Who said I struggled with that? I was saying it was poor implementation that means that opportunity fades, the pug m+ is literally through the LFG tool which I said?
Personally i have similar numbers of people in my friends list, i run a guild with over 900 characters from over 500 accounts, a community group, and a discord server.
But i can relate to what @Bankoeverzo says. As i often find that people have difficulties connecting with others in the game.
At times people will say to me that they even find it hard to connect with others in the guild, and i explain to them that - most people are already busy doing something, and that they are free to spam their keystone in the guild chat to form a group, but they have to have the patience to do so.
Nothing helps however, when the server is so dead for 2 months at the end of a season that you are lucky to see more than 10 people online at a time, in the guild, community or discord for that duration. Of course they all come back at the start of a new season, but this goes back to the point i made in the original post.
For every person who buys a boost to complete the end-game content, there is one fewer players online for the last 2 months of a season.
Of course, those who complete the end-game content in pugs or with friends might also not bother to play during this time, but if nobody was being boosted to completion then there would still be an abundance of players looking to complete the content - online and willing to try.
I mean⌠yeah⌠but this has NOTHING to do with boosting servicesâŚ
Ask blizzard WHY in the last balance tuning of the 12th of March they chose to Buff/Nerf by single diggit percents the performance of SOME specs (some others mistireously not) the RAID performance.
When most guilds are done with raid performance. Instead of M+ tuning, which is NOW the moment to play M+âŚ
I get your frustration because I am too. I am also baffled and dont understand why.
But it has nothing to do with boosters.
Thats a personal issue of the people. If they wanna be the âawkward guyâ in the party that talks to nobody. Then if that is what they like, so be it.
This is a seasonal model in which you can boost through the content, thus people are done quicker and thus there is a drought at the end of the patch (say 2 months before the end) where the game is completely dead and where historical people would have formed in order to get it turn, now the boosting has filed the void, and thus the initial interaction doesnât happen and the game feels dead.
Not sure what part is there to deny, itâs in black and white, just go stand in SW and try form, and you cant blame players who want to play 95k for curve or waste 3 hours forming and doing it.
I know personally 2 players (who i am willing to speak about) who admit to me that they do get boosts.
One is boosted by his friends so does not have to pay.
The other has learning difficulties, pays for WoW tokens to fund his boosts, and admitted to having spent over 2000 euros for boosts. I have to say, i find this shocking, and in my opinion - those who provide him with this service should be ashamed of themselves for taking advantage of a person who has learning disabilities.
Neither of them have any interest in playing for the last 2 months of a season.
Or maybe its that Raiding is a system that has not changed in 20 years since wows inception.
That can barely adapt to people that DONT want to be in a guild and socialize. Hence they PuG the raid.
And after witnessing the festival of Pugging a heroic raid (ESPECIALLY early in the season) then 100kg seems REALLY tempting all of a sudden.
Who is at fault here exactly?
So if you WANT a lasting solution to the problems that you mention. Dont ban boosters. That is like âbanning moskitoesâ. You cant. They are here to stay. They were always there long before wow as even in development.
So instead, address the issues of WHY is it that 100kg is more tempting than pugging a raid, or having to socialize with people over discord.
Imagine that instead of âboostingâ it was : âloteryâ or âcasinosâ or âdopeâ
What would your answer be? Oh no ! The institutions are bad⌠bla⌠bla⌠OR, you would say what ANY sensible friend would say:
Get some professional help.
Or you want to somehow convince your friend with disabilities to PuG a heroic raid? I perfectly see WHY someone like him would be interested in boosting services.
Because his only alternative is to simply convince YOU to boost him instead. He might be disabled, but he is smart. So kudos to him. He knows he is a deadbeat in a raid and prefers to pay money than to have his friends drag him around a raid.
Some guilds will not accept you onto their raiding team(s) unless you can provide them with a link to exceptional WarcraftLogs for one of âyourâ characters.
Which shuts many players out⌠and puts them into a position where they then are forced towards the option of buying a boost in order to try and make good logs, to then apply to a guild.
If they did not have the option to buy a boost, they would then try harder to find a guild who would accept them. Also, guilds would become less strict in their requirements as there would be less logs to look at.
Then, when it comes to pugs, boosted players use their bought and paid for but not actually earned âahead of the curveâ achievement to get into pugs, only then to fail and cause wipes, which in turn annoys other players and hinders their progress. So much so that Some people then just give up on raiding.
