World of Warcraft: Current Year

TJT said:

There was a guy named Biggus Dikkus in my FFXIV duty finder group last night.

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Pussay Ga'lore in my triad tournament, they are fairly relaxed unless it's excessively bad and gets reported.

Masakari said:

Most had some form of recognition, and Furor didn't receive that leaving Blizzard.

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Maybe he wasn't that important lol.

Masakari said:

Most had some form of recognition, and Furor didn't receive that leaving Blizzard.

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Show me Kaplan's recognition.

Big Phoenix said:

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Thing is that FF14 is more akin to design in Wotlk or maybe even Legion. Story driven and mostly casual with some hardcore content that is technically optional. I still think Legion had the best overall narrative of an xpac since cata. I hated losing the old world in Cata but the narrative was fine even if the Deathwing fights ended up as utter tripe.

So he’s right but I think the big thing is that the FF devs listen to their fans. If Blizz listened they’d have still ended up mostly casual but without the ridiculous systems upon systems. Legion with just artifact and a talent tree felt so much better than bullshit Azerite gear. I know jack and shit about shadowlands really now.

god the more I think about it. Legion had class halls (mission table), Artifact talents, and … what for systems… they were simpler but way more fun. And highly encouraged alts which is the bread and butter of player engagement when you’re 20 fucking years old.

Neranja said:

But ... casuals are the bread and butter of games with millions of players? I don't get it why they wouldn't create content for them, of course with stuff for the high-end crowd as well?

At this point I think that most of the Blizzard devs are stuck in the "high end raider" mindset, because they came from exactly that corner of the playerbase. They probably think "casual content" is just the leveling and outworld content, while hardcores get instanced content.

Here's a comparison between WoW and FFXIV content, specifically Torghast and FFXIV's Deep Dungeons:

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I agree. I am one of the few that never minded raid finder. Though I preferred the 10 or 8 man style of story mode raids from Wotlk and swtor. Though, I think they even fucked that up because some 10m casual shit felt way harder than it needed to be.

Legion felt way better for casuals. So many class stories and artifacts. Even the mage tower was good since you eventually could out gear the shit out of it.

I like the secrets they’ve added. I thought islands could have been on to something in BFA but just felt so sterilized. World Quests are decent enough.

I gotta finish the vid you linked but I agree. WoW devs design around stringing you along and the best way to do that is to tie character progression to everything in the xpac but piecemeal it out. What’s happening Is the emperor’s lack of clothes is obvious. I still come back to Legion. I felt like it’s grinds had somewhat of a stopping point. FF14 has times it just stops. Designing for the player. Not the dollar.

Neranja said:

I think Ion has fucking lost it:

Step 1: Make Torghast, players on beta find it fun, but it adds game-breaking things inside it.
Step 2: Release game, with Torghast nothing like beta. Players hate it because they are forced to do it every week for legendaries.
Step 3: Ion blames the players for 2, because ... "In the Live environment players went in with specific goals to upgrade this or that before the week came to a close."

Basically, they patched out the difficulty and the fun, because you need to do it as a chore for you legendaries. So here's the thing that got me thinking: "... making it so that it was accessible and all players could go in and succeed." That is a lot like "If everyone is super, then no one is." And that's why Torghast is boring, because the outcome is predictable and it's not a challenge, just a chore.

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If Torghast had better rewards, it might not feel like such a chore. Dust isn't much of a carrot to chase after. Legendaries aren't much to chase after too. They are temporary things. The true loot of WoW is mounts and pets because they'll last forever through multiple expansions.

I personally feel that FF14 is a superior game overall when you take all things considered yet here I am part of a raiding guild in WoW and I think a lot of that comes from the time people/guilds have invested but also just the ease to get involved in the larger aspects of the game. I believe some mentioned what WoW had to offer, 3-4 items, and that's true but its so easy to jump in and feel accomplished. However, those 3-4 pieces of WoW that are their big ticket items are gradually becoming less fun, in my opinion, and I would like to see WoW stop messing with their bread and butter in terms of their best features and making it such a stifling experience. Torghast is a great example, which impacts Legendaries, and the dominoes begin to fall.

The MMO genre just needs something else...soon. I don't think New World and Ashes are it but who knows. I do think if you're a company beginning to build a MMO that FF14 should be looked at more closely than anything out. I'm still a fan of EQ and WoW Classic methods but if I'm looking at what a true successor to EQ and early WoW, I would START with FF14 and work my way through how to bring in the old and work towards the new.

I'll be really curious how this chapter of WoW impacts our guild because I think a lot of people are at their last straw with WoW and playing simply out of the lack of options (and the ease of playing + friends are already invested in the game)

Looking forward to logging in this evening... I think... lol

Heroic week dropoff is going to be epic. People are so ripped at Blizzard, they've been waiting. A whiff of 9.1 will be the last straw.

The holes in guilds is going to be tremendous. I don't see 50% of them making it to M. The 500k subs event might actually happen this expac.

A lot of the joy of early WoW was getting your shiny tier set, being done with gearing, and showing it off in a big city or in PvP. You had status. Then how about having a rare grind mount?

Now there's billions of recoloured incremental upgrades that look like shit, no status at all and no end to the grind. Every patch has 20 recoloured mounts and a few for the cash shop so nothing stands out.

What WoW needed was more casual content to show off your gear or get some sort of mount like Netherwing rep in Burning Crusade. Raiding was always good, especially once it went down to 25 man... but they keep trying to fix raiding.

FF14 has that original "farm it and you are done" design with millions of things to do while wearing your epic gear. Oh and you can alt a new class on the same character and only need to unlock everyone once ever.

jayrebb said:

Heroic week dropoff is going to be epic. People are so ripped at Blizzard, they've been waiting. A whiff of 9.1 will be the last straw.

The holes in guilds is going to be tremendous. I don't see 50% of them making it to M. The 500k subs event might actually happen this expac.

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WoW with only itty bitty 500k subs. Never thought i'd read the day. The reasons people played MMOs are long gone. The pvp scene has been capitalized on and done better, the raid scene is arguably better in other games, fuck there's no housing scene in WoW. The only thing MMOs are doing that other games do not, is bring large masses of ppl together in a single space and developers are failing to capitalize on this. The amount of resources that go into the single player experience in a massive multi player game is actually impressive.

Why are there not more activities for players to do together? Games like FF14 and ESO shine because of this. Shout out to FF14's group fishing queue lol.

How long do you think Ion has left as game director? A month? Maybe two? A major shakeup needs to happen. His vision for the game isn't working at all. It's a colossal failure. It would be ironic if Holly got promoted to it, but I feel she doesn't have the seniority to make that big of a jump.