Why? Blizzard seems to have taken a game that many people grew up with and made it easier for casual players (some of those same people who grew up with it who now have jobs/kids/fuller life) to still be involved. I find it great that I can just click a button to find a raid group for the few hours I have a night to play. I can still experience the end game content without the time consuming grind to get the right gear and people to do it. Even if I still want to do that, I can with the heroic/mythic difficulties. Convenience has made the game way more accessible to way more people.
You can still have social encounters and camaraderie. That wasn't taken away. Before, you were forced into social interactions which isn't always everybody's cup of tea.
>Difficulty made it so that people felt pride in what they had achieved.
There are still plenty of difficult tasks still in the game mixed with achievements/mounts that can give you the same level of pride and satisfaction.
it's a completely different game to even how it was in Cataclysm/Pandaria
it's now a single player game for nearly everyone (unless you're a higher level raider)
the vast majority of players will push a button, the game then automatically forms a group, teleports you to the dungeon/raid, which is then completed without anyone saying a word (and it is almost impossible to lose)
the other players might as well be bots
loot is now dished out individually and automatically by the game: no interaction with other players is needed
higher level raiders experience the same content, just at a higher difficulty (which does require an organised group)
Blizzard has optimised out the massively multiplayer part of the MMO, and with new "features" like PvP/mob scaling they've obsoleted the RPG elements too (leveled up? your character is now weaker!)
sadly: what's left is a skinner box collection game with many infinite grinds to force you to play by exploiting the fear of falling behind your peers
> the vast majority of players will push a button, the game then automatically forms a group, teleports you to the dungeon/raid, which is then completed without anyone saying a word (and it is almost impossible to lose)
To be fair, this is not really new. It already was this way 10+ years ago at the end of WotLK when I started playing it for a bit.
> Blizzard has optimised out the massively multiplayer part of the MMO, and with new "features" like PvP/mob scaling they've obsoleted the RPG elements too (leveled up? your character is now weaker!)
Argh, that is ugly. Does this mean I can't farm old Dungeons/Raids and Low-Lvl-Areas on my own anymore? This was quite nice to chill from time to time.
> Does this mean I can't farm old Dungeons/Raids and Low-Lvl-Areas on my own anymore? This was quite nice to chill from time to time.
Most zones have ranges, e.g. level 1-60. So coming back to that zone at lvl 120, you can easily defeat even the most scaled up monsters. Old dungeons/raids are easily soloable at max level.
The zone scaling has made leveling a much better experience, since you can skip the more this-was-made-15-years-ago content without being stuck without quests/content to do.
I personally really like the pvp scaling as well since it results in a much higher volume of interesting fights. Its also sort of a necessary evil that comes with the zone scaling, since people do zones out of order. E.g., a level 30-60 zone will have level 30s and level 60s questing in it, and pvp with a level gap like that is boring for both parties
the dungeon finder was maybe OK, but in WoD they added the automatic raid finder too
no need to have a guild
you can do old areas (via the "magic" of scaling down), however as you leveled up through legion and bfa the mobs health and damage scales with your level AND your gear!
so once you level up from 115 to 116 you become noticeably weaker
additionally you lose abilities from the previous expansion as you level up, so the classes feel like something out of a facebook game (awful to play)
so 5-10 years ago they ruined the MMO part of the game, and now they've ruined the RPG part too
You forgot to mention the time-gating, which is maybe the main thing that has me on the fence about the upcoming expansion. Most of the progression mechanics force you to wait a certain amount of time before you can keep going. This is incredibly frustrating to me, because I tend to play in bursts. I don't feel like logging on for 15 minutes to do a daily every day, and then when I do feel like getting a long session in, my progress is arbitrarily and artificially capped. Haven't looked into whether this will be better in the next xpac, but it's been a frustrating experience for the last 2-3.
previously the game was designed by people wanting to make a MMO that they wanted to play (everquest refugees), with some elements to keep you subscribed over the long term, but it all had an end
these days most of the grinds are infinite, and everything is cynically designed with the express intent of increasing engagement metrics:
- farmville like mission table
- infinite gear treadmill (corruption/titanforging, azerite traits, etc)
- infinite azerite power grind
- infinite reputation grinds
- removal of player agency (badge removal, master loot removal, gear completely random via caches, etc)
unless the KPIs they're targeting have changed: it's all still going to be in the next expansion, if disguised slightly differently
it's really sad, because it was one of the greatest video games of all time
