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Unsubscribers Anonymous
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Post by
Zinovia
Welcome to the meeting. This is a chance to discuss your reasons for leaving WoW if you would like to, since we Unsubscribers can no longer post on the official WoW forums. Please introduce yourself.
*Looks around nervously clutching her styrofoam cup of coffee*
Ummm, howdy. My name is Zinovia and I am an Unsubscriber. I played WoW since beta vanilla. I was continuously subscribed for over eleven years, until the end of January 2017. I was a healer in a heroic raid guild for most of that time. Raiding with my friends was what I kept playing for.
Legion started off great. I loved the pre-release invasions, and thought the leveling was fun and more tied to the storyline than in past expansions. The artifact weapon was interesting enough, but I soon realized how much it tied me to one spec. From the beginning I had issues with professions, being Herb / Alchemy. And do not get me started on Nomi.
*rolls eyes*
The dungeons were interesting and well-designed, but too much emphasis was placed on them - the Order Hall Campaign, basic profession recipes, Order Hall missions for mythic dungeons, and of course Artifact Power. I'm okay with dungeons up to a point, but I far prefer raiding. There's less pressure on any one player, and the teamwork is much more engaging to me. This preference was never an issue in the past — I'd do enough dungeons to earn valor points, and that was all. In Legion that was no longer viable.
I hate the M+ timers and whirlwind dungeon runs with a passion. I never played challenge mode in the past, and was happy that it was strictly optional. Now you have to go stupid fast with no time to talk in order to get loot and maximize AP gains.
The never ending AP grind also meant I couldn't just log in and go farm achievements or play an alt. The "should do" list was inexorable. I should get my emissaries done, I should run mythics for AP, I should do all the high AP world quests. There was neither a cap to limit this, nor any way to predictably improve my gear. Just keep grinding and hope for the Legendary or Titanforged drop you need. You were never done.
The AP grind affected the raid team as well, making it harder to easily swap specs and still perform adequately. All the healers used to enjoy a chance to DPS in the past, but now none of us wants to vastly underperform because our DPS weapons are lagging far behind. Swapping specs went from a fun change of pace to awkward and uncomfortable.
The pressure I felt to improve my character was not external, but was due to wanting to stay as geared as possible for the sake of my raid team. The first couple raid tiers were fine, but I was falling behind because of my limited play time. You see I'm on the committee for a science fiction convention we run every January. I had neither the time nor the desire to spam run M+ dungeons. I was kvetching to my family as soon as I saw that I couldn't even keep up with the next part of the Illidan story without getting 80 (!) shards, essences, whatchamacallits that only had a 100% drop rate from mythic dungeons. Not raids, not PVP.
I was falling behind on AP and pretty well burned out on the WQs and dungeons. I'd log in, see the active WQ list, check the group finder, and just could not force myself to do any of it. The sheer futility of it created a feeling of apathy. The developers were no longer creating a game that encompassed my preferred playstyle — instead pushing repetitive grind, challenge mode dungeons and RNG. I unsubscribed.
It's a shame that the underlying systems (itemization, class mechanics, professions) are so messed up because I think Legion has a lot of great and fun content. The music and art folks nailed it, as usual. Kudos to them.
*Finishes coffee, realizing it is now cold.*
Errr... those are my thoughts. Anyone else?
TLDR;
Above wall of text expresses my personal opinions on why I unsubscribed for the first time in eleven years. I never got to explain it on the WoW forums. Please add your own reasons if you would like.
Post by
Jkpman
I am still subbed, and to be honest I find so much else about the game enjoyable that I don't see myself every quitting. I've more or less been subbed since vanilla with the exception of perhaps a few months here and there.
That said, it's very hard to disagree with a single thing you've said here.
I think Blizzard have said the artifact weapon will not be something they take into the next expansion, and personally I think they've painted themselves into a corner with the whole idea.
At the very least the AP could have been shared across all specs, I really don't know what they thought they'd gain from making them individual.
