What pisses you off greatly in WoW?

[Schizoide]

The 11-level gap for content to be considered legacy pisses me off. It means I can't farm old content until 2 expansions pass, even though I can solo it after one. It means all legacy content farming must be trivially easy, by design, or you're told not to do it.

[Ielenia]

That's not a point, that's a rationalization. A player can get novelty by switching to a different class/spec. There are so many now that very few, if any, players have exhausted their options.

That assumes that the player has interest in playing other class or specs. I, for example, have no interest in playing a tank, so that's six specs I'll never try. I am also not interested in DoT management, so that rules out more specs. I also don't really like the concept of the rogue, so that's a class I have no interest in.

So, for simplicity, let's say I only have interest in playing only a third of the available specs in the game. And once I grow bored of all of them... then what? Nothing new will come for the classes I have interest in playing. Their gameplay becomes stale.

[Osmeric]

That assumes that the player has interest in playing other class or specs. I, for example, have no interest in playing a tank, so that's six specs I'll never try. I am also not interested in DoT management, so that rules out more specs. I also don't really like the concept of the rogue, so that's a class I have no interest in.

So, for simplicity, let's say I only have interest in playing only a third of the available specs in the game. And once I grow bored of all of them... then what? Nothing new will come for the classes I have interest in playing. Their gameplay becomes stale.

Your argument is weird. It imagines that players have this exactly calibrated need for novelty. Just enough that changing their current class/spec is ok, but not enough that they'd want to switch to any of the dozens of other class/specs.

It feels like an assumption designed to save the argument, not one that's plausible on its own.

[Ielenia]

Your argument is weird. It imagines that players have this exactly calibrated need for novelty. Just enough that changing their current class/spec is ok, but not enough that they'd want to switch to any of the dozens of other class/specs.

It feels like an assumption designed to save the argument, not one that's plausible on its own.

It's not an assumption. It's a basic human aspect. Everyone has a 'need' for novelty. The only difference from people to people is how long it takes for it to feel stale and boring.

For example, let's say you watch your favorite movie from start to finish every day. At some point you know it'll eventually start to lose its appeal factor. Same thing here. Eventually, without any change, the classes you're interested in playing will eventually start to lose their fun factor.

[Itisamuh]

It's not an assumption. It's a basic human aspect. Everyone has a 'need' for novelty. The only difference from people to people is how long it takes for it to feel stale and boring.

For example, let's say you watch your favorite movie from start to finish every day. At some point you know it'll eventually start to lose its appeal factor. Same thing here. Eventually, without any change, the classes you're interested in playing will eventually start to lose their fun factor.

Not really. It would only be comparable to watching the same movie every day if there was never anything new to do, and you did the same quests and boss fights every day with the same group, but patches and expansions and different players take care of all that. I would be perfectly content if the classes got to a good design place and stayed there, not changing at all.

[Ielenia]

Not really. It would only be comparable to watching the same movie every day if there was never anything new to do, and you did the same quests and boss fights every day with the same group, but patches and expansions and different players take care of all that. I would be perfectly content if the classes got to a good design place and stayed there, not changing at all.

You can watch the movie with different friends, speed up the playback, slow it down, put it through a sound or color filter, etc. Eventually, the movie will lose its luster to you. Eventually what is new will become old. What is amazing will become commonplace. It's basic psychology.

[Relapses]

There should be consistency until there is a reason for change. Once you start making changes just to make changes, you've lost the plot, and that's kind of how retail lost the plot. Just constant change for the sake of bashing you over the head with FOMO.

And who determines when and when not to change the game? Game design isn't a democratic process. One man's consistency is another man's reason to unsub. There's no universal metric to qualify when and how to change things. Any attempts to define such a metric will inevitably be shaded by somebody's personal preference; and at that point, you're just roleplaying as Mr. Blizzard.

[NineSpine]

And who determines when and when not to change the game? Game design isn't a democratic process. One man's consistency is another man's reason to unsub. There's no universal metric to qualify when and how to change things. Any attempts to define such a metric will inevitably be shaded by somebody's personal preference; and at that point, you're just roleplaying as Mr. Blizzard.

What I am saying is boring and non controversial. Change for the sake of change is bad design. If I walked into one of our design meetings for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and said “hey guys what if we just didn’t include any x men in this game, because, I dunno, they were in the last game” or “the last game was about fighting, so let’s make this one a racing game with a fashion simulator” I would have been laughed out of the room.

What we said was “what is the core of a MUA game? What worked? What didn’t work? What would we have done differently if we could go back in time?” Then you come up with goals and you come up with changes to meet those goals. You don’t just walk in and say “all the other marvel games are about superheroes, let’s make this one about hamburgers”.

[Biomega]

But, as it was said by other poster, yeah, classes/specs - are exactly that "familiar frameworks", that shouldn't be changed.

I know you keep saying this. But to repeat myself: you are, unfortunately, simply wrong.

