The real problem of WoW is underutilization of content

Some people say that the problem of WoW is that there’s not enough content or that new content drops slowly. Others say that the problem is the quality of content that is sometimes empty and repetitive or cool but pointless (not enough incentive to play it).

I personally think the real problem of WoW is the underutilization of content.

Here’s a table of content since it’s a bit too long as a post. I tried to follow a certain logic so my points make sense but you can limit the reading to point 4, 6, and eventually 7 to understand my solution.

  1. Let’s start by agreeing on a few things
  2. Let’s now define underutilization
  3. Debunking all of the reasons above
  4. Examples of why and how they can do it (and did it sometimes by the past)
  5. Give them the benefit of the doubt
  6. What we need is a change in the paradigm
  7. What was I saying about utilization?

1) Let’s start by agreeing on a few things:

It’s just factually wrong to say that WoW doesn’t have enough content. The world is large, the story is rich, there are so many playable and non-playable races, classes, professions, factions, and more… The content is huge between all the dungeons, raids, delves, quests, and other game modes.

Also, saying that pace is the problem doesn’t take into consideration that pace hasn’t always been the problem. Expansions like Legion or The War Within have really good pace and still have the real problem I want to talk about today.

Finally, I don’t think content has a problem of quality. I think it has a serious problem of substance, which I’ll talk about further down this post, but I don’t think it is fundamentally boring. It can be from time to time but, let’s be honest, it can be quickly fixed if they put the technical resources and that makes it kind of a quick win. My real problem is way harder to solve.

2) Let’s now define underutilization:

Underutilization is a term we use a lot in my field (I’m the finance manager of a cosmetic lab for the context) to talk about machines and equipments that are not used to their full potential. So, basically, the resources are literally here but we’re not using them. The reasons are diverse :

  1. Not enough employees to run the machine continuously:
  • All current employees are busy doing something else
  • The salary of a new employee costs more than what we’ll earn from the machine working extra time
  1. Not enough demand for what that machine produces:
  • It’s not worth it to use more of that machine since there aren’t enough customers for what it produces which will lead to overproduction aka surplus
  • Here, we’re assuming the machine is not flexible and can only produce one type of product so we can’t change its purpose
  1. The machine doesn’t take a lot of space:
  • There isn’t a huge opportunity cost when not running it
  • It’s not worth it to replace it by another machine since we can lose clients that are buying its products but also other products
  1. A combination of some or all of the above and even more reasons

Now, replace the machine by WoW’s old content (and, by old, I mean anything before the current patch/season).

3) Debunking all of the reasons above:

  • All the current employees are busy doing something else like creating new content? We wouldn’t need that much new content if we fructify what we already have! Why design and develop so many new zones for every expansion when we have all that huge world out there?
  • The salary of a new employee doesn’t cost more than what you’ll earn from this since you didn’t think about how many new and old players you’ll attract and retain with this new way of doing things
  • There isn’t demand? Then, how can you explain the success of WoW classic? The cry for help of the community who wants the game back on Azeroth with “down to earth” storylines? Not only that, but some like me are also advocating for more reasons to play together and roam around the world. Worst case scenario when you have production surplus is you sell it later or repurpose it!
  • Also, it’s not safe to assume that the content is rigid and inflexible since the only limit is the creativity of the developers (or their lack thereof)
  • There is actually a tremendous opportunity cost of not using pre-existing content since people liked it and will most likely enjoy playing it again
  • If it already exists and doesn’t cost that much to store and maintain, that means it’s financially the best content to fructify!

4) Examples of why and how they can do it (and did it sometimes by the past):

NB: By old content, I don’t mean things we already “did” before but things that already “exist”.

As a DK Gobelin, I feel weird that I didn’t have a special questline for DKs during Shadowlands or for Gobelins during Undermine(d). The game has so many ways to create questlines that are cool and push the plot and subplots further but limits itself to the main story and secondary stories that are boring and pointless. The class/spec storylines during Legion were so cool as well as the race armor quests but it’s a one-time thing.

