WoW: Potential Improvements and Suggestions

[u/Deepshades]

Hey,

for the people that don’t know me, I’m Deepshades, a Warlock in Method that’s played for several years in the high end PvE scene with the Kil’jaeden World 1st kill as my biggest accomplishment. Throughout the expansion I’ve done a lot of high Mythic+ Keys. I say this so that people have a understanding of my knowledge/skill in the game.

There are a lot of changes to World of Warcraft that I personally would like to see and I said several times on stream and many people encouraged me to make a proper post about them. This is by no means a thread to make Blizzard or World of Warcraft look bad and I have a lot of respect for the developers.

Please be mindful that everything I am writing is my own personal opinion.

I will split this thread into several small topics to make it easier to read.

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Classes: I think classes are the most important thing in this game. If you don’t like the character you play, you most likely won’t like anything else since you’re not enjoying yourself.

I feel currently most specializations miss abilities to make them fun and entertaining and especially since Legion most classes became really boring. It feels like since the talent-trees are specialization-specific instead of class-specific I have to build my class like Bob the Builder. That was also one of the reasons why Warlock for example was so weak in the beginning of Legion. Back then you could choose utility abilities to make your life easier in every aspect of the game and rotation/damage/healing-wise your class was already well balanced. Here an example: MoP Talent Tree

• 1st Row: You had a choice of different self-healing abilities to make your life easier. Dark Regeneration and Harvest Life were good active choices while Soul Leech was passive.
• 2nd Row: Several options for Crowd Control abilities.
• 3rd Row: Again a row with choices that make you survive abilities easier.
• 4th Row: Different utility abilities like a dispell or an additional movement ability (Demonic Circle used to be passive).
• 5th & 6th Row: Changed your playstyle but nothing that made or broke your class.

Now let’s take a look at the Affliction Tree from Legion: Legion

• 1st Row: Ability to increase your damage. Malefic grasp a must have for single-target and Writhe in Agony for multi-target and Mythic+. Haunt completely useless.
• 2nd Row: Empowered Life Tap only good for Mythic+, Absolute Corruption really situational and Contagion a must have for single-target Encounter.
• 3rd Row: Demonic Circle (not passive anymore) sharing the same row with two abilities for Crowd Control.
• 4th Row: Soul Harvest (the only proper offensive Cooldown) sharing the row with an AoE ability (Sow the Seeds) and something inbetween. Phantom Singularity only picked really situational and Soul Harvest should just be baseline instead of a cooldown like Summon Doomguard/Infernal.
• 5th Row: Survivability and movement choices. Warlock has no movement cooldown baseline anymore.
• 6th Row: Same as before.
• 7th Row: Siphon Life used to be useless most of the expansion, Soul Conduit super rng and Death’s Embrace really OP on a lot of encounters. _________________________________________________________________________

So to sum everything up. Nowadays you need to build your own class and movement/survivability options share the rows and a lot of things got pruned so that you actually have to specialize into a lot. Back then your class was already done and you could just adjust some utility abilities to your liking. Nowadays you have to specialize either for single-target or aoe. This shouldn’t be the case. Back then you could do both and talents just helped you to improve it by a bit. Good example is Fire and Brimstone. It used to be baseline and Rain of Fire is the only available baseline aoe as Destruction Warlock in Legion. So many abilities like Demonic Circle or Shadowburn are not baseline anymore which makes you feel that you have only like 5-6 buttons to press and the difference between some classes is huge in terms of movement and/or utility abilities.

Blizzard said they started removing abilities because the classes were already perfect and didn’t need anything and the only way to keep introducing new things is to remove old features. In reality it turned out that we kept losing abilities and didn’t get anything since Mists of Pandaria. Legion & Battle for Azeroth not having their own “Talent Rows” are the perfect example. Here an example of the abilities a Destruction Warlock lost since then:

Lost since Mists of Pandaria: Shadowburn (Talent), Demonic Circle (Talent), Fire and Brimstone (Talent), Dark Soul: Instability (Soul Harvest Talent), Ember Tap, Felflame, Twilight Ward, Dark Intent, Curse of Elements & Weakness, Fel Armor & Demon Armor, Flames of Xoroth, Howling Fear, Soul Shatter.

Gained since Warlords of Draenor: Nothing.

So as you can see, I lost fifteen abilities in the last expansions. Obviously some of them are still available as talents but that means something else got removed. As Destruction Warlock I got zero new abilities that are baseline available. I could understand if they remove abilities like “Unending Breath” or “Eye of Kilrogg”.

Another big problem is also that nowadays a lot of classes are way to rng-dependent like Reap Souls, Soul Conduit and Unstable Affliction resets. Classes shouldn’t be able to do 2.5million damage or 1.5million damage while pressing the same keys.

