Bored after 2 months of DF

[JustaRandomReindeer]

Except they did, cause there was a chance of getting insanely powerful gear from these sources. And for the race to world or server first you needed every chance you could get. Especially for tier.

Give me one good reason why we should cater to all 200 world first racers.

[Malkiah]

Except they did, cause there was a chance of getting insanely powerful gear from these sources. And for the race to world or server first you needed every chance you could get. Especially for tier.

the desire to push for world or server first is a thing that exists, but the desire for world or server first is not a threat or an act of coercion on the part of the devs when systems exist that allow the other 99.999% of the playerbase to get marginal upgrades during normal play.

i will unwaveringly insist that the whole mentality of "if there's a 0.001% chance i get a 0.01% upgrade i MUST repetitively do the most boring content i can find until i hate the game" is a delusion that exists only in the minds of a very few sick people, BUT i do acknowledge that this sickness is real.

however even conceding that the delusion exists for some people, i maintain that it's better for more people to have those systems in the game than not.
a few no-lifers being unable to stop themselves from masochistic gameplay styles for infinitesimal stat margins that only last for 3 months to try and chase bragging rights to an accomplishment nobody will remember 8 seconds after it has happened is not a valid reason to subject millions of other people to a more boring gaming experience.

[exochaft]

fixed that for you.
this mentality was a classic case of "if content exists, there will be people who imagine a gun is being held to their head forcing them to do it"

In reality, Blizz set up this scenario when they could've fixed it, as it's the result of multiple difficulties of raids layered with M+ gear scaling and all the gear in all content being of the same power regardless of content.

The issue comes down to the path of least resistance. It's no surprise that players will take the easiest path when it comes to gearing for mythic raids. There's several angles that one could approach this topic, too, as you could view it as a gear/scaling issues with mythic raiding or gear drop/scaling balance across all end game content or any number of potential problems. However, they all boil down to people not wanting to waste their time, and often the path of least resistance is way too lucrative despite falling outside your potential end game.

So if mythic raiders felt the need to do non-mythic raiding and M+ in order to do mythic raiding, that likely means the path of least resistance to doing your preferred end-game content was through content you didn't want to do. So how could've Blizz fixed this? Depends on your goals, honestly. I've been a fan of capping gear at heroic ilvl in a world where mythic raiding exists, tuning mythic raiding around having full heroic ilvl gear, and have mythic raiding drop non-power gain items (cosmetics, xmog, etc.) or just drop more heroic ilvl loot than heroic. If that's not meeting your goals, have tier set bonuses not tied to gear (think a glyph system), or have tier set bonuses not work outside their respective content in the case of M+... could even go so far as there's no 1:1 overlap in gear, similar to how PvP power didn't work in PvE, so PvP gear was almost always the best gear for PvP while PvE gear was almost always the best for PvE. Heck, Blizz could just cut back on the difficulty of raids as a whole so the gear doesn't matter nearly as much, along with stopping their constant tuning of the raid around the RWF and Hall of Fame.

Frankly, there's tons of solutions to their problems, but either there's not a will to address the problems (or Blizz is just stubborn, which the last couple of expansions has shown to be a huge issue) or a lack of creativity to push the game to a better spot when it comes to these issues. If there's finger-pointing to be made, I'd point at Ion. Sure, easy target, but a lot of the policies and design direction that has received a lot of backlash the past few expansions were Ion's policies, especially when it comes to things like mythic raiding or raiding as a whole.

Give me one good reason why we should cater to all 200 world first racers.

The game shouldn't, but many aspects of the game (especially when it comes to time wasting issues) certainly do. I don't think anyone can deny that the mythic raid is tuned specifically for RWF, then progressively nerfed over time based either upon time or meeting certain events (X number of guilds clearing mythic, Hall of Fame fills up, etc.). Ultimately, that's done to placate the top raiders... and it adversely effects everyone at the same time. Blizz has even admitted they do it so the raid isn't cleared to quickly... but who cares if it is? The irony is even the top raiders don't want their time wasted, either, so everyone loses out.

However, this extends well beyond tuning of the mythic raid itself. This sort of mentality affects gear scaling, content scaling outside of mythic raids, gear drop rates and acquisition methods outside of mythic raids, and so much more. The net result is that many people have started to feel like WoW is wasting their time, and not in a fun or good way. It's the difference between designing the game to force people to play longer, versus people wanting to play longer because they're having fun.

