The debate about Wildstar difficulty and raid sizes continues to rage and I have to say I’m baffled by some of the logic and arguments I’ve seen on some blogs and forums. So today, a short history lesson.
Most people now agree that WoW was at its peak in terms of design and player satisfaction during the time of Burning Crusade. Subscriptions number support this as this expansion saw continuous and sharp increase of the player base. In essence, WoW was at its most popular while it was still pretty difficult and still had attunement quests.
As WoW lowered its difficulty and tried to cater to more and more type of players with its endgame, it started to lose players. By now, WoW is at its most accessible and yet most bloggers and critics out there are openly dissatisfied with it and again, the game keeps losing numbers.
Now, Wildstar looks to be similar to WoW Burning crusade and the same people who keep criticizing WoW current state are now demanding of Wildstar to make the same changes that led to WoW current situation. Lowering difficulty, making multiple version of raids, easier access, etc…
WHAT IS THIS MADNESS??? You want to fix a game (Wildstar) by copying another game (WoW) that is by now viewed as an horrible mess by most critics and players…. Again, you want to make a game better by copying decisions that in fact made a game worst…
If you don’t like Wildstar difficulty, there’s a game called WoW that has evolved just for you. If you don’t like WoW and Wildstar I’d suggest you try some other MMO. If you don’t like those either because they are too much like WoW… then you might want to reconsider playing MMOs altogether.
The argument is specious at best. There is zero evidence that TBC-era WoW was popular because it was hard. In fact, it is entirely possible (and altogether likely) that it was popular in spite of being difficult. It makes no sense in any case; WoW was by no means the most difficult MMO at the time, and in fact was largely considered EZ-mode compared to its peers. And how are 2+ millions subs gained when the hardcore would, at most, be 400,000 players total?
What we do have evidence of is that millions (!) of subscriptions were dropped at the beginning of Cataclysm and Blizzard devs blamed the difficulty of dungeons. Maybe you could argue that Wrath chased away all the hardcore players by that point. To which I would ask: why didn’t they come back if they desired hard content?
In any case, we’ll see the truth of things soon enough. It’s commendible that the Wildstar devs are boldly laying their vision out on the line, but they have given themselves plenty of outs for when it (inevitably IMO) becomes apparent that 40m hardcore raiding is unsustainable development-resource-wise.
“What we do have evidence of is that millions (!) of subscriptions were dropped at the beginning of Cataclysm and Blizzard devs blamed the difficulty of dungeons. Maybe you could argue that Wrath chased away all the hardcore players by that point. To which I would ask: why didn’t they come back if they desired hard content?”
You are right.. there is no evidence that difficulty alone is the cause of increase or decline in numbers. In the same vein of logic, there’s is no hard evidence that any single factor is the one responsible for increase or decrease of player base. I believe it is a combination of factors and as I was saying earlier this week, I think that a single path of progression requiring larger group of players is a key component in creating healhy communities which ,according to many developpers, are key to making a succesful MMO.
But again, you’re not adressing the main point of my post which is a repeat of history. Whatever the exact cause, there’s a definitive similarity between BC WoW and Wildstar which is not surprising considering that Wildstar team worked on the original WoW.
Now, you are right in saying that it’s hard to prove what factor caused what but I don’t understand people arguing for Wildstar to follow in WoW footsteps when it comes to its raiding. I haven’t found many to support WoW current state of raiding (small groups, multiple difficulties of same raids) which begun in Wotlk and picked up speed in Cata and Pandaria.
So I ask again, in what way is it in the interest of Wildstar to make similar decisions than WoW did and repeat history. There’s no reason to expect a different outcome… so why do it?
I would actually argue that we DO have evidence that, at a minimum, hard dungeons chased away a significant-enough portion of the WoW playerbase in Cataclysm. Enough that not only did Blizzard do a 180 on their dungeon design, but also drove Tom Chilton to admit to the NYT that: “It became clear that it wasn’t realistic to try to get the audience back to being more hard core, as it had been in the past.” And further, Mike Morhaime said to investors that they will “explore ways that we can adjust the game to better satisfy both hard-core and casual players.” I linked the sources in my post.
Now, I will admit that it is theoretically possible that Wrath “chased away” the hardcore, who were then replaced with more casual players in equal amounts. That theory would explain why the Cataclysm gambit did not work.
I will also admit that there is a wide gulf between heroic dungeons and raids, in terms of what content is naturally accessible to casuals. In other words, it’s possible that easy dungeons and hardcore raids would “work” in satisfying everyone. However, that clearly isn’t the design here in Wildstar; all group content is serious business at every level it’s available.
