World of Warcraft

[DrearyDoomguy]

They're getting shit on because people can smell horseshit from a mile away.

Previously Blizzard would stand behind bad design decisions and would actively defend them (see - BFA, Legion, etc) and then eventually roll them back over two years until the next expansion landed. Although players generally hate this approach, it was generally received as a "Blizzard feels this way, so it is what it is" or "They are going to make the changes but can't right now because of <reason> (pvp season in progress, raid progression, whatever).

This time around, Blizzard caved super hard and super fast on their design decisions in 9.1.5 - which sounds good on paper but in reality isn't. Most players are smart enough to realize this is Blizzard having a snap reaction to all of the really bad publicity they've been having recently, but it opens up the question of "If you can make all these changes this fast for 9.1.5 - what was the fucking wait in 8.X, 7.X, and so on?". To which there isn't a good answer besides Blizzard not giving a shit unless they are forced to for some reason - which makes all the players who are still supporting Blizzard feel even dumber.

For years (or decades) some players really thought Blizzard was doing the absolute, 100% effort they could do only for it to spill out that Blizzard is actually capable of listening to feedback but only when they're getting bad press.

Honestly, it could be that Blizzard were always in it for the long con and didn't give a shit but I got the feeling that in years previous they did care, at least a bit, and thought the design decisions they made were the best they could make for some reason that made sense internally. A lot of seemingly no-brainer features are much more difficult to implement in practice, especially with an engine so old you could practically send it off to college. I wouldn't be surprised if doing a complete overhaul of the engine has been a long term project of theirs that only recently came to fruition, hence why they can suddenly deliver on long-desired features.

The bad changes generally happened gradually enough that a lot of Blizzard faithfuls probably would have been willing to stay in the slowly heating water until it reached a boiling point; after all, the forums were always overrun with people complaining about some aspect of gameplay. It was hard to tell if it was them doing the best they could or just not caring - right up until the twin fuckups that were the Diablo Immortal announcements, and more importantly Blitzchung. One demonstrated a clear consumer disconnect, the other was Blizzard stepping in a pile of political shit so bad both sides of the aisle got pissed off. That, in my mind, was the flashpoint where the free ride stopped and players stopped giving Blizzard the benefit of the doubt. The shadowlands launch recouped a bit of consumer goodwill, but it just doesn't keep like it used to. After a year of actual Shadowlands "content", not to mention them throwing Quinton Flynn under the bus in a comical display of hypocrisy, any goodwill they generate will go as quick as it came. At a certain point your brand is irreversibly damaged, and if nothing else the lawsuit pushed Blizzard solidly past that point.

The like/dislike ratio:
View attachment 2543142
I don't expect it to last but that's pretty fucking funny.

I do. Look at the recent survival guides, raid announcements, and trailers. Most, if not all, have like/dislike ratios at 60 or below. Blizzard have been hemorrhaging goodwill since 2019, and if they weren't already owned by Activision that lawsuit would stand a good chance of outright Gawkering them.

 

[Tanner Glass]

Honestly, it could be that Blizzard were always in it for the long con and didn't give a shit but I got the feeling that in years previous they did care, at least a bit, and thought the design decisions they made were the best they could make for some reason that made sense internally. A lot of seemingly no-brainer features are much more difficult to implement in practice, especially with an engine so old you could practically send it off to college. I wouldn't be surprised if doing a complete overhaul of the engine has been a long term project of theirs that only recently came to fruition, hence why they can suddenly deliver on long-desired features.

