Why do we need all these systems?

[Bulkz-kazzak]

I have played this game since launch, now that does not make me an expert by any means, but it does indicate i have experienced this game through different stages of development.

Im not here to discuss balancing or anything like that, or even social interactions which have changed massively.

But what i am curious about is why its been made so complicated to play which doesnt equate to more fun.

I mean before legion, we generally had classes and specs, along with set bonuses. We had trinkets and such but that generally gave you a good idea how you class played and how to go about gearing.

Now we have all these systems which drastically change everything and no clear way to know which way to go.

We had artifact weapons in legion long with legendaries which before being able to purchase the right ones were horrendous. Bfa necks, azerite armour, essences, benthic, corruptions… none of which made the game more enjoyable, it meant so many variables the game required websites and spreadsheets to try and understand what to do…

Now in shadowlands there conduits, soulbinds and covenant abilities…

Why cant it continue like all the expansions before Legion? Why is it not set bonuses, gear with stats and sockets, various ways to obtain gear?

That was always the model, it worked for WoW just fine before Legion, why deviate, this new approach isn’t fresh and interesting, its confusing, complex and demotivating.

Why change the formula which made wow what is was to turn it into a game you need to more or less play a mini game, simming your character, stats and research before you can even get going???

Im dreading shadowlands because i havent even looking into any of the systems coming so when needing to make my choices ill be sat on wowhead, raidbots etc looking for a way to perform ok rather than just gearing up and enjoying content…

Thoughts?

[Retributor-draenor (Retributor)]

have my likes and love

[Punyelf-draenor (Punyelf)]

I did find it kind of ironic that they poked fun at the playerbase obsessively simming when they have made it this way

[Nivmie-draenor]

Rich and Asmon invited Kevin Jordan to allcraft yesterday. Really enjoyable interview imo. It’s worth watching as they talk about power spikes, ‘borrowed power’ and all that stuff.

[Rhem-senjin]

I totally agree and have said so on several occasions.

I’m sure Ion is a lovely guy in private and I don’t have anything against him personally, but these development issues have started getting bigger and bigger since he got involved.

It’s like they have no faith in themselves to create an engaging game, so they overdesign everything, hoping to not let anything (fun, cough…) happen by accident.

It’s too much for me. I’ve said elsewhere that when your systems need that much explanation, info on the thought processes, the interconnectedness etc., you may be suffering from system overload and it’s kind of feeding us to (virtual) death.

It’s not by accident that I find myself often having much more fun playing old content, because I can take it at my own pace, in my own direction while new content just sometimes feels like work.

[Bulkz-kazzak]

I just cant understand how can they think its fun???

I mean along with class tuning which happens continuously and they struggle to get that right, why add additional things which add variables to something they always stuggle with?

I mean say i enjoy 1 spec, example here is Affliction, but then they nerf my spec, and covenant abilities, forcing me to switch to destro to maintain viability in raids, so this ‘could’ mean, i need to change spec, gearing stats, then spend however long it takes to change covenants and binds and sim for days to get going along with learning the rotation and everything else… You not even playing the content at that point, you are spending as much time reading about what you wish you was doing, how you could be viable and simming everything before you can move forward and actually have fun.

If i wanted micro management gaming id play age of empires or sim city. i wanted my MMORPG without the reseach constantly element…

This game has been a part of my life since 2004, its more than a game its been my escape. My passion and something which has been with me longer than i’ve been a parent. So it matters. It is really sad that corruptions drove me to put it down, i was excited for a new expansion but now I’m sat thinking, i don’t need another job… i come here to have fun.

[Coldspear-argent-dawn]

and to think that they removed reforging because it was “complicated” lol. I would also add, why so many game modes… normal, heroic, mythic, mythic plus, lfr, etc etc… these many modes only creaty huge ilvl gaps between players.