I respect that you (and a number of other people, too, I'm sure) don't like if this changes. But it's plain wrong to say it shouldn't change.

I also agree, that changes should be made only if they lead to improvements.

As I told another poster, this isn't an argument. Operating from hindsight is an invalid demand, because people can't predict the future. Good change comes at the risk of bad change. You can't go "no thanks, I'll only take good change, please" - at least not if you want to be taken seriously, fair enough.

[Relapses]

What I am saying is boring and non controversial. Change for the sake of change is bad design. If I walked into one of our design meetings for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and said “hey guys what if we just didn’t include any x men in this game, because, I dunno, they were in the last game” or “the last game was about fighting, so let’s make this one a racing game with a fashion simulator” I would have been laughed out of the room.

Did this ever happen in WoW?

What we said was “what is the core of a MUA game? What worked? What didn’t work? What would we have done differently if we could go back in time?”

These are all questions with highly subjective answers.

Then you come up with goals and you come up with changes to meet those goals. You don’t just walk in and say “all the other marvel games are about superheroes, let’s make this one about hamburgers”.

If the "goals" of the developers misalign with what you think they should do (or should have done), you're simply arguing that your subjective opinion about how the game changed is superior to what we actually got. WoW never stopped being a MMO, even if you disagree based on some narrow imaginary defintion you have of what constitutes a MMO that you've put on a pedastal.

[NineSpine]

Did this ever happen in WoW?

The conversation was about making changes for the sake of making changes.

These are all questions with highly subjective answers.

Game design is highly intersubjective.

I don't know why you always think appealing to the dumb-as-rocks subject-object dichotomy is some kind of gotcha. Chefs don't sit around licking the floor, unable to cook food, paralyzed by the existence of individually subjective tastes. Why? Because there is a strong intersubjective understanding of what food is good. "ITS SUBJECTIVE" isn't some get-out-of-jail free card where you just win arguments by playing it. Pizza is popular for a reason, and screaming "BBBBBBBB BB BB BBBBB BUT ITS SUBJECTIVE" doesn't change that or elucidate anything about the issue. It just makes you look like an obnoxious pedant that doesn't have a serious point to make.

If the "goals" of the developers misalign with what you think they should do (or should have done), you're simply arguing that your subjective opinion about how the game changed is superior to what we actually got. WoW never stopped being a MMO, even if you disagree based on some narrow imaginary defintion you have of what constitutes a MMO that you've put on a pedastal.

I don't know what any of this had to do with the question of what an MMO is. It's very weird that you even brought that up.

That said, I never said WoW isn't an MMO. I said it fails to deliver the promise of an MMORPG, or it is a poorly designed MMORPG, but it is a reasonably well designed seasonal loot grinder. I am not surprised that in your head what I have said is totally different, because you have a habit of arguing with phantoms.

[WowIsDead64]

That assumes that the player has interest in playing other class or specs. I, for example, have no interest in playing a tank, so that's six specs I'll never try. I am also not interested in DoT management, so that rules out more specs. I also don't really like the concept of the rogue, so that's a class I have no interest in.

So, for simplicity, let's say I only have interest in playing only a third of the available specs in the game. And once I grow bored of all of them... then what? Nothing new will come for the classes I have interest in playing. Their gameplay becomes stale.

For players, who play for so long, that they get tired of 1/3 specs in this game - Blizzard should add new classes/specs every other xpack. It's their problem, that they're so lazy, that they don't do it. Asking to change existing ones - is terrible idea, cuz there may be players, who like them and would be pissed off in case of changes. That's exactly what we talk about here.

"I've got bored" - isn't valid argument, you know, cuz it's the greatest example of "you" problem. Yeah. It's SUBJECTIVE. SP losing 20sec of AOE in case of tank moving - is objective problem, yeah. I've got bored - isn't, sorry. You should learn to find new interesting things in game by yourself. Like for example, yeah, changing class/spec.

[Biomega]

For players, who play for so long, that they get tired of 1/3 specs in this game - Blizzard should add new classes/specs every other xpack. It's their problem, that they're so lazy, that they don't do it. Asking to change existing ones - is terrible idea, cuz there may be players, who like them and would be pissed off in case of changes. That's exactly what we talk about here.

This is complete nonsense. Let's assume someone only likes 1/3 of specs, for various reasons - that doesn't mean everyone like that likes the same 1/3 of specs. Which means adding a new class/spec every other xpac wouldn't even help those people, because it'd have to be something that they're actually interested in to begin with, but furthermore it'd only ever help SOME of those people even if you do it. And that's every two expansions, which are on at least a 2-year cadence. So every 4 years you get a chance of MAYBE having ONE new spec you like? And if you don't, that's an 8 year interval until you maybe like the next one?

And you think that's a solution? Rofl.

"I've got bored" - isn't valid argument, you know, cuz it's the greatest example of "you" problem.

That's a perfect argument if your goal is to actually run a profit-making company.

