Does Blizzard try too hard?

Community General Discussion
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I think, most older players in their 40’s will be able to relate to this. I will preface this with the fact that I am a just a casual gamer but I have noticed a trend in a lot of games which concerns me over the last 10 years.

I have to ask the question, does Blizzard try too hard to appeal to a younger demographic and is that hurting their game in the long-run?

I understand, as most people do that games need to adapt and grow, that is a given but if you take dungeon runs now, its filled with people skipping trash, rushing through and not really have the time to get a positive experience out of interactions with their teammates in dungeons.

Everything has to be “faster, faster, faster” so Blizzard now creates content around that, rather then saying “No” to the younger demographic and continuing the game as they originally had it. Let them go play Fornite, or whatever flavour of the month game they want to destroy (Among Us, Fallguys etc). Game companies need to learn to resist and not capitulate to a generally entitled generation that demand instant gratification with no work. Its why WoW expansions have been progressively easier over the years. Blizzards playerbase is going to be mainly 30-40 who grew up with the game so cater to them, not 20-30 who are going to abandon your game for mindless slock like Fornite and Minecraft.

Wow has been going on a long time and it should cater to “boomers” (They don’t even use the word properly) because they are the people that are going to stay with the game rather then Zoomers who are going to abandon it for Fallguys and Fornite. Quality is important. This is why the game has grown so toxic, stop catering to a young demographic that will not appreciate it and feel automatically entitled to it.

I do not see what is wrong having games that have a main focus of audience demographic, rather then trying to appeal to everyone. I personally would never play Fornite, Roblox or Minecraft etc.

I am not writing this to insult or attack anyone, coming back to the game after a number of years, I can see why the playerbase has taken a nosedive because Blizzard show absolutely no loyalty to their original intentions with this game. This game is never going to be the gem it was in the 2000’s but that does not mean you abandon your playerbase.

WoW Classic is great but that’s not what I am talking about, I would like retail to look forward with a more mature target audience in mind, rather then making everything about rush, rush, rush.

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They do but its understandable why, even if its a little misguided.

But in part its also because the playerbase tries to act young by using ridiculous twitch speak and other hip words which makes them look like…

But i think if the way theyre doing things now wouldnt be making them more money im sure they’d stop doing it, so it must be more profitable somehow even if we cant see it.

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I’m just gonna add something, this quick quick quick mentallity was also there in vanilla. The “difference” is that now we have auto queue ect (thanks WotLK :man_facepalming: )

So you’re grouped with random people that might not play the same way you do.

Personally i like m+ gameplay ect… i dont care for the exploration and looking at every nook and cranny ect… i didnt enjoy it in vanilla, tbc, wotlk, cata, mists, wod, legion, bfa, sl nor in df…

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to be fair, if there was an Among Us gmae mode in WoW, I would play it.

Fall guys colab in FF14 is amazing.

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I just think going down that path is rediculous… WoW is never going to be Fornite, Fall Guys or any of the “Gen Alpha/Gen Z” games so why try and pretend like it should be. It seems misguided in my opinion, they should cater it to a more mature audience.

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I disagree, I think this game gets harder every expansion. Eventually it’s going to push me out by just being too intensive for me to keep up with.

Whether that means the game is catering to a younger generation, or just on some trajectory that isn’t age related, I’m unsure. Personally I do wish it would calm down just a bit and actually allow enough time to cast a spell between mechanics that make me move.

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I agree, I think its extremely stressful for tanks and healers because DPS is always pushing them to “go faster, pull more etc” and it creates a more stressful experience for people that want to have fun and enjoy the environments while playing.

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I feel that the point you are basing your point on is inherently flawed, as the go go mentality existed as early as WOTLK. It is an after-effect of dungeon difficulty being pushed below a certain bar.

The slow erosion of social interraction can partially attributed to this, but the main culprit there is LFG, and how society changed throughout the past decades. Most of the toxicity you encounter are going to come from our generation, from people between their 30s and 40s.

