Blizzard finally understood the value of casual players having more access to gear.

[Echo of Soul]

Blizzard always knew the value its just not worth it because it doesn't keep subs unlike what popular belief thinks

Except when it did. When casual players could run random heroic dungeons for valor points with which they could buy the second best gear in the game. That's when the game had a 12 million (stable) subscriber number. It took months to buy all the pieces so casuals had a reason to stay subbed and it didn't interfere with those who played the game seriously because they had that game for months already and most likely replaced it with the best gear in the game.

[Revamp Man]

In what world? ZM gives at best 252 after a lot of cypher grinding. That USED TO BE M+8 in Season 3, but in Season 4 it's about heroic dungeon level since ZM didn't get any updates (heroic is 249 now, M0 is 262, since all dungeon content got a boost of +26 item levels). So trying to get into raids now with ZM gear? Good luck - every single group out there is asking for 290+ and curve to get into normals.

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I assume you are aware that Wrath did not have M+, nor was Wrath heroics difficulty anywhere remotely comparable to M+. Not to mention, in Wrath you could actually get a group after the first two weeks without having a KSM badge to show off as an entry fee.

The post I responded to said you had to be hardcore to do any pre-made Content
From m0 to +20

[Dalinos]

Except when it did. When casual players could run random heroic dungeons for valor points with which they could buy the second best gear in the game. That's when the game had a 12 million (stable) subscriber number. It took months to buy all the pieces so casuals had a reason to stay subbed and it didn't interfere with those who played the game seriously because they had that game for months already and most likely replaced it with the best gear in the game.

Dont kid yourself. People played Wrath cause they wanted to see how the Arthas Lich King story ended from Warcraft 3. Don't forget, the MAJORITY of us who played Vanilla WoW and TBC and WOTLK back in 2004-2009 WERE avid Warcraft 3 players. We wanted to SEE how the story from Warcraft 3 would finish, since we found out early that Warcraft 4 was not being developed (even though, due to the Campaign, Blizzard had already done 80% of the work to develop the Nagas as a playable race in the RTS) and all of Blizzard's efforts went to WoW.

Game mechanics, badge gear, easy dungeons, none of that was the driving force of WOTLK. The driving force of WOTLK was the artwork on the damn box. Arthas himself.

[gonzajd777]

I'd like to give credit to developers for finally getting in sync with casual player base. Couple things (among other) that stands out.

• Tier set forge
• Uncapped valor S4

These and other few good changes indicates that Blizzard finally understands that removing previously existing briers is a good thing. What can casual player do with more gear?

• Stay subscribed.
• Go do solo older content.
• Join mythic plus groups.
• Engage in activities that has power limits (brawlers guild, etc)
• Have more motivation in general to engage in current content including raiding.

And because power rocks, player can finally do whatever they want with it. It feels good to be powerful rather than memeing around like a scrub.

tier set forge is taking value from raid... people just raid 4 weeks , then quit and just focus on M+
M+ and weekly vault hurt a lot to the raid, now tier set forge will end with the raid interest.

some fixes i want to see... weekly +15 mythic vault not higher than heroic raid, and of course +15 loot lower than heroic raid.. why?
simple, the dificult of a +15 key its not even closer than heroic raid, from getting the peeople to coordinating.

now, we are getting the Ilvl of mythic raid in a 15+... its just stupid

i dont want casual players on my group... if you dont have the motivation, go play Fornite or Dota.. not wow

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the question is "is there any value on casual players"

people that dont pay the subscription and just come back 1 month every 12-24 months?

i dont think so bro.. you are dilusional

[Lolites]

Yeah, i always get that, what i dont get how can a Homo Sapiens not strive to improve at anything they are wasting time on, how can you possibly waste 40 hours a week as an example on an activity and not do it correctly.

