But you get that only if you’re a tank, and only if you queue solo, and only if nobody leaves the group during the run.

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“Do players actually want yearly expansions?”

Yes. Note I did not say “all” players, but a great many would like that. In part because…

“Or do they want to avoid going an entire year without content?”

For a massive chunk of players (certainly larger than the Heroic/Mythic raiding crowd (note: I lead the top two night a week Mythic guild in the entire US, so this is not my perspective I’m presenting)) they already go months without content. They log into a new patch, do some new quests/reputations, faceroll through LFR as fast as it opens, and are bored after killing the final boss on LFR a few times (or sometimes even once). These are often the same people who complain about LFR being gated at all.

They have no interest in normal raids, let alone heroic/mythic raids — so they don’t care about the remaining 4-5 months left in a tier once they’ve “done everything.” Their dream goal would be patches like 5.1 (the Krasarang Wilds patch) coming out every month or something with a new LFR to faceroll through each time.

But, of course…

“I think it’s clear though that questing content is perhaps the most expensive content possible to create (as it requires world-building, etc), with what amounts to the lowest return (compared to those who stay subbed year-round).”

You are completely correct on this point. If Blizzard *could* do that dream goal, they would. But it simply isn’t possible to produce content faster than the players can consume it without severe time or skill gating.

“Nevermind how those individuals in no way add to the “stickiness” of the game, or meaningfully contribute to the (social) content generators.”

I completely agree with this as well. When I read comments like “At max level there’s no reason to see other players outside of LFR” it makes me sick to my stomach (okay, it doesn’t literally make me sick, but I cannot fathom playing WoW like that and it’s completely opposite to my experience).

But last I recall, only something like 20% of the playerbase did Flex/Normal raiding, right? From a business perspective, it makes complete sense to try to target as much of the other 80% as they can (no, I don’t think they can actually target the full 80% or something, just a large chunk) with frequent expansions while still churning out a new raid every six months or whatever — if you’re a raider, then you mainly want something to BE raiding at reasonable intervals and the other details matter a LOT less.

“As for raid bosses, as stated, those are the ones Blizzard listed on their own website.”

Well, count ’em yourself and you’ll see my numbers are right. Isn’t one of your points that Blizzard has screwed a lot of things up? :P

“I must once again refer you to Lead Designer Ion Hazzikostas who very clearly stated small-group content was “one of the greatest strengths of the genre.””

Can I refer you to Lead Designer Ion Hazzikostas who very clearly stated

“We felt that was a little silly to keep running the same content as you got stronger and stronger and stronger, still getting that reward, which is why we removed something like valor points.”

That’s what happened in BC. That’s what happened in WotLK. That’s what happened in Cata. That’s what happened in MoP.

And your answer of “JUST MAKE MORE DUNGEONS” doesn’t work for the same reason the “WE WANT MASSIVE QUESTING EXPERIENCES EVERY MONTH” doesn’t work — dungeons tend to be consumed incredibly quickly despite often requiring an amount of artwork comparable to some raids.

I mean, maybe Blizzard will come up with some brilliant solution for 5 mans (note that they already added Challenge Modes and Mythic dungeons in an attempt to improve the value from dungeons) but they haven’t presented it yet and I’ve never seen anyone else present one either. If you have such a solution then by all means present it.

“If not, I find it a very flimsy argument that players are getting the same value out of expansions as we have in the past in terms of designed content.”

I have a tank in my guild who’s been tanking for us since the beginning of Cataclysm. Best tank I’ve ever met, arguably one of the best players I’ve ever met. He loathes 5 man dungeons, hates em, only likes to raid tank. He doesn’t care about the “lack” of relevant dungeons in WoD. He doesn’t care about the lack of max level solo content either.

My point is that the “value” greatly depends on the player.

My tank friend probably thinks the value is pretty much the same as always (and if we avoid a 12+ month final patch he’ll probably like WoD more than WotLK/Cata/MoP for that reason alone).

I actually care about lore and enjoy both questing and dungeons — I’ve noticed the obsolescence of dungeons and lack of solo max level stuff but it doesn’t really bother me. I mostly play to raid, I liked the leveling experience, and I enjoy time with my guild — which often extends to other games beyond WoW (like Civilization V, SC2, etc). I think WoD is weaker in some regards than, say, MoP because I really liked patch 5.1 and the dailies with the overarching quest chain…but I still like it overall.

