"Catering to 5% of your player base will leave you with 5% of your player base"

[Celement]

It's simple question. For what reason do people want to see crowds of other players out in the world? What is "utility" of such players? To steal mobs? To grey-tag them? To steal quest items? To cause sitting in a queue? To make game SLOWER? To cause exceeding respawn rates and turn game into nightmare for undergeared players, who barely can kill 1 mob and constantly respawning mobs are unbearable for them? No, they say, that they feel lonely, if there is no crowds of other players around. Lonely? I don't understand players, who feel lonely, when they don't SEE other players around. I would understand talking with other players or interacting some other way. But SEEING??? Man, this is insane. I guess, Blizzard should add anti-lonely bots to their game to make an illusion of crowded locations.

But truth is much more simple. Blizzard just try to make an illusion, that their game isn't dead. That's it.

There game isn't dead just old. Like any old mmo veteran players cluster to a few select servers. Blizzard should remove the cost of transferring and simply give it a month long cooldown. The goal should be to slowly shut down dead servers at this point they only act as traps for new and returning players.

[ClassicPeon]

Wrath by the time of ICC let you gear up by simply doing dailies.

Yes it has existed yes it worked

You can "gear up" by doing dailies today aswell.

You are conflating end level gear with catch up gear mate.

[Starfals]

For me, the biggest issue with WoW is that it feels like the Red Queens race. Constantly having to go flat out just to stay where you are. This notion that every few months you have to push new content that effectively makes the previous content (and the gear related to it) utterly redundant means that eventually I start to feel like I'm wasting my time. Why work to get that gear, when you know if you do nothing for a few months they'll be catch up mechanics that mean your be gear will be back to the "current" level anyway?

Once you start to think like that, it's a small step to "well, why bother to do any of it?"

I play GW2 these days. But I had a LONG break of multiple years where I stopped. When I came back, my gear was still fine. And I had several years worth of content that is still relevant, still at a certain level of difficulty, that I could work through. My time feels valued by the game; if I spend time doing something, it will be relevant to the standing of my character, and it won't be undermined by a patch that drops in a weeks time.

I also stepped away from WoW for a good number of years. All that content they released is utterly pointless. Any gear I had that I'd worked towards was laughably redundant. I could do the old content, but on a solo basis, with either no difficulty (because gear makes it trivial) or impossible difficulty (because mechanics make it impossible to solo). There should be a wealth of content that I can dive into, but there isn't because their model is to make everthing that goes before pointless with every patch.

No development team in the world can keep up with that model. It's insane on the face of it. If there is a single change that Blizzard need to make, it's to step away from this notion the current content is the only content that matters. And it only matters as long as it's current. They need to make two moves, in my opinion; to work towards reestablishing old content of all kinds as being relevant and rewarding to max level characters. And to move towards a model where the content through an expansion doesn't invalidate what comes before it.

But that's just me. Other people have different ideas what's wrong, and different ideas of how to fix it. But as long as Blizzard cater to one specific playstyle, with one defined (and outdated) content model, there will be a lot of people looking at that and saying "not for me". And no amount of tweaks to UIs, new race or new classes can bring all those people back.

Yeah, I always hated this. When Burning Crusade came out, I was very upset how all of my Naxx gear (and AQ) became pointless during the 1 zone (Hellfire) I was changing it for greens that were 2 times better... for killing 5 pigs...Its ridiculous... for sure. All of my effort meant NOTHING. I see the same thing I saw 15 years ago in the shadowlands. All my BIS BFA gear was replaced after 3 zones. Sure, it took longer to replace it but the point still stands. This makes me not play hardcore too, cus whatever I get it will be trash within 1 patch/expansion or even year. I try hard in Diablo 2/3/other RPG games, where whatever I get, I get to keep forever and it will always be epic and meaningful.

