LFG Tool is NOT Needed

[SlickDevlan]

This happens with or without a LFD tool. Maybe you weren't around in classic WoW when dungeons were repeatedly nerfed so that more people could complete them (there was no LFD tool then). And the content is generally not nerfed just so people can sleepwalk through them. Overtuned abilities get fixed so they aren't so punishing for people wishing to run in pugs.

 

BS. Explain why each time a new raid tier is released Blizz took the old out back and shot it... Because they wanted to make it so that any special folk that wanted to could pretend that they were raiders too...

 

In vanilla, I know that there were several bug fixes in the dungeons but the only sweeping changes that were made because running the level 60 instances in a 5 man just wasn't worth it when you could 10 or 15 man them. So Blizz changed those instances, but they were far from easy...until near the end of vanilla when they were nerfed again.

 

In TBC, heck even today, people whine about HSH or HMech as being too hard. Some heroics were tougher than others, and were borderline easy...but some were very hard and stayed that way...HMagisters Terrace...

 

Then comes WotLK where any group could pull any mob and do almost anything and they would be fine. No CC, no focus, no target burn, no threat to worry about...nothing. Just have the tank grab 902382890328937 mobs and spam your AoE. Loot boss, rinse and repeat.

 

Then we get Cata. Hard! Reminds me of TBC heroics. And people start whining and whining and whining..and then everything gets nerfed. Huh...

Blizz even states that it was too hard, Mike Morhaime: "Well I think that with Cataclysm, we did make the endgame a little bit too difficult, and so in some of the recent patching we've been easing up on the difficulty."

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-10-26-blizzards-mike-morhaime-interviewed-interview

[NoiseTankXIII]

Good lord. I try to leave, come back to check to see where the thread went, and you keep spewing the same lies.

 

From the WoW forums in January (Nearly 3 months after Cata Launched):

 

 

 

-Bolded for my emphisis

 

Entire thread here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1827524366

 

Apparently, these people laughed at the notion as well, and realized there were other reason's content became easier, like, you know, gear aquisition, coordination, and a basic understanding.

 

But I'm sure it was all caused by the LFG feature.

 

 

Well done sir.

 

I wonder when the heroic flashpoints are 'dumbed' down here if that troll is going to leave.

[Halbe]

BS. Explain why each time a new raid tier is released Blizz took the old out back and shot it... Because they wanted to make it so that any special folk that wanted to could pretend that they were raiders too...

 

In vanilla, I know that there were several bug fixes in the dungeons but the only sweeping changes that were made because running the level 60 instances in a 5 man just wasn't worth it when you could 10 or 15 man them. So Blizz changed those instances, but they were far from easy...until near the end of vanilla when they were nerfed again.

 

In TBC, heck even today, people whine about HSH or HMech as being too hard. Some heroics were tougher than others, and were borderline easy...but some were very hard and stayed that way...HMagisters Terrace...

 

Then comes WotLK where any group could pull any mob and do almost anything and they would be fine. No CC, no focus, no target burn, no threat to worry about...nothing. Just have the tank grab 902382890328937 mobs and spam your AoE. Loot boss, rinse and repeat.

 

Then we get Cata. Hard! Reminds me of TBC heroics. And people start whining and whining and whining..and then everything gets nerfed. Huh...

Blizz even states that it was too hard, Mike Morhaime: "Well I think that with Cataclysm, we did make the endgame a little bit too difficult, and so in some of the recent patching we've been easing up on the difficulty."

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-10-26-blizzards-mike-morhaime-interviewed-interview

 

Context, it's a wonderful thing.

 

Did you look at the patch notes that he was referencing? Did they have anything to do with the Heroics that were used before the LFR finder? Or, perhaps, just perhaps, was he referencing, I don't know, this:

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3494581

 

With the final showdown against Deathwing approaching, we’ve been keeping a close eye on players' progress through the current Firelands raid content. Before patch 4.3 is released, we want groups who are working on Heroic-difficulty content to be able to get as close to Ragnaros as possible, and we want players who are tackling normal progression to be able to experience as many of the encounters as they can. To achieve these goals, we’ll be toning down the difficulty of both normal and Heroic raids through hotfixes in the coming weeks. In general, we plan to reduce health and damage of all raid bosses in both normal and Heroic Firelands by around the same percentage we brought difficulty down for the original Cataclysm raids when Rage of the Firelands (patch 4.2) was released.