Someone who mainly does dungeons/max level solo content would have loathed WoD (and for good reason from their perspective).

I mean, imagine that next expansion launches with the equivalent of most expansion launches plus loads of Mythic raider only content. My tank friend and I would be happy and think there’s tons of extra content…but 97% of the population (or something like that) would think there’s no additional content.

Designed content only matters to those who actually find that designed content interesting.

(Again, note that I think WoD has several major flaws in quite a few areas — I hardly think it’s perfect. But that’s a far cry from thinking it’s the worst expansion by far with nothing to do and Blizzard sucks and so on — but I might even agree with the claim that, for the time period, it is the worst expansion to date).

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“Valor though? Until and unless you hit the cap, everybody is getting something.”

Which can also turn it into an indefinite weekly/daily grind for *everyone.” What do you wish valor (or something similar) rewarded? Worse than LFR gear? Between LFR and normal gear? Between normal and heroic? Between heroic and mythic? Better than mythic? Gear “upgrades” like MoP?

“And what is an activity that the friends you make in WoW do together that meaningfully progresses your character(s)? Dungeons. Even if they’re faceroll. Especially if they’re faceroll.”

Say an expansion launches, lasts 12 months, and has a patch every 3 months (with two raid tiers total, at launch and at six months in). Are you saying you’d be satisfied running the same 8-16 dungeons again and again for that whole year with new gear or whatever each patch (which is basically what happened in BC/WotLK/Cata/MoP — yeah, Magister’s Terrace was *one* dungeon added at the end of BC, there were a whole *four* dungeons added over two years of WotLK, and *five* during Cata…though ZA/ZG caused major problems as they weren’t faceroll)? If not, what would you say it the minimum amount of content “expected” per patch or month or whatever? If dungeons are added each patch, should you ever switch away from running the initial ones or does the “pool” just expand?

“I feel safe saying that that’s the majority of players.”

I feel even safer saying that it’s not given that, last I heard, not even half of the playerbase ever hit max level. On top of that, while only 20% or so of the playerbase may do normal raids or above, part of the other 30%ish of max level players is engaged in PvP and doing arenas/rated battlegrounds or even people who love collecting pets/mounts and don’t care about gear.

I *would* agree that it’s a significant *minority* of players — wouldn’t even surprise me if it was something like 20-40% of the total playerbase. But definitely not a majority.

“And that’s why this expansion is worse than Cataclysm, which initially took away dungeons from over half the audience by making them way, way too hard.”

This may not surprise you, but I *loved* the start of Cataclysm and those dungeons.

Mind you, I agree with you that they were way too hard *given the lack of other content for players to do.*

“It honestly feels like Warlords is a totally different game, like they grabbed designers from other MMOs and just let them loose.”

I would disagree. As foreveranoob put it (https://foreveranoob.wordpress.com/2015/07/03/all-the-blizzard-hate/) , a lot of stuff was the logical extension of what people wanted in the past.

People wanted something of their own and generally like the farm…so GARRISONS.

People wanted to play with their friends in easier raids but not LFR faceroll and responded well to Flex…so normal AND heroic are both flex now!

People complained about “10 vs 25″…so MYTHIC 20 man only!

People hated having to valor cap every week as a grind (*you* might not have but loads of people complained all across the playstyle spectrum) — so no more valor!

People didn’t like running the same dungeons over and over again (again, talking in general, not you or me specifically) …so have them obsolete once you don’t need the gear rather than force you to keep doing them!

People hated dailies in MoP (well, at least the initial launch ones)…so no more dailies like those and barely any max level solo content in general!

Etc.

The problem was that if you take all of them together you wind up gutting the game for people who don’t want to engage in organized group content at ANY level of difficulty (PvP OR PvE) and their experience sucks. They basically just took away stuff from the “solo” player and added it to other sections of the game (raids are better than ever for many reasons) but didn’t replace the stuff for “solo” players with anything those players wanted.

I mean, hell, I used to do *all* of the quest achievements at max level because I like questing and lore…but the *62* quest achievements they added in WoD overwhelmed me and I didn’t feel like doing them. Apparently most other people didn’t either.

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“And while I’m sure the Mythic raiders “aren’t playing for gear,” I don’t see too many of them immediately unsubbing the first time they defeat the last raid boss.”

I think you missed my point but are already acknowledging part of it — if Mythic raiders are ALREADY grinding gear from raids each week, why should they need to be grinding 5 mans too? Ditto Heroic Raiders. Ditto however far down the difficulty ladder you want to go.