[Malkiah]

In reality, Blizz set up this scenario when they could've fixed it, as it's the result of multiple difficulties of raids layered with M+ gear scaling and all the gear in all content being of the same power regardless of content.

this might be a case of we're both saying the same thing in a slightly different way, but IMO the difficulty and reward scaling isn't the problem so much as the lack of any character progression that isn't directly tied to item level.

i never had much of an opinion either way about AP directly, but i will say i liked that it provided a means to progress your character power without just equipping a new item slow with a higher number on it.
IMO that's an important function to have a persistent gaming environment like an MMO because it provides design space for the core feature (character power progression) that isn't limited to only one or two possible game play outlets (ie: dungeons and raiding)

but, i'll confess i know that take is problematic in WoW specifically because there's a very loud and very small group of players who absolutely never want to do ANY content that isn't raidlogging and who have proven they will scream and bleat and cry and whine nonstop for upwards of a decade if any content exists that could potentially give their toon a +2 str bonus but requires them run a dungeon.

i guess it just comes down to who you want to cater to.
the 150-300 people who obsess over WF, or the... tens/hundreds of thousands? millions? whatever number of the literal entire rest of the population that plays wow.

[Forgottenone]

If WoW is your main/only game, if you have an immense amount of free time that you invest into WoW, then sure I can see you being bored.

For my friends and I, we just do PVP and are having a blast still. Now yeah, we work 40 hours a week, we walk our dogs, we workout, we spend time with our girlfriends/family/friends so we aren't on this game 12+ hrs a day everyday. That said, the free time we do get which is still a lot is thrown at this game and we continue just having a great time.

I'm thrilled about no borrowed powers, no forced dailies, just a pretty stellar line of progression. Sucks to be those who are bored or have nothing to do in WoW. Glad I'm not in the same boat as you guys though. Between random BGs, arena, world pvp moments, mount farming, and just random Goldshire raids, we loving the game ^_^

[Skylarking]

I recall the angry players back then, and I never understood it? Like who cares about Titanforging, if someone get an item and then it went up 15 iLvls due to TF, ok...cool whatever. Good for them.

But man players were so upset over that, and I never knew why?

Like with all things in life people get upset at others for things they didn't really work for. It's kinda like that one guy that gets carried in a group gets the loot drop but the ones that were doing the dps and mechanics did not

[BeepBoo]

Give me one good reason why we should cater to all 200 world first racers.

Why do you think it was just the 200 world first raiders?

I quit because I got tired of seeing my raid guild do the same content and scrubs getting randomly better loot for no reason. I also got tired of seeing my relative performance slip on the overall warcraft log scene as other statistically lucky people got huge ilvl increases.

I'm here to parse, and that means I need gear. Am I world first? No, but so fucking what? Do club-sports level players not have a right to want to be competitive? Have to be absolute world best to care about that aspect? Nah fam. Fuck random power loot, fuck infinite power grinds.

I don't even want character progression, I want a plethora of new content to experience stuff in.

"waah but progression is an RPG trope!" I've ben playing this shit on and off for nearly 20 fucking years. Progression is an illusion. Just give me new content to play hotkey DDR in.

And yes, that means getting to a point each season where I'm satisfied or tired of the current crop of content. Know what? Good. Me unsubbing lights a fire under their ass to keep churning out more content if they want me to stick around or come back.

[RoKPaNda]

I think it's pretty normal to get bored at this point in a tier. By this point your main is probably just about out of upgrades and you probably have a pretty geared alt or two and are just playing because you like your friends.

Because suddenly mythic raiders needed to do LFR, Normal, and heroic for chance at titanforging a mythic piece.
I mean do you forget the arcano crystal which people farmed every time they could cause that thing if it procced titanforge could become by far the best trinket.

That wasn't really a thing though, that was something that people complained about on social media but nobody in a Mythic guild was actually doing that unless they failed basic math. We ran Heroic because the gear from Heroic was still okay and there was a decent chance of getting a Mythic level piece. We didn't run normal or LFR because the odds of getting a piece to titanforge that many times was so low. That's why over the entire course of Legion you only ever saw actual evidence of 2 or 3 capped items from LFR. Killing a world boss once a week when it's up in the rotation is an entirely different thing from spending hours doing lesser raid difficulties trying to win the lottery.

[Sinx]

Did you just say borrowed power killed subs when, from what we can infer from data, subscription numbers only increased after Legion and are now back down again with DF?

Like, we are steadily losing subs for a few expansions and WoD nearly kills the game, then they release Legion, BfA, and SL, and they all break records and revitalize people's interest in the game, and for some reason you think the central feature of those expansions killed subs?

Stop making stuff up. Virtually every source for subscription and active players metrics have a steady decline throughout both BfA and Shadowlands, and the retention of players throughout these expansion (ie players that played it all the way through) were disasterous. Yes, they have increases at the time the expansions are released, which then rapidly drops off.

