The chickens have come home to roost.I said it many times from WotLK onwards what can lose players, but fanbois kept claiming XYZ was the best thing from sliced bread. My statements proved true with Cata, and continue to be true in MoP.How is that?Because there's some basics that if messed with, are major turn off with gamers no matter what game a player plays. WoW isn't immune to it.What Blizzard done to healing is but one aspect of this, for example. To keep up with GW2 they threw this role under the bus:First part of the problem is healing is an afterthought. If you neglect a role or class folks don't play it (we seen this with Warlocks and Shamans). Blizzard didn't even know what DPS healers did outside instances and said so, too (why do you DPS as a healer is their question. Never thinking...MMORPG?).They're that out of touch. Like they got some COD interns making WoW now.Second part of the problem is the mechanics are mostly filler, more time generating power than actually doing what you're there to do. The result is boredom, as smaller heals won't save anyone from death (the damage is greater than that heal). WotLK model of healing, at least you had to do something than Crusader Strike (7k strike..wow) and Holy Shock (30k no crit hit...every 8 seconds...wow) for most of the time. -_-Third part is the amount of overhealing, and it's due to 3+ healers heals that can go off at any moment. Wasted 20% of your mana because someone with 35% haste got that heal in faster than someone with 34%. Now you're out of almost 1/4 of your mana, no heal is registered either. But just look at the pretty overheals and now you're #1. Tanks and DPS doesn't care (that too is a problem) as they can just tank and DPS, that is until near the end of the raid when regen mechanics can't/won't keep up with the wasted heals...THEN they scream about "where's my heals!" (1000001 offheals and self-healing they have now, but if it takes more than 1 sec off their rotation it's "UNFAIR!"). I spend my healing time now more to heal the healers as they race to score on Recount and play like a DPS expecting someone to heal THEM instead (goodbye role specialization it's now anyone can play this role, and play wrongly while at it). If I didn't, the top healer who spams that expensive AoE heal endlessly like a 1 button wonder would've matched that DPS that manages to die 21x.Then folks wonder why people are leaving? It's not just because they raced through the content. It's that everything now is so gated from CDs to content, that now class mechanics are gated to the point of ridiculousness.If the class you prefer to play isn't supported to keep up with another game, the same game people played and came back from (I never played GW2 because it doesn't follow the Holy Trinity and healing is but this self-heal nonsense), why would someone WANT to continue to play the game they just left?Game improvements like AoE looting. Transmorg. Reforge are good. Nice things to copy from other games. It adds to WoW. Reducing a whole role to but a bot, is not!And the final nail in the coffin? Yet another expansion of a TBC theme in a year. When will Blizzard understand that the TBC players are gone. What's left is a smaller and smaller and smaller pool of TBC players, and having 3 expansions of the same TBC knockoffs is about enough anyone can stomach. Two of those expansions have been the worst in WoW's history.At this point WoW as WoW died with the Lich King. Whatever exists now is some crazy experiment and it's not fun feeling like a lab rat and paying for it. I don't blame folks in leaving, what's the point in playing with this much micromanagement, and a company that (seen the Diablo 3 devs discounting players on Facebook?) that has a terrible relationship with it's subscribers as policy, too.
RNG is killing WOW.. .CRZ is killing wow , GC is killing WOW and frustration is killing wow.
This result is less than surprising. Adding Pokemon to WoW didn't work. The people who are interested in playing Pokemon play it and aren't interested in the Pet Battles in WoW.Adding Farmville to WoW didn't work because the people who play Farmville aren't interested in having a farm in WoW and are rather smug about playing a game in which they don't have to "kill stuff".The "fun and exciting"® devastation of the Talent System didn't work because people who want something that "fun and exciting"® play Chutes and Ladders or Candyland.Making it so easy to level that no one needs to actually explore the world or absorb any of the lore hasn't worked because it means that new players never have to engage with the substance if the game as they zerg their way to level 90 and high level content.Making it so incredibly easy to travel around the world doesn't help because new players never have to engage with the world by finding flight paths, zeppelin routes, etc. Player who can't get from zone to zone without a friendly mage have no serious commitment to the world they inhabit in their game.WoW is a game for those who enjoy complexity and depth in their games. Removing all that complexity attracts some players but those that it attracts tend to be fickle and without the commitment that comes with actually earning each level and each bit of gear. Taking away the complexity offends those who are long-time players and attracts only those attention deficit players who migrate from new, shiny game to new shiny game. Even so the great mistake comes in giving too much weight to a change that would have taken place anyway as players move on to those newer and newer games If Blizzard wants to build its player base it needs to reverse direction and return to a game that requires more commitment and more effort to learn and level. The results won't be instant but over time it will increase the fan base with players who have a solid commitment to the game.I predicted this result a year ago and am simply sad that I was correct.
