This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Live
PTR
10.2.7
PTR
10.2.6
Beta
Where did Blizzard go wrong?
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
25556
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
106006
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Trishi
You were right in pointing out that there are likely
several
different major playstyle/demographic groups within the community. That's because you can effectively play this game several different ways. Blizzard needs to stop treating this fact as a bonus to what
they
perceive the
core
game to be, and instead embrace it as a feature.
Develop every aspect of WoW fully. Make a full Arena sub-game, a full Battleground sub-game, a full Raiding sub-game, a full Dungeon sub-game, and a full Collecting/Completionist sub-game.
If Blizzard embraced this concept, they could take WoW to new heights of both gaming glory and financial success.
I wasn't saying I find the way they do it now to be the most effective way. I was merely stating my idea of how they do things. And I fully agree with you on that part.
The worst things Blizzard continually messes up, is balancing. I frown whenever I see a new ability getting nerfed for no apparent reason, only to find out it was balanced solely for PvP reasons. Really...? So PvE'ers gets punched because PvP'ers needs to be put in line? The same is obviously true for the other way around, and it just seems so ridiculously stupid and unfair, I really can't imagine how they have decided to keep the game like this for all these years. They already have some simple restrictions on some spells, so why not stick to that type of design, and remodelled all the problematic spells according to that? Druids are too good at breaking roots through powershifting? If they really want to remove that feature altogether, wouldn't it be more sensible to just tap on a single line "Doesn't remove snares from other players"?
Blizzards idea on "streamlining" everything is sensible, also from their point of view as well. It makes everything easier to grasp, and allows both developers and players to get a better overview within an acceptable timeframe. But it surprises me they haven't noticed how many issues it also causes. They could save themselves a lot of headache by splitting up PvE and PvP effects a bit more. Dark Simulacrum works differently depending on whether it's used on players or NPCs, so the reasoning "We want to keep everything the same in all settings" is invalid either way.
Post by
301983
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Aeduera
They are like designers who seem to be utterly convinced that their design philosophy is the only way to go and everybody else can like it or leave. That is fine for an artist, unconcerned with commercial success, but if you want to keep up 12 million subs, and seek additional growth in the future, you have to be a bit more pragmatic.
I think the problem here is that you do not realise that you are not the target market. If you pay for fifteen quid a month, great. If they lose you, but pick up five other players, even better, in Blizzard's eyes.
Post by
877949
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Sweetscot
I really think the guild changes, while really great in concept, have added a large bit to the problem.
Suddenly the raids have shared lockouts so you can only do the raids 1x/week.
Suddenly if you change guilds you lose perks, so you may try to stay in a failing guild because you don't want to rep grind all over again.
Suddenly if you stay with a lower level guild because it has friends in it, you aren't as prepared as others if you try to join a higher level guild's raid as a stand in and who wants that?
All that combined with the harder heroics and raids, which let's face it DID turn some people off regardless of whether they were capable of doing them or not, created this mess where
1) very few people are running 25s, so if you liked em too bad,
2) people are leaving, whether from wrath burnout, disenchantment with cata raiding model, or personal issues and those people are making holes in guild's rosters but they can't fill the holes because either their guild isn't the highest possible level or because other people are doing the same thing they're doing---sitting in a dying guild refusing to leave from either loyalty or refusal to give up their rep or perks.
3) #2 snowballed, more people left because they were bored because they weren't doing things because they were stuck in dead guilds that they refused to leave.
4) #3 snowballed to an extent on some servers that the whole dang server was dead...now even if you all want to try to raid you won't find enough people to even run a lousy pug.
At this point I think the "harder raid" thing has pretty well been negated by gear inflation, but the guild problems still exist. I don't know what, if anything, they can do to fix it as I don't see them rolling back the guild changes...I know a part of me LOVES the guild changes, but I do think they were a big part of what hurt the game in cata.
Post by
25556
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
106006
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Trishi
I think the problem here is that you do not realise that you are not the target market. If you pay for fifteen quid a month, great. If they lose you, but pick up five other players, even better, in Blizzard's eyes.
They could have just added the 'extra' modes to portions of gameplay, but they chose to remove them and replace them with what they think is right and their decision is final
Goes against what they previously advocated where the routes were given to you, you chose the route instead of being handfed.
I'm sorry to say this, but they never choose "What they think is right", based on their own personal views. They do it based on a couple of factors, like any other large company does:
1. They identify an issue, and figure out
why
it is an issue.
2. They try to figure out what their customers think about the issue through research - this step is interchangeable with the first, as some companies, like Blizzard, will probably find the issue faster by just reading their own forum than searching for them themselves. A luxury most companies don't have.
3. They validate whether or not the problem
actually
exists. People complain that DKs are too OP on the damage charts. Blizzard got ways to test stuff like that, that far outperforms any simulator or spreadsheet you can possibly come up with. So they test it, and if they figure out that, no, there is no issue here, they scratch it and move on. If not, they go to the next step.
4. How can the issue be fixed. This involved figuring out what their customers have for ideas, and sharing the ideas through a brain-storm, involving a typical group of 5-6 people who then evaluate the different approaches, and see which would work the best.
5. They test the idea off, seeing how the customer likes it. If not,
and
how well it helped solve the issue. As a general rule of thump, the customers happiness is more important than how well it actually solved the problem.
And step 5 is the main issue you see here. People complained that it was too hard to raid back in BC. So they made raiding easier. For most BC raiders, it became
too
easy. But as it was, those 2 % of the wow population who found the change to be "bad" had little value for Blizzard, who not only had a huge playerbase approve of the idea, but also attracted tons of new customers.
Of course, the fact still stands that we actually have no idea if Wrath was the reason they got more members, and neither do we know if Cataclysm was the reason the numbers dropped. Just because A happened, and B followed, it doesn't mean A is the direct cause of B. We have a million factors to consider.
Post by
527789
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
25556
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Azrile
There were a significant number of players who solo´d and quested as their major gameplay option. Catacylsm (and late wotlk) took all the challenge away from questing and instead made grouping at endgame easier.... which was not a viable alternative for many of us. I enjoyed tanking dungeons and grouping, but it came at the cost of something I enjoyed more... challenging solo options. My lvl 85 characters doing the fireland dailies felt about the same as my lvl 85 characters doing Ragefire Chasm.
Post by
Trishi
There were a significant number of players who solo´d and quested as their major gameplay option. Catacylsm (and late wotlk) took all the challenge away from questing and instead made grouping at endgame easier.... which was not a viable alternative for many of us. I enjoyed tanking dungeons and grouping, but it came at the cost of something I enjoyed more... challenging solo options. My lvl 85 characters doing the fireland dailies felt about the same as my lvl 85 characters doing Ragefire Chasm.
To be honest, BC was the only real xpac for solo questing. Vanilla had a bit as well, wrath... not so much, not until the Argent Tournement hit, and Cataclysm didn't until Firelands - which, in my opinion, is a horrible attempt to reproduce a "solo-Isle of Quel'Danas". Either way, it all fails, miserably. But that's just my opinion.
Post by
106006
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
25556
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
106006
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.