If Blizzard made 5 mans give valor for gear slightly below LFR each tier, I wouldn’t object in terms of how it would affect me, at least. Because I can ignore that and focus on the grind that I *already* do.

Could even do between LFR and normal if you make sure you have some sort of daily or weekly cap to avoid it rendering LFR gear irrelevant.

Same thing can apply to PvP too — depending on exactly what you make the rewards you could cause PvPers who do Arena/Rated BGs to have to dungeons as well in addition to their Honor/Conquest grinds.

“As for what exactly Valor would award, again, we have years of evidence over what works.”

How do you figure that?

BC gave gear above Heroic Dungeons but below raids (until Sunwell, at which point better gear was added, forget exactly how it related to other gear offhand).

WotLK gave gear equivalent to 10 mans for Naxx and Ulduar, I believe? Then in TotC and ICC it was equivalent to 10H/25N?

Cata gave gear equivalent to normal raids and included tier tokens for some tiers.

MoP gave gear equivalent to normal MSV and then allowed people to literally upgrade individual items later on.

Note that I’m using the terminology from the time period — meaning the Cata model would be the equivalent of Heroic gear now.

So which of those worked the best? Which should be used (and perhaps you think the answer is a combination)?

“The Wrath model was fine…The key is to not necessarily incentivize chain-running the same dungeons (or any of them) multiple times per day.”

Clarify the first part? Ulduar didn’t give any new dungeon. TotC gave one dungeon. ICC gave three dungeons. Is one new dungeon per raid tier with loot slightly below that raid tier sufficient, like TotC?

How do you feel about the fact you wound up with a lot of groups that had people just jet if they got the ICC dungeons after they didn’t need the gear?

“If the players that don’t hit max level, how many are still subscribed? And if they aren’t, why are we even counting them as players? But, nevermind, let’s just say “plurality” and be done with it.”

Quite a few — even if you average two hours per level (less early on, more later on) to get to 100 is 200 hours of gameplay. If you played an hour a day it would take you over half a year to hit max level…assuming you didn’t start leveling OTHER characters along the way. Heard of a lot of people (not a plurality most likely) who have a bunch of characters with none at max level. They eventually get tired of that character and start a new one, usually a new class and/or race, sometimes new server.

“The changes in no way, shape, or form were “logical” extensions – they were over-reactions.”

I’m not sure if you’re aware, but this is Blizzard we’re discussing here. I often wonder if they know how to NOT over-react. Remember, you were saying you thought they had replaced the whole staff with new designers from other MMOs or something :P But it sounds like “same ol’, same ol” to me.

“Except, wait, there’s no endgame outdoor content, so they tossed in a few token reputations at the last minute. And that’s not my own narrative, but Ion’s.”

Where did I disagree? Pretty sure I’ve said multiple times that WoD massively lacked stuff the “solo” players were used to.

“That part was not a logical extension of the very optional farms.”

It’s a logical extension if they were investing a ton of time and energy into it, far beyond the farm. Again, keep in mind I’m not defending Garrisons (I never cared about personal housing or whatever in the first place)…but if you start with the premise that Blizzard wanted them to be a central feature of the expansion (after an initial experiment with the farm) then the rest does make sense. Even if “the rest” includes some really bad ideas and some really bad execution of decent/good ideas.

“And indeed, the gutting of dungeons was not a logical extension of anything.”

Blizzard Dev 1: Guys, we’re getting complaints from players that they don’t like running the same dungeons over and over for special points that are not even associated with any particular dungeon. They think we’ve just turned them into point dispensers and they evaluate dungeons in terms of points/hour.
Blizzard Dev 2: Hmm…they do have a point. Why does Heroic Halls of Stone give ICC equivalent gear and why are they having to run it a 50th time? And the first 12 times it gave weak gear, the next 13 times it gave slightly stronger gear, the next 12 times gave stronger gear still, and now it’s giving ICC gear for these past 13 runs.
Blizzard Dev 1: Well..what if we just removed those points and made dungeons simply drop the loot in them? Then, we add a tourist mode with better gear each tier, make raid sizes flexible so that PUGing is easier, make it cross-realm as well, and add an in-game tool so people can easily do at least normal raids? Then they see new bosses, new gear, and new experiences per patch? No more being stuck in the same five mans all expansion!
Blizzard Dev 2: I like it. Surely the players will love not being expected to run the same dungeons daily for the entire expansion. What could go wrong?