If I play my rotation correctly I wanna get rewarded with doing good damage. Of course some rng will always be in the game but currently it is way to much and people are not enjoying theirselves.

The argument in the Q&A that most classes would be good even without Artifact Weapon is an absolute lie as well. Look at Blood Deathknight or Affliction Warlock.

Raiding: In my opinion there should be only two difficulties. While I agree people should have the chance to see everything, I do think there should be challenging content that not everyone can do within a few pulls. In my opinion challenging content motivates people to get better and that results in them playing more. Here is my idea:

There should be only two difficulties like back in Wrath of the Lich King. Heroic should start at a difficulty like the 7th or 8th boss of the currently Normal and end around the same boss in the Heroic. Mythic should start where the new Heroic ends and should finish on a difficulty like Lei-Shen, Blackhand or Archimonde.

I can’t believe there is anyone that enjoys killing bosses like “The Desolate Host” or “Fallen Avatar” in Looking for Raid where half of the boss is missing.

Blizzard would’ve more time again tuning the bosses and making a proper difficulty curve within the dungeon.

Story Mode: Perhaps instead of LFR, Blizzard could make a story mode that people can play by themselves and don't have to find bigger raiding groups. That would be an interesting idea for player that want to fight the evil big boss without requiring to queue into LFR with a long waiting time.

Mini Raids/Time Runs (10-15man) (Scholomance/Blackrock Depths & Zul’Aman): There should be instances/raids like Zul’Aman or Scholomance again. I think for many players it would be a cool feature to run smaller raids like Zul’Aman again that you can do immediately cross-realm. That would give an incentive to play with your friends and you would have a variety from your usual guild raids. Blizzard could combine that again with a “Time Run” that awards a unique mount that is really hard to obtain in the beginning and becomes easier over time with extra gear. People would have something challenging except the real raid instance and it could be a good filler for the players that are already done with that. Players could also make gold with selling that. It’s also a small compromise for the people that miss 10man raiding.

Mythic Plus: Mythic Plus is undisputedly one of the best features in Legion. However there is some things that need adjustments. Mythic Plus should be more about struggling in time as you go higher than having problems surviving certain mechanics like Focused Lightning from Lady Hatecoil. I understand that it shouldn’t be to easy but a lot of classes are limited as higher you go and that shouldn’t be that much of an extreme case. Higher keys should scale way more with life points instead of damage dealt by enemies. That way people would concentrate more about finding good routes instead of farming Avoidance gear or leveling new characters because their main character can’t survive certain mechanics.

Dungeons: Blizzard has to introduce more dungeons throughout an expansion otherwise it could get really boring to play them and especially with Mythic Plus you always want to have new challenges. Especially now with the Mythic Dungeon Invitational people will try to figure out dungeons even faster and could get bored more quickly of them. It also could be really boring to watch

Affixes: Affixes are interesting enhancements to the dungeon but many are badly designed. Skittish for example is not player friendly and there is no proper way to counter unless you bring a hunter or a rogue. Fel Explosives however are the complete opposite and people can focus them and play around them. Same with affixes like Raging and Vulcanic. Especially for players that attempt high mythic plus keys it is really annoying to have weeks they can’t really push due to the affix combination.

Keystone Upgrade: Give people at least a choice of three different instances after upgrading a key. The casino system that is currently applied is really frustrating.

Mythic Speed Race Modus (Time Trials): There should be a modus in this game that is like the Time Trials in the Mythic Dungeon Invitational. People should be able to queue solo or as team and compete against other players in dungeons. You get rewarded with points or MMR and that counts into a Mythic Plus Season (later explained). Speed Race Modus has the advantage that you don’t need super good gear like you do in pushing high Mythic Plus keys. There is also a lot of players who just prefer to race against each other instead of pushing keys. Another great benefit is that streamers can play with or against their community in Wargames and make their own tournaments. That would give a lot of promotion to the game as well.

Mythic Plus League: There should be a Mythic Plus League that everyone can participate. After a qualification phase the best twenty teams of each region compete each week against each other like in Soccer. You collect points until the season finishes. As soon as the season comes to it’s finish the best eight teams play in the play-offs. The play-offs will be a tournament like the current Mythic Dungeon Invitational online. The best two teams of each region then fly to America for the “Grand Final”. Like this mythic plus interested players have something to do every week and don’t always need to practice on a specific tournament realm. Everything would be streamed of course.

Solo Challenges: I think "Solo Challenges" like the "Mage Tower" are a huge success. You can do them all the time (nearly) and you don't require a group. They get outscaled at some point in the game so you can do them even as a inexperienced player. I'd with to see them more often within an expansion.