 

We're looking forward to seeing more groups of players face off against the firelord in the weeks ahead. However, before we make these changes, we want to give everyone a final shot at the bosses at their current difficulty level -- so this is a heads up that we’re planning to apply the difficulty hotfixes beginning the week of September 19.

 

Stay tuned to the Patch 4.2 Hotfixes blog for these and other live updates to the game as they happen.

 

Or maybe, this?

 

http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/05/24/patch-4-2-normal-mode-tier-11-encounters-nerfed/

 

With the upcoming content patch, 10- and 25-person Normal mode raid encounters will be receiving a comprehensive set of tuning adjustments to decrease their difficulty.

 

These changes will allow players, groups, and guilds who have yet to experience the content in Blackwing Descent, Bastion of Twilight, and Throne of the the Four Winds an opportunity to do so.

 

With the addition of a new tier of armor and weapons, we want to make the previous tier more accessible in ways other than just a shift of currency type, so we are making item level 359 gear purchasable for Justice points in the upcoming content patch.

 

 

Search the WoW forums. Most are in agreement that the "End Game" he was speaking of was in regards to Raiding and being able to see each tiers content.

 

It's called "Good Business". Going to release a new tier of content? Then open up the previous tier to more players.

 

Most players can't get to that tier? Than after 6 months (Edit: 4 months when a working version was added. Want to keep my facts straight so there is some actual truth in this thread), add "Luck of the Draw" as a buff to help players gear up to get to that content. Keep the wheel turning, or you end up with no players at all.

 

Why? Because YOU CAN'T SELL NEW CONTENT IF PLAYERS HAVEN'T SEEN THE OLD CONTENT.

 

Funny, the patches in question reference content not provided to the LFG finder. I'm sure you'll find a few nerfs to heroics in there. I know I would after a year or two if I was blizzard after all the apparent "good players" have moved on, but the major content in the patches his interview apparently references deal with Raiding.

 

But again, let's blame it.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Halbe

[Buur]

BS. Explain why each time a new raid tier is released Blizz took the old out back and shot it... Because they wanted to make it so that any special folk that wanted to could pretend that they were raiders too...

 

 

So you are mad that you don't get to feel special by running raid content? Awww.. that is cute.

[Halbe]

So you are mad that you don't get to feel special by running raid content? Awww.. that is cute.

 

And even more amazing? That it has nothing, not one thing, to do with a LFG function. Considering until recently you couldn't LF-Raid.

 

But, again, let's just blame it. It's much easier than thinking.

[Taroen]

Good lord. I try to leave, come back to check to see where the thread went, and you keep spewing the same lies.

 

From the WoW forums in January (Nearly 3 months after Cata Launched):

 

 

 

-Bolded for my emphisis

 

Entire thread here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1827524366

 

Apparently, these people laughed at the notion as well, and realized there were other reason's content became easier, like, you know, gear aquisition, coordination, and a basic understanding.

 

But I'm sure it was all caused by the LFG feature.

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... Wow...

 

I didn't buy that line of crap then, and I sure as hell don't buy it now. Blizzard was trying to straddle the fence. They knew that a lot of people were happy that some of the content was harder, but they nerfed the hell out of it anyway just to appease the whiners. Then they did their standard double-take and claimed that the instances weren't really any easier.

 

And you bought it...?

 

LOL

[GarbonzotheDude]

It is needed. What little they have in place is beyond weak and no one uses it.

 

Just because you aren't having problem finding groups doesn't mean no one else is.

 

*** is the big deal with having one anyways? How on earth does lfg mechanics effect your gameplay at all. Let those having problems finding groups have the tools in place to assist them.

 

Stop being so selfish and self centered.