[Flower-aggramar]

@Bulkz-kazzak

Im dreading shadowlands because i havent even looking into any of the systems coming so when needing to make my choices ill be sat on wowhead, raidbots etc looking for a way to perform ok rather than just gearing up and enjoying content…

Yeeeep. The simplistic-ness in the past definitely was a lot more enjoyable, and meant you could play more than one class and actually enjoy it, and not spend the majority of your day doing your chores to be “up to date”.

@Bulkz-kazzak

this new approach isn’t fresh and interesting, its confusing, complex and demotivating.

Especially for players who come back during a patch, the amount of clutter and stuff they have thrown at them is enough to make you alt f4. They’ll be expanding upon the covenant systems etc during the Shadowlands patches, so it’ll only get worse from here on out, unless Blizzard does a Uno reverse card.

[Ephemerid-stormrage]

I havent looked at anything SL will have either, i always prefer the surprise. And WoW has become more of a job then a relaxation the past yrs, since Legion.
I also was a huge profession lover, but since Legion it became way to gated, and i dont mind at all putting a lot of effort in them but not like that.
Its very sad, it used to be such an amazing game…

[Soulscar-steamwheedle-cartel]

My guess is they are just trying to make more money and this systems are all time gated .
Monthly sub FTW that’s the word in developers office .
Time gated > fun .
Grind , tokens > fun .
I’m 99,99% sure they don’t care about our fun . Actions speaks for themselves .

[Alempa-silvermoon]

When Ion said that they don’t wanted pvp gear because it confused the players.

How ironic

[Garaidh-magtheridon]

In Ion’s latest update, he made reference to the “#pulltheripcord” movement by making a comment about it. Blizzard are actively aware of what players want, what players are concerned about but they still insist that Blizzard’s vision will be realised eventually. Multiple expansions later and it still hasn’t.

Some people love the systems, some people hate them…but rather than strike a balance, we’re moving further and further towards multiple systems rather than a simplistic but immersive MMORPG.

[Athulua-silvermoon]

There’s too much systems and too much mandatory content outside of raiding / pvping to do.

PVPers suffered particularly hard in BFA as the gearing system for them was utterly broken beyond belief.
I’ve seen a nice video pointing out that SOME cross-over is okay and is actually beneficial for the game. If you want cool trinkets for pvp you should do that raid or m+ dungeon. Trinkets from Drest or Mechagon-Junkyard are good examples of this. But if your primary focus is PVP then 90% of your gear progression should come from PVPing. It’s not the case in BFA at all. You have to PVE about as much as typical raider in order to PVP competitively which is silly. And almost all your gear will come from PVE, as rating requirements for PVP counterparts are absurd.

[Popgligor-kazzak]

Why the systems are necessary? Easy.

The game is EASY. Challenge and difficulty increase the longevity of a game. Take Dark Souls - the game itself is probably 10 hours, but due to the challenge, it takes most people 70-80 hours to beat on their first playthrough.

Classic could get away with simplicity because it compensated with killing you for making a mistake. Ooh, you accidentally pulled an extra raptor in the barrens, die. Now walk to your corpse. Quests, especially back then, when the game was new, were challenging. You had to read the quest text, and reading, as we know takes time. Not all, but many classes fought enemies one. By. One. The game just took it’s time, so it didn’t need systems to keep you playing. You had to use bandages or food in order to recover. There was downtime. This was the main system of the old expansions.

Now… when you have a quest to kill x amount of enemies, you just pull all of them at once and slaughter them in 3 seconds. You use your self-heals to get yourself back up instantly, zero downtime. YOU GOTTA BE PRESSIN BUTTONS ALL OF THE TIME. But because the game isn’t taking its time anymore, it needs to find other ways to take your time. And this is where these systems come in.

[Rompuche-archimonde]

@Nivmie-draenor

Rich and Asmon invited Kevin Jordan to allcraft yesterday. Really enjoyable interview imo. It’s worth watching as they talk about power spikes, ‘borrowed power’ and all that stuff.

Don’t worry, we can get a point across without relying on Asmongold’s annoying smug face.

