Blizzard finally understood the value of casual players having more access to gear.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

I mean that's still a pretty big leap, esp since the last few bosses drop 272~!

However that has not been true in a normal patch, its only bc the solo gear wasnt updated for s4

[SaucyThighs]

Adding content and rewarding that content is good, no matter what kind of player. I prefer a game that is geared more specifically towards me (probably not casual by most definitions), but everyone should be able to find a game for them.

I just want to emphasize one extremely important point for reward systems: They reward needs to be equal to what you put into it (for it to be meaningful at all). If casual players are putting all sorts of time into the game and gaining nothing, that's not fair. If casual players are getting 80% as much for 20% as much investment, that's not good either. It doesn't have to be blatant 1 for 1 in every case but overall, to whatever extent rewards deviate from this principal it undermines the very essence of rewards.

Rewards are basically a way to reflect and support who you are as a player. Its exciting precisely because it's a mirror of your input. It's really "hey look what I did" not so much "hey look what I have". That's why Pay-to-win is trash. The people getting off on that are enjoying the reward of the whatever they put into making their money and showing it off, but its clearly a fake feeling of success from a gameplay standpoint.

More specifically... i think it'll feel better when casual players get rewards that are unique and tailored to their type of gameplay and more hard-core players get rewards tailored to theirs.

If you're into farming rep because you like the story and chillin in the zones, the rewards can support that like... like that should be the way to get the fastest mount because mount speed actually matters. Player power too of course: whatever is most specific to fighting in the open world. You'll end up stronger in that environment than someone who put just as much time into raiding, but not as strong as them in a raid setting.

Conversely ppl who love high skill-cap encounters should get gear that changes their gameplay where they can utilize the depth of their class.

(I know casual and hard-core can mean a lot of different things.)

[Drench]

I'd like to give credit to developers for finally getting in sync with casual player base. Couple things (among other) that stands out.

• Tier set forge
• Uncapped valor S4

These and other few good changes indicates that Blizzard finally understands that removing previously existing briers is a good thing. What can casual player do with more gear?

• Stay subscribed.
• Go do solo older content.
• Join mythic plus groups.
• Engage in activities that has power limits (brawlers guild, etc)
• Have more motivation in general to engage in current content including raiding.

And because power rocks, player can finally do whatever they want with it. It feels good to be powerful rather than memeing around like a scrub.

If you can't earn real gear you are a scrub. A 10 year old could learn how to run heroic raiding in about a week.
It's lazy people who have some kind of illness that gives them a gimmegimme mentality. When you ask them why they can't put effort they use the same excuses as fat people.

I dont have time to work out. I don't have money. I dont know how to cook. Same thing just a bunch of excuses. My god if you can't play a game or dedicate a small tiny effort a 10 year old can do then just find a new hobby like watching tv.

People like the OP and other idiots are the reason why diablo immortal is doing well. Why we have season passes for 99% of the gear. Why you can buy gear with wow tokens. They know if they keep the idiots they can milk them dry and it sucks.

[Otimus]

If you can't earn real gear you are a scrub. A 10 year old could learn how to run heroic raiding in about a week.
It's lazy people who have some kind of illness that gives them a gimmegimme mentality. When you ask them why they can't put effort they use the same excuses as fat people.

I dont have time to work out. I don't have money. I dont know how to cook. Same thing just a bunch of excuses. My god if you can't play a game or dedicate a small tiny effort a 10 year old can do then just find a new hobby like watching tv.

People like the OP and other idiots are the reason why diablo immortal is doing well. Why we have season passes for 99% of the gear. Why you can buy gear with wow tokens. They know if they keep the idiots they can milk them dry and it sucks.

You sure sound like a big ball of sunshine.

[Echo of Soul]

If you can't earn real gear you are a scrub. A 10 year old could learn how to run heroic raiding in about a week.
It's lazy people who have some kind of illness that gives them a gimmegimme mentality. When you ask them why they can't put effort they use the same excuses as fat people.