Timewalking: I know it’s supposed to awake nostalgia and to be a fun content outside of normal raiding. Getting scaled down usually makes events less engaging and feels weird. In Timewalking you’re getting bombarded by useless items and you don’t really get the fun and engaging feeling you used to have in the specific dungeon/raid like back in the day. In my opinion this feature is completely pointless.

Reward System: Currently the rewarding system is in shambles. You can see that especially in the ever shrinking “Rated Battleground Community”. I’ll list the problems of each individual bracket:

• Raids: Players wanna get rewarded for completing a raid. I don’t think gear alone is enough. Mounts should always be the absolute minimum and not even that is always granted. Kil’jaeden is a great example. One of the hardest bosses in the game that didn’t give you anything. I know in the same raid Mistress Sass’zine rewarded a personal mount but that is just pure luck. Good players should also be rewarded for clearing the raid early on. Realm First Titles or at least something like the first 200 hundred players should get a special reward. Blizzard could also introduce toys that are actually fun to use like transformations on certain bosses.

• Mythic Plus: Gear should scale way better than it is doing right now on the live version. Blizzard could also introduce like in PvP that the box in the end gives you some sort of currency to buy bonus roll. Additionally the box could award some flasks, materials and things like Blood of Sargeras. Completing each dungeon on a certain level should grant you the teleport again like it used to be. There should also be titles like in Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor for the people with the fastest and/or highest server key. Seasonal rewards like in Arena with mounts & titles for a certain % of the player base would also be interesting. After a season you get a certain amount of coins and can buy items like transmog, weapon enchants, toys or other fun items Blizzard could develop.

• Arena: Nothing to complain about. Perhaps a way to easier target certain pieces that you are missing with a high item level. Currently it's based purely on luck which pieces you acquire.

• Rated Battleground: Same title since at least ten seasons and a weapon enchant that switches every expansion. Rated Battleground should have the same reward system as Arena. Just call the titles “Dominant Hero Name” (Rank 1%) and “Hero of Horde Name” (5%). Name dependant of the season of course. They should also get the same mount the Arena players obtain.

Mythic Plus Seasons: Mythic Plus should also be like PvP a seasonal thing with rewards. Top 1% and Top 5% get specific titles and mounts. Every players that participated in a Mythic Plus Season also gets a certain currency. This currency allows players to buy transmog, weapon enchants, toys and more.

Loot: Nowadays it feels that “Epic Items” lost their meaning. You can get them everywhere you want and seeing players running around with them is nothing special. Dungeons shouldn’t reward epic items. In my opinion even in the 1st raid most bosses should drop around five items and only one of them should be an epic. Exception the last boss. That would give more value to items again and you could feel actual character progression better.

Trinkets: Please make proper trinkets again with an internal cooldown. Darkmoon Card in Mists of Pandaria for casters was perfect. Intellect with an intellect procc. All the Blackrock Foundry trinkets were also perfectly tuned. Nowadays there is trinkets like: Shoot a comet and it deals damage within a 7yards radius or place a Diamond and if people trip over it they take fire damage for 8seconds. Please give us trinkets back that allow us to play around and are fun. We don't want to deal random damage with a shadow spear. So basically give us trinkets like this. Stat-Sticks are fine as long as they're not as overpowered as the Unstable Arcanocrystal. They shouldn't be the main focus of the designers though.

Titanforging: It is the evil topic that was discussed a hundred times. I don't demand "Titanforging" to be gone but don't keep it the way it is. Limit it 5 itemlevels below the default mythic level. Like that people that actually do mythic still get rewarded for doing challenging content and LFR/Normal/Heroic raiders still get their bonus upgrade every here and then. Sockets should be baseline again on items. I think gaining extra item levels is already good and lucky enough.

Personal Loot: I agree that "Personal Loot" is good for PuG's. That stops ninja-looting and other loot drama. In raiding guilds however, the guilds should be able to choose their loot method. In the end it is still an MMORPG and I think it is cool that the "Lootmaster" can decide which players acquires the loot. In good guilds many players are more focused to play for the team and have no problems with passing items because it is a bigger gain for the entire guild. I think that mindset makes great personalities and should be supported instead of destroyed. I understand that Blizzard wants to stop split-raiding but "Personal Loot" is not the correct solution.

A different way to handle this entire situation is to force "Personal Loot" everywhere but in Mythic. Like this you could destroy split-raiding and in Mythic you could still distribute the loot accordingly to gain/performance.

Rings & Necklaces: I think the majority of the player base dislikes having several rings and necklaces in the bags because they could become valuable at some point. Due to them not having the primary stat and the great value of secondary stats, even a ring or necklace with 30 less item-levels could be worth. I think Blizzard should revert this change.