P.s. Yea, new gear should replace old gear eventually (I guess... it's an MMO after all...) but they got to find a way to not make ur current epic gear feel COMPLETELY pointless. If you work hard for your gear, do the hardest things in the game, you should have a way to keep it, or make it last longer. I don't keep a single rare (low%) item from vanilla WoW to Shadowlands. Kind of sad. It's literally trash if you do want to keep it (for nostalgia's sake)

[Ashana Darkmoon]

Yeah, I always hated this. When Burning Crusade came out, I was very upset how all of my Naxx gear (and AQ) became pointless during the 1 zone (Hellfire) I was changing it for greens that were 2 times better... for killing 5 pigs...Its ridiculous... for sure. All of my effort meant NOTHING. I see the same thing I saw 15 years ago in the shadowlands. All my BIS BFA gear was replaced after 3 zones. Sure, it took longer to replace it but the point still stands. This makes me not play hardcore too, cus whatever I get it will be trash within 1 patch/expansion or even year. I try hard in Diablo 2/3/other RPG games, where whatever I get, I get to keep forever and it will always be epic and meaningful.

P.s. Yea, new gear should replace old gear eventually (I guess... it's an MMO after all...) but they got to find a way to not make ur current epic gear feel COMPLETELY pointless. If you work hard for your gear, do the hardest things in the game, you should have a way to keep it, or make it last longer. I don't keep a single rare (low%) item from vanilla WoW to Shadowlands. Kind of sad. It's literally trash if you do want to keep it (for nostalgia's sake)

This is a perfect example. GW2 and ESO already basically don't have gear grinds. So why not just play them?

Current wow players enjoy the gear grind. It is one of the major thing that sets this game apart. If you turn it into ESO, they'll kill off existing players for these mythical new players. It would be a complete disaster.

People have no concept how risky it is for a business to make a change like that. It's the same reason ESO will probably never change its god awful combat system - doing so would alienate people who already like and play the game. Why upset the audience you have in pursuit of an audience that may not exist?

[chiddie]

For me, the biggest issue with WoW is that it feels like the Red Queens race. Constantly having to go flat out just to stay where you are. This notion that every few months you have to push new content that effectively makes the previous content (and the gear related to it) utterly redundant means that eventually I start to feel like I'm wasting my time. Why work to get that gear, when you know if you do nothing for a few months they'll be catch up mechanics that mean your be gear will be back to the "current" level anyway?

Once you start to think like that, it's a small step to "well, why bother to do any of it?"

I play GW2 these days. But I had a LONG break of multiple years where I stopped. When I came back, my gear was still fine. And I had several years worth of content that is still relevant, still at a certain level of difficulty, that I could work through. My time feels valued by the game; if I spend time doing something, it will be relevant to the standing of my character, and it won't be undermined by a patch that drops in a weeks time.

I also stepped away from WoW for a good number of years. All that content they released is utterly pointless. Any gear I had that I'd worked towards was laughably redundant. I could do the old content, but on a solo basis, with either no difficulty (because gear makes it trivial) or impossible difficulty (because mechanics make it impossible to solo). There should be a wealth of content that I can dive into, but there isn't because their model is to make everthing that goes before pointless with every patch.

No development team in the world can keep up with that model. It's insane on the face of it. If there is a single change that Blizzard need to make, it's to step away from this notion the current content is the only content that matters. And it only matters as long as it's current. They need to make two moves, in my opinion; to work towards reestablishing old content of all kinds as being relevant and rewarding to max level characters. And to move towards a model where the content through an expansion doesn't invalidate what comes before it.

But that's just me. Other people have different ideas what's wrong, and different ideas of how to fix it. But as long as Blizzard cater to one specific playstyle, with one defined (and outdated) content model, there will be a lot of people looking at that and saying "not for me". And no amount of tweaks to UIs, new race or new classes can bring all those people back.

They can’t change model because unlike GW2, WoW was born and developed to be a gear level dependent game. You do stuff and get gear to do harder stuff that gives you gear to do… well the same stuff but even harder than hard and so on.

It’s the core itself of the game, everyone or almost everyone plays for the reward and not for the fun he gets while doing stuff, this cannot be changed, it’s far too late.

[ellieg]

Wrath by the time of ICC let you gear up by simply doing dailies.

Yes it has existed yes it worked

This is always so wrong.

Emblem of frost would let you buy 251 versions of t10. Thats 5 pieces. Emblem of frost wld also let u buy 264 ilvl versions of relic/thrown, cloak, belt, and then chest and gloves which shares slots with the tier. So assuming u want ur 4 pc, we are talking abt 4 264s, 4 251s.

For comparison sake, 278 ilvl (mythic items now) is equivalent to 277 heroic 25 man back then.