“I don’t want to deify Wrath here or anything, but tell me what would be lacking in a Wrath 2.0 with the tools Blizzard has today. The problems of that era have been solved with Mythic Dungeons/Challenge Modes, Flex raiding, and… what else? What else was deficient? Some of the best group AND solo content design ever released.”

Well, what PART of Wrath are we discussing? I’ll assume ICC for now.

1, you had to do a daily heroic each day or lose out on the Badges permanently, which usually meant having to dedicate 20-30 minutes a day (possibly more for DPS) minimum on top of anything else. That’s not good design — encouraging people to log in more than once per week or something is fine, but every day for a dungeon? No. But let’s say you shift it to more of a Cata style system where there’s a weekly cap but the first each day gives a bonus (so incentive to log on each day but can make up lost ground if you’re busy some days and freer on others).

2, assuming we still have the raid system of LFR/Normal/Heroic/Mythic, then people would be getting Heroic items for doing dungeons. If you’re an LFR or Normal player, this strongly disincentives moving to Heroic once you “finish” your content since you’ll likely not need much gear at all from Heroic. If you’re a Heroic or Mythic raider, you’re still having to grind those dungeons for a while until you’re in all Heroic or better gear. You’re also getting gear that’s far more powerful than the effort required would indicate (and thus can also discourage people from even doing LFR or normal because the gear is worse than dungeons). But let’s say you used the Valor system of Cata (from point 1 which has a weekly cap) coupled with making the valor gear between LFR and Normal (so LFR/dungeon players get upgrades over time, Normal raiders can fill weaker slots, and it’s irrelevant for Heroic/Mythic raiders).

3, there was no solo content…unless you count the sword questline which depended on a very rare drop. Maybe I’m forgetting something about the ICC patch but I recall it revolving around spamming Heroics with the new LFD tool and doing ICC raids.

Those are three significant issues that I recall offhand (trying not to nitpick smaller things or things not really discussed in this topic so far).

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A small point, I don’t raid anymore, but it’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that I can’t. I don’t have a set schedule, and I think they have overtuned Normal this expac, making pugging harder than it was in Mists. (Not my situation, but indicative of tuning).

So to keep me subbed I need new content, and not just a new zone every 6 months.

It drops 685s with a small chance at 705s. Mythic raiders already had full 700s-706s coming into this tier and were getting 705+ gear from the first Heroic boss in HFC. Blizzard choose their ilevels carefully.

Right, I knew that, but the part I quoted had you complaining about dungeons dropping better-than-LFR gear, so apparently we were dealing with a ton of hyperbole on your part. If Blizzard were to listen to what you said, and take it at face value, “Mythic” dungeons wouldn’t have been made either.

Doing the same 8-16 dungeons for over a year at the same difficulty for ever increasing rewards is not a good design decision (and technically the difficulty is actually getting easier and easier for better and better rewards due to said gear). If Blizzard added a third raid tier in WoD and it was literally just returning to Hellfire Citadel but now it had better drops do you think raiders would think that was acceptable? If that’s a terrible idea for raids I’m struggling to see how it’s not a terrible idea for dungeons.

More dungeons and better spacing on them is hugely important. The 8-16 isn’t fair because 8 just isn’t enough. The ZA/ZG debacle had 3 parts. First, both the Valor rewards and gear were better from them than the previous dungeons so people had to run those when they dropped, but the gear itself wasn’t even close to raids that had been out, meaning it was a terrible catch-up mechanism. Second, they were harder than they should have been for the rewards they gave out. Third, they were the only new content that came out for nearly a year.

Mists on the other hand had a ton of content, so even though I was disappointed in only having 9 dungeons, we had a lot of scenarios, scenarios added, and every patch added content. I could forgive that, and stay subbed, but during the WoD beta people asked if there would be more dungeons, as that seemed to be a sticking point with larger part of the player base. The response was the typically cryptic yes, so I got my hopes up, but what I got was “Mythic” dungeons and Timewalking. I should have known better. Not new content but recycled, which is pretty obvious if you look at the answer.

The part that has me confused is how we’re going from “People who don’t want to raid need content to do” to “That content should offer rewards so strong that Mythic raiders feel obliged to do said content.”