Edited January 11, 2012 by GarbonzotheDude

[Taroen]

This happens with or without a LFD tool. Maybe you weren't around in classic WoW when dungeons were repeatedly nerfed so that more people could complete them (there was no LFD tool then). And the content is generally not nerfed just so people can sleepwalk through them. Overtuned abilities get fixed so they aren't so punishing for people wishing to run in pugs.

 

EXACTLY.

 

It almost always happens with older content, though. Not the stuff fresh out of the gate. And heroics were put into the game SPECIFICALLY to be more challenging than what the average pug should be able to handle. WoTLK ended all of that. Pugs in greens wanted to faceroll heroics. What is so heroic about that..?

 

Then when they tried to introduce some more challenge into Cata heroics, the instant gratification crowd went berserk. They wanted their freebie drops!

[Kurnea]

BS. Explain why each time a new raid tier is released Blizz took the old out back and shot it... Because they wanted to make it so that any special folk that wanted to could pretend that they were raiders too...

 

Any number of posts on the General forums for WoW have covered this, but for quite some time it's been policy to allow any and all players to 'catch-up' to the current content even if they didn't complete the tier before. For anyone that played in Vanilla or BC, the reasoning was obvious: Huge gear gaps between different tiers made recruiting for the higher tiers very difficult.

 

Say you're doing tier 3, and most of the population is still on tier one. Meanwhile your main tank has decided to quit to spend more time with his family, and some of your healers have decided to leave as well. How do you replace them? You can try recruiting someone already geared and ready to go, but likely as not that means poaching from another guild. You can try taking some people from the lower tiers and running them through tier 2 to gear them up for tier 3, but this will take weeks, if not months, and running people through content is more or less a chore for both parties. Thus, come Wrath Blizz made it so each new tier gave players a way to gear up for the new raids without being forced to do the previous ones.

[Buur]

EXACTLY.

 

It almost always happens with older content, though. Not the stuff fresh out of the gate. And heroics were put into the game SPECIFICALLY to be more challenging than what the average pug should be able to handle. WoTLK ended all of that. Pugs in greens wanted to faceroll heroics. What is so heroic about that..?

 

Then when they tried to introduce some more challenge into Cata heroics, the instant gratification crowd went berserk. They wanted their freebie drops!

 

I just don't think you are going to be happy unless all dungeons are completely inaccessible for pugs. It is what it is. We disagree.

[Taroen]

I just don't think you are going to be happy unless all dungeons are completely inaccessible for pugs. It is what it is. We disagree.

 

Not all. Hardmodes.

 

I just don't think that you should be able to drop in with random groups in crappy gear and faceroll through it. I have a lot of toons I want to play in those things, and I would like it to not being boring as all hell just because some people think the end boss should be a loot pinata.

[grandfy_aerial]

it IS needed. just put it in, nay sayers stay away from it, and the one who supports it use it. SIMPLE AS THAT. sheez

[savagepotato]

EXACTLY.

 

It almost always happens with older content, though. Not the stuff fresh out of the gate. And heroics were put into the game SPECIFICALLY to be more challenging than what the average pug should be able to handle. WoTLK ended all of that. Pugs in greens wanted to faceroll heroics. What is so heroic about that..?

 

Then when they tried to introduce some more challenge into Cata heroics, the instant gratification crowd went berserk. They wanted their freebie drops!

 

A bit about cataclysm.

 

I first played WOTLK when it came out, was in a small (really badly led) raiding guild which was working on Naxxramas at the time, after about three months, I really just lost interest and left. About the time the dungeon finder came out I went back to try it again since the LFD tool was getting a lot of press and being called great. So I went and tried it.

 

It was certainly convenient, was not cross realm yet at the time, I don't think, and I met a local family guild that was into heroics which I joined, all really nice, awesome people who I liked. However I ended up getting bored again and leaving.

 

Roll forward to Cataclysm I joined up again, new content, exciting. And I was still in the same guild surprisingly enough they didn't even remove me after all that time. I did my first heroic lfd pug and went in expecting the WOTLK faceroll and got slapped right the hell down. I had become complacent. I persisted, geared up my tank (yes I pugged a tank to raid readyness in the LFD tool in un-nerfed cata heroics, it was certainly an interesting experience...)