You know what "isn't [a] valid argument"? Telling your customers "you getting bored is just a you problem". Because they'll go "you're right, the problem is me - me quitting the game".

Your goal appears to be "how to make WoW into what I like the most", whereas REALITY is "how to make WoW into what makes the most profit" and that usually goes via the route of what most people like, not what @WowIsDead64 likes.

Which is precisely why they keep changing existing classes all the time, rather than leaving them all the same to make you, personally, happy and piss off legions of other players.

[WowIsDead64]

This is complete nonsense. Let's assume someone only likes 1/3 of specs, for various reasons - that doesn't mean everyone like that likes the same 1/3 of specs. Which means adding a new class/spec every other xpac wouldn't even help those people, because it'd have to be something that they're actually interested in to begin with, but furthermore it'd only ever help SOME of those people even if you do it. And that's every two expansions, which are on at least a 2-year cadence. So every 4 years you get a chance of MAYBE having ONE new spec you like? And if you don't, that's an 8 year interval until you maybe like the next one?

And you think that's a solution? Rofl.


That's a perfect argument if your goal is to actually run a profit-making company.

You know what "isn't [a] valid argument"? Telling your customers "you getting bored is just a you problem". Because they'll go "you're right, the problem is me - me quitting the game".

Your goal appears to be "how to make WoW into what I like the most", whereas REALITY is "how to make WoW into what makes the most profit" and that usually goes via the route of what most people like, not what @WowIsDead64 likes.

Which is precisely why they keep changing existing classes all the time, rather than leaving them all the same to make you, personally, happy and piss off legions of other players.

Because solution of "I'm bored" problem - is new content, not game design changes. Only game design changes, that are acceptable - are technical improvements. Like when old version of game had technical limitations, that are now solved. For example talent system. Old talents were boring exactly because they were limited to +x% to some stat.

[Biomega]

Because solution of "I'm bored" problem - is new content, not game design changes.

Those are 1. not mutually exclusive; and 2. not the same kind of change.

You can't just equate new quests or whatever with class changes. They're very different things. It's like saying new colors for existing mounts are worth as much as entirely new mounts. Both are "something new" after all, right?!

Only game design changes, that are acceptable - are technical improvements.

First off: that's just not true. Many people like other kinds of design changes, even if you don't. Why are those not "acceptable"? You are just - ONCE AGAIN - saying "this is what I like". Noted. But the game isn't made for you, it's made for everyone.

But more importantly secondly, what does "technical improvement" even mean, and why doesn't that include changing how classes work? You're throwing some vague term out there with no clear definition or meaning. AT BEST we're back to you only wanting positive changes - which is just vapid fantasy talk because you can't have good changes without risk of bad changes.

[Relapses]

The conversation was about making changes for the sake of making changes.

Brother, I'm not playing this boring semantic game with you for the five hundred billionth time. This is a thread called "what pisses you off about WoW" and the analogies you were providing were very obviously alluding to your personal preferences.

[thenazgul]

The attitude of people. It's getting worse and worse with the years. One wipe and people start leaving. Just why?

[Biomega]

The attitude of people. It's getting worse and worse with the years. One wipe and people start leaving. Just why?

Lack of consequences. Tolerance of adversity tends to be proportional to the cost of avoidance of adversity. If that cost drops, so does the tolerance. And that "cost" can be both a simple cost (e.g. time) or an indirect or virtual cost (e.g. loss of potential rewards). This means that the easier content is to access, the more quickly people tend to bail on mistakes.

[Lecadre]

that it runs on a horribly ancient engine which was built for rts (warcraft 3) thus making its optimization far worse over the years including memory leaks and other issues

[Ielenia]

For players, who play for so long, that they get tired of 1/3 specs in this game - Blizzard should add new classes/specs every other xpack.

And what happens if you also don't like the class being added? Then what?

It's their problem, that they're so lazy, that they don't do it.

This is not about being lazy. It's just you thinking you know better than the developers when you actually don't. You can only add so many classes before they start becoming homogenized. It's easier to make 13 classes feel and look different from one-another than it is to make 31 classes feel and look different one-another.

Asking to change existing ones - is terrible idea, cuz there may be players, who like them and would be pissed off in case of changes.

It's not a bad idea. It's a decent one. Because just as much as there would be people who won't like the changes, there are others who will like them. Even its most extreme negative example, the survival hunter, has fans.

"I've got bored" - isn't valid argument, you know, cuz it's the greatest example of "you" problem.

No, the rea "greatest examples of a 'you' problem" are actually your posts and threads. Every single one of them, a big, big "you" problem you try to masquerade as a game issue.

And this isn't abut me getting bored, or you getting bored. This is about the players in general getting bored of a stale game. The human mind craves novelty, that's basic psychology. Without repeated stimuli the mind grows bored, the "new and exciting" becomes "stale and commonplace". It loses its luster. And changing classes expansion to expansion helps keep them somewhat fresh.

You should learn to find new interesting things in game by yourself.

These forums would be so much better if you followed your own advice...