Guilds dying ? Less people playing lately

[Naiyano]

I recently resubbed with a wow token because if classic gets released I don't need gold on retail anymore and I want that beta. I logged in and played for 10 minutes. Then I asked myself: Why?!... and started a level 1 shaman on a private server.

[KronoFett]

Funny how a raid just came out but barely anyone gives two shits to play.

I was slightly looking forward to the WOD timewalking...mostly to buy a bunch of reputation tokens so I don't need to spend weeks grinding the reputations to unlock WOD flying. It is always a pain in the ass to level in WOD without flying.

I have not logged in for days. I can't be damned to play this shit anymore. I really want to play classic already.

[Usagi Senshi]

I've been unsubbed since December and still unsure if I'm coming back anytime soon or not. The new FFXIV expansion launching in late June further throws a wrench into my resubbing for Mechagon plan.

If anything, I'll resub at some point this year and especially for the 15th anniversary event.

Next expansion really needs to knock it out of the park for me too.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Funny how a raid just came out but barely anyone gives two shits to play.

People never cared much for the smal inter-tier raids, especially when the loot is as weird as this one's. Not to mention that the rise in item level from non-raid gameplay that came along with it kinda killed all reason to bother with BfD for the people that were still trying to progress there.

[Zantera]

Nothing out of the ordinary in my experience, my guild keeps raiding and sure, some people are in that "mostly log for raids and maybe a few dungeons each week"-mode but that has happened every expansion so it's nothing new in my experience. If you are fully into the game and like to participate in all areas of the game there's loads of things to do, but if you're only in it for the raid kick or whatever then I understand if you're waiting for something like Mechagon or Nazjatar to give some more daily activities.

I love m+ myself but how much I play can definitely be traced to what affixes we have each week. Not necessarily if they are hard or easy but more which ones are annoying.

[Craaazyyy]

How so? BFA has none of the things legion did? M+ doesnt exist in BFA, they removed every good part of it and is just a hollow husk of what it was in Legion.

PVP is literally NOTHING like legion even down to the very basics of World PVP.

Raiding is a shit ton easier with a lower skill ceiling, basically got a similar treatment as M+, with more boring and stale rewards to boot, making it Nothing like legion.

The only similarity is WQ's, and who does those anyways?

I guess pokemon and Tmog farming stayed the same too.

guess that makes u a Pokemans and dress farmer if u think its a continuation?

what? M+ is changed, but its more or less the same and dungeons are actually harder, its just that they're more annoying at the same time and you cant change gear etc.

PVP is probably better than legion, because there are no templates.. tho some of the pve gear is fucking retarded, so i'd say its about the same.. complete dogshit, because class design is pretty much the same for the most part and as awful as it was in Legion
all the entry raids are actually harder than entry legion raids, so i dont know what you talking about

Uldir was way harder than EN, same with BoD compared to Nighthold(tho here its closer).. and Uunat is way harder than Helya

big difference is not having class campaign and mage tower type of thing.. other than that its legion 2.0

but also there is slightly less rng.. tho i'd also say that Artifact system in Legion was probably better than what we have now.. again 8.2 might even make it a 50/50 as well, tho both systems fucking suck

[Marrilaife]

every expansion less people playing according to these forums.

It's been a trend since Wotlk, so they are not wrong. Then Blizzard stopped publishing sub numbers somewhere around end of WOD, but general trend was always 10+ mill at the first month of expac then sharp drop off 1-2 months later after casuals saw the new content, big patches might be resulting in surges of players (not as much as expansions) but we'll see with 8.2, so far 8.1 and 8.1.5 were small patches with some stuff to do but not enough to justify for casuals to resub so they can do 30 min questline or something.

The only stable playerbase is hardcore raiders, hardcore pvpers, and since legion, high m+ pushers, they rarely "run out of content" but they're maybe 10% of the total playerbase? 20% if we're generous. Majority is casuals. By now those who don't mythic raid, don't push m+, don't go for pvp rating probably exhausted every avenue of character progression, capped neck, got gear levels they can't upgrade without going more hardcore, why would they play instead of just waiting for 8.2?

[Clozer]

It's been a trend since Wotlk, so they are not wrong. Then Blizzard stopped publishing sub numbers somewhere around end of WOD, but general trend was always 10+ mill at the first month of expac then sharp drop off 1-2 months later after casuals saw the new content, big patches might be resulting in surges of players (not as much as expansions) but we'll see with 8.2, so far 8.1 and 8.1.5 were small patches with some stuff to do but not enough to justify for casuals to resub so they can do 30 min questline or something.

The only stable playerbase is hardcore raiders, hardcore pvpers, and since legion, high m+ pushers, they rarely "run out of content" but they're maybe 10% of the total playerbase? 20% if we're generous. Majority is casuals. By now those who don't mythic raid, don't push m+, don't go for pvp rating probably exhausted every avenue of character progression, capped neck, got gear levels they can't upgrade without going more hardcore, why would they play instead of just waiting for 8.2?

Ye if you are not interested in playing the game you might as well stop playing. That's right good point.

[Marrilaife]

People never cared much for the smal inter-tier raids, especially when the loot is as weird as this one's. Not to mention that the rise in item level from non-raid gameplay that came along with it kinda killed all reason to bother with BfD for the people that were still trying to progress there.

True. And tbh COS mythic died at birth, it's telling something when half the guilds on my server that killed Jaina are not even attempting COS mythic, even after all the nerfs it's still comp restrictive (goddamn disc priests, my guild went through 5+ different discs since the start of BFA and all of them didn't have the brain capacity to play it properly or failed trial for whatever other reason like no-shows), the rewards are really low worth (no cosmetic rewards unlike Trial of Valor and its transmogs, poor loot), and the fight design is extremely unfun and melee unfriendly.