 

All this time I noticed the guild was not doing heroics at all like they used to, which was primarily why I was pugging it. And when they did do heroics it was a disaster. I was doing better in pugs. Then we did our first 10 man raid just to check it out and I understood why. The guild leader, a hunter, was asked to CC a mob and she didn't know what CC was. The whole guild had only ever played WOTLK and had been trained from scratch on faceroll heroics, they didn't know anything else. It wasn't their fault. Blizzard had trained them that way with the dumbed down game.

 

And so I became frustrated. I was faced with either moving to a raid guild that could do the raid content and leaving these ultimately great people who had no hope of ever raiding any time soon behind or just quitting. I opted to just quit because I didn't want to deal with abandoning them for someone else just to enjoy the game. Yes I realize the irony of leaving the game to avoid leaving. But I simply wussed out at telling them I was leaving for another guild and opted to just walk away.

 

What I came away from in this was, it was blizzards fault for training this massive userbase to play at a pathetic level, they knew nothing else, and then trying to turn up the difficulty to appease people who wanted a challenge again. And I learned after the fact that they just nerfed it right down to pathetic levels again anyway.

 

THIS is why i don't want TOR to ever go that route. I want dungeon content to be challenging and stay challenging, with a consistent difficulty curve to get people progressing through it to get to more challenging content.

 

The LFD tool used as it has been in world of warcraft undermines that and turns dungeons into a 15 minute abomination that is nothing but a loot grab.

 

Like someone quoted earlier. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Edited January 11, 2012 by savagepotato

[LordAposno]

You open with your own speculation and then accuse me of it..?

 

Show me how most groups are random. Haven't you been listening..? Those people spamming in general are having trouble getting groups. That's why they're here crying on the forums. They just can't seem to understand that there are other ways to form groups, and that it's actually pretty easy if you put even just a little effort into it.

 

copy/pasting /1 LFG DIRECTIVE 7 *yawn* over and over is NOT effort.

 

It's laziness, and it doesn't surprise me that no one really wants to group with those people.

 

 

Yes they are having problems getting into RANDOM groups. As I stated. They are not crying they are providing feedback to hopefully lead to a better method to find groups. Spamming chat is not an effort I agree 100%. But it is an incredible waste of time. It has nothing to do with being lazy, has to do with a more efficient use of limited play time. People lead busy lives and might only have 2 hours to play. Most of that time should not be spent on a space station spamming chat channels or sending tells to people begging for a group. Your "online" friend cant be on 24/7, your guild is not available 24/7. Friends do not stay at your level waiting for you, everyone plays at their own pace. A tool is needed in order to have a more efficient and satisfying play session.

[Buur]

A bit about cataclysm.

 

I first played WOTLK when it came out, was in a small (really badly led) raiding guild which was working on Naxxramas at the time, after about three months, I really just lost interest and left. About the time the dungeon finder came out I went back to try it again since the LFD tool was getting a lot of press and being called great. So I went and tried it.

 

It was certainly convenient, was not cross realm yet at the time, I don't think, and I met a local family guild that was into heroics which I joined, all really nice, awesome people who I liked. However I ended up getting bored again and leaving.

 

Roll forward to Cataclysm I joined up again, new content, exciting. And I was still in the same guild surprisingly enough they didn't even remove me after all that time. I did my first heroic lfd pug and went in expecting the WOTLK faceroll and got slapped right the hell down. I had become complacent. I persisted, geared up my tank (yes I pugged a tank to raid readyness in the LFD tool in un-nerfed cata heroics, it was certainly an interesting experience...)

 

All this time I noticed the guild was not doing heroics at all like they used to, which was primarily why I was pugging it. And when they did do heroics it was a disaster. I was doing better in pugs. Then we did our first 10 man raid and I understood why. The guild leader, a hunter, was asked to CC a mob and she didn't know what CC was. The whole guild had only ever played WOTLK and had been trained from scratch on faceroll heroics, they didn't know anything else. It wasn't their fault. Blizzard had trained them that way with the dumbed down game.