You yourself have said that rewards below current mythic are good enough, it’s why I started where I did. It certainly seems that when they do put content in with rewards below Mythic you can cope, but your responses here imply otherwise. It’s also important to note that the new content is best used as a catch-up/alternate gearing mechanism so making new content drop sub-LFR gear means no one runs it. Hell, Tanaan is giving out better than LFR gear now, with upgradeablity to just under mythic.

I’m not trying to make your life harder, but in a gear-as-progression game, making most content give out useless gear means no one is going to engage with that content. To keep those people engaged they need to feel as though they are progressing, and if you are getting rid of the Valor grind, there had better be a way to progress and catch up outside of raiding.

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That post just highlights a player who completely ignored every mechanic — he both ignored it visually and ignored people calling out over voice communication for him to react — in favor of just tunneling the boss. I don’t see what that has to do with tuning at all. That player couldn’t even perform adequately in a Heroic Dungeon.

I can’t think of one pre-Garrosh fight in Flex SoO that relied on one player following mechanics to not wipe the raid. Closest I can think of is Sha. Normal is overtuned. It should be the equivalent of Kharazan late BC if you are looking to have a Friends and Family raid, but that’s been the complaint since day one of WoD raids. Hell, Brackenspore killed so many raids I pugged, either because I had to sacrifice my dps to do the flamethrower or because others couldn’t do them properly. Yeah gear eventually took care of that, but not pug friendly.

Huh? They were 6 ilvls below normal raids. Heroic Dungeons gave 346, ZA/ZG gave 353, normal raids gave 359. ZA/ZG were in fact specifically added to make normal raids easier for people struggling in them (because they could get better gear). This was all before Firelands came out.

Except for the Valor and weapons, they were terrible. Justice got you 346 blues, Valor 359 purples. The only slot you couldn’t fill with Valor gear was the main hand drops in the Zul’s. Terrible as catch-up content, especially considering they were the only weapon drops available outside a raid until patch 4.3 dungeons. Imagine how many people spent a whole year with one weapon.

Dragon Soul LFR dropped 384 with tier/trinkets/etc. The dungeons with the same patch dropped 378. Are you claiming that no one was running those 378 dungeons for catch-up/alternate progression?

No, but I do claim people won’t now. If anything it’s the opposite of Cata LFR. LFR gear is obsolete within a few weeks because of the Tanaan gearing. Those people who are looking to get into a normal run would see more upgrades from the outdoor grind than from LFR. It’s almost a direct violation of the RNG-as-content argument that Blizzard trots out constantly. It’s certainly more likely to get you the items you need and not extend out play time for most LFR players. Except maybe hunters looking to transmog that god awful tier set. Sad that the LFR mail set actually looks better.

Does the Molten Front not count?

Fine, 6 ilvl in 3 slots behind a horrid grind. So much better than running the same 2 dungeons ad nauseum. Middle Cata and WoD have been the most static experience in WoW that I have had since I dinged 70 in a social/leveling guild.

First of all, my immediate question is “catch-up to WHAT?” If your goal is to raid, then in 6.0 and 6.1 catching up was never easier in the history of WoW. However, it did require doing LFR and normal and/or heroic of older raids (in addition to other things like crafting, apexis gear, and so on). And since HM/BRF was the current tier, there wasn’t really anything to catch-up TO if you weren’t raiding.

Not a huge fan of raiding the same raid to raid. Raids should be what you strive for, not what you do to do more of what you’ve done, grinding LFR, to grind Normal, to grind Heroic. This expansion and Cataclysm are the two that essentially ask you to do that since Blizzard established catch-up mechanisms. Before that you had faction grinds and dungeons, content outside of the raids themselves.

Look, all I want is gear progression that lets me test myself, that I can do with 4 friends, without having to find 5-25 more, that is new content, not rehashed, warmed over, tired material. Now all I have is the hope that I don’t get into a group of mouthbreathers in a normal raid after spending an hour in Group Finder asking every open group if they need a dps, and no other content short of that.

I’m not trying to convince you that you aren’t having fun, that you aren’t enjoying yourself, all I am trying to get across is that this expac feels skimpy if you aren’t either a raider, or don’t care about social play outside of RP. I’d probably be fine with “Mythic” dungeons had I not exhausted my tolerance of them long ago, simply because they were the only thing to do.

I would think that you’d like to see me and others like me happy, so that we keep subbed and you keep getting the content you like. We don’t know below what threshold they won’t be able to pay the people who make your favored content, even though FFXIV can do it with less than 4 million subs, so you probably aren’t close, but I hope you never stop raiding, because there’s nothing else right now.

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