There’s no reason for me to go into a normal or heroic raid, I’m ilvl 271. I need to go into mythic raids to get gear. Mythic raid however, requires scheduling. I don’t go into normal, heroic or mythic dungeons either unless there’s a calling for them or call to arms, because they don’t give me anything.
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w/e… you do you… I’m gonna go talk to a door… it will no doubt have something more intelligent to say than you.
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There’s m+ as well, you know.
Only if you get boosted/carried through HC, in which case you skipped a big chunk of the learning stage and only have yourself to blame.
Easier then LFR now tbh no mechanics and 40man raids were cleared by 25 people when current and fresh and without gear.
Lets be honest LFR and normal offer no teaching at all apart from learning the lay out of the zone. Knowing Jito he has never been carried so thats an unfair assumption to make and heroic has hard major nerfs ever since launch.
Rubbish.
Again, the timeline is 8 months, because that’s the longevity Blizzard designs around – i.e. the length of a Tier or Season.
And most players won’t find LFR to present much of a learning experience at all, because it’s braindead easy. It’s quickly dismissed.
And likewise, then most players won’t be doing a whole lot of Mythic Jailer, because it’s Korean eSport levels of difficult to progress there in the first place. Again, most players dismiss it as content that’s not for them.
So then you have Normal and Heroic, which is pretty much all that’s left. And looking at statistics so far, and the comments in the community, then this content has an exponential difficulty curve in itself where it quickly ramps up from braindead easy (Normal Vigilant Guardian) to Korean eSport (Heroic Jailer).
So again the content gets narrowed down to very little that suits very few.
How’s that a design success?!
You’re cutting a very small piece of the cake for yourself here, you do recognize that, right?
I mean, you’re paying monthly for a game where you start out by dismissing the majority of the game’s content, because it falls outside of your player profile.
Hence the problem.
WoW is such a big game, but the majority of the content doesn’t actually suit the majority of the players.
It’s either too easy or too difficult. So you cut those parts away because they hold no interest, and what do you have left? A very small and very isolated game experience, far distanced from the fantasy of playing an MMORPG.
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It’s not about the difficulty for me. It’s that there’s no rewards I want for all kinds of content or you need to schedule your time.
If I could get some cool looking transmog for getting to 3k, I’d definitely go for it. There’s however nothing that I want as the current rewards, if the teleports had been account-wide I would want it, but they’re character specific and are going to be useless next expansion.
If I could get some cool transmogs just for fooling around, I’d do that as well. If I couldn’t, well, then I don’t do it.
I don’t do pet battles, because there’s really no rewards from it. If I could get a cool transmog set? Well, yeah, I’d be doing it.
I don’t really do ZM any more because I got to revered, there’s nothing to be gained by going there any more, I got the reward I wanted.
I don’t do normal/heroic raid, because I’m ilvl 271 and it drops 252/265. But mythic raid requires scheduling, which I don’t do for a game, I absolutely refuse to do that after doing it for so long. I’d rather quit a game than have to play it by a schedule again. I played on a schedule up until cataclysm and it sucked.
Normal/heroic/mythic dungeons are something I only do if it’s for a calling or there’s call to arms or anything like it.
M+ is the only thing that offers me rewards that I want and that I don’t have to schedule my playtime for.
I wanted the bear form from the mage tower, I did it and then that was that, nothing more to be gained from there.
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Sure. I feel the same.
Yeah, I get that.
But from a design perspective the Mythic+ experience is still pretty scuffed for the individual player.
I mean, who does it best? Diablo III with its Greater Rift progression or WoW with its Mythic+ Dungeon system?
It’s Diablo III. The progression is way longer, more evolving and rewarding. You actually go through the levels and are presented with more monsters, more affixes, and more rewards along the way. There’s a journey to it.
In WoW most players will settle on +10-15 within a few weeks, and then they’ll stay there.
There’s no real progression. You easily skip the lower keys and dismiss the higher keys and focus on farming the sweet-spot.
The content doesn’t really evolve in a way that tempts you to try and progress unless you’re a Korean eSport player who’s in it for the extreme difficulty. And as said, then you dismiss the lower keys because they’re braindead easy.
The general design doesn’t suit the playerbase. Most people end up cutting a very small piece of the whole cake for themselves (+10-15), and then they get to enjoy that tiny piece for 8 months.
That’s not a very satisfying or compelling game experience. It’s not like anyone’s getting stuffed and overwhelmed by a horn of plenty…which is kind of what you’d want from an MMORPG. A plethora.
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What.
There’s really nothing gained from it beyond unlocking ancient legendary items and that difficulty level is pretty faceroll. There’s no more affixes in it, all the mobs have the same affixes as they’ve always had, unless they’ve changed something since I last played it.
I am not saying that Diablo III does it perfect (obviously not because it’s hardly a stellar success either).
My point is just that as an individual player you go through more of a progression in that PROGRESSION SYSTEM.
Your character gets built up along the way and the content evolves from few and simple monsters to a screen filled with elite monsters. The design focus lies within the spectrum of content that most players get to do (get your set, some ancients, etc.).
That’s in contrast to WoW where the Mythic+ Dungeon system doesn’t really present much progression at all, because you very quickly skip the lower keys and dismiss the higher keys and settle on a sweet-spot. And then you just farm that.
So even though the Mythic+ Dungeon system presents a wide spectrum of content, then most of it is quickly dismissed, because it isn’t aimed at the general players. So you’re left with very little.