"I go to the gym 5 times a week and change in gym clothes, then walk around it once, shower and head home"

How about the excercising part my man?

thats TERRIBLE example, bcs in your example problem is not he is not doing it correctly but that he is not doing it AT ALL

doing something and not trying to improve doesnt mean you do it wrong, it just mean you dont care about improvement...
do you drive? i assume you do, most people do, a lot of us enjoy it, yet we dont try to become race drivers...
or to stick to your exercise example not everyone entering the gym is preparing for mr olympia...

bcs for a lot of people trying to improve at something doesnt make it more enjoyable but actualy takes away some of the enjoyment

[potis]

thats TERRIBLE example, bcs in your example problem is not he is not doing it correctly but that he is not doing it AT ALL

doing something and not trying to improve doesnt mean you do it wrong, it just mean you dont care about improvement...
do you drive? i assume you do, most people do, a lot of us enjoy it, yet we dont try to become race drivers...
or to stick to your exercise example not everyone entering the gym is preparing for mr olympia...

bcs for a lot of people trying to improve at something doesnt make it more enjoyable but actualy takes away some of the enjoyment

The example wasnt bad, you just dont get it.

That person doesnt belong to the gym because he wont ever exercise, WoW is the same, if you aint raiding, why are you complaining? It was never anything else as a game apart from raiding to gear chase, sure a few things were added to add to gear chase but the end result remains the same, story telling through raiding in order to gear chase, since Vanilla to SL, its the same exact game.

Again, cause people like repeating their argument, i dont care how bad you were 17 years ago and it took you half a year to level and never did anything remotely decent in WoW in 18 years, thats your experience, if its fun for you, good, but it doesnt reflect the game.

The same way a guy walking around in a gym and never working out, reflects the gym experience just because he visits it, the things are there, refusing to engage is YOUR problem.

[neik]

Feels good getting the power of level of someone who worked for it, yet you didn't work for it. You want to lollygag around and get showered with gear. Your framing exposes how entitled your view is.

Couple people including yourself keep reiterating these strange "loot in mailbox" notions, you can stop it anytime soon.

[Lolites]

The example wasnt bad, you just dont get it.

nope, i got it, it was just terrible "example"

That person doesnt belong to the gym because he wont ever exercise, WoW is the same, if you aint raiding, why are you complaining?

sauna, wellness, fresh bar... or in case of wow M+, pvp, world content, collecting, pet battles... how stupid and selfcentered you have to be to not know thats endgame for some people?

Again, cause people like repeating their argument, i dont care how bad you were 17 years ago and it took you half a year to level and never did anything remotely decent in WoW in 18 years, thats your experience, if its fun for you, good, but it doesnt reflect the game.

actualy, i did mythic raiding, high keys, etc, im just not so far up my ass to not realise other people than me have different opinion than me...
and as much as their opinion doesnt "reflect the game" neither does yours... try thinking beyond YOUR EGO sometimes, it wont hurt, i promise

The same way a guy walking around in a gym and never working out, reflects the gym experience just because he visits it, the things are there, refusing to engage is YOUR problem.

your, lets be generous and call it "example", is completely out of reality...
in your analogy guy who doesnt exercise at gym in wow would be someone who logs in and just sits in orgrimmar, not someone who doesnt raid...

but i know you wont get it so i wont waste time with you, its pointless to argue with crazy people

[potis]

nope, i got it, it was just terrible "example"


sauna, wellness, fresh bar... or in case of wow M+, pvp, world content, collecting, pet battles... how stupid and selfcentered you have to be to not know thats endgame for some people?



actualy, i did mythic raiding, high keys, etc, im just not so far up my ass to not realise other people than me have different opinion than me...
and as much as their opinion doesnt "reflect the game" neither does yours... try thinking beyond YOUR EGO sometimes, it wont hurt, i promise



your, lets be generous and call it "example", is completely out of reality...
in your analogy guy who doesnt exercise at gym in wow would be someone who logs in and just sits in orgrimmar, not someone who doesnt raid...

but i know you wont get it so i wont waste time with you, its pointless to argue with crazy people

The fact you answer about your personal experience over the fact i am describing the majority of the population is the fact why your opinion doesnt matter, and many others on here.

You guys are so self-centered you cant see past your thumb to understand your experience is irrelevant and what you want is irrelevant.

Game is a raiding simulator gear chase, if you cant comprehend what that means your gaming experience is not good enough or you arent old enough to understand the difference for when the MMORPG scene started 20 years ago.

Everything else is byproducts that exist for the company to make money, the fact it works shows how dumb people are, it doesnt make you special.

You do not deserve extra things because it took you to do 6 months what others do in 1 week, you are just bad.

You dont deserve an opinion about how the game should he designed when you are a victim of your own lack of knowledge, you are just bad.

The game at its core wont change because you run out of <insert irrelevant money trap bullshit content>, you are just bad.

