Why I login less now (constructive feedback)

Posted on this account as I'm getting the once-a-month "Account is inactive" payment processing bug today. My main is Snowfox, a veteran 80 night elf priest. Her armory is here: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Vek%27nilash&n=Snowfox


Introduction

I love this game, I love healing, and I love being a priest. Unfortunately I also find myself feeling less of an urge to login, and hope to explain why in a neutral way. In the past, I have posted about frustration I felt with priests, and feel they were addressed (perhaps not *my* posts, but the issues nonetheless). My complaint is NOT about priests being weak or anything like that. I think what was done to disc was brilliant, even if currently very strong. My concerns are at a higher level than just priesting or even healing though.

Parts of the game experienced

I post this, just so readers understand my perspective is not from lack of exploring different sides of the game:
* 5p pugging - everything, multiple times
* 40P raiding - everything but the end of naxx at 60
* 10p raiding - everything before Ulduar
* 25p raiding - everything but Malygos before Ulduar (in pugs)
* Vanilla PvP - grinded out commander
* BC PvP - full but not topline set of arena gear
* Wotlk PvP - less than bc, and got involved at the worst possible time for a priest: pre-nerf DK's.
* Addon development - although I'd rather not go into specifics
* RP realms - I am an adept roleplayer
* PvP realms - On a rogue alt and old druid
* Multiboxing - Three at once, clearing instances. Also doing 5p heroics as both the tank and healer, simultaneously.
* Classes - 80 priest, 80 dk, 74 warlock, 60 druid, and everything else at random levels.


What changed or needed to change, but didn't:

Monoguilds:
WoW's system of allowing membership in one and only one guild at a time is simply outdated. Layered/multi-guilding alone would solve a lot of the social angst present now.

"On rails" frustration:
I'm frustrated by the sometimes constricted feeling of healing, that the heal I'm expected to use is almost pre-calculated, over-analyzed, and the specific need for a spell almost coded directly into the boss fights themselves.

Lack of user content:
While I understand developers want their vision, done with quality - In WoW, players have total lack of creative control, there still being nothing liked sandboxed but free form content creation, guild housing, or any way to really add anything to the game beyond addons and a clever tabard design.

Arenas/PvP:
Perhaps I'm terrible at them, perhaps I'd be better now but don't wish to go. I don't know, I just know I'd rather watch go farming herbs than set foot in one now. We can handwave this one away as personal preference though.

Raiding relapsed:
In short, the love I have for 5p's I still feel for 10p's. However the corporate work-world feeling I had in 40p's I still feel in 25p's. It isn't about easy or hard, it's about feeling drained by them. I won't go back to it, if it involves the same monoguilding-with-strangers as it has.

The demise of 5p's:
I've done all of them, repeatedly, on different toons, in different roles, in all manners of groups. I would still login to do them, but there is little reason to now. There is no progression of any sort to be had from them. Even kidnapping puppies gives more money for the time than the daily heroics. At 60, even after killing C'Thun I remember doing a dire maul tribute run for mana pots. I don't see that effect anymore.


IV. The big picture
I actually do know what it is like to be brought on to extend and develop an already existing software system, one which carries with it the legacy of the past, for both good and bad. I know that non-antagonistic feedback plays a pivotal role. When I get home from work, debating what to do to unwind, I think of WoW first... but then I think of exactly *what* I would do, and my head just hangs. Maybe I've gone too far outside the norm, played too long, or have gotten too old. I realize there are many broad issues here, and this is more emotion/need based post than the usual number theories. If I had to pick just *one* as the most important - I'd implore the developers to not underestimate the importance of 5p's and their remaining relevant to progression. They are what keep players/healers like myself logging in, how players meet and form social bonds with their realm, and often leads to other things like raiding or pvp. My <3 will always belong to the 5p's. There isn't an item or title possible that can change that. If some of the other issues didn't exist, the 5p issue would likely not seem as important.

I post this as a priest, a tank, and a player - but always remembering my roots healing the pug 5p's.

Please.

I want to want to login.

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Q u o t e:
Thanks for the feedback.

I'll just comment on one point you made. In BC we felt like the system pushed players too hard into running the 5-player heroic instances long after they could benefit from the gear in order to farm badges. In LK we totally did away with this (since badges themselves are tiered) and also got rid of attunements and made Naxx relatively easy. As a result, I agree that we let end-game focused players graduate from heroic 5-player instances too quickly. In the future, we'd like to strike a more even balance where it might make sense to run a 5-player dungeon on a non-raid night, but you didn't feel obligated to every night.

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is it to late to do some thing about it for wotlk?

I agree about the lack of user creativity. I get so bored quickly because everything in game feels like a grind. On off nights it doesn't feel like there is much to do, dailies feel like a grind, leveling another char is another giant grind, even running ulduar or naxx is a grind (fun for the first 3 weeks, pretty dull after).

