias View Post
    Having groups of players of various sizes team-up to take on challenges, is what MMORPG are about in the end. You can play by yourself and enjoy some of their systems all you want, but it's never been their main goal.
    And there lies the problem. Players puts up various barriers to bar others from joining their group. Sure, they well within their rights to do so and I do not disagree with that. But it does means some players will get excluded and will not be able to experience these elements in the game.

    Blizzard has tried to remedy this with LFR and LFD but some players object to this claiming it ruins the game. Personally, I think it just hurts their ego by not having contents exclusive to themselves.

  17. #197
    Quote Originally Posted by varren View Post
    WoW has some the weakest solo/casual content on the current mmo market. Really needs a huge improvement.
    What exactly is it that you're interested in? The rewards? Harder content? Just more of the same wall-o-text quests?

  18. #198
    Quote Originally Posted by Trend View Post
    That's a bizarre response. You seem triggered.

    I never said what the acronym means nor did I make any play in regards to it. If someone does not like a gameplay aspect that is almost always embraced by a particular genre, it's not wrong to tell them that maybe the genre might not be the thing for them. Sure, you can say the genre should not have that aspect, but IMO that's swimming up stream and I stand by my advice.

    Your posts are usually thought out. Guess you were having a bad day.
    Yes it is wrong because that genrre also embraces single player content. youare trying to dictate what an MMO is and are telling people to get lost if they want other content that you have decided does not fit the definition you are trying to dictate.

    You are not the sole arbiter of what an MMO is. Single player content is a part of it whether you like it or not. They have the right to ask for more single player content and it is a reasonable request. Telling payers to shut up and get lost lf you don't like group content like you are doing is wrong.

  19. #199
    I'd love if there was a "solo mode" for instances. As in, balanced mechanically for a single player.

  20. #200
    Herald of the Titans Alroxas's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rrayy View Post
    You are not the sole arbiter of what an MMO is. Single player content is a part of it whether you like it or not. They have the right to ask for more single player content and it is a reasonable request. Telling payers to shut up and get lost lf you don't like group content like you are doing is wrong.
    Is it reasonable though? That's the question I have. One of MMOs primary features is the ability (if not requirement) to interact with other actual people which is mostly through group content.

    To ask for more SP content when one of the primary focuses of a MMOs is group content seems out of scope.

    And to see how "reasonable" it can be, look at it from the inverse... In a Single Player RPG (say the Elden Ring), is it reasonable to ask the developers for more GROUP content? Like Raids or Dungeons where you need a group of players to overcome that content?
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