And many similar things.

WoW, the same other major game is plagued by its own success where people that shouldnt play it, are playing it cause it was a cultural phenomenon.

Again, this is a generalization, it aint targeted at you, since you dont seem to tell things apart.

[rrayy]

I agree that "casuals" should have easier access to better(not the best) gear.

That doesn't hurt anyone. As long as it is not as rng as fucking titanforging/warforging.

TF/WF was fine. They just needed to keep it out of raids and M+

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The fact you answer about your personal experience over the fact i am describing the majority of the population is the fact why your opinion doesnt matter, and many others on here.

That is utterly false. Also, who made you dictator of whos opinions matter and do not. EVERYONES opinions matter.

You guys are so self-centered you cant see past your thumb to understand your experience is irrelevant and what you want is irrelevant.

Game is a raiding simulator gear chase, if you cant comprehend what that means your gaming experience is not good enough or you arent old enough to understand the difference for when the MMORPG scene started 20 years ago.

Agagin, not it is not. It has all kinds of different things. What he wants and thinks is just as relevant as anyone.Who are you to dictate what is and is not?

quote][Everything else is byproducts that exist for the company to make money, the fact it works shows how dumb people are, it doesnt make you special.

You do not deserve extra things because it took you to do 6 months what others do in 1 week, you are just bad.[/quote]Are you in charge of the game? NO, so you don't get to dictate what others deserve.

You dont deserve an opinion about how the game should he designed when you are a victim of your own lack of knowledge, you are just bad.

The game at its core wont change because you run out of <insert irrelevant money trap bullshit content>, you are just bad.

INcredibly elitist. He desefves an opiniomn about the game just as much as you do. You do not run the game and yo do not get to dictate who gets an opinion. EVERYONE gets an opinion no matter how much you demean people and call names.

And many similar things.

WoW, the same other major game is plagued by its own success where people that shouldnt play it, are playing it cause it was a cultural phenomenon.

Again, this is a generalization, it aint targeted at you, since you dont seem to tell things apart.

Again, who are you dictate who should or should not play the game. Then only thing bad here is the one trying to be the sole dictator of the game looking down his nose at others.

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Blizzard always understood the value of casual players, the problem is the definition of 'casual' changes each week, nowadays is 'give me free stuff because X,Y' reasons

Nobody ever said that. This BS strawman needs to stop.

[cparle87]

And this is how out of the loop I am. Still corruption was a lot of fun, blizzard should just take more risk, do some whacky goofy shit, but they are to corporate spreadsheet designing as we all know.

They did whacky shit with corruptions. And the amount of nerdrage about how broken and unbalanced it was was astronomical. And when Blizz gets burned by something they tune on the opposite direction in a big way. Complained about dungeons being the source for everything in Cata, next to no dungeons in MoP. Too many dailies and powers locked behind rep in MoP, no dailies and purely cosmetics from rep in WoD. Cries of nothing to do in WoD, infinite power grinds in Legion.

[Hctaz]

That's not just casuals, the whining of raiders when they consider anything outside raids "mandatory" is deafening, same with PvP-ers...

That's what makes developing and maintaining WoW such a daunting task in my view, they have three playerbases (Probably with subcategories, too), who want viable lines of progression purely from "Their" part of the game.

There's a number of reasons why this happens, but I couldn't exactly provide a concrete solution.

I think the main annoyance is the time-limited nature of the additional content. If you don't finish certain things within a certain timeframe, you just lose those rewards. There's no way to say... skip daily activities Monday, Thursday and Friday and play for 1-2 hours on Tues and Wed while making up that lost time by farming for 7 hours on Saturday.

This was my biggest complaint as somebody who has raided the highest difficulty since Wrath. Legion burnt me out hard just from how much content I needed to continue farming, and how there was no realistic end to the grind in sight. Previous expansions gave you an end point.

When it came to Vanilla/TBC raiding, there were technically things I needed to do as a raider (farm gold for consumes) but they were completely flexible (until Daily Quests in TBC). Sometimes I'd farm 2-3 hours a day every day. Sometimes I'd take a day or two off and then make it up on the weekend. Sometimes I'd have farmed up so much money that I wouldn't need to farm any more gold for an entire year of raiding.

I think that's really the key difference. It feels less "mandatory" when you can do whatever you want on your own time.


