You can act all puritanical and self righteous all you want, but when players find a brick wall in their progression, a minority will try to Git Gud™ - and a majority will just quietly leave. Which in turn represents less money, i.e. less budget for the toys of the hardcore crowd. If you have a game that is bleeding players left and right, what do you think the next budget will look like? Especially when the game itself is pretty old.
Hint: don't expect anything the scale of Legion. That was a one time fluke that will not be seen again.
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Source please.
Good thing there are alternative MMORPGs that allow casuals to progress their gear up to the second best iLvl in the game from doing LFG and LFR and getting a weekly currency. You know like WoW used to in the past.
What's sad about that is that casuals are leaving in droves to those other games and even if Blizzard decide to fix their shit there's no guarantee that those players will return.
Ultimately it hurts the game tremendously by not offering long term gear progression to the casual playerbase who don't do mythic dungeons, normal/heroic/mythic raids and ranked PvP.
That's a really asinine take on the situation in reverse. It might not be tarnished by what the casual crowd is DOING, but it is tarnished repeatedly by Blizzard attempting to put in features that supposedly benefit the casual crowd.
Legion artifacts, legendary items, and the -forged system were all great examples of this.
Why did Blizzard implement all three of those systems the way they did? In their literal own words, they wanted to give an incentive for a higher geared mythic player to raid with a lower tier group on a lower difficulty. It was incredibly flawed logic that made zero sense to anybody in the competitive crowd, and it actually had the opposite effect. I, a mythic raider, would not turn my nose up at my more casual friends if they wanted to invite me to a normal mode fun raid. I decline on the basis that I am not going to get any rewards out of it. Would I go to a PUG normal raid with people I didn't know on my main character? No, but this system didn't encourage that behavior either. All it did was encourage mythic raiders to quickly farm every other difficulty of raid every single week which then made it even less likely that I would need or want to raid any more than I already had to.
Not only this, but the benefit to a casual audience was negligible anyway. Somebody who only does world quests isn't going to stick around and farm more world quests for better gear. They can already complete all of the world quests. You don't need mythic level gear to finish dailies or normal mode raids. Was it exciting to get a high level drop? Yes, but only to the same degree that opening a loot box and getting a shiny mythic item is.
So Blizzard's attempt to implement a system that was supposed to allow casual players to progress past their normal barriers and give an incentive for mythic raiders to want to raid lower difficulties on their mains actually ended up doing basically nothing for casual players while simultaneously causing massive burn out from the hardcore raiders who felt the need to farm constantly for forged gear and AP.
1. Shadowlands being the fastest selling WoW expac ever
2. Blizzard reporting the highest activity of the decade
If anything I should've said 12 mil but I'm ok with 10
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There's no such thing as an objective metric called 'quality' for a subjective art. Numbers is the only objective metric you have.
It really didn't as hit cap was overrated typically by how it "felt" to miss or if you were a class with a wombo combo that couldn't afford to be missed. Otherwise missing was not that big of a deal.
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Thank god that "85%" you're claiming aren't the ones bringing in the money for the company anymore as subs aren't as big of a concern since they're getting tons of money from elsewhere.
Ideally no one gets fucked over, but sadly its as if theres been created multiple camps, the casuals will cheer when the hardcore players get fucked, and vice versa, even if they gain nothing in return.
The sad truth is that both players should encourage eachother,, as much as I hate delusional casuals as a hardcore player, I also am very well aware that my "species" would die out without them, almost everyone starts out as a beginner / casual, and later become more experienced, and sometimes more hardcore.
Not only that, but for the economy and ecology really of the game, hardcore players need other types of players, wether its to buy supplies off, or sell boosts to in order to then buy supplies next tier. players need eachother, and the animosity between them makes very little sense. Do I think they should cater to the more hardcore audience? Yes, theres a million reasons why I think so, but that doesnt mean Ignore every one else, shit isnt black and white like that.
Which is why it's a very bad idea for the developers and the hardcore community to drive the casual players away to rival MMORPGs. Eventually there won't be any casual players left and WoW will be a shell of its former self. We all want this game to do well so we should want every type of player to have a reason to log in frequently to work on their gear, their collectables etc.
There are an awful lot of assumptions in that post...
Ill ignore all the glaring assumptions and fantasy scenarios presented, and ask you one specific questions:
In what way has a player from the "hardcore community" attempted to drive you away from wow?
Now, this is a very specific question, about you personally, and your interaction with this "hardcore community" member, and how it drove you away from the game. What happened? How do you know this person was part of the "hardcore community"?
I dont want some made up stories about "oh well THEY do this and THEY do that", no, i want a specific example that has given you this impression, because its a very strong stance to take if you are basing it purely on feelcrafting from what some kids on the net said.
Am I a casual??
I play maybe 10 hours a week
I have 1 alt
I don’t run torghast anymore
I don’t farm the maw
I don’t have all covenant buildings at 3 yet
Like half the dungeons I have are either over time or +6 and I don’t farm them
I don’t full clear the raid on any difficulty
Sure dude, but then don’t conflate your numbers with the quality of the experience. A dealer can have the most addicts without necessarily having the best quality drugs.
Saying the quality of WoW is “A” Ok because they’ve still got millions of paying subs is like saying Big Macs are quality burgers because millions of people still eat them.
Facilis Descensus Averno