I get it, borrowed power sucks, it should have never been ''borowed". They should have let us keep the artifacts. But what's important is that people had a way to progress in the game without just raiding once a week and then playing other games. Legion was the winning formula. They fucked up by trying to fix things that were not broken. People could log in whenever they want and have fun because there was stuff to do. What do you do in DF when you are done with your weekly raid? Are you not tired of making soup?

You're contradicting yourself here, as that's exactly what they've done by re-establishing talent trees, so that they can build upon DF in the next expansion, rather than doing a full on reset and class resdesign. I can log on and have fun things to do in DF too, cause I do m+. Same goes for those that PVP. And I have other things to do besides playing WoW 12-15 hours a day, so swapping out 2 hours of daily borrowed power grind with playing a different game or doing some RL activities is an easy choicec for me, and quite a lot of others too judging by all the criticism aimed at those very systems.

DF failed to get people excited for the game. It offers nothing to people who call Legion their favorite expansion. People are already getting sick of it and it's only gonna get worse because we are at least 3 months away from the next big content patch. Could be even more than that. At this point in Legion you were already done with EN and you were clearing Karazhan and ToV, and Nighthold was coming out next month. DF is closer to SL than Legion in that regard. Far from a game-saving expansion. But it is perfect for you and people who want to pay sub just to play a raid simulator once a week.

From what I've seen DF has succeeded very well in getting people excited for the game. Not forcing constant daily grinds on people allows a lot more to actually participate in the endgame content, because they don't get automatically disqualified when they don't have the time or willingness to do ridiculous amounts of daily chores to have a viable character. Perhaps you enjoy grinding for hours every day, maybe even those you play with feel the same way, but don't pretend like you're speaking on behalf of the vast majority of players. You have your opinion, I have mine, and we don't play the game the same way, which is cool.

I'm not opposed to them making more casual or solo content for those that aren't into endgame content, by all means. What I am opposed to are daily chores that they make mandatory for every player to do. Even Torghast isn't necessarily a bad idea. I know several that enjoyed it. The problem with Torghast was that they forced everyone to do it repeatedly, which only serves to chase a lot of people away. And it's the same with the borrowed power "currency" grinding. It chases away players that want to do raids or m+ or pvp, but don't have the time to play the game for hours every single day, grinding out content that they hate doing. That's the issue with it.

[JustaRandomReindeer]

Stop making stuff up. Virtually every source for subscription and active players metrics have a steady decline throughout both BfA and Shadowlands, and the retention of players throughout these expansion (ie players that played it all the way through) were disasterous. Yes, they have increases at the time the expansions are released, which then rapidly drops off.


You're contradicting yourself here, as that's exactly what they've done by re-establishing talent trees, so that they can build upon DF in the next expansion, rather than doing a full on reset and class resdesign. I can log on and have fun things to do in DF too, cause I do m+. Same goes for those that PVP. And I have other things to do besides playing WoW 12-15 hours a day, so swapping out 2 hours of daily borrowed power grind with playing a different game or doing some RL activities is an easy choicec for me, and quite a lot of others too judging by all the criticism aimed at those very systems.



From what I've seen DF has succeeded very well in getting people excited for the game. Not forcing constant daily grinds on people allows a lot more to actually participate in the endgame content, because they don't get automatically disqualified when they don't have the time or willingness to do ridiculous amounts of daily chores to have a viable character. Perhaps you enjoy grinding for hours every day, maybe even those you play with feel the same way, but don't pretend like you're speaking on behalf of the vast majority of players.

There is no reliable source for subscription and active player metrics. The best we have are raid logs, achievement statistics, and blizzard announcements. And all of those point to increase in player interest overtime. Yes, it's fair to guess that both BfA and SL lost a lot of subs after the first few months. But they both broke records when they were released. Player interest in WoW was at an all-time high after Legion. DF is a dud in comparison and it's evident by the amount of desperate sales they came up with after release to try and pull people in. And when that failed too and they went back to the ole player retention bullshit. I'm certain games like SWTOR, Lineage 2, and probably even New World at this point, have better player retention than WoW.

But anyway, go check raid logs, go check achievement statistics. I am glad you are enjoying the expansion, but it's you who should not pretend to be speaking on behalf of the vast majority of players.

[Sinx]

So you're crediting BfA and SL sales numbers on Legion being a hit, but fail to reckognize that DF is coming off of 2 of the worst expansions to date. Makes sense. DF was never gonna propel WoW back to old heights, but it's a good start for turning over a new leaf, allowing participation in end game content for players that can't invest most of their spare time into grinding.

