I can imagine at this point - after the honeymoon weeks - when there’s a lot of complaints (not totally unreasonable) coming in, the mood is somewhat weird in the Blizz offices.
The game is more difficult than it used to be, there are lots of annoying things not easy to get around.
I just wanted to put out there the idea that this cannot be unexpected. The player base, however, will adapt. All it needs is time. Do not cave. Do not streamline; do not make things easier. This is a lot closed to what World of Warcraft used to be in its prime.
I am really pissed right now because every M+ I enter with my healer ends up the same way: the tank doesn’t know they are tuned super high, cannot accept criticism, criticizes everyone else, and then leaves. These actual snowflake (pardon the terminology) will have to learn. Too bad.
Do not cave. This is what we wanted, but we’re too busy being emotionally invested in the game to notice.
Edit 1: Doing an activity and getting no reward at all is OK. Cover your bases by having fun in other ways while also hoping for a reward. It may not be what you wanted, but it’s what you can do.
Blizzard as always will change their “we know best” when the population takes a nose dive see Ghostcrawler’s “get good” when it came to Cata difficulty in dungeons 3mil lost subs later they changed it.
This is not “get good” but wanting to feel that playing actually means something.
If I wanted to get a trophy for merely participating then I’d go to my nearest kindergarten
The problem is the lack of reward and the fact that every single aspect of the game is locked behind a weekly gate. Never before has an MMO been so constricted in play.
The difficulty of the instances is a good thing in my opinion. I much prefer a tactical challenge than a Face Roll lolDPS challenge. But the lack of reward from doing them is the failure and is what will lose the game subscriptions.
Sure, giving the players more gear will increase their DPS making Facerolling instances a more likely thing. Well, just make the dungeons more challenging. Make tactics and mechanics more important than gear. Make the player work for the rewards in TACTICs rather than TIME SPENT playing the game.
Ok, I do get what you’re saying. Don’t want you to feel like I’m dismissing it. I too feel like the reward is a lot lower than it used to be. Or rather less frequent.
But you realize you’re contradicting yourself within the same sentence:
The reward is lacking (much, much less frequent, right?) BUT at the same time everything is time gated weekly. No it isn’t. Some of your Covenant stuff is locked, but I will bet 100 bucks you are still able to increase your player power from where you are now to something higher before the week is over.
Your point to making dungeons more challenging rather than players weaker is very dangerous. That would increase just increase the difference between good group (in terms of playing) and bad group (in terms of playing).
They have learned from classic. Make sensibly challenging content (translate to today’s standard, of course) and slightly underpower players so they are challenged ways which they are able to overcome.
Sorry I giggled here; APES destroyed Ragnaros in ~2 minutes being lv58 with green questing gear. The content wasn’t challenging it was more that people were confused, clueless and communications as of today weren’t used as much as now. Yes Ventrilo was there same with TeamSpeak but hardly anyone had a mic. Or if they had one, they sounded like an astronaut and noone would understand them.
Jokes aside, what they’ve done is gated mostly cosmetic/side-content into a weekly refresh that makes players excited to get back after having done what they wanted to do last week. I’m not sure how you would argue that isn’t a pretty smart compromise between two extremes.
And maybe you’re just not included in the “we” I was using, and at that point I don’t know what to tell you buddy except I hope you find the fun again.
PvP isnt the worst way for gear, my friends who play it enjoy themselves. I havent heared them being so happy in the long time.
I hope it will be like this week from now own.
Where pvp gearing path is not a joke and my friends wont be forced into farming raids or myhtics with my prot paladin like bfa.
I mean, If you want to assume I didn’t include the part where they designed the game for the players they had at the time, I don’t know what to tell ya.
You have to know I included that if you read the part that literally said “(translate to today’s standard, of course)”.
Unless you start seeing playing with a group of friends or strangers loling your way through a m+ or raid on a voicecoms as a reward in itself then getting the world best and most ‘phat loot’ won’t close that gap.
Call me old fashioned but yeah, this is what an RPG is, you play with other people having fun. Loot will come eventually.
As a person that made numerous friends over the last 15 years, getting to still play with them and new friends beats the feeling of receiving your current bis on run n1.
Thats not a contradiction at all. Better get yourself back to your dictionary and learn what the word contradiction means.
My point with that comment really being:
An MMO should allow a player to go out and explore the world in their own way, work on what they want to work on and not be limited by time when doing it. Shadowlands has alot of MUST DO this each week content, and even more optional must do’s each week content and by the time you have finished all of that, there is very little time to actually play the game.
I’m sure I could earn a few more ilvls. I’m not saying I couldn’t. But increasing my ilvl isn’t really my problem or concern with my comments.
I don’t really understand why I should have to wait each week for about 30 minutes of storyline, when in previous expansions I would spend the first week or two binging all the storyline content, so I can carry on and just play later dipping in and out from time to time. But now, I am stuck only being able to get 30 mins of story a week.
I bought SL because I was advertised to that the Uther would be a big part of the Kyrian storyline… well I’ve only seen Uther 3 times so far. I’m bored of this, I want to know how the rest of the Kyrian storyline goes. Another thing is that it took 3 weeks of play to find out why Devos in Elysan Hold was light and “good” and Devos at the end of Spires of Ascension was dark and bad, not only that all the NPC’s running around screaming “For Devos”. How to spoil your own story Blizz.
I see your point, but I do think dangerous is a very harsh word. Basically, Blizz just needs to balance the whole experience. Make the lower keys less tactical and progressively more tactical, you should always be performing at your peak rate without feeling that you are overgearing the instance.