 

And so I became frustrated. I was faced with either moving to a raid guild that could do the raid content and leaving these ultimately great people who had no hope of ever raiding any time soon behind or just quitting. I opted to just quit because I didn't want to deal with abandoning them for someone else just to enjoy the game. Yes I realize the irony of leaving the game to avoid leaving. But I simply wussed out at telling them I was leaving for another guild and opted to just walk away.

 

What I came away from in this was, it was blizzards fault for training this massive userbase to play at a pathetic level, they knew nothing else, and then trying to turn up the difficulty to appease people who wanted a challenge again. And I learned after the fact that they just nerfed it right down to pathetic levels again anyway.

 

THIS is why i don't want TOR to ever go that route. I want dungeon content to be challenging and stay challenging, with a consistent difficulty curve to get people progressing through it to get to more challenging content.

 

The LFD tool used as it has been in world of warcraft undermines that and turns dungeons into a 15 minute abomination that is nothing but a loot grab.

 

Like someone quoted earlier. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

 

Nothing you talked about had anything to do with LFD and everything to do with poorly tuned dungeons.

[savagepotato]

Nothing you talked about had anything to do with LFD and everything to do with poorly tuned dungeons.

 

What I talked about was a direct reply to that person on Cataclysm.

 

I did however also play vanilla WoW, TBC wow, WOTLK wow, and CATA wow.

 

I know what the dungeons were, and I know exactly what they became after the LFD tool took over.

 

The situation with CATA is a very relevant example of it. They tried to bring back compellingly challenging dungeons. And you know what they did. But the population wasn't having it. And the lowest common denominator won out. That's all that will ever happen with an LFD tool.

 

Bring in that style of play here, it WILL happen here.

 

Dungeons were an epic event in vanilla WoW, as they should be. I can still remember being a total newb and trying to overcome blackrock depths, it was awesome. I'm sorry but you shouldn't be able to insta port into them and blast them in 15 minutes "'cuz you got thingz to do and real life and stuff". It degrades the game. And it's inevitable when you trivialize dungeon content.

Edited January 11, 2012 by savagepotato

[Taroen]

Nothing you talked about had anything to do with LFD and everything to do with poorly tuned dungeons.

 

And you're going to hear what you want to hear, even if it slaps you in the face.

 

When your main tool for instances throws together a random group of people who don't know how to work with each other, all of the content has to be tuned to that. All of it becomes faceroll.

 

It has EVERYTHING to do with the tool.

[Buur]

What I talked about was a direct reply to that person on Cataclysm.

 

I did however also play vanilla WoW, TBC wow, WOTLK wow, and CATA wow.

 

I know what the dungeons were, and I know exactly what they became after the LFD tool took over.

 

The situation with CATA is a very relevant example of it. They tried to bring back compellingly challenging dungeons. And you know what they did. But the population wasn't having it. And the lowest common denominator won out. That's all that will ever happen with an LFD tool.

 

Bring in that style of play here, it WILL happen here.

 

Dungeons were an epic event in vanilla WoW, as they should be. I can still remember being a total newb and trying to overcome blackrock depths, it was awesome. I'm sorry but you shouldn't be able to insta port into them and blast them in 15 minutes "'cuz you got thingz to do and real life and stuff". It degrades the game. And it's inevitable when you trivialize dungeon content.

 

I think you slightly misremember. All dungeons are epic the first time then after that it is "Ok been here before... "

 

I'm sorry but you shouldn't have to be in a guild and in vent to complete a dungeon. Raiding, yes. Dungeons should be doable by anyone who wants to participate.

[LordAposno]

LOL I don't hate WoW. Why would I play a game for almost 7 years if I hated it..?

 

Without WoW's success in the genre, this game wouldn't have been possible.

 

Name one change they made to make things tougher. Certainly none of the 5 mans are. They're ridiculously easy. And yes... They're easier than this in a lot of spots. "Diverse" would be subjective. That's your opinion and I won't argue it.

 

But if you like that game so much still, go back and play it instead of trying to turn this game into it. WoW is in a steady decline now, and I'm betting the ratio of decline is directly tied to the amount of catering they're doing to casuals. Casuals come and go... They're not the gamers that are the most likely to devote 7 years to one game. They'll get distracted by some shiny that some other game company waves at them. Granted, they make up the biggest part of the population, but it isn't a steady part of it. There's going to be a lot of turnover. And those crazy people that play the same game for 7 years.... What are you going to do when you alienate them? They only got the casuals in the first place because the hardcore people were so frantic about the game that the casuals had to check it out. Without the hardcore interest in it, it probably would never have made a blip on the casual radar.