Post by
Zinovia
Thanks for responding. Have a cup of coffee, or beer if you prefer. :)
I agree there is plenty of stuff I could enjoy in WoW, but it is primarily old content. If I'm logged in it is hard to tell friends I don't want to heal Kara for the next couple hours, or run mythic+ when they ask me. I also wanted to vote with my wallet by not supporting the current direction the developers are taking the game. For me playing Legion was becoming a "should do" rather than a "want to" activity. Like "I should
clean the cat box
farm AP/rep/WQs. WoW is a game. It should be fun, not a set of chores to do.
Perhaps too much emphasis has been placed on total hours played rather than subscription numbers. Player hours was the metric quoted for WoW at the last board meeting. If everything in the game takes longer to accomplish than in previous expansions, then of course the people who still play will be putting in more hours than they did in the past. That doesn't mean it is "quality time" to coin a phrase.
I may go back someday. It is a gorgeous world to play in. But 7.2 is not changing enough of the underlying systems that I dislike in Legion, so maybe I'm done for good. Enjoy, and may the odds be ever in your favor!
Post by
jarycu
I first subbed in vanilla. Played for 10 mins, died as a Tauren Hunter to the ostritch things in the starting zone, unsubbed.
Tried it again in BC. This time I was an undead mage or warlock, kept dying to the stupid murlocs in the starting zone, unsubbed.
I skipped Wrath.
I did the free trial in Cata, made a human lock, and was hooked. I played through all of 4.2 and on into the first year of MoP, which I absolutely loved. I had a few life changes, so I wasn't continuously subbed, but I came back for the last month of Pandaria and stayed well into Draenor.
Draenor killed the guild I was in and I unsubbed for 6-8 months, but then played from Jan 2016 until Legion was released. For the first time since I started playing, I retired my warlock because I didn't like the WoD changes and mastered my elemental shaman instead. I loved playing her. After I maxxed her as far as my guild could get her, I picked my warlock back up and maxxed her out. Then I got the other 10 classes to 100 to prep for Legion.
Then Legion launched! It was so exciting! Except, it wasn't. Like you said, the art/music people did awesome things. I'm not a lore guy, though, and the story itself didn't grab me like Cataclysm and Pandaria did. The complete reconstruction of every single class' playstyle really threw me for a loop. WIthin 2 weeks of Legion's launch, I unsubbed.
I tried it again back in December. I have a ton of gold on my characters, so giving it a shot doesn't cost me anything. I didn't like it.
I tried it again this month. This time it wouldn't even let me use my gold. A token was 90K, roughly, and I have 200K on a single server in my account, but it told me I didn't have enough. I paid the $15, played for an entire Saturday, and have no unsubbed again until the next expansion. I won't be going back.
My warlock, who has been destro since I created her in 2011, just doesn't feel right. I can't get a feel for my shaman, who has been both elemental and restoration since she was created in 2012. None of my other characters, all of which I enjoyed leveling, have any appeal.
I'm starting to realize it's not so much a Blizzard thing as it is an age thing. I'm within a year of turning 40, and I'm finally noticing how marketing and entertainment companies target the younger demographics. Millennials are making the world go 'round now, not Gen X'ers like me. As a whole, with notable exceptions, they don't have the attention span that we have; the world has been shortened.
I don't really fault Blizzard for changing the game to cater to them...it's what they need to do to continue to make money. Yes, they lose older players who like to do things that take longer like you & I do, but they also gain younger players whose attention is split between playing this game, Hearthstone, Overwatch, watching YouTube, doing homework, and having a social life.
In vanilla, you had to be really hardcore to raid because raids took days to complete. By Cata, you still had to be dedicated, but raids were down to hours, not days. Now raids are on speed runs. Dungeons are on speed runs. I never made it to the World Quest level, so I don't even know how that works, but I assume it's faster-paced than when we had weekly quests in Pandaria, or even the daily stuff in Draenor.
My life has also changed. I've got a much better job now, money is once again something that's comfortable and not in short supply, and I can focus on getting back into the real world. Warcraft was something I used to pass the time until life got better. I can't believe it lasted as long as it did for me, but I'm thankful for what I got out of it. I don't miss playing the game, or I'd still be playing, but the memories of what all I had with stay with me for a long time.