If you were a casual, and didn't raid, you'd get 2 emblems a day. Or 14 a week. Taking the average price of the 264 gear, it is 59 emblems. It would take you logging on ebery single day for 30 days to get 1 piece of 264 gear.

Average price of tier at 251 ilvl is 81 emblems. Thats 41 days of doing the daily to get a 251 piece.

Let's compare that to the gear u get now. Full 252 in all slots for doing ZM. A 265 for completing the campaign. A random chance at a 265 every 8 weeks from the weekly mythic quest. 2x291 legos. A 262 lego from crafting.

How are you gonna argue that you got more geared back then?

[chiddie]

You'd be shocked how many people put hours into the game and don't have Normal raid cleared. You'd be equally shocked how many people only log in for their guilds 2 weekly nights and then don't do anything else while they're progressing Mythic.

During CN almost nobody in the guild did M+. It was me and a few others who got KSM while the rest considered +8 to be pushing. But all of us still logged in to re-clear heroic and progress Mythic.

The issue isn't time. It's being willing to learn the fight and having a guild that lets you raid with them.

- - - Updated - - -



You managed to provide an entire list of possible arguments for why people like seeing others in an MMO and managed to be completely wrong with all of them.

Because it is an MMO and seeing a world filled with people is fun. Also thanks to phasing none of the things you named are an issue anymore.

Many people don’t like raids as a concept regardless how much time they can play, that’s for sure, but many simply can’t do them due to time schedules.

I just wanted to pinpoint that there are at least SOME people out there that don’t do a specific content only because they don’t have time and not because “omg too difficult plz gief friiii111 epix”.

[Aydinx2]

Who gave you the right to speak for me?

But this is how entitled you feel and this is exactly the kind of players that drive us away from WoW. Speak for yourself next time. Funny how scared you are of my opinion though. I can feel you shaking in agony “omg someone might do something that people other than myself will enjoy”.

Worry not, it fits blizzard to have boosters and their clients. Though you seem like a client to me.

You sound deranged. I think you need a break from WoW.

- - - Updated - - -

Wrath by the time of ICC let you gear up by simply doing dailies.

Yes it has existed yes it worked

You got 1 item if you logged on every day for like a month. Don't make up lies my man.

[rrayy]

If you understand how FF and other games do it the housing wouldn't be a solo house with nothing else around there would be other houses in your area that could have people. Yes there is the potential that there is no one else around but it isn't isolated all the time either. Housing is inevitable I think, it is how they implement it that will matter.

And there was reasons to go to other people's garrisons with invasions. No it wasn't a great thing but it was something that people were doing. Garrisons were a pretty badly done system as we all know, but there are lessons to be learned from them and how other games do housing.

Almost nobody did that. Playsets were content to sit in their own instance. ANd I guarantee any player housing will be instanced. They weren't going to waste time and resources giving everyone a separate house. The lag alone would make it bad.

What IOn said about housing was just lip service. People do not relaise the unfertaking that is needed to get what the players want. Time and resources that can be used to make far more different activities out in the world.

[Azharok]

None of this content you mentioned give proper player power progression after 1 month. And it is one month only because of time gates, else it would be even less.

Edit: btw new crafting system seems interesting IF they take their word about ilvl being mythic level AND it won’t require BoP reagents you can find in M+/raids/PvP only.

Why do you need the gear if you can't complete the content anyway ? Maybe I'm reading too much into this. But in one month of running 15s, or Normal/Heroic raids, you should be pretty much geared enough to run the content you want. I don't understand how much more "casual" you want this to be.

- - - Updated - - -

Many people don’t like raids as a concept regardless how much time they can play, that’s for sure, but many simply can’t do them due to time schedules.

I just wanted to pinpoint that there are at least SOME people out there that don’t do a specific content only because they don’t have time and not because “omg too difficult plz gief friiii111 epix”.

I could raid mythic, I don't want to commit the time to it.

- - - Updated - - -

no no no dont you get it

making craftable gear equal to mythic raids is totally catering to the 5%

wat ? if you can craft mythic quality gear, isn't it accessible to everyone ? You realise that mythic raiders require the gear to beat the content from a maths stand-point. You can clear everything including Heroic Jailer with like 255-260 ilvl, which you get plenty of. So why do you "need" the mythic quality gear ?