The bad changes generally happened gradually enough that a lot of Blizzard faithfuls probably would have been willing to stay in the slowly heating water until it reached a boiling point; after all, the forums were always overrun with people complaining about some aspect of gameplay. It was hard to tell if it was them doing the best they could or just not caring - right up until the twin fuckups that were the Diablo Immortal announcements, and more importantly Blitzchung. One demonstrated a clear consumer disconnect, the other was Blizzard stepping in a pile of political shit so bad both sides of the aisle got pissed off. That, in my mind, was the flashpoint where the free ride stopped and players stopped giving Blizzard the benefit of the doubt. The shadowlands launch recouped a bit of consumer goodwill, but it just doesn't keep like it used to. After a year of actual Shadowlands "content", not to mention them throwing Quinton Flynn under the bus in a comical display of hypocrisy, any goodwill they generate will go as quick as it came. At a certain point your brand is irreversibly damaged, and if nothing else the lawsuit pushed Blizzard solidly past that point.



I do. Look at the recent survival guides, raid announcements, and trailers. Most, if not all, have like/dislike ratios at 60 or below. Blizzard have been hemorrhaging goodwill since 2019, and if they weren't already owned by Activision that lawsuit would stand a good chance of outright Gawkering them.

I personally don't think it was a "long con" - I think they released what was a groundbreaking game for 2004 standards (despite the fact it was objectively not perfect, or even great) and got to basically sit in a genre unopposed for nearly a decade because the other products (FF11, Starwars Galaxies, Everquest, etc) didn't have the same accessibility, charm, or polish and weren't even close.

The "Blizzard Polish" died well before 2019 - I'd say it died much closer to 2010 with the launch of SC2:Wings of Liberty. As a huge sequel and a highly anticipated title - it was ok? The story was episodic, not very good, and there was very little innovation in the multiplayer modes (and not what you'd expect from Blizzard). It was the first time for most people playing a Blizzard game and going "this is it?". World of Warcraft had it's first widely-accepted-as-mediocre expansion in Cataclysm of the same year, which recycled a lot of concepts from the previous expansions.

The people that were willing to write it off as a fluke would go on to get massacred by the first version of Diablo 3 in 2012 - which showed that Blizzard had pretty clearly lost any magic they had from the last decade. Everything that happened after was pretty much just more logs on the fire at that point.

 

[♦️ King of Diamonds ♦️]

I miss the golden days of Private Servers before they became pay-to-win sludgefests. WoW uses C++, right?

 

[Smug Chuckler]

I miss the golden days of Private Servers before they became pay-to-win sludgefests. WoW uses C++, right?

Yeah, and interface is Lua.

Also Blizzard sent thank you e-mails to those who tested the 9.1 ptr, might as well send them to the rest of the playerbase. lol

 

[DrearyDoomguy]

The "Blizzard Polish" died well before 2019 - I'd say it died much closer to 2010 with the launch of SC2:Wings of Liberty. As a huge sequel and a highly anticipated title - it was ok? The story was episodic, not very good, and there was very little innovation in the multiplayer modes (and not what you'd expect from Blizzard). It was the first time for most people playing a Blizzard game and going "this is it?". World of Warcraft had it's first widely-accepted-as-mediocre expansion in Cataclysm of the same year, which recycled a lot of concepts from the previous expansions.

I think the decline was still quite gradual, but Diablo 3 was an absolute disaster at launch between the real money auction house and the server outages preventing customers from logging in to play their game even locally. They came down on the wrong side of the "always online" debate and suffered for it. That was their first real black eye, where the issues were so egregious that people who didn't even play the game were hearing about them. Starcraft II wasn't anything all that special, but given that the boomer RTS genre was already declining at the time, it was easy enough to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'd put the moment they really started to lose their luster a bit later - Warlords of Draenor specifically. Cataclysm wasn't their best xpac, but Warlords was a transparent grindfest that the developers abandoned halfway through so they could go all in on Legion (which, to their credit, nearly made up for it. Shame it ended up being a fluke in an otherwise downward trajectory). Warlords was for me the "man behind the curtain" moment where the game started to feel like a second job that you paid for.

 

[Erich Honecker]

Today, removing any and all paintings from the game that happen to have sexual content. Next month, they'll probably start dealing out permabans for ERPers because "they could be simulating rape". Sharia Law comes to the World of Warcraft at last.