The result is: WoW as an eSport doesn't work.The result is: Zerging everything and "just play a DPS" doesn't work.The result is: LFM healer...<crickets chirping>..."Sorry guys we can't find a healer..." (I don't volunteer to heal anymore, zero incentive as playing Holy Shock...8 secs...Holy Shock...8 secs...Holy Shock...8 secs...Eternal Flame...0 Holy Power left...Holy Shock...8 secs --- how can I Crusader Strike if I'm running away from the boss so much to do anything but Holy Shock to regen Holy power? -- is for the birds).The result is: RNG sucks (no matter how many excuses said, taking 4 months in a 6 month patch cycle to finally get a shield...if lucky...sucks).The result is: How's that new game?
Just to add to what everyone is saying about the "new player base".The irony of ironies is that the same players that are crying that they "want to get items faster, want quests to be easier, want less grinds, want do more damage/healing faster, don't want to wait so long to level up their gear, etc. etc." are the exact same players that once they do get those things, then complain that "I have nothing left to do, there isn't enough content, there isn't enough (whatever)"That's the real issue #1.The second issue is, that those of us that aren't complaining about such trivialities, just don't feel the same "magic" as we did in Vanilla and TBC when everything was still a learning process.Back then, we didn't have a million different sites to go to, to be able to instantly find our most optimal rotation, BiS gear, best enchants, etc. etc.The mystery just isn't there any longer, and that's what a lot of us "old-schoolers" are missing.I also believe that the PTR is largely to blame for that. I very much disagree with the PTR testing model. Essentially, Blizzard gets the players to test most of the patches for them instead of having their own testing teams do the work. While this gives them a much broader perspective on what might work and what might be broken, this kills ALL of the mystery and enigma behind any and all upcoming patches.We all know what is going to come out, long before its actually on live servers. Again, there is no mystery or exploration left.
Blizzard shot themselves in the foot. Since the beginning, Blizzard has used china internet cafe players in their numbers. It was a debatable decision since those people were actually paying money each month to play, but it was significantly less than normal subscribers. What is happening now is that a very good free-2-play game is sweeping china.... everyone is playing it... for free.. So all those chinese accounts that were playing WOW a few dozen hours per month are now saving money playing a free game.And in an instant, wow drops 1.3 ´subscribers´.. Blizzard can´t suddenly say ´oh, those numbers don´t count´... since they had been bragging on them for years. If Blizzard had published separate subscriber vs ´players from china´ from the beginning, then yesterdays numbers wouldn´t be a big deal. Blizzards revenues and earnings beat expectations... which means the $15/month subscribers are still there and it was all mainly from china that was lost.. but that 1.3M number is still there for everyone to see... just like that 12M number was there for Blizzard to brag about 4 years ago.I don´t think Blizzard is panicking about these number.. they are probably pissed that they spent so much effort screwing around with the chinese gov´t... but if the money is there ( and it is).. the 1.3M is just a perception problem, not a business/development problem.Anyone who is trying to find justification for the drop in gameplay ( CRZ, LFR whatever)... needs to get their heads out of their butts and look at the new game launches in China this year. Very high quality F2P games accessible and promoted in every cybercafe. There is NOTHING from any major wow website that indicates any drop in players in the past 3 months anywhere close to 20%.What WOW lost is what the haters always said should never be counted anyway.. the chinese players that pay $1 to play a dozen hours a month.
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Nearly 5 yrs and still liking it at high lvl except there being so many dailies and some dungeons are very short now i like fast lvling however the old 60-70 dungeons now in finder the twinks take out the challenge for some of us on lower lvl toons we get lvl 60s adding lvl 70-80 gems and lvl 70 enchants its got too easy now lvling up aswell as using guild perks i remember when we enjoyed lvling toons up this is the thing alot of us dont like average 60-70 Dungeon finder we are unkillable if these were sorted out and just an idea for the next expansion a demon lord like Mag puting on the Lichs armour the Lichs Armour Leading a scourge and legion army across azeroth caused by Jainas Anger at the Horde After the Mana Bomb this might just work
If any of you want more than just the wowhead discussion on this, go here:http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/8796349722Now at 108 pages.Cheers.