So I ask again, in what way is it in the interest of Wildstar to make similar decisions than WoW did and repeat history. There’s no reason to expect a different outcome… so why do it?
Because, IMO, they will be painfully reinventing the wheel the whole time. WoW tried “going home” again, and that didn’t work either. Is that because the hardcore only give a game one chance to not screw up? Or is it because there aren’t enough players to support hardcore AAA MMO development? It’s not 2008 anymore. EVE is EVE, as always, but even they are in decline – nevermind that they had to survive on < 200k subs for its first 5 years. Can Wildstar do the same?
I'm glad the Wildstar devs are doing it though. No matter the outcome, at least we'll be able to put the debate to rest to some degree.
I distinctly remember suffering multiple raid guild implosions during The Burning Crusade not only because of the difficulty of the raids (SSC) but also because of the onerous raid attunements (http://tacticalsites.com/~sajier/image/TBCAttune.jpg) required simply to be allowed to enter the instances. It was strange as we sailed through vanilla raids and easily completed BWL which was the benchmark for difficult raids at the time.
We lost way too many great guild members because of this. We also became a particularly self-interested and poisonous guild.
My point is there are pluses and minuses to having ultra difficult raid content and if it becomes the only meaningful thing to do at endgame Wildstar will lose subscriptions and probably more than the developers would like.
Casual content can’t just be about chasing endless achievement lists and player housing. There has to be more to engage the interests of players who for various reasons can’t attend raids or content that requires unlocking.
I think difficulty is a strong part in keeping players for longer. Having something to overcome makes people strive for more, to level and grind and to figure out these things … as well as just prolonging the whole thing.
There is also that sense of accomplishment involved in completing difficult tasks rather than just repetitive ones.
Apart from this, I have always thoguht the drop off in subss was more due to the fact that blizzard began spreading their resources to thin whilst trying to appease the broadest possible population. A trap most mmo’s fall into now. Grumpy elf has a good post up now about that too
http://thegrumpyelf.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/who-is-blizzard-catering-to.html?showComment=1402750471669#c3304615466356497478
I’m seeing signs of hype collapse for Wildstar. Forum and blog buzz has dropped substantially (subjective impression), and the WoW/Wildstar daily played time ratio as tracked by Xfire is declining. It was around 65% at its high point; it was 38% for 6/15.
I thought before its release that Wildstar would be a three-monther, and experience dramatic declines like many other recent MMOs. I haven’t seen anything to change that prediction.
I think your checking the wrong metric here. You base your perception on the assumption that Wildstar players are WoW players switching over. While that is certainly the case for a fair number of players. It is by no mean the extent of it. Myself, friends and others I know come to Wildstar from other MMOs or were not playing WoW at the moment of WIldstar launch. Finaly, XFire tracks the time of its member which represent a particular subset of players.
Does this mean that Wildstar lost players over the first few weeks? I wouldn’t be surprised.Realm Reborn had the same initial slump but overall is doing better every month and Square Enix has said to be very pleased with its numbers.
Long story short. Too soon to make conclusions. The general buzz I get is that the game is doing well, especially when compared to ESO launch but it’s just that, a feeling. I’ve searched long and hard today even but still can’t find official numbers from Carbine on launch stats.
Can Wildstar fail? Of course it can. Like I was saying the whole thing is a gamble. But right now I’m not even sure difficulty is their main concerns as players are more often than not complaing from bugs in high level instance right now than anything else.
No, I wasn’t basing my perception on the assumption Wildstar players are WoW players switching over, I was just using the ratio to factor out changes in Xfire usage.
There is some evidence that Xfire users may be less hardcore than Raptr users. I understand Raptr numbers for Wildstar have declined more slowly, but I do not have access to those numbers.
On Xfire, stats for Wildstar have continued fall. As of today the Wildstar/WoW ratio is down to 14% (it is often lower for tuesday’s stats, though), and Wildstar has fallen below FFXIV for the first time.
There are now just 55 guilds (as tracked by wildstar-progress.com) that have downed Wildstar’s entry raid boss. It appears each server has 1 or 2 raid guilds, with players wishing to raid deserting other guilds to join them.
I see little to change my assessment of Wildstar from my June 16 message. The general buzz is not, IMO, that the game is doing well. Carbine’s silence on box sales and sub numbers is a bad sign. If they had anything that could be spun as positive, they would have done so.