Like we know Blizzard is kinda “balancing” the game towards the RWF mythic elitist raiding etc.
But… do they actually benefit from this RWF other than 1,5 week of minor attention of some gaming outlets?
Because I’m thinking some poor changes oriented towards RWF might be causing more harm to the game than they can possibly “earn” from this whole race every season. What do you think?
Tbh i could not care any less then the elitists wow guilds i would rather watch paint dry then watch content like that but im sure some other players who are in to raiding would ofc.
And i dont think blizzard make much money out of it either but it gives it more online exposure etc
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far as I know outside of maybe extra subs due to streaming they don’t “officially” endorse RWF as it only affects a very small percentage of the playerbase.
Only revenue I could think of is maybe RWF guilds snapping up wow tokens straight away when a new raid patch drops so they can snaffle up as much gold as they can to improve their gear.
Blizzard do see an uptick in the amount of players who sub to WoW when the RWF is going on. Of course as you bring up…
The current raiding situation, and the secondary effects all the raid focus have are surely leading to a situation where the game is just straight up significantly worse, and thus leading to less players. Sadly of course this effect is impossible to measure, it is much easier to see, WoW ppl are re-subbing seeing RWF hype, then it is to make some sort of conclusion as to why ppl are unsubbing, or not playing afterwards.
Both the raid and M+ being absolute trash is a direct consequence of Blizzard and their bizarre focus of on RWF in my opinion. Heck even a lot of the rest of the game is worse, because nothing in the game is allowed to make RWF wannabes feel like they are ´´forced`` to do said content.
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Of course, they do, but it’s only through free advertisement by the RWF guilds. Blizzard isn’t paying them directly for that, yet they’re essentially promoting Blizzard’s product for free. It’s 100% good business for Blizzard.
I enjoy watching the RWF, but I don’t like it when Blizzard designs the game around that specific activity. However, as a once-a-season event, it’s very cool. I always enjoy watching couch sessions with Preach and Alex from Fatboss. Those two are always funny when they’re casting.
But that’s the thing I’m referring to - is their “benefit” from RWF direct or indirect worth lowkey ruining the game for everyone?
It’s advertising. Off it directly I doubt it… any sponsorship would go to the player teams.
In my humble opinion, Blizzard sometimes takes things too far and then tries to fix it. We saw that in Dragonflight when Mythic+ was made somewhat a free-for-all, with tanks and healers being overpowered. Everyone participated, so I know they understand how to design the game for the MDI while still making it enjoyable for other players.
It’s always when Blizzard leans too heavily to one side with their design choices that issues arise.
I don’t think Blizzard intentionally tries to ruin the fun and gameplay for any players in their game. They just tend to focus on the wrong aspects from previous expansions, iterating and changing things for the sake of change because something was perceived as being too easy.
For example, in Dragonflight, crowd-controlling trash packs was easy, but Blizzard saw the data and seemingly concluded that players didn’t enjoy that kind of gameplay.
Here’s the thing: high-end players will adapt and play the game no matter what changes are made. However, players who prefer a less punishing and more accessible experience, which makes the game more fun for them, will hate these decisions.
It’s advertising, the benefit is indirect.
I don’t see how its “lowkey ruining” the game. Epic boss fights and struggles are meant to be a bit aspirational to let people imagine themselves in epic situations slaying dragons etc.
There is a balance between aspirational and accessibility. On the accessibility side we have loads of different difficulties and pretty rapid nerfs once the RWF type guilds have done their thing.
Lets put it like this, whats the alternative? That the content is smashable and that everybody goes “lol that was eezy I’m done, see you next patch!”
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Well, the change in crests and M+ from expac start to this patch’s changes are actually un-doing the implied RWF catering because I don’t know who else would enjoy the M+ changes between DF and TWW.
Another thing that “majority”" hated and RWF loved is “group loot”. Well I like group loot as minority but most people cry for personal loot but we know why they introduced it this way, right?
Also, imo the “Rigid ID” of mythic difficulty where you cant attempt bosses with multiple groups is to prevent RWF shenainigans because otherwise why am I saved after killing one boss or… even entering a myth raid with 2 bosses dead? Makes no sense to me. I don’t know anyone really who likes rigid ID in mythic.
20 man myth raiding is crafted for “HoF pushers” and it’s obviously a problem for a lot of guilds as I can read on forums.
You coulda spent 30 seconds on thinking what the problem is about but you went for the easiest and most wrong “blow” just to disagree yet again… I never said the content is “too hard” because of RWF - the game is just obnoxious because many changes are done specifically because of RWF whining. Or elite players “abusing” certain things.