 

[Spergetti]

Today, removing any and all paintings from the game that happen to have sexual content. Next month, they'll probably start dealing out permabans for ERPers because "they could be simulating rape". Sharia Law comes to the World of Warcraft at last.

By the Light (of Allah)!

 

[Tanner Glass]

I think the decline was still quite gradual, but Diablo 3 was an absolute disaster at launch between the real money auction house and the server outages preventing customers from logging in to play their game even locally. They came down on the wrong side of the "always online" debate and suffered for it. That was their first real black eye, where the issues were so egregious that people who didn't even play the game were hearing about them. Starcraft II wasn't anything all that special, but given that the boomer RTS genre was already declining at the time, it was easy enough to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'd put the moment they really started to lose their luster a bit later - Warlords of Draenor specifically. Cataclysm wasn't their best xpac, but Warlords was a transparent grindfest that the developers abandoned halfway through so they could go all in on Legion (which, to their credit, nearly made up for it. Shame it ended up being a fluke in an otherwise downward trajectory). Warlords was for me the "man behind the curtain" moment where the game started to feel like a second job that you paid for.

You have to remember that while Starcraft 2 was (and is) medicore - it was a major "man behind the curtain moment" because it was something that they were working on for a full decade and only had barely 40% of a game to show for it. Updated graphics, a few changed units, and 1/3rd of the story content - and that's literally a decade's worth of work. Starcraft 2 was also Blizzard's first foray into "investing way too hard into eSports and trying to control every single aspect of it" and it's first foray into "an extremely unpopular, legally dubious, and ill-advised EULA for mod/map maker content" that pretty much spit in the face of that group of people for no real gain.

Cataclysm was the first major expansion where Blizzard spent huge amounts of time, money, and effort into solving a problem that didn't need huge amounts of time, money, and effort and not really understanding what they wanted to do in an expansion besides having an expansion. They spent huge amounts of time replacing entire questing areas full of shitty quests only to replace them with equally shitty quests that no one in the playerbase give a single fuck about. It didn't help existing players and actively excluded new players. It was also the start of homogenized design by forcing every talent tree into a specialization and adding "mastery" to the substat table. They made a wide array of changes that left people scratching their heads and asking "is this an expansion worthy thing?" some new quests, some new basic race+class combos that shouldn't have been locked out ever (Blood Elves could wear plate armor and 2H weapons as Death Knights and Paladins, but weren't able to be Warriors for some reason?).

With all of the time spent on that stuff, very little time was spent on improving the game and it was a dud in that regard. Raid tuning was all over the place and most people regard Dragon Soul as "one of the worst raid tiers" and that's what players were stuck with for the longest content drought (of that time, at least). LFR difficulty was so incorrectly tuned and not even partially playtested that some fights were impossible to lose and some were still insanely hard - which would go on to become a Blizzard design staple.

Diablo 3 was a disaster as you outline, but it was also a disaster because Blizzard decided to lie to their audience about core design decisions regarding Diablo 3. One of the core features of Diablo 3 were a very large amount of simplification changes - a large reduction in how many spells or effects you could have at a single time per character, a complete removal of any permanent character choices, an almost complete removal of passive skills and groups skills. From 2008 onward, the Diablo fans started to think "they would only do this if they're trying to put Diablo 3 on consoles" but Blizzard decided to pretend that it wasn't the case until January of 2012 (two months before D3's PC release and 4 years later) for no reason. Because the state of the game's launch and upcoming "better" console releases, it was the first major "we feel like Beta Testers who aren't getting paid" moment for a lot of Blizzard faithful.