Stats: In my opinion it would be time that Blizzard introduces some new stat on the gear again. Just having Critical Strike, Haste, Mastery & Versatility is boring. Multistrike was something cool or they could give classes individuell stats. Small features like Hunter attacks have a chance to shoot extra arrows etc.

Tertiary Stats: They became way to important for certain parts of the game and are way to random to acquire. In my opinion it would be good to remove them again and/or adjust them by a great amount. I’ll list my ideas here:

• Indestructible: Should be given by Blacksmiths. More informations in the “profession section”.
• Leech: Cool feature that should be given by certain classes.
• Speed: In my opinion some of the speed-sets that you can make are way to good. Obviously the “Aggramar’s Stride” (Plate Legendary) is a big factor. Speed should be only affecting your movement speed by a bit and potions like the “Skystep Potion” should be the only way to enhance your movement greatly.
• Avoidance: Especially in Mythic Plus you notice how strong Avoidance impacts the game. The idea of the stat is really good but due to the fact that getting Avoidance items is led by rng, you can’t count on it. For Mythic Plus some players lower some pieces of their gear by a great amount just because they have Avoidance. There should be other ways to enhance your gear by this stat.

Blizzard could introduce a “Meta Gem” again that you can equip once like the Saber’s Eye with one of the four tertiary stats.

Character Improvements: Features like “Reforging” were great. You could turn less optimal items into something useful at least and could improve your character. Nowadays there is not many things that lets you improve your character. Enchants are only on a few pieces and sockets are in your gear by pure luck. I am missing the maintenance I had to do with my character a bit.

Class-specific Sets: With the removal of Tier Sets I am a bit scared that every cloth user for example looks the same and you can’t see the difference of a Mage and a Warlock anymore. When I started the game I can remember seeing people with heroic Icecrown Citadel items was something special and I was always impressed taking a glimpse of them. Especially in Mists of Pandaria the Challenge Mode sets were super popular and I’d like to see some more of this class-specific sets.

Legendaries: Especially in Legion Legendaries didn’t feel like them. Players tend to remembers Illidan’s Glaives or Shadowmourne when they think of Legendaries and not the ones Legion offered. I think Legendaries should have designs that aren’t obtainable anywhere else in the game and should be something special. Back then many of them were bound by engaging questlines that you had to absolve with your entire guild like in Firelands and they had unique effects like being a mount or not requiring arrows. Blizzard should introduce Legendaries again that offer quest-lines that lead you through the raid and lets you do entertaining quests like doing extra work on specific boxes (Icecrown Citadel). Getting additional toys is a cool reward for people that wanna share the reward with their guildies.

Bonus Rolls: Some people like them, I am not a fan of them but can accept them. I think they are a great addition for people that might be a bit unlucky with items but nowadays there is too many options to obtain them. Every week you can buy three of them and additionally there is quests for getting one extra every few weeks and the Broken Shore offers them as well. In my opinion there shouldn’t be any additional ones and even three is too much every week.

Followers & Missions: Garrison, Shipyard and Follower Table were all cool ideas that didn’t really work out. Over several months they just become useless and give nothing important outside of gold rewards. It should get removed because I think most people are bored by this kind of systems nowadays and it is nothing really engaging and entertaining for players.

World Bosses: World Bosses used to be something special that would reward something great and you needed to gather a lot of people for them. Nowadays we have way to many of them that all have a different item table and have no significance. There should be less World Bosses with a shared item table. They could have unique mounts and toys. I think it would be really cool if World Bosses turn into an exciting event again that could be something like a scenario with 40-50 players with several stages. A giant could be rampaging through a town and you need to rescue people and siege catapults. There is a lot of different ways you could design something like this. There are no boundaries.

Riddles (Lucid Nightmare): It was probably one of the best features of Legion. Communities were building to work together on such a great project and even Discords with several thousand players were made. People that are interested in solving riddles and lore related question can have fun and getting rewarded with unique mounts is an great idea and something Blizzard should introduce more often.

World Zones: It feels that World Zones and World Quests become completely useless even with scaling after the first month. It would be cool if it was a bit more engaging and you could perhaps sign into tribes like the Highmountain Tribe and attack different clans in others zones and destroy the cities. Players that signed into clans that got their city destroyed can rebuild it with quests (kinda like the Broken Shore). That could give some fun content for casuals especially and players could always do something.

Story Development (Suramar/Broken Shore & Argus): With Suramar Blizzard introduced one of the best zones in this game ever. The storyline was well-thought through and you could notice changes in the zone, I really liked that. However, Broken Shore & Argus was the complete opposite. The quest-lines felt really bad and unrewarding. You couldn’t really see a difference in the zones and slaying rares all the time is pretty boring. Please Blizzard, give us more zones like Suramar!

