5 ms·

In terms of WoW, I'm sure a lot of it is focusing on the top raiding guilds and leaving the casual player with few rewarding activities. Further, one of their

by AmVess 5y ago

In terms of WoW, I'm sure a lot of it is focusing on the top raiding guilds and leaving the casual player with few rewarding activities. Further, one of their most cherished metrics is how much time people spend doing a certain activity. Instead of making those activities more fun and rewarding, they made them take longer to complete and with fewer rewards. To top it all off, they are nearly completely deaf to their player's concerns, and instead focus on metrics instead of gameplay or fun activities. People at Blizzard certainly have forgotten that games are supposed to be fun. They try to cloak their declining userbase by saying they have the highest number of logins ever, but they quit reporting individual subscribers a long time ago. One of them is a completely worthless metric and the other keeps the lights on. The last of the original WoW dev team quit Blizzard last year, and they are running with a crew that don't have the chops to make engaging games.

serverholic 5y ago
This is why "you can't improve what you don't measure" bothers me. It's rare that you can condense all useful information into a number and it encourages people to remove critical thinking from the equation. People come to rely on the number instead of thinking deeply about what they're doing.
- oriel 5y ago
  This is basically Goodhart's law (quote from Marilyn Strathern's generalization). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law > When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure
slaymaker1907 5y ago
Definitely agree and a lot of the popular WoW content creators (Bellular, T&E, etc.) seem to agree. They don't always mention casuals, but lack of progression is a major issue, particularly in Shadowlands. As a person spending too much time playing, you are basically forced to do non-LFR raiding, rated PvP, or mythic+ dungeons to actually progress your gear at all. Not to mention they seem to hate flying yet keep creating terrible zones unless you can fly. There aren't clear routes between common locations like roads in Skyrim. That can be ok, but in that case they really need to have a flatter level design like in Oblivion.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > Not to mention they seem to hate flying yet keep creating terrible zones unless you can fly. Yes, this is just an ongoing disaster. My sense from their communications over the years is that, when players fly through zones, that hurts the feelings of the artists, which Blizzard doesn't like. > There aren't clear routes between common locations like roads in Skyrim. I actually really liked how roads were handled in original WoW. They twist and turn, and yet somehow they're always faster than going offroad. And they were reliably safe -- until in Duskwood there's a wolf right on the middle of the road, which added to the atmosphere for me. For the latest expansion, my main complaint is that they provide a bunch of cosmetic features, which they know are a draw -- but you can't use the cosmetics on your other characters. All shadowlands cosmetics are restricted to characters who belong to the particular faction. (Which is, overwhelmingly, just the specific character who unlocked it.) I characterized this once in guild chat as "welcome to Shadowlands! To enjoy this expansion's new content, please wait for the next expansion to release", and got many pained agreements. You can't use your mail-wearing toon to unlock plate cosmetics, either. You need to go through the entire rep grind, again, if you want two sets of cosmetics from the same vendor.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - TMWNN 5y ago
    >Yes, this is just an ongoing disaster. My sense from their communications over the years is that, when players fly through zones, that hurts the feelings of the artists, which Blizzard doesn't like. Flying should never have been allowed in WoW, period. Beyond the whole issue of players skipping content in zones artists spend months building, the mechanism severely distorts gameplay. A player being able to hover, descend to the ground, pick up an item, then immediately remount and rise back up—avoiding monsters—is ridiculous. If flying had to be introduced, it should at least have been done with some sort of meaningful takeoff/landing process.
    - FreshFries 5y ago