I do also think that rewards in the form of player power for doing certain pieces of content should be contained within that activity itself. Kinda feels like they dipped their toes into too many different pools, and now they're trying to sustain themselves by mixing all the pools together instead of just allowing them to remain separate.

[Lolites]

The fact you answer about your personal experience over the fact i am describing the majority of the population

no you dont, inyour PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, bcs thats what you talked about, no "facts", you speak for YOURSELF, single person, not two, not even one and a half, and definitely not majority in any way or form...

You guys are so self-centered you cant see past your thumb to understand your experience is irrelevant and what you want is irrelevant.

oh the irony...
but given you think only raids are important and how blizz is making them less important over the years with things like m+ or lately with catalyst it seems its YOUR opinion and experience thats irrelevant... sucks for you i guess

[Magistrate]

And this is how out of the loop I am. Still corruption was a lot of fun, blizzard should just take more risk, do some whacky goofy shit, but they are to corporate spreadsheet designing as we all know.

They did all this wacky shit literally last expansion and the chaos and poor reception is why they specifically aren't doing anything like it next expac.

BUT I did sort of like corruption. Just not with so many other competing gear modifiers and systems.

[Echo of Soul]

The reward structure is kinda fucked. I don't think any source should award mythic raid gear except mythic raids but I think that there should be multiple ways to heroic raid gear:
* Fast but difficult through m+, heroic raids and RBGs
* Slow but easy through matchmade content, crafting and dailies/reps.

[Nzx]

Oh definitely commitment and failure. Has nothing to do with how just being able to step foot in this dream world of 3 hour raid nights twice a week you'd have to have put in hundreds upon hundreds if not thousands of hours to get up to a competitive level even more so if you joined up late. No, it's the casuals taking away all your fun by asking for gear at a semi competent level let alone competitive.

"Thousands of hours" lmao. Buy Dragonflight and you have a level 60 character out the gate. You'll get to fully clearing ~+5-8 keys in your first week, and 15s of each dungeon in your second. At that point you're mid 280s ilvl and can clear heroic. Then you join a guild from trade chat, run their heroic nights a couple times, and they'll slot you in their mythic team when someone else can't make it, then (obviously) thousands of hours pass and now you're a hardcore!

Honestly, if you think you're "thousands of hours" away from playing at a competitive level, why do you need "competitive" gear? If you say it's to clear world quests, I'm going to laugh at you. You guys put so much time into grinding the Pocopoc tree and then complain about not having gear, when you could run every dungeon on +10-12 and valor upgrade to 288 gear. There's just no excuse.

[khazmodan]

Except when it did. When casual players could run random heroic dungeons for valor points with which they could buy the second best gear in the game. That's when the game had a 12 million (stable) subscriber number. It took months to buy all the pieces so casuals had a reason to stay subbed and it didn't interfere with those who played the game seriously because they had that game for months already and most likely replaced it with the best gear in the game.

I think you are right, I remember really enjoying the progression of valor gear and feeling like I didn't have to rely on drops alone to progress in gear. I do also think that the rest of the game was damn well designed though with a ton of fun to be had and some very immersive storyline to enjoy.

I really miss just doing a heroic dungeon with friends and talking on voice chat while everybody was getting something out of it even if no upgrades dropped. I miss those times with friends and while some say that it was because I was young, I would retort that I was 35 years old when I starting playing WoW in 2005.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

I think you are right, I remember really enjoying the progression of valor gear and feeling like I didn't have to rely on drops alone to progress in gear. I do also think that the rest of the game was damn well designed though with a ton of fun to be had and some very immersive storyline to enjoy.

I really miss just doing a heroic dungeon with friends and talking on voice chat while everybody was getting something out of it even if no upgrades dropped. I miss those times with friends and while some say that it was because I was young, I would retort that I was 35 years old when I starting playing WoW in 2005.

Why can't you do that in m+ now?

[s-zilla]

I'd like to give credit to developers for finally getting in sync with casual player base. Couple things (among other) that stands out.

• Tier set forge
• Uncapped valor S4

The game is always casual friendly during its last patch, and its been like that for just about every version of WoW. But it's only for final patches, don't expect any alt friendly changes to make it to the next expansion.

[Mysterymask]

Why can't you do that in m+ now?

$20 says friends left wow for unrelated reasons