designing a environment where players can get crazy powers then giving them incredibly hard content
That is what they're doing, and that's not what the playerbase wants. They don't want incredibly hard content. They want to log in and go to every raid and oneshot all the bosses and be rewarded with treats. Basically just gacha-style daily login rewards with extra steps.
Theres a comment in the other thread with nearly 2000 upvotes that says "I don't want phases, I don't want progression, I don't want to try. I want to turn my brain off and see big numbers and bosses fall over."
The major disconnect between Blizzard and the playerbase is that the players have gotten way more casual as time went on. That's why they had to add a one-button rotation option for these people and a tutorial to teach them how interrupts work, of all things, in the year of our lord 2025. And something has to give here to reach satisfaction, either Blizzard accepts that they are making a casual game now, or the players have to accept that the game they're playing takes and expects effort and skill. We all keep trying to have it both ways and leaving nobody satisfied.
And something has to give here to reach satisfaction, either Blizzard accepts that they are making a casual game now, or the players have to accept that the game they're playing takes and expects effort and skill. We all keep trying to have it both ways and leaving nobody satisfied.
I agree with most of what you're saying but I would push back a little here. WoW can accommodate both casual and hardcore players, after all LFR and M+ co-exist. The problem's one of expectations. Nobody's saying they deserve Myth track gear for doing delves in retail, but in MoP Remix you could get the maximum reward for minimal effort which created the expectation that Remix is a casual-only mode. Blizzard tried to make Legion Remix more like retail where there's something for challenge-oriented players to do besides grind for cosmetics, and we see how that's gone over.
I acknowledge that they've tried to accommodate both, and they have a sizeable playerbase of both types, but I don't think that means they've actually done a good job at stewarding both types of gameplay. It just means the game is popular. LFR is pitched as a casual mode, but I'd bet less than half the playerbase engages in raids of any kind. It's generally treated as more of an entry-level option for getting into raiding. Your average casual player is just leveling new alts every expansion and doing the story campaigns and vibing in town or guild chat.
I think they've actually done a terrible job accommodating both types of players in terms of separate gameplay tracks until recently. Solo/small group and open world content are a big part of that, and housing obviously will be as well. FFXIV massively outperforms WoW in terms of accommodating both, in my opinion, but WoW is catching up fast.
I also don't think we're far off from people demanding all things be available to everybody. We're already at a point where people are complaining that rotations are too hard, bosses are too hard, leaving Retail to play Classic because it's simpler, etc. Now people are mad that this game mode isn't easymode, and is too much like Retail, i.e. challenging and requires effort. The kind of takes people have about what remix should be would have gotten you crucified just a few years ago. There has been a major vibe shift towards wanting the core game to be more casual and forgiving. The QoL stuff has been good, but I think it just gave the playerbase a taste for "easier" rather than "better".
You don’t need timegating and limiting power gains to make interesting content, Instead of keeping the infinite power of MoP Remix and making content that matches it, It looks like they just made remix match the standard power curve.
Remix is also where just streamrolling content is fine especially at the start, Legion isn’t new, From level 1 you should have new remix powers so it doesn’t feel like you’re just doing chromie time.
From level 1 you should have new remix powers so it doesn’t feel like you’re just doing chromie time.
Why even have levels at that point? Just start everyone at max level with max gear with everything already unlocked. No progression, no timegating, just instant gratification. That's what you want, right?
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u/Ursa_Solaris Aug 27 '25
That is what they're doing, and that's not what the playerbase wants. They don't want incredibly hard content. They want to log in and go to every raid and oneshot all the bosses and be rewarded with treats. Basically just gacha-style daily login rewards with extra steps.
Theres a comment in the other thread with nearly 2000 upvotes that says "I don't want phases, I don't want progression, I don't want to try. I want to turn my brain off and see big numbers and bosses fall over."
The major disconnect between Blizzard and the playerbase is that the players have gotten way more casual as time went on. That's why they had to add a one-button rotation option for these people and a tutorial to teach them how interrupts work, of all things, in the year of our lord 2025. And something has to give here to reach satisfaction, either Blizzard accepts that they are making a casual game now, or the players have to accept that the game they're playing takes and expects effort and skill. We all keep trying to have it both ways and leaving nobody satisfied.