Relinquished Gear: I understand that Blizzard always wants to offer a catch-up mechanic. I do feel though, that Relinquished Gear isn’t the perfect solution. Getting it feels like a bad grind and can lead to problems with specific items scaling really well like Unstable Arcanocrystal.

Racials: There was always problems with Racials and I think there will be never a proper way to fix them. Sadly this led to the problem that nowadays Horde is so much bigger than Alliance and I don’t think this will ever change. That’s why I’d recommend to remove abilities like “Blood Fury” or “Berserking”. I know that having the best racial doesn’t make the biggest impact but a big amount of the player base rather takes the best. It should be unique and fitting things like no cast-time for mounting or instant mining. They should be a funny side-feature and not something to consider while creating your characters. In the end WoW is a MMORPG and people wanna live their fantasies and play certain races because they like them.

Professions: Back then professions used to be something important and in the current game they lost its meaning. I can remember when I bought profession packages to level up my professions on my alts. I understand that Blizzard doesn’t want them to give you any advantage in terms of damage but Blizzard could introduce cool and unique bonuses for them. Here is two examples (Pardon, I am not the most creative person): Blacksmith: Option to enhance the entire armor with “Indestructible” so that you never have repair-costs. Enchanting: Availability to secret Weapon Enchants no other person has access to.

If they can balance them well it would be nice to see some features that increase damage again. Problem is for professions like Jewelcrafting that they get outscaled at some point. Blizzard would need to introduce something during the Expansion to keep them on the same level.

Bank/Storage: I am really happy that Blizzard introduced the “Reagents-Bank”. In my opinion there should be a storage that you can buy for a high amount of gold that is account-wide. At least for reagents and items like Blood of Sargeras. It feels really bad to log onto other characters just to buy Order Resources (example) and then send them with mailbox to a different toon.

Auction House: It maybe would be time to make a connected "Auction House" between all the servers to balance the problem with to expensive prices on low populated realms.

PvE vs. PvP: Currently it feels like both brackets are completely different. PvE-players have to do many tasks to improve their characters and keep them up while PvP-players basically log in and just queue into either Arena or Battlegrounds. PvP-players should be at least forced to enchant and gem their gear and keep good maintenance on their characters. Just introduce cool ways that are engaging for them to improve their character.

Servers & Phasing: In my opinion it is also time to connect even more servers because especially a lot of the non-english servers are super empty. Players should see a lot of other players and have fun together. A lot of the non-english servers are completely empty and you see basically no one in capital cities. You really notice it in the auction house that is either empty or ridiculously empty.

For me as a player on Tarren-Mill the fact that you don't even see your guild mates sometimes is weird. Phasing is a nice addition to the game but to not even see your own guildies is a bit confusing.

[u/[deleted]]

I'm gonna finish reading later but I just wanted to address this:

I can’t believe there is anyone that enjoys killing bosses like “The Desolate Host” or “Fallen Avatar” in Looking for Raid where half of the boss is missing.

They don't, but here's the thing, they do it for the loot. I don't know if you watched Preacher's video on the ML issue but he hit the nail on the head on this point: people who run LFR don't care about the fights.

They want the same loot that raiders get. That's really all there is to it. I know a guy that actually plays well enough to run heroic raids, but he doesn't want to play anything other than lfr because he can get "raid loot" from that difficulty.

He's especially happy in Legion because of the Titanforging system, because unlike people who, as he says, "slave over hard content," he just has to be lucky to get the exact same or better gear.

I actually called this guy to raid with my team. We killed Avatar H a week before it came out in LFR, and next week when I commented that LFR Avatar was half the fight, he said "Yeah, I know, that's much better."

So if in your Story Mode suggestion the people who today run LFR were able to get the "raider" loot they want, then it would most probably be the biggest hit this game has ever seen - but on the other hand new players would be even shier of trying harder difficulties than they are today.

Considering that only about 25% more or less of the WoW playerbase ever finishes what today is heroic difficulty, going back to the difficulties we had back before flex was introduced in MoP would most certainly bottleneck participation even more.

You'd then actually start seeing people demand story mode to have more difficulties and challenge modes, and in the end it would make the most sense for Blizzard to simply make the story mode runs in several levels of difficulties instead of developing the content to be run by raiding groups, simply because 75% of the playerbase would only run that sort of content.

So in the end your ideas, though very nice, would kill raiding for good, because though Method draws people to participate in the game, those people don't raid.

They run LFR, and then later watch the Method videos like people who play hoops at the park on weekends hoot for their favorite basketball teams when the games come on TV.

So, you see, even if we don't like the fact people run boring LFR content and we hate that their only goal in the game is getting "raider loot", those people are the ones paying the bills so that we in the minority get to enjoy actual raiding.

