Story lines like this are the only thing keeping me too. By the end of the month I need to decide between WoW and Eve. I have a feeling when 5.3 drops it won't be that hard to decide.
[PC Game] World of Warcraft: Catch All Thread
- Thread starter Gilgamesh
- Start date
Ouch. WoW lost 1.3 million subs last quarter, down to 8.3 mil. Most of the losses supposedly come from Asia, but that's still a big hit.
They do admit the casual players aren't as engaged this xpac. I have a feeling it has to with leveling alts through MoP, along with the sometimes confusing path with gearing up at 90.
They do admit the casual players aren't as engaged this xpac. I have a feeling it has to with leveling alts through MoP, along with the sometimes confusing path with gearing up at 90.
I am super happy with my Rogue's xmog, save for the boots. Stupid Bloodfang won't drop for me, but I finally snagged Perdition's Blade.
CynicismKills - Very nice work.
Female Orcs are just the best.
I wouldnt call myself a casual as I raided fairly regularily before Mists but I was not super hardcore either and I can attest to the leveling alts thing. Most MMOs I play I am an alt fiend and WoW was not the exception till MoP. I just hated releveling in some of those zones. There were a couple other things like those bonus coin roll tings from dailies with the daily cap being removed(Which means they balance the rep/reward pace around doing all the dailies each day instead of just 25.)
There was a large discussion on various sites about what caused the drop. Many "Anti-LFR" players are dead set on LFR and the "over-casualization" of the game being the cause. Frankly, now that we have two patches under our belt, I have deemed that on a progression level this is closer on par with BC with the least casual expansion to date. LFR allowing more casual players to raid does not make up for the fact that everything that needs to be done in the game takes a lot longer. Blizzard even admitted in the same conference call that it was casuals "not feeling engaged".
Leveling? Drags out a bit the second time around. No ability to get flying mounts earlier on your alts. Heirlooms get updated, but only to 85 and required a lot of JP. Overall the process of leveling takes much longer then even Cataclysm on a level by level basis, and feels ages longer then Wrath.
Dungeons? They kept the promise of making the heroics easier, but instead gutted the ability for them to give rewards. The main currency gained from dungeons is JP, which has been all but abandoned in favor of VP in all facets of the game. VP items will no longer be downgraded to JP as far as Blizzard is concerned, meaning JP has pretty much died as anything other then heirloom and transmog currency. No new dungeons further adds to the problem. Instead they add scenarios, which would be great is the rewards were not a 5% possible drop from a bag at the end. It needs a consistent reward system.
Raids? LFR does allow casuals to finally raid, but long queue times and the fact each hall, depending on wipes, can take 30 minutes to an hour makes it still a pretty large investment on the part of the casual player. Even then, you could go through the entire event and only get 120-240g. The worst part? LFR still, for whatever reason, has weekly boss lockouts. You need a specific item off a specific boss? Better get lucky because if you fail you either wait a week or hope you have enough coins (which are also gated weekly) to keep trying the bonus rolls. No more ability to take a open weekend and just run dungeons all afternoon till you get that item you wanted.
Dailies? Dailies have always been seen as something fun for casual players to do. However, they still follow the same rules as any other thing in WoW that a mostly casual player is looking for. They need to be quick and painless. Some reputations like Cloud Serpent, Anglers, or Tillers are perfect. They are varied, they change each day, they have a little bit of story. Others like Golden Lotus and Klaxxi can be just painful to do. They go on for a long while, can't be done all at once, and often times involve mobs that are beefed up to be more threatening. Quick and painless is the way to go, and always has been. This is one of the reasons everyone hated the jousting dailies back in Wrath.
All in all it comes down to one thing. MoP feels like it's trying so hard to come out with fast patches but on the other side of the scale is attempting to drag out as much of the game as possible. There are no easy "catch-up" mechanics as of 5.2 and that combined with all the other things means that with each patch we make it even harder for someone that started a little late to join the party in a time frame that works for him.
That, most of all, is one of the big reasons I think a lot of people left. My understanding is that a lot of people that play in China do such out of internet cafes. These are people that pay by the minute/hour and need to be able to progress quickly in that time frame. Blizzard spent a lot of time attempting to drag out what players could do as much as possible, removing some convenience to do such, and there will come a time the player just does not want to be dragged on anymore. Even the horse will someday get tired of the carrot if he can never get a nibble.
Leveling? Drags out a bit the second time around. No ability to get flying mounts earlier on your alts. Heirlooms get updated, but only to 85 and required a lot of JP. Overall the process of leveling takes much longer then even Cataclysm on a level by level basis, and feels ages longer then Wrath.