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It’s the same in Diablo 3 though? You do the season journey for the set and then you can unlock ancient legendaries by doing a 70 GR with that and you just faceroll what you can clear the fastest. Like, you just do the season journey, get the set and then start doing the highest greater rift you can do until you get to 70, which doesn’t take long at all and then you just spam whatever you can clear fast. At some point you reach such a power level that it won’t be a difference between doing a GR 2 and a GR 70, the time you spend is time spent walking because you’re instakilling everything. Which is far more efficient if you intend to farm for items than bashing your head against a spongy mob that takes several seconds to kill.
Yeah. I suspect most players will do a level 70 Greater Rift and maybe a bit more, and then otherwise do their Season journey, get some specific legendaries for various builds, and then they’ll wrap up and quit until next Season.
Which is fine.
That’s an okay design for Diablo III Seasons.
You play them for a while, and then you’re done, and you come back when the next Seasons starts.
The game doesn’t suffer for that.
But that doesn’t work in WoW.
WoW is an MMORPG with a monthly subscription. It’s supposed to offer a journey and a progression that captivates players every single day, every single week, and every single month.
It’s kind of a problem if you blast through all the relevant parts of WoW in 2-3 months and then call it quits when Blizzard are saying that the length of a Tier or Season is 8 months! That’s 5-6 months where they don’t really provide engaging content for most players, because as I said, then most of the content they provide falls into the category of being either braindead easy or Korean eSport level of difficult. And people don’t bother with that. They just quit.
It’s okay if people quit Diablo III after 2 months and come back 6 months later.
It’s a problem if people quit WoW after 2 months and come back 6 months later.
It’s impossible to design WoW around keeping people in general around for 8 months. People like me, stay around for ages. Those people that are quitting though? Blizzard would have to churn out content like mad to keep them around, which just isn’t feasible.
For a game company that rakes in billions of dollars in profit yet invests only millions back into maintaining their existing products, I will challenge the notion that it’s impossible. It’s a matter of will and competence.
At the end of the day, then the answer to a lot of WoW’s issues is MORE.
Not enough solo content? Add MORE.
Not enough customization? Add MORE.
Not enough 5man content? Add MORE.
Not enough… Add MORE. MORE. MORE. MORE.
And MORE is a problem that can be solved with money. And they have plenty of money.
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What gives you 250+ ilvl from world content except the world boss?
Ah, I see. You just want to be able to complete all levels of content without needing to learn mechanics and improve yourself as a player.
That’s the reason why you’ll never progress beyond LFR and you believe mythic is ‘Korean eSport level’.
A few things.
First of all, then whatever the reason being, then it’s a problem for Blizzard to deal with. They are losing customers – a lot. People are saying that the game doesn’t satisfy them enough to keep playing it.
For you it may be reasonable to brush the criticism aside by saying git gud and learn-to-play, but for Blizzard that kind of reasoning doesn’t change the fact that people are quitting the game.
So a more constructive approach is needed if this hemorrhaging of players is to stop.
Secondly, then my point is already that it’s the game’s design that should cater to the player demography, and not the other way around.
So if a big portion of the playerbase consists of players who are unable to learn mechanics and improve themselves enough to progress beyond LFR, then Blizzard should design the game’s content with this knowledge in mind. If they don’t, then they simply lose this big portion of players.
It’s not in the game’s interest to make players feel like the game isn’t worth playing because it’s either too easy or difficult, inaccessible or time-consuming, unrewarding or purposeless. That’s criticism Blizzard needs to address, not pride themselves on as being part of the game.
Thirdly, as far as myself is concerned, then I’ve played this game for 17 years. I have had most of the experiences the game has to offer. I’ve done Server First Ragnaros and pre-nerf M’uru and all that. I’ve had my Server First max level character. I’ve done the PvP Honor grind. I’ve done countless boss encounters over the years and seen numerous variations of C’thun’s eye beam mechanic.
The reason why I don’t bother with it anymore is because it’s the same experience that I’ve had many times in the past. A new raid is so similar to all the ones before it that I don’t feel like the joy and reward of organized raiding is worth all the effort that goes into it.
It’s a great experience the first few times, but after 17 years I don’t feel like Blizzard have added enough new value to the raiding experience to maintain my interest in it. For me it peaked during TBC and WotLK. I don’t feel that Sepulcher of The First Ones gives me anything new and interesting I didn’t already experience back in The Sunwell.
If Blizzard wants me to be heavily engaged in their organized raid content, then they’ll have to add more value to it beyond ramping up the difficulty of the encounters. That’s not enough for me.
It’s not because I struggle as a gamer to press my buttons in the proper order. It’s because the cake that Blizzard are serving doesn’t look very appetizing, so I don’t bother with it.
And I think that’s the general sentiment these days.
Raiding isn’t losing popularity because players are trying and failing.
Raiding is losing popularity because players can’t be bothered at all.
Difficulty is fine, but Blizzard cannot sell the game on difficulty alone. Sure, it appeals to Echo and Liquid, but as I initially said, then those players are a minority. Blizzard needs to make the content appealing to the majority. And ramping up the difficulty clearly doesn’t work.
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And then they lose the people that actually stay with the game. I don’t know why you think they should design the game for what is essentially tourists.
I’ve played this game for 17 years.
They’re losing me.
???
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Playerbase aren’t divided into complete noobs and godlike beings, there are in-betweens.