[Alexima-kazzak (Alexima)]

It’s an attempt from blizzard to make people experience more than one build and play the way they want to play and not simply follow mythic raider X and pvp gladiator Y for their builds.

Unfortunately, this plan of theirs won’t work. People will now be forced to copy things even more than before, because the system is too complicated for most to determine what they should use. And as another consequence, we lose the RPG aspect of the game for the sake of battle power. and a ton of other downsides.

But this has been blizzard’s viewpoint to all things.

They always underestimate the tenacity of players, overestimate themselves and are stubborn beyond imagine.

[Keydia-die-aldor]

@Flower-aggramar

the amount of clutter and stuff they have thrown at them is enough to make you alt f4.

It’s especially bad in BfA though. Once you hit 120 you have to: Do the Nazjatar-intro questline in order to unlock essences, which in turn require you to do the questline in Highmountain, which then allows you to start the 8.3 questline for the legendary cloak, which in turn allows you to unlock Horrific Visions to upgrade said cloak. And we haven’t even touched corruptions or Azerite traits yet.

In Legion you could skip most of the stuff and with 8.3 could just go directly to Argus.

[Gannet-twisting-nether (Gannet)]

Looking back when they first implemented glyphs for example nobody was whining about “systems”. In general the same people who are complaining about current WoW want the glyph system back and think its removal “dumbed down the game”.

Why are set bonuses good but azerite traits bad? both are systems of borrowed power that do more or less the same thing, except that azerite traits offer more freedom, which apparently is bad because it’s better when the devs decide for you which bonuses to use and when.

We were still getting probably the same amount of power in each expansion, the only difference is that power was permanent, we carried it from expansion to expansion, this wasn’t sustainable long term, this is why the formula had to change.

[Nimrhys-steamwheedle-cartel (Nimrhys)]

I am in agreement to a point… I’ve never faffed with spreadsheets and the like, seems silly to me but I know considered essential to others. Depends on what you do, I suppose, though I think if you need to do that much maths just to play a game, it’s not worth it.

I would like for JC to be useful again. I would like to be able to craft my own gear and upgrade the ilevel like in WoD, add sockets to it and gems, enchants… without having to do any dungeon content. It would take longer, meaning those who need the gear for raids get it faster but that those of us who don’t raid and do M+ but still want to upgrade gear and beat the living daylight out of world mobs can still have a goal to do this.
Tbh I’d even enjoy the return of tokens in dungeons for gear you can purchase, a faster route.

I find the systems all a bit convoluted and I’m not going to pick a covenant based on the powers (unless they really suck like Necro Warrior… a banner, I mean really?) but if the game ends up too difficult to play with just the basic open world, then I’ll have to reconsider and that would be the point I’d ask to pull the ripcord. If you can’t waltz through the most basic content when you pick for RPG reasons, then it’s definitely broken.

[Adarra-chamber-of-aspects (Adarra)]

@Athulua-silvermoon

and too much mandatory content outside of raiding / pvping to do.

THIS. This sooooo much! In Legion I had fun with my alts, because I didn’t feel like I HAD TO do other content on my main just to keep up with things. But now? I should be doing Visions every week to upgrade my cloak, I HAVE TO do invasions, HAVE TO do at least one mythic dungeon at 15 or higher, etc. And yes, I know, it’s a game, nothing is mandatory, but they made it so it feels like you have to, or at least if you want to stay on top of things.

But why remove class sets? Love or hate their looks, they were part of your identity as a class. You saw a set and knew right away ‘that is a druid’ or ‘oh wow, that person has the whole mythic set from X’ and things like that. But nowadays? There are cloth sets, leather sets, mail sets and plate sets. That’s it. What is fun about that? Please, please, please listen to your players. Stop with overcomplicating things. You want people to choose a covenant based on their playstyle or how much fun they think it’ll be? THEN DON’T MAKE ONE COVENANT HAVE BETTER DAMAGE/RAIDING ABILITIES. Or give one covenant something that’s almost mandatory for pvp’ers. Stop. Stop. STOP PLEASE