 

So, great. Tell me what is so hard in WoW, other than the highest tier of raids..? Tons of hardcore raiders have defected already. What's going to keep them around...?

 

PANDAS...?!?!??

 

 

 

You are completely wrong in this. Casuals do not come and go, they do not get distracted by the new shiny. What you are incorrectly describing are hardcore players. They burn through the content, then whine and cry how there is no new content. Wow made it easier for everyone to access that content. In several interviews and statements Blizzard stated that only 1%, yes 1% of the player base had seen dungeons and raid content. 1%. That's it. Thats the real reason they made the content more available to a broader customer base. Casuals are the back bones of an MMO. Casuals pay month to month slowly getting through the content. They stay and provide a longevity to the game. Were as the truly hardcore leave as soon as the new "epix purple loot" game appears.

 

Also the rate of decline has nothing to do with catering to casuals. It has to do with once again the hardcore burning through the new content. Again in several interviews Blizzard has stated that they had players burning through content faster than in any other expansion. They were at 12 million players now they are down to 10. Do the math this is due to the hardcore minority burning through the content and jumping ship to the new shiny. The majority of the player base is still there. Still playing what you call dumb downed for casuals content. The loss is minimal compared to the player retention. Which of coarse are the casuals. Casuals are your backbone and bank in an mmo.

[savagepotato]

I think you slightly misremember. All dungeons are epic the first time then after that it is "Ok been here before... "

 

I'm sorry but you shouldn't have to be in a guild and in vent to complete a dungeon. Raiding, yes. Dungeons should be doable by anyone who wants to participate.

 

They shouldn't however be tuned to the lowest common denominator.

 

Using the same formula as wow guarantees that they will be. I'll never support that. A better looking for group functionality? yes, I can support that, but not a tool like what wow uses.

[Vidrak]

WoW community was dead BEFORE lfg tool- lfg tool had nothing to do with it- your view is skewered!

 

lfg is NEEDED in this game due to heavy instancing of EVERYTHING

It is definitely not needed. It is wanted by lazy people that can't find groups. I have not had a problem finding groups for anything unless it was during off peak hours.

 

Saying it is needed is a huge exaggeration. I honestly don't really care either way. I won't be playing the game a month from now anyways. It happened too fast and it was too easy. There are much larger issues with the game than no LFG/LFD tool.

[LordAposno]

Instead of just spamming LFG over and over, you could try actually talking to people.

 

So spam people instead? That's an even bigger waste of time. A LFG tool lets people who want to group up actually group up. It's efficient and gives a player the opportunity to quest and explore instead of spamming and begging people in chat or tells to join a group.

[SlickDevlan]

You are completely wrong in this. Casuals do not come and go, they do not get distracted by the new shiny. What you are incorrectly describing are hardcore players. They burn through the content, then whine and cry how there is no new content. Wow made it easier for everyone to access that content. In several interviews and statements Blizzard stated that only 1%, yes 1% of the player base had seen dungeons and raid content. 1%. That's it. Thats the real reason they made the content more available to a broader customer base. Casuals are the back bones of an MMO. Casuals pay month to month slowly getting through the content. They stay and provide a longevity to the game. Were as the truly hardcore leave as soon as the new "epix purple loot" game appears.

 

Also the rate of decline has nothing to do with catering to casuals. It has to do with once again the hardcore burning through the new content. Again in several interviews Blizzard has stated that they had players burning through content faster than in any other expansion. They were at 12 million players now they are down to 10. Do the math this is due to the hardcore minority burning through the content and jumping ship to the new shiny. The majority of the player base is still there. Still playing what you call dumb downed for casuals content. The loss is minimal compared to the player retention. Which of coarse are the casuals. Casuals are your backbone and bank in an mmo.