Thanks Warcraft Peeps! It was fun!
Post by
kaoswielder
I'll chime in too.
I've played Warcraft (RTS) extensively when I was a teenager. Since I couldnt afford sub money, I never actually played WoW until WoD. I bought WoW on the anniversary date and it gave me 1 month of sub time. I really liked questing and occasional dungeons. I unsubbed again and didnt pickup until last months of WoD and legion beta.
When I came back in WoD, I saw the whole warforged thing. I was not impressed at all. Wasn't a fan or Timeless Isles and neither Tanaan Jungle. When Legion launched, I was hoping this would go away. Turns out, that would not be the case.
Right now I am still subbed but as someone who liked to play more than one class, Legion has not been kind to me. AP grind, AK grind, war/titanforged RNG bs. Its starting to take its toll and my most played char is barely ilvl 864. Questing has been mostly meh and story isn't going anywhere (stormheim horde vs alliance thing for example).
I've deleted all my alts except 2 and probably will delete them too pretty soon if the frustration reaches breaking point. Guess a lot of us cried every expansion that there is nothnig to do and so we got AP grind and war/titanforged RNG. Shows we should be careful what we ask for.
Broken Shore is looking like another Tanaan Jungle thing and if that is the case then I might stop subbing until next expansion comes and call it quits for now.
Post by
Jkpman
Broken Shore is looking like another Tanaan Jungle thing and if that is the case then I might stop subbing until next expansion comes and call it quits for now.
The Timeless isle path seems to be the default catch up mechanic these days, and the Broken Shore sounds very very similar to the Timeless isle.
Post by
Zinovia
It could be that Blizzard is targeting a younger demographic now. I turned 50 recently, and can tell you the way my adult kids consume media is very different from the way I do. So maybe the developers want to pick up the pace and transition the game away from folks who grew up playing table-top RPG's and more towards those who grew up with a video game controller in their hands.
It could be Blizzard's usual inability to find a happy medium. In WoD there were legitimate complaints from players with nothing to do during the excessively long content drought. Now we see mythic raid teams burning out and quitting because they are still trying to progress through the current raid content while new boss fights are being tested on the PTR. There's no down-time for them, which is essential for world-first progression guilds. They play crazy hours during progression, and no one can keep that up all the time.
That leaves guilds like mine lagging way behind because we are far more casual players who used to just finish up heroic content around the time a new raid tier was released. Except in WoD, where we beat it and stopped raiding for months. The precisely 20 people mythic requirement doesn't work well for more casual raiders. We could get anywhere from 10-30 people for raid nights, but you never could plan on it.
In any case, content is coming out fast, maybe even too fast. And far from having nothing to do, there is even more grind in store. More AP, more reputation (a whole new tier of it added), more Legendaries. Legion has far fewer predictably attainable goals than in the past. I can't say "I have my Tier 19 set, now I'm done and can work on my mage!". I might get a titanforged version of that armor, or one with a socket in it, or a better Legendary. So keep working on that same character, and same spec forever, with no finish line in sight.
I keep following the news about WoW, hoping Blizzard will listen, but it's not looking great. Diablo style loot works in Diablo where vanquished bosses explode into a loot piñata. The numbers are different in WoW, and the sheer RNG just frustrates people. There's some cool content in the works for 7.2, but nothing that makes me want to log in again. I think I am going through mourning for World of Warcraft. I'm past the denial and anger stages, and am somewhere into bargaining. "If only they would listen it would all be okay!" Lol.
Thanks for sharing your own views. Fair journeys to you all.
Post by
Eccentrica
I haven't unsubscribed, but I've set aside new content. I am not resistant to change, but I dislike seemingly directionless, illogical change and it's has seemed to me for years that Blizzard has moved to the dartboard method of design.
Being one who enjoys consuming content repeatedly (I have favourite books and films I revisit), I've created a fresh account and am doing everything over again - at my own pace. It's much more relaxing and much less fraught. I have deadlines and to do lists at work - I refuse to face them in my recreation. I very much enjoy the process of working out how to successfully solo group content. I get to really absorb the game world.
