4 ms·

So this scratches a big topic of what's wrong with WoW. In short, WoW has transitioned to being run by people who don't play the game, don't understand people

by cletus 5y ago

So this scratches a big topic of what's wrong with WoW. In short, WoW has transitioned to being run by people who don't play the game, don't understand people who do play the game and are targeting the game at people who don't play the game at the expense of those that do. LFR undermines both the aspirational part of the game, which is extremely important, and the social aspect of building relationships, which is super-important and the real reason most people stick around. Now we have 4 raid levels (LFR, Normal, Heroic, Mythic), which is too many. The differences are largely cosmetic and minor ilvl bumps. There are some unique items in higher tiers, to be clear. Lastly, LFR is essentially an interactive cinematic. It's part of what I like to call "conveyor belt content". There's no choices to be made. The outcome is almost certain. You may as well be watching a cinematic. This probably goes well beyond LFR.

stormbeard 5y ago
You can just play classic and go back to the good old days.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  It isn't the good old days. Classic was "hard" because of organizational challenges, patience requirements, and most importantly lack of information. Access to information has completely changed the game, explaining why it took people virtually zero time to beat MC this time around. The classic of reading some sketchy material on forums to understand raid mechanics and raiding with keyboard turners is gone and can never be recreated.
vbezhenar 5y ago
> WoW has transitioned to being run by people who don't play the game Current game designer Ion Hazikostas is a hardcore raider, guild leader and completed every raid in game on the highest difficulty. I don't think it's fair to qualify him as not playing the game. Of course I have no idea about their internal chains, that's only a public high-ranked figure. I'm generally agree with your stance and I don't like many changes either. But I can accept that those changes actually were necessary for the game to survive, as current playerbase is completely different from those who played the game 10 years ago.
- cletus 5y ago
  Yeah and the raids are generally good but everything else is, well, trash. Coincidence? Also, Blizzard tends to over-focus on the behaviour of Mythic raiders who are like 1% of the population. And I don't mean they cater to their needs. I mean they burden everyone because of perceived "abuse" that would otherwise occur were something not in the game (eg conduit energy).
amyjess 5y ago
Final Fantasy XIV has been experiencing constant growth since Shadowbringers came out in 2019, and in the last few months has absolutely exploded and obliterated WoW's numbers even before the harassment allegations came to light, and yet XIV's instance system is thoroughly built around an LFR-esque system called Duty Finder. The original version of XIV wasn't like this at all, and that version was a massive flop, but then it was rebooted into its current incarnation by Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida, who has extensive experience playing MMOs for decades from Ultima Online to EverQuest to old-school WoW (I would recommend watching Noclip's documentary on XIV [1] [2] [3] for more on Yoshi-P's background and the decision to completely reboot the game). It's precisely because of his experience with the warts and frustration of old-school MMOs that XIV is so streamlined and committed to not wasting the player's time, and XIV is massively, head-over-heals successful for it. It turns out people really, really don't like forced socialization, and when an MMO comes along that does away with it, people flock to it in droves. The facts don't bear out your allegation that forced socialization is "the real reason most people stick around": XIV's runaway head-over-heels success is due to the fact that it so thoroughly eschews forced socialization that it's often described as a single-player JRPG punctuated by multi-player instances and a completely optional set of social side content. [1] part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs0yQKI7Yw4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs0yQKI7Yw4 [2] part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoOI5R-6u8k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoOI5R-6u8k [3] part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONT6fxiu9cw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONT6fxiu9cw
- serverholic 5y ago
  Yes thank you. All these people acting like guilds don’t still exist

by cletus 5y ago

stormbeard 5y ago

You can just play classic and go back to the good old days.

UncleMeat 5y ago
It isn't the good old days. Classic was "hard" because of organizational challenges, patience requirements, and most importantly lack of information. Access to information has completely changed the game, explaining why it took people virtually zero time to beat MC this time around. The classic of reading some sketchy material on forums to understand raid mechanics and raiding with keyboard turners is gone and can never be recreated.

vbezhenar 5y ago

> WoW has transitioned to being run by people who don't play the game Current game designer Ion Hazikostas is a hardcore raider, guild leader and completed every raid in game on the highest difficulty. I don't think it's fair to qualify him as not playing the game. Of course I have no idea about their internal chains, that's only a public high-ranked figure. I'm generally agree with your stance and I don't like many changes either. But I can accept that those changes actually were necessary for the game to survive, as current playerbase is completely different from those who played the game 10 years ago.

cletus 5y ago
Yeah and the raids are generally good but everything else is, well, trash. Coincidence? Also, Blizzard tends to over-focus on the behaviour of Mythic raiders who are like 1% of the population. And I don't mean they cater to their needs. I mean they burden everyone because of perceived "abuse" that would otherwise occur were something not in the game (eg conduit energy).

amyjess 5y ago

Final Fantasy XIV has been experiencing constant growth since Shadowbringers came out in 2019, and in the last few months has absolutely exploded and obliterated WoW's numbers even before the harassment allegations came to light, and yet XIV's instance system is thoroughly built around an LFR-esque system called Duty Finder. The original version of XIV wasn't like this at all, and that version was a massive flop, but then it was rebooted into its current incarnation by Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida, who has extensive experience playing MMOs for decades from Ultima Online to EverQuest to old-school WoW (I would recommend watching Noclip's documentary on XIV [1] [2] [3] for more on Yoshi-P's background and the decision to completely reboot the game). It's precisely because of his experience with the warts and frustration of old-school MMOs that XIV is so streamlined and committed to not wasting the player's time, and XIV is massively, head-over-heals successful for it. It turns out people really, really don't like forced socialization, and when an MMO comes along that does away with it, people flock to it in droves. The facts don't bear out your allegation that forced socialization is "the real reason most people stick around": XIV's runaway head-over-heels success is due to the fact that it so thoroughly eschews forced socialization that it's often described as a single-player JRPG punctuated by multi-player instances and a completely optional set of social side content. [1] part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs0yQKI7Yw4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs0yQKI7Yw4 [2] part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoOI5R-6u8k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoOI5R-6u8k [3] part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONT6fxiu9cw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONT6fxiu9cw

serverholic 5y ago
Yes thank you. All these people acting like guilds don’t still exist