#75 - May 9, 2016, 2:57 p.m.
This is starting to sum up the Legion expansion feedback in general.
"We appreciate the feedback given, but not a damn thing's gonna change. We're totally listening to you guys though!"
I'm sorry it feels that way. This is going to be a lengthy post that will stray far afield from the topic of expensive vendor items, but there there are at least two major underlying issues here:
First off, there are multiple viewpoints on nearly any topic, as you can see in this thread. If I'd instead posted that we were going to reconsider and massively reduce the prices of the cosmetic items on this vendor, there would be other people feeling like their feedback was ignored. It's exceptionally rare that everyone wants the same thing (despite frequent framing of "
no one likes X" or "
we want X" when giving feedback). And even then, there is a large silent majority that does not post on forums. If there were actual unanimity regarding a certain issue, we would change our design: For example, early on in Warlords, we changed Group Finder loot from Personal back to Need/Greed until we could iterate on Personal loot further, and the community overwhelmingly told us that was a dumb idea. The change was reverted within 2 days.
Second, almost every facet of WoW is an activity that caters to a minority of the playerbase. That may sound odd at first blush, but it's true. In a sense, that's part of the magic of WoW. It is not a narrow game, but rather one that can be enjoyed in numerous different ways, by people with hugely diverse playstyles. A minority of players raid. A minority of players participate in PvP. A tiny minority touch Mythic raiding. A tiny minority of players do rated PvP. A minority of players have several max-level alts. A minority of players do pet battles, roleplay, list things for sale on the auction house, do Challenge Mode dungeons, and the list goes on. Virtually the only activity that a clear majority of players participate in is questing and level-up dungeons, but even then there's a sizeable group that views those activities as a nuisance that they have to get through in order to reach their preferred endgame.
And yet, taken together, that collection of minority groups literally IS the World of Warcraft.
Perceptions of feedback are further complicated by the fact that, due to the cooperative nature of the game, players tend to make connections with others who favor a similar playstyle. I'm generalizing a bit here, and there are certainly exceptions, but I'd guess that a typical Gladiator-level player probably doesn't have a WoW social group that consists of people who mostly solo-level alts and explore the world. And most small friends-and-family guilds don't spend a lot of time talking to competitive Mythic raiders. So when there's a change, or a feature, that is aimed at a portion of the game that isn't your personal playstyle, it's easy and in fact natural to have the sense that "everyone" dislikes it.
If we decided to focus on a specific playstyle and elevate that portion of audience above the rest, then we could certainly visibly and consistently address clear feedback from that group, but WoW would become a far smaller game in the process.
Another major consequence of this structure is that if we have some special reward (be it a unique mount, a powerful item, a title, etc.) and we choose to associate it with a particular playstyle, almost by definition a majority of player feedback will be against that decision. For example, if an awesome mount comes exclusively from PvP, the majority of players who don't participate in PvP yet desire the mount would prefer that it were otherwise. If our goal were to please a majority, we would likely have to make a version of that mount also available through raiding, and one also available through outdoor questing and reputation, at the very least. But doing that would dilute the reward itself. Ultimately, the approach we take is usually to tailor different content and rewards that can feel special to different groups, rather than trying to come up with a lowest common denominator that isn't special to anyone.
In closing, I know it often can seem like we don't listen. We are - just to many, many different voices. And it may be that a given change, feature, or reward is simply aimed at a different portion of the playerbase. Or we could be wrong and we haven't realized it yet. So please, keep talking.