      Hi, yeah that would be me, the guy who "skipping content in zones artists spend months building" and you know why? I do not give a rat's ass about the "artists spend months building" anything, I just need to be there, pick something up or kill something and I am out. With all respect for those who enjoy the "zones artists spend months building", I am here (WoW) just to beat stuff up in a repetitive & predictable way. Until today, I have NO idea in what zone what dungeon is, or what the background of the story is of that particular monster that lives there. I have never seen a cinematic in full, turn off the sounds and run graphics at to the lowest level possible so I see stuff that is relevant (fire) and am not bothered with cosmetics (grass). And I have been p[l] aying this game (on and off) since over 10 years. It is just a nice time waster which allows for easy & cheap boosting so I can show up with the same gear as the addicts.
FalconSensei 5y ago
> Further, one of their most cherished metrics is how much time people spend doing a certain activity. Instead of making those activities more fun and rewarding, they made them take longer to complete and with fewer rewards. This is basically Goodhart's Law.
hhh 5y ago
I don't align with the top tier player opinion about WoW. I feel that this is who they have driven away from the game. I personally spent a large amount of time in that top-20 guild environment and have only progressively seen them care less about the edge case of boundary-pushers and more about the day to day player. The latest systems encourage time sinking less than they did in Legion, where there were infinite diminishing returns for playing, now there is just a full-stop end to your week. Legion was the most abusive expansion with regards to a player's time. The latest expansion fixed a lot of that for me and others, but it isn't enough to keep me sustained. WoW Classic actually kept me enthused and is extremely enjoyable, however if you were on a streamer server, there were artificial queues for ages and it was exhausting living around a queue when trying to be competitive at that top tier of play. If TBC fixes that (doesn't have the queues at release), I will be a lot happier with it.
- bcrosby95 5y ago
  > now there is just a full-stop end to your week. Note that I don't think this stuff is casual friendly. As a casual, my problem with the way Blizzard does these systems is you want to do something every day/week/etc. Quite frankly, it turns the game into a chore. It tells me that not only how much time I spend, but also when I spend that time significantly impacts my rate of advancement. Disclaimer: I haven't played Shadowlands at all.
  - AlexandrB 5y ago
    Yeah, this sounds very mobile-gamey. Systems like this tend to start feeling like a job you have to do when you're not in the mood to play them. My preferred casual style of binge-rest-binge would not not be well-served.
talexy 5y ago
I think after Mists of Pandaria I stopped playing wow as an MMO and just focused on doing single player stuff for the past many years. To me there is a significant difference in something requiring to farm an instance 50-100 over when you have time vs. doing it over 50-100 days because of daily lockouts. That is just not fun and and disrespectful to me as a player. I don't always have the same free time every day and when I do get a couple of hours I can't farm due to lockouts. Their WOW playerbase are getting older and if you don't treat them will respect even more will be lost. There are so many games out there right now, sure not of this genre, but they provide options for someone who wants to pick up gaming and not necessarily invest in WoW.
- bitexploder 5y ago
  I hate how many different grinds there are in this expansion for legendary weapons and such. Mythics are okay. WoW is just like my home away from home I go to explore lore and goof off for an hour or two a week. The lore and world is very rich. It’s fun to level and do stuff on occasion. It’s fun to collect specific armor and mounts at times. I just don’t enjoy all the grinds and kind of refuse to do them.
  - FreshFries 5y ago
    I find it equally demoralising but simply let some expert do these things for a couple of hours a week and find my characters all geared up and ready to go when I feel like playing. May I ask why you don't just simply let these brain dead grinds be done by someone else?
    - bitexploder 5y ago
      That is just a different type of game at that point. It is all relative and I don't play competitively. Virtually all of the content is accessible at some lower difficulty level, so it doesn't really matter what the stats are on my gear if I can do the content I want.
russh 5y ago
I went from hardcore-raider-lite to casual and then they gated my characters progress behind raid level dungeons I just lost interest.
Fomite 5y ago
This is sort of what lost me - and I've been playing WoW for a long time. It was clear if I wasn't running Mythics, Raiding or doing Competitive PvP, I'd be both hopelessly outclassed and not have much to do. I sort of idly tinker with the stories when I feel like it, but I'm drifting away.

