Bored after 2 months of DF

[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.

[Grimbold21]

What do you actually need gear for? It is..

1.) A reward
2.) A means to face more difficult content

Gear in world content mainly is a reward for playing. And instead of facing more difficult content gameplay in the world simply gets more easy. If you play against elites with ilevel 320 you struggle alot. If i face them with my ilevel 390 char i do not really have to struggle anymore.

I completely focus on world gameplay in WoW. And as long i have no ongoing progression or any useful reward anymore i do not continue to play.

Why should i? What is my incentive to do play anymore?`

Would a raider continue to raid if he ran out of epics he could acquire? I guess many raiders simply quit if they got all their BIS gear. I literally do the same, and its a legit way to play the game.

Yes, why should you? Why should any of us?

If you reached the end of your particular line, then that's it. If all I do is casually play m+, I can set an arbitary limit for myself - say reach, do and farm all 15s until I have the gear I wanted - and stop when I meet it.

The game is not under an obligation to keep us running on the hamster wheel.

As for the remainder of your post, any form of progressive gameplay provides gear as a reward, and the acquisition of this gear makes it easier to do it. The world in WoW hasn't simply been designed to provide long, vertical and gradually more difficult progression.

[JustaRandomReindeer]

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 ?

Yes, Legion was a great expansion. Now think about why BfA and SL failed where Legion succeeded. Surely people did not hate borrowed power and the grind as much as you'd have us believe, otherwise BfA and SL wouldn't have broken record sales and see increase in player numbers on release when borrowed power and grinds were advertised as the main features of those expansions. If that were the case DF would have smashed every record solely based on the fact that there was no borrowed power and grind advertised. Do you see the logic?

Why then? Perhaps it has to do with Blizzard's inability to meet players' expectations? We went from cool artifact weaopns and class order halls to a necklace and soulbinds. Perhaps it has to do with their incompetence and corporate greed? They released 3 raids and a mega dungeon in the first 5 months of Legion. In the first 5 months of BfA we had Uldir and half-baked island expeditions and warfronts. SL was even worse because in the first 5 months we didn't even know when the next raid is dropping.

So from all of this we come to the conclusion that BfA and SL had insane potential did they not? If they didn't they wouldn't have generated such excitement. Could they have been great expansions if Blizzard cared about making good expansions more than they cared about profits? For sure. Does DF have the same potential to be great? Eh. It doesn't matter how much care they put into it, the casual players(the ones who don't care about mythic raids and high m+) who were excited to play Legion, BfA, and SL, are not gonna return to DF because it has nothing to offer them. Another example of Blizzard's incompetence.. straight up removing and abandoning features instead of fixing them.

[Grimbold21]

For fun. Having proper rewards is part of the fun in every RPG.



There is nothing abritary in not wanting to play raids or mythic+. Why should i play something i (currently) do not like?



I am not under any obligation to continue to play if my gameplay is not rewarding my effort.



I am not interested in progressive gameplay outside of random battlegrounds and world content.

As I said, bait, as you're trying to lead me in circles.

You've had your rewards. The level of your rewards are result of your own choices. You want to only play world content? Then you'll get the level of gear that content has available.

No one is telling you what to do, rather that your choices define your limits, and you have to accept that world content in WoW is limited. You're unhappy with that? As you said, you can stop playing.

[Kharli]

Because it's a shitty expansion.

Blizzard has removed all the fun little things to do: the pet battles, the archaeology, the silly stuff.

Blizzard has removed all the casual content. You can either do boring-ass diablo-style M+ for marginally better gear, or do mythic raids, or do...nothing.

What's ironic about all of this is WoW was created to offer a more casual experience to MMO gamers who didn't want to do the elitist horseshit anymore. Now we ARE the elitist horseshit. I wish a new, upstart game would come along and be what WoW used to be.

Right.

1. Pet battles are still there.

2. Archaeology was not in Shadowlands

3. Silly stuff still here, at least in my opinion, please do clearify what you mean with "silly stuff"

Casual content? you mean..Heroic dungeons? world quests?

also.. that's always been the case doing higher difficulty dungeons and raids to get better gear, so i'm not quite sure what you mean with "casual content"

Wow is a casual game compared to ever quest 1 and 2, Dark age of Cammelot and the games of that era, also.. Final Fantasy is way more grindy than World of warcraft as an example..in which you also need to do raids/dungeons to get good gear.

I've personally shifted to doing some world quests here and there, get my renown up slowly but surely from raiding pretty much every single day, I still have plenty of things to do and I'm sitting comfortably at a fairly decent gear level where I don't feel weak at all, I was extremely lucky the first week of the dragonflight dungeon weekly quest going, where I got my HC 2h axe but still, slowly collecting the mounts from the factions, working on getting my Birb mount from the Centaurs(which has a item that drops in the dungeons sadly)

[Sinx]

Yes, Legion was a great expansion. Now think about why BfA and SL failed where Legion succeeded. Surely people did not hate borrowed power and the grind as much as you'd have us believe, otherwise BfA and SL wouldn't have broken record sales and see increase in player numbers on release when borrowed power and grinds were advertised as the main features of those expansions. If that were the case DF would have smashed every record solely based on the fact that there was no borrowed power and grind advertised. Do you see the logic?

Why then? Perhaps it has to do with Blizzard's inability to meet players' expectations? We went from cool artifact weaopns and class order halls to a necklace and soulbinds. Perhaps it has to do with their incompetence and corporate greed? They released 3 raids and a mega dungeon in the first 5 months of Legion. In the first 5 months of BfA we had Uldir and half-baked island expeditions and warfronts. SL was even worse because in the first 5 months we didn't even know when the next raid is dropping.

So from all of this we come to the conclusion that BfA and SL had insane potential did they not? If they didn't they wouldn't have generated such excitement. Could they have been great expansions if Blizzard cared about making good expansions more than they cared about profits? For sure. Does DF have the same potential to be great? Eh. It doesn't matter how much care they put into it, the casual players(the ones who don't care about mythic raids and high m+) who were excited to play Legion, BfA, and SL, are not gonna return to DF because it has nothing to offer them. Another example of Blizzard's incompetence.. straight up removing and abandoning features instead of fixing them.

What was so cool with the artifact weapons ? That you had to grind daily for what was essentially talents ? Or perhaps it was the introduction of mythic+ and more rapid content deployment that carried Legion ? In the latter case, Dragonflight, judging by their roadmap, is actually closer to Legion's content pacing than Shadowlands and BfA, with delivering content between the raid/m+/pvp seasons. So a clear improvement from what they've delivered these past 5-6 years. Could be better of course, but at least a step in the right direction. Another positive is the fact that they've actually started listening to player feedback when it comes to class and spec designs, and they've taken measures to balance the game far more frequently so far in DF than they ever did in the previous expansions.

I do fail to see your argument that daily grinding and chores is supposed to help retain players and encourage new and returning players though, as it's essentially a concept that makes it a lot harder for those joining (or returning to) the game, considerably increasing their catch up time. It's also a system that discourages playing alts due to increased time requirements, and makes it difficult for players that have limited time to maintain a character viable for end game content. So where's the great advantage of such grinds ? I'm sure there are some that like grinding, but I'd wager that the vast majority of players that do raids/m+/pvp would much rather prefer advancing their character through the content they enjoy doing, rather than being forced to do a whole bunch of things they don't enjoy just to be able to do the content they like. That's just bad design in my book, and something that will push players away more than pulling them in.