Professions… Not only I still don’t understand how they work because there’s no explanation in game, I feel like they can be way more interesting and complexe (not complicated) with questlines like during Legion and impactful things to produce. Also, they can be cool with mini-games and Minecraft-like craft tables.

Zones and regions in Azeroth and beyond are abandoned as if nothing happened since the moment we solved their largest problems 30 years ago. Even Draenor and the Shadowlands can be salvaged and used for new stories and quests instead of the Siren Isles for example… I just noticed that I didn’t go to Orgrimmar since the beginning of TWW which is crazy since it’s like our capital!

So many game modes and concepts that have been developed and just let down like the battles and islands of BfA, the Garrison of WoD, the Class Domains in Legion, and so on. Some if not most of them were bad content items but everything can be salvaged, repurposed, and utilized. Give me an incentive and a lore-consistent reason and I’ll be back to the worst content they created (they will still have to make it more playable lol).

Give them the benefit of the doubt:

To be honest, they’re doing some efforts. Putting some old dungeons in the current season, the timewalking dungeons and raids, using some old zones for new content from time to time like Zuldazar now or Uldum and Pandaria in 8.3, bringing back things like the Horrific Visions, insisting on staying on Azeroth and old continents for next expansions…

However, there’s still the feeling to be stuck in the same content for two months every new patch. In Undermine(d), there’s already no more reason for me to go back to the raid from the previous patch because it’s not current season’s gear anymore. It’s really crazy that a whole raid is now pointless this fast!

The only counter-argument that might make sense is that it’d be too much content, things will feel scattered, players will feel overwhelmed, and there won’t be a clear way to gear up your character. Then, if you get bored, just make a new character with a new race/class combination and play old content as much as you want no one will stop you. But, I’m hear to debunk it again!

What we need is a change in the paradigm:

First, there is no such thing as too much content. The problem only exists because content is timegated daily or weekly and it’d be too many things to do in so little time. That exists because it’s easier to create repetitive content and make enough of it to fill the player’s week and make them return next week. But I’d personally play this week, next week, and the one after if there was too much content. It will take the time it takes, there’s no rush when there’s no timegating and I’m paying the subscription anyway.

Some would say that it’s a way to control how fast a character can become strong so we need to limit how much they can do certain things per week and per se limit what are those things. I think the problem comes from the fact that developers want us to take our time and play more before having the max gear and that is because the only way to play the game is to gear up.

I think the paradigm that people only play to gear up and become stronger has to change. Give us other ways to “win” the game! Achievements are a cool way that existed for so long and now collectibles are increasing, especially with the housing system where we’ll be able to display them. But, I have so many other suggestions:

  • Influence: Improve the reputation (and renown) system. Make it harder to win influence and make non-influential players need influential players. Bring back negative reputation that impacts the way the whole environment interacts with you like sending random NPCs to attack you. Make some factions hate you because another one likes you so it’s a whole thing to manage. Make playable races, including from the opposite faction, and influential organizations like the SI7 have a reputation system with the player (imagine Alliance rogues and why not other classes being able to have random spying quests around the world). Also, please we need the two main factions to be back to war or at least have some tensions here and there like now between orcs and humans in the Arathi Highlands…
  • Wealth: Make gold harder to get and more important so poor players need rich players. There are so many currencies in the world that are not used anymore that it’s ridiculous. Make them exchangeable to gold with a rate that depends on how hard they’re to get and people will be back to playing old content. I don’t have specific ideas but imagine you can only access dungeons and raids with some gold so it’s sometimes worth it to have a weak but rich player with you who’ll pay more than others in exchange of being carried the content. Or that a very important consumable is needed but it’s very rare, hard to make, and costly so you either need someone who knows how to do it or who can buy it which will make the player valuable outside of his ilvl.
  • Knowledge: Whether for classes or professions, knowledge should be rare and sharable. It should be harder to learn a new spell or patron with the (limited) possibility to teach it to someone else. This will make people work harder for their spells and patrons then not only sell their products but also their knowledge, limiting that so it doesn’t become a farm. Also, can we bring back archeology and make something serious out of it?
  • Skill: Gear is nice but it shouldn’t be the only way to show that you’re skilled. How fast did you run a dungeon or raid, how many people of the other faction you’ve killed, how good are you at flight racing… These should be easily displayable so people have incentive to compete over them and be the best.
  • Gear: It will still be important to gear up in order to play the “fight” content both PVE and PVP but even that should change. The ilvl system makes gearing so mechanic. As much as I understand why it exists, I think they need to find a more interactive and engaging way to do it. Enchants, gems, and all make things cool but not enough. I just feel like the culture of Best in Slot kills the game.