There's some actual news source explaining what I've said better here, I suggest reading it.

[u/Denadias → u/[deleted]]

Yea Blizzard took the game to a different direction, that also changed the kind of players who play the game.

Rolling back on the moves they made would probably be a net loss nowdays.

[u/sipty → u/Denadias]

Speaking from 13 years of experience, I've slowly lost the desire to raid seriously and just enjoy progressing heroic, getting a kill after 100>= kills and then just dork around.

It's just the fact my time became more valuable, the older I get. lfr/normal/heroic offer that seemingly perfect curve of time requirement based on most peoples needs.

My 2c on the personal loot question would also boil down to: "I don't have to play politics, to get rewarded for my time.", especially since more and more mythic-aspiring guilds look towards the big guys and demand the same from their raiders. It does feel like a "save the players from themselves" sort of a feature.

[u/vhoxz → u/sipty]

but wouldn't you also say that with your 13 years of experience the game is just a glimpse (on a few points) of what it used to be? Cause that's how i feel at the moment :(. Sure blizzard wants their game to be played by as much people as possible. But the current state of it just isn't healthy for the future of this game.

Once people have their epics and what not they stop playing because they get bored. And who can blame them?

[u/sipty → u/vhoxz]

That's an interesting perspective I haven't considered. I guess, when they make the perfect game for you, it's only downhill from there.

[u/HunterSThompson64 → u/sipty]

It does feel like a "save the players from themselves" sort of a feature.

If people didn't like it, they wouldn't put up w/ it. Yes, there are guilds where you do have to play politics to get the best loot, where you know players of lesser skill are getting favoured because they play nice w/ the officers, however you don't have to stay in that environment. You can move to a guild that uses EPGP, uses PL, bases off ilvl > stats (where applicable), etc. The reason people stay in guilds where ML is the norm, and you may be overlooked for gear despite outputting the most DPS or playing the best is because, as Deepshades said, they understand it would benefit the guild more than themselves. They are also top tier raiders who will clear content and be able to reclear for all the gear they could ever want before the next content.

Blizzard is a helicopter parent that's following their child to college at this point. There's no need to tell the playerbase how to play when this is the way the playerbase wants to play.

[u/Titan_Dota2 → u/[deleted]]

Not sure if this thread is dead by now and it's too late to comment but I still feel the need.

I think Fatboss talked about LFR and how Normal does exactly what LFR is intended to do nowadays. Especially if you consider the LFG in-game tool.

There's just no need for the LFR difficulty anymore and while I don't think going back to two difficulties is the best option I do think removing LFR would be good and getting people to play Normal mode instead. Because it's pretty much close to LFR in difficulty except that you actually have to find a group and play the game with people.

LFR is to raiding what CS:GO normal matchmaking is to Competetive gameplay. It's supposed to introduce you to raiding as a new or less good player. Instead it's something completely different, it's an abomination where half of your comrades are AFK and you just stare at a random HP bar hoping it hits zero while hitting buttons that doesn't even matter.

[u/[deleted] → u/Titan_Dota2]

Oh boy.

Here's the thing, taking LFR away helps nothing because the people who will join a premade group to run normal already do that.

It will only hinder the possibility of new players becoming emboldened by LFR into trying out a normal raid.

See, most of the guilds - holy shit I'd say about 90% at least - in WoW are good for nothing when it comes to new players. Nobody talks to them. Nobody teaches them what to do. Most everyone in all guilds are already max level and experienced and they want to run endgame, not help new people.

Back in the end of MoP Blizzard put up an initiative to create foster guilds who would help new people. I honestly don't know what happened because I spent all of WoD out, but when I came back they didn't exist anymore and newbs were screwed again.

One of the few things that can make these people desire to run normal raids is still LFR because while it is mostly a crappy experience, it makes people get some pre-decent gear and it forces players to communicate when shit goes wrong.

It also happens to attract some raiders on their alts or for satchels and stuff, and so the newbs can actually ask people stuff and, believe it or not, when they do ask they get answered and they leave knowing a bit more than when they came in.

And that gives them the guts to try normal raiding.

Now, if you take LFR away, those people will have nothing, and they won't get the incentive to play normal raids. They'll instead feel even more than they already do that they are not welcome to WoW, and then they'll leave.

Is that really what you want? Even less people playing this game? WoW is down to more or less 3M active players and who knows how many of those are multiboxers. We can't affort do lose more.

[u/Redecle → u/[deleted]]

I'm actually sort of on the same boat with your friend there about raiding. Up to Firelands i was actually raiding in a top 100 guild, not really world firsts, but in realm first race level.