 

[ZMOT]

Honestly, it could be that Blizzard were always in it for the long con and didn't give a shit but I got the feeling that in years previous they did care, at least a bit, and thought the design decisions they made were the best they could make for some reason that made sense internally. A lot of seemingly no-brainer features are much more difficult to implement in practice, especially with an engine so old you could practically send it off to college. I wouldn't be surprised if doing a complete overhaul of the engine has been a long term project of theirs that only recently came to fruition, hence why they can suddenly deliver on long-desired features.

that's just making excuses really, and not how it works.
no one expects them to completely revamp the engine when that was never the problem - shitty gameplay design and progression won't suddenly change because you overhauled the engine, you wouldn't even need to. that's like fixing a problem that doesn't exist as @Tanner Glass called it.
nothing that would've "fixed" the game (depending what you consider fixed) would require it, not to mention it's not the same engine as 2004, even if it looks like it. or look at it this way: depending who you ask vanilla was a better game than retail, so by that logic a worse version of the engine was base for a better version of WoW.

blizzard was also always very high on their own farts, they're not some "poor devs making the best they could do with their limited engine" (and even if true would still be a piss-poor excuse given the truckloads of money they made), their design decisions where the best because it was their design. "we're blizzard, we know what's best", and considering the billions they made over the years, who would call them wrong?

 

[LolRaccoon]

Is there a possibility that they remove succubi from the game? They already did in Hearthstone a long time ago.

 

[Kane Lives]

Is there a possibility that they remove succubi from the game? They already did in Hearthstone a long time ago.

Hold on, what? Did they actually do that?

 

[LolRaccoon]

Hold on, what? Did they actually do that?

https://kotaku.com/blizzard-responds-to-accusations-of-censorship-in-heart-1836058159

They censored it and several other cards like "Bite."

 

[Smug Chuckler]

 

[Oddjob OTP]

It was also the start of homogenized design by forcing every talent tree into a specialization and adding "mastery" to the substat table.

I don't disagree with most of what you're saying but how is mastery, a stat that did wildly different things for every spec MORE homogeneous then every single class breaking down to:
Melee: Stack hit to 8%, then look up your class on EJ you're probably stacking Armor Pen though
Ranged: Stack hit to 12%, then stack haste unless you're a fire mage or maybe an ele shaman
Tank: Stack defense up to 8% and then try to get 8% hit to slap more but it doesn't matter
Healer: Stack spirit or mp/5, other stats are for chumps

Your argument seems better suited for versatility the generic flat damage stat no one has ever been excited about. Or multistrike which was crit with more math.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Starcraft II wasn't anything all that special, but given that the boomer RTS genre was already declining at the time, it was easy enough to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Starcraft 2 was also Blizzard's first foray into "investing way too hard into eSports and trying to control every single aspect of it" and it's first foray into "an extremely unpopular, legally dubious, and ill-advised EULA for mod/map maker content" that pretty much spit in the face of that group of people for no real gain.

In addition, the requiring of a Battle.net account to play SC2, removed the LAN gameplay that Brood War had, and Blizzard trying to fight with KeSPA for more control over the SC2 E-Sports scene didn't help either.

 

[Tanner Glass]

I don't disagree with most of what you're saying but how is mastery, a stat that did wildly different things for every spec MORE homogeneous then every single class breaking down to:
Melee: Stack hit to 8%, then look up your class on EJ you're probably stacking Armor Pen though
Ranged: Stack hit to 12%, then stack haste unless you're a fire mage or maybe an ele shaman
Tank: Stack defense up to 8% and then try to get 8% hit to slap more but it doesn't matter
Healer: Stack spirit or mp/5, other stats are for chumps

Your argument seems better suited for versatility the generic flat damage stat no one has ever been excited about. Or multistrike which was crit with more math.

Because Mastery ruins diversity on gear, because it can (and was) able to be placed in every single slot for every single class and spec.

