Is WoW losing it's epicness?

#1 - Feb. 5, 2013, 12:25 p.m.

First off I don't really go on these forums alot, I just browse through mmo-champ for the blue responses. BUT it seems one topic is constantly being brought up, and that's how generic/dumbed-down WoW is getting with every ExPac and patch. This is usually countered by a blue saying something like "(Hardcore) raiders only amount to 10% of the community so it's not the highest priority".

While ofc Blizzard is a company serving it's shareholders who wants their profit margins, it's slowly losing their "prestigious players" to a more casual crowd.
With prestigious I mean the players that go all in and really gives their heart and soul to clear the most difficult encounters, setting a benchmark for the rest of us to strive for. While these players are a small % to the community as a whole, they are the forerunners and give others an incentive to push a little harder to get further. This is now slowly getting trivialized with pokemon, cute pandas, transmogs, LFR, daily rep gear better than raid gear etc etc.

Less prestige -> Less incentives -> Less "rolemodels" -> Less skills = Generic

If the game loses it's focus on skills and perseverance, we're only left with the social aspects and I don't really see why we just couldn't sit on FB and play farmville or some pokemon app there?

I could go on and on about this, because I really have enjoyed playing WoW all these years.
I have never been one of the elite players, but I've always had the hopes that "one day I will have that gear, after clearing those hard bosses"

Finally here's a quote from the US forums which I think concludes my thoughts, and leaves a couple of questions to be answered; Discuss! :)

They have not ruined it yet, but Wow is at the tipping point. They have made the game much easier in many ways. Everyone can complete raids (LFR), gold is a joke - anyone cam farm 2K an hour with minimal effort. Talents, downranking, buffs, raid composition have all been beaten to death or killed with the nerf bat.

Hardcore players are losing interest, and the game is being dominated by casuals, and the gimmie it now/its not fair crowd.

I'm starting to lose interest. Non LFR raiding is the only thing left with any challenge. Now compare MV with Karazhan. MV is pull trash, pull trash, kill boss, repeat five more times.
Activision is getting lazy. Look at Diablo 3, it is inferior to Diablo 2 in EVERY way except graphics.

What can we do? Post our disgruntlement and hope it gets better. For me, the removal of talents and the make every class have the same abilities/playstyle movement is ruining the game.

Before DKs actively mitigated, Pallys reactivly healed, Warriors blocked, Druids soaked damage. Now, all tanks are basically DKs :( What's the difference?

Before Priests shielded, Druids hotted, Shamans chain healed, Pallys Flashed. Now all healers can effectively flash, chain and hot :( What's the difference?

Edit: changed the title of the thread, as it attracted flaming comments, rather than constructive discussion :)

I would also like to add that I encourage people to read the WHOLE thread before commenting, as I have tried to rectify many of the wordings of my original post.
Thx

Draztal

Community

#19 - Feb. 5, 2013, 4:41 p.m.

05/02/2013 12:25Posted by Snoopworg
With prestigious I mean the players that go all in and really gives their heart and soul to clear the most difficult encounters, setting a benchmark for the rest of us to strive for. While these players are a small % to the community as a whole, they are the forerunners and give others an incentive to push a little harder to get further. This is now slowly getting trivialized with pokemon, cute pandas, transmogs, LFR, daily rep gear better than raid gear etc etc.

This is where most arguments just lose it (for me, of course). You might, of course, strive to achieve what others have done, but projecting that same impression onto a majority doesn't really work. The fact is, most of the players probably can't even name the best raiding guild in the world, because they just don't care. So they might give an incentive to push to some folks, absolutely (those in the raiding competition, most likley).

Then you go on and proceed to argue that these other things that have nothing to do with bleeding edge progression raiding, for some reason, "dumb down" the game, when, in fact, it's just expanding the amount of choices you have at your disposal.

05/02/2013 12:25Posted by Snoopworg
If the game loses it's focus on skills and perseverance, we're only left with the social aspects and I don't really see why we just couldn't sit on FB and play farmville or some pokemon app there?

If that's what you feel WoW offers to you, then I'm afraid you are not really looking at what those activities actually have to offer to any player that wants to do something else than bleeding edge progression raiding.

05/02/2013 14:34Posted by Coriandra
This paragraph makes it sounds like the 'prestigious raiders' are climbing Everest to collect medical supplies or something. They are people spending a lot of time on a computer game, not war heroes. I for one do not aspire to be like them, I just want to enjoy playing Wow.

Coriandra sums pretty well how some players feel. While for some of you raiding is everything that exists in WoW, for others is high-end PVP, for others is doing 5-man with their friends, challenge modes, scenarios, pet batlles, heck, it might be just flying around Azeroth just because they can.

The thing is, in a game as massive as World of Warcraft you can make of it whatever you want to, and it can't be a bad answer. As long as you have fun, and feel like you're getting from the game something worth it, then there's no real harm if some people just want to PVP all day long, or if some players would rather see all raid content through Raid Finder without caring at all about world firsts.

Also, please realize that some of the casual players of today, will be the hardcore players of tomorrow; and some, if not all hardcores of today, will be the casuals of tomorrow. There's no benefit in acting like it's two separate ponds that aren't connected and pretending you will always be part of this one pond.

Draztal

Community

#151 - Feb. 6, 2013, 4:45 p.m.

Based on what some of you have commented and what I saw yesterday both here on the forums and on Twitter, I'm just curious...

Why do you feel the game has been dumbed down when, in fact, heroic raid bosses (for example) are increasingly harder? You've probably seen even players arguing that this tier in Normal feels harder than it should as well.

I mean, I totally understand you feel the game is easier than before, but consider three things:
-If you're a dedicated player, your skill will improve at some point, and (most likely) at early stages your improvement will be more dramatic, so the room to make the game harder without being outright silly (numerically or mechanically) gets smaller (which should help put in perspective the amazing work developers do when coming up with new boss fight mechanics and concepts).

-Heroic raiding content is increasingly more difficult (just compare Heroic Ragnaros to Heroic Sha of Fear and to Kil'jaeden, both mechanics wise and leeway to meet enrage timers, etc)

-Most of the things you mention as being dumbed down don't really seem to target you. But rather a different segment of players that might still be getting the hang of the game or don't want/can't devote as much of their time into the game as they would like.

Considering all this, how does it affect you in a negative way (assuming that you are at the high-end spectrum) that the game is more accessible or there are more things to do for players that are not you especifically?