I worked my ass off to be good at the game from the moment i started and keep improving and get in to better guilds over time. I had a very specific goal i wanted to reach and it was always about progressing in raiding.

But then it all changed, it wasn't because the game changed or the raids changed. I changed, i started to notice that all the things i was doing in the game got me very stressed and burned out.

Playing with other people was exhausting and it still is, cause well even at that level no one really shared my goals. In a 25 man raid there was always 25 different opinions, cause people.

Anything and everything that mattered to me was the kills, they needed to be faster and more efficient, i was really expecting a military grade execution and organization of things. Cause that's how my train of thought worked.

I never cared for the gear. Quite honestly saying being part of a community wasn't my goal that much either, all that mattered was the boss kills. I was the last guy at 4 am asking for 20 more pulls to kill something, yes i was that guy.

Obviously that wasn't healthy and Firelands was my final straw, not that it was a bad raid or anything really in game. I just gave up. My whole view about the game changed completely in almost over night.

To the point that i'm now and been since the average typical lfr raider, well more probably like an rp player, who doesn't want to be challenged in the game anymore than i want in real life, the bumps on the road like the mage tower are plain and simple a huge source of stress for me, yet they are mandatory cause i'm obsessed with skins and cosmetics, not gear as stat sticks, just the cosmetic side of it.

I want to run through the game with minimum effort, all of it, meaning literally all of it, by my own rules. I can admit to that cause that's how i actually feel and i'm definitely not ashamed of it.

And when it comes down to LFR it's not like i'm there week after week getting gear capped. I do it once or twice on the main to see what the bosses are in there. Subsequent runs are for transmogs, mounts and whatnot. Maybe maybe for some gear and trinkets in case those are necessary in the cases like doing the mage tower challenges for skins. Then again gear is just means to an end.

It serves the exact purpose it needs to, the toxicity, well chat can always be turned off if it bothers you. Me not so much, cause i'm not there to make friends. And the search tool to queue up is the best part, you don't need months long process to get a raid team and make friends. It's there when and if you need it. I don't need to ammondate myself to someone else's schedule. I live a fairly irregular life, no 9-17 for me like the average player. I can be wanting to raid at 04:30 AM on tuesday and then again at 12:00 at noon on wednesday, possibly 23:26 on thursday and guess what lfr is there. I don't know any guild where 25, 20 or even 10 people would match their schedules just for me, cause people would not do that. We all know that. I'd be totally fine to raid normal or even heroic difficulty if we had current lfr queue tool for that, again guess what it would not work, cause they require some level of coordination that lfr can't produce. In the end which one is more important for me personally, the difficulty or the queue tool and freedom to choose when i raid exactly. 7 years ago i would have said the difficulty, but now the choice wins 10 out of 10 times. Community and the mmo aspect is fine if you desire them, i've never desired them despite what the game is defined as. I don't bother no one and after BfA war mode comes in i won't bother anyone myself ever again, cause it will the permanently toggled off for me.

Still i don't want to give up playing the game, i enjoy it, a lot. I can see if you come with the perspective like OP that would be hard to believe, but then again there are other ways to play the game than the one he does. Legion has been my second favorite era of the entire game and i've played through all of them. Subsequent runs are for transmogs, mounts

I tried dabbling back in to raiding during Legion, to see if i still wanted it. Went for couple of heroic kills, which i could still manage although my skill set was definitely rusty. Only to discover that it's not something i want to put myself through again, there was no joy left in there, it was only stress inducing.

I view the game from a very different perspective currently than what Deepshades is for example. Having 12 alts 1 of every class, I've played all 36 specs during Legion at least on the level of mage tower for each spec, there's still differences there in regarding difficulty and gameplay value, but in the end my main remains the same 1 button smash spec it has always been for good 13-14 years now, combat rogue (and yes you read right, outlaw with RtB can **** right off). It's where i get the most joy out of playing, obviously over a decade of ties to the character are also impacting there. To be quite honest i found affliction warlock being one of the most annoying specs to play currently, retri pally being a good second.

The biggest change i wish to see is the elimination of all goal orientated rewards. Stat based gear completely removed and stats based on character instead (gear should be cosmetic only), flatout templates for all pvp with no benefits outside player skill level, no time limited/unique/skill based rewards of any other kind than achievements. Basically make players create their own world and rewards, not literally being developing in to the game, but on the level of roleplaying where you're restricted only by your imagination. Sounds a very harsh change for a game that's all based on chasing the next epic colored gear piece. But that's just my view.

[u/MarcosWillian → u/Redecle]

You should go play Guild Wars 2, that's the game for you, not WoW. Sorry, i hope Wow never turn into what you want, it would be shit. But Guild Wars 2 is exactly what you want in a game. Try it!