The main thing I'd want blizz to do is to create more creative quests like wrathgate, quests that are fun and interactive with the lore, maybe have a cinematic at the end of each chain. Not, "hey im a farmer so go get me 10 boar meat plz."

I am trying to solo all the bosses in molten core so far i have only downed one :)

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Q u o t e:


is it to late to do some thing about it for wotlk?

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Make the badges BoA.

I have read many of your posts as you quite a prolific poster (on Snowfox at leas). The feeling I get is that its the social aspect of the game that you are missing.

So do you actually prefer 5 mans to raiding or is the just the social aspect that you enjoy more?

I like prefer the 10 mans to either the 5 or the 25 because you get to keep some of the challenge from 25 but at the same time each player matters like in the 5s.

I pretty much gave up on 5-man dungeons at this point, which means when it's not a raid day, the only reason I log in is to complete a couple daily quests. Even then, most of the argent tournament champion-level quests aren't any fun to try and solo, so I tend to skip most of them now that I have my mini-tree pet.

I think if they managed to make some of the non-raiding things more fun, then the raid-focused players would have more things to do on off-nights.

Then again, we could spend a LOT of time trying to figure out what would be fun. :(

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Q u o t e:

I n the future, we'd like to strike a more even balance where it might make sense to run a 5-player dungeon on a non-raid night, but you didn't feel obligated to every night.

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I hope "In the future" means 3.2 or 3.3, not 4.0. Yes, I'm talking about adding a new 5-player dungeon or 3 with more challenge. Please do it.

It is really a shame that 5 player instances don't have their own progression path the way 10-player and 25-player instances do. They don't need to reward uber loot, but it would be nice if they remained a challenge for someone who already has raid gear.

Perhaps different tiers of heroic mode are in order ("super heroic!"). Maybe that is something to think about for 4.0. Clearly you have proven that you have the ability to make 5 player dungeons challenging -- remember the tears about Heroic Loken pre-nerf and pre-raid-gear?

But in the mean time, please don't forget to add new 5-player content.

I never thought about it, but that user created content thing is a very good point. True, RPGs seem to try & let the user control EVERYTHING as of late, but could I at least customize my toon more? Weight, height, scars- some kind of personal aspect.

Great thread nonetheless.

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Q u o t e:
Monoguilds:
WoW's system of allowing membership in one and only one guild at a time is simply outdated. Layered/multi-guilding alone would solve a lot of the social angst present now.

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Q u o t e:
Raiding relapsed:
In short, the love I have for 5p's I still feel for 10p's. However the corporate work-world feeling I had in 40p's I still feel in 25p's. It isn't about easy or hard, it's about feeling drained by them. I won't go back to it, if it involves the same monoguilding-with-strangers as it has.

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Sounds to me like you're in a crappy guild with no friends...

Edit: That came out more !!*#-ish than intended...

I was going to make a similar post to this in the near future, guess you beat me to it.

There really are 3 things that make me not want to log on at this point (at least the 3 big things)

1) Lack of content. I HATE 25-mans with a passion, they are frustrating to no end. But I LOVE 10-mans and to a lesser extent 5s.
there are 2 long 10s and 2 really short 10s. the long ones take 4-6 hours EACH. the short ones take 30 minutes tops.
It would be really amazing if there were another 1 or 2 short ones like OS and EoE. or 1 or 2 that took about 2 hours (like 8 bosses)
to me OS is about perfect (maybe a little short) if the drakes were like acual bosses.

2) lack of finances, Im going ot get flamed so bad for this, but there really are no good ways to make money, they are all very grindy and not fun. Daillies are a pain, especially as a healer. and for someone like me that plays 5 hour ish a week, it really not an option, tradeskills (mat farming) takes alot of time as well.
Id like to get on spend an hour or 2 and get enough gold to be able ot grab flasks and enchants and glyphs and save for upgrades, etc... but I fel like I got to take weeks of my play time off to go farm or do boring dailies to get enough to get by.
-If Dailes could to spiced up to acually be fun, or there was some other way to get like 100g in an hour or 2 that would be great for casual players (those that dont have alot of time)

3) lack of options, this is more of a personal thing, As a Paladin there is so little to do while healing, it is annoying that there is more to do in 5s than in 10s. and especially 25s.
The lack of different spell options make this class feel watered down, almost like it is for beginners.
Paladins need to be given more to do.... or the Tank healing niche needs to be changed to be more dynamic.

this leaves me with the option to suck it up, reroll, or quit
A. I shouldn't have to suck it up, there is no fun in that. We play this game to have fun.
B, Reroll is even more boring than just playing this character. which is dumb, the whole leveling prosess is BORING. why should I be forced to suffer through RELEVELING a character??? that is going to take me 8 months to level back to the part of the game I enjoy?
At the very least you should offer (a paid) way to Re-class your toon.
C. Quit..... yah thats what ive done, seeing as that is the only option left.