[Raisei]

There literally was nothing in the announcement that related to any endgame activity. Except for the promise of getting dungeons and raids and if that surprises you then you haven't been paying attention.

As far as "no solo content". Well, congratulation. Of course there is none, because every time Blizzard tried to implement something the so-called casuals hated it. Be it Warfronts, Islands, Torghast. Everything has been hated to death, usually before even hitting the servers. No wonder they are not sinking time and money into that anymore.

So for once, I would really like to read a thread of a person calling themselves "casual" that actually has a realistic view of the game. But this seems to be impossible. If something isn't perfectly designed to suit your demands then it is clearly only good for 5% of the playerbase.

Maybe solo players just are so egocentric that they do not realize this, but... pssst... you are not playing the game alone.

Because 80% of the playerbase finds them too hard apparently

I remember in Legion I would pug normal and heroic raids multiple times a week on alts for fun and very rarely were there problems - people were able to very comfortably pug aotc within a week or two of a new raid, since BFA that's just not the reality anymore, pugging is unbearably bad and most of the game isn't in a structured raid guild - something changed and I don't think players got worse at the game

Technically they are too hard, but only in relation to the gear you get. Heroic is much too hard to give 265 stuff. Plus the set crafting. There is basically no reward for raiding over M+ anymore. That has to change. At least make raids give a 278 piece in the Vault every week as well.

[Revamp Man]

Why do you need the gear if you can't complete the content anyway ? Maybe I'm reading too much into this. But in one month of running 15s, or Normal/Heroic raids, you should be pretty much geared enough to run the content you want. I don't understand how much more "casual" you want this to be.

- - - Updated - - -



I could raid mythic, I don't want to commit the time to it.

- - - Updated - - -



wat ? if you can craft mythic quality gear, isn't it accessible to everyone ? You realise that mythic raiders require the gear to beat the content from a maths stand-point. You can clear everything including Heroic Jailer with like 255-260 ilvl, which you get plenty of. So why do you "need" the mythic quality gear ?

Sarcasm doesn’t translate we

[Azharok]

Sarcasm doesn’t translate we

It kinda flew over my head

[Raisei]

And wtf you mean don't mix easy and hard content? There are 4 raid difficulty modes, there is normal/heroic/mythic/mythic+ dungeons. There is the right level of game out there for casual players.

You speak with a person that has repeatedly declared that they find the Maw trash mobs too hard and is unwilling to even learn their full toolkit. I don't think there is a level of difficulty for that. Nor should there be.

[ellieg]

There literally was nothing in the announcement that related to any endgame activity. Except for the promise of getting dungeons and raids and if that surprises you then you haven't been paying attention.

As far as "no solo content". Well, congratulation. Of course there is none, because every time Blizzard tried to implement something the so-called casuals hated it. Be it Warfronts, Islands, Torghast. Everything has been hated to death, usually before even hitting the servers. No wonder they are not sinking time and money into that anymore.

So for once, I would really like to read a thread of a person calling themselves "casual" that actually has a realistic view of the game. But this seems to be impossible. If something isn't perfectly designed to suit your demands then it is clearly only good for 5% of the playerbase.

Maybe solo players just are so egocentric that they do not realize this, but... pssst... you are not playing the game alone.





Technically they are too hard, but only in relation to the gear you get. Heroic is much too hard to give 265 stuff. Plus the set crafting. There is basically no reward for raiding over M+ anymore. That has to change. At least make raids give a 278 piece in the Vault every week as well.

Raiders get 285 gear, faster tier, ~3 278 pieces a week if you're close to full clearing (2 from raid, 1 from vault) compared to m+ getting 1 from vault, better trinkets, items with unique effects.

Now if u don't mythic raid and only do heroic, ya thst sucks. Maybe let heroic raid gear use valor to upgrade to 272 like m+ gear.

[chiddie]

Why do you need the gear if you can't complete the content anyway ? Maybe I'm reading too much into this. But in one month of running 15s, or Normal/Heroic raids, you should be pretty much geared enough to run the content you want. I don't understand how much more "casual" you want this to be.

- - - Updated - - -



I could raid mythic, I don't want to commit the time to it.