For all of these reasons, and more, current content can get stuffed. I'll get to it when I get to it. Those who enjoy belt-fed deadlines and the great hamster wheel can frolic the Broken Isles without me. I'm on permanent vacation, skipping merrily along the backroads and stopping to smell the roses.
Post by
Jkpman
I haven't unsubscribed, but I've set aside new content. I am not resistant to change, but I dislike seemingly directionless, illogical change and it's has seemed to me for years that Blizzard has moved to the dartboard method of design.
Being one who enjoys consuming content repeatedly (I have favourite books and films I revisit), I've created a fresh account and am doing everything over again - at my own pace. It's much more relaxing and much less fraught. I have deadlines and to do lists at work - I refuse to face them in my recreation. I very much enjoy the process of working out how to successfully solo group content. I get to really absorb the game world.
For all of these reasons, and more, current content can get stuffed. I'll get to it when I get to it. Those who enjoy belt-fed deadlines and the great hamster wheel can frolic the Broken Isles without me. I'm on permanent vacation, skipping merrily along the backroads and stopping to smell the roses.
I think this is the way I'm heading too, albeit I'm more focused on giving neglected alts some love and bringing them at least up to holding an artifact weapon even if nothing is ever done with it.
Post by
Eccentrica
I think this is the way I'm heading too, albeit I'm more focused on giving neglected alts some love and bringing them at least up to holding an artifact weapon even if nothing is ever done with it.
I guess you could class us and our kind as being Semi-Retired players. Still puttering about, but with less vim and vigour as our more active years.
Post by
Zinovia
If I do come back, I expect it will be to stop and smell the roses (or pick up dirty trog cloths :D) with alts, collect mounts, try pet battles, and that sort of thing. There is plenty of fun to be had. I unsubscribed for awhile to tell Blizzard I don't enjoy the current direction, and to make it easier for me to make a clean break from all the busy work.
Right now my husband and I are playing Star Wars the Old Republic; it has been both fun and relaxing. The story is enjoyable, with a huge amount of voice-acting included. It's nowhere near as pretty as WoW, but we can play at our pace and have fun.
Post by
Zinovia
So it looks like 7.2 is not the time for me to return, at least until more content unlocks and bugs are fixed. There is much hate on the forums for the ilvl scaling (partially rolled back as it is) and unannounced slow rollout of content. Truly the devs have lost a lot of credibility and the trust of many in the community with this patch. It seems they want to maximize the time played stats by extending content rather than making the game fun for many different types of players.
The bugs in 7.2 puzzle me because the PTR was not having those issues. Divine Storm is broken (so no leveling my ret pally). Many existing raid encounters are broken, which is a huge issue for guilds trying to get the next AotC achievement before Tomb rolls out. They changed the Efflorescence graphic to make it pretty but harder to see. Not great when I need people to stand in it and not mistake it for poison. /sigh. The PTR should be used to test the code for these issues so they can be fixed before the game goes live.
I'm following news about The Secret World reboot, and watching reviews of other MMOs out there. No one can touch WoW's raid content, but I am willing to give that up for a game where I can progress my characters through the type of gameplay that I enjoy.
*lifts a glass of wine
/cheers
Post by
Jkpman
i've tried doing end-game raids and dungeons. i've used both the random queue and the pre-made group finder. and IMO they both sucked. no one seems to realise that there are people who've never done this instance before or that there are people who don't want to spend 3 hours watching youtube videos of how someone else did that dungeon or killed that boss.
my playstyle is mine, not someone else's. the way i have my action bars set up is how i like them, not how someone else set theirs up. and the way i move my camera angles and zoom is based on how i play and what i want to see. as a result, most of those videos don't help me worth a dime.
Find a guild, Better yet start your own guild dedicated to your playstyle or at the very least create your own groups in group finder for slower runs.
You complain about having your hand held, but you don't seem to have done anything to solve the problem yourself. Blizzard have given users plenty of tools to be able to play the way they want and the main tools are all based around social interaction.