I am getting very close to 40 now and, while I generally prefer a more laid back approach if my group prefers to push forward like madmen I simply adapt and follow suit. Most of this content (heroic and normal dungeons) are just so undertuned that you can almost pull from boss to boss and still be fine.

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I don’t feel the game caters towards a specific demographic.

You are forced to go slow in Classic. You can’t do any fun pulls. You have to go slow and careful because otherwise you die. You also spend a lot of time replenishing your resources.

Gameplay evolved in Retail and as people gear, the dungeons become quicker for people to run. Vanilla is the slowest grindiest format of the game. As most games were back then. I’m grateful it’s no longer like that.

Games evolve. That is a good thing. Blizzard clung on to this old skool approach for far too long and I for one am glad they are moving forward and catching up to other games with more account wide approaches.

Players will always choose the route of least resistance. So skipping has been an integral part of the game as long as I’ve been playing (since TBC).

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I think the erosion of social interaction is also a problem that exists far beyond WoW and has a lot to do with social media culture. People need to stop getting Smart Phones at a young age and then spending all their time on it.

I also see this problem in video games in general, there are very few new releases that I can get passionate about because they all seem to be devoid of passion and imagination, the Indie market is filled too with “bit-pieces” of Video Games which doesn’t lend well to a holistic experience that bigger games are supposed to have.

I have to be honest, I expected the MVP with fancy green text to defend Blizzard unequivocally. Not all “evolution” is a good thing if it takes the game away from its original vision to cater for changing trends.

It makes the game vapid.

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I do love when people don’t allow me to have my own opinion because I post in green.

My opinion is my own and I’m not a Classic lover. Sorry, I prefer the modern game.

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When we want your opinion we’ll give it to you!

/Hides

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So…can you be more specific about what that means? Because rushing through dungeons hoping to get lucky with RNG loot has been around since classic so and I’m not sure what exactly you’re suggesting.

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And you are absolutely right, assuming that was wrong of me and you are welcome to your own opinion. If you prefer the game now, that’s fair enough. I apologise for judging you because you post in green and you are welcome to your own opinion.

I am used to certain people endorsed by companies, protecting that company at all costs, even in the face of ridiculous decisions on most forums and boards. It was wrong of me to assume that.

I am not arguing for the game to return to classic, but what I am asking for is a slower game, the content can stay the same but the mechanics and systems are too fast for somebody like me, with Dyspraxia (a coordination issue) to keep up with.

I used to enjoy healing random dungeons but now I have blow all my CD’s just to keep up with the tanks and when they rush off and die, they blame me for it, rather then pulling just one mob group at a time to complete the dungeon in a reasonable time. The difference it literally minutes.

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if you do not think this happens you are not seeing the truth there is many gogogogooggogo groups and you are lying to deny it.

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Yes, you are correct. However, I further expanded on the point I am trying to vocalise. I do not want the game to be different, I would like the game to slow down so that people with disabilities can still play the game at a reasonable level without needing Korean-level reflexes.

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Boomers are in their 60s or 70s, People in their 40s are Millenials or Gen X.

I do see that Bliz has recognised that there are issues around accessibility (which probably affects older players more than yournger ones although not exclusively). We’re getting AI dungeons so we can actually see the story rather hat GOGOGO to the end.
We’ve had Assistance Dragons to help do flying quests in the most recent patch.
They’ve added Dark Mode for Quest text so less sharp eyesight can find it easier to read.

I hope they do continue to improve the accessibility features in game.

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Its not just something with Blizzard either, I used to enjoy playing League of Legends years ago but nowadays, I cannot play it because the game has become so ridiculously fast and mechanically heavy that I cannot keep up with it.

Does that mean that people like me should be excluded from enjoying those games. I mean, I like HOTS as well (still sad about that game) but I see this from a lot of developers these days, they are under pressure to make games faster and faster.

I dunno if that is the asian market influence or something else entirely?

(P.S. I am using the term “Boomer” in the way Gen Z use it to describe even people in their 30’s)

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Aka the older generation

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Especially for people who are newer and trying to get better at tanking