You state this, as if this was some universal truth, but it seems to be your opinion. In my opinion, it developped this way, because E-sports are extremely popular, and activision sees an overlap between wow players and Dota/league players, so they try to cash in on esports, and try making wow one of them.
A company, who managed to think with their own brain, would be Epic Games, because they wanted to make something different than Pubg, and create a fun battle royale over a competitive/esports one, and you know what: Fortnite has blown up, because players value fun the most, and the competitiveness develops alongside the fun. Not before it. This is something, that alot of game devs don’t get, because they think too outcome-oriented.
Chess for example was originally a game, that people played for fun. It became a sport, because it was fun. Wow developpers however get probably the order from activision to make wow an esport, so they focus on that over making wow a fun game.
An opinion formed from over 20 years of MMO experience and many conversations with developers who specialise(d) in raid encounter design. The idea that players will solve problems faster than teams can add new content is however a universal truth.
This is very much another part of the problem but one imposed by publishers and the “money men” rather than the development team.
It’s worth keeping in mind the Fortnight was always meant to be a base building survival game. The battle royale component was very much an after thought, one that was pushed out for free as a very successful marketing tool… So successful infact that the original game was quickly forgotten about.
Fortnite blew up because it was free and would run a potato with an ethernet cable jammed into it. This made the game accessible almost everyone. Due to this it was quickly adopted by younger gamers and those who who didn’t or couldn’t spend a lot of money on thier hobby.
The fact that it was fun certainly helped but was very much a secondary reason for its success.
eSports was the cash grab years ago, they had their own eSports studio and tried to make everything an eSport, including WoW. They realised that you can’t make most things an eSport and made all the eSport people redundant. M+ was the only thing that survived. HotS has just survived.
Sorry, but you don’t really know, what you’re talking about, and just grab some reasonings out of thin air. That’s not why Fortnite, Among Us, etc. have blown up. They’ve blown up, because they are f.u.n.
Wow devs don’t focus on making the game fun, because they aren’t told to do so. They are told by the management to make the game an esport, so it would get popular like league/dota, because they think, that’s what gamers want. Wow would still not be popular, if it was free.
I say this as someone, who grew up with all those games. I’m not a wow demographic. I just happened to make the mistake of trying it.
If they realized this, they wouldn’t design all their content around M+, and around 0.01% of competitive wow players. Then we would have high raid participation, etc. I’m simply saying, that they completely lost touch, and design their game for an audience, that doesn’t exist.
Theres a few issues here.
-M+ has cannibalised a lot of raiders away from raiding. Almost par rewards without all the ballache? Yes please!
-Raid design iteration which has moved away from “fun” to “non fun over complicated challenge that even sweaty nerds can’t be bothered with anymore”
Look at whats happening with the current raid. They are nerfing the crap out of it to try to entice people into it. Most aren’t bothered.
People want content that is more accessible and easier to organise. This whole 20 man gubbins with 6 on the bench and spreadsheets to track sign ups and if someone did their +15 and all the drama that comes with it is desired by less and less people.
I only started posting WoW in January… Neither am I…
Do you honestly believe they would have seen the same level of success if they had been $30 or even $40?
You said, that it was the reason these games blew up. It’s not even close to the main reason. Season Passes still cost like 10-15 bucks depending on your currency in fortnite, and without season passes it’s not fun to play. This shows how important cosmetics are, and Blizzard doesn’t get how important that aspect is, and just puts it in the shop for 25 bucks. They know nothing about gaming as a gaming company. It’s really akward.
It wasn’t just WoW it was everything title was torned towards eSports… Heroes of the Storm was their answer to League of Legends eSport.
Unfortunately the participation is high so they will continue with them.
I’d go as far as to say they’ve lost their way.
Saying Blizz know nothing about gaming as a gaming company is laughable. They’ve made some of the most successful franchises in history.
Completely subjective.
Of course the hugely successful, multibillion $ company who hires hundreds of people who have dedicated thier education and careers to game design don’t know anything about video games…
Onimaru, the inexperienced kid on the forums… That’s the real expert 
How long has it been, since they made a good game? 2015 with overwatch? Sorry, but that’s 7 years ago, and all their current titles show, how they simply have no idea how to design games anymore.
Wow only exists, because they are good at monetizing a small audience, that plays out of habit, social reasons (guild), too much time investment to quit, Nostalgia, etc. I think, it’s a rare sight to see people, who only play, because it’s a good game. I only play, because I hope the game will be fixed. crosses fingers
Not that WoW devs will listen but i will say it.
The current raids are too big and too big a time investment to organize and clear. Not only that, they are duly unrewarding for the effort they take.
They have the right idea with LFR where they divide the raids into bite sized, more easier to stomach bits. But, the unrewarding design is still there.
Raid loot must be upgradeable with currency you get from killing raid bosses. This is how gear works for PvP and Mythic+ dungeons. Why is the raid still stuck in time?
This is unpopular to say but the mythic raid difficulty serves no purpose for the game. We need raids redesigned into a Raid+ format which serves players into finding the difficulty that suits them and still having progression and a path to upgrade gear while allowing try hards to flex. The world first race has to die. Sorry, but i think it’s for the best and it can be replaced with the highest +X raid clear. Rather than a one time event for 2 weeks every 6 months, you get a constant competition with the actual player base taking place rather than just some special guilds with professional contracts. Of course this has the added benefit of raids not releasing overtuned for everyone else that isn’t on one of those guilds.
Make a game for all your players, not just for the pro-gamers. Smaller raids and raid+.
“Good” is subjective.
I wouldn’t touch Diablo immortal with a barge pole and its being slated in loads of places but loads of people are playing it and Blizz are making an utter killing off of it.
So its been what, a month since they made a good game?
That’s the saddest thing about Immortal… It’s actually a great game… The blizzard side of things is top notch, unfortunately the netease side of the game taints the overall experience.
If you define good game design by being able to milk whales fast, because they have a big IP, but then managing to kill such a popular game this fast, then I won’t respond to you anymore. It is basically a cheap recycled heavily monetized d3 import on your smartphone, let’s be real, but let’s stop talking about it in wow forums.
Also the control are nothing innovative. It’s almost like wild rift, but worse, since tencent can actually design great games.
Weird, the guy above you says its a great game. But sure, stop responding because you disagree.
Looks like you just want people to agree with your unsubstantiated opinions - cough - fire mage is the hardest spec in the game 
I feel pretty much the same as you about wow. The fix is to unsub, until they design the game for us aswell.
raiding is basically dead already. should changes how rading is done on the base. nobodoy got time for that 8h raid sessions anymore. also it isnt fun anyways.
make 1 map with 1 boss. you can queue for this with group and thats it.
make every month 2 new bosses instead of releasing 11 bosses every 6 month.
the good thing about this design is that could could make longer boss fights or more mechanical boss fights.
you would just need yo rethink how you distribute loot
I think that’s a huge issue. people have been thee done that. How do Blizzard refresh end game.
That’s what I liked about Wrath, a good few one boss encounters that you can pug easily. It’s much easier to get a group organised for one boss than multiple bosses.
Flex in SoO was good because you could do a small group of bosses in one session not concern yourself over 10+. I wish they would do that with heroic and normal.
guess in the end it is always about mega hardcore content that nobody but 1% play and clear vs puggable content that leaves thr game marked as too easy.
I think ICC with a stacking buff over time had it quite right.
so the crazy hardcore dudes can flex their muscles on the hardest bosses but those will get nerfed by passive dmg def and healing buffs over the weeks come to make it more puggable. or you would have hardmodes like ulduar but should not have better loot
many options and i am not getting paid to list them all 