by AmVess 5y ago

serverholic 5y ago

This is why "you can't improve what you don't measure" bothers me. It's rare that you can condense all useful information into a number and it encourages people to remove critical thinking from the equation. People come to rely on the number instead of thinking deeply about what they're doing.

oriel 5y ago
This is basically Goodhart's law (quote from Marilyn Strathern's generalization). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law > When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure

slaymaker1907 5y ago

Definitely agree and a lot of the popular WoW content creators (Bellular, T&E, etc.) seem to agree. They don't always mention casuals, but lack of progression is a major issue, particularly in Shadowlands. As a person spending too much time playing, you are basically forced to do non-LFR raiding, rated PvP, or mythic+ dungeons to actually progress your gear at all. Not to mention they seem to hate flying yet keep creating terrible zones unless you can fly. There aren't clear routes between common locations like roads in Skyrim. That can be ok, but in that case they really need to have a flatter level design like in Oblivion.

thaumasiotes 5y ago
> Not to mention they seem to hate flying yet keep creating terrible zones unless you can fly. Yes, this is just an ongoing disaster. My sense from their communications over the years is that, when players fly through zones, that hurts the feelings of the artists, which Blizzard doesn't like. > There aren't clear routes between common locations like roads in Skyrim. I actually really liked how roads were handled in original WoW. They twist and turn, and yet somehow they're always faster than going offroad. And they were reliably safe -- until in Duskwood there's a wolf right on the middle of the road, which added to the atmosphere for me. For the latest expansion, my main complaint is that they provide a bunch of cosmetic features, which they know are a draw -- but you can't use the cosmetics on your other characters. All shadowlands cosmetics are restricted to characters who belong to the particular faction. (Which is, overwhelmingly, just the specific character who unlocked it.) I characterized this once in guild chat as "welcome to Shadowlands! To enjoy this expansion's new content, please wait for the next expansion to release", and got many pained agreements. You can't use your mail-wearing toon to unlock plate cosmetics, either. You need to go through the entire rep grind, again, if you want two sets of cosmetics from the same vendor.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- TMWNN 5y ago
  >Yes, this is just an ongoing disaster. My sense from their communications over the years is that, when players fly through zones, that hurts the feelings of the artists, which Blizzard doesn't like. Flying should never have been allowed in WoW, period. Beyond the whole issue of players skipping content in zones artists spend months building, the mechanism severely distorts gameplay. A player being able to hover, descend to the ground, pick up an item, then immediately remount and rise back up—avoiding monsters—is ridiculous. If flying had to be introduced, it should at least have been done with some sort of meaningful takeoff/landing process.
  - FreshFries 5y ago
    Hi, yeah that would be me, the guy who "skipping content in zones artists spend months building" and you know why? I do not give a rat's ass about the "artists spend months building" anything, I just need to be there, pick something up or kill something and I am out. With all respect for those who enjoy the "zones artists spend months building", I am here (WoW) just to beat stuff up in a repetitive & predictable way. Until today, I have NO idea in what zone what dungeon is, or what the background of the story is of that particular monster that lives there. I have never seen a cinematic in full, turn off the sounds and run graphics at to the lowest level possible so I see stuff that is relevant (fire) and am not bothered with cosmetics (grass). And I have been p[l] aying this game (on and off) since over 10 years. It is just a nice time waster which allows for easy & cheap boosting so I can show up with the same gear as the addicts.

FalconSensei 5y ago

> Further, one of their most cherished metrics is how much time people spend doing a certain activity. Instead of making those activities more fun and rewarding, they made them take longer to complete and with fewer rewards. This is basically Goodhart's Law.

hhh 5y ago

I don't align with the top tier player opinion about WoW. I feel that this is who they have driven away from the game. I personally spent a large amount of time in that top-20 guild environment and have only progressively seen them care less about the edge case of boundary-pushers and more about the day to day player. The latest systems encourage time sinking less than they did in Legion, where there were infinite diminishing returns for playing, now there is just a full-stop end to your week. Legion was the most abusive expansion with regards to a player's time. The latest expansion fixed a lot of that for me and others, but it isn't enough to keep me sustained. WoW Classic actually kept me enthused and is extremely enjoyable, however if you were on a streamer server, there were artificial queues for ages and it was exhausting living around a queue when trying to be competitive at that top tier of play. If TBC fixes that (doesn't have the queues at release), I will be a lot happier with it.

bcrosby95 5y ago
> now there is just a full-stop end to your week. Note that I don't think this stuff is casual friendly. As a casual, my problem with the way Blizzard does these systems is you want to do something every day/week/etc. Quite frankly, it turns the game into a chore. It tells me that not only how much time I spend, but also when I spend that time significantly impacts my rate of advancement. Disclaimer: I haven't played Shadowlands at all.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  Yeah, this sounds very mobile-gamey. Systems like this tend to start feeling like a job you have to do when you're not in the mood to play them. My preferred casual style of binge-rest-binge would not not be well-served.

talexy 5y ago

I think after Mists of Pandaria I stopped playing wow as an MMO and just focused on doing single player stuff for the past many years. To me there is a significant difference in something requiring to farm an instance 50-100 over when you have time vs. doing it over 50-100 days because of daily lockouts. That is just not fun and and disrespectful to me as a player. I don't always have the same free time every day and when I do get a couple of hours I can't farm due to lockouts. Their WOW playerbase are getting older and if you don't treat them will respect even more will be lost. There are so many games out there right now, sure not of this genre, but they provide options for someone who wants to pick up gaming and not necessarily invest in WoW.

bitexploder 5y ago
I hate how many different grinds there are in this expansion for legendary weapons and such. Mythics are okay. WoW is just like my home away from home I go to explore lore and goof off for an hour or two a week. The lore and world is very rich. It’s fun to level and do stuff on occasion. It’s fun to collect specific armor and mounts at times. I just don’t enjoy all the grinds and kind of refuse to do them.
- FreshFries 5y ago
  I find it equally demoralising but simply let some expert do these things for a couple of hours a week and find my characters all geared up and ready to go when I feel like playing. May I ask why you don't just simply let these brain dead grinds be done by someone else?
  - bitexploder 5y ago
    That is just a different type of game at that point. It is all relative and I don't play competitively. Virtually all of the content is accessible at some lower difficulty level, so it doesn't really matter what the stats are on my gear if I can do the content I want.

russh 5y ago

I went from hardcore-raider-lite to casual and then they gated my characters progress behind raid level dungeons I just lost interest.

Fomite 5y ago

This is sort of what lost me - and I've been playing WoW for a long time. It was clear if I wasn't running Mythics, Raiding or doing Competitive PvP, I'd be both hopelessly outclassed and not have much to do. I sort of idly tinker with the stories when I feel like it, but I'm drifting away.