- - - Updated - - -



wat ? if you can craft mythic quality gear, isn't it accessible to everyone ? You realise that mythic raiders require the gear to beat the content from a maths stand-point. You can clear everything including Heroic Jailer with like 255-260 ilvl, which you get plenty of. So why do you "need" the mythic quality gear ?

For two reasons:
- this game is a gear based game. As long as you can’t upgrade your character, you lose interest in it pretty fast, because if you don’t do grouped content for whatever reasons, there are not solo difficult challenges (it’s not Elden Ring, ZM rares are mostly not doable solo because you just can’t outplay them, WoW has not that type of combat system).
- to do the few solo content around even faster, useful to overcome boredom.

But as usual we are now in a loop: you either like the idea of WoW having solo proper patterns or you don’t. Neither position is wrong. As stated many times by me also, it’s somehow “right” they don’t invest so much time and resources in the solo parts of a MMORPG, but the idea per se is not wrong.

You know how many people I played with from day one of Vanilla are still playing today? Just me. And we raided big times back then, we were not Echo or Liquid but we weren’t bad players at all. But times do change, time schedules change with time itself and Blizzard’s actual concept of rewarding endgame activity is just too demanding, thus they left one by one, with time.

Why am I still here? Well that would be ot, maybe in another thread.

- - - Updated - - -

You speak with a person that has repeatedly declared that they find the Maw trash mobs too hard and is unwilling to even learn their full toolkit. I don't think there is a level of difficulty for that. Nor should there be.

They ARE hard if you’re undergeared, but in the usual wrong WoW manner: you don’t do damage and they do tons, tons you can’t evade because of the combat system.

[Azharok]

Raiders get 285 gear, faster tier, ~3 278 pieces a week if you're close to full clearing (2 from raid, 1 from vault) compared to m+ getting 1 from vault, better trinkets, items with unique effects.

Now if u don't mythic raid and only do heroic, ya thst sucks. Maybe let heroic raid gear use valor to upgrade to 272 like m+ gear.

I think you're overestimating how many players actually play above Normal raid difficulty. Which then begs the question of why would players require the gear if they aren't going to run content that requires the ilvl.

Everyone wants more player power, but at some point, you're going to have to put the effort to get the gear. Which translates pretty well.

Also as far as ilvl goes, you realise raid drops better items than M+, fury warriors are still running OWS from SoD because it's so good. Good luck getting one then, and even more luck getting one now ...

[Huehuecoyotl]

Current wow players enjoy the gear grind.

Citation needed. Do wow players really enjoy working to get gear that gets replaced so quickly? Or are they staying for other reasons and this is just something they reluctantly accept?

[Raisei]

Raiders get 285 gear

The 5% that make it this far into Mythic. And that is a lot of work and trouble for those extra 7 ilvls. Not a Mythic Raider myself, but I doubt they feel justly rewarded for the skill, time and work they have to invest to kill Mythic bosses, especially the likes of Anduin and Halondrus, that take hundreds of wipes.

, faster tier

Tell that to my Pala friend that had not a single set piece until the crafting was avaiable, despite raiding every week since the raid opened.

, ~3 278 pieces a week if you're close to full clearing (2 from raid, 1 from vault)

Again, only if you are doing Mythic (which does not only include being skilled enough for it, but also finding 19 other people who are). I was talking about Heroic.

I am doing M+20s pretty regularly, since three seasons, but the difficulty is nowhere as high as just in Heroic raids (mainly Halondrus, Anduin and the next), while rewarding better loot. That is just an imbalance.

Now if u don't mythic raid and only do heroic, ya thst sucks. Maybe let heroic raid gear use valor to upgrade to 272 like m+ gear.

That is something I am wondering why it doesn't exist. Valour would be the perfect way to reward raiders as well as M+ runners.

[Azharok]

For two reasons:
- this game is a gear based game. As long as you can’t upgrade your character, you lose interest in it pretty fast, because if you don’t do grouped content for whatever reasons, there are not solo difficult challenges (it’s not Elden Ring, ZM rares are mostly not doable solo because you just can’t outplay them, WoW has not that type of combat system).
- to do the few solo content around even faster, useful to overcome boredom.

But it's not a solo game, and you don't need 285 mythic gear to clear solo content. EVER. I've killed plenty of ZM rares solo, so I don't know what to tell you about that.