I dont have time to work out. I don't have money. I dont know how to cook. Same thing just a bunch of excuses. My god if you can't play a game or dedicate a small tiny effort a 10 year old can do then just find a new hobby like watching tv.

People like the OP and other idiots are the reason why diablo immortal is doing well. Why we have season passes for 99% of the gear. Why you can buy gear with wow tokens. They know if they keep the idiots they can milk them dry and it sucks.

You should play a competitive sport instead. This is a video game and it's supposed to be fun.

[Celement]

You should play a competitive sport instead. This is a video game and it's supposed to be fun.

I mean no... that isn't how games work by definition. Chess, checkers any game really has a way to lose and rules on how to play. You can claim you don't want to try but what you are really after then is a toy not game.

Wow loot is set up the way it is for an express purpose. To give people at different stages of the game to progress. Beyond childish greed you haven't given a reason for why this should be done away with.

[Elias1337]

You should play a competitive sport instead. This is a video game and it's supposed to be fun.

And it you should learn what make game a game. Becouse you are clearly completly clueless what makes playing games fun.

[Coldkil]

I mean no... that isn't how games work by definition. Chess, checkers any game really has a way to lose and rules on how to play. You can claim you don't want to try but what you are really after then is a toy not game.

Wow loot is set up the way it is for an express purpose. To give people at different stages of the game to progress. Beyond childish greed you haven't given a reason for why this should be done away with.

You have clearly no idea of what you're doing in game. All the competitive side has spawned from players themselves because they're too focused on proving they're better than others. WoW is built around the concept of grouping up and beat challenges together.

Great majority of players don't care about it. They just want to play. Reason why focusing on the competitive playerbase has driven away the majority of people and made the community overall worse. Remeber, this people are the same ones that buy boosts because "they don't want to put the time of increasing their score". They bring nothing to the game, not even in terms of money because after a month most of them have stopped playing already (nothing wrong with it but the state of the game speaks for itself).

[Daffan]

Somebody threw an "end expansion bone" earlier and everyone is lining up on dragging it so that they can confirm whatever they want to confirm.

On topic: Give Blizzard credit, acknowledge the good things that is happening right now and then perhaps they are willing to work with us in future. You don't have to go with these absolutes and fake compares, 1% better is still an improvement.

I have no idea what you are saying to me. There is nothing to confirm. I am right, from the first millisecond!

[Greenmagoo]

Mainly, LFR wasn't immediately worthless and offered something to work toward as a casual player and badge gear still existed.

Instead it devalued non-raid content for non-raiders in Blizzard open attempt to shove non-raiders into raiding and the slower weekly lockout schedule. Badge gear was also later removed further emphasizing raiding and RNG. GC later admitted it was a mistake only for Ion to doubled down on this raid or die behavior before having to back off. WoW is a theme park MMO. Not everyone has to nor wants to raid as an endgame casual or not.

[Nymrohd]

Instead it devalued non-raid content for non-raiders in Blizzard open attempt to shove non-raiders into raiding and the slower weekly lockout schedule. Badge gear was also later removed further emphasizing raiding and RNG. GC later admitted it was a mistake only for Ion to doubled down on this raid or die behavior before having to back off. WoW is a theme park MMO. Not everyone has to nor wants to raid as an endgame casual or not.

LFR in Cata and MoP was still secondary to Valor. It had value because it gave decent gear and in MoP because of the Legendary questline and later Shado-pan offensive rep in ToT. It by no means replaced other activities for players; Heroic dungeons were still a faster way to grind Valor in Cata and in MoP you had so many options for Valor. In WoD it was only done by non-raiders who wanted to do the legendary questline; you got better gear from the mission table . . . In Legion LFR had a renaissance of sorts because high chance to get legendary, several hidden artifact appearances, high Artifact Power gains and the off chance that a good trinket or tier item would titanforge wildly meant people kept doing LFR for the first three raids well into ToS. Your actual gear though came either from other instanced content or from emissary and random TFs. BfA and Shadowlands LFR is worthless; BfA had so many better ways to get gear (Warfronts, Conquest track, emissaries). At least in early SL you might have done Nathria to get your Runes (your campaign armor set was just as decent as LFR; in 9.1 and 9.2 world content was far better). I think 9.2.7 is the first time since it was introduced that LFR is the highest ilvl gear someone who doesn't do organized group content can get.