Dungeons? They kept the promise of making the heroics easier, but instead gutted the ability for them to give rewards. The main currency gained from dungeons is JP, which has been all but abandoned in favor of VP in all facets of the game. VP items will no longer be downgraded to JP as far as Blizzard is concerned, meaning JP has pretty much died as anything other then heirloom and transmog currency. No new dungeons further adds to the problem. Instead they add scenarios, which would be great is the rewards were not a 5% possible drop from a bag at the end. It needs a consistent reward system.
Raids? LFR does allow casuals to finally raid, but long queue times and the fact each hall, depending on wipes, can take 30 minutes to an hour makes it still a pretty large investment on the part of the casual player. Even then, you could go through the entire event and only get 120-240g. The worst part? LFR still, for whatever reason, has weekly boss lockouts. You need a specific item off a specific boss? Better get lucky because if you fail you either wait a week or hope you have enough coins (which are also gated weekly) to keep trying the bonus rolls. No more ability to take a open weekend and just run dungeons all afternoon till you get that item you wanted.
Dailies? Dailies have always been seen as something fun for casual players to do. However, they still follow the same rules as any other thing in WoW that a mostly casual player is looking for. They need to be quick and painless. Some reputations like Cloud Serpent, Anglers, or Tillers are perfect. They are varied, they change each day, they have a little bit of story. Others like Golden Lotus and Klaxxi can be just painful to do. They go on for a long while, can't be done all at once, and often times involve mobs that are beefed up to be more threatening. Quick and painless is the way to go, and always has been. This is one of the reasons everyone hated the jousting dailies back in Wrath.
All in all it comes down to one thing. MoP feels like it's trying so hard to come out with fast patches but on the other side of the scale is attempting to drag out as much of the game as possible. There are no easy "catch-up" mechanics as of 5.2 and that combined with all the other things means that with each patch we make it even harder for someone that started a little late to join the party in a time frame that works for him.
That, most of all, is one of the big reasons I think a lot of people left. My understanding is that a lot of people that play in China do such out of internet cafes. These are people that pay by the minute/hour and need to be able to progress quickly in that time frame. Blizzard spent a lot of time attempting to drag out what players could do as much as possible, removing some convenience to do such, and there will come a time the player just does not want to be dragged on anymore. Even the horse will someday get tired of the carrot if he can never get a nibble.
All character services (transfers, race/faction change, etc) are 50% off this week.
The new unannounced feature for 5.4 was just... well... announced.
Flexible Raids
Here is a breakdown for what it does.
I have mixed feelings. I like the idea of it, though I think we are getting really bloated with raid formats. I think it would have been better to just take this system and attach it to Normal raids. I am also not sure how this will be balanced when it comes to the tank/healer/damage dynamic. Will bosses require two tanks? What if one of the tanks leaves? What if one of the healers leave? What if we add six more DPS friends and now we the bosses scaled so high we need to bring in a random healer just to keep going? Will groups literally drop others just to scale down the raid enough to compete? These can all be huge issues with this type of system. The fact is uses the LFR loot system is also a kick in the pants, because it's just more RNG.
The only way I see them possibly getting around this problem is if they...
A) Remove the need for two tanks. You can bring other tanks if you want but stop adding so many tank swap mechanics.
B) Run with that idea they had a month ago in which AOE raid damage (AKA, don't stand in the fire) does not do insane damage but instead debuffs the DPS. This was an idea they said they would likely try to take some pressure off the healers and instead make it so it's in the DPS best interest not to keep standing in the fire.
If they do those two changes I might see this system working with limited pain. Though, it will still have it's release problems I am sure.
Flexible Raids
Here is a breakdown for what it does.
The purpose of the new raid system seems to be a step to once again promote more social raiding. For instance a guild may already have ten people set for a raid night, but after they are done they can go into the Flexible Raid with the 3 guys that were left out and still have fun/get loot. If one of those guys happens to have to leave for whatever reason the raid will scale down so the remaining players can finish.
I have mixed feelings. I like the idea of it, though I think we are getting really bloated with raid formats. I think it would have been better to just take this system and attach it to Normal raids. I am also not sure how this will be balanced when it comes to the tank/healer/damage dynamic. Will bosses require two tanks? What if one of the tanks leaves? What if one of the healers leave? What if we add six more DPS friends and now we the bosses scaled so high we need to bring in a random healer just to keep going? Will groups literally drop others just to scale down the raid enough to compete? These can all be huge issues with this type of system. The fact is uses the LFR loot system is also a kick in the pants, because it's just more RNG.
The only way I see them possibly getting around this problem is if they...
A) Remove the need for two tanks. You can bring other tanks if you want but stop adding so many tank swap mechanics.
B) Run with that idea they had a month ago in which AOE raid damage (AKA, don't stand in the fire) does not do insane damage but instead debuffs the DPS. This was an idea they said they would likely try to take some pressure off the healers and instead make it so it's in the DPS best interest not to keep standing in the fire.