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Q u o t e:
Monoguilds:

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I like the idea of a level 80 being able to join two guilds.

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Q u o t e:
"On rails" frustration:

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I don't feel this way but I'm a paladin... maybe that has something to do with it... Although I was a holy priest prior to BC.

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Q u o t e:
Lack of user content:

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I like the guild banks and calendars. I don't see any reason for guild housing. Most guilds have their own websites for guild history, progression, etc. What would in game guild housing add? What are you missing here?

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Q u o t e:
Arenas/PvP:

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I've entered the arena a handful of times on my lock in BC. I'm just not a big PvPer. About the only PvP I really enjoyed in BC was AV. And I've done almost no pvp in WotlK (WG twice is about it). As long as PvP nerfs don't affect PvE I really don't care much about this aspect of the game to be honest.

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Q u o t e:
Raiding relapsed:

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Big raids are hard because it's hard to organize large groups of people, not because the game mechanics are difficult. If you're in one of those rare circumstances where you have 25+ very dedicated, very mature, very reliable players it's an experience like none other. For the other 99%, it's painful for reasons that have nothing to do with the game and everything to do with other people. Some of these issues can be mitigated by a better interface (which is addressed by several add-ons) and some cannot. For me, it's too much of a job and I'm not interested.

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Q u o t e:
The demise of 5p's:

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I like 5-mans. I love "reasonably" difficult 5-mans. There are some boss encounters that qualify. Overall, I think WotlK 5-man instances are too easy. A lot of this, though, has to do with the relative abundance of epic gear.

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Q u o t e:

IV. The big picture

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End game blues.... These games are all about one thing: improving your character. When there's not something to do that is: 1) fun and 2) improves your character (or your friends characters depending upon your personality), you feel like there's no reason to log on. Distractions (like atls, dabbling in PvP, etc.) can only mitigate this for so long...

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Q u o t e:

Monoguilds:
WoW's system of allowing membership in one and only one guild at a time is simply outdated. Layered/multi-guilding alone would solve a lot of the social angst present now.

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To add my two cents: Ultima Online had a cool guild Alliance/At war system. It obviously wasn't fleshed out too much given the primitive nature of MMOs at the time, but wouldn't it be cool if guilds could form alliances, possible give them an /alliance chat channel?

And what if horde and alliance guilds could go to war with one another? Their members would always be PvP flagged to each other (except perhaps in sanctuaries). I dunno. The at war part would need a lot of thought but could potentially be really cool.

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Q u o t e:
Thanks for the feedback.

I'll just comment on one point you made. In BC we felt like the system pushed players too hard into running the 5-player heroic instances long after they could benefit from the gear in order to farm badges. In LK we totally did away with this (since badges themselves are tiered) and also got rid of attunements and made Naxx relatively easy. As a result, I agree that we let end-game focused players graduate from heroic 5-player instances too quickly. In the future, we'd like to strike a more even balance where it might make sense to run a 5-player dungeon on a non-raid night, but you didn't feel obligated to every night.

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Thanks for the feedback... to the feedback, GC :)

5p's are always fun with pugs, but with guild too. Pugs have a social element that seems to scale down as players in group increase but guild allows more challenges.

In vanilla, 5p's had things like scourgestone farming, righteous orb speed runs, fire protection cloth farming, and my personal favorite - the dire maul tribute runs. I think of tribute runs as the classic model of how to keep 5p's interesting. Heck I'd still do them now if there was something to farm off them.

In BC, I think I remember potion drops being higher, leading to running 5p's essentially to farm raid mats. Magister's worked wonders, with all new vanity items, snazzy trinkets, and gear. In wotlk, achievements are the challenge, but they feel more collected once rather than farmed. In sort of pains healers to hear "can we get the achievement?" from a pug of alts. I do think there is a need for difficult 5p's. Speed runs are a good example of that. In vanilla speed runs weren't about beating a timer, they were about running the instance multiple times in precision. It was different than a speed run like cot:stratholme.

In essence, I like 5p's with a lot of replayability.

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Q u o t e:
The demise of 5p's:
I've done all of them, repeatedly, on different toons, in different roles, in all manners of groups. I would still login to do them, but there is little reason to now. There is no progression of any sort to be had from them. Even kidnapping puppies gives more money for the time than the daily heroics. At 60, even after killing C'Thun I remember doing a dire maul tribute run for mana pots. I don't see that effect anymore.