[Glorious Leader]

I mean it would substantially shorten the playing experience of mythic and make normal or heroic rather pointless as a piece of progression content.

Final fantasy works the way it does because it's a less complex less difficult game. That isn't a mark against it but you can't copy systems 1 to 1 and expect them to work across each game.

You can... make wow a much less complex game which it was for most of its peak.

[HansOlo]

Definition of casual - correct me if i'm wrong:
A person with limited time, but with equal interest in the game as some 'hardcore'(the other end of the spectrum).

The billion dollar buisness question:
Why would Blizzard invest in the casuals?

[Kallisto]

Instead it devalued non-raid content for non-raiders in Blizzard open attempt to shove non-raiders into raiding and the slower weekly lockout schedule. Badge gear was also later removed further emphasizing raiding and RNG. GC later admitted it was a mistake only for Ion to doubled down on this raid or die behavior before having to back off. WoW is a theme park MMO. Not everyone has to nor wants to raid as an endgame casual or not.

When in the last 3 expansions (Legion/BFA/SL) in which Ion was in charge has it been if you don't walk into a raid you get literally nothing? When in both Legion and BFA we had titanforging that allowed you to get gear without even touching a raid and SL they brought back tier sets and you could get them without touching an instance. Raid or die was pretty much everything pre-legion (Vanilla, BC, Wrath, Cata and MoP were insanely "raid or die", WoD was basically "raid or just don't log on and don't bother with LFR, because of crybabies in MoP we took away tier and any gear worth anything"). If anything Shadowlands without titanforging is more raid or die than the other two prior to it.

[Echo of Soul]

Definition of casual - correct me if i'm wrong:
A person with limited time, but with equal interest in the game as some 'hardcore'(the other end of the spectrum).

The billion dollar buisness question:
Why would Blizzard invest in the casuals?

Yeah you're wrong

[HansOlo]

Yeah you're wrong

TBH - doesn't matter.

Answer this:
Why would Blizzard invest in the 'casuals'(whatever umbrella term that is)?

[Celement]

You can... make wow a much less complex game which it was for most of its peak.

You could but I don't know how that will look. WoW doesn't have it's old audience. If you make the game that easy again you risk losing players. You do either way to be clear but I'm not sure what way the wind blows...

My guess is more people prefer the min max nature of wow given how heavily the vast majority is into that. Just look at covenant numbers near launch.

[Advent]

TBH - doesn't matter.

Answer this:
Why would Blizzard invest in the 'casuals'(whatever umbrella term that is)?

Usually because that's roughly 80% or more (depending on what metrics you're using) of the players any game attracts. Deliberately choosing to not consider and implement changes for the people who are playing it is not only absurd, it's short-sighted and foolish.

[Echo of Soul]

TBH - doesn't matter.

Answer this:
Why would Blizzard invest in the 'casuals'(whatever umbrella term that is)?

Catering to the majority is always better for the game than catering to the minority. 12 million subscribers are better than 1 million subscribers.

[HansOlo]

Catering to the majority is always better for the game than catering to the minority. 12 million subscribers are better than 1 million subscribers.

Usually because that's roughly 80% or more (depending on what metrics you're using) of the players any game attracts. Deliberately choosing to not consider and implement changes for the people who are playing it is not only absurd, it's short-sighted and foolish.

You still don't my question(and avoid Bellular type of answers) ...

Invest = you spend resources.

You also make calculations on how much it costs to serve this new group(i.e infrastructure fee, servers, more call desk people). Something is on the stake and you take risks(you might lose the hardcore group during this process or any other imaginable consequence).

What happends with all the investments, if the casual group suddenly disappears(valid question - being flakey and vague is the nature of the casual playerbase)?

Return = all the work and money you put in, is returned as income.

So - once again:
Why/how would Blizzard invest in the 'casuals' - so that they can have a return value?