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

[potis]

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.

And every research shows that up to 70% doesnt even make it past the start of the game and they log off/uninstall/never play it again for every game out there.

Anyone can make up numbers.

What you guys dont understand is that WoW has a mostly stable amount of players that remain, that number was anywhere from 3 to 5mil spread in the three continents and thats what Blizzard is focusing on.

You guys crying on here are the minority, Blizzard also knows you are gonna expansion hop as you always did, same with the majority of the returners, their whole design is to simple keep you a few months more as much as possible, not forever.

[Celement]

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

Not looking at steam charts it isn't. If you wanna make money you find a niche and hold on for dear life.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I agree that "casuals" should have easier access to better(not the best) gear.

That doesn't hurt anyone. As long as it is not as rng as fucking titanforging/warforging.

I would say that casuals should have some fun way to continue progressing their characters, whatever that looks like. It's all about shots of dopamine, right? You come home from work, you goof around in the game, you accomplish some little somethings that move your character along, and your happy chemicals get triggered. That's what keeps most people playing, regardless of what level they play at.

[Eazy]

I would say that casuals should have some fun way to continue progressing their characters, whatever that looks like. It's all about shots of dopamine, right? You come home from work, you goof around in the game, you accomplish some little somethings that move your character along, and your happy chemicals get triggered. That's what keeps most people playing, regardless of what level they play at.

Yeah. But I think that steady progress is much better than just a random item drop with bonus ilvl items. That would force people to play the difficulty they wouldn't want to play.

[Gaidax]

I find this kind of funny statement seeing how Blizzard unleashed torrential rains of gear on people for a few expansions now.

If anything there is a sort of a gear inflation going on, because of how available it is. And I am not sure Blizzard can even now fix this snowball they themselves have created.

[ceall]

IMO what we have now (speaking of season 3 here), is actually perfectly fine. Those that don't do group content still get up to normal mode ilvl gear, which again IMO is more than enough for what they're doing ingame.

However, I think that cypher gear missed the Mark because you had it at Max ilvl way too fast. IIRC it only took one month to max out (with daily play). If it had lasted for say 3 months, the sense of progression would have been better.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

IMO what we have now (speaking of season 3 here), is actually perfectly fine. Those that don't do group content still get up to normal mode ilvl gear, which again IMO is more than enough for what they're doing ingame.

However, I think that cypher gear missed the Mark because you had it at Max ilvl way too fast. IIRC it only took one month to max out (with daily play). If it had lasted for say 3 months, the sense of progression would have been better.

I agree the easily available gear is more than sufficient. I am just playing around in Shadowlands for first time, after a few years away, and it's hard for me to die in world content unless I fall asleep at keyboard lol. But what keeps anyone playing any game like this are those happy brain chemicals - dopamine, seratonin, oxtocin... Any successful business model, therefore, will be about including features that trigger those chemicals, whether it's ilvl upgrades, cosmetic, or whatever. It's not about whether you're capable of doing those same daily quests every day, but whether you can play some content every day and have the illusion you've accomplished something lol. It's all a mind game we play with ourselves, but it's what Blizz has to do to keep those subscriptions active.