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Perhaps I was the only one who enjoyed trying to do heroics in BC at the very beginning and getting your ass handed to you...this game just doesn't deliver ass handing anymore. I'm not talking about "GRRRaW Yogg Saron hRD MOooDE!" I'm sick of leveling a new toon and remembering a quest that was hard from back in like 2006 and going back and finding out it's been watered down so much.

You can skip right to the top in this game now and then you hit a big fat brick wall because, in essence, no one had to try and learn to play.

Unfortunately, I have the same feeling as the OP as well.

I started during TBC and I will just like to say, everyday returning home from work, WoW is exciting.

It doesn't matter if its grinding that "welfare" pvp epic which every "hardcore" player seems to hate. I love AV. Players have alternate routes of gearing up, which is actually quite fine.

It doesn't matter if its flying round and round outland trying to farm for my Lionheart. Heh, getting my first primal nether was an absolute blast. Nether Vortex wasn't even available to me, but I am fine with it.

It doesn't matter if I have an extremely tough time finding group as Ret for that 100 badges dps pants.

It is exciting in its own way. Raid are difficult to get into, there are spots to consider, attunements to do, Blues in dungeons to grind for (Yes, I did say blues). Magister's Terrace was a blast to venture in. Heroics are truly...well heroic!

Back to now? I log in, do argent dailies, log off. Log back on during raid time and that's it. That's what WoW has become to me.

I tried Arena, I can't stand it. But the gear advantage it gives was almost too great to overcome in BG. Every other patch, there are changes I need to take note of, there are new tricks I need to be aware of. I am left with dilemmas, and decided this isn't what I want to do after a long day of work and left the arena/BG scene.

Gear is hardly confusing in TBC compare to now. Get hitcapped, stack strength BAM you are good to go son. if I have to sit down with a calculator to debate what I need to wear, I believe in itself, fun was lost. How many players now really calculate what they need to wear? or do they simply get info or BiS gear list from sites (which changes every patch)

And inevitably, I go down the whine path. Perhaps it has just been too long.

The tiered content is LK is becoming a little demotivating for me as well. The upgrades I need the most are off end bosses in heroic Naxx and heroic Malygos. My guild is leaving Naxx for Ulduar now. Malygos has bugged on us so many times since 3.1 that we've pretty much given up on EoE. We risk it once a month for people who have the quest, but that's about it.

I play to raid with friends and am mostly motivated by gear upgrades. I'm not particularly motivated by the achievement system. The achievements that interest me the most are the raiding ones. In BC, I played one main very happily. I could always find a group to run a heroic, snag myself some badges, and save up for the nice T5 level gear on the SSO vendors. My guild cleared KZ weekly for a long time, enjoying picking up badges and gearing up for ZA. As far as I know, in Lich King there isn't much I can do to improve my current resto gear outside of 25-man or T8 raiding. I could collect an iLvl 200 feral set, but I wouldn't have much opportunity to use it.

Rep was a reason to run heroics in BC, but the rep rewards are weaker in Lich King. Exalted on a bunch of factions gave us access to the Shattrath flasks so raiders ran heroics to exalted rep. This time, there is a great tabard system for rep, but little reason to rep up past revered with a faction or two to get head enchants. It's easy enough to get iLvl 200 epic gear comparable to the exalted rep rewards from Naxx10. I was working on Kirin Tor for the Robes of Crackling Flame when the Robes of Horse Breaths with the exact same stats dropped in Naxx.

I miss the raid factions too. It was fun to have the rings that upgraded as you earned rep, and the recipes and gear rewards. I never did get my Ashtongue Deathsworn rep to exalted for my class trinket.

I log in my druid to farm herbs for flasks (please, please increase the frost lotus drop rate), fish for buff food, and do the cooking and fishing dailies. Repetitive solo content is not my cup of tea, so things like argent tournament have little appeal beyond the first couple times I do them.

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Q u o t e:
I have read many of your posts as you quite a prolific poster (on Snowfox at leas). The feeling I get is that its the social aspect of the game that you are missing.

So do you actually prefer 5 mans to raiding or is the just the social aspect that you enjoy more?

I like prefer the 10 mans to either the 5 or the 25 because you get to keep some of the challenge from 25 but at the same time each player matters like in the 5s.

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Yes, that's exactly what I mean. I don't really have a desire to excel to the progression top, but as a human on earth I find the most complex and fascinating part to be the people.

This may come across as weird sounding, but I've noticed the tendency in people who spend excessive time in virtual worlds, to loose a bit of their.... life zest? ... it is similar to when people stick to a small insular group of friends and loose perspective on the world. Both lose something, in a difficult to describe way.

5p's serve as a buffer against that, letting people on the realm mix. Most all players go through the 5p's before even entering the world of raiding. It isn't about progression the first time, it's about all those social connections.

So, the multiguilding aspect is actually tied to the 5p's because no matter how hard GC tries, he can never make a system more interesting than the actual people in it.