SMH
One of my personal gripes is like “mages lost stuns” - why? Because in PvP top gladiators were waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too strong when mages had stuns. But most players can’t really get on that level - so to avoid problems and imbalances on super high elo - they stripped mages off their defs/movement/stuns lowering them to a support class tier at some point, and then they were “undoing” it over time but still… now e.g. RM is a dead 2v2 comp (mostly because mages had a big nerf on defensives in TWW).
But most people can’t play mage in PVP like Raiku. So the same thing happens with PvE/raid/M+… >.>
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They clearly get something from out of the game sponsorships, and not just the RWF but also the streaming mounts and pets, and the promos with Mtn Dew etc.
The amount of promos that have exploded in the past couple of years makes me wonder if that’s where the lion’s share of the income comes from these days.
It’s literally impossible to respond in a thread with you without you getting bent out of shape because we don’t agree completely.
I disagree because I don’t think its “lowkey ruining” the game. Am I meant to agree with things I don’t believe just to give you a warm glow? The link you’re making between loot rules etc and RWF are pretty tenuous, same with the crests. I don’t see the crest changes and think “darn RWF people!” - you’re mileage may vary.
How so? If its too hard they have heroic don’t they?
Look, theres a lot of things they could and should do to improve accessibility, starting with taking away the 20 man gatekeeping. When the admin around the game is more time consuming than the game you probably need to rethink. But that ship sailed years ago at the end of MoP.
Lockouts could use bringing into this century. Doesn’t affect many people tho, again I don’t think its lowkey ruining the game.
guilds want flex as on other difficulties - also some guilds stop raiding early as people drop out and it’s hard to recruit all the time new people to meet the exact 20 raider requirement (my bud jumped 3 guilds this season because they either had no space or couldn’t get raids going due to lack of people… while it’s anecdotal it put some mental strain on him and he too wanted to unsub). It e.g. forces “benching” or taking 2-5 ppl in pugs - basically thwarting their guild progress etc. So basically some guild never progress, other disband or stop raiding entirely.
Even if I don’t do guild raids, I still think that “exactly 20 man” mythic raiding is silly and definitely caters to RWF/HoF or… tries to prevent them from “skipping” harder bosses using different scaling. So I don’t think it’s just random or insignificant in the design.
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You won’t get flex on Mythic. They stated they went with a fixed amount because flex is a nightmare to design for a difficulty that high.
And even if they would enable flex you really wouldnt get flex. People would hard require fixed setups for bosses regardless if you could go in with 8 or 30 people. In heroic you can get away with wonky scaling because it doesnt hurt as much. On Mythic pretty much everything is deadly or flat out wipes you (pre nerf anyway).
The only thing you would get is that they decrease 20man to 15man or 10man but the amount would remain fixed for tuning/design reasons alone.
This alone would mean people couldn’t just go in with flex but would bench X amount of people dependent on boss because “they would make it a lot harder if they were in”.
The 20man requirement also predates Hall of Fame by quite a bit given it was introduced in Draenor (or MoP if you want to count SoO during the end) and HoF didnt make an appearance until BFA. And it was a response to Blizzard being incapable of properly tuning 10 and 25man Heroic respectively with one or the other always being regarded a joke in comparison.
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Yes, they get viewers and free PR.
But imo they are loosing so many casual players with all this “hard content”
Also why more people are having fun in classic, its easy and feels good
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This. Shame there is no way to like “legally” move gold to classic as well as some utility/chars idk to classic because starting all over doesn’t seem all great to me so I’m kinda stuck in retail xd
I do assume that the RWF indirectly get’s them a boost in revenue.
Like free Promo, people probably renewing subs hoping to get into one of these guilds many Split Runs for Gold, people seeing the potential of Classes/specs and reroll via leveling boost.
But that’s just my assumption, i mean at the bare minimum it’s the free promo, even tho i personally would say only people who already play WoW are interested in the RWF, but that’s just me, maybe there are people here who have seen people start wow because of RWF.
I really doubt .
I’m checking viewers and as well some platforms to see how actually good is WoW or better to say how an impact has even RWF~
I Mean all 3 top guilds had 40k to max 60k viewers and many of those were actually bots ~
Another thing to check is World Kills video count ~
Illidan in Tbc had 12 million views back then ~
Arthas-Lk was 2 videos and combined were more than 40 millions view count (before removed )
Even the Algalon and Malygos had more than 3 million views
Right now they barely surpass 500k ~800k k views ~.
Yes those videos don’t are RWF but actually show the interest people have nowadays with WoW.
The popularity of the game has a huge impact in views and people playing/willing to play etc etc.
The Rwfs works like advertising but has zero impact if the only one watching are the same players and players…and so not bringing anything to the tables .
Free marketing at most.
The irony is that a lot of ppl defending the current M raiding issues are people who don´t even do said content, which makes sense, since barely anyone M raids anymore.
Mythic raiding is hell right now, lots of guilds falling apart and raid leaders quitting. It is not sustainable.
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