And yes, there are viable metrics on WoW's performance. It's available in their own API, and shows a drastic decrease in activity in both raids and m+ over the past 2 expansions, making it quite likely that the subscription numbers were heading in the same direction.

[JustaRandomReindeer]

So you're crediting BfA and SL sales numbers on Legion being a hit, but fail to reckognize that DF is coming off of 2 of the worst expansions to date. Makes sense. DF was never gonna propel WoW back to old heights, but it's a good start for turning over a new leaf, allowing participation in end game content for players that can't invest most of their spare time into grinding.

And yes, there are viable metrics on WoW's performance. It's available in their own API, and shows a drastic decrease in activity in both raids and m+ over the past 2 expansions, making it quite likely that the subscription numbers were heading in the same direction.

And Legion came out after Cata, MoP, and WoD. What's your point? DF is nowhere near Legion levels of excitement. If anything it's more similar to WoD and that does not give me hope for the future. They will never win back players who loved Legion and maybe even BfA, inspite all of its flaws, with expansions like DF. These kind of expansions were the reason why we needed Legion to revitalize interest in the game in the first place. They are made for people who want to play raid simulator once a week and then forget about WoW till next week. It's not going to bring new people in. It's not going to bring back people who don't like that. It's only going to keep the most loyal of WoW fans subbed, most of whom already played through all of SL, so Blizzard was never truly in danger of losing those players anyway. At some point you gotta realize that people are not gonna come back to play expansions that boil down to ''WoD but newer".

[shise]

WoW has evolved from an adventure full game to a cap rush followed by the same dull, overly recycled content that is M+

Sadly, that is the state of affars. You can see that the "owners" of the game are not like those who once cared and developed it... it´s been all about the money for a while now.

[Sinx]

And Legion came out after Cata, MoP, and WoD. What's your point? DF is nowhere near Legion levels of excitement. If anything it's more similar to WoD and that does not give me hope for the future. They will never win back players who loved Legion and maybe even BfA, inspite all of its flaws, with expansions like DF. These kind of expansions were the reason why we needed Legion to revitalize interest in the game in the first place. They are made for people who want to play raid simulator once a week and then forget about WoW till next week. It's not going to bring new people in. It's not going to bring back people who don't like that. It's only going to keep the most loyal of WoW fans subbed, most of whom already played through all of SL, so Blizzard was never truly in danger of losing those players anyway. At some point you gotta realize that people are not gonna come back to play expansions that boil down to ''WoD but newer".

Legion also had significantly higher participation in Antorus than in EN and Nighthold, so it grew over time, suffering much the same effects from WoD on its launch as DF is suffering from BfA/SL. BfA and SL, on the other hand, went rapidly downhill almost immediately.

And you honestly believe the mindless grinds, forced content and half assed catchup mechanics are gonna bring new ppl in or keep existing players ? That worked so well in BfA and SL don't you think ? WoW is a huge mixture of people that play the game differently, both on time and content. Catering to one player base at the expense of another is a bad decision regardless how you do it. WoW lacks content for those who aren't interested in the current end game, but forcing mindless grinds on everyone isn't the solution. Providing a 4th content path for solo players might be a valid solution to your problem though.

[Gorsameth]

Well, i really like world content in DF, but unfortunately i hit a brick wall where my gear does not get better anymore from world gameplay. If i can progress again i continue to play.

So what your saying is that you don't enjoy the world content, but enjoy the gear it gives you...

[Glorious Leader]

So what your saying is that you don't enjoy the world content, but enjoy the gear it gives you...

Replace world content with whichever pet content you like and you'll find its generally true. Its a standard that never seems to be applied broadly unfortunately.

[Grimbold21]

Well, i really like world content in DF, but unfortunately i hit a brick wall where my gear does not get better anymore from world gameplay. If i can progress again i continue to play.

This is bait.

[Greyvax]

I've definitely hit the boredom wall myself. activity will continue to decline until 10.0.7.

[Grimbold21]

Not at all.

I like the gameplay the world has to offer. As like the climbing quests. the hunts, the siege campaign, as like dragon flying races, as like the elite regions.. But if i play it without any useful reward, it is not as much fun as with having such kind of incentive.

I have maxed out factions recently. So there also is not even any cosmetic reward anymore.

The answer is self-evident.

Your previous remark suggests that outdoors content is what you primariy consume. You state that you cannot progress your gear any further than what you obtain from what you mainly play.

Why would it need to? You've geared yourself according to the activity you do. If you don't do anything else, especially activities that give better gear, then you won't get better gear.

[Hitei]

Why would it need to?

To continue to have progression or reward? Talk about self-evident answers.