People won’t only play the current season’s content to get the strongest gear but they’ll invest time elsewhere to get rich, smart, influential, or just famous. Each of these should give you an advantage on others so players would have to make decisions about where to invest their time and resources. It should never be possible to play all the content and be the best everywhere because that’s exactly what makes an mMoRpg boring (emphasis on multiplayer and role).

Instead of adding huge expansions and patches every few months/years, maybe reduce their size and invest in adding weekly smaller content all around the world(s) that will move the subplots further and constantly give all type of players reasons to play new and old content. Make zones more interactive, the role of the players more impactful, factions have more layers of interest, and already existing content playable and replayable instead of new zones with farmable currencies and reputations through boring repetitive quests.

Add to these: secrets here and there, hidden chests and treasures, extremely rare legendary items, collectibles, and patrons, cool stories…

One final note: we seriously need the game to get harder. Give the DPS a reason to have a Tank or a Healer with them out there, make it impossible to solo play all the content without killing all the fun for solo players, we need players to still have reasons to gear up but also to play together.

PS: For the counter-argument about feeling overwhelmed by the quantity of content, I think it’s time WoW invested in a real interface or WoWpedia that helps you decide what content you want to play. Also, not everything has to be clear otherwise there’s no need to ask for help from the community and other players.

What was I saying about utilization?

To be back to utilization, this is an image of what is happening now vs what I think should happen in terms of resource allocation within the dev team if they had 10 employees:

  • Now: 1 person fixing the current patch, 4 working on the next patch of this expansion, 3 on the next expansion, 1 on the one after, and 1 overseeing that everything stays coherent.
  • Hope: 2 fixing the current patch that has less content that a patch used to have before so they also have time to fix all the new content around the world, 2 working on the next patch of this expansion that will feature less content and doesn’t have to drop something new every two months, 1 on the next expansion because they’ll have plenty of time to develop a big piece of content especially if joined by the two before after the final patch of this expansion drops, 0 on the expansion after because it’s still too early and there’s no rush like before, 4 on weekly new content all around the world(s) for all type of players, races, classes, professions, and 1 overseeing that all makes sense both from a gameplay and roleplay point of view.

Any objections?

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Can somebody give me a TL:DR version?
Thats one hell of a wall of text. :rofl:

Took me 15 seconds, here’s a ChatGPT summary:

WoW’s problem isn’t lack of content but underutilization of existing content. The game world is vast, but most zones, dungeons, professions, and features become irrelevant too quickly. Instead of constantly making new disposable content, Blizzard should revitalize old content with better incentives, alternative progression (influence, wealth, knowledge, skill), and more interactive, persistent world-building. The goal should be to make the whole game world feel alive, not just the latest patch.

I wrote way more to explain why it’s a problem and how to solve it instead of just crying and shouting obvious things.

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The backlash about re-using old dungeons polarized the community so much that if you begin doing that with old zones people will go Bananas !!!

Even if you were right. Its hard to justify to the players. They pay for a new expansion, and a monthy sub. They want “new stuff”.

And any recycled content is viewed as “cutting corners” or “lazyness” from Blizzard. Even if you have a point.

Unfortunatelly, you have to make games for the community you have. Not for the community you would like to have.