They really should drop the idea "design the fights for world first race then nerf later" because this is literally caring more about twitch viewership than your actual playerbase. It's different when you design long raid tier where common players will get 10-15 more ilvls than the world first guild by the time they reach the endboss. For a filler raid they should have made something fun and accessible, and DEFINITELY different from BODA, so for example favouring classes that were underdogs in BODA, this didn't happen. I know many mages, hunters, and non rogue / dh melees that are disgruntled they never got their time to shine this season.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Ye if you are not interested in playing the game you might as well stop playing. That's right good point.

It's not about "not" being "interested in playing the game", there is simply a steep hurdle when it comes to getting into mythic raiding or running keys way higher than the soft cap that results in no additional gain for the individual.

As for CoS, it was definitely not a smart idea to once again favor long distance cleave classes (including multi dot) and simultaneously punish melee classes so hard that they are just a hindrance.

[Kudos]

I changed servers for this expansion and I've drifted between various guilds. All of them have struggled to recruit due to raiders simply not logging in anymore. I'll admit I've struggled with motivation to play.

[Brewhan]

well when I did a census addon for most populated stormrage server at around prime time there was about 6000 alliance players (ally dominated server). I checked again a few hours later and there was about 1100 alliance online at low peak and this is on the most extreme populated ally server. Expect other servers to be even less populated. I imagine illidan horde US is still similar to stormrage numbers though. My current server has peak of about 1300 players and low peak barely 580 people it seems. So yeah overall my server is starting to die out things aren't selling as fast on AH etc. Playing on the most popular server seems great but even at low peak hours its equivalent to my server at high peak. My sub has ended but I was bored and played around with the census addon on a veteran/trial account.

[FelPlague]

6 am server time on a weekday
11 people from my server in boralus
THIS many in stormwind

(Atleast 50)

[Nnyco]

Four guilds isnt really good data.

[SirCowdog]

what happened to our WoW??????

Blizzard started basing their entire design philosophy on short-term instant gratification and disposable content. And the result is that once people have had their short term fun, they move on to the next thing(which often isn't WoW).

Short term profits at the expense of longevity. It's been the playbook for almost every western corporation lately. WoW is suffering that more than ever lately, with the results what you are feeling in the game: People are leaving because there's nothing of real worth to keep them playing.

[FelPlague]

well when I did a census addon for most populated stormrage server at around prime time there was about 6000 alliance players (ally dominated server). I checked again a few hours later and there was about 1100 alliance online at low peak and this is on the most extreme populated ally server. Expect other servers to be even less populated. I imagine illidan horde US is still similar to stormrage numbers though. My current server has peak of about 1300 players and low peak barely 580 people it seems. So yeah overall my server is starting to die out things aren't selling as fast on AH etc. Playing on the most popular server seems great but even at low peak hours its equivalent to my server at high peak. My sub has ended but I was bored and played around with the census addon on a veteran/trial account.

issue is those census addons are well known for being pretty shit.

[SirCowdog]

issue is those census addons are well known for being pretty shit.

Based on what? In the absence of any hard data from Blizzard, how are people determining if the addon is accurate or not?

[FelPlague]

Based on what? In the absence of any hard data from Blizzard, how are people determining if the addon is accurate or not?

because the census addons dont work...?
they miss out charecters, they miss count people multiple times, etc.
they have never worked well.

[justandulas]

This is why i've been saying blizz needs to merge servers into one megaserver for each type (pvp, pve, rp) and just end all this.

It isn't healthy for the game to have 2 full realms, 1 medium, and 200 dead worlds.

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because the census addons dont work...?
they miss out charecters, they miss count people multiple times, etc.
they have never worked well.

as a blizz shareholder and pro stockholder, i wouldn't bank on them turning the ship around this expac or for 2019. If it wasn't for WoW classic, ATVI would have nothing at all for 2019 of value to investors.

The census addons definitely could be improved, but there is no denying that WoW is at the lowest point it's ever been population wise ATM. No amount of sugar coating, excuses, etc can change that BFA didn't hit the mark for a majority of players.

No blizz expac has been as universally "Meh" as BFA. It's worse than being hated, it creates apathy. Angry players you can win back over time and change, an apathetic player never returns.

[FelPlague]

This is why i've been saying blizz needs to merge servers into one megaserver for each type (pvp, pve, rp) and just end all this.

It isn't healthy for the game to have 2 full realms, 1 medium, and 200 dead worlds.

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as a blizz shareholder and pro stockholder, i wouldn't bank on them turning the ship around this expac or for 2019. If it wasn't for WoW classic, ATVI would have nothing at all for 2019 of value to investors.

The census addons definitely could be improved, but there is no denying that WoW is at the lowest point it's ever been population wise ATM. No amount of sugar coating, excuses, etc can change that BFA didn't hit the mark for a majority of players.

No blizz expac has been as universally "Meh" as BFA. It's worse than being hated, it creates apathy. Angry players you can win back over time and change, an apathetic player never returns.

where is your proof for that? that wow is at its lowest sub point?
any proof? because if so there is many reasons to deny that, because wod had moment of MUCH less players.
also seriously"no expac has been as universally meh" you mean wod... wod was... and was for far, far more time then BFA has been so far.
seriously you are literally nothing but lies.

wow does not have 3 used realms and 100 dead ones, there is MANY servers filled with people.