If they do those two changes I might see this system working with limited pain. Though, it will still have it's release problems I am sure.
Hardly pointless, people have been asking for something between LFR and Normal for a while now, and have harkened back to the good old days of Wrath raiding for years now (where there were actually 4 separate difficulties).
If anything gets merged down the line, I could see normal raiding be flexed.
If anything gets merged down the line, I could see normal raiding be flexed.
People have also been asking for Vanilla servers for a while now, doesn't make it a good idea. There's 10man normal raiding, that's all you need if you want decent difficulty social guild raiding. Wrath raiding was horrible, there's a reason they got rid of it, it was universally hated.
What? Most people prefer Wrath raiding to anything else, save for late BC. The only universally panned raid was ToC. Ulduar is probably one of the most popular raids Blizz has ever done.
I really don't mind the idea of it, but they needed to just apply it to Normal raids and kept Heroic as the "locked number" raid. There is no real reason to add a forth.
Like I said earlier, I imagine they will do this eventually, but they want to test the waters for it without forcing the existing normal raiders to use it. Work out the kinks for a patch or two, and then implement it as the new normal.
Hopefully you are right.
Personally, I also hope they adjust the minimum amount of people that can enter to 5. Pretty much all of MoP they have been ignoring five man dungeons in favor of raids and scenarios, which are just not the same. I think lowering it so that Flexible Raids can be treated like advanced five mans to a small group of friends would be the most ideal.
I don't know, I'd rather have regular 5 mans. It would be nice, but I don't want them to think they can ignore regular dungeons by saying 5 man raids are a good replacement. I'm not a fan of the long boss fights in raids. They just don't hold my attention.
I would prefer that too, but Blizzard seems to have abandoned the idea of five mans for the most part. They think they get more out of raid and scenario investment, because scenarios fit the "quick niche" for the casual players while raids "last longer" for everyone. They use the excuse that they can either make a nice long, interesting raid, or a quick one (like Demon Soul) with some five mans, and that right now they are more interested in making the raids.
I am sure LFR and now Flexible Raids make the problem even worst, since now they have even more tuning they have to do each raid. I just don't see them going back to the older model. With rumors hitting that they won't even have new Valor Gear for 5.4, I am just wondering who the hell is in charge over there and what giant hash he has been smoking.
Sounds like this isn't the unannounced feature after all. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9245735089?page=2#35
GC says he regrets even hinting that they had a huge unannounced feature because he says the patch actually has a lot of features that are really cool. He followed up saying, basically, that whatever feature you end up liking is the "unannounced one". What Nethaera is saying is basically just playing off that, by once again saying 5.4 will have a lot of new features and that Flexible Raids is not THE one feature.
However, it's still likely that when all the hype for the "unannounced feature" started, he was talking about Flexible Raids.
However, it's still likely that when all the hype for the "unannounced feature" started, he was talking about Flexible Raids.
I've been too busy leveling other toons to spend time in Pandaria. I just saw the Big Blossom Excavation. It's just... offensive to me. Maybe it's because mountaintop removal is a big deal where I live. It's as if Dubya had sent Don Blankenship (evil coal guy if you don't know who he is) to go dig up Medina.
Maybe, but he hinted that it had to do with old content. Unless he considers previous MoP patches old content, this doesn't really fit.
It would if they applied the "Flexible Raid" setting to old raids. Remember, this is a scaling system they are trying out, so we may see it appear in old MoP raids and even older classic raids.
I suppose we'll find out for sure when the PTR hits. It seems like the hard way to do it for old raids. You'd think it would be easier to just scale back the players like they do for challenge modes and BG's now. For this to work they'd have to go back and rework all the old raids. This would allow you to bring just 10 players to old 25 and 40 man raids though.
And raiding now is more like Ulduar than any raid system since. The entire Wrath raiding system until Ulduar was complained on constantly and they've gotten better since, but that's only 2 raids out of their 5 in Wrath. Cata was lackluster but raiding in Mists has been top notch. Until this announcement.
You're one of the first people I've read say that. Of the couple of people I still know that play, they loathe the LFR, which is all they can access now thanks to the utter decimation of their server populace.
The raids themselves have been pretty good. LFR sucks for the same reason every random group sucks. No one cares about the person next to them.
Server population is really killing the game, which is why they need to push out cross realm AH's and cross realm guilds. We're stuck with CRZ, might as well implement it in useful ways instead of the most annoying.
Most people haven't been playing as long as I have. Also in my personal experience, most people I know are thankful for LFR and prefer it over Normal/Heroic raiding.
What's not true? I said most people, not your group.
This I could agree with. If you're gonna fuck the low servers with CRZ, might as well let them get SOME benefit from it.