2 Likes

oooo man i came here to talk not to Read PDF.

but from what i understood in your second answer yes

i call it Cycle of Breathing content. ( sadly we dont have that in the game anymore )
there are tons of tons and tons of things in wow that can be way better and be used again but as soon as 1 month passes after a new season everything gets useless and old.
like the old maps-items- and everything.

you see? when someone gets full geared.
he gets bored.
he goes do some tmogs.
some wolrd quest.
some side contents and after that he maybe (very low chance ) goes to farm.
and after all of that he doesnt know what to do in the game anymore.
because wow contents are like a food or something temporary.

thats why every years instead of getting more players - its losing them.

they need to bring the Cycle of Breathing content in the game again.
if they wanted to hear the feed back from players like me for fixing it.
it would be so good. i could help even if its a little or big

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Tbh it’s not that long to read it’s just that we don’t take time to read anymore haha

You summarized quite well my main point. Most of my post is concrete examples of that and why it’s technically possible from a business perspective for Blizzard.

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I think a design problem is that it’s hard to find purpose for re-purposing a lot of old content.

One reason is that it’s an MMORPG, so Blizzard kind of wants players to be where other players are, participating in the same kind of content, so that everyone feels that buzz and activity from the multiplayer experience.
The bigger the game gets and the more stuff there is to do in it, the more lonely and empty does it also become for the individual. So despite WoW being a huge game, I think Blizzard tries hard to get everyone to focus on the same parts of it.

I also think it lacks scope in terms of objectives. WoW is ultimately a game where we do content if it rewards us something that helps our progress toward a goal.
But that scope is filled out completely from all the existing content. WoW doesn’t really need more ways to get better gear – it has plenty.
So it’s very tempting to look at something like Warfronts or Brawler’s Guild and wanting it brought back. But what purpose would it serve?
At the end of the day, then WoW is very much a gear-chasing game. And when we already have a multitude of ways to get gear, does the game get significantly better by adding yet another?

Ultimately, then WoW has become a very simple game. You log in to progress your character toward some lofty goal, and that progression usually involves getting better gear and doing harder difficulties. That’s not really a game design that speaks to the need for a large world with a myriad of gameplay options. It is more – as is often said – a lobby game where you just plow through instances to gear up and progress tiers of difficulties.

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I don’t disagree but theres a balance and “why say something in 10 words when I can use 1000” isn’t a good place to be as a writer either.

I mean I skimmed your post and I have no idea what you’re trying to say so I have a feeling that even if I read the entire thing I won’t understand either. It’s understandable that people don’t want to waste their time when there are so many things competing for our attention.

Like bottom line what do you want?

You want to revisit old places? We go to Quel’thalas and Northrend next few expansions.

You want them to reuse old content? We had MoP remix and will have more remixes in the future. We have timewalking and they didn’t release a new TW raid since BFA and while I wish we had something like timewalking SoO and Hellfire Citadel they need to fix TW raid scaling first.

yes .
you know i have plans for pvp-pve-they can contact people like me and you and ask us what is your plan and explain everything.
it cost them nothing man. and im sure even if its a little help from people like me or you that made this topic can help/
right now i know how to fix pvp match making.
or how to make what you was talking about in your topic.
maybe some day we are able to do something.
i dont even know whats the point of this Forums if its not for making good impact on the game or fix the problems by the feedbacks from their players.

The problem with World of Warcraft is mostly bad game design.

Take Delves for example and this might be an unpopular opinion but…

I think Delves 11 should be the baseline. If you fail to complete it with the remaining lives, you will be dropped to Delves 10, then Delves 9, and so on.

This process will continue until the required item level for the Delve matches yours.

Resets every week, if you complete Delves 11, it unlocks all the rest, you can then pick the difficulty you want, say you complete a 5, this will unlock 4, 3, 2, and 1.

This gives players the incentive to play correctly or they can waste their time each week dropping down to an easier difficulty.

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Oke?

Are we gonna do that to raiders and m+ players too? Start at +20 and break keys till you reached your level of play.

It is that just to bully solo players?

Some specs are allergic to dying though. VDH Night Elf can just run away if debuffed by Uncontained Fel and try use Shadowmeld. If it fails they can keep running until Fel D is off CD.

When I read those words I know whatever comes next is going to be hilariously bad.

Was not disappointed.

I thought I’d like the re use of older zones but I really didn’t in practice. It’s awful.