Using your examples
Melee Cata : Attack Power, Armor Penetration, Expertise are removed from gear - and MASTERY is now added. Melee stats entirely consist of Mainstat, Stamina, Hit, Crit, Mastery, Haste - meaning you're gearing around 3 stats. Usually Haste is dogshit so it becomes "Cap hit, then Crit/Mastery on all slots".
Tank Cata : Defense rating, Shield Block, Block Rating, Bonus Armor, and expertise are removed from gear. The only defensive stat added is Mastery - the only defensive stat you can get is mastery. Gearing becomes "Mastery and then whatever (not haste)".
Ranged (Casters) : Spellpower is removed and rolled into INT. INT increases damage from all schools, so no +Shadow damage, +Fire Damage, etc. The only added stat is Mastery. Cap hit, then Crit/Mastery unless you benefit from haste.
Healing : Spellpower is removed, MP5 is removed and only Mastery is added. Spirit (which existed previously) shows up on gear and interacts with some talents.

Additionally - all classes who can wear multiple armor classes get a passive talent that almost always makes it worthless to wear anything other than their highest one - further limiting the pool of items available to those classes (so no Edgemaster Handguards type of situation).

The main issue for homogenization is the gear itself. Where previously gear was much more clearly defined and designed for specific tasks, with Mastery it becomes the first (of many in the future) generic stats that can be thrown onto anything.

Some examples -
Plate Shoulders with STR, STA, MASTERY, CRIT can be used by every single class/spec that wears plate (with the only exception of Holy Paladin). The separation of "this is good for X class"
A trinket that only has a Stamina and a Mastery proc can be used by every single class and spec in the entire game and MAINSTAT/Mastery now apply to entire stat armor groups.

It was a gigantic leap into throwing all of the existing gear into the nightmare it is now (MAINSTAT, STA, SUBSTAT 1, SUBSTAT 2) and it was a major thing that hurt gearing as it extremely homogenized gearing for all armor types. The only meaningful distinction between items is what mainstat it has, which would be removed later down the line.

You aren't wrong that gearing wasn't remarkably deep in Wrath, but Cata drove it even further into the ground and put it in a place it would never recover.

 

[ZMOT]

It was a gigantic leap into throwing all of the existing gear into the nightmare it is now (MAINSTAT, STA, SUBSTAT 1, SUBSTAT 2) and it was a major thing that hurt gearing as it extremely homogenized gearing for all armor types. The only meaningful distinction between items is what mainstat it has, which would be removed later down the line.

You aren't wrong that gearing wasn't remarkably deep in Wrath, but Cata drove it even further into the ground and put it in a place it would never recover.

you aren't entirely wrong, but the problem is again blizzard - the slippery slope is real and any good idea in one direction will be bled dry and lead to dumbing the game down.
it did fix some of the lootgrind issues tho, but still was only a bandaid since the system itself is dogshit and outdated (and got even worse over time when they tried to copy diablo).

 

[Dell Conagher]

I just want WOTLK classic, For me it was the golden years.

 

[Bob_]

I just want WOTLK classic, For me it was the golden years.

I was thinking about future classic releases and when I would stop playing.

Very keen to do wrath again, and cata up until the end of Firelands.

Maybe do a little of MoP, but was the pre-bis gearing for the first raid tier a horrible daily rep grind? I'm struggling to remember as I didn't raid in MoP

 

[TVStactic]

I just want WOTLK classic, For me it was the golden years.

i guess this is a crosspost between the saints row thread. but on this hardcore faggot's opinion LK is overrated:

he did give some potshots are TBCC too and after hearing the word "casual" i fucking knew he was a gigantic faggot, altough he does parrot the old shit like blizzard got too greedy because of metachasing raid/pvp faggots which is true:

and of course he sucks TBC's balls, the expansion that was the beginning of the end (yes, the expansion that fucked the WC lore beyond repair):

(btw that nigger got some nice sub increase, before his SR videos he had 200 people but now he has over 6K viewers, for a parroting the same shit type of nigger he's doing well)
but overall i agree with you, started my wow career as a poor 3rd world nigger on some hue WOTLK servers, loved DK's, especially frost because of the walk on water buff.