You don't need a video to succeed in raids or dungeons, there are plenty of boss synopsis pages out there that literally take a few seconds to read, back in the day when I really cared I just used to make my own cliff notes in a txt document, but really all you need is a basic sense of awareness and just don't be a radish.
Finally down to playstyle, If it's down to how you set up your bars, no big deal whatever works to you, if it's down to randomly bashing the keys, total unawareness of situations and you are causing wipes, then yeah it's a problem and you shouldn't inflict that on other players regardless of how much of a jerk they may be.
As long as you are effective, aware, and polite, then I can't see many people having an issue with you.(##RESPBREAK##)6152##DELIM##CalaelenDT##DELIM##
Post by
Zinovia
My guild is great, and certainly is the main reason I played WoW as long as I did. The right guild can definitely help you learn dungeon and raid mechanics and give you tips on how to improve as a player. Beyond that, friends make the game much more fun.
I unsubscribed because I felt like I was falling behind in AP and gear compared to my raid team. I simply could not dedicate the time needed to keep up, and I didn't want to hold them back. Even when I could play more after the convention I was working on was over, the best way to catch up was to run lots of mythic keystone dungeons — a type of content I do not enjoy.
The issue I have with M+ dungeons is that I find it hard to keep half an eye on party health bars while running after the tank, hoping I don't miss some shortcut they disappear into. I didn't run many M+ dungeons so never learned the optimal paths through all of them. The time-based rewards system encourages high-speed, no conversation death marches. Old heroic dungeons for valor points let us progress mostly at our own pace. Even if there was a bonus timer, it was a threshold that gave you a bonus, rather than pushing you to go faster and faster every time.
The current game design lead, Ion Hazzikostas, came from a high end progression raid guild. This gives him a certain perspective on what types of content to include. He likes the idea of continuous progress (artifact power) and a small chance of getting a reward even from content below your item level (war/titanforging). He seems to feel that it is better to always work on your main character rather than playing alts. Some players agree with that philosophy and love Legion's direction. Some of us find it demotivating because we like to reach specific goals that offer set rewards, then be done with that and move onto the next goal.
I don't want to grind rep forever for a random chance to get a cool mount. I would far rather reach exalted knowing I can buy a mount from a rep vendor. Exalted reached — check! Mount attained — check! I don't want to always keep my loot spec set to Resto in case a Legendary might drop. I want to be able to swap it to Balance if we're working on a boss I don't need any resto item from. I want to be done improving my character for the week so I can goof off with alts or collecting mounts without feeling like I am doing a disservice to my raid team.
Legion's systems clash badly with my play style. That is far from universal. Some folks enjoy the new direction. Perhaps the game will simply evolve into something different, but it does seem to me that it is targeting a much narrower market than older iterations of WoW. Time will tell.
Post by
CalaelenDT
Disagreeing with how Blizzard is running their game is fine, and so is voicing that opinion, to a certain point, and that point was crossed. I've removed said remark, and all the derailing that came from it, and ask that you stick to the topic at hand.
Post by
DELGilnandria
I recently re-subscribed just to see what was going on.
Decided to level my Hunter to 110.
Let me say that I think Blizzard outdid themselves with all the improved graphics. The scenery is really stunning.
The leveling has been going ok as well. I am almost level 109.
I have also decided there will be no more grindy play on any of my characters.
I could care less if I can fly....I really like all that running around in that beautiful scenery.
No dungeons or raiding for gear. I did that for most of Dreanor and really hated it.
Right now I have no idea what I am going to do at 110.
As of right now I cannot even log into the game. The Blizzard forums will not load.
I do know that my current subscription will expire on April 24. I may not renew.
Post by
Zinovia
As Blizzcon approaches I have been catching up on WoW news. I am curious to see what direction the game will take in its next iteration. I am most curious about the main game mechanics and systems, and how they will look in 8.0. Will we have legendaries? Titan-forging? Artifact weapons? Changes to professions?
Many people seem very happy with Mythic plus dungeons, so I expect those to remain important in the next expansion. The rest will have to wait until Blizzcon. I’m not doing the virtual ticket this year, but look forward to hearing the news as it hits social media.
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