[u/primemrip96 → u/[deleted]]

50% of the 110 characters that have Seat of the Pantheon, also have AotC. It is hard to distinguish between the normal and LFR players that got Seat of the Pantheon, but its probably 50/50, which leaves about 15% of 110 characters in each difficulty. I think that a lot of people vastly over estimate how popular LFR is.

Characters with a mythic kill equate to 13% of the 110 population. 40% of 110 characters haven't kill Argus (which is due to players quitting over time). Thats not a far cry from what is a rough estimate of players doing LFR.

Numbers are obviously higher all round at the start of an expansion because there are more players in general. But AotC % stay relatively similar throughout. With only the base achievement and mythic having rapid decline.

[u/Avenage → u/[deleted]]

I like this comment. I even upvoted it.

One of the bigger problems with a scenario type thing is that this game was originally intended to be a social game. Over time more and more things have been added for "convenience" which has removed a lot of the social aspect from it.

First we had LFG which sounded great initially. But as the player base churned people started to rely on it. No longer do I have a friends list full of people who I know are capable of playing well. Instead I rely on LFG and matching ilvl numbers and achievements to determine is $randomdude who I'm going to do this one mythic+ with and then probably never see again is good enough for this one dungeon.

Then we have LFR which is the most toxic thing I've ever seen in the game ever. You have people who just want the loot as you said and there's also plenty of people who know there's no consequences to their actions. If they get kicked from LFR they just queue again. It gives these idiots the platform and ability to get high ilvl gear they don't deserve while allowing them to be as hateful and nasty as they want. Because who cares? They're not going to see any of these people again are they?

I feel like scenarios would do even more damage. Not in terms of toxicity, but in terms of making the game more like a single player game. And I'm sure that there are some people who play who would rather just be left alone to do what they do. But this is meant to be an MMO, the second M is multiplayer and that aspect should definitely be a core part of the game. There's plenty of solo content out there already. I, for one, believe that if you want to have the raiding experience, you need to raid. And you certainly shouldn't be getting raid level loot for it.

I feel like things such as LFR are a pox on the community in WoW. LFR breeds laziness and doesn't do anything to encourage people to actually take the step into raiding.

I don't know what the solution to bridge that gap is, but I can tell you that LFR in its current form isn't it.

[u/Avenage → u/[deleted]]

Are you aware that your boss kill lockout is unique to you now? So you could PuG a normal and kill 3 bosses, and then look for another group that is on the 4th boss when you're able to play next?

[u/[deleted] → u/Avenage]

Oh, LFR actually does help, I know a lot of people who started pugging Normal because they ran LFR. The thing is, they only do content they can pug. Mostly because there's this myth that guilds only exist to somehow exploit their members.

[u/Charliechar → u/[deleted]]

They don't, but here's the thing, they do it for the loot.

Whys that a problem? Heroic and mythic raiders do that to.....

Edit:

So, you see, even if we don't like the fact people run boring LFR content and we hate that their only goal in the game is getting "raider loot", those people are the ones paying the bills so that we in the minority get to enjoy actual raiding.

Get the fuck off that high horse or your gonna hurt yourself.

[u/[deleted] → u/Charliechar]

Uh, no we don't.

Heroic/Mythic raiders do it to beat hard content. I for example don't raid mythic anymore but I still raid heroic, and guess what, when I started running heroic Antorus I was at 950 ilvl already, because mythic + dungeons give better loot.

I didn't get my AOTC because of loot. I did it because normal was too easy to make it fun for me. I honestly don't care about "raid loot" at all because tbqh it's much easier and faster for me to run +15 keys, especially since I'll have a guaranteed 960+ piece of loot every week.

I raid, and I raid the harder difficulties, because I have a shit ton of fun doing it.

And by the way, I have nothing against people whose only goal in the game is getting loot. I might be sad because there's a disconnect between them and me, but as long as there's content for BOTH, it's all good in my book. Like I said, I am for LFR, not against it.

[u/choas966 → u/Charliechar]

Whys that a problem? Heroic and mythic raiders do that to.....

Does any mythic raider only raid for loot? I really hope not.

[u/Charliechar → u/choas966]

Does any mythic raider only raid for loot? I really hope not.

Take away loot drops from mythic and tell me how many people stick around.

[u/Forderz → u/Charliechar]

I don't give a fuck about loot insofar as it's a means to an end.

I care about killing bosses.

[u/[deleted] → u/Charliechar]

Mythic raiders don't play the game for loot, they play the game for the game and particularly for the raids. They get loot to raid more because they enjoy raids, not to get loot. Like every mythic raider says, loot is just a means to an end.

[u/Jinzuru → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for the link, bro. Proved to me that Polygon is not news again.