Everyoneâs âend-gameâ level is different. For some, Raid-Finder is enough. For others, every achievement point counts and the only the most difficult is enough.
You are trying to justify boosting communities as necessary for the health of the game and you fail to see how it erodes the actual community of the game.
I said its more effective to find solutions to problems assuming boosting will exist, rather than banning them (assuming they dont exist) and then be surprised that your solution did not work because boosters were there all along.
As with every game, yes it is obvious that third parties will always try to take advantage of others and of systems to gain something extra.
It is on the gameâs creators to do something to hinder and to stop that unfair advantage.
Blizzard seem to just cater to it as it is easier for them, and they can then use your words to justify their inactivity.
That is what I have been saying. They HAVE been doing stuff.
One of those things is to simply accept that boosters exist. And confine them to the âserviceâ channel.
And believe me, ive been here for long enough to know that they tried many⌠many⌠many ways of preventing illegal services. They ALL failed.
And not only Blizzard. ANY other game developer has also failed. NONE have managed.
But it took blizzard 20 years to see the obvious: THIS
I hope it does not take 20 more years for you guys to get it.
Like gold selling. Gold selling problem was buried when the token came out. Its simply accepting it exists and normalizing it. Corporate greed? Maybe.
But at least now people are swiping their card to a reputable company that wont scam them. And yes, it makes Blizz a TON of money. So now, we can demand that they use that money for more development (more raids, more tuning cadence, ectâŚ).
That is ALSO a solution to be honest. Because the alternative is rampant inflation in the game. Which is worse.
And to be honest, I have many real world examples of former âillegalâ services where the solution was to normalize it. Alcohol and other substances come to mind. And I could list more, but it would get me banned.
Boosting is inevitable as long as there are desirable, miss-able rewards that players want. FOMO is rampant in gaming, nurtured by designers, and this created the market. This is a fostered development, not something that just happened.
Boosters exist because there is a market for it. The boosters didnât create the market, the demand did. They provide a FOMO-driven service that players look for, because portals and mounts are attractive and desirable.
Itâs a win-win situation for almost everyone: Blizzard sells more tokens, people who want to pay for their subscription with gold have to pay less, players who want the portals and mounts can get them regardless of skill level, and boosters have a way to turn their expertise into gold.
The downside is that it devalues the accomplishment of players who didnât buy their boosts and it makes scores less dependable as a measure of skill potential. But this is only relevant if you put too much meaning into in-game accomplishments as far as it relates to others.
If youâre using score or âstuffâ to feel better than others, boosters ruin that for you. But if you realize that it ultimately doesnât matter what other people do, that nobody really cares what your rating is, and instead set your own goals and find enjoyment in improving at the game (rather than the stuff or the perceived prestige), you only compete with yourself. You can avoid playing with boosted players by making or finding new friends who are like-minded and wonât buy boosts.
You canât change other people, only how you do and look at things.
Thatâs not âdoing somethingâ thatâs choosing to do nothing to stop it and instead catering to them.
âŚa lot of which, to third party companies who then use their gold to pay âboosting communitiesâ which they probably formed in order to hide behind.
Sorry but this does not compare to prohibition of substances.
Man⌠if you cant stop it⌠If you tried many times and failed⌠if other companies tried and failedâŚ
How would you stop boosting then?
I mean⌠look at what happened in the USA when they ilegalized alcohol. Is that where you are heading?
Or do you prefer to accept it exists since the stone age, and not give reasons to people (like quality of life improvements) to drink themselves to death? And tax it while your at it to pay for hospitals.
See? If I change âboostingâ for âalcoholâ it suddenly makes sense?
Question⌠what do boosting communities do with so much gold? What do people do with so much gold? Because you cant convert it back into money.
But you CAN buy items from the Blizz shop (cosmetics and such) with Gold (that you transform in tokens).
Thats where all the gold goes. Also, RTWF guilds boost a ton of people so that in the next patch they can spend it all again in people to do split runs or whatever they have to do.
Holland has done a good job at normalizing âiligalâ services. Its still far from perfect and morally disgusting. Not for people, but for the ladies doing it.
But I live next to them in Belgium⌠and illegality does NOT look better. It looks worse, much, much worse for the ladies.
And Belgium is totally fine. Other European countries (not to mention out of Europe) its illegal, and simply disgusting and inhumane.
So no. Sometimes, legalization DOES make things better. Not perfect, but better. I have seen it.