Recycled content feels bad.

You definitely work in finance; that’s a whole lot about nothing. However, a good essay on why accountants should never design games.

9/10 for buzz words. You’d have got a full 10 if you mentioned AI.

By the sound of it you want to reuse zones etc for new quests. Turn it into classic, you might not have said it but it had that vibe.

But what happens after you do this goblin DK quest… it’s forgotten content. Blizzard tried class specific content and in IMO it failed. Some classes had amazing content but some had content that basically lacked effort.

Blizzard have limited resources so they focus on stuff people want… and through experience that’s fresh, NEW content. Undermine is probably popular not due to the story but the actual zone.

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I read your post and I also agree that content become irrelevant too quickly, primarily raids which is where the real PvE content is.

After a new raid is released it for some reason becomes the main content, leaving the other raids of the same expansion or older expansions, often abandoned as relevant content.

I don’t think that there are many true WoW veterans still playing today who has experienced all raids in the game when they were current content. With that said, I don’t think that the argument is relevant anymore that some say that old raids are so called “old content”. In fact I think that most people playing today have missed a few old raids, especially the ones from Wrath of the Lich King and earlier.

The solution to this is by looking at a few other MMORPGs such as Star Wars: The Old Republic. In that game all raids in the game are relevant at max level: When ever the max player level is increased the developers tunes them to max level and the loot is adjusted to max level.

The same revival of old raids could be used for WoW. But within reasonable limits so that people don’t feel forced to do as many as possible in fear of missing out on loot, due to the fact that WoW has 51 raids in total across all expansions and vanilla. Every new season there are old Mythic+ dungeons included, and I don’t see any reason not to include old raids for the same reason. Many of the old raids are even today very well designed both mechanically and graphically, important lore-wise, and are simply collecting dust except for occasional mount/transmog collectors.

I think that this would be a great approach to keep people busy and to reuse the excellent raids of previous expansions.

The thing is that they insist old content to be “leveling up content”. That is what I dont agree with. Fundamentally.

What I would like them to do is that after each expansion, the zones become proper legacy content. Like the raids basically.

If I was CEO of Blizz (which I am not) I would do a 7 zone mini-continent with a neutral story. Some generic “bad dragon” or something.

This place would be for new players. Which would remain consistent every single expansion. Sort of Exile’s Reach “plus” or something. A the end, you get a level boost to [relevant level of expansion], a set of green gear and a cinematic of the “story so far” and TP you directly to the relevant expansion starting zone. This would get new players out of “old zones” and give them a proper leveling experience.

Then chromi time stays for people that want to farm, experience, or see old zones. Collectors. And you should be able to activate this at any level. Whenever you want.

The “retail” version should simply be the world with no quest. No nothing. And one thing Blizzard could do, which IMO would be cool would be to slowly. VERY slowly add visual assests.

So for example: Retail version of Cata, in Southern Barrens there is an Alliance fort, and some war going on there. Well it has been like… 20 years since… Add a couple of buildings. Finish building the fort. And re-build (slowly) camp Taurajo.

Just adding buildings and walking NPCs. So it seems like “the story continues” after the expansion. But no questing, no nothing.

Just visually.

And one of the places they should do this more often are Orgimar and Stormwind. Cause then it looks like its a dynamic city.

I’m not going to answer to a specific reply but most of you were there either criticizing the length of my post or saying that recycled content is bad which just means that even a long and clear post doesn’t stop people for understanding what they want to understand lol

I clearly stated that I’m not interested in recycling content and that it’s about utilizing content which means using it which means making quests and activities related to content that already exists.

The only valid counter argument that I received so far is that it would scatter people around many spots on the huge map and it would make them feel that it’s empty. But, honestly, I think they can make multiplayer activities pop up frequently to make sure people gather even for a few moments in one spot.

I’m just imagining a world where zone, factions, and stories evolve continuously with nice activities, some for all and some changing depending on the faction, race, class, profession… that you’re playing + gearing up is not the only way to advance in the game.

Anyway, there’s no need to attack me lol

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