 

First off, your math is terrible. 2 million out of 12 is 17%, not 1%. Second, speaking as a "casual" player, the "dumbing down" of content to make it more accessible is PRECISELY why I left WoW. Just because you can't play often or raid consistently is no reason to make it so easy that anyone with a heartbeat and an active subscription can blow through it.

 

And people seem to think that every product is targeted at everyone all the time when that is simply not the case. If your target market is the more "hardcore" players then you really don't give a flying crap what the "casuals" think. What WoW did is slowly change their game's target audience from the more hardcore to the more casual. Strangely, when the game was "hardcore", they still managed to have 10 million subs. Now that they have changed, they have fallen back to 10 and are still falling.

 

You make things too easy and people get bored. You yourself stated that content was exhausted faster than ever but you never stopped to think why. Its because its easier. This, sadly, didn't just apply to content. EVERYTHING in WoW has been repeatedly "dumbed down". Talents, travel, grouping, specs, mat gathering, crafting, pvp...everything. And because of that even the casuals are seeing their "ohh shiny" dull faster than ever.

Edited January 11, 2012 by SlickDevlan

[Taroen]

You are completely wrong in this. Casuals do not come and go, they do not get distracted by the new shiny. What you are incorrectly describing are hardcore players. They burn through the content, then whine and cry how there is no new content. Wow made it easier for everyone to access that content. In several interviews and statements Blizzard stated that only 1%, yes 1% of the player base had seen dungeons and raid content. 1%. That's it. Thats the real reason they made the content more available to a broader customer base. Casuals are the back bones of an MMO. Casuals pay month to month slowly getting through the content. They stay and provide a longevity to the game. Were as the truly hardcore leave as soon as the new "epix purple loot" game appears.

 

Also the rate of decline has nothing to do with catering to casuals. It has to do with once again the hardcore burning through the new content. Again in several interviews Blizzard has stated that they had players burning through content faster than in any other expansion. They were at 12 million players now they are down to 10. Do the math this is due to the hardcore minority burning through the content and jumping ship to the new shiny. The majority of the player base is still there. Still playing what you call dumb downed for casuals content. The loss is minimal compared to the player retention. Which of coarse are the casuals. Casuals are your backbone and bank in an mmo.

 

You JUST said that only 1% of the player base was hardcore and seeing all the content, and then you turn around and blame a 17% drop in subscribers on them...?

 

Wonderful logic there.

[LordAposno]

First off, your math is terrible. 2 million out of 12 is 17%, not 1%. Second, speaking as a "casual" player, the "dumbing down" of content to make it more accessible is PRECISELY why I left WoW. Just because you can't play often or raid consistently is no reason to make it so easy that anyone with a heartbeat and an active subscription can blow through it.

 

And people seem to think that every product is targeted at everyone all the time when that is simply not the case. If your target market is the more "hardcore" players then you really don't give a flying crap what the "casuals" think. What WoW did is slowly change their game's target audience from the more hardcore to the more casual. Strangely, when the game was "hardcore", they still managed to have 10 million subs. Now that they have changed, they have fallen back to 10 and are still falling.

 

You make things too easy and people get bored. You yourself stated that content was exhausted faster than ever but you never stopped to think why. Its because its easier. This, sadly, didn't just apply to content. EVERYTHING in WoW has been repeatedly "dumbed down". Talents, travel, grouping, specs, mat gathering, crafting, pvp...everything. And because of that even the casuals are seeing their "ohh shiny" dull faster than ever.

 

 

Coincidentally yes I am terrible at math. But I was not stating or implying that 1% left. I stated that only 1% of the population had experienced dungeons and raids according to Blizzard. This is a very small minority experiencing premium content. That is why it was changed to cater to the majority of the player base. Wow's peak was at 12 million due to expansions and ease of access for the majority of players. Now the population is roughly at 10 million after the hardcores burned through the content. So Blizzard lost about 2 million people, well that number while impressive is still negligible due to the casuals still staying with the game. They also lost people to their china and Asian markets issues. So that number just got smaller. The point of the story is what would you do? Are you going to target your 10 million player base and keep those subscriptions or target your rough 1.5 million hardcore players that will leave soon anyway?